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!