Thursday, April 17, 2008

2008. Post Apartheid - NZ: Alleman's April 2008 SA Dispatch and May 2008 Unrest


2008. Fraser Esslemont & Zulu nurses, Sunnyside Farm, KwaZulu-Natal. (Pietermaritzburg Mental Health Society). "Nor th' exterior nor the inward man resembles that it was."


April 2008. Alleman's dispatch: "Koffiefontein Mine was sold to a company consisting of ex De Beers and Koffiefontein people. Seems to be doing well. The town however is financially depressed with little activity (no chemist shop anymore, etc). Things are changing for the worse. More and more people are talking about leaving SA. You cannot talk to an elderly person without hearing the latest news from children in London / USA / Dubai etc. Today a Big Bug in the education department (with 20+ years service) told us that he's had enough, and has landed a good job in Dubai.

My recent holiday trip to Sun City (near Pretoria) was sponsored by my father-in-law, and our petrol alone cost over R2000. Prices of everything have risen in the last year. Unions are becoming restless and talking about nationalization. Government is talking about expropriation of property. The Zimbabwe crisis is dragging along with no solution in sight. Our power is off Thursday mornings. Then you cannot get money from banks, shop in shops, no traffic lights and chaos on the roads.

I recently travelled through the Northern Cape, Upington to Kuruman... On the platteland there are large areas where speed limits are reduced from 120 kph to 60 kph because of many potholes. Platteland hospitals have been degraded to clinics which cannot function properly because of lack of staff. At Koffiefontein, one electrician must keep the infrastructure of five towns operational. You cannot drink local water in towns, while sewerage works in many are also not functioning properly.

Education in SA is heading for a huge bust up. Schools are producing huge numbers of dropouts and matriculants who can neither read nor calculate properly. I saw an article that calculates that only 3.?% of all school kids that enter the system finish with a 'good' matric (and we are one of the countries which spends the biggest portion of national budget on education). Everywhere you hear things that worry you, because things look 'normal' on the surface. Spoke to a bloke last week about a legal dispute: Both parties are doing everything possible to keep the case out of the Supreme Court, because judgements 'are becoming unpredictable,' (because of poorly qualified people appointed as judges. Todays news: East Rand Chief of Police, MacBride, (Durban Magoos bar bomber) in court for intimidation... Someone broke into two court buildings and stole the prosecution documents. Who's next?

Gwede Mantashe (used to clerk in the mine office next to me for four years, probably the third most powerful man in SA) had a meeting with the SA leader of the opposition, Helen Zille, about disbanding the Scorpions, who wanted to prosecute some ANC Bigwigs for struggle atrocities. He basically told her: 'I refuse to listen to you, because you hate the ANC...'" Gwede Mantashe: Secretary General, ANC; National Chairperson, SACP; Executive Director, Development Bank of SA; Director, Samancor; Head of Technical Task Team, Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA); Zuma acolyte; former General Secretary of NUM.

After two decades of professional life in SA, I was left with a youngish wife, young sons, a mad brother, a container full of stuff, four suitcases, some useless suits, ties, closed shoes and academic gown, athletes foot, smoothness, deafness and dissonance. After thirteen years of a little labouring life in NZ, I was left with an older wife, older sons, an older mad brother, no money, a garage full of stuff, four suitcases, some useful tracksuits and flip-flops, useless academic gown, dhobies itch, a beard, deafness and dissonance.

The proposed communist / terrorist name changes to many Durban city streets were quite mad. Name changers were thieves, stealing others' history. Like apartheid Afrikaners intended destroying English and Indian heritage in Durban North, the post apartheid ANC / SACP intended destroying English heritage in Durban North. Examples: Northway to "Kenneth Kaunda;" Kensington Drive to "Adelaide Tambo;" Broadway to "Swapo." Afro culture vultures forgot that 1976 Soweto Riots were caused by Afrikaners forcing Afrikaans on Afro school cultures.

Chelsea Drive, where I'd lived for 26 apartheid years, ran parallel for some distance between Northway and Kensington Drive, and was walking distance to Broadway, running at right angles to the Drives. "Adelaide Tambo" name change to Kensington Drive made no sense and was irrelevant to Kensington Drive, as all Durban North roads were named after places in Britain. Durban North had been an Anglo-Indian suburb before the apartheid Group Areas Act had forced "black spot" slum Indians to move to separate Indian townships. Apartheid Broederbonders built an Afrikaner hoerskool in Durban North's bulldozed Indian slum to increase the Afrikaner Nationalist vote and stymie English opposition votes. Apartheid Job Reservation reserved Durban North streetsweeper, waiter, postman, rubbish collector jobs for Indian men, so an Indian name like "Sivilingham Naidoo" would be a far better name for Kensington Drive than "Adelaide Tambo".

"Swapo" terrorists came nowhere near Broadway, and would've died laughing should they have contacted Durban North Commandos on South West Africa border. Zambian president "Kenneth Kaunda" came nowhere near Northway. And Ruth First (N2 Freeway) had zilch to do with north Durban suburbs, but got herself blown up about 600 kays northwards in Maputo for having married SACP/ANC commie Joe Slovo. If name changing madness prevailed, why not change Durban Berea's Esselmont Avenue to "Wozamark Avenue?"

Unrest. May 2008: Black on black killings of black foreigners in townships and squatter camps in Gauteng, North West, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Western Cape, Durban. Officials blamed ANC, xenophobia (black racism), Zimbabwe, illegal immigrants, third force, unemployment, poverty, food prices, criminals, tribalism, Inkatha, and any other excuses for depravity they could concoct. (NZTV, The Mercury, Daily Dispatch, Cape Times, BBC online, South African Hell blog). Of about five million immigrants in SA, by letting three million Zimbabwean black refugees and other black foreigners like Somalis, Nigerians, Congolese, Malawians, Mozambicans invade SA since 1994, the ANC / SACP had lost control of mad ethnic cleansing in townships and squatter camps.

2008. Fraser Esslemont, Gardener, Sunnyside Farm, KZN. (Pmb Mental Health Soc.) "With a look so piteous in purport as if he had been loosed out of hell."

Once again my "madman" brother was safer in an asylum than shambling streets with real madmen, and mad women, who were a danger to themselves and others, who were forcing displaced blacks to flee to local shelters and Mozambique and Zambia. Zimbabwean displaced blacks were caught between the SA dragon and the Zimbabwe bird: "Kaaa! Ka-ka-ka-ka-kaaa!" Strange that SA black on black violence against black foreigners began between Zimbabwe's repeated elections between Mugabe and Tsvirangai. As a characteristic of madness was an inability to manage one's own affairs, where did that leave the ANC / SACP?

25.05.08. Information Online Limited (IOL) reported: In Gauteng - 50 dead, 500 arrested, 17000 displaced.
26.05.08. IOL reported about 20 000 blacks displaced in the Cape Town region.
28.05.08. IOL reported "at least 56 people died and up to 100 000 were displaced... at least 50 000 Mozambicans and Zimbabweans have departed SA after the attacks began on May 11."

Although the scale of migration in SA was bigger than NZ, NZ was a nation of immigrants. In our neighbourhood, Asians, Maori, Pacific Islanders, Europeans lived side by side without aggravation. We were welcomed and made to feel useful. Our permanent resident rights were the same as New Zealanders'. As a deaf person I'd experienced some discrimination, but migrant cultures were celebrated, not despised. Because we were foreigners, no one had threatened to kill us or chase us away during our time in NZ. One stupid Kiwi teacher 13 years before told me to "Go home!" as she had a 1980s apartheid protester mindset.

Copyright Mark JS Esslemont.

4 comments:

Mark JS Esslemont said...

Of seven old school mates who'd recently emailed, five had stayed in Durban. Of two scatterling brothers in UK, one had died in a cycle accident.

A USA scatterling emailed: "...My cousin is living in Auckland, but it is still sad that so many of our friends have left their homes due to the reverse apartheid scenario being played out in our beloved country. My brother is still there... but is becoming very frustrated with the power failures. I am currently living in Florida, and even after a major hurricane strike we are back on line in a relatively short period of time.

Well my friend, will read your blog and hope to stay in touch..."

Mark JS Esslemont said...

Two abridged emails about Zimbabwe:

1. From Margaret Kriels' Morning Mirror:

"I am a 16 year old person living in Zimbabwe... Maybe, just maybe, there might be someone out there who can help us...

The inflation rate is so high that if you don't change money within 6 hours you could get half the amount of foreign currency that you should have originally received.

We're starving now; people dying around us. In the last year alone at least ten people associated personally with my family have died despite the fact that they were only middle-aged. Other people don't make it to middle-age. They don't even make it past childhood...

We don't have the capital to support ourselves, and those few who do, have to deal with the horror of watching their friends and family fall into absolute poverty as they cannot afford to keep them...

One can only take so many blows before oblivion is reached, and we are teetering on the rim of the bottomless void... We are a destroyed nation, and the world sits back and watches, pretending they cannot hear our cries. I appeal to you all...

HELP US!"

2. "Letter from Zimbabwe...

I reckon these are the last days of TKM and ZPF... They are actually ploughing down brick and mortar houses and one white family with twin boys of 10 had no chance of salvaging anything when 100 riot police came in with AK47s and bulldozers and demolished their beautiful house - 5 bedrooms and pine ceilings - because it was 'too close to the airport,' so we are feeling extremely insecure right now...

There is no way we can leave here so that is not an option...

It's genocide in the making... read the Genocide Report by Amnesty International which says we are in level 7 - (level 8 is after it's happened and everyone is in denial)...

This government has GONE MAD... The petrol queues are a reality, the pall of smoke all around our city is a reality, the thousands of homeless people sleeping outside in 0 Celcius with no food, water, shelter and bedding are a reality. Today a family approached me, brother of the gardener's wife with two small children. Their home was trashed and they will have to sleep outside. We already support 8 adult people and a child on this property, and electricity is going up next month by 250% as is water...

We are in deep and terrible danger...

The more people who know about it, the more chance we have of the United Nations coming to our aid... For now, we ourselves have food, shelter, a little fuel and a bit of money for the next meal - but what is going to happen next? Will they start on our houses? All property is going to belong to the State now. I want to send out my Title Deeds... because if they get hold of those, I can't fight for my rights.

Censorship! We no longer have SW radio (which told us everything that was happening) because the government jammed it out of existence - we don't have any reporters and no one is allowed to photograph... Even the pro- government Herald has written that people are shocked, stunned, bewildered and blown mindless by the wanton destruction of many folks homes, which are supposed to be 'illegal' but for which a huge percentage actually have licences...

Please!... HELP!..."

Mark JS Esslemont said...

Regarding SA's Expropriation Act 1975; "Kill the farmer, kill the boer" struggler incitement; post-apartheid land reform; the revised Expropriation Act 2008; Mbeki's hesitancy to publicly criticize Mugabe's mad expropriation in Zimbabwe; a Durban email said the following about SA's land expropriation:

"Any private property - not only land used for agriculture - can be appropriated by the South African state's ministry of public works. Effectively, this marks the end of capitalist-style private property rights in South Africa...

Effectively, this new law thus effectively ends all private -ownership rights in South Africa. It includes ALL properties countrywide...

Already the country has no agricultural land left in the legal sense since all agricultural land now falls under the jurisdiction of municipal boundaries countrywide.

In 1994 when SA still exported agricultural products on a massive scale, it had 85 000 farmers using less than 7% of the total land surface. At the moment less than 10 000 commercial farmers remain, raising crops on less than 0.75% of the total land surface. The country is now facing serious food shortages for the first time in its entire recorded agricultural history since the mid-1600s."

Mark JS Esslemont said...

Regarding Zimbabwian annual inflation, an email from a Zimbabwian expat said:

"Annual inflation rose this month to 1 063 572% [million percent inflation] based on prices of basic foodstuffs...

Economic analysts say unless the rate of inflation is slowed, annual inflation will likely reach about 5m percent by October..."