The U.S. Regime Media Narrative is consolidating on an explanation for South Africa’s riots: “inequality.” This conveniently avoids the point, brilliantly made recently on Revolver.news, that modern South Africa is explicitly founded on proto-Critical Race Theory i.e. whites are to blame for everything; and the result is a Trumpian sh*thole [South Africa–The First Country Built on “Critical Race Theory”–Officially Implodes, July 16, 2021]. Of course, blaming “inequality” for the violence also adds a useful implied threat to the current drive for "equity" a.k.a Racial Socialism in the U.S. But the fact is that global demographics suggest the U.S. and the West will be importing “inequality” on a massive scale—unless the Era of Immigration is decisively brought to a close.
As happens eerily often nowadays, the new Regime Media talking point emerged everywhere on cue, almost as if somebody circulated a memo:
Of course, to borrow the notorious phrase of Sadiq Khan, London’s Pakistani Viceroy, that inequality is “part and parcel” of the current South African system. The African National Congress party, installed in the place of white rule in 1994, wanted to horn in on the benefits of what white South Africa had created rather than immediately destroying it.
However, political competition among South Africa’s blacks means that has now led to a split, with the followers of Jacob Zuma and the more radical Economic Freedom Fighters of Julius Malema calling for more redistribution of wealth and attacks on remaining whites, which of course will accelerate South Africa’s economic decline.
Here, we see the kind of gradual radicalization of the historical Narrative that has already taken place in the United States. For example, it was once taken for granted that the “Radical Reconstruction” imposed on the South after the Civil War was a shameful episode of tyranny in our history. However, the Conventional Wisdom now is that Reconstruction didn’t go far enough and thus a Second Occupation, er, Reconstruction is necessary.
Remember that the supine handover of power to the ANC by the white South Africans elite, and their suicidal decision to participate in “democracy” as a small minority, was not inevitable. Secession was an option. A Boer Republic, Orania writ large, could have been created. But the South African military, like our own dear military, blinked at the last second [When Patriotism Meets Conservatism, by Gregory Hood, American Renaissance, May 3, 2013].
Instead, the much-celebrated “Rainbow Nation” was enabled because of Nelson Mandela’s assurances that white property, symbols, and safety would be respected [We need Nelson Mandela’s example more than ever today. How the South African leader’s radical empathy can help the US today, by John Blake, CNN, July 18, 2021]. Thus, Mandela became a kind of universal international hero, apparently because he didn’t just immediately slaughter white South Africans and plunge the country into utter dystopia, as Rhodesia/ Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe quickly did.
But now the new Narrative taking shape, in South Africa and in the West, is that Mandela didn’t go far enough to achieve equity. More expansive measures are needed. One wonders if Mandela will eventually be retconned as a white nationalist collaborator.
What could South Africa’s current leaders do to make South Africa “equal?” They’ve already done quite a bit. Constitutional safeguards for white landowners have been removed, contrary to assurances at the time of the handover. Endemic low-level violencegainst whites can’t even be mentioned without provoking outrage or outright denials by the Great and the Good. Jacob Zuma, the former president of South Africa whose Zulu supporters have been blamed for the recent unrest, sustained his popularity by railing against “white monopoly capital.” Many whites, far from being “already rich” in The Guardian’s dismissive term, find it hard to get a job because of massive government-mandated discrimination against them.
But perhaps the above measures just lacked imagination., Imposing a wealth tax, seizing property outright or simply using more systematic violence against non-blacks could all be on the table for a more radical South African regime.
Yet this creates a problem. Right now, South Africa, with all its faults, remains better than most of Africa.
Indeed, even Al Jazeera’s Mhaka, linked above, notes that illegal immigration into the country is a major problem that sometimes leads to violence.
In 2008, for example, 62 people died and 100,000 were displaced in xenophobic [black-on-black] attacks that targeted African migrants and foreign-owned shops. The government reacted slowly to the outbreaks of violence and only deployed soldiers to help bring the situation under control well after many migrants had been killed.
Despite the anarchy, then-President Thabo Mbeki did not address the root causes of the unrest…[W]ith little done to assess and rectify the economic and social challenges behind xenophobic violence or to enhance the security services’ preparedness to handle it, South Africa experienced further violent outbreaks in 2015, 2018 and 2019.
However, what are these “root causes?” There’s a vague implication in the articles above, that more robust action to achieve equity, by somehow solving corruption, crime, or income inequality through state force, will solve the problems. Yet even the current unrest is already shaking the already tottering South African economy [Update 1-South Africa assets drop as Delta variant’s spread hurts risks appetite, Yahoo Finance, July 19, 2021]. The economy was buckling already from the COVID-19 pandemic [Third Covid Wave Upends Fragile South Africa, a Warning for Developing World, by Gabriele Steinhauser and Joe Parkinson, The Wall Street Journal, July 19, 2021].
President Cyril Ramaphosa is desperately trying to keep a lid on the unrest [South Africa’s Ramaphosa calls for unity amid wreckage of unrest, Al Jazeera, July 18, 2021]. He’s a wealthy “businessmen” a.k.a political rent-seeker who has taken a strong stand against labor troubles in the past, something which has made him something of a hated figure among Leftists [South Africa reaps the harvest the ANC government sowed, by John Minto, The Daily Blog, July 14, 2021]. One suspects that, as a wealthy collaborator with the global economic elite, he understands that South Africa has value because of what the whites built, not what it is now likely to produce in the future. Thus wealth exists to be moved around, not created.
Yet that old inheritance is running out. South Africa faces the same problem the entire Western world does. What Steve Sailer calls “The World’s Most Important Graph,” depicting soaring African population growth, is hitting the country both from inside and outside.
As mentioned, South African blacks are already waging a violent struggle against “migrant” a.k.a. illegal immigrants desperate to claim even the modest prosperity that remains in the country [Documenting violence against migrants in South Africa – a photo essay, by James Oatway and Alon Skuy, The Guardian, June 21, 2020]. The black African share of South Africa’s population is growing and the white share is shrinking according to the latest census and white flight continues [South Africa’s white population is still shrinking, BusinessTech, July 23, 2018].
Although we’re not allowed to talk about racial realities, the fact is that racial differences in income will persist indefinitely. And they will even persist between Indians and blacks when all whites are chased out of the country (or killed).
Thus South Africa will continue to deteriorate and become more “unequal.” Paradoxically, this will drive further calls for income redistribution, “equity” and forced egalitarianism, further spiraling the decline.
Those areas of the world that are capable of maintaining a certain standard of civilization, social trust, some semblance of economic freedom and capable institutions are a small and shrinking global minority. If the majority populations in those area can’t maintain both demographic hegemony and political power, they will simply be overwhelmed by the rest of the world.
Given the Africanization of the global population, that practically guarantees worldwide collapse this century unless what remains of the Western world can defend its borders—and carve out sovereign areas in fallen states like South Africa.
The alternative is a situation where the riots last week are simply the new normal—unless some ruthless but efficient Chinese overlords can impose some kind of crude order.
The story of South Africa is about politics, corruption, tribal warfare, and race.
But more fundamentally than all of that, it’s about borders, and the need for developed communities to separate themselves from those who can only drag them down in a global race to the bottom.
James Kirkpatrick [Email him |Tweet him @VDAREJamesK] is a Beltway veteran and a refugee from Conservatism Inc. His latest book is Conservatism Inc.: The Battle for the American Right. Read VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow's Preface here.
