Choices, choices, choices &
To pick up your son, or not to pick up your son That is the question,
Whether tis nobler in the mind to let him walk home by himself
And get kidnapped or killed just by chance
Or to take arms with you in your car
And when you're threatened, shoot them. Maybe you die and sleep
But more, by sleep we mean we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That living in SA has become. Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep;
To sleep perchance to dream. Ah, there's the rub
For in that sleep of death what hopes may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
Must give us pause.
Apologists right across the spectrum from Gun-Free South Africa to the South African Communist Party to SA Good News to the ANC to the mostly incompetent SAPS and even to the sheeple voters make a great brouhaha of the choices we have in South Africa.
We have the choice to stay or leave, says Chunky Charlie; to vote or abstain, says the IEC; to speak our minds or shut up, say certain newspapers. It seems that having choices is so important it is enshrined in the Constitution.
Don't like the radio station? Switch it off. Don't like the newspaper? Don't buy it. Don't like the service at the shop? Go somewhere else.
Don't like getting shot in your car? Don't pick your son up from soccer practice.
The callous killing of Sheldon Cohen, waiting for his son at soccer practice, this week highlighted how human life has been allowed to be discounted to the point of worthlessness in a country where we have so much choice.
Cohen's murder has rightly enraged a nation, but it's been 14 years in the making. Fourteen years of depleting law enforcement. Fourteen years of turning a blind eye to crime and incompetence. Fourteen years of letting standards slide. Fourteen years of dithering, filibustering, cowardice and lame excuses. Fourteen years of chanting meaningless songs about machine guns. Fourteen years of telling us everything is nxa. Fourteen years of corruption and self-enrichment (check the only three decisions Zuma Simpson's drinking buddies have made in 40 days). Fourteen years of endangering every one of us by deliberately fragmenting social morality. Fourteen years of nepotism, cronyism, kakistocracy, idiocracy, arrogance and good old plain stupidity. Fourteen years of blaming the past and anyone else who gets in the way.
But don't forget folks, we have choices.
And now as the deadline looms for e-filing of tax returns, we have the same issue of choices. And Sars, as always, is hell-bent on making it as difficult as electronically possible to register by continuously changing the goal posts, never answering calls for help and ignoring written requests for simple assistance. It's symptomatic of the grand national malaise; the disease of don't-care. Pretty much like dialing 10111 or writing to the president or ranting in a blog.
Of course, you have the choice not to pay your taxes.
But then catch-22 comes into effect and all your choices are taken away.
We have the choice to drink milk, price collusion or not; to buy bread, artificial inflation or not; to accept sub-standard journalism or not; to go out at night or not; to trust the banks or not; to believe in the good of people or not; to believe the lights will come on when we hit the switch or not; to believe we will be treated fairly or not; to trust the policeman at the roadblock or not. To stay or not. To take the law into our own hands or not.
We can choose how we respond to events. Yeah, fat lot of good that did Sheldon Cohen: "Gee, they shot me in the neck. Shame, they must be from a disadvantaged background. Ah well, looks like I'm going to die. Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika &"
It shocked me to the core one day when I came home from work as crime reporter for the Pretoria News and showed my wife the front page: a huge story with banner headlines about a botched bank robbery in which three crooks, a policeman and a bank teller had been killed and three people, including a child, had been injured. I was so proud of the work I had done picture byline, the lot.
But Debbie didn't see that. She saw and felt the tragedy, the suffering, the sense of loss, the brutal inhumanity of it all.
I was so ashamed, so devastated, so disgusted with myself that I had become so callous and inured to the suffering I was reporting on. When death and brutality face you every moment, it is easy to become comfortably numb.
I think about that every time I see one of James Nachtwey's powerful images or hear embedded journalists reporting from the West Bank or Darfur.
But we're lucky in South Africa, a land alive with possibilities. A paradise of choices.
Tell that to Sheldon Cohen's family. Tell that to the families of the 18 000 people who will have been murdered by this time next year. Tell that to the women and children who are raped every 20 seconds. Tell that to the 9 000 people this year who will see no choice but to take their own lives.
It is long overdue that our inept rulers choose to do their job properly or get out of the way and let others more competent do it. Where we will find them I don't know, but we're alive with possibilities. And we have the choice.
An Open Letter to the President of South Africa from New Zealander John Minto regarding his refusal to accept the O R Tambo Award
Monday, 28 January 2008, 10:45 am
Press Release: John Minto
Tena koe Thabo Mbeki,
I understand a nomination has been put forward for me to receive a South African honour later this year, the Companions of O R Tambo Award, on behalf of HART and the anti-apartheid movement of New Zealand for our work campaigning to end apartheid in South Africa.
I note the particular honour is conferred by the President of South Africa and awarded to "foreign citizens who have promoted South African interests and aspirations through co-operation, solidarity and support".
We are proud of the role played by the movement here to assist the struggle against apartheid and I appreciate the sentiment behind the nomination. However after the most careful consideration I respectfully request the nomination proceed no further. Were an award to be made I would decline to accept it either personally or on behalf of the movement.
New Zealanders who campaigned against apartheid did so to bring real and meaningful change in the lives of South Africa's impoverished and disenfranchised black communities. We were appalled and angered at the callous brutality of a system based on racism and exploitation of black South Africans for the benefit of South African corporations.
However while political rights have been won and celebrated, social and economic rights have been sidelined. It is now 14 years since the first African National Congress government was elected to power but for most the situation is no better, and frequently worse, than it was under white minority rule.
The number of South Africans living on less than $1 a day more than doubled to 2.4 million in the first 10 years of ANC government. Despite strong economic growth overall poverty levels have not improved and the gap between rich and poor has increased with many black families being driven more deeply into poverty. Unemployment remains high at around 26%.
It seems the entire economic structure which underpinned apartheid is essentially unchanged. Oppression based on race has morphed seamlessly into oppression based on economic circumstance. The faces at the top have changed from white to black but the substance of change is an illusion.
None of us expected things to change overnight but we did expect the hope for change to always burn brightly as people looked ahead for their children and grandchildren. This is now a pale gleam, dimmed by the destructive power of free-market economics.
My own country New Zealand preceded the ANC in adopting free-market economic reforms. Since 1984 we have experienced a particularly virulent dose of these vicious policies which have brought wealth to the few at the expense of the many.
Hundreds of thousands of New Zealand families have been driven out of decent employment into poverty where they struggle to raise families on part-time, poorly paid work. They are worse off now than they were 20 years ago. The same policies have brought the same outcomes to South Africa. For the majority life is tougher now than at any time since the ANC came to power.
The promises made by those who drove through the reforms in New Zealand were a lie just as they are in South Africa. Wherever these policies have been put in place anywhere in the world they have resulted in a reverse Robin Hood ? a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.
When we protested and marched into police batons and barbed wire here in the struggle against apartheid we were not fighting for a small black elite to become millionaires. We were fighting for a better South Africa for all its citizens.
I take heart from the many community groups in South Africa fighting against privatisation of community assets; supporting settlements against forced removals; opposing police harassment and brutality; struggling for decent healthcare, water supplies and education; campaigning for decent pay, reasonable working conditions and affordable houses. These people, such as the Durban Shackdwellers, are looking for respect and dignity as human beings. Many carry the ideals of the Freedom Charter, once the bedrock document for ANC policy, close to their hearts.
Apartheid was accurately described as a 'crime against humanity' by the United Nations and the ANC. I could not in all conscience attend a ceremony to receive an award conferred by your office while a similar crime is in progress.
Receiving an award would inevitably associate myself and the movement here with ANC government policies. At one time this may have been a source of pride but it would now be a source of personal embarrassment which I am not prepared to endure.
Yours sincerely,
John Minto
