Vandaag een hele rake blog van Ray Hartley, de kersverse hoofdredacteur van The Sunday Times over de het sterke midden en de sterke civil society in Zuid-Afrika.
Want ondanks alle berichtgeving over raciale spanningen en ‘Zimbabwaanse toestanden’ is het rustig in Zuid-Afrika en zijn Julius Malema en wijlen Eugène Terre’Blanche les extrèmes qui se touchent en die maar bitter weinig echte volgers hebben.
Ray Hartley schrijft:
Don’t Malema and Terre Blanche prove that the center is holding?
Conventional wisdom, fuelled by the schadenfreude of those who want this country fail, has it that the rantings of Julius Malema and the mobilisation of the right after the killing of Eugene Terre Blanche are evidence that this society is teetering on the brink of some sort of constitutional or race-fuelled social catastrophe.
But nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of South Africans – of all races – do not associate themselves with either Terre Blanche or Malema. They were appalled at the intemperate language of both these populists.
Why do you think Jacob Zuma issued the biggest public dressing down of a fellow ANC leader since 1994 when he tore a strip off Malema this weekend? Answer: Because he knows that the majority of the members of his own party – and of the country – stand with him on this.
Has there been an uprising of Malema’s fabled mass base against Zuma’s pronouncement? Nothing. Not even an intemperate pamphlet.
The fact is that there has been no race-based uprising, no blood on the streets, no violent encounters except at the very front lines of the Ventersdorp confrontation outside the courtroom. There a few fists flew, but no weapons were discharged, no pangas were wielded.
You could make a case that the center of South African society is holding and holding very well. It is rejecting extremism in favour of non-racialism.
The much criticised (again by a minority) “media hype” around these events could also be seen as evidence of a vigilant civil society in action.
