Why I will NOT vote for the ANC tomorrow

I am going to vote in South Africa’s National General Elections tomorrow for the first time in 20 years, but it will not be for the ANC.

The reason can be stated simply in two words. Jacob Zuma.

Perhaps I should elaborate because contrary to Zuma’s most recent disingenuous attempt to paint himself as a victim, I have other reasons, and it’s not because I’m “bright.”

I am not worried about Nkandla. Not a single person said to us during the campaign they were worried about Nkandla. People are not worried about that. They don’t think it’s an issue that will affect how they vote. This is an issue raised by bright people [those who think they know better]. It has not worked. [Nkandla] is just a homestead of a man called Zuma who happened to become president. From when I became deputy president, I was told I couldn’t be in a car without bullet proof. It’s a benefit. Must I pay for those benefits? Why? When I go the United States, I use [state] aircraft. Must I pay for that? Why is it that the law has to change when we deal with Zuma.

I can’t be responsible for construction [at my house, and] that so-and-so inflated prices. How was I expected to see that? Where would I be when that happened? I am running the country.

Jacob Zuma has hijacked the ANC for his own personal benefit. To be fair, he did not do this single-handedly. He had lots of help from both inside this organization and outside. Were it not for other senior ANC members who likewise used public office for self-enrichment, most importantly, an apathetic and uncritical public, Zuma would not be at the helm of a once great organization that had admirers the world over.

The ANC is a shadow of its former self; it’s now evolved into a decrepit, self-serving, arrogant, tyrannical, dishonest, cronyistic and incompetent party. Yes, they have achieved much in 15 or so years, but the last five has seen the dramatic slide, which should in no way excuse the rot that has set in.

I could just tear my greying locks out in disgust as I watch daily how they prey on an adoring but uncritical public who they’ve locked into emotional blackmail. And this is the deal-breaker for me. The idea that the ANC has sole proprietorship on liberation from apartheid rule, is one that needs to be challenged most vociferously. The truth is that as many people from inside the ANC as outside, suffered through apartheid, fought for liberation and died too.

I read on another blog that we need to let the ANC continue governing because they have experience that other parties do not have. That is utter bullshit. Nelson Mandela did not have any experience at governing when he started out 20 years ago, and he did a great job. He had something I see so little off in the modern ANC; honesty and integrity.

Nelson Mandela’s vision was to share and build together with his former enemies; which is antithetical of Zuma’s apparent ploy to turn this country into a one-party state.

Vote wisely my friends; you will have to live with the consequences for another five years, possibly longer…

Don’t seek acceptance of your beliefs on Facebook

At some point you may have had the nasty experience of being reprimanded for a status or comment you posted online in Facebook (FB), or drawn into a fiery argument with either one or more other people.

If you haven’t, you’re either very fortunate, amazingly inventive at keeping out of trouble, or just plain boring.

I’ve been very selective about the friendship requests I’ve initiated over the years, which is why they’re probably only a handful – some family and people with a similar outlook on life to my own. All my other FB friends consist of people who have initiated the friendship request themselves, for whatever reason – known friends, family and total strangers. When accepting these friendship requests, I assume that the requester has read my profile and knows what to expect.

At this point I should declare that in total, I have less than 110 FB friends – a number which is likely to dwindle further if they bother to read this post.

Like me, you probably have a fairly large percentage of FB friends who are relatively inactive. I have some who may have fallen off the planet. I do have a core group of FB friends who post regularly, usually about the most mind-blowing stuff. Not surprisingly these are the FB friends who have similar interests, and a similar outlook on life. And even though we don’t agree about everything on a fairly regular basis, we still maintain a modicum of civility in our online discussions and arguments.

Anyway, enough of setting the scene; back to the reason for this rant.

We all post stuff on FB that may or may not be agreeable with the public that have access to our timelines. I’m no less guilty than anyone else. That is a risk we take, especially if we have a collection of FB friends from a widely disparate background. FB is a public platform and the responses you’re likely to elicit, may not all be to your liking. Indeed, to expect acceptance or approval of your post from everyone else would be highly conceited, not to mention delusional.

We live in a world in which our understanding of how things work is far removed from that of our early ancestors, whose primitive ideas, amazingly still persist in the face of this new knowledge. It is commonly accepted by all enlightened people that we should all work to eradicate all the archaic detritus that still fouls the modern world.

So when FB friends get ticked off over world-wise comments I post to their status, it comes as a great big shock to me, especially when they are the one’s who solicited my friendship in the first instance. Let me make it very clear:

DON’T SEEK ACCEPTANCE OF YOUR BELIEFS ON FACEBOOK!

If you can’t handle the response, rebuke, or criticism from your FB friends, take your idea where insular thinking is tolerated. If you’re expecting everyone to rubber-stamp your belief system, get real.

The real reason for this rant:

I’ll admit I may have been a little arrogant…

Freedumb Day

Tomorrow South Africa will celebrate Freedom Day. I wrote the same thing exactly two years ago.

Little did I know [perhaps I did, but didn’t want to believe it] that celebrate would not be the appropriate word to preface Freedom Day. Yes, people will be celebrating, but they would mostly hail from that elite group that have managed to connive their way into positions of political and economic power. Any others would have to be either monumentally stupid or ignorant, or both.

Perhaps you’ve guessed by now that things have not gotten any better. No, they most certainly haven’t. Government corruption has reached alarming levels, only dwarfed by government arrogance and incompetence.

We now have democracy, the right to vote, and although under threat, the right to free speech. But tomorrow when the people of Diepsloot queue up once again to dispense and carry water from distribution points back to their shacks, these rights and privileges will be hardly comforting at the onset of Winter, perhaps hardly in their thoughts. Diepsloot is but a microcosm of service delivery problems across the country – problems that have forced the very people who voted these government goons into power, to break out into riots.

An informal township in Diepsloot, Gauteng Province, South Africa. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But on the eve of Freedom Day, another burning issue has got the attention of the people, like never before. E-tolling!

This vile word represents nothing more than a crass, calculated scheme by government to defraud the people of their hard-earned and ever diminishing cash supply. The opposition to the implementation of this cruel and wicked plan to relieve people of their money, has unbelievably united all the estranged races on a common social issue for the first time, in really large numbers. Only sport has ever managed that feat before. The concerted efforts of business and consumers alike, manifested itself in the form of a legal challenge to stop the implementation of this cowardly act to enrich politically connected individuals. At the time of writing, the news reports indicated that the courts will present a ruling over the weekend.

e-toll gantry Business Day

The arrogant manner in which the government tried to railroad this abberration into our already over-taxed lives, has left a bitter taste in the mouths of even their most ardent supporters. What will be the outcome of the revelations that many high-ranking politicians stood to benefit financially from this preposterous taxation scheme, remains to be seen. It is however now clear that government will be forced to postpone the implementation yet again.

More important however will be the fact that this self-serving government has been taught a grudging lesson; that power invested in them by the people is temporary. The people shall decide what is best for them, not government goons.

But will they learn? Will I be writing again next year this time, about further levels of government deprivation? Will I be allowed to write at all?

But that's what I've been saying…

Editor of the Mail & Guardian Online, Chris Roper is facing facts…like me. While his take on [SA] politicians, following the most recent boorish outburst by Master Ignoramus otherwise known as Julius Malema may be common knowledge in enlightened circles, it may not go down so well in the halls of arrogant power and privilege.

It’s time we faced the fact. The default position for most South African politicians is “scumbag”, and their automatic level of discourse is “childish”. I had to think carefully about using the word childish. It smacks of paternalism, and of that endless Western quest to stereotype Africans as children and noble savages. But thankfully, youthful leaguer Julius Malema has freed us all up to be as rambunctiously offensive as we wish, as long as we don’t name names.

Catch the rest of his eloquent reasoning here.

Apartheid resurrected to become the tool of the liberator

South Africa’s first all-inclusive democratic elections in 1994, sounded the death knell of apartheid, or so we thought…

More than 15 years later, a country that was on course to buck the trend of liberated African countries, and become a thriving democracy, is now being manipulated by unscrupulous people to create artificial racial tension, in what appears to be a scheme to divert attention away from the real problems.

It all started so well, with the ANC liberating us from years of racial separation and dis-unity; taking over the governing of the country that became known as the rainbow nation. Those years of hope and expectation now seem like so long ago; the rainbow nation now seems to be just a rainbow notion. The ANC has led us into what appears to be a dead-end; from the death of apartheid to the death of democracy.

It would off course be dishonest to not acknowledge the many positive and beneficial changes that the ANC government has brought to South Africa. Most of these changes were effected in the early years, but most of the benefits are still evident to this day. The first truly democratic constitution drawn up with the guidance of the early ANC leadership, embodied ideas that were the envy of established democracies around the world. Then things changed; contempt for this document by its own architects, became all too apparent. What went wrong?

The answer is very simple: the leadership of the ANC went wrong. As the leadership became infatuated with power, and their own self-importance, their greed and arrogance grew in leaps and bounds. While their need to display their new-found wealth and power became more ostentatious, the most striking characteristic of the ANC leadership became the utter disdain for their own supporters and the gross arrogance when confronted with criticism, however mild, towards everyone else, including the world. In time, the party became more important than the country, and it was inevitable that they would declare themselves above the law, as they so often do.

Even though they exhibited this abysmal behaviour, the support from the vast majority of their followers did not seem to wane. How was this possible? Evidently the people did not in their wildest dreams suppose that such behaviour was possible from their liberators, or even if they did, preferred to not even consider it likely, or were not aware of such behaviour, which seems unlikely. A more plausible reason would appear to be that they are being manipulated into believing that their leaders are still pure and trustworthy.

Before we proceed, I would like to point out that I am not stringing together a conspiracy theory, although it may well look like it. I am putting together some thoughts that have been with me for some time now from observation, and seems to be corroborated by others as well.

The ANC leadership have for some time now displayed no will to govern the country in a manner befitting publically elected officials. They have adopted a style of leadership which closely resembles that of common dictatorships, although they have not entirely succumbed to that base level yet. Their inability to govern is manifest in the arrogant manner in which they approach everything to do with government.It’s also evident from the growing discontent of the people in poor towns across the country, where service delivery has all but ground to a complete standstill, and elected officials raid the coffers to line their own pockets.

The only reason, the people have not revolted yet, is because they are being told that all the ills of the country is the result of apartheid. Yes, the self-same apartheid that was supposedly killed more than 15 years ago. The ANC leadership have found a convenient scapegoat for their ineptitude; they have resurrected apartheid.

They have resorted to using structures such as the ANC Youth League to spread disinformation about apartheid’s apparent influence from the grave over the efforts of the ANC to govern (sic), and also to demonize institutions of wealth generation such as the mines, by calling for their nationalization. While they have repeatedly stated that nationalization is not a government policy, their feeble protestations is not at all convincing to all of us who have witnessed their constant raiding of the treasury. In private, they must surely be licking their lips with glee at the thought of this new source of wealth.

It’s all too obvious that the ANC leadership does not want apartheid to die – they need it desperately to hang onto the tenuous grip they have on power. It’s also obvious that to remain in power, they need a constant source of poor, preferably uneducated (but more so, ignorant) people to vote for them.

The elaborate scheme to mislead has probably been taken much further: attention is being deliberately drawn away from government incompetence by buffoons such as Julius Malema who goes around inciting violence and instigating racial hatred by making inflammatory speeches, devoid of truth or intelligence.

Is our liberation at an end? Maybe not entirely, but it’s only a matter of time…

The African Way?

Every time someone in the South African government, or one of its pathetic minions such as the ANC Youth League fucks up, it’s become common practice for their detractors to comment that it’s the African way. And as one of the government’s most vocal detractors, I think we need to examine this concept more closely.

What is this African way that they are referring to? Is it greed, corruption, incompetence, arrogance, wastefulness, ostentatious behaviour, the tendency to be dictatorial? For crying out loud, this government and about every other government in Africa epitomize every one of these traits, and more. But, is it really an African phenomenon?

To be fair, many other governments all over the world indulge in some, if not all of these disgusting characteristics, so to single out Africa as a unique source of maladministration, is extremely disingenuous. Granted Africa has some of the worst culprits, but they are certainly not alone in this form of inhumanity to man; there is no other way of describing this behaviour as anything but man’s contempt for his fellow-man. Africa did not export this loutish behaviour to the rest of the world. And there are off course historical reasons why Africa has become associated with being one of the worst perpetrators of human rights violations, but that is the subject of another discussion.

What then is the African way?

For the most part, Africans are good people, but their apparent pre-disposition to accept the gross indulgences of their leaders, at a horrific cost to their personal selves, is annoying, to say the least. The simple awe in which they hold their leaders, fueled by the illusion that they are liberators meant to worshipped, is akin to the grip that religion has on the uncritical mind.

Is the African way then, to accept one’s lot in society with barely a whimper? Or you going to show your arrogant, egotistical, incompetent, corrupt, lazy, greedy, selfish, dictatorial, thieving leaders that it is no longer the African way to take this shit any more.