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Your comments - Live

Peter van Dyk | 18:05 UK time, Monday, 1 May 2006

Today we're talking about South Africa, where Archbishop Desmond Tutu said white South Africans sould be grateful for the generosity black people in the country have shown you since the end of apartheid, and the immigration protests in the United States.

We spoke to Ahmed Motala, a South African human rights lawyer and Executive Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, and David Steward, the executive director of the FW de Klerk Foundation.

They disagreed over the willingness of apartheid-era politicians to face the Truth and Reconcilliation Commission. And many other things, including land redistribution.

Mr Steward said South Africa needed to do something about education and unemployment to combat poverty. Mr Motala argued that the distribution of land was more important.

This email came in from Chinedu:
"I’d like to comment on Old Wounds Re-opens in South Africa via New wounds Opens in Nigeria. Why does the world like staring and waiting for something really terrible to happen before IT starts doing something. It happened in South Africa when dozens of people were forced to live like mere animals just to satisfy someone’s stupid ego. Now it is Nigeria being made to feel like slaves in their own country because someone feels HE is a STOREHOUSE of wisdom. He’s not even doing it quietly; he’s simply shooting down the country just to satisfy his feeling of godlikeness.
The world is staring once more like IT did in South Africa years back!"

"The problem with blaming whites for the problem of black south africans is that they are still blaming. Spending all of your time blaming people for your problems is a sure way to never accomplish anything."
Jason - Wisconsin

And we've had this email from Brad in Detroit:
Thousands of immigrants are protesting in the park next to my apartment. This is the main Latino neighborhood in Detroit and support for what has been called "The New Civil Rights Movement" is visable everywhere. This movement has learned lesson from the labor movement and from the African-American Civil Rights movement. This has been a long time coming, just as the previous civil rights movement was a long time coming.
Immigrant workers are a sleeping giant in the US, and that giant is begining to wake. I can here them chant from here:
Si Se Puede! ("Yes, We Can")

Brad came on the programme to describe the rally. He said the speakers on the podium focused on the role the immigrants played in the economy and echoed the civil rights campaigns of the 1960s. We also spoke to Arturo Vargas, the Executive Director National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Leaders, and Aaron Scott of radio host for WZST in West Virginia, who told us what callers to his programme had been saying.

Another email, from Scot in northern California:
"I live in a community that is still mostly agricultural, albeit wine has taken over for chickens. From my office window I can see the 7-11 parking lot which in this community is where illegal mexican laborers gather to wait for work. These are the fellows who live 12 in a room and need every penny they can get just to eat. Today, they are getting a lot of work. Whoever organized the boycott apparently forgot to tell them not to eat today."

"Our economy depends on these workers, period, they need to be given the chance to become legal and legitimate, this would help tremendously. These wonderful people do the jobs that most so called Americans refuse and do not complain, they are happy just to keep busy and be a contributor to the society. We are all immagrants in this country and need to open our minds to this fact."
Dean, Santa Rosa, California, USA

"I find it interesting that Americans feel they are able to weigh in on the 'process' of becoming an immigrant when none of them have had to go through it themselves!?!"
Garth, Los Angeles, CA

"When you have a flood in your home you cannot clean up the mess until you turn off the tap. The whole debate about reform, meaning legalization of illegals, is premature until the border with Mexico is closed. Having been there, it is clear to me that this means a fence or wall and vastly increased manpower to patrol it. Failure to do this means that America will continue to import Mexican poverty and create an ever ballooning underclass whose leaders preach take over by Mexicans not integration."
Peter, Carmel, California

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