What is Happening in South Africa: 06/01/2013

Friday, June 28, 2013

Conflicting Reports on Nelson Mandela Death at 94 (Update)

This is an update to the original article that I wrote last night. It has upset a lot of people and I have written an addendum with new facts that will prove our assertions that the great man is dead. If you want to read the original article please scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Despite the fact that reliable sources have revealed that after Nelson Mandela’s life support machine was shut down and he died with his family around him, the South African government continues to insist that Mandela is recovering and not dead yet. According to our sources in South Africa Nelson Mandela has died in the hospital aged 94.

We stand behind our original article and have provided the following information

that has been supplied to us by our local South African sources.

Our sources have relayed to us that there is a massive cover-up being undertaken by President Zumba and the South African government. While the world still waits for official confirmation about the truth about the great man’s death, we have been informed that he has, in fact, already died.

Again, according to our South African local sources, the iconic Mandela died while he was still in the hospital for the recurring lung infection that left him in critical condition for several days.

Rumors have flooded the newspapers and the internet with several sources reporting his death days earlier in a cruel attempt to fool the public and to upset the many people who have respect for this great humanitarian. The loss of the great man will be felt across the world. Our report is an effort to reveal the truth behind the conflicting reports on Mandela’s death.

Yesterday one of our South African journalists, Laura Oneale, wrote an article questioning whether or not Nelson Mandela was still alive. He had been in the hospital 19 days for a recurring lung infection. Speculation surrounding his health continued to grow with many asking whether he was still alive or if, in fact, he had died. Authorities have thus far only confirmed that he was on a life support machine and that he remains in critical condition.

Some sources have gone so far as to say that the world-respected humanitarian is actually improving. These statements appear to be a part of the larger “smoke screen” that has South Africans calling for President Zuma to tell the truth about whether Mandela is dead or alive.

Authorities have confirmed that Nelson Mandela has been taken off his life support machine, adding fuel to the speculation that he had died. Because of this, the rumor has been spreading that Nelson Mandela died last night and that the government and his family have “kept a lid” on the news because of American President Obama’s upcoming trip to South Africa. Obviously, the president’s visit will be overshadowed by the announcement of the Nobel Prize winning Mandela.

The Nobel Prize winning humanitarian Nelson Mandela had his life support shut down after he died last night aged 94 at the end of a long battle with illness that ended with his hospitalization and finally his death. While his health problems started in 2011, it was the summer of this year when his condition worsened.

On June 8, 2013, Mandela’s lung infection worsened and he was re-hospitalized in Pretoria in serious condition. After four days, it was reported that he had stabilized and that he remained in a “serious, but stable condition”.

While on his way to the hospital, the ambulance carrying Mandela broke down and was stranded on the roadside for 40 minutes. The South African government was criticized for the incident when it confirmed the report weeks later. President Jacob Zuma protested: “There were seven doctors in the convoy who were in full control of the situation throughout the period. He had expert medical care.”

On June 22, 2013 CBS News reported that Mandela had not opened his eyes in days and that he was unresponsive. The family began discussing just how much medical intervention should be given.

On June 23, 2013 President Jacob Zuma issued a statement saying that Mandela’s condition had become “critical.” Zuma, who was accompanied by the Deputy President of the ANC, Cyril Ramaphosa, met with Mandela’s wife Graca Machel at the hospital in Pretoria and discussed his condition.

On June 25, 2013, Cape Town Archbishop Thabo Makgoba visited Mandela at the hospital and prayed with Graca Machel Mandela “at this hard time of watching and waiting.”

On June 26, 2013, Nelson Mandela was taken off life support after his condition deteriorated further. Sources have said that the 94 year-old Mandela died last night after his life support was shut down. A medical source explained to us that no one is left on life support after 24 hours as they are then technically brain dead.

The Las Vegas Guardian Express writer Laura Oneale also wrote that in Qunu, the home town of Nelson Mandela, his family got together with the elders to discuss specific events surrounding the well-being of Mandela. It has been confirmed that they were talking about highly sensitive issues, but trying to get further information has been difficult.

Our local writer also said, “Nobody wants to talk, it is a big cover up. The family reports he is gravely ill, then Zuma tells the media Mandela is getting better. The people here in SA are upset with Zuma and don’t believe him. A lot of people are believing he is dead. [There are] Plenty of remarks about the integrity of Zuma.”

In the home town of Qunu, where Mandela will be buried, they are repairing the roads, and continue to clean up the city. Allegedly they are expecting a large contingent of journalists who will be travelling down there.

There is other “evidence” that points to Nelson Mandela having already died, like the presence of the “red blanket.” Mandela’s daughter, who was seen wearing a red blanket, and other family members were at the great man’s gravesite. It is part of Xhosa tradition that family members cover themselves with a red blanket when there has been a death in the family, not in preparation of someone dying, but only when a family member has died.

We have gotten a lot of angry remonstrations for reporting the real news as has been passed on to us from reliable sources. One source works for the government owned TV station and does not want to be named for fear of losing their job or worse. Our sources are reporting the truth, completely the opposite of what the South African government is doing.

We have been warned that if we persist in exposing the fact that Nelson Mandela has already died that it will cause severe problems for the South African government. Out local journalist has told us that “the majority of people will take to the streets to morn his death and the weeping and wailing would be a nightmare; the economy will suffer and the different tribes will make a massive drama about his death.”

Our writer also goes onto say “They have different ways of preparing and performing funerals here.”

We have also learned that a lot of the bad publicity and anger that we’ve received at the Las Vegas Guardian Express is based on “jealousy and from support for the Zuma team.” President Zuma has gone on record stating that Nelson Mandela is improving and the South African public have said that he is lying. The backlash from his “covering up” of Mandela’s death will be severe.

Our local journalist also pointed out that there have been many cases in the past of world leaders dying and the truth not being revealed for days, or even weeks. Mandela’s death, coinciding with President Obama’s visit, would be a potential security

nightmare for the South African government. It has been alleged that the SA government is in talks with the US government right now regarding how and when Mandela’s death should be revealed.

Our local Journalist has been attempting to get further confirmation on Mandela’s death, but nothing is being mentioned. Our sources have said that local people believe he is dead and that the government is covering up the story. The reasons given for this cover up is the American president’s visit and the economic situation. There are rumours that the government will announce his death beginning of July and declare July Mandela month.

His birthday is on July 18.

We have been told that the government spokesperson, Mac Maharaj, had a slip of the tongue by saying the elders who were meeting in Qunu were “arranging the funeral.” It was also reported is that Zuma cancelled a trip abroad and that this indicates more evidence of a cover up or is an indication of how serious the situation is.

SABC News showed the gravediggers on television last night and this has caused the local people to now believe he is dead. People are angry and they are blaming SA President Zuma for the cover up.

We have had two sources (the second being a SA publication) confirm that Nelson Mandela has already died last night after his life support was shut down and that the respected iconic humanitarian has died age 94. It is our understanding that despite the conflicting reports on Nelson Mandela’s death, that the world respected Noble Peace Prize winning humanitarian has gone and the world will mourn his death.

By Michael Smith

Source

A reliable source has revealed that Nelson Mandela’s life support machine was shut down and he has died in the hospital aged 94. According to the source, the iconic Mandela died last night while he was still in the hospital for the recurring lung infection that left him in critical condition for several days.

Earlier today one of our writers, Laura Oneale, wrote an article questioning whether or not Nelson Mandela was still alive. He had been in the hospital 19 days for a recurring lung infection. As speculation surrounding his health continued to grow with many asking whether he was still alive or if, in fact, he had died. Until recently authorities would only confirm that he was on a life support system and remained in a critical condition.

In February 2011, he was briefly hospitalized with a respiratory infection, attracting international attention. He was then re-hospitalized for a lung infection and gallstone removal in December 2012. After his successful medical procedure in March 2013 did not prevent his lung infection from recurring he was briefly hospitalized in Pretoria.

On June 8, 2013, his lung infection worsened and he was re-hospitalized in Pretoria in a serious condition. After four days, it was reported that he had stabilized and that he remained in a “serious, but stable condition”.

On June 22, 2013 CBS News reported that Mandela had not opened his eyes in days and that he was unresponsive. The family began discussing just how much medical intervention should be given.

On June 25, 2013, Cape Town Archbishop Thabo Makgoba visited Mandela at the hospital and prayed with Graca Machel Mandela “at this hard time of watching and waiting.”

The grandson of Nelson Mandela angrily left the meeting over a disagreement of where the former president was to be buried. Mandela’s daughter, who was seen wearing a red blanket, and other family members were at the gravesite. It has been reported that the “red blanket” is part of a tribal ceremony of the Xhosa. According to Xhosa custom the blanket is used when a family member has died.

Later in the same day, gravediggers arrived at the Mandela burial site.

Sources have confirmed that Nelson Mandela died last night after his life support was shut down and the respected iconic humanitarian has died age 94. Details of the funeral arrangements will be released when they become available.

By Michael Smith
United Kingdom

http://guardianlv.com/2013/06/nelson-mandela-life-support-shut-down-as-respected-humanitarian-dies-age-94/

Open letter to SA from the foreign media

Richard Poplak

Dear South Africa,

Please get the fuck out of the way.

Wait, that probably came out wrong. Let us explain.

As you may have noted, we’re back! It’s been four long months since the Oscar Pistorious bail hearing thing, and just as we were forgetting just how crappy the Internet connections are in Johannestoria, the Mandela story breaks.

We feel that it is vital locals understand just how big a deal this is for us. In the real world—far away from your sleepy backwater—news works on a 24-hour cycle. That single shot of a hospital with people occasionally going into and out of the front door, while a reporter describes exactly what is happening—at length and in detail? That’s our bread and butter. It’s what we do.

And you need to get out of the way while we do it.

It’s nothing personal. In fact, we couldn’t do this successfully without you. In many cases, our footage is made more compelling by your presence. Specifically, we are fond of small black children praying and/or singing in unison. Equally telegenic are the Aryan ubermensch blonde kids also praying/singing, who help underscore the theme that Mandela united people of all races under a Rainbow umbrella.

Also very important, thematically speaking, are Mandela’s successors. We very much like the idea that your ex-president was “one of a kind”, and that despite his best efforts, the current batch of idiots prove that he was an exceptional presence, sui generis, and we don’t have to worry about someone else like him coming along in Africa ever again. We enjoy your leaders’ bumbling ways, their daft non-sequiturs, the glint of their Beijing-bought Breitlings. That “Vote ANC” truck parked outside the hospital? If that doesn’t speak to moral degeneration of the first order, what does? In other words, this story would lack a tragic arc without Jacob Zuma. May he keep on keeping on.

Then there’s the Mandela’s family. Really, where would we derive our soap operatic undertones if it weren’t for the infighting and the blinged-up brashness of that clan? We love subtly implying that a saint sired a generation of professional shoppers and no-goodnicks. In our biz, we call that “irony”. Makes for great copy.

In fact, we love everything about the country that doesn’t live up to Mandela’s legacy. We will take every opportunity to mention how everything you do flies in the face of everything Mandela would’ve wanted from his people—how you’re basically a nation of under-achieving screw-ups. All of this is fantastic, we thank you profusely for your individual and collective contributions to this essential storyline, and urge you to keep squandering your potential.

But like we said, we’re busy.

We need to be fed, constantly and without respite, big juicy mouthfuls of new information regarding every aspect of the story. Each piece of data, no matter how seemingly trivial or inane, is to us the rich, fatty gravy that we will slather over this one essential fact: the father of your nation is gravely ill, and we’re banking—literally, banking—on his not making it. The geraniums in the hospital planter, beating the chill of winter? Metaphor. Again—no detail too small.

Indeed, you need to brace yourselves. We’re about to engage in the single greatest orgy of industrial-grade mourning porn the world has ever known. Your little country will forever be honoured as the site that made the Princess Diana thing look like a restrained wake for a loathed spinster who perished alone on a desert island. Oh man, this is going to be big.

But that’s then. For the meantime, we need you to behave yourselves. We’re going to be pushy, and we make no apologies for it. This is the news—and news, after all, is the concrete foundation of democracy, a principle Mandela was willing to die for long before he was dying.

Note the solemn tone of our television reports. Ken the funereal passages published in our great papers. At times, the scramble for information may seem like a pursuit entirely free of dignity. But remember that watching a sausage get made can be a grisly process.

We would like to respect the fact that you’re going through a period of great sadness and protracted grieving. But we all need to be grown-ups about this.

So, we ask again, and this time with feeling:

Please. Get the fuck out of the way.

http://ewn.co.za/2013/06/28/OPINION-Open-letter-from-the-foreign-media-to-SA

Mandela: I Will Rest In Qunu - Keep It Simple

Nelson Mandela never gave detailed instructions for his burial, but nearly 20 years ago he made his wishes clear: he wanted to be buried in Qunu.

The Mandela family graveyard  in Qunu. (Delwyn Verasamy, M&G)

Former president Nelson Mandela never gave detailed instructions for his burial, but nearly 20 years ago he made his general wishes clear: he wanted to be buried in Qunu, and he wanted to keep things simple, even while recognising that his funeral would inevitably be a state affair.

And it seems that Mandela stuck to his wish for simplicity, although details of his latest will are not available.

Those instructions provide the clearest insight available into Mandela's own wishes on what should happen after his death, well before the Presidency and family started making arrangements for that eventuality, and well before the family this week apparently fell out about the details of those arrangements.

In January 1996, Mandela gave three broad instructions with regard to his burial. He did not want any interference with a state memorial service and various associated ceremonies; he wanted to be buried in his ancestral home of Qunu in the Eastern Cape, rather than in a more prominent location in the capital; and he wanted a grave marker of simple stone on site of his grave.

At the time Mandela was 78, and still held the office of President. While it is possible that his wishes may have changed over the following years, he included those wishes in subsequent wills, and those close to the Mandela family say it is unlikely.

"He never gave death a great deal of thought, but he never wanted anything fancy," said a family friend of long standing.

Funeral instructions
Such an attitude is corroborated by papers that were placed before the courts during disputes around the sale of artworks bearing Mandela's signature, including wills drafted from 1995 onwards. Although the actual disposition sections of the wills were redacted to guard Mandela's privacy, each version presented occupied no more than a single A4 page – for a man who, in the early 2000s, held cash in South Africa and abroad amounting to at least several million US dollars.

Wills of even moderately affluent people are typically many times that length, with funeral instructions alone often running to several pages.

Mandela's wealth at the time mostly flowed from the sale of his books and various pieces of memorabilia, including artworks bearing his name. Various business people also established initiatives intended to provide for Mandela in his old age, and to ensure the wellbeing of his family after he left office.

The money raised in those initiatives now mainly resides in family trusts. Control of those trusts is currently a matter of dispute.

Though not among the wishes expressed by Mandela himself, a source close to the family this week said the intention was to create a garden of memory in Qunu, one that could satisfy the expected need for a place of pilgrimage for tourists without necessarily opening Mandela's grave itself to the public.

Graça Machel has not been involved
But plans around both the specific grave site and the garden project appears to have suffered from internal family disputes, delaying final decisions, even amid widespread recognition that the matter is now urgent.

Though technically Mandela's next of kin, his wife Graça Machel has not been involved in the disputes – or in decisions around Mandela's burial – according to well-placed sources. Though Mandela lived in Houghton in Johannesburg until his most recent hospitalisation, Machel maintained her own home in nearby Sandton. However, during his hospitalisation in Pretoria she stayed at his bedside, or slept in the hospital, the only member of the family to stay in such close proximity to the ailing elder statesman.

Much of the decision-making within the family appears to have devolved to Mandela's daughter Makaziwe, who has consolidated her control over what has at times been a fractious extended family.

Makaziwe and her sister, Zenani Dlamini, in March launched a joint application to remove advocate George Bizos, lawyer Bally Chuene and housing minister Tokyo Sexwale as directors of Mandela-linked holding companies. However, Dlamini is the ambassador to Argentina and Paraguay, and she this week returned to her post in South America even as her father was in a critical condition in hospital, leaving Makaziwe to deal with family matters at home. Between them, insiders say, they wield more influence than ANC MP, chief Mandla Mandela, the grandson of Nelson Mandela, who has struggled to maintain the respect of elders and family amid divorces and claims of infertility and infidelity even though he is, technically, the family patriarch.

'Strictly a family sacred place'
"Makaziwe and Zenani are effectively the heads of the family now," said a source close to the family this week. "Zenani brings in Winnie [Madikizela-Mandela, Nelson Mandela's former wife] and Makaziwe is very close to Lindiwe [Sisulu, minister of public service and administration]. That gives them the weight they need in the family and in government, so they can bring everyone together. The other kids look to them for direction."

In their application around directorships of companies housing Mandela assets earlier this year, the two daughters submitted powers of attorney signed by 17 others, which Zenani described as "all of the major children and grandchildren" of Nelson Mandela. Mandla Mandela was among those who effectively appointed them as his agent in the matter, although he subsequently partially retracted his support.

In a rare interview on Thursday, Makaziwe indicated that Mandela's grave will likely be considered private, and will not be opened to visitors.

"Family grave yards … they're not for public," she told the state broadcaster. "They are for public once when you've buried a loved one and you invite people to that. And that is the end. After that it becomes strictly a family sacred place."

http://mg.co.za/article/2013-06-28-00-mandela-give-me-a-simple-grave-in-qunu

Opportunistic ANC

ANC Supporters drive past the Medi-Clinic Heart Hospital in Pretoria where former president Nelson Mandela is being treated.

Thousands of ANC supporters descended on the Medi-Clinic Heart Hospital this evening to pray for former president Nelson Mandela’s speedy recovery.

Tshwane mayor Kgosientso “Sputla” Ramokgopa and the ANC regional leadership led ANC supporters in song, dance and prayer as the night vigil largely resembled a political rally.

Over 30 buses started arriving from around 4pm this afternoon, ferrying supporters who wore ANC colours, waving the party’s flag and singing struggle songs associated with he 94-year-old, who is in a critical but stable condition in the hospital.

Most ANC supporters said they were not concerned about perceptions that their behavior would be viewed as electioneering, and dismissed criticism that the party was attempting to gain political traction from Mandela’s hospitalisation ahead of next year’s elections.

Traffic grounded to a halt as buses, with supporters hanging from windows, used the busy Park Street, adjacent to the hospital, to drop off the supporters who marched up and down Celliers Street before gathering at the nearby lawns of the Pretoria Art Museum.

The ANC leadership, including City of Tshwane chief whip Jabu Mabona, addressed throngs of ANC members, mostly from Soshanguve, Ga-Rankuwa, Mamelodi and Atteridgeville, while perched on a stage erected at the back of a truck.

The truck was decorated in ANC posters with party president Jacob Zuma’s image.

They sang gospel songs and made it clear that Mandela was an ANC man, a statement which was reiterated by his eldest daughter, Makaziwe, in an interview televised earlier in the day.

Metro police had their hands full trying to direct traffic, which was still moving slowly past the hospital three hours later.

Children, the elderly and various interests groups, including Hare Krishna devotees, were still gathered at the entrance.

http://www.citypress.co.za/politics/mandela-night-vigil-resembles-political-rally/

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Welcome to South Africa Obama

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

South Africa - The Future

Dr Marc Faber, a leading investment an ex South African and a guru, tells it how it is.......

Interesting Reading… This was published in a UK paper.

Let us hope he has it wrong -it’s pretty heavy.

I expect, like me, you are aware e that there has never been a prosperous black-led country, but perhaps it's just because of "bad luck", or whatever, for that incontrovertible fact.

Take Haiti as an example.

Before the black slaves revolted and killed all the whites and half castes Haiti had a GNP greater than most of what is now the USA A. It supplied 60% of all the sugar used in Europe.

Today it is a wasteland.

Apparently if you Google Earth the place you see is a sere, brown colored landscape compared to the neighboring Dominican Republic which is green and verdant.

Twice the USA has occupied Haiti, building roads, ports, hospitals and schools while putting in a functional society.

The moment the Americans left they reverted to dictatorship, voodoo, witchcraft, corruption and

barbarism. They did not stagnate;; they regressed to the primitive savagery of their forefathers.

Since the 1960s, when the Congo o expelled the Belgians this has been a mirror of African regression, moving steadily southwards until the example of Zimbabwe.

Once a prosperous, well educated d exporter of food the population now eat rats to survive.

Will SA go the same way?

There are those optimists who say "No, we have such a strong economy, such sophisticated

infrastructure, such a talent pool, that we can never sink".

My belief is that they have not considered the root cause of Africa's failure.

A cause that is not spoken about as it is fearfully politically incorrect, and probably illegal to speak about.

That cause is the deficiencies of the black "mentality", for want of a better word.

Are there differences between races, or is race just a meaningless social construct?

Until recently, I believed all races were the same under the skin variations, and that perceived

differences were only the result of f cultural differences.

I believed in a common and equal humanity.

But things did not always ring true; observable anomalies were inexplicable if all men are the same.

Why, under apartheid, did the Indians prosper; become doctors, scientists, educators, merchants and professionals while the vast majority of the equally oppressed black Africans remained hewers of wood?

Why can black Africans run, jump and throw better than honkies, but why, out of a billion of them, have they never invented a single thing of any worth?

Why have they, collectively, contributed absolutely nothing to the advancement of humanity?

Well the physical thing, the running, throwing bit is easily and uncontroversial answered.

Simple, people of African descent (especially the Jamaicans) are genetically better equipped in this regard.

Their muscle fibres are different and the typically have 15% more free testosterone than other

peoples.

Acknowledging this is regarded as racism.

Unfortunately, racist or not, that is proven and a fact.

Google it and you will find that for over 70 years, in test after test, done by dozens of university

professors and Nobel laureates plus USA government studies, most people of African descent trail other races by a wide margin.

Of course I.Q. tests have been attacked, especially by those who perform badly at them, as one might expect them to do.

Detractors claim cultural bias, dysfunctional families, past oppression, poor schooling and a host of other reasons for poor black performance, but the professors defend their contention that I.Q. is largely an inherited trait; that differences are inherent, built into a person's inherited DNA.

For every argument attacking the validity of these tests they have a host of results confirming their accuracy and typicality. Fascinating stuff if you are interested in reading up on it.

The effect of high/low I.Q. has also been studied in depth, with fairly predictable results.

Low I.Q. individuals performed badly in social class, family stability, income, educational levels,

illegitimate pregnancy, single parent families, rate of prison incarceration, rape, violent crime etc. etc. etc.

I.Q. measurement measures different facets of intelligence and mental competence.

Sadly it is in the absolutely vital sphere of cognitive ability that blacks score worst.

This means they score abysmally in things like forward planning and anticipating the consequences of their actions.

It is this I.Q. (and testosterone) disparity that is blamed for the fact that African Americans are 5 times more likely to be imprisoned than white (including Hispanic) Americans, 9 times more likely than Americans of Asiatic descent. All in line with I.Q. distributions.

Once imprisonments for violent crimes are computed the numbers become stratospheric.

These are American government collated statistics, so pretty accurate.

Our government in SA do not, for obvious reasons, publish similar stats, but a pound to a pinch of salt they are even more astounding.

So why the lecture on I.Q.?

Well for a start you must understand that our ruling party are voted into power by a largely moronic plebiscite.

I choose the word moronic intentionally.

If the cut off point for moronic is an I.Q. of 70, half the voting population would be classified as such.

Only one in 40 black South Africans achieves the average I.Q. of his white fellow citizens.

One in a hundred has the I.Q. to achieve university entrance requirements.

That is why only one in ten blacks pass our dumbed down Matric (with a pass percentage of 30% in many cases).

One in 6000 black grade one learners will pass Matric with both Maths and Science.

Simply put, they are bloody stupid, and they rule us.

Furthermore Zoooooma says they will rule us until the second coming. I believe him.

This explains why the ANC have such idiots in their positions of power and influence, the likes of Zuma, Malema, Khomphela and Cele. They are, unfortunately, the best they have!

Well, they are the best blacks they have.

All the critical positions in government are held by Indians, coloureds or whites, something I am

grateful for, but which p--s Malema off big time.

Will this last? I doubt it.

The black/white polarisation is growing and the rhetoric is becoming more extreme.

Listen to the pub or workplace chatter, read the blogs and comments sections of the newspapers and it becomes obvious.

Whites are gatvol at the waste, corruption and stupidity of the black elite.

Blacks are demanding, as their right, the wealth of the whites by means of redistribution of assets. No matter that they have not worked for those assets, they claim them as the spoils of war.

Just in the past week the Mayor of Pretoria, Malema, a minister and Winnie have gone on record as blaming whites for sabotaging redistribution and exploiting blacks.

Malema calls out "Kill the Boers for they are rapists" to thunderous applause by university students.

Four influential ANC opinion makers who are echoing the groundswell of mutterings in the ghettoes. The natives are getting restless. Things are not going to improve.

They cannot, there is no reason to believe our slow slide into a failed state can be reversed with our current regime, and there is no prospect whatsoever of there being a change to governance based on meritocracy.

Anyone who believes otherwise, or that the ANC can mend their ways, is living in LaLa land.

They do not have the intellect. Like the proverbial frog in the slowly heating pot we have become inured to the slow collapse of our hospitals, schools, courts, water supplies, roads civil service and service levels.

They will become totally dysfunctional shortly.

Inevitably so.

Those in charge do not have the mental capacity to organise things.

Our economy and Rand is reliant on short term "hot" funds from overseas that can flee at the touch of a computer button, and probably will if our Rand weakens. Conversely we need a weaker Rand to encourage exports. 6 million taxpayers support 12 million recipients of social grants, and that figure is set to rise this year. The National Health Insurance scheme will happen, no matter how unaffordable.

That will push our social grant costs up to four hundred billion Rand.

Four hundred billion Rand which produces absolutely no product.

Inflation is set to stay and worsen.

The consequence of being the biggest socialist state on earth.

I do not believe the ANC has the intellect to conceptualise how big a billion is, let alone 400 billion, or what effect this will have on the economy.

You do not believe Malema's call to nationalise the mines?

This guy articulates what the hoi polloi are thinking, but the ANC leadership will not say yet.

The tactic is to set the bar high, then lower it and the victims will sigh with relief and say it could have been worse.

So perhaps it will not be total nationalisation but rather 51%, a' la Zim. Just look north for revelation, Zuma does.

Who would have believed that this country would ever be headed by an unschooled, rape accused, adulterous, corrupt, sex obsessed bigot like Zuma.

Anything is possible with the ANC.

SUMMARY

You have few years left to enjoy what is left of the glorious SA lifestyle, especially in the Cape, but understand it is not permanent. The end could be sudden as the tipping point is reached, just as it was sudden for those Zim, Zambian, Mozambican or Angolans whites.

It could, conceivably, be as bloody as the Hutu/Tutsi uprising when primitive tribal bloodlust

overcomes a thin veneer of inculcated civilisation.

Enjoy it while you can, and enjoy it in the Cape where the population mix is more favourable, but be aware that change is inevitable.

Your children must get a world class education, because they will not be adults in SA.

Get assets stashed offshore, you and your children will need them there.

This is a huge WAKE UP SOUTH AFRICA call!!!!

There are lots of South African articles doing the rounds, this is one of the best.

I have always tried to understand why Africa has not prospered more with all the mineral wealth and available labour.

This is without a doubt the most plausible explanation for me.

Nelson Mandela The Myth Bigger than Nelson Mandela the man.

South Africa Needs a Post-Mandela Revolution.

After Mandela
There will never be another Nelson Mandela, but maybe that’s just what South Africa needs to save itself from ruin.

Late on Wednesday night, March 27, former South African president Nelson Mandela was admitted to an undisclosed hospital for a recurring lung infection. This is the third time Mandela has been hospitalized in recent months. He spent a weekend in hospital in early March for what the government described as a "check-up," and most of December in hospital, where he was treated for a lung infection and had his gallstones removed. The last time Mandela was seen in public was almost three years ago, at the closing ceremony of the 2010 World Cup, in Johannesburg. But that doesn't mean that he's not still everywhere.

Take his "appearance" at the kickoff this January of the 29th African Cup of Nations, an intercontinental soccer tournament held every two years. The elaborate opening ceremony, celebrating African culture, was a feast of entertainment, music, and dancing; at one point, an enormous Mandela puppet took to the stage. Dressed in the former president's trademark loose, patterned shirt, the puppet swaggered, tottered, jilted, and jived. The audience applauded, for the puppet was instantly identifiable, instantly empathic, instantly adored. Everything else on the stage -- and there was much else, including hundreds of dancers in colorful traditional dress -- could well have been invisible. Yet there was something perfectly ironic about the puppet: in its enormousness and vitality, it was somehow a better stand-in than Mandela himself, whose age and condition no longer allows him to take the stage.

The ailing former president has been squarely on South Africa's mind the last few months. At 94, he is frail and fading fast. Housebound and bedridden in his Johannesburg estate, he is rumored to be senile; some claim he no longer speaks at all. One especially devastating newspaper report, quoting his former wife, said that his"sparkle was fading."

Each time Mandela is admitted to hospital, a wall of silence goes up between Mandela's spokespeople and the ruling African National Congress (ANC) government, on the one side, and local and international media, on the other. The official ANC line is always the same: Mandela is "in good health," he is "stable," his medical examinations are "routine" -- nothing to see here, folks, move along. The unofficial line is decidedly different and, by all reasonable accounts, much closer to the truth.

There's also a striking gulf between the local and international media in their reports on Mandela's health. The foreign press are more beatific -- they exhaust transcendental superlatives in attempting to describe the elderly statesman -- but also more ruthless and fatalistic. They polish the halo, or they rehearse the deathbed scene, but, for the most part, they don't seem terribly interested in any middle ground. Each time Mandela takes ill, they wonder if this hospital stay will be the hospital stay, if the unthinkable is about to happen, if the big story is here.

South African reporters are generally shrewder and tougher, indifferent to hyperbole and reflexively critical of the party line. They do a better job of portraying Mandela as an actual human being. But they have also been disciplined into deference by a government that curbs the media, threatens its freedoms, and queries its patriotism.

The ANC has been shameless in exploiting apartheid-era security laws -- such as prohibiting anyone from providing "any information relating to the security measures applicable at or in respect of any" property designated a National Key Point -- to restrict press coverage of Mandela. This extends to the current president, Jacob Zuma, whose controversially funded homestead has itself conveniently been designated a National Key Point. For the ANC, all apartheid-era laws are understandably abhorrent -- except when they can be used to enhance the party itself, protect its politicians or cover up their crimes, in which case the laws are not only acceptable, but also admirable. As the sociologist Roger Southall has noted, the ANC "blurs the distinction between party and state (and between legality and illegality)."

That the ANC has repeatedly bungled its media response to Mandela's hospitalizations, with a damage-control strategy that would be laughed at by any reputable PR company, is revealing. In December 2011, police removed three CCTV cameras that overlooked the Eastern Cape home where Mandela then lived. The cameras had been placed there by Reuters and the Associated Press, and were to be switched on in the event of Mandela's death. Following a public outcry, authorities condemned the news outlets for their intrusiveness, despite the fact that, according to the outlets, these same authorities had given permission for the installation of the cameras.

Indeed, the morbid Mandela death watch is in full swing. Writing in Britain's Guardian in December 2011, that newspaper's Africa correspondent, David Smith, noted that there "are top-secret works in progress. It would be imprudent to discuss them with rivals, and tasteless to admit their existence in polite company. But one day they will be activated -- the only question is when. These are the 'M-plans,' the euphemism for scenarios drawn up by media organizations preparing to report the death of Mandela." Smith noted that "Major broadcasters have spent years -- and 'fortunes' -- building studios, buying prime locations, pre-booking hotels and transport, hiring local 'fixers,' and signing up pundits."

It's almost a cottage industry. As far back as 1997, the South African journalist Lester Venter published a book entitled When Mandela Goes. Since then, there have been several books with similar titles, the most recent of which is After Mandela, by the Daily Telegraph's former South Africa correspondent, Alec Russell. For decades, people have worried what would happen after Mandela's death; whether the country would fall apart without this stabilizing (and largely mythical) force. In Russell's crisp phrase, Mandela's gift to South Africa was his "reconciliatory wizardry," for not only did he ease South Africa into democracy, but he encouraged unity, forgiveness, and faith in humankind. For journalist Alex Duval Smith, writing in the Independent, Mandela is "our planet's last living legend." For Time's Africa bureau chief, Alex Perry, and millions of others, Mandela is a "kind of secular saint to the world."

It seems that too many ostensibly objective journalists have forgotten George Orwell's dictum (in his 1949 review of a Mahatma G
andhi biography): "Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent." Mandela himself announced, after his 1990 release from 27 years of imprisonment: "I stand here not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people" ... which is, come to think of it, the kind of thing a prophet would say.

Recovering from a bad case of Mandela Illness Fatigue in December, the Cape Town-based AIDS activist Nathan Geffen wrote on his website that "myth-making about Mandela, the continued suggestions by the ANC that he is infallible and superhuman ... coupled by the failure to critically discuss and debate his lifetime's ideas, actions, successes, and failures, does him a disservice. It reduces his life to feel-good quotes and excuses all kinds of bad behavior done in his name. This dehumanizes Mandela and actually means we fail to learn from his achievements."

Geffen sounds like the only grown-up in a world populated by eternally idealistic and overly excitable adolescents, but more and more South African writers are examining Mandela's legacy from a critical perspective, and many young people have also begun to cast a cold eye on Madiba (the affectionate nickname for Mandela), especially the so-called born-free generation, who have only ever known democracy and lack the older generation's baked-in gratitude and goodwill toward the former president.

The born-frees are disheartened by their country's inequality (which has actually widened since apartheid, and is now one of the worst in the world), its debilitating 71 percent youth unemployment rate, its broken education system, and its lack of adequate housing and healthcare. They are angry at South Africa's staggering crime (the country remains one of the most violent in the world).They are frustrated by being endlessly poor: according to the United Nations Development Program, almost half of all South Africans live below the poverty line. And they feel betrayed by a corrupt ANC elite that appears to aspire only to enrich itself, that promises everything at election time but delivers little. None of this is Mandela's fault, of course, but then nor is it the fault of South Africa's youth. One provocative 2012 born-free blog post was titled, "How Mandela Sold Out Blacks."

The truth is that Mandela never actually governed South Africa as president. From the beginning of his single term, in 1994, he delegated (or was perhaps coerced into delegating) all his decision-making to his deputy, future President Thabo Mbeki. Even then, Mandela was little more than a figurehead, spending much of his time posing for photographs with American celebrities, making seemingly meaningful but frequently vacuous statements, and, later, coaxing President Bill Clinton through his Monica Lewinsky trauma. (Clinton early on understood how to exploit Mandela for the subtlest political purposes. Shamed by the nation for cheating on your wife? Mention you've sought counsel from Mandela, and all will be forgiven.)

Mandela's role was necessary at the time: reassuring both South Africa and the world that the transition from apartheid to democracy had been successfully undertaken, encouraging tourism and international investment, and soothing the psyche of an anxious nation that looked to him as a stable, moral presence. Much was accomplished policy-wise during Mandela's first term, but with little input from the great man himself.

Thus, Mandela often takes credit to this day for policies Mbeki and others engineered (the relatively successful neoliberal economy; the important first steps in redressing poverty and giving homes to the homeless), and occasionally gets blamed for what were, in retrospect, mistakes of Mbeki's making (not taking a firmer stance on Robert Mugabe's increasingly tyrannical rule of Zimbabwe; a frequently confused and self-defeating foreign policy; the widening of the inequality gap).

For activists, Mandela's greatest sin was failing to speak out forcefully about the AIDS epidemic -- which has crippled the country over the last two decades, leading to millions of deaths -- and neglecting to put in place effective policy to both prevent further infection and distribute antiretrovirals to those suffering from the disease. But even here Madiba deserves some leeway. After all, AIDS was the mandate of the then-Health Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, ex-wife of the current president and now chairperson of the African Union Commission. In fact, a costly attempt by Dlamini-Zuma to draw national attention to AIDS was one of the new South Africa's earliest public embarrassments. Besides, it is easy, with hindsight, to talk about the government's mishandling of the HIV time bomb. In the very early years of democracy, before Mbeki unforgivably turned HIV denialism into government policy, AIDS was just one enormous social issue among many.

Mandela certainly had his share of political blunders. The most public may have been his 1993 stance, ahead of the first democratic election the following year, that the voting age be lowered to 14. It was a peculiar proposal for a man who should have known his party stood to win an overwhelming majority of votes anyway, without attempting to gerrymander the youth vote. (Even some ANC militants, who thought that too many concessions had already been granted to the Afrikaners, were mystified by Madiba's suggestion).

Privately, and on rare occasions, people who know Mandela mention moments when the former president was petty, acquisitive, churlish, compromised, even craven. This is not to say that Mandela is not a great man -- he most assuredly is -- but that he remains just that: a man. As South Africa's last apartheid president and Mandela's Nobel Peace Prize co-awardee, F.W. de Klerk (himself no hero) recently said, "He was by no means the avuncular and saintlike figure so widely depicted today."

In his envy and tacit resentment of Mandela, de Klerk has an unlikely companion in Thabo Mbeki, who understood that, no matter how able a politician he was (and the young Mbeki was an extraordinarily accomplished lobbyist and tactician), he would never live up to Mandela's legacy.

Even before he became president, Mbeki humiliated Mandela, both implicitly and overtly, publicly and privately. Poised to become president, Mbeki, in a speech at the ANC party conference in 1997, addressed the question everyone was asking: how he intended to step into Madiba's massive shoes.

"I will never, ever be seen dead in your shoes," he said, speaking directly to Mandela, "because you wear such ugly shoes." It was a joke, but it also wasn't. Mbeki later mocked Mandela's "silly" shirts. Once president, he even refused to take Madiba's telephone calls. For his part, Mandela suspected that his successor had planted listening devices in his home -- not an unreasonable assumption, given Mbeki's well known paranoia.

The truth is, Mandela set an unreasonably high bar for any South African politician. Incapable of being better than Mandela, his successors as president seemed content to be worse. Mbeki, who was prone to quoting from Shakespeare, Yeats, and Langston Hughes, should have read more Freud. Mandela's successor became increasingly autocratic, alienated, and obsessive -- and was eventually ousted by his party as he attempted to close in on an unconstitutional third term.

The current president, Jacob Zuma, with 783 charges of racketeering, fraud, and corruption against him, makes Lance Armstrong look like a stand-up guy. He has made tacit threats to South Africa's Constitution, to its media, and to its judiciary. He recently spent $28 million of taxpayer money on a luxurious homestead for himself and his large family. The Guardian's former Africa correspondent Chris McGreal once described Zuma as being "almost shorn of ideology." But it has now become clear what Zuma's ideology is -- it is the philosophy of self-enrichment.

Despite the emergence of a new political party in February, there is still no party that has a broad enough appeal to the majority of black South Africans to be a viable threat to the ANC. For better or worse, the party of Nelson Mandela will be the dominant party of South Africa for the foreseeable future.

And while Mandela himself may be fading from public view, the Mandela industry continues unabated. This is the franchised, fetishized, minted, molded, mass-produced, and endlessly exploited "Mandela" -- one that bears no relation to the actual human being. This is the world's Mandela, commodified in countless iterations: part Che Guevara, part Mickey Mouse.

Madiba's image adorns everything from T-shirts to coffee mugs to South Africa's recently released new banknotes. There are multiple Mandela clothing lines. There is a Mandela gold coin collection marketed to wealthy South African expatriates (those who love the country enough to brag about it, but not enough to make their home there). Curio shops in touristy areas sell Mandela memorabilia, with signs advising foreigners to "Take a Part of Africa Home With You" -- never mind that it's probably made in China.

The hagiography has long been internationalized. The Hollywood adaptation of The Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela's bestselling autobiography (ghostwritten by Richard Stengel, now managing editor of Time) is scheduled for release this year. Idris Elba, the British actor of Ghanian and Sierra Leonian heritage, best known for his role on HBO's The Wire, will play Mandela in the film. Some black South African actors expressed outrage at the casting. "Mandela has already been portrayed by Danny Glover, Morgan Freeman, and Sidney Poitier," an actor friend said to me recently. "When is an actual South African going to play the world's most famous South African?" And now, of course, there's a reality show. On February 10, NBC's Cozi TV channel launched Being Mandela, featuring three of Mandela's granddaughters, who are evidently attempting to keep up with the Kardashians.

Meanwhile, a letter leaked to the press last July revealed a rift between the ANC and its most famous family. In the letter, Mandela's ex-wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, complained that, "No one has cared to establish how we are doing as a family. It is quite clear that we do not matter at all, we only do when we have to be used for some agenda." That's rich, considering Madikizela-Mandela was herself was one of the earliest exploiters of the Mandela name, selling soil and other knick knacks from her husband's Soweto property to tourists for exorbitant prices.

Still, Madikizela-Mandela has a point. In today's South Africa, Madiba is little more than a puppet tossed about between the ANC (which uses his name to rally its base or remind supporters of its glory years), opposition parties (which brandish his name as a weapon), or by the international media (which mentions Mandela as a shorthand to point out how the country has failed to live up to its ideals -- nevermind that they were impossible, anyway).

Perhaps Mandela's death will occasion a compassionate assessment of where South Africa is as a country right now, where it should be, and how to get there. The hope in a post-Mandela South Africa is that younger leaders can find their voice anew, liberate the political parties from the sins of self-enrichment that have robbed this country of moral authority, fight once more for the rights of the poor majority, and deliver to South Africa a vigorous democracy once again. It's sad that it might take the passing of Madiba for that to be possible.