A few weeks ago Murray Hunter emailed me. How hard would it be to set up a tool to combat corruption he asked. Well I said, lets meet. It is something I have been thinking about for some time.

Over a few beer we discussed the issue with Adriaan Pelzer. I was very much in the frame of mind of first hand corruption reporting, via a tool like Ushahidi, the Kenyan incident crowd-sourcing tool.

But after some thought I agreed that starting off with a tool where existing information is sorted tagged, and made sense of is very doable and valuable.

Below is your first draft wireframes. Please do contribute and give us your opinion on our Project blog. We have also set up a Facebook group.

It’s time to stop moaning and make a positive difference.

Related deployments:

1. South African society & institutions are holding up so far
2. South African police accused of gross abuse of power

Beebop, who often comments on this blog has regularly put the question to me, why don’t whities stop whining and do something positive?

That is a very good question.

Last Sunday Esebius Mackaiser took on this theme, after a debate between Antjie Krog and Rian Malan.

Their respective takes on the phenomenology of whiteness differ sharply. In the one corner there is Malan, who articulates a lived reality of a pale citizen who feels that his entitlement to speak has been obliterated by virtue of his pale skin. His opponent, Krog, speaks to a white reality that is one of continued privilege, thereby challenging the assumption of lost power inherent in the moaning and groaning of the Malan-types.

Yet, upon reflection, these two narratives are equally tragic and unhealthy. Whiteness has become trapped between victimhood and self-flagellation. This stops white South Africans from fully integrating into democratic South Africa in a way that retains their agency fully, sans Krog, but at the same time acknowledges their continued privilege, sans Malan. We need a white consciousness that transcends the embarrassing Krog-like yearning to be black – as if becoming the bantu that you had formerly oppressed is the ultimate mark of atonement. On the other hand, the Malan-like moaning festival needs to be exposed as less an expression of a profound truth about loss of citizenship than – to the shock and horror of too many whites, still – the democratisation of public space.

Esebius goes on the debunk two examples Malan used to show that whites cant partake in public debate. Namely himself and Van Zyl Slabbert (with Slabbert’s report on the South African voting system).

First, it is not just white commentators who are often not heard; black ones are ignored too. This has nothing to do with Malan’s whiteness, but everything to do with dishonest state machinery that tries to evade tough criticism from an active citizenry.

He continues:

Second, the Slabbert report has been shelved purely because of political calculations about the ANC’s interest in agreeing to replace the party-list, proportional representation system with some mixture of proportional representation and a constituency-based model. Even if that report was written by a black ANC sympathiser, it would still not have seen the light of day. Race is the wrong prism through which to see why Slabbert’s report gathered dust.

Esebius is right I think on the Slabbert voting report case. The rejection of Slabbert was not about race. It was about ANC real politic.

But he does not dwell on an earlier time when Slabbert was rejected by Mbeki. And that, Slabbert firmly believed, was because of his race.

R W Johnston recounts how much the relationship with Mbeki meant to Slabbert:

There is no doubt that Slabbert placed enormous store on his relationship with Mbeki — he was so grateful for his support on one occasion that he exclaimed: “I would die for that bugger.”

As I know from many conversations with Slabbert, he had high hopes that this relationship would ultimately lead him to playing a significant role in making sure the new dispensation would work.

“When the ANC take over”, he told me, “they’re going to need all the help they can get. And it’s vital for all of us that they succeed because only that way can the country succeed.”

Those hopes were spectacularly dashed by Mbeki.

But one example – that of Slabbert – is clearly not enough, and besides – Mbeki who was a known racist – is gone.

Esebius then digs up an example himself. A much better one.

This is not to deny dangerous undercurrents among the intolerant within the political arena. It is shamefully true, for example, that when the ANC Youth League responds to deputy transport minister Jeremy Cronin not by engaging his brilliant polemic on nationalisation but by dismissing him as a white racist, they are affirming Malan’s fears. But Malan exaggerates these pockets of intolerance.

Is it exaggerated?

I don’t think so and here’s the rub – its just a simple ‘white black’ thing either. The Malema camp of the ANC has made ample noises stressing the undesirability of having ministers that are not “African”.

And, besides Cronin, if one looks at the past year or so one would struggle to find a single ANC, Cosatu, SACP senior official or government minister that is not “African” that have spoken out on anything besides anodyne policy.

Why not?

My hunch is that they are politically astute. Any significant participation of them in the debates of the day, will be abused in the battle between the conservatives and the progressives about the future of the ANC.

In practice, whites coloureds and Indians are all but self censored less they strengthen Malema’s hand.

Related deployments:

1. Van Zyl Slabbert dies – some quotes, comments and thoughts

So hardly a week went by after I did my interview with Dan Roodt and I’ve changed my mind. I’ve been watching Mr. Roodt on Facebook. I’ve been watching what he writes and the comments he receives from others.

Not only is he a suurgat (sourpuss), he is venynig (he enjoys causing pain), and he is kleinlik (he is childish), but most of al Mr. Dan Roodt is dangerous.

Firstly he has wallowed is Bafana Bafana’s loss, praising Diego Forlan’s goal. If one can not have magnanimity of spirit at this point in time, a time of immense importance for many South Africans, one has to be very a very ungracious mean spirited person.

And his comments in this regard has been greeted by a chorus of derisory and racist agreement. (Bar one or two noteworthy people that protested, one stating that she is far right but she will support Bafana because they supported the Springboks.)

What I find disappointing about Roodt, is that much like the rudderless leadership of the ANC he detests, he does not show any principled leadership himself. But that I mean he does not bring those making racist comments on his status updates to heel. This means one of two things. He agrees with these crude racist comments or he is a Malema like populist, scared he will loose support if he spoke out.

And then there is this: Just last week Roodt wrote a post as to why Afrikaners are not yet mobilising and taking the next step to a volkstaat with reference to recent events in Belgium.

Flemish Belgium has just elected a party that has as its aim the creation of a Flemish state. Roodt laments that while the Flemish used to look to Afrikaners as an example of how to stand up for your culture, Afrikaners have now fallen behind.

Roodt then sets out how Afrikaners could achieve the same. Trough the ballet box its impossible he says. Then he discusses violence as an option and opinions that this will only work for Afrikaners if they act “defensively”. Like when there is mass farm invasions and Afrikaners has to respond to restore order.

Lastly he mentions the option of a cultural and political movement, which is what he is trying to achieve. Think Afrikaans schools, business organisations and universities.

This all sounds relatively benign but ignores the central fact that Roodt eventually wants to create a ‘volkstaat’ in and around the Pretoria area.

Now its worth taking a look at the situation in Belgium to which Roodt refers, because it is instructive.

Afrikaners live through-out South Africa, and everywhere they are in a minority. Also in and around Pretoria.

Flemish speaking Belgiums live in Flanders, and very few non Flemish speakers live there. Except for Brussels, which lies in Flanders but where the Flemish speakers are a small minority. The simple reason why the Flemish have not gone for independence from Belgium a long time ago is because they just can not seem to let go of Brussels. If they were willing to let go of Brussels, they could have had a state with Antwerp as its capital a long time ago. (Take note – Getting rid of the non Flemish from Brussels is not an option.)

Dan has his own Brussels, the area in and around Pretoria.

Roodt is not onosel. He must know that this area won’t become an Afrikaner only area without conflict. With or without a cultural political movement this area will not be unscrambled easily. Whether defensive or not, violence is a prerequisite.

Unlike Belgium South Africa has large areas of relatively open land. If Roodt wants a volkstaat, he should do it the ‘hard’ way. Oranje, the desolate area in the west of the country might be lacking shopping malls, but it has one very valuable thing that Dan’s plan does not have, the moral high ground.

I have been invited to ‘unfriend’ mister Roodt if I don’t agree with him and his nasty Facebook choir. And so I did.

Related deployments:

1. “Die Antwoord is the answer to the end of Afrikanerdom” – Dan Roodt
2. The unbearable whiteness of being

This week I saw on Twitter that Dan Roodt was visiting London. I tweeted it and was Retweeted by Murray Hunter:

RT @wildebees SA right organising, Dan Roodt now in London after Belgian visit. <- jesus, I thought I felt a chill

Herman Wasserman immediately followed up with:

I smelled sulphur RT @muzhunter:RT @wildebees SA right organising, Dan Roodt in London after Belgian visit.<- jesus, thought I felt a chill

I have met sulpher smelling Dan Roodt before.

Kameraad Mhambi met Dan Roodt at the house of Tienie du Plessis. Tienie who? Tienie, ex graphic designer of Die Vrye Weekblad and of Hond fame.

Tienie started the first graphic novel/ magazine in Afrikaans – Stet. It was virulently against the Afrikaner establishment.
And it was to inspire people like Anton Kannemeyer, and later feature the first graphic strips that became Bitterkomix. Dan Roodt’s wife, Karen Konsentrasiekamp, a graphic artist herself and Roodt was a contributer to this magazine.

Dan Roodt struck me then as an odd right winger. Besides his past he did not look like an Afrikaner at all, but could easily be mistaken for a posh Frenchman.

Dan if you don’t know – wrote books himself laden full of sex and violence, the first being Sonneskyn en Chevrolet.

And since 2000 he has been campaigning for the right wing cause. (He incidentally claims he is not right-wing, but that the government is.)

Still he surprised in 2004 when he – after nobody else would – published Kontrei, a book by Kleinboer documenting Kleinboer’s visits to black prostitutes in bordellos in Hillbrow. It won the Jan Rabie prize.

I shot him an email to see if he was up for an interview. He was. And here is sneak preview. This bit is about Die Antwoord.

He does not rate Die Antwoord and does not think they will become popular in South Africa. Which is the odd thing about Roodt. He has a great analytical mind, but then at times he gets stuff sooo wrong.

Funny thing is, the interview was conducted at the house of young Roodt supporters. Just after the interview we joined them and we told them they we were talking about Die Antwoord. Unprompted their faces lit up and we were told how much they like Die Antwoord.

Unfazed Dan reconsidered his answer. Yes he said, “Many of the most eccentric people in South Africa are Afrikaners”. Thats because Afrikaners are so stereo-typed he continued. And some want to break that mold. Breyten Breytenbach is another example of this eccentric streak. And after the customary few seconds of silence, so was he in his youth.

So is Dan Roodt the devil reincarnated? I’m not sure. I admire the breath of his knowledge and his worldliness, a quality severely lacking in many Afrikaner conservatives. In some ways Roodt is more open minded, and less dogmatic than most lefties. You get the impression that almost no question would be left unconsidered, let alone refused.

I think he over-romanticizes Afrikaners, their history and their place in the world. Much like I do at times. But he is worse.

On the other hand Roodt strikes me as a man that thinks we live in a amoral world. I asked him what he thought of NP van Wyk-Louw’s statement that its better for a people to cease to exist that to live on in injustice. He dismissed it out of hand with reference to Darwin. Roodt I think would not mind a violent conflagration in South Africa. Provided his side gets out on top. He believes and strives for a Volkstaat (not Orania) which is in my opinion not only unrealistic in its scope and location, but would necessarily cause much hardship & even war if he and his fellows tried to achieve it. I asked him about this, and he maintained it won’t.

I currently sit on op of quite allot of interesting video material. I still have about an hour of material from my great interview with Gavin Evans. And I’ll start publishing that again soon. Then I have an interview with the World News Editor of the Financial Times, and thats what I will publish next.

Related deployments:

1. Die Antwoord is the Answer
2. Die Antwoord offers some rude solutions

…three things happen that puts things in perspective and makes you think its not all that bad in South Africa.

Firstly and most trivially, there a huge rucus in New Zealand because Andy Hadden claimed that the Canturbury Crusaders have a maximum qouta of non-white players or rather ‘darkies’, that they allow in their squad, and that’s the secret of their success. Now New Zealanders are tearing into each other, with many expressing the concern over the “browning of the sport”. Excuse my schadenfreude especially in the context of the Orlando Bulls.

Secondly Israel intercepts an flotilla carrying aid and fails to anticipate the reception they get when they board. Trigger happy soldiers ends up killing 10 odd civilians. Sounds not unlike Sharpville. Thank goodness we are not still desperately trying to enforce an unworkable and unjust system and state.

As someone pointed out on Twitter Israelis are paranoid that the whole world hates them. But their paranoid actions is making this a self-fulfilling prophecy. But this incident could force them to rethink.

Lastly, and most relevant the DA won two by-elections in Gugulethu-Heideveld and Grabouw, which are black and colored areas, seeing a massive swing towards them.

Careful analysis shows that the amount of black voters that now vote for the DA has increased, but not massively. Rather black voters failed to turn up at the polls. So perhaps not the end of identity politics, but the racial firmament is shaking and cracking, who knows?

No related posts.

This week both the UK Guardian (Video) and SA Mail & Guardian reported on claims of threats of xenophobic violence – directed at mostly African foreigners – that would supposedly start when the Football World Cup finishes.

Tara Polzer, a researcher in Wits University’s forced-migration studies programme, said that she has seen little evidence of centralised planning of post-World Cup violence but “the idea is spreading on a local level; it’s being discussed and legitimised by being repeated over and over again”.

There are even allegations that South Africans that don’t take part will also be targeted.

these threats have also been extended to South Africans who are sympathetic to refugees.

She said a Sotho friend who runs a stall at the Yeoville market was told: “We’re preparing the paraffin and matches. We’re coming to burn you too because when we have our meetings, you’re not coming.”

Today Jacob Dlamini wrote in Business Day:

A BANGLADESHI trader who runs a spaza shop on our street was recently visited by a young man. The man told the trader that, come July 12, he and other foreign traders in Katlehong must leave the township. The trader did not know the man and was certain the man was not one of his regular customers.

On Tuesday, I overheard three local women teasing/taunting a Mozambican man. “Make sure you are packed and ready to go by July 12,” they said. “But you know some of your sisters will starve if I am expelled from here,” he answered. “We don’t care,” said the women.

And he ads…

Naturally, rumours do not stop being important simply because they are rumours. People have been known to kill on the basis of rumours. They have been known to start wars on the basis of rumours. The rumours about July 12 are telling in at least one respect. They reveal that while the country gets ready to party, many ordinary South Africans are already looking beyond the party. It is just a pity that they are looking to the future with such venom and bitterness.

Related deployments:

1. New Pepsi add for South Africa World Cup
2. Can the world stop the Minsky moment?

The last few days saw British politicians haggling in trying to put together a stable government in the midst of a European debt crisis. The unease is palpable. Commentators glance furtively at the markets for signs of disapproval. The pound has fallen in value and the prices of UK government debt has gone up.

Hung parliaments are the the norm in Europe, rather than the exception. The Brits are just new to the party. But don’t let that make you complacent. The indecisiveness, risk aversion and lack of leadership in western states is a problem. And in a more uncertain world these issues will be magnified.

As the West’s influence wanes one has to wonder about the future of democracy.

This morning I listened to an excellent program by erstwhile conservative MP Michael Portillo, Democracy on Trial. It also features luminaries such as Frances Fukoyama and Amartya Sen.

Portillo, whose family fled to the UK from Fascist Spain is a fan of democracy, but he is worried about its future. We cant take it for granted he argues.

Pointing at failed African democracies he asks? Is a wealthy nation a prerequisite for democracy to exist?

Paul Colier argues when people are too poor to be literate, or to poor to regard themselves as citizens as opposed to members of a group, democracy ivariably suffers.

Sen argues that India proves it is not at prerequisite. It is poor and democratic. Paul Collier argues that India is the exception, because its size made institution building essential. It was too big for personalised power to run them. In smaller countries leaders can hang on through personal patronage networks.

Related deployments:

1. On the essence of democracy
2. US National debt clock runs out of digits

It really tires me that one has to defend the racist morons of erstwhile Eugene Terreblance’s AWB. But we have a duty to be fair and even handed. We must be fair, because hate speech from whoever can never be justified. But besides the morality of it all – we must be fair else these moron’s feelings of being unreasonably persecuted and maligned are just fed further.

One of the first articles I wrote as Mhambi – in fact I think it spurred me on to start Mhambi – was prompted by Nick Broomfield’s second movie about Eugene Terreblance, His big white self. Read it and see why I had a massive problem with it: It further entrenches centuries old cycles of prejudice and violence.

One thing I did not rail against was the allegations in the film that Terreblance and the AWB has been responsible for the murder of ANC Ventersdorp Mayor Kabelo Mashi. I knew little about the case and back then newspaper archives were not readily available to be searched online.

When Terreblance was murdered 3 weeks ago Andile Mngxitama in City Press defended the alleged murderers as heroes in an article titled Blacks in Bondage.

In it he makes much the same claims made in Broomfield’s documentary.

“Until his death, Eugene Terre’Blanche and his gun-toting men were allowed to spread terror. ­Almost every black person who lives around ­Ventersdorp knows the wrath of the AWB. In 1997, a young black mayor of Ventersdorp, Kabelo ­Oupakie Mashi, a staunch member of the SACP, stood up against the bullies of Ventersdorp.

He transformed budgets, cajoled the local criminal justice system to take racist violence seriously, and attempted to bring freedom to Ventersdorp.

Mashi was abducted and murdered, his body left in the veld. Witnesses were openly intimidated and the murder remains unsolved. If a mayor can be killed for challenging white power and the ­perpetrators can get away with it, what chance do ordinary mortals have?”

In Broomfield’s documentary Terreblance had just been let out of prison. Broomfield meets local black traffic cops who laughs that he going to meet ET. Broomfield tells of how different Venterdorp feels since his previous visit just before the first fully democratic elections, gone the white racists. They still want to enforce the use of Afrikaans in the local school he laments without any pause to reflect about this, but now the town is black. Raucous Kwaito can be heard booming from its streets.

But in Andile Mngxitama’s article black serfdom was a reality in Venterdorp until recently:

But that changed with the killing of Terre’Blanche. I went to Ventersdorp this week in solidarity with the accused to ensure that they were not lynched.

We stand sandwiched between the local ­magistrates court and the Boer monuments that bear the names of the Afrikaner patriarchs who inspire the AWB. They are ugly, cheap and fragile. It’s as if they represent a memory that is slowly fading away.

Young blacks stand on top of the monuments with the hope of getting a glimpse at the accused. We wait for hours in the sun. Then, as the first accused, barefoot like Jesus Christ, is pushed into the Casspir, the crowd breaks out as one: “Amandla! Hero! Hero! Hero!” It was a moment of total identification with those accused of murdering ET. They were saying: “If you didn’t see the faces of the accused,it’s OK, you have seen our faces. We are the accused!”

“Ugly, cheap and fragile” are the monuments of Afrikanerdom. Perhaps they are, but my your being offensive and insensitive.

I had read the story, but I’m a bit jaded and just registered it. The claim of ‘a reign of terror’ seemed at odds with recent reports I have heard of Terreblance’s activities of late. But I presumed the claims about the murder to be true. After all City Press and Broomfield would surely do their research before such a claim is made.

Then a good friend of mine sent the same article to me after we had a heated email argument whether whites and Afrikaners were over egging claims of their victimisation.

Yesterday evening I was reading Politicsweb and found an article called Dangerous falsehoods in City Press. And wow.

Policticsweb points out that this article has become a rallying post for those seeking an explanation of ET’s murder:

This article seems to have impressed a number of commentators. The credulous BBC correspondent, Andrew Harding, said on his blog that Mngxitama’s piece summed up well the “anger I’ve heard from black colleagues.” In The Times meanwhile Richard Pithouse, of Rhodes University, described the AWB as “like the Ku Klux Klan in some dismal Mississippi town, partisans of a brutal regime of white terror that, as Andile Mngxitama argues, has never released Ventersdorp from its grip.”

Except of course it is based on a lie of which City Press should have been aware. In fact it should have struck me as odd as well.

Why would the ANC let the AWB get away with a murder like this? The next mayor on the ANC council was bound to be ANC himself. I mean were talking about two years into Mandela’s tenure as president. The ANC at the height of its popularity and power. The AWB at its lowest ebb after the recent humiliation in Bophuthatswana.

It would only not strike you as odd of you believe that black South Africans – even a mayor of the party of power – are powerless and helpless. It’s the same old absence-of-imagining-black-agency ‘tendency’ displayed by lefties word wide that seems to have infected our thinking.

Politicsweb continues to lay out the facts, and it seems that the mayor that transformed budgets was also buying diamonds:

According to contemporaneous press reports Mashi went missing on Saturday March 20 1999. He had told family members that he was going to pick up an associate, Johannes Bota Monatle, to take him to a farm in Lichtenburg. He did not return. On Sunday the police launched a search for him and Monatle after a farmer in the Elandskuil area reported seeing his car abandoned in a mielie field.

There was concern expressed in the immediate aftermath of the disappearance that there may have been a political motive behind it. Shortly before Mashi went missing the ANC caucus on the Ventersdorp council had acted to terminate the services of a security company with links to AWB leader, Eugene Terre’Blanche after a series of robberies (The Star, March 25 1999).

The North West police were clearly under pressure to solve the case. They offered a R20,000 reward for information. And by Wednesday, March 24 1999, 80 police officers – on horseback, motorcycles and in helicopters – had been deployed to search for the two missing men.

On Thursday, March 25, police detectives tracked down Monatle to a farm in the Lichtenburg vicinity. He was found with R1,020 in his possession which police suspected came from the R4,000 that Mashi had withdrawn from the bank shortly before his disappearance. Following his arrest Monatle led detectives to the location of Mashi’s body, in a sunflower field about 2km from where the car had been abandoned. The police found the murder weapon, a knife, in the vicinity. A subsequent post mortem found Mashi had died after being stabbed in the heart and lungs.

At 5pm the same day Monatle appeared in the Ventersdorp Magistrate’s Court on a charge of murder. The Sunday Independent (March 28 1999) reported that following the announcement of the arrest 300 protestors marched to the Tsing police station to demand that Monatle be handed over to them. One elderly resident of the township told the newspaper “This thug who killed our mayor should pay.”

In November 2000 the case came before the Pretoria High Court’s circuit court in Potchefstroom. Monatle pleaded guilty before Judge van Oosten to one charge of murder and one of robbery. According to the account presented by Monatle to the court Mashi had owed him R2,000 in connection with a transaction involving some rough diamonds, but had refused to pay him the money. This dispute had reached boiling point on the day of the murder, when the two men were sitting together in Mashi’s vehicle.

Mashi had climbed out of the car, opened the door on Monatle’s side, pulled him out and thrown him to the ground. Monatle had then pulled out his knife and stabbed Mashi in the chest, killing him. Monatle took the deceased’s ID book, which contained R2,000, as well as his cellphone. He made his escape in Monatle’s car which he abandoned in the mielie field. He threw away the car keys in bushes in Ventersdorp somewhere.

On November 27 2000 Judge van Oosten sentenced Monatle to twenty years in prison for murder and five years for robbery.

To sum up it had taken five days for the police to solve the murder of Philip Kabelo Mashi and a year and eight months to secure a conviction. This story was extensively reported on in most of the Johannesburg newspapers. The Star, Beeld, Citizen, Sunday World and Sunday Independent all ran reports about the disappearance of Mashi and the arrest of Monatle. However, his eventual conviction and sentencing seems to have gone unreported.

Why did the press loose interest and not report the denouement of this case? Perhaps because the press was only really interested in a story that showed the mayor was murdered by the AWB.

For a while I was one of the only bloggers writing about the killings of black foreigners in South Africa. It got my goat that the press did not report on this xenophobic violence. I saw a similar pattern in the under reporting of violence against lesbians.

Like lesbians and foreigners, white farmers are a vulnerable minority. But the fact that their murders don’t get column inches in the newspapers is not a consequence of their identity.

It is a consequence of the identity of their attackers and the dominant discourse that seeks to consistently pin responsibility to western colonialism and deny black responsibility.

Now, I’m not saying that on some farms their are not near feudal conditions. And I’ sorry to say, the AWB is full of racist baffoons.

But as Fanie de Villiers pointed out to me recently. Their are shocking reports of the mistreatment of servants and lack of observing of the minimum wage by the madames of Soweto. This is entirely unreported. Why, because the perpetrators don’t fit existing narratives.

This justification of ET’s murder is not helping a rational and considerate debate.

If you like this post you might also want to read why I think its a gross oversimplification to compare Afrikaner racism found in the West like that of the Klu Klux Clan.

Related deployments:

1. Eugene was gay? Is this still a hate crime?

I’m too busy to write much, so instead here’s a house track, a revolutionary house track. Made up of the recent outburst by Julius Malema at Luthuli house at BBC agent journalist Jonah Fisher.

Lekker track….

But this one by The Cartel is even better. More Kwaito than house it features a cool build up…. and featuring the controversial shoot the Boer lyricks.

Related deployments:

1. Malema gets security to remove this ‘thing’ (video)
2. Comrade Malema – does he earn more that 1 and a half million bucks?

Rabid white supremacist? Closet homosexual? Violent and tempestuous demagogue? Drunkerd? Nazi? Freedom fighter? Poet? Born again Christian?

A combination of these things? Who exactly was Eugene Terre’blance? He clearly was a complex character.

Some have argued that his views had softened after the AWB’s humiliation in Bophuthatswana, or after he went to prison and found Christ. Gone were the demands for white rule. Now he had become a campaigner for a separate white homeland.

Incredibly it seems Terre’blance had sympathizers and even friends in the black community. (See video below) . The Daily Sun, a South African paper had taken pictures of him praying with black women only a few months ago.

And The Sowetan’s Charles Mogale who met him in his hey day reckons he was a pretend racist:

I did not think ET was a genuine racist.

He preached it alright, he modelled himself on a Nazi and chanted slogans his followers wanted to hear.

But on a personal level, I thought he was a meek mouse who was cast in a role he wanted to do well in. That role was a fearless fighter and champion of the “volk”.

Now it seems he was not only a closet k***boetie, he also bonked ’em.

Racist … I doubt. Great pretender … yes.

Yet City Press reported that during one of his last press conferences he had chased away a black reporter covering it. There was only two journalists there to start off with!

And Rapport have reported on both black and white workers that have recently abused by the man.

And rumours of sexual impropriety with both women and men have lingered. Just today in the Daily Mail Jani Allen broke her silence. Back in the day she had written:

‘Eugene Terreblanche doesn’t walk into a room, he takes occupation of it – to be honest he’s a hunk, far more attractive than his telegenic image,’

His manners were ‘impeccable’ she said and belied his boorish reputation. ‘Where is the crazed political threshing machine?

Could it be that people have the wrong image of him? Right now I’ve got to remind myself to breathe. I’m impaled on the blue flames of his blow-torch eyes, you see.’

She no longer holds him in high regard:

‘How would you like it if your wife or mother was forever known as the tart who slept with a far-Right racist buffoon who fell off his horse?’

But she says she thinks his death is more sinister than a mere ordinary crime or labour dispute:

She has no doubt his murder was politically orchestrated – ‘why else would the attackers wait around to be caught?’ – and links it with what she believes to be a Mugabe-style systematic slaughter of South Africa’s white farmers

With a candour some will find distasteful, however, she admits that she regards Terreblanche’s grim passing as a golden opportunity to revive her career and restore her reputation.

She still denies sleeping with him.

Both Max du Preez editor of the now defunct Vrye Weekblad and a journalist of City Press, Mariechen Waldner (who covered the Jani Allen story in the 80’s), have made claims of homosexual sexual abuse or inclinations in the last two weeks.

Here is the last interview he did (part 1 – the part 2 and 3 on Youtube.).

“Ons is noe van plan om ons te laat dood maak nie.” (Were not planning on being murered.)”

And he references Isreali military action as a good example for Afrikaners.

Related deployments:

1. Eugene was gay? Is this still a hate crime?
2. Eugene Terre’blanche’s death leave many questions