Black Tuesday

“A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” John F. Kennedy

There are times when silence is a virtue. 

Like when your wife asks if her bum looks big in this.

There are times when secrets are best kept. 

Like if you are a fan of Justin Bieber.

This is not one of those times.

Today is Black Tuesday. 

Weirdly enough that was also the name of the day that marked the start of the Great Depression. Regardless, I look like a large dissatisfied black bat of gloom today.

However, this Tuesday is so named because on the 19th October 1977, the Apartheid government banned a number of publications, people and organisations involved with black consciousness. It became known as Black Wednesday.

Today the South African parliament will vote on the Protection of State Information Bill or as it more popularly known, the Secrecy Bill. If passed it will effectively muzzle the media and hobble any attempt to expose the cancer of fraud, embezzlement and corruption that is at the heart of our government.

No government should ever be in control of the media, although they all try because for obvious reasons it is a very powerful tool to placate the masses. Desmond Tutu summed it up very well by calling it an insult to all South Africans.

History repeats itself. I just was not expecting it to repeat itself so soon. During the time Nelson Mandela was in prison, not a single photograph of him existed in South Africa. The first time most of us saw him, was the day he walked out of prison. His face was regarded as a threat to state security.

What state secrets do we have that are so vital to security that we need to hide them? In all honesty if we were in a time of war, perhaps this bill might have legs to stand on, but it is built on decidedly shaky ground right now. 

The ANC published this peculiar diatribe on their website today: 

http://www.anc.org.za/docs/anctoday/2011/at44.htm#art1

Apparently, the bill is intended to crack down those pesky international spies that plague us. 

What on earth are they spying on? 

Our total ineptitude? 

“The foreign spies continue to steal our sensitive information in order to advantage their nations at the expense of advancement of South Africa and her people. However, you won't find foreign spies openly marching in the streets of Cape Town complaining that we are removing their easy access to our sensitive information.”

I quite like the idea of spies marching down the road actually – a sort of James Bond meets Austin Powers convention.

I hasten to suggest we have more of a problem from Nigerian drug lords gunning down PTA moms in the street, but that might get me sent to jail for some 25 years.  

If it were really intended to protect terribly important state secrets, it might have some credibility. But it isn’t. 

It’s designed to protect corrupt little backstabbers so they can carry on lying to the voting population who they view in much the same way as I view the ruling party – as a bunch of total idiots. 

Shouldn’t politicians, municipalities, tenderpreneurs and so on be held accountable? 

After all, it is my money they are spending on their big BMWs and mansions in Saxonwold. If some bint takes her family and friends to buy blood diamonds in Angola and I have to foot the bill for her chartered jet, do I not have the right to be a little miffed?

Of course back in the day they only had to worry about carrier pigeons, TV, radio and print journalists. These days you’ve got social networking, blogs, the Internet and virtual smoke signals. 

No doubt the next step will be following our new BFFs the Chinese into an Internet crackdown. 

After that we’ll probably start burning books. 

 

Here's what Nelson Mandela had to say on the topic in 1994:

"Criticism can only help us to grow, by calling attention of those of our actions and omissions, which do not measure up to our people's expectations and the democratic values to which we subscribe." 

Homeless Babe of the Month

For some reason I can't quite put my finger on, Homeless Babe of the Month doesn't sit right with me.

Admittedly, it works. I bought a Homeless Talk for the first time in years. The publication's positioning line is "Helping the poor help themselves". It is a very noble sentiment. 

I just can't see how getting homeless women to pose suggestively is helping them at all, except to open up a new and more lucrative sidewalk revenue stream then a cardboard sign and a rent-a-baby.

The Lama and the Red Tape

The Dalai Lama will not be joining us for Desmond Tutu’s birthday party. 

Given the confusion between Llamas and Lamas, I wonder if immigration got confused?

It’s not as if South Africa hasn’t invited personas non grata here before, so I can’t see what the issue is. If we can entertain Fidel Castro, surely the Dalai Lama doesn’t represent a threat? 

During the Castro fiasco Nelson Mandela said that we would never allow others to dictate who our friends should be. It’s actually in our very forward-thinking and much lauded constitution – freedom of association – oh, and religion.

Still, the Chinese have given us pots and pots of lovely money, so we can’t risk all that can we? 

On the other hand there is karma to consider and I hasten to suggest that the pots and pots of lovely money might be outweighed by the kick in the ass karma will give us for refusing the Dalai Lama a visa.

It’s bloody embarrassing, that what it is. It’s like refusing Ghandi entry into a club because he wasn’t following the dress code. He is the Dalai Lama. He will reincarnate and never forget. I wouldn’t risk that, would you?

Aside from it all, he wasn’t coming here on a political mission to stir up sympathy for the Tibetan cause. He was coming here for a birthday party, for a priest! He’s hardly Gaddafi looking for asylum, which we’d probably grant along with a house in Clifton and a bullet proof Hummer. He isn’t a jihadist arriving with dynamite strapped to his private parts. He is a well respected holy man and international figure of peace. 

Immigration authorities say that this honoured personage decided to cancel his application while it was under review. For over 6 months? I must say with the birthday four days away, I’d also give it up as a lost cause.

 

I can’t say that I’m surprised it took so long for them to look at his application though. I’ve been waiting for a new identity book for over 18 months. We’re not exactly the most efficient bureaucracy in the world. We love red tape more than we love the rugby. God bless us. 


Have to add this cartoon in from a brilliant SA cartoonist - Jerm. 

Eric Miyeni and the White Oppressors

Eric Miyeni’s vitriolic diatribe in Monday’s Sowetan says more about the sorry state of South African journalism than it does about a bigoted racist. After all, bigoted racists are a dime a dozen. Should he have lost his job? Damn right, but not for the reasons he did. His massacre of the English language should have been grounds for dismissal alone.

I am a white, English speaking writer. I do not pretend, nor am I so arrogant as to assume I can write in isiZulu, eKasitaal or Afrikaans for that matter. I stick to the language in which I am best able to communicate. I don’t commit genocide with your language, don’t do it with mine.

As for his Editor, the man should be shot (not literally – I am not advocating violence against journalists here). Slothful, lazy and ambivalent are the terms I would to describe the type of editorial mismanagement that allowed the column to printed in the first place. Unless, and here’s a thought for all you paranoid conspiracy theorists out there – it was intended to be printed with full knowledge of the outcome to flag failing distribution levels, boost PR and change senior management? Maybe Eric pushed it through because the ANC Youth League had already offered him a job (God knows poor Floyd can do with the help) and he needed a way out. Either way surely a sub-editor somewhere should have checked the grammar?

As for Eric’s little outburst? He writes an opinion column. It doesn’t have to based on fact, it’s allowed to be an emotional outpouring of racist hatred. The fact is if I support his being fired I wouldn’t be allowed to call him a hypocritical, racist bigot and I have every right to call him such – it’s my opinion. One day he may look back on his article and recognise that he echoes the sentiments of his “colonialist, white oppressors”.

Racism is racism and bigots are bigots no matter what colour their skin. So, you have tough time being black? Try being female or being a black female? Being a working mother? Or being homosexual? Or being a white male overlooked for promotion in favour of a less skilled person of a darker hue? Somebody once said to me that everyman’s burden is the heaviest. My advice – your hang-ups, chips on your shoulder, guilt, hatred, whatever, are your issues, not mine; I have enough of my own, thank you very much.

After being subjected to Julius Malema’s long-winded interview this morning on 702, I really don’t know whether to laugh or cry. It seems Nelson Mandela’s dream for this country is destined to die when he does.

For heaven’s sake JuJu, if nationalisation didn’t work for Mugabe, do you honestly think it will for you? Are you ready to plunge this country into famine, a spiralling cycle of poverty and destitution? You may get your wish and every skilled, white mampara who can, may leave for Nigeria or Tanzania (where they quite like us, by the way), and then you can pick up the pieces. Chances are all the skilled, educated black people will leave too and you’ll be left with a bunch of illiterates who failed woodwork just like you.

See, if Eric is silenced we’re back to Apartheid when you couldn’t say stuff like that. I know many of the journalists (white) who during those years didn’t pack up and leave for the BBC, but decided to fight for freedom of the press, freedom of association and freedom of opinion instead. I know what it was like to have your calls tapped, your bags packed and wonder if you’d ever see your father again. To know it was in vain, that the press is more a political puppet than ever is saddening, but not unexpected. After all the Catholics adopted many Pagan practices throughout Europe in their quest for global domination, so why shouldn’t Eric and his friends at the ANC Youth League use the very practices they abhorred under the National Party? A rose by any other name, anyone?

As an afterthought, when does one stop being a youth? I thought it was 21, but apparently it is now in your mid-thirties, which is great for me actually, because I’m tired of being told that I’m hitting middle-age at 35.

The Man who stole a Picture

We have all been touched by it. We have all experienced it. We all live with it. It is inevitable that as the population increases so does the crime rate. What frightens me is how inured we are to it. We expect it. We accept it. It’s part of life. I used to fall into the camp that believed most crime took place by people unable to feed their families motivated by desperation. Now, I believe the opposite, most crime is organised, it is motivated by greed and envy, and more so by a deep sociopathic love for causing harm and terror. It is not about feeding the poor; it’s about feeling the power.

A work colleague has had her personal tragedy and terror spread across the front pages of national newspapers, not to raise attention to the state of our society, but to sell papers. In fact she would rather it had never been reported. She is scared enough. She’s been through enough and now she has to share that with a nation of people who will lap it up over coffee and cornflakes.

You can read her story here: http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/family-hostage-drama-1.1098068. What the newspapers didn’t mention was the true extent of her loss. Not only was the home invaded during a vigil for her dying father, but among the all the stuff that was taken were all the photographs of him. You can’t insure that. You can’t replace that. They are gone and the family robbed of more than items, but of its soul.

Today they grieve the death of a family member and try to cope with abject fear that they will targeted again. The gang knows where they work, the phone numbers, their friends, their email addresses, they have the keys to all their homes. Whether they choose to use them or not, the psychological power they wield over this family is shattering.

Ten years ago my husband and I moved to San Francisco to ride the dot.com wave. The move came hot on the heels of three break-ins at our home, a gun battle and the loss of pretty much all we owned. For months I’d wake up sweating and screaming thinking that it was happening again. I had kept it together then, but when the constant fear was lifted from me, I broke.

The state of our country today is not okay. It is not normal. It is not acceptable. Ordinary people should not have to take the law into their own hands to seek justice. The police should be above reproach. Like priests they should be held to a higher standard of morality. They should be heroes and icons not the people we fear. And we fear them. A policeman doesn’t make me feel safe, he makes me feel threatened. I hate that they got to me. I hate that I allowed myself to be bullied and frightened into parting with a bribe. I hate that I pay money every month for a protection racket masquerading as a private security firm. I may as well hire Executive Outcomes.

Sure crime happens everywhere, but in most first-world countries it is aberrant, the exception not the norm. Here in South Africa, we like to extol the virtues of our forward thinking constitution and our democracy and so on. We don’t live in a democracy. We live under a thin veneer of democracy, but in reality we live in tribal anarchy. I’d rather we were just honest about it. The fact is that criminals here are above the law. We watch our government ministers get away with murder, literally. The very people who should be moral leaders instead erode the fabric of our nation. And we wonder why crime is on the rise?

Meanwhile 19 people are trying to make sense of what has happened to their family. Children will remember the fear of imminent death hanging over them. They won’t trust again. Insurance can replace the things that were taken, but nothing will fix the scars, nothing will bring back the day before.

June 16 - Lest we forget.

"It was cold and overcast as pupils gathered at schools across Soweto on 16 June. At an agreed time, they set off for Orlando West Secondary School in Vilakazi Street, with thousands streaming in from all directions. The planned to march from the school to the Orlando Stadium.

"By 10.30am, over 5 000 students had gathered on Vilakazi Street and more were arriving every minute," say Bonner and Segal. In total, "over 15 000 uniformed students between the ages of 10 and 20 [were] marching that day"."

Read more at: http://www.southafrica.info/about/history/soweto-150606.htm

Tomorrow marks the 1976 Soweto uprising by students and scholars. The image above has as much relevance today as it did in the week before I was born. The youth today is more empowered in some ways and less in others. Our education standards instead of being raised have been dropped. These days every child in a government school gets Bantu Education. We've educated to the lowest common denominator and then the ANCYL complains that the elite of private schools get all the jobs. It shouldn't be surprising.

The youth still bear the brunt of violence and disempowerment. They lack textbooks, teachers, classrooms and shoes. Yet we still build stadiums. Stadiums which a year later stand empty and falling into disrepair. Many of our scholars aren't just kids, they head up households, where they care for younger siblings trying to go to school and bring in enough money to feed and clothe others. This is the legacy of HIV/AIDS. This is what threatens our youth today. Yet we still avoid it, duck our heads and make like an ostrich.

If every public sector employee and every government minister had to send their children to a public school and use public clinics and healthcare, how quickly do you think things would change? The fact is the elite now may be black, but they stand as far away from the common man as their white predecessors, behind their suburban 6 foot walls and their Discovery medical aids and their private schools. Really, just proof that under the skin, men are all the same.

The Apartheid government recognised that by keeping the populace uneducated, they could hold on to power. When you're fighting for your next meal, you really don't care about macro-economic policy. So what's different now? Really. Nothing. Educated people ask questions. They demand answers. They force change. They have power and recourse that the poor may have in word, but not in reality. How can a poor man challenge something in the Constitutional Court? He can't. Only the rich can. So is it a Court of the people?

My husband, a one time law student, used to point out to me that the law, right and wrong, truth and justice are mutually exclusive. An ordinary man has no rights. You only have rights when they are called into question. This is why a criminal has more rights that their victim.

We like to think things have changed. That organisations like the ANC Youth League look after the interests of the youth. They don't. They look after their own interests and their friends and you can't blame them for it. Youth to them seems very flexible. I don't think a 30 year old can be regarded as a youth anymore. By 30 I think you should have grown up into a man. Unless we are talking about mental age instead, in which case they are spot on with Mr Malema.

Image from: http://www.soundprint.org/getImage/ID/15/soweto.jpg

Jack Frost and the pink earmuffs

Jack Frost paid me a visit last night, scratching his clawlike nails down my corrugated iron roof and awakening me with heart stopping terror as I imagined Edward Scissorhands peeling my house open like a sardine can. Those icy fingers trailed lovingly down my cheeks reminding me that while I had put electric blankets on the beds of my offspring, I still need to buy one for me. Thanks to the heat of their own beds all three small people slept in happy warm slumber while I froze my toes under two duvets, a dressing gown and two pairs of socks.

I happily purchased 20 kilograms of coal and an equally huge bag of wood (yes, I know I have in my garden, but it was cold and dark and I wasn’t in the mood to play axeman). The petrol attendant kindly put them in the car and off we went home. This is either where you laugh hysterically at the stupid woman who bought stuff she can’t carry or applaud the South African “boer ‘n plan” spirit. Small boy aged 9 and mother stared at the bags. We heaved, we lugged, we pulled and we tugged. About an hour later and much grubbier we got them into the house. The resulting flames were spectacular. I only wish we had peat or some equivalent, so I could keep it going in the morning. Oh or an AGA. I would love an AGA.

My people have rosy red cheeks that are dry and arid from the cold. Forget fancy face creams, I ended up with a huge jar of Vaseline (I felt myself having to explain to the pharmacist why I wanted it before realising that his mind probably wasn’t racing to the same conclusions as mine). Now I smother these little faces in shiny goop and it seems to do the trick. I feel horrible about leaving them at school in this weather while I sit in my warm office with the heater blowing on my feet. I know when I collect them I’ll have to turn the heater up just to be able to defrost them enough to give them hug without breaking them in two.

One last note on the weather, a quote from my beloved father:
“As cold as charity and that’s pretty glum.
As cold as the hairs on a polar bear’s bum.”
I think that pretty much says it all.

My spouse after a few set backs is now in Ghana enjoying semi tropical heat. Pah! Compromising on a complicated car exchange scheme I set off to drop said husband at the Gautrain station on Monday afternoon. I waved him off and did the inevitable school run. I despise listening to people blurb on the radio so it was a rare occurrence for me to actually listen to a traffic report that predicted ominous delays. I usually don’t because let’s face it I have to go home anyway.

I collected said sprogs and feeling unusually magnanimous I offered to treat them to dinner from KFC. Just as we were about to tuck into our clandestine feast who should call but the father of my children. Turns out SAA likes to make an extra buck wherever they can.

Let me break it down:
Say there are 200 seats on a plane, SAA will sell 250 tickets at full price.
On the day all 250 people may rock up or not.
Assume 50 don’t.
They don’t get a refund and SAA gets 50 extra tickets cash in the hand.
Now what happens when all 250 people rock up?
Chaos, murder and insanity.

Stewardess: “We are terribly sorry that the flight was so overbooked, sir. We’d like to make it up to with a ticket to somewhere you’ve never wanted to go. And because we are so sorry you can go by yourself and stay there forever, because the flight is only one way.”

So, not only do they screw up his flight, his meetings and my chick flick marathon, but they then offer a consolation prize that can only result in more money being spent on their airline going to waardiehekisekfontein! The bizarre thing is that they think its perfectly reasonable and even added on a 20% discount if I wanted to join him on his flight to nowhere. Perhaps I’m the crazy one, but I don’t think it’s much of an apology. Some extra Voyager Miles now that would have been fine, or an upgrade to Business Class on the flight the following day – something real.

Just did the trek downstairs and into the Arctic for a quick smoke. Come tomorrow I am fishing out Small girl aged 5’s pink earmuffs and damn fashion, I’m going to wear them.