Re: Dear Lord, Babylon The Harlot Has Reborn In America

[Steve Hayes]

HOW I BECAME A PROSTITUTE IN SOUTH AFRICA

Friday, September 28, 2012 NewsdzeZimbabwe 26

Johannesburg, South Africa — Linda is a small, soft-spoken woman. She takes
out her passport and in a matter-of-fact voice explains, "This thing reminds
me of my journey, from the time my husband died."
Linda, who asked that her last name not be used, is a provincial media
co-ordinator of Sisonke, the South African sex worker movement. She was one of
a long list of speakers at South Africa's first ever, national symposium on
sex work held in Johannesburg recently, which brought together officials from
the South African National Aids Council, the Department of Health, the United
Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and non-government organizations, including
the Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Taskforce (Sweat) and Sisonke.
As Linda told her story, conference delegates sat in rapt silence. Occasional
murmurs of empathy rippled through the room as she explained that although she
had hoped to finish school and go to university, her family circumstances had
prevented it.

"My father was a peasant farmer, he had two wives and we were 15 children,"
she said of growing up in Zimbabwe. "He did not have enough money to send all
of us to school. My mother was the second wife, and so my brothers from the
first wife were the ones to go to school. I could only go up to Grade 9."
At the age of 19, Linda married. Her husband was a medic in the Zimbabwean
army. Six years after their marriage he was sent on a peacekeeping mission to
the Democratic Republic of Congo where he sustained severe head injuries in a
plane crash, leading to his death.

"I was only 25," said Linda. "I had two sons. We had a fully equipped
seven-room house in the city, but my husband's family wanted this for
themselves. They said I should marry my husband's brother, because this was
according to their culture and tradition."
Linda was adamant that she was not married "to the whole family". The only
solution she saw was to leave Zimbabwe for South Africa where she could earn a
living and avoid the pressure from her in-laws.
But first, she had to get a passport. "When my husband was still alive he used
to say, 'I don't want you to work for the family. I will work for you and the
kids. And I don't want you to have a travel document, you'll be here with the
family and I will always come back to you.'
"I had to go against his wishes to get this document," said Linda. "So every
time I look at it, I feel like I have broken his wish, as if I was betraying
him, but there was nothing I could do because I wanted to support the family."
The following year, Linda applied for a passport. "At that time, things were
very difficult in our country. You needed a lot of money to get a travel
document - and it took two years. I applied for it in 2006 and I got it in
2008."

"When I came to South Africa, I was dropped in Musina," said Linda. "I didn't
know anyone. I was wondering how I would find someone who wants a domestic
worker. I was sitting with my bag next to me, then this truck driver
approached me." The rest is history. greatindaba.com

http://www.newsdzezimbabwe.co.uk/2012/09/how-i-became-prostitute-in-south-africa.html

--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[Steve Hayes]

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A parable on prostitution, photographs … and plants
by Aubrey Matshiqi, 22 April 2013, 06:06

I WAS like a child in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Space allowing, I would
be treating you to a gluttonous feast of political stories because last week
was a great political week. Like I said, space is an issue. I will, therefore,
limit myself to the sex industry, photography and spinach.

At the bargaining conference of the National Union of Metalworkers of South
Africa (Numsa), people made unsavoury statements about the late former British
prime minister Margaret Thatcher. But it is references to her as a prostitute
that upset Numsa second deputy president Christine Olivier.

"It is an insult to sex workers. Using the word prostitute as a term of abuse
is deeply offensive to sex workers, whose interests Numsa took an interest in
arguing for," said Olivier.

According to the deputy of my spy, Sore Throat, there were many worried looks
in the conference room at this point in Olivier’s intervention.

Undercover Sister, who went to the conference disguised as a delegate of the
sex industry, reported to Sore Throat, who then reported to me, that some
delegates were not sure whether, in saying that Numsa had taken up the cause
of sex workers, Olivier was referring to some leaders of the tripartite
alliance.

According to Undercover Sister, there was a collective sigh of relief when
Olivier said: "It (calling Thatcher a prostitute) implies that they (sex
workers) are collectively at par with the reactionary Thatcher rather than
members of the working class." Some people in northern England still don’t
know whether to agree with Olivier or not. What is clear, though, is the fact
that the delegates were unanimous in their belief that it was improper to
speak ill of the living.

Finally, the reinvention of Nelson Mandela. There was a time when my parents
were not sure whether I would marry a woman or man because of my love for the
pictures of the revolutionary hunk Che Guevara. My favourites, by the way, are
black and white photos such as those of Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison of The
Doors looking holy after taking spiritually uplifting substances.

But pictures, as we saw last week, can inflame political passions. A
revolutionary movement that, for a long time, had one member in the apartheid
Parliament, has been using visual aids to remind South Africans of its
struggle credentials.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) last week published a poster of liberal icon
Helen Suzman and Mandela looking very satisfied with their joint achievements
on the nonracial front. As there is now some doubt about whether South Africa
belongs to all who live in it, the DA is using the poster to convince voters
who are guilty of reverse racism that Mandela belongs to all who live in it.

Some DA members have been trying to convince me that the poster of Mandela and
Suzman was removed by Pan Africanists from the Freedom Charter. What the DA
must remember is that photos can lie.

And then, there was Zwelinzima Vavi. According to Undercover Sister, those
delegates at the Numsa conference who think that Vavi’s mission in life is to
be a turncoat, were quite impressed by the use of the word "prostitute" as an
example of revolutionary lingo. Until it became obvious that the word had been
used in reference to UK politics, these delegates thought it was being used to
insult people who are opposed to the National Development Plan and the outcome
of the leadership battle in Polokwane.

Vavi did not disappoint. He threatened to withdraw the electoral support of
the working class from the African National Congress (ANC) if the ruling party
did not stop cheating with capital. For Vavi, the refusal to ban labour
brokers is evidence that the ANC is cheating on the working class.

As usual, he saved the best for last. Commenting about the eating habits of
the ruling party, he said that the Congress of South African Trade Unions
(Cosatu) would be seen as "a Popeye" by its members if it called on workers to
continue voting for the ANC despite its class infidelity. Obviously, the ANC
is Popeye and Cosatu is the spinach.

• Matshiqi is a research fellow at the Helen Suzman Foundation.

http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2013/04/22/a-parable-on-prostitution-photographs--and-plants