REFLECTIONS ON THE 2014 STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS!!
I watched the parliamentary debate on 17 February after many years of not watching that…
Jacob Zuma
FRANTZ FANON’S TEACHINGS FALLING ON DEAF EARS!
The African continent was under colonial rule except Ethiopia and Liberia. Then Ghana became independent…
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WHERE ARE WE GOING?
“Never before have questioners asked their question in such dolorous tones or rephrased their question…
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AFRICA FIFTY YEARS AFTER FORMATION OF THE OAU!
On the 25th May 1963 the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), now known as the…
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MARIKANA MASSACRE A SIGN THERE IS NO ECONOMIC LIBERATION IN SOUTH AFRICA
Marikana Massacre of 50 African workers and 78 injured at the platinum mine North-West of Johannesburg under ANC government on 16 August 2012, illustrates the absence of economic liberation for 80% of the African people who were supposedly “liberated” in April 1994. Azania (South Africa) is home to 80% of the world’s known reserve of platinum, a very precious metal which competes with gold in value and price.
The price of platinum fluctuates between $1650 and $1800 per ounce. Miners at Marikana platinum mine as all other mines where minerals are dug from the ground; do very dangerous work. Some miners have described mining as “graves” as the mine can collapse at any time bury them, never for them to come out alive. The Marikana platinum miners went on strike demanding an increase on their wages. They are paid R4000 a month. This is about five hundred American dollars. Many of these miners have families to support.
They were massacred in what the media has described as: “Another Sharpeville,” “The Hill of Horror,” “Bloodiest Security Operation Since Apartheid,” “Bloodbath,” “Killing Field,” “Mine Slaughter,” etc. Three thousand miners took part in this mine strike. It involved talks with mine company unsuccessfully. The platinum bosses are some of the leading controllers of the economy in this economically colonised African country.
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2012 JANUARY 8 STATEMENT AND THE HISTORY OF THE LIBERATION STRUGGLE
I don’t want to dwell on whether or not the delivery of ANC President Jacob Zuma’s speech on the occasion of the ANC’s centenary celebration was or wasn’t well delivered. I would rather delve on the contents of the speech.
Zuma began his January 8th statement marking the centenary of the founding of the ANC with a self-contradictory statement which is also controversial. He quoted the preamble of the Freedom Charter which states that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white”. Zuma then said, “in 1913 the Land Act was enacted which dispossessed the Africans of their land”. He didn’t say “all who live in South Africa, black and white were dispossessed of their land”, he said the Africans were dispossessed of their land. How then does South Africa belong to all who live in it, black and white when South Africa was usurped from Africans? The founders of the PAC who were known as the Africanists said it in 1955 when the Freedom Charter reared its ugly head that it didn’t make sense because it was a betrayal of African Nationalism and of the material interests of the African people. They also demanded to know its author whose name was never revealed. In his book Young Mandela first published in 2010, David James Smith reveals that the Freedom Charter was written by a white Communist Party member, Rusty Bernstein. The Freedom Charter is also a repudiation of the African people’s anti-colonialist stance of “Africa for the Africans”.
Zuma also said the Freedom Charter was Professor ZK Matthews’ idea. It’s true that it was his idea which he raised at the regional ANC conference in August 1953 and later drafted a memo to define more clearly his ambition for a dream of freedom for all, a blueprint for a democratic, non-racial South Africa. However, the contraption that Bernstein wrote was not what Professor ZK Matthews envisaged. Zuma and many in the ANC who claim that the idea of the Freedom Charter was Professor ZK Matthews’ invariably fail to mention that he then took no further part in the exercise, never even saw the draft charter that was drawn up and did not attend the conference himself because he felt sidelined and excluded from the process that he had set in motion. The campaign fell into the hands of a National Action Council, which offended the Africanists by being neither exclusively African nor giving sufficient prominence to the ANC.
Bernstein didn’t think anyone ever actually read and agreed to the draft before it went to the press. Professor Matthews was not alone in never seeing the draft. The ANC President Chief Albert Luthuli was never shown a copy either because at the time he was banned and still in Groutville. Former ANC President Dr AB Xuma had written a letter which complained that the new leadership was forgetting its old values and was too quick to join with other races and that the ANC was losing its identity. That new ANC leadership suppressed Dr Xuma’s letter, reading only parts of it. That same leadership had difficulties adopting the Freedom Charter.
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THE RAPING OF HISTORY – REJOINDER TO PALLO JORDAN’S ‘ON A CENTURY OF MOVEMENT’
If I were to compare Dr Pallo Jordan‘s article headlined, “On a century of movement”…
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POLITICAL MACHINATIONS AND THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE JUDICIARY – A REJOINDER TO THEMBA LANGA
Senior Attorney Themba Langa opens his article in Sowetan of 23 August published under the headline, “Judicial independence is not equal to supremacy over state” by writing that “the storm surrounding the nomination of Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng as President Jacob Zuma’s preferred candidate to be the next chief justice symbolises the destruction of the crucial cornerstone of our democracy – the judiciary”.
I would argue, and so would many other South Africans, that it is Zuma’s flouting of the constitution and the silly appointments he makes that symbolises the destruction of the judiciary. The President, after consulting the Judicial Service Commission and the leaders of parties represented in the National Assembly, appoints the Chief Justice. President Zuma came up with the name of Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng before consulting the JSC and leaders of all political parties represented in Parliament
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RACISM, POWER AND THE NATIONAL QUESTION POST APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA
“Racism (White Supremacy) is the local and global power system and dynamic, structured and maintained by persons who classify themselves as white, whether consciously or subconsciously determined, which consists of patterns of perception, logic, symbol formation, thought, speech, action and emotional response, as conducted simultaneously in all areas of people activity (economics, education, entertainment, labour, law, politics, religion, sex and war), for the ultimate purpose of white genetic survival and to prevent white genetic annihilation on planet earth – a planet upon which the vast majority of people are classified as non-white (Black, Brown, Red and Yellow) by white skinned people, and all of the nonwhite people are genetically dominant (in terms of skin colouration) compared to the genetic recessive white skinned people”, Dr Frances Cress Welsing.
The system of Racism (White Supremacy) utilizes deceit and violence (inclusive of chemical warfare, biological warfare and psychological warfare), indeed any means necessary, to achieve its ultimate goal objective of white genetic survival and to prevent white genetic annihilation on planet Earth.
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THE AUTOPSY OF SA STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS
President Jacob Zuma delivered his 2011 state of the nation address to parliament. Since the time of Nelson Mandela, we have been hearing the same story every February. Zuma gets his fat cheque every month so are Cabinet Ministers and Members of Parliament, including those of the opposition and they don’t give two hoots about the poor and unemployed. They are the worst hypocrites.
Praise singing, which was introduced by Nelson Mandela, has gotten out of hand and reflects the parochialism of ethnicity/tribalism. It doesn’t belong to a national institution like the national assembly. Parliament must transcend tribal predilection.