"Thank God for trade union Solidarity"

Sometimes I come across an article that gets me in the gut. This is one of them

QUOTE:

Rhoda Kadalie

01 February 2011 

Rhoda Kadalie says unlikely trade union is reminding ANC of its constitutional obligations 
(Feb 1)

"Thank God for trade union Solidarity. Living up to their motto "we protect our people", they are boldly taking on the state for allegedly suspending Warrant Officer Jannie Odendaal and Constable Abel Twala for apprehending Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's driver for exceeding the speeding limit. Odendaal is white; Twala is black; and together they fearlessly took on the black queen of struggle. This is new-South Africa justice - the kind of justice the post-apartheid government just cannot get used to.

It is the most unlikely trade union - Solidarity - that is reminding the ANC of its constitutional obligations, that everyone is equal before the law whether it is Jacob Zuma, Desmond Tutu, Abel Twala, Graca Machel or Jannie Odendaal.

That other perennial fly in the ointment, Police Commissioner Petros, refuses to learn this basic rule. 

Police Commisioner Petro

As someone who has nailed his party colours so unashamedly to the Stalinist mast, and forever willing to aid and abet the state in their violations of the rule of law, he, rather than Odendaal and Twala, should be put in the dock.

Disciplining police officers for carrying out their duty faithfully is more than just a labour law infringement; the very livelihoods of two families are being affected by this inhumane victimization. This unfortunate incident reminds us of Chumani Maxwele.

 

Chumani Maxwele

Exactly a year ago, while jogging on De Waal Drive, Maxwele was brutally apprehended by President Zuma's cavalcade for allegedly showing them the finger. Upon reading his affidavit of how the President's security guards manhandled him, putting black bags over his head, raiding his flat, raiding his private documents, shoving him from one police station to the other, I know exactly why the Human Rights Commission has still not attended to his case.

Beholden to the ruling party that appointed them, their tardiness at fulfilling their mandate to protect, promote and fulfil human rights, has become second nature. This sycophantic subjugation of human rights bodies to the tyrannies of the ruling party is nauseating, more so because no one stands up to them.

The uprisings against dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt should alert our rulers that they should not take the goodwill of South Africans for granted. The citizens of these countries have simply become ‘gatvol' that their governments have underestimated their intelligence by staying on in power as though they are indispensable to the well-being of their people.

Plagued by the idea of the divine right to rule, Jacob Zuma crudely internalised this entitlement as ANC rule until Jesus comes. But we should not forget that SA is not immune to a sudden flare up of ‘gatvolheid' as is happening in the Middle East. We have seen our fair share of violent protests against corruption, lawlessness, ineptitude, and the failure of service delivery.

Government blatantly steals taxpayer's money with impunity, paying out millions of rand to CEOs who make it their business to be incompetent. Nowadays, it pays to ruin state institutions because at the end of the destruction is a pot of gold. Every SABC CEO - from Peter Matalare, Snuki Zikalala, Dali Mpofu, to Solly Mokoetle - that has contributed to the emasculation of the SABC, has received a golden handshake.

South African Airways is the other example. Not only had the institution to be bailed out by billions of rand in the past, many of its CEOs left enormously enriched. Add to this the countless City managers, directors-general, and executive mayors, then we are talking about billions of rand of taxpayers' money that went to enriching deployed cadres who had nothing to offer but their loyalty.

Why would Mugabe insist upon staying in office until death takes him away? Why can Hosni Mubarak not give up power? Why have the fights between Mbeki and Zuma been so vicious? Why are those two Ivory Coast presidential buffoons negotiating democracy when there was a clear cut election?

Herbert Spencer wisely said in the 1800s already: the "Divine right of kings means the divine right of anyone

Herbert Spencer

who can get uppermost." This idea is so contrary to the idea of democracy that we need to remind elected officials again, that they are public servants accountable to the electorate. We not only pay them, but we can also kick them out!"

Rhoda Kadalie is author of In Your Face: passionate conversations about people and politics, 2009. This article first appeared in Die Burger, February 1 2011

angasivukasizwe comments:  Wow.  So very true! Congratulations Rhoda Kadalie on an insightful and poignant article

Whither the Moral Regeneration Movement

In comment on ‘VIEWPOINT by Mathole Motshekga’ posted on the ruling parties forum titled ‘Whither the Moral Regeneration Movement’ which reads:

On 23 February 2011, sixteen women from several Cape Town townships called at the Office of the Chief Whip of the Majority Party at Parliament to appeal for the intercession and intervention of the ANC in the deepening moral degeneration in the townships of Cape Town………

AndNowComrade?  Responds

Between 1952 and 1968 Hendrik Verwoerd declared KwaZulu Natal a "Bantu province," the Transvaal a “White province” and the Cape Flats a "Coloured area"  Coloured people were forcibly moved from places like Strawberry lane (farming communities) and the Cape (buskers and thieves) and plonked together into little square concrete box-houses with concrete outside. The elderly farm stock died of broken hearts in many cases.  No consideration was taken for religious beliefs, social structures, family structures or anything else.

The result was that the gangs from the city found easy pickings amongst ex-farming families and social disintegration occurred on a broad scale.
 

Words: They cannot encompass the sheer human torment, misery and degradation that occurred - and which was never addressed by the ANC government who have totally ignored it - until now.

Now they plan to use it as an election ploy!  They have NO RIGHT!!!

In other words they are implying that it is a recent development and that they can solve it.  What utter crap!  They never had any interest in the Coloured people - they were too "white" and not "black" enough.  Also, historically there were NEVER black people in the Western Cape, or the Northern Cape. There were Arabs, and there were KiKhoi in the 13th to 16th century, and there were Whites later. The Coloured people evolved from there.  There is no love lost between the coloured people and black people.

The black population has been deliberately increased in the past two years - False addresses, etc, this is the ANC support base come in to skew the vote, cause disruption, report on whatever they can portray in a bad light- like the un-enclosed toilets fiasco: 

Truth of the matter is there was an agreement between the DA and the community that the COMMUNITY would put up surrounding structures as the municipal budget allowed for the pipes to be laid and the toilets installed, but did not have enough money to build surrounding structures. This was discussed and agreed with community leaders before a single pipe was laid.

It is a certainty that this recent influx of ANC comrades will also cause disruption in opposition party meetings the new thuggery that is being employed that would make Robert Mugabe and his henchmen proud!

From established settlements to forced removals

Jimmy Manyi’s comment that “There are too many Coloureds in the Cape” is a clear indication that either he has no idea of South African history and the reason for the skewed demographics in different provinces (which is highly unlikely) or there is a crass disregard for the fact that the grandparents of the current Coloured population were forcibly removed from homes all around the country and relocated below the Cape Flats line. 

Families were divided. The ‘pencil test’ separated mothers from their children, wives from their husbands. The toll in human anguish, once again, has never been mentioned by the ANC – nor have they made ANY attempt at redress for Coloured people who lost their land, their homes, their family members – their pride, their dignity and their security of self. 

Dop payment system

Jimmy Manyi, or anyone else, has never said there are too many Blacks in KwaZulu Natal – same demographic cause – Blacks were uprooted from home, family and land and relocated in KwaZulu Natal.  The Zulu people intermarried with many. Mr. Buthelezi, the embattled old warrior who has seen so many ANC dirty tricks and murder of IFP comrades that it has made him physically sick is a man among men – a true leader whose integrity severely irked ANC spin doctors and “repeat the lie until it becomes the truth” mongers.

No doubt what is written above will be labelled as racist, classist and whatever else ‘ist and loud noises will be made to hurt the ears of those who strive to hear the truth.

Angasi Comrade. There are many ex-comrades who have left and others who have then gone back to the ANC believing that perhaps, against all the odds, they can turn back the tide on the reprehensible and shameful manipulations that shifted dynamics and split former comrades into opposing camps at Polokwane.

They too are sick of the lies, the corruption, the attempts to silence the judiciary, the media, the people.



Exploitation of coloured farm labour



And now there are too many Coloureds in the Cape -  a people marginalised, sidelined, ignored and beaten down by the previous dispensation who have continued to be marginalised, sidelined, ignored and beaten down by the current regime.

Can the ANC be ashamed? Can Corruption be ashamed? Can dishonesty be shamed? Can outright lies presented as truth be shamed?

The ANC is divided, torn apart within itself despite platitudes that everyone is one big happy, if dysfunctional family. It has become Schizophrenic.  Province has lost communication with Branches, Regional with Province, and Provincial with Government.

Remember comrades, when ZANU PF had lost control of its Regional and Branch structures it “closed ranks” and became the executioner, inquisitor (with all of the inquisitor’s tools of maiming and permanently disfiguring) and torturer of its own countrymen and women.

It is said that what happened in Zimbabwe cannot happen here, because here the sheep have teeth.  Oh God, please let that be true!

How long before the Ruling Party tales legislation to control or blanket internet sites, social networking sites? Before it tries once again to wrest the title of Highest Court in the land from the Supreme Court to the Constitutional Court which is underpinned by ANC stalwarts?

And how many IFP, COPE and other party leaders will be murdered, witnesses be too terrified to step forward, whose murderers will never be brought to justice, and who will be deemed never to have existed two years later by the Ruling Party?

The sheep had better have teeth – they are going to have to learn to use them.

"Sooner or later, a society of sheep must create a government of wolves."
- Bertrand de Jouvenel (Zimbabwe is a good example)