It is time.....

...... To activate this blog again. Watch this space.

Dear Mr Zuma...... by Barney Pityana

Dear Mr Zuma, AN OPEN LETTER ON THE STATE OF THE NATION and the ANC I write this letter with a simple request: that you resign from all public office, especially that of President and Head of State of the Republic of South Africa. I am, of course, aware that you have been re-elected President of the African National Congress, the majority party in our National Assembly. I am also aware that, in terms of our electoral system, that allows the ANC to present you as a candidate to the National Assembly and use their majority therein to put you in office, without much ado. It would also appear that by its recent vote the African National Congress has expressed confidence in your leadership. You can then understand that I am taking an extraordinary step, and I can assure you one that has been carefully considered, in asking for your resignation. Our country is in shambles, and the quality of life of millions of ordinary South Africans is deteriorating. Confidence in our country, and its economic and political system, is at an all-time low. There is reason to believe that ordinary South Africans have no trust in your integrity as a leader, or in your ability to lead and guide a modern constitutional democracy that we aspire to become. That, notwithstanding the fact that our Constitution puts very minimal requirements for qualification as a public representative including the highly esteemed office of President and Head of State, and Head of the Executive. What is clear, at the very least, is that the President must have the means and the inclination to promote and defend the Constitution, and uphold the well being of all South Africans. I have reason to believe that, notwithstanding the confidence that your party has placed on you, you have demonstrated that you no longer qualify for this high office on any of the counts stated above. As President and Head of State you should take responsibility for the lamentable state in which our society finds itself. This prevailing toxic and amoral environment must surely have something to do with the manner in which you assumed office, by trampling down on all semblance of the rule of law, and corrupting agencies of state. We are constantly reminded of the truth of Shakespeare's words: "Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall" (Measure for Measure II.2) The result is that we are in a Macbethian world where there is absence from the moral landscape of this dear land of ours any sense of positive good, any sense of personal involvement in virtue, loyalty, restraint. As a result we are in the morass of paralysis of moral power as a society. I believe that we are justified in exclaiming with Marcellus in Hamlet 1.iv "something is rotten in the state of Denmark." And so we say "All is not well." As citizens we need not ask of our President and Head of State any more than the practice of virtue. To live a virtuous life is to express the goodness of and the possibilities for good in human living. These have at times been expressed as the cardinal virtues: temperance, courage, prudence and justice. For that the leader must lead by example, be a person of common wisdom, and understand the environment of her/his operations enough to serve the people and be driven by a desire to govern well. There is no place in this for exploiting the high office for personal gain or benefit, or using state resources to buy loyalty, or to elevate party or family above the public good. Without this radical prescription of service our democracy is hollow, becomes a dictatorship of the Party, until the next elections when the voters once again get coaxed to vote for The Party! The personal attributes of a leader are an important assurance that our democracy is in good hands: excellence in virtue, truth, trust, wisdom, insight, discernment, and sound judgment. That cesspit of a-morality is to be found in the prevalence of rape in all its brutal forms, in the disregard for loyalty – how does one explain that a close friend of Anene Booysen 's brother in Bredasdorp is one of the suspects of her murder. You yourself know only too well that a daughter of a close friend and comrade of yours accused you of rape! Though, happily, you were acquitted of the charge, the stench of disloyalty and taking advantage of unequal relations remains. South Africans live in fear, they are angry; they are poor (and getting poorer) and burdened by debt. What could be alleviating poverty, like social grants and social housing, is failing in practice because the poor have what is due to them pocketed by corrupt officials, and instead suffer the indignity of living life as beggars in their own land. Whether it be from marauding criminal gangs, or crime syndicates that appear to operate with some impunity, or the elderly terrified of their own grandchildren, or neighbours who cannot be trusted, or girl schoolchildren who are at the mercy of their teachers who may rape or abuse them, or corruption and theft from public resources by government ministers and public servants, or failure to meet the basic requirements of schooling most notably school textbooks not being delivered on time, or citizens who die in our hospitals because there are no doctors , or no medicines, or the thousands who dies on our roads, or protesters like Andries Tatane in Ficksburg, or the Marikana 46, or those murdered by the Cato Manor police death squad in extra-judicial murder, South Africans live in fear. Are we effectively in a police state? This situation is the direct result of the failure of public policy. Besides the social and moral breakdown that engulfs our society, the economic woes for ordinary South Africans are not abating. Social inequality has widened since the end of apartheid – and that is something to be ashamed of. The extent of escalating unemployment in our country is surely nothing to be proud of, and poverty that has become endemic, almost irreversible, that haunts our every being cannot be gainsaid. The gaping disparities between rich and poor is a sad indictment on a party that has been in government since the onset of our constitutional democracy. The inadequacy of policy is attested to by the succession of downgrades by rating agencies, and the despair of the poor expresses itself in incessant demonstrations throughout the length and breadth of our country. South Africans are angry, and they have every reason to be so. There is evidence that your party and government no longer have the intelligence, ideas or initiative to take bold, radical and necessary steps to arrest this slide into oblivion. Besides just being without the intelligence to change the course of history, evidently your Party and government do not even have the inclination preoccupied as it is by a relentless programme of self-enrichment. Not even the otherwise promising National Planning Commission Report will solve the challenges we face because it is too little too late, lacks specificity and is without urgency or determination. Yes, we also have the promise of a multi-billion rand infrastructure development spend that is bound to end up in failure no less than the ignoble defence procurement debacle, based on the prevailing rector of corruption in government. Why, because there are already signs that this initiative has become the target of looters and thieves, many of whom with the full knowledge of the political elite in your party and government. This failure of government is also to be seen in the lamentable e.toll saga, in the handling of the farmworkers demands and essential decision-making in the highest office in the land: the appointments of the Chief Justice, of the Head of the NPA, in government by demands rather than by policy and principle, The picture that emerges is one of lack of leadership that is courageous about things that matter. Yes, we see it in the majority of appointments you make that, with notable exceptions, are lackluster and mediocre. These include appointments to cabinet, Provincial Premiers, and even political appointments to diplomatic service, and a gradual erosion of the independence of significant institutions like the judiciary by blatant political interference. These are nothing but an insult to the intelligence of South Africans. Notwithstanding all this, there is a sense that this country is without an imaginative, transformative chief executive. Instead, where serious matters, as in the outrageous use of state resources to build extensions to your private home amounting to some R206m (if we accept Minister Thiulas Nxesi's assurances, which no reasonable South African should!), you indulge us in the art of equivocation. Is it true that every room in the Nkandla Zuma Estate has been paid for by the Zuma family? Or is it that every room now occupied by the member of your family has been so paid for? You and your ministers so often address us with this double sense of the absurd, and obscured meaning to cover the truth. There is widespread use of state resources as a piggy-bank to meet the demands of your office or for electioneering or other forms of state patronage. Ministers like Tina Joemat-Peterson seem to labour under the belief that it is the responsibility of their office to make the resources of their offices to be available to the President at his beck and call. What about the Guptas, citizens of India who have managed to ingratiate themselves and wormed themselves into the very heart of this nation. The benefits are obvious: they get to summon ministers to their compound and issue instructions; they manipulate the cricket governing council with disastrous results; and the paper they publish has access to large resources from state agencies for which no other newspaper was ever invited to tender. Yes, we are in the midst of a new Infogate Scandal! It can only be in a 'banana republic' where foreign elements can succeed so easily. I wonder where else is that happening, and what about the security of the state? That would definitely never happen in India. At the centre of this is a President who lacks the basic intelligence (I do not mean school knowledge or certificates), who is without the means to inspire South Africans to feats of passion for their country and to appeal to their best humanity. I mean being smart and imaginative, and being endowed with ideas and principles on which quality leadership is based. Our problem as a country begins by our having as head of state someone devoid of "the king-becoming graces' to establish "virtuous rule". It therefore sounds very hollow when you protest that as President you deserve respect. I wholeheartedly agree that the office of Head of State must be held with respect. But I submit that you are the author of your own misfortune. There is hardly any evidence that you are treating your high office with the due respect you expect of others; to bestow on the highest office in the land dignitas and gravitas is your duty. No wonder that there was a time that international observers were overly concerned about the unfinished business of criminal investigations against you, and of course, that little matter you are so proud of, your many wives and innumerable progeny – as one with potency to sow his wild oats with gay abandon. In your language this is about your culture. Besides there are far too many occasions of gratuitous disregard for the law and the constitution, and unflattering mention in cartoon media, and often your name features in associations with activities that suggest corruption. South Africans have very little reason to hold their President in awe or respect. On top of that the President makes promises he never keeps, and does not even think he owes anybody an explanation. What happened to the gentleman's ethic, "my word is my bond"! Truth, while never absolute, must be the badge of good leadership. My counsel to your friends and comrades who seek to protect your reputation by marching onto the Gallery and intimidate the owner of the gallery and the artist of The Spear, or those who are offended on your behalf by the Lady justice cartoon by Zapiro, or the Secretary General of the ANC who summons the Chairman of Nedbank, or the Chief Executive of First Rand for a telling off about the re-branding campaign of the FNB; or the offence caused to some by the decision by AmPlats to restructure its business operations and the threats it was subjected to; or the threats by the General Secretary of the Communist Party and his Stalinist Taliban to legislate respect for the President – none of that would be necessary if you yourself held your high office with a modicum of respect. Besides these social ills we remain a divided society. We are not just divided by class and wealth (although that is true), or by race, or by gender as the pandemic of violence and brutality against women is the signature tune of our country to our shame; but most alarmingly, the ugly spectre of ethnicity and tribalism that has been accentuated during your Presidency needs to be nipped in the bud. Clearly, you are not the President to campaign against this malady, nor are you interested in operating above the tribal fray as other Presidents have done. Social cohesion clearly is not on your agenda. I do not mean just occasionally dressing down some opposition politician, or pointing fingers at "clever blacks", or outrage at some indecent racist incidents. I do not even mean a badly organized Social Cohesion Conference or the discredited Moral Regeneration Movement. I mean a coordinated programme of government utilizing the instruments of state and institutions supporting democracy, like the Human Rights Commission, to drive a national strategy of social cohesion. Even universities, once the bastions of civilized life as WEB du Bois puts it, producing an intellectual corps for society that is critical, and independent, are now fast becoming reduced to apologists of failed government policies. As a critical observer of government and the African National Congress under your leadership, I note that the tenor of government and party is fast drifting towards the conservative, authoritarian, reactionary organization, presiding over a kleptocratic state; and that is intolerant of South Africans expressing themselves. When leaders and governments know that they no longer rule with the consent of the ruled, and without their participation in their democracy they get to be afraid of even their shadows. It often takes on the persona of a playground bullyboy whenever it is unable to answer some pretty sharp critical questions about the conduct of government, and about the prevalence of crime and corruption in South Africa, or about false promises. The ANC is getting to take on a semblance of a mafia organization, a Big Brother that syndicates hard dealings against others, isolates and silences critical voices, and uses state patronage to neutralize and marginalize others. One can observe the makings of a totalitarian, fascist regime. I am reminded proudly that it was not always like that. There has been much over time that South Africans can be very proud of. I can think of Josiah Gumede challenging John Dube for the leadership of the NNC in the 1920s where, as Peter Limb puts it in his magisterial study of THE ANC'S EARLY YEARS, the ANC had become miserable and "getting lost in mist and sea of selfishness" (does that not sound familiar?). Dube, it was judged, had become conservative, and associated with ethnic nationalism. What we miss today is that radical urgency that Josiah Gumede introduced into NNC politics, that uncompromising commitment to shape the destiny of the oppressed. Instead we get a party and President preoccupied with ethnic culturalism, and that has no idea about turning the tide of the economic life of the people of this country. There have been other examples as well which led to the ascendancy of Chief Albert Luthuli, and the removal of the likes of AB Xuma and James Moroka. Nowadays a conservative, reactionary tribal leadership is celebrated and lionised but never censured as it continues to keep a Machiavellian stranglehold and power over the organisation. The ANC is being held captive by reactionary, corrupt forces. The ANC is in danger of being reduced to a tribal club with hangers-on who seek patronage and a hand in the politics of theft. It is exactly such a tribalist sentiment that has caused the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development to drive relentlessly a piece of legislation like the Traditional Courts Bill whose constitutionality is suspect, but which more importantly, clearly undermines the advances this nation has made with regard to the rights of women, and it threatens to introduce a layer of criminal justice that parallels that established by the law of the land. In a land where some 50% of the population is made up of young people and women a leadership is required that trusts the instincts of young people and that radically eschews all forms of sexism and disregard for women. A not dissimilar sentiment especially in the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development must explain the abortive Secrecy Bill, and the secret revival of the National Keypoints Act is surely part of this culture of secrecy. Besides, our country needs a President who understands democracy, especially that a constitutional democracy functions with checks and balances; that power is always exercised under check, and never in an arbitrary manner. The Head of State must be comfortable with the powers of the Constitutional Court and never to threaten at every turn to subject them to review, and to know that good governance flourishes with the oversight of parliament, and of independent organs of state, and that opposition parties are loyal opposition and patriotic and mandated by voters to champion particular positions in the public sphere. Opposition is of no mere nuisance value. It is the lifeblood of democracy. Some of your utterances suggest that you just do not get it. I am raising my voice comprehensively now after having promised in 2009 that I shall hold my peace, and give your government a fair chance to perform. I had warned that much of your "victories" in the run-up to Polokwane and thereafter were merely pyrrhic victories. They would yet come to haunt you, I reasoned. Indeed, they have. But now any political analyst will warn that we are on a drift to a totalitarian state, twisted by a security machinery into silence and worse. Those of us who still have voice are obliged to warn against the prevailing trend. One way of addressing this confidence deficit would be for the President and all public representatives to be subjected to a probity test, to declare for public scrutiny their tax affairs, and all matters of conflict of interest. It is also not asking too much to expect that all public officers, including civil servants must express confidence in the system they preside over by sending their children to state schools, and to utilize public health facilities. This must surely include all public sector unions like NEHAWU and SADTU. Leadership matters. Leadership must be accountable and must be exemplary, and must be inspirational. That is where you fail. Please spare us another five years under your leadership. Spare yourself any further embarrassment of ineffectual leadership. You will be judged harshly by future generations. I ask you solemnly, resign. Yours sincerely BP Who is Barney Pityana? He was in Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape and attended the University of Fort Hare near Alice, also in the Eastern Cape. He was one of the founding members of the South African Students' Organisation of the Black Consciousness Movement with Steve Biko and a member of the African National Congress Youth League (long before the days of idiots like Malema – Ed.) He was suspended from university for challenging the authority of the Afrikaans teachers and the apartheid principles of the then "Bantu education". He did eceive a degree from the University of South Africa in 1976 but was barred from practicing law in Port Elizabeth by the apartheid government who also banned him from public activity. In 1978 he went into exile, studying theology at King's College London and training for the ministry Ripon College Cuddesdon in Oxford. Thereafter he served as an Anglican curate in Milton Keynes and as a vicar in Birmingham. From 1988 to 1992 he was Director of the Programme to Combat Racism at the World Council of Churches in Geneva. Pityana returned to South Africa in 1993, following the end of apartheid. He continued working in theology and human rights, completing a PhD in Religious Studies at the University of Cape Town in 1995. He was appointed a member of the South African Human Rights Commission in 1995, and served as chairman of the commission from 1995 to 2001. He also served on the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights at the Organisation of African Unity in 1997. Professor Pityana became Vice-Chancellor and Principal for the University of South Africa in 2001 and held the position for nine years.

Anachronistic Cowboy

I have heard of someone who describes himself as an "Anachronistic Cowboy". I have often wondered about that. Let's define it: Anachronistic means: 1): The representation of someone as existing or something as happening in other than chronological, proper, or historical order. 2): One that is out of its proper or chronological order, especially a person or practice that belongs to an earlier time. Cowboy means: 1): a boy who took care of cows. 2:) (In the modern context - slang) A reckless person, such as a driver, pilot, or manager, who ignores potential risks. An amusing and actually quite disturbing definition of someone's reality. A self given title which is arrogant, swaggering with just a touch of misplaced bravura and is of a person who otherwise might be decribed by many who know of him as simply: a coward.

“As a child is born without fear, so is it born without prejudice. Prejudice, like fear, is acquired” Marie Kililea

Written by my sister, Megan Leed-Williams in www.whataracquet.com.au. It is one of the best pieces of writing on this subject I have read. -------> My parents left South Africa in 1972, when I was 2 years old, for a number of reasons; one being that my mother, Afrikaans by descent, had, at first unconsciously, and then later consciously, known that apartheid was inherently wrong, and she was happy to follow her English husband to bring up their children in the more free and accepting society of Europe. Growing up in Holland as an expat, although not really English and not really South African, in the 1980s, the racial equality movement was loud and clear to my teenage ears as Nelson Mandela became the most powerful symbol of equality and freedom since Martin Luther King Jr. Bizarrely, during those years, I was often asked if I agreed with apartheid or if I was a racist because I was a white South African. I will always remember the feeling of confusion over that question. Why/how could I be, or think, a certain way, just by the geographical coincidence of my birth and the genetic coincidence of the colour of my skin? Racism, and indeed any prejudice, is not something someone is born with. It is not genetic or inherited. It is taught and learned. Thank god for my parents, who never once showed me any reason to judge people by their race, colour, creed or sexual orientation. Thank god I grew up in one of the most open minded societies in Europe where, as a young child and teenager, I grew up knowing mixed race families and openly gay couples and I’ve continued, as an adult, to remain bemused by any form of prejudice. This is why I scratch my head and ask how it is, more than 40 years after leaving South Africa; more than 25 years since Nelson Mandela was freed, there is still such prejudice around the world and particularly in the United States of America, the supposed leading country of the ‘free’ world. How is it that, in 2013, 45 years after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., a man is allowed to walk free, apparently not guilty of murdering an unarmed young black man, under the Stand Your Ground law, which allows a person to use ‘lethal force if he or she feels in imminent danger’ but in the same state a judge dismisses that very same law, and sentences a young black woman to 20 years in prison for the attempted murder of her abusive husband, against whom she had a protective order, when she fired warning shots to scare him and avoid a beating from him? At the end of the day, after all these decades of fighting for equality, the real paradox is that, as the world waits sadly for the inevitable passing of that great freedom fighter, my generation’s symbol of racial equality, the great Nelson Mandela, we STILL live in a world where a friend of mine can say that as the mother of a young black man she lives in daily fear for his safety, where an unarmed young man loses his life merely because the colour of his skin brands him a criminal in another man’s eyes, and where a young black woman is put in prison for trying to save her own life. And, on our own Australian shores,where, by the way, same sex marriage is, bizarrely and unbelievably, still illegal, young teenagers and media role models alike ‘thoughtlessly’ call racist slurs to sporting heroes yet love to bathe in the glory when those sporting heroes bring back the trophies. I only hope and trust that, as the mother of two children in the middle of their most formative years, my own upbringing and values are rubbing off on them so that they can live a life free of prejudice and hatred and can stand up to the perpetrators of what is truly the biggest acquired chronic disease in human society worldwide.

Nayati

Thinking about Nayati..... His abduction is well documented as is his safe return to his parents.... I am absolutely delighted that he is home safe and sound. But a few thoughts have percolated over the last week and particularly after reading the out pourings of relief and gratitude as to the fact that he is, in fact, safe and sound and back with his parents where he belongs. I am a father and so Nayati will ALWAYS be on my mind as a HERO to have come through his ordeal, the details of which I am sure we will read about in the days to come. His parents too need to be applauded for their strength over the six long dark days of their separation from him. I cannot begin to understand what they must have been through. However, I am wondering where God was when he was kidnapped and why God has been thanked for the fact that Nayati has been recovered by what looks like hard bloody work and determination on the part of his family and the Royal Malaysian Police Force. I am wondering where God was when the perpetrators of the crime planned and executed what they did. I am wondering where God will be when they get found and hanged for the crime and plead not to be to their God. Kidnapping in Malaysia is a crime punishable by "hanging until dead" which they deserve. But most of all, I am wondering why "man" or "mankind" has not been thanked by everyone for the recovery of the beautiful boy? Tens of thousands of people came together from all over the world to stand behind Nayati and his family in support and positive action for his recovery. Young boys and girls out on the streets handing out flyers, their parents jumping out of cars at traffic lights to stick posters to lamp posts in a solid hard effort to generate awareness and information with which the police could work. The hard work of the men and women of the police. It is they who should be thanked. It is mankind that should be thanked for Nayati's well being. I hope he lives long and does not suffer unduly from what he has been through. Thank MAN for Nayati's safety. Finally, I sincerely hope that there are no copycat attempts at this. Are Expat kids safe in KL today after what has happened? Or the kids of the wealthy Malaysians? At the moment I think not. A nasty precedent has been set and a better one NEEDS to be set by the perpetrators being caught and brought to justice.

Time for change

When all and everything is telling you that it is time to make a significant life change then the signals must be recognised and acted upon....

Saving South Africa...

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

AGONY...

I wonder how people define the word "agony"?

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

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

25 December 2009

The truth of today will unravel itself and show it for what it is.
No more Mr Nice Guy.

Tiger Woods admits "transgressions", apologises...

The truth, like a cork in water, ALWAYS rises to the top. Take note.

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