Depending on his audience, Zuma snoozes a different tune.
When speaking to Afrikaners, he says "affirmative action" may be revised. Afrikaners are pleased. When speaking to his supporters, or the media, he changes tack and says AA is here to stay.
Picture a bull with a ring through his nose being led by the far left in South Africa i.e. Cosatu and the Commies. He is a figurehead, a populist, an empty shell, a stupid man devoid of ethics and morality - which makes him the perfect candidate to lead the ANC.
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It was still "early days" to end affirmative action, African National Congress president Jacob Zuma said.
In a speech prepared for delivery at an investors' lunch in New York, he also said the ANC was confident of a decisive victory in next year's general election.
Zuma, who earlier this week met top US officials in Washington, said black people and women were still largely excluded from upper and middle management.
The Employment Equity Commission had noted in 2007 that whites continued to dominate senior management at 65 percent, with blacks at 18 percent, and that the bulk of new recruits were white as well.
"The employment equity figures clearly indicate that it is still early days to call for an end of affirmative action in South Africa," Zuma said.
President Kgalema Motlanthe, then still a minister in the presidency, said in August that the government would consider phasing out the programme, but only after careful consideration.
In the same month, ANC treasurer-general Mathews Phosa lamented the fact that the departure of whites from the public service had left a skills vacuum in certain areas.
Zuma said in Friday's speech that in the face of the global financial crisis, South Africa remained a sound investment destination.
"The only turbulence you can expect in our country is the one that the United States is going through right now - the contestation and vibrancy that accompanies any election.
"As the ANC we remain fully confident of another decisive victory."
He said no other party had so far put forward, or could put forward, policies that successfully competed with those of the ANC.
Update 31/10/2008 - Zuma: AA will stay
Acosta Has No Constitutional Right to a White House Pass
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Revoking Acosta's press pass did not threaten the First Amendment rights of
either CNN or Jim Acosta.
1 day ago
6 Opinion(s):
In order to correct inequities from past affirmative action needs to stay for many years to come, both in SA and US in my opinion. However, there should be attempts to implement it in such a way that it does not penalize whites automatically, as some on SAS claim that the current implementation in SA does.
Please explain the inequities of the past, blacks created industries and whites then came along and stole their jobs?
@ G-man
When Whites landed in the Cape there were approx 500 000 natives living in the area now known as South Africa, a mixture of the original inhabitants the Khoisan people and the Bantu people from west and central Africa. There was no industry, not even the most basic of commerce as one would find around the Mediterranean etc.
Whites began to develop the country taking the natives along with them. So much so that the indigenous population (unlike the US, Canada, NZ, Australia) GREW, so terribly were the natives treated NOT.
Apartheid was implemented in 1948. Prior to that there was no 'apartheid' as such and Blacks could easily have started up their own industries etc.
But you see, to go from a culture where for eons all that was required of them in a continent of abundance was to sit under a tree and reach up and grab food and drink from a river, the thought of creating new methods of survival would take a complete reversal of what their culture preached. Men sat under trees, women gather food and water.
AA works on the premise that inferior cultures need a hand up, a hand out. It is amazing that AA is reserved mainly for Blacks. One does not see Asians crying about unfairness or demanding AA because their culture is about learning and improving themselves.
I can go on forever. AA can never be positive because spaces, opportunities are limited and when one White kid or Asian is skipped in favour of a Black, someone suffers. There is no way of doing it without hurting a people of another race.
You can have AA forever, that will never tell a culture used to plucking fruit off trees that they should create the next great invention. It is not within them.
AA is destructive, a liberal concept, the highest form of racism, patronising and basically confirms to all that Blacks are inferior because they are the only people that need a hand up.
G-man : How much from your income are you willing to donate to the ever downdrodden Blacks ? Or better : when are you starting a full time job as a slave to one of our black BEE caracters ? What skeletons have you hidden in your cup board ? Have you been a black slave trader in one of your previous lives ? What have you personally contributed to the inability of most Blacks to think rational and cater for their own needs ? You obviously must be at fault simply by being white. Put you bucks where your mouth is.
Doberman - from my study of history your observations appear to be partly correct. Keep in mind that none of us were actually there, of course, in 17th Century and so what we have to go on are documents and what people like me who specialize in African history call oral history. If you descended from white South Africans, whether British or Afrikaners, I presume some of what you say is based on what previous generations of whites passed down, you can correct me of course if I'm wrong. What I'm getting at is Africans further north from what is now SA - in Zimbabwe for example were indeed engaging in commerce with Arabs and even Chinese. In Zimbabwe they mined gold themselves. In South Africa I have to admit from all evidence it seems the Tswana were sitting on a pot of gold and didn't know it until a white man discovered it in 1886. However, the Zulu were carrying on a trade in ivory, some of the earliest British settlers in Natal like Fynn and Isaacs who came to Natal to meet Shaka, among other purposes, wrote about this. The men tended to tend cattle and women gathered crops. As far as apartheid, actually much of the segregation was in place before apartheid, in my own dissertation I call it "apartheid before there was apartheid." It would take too long to go into all details, but British started pass laws in early 19th century, then fast-forward to 20th century you had Hertzog bills, etc. On SAS they posted about this some time ago in an effort to redeem Verwoerd in fact. I disagree with their attempts to present Verwoerd as a humanitarian, but he was a brilliant man who gave the segregation justification in terms of "separate development." How does all this justify AA? For generations and generations, the playing field was not level, not in terms of employment opportunities nor education. There were exceptions of course, and I found that in 1980s some companies did start to promote blacks in order to demonstrate that they were not going along with apartheid, but by and large the system kept blacks from participating in a meaningful way. In many ways the situation in US before mid-1960s was comparable, difference having been of course that in US blacks were a minority while in SA they were always majority. So to correct the inequities of past, I do believe AA is needed. The idea that AA is in fact the "highest form of racism" is something conservatives in US often charge. The correct implementation though should see promotion of qualified blacks only, not unqualified ones. Mandela in fact said this in 1993 during an interview he gave to Jobg "Star" on how he envisioned affirmative action. Now whiteadder - you ask how much of my income would I donate to "ever downtrodden blacks." That would depend on how much income I have. Right now I have little, but if I was in a good financial position I would donate some money toward upliftment of both poor blacks and whites. Over here in US for example, and I know me and Doberman have had some disagreements over Barack Obama, but in 1995 Obama stated that he believed white corporate executives should be responsible enough to contribute towards inner cities of America, like in Chicago, where a lot of poor people, many of whom happen to be black live. There is a conservative radio show host in America who has been playing tapes of Obama calling for this as an example of Obama's supposedly "socialist" mentality. However, I believe in promoting social responsibility and I think that is all Obama was saying.
Hey G-man
So what you are saying is : count me out for the moment to but my bucks where my mouth is - but one day....
Communists are usually great at spending other peoples money.
(firstly on themselves and the remnants on anything that helps them to stay in power).
Have you ever thought of exactly how much money the whites in the
USA should pay to their blacks ?
( For all real and contrived bad stuff allegedly dished out to them )
Or is it a never ending obligation because the blacks are multiplying much faster than the whites and many dont seem to be able and willing to make a living in a normal manner?
One day when you have worked for your own bucks and dished them out to your "noble cause" you might have the right to suggest that others should follow your example.
In the meantime try not to act like a sweet tounged communist seducer who alone knows what is right or wrong.
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