Is necklacing returning to South Africa?

Earlier this year, South African townships were rocked by incidents of necklacing - mob-justice punishment in which tyres are forced over victims' shoulders and set alight. Is this notorious form of killing from the 1980s in danger of making a comeback?

Angelina Maholwana, 74, felt that justice was being done as she watched two young men burn to death.

Tyres had been forced over their shoulders, doused in petrol and set alight.



She had just identified Mabhutana Siwisa, 19, and Mloza Gqomfa, 20, as the men who had broken into her home, killed her son, tried to sexually assault her and stolen their belongings.

It was the fourth incident of necklacing in one month, in New Brighton township, in the industrial city of Port Elizabeth.

The practice dates back to the 1980s, when it became the punishment of choice among supporters of the African National Congress (ANC) for alleged collaborators with the apartheid regime - though the ANC leadership said it did not condone it.

It was also used against common criminals.

But necklacing appeared to die away in 1987. There had only been one recorded case in more than a decade - until June this year.

Beating and Stoning

The Port Elizabeth incidents - and a number of others elsewhere in the Eastern Cape Province in June and July - have raised fears that necklacing is returning as the most extreme form of a rising tide of vigilante justice.

Last year's police statistics show that of the 46 killings committed on an average day in South Africa, 5% are a result of vigilantism. Beating and stoning are two of the most common ways the killings are carried out.

Many people in poor communities like New Brighton township have lost faith in the police and see vigilantism as the best way of keeping the streets safe.

"Mob justice is not right but it has its place in our society," says Scelo Lucas, 28.

"It does reduce crime. We have seen a decrease in the crime here. People are scared because they know the community will rise up against them."

Some do worry, however, about the risk of the innocent being punished for crimes they did not commit.

"Mob justice is wrong because sometimes the wrong people get punished," says 19-year-old Siyasamkela Solani. "In the heat of the moment, there is a lot of room for mistaken identity."

Tied Up
 
The government has warned that those who take part in lynchings may be tried for murder and the police have embarked on a campaign to persuade communities to give it up.

Since July, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa has visited the Eastern Cape twice. There are also plans to take the campaign to other parts of the country, amid fears that necklacing could spread to other provinces.

In practice, however, communities tend to close ranks and protect each other when police investigate, so prosecutions are rare.

Ms Maholwana told the BBC that, in her view, the two men who killed her son got what they deserved.

"They killed my David like they were killing an animal," she says.

"They broke into our home and tied me and my son up and then put us in separate rooms. My feet were tied together so tight that they got swollen," she says.

In an ordeal that lasted some four hours, her son was stabbed in the neck and strangled with a power cord. After the robbers had left, she found him lying lifeless in a pool of blood.

The next day, the alleged perpetrators - thought to have been behind a string of house robberies - were brought by a crowd to her house. One was wearing her son's clothes.

After she had identified them, the mob beat them with sticks, pelted them with stones, forced on the tyres and set fire to them.

The more they tried to escape the angrier and more violent the crowd became, Ms Maholwana says.

"I know that killing these boys won't bring back my son but I sleep better now, knowing those boys will never hurt anyone else again."

History of necklacing

• 1984 -1987: About 672 people were burnt, half of them necklaced
• March 1985 : Thamsanqa Kinini is killed in the first widely reported case of necklacing, which occurs in Uitenhage, Eastern Cape Province
• July 1985: The first female victim, Maki Skhosana, is killed in Gauteng
• 2008 - A Mozambican national is necklaced as a wave of xenophobic violence sweeps the country
• June 2011 - More than seven people are necklaced in the Eastern Cape

Source: Police; South African Institution of Race Relations

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14914526

Physical Geographical Separation, and not Segregation

Theodore Gilmore Bilbo (1877–1947) was possibly America’s most controversial politician to ever be elected to high office, including the governorship and senate of the state of Mississippi.

An avowed Southern nationalist, Bilbo was even a member of the Ku Klux Klan in his youth, although he left that organisation before he was elected to office.

Although a firm defender of Southern state’s rights and segregation, he was unusual in that he was one of the few who realised that racial segregation provided no answer to racial issues, and invoked considerable opposition from his fellow Southerners because of his demand that physical geographical separation, and not segregation, was the only way to preserve America and Western Civilization.

This book, written while Bilbo was awaiting a ruling by the US Senate designed to strip him of his senate seat, summed up his core beliefs about race, civilization and what he called the only solution to racial conflict: separate geographical states. It is a valuable historical document which accurately reflects racial thinking in the Deep South prior to the Civil Rights Era.

"If we choose any plan short of the physical separation of the races, we are in effect adopting the scheme of amalgamation of the races. We have thousands of years of racial contact in world history to prove to us that where different races live side by side, their blood will intermingle and a mongrel people will be the result. The road of amalgamation and mongrelization leads to the destruction of both the white and the Negro races and to the decay of our civilization which is the product of the white man.

Any student of racial history knows that if the Negroes remain in the United States, the last American will be an octoroon or a mongrel with some portion of Negro blood. If the Negroes are not removed, this condition may come about in three to five hundred years: The fact that it will come sooner or later is a certainty." P/B 257 pp

Zuma hails SA's 'visible progress'

President Jacob Zuma claiming great strides had been made in improving South Africa!!!!

The year 2011 has ended better than it started in South Africa, President Jacob Zuma said on Friday, claiming great strides had been made in improving healthcare, education, service delivery and fighting crime.
"We have made visible progress in reducing serious and violent crimes, in improving healthcare, rural development, education, social security and the general expansion of access to basic services," he said.

In 2011 the government created partnerships for job creation and made firm plans to improve infrastructure. A great achievement for the country was hosting the COP17 climate change conference.

Hosting the event in Durban, and the International Olympic Committee General Assembly in July, enhanced the country's image as a first class organiser of international events.

Zuma urged South Africans to make 2012 a year of unity and to celebrate the country's political heritage.

"We have an opportunity to showcase our country's remarkable successes, given the historic celebration of the centenary of the ruling party, on January 8 2012.

"Our country proved to the world that it is possible to rise above institutionalised racism, hatred, colonial oppression and apartheid, and build on its ruins a modern democracy which enshrines justice, human rights and dignity

READERS COMMENTS FROM FACEBOOK

Michael Van Staden

I think he has got it the wrong way round, he should have said we ruined a prosperous country, who held its own during sanctions, we killed the manufacturing industry, go take a drive through your local industrial area, then we destroyed the best railway system in the Southern hemisphere, we f****d up your hospitals, we f****d up your roads, we are over charging you to maintain these with ridiculous taxes on your fuel and have now decided to burden you even further with foreign companies taking the last of what you have got left with their toll gates of which the ANC government will only see 45% of the takings, we closed most of the schools in the rural areas especially farm schools, so we at the ANC can force you to make your kids walk the 30 plus kilometers to the nearest town school. We have also decided that it would be more prestigious to host a Soccer world cup than to build our people homes with the money we spent on the cup and of which we still are in dept for to the different foreign investors, for those of you living in the peace and tranquility of the Karoo, you will get to know us in the very near future when we are going to drill a lot of holes and poison you water supply, but don't worry, we will be creating jobs by having to hire or out source the different companies to deliver drinkable water to your house.

 

I forgot the bit with the over filled jails, because the criminals have more rights than the law abiding tax payer. Taken our guns to make it safer for them to climb through our bed room windows, once they have gained access over my electric fence, poisoned my dog and would like to have their way with my Mrs against her will, then take all the money and jewelry and be off in the dark of the night, it wont help phoning the cops, because they don't have the funds to maintain their one and only vehicle at my local cop shop, if its running it probably on its way to collect the next shift of coppers.

 

READERS COMMENTS FROM MAIL & GUARDIAN:

Oh dear. This is about as meaningful as the late Dear Leader of North Korea and his newly appointed son and heir. I've read the sad speech and it's partly fantasy about SA's achievements, mostly generalised and mostly out of step with what really is, and partly a lot of partisan fluff about his own political party's centenary. Hardly the way to go for a nation's head, but I guess that he just asks some henchman to draft some vapid spin for the occasion. And I guess that he anticipates that a large proportion of ANC voters don't really have daily access to any form of critique of the abysmal performance of this exhausted and incompetent governing party.

Anyway, happy new year one and all, and may we have the guts and resources to make good and find peace in 2012 despite this goon at the helm.     

Mr. President, you cannot distinguish between right and wrong, so how can you say that the country has progressed? Progressed backwards or progressed forwards? How would you know?

"Our country proved to the world that it is
possible to rise above institutionalised racism, hatred, colonial
oppression and apartheid, and build on its ruins a modern democracy
which enshrines justice, human rights and dignity."
Mr President, I hope the above words were sincere and not just thoughtless political utterances. Especially when we remember that your nephew has violated human rights and dignity by leaving thousands Aurora Mine workers with nothing to celebrate this Christmas and new year.     

Are you really talking about South Africa? Our country has racist legislation in another guise, there is a lot of hatred, service delivery in ALL departments (except SARS) is virtually non existent. Look at education, defence, health, welfare, and all the rest. Corruption has grown out of proportion. Without colonialism, SA would have had no infrastructure at all! SA has become the word capitol of murder, drugs, aids, and most attributes in the negative!

It is the only country where laws are made against the minority to protect the majority. I would implore you to open your eyes and see what really is going on!     

I think the only ones who have benefited are government ministers and tenderpreneurs Mr President. Your family has benefited tremendously - one of them at the expense of the unpaid miners working for Aurora.

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-12-30-zuma-hails-sas-visibile-progress-during-2011/

The Slow Death Of A Black Nation

I picked up an article in the Sowetan Newspaper on the 30th December 2011. For those of you who don't know it is a Black Newspaper printed daily in South Africa.

The follwing was written by a black matric student - probably something a standard 3 or 4 White student would write.

Submitted by Lwazi Nyanakancesh Nongauza for Youthtube: By the Youth, for the Youth. Written the day after her matric exams.

Chaw - chaw cheers quietly - peaceful - surprisingly they passed away, Boom boom like sick ants they die, In shock, anger , disbelief and frustration, We swear, Futsek this metric stupid black curse.
We cry - cry and cry

Why her- why him - why – why???

In despair we mourn

But she was cute, friendly open nice little kid.

Sobbing , we curse , question, curse and questions

why - why - why- why

In anguish , in depression - we blame

Even statistics SA show increase of matric kids suicides

But why?

Damn most of them are black kids.

But why?

Why most of them are black kids?

Why?

Is it because they are denied the luxury benefits Afrikaner students have in examination classrooms?

Is it because exams question papers are not translated into understandable languages?

In democratic 2011 but still like in Apartheid

Black kids are still underprivileged.

In Mzantsi under a black lead government are black kids still inferior creatures.

Indeed in this Mandela rainbow nation skin represents lower class citizen

In our days black race get the last end of the stick

In 2011 democratic but still in apartheid black kids still systematical oppressed

who will immense black kids from this men made hell in south Africa?

Why?

Why most black matriculations failure kill themselves?

Can it be the publication examination results to be one of the reasons?

But why?

Why is passing or failing Matric have to be a Public issue?

For 11 years passing or failing exams has been kids and tier parents business.

Why should the public know any of the Matric student results?

Where did who get person to publicly publish exams results

By the way who benefits from Matric publication business?

Matric students suicides be new to you.

But this belief has been like this for years.

Maybe the right question should be, why nothing is done about this issue?

You and you might not know.

Maybe those who want, can answer have bigger fish to fry.

Meaning

For now, more black Matric students will continue to die.

For now, more poor black parents will mourn.

For now, black kids lead suicides statistics.

For now, more black cloud will continue to hang over our generation.

Chaw - chaw cheers quietly - peaceful - surprisingly they passed away

Boom boom like sick ants they die

In shock, anger , disbelief and frustration

We swear

Futsek this metric stupid black curse

We cry - cry and cry

Why her- why him - why – why???

In despair we mourn

But she was cute, friendly open nice little kid.

Sobbing , we curse , question, curse and questions

why - why - why- why

In anguish , in depression - we blame

Even statistics SA show increase of Matric kids suicides

But why?

Damn most of them are black kids.

But why?

Why most of them are black kids?

Why?

http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/goodlife/youthtube/2011/12/30/the-slow-death-of-black-nation


Here is a comment a good FaceBook friend posted on a FaceBook page I contribute to:

Johan PB Prinsloo

‎"Why is passing or failing Matric have to be a Public issue?" Matric results have always been published in the mainstream media, but now it would need to be stopped, because the black children are committing suicide.

 I don't want to go into this too deeply, but I'm wondering if this is not because of expectations and pressure that kids were never used to before.

 

Black kids now being faced with competitiveness, which is something that never really existed in their culture before. Its something I'll definitely take up with some of the sober thinking blacks I know and get their opinion on.

 

Black kids suddenly have to compete on an equal basis with whites, coloured, Indian & Chinese students and the disgrace of not being able to keep up is too much for them.

 I experienced this while I was at MEDUNSA in the 1980's We had a few white students entering at the university at the time and the black students went on riot to get rid of them, because they outperformed the rest of the students. Once they achieved that they again went on strike to get rid of the Chinese and Indian students for the same reason.

 One has to question whether the competitiveness and pressures of western society, the expectations to perform are not overwhelming. Its too much too soon.

 WE also see it with blacks being put into top earing positions and they become alcoholics, because, suddenly they're earning so much money they don;t know how to handle it, they have to perform and keep up with the rest and meet dead-lines, while in their traditions time is of no concern, tomorrow is another day.

 

Having all this money suddenly they get into drinking and jolling like never before and they end up drinking all-day and even drugs, so much part of SA high society these days.

 The problem with the majority of black people, and I know I'm generalising here, is that they cannot take responsibility for their own shortcomings and mistakes, they always find someone or something else to blame.

 The publishing of the results in public is not the problem, its the inability to cope with what they're suddenly being confronted with thats the problem.

 This may perhaps be compared with what has been happening in SA sport for many years, where young guys enter a sport, the coaches suddenly realise the chap has great potential and they push him to fast. We saw this with young boxers so many times and also in Rugby. Where this young sportsman should have gone places, a year or two later he is gone, burned out and buggared, because he could not cope.

 I've been in tertiary education for many years and I've even been registered as an Evaluator for the Council for Higher Education and served a a High-school's governing body for 15 years and I've seen what they've been doing with these black students.

 

When I started at MEDUNSA in the 1980's we saw how they dropped the standards, just to get the numbers. Since 1994 this has been much, much worse as the standards have now been dropped so low these qualifications are not worth the paper its printed on.

 The late Prof. "Van" Myburgh always said to me that MEDUNSA is the most modern, the best equipped Medical School with the best lectures money could buy, ..... with the worst product being produced at the end.

 

For our foreign / international friends MEDUNSA was a black medical school built by the National Party Government in the 1970's. It still remains a black medical school, but there is very little left of it today.

 Now what happens is that this qualified, yet poorly educated graduate enters the job-market, he gets put in a job based on that qualification, but cannot do the job. He earns the salary and holds the title, he is expected to perform and compete, but he cannot. The end result is that he procrastinates, misses days at work to avoid the wrath of management and starts drinking. He slowly commits career-suicide and eventually ends up on the street a broken individual.

 Now imagine the young black kids suddenly ending up in a school among other rich white, coloured and indian children who are themselves being pushed like hell by their snobbish parents. Parents push their children to perform where they themselves could not, hoping that their kids would make up for their own failure. White children cannot cope, how do the black parents who are not used to and do not give their children any support of any kind expect those kids to perform and cope with it?

 I know I've already spoken too much again, but I just wanted to get this across that they are again finding something to blame rather than to seek the cause and address it.

 

Johan my friend - you never speak too much! Thank you for your post.

What has the Black Man Accomplished?

As Chika says “I want to be a CAPITALIST NIGGER.” He also says it is going to cause a lot of offence to the black race but he does not care! He says black people must wake up from their stupor as he is tired of their whining and victim mentality, tired of listening to the same old complaint – racism.

He also says that the black race has absolutely nothing to offer compared to others in the world. They are consumers and not producers. As the black race has answers to every charge of failure they have incurred themselves: the answer is blaming others for their failures. He goes on to say he believes the black race will descend further into the abyss of the world’s economic pole.

The black race is a slave – pure and simple ……I am frightened and disgusted at the same time, that people who produce nothing and consume everything that others produce. We are always ready to make excuses about the inventions and products our people have perfected in long gone eras, but which have been stolen from us and the ones who stole them have gone on to become very rich. This is nothing but another excuse for our failures.

What has the black man accomplished in business?

“I am sure someone from my group is liable to point out to me that a black man had the idea of the invention of the computer in his brains, of course, it stuck in his brains and couldn’t come out!!!” 

Who really invented the computer? http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/zuse.html 

There are many success stories of people starting businesses in their garages or even their kitchens with very little or no money and who went on to make millions and even billions financially, but not one of those success stories involves a black man.

Chika talks of using a computer – made by a White man - to write his book - which he bought from a White man, he goes on to say he turns a light on – who invented the light bulb? Why Thomas Edison of course – no one doubts that.

But reading the http://www.blackinventor.com/pages/lewis-latimer.html many black men believe Lewis Latimer, a black man invented the light bulb. In actual fact he did not invent the light bulb – he just devised a way of encasing the filament within a cardboard envelope which prevented the carbon from breaking and thereby provided a much longer life to the bulb and hence made the bulb less expensive and more efficient.

LEWIS LATIMER

Every one knows how black men love their music – the black race spends more money on purchasing musical equipment than any other race.  Who invented radios, stereos, walkmans, and televisions?  – Not a black man, black men do not even own a factory to assemble radios or stereos etc. These items are made by the Japanese, and yet the Japanese have nothing but scorn for the black African. Two of Japans former Prime Ministers publically made the observation that black people were inferior in intelligence, and yet the black race are Japan’s biggest consumers. This is the intelligence of the black man, the black man embraces technology with no understanding of how technology works.

Take the Internet for example – it was founded by White men in their twenties or early thirties who forgot about the good life – the women, the fast cars, expensive suits, partying who rolled up their sleeves and worked hard. What did the black man do? They chose the path of slavery.

All over the world, the story is the same – White twenty–to-thirty something year olds raking in the money and what is the black man doing? Shooting each other in the streets over meaningless causes. Let’s face it the black mans work ethics leave a lot to be desired. They prefer others to establish a company so that they can come in and cry racism when Whites refuse to hire them.

Chika goes on to say that his book is not about separatism. Being a Capitalist Nigger does not involve asking for a separate land area for black people; it does not involve asking all Caucasians to get out of Africa; it is not about taking up arms to slaughter innocent White people.

On your last sentance Chika - you have NO idea of what you are saying. Thousands of White farmes have been mercilessly murdered, White women and White children raped and tortured. The black men and women in South Africa are all out to get the Whites!

Capitalist Nigger

In the following months I will endeavour to put on this blog excerpts from a book I have read and am in the process of re-reading.  It is called Capitalist Nigger - written by Chika Onyeani.

Chika Onyeani

INTRODUCTION

The power of a word...

"According to Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, the word "Nigger" has now come to rank as "perhaps the most offensive and inflammatory racial slur in English.....it is otherwise a word expressive of racial hatred and bigotry."

In October 1960 Nigeria received its independence from Britain. It was a time for celebrating Africa’s coming of age, as more and more African countries received their independence either from Britain or France.

It was especially a poignant time for Africa as then British Prime Minister Harold McMillan articulated his now famous "Wind of Change" sweeping Africa. We had high hopes for Africa, for the black race, that the insidious imposition of foreign rule on us, the looting of Africa’s natural resources by our colonial masters and the disrespect and disdain that these colonial masters accorded us would be things of history. Henrik Verwoerd's response. The tendency in Africa for nations to become independent, and at the same time to do justice to all, does not only mean being just to the black man of Africa, but also to be just to the White Man of Africa........

That was many , many years ago. Unfortunately, the promise of independence has not been fulfilled. Today, Africa has become more desolate; there is more starvation, disease and non-provision of essential services than when we got our independence. There are all kinds of wars in Africa and millions of lives have been lost. There are more dictators in Africa than the rest of the world put together.

The majority of so-called African leaders want to stay in power until the day their bodies are put in the grave. Through buffoonery, utter mismanagement and downright stealing of the wealth of the masses, these leaders have so impoverished Africa that we are now nothing but a beggar continent. We beg for everything; we are more dependent on our colonial masters than when we received our independence from them. Africa owes the west more money than we and our generations to come can repay.

In the last years I have watched with horror and outright helplessness as the downward slide of the African race continues to escalate. But rather than address the problems, we resort to blaming the Caucasian’s, Asians and others for our misfortune. We are not men enough to accept responsibility for our actions.

Africans blame either the British, French or little Portuguese / Spanish for their problems. African’s in America blame the Caucasian’s for all their problems, or any other ethnic group. Africans blame the International Monetary fund, the World Bank, the Group of7, the former colonial masters for the abject poverty in our respective countries. We blame the wars ravaging several African sectors on the interference of our former colonial masters on “our internal affairs” Ha! – some kind of independence.

When we decide to buy a house in a Caucasian neighbourhood, we blame the people for refusing to sell to us because of their belief that we spend more time and money on visible luxurious and ultimately worthless items, than in maintaining our property, which to everyone but us is a major part of their investment and retirement portfolio.

The blame game has become a permanent part of our lives to the exclusion of any other solution that could be more viable in solving our problems. It has become the most productive part of our lives, because without it the African cannot really point to much that they are in charge of producing. It is better to blame others than to confront the truth of our being responsible for whatever has happened to us as an African race.

I decided to write CAPITALIST NIGGER to open a debate on the state of the African race. To tell it like it is, the truth and nothing but the truth. My observations are bound to infuriate a lot of my people. Even the title of this book is bound to make a lot of people angry. Many people will be angry, to say it mildly, when I question the intelligence of my people compared to the Asians, (Indians, Pakistanis, Malaysians, Filipinos) and others who attained independence at the same time as most African countries. Africans need help in solutions offered to help extricate themselves from being a consumer to a productive race.

 PRACTICE CAPITALIST NIGGERISM

 You want your children to have good grades in school? PRACTICE CAPITALIST NIGGERISM because then you will not blame the teachers for failing your children or blame the nationwide testing services for using non-black questions in their tests.

If you want o have a good job PRACTICE CAPITALIST NIGGERISM

Because you want to beat the people who expect you to fail because they believe you are stupid.

Being a CAPITALIST NIGGER puts you in control of every aspect of your life – you are in charge and nobody else.

 The important point is that we must stop the blame game and accept responsibility for the present state of the Black Race.

Capitalist Nigger in South Africa. Chika Onyeani presents a copy of his book to South African President, Jacob Zuma, October 2008

2012 New Year wishes to the Whites in South Africa.

I read this post on the following link:

http://beyondtheriversofethiopia.blogspot.com/

 

Saturday, 31 December 2011

2012 New Year wishes to the Whites in South Africa.

I am not going to bitch and moan about how you people just sit back and let this shit happen, no I am done with that – it is a lost cause.

No – this time around I am going to congratulate you on surviving another year in that country ruled by savages that want(s) you dead.

Regardless of being outnumbered 50 to 1 you managed to survive, and not just survive but make a living and be productive members of society, you found time for your family, fed and played with your children and pets, made love to your wife or girlfriend, purchased proudly South African products and even paid your taxes!!
Taxes that provide that country with infrastructure and vital services for everyone.

You even found the time to braai a tjoppie and drink a dop or two or three with your mates.
In short, complacency aside, you rock!!
You are the essence of what it truly means to be a White South African!!

You don’t think the world owes you a living, you earn a living!
And yes you own shit – not because you are white but because you work your ass off to pay for that shit!!
Well I salute you, because you have the right stuff!!

And without you that country would be a slum like most of its neighbours. – So, go ahead and pat yourselves on the back, because it is only because of you and others like you that there is still something worth staying in that country for!!

So as this year winds down, take a bow because you deserve the honours but also be vigilant as this is the season of intense crime, after all the other South Africans still need to steal their bonus from you, so be wary and watchful and above all be safe.

 

Rest up, have fun with family and friends as you will need all the strength you can muster for 2012, because if the world does not end as predicted, you the few will be called upon to support the many who refuse to even try!!

Forwarded by an unknown reader.

http://beyondtheriversofethiopia.blogspot.com/

The old 2011 and the new 2012

Well the year 2011 is nearly at its end. I wonder what 2012 will bring to South Africans living in South Africa?

South Africa is a beautiful country, the scenery, in my opinion, surpasses anything else found in the world. It is such a pity that we have a governmunt hell bent on stripping and trashing everything in it.

A very heartfelt thanks to all my readers. Here's hoping for better news in 2012

See you in 2012

Warmest Regards

The Marchers Questionaire

 

14 November 2011

Today we learned about yet another march to follow against the ANC in the Eastern Cape.

We are going to publish this note and hope an ANC voter will come give us an intelligent answer as to why they are marching against the government.

We are a bunch of black liberals gathered here on a Saturday night, while the marchers are probably at some night club, clubbing the night away, while we worry about your future.

But before you blast us once more with all your old apartheid stories, The Colonialists that stole our country, and the Eskimos that stole our ice, please answer the following questions seeing we are all still in an examination mood.

You had voted for the ANC as late as this year. So please tell us when you voted this year:

Section A:

1. Were things any better than when you voted in 2007, if you were eligible?

2. Have your parents been given a free house between 2007 and 2011?

3. Did you get a job if you were unemployed after graduation?

4. Are you free yet of a taxi being squashed like a sardine or did you get access to civilized public transport?

5. Has your father or mother been given a nice juicy government tender?

6. How many foreigners have moved into your street?

7. Are your siblings still paying school fees and are their teachers at school?

8. Have any of your parents lost any tyres due to the condition of our roads?

9. Were there any new businesses or manufacturing plants been started up in your area (excluding Chinese & Somalian)

10. When you last visited a state hospital or clinic, how hygienic were the facilities?

11. Do you understand when a Cuban doctor is speaking to you and do you think he understands what you are saying?

12. Do you know that less than 10% of the population are paying tax and have to keep the other 90% of the population happy and fed and in 4x4's killing innocent learners?

13. Do you know that all consumer goods once manufactured here have been replaced by illegally imported Chinese products?

14. Do you understand the fact that because we no longer manufacture in this country it has caused job losses?

15. Do you know the Chinese pay R15,000 for citizenship in our country?

16. Do you know the Nigerians living here illegally are dealing in drugs imported from China?

17. Do you know the Chinese, Somalis and Nigerians don't pay VAT to SARS on goods sold to you?

18. Do you know what VAT is and that we need the VAT to be able to pay your Granny her pension?

19. Do you know our President and his Vice are buying Jets costing R1.6 Billion?

20. Do you know how democracy works? The Party with the most votes gets to rule the country? Do you know that?

Make sure you know the difference between Million and Billion. To help you understand the difference, 1000 Million is a Billion.

Section B:

Now sit down and think soberly and explain to us if the ANC ISN'T living up to your expectations, why do you keep voting for them, but marching against them. Get your thought process going because it is insane marching against the party you vote for.

(In this section words such as white, black, Colonialism and Apartheid may not be used, we deem them irrelevant to our current problems)

Section C:

(This section deals with a very important issue and you need to focus now)

1. Are you using the imported Chinese condoms that are tearing, also supplied via government tender?

2. Do you know how HIV/Aids is transmitted and do you know at all what it is?

3. Have your parents discussed conception with you and do you know that sex turns into a baby?

4. Do you know babies eat and need clothes?

5. Do you know that we have 2 million Aids orphans?

6. Have you had an Aids test if you do not know how to wear or insist the wearing of a condom?

Section D:

(questions are for ANCYL members only)

1. Did you march with Malema last week to the Union Buildings and why?

2. Do you know the Johannesburg Stock Exchange is the heart of our economy?

3. Did you ask Malema why he wants to destroy the heart of our economy?

4. Do you know Malema drives around in a R1.2 Million 4x4 and is building a R15 Million house?

5. Do you know if the mines are nationalised that jobs will be lost due to the mines closing because of lack of expertise?

6. Do you know that nationalisation of the banks will result in a complete collapse of our currency?

7. Do you know we have a balance of payment? (If you are unfamiliar with this then do some research)

8. Do you understand that the tomatoes you eat will become imported items when the farmers are killed?

9. If you eat maize meal, do you know after the farmers are killed, you will eat rice that the Chinese will import?

10. Did you know Malema's mentor in Zimbabwe is now singing jingles on national radio stations to lure voters?

Section E:

In less than 2000 words justify the R500 Million the ANC is spending on the centennial birthday bash.



___________________________________________________________________



Regards,
The Black Liberals

PS.

Remember we don't want to hear about Apartheid, Colonialists, Eskimos or any Monks in Tibet that caused your current misery!
http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/The-Marchers-Questionaire-20111114

The Tokoloshe

13 November 2011

400 years ago Africa might as well been another planet in our solar system.

We were living in peace in our thatch huts. The 10 piece of cattle were grazing under the African sky. The head of the family sat in the shade of a tree drinking beer, the wives were working the land and the kids were making clay oxen to play with.

Every man’s dream, even to this day, no matter where on this planet you might come from. It sounds like the African version of the Playboy mansion. You sit in the shade and your multiple wives work for you.

Then the Europeans arrived and laughed at our people who had no education and thought our way of life was savagery. We had to fight them with spears to survive and ultimately lost the battle. They took our land and made us their slaves. They sold us to America and we became a trading commodity.

That is, what it is. We can’t change the past. So now 400 years later, what now?

We had to learn through bloodshed that we were not a planet of another solar system. We are part of this world and in this world there are certain rules that can’t be broken if you want to have food. Whether we like these rules or not, they are a reality. We can fight them like Mugabe does but it would only result in hunger.

Too many Africans are yearning for life as we knew it back then…but they just love the white man’s BMW and Lear Jet. The donkey cart is way too primitive for their liking and the cow hides that once covered our loins are not as “cool” as a Hugo Boss suit. We are a race that conveniently wants to fall back on our traditions when it suits us.

Not everybody has the ability to be as black and white as I am, and I mean that in more than one sense. I accept and acknowledge that. But I had to ask myself where do I fit in? Do I want to go back to my ancestral land in Dundee and demand this land be given back to me so I can acquire a few wives and create my own Playboy Mansion or do I like it here in Sandton with a Blackberry?

You would be horrified if you read all the messages I get on Facebook of people swearing at me, calling me a traitor, a disgrace to all black people in South Africa and that whites are paying me to blog my views.

What they don’t know is that I have been very blessed to come from a long line of fighters that have fought from the days of the spear right up to the AK47.

They fought for my freedom and as sure as this sun is going to come up tomorrow, I am not going to mess up all they have fought for.

I have to address this cultural jail that stands between my people and true freedom.

Let us look at the Tokoloshe first. (Tokoloshe or Tikoloshe. From the Xhosa word uthikoloshe. The tokoloshe is a short, hairy, dwarf-like creature from Bantu folklore. It is a mischievous and evil spirit that can become invisible by swallowing a pebble. Tokoloshes are called upon by malevolent people to cause trouble for others. At its least harmful a tokoloshe can be used to scare children, but its power extends to causing illness and even death upon the victim. The way to get rid of him is to call in the n’anga or witch doctor who has the power to banish him from the area. It seems incredible to most of us that there could be any truth in the legend of the tokoloshe or the power of the witch doctor. But they are thought to exist in some parts of Africa where superstition and legend is very much alive and well. In Zulu mythology, Tikoloshe, Tokoloshe or Hili (from the Xhosa word utyreeci ukujamaal) is a dwarf-like water sprite. They are considered a mischievous and evil spirit.)

You slept with your bed raised up on a few bricks so that when the Tokoloshe comes at night, he could move freely around your room without knocking his head against any object. For those that know this superstition will know it is a small mystical hairy thing that looks like a psychotic angry little bear and catches you at night. But if he knocks his head against your bed, you are going to get this menace all over you and he has a temper like no other on earth. Stop laughing, I’m dead serious!

I haven’t seen him yet. I badly wanted to see him when I was small because while others feared him, I thought he sounded cool and wanted to befriend him.

My grandmother would look at me in absolute horror when I wanted to see the Tokoloshe. She would tell my mother “Eish this child scares me”.

When my Grandfather returned from exile, he brought me a Teddy Bear from London. I looked at the Teddy and instantly knew this was the Tokoloshe I always wanted to meet. So my bear got named Tokoloshe. I got smacked a few times because I would jump on my Grandmother when she takes her afternoon nap and scare her with Tokoloshe.

But the modern new reborn Tokoloshes sit in Parliament.

Parliament…hmmmm… let us discuss running this country, being an example to the citizens and our traditions.

In a new African landscape how practical is it having multiple wives? Nice idea, being a man. Come on you guys reading this, admit it!

But 20 children? Not so good because if I see what my university education and all the sundry trimmings are costing my father I would hate to think he had to make 20 of us. He would need to join the bank robbers to keep us at university.

My mother didn’t come cheap either, so he would have had to start stealing cattle from the white farmers if he wanted more wives. She cost him 40 head of cattle back in the 80’s. But wow, was she worth every cow! You should see her today in her Chanel dress …but 5 of them?

That is the humorous side of our tradition, but the more serious side is the following reality. There are only two of us and not twenty. So from my first breath my father has been there every step of my way thus far. We are his life and the reason he works this hard. He has spent every moment available guiding me into manhood (without sending me to a bush so some traditional butcher can slaughter my stuff beyond repair) How, as a father will you possibly find the time to devout this kind of attention to 20 kids? I don’t even want to think what life would have been like without my father. Unthinkable.

But what would I have been, if my father happily cavorted around claiming it is his culture and tradition?

I probably would have been marching with Malema on the road to nowhere and my father would have been dead by now. I would be visiting a graveyard and trying to find life’s answers from a stone. Back in the 80’s when he married my mother us blacks haven’t heard of HIV/Aids and those enlightened ones that did know about it, thought it was a homosexual disease.

So unbeknown to us we were killing ourselves. Merrily living out the principles of our tradition, not knowing we are committing suicide and resulting in 2 Million orphans just in South Africa alone, let alone the rest of Africa.

Wouldn’t this be a far more worthy cause to march about than march to get stuff you deliriously think should be given to you for free?

Imagine what must be going through the mind of a 4 year old kid, who is left all alone tonight, with nobody to take care of him or her? None of these orphaned kids asked to be here, so imagine how a child has to try and make sense of all of this?

So why do I still have my parents? Because my father knew he can’t run around making babies that he can’t provide for. He had to think soberly about life with a new millennium looming. He had us because he wanted us. We were to become his legacy. We weren’t conceived in a moment of uncontrolled lust or in the name of an outdated tradition.

We won’t discuss the merits of the social grant for mothers with kids and absent fathers but alarmingly condoms are still very unpopular accessories amongst the population of Africa. Until recently we had that scary old Bat as a minister of health. Tokolosh personified. Beetroot juice and cabbage leaves will cure the disease, while the Chief would shower after a bit of inyama.

What did my father do 7 years ago when I reached puberty? He sat me down and told me the facts and how it all happens. Every time I leave the house he jokingly says he will draw blood when I return and have me tested. He jokes, but it has sunk in so deep now, I think about the consequences every time I see a gorgeous girl.

What do my people do? Until recently it was better swept under the table than discuss the matter. It became unlawful to state a person has died of AIDS on his death certificate. How big is this denial?

Please don’t make a comment after you have read this and tell me this disease was invented by the Apartheid rulers to wipe us out. I’m not even going to discuss that old stale story! And speaking about Apartheid, get over it. It has no relevance in 2011. Dead, gone, born 31-05-1961 and was executed on 27-04-1994. Our ultimate justification for everything that we do wrong can’t come back so we can stone it.

The most bizarre superstition was invented to “cure” the disease. Rape a girl and it goes away. By girl, I mean little ones that had to helpless have their lives taken from them without their consent. Grown men believing in rubbish like this. How in the name of God can you possibly justify this, no matter what your traditions or beliefs are?

We have now for far too long shrugged our shoulders and hid behind our traditions on the one hand and on the other we want to sit at the UN and pretend we have the wisdom to help decide the fate of other countries. In this world we need to merge with, you have:

1. One wife. You sleep around, you die.

2. You have more kids than you can provide for, they starve and when they grow up they will steal to survive because you didn’t have enough money to send them to a decent school. The government schools are a complete waste of time because the teachers are never in class.

3. You can’t sell or trade with your daughters. They are not consumer goods.

4. You study or qualify as an artisan so you can earn your own keep and build your own house. There isn’t enough money going around building 40 Million free houses. You can wait until the sun burns itself out, it is not going to happen. So live with it.

5. Forget the white man’s wealth. It has long gone been transferred to Sydney. There isn’t any left here. Create your own. Forget about redistribution. Use your logic. The wealth of 5 Million whites was never going to send 45 Million blacks into a blissful retirement. The white wealth Malema cries about daily, was only in the hands of a few whites.

So until we move ourselves forward and merge ourselves with the world, we will remain primitive. 17 Years after independence you don’t dance from Beyers Naude to the stock exchange and have foreign journalists film your insanity in the name of freedom.

We were freed 17 years ago, embrace it and use your freedom to trade with the world, not crash your own stock market.

We can march up to the Union Buildings until the cows come home. We are not going to move ourselves forward until we free ourselves from ourselves!

http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/The-Tokoloshe-20111113