All BOLDED parts of this post are links.
I NEVER write about politics, because I have some heavy opinions – and I don’t care what colour you are or what political party you follow, or even ‘why’. But the latest shambles in my silly little blip of a country at the bottom of Africa has made me wish, with my whole heart that I born somewhere else. It started with an email link from my father: Eskom Lifts Veil on Doom at Cabinet Briefing.
This post may offend some. I don’t care. If YOU are one of those… then gather your facts carefully before taking me on because I will stamp on you. I don’t regurgitate shit… my opinions are mine, based on research, and first hand witnessing – so make sure you have done some independent research and investigation before you start a debate with me based on race, politics or anything related.
Before I start – let me say this. Know, with out any doubt – that I am a lot of things – but racist is not one of them. I was 14 in 1994 when the Apartheid’s end began with the right for black folk to vote in South Africa. I was excited to have kids of any colour or race in my classes, and most of all (in my 14 year old mind) – even then, at that age, I was acutely aware of how significant it all was. But as young as I was, I became aware very early of how false it all actually was, in the areas that it should have represented hope.
On the day that Nelson Mandela was elected President, Emily, our ‘maid’ came to my parents and said she was ready to have our house. When we asked her how that was something she believed was possible, she said that she had been told by the ANC that if she paid 50c a month pre-elections, she would own all that her oppressive white employers owned. It would all become hers.
If you have ever watched the movie ‘The Bang Bang Club‘ – you will know a little about the political struggles that went on between black tribes before apartheid even ended. The (true) story is about a group of photographers but the depiction of how things were just months before ‘White Oppression’ came to an and is very vivid in it’s accuracy.
Emily disappeared not long after that, deeply disappointed that she could not have what was ours. I was sad, because I really liked her. I forbid her from my bedroom because I believed that I should make my own bed, and clean up my own mess.
I was so upset that she had gone that I took a crowbar to her padlocked door of her home in the back of our house. In it I found things that belonged to me, that she had stolen. Rings that my mother had from her mother who died when I was 6 years old. I was heart broken, and I felt betrayed. It was then that it all became less hopeful and more ‘complicated’. I was angry that the ANC had led a woman of that age to believe something – exploiting her lack of education and her ‘hopes of a better future’. Nothing wrong with hope, but it’s a twisted joke when it does not happen.
Today when I am asked to train nurses, who are predominantly black, I ask them if they had three wishes, what would they be. The answers are most often the same:
- A big expensive house
- A big expensive car
- To be the boss in a big successful company.
These are young, impressionable young women and rather that get into the bullet points that should come before the big house and the big car – I use the answers to explain that the old people they care for also had dreams, ambitions and families to look after before they grew old. They were also 23 once, or 30, and they also had their first car, or their first house… so are not just bodies to be cleaned and fed and entertained – but souls to be remembered and learned from. Human history books…
After Apartheid had officially ended – or at the very least – the marked date of the end of oppression had been documented , many promises were made. Affordable housing, electricity, education for both children and adults. Mouth pieces for the rural and far out communities. Job access, and a support structure for the government funded hospitals, orphanages, etc. 21 years later and I fail to see how there has been any progress. White people are outnumbered. Black Africans are in the majority, making up 79.2% of the population; Coloured and white people each make up 8.9% of the total; and the Indian/Asian population 2.5%. “Other” population group makes up 0.5% of the total.
Up until 2013 my father and I volunteered and found sponsorships for an orphanage in the township of Diepsloot. Only 5 minutes drive from probably one of the wealthiest suburbs in the country. We were welcomed by some, and violently ‘unwelcome’ by so many others. To the point where we had witch doctors casting spells and girls from the orphanage were being beaten. So here we are, two decades after all the promises were made, and we still have inadequate places that house children that are found in trashcans and toilets, or just ‘left’ alone for long enough that someone takes them to the local orphanage. I have sat and read to all of these children. I have held them and wished silently that I could find their parents and rid the world of them.
This young boy was found in a toilet, and it was discovered that his mother used to use him as a weapon by swinging him by his feet at people… Should he not have been a place more suited to kids who need to be re programmed into loving themselves. Tell me – when you don’t look at his face you don’t see a child who has been failed? All the children you see now were dumped and the government has done nothing. The mothers live in squatter camps with no access to real health care. If they go to a government hospital, they face a higher chance of bleeding to death or getting an infection than they do in the townships they live in that are practically built on raw sewerage. All of the places of hope for children like this are self funded… and these kids that you see below were all shipped off when this one had to close down because it could no longer afford to stay open. And the handful of us that were trying – couldn’t afford to keep it open.
And then we leave… we drive out of the township and back into what is effectively perfection compared to where we have just been. I GET the resentment – and I get why so many black people hate white people. To be segregated and to be treated like filth would instill in me a rage that I would likely act upon. If I lived in a tin shack with no actual toilet and no running water and no electricity – and then went into a house to clean it and make nice with the comparatively rich folk that lived in it… clean their toilets, wash their dishes, make their beds… and then return to my own shabby home and do all of that again for my own family – I would be pretty mad.
Thankfully I grew up in a home where we were taught from kids that blood runs the same through everyone. I dated Indian blokes, black blokes, Egyptian.. I had no issues with it. But MANY other people did, white and black. I have been carried out of restaurants for smacking people in the face for being ugly to a black waiter. Being openly racist and taking advantage of the fact that the waiter has no choice but to submit because the ‘customer is always right’ when actually – customer is a small dick racist bastard and thinks he is clever’. The residual stains of the apartheid are still everywhere. Your business is worth nothing in the eyes of the government unless it is at least half owned by black folk – which bred a culture of affirmative action jobs and a lot of clueless people in positions which mean they get a company car, a fat salary and all the perks for just wearing a title as opposed to knowing how to do the job. Also, if your business ‘conducts’ business with other companies that don’t subscribe to the same rules, then that brings down your Black Empowerment status.
Equality? Is what the ANC said it wanted. All fun and games until the very people who were supposed to be equal suffer. Don’t get me wrong – I realize that white people, especially the Afrikaaner, were PIGS. Even to this day, most of my Afrikaans friends are deeply racist and not shy about it – and some of them are racist simply because their parents were. I am sure the black population is well aware of the fact that although its seldom said out loud, there is a deep resentment amongst white people that 99% of jobs advertised state that only black people can apply?
That is not equality. Its also defeats the point of education. The ANC should have said: We would like a complete reversal on the Apartheid – where the whites have to be the ones who suffer like we have. That would have at least, been more truthful.
So while I get that this is in fact badly written poetic justice, 20 years later – you think that there would be a glimmer of hope for the actual people that were oppressed?
But no. And you want to know why? The ANC. Mandela was a terrorist – and it was a political move that had him become president. If you go to Robben Island where he was jailed for the tour, guides will you that had to sleep in fetal position because his cell was so small. They speak of horrors that he faced during his incarceration. Let’s be real for a moment. I don’t care what colour a terrorist is – if you blow shit up in the name of freedom – where do you want to go serve time? The Hyatt fucking hotel??
That’s bigger than my bedroom…. and because of the crime stats in this country – I also have burglar bars on my windows. One in every four women in South Africa is raped at LEAST once in her life time. And there is NO POINT in going to the police… because in the black culture (the less westernized areas), women simply don’t get to say no.
Before he became President, Jacob Zuma was involved in a scandal and sacked at Deputy President. But is now president, living in a house that cost South African tax payers over R250 MILLION. Just to put it into perspective for those that are not South African. The average entry nurses earn between R3000 and R5000 a month. On that salary, they usually support about four or five people who either have HIV and are too sick to work, or they themselves are also sick. Black managers in most fields earn between R20 000 to R50 000 a month depending on commissions and the business type. That is the working middle class.
So when we get told that there is not enough budget for schooling, government hospitals and road upgrades, is it any wonder that the fact that the president (who has proved to be a special kind of retard) part of a bigger corrupt system – comes under fire for spending so much on his own home?
But what BLOWS my mind is that come election time, the ANC is repeatedly voted in. Hope shines eternal in the bitter and easily misled.
This link will demonstrate how far from ‘appropriate’ this stupid government is. Jacob Zuma is under fire from Julius Malema in parliament. Its a ZOO. And the irony is that Julius Malema is a monster in his own right, and calls the tax payers money – ‘MY MONEY’. He is openly a hater of white folk and sings ‘Shoot the Boer’ (Shoot the Afrikaaners / Farmers)
At Mandala’s funeral and memorial service, a shameless demonstration of the real under currents were demonstrated. Zuma sang a song about gaining the land back that belonged to them. And the fake interpreter employed to sign at the memorial service of Mandela – and people dancing and behaving badly while people like President Obama offered his respectful words.
The South African government has had two decades. But no.. its has all been about self gain, money, power and ridiculous scandals.
There has been NO IMPROVEMENT on the infrastructure of this country. Eskom, our ONLY source of electricity is about to collapse. The domino effect of that will be… catastrophic. No phones. No electricity. NO power. No ATM’s. No access to shops… hospitals will be over run. Riots, murder, theft…
You would think that providing electricity to a newly equal nation would have been a priority as far as expenses 20 years ago?
NO security systems, and a whole lot of easy targets. Black and white folk living in our little walled off complexes in our false sense of security… what a joke. One blunder after another and it STILL gets blamed on the whites. White people didn’t promise anything… and as perverse as that sounds – that’s the reality of it. The ANC painted a perfect picture, starting with Nelson Mandela. Now… I don’t particularly think he was all that everyone thinks he was. I think all these quotes that people post and the way that they revere him is ignorant. A long walk to Freedom?
No one is free. We all pay tax. We all fear the crime. We all are subjected the to ridiculous ripple effects of scandal after scandal. A corrupt (recently deceased police commissioner), and just about every member of government… is or has been involved in serious acts against other people. Murder, rape, fraud… and it all filters down.
I have been ignore point blank at a government hospital while standing with a dying lady in a wheel chair… because we were white. Sadly I was escorted out of there too for climbing over the counter to physically introduce myself to the nurse… and then she says :I am racist.
So, back to Eskom. It will be the fault of the white people. In fact, it already is. 20 years later it is because of Apartheid. In fact in one news artucle, which I now cant find – a rural village out in the sticks got struck by lightening and one of the government officials said that lightning ONLY struck the poverty stricken poop black people of the country.
This is a government official. REALLY??
This link will echo and visualize what I have been saying.
and if you are interested, in knowing a bit more about the cogs that make this country so fucked up:
Question Time 1
Question Time 2
Mocking Bird Down 