Red October: Must Be Nice.

On Thursday the 10^th of October I woke up to a world filled with renewed hope and vigour. Not only was it because of the imminent weekend, but also the weekly Thirsty Thursday where I can unashamedly indulge in liquor in the middle of the week and feel like I was a part of something instead of feeling guilty. However, my boisterous mood was short lived as I arrived to work and learned about Red October.

At first I thought it was some ominous reference for Libras across the world, being a Virgo I wasn’t worried. The real horror that I later scoped was that Red October was in fact a gathering of white South Africans protesting against the notion of “white genocide”. These  people believe that white people are oppressed and marginalised in their “own” country, the worst part is that they believe that white people are being singled out and that they are the only race in South Africa which experiences the horrors of crime, poor education, and not enough tomato sauce sachets from take-away restaurants. It came with very little shock that the march was led by none other than the infamous celebrity, Afrikaans singer Steve Hofmeyr. Reports say that the march later harmonised itself into a right-wing choir, yelling chants of “Hofmeyr for president!”, but surely that was just the brandy talking.

I could imagine how cute it was; Out in the sun, acquiring skin cancer in their Kaki shorts, long brown socks and black shirts. Protesters were releasing bio-degradable red balloons into the air as a sign of their involvement in Red October. I just could not believe what was going on. Have white people run out of Rhinos to shoot in their backyards? Do they honestly believe that they are getting the brunt of the bad treatment? I thought to myself that it must be so nice to be white and purposefully oppress other races for centuries than experience 19 years of democracy and then complain that you are now the ones being oppressed. I wanted to experience this oppression that white people claim to have. I mean, considering that only 1.8% of all murders in South Africa are of white people and that less than 7% of the white population is unemployed, it couldn’t be so bad. But I guess they thought I had to feel blessed with my own people killing each other over spilled drinks in taverns and our unemployment rate of over 30%. I had to be cool with that.

“What is the point?” was the next question on my mind. What did white people have to gain from all of this? That we would all miraculously excuse them from crime and hangovers? In my humble opinion, white people should be thanking their lucky stars that someone as kind as Nelson Mandela was our first democratic president. Had it been Robert Sobukhwe or someone in the mould of Robert Mugabe, white people would have been marginalised out of the country, probably with first class tickets to Australia. You would have had to have gone completely out of your way as a white person to not have gained considerably from apartheid. I presume they just want more of that easy lifestyle. Maybe they miss the “good ol’ days” when black people couldn’t just go wherever they pleased. They suddenly can’t believe that they have been walking among these savages for the past two decades.

Could it be just a way to nip oppression in the bud before it gets authentic? Granted, Black Economic Empowerment has lowered whites in the vocational pecking order, only if every other candidate is equal in compatibility for the job. It must be so sad that your mortgage was paid in full by the nineteenth century.

I’m not saying that our country is perfect, but Lord help us if our previous oppressors are feeling uneasy while everybody else does their level best to make democracy work. It really is spit on every other citizen’s face when white people march to parliament to complain that they alone suffer in this country. You might as well have protested against equality.  I fully understand that this whole campaign was initiated by a handful of white people. Most white people in South Africa seemed just as enraged as everybody else, if  not, even more so for giving their race a bad name. Although, on the Red October website, there is a petition that has been signed by over 23 000 people. 23 000 people feel that white people are oppressed and that there is a “white genocide”.

I wasn’t aware that there were this many people who felt this way. We cannot be too surprised. White people took everything away from us, now they also want oppression.