Let me tell you who I am!
I was born in the mid sixties, grew up in the seventies and eighties in South Africa under the National Party Government. As a child, on the farm I grew up for a part of my life, my best friend was a Black South African. I visited and slept over in his room and we played together everyday and I suppose I loved him and he was my best friend. When we moved to Cape Town, I went on the upper deck of the bus, was friends with the domestic workers my mother hired and I did not understand apartheid and racism. I was not brought up to hate or to fear.
In my late teens and early twenties I ran a multiracial nightclub in Cape Town and often got arrested for serving alcohol to black people and for allowing black people to dance with white people. We even held clandestine ANC meetings on the premises and all the slide shows we presented, showed South Africa as it really was.
Yes, I got an education in this country when people with darker skins could not. Yes, I went to the army and did National Service in the then South African Defense Force instead of going to jail for disobedience. Yes, I lived in white suburbs and had privileges that other races did not.
I was excited on the day the ANC was unbanned, I ran to Cape Town city to listen to Nelson Mandela’s first speech and I cried with joy that things were finally changing in this country.
I supported the change and I voted in the first true democratic election with pride. The beautiful African lady who worked for us as a domestic came with us to vote. On the day I asked her, “Aren’t you excited that you will now have a new life and a new government?” She humbled me when she said, “Yes, but I understand that this change will only benefit my children. It is too late for me but I have hope for my sons.” That made me want to cry as it showed me the lost generations that apartheid had caused. This helped me to understand affirmative action and the process of RDP.
I accepted the new South African Constitution with pride and I embraced the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, realising that the truth had to be revealed for closure to occur and for us to move on for a new future.
Since then, I have listened and read as the white race and I are continually blamed for the past and the injustices of this country. I have accepted that you are angry that I did not do enough to stand up against the previous regime, that I was not directly part of the struggle, that we just carried on with our lives while you suffered and went without.
You taught me well because I will now stand up for myself as an adult. I will not make the mistake I made before and live in fear to say something against my government when I believe them to be in the wrong.
This letter is about that. After all that all South African’s have been through I am ashamed that you have become just like the previous regime. You too want to hide your secrets from the world and all South Africans. You spend millions on parties and avert justification for your actions. You wish to change the magnificent constitution more and more.
Seeing the Protecting of State Information Bill adverts this morning has infuriated me beyond belief. You are doing a great job attempting to become like the previous regime and I am disgusted. Look at the number of dislikes you are getting on the video’s versus the number of likes, and you will begin to see that we South Africans are not stupid and we can see you are trying to deceive us.
Yes, I have always agreed that South Africa would not go the way of other African countries under the ANC and I have spoken out against people who were negative and held onto their racist opinions.
Let me tell you my fear. You are showing your people that you are no better than the National Party was, that you are just stuffing your pockets and riding the gravy train while they still suffer much the same as they always have. You have let someone like Julius Malema become so powerful that I can see he has a credible chance of opposing you politically and winning. I believe that man has a larger following that you would care to have noticed or realised. I fear the South Africa; post an election, won by a man like that. I believe you have created and nurtured your own adversary and that he will now stand against you and end up undoing all the good you have helped create.
Please seriously consider what I am saying, get rid of the rot and get back on the magnificent course you started off on and make us all proud to be South African in the Rainbow Nation.
Yours sincerely
Paul S Meinhold
