Easter Lesson according to Jon

Dear Easter Bunny,

         Where were you when you were needed this Easter?

       My brother Anthony and I wanted your help to hand out Easter Eggs to the poor in Masiphumelele (see Cape Town's Tourist Dump), a Black township not far from my home in Cape Town.

Entrance sign speaks volumes

The name means We will succeed in Xhosa. But sadly there’s not much sign of that in this sprawling collection of run down houses and tin shacks where 38 000 people survive some how.

As you were nowhere to be found, the two of us had to do it ourselves.

Typical street

Were you testing us? In South Africa many Whites have never been into a Black township for fear of not coming out again. They associate them with thieves, rapists and murderers who are waiting to get their own back on Whites for what they did to them under the all White apartheid government that was replaced by a Black one 18 years ago.

We thought that one of your Black, floppy eared relatives would blend in far better than two six foot, something Whities.

Anyway as it turned out it was fun for us two fossils – to begin with anyway. 

It didn’t take us long to learn that humans behave very differently in a group compared to when they are on their own. And the principle remains the same whether they are adults or little nippers just starting out in life.

We had about 100 eggs to distribute and the aim was to make them go as far as possible – in other words one each, for small children only.

Driving through the narrow streets we stopped here and there when we saw little ones by themselves or with a grown up relative. That’s when we got a polite Thank you, as we handed out the gifts through the window of my car.

But as soon as a crowd gathered it was every boy and girl for himself with the biggest ones pushing to the front and returning shortly afterwards to try and grab another egg. If there were any Thank yous us Fairy Godfathers would not have been able to hear them above the racket.

Our first experience of this mob behaviour was when we stopped outside a playground and the children initially lined up in an orderly fashion. But that didn’t last long with arms coming from all directions like a giant octopus doing its best to thwart our one per child policy. On this occasion we had the steel boundary fence between us and the kids to help maintain a vestige of order.

A few streets away another mass of pleading, waving hands enveloped our car. Several children climbed half way into the open window on my brother’s side and clung to the door as I started slowly driving away. They gradually dropped off as we went a little further.

Having learnt our lesson we gave the rest of the Happy Eggs away to individuals whose friends had to be disappointed if there was any sign of a group developing.

Surprise, surprise we left that Black township richer for the experience with our lives intact; still in our own car and with our wallets and cell phones still on us.

Our relief was short lived however. I’m writing this to you from Cape Town’s, Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison. It’s no picnic I can tell you. But if we live through it we’ll be able to say we were in the jail where Nelson Mandela was once incarcerated.

You see in this wicked world two old codgers can’t be seen in a poor area handing out sweets to little children without being paedophiles. That’s a given.

So Easter Bunny it looks as though you’ll have to do the job yourself next year.

Miserably yours,

Jon

P.S. I hope this gets passed the prison censors.

Buy my book 'Where have all the children gone'on Amazon Kindle  It's a thriller with an underlying love story that defied generations of Afrikaner/ English prejudice.

Colour code your Doctor and live longer

Dear Doctor Max Price, Vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town,

          "Mrs Smith I'm the hospital Superintendent and I'm sorry to have to tell you that Doctor Nzimande gave you a hysterectomy instead of removing your appendix. But it wasn't his fault because he got his doctor's degree at the University of Cape Town."

        “I’m her son and I can’t believe what you have just told her Superintendent. Are you saying that because he is Black this kind of monumental muck up is excusable?"

        "I'm afraid so. And what's more the Government has passed a new law that prevents anybody suing a Black doctor for damages in cases  of this kind."

          That’s an example of the kind of conversation that patients might hear in hospitals all over South Africa unless they colour code their doctors. As is always the case the poor will suffer the most because they will not have a choice of doctors at our run down Government hospitals while the rich will be able to pick and choose.

          Your University I see Dr Price is leading the way with the most rigid of racially divided criteria for the admission of medical students. And similar policies have been adopted at other universities throughout the country.

          But your one takes the Master Race Prize for sheer unadulterated prejudice. Is it based on the same scientific formula that the Nazi’s adopted for getting rid of the Jews?

          Alright I know that Blacks were discriminated against in all walks of life under the previous White Government’s apartheid policy. But that was 17 years ago and since then we have had a Black Government that preaches equal opportunity for all. 

          It looks as though your University’s research has arrived at the brilliant new concept that two wrongs do make a right.

        How equal is this? Your University expects Whites and Indians to get an 80% mark before they can even be considered for admission to your Medical School. Blacks are regarded as such dunces that they only need 60%.

          Isn’t that another kind of prejudice all on its own?

          It galls me to think that if only I was Black I might be able to become a doctor now although that 60% might be a bit beyond me. But I do come from a broken home and while he was around my father was a serious drunk and family basher. So surely these would be good enough excuses to compensate for my lack of marks.

          According to The Times you justify the policy because you say the school system is in a mess. Presumably you are referring to the Government schools. And who do you think is responsible for this mess as you call it. It’s the Black Government of course.

          The unfairness happens in the schools, you believe, not at universities. Of course there’s no sign of it being perpetuated at your University is there?

          Black school children don’t have the same advantages as Whites like the internet and parents helping them with homework. You give these reasons for favouring Blacks when they apply to enter your Medical School.

          To look only at marks would be unfair to disadvantaged students, you say. If only they had had that philosophy when I was at school.

          If you are just going on Colour how you do know that some of your White applicants haven’t come from poor backgrounds and those rubbish schools you talk about? And by not going strictly on marks you are allowing people to get qualifications based on Colour rather than ability.

          It is this kind of dangerous thinking that has already done untold damage to our business and Government structures because people have been employed in all kinds of jobs purely on their Blackness.

          Now you are nurturing a host of medics with dodgy qualifications who are expected to take the right life saving decisions for trusting patients. And in the background Whites who have passed matric with seven distinctions are sitting on the sidelines hoping for a place. Others have completed BSc and PhD degrees while they’ve been waiting but they still can’t get into a medical school. It’s sickening.

          I was hard pressed to think of any profession that is worse than medicine in which to conduct social engineering experiments. People’s lives are at stake but who cares if some patients die in the interests of uplifting the Black downtrodden.

          In the same edition of The Times that I have referred to there is a letter from your University’s director of marketing, Gerda Kruger in which she says your University’s mission speaks about our aim to produce graduates whose qualifications are internationally recognised.

          Surely the Black doctors you produce will not be able to compete in first world countries with a background of having gained entry to your University on the basis of having the highest marks for Colour.

          Disappointedly yours,

          Jon, Not Black enough to be a Doctor or perhaps anything else.

PS. In my humble opinion your policy needs major surgery. 

Buy my book 'Where have all the children gone? ' on Amazon.com   It's a thriller with an underlying love story that defied generations of prejudice.

Whites get the best seats in Toilets-with-a-View row

Dear South African Voters,

          It’s rubbish that only poor blacks are getting the short end of the toilet roll by having to make do with walless Council toilets.

          The ruling African National Congress has gone one better at the Witblikkiesfontien Municipality, which they have controlled for the last 17 years. As you know this is a town on the coast in the Northern Cape.

          There the enlightened Black dominated Council was determined not to be accused of racial prejudice so it has built 5 000 open plan houses for Whites only. They are lined up along the coast so that all of them are only meters from the sea.

          So as not to get bogged down in another toilet saga the Council decided to put these in first as soon as the foundations had been laid. The project has so far cost 50-million in a place where the only people who have a job work for the Municipality.

          Their biggest drawback is that the development is tailor made for nagging wives. Since we got our house my Mrs has been on at me constantly to get hold of the Mayor.

          One hundred and twenty phone calls and 30 visits to the Council offices later I managed to corner him as he was about to go fishing. He exploded as if it was all my fault.

          You whites, he screamed, are all the same. We try to do our best for you and risk riots from our followers and all we get are complaints, Lucky Lobengula, who owns a sanitary ware shop in the town went on.

          When you Whites come to live by the sea all you worry about is a view. So that’s what we’ve given you. You can see right across the Indian Ocean to America from those properties. So what more do you want?

          Don’t you mean the Atlantic Mr Mayor?

          You might think you can speak to your garden boy like that but don’t try it with me Whitey.

          To try and calm him down I replied, Mr Mayor I don’t want to be critical but we’ve had our houses now for two years. When are you going to build the walls?

          That’s news to me, he said picking up his fishing reel. I thought you people had agreed to put them up yourselves. The Council doesn’t have money for that you know.

          Our rules handbook is what we have to go by. And that says that before we do anything else, me, my deputy and our five most senior officials must all have a Mercedes Benz costing at least a million. And these must come complete with toilets because of the enormous distances we have to cover in this part of the country.

           We've got beyond going behind a bush you know.

          Sorry to have bothered you Mr Mayor, I retorted. In the interests of racial harmony we’ll just have to be content with enjoying the view. And of course we’ll go on voting for that AWC party of yours.

          That’s me in the picture doing my toilet training while reading  the Sunday Times. It gives you a good idea of what the Council means by open plan houses. But I must say they’ve saved us a packed on air freshener.

          Happy sight seeing,

          Yours faithfully,

          Jon, a Town Planner of repute when I’m not sitting on my Blog.

PS. For those of you who don’t keep up with the news the Democratic Alliance, our second largest party, exposed itself by installing unenclosed toilets in a black township in Cape Town. This is the only City in the country it controls.

          This was done after the people concerned agreed to enclose the toilets themselves. Most of them did this but some didn’t get round to it.

          With an election just round the corner this delighted the AWC’s youth wing rabble. When the DA put up structures to hide its embarrassment they kept smashing them down.

          The case went to court where a judged ruled the City must enclose them once again. Inexplicably he didn’t say what with so we can expect a lot more sewerage to hit the fan there.

        Meanwhile the DA is flushed with success having caught the AWC with their trousers down and you can appreciate they couldn’t stand the smell. It turned out that one of the ruling party controlled towns in the Free State had 1 620 uncovered bogs going back to 2003.

          The Sunday Times reported that a spokesman for the Moqhaka Municipality said they had covered 378 of these since last year and were busy doing the rest. It would cost R8-million to do them all but they only had R4-million available.

       There is nothing like a pending election to get Councillors everywhere off their arses.

Buy my book 'Where have all the children gone?' on Amazon.com  It's a thriller with an underlying love story