Madiba Still Belongs To His Family

I understand and like the fact that South Africa is diverse all, but be that as it may, we must recognise and accept that we are yet different.

We come from various clans, tribes and races and this, by its very nature, suggests we are brought up in ways which differ from the rest. With that said, there have been many issues which I think have been mishandled and ultimately disrespected not only the people involved but the majority of the people whose cultures and traditions are being disrespected.

The one example of these is the infamous Spear painting by that guy. This man failed to acknowledge that President Zuma, as much as we don't approve of his ways, is still an elder and a respectable individual among his people. It is disrespectful of people to paint him in the manner that guy did. That has passed but not forgotten. The cultures and traditions of Zuma's and my people feel stripped naked of all our dignity in the face of other peoples of our country. We feel our elders have been insulted. We fight for them.

Madiba with Prof Jakes Gerwel, friend and confidant.

Madiba and OR Tambo sing the National Anthem.

Now, the other, more disturbing of these disrespectful events is the recent alleged reports that some among us South Africans, are saying that the medical doctors treating uBaw'uMadiba in Tshwane should facilitate the man's death by switching of all machines critical to his possible recovery. These people are uncultured and disrespectful. We all know that Madiba is a world hero and that the world loves him. But we also know that Madiba is a Xhosa man and Inkosi.

There is no reason for people to dictate, even if by mere opinion, what the Mandela family must do. Madiba still belongs to the Mandela family of the AbaThembu clan. These are people of stature and tradition and therefore such must be observed when dealing with them. I am not rambling here because I think people should not have concerns about the well-being of this statesman but I am merely pointing out that the English have their ways of dealing with things like these. The Afrikaner also has his ways, the Chinese and all other peoples of this land of ours.

Now allow the Madiba's to proceed with their business as dictated to them by the knowledge of their forefathers. Impose not what the Westerner "would do". Send your messages of support. Visit the hospitals if you have the means. Stay away from suggesting decisions that should be taken there.

Respect the will of his family.

South African Children Are Not Stupid

We have been blessed (or cursed) with the characteristic of being one of, if not, the most diverse country the world over. We have 11 official languages which are understood and spoken by a few among us. We have all sorts of contradictions among ourselves; we have very poor people and very rich people, the strongest economy in the continent with the highest unemployment rate, we have a public education systems that's in sixes and sevens, while the private education system is so good, it's worth all the money going into it from its funders.

But there is one thing we must all be certain about: South African kids are not stupid. Hell, no kid is stupid. With that said though, we need to recognise and accept that out assertions and decisions form the basis for the marginalisation of the South African child.

If you fail to populate the classroom in Seshego, Limpopo, with textbooks, you are sure going to have a South African Grade 9 learner fail the Timms Numeracy and Literacy test of a Grade 8 learner (international benchmark) when next countries partake. If the learner in Boekenhouhoek and Mathys Zyn Loop still continues to occupy a supposed science laboratory devoid of all scientific apparatus for experiments, that learner will not make it past first year of tertiary education, if they even go that far.

So long is the youth beheld with an eye beaming with suspicion and heart oozing with doubt; so long as the teacher in Toisekraal Primary in Queenstown refuses to acknowledge that his duty goes beyond the call of the eight hours allocated by the government, the South African kid will have a problem apprehending the content of a biology class.

That until the parent walks to the school, not to demand that her child be moved to the next grade even when they have failed, but to demand that her child be committed to an after school programme, the University of Cape Town will not register that kid for their academic programmes. The parent must understand that her child is not stupid but needs support as would anyone else going through tests, for education is a test of character among other things

I have, on many occasions, pointed my index finger at government - and not unduly-  but I want to turn my attention now to the school governing bodies. What programmes are these structures proposing for the betterment of the youth education? What do they do when a school, like where I matriculated in 2005, is being threatened with closure as a consequence of poor, if not dismal performances in the matric results.

Learners in South Africa gathered in a classroom made from deteriorating corrugated iron sheet.  Photo: Reuters

Is it an impossible task for the SGB to develop strategies to raise finances for textbooks for learners? Or to seek sponsorships of other forms of necessary tools needed to develop the cognitive facilities of a kid whose only knowledge of the world is limited to the small village in which he grew up?

Some of these kids won't graduate to high school due to the despicable learning conditions they endure: Photo: The New Age

And then there is the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU). As much as I understand and feel for them when their employer is messing with their feelings, I still feel they have a higher responsibility that for them to easily disrupt class through their various motions (be it strikes, go-slows or stay-aways). In the picture below, MEC for education in the Western Cape, Donald Grant, was forced to jump over the school fence like a common criminal because SADTU had decided to lock the gates.

Western Cape MEC for education jumps the fence after SADTU locked the gates of a school as they demonstrated against the department. Photo: TimesLive

Fact of the matter is that these children are not stupid. The Korean, Chinese, Japanese and the other Asian kids who continue to conquer the world in terms of Maths education, are not smarter. They are no more special than the South African kid. Over there, kids and adults alike, are made to understand that learning is important. The culture that is amplified in those parts of the world is that Education is everything. Because that is the amplified knowledge over there, the populations of these countries have accepted and acknowledged that education is indeed the most important thing they have.

South Africans must take collective responsibility and advance to change the course and the approach they have towards the attainment of education, for if this is not so, only a few will ever see the doors of a university to the detriment of the whole country.

Our children are not stupid. They just need love and unwavering support from everyone who thinks he values education and the benefits it has on human prosperity.

Mediocrity Is Not The Standard

Dear Black People (and Coloured People).


We have, for many years, been depicted as mediocre and inferior to other peoples of the world.

The countless injustices committed against us on the basis that some foreign guy thinks we are inferior have come and many have not passed, and yet we stand strong. Came the much talked-about 1994 and its 'freedom' and the white man was easy for the first time in his history here in South Afrika.

Through all these many centuries of accepting mediocrity and even inferiority as a standard by which we are measured, many of us have come to believe that this is so. The white man took his racism and hid it after 1994 (although there are still those who are openly racist) and then came the power of the many.


This spelled a good period for the Black man. However, the embedded belief that we are inferior and that mediocrity is our standard, did not disappear along with the rule of the boer. This is evident all around us but I will make a few examples. I have been on a countless taxi rides in my adult life and I have observed how South Africans of the Black and Coloured race tolerate mediocrity and disrespect from our own people.

The taxi driver seems to have become the new boer in that people fear challenging him. We are openly insulted in the presence of children. We are bullied into closing the windows even though we know that TB is eating the very life of our communities. Even though we are paying commuters, we still allow being told that the loud, incoherent music, played in the taxi will not be turned down; even when trying to make a call on your phone.

The taxi driver seems to have become "the power that be" because our people fear them so much. A 15 passenger taxi, in Cape Town, loads up to 20 passengers and the people quietly complain but never dare to direct their talk to the driver. People are forced, literally, into taking a certain taxi, even when it's clearly full. This is what I mean by mediocrity; we all know that this is a dangerous thing and is below the standard of perfection which everybody strives for, but we allow it to happen anyway.

The taxi industry is just one example. Everybody who uses Metrorail trains is aware that they are the worst. They say all these promising things about improving their service but nothing happens. It is very seldom that a Metrorail train runs smoothly for the whole week; that is; you know you will be late at work at least once in every week (Central Line, Cape Town). I am not sure about other areas but I write here about those who travel in Cape Town (and I don't mean in the Southern Suburbs, because there, the contrary is the case).

We are now given strange toilets by our loving government but these too are not to the standard that everybody else enjoys. We are always encouraged to work to achieve the very best but with so much disrespect coming our way, things look cloudy.

We are expected to perfect the art of studying but we are not given the necessary resources and even when there are resources, people are not skilled. We are expected to go to the polls next year and it will be interesting who emerge as victors in the light of the mediocre education system, the mediocre service delivery, the mediocre government administration. Damn! It seems we are mediocre all round. But that is not, and should not be, the standard.

So, let the revolution begin. What we say shall soon be forgotten but what we do will live for a thousand thousand years.

De Lille is hell bent on humiliating US.

Yes! I said it.

It is not so much about the fact that all people living in the informal settlements in the Cape don't like the Democratic Alliance, but about whether or not the Democratic Alliance loves the poor people.

On many an occasion, the DA leader, Mama Helen Zille, has gone to the areas designated by the Apartheid baboons for Black people, and for many instances she has returned with a long list of demands and wishes. Topping those lists and demands will always be the issues of sanitation, electricity and housing.

We have now come to accept that indeed the housing backlog is not the issue facing the Western Cape alone, so we must be kind to Mama Zille on this issue. However, it must be known to her and the Mayor Ms Patricia De Lille that the bucket toilet system will not be tolerated. I refuse to even look at the technology of the new toilets that she brings "because they are the improved version of the bucket". People don't want to have to pick up that which they have laid waste upon, especially that type of waste.

A kid in Khayelitsha uses of the embarrassing toilet in the full view of the sun and the public. Photo: WestCapeNews

The picture above and many others which were made public following the inhumane manner in which the poor people in informal settlements are being forced to help themselves when nature calls. Some argued that these were better than not having a toilet at all; saying that these people used open fields before these toilets were brought to them. What nonsense! The DA-led Western Cape faces challenges like any other provincial government but that is no reason to dehumanize mankind like this.

The bucket system toilets used in Khayelitsha and many other parts of informal Cape Town under the DA.

De Lille is projecting herself to be hard on hearing by forcing the issue that her new technology is better than the systems shown in the images above. It is a sad reality that not many in the poor people's circles want to see or hear anything she has to say until she addresses this, but a reality nevertheless. If De Lille wants the poor to listen to her and buy into her "Inclusive City" rhetoric she needs to either prove to US, the poor, that she, too, uses the same systems she wants us to use.

De Lille must tell the public that she is switching from the good system of sanitation she uses, to the new buckets she is subjecting our people to. That until she says no more bucket systems for the poor, and that until she says sorry to the poor for seeming so hell bent on humiliating them, she will be booed, not listened to and probably insulted.

She needs to stop being political and begin to be a mother for second or two; she needs to say to her people in government: "I was once a PAC member. There, we respected the African person and we fought for a socialist approach to matters of humanity and dignity - I will not stand to humiliate them in this time as a DA leader". This is what she needs to do. She needs to apologise to Mama Zille for the buckets of waste that were hurled at her entourage and take responsibility for the actions of the poor, if she stand for and with the poor. But if she is now an elitist like the political party she now represents, she will continue to blame the youth league of the under-performing African National Congress (ANC).

She should know better - that the statistics of 2011 which revealed that over 90% of people in informal settlements have proper sanitation - because it is a well known fact on the ground that this is not true. People are forced to share toilets with over 10 households. What is this?

De Lille must go to Philippi again and humble herself before the people in realization that she does not serve the DA when in that office but serves the whole of the City. No more humiliation. No more throwing of stones and fingering other people, you are the one in office now, just serve the people.

Just serve, Mama De Lille and stop politicking!!!