In South Africa whites either accept the immorality of the racist system whilst enjoying the world's highest standard of living, or oppose the system and suffer harassment and police surveillance. There is no neutral position.
According to Joel Carlson, a former defence lawyer in South Africa, for years South Africa has hanged more people than any other country. It presently accounts for 47% of the total world hangings.
Violence in South African Society is rampant and inevitably it breeds more violence. The mood of the people when I left was more angry, more frustrated and with more potential for violence than ever before. The aparthied system had boomeranged. The seperated blacks in universities, churches and Bantustan homelands have produced an increasingly uncompromising black nationalism.
The security police regime has enacted laws violating the rule of law, such as:
1. the indefinite detention in solitary confinement incommunicado of persons suspected by the security police of committing terrorism and held at police pleasure specifically for the purpose of interrogation to obtain answers that satisfy the police;
2. the wide definition of offences such as "terrorism" as "acts embarrassing the administration of the affairs of State" or "striving to bring about change" and the provision that all are assumed guilty and must prove their innocence.
3. the power to make mass arrests and detentions and even to detain witnessed incommunicado.
The struggle cannot be contained. Inevitably the demands of the oppressed will be won.
Source: New York Times
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