Walt was in South Africa in the mid-90s when the white-run country was handed over to the Marxist African National Congress. Predictably, it has slid downhill ever since, and is now just a small cut above Zimbabwe in terms of standard of living and everything else that matters. Now they want to seize white farms -- what took them so long? -- to ensure starvation.
South Africa is also (and again predictably) home to one of the world's worst epidemics of HIV/AIDS. At least 8.5 million of its people are living with HIV, and Sky News (the woke British version, not the painfully honest Aussie site) is whining that their treatment is in doubt thanks to President Trump's executive order freezing foreign aid for 90 days.
Until the introduction of Dubya's President Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in 2003, African sufferers from the deadly disease were at the mercy of their witch doctors (not kidding -- look it up!) there was no medication. Nelly Zulu, an activist and mother living with HIV in Soweto told Sky News, "The government would tell us to take beetroot and garlic. It was very difficult for the government to give us treatment but we fought very hard to win this battle. Now, the challenge is that we are going back to the struggle."
In this video, a prostitute walks up to the security guards outside a shuttered USAid-funded sexual health clinic in Johannesburg's inner-city district. She looks around with confusion when she is told the clinic is closed. She tells Sky's reporter it has only been two months since she came here to receive her usual care. Now, she must scramble to find another safe place for her sexual health screenings and pre-exposure prophylaxis. Like many sex workers, free sexual health clinics are her lifeline. "You don't have to quit working. Just keep taking these pills, provided by those nice Americans."
Too bad, eh. But ask yourself why South Africa, still a comparitively wealthy nation -- compared with Zimbabwe, say -- should be receiving handouts from American taxpayers to mitigate the poor lifestyle... and political... choices of its citizens.
Meanwhile, South African boers (white farmers) say they are deeply worried by a land seizure bill has been signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa. Basically, this bill gives the government power to take the farmers' land, and even their domestic houses, and not pay any compensation, if there is "good reason" for so doing. What constitutes "good reason" has not been stated, but "to give it to blacks" is Walt's guess. (Lifetime pct .989)
Farmers who choose to move to someplace where they won't experience reverse racism will be looking to Australia, Canada, maybe even the US of A, where their agricultural expertise will be welcome. Souoth Africa's loss will be our gain! And here's a shining example...
Susanna Heystek's family migrated to Canada around the turn of the century. Things have gotten worse in South Africa since then. They're getting worse in the Great No Longer White North too, but for the time being, it's a better bet than the land they left.
As Walt's friends and regular readers know, I called Zimbabwe -- known in earlier, better days as Rhodesia -- home for some years in the 1990s. Zimbabwe (aka the Land of Bambazonke) was one of the last African countries to achieve independence from their colonial masters, in this case "Great" Britain. Today, 44 years after independence, Zimbabwe is an economic basket case, an effective one-party state ruined by its government's ignorance, incompetence and kleptomania.
While I lived there, I often visited RSA, the Republiek van Suid-Afrika, orRepublic of South Africa, which was on the verge of overthrowing the National Party and its apartheid régime of racial separation. The 1994 elections, held for the first time under a one-man-one-vote system, brought to power the African National Congress, led by Nelson Mandela. The ANC has ruled South Africa ever since.
In the run-up to the handover of power to the black majority, my friends and colleagues told me, "You just watch. The blacks are incapable of running a country. In a few years, it'll be just like 'up north'."
This weekend, the people of South Africa are celebrating -- sort of -- the 30th anniversary of freedom from the rule of the white settlers. In the week leading up to the anniversary, countless South Africans were asked what three decades of freedom from apartheid meant to them.
The dominant response was that while 1994 was a landmark moment, it is now overshadowed by the joblessness, violent crime, corruption and near-collapse of basic services like electricity and water that plague "the new South Africa" today.
The 1994 election changed South Africa ("Republic" has been dropped from the official name) from a country where black and other non-white people were denied not just the right to vote, but many basic freedoms. Apartheid laws controlled where they lived, where they were allowed to go on any given day, and what jobs they could have.
After the fall of the apartheid system, the country's new constitution guaranteed (supposedly) the rights of all South Africans regardless of their race, religion, gender or sexual preferences. However, it doesn't give all those "marginalized" folks the white houses, white cars and white women they coveted.
Nor has it brought about freedom from want. Quite the opposite. The black majority -- more than 80% of the population of 62 million -- are still overwhelmingly affected by severe poverty. The official unemployment rate is 32% --, the highest in the world -- and more than 60% cent for young people (aged 15 to 24).
South Africa is still the most unequal country in the world in terms of wealth distribution, according to the World Bank, with race a key factor. More than 16 million mostly black South Africans (a quarter of the country's population) rely on monthly welfare grants for survival.
Seth Mazibuko, an anti-apartheid activist in the 1970s, sums things up, thus, "Let us agree that we messed up." So they did. Things are worse now than when the Afrikaners were in charge, and the chances of returning to those not-so-bad-after-all days are slim and none.
Something that many of our readers may not understand about the current rioting and looting in South Africa is that the problem is not so much racism as tribalism. Things were quieter yesterday in Johannesburg -- all that "reparations shopping" tires you out, eh -- but still out of control in Durban, the biggest city of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), where whites and "Asians" (read: south Asians) have formed armed self-defence militias to protect themselves and their property.
Most of the looting, though, is black-on-black.
Like many other African countries whose borders were established by Europeans in the 19th century, South Africa is an amalgam of different tribes who dislike each other almost as much as they dislike whites. The biggest groups are Zulus (21 %), Xhosas (17 %) and the Sotho (15%). Smaller minorities are the Tswana, Venda, Ndebele, Swasi, and Pedi, among others. The Khoi-San -- the ones we used to call "Bushmen" (see the excellent movie The Gods Must Be Crazy) -- are originally hunter-gatherers who have inhabited the land for a long time.
As you might guess from the name, Kwa-Zulu Natal (formerly just "Natal") province, is the homeland of the Zulus, a fierce and warlike people whom the British imperialists fought hard to displace in the 19th century. Pictured below is a painting of the Battle of Isandhlwana, fought on 22 January 1879, the first major encounter in the Anglo-Zulu War between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom.
Eleven days after the British commenced their invasion (for such it was) of "Zululand" (as they called it), a Zulu force of some 20,000 warriors attacked a portion of the British main column consisting of about 1800 British, colonial and native troops and perhaps 400 civilians, killing most of them
During the final hour of the battle, a contingent of about 4000 Zulu warriors broke off from their main force to attack a small mission station at Rorke's Drift, about six miles distant. A force of about 150 British troops -- mostly Welshmen of B Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th (2nd Warwickshire) Regiment of Foot -- held off the attackers in a fierce two-day battle which has been immortalized in one of Walt's favourite films, Zulu, starring Stanley Baker and Michael Caine.
Here is a clip of one of the opening scenes of the movie, showing some handsome men and beautiful women doing a pre-marital dance, in preparation for a mass marriage.
Readers who were not transfixed by the sight of the dancing girls may note that the missionary (played by Jack Hawkins) had a little conversation with the Zulu chief, who was actually... wait for it... a Zulu chief! Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi played his grandfather, Cetshwayo kaMpande, king of the Zulu Kingdom from 1873 to 1879 and its leader during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879.
After a lot more fighting, "Zululand" was incorporated into Natal province, which was renamed KwaZulu-Natal in the transition from the apartheid era to the "new South Africa". Mr Buthelezi was still the Zulu Chief, and from 1975 to 2019 led the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), the main opposition to the Communist-dominated African National Congress (ANC), which has ruled South Africa since 1994.
They do have elections in South Africa, about as free and fair as the American presidential election of 2020. The IFP never had a chance of forming a national government because it is supported almost exclusively by the Zulus. The other tribes fall into line with the ANC, and the whites and Asians make up the Democratic Alliance, never really a force in SA politics, nationally.
What does this have to do with this week's riots? Just this... Some Zulus, seeing that the IFP would never get their hands on the levers of power, defected to the ANC, which is now split along tribal lines. The disgraced ex-President, Jacob Zuma, is a Zulu, and it is his people who are now in the streets. If Mr Zuma lived like a traditional Zulu chief, well, why shoudn't he?!
Mr Zuma adheres to many traditional Zulu customs, including polygamy. This has endeared him to some segments of the population but has also been a source of criticism from others, who find some customs to be at odds with what they consider to be "modern societal norms". In February of 2010, Mr Zuma addmitted that he had fathered a child out of wedlock, something frowned upon in traditional Zulu culture.
He also had to deal with allegations of impropriety regarding extensive upgrades -- "for security reasons", of course -- to his private homestead at Nkandla in KZN. An official report in March of 2014 concluded that many of the publicly funded improvements made to Zuma’s homestead, such as a swimming pool, an amphitheatre, and a cattle kraal, were... wait for it... not security-related. Mr Zuma was found to have "benefited unduly" from the "upgrades" ans was asked to pay for some of them. Whether he ever did so is not known.
The list goes on, but the present hoorah comes down to the feeling of Mr Zuma's supporters that he was persecuted for living the life to which he was entitled. And if he corruptly received certain benefits, well, what American president could plead "not guilty" to similar accusations? And anyway, it's not like Mr Zuma is white! He's just another victim!
Besides, in today's South Africa, any excuse for rioting and looting will do as long as it is somehow tied to making non-black people pay for the oppression of black people, once upon a time. Thank goodness that's only South Africa and not any place closer to home!
It's very rare that there's any good news out of Africa, but Walt does have some to pass on, and it appears to be due to the intervention of President Donald J. Trump. (Eat your hearts out, gliberals.)
The fact that land seized from the Boers (= "farmers", in Afrikaans) would almost certainly have been handed over to friends of the ruling African National Congress, who would have let it go back to bush, just as happened in neighbouring Zimbabwe (see "What happens when black Africans turf out white farmers", WWW 24/8/18 - includes two videos), probably had something to do with the decision as well, but for now Walt will give credit not just to President Trump but to the new South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who seems to have a degree of sense uncommon to the Big Men of Africa.
"White cars, white houses, white women!" That's what black African terrorists were told they get, once they had wrested independence from the colonialists and white settlers. That's what they were fighting for. Not democracy but white cars, white houses and white women!
On 24 October 1964 Britain granted independence to Northern Rhodesia, which was promptly renamed Zambia. One of the first things the new black government of the Marxist Kenneth Kaunda did was to expel the mostly white commercial farmers, so their farms could be "indigenized" -- turned over to his relatives and cronies. The new farmers knew nothing about commercial farming (or even subsistence farming, in some cases) and to no-one's surprise the fertile land went back to bush. Zambia went from being an exporter of food to a net importer.
One of the countries Zambia imported food from was Rhodesia, which was run by white settlers. Rhodesia was the second-most prosperous country in sub-Saharan Africa, after South Africa, which was also run by, errr, white volk. The perfidious Brits sold out their Rhodesian kith and kin in 1980, handing the country over to Comrade Robert Mugabe and his merry band of kleptomaniacs. It took them until 2000 to seize the famously productive white farms, which were handed over to Mugabe's family and friends.
I was there, and on doctor's advice left, just in the nick of time. The botched and often violent redistribution (read: theft) of land left many farms in ruins, and the drop in production triggered an economic crisis that still haunts the country. Uncle Bob's cronies and comrades not only were ignorant of large-scale farming, but had no interest in it. They treated their farms as good places for a Sunday braai, nothing more, and just as in Zambia, the land went out of production and Zimbabwe was plunged into permanent food insecurity.
The other country Zambia, and later Zimbabwe import food from, even today, is South Africa. That country had been independent for a century or so, but didn't come under the control of black Africans until 1994, when the whites saw the black writing on the wall and made a deal with the Nelson Mandela-led African National Congress under which there was to be no wholesale seizure of farms or other sectors of the economy. I was there for that too, and remember a friend warning me "Don't be fooled. In another ten years things will be just like up north." He was wrong, but only about the timeline.
When apartheid ended in 1994, white farmers -- the word in Afrikaans is "boers" -- owned about 85% of South Africa's better farmland. A 2017 government audit found the percentage had fallen to 72%. That is 72% too much, according to Julius Malema, the avowed Marxist leader of the opposition in the country's parliament. This week he introduced a motion, which passed almost unanimously, calling for the amendment of South Africa's constitution to allow for the confiscation of white-owned land without compensation... as was done in Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The Honourable Mr Malema has a long-standing commitment to taking land (or houses or cars, etc) without compensation. In 2016 he told his supporters he was "not calling for the slaughter of white people -- at least for now." The policy was a key factor in new president Cyril Ramaphosa's platform after he took over from the incredibly corrupt Jacob Zuma in February.
In introducing the motion, Mr Malema called white farmers "criminals", and said "the time for reconciliation is now over. Now is the time for justice!" Justice for white South African farmers will look something like this.
"We must ensure that we restore the dignity of our people without compensating the criminals who stole our land," said the Honourable Mr Malema. The ruling ANC's rural affairs minister "There is no doubt about it, land shall be expropriated without compensation."
One small point that neither speaker addressed was the likely effect on South Africa's agricultural output. Ernst Roets, the deputy chief executive of civil rights group Afriforum, said the motion was a violation of agreements made at the end of apartheid. "This motion is based on a distorted image of the past," he explained. "The term 'expropriation without compensation' is a form of semantic fraud. It is nothing more than racist theft."
Freedom Front Plus party leader Pieter Groenewald said the decision to strip white farmers of their land would cause "unforeseen consequences that is not in the interest of South Africa." Leaving aside the grammatical lapse (for which we'll forgive Mr Groenewald since his first language is Afrikaans), he is wrong only in his use of the word "unforeseen". It is easy to foresee that this will all end badly, just as it has in Zambia and Zimbabwe.
A classic paradigm of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting to get a different result. By that definition, the decision taken by South Africa's parliament last week is indeed insane.
Walt has tried all weekend to refrain from reaching for the cheap joke about Anthony Weiner, the US congressman who sent a lewd photo [depends on your definition, surely. Ed.] of his underwear-clad crotch to a young woman on Twitter and then lied repeatedly to, errr, cover his ass...or thereabouts.
Trouble was, it was hard to find an original cheap joke. So I'm left with nothing to say except to ask if the congersman (as Walt Kelly would have called him) really pronounces his name like the comestible. I would have said "Winer" or "Viner" for the same reason that Speaker of the House John Boehner now insists that he be called "Bayner" instead of... well... you get the point.
Interesting that the recently-married (July 2010) Weiner has now admitted to "inappropriate contact" with six women over the course of three years through social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook and occasionally over the phone. [Didn't we use to call that "phone sex"? Ed.] [Maybe you did. I never heard of such a thing! Walt]
Rep. Weiner said he had never met or had a physical relationship with any of the women and was not even sure of their ages. He also said he had never had sex outside of his marriage. Looking at his official wedding photo (courtesy of AP) I can fully understand why Anthony would have no motivation whatever to cheat on Mrs. Weiner.
Now we have the political ramifications. The ultra-liberal congressman was thought to be in the running for the New York City mayoralty in 2013. Now it would appear that he will have some difficulty holding onto his own seat in the House of Representatives.
Even Nancy Pelosi said she was “deeply disappointed and saddened about this situation.” In a brief statement, she mentioned Weiner’s wife, his family, staff and constituents, but pointedly did not mention the congressman.
But not to worry. Anthony has another year and a bit to sit in the house as a lame dick [please check your spelling! Ed.] and after he loses the 2012 election -- should he be bold enough to run again -- there will still be lots of Weiners in Congress.
Speaking of African belief in the supernatural (see yesterday's review of V.S. Naipaul's The Masque of Africa), The Economist reports this week that 80% of South Africans describe themselves as Christians, and two-thirds believe that the Bible, as the Word of God, should be interpreted literally. A politician would be foolish not to build God ... or the gods ... into his campaign oratory.
Looks notwithstanding, South Africa's president, Jacob Zuma, is no fool. Here's what he said to an African National Congress election rally on February 5th.
"When you vote for the ANC, you are choosing to go to heaven. When you don't vote for the ANC, you should know that you are choosing that man who carries a fork, ...who cooks people."
Mr. Zuma, who happens to be a "lay pastor" of an evangelical Protestant sect, assured the party faithful that "when you are carrying an ANC membership card, you are blessed. When you get up there, there are different cards used, but when you have an ANC card, you will be let through to heaven."
And if you don't have an ANC card? What if you should defect to the opposition? Then "you will struggle until you die. The ancestors of this land...will turn their backs on you."
So in one short speech President Zuma invoked the Christian deity and the spirits of the ancestors. He missed Allah, but there aren't as many Muslims in South Africa as in, say, Nigeria. The backing of God and the ancestors should be enough to get the ANC its customary overwhelming majority.
