The ANC and Ideology – I

It’s strange how even the best of intentions can produce results contrary to what was planned.

It’s also strange how the most meticulous planning and foresight can fail to predict outcomes at variance with what the planners had hoped to achieve.

Strange, too, is the fact that the more motivated and inspired the planner the more likely is the plan to go awry and the less likely the planner is to admit that the plan is not working.

The more ideologically pure is the plan then the more likely it is to come off the rails. The world is noted for its penchant to inject varying degrees of reality into the best thought-out and executed of Man’s schemes, dousing dreams with hefty sluices of ice-cold sanity. There are always those, however, who – regardless of the teeth-chattering shivers and goose bumps of the Arctic chills of real life – will persist in their cherished and cockeyed perceptions of the world as they believe it should be. Like the KFC advert in South Africa, showing two grown men sitting on a park bench in the depths of winter, both consuming some iced KFC confection and progressively shedding items of their warm winter clothes (down to their underwear), each seeking to show the other that he is not cold and is, in fact, quite warm, thank you very much, the ideologues and the proud will go to almost any lengths to deny the existence of the reality of the situation they find themselves in.

Recent South African history has more than its fair share of such idiocy.

The episodes earlier this year of xenophobic violence between different national, cultural, racial and economic groups within the townships and squatter camps of South Africa are but one example.

Having had the images and stories of the brutal black-on-black savagery that was perpetrated in the townships of South Africa flashed around the world – to the astonishment of the global population, given the previous propaganda of the ANC government that all was sweetness and light in the new ‘democratic’ and ‘egalitarian’ South Africa under the benevolence of the ANC – the government of South Africa was, initially, just as surprised as the rest of the world and failed to act in any meaningful way against the hatred and violence for a couple of weeks.

When, eventually, the government began, slowly and inadequately, to address the problem, the official line was merely that the attacks were merely spontaneous and random criminality – ignoring the widespread nature of the onslaught throughout much of the country.

As, finally, the scale of the problem began to be realised the government then turned to one of its old favourite lines of reasoning in times of crisis – viz; the attacks were said to be the result of the work of some unidentified and shadowy ‘third force’ (by implication, disaffected whites and their lackeys lusting after a return to the pre-1994 days of perceived power, privilege and glory) conspiring towards the destabilisation of the country and the overthrow of the ANC government. At which point, notably, the army was called in and troops were put on the streets in support of the police.

(Strikingly similar arguments had very quickly been produced by the ANC government when the country’s only commercial nuclear power station had been crippled by a technical failure, just prior to the realisation that the government and Eskom (the national parastatal solely responsible for the generation and distribution of electricity in South Africa) had blithely led the country into an economically disastrous power crisis. These politically bankrupt, inept and transparent arguments were quietly – and quickly – abandoned in the face of the incontrovertible evidence of the rank incompetence and stupidity of both Eskom and the government.)

Then, as the violence and xenophobia reached its height, the ANC government declared that, once the orgy of hatred had subsided, the victims of the attacks seeking refuge and safety in hastily set up tented camps away from the townships and squatter camps would, as a matter of government policy and ideology, be (forcibly, if need be) re-integrated back into the very same areas and neighbourhoods that had attacked, dispossessed and killed the poor bastards in the first place.

Such is the ideology and illusion of ANC thought and propaganda. The desperate need of the ANC to promote and defend its communist ideas of what, according to their cherished conceptualisations of the world, should be – rather than what actually is – drives them into a denial of reality. The sad part is that they then drag everybody else who is subject to their power into a world that does not exist – much to the discomfort and danger of those who do not share or enjoy the benefits and privileges of the ANC leadership and their ivory tower ideologues.

The concept of different tribes, races and socio-economic groups living peacefully side-by-side in joy and harmony is alluring. It should, perhaps, be an ultimate goal of mankind’s. But in the here and now of human social life on this planet opposites tend to repel and likes attract. It is a simple fact of human behaviour in this day and age, as well as throughout our history.

Elsewhere in Africa where refugees seek shelter from whatever political, military or economic storm they wish to avoid they are usually placed together in camps away from local populations where frictions could ensue. Even without coercive factors such as wars and famines to drive people away from their own homes, those fleeing less life-threatening situations have, historically, tended towards one another; the economic migrations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in America and Australia saw Italians, Jews, Greeks, Poles, Germans, Chinese, Russians, Armenians and Slavs naturally coalescing into their own communities and neighbourhoods because that was what they felt most comfortable with and where they felt safest until, after a number of generations, they were able to assimilate enough of the predominant local culture to be able to venture out into that culture without undue threat.

So, the ANC and its government is intent upon farting against the thunder of human nature. Already many of those displaced during the xenophobic attacks have been returned to their previous abodes. (Others, seeing the writing on the wall, chose to return to their home countries, preferring the known evils and hazards of life in Zimbabwe, DRC, Mozambique, Somalia and Sudan to the uncertain hospitalities of South Africans.)

Already the rumblings in the townships and the squalid squatter camps have begun. Already the voices of dissent and despair over the re-integration have begun as mumbles of the ordinary people. Already have begun the not-so-quiet and subtle statements of local councilors that the ‘nkerekwere’ are not welcome – especially, for example, those Somali shopkeepers in the Western Cape townships who are seen to be too hard working and undercutting the prices of the local spaza store owners. It will only be a matter of time.

Criminality aside, it is only the ANC and its dogmatic and slavish adherence to its unrealistic and disgraced theories of a Marxist Utopia that is to blame for the initial outburst of xenophobic and genocide-intended violence and dispossession. It was the ANC and its inept and corrupt government that admitted millions of illegal migrants into the country and it was the same crowd that failed then to put in place the necessary social structures to police and care for those immigrants. And it is the ANC that, as with the Zimbabwean situation, continues to steadfastly maintain that no problem exists – as if ignoring or wishing away anything that is inconvenient to one’s perception of the world is really going to achieve something.

Nor is it any good to say that the USSR and the old Soviet bloc managed to keep racial and social peace in a wide-flung empire. That was only achieved at the point of a gun and under the constant threat – and utilisation – of ruthless repression from state organs such as the KGB and the Red Army. Despite recent talk from the ANC of instituting so-called ‘street committees’ as a means of doing what the South African Police Service clearly are unable to achieve – controlling and reducing crime – the ANC has neither the skills nor the stomach for such direct social repression, to say nothing of its lack of desire to admit to the world that only force could integrate a tribally diverse society and that its theories are valueless.

But such are the consequences of any system of political, social and economic control that is applied, willy-nilly, as a complete solution to the theoretical ills of mankind rather than as a set of aspirations and objectives which need to be realised within the context of the real world and the differing sets of circumstances in which different people find themselves from time to time. Such systems, applied without care and consideration, de-humanise and alienate those they are intended and theorised to more fully humanise and empower. Human beings are, first and foremost, individual beings within a social environment – not the other way around. And therein lies the danger of systems of thought in which people are primarily catagorised as, variously, (and by way of example) ‘the masses’, ‘serfs’, ‘consumers’, ‘the proletariat’, ‘peasants’, ‘communists’, ‘Democrats’, ‘Republicans’, ‘Tories’, and so on.

De-humanise humans for long enough and, eventually, they will behave as animals.

Spearpoint.

9^th September 2008

African Statesmanship

The recent death of Zambia’s President Levy Mwanawasa is a tragedy for not only Zambia but also for the entire African continent.

My understanding is that Zambia has prematurely lost a leader of exceptional calibre who was striving to make a genuine difference to the lives of Zambians, particularly in his determined fight against corruption.

Almost uniquely amongst world leaders, Mwanawasa publicly confronted and then prosecuted his predecessor Frederick Chiluba for corruption and fraud. Mwanawasa’s decision to do so cannot have been easy. Chiluba had, after all, been the one to groom and present Mwanawasa as his successor and there must have been some considerable pressure from within the ruling party not to rock the boat (thereby spilling the cash) and to spare Chiluba public humiliation – to say nothing of Chiluba’s underlings, hangers-on, presumed beneficiaries and possible co-conspirators.

Instead, Levy Mwanawasa chose to be a statesman, deciding – as far as possible in a political environment – to honour his promises to the electorate by adhering to the principles (oft-repeated but rarely practiced by the power hungry) of his country’s Constitution. In so doing he appears to have honoured himself and his country, as well as having set a worthy example to his constituency.

Although Spearpoint never had the opportunity to meet and know Levy Mwanawasa personally, the hope is that Zambia will allow Spearpoint to join (albeit remotely) in their mourning as a fellow African.

For the demise of Zambia’s Mwanawasa is a loss not only for Zambia but is also a loss for the whole of Africa – especially southern Africa.

As at home, Mwanawasa displayed the courage to stand up and be counted in the face of the prevailing antipathy in the southern African region towards corruption, fraud and dictatorship in the form of Robert Mugabe’s tyrannical and outright criminal regime in Zimbabwe.

With the tacit support of Ian Khama, the President of Botswana, Mwanawasa alone named and shamed Mugabe for what he is, what he represents and what he perpetrates against his own country and people.

In so doing Mwanawasa also implicitly named and shamed all those other African leaders who, despite mounting and convincing evidence, have given Mugabe political support and sustenance either directly and openly or through their failure to criticise and isolate Zimbabwe for its current policies and situation.

Principal amongst these has been South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki and his ANC government.

Appointed by SADC to mediate in the Zimbabwe crisis, Mbeki has epitomized the approach of many other African leaders: don’t rock the boat; don’t embarrass Mugabe; don’t expose Mugabe; don’t fracture the façade of imagined African so-called solidarity; don’t further reinforce the global perception of Africa’s inability to identify, address and remedy its own problems, including those of poverty, corruption, crime, ignorance and indolence.

Notwithstanding recent critical comments from Jacob Zuma (as President of the ANC) regarding Zimbabwe, the fact remains that South Africa continues to pussyfoot around the person of Mugabe and the crisis in Zimbabwe and refuses – publicly, at least – to acknowledge that a problem exists. In Mbeki’s own words on the subject, “There is no crisis”. Sentiments echoed by the Minister and the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The ANC must be living in gaga land.

It’s obviously not a crisis when a neighbour of South Africa destroys its economy (inflation admitted by the Zimbabwean government just this month to be running at not less than eleven million percent – that’s eleven followed by six zeroes, folks), and driving no less than four million of its own citizens into South Africa – mostly illegally – to escape starvation and political persecution (and who knows how many into other neighbouring countries).

And how can it be a crisis when even the great ANC, champion of the art of rule by smoke and mirrors, has been appointed (in the person of Thabo Mbeki) by SADC to mediate between Mugabe and the Zimbabwean Opposition.

Yet the appointment of a mediator implies conflict, dispute and actual or potential crisis. That much SADC has got right; where it went wrong was appointing Mbeki and his team as mediators. Not only do the mediators deny the existence of a situation which they have consciously agreed to fix, but they are unsuited and unqualified to carry out such a role since they have consistently and laughably maintained for many years now that within their own borders there are no crises in law enforcement, the judicial system, education, HIV, AIDS, TB and other health matters, housing, and so on.

SADC erred in appointing the ANC and Mbeki. It is patently clear that these guys couldn’t organise an orgy in a brothel, given their record of domestic service delivery and good governance.

The mediation between the parties in Zimbabwe has stalled. Naught has been achieved. Mugabe continues to do as he pleases – even to the extent of re-convening Zimbabwe’s parliament (which, according to Zimbabwe’s Constitution, should have occurred months ago) before there is any clarity and agreement on how power division and sharing will prevail in the new government.

Now, doesn’t that just speak volumes on the dedication and abilities of the so-called mediators?

Excepting Zambia and Botswana, no-one in SADC has had the courage to slap Mugabe silly and to tell him to stop behaving like a spoiled brat and to stop embarrassing all of Africa with his puerile behaviour. Mugabe’s arrogance and assumed impunity – watch his disjointed marionette-like swagger in public – has never been challenged by South Africa and its continental cronies.

Indeed, South Africa has shown great concern over Mugabe’s dignity and has been keen to protect that dubious quality. But at what price? Where is the dignity of those Zimbabweans, forever on the cusp of eviction, arrest and starvation, free-falling into the black hole of faster-than-light inflation who have had to separate from their families and homes in order to cross the borders of neighbours looking for some means of sustenance and to live in the additional and constant fear of deportation as illegal immigrants? Where, in South Africa, is the dignity for those South Africans already suffering under the laissez-faire incompetencies of the ANC dictatorship who now have to make room in already overcrowded cities, townships and squatter camps for swarms of desperate immigrants who also want a share of what is clearly an inadequate, mismanaged and ill-divided political and economic cake?

Does the ANC have no shame? Is it not ashamed that it continues its rhetoric and spin doctoring even though it clearly cannot do its job – either at home or around the table in Harare? Just what are the criteria against which it measures itself and which, obviously, allow it in its collective politburo mind to continue its rule?

Of course, shame and admission of error are not matters for easy admission by any politician even in the normal course of events, much less at any other time. Such is the nature of the beast. (Also, incidentally, such is the nature of those that look for and permit the politicians to rule; populations and electorates tend to be lazy in thinking for themselves and constantly seek the comfort of having someone else do their thinking for them. A contradiction of the human condition is that, of all the creatures on the planet, humans have the greatest ability to deal with change, challenge and chance yet are the most persistent in their – often unconscious and unspoken – drive for certainty and comfort.)

Admission of error in Africa is very difficult. Culturally the strong man must be seen to be strong, even if – especially if – wrong. The advent of colonial rule, with all the embarrassments that that brought, together with the displays of power and material goods by the colonial powers, then provided the need to display to the world that Africa and Africans could achieve the same themselves without outside intervention.

The loss of face when African nations screw things up is immense – far more so than the purported Oriental perceptions of face. This is why, for example, racism and colonialism are frequently used as catchphrases to divert attention away from the true reasons for African failure.

Mugabe blames the racism and imperialism of Britain and America for his devastation of the Zimbabwean economy and social structure. Mbeki and many of his colleagues blame racism in South Africa for the failure of many of the ANC’s policies and programmes. It is far less embarrassing and far easier to fix the blame rather than the problem – particularly where personal political careers and ambitions might be at stake. It’s an African pastime; it didn’t rain enough; it rained too much; we don’t have enough money; foreigners are taking our women and jobs; the Whites don’t share; the British conspire against our sovereignty; the Chinese steal our resources; the Indians are lazy and greedy; the Zulus cannot be trusted and steal everything not nailed down; the World Food Programme gave our starving people the wrong food; it goes on and on.

Spearpoint is not suggesting that there are not grains of truth and reality in some or all of the above excuses. But that is what they are – excuses. Fourteen years after shouldering aside the burdens of apartheid the ANC and its stalwarts still glibly trot out racism, colonialism and imperialism as reasons behind its failures in almost every arena of life in South Africa. They fail to see that history is history; it is past and passé. History is a guide for and to the future, not a Balkan-type motivation for perpetuating old horrors as justification for interminable inefficiencies and inadequacies.

Unfortunately, it is in the past that the ANC finds itself mired. Starting its existence as a protest and liberation movement the ANC has been unable to shrug off that mindset. Fourteen years into government the ANC is trapped in a time-warp, still slavishly employing the same slogans, gestures and thought patterns of its Communist Party origins and history dating back to the October Revolution and the Long March when those who were not for the movement were targetted as enemies and to be treated accordingly. Defunct ideology and the mindless mouthing of Cold War rhetoric serve little useful purpose when the living are here and now in a world that has moved on from what may or may not have happened centuries ago.

The ANC has failed to heed its own ideological teachings and raison d’etre which were to grow, improve and develop. The ANC has fallen at the first hurdle of metamorphosing from a liberation movement into a credible political party and sustainable government. The eyes and thoughts of the ANC remain firmly fixed on the perceived glories of its past where, by virtue of the then prevailing circumstances, it was easy to exhibit and enjoy disciplined solidarity since the goals of the organisation were simple to define and explain and the enemy was easily identified. Now in government the aims and objectives are far fuzzier in the face of the need to be a responsible and credible representative of an entire and diverse population; the temptation for which the ANC has fallen has been that of remaining a lobby group for a narrow and specific segment of the populace. The ANC continues to view everything non-ANC as being ‘the enemy’ and has behaved and responded accordingly.

Thus, for example, ANC officials will blame ‘white mentality’ and resistant racism for poor results on the rugby pitch or athletics field where points are not awarded for ideological or racial purity but for excellence in performance. Excellence cannot be legislated or enforced. It must be scouted, nurtured and developed organically. A fat runner cannot be expected to be able to produce satisfactory results in the marathon, regardless of any racial or socio-economic origins from which the individual may have come; the athlete must be made fit and then trained in his discipline before adequate results can be reasonably expected. Likewise, a school leaver, unable to add, subtract and so on cannot become a computer technician or electrician until he has had the time and resources granted him to master sufficient of the basics to enable him to then progress on to more specialised (and better paid) areas of competence.

Similarly with the Zimbabwe situation. The ANC remains locked in its perennial ‘circle-the-wagons’ mentality of giving greater weight to old loyalties than to recognition of getting the job done and removing those who fail to produce results. The support given the ANC by Mugabe and Zimbabwe during the ANC’s years of opposition to the then South African regime are viewed by the ANC to be perpetual bonds of debt that far outweigh any consideration of the abilities and rationale of the creditor in that relationship. That Mugabe is an egomaniacal despot who has so alienated the people of both his own country and others around the world that the economic and political fabric of Zimbabwe now lies tattered and fallen appears to matter less to the ANC than the perceived debt owed to Mugabe by the ANC. Worse still, the negative impact upon South Africa and other SADC countries stemming from Mugabe’s depredations is clearly considered by the ANC to be of little import; it could be argued that what happens in Zimbabwe is their own affair and they should be allowed to get on with it, but the argument fails if the actions of Zimbabwe directly impact on South Africa. Would the ANC retain its present stance if the Zimbabwean army were to invade South Africa in order to seize assets no longer available in Zimbabwe? Or would the ANC turn a blind eye, again, and insist that no crisis existed?

As the governing party of South Africa the ANC’s prime responsibility is to the country and all the people of South Africa. The ANC’s responsibility to Zimbabwe (or any other country, for that matter) is secondary, at best. Get your own house in order. Only then – not before – and if there is something to spare, can you turn your charitable efforts elsewhere.

Hubris can be a terrible thing. It blinds one to failings and shortcomings which, if pride be briefly set aside, could be corrected with a minimum of fuss and damage. There is no shame or loss of self-esteem in saying “I don’t know” or “I don’t have the skills right now to correct this situation” and then turning to others who possess the requisite knowledge. Knowledge and skills know no skin colours – but where they are claimed when, in fact, they are absent then there is a real and severe humiliation when the deficit is finally revealed.

Levy Mwanawasa’s legacy – in part, at least – will be of declaring to the world that just because fellow black Africans now largely control their own destinies it is still not right or acceptable when laws and principles are broken and cast aside – just as it is unacceptable when ordinary people suffer because their leaders are too proud or ideologically blinkered to acknowledge that they are relatively new to the business of running their own affairs and to bring in the required expertise.

Spearpoint.

26^th August 2008

What Is Democracy? (Don’t Ask The ANC!)

It’s a great shame that, after some fourteen years in power and God-knows how many years ostensibly fighting for a multi-racial, multi-party democracy, today’s ANC just doesn’t get what democracy is all about.

There are the well-known examples of the ANC’s lack of understanding of democratic principles and practices, most notably Affirmative Action (AA) and Black Economic Empowerment (BEE).

Notwithstanding the needs of actively redressing some of the social and economic imbalances inherent in pre-1994 South Africa, such outright discriminatory policies such as AA and BEE served not to heal the divisions stemming from our history but, rather, resulted in the alienation of a significant segment of the population denied access to the worlds of work and business whilst, at the same time, failing to include sufficient of the majority black population to make those policies worthwhile or realistic.

Democracy is about the equal application of ideals, policies and laws to all socio-economic groups and their individual members – without exception and without qualification.

AA and BEE are, therefore, a perversion of democratic principles and practices.

Likewise, the current – and growing – ANC elitist view of, and approach to the law.

The ANC appears increasingly to view the law as something the ANC alone decides and distributes but is not necessarily something to which it and/or its members are subject.

The lack of respect shown by the ANC to some recent legal rulings – including some of those of the Constitutional Court – has been absolutely awesome in its arrogance. Government ministers and their departments have, variously, failed to respond to summonses and subpoenas, attend court proceedings or to comply with court rulings and orders when inconvenient or embarrassing.

The ANC and members of ANC affiliates and allies have frequently and repeatedly openly flouted the laws of the land in both impromptu and carefully studied statements to the media – usually without expressed regret, later retraction or apology. Overtly racist or inflammatory comments have, largely, escaped censure or punishment. Ethical leadership from the upper ranks of the ANC (whence many of those comments have originated) has been glaringly absent.

“Bring me my machine gun” (Jacob Zuma); “We will kill for Jacob Zuma” (the presidents of the ANC Youth League and COSATU, respectively; “…you are displaying your white mentality…” (the Chairman of the Parliamentary Sports Portfolio Committee): all are very recent examples of the ANC’s disregard of, and impunity from the law. In contrast, a recent article by David Bullard in a major newspaper (which painted an imaginary ‘what if’ scenario) resulted in his dismissal and all sorts of legal threats against him at the time.

Clearly, the ANC wants its cake and to eat it, too. The ANC’s idea of gamesmanship is ‘Heads, we win; tails, you lose’.

Just as clearly, this is not democracy.

In like vein, the actions of Jacob Zuma – soon, no doubt, to be rubber stamped as the next President of South Africa – are increasingly tending Spearpoint to the view that “Methinks he doth protest too much”.

Having stridently proclaimed his innocence in the fallout from the arms deal, having strenuously demanded his day in court, he has, however, consistently failed to satisfy either the prosecuting authorities or the courts that he has no case to answer. Indeed, he has redoubled his efforts to delay or to prevent that day in court with what appears to be a cynical string of challenges and delaying tactics. The intention, one has to conclude, is to avoid any appearance in court on the charges he faces until after such time as he is inaugurated as President of the Republic – when, no doubt, he will grant himself Presidential immunity from the charges or, in the event of a conviction, a Presidential pardon. All he has to do is to stay out of court until after the elections. Heads, we win; tails, you lose.

Additionally, Mr. Zuma, through his legal team and his ANC supporters has complained bitterly that the recent Constitutional Court’s ruling against his application to deny into evidence those documents seized in raids a couple of years back was announced whilst he was out of the country.

Mr. Zuma and his legal team have been busy testing every avenue to escape the charges against him – as is provided for in our Constitution and other laws – and no-one denies him the right to do so. But where is the democracy in a situation where popularity, power and money (very little of that money, I understand, being Mr. Zuma’s) can so protract legal processes through deliberate strategy as to undermine and, even, deny the law when there are so many other people, without the same clout, who have to suffer justice (very often on remand) somewhat more speedily and ruthlessly – and, most importantly, without undue consideration of the convenience and timetable of the defendant?

Mr. Zuma wanted his day in court. Let him have that day. And on that day let him be an ordinary citizen, not the President of the country. Let the trial be conducted – and be seen to be conducted – with equality and democracy under our Constitution. If the man be adjudged innocent then let him get on with the rest of his life in peace until such time as he may breach the law again, if ever; if he is determined to be guilty then let him suffer whatever sanctions the court might impose.

If Mr. Zuma were a real democrat who did not appear to believe that he is a great man who is due homage and tribute for his supposed past services then he would resign his various posts and duties for the duration of his trial and (if it turns out that way) later appeal. In the process he would go a long way to exhibiting those positive democratic ethics and personal qualities which would merit him being the Head of State.

If the above examples are anything to go by, then Spearpoint can only conclude that not only does the ANC have a perverted and very convenient conception of what democracy is about, but also the mid- and long-term future of South Africa is, indeed, bleak to the point of utter depression.

Spearpoint.

2^nd August 2008

Xenophobia in Africa

 

 

 

Today the media are full of the barbaric xenophobic attacks that have been taking place in and around Johannesburg over the past week or so.

 

Quite right, too.

 

It’s interesting, however, that the xenophobic murders of hundreds of Somali refugees in the Cape Town area some months ago never prompted the same aghast response of shock and horror from the media.

 

What a shame that the xenophobia which is so characteristic of Africa in general and South Africa in particular is being portrayed as a recent phenomenon. Very little recognition has been given to the fact that xenophobia has always been an intrinsic part of African life throughout the continent and I doubt that much will change in that regard.

 

The Xhosa hate the Zulu. The Hutu hate the Tutsi. The Shona sneer at the Matebele. The Bushman and San are reviled by everyone. The list is as long as the number of tribes on the continent. And it is not new; many of the efforts of the past colonial powers went towards quelling and controlling the culturally traditional internecine strife between the peoples under their yoke and trying to instill a wider sense of purpose – to no avail, it would appear.

 

Whatever the reasons for intra-African xenophobia, it is a fact that it exists and is so deep-seated as to be all but ineradicable in the foreseeable future – notwithstanding the best efforts of sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists and panels of so-called experts called upon to explain and remedy the periodic flare-ups that occur in a general climate of simmering distrust and demonising mythologisation.

 

Under such circumstances it doesn’t take much to throw the spark leading to conflagration.

 

South Africa is a good case in point.

 

• The thrusting together of large numbers of people from diverse and historically antagonistic groups in the overcrowded ghetto-like environments of townships and squatter camps.
• Large-scale and uncontrolled illegal immigration from poorer neighbouring countries.
• Insufficient, inefficient and corrupt delivery of the most basic of human needs to those who have been deprived for so long.
• Poor education facilities and expertise from kindergarten on upwards.
• Insufficient work leading to an excess of available time to drink and seethe on the perceived causes of various misfortunes.
• Failure by government and its organs to devise and enforce policies and practices to, firstly, control and then eradicate crime and its consequences.
• Failure by community, municipal, provincial and national leaders to elevate themselves as role models away from the basest elements of human behaviour.
• Failure by the above leaders to acknowledge and actively address numerous problems, ranging from crime, policing, corruption, HIV/AIDS, service delivery and so on through to public office probity.

 

These are just some of the factors which make it too easy to find scapegoats when life gets a bit tougher than usual. And the scapegoats are, all too often, those who, for some reason or another, don’t fit into the usual patterns of local life; those from outside the country, outside the district, outside the neighbourhood – the most vulnerable because they are isolated and, therefore, easy targets. The savagery of the attacks is peculiarly African – witness the days of the Congolese uprisings, the ‘necklacings’ of South Africa and the genocide of Rwanda and Burundi.

 

Such targeting, of course, is the course of the ignorant and the cowardly – those too lazy to make the effort to properly evaluate the causes of their present predicament and too craven to challenge those events or people truly responsible for their plight (including, I might add, themselves).

 

The response of our government has been to convene a panel to investigate the causes and results of the violence in the townships.

 

Whoops! Wrong thing to do – at least, in the short-term. Fine for the longer view and for the formulation of later policy.

 

Short-term – get the situation immediately under control. If the police can’t handle it (and they seem, as ever, to be struggling) then get troops in. Separate the rival groups. Patrol the streets. Shoot dead (remember the words of the Deputy Minister of Safety and Security?) the attackers and opportunistic looters.

 

This is a time for resolute and firm action to quell the trouble before it becomes even more widespread and indiscriminate. This is not the time for anguished hand-wringing or high-minded political and social theorising. Fix the problem now and worry about fixing the blame later, when time permits.

 

Already I can hear the gasps of disbelief from the rest of the world – and the increasingly overt sniggers over our inability to face up to the daily realities of running a Third World country.

 

Worse still, I can hear the cries of despair from our own people as they witness yet another step into chaos and depravity.

 

Spearpoint.

19^th May 2008

 

 

 

 

 

Would the last democrat leaving South Africa please turn out the lights…

 

 

So here we have it, at last. It has been a while coming, but come it has.

 

Not that it has been unexpected. It was bound to happen eventually, in one way or another.

 

Many very astute and able writers have been trying – for some considerable time – to show how South Africa has been slowly descending into the abyss. More recently Spearpoint has (with far less ability and effectiveness) added his own voice to the warnings that have been increasingly thronging the various media available to us in this country.

 

I fear that it will all be to no avail.

 

The pessimism, even despair, which has silently pervaded South African society over the last decade or so, is now gaining increasing momentum even amongst those who celebrated the most after the release of Nelson Mandela.

 

Now we begin to see the true colours of our Rainbow Nation; colours that were once purposefully and skillfully hidden behind shimmering nebulae of rhetoric and political razzle-dazzle are now being glimpsed more often as the perceived need for global political respectability is, more and more, discarded as the ANC and its puppet masters gain in confidence and arrogance.

 

Today, the legislation to disband the elite crime-fighting unit known as the Scorpions has been tabled in Parliament.

 

Modeled broadly on the FBI, the Scorpions have proven to be a formidable and largely untouchable crime-fighting force that has shown little or no favour and has appeared to be indefatigable in the pursuit of those who would place themselves above the law. They have been a very necessary foil to the poorly performing South African Police Service.

 

Why the ANC has bothered to involve Parliament escapes me. South Africa is a dictatorship of the elected majority party (the ANC), with absolutely no prospect of any realistic challenge to the current status quo being mounted through the ballot box anytime in the next couple of generations.

 

The ANC might as well come clean and rule by decree. It would save them and the rest of the world time, effort and embarrassment over the increasingly amateurish attempts to legitimise their fumbling realisations of their ambitions.

 

The signs have around for a long time.

 

• The selection of a party leader – soon to be the country’s President – who is awaiting trial on corruption and related charges investigated and brought by the Scorpions.
• The blatant and public protection by the current President of the country – with the tacit approval of the ANC – of the national Police Commissioner who faces serious charges investigated and brought by the Scorpions.
• The blatant and unashamed protection of numerous public officials and office holders who have either admitted or have been convicted of innumerable offences ranging from drunk driving through fraud, embezzlement and worse.
• The blasé and indifferent approach to, and acceptance of, crime levels unparalleled outside of war zones such as Iraq. (An example – it is generally accepted that a rape occurs in South Africa every 23 seconds. Do the math – 1.4 million rapes per annum in a population estimated at around 45-50 million people).
• The awesome drift from reality embodied in the continuing and, until very recently, unquestioning support of rogue and repressive states such as Zimbabwe and Burma – behaviour which has led to the ridicule and scorn of the rest of the world, to say nothing of the loss of life and liberty of those poor unfortunates living in those countries.

 

And these are but a very few of the straws that have been blowing in the wind in recent years.

 

The Scorpions are but a single example of the lengths to which the ANC, COSATU and the South African Communist Party (all members of the tri-partite alliance which rules South Africa but of which only the ANC presents itself for election before the people of the country) are prepared to go in order to exclude themselves from scrutiny by both the courts and the electorate.

 

When will the people of South Africa – as well as the rest of the world – awaken to the fact of the immense confidence trick being played upon them at their expense?

 

Do we have to wait for the raids on the newspapers and televisions stations to become more frequent? (It has already happened). Will we only realise our plight when the Internet and blogs are monitored, controlled and restricted? Will we have to wait for the situation in Zimbabwe to become a reality for South Africa (and so memorably and eloquently expressed by the unknown Zimbabwean who voiced it by saying “We have freedom of expression; we just don’t have freedom after expression”)? Will we wait until the cadres of the ANC and SACP are joined on their nightly dissent-suppression street patrols by armed MK war veterans? Will we wait for the type of bloodbath that surely lurks, Kenya-like, in Zimbabwe’s near future?

 

The writing is on the wall. We ignore it at our peril. We run the risk of a bovine-like acceptance of the denial and corruption of the hopes and aspirations of an entire country already brutalised in the not-too-distant past. Or, simultaneously, we run the risk of opening the door to hotheads and armed reactionaries eager to turn back the clock.

 

And as much as Spearpoint harbours hopes for this country and its people, it is very much my profound fear that already it is too late and that the time is nigh for the call to go out, “Would the last democrat leaving South Africa please turn out the lights”.

 

 

Spearpoint

13^th May 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rampant Food and Fuel Prices.

 

 

 

The hiatus in this blog of the last couple of weeks resulted from me traveling a bit through southern Africa on business.

 

You should understand that, being a white South African male over the age of fifty, affirmative action and all the “-isms” of age, gender and race render me all but unemployable in this Rainbow Nation of critical skills shortages – notwithstanding my degrees and international experience in my field. So when work does periodically present itself I am compelled to grab it and to fiercely focus on the tasks that promise, for the time being, to maintain the temporal connection of body and soul. When money beckons I must then temporarily forego some of my other – more pleasurable and satisfying – pursuits such as blogging. And, much as I enjoy writing, it pays no bills and I have this expensive addiction to breathing which must be periodically slaked with cash – preferably lots of it – whenever possible. Hence my recent absence.

 

I am not so enamoured of driving as once used to be the case; my politically-incorrect car is an ageing brute that punishes its driver for forcing a few thousand extra kilometres out of its creaking carcass. But, in addition to providing a solid upper-body workout, such driving allows time to reflect on Life, the Universe and Everything and thereby provides some of the material which old Spearpoint then tries to convert into the approximations of pearls of wisdom that he seeks to muster in these posts.

 

During this journey I found myself mostly pondering on all the recent shocks of the astronomical price increases in food, fuel and other commodities around the world.

 

We’re all familiar with the price increases. Petrol and diesel prices threatening to push us back to the horse-and-buggy age; staple food escalations promising the prospect of global population decimation; real estate prices destined to shunt us all back into grass huts in a feudal economy; other commodities increasing to the point where the little baubles and the technologies which brighten up and buttress our otherwise drab lives are beyond reach; the threat of drastically higher electricity charges which promise a return not to the age of hurricane lanterns and candles – we won’t be able to afford to buy the oil – but to the age of rush lights and goose grease; the list goes on.

 

Trying to figure out why all of these events have come about in such an apparently short space of time has been an interesting exercise and has led me to some conclusions that are distinctly challenging.

 

We might as well face it: for a considerable period we have had it relatively easy. Ignoring, (for the sake of the point being made), the half or more of the world’s population that has always been too poor to afford to worry about the fibre in its diet (instead being more troubled with the grit, stones, twigs and other detritus in such food as may be available), the world has enjoyed a relatively benign time of late where the basics of life, plus a few luxuries, could be had whilst still having the prospect of putting some money aside for the odd rainy day or two.

 

Then, of course, (being human) we then proceeded to hurry, helter-skelter, to bugger up the nice little zone of comfort within which we found ourselves.

 

Finding the products of our technologies to be pleasant and convenient we then got greedy. We wanted more and, in that wanting, gave space to other greedy people who, for a price, were willing to provide us with more.

 

Let’s look at some of what we wanted in terms of food and fuels since these are the most immediate of our daily needs and desires.

 

• Better quality food – less grit, for a start – with brighter colours and more varied flavourings, artificial or not, which would enable us to differentiate our “lifestyle” from those less well off than ourselves (including our silly kid sister who was dumb enough to marry that throwback who digs ditches for a living).
• Greater quantities of food so that we could gorge ourselves three or four times a day rather than eating small amounts continually through the day as our bodies were designed to do when we were evolving as hunter/gatherers – thereby fostering the growth of global industries in slimming products and remedial medical healthcare.
• Faster food so that the tedious nature of the preparation and processing of cooked foods could be lessened.
• Ever greater supplies of power in the form of electricity because we didn’t want to wear lots of clothes around the house or work and also because the old wood-fired kitchen range was too dirty and too much hard work to clean every day.
• Even greater supplies of fossil fuels because we needed to power the electricity plants and to propel larger, faster vehicles of personal transportation which could give us a shirtsleeve environment in which to wait out the traffic jams on the way to and from work and the supermarket.

 

Lots of wants.

 

My point here is that we have ourselves to blame for many of the reasons behind high prices. Someone has to be paid to produce, package, store and deliver the objects of our desire. Our desires also open us to exploitation by those who would wish to manipulate and escalate those same desires in order to provide more so-called “choices” as a means of generating further sales and revenues by way of marketing and advertising.

 

But there are other ways in which we are subjected to ever increasing pricing which, when all is said and done, we have little control over.

 

Now, before I proceed any further, I need to stress a couple of things.

 

Firstly, I am not too different from the bulk of Western society in that I enjoy the products and services that have been created and made available to everyone who can afford them. I have even managed to be able to buy some of them. I also feel the occasional twinge of lust for the latest mobile phone or big hairy 4×4 – although one of the very few benefits of advancing age is the ability to exert some measure of control over those twinges and to refrain from impulsively either reaching into my hip pocket or signing some usurious agreement to hire the object of desire for a period way beyond the object’s value and practicality.

 

Secondly, within certain limits of taste and capability, I am just as capitalistic as the next man. I like to turn a profit – and the more the better. Admittedly, I am a small-time capitalist, never quite having managed to beat my conscience into the required degree of insensibility to be able to view my fellow humans merely as targets for plunder. I guess I must be a failure – although I do manage to get by. My sleepless nights are caused more by worrying about how I shall survive, sans pension etc., (don’t ask – it’s a long story, as the cricket said to the ant), rather than subconsciously stressing over the deep patina of tarnish building up on my soul.

 

My problem is not so much with the de-skilling of the past couple of hundred years or so – an inevitable consequence of the need to develop an increasingly complex society necessary to cater for the rank stupidity of humankind as it remorselessly breeds itself into global Ebola-like parasitical extinction.

 

My problem with the current situation regarding price increases in the very basic needs of life rests more with the fact that most of these increases are totally artificial and are motivated by the plain outright grasping greed of a relatively small number of individuals wishing to enrich themselves even more than they already are by further impoverishing the already poor and vulnerable.

 

There are a number of parties to this concerted “conspiracy” (don’t you just hate that word?):

1. Governments seeking to ensure their national interests;
2. Commodity and stock exchanges and their associated traders, speculators and brokers;
3. The large wholesale, retail and distributive chains (increasingly often integrated under single ownership);
4. Consumers – as both participants and victims.

 

Each of the above parties is motivated solely by greed and self-interest at the expense of others. Each is able to operate and gain by virtue of the fact that, whether we like it or not, the world is based upon the capitalistic models and theories developed and honed over the last few hundred years or so. Even former and current communist/socialist governments and ideologies have found themselves forced to modify their pretty theories in order to survive – in the case of mainland China to positively thrive – in the harsh world of capitalistic trade and business. Everybody wants to turn a buck.

 

However, capitalism – as with every other economic theory, I guess – contains within its corpus some fundamental flaws which, long-term, will probably render the entire edifice unworkable without some speedy rectification.

 

The main long-term problems with capitalism are, as I see it, the concepts of firstly, eternal economic growth and, secondly, charging prices based on what the market will bear at any given time.

 

These two fundamental underpinning ideas are, ultimately, unsustainable and will create the conditions under which capitalism will, sooner or later, fail unless modified.

• Untrammelled economic growth can only cause an eventual saturation of the marketplace – even allowing for provisions such as the inbuilt obsolescence of products and services (which, already, is a major feature of modern production and economic methodologies) and the enrichment of the entire population of the planet in order to provide sufficient markets for greater and greater production outputs (and which we are most certainly not seeing at present). There seems to be no inherent concept of reaching for and attaining a sustainable equilibrium.
• The idea of charging the very most that the end user of the products and services produced can afford can only result in the near- and long-term widening of the divide between the rich and the poor. Those at the lower end of the economic scale have little or no opportunity to accumulate anything from their labours since so much, if not all, of their incomes are utilised in acquiring just the basics of life – simple foods, rude shelter and public transport. Thus, the poor remain poor and, as such, are of little benefit to capitalism other than as a pool of cheap labour. Their poverty prevents their empowerment as producers and consumers of products and services and their value to the capitalist model is minimal. Even raising their wages accomplishes nothing due to the impact upon production costs and subsequent price rises.

 

Having said all that, let us now return to the “conspirators” in the current tidal wave of price hikes in fuel and energy.

 

The prime example of a government serving its own self-interests in recent times has been that of the United States creating (much as Nazi Germany did in the 1930’s) the conditions to explain and excuse their invasion of Iraq five years ago. In so doing they began the entire process of market uncertainty and price escalations in which we find ourselves today. Oil prices commenced their upward march towards the top of a hill of which no-one outside of the oil industry knows the height. In starting and maintaining an unwarranted war (“We’re prepared to fight for 100 years!”) the inevitable consequence was to shake the global oil market into pessimism and the resultant supply fears – even though, notwithstanding the predictions of the 1960’s and 70’s, there is, in fact, no shortage of oil in the world. Indeed, hardly a month goes by without some announcement of a major oil discovery somewhere on the planet.

 

The only real beneficiaries of the Iraq war have been the oil companies. Oh, yes – and the current oil industry-dominated US political administration.

 

Gee, what a coincidence.

 

De-stabilising the global oil market then gave others the chance to cash-in on the uncertainty.

 

Commodity exchanges, brokers and traders could then “legitimately” demand ever higher prices for the black gold on the pretext of supply uncertainties and the claimed natural balance between supply and demand based upon the old market maxim of charging whatever the market could bear.

 

This, of course, totally ignored the fact that, despite the best efforts of the OPEC oil cartel, oil supply then and now has never been under anything remotely approaching threat. Nor were oil production costs on the increase.

 

Traders and speculators were, in effect, given license to artificially generate and exacerbate a supposed crisis in oil for the sole purpose of increasing their turnovers, margins and personal commissions under the guise of serving the best interests of their stockholders.

 

Consider this:

• Several days ago a US Navy warship fired a few warning shots across the bows of a couple of (supposedly) Iranian speedboats.
• Immediately upon that news the price of a barrel of oil rocketed by $3!

 

Where was the threat to world oil supplies that merited a 2% increase in the oil price in the space of a couple of hours?

 

There was, of course, no justification – other than the traders and speculators grabbing a chance to further gouge the world for their own personal benefit.

 

We have seen similar situations recently when a refinery closes for a day or two because of bad weather. Or when a Nigerian pipeline gets looted or attacked by those who feel excluded from the national bonanza. As if a single locus of supply or transport is going to impact upon the needs of the entire world. In a time of plentiful supply and growing reserves known to be far greater than current production for the next fifty years.

 

Please. Don’t. Insult. Our. Intelligence.

 

The same applies to the traders of other commodities – particularly food. They have been only too pleased to hitch themselves to the coat tails of the oil traders and to take similar advantage.

 

Sure, the world’s population is growing and, yes, the new kids on the middle class block – the Chinese and the Indians – are, not surprisingly, wanting more and better food than they have had for the last couple of thousand years, as well as all the shiny toys that the West has been flaunting in their faces since the 1800’s. But, thanks to the Green Revolution of the past few decades, the world is not, in fact, short of food and we have the land and technology to feed many times the present global population. Properly set up and managed, just Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique could, on their own, provide almost half the world with staple cereals.

 

On the pretence of a supposed food shortage, staples such as wheat and rice are traded and re-traded many times, each trade generating a profit for the traders until we have the crazy situation where, for example, rice has risen in price by at least 70% in the last three months and Thai rice farmers are having to put armed guards on their paddy fields.

 

Then there are the speculators who purchase large stocks of certain commodities (often in Third World countries) when prices are low – usually at harvest times when the market is glutted – and then hoard those stocks away from the marketplace until existing supplies diminish and prices rise in response. The use of foodstuffs and fuels as mechanisms of profiteering against the human right of access to affordable food is cynical and barbaric.

 

Contributing to the lunacy of the current price rises in commodities is the next group of “conspirators”, the large retail chains.

 

Without contributing one whit to the production of the foodstuffs or oil products they peddle, the retail chains can charge the consumer anything from 25% to 500% above cost for the doubtful privilege of distributing the goods to within reach of that consumer. (Real estate chains, for example, can’t do that but have been accused recently of deliberately and artificially inflating the asking prices of properties in order to increase the size of their commissions. The concept of charging whatever the salesman thinks the dumb schmuck in front of him might be stupid enough to commit himself to prevails everywhere). No wonder property prices now prevent first-time buyers from entering the market and forcing people away from their ancestral roots to seek survival in the global urban migration.

 

Perhaps it might not be so grotesque were these chains to pay their workers over the legal minimums; or to employ people on a basis other than casual and temporary; or to stop using their commercial volume purchasing advantages to coerce farmers and independent distributors through restrictive practices into accepting prices which then render those businesses marginal.

 

Matters are worsened when one considers the fact that these chains spend many millions (Rands, Dollars – it doesn’t matter) advertising in the print and electronic media with the constant and perennial claims of being the cheapest and offering the greatest savings to the consumer.

 

Such claims would only be justified if retail prices were not the result of price fixing and collusion between the wholesalers and retailers, as well as between the retailers themselves. Recent investigations in Australia, Britain and South Africa indicate that price fixing is rife and may, in fact, be prevalent – especially through the good old “recommended retail price” mechanism.

 

The final party to the “conspiracy” of artificial prices is the consumers themselves.

 

Consumers are their own worst enemies. Motivated by their own personal greed, stimulated by enticing advertising, too many consumers will willingly pay whatever is asked. Their desire to have whatever it is that they are desirous of feeds the concept of being allowed to charge whatever the market can bear. They have forgotten the old days of the village market where prices were negotiated to the satisfaction of both buyer and seller. If neither party was happy with what was being offered then that party could decline to trade and depart the scene.

 

A high street supermarket, for example, is nothing more than a village marketplace for the local community (many such supermarkets, in fact, claim such a heritage for purposes of brand identification). But because a supermarket has got pretty displays, clean floors, banks of glittering refrigerators and piped Muzak, people have been intimidated into thinking that they are no longer permitted to haggle. The price tag on a shelf is nothing more than an indication by the retailer of what sort of offer he is prepared to consider for that particular item. If the consumer accepts that tag then that is what he is offering and the retailer is only too happy to accept both the offer and the settlement.

 

So, although the consumer is all too often the victim of artificially high prices, he is also stupid not to realize the power at his command were he to challenge the exorbitant prices confronting him and to make an amended offer. If the retailer doesn’t like the offer he can ask you to leave his premises and thereby lose a sale. If sufficient consumers likewise challenge the retailer’s overly high margins that retailer would soon have to re-consider his position or face the prospect of going out of business.

 

The consumer as a group also fails to realize that, if push came to shove, he could forego one or two meals or delay by a few days or weeks the purchase of that washing machine/fridge/lounge suite/car as a way of demonstrating his power to the retailers. Aside from the health and moral benefits to be had, the temporary drop in sales for retail chains could create sweaty brows and an increased consumption of antacid tablets sufficient to bring about a re-consideration of extorting monstrous margins in favour of reasonable returns within a stable price environment.

 

I do not know the answers to solving the present crisis in food and fuel prices. But I do know that we need to do something to curtail and control the excesses of what is an otherwise workable system.

 

Capitalism needs – desperately – to find a path away from the boom and bust short-term maximum gratification of the profit motive. Sustainability and eventual equilibrium needs to be achieved so that the one can profit but not at the expense of the other.

 

Additionally – and equally desperately – the concept of pricing to what the market can (only just) bear needs to be adjusted to one where prices are directly related to fixed and fair margins over the cost of production.

 

Only once such equity is achieved can capitalism then be justifiably linked to democracy.

 

Money could still be made in large enough amounts to continue attracting the interest of the intrepid. But we must also find a way to enable the less intrepid to survive in relative comfort and security.

 

 

Spearpoint.

27 April 2008

Don’t Kill the Criminals – Save the Criminals!

 

 

I thought so…

 

Reactions to the “Kill the criminals” news story:

 

- Indignation. Shock. Horror.

 

- Everyone jumping on the bleeding-heart political bandwagon.

 

- How could the Deputy Minister of Safety and Security be so callous and uncaring about our poor, defenseless, misunderstood criminals when they are so clearly virtuous and upright members of our society?

 

- How dare she advocate that the police kill them? After all, they are some of the most productive members of our economy – crime is about the only area of growth in South Africa.

 

…………………….

 

Spearpoint tries, in general, to be reasonably polite in his commentaries. But I’m not too sure I can continue that policy this time.

 

To the critics of the Deputy Minister’s remarks I say this to you.

 

What a crowd of ignorant, stupid, self-serving, self-publicists you are.

 

Clearly, you are not educated or intelligent enough to be able to perform the simple act of reading what the lady said. The words she uttered were clear and simple enough that even my five-year old granddaughter could easily understand what was said.

All your degrees, learning and experience in policing, politics and polemics have so obviously failed to qualify any of you to comment sensibly on the fight against crime – nor have they done anything to merit any involvement whatsoever in partaking of the leadership of this country.

The Deputy Minister’s words were “Kill the bastards if…” (did you get that?) If. IF. IF.) “…IF they threaten you or the community.”

 

Her words could not have been clearer.

 

Her words were entirely within existing laws.

 

In no way, under South African law as it stands today, can her words be interpreted or construed as being an incitement for the police to run wild on our streets. The lady did not issue to the police – or anyone else – a blanket licence to kill nor did she advocate abandonment of due process.

 

The politicians who criticized the Deputy Minister’s remarks have plainly demonstrated themselves to be as unsuited to running our country as the ANC has shown itself to be.

 

The Independent Democrats (ID) and the Democratic Alliance (DA), amongst others, have sought only to score cheap political points off the ANC government – who, as it happens, do deserve to be sniped at with unremitting ferocity – instead of listening to what was actually said and commending the courage and clear thinking of the speaker – ANC or not. For the sake of a headline or two and a sound-byte on TV, you have made utter fools of yourselves and, I strongly suspect, alienated much of the crime-ravaged electorate to which you think you will ingratiate yourselves through your unconsidered and downright stupid responses.

 

You all deserve contempt and ridicule for your self-serving prostitution of what you supposedly stand for in your vainglorious and desperate search for political power at any price.

 

The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) should be even more ashamed of its unthinking negative reaction. Your biases, hidden agendas and overall inability to deal with reality have blinkered you to the fact that, as a supposedly independent and respected body seeking to improve the access to and delivery of human rights to all and sundry, you have chosen to dismiss and denigrate the human rights of the entire population to peace, safety and prosperity. Instead, you choose to defend and shield from the rule of law those who revile and pervert the rule of law when you are chartered to reinforce and spread the rule of law for everyone. You continue to do nothing for the human rights of the majority of the populace and, in your folly, you undermine and pervert our Constitution together with the hopes and aspirations of every single person (black, white, Asian, Coloured) in our country.

 

Our Constitution and such human rights as we all –allegedly- enjoy are a joke. Even as a banana republic we seem unable to produce banana sundaes – only banana skins.

 

 

 

Spearpoint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shooting to Kill the Criminals

 

Maybe it’s a bit premature, but I feel like cheering.

 

At long last someone in the South African government appears to have made a break from the usual line of bull dust regarding the fight against crime.

 

The Deputy Minister of Safety and Security has encouraged the police to be very much tougher on dangerous criminals.

 

During some sort of conference/seminar in which she addressed members of the police force (sorry – ‘service’) (yeah, sure) the Deputy Minister said (referring to the criminals) “Kill the bastards – especially if they are threatening you or the community”. She is reported to have received an enthusiastic response from those police officers present.

 

Spearpoint has had occasion to make comment on the issue of crime in some earlier posts (“Crime and Punishment”; “More About Crime and Rights in South Africa”; “A Little More on Crime in South Africa”).

 

Those of you who have graced my site and read those posts will understand why old Spearpoint is a small step closer to throwing his hat in the air.

 

How refreshing it is that, out of the blue – and in stark contrast to the stance and performance of the Minister of Safety and Security – a senior government minister has had the courage and honesty to break from the usual insipid ANC utterances and actions on how best to combat the criminals in our midst.

 

Good on you, Deputy Minister. Crime is against the law. The law is derived from our much-vaunted Constitution. Crime contravenes the Constitution and our Constitutional and human rights. Contravening the Constitution cancels the Constitutional rights of the contravener. He, therefore, has no constitutional rights and the police then have the duty to terminate, with extreme prejudice, those rights. Survivors will be prosecuted.

 

It is likely, however, that the good lady Deputy Minister will be severely chastised by her ANC brethren for daring to be so politically incorrect.

 

If a reprimand or dismissal follows her comments then you will know, without doubt, that the present government and the ANC has absolutely no interest or intention of further tackling crime and its aftermath beyond what they have already determined to be an “acceptable” level.

 

But coming hot on the heels of Jacob Zuma’s recent outspoken statement about the electoral fiasco in Zimbabwe, I am struck by the thought that, maybe, just maybe, we might be seeing some sort of shuffling of feet away from the more usual ANC policy of doing everything on the quiet – “quiet” diplomacy, “quiet” policing and “quiet” ethics.

 

Of course everything has been “quiet” on the part of the government. When you bury your head under the blankets for fear of seeing the bogeyman you’re so afraid of having to confront and take a stand on, then everything does go quiet. So you do not, then, hear your neighbour abusing his family, you do not hear the burglar coming to help himself to what he hasn’t earned and you do not hear your own family members conniving to rob you of what the burglar leaves behind.

 

Jacob Zuma’s comments on Zimbabwe and on re-opening the debate on the death penalty (see my post “The Death Penalty and Electioneering in South Africa”) are understandable. He is trying hard to establish himself as a credible popular politician suitable for the role of the leader of this country and doing it in a way that will distance and distinguish himself from the “business as usual” style of Thabo Mbeki and his allies.

 

Perhaps the Deputy Minister of Safety and Security is, cynically, also positioning herself for the upcoming change of government leadership in 2009. Perhaps she just wants to ensure that she will still have a nice cushy ministerial job come this time next year.

 

I don’t really care.

 

For the first time the necessary words are being spoken. It remains to be seen whether the necessary actions will follow. I, for one, certainly hope so.

 

I just hope that the police are up to the task…

 

Spearpoint.

 

 

 

Racism is Alive and Kicking in South Africa

So the Forum of Black Journalists (FBJ) is all upset because the Human Rights Commission (HRC) gave a public slap on the wrist for the ejection of a number of non-black journalists from a recent briefing with Jacob Zuma.

 

Shame.

 

What, I wonder, would have been the reaction of the FBJ had a media event organized by exclusively white journalists refused entry to black reporters?

 

I’ll tell you. The FBJ would have screamed blue bloody murder and gone on to rant and rave how racism was still alive and kicking in South Africa and how every white person in the country was an apartheid recidivist intent on reviving the old days and ways.

 

The FBJ wants its cake and to eat it, too.

 

This is a great pity.

 

The FBJ – black or not – represents part of the so-called profession of journalism here and abroad. By failing, both in intent and practice, to subscribe to the stated aims of impartiality and fairness in the industry the FBJ has not only made a laughing stock of itself and pretty well destroyed its credibility, but has also deepened the contempt held by any thinking person for the profession as a whole. The FBJ has merely increased the suspicion surrounding the motives and actions of journalism and has done its own interests a great disservice.

 

Like a prima donna the FBJ has thrown a tantrum over the HRC’s remarks – for that is all the HRC did.

 

The HRC did not issue an enforceable judgement, merely an opinion. The over-reaction of the FBJ is quite remarkable.

 

Of course, the HRC should have been much harsher on the FBJ and its comments were clearly designed to avoid offending black sentiment.

 

This really shows the inherent cowardice of the HRC and its true role in human rights in South Africa. As asked above, what would have been the response of the HRC had white journalists excluded black colleagues in a similar situation?

 

The HRC would have made some very loud and indignant denunciations of the white people involved; it would have issued legal writs against the individuals and their professional body and some people would have been facing stiff fines and/or jail time.

 

Such is the two-faced chameleon nature of official human rights and spiteful race relations in South Africa today.

 

It’s all a massive fraud financed and motivated by the ANC and the government. All the pretty words and laws on equality were carefully crafted, put on the statute books and then touted around the globe as an example to the democratic donor countries in Europe and America of what good guys the ANC were in dealing with their former mortal enemies, the whites.

 

The application is, however, very different.

 

If you are a white person in South Africa, just try getting a development loan from the Landbank, a licence for a firearm, a job, or tendering for government work without first giving away 51% of your business – for nothing – to a black partner. A similar environment exists for the Indian and Coloured communities – they are not quite black enough to be included in the division of the post-apartheid spoils.

 

Oh! Yes! Racism is, indeed, alive and kicking in South Africa – it’s just that the rest of the world chooses not to see it because it would be rather embarrassing to have to admit that it has been conned and duped into a false sense of reality.

 

There is nothing wrong in seeking to redress the ills of the past – and, God knows, there were ills aplenty. But why, if not for reasons of economic greed and political revenge, change the balance in a way that so alienates 15% or more of the population that the most able, skilled and economically active of them exercise their economic attractiveness to other markets by deserting their country of birth or adoption?

 

If this programme of alienation and ethnic cleansing continues then South Africa will descend into a chaos no different from that of Zimbabwe’s following the forced eviction of thousands of white farmers in 2000.

 

The loss of skilled white artisans and professionals in recent years has already contributed significantly to the steady deterioration of much of South Africa’s infrastructure. More and more foreign expertise is having to be imported to run our major corporations and banks at much greater cost than if we had not, out of sheer spite, deported our own competence and skills.

 

Disregard the handful of aberrant white individuals who dream of the imagined glories of their past. They are not significant.

 

The vast majority of white people, whether Afrikaans or not, have subscribed wholeheartedly (some, granted, with varying degrees of wariness) to the vision of the New South Africa. Allow them the opportunity, without undue handicap, to contribute to the effort of truly uplifting the bulk of South Africa’s population into educated political and economic maturity. Allow them to expose the deceit that Africa and Africans are unable to manage their own affairs.

 

The Forum of Black Journalists, together with the ANC, have, through bitter personal experience, seen that the exclusivity and alienation of the apartheid days – to say nothing of other examples elsewhere in history – can only fail because such thinking always carries within it the seeds of its own discontent and subsequent destruction.

 

It has got to be worth trying not to repeat the mistakes and pain of the past.

 

Spearpoint.

 

 

 

The Death Penalty and Electioneering in South Africa

The Constitution of South Africa forbids the use of the death penalty in the normal processes of our judicial system.

This prohibition was part and parcel of the new Constitution drafted after the succession to power of the ANC in 1994. It was, I suspect, a reaction to the old constitution under which many ANC and other combatants had suffered during the years of struggle against apartheid prior to 1994.

It was also argued – correctly, I believe – that the death penalty was an irreversibly cruel and unusual punishment that did little, if anything, to deter violent crime; however, this argument was, for many people, counter-intuitive in a society, then and now, profoundly riven by violence and brutality at all levels.

The failure by the ANC government and its various organs to adequately and competently address and correct the problems of violent crime in South Africa following the egalitarian promises of the new Rainbow Nation has resulted in a growing crescendo of popular (if uninformed) demands for the return of the death penalty as the best means of dealing with the current tidal wave of crime swamping this country.

The public appears to be taking the upcoming national elections as an opportunity to try, once again, to get the issue back on the political agenda, particularly now since the influence of the ANC intelligentsia in the form of Thabo Mbeki’s allies appears to be on the wane. Calls for the reinstatement of the death penalty by protesters outside various courts in recent months have become increasingly vocal and have been clearly making a mark on the public at large and, so it would appear, on a number of political hopefuls ahead of scheduled national elections in 2009.

The issue of the death penalty is emotive and is perceived to be a panacea for many ills. It is an all-embracing concept which relies on tempting monochromatic definitions of life for its widespread appeal. For that reason it is most readily embraced and touted by those whose perceptions of the world tend to be unsophisticated and simplistic – and seized upon eagerly by those who would seek to gain the sympathies and affections of large numbers of voters in the quest for elected power.

Not that you can blame them, I guess. President Mbeki and his ministers have failed both to educate the public in their ethics and to demonstrate that a viable society can exist with law enforcement and judicial processes that are not reliant upon the death penalty. Their ethics have been obscure and tainted with pragmatic considerations. Their legislative creations, law enforcement, guidance of the judiciary and subsequent prison management have been selectively erratic, patchy and generally incompetent.

It is of great interest, therefore, that the one person most overtly ambitious for personal power in South Africa, Jacob Zuma, has taken hold of this popular sentiment of restoring the death penalty and made it his own. Not even some of the fringe opposition parties have dared to be quite so forward in their stated desires in this direction.

Sure, at the moment he advocates nothing more than re-opening the debate over the death penalty; for the moment, at least, actual restoration of the death penalty is not part of his declared manifesto.

But it is significant that, in a period of great personal political uncertainty (given his current legal woes), Mr. Zuma has made a very astute move to try to secure, ahead of the elections, considerable popular political support by appearing to be willing to address an issue that is most dearly held by those people (that is, the majority of the population of South Africa) least equipped to consider critically the implications and consequences of a return of the death penalty as a political and judicial tool of state.

(Mr. Zuma is a populist. Mr. Zuma is ambitious. Mr. Zuma is also hungry for personal power and, credit where credit is due, seems honest enough to display that appetite quite openly.

Mr. Zuma, I suspect, also believes that he is due a return for his years of anti-apartheid struggle.

This may be seen in the nature of the charges pending against him (assuming that he is, in fact, guilty of those charges).

It can also be seen in his public appearances when he ensures that he has a prominent entourage and bodyguard detail that is not only royal in its aspect and presentation but also far exceeds anything that I have seen deployed for the State President or any of his Ministers. For a self-proclaimed man of the people he seems to be rather worried about his exposure and physical proximity to those very people…)

The presidential aspirations of Jacob Zuma are, perhaps, a topic best dealt with in another post since, in a direct sense, they are not especially germane to the subject of the death penalty.

However, a strong warning needs to be issued to the people of South Africa at this time.

Regardless of the merits or otherwise of any advocacy for or against the death penalty, now is not the right time to be discussing the issue for the simple reason that the apparently cynical raising of the matter for political motives (i.e. attracting potential votes in an imminent election) has to prompt grave disquiet in the minds of the public at large.

This might sound odd, but the argument for or against the death penalty is not a life and death matter in the lives of most South Africans today. Save for the (questionable) deterrent effect, the death penalty is only ever at the very end of the law enforcement and judicial process and tends to be far removed from the daily experience and consequences of crime for many thousands of people.

More immediate, more relevant to the outcome of the forthcoming elections will be those issues which impact more directly and more precisely on the lives of ordinary South Africans.

Thus, I would suggest that South Africans need answers and realistic (and realisable) promises on the following (amongst others):

1. Employment and skills recognition and deployment;
2. Financial probity and professional competence in all spheres and levels of government enterprise and activity;
3. Combating, controlling and defeating crime of all types for all citizens and residents;
4. Illegal immigration.

The issue of the death penalty is too important, too fundamental to the character of our nation for it to be reduced to a mere electioneering tactic and the subject should not be permitted to be hijacked for such self-interest.

By all means, let there be a debate over the death penalty. It is vital that debate occurs and that it is comprehensive and critical. It is even more vital that such a debate should be conducted away from the environment of immediate gratification, euphoria and bitter disappointment which can so characterise elections and their results.

Let the politicians scramble for their grubby spoils; the victors must then open and guide a national debate on capital punishment and open themselves to the outcome – whatever it might be – through a free, no-whip vote in parliament. (A referendum would not work, unfortunately, since our electorate is not yet sophisticated enough to be entrusted with matters of such profound ethical and legal dimensions – witness the lack of juries in our courts).

You will be aware from the above and previous posts that, from a personal perspective, Spearpoint does not condone the concept of not only capital punishment but also current theories and practices of penology, both here and elsewhere in the world.

It all needs some careful thought.

Spearpoint.