Shelley Garland tells us why she has agreed to write for The Daily Friend and points out what the Institute gets wrong.
When I was first approached to write for the Daily Friend, the online newspaper of the white supremacist lobby group, the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), I was hesitant. Sharing a platform with discontented right-wingers such as John Kane-Berman, Gareth van Onselen, and Gabriel Crouse, does not feel like the best use of my skills. But then I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to point out the holes in some of the IRR’s repugnant ideas, as well as expose liberalism and the white supremacy it upholds.
I must also give kudos to Sara Gon who has invited me to write this column in the Daily Friend. Although I am pro-free speech, this does not extend to speech which I disagree with or find offensive, so good luck to Ms Gon for extending me this courtesy. I am not sure I would do the same if I were in her shoes. The best way to win people over to your way of thinking is to make sure that opposing ideas are not heard, rather than giving them oxygen, so this is a bold strategy by Ms Gon.
But let’s look at some of the IRR’s policies, and why they are so ridiculous. One of the more absurd policies to come out of the IRR of late is the proposal of Economic Empowerment for the Disadvantaged (EED) as opposed to Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). It is completely absurd to want to use disadvantage as a proxy for disadvantage in this country rather than race. Imagine telling someone like Kagiso Rabada that his achievements as an international cricketer, his schooling, and upbringing count more than the colour of his skin! In a society which continues to uphold white supremacy this would be a slap in the face of every black person to tell them that they should be judged on their achievements rather than on their skin colour. That is surely not what Nelson Mandela fought for.
Another problematic focus of the IRR is its claim that free markets will reduce poverty. Although many on the extreme right, alt-right, very far right, way out right-of-right and the Democratic Alliance will present statistics which show how capitalism and the free market have lifted many millions of people out of poverty across the globe in the past few decades. We should treat this with extreme caution. Just because people in developing countries now earn more money, have enough to eat, can buy consumer goods, or provide a good standard of education for their children, does not mean that this is something that should be celebrated. The additional money that is spent by new entrants to the middle class in developing countries simply goes to corrupt multi-nationals, which continue to perpetuate world-wide economic apartheid on the Global South. Far better to let developing countries develop at their own pace, rather than letting them copy the ways of the capitalist West, by far the world’s most miserable region. Venezuela has given us a wonderful example to emulate.
And speaking of capitalism, it is unsurprising that the IRR has been silent on the launch of the new South Africa Capitalist Party. An organisation such as the IRR which claims to care about social cohesion and race relations should be vocal about any political party which has been established to perpetuate the ideology which has brought us to our current position, but the IRR has, tellingly, been silent. Capitalism has led to untold misery in South Africa, and the sooner this ideology, which is the cause of unemployment and poverty in this country, is consigned to the dustbin of history, the better.
It is also telling that apart from the five black people and one Indian person in the party’s 10 member leadership, its leadership is lily white. What else would one expect from a party promoting capitalism? I also cannot fail to see that alt-right podcast host, Roman Cabanac, is one of the party’s founding members. The gravelly-voiced imp tried his best to gain some fame by hanging on my coattails following the publication of my now world-famous article on depriving white men of the franchise. He certainly does not belong in Parliament spreading nonsense about free markets and the importance of the individual. (And as a white man, he has no business voting anyway.)
Dear, reader, I hope you have enjoyed this first column, and I look forward to using this platform to shine a light on the intellectual bankruptcy of liberalism, capitalism, non-racialism, and rainbowism. They have failed South Africa over the past 25 years and we need to push back against anything which upholds white supremacy, such as liberalism and the continued belief that individual rights matter.
I look forward to continuing to educate the sad, white men reading this column on the error of their ways.
Shelley Garland is a committed, wide a-woke social justice warrior and feminist. Shelley almost single-handedly caused the demise of The Huffington Post SA.