Principles, not Policies

South African foreign policy, if, in fact, there is such a thing, appears to be solely aimed at paying back those countries that assisted the ANC to come to power. Medical students, unable to qualify for South African medical schools, are sent, at huge taxpayer-funded expense, to Cuba and Russia, to study medicine in the outdated institutions there, in a foreign language, after which they return to South Africa to work on the poor in the clinics and hospitals, The Government regularly makes huge cash remittances to the Cuban Government, in addition to the portion of the Cuban doctors salaries withheld from them and remitted to the Government, presumably as a form of reward for the indentured labour. Israel is frequently criticized for reacting to Palestinian rocket attacks, without any censure against the Palestinian terrorist leadership, which has been instrumental in maintaining Israeli hostility by means of frequent terror attacks, threats of invasion and repeated demands for the destruction of Israel. The continued support of Robert Mugabe’s dictatorship in Zimbabwe and his lunatic social and economic policies, disguised under Thabo Mbeki’s “quiet diplomacy’ while tens of thousands of Zimbabweans flooded into South Africa in search of a means to earn a living, and further tens of thousands were brutalized and starved in their homeland in order for the dictator to remain in power has never been explained in truthful terms, although the direct cost to South African taxpayers is substantial. The maintenance of “peacekeeping forces”, although paid for directly to the Zuma family in preferential access to mines and mineral deposits, has achieved nothing for the citizens of the DRC and other similar economic catastrophes masquerading under the name of “democracies”, while keeping despotic, exploitative and corrupt leaders in power in those countries well beyond their sell-by dates. The clear love affair with Vladimir Putin by the ANC brooks no comment about his invasion of Crimea, shooting down of a civilian passenger aircraft, poisoning with a banned chemical warfare agent of a supposed “enemy” in Salisbury, England, contrary even to the Russia-loving Trump White House. His clear attempt to bribe a South African President to hand over its entire nuclear activity to Russia for twenty years, renewable, has never been scrutinized by the ANC Government. The ANC Government strongly supports Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, citing his policies as a model for South Africa, notwithstanding an inflation rate of a million per cent per annum, and a population exodus of tens of thousands each day, in search of food and work. They love the Venezuelans oppressors of the Venezuelan people so much that a South Africa diplomat was constrained to promise that South Africa would go to war with the United States in support of its friend! Where were the oppressed people in that decision?

And so it goes.

Even the so-called ‘”new broom” Ramaphosa has demonstrated in unmistakable terms his deep love for China, disregarding the fact that an entire Muslim population has been relocated to re-education camps (shades of the Soviet era Gulags!), and his respect for Mao-style Communist teachings, disregarding the fact that those very teachings and policies resulted in the death of between forty and sixty million Chinese!

And so it goes, on and on, seemingly without end.

Why is this so?

It seems that the primary reason is that the ANC has no principles that it is willing to lay out for public comment. It does not have a principle such as “We will stand up for the poor and oppressed.” It cannot say that Israel is sometimes justified in its actions without losing its appeal to the terrorist nations of the world, even at the risk of alienating its biggest trading partners. It is clear: in the mind of the ANC, Israel is always wrong and the Palestinians are always right, even though this blinkered belief removes South Africa’s credibility in the mind of any thinking person. The ANC is always willing to stand up for its BRICS partners, although every one of them is guilty of gross human rights abuses, defective economic policies and crass dictatorship. Remember how Zuma held up Lula da Silva as a shining example of a President, shortly before he was put behind bars for corruption? Not a word on the shining example since that happened. Notice how the SABC, a supposedly independent bringer of the news has studiously avoided any item of news referring to the Russian GRU killings of its citizens on British soil, using a universally banned chemical warfare agent that it was not supposed to have? And this was not the first time that Putin felt free to commit a gross transgression of a universal law to which it is a party. There are many simple principles that can be stated by the Government, to be evaluated by its citizens and approved as a yardstick by which to measure its actions, to which to demand that the Ministers and diplomats subscribe, so that each action is measured and rational, so that the world knows where we stand.

It is not much to ask that a Government abandon the principle of flying by the seat of its pants, shooting from the hip. That is the failing which will pull Donald Trump, and his country, down from the lofty pinnacle they claim to be theirs by right. It is the failing that will make South Africa, once again, the polecat of the world.

Better an end with horror than horror without end

South Africa is officially in a recession, caused entirely by the crackpot policies adopted by the ANC, in defiance of all the advice offered them by people who understand economics, who have studied history, and who can see clearly where it is all headed. Ramaphosa assumed the Presidency, making promises that no-one believed he could keep, indeed, had any intention of keeping. His first act was to appoint to his Cabinet a group of corrupt, incompetent and failed Ministers, none of whom has demonstrated any understanding of modern economic thought, including several who have been found by supposedly righteous bodies to have been corrupt and incompetent to hold any public office. He has spoken several times and, tediously, at length, without telling South Africa what his plans really are to correct the course the country is on, and he has announced grand investment plans, miraculously falling into his lap, without disclosing what those plans really entail, or what the cost will be for the country of his financial rescue, if that is what they are.

South Africa is in a recession that could have been foreseen three years ago, at a time the ANC nominees in Parliament were gleefully telling the electorate that Jacob Zuma was the bee’s knees, totally disregarding the facts already clearly pointed out by the Constitutional Court, that he was delinquent in failing in his observance of his duties under the much-vaunted Constitution, clearly a criminal act of the worst kind, and clearly disregarding the compelling evidence of judgement after judgement declaring the functioning of the State to be both dishonest and incompetent. Ramaphosa took power, declaring that he would fix those failures, and then appointed David Mabuza as Deputy President, an act that induced no less a journalistic great then the New York Times to point out in painful terms that South Africa was now a Mafia state. Ramaphosa and his ANC did nothing to correct this report, allowing Mabuza to make a pretentious statement that, in effect, he was no more dishonest than Jacob Zuma.

South Africa is in a recession that will endure for years to come, with the difficulties facing the ANC of continuing to support the ever-more-rapidly declining State-Owned Entities, to provide the funding to keep buying the favour of the beneficiaries of the SASSA grants when it comes to election day, to continue to find ways to explain how Jan van Riebeeck and his horde of White Monopoly Capitalists are responsible for the ever-rising unemployment figures, the declining performance of the education sector, the public health sector, the public administration sector and all the other problems that are popping up with annoying regularity. That recession will end, in real terms, when the IMF is begged for assistance by the Government, and imposes draconian rules on public expenditure and control of corruption. The years until then will be more than painful to the South African public, as an increasing share of GDP is required to cover the interest payments on the money that the Government has thrown at the twin needs of finding projects that can be ripped off by the cadres and of buying votes to remain in power while they continue their depredations. Surely the daily horror reports from various Commissions, stating how Jacob Zuma and his gang, many of whom are still in the Ramaphosa Cabinet, viewed South Africa as their private piggy bank, to be plundered at will, how the Gauteng Provincial Government, in league with the national Department of Health oversaw the killing of 169 mentally-ill patients, with no apparent consequences for any of those ultimately responsible for the tragedy (in any sane country, the national Government would have fallen: in South Africa, not even the Provincial MEC for Health has resigned, never mind being put behind bars), while the Minister of Health plows ahead with the newest plan to rip off the public while, at the same time decimating the health care system and driving doctors to seek other homelands where they can earn an honest living. And all the while, we are sending aspirant Black doctors to learn their skills in Cuba, in Spanish, and Russia, in Russian, while the White students who want to study to serve their country in the medical field, are being sidelined, because the universities have a quota of Black students to fill, regardless of their educational standard.

South Africa is in a recession as a result of the harebrained socialist policies of the ANC, and Ramaphosa goes to China to negotiate assistance from the Chinese Communist Party to enhance the ANC’s commitment to the very policies that have brought us to this.

The only light on the horizon is the faint glimmering from business that they have the power to stand up to the Government and the Unions. They are not investing the spare funds at their command in the local economy, and it is now time for them to state that they will no longer comply with the insanity of the BBEEE policies that have made the country’s businesses uncompetitive on the international market, that they will no longer employ the workers at the blackmail rates enforced by the unions, that they will wind down their businesses until the government illustrates convincingly a commitment to supporting the very business world that earns the profits to provide the taxes that the Government needs, that employs the millions of workers who agitate daily against the ‘plague of capitalism’ that employs them. There is no doubt that this will hurt in the short term, but, if they had done this ten years ago, and brought the ANC to the realization that they can only command if others obey, South Africa would have been a booming economy today. How much is the cost of a forsaken additional annual growth of at least 5%, a figure that could easily have been attained under an effective Government? If the price is too much, close your business now, because it will be paid unless the Government is brought to understand where the wealth of the country is generated.

The price will be paid, out of a much less wealthy economy than we have even now. The sooner the price is paid, the sooner will come the recovery, and the easier it will be for all of us.

Donald Trump’s Republicans, Jacob Zuma’s ANC and Pope Francis’ Catholic Church

The people and groups named appear to be a disparate bunch – a renegade Republican President of the United States, a renegade ‘Freedom Fighter turned plunderer of his people and a leader of one of the largest religious organizations. Yet there are many similarities that need to be looked at closely by anyone seeking to understand what is going wrong with our world.

Donald Trump is a president who is proud of his inability to understand details of situations and the nuances that have enabled the world to function effectively until recently. In his world, everything revolves around him. Even truth is what he says it is. He has captured the populist imagination of a group of people very much like him. They see everything in black and white. They do not understand the other sides to each story, and they do not want to understand them. Trump appears to be happy to lead his nation into a bigoted ignorance, maneuvering his way through the facts, blaming others for what is going wrong, ignoring what is clearly failing, in the blind belief in his own incomparable abilities to bluster and blackmail every opponent, including people who would like to help him to achieve the best for his people, into submitting to his will. It is already clear that this President has taken the international standing of his country several large steps backward. He is willing to hand over dominance over, and influence in, the Asia Pacific region to China, by backing out of trade treaties and negotiations which, in his ignorance of the wider context, he describes in his usual exaggerated and uncompromising terms as ‘the worst ever’. He is willing to alienate his country’s closest allies in Europe by his oafish words and his false claims, that ‘they must pay their share of the NATO budget, they must increase expenditure on the military’, disregarding the fact that a large part of expenditure by, for example, Germany, on elements that are not strictly military are designed to avoid the situation that could easily turn those situations into pressing military problems. Roman Herzog, the then-incoming German President, recognized that the way to peace did not necessarily involve artillery and fighter jets when he told the German nation that ‘we must take steps to resolve the problems of Africa in Africa, because, if we do not, they will become European problems.’ Trump, notoriously ignorant in matters of history, does not understand that view. In his eyes, military might is THE way to exercise influence in the world. His background as a student at a military college goes a long way to explain that shortcoming, yet other military men, such as President Jack Kennedy and Senator John McCain, did not suffer from such a defective understanding. They understood that prosperous friends will generally not be willing to sacrifice that prosperity in order to gain a military superiority, a situation which, at best, will be temporary, enduring only until the opponents, fearing the threats contained in a military build-up and working to match that military capability. They knew that a two-times overkill capability, coupled with an active support of friendly countries, and countries that might become friendly, is more than enough to maintain a status in which a potential enemy could recognize that a military adventure would be a sure loss. They knew that diplomacy, not unfounded bombast, was the only way to maintain a peaceful world. They were also able to recognize that courting the association of manifest enemies, to the detriment of proven friends, was to place their country on a slippery slope to global catastrophe.

The fact that the Republican Party has, for so long, tolerated the buffoonish antics of Donald Trump is a question that must raise the suspicions among Party supporters about the leaders of the Party, who are responsible for holding the excesses of the leading Party members in check and forming the opinions of the Party rank and file. It appears that those leaders are not willing to speak out against the most divisive and destructive man in American politics since the McCarthy era.

Strangely enough, the rule of Jacob Zuma in South Africa bears remarkable parallels to the rule of Donald Trump in the United States. Like Trump, he had no hesitation in lying outright to suit his purpose. He had no sense of shame in dividing the nation to achieve his nefarious ends. He had no sense of the damage he was doing to the nation and to those who identified themselves with him, needing only to achieve his personal objectives. Like Trump, Zuma had no understanding of history, or of how the flow of it resulted in the present and will result in the future. Like Trump, he had only the barest understanding of the interrelationship of events, of how pushing here has the potential to bring about a huge distortion there, and he has no feeling of personal responsibility for the outcome of his maneuvering, beyond the desire to achieve something for himself. Like Trump, he relies on native cunning and animal instinct, not on understanding and careful evaluation. Like Trump, he surrounded himself with sycophants and yes-men, people who are always reluctant to stand up to the perceived excesses of their chief in the interests of their personal benefit. Like Trump, he was always willing to throw those ‘dear friends and trusted confidants’ under the bus when the time came, and, like Trump, he was unable to comprehend that those people would be just as willing to throw him under the bus when that became expedient in the preservation of their own safety and comfort.

Pope Francis, on the other hand, is an organization man. The Catholic Church continues to hold onto the illusion that it is the representative of God on Earth, that it speaks the words of God and is therefor infallible in its pronunciations. It ignores at every turn the fallacy of this view, disregarding the evidence, or, at best, explaining it as a ‘human failing, excused in each case by a benevolent God. It ignores the long-held Church belief that the Earth was flat, that it was the center of the Universe, that only those baptized by itself were good enough to enter Heaven. It ignores the brutality of the Spanish Inquisition, perpetrated in the name of the Church. It ignores the constant stream of acts of inhumanity perpetrated by the representatives of the Church against children, men and women over many years. It ignores the fact that the Papacy, the very leadership of the Church, acting under the authority of God, was the subject of a competitive tender in the not-so-distant past, that favors of the Church were the subject of payments. The present tour of Ireland by the Pope has shown itself very clearly to be little more than a public relations exercise, planned to boost the flagging membership of the Church in the face of the revulsion against its actions and inactions. The Pope remains unwilling to confess the sins of which it has clearly been guilty, to make public reparation to the thousands, possibly millions of its adherents, for the gross misconduct of members of the Church. The Pope would have the members of the congregation believe that such misconduct was not known to the senior management of the Church. Such a claim is disingenuous in the extreme. At the very least, the supposedly all-knowing God which the Church claims to represent must have made the ‘indiscretions’ of the clergy known to those at the top of the Church, even if it was possible for those responsible for such a well-organized pattern of conduct to have hidden it, in the face of the policy of ‘confession and forgiveness’ exercised by the Church. It is hard to conceive of a situation in which a substantial number of senior clerics, across many countries, could have succeeded in maintaining the lie that had been exposed, over and over, by the people who had suffered at the hands of the Church.

Yet the Pope continues to uphold the fiction that the Catholic Church is the upholder of virtue and spiritual rectitude. He continues to avoid handing over to the criminal prosecution agencies every single priest and bishop suspected of sexual offences against those who entrust their spiritual guidance to the Church. He prays to God for forgiveness for the sins of the Church, yet he fails to pray to the members of the congregation for such forgiveness. Of course, it is easy to pray for forgiveness for such heinous behavior, when you, yourself, claim the right to dispense such forgiveness. If the church were a formal company, the shareholders would long since have sold their shareholding on the basis of being fed such obvious lies and disinformation by the Directors.

What are the grossly obvious similarities between these people and the organizations they represent? Some answers leap out of the facts.

None of the persons in question truly believes that they are responsible for their actions to the people they claim to represent. Every one of them has an ability to interpret the events and their actions solely in relation to themselves, twisting the facts to present a picture that they need to show themselves in the right light. They all have an ability to manipulate the views and beliefs of their constituency to their own ends. They all have enormous power, a power that could as easily be used for good as for the evil that has been their choice, and they all have a hunger for such power, to the extent that they are willing to lie and twist their story to ensure that they are able to hold onto such power, regardless of the views and advice of better people. None of them is prepared to face the world openly, to confess that what they are doing is against the interests of Humanity and of the world. None of them is willing to accept the loss of their leadership role, and the power and wealth (in their terms) that comes with it, in the interests of the greater good.

Worst of all, each of these men and the organizations they represent is willing to continue to inflict on the world the incalculable harm that they have done in the past.

Perhaps the most glaring similarity is that none of these men and their organizations have any discernible set of principles by which to measure their actions and which can truly be said to be devoid of personal interest or benefit. None of them is willing to stand up to wrong if there is any possibility that they will be harmed by such a stand.

In the words of Jo Stevens (‘Connection’ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N1XTDYD): “her dislike for Mr. Jenkins Jr. would not cause her to abandon that principle now. That was what principles were for. If one felt free to abandon them at will, it made no sense to have them at all.”

What is wrong with our world?

It seems that the crisp answer is that the people we allow to represent us do not have principles that are understood and accepted by the majority of us, and, by their example, we allow them to degrade the principles that we as people consider important for civilization to work.

Vick Momberg, Justice and the Thought Police

South Africa experienced a dramatic leap in the direction of injustice, or, should one say, unidirectional justice, with the sentencing of Vicky Momberg to three years imprisonment for the repeated use of the ‘K-word’ while she was in a state of shock and anger after she had experienced a smash-and-grab attack in Johannesburg. She has today been granted bail pending her appeal against the conviction and the sentence.

The facts of the case are simple. Momberg was stopped in traffic in her car when a Black thief broke a window and stole some goods from it. When she called the Police Emergency, she used the K-word, and then again when she was being assisted by the Police.

There can be no doubt that her aggressive nature was aggravated by the smash-and-grab. These attacks are common in many cities of South Africa, to the extent that motorists, particularly lone women drivers, are repeatedly warned in the Press to beware of men loitering at intersections, particularly exits from motorways. Disregarding these potential attackers is a routine in Police circles. Many motorists near Police vehicles have counted as many as thirty or forty ‘vendors’ loitering in these crime hotspots, all of whom appear to be invisible to the Police. A smash-and-grab attack on one’s car is always expensive, with the window in question having to be replaced, and it is not uncommon for a lone motorist who resists the crime to be physically assaulted with a knife or other sharp object, or with a club. The criminals who ‘earn’ their living in this way do not wish to endure the inconvenience of being arrested and then having to bribe the Policeman in order to continue with the night’s work. A smash-and-grab attack is not a petty crime, yet nothing seems to be done by the authorities to prevent it, and very few, if any, criminals are ultimately brought to book. However, it appears that the use of a single word is enough to galvanize the ‘justice’ system into action.

One can easily understand Momberg’s state of agitation after the crime. The facts of her ‘assistance’ by the Police have not been published, but anyone who has dealt with the Police in South Africa must know that it can be a harrowing experience. Not every Policeman is incompetent or corrupt, but there are enough of those deviants in the SAPS for an average citizen to hold the view that the Police are not there to help you. Virtually everyone has a tale to tell, of being asked for a bribe, standing in a queue in a Police station to report a crime while the cops eat lunch, pick their teeth, sleep or converse between themselves, or getting no reaction to such report. Whatever the facts of the event may be, Momberg’s state of agitation was not ameliorated by her dealings with the Police, and she gave vent to that state by demanding that she be dealt with by a White Policeman. One can only speculate whether that would have improved matters. Generally, a good cop is a good cop, whether White, Black, Indian or Colored, and a bad cop is a bad cop, but even the good cops are not generally known for their intelligence or understanding of the laws. The writer has personal experience of calling three Police Generals to get them to perform their clear duty as set out in a statute, only to be told by the ‘Legal Advisor’ that the Police policy prevents them acting in accordance with the law. An associate was arrested at a order post under a Warrant of Arrest for a ‘crime’ that could not be explained by any policeman, only to find, after spending a night in the filthy cells that the supposed ‘crime’ did not come onto the statur=the books until nearly a year after its supposed commission, and that date of commission fitted neatly into a four-year absence abroad, when it could not have been committed, and that to the clear knowledge of the Captain who swore out the Warrant.

Momberg was ordered by the Equality Court to pay R100 000 to the offended Policeman, and she was then brought before the Magistrates Court for the same offence, and sentenced to three years imprisonment, with one year suspended.

While one cannot sympathize with Momberg, who used a racial slur, one cannot fail to be shocked by these judgments, particularly in light of the fact that no Black, such as Julius Malema (“we’re not threatening to kill all Whites – yet”) and Jacob Zuma (“one Boer, one bullet”, “White Monopoly Capitalists” and numerous others) have been ordered to compensate the aggrieved victim of a racial slur, or been sentenced to prison. It is even more disturbing in the light of the sentence initially handed down to Oscar Pistorius for the culpable homicide of his girlfriend, by shooting four times at her through a closed door. He was sentenced to five years, and the parole conditions required that he spend only ten months – less than a third of Momberg’s sentence – in prison. The Pistorius sentence was increased on appeal, when the finding was changed to murder, but it seems to make little sense that a simple word, albeit one that has gained a particular meaning, quite different in post-Apartheid South Africa, from its original meaning, which was quite innocuous, has a greater impact than the intentional firing at close range of four bullets, designed to kill or maim, with the result that a young woman died. The Court also seemed to ignore the effect of the extreme stress in which Momberg found herself after a life-threatening experience. That stress is a normal state for many South Africans, with murder at the highest rate of any city in the world, rapes occurring every four minutes, and a Government that seems to be bent on enriching the few connected persons at the cost of the vast majority of the people. The Court also seemed to ignore the gross disproportionality of the sentence to the offending act, as well as the fact that the ‘victim’ had already been granted a disproportionately high compensation for his suffering – how many of your words are worth R100 000 (nearly $10 000) each, to the person listening to you?

There seems to be no doubt that Momberg will appeal, but the question remains: Have the Thought Police become effective in South Africa, when all other forms of law enforcement, including the Priority Crimes Investigative Unit, the South African Police, the National Prosecuting Agency and even Parliament have proven themselves to be close to valueless in combatting real crime, and when the Minister of Police was appointed after he had been dismissed as Commissioner of Police when he was closely implicated in a number of corrupt leases of Police premises, involving a loss of millions to the Fiscus? Has the precedent now been established that only White people can be racist?

This judgment is the start of a long and slippery slope into a condition of biased and arbitrary laws in South Africa, aimed at the White population (this case is not the first in this line. The Black Empowerment laws have done a very good job of depriving virtually any qualified young to middle-aged White man of employment) This is reverse Apartheid by stealth, one step at a time. This happens at a time when similar laws protecting certain classes of person against criticism are being enacted in several African countries, a time when even the President of the United States can be called a moron by the Secretary of State without a right to redress.

And Africa wants a Permanent Seat on the United Nations Security Council?

Cry the Beloved Country.

The Death of Democracy

Democracy means different things to different people. The definitions range from a system of government in which the State is responsible for providing every necessity of life, and even many of the conveniences of life, to one in which the citizens are exhorted once every four or five years to vote for a Party that makes promises that everyone knows they have no intention or prospect of keeping. The ancient idea of democracy – that it is government of the people by the people – does not seem to exist and, in fact, probably never did exist. In those ancient democracies, the people who participated in the system were those who had the most to gain or lose from the decisions made by the politicians who acted on their behalf.

In modern times, democracies seem to have evolved into a system of government under which professional politicians are voted into high-paying positions, in which they exercise the power of those positions to gain wealth for themselves with little or no ultimate responsibility to the people who voted to put them there. In most cases, they have earned nomination for those positions not by service to the people, but by service to the Party, which chooses those candidates on the basis of their perceived loyalty to the Party lie, rather than on their capability of making a meaningful contribution to the welfare of the people. In some cases, that nomination is bought by cash contributions, present or promised, or by the offer to make lucrative opportunities available. Generally, the support of the public is gained by extensive marketing, either paid, in the media or by ‘street parties’, or by means of promotion by door to door canvassing. It is seldom that a candidate is elected as a result of realistic, well-considered policy proposals – consider the campaigns by Barack Obama, who stated almost solely ‘Yes we can’, and Donald Trump, who promised to ‘Make America Great’. Neither of these campaigns offered a considered argument or a sound way of honoring the promise, but were based on a denial of the value of the previous incumbent’s achievements. In the case of Obama, the administration was marked largely by ‘more of the same’, with a hesitation to offer any bold moves for consideration by the people, and in the case of Trump, the administration has been marked by a series of lies and obfuscations, bombast and threats, and ill-considered and potentially deadly dangerous decisions, without any consideration being given to a range of expert opinions. In the case of South Africa, the election of Jacob Zuma was based on his selection by a small group of Branch delegates, most of whom had, and have, no understanding of the basic issues involved in the effective management of an economy but who understood well the politics of buying favor with key people by promising lucrative posts or contracts, to be delivered once he was in power.

The examples are legion, and one fact becomes abundantly clear to a dispassionate observer. In all but one of the modern democracies, there is no meaningful participation by the people in the processes of government, or in any important question faced by government, beyond the four or five-yearly election, in which the issues are seldom meaningfully canvassed, and the manifestos of the Parties are carefully blurred, with the intention of accounting for the performance by the winner only in respect of promises and policies which, in most cases by chance, the Party making the promise has at least partially performed, and the elected representatives of the people are selected by the powerful few in the Party on the basis of their capability and desire to toe the Party line. Only in Switzerland can one see a meaningful participation in the activities of the government by the people who put them there.

Why is this so? Why has democracy strayed so far from the original intent?

The first reason is that democracy offers a concentration of power to those who are willing to sell their souls in the gaining of wealth. It is very seldom that one can point to a politician who truly believes that he or she is there for the good of the people. Few politicians leave office with less wealth than they had on taking office. Ian Smith, the Prime Minister of Rhodesia, entered office with, reputedly, only a sports jacket and two pairs of trousers, but, some years after he was forced out of office, he died with a sizable fortune, including a farm in the Western Cape, South Africa. Few politicians consider themselves to be bound by their fervently-expressed views when they leave office. Malcolm Fraser, the Australian Prime Minister, often railed against supporting foreign businesses when he was in office, yet, when he left office, he wasted no time in taking the Australia franchise for Volvo, a totally foreign manufacturer that competed head on against Australian Ford and Holden. One cannot help comparing modern politicians with the Popes of old, who tendered for the office of Pope. One does not invest substantial money and effort in competing for a position that merely pays a living salary!

The second reason is that, in the modern understanding, a democracy implies the election of individuals as representatives by the mass of voters. By definition, ‘average intelligence’ implies that half of the measured population has a lower than average intelligence, and the other half an above-average intelligence. However intelligence may be measured, it is known that people with lower intelligence respond better to emotive statements and arguments than to statements that require reasoned evaluation and consideration. They succumb more easily to simplistic slogans and arguments that appeal more to their emotions and unconsidered views. That, of course, means that the speakers who rant, who repeat meaningless slogans, who espouse policies that do not necessarily address the complexities of a modern country, are more likely to be elected. An example in point is the debate on ‘expropriation without compensation’ in South Africa. Why ‘without compensation’? No government in South Africa has ever shied away from using the public purse for any purpose that may suit their book, so why not now? It is clear that this demand is attached to a racialist desire to ‘punish the Whites’. Several surveys have shown that the average Black – nearly 89% - does not want or need land. They do not know how to farm it, and have no desire to do so, and would much prefer a cash settlement of any claim to dispossession of land. However, a repetition of the demand by the extremist Economic Freedom Fighters has brought about an acceptance of the view that there is a desperate hunger for land in the Black population. The fact that giving every Black person a small piece of land (if, in fact, that is the intention, in the face of a statement by the leader of that Party that the intention is for the government to hold that land and grant a lease on it to persons they consider ‘suitable’ to derive benefit from it)is a sure means of condemning a large proportion of the Black population to a life of serfdom, tied to a peasant farming existence, at a time when the world is preparing for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, in which intellectual capabilities will have to be maximized if the country is to regain its position as a leading industrial nation. The thought that the land held by the tribal Kings and Chiefs – one of the least democratic systems of government possible – brought a quick response from the Zulu King, who, dressed in his animal skins, threatened to break away from the South African Republic. That, in turn, brought a groveling apology from President Ramaphosa, who stated that it had never been the intention to interfere with the tribal lands. He did not state whose lands he intended to interfere with, but it does not take much imagination to conclude that it can only be the lands, and subsequently the other assets, of the Whites, who produce the bulk of the food and wealth, including the economically-productive jobs, in the country. The fact that the Zulu King’s hereditary position is derived from the despotic and blood-drenched subjugation of other Zulu clans by King Shaka only two centuries ago does not seem to figure in any discussion of democracy in South Africa.

A third reason for the non-ascendancy of the principles of democracy is the fact that modern democracies are too large for the average citizen to believe that his or her input, by participation in a discussion or by casting a vote, can have any meaningful effect on the outcome. Even the communities that routinely resort to violence, such as the burning of twenty seven schools in Vuwani in order to force the tarring of a road, forget their anger at the ruling Party when it comes to time to vote, when the sweet-talk and promises that ‘we will do better this time’ carry the day. As a senior SA Communist Party leader said some years ago, if the average voter could read a newspaper, this Party would be out of power.

Probably the main reason why democracy does not work as it should, is that the politicians are empowered, and willing, to transfer the wealth of the society from those who earn it – the taxpayers – to those who vote for them. There is no system of punishment for those who transgress the rules of civilized society. Those who burn schools cannot be forced to pay more taxes to rebuild them because they do not pay taxes. The handing of social grants to 19 million recipients who are indigent is no more than a means of taxing the generators of wealth in the nation to buy the votes of the non-wealth-generating recipients, so reducing the ability and the motivation of the tax-payers to create more economic activity that would assist the present recipients to earn a living. The ‘giving’ of a fee-free university education to those who can’t pay the fees has gone a long way to degrade the value of that education, by cutting research, a critically important function of universities, and by inviting those, who are either incapable of gaining a degree or unwilling to do the hard work that a degree should entail, to take a free holiday for four or five years. The objective of supporting the higher education of the nation could more sensibly be achieved by granting a loan to deserving students, with the condition that the loan would be written off at the end of each year to the extent that the educational achievements required are made. That would permit the deserving students to gain their degrees while not imposing a needless financial burden on the universities and the taxpayers. However, the need to win the votes of the fractious university students overrode the need to achieve the real goal of achieving a better educational standard.

Perhaps the failure of the modern democracy can best be summed up in an old story. A politician on the campaign trail wrapped up an hour-long statement of his promises. “Well, folks,” he said. “Those are my heartfelt policies, but, if you don’t like them, I’ve got others.”

Perhaps the time has come for the voters to demand the right and the opportunity to hear and debate the questions of government, and the selection of all the senior people who will implement the will of the people. At the same time, we need the honesty and goodwill of citizens who are willing to make the decisions for the good of all, even if that costs them some opportunities for themselves.

Vicky Momberg and Justice

South Africa experienced a dramatic leap in the direction of injustice, or, should one say, unidirectional justice recently, with the sentencing of Vicky Momberg to three years imprisonment for the repeated use of the ‘K-word’ while she was in a state of shock and anger after she had experienced a smash-and-grab attack in Johannesburg.

The facts of the case are simple. Momberg was driving her car when a Black thief broke a window and stole some goods from it. When she called the Police Emergency, she used the K-word, and then again when she was being assisted by the Police.

There can be no doubt that her aggressive nature was aggravated by the smash-and-grab. These attacks are common in many cities of South Africa, to the extent that motorists, particularly lone women drivers, are repeatedly warned in the Press to beware of men loitering at intersections, particularly exits from motorways. Disregarding these potential attackers is a routine in Police circles. Many motorists near Police vehicles have counted as many as thirty or forty ‘vendors’ loitering in these crime hotspots, all of whom appear to be invisible to the Police. A smash-and-grab attack on one’s car is always expensive, with the window in question having to be replaced, and it is not uncommon for a lone motorist who resists the crime to be physically assaulted with a knife or other sharp object, or with a club. The criminals who ‘earn’ their living in this way do not wish to endure the inconvenience of being arrested and then having to bribe the Policeman in order to continue with the night’s work. A smash-and-grab attack is not a petty crime, yet nothing seems to be done by the authorities to prevent it, and very few, if any, criminals are ultimately brought to book. However, it appears that the use of a single word is enough to galvanize the ‘justice’ system into action.

One can easily understand Momberg’s state of agitation after the crime. The facts of her ‘assistance’ by the Police have not been published, but anyone who has dealt with the Police in South Africa must know that it can be a harrowing experience. Not every Policeman is incompetent or corrupt, but there are enough of those deviants in the SAPS for an average citizen to hold the view that the Police are not there to help you. Whatever the facts of the event may be, Momberg’s state of agitation was not ameliorated by her dealings with the Police, and she gave vent to that state by demanding that she be dealt with by a White Policeman. One can only speculate whether that would have improved matters. Generally, a good cop is a good cop, whether White, Black, Indian or Colored, and a bad cop is a bad cop, but even the good cops are not known for their intelligence or understanding of the laws.

Momberg was ordered by the Equality Court to pay R100 000 to the offended Policeman, and she was then brought before the Magistrates Court for the same offence, and sentenced to three years imprisonment, with one year suspended.

While one cannot sympathize with Momberg, who used a racial slur, one cannot fail to be shocked by these judgments, particularly in light of the fact that no Black, such as Julius Malema (“we’re not threatening to kill all Whites – yet”) and Jacob Zuma (“one Boer, one bullet”, “White Monopoly Capitalists” and numerous others) have been ordered to compensate the aggrieved victim of a racial slur, or been sentenced to prison. It is even more disturbing in the light of the sentence initially handed down to Oscar Pistorius for the culpable homicide of his girlfriend, by shooting four times at her through a closed door. He was sentenced to five years, and the parole conditions required that he spend only ten months – less than a third of Momberg’s sentence – in prison. The Pistorius sentence was increased on appeal, when the finding was changed to murder, but it seems to make little sense that a simple word, albeit one that has gained a particular meaning quite different in post-Apartheid South Africa, from its original meaning, which was quite innocuous, has a greater impact than the intentional firing at close range of four bullets, designed to kill or maim, with the result that a young woman died. The Court also seemed to ignore the effect of the extreme stress in which Momberg found herself after a life-threatening experience. That stress is a normal state for many South Africans, with murder at the highest rate of any city in the world, rapes occurring every four minutes, and a Government that seems to be bent on enriching the few connected persons at the cost of the vast majority of the people. The Court also seemed to ignore the gross disproportionality of the sentence to the offending act, as well as the fact that the ‘victim’ had already been granted a disproportionately high compensation for his suffering – how many of your words are worth R100 000 (nearly $10 000) each, to the person listening to you?

There seems to be no doubt that Momberg will appeal, but the question remains: Have the Thought Police become effective in South Africa, when all other forms of law enforcement, including the Priority Crimes Investigative Unit, the South African Police, the National Prosecuting Agency and even Parliament have proven themselves to be close to valueless in combatting real crime? Has the precedent now been established that only White people can be racist?

This judgment is the start of a long and slippery slope into a condition of biased and arbitrary laws in South Africa, aimed at the White population (this case is not the first in this line. The Black Empowerment laws have done a very good job of depriving virtually any qualified young to middle-aged White man of employment) This is reverse Apartheid by stealth, one step at a time. This happens at a time when similar laws protecting certain classes of person against criticism are being enacted in several African countries, a time when even the President of the United States can be called a moron by the Secretary of State without a right to redress.

And Africa wants a Permanent Seat on the United Nations Security Council?

Cry the Beloved Country.

The Vote of No Confidence

The eighth vote of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma has been rejected by a margin of twenty-one votes. What does the vote show?

Although the numbers show that a number of ANC MPs voted against the President, 198 MPs voted to keep the most corrupt President the country has known in power. They voted against a background of hundreds of thousands of emails, showing that he and his Ministers, and the people they have appointed to manage the State Owned Entities have been involved in a systematic corruption and robbing from the people of South Africa. They knew that the President they supported still faces 783 charges of fraud and corruption, which he has continued to dodge through his manipulation of the justice system. They knew that the Constitutional Court has declared him to have been in breach of his Oath of Office, and of his duties under the Constitution. They knew that the country is in an increasing state of collapse, as a result of the rampant corruption, the incompetence of Government to do anything effectively, unless it offers personal benefits to the chain of command, and the Marxist policies The President and his followers espouse, disregarding the clear proof that these policies continue to drag down every other country that applies them.

And yet they voted to keep him in power.

It would be reasonable to assume that many of the MPs voted to protect their jobs, the large salaries and the many perks they enjoy, which most of them would be incapable of earning in the real world, where capability and competence are required, rather than slavish devotion to a Mafia-style leader. This highlights the limits placed by them on their commitment to serve the people, rather than themselves. The vote is a clear statement that the majority of ANC MPs are willing to let the country bear the depredations of a corrupt and incompetent leader, provided they can hold onto power and receive their salaries.

The speeches by the ANC MPs before the vote were a mixture of outright lies and misleading statements, highlighting the extreme lack of capability of these people who were, presumably, the best that the Party could muster, given the importance of the debate to them. One notable observation that could be made of these speeches is that they all took the form of propaganda, speaking to the emotions and prejudices of the hearers, without any attempt to address facts and come to a conclusion on the basis of those facts. Those facts, if faced honestly, must lead any thinking person to a view that the present situation is a formula for disaster, and needs urgent and comprehensive correction. That applied, to a large extent, to the speech by the Leader of the DA, which was a disappointment to many of the listeners. It was an opportunity to set out in the highest forum a detailed statement of the derelictions of duty by the President and his Party under his leadership. The speech unfortunately turned out to be a sermon, demanding that the listeners believe and act. One might have expected that, given the background of the man. However, one would expect more from the Leader of the Opposition of a country in crisis.

In summary, the vote of no confidence showed clearly that our politicians are not a credit to the people of the country. The inescapable conclusion is that the country is in desperate need of good men and women, of leaders and representatives of the people who are willing to set their own interests aside, and to really understand what has happened to our democracy, to accept that horrific mistakes and acts of criminality have been made under the disguise of tending for the poor, and to take well considered and unselfish steps to correct what is now patently wrong.

It is highly unlikely that this will happen in a country in which the vast majority of the people are willing to be led by the lure of self-benefit, rather than national interest.