No Comparison

WHATEVER the difficulties and challenges within our democracy, the apartheid government will never end up smelling like roses, as per John Scott’s column of September 1. 

If we don’t like the present government, we can vote it out. The vast majority of us could not do this before. It is deeply offensive to compare the two. For me it is like comparing Nazi Germany to the difficulties of reconstruction in post-war Germany. And that was not an easy time for the German people. Luckily for them, other countries poured money into that effort.

I would agree it is appalling to watch a group of our teachers misbehaving. But to suggest a comparison to the apartheid government, good Lord! They moved millions of people arbitrarily. They left most of us without basic claims of equality before the law. They terrorised millions.

Perhaps in our dismay at the misbehaviour of a group within our society, it is natural to feel pessimistic. Unfortunately, we have to face doing the hard work of building a true democracy- something the apartheid state did not even begin to try to do. It was accountable only to 20 percent of the population. Eighty percent were herded into separate ghettos which today continue to throttle us.

            Zubeida Jaffer

            Former Parliamentary Editor Of Independent Newspapers