We are the living history of South Africa

I was going to leave this piece in the opinions section under the applicable post but it turned out to be so long I thought I'd turn it into a full post. Hmm, right, what to do about a particularly confused American individual who drops by occasionally and riles everybody. You know of whom I doth speaketh. This question has been posed before and the general consensus then was that we should allow him to comment, if only to watch with macabre fascination how the mind of a delusional leftwing American functions (functions? - too strong a word?) .. er, ticks over.

Greg/ Black Coffee, you continue to disappoint me. You are evidently a very unenlightened individual for one who claims to have studied our history. You say you are working towards some PhD in South African history but correct me if I'm wrong (I haven't got a PhD) but I read somewhere that 'the purpose of a PhD is to be the 'steward of a discipline' in the fullest sense. It is the desire to maintain the vigour, quality, and integrity of the field. In your case, it seems to me that there is a desire to preserve a certain orthodoxy of doctrine as professed by your examiners. Heretics [insert definition] need not apply.

Firstly and most importantly: You have never lived in South Africa. That precludes you at once from an essential constituent that we South Africans possess: we have lived, breathed and died [for] our country. Having you commenting on our affairs is akin to me pretending to care about Japanese North Island history. Despite my interest, my so-called expertise in the subject is a mere oddity. I can never capture the essence of the subject because simply, I have never lived in Japan’s North Island and I am not Japanese.

We continue to eat, live and breathe South Africa. That's an important point for you to remember. Everything you natter on about really is tainted from that perspective. You can never be South African, you can never understand South Africans and you will never, ever completely begin to comprehend what it is to be innately South African. Yet there you are, debating South African history with South Africans who have LIVED THE HISTORY you study - yes, that's right, the stuff you READ about in books WE LIVED IT! We are not characters in a history long gone. We are a history still in the making. Can you understand this point? Am I going to fast for you?

You want to know about Boipatong, Sharpeville? Ask us. We were there. We were at those places that appear as words in your history books. We were at the Soweto riots in '76. We were there in the 80s fearing for our lives when a State of Emergency was called. We watched people being necklaced. We watched the marches, we lived through the bombs in the shopping centres, we lived the shootouts in the streets and churches – stuff you read about, mere words to you, are actual events to us. We, that is us, not you, not dead people, we are the history you are learning about. Our history has not been written.

You cannot therefore, never know then what you are talking about. You are just an observer. You are standing on the shore as the ship is sailing by. We are aboard the ship.

As a prospective 'expert' in the subject, one would think you would be interested by our stories. Imagine if Abraham Lincoln was alive and you were able to interview him. Would your American history be different? Would your perceptions of Lincoln be different?

It is us that have suffered at the hands of the Marxist ANC alliance. It is us that have been forced to leave our country. It is us that have had friends and family murdered. Your biggest issue today will be what to eat for fu*king lunch! South Africans on the other hand worry that the next phone call may be word that a loved one has been killed. Everyone is affected, black and white, inside the country and those of us in the Diaspora. You cannot begin to understand our anxiety and apprehension about a situation made more probable by the pathetic mismanagement of the country by the Marxist ANC alliance. You see, we do have a point of reference because we have lived the country's history. Try and get this idea into your head. We know what was, is and will be.

Understand me when I say that I won't stand for you trivialising our pain. You've been warned about this before privately. If you do not want to hear the other side's views then it is time for you to move on. We have a truth to dispense and fuck it to hell, TELL IT WE WILL!! Any way we want to!

It is a story you and the outside world has not heard and seemingly does not want to hear but the web has made it possible for us to narrate our side – and we will keep repeating it until people hear us. We can never be silenced. The history of South Africa is still being written and fair-minded historians, not those biased like you will record the true facts as told by thousands, that's us, not a handful, not just from one side.

So stick to your version of our history, contained in the anti-apartheid propaganda hysteria of committed hardcore leftists, Marxists and communists. That is obviously your intention. It fits your perspective. That they may be lying has not been questioned by you and even if they are indeed falsehoods, it does not seem to faze you. Their views seem ample evidence for you because they were the 'victims'. And 'victims' never lie, do they? It also says a lot about you - and the worth of your Ph.D should you ever attain it.

No one here is justifying apartheid on the basis that it was one race intent on simply oppressing another. That's the simplified version to suit the attention span and IQ of Americans. Bad whites hurt defenceless poor blacks. Got it yanks? Duh..uh huh, yeah, what's on American Idol?

We are attempting to explicate that for the minority, peering northwards observing what had happened to other minorities in Africa, that apartheid was a question of survival of a race, a nation, a notion you cannot begin to conceive of. You then question another South African patriot [note the emphasis my American friend] Hansie0Slim who is doing nothing more than presenting an alternative history to yours, the possibility that it may actually contribute to elucidating your pre-conceived beliefs escaping you.

Sentiments from living people that contradict a bunch of dead communists is unacceptable yet you accept, nay, endorse stridently the views and motives of terrorists and communists known to use tactics like misleading propaganda.

If your intention is to debate candidly with us with an open-mind then this is the forum for you but if you insist on being the mouthpiece of dead communists like Steve Biko, adding nothing but the same old mantra of 'bad whites, good blacks', you in fact help to accentuate the perception, at least from my standpoint of being a typical American, an ignorant useful idiot.

Produce something constructive to the debate or leave. Why fu*king discuss the type of wax to be used on the car (like the police services) when the car has no engine?! Let's take a step back, attempt to encapsulate the South Africa politic from all sides so we can begin to understand why events have taken this downward spiral. Why is South Africa in the crapper? What has gotten us to this point? Let’s examine all points of view and then discuss solutions. I could really NOT give a rat's arse that the ANC regime is getting new taxis for example, when 50+ people are murdered every day, while corruption is rife and South Africa continues down the waterslide tube to Banana-dom.

Enquire rather: why is this crime so severe, how did it get like this and what are the solutions? Constructive questions and suggestions please. Stop worrying about the wax. Tell me how to get an engine. Your books provide half the story. We constitute the other half, a half that can be interviewed. An intelligent mind would grab at the opportunity to hear all sides however unpalatable. A closed mind however, is a good thing to lose.