Friday, March 29, 2024

Dr Guy Scott has been vindicated about his remarks on South Africa

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Dr Scott addressing faculty and postgraduate students

“ONCE CONDEMNED FOR THE ‘SOUTH AFRICANS ARE BACKWARDS’ REMARK, DR GUY SCOTT HAS BEEN VINDICATED 6 YEARS DOWN THE LINE.”

By Prince Ndoyi

#FLASHBACK
6 years ago

ZAMBIAN VICE PRESIDENT: ‘SOUTH AFRICANS ARE BACKWARDS, I HATE SOUTH AFRICANS.’

Zambia’s Vice-President Dr Guy Scott doesn’t like South Africa or South Africans. In an otherwise hilarious interview with the Guardian, Scott flouted the rules of diplomacy to launch a full-fronted assault in foreign policy, on South Africa’s President Zuma and their general disposition (arrogant and overbearing, apparently).

In an astonishingly frank and frequently hilarious interview with the Guardian’s David Smith (worth reading in full), Scott dispensed with all diplomatic niceties to offer his opinion on Robert Mugabe, gay rights, his government’s human rights record and – most interestingly for us – South Africa and South Africans.

“The South Africans are very backward in terms of historical development,” he told Smith. “I hate South Africans. That’s not a fair thing to say because I like a lot of South Africans but they really think they’re the bees’ knees and actually they’ve been the cause of so much trouble in this part of the world…I have a suspicion the blacks model themselves on the whites now that they’re in power. ‘Don’t you know who we are, man?’”

He continued in this vein: “I dislike South Africa for the same reason that Latin Americans dislike the United States, I think. It’s just too big and too unsubtle.”

But Scott’s was not yet finished with his South Africa-bashing, going on to question the holy grail of South African foreign policy: our BRICS membership. “They think in Brics that the ‘s’ actually stands for South Africa whereas it stands for Africa. Nobody would want to go in for a partnership with Brazil, China, India and South Africa for Christ’s sake.”

Scott’s final attack was even more personal, and won’t make him any friends in the Union Building. He compared President Jacob Zuma to another South African president – and no, it wasn’t Mandela.

“He’s very like De Klerk,” Scott said. “He tells us, ‘You just leave Zimbabwe to me.’ Excuse me, who the hell liberated you anyway, was it not us? I mean, I quite like him, he seems a rather genial character but I pity him his advisers.”

DR GUY SCOTT HAS BEEN VINDICATED WITH THESE REMARKS 6 YEARS DOWN THE LINE.

I say so because Scott’s most telling point is his position on who liberated South Africa. A number of factors went into the dismantling of the apartheid state in 1994, and a major one was the support of other African states for the anti-apartheid movement. Zambia, in particular, played a hugely significant role, hosting the ANC’s head office-in-exile where, for a time, a certain Jacob Zuma found a home.

For this, South Africa owes Zambia a debt of gratitude, but it’s a debt that Dr. Scott clearly felt has not been paid and what manner of showing gratitude and paying back the Zambian people and the rest of Africa. This should have been the underlying cause of his resentment, with these spates of Xenophobic attacks on fellow Africans, I can only conclude that Dr. Guy was a guy enough to call a spade a spade. This brash behavior only makes things worse.

27 COMMENTS

    • To a certain extent he is right on the pomposity exhibited by many Black South Africans but then again as a Zambian you don’t need a Visa to travel to SA, whereas your friends from Zimbabwe and most of African countries do why is that? It’s because the SA govt recognise the sacfrice we as Zambians made towards their liberation.

      We need to show not just SA but the world that we too in Zambia can develop advanced infrastructure and we can push our people out of poverty. What we need is a leadership that is ready to sacrifice it’s own welfare for the sake of its people, where we will find this leadership is my prayer because non of the current opposition are leaders who are willing to remove all luxury SUVs, high perks, wasteful expenditure from govt, t
      o be TRUELLY selfless and get…

    • Ctn…to be TRUELLY selfless and get back to the grass roots. When we have this type of leadership we will achieve the highest levels and make Zambia a true African success story built by Africans and not whites in Africa as SA is.

  1. Improve the governance of your countries, Africa. Attract your naval nationals back so that going to South Africa will be a leisurely choice and not a matter of survival. Mwaba shani kanshi? Meantime, SA you have asked for it – it’s coming. Zimbabwe will look like a Sunday morning picnic. Namuuzyani. You will remember this.

  2. Guy Scott was overly clever but some of his choices were wrong. I still don’t understand what he saw in Miles Bwalya Sampa. Despite being a quantum physicist he elected to be a disciple of a Standard 4 from Chitulika. Finally he took his wife to the Freemason Party

    • Scott studied Economics not Physics but his intellectual capacity waa dubious judging by the company he kept and exposition of issues.
      Black South Africans are not backward. They have a lot of criminally minded people because of the abuse of apartheid

  3. I can’t imagine the development Zambia would have been had Guy Scott been allowed to rightly so rule and continue to fix Zambia. Now look what your shallow racism did to beautiful Zambia. Westerners would have poured investments into Zambia knowing that a trusted yet stable leadership was in control. To all you shallow minded cadres, Guy Scott is Zambian, his father fought for Zambia independence and it doesn’t get any Zambian than that, but as dull as most of you PF morons are, you took away Zambia’ chances of progressing in favor of a clueless corrupt moron like Lungu. I hope most of those suffering are those that voted for that lazy corrupt Moron that is always flying around the world doing nothing but screwing up an already broke country like Zambia.

    • @4 Nsimanadelele,Yes Guy Scott could have certainly been better President than Lungu.He couldn’t become President NOT because of PF zealots BUT bcoz the constitution did not allow him!! He was also a divisive and carefree talker-leadership characteristics we don’t need for Zambia

  4. Guy Scott was not very steady.He was unpredictable and that’s why SATA kept him like ceremonial vice
    President. He never trusted him with his heart.He was like a pendulum as he could be swayed
    Anyway.He could not read the people’s mind and that’s why was
    Forced to give up his office.

  5. Some comments above are disgusting, the article is about what Guy Scott thought about South Africans but here people are busy discussing his personality! Why can’t you discuss

    Hi
    the topic at hand eeeh? Meanwhile ignorant South Africans think they can exist without other countries, I pity them. If other countries retaliate and decide to close borders their economy will crumble instantly but this they can not decipher because most of them are illitrates.

    • A lie. SA companies in Zambia are the biggest tax payers. Yes! Zambia’s economy can collapse is all SA companies leave Zambia. SA economy is diverse and we started operations in Zambia only just after 1994. Most SA markets are in US, UK, China, India and Europe

  6. Most of us don’t know or never keep to the subject at hand. We like talking about something else not in the subject at hand

  7. Unza students are backwards and hardcore morons. 99% of employees of these south African shops are manned by Zambians. Attacking and looting these institutions is simply removing food on the tables of many Zambians. Turning away trucks bringing in mining equipment and other equipment was unjustified and foolish to say the least.

  8. Only people with a backward mind would kill another, a shame to all the bitter South Africans. Apartheid was the best thing whites did to you, wish no one cared about your suffering back in the days, days are numbered your ends will be worse off. God is watching

  9. These South Africans never cease to amaze me, they are complaining that foreigners have dominated businesses in their country but how did they allow so many foreign nationals to enter their country in the first place. Nigeria is very far from South Africa and how did the Nigerians find themselves in South Africa in large numbers only to be noticed now that they have taken over businesses? My own conclusion is that South Africans are very sleepy with useless leaders whose preoccupation is corruption. @ Mbangi if countries who use South African ports decide not to use the South african route and use other ports in neighbouring countries don’t you think the South African economy will slump? Revenue and employment levels will definitely dwindle as a result the economy will slow down but…

  10. I Urge all AFRICANS to be UNITED United we stand and divided we FALL. The enemy here is NOT South Africa but SATAN who is at work in most people who don’t have Christ Jesus living in them. Africans need one another through TRADE by the BORDERS.Imagine a scenario of all African countries closing borders against one another and no more imports and Exports from each others countries.Each African Country is important on this African Continent.Each country is special in it’s own way that God blessed it.As the saying goes, “NO MAN IS AN ISLAND.”

    UNITED WE STAND AND DIVIDED WE FALL AS A CONTINENT. XENOPHOBIA IN AFRICA WE REJECT YOU IN JESUS NAME. LET LOVE LEAD. AFRICAN CONTINENT IS DESTINED FOR GREATNESS.

  11. The South African govt should find a robust approach to xenophobia.Most of the South African citizens who are killing and looting have never seen the inside of a classroom. They are children and grand children of freedom fighters who think that to be independent is to leisure around while the govt has to provide everything for free. The govt should come up with an education programme of helping illiterate South Africans who think are beyond learning stage to help them improve their thinking capacity.
    From the on going events, it is very clear to see that their thinking capacity is very limited. These are the guys who can even claim that Medical Doctors are getting their jobs and yet they cant even tell how the letter A looks like. This is the problem of the mind.

  12. CID oh my foot! You’s nothing but a brainless imbecile.by doing away with Guy Scott you guys lost out a lot. Scott was the right man for the job. He’s smart and intelligent. 2020Division getchyo facts straight. You so 90s. Zimbabweans don’t need visa to travel to South Africa.
    Zambia can survive without South Africa. People forget easily before 1994 mighty Zambia was doing business somewhere else. Zambia does not depend on South Africa and Zambia is not a major trading partner with RSA. Zambia stands nothing to lose.

  13. For sure Satan is leaving in South Africa rght now and blinded the minds of many South Africans and more so, the leaders. What is needed for those that pray is to seriously pray for them to wake up and see the damage they are doing to themselves. The history of liberating South Africa has been forgoten and also the recent happenings in neighbouring Zimbabwe have been forgotten. If xenophobia continues, South Africa will cry louder than Zimbabwe.

  14. Guy Scott for president and most would vote for him over ECL. I would vote him in office if it was not for the stupid law that chiluba put to stop kk from standing again

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