Hello
André Brink het ’n opstel in die 1 Desember 2011-uitgawe van die Financial Times. Volgens Brink is Suid-Afrika glad nie meer die plek van hoop wat Nelson Mandela gebring het nie. Suid-Afrika het afgedwaal van die voorbeeld gestel deur Mandela en verkies eerder “to blunder past the tombstones and debris of the apartheid era”.
Brink brei uit soos volg:
The adoption of the Protection of Information Bill by the African National Congress in a parliament shaken with shock and revulsion, cancelled in a single crude stroke the Freedom Charter which – even while wilfully denied for half a century – had guided the country through the murky years of D.F. Malan, Hendrik Verwoerd and the other apartheid leaders towards the new dawn brought by Mr Mandela in 1990. It dented the proud new constitution built on a foundation of human rights admired all over the world, besmirched the legacy of Mr Mandela and Desmond Tutu, and insulted the legacy of millions who had dedicated their lives to the construction of a future built on the hope of a new beginning. It glorified the myopia, greed and selfishness of a handful of third-rate politicians focused only on their own gain and advancement.
Volgens Brink is die wet ontwerp op so ’n manier om die korrupsie te versteek en vorm deel van ’n doelbewuste poging om wetgewing daar te stel wat soos alreeds bevestig korrupsie te versteek en beskerming te bied aan politieke kriminele.
Brink voer aan dat die burgers van die land moes nie verbaas gewees het aangesien die tekens al lankal daar was:
The signs were there for anyone to see when the ANC turned the election of a new president into a mere insulting spectacle or changed their Youth League into a blunt instrument of mass entertainment, only to see how the League in its turn began to dictate ANC policy and manipulate its leadership.
Maar die volgende is ’n klimaks van verstommende intensiteit van ’n persoon wat van ’n afstand die kalmte self te blyk wees wanneer Brink skryf:
How the mighty have fallen. How the Bright Morning Stars have tumbled into the sulphurous pit!
But it seems that South Africa no longer has space for real actors, only for clumsy and unfunny marionettes.
Baie dankie
Wouter