If you are white, things tend to work better for you…hell, companies are even prepared to spend R20m to protest your murder. Not only that, the police will work harder and make sure they arrest the people responsible for your demise, and the courts will be as inspired and convict and sentence the guilty party in record time! If only the system worked as well for everyone else. I have read of cases where people spend YEARS in prison, awaiting a trial! And then we have this white dude who gets murdered and his case jumps to the front of the queue – why? Because he is white!
Paul Harris…eish! So they claim to have withdrawn the campaign after ‘consulting broadly’…does this guy not know that it makes him look even more stupid? So, he decided to have this campaign without consulting broadly? And what is with this whole thing about wanting Thabo Mbeki to publicly admit that crime is out of hand? So, assuming he does that…will the bickering stop? And exactly what do they mean by saying that crime is now ‘out of hand’? There are communities that have been ravaged by crime. The Cape Flats is well-known for the crime levels there, but how come Mr Harris has not felt compelled to use R20m of shareholders’ money to put out a campaign to urge the President to make crime a priority? I’ll tell you why? Because the normally rich white folks do not stay there! Now that this crime – which a lot of the population has been living with – has reached the white areas…and it has resulted in the death of a ‘world-renowned’ historian, there is such a huge outcry!
Speaking of outcries! A friend mentioned to me that none of our news papers in SA is owned by a black South African. By owned, he meant that they can influence the agenda - not some toothless BEE deal. The only black owned newspaper is owned by a Zimbabwean. The other one was owned by a Nigerian (interestingly enough, that folded due to lack of funding – and yet we have companies that make no apologies for blowing R20m on an ill-conceived campaign). That should put an end to any ideas you had of SA having an ‘independent media’. On a day after a young black girl had been brutally murdered in Soweto, the focus of the newspapers was on FNB being ‘bullied’ into withdrawing their planned campaign?! Oh, I forget, we focus on the white folks! All eyes on the white folks! R20m could have been used to clear out the veld where this girl was murdered. Rather, Mr Paul Harris, in his infinite wisdom decided to use it to come up with a campaign intended to highlight a matter on which everyone is in agreement!
What am I missing???
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Friday, February 02, 2007
What a start...
Reading the newspapers, one can not help feeling that this year has got off to a rather interesting start…the “convicted fraudster” Tony Yengeni was released from prison to much fanfare…some dude from Cameroon tried to hijack a plane bound for Johannesburg…two local dudes are about to be placed on the UN Security Council list of suspected terrorists…the police, presumably feeling helpless from being unable to cool down the recent sharp increases in violent crimes in Pretoria, have decided to pick on ‘innocent’ people (a few officers are being investigated for police brutality…they are ‘alleged’ to have beaten up a Pretoria sex-worker until she lost consciousness)…the chief of the Ekhuruleni Metro Police who can’t remember anything about the accident but just that he was not drunk…yep, quite a beginning to the year indeed!
Latest in the news is the murder of one David Rattray. He apparently was known world-wide and was a world-renowned historian and an Anglo-Zulu war expert. Now FNB is about to launch a huge campaign on the crime levels in the country. A lot of ‘excitement’ this matter is bringing.
A friend once said something to me a while back that I thought was true then, and believe is true in this case. At the time we were talking about the interest of the ‘international community’ in the situation in Zimbabwe (back when the farm invasions started), against the apparent lack of interest in the numerous reports of cannibalism in the DRC, and of the fighting in Liberia. My friend’s insight was simply this: The interest in Zim is because the white race is involved. As far as the DRC and Liberia are concerned, the ‘international community’ was happy to sit back – let them black people kill and eat each other all they want!
The country goes into a tailspin over the murder of one white man…what of the many black people who are murdered daily? You want something to go into a tailspin over, I’ll give you something: Them four white kids who, because they were bored and generally hate black people, decided to beat up one man and beat up the other until he was dead! Now there is something to go into a tailspin about! Not a case of kids who burn a mouse alive, not Tony Yengeni killing a bull!
Oh yeah, I think we do need to bring back the death penalty in this here country – we start off by hanging them four white boys!!! What’s that? Oh, its just the echo of my own voice. I don’t hear them white people who are always calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty shouting along with me. Why? Because they mean that we need to bring it back for the black folks. For the white kids who knowingly assault black people to death, we give them a few years in prison.
And why is there this call by everyone to the president to ‘publicly acknowledge’ that crime is a problem in SA. I do not get it! Will Mbeki making a speech on the seriousness of crime in SA suddenly end the crime wave? Those enlightened on attributes of good leaders will know that the last thing a country - or company - needs is a leader who panics. Crime levels have reached alarming proportions, the country is in a state of panic...do we really want our leader to panic too? I know I would rather have a leader who stays calm and carefully and decisively works out a way to resolve the situation...Mbeki is that leader for me...
I have the utmost belief that something is being done about it. The results will not be evident now, but something will be done. I think back to the time of the Cape Town bombings….they worried everyone…there were all these same cries…but then they stopped…
As a final word: I find this Kebble-murder matter horribly suspicious. Why are we expending so much time and energy and taxpayers money to find out who killed a person who was destined to end up in jail anyway? And trust the media to divert the attention of the people. Now, we do know that the dudes who probably were involved in this whole thing are white dudes, but somehow, most of the media attention has been on Jackie Selebi – a black dude! Hmmm…makes you think, doesn’t it? Independent media? Yeah, whatever!!!
I am proudly African!
Latest in the news is the murder of one David Rattray. He apparently was known world-wide and was a world-renowned historian and an Anglo-Zulu war expert. Now FNB is about to launch a huge campaign on the crime levels in the country. A lot of ‘excitement’ this matter is bringing.
A friend once said something to me a while back that I thought was true then, and believe is true in this case. At the time we were talking about the interest of the ‘international community’ in the situation in Zimbabwe (back when the farm invasions started), against the apparent lack of interest in the numerous reports of cannibalism in the DRC, and of the fighting in Liberia. My friend’s insight was simply this: The interest in Zim is because the white race is involved. As far as the DRC and Liberia are concerned, the ‘international community’ was happy to sit back – let them black people kill and eat each other all they want!
The country goes into a tailspin over the murder of one white man…what of the many black people who are murdered daily? You want something to go into a tailspin over, I’ll give you something: Them four white kids who, because they were bored and generally hate black people, decided to beat up one man and beat up the other until he was dead! Now there is something to go into a tailspin about! Not a case of kids who burn a mouse alive, not Tony Yengeni killing a bull!
Oh yeah, I think we do need to bring back the death penalty in this here country – we start off by hanging them four white boys!!! What’s that? Oh, its just the echo of my own voice. I don’t hear them white people who are always calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty shouting along with me. Why? Because they mean that we need to bring it back for the black folks. For the white kids who knowingly assault black people to death, we give them a few years in prison.
And why is there this call by everyone to the president to ‘publicly acknowledge’ that crime is a problem in SA. I do not get it! Will Mbeki making a speech on the seriousness of crime in SA suddenly end the crime wave? Those enlightened on attributes of good leaders will know that the last thing a country - or company - needs is a leader who panics. Crime levels have reached alarming proportions, the country is in a state of panic...do we really want our leader to panic too? I know I would rather have a leader who stays calm and carefully and decisively works out a way to resolve the situation...Mbeki is that leader for me...
I have the utmost belief that something is being done about it. The results will not be evident now, but something will be done. I think back to the time of the Cape Town bombings….they worried everyone…there were all these same cries…but then they stopped…
As a final word: I find this Kebble-murder matter horribly suspicious. Why are we expending so much time and energy and taxpayers money to find out who killed a person who was destined to end up in jail anyway? And trust the media to divert the attention of the people. Now, we do know that the dudes who probably were involved in this whole thing are white dudes, but somehow, most of the media attention has been on Jackie Selebi – a black dude! Hmmm…makes you think, doesn’t it? Independent media? Yeah, whatever!!!
I am proudly African!
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