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.

Black Advocates – Equal Opportunity or Government Racism

 

The law and the policy of South Africa is designed to ensure that Black people are given equal opportunity to act in the economy of the country.  There is no profession more committed to that ideal tan the legal profession.  The lawyers were in the forefront of the fight for equality, both Black and White lawyers.  However, it is a concern that there is now a discussion about the preponderance of White advocates in the people used by Government and large corporations in their legal battles.  The Black lawyers are calling for the use of Black advocates to a much greater extent, and for a binding policy to enforce this.

The simple reason for the use of White advocates is that those advocates offer the best opportunity to win the Court action, which is the purpose of the litigation.  This simple reason introduces a range of other considerations.

First and foremost, the Constitution calls for equal opportunities to be available to all qualified persons, regardless of race.  Any Government policy that goes contrary to that intention is contrary to the Constitution.  The Government has progressed a long way towards negating that principle of the ‘Rainbow Nation’ in its BBEEE legislation, which clearly denies White males the opportunity to realise their potential, regardless of the superiority of their qualifications or their capabilities.  It is very clear that the Government is exercising racial discrimination on a broad base, to the prejudice of the economy and of its general population.

The standard of Government education in South Africa is too poor to provide the minimum requirements for an effective advocate.  Unfortunately the fact is that a majority of the people who obtain a good education are Whites, partly because the White population recognises the need for an adequate education and are willing to pay for it.  The Law Society issued a report several years ago that a large proportion of newly-graduated lawyers were not functionally capable of using language, an essential element of legal training and education, adequately.  Many of the university students entering universities need to undergo corrective education in language, mathematics and science.  What chance do these people have of becoming effective legal professionals?

Another important factor is that the home background of the Whites is often more modern and aligned to the needs of the modern society and its legal thinking.  A ‘herd boy, growing up in the rural areas’, as Jacob Zuma proudly claims to have been, is exposed to the tribal systems of ‘law’ and thinking, which are very far from the modern society of the cities, and adapting to a modern system of laws is a big jump in his mental structure. 

A further factor is that the White advocates have gathered experience that enables them to be more effective in the task, experience which can only be gained from years of doing the job, taking on increasingly responsible and complex tasks and learning on the job and from peers.  It is very seldom that an advocate who graduated ten years ago will be as effective in a legal dispute as one who graduated forty years ago and has practiced his profession since then.  A quota system cannot impose that experience or replace it.

The imposition of a formal quota system in the use of legal professionals, reinforcing the informal quota (or even exclusive use of Black professionals) will be another step in the imposition of a new Apartheid, and will be even more damaging to the effectiveness of Government in its work.  Government has an obligation to use only the best legal services available for the job.  That is part of the requirement that Government use its financial resources most efficiently, and that obligation cannot be satisfied if the obligatory use of a less competent Black advocate results in the Government losing a Court battle, with the result that it has to pay legal costs as well as losing the ‘meat’ of the action which, almost by definition, has a value in excess of R100 000 per case.  This is clearly shown by the annual awards by the Courts of damages for wrongful arrest of over R100 million per year against the Minister of Police.

All of this is not to say that there are no excellent Black advocates.  There are, and they should be retained in exactly the same way as the excellent White advocates.  However, the requirement that Black advocates should be used because of a quota system, rather than their legal and Court excellence, can only result in the standard of legal representation of the State declining even further.  Before the advent of the ‘Rainbow Nation’, an advocate had to earn his or her place in the legal profession the hard way, by achieving good results in all of the courses leading to the law degree, including examinations in English, Afrikaans, Dutch and Latin as background knowledge essential to an understanding of the law and the legal precedent cases, and by doing excellent work over a long period of time and so gaining a reputation that would attract further and more responsible briefs.  There can be no reason why a Black skin should be a reason to sort-circuit this process.

Whites and Foreigners in South Africa

The recent escalation in attacks on foreigner-owned businesses in many cities in South Africa are a predictable result of several factors, all of them promoted by the ANC and its allies.

The first factor, of course, is the extreme poverty of many people, particularly Black people, which results from the abjectly poor economic policies of the ANC Government, coupled with what seems, more and more, to be a policy to downgrade the mental capabilities of the electorate by providing one of the worst educations in the world.  A very large proportion of the populace is not equipped to participate in a modern economy, even with the forced advantages that the BBEEE policies provide them.  The ANC Government has intentionally removed many of the structures of education and training built up by successive Governments to keep the capabilities of the populace, or, at least, a part of the populace at a level near to that of Europe and the United States.  The Nurse Training College, the trade skills training centres, Medunsa, and many other places and systems of training have been dismantled and are now needing to be built up again, under management that has been shown repeatedly to be lacking in capabilities, skills and experience.  The people whose skills could have been brought to an employment-capable level have been left to fend for themselves, and the economy has gone into a nose-dive as a result, with skilled contractors being imported by virtually every organisation, such as Eskom, at huge cost and at huge dislocation, and, as is clearly evident, under the management of people who are more interested in driving expensive company cars and filling their Swiss bank accounts for as long as they hold the position, rather than promoting the objectives of the organisation or the community.

The second factor is that the Government and its organs have been directly involved in promoting discord between the Blacks and the Whites, as is evidenced by the recent spate of anti-colonialist statue removal demonstrations.  It can be no simple coincidence that these demands arose at about the time of the State Visit of that prime example of the Black destruction of democracy, Robert Mugabe, who spoke of digging up the remains of Cecil Rhodes, while his protégé, Jacob Zuma, sniggered his enjoyment in the background.  It seems to be clear that the present policy of the Government is to stir up hatred between the Black population and the Whites, as is evidenced by a series of television shorts and programs aired by the SABC ‘documenting’ the atrocities committed by Whites throughout Africa, such as the killing of the Hereros in South West Africa in 1908 (!) and the ‘anti-racism’ advertisement, aired several times per day, listing ‘Whites Only’ signs from Apartheid days, with a brief comment at the end of this inflammatory advertisement hat Nelson Mandela said that to hate is learned, and to love can also be learned.  Remarkably, nothing is said of the thousands of Whites who stood against Apartheid at the risk of imprisonment, or of the fact that the National Party was limited to less than a two-thirds majority at every election by White voters.  It is clear that a large proportion of Whites were against Apartheid from the inception.  Even Jan Smuts, a South African Prime Minister and one of the founders of the United Nations, is on record as having warned the National Party in 1948 that their racial policies would be a move that they would regret in years to come.  However, those facts have all been ignored in the rewriting of history to favour the ‘freedom movements’, and the truth has been perverted, just as Robert Mugabe now arrogantly claims that the British and the Whites were responsible for the slaughter of 45 000 members of the opposition tribe, their bodies being dumped down the shafts of mines, when it is a documented fact that those mines were in full operation until more than a year after Mugabe came to power.

The third factor is that one of the organs of Government, the King of the Zulus, made a public statement that foreigners were taking the jobs of locals, urging those foreigners to return to their countries of origin.  The fact that the Leader of the Zulu nation made this statement is noteworthy, particularly against a background of statements by Zuma and his cadres that the ‘problems of South Africa started when Jan Riebeeck came to the Cape’, clearly a statement that the Whites are foreigners, whereas the Black nations are not.  That ignores the fact that the Blacks are just as much immigrants as the Whites, having migrated from the north via an eastern route, to massacre the then-indigenous races of the area.  The statement also ignores the massive advances that the Whites and other ‘foreigners’ brought to the country.  Shaka Zulu, the national hero of the Zulu nation, was a murderous despot living in a Stone Age society when the Whites arrived in the area, yet he is glorified, ignoring totally the thousands of deaths of Zulus at his command.  History has been rewritten, and the credulous population, without the education to allow them to know better, is being exhorted to act against those who are not one of them, regardless of what they have to offer.  South Africa is going down the same road as Uganda did under Idi Amin.  If you have any doubt about that, ask one of the Indians who, as part of the mainstay of the Ugandan economy, were massacred, the survivors being driven from the country at the behest of a lunatic dictator.  Those Indians took their skills and work ethic to other countries, depriving Uganda of them, just as the Whites and other non-Blacks have been, and are being, driven from South Africa.  The economic and developmental results are clear to see in Uganda, as in South Africa.

The lack of public order, taking its example from the leaders of the ANC, who see that it is easier to take than to earn, is a major factor in the current attacks on foreigners.  This lack of effective policing is clearly demonstrated by the fact that the TV cameras arrive at each new looting well in advance of the Police, and by the ineffective Police action at each looting.  Is it really the case that a Policeman is slower than a looter carrying three trays of beer?  One could reasonably expect that at least ten or twenty looters would be arrested at each crime scene, yet the Police seem to be unable to do any better than to arrest a foreign shop owner who shot someone in the process of protecting his property and his life!  Of course, given the example of the extremely expensive arrest and extradition of Shrien Diwani and his subsequent acquittal after preparations of several years for the trial, it is perhaps understandable that the Police are reluctant to take action to arrest and bring to trial a simple looter and arsonist, particularly, probably, when he is doing no more than to give effect to the exhortations of his King.

Certain ANC-biased commentators claim that the attacks are a means for the starving poor to obtain food.  It is remarkable that the film clips of the attacks on foreigner-owned stores show the looters running off with crates of beer, the Police stealing packs of toilet paper!  One of the foreigners asked the obvious question.  ‘If they are stealing to feed themselves, why don’t they break into local-owned stores?  Why are foreigners being targeted?’  It is clear from the fact that the looting is taking place countrywide that the actions are being centrally controlled.  Is it a policy of the ANC, in contradiction to the statement of Thabo Mbeki that ‘South Africa belongs to the Africans’, (a statement that implicitly excluded the Whites), now to remove the non-South Africans, perhaps also excluding the Whites from the permitted group?  It certainly seems to the observers that this is the case.

The dissolution of the rule of law, upheld by well-trained and effective Policing, to the current state of mob rule, of hints given to the racist extremists by the President, of wishy-washy attempts by Government bodies to regain control of the country from the mobs, supported by statements by the President that show his unwillingness or inability to lead a law-abiding country, is an extremely worrying development.  The continuing slide of the country’s economy and the demolition of the excellence that had been built over decades is likely to continue, notwithstanding the statement by Zuma regarding Eskom that ‘We have plans’.  The public is entitled to know what the plans are, if, in fact, such plans do actually exist.  They are entitled to have a full elucidation of such plans in a public forum, such as Parliament, rather than the sniggering statement of omnipotence that Zuma made during his State of the Nation address.  If the Government does not have realistic and effective plans, ones that can stand up to public scrutiny and comment, that is a cause for huge concern.  If the Government does actually have plans, but is unwilling to make them public, that is cause for even greater concern.  Unfortunately, a rational analysis of public statements, evaluated in the light of events, makes one believe that the Government does have plans which have the objective of taking total control of the country, in the way that Stalin did in Russia, but which have no more than political and self-enrichment objectives, and which ignore the plight of the citizens of the country.  It seems more than likely that South Africa will continue to follow the lead of Zimbabwe.

AGOA and South Africa

A number of American clients have given voice to their concerns about the frantic attempts by Minister of Trade and Industry, Rob Davies, to convince the American Congressmen and –women that South Africa deserves to be included in the benefits offered by AGOA.  They have pointed out a number of matters that the South Africans have been at pains not to bring to the attention of the American public during the negotiations.  Some of the more important of these matters are addressed below.

South Africa is, at present, the dominant economy in Africa.  The objective of AGOA is to ensure that underdeveloped African countries are given an opportunity to grow by having duty-free access to the American market.  If South Africa is granted that access, it will go a long way to ensure that the country continues to dominate the African economic scene.  South African companies are known to adopt predatory practices in their competition with weaker competitors, both within the country and outside.  That is the reason why large companies predominate in South Africa.  It is also the reason why those countries are moving into Africa.  There is no altruism in South African business, and any small, developing African industrialist would have good reason to fear the entry of one of those large companies into its market.  That fear is multiplied by the close relationships the African top businessmen have with the politicians in other African countries, a relationship that is often greased with money and favours that are beyond the capacity of the smaller business neighbours.  Permitting South Africa to benefit under a renewed AGOA would certainly serve to advance the interests of South African businessmen and top politicians at the expense of the developing businesses in other African countries.

South Africa can no longer be counted on as a friend of the West, particularly of the United States and Britain.  This has been clear for several years, effectively since the accession to power of Thabo Mbeki, who is known to have strong leanings towards Russia, Cuba and China, and it has been intensified under Jacob Zuma.  The leaning is clearly demonstrated by the grants made to Cuba, by the sending of students who cannot gain admission to South African universities to institutions of higher learning in Cuba, Russia and China, rather than to those vastly superior universities in the United States, by the membership of South Africa in the Brics association, in which the two most significant players are Russia and China, by the fact that the African National Congress desired to send Julius Malema, then President of the ANC Youth League, to China for instruction in ‘anger management (or, more likely, indoctrination), by the large number of repatriation the bodies of deceased ANC and South African Communist Party members who died in Russia during the ‘struggle years’, by the unveiling today of a monument to the assassinated Leader of the Communist Party, by the fact that an important participant in the Tri Partite Alliance that enables the ANC to hold power is the SA Communist Party, by the fact that the ANC appears to have difficulty separating the SA Communist Party from Cosatu, and by numerous other examples.  That leaning was dramatically underlined by the speech of Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe, during which he castigated Britain, the United States and the West, and declared his strong admiration for China and Russia.  His remarks were accepted with sniggering gratitude by Jacob Zuma, indicating his strong approval.  Mugabe has long been an advisor to Zuma and others in the ANC, relying on their inexperience, their lack of a Western-style education and their reverence for the ‘elders’.  Mugabe called for the formation of an alliance of African and Arabian nations to stand up to the West.  There can be little doubt that Zuma will follow this demand, in the hope that it will detract from his ignominious performance at home.  The strong support that Zuma gives to Russia and Cuba is, no doubt, a hangover from his terrorist days, when the USSR provided arms, training and funding to virtually any group of terrorists, masquerading under the name of ‘freedom fighter’, in order to extend its power into Africa.  The USSR may be gone, but the Russian dream of empire lingers on.

While industrialists need the assistance that AGOA will give them, the question is really whether the United States would wish to support an economy that enables the ANC to pursue its objectives of building Russia and China as effective competitors of the West, and particularly of the United States.  The American businessmen have stated that they would be more than willing to support a new AGOA that will build friends, but they are unwilling to support one that will assist the development of the irrational hatred of the United States that seems to be so much a part of the psyche of the present Government of South Africa.  They ask why they should grant import duty preferences to a Government that has signed an agreement that will give Russia preferential treatment in a bidding process to construct a new generation of nuclear power plants as well as control for twenty years over every element of nuclear technology that the country is involved in (with attention being given to the fact that South Africa has extremely friendly relationships with Iran and North Korea!), without any indication that American companies will have any significant involvement in the bidding process.  They ask why any unconditional assistance should be given to a country that has shown itself clearly not to be a friend.

If South Africa is to be included in the benefits that a new AGOA will provide, the American businessmen ask that clear commitments be given that America will be provided at the very least an equal opportunity, on a level playing field, to participate in the South African economy, without the need to bribe a senior politician or official.  They ask that the industries they establish in South Africa be given the right to conduct their business in a fair and transparent manner, without duress and unfair usage of the powers that State Departments have to coerce them to do the bidding of the ruling Party outside of the legal boundaries that apply to all, and without the prospect of indigenization of their businesses, which is no more than simple legalised coercion.  They ask that they be treated in the same way as the American Government would treat a South African-owned business.

Democracy in South Africa?

A news article today described how a Venda woman was fined by the local tribal chief an amount of R850 for the offence of bearing a child out of wedlock.  The article was more concerned by the hardship the woman faced as a result of having to borrow the money from a loan shark in order to pay the fine, with the child support grant of R350 per month being just sufficient to pay the interest on the loan, and it made practically no reference to the injustice of the system that permits a tribal chief, more often than not a barely-educated man who relies on a patriarchal system of tribal custom and culture, rather than a documented and democratically-approved system of laws and Courts.  The fact that this system is allowed to exist in South Africa, where the Government constantly tells the people that we have a democracy that is guaranteed by ‘the best Constitution in the world’, demonstrates just how hollow that claim is.  A critical element of a democracy is that all people are equal under the law (unmarried women, as well as the men who are the fathers of their children), and that every person has recourse to the Courts for enforcement of their rights under those laws.  Unfortunately, the woman in Venda does not have those democratic rights.  It appears from remarks made by the Speaker of Parliament that Jacob Zuma, the State President, is not subject to the laws that apply to the rest of the citizens (with the exception of those unfortunate enough to be subject to the tribal laws and customs), and nor is Mangosutho Buthelezi, a Prince of the Zulus, and who knows how many other political and royal dignitaries, all in accordance with the unwritten rules that seem to govern the South Africa democracy.

Another article concerns the meeting of the University Council convened to discuss the removal of the statue of Cecil Rhodes, which appears to offend the sensibilities of certain Black students, as well as the visiting dignitary, the Honourable State President of Zimbabwe, a man who has shown himself to be amongst the least honourable and the least democratic of State Presidents.  The Council of the University of Cape Town, the home of the heart transplant as well as numerous other medical, scientific and industrial advances in years past, met to consider the demand of the students, under the threat of a rabble of such students, of whom fewer than 25% will graduate (while the rest go into politics and other forms of crime).  The meeting was allowed by the students to continue for about an hour before the rabble forced their way into the Council Room to demand that the Council decide to remove the statue.  The decision, predictably, was made to remove the statue to avoid offending the sensibilities of the Black students, notwithstanding the fact that Rhodes donated the land on which the University stands and made a huge endowment to enable its founding.  It is noteworthy that the decision was made under duress, enforced by an unruly mob which had demonstrated its willingness to enforce the demands made by Mugabe by violence if the decision did not accord with the demands of the mob.  This act of cowardice by the Council, and the precedent that violent and unlawful action is able to achieve the satisfaction of the demands of the small number of rabble-rousers who instigated the unthinking support of the uneducated and unthinking masses provides a very poor outlook for this formerly noble institute of learning, and will certainly go a long way to downgrading the respect for the degrees it will hand out in the future.

The picture that emerges from these two incidents is frightening.  The country is clearly ruled by mobs and by an unelected ‘royal class’, people who have no responsibility for their actions to the electorate.  It is a picture that bears a frightening resemblance to the communist revolution in Russia and the ascendance to power of Adolph Hitler in Germany.

It seems to be safe to say that democracy in South Africa, if it ever really existed since 1994, is now dead.

Mugabe and the New Order in Africa

The hate-filled and inflammatory speech of President Robert Mugabe during the State Visit to South Africa, following on the inane and giggling speech of Jacob Zuma must give cause to fear to any intelligent and discriminating observer.  Mugabe, as the current President of SADEC, left no doubt as to his allegiance to China and Russia, and as to his hatred for Britain the America, as representatives of the West.  His derogatory comments about Cecil John Rhodes made it clear that he is the motivator behind the current rash in South Africa of hatred against Rhodes and the Whites who did so much to develop the Dark Continent to what it is now. 

One must take the speech of Mugabe against a background of election-rigging, killing of the family members of the Opposition candidates, torture of thousands of Zimbabweans, unlawful expropriation of productive White-owned farms which were handed to Party favorites, internal terrorism by teenage ‘military veterans’, siphoning off of huge amounts of money to his personal bank accounts, and ‘peacekeeping actions’ by the Zimbabwe military in the DRC, at a time when Mugabe vetoed the payment to a South African country of the cost of water treatment chemicals to be used in an Opposition-held city, in order to gain a shareholding in a diamond mine in the DRC.

Mugabe attacked the West for the lack of equality by African nations in the United Nations Security Council, mentioning in a rather threatening way the role that might be played by the Arab nations against the West.  Given the influence by Mugabe in the African Union, the West should be concerned at the implicit threat by Mugabe to withdraw Africa from dealings with the West.  The drift to radicalism by several of the Arab and African Muslim nations is a trend that Mugabe could easily use to widen the gap between Africa and the West.  Mugabe went to considerable lengths to condemn the actions of the West in Libya, in Iraq and Iran, praising the leaders of those nations, particularly Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi as worthy leaders of democracy in their countries.  Of course, in comparison with Zimbabwe under this bloody dictator, they might have been examples of good governance, but in a comparison with any of the true democracies, there can be no doubt that those men ranked alongside Stalin and Castro.  The thought of permitting African countries under the control of genocidal dictators such as those men and Mugabe to dictate the policies and actions of the United Nations is a cause for many sleepless nights.  During his rambling discourse, Mugabe stated that the ‘colonial master of Rhodesia, Britain, threw helpless men and women down a mineshaft.  It has been conclusively proven that Mugabe’s ‘war veterans’ were responsible for that act, as part of a genocide of the opposing tribe.  However, as both Mugabe and Zuma have frequently demonstrated, truth is a concept that is foreign to them and their ilk.

The fact that Zuma, and the ANC, would welcome a man like Mugabe to a supposedly civilized country such as South Africa speaks volumes about their true views, allegiances and objectives.  The fact that he was permitted to make such a speech on a public platform, with Zuma giggling his acquiescence in the background, must be taken as a warning by any thinking person in the country.  It has long been suspected that the ANC views the Mugabe dictatorship and its actions and policies as a role model for an African government, and the speech by Mugabe now leaves no doubt as to where South Africa is headed.

The title of this blog is ‘Questions for South Africa’.  The answer to many of those questions is now clear.

 

Remove the History

There has been much agitation in the past weeks to remove the statues and the names of places that bear witness to the ‘White colonialisation’ of South Africa.  The statue of Cecil Rhodes at Cape Town University, the name of Rhodes University in Grahamstown, the statue of Paul Kruger in Church Square and the statue of Jan van Riebeeck in Durban are the first examples of this urge.  One may wonder whether this trend is driven by the upcoming municipal elections, given that the Whites in the country are increasingly being held responsible for the failures of the ANC Government.  Jacob Zuma has said that the problems in the country, from the state of joblessness of the poor to the abysmal performance of Eskom, all stem from the arrival at the Cape of Jan van Riebeeck.  However, in the same vein, we have some further proposals to make, to assist in the removal of all traces recording the contribution of the Whites to the country.

Let us ban the use of telephones, an invention of a White who, no doubt, had the deprivation of the Blacks as his main objective.  Let us destroy all computers and cell phones, also invented by Whites.  Let us scrap all the cars and trucks, the trains and aircraft, all invented by Whites.  Let us dump our supplies of medicines, invented by Whites, as well as all the medical equipment, following the example of the Department of Health, which is already far down the path of abandoning these instruments of evil.  Let us stop the production of electricity, an invention of Whites and brought to this country by the colonial masters, adding to the efforts of Eskom to drive us all back to the good times of Shaka.  Let us complete the work of the SABC in demolishing the institutions of radio and television, also inventions of Whites.  Let us add to the efforts of Jacob Zuma and Thabo Mbeki in abandoning the principles of democracy, a system of oppression of Blacks which was introduced by Whites, and, while we are about it, let us also recognize that Karl Marx, the founder of Communism, was also a White.  Let us destroy the rifles, armoured cars, fighter aircraft and bombs of the Whites and equip our army with the short stabbing spears and rawhide shields that were so effectively used by the great King Shaka and his impervious regiments of Zulu warriors (totally ignoring the fact that both the idea of a stabbing weapon – a sword – and the ‘bulls horn’ tactics of Shaka which have been claimed to have been the greatest innovations of that King were well described by Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great thousands of years earlier in writing, which Shaka and his mighty nation of Stone Age warriors had not yet developed until the Whites arrived to educate them).  We could add a liberal dose of muti, derived from the hearts of the Whites, to make the new breed of warrior impervious to the modern weapons of the Whites, as was shown convincingly in the Massacre of Marikana.  Let us follow the example of the Departments of Education, and formalise the destruction of the system of education.  Let us drive all formal industry from our shores – Shaka did not have industry at the time it was introduced by the colonial masters, so it must be bad!  Cosatu and its trade union associates have already started this process.  Let us introduce violence and fear into the Councils of Government, by bringing in armed thugs under the guise of Police to expel all Members of a Party that has the nerve to question the State President on his illicit use of State funds (the taxes paid to a very large extent by the hated Whites and their organisation).  Let us introduce the notion that the President and the ‘Black Royalty’ are above the mass of people and so not subject to the laws and rules that apply to the rest of us.

Let us return to the peaceful and productive Stone Age society that prevailed before the Whites arrived in the country, bringing with them absurd notions of rule by law, of democracy, of education for all, of responsibility of the State and its instruments to the people.  Let us all live in mud and grass huts, as did the mighty King Shaka, and let us all submit to the violent and bloodthirsty dictatorship that characterised his rule.  Let us return to drawing our water from the rivers, ignoring the fact that those who live upstream dump their filth and their excrement into those rivers, to flavour the water that we drink.  Let us return to the idyllic days, where men were warriors and did little more than drink beer while the women tended the fields and produced the children as the property of the men.  Let us hand back the properties of the Universities of Cape Town and Rhodes to the Rhodes trust – we no longer want any part of the education that that vicious colonial master provided!  Let us dismantle the railways that Rhodes instigated, following the example of Spoornet.  Let us hand over power to the effective and benevolent leaders of our nation, and no longer demand that they account to us, the people, for what they are doing with the money they take from all of us.  Let us ignore the statements of the White-dominated Ratings Agencies – we will in any event refuse to accept the investments that the hated Whites make in our country, which is always done to impose their neo-colonial rule on us, and we will refuse the Aid grants made by them to support our fight against HIV/AIDS, our hospitals, our education system, our striving for democracy.  We will succeed on our own, ignoring the fact that our national economy is dependent to over 70% on the White colonial masters.  Let us drive the White managers, bankers, industrialists and engineers from our country – one Black man is as good as any ten Whites, as has so clearly been shown by the resounding successes of the BBEEE and land distribution policies.  Let us cancel the contracts of the White consultants, who claim to have been propping up our bumbling efforts to run our major State activities, from Government Departments to State-owned entities such as Eskom and SAA.

Most important of all, let us now cease the lip service we pay to the notion that Whites are welcome in this country.