SOUTH AFRICA'S BLACK AND WHITE COLONIALISM VIEW

Dear Lovers of Free Speech,

          The Letter’s Column in today’s The Times puts Helen Zille’s controversial tweet about colonialism being not all bad into the right perspective.

          It mirrored exactly what happens on social media and in the press in South Africa.

          If you are Black your freedom of speech, which can be just as controversial, if not more so than Zille’s tweet, can be a lot more free than if you are White saying much the same thing. And racialism as well as other kinds of prejudice is also far more serious if you are White than if you are Black.

          Under the heading Zille:Racist or truth teller? there were five letters on the subject. The first three broadly speaking supporting Zille’s view appeared to be from Whites with the last two from Blacks joining the hysteria about her remarks.

          The most telling one from Louis highlighted what the wild dogs of the media conveniently ignored when jumping on the #ZilleMustGo bandwagon.

          He pointed out that in the Saturday Star of February 4 Kabelo Chabala, who is clearly Black, wrote: “The truth is South Africa and many other African countries are better because of colonialism.  We are better developed because of the infrastructure that was built by colonisers.”

          So there are some Blacks who can see exactly what Zille was talking about through the prejudice.

          “The reaction? Not an indignant squeak,” was Louis’ comment. He added, “In the new South Africa everybody has a place. And Whites’ place is in the wrong even when we are in the right.”

          Significantly Chabala’s very balanced view appeared in Saturday Star more than a month before Zille’s tweet on 16 March. And when our impartial media that is always looking for the truth, was doing its utmost to cash in on the social network frenzy that Zille caused, did anyone hunt him down for a more extensive interview. If they did I can’t find it anywhere. 

          Social media appears to have been ominously quiet when the long running case against Jon Qwelane, the veteran journalist notorious for his homophobic views, came up again. The Times tucked the story away under the innocuous heading ‘Hate speech laws not consistent’ on one side of Page 6. A day later Zille’s crime was splashed across the front page headlined: Zille’s tweet too far.

          Compare his case with that of Penny Sparrow, an elderly, sickly former estate agent. She got into trouble early in 2016 for her tweet complaining about hordes of “monkeys” being allowed to mess up Durban’s beaches over New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.

          Within months she was fined R150 000 by an Equity Court with a further R5 000 in a Magistrates Court for the criminal offence of crimen injuria.

          Qwelane made his own headlines in 2008 when he outraged the gay community with a column in the Sunday Sun entitled Call me names but gay is NOT okay.

He has yet to be found guilty and sentenced, 8 years after the column appeared.

          In it he lauded Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe’s anti gay stance. He went on to complain that “you regularly see men kissing other men in public and shamefully flaunting what are misleadingly termed their ‘sexual preferences.’”

          He lambasted the constitution and wrote that he prayed the politicians would have “the balls” to rewrite it “to excise those sections which give license to men marrying other men, and ditto women.

          “Otherwise at this rate,” he went on, “how soon before some idiot demands to ‘marry’ an animal and that this constitution ‘allows’ it. And by the way tell the Human Rights Commission that I totally refuse to withdraw or apologise for my views, because wrong is wrong.”          

          Our own President Jacob Zuma appears to have agreed with Qwelane because in 2010, while at least one court case against him was pending, he appointed the scribe as the South African Ambassador to Uganda. Evidently in his wisdom our President felt that Qwelane would feel at home there because Uganda has outlawed homosexuality with life imprisonment being the penalty for those who transgress. The previous death sentence was apparently considered too harsh.

          In 2011 a South African Equity Court ordered him to pay R100 000 towards a gay rights group and to apologise to that community. His was a much more serious offence than Sparrow’s when one considers not only what he wrote, but that the Sunday Sun has a readership of over 2-million. In addition he made it clear that he had no intention of apologising, whereas Sparrow did just that.

          The South African Human Rights Commission received a record 350 complaints about Qwelane’s column. That’s how bad it was yet the Equity Court showed, by the penalty it arrived at that his offence was not regarded as seriously as Sparrow’s. Did his colour stand him in good stead?  

          The newspaper, which is in the Media 24 stable, printed an apology but why it was never charged for carrying such obviously contentious muck, only the state will know. Qwelane on the other hand won’t say sorry. He believes what the paper did was enough.

          That was not the end of the story. The Equity Court’s finding was annulled because Qwelane was not at the hearing as he was conveniently in Uganda at the time.

The Human Rights Commission then took up the case in which he has been challenging his conviction in the Johannesburg High Court on the basis that the parts of the Equity Act, under which he was found guilty, infringed his right to free speech.

          Various hearings have been held, sometimes without him as he claimed he was ill and it still hasn’t ended. It just goes on and on.      

          It’s a very far cry from the almost instant “justice” meted out to the little old White lady who didn’t have an editor or sub-editor to vet her thoughtless tweet before she let it loose on the world.

          There are only one or two African countries that have never been colonised. So perhaps somebody should see if their infrastructure and other facilities are up to the standard of the ones that have. But I don’t think the colonialism-was-all-bad school would want that. It might just blow their case.

          If colonialism and apartheid had nothing to commend them what will the plusses be for South Africa by grabbing prosperous farms without compensation and an affirmative action policy that rewards people essentially on colour rather than ability?  

          Regards

          Jon, who believes that if all South African’s media showed the same social media maturity as Panyaza Lesufi ( most mature social media user ) we would all be a lot better off. He’s BLACK by the way.

P.S. Helen Zille is the 66 year old Premier of the Western Cape and the former leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance party.
  

Lindiwe Mazibuko - fighting way above her weight

Dear Lindiwe Mazibuko,

         You’ve really got South Africa’s ruling party the African National Congress (ANC) in a twitter, especially its male Members of Parliament.

         They can’t stand the fact that you are cleverer and more articulate than they are.

Worse still you are a Black woman who is supposed to know her place as subservient to them.

         Worst of all at 33 you are the Parliamentary leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA), the ANC’s main opposition party and its sworn enemy.

         It’s a sure sign of mental inadequacy when a person has to resort to insults in a debate when they are being outwitted by their opponent. And that’s just what has been happening to certain ANC members who have found you too quick witted for comfort.

         How many of these loud mouths would have dared to appear on BBC’s Hard Talk. None of them I bet, least of all South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma. It’s not called that for nothing as you know because the interviewer pulls no punches.

         Yet you came through the cut and thrust of that encounter superbly. Nobody, except your brainless ANC opponents, could have been anything else but impressed by your self assurance and political nous.

        You must have been delighted with all the praise you got on social media.

         Of course it’s nothing new for you to be personally insulted by members of the ANC. One of the first was that uneducated upstart Julius Malema when he was President of the ANC’s Youth League.

         As you know he delighted in saying of you, "She’s the tea girl of the Madam, and her role must remain there." He was talking about your relationship with Helen Zille, the White leader of the DA.

         But while your star has continued to rise higher and higher in South African politics he has been kicked out of the ANC and is struggling for recognition in the wilderness.

      

Lindiwe with the Madam by her side

         More recently, when you were highlighting the many flaws in President Zuma’s leadership during his budget speech in Parliament, some of his underlings felt they had to come to the rescue of Number 1.

         The best John Jeffery could think of was, "While the Honourable Mazibuko may be a person of substantial weight, her stature is questionable."

         Encouraged by this Buti Manamela piped up with; "Honourable Mazibuko has bad fashion taste and has been arrested by the Fashion Police. Blame Zuma, everything must be blamed on Zuma."

         I accept you could improve your dress sense but what you were wearing – a red jacket over a black and white dress with black tights – was by no means the worst fashion crime in the house. In any case all that the dress code stipulates is that it must be in accordance with the dignity of Parliament, something that would be hard to fathom at times.

         The ANC subsequently refused to withdraw its claim that you were inappropriately dressed but apologised for saying you were overweight.

       

No Books Angie

  No wonder, it has had heavyweight problems of its own. And boy did the Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga and her ANC get their knickers in a twist when a very large pair labelled Angie’s knickers was carried through the streets by protesting teachers.

         The members of the South African Teachers Union were threatened with "the full wrath of our justice system" (Toothless at the best of times). Quite justifiably they want the Minister, who is in charge of the worst education shambles in the world, to resign.

         It was ironic that in a letter to the Union she wrote that the panty protest "signified that women cannot be fully human and so society has every right to poke fun at women in very denigrating ways."

South Africa's new National Flag

        Of course that’s exactly what the two faced ANC has been doing to you.

         Ever the optimist Angie maintained, "Not only do they owe an apology to me, but the rest of South African women."

         Lindiwe there are lots of other ANC members who would tip the scales in their favour with you on the other side. But when it comes to well articulated, intelligent debating ability they would have a job finding someone in your league.

         So laugh off these ANC barbs because far from diminishing your stature they are actually enhancing it and getting your name up in lights, which is just what you need in politics.

Inappropriately dressed

         Keep punching well above your weight and those ANC smart alecs could have egg on their faces if your Star performer and Black, young and gifted tags eventually help to ensure that your DA becomes the champion that governs the entire country.

         Best wishes from a Huge Admirer,

         VIVA LA DA (I speak isiZulu)

         Jon 

P.S. I see you went to St Mary’s that posh school in Durban. Isn’t that another one of the ANC’s gripes, that you speak English too well to be one of us Blacks? St Mary’s schools produce real class. I should know. I am lucky enough to be married to an old girl (she’ll kill me for saying that) of the Johannesburg St Mary’s where Helen Zille went to school (Nothing like name dropping to enhance my career).

Power corrupts in millionaires' paradise

Dear Helen Zille leader of the Democratic Alliance,

         As the leader of South Africa’s main opposition party you and your colleagues are always taking pot shots at our African National Congress Government for corruption and a host of other wrong doings.

         But if you are going to be a policewoman you should make sure that your own party’s record is perfectly clean and if there are lapses you should personally step in to put them right.

       The question is: Are you going to do that in Plettenberg Bay?

As you know that’s where so many of our country’s rich and famous have their seaside homes. And most of them are undoubtedly DA supporters.

         But that’s no excuse for turning a blind eye to what the Sunday Times has just revealed.

        It was quite shocking to see how Plett’s Bitou Municipality, which your party now controls after it had been run by the ANC for 16 years, is doing exactly the same dubious kind of thing that the ANC has been up to for years.

       Power corrupts they say and this is ringing ominously true at Plett.

         The paper told us that after the DA took over Bitou last year it found the R10-million IT system didn’t work. A common occurrence in ANC run government organisations.

         So the DA sacked the supplier Lefatshe Technolgies. This started another jobs-for-pals scandal so typical of our administrations all over the country.

         Big hearted billionaire Jeremy Ord came to the rescue of the beleaguered town where he has a home. He just happened to be Chairman of Dimension Data, a world wide IT company that was bought last year by Japan’s NTT for R22-billion.

         He undertook to get his firm to evaluate the council’s IT at no cost, although you would have thought this would have been done before the existing supplier was given notice.

         The DA was so delighted with Ord’s free assessment that in December last year it decided to bypass normal tender procedures and give Ord’s company a R4.3-million short-term assignment to sort out the mess.

         Bitou’s manager Terry Giliomee justified this by saying they got no other quotations because there was not enough time. Ha! Ha! Ha!

         Council’s letters showed that as far back as August last year Lefatshe had been told its contract would end on December 31. Not enough time. Ha! Ha! Ha!

         It looks as though the ANC has been gleefully feeding the paper the dirt. They didn’t have to look far. One of your councillors Johann Brummer gave them just the ammunition they needed.

         In a December email to Bitou officials about a problem at Plett’s poshest restaurant he wrote: Remember that Lookout is a Plett icon and hang out for some very powerful people – like Jeremy Ord and others who have supported us generously in the past.

         That sent your members scrambling to find a reasonably explanation for this political gaffe. One of them said, We don’t confirm who our donors are. Nobody told Brummer about that. Ha! Ha! Ha!

And Ord was not saying anything either. Ha!  Ha! Ha!

         Everybody knows that No comment means YES.

       Please Helen don’t let the DA go the way of the ANC. There’s enough skulduggery in Government already without your party starting.

         Regards,

         Jon, a concerned tax payer and specialist IT illiterate looking for a Government job, who won’t say which party he donates to for fear of victimisation. 

P.S. Do you mind if I send thanks from the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman to Rob Rose and Bobby Jordan for a very comprehensive report.  I presume they won’t tell you which party they support.

Read 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.