I Am No Government: I Am Its Slave

"Democracy is a government of the people, for the people and by the people" is how my Grade 11 history teacher told us back in the day.

He said we, the poor and the have-nots, are our own government. He said we would be able to elect representatives who will speak on our behalf. People who will behave as we would. People who would live as we do. This was a brilliant picture he painted for us yet he neglected to tell us that the picture would not materialize, at least not for me and my poor Black people.

I was fortunate to witness the whole convoy of the Western Cape government recently and I got a picture of what many of those who enter politics for personal gain, long for. Although I will not say which MEC is transported in which car, for fear of being incorrect, the photographs below will show exactly the kind of representation currently displayed.

I am not saying people who work in government should be driven in caskets but if the representatives don't look anything like the people they are representing, how do you propose to solve what government has called crime?

How do we accept that services can not be rendered on time and speedily when the guy who comes to address such issues comes to us driven in one of the above? This is patronizing the poor people and Gwede Mantashe and his ANC is aware of this. This is misrepresentation because people will start assuming that South Africans drive in these.

The fact of the matter is that it is impossible to say one understands the plight of the poor when they have never experienced it. Most of the men, if not all, in the Western Cape government went to high profile schools and colleges, in all likely-hood. They are representing the interests of those who, like them, have been on the soft side of the rag. They stand there, in their black shiny suits, crocodile-skin shoes and their expensive ties, telling the poor that "we are doing the best we can to better everybody's lives. The picture below does not show this. It is only a single example of the many structures of this sort which were there and and continue to be the center of man's life.

One of the former police commissioners once reacted to a question about his mansion and his lavish lifestyle, that he does not want the President of Interpol to come and visit him and find him in a shack. This guy was a politician and a representative of the people. He represented the South African Police Service, an arm of government, and thereby accountable to the people. Yet the people he chases day in and day out are poor Black people.

This is misrepresentation and thus this democracy does not seem to be heading to a direction of equality and fairness, instead, it promotes the gaps between the us, the poor, and the government and its people.

I am ungovernable until such time that a true representation of the people is fair. Until these people stop driving such cars at the expense of mankind.

Swallow that!

Reconciliation in South African Context is a Joke.

Yes, I said it.

The death of Dirk Coetzee, the evil man who slaughtered and facilitated the merciless slaughter of Black people in Vlak Plaas and many other parts of the country has triggered emotions in the hearts of the many but to others it brings a sense of sadness. It bring sadness because the man died without telling the truth that many families of his victims wanted to hear: Where are the bodies of the sons and daughters he murdered?

Firstly, I must say that the African National Congress betrayed the souls of the people whose lives were unjustly, brutally and savagely taken by this man and many of his (some still living) cronies, by allowing him to join the Movement of the people. They have effectively said to the families of this man's victims; "Your siblings were only scapegoats for us to ascend to the throne designed by whites for the oppression of the Black man."

This man deserved to be hanged along with many of his cronies whose deeds and actions directly and indirectly contributed to the slaughter of mankind. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission headed by Emeritus Arch-Bishop Desmond Tutu was nothing more than a PR exercise for the corrupted ANC and the corrupt Nationalists to mislead the masses into a mindset that all would be well in South Africa.

How could this be? How could it have been that they believed that we would not see through that? They (TRC) granted amnesty to people who had no regard for the life of a Black man and invited them for coffee so as to reminisce about the atrocities committed in the past. They also wanted to share with the oppressor the new inventions of state-sponsored crime and violence so as to keep the status quo as it was. This should explain the many prisons built by the ANC, the many police trained ever year, the many laws against corruption and crime. But if you look closely, you will realise that, as in the past, all of these are established for a purpose; to continue to oppress the Black man, to blame the Black man for crime so that his destiny is mediocrity and impotence, brand the Black man a criminal in his own land.


These are just a few of the reasons that reconciliation here is a joke. We, the poor and the oppressed, are enticed with words like "Job Opportunities, Fight against Crime, Better Life for All", so that we are kept quiet and believing that all is well, when in actual fact we are living as we did when the oppressor began his reign of terror. Then, we get people telling us that South Africa is a rainbow nation with opportunities for all, yet what they fail to tell us but is clear as day light, is that so long as the White-man owned banks own the lands upon which the mines, the farms and other privately owned natural resources, the Black man shall always be a needy, dangerous and impoverished criminal because the social construct is designed to suite the oppressor.

How do you then reconcile with people who have killed thousands of your people and raped tens of thousands of innocent women and children. How do you reconcile with people who refuse to acknowledge the injustice of the past and who are not prepared to go the length in redressing such? It is always interesting to hear the ANC man argue that land can not be taken from those who got it without the consent of its owners. You will hear things like; "It is not feasible to take productive land from a farmer whose producing and give it to someone who will not turn it into a profiting project". What an absurd type of thinking in the face so many injustices inflicted upon the dispossessed.

The oppressor never gave consideration to whether the land he intended to take made profit or not, he took it and that was that. Why are these questions brandied about when people talk about taking back the land. People don't necessarily want their land back because they want to produce from it; they want it back simply because it's theirs.

It is difficult to reconcile here because the racist has not changed his ways; he continues to tell me that I am racist when I tell him about how racist he is. He says, because he joins me in protest against police brutality, he is not racist. This reconciliation thing, in South Africa, is like saying I should forgive the guys who mugged me in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. I will not do so until they bring back my phone, wallet and my camera. Until the beneficiary of the unjust, corrupt and cruel design that has continued to be a thorn in the life of a Black man, humbles himself, acknowledges the injustice and wok towards altering such, there shall be no meaningful reconciliation.

The white man shall continue to live as he does and the Black man shall always be angry. The White brother will not trust me because he has something eating him inside; awakening him to the truth that the reason I am so poor is because my being was taken from me, by those who built a lasting legacy for him, and I was left with with only a shell of the former self.

We are a long way off true reconciliation.

Food For Thought

It is not six months ago when I posted here that police in this country act as though they are the Law themselves.

I was not surprised when I saw the video that has been doing rounds of the police in uniforms dragging a Mozambican fellow behind their van, seeking to execute him Steve Biko style. But what is more hard-hitting is the fact that the government and the national Police Commissioner continue to do the talking, and not the action.

How many more people must suffer abuse at the hands of police, while the authorities continue to "probe" or "investigate"? How long does it take to investigate he who is in the blue uniform and how long for an ordinary man? Because I know some people who have been wrongfully sent to prison for crimes they never committed? The probes or investigations there went so fast, you almost thought there was never an investigation.

I said, a while ago in this blog, that the police run this country and I received varying responses, yet behold the truth I spoke then.


Rapists and Murderers  

I know that South Africa is supposed to be the model from which other nations must learn when it comes to democracy and human rights, but man, we seem to have too many of those (rights) doing the rounds. How many times have our women been raped? How many children have been raped in the years we have attained our democracy alone? Scores of defenseless women, children and men are being killed and raped and nowadays, mutilated, and yet the perpetrators of such crimes continue to walk, talk and sleep among us. They are afforded opportunities to learn and study while in prison (doing a punishment), and then the society is urged to "give them a second chance", just before they are released on some form of a parole or the other.

The ANC person who said rapists, as it is in the Philippines, must be chemically castrated, brought forth the best suggestion to this problem. This will call for more accurate and instantaneous investigation, prosecuting and convicting of criminals. This will bring back the fear: fear that your very ability to populate the earth shall be taken away from you, should you be found to have committed such atrocities.

The question of the death sentence has also been lingering about, with human rights institutions warning it might be inhumane to slaughter those who kill people. I think common sense must be applied here: that he who kills will face the same destiny too. Families have been left distraught because their fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters and other friends are mercilessly slaughtered by people whose regard for the law in next to none. An effective and dreadful measure must be taken to ensure that no more of this killing takes place.

Government Expenditure

I am not much an accountant but I know when money is being wasted. The reports by Sowetan Online (March 4) newspaper that the Free State government has spent R140m on a website, is a blatant disrespect to the public. I have seen guys do this much cheaper, in fact, with that amount of money I could have myself 50 websites running. The South African public ( and I am not talking about the rich guys, I am talking about the ordinary guys who earn no more than R50 000 a year) must take action. Just as the public takes action with regards to the crazy expenditure patterns, it must be allow to deal with the rapists and the murderers.

The Government Must:

• Fire the Police Chiefs (Nathi Mthethwa and Riah Phiyega)
• Introduce a jail term for expenditure unaccounted for (It is criminal that they can't account for our money)
• Introduce chemical castration as a measure to address the issue of repeating rapists
• Hang the murderers
• Bring the power to the community, if all fails. Let the communities deal with their criminals in their own way (and we have seen how that goes, with people being necklaced and placed upon the fires of hell)

This is my 2 cents, have your say.