Monday, April 29, 2013

Rolling in the Randelas


Mandela's kids, grandkids raking in millions....


Former president Nelson Mandela's children and grandchildren are currently active in more than 110 companies, according to company information, it was reported.

Their wealth was held in a network of at least 24 trusts established by Ismail Ayob, the family's former lawyer, Beeld reported.
Some of the trusts owned several expensive properties in Johannesburg's upmarket neighbourhoods.
Makaziwe Mandela's 3 575-metre-squared house in Hyde Park, for example, was owned by the Makaziwe M Trust and, according to the latest property valuation, was worth about R13.6 million.
However, it was virtually impossible to determine the full extent of the Mandela family's wealth and interests, because of the network of trusts in which the assets were held, as well as the lack of public documentation providing information.
The most recognisable Mandela entrepreneurs were his granddaughters Zaziwe and Zamaswazi (Swati) Dlamini, who had a reality show on TV and had also launched a Mandela clothing range.
Grandson Zondwa Mandela was recently in the news because of his involvement with President Jacob Zuma's nephew Khulubuse Zuma and their association with the controversial Aurora mine.
Company information showed the Mandela children and grandchildren had, over the past two decades, been involved in about 200 companies extending over a wide range of sectors, including real estate, investments, railway engineering, minerals, medical firms, fashion, and entertainment.
Makaziwe, Mandela's eldest daughter, was an active director in 16 companies, including the South African subsidiary of the Swiss multinational food giant Nestlé, a shopping centre in Kimberley, two railway engineering companies, and four companies apparently engaged in mineral exploration.
Zenani Dlamini, Mandela's other daughter and currently South Africa's ambassador to Argentina, was an active director of nine companies.
She was previously associate director of a company with Clinton Nassif, who was implicated in the murder of mining magnate Brett Kebble.
Zondwa Mandela, Khulubuse Zuma, and Zuma's lawyer Michael Hulley were co-directors in Labat Africa.
The three were at one stage directors of the Aurora mine, but Hulley had since resigned.
Nandi Mandela, Mandela's granddaughter, was a co-director in a city planning company Linda Masinga & Associates, which according to the company's website, had completed numerous municipal contracts for municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal.
According to Beeld, Nelson Mandela himself did not possess many assets registered in his own name.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation Trust in 2012 paid R2.9m to "The Founder", slightly more than the R2.8m of the previous year.
As a former president Nelson Mandela also receives a lifelong presidential pension.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Freedom Day


Freedom day???
So it is freedom day? Mwahahahahahahahahahaha !! Well Mr. Zuma you and your cronies can shove your stupid holiday up your ass!!
I mean really – what is it that I am free to do? Lets see, I am free to be unemployable simply because I am white, regardless of my skill set or political affiliations I am free to remain unemployed simply because you and your cronies are black supremacists who don’t like me simply because I am white. And you justify this action by holding me responsible for something my great grandfather may or may not have done?? Well Mr. Shit for brains, I think you need to be held responsible for what is happening now! Instead of coming after me and my people for something you imagine we did wrong decades ago? Why don’t you man up and stand for the horrible crimes you have and still are committing!! I will tell you why – because you are a yellow bellied coward!
Our youth is free to become dumber and dumber because you and your collection of fools cant even deliver text books to their schools, you are causing decades of suffering by making our youth almost as stupid as you? They will become a generation of small Zuma’s that cant do anything for themselves, a generation of fools that will just sit and wait for a handout. Handouts that will soon start to dry up because the biggest fool of them all – that would be you Mr. Zuma is making it difficult for the people who pay tax to remain employed?? You really are a dumb shit!!
We have the freedom to be raped and tortured in our homes without any chance of the police or government coming to our rescue! We are facing genocide and still you deny it and claim that all is well in South Africa? So in other words you consider that fact that we have a higher murder/death rate than any war zone in the world to be normal? Well all that proves is that you are a savage of the worst kind who should be taken outside and unceremoniously shot in the head for the good of the people. And before I forget we also have the freedom to defend ourselves against this racial genocide without the help of any firearms!! Well guess what? You failed! We still have weapons, some legal, some illegal and we have become more vigilant and are ready to kill your followers when they come for us! You say the attacks on us are becoming less? No they are not, we are just not reporting it anymore, it is much less trouble to just kill them and get rid of the evidence than deal with your retarded police officials.
We are free to drive on your dangerously un maintained roads as long as we pay a fortune for the “privilege” of doing so? For that matter we are free to do anything we want as long as you can pocket some money out of it? You are a warlord and a thief! So do me a favor and take your freedom day and shove it where the sun don’t shine, because it is nothing but lies and we don’t need it. What we will will celebrate is that we will always be free, because we are a proud nation and we know we are free to defend ourselves against idiots and savages – not because anybody says so but because it is our God given right to do so – remember the source of your greed is going to run out soon whereas the source of our determination will never run out and will outlast you all because it is eternal and divine and has withstood all before you and will still be around long after you have become a distant memory!
So go ahead and celebrate your “freedom day” while your own people starve and die in the violence that you have created, and know this if the picture of you with a shower on your head does not please you, I am pretty sure that future generations of your own people will depict you with horns and a tail.

AN OPEN LETTER ON THE STATE OF THE NATION


Letter to President JG Zuma by Revd Canon Barney Pityana



Revd Canon Barney Pityana

20 February 2013
Dear Mr Zuma
I write this letter with a simple request: that you resign from all public office, especially that of President and Head of State of the Republic of South Africa.
I am, of course, aware that you have been re-elected President of the African National Congress, the majority party in our National Assembly. I am also aware that, in terms of our electoral system, that allows the ANC to present you as a candidate to the National Assembly and use their majority therein to put you in office, without much ado. It would also appear that by its recent vote the African National Congress has expressed confidence in your leadership. You can then understand that I am taking an extraordinary step, and I can assure you one that has been carefully considered, in asking for your resignation.
Our country is in shambles, and the quality of life of millions of ordinary South Africans is deteriorating. Confidence in our country, and its economic and political system, is at an all-time low. There is reason to believe that ordinary South Africans have no trust in your integrity as a leader, or in your ability to lead and guide a modern constitutional democracy that we aspire to become. That, notwithstanding the fact that our Constitution puts very minimal requirements for qualification as a public representative including the highly esteemed office of President and Head of State, and Head of the Executive. What is clear, at the very least, is that the President must have the means and the inclination to promote and defend the Constitution, and uphold the well being of all South Africans. I have reason to believe that, notwithstanding the confidence that your party has placed on you, you have demonstrated that you no longer qualify for this high office on any of the counts stated above.
As President and Head of State you should take responsibility for the lamentable state in which our society finds itself. This prevailing toxic and amoral environment must surely have something to do with the manner in which you assumed office, by trampling down on all semblance of the rule of law, and corrupting agencies of state. We are constantly reminded of the truth of Shakespeare’s words: “Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall”  (Measure for Measure II.2) The result is that we are in a Macbethian world where there is absence from the moral landscape of this dear land of ours any sense of positive good, any sense of personal involvement in virtue, loyalty, restraint. As a result we are in the morass of paralysis of moral power as a society. I believe that we are justified in exclaiming with Marcellus in Hamlet 1.iv “something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” And so we say “All is not well.”
As citizens we need not ask of our President and Head of State any more than the practice of virtue. To live a virtuous life is to express the goodness of and the possibilities for good in human living. These have at times been expressed as the cardinal virtues: temperance, courage, prudence and justice. For that the leader must lead by example, be a person of common wisdom, and understand the environment of her/his operations enough to serve the people and be driven by a desire to govern well.
There is no place in this for exploiting the high office for personal gain or benefit, or using state resources to buy loyalty, or to elevate party or family above the public good. Without this radical prescription of service our democracy is hollow, becomes a dictatorship of the Party, until the next elections when the voters once again get coaxed to vote for The Party! The personal attributes of a leader are an important assurance that our democracy is in good hands: excellence in virtue, truth, trust, wisdom, insight, discernment, and sound judgment.
That cesspit of a-morality is to be found in the prevalence of rape in all its brutal forms, in the disregard for loyalty – how does one explain that a close friend of Anene Booysen ‘s brother in Bredasdorp is one of the suspects of her murder. You yourself know only too well that a daughter of a close friend and comrade of yours accused you of rape! Though, happily, you were acquitted of the charge, the stench of disloyalty and taking advantage of unequal relations remains. South Africans live in fear, they are angry; they are poor (and getting poorer) and burdened by debt. What could be alleviating poverty, like social grants and social housing, is failing in practice because the poor have what is due to them pocketed by corrupt officials, and instead suffer the indignity of living life as beggars in their own land. Whether it be from marauding criminal gangs, or crime syndicates that appear to operate with some impunity, or the elderly terrified of their own grandchildren, or neighbours who cannot be trusted, or girl schoolchildren who are at the mercy of their teachers who may rape or abuse them, or corruption and theft from public resources by government ministers and public servants, or failure to meet the basic requirements of schooling most notably school textbooks not being delivered on time, or citizens who die in our hospitals because there are no doctors , or no medicines, or the thousands who dies on our roads, or protesters like Andries Tatane in Ficksburg, or the Marikana 46, or those murdered by the Cato Manor police death squad in extra-judicial murder, South Africans live in fear. Are we effectively in a police state? This situation is the direct result of the failure of public policy.
Besides the social and moral breakdown that engulfs our society, the economic woes for ordinary South Africans are not abating. Social inequality has widened since the end of apartheid – and that is something to be ashamed of. The extent of escalating unemployment in our country is surely nothing to be proud of, and poverty that has become endemic, almost irreversible, that haunts our every being cannot be gainsaid. The gaping disparities between rich and poor is a sad indictment on a party that has been in government since the onset of our constitutional democracy. The inadequacy of policy is attested to by the succession of downgrades by rating agencies, and the despair of the poor expresses itself in incessant demonstrations throughout the length and breadth of our country.
South Africans are angry, and they have every reason to be so. There is evidence that your party and government no longer have the intelligence, ideas or initiative to take bold, radical and necessary steps to arrest this slide into oblivion. Besides just being without the intelligence to change the course of history, evidently your Party and government do not even have the inclination preoccupied as it is by a relentless programme of self-enrichment. Not even the otherwise promising National Planning Commission Report will solve the challenges we face because it is too little too late, lacks specificity and is without urgency or determination. Yes, we also have the promise of a multi-billion rand infrastructure development spend that is bound to end up in failure no less than the ignoble defence procurement debacle, based on the prevailing rector of corruption in government. Why, because there are already signs that this initiative has become the target of looters and thieves, many of whom with the full knowledge of the political elite in your party and government. This failure of government is also to be seen in the lamentable e.toll saga, in the handling of the farmworkers demands and essential decision-making in the highest office in the land: the appointments of the Chief Justice, of the Head of the NPA, in government by demands rather than by policy and principle, The picture that emerges is one of lack of leadership that is courageous about things that matter. Yes, we see it in the majority of appointments you make that, with notable exceptions, are lackluster and mediocre. These include appointments to cabinet, Provincial Premiers, and even political appointments to diplomatic service, and a gradual erosion of the independence of significant institutions like the judiciary by blatant political interference. These are nothing but an insult to the intelligence of South Africans.
Notwithstanding all this, there is a sense that this country is without an imaginative, transformative chief executive. Instead, where serious matters, as in the outrageous use of state resources to build extensions to your private home amounting to some R206m (if we accept Minister Thiulas Nxesi’s assurances, which no reasonable South African should!), you indulge us in the art of equivocation. Is it true that every room in the Nkandla Zuma Estate has been paid for by the Zuma family? Or is it that every room now occupied by the member of your family has been so paid for? You and your ministers so often address us with this double sense of the absurd, and obscured meaning to cover the truth. There is widespread use of state resources as a piggy-bank to meet the demands of your office or for electioneering or other forms of state patronage. Ministers like Tina Joemat-Peterson seem to labour under the belief that it is the responsibility of their office to make the resources of their offices to be available to the President at his beck and call. What about the Guptas, citizens of India who have managed to ingratiate themselves and wormed themselves into the very heart of this nation. The benefits are obvious: they get to summon ministers to their compound and issue instructions; they manipulate the cricket governing council with disastrous results; and the paper they publish has access to large resources from state agencies for which no other newspaper was ever invited to tender. Yes, we are in the midst of a new Infogate Scandal! It can only be in a ‘banana republic’ where foreign elements can succeed so easily. I wonder where else is that happening, and what about the security of the state? That would definitely never happen in India.
At the centre of this is a President who lacks the basic intelligence (I do not mean school knowledge or certificates), who is without the means to inspire South Africans to feats of passion for their country and to appeal to their best humanity. I mean being smart and imaginative, and being endowed with ideas and principles on which quality leadership is based. Our problem as a country begins by our having as head of state someone devoid of “the king-becoming graces’ to establish “virtuous rule”. It therefore sounds very hollow when you protest that as President you deserve respect. I wholeheartedly agree that the office of Head of State must be held with respect. But I submit that you are the author of your own misfortune. There is hardly any evidence that you are treating your high office with the due respect you expect of others; to bestow on the highest office in the land dignitas and gravitas is your duty. No wonder that there was a time that international observers were overly concerned about the unfinished business of criminal investigations against you, and of course, that little matter you are so proud of, your many wives and innumerable progeny – as one with potency to sow his wild oats with gay abandon. In your language this is about your culture. Besides there are far too many occasions of gratuitous disregard for the law and the constitution, and unflattering mention in cartoon media, and often your name features in associations with activities that suggest corruption. South Africans have very little reason to hold their President in awe or respect. On top of that the President makes promises he never keeps, and does not even think he owes anybody an explanation. What happened to the gentleman’s ethic, “my word is my bond”! Truth, while never absolute, must be the badge of good leadership.
My counsel to your friends and comrades who seek to protect your reputation by marching onto the Gallery and intimidate the owner of the gallery and the artist of The Spear, or those who are offended on your behalf by the Lady justice cartoon by Zapiro, or the Secretary General of the ANC who summons the Chairman of Nedbank, or the Chief Executive of First Rand for a telling off about the re-branding campaign of the FNB; or the offence caused to some by the decision by AmPlats to restructure its business operations and the threats it was subjected to; or the threats by the General Secretary of the Communist Party and his Stalinist Taliban to legislate respect for the President – none of that would be necessary if you yourself held your high office with a modicum of respect.
Besides these social ills we remain a divided society. We are not just divided by class and wealth (although that is true), or by race, or by gender as the pandemic of violence and brutality against women is the signature tune of our country to our shame; but most alarmingly, the ugly spectre of ethnicity and tribalism that has been accentuated during your Presidency needs to be nipped in the bud. Clearly, you are not the President to campaign against this malady, nor are you interested in operating above the tribal fray as other Presidents have done. Social cohesion clearly is not on your agenda. I do not mean just occasionally dressing down some opposition politician, or pointing fingers at “clever blacks”, or outrage at some indecent racist incidents. I do not even mean a badly organized Social Cohesion Conference or the discredited Moral Regeneration Movement. I mean a coordinated programme of government utilizing the instruments of state and institutions supporting democracy, like the Human Rights Commission, to drive a national strategy of social cohesion. Even universities, once the bastions of civilized life as WEB du Bois puts it, producing an intellectual corps for society that is critical, and independent, are now fast becoming reduced to apologists of failed government policies.
As a critical observer of government and the African National Congress under your leadership, I note that the tenor of government and party is fast drifting towards the conservative, authoritarian, reactionary organization, presiding over a kleptocratic state; and that is intolerant of South Africans expressing themselves. When leaders and governments know that they no longer rule with the consent of the ruled, and without their participation in their democracy they get to be afraid of even their shadows. It often takes on the persona of a playground bullyboy whenever it is unable to answer some pretty sharp critical questions about the conduct of government, and about the prevalence of crime and corruption in South Africa, or about false promises. The ANC is getting to take on a semblance of a mafia organization, a Big Brother that syndicates hard dealings against others, isolates and silences critical voices, and uses state patronage to neutralize and marginalize others. One can observe the makings of a totalitarian, fascist regime.
I am reminded proudly that it was not always like that. There has been much over time that South Africans can be very proud of. I can think of Josiah Gumede challenging John Dube for the leadership of the NNC in the 1920s where, as Peter Limb puts it in his magisterial study of THE ANC’S EARLY YEARS, the ANC had become miserable and “getting lost in mist and sea of selfishness” (does that not sound familiar?). Dube, it was judged, had become conservative, and associated with ethnic nationalism. What we miss today is that radical urgency that Josiah Gumede introduced into NNC politics, that uncompromising commitment to shape the destiny of the oppressed. Instead we get a party and President preoccupied with ethnic culturalism, and that has no idea about turning the tide of the economic life of the people of this country. There have been other examples as well which led to the ascendancy of Chief Albert Luthuli, and the removal of the likes of AB Xuma and James Moroka. Nowadays a conservative, reactionary tribal leadership is celebrated and lionised but never censured as it continues to keep a Machiavellian stranglehold and power over the organisation.  The ANC is being held captive by reactionary, corrupt forces. The ANC is in danger of being reduced to a tribal club with hangers-on who seek patronage and a hand in the politics of theft. It is exactly such a tribalist sentiment that has caused the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development to drive relentlessly a piece of legislation like the Traditional Courts Bill whose constitutionality is suspect, but which more importantly, clearly undermines the advances this nation has made with regard to the rights of women, and it threatens to introduce a layer of criminal justice that parallels that established by the law of the land. In a land where some 50% of the population is made up of young people and women a leadership is required that trusts the instincts of young people and that radically eschews all forms of sexism and disregard for women. A not dissimilar sentiment especially in the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development must explain the abortive Secrecy Bill, and the secret revival of the National Keypoints Act is surely part of this culture of secrecy.
Besides, our country needs a President who understands democracy, especially that a constitutional democracy functions with checks and balances; that power is always exercised under check, and never in an arbitrary manner. The Head of State must be comfortable with the powers of the Constitutional Court and never to threaten at every turn to subject them to review, and to know that good governance flourishes with the oversight of parliament, and of independent organs of state, and that opposition parties are loyal opposition and patriotic and mandated by voters to champion particular positions in the public sphere. Opposition is of no mere nuisance value. It is the lifeblood of democracy. Some of your utterances suggest that you just do not get it.
I am raising my voice comprehensively now after having promised in 2009 that I shall hold my peace, and give your government a fair chance to perform. I had warned that much of your “victories” in the run-up to Polokwane and thereafter were merely pyrrhic victories. They would yet come to haunt you, I reasoned. Indeed, they have. But now any political analyst will warn that we are on a drift to a totalitarian state, twisted by a security machinery into silence and worse. Those of us who still have voice are obliged to warn against the prevailing trend. One way of addressing this confidence deficit would be for the President and all public representatives to be subjected to a probity test, to declare for public scrutiny their tax affairs, and all matters of conflict of interest. It is also not asking too much to expect that all public officers, including civil servants must express confidence in the system they preside over by sending their children to state schools, and to utilize public health facilities.  This must surely include all public sector unions like NEHAWU and SADTU. Leadership matters. Leadership must be accountable and must be exemplary, and must be inspirational. That is where you fail.
Please spare us another five years under your leadership. Spare yourself any further embarrassment of ineffectual leadership. You will be judged harshly by future generations. I ask you solemnly, resign.
Yours sincerely.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

I AM NOT JUST TALKING BACK, SO YOU BETTER LISTEN


New24 can choose to not publish my article, and quite honestly, I would be offended, as I strongly believe that my voice, which echoes those of millions, needs to be heard. Only this time, I choose not confine my tone to the Political Correct terms. It’s so tiring it has lost every thread of making any sense. I am sick and tired to the core with our leaders. And I am using this platform to express myself, call it talking back, whatever, but you better listen.
Each day we hear our leaders using every platform, insulting our kindness and intelligence, well, that is, if they still believe we are left with any. Now, seriously, some people really suffer from brain farting syndrome, whatever that is. If this is how we’re going to sing the praise of our fallen heroes, drag their names to political diarrhea when it helps politicians to barb easily? If this is how our leaders will choose such moments of honour to settle political debates, I am inclined to lift my middle finger and tell them to push whatever they are going to say next and push it up their butts. Perhaps they will remember that this is what happens when you corner a cat, no matter how skinny you have starved it, the cat will open its claws and attack.
Let’s tell the truth.
No one cares. Our leaders don’t care about the poor. Period. It does not help to sugar coat how our leaders view the poor. The discourse is hypothetically easy to follow: deny them education, they won’t reason, cripple the health system and kill them, screw up the culture of service delivery and leave them miserable, imbalance the justice system and scare the hell out of them, strip them their rights and leave them vulnerable. Essentially, create fear and make them dependable. While they, our leaders of course, with their close allies, fellow comrades, cousins, sons and daughters and extended family members milk the cow only for themselves. It is greedy and unthinkable.
We are insulted by our leaders and they spit on our faces every day. The poor are the victims to the system. All they are given are empty promises that are repeatedly said they have become so boring, you listen to our leaders speak you almost finish their lines. Yawn! A lot of the same thing is happening over and over. On the one hand, for example, you have the same main roads in Diepsloot Township tarred every time the elections get closer. When it rains some parts of the areas are unimaginable to think they should ‘house’ people. How old is Diepsloot and, how old is democracy? Go figure! On the other hand, you have reports about politicians renovating their mansions to the price higher than the purchasing price of the same mansion.
It is when you read about reports coming from the poorest part of the country about leaders buying expensive cars for their use that I get the creeps in my body. What is more insulting is that they don’t deny having committed such outrageous acts as they believe to have done “accordingly”. Who buys an almost half a million car when the majority of the people you suppose to serve are starving? I guess it is the same person who boldly lie to the country about how safe South Africans feel in this country better than they did 19 years ago. We “feel safe”because our dear President signed some stupid papers “to help ensure everyone feel safe”. Really?!
Our leaders should simply stop the bickering.
The elders vote for nothing except hoping to send their kids to better schools for better education, to have their health well cared for at public health institutes. The young women vote for nothing except with the hope that they will one day walk the streets in summer nights without fear of being reminded they are woman, and therefore “they are weak”.  But are these people getting what they have hoped for by giving their votes to leaders. The answer is a big fat NO, another insult to injury. Parents still send their kids to uninspiring buildings that resemble schools. Almost every day we wake to news of women, girls and girl-children being raped. Then our leaders will be quick to make faces, telling us how much they condemn rape, that our society does not have a place for such people. Knock! Knock! We already know that. We all want it to stop, what are you doing as a leader to steer it to the right direction to stop it is the question. Plans, plans plans, plans that never see the light of the day. Why should the NDP be effective in 2030 when Nkandlagate is a matter of urgency? Sick, isn’t?
I am not negative about my country, don’t get me wrong, but it gets harder to see the sun when the big clouds keep covering the sun, and it can get uncomfortably cold too. When every day you hear are plans being put to help the poor, instead of helping the poor, it is hard to hold on. When every day, we hear from our leaders telling us that education has improved, while our matriculants (who are supposed to be at tertiary or working) shows no knowledge or interest in life. You wonder who to believe, the leader who talks about an improved system or the kid who is so ignorant about life. We live with these kids, to listen to our leaders telling the world such rubbish, is totally unacceptable, it’s an insult.
I won’t be part of this insult
I am failed, defeated and sadly, abused by the people I trusted with my vote, democracy, freedom, worse and, my life. I am bruised and buttered from the wounds incurred by the same people who said I could trust them. These wounds are serious they will take long to heal but they will heal nevertheless. When they heal they will be scars that will be a reminder of what trust can do to a person. But they will also remind me of one very important thing, to make the right choice.
The choice is not to allow another insult. I have, therefore, decided to lower my middle finger, and hit them where it hurts the most. I know it’s going to be a hard one to make. I won’t be taking any T-shirt with any face that has spoken insult to my life. I won’t jump into any free-bus-ride to listen to any leader campaigning and lying to me about my future, when all they mean is give us your vote and go back to your miserable life.  I am going to spit back to their faces. I am going to take their free grocery and eat the food. I figured I will need all the strength to make the right choice. But my vote won’t be bought by soup, rice and mealie-meal. I won’t be affected by the old brutal films about apartheid that they use to manipulate my feelings as a black person. Yes, I am a human before I am black and therefore any human can feel with the brutality committed by the system but those films won’t affects my emotions more  than the insults you spitting at my face.
Times have changed and things are not the same anymore. Enough of this rubbish, enough of this insult and I am not going to be part of it anymore.

Sbu Shongwe

An African man can never be proud to use his mother’s surname but an absent father must also take the responsibility to be called a father by his son. I am nonetheless, proud to call myself a Shongwe in honor of this tough woman who raised me irrespective.
Now I spend half my time instilling those values to young men around Thembisa, Alexander and Diepsloot townships through a variety of cultural activities, including theatre and photography. But I must earn a living, which is why I freelance as journalist after a one year internship sting with Sowetan as entertainment and news reporter.
In between there is my BA degree in Creative Writing through UNISA, which I must complete to add on my other achievements: Certificate in Film and TV Writing from the South African Script Writers Institute, my Certificate in Advance in English from Wits Language School, skills in online media acquired through attending workshops.
Follow me on twitter: @shosbu

The Boston Blast


The Boston Blasts, a preliminary report

By Mike Smith
16th of April 2013

Interesting, isn't it?

16th of April 2013 some bombs are exploded by terrorists in Boston killing 3 innocent civilian people and injuring about a 100.

It is on every television in the world and a massive outcry rises from all over the world.

Almost exactly 30 years ago on the 20th of May 1983 a bomb exploded in Church Street in Pretoria, planted by the Marxist ANC terrorists, killing 19 innocent civilian people and injuring 217.

The bombs were authorized by Communist scum Oliver Tambo and Joe Slovo and had the blessing of Nelson Mandela himself.

There were applause and cheers of joy and support from all around the world for the ANC.

Sorry but the hypocrisy is sickening.

At first in this report it states that the FBI and other agencies have no clue to who planted the bombs, but they are suspecting “Rightwingers” or “Islamists”.
FBI suspects “Rightwing or Islamists”

Then later it came out they were looking for a “Dark skinned or Black Male” Boston Marathon Bombing: Hunt for ‘Dark-Skinned or Black Male’ and Yellow Van

Hey? I tell you, the Leftist media, just cannot let any opportunity go by to smear the Right.

http://mikesmithspoliticalcommentary.blogspot.de/2013/04/the-boston-blasts-preliminary-report.html

The Useless, Criminal Police of South Africa



By Mike Smith 
18th of April 2013 

Two years ago, in full view of television cameras, Andries Tatane a Ficksburg protester, was kicked, beaten with a police baton and shot twice in the chest with rubber bullets after which he collapsed and died. 

The seven policemen accused of his murder were all acquitted last month, simply because the prosecution bungled the case. 

Where is the justice for his family and his wife Rose? 

Just before Tatane’s death, police on a hunt for an escaped prisoner, shot and killed a 15yo boy called Kwasi Ndlovu and planted a gun on him. Ndlovu never had a gun 

On 16th of August 2012 SA police trapped and slaughtered 34 miners at the Lonmin Marikanamine.

About two month ago nine police officers were charged after dragging a Mozambican taxi driver Mido Macia behind a police van and he later died of his injuries. 
South African police suspended over death of man 'dragged behind van' 

These four incidents are just the tips of a massive “excessive force” iceberg of what the SAPS has degenerated into. 

The annual report of Amnesty international documented allegations against the SA police of excessive force, torture, rape and "extrajudicial executions". It said the IPID received 720 new cases for investigation of suspicious deaths in custody or in other policing contexts from April 2011 to March 2012. 

About 932 people died in police custody in South Africa in 2011-12, a report by the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) revealed. Source: Over 900 die in South African police custody 

Dragging people behind cars or alongside them seems to be the SAPS’s favourite trick. Weeks after Mido Macia’s death more incidents of cops dragging people with vehicles emerged. 

In their off time, our criminal police rob Chinese owned businesses…in police uniform and use police cars as getaway vehicles Police duo linked to robbery 

Or they go out and rape members of the public as this senior police officer has done. Senior Superintendent Mahlatse Thobakgale was found guilty of three counts of rape, one of pointing a firearm and one of negligent discharge of a firearmRapist Freestate cop jailed for 18 years 

Or this one where a police reservist raped a member of the public and the police captain covered for him. Thankfully the police captain was fired. Captain axed for inaction over rape cop 

And when the cops are not raping women, they torture people like these six awaiting trial prisoners who are now suing the Police Minister. ‘Police attached wires to my penis’ 

Charges include being hung upside down in broad daylight from a first-floor balcony of the Bloemfontein Tourist Centre (BTC), electric shock torture, suffocation with pepper-spray filled plastic bags, head-bashing, assaults and beatings. 

William Dube described being cuffed to a chair in an unmarked suite of the tourism centre offices, wires attached to his penis, and shocked. “It was very, very painful. I even wet myself... They covered my head with a plastic bag, filled it with pepper spray and sealed it with duct tape.” 

Two weeks later he was taken to the centre for a second round where ten police officers shocked him repeatedly for almost four hours in front of a woman officer. 

Or in their off duty time these cowardly creatures go about hitting and kicking women from behind as can be seen in this shocking report and video. Note how two on-duty policemen do not arrest him and do not help the woman Probe after cop assault on woman 

In the next example of police brutality in South Africa, two coloured guys found an intruder in their yard at 01h00 in the morning (probably a policeman) and chased him off. Two days later, the police picked them up, handcuffed them and drove them to the police station where they were whipped with sjamboks, suffocated with a plastic bag, threatened that they would be framed with drugs and driven back home. No charges were laid against them. ‘Officers whipped us with sjamboks’ 

What they also do, is to raid drug dealer’s homes and then sell the drugs on the side. Five cops in Eastern Cape arrested for drug dealing 

To crown it all…40% of SA cops do not have a driver’s license 

That’s right…They are driving around without licenses endangering the lives of the public. 

These were just some example of recent daily reports that made it into the MSM headlines. Can you imagine the thousands of cases that never make it into the media? 

Now if the police themselves are heavy criminals, then how do they foresee to ever make a dent in the crime in the country? Police are civil servants. 

They ultimately answer to us, who pay their salaries. They are not a law unto themselves. Therefore we need to hold them accountable and responsible for their criminality. And that goes for Police Commissioner Phiyega and Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa as well.

http://mikesmithspoliticalcommentary.blogspot.de/2013/04/the-useless-criminal-police-of-south.html

President Jacob Zuma Misled Parliament


SA-CAR "Exchange of Diplomatic Notes" shows President Jacob Zuma misled Parliament

The Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, has this afternoon released to me an "Exchange of Diplomatic Notes" between South Africa and the Central African Republic (CAR), signed on 31 December 2012.

The fact is that there was never a second Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on defence cooperation between South Africa and the CAR. 

There was only an "Exchange of Diplomatic Notes", between South Africa and the CAR, signed on 31 December 2012, recording certain "understandings" aimed at ensuring South Africa played a more meaningful role in the CAR. 

The diplomatic notes appear to amount to a new agreement which differs substantially from the original MoU signed between South Africa and the CAR in 2007.

The diplomatic notes provide for the "reinforcement of the South African Contingent for self-defence, protection of property and saving of human lives in Bangui".

The expanded scope of cooperation to include - self-defence, protection of property and saving of human lives - was never conveyed to Parliament.

This clearly shows that President Jacob Zuma misled Parliament on the deployment of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) in the CAR.

http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page72308?oid=370637&sn=Marketingweb+detail&pid=90389

Monday, April 15, 2013

Grade 12 Mathematical Literacy Paper





Minister of Basic Education:


Angie Motshekga




The question reads as follows: State whether the following event is certain, most likely or impossible: Christmas day is on December 25 in South Africa.

No wonder education in South Africa has gone down the tubes..........Fire the idiot.....



http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page72308?
oid=369801&sn=Marketingweb+detail&pid=90389

On Zuma's Efforts To Blame Apartheid


PRESIDENT ZUMA'S COMMENTS REGARDING THE IMPACT OF APARTHEID ON SOUTH AFRICA'S PRESENT PROBLEMS

In comments that he made to mark the 20th anniversary of Chris Hani's assassination, President Zuma alluded to the recent debate regarding the impact of apartheid on the current problems confronting South Africa.

He said that "to suggest we cannot blame apartheid for what is happening in our country now, I think is a mistake, to say the least. We don't need to indicate what it is apartheid did. The fact that the country is two in one - you go to any city, there is a beautiful part and squatters on the other side - this is not the making of democracy and we can't stop blaming those who caused it."

Jacob Zuma's "Nkandla" in the back ground and a simple mud house in the foreground.

"While wanting to see change happening fast in every corner of the country, we are under no illusion that South Africa will automatically and comprehensively change in only 20 years. That is impossible. The legacy of apartheid runs too deep and too far back for the democratic administration to reverse it in so short a period."

President Zuma's remarks were a repetition of what has become a central refrain in ANC communication: that the legacy of the past - i.e. apartheid or "colonialism of a special kind" - is responsible for the triple crisis of inequality, unemployment and poverty. The remarks are usually accompanied by simplistic comparisons between whites who live in the "beautiful part" and blacks who live "on the other side."

We are all the products of our past - and there can be no doubt that apartheid created serious distortions in the normal development process that black South Africans would otherwise have experienced. However, the roots of inequality and poverty are far more complex than that. They include, in particular, lack of access to decent education, employment and effective government services - all factors that have been within the sphere of government policy since 1994.

The inequality that characterised our society in 1994 may certainly be ascribed to the complex legacies of the past. However, the fact that, 19 years later, we are an even more unequal society is the consequence of the failure of government policy. Unacceptable levels of inequality have their roots - among other things - in:
  • the dismal performance of our education system caused overwhelmingly by government mismanagement and the depredations of SADTU; 
  • the fact that almost 40% of black South Africans are unemployed - primarily as a result of   rigid labour policies; policies and attitudes that discourage foreign and domestic investment and the refusal of COSATU to countenance competition in freer labour markets;
  • the inability of government to deliver decent services - which is attested to by service delivery protests throughout the country almost on a daily basis; and
  • the implementation of inappropriate policies to promote equality - which have greatly benefited the top 10% of the black population - but which have done nothing for the bottom 60%.
Attempts to blame these failures on "apartheid" will simply divert government and public attention from the urgent need to implement the kind of realistic solutions called for in the National Development Plan. They also serve intentionally or unintentionally to stir up racial animosities that we simply cannot afford. When President Zuma says that "we cannot  stop blaming those who caused it", he is playing the very dangerous game of making whites the racial scapegoats for the manifest failures of his own government.

The reality is that many of the beautiful parts to which President Zuma refers are now increasingly inhabited by the emerging black elite and middle class. In 1995 whites accounted for 69% of those in the top earnings decile. By 2007 their share had diminished to 43%. By now it will be even smaller. The nature of the squatter camps is also changing: several are now inhabited by impoverished whites. The country may be "two in one" as President Zuma observes but they can no longer be simplistically characterised as 'rich white' and 'poor black'.

Clearly we South Africans need to engage one another in frank discussions about the legacy of the past, the challenges of the present and  our vision for the future.


Return of the Poor White Problem


The ANC's policy has led to an increase in the poor White problem

The African National Congress (ANC) has assisted in ushering in a new democratic dispensation, but has failed dismally to create a non-racial and equal opportunity society. 

Whilst the ANC had a moral and constitutional responsibility to empower the previously disadvantaged, it should not have done that at the expense of the minority groups. You don't extend your house by building new rooms while at the same time destroying the old rooms. Otherwise your house will never be fully extended. The ANC government has become a master at solving problems by creating new ones.

Badly implemented empowerment policies have led to a rapid growth in poverty amongst our white people. The poor white problem is exacerbated by the sharp rise in unemployment of white South Africans by more than 200% since 1994. 

The government is very indifferent to the impoverishment of these citizens because, according to ANC thinking, they were previously advantaged. 

This kind of thinking is wrong and it leads to new forms of apartheid.

South Africa's overall unemployment rate is estimated at between 28 and 40%, and is most severe among poor rural blacks. On the other hand, more than 10% of the white population lives below the poverty line. South Africa is one of the world's most inequitable countries and the income gap is widening. The triple challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment are increasing drastically while ANC leaders spend most of their time jostling for positions and accumulating personal wealth.

Way back in 2004, President Thabo Mbeki was traumatised after realising the white poverty problem. Prior to this Mbeki was not aware of the poverty amongst some of our white people and he had assumed the standard of life of white people was higher than the national average and thus every white person lives better.

Mbeki confessed to City Press (11/04/2004): "It has been quite disturbing where, for example, in Cape Town, young white women actually came to the minister and said: ‘Minister, we have to work as prostitutes because we can't maintain ourselves, we can't maintain our children, but the police harass us in the streets. Can't you please talk to the police to just leave us alone, for there's no other way to make a living?' You can see the level of poverty and desperation among whites". Unfortunately, poverty levels amongst whites have not subsided since 2004.

Had the ANC managed the economy properly, the unemployment and poverty levels amongst all our people would have been far less. Except for the services sector, the manufacturing and agriculture sectors have been declining steadily since 1994. Sadly, the South African economy still relies on its exports of raw minerals.

The exportation of raw minerals yields low financial margins and disadvantages South Africa in terms of beneficiation. This has led to unemployment, which in my own estimation is around 40% and, at the same time, 25% of the population depends solely on government grants. The ANC government failed to turn South Africa into the industrial hub of the whole African continent by reviving the manufacturing sector and creating millions of jobs.

South Africa has now become a net importer of food because agricultural production has also decreased under the ANC's government. Actually, this country needs an Agricultural Revolution before an Industrial Revolution. Personally, I would like to see several interventions being implemented concurrently. Be that as it may be, it is important to note that East Asian economic development was preceded by the freeing up of agriculture. Once productivity gains and food security were achieved, Asian countries moved to manufacturing.
This was the same trajectory in Europe where the Agricultural Revolution laid the base for the Industrial Revolution. Something good about agriculture is that, unlike manufacturing, it does not necessarily require huge investments in technology. Agriculture is also not capital intensive and thus it creates jobs. As long as the ANC is still in power it would be almost impossible to turn around the agriculture sector.

Through the process of land restitution, land that has been given to the ‘new owners' is largely redundant because the government didn't come up with any local economic development model that would make the acquired land productive. At the beginning of this year, the government regulated an exorbitant basic salary level for farm workers. This will force most farmers out of business and, by the end of this year, more than 2000 farm workers will be retrenched and will swell the ranks of those who live under extreme poverty.

The pre-campaign for the 2014 general elections is currently underway. There are more than 20 political parties registered with the Independent Electoral Commission in South Africa, but truly speaking, there are only two bulls in the kraal, the ANC and the Democratic Alliance (DA). 

President Jacob Zuma's dancing skills and Cyril Ramaphosa's charm will not eradicate the escalating poverty. The DA has published a well researched 8% Growth Plan which has huge potential to reduce poverty across all the races.

The DA has a proven track record of good governance and service delivery as demonstrated in the Western Cape Province and municipalities under its control. Be that as it may, the DA can only serve and save South Africa if voters put them into power through the majority of their votes.  Blind loyalty to the ANC, perpetual patience, and historical sentiments will give the ANC further license to dispense patronage to its few powerful elites while the majority of our people are swamped by poverty.

http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page72308?oid=369561&sn=Marketingweb+detail&pid=90389