Maravi

(BUSINESS DAY SA) John’s reconciliation

John’s reconciliation
Janneke Weidema Published: 2010/04/06 07:49:05 AM

Eugene Terre Blanche was murdered and the usual stories about murdered farmers and Julius Malema are trotted out. Nary a word about racist farmers or murdered farm workers; and the whining you hear is not a Boeing taking off — it is whites asking what happened to reconciliation.

There is a story I first heard at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that could help us find an answer. It is the story about Themba, John, the bicycle and reconciliation.

John stole Themba’s bicycle, but John went to Themba and said: “Let us be reconciled, I will not steal bicycles any more” and Themba says “Fine, give me my bicycle” and John says “I am talking about reconciliation, not bicycles”.

John now says it will frighten off foreign investment if he has to return the bicycle; that his father stole the bicycle, not he; that his success has nothing to do with the fact that he inherited the bicycle; nobody needs a bicycle to get ahead; Themba should follow John’s example and he too will succeed; and Themba followed John’s example, not forgetting about the bicycle.

Some Thembas now feed at the trough along with the pigs that have had their snouts in the trough all the time; there is a multiracial community around the trough, but the majority is hardly better off. The process is called transformation and has produced anger and frustration. John fears the country is crumbling around him and is raving impotently against BEE, corruption, crime and Julius Malema.

The tenderpreneurs, the criminals, the Terre Blanches and their ilk have to change their behaviour and make amends for the sake of the country, but John does not have to wait for them to change. There is something altogether more effective he can do and it is within his power to do so; he can return the bicycle.

Janneke Weidema
Pretoria

Labels: APARTHEID, EUGENE TERREBLANCHE, NEOCOLONIALISM

posted by MrK @ 6:18 PM