OPINION: Thembile Ndabeni – Negotiations result from the failure of the belligerent being defeated. The ANC made a lot of compromises during the negotiated settlement that led to liberation. Part of the compromise has rendered our victory weak. Mandela had asked blacks to throw their weapons to the sea. He was not asking the armed regime to do likewise.
Most of the victims of the ensuing violence then were supporters of the ANC. They were being massacred in Boipatong and elsewhere. The same Mandela asked Andrew Babeile to go to jail after stabbing a white learner.
Yet racist white learners did not do the same for attacking Lindelani Khanyile, damaging his eye. Those white learners, their parents and teachers never showed remorse and apologized.
Instead, the MEC of education in that province, apologized on behalf of the white learners, with no prospect of jail, expulsion or suspension for the perpetrators, as was the case with Babeile.
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