Divide and conquer? Is this the new ANC modus operandi?

In the past week we have seen some pretty outrageous statements being made by those who would desperately seek to cling onto power... as though they were in any danger of losing it.
We have heard the ruling party accusing an archbishop of blasphemy - for suggesting that their dictatorial governance hints at a God-like superego. We have heard Zuma suggesting that whites can be divided into tribes - based on their passports and language of preference. We have seen the last nail in the coffin of independent judis prudence with the NPA almost on the brink of withdrawing its prosecution of a man whose counterpart was found guilty of gross corruption. And we have seen an government opting to protect its recently signed trade agreements with mainland China at the expense of humanitarian rights in Tibet. Finally we have heard the same government cry foul of those who seek to suggest that sports and politics are inextricably linked to our moral values.

Of course every one of these statements or contentions echoes from the halls of a not-so-distant corridor - which is still haunted by the busts of the architects and practitioners of another ideology hell-bent on personal and ethnic preservation.

And it was the same group who perfected to a science the art of 'divide and conquer' - by classifying and re-classifying groups of people into manageable minorities which could then be understood, removed and displaced at will, and at the convenience of the ruling party. I am of course referring to the apartheid governments practice of homelands and bantustans which could only have existed through an understanding of ethnicity and groupings based on language, physical appearance and passbook status.

The same regime, which our current government fought to overcome, also balked at the notion of mixing sport and politics, when the rest of the world saw fit to heed their moral consciences in an attempt to strike at the very hardened hearts of the guilty.

It was the same regime who branded outspoken men and women of the cloth as heretics and expressed their distaste at their prophetic utterances. And it was the same Caesar who systematically applied its own rule of law to support its ideology and protect those guilty of hideous crimes against humanity, as well as its economic policies and social sins.

In the words of the prophet..."is this what we fought, suffered, were tortured for and died for?"