A Thorn In the Side Of Apartheid (First paragraph should sound familiar)

[Are_grits_groceries]

Helen Suzman Spoke Out For Those Without a Voice

Sometimes courage means standing alone. In 1963, when South Africa was in the process of becoming a police state, the white-ruled government proposed a law giving the authorities the power to detain for 90 days anyone deemed a threat to the state, without charge or access to a lawyer. Coming after a series of sabotage attacks by anti-government activists, the bill had the full support of every member of Parliament but one.

Helen Suzman, who died yesterday at age 91, was the only representative of the Progressive Party in the 165-member chamber. She could have kept quiet, but instead she told her fellow lawmakers it was a bitter irony that in the name of anti-communism the country was adopting draconian laws "which are undistinguishable from the measures taken in totalitarian or communist countries."

The white men opposite her howled abuse and anti-Semitic slurs. "Go to Ghana!" shouted one. Suzman not only held her ground but demanded a division of the House. One hundred sixty-four white men in suits rose to stand on one side of the chamber; Suzman stood in solitary defiance on the other, a lone woman in a sea of empty green benches.


With Winnie Mandela in Soweto. "You might try going to Soweto yourself one day," she told a critic. "But disguise yourself -- go as a human being."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/01/AR2009010101986.html?hpid=moreheadlines

God, I wish there had been ONE person who had dropped the "nicities" and lambasted the Bush administration over their abuse of the Constitution. And I mean lambasted!! Suzman was alone, but she didn't mince words.

Suzman wasn't perfect, but she didn't kowtow to some of the ugliest thugs on the planet. PW Botha could make some of our Rethugs look almost charming. Yet, our leaders just wring their hands and watch Bush and Cheney waltz away. They let them dance for 8 years. They better stomp all over McConnell and his regressive gang!

[malaise]

1. Suzman was alone in Parliament but there were

others - black and white. I don't think you're fair re lambasting the Bush administration.
Many spoke out early but rarely received media coverage.

[Are_grits_groceries]

2. True! I'm just frustrated.

I am being unfair in stating that nobody spoke out.I think some with a bully pulpit didn't. There are
some the media can't quite ignore.
And Suzman had the Black Sash and brave blacks who did defy the government outside of Parliament.
Thanks for pointing out my hyperbole.

[tabatha]

3. It is funny that the US which was supposed to be so advanced

followed after the SA right-wingers - with almost the same attitudes.

I think it is a brain wiring thing.

When I heard some of the right-wingers here talking, I was sometimes surprised they were not talking Afrikaans.