Melanie Verwoerd’s hand-wringing plea for white South Africans to reject the old flag would have some credibility if her plea applied to the communist hammer and sickle flag as well (The Witness, August 29).
Under the communist flag, more than 100 million perished in Russia and China at the hands of godless totalitarian dictatorship. Yet the Equity Court and Verwoerd see no harm in the tyranny associated with the display of that flag. What utter hypocrisy and selective morality!
The Equity Court’s ruling banning the display of the old flag except for academic and artistic purposes is Orwellian. It is an infringement on freedom of thought and expression. In a free society, it is not the prerogative of any institution to act as Big Brother in deciding the motive in displaying a flag.
If there was any consistency in Verwoerd’s diatribe, she should be pleading for the Union Jack to be banned as well. After all, the British destroyed the Zulu kingdom, the Boer Republics and caused the deaths of 26,000 Boer women and children in concentration camps.
Yet Afrikaner governments showed tolerance and maturity by not banning the display of the Union Jack. Melanie Verwoerd needs to grow up and focus on the mess her party has inflicted on South Africa.
Sent into The Witness and published, 2 September 2019.
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