A different view on current affairs & history
As the old adage goes, a week in politics is like an eternity. Undeniably the reason for this maxim is that the unexpected frequently occurs transforming yesterday’s hero into today’s enfant terrible. Such was this week.
As this war is unlikley to resolve any of the underlying issues driving this tension, this battle will be proceeded by yet more wars as the cycle of violence never abates. Hatreds based upon religion, dispossession and culture are indubitably intractable and not subject to facile solutions.
The Letters to the Editor’s Columns are replete with copious articles deploring the abysmal or non-existent service that they are receiving from one or more of the state departments or parastatals.
Like most people, I have become inured to the host of horror stories and skip such articles as they are now so commonplace. Alternatively we have ourselves have been subjected to appalling service and stopped caring or complaining. Like most people when a situation is immutable, they just want to get on with our lives. That is the centuries-old societal coping mechanism.
Here are the close-up photographs of that shocking event.
They now threatened to make Gauteng ungovernable unless they are allowed to wear their uniform in the legislature. No wonder Gwede Mantashe equated their behaviour with that of the Nazi Brownshirts of the 1930’s. These were a bunch of lawless thugs who did the Nazi party’s bidding. Foremost amongst their atrocities was the Kristallnacht also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, It was a “Pogrom”, (a series of coordinated attacks) against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and Austria on 9–10 November 1938, carried out by Sturmabteilung SA paramilitary forces [Brownshirts] and non-Jewish civilians. German authorities looked on without intervening. The name Kristallnacht comes from the shards of broken glass that littered the streets after Jewish-owned stores, buildings, and synagogues had their windows smashed.
Looking at the intense concentration as these EFF members demolish the security gates is reminiscent of their equally uncouth Nazi bretheren.
This concept should be vigorously opposed by all right-thinking people otherwise we too will be condemned like the Germans in the early 1930’s who through inaction & supine behaviour, forsook their rights and allowed the dictator, Adolf Hitler, to usurp power.
The race that leads the pack in terms of high fees is the 702 Walk the Talk which cost me R140 for a 20km walk. Considering that participants no longer even receive a free T-Shirt, I considered it exorbitant. For whatever reason in my mind, this race is viewed as an event rather than a “race” and hence it was forgiven.
Even in its desolation its abandoned houses and equipment seductively display their rusting and decaying bellies as if they were still of some use to mankind. While gloomy skies and dank foreboding surroundings cast a pall of dispair over the sombre visage, these solitary sentinals stand guard over a deserted island.
The main picture above is a US Navy DC3 that ran out of fuel and landed safely on the south coast of Iceland.
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Yet another heavy-weight ANC official has been exposed in this scam perpetrated on South Africa’s citizens: the honourable Dr Pallo Jordan. Due to his bookish demeanour, the title Doctor was not challenged. But what is his fraudster? He is no better than the whole slew of DJs styling themselves as Dr. So-and-so. In their case, it is merely a moniker and forms part of their stage persona. In the case of Mr Jordan as he should henceforth be called, it served as a badge of distinct in keeping with his intellectual utterances and disposition.
Shame on you, Dr – I mean – Mr Jordan.
Like everybody else, to avoid becoming involved in arguments as intractable as this conflict itself, most of us refuse to apportion blame or even to provide an opinion albeit muted. Adam Habib, the Wits University Vice-Chancellor has just become embroiled in such a fracas by tweeting his support for Hamas.