Selective transformation

Lifted from the IOL forums, no idea where it originated.

SELECTIVE TRANSFORMATION By Don Clarke

This one is for the students of the University of Cape Town who want the Rhodes statue removed.

If this statue is offensive to you because it reminds you of colonialists, why do you wear the clothing of the colonialists, speak the language of the colonialists, utilise the technology and medication of the colonialists, and pay good money to be educated like the colonialists? If a mere stone statue is offensive to you, shouldn’t you wipe out every other vestige and symbol of colonialism as well?

Shouldn’t the males amongst you turn up at ‘varsity dressed in animal skins and feathers, and a beshu to cover your backsides? And the female students short grass skirts or beaded cotton strings, with their breasts swinging free? It would spice up the lectures a bit hey? C’mon guys, don’t be such cowards. If you want to protest against colonialism, do it properly.
Throw your smart-phones away and speak your own languages, be it Zulu, Xhosa or
whatever.

Continue reading

The first colonist

I found this in a comment on IOL, apparently it appeared somewhere on Facebook originally.

After president Jacob Zuma’s downright idiotic statement two weeks ago that all the problems in South Africa started with the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck in 1652,

I have been noticing quite a number of Jan van Riebeeck profile pictures, cartoons and T-shirts going about. As could be expected – I would personally consider doing anything civilised to annoy Jacob Zuma as well.

But I think one should have one last word about this and then we can focus on the future again, instead of doing the ANC thing of dwelling in the past for ever. They have started with blaming apartheid for everything until they realised that some of us actually remember the years of apartheid and might not be as foolish as the majority of KFC-eating, my-vote-for-a-free-yellow-tee-shirt, snorting and dumping rubbish in the streets-voters are. So now he tried to blame a section of history which nobody can remember first hand. Stuuuuupid! Europeans actually had the skill to write and record journals, and if the president bothered to read one or two from time to time, he might not make such a fool of himself. But I understand he said once that he is not one for reading much. That is very obvious, I fear.

The president passed standard 3 at school, I understand. Which explains his lack of knowledge, because the old standard 5 history text book was the one which taught us that Jan van Riebeeck was sent to the Cape Continue reading

Are you getting your Six a Day?

So once again the beautiful city of Cape Town gets dragged through the mud, this time by being ranked the 14th most violent city in the world, and most violent in South Africa by quite a margin.

The numbers come from an organization in Mexico which produces a list annually, of the world’s cities with more than 300 000 inhabitants. They use official numbers where available, an unofficial numbers when all else fails, which has led to some of the cities on the list criticizing them for that methodology.

Continue reading

Taking the biscuit

When is a bribe not a bribe?

When it is a ‘gift’… unless you want to call a spade a spade, in which case it is the same thing.

Here’s a notice posted on the Department of Home Affairs web site:

Say NO to gifts and payments

Say NO

Which brings us to the story of Home Affairs data capturer Ms Mathato Mokhele, who was fired in 2007 for accepting a packet of Marie biscuits as a ‘gift,’ and has since being pursuing legal avenues in an attempt to have her dismissal overturned… and been soundly rebuffed at every step of the way.

The gory details are here: A bribe is a bribe….

Curiously, although the biscuits are described as a ‘gift’ implying no quid pro quo, she did admit to taking presents from funeral parlours and marriage officers to prioritise their paperwork…