30 years later : Cyril Ramaphosa re-elected president of South African after ANC and the White-led DA become coalition partners
cornelius...@gmail.com
30 years later : Cyril Ramaphosa re-elected president of South African after ANC and the White-led DA become coalition partners
As The Last Poets put it,
“The change in the day that makes them rant and rave "Black Power, Black Power!"
And the change that comes over them at night
As they sigh and moan, "White thighs, ooh, white thighs"
Not science fiction, neither good nor bad ,
Nor ugly and awful, so called poetry, somebody
Give Chidi a pinch to wake up to the reality
What’s it’s like to be sleeping with the enemy.
Once more we are at the cusp of the apocalypse
The tide is churning, churning, churning, churning
Some say that at this point Madiba Nelson Mandela
is turning, turning in his grave. Ditto Winnie Mandela
Oliver Tambo, Chris Hani, Joe Slovo and indeed all
The former leaders of Pan Africanist Congress of Azania
Who during the Apartheid years had as their motto,
“One settler, one bullet” ( now, nota bene; neither
The military wing of Hamas or uMkhonto we Sizwe
proposed such a radical
Final Solution .
On Thursday, I got a call from Pretoria - it was a bad connection…it would surely have provided some insights into what was about to transpire (the power-sharing). Of course,
I know a number of exiled South Africans still holed up here in Sweden but haven’t yet talked to any of them for at least a week. To tell you the truth, since Jacob Zuma split ranks (and the consequences) since the elections results have been in I’ve been afraid of what they (any of them) might say; the exiled South Africans over here (Zulu, Xhosa, some marginalised minority ethnicities, bitter old Negroes for the most part, and some disenchanted Whities too, very religious Boers, religious and secular Jews, Anglo-Saxons, of Scottish Origin beating their chests and talking about ”my country South Africa”, Muslims from the sub-Indian continent, some of the people from Cape Town who pride themselves on being the most enlightened and cosmopolitan, in contrast with Bros from Soweto, Alexandra, even Pretoria, Jo'burg, etc -.When I eventually lend an ear, must be prepared to listen for a long time, and without interrupting any of the pent up emotions, because, “ he who feels it knows.”
I reminded a Nigerian Bro about one of the last interviews of F. W. de Klerk, in which he was asked , how does it feel to be the last white man to be president of South Africa ? He had replied along the lines of not so fast - how do you know that I am the last white man to be president of South Africa? Now that Apartheid is over and colour is a thing of the past, a White man could be elected president of South Africa In the future .
Back then I had thought he must be dreaming, (like the sentiments expressed in Psalm 126) but now we see the distinct possibility that one of these days Mr. White could be elected vice-president ( a heartbeat from the presidency) and before you can say “jiffy” - you see him sitting in the saddle again as “His Excellency, President, Field Marshal VC, DSO, MC, Commander-in-Chief, Lord of all the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Emperor of the Economic Empire of South Africa in Particular.”
Nigerian Bro said that “ Nelson Mandela laid the foundation of the unity government we are now seeing. “
Julius Malema is now one of the most vocal opposition leaders, What does he say?
Will be paying close attention to South African poet Mzwakhe Mbuli
For those of us who are not there : South African newspapers and news sites
cornelius...@gmail.com
“They have lost their memory
They embrace the enemy “
wailed Hugh Masekela in
Any day now, we are to expect South Africa’s new national unity government to
announce like Nigeria’s President Tinubu ,“a government of national competence”
The whole world is curious about who will be appointed Minister of Finance, Minister of
Mineral Resources and Energy, Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, and some of the other sensitive Ministerial (and policy positions & solutions) in that country ,such as the Minister of Crime and Punishment, the Minister of Justice? The Minister of Housing ? The head of the Anti-Corruption Ministry? The Ministry of Youth Employment? The Education Ministry.
Will South Africa continue to prosecute their genocide case against holy Israel at the International Court of Justice or will it slide back to busness as usual ?
Against the backdrop of the impunity of high crime and corruption
(“the rape capital of the world” etc), soaring youth unemployment,
poverty, the people, the economy, Cry, the Beloved Country, who
is to blame? The main actors ,some a-them posing as “ The Redemption
People’s Party”?
Democracy :The beauty of diversity ; the more the merrier; some of
the main ones, in alphabetical order, some of South Africa’s Political Parties
African Christian Democratic Party
African Transformation Movement
One of the main questions discussed on the BBC a few days ago ,was
“ How long will the coalition last?” - before it is brought toppling down like
Humpty-Dumpty?
# Without unity we'll always be disrespected - The Black union
cornelius...@gmail.com
Harry Belafonte - Paradise In Gazankulu (Full Album)
The Indestructible Beat of Soweto (various artists
South Africa : Jazz
South Africa : Poetry
South Africa : Literature
South Africa : Art
South Africa: Religion
South Africa: Politics
South Africa : History
South Africa : Ethnicities
South Africa : The Economy
cornelius...@gmail.com
To my horror (or was it chagrin / sour grapes / racism / deliberate omission / vengeful & malevolent malice/ wilful negligence/ hypocrisy or unmitigated chutzpah that it’s only just now I noticed that Herr Cyril Ramaphosa’s chosen bed-fellows for his new alliance were missing in my “some of the main ones, in alphabetical order, some of South Africa’s Political Parties
Well, call it whatever you like, but these sentiments still ring true : Black is Black, I want my country back, I want ECONOMIC FREEDOM , I want to be FREE.
In the meantime, re- Billionaire Cyril Ramaphosa’s hitherto unlisted bedfellows, here they are , and not in alphabetical order:
a party with a lot of pedigree, originally founded by the one and only Mangosuthu Buthelezi as Inkatha National Cultural Liberation Movement (INCLM) on 21 March 1975. The Movement's name was eventually changed to Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in 1994, as always ,the emphasis on Freedom
Said to be mainly promoting “White” interests…it’s only a matter of time before some of the ANC diehards start braying…
One would have thought that Ramaphosa would have welded an alliance with , among others Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters, but the party’s raison d'etre is clear : the people demand their rightful share of the cake - no compromise about that, and also non-negotiable: an equitable redistribution of THE LAND - what Sonny Okosun sang about as Papa’s Land - about which Jesus Loves you Desmond Tutu quipped, “When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.”
The following sticking points about the Democratic Alliance’s position on land reform, signals some trouble ahead for Captain Ramapahosa concerning the long overdue land reform : ( https://tinyurl.com/2bxql6vp )
“Land
The DA is resolutely against land expropriation without compensation.[65] This is in response to the ANC and the EFF's recent attempts to change section 25 of the Constitution which deals with land reform. The DA says that changing the Constitution will open the floodgates and undermine property rights, allowing government to own all land and forcing all South Africans to be only permanent tenants of the land. The party says that it is committed to ensuring that those entitled to land receive it in the form of direct ownership, and not as lifelong tenants.
The DA's "Land of Opportunity"[66] programme supports the "willing buyer, willing seller" principle, though it also allows for expropriation for reform purposes in certain limited circumstances. The party has been critical of the resources that government has allocated to land reform, claiming that government has not been sufficiently active in buying up land that comes onto the market. Though the DA believes this could speed up the pace of land reform, their policies have been vocally criticised by members of the Tripartite Alliance. Land Affairs Minister Thoko Didiza accused the DA of attempting to "stifle" land reform,[67] while the South African Communist Party contended that the DA's policies overly favoured big business.[68] In a speech at the DA's national congress in April 2018, DA Leader, Mmusi Maimane, praised DA Western Cape Provincial Leader, Bonginkosi Madikizela, for overseeing the delivery of 91 000 title deeds in the province and allowing residents to have full title deeds to their homes.[69]” ( Wikipedia)
Also at variance with the ANC ; DA’s :Foreign Policy positions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Alliance_(South_Africa)
"The DA tends to have a pro-Western foreign policy.
The DA has been a strong supporter of Ukraine during the Russo-Ukrainian War. South Africa, a member of the BRICS alliance, has remained neutral throughout the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but the DA (including DA-controlled legislatures and councils) supports Ukraine and has criticised South Africa's ambiguous position, though the ANC has denied supporting Russia and insists that it is neutral. Steenhuisen visited Ukraine in 2022.[77] The party has also called for Russian President Vladimir Putin to be arrested.[78]
Unlike the ANC, which officially declared its support for Palestine and refusing to condemn Hamas for its attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023, the DA, along with other members of the Multi-Party Charter, condemned Hamas for its attacks on Israel, declaring it an unprovoked attack on Israel.[79] The DA, like the ANC, supports a two state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.[80] The DA-controlled Cape Town City Council rejected to support South Africa in South Africa v. Israel, a case brought to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by South Africa accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The decision prompted protests from pro-Palestinian civilians in Cape Town.[81] "