By Mike Smith
22nd of July 2011
Here you can see the lies coming from the president’s office. Mngadi is the chief director for communications (Jacob Zuma’s chief Spin-doctor) in the Office of the President, in the Presidency.
It comes after allegations in the Sowetan that President Zuma is an utter failure and that blacks are starting to question whether the New (Improved) South Africa is really better than Apartheid South Africa.
He comes up with figures quoted from nowhere. No proof of any of these statistics, but wants to dazzle a few stupid liberal whites and their beloved noble savages with a few figures.
Problem with the ANC is that nobody swallows their lies anymore. It is so easy to counter, expose their lies and prove them wrong. They have zero credibility. Everyone can see they are only in it to enrich themselves and bugger the poor. But let us have a look at these ANC lies anyway, because this is standard ANC spin to convince blacks that the ANC is good towards them and that South Africa under ANC corruption and misrule is better than Apartheid South Africa. One finds these recurrent lies on several online forums and in several debates so it is good to be armed with the truth in such instances.
1. More than two million houses have been built for the poor, giving shelter to over 10million people.
Truth: The building of houses by the ANC is nothing but a money making racket fraught with nepotism and corruption. Billions of Rands is spent on houses that fall apart after three months and which have to be rebuilt later at astronomical costs later. When a house has to be rebuilt several times, one cannot count it as several houses.R1,3bn needed to rebuild horrible RDP houses
Condemned ANC houses have to be rebuilt
2. Six million households have gained access to clean water since 1994 and electricity has been connected to nearly five million homes. In 1994, only 62percent of households had access to clean drinking water, today 93percent do.
Truth: This is a blatant lie and in fact there is a water crisis in South Africa. A combination of polluted water sources and poor management of dams, sewerage works and treatment plants has led to a situation where our water supply is under serious threat. Acid water is flooding the abandoned mines.South Africa’s dirty water crisis thanks to ANC neglect and incompetence
South Africa’s water crisis is real not looming
3. In 1994, only 50percent of households had access to decent sanitation, today 77percent do. In 1994, only 36percent of South Africans had access to electricity, today 84percent do.
Truth: Another thumb suck and blatant lie. Truth is that South African sewage works have been run down, and neglected to levels where catastrophic diseases can break out. Even the ANC government admitted their failure and neglect.SA 'drowning in sewage'
Sewage works neglected - govt
SA sewage a disaster waiting to happen
4. Today the majority of people are provided free basic services in water and electricity.
Truth: Another blatant ANC lie. First of all there is no such thing as free services. The 9% minority of whites subsidizes the services for blacks where it is delivered, which is seldom. For the last seven years already there are almost daily strikes and protests against ANC poor service delivery throughout the country 17 years after the ANC has taken over. Local municipalities are fraught with corruption, outright theft and self enrichment. Protests are violently suppressed by the police. Electricity is stolen and infrastructure is sabotaged.SA hit by service-delivery protests
SA Police brutality and service delivery protests
Rebellion of the poor. SA service delivery protests
Electricity theft costs Eskom billions
President Zuma says electricity theft should be fought
Electricity theft and non-payment - Impact on the SA generation capacity crisis
Cable theft worsens. Threatens South Africa’s power supply
Mbeki admits the government is at fault for South Africa’s electricity crisis
5. By 2010, close to 15million people were receiving social grants. Of those, 9,5million are children aged under 14 years, compared with just 2,4million in 1996. This year the child support grant has been extended to children up to the age of 18 years, an additional two million children, in order to alleviate poverty.
Truth: People should get jobs not grants. This is an admission of failure that the ANC is incapable of creating jobs for a quarter of blacks in SA. It is an admission that they punish and take money from the productive hardworking taxpayers and rewards the unproductive and lazy. It is a recipe for disaster. The system is fraught with people claiming extra grants with false ID documents and claiming thre-four grants of deceased people.Millions more will get social grants
Massive social grant fraud uncovered
R238m lost to social grant fraud
6 000 public servants in KwaZulu-Natal being investigated and could be arrested for fraud and corruption involving social grants
6. More than 400000 children receive government subsidies to attend early childhood development centres. More than 8million children at primary and secondary schools benefit from school feeding schemes.
Truth: Since 1995 the fraud and corruption involved with the feeding schemes of black school children in South Africa have been reported. They even poisoned black children with toxic peanut butter just to make a quick few bucks. White school children, even poor ones are not helped by a school feeding scheme. Only black children are.Incompetence and fraud threaten school feeding programme
Fraud probe launched in peanut butter scandal
7. This year government announced expanded access to tertiary education. Student loans are now being converted into bursaries for qualifying final-year students. Students in further education and training colleges who qualify for financial aid are now exempted from paying fees.
Truth: White students do not qualify for bursaries, only blacks do. Blacks study for free where whites have to pay exorbitant fees. Entry standards for whites are much higher than for blacks. The white minority of 9% is racially discriminated against at school and university level. School certificates and report cards are falsified on a massive scale, which means that black students get into university illegally. White matric student’s marks are manipulated down and black’s marks are manipulated up.Five arrested for school fraud
Cops seize 500,000 exam papers
Matric results manipulated
How SA matric results gets manipulated
University of Cape Town Racist quota system
UCT admission policy racist
Top white Afrikaner student refused bursary at Armscor
Whites now allowed access to Denel bursaries
Racism against white students at South African Universities
8. Crime is declining. The murder rate, for example, declined by 8,6 percent in 2010.
Truth: Another lie and manipulation, probably the biggest one of them all. There is currently a moratorium on crime statistics in South Africa. The public is not allowed to know the true extent of crime. When figures are released it is out of date and heavily massaged and manipulated. Police bungle cases that leads to low conviction rates. Forensic laboratories are overloaded. Police dockets, post mortem reports disappear and top police officers like Mzwandile Petros gave orders to falsify dockets. Petros gave order to falsify Tony Yengeni’s drunk driving ddocket
How cops cooked crime books to reflect lower incidence of violent crime
Cloud over murder statistics as filing cabinet with post mortem reports discovered
South Africa’s murder rate far higher than reported
SA Crime Statistics: Facts & Fallacies
http://mspoliticalcommentary.blogspot.com/2011/07/anc-lies-exposed-and-countered.html
Crime is Crime Corruption is Corruption Murder is Murder Rape is Rape Facts are Facts
Sunday, July 24, 2011
SA Crime Statistics
By Edwin Herrendorfer
Crime in South Africa has spiralled uncontrollably. Thousands of innocent people are raped, assaulted, murdered, hijacked, robbed, and exposed to all sorts of crimes each day. As a result, life in the country has become a nightmare for most law-abiding citizens.
Yet some argue that, overall, crime is on the decline. Is this true? What about the thousands of cases that go unreported, or the cover-ups by those wishing to hide the frightening reality from South Africans and the world?
While some sources may attempt to prove that the crime rate has recently gone down, in reality it may have increased, quite substantially. Crime rates, or the number of crimes recorded by the police, are notoriously unreliable as a reflection of the real crime situation, and even worse as an indicator of police performance. This is because crime rates rely on members of the public reporting crime, and the police recording it. It is a known fact, however, that most crimes go unreported. And since statistics are based on actual, reported cases, then all crimes must be much higher than the reported figures released to the public.
Let's look at one alarming scenario, rape.
According to Rape Crisis, South Africa has the highest per capita rate of REPORTED rape in the world. This excludes the up to 70% of all rapes, which go unreported. Therefore, if there were 54 310 REPORTED rapes, indecent assaults and incest cases, and only 1 in 20 is reported, then the actual figure is 1 086 200, which is 2 976 rapes per day, or more than two a minute. Moreover, the figure of one rape every 26 seconds is based on a reporting rate of around 1 in 20, and not the 1 in 36 claimed by the South African Police Services in 1997.
What does this say about the rest of the crimes committed in South Africa that go unreported? An article on the Pravda Forum entitled “Ten Years after Apartheid (1994 - 2004): The Raw Facts” states that “Crime (in SA) is so high, the Government put a moratorium on the release of crime statistics for a year & fudged them ever since...” Anything to make the government and police look good - and keep South Africans and the world from panicking, or be gripped by a fear which would be caused by the real situation!
According to a study by Ted Leggett of the Institute for Security Studies, police statistics show that commonly underreported crimes have been going up, while those most likely to be reported (murder, car theft, and business burglary) are in decline. This study further states that the South African Police Service (SAPS) claims that it has stabilised crime far in advance of targeted dates, but uses a very weak line of argument in support of this contention.
Comparing old 'unreliable' statistics with new, 'still unreliable' statistics, the state uses recorded crime rates to make its case, side-stepping the fact that, in terms of raw numbers:
• Overall crime levels are still on the increase.
• Recorded crime in many significant categories, such as robbery, is still increasing dramatically.
• Recorded crime in some regions - the Western Cape in particular - is soaring.
• Furthermore, in refuting claims that South Africa is the 'crime capital of the world', the SAPS trots out a range of spurious comparisons in their statistical report:
• Murder rates are compared between Washington, D.C., the city with the highest murder rates in the US, and Pretoria, which has the lowest murder rates of any major city in South Africa presumably on the basis that they are both capitals.
• Johannesburg is compared to Diadema, Sao Paolo, Brazil, not on the basis that the two areas are in any way comparable, but because Diadema is one sliver of the world that once had a higher murder rate.
• 'Very serious violent crimes' make up just over 10% of overall crime, with the bizarre conclusion that the 'chances of becoming a victim of serious violent crime are just over one out of ten crimes reported to the police'.
However, just because the SAPS makes some questionable arguments, it does not mean that their central contention - that crime is not as bad as the numbers make it seem is wrong. The greatest problem with claims that crime has stabilised is not the argument, but the subject matter.
Crime Rates True or False?
The following bizarre examples from the United Nations Development Programme statistics, illustrate the extent to which reporting rates can distort crime rates:
• Canada has the second highest rate of recorded rape in the world (267 per 100 000), second only to Estonia in the UNDP statistics.
• The rate of drug crimes in Switzerland (574 per 100 000) is more than 10 times that of Colombia (40 per 100 000).
• The rate of total crimes in Denmark (10 508 per 100 000) is more than five times that of the Russian Federation (1 779 per 100 000) and more than 100 times that of Indonesia (80 per 100 000).
• The fact that declining crime rates are not an indicator of the real crime situation raises questions about the manner in which the SAPS have benchmarked declines in recorded crime.
Different Crimes mean different Methods of Recording
It needs to be considered that the likelihood of victims reporting crime, and the police recording them, is not the same in every country. Crime victims are less likely to report crime in a country with an oppressive or incompetent police force than in a country where the police are helpful and trustworthy. The distances people have to travel to the nearest police station, and the availability of transport to get there, is another factor, which can affect crime-reporting rates. Multiple offences are not recorded uniformly in all countries. In some countries only the most serious offence reported in a single incident is recorded, while in others all offences reported are recorded. Differences in data quality between countries are also a factor. In developed countries, recorded crimes are entered into a computerised database and channelled to a central point for analysis. In many less developed countries, crime statistics are recorded only on paper, which can easily result in the loss of some of the statistics.
It is estimated that victim surveys suggest between 60% and 70% more crime than that reported by official sources. However, these surveys cannot be wholly trusted for the simple fact that they almost entirely exclude victims from rural areas and small towns, where most victims never come forward. How many people in rural areas have telephones? Many of these surveys are conducted via telephone. Moreover, companies or organisations that conduct victims' surveys never publish their survey questionnaires for others to determine how they reached the conclusions. Neither do they make necessary data available so that it can be reworked.
In addition, it is very difficult to define crimes in different countries. In some countries, for instance, the murder rate is calculated by the number of cases going to court and not by the actual murders committed. Other countries calculate the murder rate by the actual, known and reported cases that have been committed. Theft of food is not a crime in many Muslim countries. It is a reflection of something wrong in the country as a whole. In Africa, especially, it is extremely difficult to obtain actual statistics. Most of it is rural, undeveloped, and its people poor and illiterate
Are Crime Rates a Measure of Police Performance?
Good police performance could conceivably impact on the crime rate in a variety of ways, one being an increase in the number of crimes recorded and the basis on which crime rates are determined. This is obvious in areas such as drug offences, where the number of crimes recorded is almost exclusively reliant on proactive police work, but it is also true for a range of other types of crime that may be picked up on patrol and which would otherwise go unreported.
The use of recorded crime as a performance measure in the current South African context is especially problematic, as research in this country has shown that upwards of 50% of crime in many important categories goes unreported. This is particularly true for interpersonal crimes such as domestic violence and rape.
Playing with crime figures
On the whole, we have authorities who do not seem to know what they are doing, except mess around with statistics, churning out wrong information to a gullible public that will believe anything simply because it comes from the state or a state department. It is easy for the police to simply avoid recording a range of crimes they encounter. The easiest way for the police to reduce the crime rate is simply to do nothing but record only those crimes where a case number is absolutely mandatory, such as cases involving deaths or insured property.
Conclusion
Clearly, crime stats, as reported to the public, do not reflect reality and they certainly do not reflect police performance. This clearly demonstrates that no matter what the police do, no matter how many uniforms flood the streets, they cannot reduce crime, viz. reported or recorded and unreported or unrecorded crimes. It does not say anything for the thousands of cases that have not been reported, or which the police did not record.
Considering this, the SA government is implementing the Firearms Control Act, which will disarm law-abiding citizens. Dr Richard Wesson, author of 'Conditioned Victim? Your Choice!' has statistically shown that the firearm murder rate for 1999 dropped over 1 per 100 000 since 1994. From 1994 to 1997 Firearm murder rates fell by over 1.75 per 100 000, a drop of almost 6.5% over the period, despite (or because of?) an increase of about 777963 new firearm licences issued. He comments, “It is of importance to note that the percentage of firearm murders using handguns has dropped over the period 1994-1999 from 81.75% to 59.80%, a drop of 22%. This is a real drop of 1961 handgun murders per year!
These comparative figures, in themselves, disprove the hypothesis that licensed firearms, or their owners, cause an increase in crime or violence. Indeed these figures would suggest the very opposite! Most new firearms licensees bought handguns. This also disproves the hypothesis that licensed ownership of handguns increases the number of murders. These figures can only suggest that increasing licensed firearm ownership acts as an increasing deterrence against opportunistic, confrontational crime.”
An increase in any society, of law abiding firearm owners, will make a significant positive impact against lawlessness and for security. That is a fact.
http://www.christianaction.org.za/firearmnews/2004-02_SACrimeStatistics.htm
Crime in South Africa has spiralled uncontrollably. Thousands of innocent people are raped, assaulted, murdered, hijacked, robbed, and exposed to all sorts of crimes each day. As a result, life in the country has become a nightmare for most law-abiding citizens.
Yet some argue that, overall, crime is on the decline. Is this true? What about the thousands of cases that go unreported, or the cover-ups by those wishing to hide the frightening reality from South Africans and the world?
While some sources may attempt to prove that the crime rate has recently gone down, in reality it may have increased, quite substantially. Crime rates, or the number of crimes recorded by the police, are notoriously unreliable as a reflection of the real crime situation, and even worse as an indicator of police performance. This is because crime rates rely on members of the public reporting crime, and the police recording it. It is a known fact, however, that most crimes go unreported. And since statistics are based on actual, reported cases, then all crimes must be much higher than the reported figures released to the public.
Let's look at one alarming scenario, rape.
According to Rape Crisis, South Africa has the highest per capita rate of REPORTED rape in the world. This excludes the up to 70% of all rapes, which go unreported. Therefore, if there were 54 310 REPORTED rapes, indecent assaults and incest cases, and only 1 in 20 is reported, then the actual figure is 1 086 200, which is 2 976 rapes per day, or more than two a minute. Moreover, the figure of one rape every 26 seconds is based on a reporting rate of around 1 in 20, and not the 1 in 36 claimed by the South African Police Services in 1997.
What does this say about the rest of the crimes committed in South Africa that go unreported? An article on the Pravda Forum entitled “Ten Years after Apartheid (1994 - 2004): The Raw Facts” states that “Crime (in SA) is so high, the Government put a moratorium on the release of crime statistics for a year & fudged them ever since...” Anything to make the government and police look good - and keep South Africans and the world from panicking, or be gripped by a fear which would be caused by the real situation!
According to a study by Ted Leggett of the Institute for Security Studies, police statistics show that commonly underreported crimes have been going up, while those most likely to be reported (murder, car theft, and business burglary) are in decline. This study further states that the South African Police Service (SAPS) claims that it has stabilised crime far in advance of targeted dates, but uses a very weak line of argument in support of this contention.
Comparing old 'unreliable' statistics with new, 'still unreliable' statistics, the state uses recorded crime rates to make its case, side-stepping the fact that, in terms of raw numbers:
• Overall crime levels are still on the increase.
• Recorded crime in many significant categories, such as robbery, is still increasing dramatically.
• Recorded crime in some regions - the Western Cape in particular - is soaring.
• Furthermore, in refuting claims that South Africa is the 'crime capital of the world', the SAPS trots out a range of spurious comparisons in their statistical report:
• Murder rates are compared between Washington, D.C., the city with the highest murder rates in the US, and Pretoria, which has the lowest murder rates of any major city in South Africa presumably on the basis that they are both capitals.
• Johannesburg is compared to Diadema, Sao Paolo, Brazil, not on the basis that the two areas are in any way comparable, but because Diadema is one sliver of the world that once had a higher murder rate.
• 'Very serious violent crimes' make up just over 10% of overall crime, with the bizarre conclusion that the 'chances of becoming a victim of serious violent crime are just over one out of ten crimes reported to the police'.
However, just because the SAPS makes some questionable arguments, it does not mean that their central contention - that crime is not as bad as the numbers make it seem is wrong. The greatest problem with claims that crime has stabilised is not the argument, but the subject matter.
Crime Rates True or False?
The following bizarre examples from the United Nations Development Programme statistics, illustrate the extent to which reporting rates can distort crime rates:
• Canada has the second highest rate of recorded rape in the world (267 per 100 000), second only to Estonia in the UNDP statistics.
• The rate of drug crimes in Switzerland (574 per 100 000) is more than 10 times that of Colombia (40 per 100 000).
• The rate of total crimes in Denmark (10 508 per 100 000) is more than five times that of the Russian Federation (1 779 per 100 000) and more than 100 times that of Indonesia (80 per 100 000).
• The fact that declining crime rates are not an indicator of the real crime situation raises questions about the manner in which the SAPS have benchmarked declines in recorded crime.
Different Crimes mean different Methods of Recording
It needs to be considered that the likelihood of victims reporting crime, and the police recording them, is not the same in every country. Crime victims are less likely to report crime in a country with an oppressive or incompetent police force than in a country where the police are helpful and trustworthy. The distances people have to travel to the nearest police station, and the availability of transport to get there, is another factor, which can affect crime-reporting rates. Multiple offences are not recorded uniformly in all countries. In some countries only the most serious offence reported in a single incident is recorded, while in others all offences reported are recorded. Differences in data quality between countries are also a factor. In developed countries, recorded crimes are entered into a computerised database and channelled to a central point for analysis. In many less developed countries, crime statistics are recorded only on paper, which can easily result in the loss of some of the statistics.
It is estimated that victim surveys suggest between 60% and 70% more crime than that reported by official sources. However, these surveys cannot be wholly trusted for the simple fact that they almost entirely exclude victims from rural areas and small towns, where most victims never come forward. How many people in rural areas have telephones? Many of these surveys are conducted via telephone. Moreover, companies or organisations that conduct victims' surveys never publish their survey questionnaires for others to determine how they reached the conclusions. Neither do they make necessary data available so that it can be reworked.
In addition, it is very difficult to define crimes in different countries. In some countries, for instance, the murder rate is calculated by the number of cases going to court and not by the actual murders committed. Other countries calculate the murder rate by the actual, known and reported cases that have been committed. Theft of food is not a crime in many Muslim countries. It is a reflection of something wrong in the country as a whole. In Africa, especially, it is extremely difficult to obtain actual statistics. Most of it is rural, undeveloped, and its people poor and illiterate
Are Crime Rates a Measure of Police Performance?
Good police performance could conceivably impact on the crime rate in a variety of ways, one being an increase in the number of crimes recorded and the basis on which crime rates are determined. This is obvious in areas such as drug offences, where the number of crimes recorded is almost exclusively reliant on proactive police work, but it is also true for a range of other types of crime that may be picked up on patrol and which would otherwise go unreported.
The use of recorded crime as a performance measure in the current South African context is especially problematic, as research in this country has shown that upwards of 50% of crime in many important categories goes unreported. This is particularly true for interpersonal crimes such as domestic violence and rape.
Playing with crime figures
On the whole, we have authorities who do not seem to know what they are doing, except mess around with statistics, churning out wrong information to a gullible public that will believe anything simply because it comes from the state or a state department. It is easy for the police to simply avoid recording a range of crimes they encounter. The easiest way for the police to reduce the crime rate is simply to do nothing but record only those crimes where a case number is absolutely mandatory, such as cases involving deaths or insured property.
Conclusion
Clearly, crime stats, as reported to the public, do not reflect reality and they certainly do not reflect police performance. This clearly demonstrates that no matter what the police do, no matter how many uniforms flood the streets, they cannot reduce crime, viz. reported or recorded and unreported or unrecorded crimes. It does not say anything for the thousands of cases that have not been reported, or which the police did not record.
Considering this, the SA government is implementing the Firearms Control Act, which will disarm law-abiding citizens. Dr Richard Wesson, author of 'Conditioned Victim? Your Choice!' has statistically shown that the firearm murder rate for 1999 dropped over 1 per 100 000 since 1994. From 1994 to 1997 Firearm murder rates fell by over 1.75 per 100 000, a drop of almost 6.5% over the period, despite (or because of?) an increase of about 777963 new firearm licences issued. He comments, “It is of importance to note that the percentage of firearm murders using handguns has dropped over the period 1994-1999 from 81.75% to 59.80%, a drop of 22%. This is a real drop of 1961 handgun murders per year!
These comparative figures, in themselves, disprove the hypothesis that licensed firearms, or their owners, cause an increase in crime or violence. Indeed these figures would suggest the very opposite! Most new firearms licensees bought handguns. This also disproves the hypothesis that licensed ownership of handguns increases the number of murders. These figures can only suggest that increasing licensed firearm ownership acts as an increasing deterrence against opportunistic, confrontational crime.”
An increase in any society, of law abiding firearm owners, will make a significant positive impact against lawlessness and for security. That is a fact.
http://www.christianaction.org.za/firearmnews/2004-02_SACrimeStatistics.htm
Bodies Pile Up at Bara Morgue
Jul 15 2011
Bodies are piling up in the mortuary at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital owing to a backlog in paupers' burials. The high cost of funerals means that many poor families cannot afford to bury their dead.
The hospital's morgue is storing more than 90 adult cadavers that have long passed the statutory 30 days for bodies to be kept in a mortuary.
There are also the corpses of more than 100 babies who were either stillborn or died after being abandoned at birth, with as many as 30 piled on a tray designed for a single adult cadaver.
Many bodies are piled on top of one another in fridges and others lie in an open-plan refrigerator, littered on stretchers and stacked on shelves, most in an advanced stage of decomposition and exuding a sharp stench.
The lack of funds for proper burials, and slow administrative processes have been blamed for the overcrowding.
In the case of unidentified bodies a pauper's funeral should be done and paid for by the state after all attempts to reach the next of kin are exhausted.
For the families who cannot afford a burial, an application must be made to a municipality for an indigent burial.
According to Avbob, South Africa's biggest funeral parlour, the average cost of a pauper's funeral is R2 200, with the most affordable interment charged at R6 595.
Workers at the mortuary face many challenges, including a lack of protective gear such as gloves and surgical masks, and say power failures occur often, intensifying the decay of corpses. "It's sad. Many people don't have money to bury their family, but it's out of control. We tell them [hospital administrators] the mortuary is overcrowded, but they do nothing," a mortuary worker, who preferred to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, told the Mail & Guardian.
Some mortuary workers say they have fallen ill as a result of working in close proximity to the bodies, while others complain of a lack of medical treatment for any infections picked up during their duties.
A senior medical practitioner at a state mortuary affiliated to the University of KwaZulu-Natal, who is professionally bound by the department of health to remain anonymous, told the M&G there is a high risk of contracting infectious diseases -- such as hepatitis and tuberculosis -- from working closely with bodies without the correct protective equipment.
"All bodies are highly contagious at all stages after death, especially if they are not kept at a cool temperature. In line with the Occupational Health and Safety Act all people working in a mortuary must at least wear the basics, like gloves and surgical masks," the medical source said.
The embattled Soweto hospital, the largest in the southern hemisphere, is also experiencing a backlog in scheduled surgeries due to intermittent power and a lack of hot water.
Staff also claim they are maltreated. Unions at the hospital, including the National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union (Nehawu), handed over a memorandum of demands on July 8, threatening industrial action should their demands not be met.
The unions' demands include the disbanding of all workplace forums, the re-opening of the maternity ward kitchen and consultation with unions when high-level decisions are made by hospital administrators. A separate call is made for hospital chief executive Johanna More's resignation.
More held a press conference, with Gauteng premier Nomvula Mokonyane, on Tuesday, during which she blamed saboteurs for problems at the hospital.
Speaking to the M&G, Nehawu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said the overcrowding in the mortuary was indicative of the massive crises the hospital faces.
"I am not surprised by this at all. If management has an attitude of blaming sabotage for the problems, how can you address the real issues? It is out of its depth and things are slowly eating away the hospital," Pamla said.
Health department's spokesperson Simon Zwane said it was standard practice to store multiple bodies on stretchers in the coldroom. The 180-capacity mortuary fridge is used to store the single corpses.
Warning: Graphic photos
http://mg.co.za/article/2011-07-15-bodies-pile-up-at-bara-morgue
Bodies are piling up in the mortuary at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital owing to a backlog in paupers' burials. The high cost of funerals means that many poor families cannot afford to bury their dead.
The hospital's morgue is storing more than 90 adult cadavers that have long passed the statutory 30 days for bodies to be kept in a mortuary.
There are also the corpses of more than 100 babies who were either stillborn or died after being abandoned at birth, with as many as 30 piled on a tray designed for a single adult cadaver.
Many bodies are piled on top of one another in fridges and others lie in an open-plan refrigerator, littered on stretchers and stacked on shelves, most in an advanced stage of decomposition and exuding a sharp stench.
The lack of funds for proper burials, and slow administrative processes have been blamed for the overcrowding.
In the case of unidentified bodies a pauper's funeral should be done and paid for by the state after all attempts to reach the next of kin are exhausted.
For the families who cannot afford a burial, an application must be made to a municipality for an indigent burial.
According to Avbob, South Africa's biggest funeral parlour, the average cost of a pauper's funeral is R2 200, with the most affordable interment charged at R6 595.
Workers at the mortuary face many challenges, including a lack of protective gear such as gloves and surgical masks, and say power failures occur often, intensifying the decay of corpses. "It's sad. Many people don't have money to bury their family, but it's out of control. We tell them [hospital administrators] the mortuary is overcrowded, but they do nothing," a mortuary worker, who preferred to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, told the Mail & Guardian.
Some mortuary workers say they have fallen ill as a result of working in close proximity to the bodies, while others complain of a lack of medical treatment for any infections picked up during their duties.
A senior medical practitioner at a state mortuary affiliated to the University of KwaZulu-Natal, who is professionally bound by the department of health to remain anonymous, told the M&G there is a high risk of contracting infectious diseases -- such as hepatitis and tuberculosis -- from working closely with bodies without the correct protective equipment.
"All bodies are highly contagious at all stages after death, especially if they are not kept at a cool temperature. In line with the Occupational Health and Safety Act all people working in a mortuary must at least wear the basics, like gloves and surgical masks," the medical source said.
The embattled Soweto hospital, the largest in the southern hemisphere, is also experiencing a backlog in scheduled surgeries due to intermittent power and a lack of hot water.
Staff also claim they are maltreated. Unions at the hospital, including the National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union (Nehawu), handed over a memorandum of demands on July 8, threatening industrial action should their demands not be met.
The unions' demands include the disbanding of all workplace forums, the re-opening of the maternity ward kitchen and consultation with unions when high-level decisions are made by hospital administrators. A separate call is made for hospital chief executive Johanna More's resignation.
More held a press conference, with Gauteng premier Nomvula Mokonyane, on Tuesday, during which she blamed saboteurs for problems at the hospital.
Speaking to the M&G, Nehawu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said the overcrowding in the mortuary was indicative of the massive crises the hospital faces.
"I am not surprised by this at all. If management has an attitude of blaming sabotage for the problems, how can you address the real issues? It is out of its depth and things are slowly eating away the hospital," Pamla said.
Health department's spokesperson Simon Zwane said it was standard practice to store multiple bodies on stretchers in the coldroom. The 180-capacity mortuary fridge is used to store the single corpses.
Warning: Graphic photos
http://mg.co.za/article/2011-07-15-bodies-pile-up-at-bara-morgue
Who Stuffed Up South Africa
A tongue-in-cheek look at our main culprits
I am not sure of the date, but at a guess, it would have been 1999 or thereabouts. I was in London at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) to attend a lecture given by my friend and mentor David Rattray on the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. I was particularly excited because David had told me that none other than the legendary Sir Wilfred Thesiger would be attending.
At a reception after the lecture, which had captivated a packed RGS,
I was sort of nervously hanging around, until David, typically, told me to stop lurking about like a fool and introduced me to the world’s greatest living explorer, then about 80 years old.
I forget what I said, but I do recall shaking his hand. David always used to say that “history is not that old”; and back then, shaking the hand of the grandson of Lord Chelmsford (he of Isandlwana infamy), I certainly felt its proximity.
David used to tell a wonderful story about Thesiger. On his last trip to South Africa, Thesiger visited Isandlwana on the anniversary of the battle, 22 January.
There were the usual goings-on: folk dressed up as redcoats, an impi, political bigwigs, various ceremonies and prayers and so forth.
And then there was this old, bent man with his weather-beaten face and alert, sharp eyes.
One cannot imagine what it was like for Thesiger to visit the place that would have had such monumental significance in his family. All we can do, is remark on how this old English gentleman reacted to it.
The way David used to tell the story, IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi, whose own grandfather had fought at Isandlwana, was also attending the ceremonies.
Thesiger spotted Buthelezi and approached him, whereupon these two dignified old men – one an icon representing British colonialism, the other a Zulu chief – held each other in a long, tearful embrace, something the local news photographers managed to miss.
I think there would have been no better image of reconciliation, and no better story with which to illustrate the extraordinary nature of this country.
The names that follow in this book are a decidedly mixed bunch. They count among them the egotistical, the incompetent and the corrupt. Some caused death and misery and mayhem. Some created the problems we still face today. Some can be considered “great” in certain ways, and yet are deeply flawed.
Some are pure evil, some profoundly silly. Some threw it all away and some never had it. Some are just annoying, and some represent many of the names that didn’t make it onto the list. But all of them, together, stand as a slightly odd monument to the people of this astonishing country.
Inevitably, the compilation of a list of notorious South Africans will be cause for some debate, perhaps even anger.
You may disagree with the inclusion of certain individuals in these pages, or indeed the omission of others. Please feel free to voice your opinions to the publisher via e-mail at info@twodogs.co.za .
Lastly, a word on the title of this book. I hope it’s not too controversial – or, rather, that it’s just controversial enough.
Because as much as I’ve enjoyed delving into the sordid tales of some of the dodgiest and most destructive people to have taken their toll on our country, I can’t say that I agree with the premise. It’s just that 50 People Who Tried Their Damndest To Stuff Up South Africa But Couldn’t Quite Manage It In The End isn’t as catchy, is it?
So, while the various and varied characters featuring on these pages may have done their best to stuff up this fine land in which we live, I must declare their collective failure. It’s why I choose to live here. I love the place.
Book editor: Alexander Parker
Julius Malema born 1983
President of the ANC Youth League; pinup boy for black racism, tenderpreneurship and the implosion of rational political debate in South Africa
Julius Malema’s a fat little man. How he got so fat is obvious. He is fat because he has lots of government-tender money and no class whatsoever, and the classless rich always get fat.
In Malemaville, Limpopo, KFC is gourmet; and obesity, in the absence of an enlightened mind, is said to speak of significance.
Of course, it doesn’t help to resort to personal insults. It’s best to debate the facts but, as the KFC Kid knows so well, it sure makes you feel better. After all, when Kiddi Amin was engaging in the first real salvos in his war against Jacob Zuma by espousing the genius of Zanu-PF’s ruinous land-reform programme in Zimbabwe, he reacted with much vitriol when challenged by a BBC journalist.
Malema had described Zimbabwe’s opposition MDC as “Mickey Mouse”, and had mocked their “air-conditioned offices in Sandton”, to which the BBC’s Jonah Fisher pointed out that Malema himself lived in Sandton.
Well, it struck a nerve; and instead of being smart about it and responding that there’s nothing wrong with a successful South African citizen residing in Sandton – as opposed to a foreign political party – he went ballistic.
The problem with going ballistic is that it shows all your cards; it’s your best work. This, in your fury, when you really, really care, is everything you’ve got. Forget in vino veritas.
When a man’s truly angry, you’re going to see to the centre of his soul. Which, in this particular case, was illustrative for the rest of us.
Malema accused the journalist of having a small penis, saying whatever was under his “trouser” was “rubbish”. This was intellectual shock and awe, Malema-style. A slam-dunk tour de force of off-the-cuff critical political thought from the man who would be president.
In this little moment, young Julius had exposed his hatred of media and their questions, his utter disregard for how he makes South Africa look from abroad and, of course, the scale of the rancour and poison at the heart of how he thinks.
He had made it clear that what he lacks in intellect he makes up for in a vicious hate-filled demagoguery, choosing victims of least resistance, the obvious targets – because young Julius is the playground bully who learnt nothing at school other than how to steal the other kids’ Milo. So it’s the media. It’s the mines and their owners. It’s white people in general and farmers specifically.
The ANC’s Struggle history has gifted the likes of Malema a song that contains the exhortation to “shoot the boer, kill the farmer”, giving him a deeply shabby, quasi-cultural excuse to encourage people to hate (at best) and murder (at worst) others because of the colour of their skin.
It is, of course, vindictive and dangerous, and were it born out of a long and deep personal struggle to free South Africa’s poor from apartheid, it would at least give some context to Malema’s seemingly bottomless font of racial bile. But it isn’t.
Malema was born in 1983. Nelson Mandela was released when he was seven and South Africa was a fully fledged democracy when he was 11. So Malema is no Struggle hero. He’s a veteran of nothing but carpentry classes.
The end assumption can only be that the motivation behind Malema’s hatred is power and money. Bizarrely, it is what Malema himself narrow-mindedly uses to define the “whiteness” he seeks. He wants the nice clothes, the nice watch, the fancy cars and the house in Sandton, and he wants to exercise power for his own ends. How to do it? Mobilise the masses behind some fictional race war. Shout hate into a microphone. After all, it worked for Idi and Adolf.
Malema is, it is sad to report, acting out the archetype, playing it to a tee. In “Africa, the Post-Colonial Balls-Up”, Malema is trying his darndest for a leading role. But so far he’s Mugabe without the menace, Amin without the charisma. He’s Bonaparte without the talent, Julius without the Caesar.
This is a man who manages to involve himself in (rather suspicious) tenders in his native Limpopo, then takes the money and fails to complete the work, impoverishing communities and the Treasury, and looting hard-earned tax rands in the process.
When he fails in his endeavours to win mining tenders, his reaction is not to redouble his efforts to put in better tenders; it is to demand the nationalisation of those same mines.
What Juju wants, Juju will get – or he’ll rage and scream about the forces aligned against him. And it doesn’t matter if people must die, lose their incomes or flee the country to the detriment of us all.
Malema will support Mugabe while Zimbabweans starve. He’ll encourage murder.
He’ll foment hatred against the former oppressor, the colonialist, the white devil, management, Cosatu, even Zuma now – whatever seems convenient at the time. He’ll do whatever he needs to do, even if it means making headlines abroad and making TIME magazine’s list of 50 international morons.
I imagine Julius was a bed-wetter. Perhaps he still is. His obsession with being king, his unending deep-in-the-pit-of-his-stomach yearning to be Very Important, to break free of his own smallness… it speaks volumes. My suspicion is that what’s under his trouser is what’s problematic. Once he’s been and gone – for, surely, he will one day be gone – we’ll not be measuring Malema’s influence in votes or supporters, but the number of his chins and the inches on his waist.
Malema is a waddling stain on South Africa, a fine country inhabited by good people, and better than Malema in ways too myriad to mention. A book in itself. So we should take comfort from the fact that, before too long, Malema will be a mere nasty memory, just like his kindred spirit, political peer and intellectual equal, Eugene Terre’Blanche. Speak up, Julius. Shout it out! Hasten your own demise!
Where’s Brutus when you need him?
(See Steve Hofmeyr and Eugène Terre’Blanche in the book)
The minibus taxi driver
Visually and aurally offensive, inconsiderate, non-indicating, corner-cutting, danger-courting, stress-inducing, road-law-violating transporter of the vast majority of South Africa’s blue-collar workforce
It’s easy, if you drive a car, to blame minibus taxis. But here are some facts: Very few taxi drivers own their own taxis. Of the 200 000 or so people employed in the industry, only 20 000 own vehicles. Most work for an owner, who tells his drivers that each taxi must deliver to him R1 000 a day. Anything on top of that is the driver’s pay. Hence, you see, the pressure. The pressure to get back to town to get the next load. The pressure to jam in as many passengers
as possible.
Be under no illusion: a taxi driver’s life is gruelling. It is seldom the drivers who can’t be bothered to maintain the vehicles; it’s the owners. And the owners are usually amoral, violence-inclined gangster bosses who run the entire industry – so that’s more pressure to deal with, just for good measure.
Of the 40 or so people who die on South African roads every day, fewer than 10% are killed in taxi-related accidents, illustrating that taxis are not quite the Great Satan of South African roads that we imagine them to be. But let’s not get too carried away here with compassion and understanding because taxi drivers deserve every ounce of fear and loathing we impart in their general direction.
To explain the surprising statistic above, taxis constitute less than 2% of the vehicles in South Africa, which is to say they cause a disproportionately large number of road deaths.
The AA reckons that around 70 000 of them, equating to nearly half the country’s taxi fleet, are involved in accidents every year. In other words, they do crash an awful lot and they are indeed the scum of the universe. The reason is obvious: a total disregard for traffic laws and other road users.
Here’s the worst of it, though: because of minibus taxis, we have all become horrendous drivers. While taxis may be ugly and noisy, while their drivers are content to play games with the lives of 16 people at a time by running red traffic lights and driving on the wrong side of the road, while the incessant honking is infuriating and the state of the vehicles is shocking, the sad fact is that many South Africans of all kinds – rich, poor, black, white – are a disgrace on the road.
In the past few years, an orange light has come to mean “floor it”. Nobody knows how to use a traffic circle. Nobody wants to join a queue.
Nobody wants to let anyone into a queue.
Drivers speed irresponsibly in places where people live and children go to school. Zebra crossings are completely ignored. No one wears a seat belt. Children sit on drivers’ laps. Drivers happily block traffic if it will save them a few seconds. People who drive fancy cars or SUVs (or fancy SUVs) think they are more important than other road users… the list is endless. And it’s topped by the unending propensity of South Africans to get absolutely shit-faced on a Friday night and deem that an acceptable state in which to drive home. Everyone else is doing it, right?
Of course, the fact that the police have decided to vigorously enforce the tiny fraction of the rules of the road that happen to be the most lucrative – speed limits – and completely ignore the rest of them, doesn’t help. So we know we can cross solid lines, turn without indicating, run red robots, undertake on the hard shoulder, talk on our cellphones and all the rest because the metro cops are eating KFC under a bush with a speed gun, or taking “rent” from unregistered taxi drivers. And so the AA’s annual warning that “in almost all cases, an accident is preceded by a traffic violation” goes unheeded year after year.
Meanwhile, pedestrians are their own worst enemies, and they make up nearly half of the 40. As if in bold defiance of Darwin, many see fit to get motherless and walk along highways with nary a concern for their safety.
Hence the (genuine) health warning that appears on five-litre papsaks of wine: “Don’t drink and walk on the road, you may be killed.”
The advice, however, remains largely ignored, and the more daring of them do it at night while wearing dark clothes.
The truth is that the aggressive Sandton mommy in her SUV shouting at taxi drivers is as bad as the taxi driver himself, and the careless pedestrian is as much a liability.
We’re all responsible for the utter stress, mayhem and carnage on South African roads.
But because they are so utterly disinterested in the impact their appalling behaviour has on other people’s lives, the South African bad driver has a face. And it’s the sociopath behind the wheel of the Hiace.
A pox upon him!
Joe Modise23 May 1929 – 26 November 2001
Minister of Defence (1994–1999); thug; Mbeki ally; the man behind the arms deal
There have been books written about the arms deal. Some excellent, some rather long-winded, all considerably damning. So we’re going to keep this simple. The essence of the arms deal, announced in 1999, is as follows:
Firstly, to pay for it, we diverted incredible sums of money from far worthier causes such as healthcare, housing and energy infrastructure (see Alec Erwin in the book). As of October 2010, it had cost a reported R67 billion – which works out to around 2.2 million RDP houses.
Secondly, we got the wrong stuff. There is no credible threat to South Africa’s sovereignty, now or in the foreseeable future, and certainly none that would require three diesel-electric attack submarines (costing around R5.5bn in 1999) or four stealth frigates (also around R5.5bn, including helicopters) to repulse. The frigates, you’d think, might at least protect our fishing rights and do a bit of patrolling, but they cost R8m a day to run and there’s no budget left over to deploy them effectively.
As a result, in 2008 the navy declared that it “urgently and critically” needed eight to 12 multipurpose patrol boats, at around R300m each. Then we have our 26 new JAS 39 Gripen fighters, which are exceptionally cool, but are short-range single-engine planes built for northern European conditions. More to the point, we only have nine pilots (and one navigator) capable of flying them as of November 2010 and, like the navy, we can barely afford to run them. Also, fighter jets don’t provide a peacekeeping role, so the air force subsequently had to order hugely expensive heavy-lift transport planes for this purpose (a separate controversy altogether). And that’s just a taster of that aspect of the deal.
Thirdly, the reason we diverted incredible sums of money from far worthier projects and the reason we got the wrong stuff is because the entire process was born of corruption, bribery and back-door shenanigans.
As every South African knows, there has never been a comprehensive parliamentary enquiry into the arms deal, despite constant requests from the public, opposition leaders, Cosatu, the British government and various other interested parties. On the one hand, this is an astounding realisation, given the sheer weight of evidence pointing to widespread bribery and corruption at virtually every level of the procurement process. Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), for example, believes that R1bn in illegal “commissions” was paid by BAE Systems to facilitate deals – and they just provided the jets.
On the other hand, the decision to not investigate is not surprising at all: there are just too many big names who could take a fall – from Thabo Mbeki and Zuma down through the government to all the various influential businessmen and companies involved – and there has, evidently, been too much pressure from too many directions to allow it to happen.
In October 2010, the Hawks officially closed down their investigation.
Without some kind of official enquiry, it will be impossible to say for sure who did what and who got what out of the arms deal. And even if there were one, it would doubtless be dreadfully politicised. So we’re just going to take all the allegations and evidence out there and dump the blame for this gargantuan political, socioeconomic and military debacle onto the head of Joe Modise.
You may recall Johannes “Bra Joe” Modise as the minister of Defence who presided over that little foray into Lesotho when the South African National Defence Force couldn’t read a map right and got into a spot of bother while trying to prevent a coup in that country. It was a rather embarrassing affair all round. But Modise was a lot more than a debacle in Lesotho.
A truck driver and gangster in 1950s Alexandra, he is recalled as a rather bad bugger by veterans of the Struggle. As a founding member and then commander of Umkhonto we Sizwe, he came with a serious reputation.
“Everyone in the ANC was frightened of him,” Sibusiso Madlala, a senior MK operative, explained in an interview with historian, RW Johnson. “They knew he had killed people himself, that he was completely ruthless and that he had presided over mass torture and executions in the MK punishment camps.” On top of this, he was widely held to be an informer for the apartheid government, and he was later suspected of playing a role in the murder of Chris Hani, a rival of his and of his ally, Mbeki.
In the transition to ANC rule, Modise played an important and early role in negotiations, and he shrewdly and deliberately positioned himself to become South Africa’s first black Defence minister, a position that would offer plenty of opportunity for self-enrichment. Modise had shown great support in getting Mbeki into the position of Mandela’s heir apparent, and Mbeki repaid the favour by letting him do pretty much as he wanted in the Ministry of Defence – and that meant cashing in on the upcoming arms deal, despite objections from the likes of Jay Naidoo, Joe Slovo and Trevor Manuel.
Modise was involved in all aspects of the arms deal. Among other things, he intervened in the contract for light fighter trainers, ensuring BAE Hawks were selected rather than the cheaper Italian alternative.
One of the principal beneficiaries of this deal, according to the SFO, was Fana Hlongwane, Modise’s friend and adviser, who they say pocketed £3m. Indeed, it was later observed that Modise’s close friends “seemed to be men who had profited from the arms deal”. His daughter even found her way onto the board of one of the companies designated for counter-trade agreements.
And when he stood down as Defence minister in 1999, he himself joined the boards of several companies that had benefited. All in all, Modise is said to have received more than R10m in arms-deal “commissions”, according to Andrew Feinstein, author of After The Party.
No one is claiming that corruption didn’t exist before the arms deal or before 1994. Indeed, the story goes that the first thing the Nats did when handing over the country to the ANC was ensure they were all set up with nice beach houses and game concessions to retire to. But the arms deal stands as a crucial landmark on South Africa’s post-democracy path: the moment when so many ANC freedom fighters, who had defined themselves in the collective drive for the liberation of South Africa and a better life for all, decided it was time to change focus and look out for number one. It was the biggest post-democratic gravy train of them all and, with Modise as its chief conductor, it proved to be unstoppable.
As a final illustrative vignette, consider the fate of Tony Yengeni, the only politician to have been convicted for taking a bribe related to the arms deal, a discount on a Mercedes-Benz, which saw him serve five months of a four-year sentence.
Problem is, the company that admitted it “rendered assistance” in getting him his new wheels, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, admits it did the same for 30 senior government officials. Thirty!
Whether they actively profited from the arms deal or they just watched their friends and colleagues do so, the new rulers of South Africa had quickly learnt what it meant to cash in at the expense of their fellow countrymen. And, for leading by example, we have Joe Modise to thank for this.
Louis Luyt born 18 June 1932
Businessman and rugby administrator; president of the South African Rugby Football Union (1994–1998); face of the ugly South African
There’s a particularly cutting sketch you can watch on YouTube by the British comedy puppet show, Spitting Image. It’s called “I’ve never met a nice South African”, and it’s an enlightening product of its time – 1986 – when the apartheid Saffer was the pariah of the world. Released just after PW Botha had failed to cross the Rubicon and was implementing his state of emergency instead, the song is characteristically savage.
It talks of South Africans – meaning white South Africans – as a “bunch of talentless murderers who smell like baboons”, “arrogant bastards who hate black people” and “ignorant loudmouths with no sense of humour”. (It is, a quarter century later, really quite funny.)
Such thoughts, no doubt, went through the minds of the New Zealand rugby team and delegation at the dinner to celebrate the end of the 1995 Rugby World Cup. Let there be no doubt of the event’s significance: It was a glorious moment in this country, and now Morgan Freeman has even done a movie emphasising just that. That’s why it takes an individual of rare mean spirit to leave a bitter taste in the mouth after such a special day. Louis Luyt was his name, and he turned out to be the turd in the punch bowl. Because here was a guy who didn’t know how to win with any grace.
Speaking at the gala dinner, Luyt, president of the South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu) at the time, opined that not only was it good and right that the Springboks had won the Cup, but had they been allowed to play, they would have won the last two as well – one of which, of course, the All Blacks had won. Luyt was doing the spitting image of the Spitting Image South African whom no one can abide. He was being a deeply unfunny, egotistical loudmouth.
Famously, the Kiwis walked out of the dinner and went back to their hotel.
Luyt had made his fortune as a fertiliser salesman in the 1960s. Some say he was so good at his job that there are still farmers in the Karoo with stockpiles of his stuff. Unfortunately, however, he didn’t stick to his calling.
Presumably, he had some charms back then and the money went to his head, turning him into the boorish megalomaniac South Africans would come to know once he’d wangled his way into the presidency of Sarfu. He spent five years in the role, a period in which he conducted himself as the untouchable king of rugby, dismissive of any and all outsider opinion or sensitivity. It was, and still is, remarkable that such an unpleasant and divisive man could hold this important position for so long, and it was no surprise when it all ended in scandal and brouhaha, and his forced resignation in 1998.
Along the way, he unconscionably dragged Nelson Mandela into court to testify in a commission of enquiry into rugby in 1996. It was a humiliating moment for many South Africans, the first time the man who freed the country had been in a witness box since the Rivonia Trial of 1964; and it came only a few years after Luyt was justifiably accused of racism when, during the Springboks’ first match after readmission, against New Zealand at Ellis Park in 1992, the Tannoy played “Die Stem” in a “deliberate breach of a pledge not to promote apartheid symbols”.
These boorish acts were, it seems, perfectly in character for the man because Luyt, back in the 1970s, had been central to an assault on South African media by the apartheid government. At the time, the state was becoming increasingly fed up with so-called liberal newspapers, such as the Rand Daily Mail. In response, Minister of Information Connie Mulder and State President BJ Vorster attempted to buy SAAN, the holding company behind the Mail and the Sunday Times. Luyt was their frontman. When that failed, Mulder secretly, and again illegally, gave millions of rands to Luyt in order that he set up a pro-government newspaper. He went ahead. It was called The Citizen, and it’s still going today. Unsurprisingly, the paper’s editorial direction was decidedly pro-National Party, the only English-language paper with that particular sentiment.
In time, the secret got out, reported – in a rather delicious irony – by the Rand Daily Mail.
It was known as the Information Scandal, and it probably cost Mulder the presidency. Vorster himself was eventually forced to quit, too. (See BJ Vorster in the book)
Once he had been, finally, mercifully ejected from the corridors of power at Sarfu headquarters, Luyt went on to pursue the ultimate vanity project: he started his own political party. The Federal Alliance, established to protect “the rights and integrity of Afrikaners”, contested its first election in 1999 – but no one was particularly surprised when it folded shortly thereafter, having won no seats. After all, who would want to support a frontman for apartheid state propaganda, a decidedly offensive after-dinner speaker and a man with questionable views on his melanin-rich compatriots? Luyt the Lout really is, much to our impoverishment, straight out of Spitting Image.
Snuki Zikalala born 12 May 1951
Ex-MD of SABC News and Current Affairs; Mbeki fan; Stalin fan; censorship fan; destroyer of the public broadcaster’s last vestiges of independence
Perhaps the warning was there, in his CV. Snuki Zikalala learnt his version of the trade of journalism at a Soviet university in Sofia, Bulgaria, deep in the Eastern Bloc. That right there should have got the alarm bells ringing.
Zikalala is another man steeped in the Struggle, another returnee from exile and communist influence. The struggle for winning freedom and democracy in South Africa was one thing, but actually doing democracy is another altogether, as he would find out.
He started as head of news at the South African Broadcasting Corporation in April 2004, exactly 10 years into South Africa’s democratic age. His position was one of enormous reach and power. The SABC, lest we forget, wields 18 radio stations and four television channels, three of which are free-to-air. Most South Africans are unable to afford satellite news from the BBC, Sky or even Al Jazeera.
Most South Africans live out of range of independent radio, such as Talk Radio 702 or 567 Cape Talk. So for the great majority of us, the SABC is the only news source we will ever receive. Add that to a widespread lack of understanding of how democratic institutions work and the nature of what democracy means, brought on by the still-real effects of Bantu education, and it’s clear just how crucial the SABC is in forming opinions.
Sadly, Zikalala was to set about creating a propaganda machine that would not just trumpet the pro-ANC agenda, but would specifically look after and protect his master and president, Thabo Mbeki. Zikalala was, it almost goes without saying, an Mbeki acolyte.
He was once described, rather marvellously, by the late Mail & Guardian columnist Robert Kirby: “He smiles obsequiously and exudes something even stickier than glycerine.”
Indeed, evening after evening, SABC News viewers would be subjected to the image of Miranda Strydom leading the top story of the day about a glorious speech the president had made somewhere. This was more the GCIS* than the news. But it was the news as Zikalala saw it.
Under his guidance, the SABC very seldom reported on deeply troubling societal issues such as HIV/Aids and crime; newsreaders were, in fact, instructed not to lead bulletins with a crime story.
And it brooked no criticism of the ANC, the president or his ministers. When Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka was booed at a rally in 2005, the SABC refused to broadcast the footage.
A documentary on how Mbeki had come to power was quashed for having elements that were considered unfit for broadcast – which is to say, it included some constructive criticism.
But perhaps Zikalala’s greatest crime was to compile a blacklist of political commentators whose thoughts were, he felt, counter-revolutionary, anti-ANC or anti-Mbeki, and who were subsequently banned from appearing on SABC radio or TV programmes.
When the Sowetan broke the story, the SABC naturally did its best to deny the allegation, but it had the carpet pulled out from under it when veteran radio man John Perlman confirmed that the blacklist was real, during a 2006 broadcast of his morning show on its SAfm radio station. (Perlman resigned shortly after being given a verbal warning for his on-air actions.)
An independent commission of enquiry into the blacklist affair established varied motives for people being banned from the public broadcaster’s airwaves, and discovered how far removed from legitimate journalism the productions at the SABC had become.
Karima Brown, Business Day’s erstwhile political editor and a former ANC activist, was banned for asking difficult questions – “spreading untruths” was how Zikalala was said to have described it. Pius Ncube, the Zimbabwean archbishop, was banned from commenting on what was happening in Zimbabwe.
So was Trevor Ncube, the Zimbabwean owner of the Mail & Guardian. Moeletsi Mbeki, the president’s younger brother, was banned for his regular criticism of the government and South Africa’s BEE policies.
Paula Slier, the veteran reporter in the Middle East, was referred to as “that little Jewish girl” and was banned for allegedly being too pro-Israel. The report noted this comment from Zikalala: “From the movement where I come from, we support the PLO”.
As the Zuma/Mbeki showdown gathered momentum in 2007, it was, for SABC-watchers, almost amusing to witness the public broadcaster flail about as it tried to work out how to report on what was going on.
The corporation was pro-Mbeki, and yet the ANC was rapidly turning pro-Zuma. In the run-up to the event, Mbeki was interviewed on 15 SABC stations; Zuma on exactly none. You could almost see the hand-wringing as the propaganda machine had to deal with increasingly serious fallout for its master, and there was little surprise when it all came crashing down.
Zikalala’s suspension by group CEO Dali Mpofu in May 2008 was quickly matched by the counter-suspension of Mpofu by the SABC board.
The corporation veritably ground to a standstill as the quagmire of politically motivated warring was resolved, and it took a full year before Zikalala was sent on his way. He left, he claimed, with his head held high, even while his demoralised staff, the (new) SABC board, media watchdogs, various political parties and the public in general celebrated his departure.
But by then the damage was done. Not forgetting the general incompetence that had befallen the SABC under Zikalala’s reign – his satellite TV brainchild, SABC International, lost astronomical amounts of money – in a few short years, the public broadcaster had reverted to what it was pre-1994: the mouthpiece of the ruling party.
The ANC and its appointees in Auckland Park had become, it seems, content with carrying on the fine tradition of lies, propaganda and mismanagement started by the apartheid state, and it is difficult to see the SABC shaking off this reputation any time in the near future.
Zikalala, like any head of news who had gone before him in the corporation’s history, could have been great. He could have taken the broadcaster across a Rubicon of its own.
He didn’t, and the people it hurts most are mainly poor and black – the people who rely on the SABC for their news-gathering.
Zikalala struck a blow for Stalinism by keeping ordinary people ignorant of the truth, and tried to establish a kind of ghastly Ministry of Truth in which he played the role of Big Brother.
But for the colour of his skin, he would have done well under Vorster or Botha. Shame on you, Snuki.
Footnote:
*That’s Government Communication and Information System, if you weren’t aware. The actual GCIS is “responsible for communication between government and the people”. No one really knows what it was doing while Zikalala was in charge of the SABC.
For the other 45 characters, go out and grab
“50 People Who Stuffed Up South Africa”,written by Alexander Parker and illustrated by Zapiro (Two Dogs Publishers).
http://www.leadershiponline.co.za/articles/other/1453-people-who-stuffed-up-sa
JuJu's Cash Profits
July 24 2011 at 08:00am
ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema allegedly receives cash – which could be as high as 45 percent of total profits – from business people on whose behalf he arranges tenders from government.
This emerged on Saturday at the South Gauteng High Court where the ANC politician lost a bid to gag City Press from publishing details of deals he made with business people. Malema’s lavish lifestyle became an obsession after The Sunday Independent published a story last week showing that his R3 million Sandton house was demolished to make way for a R16m mansion in Sandown suburb.
Malema’s woes were compounded by a businessman who claimed to have paid R200 000 for the youth leader’s benefit.
City Press, which overturned a court interdict by Malema aimed at squashing reports into a family trust that he benefits from, had gained access to the bank records of the Ratanang Family Trust into which Malema allegedly paid “millions of rands” in cash received in exchange for favours for businessmen. Editor Ferial Haffajee said Malema’s failure to interdict the newspaper from publishing the information sent a very clear message on the principles of freedom of speech.
“I am very happy with that,” she said.
Haffajee said the success was also an indication that the media were close to determining “how the money flows” when finding out how a man who professed to earn only R20 000 a month as ANCYL leader was able to afford several houses, Breitling watches, upmarket vehicles, pay cash for lavish outings and own a portion of a farm.
Malema earlier this week angrily denied spending R16 million on a new pad in Sandown, saying he was a “private citizen” who did not have to reveal his personal financial, or other details, to the public.
But The Sunday Independent established this week that he was still an active director of at least two companies, and that he owned properties including in Seshego, Polokwane.
This week he admitted to owning a farm near Dendron, north of Polokwane. On Friday, Malema received a list of questions from City Press about the Ratanang Family Trust, which was allegedly a key source of income. He refused to answer most of the questions indicating that they were false and defamatory.
Malema was trying to stop claims that a businessman, whose name was withheld, paid R200 000 into an ABSA account under Malema’s control “as a reward for having facilitated a tender for his company”. Another allegation was that he received “cash payments worth ‘thousands of rands’ from contractors, individuals and politicians into the trust, in exchange for securing them lucrative tenders, protecting them politically or pushing their political agendas”.
In addition, he was alleged to charge a fee of at least 45 percent of total profits made from a tender secured for contractors.
Malema, in an affidavit submitted in court on Saturday, said the claims were false.
But, Judge Colin Lamont (who had also presided over Malema’s hate speech trial), said Saturday that Malema had not only failed to respond to the questions e-mailed to him by the journalists, but also failed to properly deal with the allegations in his application.
The judge found that the source, a transcript of whose evidence he had seen and received a tape recording of, could be considered reliable given that the information had been corroborated.
Judge Lamont said on the facts before him it “appears that there is some substance” in the allegations. He found that information pertaining to the “high profile public figure who has made controversial statements in the recent past” and about whose ability to afford a lavish lifestyle there had been much public debate was “topical and relevant”.
“The public have a right to full disclosure on people in public positions, high profile people and those who invite comment about them(selves)”.
Malema did not deal with the allegations in court papers, prompting the newspaper to launch a counter-application requesting the details of interests of the Ratanang Family Trust, of which Malema is the sole trustee.
In an affidavit Haffajee requests details of stakes in property, companies and corporations along with bank statements from May 2008 to date.
“Even on the strength of nothing more than the transactions performed on any such bank accounts, the inference can be drawn as to the nature of the income that the applicant enjoys through this conduit,” she says.
The counter-application was postponed until both sides have drawn up full court papers. Malema was ordered to pay the costs of yesterday’s hearing.
Opposition parties on Saturday renewed calls for a probe into Malema’s finances.
The DA’s Dianne Kohler-Barnard said she would contact SARS “every week” until a probe was undertaken into how Malema had gone from “zero to a rich man in two years”.
ACDP leader the Rev Kenneth Meshoe said it was “outrageous” that a young man with limited education lived the high life with no obvious source of money. “We demand that a thorough investigation be carried out. Are there any other sources of income we don’t know about?” asked Meshoe.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Fat cat 'champion of the poor'
20 July, 2011
Fat cat 'champion of the poor' an insult to true struggle heroes
The Times Editorial: Julius Malema is right. He is the true face of a 21st-century post-apartheid revolutionary. He is correct because he is the complete antithesis of a real liberation hero in the tradition of Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and Nelson Mandela.
For, in post-apartheid South Africa, revolutionaries have transformed themselves. Now they use the language of liberation, and lyrics from struggle songs, to mask an acquisitive nature that revels in conspicuous consumption.
These revolutionaries speak the language of their elders: they will liberate the poor from the chains of economic oppression to ensure that they share in the wealth of our land.
But when confronted with his ownership of a R16-million home in Johannesburg's northern suburbs, Malema had the audacity to say yesterday that the poor want their leaders to be wealthy, that they don't mind that their leaders live in exceptionally comfortable circumstances, drive luxury cars and strut about in designer duds.
Equally audacious is his claim that he is the only ANC leader who would be welcomed happily in a squatter camp because those poor South Africans know that he is fighting for them.
Malema disingenuously says that, to fight and defeat capitalism, he must "live in conditions of capitalism".
But, surely, if South Africa's poor blacks were capable of recognising the injustice of the apartheid regime, then it stands to reason that they cannot possibly fall for the self-serving comments of this poseur.
Surely they can see him for what he actually is - a young man who serves himself before he serves those whom he professes to represent.
He is as authentic as the fake Breitlings his acolytes must buy at their nearest Chinese emporium to imitate their leader.
We should not fear this young man from Limpopo and his threats. To do so would afford him a power of which he is greatly undeserving.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2011/07/20/fat-cat-champion-of-the-poor-an-insult-to-true-struggle-heroes
Fat cat 'champion of the poor' an insult to true struggle heroes
The Times Editorial: Julius Malema is right. He is the true face of a 21st-century post-apartheid revolutionary. He is correct because he is the complete antithesis of a real liberation hero in the tradition of Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and Nelson Mandela.
For, in post-apartheid South Africa, revolutionaries have transformed themselves. Now they use the language of liberation, and lyrics from struggle songs, to mask an acquisitive nature that revels in conspicuous consumption.
These revolutionaries speak the language of their elders: they will liberate the poor from the chains of economic oppression to ensure that they share in the wealth of our land.
But when confronted with his ownership of a R16-million home in Johannesburg's northern suburbs, Malema had the audacity to say yesterday that the poor want their leaders to be wealthy, that they don't mind that their leaders live in exceptionally comfortable circumstances, drive luxury cars and strut about in designer duds.
Equally audacious is his claim that he is the only ANC leader who would be welcomed happily in a squatter camp because those poor South Africans know that he is fighting for them.
Malema disingenuously says that, to fight and defeat capitalism, he must "live in conditions of capitalism".
But, surely, if South Africa's poor blacks were capable of recognising the injustice of the apartheid regime, then it stands to reason that they cannot possibly fall for the self-serving comments of this poseur.
Surely they can see him for what he actually is - a young man who serves himself before he serves those whom he professes to represent.
He is as authentic as the fake Breitlings his acolytes must buy at their nearest Chinese emporium to imitate their leader.
We should not fear this young man from Limpopo and his threats. To do so would afford him a power of which he is greatly undeserving.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2011/07/20/fat-cat-champion-of-the-poor-an-insult-to-true-struggle-heroes
'My money is none of your business'
21 July, 2011
The youth leader - who continues to hog headlines for his calls to nationalise the mines and expropriate land without compensation - denied that he demolished his R3.6-million Sandton, Johannesburg, home to make way for the construction of a R16-million mansion.
In a heated press conference at Luthuli House, Johannesburg, Malema said his personal affairs, salary and business interests were "none of anybody's business" because he was not a public representative.
He also claimed to be the only leader in the ANC who was understood by the poor.
"A house costing R16-million to construct only exists in the imaginations of rightwing, narrow-minded and obsessed white people, who always think Africans cannot and should not build houses of their own," he said.
He later said he was referring to opposition parties Freedom Front Plus and the DA, which this week approached Sars to ask it to investigate the youth leader's lifestyle, and look into how he could afford a multimillion-rand home and luxury cars such as his Mercedes Benz C63, and if he were paying tax.
He said the FF+was worse than the DA - a contradicting a statement he made in 2009 when he said: "The FF+ may have their own weaknesses, but they are not that naive compared to the DA and other white political parties."
In what could be seen as an attack on the ANC leadership and President Jacob Zuma in particular, Malema declared himself as the most important ANC leader.
"I'm the only remaining leading political figure in South Africa who gets welcomed in the squatter camps. During the elections, there was a squatter camp called Stjwetla, where they refused ANC people to campaign, where they said you can't come here. But when they heard that Julius [was] coming, they said today you can enter, no problem, you are with Malema. He is going to listen to us," said Malema.
The firebrand youth leader, who was recently re-elected to his position, once said lifestyle audits were "very wrong" if used to target individuals alleged to be corrupt.
But yesterday, he said he would welcome the calls for investigations of his lifestyle.
"Where I get money to build such a mansion, within a short space of time, is none of your business.
"There is nothing that I hide. I pay my taxes, and I will continue to do that. If there is anything Sars want from me, they have got my contact [details].
"If there was anything that we are doing wrong, Sars would have acted immediately, without waiting for any political instruction," he said.
Malema also said he would not dismiss the fact that his personal finances were being investigated.
"I have been investigated throughout my life. There has never been a quiet moment in my life.
"Police, intelligence, Sars, Public Protector, throughout.
"Those who cannot defeat me in political arguments have resorted to multi-tricks, and they have never succeeded."
Malema further contradicted his previous statements when he was asked how much he earned and how he could sustain his lifestyle.
"I'm not going to do that. I can show you an appointment letter I got from the ANC, which says under no circumstances will you disclose your salary to a third party. It is not me, it is in the appointment letter of the ANC."
But in an interview with e.tv news channel last year, Malema said the ANC paid him about R20000 a month, and that his car and house were financed by Absa.
Yesterday, he revealed he owned a cattle farm in Polokwane and a small company, both of which he said were his private affairs.
But last year, Malema told the Sowetan: "I wish I had 50 companies. There is nothing wrong with that. And I wish all of them were making money and with that money I would help the poor because that's who I am. Every cent I have I share with the poor people."
Malema, whose has backed calls for nationalisation with arguments that the wealth of the country is owned by white capitalists who hindered the economic freedom of the poor, side-stepped suggestions that he was also a benefactor of the self-same capitalism.
"One of the things I have learned in my short life in politics is the ability to live in the conditions of capitalism while fighting it and defeating it. I don't exploit people," he said.
According to him, he was accountable only to card-carrying members of the ANC Youth League.
When it was put to him, however, that leading a constituency of radical youth made him a public representative, Malema shot down the suggestion.
"I am not a public servant; I am not a public representative.
"The reason I refuse to go to parliament is because of some of these reasons, that you are going to be questioned about everything else, including when you go to the loo. You must be asked, how many minutes have you spent in the loo?"
http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2011/07/21/my-money-is-none-of-your-business-malema
ANC Youth League president Julius Malema fields questions at a press conference at Luthuli House yesterday about a R16-million mansion he is allegedly building in Sandton.
ANC Youth League president Julius Malema's bid to deflect scrutiny from his pricey possessions has been shadowed by denials and refusals to disclose his income as well as contradictions from his past public utterances.
In a heated press conference at Luthuli House, Johannesburg, Malema said his personal affairs, salary and business interests were "none of anybody's business" because he was not a public representative.
He also claimed to be the only leader in the ANC who was understood by the poor.
"A house costing R16-million to construct only exists in the imaginations of rightwing, narrow-minded and obsessed white people, who always think Africans cannot and should not build houses of their own," he said.
He later said he was referring to opposition parties Freedom Front Plus and the DA, which this week approached Sars to ask it to investigate the youth leader's lifestyle, and look into how he could afford a multimillion-rand home and luxury cars such as his Mercedes Benz C63, and if he were paying tax.
He said the FF+was worse than the DA - a contradicting a statement he made in 2009 when he said: "The FF+ may have their own weaknesses, but they are not that naive compared to the DA and other white political parties."
In what could be seen as an attack on the ANC leadership and President Jacob Zuma in particular, Malema declared himself as the most important ANC leader.
"I'm the only remaining leading political figure in South Africa who gets welcomed in the squatter camps. During the elections, there was a squatter camp called Stjwetla, where they refused ANC people to campaign, where they said you can't come here. But when they heard that Julius [was] coming, they said today you can enter, no problem, you are with Malema. He is going to listen to us," said Malema.
The firebrand youth leader, who was recently re-elected to his position, once said lifestyle audits were "very wrong" if used to target individuals alleged to be corrupt.
But yesterday, he said he would welcome the calls for investigations of his lifestyle.
"Where I get money to build such a mansion, within a short space of time, is none of your business.
"There is nothing that I hide. I pay my taxes, and I will continue to do that. If there is anything Sars want from me, they have got my contact [details].
"If there was anything that we are doing wrong, Sars would have acted immediately, without waiting for any political instruction," he said.
Malema also said he would not dismiss the fact that his personal finances were being investigated.
"I have been investigated throughout my life. There has never been a quiet moment in my life.
"Police, intelligence, Sars, Public Protector, throughout.
"Those who cannot defeat me in political arguments have resorted to multi-tricks, and they have never succeeded."
Malema further contradicted his previous statements when he was asked how much he earned and how he could sustain his lifestyle.
"I'm not going to do that. I can show you an appointment letter I got from the ANC, which says under no circumstances will you disclose your salary to a third party. It is not me, it is in the appointment letter of the ANC."
But in an interview with e.tv news channel last year, Malema said the ANC paid him about R20000 a month, and that his car and house were financed by Absa.
Yesterday, he revealed he owned a cattle farm in Polokwane and a small company, both of which he said were his private affairs.
But last year, Malema told the Sowetan: "I wish I had 50 companies. There is nothing wrong with that. And I wish all of them were making money and with that money I would help the poor because that's who I am. Every cent I have I share with the poor people."
Malema, whose has backed calls for nationalisation with arguments that the wealth of the country is owned by white capitalists who hindered the economic freedom of the poor, side-stepped suggestions that he was also a benefactor of the self-same capitalism.
"One of the things I have learned in my short life in politics is the ability to live in the conditions of capitalism while fighting it and defeating it. I don't exploit people," he said.
According to him, he was accountable only to card-carrying members of the ANC Youth League.
When it was put to him, however, that leading a constituency of radical youth made him a public representative, Malema shot down the suggestion.
"I am not a public servant; I am not a public representative.
"The reason I refuse to go to parliament is because of some of these reasons, that you are going to be questioned about everything else, including when you go to the loo. You must be asked, how many minutes have you spent in the loo?"
http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2011/07/21/my-money-is-none-of-your-business-malema
'gutter attack' on Zuma
2011-07-20
The continued depiction of President Jacob Zuma with a shower on his head in cartoons has "saddened" the commission for the promotion and protection of the rights of cultural, religious and linguistic communities.
"It is culturally, religiously and linguistically unprecedented to attack each other on the basis of a forgiven past," the commission's chief executive Pheagane Moreroa said in an open letter to cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro, or Zapiro, as he signs his cartoons.
"This type of gutter attack on a president duly and democratically elected by a handsome majority of the people of South Africa does not contribute to nation building and social cohesion, which is a constitutional ideal.
"Mr Shapiro displays an unbelievable insensitivity to cultural sensibilities of all decent-minded people. His cartoons on the president appear to be calculated to attack the psyche of a people emerging from a shameless past in which successive oppressive regimes ruled."
The commission has also taken issue with Shapiro's cartoons depicting Zuma preparing to rape "lady justice".
"How do we explain these cartoons of both the shower [which, in any case, involved a personal issue] and the preparing-to-rape action to our children. The president, as a citizen of this country, also has an inalienable right to human dignity."
Outraged
Shapiro on Wednesday said he viewed the issue in a different light.
"I am outraged by the unethical actions and statements of Jacob Zuma in his insatiable pursuit of power.
"It was those words and actions that prompted me to produce an image which I know is shocking, but was so important to the whole nation that I felt public interest far outweighed the sensitivities that could be bruised by the cartoon," he said of the cartoon depicting Zuma preparing to rape "lady justice", published in the Sunday Times on September 7 2008.
It was published in the context of Zuma's looming trial on corruption charges, which were eventually dropped, and threats by his allies that there would be "anarchy" if the case continued.
"The idea of justice being raped is something that comes from a very, very long-held understanding of the word rape.
"In most dictionaries you'll find a specific reference to the abuse of an institution and it was crucial, at that time, to show that Zuma and some of his allies were abusing and bullying the justice system simply to avoid his having to stand trial on corruption charges.
"The idea that there could be some difficulty in explaining to children why there is a disturbing image displays a lack of understanding of satire and criticism."
A complaint over the cartoon to the SA Human Rights Commission was dismissed. The SAHRC reportedly found that the cartoon expressed "free, open, robust and even unrestrained criticism of politicians by a journalist".
It also found that the cartoon stimulated "valuable political debate".
Shapiro said the commission's finding had, to a large extent, "torpedoed" Zuma's case.
However, Zuma was still taking legal action against Shapiro over the cartoon. The cartoonist had received a summons recently indicating he was being sued for R5m. He had initially received a letter of demand in 2008 for R7m.
Unprotected sex
Shapiro first employed the shower head after Zuma's rape trial, in which he said he showered after having unprotected sex with an HIV positive woman, to reduce the risk of contracting the virus.
"It kind of represents the odd statements he's made, displaying... other prejudices as well. It's become a little broader and kind of represents his strange public utterances... and lack of morality, making high-minded speeches on World Aids Day and then displaying the opposite in your private life."
Moreroa further appealed to Shapiro to respect Zuma.
"We appeal to Shapiro to respect the president of South Africa, who is not being helped by these insulting cartoons as he meets other world leaders visiting this country.
"Let us criticise by all means, but let us do it the ubuntu way. Hate the deed, by all means, but not the doer."
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Politics/Rights-group-slams-gutter-attack-on-Zuma-20110720
The continued depiction of President Jacob Zuma with a shower on his head in cartoons has "saddened" the commission for the promotion and protection of the rights of cultural, religious and linguistic communities.
"It is culturally, religiously and linguistically unprecedented to attack each other on the basis of a forgiven past," the commission's chief executive Pheagane Moreroa said in an open letter to cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro, or Zapiro, as he signs his cartoons.
"This type of gutter attack on a president duly and democratically elected by a handsome majority of the people of South Africa does not contribute to nation building and social cohesion, which is a constitutional ideal.
"Mr Shapiro displays an unbelievable insensitivity to cultural sensibilities of all decent-minded people. His cartoons on the president appear to be calculated to attack the psyche of a people emerging from a shameless past in which successive oppressive regimes ruled."
The commission has also taken issue with Shapiro's cartoons depicting Zuma preparing to rape "lady justice".
"How do we explain these cartoons of both the shower [which, in any case, involved a personal issue] and the preparing-to-rape action to our children. The president, as a citizen of this country, also has an inalienable right to human dignity."
Outraged
Shapiro on Wednesday said he viewed the issue in a different light.
"I am outraged by the unethical actions and statements of Jacob Zuma in his insatiable pursuit of power.
"It was those words and actions that prompted me to produce an image which I know is shocking, but was so important to the whole nation that I felt public interest far outweighed the sensitivities that could be bruised by the cartoon," he said of the cartoon depicting Zuma preparing to rape "lady justice", published in the Sunday Times on September 7 2008.
It was published in the context of Zuma's looming trial on corruption charges, which were eventually dropped, and threats by his allies that there would be "anarchy" if the case continued.
"The idea of justice being raped is something that comes from a very, very long-held understanding of the word rape.
"In most dictionaries you'll find a specific reference to the abuse of an institution and it was crucial, at that time, to show that Zuma and some of his allies were abusing and bullying the justice system simply to avoid his having to stand trial on corruption charges.
"The idea that there could be some difficulty in explaining to children why there is a disturbing image displays a lack of understanding of satire and criticism."
A complaint over the cartoon to the SA Human Rights Commission was dismissed. The SAHRC reportedly found that the cartoon expressed "free, open, robust and even unrestrained criticism of politicians by a journalist".
It also found that the cartoon stimulated "valuable political debate".
Shapiro said the commission's finding had, to a large extent, "torpedoed" Zuma's case.
However, Zuma was still taking legal action against Shapiro over the cartoon. The cartoonist had received a summons recently indicating he was being sued for R5m. He had initially received a letter of demand in 2008 for R7m.
Unprotected sex
Shapiro first employed the shower head after Zuma's rape trial, in which he said he showered after having unprotected sex with an HIV positive woman, to reduce the risk of contracting the virus.
"It kind of represents the odd statements he's made, displaying... other prejudices as well. It's become a little broader and kind of represents his strange public utterances... and lack of morality, making high-minded speeches on World Aids Day and then displaying the opposite in your private life."
Moreroa further appealed to Shapiro to respect Zuma.
"We appeal to Shapiro to respect the president of South Africa, who is not being helped by these insulting cartoons as he meets other world leaders visiting this country.
"Let us criticise by all means, but let us do it the ubuntu way. Hate the deed, by all means, but not the doer."
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Politics/Rights-group-slams-gutter-attack-on-Zuma-20110720
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