Palestinians, Schmalestinians - Who Cares?

We were in Babas Khaya the other evening. There on the TV they said that Israel was using fighter jets to destroy Gaza City, including some major buildings. The piles of rubble were enormous.

“Geez”, I said. “And we complained about apartheid? I don’t remember them going at us like that. Maybe these Palestinians have a point.”

Bongi agreed, “It’s true, they mostly just used rubber bullets and teargas, except in Angola, but they certainly never destroyed buildings wholesale like that. Mind you, they probably never had such big buildings, and that’s probably why.”

Then Pendulwa piped up, as always: “Why do you talk about that? No one talks about the Palestinians. No one cares. I mean, not a peep out of our Government. Not a peep out of any other, except the Americans, and they have offered moral support to the Israelis. I think we should do what everyone else is doing, and look the other way. Don’t watch when they show these atrocities.”

At least a minute of silence ensued. We were struck dumb. Never had we heard such absolute wisdom, such logic, such no nonsense truth, from the mouth of Pendulwa. For a moment I was aroused, and I hoped the ensuing embarrassment was not evident on my face. But I was safe. Bongi and the others were still trying to swallow this Pendulwa bombshell.

UdocTswala considers himself a bit of an academic, so he can always be relied on to break in when a conversation gets to high brow for the rest of us. “Yes, good point Pendulwa. But imagine if the world had treated us that way during the Apartheid years? Imagine if the rest of the world had ignored us, and if they had actually even supported the Apartheid regime, as they do the Israelis? Where would we be today? We’d still be an occupied nation, as they are, except a lot more of us dead. And all poor. I wonder why they would have supported us, but not the Palestinians? What did we have that the Palestinians do not have? The situations seem so similar.”

That got us all thinking. What is the difference? There seems none, except the obvious differences between the individuals themselves. I mean that your average Palestinian is a Muslim, has got lighter skin than us, and longer hair, and speak a different language. And that is all!

It seems kind of random, none of those differences really stand out. We must have argued and fought for three hours and 5 beers. Each. And those are quarts. I changed my mind 3 times, starting thinking it must be the religion, then the language, then the skin colour. Finally we decided to fight it out, and the winner would be the answer. We randomly selected a paper from a cup, each of which had the difference on that we would be fighting for. I selected "longer hair". I reckoned that was as good as the others, and took a long swig in preparation to win.

Then uDocTswala saved the day again. He pointed out that if we fought, he would lose, and either Pendulwa or Bongi would win. So the answer turned out to be either skin colour or being a Muslim. As we staggered home, I thanked the Almighty that we in Africa are all black and not Palestinian brown, and I am a Christian and not a Muslim...

 

There are many other great  reasons to be African and not anything else: https://siphodlamini.wordpress.com/2020/07/19/now-we-wish-we-were-african/

 

Who to Vote For

We were in Babas Khaya the other night. Its coming up to municipal election day so we were discussing who to vote for.
Pendulwa is still an ANC person: "I will never forsake Unbaba. I love him so much. He's like a father to me. I always think he might usurp Mugabe as the greatest African of all time. If only everyone would support him."
me: "But pendulwa, you never even met him. Besides, he keeps stealing money. Surely we should choose someone more honourable?
 Pendulwa: You speak of honour? Where is your respect? Ubaba is the president, and you dare to say he steals. its disgusting. You should be thrown in jail. Anyway, I never met my real father either.
Phumelani: "Pendulwa's right. You must respect Ubaba, your leader. Besides, he hasn't stolen. He committed fraud and bribery and corruption, which are white man terms, like censorship. If you are elected leader, everything is yours anyway. How can you steal what is yours? Even the women, they are yours. So you can't commit rape either."
Pendulwa: "True, true. when we finally take control of this country, we will make sure the media never use those terms again. they will never denigrate Ubaba, our great leader.
Me: "But you took control 17 years ago. You've done nothing. Maybe someone else must have a turn."
Pendulwa: "We never took control. The white man gave us political power but never gave us any other power. He still runs the show. he still writes in the newspaper. he still pays me at work. we must demand all power. Besides, we had those silly white man puppets as presidents. None of them made the white man cross like Ubaba does. Ubaba is our first true African leader. we must give him a chance to get things right."
Me: "But what about Malema? Is he not a better African than Ubaba? Why don't we vote EFF?
Pendulwa: "I can not listen to you anymore. I'm going to kill you."
With that Pendulwa grabbed a quart and broke it on the side of the table. She had the sense to check it was empty first, breaking a non-empty one is unforgiveable. Luckily for me, Baba, who is a big guy, was there before she could carry out her threat.

How to Not Go To Jail

We were in Babas Khaya on Friday. The topic was Oscar Pistorius. Sibonga described an incident where someone managed to kill her husband, inherit all his money and shack up with her lover. I also happened to know a similar story, about someone else, in a similar area near where we all stay. Then it struck me that people are getting away with murder every day. Oscar, being a relative beginner, is going to have to spend a few months in the medical wing of some jail this time around. But the second and third times he will know exactly what to do.

Although I have not yet stepped up to murder, I am an experienced criminal and have had more than my fair share of police and the criminal justice system. I understand them.

Let me give you the low down. Don't say that the best information in life (like cellphones and computers and stuff) can not be got for free:

1) Target someone who hasn't got close family and rich family. If you do, they might hire a private investigator and then you could be implicated. If the police detectives investigate, there is NO WAY you will be even considered as a suspect. I have met some of these detectives at our local police station and they are more interested in lunch than crime.

2) Target someone with a big farm or small holding in  a rural area. That means they have money. The police in rural areas are guaranteed to be completely useless and disinterested.

3) Make friends with the police. You can get away with all sorts of crime if you are their buddy.

4) Target a relatively unknown person. Never target a celebrity because the police will feel obliged to investigate.

5) Make it easy for the detectives by  providing an "easy solution". This means stage some reason for the death that will give them an excuse to not investigate. A common one is a car accident. Suicide is also good. Notice it hardly has to be convincing, just enough for them to be able to overlook all the obvious evidence, such as your benefiting from a large insurance payout or a recently-adjusted will.

6) If you made a mistake with any of the above five points, you may end up with a docket. No problem. Ask your lawyer to pay to have the docket lost.

7) If you made a mistake with point 4 above, like Oscar did, you may not be able to avoid going to court. If this is the case, continue to point 8 below.

8) You will notice that the judge in Oscar's trial ignored all evidence and agreed totally with what Oscar said. This is how courts work. So the rule is: Deny everything. Say everyone is a liar. Never, ever admit to the crime, no matter how compelling the evidence. If your lawyer doesn't agree, get another. You watch, if Oscar ever gets into court again (unlikely, he will know better next time), he'll say that it wasn't him who fired the shot. If he had done this, and stuck to his guns no matter what, he wouldn't even have got the manslaughter charge.

The main reason people go to jail from a court case is that they feel compelled to tell the truth. Every hardened criminal knows mantra "the truth will get you locked up". Resist the urge to be honest and get away with murder.

More Tender Opportunities Coming Up

The police really had it hard. Imagine being expected to have a driving license if you want to be a policeman? Ridiculous, really!

http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2014/04/24/saps-getting-driving-lessons-to-save-fleet

This requirement was forcing policemen to go and buy illegal driving licenses so they could join the police service. Well that’s fair enough. They had no choice. They HAD to break the law. The idea that you can get a real driving license if you actually learn to drive obviously didn’t occur to them. That’s fair enough, they’re not being hired to be creative.

Also, why make it so hard (ok, expensive, depending on how you view it) to join the police service? Constable Patsy Mkula, a shining star in the police force, noticed the problem and applied her mind to a solution. The solution, like all brilliant ideas, is deceptively simple: waive the requirement. The result? Much fewer policemen are buying fake driving licenses before signing up. This is a double bonus for the police service. Theoretically they don’t have to buy and maintain police cars anymore. 

"What we have done actually is to uphold our most supreme law of this country. The Bill of Rights states that national legislation must be enacted to prohibit unlawful discrimination," she said.

Further investigation found that the requirement that you need to be in enough physical shape to run 50m was also preventing people from qualifying to join the force. Clinically obese people were finding this 50m run difficult. That sounds like exclusion based on a person’s shape. Unconstitutional, surely? 

Some potential police officers were forced to circumvent this requirement by getting a friend to run the 50m instead. Otherwise they couldn’t join the police force. They had no choice. To prevent this from happening, Constable Patsy Mkula came up with another brilliant idea which was implemented immediately. Waive the requirement to be able to run 50m. This has been hugely successful, with people of over 120kg now signing up in their droves. This initiative alone reduced the incidence of cheating on the 50m running test substantially. Constable Patsy Mkula is now Brigadier Patsy Mkula.

The police force recently found all their remaining cars being crashed by the policemen with legacy fake driving licenses driving them around. So in a further display of brilliance, they decided to get all the policemen with fake licenses together and send them for driving lessons. 

I wonder who’s getting that tender? Hopefully Sipho’s Funerals, Transport, Overloaded Office Chair Repairs and Policemen with Fake Driver’s Licenses Driver Training Services (Pty) Ltd. 

SA Corruption Problem Revealed

Finally we have found out why corruption is such a problem in SA:

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/MG-must-retract-Mbete-story-ANC-20130910

It turns out that all this time the ANC didn't know what corruption was. And apparently they still don't. It must be helluva confusing being in government.

Take this article. The M&G revealed corruption in the article headline, but omitted to actually use the word elsewhere in the story. So the ANC thought they must have been mistaken. They couldn't detect any corruption in the story at all. In fact, the story was about something else entirely. It was about a minister demanding a better cut in an empowerment deal with Gold Fields.

My suggestion to the government: Redefine corruption. The problem here is that the M&G thinks corruption is something different to what you think it is. It should be easy enough to announce that M&G and the world had it wrong all the time, and the ANC had it right. Corruption is actually something entirely different. Its when some woman is sent to seduce you so she can announce it to the press afterwards and you lose your job. Vavi is corrupt. Us in government are clean...

The 7 Deadly Sins

These are: Gluttony (greed), envy, jealousy, pride, anger, sloth (laziness), and… how is it that the last thing is always so damn hard to remember? 80-20 rule again, I suppose. Anyway, if you’re African like me, you obviously don’t think too much about these rules, or place too much importance in them. More colonialist waffle. In fact, if you think about it, we embrace them as being good. Why else do we choose leaders that have these qualities? We see these qualities in our leaders and we see ourselves in our leaders. They are just like us. We see no harm in these qualities. We think that capitalism and the western world also embrace these qualities. These qualities define selfish, narcissistic and ultimately destructive behaviour, as opposed to humility, tolerance, patience and creative behaviour which are always for the greater good of the community and the earth itself. So what? The issue is that, for decades, civilized man had developed an “internal compass” based on certain rules to inhibit these qualities in us. Take religions, which have always been fairly dominant in civilizations, especially uneducated ones. All the religions promote the same behaviours destined to support social cohesion and community peace. This allows people to work together on a large scale, even a national scale. People subvert their selfish interests for the community interests, which ultimately is in their interests too. Over time they begin realizing this and naturally start working in the interests of the community. “Positive” humanistic behaviour is encouraged and looked up to. However, us Africans never really went through this, so we haven’t developed the internal compass. What this means is no empathy with animals or people, and no internal reasoning to not behave totally selfishly and without regard for others or the community. Of course, education helps. But most of us don’t get it. Throughout history our behaviour has only been controlled through fear, by witch doctors and ruthless chiefs. There has been no real understanding of why we should behave in community ways. We see no reason why we shouldn’t have a ruthless, greedy leader for our country, and if all our parliamentarians are fat, corrupt gluttons that’s good, because we see nothing wrong and would do exactly the same in their shoes. Our solution it seems, is legislation. But it can’t work. Ask any businessman – if you can’t trust your employees, and they don’t have the right attitude and aren’t aligned to organisational goals, you are dead in the water. You can make rules and impose security till you’re blue in the face, but things will not work out. People must guide themselves, but this requires an internal compass which encourages positive community behaviour. South Africa is a lost cause. Dead in the water. Destined to a Zuma future. An uneducated leader who has just helped me remember what the last deadly sin is. Lust. The ultimate embodiment of everything unsocial and uncivilized in a human being. So I guess our destiny is now staring us in the face, more or less assured. Another country of warring baboon troops, each led by a big, strong and ruthless dictator. Was there ever any other answer? Could an African country ever subvert the 7 deadly sins sufficiently to emerge as a united, successful and prosperous community? Let’s hope one of our neighbours can get it together and show us the way. Lets hope one day we’ll have the humility to follow their lead.

SARS Expcts Way Too Much of Us

I saw an advert where SARS doesn’t want Any supporting documentation from the Taxpayer, but expect the taxpayer to keep it for five years. Then when SARS come knocking you have to produce it. This is ridiculous. Imagine a person like me, who as a matter of necessity is mobile. I stay 3 months here, 6 months there, never sure what the future holds. People get cross with me and burn all my stuff. I lose the stuff n a rain fall and floods. The chances of my records lasting 5 years is very small. I suppose its lucky I don’t pay tax, because clearly I couldn’t, and I suppose I really shouldn’t. But sometimes I really feel I should contribute in some way, especially since theoretically it’s illegal not to….

Farming vs Golf Estates

The minister of agriculture recently expressed his/her concern about the number of golfing estates affecting the amount of agricultural land. He has every reason to be concerned. Traveling around the country you might discover places like Pringle Bay, a pristine piece of coastal land which has been scarred by a rash of indivualisticly and tastelessly styled houses. A sort of Rustenburg by die See. And how many people actually there when you visit? If there’s one in the hundreds of houses there, it’s a lot. Maybe there’ll be more in december. So effectively we have a ghost town, owned by very rich city dwellers. Why on earth can’t these city dwellers stay in a guest house? It much nicer, everyone does everything for you, and much, much cheaper. I wouldn’t understand, being African and not a Rustenburger. You might also discover the Thabazimbi area, where all the cattle farmers have discovered they can make their fortunes by selling the land for eco-estates. So it seems rich people are buying up the land for their empty holiday homes, and poor farmers are selling up. The result just has to be, however you look at it, much more expensive food in the future, much more risky food supply dominated by a few large producers, and plenty of starving people who can now still afford food, but are less likely to in the future. So the rich will starve the poor to death. They’ll use all the drinking water to water their golf courses. This in my book spells national disaster, and the sooner the government moves to put a stop to it the better.

Port Nelson Mandela

I was in Port Nelson Mandela recently. I understand it’s still officially called Port Elizabeth, but I’m sure not for long. It turns out that Elizabeth was the wife of some British colonialist. Why on earth he didn’t call it Port Pete or whatever his name was beats me. Maybe that’s a reason why he had such a nice wife. I wouldn’t understand, not being a British colonialist. I’m sure no African in history ever called anything after his wife, that’s for certain. Anyway, Port Nelson Mandela is much better. In fact Port Elizabeth is offensive to me personally. All whites offend me. It so happens that just about everything in Port Elizabeth is called Nelson Mandela. If you ever want to go somewhere interesting , just say Nelson Mandela something, eg “Nelson Mandela museum”, or “Madiba Bay”. I think Nelson Mandela now has at least 2 of everything named after him, and probably about 1000 roads nationally. Anyway, I visited St Georges Park (I assume they haven’t delivered the signs yet). There was this memorial to dead colonialists, complete with statue of terrorist (colonialist soldier) in battle with gun. (how come its so hard to call a colonialist soldier a terrorist? I suppose because they’re always dressed smartly, like soldiers. There’s surely no other difference. Then the official definitions should be: Terrorist – undisciplined, badly dressed fighter. Soldier – disciplined, smartly dressed fighter) For some reason, someone had painted the memorial and it was looking good. Obviously the colonialist remnants were hanging in there at the municipality. I pictured a statue of Nelson Mandela in his suit in its place. Then I pictured a ragged comrade war vet with an AK in its place. Somehow, though, the place won’t be the same. I also discovered, again surprisingly, that the gardens had been beautifully maintained, even the old, tasteful colonialist features had been preserved. How offensive. I sat in the beautiful gardens, listening to happy birds, and was offended. Why? Was it Envy? That it was colonialists who had made this? We have to unmake it, make it African. I pictured mielies instead of flowers, a sand patch surrounding a well, or a wood pole cattle kraal. Would we be losing something by Africanising this place? We’ll surely find out soon enough.

Being a Better European

I sometimes get piece work with a catering company owned by a colonialist invader.
Recently he had got a very big job, and took me down to Port Elizabeth to help out. As it turned out, the client was a government department. So we set up a large hall, which took 2 days, and it was magnificently decorated. Then we arranged the food for the 500+ guests, and again, everything went according to clockwork. The colonialist was very particular about how things should be, as he always is. Us workers can often not see his reasoning , or understand why he’ so particular about certain things, but he’s the boss. The evening of the function, there were other service providers, including a brother MC, a band of brothers and sisters (actually sister, but she was so magnificently large you may as well say sisters),and of course, the guys from the govt department who also had various things to organize,such as speeches and prize giving. Now the reason we don’t understand why the colonialist does what he does, is because he’s a white of European descent, an we’re black of African descent. In fact, everything my boss organized went smoothly and professionally, and almost everything else was a disaster – the MC was confused and messed up the awards, as were the govt officials, and most of their organized awards ceremony was in total disarray. The music was way too loud and inappropriate and everyone ate dinner while getting an ear blasting. The speeches were interminably long and boring. And why was this? Because this was a pseudo-European function. We Africans are unlikely to organize or even understand, a European function as well as the Europeans. And when things go wrong, we get jealous of the Europeans, and even blame them. This explains so much of Africa. It explains why affirmative action and racial quotas are such a remarkably short sighted and arrogant thing for us to do. Now let me paint a picture of how we Africans could actually succeed, and beat the world at their own game. First, we embrace the rejection of the 7 deadly sins, teach them to our children, concentrate on the teachings of great people like Biko and Mandela and Tutu. This is important since civilization is based on these norms. You can’t work together without it. There are, of course, many great whites we could use, and hopefully we can find sufficient humility to admit to ourselves how great these people are and embrace their teachings too, but maybe that’s too much too soon for us. Then we become proud of being Africans. We concentrate on our strengths. Then we acknowledge our fellow beings on earth, acknowledge their right to be their, forgive them all their sins, hold no more grudges about past grievances. Most importantly, we respect them! We respect the whites and acknowledge their strengths, same with the coloureds, Indians and Chinese. No more do we think we are better than them. Nor do we think we are worse. However, we can assume we’re better Africans than them. But this does not make us superior, it makes as merely a fellow being.

If we ever get this far, the rest is easy. We have weaknessesand strengths, which differ from those of other nations – obviously generalizing here, but you get the idea. We team up with them to form diverse, but united teams. Now you may say that Afrikaners, for example, are way too arrogant to team up with Africans. That may be so, because they are an arrogant bunch, but then leave them out of the mix. There are plenty of other, more humble nations willing to team up. As an aside, Afrikaners do tend to band together at the expense of their fellow other nationalities, especially in companies such as Eskom. Ever walked up to a group of Afrikaners, and as soon as you arrive a tense silence overcomes them? Then they talk in a stilted way when you’re around. As soon as they think you’re out of earshot, they revert to being pally with each other. Talk about being unable to mix with other nationalities! Understand that this is their problem, not yours.

Take rugby for instance. We have a world class team, and I don’t care how many blacks you put in the team, they will almost surely not match up to a team of mostly Afrikaners. Similarly, blacks are much better at athletics and soccer. Whites at swimming. And so on. And the same can be said for academic subjects and work careers. Blacks make excellent journalists, historians, politicians, negotiators, entrepreneurs. Whites make good engineers and accountants. I have seen how blacks struggle with engineering, when it comes so easily and naturally to whites. Whites are excellent managers and administrators, with less tendencies to be individualistic.

The whites are now in our power. Why not use them to our and (gasp) their advantage? To all our advantage? Make them and us rich and happy. Have vibrant and safe cosmo cities – everyone loves the feel and vibrancy of a mixed area. They’re here – take advantage! In fact, I’ve just thought of how to solve the crime problem – hire the whites as security guards and police. They appreciate security so would probably make a much bigger effort than us. But of course, this is all pie in the sky. I mustn’t forget how nasty the whites are, and how much they owe us, and me personally, etc, etc…