Julius Malema Just Wanna Have Fun

Julius Malema

The ANC Youth League has dismissed the furore surrounding its president Julius Malema`s weekend house-warming party which neighbours claimed denied them peaceful sleep because of the noise.

According to those who were there this was the mother of all parties which attracted the who-is-who of business and politics. Booze and food was aplenty. A live band was at hand to see the revellers through the night while neighbours were denied sleep.

The party took place at Malema`s new Sandton place. Such neighbourhoods are a far-cry from the townships and villages were people are tolerant of the disturbance of peace.

In these places people love and appreciate their peace. No wonder they move there in the first place.

The ANC YL is synonymous with partying and will do this wherever they will find themselves, including Sandton. They therefore get taken aback when there is an outcry about Malema`s kind of fun instead of coming over to join in the fun.

The best the neighbours should is brace themselves for more of such fun-filled nights or alternatively move to more quiter neighbourhoods which are becoming rarer by the day.

Happy Birthday Ahmed Kathrada

Ahmed Kathrada

One of the two surving treason trialists Ahmed Kathrada turned 80 today, the other being Dr Nelson Mandela who celebrated his 91st birthday recently.

Through out his life Kathrada served the people of South Africa with distinction, more especially during the difficult days of the struggle for liberation. His name will always have a place of pride in the hearts of his country men and women.

After Mandela had been elected president of South Africa he appointed Kathrada as his parliamentary counsellor in recognition and celebration of  his immense contribution to the leberation of the country and its people.

It is sad that many who bore the brunt of apartheid repression during the era of Kathrada are no more and with them went a part of the institutional memory of our struggle.

Let us celebrate by learning as much as we can from  stalwarts like Kathrada while they are still alive for tomorrow they will no longer with us.

On the foot-steps of president Zuma

The Prez and Deputy Minister Phaahla flanking Premier Mathale

Yesterday I took day from the hustle and bustle of work and followed the Limpopo crowds to the hitherto corner of South Africa called Muyexe. The attraction being that president Jacob Zuma was in the village of Muyexe to officially launch government`s rural development and land reform programme.

The village of Muyexe is found in the equally unknown town of Giyani in the Mopani district of the Limpopo province. I am wondering whether many know or ever heard of this current flavour of the moment that Muyexe is. Or even the town of Giyani, our Mopani ditrict and better still the Limpopo province.

At times I become delusional and think I am  more well-known than all these entities put together!

That was the case until our intrepid president saw Nkandla in Muyexe and declared during his maiden state of the nation address:

“Working together with our people in the rural areas, we will ensure a comprehensive rural development strategy linked to land and agrarian reform and food security as our third priority…While having drawn the necessary lessons from earlier rural development initiatives, we have choosen the Greater Tzaneen Local Municipality as the first of the pilot projects for the campaign.”

The Minister, the Prez and the Premier

As a result we came to know that the town of Giyani is found in the province of Limpopo and that it was once the capital of the Gazankulu bantustan. Today Giyani is the administrative centre of the Mopani ditrict municipality.

It was in my quest to be where the president and almost everybody in Limpopo was that I found myself in Giyani. I never made to the obviously overcrowded Muyexe village. As for the launch, I would catch it all leisure through the mass media.

As I waited for news to start filtering through I kept myself busy at a local watering-hole, appropriately named Oasis. Some time after lunch the from Muyexe crowd dropped in to shake off the dust from the now famous village.

President and his battery of eminents never made it my way though. No tear, I`ll catch them some other day.

When everybody who matter headed home, I also followed suit. We left behind a hitherto rural community whose dream for a better life for life had been rekindled. Let us now wait and see.

To All The Women

Women`s Day Poster

” You have tempered with the women. You have struck a rock. You have dislodged a boulder. You will be crushed.” This is the battle-cry by women who marched on the Union Buildings in March 1956 against the apartheid-era pass laws.

August is traditionally Women`s Month during which women are celebrated for their resilliance and successes.

 

A lot has been achieved by women over the years from when black women had to contend with tripple oppression – as black women, as women and as working women.

Since then a lot of strides have been made to improve the status of women across the board – be it in politics, society, government, sports, business and many other areas – women today occupy places of pride and importance.

Achievements by women din`t drop like manna from heaven or as a favour from men. It is a consequence of struggle and sacrifices.

A lot has been achieved, a lot still has to be done.

Let us all do our bit to further enhance the status of women in society until the gap between man and women is no more. That is the best we can do in celebration of our women.

Constellation of Lightweights!

How Business Day sees it

Unity efforts by the leading South African opposition parties have been dismissed by an often quoted political  commentator  as a constellation of lightweights.

The commentator one Aubrey Matshiqi, says ”a constellation of lightweights (the opposition) will not create a heavyweight (the ANC).”

These sentiments are shared by another analyst Steven Friedman whose view is that the “creation of a united opposition would not change the South African political landscape. The combined number of seats that the opposition will win in the election will be the same, regardless of whether they get together.”

What the two commentators choose to disregard is the fact that COPE and DA performed handsomely in the April 22 elections compared to the ANC`s losses in all the provinces except KwaZulu Natal.

Added to the ANC losses are the countrywide community upheavals over poor or non-existent service delivery by municipalities.

ANC arrogance in dealing with everyone from the DA, the media and restless communities is adding to the fuel that is eroding the party`s support and confidence.

COPE leaders Lekota and Shilowa

It is this space that ANC has created that the united opposition can move into in its effort to offering South Africa the agenda for hope and change, this though will not happen overnight. A lot of thinking and work will have to go into this project if it has to have any impact.

The advent of COPE into the South Africa political landscape was seen as the best development that could have happened to safeguard democracy and hard worn freedoms.

COPE however failed to immediately live up to this expectation when it came a distant third during the recent general elections. All hasn`t however been lost – COPE has established itself firmly as a serious contender for political power and has huge prospects for future growth.

Unity talks among opposition parties will go a long way in realising that which COPE set out to achieve, offer the country a new agenda for change and hope.

Things Fall Apart

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity

These lines from William Butler Yeats`s poem, The Second Coming, came vividly to mind in the past few days of municipal workers`s strike which left our cities and towns in a mess. I had first hand experiences of a legitimate strike elevated to anarchy in the capital city of our province Polokwane where property was destroyed and the innocent assaulted.

In my town of  Tzaneen strikers even went to the landfill site to import waste to trash our streets with.

As this anarchy played itself out government, president Jacob Zuma in particular, was conspicous in its silence. Strikers could march, vandalise, assault and destroy with the knowledge that little if not nothing could be done to them. Afterall they are the ones who delivered Zuma in Limpopo back in 2007.

It is a tragedy that workers who enjoy the benefits of a rolls royce labour legislation can resort to anarchy to put the frustrations across to the employer.

It now remains to be seen what the future holds for us as the contradictions within the Zuma-alliance get really tested.

Architects of Poverty

Moeletsi Mbeki has just released a book : Architects of Poverty – Why African Capitalism Needs Changing. The book has been widely well received by those genuinely concerned with the future welfare of the continent.

However, as would be expected, the South African trade union federation COSATU hasn`t been mightily impressed by Moeletsi`s offerings in the book.

Responding to the book COSATU general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi had the following piece of  wisdom to offer, ” To comrade Moeletsi, the leadership of the liberation movement ended in September 2008 after his brother was recalled.”

Vavi`s comment followed the COSATU statement issued by spokesperson Patrick Craven in which the latter accuses Moeletsi of a personal dislike of Zuma and his allies, including COSATU. According to Craven this personal dislike has warped Moeletsi`s vision.

Mbeki`s crime lies in the following extracts from the book…they have no leadership. COSATU lost their leadership in 1994. The unions are left with leaders who have no education, no knowledge, no expertise. That`s why the poor are being ripped off…they don`t know the political economy of South Africa.

He goes on to write…they think they can ingratiate themselves with politicians of the ANC, so in the past four years they have been crawling to Jacob Zuma, thinking that they will use him. But Zuma ignored them once he got into power. He ignored them and privatised Vodacom.

In COSATU`s wisdom Moeletsi can no longer be treated as an independent commentator but someone with a personal grudge.

If COSATU has to be believed the book has nothing to offer but sour grapes by one of the Mbeki family who mourn the recall of Thabo Mbeki as presidency of South Africa and his defeat at the ANC conference in 2007 by Jacob Zuma.

COSATU`s response to the book is to say the least, tragic as it resorts to playing the man instead of playing the ball. In my future posts I will engage with the contents of the book and leave the fact that Moeletsi is former president Thabo Mbeki`s brother to COSATU.

Hello world!

Hi I am Brave Heart  a blogger based in the South Africa of breath-taking events and developments. Thabo Mbeki Mbeki lost his bid to lead the African National Congress at the party`s 52nd national conference in 2007 thus paving the way for his recall as president of the country in 2008 –  a few months before the end of his second and last term in office.

The new ANC leadership had made it very clear from the word go that they wanted to remove Mbeki`s legacy, meaning politicians and administrators who had supported the former president had to be purged and replaced by members of Jacob Zuma`s fan club.

On the other hand a new political party, the Congress of the People was founded, by those disgruntled with the Jacob Zuma ANC. Since then elections have been held and the world`s worst nightmare has become real – Zuma is president of the Republic of South Africa!

All these trends and developments need to be recorded. This blog is my attempt at recording trends and developments in South Africa as they come to pass.

Comments and other inputs will be most welcome.