It’s Official – The ANC and Zuma are in One Basket

The official ANC statement regarding the disastrous bungle by Jacob Zuma in replacing an experienced and trusted Minister of Finance with one whose record boasts of a catastrophic failure of his leadership as Mayor of Morofeng (ending in a riot and the burning down of his home as the best way, possibly the only way, for the citizens to get rid of him) has confirmed that Zuma is decisive and statesmanlike, only changing his decision after the heads of four of the major banks informed him of how badly he had erred, and with the support of the international financial community, which punished the country by wiping R189 billion off the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.  Of course, Zuma is godlike to many of the senior ANC functionaries, all of them almost certainly in his pocket and dependent on his presence as President for the grossly-overpaid positions they hold with barely any requirement of performance.  He must be God, for he certainly works in mysterious ways! 

This comes as no real surprise.  Zuma has committed bungle after bungle during his time as President, ever one of them covered up by lies and deception by those around him.  One can only assume that the rewards to the senior ANC fellowship must be huge – it would be difficult to imagine that they could hold onto such an incompetent figurehead in normal circumstances.  The great advantage of having had Zuma as President is that it has demonstrated beyond any doubt that the South African Constitution, widely touted by the ANC and its stooges as being the best in the world, is severely deficient in numerous aspects, not the least being its tendency to tolerate repeated flouting by the Executive – the very people charged with protecting it.  If the country is able to survive until Zuma’s next greatest bungle – or act of corruption – finally causes even the ANC to recognize that he is not capable of doing the job, the country may experience the good fortune of gaining a totally new set of leaders.

It will be good that the ANC does not recall Zuma, only to replace him with another, unknown, ANC clod.  It would be far better for Zuma to cling onto power until the ANC can be removed, by vote or by revolution a la Arab Spring, and be replaced by a new group, which will, no doubt, spend the first two years investigating the antics of the President and his multitudinous Ministers, and recovering the billions they have bled off the economy.  The ANC has shown, by its unwavering support of Jacob Zuma, even in the face of incontrovertible evidence of his corruption and incompetence, that there is no real difference between them and Jacob Zuma – he is clearly no more than the willing figurehead, the absorber of the anger of the thinking people, to distract them from the people really to blame for the mobile disaster that has brought the once-great country which, under Nelson Mandela, was able to attract the admiration and hope of the world, to its knees, and made it the epitome of the African basket case.

 

The Difference between Anti-Black and Pro-South Africa

It has been said that any negative comments regarding the BBEEE policy of the Government is counter-revolutionary and anti-Black.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is the duty of every South African to hold the actions and policies of the Government up to the light, to judge them according to their effect on South Africa and South Africa’s standing in the world, and to make this assessment known to those who are in a position to affect the policies and actions of the Government.  One’s civic duty as a citizen is not discharged by unthinking support of Jacob Zuma or the ANC, or of any other political Party or leader.  That uncritical support can only lead to a decline in the standard of performance of those Parties or leaders, possibly to the point where expressions of adoration of the Great Leader will become as commonplace and necessary as in North Korea.  Even though one may admire and support a Party or a leader, it remains one’s duty to call them to account fully for their actions and to provide feedback on those aspects that one does not like.  The execution of that duty is pro-South African, and should be recognized and valued as an honest attempt to assist the politicians to do the work for which they are elected.

It is a fact, although seldom recognized by the people, and least of all by those in power, that the Government is the property of the people.  Unfortunately, the ANC Government, as most other governments around the world, either does not know this, or they do not wish to acknowledge it.  They view the people as an unnecessary inconvenience, as a means to gain re-election every five years and so requiring the amount of attention to their welfare that is at the lowest level needed to gain that re-election, leaving them and their fellow politicians free to enjoy their life of luxury while they pander to their egos in Parliament and in the occasional Press conference or the five-yearly Party conferences.  The arrogance of Jacob Zuma in swapping an effective Minister of Finance for an unknown and demonstrably failed politician, in order to achieve his spending objectives is clear evidence of this, and he was supported in this arrogance by Jeff Radebe, previously viewed as an upright and intelligent politician, who declared that the President does not have to account to any other person for his choice of Ministers.

This conduct is completely against the spirit of the Constitution, which has been widely touted, by people who do not seem to have the legal or political qualifications to do so, as ’the best Constitution in the world’.  This claim has been clearly demonstrated as incorrect, as the Constitution does not have the checks and balances necessary to counter the self-serving and corrupt practices that South Africans have come to expect from those in political power over the past twenty years.  Unfortunately, Jacob Zuma is Black, and any criticism made of him is perverted by those with an anti-white agenda to be anti-Black.  Again, nothing could be further from the truth.  Almost every White South African was delighted to have Nelson Mandela as President of the new South Africa.  He was not flawless, but most normal people were willing to overlook the flaws and to support him and his efforts to make South Africa a good place for all.  They believed that he was honest and good.   His policies were also not universally accepted, but any discussion on them related to the plusses and minuses of the policies, not to the fact that he was Black.  Unfortunately, Mandela’s successor was not able to jump over his Black shadow and be the President of all the people of South Africa.  His was not the great spirit of Mandela, and much of what he did reignited the Black-White divide.  Zuma and his cronies have worked hard to promote that divide, seeing in the holding up of a “White enemy” a means to divert the attention of their Black electorate from the increasingly visible failings of which they are guilty.  The policies of Black Empowerment have done much to embitter the Whites, not for the reason that they favor the Blacks, but because they have promoted the benefit of underqualified Blacks at the cost of the economy.  Where Mandela understood that the size of the economy could be increased to give the growth portion, and even a willingly-granted share of the rest, to the Blacks, his successors have adopted the view that the size of the economy is static, and that any increase in the fortunes of the Blacks must necessarily be taken from the Whites.  What Whites believed in 1994, that the new dispensation was a way to harness the undoubted capabilities inherent in the Black population to the benefit of all was ignored and, ultimately lost in the clutter of the socialist / populist rhetoric and policies of successive Presidents and Ministers who could not understand the basic laws of economics that govern every single person in a civilized society.  The communist countries of the world have shown convincingly that communism is not capable of providing a good life for all the citizens, yet the ANC has increasingly adopted communistic principles and practices, perhaps because the practice of those systems give them the opportunity to build huge personal fortunes by using their political connections, inevitably at the cost of the increasingly large numbers of poor, rather than as a product of their innate abilities.  Joe Slovo made the statement in 1995, when, in a television debate with Gordon Mulholland, he was asked why he thought that communism would succeed in South Africa when it had failed convincingly everywhere else.  His reply was that communism needed a base of capital to thrive.  Mulholland asked what would happen when that base was exhausted.  Slovo replied:  “When that happens, we’ll try another system!”

What the Whites do not like about the present Government in South Africa is not that it is Black, or that it supposedly represents the majority of the Black population, but that it is incompetent and corrupt.  Neither of those characteristics is inherently a quality of Blacks, or of any other population group.  Most Whites would be overjoyed to be able to support a Government of any Party or racial overtone, provided they could believe that the Government was truly and sensibly working for the good of all the people of South Africa.  Most of the Whites who harbored reservations about the capabilities of Blacks in 1994 have been convinced that Blacks are capable, competent and honest.  Unfortunately, the ANC has earned the disapprobation of those people in the time since Nelson Mandela has ceased stamping his qualities on the Party.  Increasingly, the questions that most Whites have regarding the ability of the ANC to govern have been adopted also by many thinking Blacks, of all stations in life, to the extent that a Black driver remarked recently to a foreign (Black) client that “Many of my friends are now convinced that Jacob Zuma and the ANC have started to worship Satan.”

One can only hope that the present crisis in South Africa will lead quickly to the voters learning that voting for personal handouts cannot produce a country in which all can thrive, in which each person is free to achieve his or her potential, unfettered by a political system that awards patronage to the favored few, or makes laws with the main purpose of buying the votes of the beneficiaries of those laws.  We would all love to live in a country where all the people can believe that their Government is working for all of them.  Most of all, Whites and Blacks would love to put in the effort required to build that country for the benefit of all.  There is a huge untapped reservoir of capability and goodwill, waiting for the right politicians to make South Africa a world leader, rather than a declining Third World economy, striving to meet the standards of Zimbabwe.

Meet Nicole Stuart – Author

Meet Nicole Stuart – Author

 

Nicole Stuart graduated with degrees in Commerce and Law, and, after gaining experience in banking, industry and commerce, started work with an international company as a Management Consultant.  She rose rapidly through the ranks, and was seconded to operations of the company in Australia, Britain, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States of America for lengthy periods.  This gave her the opportunity to experience where and how others live and work as well as an insight into a wide array of businesses.  It also helped to lift the veil that obscures our views of other people, and revealed to her the ‘blinkers’ that so many people have, limiting their ability to see things the way they really are.

She has a voracious interest in how things work, as well as in writing, with a considerable fiction and non-fiction output, with over a hundred publications to her name.  She takes pride in basing her writings on a foundation of real life, finding existing conditions that pose real threats, and extrapolating them to produce exciting and entertaining reading, usually with the result that the reader asks “How would I have handled that?”

Her email address is:  NicoleAStuart@gmail.com, and her books can be viewed by clicking here.

 

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Pravin Gordhan is to Compensate for Zuma's Blunder

After making a monumental error in firing Nhlanhla Nene as Finance Minister, bringing about a crash of the Rand against all other currencies and a collapse of world business confidence in South Africa, Jacob Zuma has now fired the unknown he put into the top ministerial position in his government and reinstalled Pravin Gordhan.  No doubt he is hoping that Gordhan will restore South Africa to the luster it once held in the eyes of the investment world.

There is some hope that this may work, to a small extent, but it is clear that huge and long-lasting damage has been done.  The world has now had solid evidence that South Africa is run at the whim of a capricious and solely self-interested man.  The only reason for the change back to what might be perceived as competent leadership of the Finance portfolio can be that Zuma was facing a revolt from his multitudinous Cabinet Ministers, all of whom, no doubt, understand that the huge salaries and perks they enjoy were finally on the line.  Zuma’s arrogance in making the announcement of Nene’s firing, and the subsequent comments by Minister Radebe that ‘the President is entitled in his discretion to appoint and replace Ministers’ must have long-term consequences throughout the international investment community, and his hasty back-stepping is almost as weak as his original decision.  Gordhan must have been involved in the discussions (if indeed there have been discussions) regarding the acquisition of the new Presidential aircraft and regarding the ongoing support of the Board of SAA in the face of the continued illegality of the racialist and economically retrogressive policies it is pursuing.  Gordhan was at the helm at the time that Zuma was bleeding the poor of the country dry to fund the monument to his ego that is Nkandla, as well as during the build-up to the undoubtedly corrupt Russian nuclear deal.  He held the portfolio at the time that Eskom was building down to the near-collapse of the electricity supply of the country.  He was instrumental in providing continuing funding to the frequently-insolvent SAA.  He was the head of the South African Revenue Services at a time that it was involved in corrupt and illegal activities.  It would be folly to assume that Gordhan will suddenly see the light and reform his ways to become the sort of honest politician that South Africa deserves.  It is much more likely that Zuma has grasped at the Gordhan straw for two reasons:  Gordhan has gained a reputation for his ability to squeeze the last drop of blood out of the diminishing taxpayer base, and he has some reputation at least for being one of the best of a series of incompetent Ministers of Finance. 

Unfortunately, the ability to squeeze tax out of the public is one of the least desirable qualities needed in the South African Government, particularly at a time of galloping collapse of the economy.  Remember the smirk on Gordhan’s face when he announced that the Budget had, for the first time, exceeded one trillion Rand?  It did not seem to occur to him that the removal of that huge sum of money from economic use, to be applied to buying the votes of the bloated and ineffective Civil Service and undertaking projects that would most easily bleed off funds to the ANC and the Party favorites, would hasten the economic decline that the ANC seems to have been determined to achieve.  Gordhan’s return to the post seems to be a warning to taxpayers that the squeeze will be tightened dramatically, if the questionable solvency of the country is to be retained, at least in the short term, until the miracle occurs that the ANC hopes will pull it back from the brink.  It seems also to be a warning, if such is still needed, to all businesspersons that the downward spiral of the country will continue, increasing in steepness year by year.  The move toward China and Russia will continue, at the cost of worsening relations with the West, from where most of the country’s foreign funding flows (for the present – the future in that regard seems bleak).  The move to favor Blacks in every way, regardless of their ability to contribute effectively to the economy, will continue, regardless of the very clear injunction in the Constitution to treat every South African equally, regardless of race.

The recent days have demonstrated very clearly that Jacob Zuma, and by implication, the ANC, are prepared to sacrifice South Africa, all South Africans, to feather their own nests.  They are willing to pursue their lunatic and discredited economic and social policies, regardless of their patently negative effects.  One can only hope that the investors who, in the past have been willing to overlook the many failings of the country in the interests of gaining an extra 1% on their money, perhaps influenced by the lingering view that the South Africa that Nelson Mandela aspired to still exists, will now see that the country is managed by a kleptocracy.  If those investors wish to support the dream of Mandela, they must understand that their best hope is to withhold investment in the country until economic sanity once again prevails.

 

Zuma – Preparing for a Dictatorship?

 

The sudden and, in retrospect, unsurprising move by President Jacob Zuma to remove the sole independent voice in his Cabinet from office, and replace him with a failed ex-Mayor of a minor town has had repercussions that even Zuma in his arrogance probably did not foresee.  Nhlanhla Nene was the sole voice of anything approaching reason in the top ranks of Government, a man who stood up to Zuma, to deny his supposed right to spend R4 billion on a Presidential aircraft, to refuse to endorse a transaction by South African Airways that would probably have driven that failed State entity to demand another R60 billion support from the State with the main motivation being to provide further self-enrichment opportunities for the favored of the ANC, and to deny Zuma the payoff opportunities that he is claimed to have negotiated in respect of the unaffordable build of the Russian-sourced nuclear power stations.  There are, no doubt, numerous other extravagances that were prevented by Nene, who seems to have been one of the very few ANC glitterati to understand economic principles, and who was prepared to be an honest man in the face of a seemingly unending stream of Zuma and ANC corruption.

This column has warned several times in the past years of the inevitable outcome of allowing a man like Zuma free reign.  It has spoken of his deep admiration for Robert Mugabe, whose main achievement has been the destruction of the once-strong Zimbabwean economy in the process of amassing enormous wealth for himself.  Mugabe has retained power, even in the face of his dismal economic and democratic performance, by buying the support of power brokers and a band of thugs, and Zuma has copied this pattern, taking the ANC with him.  It has warned of the political manipulation by Zuma in the process of escaping 749 criminal charges, of defeating an unequivocal finding by the Public Protector that he enriched himself in the construction of his homestead at Nkandla at a cost to the taxpayers of over R240 million.  It has spoken of his clear determination to place himself above the Courts in ignoring the Order to hand over the Spy Tapes, and in ignoring the clear Order of the High Court to place a wanted criminal, Omar al Bashir, under arrest, by assisting him to flee South Africa.  It has discussed the statement by the Speaker of the House of Assembly, an Office charged with the clear duty under the Constitution to ensure that the Executive is held to account for their conduct.  That stooge of Zuma, clearly in awe of the man who is the fountainhead of her fortunes, stated clearly that the President is above the Rules of Parliament.  She has also breached the Constitution in bringing into Parliament a Police force to expel the entire elected membership of the Economic Freedom Fighters, regardless of the fact that a good proportion of those Members of Parliament had committed no breach of the Rules.  She is guilty of an act not very far from a coup d’etat in instructing a military-style force to stifle the legitimate demands of a duly elected political Party to obtain an explanation from a rogue President of his alleged corruption.  It has discussed the building of a security force of some 7 000 people around the President, people who are solely accountable to him and who cannot be overseen by any democratically-representative body.  It is difficult to envisage a need for a private security force of that size except in the context of an illegitimate grasp of absolute power.

And, in all of this, the ANC has been heavily complicit.  Numerous examples have been publicized of the positioning of the ANC to benefit from large State contracts, ranging from a stake gained in Mitsubishi, prior to that company being awarded a lucrative contract to supply electricity generation turbines  to Eskom, against the strong recommendation of a panel of Eskom experts, to the gaining of a stake in Shell South Africa, prior to that company being awarded an ‘exploration license’ to drill the fraccing wells in the Karoo, against the advice of numerous national and international experts in the field.

Where is all this going?

The answer lies in the fact that Jacob Zuma’s tenure as President will come to an end in 2019, even if, by some miracle, the ANC retains a majority in the election in that year.  It is clear that neither the ANC nor Jacob Zuma will willingly forego the huge cash flow that presently comes to them as a result of their political dominance, nor will they willingly hand over the power to investigate their actions since 1994 to any of the increasingly hostile Opposition Parties, whose first action will be to prosecute and jail those that can be shown to be corrupt, and to use the funds recovered from them to rebuild the economy to something near to what it should have been.  Following the Mugabe model, if the ANC is not able to gain a majority sufficiently large to amend the Constitution to permit Zuma a lifetime Presidency, the next alternative will be to declare a state of emergency, to permit Zuma and his stooges to retain control of the country and the seemingly unending flow of wealth that it can bring.  The Dictator to whom we will all answer will be Jacob Zuma, a man who will be placed above all criticism.

This is not fantasy.  Look at the people Jacob Zuma admires, and from whom he has learnt.  The list is large.  Muammar al Gaddafi, Mao Tze Dung, Robert Mugabe, Adolph Hitler, Josef Stalin, Idi Amin, Shaka Zulu are prominent on that list.  And every one of them gained and held onto power by brutality, by seizing power by subterfuge and by force.  Every one of them gained huge wealth at the cost of their countrymen.  And every one of them brought their countries to their knees, leaving behind a legacy of destitution, despair and destruction of the ideals of democracy that men like Nelson Mandela gave their lives to build.

The citizens of the world must be aware that a force for evil is reaching fruition in South Africa, a force that has the potential to destroy the freedom of so many citizens of the world that has been built, at huge cost, since the Second World War.  They must take action now to make their concerns known, by depriving every part of the Zuma Empire of the flow of funds that is his sole reason for being there.  They must broadcast their concern to everyone who will listen, to ensure that the lies being spread by the South African Government are not swallowed as the truth.  Zuma and the ANC present a problem to the world that is at least as serious as that posed by the Apartheid system.

Zuma- Complicit in Genocide?

The actions of President Jacob Zuma and his Cabinet in attempting to grant immunity to the President of Sudan in his attempt to escape arrest under a Warrant issued by the International Criminal Court on a charge of having committed genocide by ordering the actions that killed 300 000 of his countrymen, is a clear indication of their support of an internationally-wanted criminal.  Their actions in having failed to take the necessary steps to prevent his escape from justice is a breach of their duties under the Treaty of Rome, the establishment of which South Africa supported at a time when we all believed in rightness and justice, a breach of the law ratifying South Africa’s signature to that treaty, a breach of international law, a breach of the Constitution, and a breach of the binding judgment of the High Court.  It is a slap in the face of the international community, and a flagrant contravention of a United Nations Security Council Resolution.

It has been clear for years that Jacob Zuma is an outlaw President.  He has repeatedly ignored the Orders of the High Court and of a Chapter Nine institution, the Public Protector, which was set up in the Constitution to protect the nation against the criminal and otherwise illegal activities of the Executive.  His co-opting of his Cabinet colleagues to support these activities are a disgrace for the nation, and a clear statement of the collapse of the rule of law in South Africa.  It is also a clear description of the sort of people we have in the highest office.  Zuma’s actions in regard to the President of Sudan constitute an undeniable case for his immediate removal from office.  What President Richard Nixon did at Watergate is a tiny fraction of what Zuma has done.

The crimes which the President of Sudan is accused are not the petty theft of a quarter of a billion Rand of public money to build his own house, or the ignoring of the binding findings of constitutionally-constituted bodies or Courts of Law.  They are the cold-blooded murder of a large part of the population of his country, a crime committed in his clambering to gain the power and wealth of the office he now holds by force, violence and deceit.

The association of people like the President of Sudan, the President of Zimbabwe and the President of South Africa tells any who doubt, that the African Union is a Buddy’s Club dedicated to the protection of its members.  The African Union, by adopting the notion that a Head of State is above the law of any country, their own included, as well as above important and binding treaties such as the Treaty of Rome, has admitted that it does not consider its prime function to be the protection of the citizens of it member nations, but the maintenance in power of the evil ad criminal Presidents who get together to discuss how best to exploit their nations.  No sane person can believe that the African Union deserves any respect, as long as the presidents mentioned above are part of it, and certainly not while Robert Mugabe remains the President of the organization.

What should come out of this fiasco?

The first result should, and probably will be the castigation of South Africa as an outlaw State.  This should go so far as to have sanctions instituted against the country.  The allowing free of the Sudanese President should be seen as a clear notification to the world that South Africa is a State that, at least, supports and condones terrorism and genocide, that turns a blind eye to imperative legal commitments to bodies that it originally supported.  The sanctions could well take the form of a prohibition on international travel by Zuma and his Cabinet henchmen.  It may extend to financial and trade sanctions against the country.  Within South Africa, these actions should promote a vote of no confidence in the President and the people who have brought this international opprobrium on the country.  It should precipitate criminal actions for contempt of Court against Zuma, the Minister of Home Affairs, the Minister of Defence and several other senior and junior officials for their part in letting this criminal go free.  It should bring local, as well as international criminal actions against Zuma and his colleague for their role in the matter.  And it should bring about the downfall of the ANC, which has shown convincingly it scorn for the laws of the country, and of its citizens.

The results of the day’s activities will redound to South Africa’s detriment for years to come.  They will be a turning point for South Africa, second only to the fall of the Apartheid Government.  They will be felt by every citizen of the country, and they will be disastrous for the land of Nelson Mandela, the man who might well go down in history as the last honest President of this benighted land.

SA and the AU

The announcement that South Africa will fund the operations of the African Union to the tune of R700 million per annum comes at an interesting time. 

The AU leaders have shown great annoyance at the fact that the leader of Sudan, the subject of an international Warrant of Arrest issued by the International Criminal Court on a charge of genocide, should be arrested by South Africa, a signatory to an international agreement binding it to give effect to that warrant.  They have proclaimed that the ICC is intent on bringing African leaders to trial, ignoring all other nations.  They appear to ignore the fact that Angela Merkel and David Cameron are not known to have committed genocide, or to have killed 300 000 of their own people, or to have spent R246 000 000 of public money on their own properties in contravention of their obligations under the Constitution.  They seem to be oblivious to the lack of a civil war in Europe or the United States, in which tens of thousands of citizens are displaced, forcing them to flee to other countries.  They do not seem to understand that criminal charges are brought only in regard to large-scale criminal conduct.

At the same time, Zimbabwe has announced that it is redeeming Zimbabwe dollars at the rate of 175 000 million Zimbabwe dollars for US$5.  The AU is acting at the direction of its President, Robert Mugabe, a dictator who was responsible for the killing of about 45 000 Zimbabwe citizens, and the man who managed to bring the economically powerful nation of Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia, named after the man who set the basis for the economic growth of that country, but who has now become an object of hatred and mirth by Mugabe and his sidekicks, Zuma and Malema), to its knees.  A noteworthy achievement of the man who is now the President of the African Union, is the achievement of an inflation rate of five hundred billion per cent!  Is it possible that the people who claim to be the leaders of Africa can look up to this man?  Can they be so blind, so brainwashed, that they cannot see that what he did to his own country will inevitably be the result of following his insane propaganda?  The answer, apparently, is that they do not understand the linkage between the causes and the results that are there for all to see, that they are intent on following the Mugabe route to destruction.

There might appear to be some foundation for the desire of the AU to renege on the obligations of the treaty under which the African, and other, nations agree to hand over those suspected of criminal behavior to an unbiased and just Court for trial for their crimes!

Africa has long been known as a homeland of criminal leaders of nations.  It is almost not possible to list the names of five leaders of African nations without including at least one who is guilty of serious crimes against humanity or against the Constitution of their own countries – Mugabe, Gaddafi, Amin, Bhokassa, Zuma, Mobutu, the list is endless.  The announcement by the AU that the places occupied by the leaders of its constituent nations are subject to diplomatic immunity, effectively removing any meeting of the AU on South African soil from the jurisdiction of the South African Courts and the operation of South African law, is surely unconstitutional, and sets an extremely dangerous precedent.  It will, if applied as seems to be likely also to the South African President, put him above the law, as he already seems to view himself.  It will place all of those parasites out of the reach of international laws that were put in place to protect the citizens of their respective countries, and of their neighbor countries from the consequences of the unbridled power that they arrange for themselves.  It has long been apparent that any leader of a movement who comes to power as a result of violence, whether by military coup or terrorist action, is not capable of abiding by the laws of a civilized nation.  Such people have accepted that might is right, and they have difficulty in transforming their beliefs and understanding of how the world works in a civilized society, in which even the leaders, and most importantly the leaders, are subject to a set of laws which should control their excesses.  It can be no surprise that, even now after more than twenty years of ‘democracy’ in South Africa, members of the ANC, of Cosatu and its affiliated Trade Unions, and of several other ‘struggle-derived’ Parties settle their disagreements by murder and violence, that Jacob Zuma can feel free to rig a series of investigative bodies to come to the conclusion that he does not have to ‘pay back the money’ spent by the taxpayer on his home at Nkandla, that Thabo Mbeki can sit in a Commission of Enquiry into the Arms Deal, in which he and the Speaker of the House of Parliament colluded to prevent any discussion or investigation by the body set up to prevent an abuse of power by the Executive, and deny that any wrongdoing took place, when the Police hold over five million pages of evidence, and the German Police investigation was stopped by a steadfast refusal by Mbeki’s Government to cooperate..  A declaration by the African Union Heads of State that any of their number is immune to prosecution will, after all, only be a recognition of the de facto state of affairs, and make it unnecessary for the individuals concerned to go through the wearisome process of denial of charges and the rigging of investigations into their conduct.

And all the time, the South African economy, teetering on the edge of being downgraded to junk status, in which it will join the States headed by the enlightened Members of the august body of Leaders of African States attending a meeting of the African Union, people like Mugabe, will agree to fund to the tune of seven hundred million Rands per year that body of parasites, the meeting place of people like Mugabe, Gaddafi and Zuma, while eleven million children go to school each day without a decent meal, while thirteen million of its citizens live below the breadline, while ESKOM demands another fifty-six billion Rands of funding to correct the bungles it has made under ANC direction, and while the ANC continues to bleed the country dry.

As should be the case with ESKOM and with SAA, the ANC and the AU should be required to show that it is capable of using the funds paid to them by the taxpayer correctly, efficiently and honestly, before they become entitled to demand more.  They should show clearly and publicly that they use the money for the benefit of the citizens, in a manner that is approved by the taxpayers, before they ask for more.  They should realize that the taxpayer is not a public well with an inexhaustible supply, to be plundered and wasted to soothe the egos of the criminals and the incompetents who, unfortunately, seem to make up the bulk of the members of the spending elite.  If they do not do that, those taxpayers will be forced to follow the example of the Trades Unions and go on strike.  They must understand that the real power of a nation is I the hands of the people.

Is Jacob Zuma a Humorist?

Jacob Zuma has proved conclusively that he is the world’s greatest humorist. 

1.    He has opened the World Economic Forum in South Africa.

2.    He has given advice to the world leaders on the development of an economy.

3.    He has stated that the greatest priority of people in Government must be the creation of jobs.

4.    He has said that his Government is fighting corruption at all levels.

5.    He has stated that a good education system is essential for the development of an economy.

6.    He has explained that Africa is enjoying the fastest economic growth of all continents.

7.    He has said, with a laugh, that African Presidents should obey the Constitution of their country.

All of this against a background of:

1.    His refusal to pay back any money on the R246 000 000 State subsidy for his private mansion at Nkandla, a desperately poor area, although the Public Protector has stated unequivocally that he and his family have benefited unjustly from that funding, in contravention of the Constitution.  His refusal comes after a year of squirming, of finding compliant Ministers and State employees to declare that a swimming pool is a security measure, that a costly auditorium is required for the security of visitors to his homestead (ignoring the fact that he has three official residences, the repair of the fencing of one of which cost R30 000 000 last year!), as well as justifying other excesses.  All this for a President who is paid a salary of more than ten times the average salary for a State President!

2.    The payoff of several senior investigative officials amounting to tens of millions of Rands.  These officials were dismissed from top positions after it was found that they were not qualified for the position bestowed on them by Zuma.  One of these was paid a retrenchment of more than ten times his annual salary after he had been in the job of head of the National Prosecuting Authority for less than a year, including many months of suspension on full pay.  It seems that the way to become wealthy is to get a State top job, threaten to tear the lid off Zuma’s activities, and then be dismissed with a huge payoff!

3.    The crashing Rand dropping 2% in one day, with more to come when the ratings agencies publish their downgrade of South Africa from ‘marginal’ to ‘junk’.

4.    The worst growth rate of the economy since 2003.  The annualized GDP growth for the first quarter of 2015 was 1.3%.

5.    The rankling of South Africa as third worst in the world misery index, beaten only by Argentina and Venezuela.

6.    The lowest business confidence index in five years.  Business confidence has never been rosy in South Africa since Zuma became President, but the latest result is a new low.

7.    The announcement that the unemployment rate is now above 26% on the official figures, with the real rate being over 69%.  Youth unemployment now stands at 51%, notwithstanding the Government plan to create five million new jobs by 2019.  If one strips out new Government jobs, employment creation has been negative since Zuma came to power.  Government employs over 49% of all salaried persons.

8.    The denial that South Africans are xenophobic, despite eleven foreign shop-owners being killed, and dozens of their stores being torched.

9.    The trial of a senior Police officer on multiple counts, including one of murdering his girlfriend’s lover.  This Police officer was charged with these crimes after a high-profile arrest, and the charges were then withdrawn after, rumor has it, he threatened to spill the beans on some of Zuma’s activities in using the Crime Intelligence Service to spy on political enemies, including several ANC ‘comrades’ who, in Zuma’s twisted world, were gaining the popularity needed to unseat him.  Uneasy sits the head that wears the crown.

10.  The growing flight of foreign investment capital of the country.  Even the most foolhardy investors are reading the writing on the wall.  South Africa is flying full-speed into the wall.

11.  The publication of a book by a noted foreign financial journalist predicting that the South African economy would crash within two years. (RW Johnson - How Long Can South Africa Survive? (Jonathan Ball Publications))’

12.  The statement by a senior official of FIFA that the South African Government had sanctioned the payment of a ten million dollar bribe to secure the 2010 Soccer World Cup, with denials by the South African Minister of Sport being refuted.  The bribe was paid over, in traditional South African fashion, in the form of bundles of $10 000 each in a briefcase in a Paris hotel.  The first real story about a bribe being paid related to $20 000 000 being transported from Dusseldorf to the Geneva bank account of a top South African politician.  The politician has since dared anyone to provide proof that any corruption took place, carefully avoiding the numerous requests by the German Police for assistance from the South African Police, after they had found a document agreeing the terms of the bribe in the German company’s records.  The South African Police terminated the investigation, claiming that they had insufficient evidence (ignoring the six million pages of documents in their possession) and the fact that they would have to request the cooperation of the German Police (which thy had studiously ignored for the years).

One has to admire his thick skin!

 

The Nkandla Report

During the long wait for the final Nkandla Report, the long-suffering South African public hoped that the Minister of Police would ultimately present an unbiased report that would satisfy the public demand for justice in this apparently flagrant breach of the duties of his office by the South African President.  That hope should have been informed by the long history of dissimulation, of ducking and diving by the incumbent of that office.  The Tapes affair, in which the High Court issued a clear and unambiguous Order that the tapes recording discussions regarding the withdrawal of some 740 criminal charges against Mr Zuma, which Zuma and his stooges managed to avoid complying with by numerous examples of ducking and diving, spurious appeals and blatant disregard of the Order of Court, should have made the citizens aware that Zuma does not consider himself to be subject to the laws of the country.  His multiple attempts to escape liability for the more than R200 000 000 expended by the State on his private residence should have reaffirmed that understanding.  His fervent denials that he had entered into an agreement with the Russians regarding the building of several nuclear power stations at a cost of more than a hundred billion dollars, clearly contradicted by the publication on the Russian Government website of that contract, should have convinced even the most fervent Zuma fan that he is not a person to be trusted.  However, the gullible electorate, the sucker taxpayers, continued to hope that this President would show himself to be a man of honour.  His final sniggering comments in Parliament that the critics who have demanded an honest response from this man should have disabused any notion of intelligence, education or honour.  He made a point of the fact that some of the critics were unable to pronounce ‘Nkandla’.  This is remarkable, coming from a man who shows his lack of linguistic capability in his repeated abuses of the English language, his use of ‘commy-tea’ , ‘apar-thaid’, rather than Apart-heid’ ( a state of separation) to describe the policy that he claims to have spent most of his life fighting, his frequent ‘koting’ of authorities, rather than ‘qu-oting’ as any competent user of English would say, his comments about the ‘vow-lation’ of rights being only a few examples, now give his critics the freedom to use the same rules against him.

The Minister of Police went to great pains to explain that the cattle kraal is a cultural requirement of the Zulu people, and there, presumably, permissible as a security upgrade.  The swimming pool, at a cost of over R7 000 000 was necessary because the local fire service more than ninety minutes to respond, and is therefore a necessary element in the protection of this beloved President, ignoring the probability that the water pressure and unreliable supply of water could have been improved to the benefit of the entire community, at a lower cost.  The visitors’ Centre, it was argued, was essential to provide security to the visitors.  This, in a private home!  About the only thing that the Minister of Police said that might be considered to be true, accurate and meaningful to any of the many people who sat through this jumbled and meaningless piece of apology for the corruption of the President and the stooges who pander to him, related to the incompatibility of the Police and technology!  Virtually every citizen can relate to that!

It has been clear, since the day that the Public Protector issued her brave report, at the cost of a vicious and continuing attack on her personally and on her office by the ANC, that the President has never had any intention of complying with the law of the land or the finding of a constitutionally-established body for the protection of the public against people such as the President and the numerous corrupt people he and his stooges have placed in public office.  Even the Speaker of Parliament, a person who has the duty to ensure that the Executive accounts to Parliament for their actions, has stated clearly that the State President and the members of the tribal ‘royalty’ are not subject to the same rules as ordinary citizens.  That is a dangerous situation, a condition in which the Executive are elevated above the laws of the country, rather than being subject to a higher standard of conduct, by virtue of the level of trust implicit in the offices they hold.  It is a situation in which the newly-built private residence of a single man is given massive preference in the provision of Police services, firefighting capability and many other services above the entire community surrounding it.  It is a condition that places the comfort and personal enrichment of the servant of the people far above the essential needs of the tens of thousands of shack dwellers around the country, above the food needs of the eleven million citizens, including three million children, who have far less than an adequate supply of food on a daily basis.  It gives a man the belief that he has the right to spend two billion Rands on aircraft, when the economy of the country is going down the tubes, while the rest of the continent is growing.

Brief conversations with all levels of people, from CEOs of large corporations to men working in the gardens or sitting beside the streets in the hope of finding a day’s work to fend off starvation for themselves and their families, render a clear conclusion.  Jacob Zuma has lost whatever trust and confidence he may have commanded, before the People came to understand just what he is, and what his Party represents.

Mugabe and the Credibility of the African Union

 

If there was any residual hope that about the African Union has the desire, the capability and the leadership to undertake any of the crucial work needed to turn Africa into a place where civilised people would wish to live, the performance of Robert Mugabe, in his capacity of Chairman of that body, has confirmed that Africa has far to go, and much to suffer before it can join the ranks of modern civilized nations.

Mugabe is a man who, for decades, has enriched himself at the expense of his nation, once one of the hopes of Africa.  He has brought Zimbabwe to its knees with ‘redistribution of the productive farms’, taking them from the efficient White farmers who built from bare land a capacity to supply huge quantities of food to the rest of Africa, handing them to his cronies, who did not have the ability, or even the desire, to operate them with any discernible level of skill or knowledge.  That single move brought Zimbabwe to the brink of starvation, forcing thousands of Zimbabweans to escape his brutal form of ‘democracy’ by moving to South Africa.  The official figure for Zimbabwean expatriates in South Africa is over 500 000, but the real figure is probably in excess of a million.  Mugabe followed that lunacy with the next, the ‘indigenisation’ of mines and the few productive industries that remained in the country, exciting another wave of emigration.  It should be noted that many thousands of Zimbabweans flocked to Apartheid South Africa before 1994, to escape the despotic rule that Mugabe imposed.  Those refugees obviously believed that South Africa at that time was better than the workers’ paradise that Mugabe claims the country to be.  America provided vast quantities of food aid in the form of grain, which was transported in bulk to Durban, for packing into bags labelled “Gift of the American People – Not For Sale’.  Mugabe did not like this, because America, alongside Britain, is, in his twisted mind, responsible for everything that has gone wrong in Zimbabwe under his rule.  He insisted that the grain be packed in plain bags which he supplied, and he then sold that grain to the favoured people in Zimbabwe, refusing to deliver any grain, free or sold, to areas in respect of which which his Party did not hold a seat in Parliament.  Mugabe, in his recent tirade in South Africa, which was watched with sniggering approval by Jacob Zuma, stated boldly that the previous regime had killed thousands of Zimbabwean Blacks, and dumped their bodies down a disused mineshaft.  The truth of that matter is that Mugabe’s ‘freedom fighters’ slaughtered some 40 000 of their Black Matabele opponents and dumped their bodies down the mineshaft of a mine which had been in operation until some years after the accession to the Presidency of Robert Mugabe.  Now, Mugabe has had the arrogance to declare that none of the people who emigrated from Zimbabwe in recent years has done so as a result of the catastrophic economic conditions he and his Party have brought about.

The rapidly-growing flight of refugees from Africa to Europe must surely be seen as an indicator of an escalating disaster in Africa, one that is perhaps more visible to the World than the flow of refugees from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Nigeria, Sudan and numerous other countries.  However, while those flows are less visible, they are no less there.

Many people simply accept that ‘this is Africa’, and ignore the bald-faced lies told by Mugabe.  It is true that if you tell a big lie often enough, it becomes the truth.  Anyone with an understanding of what Adolph Hitler and his gang of Nazi lunatics did to Germany and to Europe will recognise that our meek acceptance that ‘this is Africa’ is putting us all firmly on a path to catastrophe on a world scale.  The sniggering obsequiousness of Jacob Zuma, Julius Malema and other aspirant African billionaires, their abject hero worship of Robert Mugabe for the example he has set in his rise to power and obscene wealth by means of corruption and outright theft, and his self-serving stance of hatred of the Whites and the West, must surely be a warning to the world that a cancer is growing within Africa.  The cancer has taken root in South Africa, where the ANC has been single-minded in its support for the corruption headed by the State President and strongly supported by the Speaker of the House of Parliament in her views that he is not subject to the same rules as other citizens.  That cancer will continue to grow, accelerating its destruction of the hope for peace and prosperity in Africa that drove the West to support the independence of the former colonies.  That cancer has the potential to bring the hopelessness of Africa to the West, just as the acquiescence of Britain and the United States to the development of the cancer of the Nazi threat under Adolph Hitler, their desperate desire for ‘peace in our time’ epitomised by the speech of the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, plunged the world into a war that changed the lives of millions.  As Roman Herzog said in his first speech as President of West Germany, ‘we must solve the problems of Africa in Africa, otherwise we will have to solve them in Europe.’  Now is surely the time for the Western world to formulate a set of principles to be applied to their dealings with Africa and its dictators, under whatever guise they may hide.

The problems of Africa are clear to see by anyone with the interest to look.  They are not problems of race or religion.  They are problems of dictators grabbing whatever there is, leaving the people to starve and to provide a fertile ground for extremism in every form.  They are the threat that the rest of the world has to deal with, now under principles, or in the future under arms.

Thought Leaders

In any civilised society, university students are placed in an elevated position.  They are supposed to be above the herd, in terms of their thinking capabilities, their knowledge of events and history far beyond the scope of the courses they are taking, and in terms of their ability to apply reason to what they intend to say before the words are uttered.  They are the leaders of the future, and most of them accept the responsibility that this imposes on them.  That has always been true of South African university students, many of whom have shown their ability, their courage and, sometimes, their foolhardiness in speaking truth to authority.  This is sometimes punished, and, usually, not rewarded, as has been shown conclusively by the thousands of such students who stood up to the Apartheid Police, in demonstrations and in silent roadside vigils in sun, rain and in icy winter conditions.

Occasionally, one such student develops political aspirations, and decides to use his position of putative thought leadership to make outrageous statements, hoping that the unthinking herd will follow his lead.  Often, those who hear the statements, or who are the target of them, understand that the statements are part of the immaturity of the person, the mental incapability to understand the history and the profound meaning of such history or, sometimes, the simple abject stupidity of the person making such statements.  However, at times the speaker is a person who puts such stupidity arrogantly on public display, no doubt with the intention of gaining the notoriety that persons of much lesser learning arrogate to themselves by means of profoundly stupid utterances.

Such a person is the President of the Students Representative Council of the University of the Witwatersrand, Mcebo Dlamini.  That body has always been contrarian, but it has usually maintained a position that might be understood, if not forgiven, on the basis of the immaturity of the members.  However, when Dlamin published a statement on Facebook that every White person had elements of the Nazis in them. Dlamini demonstrated conclusively his lack of intelligence, his lack of capability to understand the lessons of history, and his lack of the discretion that one would expect of a leader of a student body in the previously august body of learning, a body that, at one time, had the ability to claim the moral high ground, at a level well above that of the ANC, which had proved by its actions against its own cadres and against the mass of Black people that it claimed to represent (don’t forget the campaign of cold-blooded murders, ‘necklacings’, carried out under the instruction of Comrade Winnie).  He explained his views in a TV interview, which spoke very clearly of the minimal knowledge he has of the facts of the rise to power of Hitler, even of the timeline.  Dlamini compounded his stupidity by stating that he ‘likes the Nazis, for their organisational abilities’ something that was undoubtedly better than the ANC, but which cannot in any sane society be used as a reason for respect for a group of vicious, self-centred genocidal thugs which drove one of the most advanced and civilised societies in a lemming-like scurry over the precipice to national suicide.  He also admires the way that ‘Hitler brought back the pride of the German people in 1938’, which happens to be the year of the most horrific anti-Jewish actions of that murderous Government.  This is the sort of populist claptrap drivel that one has come to expect of persons like Julius Malema (it is noteworthy that the EFF Wits Branch has come out in support of Dlamini’s comments) and certain senior members of the ANC.  Come to think of it, that could be a description of the ANC and the EFF!

One wonders what course of study Dlamini is undertaking, and what his level of success in those studies might be.  One also wonders whether the University will stand up for what is right and good, and take the logical action of expelling this man.  Evil deserves to be punished, and there can be no doubt that Dlamini is evil.  This will not be censorship.  It will be the excision of a dangerous cancer, one that needs to be removed before it infects the entire society.  It would be comparable with the imprisonment or execution of Adolph Hitler before he imposed his insanity on a noble nation.  If the University fails to take such an action, it would be reasonable to conclude that it endorses his statement.  I personally hope that this will not be the case.  I worked hard to gain my two degrees from Wits, and, until recently, I was proud of them.  The fact that a man like Dlamini can be a leader of the students of Wits deprives me of that pride.  I, as well as thousands of my peers, dread that we, our intellectual honesty and our moral standards should be compared with Dlamini.

Xenophobia and Education

 

Public discussions regarding the causes of the recent outbreak of xenophobic violence in South Africa have brought several intriguing questions to light.

The most obvious question is that of the leadership vacuum at the head of the Government in South Africa.  None of the persons or bodies that should have been most directly involved in efforts to prevent or stop the violence were to be seen.  Even the Zulu King, who, by his comments that foreigners should leave the country, was probably most directly responsible for kicking off the latent violence, failed to take any effective action, or even any action at all, to stop the violence.  One of his representatives made the remarkable assertion that the King is the direct representative of God, and therefore that anything that the King says has the force of the Holy Word, and cannot be questioned or investigated.  That statement raises frightening possibilities.  The ‘God-King’, as he is known, is able to give any instruction and have it enforced without question, no matter how irresponsible or ignorant that instruction and the understanding and knowledge underlying it may be.  Any intelligent observer would be entitled to question the educational and intellectual capability of the King to fulfil the role that he has assumed, and that has been supported by the laws of the country.  The statements made by the King and his lack of any effective action to prevent a situation that has the potential of escalating to a full genocide certainly give rise to doubt that those questions can be answered satisfactorily.  Equally, the frightening lack of effective action by the President and his cohorts confirm the opinion that the leadership of the country, apart from the tribal leadership of large portions of the community, which appear to be fragmented and uncoordinated, has no clear plan for the country, other than simply retaining office so that they can continue to benefit from the extra-ordinary income flowing from their offices.  The fact that Zuma cancelled his visit to Indonesia to attend to the local problem was lauded as an example of his statesmanship can only be seen as an illustration of the absolute lack of capability of the State President to fulfil the requirements of the office.  The excuses given by the Ministers of State Security and Intelligence are equally lamentable.  Both of those worthies should have known of the trend, and taken effective attempts to defuse them long before it gave rise to the violence and killings.  Given the lamentable state of their portfolios, one must ask what else is occupying their attention.  It is horrifying to think that other developing crises have been at the forefront of their minds during the build-up to the riots.

An obvious shortcoming that should be addressed urgently is the lack of any meaningful education in economic theory.  Calls by apparently well-spoken and educated people to talk shows raised the point that the foreigners do contribute to the creation of jobs by the need for the Department of Home Affairs to document them!  If that is a meaningful source of jobs, perhaps it would be easier to close down the Department and pay the amount that is expended on it directly to the unemployed!  The achievements of the Department are extremely poor, with an application for a Birth Certificate requiring nearly two years, so far!  The callers and, in most cases, the TV and Radio commentators show a remarkable lack of understanding of the chain of economic activity.  Even the Premier of Kwa Zulu Natal made a proposal that the solution to the ‘threat’ posed by the foreign shopkeepers would require an intervention to enable the locals to buy their goods wholesale and thereby become effective as shopkeepers in competition with the foreigners!  One wonders why the foreigners, who face the same purchasing constraints as the locals, should be more effective than the locals.  If that question could be answered, it might go a long way to solve the lack of competitiveness of South African industry as a whole!  Perhaps we need to appoint a foreign shopkeeper as Minister of Trade and Industry, or even as State President, so that he could apply his superior capabilities for the good of the nation!  It appears to be almost certain that the poor education of the bulk of the population is an important factor in the inability of South Africans to earn an income.  One wonders why this should be so, given the huge sums expended on education.  A possible answer lies in the fact that the ANC is heavily committed to a Marxist-Leninist policy, relying on their training in Russia, East Germany and Cuba at the time that they were still terrorists.  It may come as a surprise to the ANC that training in communist theories is very far from education in economics, law and politics.  It may equally come as a surprise to know that Government in a democratic country is intended to be directed to the benefit of the population, not for the purpose of enrichment of those holding office.

The comments made by and about the Zulu King, a man who holds an hereditary office which is devoid of any traces of democracy, give some indicators of what is urgently required to stabilise the country.  Democracy has failed in South Africa, starting the process under Thabo Mbeki, when he, abetted by the Speaker of the House of Parliament, went to extraordinary lengths to stifle any investigation into the corruption surrounding and driving the Arms Deals in the 1990s.  Jacob Zuma took the baton of autocracy and corruption from Mbeki, running with it and deepening their hold on the fledgling democracy that Nelson Mandela founded.  It is true that the Constitution was deeply flawed as a result of the personal and political interests of the delegates to the Conference that gave rise to it, flaws that have deepened as the ANC used the words of the Constitution to entrench their political support, putting the payoffs to the National Party members into the shade.  It has now become acceptable for the present Speaker of the House to make rulings against the Rules of the House and the terms of the Constitution, and to state explicitly that the State President and the Black royalty are not subject to the rules that apply to others.  The Zulu royal House has existed since the time of Shaka, a bloodthirsty tyrant who built the Zulu nation by means of conquering the smaller tribes, and killing any person who might become an opponent in the future.  That founding is, to say the least, illegitimate.  It is less legitimate than colonialism, and is certainly not an acceptable basis for the management of a nation that is seen by the world as a democracy.

When the riots are over and the damage done, to the foreigners and to the country, a sober assessment must be made of the suitability of the Constitution, the offices under it, and the people who fill those offices, to manage a modern economy.  That will not happen, because the result of any intelligent assessment will certainly be a change to the system that has been so profitable for the hereditary tribal leaders and the ANC.

Xenophobia in South Africa – Who is Next?

 

The wave of xenophobia that is sweeping over South Africa raises a number of interesting questions.

The sudden outbreak of violence against non-South Africans in seven cities widely separated around the country raises a strong suspicion, if not the certainty, that it was orchestrated.  It would seem surprising that so many ordinary people would suddenly take it into their heads to attack foreign store owners, looting and burning their shops and assaulting and killing the owners.  One of the attackers, a young woman, said on television that she would sit at home doing nothing while the foreigners opened their stores and stole the jobs of the locals.  That sort of sentiment could only have come from someone who wished to spread hatred and discontent.  Think about it.  The foreign store owner is a single man, operating a store of about ten square metres in area.  The sole worker in the store is the man, and the reason he has the store is that there is a demand, which no local is satisfying.  No jobs have been taken from locals.  On the contrary, the presence of the store provides a service to the local community which they need, and which they are not compelled to use.  The large number of people who protested the attacks is a good indication that a considerable proportion of the people in the relevant areas accept the presence of the foreigners and appreciate the service they offer.  That suspicion obviously raises the question of who is behind the sudden outbreak.  It seems likely that the instigators of these vicious attacks are members of one of the political parties which have staked their position in the area declaring that South Africa is for the South African Blacks.

The sudden rash of violence occurred at the time that Robert Mugabe arrived in South Africa to make his hate-filled racist speech condemning the ‘colonialists’.  Can it be a coincidence that the violence that broke out at that precise time seems to have been carried out by people bearing a strong resemblance to Mugabe’s teenage ‘war veterans’, who have terrorised the population of that sorry country for so long?  That view is reinforced by the wishy-washy speech by President Zuma, who has established his credentials as a White Hater over and over.  Zuma spoke of the foreigners as being ‘our African brothers’, words that have been used by him and his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, to give the impression to the unthinking Black populace that Whites are excluded as legitimate residents of the country, no matter the length of their South African family tree or the legitimacy in economic and other terms of their presence in the country.  It sounded very much as though Zuma was paying lip service to the principles of human rights that were so much a foundation stone of Nelson Mandela’s Rainbow Nation, while, at the same time, preparing the thinking of the thugs for an extension of the hatred of ‘foreigners’ to the White population, which has been so much a thorn in the side of the ANC.

The fact that the outbreaks of violence have occurred in so many cities at the same time seems to have escaped Zuma’s attention.  Zuma says that it is wrong to think of the attacks as xenophobia.  They are a manifestation of the people’s need for jobs!  That is clearly demonstrated by the fact that the thugs were filmed carting off freezer cabinets!  Zuma’s contention is perhaps a cause for the very ineffective action of the Police in controlling the violence – only thirty-five people have been arrested during the outbreaks, and at least two of those were the foreign shop owners who were trying to protect their property and save their lives!  There has been no mention of any plan to bring in the Army to fill the presence gap of the Police, although huge sums of money are expended every year in providing peacekeeping services to our brother African dictators.  Apparently, the lives of a few dozen foreign store-owners, most of whom are here legally, are of less importance, or, perhaps, it is necessary to allow the violence to spread unchecked so that the next phase of the plan can be commenced.  Looking at the history of Uganda under Idi Amin, f Ruanda, and of Zimbabwe, it seems to be not unreasonable to suspect that the next phase will be a ‘spontaneous’ spread of the hatred of foreigners to the Whites, who are frequently accused of controlling the economy to the detriment of the Black population.  Zuma has already built a security wall around himself in case there is a backlash, with over 7 000 security personnel who report only to Zuma and who owe their allegiance only to him.  Zuma has also gained control over the proceedings of Parliament, where the Speaker goes to great lengths, even illegally as has recently been demonstrated and confirmed by the High Court, to protect Zuma.  The Speaker has stated that Zuma is not subject to the normal Rules of Parliament!

In a blog some years ago, this writer asked whether the Whites will be handed the same treatment as the Jews in Hitler’s Germany.  The rise of the band of thugs, coupled with the undoubted active propaganda that are behind the attacks on innocent foreign shop owners looks suspiciously like the thugs and the tactics that Hitler used to bring himself to power.  The world should take note of this before a new world war can develop.  South Africa and its allies have the potential to develop in this way, and it seems that the first steps have been taken.