Making sense of Julius Malema

By
RW Johnson 28 June 2011

RW Johnson on the ANCYL President's place in South African politics

Julius Malema and the ironies of factionalism 

Julius Malema is now the most magnetic figure in South African politics. He is execrated by most whites, feared by many mainline ANC figures, courted by the powerful and is clearly the idol of the large crowds he attracts. Watching him perform, I realised that he reminded me most of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of the far right Front National in France. Le Pen, who was equally idolized and execrated, drew crowds like nobody's business.

When he was on TV the crowd in the cafe went quiet. Whether they were Gaullists, Socialists or Communists, they all wanted to watch Le Pen, in fact they couldn't help watching him. He had physical presence - a great big blond bruiser with an eye-patch over one eye, a man rumoured to have personally conducted torture sessions when he was a soldier in Algeria.

Malema cuts a figure which is at once more gross and more mediocre. When he says "I'm not powerful. I'm a nobody from Masakaneng", he's not being modest. He has a sort of childishly porcine face and his stomach already swells out far beyond his trousers, the sign of the well-fed tenderpreneur. Le Pen claimed to have been in the Resistance and he was certainly a Foreign Legionnaire, but Malema has no struggle credentials. Like Le Pen though, he can bellow with the best.

But what really sets them apart from others was that both were nationalists, each pitching their tent on the central nationalist ground. Le Pen would inveigh against illegal immigrants, against the high crime rate - and then explain that the muggers in the Metro were, of course, the same illegal immigrants - and appeal for the return of the "tried and tested guillotine". These crimes were assaults on true-born Frenchmen and why should be ashamed of speaking out for them?

At each point many heads in the cafe would nod, because these were views held by most ordinary Frenchmen, though Le Pen expressed them more forcefully. But then he would, without warning, ask if his listeners had noticed that he had been attacked in Le Monde - an article by Finkelstein, in L'Express - an article by Cohen and again the Nouvel Observateur, an article by Shapiro. As he said this there would be a rising roar of anger from his true followers, catching on immediately to this recitation of Jewish names. "So what have they got in common?" he would roar. "De Gaulle once said of the Jews that they were "clever, arrogant, too sure of themselves" but I would add, if they attack me when I speak for the interests of France, where then do they belong?"

Even in the cafe there would be some murmurs of assent, many awkward silences and a few gasps of horror. For while other conservative politicos might attack illegal immigration and crime, a full-blooded anti-semitic rant like this was way outside the norm. And that's where the habitual excitement came. He would break taboos that all others respected and you never quite knew what he might say next. It was riveting.

Nationalist Outliers

Malema is much the same. Though much younger and less experienced, he has learnt the importance of the sound-bite. He knows that to guarantee him fresh headlines there has to be at least one phrase in every speech where he breaches a taboo. Mainly, of course, he too will pitch himself safely on mainstream nationalist ground so that for the most part a Jacob Zuma or Tokyo Sexwale can sit next to him as he speaks and agree with a lot of what he says and then just look blank when he suddenly makes his sortie, demanding nationalisation of the mines, saying that whites are all criminals, or whatever the latest outrage is.

And when the party elders aren't sitting next to him, it's likely to be some cheeky assault on Zuma, some broad-sword attack on the SACP or Cosatu or even an unexpected compliment to the disgraced Mbeki. Like Winnie Mandela, he has a fine ear for the missed note and the lost chord. He understands exactly those points where the ANC faithful feel uncomfortable about Zuma, Blade Nzimande or Zwelinzima Vavi and that's where he slides the knife in. His followers, who know that no one else on their side (and they aren't listening to the Opposition) will ever make those points, love him not just for breaking the taboo but for articulating those particular points of discomfort. He scratches where it itches and where no one else will scratch.

Such outlier figures are found in most nationalisms - Blaar Coetzee was perhaps Malema's National Party equivalent. Once their movements arrive into government certain necessary compromises occur. Thus Malan, Strydom and Verwoerd were all premiers under a British Governor-General and the Crown for it was not immediately politic to seek a republican form of government or leave the Commonwealth.

A Blaar Coetzee would know, however, that within the Nat body politic there seethed all manner of bitter resentments against the Crown, against the rooineks, against the power and wealth of the mining houses, against Jewish leftists and so on. Coetzee would give voice to all this and would be cheered to the echo for it. The situation of the ANC in government and of Malema is much the same. We have seen the same often in Africa - in Zimbabwe in the 1980s when Mugabe had made his accommodation with the white farmers, Edgar Tekere played this outlier role, frightening the whites in Harare just as much as Malema does here. In Kenya Oginga Odinga played this role vis-a-vis Kenyatta.

In all cases these radical tribunes picked up on the unsatisfied land hunger of Africans and the broken promises made by the new elite as it filled its pockets and rode in pomp as the new waBenzi. Such tribunes, it should be noted, often became rich themselves but they seldom came to power.

The Youth League's Inheritance

Malema's case has its own interesting twists, the first of which is the crucial historical role of the ANC Youth League. All the actors within the ANC drama are keenly aware that from the moment the ANCYL was founded in 1944 it began to play a critical role in the ANC's history as the young warriors of the tribe, uncontrolled in the modern environment by the binding constraints under which they had laboured in traditional society.

The young Turks - Mandela, Sisulu and Tambo - were able first to capture the ANCYL leadership, then devise their own Action Programme, then ram it through the ANC to make it the official party programme, and then depose Dr James Moroka as ANC leader in 1952 when he provoked their ire. Two years later the Youth League threw Moroka out and helped push in Chief Luthuli in his stead.

And it did not stop there. Walter Sisulu, a senior SACP member, was now also ANC Secretary-General, a fact which greatly facilitated the calling of the Congress of the People and the way that white Communists were able to play a key organizing role there and write the resultant Freedom Charter itself. Luthuli, who was banned, could not himself attend the Kliptown Congress, and was deeply suspicious of the Freedom Charter, for he knew full well what the Communists were up to. In particular he expressed open dislike of the Charter's economic clauses which he thought too socialistic.

Under his guidance the Natal ANC argued that the language of the Charter was "good propaganda but...not appropriate to a factual document" and said that "lazy people should expect to go hungry"[1] But the Charter had been presented to him as a fait accompli so, despite his own Christian liberal principles, he accepted it.

Finally, of course, with the formation of MK the SACP, together with the old ANCYL  team of Sisulu, Mandela and Tambo, effectively staged an intra-party coup against Luthuli, installing Mandela and then Tambo as leader. Though Luthuli remained ANC leader till he died, this was a purely nominal title.

The outline, at least, of this epic and successful drive by the ANCYL, is universally known so that there is always the thought that each Youth League leader may carry a field-marshal's baton in his rucksack. In addition, of course, the ANCYL was the first ANC formation to back Zuma against Mbeki and derived great prestige from this success.This greatly magnified the significance of the ANCYL both in their own eyes and those of others.

Malema, of course, trades heavily on this, increasing the excitement of his followers and the dread of those who dislike him. Malema's master-stroke in recent time has been to embrace the Freedom Charter as gospel and thus demand the nationalization of the mines and the expropriation (without compensation) of white-owned land. The key economic clauses of the Freedom Charter - which Luthuli so much disliked - read as follows:-

The national wealth of the country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people.

The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole.

All other industry and trade shall be controlled to assist the wellbeing of the people.

All shall have the right to occupy the land wherever they choose.

The land should be "re-divided amongst those who work it".

This is all clear enough, as one would expect. There is no mention of compensation for any act of expropriation of land or industry, and the careful phrasing of such assets being "restored to the people" (ie. to the state, though that is never said) reflects exactly the Communist front tactics of the time. It must be remembered that the white Communists who actually drew the Charter up - men like Rusty Bernstein and Ben Turok - were 1950s Stalinists.

Their phrasing had a pleasingly beneficent sound and they had no difficulty getting it adopted by the willing (and carefully selected) crowd at Kliptown. (The Liberal Party, which would have been able to point out what was going on, stayed away from what they rightly saw as a Communist ramp.) Better still, it was then insisted that the Charter had been carefully made up from all the suggestions sent in by the masses, so the same masses could be sent happily away, believing that they themselves had devised the Charter.

This notion became ANC holy writ and appears, for example, in Sampson's biography of Mandela. This is pure ideology. Bernstein and Turok in their later years were quite open about the role they had played and Sampson was a friend of Bernstein. He must have known the truth, but Holy Writ is Holy Writ.

It should, of course, always be remembered that Bernstein and company, like all South African Communists of the 1950s, had absolutely no thought that their movement would ever come to power, so writing the Charter was purely an exercise in propaganda, with no thought that it might ever be implemented. To the extent that the Charter was real for them at all, it was a prescription for after the socialist revolution, when industry and the land could be re-organized without the complication of a bourgeoisie in the way.

The Constitution in the Sky

In the long years of exile and prison the ANC treated the Freedom Charter as its foundational document. It was the benchmark: you were either a Charterist or you were against the liberation struggle. Those who wished to join the ANC were not asked to assent to the resolutions of this or that party congress: they were asked to agree to the Freedom Charter. In those three decades the Charter became, so to speak, the movement's "constitution in the sky". Later, the Charter was even represented as the foundation document of the National Democratic Revolution though no one at the time had even heard that phrase.

The movement had no power, of course, to enforce its provisions so the Charter had a mystical presence, the Holy Ghost floating somewhere above the liberation struggle. The Charter had extensive provisions about human rights and democracy but this made no difference to the way in which the ANC refused for many years to call a party conference or the way it treated dissidents within its own ranks, particularly within MK. They were imprisoned without trial, allowed no legal representation, tortured and murdered. When such dissidents demanded that the Freedom Charter be respected, this was treated as mere insolence, rather as the Inquisition would have regarded any appeal to scripture by Gallileo.

This habit of having a "constitution in the sky" - which you celebrated, brought out proudly and showed around, enjoying its ringing phrases - but did not actually bother to observe, was extremely comfortable for the ANC leadership. So it was hardly surprising that when South Africa got a real democratic Constitution, the ANC treated it in the same way, proudly showing it around but often not bothering to observe it.

This became apparent as soon as April 1995 when President Mandela sacked his ex-wife, Winnie, as a minister. No one in the presidential office had bothered to read the Constitution which required him to consult others before taking such a step. Winnie had to be laboriously re-instated and then, when consultation had duly taken place, sacked all over again.

Implementing the Charter: Who Stands Behind Malema
Julius Malema realised that this situation gave him a wonderful opening. Wrapping himself in the Freedom Charter he declared that it is, after all, the ANC's programme and that it must thus be implemented. Pointing to the clause that says "The national wealth of the country....shall be restored to the people", he demands the nationalization of the mines. Pointing to the clause which says that the land "shall be re-divided among those who work it", he demands the expropriation without compensation of both white-owned farmland and the mines. He is, of course, careful never to quote the Freedom Charter's first line, "South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white".

In addition, he has read the Constitution and, declaring it to be quite untenable for so much of the country's wealth still to be in white hands, demands that the ANC use its two-thirds majority to do away with the property rights clause and any other parts of the Constitution which might stand in the way of a simple Mugabe-like grab for white-owned assets of any kind. This really backs the ANC leadership and even the SACP and Cosatu up into a corner for they have proclaimed the Freedom Charter to the skies and they have also not carried it out. This process really took wing under Mbeki who quietly ignored the Charter, never confronting it head-on or even discussing it at all. Policy was devised by stealth - particularly Gear - and this created Malema's opening. And behind Malema, one is told, stands a vast legion - not only the young unemployed but lumpen elements of every kind.

For a more exact estimate of Malema's following I turned to Professor Laurence Schlemmer who is not only South Africa's senior social scientist but a director of Markdata. His reply - based on his continuous scrutiny of polling data - was as follows:

Mr. Malema does not appear to be very popular among rank-and-file ANC voters, or not yet. My broad impression from field research is that he is not a role model for rank-and-file youth either, who on the whole are worried and frustrated but not militant, and are also cautious because they fear the conflict and disruption of the ANC that he could cause.

He is popular, however, among two large categories of people. First among the highly ambitious and materialistic youth who have been influenced by township gang culture with its flamboyant local leaders, and second among semi-well educated and more seriously aspirant people who believe the route to wealth and success is through connections to politicians and hot-shot new entrepreneurs.

"This latter group", Professor Schlemmer continues,"includes the people who can be seen in the waiting rooms of ministers who hope that if only they can get the minister's attention, they will be able to set up some get-rich-quick scheme.

These people are often at their wits' end as well as at the end of their resources.

They will be slavishly deferential to the minister if they get a chance but bitterly denunciatory if the minister sweeps by and doesn't notice them. They are up for just about  anything and ready to blame the foreigners or the whites for any piece of bad luck they may have.[2]

It should be realised that even this latter group, whom Professor Schlemmer describes so well, do not necessarily have ideological beliefs about nationalizing the banks, the mines or the land. It is more that Malema threatens to shake everything up so that things will come loose, creating openings for opportunists of every stripe.

Mbeki, Father of Factionalism

The ANCYL has emerged into its current prominence as a result of the failure of Mbeki-ism. Mbeki was bent on establishing a complete political and intellectual hegemony rather similar to the political domination of an Nkrumah or Nyerere, in which his theories, slogans and watchwords would be the only political discourse that mattered. It is too easily forgotten how close he came to succeeding. So great was the deference towards him (and fear of him) even in white liberal circles that in 2004 the University of Cape Town bestowed a special leadership award upon him which even had laudatory words for his murderous Aids policy. But Mbeki was still steering the ship of state through the peculiar optic of an ANC narrative which corresponded poorly with reality. It was a very deficient rudder to steer by so it was hardly surprising that he hit the rocks.

In the end Mbeki over-reached himself by dismissing Zuma and attempting to secure a third term. A Nyerere could have got away with that but South Africa is not Tanzania. In the great revulsion this provoked the present politics of ANC factionalism was born. Zuma was fighting for his political life and suddenly all other groups (including the press) realised that there was not just one monolithic ANC any more and this was the condition of freedom for them all. The press became much more free and critical and the ANC crystallised out into Mbeki and Zuma wings within every city, province and state institution. In addition, all manner of little local ANC bosses prospered, each with their own fiefdoms, their own rackets and their own patronage networks. By the end of Mbeki's term the monolithic party he had hoped to build had become a patchwork quilt of factions.

For all these new factions to exist, let alone flex their muscles, Mbeki's centralism had to be defeated, which was why Zuma was able to marshall most of these groups behind him at Polokwane in 2007. But with that centralist threat overthrown, the factions were free. Nothing necessarily linked them to Zuma thereafter and the centrifugal forces were strong. So strong indeed, that after 2009 - when the SACP leadership formally entered the government - strains grew rapidly between the SACP and Cosatu, who had hitherto enjoyed a fraternal relationship comparable to that between the PCF and CGT in France or the PCI and CGIL in Italy.

But now the SACP was in  government and, notoriously, enjoying its perks, while Cosatu remained outside. Increasingly, its leader, Zwelinzima Vavi, saw himself as the tribune of all the dispossessed and saw the SACP leaders as men who had accepted the King's shilling. The crux came over Vavi's biting criticism of the ANC's "predatory elite". No such criticism came from the SACP leaders, Blade Nzimande and Jeremy Cronin, who were, after all, now members of that elite. Rumours multiplied that Vavi, furious that Nzimande had forsaken the SACP's historic role for a mess of potage, might challenge Nzimande for the Party leadership.

Both Cosatu and the SACP were, however, senior members of the Triple Alliance. The ANCYL has no such status: it is just the junior wing of the ANC and has no right to attend or speak when the Big Men of the alliance get together to thrash out the great questions of the day. Malema and his coterie, mindful of the ANCYL's historic role, were unwilling to accept such relegation. They wished to assert their right to drive ANC policy and they hit on the perfect tactic to do so: they would wrap themselves in the Freedom Charter - who could argue with that? - and then use that to insist on the Charter's full implementation, including the nationalization of the banks and mines and the transfer to those who work it. This would embarrass both their ANC seniors and both other major factions. After all, wasn't the Charter supposed to be ANC policy? And if it wasn't, what then was this new policy that had displaced the Charter, and which of their elders would disavow the Charter?

There was no really good answer to this. Mandela had early on disavowed nationalization when he had realised how lethal its effect would be on foreign capital markets. Since then the ANC and its partners had tried Gear, the New Growth Path and endless smaller initiatives. In reality, and despite a great deal of wordy rhetoric about the National Democratic Revolution, their policy was now one of muddling through and they wanted nothing more than  to be allowed to continue to bumble along as before. In 1994 the ANC posters read just "Jobs, jobs, jobs". Unemployment then rose steadily. Every now and again the government unveils a great new initiative to create a million jobs or even five million jobs but after seventeen years the unemployment figures remain far worse than they ever were under apartheid.

Many of the ANC's new laws have quite clearly cut the number of jobs and no one in the leadership seems greatly bothered about this. The latest idea seems to be fund a vast new National Health Initiative by a payroll tax - that is, quite openly, a tax on jobs. This is the economics of Disneyland. Quite transparently, many of the ministers are most concerned to feather their own nests and Zuma to build Nkandla, his harem and the family fortune.

Thus by wrapping itself in the Freedom Charter the ANCYL challenged the government head on: why was it not implementing the Charter? The ANC leadership, who had continued happily to exalt the Charter on high days and holidays, were embarrassed to give the truthful answer which was that time and they had both moved on from the fantasies of white Communists penned over half a century before. Worse, throughout the long years of exile the ANC elite had grown to fear any critique which attacked them from the left and thus left them accused of being "sell-outs" or "counter-revolutionaries".

Such terms had been lethal to many a career so everyone in the ANC had learned to congratulate others and themselves on behaving in the "correct" and "revolutionary" manner. Malema now caught them in their own rhetorical trap and no one was keen to answer him. But the ANCYL was also clearly challenging Cosatu and the SACP - not just wanting status parity with them but criticizing them for having accepted a settlement falling far short of the Freedom Charter. Cosatu and the SACP naturally disliked this and so factional battle was joined. What hurt was that Malema's point was valid.

Even in Slovo's time the SACP had quietly slid away from its commitment to nationalisation - instead the Party liked to talk of "socialization", a deliberately little understood term. For Slovo, like Mbeki, had quietly abandoned the Freedom Charter without saying so. Yet what was a Communist Party all about if it did not favour the nationalisation of industry?

The second in this two part series can be found here. This article was published with the assistance of the Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit.

FOOTNOTES:

[1]    S.Couper, Albert Luthuli: Bound by Faith, p.70.

[2]    Communication from Laurence Schlemmer, 20.6.11.
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Hat Tip: JP

Why Africa Will Never Succeed

I expect, like me, you are aware that there has never been a prosperous black led country, but perhaps just blamed their “bad luck”, or whatever, for that uncontradictable fact.

Take Haiti as an example. Before the black slaves revolted and killed all the whites and half castes Haiti had a GNP greater than most of what is now the USA. It supplied 60% of all the sugar used in Europe.

Today it is a wasteland. Apparently if you Google Earth the place it is a sere, brown colour compared to the neighbouring Dominican Republic which is green and verdant.

Twice the USA has occupied Haiti, building roads, ports, hospitals and schools while putting in a functional society,

The moment the Americans left they reverted to dictatorship, voodoo, witchcraft, corruption and barbarism.

They did not stagnate. They regressed to the primitive savagery of their forefathers

Since the 1960s, when the Congo expelled the Belgians this has been a mirror of African regression , moving steadily southwards until the example of Zimbabwe. Once a prosperous, well educated exporter of food the population now eat rats to survive.

Will SA go the same way?

There are those optimists who say “No, we have such a strong economy, such sophisticated infrastructure, such a talent pool, that we can never sink”.

My belief is that they have not considered the root cause of Africa’s failure. A cause that is not spoken about as it is fearfully politically incorrect, and probably illegal to speak about.

To speak about it causes recollections of Hitler’s eugenics beliefs and the horrors that followed.

That cause is the deficiencies of the black ”mentality”, for want of a better word.

Are there differences between races, or is race just a meaningless social construct? Until recently I believed all races were the same under the skin variations, and that perceived differences were only the result of cultural differences. I believed in a common and equal humanity.

But things did not always ring true, observable anomalies were inexplicable if all men are the same.

Why, under apartheid, did the South African Indians prosper, become doctors, scientists, educators, merchants and professionals while the equally oppressed black Africans remained hewers of wood?

Why are Jews more than 12 times more likely to be Nobel Prize recipients than goyim? Why do they command the heights in academia, the arts, business and science?

Why can black Africans run, jump and throw better than whites, but why, out of a billion of them, have they never invented a single thing of any worth? Why have they, collectively, contributed absolutely nothing to the advancement of humanity.

Well the physical thing, the running, throwing bit is easily and uncontroversially answered. Simple, they (especially the Jamaicans) are genetically better equipped in this regard. Their muscle fibres are different and the typically have 15% more free testosterone than other peoples. That does not explain the Jewish or East Asiatic superiority in academics, science or any other meaningful sphere. Surely it cannot be genetic? That is racism.

Unfortunately, racist or not, that is proven and a fact. Google it and you will find that for over 70 years, in test after test, done by dozens of university professors and Nobel laureates plus USA government studies, Jews are the most intelligent of humans followed by East Asians. Then come westerners then, trailing by a wide margin, people of African descent.

I refer to I.Q. tests and the results of these . Jews come in at about 114 points, East Asians about 108, white Europeans 100, African Americans (with their mixed ancestry) 85 and sub Saharan Africans a lowly 70 odd.

Of course I.Q. tests have been attacked, especially by those who perform badly at them, as one might expect them to do. Detractors claim cultural bias, dysfunctional families, past oppression, poor schooling and a host of other reasons for poor black performance, but the professors defend their contention that I.Q. is largely an inherited trait, that differences are inherent, built into a person’s inherited DNA.

For every argument attacking the validity of these tests they have a host of results confirming their accuracy and typicality. Fascinating stuff if you are interested in reading up on it.

The effect of high/low I.Q. has also been studied in depth, with fairly predictable results. Low I.Q. individuals performed badly in social class, family stability, income, educational levels, illegitimate pregnancy, single parent families rate of prison incarceration, rape, violent crime etc. etc. etc.

I.Q. measurement measures different facets of intelligence and mental competence. Sadly it is in the absolutely vital sphere of cognitive ability that blacks score worst. This means they score abysmally in things like forward planning and anticipating the consequences of their actions, or inaction.

It is this I.Q. (and testosterone) disparity that is blamed for the fact that African Americans are 5 times more likely to be imprisoned than white (including Hispanic) Americans, 9 times more likely than Americans of Asiatic descent and 14 times more likely to be jailed than Jewish Americans. All in line with I.Q. distributions.

Once imprisonment for violent crimes are computed the numbers become stratospheric. These are American government collated statistics, so pretty accurate.

Our government in SA do not, for obvious reasons, publish similar stats, but a pound to a pinch of salt they are even more astounding.

So why the lecture on I.Q.?

Well for a start you must understand that our ruling party are voted into power by a largely moronic plebiscite. I choose the word moronic intentionally. If the cut off point for moronic is an I.Q. of 70, half the voting population would be classified as such.

Only one in 40 black SAns achieves the average I.Q. of his white fellow citizens. One in a hundred have the I.Q. to achieve university entrance requirements. That is why only one in ten blacks pass our dumbed down matric (with a pass percentage of 30% in many cases). Only one in 6000 black grade one learners will pass matric with both Maths and Science.

Simply put, they are bloody stupid, and they rule us. Furthermore Zuma says they will rule us until the second coming. I believe him.

This explains why the ANC have such idiots in their positions of power and influence, the likes of Zuma, Malema, Khomphela and Cele. They are, unfortunately, the best they have! Well they are the best blacks they have. All the critical positions are held by Indians, Coloureds or Whites, something I am grateful for but which annoys Malema considerably.

Will this last? I doubt it. The black/white polarisation is growing and the rhetoric is becoming more extreme. Listen to the pub or workplace chatter, read the blogs and comments sections of the newspapers and it becomes obvious. Whites are fed up at the waste, corruption and stupidity of the black elite. Blacks are demanding, as their right, the wealth of the whites by means of redistribution of assets. No matter that they have not worked for those assets, they claim them as the spoils of war.

Recently the Mayor of Pretoria, Malema, a minister and Winnie Mandela have gone on record as blaming whites for sabotaging redistribution and exploiting blacks. Malema calls out “Kill the boers for they are rapists” to thunderous applause by university students. Four influential ANC opinion makers who are echoing the groundswell of mutterings in the ghettoes. The natives are getting restless.

*CONFLICT IS COMING! Mark my words.

Things are not going to improve. They cannot, there is no reason to believe our slow slide into a failed state can be reversed with our current regime, and there is no prospect whatsoever of there being a change to governance based on meritocracy. Anyone who believes otherwise, or that the ANC can mend their ways, is living in La-La land. They do not have the intellect.

Like the proverbial frog in the slowly heating pot we have become inured to the slow collapse of our hospitals, schools, courts,water supplies, roads, civil service and service levels. They will become totally dysfunctional shortly. Inevitably so. Those in charge do not have the mental capacity or foresight to organise things.

Our economy and Rand is reliant on short term “hot” funds from overseas that can flee at the touch of a computer button, and probably will if our Rand weakens. Conversely we need a weaker Rand to encourage exports.

6 million taxpayers support 12 million recipients of social grants, and that figure is set to rise this year. The National Health Insurance scheme will happen, no matter how unaffordable. That will push our social grant costs up to four hundred billion Rand. Four hundred billion Rand which produces absolutely no product. Inflation is set to stay and worsen. The consequence of being the biggest socialist state on earth. I do not believe the ANC has the intellect to conceptualise how big a billion is, let alone 400 billion, or what effect this will have on the economy.

You do not believe Malema’s call to nationalise the mines? This man articulates what the hoi polloi are thinking, but the ANC leadership will not say yet. The tactic is to set the bar high, then lower it and the victims will sigh with relief and say it could have been worse. So perhaps it will not be total nationalisation but rather 51%, a’ la Zimbabwe. Just look north for revelation, Zuma does.

Who would have believed that this country of Jan Smuts would ever be headed by an unschooled, rape accused, adulterous, corrupt, sex obsessed bigot like Zuma. Anything is possible with the ANC.

Summary.

You have few years left to enjoy what is left of the glorious SA lifestyle, especially in the Cape, but understand it is not permanent. The end could be sudden as the tipping point is reached, just as it was sudden for those Zimbabwean, Zambian, Mocambican or Angolan whites. It could, conceivably, be as bloody as the Hutu/Tutsi uprising when primitive tribal bloodlust overcomes a thin veneer of inculcated civilisation.

Enjoy it while you can, and enjoy it in the Cape where the population mix is more favourable, but be aware that change is inevitable. Your children must get a world class education, because they will not be adults in South Africa.

Get assets stashed offshore, you and your children will need them there.

This article is attributed to:

Graham Allardice

Project Manager MPED

Toyota SA Manufacturing

Durban

Written c2009 to 2010

______________

Hat Tip: Laager

This is gonna hurt a little - Façade 42: It is time for Julius Malema and the ANC to admit....

 By Steve Hofmeyr

Steve Hofmeyr is an Afrikaner entertainer resident in South Africa who is taking on Julius Malema in public

_________________________

Afrikaners/Whites are suffering from confession fatigue. Even their children are now paying for the “sins of their forefathers”. They have had to admit to past injustices and are now made to apologise for any prevailing failures. They are secondhand citizens made to pay firsthand taxes. Blaming them is a relief valve for black leadership who has demonstrated zero accountability, confusing self-enrichment with achievement. Hate speech songs (“Kill the Boer”) as sung by ANC leadership are met with quiet insolence and even pride. Our government is now defending(with taxpayers money!) the right of that chant in court. Peter (“One Boer One Bullet”) Mokaba has a FIFA World Cup Soccer stadium named after him. All this while we sport the the most brutal murder-rate in the world, second only to Columbia.  Once again, blameless Afrocentric arrogance  abounds while we are asked to  tolerate pathetic matric exam results and understand perpetrators’ rights. Although South Africans have incompatible memories, collectively we are all heirs of extremely aggravating circumstances. The defeatist victim mentality perpetuates condescendence and alas, inequality. We could have taught the world something. We have not.
It’s time...
1.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit that Struggle math doesn’t tally. Mitigating and aggravating factors can’t be quantified. Denialism and/or Black Empowerment here is hypocrisy and vulgar opportunism.
2.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit that the gravest acts of genocide did not occur during Colonialism/Apartheid, but before and after (read today). Right now South Africa has a lower life expectancy than Uganda.
3.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit  that, unlike Native Americans and Australian Aboriginal genocide, first-nation populations in South Africa escalated under British/Afrikaner rule from 10-30 million in a few decades. Verwoerd was building African schools with Afrikaner money at the time Aussies could obtain fauna licenses to hunt fellow Australians.
4.    It is time for Julius Malema to admit that the only real genocide in South Africa was the Koi annihilation by his ancestors and what Shaka and Dingaan did to their own people. Today, once more, South Africans are wiping fellow citizens off the face of the earth.
5.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit that South Africans have lost more lives in the first four years of ANC rule than during the entire four decades of Nationalist rule. This statistic should be staggering by now, almost 18 years later.
6.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit that more Boer children died in the Anglo Boer War than South Africans in the entire century of the Struggle. Fact: twenty times more. Let’s talk entitlement.
7.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit that discontented South Africans of European descent do not burn down schools, drop their pants, capsize dustbins, plunder and intimidate hospital workers during marches and strikes. We certainly do our share of bad things, but we do not sing while babies die in maternity wards.
8.    It is time for Julius Malema  to see the folly of transformation from Western democracies to Africa-socialism, placing need over achievement. Everybody is poorer and unemployment rife. There is nothing “just” about economic equality when it implies market tampering.
9.    It is time for Julius Malema  (and Robert Mugabe) to admit to the futility of still blaming this on previous regimes. That redemption tool is now exhausted and merely perpetuates condescension and promotes professional suffering.
10.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit that the demonized Afrikaner was also the rightful owner of land they had acquired after a brutal war they had lost, at enormous  human cost. Trivialising a blood sacrifice is insensitive and dangerous. Don’t question Afrikaner reluctance to assimilate before you get this.
11.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit that Verwoerd entrusted Malema’s tax-exempt great-grandfathers with gratis homeland larger than achiever-countries like Denmark, Norway and Switzerland, and still came up with nothing to show for it. Many Afrikaners found Verwoerd way too liberal with their tax money.
12.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit to his actual Western appetite combined with  Africans’ neurotic leap from mother tongue education to English, a treason which may still erase the little literature and heritage they had bothered to record.
13.    It is time for Julius Malema to admit he can only favour  place name changes in envy, as not one single Western city, town or street was stolen from anybody on this continent. A child can solve land claims.
14.    It is time for Julius Malema to admit that almost all former fruitful farmland dispossessed in land claims, have suffered the same fate – brutal sterilization.
15.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit that more Afrikaner farmers are slaughtered annually than South Africans who died during the Sharpeville violence, a figure that dwarfs Ireland’s national mortality rate (FYI, Bono).
16.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit that the new South Africa has contributed nothing to the world stage but shame and catch-up. This explains the following patronizing and affirmative therapy organizations:
Black African Cricket Forum, Black Broker Service Network (BBSN), Black Brokers Forum (BBF), Black Business Council, Black Business Forum, Black Business Woman Association (BBWA) , Black Editors' Forum, Black Filmmakers Network (BFN), is a network of over 200 individuals and 25 companies nationally, Black IT Forum (BITF), Black Law Students' Forum, Black Lawyers Association, Black Leadership Forum, Black Management Forum, Black South African Students’ Organization (SASO), FEW - black lesbian organization in South Africa, Forum of Black Journalists, National Black Contractors and Allied Trades Forum (Nabcat), National Forum for Black Public Administrators (NFBPA), National Society of Black Engineers, etc.
17.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit that the voters of the previous regime really voted the ANC into power and that they rule by the grace of a benevolent yes-vote  in a referendum in 1992. He was pre-teen then. Everyday he parades his hypocrisy  that yes-vote lives in regret.
18.    It is time for Julius Malema to admit that the killers and rapists in his songs are NOT an Afrikaner statistic. Examples abound 1,2,3. The greatest butchers of South Africans, by far, were his own ancestors (Dingaan en Shaka). Today 3500 plus Afrikaner farmers are no longer with us. This vile statistic of ethnic cleansing accumulates daily and is generally ignored.
19.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit that poverty will prevail for as long as they keep in power a government defined by nepotism, judiciary containment,  golden handshakes, silent diplomacy, BEE charters, unprecedented unemployment, unethical grants, land grabs, tenderpreneurs and futile dreams of nationalization. A Welfare state of these proportions renders working men obsolete.
20.    It’s time for Julius Malema to admit that the book on tender procedures has been rewritten by ANC cronies, comrades and families. By October 2010 the amount of R26 billion of that had been investigated as fraudulent (The Star , 28 October 2010). By April 2011 the national press editorialized corruption as epidemic.
21.    It is time for Julius Malema  and other instant millionaires to admit that one may only keep what one earns. This is capitalism. Fallible but unchallenged. Possessing what you did not earn is common theft in any language. “Deserving” politicians, nationalization, landgrab etc. translate to Afrikaans as theft, theft and theft.
22.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit culpability in keeping leaders in power who are dragging this fine nation to the bottom of international management, development and mortality indexes. The latter is the measure of civilization while we sport a lower life expectancy than Uganda. The 2010 Global Competiveness Report by the World Economic Forum rated the new, fair and Democratic South Africa such:
• Quality of the education system – 130th out of 139
• Quality of primary education – 125th out of 139
• Quality of math and science education - 137th out of 139
• HIV prevalence - 136th out of 139
• Life expectancy – 127th out of 139
• Infant mortality – 109th out of 139
• Tuberculosis incidence - 138th out of 139
• Business impact of HIV/AIDS - 138th out of 139
23.    It is time for Julius to explain to other Africans that circumcision and muti rituals are pre-civilization quackery, that AIDS is not cured by raping virgins and that sangomas will always be inferior to the Western tradition of health awareness as a science and a discipline.
24.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit that African folk are still dependent on what South African governments force other South Africans to do for them. Blunt patronization.
25.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit that he has run out of reasons and time to blame the previous regime and to sever the defeating umbilical chord of Afrodebt. Ironically, the only two former colonized states which became global achievers (India and China), did exactly that.
26.    It’s time for Malema to understand that the settler lineage will never fall for the Struggle propaganda that their contribution and sacrifices were insignificant. You cannot suppress their heritage by stealing the names of world class towns, cities and well established infrastructure; you can only defile it by not sustaining that incredible progress.
27.    It’s time for Julius Malema to show gratitude for a tribe who sacrificed almost 40 000 of its own population to rightfully own a country Africans acquired by virtue of outnumbering them and then agitating for a democracy.
28.    It is time for Malema to admit that one man’s liberty was always another man’s devastation and that the entitlement tug-a-war can only be solved by immediately declaring a breakeven point. Stop BEE, AA, quotas, EE and affirmative therapy right now.
29.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit that it is inconsequential to bemoan Western influence when everything you do is  for Western style affluence and thanks to Western influence.
30.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit that nobody wants to rescue Apartheid, but that redress is only possible if something legally owned was taken away. Forced removals were regrettable but almost never done without offers of compensation. Why is this fact omitted when rallying up emotions to grab land?
31.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit that the oppressed during the Struggle has long since assumed and surpassed the role of the former oppressor. Collective amnesia at this point in our dour histories is dishonest and suicidal.
32.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit that his ancestors of the time were not invited to the Peace Treaty of Vereeniging, because they were, despite their numbers, economically, technologically, militarily and politically insignificant. This explains decades and decades of gross minority rule.
33.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit that Afrikaners would not have stood for subjugation by any minority, ever.
34.    It is time for Julius Malema  to read the previous point again and ask the relevant questions.
35.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit that the colonised is a colonisable individual, and a very envious one at that (Fanon). The pathology of eternal debt is misguided.
36.    It is time for Malema to admit that no South Africans want to return to a pre-Eurocentric African state of mind and affairs. African anti-Western defiance is populist diatribe and hypocritical banter tagged with a huge dollar sign.
37.    It is time for Julius Malema to admit that Africa is the orphan continent thanks to many that went before him, fat-cat despots who sounded exactly like him.
38.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit that not one single leader, minister or mayor has been voted in legally or democratically. More than half of South Africans still don’t vote. The politically inept and unqualified surface and after being discredited, resurface elsewhere under the banner of ANC aegis.
39.    It is time for Julius Malema  to admit  that South Africa produces almost 25% of this continent’s GDP . SA  qualifies to host world cup events on this continent. Not bad for the land that surrendered "colonial" rule stone last.
40.    It is time for Julius Malema  to see that it is pathetic to use old buildings, highways, systems and infrastructure but pretend to be demoralized by the sight of old flags.
41.    It is time for Julius Malema to admit to the sometimes mutual incompatibility between hatespeech and traditional songs, the way Afrikaners had to sacrifice traditional terms like “kaffer”. He can not have his cake and eat it. If some can chant “kill the Boer”, others will gladly reciprocate by revoking the vocable.
42.    It is time for Julius Malema  to see that most South Africans do not want the old South Africa back. We all opt for an accountable government of any colour or tribe. What we do not want is our former head of police and Interpol boss serving time for corruption and the spouse of our Minister of Security as a convicted drug smuggler. We demand safety and a future for our children.

Now, Julius, go tally your populist and unfounded anti-western sentiments. You are keeping my South African compatriots  victims  in this sad old race to upstage Europeans. Ironically your efforts are still subsidized by white money. This you use gladly and squander greatly. We are not immigrating. We shall secure a future for our children in our motherland. This ship will be turned around by sober thinking South Africans, and I want to be there.
Steve Hofmeyr
*

ROY BENNETT- ADDRESS TO SA BUSINESS CLUB - 4 MAY 2011

ROY BENNETT- ADDRESS TO SA BUSINESS CLUB

4 MAY 2011- NEW STREET SQUARE, LONDON ECLS 3BZ

Good Evening Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.

On behalf of my wife Heather, my party the Movement for Democratic Change, and of course the people of Zimbabwe, I thank the SA Business Club for the opportunity of engaging with like-minded people—people who care about the prospects of a democratic Southern Africa. Given the much esteemed personalities who have addressed this forum previously, I feel truly humbled.

I hope that my address helps to shed further light on the inescapable fact that Zimbabwe’s continuing trials and tribulations will increasingly impact negatively on South Africa, and on the region, if there is no true resolution of the crisis. A true resolution can only come when the theft of Zimbabwean votes is righted—when Zimbabweans are allowed to elect leaders of their choice.

Nearly twelve years ago, a close family friend of mine living in Johannesburg told me of a discussion he had had with one of Johannesburg’s celebrated business leaders. The gist of this conversation was along the lines of ‘Well even if President Mbeki has covered up for Mugabe, and the MDC actually did win the 2000 elections, so what?’ This whole issue will be seen by us in, South Africa as irrelevant and it will be business as usual—that’s ‘AFRICAN POLITICS’.

We all know now some of the more obvious results of President Mbeki’s policy of ‘Quiet Diplomacy’. South Africa has, for example, been overwhelmed by at least two million Zimbabwean migrants. This sad, unnecessary, traumatic exodus will be felt for decades and decades to come. Indeed, the effects cannot yet be fully evaluated. For the two million Zimbabweans cast into abject poverty, it is a human tragedy of epic proportions. If ever South Africans wanted to see the sheer scale of their misery, a visit at night to the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg, is all that is needed. Bishop Paul Veryn and the Methodist Church will always be warmly remembered and admired by Zimbabweans for his single-handed, herculean efforts to ease the plight of homeless Zimbabweans.

The pressures exerted by desperate Zimbabweans, experienced across South Africa, has seen highly literate Zimbabweans compete for employment opportunities from white collar jobs to the most menial of tasks. This human contagion has already resulted in turmoil and social discord. Yet President Mbeki denied the very existence of xenophobia in South Africa, such was his disconnect with reality in his own country, let alone Zimbabwe.

I have news for all South Africans. If the result of the next Zimbabwean elections, likely to be held in early 2012, are not accepted by the MILITARY JUNTA/ZANU PF DICTATORSHIP and the resulting will of the people is again, for the fifth time, ignored, Zimbabweans will be left with no hope for a peaceful democratic future. They will pour into South Africa! But this flood of refugees will be different. The Zimbabweans, who will come to South Africa in 2012, will be older, much older and totally destitute. They will also be less educated, and they will most certainly not assimilate into South African society as well as the previous flood of Zimbabweans. They will become a DAILY, living reminder, on every street corner, of South Africa’s dreadful complicity in the subversion of democracy in our region. For Botswana, where Francistown groans under the weight of the Zimbabwean influx, the story will be the same. We are looking at an awful scenario.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please do not in any way simply brush this possible development aside. What we have in Zimbabwe is a ruthless coterie of thugs, bullies, and incompetent individuals, masquerading as a political organisation—ZANU-PF. They are capable of anything. Their capacity for institutionalised violence and torture is unprecedented, even in Africa. Most recently, they dragged my friend, the MDC’s Deputy Treasurer General, Honourable Elton Mangoma, to court in leg irons after an unpleasant and unjustified incarceration. Honourable Mangoma is Minister of Energy in this so called INCLUSIVE GOVERNMENT, and is a respected and influential leader in our party.

The South African Government and the governments in the region, as represented by SADC, MUST FINALLY and I repeat FINALLY, demand in simple unambiguous language, that ZANU-PF adhere to EACH AND EVERY condition that forms part of the Global Political Agreement. If they don’t, the REGION, the WHOLE REGION of Southern Africa, will feel the effects of their feebleness. Reluctance on behalf of SADC once again to reign in ZANU PF, will negatively and radically affect future regional business investment. It will be a red rag to the indigenization radicals in ZANU PF—a group that already has the whip hand—and the international investment risk profile for the entire region will go through the roof. It will also provide fuel for those in South African politics who see ZANU PF as blazing a trail, showing how the game should be played south of the Limpopo. This is not an exaggerated scenario. Every South African, Botswanan, Zambian, and Malawian citizen should demand from their governments that GADAFFI’S bosom buddy, ROBERT MUGABE, respect the peaceful democratic will of the people, and transfer power to the people’s choice, once their votes are tallied, after a peaceful electoral process. More than anyone, it is the South African business community that must see this scenario in full Technicolor and push its government to finally bring this nonsense to an end. Another pseudo-solution will be a disaster.

If any further proof is needed of ZANU PF’S failure to grasp reality, reflect for a moment on the absurdity of their most recent INDIGENIZATION demands. These are totally and utterly illegitimate, they are not endorsed by my party, and if implemented they will, as sure as day follows night, lay waste to Zimbabwe’s natural resources industry. If ever intelligent people are inclined to wonder what investors think of ZANU-PF’S nationalization/indigenization policies, just look what has happened to the value of PLATINUM shares such as IMPALA and ANGLO PLATINUM on the London Stock Exchange. It is beyond comprehension in today’s GLOBALISED competitive market place, to expect companies to cede 51% of their equity, and to fund the business going forward assuming their obligation and those of their NEW PARTNERS!

We only have to look back a few years to see what indigenization Mark 1 did to the country: we have gone down the road of ‘so called’ “Agricultural Land Reform”. Every Zimbabwean besides half-baked ZANU PF zealots knows now that agriculture and agri-business, hitherto Zimbabwe’s most productive sectors, have been virtually destroyed. Indicatively, literally all our groceries and food stuffs are imported, primarily from South Africa! Far from being liberated, we have become a Bantustan.

These are the legacies of ZANU-PF’S ‘BREAD BASKET, TO BASKET CASE IN TEN YEARS!’ How should business respond to these challenges? To begin, the desperate INDIGENISATION demands made upon well-known, respected London Listed companies must be disregarded. The majority party in Zimbabwe’s parliament is not a signatory to this institutionalised theft by individuals, posing as agents for the Zimbabwean people! Ladies and Gentlemen I also find the attempts by management of these companies to ‘NEGOTIATE’ an acceptable level of ‘theft’ quite nauseating. It is symptomatic of a worldwide malaise affecting many companies. Namely a gross failure to understand, that a country’s resources, whether they be Libyan, Egyptian or Zimbabwean, are not the property of illegitimate dictators, their wives and fellow travellers. The justifiable anger of the Egyptian people directed at the MUBARAK family should serve as a real wake up call to ZANU-PF. Zimbabweans have had enough of Grace Mugabe’s shopping trips using our peoples resources!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am not an embittered ‘Rhodesian Farmer’. I am not a product of WHITE privilege. In fact most of you will be interested to know that many WHITE Zimbabweans complicit with the regime for monetary gain actually loathe me—I am ‘BENNETT the TROUBLE MAKER’ etc. I have often been asked to ‘CUT A DEAL’—‘ALL THEY WANT IS MONEY’ and so on. My constituency and reference point in life is the wonderful, brave ethical people of CHIMANIMANI and ZIMBABWE. A friend of mine once told me I have perhaps become the JOE SLOVO of Zimbabwean Politics. Being a simple Zimbabwean farmer, I didn’t know whether it was a compliment or a back handed snide remark, given how apparently unpopular the late JOE SLOVO was with many white South Africans! However, the steadfast bravery and support which I enjoy from ordinary Zimbabweans, reminds us all in Southern Africa of Nelson Mandela’s vision. This is what he had to say at his inauguration as democratic South Africa’s first president on the 10th May 1994 and it rings loud and clear for us tonight: ‘The time for the healing of wounds has come. The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come. The time to build is upon us... We enter into a covenant that we shall build the society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity- a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world’ This is the part of the African National Congress that ZANU-PF can never resonate with. Since when should I accept that I have no rights in the country of my birth? Since when should Ndebele’s accept second class citizenship in Zimbabwe, and so on, and so on?

Is it too much in the 21st Century for Zimbabweans to expect access to functioning educational infrastructure, decent/effective health care, socially acceptable housing, and meaningful employment opportunities, with access to impartial courts of justice?

Zimbabweans demand that the fundamentals of democratic society, stolen by ZANU-PF, be returned to us. We are NO DIFFERENT from KENYANS; FROM IVORIANS. How are we different from the brave people of South Sudan, our African brothers and sisters in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt? The days of tyrants and dictators are over.

Individually, when evaluating the possibility of supporting MDC, all of us here need to reflect on the reality that the African National Congress is not aligned to ZANU-PF, and has little in common with it.

ZANU- PF’S history in the war of liberation was in Partnership with the PAC. When President Jacob Zuma, and ANC MK CADRES fought alongside freedom fighters in the then Rhodesia, President Zuma came under fire with comrades from ZAPU and their armed wing ZIPRA alongside him. The party of Luthuli, Mandela, Sisulu and Tambo is not, and can never be equated with ZANU-PF. ZANU-PF is the party of TRIBAL ETHNIC CLEANSING. Mugabe’s shameful extermination of thousands of Ndebele’s was a deliberate systematic pogrom of murder. Only recently Operation MURAMBATSVINA (CLEAN OUT THE FILTH) is yet another grotesque example of ZANU-PF’S ‘APARTHEID JACK BOOT’ approach to solving dissent. The similarity displayed by ZANU-PF’S disgusting destruction of people’s homes, mirrors the myriad actions of the Apartheid regime’s delinquent behaviour over many years with forced relocations. The shameful record of ZANU PF obligates every South African to speak out. ZANU PF constantly violates EVERY tenet, of the remarkable South African Constitution. We as MDC strive for people’s Constitution that is comparable.

The one strand that I sense is the real fundamental disconnect between the ANC and ZANU-PF, and which is at the core of the African National Congress and its Alliance Partners, is its declared commitment to non-racialism and the pre-eminence the ALLIANCE gives to HUMAN RIGHTS. We in the MDC, aspire to be a party, which shows by its decisions and policies, that we are in step with the vision of Nelson Mandela.

My involvement in the unfolding struggle is to ensure that fundamental HUMAN RIGHTS be entrenched in every component of our country’s new constitution. My struggle, and that of many Zimbabweans, demonstrates to people—irrespective of race—that those whose rights have been ignored, and trampled upon, are also citizens deserving to have their respect and dignity restored.

Now enough with the ‘gloom and doom’. Believe me; I am totally optimistic about Zimbabwe and the region’s future. With one caveat though: there is, in spite of what I have said, no room for any of you as mere spectators and arm chair critics! Accordingly, I urge each and every one of you, to genuinely engage in your own way directly in the fight for Southern Africa’s DEMOCRATIC FUTURE. A real life drama is playing out. Everyone is part of history in the making.

Most of you in this audience are probably sceptical about the suggestion that Zimbabwe has all the possibilities to become Africa’s ‘Switzerland’. But if one stops for a moment, and reflects on RWANDA’s dramatic progress over the past few years, Zimbabwe’s transformation is entirely feasible and optimistic.

My position heading up our party’s GLOBAL ADVOCACY campaign which embraces far, far more than FUNDRAISING, has enabled me to meet one-on-one, with some of the world’s most influential entrepreneurs, financiers and business leaders.

I find it simply incredible that LONDON and NEW YORK are more favourably disposed to Zimbabwe than South Africa. It is not ignorance either: whether the interest comes from Europe, Canada, or Brazil or Sweden, I have been warmly received.

Business opportunities will flourish in Zimbabwe as our economy begins to grow again. One of the world’s outstanding entrepreneurs confirmed to me, after a personal, on the ground visit to Zimbabwe recently, that unlike most African countries, ‘Everything, infrastructure-wise was built— power, roads, railways, schools, arms, factories, homes. It is always easier to rebuild than to create from scratch’. I was deeply impressed with his observations and advice.

My colleagues in party leadership positions will fast track ethical investment in every sector of the economy. It is South African business, those listed construction companies in South Africa, mining houses, exploration companies, health sector players that stand to benefit, if they engage properly. But perhaps significantly, it is individuals, who wish to re-connect with Africa, that offer our best hope for the future.

With a natural resources boom underway, and likely to be in play for some time ahead, the fundamentals of SUPPLY and CAPACITY constraints continue to undermine landlocked Southern Congo, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana’s ability to effectively leverage the value of their mineral resources.

As long as Zimbabwe, which acts as the LOGISTICS HUB for Central Africa, is rightfully perceived by the investment community as another SOMALIA in the making, Botswana, Zambia and the resource-rich Southern Congo, will be deprived of natural resources growth investment. An efficient rail network is required in the region. Investment of this scale clearly requires a measure of stability going forward. This is just one fundamental reality beyond the scope and capacity of ZANU-PF to understand.

Our Party’s is a broad church. Its bedrock is the Zimbabwean people, most of who are recognised throughout Africa as industrious, intelligent, educated individuals. Unlike many in Africa, we know the STATE cannot offer sustainable economic growth, employment or career opportunities. The institutions of the STATE are they HEALTH, EDUCATION, WATER AND SEWERAGE, RAILWAYS or ROADS, have been ruined by ZANU-PF.

Tremendous business opportunities therefore exist in Zimbabwe for tomorrow’s dynamic entrepreneurs. EVERYTHING, I repeat EVERYTHING, has to be RE-BUILT. The goodwill and financial capacity to fund this is available from the world community—if we get our politics right.

We look for inspiration to our friends in Botswana, South Africa, Zambia and our SADC partner Mauritius. Why can’t Zimbabwe emulate the development that is occurring in these countries?

Everyone can be sure of one thing. I speak to you tonight in all honesty, and filled with excitement of perhaps being able to look on as an elder figure, while the youngsters, the smart guys in our party, roll up their shirtsleeves and create a genuinely business-friendly environment in our beloved country. It is an honour for all Zimbabweans, and a singular reason for us to be proud, that our MDC Minister of Finance has become respected around the world. I acknowledge our economy’s modest size but reflect also on his achievements against all odds.

By helping us in Zimbabwe, to rid ourselves decisively of the scourge of ZANU-PF—folks it’s in South Africa’s selfish best interests. Here is a simple illustration of my argument. An MDC-led Zimbabwe will embrace broad based economic EMPOWERMENT initiatives that clearly sustain and encourage investment, which are supported by local communities and CIVIL SOCIETY. This carefully crafted legislation will be the genuine perfect alternative to POPULIST rhetoric in South Africa for the nationalisation of specific sectors. Zimbabwe has been down the nationalisation road to ruin and chaos. The evidence of abject failure is there for all who truly have the best interests of the region’s people at heart. We in Zimbabwe have seen the MOVIE, been there, and DONE THAT. Believe me; South Africa does not need to go down that road.

We yearn to show you all that Zimbabwe can, and with the hard-nosed good will of others, in time truly become an African Switzerland. We can, as predicted by MDC President Tsvangirai at the recent MDC party congress in Bulawayo, transform ourselves into a US$ 100 billion economy within 30 years.

While many among you may be sceptical, perhaps even cynical, Zimbabwe offers so many opportunities for those who are African in their souls. Those who wake up in Zimbabwe, and breathe that wonderful fresh, unpolluted air still believe. ‘Yes, we Can’ overcome the pervasiveness of failure and AFRO pessimism. Now is the time for action. Zimbabwe’s glass is most definitely half full and the future is that of opportunity and growth.

I would like to take this opportunity to say with pride MAKOROKOTO, AMHLOPHE, CONGRATULATIONS, to the MDC for last weekend’s successful historical third Party Congress. A big thank you to my fellow members for the confidence they have shown in my unopposed re-election, congratulate my colleagues on their election and join them in a commitment towards the next election, TOGETHER. UNITED, WINNING, READY FOR REAL CHANGE!

It has been a pleasure to talk to you this evening as an African talking to my fellow brothers and sisters from South Africa. I say THANK YOU-SIYABONGA- BAIE DANKIE- HAMBE GAHLE.

Skilled whites also facing racial purge - Solidarity

Union says amendment will make racial demography only criterion for setting targets

Another affirmative action shock - available skills may no longer count

In yet another radical amendment to the affirmative action legislation, the Department of Labour has suggested that the availability of skills may no longer be used in the implementation of affirmative action. According to trade union Solidarity, employers are, under current legislation, required to take into account the skills available when affirmative action are implemented. This stipulation is going to be eliminated in accordance to the new proposals. The only measure which will be used to determine targets is the demography of the economically active population (EAP).

The government hereby fails to appreciate the fact that there is a skills shortage, according to Solidarity. It also corroborates the idea which the current government spokesperson Jimmy Manyi has announced. Manyi has already stated in 2007 that the skills shortage is only an urban legend. He reiterated this statement several times. This amendment only confirms Manyi's view that there is no skills shortage.

The underlying idea of the new amendment is that representation is the only measure for affirmative action. According to Beeld on 12 May 2010, Manyi also told the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of South Africa that absolute representation is the only measure of employment equity.

"Despite this new amendment's failure to appreciate the problem, Blade Nzimande, Minister of Higher Education, emphasised in January this year that the economy is thwarted by the serious skills shortage. He further underlined the fact that South Africa has a shortage of artisans, in particular, and that approximately 10 000 artisans should be trained annually," said Dr Dirk Hermann, deputy general secretary of Solidarity.

Meanwhile, Solidarity reckons that the dissemination of skills between race groups cannot be ignored. "According to Statistics South Africa's data of the 2007 community survey, the distribution of qualifications is not a direct reflection of the distribution of the EAP.

In 2007 almost 52% of all South Africans above the age of 20 years who were in possession of a matric certificate with university exemption were Africans. In the same year, only 34% of South Africans older than 20 with an honours degree, and only 28% with a masters or doctors degree were black.

In contrast, 73,7% of South Africa's EAP are black. The application of the demographic profile of the EAP in the country can therefore not simply be used as the only measure, since people of the designated group with the applicable skills are frequently just not available. It is absurd to think that an employer may be penalised if he does not comply with employment equity targets in spite of a serious skills shortage," Hermann said.

The implementation of this legislation would lead to, among other things, positions being left vacant if suitable candidates from the designated group are not available. In the private sector this will hamper the growth of firms as well as economic growth in general. In the public service deteriorating service delivery will continue. This is despite President Jacob Zuma stating in his State of the Nation address that public service positions may not be left vacant.

The answer to the skills shortage in South Africa does not lie in ignoring it, but to confront it. True affirmative action will consist of launching large-scale skills development programmes. The new amendment to the legislation focuses on outcomes, namely racial targets. The correct approach will be change that stimulates input, namely training and development.

Solidarity has reiterated its plea that the amendment should be recalled.

Statement issued by Dirk Hermann, Deputy general secretary: Solidarity, March 6 2011

Source

_________
Hat tip JP

South Africa: Only a matter of time before the bomb explodes

by Moeletsi Mbeki: Author, political commentator, entrepreneur and brother of the former South African president

I can predict when SA’s "Tunisia Day" will arrive. Tunisia Day is when the masses rise against the powers that be, as happened recently in Tunisia. The year will be 2020, give or take a couple of years. The year 2020 is when China estimates that its current minerals-intensive industrialisation phase will be concluded.

For SA, this will mean the African National Congress (ANC) government will have to cut back on social grants, which it uses to placate the black poor and to get their votes. China’s current industrialisation phase has forced up the prices of SA’s minerals, which has enabled the government to finance social welfare programmes.

The ANC inherited a flawed, complex society it barely understood; its tinkerings with it are turning it into an explosive cocktail. The ANC leaders are like a group of children playing with a hand grenade. One day one of them will figure out how to pull out the pin and everyone will be killed.

A famous African liberation movement, the National Liberation Front of Algeria, after tinkering for 30 years, pulled the grenade pin by cancelling an election in 1991 that was won by the opposition Islamic Salvation Front. In the civil war that ensued, 200000 people were killed.

The former British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, once commented that whoever thought that the ANC could rule SA was living in Cloud Cuckoo Land. Why was Thatcher right? In the 16 years of ANC rule, all the symptoms of a government out of its depth have grown worse.

Life expectancy has declined from 65 years to 53 years since the ANC came to power;
In 2007, SA became a net food importer for the first time in its history;
The elimination of agricultural subsidies by the government led to the loss of 600000 farm workers’ jobs and the eviction from the commercial farming sector of about 2,4-million people between 1997 and 2007; and
The ANC stopped controlling the borders, leading to a flood of poor people into SA, which has led to conflicts between SA’s poor and foreign African migrants.

What should the ANC have done, or be doing?

The answer is quite straightforward. When they took control of the government in 1994, ANC leaders should have: identified what SA’s strengths were; identified what SA’s weaknesses were; and decided how to use the strengths to minimise and/or rectify the weaknesses.

A wise government would have persuaded the skilled white and Indian population to devote some of their time — even an hour a week — to train the black and coloured population to raise their skill levels.

What the ANC did instead when it came to power was to identify what its leaders and supporters wanted. It then used SA’s strengths to satisfy the short-term consumption demands of its supporters. In essence, this is what is called black economic empowerment (BEE).

BEE promotes a number of extremely negative socioeconomic trends in our country. It promotes a class of politicians dependent on big business and therefore promotes big business’s interests in the upper echelons of government. Second, BEE promotes an anti-entrepreneurial culture among the black middle class by legitimising an environment of entitlement. Third, affirmative action, a subset of BEE, promotes incompetence and corruption in the public sector by using ruling party allegiance and connections as the criteria for entry and promotion in the public service, instead of having tough public service entry examinations.

Let’s see where BEE, as we know it today, actually comes from. I first came across the concept of BEE from a company, which no longer exists, called Sankor. Sankor was the industrial division of Sanlam and it invented the concept of BEE.

The first purpose of BEE was to create a buffer group among the black political class that would become an ally of big business in SA. This buffer group would use its newfound power as controllers of the government to protect the assets of big business.

The buffer group would also protect the modus operandi of big business and thereby maintain the status quo in which South African business operates. That was the design of the big conglomerates.

Sanlam was soon followed by Anglo American. Sanlam established BEE vehicle Nail; Anglo established Real Africa, Johnnic and so forth. The conglomerates took their marginal assets, and gave them to politically influential black people, with the purpose, in my view, not to transform the economy but to create a black political class that is in alliance with the conglomerates and therefore wants to maintain the status quo of our economy and the way in which it operates.

But what is wrong with protecting SA’s conglomerates?

Well, there are many things wrong with how conglomerates operate and how they have structured our economy.

The economy has a strong built-in dependence on cheap labour;
It has a strong built-in dependence on the exploitation of primary resources;
It is strongly unfavourable to the development of skills in our general population;
It has a strong bias towards importing technology and economic solutions; and
It promotes inequality between citizens by creating a large, marginalised underclass.

Conglomerates are a vehicle, not for creating development in SA but for exploiting natural resources without creating in-depth, inclusive social and economic development, which is what SA needs. That is what is wrong with protecting conglomerates.

The second problem with the formula of BEE is that it does not create entrepreneurs. You are taking political leaders and politically connected people and giving them assets which, in the first instance, they don’t know how to manage. So you are not adding value. You are faced with the threat of undermining value by taking assets from people who were managing them and giving them to people who cannot manage them. BEE thus creates a class of idle rich ANC politicos.

My quarrel with BEE is that what the conglomerates are doing is developing a new culture in SA — not a culture of entrepreneurship, but an entitlement culture, whereby black people who want to go into business think that they should acquire assets free, and that somebody is there to make them rich, rather than that they should build enterprises from the ground.

But we cannot build black companies if what black entrepreneurs look forward to is the distribution of already existing assets from the conglomerates in return for becoming lobbyists for the conglomerates.

The third worrying trend is that the ANC-controlled state has now internalised the BEE model. We are now seeing the state trying to implement the same model that the conglomerates developed.

What is the state distributing? It is distributing jobs to party faithful and social welfare to the poor. This is a recipe for incompetence and corruption, both of which are endemic in SA. This is what explains the service delivery upheavals that are becoming a normal part of our environment.

So what is the correct road SA should be travelling?

We all accept that a socialist model, along the lines of the Soviet Union, is not workable for SA today. The creation of a state-owned economy is not a formula that is an option for SA or for many parts of the world. Therefore, if we want to develop SA instead of shuffling pre-existing wealth, we have to create new entrepreneurs, and we need to support existing entrepreneurs to diversify into new economic sectors.

Mbeki is the author of Architects of Poverty: Why African Capitalism Needs Changing. This article forms part of a series on transformation supplied by the Centre for Development and Enterprise.

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