By Vusi Moloi © 2009
To stick to the ground like glue
To embrace hereafter to subdue
To subdue the dichotomous
To vandalize the thalamus
Hereafter dichotomous existence
To disown like illegitimate gain
To scar the innocent membrane
Cellular bond weakening
From itself partitioning
Cracked by acoustic thunder
Forced hitherto asunder
Hereafter dichotomous existence
To contain using the forensic
To diminish using the agnostic
To dematerialize survival
To disjoint trust that belongs
Gentle restraint invisible adhesive
Embraced hereafter oppressive
Hurtful membrane of the thalamus
Hereafter forever dichotomous
Contextual Commentary
Discriminatory avoidance learning is the most stressful experience on the plasticity of the cellular membrane of the brain cells of the organism. It disrupts memory formation and pulls the equilibrium away from tranquility and rationality. The Canadian society of Ottawa subjects some members of her population to this form of extreme stressful experience. The gentle oppression, as practiced by the great society of Ottawa, has inculcated a permanent sense of dichotomy in the minds of the socioeconomically disenfranchised communities forcing them to forever struggle with a painful legacy of identity crisis. Like the disenfranchised children of the beautiful cuckoo, the members of these communities are forever reminded that they do not belong.
Vusi Moloi, The Indomitable Mongoose, Canada, 2009
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.
Heroine’s Welcome for Semenya
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
By Vusi Moloi © 2009
South Africa’s golden girl and first lady of sport Ms. Caster Semenya was treated to a heroine’s welcome at the OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg yesterday after arriving from Berlin’s Olympic Games where she trounced the world’s best to win gold.
Political Heavyweights
Addressing an excited crowd that greeted her with vuvuzelas, drums, among others, Semenya was overcome with emotions of joy at such a massive welcoming event which included the President of South Africa, the great Mosholozi, Mr. Jacob Zuma and other political heavyweights like President of the African National Congress Youth League the intrepid Mr. Julius Malema and the mother of South African freedom and member of Parliament Ms. Winnie Madikizela Mandela.
When she took to the podium, Semenya fondly recalled her coach's advice "'You know girl, you can do it.' Before the final, he just told me, 'You can let them lead, then last 200, kill them'."
IAAF Blasted
President Zuma blasted the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) for violating the human rights of an 18 year old Semenya. In a prepared speech President Zuma charged “We wish to register our displeasure at the manner in which Ms. Semenya has been treated. Ms. Semenya has also reminded the world of the importance of the rights to human dignity and privacy.”
Ms. Madikizela-Mandela electrified the crowd in her signature style “We are here to tell the whole world how proud we are of our little girl. They can write what they like, we are proud of her.”
In the same way that Semenya treated her critics with disdain when they first questioned her womanhood after winning the race in Berlin, the powerful Ms. Madikizela-Mandela was equally disdainful of the IAAF when she said “To the world out there who conducted those pseudo-tests, they can stuff their insult. This is our little girl and nobody is going to perform any tests on her.”
The Spark of Controversy
Semenya’s impressive performance in the 800m track and field was overshadowed by questions raised over her gender which painfully deprived her of the opportunity to relish her golden victory and breached her confidentiality with the IAAF. The whole gender question was originally attributed to Australia but the President of Athletics South Africa Mr. Leornard Chuene has come out to say that it was a media company in South Africa (has since been identified) that sparked the controversy when it sent “a story” to IAAF in March and this led to the battery of tests of Semenya. Semenya was subjected to all kinds of physical checking like sniffing for illegal genitalia. However it was an Australian newspaper Age which championed the story of Semenya being a male and predicted she was likely to be disqualified from the women’s 800m race on Wednesday night. The question is where did the Australians get this idea from?
Where Are the White South Africans?
The intrepid Mr. Malema posed a thorny question that drew attention to the virtual absence of White South Africans (missing in action) when they should be part of the contingent that had gathered here in their thousands in a show of support for a traumatized Semenya. This viewpoint was given credence by Mr. Chuene’s remarks “Let me say something rude here; why can’t we stand behind Caster in the same way that the whole country rallied behind Oscar Pistorius when the IAAF said his blades were giving him an unfair advantage?”
Oscar Pistorius (White athlete) is another great South African hero who trounced the competition despite being a double amputee but was disqualified by the IAAF which changed the rules that later ruled his blades to be giving him a competitive advantage over other athletes the position that subsequently got rejected by the court judge. The whole of South Africa, Black and White, rallied behind Pistorious something that is visibly lacking in this case with respect to the White supporters (Semenya is a Black athlete) even though Semenya was victimized by the same sports body that victimized Pistorious.
Another Golden Boy Mbulaeni Mulaudzi
Despite being eclipsed by the limelight of Semenya, there is another golden boy and a legend in his own right Mbulaeni Mulaudzi from the Limpopo Province same as Semenya. It was on the last day of the Olympics when Mbulaeni, who was running in the outside lane, dictated the pace and changed the gears in his own time as he later put it. He began to accelerate in the last 200m and went out to clinch the gold. This is the second gold medal having won another gold in Budapest in 2004. The athletic dominance of Mulaudzi renders him an irrefutable King of the men's 800m and together with Semenya, they have made South Africa the Ruler of 800m.
Another athlete who made South Africa proud is Khotso Mokoena who clinched silver in the long jump. These athletes and many not mentioned in this article have put South Africa well on her quest for 12 medals in the London’s 2012 Olympic Games to be held on July 27th to August 2nd. Semenya along with her colleagues have vindicated South Africa’s athletic talent and made good on the promise of excellence.
Conclusion
The massive show of support for Semenya and her colleagues put the IAAF world to shame. The great Msholozi set a good example that the sons and daughters of the African soil who represent the land of the ancestors abroad must be protected under the powerful wings of the motherland South Africa. The political heavyweights like the intrepid Mr. Malema and the indefatigable Ms. Madikizela-Mandela demonstrated an impregnable force in the great struggle for South African freedom and advancement.
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.
South Africa’s golden girl and first lady of sport Ms. Caster Semenya was treated to a heroine’s welcome at the OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg yesterday after arriving from Berlin’s Olympic Games where she trounced the world’s best to win gold.
Political Heavyweights
Addressing an excited crowd that greeted her with vuvuzelas, drums, among others, Semenya was overcome with emotions of joy at such a massive welcoming event which included the President of South Africa, the great Mosholozi, Mr. Jacob Zuma and other political heavyweights like President of the African National Congress Youth League the intrepid Mr. Julius Malema and the mother of South African freedom and member of Parliament Ms. Winnie Madikizela Mandela.
When she took to the podium, Semenya fondly recalled her coach's advice "'You know girl, you can do it.' Before the final, he just told me, 'You can let them lead, then last 200, kill them'."
IAAF Blasted
President Zuma blasted the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) for violating the human rights of an 18 year old Semenya. In a prepared speech President Zuma charged “We wish to register our displeasure at the manner in which Ms. Semenya has been treated. Ms. Semenya has also reminded the world of the importance of the rights to human dignity and privacy.”
Ms. Madikizela-Mandela electrified the crowd in her signature style “We are here to tell the whole world how proud we are of our little girl. They can write what they like, we are proud of her.”
In the same way that Semenya treated her critics with disdain when they first questioned her womanhood after winning the race in Berlin, the powerful Ms. Madikizela-Mandela was equally disdainful of the IAAF when she said “To the world out there who conducted those pseudo-tests, they can stuff their insult. This is our little girl and nobody is going to perform any tests on her.”
The Spark of Controversy
Semenya’s impressive performance in the 800m track and field was overshadowed by questions raised over her gender which painfully deprived her of the opportunity to relish her golden victory and breached her confidentiality with the IAAF. The whole gender question was originally attributed to Australia but the President of Athletics South Africa Mr. Leornard Chuene has come out to say that it was a media company in South Africa (has since been identified) that sparked the controversy when it sent “a story” to IAAF in March and this led to the battery of tests of Semenya. Semenya was subjected to all kinds of physical checking like sniffing for illegal genitalia. However it was an Australian newspaper Age which championed the story of Semenya being a male and predicted she was likely to be disqualified from the women’s 800m race on Wednesday night. The question is where did the Australians get this idea from?
Where Are the White South Africans?
The intrepid Mr. Malema posed a thorny question that drew attention to the virtual absence of White South Africans (missing in action) when they should be part of the contingent that had gathered here in their thousands in a show of support for a traumatized Semenya. This viewpoint was given credence by Mr. Chuene’s remarks “Let me say something rude here; why can’t we stand behind Caster in the same way that the whole country rallied behind Oscar Pistorius when the IAAF said his blades were giving him an unfair advantage?”
Oscar Pistorius (White athlete) is another great South African hero who trounced the competition despite being a double amputee but was disqualified by the IAAF which changed the rules that later ruled his blades to be giving him a competitive advantage over other athletes the position that subsequently got rejected by the court judge. The whole of South Africa, Black and White, rallied behind Pistorious something that is visibly lacking in this case with respect to the White supporters (Semenya is a Black athlete) even though Semenya was victimized by the same sports body that victimized Pistorious.
Another Golden Boy Mbulaeni Mulaudzi
Despite being eclipsed by the limelight of Semenya, there is another golden boy and a legend in his own right Mbulaeni Mulaudzi from the Limpopo Province same as Semenya. It was on the last day of the Olympics when Mbulaeni, who was running in the outside lane, dictated the pace and changed the gears in his own time as he later put it. He began to accelerate in the last 200m and went out to clinch the gold. This is the second gold medal having won another gold in Budapest in 2004. The athletic dominance of Mulaudzi renders him an irrefutable King of the men's 800m and together with Semenya, they have made South Africa the Ruler of 800m.
Another athlete who made South Africa proud is Khotso Mokoena who clinched silver in the long jump. These athletes and many not mentioned in this article have put South Africa well on her quest for 12 medals in the London’s 2012 Olympic Games to be held on July 27th to August 2nd. Semenya along with her colleagues have vindicated South Africa’s athletic talent and made good on the promise of excellence.
Conclusion
The massive show of support for Semenya and her colleagues put the IAAF world to shame. The great Msholozi set a good example that the sons and daughters of the African soil who represent the land of the ancestors abroad must be protected under the powerful wings of the motherland South Africa. The political heavyweights like the intrepid Mr. Malema and the indefatigable Ms. Madikizela-Mandela demonstrated an impregnable force in the great struggle for South African freedom and advancement.
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.
Who Controls South Africa’s Finances?
Monday, August 24, 2009
By Vusi Moloi © 2009
The African National Congress Youth League President the firebrand Mr. Julius Malema rocked the boat two weeks ago when he questioned why “minorities” controlled the “strategic positions” of Ministries of Finance, Economics, Trade and Industry, and Public Enterprise, among others, while the African majority were confined to the security related portfolios like Ministries of Police, Intelligence Justice and Home Affairs as if they were destined to be security guards or omantshingilani.
The minorities refer to the non-African natives like Indians, the colonial descendents and others. Mr. Malema underscored the fact that it was important to build confidence in the markets that the Africans were capable of handling strategic positions in the finance and economic sector otherwise this would undermine the belief of the Black youths that they could someday “work in the strategic economic positions”. The highly regarded African scholar and Minister of Higher Education Dr. Blade Nzimande fired back by dismissing Malema’s remarks as a form of “narrow African chauvinism”.
The response from the great Dr. Blade Nzimande was disappointing as it offered a religious/ideological answer vis-à-vis an analytical/substantive reasoning which Mr. Malema was looking for with regards to why the African natives were not occupying these strategic positions of economic transformation in the first place. The reaction was not different from an African child who typically got chastised for rightfully raising the issues that concerned his or her destiny. The ideological response of Dr. Nzimande provoked a sobering reaction from Sipho Ngcobo in his article South Africa is Full of Ideological Hypocrites published in Money Web website in which he said the following:
“Hello! This is about destiny. The Africans want to shape their own destiny for themselves and their children. They never want their children to go through what they went through irrespective of the ANC's ideological definition of race.
That is where Malema is coming from. He is not questioning the ‘minorities’’ credentials. He is simply saying: ‘What about Africans? How do we explain this to our children?’”
The Issue in Question
Mr. Julius Malema made an astute observation when he pointed out that when Mr. Trevor Manual became the Minister of Finance he was not liked by the markets. This is true because when the Finance Minister Mr. Chris Liebenberg was replaced by the new non-White Finance Minister Mr. Trevor Manual in August of 1996 the Rand suffered a sudden drop from the dizzying heights of R3.82 to the punishing lows of R4.58 with respect to the US dollar a sudden drop of 20% in one day!
Mr. Malema tells us that Trevor Manuel worked hard to endear himself to the markets. Indeed Trevor Manuel seemingly became the darling of the markets. Did he really? The Rand continued to drop afterwards in spite of being embraced by the markets. If markets ever accepted the increasingly popular Manuel as the right man in charge of the country’s finances the trading history of the Rand did not register that because the Rand had dropped by nearly twice what it was by the time Trevor Manuel stepped down to take a new position in the Presidency of the great Msholozi Mr. Jacob Zuma.
They may have accepted Trevor Manuel with press releases and nice comments but not in terms of the value of the Rand which is a reliable barometer of what the investors think of the country. In fact investors and analysts made some funny comments to the fact that the Rand was overvalued and needed to have its wings clipped whereas under a White Minister of Finance the Rand was correctly valued. Interesting, isn’t it?
Are the Africans Kept Out of Finance Departments?
Do the facts support Mr. Malema’s point of contention that the African natives are kept out of the strategic Ministries? Decide for yourself as we present the Ministries in charge of Finance, Trade, Public Enterprise and Economics which Mr. Malema was referring to:
• Minister of Economic Development: Ebrahim Patel (not an African native)
• Minister of Finance: Pravin Gordhan (not an African native)
• Minister of Public Enterprises: Barbara Hogan (not an African native)
• Minister of Trade and Industry: Rob Davies (not an African native)
I have also taken a sample of the South African Government strategic parastatals to see who is in charge of the finances and here are the results:
• Transnet Chief Financial Officer: Mr. A. Singh (not an African native)
• Sasol Chief Financial Officer: Ms. Christine Ramon - (not an African native)
• Spoornet Chief Financial Officer: Mr. Nick Thomson (not an African native) and the list goes on and on.
We have established that the finances and the disbursements thereof in facilitating the economic emancipation of the African natives are controlled by the non-African natives despite the fact that African natives comprise nearly 80% of the population. This economic exclusion makes it easy to reject an African mother who presents a project designed to lift her out of poverty because a non-African native who does not have or feel her painful experience of being economically disenfranchised in the land of the ancestors is more likely to say no because of being far removed from the personal pain and the indignity of the arresting chains of economic oppression. Essentially this is what Malema is trying to draw our attention to.
What Are the Demographic Ratios?
What are the ratios in terms of the South African population with respect to the new cabinet? The South African demographics according to the 2001 census figures are as follows:
The African natives 79%, colonial descendents 9.6%, racially mixed 8.9%, and Indian and others 2.5%. The African natives in the current cabinet comprise 73%, the Indians 6%, the colonial descendents 16% and the racially mixed 5%.
These numbers tell us that both the African natives and the racially mixed are under-represented with respect to their demographic ratios and that the Indians and colonial descendents are over-represented. This is another source of unease among the African natives who elected an overwhelming majority of their representatives to soar high like an African eagle intent on making bread and butter on their behalf. Instead they see their powerful African eagle’s wings getting clipped along the way even before she could get ahead in her mission. What effect will the clipping of the wings have on the flight speed and the flight path of the African eagle? Will the giant bird correctly achieve her mission? We have already seen the many great moves being made by the great Msholozi including the normalization of relations with Angola and the signing of trade agreements and hopefully the eagle will grow new wings.
Is Economic Transformation Important?
The answer depends on the premise of the apartheid system and what you believe to be the case. What was the modus operandi of apartheid? Was it its sole purpose to institute racism and discriminate against the African natives? The answer is no. The purpose of apartheid was never exclusively about racism and that has not changed even today. The premise of apartheid was about economic control designed to keep the African natives out of the mainstay of the economy and permanently deny them the bread and butter.
We know this because when the African worker in Bloemfontein finished working for die baas a vicious dog (trained to bite a Black person) was unleashed upon him to run as far as he could so that he didn’t even think twice about coming back to collect the money he had worked hard for. He arrived at his home empty handed with his tail between his legs. How was he able to explain to them why he didn’t have the bread he had promised to bring? Even if he tried to return another day to fetch the bread he would be met by the brutal apartheid police who were ready to throw him in jail or brutalize him even more. Only the White South Africans were supposed to enjoy the wealth of South Africa.
The institutionalization of racism was just a political infrastructure designed to make it easy to keep the Africans out of the finances and economics of the land. Racism was used as a painfully effective device of distraction and destruction. Unfortunately the African natives became fixated around the distraction of racism and developed a misguided view that the only reason apartheid existed was racism and if they abolished racism then everybody would live happily ever after.
Fifteen years after 1994 we have now learnt the hard way that apartheid was really about economics and racism was just a smokescreen. Mr. Malema has caught on to that concept of voodoo economics which is why he is intellectually challenging us to the debate of ideas around the issue of who controls the finances and economics of the land. This is not to say that the ANC leadership is oblivious to the fact. They have their strategy of dealing with the issue but the people on the ground are getting dazzled by the glaring light of discrepancy in terms of the control of the finances and economics.
The real apartheid is the economic apartheid which was never outlawed. It’s legal in South Africa today to keep an African native out of a finance department by spooking the African natives with such sorcery like “you are not qualified for the job” when in fact there are many African natives who are overqualified but are unemployed. Voodoo economics is used to keep an African native out of an economics department whereas this is where the bread and butter are. If they keep you out of the bread and butter then how are you going to explain to your children why you are not able to produce bread on the table?
Conclusion
Mr. Malema has drawn attention to the most fundamental issues of economic transformation and the need for the African natives to control their economic destiny. Right now that destiny is determined by others on their behalf and the constituency of Mr. Malema does not derive comfort out of that.
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 African National Congress Youth League President the firebrand Mr. Julius Malema rocked the boat two weeks ago when he questioned why “minorities” controlled the “strategic positions” of Ministries of Finance, Economics, Trade and Industry, and Public Enterprise, among others, while the African majority were confined to the security related portfolios like Ministries of Police, Intelligence Justice and Home Affairs as if they were destined to be security guards or omantshingilani.
The minorities refer to the non-African natives like Indians, the colonial descendents and others. Mr. Malema underscored the fact that it was important to build confidence in the markets that the Africans were capable of handling strategic positions in the finance and economic sector otherwise this would undermine the belief of the Black youths that they could someday “work in the strategic economic positions”. The highly regarded African scholar and Minister of Higher Education Dr. Blade Nzimande fired back by dismissing Malema’s remarks as a form of “narrow African chauvinism”.
The response from the great Dr. Blade Nzimande was disappointing as it offered a religious/ideological answer vis-à-vis an analytical/substantive reasoning which Mr. Malema was looking for with regards to why the African natives were not occupying these strategic positions of economic transformation in the first place. The reaction was not different from an African child who typically got chastised for rightfully raising the issues that concerned his or her destiny. The ideological response of Dr. Nzimande provoked a sobering reaction from Sipho Ngcobo in his article South Africa is Full of Ideological Hypocrites published in Money Web website in which he said the following:
“Hello! This is about destiny. The Africans want to shape their own destiny for themselves and their children. They never want their children to go through what they went through irrespective of the ANC's ideological definition of race.
That is where Malema is coming from. He is not questioning the ‘minorities’’ credentials. He is simply saying: ‘What about Africans? How do we explain this to our children?’”
The Issue in Question
Mr. Julius Malema made an astute observation when he pointed out that when Mr. Trevor Manual became the Minister of Finance he was not liked by the markets. This is true because when the Finance Minister Mr. Chris Liebenberg was replaced by the new non-White Finance Minister Mr. Trevor Manual in August of 1996 the Rand suffered a sudden drop from the dizzying heights of R3.82 to the punishing lows of R4.58 with respect to the US dollar a sudden drop of 20% in one day!
Mr. Malema tells us that Trevor Manuel worked hard to endear himself to the markets. Indeed Trevor Manuel seemingly became the darling of the markets. Did he really? The Rand continued to drop afterwards in spite of being embraced by the markets. If markets ever accepted the increasingly popular Manuel as the right man in charge of the country’s finances the trading history of the Rand did not register that because the Rand had dropped by nearly twice what it was by the time Trevor Manuel stepped down to take a new position in the Presidency of the great Msholozi Mr. Jacob Zuma.
They may have accepted Trevor Manuel with press releases and nice comments but not in terms of the value of the Rand which is a reliable barometer of what the investors think of the country. In fact investors and analysts made some funny comments to the fact that the Rand was overvalued and needed to have its wings clipped whereas under a White Minister of Finance the Rand was correctly valued. Interesting, isn’t it?
Are the Africans Kept Out of Finance Departments?
Do the facts support Mr. Malema’s point of contention that the African natives are kept out of the strategic Ministries? Decide for yourself as we present the Ministries in charge of Finance, Trade, Public Enterprise and Economics which Mr. Malema was referring to:
• Minister of Economic Development: Ebrahim Patel (not an African native)
• Minister of Finance: Pravin Gordhan (not an African native)
• Minister of Public Enterprises: Barbara Hogan (not an African native)
• Minister of Trade and Industry: Rob Davies (not an African native)
I have also taken a sample of the South African Government strategic parastatals to see who is in charge of the finances and here are the results:
• Transnet Chief Financial Officer: Mr. A. Singh (not an African native)
• Sasol Chief Financial Officer: Ms. Christine Ramon - (not an African native)
• Spoornet Chief Financial Officer: Mr. Nick Thomson (not an African native) and the list goes on and on.
We have established that the finances and the disbursements thereof in facilitating the economic emancipation of the African natives are controlled by the non-African natives despite the fact that African natives comprise nearly 80% of the population. This economic exclusion makes it easy to reject an African mother who presents a project designed to lift her out of poverty because a non-African native who does not have or feel her painful experience of being economically disenfranchised in the land of the ancestors is more likely to say no because of being far removed from the personal pain and the indignity of the arresting chains of economic oppression. Essentially this is what Malema is trying to draw our attention to.
What Are the Demographic Ratios?
What are the ratios in terms of the South African population with respect to the new cabinet? The South African demographics according to the 2001 census figures are as follows:
The African natives 79%, colonial descendents 9.6%, racially mixed 8.9%, and Indian and others 2.5%. The African natives in the current cabinet comprise 73%, the Indians 6%, the colonial descendents 16% and the racially mixed 5%.
These numbers tell us that both the African natives and the racially mixed are under-represented with respect to their demographic ratios and that the Indians and colonial descendents are over-represented. This is another source of unease among the African natives who elected an overwhelming majority of their representatives to soar high like an African eagle intent on making bread and butter on their behalf. Instead they see their powerful African eagle’s wings getting clipped along the way even before she could get ahead in her mission. What effect will the clipping of the wings have on the flight speed and the flight path of the African eagle? Will the giant bird correctly achieve her mission? We have already seen the many great moves being made by the great Msholozi including the normalization of relations with Angola and the signing of trade agreements and hopefully the eagle will grow new wings.
Is Economic Transformation Important?
The answer depends on the premise of the apartheid system and what you believe to be the case. What was the modus operandi of apartheid? Was it its sole purpose to institute racism and discriminate against the African natives? The answer is no. The purpose of apartheid was never exclusively about racism and that has not changed even today. The premise of apartheid was about economic control designed to keep the African natives out of the mainstay of the economy and permanently deny them the bread and butter.
We know this because when the African worker in Bloemfontein finished working for die baas a vicious dog (trained to bite a Black person) was unleashed upon him to run as far as he could so that he didn’t even think twice about coming back to collect the money he had worked hard for. He arrived at his home empty handed with his tail between his legs. How was he able to explain to them why he didn’t have the bread he had promised to bring? Even if he tried to return another day to fetch the bread he would be met by the brutal apartheid police who were ready to throw him in jail or brutalize him even more. Only the White South Africans were supposed to enjoy the wealth of South Africa.
The institutionalization of racism was just a political infrastructure designed to make it easy to keep the Africans out of the finances and economics of the land. Racism was used as a painfully effective device of distraction and destruction. Unfortunately the African natives became fixated around the distraction of racism and developed a misguided view that the only reason apartheid existed was racism and if they abolished racism then everybody would live happily ever after.
Fifteen years after 1994 we have now learnt the hard way that apartheid was really about economics and racism was just a smokescreen. Mr. Malema has caught on to that concept of voodoo economics which is why he is intellectually challenging us to the debate of ideas around the issue of who controls the finances and economics of the land. This is not to say that the ANC leadership is oblivious to the fact. They have their strategy of dealing with the issue but the people on the ground are getting dazzled by the glaring light of discrepancy in terms of the control of the finances and economics.
The real apartheid is the economic apartheid which was never outlawed. It’s legal in South Africa today to keep an African native out of a finance department by spooking the African natives with such sorcery like “you are not qualified for the job” when in fact there are many African natives who are overqualified but are unemployed. Voodoo economics is used to keep an African native out of an economics department whereas this is where the bread and butter are. If they keep you out of the bread and butter then how are you going to explain to your children why you are not able to produce bread on the table?
Conclusion
Mr. Malema has drawn attention to the most fundamental issues of economic transformation and the need for the African natives to control their economic destiny. Right now that destiny is determined by others on their behalf and the constituency of Mr. Malema does not derive comfort out of that.
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 Indomitable Caster Semenya
Sunday, August 23, 2009
By Vusi Moloi © 2009
South Africa’s Caster Semenya, an 800m distance runner from a small African village of Limpopo Province, dominated women’s track and field with her lightening speed when she beat the world’s best to clinch a gold medal on day five of the Berlin Olympic Games of the International Association of Athletics Federations.
The powerful Kenyan queen of track and field and defending champion Janeth Jepkosgei was unable to match the explosive power and furious speed of Semenya given a jaw dropping distance in which the 18 year old Semenya broke new ground when she set a new record by an incredible 2.45 seconds. Semenya set the new time at 1:55:45 erasing historical records previously set.
The hard to believe athletic prowess and unique style of Semenya wowed the audience and was of such a flawless execution that it hit like a thunderbolt and by the time everything was said and done, Semenya was decked in her proud South African flag while her vanquished competitors were still gasping for air. Interestingly, she briefly showed off a graceful snake dance style flexing its fearsome muscles while looking into the audience in what was a soulful rendition to the African spirits of her beautiful motherland South Africa.
Banned From Addressing the Media
When her time came to bask in the limelight of her phenomenal victory and speak to the international media, she was whisked away and banned from speaking to the media by the IAAF officials who seemingly did not wish her well. This is when things began to take an ugly turn. The new African queen of track and field was now being treated like a suspect who somehow didn’t deserve to be accorded the rights and privileges of her hard won victory.
The English understandably wanted to see their English athlete Jennifer Meadows clinch the limelight but concocting stories that denied Semenya as a deserving female athlete was most cruel. Meadows, for her part, complained that no one in the world was capable of Semenya's athletic achievements and who is Meadows to tell us what African athletes are supposed to be capable of? This is the same line of thinking that has been shoved down our throat like Isaac Newton who tells us in Physics that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction even though he never tested every phenomenon to establish if that was the case.
Some English commentators went even further to suggest that Semenya was a man who had had a sex change to gain an unfair advantage. Since this writer is an African village boy and a goat herder, to have a sex change in an African village would be equivalent to going to the moon on a flying saucer powered by the lungs of a donkey. I don’t think anyone would go very far with that. The hurtful reports and comments leveled against the indomitable African queen were championed by the countries of England and Australia who represent the bastions of the White establishment.
The treatment of this young girl was harsh. Semenya is a young African girl who should have been rewarded and protected for exerting herself through hard work, self-discipline and exceeding the high standards she had set for herself in the tradition of her African village. Instead she has been exposed to a battery of mental cruelty and emotional trauma by the White establishment a harsh experience that she will forever remember as having exacted punishment for her work ethic. On the one hand the White establishment at the IAAF has upheld mediocrity and underperformance while on the other telling us of great rewards associated with hard work, sportsmanship and positive thinking. Even the feminists were not there to come to the defense of the African girl.
Gender Verification
In giving in to some strident demands that Semenya be subjected to gender verification testing, the IAAF has set a precedent in ordering Semenya to undergo this battery of cruel and humiliating gender verification tests even though her accusers could not advance any material evidence to back up their character assassinating claims. Moreover, IAAF is pressing ahead with these harsh tests despite a birth certificate which attests to her womanness. Another noteworthy fact is that the compulsory gender screenings by the IAAF were stopped in 1992 and Semenya is the first woman in more than fifteen years to be subjected to this scientifically unreliable procedure which is why it was stopped in the first place.
It was shocking that many English commentators believed that Semenya had no vagina and that she was hiding something between her legs which is why her shorts were different from others.
The English Yahoo Sport UK & Ireland Eurosport on August 21 published one of its reader's comments:
"...Caster Semenya is the fastest junior MAN in the world.-
Nobody should be surprised at the demanded gender test byt he IAAF - it so obviously is not a woman - a woman doesn't have an @#$% like that nor does she have a face like that or a lunch box joggling around in the shorts when she is running - UNMASK THAT TRANNY BLOKE NOW !!!"
The English publication itself had this to say about Semenya:
"20:40: Caster Semenya HAS DESTROYED THE FIELD - this South African is only 18 but has completely destroyed the opposition in a time of 1.55.46. The gender question will just get louder after a performance like this. BRONZE FOR JENNY MEADOWS OF BRITAIN - she came very late near the end to nick a medal ahead of Yuliya Krevsun of Ukraine and she very nearly got the silver ahead of Janeth Jepkosgei Busienei."
Notice how the beautiful queen Semenya is portrayed in a negative light of a destroyer and her gold medal is omitted while her loser English competitor Jennifer Meadows is recast in a positive light of an athlete who came from behind to clinch a medal even coming within a hair’s breadth of beating another African queen of track and field Janeth Jepkosgei Busienei. This voodoo style in which an enterprising attempt is designed to make us believe the unbelievable and accept the unacceptable is legendary in modern history where the English reign supreme. In fact the above description of Semenya echoes the stereotypical portrayal of an African descended woman in Hollywood movies where she is typically portrayed as angry, bitter, uncompromising, and acting like a man.
Gender Accusations Not New
Interestingly, the English media tell us that the IAAF is justified in subjecting Semenya to this prohibitively expensive gender verification process since other athletes like the Polish-American Stanisława Walasiewicz competed in women’s sports when she was a male. Well the fact is that the case of Stanisława Walasiewicz is special. The main casualties of the gender tests have been non-English athletes particularly those coming from socialist countries like Poland, USSR and Yugoslavia, among others.
Stanisława Walasiewicz is an exception because she embraced the English and their way of life to an extent that she changed her name to the English name of Stella Walsh. For her part she accused her competitor Helen Stephens (an English female athlete) as a man. Helen Stephens was a personal friend of a Black athlete and sports legend in his own right Jesse Owen. Some saw this relationship as an act of racial betrayal which led to Helen Stephens having to prove an obvious fact that she was a woman.
While the gender verification test carried out on Stephens established she was indeed a woman, the real truth came out when Stella Walsh was killed in an armed robbery crossfire where the autopsy revealed that Stella Walsh was in fact a male.
What is interesting in this case is that Stella Walsh was protected by the English establishment and she never had to undergo any gender verification test. Another famous case of protecting the English athletes from gender verification was that of Princess Anne of England who was exempted from undergoing a compulsory gender verification test for the Montreal Summer Olympic Games of 1976 while the non-English athletes were required to undergo the invasive procedure. Athletes like Santhi Soundarajan had their career destroyed by the pseudoscience of gender verification. Soundarajan went into deep depression where she attempted to take her life but bounced back with remarkable resilience. She is reported to be a successful coach who has established her own school where her athletes have won an impressive array of medals.
Intellectual Queen of Sports Science
Semenya is not only the ruling queen of track and field, this unconquerable young queen is also a brilliant mind of Sports Science at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. Semenya’s University of Pretoria and her professors and friends have been consistently supportive of her despite those who are working hard to vilify the new queen of track and field. Her parents, her village and roommates stand behind their legendary athlete who has rewritten the history books of track and field.
Conclusion
The new African champion and the indomitable African queen of track and field has unleashed her athletic prowess on the world stage and the White establishment does not know what to make of her. A stereotypical response characterized by colonial attitudes is both hurtful and regrettable in modern times. The time has arrived for the White establishment to smell the coffee and divest itself of colonial baggage towards the African queen Semenya and begin to treat her as an equal deserving of the rights and privileges of an irrefutable queen who has conquered the world with a strong support of her beautiful motherland South Africa.
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.
South Africa’s Caster Semenya, an 800m distance runner from a small African village of Limpopo Province, dominated women’s track and field with her lightening speed when she beat the world’s best to clinch a gold medal on day five of the Berlin Olympic Games of the International Association of Athletics Federations.
The powerful Kenyan queen of track and field and defending champion Janeth Jepkosgei was unable to match the explosive power and furious speed of Semenya given a jaw dropping distance in which the 18 year old Semenya broke new ground when she set a new record by an incredible 2.45 seconds. Semenya set the new time at 1:55:45 erasing historical records previously set.
The hard to believe athletic prowess and unique style of Semenya wowed the audience and was of such a flawless execution that it hit like a thunderbolt and by the time everything was said and done, Semenya was decked in her proud South African flag while her vanquished competitors were still gasping for air. Interestingly, she briefly showed off a graceful snake dance style flexing its fearsome muscles while looking into the audience in what was a soulful rendition to the African spirits of her beautiful motherland South Africa.
Banned From Addressing the Media
When her time came to bask in the limelight of her phenomenal victory and speak to the international media, she was whisked away and banned from speaking to the media by the IAAF officials who seemingly did not wish her well. This is when things began to take an ugly turn. The new African queen of track and field was now being treated like a suspect who somehow didn’t deserve to be accorded the rights and privileges of her hard won victory.
The English understandably wanted to see their English athlete Jennifer Meadows clinch the limelight but concocting stories that denied Semenya as a deserving female athlete was most cruel. Meadows, for her part, complained that no one in the world was capable of Semenya's athletic achievements and who is Meadows to tell us what African athletes are supposed to be capable of? This is the same line of thinking that has been shoved down our throat like Isaac Newton who tells us in Physics that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction even though he never tested every phenomenon to establish if that was the case.
Some English commentators went even further to suggest that Semenya was a man who had had a sex change to gain an unfair advantage. Since this writer is an African village boy and a goat herder, to have a sex change in an African village would be equivalent to going to the moon on a flying saucer powered by the lungs of a donkey. I don’t think anyone would go very far with that. The hurtful reports and comments leveled against the indomitable African queen were championed by the countries of England and Australia who represent the bastions of the White establishment.
The treatment of this young girl was harsh. Semenya is a young African girl who should have been rewarded and protected for exerting herself through hard work, self-discipline and exceeding the high standards she had set for herself in the tradition of her African village. Instead she has been exposed to a battery of mental cruelty and emotional trauma by the White establishment a harsh experience that she will forever remember as having exacted punishment for her work ethic. On the one hand the White establishment at the IAAF has upheld mediocrity and underperformance while on the other telling us of great rewards associated with hard work, sportsmanship and positive thinking. Even the feminists were not there to come to the defense of the African girl.
Gender Verification
In giving in to some strident demands that Semenya be subjected to gender verification testing, the IAAF has set a precedent in ordering Semenya to undergo this battery of cruel and humiliating gender verification tests even though her accusers could not advance any material evidence to back up their character assassinating claims. Moreover, IAAF is pressing ahead with these harsh tests despite a birth certificate which attests to her womanness. Another noteworthy fact is that the compulsory gender screenings by the IAAF were stopped in 1992 and Semenya is the first woman in more than fifteen years to be subjected to this scientifically unreliable procedure which is why it was stopped in the first place.
It was shocking that many English commentators believed that Semenya had no vagina and that she was hiding something between her legs which is why her shorts were different from others.
The English Yahoo Sport UK & Ireland Eurosport on August 21 published one of its reader's comments:
"...Caster Semenya is the fastest junior MAN in the world.-
Nobody should be surprised at the demanded gender test byt he IAAF - it so obviously is not a woman - a woman doesn't have an @#$% like that nor does she have a face like that or a lunch box joggling around in the shorts when she is running - UNMASK THAT TRANNY BLOKE NOW !!!"
The English publication itself had this to say about Semenya:
"20:40: Caster Semenya HAS DESTROYED THE FIELD - this South African is only 18 but has completely destroyed the opposition in a time of 1.55.46. The gender question will just get louder after a performance like this. BRONZE FOR JENNY MEADOWS OF BRITAIN - she came very late near the end to nick a medal ahead of Yuliya Krevsun of Ukraine and she very nearly got the silver ahead of Janeth Jepkosgei Busienei."
Notice how the beautiful queen Semenya is portrayed in a negative light of a destroyer and her gold medal is omitted while her loser English competitor Jennifer Meadows is recast in a positive light of an athlete who came from behind to clinch a medal even coming within a hair’s breadth of beating another African queen of track and field Janeth Jepkosgei Busienei. This voodoo style in which an enterprising attempt is designed to make us believe the unbelievable and accept the unacceptable is legendary in modern history where the English reign supreme. In fact the above description of Semenya echoes the stereotypical portrayal of an African descended woman in Hollywood movies where she is typically portrayed as angry, bitter, uncompromising, and acting like a man.
Gender Accusations Not New
Interestingly, the English media tell us that the IAAF is justified in subjecting Semenya to this prohibitively expensive gender verification process since other athletes like the Polish-American Stanisława Walasiewicz competed in women’s sports when she was a male. Well the fact is that the case of Stanisława Walasiewicz is special. The main casualties of the gender tests have been non-English athletes particularly those coming from socialist countries like Poland, USSR and Yugoslavia, among others.
Stanisława Walasiewicz is an exception because she embraced the English and their way of life to an extent that she changed her name to the English name of Stella Walsh. For her part she accused her competitor Helen Stephens (an English female athlete) as a man. Helen Stephens was a personal friend of a Black athlete and sports legend in his own right Jesse Owen. Some saw this relationship as an act of racial betrayal which led to Helen Stephens having to prove an obvious fact that she was a woman.
While the gender verification test carried out on Stephens established she was indeed a woman, the real truth came out when Stella Walsh was killed in an armed robbery crossfire where the autopsy revealed that Stella Walsh was in fact a male.
What is interesting in this case is that Stella Walsh was protected by the English establishment and she never had to undergo any gender verification test. Another famous case of protecting the English athletes from gender verification was that of Princess Anne of England who was exempted from undergoing a compulsory gender verification test for the Montreal Summer Olympic Games of 1976 while the non-English athletes were required to undergo the invasive procedure. Athletes like Santhi Soundarajan had their career destroyed by the pseudoscience of gender verification. Soundarajan went into deep depression where she attempted to take her life but bounced back with remarkable resilience. She is reported to be a successful coach who has established her own school where her athletes have won an impressive array of medals.
Intellectual Queen of Sports Science
Semenya is not only the ruling queen of track and field, this unconquerable young queen is also a brilliant mind of Sports Science at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. Semenya’s University of Pretoria and her professors and friends have been consistently supportive of her despite those who are working hard to vilify the new queen of track and field. Her parents, her village and roommates stand behind their legendary athlete who has rewritten the history books of track and field.
Conclusion
The new African champion and the indomitable African queen of track and field has unleashed her athletic prowess on the world stage and the White establishment does not know what to make of her. A stereotypical response characterized by colonial attitudes is both hurtful and regrettable in modern times. The time has arrived for the White establishment to smell the coffee and divest itself of colonial baggage towards the African queen Semenya and begin to treat her as an equal deserving of the rights and privileges of an irrefutable queen who has conquered the world with a strong support of her beautiful motherland South Africa.
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 Alzheimic Government
Saturday, August 15, 2009
By Vusi Moloi © 2009
When a beautiful and proud Canadian citizen Ms. Suaad Hagi Mohamud was refused entry into Canada by the Canadian authorities in Kenya it was yet another tragic example of how the Conservative Government of Mr. Steven Harper has singled out the people of African descent for denial of their Canadianess or entry into the beloved country of Canada.
Adversely Affected by Abrasive Policies
Needless to say Ms Mohamud’s life has been adversely affected by the abrasive policies of the Canadian gatekeepers even though her Somalian people are among the greatest contributing members of this great Canadian mosaic. Ms. Mohamud was eventually given her papers back and was scheduled to land in Toronto today. She is reported to be taking a legal recourse to sue the Canadian Government for over a million dollars.
Many Africans Denied Entry
Many Africans have been denied entry into Canada on a variety of flimsy grounds. The anti-African stance of Mr. Harper is regrettable considering how Canada has historically been a great friend of the African people.
Like a fire spitting dragon that spits harsh fire upon those it considers unworthy of entry, some Harper’s gatekeepers have consistently kept the Africans outside Canada including, among others, a great iconic figure of the South African freedom Ms. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela who was denied entry to pick up her award in Toronto. The denial of Ms. Madikizela flies in the face of business acumen because South Africa is the top country in terms of Canadian export business according to Statistics Canada. In fact South Africa beats Canada in bilateral trade by two to one according to the speech delivered by the South African High Commissioner in Canada His Excellency Dr. Abe Nkomo at the 2009 Freedom Day Celebrations in Toronto and backed by the 2007 figures of Statistics Canada.
Statistics Canada lists the following top ten countries in terms of the Africa Canada business as follows:
1. South Africa
2. Algeria
3. Egypt
4. Morocco
5. Sudan
6. Libya
7. Nigeria
8. Ghana
9. Tunisia
10. Angola
Interestingly, the Nigerian Government, among others, has taken a scaling back stance in response to Canada denying Africans entry into Canada citing diplomacy as a system based on reciprocity according to published reports attributed to the intrepid Ms. Ifeoma Jacinte Akabogu-Chinwuba, Acting High Commissioner of the Nigerian Embassy in Canada. Understandably the Nigerians couldn’t sit back in a state of inertia while one of their greatest minds was denied entry into Canada.
Dr. Michael Erhabor of the Tai Solarin University of Education in Nigeria was denied visa by the Canadian Government which prevented him from speaking at the 2008 Global Citizenship Education and Post-Secondary Institutions: Policies, Practices and Possibilities organized by the Canada's best University of Alberta. Considered one of Africa's great scholars, Dr. Erhabor was scheduled to deliver his paper Global Citizenship Education and University Administration: An Assessment of the Role of Centre for Human Rights and Gender Equality in Tai Solarin University of Education.
Poetic Tribute to Ms. Mohamud
The following poem The Alzheimic Government is dedicated to the beautiful Somalian heroine and a proud Canadian citizen Ms. Suaad Hagi Mohamud:
The Alzheimic Government
By Vusi Moloi © 2009
They had no knowledge of her
They did not know about her
They were unaware of her
To dismiss her like an imposter
To betray her via the arrestor
To be detained by the chains
For a crime that never was
Authenticity of the lips questioned
For a facelift that never was
To break her Canadian soul iconoclastic
To disown one of their own was Alzheimic
To impose the syntactic convoluted
To deny rightful entry was intended
Finally, her pain was chronicled
Which is why the outcry pinnacled
Hereafter to dismiss like imposter
Hitherto to instruct the arrestor
She was detained by the chains
That chafed her body with pains
They uncovered her like a forklift
In search of evidence of facelift
Now quarantined like infected
Halted by a charge concocted
Contextual Commentary
When a fire spitting dragon exhales harsh flames, it’s inevitable that the target will be singed. This was the case when a beautiful Canadian citizen Ms. Suaad Hagi Mohamud was subjected to the harsh blaze by the Canadian gatekeepers in Kenya. The Somalian heroine refused to succumb under the dragon’s rapid fire in accordance with a great Somalian tradition of indefatigable resistance, hitherto, inspired by their trailblazing foremothers and forefathers who have gone before them.
The Canadian fiery gatekeepers had intended to keep Ms. Mohamud out of Canada for the rest of her life. The Canadians in Kenya, who enjoy African hospitality, would rather become inhospitable to a beautiful daughter of the African soil in what was an antagonistic contradiction. Despite the rapid flames that threatened to scorch her from existence, Ms. Mohamud fought back like a gutsy heroine fighting a heavyweight fire spitting dragon. Her hard won victory is an inspiring model to the young girls coming after her that impossibility does not dictate surrender.
Vusi Moloi, The Indomitable Mongoose, Canada, 2009
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.
When a beautiful and proud Canadian citizen Ms. Suaad Hagi Mohamud was refused entry into Canada by the Canadian authorities in Kenya it was yet another tragic example of how the Conservative Government of Mr. Steven Harper has singled out the people of African descent for denial of their Canadianess or entry into the beloved country of Canada.
Adversely Affected by Abrasive Policies
Needless to say Ms Mohamud’s life has been adversely affected by the abrasive policies of the Canadian gatekeepers even though her Somalian people are among the greatest contributing members of this great Canadian mosaic. Ms. Mohamud was eventually given her papers back and was scheduled to land in Toronto today. She is reported to be taking a legal recourse to sue the Canadian Government for over a million dollars.
Many Africans Denied Entry
Many Africans have been denied entry into Canada on a variety of flimsy grounds. The anti-African stance of Mr. Harper is regrettable considering how Canada has historically been a great friend of the African people.
Like a fire spitting dragon that spits harsh fire upon those it considers unworthy of entry, some Harper’s gatekeepers have consistently kept the Africans outside Canada including, among others, a great iconic figure of the South African freedom Ms. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela who was denied entry to pick up her award in Toronto. The denial of Ms. Madikizela flies in the face of business acumen because South Africa is the top country in terms of Canadian export business according to Statistics Canada. In fact South Africa beats Canada in bilateral trade by two to one according to the speech delivered by the South African High Commissioner in Canada His Excellency Dr. Abe Nkomo at the 2009 Freedom Day Celebrations in Toronto and backed by the 2007 figures of Statistics Canada.
Statistics Canada lists the following top ten countries in terms of the Africa Canada business as follows:
1. South Africa
2. Algeria
3. Egypt
4. Morocco
5. Sudan
6. Libya
7. Nigeria
8. Ghana
9. Tunisia
10. Angola
Interestingly, the Nigerian Government, among others, has taken a scaling back stance in response to Canada denying Africans entry into Canada citing diplomacy as a system based on reciprocity according to published reports attributed to the intrepid Ms. Ifeoma Jacinte Akabogu-Chinwuba, Acting High Commissioner of the Nigerian Embassy in Canada. Understandably the Nigerians couldn’t sit back in a state of inertia while one of their greatest minds was denied entry into Canada.
Dr. Michael Erhabor of the Tai Solarin University of Education in Nigeria was denied visa by the Canadian Government which prevented him from speaking at the 2008 Global Citizenship Education and Post-Secondary Institutions: Policies, Practices and Possibilities organized by the Canada's best University of Alberta. Considered one of Africa's great scholars, Dr. Erhabor was scheduled to deliver his paper Global Citizenship Education and University Administration: An Assessment of the Role of Centre for Human Rights and Gender Equality in Tai Solarin University of Education.
Poetic Tribute to Ms. Mohamud
The following poem The Alzheimic Government is dedicated to the beautiful Somalian heroine and a proud Canadian citizen Ms. Suaad Hagi Mohamud:
The Alzheimic Government
By Vusi Moloi © 2009
They had no knowledge of her
They did not know about her
They were unaware of her
To dismiss her like an imposter
To betray her via the arrestor
To be detained by the chains
For a crime that never was
Authenticity of the lips questioned
For a facelift that never was
To break her Canadian soul iconoclastic
To disown one of their own was Alzheimic
To impose the syntactic convoluted
To deny rightful entry was intended
Finally, her pain was chronicled
Which is why the outcry pinnacled
Hereafter to dismiss like imposter
Hitherto to instruct the arrestor
She was detained by the chains
That chafed her body with pains
They uncovered her like a forklift
In search of evidence of facelift
Now quarantined like infected
Halted by a charge concocted
Contextual Commentary
When a fire spitting dragon exhales harsh flames, it’s inevitable that the target will be singed. This was the case when a beautiful Canadian citizen Ms. Suaad Hagi Mohamud was subjected to the harsh blaze by the Canadian gatekeepers in Kenya. The Somalian heroine refused to succumb under the dragon’s rapid fire in accordance with a great Somalian tradition of indefatigable resistance, hitherto, inspired by their trailblazing foremothers and forefathers who have gone before them.
The Canadian fiery gatekeepers had intended to keep Ms. Mohamud out of Canada for the rest of her life. The Canadians in Kenya, who enjoy African hospitality, would rather become inhospitable to a beautiful daughter of the African soil in what was an antagonistic contradiction. Despite the rapid flames that threatened to scorch her from existence, Ms. Mohamud fought back like a gutsy heroine fighting a heavyweight fire spitting dragon. Her hard won victory is an inspiring model to the young girls coming after her that impossibility does not dictate surrender.
Vusi Moloi, The Indomitable Mongoose, Canada, 2009
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.
Sequence Does Not Invalidate Judge Ngcobo
Saturday, August 08, 2009
By Vusi Moloi © 2009
South Africa’s opposition parties have come out with guns blazing to force the hand of President Jacob Zuma to drop his appointment of the Constitutional Judge Sandile Ngcobo as Chief Justice to replace Chief Justice Pious Langa when he retires later this year. In a joint statement issued on Friday this week on behalf of the DA (Democratic Alliance), COPE (Congress of the People) and ID (Independent Democrats) the statement referred to the South African Constitution Section 174(3) of Chapter 8 as “a critical constitutional requirement” central to the phrase “...after consulting the Judicial Service Commission and the leaders of parties represented in the National Assembly".
The Segment in Question
I reproduce this section in its entirety here:
“The President as head of the national executive, after consulting the Judicial Service Commission and the leaders of parties represented in the National Assembly, appoints the Chief Justice and the Deputy Chief Justice and, after consulting the Judicial Service Commission, appoints the President and Deputy President of the Supreme Court of Appeal.” You can access the entire Constitution of South Africa as follows:
South African Constitution
Analysis of the Segment
This writer has reviewed and analyzed the section of the Constitution in question and has found that the opposition parties are fixated on the sequence of the process and not on the constitutional requirement with respect to the eligibility, qualification, appointment and consultation with the members of parliament. They are really pulling wool over our face in a daring attempt to make us believe the unbelievable and accept the unacceptable.
In terms of the requirements President Zuma’s appointment has met them all in accordance with the constitution. However, in terms of the sequence (assuming his fax didn’t reach its destination in a timely manner) he would have reversed the order along the lines of the proverbial cart before the horse situation. The fundamental question is whether the requirements are fulfilled and in this case President Zuma has met the constitutional requirements.
Reversed Sequence Not an Infraction
The idea of reversing a sequence has never been viewed as an infraction of the constitution. When President Barack Obama was sworn in as the country's first Black President on January 20th this year, he reversed the order of the oath as a result of a prior reversal of the sequence by Chief Justice John Roberts. They didn’t have to redo the entire process and this didn't invalidate President Obama’s inauguration as the new President of the United States. That’s because the reversal of the sequence was not viewed as an infraction of the constitutional requirement.
The Canadian Constitution states the following with respect to the appointment of judges “The Governor General shall appoint the Judges of the Superior, District, and County Courts in each Province, except those of the Courts of Probate in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.” The Governor General does this with the recommendation of the Privy Council of which the executive branch is a subcommittee.
In the article Supreme Court of Canada Appointment Process published on the MapleLeafWeb.Com website Jay Makarenko tells us “In practice, however, only the current federal Cabinet, which is a subcommittee of the Privy Council, actually advises the Governor General on Supreme Court appointments. This is usually accomplished through consultation between the Governor General and the sitting Prime Minister.” You can access the Canadian Constitution as follows:
Canadian Constitution
The Sequence of Pizza
To help you appreciate the concept of sequence, imagine going to order pizza at a pizza restaurant. You stand in line like anyone else and await your turn to be served. This is a sequence. Suppose you or anyone decides to jump the queue (not recommended) and go straight to order from the counter ahead of others before him or her. This would not constitute a legal infraction. Even though the "constitution" of the pizza store states that customers must wait in line, they will not throw you out or incarcerate you for breaking the sequence of pizza ordering. This is a concept of sequence at its simplest.
Constitutional Challenge on Sequence Laughable
If the opposition was to challenge the legality of the appointment based on sequence, the judge would have a good laugh. I don’t believe the opposition will go that far. They are hoping to achieve two things i.e. (1) to intimidate President Zuma by testing his temperament and (2) to score political points with the voters as they push for the 2014 General Elections where they hope to collectively unseat President Zuma. The opposition has calculated that if they could kill the appointment of Constitutional Judge Ngcobo, they would have scored an impressive victory.
Conclusion
The fixation of the opposition parties on the sequence is like splitting hairs. When the motherland is crying out for those who seek to contribute to the wellbeing of others, the opposition parties choose to create a fictitious crisis and shine a spotlight on it. The sons and daughters of the beautiful motherland South Africa you know what you want, pick up your tools of the trade and serve the motherland like never before. The greatest thing is to be alive for as long as you are still alive you can change a lot of things. It’s in serving others that the good seed will germinate, grow and bear fruit.
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.
South Africa’s opposition parties have come out with guns blazing to force the hand of President Jacob Zuma to drop his appointment of the Constitutional Judge Sandile Ngcobo as Chief Justice to replace Chief Justice Pious Langa when he retires later this year. In a joint statement issued on Friday this week on behalf of the DA (Democratic Alliance), COPE (Congress of the People) and ID (Independent Democrats) the statement referred to the South African Constitution Section 174(3) of Chapter 8 as “a critical constitutional requirement” central to the phrase “...after consulting the Judicial Service Commission and the leaders of parties represented in the National Assembly".
The Segment in Question
I reproduce this section in its entirety here:
“The President as head of the national executive, after consulting the Judicial Service Commission and the leaders of parties represented in the National Assembly, appoints the Chief Justice and the Deputy Chief Justice and, after consulting the Judicial Service Commission, appoints the President and Deputy President of the Supreme Court of Appeal.” You can access the entire Constitution of South Africa as follows:
South African Constitution
Analysis of the Segment
This writer has reviewed and analyzed the section of the Constitution in question and has found that the opposition parties are fixated on the sequence of the process and not on the constitutional requirement with respect to the eligibility, qualification, appointment and consultation with the members of parliament. They are really pulling wool over our face in a daring attempt to make us believe the unbelievable and accept the unacceptable.
In terms of the requirements President Zuma’s appointment has met them all in accordance with the constitution. However, in terms of the sequence (assuming his fax didn’t reach its destination in a timely manner) he would have reversed the order along the lines of the proverbial cart before the horse situation. The fundamental question is whether the requirements are fulfilled and in this case President Zuma has met the constitutional requirements.
Reversed Sequence Not an Infraction
The idea of reversing a sequence has never been viewed as an infraction of the constitution. When President Barack Obama was sworn in as the country's first Black President on January 20th this year, he reversed the order of the oath as a result of a prior reversal of the sequence by Chief Justice John Roberts. They didn’t have to redo the entire process and this didn't invalidate President Obama’s inauguration as the new President of the United States. That’s because the reversal of the sequence was not viewed as an infraction of the constitutional requirement.
The Canadian Constitution states the following with respect to the appointment of judges “The Governor General shall appoint the Judges of the Superior, District, and County Courts in each Province, except those of the Courts of Probate in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.” The Governor General does this with the recommendation of the Privy Council of which the executive branch is a subcommittee.
In the article Supreme Court of Canada Appointment Process published on the MapleLeafWeb.Com website Jay Makarenko tells us “In practice, however, only the current federal Cabinet, which is a subcommittee of the Privy Council, actually advises the Governor General on Supreme Court appointments. This is usually accomplished through consultation between the Governor General and the sitting Prime Minister.” You can access the Canadian Constitution as follows:
Canadian Constitution
The Sequence of Pizza
To help you appreciate the concept of sequence, imagine going to order pizza at a pizza restaurant. You stand in line like anyone else and await your turn to be served. This is a sequence. Suppose you or anyone decides to jump the queue (not recommended) and go straight to order from the counter ahead of others before him or her. This would not constitute a legal infraction. Even though the "constitution" of the pizza store states that customers must wait in line, they will not throw you out or incarcerate you for breaking the sequence of pizza ordering. This is a concept of sequence at its simplest.
Constitutional Challenge on Sequence Laughable
If the opposition was to challenge the legality of the appointment based on sequence, the judge would have a good laugh. I don’t believe the opposition will go that far. They are hoping to achieve two things i.e. (1) to intimidate President Zuma by testing his temperament and (2) to score political points with the voters as they push for the 2014 General Elections where they hope to collectively unseat President Zuma. The opposition has calculated that if they could kill the appointment of Constitutional Judge Ngcobo, they would have scored an impressive victory.
Conclusion
The fixation of the opposition parties on the sequence is like splitting hairs. When the motherland is crying out for those who seek to contribute to the wellbeing of others, the opposition parties choose to create a fictitious crisis and shine a spotlight on it. The sons and daughters of the beautiful motherland South Africa you know what you want, pick up your tools of the trade and serve the motherland like never before. The greatest thing is to be alive for as long as you are still alive you can change a lot of things. It’s in serving others that the good seed will germinate, grow and bear fruit.
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 Obvious
By Vusi Moloi © 2009
The pieces were scrambled
The task was rearranging
The doable attracted attention
Prompted by the obvious
A hidden convolution was elusive
Like a slithering snake in the grass
To make him sweat for the unproductive
To slow him down with the syntactic
To regain virginity of impervious
After deflowering by the obvious
Swift recovery like ballistic
Is minimized by the syntactic
To fragment the roots after deflowering
A golden finish begins to fade like brass
Having lost anchoring on the ground
The daring attempts at recovery
Curtailed by syntactic artillery
To solve the puzzling is inviting
Despite the clouds gathering ashore
Contextual Commentary
When the parched ground of the great Kalahari unexpectedly gets wet, the most obvious reaction of the desert flower Mponeng is to want to come out of the underground by breaking through the wet patch. Until she decides the right course of action, the ambiguity of the new ground subdues her initially enthused spirits. As she struggles to disambiguate the puzzling situation, her life hangs in the balance of wanting to be or not to be on the surface. The gravitational pull of the obvious is sometimes too powerful to resist the temptation of exiting the safety of the underground. Nonetheless, she must consider the stringent consequences associated with believing the unbelievable and accepting the unacceptable. It is for this reason that she must trust her instincts and remain underground until she has complied with the painstaking process of disambiguation. By postponing self-gratification for future success, she becomes resilient and strengthens her readiness for the coming rain.
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 pieces were scrambled
The task was rearranging
The doable attracted attention
Prompted by the obvious
A hidden convolution was elusive
Like a slithering snake in the grass
To make him sweat for the unproductive
To slow him down with the syntactic
To regain virginity of impervious
After deflowering by the obvious
Swift recovery like ballistic
Is minimized by the syntactic
To fragment the roots after deflowering
A golden finish begins to fade like brass
Having lost anchoring on the ground
The daring attempts at recovery
Curtailed by syntactic artillery
To solve the puzzling is inviting
Despite the clouds gathering ashore
Contextual Commentary
When the parched ground of the great Kalahari unexpectedly gets wet, the most obvious reaction of the desert flower Mponeng is to want to come out of the underground by breaking through the wet patch. Until she decides the right course of action, the ambiguity of the new ground subdues her initially enthused spirits. As she struggles to disambiguate the puzzling situation, her life hangs in the balance of wanting to be or not to be on the surface. The gravitational pull of the obvious is sometimes too powerful to resist the temptation of exiting the safety of the underground. Nonetheless, she must consider the stringent consequences associated with believing the unbelievable and accepting the unacceptable. It is for this reason that she must trust her instincts and remain underground until she has complied with the painstaking process of disambiguation. By postponing self-gratification for future success, she becomes resilient and strengthens her readiness for the coming rain.
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.
Moving Mountains
Friday, August 07, 2009
By Vusi Moloi © 2009
I have observed a variety of people carry out an energized debate with good intentions of convincing or helping the other party to see the light of day. A debate of ideas is a democratic and intellectual exercise especially when carried out in an atmosphere of civility, mutual interest and mutual respect. Debates are even more interesting when participants command the breadth and depth of expertise in their subject of discussion within a confine of intellectual honesty. In order to succeed we must be bounded by two simple principles which define success i.e. the purpose of the debate and the measuring of the outcome.
The Purpose
Suppose our goal is to move the mountain. We consistently, methodically and meticulously apply the pressure needed to move the mountain. It’s hard to move the mountain but we do it anyways by exerting the right pressure knowing full well that success is not measured by the outside but rather by the inside. If we are genuine and honestly feel that we are exerting the right pressure according to the laws of physics and to the best of our ability, we are doing well. What happens when the mountain does not move? We shift gears to the second strategy which is measuring the outcome.
Measuring the Outcome
We resort to the strategy of measuring the outcome of our actions in order to verify our best intentions and confirm whether we are still within the confines of intellectual honesty. If we did move the mountain great but if we didn't too bad but we move on. Did we fail? Not really. We define failure to mean using our strength sparingly when we should be maximizing it in order to impact the object.
In this case we didn't have enough horsepower to move the mountain. Maybe this mountain needs a thousand horses and we only had a small fraction of a famished hoarse. We didn’t choose our horsepower or the hoarse; it was given to us. We must be content with that. If we possessed the superhuman strength of a thousand horses and used it maximally and the mountain was still not interested in moving, the mountain would invent other sophisticated ways of defeating our efforts such as rolling rocks upon us and thereafter convince us that it was an Act of God effectively ending the exercise. Either way it was a lost cause and we should have exited the situation upon a quick realization that the mountain had no intentions of being moved.
The Moral of the Story
Any self-respecting debater must have a specific and measurable goal. This will help to leverage one’s unique talents and maximize the efficacy of debating skills. If the person being debated is not interested in considering another view, it's tantamount to moving a mountain as demonstrated above which has no interest in being moved anyways. The debater must know when enough is enough and move on to better things. There are rocks or boulders out there that are interested in being moved. Your energy is better spent there than with a mountain that wastes your energy like a bottomless pit.
Discussion
When we feel energized and ready to engage in a debate of ideas, we should be grateful because we have the strength, the fortitude, the energy and the interest that feels like sunshine. The days are coming when this will not be the case because the sunshine will be gone. Moreover, energy is a scarce resource and will not always be there. The time will come when we shall be disinterested and less energized by what we previously found engaging.
It’s for this reason that we must follow the rules of the African jungle which says that pick the fruit that is closest to the ground so that you will have the energy for the one up the tree.
Resist the easy and popular temptation of following a marketing or advertising strategy which cares less about what we think or feel but is more interested in selling us what we don’t need i.e. salad dressing. Do you think you need salad dressing? I don’t think so. You need the salad but not the dressing. The dressing is a fabrication that dresses up the old salad so that you can accept the unacceptable and believe the unbelievable. That’s why in the African jungle there is no salad dressing because it’s not relevant to your survival requirements. Salad dressing is only relevant to the bottom line of the company’s balance sheets.
In a poem To Convince or Not To Convince the concept of convincing is explored as follows:
“Excessive salt on dried fish
Excessive fat on dried meat
Excessive sugar on dried cookies
To convince you of the fish
To convince you of the meat
To convince you of the cookies” Moloi, Vusi A Goodbye To My Little Troubles, Arizona, 2007.
The English word convince came from Latin and meant to conquer. Are you debating because your goal is to conquer? If so then this is the wrong motivation that detracts from the credibility of the discussion. Ideas are like water; they always find the best way to flow. Let the ideas flow by themselves and good ideas will plant a seed of good in the hearts of some.
The African languages like Zulu or Sesotho in South Africa don’t have a word like convince. Those languages are closer to the natural environment than an English language. In fact the word convince exists in order to make someone believe the unbelievable and accept the unacceptable. When you find yourself attempting to convince another person, you are engaging in a situation where you are going against the resistance like advertising. Advertising and marketing don’t exist in a natural environment like the African jungle because there is nothing to advertise or market. Imagine trying to sell advertising to the lion about some patch that has gazelles. The lion would be convinced that you are a gazelle in disguise and eat you at which point you become dead meat.
Conclusion
A goal oriented debater is efficient because is guided by purpose and measurable outcome. The goal of the debate together with the measuring of the outcome helps to save our energy for much better and more constructive debates. The mountain that refuses to be moved will never be moved and that is an immutable fact. Next time you debate, ask yourself: Is this mountain interested in being moved? If not, collect your poise and run as fast as you can before you lose your sunshine. There are better minds out there ready to be moved and that's where you should be concentrating your valuable effort.
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.
I have observed a variety of people carry out an energized debate with good intentions of convincing or helping the other party to see the light of day. A debate of ideas is a democratic and intellectual exercise especially when carried out in an atmosphere of civility, mutual interest and mutual respect. Debates are even more interesting when participants command the breadth and depth of expertise in their subject of discussion within a confine of intellectual honesty. In order to succeed we must be bounded by two simple principles which define success i.e. the purpose of the debate and the measuring of the outcome.
The Purpose
Suppose our goal is to move the mountain. We consistently, methodically and meticulously apply the pressure needed to move the mountain. It’s hard to move the mountain but we do it anyways by exerting the right pressure knowing full well that success is not measured by the outside but rather by the inside. If we are genuine and honestly feel that we are exerting the right pressure according to the laws of physics and to the best of our ability, we are doing well. What happens when the mountain does not move? We shift gears to the second strategy which is measuring the outcome.
Measuring the Outcome
We resort to the strategy of measuring the outcome of our actions in order to verify our best intentions and confirm whether we are still within the confines of intellectual honesty. If we did move the mountain great but if we didn't too bad but we move on. Did we fail? Not really. We define failure to mean using our strength sparingly when we should be maximizing it in order to impact the object.
In this case we didn't have enough horsepower to move the mountain. Maybe this mountain needs a thousand horses and we only had a small fraction of a famished hoarse. We didn’t choose our horsepower or the hoarse; it was given to us. We must be content with that. If we possessed the superhuman strength of a thousand horses and used it maximally and the mountain was still not interested in moving, the mountain would invent other sophisticated ways of defeating our efforts such as rolling rocks upon us and thereafter convince us that it was an Act of God effectively ending the exercise. Either way it was a lost cause and we should have exited the situation upon a quick realization that the mountain had no intentions of being moved.
The Moral of the Story
Any self-respecting debater must have a specific and measurable goal. This will help to leverage one’s unique talents and maximize the efficacy of debating skills. If the person being debated is not interested in considering another view, it's tantamount to moving a mountain as demonstrated above which has no interest in being moved anyways. The debater must know when enough is enough and move on to better things. There are rocks or boulders out there that are interested in being moved. Your energy is better spent there than with a mountain that wastes your energy like a bottomless pit.
Discussion
When we feel energized and ready to engage in a debate of ideas, we should be grateful because we have the strength, the fortitude, the energy and the interest that feels like sunshine. The days are coming when this will not be the case because the sunshine will be gone. Moreover, energy is a scarce resource and will not always be there. The time will come when we shall be disinterested and less energized by what we previously found engaging.
It’s for this reason that we must follow the rules of the African jungle which says that pick the fruit that is closest to the ground so that you will have the energy for the one up the tree.
Resist the easy and popular temptation of following a marketing or advertising strategy which cares less about what we think or feel but is more interested in selling us what we don’t need i.e. salad dressing. Do you think you need salad dressing? I don’t think so. You need the salad but not the dressing. The dressing is a fabrication that dresses up the old salad so that you can accept the unacceptable and believe the unbelievable. That’s why in the African jungle there is no salad dressing because it’s not relevant to your survival requirements. Salad dressing is only relevant to the bottom line of the company’s balance sheets.
In a poem To Convince or Not To Convince the concept of convincing is explored as follows:
“Excessive salt on dried fish
Excessive fat on dried meat
Excessive sugar on dried cookies
To convince you of the fish
To convince you of the meat
To convince you of the cookies” Moloi, Vusi A Goodbye To My Little Troubles, Arizona, 2007.
The English word convince came from Latin and meant to conquer. Are you debating because your goal is to conquer? If so then this is the wrong motivation that detracts from the credibility of the discussion. Ideas are like water; they always find the best way to flow. Let the ideas flow by themselves and good ideas will plant a seed of good in the hearts of some.
The African languages like Zulu or Sesotho in South Africa don’t have a word like convince. Those languages are closer to the natural environment than an English language. In fact the word convince exists in order to make someone believe the unbelievable and accept the unacceptable. When you find yourself attempting to convince another person, you are engaging in a situation where you are going against the resistance like advertising. Advertising and marketing don’t exist in a natural environment like the African jungle because there is nothing to advertise or market. Imagine trying to sell advertising to the lion about some patch that has gazelles. The lion would be convinced that you are a gazelle in disguise and eat you at which point you become dead meat.
Conclusion
A goal oriented debater is efficient because is guided by purpose and measurable outcome. The goal of the debate together with the measuring of the outcome helps to save our energy for much better and more constructive debates. The mountain that refuses to be moved will never be moved and that is an immutable fact. Next time you debate, ask yourself: Is this mountain interested in being moved? If not, collect your poise and run as fast as you can before you lose your sunshine. There are better minds out there ready to be moved and that's where you should be concentrating your valuable effort.
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.
Their Patience Is Not Endless
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
By Vusi Moloi © 2009
South Africa’s City Press Newspaper has published a shocking revelation that South Africa’s opposition parties like DA (Democratic Alliance), COPE (Congress of the People) and others have held at least two secrete meetings in which concrete talks were focused on formulating an anti-ANC front designed to unseat the ANC during the 2014 Provincial and National Elections after gaining momentum in the 2011 Local Government Elections. In the article Zille and Shilowa Plot New Anti-ANC Front published on Sunday the City Press is in possession of the minutes of the meetings that took place in Cape Town on July 21 and another that took place on July 7 in an undisclosed location.
A vehement defender of the white establishment, the DA boasts a powerful financial backing and seeks to use COPE as a political instrument of Black mobilization in order to drive a wedge between the ANC and its core base.
An Arranged Polygamist Marriage
The calculation is to foster an arranged marriage in which DA is the polygamist husband and COPE is the chief wife while other smaller parties like UDM (United Democratic Movement) and others are junior wives who get married into such an arrangement for purposes of concocting a witchcraft mix that poses a deadly threat to the administration of President Jacob Zuma.
The charismatic and charming President Zuma was swept to power three months ago by his economically disenfranchised African natives who saw him as a true and loyal vanguard of their grass roots economic aspirations after those whom they had elected to serve their interests jumped ship to form COPE, the new nemesis of the ANC.
To Inflict Backstabbing Wounds
Instead of focusing on working with the Government of the day to expedite delivery of basic services to the historically disadvantaged majority in the spirit of Ubuntu and the rainbow nation, the DA and COPE see the suffering of the people as an opportunistic window to inflict backstabbing wounds on the ruling party in what appears to be a calculated risk.
News24 interviews Helen Zille from News24Video of Youtube
Can this work? Can the financial muscles of a White based DA and a politically disaffected COPE (led by ANC defectors) command the credibility that will sway the African majority in their favour? Both parties collectively enjoy nearly a quarter of the vote estimated at four million votes.
Frost Over The World - Mosiuoa Lekota - Nov 21 - Part 1 - from AlJazeeraEnglish of Youtube
Grassroots Economics
First, let’s understand the situation of the African natives on the ground. When freedom arrived in 1994 which ended brutal apartheid many believed that the time had come to live a better life. For the most part, that time came and went without producing any material change on their lives while their former oppressors continued to enjoy legally protected privileges.
Fifteen years is a very long time to wait for something that never comes. Even rain eventually comes down while the rain clouds of economic emancipation remain an empty threat. Currently more than 50 000 White farmers enjoy an exclusive stranglehold on more than three quarters of the food producing land while many African mothers and their children scratch the dusty ground for food. The extreme suffering from the deplorable grassroots economic conditions, has only served to catapult the economically disenfranchised African majority into action as demonstrated by a variety of political actions on the ground in recent times.
Arrested Development of 1994
The ANC has been consistently working to improve the lives of the people on the ground but has gotten stymied by voodoo economics of contractual agreements that were guaranteed in 1994 and stipulated, among others, that the bureaucrats of the apartheid administration must be retained. In a case where they needed to be removed, they had to be given prohibitively expensive gold parachutes to cushion the blow of forced landing.
The Administration of Mr. Mandela walked that path but backed off after a harsh realization that the billions of dollars in payouts were bankrupting the young democratic country. The regrettable alternative was to let the status quo be and hope that things would change by themselves. As it turned out under the highly skilled and Western trained economist President Thabo Mbeki who ruled between 1999 and 2008 the South African economic milieu had no intrinsic desire to change by itself unless there was someone willing to drive a fundamental change. As a corollary the many promises of 1994 became an arrested development.
Interestingly, the African natives and their leaders psychologically find themselves in a state of arrested development or self-effacing state of inertia where they are too tentative to take what is rightfully theirs. Somehow (through colonial indoctrination using religion and rule of law) they are not aware that if they marched and took what is theirs, the new generation of former colonial powers would understand and morally support those initiatives because the African sons and daughters would be taking what is rightfully theirs. This sentiment has been expressed to this writer by many young Caucasians. It's the old folks who still want to maintain the status quo.
The New Era of Charismatic Msholozi
Now enter the new era of the charismatic Msholozi who pushed aside the less than bold Mbeki and threw his Umshini Wami gauntlet into the fray by vowing to bring about the much needed change which led to his sweeping victory in the last elections.
Some elements of South Africa’s white establishment are uncomfortable about the strong mandate received by President Jacob Zuma and would like to get his wings clipped. To achieve this the white based DA, under the leadership of the strident and confrontational Helen Zille, has embarked on the path of forging an alliance or possibly one political party as previously illustrated with a polygamist marriage in order to work for the demise of the administration of Jacob Zuma.
Their strategy seeks to create many speed bumps on Zuma’s rapid transit of economic change in order to slow down the already slow pace of economic change. By rolling and throwing hurdles at the existing aggravation of grassroots economic conditions (i.e. frustrating delivery services through under spending), the DA’s death wish is to create faults in the core base of the ANC.
Is this possible? Theoretically yes but practically no and here is why.
The Teachings of the African Jungle
The answer lies in the African jungle where the need to survive is the supreme law of self-preservation. An African fly commonly known as drosophila has often times been faced with a situation of attempting to carve out a home in a plant using its rich and diverse nutrients.
Some evil plant that seeks to repel and discourage the drosophila from enjoying the fruits of the African motherland releases toxins to dislodge and even kill the bold insect that ventures far enough to the tasty reserves. The modus operandi of the toxic plant is to keep the tasty and nourishing nutrients away from those who need them the most.
The African fly has seen and counted the casualties of this great struggle including injured and dead bodies of those who have tried and failed to access the food reserves of the plant. What does this African fly do?
One of the things that happens in the African jungle is that if an organism feels threatened by some threat it must modify its behaviour to avoid the source of that threat. In this case the African fly can walk away in order to eke out some inferior lifestyle elsewhere. Well not quite. The African fly does not accept that. The African fly views this antagonistic situation as a special case where avoidance is not an option but rather an opportunity to mobilize its body mechanisms to either eliminate or render the threat useless by developing resistance to it.
He fights back by continuously attacking the plant and developing immunity against its toxins in the process. He gobbles up the toxins and internally converts them into antibodies that help him to defy and prevail over the toxins. If he dies, those who come after him are even stronger and in better shape to take on the toxic plant from a fresh angle. If they persist long enough by sustaining their struggle, the African fly eventually becomes like a god who now enjoys privileged access to the food of the gods otherwise known as ambrosia. Not only has the African drosophila solved the impossibility by upholding the supreme law of self-preservation but has gone on to conquer the whole world.
Why African Fly Follows this Strategy?
The African drosophila felt that it was cornered by lack of access to food reserves of the plant and that behavioural avoidance through brainwashing was not an option but had to face the toxic plant with a view to resisting its killer toxins. As a consequence, the fly has developed natural defense mechanisms that effectively render it immune from the toxicity of the killer plants. In fact, as the plant increases its toxic effects, the African fly gets even better at defending its territory making it a home to raise its babies and the future generation.
The moral of the story is that inventing ways of economic exclusion by making the political environment toxic for those who seek to gain their rightful access to the economy (currently reserved for the white establishment) is not sustainable over the long term. Moreover, the patience of the people is not endless as they agitate and seek ways and means of gaining forcible access to what is otherwise their inalienable right to enjoy the natural wealth of their native land given to them by their foremothers and forefathers.
Conclusion
The DA and COPE have raised the stakes and stoked new fires by opening a new front in the great struggle between those who seek to halt the wheels of economic emancipation vis-à-vis those who have nothing to lose but their crushing chains that perpetuate their extreme suffering. The African fly has demonstrated that determination, consistency, adaptation and boldness can overcome the impossible and make it possible to build a better future for the new generation.
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.
South Africa’s City Press Newspaper has published a shocking revelation that South Africa’s opposition parties like DA (Democratic Alliance), COPE (Congress of the People) and others have held at least two secrete meetings in which concrete talks were focused on formulating an anti-ANC front designed to unseat the ANC during the 2014 Provincial and National Elections after gaining momentum in the 2011 Local Government Elections. In the article Zille and Shilowa Plot New Anti-ANC Front published on Sunday the City Press is in possession of the minutes of the meetings that took place in Cape Town on July 21 and another that took place on July 7 in an undisclosed location.
A vehement defender of the white establishment, the DA boasts a powerful financial backing and seeks to use COPE as a political instrument of Black mobilization in order to drive a wedge between the ANC and its core base.
An Arranged Polygamist Marriage
The calculation is to foster an arranged marriage in which DA is the polygamist husband and COPE is the chief wife while other smaller parties like UDM (United Democratic Movement) and others are junior wives who get married into such an arrangement for purposes of concocting a witchcraft mix that poses a deadly threat to the administration of President Jacob Zuma.
The charismatic and charming President Zuma was swept to power three months ago by his economically disenfranchised African natives who saw him as a true and loyal vanguard of their grass roots economic aspirations after those whom they had elected to serve their interests jumped ship to form COPE, the new nemesis of the ANC.
To Inflict Backstabbing Wounds
Instead of focusing on working with the Government of the day to expedite delivery of basic services to the historically disadvantaged majority in the spirit of Ubuntu and the rainbow nation, the DA and COPE see the suffering of the people as an opportunistic window to inflict backstabbing wounds on the ruling party in what appears to be a calculated risk.
News24 interviews Helen Zille from News24Video of Youtube
Can this work? Can the financial muscles of a White based DA and a politically disaffected COPE (led by ANC defectors) command the credibility that will sway the African majority in their favour? Both parties collectively enjoy nearly a quarter of the vote estimated at four million votes.
Frost Over The World - Mosiuoa Lekota - Nov 21 - Part 1 - from AlJazeeraEnglish of Youtube
Grassroots Economics
First, let’s understand the situation of the African natives on the ground. When freedom arrived in 1994 which ended brutal apartheid many believed that the time had come to live a better life. For the most part, that time came and went without producing any material change on their lives while their former oppressors continued to enjoy legally protected privileges.
Fifteen years is a very long time to wait for something that never comes. Even rain eventually comes down while the rain clouds of economic emancipation remain an empty threat. Currently more than 50 000 White farmers enjoy an exclusive stranglehold on more than three quarters of the food producing land while many African mothers and their children scratch the dusty ground for food. The extreme suffering from the deplorable grassroots economic conditions, has only served to catapult the economically disenfranchised African majority into action as demonstrated by a variety of political actions on the ground in recent times.
Arrested Development of 1994
The ANC has been consistently working to improve the lives of the people on the ground but has gotten stymied by voodoo economics of contractual agreements that were guaranteed in 1994 and stipulated, among others, that the bureaucrats of the apartheid administration must be retained. In a case where they needed to be removed, they had to be given prohibitively expensive gold parachutes to cushion the blow of forced landing.
The Administration of Mr. Mandela walked that path but backed off after a harsh realization that the billions of dollars in payouts were bankrupting the young democratic country. The regrettable alternative was to let the status quo be and hope that things would change by themselves. As it turned out under the highly skilled and Western trained economist President Thabo Mbeki who ruled between 1999 and 2008 the South African economic milieu had no intrinsic desire to change by itself unless there was someone willing to drive a fundamental change. As a corollary the many promises of 1994 became an arrested development.
Interestingly, the African natives and their leaders psychologically find themselves in a state of arrested development or self-effacing state of inertia where they are too tentative to take what is rightfully theirs. Somehow (through colonial indoctrination using religion and rule of law) they are not aware that if they marched and took what is theirs, the new generation of former colonial powers would understand and morally support those initiatives because the African sons and daughters would be taking what is rightfully theirs. This sentiment has been expressed to this writer by many young Caucasians. It's the old folks who still want to maintain the status quo.
The New Era of Charismatic Msholozi
Now enter the new era of the charismatic Msholozi who pushed aside the less than bold Mbeki and threw his Umshini Wami gauntlet into the fray by vowing to bring about the much needed change which led to his sweeping victory in the last elections.
Some elements of South Africa’s white establishment are uncomfortable about the strong mandate received by President Jacob Zuma and would like to get his wings clipped. To achieve this the white based DA, under the leadership of the strident and confrontational Helen Zille, has embarked on the path of forging an alliance or possibly one political party as previously illustrated with a polygamist marriage in order to work for the demise of the administration of Jacob Zuma.
Their strategy seeks to create many speed bumps on Zuma’s rapid transit of economic change in order to slow down the already slow pace of economic change. By rolling and throwing hurdles at the existing aggravation of grassroots economic conditions (i.e. frustrating delivery services through under spending), the DA’s death wish is to create faults in the core base of the ANC.
Is this possible? Theoretically yes but practically no and here is why.
The Teachings of the African Jungle
The answer lies in the African jungle where the need to survive is the supreme law of self-preservation. An African fly commonly known as drosophila has often times been faced with a situation of attempting to carve out a home in a plant using its rich and diverse nutrients.
Some evil plant that seeks to repel and discourage the drosophila from enjoying the fruits of the African motherland releases toxins to dislodge and even kill the bold insect that ventures far enough to the tasty reserves. The modus operandi of the toxic plant is to keep the tasty and nourishing nutrients away from those who need them the most.
The African fly has seen and counted the casualties of this great struggle including injured and dead bodies of those who have tried and failed to access the food reserves of the plant. What does this African fly do?
One of the things that happens in the African jungle is that if an organism feels threatened by some threat it must modify its behaviour to avoid the source of that threat. In this case the African fly can walk away in order to eke out some inferior lifestyle elsewhere. Well not quite. The African fly does not accept that. The African fly views this antagonistic situation as a special case where avoidance is not an option but rather an opportunity to mobilize its body mechanisms to either eliminate or render the threat useless by developing resistance to it.
He fights back by continuously attacking the plant and developing immunity against its toxins in the process. He gobbles up the toxins and internally converts them into antibodies that help him to defy and prevail over the toxins. If he dies, those who come after him are even stronger and in better shape to take on the toxic plant from a fresh angle. If they persist long enough by sustaining their struggle, the African fly eventually becomes like a god who now enjoys privileged access to the food of the gods otherwise known as ambrosia. Not only has the African drosophila solved the impossibility by upholding the supreme law of self-preservation but has gone on to conquer the whole world.
Why African Fly Follows this Strategy?
The African drosophila felt that it was cornered by lack of access to food reserves of the plant and that behavioural avoidance through brainwashing was not an option but had to face the toxic plant with a view to resisting its killer toxins. As a consequence, the fly has developed natural defense mechanisms that effectively render it immune from the toxicity of the killer plants. In fact, as the plant increases its toxic effects, the African fly gets even better at defending its territory making it a home to raise its babies and the future generation.
The moral of the story is that inventing ways of economic exclusion by making the political environment toxic for those who seek to gain their rightful access to the economy (currently reserved for the white establishment) is not sustainable over the long term. Moreover, the patience of the people is not endless as they agitate and seek ways and means of gaining forcible access to what is otherwise their inalienable right to enjoy the natural wealth of their native land given to them by their foremothers and forefathers.
Conclusion
The DA and COPE have raised the stakes and stoked new fires by opening a new front in the great struggle between those who seek to halt the wheels of economic emancipation vis-à-vis those who have nothing to lose but their crushing chains that perpetuate their extreme suffering. The African fly has demonstrated that determination, consistency, adaptation and boldness can overcome the impossible and make it possible to build a better future for the new generation.
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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