The Reality of Living in Lockdown

I don't know about you but I want to scream every time I see a stupid FB post about people "putting on weight" during lockdown and wondering how they are going to get through the door. Or the ones of people dancing to their fridge for a snack as a form of exercise! Wake up you morons! Most people's fridges are empty! They have had no work for almost 3 months so how have they been putting food on the table? Some have been lucky enough to receive a portion of their salaries or UIF payments to see them through but I very much doubt if they have money for "snacks" or luxuries! 

The people who work for themselves who have been forced to stop trading have had no income at all! 

I am so glad that some more lockdown restrictions have been lifted but for many, it may already be too late. 

So, pick up your phone and call someone who you know may have had no income, or someone who lives alone and may be depressed. Check up on people you know, even if you just chat via messaging. If they need assistance and you can give it, then do so or just give some moral support. We seriously need to stand together now as much as we did 3 months ago. 

Will we have Civil War in 2019?

The rhetoric of three parties, the EFF, BLF and, by default, the ANC, in 2018 has basically been that it is ok to forcibly take land from, and kill the white people of South Africa. Really?

Well from a white person's point of view all I can say is "You have got to be kidding me!" What is so annoying is that the white people who did not want to be part of this new South Africa, who were racist enough to not want to live in a land of equality, all left! Long ago! In fact they have been leaving over the last 24 years while the ANC has steadily been destroying our beloved country. Now, the racist EFF and BLF want to kill those of us who are still here, who stayed because we love this country and we believed in the vision of Nelson Mandela. We have friends of different race groups, we mingle in a way that was never allowed before and we delight in it. Many young white couples, have willingly opened their arms and homes to the multitude of orphaned black children and adopted creating multiracial families.... What about them? Young people are intermarrying - do they stand by and watch their partner get slaughtered? What about their bi-racial children? Where do they fit in? Where does the call to slaughter stop? Remember that we were the ones who voted "Yes" to change in 1994.

What is this sudden rise in racial hatred all about? Quite honestly, it looks to me like a great big fat diversion tactic! Jacob Zuma is in court for State Capture. Our economy is sunk, Cyril Ramaphosa is in bed with the Chinese and handing our country to them on a silver platter. So why not get everyone's attention somewhere else and do this by starting to spew vile hate speech and threats.

And then we have the "land grab's" threats.  This should be interesting. Already many farmers have stopped planting crops in response to this threat and so we slide slowly into a food shortage. Next they will sell off their equipment (You don't think that they are going to just leave it there for you to take, do you Julius?)

The day the tension snapped

Living in South Africa is extremely stressful no matter what colour you are; how much money you have (or don't); how educated you are and how old you are. The fact of living in a country where crime is rampant and is particularly prolific in government, means that the lawless and ruthless behave with impunity and everyone is a potential victim. Collectively we are all the victims of the government and the Gupta's as our economy spirals down the toilet and the cost of living rises like a tsunami and threatens to drown us.  Individually we all either know someone personally or have ourselves been the victim of a crime whether it be a hijacking, bag snatching, household robbery, violent crime which can include all of the above with a gun or knife added to the mix. Victims of rape or other physically violent crimes may be given counselling but for the rest of us we just need to shoulder the problem and get over it and on with life. As a result of this, most of us live in a state of fear that we hardly even acknowledge either to ourselves or to anyone else. It is this state of fear, of heightened sensitivity to potential danger that has caused us to over react to situations. The first signs of this that I noticed was the huge reaction to three separate incidents where the police chased down and shot dead hijackers and bank robbers in a space of two weeks. The public reaction was one of absolute joy! High praise for the "take no prisoners" action of the police flooded social media and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

The relief was short-lived and perhaps made us feel even more vulnerable as was shown by a horrific incident that recently occurred in my hometown.  The true events that took  place were completely different to what people assumed was taking place but the outcome was the same - two innocent men killed by a frenzied mob who were sick and tired of all the violence and crime that surrounds us.

The fake story was that two men had kidnapped a young girl and got her into their car. The members of the public stopped the kidnappers, saved the girl and beat the kidnappers to death and also found human body parts in a bag in the car which indicated that the men were working for a sangoma and that the girl was being taken to be used for muthi (traditional medicine).

The true story was that a father, accompanied by his friend, had fetched his mentally challenged young son from his school and, as the little boy had complained of being hungry, the father had left him in  the car with his friend and gone to buy the child something to eat. As the father walked off to the shop, the young boy started crying and shouting for his daddy and nothing the friend did could calm him down. As a result, passersby saw the child in distress, assumed the worst, and attacked the man in the car in order to "rescue" the child. A bystander who had seen what had actually happened tried to stop the mob and was killed for his troubles. Two innocent men lost their lives for nothing. No matter how you try and make excuses for the actions of the public, this would never have happened in a country where the people do not live in constant fear, fueled by anger, at the outrageous behaviour of the government and the helplessness we all feel to do anything about it.

  

Entitled Immunity

This last week has seen the disGraceful behaviour (once again) of Grace Mugabe, the wife of Robert Mugabe; Presidential dictator of Zimbabwe. This time the person that (dis)Grace attacked decided to press charges and the public cheered at the thought that she would be held accountable for her actions. But the cheers were short-lived as she was granted diplomatic immunity and allowed to go home. The fact that she was not entitled to diplomatic immunity as she was here on private business was ignored. In addition, the fact that a South African Airways flight was not allowed to leave Zimbabwe was never tied to the Grace Mugabe situation by the news or the politicians but, the moment she was granted the immunity, the flight was given permission to leave. All of this is typical behaviour of the current South African government and the Zimbabwean government. Their positions of power are used purely for their own personal gain. The interests and rights of the citizens of both countries is of no concern to them. When Robert Mugabe came into power he talked a good talk about the changes that he was going to make and the people rejoiced! However, Zimbabwe has gone from being one of the wealthiest countries in Africa to one of the poorest as their President has sought purely to enrich himself and his cronies. South Africa is now following suit under the government of Jacob Zuma and his ANC compatriots.
The flagrant disregard for others, the law and the constitution as shown by the leaders of South Africa and Zimbabwe should set off alarm klaxons in the minds of the citizens and a move to replace them would seem logical. But nothing happens. People complain all over social media and then ignore it until the next incident and then the cycle is repeated. Why? Why are they allowed to behave like this? Is there a mindset that sees people in power as having no need to be held accountable for their actions? Are they somehow seen as being entitled to have what they want, when they want and however they want it no matter who suffers? Is this the reason for the high crime rate in our otherwise beautiful country? Does this sense of entitlement and complete disdain for others make a person seem powerful and great to their followers? Is this the way that so many people expect leadership to be done?
I sincerely hope that the examples that are being set by Zuma, the ANC and our neighbours the Mugabe's are going to open the eyes of the people who are at the receiving end of the greed and corruption. I am praying for a rise in the demand for justice and a desire for servant leadership. Leaders who are at the helm with a desire to improve the quality of life for all citizens, to bring the country to greatness in productivity, education, technology, healthcare and all round excellence. For the eradication of poverty and thereby a massive reduction in crime and disease. This can be done, but not with people like Zuma (and the Gupta's) and Mugabe's in power.

The State of our Nation

The State of Our Nation Recently our pathetic excuse for a President, Jacob Zuma, gave his State of the Nation Address (SONA) which I am not going to discuss because this is not a "political" blog, nor do I profess to be an expert on political matters. I do know that many people who watched it did so purely for the entertainment factor to see how many numbers he would say incorrectly and what words he would misuse or mispronounce. The fact is, we don't need to listen to that clown's lies as we all know that, thanks to him and his cronies, the state of our nation is terrible. Our education system is a joke, our Rand is almost at junk status and the rest of our basic services are heading down the toilet. In fact, things are so bad, that those (few) people (okay maybe one or two) who just may have been waiting at the airport for Samuel L. Jackson to arrive now that Trump is in power, would have given up waiting by now and gone home because not even Mr Jackson is stupid enough to carry out his "threat" to move to South Africa. So how are things really in our once great nation? Well so far 2017 has been rather hectic and the death of one of our country's icon's - Joost van der Westhuizen - after 5 years of suffering with a particularly aggressive form of Motor Neuron Disease, drew a response of sadness and loss from people of all races and groups across the country. It was suggested that we wear our rugby jersey's on the day of his funeral and I was amazed to see people from so many different walks of life and different races wearing their green and gold in honour of this one man. A sad event, that temporarily united us. Another extremely tragic event has been the loss of over 94 lives of mentally ill patients who were taken out of a certain hospital, and transferred to various NGO's that were not properly equipped to deal with these patients. As one representative for the patients families said "Unfortunately, with our government, people have to die, have to protest, before anything gets done." At the start of the State of the Nation Address one of the members of an opposition party asked the speaker of the House if she could call for a moment of silence to remember these 94 deceased. She emphatically denied the request. This should never have even had to have been requested! It should have been one of the first items on the Speaker's agenda! Just another display by the ANC government of their complete lack of concern for the people of South Africa. So how are we, the general public, surviving? There is greater unemployment than ever before; our murder rate has become one of the highest in the world; our general crime is almost always accompanied by violence and yet I am seeing a definite bonding of the people that wasn't there before. Through his greed and corruption impoverishing the entire country, Jacob Zuma has given us, black, white, coloured, indian, a common enemy and when you have a common enemy then you become united. This gives me hope that, through all of this, God will use our situation to strengthen our country and eventually to root out the evil that has it's grip around the throat of the nation. Churches are flourishing and hope is not lost, in fact, hope is growing as we see the Zuma /Gupta alliance crumbling and the gravy train is starting to wobble on the rails. The State of Our Nation is not what people like Nelson Mandela fought for and then worked so hard to ensure was a peaceful transition from a country ruled by suppression to a country with a great democracy. No, our nation is now even more suppressed than ever before; racism is just as rampant where people who are Indian, Coloured or White are passed over in favour of Blacks even if the others are more qualified. People are still being chosen for their race and not their skills so apartheid has not been eliminated, it has just swopped sides. More people have died under the rule of Jacob Zuma than under the entire apartheid regime. So what can we do? More and more of the marginalised Whites, Indians and Coloureds are starting up their own small businesses in order to put food on their tables. People are angry, hurt, and totally fed up with the treatment we have had at the hand of Jacob Zuma and his theiving cronies but we put one foot in front of the other one and we keep moving forward. N'KOSI SIKELE AFRIKA! GOD BLESS (SOUTH) AFRICA!

Human Chains, Burning Boats, No racists?

Sometimes God answers prayers in extravagant ways. Our country has been hit by severe drought and we have all been on water rations as a result as dams have been at an all time low. So, of course, there have been millions of people praying fervently for rain. As the dry winter months have left us behind and the wet and windy spring arrived, everyone worried whether the spring months would bring sufficient rain to fill up the dams before the hot South African summer months arrived. Well the final month of spring has seen flash floods, major thunderstorms (far more than normal) and huge hail storms that made the ground look like it was covered in snow. And the dams have slowly been filling up. On wednesday afternoon they experienced flash floods in the late afternoon as the traffic was peaking. Out of nowhere roads turned into rivers with cars been submerged in water and people trapped. Out of all this chaos, in one of the worst hit areas, men of all races climbed out of their respective vehicles - cars, taxis, trucks and formed a human chain to help the people stuck in the middle of the raging water,and get across to dry land. There was no racism, no fighting between motorist and taxi driver, just concerned citizens helping each other in a time of crisis. This is what makes us proud to be South African. This is what we love about this country and the people of this country. A few days back there was a terrible boating accident on the Hartbeespoort Dam when a fire broke out on a pleasure boat carrying a party of about 200 people. Tragically four people lost their lives in this accident but if they had remained on the boat instead of panicking then they may still be alive today. However, the reason that I am telling this story is that the partygoers on the boat were primarily people of one race group. On the dam at the same time were members of the public in their own boats enjoying the afternoon, doing whatever it is that people with boats do. Many of them never hesitated and rushed to the burning pleasure boat and started helping people, who had jumped overboard, onto their private vessels and taking them safely to shore. The people with the boats were primarily members of another race group, one that is supposedly racist and filled with hatred for the other group and yet nothing is being said about this amazing act of kindness and bravery to rescue the people that they are supposed to "hate". When things like this happen I feel certain that,if the citizens of this country were not subjected to the selfish

agenda's of the politicians, we would all just get on with life and not worry about all the so called racism that people like Julius Malema keep stirring up and throwing in our faces. The majority of the people in this country are Christian or have some belief in God, and most South Africans feel that we are all the same because God created Man in His image and, based on that, we can continue with our process of healing and reconciliation from the effects of apartheid which, the man in the street is, on the whole, doing very well thank you.

While the American's Voted

All across the United States, the people of the most powerful country in the Western World, are streaming to the election polls to go and choose their next President. They are in a bit of a sticky situation as neither of their main candidates are particularly appealing. However, they still get to go and vote. Obama's term is over - eight years completed and that's it, time to move on to the next President. Democracy in action as it should be The right to choose who governs your country and, should that person not do the job properly, the right to vote them out of power after 4 years. While the circus of the run-up to the elections has been headline news all over the world, and consumed facebook pages and twitter, we, in our little corner of the globe, have been dealing with a man who makes Clinton and Trump combined look like squeaky clean angels. Our own Jacob Zuma who has seven hundred and eighty three corruption charges outstanding against him,who raped his own daughter's best friend, has more wives than he has brain cells, who has been found guilty of using tax payers money to build his own estate, and the list goes on and on. If Jacob Zuma's lips are moving, then you know that he is lying. He has practically sold our country to the Gupta family in order to increase his own wealth, and we are probably going to take at least a decade to recover from all the misuse of state funds and other illegal transactions. People are getting poorer, unemployment is sitting at over 40% and due to the drought, the cost of food is astronomical. Crime is getting more and more violent and a simple hijacking is now often followed by a senseless shooting of the victim. Drug taking is spiralling amongst the unemployed youth and the future for the teenagers is not looking very positive. Students are currently destroying the universities because they want to attend them for free. By the time they have finished destroying everything they will be able to sit and study for free - under the nearest tree! Julius Malema is screaming out to "Kill the Whites" even though there are not very many of us left, and take away any land that we own and our right to own any land. So what do we, the average citizen, have to say about all of this chaos in our beloved country as it not only cries but screams in agony? Well, for the most part, we seem to have become kinder to each other. People of all races are doing little acts of kindness to help another person, irrespective of their race or age or even religion. I, for example, was helped out by a lovely young black lady the other day when I was at the supermarket. All she did was pass me some of the items in my trolley that I was battling to reach (I am of rather limited height) and chatted to me as she did so. It was nothing extreme, just a simple act of kindness. Every day I read of other small acts of generosity and kindness, for example the black gentleman who stopped when he saw that a young white woman was broken down on the side of the road. Understanding that she was afraid when he approached her, he spoke to her kindly and told her that he would just wait until her help arrived because it was not safe for her to be sitting alone where she was an easy target for criminals. Once her help arrived and she realised that she was safe and that he had no intentions of hurting her, she thanked him with tears in her eyes and yet another brick in the wall of apartheid was torn down. You see, the laws of the country may have changed in 1994 and a new government put in power to bring about the necessary changes, but, as beloved as Nelson "Madiba" Mandela was by all the people of South Africa, and as much as he united us, and our sportsmen and women united us, it is only really now, as we truly struggle, as we deal with a man who has lied and cheated and laughed in the face of the very people who trusted him, that we are slowly coming together. We can joke about this abominable man and his minions in the government as their gravy train is about to be derailed, we smile at each other and shake our mutual heads at the latest scandal to rock the nation and we finally realise that we are all in this together and that we can only rely on each other. For many of us, who have full trust in God, we know that He is at work and that His hand is moving through our land and drawing lost people to Himself.'