SA’S "TYRANNY OF THE ‘BEASTS’"

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IF they are honest, a few White South Africans can pretend to be happy about the lawless, insolvent and increasingly dilapidated state of Mr Mandela’s ANC/SACP communist utopia. None, however, is more grievously disillusioned than those White liberals who fought so hard, sacrificed so much, to help bring all this about. That is strikingly illustrated in an article written by Bjorn Heyerdahl, a Durban-based corporate development consultant, and recently published in the Natal Saturday Independent. Under the headline, "Living Under the Tyranny of ‘Beasts,’" he indicts the present regime:

"I write this in anger, frustration and fear. I’m afraid for the first time that I will fail my wife, my children and my employees in the most critical and basic way: I can’t protect and nurture them. I have had to provide my maid with an armed guard so that she feels safe to work in our home, and my children can no longer play in our garden or move around the home for fear of being molested or setting off an alarm.

"Recently one of my neighbour’s domestic servants - who also happened to be a personal friend of our domestic servant - was savagely attacked, raped and murdered in their home in the middle of the day. Our home has also been watched over the last few months, our movements recorded and our property infiltrated, our domestic servant interrogated with military precision, all with the disquieting patience of professional predators.

"What treasure do we hold, what secret do we conceal behind our walls to provoke this attention and effort? All we have is a TV, a VCR and a cheap hi-fi, as well as defenceless women and children to rape, torture and kill to quench the thirst of savages who are holding our land to ransom.

"These savages were not born this way, neither were they simply conditioned by their unhappy childhood: they were created, moulded, twisted to become the kind of beasts that were required to empower those who need to rule. They were trained in camps, sent to experts to be psychologically and experientially conditioned to become the death-dealing monsters required to do the dirty work of replacing one set of hypocritical politicians with another.

"The ‘cause’ could have been noble or it could have been ‘power,’ but the results are what count to those who must live without an army to protect them. One kind of tyranny has replaced another and the tyranny of the criminals is as difficult to bear.

"The result is that all South Africans, except those truly responsible, have been robbed of everything that truly matters. No right to life, no right to liberty, no right to happiness: and no right to provide these things for their families.

"This is due to a kind of cowardice not even vaguely comparable to what President Nelson Mandela sees, as people move their children to safety. They are seen to be running away from ‘issues’ or abandoning a ‘cause’ greater than their children’s lives.

"The cowards that created these savages to empower themselves, hypocritical politicians, are still trying to wash the blood from their hands so they may embrace civilised society, while turning their backs on the savage beast that empowered them now that it no longer serves their purpose. I’m afraid beasts like that don’t just go away: you can’t just ignore them, you have to take responsibility for them and either cure or kill them.

"Killing, or course, is no longer the popular policy of our politicians, unless it serves a political end. But you taught this beast to kill or be killed. What will you cowards do now? The beast will not kill itself - you have to do it yourself. Or are you hoping the kids and I will do it for you?

"I have dedicated my life to uplifting and empowering people of all kinds: men, women and children. My business addresses many of the real needs for building strong families, communities, businesses and economies. Many of my friends and I have stuck with this incredible country through everything it has thrown at us: it has not been easy for ‘Whites’ like us in the good old South Africa.

"I have endured a six-year sentence and hard labour for conscientious objection to violence, when I had options to run overseas. I stayed and faced it. I had to educate myself with no financial support. I have had to create a business that few people understood and I have slaved to make it a success here.

"I have struggled and fought for everything I have ever owned and I have done more than my share of contributing to all communities. Things have never been easy for us here and we don’t expect them to be easy now. South Africa’s issues now have nothing to do with comfort or privilege - unless life itself is now considered a privilege and not a right.

"I truly have been doing what Mandela recently called on ‘White’ South Africans to do: ‘teach the people, give them the confidence to express themselves,’ etc. But now I’m thinking of going because, although I believe strongly in man’s potential to rise above any circumstances, all that potential is removed with death - and it is death that stalks every man, woman and child every waking and sleeping moment, while those responsible for removing that fear are the very source of it.

"What are our options? Who are the cowards?

"The laws are designed to protect our constitutional rights, but these alone do not protect us. Politicians’ actions betray all the values of the Constitution - and all they provide us with are violence, crime and fear. Their expertise lies in justifying their failure alone. Why are they the heroes and we the cowards?" (APN italics).

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