South Africa is in an intense battle to save the Country from African socialism.
The letter repeated here was written by a South African "pop star" (Steve Hofmeyer) to Julius Malema (ANC youth league president) and pretty pretty much sums it up.
Malema is in court defending the right to sing the "struggle" song "Kill the Boer kill the farmer".
He is singing it in court with his comrades (armed to the teeth) ignoring all court rulings.
Steve Hofmeyer to Julius Malema
To: Julius Malema
Afrikaners/Whites are suffering from confession fatigue. Even their children are now paying for the "sins of their forefathers". They have had to admit to past injustices and are now made to apologise for any prevailing failures. They are secondhand citizens made to pay firsthand taxes. Blaming them is a relief valve for black leadership who has demonstrated zero accountability, confusing self-enrichment with achievement. Hate speech songs ("Kill the Boer") as sung by ANC leadership are met with quiet insolence and even pride. Our government is now defending(with taxpayers money!) the right of that chant in court. Peter ("One Boer One Bullet") Mokaba has a FIFA World Cup Soccer stadium named after him. All this while we sport the the most brutal murder-rate in the world, second only to Columbia. Once again, blameless Afrocentric arrogance abounds while we are asked to tolerate pathetic matric exam results and understand perpetrators' rights. Although South Africans have incompatible memories, collectively we are all heirs of extremely aggravating circumstances. The defeatist victim mentality perpetuates condescendence and alas, inequality. We could have taught the world something. We have not.
It's time...
1. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that Struggle math doesn't tally.
Mitigating and aggravating factors can't be quantified. Denialism and/or Black Empowerment here is hypocrisy and vulgar opportunism.
2. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that the gravest acts of genocide did not occur during Colonialism/Apartheid, but before and after (read today). Right now South Africa has a lower life expectancy than Uganda.
3. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that, unlike Native Americans and Australian Aboriginal genocide, first-nation populations in South Africa escalated under British/Afrikaner rule from 10-30 million in a few decades.
Verwoerd was building African schools with Afrikaner money at the time Aussies could obtain fauna licenses to hunt fellow Australians.
4. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that the only real genocide in South Africa was the Koi annihilation by his ancestors and what Shaka and Dingaan did to their own people. Today, once more, South Africans are wiping fellow citizens off the face of the earth.
5. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that South Africans have lost more lives in the first four years of ANC rule than during the entire four decades of Nationalist rule. This statistic should be staggering by now, almost 18 years later.
6. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that more Boer children died in the Anglo Boer War than South Africans in the entire century of the Struggle.
Fact: twenty times more. Let's talk entitlement.
7. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that discontented South Africans of European descent do not burn down schools, drop their pants, capsize dustbins, plunder and intimidate hospital workers during marches and strikes. We certainly do our share of bad things, but we do not sing while babies die in maternity wards.
8. It is time for Julius Malema to see the folly of transformation from Western democracies to Africa-socialism, placing need over achievement.
Everybody is poorer and unemployment rife. There is nothing "just" about economic equality when it implies market tampering.
9. It is time for Julius Malema (and Robert Mugabe) to admit to the futility of still blaming this on previous regimes. That redemption tool is now exhausted and merely perpetuates condescension and promotes professional suffering.
10. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that the demonized Afrikaner was also the rightful owner of land they had acquired after a brutal war they had lost, at enormous human cost. Trivialising a blood sacrifice is insensitive and dangerous. Don't question Afrikaner reluctance to assimilate before you get this.
11. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that Verwoerd entrusted Malema's tax-exempt great-grandfathers with gratis homeland larger than achiever-countries like Denmark, Norway and Switzerland, and still came up with nothing to show for it. Many Afrikaners found Verwoerd way too liberal with their tax money.
12. It is time for Julius Malema to admit to his actual Western appetite combined with Africans' neurotic leap from mother tongue education to English, a treason which may still erase the little literature and heritage they had bothered to record.
13. It is time for Julius Malema to admit he can only favour place name changes in envy, as not one single Western city, town or street was stolen from anybody on this continent. A child can solve land claims.
14. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that almost all former fruitful farmland dispossessed in land claims, have suffered the same fate - brutal sterilization.
15. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that more Afrikaner farmers are slaughtered annually than South Africans who died during the Sharpeville violence, a figure that dwarfs Ireland's national mortality rate (FYI, Bono).
16. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that the new South Africa has contributed nothing to the world stage but shame and catch-up. This explains the following patronizing and affirmative therapy organizations:
Black African Cricket Forum, Black Broker Service Network (BBSN), Black Brokers Forum (BBF), Black Business Council, Black Business Forum, Black Business Woman Association (BBWA) , Black Editors' Forum, Black Filmmakers Network (BFN), is a network of over 200 individuals and 25 companies nationally, Black IT Forum (BITF), Black Law Students' Forum, Black Lawyers Association, Black Leadership Forum, Black Management Forum, Black South African Students' Organization (SASO), FEW - black lesbian organization in South Africa, Forum of Black Journalists, National Black Contractors and Allied Trades Forum (Nabcat), National Forum for Black Public Administrators (NFBPA), National Society of Black Engineers, etc.
17. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that the voters of the previous regime really voted the ANC into power and that they rule by the grace of a benevolent yes- vote in a referendum in 1992. He was pre-teen then. Everyday he parades his hypocrisy that yes-vote lives in regret.
18. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that the killers and rapists in his songs are NOT an Afrikaner statistic. Examples abound 1,2,3. The greatest butchers of South Africans, by far, were his own ancestors (Dingaan en Shaka). Today 3500 plus Afrikaner farmers are no longer with us.
This vile statistic of ethnic cleansing accumulates daily and is generally ignored.
19. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that poverty will prevail for as long as they keep in power a government defined by nepotism, judiciary containment, golden handshakes, silent diplomacy, BEE charters, unprecedented unemployment, unethical grants, land grabs, tenderpreneurs and futile dreams of nationalization.
20. It's time for Julius Malema to admit that the book on tender procedures has been rewritten by ANC cronies, comrades and families. By October 2010 the amount of R26 billion of that had been investigated as fraudulent (The Star , 28 October 2010). By April 2011 the national press editorialized corruption as epidemic.
21. It is time for Julius Malema and other instant millionaires to admit that one may only keep what one earns. This is capitalism. Fallible but unchallenged. Possessing what you did not earn is common theft in any language. "Deserving" politicians, nationalization, landgrab etc. translate to Afrikaans as theft, theft and theft.
22. It is time for Julius Malema to admit culpability in keeping leaders in power who are dragging this fine nation to the bottom of international management, development and mortality indexes. The latter is the measure of civilization while we sport a lower life expectancy than Uganda.
The 2010 Global Competiveness Report by the World Economic Forum rated the new, fair and Democratic South Africa such:
* Quality of the education system - 130th out of 139
* Quality of primary education - 125th out of 139
* Quality of math and science education - 137th out of 139
* HIV prevalence - 136th out of 139
* Life expectancy - 127th out of 139
* Infant mortality - 109th out of 139
* Tuberculosis incidence - 138th out of 139
* Business impact of HIV/AIDS - 138th out of 139
23. It is time for Julius to explain to other Africans that circumcision and muti rituals are pre-civilization quackery, that AIDS is not cured by raping virgins and that sangomas will always be inferior to the Western tradition of health awareness as a science and a discipline.
24. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that African folk are still dependent on what South African governments force other South Africans to do for them. Blunt patronization.
25. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that he has run out of reasons and time to blame the previous regime and to sever the defeating umbilical chord of Afrodebt. Ironically, the only two former colonized states which became global achievers (India and China), did exactly that.
26. It's time for Malema to understand that the settler lineage will never fall for the Struggle propaganda that their contribution and sacrifices were insignificant. You cannot suppress their heritage by stealing the names of world class towns, cities and well established infrastructure; you can defile it by not sustaining that incredible progress.
27. It's time for Julius Malema to show gratitude for a tribe who sacrificed almost 40 000 of its own population to rightfully own a country Africans acquired by virtue of outnumbering them and then agitating for a democracy.
28. It is time for Malema to admit that one man's liberty was always another man's devastation and that the e entitlement tug-a-war can only be solved by immediately declaring a breakeven point. Stop BEE, AA, quotas, EE and affirmative therapy right now.
29. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that it is inconsequential to bemoan Western influence when everything you do is for Western style affluence and thanks to Western influence.
30. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that nobody wants to rescue Apartheid, but that redress is only possible if something legally owned was taken away. Forced removals were regrettable but almost never done without offers of compensation. Why is this fact omitted when rallying up emotions to grab land?
31. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that the oppressed during the Struggle has long since assumed and surpassed the role of the former oppressor. Collective amnesia at this point in our dour histories is dishonest and suicidal.
32. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that his ancestors of the time were not invited to the Peace Treaty of Vereeniging, because they were, despite their numbers, economically, technologically, militarily and politically insignificant. This explains decades and decades of gross minority rule.
33. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that Afrikaners would not have stood for subjugation by any minority, ever.
34. It is time for Julius Malema to read the previous point again and ask the relevant questions.
35. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that the colonised is a colonisable individual, and a very envious one at that (Fanon). The pathology of eternal debt is misguided.
36. It is time for Malema to admit that no South Africans want to return to a pre-Eurocentric African state of mind and affairs. African anti-Western defiance is populist diatribe and hypocritical banter tagged with a huge dollar sign.
37. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that Africa is the orphan continent thanks to many that went before him, fat-cat despots who sounded exactly like him.
38. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that not one single leader, minister or mayor has been voted in legally or democratically. More than half of South Africans still don't vote. The politically inept and unqualified surface and after being discredited, resurface elsewhere under the banner of ANC propriety.
39. It is time for Julius Malema to admit that South Africa produces almost 25% of this continent's GDP . SA qualifies to host world cup events on this continent. Not bad for the land that surrendered colonial rule stone last.
40. It is time for Julius Malema to see that it is pathetic to use old buildings, highways, systems and infrastructure but pretend to be demoralized by the sight old flags.
41. It is time for Julius Malema to admit to the sometimes mutual incompatibility between hatespeech and traditional songs, the way Afrikaners had to sacrifice traditional terms like "kaffer". He can not have his cake and eat it. If some can chant "kill the Boer", others will gladly reciprocate by revoking the vocable.
42. It is time for Julius Malema to see that most South Africans do not want the old South Africa back. We all opt for an accountable government of any colour or tribe. What we do not want is an Interpol boss serving time for corruption and the spouse of our Minister of Security as a convicted drug smuggler. We demand safety and a future for our children.
Now, Julius, go tally your populist and unfounded anti-western sentiments.
You are keeping my South African compatriots victims in this sad old race to upstage Europeans. Ironically your efforts are still subsidized by white money. This you use gladly and squander greatly. We are not immigrating. We shall secure a future for our children in our motherland. This ship will be turned around by sober thinking South Africans, and I want to be there.
Steve Hofmeyr
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Monday, May 02, 2011
2011 already and where will it all go?
It has been some time since I posted an entry to my Blog. I have neglected it as I have not really known what to say in it for some time now.
2010 was an incredibly challenging year with much change on the career front for me. Towards the end of the year things started to straighten out and 2011 looked like being a much better year than the last couple. However, there is only so much time in a day, week and month to get round to all the commitments that I have made and that takes some managing.
I wonder whether the beneficiaries of the hard work have a single clue as to how hard I do actually work to put food on the table? Work, agonize and fight for everything that I can get for their benefit. I often wonder this and suppose that I will never know as it would be churlish to expect any kind of gratitude or even a thank you. As I said, no doubt churlish to expect anything in return.
The last 2 years have been spent against a backdrop of watching a mother fight for the ability to see her sons. A mother who loves her children as deeply and passionately as any other normal mother would. A mother who left a husband after years of unhappiness and who has been punished ever since.
I wonder when the healing can start properly for the sons and the mother? No one in their right mind would ever believe that this mother would ever be able to harm anyone, whether deliberately, directly or indirectly.
The sooner that the process that this mother is currently in, evolves and matures, the better. Boys need their mothers and mothers need their boys. Time will show that and I sincerely hope that this mother and her boys will heal fully in time.
And yes, for those of you that may read this and start to get on your high horses, get over it – it is 2011 – divorces happen for all sorts of reasons, but usually because the love is dead and in some way or another there has been a betrayal. Simple, resonating stuff.
Our measure of being successful parents has NOTHING to do with being able to stay in the parental relationship or not.
Enough of that. I am a successful father and that is how I measure myself EVERY single day. Have I today done what I need to do to ensure the best possible future for my children? Well YES, I have.
Do I wish I could see my children more? YES I do.
Just as I wish it for the mother of two sons who should be able to see each other more.
Will this be rectified? Yes it will be on all counts. Mother and sons will for 100% sure see more of each other, they will re-establish and then grow together and I will be an ecstatic witness to that; a witness to love triumphing over everything else in its path as it always will.
2010 was an incredibly challenging year with much change on the career front for me. Towards the end of the year things started to straighten out and 2011 looked like being a much better year than the last couple. However, there is only so much time in a day, week and month to get round to all the commitments that I have made and that takes some managing.
I wonder whether the beneficiaries of the hard work have a single clue as to how hard I do actually work to put food on the table? Work, agonize and fight for everything that I can get for their benefit. I often wonder this and suppose that I will never know as it would be churlish to expect any kind of gratitude or even a thank you. As I said, no doubt churlish to expect anything in return.
The last 2 years have been spent against a backdrop of watching a mother fight for the ability to see her sons. A mother who loves her children as deeply and passionately as any other normal mother would. A mother who left a husband after years of unhappiness and who has been punished ever since.
I wonder when the healing can start properly for the sons and the mother? No one in their right mind would ever believe that this mother would ever be able to harm anyone, whether deliberately, directly or indirectly.
The sooner that the process that this mother is currently in, evolves and matures, the better. Boys need their mothers and mothers need their boys. Time will show that and I sincerely hope that this mother and her boys will heal fully in time.
And yes, for those of you that may read this and start to get on your high horses, get over it – it is 2011 – divorces happen for all sorts of reasons, but usually because the love is dead and in some way or another there has been a betrayal. Simple, resonating stuff.
Our measure of being successful parents has NOTHING to do with being able to stay in the parental relationship or not.
Enough of that. I am a successful father and that is how I measure myself EVERY single day. Have I today done what I need to do to ensure the best possible future for my children? Well YES, I have.
Do I wish I could see my children more? YES I do.
Just as I wish it for the mother of two sons who should be able to see each other more.
Will this be rectified? Yes it will be on all counts. Mother and sons will for 100% sure see more of each other, they will re-establish and then grow together and I will be an ecstatic witness to that; a witness to love triumphing over everything else in its path as it always will.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
South Africa's foreign policy: Human Rights? What's that?
Nelson Mandela’s successors have other fish to fry abroad
Oct 14th 2010 | Johannesburg
Jacob Zuma eyes China.THE first time it served as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, in 2007-08, South Africa did much to squander its reputation as a beacon of human rights. It repeatedly sided with Russia and China, both former backers of the now ruling African National Congress (ANC) in its struggle against apartheid, to block Western-backed resolutions condemning miscreants such as Myanmar, Iran and Zimbabwe. After its election this week to a second two-year term on the Security Council, South Africa has a chance, under a new president, to do better. But will it?
When Jacob Zuma came to power 17 months ago, he was widely expected to concentrate more on domestic matters than his philosophising, globe-trotting predecessor, Thabo Mbeki. Foreign policy barely featured in Mr Zuma’s election campaign. Yet if anything Mr Zuma has been even more active than Mr Mbeki on the foreign front, chalking up two dozen trips abroad in the past 12 months, including visits to all the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China), the giants of the emerging world, as well as to Britain, France, the United States and a slew of African countries.
Mr Zuma says his foreign-policy priorities are the same as those of previous ANC governments: to boost African solidarity and unity; to strengthen ties between countries in the southern hemisphere; to keep good relations with strategic trading partners in the West; to reform the UN and Bretton Woods institutions to give the poor world a stronger voice; and to promote democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights. Mr Zuma sounds a bit less ideological and a bit keener to boost South Africa’s trade and commerce. He invariably has an entourage of businessmen; 370 went on his trip in August to China, South Africa’s biggest trading partner.
But has Mr Zuma honoured Nelson Mandela’s pledge that “human rights will be the light that guides our foreign affairs”, any more than Mr Mbeki did? Civil-liberties groups such as the New York-based Human Rights Watch were encouraged at first by Mr Zuma’s apparently tougher stance on Zimbabwe. He protested against Myanmar’s detention last year of the opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. He condemned the Sri Lankan government’s treatment of the Tamil Tiger rebels. He criticised Israel’s attack on a Turkish ship bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza. And he warned Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, who has been indicted for war crimes and genocide by the International Criminal Court (ICC), that South Africa, as a member of the court, would arrest him if he set foot on South African soil.
Even so, a deeper change of heart has yet to be seen. On Zimbabwe, Mr Zuma has been barely more robust than Mr Mbeki. Almost a year ago the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a 15-member regional club, appointed Mr Zuma to replace Mr Mbeki as official “facilitator” in power-sharing between Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, and its prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, who leads the former opposition; and he was supposed to have persuaded the pair to settle their differences by December 2009. Since then, deadlines have come and gone amid little progress. Mr Tsvangirai’s people continue to be beaten up and jailed, white-owned farms seized, journalists arrested and senior officials unilaterally appointed by Mr Mugabe in violation of the constitution, with neither Mr Zuma nor the SADC uttering a word. Western diplomats say that he is beavering away behind the scenes, but the results have been thin.
On Sudan, Mr Zuma’s refusal to receive Mr Bashir may at first blush seem a laudable move to bolster international justice. But Mr Zuma has made clear that he roundly disapproves of the ICC’s prosecution of Sudan’s president—or any other African leader suspected of atrocities. The imperative of peace should precede notions of justice, he argues. On the Security Council, South Africa is likely to pursue the African Union’s avowed aim to get the UN to suspend Mr Bashir’s indictment.
Indeed, Mr Zuma seems as happy to hobnob with dictators as Mr Mbeki was. Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Swaziland’s King Mswati III and Mr Mugabe all merrily attended his inauguration. On his trips abroad Mr Zuma has never brought up human rights, at least not in public. He has been characteristically silent over the Nobel peace prize just awarded to a Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo.
At home and abroad Mr Zuma is a supreme pragmatist, anxious to please everyone and offend no one. Though less viscerally anti-Western than Mr Mbeki, he sees power flowing to the east and south and hopes to catch the wave. Hence his wooing of the BRICs. Mr Zuma wants that elite club to include his own country, as Africa’s indisputable heavyweight, despite its smaller population and land mass and its slower-growing economy. Back from China, both sides aglow with friendship, he said he expected the group to reach a “favourable decision” soon. As a new member of the Security Council, where all four BRICs will now have a seat, South Africa will bend over backwards to please its potential new partners.
----
Reproduced from www.economist.com
Oct 14th 2010 | Johannesburg
Jacob Zuma eyes China.THE first time it served as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, in 2007-08, South Africa did much to squander its reputation as a beacon of human rights. It repeatedly sided with Russia and China, both former backers of the now ruling African National Congress (ANC) in its struggle against apartheid, to block Western-backed resolutions condemning miscreants such as Myanmar, Iran and Zimbabwe. After its election this week to a second two-year term on the Security Council, South Africa has a chance, under a new president, to do better. But will it?
When Jacob Zuma came to power 17 months ago, he was widely expected to concentrate more on domestic matters than his philosophising, globe-trotting predecessor, Thabo Mbeki. Foreign policy barely featured in Mr Zuma’s election campaign. Yet if anything Mr Zuma has been even more active than Mr Mbeki on the foreign front, chalking up two dozen trips abroad in the past 12 months, including visits to all the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China), the giants of the emerging world, as well as to Britain, France, the United States and a slew of African countries.
Mr Zuma says his foreign-policy priorities are the same as those of previous ANC governments: to boost African solidarity and unity; to strengthen ties between countries in the southern hemisphere; to keep good relations with strategic trading partners in the West; to reform the UN and Bretton Woods institutions to give the poor world a stronger voice; and to promote democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights. Mr Zuma sounds a bit less ideological and a bit keener to boost South Africa’s trade and commerce. He invariably has an entourage of businessmen; 370 went on his trip in August to China, South Africa’s biggest trading partner.
But has Mr Zuma honoured Nelson Mandela’s pledge that “human rights will be the light that guides our foreign affairs”, any more than Mr Mbeki did? Civil-liberties groups such as the New York-based Human Rights Watch were encouraged at first by Mr Zuma’s apparently tougher stance on Zimbabwe. He protested against Myanmar’s detention last year of the opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. He condemned the Sri Lankan government’s treatment of the Tamil Tiger rebels. He criticised Israel’s attack on a Turkish ship bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza. And he warned Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, who has been indicted for war crimes and genocide by the International Criminal Court (ICC), that South Africa, as a member of the court, would arrest him if he set foot on South African soil.
Even so, a deeper change of heart has yet to be seen. On Zimbabwe, Mr Zuma has been barely more robust than Mr Mbeki. Almost a year ago the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a 15-member regional club, appointed Mr Zuma to replace Mr Mbeki as official “facilitator” in power-sharing between Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, and its prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, who leads the former opposition; and he was supposed to have persuaded the pair to settle their differences by December 2009. Since then, deadlines have come and gone amid little progress. Mr Tsvangirai’s people continue to be beaten up and jailed, white-owned farms seized, journalists arrested and senior officials unilaterally appointed by Mr Mugabe in violation of the constitution, with neither Mr Zuma nor the SADC uttering a word. Western diplomats say that he is beavering away behind the scenes, but the results have been thin.
On Sudan, Mr Zuma’s refusal to receive Mr Bashir may at first blush seem a laudable move to bolster international justice. But Mr Zuma has made clear that he roundly disapproves of the ICC’s prosecution of Sudan’s president—or any other African leader suspected of atrocities. The imperative of peace should precede notions of justice, he argues. On the Security Council, South Africa is likely to pursue the African Union’s avowed aim to get the UN to suspend Mr Bashir’s indictment.
Indeed, Mr Zuma seems as happy to hobnob with dictators as Mr Mbeki was. Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Swaziland’s King Mswati III and Mr Mugabe all merrily attended his inauguration. On his trips abroad Mr Zuma has never brought up human rights, at least not in public. He has been characteristically silent over the Nobel peace prize just awarded to a Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo.
At home and abroad Mr Zuma is a supreme pragmatist, anxious to please everyone and offend no one. Though less viscerally anti-Western than Mr Mbeki, he sees power flowing to the east and south and hopes to catch the wave. Hence his wooing of the BRICs. Mr Zuma wants that elite club to include his own country, as Africa’s indisputable heavyweight, despite its smaller population and land mass and its slower-growing economy. Back from China, both sides aglow with friendship, he said he expected the group to reach a “favourable decision” soon. As a new member of the Security Council, where all four BRICs will now have a seat, South Africa will bend over backwards to please its potential new partners.
----
Reproduced from www.economist.com
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Darkening Rainbow
The Times: 20 August 2010
There are bleak historical resonances in South Africa’s assault on Press freedoms
In staging the World Cup, South Africa sought the world’s attention and admiration. It achieved both of these ambitions: the smoothly administrated tournament was a triumph for South Africa’ standing in the world and for its self-confidence at home.
But having asked for the world’s scrutiny, South Africa should not be allowed to hide from it now. The ANC government is planning to restrict the freedom of the Press and enhance its ability to intimidate the media. South Africa hoped that the World Cup would represent a coming of age. Just six weeks later, the optimistic mood has been overshadowed by fears that the country is regressing to the abuses of a darker era.
Raymond Louw, who once edited the country’s leading anti-apartheid newspaper, has argued that the assault on Press freedom is ‘worse than anything under apartheid. There are two main strands. The ‘Information Bill’ proposal would permit any head of a state body to declare anything of their choosing to be a government secret. Even possession of such information, let alone reporting it, could carry a punishment of up to 25 years. In addition, the Government plans a new media tribunal with powers to imprison journalists and impose crippling fines.
The motivation of this illiberal tranche of policies reveals a great deal about the ANC. It was the rivalry between Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma that encouraged the Press to abandon its reverential reporting of the ANC. But having delighted in the Press’s criticism of Mr Mbeki, Mr Zuma --- whose polygamous and adulterous lifestyle is an easy target --- has quickly tired of it in office. The South African Broadcasting Corporation has been told to carry no more interviews with Mr Mbeki as they undermine the Zuma Government.
It is true that the South African Press has not been blameless. They have made some serious factual mistakes. But the ANC is attacking is attacking the media for what it is doing right, not what it is doing wrong. Reports consistently demonstrate that corruption, even at ministerial level, is now almost an open arrangement, with state contracts often allocated to favoured bidders who then pay back-handers. This month a journalist at South Africa’s Sunday Times was arrested after he wrote an article critical of the national police chief.
The ANC is beginning to fear that the Press now threatens its prospects in municipal elections. The Government’s corruption and the five-star lifestyle of its ministers is so endemic that it is curbing the Government’s ability to provide the basic infrastructure and social services that it promises at every election. Attacking the media also provides a rare unifying thread for the ANC. Its disparate groups of communists, nationalists and unionists can agree on little else apart from that the media is the common enemy.
The ANC’s war with the media has already prompted international opprobrium. This week the US Ambassador expressed his dismay at the proposed laws. But the most damning indictment resides at home, where even formerly optimistic voices admit that they are even more depressed than ever before.
If South Africa abandons its protection of essential constitutional liberties, it is gambling with its democratic future and undermining the principles that sustained its historic fight against apartheid.
There are bleak historical resonances in South Africa’s assault on Press freedoms
In staging the World Cup, South Africa sought the world’s attention and admiration. It achieved both of these ambitions: the smoothly administrated tournament was a triumph for South Africa’ standing in the world and for its self-confidence at home.
But having asked for the world’s scrutiny, South Africa should not be allowed to hide from it now. The ANC government is planning to restrict the freedom of the Press and enhance its ability to intimidate the media. South Africa hoped that the World Cup would represent a coming of age. Just six weeks later, the optimistic mood has been overshadowed by fears that the country is regressing to the abuses of a darker era.
Raymond Louw, who once edited the country’s leading anti-apartheid newspaper, has argued that the assault on Press freedom is ‘worse than anything under apartheid. There are two main strands. The ‘Information Bill’ proposal would permit any head of a state body to declare anything of their choosing to be a government secret. Even possession of such information, let alone reporting it, could carry a punishment of up to 25 years. In addition, the Government plans a new media tribunal with powers to imprison journalists and impose crippling fines.
The motivation of this illiberal tranche of policies reveals a great deal about the ANC. It was the rivalry between Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma that encouraged the Press to abandon its reverential reporting of the ANC. But having delighted in the Press’s criticism of Mr Mbeki, Mr Zuma --- whose polygamous and adulterous lifestyle is an easy target --- has quickly tired of it in office. The South African Broadcasting Corporation has been told to carry no more interviews with Mr Mbeki as they undermine the Zuma Government.
It is true that the South African Press has not been blameless. They have made some serious factual mistakes. But the ANC is attacking is attacking the media for what it is doing right, not what it is doing wrong. Reports consistently demonstrate that corruption, even at ministerial level, is now almost an open arrangement, with state contracts often allocated to favoured bidders who then pay back-handers. This month a journalist at South Africa’s Sunday Times was arrested after he wrote an article critical of the national police chief.
The ANC is beginning to fear that the Press now threatens its prospects in municipal elections. The Government’s corruption and the five-star lifestyle of its ministers is so endemic that it is curbing the Government’s ability to provide the basic infrastructure and social services that it promises at every election. Attacking the media also provides a rare unifying thread for the ANC. Its disparate groups of communists, nationalists and unionists can agree on little else apart from that the media is the common enemy.
The ANC’s war with the media has already prompted international opprobrium. This week the US Ambassador expressed his dismay at the proposed laws. But the most damning indictment resides at home, where even formerly optimistic voices admit that they are even more depressed than ever before.
If South Africa abandons its protection of essential constitutional liberties, it is gambling with its democratic future and undermining the principles that sustained its historic fight against apartheid.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
After the final whistle
By Steuart Pennington of www.sagoodnews.co.za
We have been asked by a range of organisations, think-tanks and academic institutions to comment on what we should do as a country to sustain the momentum of our FIFA 2010 remarkable success "after the final whistle has blown". In this newsletter, CEO of SA - The Good News, Steuart Pennington, shares his thoughts.
Words of Caution
We must retain the perspective that FIFA 2010 is an "event" in which we, as a country, have excelled. But since 1994 we have staged more than 147 international sporting events with similar success, just not on the same scale. We have done this before.
We must recognise that this particular success has resulted in a sense of national unity and pride that is unprecedented. In addition the global community, probably for the first time, has both an experiential and an informed view of our country.
The global media have had to eat their words. If anything they will respond by seeking out opportunities to vindicate their prophecies of doom and gloom. They are unlikely to lavish us with ongoing praise.
That we have learnt a number of invaluable lessons is indisputable, but it would be unwise to think that as a result of our FIFA 2010 success we have discovered new truths about our country which will enable us to deal with many of our underlying structural challenges such as education and health in a new way. If anything, our considerable success has reinforced existing positive truths that the doubters have been nay-saying for the past 14 years. But these doubting Thomases, here and abroad, remain ignorant and cynical of the wider truths of our country. We would go as far as to say that they still don’t understand or comprehend them.
It is upon this challenge which we must build. Ensuring that the truth of our country is understood here and abroad.
Therefore, we must NOT:
Use this success to have a go at politicians; the "Danny Jordaan for President" syndrome;
Use this "event" success to think that we can adopt a similar approach to some of our structural challenges, health, education etc. expecting similar results;
Try to maintain the existing social momentum. "Events" result in euphoria and disappointment – one-off highs and lows. Trends, if positive, produce long term confidence and if, negative deep seated anxieties;
Think that we must move onto the next "big thing". Life will, and needs to, get back to normal;
Shoot from the hip by becoming baffled by our own euphoria and thinking that we are now in a position to change South Africa and the world;
What we must do:
• Compile accurate statistics on all the issues that have surrounded this event, such as attendance at games, number of tourism visits, the tourism spend, the tourism accommodation profile, the success of the special courts, the security incidents, the transport issues and the like. There will be much that we can learn for the future;
• Measure the impact of this event on our global brand equity. Answering the question "Has South Africa and Africa’s branding improved, and what are the lessons learned?";
• Measure the impact of this event on Africa, particularly in respect of relations between South Africa and the rest of Africa;
• Understand the legacy expectations and our ability to deliver on them in respect of Africa;
• Examine the lessons learned, and build on them
• Hold FIFA and the teams that visited to their legacy project undertakings;
We should recognise that:
The conventional wisdoms, the generalisations and the cynicism in this country in respect of our future will not disappear with this success (just listen to the current talk shows – the cynicism is back!). Only 6 months ago a survey revealed that 80% of our youth were planning to leave South Africa because of a lack of confidence in its future; lack of job opportunities, education, BEE, security, xenophobia and Affirmative Action were given as the reasons. These perceptions will not suddenly disappear;
That many of our developmental challenges continue to require long term structural changes which are now not "suddenly" possible because of our success in organising the FIFA World Cup;
That we have been distracted from many of our underlying challenges; unemployment, poverty, health, education, racial issues and crime by this event;
That much of the truth of SA still evades the media, our newly found global fans and the reading public.
Therefore, our recommendations in terms of what we should be doing to maintain the momentum are as follows:
Focus on a campaign of teaching our citizenry and the global community the truth about South Africa with a specific intention of instilling confidence in its future;
Develop a specific campaign around mobilising civil society towards building a safer South Africa;
Focus on youth development and opportunity;
Implement a schools campaign to build an understanding of our truths for both teachers and learners so that they develop an informed perspective of our future
Focus on good citizenship, www.forgood.co.za is an example of this;
Our challenge is to translate the success of this event into long term sustainable initiatives that build the same kind of confidence that we have right now.
Our challenge remains real confidence in the future of South Africa.
We have been asked by a range of organisations, think-tanks and academic institutions to comment on what we should do as a country to sustain the momentum of our FIFA 2010 remarkable success "after the final whistle has blown". In this newsletter, CEO of SA - The Good News, Steuart Pennington, shares his thoughts.
Words of Caution
We must retain the perspective that FIFA 2010 is an "event" in which we, as a country, have excelled. But since 1994 we have staged more than 147 international sporting events with similar success, just not on the same scale. We have done this before.
We must recognise that this particular success has resulted in a sense of national unity and pride that is unprecedented. In addition the global community, probably for the first time, has both an experiential and an informed view of our country.
The global media have had to eat their words. If anything they will respond by seeking out opportunities to vindicate their prophecies of doom and gloom. They are unlikely to lavish us with ongoing praise.
That we have learnt a number of invaluable lessons is indisputable, but it would be unwise to think that as a result of our FIFA 2010 success we have discovered new truths about our country which will enable us to deal with many of our underlying structural challenges such as education and health in a new way. If anything, our considerable success has reinforced existing positive truths that the doubters have been nay-saying for the past 14 years. But these doubting Thomases, here and abroad, remain ignorant and cynical of the wider truths of our country. We would go as far as to say that they still don’t understand or comprehend them.
It is upon this challenge which we must build. Ensuring that the truth of our country is understood here and abroad.
Therefore, we must NOT:
Use this success to have a go at politicians; the "Danny Jordaan for President" syndrome;
Use this "event" success to think that we can adopt a similar approach to some of our structural challenges, health, education etc. expecting similar results;
Try to maintain the existing social momentum. "Events" result in euphoria and disappointment – one-off highs and lows. Trends, if positive, produce long term confidence and if, negative deep seated anxieties;
Think that we must move onto the next "big thing". Life will, and needs to, get back to normal;
Shoot from the hip by becoming baffled by our own euphoria and thinking that we are now in a position to change South Africa and the world;
What we must do:
• Compile accurate statistics on all the issues that have surrounded this event, such as attendance at games, number of tourism visits, the tourism spend, the tourism accommodation profile, the success of the special courts, the security incidents, the transport issues and the like. There will be much that we can learn for the future;
• Measure the impact of this event on our global brand equity. Answering the question "Has South Africa and Africa’s branding improved, and what are the lessons learned?";
• Measure the impact of this event on Africa, particularly in respect of relations between South Africa and the rest of Africa;
• Understand the legacy expectations and our ability to deliver on them in respect of Africa;
• Examine the lessons learned, and build on them
• Hold FIFA and the teams that visited to their legacy project undertakings;
We should recognise that:
The conventional wisdoms, the generalisations and the cynicism in this country in respect of our future will not disappear with this success (just listen to the current talk shows – the cynicism is back!). Only 6 months ago a survey revealed that 80% of our youth were planning to leave South Africa because of a lack of confidence in its future; lack of job opportunities, education, BEE, security, xenophobia and Affirmative Action were given as the reasons. These perceptions will not suddenly disappear;
That many of our developmental challenges continue to require long term structural changes which are now not "suddenly" possible because of our success in organising the FIFA World Cup;
That we have been distracted from many of our underlying challenges; unemployment, poverty, health, education, racial issues and crime by this event;
That much of the truth of SA still evades the media, our newly found global fans and the reading public.
Therefore, our recommendations in terms of what we should be doing to maintain the momentum are as follows:
Focus on a campaign of teaching our citizenry and the global community the truth about South Africa with a specific intention of instilling confidence in its future;
Develop a specific campaign around mobilising civil society towards building a safer South Africa;
Focus on youth development and opportunity;
Implement a schools campaign to build an understanding of our truths for both teachers and learners so that they develop an informed perspective of our future
Focus on good citizenship, www.forgood.co.za is an example of this;
Our challenge is to translate the success of this event into long term sustainable initiatives that build the same kind of confidence that we have right now.
Our challenge remains real confidence in the future of South Africa.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
New email addresses
Please up date your records with my new email address details:
Primary: owen@owenleed.com
Secondary: owen@leed-family.com
All A1 related email addresses for me are now redundant.
Primary: owen@owenleed.com
Secondary: owen@leed-family.com
All A1 related email addresses for me are now redundant.
Friday, April 30, 2010
There are no miracles in Africa - A self destructing continent
James Jackson was educated at Cheam School, Wellington College, Bristol University, King’s College London, the London College of Law, and the Inns of Court School of Law. He was "Called to the Bar" and is still a Member of the Inner Temple.
He is the bestselling author of historical thrillers including Blood Rock and Pilgrim. As a postgraduate he specialised in analysing future trends in international terrorism, was Called to the Bar, and worked for many years as a political-risk consultant. His non-fiction publications include The Counter-terrorist Handbook. He is based in London.
There are no miracles in Africa - A self destructing continent
White Zimbabweans [previously Rhodesians] used to tell a joke — what is the difference between a tourist and a racist? The answer — about a week.
Few seem to joke any more. Indeed, the last time anyone laughed out there was over the memorable head-line “BANANA CHARGED WITH SODOMY”(relating to the Reverend Canaan Banana and his alleged proclivities).
Zimbabwe was just the latest African state to squander its potential, to swap civil society for civil strife and pile high its corpses. Then the wrecking virus moves on and a fresh spasm of violence erupts elsewhere.
The Congo, Ivory Coast , Sudan , Rwanda , Sierra Leone , even Kenya .. Take your pick, for it is the essence of Africa , the recurring A-Z of horror. Therefore, as surely as Nelson Mandela took those steps from captivity to freedom, his own country will doubtless shuffle into chaos and ruin.
Mark my words. One day it will be the turn of South Africa to revert to type, its farms will lie wasted and its towns will be battle zones, its dreams and expectations will be rotting on the veldt. That is the way of things. Africa rarely surprises, it simply continues to appall.
When interviewed on BBC Radio, the legendary South African jazz musician Hugh Masekela spoke of the 350-year struggle for freedom by blacks in South Africa. The man might play his trumpet like a dream, but he talks arrant nonsense. What he has bought into is a false narrative that rewrites history and plays upon post-colonial liberal angst. The construct is as follows: white, inglorious and bad; black, noble and good; empire, bad; independence, good; the west, bad; the African, good. Forgotten in all this is that while Europeans were settling and spreading from the Cape, the psychopathic Shaka Zulu was employing his Impi to crush everyone —including the Xhosa - in his path, and the Xhosa were themselves busy slaughtering Bushmen and Hottentots. Yet it is the whites who take the rap, for it was they who won the skirmishes along the Fish and Blood Rivers and who eventually gained the prize.
What suffers is the truth, and — of course — Africa. We are so cowed by the moist-eyed mantras of the left and the oath-laden platitudes of Bono and Geldof, we are forced to accept collective responsibility for the bloody mess that is now Africa. It paralyses us while excusing the black continent and its rulers.
Whenever I hear people agitate for the freezing of Third World debt, I want to shout aloud for the freezing of those myriad overseas bank accounts held by black African leaders (President Mobutu of Zaire alone is believed to have squirreled away well over $10 billion).
Whenever apartheid is held up as a blueprint for evil, I want to mention Bokassa snacking on human remains, Amin clogging a hydro-electric dam with floating corpses, the President of Equatorial Guinea crucifying victims along the roadway from his airport.
Whenever slavery is dredged up, I want to remind everyone the Arabs were there before us, the native Ashanti and others were no slouches at the game, and it remains in places like the Ivory Coast.
Whenever I hear the Aids pandemic somehow blamed on western indifference, I want to point to the African native practice of dry sex, the hobby-like prevalence of rape and the clumps of despotic black leaders who deny a link between the disease and HIV and who block the provision of anti-retrovirals. And whenever Africans bleat of imperialism and colonialism, I want to campaign for the demolition of every road, college, and hospital we ever built to let them start again. It is time they governed themselves. Yet few play the victim card quite so expertly as black Africans; few are quite so gullible as the white liberal-left.
On the eve of this millennium, Nelson Mandela and friends lit candles mapping the shape of their continent and declared the Twenty-first Century would belong to Africa. It’s a pity that for every Mandela, there are over a hundred Robert Mugabes.
So Britain had an empire and Britain did slavery. Boo hoo. Deal with it. Move on. Slavery ended here over two hundred years ago. More recently, there were tens of millions of innocents enslaved or killed in Europe by the twin industrialised evils of Nazism and Stalinism. My own first cousins—twin brothers aged sixteen—died down a Soviet salt mine. I need no lecture on shackles and neck-irons. Most of us are descendents of both oppressors and oppressed; most of us get over it.
Mind you, I am tempted by thoughts of compensation from Scandinavia for the wickedness of its Viking raids and its slaving-hub on the Liffe. And as for the 1066 invasion of England by William the Bastard…
The white man’s burden is guilt over Africa (the black man’s is sentimentality), and we are blind for it. We have tipped hundreds of billions of aid-dollars into Africa without first ensuring proper governance. We encourage NGOs and food-parcels and have built a culture of dependency. We shy away from making criticism, tiptoe around the crassness of the African Union and flinch at every anti-western jibe.
The result is a free-for-all for every syphilitic black despot and his coterie of family functionaries.
Africa casts a long and toxic shadow across our consciousness. It is patronised and allowed to underperform, so too its distant black diaspora. A black London pupil is excluded from his school, not because he is lazy, stupid or disruptive, but because that school is apparently racist; a black youth is pulled over by the police, not because black males commit over eighty percent of street crime, but because the authorities are somehow corrupted by prejudice. Thus the tale continues.
Excuse is everywhere and a sense of responsibility nowhere. You will rarely find either a black national leader in Africa or a black community leader in the west prepared to put up his hands and say it is our problem, our fault. Those who look to Africa for their roots, role-models and inspiration are worshipping false gods. And like all false gods, the feet are of clay, the snouts long and designed for the trough, and the torture-cells generally well-equipped.
I once met the son of a Liberian government minister and asked if he had seen video-footage of his former president Samuel Doe being tortured to death. ‘Of course’, he replied with a smile. ‘Everyone has’. They cut off the ears of Doe and force-fed them to him. His successor, the warlord Charles Taylor, was elected in a landslide result using the campaign slogan “He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I will vote for him”. Nice people. Liberia was founded and colonised by black Americans to demonstrate what slave stock could achieve. They certainly showed us. Forgive my heretical belief that had a black instead of a white tribe earlier come to dominate South Africa, its opponents would not have been banished to Robben island. They would have been butchered and buried there.
When asked about the problem of Africa, Harold Macmillan suggested building a high wall around the continent and every century or so removing a brick to check on progress. I suspect that over entire millennia, the view would prove bleak and unvarying.
Visiting a state in West Africa a few years ago, I wandered onto a beach and marveled at the golden sands and at the sunlight catching on the Atlantic surf. It allowed me to forget for a moment the local news that day of soldiers seizing a schoolboy and pitching him head-first into an operating cement-machine. Almost forget. Then I spotted a group of villagers beating a stray dog to death for their sport. A metaphor of sorts for all that is wrong, another link in a word-association chain that goes something like Famine… Drought… Overpopulation… Deforestation… Conflict… Barbarism… Cruelty… Machetes… Child Soldiers… Massacres… Diamonds… Warlords…Tyranny… Corruption… Despair… Disease… Aids… Africa.
He is the bestselling author of historical thrillers including Blood Rock and Pilgrim. As a postgraduate he specialised in analysing future trends in international terrorism, was Called to the Bar, and worked for many years as a political-risk consultant. His non-fiction publications include The Counter-terrorist Handbook. He is based in London.
There are no miracles in Africa - A self destructing continent
White Zimbabweans [previously Rhodesians] used to tell a joke — what is the difference between a tourist and a racist? The answer — about a week.
Few seem to joke any more. Indeed, the last time anyone laughed out there was over the memorable head-line “BANANA CHARGED WITH SODOMY”(relating to the Reverend Canaan Banana and his alleged proclivities).
Zimbabwe was just the latest African state to squander its potential, to swap civil society for civil strife and pile high its corpses. Then the wrecking virus moves on and a fresh spasm of violence erupts elsewhere.
The Congo, Ivory Coast , Sudan , Rwanda , Sierra Leone , even Kenya .. Take your pick, for it is the essence of Africa , the recurring A-Z of horror. Therefore, as surely as Nelson Mandela took those steps from captivity to freedom, his own country will doubtless shuffle into chaos and ruin.
Mark my words. One day it will be the turn of South Africa to revert to type, its farms will lie wasted and its towns will be battle zones, its dreams and expectations will be rotting on the veldt. That is the way of things. Africa rarely surprises, it simply continues to appall.
When interviewed on BBC Radio, the legendary South African jazz musician Hugh Masekela spoke of the 350-year struggle for freedom by blacks in South Africa. The man might play his trumpet like a dream, but he talks arrant nonsense. What he has bought into is a false narrative that rewrites history and plays upon post-colonial liberal angst. The construct is as follows: white, inglorious and bad; black, noble and good; empire, bad; independence, good; the west, bad; the African, good. Forgotten in all this is that while Europeans were settling and spreading from the Cape, the psychopathic Shaka Zulu was employing his Impi to crush everyone —including the Xhosa - in his path, and the Xhosa were themselves busy slaughtering Bushmen and Hottentots. Yet it is the whites who take the rap, for it was they who won the skirmishes along the Fish and Blood Rivers and who eventually gained the prize.
What suffers is the truth, and — of course — Africa. We are so cowed by the moist-eyed mantras of the left and the oath-laden platitudes of Bono and Geldof, we are forced to accept collective responsibility for the bloody mess that is now Africa. It paralyses us while excusing the black continent and its rulers.
Whenever I hear people agitate for the freezing of Third World debt, I want to shout aloud for the freezing of those myriad overseas bank accounts held by black African leaders (President Mobutu of Zaire alone is believed to have squirreled away well over $10 billion).
Whenever apartheid is held up as a blueprint for evil, I want to mention Bokassa snacking on human remains, Amin clogging a hydro-electric dam with floating corpses, the President of Equatorial Guinea crucifying victims along the roadway from his airport.
Whenever slavery is dredged up, I want to remind everyone the Arabs were there before us, the native Ashanti and others were no slouches at the game, and it remains in places like the Ivory Coast.
Whenever I hear the Aids pandemic somehow blamed on western indifference, I want to point to the African native practice of dry sex, the hobby-like prevalence of rape and the clumps of despotic black leaders who deny a link between the disease and HIV and who block the provision of anti-retrovirals. And whenever Africans bleat of imperialism and colonialism, I want to campaign for the demolition of every road, college, and hospital we ever built to let them start again. It is time they governed themselves. Yet few play the victim card quite so expertly as black Africans; few are quite so gullible as the white liberal-left.
On the eve of this millennium, Nelson Mandela and friends lit candles mapping the shape of their continent and declared the Twenty-first Century would belong to Africa. It’s a pity that for every Mandela, there are over a hundred Robert Mugabes.
So Britain had an empire and Britain did slavery. Boo hoo. Deal with it. Move on. Slavery ended here over two hundred years ago. More recently, there were tens of millions of innocents enslaved or killed in Europe by the twin industrialised evils of Nazism and Stalinism. My own first cousins—twin brothers aged sixteen—died down a Soviet salt mine. I need no lecture on shackles and neck-irons. Most of us are descendents of both oppressors and oppressed; most of us get over it.
Mind you, I am tempted by thoughts of compensation from Scandinavia for the wickedness of its Viking raids and its slaving-hub on the Liffe. And as for the 1066 invasion of England by William the Bastard…
The white man’s burden is guilt over Africa (the black man’s is sentimentality), and we are blind for it. We have tipped hundreds of billions of aid-dollars into Africa without first ensuring proper governance. We encourage NGOs and food-parcels and have built a culture of dependency. We shy away from making criticism, tiptoe around the crassness of the African Union and flinch at every anti-western jibe.
The result is a free-for-all for every syphilitic black despot and his coterie of family functionaries.
Africa casts a long and toxic shadow across our consciousness. It is patronised and allowed to underperform, so too its distant black diaspora. A black London pupil is excluded from his school, not because he is lazy, stupid or disruptive, but because that school is apparently racist; a black youth is pulled over by the police, not because black males commit over eighty percent of street crime, but because the authorities are somehow corrupted by prejudice. Thus the tale continues.
Excuse is everywhere and a sense of responsibility nowhere. You will rarely find either a black national leader in Africa or a black community leader in the west prepared to put up his hands and say it is our problem, our fault. Those who look to Africa for their roots, role-models and inspiration are worshipping false gods. And like all false gods, the feet are of clay, the snouts long and designed for the trough, and the torture-cells generally well-equipped.
I once met the son of a Liberian government minister and asked if he had seen video-footage of his former president Samuel Doe being tortured to death. ‘Of course’, he replied with a smile. ‘Everyone has’. They cut off the ears of Doe and force-fed them to him. His successor, the warlord Charles Taylor, was elected in a landslide result using the campaign slogan “He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I will vote for him”. Nice people. Liberia was founded and colonised by black Americans to demonstrate what slave stock could achieve. They certainly showed us. Forgive my heretical belief that had a black instead of a white tribe earlier come to dominate South Africa, its opponents would not have been banished to Robben island. They would have been butchered and buried there.
When asked about the problem of Africa, Harold Macmillan suggested building a high wall around the continent and every century or so removing a brick to check on progress. I suspect that over entire millennia, the view would prove bleak and unvarying.
Visiting a state in West Africa a few years ago, I wandered onto a beach and marveled at the golden sands and at the sunlight catching on the Atlantic surf. It allowed me to forget for a moment the local news that day of soldiers seizing a schoolboy and pitching him head-first into an operating cement-machine. Almost forget. Then I spotted a group of villagers beating a stray dog to death for their sport. A metaphor of sorts for all that is wrong, another link in a word-association chain that goes something like Famine… Drought… Overpopulation… Deforestation… Conflict… Barbarism… Cruelty… Machetes… Child Soldiers… Massacres… Diamonds… Warlords…Tyranny… Corruption… Despair… Disease… Aids… Africa.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
South Africa needs Malema
Written by Wayne G
2010-03-24
Since the first time I heard Julius Malema preach hate I have harboured a deep seeded resentment toward him and his alienation tactics, hate speech, mindless babble and other forms of bigotry only fit for the 12th century. For the first time in 14 years I became a vocal critic of the ANC and what it has become.
I always gave them the benefit of the doubt until this little egotistical megalomaniac came along. Like many peace loving South Africans I was gobsmacked by the cheek of this man parading as the self proclaimed future leader of the ANC and the country with all the answers.
The sudden realisation that we actually need Malema ironically dawned on me on Human Rights Day. Malema is exactly what this country needs. He is the catalyst to the systematic implosion of the ANC. He will systematically weather down the little goodness the ANC has left. He is like a time bomb planted in the middle of Luthuli House.
Malema through all his juvenile ranting and sociopathic public tantrums, personal attacks and publicly played out vendettas is destroying the reputation of the ANC quicker than any opposition party could ever dream of doing. He is systematically diluting the credibility of the ANC with every silly word carved out of his "struggling" mind. He is making a mockery of all the ANC's hard fought freedoms, their laws, constitution, leaders, elders, alliance partners and all Mandela wanted for South Africa . Zuma eventually publically denounced rogue members attacking other politicians in the media and the very next day Malema verbally attacked the PAC and the Boer. This shows how much he cares about what our president says.
Malema is a rogue pathogen and the unfortunate host in this case is the ANC. By definition pathogens harm their hosts by producing toxins that promote infection and illness. Malema and his self serving prophecy are toxic to the ANC and making it sicker and weaker by the day.
The government seems unwilling or unable to stop him and with each passing day he sucks more blood out of the ANC and spits it at the feet of the true heroes of the struggle and its alliance partners. A struggle he speaks of like he was there. He was 13 in 1994. What could he possibly know about the struggle?
Isn't it ironic that at the peak of Malema 's hate speech and pointless rhetoric the opposition parties are talking aim and forming an alliance? It's as if they sense the rumblings of weakness and vulnerability in the ruling party. Never before has the ANC been dogged with so many controversies, from a presidential love child to vast corruption and illegal tenders.
As a tax payer I am disgusted at the opulent behaviour of the ANC and its members at the expense of the people of this country. The hypocrisy is preposterous and unbecoming of any government, let alone that of a poor third world country with huge socio-economic inequalities, spiralling crime levels, highest HIV infection rates on earth and mass corruption.
The hypocrisy of Malema also shows the depth of his understanding of the term Boer. The very same "Boers" that he wants to shoot are the farmers that farm the chickens that make the Nandos that he feeds on daily.
I hope others incensed by Malema can share in this sentiment. It took a lot of soul searching for me to unearth this understanding and with it peace of mind. So don't pack for Australia just yet, stick around a little longer and watch this beast go down in a blaze of glory. Malema has a job to do and we need to let him do it. In a couple of years he will be history. His thoughtless words and provocations will bring the ANC down, just like the struggle songs spurred the demise of white oppressive rule.
History is what it is. The future is now. Yes, we do need to remember the fundamental principles that liberated South Africa , but not so we hate and resent our oppressors but so we can learn and design our future through compassion, tolerance and positive community input and political leadership.
Malema is a racist, his words and actions make it so. We all know where racism got us in the first place. Songs about death, or killing members of our diverse society where everyone is offered the same protection by the constitution is wrong and unconstitutional.
So instead of trying to shut him up and fearing him, rather encourage him. Your emotions just like mine are wasted on "Mal Malema". The quicker he can destroy the ANC and its alliances the quicker a new government can fix this mess that is South Africa 2010. The word is out that South Africa 's first real all inclusive opposition party is in the wings. Good things await us, we all deserve it.
2010-03-24
Since the first time I heard Julius Malema preach hate I have harboured a deep seeded resentment toward him and his alienation tactics, hate speech, mindless babble and other forms of bigotry only fit for the 12th century. For the first time in 14 years I became a vocal critic of the ANC and what it has become.
I always gave them the benefit of the doubt until this little egotistical megalomaniac came along. Like many peace loving South Africans I was gobsmacked by the cheek of this man parading as the self proclaimed future leader of the ANC and the country with all the answers.
The sudden realisation that we actually need Malema ironically dawned on me on Human Rights Day. Malema is exactly what this country needs. He is the catalyst to the systematic implosion of the ANC. He will systematically weather down the little goodness the ANC has left. He is like a time bomb planted in the middle of Luthuli House.
Malema through all his juvenile ranting and sociopathic public tantrums, personal attacks and publicly played out vendettas is destroying the reputation of the ANC quicker than any opposition party could ever dream of doing. He is systematically diluting the credibility of the ANC with every silly word carved out of his "struggling" mind. He is making a mockery of all the ANC's hard fought freedoms, their laws, constitution, leaders, elders, alliance partners and all Mandela wanted for South Africa . Zuma eventually publically denounced rogue members attacking other politicians in the media and the very next day Malema verbally attacked the PAC and the Boer. This shows how much he cares about what our president says.
Malema is a rogue pathogen and the unfortunate host in this case is the ANC. By definition pathogens harm their hosts by producing toxins that promote infection and illness. Malema and his self serving prophecy are toxic to the ANC and making it sicker and weaker by the day.
The government seems unwilling or unable to stop him and with each passing day he sucks more blood out of the ANC and spits it at the feet of the true heroes of the struggle and its alliance partners. A struggle he speaks of like he was there. He was 13 in 1994. What could he possibly know about the struggle?
Isn't it ironic that at the peak of Malema 's hate speech and pointless rhetoric the opposition parties are talking aim and forming an alliance? It's as if they sense the rumblings of weakness and vulnerability in the ruling party. Never before has the ANC been dogged with so many controversies, from a presidential love child to vast corruption and illegal tenders.
As a tax payer I am disgusted at the opulent behaviour of the ANC and its members at the expense of the people of this country. The hypocrisy is preposterous and unbecoming of any government, let alone that of a poor third world country with huge socio-economic inequalities, spiralling crime levels, highest HIV infection rates on earth and mass corruption.
The hypocrisy of Malema also shows the depth of his understanding of the term Boer. The very same "Boers" that he wants to shoot are the farmers that farm the chickens that make the Nandos that he feeds on daily.
I hope others incensed by Malema can share in this sentiment. It took a lot of soul searching for me to unearth this understanding and with it peace of mind. So don't pack for Australia just yet, stick around a little longer and watch this beast go down in a blaze of glory. Malema has a job to do and we need to let him do it. In a couple of years he will be history. His thoughtless words and provocations will bring the ANC down, just like the struggle songs spurred the demise of white oppressive rule.
History is what it is. The future is now. Yes, we do need to remember the fundamental principles that liberated South Africa , but not so we hate and resent our oppressors but so we can learn and design our future through compassion, tolerance and positive community input and political leadership.
Malema is a racist, his words and actions make it so. We all know where racism got us in the first place. Songs about death, or killing members of our diverse society where everyone is offered the same protection by the constitution is wrong and unconstitutional.
So instead of trying to shut him up and fearing him, rather encourage him. Your emotions just like mine are wasted on "Mal Malema". The quicker he can destroy the ANC and its alliances the quicker a new government can fix this mess that is South Africa 2010. The word is out that South Africa 's first real all inclusive opposition party is in the wings. Good things await us, we all deserve it.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Children
It seems some time since I last made a posting which suggests that I have not had much on my mind.
Quite the contrary. There has been a lot going on, some good, some bad, some deeply disturbing, all of which I will talk of here in the fullness of time. There will be some who do not like what have to say or what I have felt. More of this later.
Today's thought struck me as I watched a toddler being handed from Mum to Dad and back again..... Will I ever be able to watch a family and not think about my children and all that I have missed in the last years of them growing up on a different continent to me?
Traci has often said that they need me and I know that they do. I can assure you that I need them too. I miss my children every day and ache for the times that I am able to spend with them. I will be with them again in less than a month and that always fuels me to be a better person. I cannot wait to see them.
Megan - I love you
Jesse - I love you
Jake - I love you
Wendy - I love you
My thoughts are with you always despite the distance, the time apart and the difficulties of managing around global time differences and so on.
I hope that in the years to come we will be able to spend more and more time together and that you will be able to get to know me better and vice versa.
I love you.
I am nothing without you.
Daddy
xxxx
Quite the contrary. There has been a lot going on, some good, some bad, some deeply disturbing, all of which I will talk of here in the fullness of time. There will be some who do not like what have to say or what I have felt. More of this later.
Today's thought struck me as I watched a toddler being handed from Mum to Dad and back again..... Will I ever be able to watch a family and not think about my children and all that I have missed in the last years of them growing up on a different continent to me?
Traci has often said that they need me and I know that they do. I can assure you that I need them too. I miss my children every day and ache for the times that I am able to spend with them. I will be with them again in less than a month and that always fuels me to be a better person. I cannot wait to see them.
Megan - I love you
Jesse - I love you
Jake - I love you
Wendy - I love you
My thoughts are with you always despite the distance, the time apart and the difficulties of managing around global time differences and so on.
I hope that in the years to come we will be able to spend more and more time together and that you will be able to get to know me better and vice versa.
I love you.
I am nothing without you.
Daddy
xxxx
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Marked
The tattoo on this soldier's back spells kafir, the Arabic word for infidel. He is a member of the 10th Mountain Division, serving in Wardak province, Afghanistan.
An interesting reflection of our times as we head to 2010
See more here:
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1946595_2010996,00.html
Friday, December 25, 2009
25 December 2009
The truth of today will unravel itself and show it for what it is.
No more Mr Nice Guy.
No more Mr Nice Guy.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Tiger Woods admits "transgressions", apologises...
The truth, like a cork in water, ALWAYS rises to the top. Take note.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
A white Afrikaans bird........ who left the country for a better place!!
Unbelievable choice...
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/sports/45180-charlize-theron-to-be-leading-lady-in-world-cup-draw
CAPE TOWN, Dec 1 — South African actress Charlize Theron has landed the leading lady’s role in Friday’s draw for next year’s World Cup finals in her home country, Fifa announced today.
Theron will be joint host of the 90-minute show to be televised live to an estimated global audience of more than two hundred million people in 200 countries at 1900 local time (1700 GMT).
She will join Fifa general secretary Jerome Valcke to host the procedure of placing the 32 finalists into eight groups of four teams for the tournament which runs from June 11 to July 11.
The show will include an African musical spectacular, including gospel and jazz.
A host of sporting celebrities will also take part in the draw including Ethiopia’s Olympic champion runner Haile Gebrselassie, England midfielder David Beckham, South Africa footballer Matthew Booth and cricketer Makhaya Ntini and the host country’s rugby World Cup captain John Smit.
South African president Jacob Zuma will be in the audience along with Nobel Peace prize winners Frederik de Klerk and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Fifa will announce which teams will be seeded for the draw at a news conference tomorrow. — Reuters
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/sports/45180-charlize-theron-to-be-leading-lady-in-world-cup-draw
CAPE TOWN, Dec 1 — South African actress Charlize Theron has landed the leading lady’s role in Friday’s draw for next year’s World Cup finals in her home country, Fifa announced today.
Theron will be joint host of the 90-minute show to be televised live to an estimated global audience of more than two hundred million people in 200 countries at 1900 local time (1700 GMT).
She will join Fifa general secretary Jerome Valcke to host the procedure of placing the 32 finalists into eight groups of four teams for the tournament which runs from June 11 to July 11.
The show will include an African musical spectacular, including gospel and jazz.
A host of sporting celebrities will also take part in the draw including Ethiopia’s Olympic champion runner Haile Gebrselassie, England midfielder David Beckham, South Africa footballer Matthew Booth and cricketer Makhaya Ntini and the host country’s rugby World Cup captain John Smit.
South African president Jacob Zuma will be in the audience along with Nobel Peace prize winners Frederik de Klerk and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Fifa will announce which teams will be seeded for the draw at a news conference tomorrow. — Reuters
Sunday, November 15, 2009
The Very Reverend Jason Selvaraj
I heard the story today of how when the Reverend Jason (the Dean at St Mary's Cathedral KL) is called upon to visit a member of his congregation who may be ill in hopital, he will do so.
In doing so he reads to them from the bible and says a small prayer for them.
On opening his eyes he sees patients in the beds in the ward looking at him with 'longing in their eyes'.
Being the man he is and not wishing to impose, he always simply asks whether anyone else would like a prayer said for them.
Many hands always go up.
And many are the hands of non-Christians.
In doing so he reads to them from the bible and says a small prayer for them.
On opening his eyes he sees patients in the beds in the ward looking at him with 'longing in their eyes'.
Being the man he is and not wishing to impose, he always simply asks whether anyone else would like a prayer said for them.
Many hands always go up.
And many are the hands of non-Christians.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
I found this quite an interesting read today - the subject of racial stereotyping...
Marathon winner caught in American ‘race’ debate
NEW YORK, Nov 3 — As soon as Mebrahtom Keflezighi, better known as Meb, won the New York City Marathon on Sunday, an uncommon sports dispute erupted online, fraught with racial and nationalistic components: Should Keflezighi’s triumph count as an American victory?
He was widely celebrated as the first American to win the New York race since 1982. Having immigrated to the United States at age 12, he is an American citizen and a product of American distance running programs at the youth, college and professional levels.
But, some said, because he was born in Eritrea, he is not really an American runner.
The debate reveals what some academics say are common assumptions and stereotypes about race and sports and athletic achievement in the United States. Its dimensions, they add, go beyond the particulars of Keflezighi and bear on undercurrents of nationalism and racism that are not often voiced.
“Race is still extremely important when you think about athletics,” said David Wiggins, a professor at George Mason University who studies African-Americans and sports.
“There is this notion about innate physiological gifts that certain races presumably possess. Quite frankly, I think it feeds into deep-seated stereotypes. The more blatant forms of racial discrimination and illegal forms have been eliminated, but more subtle forms of discrimination still exist.”
There are few cases parallel to Keflezighi’s in American sports. Some are noteworthy because of how little discussion, by comparison, they generated over the athlete’s nationality.
For example, the Hall of Fame basketball player Patrick Ewing (Jamaica) and the gold medal gymnast Nastia Liukin (Russia) were born abroad, but when they represented the United States in competition, they seemingly did not encounter the same skepticism that Keflezighi has.
Richard Lapchick, the director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida, said the argument about Keflezighi “tells us there are people that still have racial red flags go up when certain things happen.”
He added: “Many people think that with an African-American president, we are in a post-racial society. Clearly, we are not.”
The online postings about Keflezighi were anonymous. One of the milder ones on Letsrun.com said: “Give us all a break. It’s just another African marathon winner.”
A comment on The New York Times’s site said: “Keflezighi is really another elite African runner by birth, upbringing, and training. Americans are kidding themselves if they say he represents a resurgence of American distance prowess! On the other hand, he is an excellent representative of how we import everything we need!”
In a commentary on CNBC.com, Darren Rovell wrote, “Nothing against Keflezighi, but he’s like a ringer who you hire to work a couple hours at your office so that you can win the executive softball league.”
Keflezighi said yesterday that remarks about his heritage were not new. “I’ve had to deal with it,” he said. “But, hey, I’ve been here 22 years. And the US is a land of immigrants. A lot of people have come from different places.”
The last American to win the New York race, Alberto Salazar, was also born in another country. He came to the United States from Cuba when he was 2. When he won, though, he did not hear grumbling about whether he should be considered an American. He pointed out two differences between his case and Keflezighi’s: Salazar is Hispanic, not black; and when he won in 1982, the Internet, in its current form, did not exist.
The argument that Keflezighi is not really an American makes little sense, Salazar said in a telephone interview.
“What if Meb’s parents had moved to this country a year before he was born?” he said. At what point is someone truly American? “Only if your family traces itself back to 1800, will it count?”
The issue previously arose when Keflezighi won a silver medal in the 2004 Athens Olympics, said Weldon Johnson, a founder of Letsrun.com. So when the negative postings appeared Sunday, he said, “I did not like seeing them, but I was not surprised.”
Perhaps the passion over Keflezighi’s victory stems from the despair over the state of American distance running. Americans used to be the best, in the 1970s and 1980s. But their time of glory waned as East Africans began dominating.
The success of distance runners from Kenya and Ethiopia fostered a lore of East Africans as genetically gifted, unbeatable, dominant because of their biology. Scientists have looked for — but not found — genes specific to East Africans that could account for their distance ability, said John Hoberman, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies race and sports.
But, he said, “there is a difference between saying we don’t have a scientifically respectable conclusion and the very broad and perhaps mistaken claim that there is no physiological phenomenon here whatsoever.”
Regarding the question of whether East Africans have a genetic advantage, Hoberman said, “We don’t know.”
“The more relevant question is, who gets to represent the country?” he said, adding, “Only racists will insist that ‘our’ athletes meet specific racial criteria.”
Consternation over the race of elite American athletes is not new. A century ago, the notion of a “great white hope” emerged — a white boxer who whites hoped could beat the black heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson.
In running, as African-American athletes excelled in sprints, they were said to lack the endurance or the fortitude to prevail in longer distances, Wiggins said. Then, when East Africans started to thrive, the argument changed to one claiming there are special East African genes.
“From my perspective, it is racist thinking at its utmost,” Wiggins said.
In Salazar’s view, Keflezighi’s victory is another indication that American distance running is coming back. Keflezighi never ran competitively before he came to the United States, and he did all his training here.
“Can American-born guys and gals compete?” Salazar said. “I think we are starting to see that.
“Does Meb resolve that argument? No. He wasn’t born here.
“And neither was I.” — NYT
NEW YORK, Nov 3 — As soon as Mebrahtom Keflezighi, better known as Meb, won the New York City Marathon on Sunday, an uncommon sports dispute erupted online, fraught with racial and nationalistic components: Should Keflezighi’s triumph count as an American victory?
He was widely celebrated as the first American to win the New York race since 1982. Having immigrated to the United States at age 12, he is an American citizen and a product of American distance running programs at the youth, college and professional levels.
But, some said, because he was born in Eritrea, he is not really an American runner.
The debate reveals what some academics say are common assumptions and stereotypes about race and sports and athletic achievement in the United States. Its dimensions, they add, go beyond the particulars of Keflezighi and bear on undercurrents of nationalism and racism that are not often voiced.
“Race is still extremely important when you think about athletics,” said David Wiggins, a professor at George Mason University who studies African-Americans and sports.
“There is this notion about innate physiological gifts that certain races presumably possess. Quite frankly, I think it feeds into deep-seated stereotypes. The more blatant forms of racial discrimination and illegal forms have been eliminated, but more subtle forms of discrimination still exist.”
There are few cases parallel to Keflezighi’s in American sports. Some are noteworthy because of how little discussion, by comparison, they generated over the athlete’s nationality.
For example, the Hall of Fame basketball player Patrick Ewing (Jamaica) and the gold medal gymnast Nastia Liukin (Russia) were born abroad, but when they represented the United States in competition, they seemingly did not encounter the same skepticism that Keflezighi has.
Richard Lapchick, the director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida, said the argument about Keflezighi “tells us there are people that still have racial red flags go up when certain things happen.”
He added: “Many people think that with an African-American president, we are in a post-racial society. Clearly, we are not.”
The online postings about Keflezighi were anonymous. One of the milder ones on Letsrun.com said: “Give us all a break. It’s just another African marathon winner.”
A comment on The New York Times’s site said: “Keflezighi is really another elite African runner by birth, upbringing, and training. Americans are kidding themselves if they say he represents a resurgence of American distance prowess! On the other hand, he is an excellent representative of how we import everything we need!”
In a commentary on CNBC.com, Darren Rovell wrote, “Nothing against Keflezighi, but he’s like a ringer who you hire to work a couple hours at your office so that you can win the executive softball league.”
Keflezighi said yesterday that remarks about his heritage were not new. “I’ve had to deal with it,” he said. “But, hey, I’ve been here 22 years. And the US is a land of immigrants. A lot of people have come from different places.”
The last American to win the New York race, Alberto Salazar, was also born in another country. He came to the United States from Cuba when he was 2. When he won, though, he did not hear grumbling about whether he should be considered an American. He pointed out two differences between his case and Keflezighi’s: Salazar is Hispanic, not black; and when he won in 1982, the Internet, in its current form, did not exist.
The argument that Keflezighi is not really an American makes little sense, Salazar said in a telephone interview.
“What if Meb’s parents had moved to this country a year before he was born?” he said. At what point is someone truly American? “Only if your family traces itself back to 1800, will it count?”
The issue previously arose when Keflezighi won a silver medal in the 2004 Athens Olympics, said Weldon Johnson, a founder of Letsrun.com. So when the negative postings appeared Sunday, he said, “I did not like seeing them, but I was not surprised.”
Perhaps the passion over Keflezighi’s victory stems from the despair over the state of American distance running. Americans used to be the best, in the 1970s and 1980s. But their time of glory waned as East Africans began dominating.
The success of distance runners from Kenya and Ethiopia fostered a lore of East Africans as genetically gifted, unbeatable, dominant because of their biology. Scientists have looked for — but not found — genes specific to East Africans that could account for their distance ability, said John Hoberman, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies race and sports.
But, he said, “there is a difference between saying we don’t have a scientifically respectable conclusion and the very broad and perhaps mistaken claim that there is no physiological phenomenon here whatsoever.”
Regarding the question of whether East Africans have a genetic advantage, Hoberman said, “We don’t know.”
“The more relevant question is, who gets to represent the country?” he said, adding, “Only racists will insist that ‘our’ athletes meet specific racial criteria.”
Consternation over the race of elite American athletes is not new. A century ago, the notion of a “great white hope” emerged — a white boxer who whites hoped could beat the black heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson.
In running, as African-American athletes excelled in sprints, they were said to lack the endurance or the fortitude to prevail in longer distances, Wiggins said. Then, when East Africans started to thrive, the argument changed to one claiming there are special East African genes.
“From my perspective, it is racist thinking at its utmost,” Wiggins said.
In Salazar’s view, Keflezighi’s victory is another indication that American distance running is coming back. Keflezighi never ran competitively before he came to the United States, and he did all his training here.
“Can American-born guys and gals compete?” Salazar said. “I think we are starting to see that.
“Does Meb resolve that argument? No. He wasn’t born here.
“And neither was I.” — NYT
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
This amused me.....
Canada, asylum and the sprinkler salesman
Canada is a very large place, seriously in the market for more people. It was not, however, aching for the company of Brandon Carl Huntley, 31, late of Mowbray, a Cape Town suburb.
He was in the country illegally. His resume, according to newspaper accounts, included stints as a carnival worker and as a garden sprinkler salesman, positions Canada is manifestly able to fill from its current reserves of human capital and which would not classify his departure from South Africa as contributing greatly to any brain drain.
So Huntley had to find some other means of persuading the Big Empty to have him. He chose to seek asylum, claiming he had been persecuted by muggers back home because he was white and the local police had done nothing to protect him.
Among the logical holes in his story was his admission that he had never reported being mugged to the police. He said did not trust them to act. Evidence of their inaction was therefore lacking.
Assuming, in the absence of police reports, he truly was attacked six or seven” times – he had scars purporting to show it – he was also hard put to prove that the alleged attacks were racially motivated. We have only his word for it that the attackers used racial epithets if and when they set upon him. And even if they did use such language, that is hardly probative of his colour having been the decisive factor in their choice of target.
Canadian headline writers often play on the title of their national anthem, O Canada, when their countrymen do something particularly embarrassing. The ruling by William Davis, sole member of the immigration tribunal that heard Huntley’s case, surely qualifies for the Oh, Canada!” treatment. In granting Huntley refugee status, Davis agreed that the applicant would stand out like a sore thumb in any part of South Africa”. The evidence” showed a picture of indifference and inability or unwillingness by the government and security forces to protect white South Africans from persecution by African South Africans”.
This is ignorant on so many levels. Merely to have visited South Africa is to know that black people do not persecute white people there. It runs counter to everything that makes South Africa special to all of us who love it. Yes, crime is a serious problem. Dealing with it is in the top tier of the government’s agenda. By a huge margin, the majority of victims is black.A final verdict on Davis’s ruling must await the release of the full text. At this writing, we only have the bits Huntley’s lawyer, Russell Kaplan, a South African expat who has been living in Canada for 20 years, shared with the media. Still, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this was a most peculiar proceeding. Davis relied in good measure on horror stories told by Kaplan’s sister Laura, herself a recent immigrant. Well, there can’t have been an ounce of bias there, can there?
The case might well have passed unnoticed had not Kaplan, or his client, decided to let the world know about it. Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board, home of the tribunal that heard the matter, renders more than 40 000 decisions are year. The proceeding was closed to the public. There is as yet no mention of it on the board’s website, no press release was issued and IRB officials have studiously declined comment citing privacy concerns.
Some if not all tribunal decisions are eventually published on the internet. Three of Davis’ rulings from 2007 can be found there. In one, he granted asylum to a former member of the Peruvian armed forces who feared reprisals for atrocities that occurred while he was on active service against the Shining Path in the 1980s.
Two other applications Davis rejected. One was from an Albanian who claimed his wife’s brothers were out to kill him after he was photographed having gay sex. Davis was not convinced he faced persecution. The man merely came to Canada to find a better life”. The second was from an Afghan who said the Taliban were after him. Davis found the timing of this application suspect. The claimant made his refugee claim on the very same day his status in Canada expired.” And yet Huntley’s claim, made long after his visa expired, was somehow not so suspect.You have to know what you are looking for to find these cases. Kaplan and his client might have done themselves a favour by simply shutting up, but no, they wanted their 15 minutes of fame.
Huntley would not have been missed in South Africa which, like Canada, faces no shortage of carnival workers or sprinkler salesmen. South Africa would not have had to publicly respond to the shameful distortions contained in Davis’s decision.
As it is, the Canadian government may well decide to reverse the decision and Huntley will be back to square one.
This is not, incidentally, the first case of its kind. In 1997, a Durban couple, Michelle and David Thomas, came to California with their two children on visitors visas. A year later they petitioned for asylum. They said they had endured and would continue to face reprisals because David’s father, Boss Ronnie”, was a racist thug who threatened and abused his black workers back in South Africa. Their case made it all the way to the Supreme Court which finally upheld its initial rejection by an immigration judge.
At least they had the good grace not to claim they were the victims of anybody’s racism other than Dad’s.
By Simon Barber
Simon Barber is the US country manager of the International Marketing Council
Source: www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com
Canada is a very large place, seriously in the market for more people. It was not, however, aching for the company of Brandon Carl Huntley, 31, late of Mowbray, a Cape Town suburb.
He was in the country illegally. His resume, according to newspaper accounts, included stints as a carnival worker and as a garden sprinkler salesman, positions Canada is manifestly able to fill from its current reserves of human capital and which would not classify his departure from South Africa as contributing greatly to any brain drain.
So Huntley had to find some other means of persuading the Big Empty to have him. He chose to seek asylum, claiming he had been persecuted by muggers back home because he was white and the local police had done nothing to protect him.
Among the logical holes in his story was his admission that he had never reported being mugged to the police. He said did not trust them to act. Evidence of their inaction was therefore lacking.
Assuming, in the absence of police reports, he truly was attacked six or seven” times – he had scars purporting to show it – he was also hard put to prove that the alleged attacks were racially motivated. We have only his word for it that the attackers used racial epithets if and when they set upon him. And even if they did use such language, that is hardly probative of his colour having been the decisive factor in their choice of target.
Canadian headline writers often play on the title of their national anthem, O Canada, when their countrymen do something particularly embarrassing. The ruling by William Davis, sole member of the immigration tribunal that heard Huntley’s case, surely qualifies for the Oh, Canada!” treatment. In granting Huntley refugee status, Davis agreed that the applicant would stand out like a sore thumb in any part of South Africa”. The evidence” showed a picture of indifference and inability or unwillingness by the government and security forces to protect white South Africans from persecution by African South Africans”.
This is ignorant on so many levels. Merely to have visited South Africa is to know that black people do not persecute white people there. It runs counter to everything that makes South Africa special to all of us who love it. Yes, crime is a serious problem. Dealing with it is in the top tier of the government’s agenda. By a huge margin, the majority of victims is black.A final verdict on Davis’s ruling must await the release of the full text. At this writing, we only have the bits Huntley’s lawyer, Russell Kaplan, a South African expat who has been living in Canada for 20 years, shared with the media. Still, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this was a most peculiar proceeding. Davis relied in good measure on horror stories told by Kaplan’s sister Laura, herself a recent immigrant. Well, there can’t have been an ounce of bias there, can there?
The case might well have passed unnoticed had not Kaplan, or his client, decided to let the world know about it. Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board, home of the tribunal that heard the matter, renders more than 40 000 decisions are year. The proceeding was closed to the public. There is as yet no mention of it on the board’s website, no press release was issued and IRB officials have studiously declined comment citing privacy concerns.
Some if not all tribunal decisions are eventually published on the internet. Three of Davis’ rulings from 2007 can be found there. In one, he granted asylum to a former member of the Peruvian armed forces who feared reprisals for atrocities that occurred while he was on active service against the Shining Path in the 1980s.
Two other applications Davis rejected. One was from an Albanian who claimed his wife’s brothers were out to kill him after he was photographed having gay sex. Davis was not convinced he faced persecution. The man merely came to Canada to find a better life”. The second was from an Afghan who said the Taliban were after him. Davis found the timing of this application suspect. The claimant made his refugee claim on the very same day his status in Canada expired.” And yet Huntley’s claim, made long after his visa expired, was somehow not so suspect.You have to know what you are looking for to find these cases. Kaplan and his client might have done themselves a favour by simply shutting up, but no, they wanted their 15 minutes of fame.
Huntley would not have been missed in South Africa which, like Canada, faces no shortage of carnival workers or sprinkler salesmen. South Africa would not have had to publicly respond to the shameful distortions contained in Davis’s decision.
As it is, the Canadian government may well decide to reverse the decision and Huntley will be back to square one.
This is not, incidentally, the first case of its kind. In 1997, a Durban couple, Michelle and David Thomas, came to California with their two children on visitors visas. A year later they petitioned for asylum. They said they had endured and would continue to face reprisals because David’s father, Boss Ronnie”, was a racist thug who threatened and abused his black workers back in South Africa. Their case made it all the way to the Supreme Court which finally upheld its initial rejection by an immigration judge.
At least they had the good grace not to claim they were the victims of anybody’s racism other than Dad’s.
By Simon Barber
Simon Barber is the US country manager of the International Marketing Council
Source: www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Day 32...
Just in case anyone thought anything different..... day 32 is here.
I stopped counting at Day 10 which was the breakthrough milestone for me.
Weight: Holding at 96kg. STRONG!! But realising that my appetite is twice what it was - amazing. I do have to be careful until that settles down.
Lungs: Did 80m underwater at the weekend. For those that think that is not far - try it!!
Sleep: The biggest surprise of all is that I sleep better than I have for 30 years. If I wake, it is NOT to the urge of wanting to smoke, which I must admit, I used to. 24/7 it was for me. And best of all, that last cigarette of the day that used to be SO important...... Well, it no longer pushes my pulse rate up to clearly NOT a resting rate, because I no longer need the drug!!
All good!! And smiling.
I stopped counting at Day 10 which was the breakthrough milestone for me.
Weight: Holding at 96kg. STRONG!! But realising that my appetite is twice what it was - amazing. I do have to be careful until that settles down.
Lungs: Did 80m underwater at the weekend. For those that think that is not far - try it!!
Sleep: The biggest surprise of all is that I sleep better than I have for 30 years. If I wake, it is NOT to the urge of wanting to smoke, which I must admit, I used to. 24/7 it was for me. And best of all, that last cigarette of the day that used to be SO important...... Well, it no longer pushes my pulse rate up to clearly NOT a resting rate, because I no longer need the drug!!
All good!! And smiling.
Friday, July 17, 2009
The Meaning of Life
NEW YORK — What’s life for? That question stirred as I contemplated two rhesus monkeys, Canto, aged 27, and Owen, aged 29, whose photographs appeared last week in The New York Times.
The monkeys are part of a protracted experiment in aging being conducted by a University of Wisconsin team. Canto gets a restricted diet with 30 percent fewer calories than usual while Owen gets to eat whatever the heck he pleases.
Preliminary conclusions, published in Science two decades after the experiment began, “demonstrate that caloric restriction slows aging in a primate species,” the scientists leading the experiment wrote. While just 13 percent of the dieting group has died in ways judged due to old age, 37 percent of the feasting monkeys are already dead.
These conclusions have been contested by other scientists for various reasons I won’t bore you with — boredom definitely shortens life spans.
Meanwhile, before everyone holds the French fries, the issue arises of how these primates — whose average life span in the wild is 27 (with a maximum of 40) — are feeling and whether these feelings impact their desire to live.
Monkeys’ emotions were part of my childhood. My father, a doctor, worked with them all his life. His thesis at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, was on the menstrual cycle of baboons. When he settled in Britain in the 1950s, he had some of his baboons (average life span 30) shipped over, ultimately donating a couple to the London Zoo.
Upon visiting the zoo much later, he got a full-throated greeting from the baboons, who rushed to the front of their cage to tell him they’d missed him. Moral of story: Don’t underestimate monkeys’ feelings.
Which brings me to low-cal Canto and high-cal Owen: Canto looks drawn, weary, ashen and miserable in his thinness, mouth slightly agape, features pinched, eyes blank, his expression screaming, “Please, no, not another plateful of seeds!”
Well-fed Owen, by contrast, is a happy camper with a wry smile, every inch the laid-back simian, plump, eyes twinkling, full mouth relaxed, skin glowing, exuding wisdom as if he’s just read Kierkegaard and concluded that “Life must be lived forward, but can only be understood backward.”
It’s the difference between the guy who got the marbleized rib-eye and the guy who got the oh-so-lean filet. Or between the guy who got a Château Grand Pontet St. Emilion with his brie and the guy who got water. As Edgar notes in King Lear, “Ripeness is all.” You don’t get to ripeness by eating apple peel for breakfast.
Speaking of St. Emilion, scientists, aware that most human beings don’t have the discipline to slash their calorie intake by almost a third, have been looking for substances that might mimic the effects of caloric restriction. They have found one candidate, resveratrol, in red wine.
The thing is there’s not enough resveratrol in wine to do the trick, so scientists are trying to concentrate it, or produce a chemical like it in order to offer people the gain (in life expectancy) without the pain (of dieting).
I don’t buy this gain-without-pain notion. Duality resides, indissoluble, at life’s core — Faust’s two souls within his breast, Anna Karenina’s shifting essence. Life without death would be miserable. Its beauty is bound to its fragility. Dawn is unimaginable without the dusk.
When life extension supplants life quality as a goal, you get the desolation of Canto the monkey. Living to 120 holds zero appeal for me. Canto looks like he’s itching to be put out of his misery.
There’s an alternative to resveratrol. Something is secreted in the love-sick that causes rapid loss of appetite — caloric restriction — yet scientists have been unable to reproduce this miracle substance, for if they did they would be decoding love. Because love is too close to the divine, life’s essence, it seems to defy such breakdown.
My mother died of cancer at 69. Her father lived to 98, her mother to 104. I said my mother died of cancer. But that’s not true. She was bipolar and depression devastated her. What took her life was misery.
We don’t understand what the mind secretes. The process of aging remains full of enigma. But I’d bet on jovial Owen outliving wretched Canto. I suspect those dissenting scientists I didn’t bore you with are right.
My 98-year-old grandfather had a party trick, making crisscross incisions into a watermelon, before allowing it to fall open in a giant red blossom. It was as beautiful as a lily opening — and, still vivid, close to what life is for.
When my father went to pick up his baboons at Heathrow airport, he stopped at a grocery store to buy them a treat. “Two pounds of bananas, please,” he said. But there were none. “O.K.,” he said, “Then I’ll take two pounds of carrots.” The shopkeeper gave him a very strange look before hurriedly handing over the carrots.
I can hear my 88-year-old father’s laughter as he tells this story. Laughter extends life. There’s little of it in the low-cal world and little doubt pudgy Owen will have the last laugh.
By Roger Cohen, published in the New York Times 15 July 2009
The monkeys are part of a protracted experiment in aging being conducted by a University of Wisconsin team. Canto gets a restricted diet with 30 percent fewer calories than usual while Owen gets to eat whatever the heck he pleases.
Preliminary conclusions, published in Science two decades after the experiment began, “demonstrate that caloric restriction slows aging in a primate species,” the scientists leading the experiment wrote. While just 13 percent of the dieting group has died in ways judged due to old age, 37 percent of the feasting monkeys are already dead.
These conclusions have been contested by other scientists for various reasons I won’t bore you with — boredom definitely shortens life spans.
Meanwhile, before everyone holds the French fries, the issue arises of how these primates — whose average life span in the wild is 27 (with a maximum of 40) — are feeling and whether these feelings impact their desire to live.
Monkeys’ emotions were part of my childhood. My father, a doctor, worked with them all his life. His thesis at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, was on the menstrual cycle of baboons. When he settled in Britain in the 1950s, he had some of his baboons (average life span 30) shipped over, ultimately donating a couple to the London Zoo.
Upon visiting the zoo much later, he got a full-throated greeting from the baboons, who rushed to the front of their cage to tell him they’d missed him. Moral of story: Don’t underestimate monkeys’ feelings.
Which brings me to low-cal Canto and high-cal Owen: Canto looks drawn, weary, ashen and miserable in his thinness, mouth slightly agape, features pinched, eyes blank, his expression screaming, “Please, no, not another plateful of seeds!”
Well-fed Owen, by contrast, is a happy camper with a wry smile, every inch the laid-back simian, plump, eyes twinkling, full mouth relaxed, skin glowing, exuding wisdom as if he’s just read Kierkegaard and concluded that “Life must be lived forward, but can only be understood backward.”
It’s the difference between the guy who got the marbleized rib-eye and the guy who got the oh-so-lean filet. Or between the guy who got a Château Grand Pontet St. Emilion with his brie and the guy who got water. As Edgar notes in King Lear, “Ripeness is all.” You don’t get to ripeness by eating apple peel for breakfast.
Speaking of St. Emilion, scientists, aware that most human beings don’t have the discipline to slash their calorie intake by almost a third, have been looking for substances that might mimic the effects of caloric restriction. They have found one candidate, resveratrol, in red wine.
The thing is there’s not enough resveratrol in wine to do the trick, so scientists are trying to concentrate it, or produce a chemical like it in order to offer people the gain (in life expectancy) without the pain (of dieting).
I don’t buy this gain-without-pain notion. Duality resides, indissoluble, at life’s core — Faust’s two souls within his breast, Anna Karenina’s shifting essence. Life without death would be miserable. Its beauty is bound to its fragility. Dawn is unimaginable without the dusk.
When life extension supplants life quality as a goal, you get the desolation of Canto the monkey. Living to 120 holds zero appeal for me. Canto looks like he’s itching to be put out of his misery.
There’s an alternative to resveratrol. Something is secreted in the love-sick that causes rapid loss of appetite — caloric restriction — yet scientists have been unable to reproduce this miracle substance, for if they did they would be decoding love. Because love is too close to the divine, life’s essence, it seems to defy such breakdown.
My mother died of cancer at 69. Her father lived to 98, her mother to 104. I said my mother died of cancer. But that’s not true. She was bipolar and depression devastated her. What took her life was misery.
We don’t understand what the mind secretes. The process of aging remains full of enigma. But I’d bet on jovial Owen outliving wretched Canto. I suspect those dissenting scientists I didn’t bore you with are right.
My 98-year-old grandfather had a party trick, making crisscross incisions into a watermelon, before allowing it to fall open in a giant red blossom. It was as beautiful as a lily opening — and, still vivid, close to what life is for.
When my father went to pick up his baboons at Heathrow airport, he stopped at a grocery store to buy them a treat. “Two pounds of bananas, please,” he said. But there were none. “O.K.,” he said, “Then I’ll take two pounds of carrots.” The shopkeeper gave him a very strange look before hurriedly handing over the carrots.
I can hear my 88-year-old father’s laughter as he tells this story. Laughter extends life. There’s little of it in the low-cal world and little doubt pudgy Owen will have the last laugh.
By Roger Cohen, published in the New York Times 15 July 2009
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