Euforia, wat per definisie ‘n welbehae wat kunsmatig en in meeste gevalle deur dwelmverslaafdheid gewek is, is vinnig besig om te taan namate die werklikheid van sigbare verval en beskikbare statistiek besig is om na die oppervlak te styg, teen so ‘n tempo dat dit nie meer ignoreer kan word nie.

Leon Louw beskryf in twee afsonderlike artikels wat in Business Day  verskyn het hoedat daar deur ontkenning klem geplaas word op die steeds verontregting van die swartes deur blankes, nadat hulle al die hele Suid Afrika in ‘n rommelhoop verander het. Die tragiek is dat alles wat Leon Louw met statestiek vasgestel het, was voorsien deur verskeie Afrikanerleiers wat dit sedert 1948 en selfs voor 1948 voorspel en voorsien het. Dit was die motivering vir die enigste werkbare beleidsrigting wat nou deur talle inheemse volkere oorweeg word, net onder ander benamings. Multikulturalisme het ‘n wêreldbedreiging geword en die gevolge van die implementering daarvan in Suid Afrika teen al die waarskuwings daarteen, word deur Leon Louw hieronder in syfers weergegee.

Opinion & Analysis / Staff Profiles

Leon Louw

Leon is executive director and co-founder of the Free Market Foundation. He writes a weekly column for Business Day newspaper

Last week, my office gathered all available facts. Illustrative examples follow.

The number of black people earning more than R400,000 a year grew 1,000% from 120,000 to 1.2-million between 2000 and last year; 90% are in the private sector. The black middle class grew 333% from 1.8-million to 6-million. Between 1996 and 2011 total black disposable income grew 370% from R161m to R756m, and personal income grew 300%. There are more middle-class blacks in formerly white suburbs than the entire white population. Latter-day racists who demand coercive land redistribution do not know that black buying has grown to 50% of all voluntary transactions.

Post-apartheid racism is characterised by blacks underestimating blacks. Their factual misconceptions inspire counterproductive policies.

Blacks have not acquired only tiny proportions of land, listed shares, degrees, incomes, savings, judicial and managerial positions, etc. The percentage of black judges increased 248% from 25% to 62% between 2000 and 2012. Blacks in top management, and blacks with cars, doubled. Black phone ownership increased 223% (90% of households have cellphones).

Back literacy is up 50% since 1994. Youth illiteracy is nearly nonexistent at 4%. Black life expectancy defied AIDS and rose from age 53 to 60 in five years between 2006 and 2011. Private schools are 72% black, and blacks have more than half of all degrees. Blacks living on less than $2 a day fell from 16% to 2.5% since 1996.

Blacks are approaching or have surpassed 50% in almost everything: share ownership; new companies; medical aid membership; insurance policies; car sales; credit cards; and so on.

To say that little has changed, is a racist slur. It implies that apartheid did no harm, and that blacks are inherently incompetent, hence the proclivity for welfare dependency and racist policies. The welfare budget exploded from R10bn to R100bn between 1994 and 2011. Social grants are the main source of income for 40% of black households, of which the government is proud rather than ashamed. It takes no pride in the progress of self-sufficient blacks.

Two aberrations explain why the government denies what blacks have accomplished under its watch. First, the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) moribund alliance with the South African Communist Party enables the latter to cannibalise it from within. Second, the megalomaniacal lust for power requires citizens to believe that they have a crisis and that maximal power is the solution not the cause.

I AM kicking myself for not realising that the real cause of our woes is apartheid. President Jacob Zuma told the African National Congress’s 103rd anniversary gathering that our electricity catastrophe and corruption are the results of apartheid. He could’ve added that apartheid explains why South African Airways (SAA) cannot get off the ground, why we have schools without education, why the Post Office does not deliver post, why young black people are unemployed, why if people drive straight it means they are drunk and forgetting to avoid potholes, why state hospitals are sickening, and why Bafana Bafana cannot play soccer.

Before Zuma’s insight, I thought bad things were caused by bad policies, corruption, nepotism, deployment, affirmative inaction, incompetence, Zionism, Islam, the Boeremag, or Steve Hofmeyr. Now I know apartheid is the white in the woodpile and denialists are closet reactionary, anti-transformation, historically advantaged, right-wing, unreconstructed, bigoted, neoconservative, neoliberal, neofascist, neo-colonial, neo-vetkoek, white racist apartheid apologists.

Apartheid caused the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, Nkandla, Boko Haram and George Bush. Very few things — such as Obamacare, e-tolls, Islamic State and fever blisters — have other causes. There was unjustified scoffing at Zuma’s epiphany.

The evil regime caused everything that afflicts us, including Eskom, the South African Broadcasting Corporation and the Financial Services Board (FSB). Apartheid forced blacks to live, as they do to this day, on government land. It concealed corruption, caused black youth unemployment, created a nanny state to control our lifestyles, established the propaganda broadcaster, mandated the Reserve Bank to nationalise foreign exchange and diverted money from poor blacks to black holes called state-owned "enterprises". Corruption, Zuma pointed out, "existed before 1994" and his government was "dealing with" it.

When delegates to the 1987 Dakar Conference visited Burkina Faso, which is twice as far from Pretoria (5,250km) as London is from Moscow (2,500km), tens of thousands of people chanted anti-apartheid slogans. Brutal dictator Thomas Sankara explained that apartheid caused their destitution.

So yes, Zuma is right, apartheid is the smoking gun behind everything his government inherited. That it merged with its former oppressor may explain why it perpetuates most of the apartheid legacy, including racist policies. But for the wealth that apartheid dinosaurs such as Eskom, the Post Office, Transnet, SAA and the FSB destroy, a decent house could have replaced every shack, and all road maintenance and new roads could have been completed. Private electricity could have electrified all homes and thousands of factories, mines, office parks and shopping centres; our economy could have been 20% richer and we could be booming like China, India and sub-Saharan Africa.

Few people comprehend the magnitude of the electricity catastrophe. No one knows how much has been wasted on doing without electricity. "Energy efficiency" is a euphemism for extreme waste and inefficiency ("low-energy" technology, insulation, diesel, renewables and the like). "Load shedding" is a euphemism for blackouts. "Keeping the lights on" is a euphemism for keeping us in the dark. It entails cutting production and jobs in mines and factories.

The Transnet rail catastrophe forces suppliers to fund thousands of coal trucks taking coal to power stations while causing congestion and destroying roads. The SAA catastrophe requires endless bail-outs euphemistically called "loans" or "guarantees". The nationalised healthcare catastrophe inflicts disease and death on the poor. While Rome burns, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi fiddles with what works, private care. Wherever you look — courts, education, roads, security, policing, transport, welfare — catastrophe lurks. All inherited from apartheid. That is as obvious as the solution, which is for the government to jettison Neanderthal socialists, fascists and communists in order to implement true transformation, namely the deregulation and privatisation of everything it does badly.