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Archiver > SOUTH-AFRICA > 2001-12 > 1007336293


From: Andrew Rodger <>
Subject: Re: South African Family Research
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2001 09:38:13 +1000
References: <OF5A3996A7.E51C8216-ON42256B14.0025BFFF@joburg.org.za><l03130300b82e66b5c517@[202.161.98.200]>
In-Reply-To: <011001c17af1$e90f8520$91c3fea9@oemcomputer>


Dear, dear!

No insult intended, I was merely using the terminology of those
perpetrating the horror. The whole irony of the thing rests precisely in
the fact that FROM THEIR OSTENSIBLE POINT OF VIEW the background of a very
large proportion of those they were classifying was "suspect". (Exactly
the same sort of thing happened in regard to Jews in Nazi Germany.) But
please don't attribute the same attitudes to me. I couldn't care less
whether anybody is black, white or brindled -- or intact or "snipped" -- so
long as that person is human and behaves accordingly. Indeed, my wife and
many other people I know are of similar background, and I think none the
less of them for that. About myself, I'm not sure -- but if there is any
ancestry of that sort in me, it does not worry me in the least. My other
three grandparents being all Scottish-born, if there is, it would be on the
HAARHOFF side (my maternal grandmother, who was of an old Graaff-Reinet
family). An article on this family in Familia some time ago was
interesting: it ascribed the existence of "brown" Haarhoffs tentatively to
the possibility that the volkies on farms may have tended to take the names
of the landowners. I chuckled when I read that -- wishful thinking? I
noted that the article was not signed, but I think I know who the author
was (and am not saying).

Andrew

>----- Original Message -----
>From: Andrew Rodger
>Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2001 1:05 PM
>Subject: Re: South African Family Research
>snip
>
>| Looking back at that time, I can only wonder at the callousness of a
>| Government, consisting predominantly of people whose own racial background
>| was decidedly suspect,
>
>snip
>
>Andrew,
>care to explain what a decidedly suspect racial background is? Or perhaps
>identify by example what races are suspect?
>
>As one of many members of this list whose racial background, if I understand
>you correctly, is decidedly suspect - I find your language personally
>insulting.
>
>Regards.
>Delia Robertson.
>
>
>
>
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Andrew Rodger ---


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