-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.50/peron.htm Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.50/peron.htm">The Soviet South African Republic, an interview�</A> ----- The Soviet South African Republic: an Interview with Jim Peron by Alberto Mingardi In the following interview, Jim Peron explains that South Africa is no longer a country: it's a jail in the course of transition from a white-based Communist regime to a black-based one. Jim Peron is a well-known libertarian (classical liberal) publicist, the South African correspondent for newsletters such as ISIL's Freedom Network News. He is also the author of Die, the Beloved Country?, which grew out of an article he wrote for Liberty Magazine at the suggestion of Barbara Branden. The book has become a best-seller in South Africa. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jim, what do you think about the actual status of free markets and civil liberties in South Africa? The state of economic and civil liberty in South Africa is a very mixed bag. The ANC is trying to mix hard core Marxism with free markets. They want government control with freedom. The ANC is comprised of some pragmatics and some ideologues. They don't seem to have any clear cut policy. For instance, censorship went by the wayside a few years ago. Then the ANC introduced new censorship legislation. Now every film and video is illegal until the government first approves of its content. ANC partisans never tire of telling the world how South Africa has the only constitution to enshrine the rights of gay people. Yet when a court ruled that gay couples must be treated equally to straight couples when it comes to immigration, the ANC government tried to get the ruling overturned. In the field of jobs, the ANC has managed to reduce jobs by about 100,000 per year. This is because they continued to pass some of the most stringent laws in the world regarding labor. Foreign companies have tried to open factories here but have given up because the government has refused to let their management staff into the country. Thousands of qualified people have been ordered to leave the country, while hundreds of thousands have gone voluntarily. Now the government wants to tell doctors where they can or cannot practice. They are conscripting medical students and are next going after pharmacists. And then they lie to the public about how many people are fleeing the country. A university study found that the government only admits to about one out of every three emigrants. What's your opinion of Nelson Mandela, as a man and as President? Nelson Mandela is charismatic and gives people warm feelings. He has been built up into a symbol by the western media. Yet he has repeatedly pandered to racism [among] ANC supporters. Nor should we forget that he covered up the reign of terror that his wife was conducting in Soweto. He was informed of her actions and had people investigate her. They told him what was happening. Yet when she was charged with kidnapping, he claimed the charges were political and only meant to hurt him. One witness against Winnie Mandela was taken out of South African by the ANC and imprisoned in Zambia. The former Zambian president said he was asked to imprison the man by Nelson Mandela. The fact that the apartheid regime considered him their enemy does not mean he's a great man. To have evil enemies is not enough to make one good. How is ANC working, especially in the field of economics? In economics they are completely confused. For instance, they recently nationalized all water in the country. Then they came out with a paper saying that water should be subject to markets and be priced. But then they think they can centrally plan the market by establishing prices. These are probably the only people in the world who think you can plan a free market. Their labor policies are particularly bad and resulting in great hardship for the poorest segments of the population. They have systematically reduced the number of jobs through such regulations. What was "apartheid" from a libertarian point of view? And, most important, what was its impact of the status of capitalism in South Africa? To understand apartheid you must understand the Afrikanner. They were poor and uneducated and very nationalistic. They hated capitalism, the English, Jews and a host of other bogeymen. As such they called for state socialism. So South Africa had government-owned radio, TV, railroads, steel mills. electricity companies, oil companies, etc. The price of foods were set by marketing boards and not by free markets. The early leaders of the National Party openly praised Communism. The first time the NP came to power wasn't 1948, as many people think, but in 1922. They were part of the Pact government which included the Communist-led Labour Party. At the time, the Communist Party of South African endorsed the Pact ticket. Throughout its history the National Party was vocally opposed to capitalism and hated big business which it said was part of the English/Jewish plot to destroy the Afrikanner. They set up apartheid as a form of affirmative action for themselves. In essence what they did was combine socialism and racism. That, of course, is not new. Early European socialists were often anti-semitic as well, saying that the Jews were capitalism. Certainly Marx took that position. Now just ask yourself this: If the capitalists in South Africa were such racists, why would there be a need to have laws keeping blacks out of jobs? If the capitalists were pushing apartheid, it wouldn't have needed legislation since they wouldn't have been hiring black workers. What in fact happened was that the capitalists hired black workers, and the white labor unions despised that so they got the government to forbid the practice. Two groups made up the primary lobby for apartheid: farmers and white trade unions. The farmers didn't want black workers leaving the farm for the city to take jobs. A decline in black farm laborers would mean higher wages for farm workers. The white trade unions, closely allied with various socialist and communist groups, also didn't want blacks coming to the city and getting jobs. Together they helped create apartheid. The opponents were the so-called big businesses. Merle Lipton, in her book Capitalism and Apartheid, recounts how the government constantly had to prosecute capitalists for violating the law by hiring black workers. A little about your personal libertarian and political story: do you define yourself as libertarian? Why? What are your favorite readings? I got interested in libertarian ideas by first reading The Law by Frederic Bastiat. His essay, though written in France 150 years ago, made so much sense to me. From there I started reading Ayn Rand and various books on economics. I was always against American interventionism and parted with conservatives on that. I was pretty much in favor of civil liberties as well, so I had some problems with conservatives on that. Over a period of a few years I read dozens of books, and they convinced me that a libertarian system was not only pragmatic but one which embodied the highest ideals of justice and morality. Libertarianism to me is a personal belief that each individual has the right to live their own life for their own sake provided they do not violate the life, liberty or property of another person. It means full equality of people. No masters and no slaves. The only proper way of dealing with others is by voluntary consent. There are some books which I think are particularly good. The book Bureaucracy by Ludwig von Mises is excellent. Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged is a m ust and some of her essays like "Man's Rights" are quite excellent. Obviously The Law by Bastiat is another I consider quite good. What about the impact of your work in South Africa and the status of the libertarian movement? I don't know what my impact is in the country, nor do I know how to measure it. I do know that a lot of people who read my book left the National Party as a result. I know that it was widely read in the Democratic Party (DP), which is now the official opposition in parliament. The newspapers here, on a whole, did not give the book any notice even though by South African standards it sold very well. But at the time they were under investigation by the ANC government for "racism". This meant they were critical of the government. Almost without exception these papers, which in the last election all endorsed the DP, suddenly saw the light and praised the ANC in their editorials. I have had quite a few people tell me that they have never read a political book before mine. And several of them said that after reading it they went and volunteered to help the DP. Quite a few people ordered quantities to give away and quite a few of those books were sent overseas. Now, whether or not this had any effect on the government I don't know. I do know that my work visa was held up in Home Affairs from February until one week after the election. Then I was ordered to leave the country. I asked for a reason and was told that I was not entitled to an explanation. I have appealed the process and have applied for permanent residency, but I have heard nothing from the government since July. Newspapers report that Home Affairs hasn't processed any papers on immigration since last June and that the department has completely fallen apart. I can not say that my order to leave the country after living here for eight years has anything to do with the book. And the government has decided not to give me any reason, so I can only speculate. But they are throwing out thousands of whites, so it may not be personal--just racial. As for libertarianism per se, many people here don't know what it is. And often the term "liberal" is used in the proper [classical] sense here. So many liberals are in fact libertarians without knowing it. The Democratic Party here is quite libertarian in my view. They support free markets and oppose censorship for instance. Tony Leon, the DP leader, is probably about 80 percent libertarian in his views. In fact the ANC launched an attack on Leon a few days before the election, and one of their charges was that the man was a libertarian. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Alberto Mingardi lives in Northern Italy (Padania), and speaks English as a second language. Email:[EMAIL PROTECTED] -30- from The Laissez Faire City Times, Vol 3, No 50, December 27, 1999 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. 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