The people who loved this man say that he was a kind man, full of compassion. But let us look at this man who was the real architect of apartheid in South Africa in the twentieth century.
Born in 1901 in Cape Province of parents from the Netherlands, Hendrik Verwoerd was probably never completely fluent in Afrikaans, the language of most of the whites in South Africa. Certainly, he held the native Africans in contempt; he didn't even want black waiters serving him food while he was prime minister of South Africa: all of the servants were white. But he probably held the boers in contempt as well, because the typical Afrikaner has no problem employing African agricultural labourers to pick his grapes or spray his cattle with insecticides. No, when this man said apartheid, he meant it: he really wanted to keep the races separate in South Africa.
But what's really aberrent about this man is that he was a psychologist: he should have known better; he should have known that factors like environment go a long way towards shaping human behaviour. Of course, the good doctor probably understood that. As prime minister of South Africa from 1958 to 1966, he used his political office to try to create an inferior race among the blacks of South Africa: the townships of South Africa were his "Skinner boxes," his mazes. Even today, the Africans are still scrambling for pieces of cheese that the white throw them.
More than Stalin, Hitler or Saddam Hussein, Dr. Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd was an evil genius: he used a country as a laboratory to test his "scientific" theories. Only the results were rigged: you would be "inferior" too, if you were a Zulu rickshaw operator in Jo'burg, living on less than a thousand calories a day in a shantytown.
Perhaps as poetic justice, he was assassinated by a mentally unstable boer named David Pratt over a land dispute -- a strange way for doctor and a potential mental patient to come together. Or maybe he was attacked by one of his laboratory rats.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Chapter 1
Truth is one: wise men (as well as fools) call it by different names.
Disagreement is relatively rare in life, while miscommunication is the norm.
The flowers of happiness in the future are sown from the seeds of happiness today.
You rip what you sew.
He who encounters an angel, a sasquatch or a good woman should get it in writing, take a picture, and get married.
A decent man will often like a woman of doubtful moral character, until he learns that love is not free.
Nothing destroys the feeling of contentment like the awareness of it.
It takes two to miscommunicate as well as communicate.
Love and marriage break down rather than build up when left on their own.
People prefer the tried and the untrue to the untried and the new.
The most profound misconception of our time is the belief that technology is the great equalizer, when it is technology that is increasing the gap between the rich and the poor.
Once you have reached the top of Mount Everest, it's all downhill from there.
The solution usually aggravates the problem that it was meant to solve- war, for example.
Language exists to frustrate communication as well as facilitate it.
Mistakes and failure breed caution, which breeds conservatism. Radicalism, we blame on youthful inexperience.
If not for fools, angels might have to rush in where they fear to tread.
A conservative might become a neocon, once he has lost his natural reserve and feels sure that his side will prevail.
Every movement has always had its puritans that spoil the party for everybody else.
Disagreement is relatively rare in life, while miscommunication is the norm.
The flowers of happiness in the future are sown from the seeds of happiness today.
You rip what you sew.
He who encounters an angel, a sasquatch or a good woman should get it in writing, take a picture, and get married.
A decent man will often like a woman of doubtful moral character, until he learns that love is not free.
Nothing destroys the feeling of contentment like the awareness of it.
It takes two to miscommunicate as well as communicate.
Love and marriage break down rather than build up when left on their own.
People prefer the tried and the untrue to the untried and the new.
The most profound misconception of our time is the belief that technology is the great equalizer, when it is technology that is increasing the gap between the rich and the poor.
Once you have reached the top of Mount Everest, it's all downhill from there.
The solution usually aggravates the problem that it was meant to solve- war, for example.
Language exists to frustrate communication as well as facilitate it.
Mistakes and failure breed caution, which breeds conservatism. Radicalism, we blame on youthful inexperience.
If not for fools, angels might have to rush in where they fear to tread.
A conservative might become a neocon, once he has lost his natural reserve and feels sure that his side will prevail.
Every movement has always had its puritans that spoil the party for everybody else.
Chapter 2
They laughed at the ones who invented the wheel, learned to harnass fire, and first learned to play jazz.
There is nothing more stupid in life than life itself.
There is no pain without an audience.
By the end of the day, the earth is limping around the sun.
God uses lightning bolts; the devil, axe blows. Thus the devil clears more trees.
If AIDS did not exist, if would have to be invented.
If you hate whores for being whores, and cats for being cats, then the problem is with you.
The man who can give a wife a credit card and a mistress a diamond necklace is prosperous indeed, though not necessarily happy.
He who is happy should conceal his happiness like a poker player would conceal a good hand.
For most people, wedding pictures are a reminder that one has made a terrible mistake.
If you loan money to a friend and get it back, consider it a gift.
If you tell one person a secret, you have usually told the whole world.
Children are God's eyes, because they see everything.
Perhaps the hardest lesson in life is to learn that the parent becomes the child and the child becomes the parent.
Nearly all deaths are suicides.
All generalizations are dangerous, including this one.
There is nothing more ill-placed than trust.
Don't look behind that curtain! Or you may find that the god you worship is really a devil...
Yes, Jesus had to be crucified, because who could worship a god who died by lethal injection?
Women's liberation has nothing to with liberation, but everything to do with women.
To make peace, we often have to appeal to the baser part of our enemy's nature.
Before you can love God, you must first learn to stand up to him.
In the end, only work gives us lasting satisfaction. All other pleasures are fleeting.
There is nothing more stupid in life than life itself.
There is no pain without an audience.
By the end of the day, the earth is limping around the sun.
God uses lightning bolts; the devil, axe blows. Thus the devil clears more trees.
If AIDS did not exist, if would have to be invented.
If you hate whores for being whores, and cats for being cats, then the problem is with you.
The man who can give a wife a credit card and a mistress a diamond necklace is prosperous indeed, though not necessarily happy.
He who is happy should conceal his happiness like a poker player would conceal a good hand.
For most people, wedding pictures are a reminder that one has made a terrible mistake.
If you loan money to a friend and get it back, consider it a gift.
If you tell one person a secret, you have usually told the whole world.
Children are God's eyes, because they see everything.
Perhaps the hardest lesson in life is to learn that the parent becomes the child and the child becomes the parent.
Nearly all deaths are suicides.
All generalizations are dangerous, including this one.
There is nothing more ill-placed than trust.
Don't look behind that curtain! Or you may find that the god you worship is really a devil...
Yes, Jesus had to be crucified, because who could worship a god who died by lethal injection?
Women's liberation has nothing to with liberation, but everything to do with women.
To make peace, we often have to appeal to the baser part of our enemy's nature.
Before you can love God, you must first learn to stand up to him.
In the end, only work gives us lasting satisfaction. All other pleasures are fleeting.
Saturday, February 3, 2007
Chapter 3
What country is more like a child playing in the traffic than Canada? Yes: "God, keep our land..."
Behind every great man is a little woman, but usually not for long.
Children might be cannibals, if they could only conceive of eating each other. Something every teacher understands.
The cynic is usually a naïf who only thinks he has seen it all, unless he has been to Rio for Carnival.
In the end, most of the Old Testament prophets were old men who forgot that they were young once.
With Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy notable exceptions, successful politicians are rarely accomplished writers. Even rarer is the politician who is a great thinker.
Memory is like the jaws of a dog: it clenches its teeth very tightly.
The miracle isn't that so many marriage fail; it's that any succeed at all.
The most successful politician is the one who can steal part of his opponents' program and demolish the opposition for a generation. Otto von Bismark, who introduced old-age pensions in Germany.
He who gives a woman a wedding ring has paid a prostitute. He who gives a man twenty goats for his daughter's hand has paid a pimp.
In general, men want their freedom while women want security. But again, I generalize...
The wife resents the streetwalker for the same reason that the North American autoworker resents his or her counterpart in China: you can't compete with those who will work for slave wages.
"Survival of the fittest" is only seductive for those who can keep up a rigorous training regimen. After a few twisted ankles and twisted knees, one almost becomes a Christian.
Who can verbally face his mortality without sounding morbid to the people around him?
Where philosophy and religion part, if only briefly: the believer seeks tried and true answers; the philosopher, new questions. But in the end, the philosopher usually only comes up with a new way of asking and answering the same old questions.
Behind every great man is a little woman, but usually not for long.
Children might be cannibals, if they could only conceive of eating each other. Something every teacher understands.
The cynic is usually a naïf who only thinks he has seen it all, unless he has been to Rio for Carnival.
In the end, most of the Old Testament prophets were old men who forgot that they were young once.
With Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy notable exceptions, successful politicians are rarely accomplished writers. Even rarer is the politician who is a great thinker.
Memory is like the jaws of a dog: it clenches its teeth very tightly.
The miracle isn't that so many marriage fail; it's that any succeed at all.
The most successful politician is the one who can steal part of his opponents' program and demolish the opposition for a generation. Otto von Bismark, who introduced old-age pensions in Germany.
He who gives a woman a wedding ring has paid a prostitute. He who gives a man twenty goats for his daughter's hand has paid a pimp.
In general, men want their freedom while women want security. But again, I generalize...
The wife resents the streetwalker for the same reason that the North American autoworker resents his or her counterpart in China: you can't compete with those who will work for slave wages.
"Survival of the fittest" is only seductive for those who can keep up a rigorous training regimen. After a few twisted ankles and twisted knees, one almost becomes a Christian.
Who can verbally face his mortality without sounding morbid to the people around him?
Where philosophy and religion part, if only briefly: the believer seeks tried and true answers; the philosopher, new questions. But in the end, the philosopher usually only comes up with a new way of asking and answering the same old questions.
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