From: shaze@cs.ubc.ca (Scott Hazelhurst)
Subject: Re: Figures on Violence - Controversy Grows
Organization: Computer Science, University of B.C., Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 92 16:35:14 GMT

gavan@elc.mth.uct.ac.za (Gavan Tredoux) writes:
> shaze@cs.ubc.ca (Scott Hazelhurst) writes:
>> : Here goes Gavan again trying to palm off the Transvaal Branch
>> : of the Inkatha Institute (for some reason they have the initials
>> : SAIRR) as the *objective*, *neutral* research body. The fact that
>> : you like them (i.e. they agree with you) doesn't make the SAIRR
>> : any better than the HRC. I am quite happy to accept that the HRC
>> : is biased in favour of the ANC, but it is clear to me that SAIRR
>> : has similar, if not more pronounced, bias in favour of other groups.
>> 
>> What is or is not clear to *you* Scott is of little interest. As far
>> as bias and shoddy research are concerned, the SAIRR have analysis
>> and figures to back them up. If you have *any* evidence of pro-Inkatha
>> bias why don't you post it for us? Ahem, I've asked you for this before
>> but you didn't post it then either. Telling. Perhaps you might regale us
>> with *your* reading of SAIRR figures on violence? Oops, does that denote?

and then in a later article Gavan continues like this accusing me
of criticisn the report which I did not do. What I did criticise
was Gavan trying to palm off the SAIRR as *objective* and *neutral*
which it is not. That the SAIRR has bias does not  invalidate the
research that  they have done (and the same   goes for the HRC).

In fact, I have replied to the question of the SAIRR's bias. 
Unfortunately (or  fortunately)  I don't have the whole wad
of SAIRR stuff with me to go through and analyse, but let's start
at the top.

John  Kane-Berman's involvement as deputy chair of the Kwa Zulu/
Natal  indaba hopelessly comprimised him as a "neutral"  person.
Whatever the merits of the exercise (and being partisan doesn't
mean that it is necessarily bad), this was an extremely partisan
exercise (which IMHO was  bad,  an attempt by a certain individual
to carve out a very large fiefdom and a short-sighted to venture
by businesspeople who thought they could hang on its tails.
Having been part of the indaba and tried to sell it so vigorously,
and having been attacked  so bitterly by the UDF and the ANC,
it is not surprising that he  displays anti-ANC feelings (which
are of course his democratic  right). Please note that I am not
attacking him for his beliefs here (I'll leave that for another
time), I am attacking the deification of the SAIRR and John Kane-Berman.
And whatever  his beliefs, having been involved in such a prominent
postion in such a partisan exercise, he (or rather you, I don't
know what he expects) cannot  expect the public to suddenly see
him as all-wise and neutral.

Nothing that K-B has done since then has changed my views - from
the SAIRR newsletters I have read to the interviews on SABCTV
I have seen, to his many  public statements.  

The arguments and "analysis and figures" [which again are not
mystical objective things, they are as prone to poltical bias
as slogans] which are put forward  by  the SAIRR must be tested 
on their own merits (not because some mystical status of the SAIRR).

Final shot: if my views are of so little interest, why do you spend
two articles ripping them apart.


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