04 April, 2010

Terre'Blanche


In 1966, after the assassination of South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, Private Eye magazine ran a cover with laughing, dancing Africans in ceremonial dress and beneath it the caption 'Verwoerd: a nation mourns'.

Perhaps the same cynical feeling will apply to the death of Eugene Terre'Blanche, the white supremacist beaten to death supposedly by his own workers over unpaid wages. Perhaps Terr'Blanche was not important enough to justify the cynicism. He was a throwback to the 1960s and had not been long out of prison for assault.

The South African President has appealed for calm and let us hope there is calm: the country has enough troubles without this nonsense rearing its ugly head.

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