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(This article originally appeared in The Wanderer and is reprinted with permission. To subscribe call 651-224-5733.)
But I will say that being an American leftist means never having to say that you are sorry. Look at the track record of their errors over the past 50 years. They told us that Soviet Marxism was the future that worked; that Joe Stalin could be trusted in East Europe; that the United States was the aggressor in the Cold War; that East German socialism would prove more attractive than West German capitalism; that the Sandinistas and Peru’s Shining Path guerrillas represented the will of the people of Central America; that the Khmer Rouge, the butchers of Cambodia’s killing fields, were driven to their barbarism by American bombing raids. That’s for starters.
How do they get away with it? The pattern is always the same. Consciously or not, the major media ignore the historical events that would prove embarrassing to leftwing intellectuals long enough for the public to forget the old liberal consensus on the issue. So when the news comes out that Mao was a madman and a tyrant, it is years after everyone has forgotten the television specials glamorizing the Red Guards and the Cultural Revolution. By the time the analyses of why the Berlin Wall came down hit the airwaves, no one remembers all the trendy academics who made excuses for why it was there. No one asks Jane Fonda why she once thought Americans would pray to live under a Communist system if they only knew what Communism was all about.
And now another one bites the dust. Remember just decade or so back? All the paeans to the new democratic and multiracial Republic of South Africa that was being brought to life under the guidance of Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela? We were encouraged to support boycotts to bring apartheid and white rule to an end. Justice demanded it.
Well, syndicated columnist Samuel Francis has given us a picture of life in that part of the world. He reports on a New York Times story documenting how “South Africa has in recent years” has achieved “one of the highest per capita rates of rape and sexual assault in the world,” with “violent sexual attacks on females” a particular problem. “About 40 percent of the 52,000 rapes in 2000 involved victims under 18 – 20 percent involved victims under 11.”
The notion is now widespread in South Africa “that having sex with a virgin is a cure for AIDS. Since AIDS has also exploded since the end of apartheid (along with unemployment, murder and terrorist attacks on white farmers by blacks), raping young females – including actual infants – has become almost commonplace.” The Times reports that rape victims “wait for hours for an ambulance or a police car to take them to the hospital. Sloppy investigations mean that rapists are usually free to terrorize their victims over and over.”
What accounts for this sad state of affairs? The Times and the new South African political establishment take the “society is to blame” frame of mind to new heights. The Times says the current sad state of affairs is a manifestation of the “lasting impact of the apartheid system, which legitimized violence and oppression for decades.” Jacob Zuma, the country’s deputy president agrees, stating that “the apartheid history of this country left behind a legacy of serious breakdown of the moral infrastructure of our society.”
Got that? Even though AIDS, rape, murder and terrorism were far less a problem in South Africa in the days of white rule than under the current black-controlled government, apartheid is to blame for the explosion of these social ills. Talk about intellectual contortions!
Is it my point that apartheid should not have been ended? No; it is probably true that once a clear majority of a society becomes united in its demand for self-rule, it cannot be denied without brutal oppression. Even the 19th century British overlords fond of quoting from Kipling held that native populations would one day be entitled to self-rule. The only topic for debate within their ranks was timing, the question of when self-rule could be permitted without an unacceptable risk to civilized standards of behavior.
But I will say this. The leftists in our government, media and the academy owe someone an apology. It was unfair of them to assume — as they did — that it was always racism that motivated those who insisted that an immediate transfer of power to the black majority would make things worse for both blacks and whites in South Africa. One need not have been a racist to make that case. We can see that now. Facts are facts. Q.E.D.
