Opinion – Page 10

The New York Times takes down the Clintons

By Tim Stanley

The New York Times has taken down the Clintons. The killer quote is this:

For all of its successes, the Clinton Foundation had become a sprawling concern, supervised by a rotating board of old Clinton hands, vulnerable to distraction and threatened by conflicts of interest. It ran multimillion-dollar deficits for several years, despite vast amounts of money flowing in.

Over a year ago Bill Clinton met with some aides and lawyers to review the Foundation’s progress and concluded that it was a mess. Well, many political start-ups can be, especially when their sole selling point is the big name of their founder (the queues are short at the Dan Quayle Vice Presidential Learning Center). But what complicated this review – what made its findings more politically devastating – is that the Clinton Foundation has become about more than just Bill. Now both daughter Chelsea and wife, and likely presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton have taken on major roles and, in the words of the NYT “efforts to insulate the foundation from potential conflicts have highlighted just how difficult it can be to disentangle the Clintons’ charity work from Mr Clinton’s moneymaking ventures and Mrs Clinton’s political future.” Oh, they’re entangled alright.

The NYT runs the scoop in its usual balanced, inoffensive way – but the problem jumps right off the page. The Clintons have never been able to separate the impulses to help others and to help themselves, turning noble philanthropic ventures into glitzy, costly promos for some future campaign (can you remember a time in human history when a Clinton wasn’t running for office?). And their “Ain’t I Great?!” ethos attracts the rich and powerful with such naked abandon that it ends up compromising whatever moral crusade they happen to have endorsed that month. That the Clinton Global Initiative is alleged to have bought Natalie Portman a first-class ticket for her and her dog to attend an event in 2009 is the tip of the iceberg. More troubling is that businessmen have been able to expand the profile of their companies by working generously alongside the Clinton Foundation. From the NYT:

Last year, Coca-Cola’s chief executive, Muhtar Kent, won a coveted spot on the dais with Mr. Clinton, discussing the company’s partnership with another nonprofit to use its distributors to deliver medical goods to patients in Africa. (A Coca-Cola spokesman said that the company’s sponsorship of foundation initiatives long predated Teneo and that the firm plays no role in Coca-Cola’s foundation work.)

In March 2012, David Crane, the chief executive of NRG, an energy company, led a widely publicized trip with Mr. Clinton to Haiti, where they toured green energy and solar power projects that NRG finances through a $1 million commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative.

This is typical Clinton stuff. The second thing I ever wrote was about how corporations invest in politicians as a way of building their brand and raising their stock price. It can lead to some funny partnerships. This, from 2011:

Just this month, bedding manufacturer Serta announced that it will be sponsoring Bill Clinton’s keynote address to an industry conference in August. “To us,”’ said the head of the company, “Clinton represents leadership. This appearance shows Serta is a leader and is taking a leadership position. This singles us out.” Some might say that it is beneath a former president to basically endorse Serta’s new “Perfect Sleeper” line, even with its “revolutionary gel foam mattress”.

The cynical might infer from the NYT piece that the Clintons are willing to sell themselves, their image, and even their Foundation’s reputation in exchange for money to finance their personal projects. In Bill’s case, saving the world. In Hillary’s case, maybe, running for president.

It’s nothing new to report that there’s an unhealthy relationship in America between money and politics, but it’s there all the same. While the little people are getting hit with Obamacare, high taxes and joblessness, a class of businessmen enjoys ready access to politicians of both Left and Right that poses troubling questions for how the republic can continue to call itself a democracy so long as it functions as an aristocracy of the monied. Part of the reason why America’s elites get away with it is becuase they employ such fantastic salesmen. For too long now, Bill Clinton has pitched himself, almost without question, as a homespun populist: the Boy from Hope. The reality is that this is a man who – in May 1993 – prevented other planes from landing at LAX for 90 minues while he got a haircut from a Beverley Hills hairdresser aboard Air Force One. The Clintons are populists in the same way that Barack Obama is a Nobel prize winner. Oh, wait… The Telegraph

Roger Waters: Another pig in the wall?

by Rolena Marks

Someone please get Roger Waters a new hobby. May I suggest knitting or macramé? Something that keeps him busy and takes his attention away from offending Jews.

At a recent concert, Waters released an inflatable pig with a Magen David (Star of David) painted on it. A “pig-drone” of sorts. The song was “Run like Hell”. Now far be it for me to drone on (pun very much intended) but displaying a sacred religious symbol next to fascist symbols like the hammer and sickle that represent communism smacks of something far more nasty.

Now we know Roger is the poster child for BDS and has a penchant for walls and kangaroos (excuse my very lateral reference to the Russel Tribunal!) and would balk at any allegations that would insinuate that he is anti-Semitic. Isn’t he just an artist exploring his creativity?

Flying pig... the inflatable pig used by Roger Waters at his concerts with the Star of David showing — Flying pig… the inflatable pig used by Roger Waters at his concerts with the Star of David showing

No Rog, you aren’t. Your politics are well known. While you have the right to spout your anti-Israel, BDS drivel, however misguided it may be, you have crossed the line. This time you are not making loaded statements about Israeli policy, this time you are taking a holy symbol and aligning it with the most hated forms of political governance. Straight out of the Goebbels propaganda handbook.

The preferred tactics of the anti-Israel brigade is to disguise their intentions under the cover of concern for the Palestinians of other minority groups in Israel. It is a thinly veiled disguise. I think we should ask Waters where is the pig with the Ahmadinejad head? Where are the effigies spray painted with the likes of the most heinous human rights abusers? If you are at a loss, we have a whole neighborhood full of them in the Middle East. Some throw opponents off the top of buildings, some throw acid on young girls in attempted honor killings, hell some even call for the destruction of a whole country!

With rising levels of anti-Semitism around the world, this kind of action is not only offensive, it is irresponsible and alarming. It is just not kosher for a variety of reasons. This does not make you a creative and lyrical genius, all it show is that you have completely lost the plot.

Roger may I suggest you run like hell. Run yourself along to a much needed reality check.

—-

Rolene Marks is a passionate advocate for Israel and has appeared on radio, television and has been published in numerous global publications. Rolene is a member of the Media Team Israel, an advocacy body that fights media bias. Currently residing in Modiin, Israel, Rolene volunteers for WIZO and previously represented the organisation on the World Zionist Congress. Rolene can be heard frequently on Chai FM, a Johannesburg-based radio station giving political commentary. In 2007 Rolene participated in the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Young Jewish Diplomats Leadership course.

A national shouting match on racism

by J.D. Longstreet

As a Southerner, I am used to—well, allow me to rephrase that: as far as it is possible, I am used to being called a racist, a bigot, a redneck, and several other epithets that I refuse to print here. That is not to say that I am comfortable with them, I am not. Nevertheless, again, as a southerner, hardly a day goes by that such disparaging words are not used, in reference to yours truly, singularly, as an individual, or collectively, as a member of the politically conservative right, or regionally, as a Southerner.

I suppose the thing about all this infantile name calling that troubles me most is the utter hypocrisy of those using such hurtful language. I have learned as an adult that many, if not most, of those tossing about such colorful, yet hollow charges, are soaked in ignorance of the origins of such words and the history of the my region of America, and indeed, the history of America itself.

For instance—before the American Civil War, (you know—the war we Southerners refer to, and think of, as “The War for Southern Independence,”) it was the Democratic Party, that had a death grip on the Southern States, which our young scholars have been erroneously, taught were the only slave holding states in the country.

That is far from the truth, very far. The Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic States, including Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, had legally sanctioned slavery in the 17th, 18th and even part of the 19th centuries.

This may come as a shock to you but… not only were black people enslaved in the North for over two hundred years, but the vast majority of all slave trading in America was done by northerners. Yes, we did just say: “The VAST Majority….” Remarkably, half of all North American voyages involved in the slave trade originated in Rhode Island, and all the northern states benefited. This is a fact much hidden from the youthful eyes of America’s young scholars for many, many, decades. In fact, many of those folks who so piously refer to Southerners as racists (because of our ancestors participation in the detestable trade) themselves hail from regions (and, yes, even families) that made fortunes on the trade of African blacks into slavery.

Shocked? You needn’t be. It has been SOP in America’s public (Government) school system for many years. It is the foundation of the ignorance from which springs the scurrilous charges made against so many of my ancestors and yes, even this scribe today.

I tell you this so you will be less shocked when we say that much of the name calling of southerners and politically right conservatives is coming from Representatives and Senators, of those Northern States who desperately want to paint all members of the political right as racists, and bigots.

There is also a statement made, time and again, which goes something like this: Blacks, or, if you prefer, African-Americans, cannot be racists because they lack power or clout. That is absolutely pure, unadulterated nonsense, clap-trap, BS, horse hockey, and a few other things we dare not print for general consumption. If one human hates another because of the color of his skin, regardless of the color of his own, that is bigotry. We see it everyday, as well, or hear it referenced every day in the music popularly known as “Rap” Music and “Hip-Hop” music.

The left claims to want a national “conversation” about racism in America. They don’t, of course. If they did they’d stop using the first sentences out of the mouths of members of the right to label them racists , which simply shuts off all conversation instantly.

No. The left does not want a national confab on racism in America. It is a ploy, that’s all.

White America has grown tired of pretending not to see the overt racism of the left. We’ve grown exceedingly resentful of being used as a punching bag and we’re beginning to punch back.

The national conversation on racism in America, the left claims to want, may yet materialize – in the streets of the nation’s cities as black and white mobs clash. It will be a conversation of the fist and club and, eventually, the gun.

Nobody in their right mind wants this to happen. But that is exactly where America is headed once the last straw is applied to the camel’s back.

I DO realize the weight of the words above. I DO realize, as well, that until we are ready, as a people, as a nation, to face up, honestly, to the racism of the left—and the black community in particular – then it is a non-starter. Until that time a civil conversation will not be had for it cannot be had.

The best we can hope for is the continued stand-off and the barely concealed hatred boiling just beneath the surface. The plain truth is, I believe, the very best we can hope for is that the black community will continue to pretend they’re not racists and the white community will continue to pretend that it doesn’t notice black racism.

No, there will be no national conversation on racism. There WILL be more shouting matches, bruised egos, and hurt feelings, which will do nothing to salve the wounds of the vicious national argument on racism.

WE Americans have tried for 237 years to hold the people of the country together in some sort of union—even with the numerous cracks and fault lines running between us. Today those cracks and fault lines have become chasms. And some are un-crossable. This is one of them.

NSA is more than just a spy network, it’s global fascism

by Patrick Henningsen

Despite the size and scope of Edward Snowden’s NSA whistleblowing, there’s little sign of Washington DC changing its practices, and even less of an indication that any of its European allies will actually hold it to account.

Germany Flip-Flops

Germany’s change of direction on this issue reveals a lot about the scale of the problem. Angela Merkel’s initial public response seemed to be that of outrage. “We are no longer in the cold war,” said Angela Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert. “If it is confirmed that diplomatic representations of the European Union and individual European countries have been spied upon, we will clearly say that bugging friends is unacceptable”(Guardian July 1, 2013).

Merkel’s public façade didn’t hold up for long after Snowden revealed in Der Spiegel magazine only days later that the US and Germany were in fact partnering in the global spy network. “They are in bed with the Germans, just like with most other Western states”, the German magazine quotes Snowden as saying, adding that the NSA has a Foreign Affairs Directorate which is responsible for cooperation with other countries (RT July 8, 2013). The Der Spiegel report also indicated how German Federal Intelligence Service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) and NSA work together.

The embarrassment of this Snowden bombshell seemed to force Germany down a notch, with Merkel opting for a new policy of appeasement instead. So was the initial rift between the US and Germany mere political theatre?

Merkel told Die Zeit that there was “a need to discuss the balance between privacy and security, but protection against terrorism was not possible without the option of electronic surveillance”. She then added, “(I want) the necessary discussions with the United States to be conducted in the spirit which, despite the many justified questions, never forgets that America has been our most loyal ally over the decades and still is” (Reuters July 10, 2013).

But it’s Merkel’s last statement which indicates that she may be just as out of touch with public opinion as the culture of denial which still dominates Washington DC. “For me, there is no comparison at all between the state security (Stasi) of the GDR and the work of intelligence services in democratic states,”Merkel told Die Zeit (Reuters July 10, 2013). Incredible.

No real accountability

Putting the overall theme of government abuse of power into perspective, this week provided a solid example of what should happen in an advanced civilized democracy. Luxembourg’s long-serving Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker announced his resignation this week over a spying scandal involving illegal phone-taps, alongside a number other highly corrupt activities.

In normal times, what happened in Luxembourg should also happen in other countries like the US, or Great Britain – but these are far from normal times. What passes for normal in this bizarre epoch is anyone’s guess, and the same goes for what is deemed to be ‘legal’, especially in the United States.

Snowden’s revelations should have been a watershed moment, but instead in 2013, there appears to be no parliamentary controls to regulate the practice of warrantless digital surveillance and data theft on the part of government agencies, and even less chance of justice in the courts, where adjudicators have been rendered impotent to enforce the law which have been buried under an avalanche of emergency war-time edicts and executive orders.

Well before the Snowden affair this year, Germany effectively cleared the legal path for one of the corporations within the NSA collective. Through the use of administrative courts and the EU, the Administrative Court of Schleswig, Germany upheld two decisions on February 14th, 2013 which ruled that German data protection laws do not apply to data processing by Facebook (file numbers 8 B 60/12 and 8 B 61/1).These controversial judicial procedure were initiated by Facebook Inc. (USA) and by Facebook Ltd. (Ireland, EU), and reversed a previous order by the Independent State Center for Data Protection of Schleswig-Holstein (ULD) which had ruled to allow users to sign in on Facebook using a pseudonym and to unblock those user-accounts that had been blocked due to the users not using their real name and personal data. At the time this was seen as a victory for Facebook the corporation – when in fact it was really a victory for the NSA – who harvests its data from Facebook.

NSA and GCHQ: A Joint Venture

Based on these latest Snowden leaks, we’ve learned more about the true nature of America’s NSA and Britain’s GCHQ partnership in this international spy network, sharing their data and communications. Through the UK Government’s Communications Headquarters known as TEMPORA, the British agency is able to tap over 200 fiber optic cables landing in the UK, saving everything – up to 27 petabytes a day, which are then parsed out to 300 GCHQ analysts and 250 NSA colleagues who then sift through it.

Over a decade of Patriot Acts, FISA laws and Wikileaks cables has left Americans and Europeans alike in a precarious state akin to Stockholm Syndrome, where their love of digital communications almost trumps their concerns for privacy. This same ambiguity has been echoed by Obama and Merkel, who both claim that protection against terrorism is not possible without the option of electronic surveillance. But the narrative which was originally framed around Washington’s invasion of its citizens’ privacy has since gone international. It’s now about governments partnering with each other – and with corporations, in the largest global digital dragnet imaginable.

The extent of the US National Security Agency (NSA) overseas spying in Europe has stunned the European public for sure, and appears to have rattled the political classes in Germany and Brussels – but only for now.

According to Edward Snowden’s revelations in the German magazine Der Spiegel last week, the NSA snoops through approximately 20-60 million German phone connections, and 10 million internet data sets a day. According to the Snowden report, all in all, the NSA combs through around half a billion German phone calls, emails and text messages on a monthly basis.

To add insult to injury, it’s been said the US intelligence regards Germany as a “third class partner”, on par with the likes of China and Iraq, making them fair game for NSA targeting. It’s not just Berlin, as the NSA are also said to have bugged EU diplomatic offices and gained access to EU internal computer networks.

So where is the crisis of international diplomacy between the US and Europe? Under normal circumstances, this might morph into a major diplomatic crisis pitting the EU members on one side and the US on the other – but alas, these are not really normal times. Germany and the EU came out swinging, well, sort of.

President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz hit out immediately stating:

“If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely serious matter which will have a severe impact on EU-US relations”.

Brussels immediately passed a non-binding resolution, which said that unless the US provided full disclosure about its email and communications data, then two EU-US transatlantic information-sharing deals could be revoked. Those deals are the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) and Passenger Name Records (PNR). Both were rammed through the EU Parliament during the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. It gives the US Treasury carte blanche on all European stored data on international financial transfers, and gives US Homeland Security carte blanche on all passenger check-ins and ticket bookings on flights.

Few believe that the EU will actually make good on their threats, seeing the initial reaction as a mere face-saving exercise, leading to no real action by MEPs in Brussels.

Global Data Industry: A Digital Cartel

The corporate aspect should not be underrated in terms of its central role in the international digital data trade. Edward Snowden’s PRISM revelations of government controlled NSA wiretapping and data theft are nothing new, as former CIA analyst Russell Tice prove almost a decade ago in 2005 by showing that the NSA were engaged in unlawful and unconstitutional wiretaps on American citizens. But the NSA cannot operate without the partnership of these companies – all of whom have offices and operational hubs in most foreign markets.

Herein resides the key aspect in all of this – that in order for agencies like the NSA and GCHQ to get easy access to all of our digital communications and data, they still need the cooperation of corporations to do it. In the US, it’s now known what role major ISPs and mobile carriers like Verizon and AT&T play in this equation within US borders, including the existence of NSA-controlled SG3 collection rooms embedded within the companies facilities. Shocking enough, but not nearly as shocking if you consider the role of transnational corporations in enabling the NSA access to your digital threads.

Internationally, citizens have already signed over most of their privacy simply by using the digital services of US multinationals like Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Skype, Yahoo and others. All of these corporation operate within a ‘profit-first’ ethical vacuum where, in many cases, they are actually charging the NSA for the privilege of consuming their customers’ communications and data. According to the recent Snowden leaks, the level of collusion between Microsoft Corp and the NSA is astonishing, where Microsoft allows the NSA to skirt encryption protocols on Outlook, Skype video and cloud services, and where data captured by the NSA is routinely passed on to both the FBI and the CIA (Guardian July 12, 2013).

The horrible irony here is too obvious to ignore: the US government, through its NSA, is giving away taxpayer dollars so these corporations can profit from handing over all of your personal communications and data.

Such an unholy alliance between partnering governments and transnational corporations could be defined as fascism, but the global nature of this operation might require a new term to define what means as a global phenomenon.

Amidst the international Snowden media circus, it’s important not to forget that what has enabled agencies like the NSA and GCHQ to act with impunity, is the fact that both these governments have excelled in capitalising on a post-September 11th paranoia that has hijacked the national consciousness in both the US and the UK. The entire basis upon which their relentless war-time remit has been erected can be described in three words: “War on Terror”.

It’s already clear to the global citizenry that the US federal government and its NSA are out of control, and should be reined in as soon as possible in order to preserve any remaining moral standing for a country which has exhausted nearly all of its goodwill internationally – as well as domestically.

Judging by Washington’s stoic and unapologetic stance thus far, goodwill doesn’t seem to be a high priority yet. Until the problem is properly addressed, there will remain a gaping hole of moral leadership in the international community.

What political leaders are slow the realize is that when the goodwill has been exhausted, so has the trust, and that’s a very slippery slope indeed.

Patrick Henningsen is a writer, investigative journalist, and filmmaker and founder of the news website 21stCentury Wire.com.

This piece originally appeared on RT.com

Stop crying racism, sexism – the 1960s are over

by David Masciotra

The 1960s divided America. An activist and rebellious youth fought, sang and partied for more freedom and equality. The Civil Rights Movement, the free speech campaign at Berkeley and anti-Vietnam war protests helped push America into a necessary blender of tumult and turbulence.

Now, one of the divides of contemporary American culture separates those who celebrate the progress, changes and improvements the country has made in the past five decades, and those who believe we still live in the 1960s.

Trapped in a sociopolitical version of the movie “Groundhog Day,” there is a powerful cadre of citizens devoted to maintaining the fight against racism, sexism and other “isms,” even though, thankfully, the prejudices of the past lose relevance every day.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled to remove a section of the Voting Rights Act that placed the voting laws and procedures of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia, under federal authority. Lawmakers passed the provision in 1965, because the singled-out states had such a cruel record of racism. No reasonable person believed that elected leaders in those states would fairly implement the reforms of the Voting Rights Act and open the polls to black voters. It was a good move and one that ensured accountability. Consider that in Mississippi, in the 1964 election, black voter turnout was a mere 6 percent.

But in 2012, the percentage of black voters in Mississippi, along with black voter turnout in eight of the nine states singled out by the law, was higher than white voter turnout. Looking at the new data confirms that the worst offenders of voter suppression in the 1960s have now achieved voter equality. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that there was no good reason to continue to punish states based on “40-year-old facts having no logical relationship to the present day.”

President Obama disagreed, claiming “deep disappointment in the ruling.” Al Sharpton said that the decision “cancels Martin Luther King’s dream” and Bill Maher called it “racism 2.0.” The fact that a higher percentage of black people than white people in the previously punished states voted for a black president, who won re-election, is of no importance to Sharpton, Maher or even that president.

It’s not just in the campaign to divide the country between “racists” and egalitarians that statistics, evidence and logical argument are dismissed.

President Obama won re-election in part because he convinced a significant percentage of the electorate that American culture, led by the Republican Party, is waging a patriarchal “war on women.” Obama, naturally, was the knighted dragon slayer dedicated to protecting every maiden from attack.

The problem with the sexism narrative is that women now graduate college at higher rates than men. They hold 51.4 percent of managerial positions. They are rising in all the professions, while men are dropping, and in married households, they account for 40 percent of breadwinners.

In America, leading institutions were undeniably at one time racist and sexist, but we have steadily marched toward equality. Racism and sexism, like all forms of evil, will never die, because evil itself is ineradicable, but they maintain no influence over the general culture.

But in liberal “Groundhog Day,” America of 2013 is just like America of 1965.

One of the college courses I teach is African-American Literature and Blues and Jazz Music. I instruct my students that the beauty and brutality of American history is impossible to understand or appreciate without a full confrontation with the role that race has played in the formation and evolution of the country.

It is important to study history and realize that America, like any country, will never become a sociological Eden. But to parrot the slogans of 1968, while rejecting the evidence that proves their vacuity, is to not only to deny reality, but also to encourage racial resentment and gender tension and advance a debilitating culture of victimhood. It also ignores the real problems of today — the lack of economic opportunity leading to upward mobility, our failing public schools and the infringements on personal freedom.

The crises of the 21st century are solvable only by people living in the 21st century.

Masciotra is the author of “All That We Learned About Livin’: The Art and Legacy of John Mellencamp” (forthcoming, The University Press of Kentucky) and “Against Traffic: Essays on Politics and Identity.” For more information visit www.davidmasciotra.com.

Why do black people not run marathons?

Marcus Ryder during the Amsterdam Marathon, feeling like a 'member of a cultural minority' — Marcus Ryder during the Amsterdam Marathon, feeling like a ‘member of a cultural minority’

by Marcus Ryder

In 1980 only 11% of marathon finishers in America were women, last year it was 42%. For half-marathon runners women are now in the majority (approximately 60%). While those stats are for American runners I suspect that a similar trend is mirrored here in the UK. The number of women taking part in distance running has grown beyond recognition from when large participatory marathons first started in the 1970’s and 80’s. And let’s not forget it wasn’t until 1984 that women were even allowed to run the marathon at the Olympics.

So while the gender barriers seem to be tumbling down their seems to be another barrier when it comes to distance racing:

Black people do not run marathons

This is all the more surprising considering that nearly all the top marathon runners, both male and female, are African. The one statistics that I have found is striking; according to the largest survey of runners in America, the biannual National Runner Survey, only 1.6% of marathon runners are black. While those types of statistics are not kept in Britain it definitely chimes with my own personal experience. I have run four marathons and several smaller distances in the last year and I would be surprised if even 1% of my fellow runners were black – and this includes the Rio de Janerio Marathon – a city with a sizable non-white population.

I am consistently one of only a handful of black people at races and when I read running blogs and running magazines they are clearly aimed at a well healed middleclass white demographic.

The question is “Why?”. Why aren’t more black people running marathons, half marathons or even 5k fun runs?

The barriers to entry to start running are incredibly low. In fact you could argue that it is the cheapest participatory sport to start, needing only a pair of running shoes, shorts and T-shirt.

I’ve never experienced any racism (overt or otherwise) from my fellow runners. The lack of black runners is definitely not equivalent to the lack of female participation 30 years ago when the sexism was often overt and crude.

No – I think the barriers are cultural and self-perpetuating. Black people don’t run marathons because they don’t see people like them at running clubs where they train. Where there are running clubs that make a conscious effort to attract a multicultural membership like theRun Dem Crew, organised by a black person, black people are disproportionately represented.

Another problem is that black people are often portrayed, and marketed to, as elite athletes. I could wax lyrical about some of the stereotypes in this but the reality is a lot of black people buy into the stereotypes. And so it takes a shift in perception that taking part in a race has almost nothing to do with the position you finish or the time you complete it in. It is a way of taking part in sports that culturally has not been marketed towards black people previously. You are definitely not trying to “Be Like Mike” or any other great sports personality when you are running a marathon, you are just trying to be better than the person you were yesterday and the day before that.

But Black people do want to run. Every black friend I have tells me how they want to run but always have a reason why they can’t (an old sports injury, lack of free time, etc). Running and all the sports we do have a huge cultural dynamic – Why pick cricket over basketball? Or basketball over football? Or even chess over poker?

I believe that black participation in running is a sleeping giant. Right now participation might be only 1% but given the right running clubs and targeting the right races that could easily change and hopefully will.

This blog was originally posted on The Sound of Running Blogspot.

Zombie democracy, or crass majoritarianism

This opinion piece from the British Economist deals with the ‘zombie democracy’ of Turkey, but it might as well have been written about South Africa since 1994 where huge majorities entitle rulers to trample upon the basic rights of minorities, such as whites and Afrikaners.

“BUT I’ve won three elections!” Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s embattled prime minister, growls at his critics. On the face of it, his case is compelling: surely, many people in Turkey and beyond would agree, popularly elected leaders can govern as they please? That’s what democracy means.

Well, no. Majoritarianism—the credo of an expanding group of elected but autocratic rulers around the world, which holds that electoral might always makes you right—is not true democracy, even if, on the face of it, the two things look alike. It is worth explaining why.

To begin with, democratic legitimacy isn’t merely a correlative of a ruler’s share of the vote. Few candidates in the West nowadays win more than half of the votes, still less a majority of the electorate. Most are obliged to govern with slim electoral mandates.

If broad support does not automatically qualify a leader as a democrat, nor does strong opposition disqualify him. Margaret Thatcher’s reforms were contentious, to say the least. The heat and vitriol of politics have intensified in the Fox News, shock-jock, bile-blogging era: Barack Obama is often lambasted as tyrannical or traitorous. Tough decisions, such as spending cuts or tax rises, can provoke widespread anger, as the past few years have demonstrated. Bold reforms, which The Economist applauds, often do the same. That doesn’t make the leaders who impose them undemocratic, either.

The issue is how the relationship between supporters and opponents is managed. In part this is a matter of rules and institutions to constrain a leader’s power and to allow the aggrieved to find redress. These should include a robust account of citizens’ basic rights, independent courts to enforce them and free media to monitor them.

Beyond documents and institutions, the difference between crass majoritarianism and democracy resides in the heads of the mighty. Democrats have a bedrock understanding that the minority (or often majority) who did not vote for them are as much citizens of their country as those who did, and are entitled to a respectful hearing; and that a leader’s job is to deliberate and act in the national interests, not just those of his supporters. Turkey’s protesters took to the streets because they believed Mr Erdogan was not just hostile to their interests but deaf to their complaints. By demonising them as terrorists and foreign agents, and pulverising them with tear gas and water cannon, he has vindicated this belief. The contrast with Brazil, where Dilma Rousseff has insisted that demonstrators have a right to protest, is striking.

Heartless

The basic idea of a democracy is that the voters should pick a government, which rules as it chooses until they see fit to chuck it out. But although voting is an important democratic right, it is not the only one. And winning an election does not entitle a leader to disregard all checks on his power. The majoritarian world view espoused by Mr Erdogan and leaders of his ilk is a kind of zombie democracy. It has the outward shape of the real thing, but it lacks the heart.

Read the whole article in The Economist.

The freedom to be racist – is banning right-wing groups democratic?

freedom_to_be_racist_600x450 — Erik Bleich, author of 'The freedom to be racist'

by Erik Bleich

On June 5, 18-year-old anti-fascist activist Clement Meric was walking with his friends in Paris when he encountered a group of far-right militants and a fight broke out. At the end of the skirmish, Meric lay on the ground. He was hit twice in the head, declared brain-dead at the hospital and died the next day.

His attackers are believed to have links with the far-right Revolutionary Nationalist Youth. The French government has not only arrested the perpetrators, but has also gone one step further by announcing plans to dissolve the group. Painting on an even larger canvas, the government declared that this ban will take place in the context of a review of “extreme right groups that provoke racial, anti-Semitic, xenophobic and homophobic hatred”.

French law allows the government to ban groups without oversight from courts or the legislature. This procedure dates back to the 1930s, when far-right militias roamed the streets and undermined the stability of the French state. As of 1972, the government has also been able to disband groups that provoke discrimination, hatred, or violence against people because of their origin, race, ethnicity, nationality or religion.

From an American perspective, this law and the current steps against the Revolutionary Nationalist Youth are difficult to understand. The US has long had active racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan whose members have been associated with violent acts. However, Americans believe that one should punish the criminals, not criminalise freedom of association, no matter how outrageous the group’s ideas may be.

Americans are fairly unusual in this respect. Many countries permit authorities to outlaw racist groups. Some, like France and Italy, have provisions for the dissolution of private groups. Others, like Germany and the Netherlands, also allow political parties to be banned – a highly contentious step for any self-declared liberal democracy.

Why do these countries endorse such a controversial infringement on freedom of association? Most places that allow it have had first-hand experiences as non-democracies – experiences they are keen not to repeat. France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands, for example, go much further than the US, Britain and Australia in permitting their states to outlaw racist groups and parties.

History matters, and it continues to motivate French leaders to this day. Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault declared in vivid fashion last week that he was ready to “cut to pieces… fascist and Nazi-inspired movements”. For his part, Interior Minister Manuel Valls stated, “We will be merciless with those that deny the values of the Republic”, and asserted that France has to “attack the foul ideas that remind us of the worst hours of our history”.

For some, these steps are not as much about history as they are about symbolic politics. When extreme hatred and violence spills out into the streets, citizens want action. Banning a group sends an immediate signal that the government is doing something.

As sceptics are quick to argue, though, simply declaring a racist group or party defunct is not always effective. Sometimes the leaders of these associations simply recreate the group under another name. Or activists may go underground and meet in secret.

This can happen, but France has the power to punish the revival of a banned racist group with seven years in jail and a 100,000-euro ($132,819) fine. Evidence from Germany demonstrates that following waves of bans, the number of racist groups drops over the short-term (but not the long-term), and that the total number of people willing to affiliate with racist right-wing groups also declines over the long-term.

In short, bans can be effective tools for inhibiting rabid racist groups.

The greater concern involves the frequency with which states apply the bans. Happily, so far, they have tended to use these laws sparingly. Since 1936, France has outlawed fewer than 100 groups. Many of the highest-profile bans occurred in the 1930s, during the Algerian war, and surrounding the events of May 1968, because the groups involved were identified as dangerous militias. In recent decades, the bans have been used quite infrequently, with only a handful of groups dissolved in the past decade.

Since the 1972 amendment to the law, however, provocation to racial or religious hatred has played a greater role in decisions about which groups to ban. In 2006, France dissolved the Tribu Ka, a small anti-Semitic group with a goal of “putting the people called ‘black’ at the top of humanity”. In 2012, the state disbanded an association dedicated to establishing sharia law in France.

These groups, like the Revolutionary Nationalist Youth, are ethno-centric and associated with violence. Governments have the right to enforce laws enacted by elected legislatures to dissolve groups that are a pressing threat to social and political stability.

But there is always a risk that states will turn to these laws for a seemingly quick solution to racist violence. These provisions serve a useful purpose, but they come at a cost. They infringe the core liberal democratic norm of allowing people to express their values.

So if France is going to ban the Revolutionary Nationalist Youth, it has to show its citizens and its neighbours that the group deserves to be banned. France must remember its history, but it must also preserve its liberal democratic credentials for the future.

Erik Bleich is a professor of political science and the director of International Politics and Economics at Middlebury College, and is the author of The Freedom to Be Racist? How the United States and Europe Struggle to Preserve Freedom and Combat Racism, published by Oxford University Press.

This article first appeared on Aljazeera.com

Republicans are throwing their conservative white base under the bus

ted-kennedy — Ted Kennedy masterminded America's ethnic transformation

by Georgina Lee

Propaganda is only effective if it tells people what they want to believe, or what they know to be true from their lives’ experiences.

During the 1960s liberal Democrats told white blue-collar workers that the real problem was not crime in the streets but white racism. White blue-collar workers were often the victims of black crime, as were their friends and relatives. They knew what the problem was. They rejected the liberal message, and began voting Republican.

In the 60’s when America was still 90% white and crime was almost non-existent, we were told not to have too many kids that we could not afford. To thinking whites, this made perfect sense as we are an independent lot.

Shortly after that the drunken, belligerent, loudmouth Ted Kennedy told us our demographics would not be affected by immigration.

Now, American politics sits at the side of the cliff with Republicans scrambling and scrounging for any colored vote they can get… all the while throwing their conservative white base under the bus over and over again. Makes no sense to me because to pander to the Latino vote (which they will never get) is political suicide. I see America being run under a Democrat dictatorship for decades to come with only small pockets of Republican rule in the “white flight” areas. I have lived in Southern California my whole life and have seen city after city get taken to ruins by mass influxes of immigrants from third-world cesspools.

Others can have Chinatown and Little Saigon and other sef- imposed “Apartheids” but Damn to Hell the Blue-Eyed Devil for wanting to live among his own kind! Humans are tribal creatures. Perceived “racism” is only a matter of self-preservation – something even animals have a right to.

So yes, to make a long story short – there is massive, massive anger out there, world-wide, at the third-world colonization of Western countries. At first I thought, it was just my being more aware, but there is too much proof that this is real and growing. There is a trends forecaster by the name of Gerald Celente. Back in about 2007, he predicted the riots and anti-immigrant sentiment the world over that is now happening. He ties it in to global financial meltdown (creating more poverty) and the obvious mass influx of immigrants who are a blight to civilized society. This was obviously planned!

‘Multi-pronged assault on the property rights of white South Africans’

by Dave Steward, FW de Klerk Foundation

Perhaps one of the most unpalatable truths of our time is that our government is planning a multi-pronged assault on the property rights of white South Africans.

The assault includes proposals in the 2011 Green Paper on Land Reform; Tokyo Sexwale’s announcement last week regarding the “deracialisation of white suburbs”; and the recently published draft Expropriation Bill.

The Green Paper advocates ‘Agrarian Transformation’ which would result in “a rapid and fundamental change in …systems and patterns of ownership and control… of land, livestock, cropping and community.” It proposes far-reaching changes to traditional forms of land ownership including the proposition that, in future, privately owned land will be freehold with ‘limited extent’.

Minister Sexwale’s plan to “deracialise white suburbs” might erode the value of the most important asset that most South Africans own – their homes. “De-racialisation” would be achieved by “obliging” banks “to provide loans to black people to purchase property in previously exclusive white suburbs”. However, there are no longer any “exclusively white suburbs”. People – whatever their race – can buy homes anywhere they like provided they can pay the prevailing market price.

The draft Expropriation Bill gives effect to the constitutional provision that property may be expropriated in the national interest which “includes the nation’s commitment to land reform, and reforms to bring about equitable access to all South Africa’s natural resources”. However, it then adds the words “and other related reforms in order to redress the results of past racial discriminatory laws or practices”. This could conceivably be used to justify the expropriation of virtually any property owned by white South Africans which might be obliquely linked in some way or the other to “past racial discriminatory laws and practices”.

What then is the origin of this multi-pronged attack on white property rights? The answer lies in the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) – which is the guiding ideology of the ruling alliance.

The NDR’s primary goal is “the resolution of the antagonistic contradictions between the oppressed majority (blacks) and their oppressors (whites); as well as the resolution of the national grievance arising from the colonial relations.”

According to the ANC’s Strategy and Tactics documents, “a critical element of the programme for national emancipation should be the elimination of apartheid property relations. This requires: the de-racialisation of ownership and control of wealth, including land; equity and affirmative action in the provision of skills and access to positions of management…”

According to the ANC, this is a continuing struggle “which, as a matter of historical necessity, will loom ever larger as we proceed along the path of fundamental change.”

In March last year, the ANC announced that the time had at last arrived for it to proceed more vigorously with its efforts to eradicate the socio-economic legacy of apartheid. Minister Jeff Radebe, the ANC’s Policy Chief, proclaimed that “having concluded our first transition with its focus in the main, on political democratization, we need a vision that must focus on the social and economic transformation of SA over the next 30 to 50 years”.

Radebe’s views were endorsed by President Zuma in his opening address to the ANC Policy Conference in June 2012. He said that the ANC intended “to democratise and de-racialise the ownership and control of the economy by empowering Africans and the working class in particular to play a leading role”.

The Policy Conference reached broad agreement that “this second phase of the transition should be characterised by more radical policies and decisive action to effect thorough-going socio-economic and continued democratic transformation…”

The ANC’s National Conference at Mangaung in December last year endorsed the central elements of the “Second Phase” approach. It proclaimed that “we are boldly entering the second phase of the transition from apartheid colonialism to a national democratic society. This phase will be characterised by decisive action to effect economic transformation and democratic consolidation, critical both to improve the quality of life of all South Africans and to promote nation-building and social cohesion.”

There can be very little doubt about the seriousness of the ANC’s commitment to the redistribution of white-owned land and property. It will proceed as quickly as the objective circumstances and developing balance of power will permit.

The ANC is preparing the ground for the Second Phase by concentrating on three basic arguments. The first arises from its version of South African history in terms of which everything that happened before 1994 was irredeemably evil. Increasing use is made of the term “apartheid colonialism” – implying that whites are transient alien interlopers.

The second leitmotif is the notion that economically and socially nothing has changed in South Africa since 1994.

The third theme is the ANC’s insistence that most of the country’s current problems – and especially the triple crisis of inequality, poverty and unemployment – can be ascribed to the legacy of the past.

Whatever the historic merit – or lack of merit – of these arguments, it would be surprising if they do not stir up some degree of racial animosity – or at the very least – reinforce perceptions of white moral inferiority and black entitlement. Inevitably they will fuel demands for restitution – particularly of land.

White South Africans should wake up to the unpleasant fact that they are the main target of the NDR. Their government has launched a multi-faceted campaign to undermine their legitimate interests and rights on the basis of their race. They are like the proverbial frogs in the pot: the water is simmering and the ANC is turning up the heat.

We should seek to engage the ANC leadership at the highest possible level in very frank debate about these issues. The really scary possibility is that the ANC actually believes its own propaganda.

Above all we should defend the Constitution, the values that it espouses and the rights it protects. We should also draw the ANC’s attention to section 9(3) of the Constitution in terms of which the state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds – including race.

Too many whites are still advocates, attorneys, says Deputy Minister

highcourt_jhb — Johannesburg High Court - too many white advocates there

by Andries Nel, Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development

It seems truly bizarre but in 1994, less than a generation ago, 160 of the 165 judges on the bench were white men. This is not a typographical error. White male judges were, to use biblical language, fourscore times two in number. The heavy onus of making the judiciary appear to resemble South Africa lay on the shoulders of three black men and two white women. As for black women, well….

Today, as “Mandela’s children” prepare to vote for the first time, 100 black men and 49 black women, 71 white men and 21 white women serve our nation as judges. They do so knowing that they are part of a judiciary that is coming closer to reflecting the racial and gender composition of South Africa, as is required by our Constitution.

Similar progress has been made in addressing race and gender imbalances in Magistrates Courts. Of the 1661 magistrates, 974 are black and 687 are white, 647 are women and 1014 are men.

Whilst this represents significant progress, there is still much to be done – especially regarding the gender imbalances in the upper echelons of the judiciary, the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court of Appeal and the ranks of the Judges President.

Regrettably, some insist on propagating the untruth that it is constitutionally suspect to pursue the objective of a representative judiciary or, alternatively, that although legitimate, this objective is being advanced in a manner that is unconstitutional.

If some are to be believed, the Judicial Service Commission has simply transposed the “Non-Europeans Only” signs from the railway benches of yesteryear to the judicial benches of today.

A resigned combatant from what is often portrayed as the gladiatorial game of judicial selection punts the notion that, in the eyes of the JSC, white men have become as politically ineligible to judge as they have always been genetically incapable of jumping.

However, what tales do those inconveniently stubborn things known as facts tell?

Of the 71 white men currently on the bench, 61 were appointed after 1994 – and of them, 22 were appointed since 2009.

The “white men can’t judge” mythology being peddled is in fact anti-Constitution: It seeks to stymie the transformation required by the Constitution while attacking the integrity of the JSC and that of judges, black and white, appointed by it under the Constitution.

The Constitution is the supreme law of our land. It is also a supremely transformational constitution. It requires of us to follow a transformative course action in respect of access to justice and the transformation of the judiciary and legal system.

Let us be clear. Transformation, the big T-word, necessarily includes – but is not limited to – attaining demographic representivity.

Transformation in the South African context basically means making our society, look, work, think and be like the Constitution says it should. Anyone who thinks that it does, or is close to doing so, or will do so in a decade, simply doesn’t “get it.”

Firstly, the Constitution enjoins us to heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights and to lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law.

Secondly, it guarantees everyone the right to have any dispute that can be resolved by the application of law decided in a fair public hearing before a court or, where appropriate, another independent and impartial tribunal or forum.

Thirdly, it provides that the need for the judiciary to reflect broadly the racial and gender composition of South Africa must be considered when judicial officers are appointed.

Fourthly, it says that all courts, including their structure, composition, functioning and jurisdiction, and all relevant legislation, must be rationalized with a view to establishing a judicial system suited to the requirements of the new constitution.

Government is committed to strengthening of the independence, the dignity, accessibility and effectiveness of the courts as part of this transformation process.

The Seventeenth Constitutional Amendment Act, the Superior Courts Bill, and the South African Judicial Education Institute Act, provide a strong legislative framework to realize this objective. Measures such as the establishment of the Office of the Chief Justice as a department advance the objective of greater administrative independence of the judiciary.

Access to justice is being promoted by, amongst others, the building of new courts the conversion of existing branch courts to full-service courts, the establishment of Small Claims Courts, the re-demarcation of magisterial districts, the Review of the Civil Justice System and the work of Legal Aid SA.

However, the untransformed state of the legal profession remains a stumbling block to the further transformation of the judiciary as well as to greater access to justice.

The legal profession is a key provider of services that promote access to justice and it also constitutes a pool from which the judiciary is appointed.

Of the 2384 advocates (as at April 2012) who fell under the umbrella of the General Council of the Bar, 1367 were white men, 366 white women, 295 African men, 89 African women, 47 coloured men, 37 coloured women, 114 Indian men and 69 Indian women.

The picture becomes even more skewed when one examines the profile of the 473 senior advocates (or “silks” as they are called – because of their right to wear silk robes): 382 white men, 20 white women, 29 African men, 4 African women, 9 coloured men, 1 coloured woman, 24 Indian men and 4 Indian women.

Traditionally, it is from the ranks of these “silks” that judges are appointed.

The attorneys’ profession is marginally more representative. As at June 2011 there were 20,077 practicing attorneys of whom 36% were black and 64% were white. Women constituted 34% and men 66%.

Interestingly, the profile of law students is much more reflective of South African society. In 2011 of all first year law students, 78% were black, 22% white, 54% were women and 46% men. In the same year, of the 3751 LLB graduates, 68% were black, 32% white, 59 % women and 41% men.

The question is to what extent these more reflective demographics will be carried through into the profession and what stumbling blocks exist in this regard.

One important intervention is the restructuring of state legal services announced by the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development.

Another is the Legal Practice Bill currently before Parliament. The Bill proposes an institutional and statutory framework within which these challenges can be addressed in a systematic and inclusive manner.

The proposed South African Legal Practice Council will bring together advocates, attorneys and representatives of broader society to find solutions to the challenges of: entry to the legal profession, availability of quality legal training and education, quality workplace learnership opportunities, provision of pro bono services and community-based paralegal services, as well as the regulation of legal fees in order to promote access to affordable legal services for all, especially the poor.

The Council will be a mechanism through which the Legal Services Charter adopted in 2007 can be implemented.

The Bill does not prescribe solutions but mandates and facilitates their formulation. This will require the active participation of all sectors of the profession – and of broader society. Whether the solutions that emanate from the process take us forward will depend, amongst others, on the ability of those committed to the transformative vision of our Constitution to give leadership.

Andries Nel is the Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development.
This article is based on notes for an address to a meeting of the Black Lawyers Association (BLA) – Student Chapter held at the University of South Africa (Unisa) on 4 May 2013.

Hands off Afrikaans please

fochies_kultuur — From culture to multicultural intimidation. Pictures from a 'cultural evening' at Fochville High School. Now the education department wants to deny the school its language and culture.

On behalf of the Pro-Afrikaans Action Group (Praag) and all Afrikaans speakers in the country, I strongly object to your sensationalist headline: “My child hates Afrikaans people” (City Press, May 5).

The rest of the article displays a distinct bias against Hoërskool Fochville and Afrikaans in general by selectively quoting from affidavits filed by an NGO run by Mark Heywood, who is British.

For 200 years now, language has been a bone of contention in South Africa, specifically the fraught relationship between English and Afrikaans. Your reporter would therefore do well to be more circumspect and objective in reporting on such an explosive issue.

Apart from swaggeringly throwing down the race card, the ace to trump all else, you also neglected to mention that Barbara Creecy, the Gauteng education MEC, had created the problem by unexpectedly busing in a whole class of so-called “English” children at the beginning of last year.

Hostile officials from the department then ordered the school to teach them in that language, for which they were not qualified.

The use of children as pawns in Creecy’s neocolonial language war on Afrikaans is distasteful. Instead of concentrating her funds and her energies on providing education in Gauteng, Creecy has launched an all-out attack on Fochville and other Afrikaans high schools, threatening an educational legacy that goes back more than 100 years.

According to newspaper reports, Creecy and her high-handed officials have also threatened Afrikaans high schools in Joburg to change their language policy. I wonder whether the same is being done at Zulu or Tswana schools?

Is it any wonder that the community around Hoërskool Fochville is defending themselves against the autocratic Gauteng education department in the courts? But what a waste of taxpayers’ funds!

Creecy is directly responsible for the implosion of maths teaching in Gauteng – with the matric average now at 20%. What are we gaining, educationally, from these vindictive state actions against Afrikaans schools?

Can the ANC not replace Creecy with a black MEC for education in Gauteng who will not have a colonial axe to grind with Afrikaans?

Dr Dan Roodt,
Director, Praag, Joburg

This letter was also published today in City Press.

The real Oliver Tambo

tambo_mandela — Tambo (left) and Mandela, with customary black-power salute

I REFER to the airbrushed piece on Oliver Tambo by your now-ubiquitous columnist Dr Z Pallo Jordan (Tambo left an indelible imprint on our politics, Business Day April 25).

It is so breathtakingly unctuous that one is obliged to give some facts to the public in case they are tempted to view the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) past through Dr Jordan’s rosy prism.

Once again we hear of the ANC’s “moral high ground”. This has become something of a buzzword, but it is a misnomer.

A reading of any of the South African Institute of Race Relations’ books, particularly those by Anthea Jeffrey, will put to rest Dr Jordan’s fantasies and selective amnesia about the ANC and how it came to power.

“The Truth about the Truth Commission” shows in great detail that the bulk of the victims during the ANC’s violent revolution were black people, almost always in townships.

In light of this terror and killings, Mr Tambo’s speeches and pronouncements take on special significance. In a September 1985 interview with Newsweek, Mr Tambo discussed ANC military activities within SA and said that “avoiding civilian casualties will no longer be a factor in the ANC’s military actions”.

Referring to ANC proxy the United Democratic Front’s (UDF’s) terror campaign against township populations, Mr Tambo declared on Radio Freedom from Ethiopia (July 8 1985) that “for months we have maintained an uninterrupted offensive against the local government authorities in the black urban areas as well as the police”.

He then chastises those blacks who did not “respond to the same level of activity and determination (as that of the UDF’s cadres).

This is a situation which we must correct”. Coercive township terror was an effective UDF tactic.

The brutality the ANC unleashed against its own people is well documented. During a Lusaka domestic service broadcast on September 9 1985, Mr Tambo declared that the “current political crisis presents a great leap forward and indicates the start of a bloodbath that will eventually end apartheid”. The violence didn’t end in 1994.

Bloodbaths do not sit well with moral high grounds. If Dr Jordan has even a shred of integrity, he should present us with Oliver Tambo, warts and all.

He shouldn’t let the chance of having a regular say in a newspaper go to his head.

D Lawrence

Midvaal

Banana Republic or Absurdistan, Max?

by Neville Chamberlain

Max du Preez is of the informed opinion that South Africa is not a “Banana Republic” echoing similar statements from the ruling ANC elite (or should that rather be ruling ANC regime). Admitting that the state of affairs in Africa’s economic powerhouse is following the blueprint of Africa in true African style would be tantamount to High Treason for people like Max. Rather bury your head in the sand and intone “is not” a million times

Please note that I use the term “ informed” loosely as Max’s latest instalment of wisdom about Africa is based solely on the lunatic left-wing ravings contained in a book written by three members of Academia in the UK and which by and large claims that Zimbabwe’s land grabs (or redistribution of land in Leftist PCspeak) were successful.

Claims that have subsequently been refuted by Roy Bennett of the MDC. The same Roy Bennett who is the rightful Minister of Agriculture (although Bob refuses to appoint him in the position, rather arresting him on numerous occasions under false pretenses). A refutation backed by Zimbabwe’s own internal governmental statistics. It now takes an amazing 245 000 people to achieve roughly half of what 6 000 white farmers managed in producing food. The UN has indicated that 1,6 million Zimbabweans will starve if urgent food aid is not provided. Yet the land grabs were successful…huh? Subsistence farming is a success? Double huh? What happened to “the breadbasket of Africa”?

(Liberal Logic 101 – statistics are only valid if they support the liberal ideology, otherwise they are moot and inconsequential. Immediately resort to name-calling and if that doesn’t work the other person must be a racist.)

Max endeared himself to white South Africans and Afrikaners in particular with his anti-white rhetoric, socialist ideology, liberal constipation, Cultural Marxism and a talent for keeping himself in the limelight by making startling statements as displayed in his article in The Mercury.

Back to South Africa not being a Banana Republic. What is a Banana Republic? Below I have quoted a very loose definition from Wikipedia – yes I know liberals – Wikipedia isn’t scientific fact (as if that is ever of any consequence to you) but for the purposes of my opinion piece it will suffice. Anyway, I am concerned that most liberals don’t know what the Oxford dictionary is, never mind Merriam Webster

“Banana republic is a political science term for a politically unstable country whose economy is largely dependent on the export of a single limited-resource product, such as bananas. It typically has stratified social classes, including a large, impoverished working class and a ruling plutocracy that comprises the elites of business, politics, and the military. This politico-economic oligarchy controls the primary-sector productions and thereby exploits the country’s economy.”

Based on recent events such as the Madikazela-Mandela / Janie Odendaal & Abel Twala saga, Nkandlagate, the steamrolling of the PIB Act, the new BEE codes, the CAR debacle, e-Toll, most recently the Guptas’ private use of a military airbase and the violence and intimidation that will precede next years’ elections, especially in the Western Cape, it seems that South Africa fulfils most of the definition above.

Maybe our saving grace is that we can export more than just one product – although we have been a net importer of most items for quite some time now. Those dang Chinese just makes everything so much cheaper than what we can. It has done just wonders for our clothing industry – it created so many job opportunities… not.

Still have the opinion that South Africa is not a Banana Republic, Max? Maybe you’re right. I mean the term Banana Republic is so blasé and imperialistic.

Maybe we should rather have a look at a neologism such as Absurdistan. It is more contemporary and new age than Banana Republic. What is an Absurdistan? you may well ask. Once again, I will use Wikipedia for a loose definition

“Absurdistan is a term sometimes used to satirically describe a country in which absurdity is the norm, especially in its public authorities and government.”

Now that sounds more like it, doesn’t it, Max? Cadre deployment, government squandering money on silly things like street-name changes and international shopping trips, strikes that ruin the economy to pander to the wishes of a few power-hungry individuals, teachers that cannot teach their subjects, handbooks thrown in fields & rivers, two generations of functioning idiots, ministers that weigh more than your average Shetland pony, a youth development agency – NYDA – that spends all its money on salaries for cronies, and an R85-million building in Pretoria that cannot be utilized and lame denials from our President’s Office. Don’t get me started on the silliness of some of our government spokesmen and the idiocy they wish us to believe as truth. I mean, for heavens’ sake – the Minister of State Security didn’t even know his wife was a drug dealer. How absurd is that?

Max, I’m afraid that your beautiful multi-cultural and diverse dreamscape Utopia has come apart at the seams and no amount of wishful thinking and propaganda will fix that – ever. There is no reasoning that will correct what went wrong. There is no political remedy – the ANC has created a voter base dependent on hand-outs and social grants.

So what will it be Max, Banana Republic or Absurdistan?