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Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watrose!gdvsmit
From: gdvsmit@watrose.UUCP (Riel Smit)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: South Africa bogosity
Message-ID: <7655@watrose.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 4-Nov-85 14:26:57 EST
Article-I.D.: watrose.7655
Posted: Mon Nov  4 14:26:57 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 5-Nov-85 22:35:52 EST
References: <80@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Distribution: can
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 31

In article <80@ubc-cs.UUCP> andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jamie Andrews) writes:
>             I suspect that all these picky little semantic points are being
>argued because either (a) some people are just feeling pedantic or (b) some
>people don't believe that the political situation in S.A. has to change.

If I am sounding pedantic, I am sorry, but if one constantly find that people
make pronouncements and form opinions based on half-truths at best, it is
sometimes difficult not to become pedantic.  It is because of my experience
of having lived in South Africa and reading here what the press and others
sometimes preach as gospel about SA, that I do not believe half of what 
I read about the Soviet Union any more.

>     The issue is institutionalised racism, and any government or people that
>perpetrates that deserves to be punished.  [   ]
>          I'm not suggesting that S.A. is the only place where this goes on;
>but there are some who seem to be suggesting, through tangential arguments,
>that S.A. shouldn't be punished at all.  This is completely bogus.
>
I am not arguing against punishment, rather, I am arguing for actions that
will lead to the abolishment of apartheid with the least amount of violence,
pain and upheaval for ALL concerned, and with the greatest potential of 
resulting in a stable, racially harmonious (is there such a place on this
earth?), completely democratic society.  If punishment in the form of
sanctions and boycotts (also of the innocent) is the only way, then I will
support even that, but I am by no means convinced that, at this point in
time, it is the only nor the best way.

I am also arguing for more consistency.  I would like to see the same kind
of ferver for punishment of other countries that do similar (and worse) 
things than South Africa (and if anyone is not willing to do that, then
let him/her put up and shut up).