A live boxing showdown between an Arab champion, Saddam Hus­sein, and the Western ‘Bazooka,’ George Bush, should be the most spec­tacular event in boxing and political history.

Most probably, Saddam Hussein will rely more on his thick moustache than his ‘chemical’ upper-cuts. Natu­rally, the dancing kenkeyweight titlist, George Bush, will turn into a southpaw, floating in the ring, jabbing, ducking and targeting Saddam’s moustache to rip it off once and for all.

Such a boxing show would be one of near equals. But consider for a mo­ment a similar show between the Pride of Pretoria, F. W.de Klerk, and the Hope of South Africa, Oliver Tambo.

Although Tambo is not in the very best of health, he is sure to be a diligent pugilist with all the qualities of a BLACK BOMBER. F. W.de Klerk, the stronger of the two is likely to be cautioned several times for hitting below the belt. Fact is that, de Klerk’s punches are never direct. Perhaps his fists need a binoculars to help target Tambo’s nose.

Oliver Tambo had never been a good friend to South African leaders, especially

Pieter Botha. And for quite some time, Botha has had more than a fair share of Tambo’s political punches till his corner men threw in the towel. Still Botha wanted to fight on although they told him that he needed to be replaced by a clerk-de Klerk.

Today, Oliver Tambo is still fighting on behalf of his people. And gradually, the satanic apartheid regime is crum­bling, but piecemeal. I bet, de Klerk’s formula for dismantling apartheid that can be likened to a small ant com­missioned to eat a mountain of LOAF. Certainly, it would take a thousand years to complete.

This fact is further underscored when we consider that just recently, leaders of the European Community have agreed to scrap the ban on new investments in South Africa. With this decision, South Africa is going to get some breathing space and the process of disentangling its dreaded strangle­hold on the black majority is going to be dead-slow.

The German Foreign Minister, Hans Dietrich Genscher, rationalising the community’s decision, said the lifting of the ban would reward de Klerk for legalising the African National Con­gress (ANC), freeing its deputy leader, Nelson Mandela, and permitting Oliver Tambo to return to South Africa after thirty years in exile.

In reaction to this, the ANC adopt­ed a resolution calling for sanctions to be maintained, with the stand that the EC’s decision which was against ANC interests. Earlier, during an ANC congress, Oliver Tambo had stated that it was time the ANC reviewed its stand on sanctions against South Africa.

“It is no longer enough to repeat the trite slogans …… we should care­fully re-evaluate the advisability of insisting on sanctions given the situa­tion domestically and abroad.”

Apparently, the optimism of the black majority of attaining a wish is gradually becoming tantalising if not illusionary.

As it is now, the European Com­munity’s decision is a pointer to the fact that members of the Community regard the South African whites as their first cousins. And obviously, many Europeans directly or indirectly have commercial interests in South Africa. And how can one punish a brother for so long no matter how recalcitrant he proves to be?

Fact is, covertly or overtly, the apartheid regime is being made to perpetuate till doomsday. No one cares for the black man. The whites will come out openly to condemn the racist regime and go indoors to have plans about how best to strengthen this regime.

Worse atrocities have been visited upon the black man. Since history be­gan chronicling world events, the black man has been at the receiving end of all unpleasantries. He is even cited to have descended from a cursed man called Ham, who according to the Bible derided his father’s nakedness. Quite fallaciously, one child of Ham was said to be black (because of the curse), and became the progenitor of the African race.

It is quite uncertain whether ori­entals like the Chinese also had some share of the curse to make some of them yellow-skinned.

Anyhow, blacks of the world have suffered a lot, having been made slaves, tortured and abused. In the United States where many blacks became domiciled after the slave trade, they were regarded as second rate citizens. To this very day, they are discriminated against when it comes to job opportunities and prospects for promotion.

AMUSING CONCLUSIONS

They are considered brainless and only fun-loving. In a seemingly very crooked research conducted not far back, the following amusing conclu­sions were arrived at. Chinese students were said to be studious, European children very ambitious and bright and Negro children were said to like party­ing and music. Adult Negroes were said to be physically strong with large sexu­al organs but no brains in their heads.

The Blackman’s culture is described as uncivilised and extremely backward. But let’s come to face it. The white man’s culture teaches him to hate oth­ers who are not of his colour. You go to Europe and you would be shocked that some whites would not like to sit in the same bus with you.

When they (Europeans) come to Africa, we are not hostile to them al­though they’ve once enslaved and bru­talised us and continue to discriminate against us. We bear them no grudge. Our culture does not breed hatred for other races. It preaches hospitality and respect for all. Which of these two cultures should be placed higher on the scale of civilisation?

In the US, a white supremacist group named the Ku Klux Klan, have a morbid hatred for blacks and have poli­cies geared towards the elimination of the black race. The neo-Nazis do not like blacks either.

History has it that when Jesse Ow­ens won four Olympic gold medals in Berlin, the Nazi warlord, Adolf Hitler, was gravely embittered.

We are discriminated against in sports, the latest being two dubious penalties awarded against the Indomi­table Lions of Cameroun in the match against England in the 1990 World Cup in Italy. Cameroun, as a result, failed to reach the semi-final stage. Africans do not deserve a World Cup.

And quite sadly we allow Cauca­sians and Anglo Saxons to dictate to us which of our women are beautiful and which are not. We accept their crite­ria for beauty and allow our women to parade semi naked before them, only to be ridiculed as hairless monkeys, and undeserving of beauty awards.

Year after year, we send our wom­en there to experience the same or­deal and we would never learn to stop that nonsense. Are we not encourag­ing the whites to go on ridiculing our race?

Caucasians, Orientals and Africans have their own considerations when appraising beauty. Why allow Cau­casians to superimpose their idea of beauty on ours.

Shall we always be slaves who never stop to think for a while of their independence?

This article was first published on Saturday, December 22, 1990

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