If The Teacher Only Knew!

During my school days, the teachers used to beat us like crazy. Many kids dropped out of school because of corporal punishment. They called this truancy. It was a system inherited from the apartheid era. Teachers ruled by fear.

I used to have panic attacks every Sunday evening on the thought of Mr Mabuza alone, the Maths teacher because Maths was not my strength.

I in particular remember this other day when we were doing oral reading. This is where you were required to stand in front of the class and read a story assigned to you by the teacher.

A number of children didn’t know how to read. These were particularly the older kids of the class! Who were known to have repeated every grade. The teacher would then ask, what’s wrong with you? Are you brain damaged? Are you retarded? and the class would laugh at them, HARD.

Those were hostile and dark days, If you would have asked the teachers if they knew about ADHD, ADD, Autism or Dyslexia they would in fact beat you for thinking that you are smarter than them.

Thinking about all of this now I feel very sorry for those poor kids. They are adults now, I’ve seen one of them some couple of weeks back when I went to Nelspruit my home town. He used to sit with me in class and I would deliberately let him copy my work. We never spoke about me letting him copy my work, it was something we both knew I had to do because we both knew his struggle with learning!

This guy is now running one of the biggest shops and butcheries in the township, he also has a tent business, where he hires out tents. He is indeed a very successful business person. A thousand folds better than the teacher who used to make fun of him.

And I’m thinking but this guy couldn’t read in class in fact I’m pretty sure to this day he still can’t read because he dropped out of school because of his struggle to read!

This write up is to say I’m sorry for laughing when the teachers made fun of our friends. THE TEACHERS DIDN’T KNOW THAT THEY DIDN’T KNOW!

Am I A Monkey or A Man?

This is my respond to Penny Sparrow a real estate agent woman from KwaZulu Natal (KZN) who shared a post on Facebook comparing holiday makers that flock to beaches in KZN on New Year’s Day to monkeys.

When apartheid died, the millions who firmly believed in it didn’t die with it, in fact they are still here with us hiding behind pseudonyms secretly pushing the apartheid agenda everywhere from schools to corporate to public spaces. I’ve been called all sorts of racial names by racists like ‪#‎PennySparrow‬ and I’m just glad that finally there’s a face

Asking for a bland forgiveness

No madam, apology not accepted madam. Not only because it is loaded with sarcasm instead of sincerity but also because your initial statement was truthful to your thoughts. For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Your initial post is not a bad joke, or a distasteful utterance, it is the honest truth of how you really think and feel about black people. The problem here is that you are not the only person who sees us as stupid monkeys who deserve nothing better in life. White supremacists like yourself keep raping this forgiveness that we as black people are extending to your kind. We are expected to “move on already” because it doesn’t matter anymore, when there are people like you who will not gracefully share a public beach? If you’re disgusted by the presence of black people in a public beach, how repulsed and revolted are you when you have to spend days on end selling a house to them? Oh! Wait, you wouldn’t sell a house to a monkey!

We live in a society where we have to scrape our way to get basic things like education, housing and medical care. We work in industries that try their best to exclude us. Our intelligence and leadership skills will not be acknowledged without government legislature like BEE. We continue to be sidelined and denied opportunities because we are black. We have a generational poverty inheritance to undo while still trying to obtain economic freedom and accumulate our own wealth that we will leave for future generations.

This whilst racism and fascism is blocking our every endeavor. It is extremely hard for us to live everyday hoping and working hard to make this country a better place , letting go of the justified resentment and grudges that we should be holding. We extend a hand, we are civil and welcoming to white people,we give you the benefit of doubt by not assuming that not all white people are racist. Then comes you, insensitive white supremacist racist, in the nature of the monkey you call us, you swing feces at us! How long must we forgive the same people who insist on poking the same wound we are trying to heal?
So no madam, your apology doesn’t mean anything to us, because it means nothing to you either. Apology not accepted. In isiXhosa we say uyasinyela straight.

A way forward

The only reason that so many people are shocked by comments made by this Penny Sparrow is because of the fact that as South Africans we pretend as if all is well, things are not okay in this country, racism is still rife in this country, majority of black people live in extreme poverty, yet we pretend as if everything is okay. We pretend that black and whites live together in harmony, no it is not like that and we all know it. Deep down, behind closed doors we all have issues that we still have to deal with. In the dawn of democracy in 94 we pretended that we like each other, but we knew it that it wasn’t the case.

We pretend under the so called Rainbow Nation. South Africans racism is alive and we all now it, but we pretend as if it doesn’t exist because we don’t want to look bad in the eyes of the world. We pretend that it doesn’t exist because we don’t want to upset the spirit of Mandela and his reconciliation. Stuff that, let us face issue and deal with them head on, because this pretending will never take us anywhere as a nation. So stop acting so surprised when the likes of Penny Sparrow and co reminds us of the brutal truth. South Africa is still far from being racism free, unless we wake-up, stop pretending and do something about it.

If only South Africa was hard on drugs, if only!

I’m a seldom overseas traveler. I’m stunned by the stories here. I’ve bumped into this site (lockedup) while looking up for Minister Siyabonga Cwele which eventually led me to his wife’s arrest and I found myself exploring South Africans in foreign jails. It is heart-wrenching to read these stories and eye opening at the same time. In particular because when they give a description of how a drug mule looks like, they simple say ” Just stand in front of the mirror, that’s how a drug mule look like”!

I’ll make do visit South Africans in prisons whenever I go abroad, just to give them emotional and moral support and maybe some financial support as well. Thanks for starting the site, and warning us of the realities out there Belinda West!

Speaking of which!

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I lived in Indonesia for a while. The first thing you are constantly reminded of when you’re reading the brochures to go there is “Don’t get yourself in trouble by doing drugs” and when you go for your visa at the embassy they will dedicate some 2 to 3 minutes to warn you about doing drugs in Indonesia!..When you are about to land, the airline hostess will clearly announce in English and Bahasa that drugs have a heavy penalty in this country. When you step in the airport, the first thing you see is a big sign, I remember it well it was all in red and the words ” PENALTY FOR DOING DRUGS IS DEATH SENTENCE” were in white and I thought to myself, these people mean business about this drugs thing! Only to see on the news the very next evening that 4 Nigerians and an Australian were caught with drugs at the Soekarno-Hatta Airport, the very spot I passed through, and they hastily received the death sentence in a much publicized case. I thought to myself if only in South Africa we were this hard on drugs if only!

But Why Are Churches Not Paying Tax?

Today I saw this guy I went to high school with. While in high school he once told me he wanted to study Theology and be a pastor. I didn’t take him serious at the time because of the lifestyle he led ( womanizing this girl and womanizing that girl). Well, although he didn’t get a chance to study Theology, but today he leads one of the biggest churches in his area. He is married to this girl we both knew from high school as well.I’m startled by one thing though. The guy is a prophet and I don’t have issues with that, but his wife is a prophetess as well, now I have issues with that. My issue is centered around the following:

Why with the clergy when they get married their titles seem to pass down to their other halves? Is God anointed between the sheets or whether prophetic powers were sexually transmitted in that a prophet’s wife becomes a prophetess, a pastor’s wife becomes a pastor?

Speaking of which

In South Africa churches are classified under Section 21. This means that they are registered to provide services and do not intend to make profit.

Although they are not legally obligated but It also means that whatever profits or funds they may receive from donors, they have a patriotic duty to provide services to various “communities” such as children’s feeding schemes, AIDS orphans etc.

However they have been milking the poor dry and making millions of rands/dollars out of their troubled souls. They are gospelpreneurs, they own the best houses in and outside the country, driving the most expensive cars, and living extravagant lifestyles but still cajoling the poorest of the poor to seed even more.
Some of them own conglomerate companies which are registered under their section 21 churches. One does not need to enlist the services of an Economist to see that these so-called prophets are merely business people taking advantage of the poor and troubled souls and raking millions through their misery.

To believe them is nothing but a mischief. To let them go without being taxed is nothing but fraud and economic mischief.

Public Protector, please rescue us from these snakes!

My views on the recent Xenophic attacks in South Africa.

I strongly feel that the country should prioritize these issues of xenophobia because the fact that it has died down “for now” it does not mean that it is over. A lot of blame has been put on the Zulu king Goodwill Zwelithini for his utterances that “all the foreigners must pack their bags and leave South Africa”. I feel he should have addressed it differently.

This issue is not a South African issue but an African one. If you follow African Politics and history you will remember that in 1957, after Ghana gained independence, many Nigerians began migrating to Ghana. Kwame Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party (CPP) had maintained a liberal immigration policy because of his pan-Africanist ideology and his desire for Ghana to be in the forefront of African unity. For example, in the 1960 census, immigrants particularly Nigerians made up 12 percent of the Ghanaian population of 8.4 million people. The relationship became sour when the influx of immigrants began to shift the demographics of the country, which made people unhappy. The most widespread reason for discontent was economic competition and, also, some Ghanaians blamed immigrants for a wave of crime that occurred in the late 1960s. Thus, under former Ghanaian president Kofi Busia’s Aliens Compliance Order of 1969, Nigerians and other immigrants were forced to leave Ghana. The order required that all foreigners in the country must be in possession of residence permit if they did not already have it or to obtain it within a two-week period. Kofi Busia expelled 20,000 to 500,000 Nigerians in a time period of 14 days to 3 months. The order angered some West African governments, especially Nigeria, Togo, Benin, Mali, Niger, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso whose citizens were mostly affected by the expulsion. The 1969 Order also affected Ghana’s image in mainland Africa and the rest of the world. In 1983, the Nigerian government expelled 2 million Africans out of Nigeria. Ghana was facing severe drought and economic problems, so many Ghanaians were welcomed in the 1970s by Nigeria, which was in the midst of an oil boom and in need of cheap labor.

In early 1983, as the oil boom faded and Nigerians needed a group to blame for their economic and social woes, the government enacted the Expulsion Order and up to 700,000 Ghanaians were expelled from Nigeria. When the Ghanaians were leaving Nigeria, most of them hurriedly packed their belongings in a big silk bag with red and blue stripes. The Nigerians, either by affection or ridicule, began to call this bag “Ghana must go”. This name gained a fast currency in Ghana and up until today, that bag is still identified by that name.

Another xenophobic spot in the sub-region is Guinea. Guineans are known for their solidarity against foreigners notably Liberians and Sierra Leoneans who fled to Conakry after the breakout of war in their countries. In Cote D’Ivoire, Burkinabe immigrants have come under increasing attacks from locals. For years, The Gambian authorities have maintained straight regimes against encouraging Liberian refugees into the country.

So as much as these recent xenophobic attacks are attributed to the Zulu king Zwelithini, he in fact kindled something that was there for a very long time. I only think he should have been wise enough and addressed the right people ( the government in this case). I love you South Africa.

It’s been 55 years since the Sharpeville Massacre!

For some reason some members of our society loose interest when one starts talking about how they were persecuted by the system of shame, I don’t know maybe it’s because their forefathers were directly involved on that system or they simple think you are playing the race card again. Mind you whenever there are commemorations to remember our fallen heroes, they don’t attend such events, in-fact they would even change the TV channel broadcasting such event and simply choose to call the day “braai day” !! anyways let me briefly narrate this story without delving into too much detail.

The Sharpeville Massacre happened 55 years ago today  (21 March 1960), at the police station in the township of Sharpeville not far from where I’m sitting writing this blog now. South African police opened fire on the crowd of about 5000 people who were peacefully demonstrating against the carrying of dumbpasses (pass books) killing 69 people. The government relaxed the pass laws after that.

Change of heart

Being influenced by Mahatma Gandhi, Mandela thought he could fight the apartheid system through peaceful means, through negotiations, through reasoning with the apartheid principals, but the Sharpeville Massacre was a watershed moment and a turning point in his life. He was forced to go underground, take up arms and fight on.

Last year I was based in an archive institution putting Johannesburg into Wikipedia. Believe it or not I know the history of almost all the buildings of Johannesburg including who commissioned their construction, who designed them, the original plans, maps and I’ve also seen records of how much each labourer was paid.

But I still don’t know on top of which building this picture was taken. I know it’s inside Johannesburg. I understand it was the last day Mandela left the country to exile.

Ruth Mompati, who is a very well respected politician today was Mandela’s secretary at the time. I think she must know where this picture was taken. In-fact I understand she was the only person (besides Tambo) who knew that Mandela was leaving South Africa that evening.

A week after this picture was taken Mandela appeared on a BBC interview declaring war against the apartheid state. He was officially a terrorist to my girlfriends parents and a freedom fighter my parents.

(hash tag the colour of the skin of my girlfriend is an opposite to that of mine)

I love you South Afrika.