By Vusi Moloi © 2009
Survival analytics
Mental therapeutics
To understand what's going down
To reclaim lost grounds
To lay claim like never before
To make amends with the past
In the land of the ancestors
A meticulous attention
A decisive precondition
Instinctive grasp of infinitesimal
The directive to avert the abysmal
Conveying much respect to the stochastic
A graceful acceptance despite ballistic
Without some events that inspire
We proceed like unbroken sapphire
To agitate for change that refuses to yield
To concentrate efforts that vindicate
Agitating cleanses the soul
To purify towards a goal
Contextual Commentary
Previous memories of defeat in the deadly embrace were not enough to deter the new generation of the mongoose from engaging in the analysis of the slick movements of the fearsome cobra. Although many would find it too painful to absorb the stomach-turning accounts of defeat, the mongoose detached herself from the mortality of pain in order to begin a paradigm shift in the new struggle to defeat a previously powerful opponent.
The goal of the African mongoose was to stake her claim to the rare fruits of a hard won victory resembling the unconquerable queens of Nubia like Queen Candace who caused Alexander the Great to freeze and retreat when the Nubian armies stood up to him. A painstaking reflection revealed that it was possible to overrun the cobra in a gutsy move by delivering the first decisive blow like a thunderbolt.
Endless days of rehearsing had perfected her interpretive and combative skills and thus produced the indomitable African mongoose. Attention to detail ensured a short but decisive victory against a slithering foe capable of reinventing the art of war. A new dispensation had irrevocably arrived when the mongoose became a newly crowned ruler of the shifting ground despite the cobra having a reach advantage in a treacherous terrain. Photographic memory bolstered her survival advantage because by memorizing the repertoire of an awe-inspiring cobra, she had garnered enough depth and breadth to become the architect of her own destiny.
The Indomitable Mongoose, Vusi Moloi © 2009 Canada
About the Author
A former South African Television Journalist, Vusi Moloi is a published author of a contextual poetry book, A Goodbye To My Little Troubles, and maintains a blog, Zulumathabo on the Internet.
The Last Rite – Film Review
Saturday, October 17, 2009
By Vusi Moloi © 2009
Talking about it is not easy. Treatment of it for documentary purposes is even harder and yet the Canadian film maker Gina Valle succeeds where some have failed. Welcome to The Last Rite, a film documentary about dying, death and grieving. What makes this documentary special and worth your time to view it?
Her common folk approach as well as her ability to draw from her own personal experience of death with respect to her beloved father belie Gina Valle’s impressive scholarly background as a PhD expert in Multicultural Studies a good synthesis that enables her to comfortably navigate an uncharted path in a way that engenders a feeling of calmness and tranquility while her theatre audience is treated to what is otherwise a taboo subject. This is the kind of impression I came away with while attending the premier screening of The Last Rite at the Innis College Theatre Hall in Toronto, Canada last Tuesday. I count myself among the privileged to be invited to the screening.
Youtube Preview Video
The Last Rite - Youtube preview video by soultanis33
Hybrid of Dramatization and Factual Accounts
Using dramatization and real people’s interviews The Last Rite eases you into its subject matter while teaching important lessons about what is death, how to prepare for the inevitability of death and what positive lessons can be learned from it. At the end of the screening and while the credits were still scrolling The Last Rite was given a strong round of applause by its viewers. The director and her crew, who came to the fore, including Executive Producer Ingrid Berzin Leuzy, Director of Photography Nigel Akam, Editor Diane Akam and Nicholas Schnier and others enjoyed the admiration of an enthusiastic audience with another resounding round of applause. No doubt the documentary that took eighteen months in the making and a lot of unrelenting hardwork by the crew was well received.
Honourable Mention From Madeline Ziniak
The Vice-President of OMNI Television who received the highest civilian honour of Order of Canada in July of this year for her work in multicultural media Madeline Ziniak told the audience before the screening that The Last Rite had been funded 100% by the OMNI Television and it was a proud project for her organization as well as the emerging film maker. The highly regarded Madeline Ziniak enjoys excellent rapport with Canada’s multi-ethnic communities. An indefatigable champion of Canada’s diversity and multi-ethnic media, Madeline Ziniak along with the CEO of OMNI Television Leslie Sole once commended this writer for supporting OMNI Television’s quest for licensing with the CRTTC back in 2003. It’s gratifying to see that OMNI has blossomed greatly since those formative years and has strengthened multicultural content by enabling a great documentary project like The Last Rite to see the light of day.
What Makes This Film Attention-Grabbing?
A meticulous Gina Valle with attention to detail delicately weaves an interest-arousing tapestry of personal and other’s real accounts with sobering perspectives of a skillfully enlisted triumvirate of the Islamic Imam Badat, the Buddhist Venerable Hoa and the Hindu Swami Atin Bhattacharya who generously impart their rich insights to show that death does not have to be an exclusively melancholy experience that exacts punishment with its cold shroud of mystery and hurtful silence in our innermost. Gina Valle underscores the value of learning from the viewpoints of others in her website "The Last Rite illustrates how Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists ritualize death. In this documentary we spend time in mosques, Buddhist temples, and ashrams to gain knowledge into the meaning of death and life."
Death can be a means of coming to terms with the core lessons of living and become instrumental in helping us to prepare for its inevitability and the aftermath while providing a cleansing experience. We see this cleansing with the bathing of the dead by the members of the mosque and family members driven by the love of their own in stark contrast to what has become legendary in a modern metropolitan society where the death of a loved one is professionally handled by strangers who take the body away and allow only a restricted and limited access in what is a quantifiable policy by a corporate enterprise driven by profit margins.
Erudite Cast
Gina Valle adds to her erudite cast some of the brightest minds like Dr. Wong an expert on death and dying and University Professor of Psychology, Rev. Michael Marshall a Hospital Chaplain with a clinical pastoral background, Registered Nurse and Palliative Care Worker Lori Ives-Bain and Kala Limbani among many who make The Last Rite documentary an instructive and stimulating experience. This is a must see for all members of the family.
Rush To Find Closure
Modern society is in a rush that we find closure and get over it despite the harsh reality that grieving, the longest stage of bereavement, may last anywhere from many months up to two years and in some cases even longer according to scholars. Having to contend with suddenness of death in my youth, I found this overwhelming experience refusing to go away at first and at the time I lacked the intellectual maturity of reasoning but thankfully with the support of a traditional African village collective the grieving took its own time to crystallize which proved to me that the process of grieving could not be boxed into some clean cut and dry process. This film presents a persuasive case that everyone has his or her own way of dealing with death.
We learn from Gina Valle’s instructive personal experience when she observes “when my father died, there was such an expedient manner in which the death was managed, almost with an eagerness to move the death out of the public eye, and rid us of our sorrow in one sweep.” While pointing out that “death is a treasure” Gina Valle provides a gateway through her fresh lenses to the extremely vital viewpoints of palliative workers, spiritual leaders and health care workers who grapple with the issues of dying and grieving from time to time effectively broadening the vistas of our understanding around this intractable subject while at the same time harnessing and enriching the coping resources which otherwise would remain outside the public view.
OMNI Television Broadcast Times
The Last Rite is produced in the languages of English and Italian. The Italian language boasts the most beautiful and comforting voice of Bertoni Bruna. The 45 minutes long The Last Rite is scheduled to be broadcast on OMNI TV in the two languages of English and Italian as follows:
English
Sunday, October 18, 2009
9:00PM
Italian
Saturday, October 24, 2009
10:00PM
The Organizers of The Last Rite Premier
The following great individuals helped put to together a successful Premier of The Last Rite:
Michelle Alfano
Tom Boreskie
Frank Giorno
Kala Limbani
Jeannie Soultanis
To Learn more about The Last Rite visit Gina Valle website:
www.ginavalle.com on the web.
About the Author
A former South African Television Journalist, Vusi Moloi is a published author of a contextual poetry book, A Goodbye To My Little Troubles, and maintains a blog, Zulumathabo on the Internet.
Talking about it is not easy. Treatment of it for documentary purposes is even harder and yet the Canadian film maker Gina Valle succeeds where some have failed. Welcome to The Last Rite, a film documentary about dying, death and grieving. What makes this documentary special and worth your time to view it?
Her common folk approach as well as her ability to draw from her own personal experience of death with respect to her beloved father belie Gina Valle’s impressive scholarly background as a PhD expert in Multicultural Studies a good synthesis that enables her to comfortably navigate an uncharted path in a way that engenders a feeling of calmness and tranquility while her theatre audience is treated to what is otherwise a taboo subject. This is the kind of impression I came away with while attending the premier screening of The Last Rite at the Innis College Theatre Hall in Toronto, Canada last Tuesday. I count myself among the privileged to be invited to the screening.
Youtube Preview Video
The Last Rite - Youtube preview video by soultanis33
Hybrid of Dramatization and Factual Accounts
Using dramatization and real people’s interviews The Last Rite eases you into its subject matter while teaching important lessons about what is death, how to prepare for the inevitability of death and what positive lessons can be learned from it. At the end of the screening and while the credits were still scrolling The Last Rite was given a strong round of applause by its viewers. The director and her crew, who came to the fore, including Executive Producer Ingrid Berzin Leuzy, Director of Photography Nigel Akam, Editor Diane Akam and Nicholas Schnier and others enjoyed the admiration of an enthusiastic audience with another resounding round of applause. No doubt the documentary that took eighteen months in the making and a lot of unrelenting hardwork by the crew was well received.
Honourable Mention From Madeline Ziniak
The Vice-President of OMNI Television who received the highest civilian honour of Order of Canada in July of this year for her work in multicultural media Madeline Ziniak told the audience before the screening that The Last Rite had been funded 100% by the OMNI Television and it was a proud project for her organization as well as the emerging film maker. The highly regarded Madeline Ziniak enjoys excellent rapport with Canada’s multi-ethnic communities. An indefatigable champion of Canada’s diversity and multi-ethnic media, Madeline Ziniak along with the CEO of OMNI Television Leslie Sole once commended this writer for supporting OMNI Television’s quest for licensing with the CRTTC back in 2003. It’s gratifying to see that OMNI has blossomed greatly since those formative years and has strengthened multicultural content by enabling a great documentary project like The Last Rite to see the light of day.
What Makes This Film Attention-Grabbing?
A meticulous Gina Valle with attention to detail delicately weaves an interest-arousing tapestry of personal and other’s real accounts with sobering perspectives of a skillfully enlisted triumvirate of the Islamic Imam Badat, the Buddhist Venerable Hoa and the Hindu Swami Atin Bhattacharya who generously impart their rich insights to show that death does not have to be an exclusively melancholy experience that exacts punishment with its cold shroud of mystery and hurtful silence in our innermost. Gina Valle underscores the value of learning from the viewpoints of others in her website "The Last Rite illustrates how Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists ritualize death. In this documentary we spend time in mosques, Buddhist temples, and ashrams to gain knowledge into the meaning of death and life."
Death can be a means of coming to terms with the core lessons of living and become instrumental in helping us to prepare for its inevitability and the aftermath while providing a cleansing experience. We see this cleansing with the bathing of the dead by the members of the mosque and family members driven by the love of their own in stark contrast to what has become legendary in a modern metropolitan society where the death of a loved one is professionally handled by strangers who take the body away and allow only a restricted and limited access in what is a quantifiable policy by a corporate enterprise driven by profit margins.
Erudite Cast
Gina Valle adds to her erudite cast some of the brightest minds like Dr. Wong an expert on death and dying and University Professor of Psychology, Rev. Michael Marshall a Hospital Chaplain with a clinical pastoral background, Registered Nurse and Palliative Care Worker Lori Ives-Bain and Kala Limbani among many who make The Last Rite documentary an instructive and stimulating experience. This is a must see for all members of the family.
Rush To Find Closure
Modern society is in a rush that we find closure and get over it despite the harsh reality that grieving, the longest stage of bereavement, may last anywhere from many months up to two years and in some cases even longer according to scholars. Having to contend with suddenness of death in my youth, I found this overwhelming experience refusing to go away at first and at the time I lacked the intellectual maturity of reasoning but thankfully with the support of a traditional African village collective the grieving took its own time to crystallize which proved to me that the process of grieving could not be boxed into some clean cut and dry process. This film presents a persuasive case that everyone has his or her own way of dealing with death.
We learn from Gina Valle’s instructive personal experience when she observes “when my father died, there was such an expedient manner in which the death was managed, almost with an eagerness to move the death out of the public eye, and rid us of our sorrow in one sweep.” While pointing out that “death is a treasure” Gina Valle provides a gateway through her fresh lenses to the extremely vital viewpoints of palliative workers, spiritual leaders and health care workers who grapple with the issues of dying and grieving from time to time effectively broadening the vistas of our understanding around this intractable subject while at the same time harnessing and enriching the coping resources which otherwise would remain outside the public view.
OMNI Television Broadcast Times
The Last Rite is produced in the languages of English and Italian. The Italian language boasts the most beautiful and comforting voice of Bertoni Bruna. The 45 minutes long The Last Rite is scheduled to be broadcast on OMNI TV in the two languages of English and Italian as follows:
English
Sunday, October 18, 2009
9:00PM
Italian
Saturday, October 24, 2009
10:00PM
The Organizers of The Last Rite Premier
The following great individuals helped put to together a successful Premier of The Last Rite:
Michelle Alfano
Tom Boreskie
Frank Giorno
Kala Limbani
Jeannie Soultanis
To Learn more about The Last Rite visit Gina Valle website:
www.ginavalle.com on the web.
About the Author
A former South African Television Journalist, Vusi Moloi is a published author of a contextual poetry book, A Goodbye To My Little Troubles, and maintains a blog, Zulumathabo on the Internet.
Why Obama Is a Prize Winning President
Saturday, October 10, 2009
By Vusi Moloi © 2009
Congratulations are in order to President Barack Obama for winning the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. This surprise award recognizes and vindicates President Obama’s transformative role in bringing a fundamental change in global discourse with respect to detente and peaceful efforts towards world peace. President Obama is an extraordinary individual whose extraordinary achievements and approach towards world affairs require this kind of extraordinary recognition. This means the Nobel Prize Committee is in step with the new political climate in the light of the advent of the great President Obama.
Rewarded Too Early?
Some have expressed misgivings that this award is too premature since President Obama has only been in office for less than nine months. Those who hold this view walk the path of instant gratification where you get paid for what you have done and do as you please afterwards and they have never experienced the strategic advantage in picking a fruit before it’s ripe because that means it does not get eaten right away and will stay longer during the voyage and on reaching the final destination it will be fresher than the fruits that were picked when ripe. This principle of deferring self-gratification while the fruit is still green is an important concept that gives a survival advantage to those who practice it. It teaches us the maxims of self-discipline and self-restraint. For this reason the Nobel Peace Prize is well positioned to foster these values in the Obama Presidency.
This prize is intended to reward President Obama as a change agent as well as bolster his policies that favour diplomatic over military efforts in bringing about peace among the nations of the world. The Chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee Thorbjorn Jagland underscored the fact that President Obama had done more than anyone in the previous year to enhance peace on the planet. The advent of President Obama has already ushered a fundamental shift in world relations where United Nations and other world institutions have regained their central role in addressing the urgent problems of the world.
In the press release issued by the Nobel Prize Committee, President Obama was praised for his ability and achievement in creating a favourable mood of peace and diplomacy in the direction that agrees with the majority of the world citizens:
“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.
For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama's appeal that "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.” The Nobel Peace Prize 2009
Unilateralism vs. Multilateralism
Unlike President George Bush who trashed the United Nations as “irrelevant” in his September 12, 2002 speech to the United Nations “Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?”, President Obama embraced the world body when addressing the same United Nations last month on September 23 “The time has come to realize that the old habits; the old arguments are irrelevant to the challenges faced by our people.”
We can see that the Former President George Bush view of the world is like night and day compared to President Obama. President Obama understands the urgent need for peace and his outside the box approach to world events is a tribute to the great Americans like Cordell Hull who received a Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the founding of the United Nations which earned him the title The Father of the United Nations from President Franklin Roosevelt.
President Obama who became the President of the United States on January 20th of this year would have been nominated to the Nobel Prize Committee 10 just days after taking office to meet the deadline of February 1st. The manner in which Mr. Obama was able to navigate and transcend the political thrashings of the hotly contested presidential campaign and still manage to embrace his archrival Hilary Clinton was nothing short of amazing. Obama’s political grace even put a smile in great female politicians like Nancy Pelosi whom I respect greatly. All this was a Nobel Prize material.
As a Nobel Prize Laureate, President Obama joins the ranks of other great individuals like his fellow African sister Dr. Wangari Mathai who fully supports and rejoices with him in the same spirit expressed by other great Africans like Nelson Mandela, Mohammed ElBaradei, Desmond Tutu as well as his fellow Americans like former President Jimmy Carter, former Vice-President Al Gore and many others in the world who wish President Obama well in his audacious quest to bring about world peace via the regime of diplomacy with less emphasis on armed confrontation.
What About the Three Wars i.e. Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan?
These wars are not the creation of President Obama but rather the legacy of the unilateralist policies of the former President Bush. In this fashion, President Obama was dealt a bad hand but like any wise strategist he must work with the cards that he was dealt until such time that he can deal the cards. The main thrust of his efforts is geared towards ending these wars beginning with Iraq.
It’s the viewpoint of this writer that General Stanely McChrystal may not see his wish of 40000-50000 troop surge realized. The Soviets tried this troop surge strategy by pouring all their fighting resources in the hope of defeating the Mugahedeen and the consequence of that saw their own economy depleted in the process. President Obama is adept at learning from others’ mistakes and not repeating them. He seemingly has an instinctive grasp of how the jungle works which requires that he must be guided by a sense of foretaste and not a sense of bitter aftertaste.
The Americans are going to withdraw from parts of Afghanistan in order to concentrate and position themselves where they can reach a favourable political settlement with the unconquerable Taliban fighters. We have already seen this with the recent retreat of American soldiers from Nuristan a very important piece of strategic ground given the ability of the Talibans to crisscross with Pakistant at will. The withdrawal follows one of the deadliest attacks where the Americans where overrun by the insurgents resulting in a great loss of American life in the hands of the Talibans.
The withdrawal is officially referred to as a “repositioning” of forces and there is no shame in that. The Talibans are a natural gravity of Afghanistan and no one has ever won a war against gravity on the long term. Part of the reason is that the Talibans know the terrain like the back of their hands and unlike the forces of foreign occupation they are committed to their motherland which enables them to fight with unmatched determination while the foreign forces fight with unmatched technology. The Americans realize this immutable fact of antagonistic contradiction and for this reason they are headed for a political settlement at some point in the future.
Impact of the Nobel Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize has important implications for the Obama Presidency. It alters the dynamics of strategizing and goes a long way to bolster his quest for a diplomatic settlement in Afghanistan which will allow him to narrow the conflict to counter-terrorism. Some think such a redefined war is easier to win than fighting the Talibans. Given that Vice-President Joe Biden leans towards deescalating and avoiding a Vietnam-like bottomless quagmire in Afghanistan vis-à-vis the Secretary of State Hilary Clinton who supports increased confrontation via a troop surge President Obama will only have to solve a trivial case of opposing viewpoints.
About the Author
A former South African Television Journalist, Vusi Moloi is a published author of a contextual poetry book, A Goodbye To My Little Troubles, and maintains a blog, Zulumathabo on the Internet.
Congratulations are in order to President Barack Obama for winning the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. This surprise award recognizes and vindicates President Obama’s transformative role in bringing a fundamental change in global discourse with respect to detente and peaceful efforts towards world peace. President Obama is an extraordinary individual whose extraordinary achievements and approach towards world affairs require this kind of extraordinary recognition. This means the Nobel Prize Committee is in step with the new political climate in the light of the advent of the great President Obama.
Rewarded Too Early?
Some have expressed misgivings that this award is too premature since President Obama has only been in office for less than nine months. Those who hold this view walk the path of instant gratification where you get paid for what you have done and do as you please afterwards and they have never experienced the strategic advantage in picking a fruit before it’s ripe because that means it does not get eaten right away and will stay longer during the voyage and on reaching the final destination it will be fresher than the fruits that were picked when ripe. This principle of deferring self-gratification while the fruit is still green is an important concept that gives a survival advantage to those who practice it. It teaches us the maxims of self-discipline and self-restraint. For this reason the Nobel Peace Prize is well positioned to foster these values in the Obama Presidency.
This prize is intended to reward President Obama as a change agent as well as bolster his policies that favour diplomatic over military efforts in bringing about peace among the nations of the world. The Chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee Thorbjorn Jagland underscored the fact that President Obama had done more than anyone in the previous year to enhance peace on the planet. The advent of President Obama has already ushered a fundamental shift in world relations where United Nations and other world institutions have regained their central role in addressing the urgent problems of the world.
In the press release issued by the Nobel Prize Committee, President Obama was praised for his ability and achievement in creating a favourable mood of peace and diplomacy in the direction that agrees with the majority of the world citizens:
“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.
For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama's appeal that "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.” The Nobel Peace Prize 2009
Unilateralism vs. Multilateralism
Unlike President George Bush who trashed the United Nations as “irrelevant” in his September 12, 2002 speech to the United Nations “Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?”, President Obama embraced the world body when addressing the same United Nations last month on September 23 “The time has come to realize that the old habits; the old arguments are irrelevant to the challenges faced by our people.”
We can see that the Former President George Bush view of the world is like night and day compared to President Obama. President Obama understands the urgent need for peace and his outside the box approach to world events is a tribute to the great Americans like Cordell Hull who received a Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the founding of the United Nations which earned him the title The Father of the United Nations from President Franklin Roosevelt.
President Obama who became the President of the United States on January 20th of this year would have been nominated to the Nobel Prize Committee 10 just days after taking office to meet the deadline of February 1st. The manner in which Mr. Obama was able to navigate and transcend the political thrashings of the hotly contested presidential campaign and still manage to embrace his archrival Hilary Clinton was nothing short of amazing. Obama’s political grace even put a smile in great female politicians like Nancy Pelosi whom I respect greatly. All this was a Nobel Prize material.
As a Nobel Prize Laureate, President Obama joins the ranks of other great individuals like his fellow African sister Dr. Wangari Mathai who fully supports and rejoices with him in the same spirit expressed by other great Africans like Nelson Mandela, Mohammed ElBaradei, Desmond Tutu as well as his fellow Americans like former President Jimmy Carter, former Vice-President Al Gore and many others in the world who wish President Obama well in his audacious quest to bring about world peace via the regime of diplomacy with less emphasis on armed confrontation.
What About the Three Wars i.e. Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan?
These wars are not the creation of President Obama but rather the legacy of the unilateralist policies of the former President Bush. In this fashion, President Obama was dealt a bad hand but like any wise strategist he must work with the cards that he was dealt until such time that he can deal the cards. The main thrust of his efforts is geared towards ending these wars beginning with Iraq.
It’s the viewpoint of this writer that General Stanely McChrystal may not see his wish of 40000-50000 troop surge realized. The Soviets tried this troop surge strategy by pouring all their fighting resources in the hope of defeating the Mugahedeen and the consequence of that saw their own economy depleted in the process. President Obama is adept at learning from others’ mistakes and not repeating them. He seemingly has an instinctive grasp of how the jungle works which requires that he must be guided by a sense of foretaste and not a sense of bitter aftertaste.
The Americans are going to withdraw from parts of Afghanistan in order to concentrate and position themselves where they can reach a favourable political settlement with the unconquerable Taliban fighters. We have already seen this with the recent retreat of American soldiers from Nuristan a very important piece of strategic ground given the ability of the Talibans to crisscross with Pakistant at will. The withdrawal follows one of the deadliest attacks where the Americans where overrun by the insurgents resulting in a great loss of American life in the hands of the Talibans.
The withdrawal is officially referred to as a “repositioning” of forces and there is no shame in that. The Talibans are a natural gravity of Afghanistan and no one has ever won a war against gravity on the long term. Part of the reason is that the Talibans know the terrain like the back of their hands and unlike the forces of foreign occupation they are committed to their motherland which enables them to fight with unmatched determination while the foreign forces fight with unmatched technology. The Americans realize this immutable fact of antagonistic contradiction and for this reason they are headed for a political settlement at some point in the future.
Impact of the Nobel Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize has important implications for the Obama Presidency. It alters the dynamics of strategizing and goes a long way to bolster his quest for a diplomatic settlement in Afghanistan which will allow him to narrow the conflict to counter-terrorism. Some think such a redefined war is easier to win than fighting the Talibans. Given that Vice-President Joe Biden leans towards deescalating and avoiding a Vietnam-like bottomless quagmire in Afghanistan vis-à-vis the Secretary of State Hilary Clinton who supports increased confrontation via a troop surge President Obama will only have to solve a trivial case of opposing viewpoints.
About the Author
A former South African Television Journalist, Vusi Moloi is a published author of a contextual poetry book, A Goodbye To My Little Troubles, and maintains a blog, Zulumathabo on the Internet.
Judiciary Makes Canada’s Safety Questionable - Minister
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
By Vusi Moloi © 2009
“Terror...the Final Frontier. These are the machinations of the mothership War on Terror. To explore strange new fiction; to seek out new conspiracy and new victimizations; to boldly go where no level headed thinking has gone before.” Rejigged for this article by this writer.
The Canadian Federal Government Minister of Public Safety Mr. Peter Van Loan has charged that the Canadian judiciary is impeding the Government’s ability to fight terrorism. According to published reports including those appearing in the National Post of September 27, Mr. van Load blamed the judges for not “deferring to the Government’s efforts to deport foreign suspects.” This follows a string of cases in which Government attempts to detain without trial or deport persons living in Canada were quashed by the Canadian courts. The Minister said this “raises questions about whether we can protect national security”.
The Liberal Party of Canada website had this to say “The Conservatives are going down a dangerous path by imposing their political will on our most cherished institutions,” said Liberal Justice and Democratic Reform Critic Dominic LeBlanc. “Freedom to question is one thing – but threatening independent bodies when we don’t agree crosses the line.”
Brazen Statements Shocking
This writer was shocked by these brazen statements which invoke memories of the apartheid Government which got frustrated by some progressive judges who set free a number of political detainees held without charge. First of all Canada is the great country to live in and as a result the national security must be upheld by all of us at all times no matter what. Every right thinking Canadian person in this country understands that and appreciates that. A few overzealous persons out there associate ethnicity with the degree of loyalty making some appear less loyal than others.
Minister Must Take a Page From Star Trek
Minister van Loan must take a page from the great Star Trek of Captain Pickard. In the episode The Drumhead a respected and highly placed Admiral Satie convenes a tribunal of inquiry into the dilithium chamber explosion incident as well as the landing of its schematics into the hands of the Romulans.
The Klingon Exchange Officer J’Dan became suspect number one after the Security Officer Worf of the USS Enterprise had found that a legitimate medication used by J’Dan for his medical condition had been instrumental in the sequencing of the secrets of the dilithium into amino acids which in turn got transmitted to an enemy race the Romulans. Converting information into chemistry is not a strange thing in itself since this is a process that happens naturally in human brain chemistry where an impulse is converted into chemical messengers known as neurotransmitters as a result of the synaptic connections which necessitate this conversion.
Member of Enemy Race
D’Jan admitted that he was a sympathizer of the Romulans an enemy race but denied involvement in the explosion of the dilithium. A medical technologist Simon Tarses was questioned and a Betazoid assistant of Admiral Satie used his psychic ability to sense that Tarses was hiding something. Admiral Satie imposed stiff restricted movements on the medical technologist but these were vetoed by Captain Pickard who didn’t think it wise to curtail his Starfleet officer exclusively based on intuition. A more invasive background check of Tarses revealed that he had erred in his job application by not disclosing the fact that he was partly Romullan.
Captain Pickard personally queried Tarses and satisfied himself that barring the omission of the fact that Tarses was partly Romullan he was still a fine officer who did not deserve to be put through the omnipresent torture of the proceedings of the witch-hunting tribunal.
Trial By Insinuation and Innuendo
In the end Captain Pickard mounted a strong protest to the Admiral Satie who was now even bringing the Captain of the USS Enterprise into disrepute by questioning his loyalty to the USS Enterprise. Captain Pickard remonstrated on behalf of his crewman Tarses against what he termed a trial “based on insinuation and innuendo”. He registered another strong protest on behalf of another crewman D’Jan “This man has a Romulan grandfather. For that, his career stands in ruins. Have we become so fearful? Have we become so cowardly that we must extinguish a man because he carries the blood of a current enemy?”
In one of the rare moments of passion Captain Pickard convincingly shows us that as humans we cannot engage in the unethical theatrics of destroying people’s lives on the basis of insinuation and innuendo.
Conclusion
The judges are the voices and eyes of reason. They solve problems through logic. They rule by fact and not innuendo. This is one branch of our democratic institutions that makes us who we are and uniquely Canadian. Has the Minister (perhaps inadvertently) overstepped his bounds by casting doubt on the judicious role of judges?
About the Author
A former South African Television Journalist, Vusi Moloi is a published author of a contextual poetry book, A Goodbye To My Little Troubles, and maintains a blog, Zulumathabo on the Internet.
“Terror...the Final Frontier. These are the machinations of the mothership War on Terror. To explore strange new fiction; to seek out new conspiracy and new victimizations; to boldly go where no level headed thinking has gone before.” Rejigged for this article by this writer.
The Canadian Federal Government Minister of Public Safety Mr. Peter Van Loan has charged that the Canadian judiciary is impeding the Government’s ability to fight terrorism. According to published reports including those appearing in the National Post of September 27, Mr. van Load blamed the judges for not “deferring to the Government’s efforts to deport foreign suspects.” This follows a string of cases in which Government attempts to detain without trial or deport persons living in Canada were quashed by the Canadian courts. The Minister said this “raises questions about whether we can protect national security”.
The Liberal Party of Canada website had this to say “The Conservatives are going down a dangerous path by imposing their political will on our most cherished institutions,” said Liberal Justice and Democratic Reform Critic Dominic LeBlanc. “Freedom to question is one thing – but threatening independent bodies when we don’t agree crosses the line.”
Brazen Statements Shocking
This writer was shocked by these brazen statements which invoke memories of the apartheid Government which got frustrated by some progressive judges who set free a number of political detainees held without charge. First of all Canada is the great country to live in and as a result the national security must be upheld by all of us at all times no matter what. Every right thinking Canadian person in this country understands that and appreciates that. A few overzealous persons out there associate ethnicity with the degree of loyalty making some appear less loyal than others.
Minister Must Take a Page From Star Trek
Minister van Loan must take a page from the great Star Trek of Captain Pickard. In the episode The Drumhead a respected and highly placed Admiral Satie convenes a tribunal of inquiry into the dilithium chamber explosion incident as well as the landing of its schematics into the hands of the Romulans.
The Klingon Exchange Officer J’Dan became suspect number one after the Security Officer Worf of the USS Enterprise had found that a legitimate medication used by J’Dan for his medical condition had been instrumental in the sequencing of the secrets of the dilithium into amino acids which in turn got transmitted to an enemy race the Romulans. Converting information into chemistry is not a strange thing in itself since this is a process that happens naturally in human brain chemistry where an impulse is converted into chemical messengers known as neurotransmitters as a result of the synaptic connections which necessitate this conversion.
Member of Enemy Race
D’Jan admitted that he was a sympathizer of the Romulans an enemy race but denied involvement in the explosion of the dilithium. A medical technologist Simon Tarses was questioned and a Betazoid assistant of Admiral Satie used his psychic ability to sense that Tarses was hiding something. Admiral Satie imposed stiff restricted movements on the medical technologist but these were vetoed by Captain Pickard who didn’t think it wise to curtail his Starfleet officer exclusively based on intuition. A more invasive background check of Tarses revealed that he had erred in his job application by not disclosing the fact that he was partly Romullan.
Captain Pickard personally queried Tarses and satisfied himself that barring the omission of the fact that Tarses was partly Romullan he was still a fine officer who did not deserve to be put through the omnipresent torture of the proceedings of the witch-hunting tribunal.
Trial By Insinuation and Innuendo
In the end Captain Pickard mounted a strong protest to the Admiral Satie who was now even bringing the Captain of the USS Enterprise into disrepute by questioning his loyalty to the USS Enterprise. Captain Pickard remonstrated on behalf of his crewman Tarses against what he termed a trial “based on insinuation and innuendo”. He registered another strong protest on behalf of another crewman D’Jan “This man has a Romulan grandfather. For that, his career stands in ruins. Have we become so fearful? Have we become so cowardly that we must extinguish a man because he carries the blood of a current enemy?”
In one of the rare moments of passion Captain Pickard convincingly shows us that as humans we cannot engage in the unethical theatrics of destroying people’s lives on the basis of insinuation and innuendo.
Conclusion
The judges are the voices and eyes of reason. They solve problems through logic. They rule by fact and not innuendo. This is one branch of our democratic institutions that makes us who we are and uniquely Canadian. Has the Minister (perhaps inadvertently) overstepped his bounds by casting doubt on the judicious role of judges?
About the Author
A former South African Television Journalist, Vusi Moloi is a published author of a contextual poetry book, A Goodbye To My Little Troubles, and maintains a blog, Zulumathabo on the Internet.
Africa Must Produce or Perish – Response
Sunday, September 20, 2009
By Vusi Moloi © 2009
Preamble
The great African genius mind Philip Emeagwali wrote an interesting article published on the Africa Unbound Magazine Africa Must Produce or Perish. This is my response to that article.
An excellent article by an award winning African scientist Philip Emeagwali injects the much needed thought provocation in challenging the Africans to rethink their economic development strategies. First of all let me add my voice to a list of many in paying homage to brother Philip for his courageous article. It’s not easy to buck the trend and get people to think seriously about matters of their survival. In addition, brother Philip has been and continues to be an inspiring role model to the rest of us particularly the new generation. Thank you for being an ambassador of Africa through your achievements.
The commentator of Philip Emeagwali’s article added excellent fresh points, which increased the brightness of the light bulbs on this important top. Now that well deserved tributes have been expressed, we continue with the topic at hand. Brother Philip’s article raised at least for four points regarding developing Africa’s economy namely (1) reliance on exporting raw materials, (2) lack of intellectual capital (3) technological prominence and (4) “Made in Africa” solution.
Reliance on exporting raw materials
The juxtaposition of the question “When will Africa run out of natural resources?” with respect to “When will Africa be unable to export raw materials, either for lack of our own oil or because foreign markets have themselves dried up?” is instructive. This phenomenon has already happened among some countries i.e. Ghana (known before as the Gold Coast) and Mali were world's leaders in supplying more over two thirds of the world's gold at one time in history but not anymore. South Africa has captured that position.
What do we learn from this? Both Ghana and Mali never ran out of natural resources nor did the world’s demand decline as confirmed by South Africa’s current fulfillment. In fact Mali (poorest country) is the 3rd largest gold producer after Ghana and South Africa. What then are the reasons? Could it be that a change of post-independence dynamics and priorities resulted in these once African powerful empires losing their once dominant position in this area? Ghana moved on to become number one in exporting cocoa the position that has since been overtaken by Ivory Coast. Nonetheless, Ghana has recorded a series of impressive GDP growths overtime making her a shining example of Africa’s focused, creative and consistent development.
The fact that African countries export their resources to European countries in what is an exploitative relationship (not exclusive to Africa i.e. Iraq) where Africans get less for what their resources are worth is legendary in our modern history. Let’s make a hypothetical but real case about Ghana. Suppose it costs Ghana 2 cents to produce a cup of cocoa. She sells it for 5 cents where four cents go back to production and 1 cent builds the schools, hospitals and helps small farmers.
As a result of this Ghana produces the highest number of university graduates in Africa. Western countries now say, “We think 5 cents is rather steep for a cup of cocoa. We will give you foreign aid in exchange for giving us cocoa at 1 cent”. When Ghana protests this unfairness we hear that there has been coup in Ghana while Nkrumah was visiting abroad. The neighbors of Ghana watching this say “let’s not do what Nkrumah did lest it happens to us” which triggers a vicious cycle of underdevelopment. The organic intellectual capital of Ghana leaves the country. In the meanwhile Western countries shake their heads at a proverbial problem of African coups while they are part of the creation of this instability.
Exporting resources can be a profitable business that boosts the developments projects of a country a case in point being Canada, which has overtaken Saudi Arabia as the largest supplier of oil to the US. The result of that is the Canadian dollar that has become equal with the US dollar despite the market gyrations. Canada is not treated like a Third World country and she gets a fair price for her natural resources.
While foreign aid, as previously mentioned, is an instrument that has hampered and continues to hamper Africa’s development, it does not have to be. Israel receives foreign aid in the amount of five billion dollars each year and it’s a prosperous country despite the fact that the country does not contribute to the US economy in return. In other words foreign aid to Israel does not make business sense to the US as it does with an African country that supplies resources in return at a cheap price. I discuss this in my article Vice President Warns Israel Against Attacking Iran in my blog Zulumathabo on the Internet.
Even though the argument against relying on natural resources has merits, there are other forces at play, which may still frustrate Africa’s development efforts even when she has moved from her reliance on natural resources. What can Africa do to mitigate those intrusive forces that stymie her development efforts? This is one big question moving forward.
Reliance on Exporting Raw Materials
This is an interesting point. African countries have done poorly in attracting and retaining African intellectuals. The problem exists on three fronts (1) African government relying on European expertise and less on their own experts, (2) African governments not facilitating the return of the Africans living outside Africa and (3) the returning Africans often perceived as a threat to those living in Africa.
Relying on Western Expertise
There are lots of educated Africans inside Africa who get passed over for Western experts. Somehow some African governments believe that a European expert is better than an African expert. Some African countries advertise that they are experiencing an acute short supply of engineering talent and yet the locally trained African engineers roam the streets unemployed. Since European engineers are expensive this results in the shortage of engineering skill. Part of the problem is that some foreign aid stipulations force certain African countries to hire Western experts as part of the justification of foreign aid dollars to the taxpayers of the donor countries which results in the unemployment of locally produced African engineers. In Canada a Government development agency like CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) used to state the fact in their literature that seventy cents of every dollar was spent in Canada as part of the Government mandate. Part of this resulted in African countries having to employ Canadian experts to satisfy this requirement. Another paradoxical effect of foreign experts is that some of them (not all) do not share the sentiments and beliefs of African values as a result of being socialized to view Africans as less human than their Caucasian counterparts. This is like having an atheist build a place of worship on your behalf. What kind of quality do you think will be the finished product?
Facilitating Return of Africans Abroad
Not enough is being done to enable the return of African intellectuals from abroad. In the past, African governments have relied on UN and other European sponsored programs, which facilitated the return of Africans. In the absence of those programs we are back to square one. President Zuma of South Africa once made an interesting point that there were two kinds of Africans outside Africa i.e. those who had made it and those who had not but had skills. He said it was important to attract both and provide land for them to help develop Africa. It would help to know what is currently being done to facilitate the return of the Africans living abroad by African countries. Maybe some can shed a light on this important issue?
Outside Africans Wrongly Perceived
Some of our brothers and sisters living in Africa perceive Africans of the Diaspora as somehow a threat to them (wrongly or rightly). This problem persists to this day. As a result some Africans in the Diaspora feel unaccepted in their own countries. This may not be the case in every situation but there is at least a degree of threat perception associated with being an African in the Diaspora. Some Africans have returned to Africa only to go back to the Diaspora.
Technological Prominence
This issue is extremely important particularly we technology workers understand this better. One challenge is that some African countries rely on Western countries to determine their technology agenda particularly the foreign aid recipients. I once researched the idea of providing high speed Internet via satellite in Africa. I found that the companies doing this where Western countries based either in Europe or US. The cost of bandwidth was prohibitive and some were in fact providing very low download/upload speed ratios at exorbitant prices. It seemed their prices were based on the fact that African governments would be paying for the services hence their skyrocketing. The assumption of these Western satellite companies was that Africans didn’t know much about technology leading them to provide inferior services at very high cost.
The biggest challenge to Africa in this area is infrastructure. South Africa has partnered with Russia to launch their own satellite into space in order to make bandwidth available in the country. This is one positive step in attaining technological prominence since this gives an African country the ability to architect technological infrastructure without relying on others to do it for them.
Failure to architect Africa’s own infrastructure systems may in fact lead to another form of technological colonialism where African countries are subjected to inferior technology. For example African countries already rely on foreign technologies like Windows, which is an infrastructure system to store, manipulate and manage their mission critical data. Why can’t African countries sponsor a research in developing their own infrastructure technology like an operating system as well as an African computer? Moreover we have genius minds like Philip Emeagwali who is an architect of a super computer. Instead many African countries are looking for donated computers from abroad.
The premise of "intellectual capital" and "technological prominence" addresses the very core of Africa's problems. The problem fundamentally remains historical and it's the vestiges of economic and intellectual colonialism that consistently vary the parameters of this issue. Right now the number of Africans connected to the Internet is less than 5%. The main problem is lack of access to computer hardware. Another restraint is the cost of telecommunications. In many African countries, in order to for an African to call her neighbor the phone goes to some Western country who in turn routs the call to the neighbor. A number of people in Europe get paid each time two neighbors talk over the phone making telecommunication extremely expensive.
The big mover in the technological prominence must include, among others, attracting great technology talent currently living outside Africa such as Philip Emeagwali. What will it take for African countries to attract the sons and daughters of the African soil from the Diaspora?
“Made in Africa” solution
A Zimbabwean situation is instructive here. Zimbabwe achieved her independence in 1980. The Zimbabweans are among the most industrious and educated Africans I have ever known. At one time Zimbabwe exported food and other manufactured goods to the world marked “Made in Zimbabwe”. Today they are surviving on food parcels and South Africa is shouldering most of the economic burden of keeping Zimbabwe people alive. How did this happen? When both Mr. Robert Mugabe and Dr. Joshua Nkomo signed the Lancaster Agreement, it didn't have guarantees on the return of the land to the African natives and this fact was a harsh precondition as later described by the then President of Zambia Kenneth Kaunda. As a result the people of Zimbabwe were given a landless revolution. Landless revolutions are not sustainable over the long term, as has been observed in the case of Zimbabwe twenty-nine years later. In my article Why The West Is Less Influential In Zimbabwe I analyze this issue.
The ability to achieve “Made in Africa” requires land in order to build and expand industrial capacity. It’s possible for Africa to attain this coveted status but first she must be able to subdue and prevail over those intrusive forces that have put her in a situation leaving her with a feeling of being robbed. The English system of racial capitalism treats non-English countries on a descending scale with Africa being at the bottom of the totem pole. Countries like India are successful partly because they are allowed to succeed.
When Mugabe agitated for change in order to empower his people, his administration was subjected to a variety of economic sanctions, which proved punitive to the industrial capacity of the country. We see here a classic case where, despite hard work and education, people going hungry in the streets. In my previously mentioned article Why Msholozi is the Greatest Leader of All Time I point out that Western societies regard education as an economic utility vis-à-vis the Africans who regard education as a form of prestige since it allows them to contribute to their societies.
Conclusion
The article of Philip Emeagwali has correctly challenged our thinking. The vestiges of colonial conquest continue to spook Africa’s developments by sometimes spitting harsh fire like a threatened dragon upon some like Zimbabwe. Courage is still a much-needed attribute and Africa needs to be in command of the agenda of developing, nurturing and empowering organic intellectual capacity and technological innovation moving forward. This means cutting loose the strings attached to development in order to turn a new page. Will the new generation heed the call or will status quo continue to keep Africa’s development agenda determined by the outside forces that have no Africa’s interests at heart?
About the Author
A former South African Television Journalist, Vusi Moloi is a published author of a contextual poetry book, A Goodbye To My Little Troubles, and maintains a blog, Zulumathabo on the Internet.
Preamble
The great African genius mind Philip Emeagwali wrote an interesting article published on the Africa Unbound Magazine Africa Must Produce or Perish. This is my response to that article.
An excellent article by an award winning African scientist Philip Emeagwali injects the much needed thought provocation in challenging the Africans to rethink their economic development strategies. First of all let me add my voice to a list of many in paying homage to brother Philip for his courageous article. It’s not easy to buck the trend and get people to think seriously about matters of their survival. In addition, brother Philip has been and continues to be an inspiring role model to the rest of us particularly the new generation. Thank you for being an ambassador of Africa through your achievements.
The commentator of Philip Emeagwali’s article added excellent fresh points, which increased the brightness of the light bulbs on this important top. Now that well deserved tributes have been expressed, we continue with the topic at hand. Brother Philip’s article raised at least for four points regarding developing Africa’s economy namely (1) reliance on exporting raw materials, (2) lack of intellectual capital (3) technological prominence and (4) “Made in Africa” solution.
Reliance on exporting raw materials
The juxtaposition of the question “When will Africa run out of natural resources?” with respect to “When will Africa be unable to export raw materials, either for lack of our own oil or because foreign markets have themselves dried up?” is instructive. This phenomenon has already happened among some countries i.e. Ghana (known before as the Gold Coast) and Mali were world's leaders in supplying more over two thirds of the world's gold at one time in history but not anymore. South Africa has captured that position.
What do we learn from this? Both Ghana and Mali never ran out of natural resources nor did the world’s demand decline as confirmed by South Africa’s current fulfillment. In fact Mali (poorest country) is the 3rd largest gold producer after Ghana and South Africa. What then are the reasons? Could it be that a change of post-independence dynamics and priorities resulted in these once African powerful empires losing their once dominant position in this area? Ghana moved on to become number one in exporting cocoa the position that has since been overtaken by Ivory Coast. Nonetheless, Ghana has recorded a series of impressive GDP growths overtime making her a shining example of Africa’s focused, creative and consistent development.
The fact that African countries export their resources to European countries in what is an exploitative relationship (not exclusive to Africa i.e. Iraq) where Africans get less for what their resources are worth is legendary in our modern history. Let’s make a hypothetical but real case about Ghana. Suppose it costs Ghana 2 cents to produce a cup of cocoa. She sells it for 5 cents where four cents go back to production and 1 cent builds the schools, hospitals and helps small farmers.
As a result of this Ghana produces the highest number of university graduates in Africa. Western countries now say, “We think 5 cents is rather steep for a cup of cocoa. We will give you foreign aid in exchange for giving us cocoa at 1 cent”. When Ghana protests this unfairness we hear that there has been coup in Ghana while Nkrumah was visiting abroad. The neighbors of Ghana watching this say “let’s not do what Nkrumah did lest it happens to us” which triggers a vicious cycle of underdevelopment. The organic intellectual capital of Ghana leaves the country. In the meanwhile Western countries shake their heads at a proverbial problem of African coups while they are part of the creation of this instability.
Exporting resources can be a profitable business that boosts the developments projects of a country a case in point being Canada, which has overtaken Saudi Arabia as the largest supplier of oil to the US. The result of that is the Canadian dollar that has become equal with the US dollar despite the market gyrations. Canada is not treated like a Third World country and she gets a fair price for her natural resources.
While foreign aid, as previously mentioned, is an instrument that has hampered and continues to hamper Africa’s development, it does not have to be. Israel receives foreign aid in the amount of five billion dollars each year and it’s a prosperous country despite the fact that the country does not contribute to the US economy in return. In other words foreign aid to Israel does not make business sense to the US as it does with an African country that supplies resources in return at a cheap price. I discuss this in my article Vice President Warns Israel Against Attacking Iran in my blog Zulumathabo on the Internet.
Even though the argument against relying on natural resources has merits, there are other forces at play, which may still frustrate Africa’s development efforts even when she has moved from her reliance on natural resources. What can Africa do to mitigate those intrusive forces that stymie her development efforts? This is one big question moving forward.
Reliance on Exporting Raw Materials
This is an interesting point. African countries have done poorly in attracting and retaining African intellectuals. The problem exists on three fronts (1) African government relying on European expertise and less on their own experts, (2) African governments not facilitating the return of the Africans living outside Africa and (3) the returning Africans often perceived as a threat to those living in Africa.
Relying on Western Expertise
There are lots of educated Africans inside Africa who get passed over for Western experts. Somehow some African governments believe that a European expert is better than an African expert. Some African countries advertise that they are experiencing an acute short supply of engineering talent and yet the locally trained African engineers roam the streets unemployed. Since European engineers are expensive this results in the shortage of engineering skill. Part of the problem is that some foreign aid stipulations force certain African countries to hire Western experts as part of the justification of foreign aid dollars to the taxpayers of the donor countries which results in the unemployment of locally produced African engineers. In Canada a Government development agency like CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) used to state the fact in their literature that seventy cents of every dollar was spent in Canada as part of the Government mandate. Part of this resulted in African countries having to employ Canadian experts to satisfy this requirement. Another paradoxical effect of foreign experts is that some of them (not all) do not share the sentiments and beliefs of African values as a result of being socialized to view Africans as less human than their Caucasian counterparts. This is like having an atheist build a place of worship on your behalf. What kind of quality do you think will be the finished product?
Facilitating Return of Africans Abroad
Not enough is being done to enable the return of African intellectuals from abroad. In the past, African governments have relied on UN and other European sponsored programs, which facilitated the return of Africans. In the absence of those programs we are back to square one. President Zuma of South Africa once made an interesting point that there were two kinds of Africans outside Africa i.e. those who had made it and those who had not but had skills. He said it was important to attract both and provide land for them to help develop Africa. It would help to know what is currently being done to facilitate the return of the Africans living abroad by African countries. Maybe some can shed a light on this important issue?
Outside Africans Wrongly Perceived
Some of our brothers and sisters living in Africa perceive Africans of the Diaspora as somehow a threat to them (wrongly or rightly). This problem persists to this day. As a result some Africans in the Diaspora feel unaccepted in their own countries. This may not be the case in every situation but there is at least a degree of threat perception associated with being an African in the Diaspora. Some Africans have returned to Africa only to go back to the Diaspora.
Technological Prominence
This issue is extremely important particularly we technology workers understand this better. One challenge is that some African countries rely on Western countries to determine their technology agenda particularly the foreign aid recipients. I once researched the idea of providing high speed Internet via satellite in Africa. I found that the companies doing this where Western countries based either in Europe or US. The cost of bandwidth was prohibitive and some were in fact providing very low download/upload speed ratios at exorbitant prices. It seemed their prices were based on the fact that African governments would be paying for the services hence their skyrocketing. The assumption of these Western satellite companies was that Africans didn’t know much about technology leading them to provide inferior services at very high cost.
The biggest challenge to Africa in this area is infrastructure. South Africa has partnered with Russia to launch their own satellite into space in order to make bandwidth available in the country. This is one positive step in attaining technological prominence since this gives an African country the ability to architect technological infrastructure without relying on others to do it for them.
Failure to architect Africa’s own infrastructure systems may in fact lead to another form of technological colonialism where African countries are subjected to inferior technology. For example African countries already rely on foreign technologies like Windows, which is an infrastructure system to store, manipulate and manage their mission critical data. Why can’t African countries sponsor a research in developing their own infrastructure technology like an operating system as well as an African computer? Moreover we have genius minds like Philip Emeagwali who is an architect of a super computer. Instead many African countries are looking for donated computers from abroad.
The premise of "intellectual capital" and "technological prominence" addresses the very core of Africa's problems. The problem fundamentally remains historical and it's the vestiges of economic and intellectual colonialism that consistently vary the parameters of this issue. Right now the number of Africans connected to the Internet is less than 5%. The main problem is lack of access to computer hardware. Another restraint is the cost of telecommunications. In many African countries, in order to for an African to call her neighbor the phone goes to some Western country who in turn routs the call to the neighbor. A number of people in Europe get paid each time two neighbors talk over the phone making telecommunication extremely expensive.
The big mover in the technological prominence must include, among others, attracting great technology talent currently living outside Africa such as Philip Emeagwali. What will it take for African countries to attract the sons and daughters of the African soil from the Diaspora?
“Made in Africa” solution
A Zimbabwean situation is instructive here. Zimbabwe achieved her independence in 1980. The Zimbabweans are among the most industrious and educated Africans I have ever known. At one time Zimbabwe exported food and other manufactured goods to the world marked “Made in Zimbabwe”. Today they are surviving on food parcels and South Africa is shouldering most of the economic burden of keeping Zimbabwe people alive. How did this happen? When both Mr. Robert Mugabe and Dr. Joshua Nkomo signed the Lancaster Agreement, it didn't have guarantees on the return of the land to the African natives and this fact was a harsh precondition as later described by the then President of Zambia Kenneth Kaunda. As a result the people of Zimbabwe were given a landless revolution. Landless revolutions are not sustainable over the long term, as has been observed in the case of Zimbabwe twenty-nine years later. In my article Why The West Is Less Influential In Zimbabwe I analyze this issue.
The ability to achieve “Made in Africa” requires land in order to build and expand industrial capacity. It’s possible for Africa to attain this coveted status but first she must be able to subdue and prevail over those intrusive forces that have put her in a situation leaving her with a feeling of being robbed. The English system of racial capitalism treats non-English countries on a descending scale with Africa being at the bottom of the totem pole. Countries like India are successful partly because they are allowed to succeed.
When Mugabe agitated for change in order to empower his people, his administration was subjected to a variety of economic sanctions, which proved punitive to the industrial capacity of the country. We see here a classic case where, despite hard work and education, people going hungry in the streets. In my previously mentioned article Why Msholozi is the Greatest Leader of All Time I point out that Western societies regard education as an economic utility vis-à-vis the Africans who regard education as a form of prestige since it allows them to contribute to their societies.
Conclusion
The article of Philip Emeagwali has correctly challenged our thinking. The vestiges of colonial conquest continue to spook Africa’s developments by sometimes spitting harsh fire like a threatened dragon upon some like Zimbabwe. Courage is still a much-needed attribute and Africa needs to be in command of the agenda of developing, nurturing and empowering organic intellectual capacity and technological innovation moving forward. This means cutting loose the strings attached to development in order to turn a new page. Will the new generation heed the call or will status quo continue to keep Africa’s development agenda determined by the outside forces that have no Africa’s interests at heart?
About the Author
A former South African Television Journalist, Vusi Moloi is a published author of a contextual poetry book, A Goodbye To My Little Troubles, and maintains a blog, Zulumathabo on the Internet.
Blog Comment Ground Rules
By Vusi Moloi © 2009
Your interest in the Zulumathabo on the Internet blog is appreciated. You have taken the time to respond to a blog article that piqued your interest and you may as well consider the following rules as a guide in writing a comment that has a higher likelihood of being published on the Zulumathabo on the Internet blog. Since reader’s comments are read only, the blog owner reserves the right to reject a comment that falls outside these ground rules. Please note these rules are subject to change without prior notice.
Rule #1 Read the Article
Make sure you have read and understood the article you are commenting on. It’s amazing how some just post comments having not even read the article they are commenting on.
Rule #2 No Profanities
Profane, vulgar, insulting, defamatory, harassing, hateful, threatening, intimidating, racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic or any offensive language, wording will never be tolerated.
Rule #3 Stay on Topic
Zulumathabo on the Internet is a professional blog with professionally written and well thought out substantive articles. Your comments must fall within that framework. Stay on topic and argue your point within the framework of the topic of the article.
Rule #4 No Junk
No spam, junk, chain letters or pyramid schemes, offensive or vulgar nicknames.
Rule #5 Debate or Disagree Respectfully
Vibrant debate of ideas is a breath of fresh air and your perspective is appreciated but this must happen within the confines of respect, decency, clean language, rationality and logic.
Thank you for considering these rules of the road and good luck in your blog comments.
Your interest in the Zulumathabo on the Internet blog is appreciated. You have taken the time to respond to a blog article that piqued your interest and you may as well consider the following rules as a guide in writing a comment that has a higher likelihood of being published on the Zulumathabo on the Internet blog. Since reader’s comments are read only, the blog owner reserves the right to reject a comment that falls outside these ground rules. Please note these rules are subject to change without prior notice.
Rule #1 Read the Article
Make sure you have read and understood the article you are commenting on. It’s amazing how some just post comments having not even read the article they are commenting on.
Rule #2 No Profanities
Profane, vulgar, insulting, defamatory, harassing, hateful, threatening, intimidating, racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic or any offensive language, wording will never be tolerated.
Rule #3 Stay on Topic
Zulumathabo on the Internet is a professional blog with professionally written and well thought out substantive articles. Your comments must fall within that framework. Stay on topic and argue your point within the framework of the topic of the article.
Rule #4 No Junk
No spam, junk, chain letters or pyramid schemes, offensive or vulgar nicknames.
Rule #5 Debate or Disagree Respectfully
Vibrant debate of ideas is a breath of fresh air and your perspective is appreciated but this must happen within the confines of respect, decency, clean language, rationality and logic.
Thank you for considering these rules of the road and good luck in your blog comments.
Obama’s Transcendence of Race
Saturday, September 19, 2009
By Vusi Moloi © 2009
President Obama has demonstrated an impeccable skill in refusing to be earthbound by an emotionally charged divisive issue of race after coming under bitter-tinged attacks led by a heckling Republican Joe Wilson who brazenly shouted “you lie” to President Obama over his Health Care Reform an important plank of Mr. Obama’s political platform during last year’s US elections. Despite the strident attacks by the opposition President Obama stayed the course above the fray like an African fish that does not allow the sulphuric salt from the salty depths to over-penetrate its skin.
Incredible Finesse
President Barack Obama is a historic figure given his racial background as the first person of African descent to become the President of the United States. During the election campaign Mr. Obama showed an incredible finesse in navigating the treacherous waters of race and still managed to endear himself to the predominately White electorate. The North American society is hyper sensitive to the issue of racism and has developed a variety of defense mechanisms around the issue. For this reason a race issue was used heavily by the anti-Obama people as an effective tool of alienation in order to turn political opinion against him but the strategy failed.
This week the President invoked his seemingly endless finesse when confronted with the questions of race in the light of the comments made by the former President Jimmy Carter who suggested that a lot of anti-Obama sentiments were motivated by the fact that he was an African-American whom others viewed as unqualified to lead this great country.
Addressing major media organizations including CNN’s John King President Obama outlined his position in a sophisticated fashion “Are there people out there who don’t like me because of race? I am sure there are... That is not the overriding issue here. I think there are people who are anti-Government. I think there are… there has been a long standing debate in this country that is usually that much more fierce during times of transition where when presidents are trying to bring about big changes, I mean the things that were said about FDR(Franklin Delano Roosevelt), pretty similar to the things that were said about me, that he was a communist, he was a socialist, things that were said about Ronald Reagan when he was trying to reverse some of the new deal programs.. They were pretty vicious as well.”
The same comments were echoed on ABC when President Obama said “Are there some people out there who don’t like me because of my race? I am sure there are. Are there some people who vote for me because of my race? There are probably some of those too.”
Intellectual Prowess
The intellectual prowess of President Obama is nothing short of amazing. The ability to finesse an extremely divisive issue of race enables him to exit the crushing jaws of political opposition like the great Canadian seagull that boasts an instantaneous vertical lift above the ground whenever it gets bounded by the forces of reaction.
President Obama’s Press Secretary Robert Gibbs underscored the fact that it was important to put emotions in check “despite the depths of our beliefs” while having important political debates without making anyone "feel uncomfortable". The question of debating contentious issues within the confines of civility of discourse requires a non-partisan approach and restraint of self-interest. The most fierce opposition to the Health Care Reform comes from the insurance industry 38% of which employs less than 20 persons per organization. The Health Care Reform could enable the government to work more directly with the insurance carriers who comprise 62% of the industry effectively reducing if not eliminating the middle man with a minimal impact on the overall job statistics.
The Paradoxical Fact of Socialism
The Republicans have done a good job in defending the business establishment and have traditionally regarded what they viewed as big government to be bad for the structure of the economy hence their vehement dismissal of the Health Care Reform as an exercise in socialism.
The paradoxical fact of interest is that socialism is a good thing for big business like $750 billion bailout to giant insurance companies like AIG (American International Group) and big banks like Citigroup something that has angered the taxpayers. You see how it works? When the government gives bailouts to big business (business socialism) it’s a good cause but when that bailout (citizen socialism) goes to a taxpayer it’s an evil socialism. This explains why socialism will always live side by side with capitalism because the capitalist business needs the socialist government bailouts to thrive. The same principle applies to the concept of subsidy vis-à-vis welfare i.e. when the government gives money to a business enterprise it’s a good subsidy whereas the same money that goes to a taxpayer is referred to as an evil welfare system.
How Is It Possible To Transcend Race?
Mr. Obama’s shrewd thinking understands that the issues at stake are not racial but rather economic. This writer has articulated this fact in other articles like Obama’s Ground Troops Tackle the Last Frontier to show that the premise of racism is to distract from substantive issues of economic control so that we all get emotionally embroiled in matters that have no bearing on the real transformation of people’s lives. The strategy has proven effective in alienating certain groups from the mainstay of the economy. This explains why President Obama was quick to distance himself from the idea of racism in order to stay focused on the real issues that have a bearing on the economic future of the people.
The astute President Obama also understands the powerful sorcery of race in fragmenting and alienating the core base of support. A case in point are the African descendants who have found cohesive solidarity to be an elusive thing for more than 400 years due largely in part to emotionally responding to the issues of race instead of focusing attention on the economic front which is what will change the equation of equality in the final analysis.
Conclusion
The advent of Mr. Obama’s Presidency has injected a new perspective on dealing with issues of race and his consistent refusal to be earthbound by his racial background has given him powerful wings to vertically lift himself off the ground. The new generation will do well to take a page from the great President Mr. Barack Obama and a living legend in his own right.
About the Author
A former South African Television Journalist, Vusi Moloi is a published author of a contextual poetry book, A Goodbye To My Little Troubles, and maintains a blog, Zulumathabo on the Internet.
President Obama has demonstrated an impeccable skill in refusing to be earthbound by an emotionally charged divisive issue of race after coming under bitter-tinged attacks led by a heckling Republican Joe Wilson who brazenly shouted “you lie” to President Obama over his Health Care Reform an important plank of Mr. Obama’s political platform during last year’s US elections. Despite the strident attacks by the opposition President Obama stayed the course above the fray like an African fish that does not allow the sulphuric salt from the salty depths to over-penetrate its skin.
Incredible Finesse
President Barack Obama is a historic figure given his racial background as the first person of African descent to become the President of the United States. During the election campaign Mr. Obama showed an incredible finesse in navigating the treacherous waters of race and still managed to endear himself to the predominately White electorate. The North American society is hyper sensitive to the issue of racism and has developed a variety of defense mechanisms around the issue. For this reason a race issue was used heavily by the anti-Obama people as an effective tool of alienation in order to turn political opinion against him but the strategy failed.
This week the President invoked his seemingly endless finesse when confronted with the questions of race in the light of the comments made by the former President Jimmy Carter who suggested that a lot of anti-Obama sentiments were motivated by the fact that he was an African-American whom others viewed as unqualified to lead this great country.
Addressing major media organizations including CNN’s John King President Obama outlined his position in a sophisticated fashion “Are there people out there who don’t like me because of race? I am sure there are... That is not the overriding issue here. I think there are people who are anti-Government. I think there are… there has been a long standing debate in this country that is usually that much more fierce during times of transition where when presidents are trying to bring about big changes, I mean the things that were said about FDR(Franklin Delano Roosevelt), pretty similar to the things that were said about me, that he was a communist, he was a socialist, things that were said about Ronald Reagan when he was trying to reverse some of the new deal programs.. They were pretty vicious as well.”
The same comments were echoed on ABC when President Obama said “Are there some people out there who don’t like me because of my race? I am sure there are. Are there some people who vote for me because of my race? There are probably some of those too.”
Intellectual Prowess
The intellectual prowess of President Obama is nothing short of amazing. The ability to finesse an extremely divisive issue of race enables him to exit the crushing jaws of political opposition like the great Canadian seagull that boasts an instantaneous vertical lift above the ground whenever it gets bounded by the forces of reaction.
President Obama’s Press Secretary Robert Gibbs underscored the fact that it was important to put emotions in check “despite the depths of our beliefs” while having important political debates without making anyone "feel uncomfortable". The question of debating contentious issues within the confines of civility of discourse requires a non-partisan approach and restraint of self-interest. The most fierce opposition to the Health Care Reform comes from the insurance industry 38% of which employs less than 20 persons per organization. The Health Care Reform could enable the government to work more directly with the insurance carriers who comprise 62% of the industry effectively reducing if not eliminating the middle man with a minimal impact on the overall job statistics.
The Paradoxical Fact of Socialism
The Republicans have done a good job in defending the business establishment and have traditionally regarded what they viewed as big government to be bad for the structure of the economy hence their vehement dismissal of the Health Care Reform as an exercise in socialism.
The paradoxical fact of interest is that socialism is a good thing for big business like $750 billion bailout to giant insurance companies like AIG (American International Group) and big banks like Citigroup something that has angered the taxpayers. You see how it works? When the government gives bailouts to big business (business socialism) it’s a good cause but when that bailout (citizen socialism) goes to a taxpayer it’s an evil socialism. This explains why socialism will always live side by side with capitalism because the capitalist business needs the socialist government bailouts to thrive. The same principle applies to the concept of subsidy vis-à-vis welfare i.e. when the government gives money to a business enterprise it’s a good subsidy whereas the same money that goes to a taxpayer is referred to as an evil welfare system.
How Is It Possible To Transcend Race?
Mr. Obama’s shrewd thinking understands that the issues at stake are not racial but rather economic. This writer has articulated this fact in other articles like Obama’s Ground Troops Tackle the Last Frontier to show that the premise of racism is to distract from substantive issues of economic control so that we all get emotionally embroiled in matters that have no bearing on the real transformation of people’s lives. The strategy has proven effective in alienating certain groups from the mainstay of the economy. This explains why President Obama was quick to distance himself from the idea of racism in order to stay focused on the real issues that have a bearing on the economic future of the people.
The astute President Obama also understands the powerful sorcery of race in fragmenting and alienating the core base of support. A case in point are the African descendants who have found cohesive solidarity to be an elusive thing for more than 400 years due largely in part to emotionally responding to the issues of race instead of focusing attention on the economic front which is what will change the equation of equality in the final analysis.
Conclusion
The advent of Mr. Obama’s Presidency has injected a new perspective on dealing with issues of race and his consistent refusal to be earthbound by his racial background has given him powerful wings to vertically lift himself off the ground. The new generation will do well to take a page from the great President Mr. Barack Obama and a living legend in his own right.
About the Author
A former South African Television Journalist, Vusi Moloi is a published author of a contextual poetry book, A Goodbye To My Little Troubles, and maintains a blog, Zulumathabo on the Internet.
Brandon Huntley Is Not White
Thursday, September 10, 2009
By Vusi Moloi © 2009
Brandon Huntley is not White after all. For all intents and purposes, Huntley is a Black guy who passed for white because of his impressive Caucasian looks. The convincing power of his Caucasian looks was such a flawless execution that the great Canadians, who still care about skin complexion, neglected to take a DNA test which would have convinced them otherwise.
Refugee Status Based on White Skin
Huntley is a “White” South African who was granted refugee status by the Canada Immigration Refugee Board tribunal on August 27th presided by the only member Mr. William Davis who ruled that Huntley had submitted “a convincing proof” of his persecution as a White person in the hands of the Black South Africans because he was White. Mr. Davis referred to the South African Government’s “inability or unwillingness to protect him." when he said “The evidence of the claimant and the witness and the documentary evidence which I accept as credible show a picture of indifference and inability or unwillingness of the government and the security forces to protect White South Africans from persecution by African South Africans.” This represents a historic precedent where someone has ever been granted refugee status because of the colour of his skin. Huntley was represented by Russel Kaplan who had his own sister Lara Kaplan testify on behalf of Huntley.
New Evidence Contradicts Refugee Claimant
New evidence from a respected historian who happens to be Huntley’s distant relative, Patrick Tariq Mellet of South Africa writes in his Cape Slavery Heritage blog that he maternally shares a blood line of heritage through their grand parents whose genetic roots go back to Huntley’s great great grandparents William Huntley and Mary Anne Haddon whose children had married “black and white South Africans”.
Mellet confirms, using death and archival records of the City of Cape Town, that a Coloured woman Francina van der Kaap who had married one of the first Englishmen to settle in the Xalanga district of the Transkei in the mid 1800s William Haddon was Huntley’s great great grand mother. Mellet further corrobates “Brandon’s great great
Grandparents lived happily in Cala and faced no endangerment amongst Xhosa people in Cala, right through to William’s death at the ripe old age of 100 years in 1908.”
Mellet, who hails from District Six and Woodstock, tells us “This of course makes Brandon Huntley’s case all the more absurd.”
Website Blog Blocked!
Incredibly, the website blog of Mellet at this link became inaccessible but this writer was able to use his superior technological skills to retrieve the article on September 9, 2009 the day that happens to be 999, perhaps an alignment of the planets? Could this be the work of hackers acting under whose instructions?
Canada Reviews the Case
What is the Canadian Government going to do with this case considering that it was premised on a misguided notion of skin pigmentation that is now looking different under the new spotlight? It has since been reported that the Canada Immigration and Citizenship is reviewing the case. This means in one month the Federal Court will announce if it will go ahead to hear the case after which it could take several months before the case is heard by a panel of judges.
In the meanwhile Huntley is a refugee that enjoys the hospitable protection of the great Canadians while South Africa’s international image as the land of peace and reconciliation suffers the stringent consequences of misinformation.
Refugee Status Not a Race Thing
When this writer became a refugee from apartheid it was not based on race but rather on the apartheid system. When the Jews became refugees it was not based on the race of the Germans but the system of the NAZIS. Canada is the only exception in this rule which has tarnished South Africa’s image as a rainbow nation country. South Africans are understandably angry over this.
Passing for White
Passing for White is not a new thing under the sun. The former Cuban dictator and former Communist Fulgencio Batista had African genes coursing through his genes but the Americans supported him partly because they believed he was white because he convincingly looked white. The great Conceptual Artist Dr. Adrian Piper who had written a powerful analytical article Passing for White, Passing for Black and was herself a racially mixed African descendent became listed as Suspicious Traveler on the U.S. Security Administration’s Watch List and Wellesley College moved to suddenly terminate her full tenured professorship in 2008.
The actress Jeanne Crain was chosen by director Darryl F. Zanuck for a role in the movie Pinky to star the character of an African American woman who passed for White in the USA even though Crain herself was White bypassing talented and brilliant stars like Lena Horne. Another actress Elizabeth Taylor was chosen by director Joseph L. Mankiewicz to star in the movie Cleopatra portraying the life of the North African Pharaoh Cleopatra despite the fact that Cleopatra was racially mixed and even Shakespeare refers to her as a Gypsy woman in Anthony and Cleopatra.
About the Author
A former South African Television Journalist, Vusi Moloi is a published author of a contextual poetry book, A Goodbye To My Little Troubles, and maintains a blog, Zulumathabo on the Internet.
Brandon Huntley is not White after all. For all intents and purposes, Huntley is a Black guy who passed for white because of his impressive Caucasian looks. The convincing power of his Caucasian looks was such a flawless execution that the great Canadians, who still care about skin complexion, neglected to take a DNA test which would have convinced them otherwise.
Refugee Status Based on White Skin
Huntley is a “White” South African who was granted refugee status by the Canada Immigration Refugee Board tribunal on August 27th presided by the only member Mr. William Davis who ruled that Huntley had submitted “a convincing proof” of his persecution as a White person in the hands of the Black South Africans because he was White. Mr. Davis referred to the South African Government’s “inability or unwillingness to protect him." when he said “The evidence of the claimant and the witness and the documentary evidence which I accept as credible show a picture of indifference and inability or unwillingness of the government and the security forces to protect White South Africans from persecution by African South Africans.” This represents a historic precedent where someone has ever been granted refugee status because of the colour of his skin. Huntley was represented by Russel Kaplan who had his own sister Lara Kaplan testify on behalf of Huntley.
New Evidence Contradicts Refugee Claimant
New evidence from a respected historian who happens to be Huntley’s distant relative, Patrick Tariq Mellet of South Africa writes in his Cape Slavery Heritage blog that he maternally shares a blood line of heritage through their grand parents whose genetic roots go back to Huntley’s great great grandparents William Huntley and Mary Anne Haddon whose children had married “black and white South Africans”.
Mellet confirms, using death and archival records of the City of Cape Town, that a Coloured woman Francina van der Kaap who had married one of the first Englishmen to settle in the Xalanga district of the Transkei in the mid 1800s William Haddon was Huntley’s great great grand mother. Mellet further corrobates “Brandon’s great great
Grandparents lived happily in Cala and faced no endangerment amongst Xhosa people in Cala, right through to William’s death at the ripe old age of 100 years in 1908.”
Mellet, who hails from District Six and Woodstock, tells us “This of course makes Brandon Huntley’s case all the more absurd.”
Website Blog Blocked!
Incredibly, the website blog of Mellet at this link became inaccessible but this writer was able to use his superior technological skills to retrieve the article on September 9, 2009 the day that happens to be 999, perhaps an alignment of the planets? Could this be the work of hackers acting under whose instructions?
Canada Reviews the Case
What is the Canadian Government going to do with this case considering that it was premised on a misguided notion of skin pigmentation that is now looking different under the new spotlight? It has since been reported that the Canada Immigration and Citizenship is reviewing the case. This means in one month the Federal Court will announce if it will go ahead to hear the case after which it could take several months before the case is heard by a panel of judges.
In the meanwhile Huntley is a refugee that enjoys the hospitable protection of the great Canadians while South Africa’s international image as the land of peace and reconciliation suffers the stringent consequences of misinformation.
Refugee Status Not a Race Thing
When this writer became a refugee from apartheid it was not based on race but rather on the apartheid system. When the Jews became refugees it was not based on the race of the Germans but the system of the NAZIS. Canada is the only exception in this rule which has tarnished South Africa’s image as a rainbow nation country. South Africans are understandably angry over this.
Passing for White
Passing for White is not a new thing under the sun. The former Cuban dictator and former Communist Fulgencio Batista had African genes coursing through his genes but the Americans supported him partly because they believed he was white because he convincingly looked white. The great Conceptual Artist Dr. Adrian Piper who had written a powerful analytical article Passing for White, Passing for Black and was herself a racially mixed African descendent became listed as Suspicious Traveler on the U.S. Security Administration’s Watch List and Wellesley College moved to suddenly terminate her full tenured professorship in 2008.
The actress Jeanne Crain was chosen by director Darryl F. Zanuck for a role in the movie Pinky to star the character of an African American woman who passed for White in the USA even though Crain herself was White bypassing talented and brilliant stars like Lena Horne. Another actress Elizabeth Taylor was chosen by director Joseph L. Mankiewicz to star in the movie Cleopatra portraying the life of the North African Pharaoh Cleopatra despite the fact that Cleopatra was racially mixed and even Shakespeare refers to her as a Gypsy woman in Anthony and Cleopatra.
About the Author
A former South African Television Journalist, Vusi Moloi is a published author of a contextual poetry book, A Goodbye To My Little Troubles, and maintains a blog, Zulumathabo on the Internet.
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