US ambassador's arrogance must be challenged

It is dubious for the US ambassador, Eric Bost, to compare the sitiation in Iraq to the one in Darfur, Sudan.

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 03 December 2007

The views expressed by United States ambassador to South Africa, Eric Bost, in the Sunday Independent article, “Bush’s SA emissary shoots from hip” (25 November 2007), should not go without some rebuffing.

Amongst other things, Bost is quoted in the article as having expressed impatience with President Thabo Mbeki’s mediation role in the tension between Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF and opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

The ambassador also argues, quite unconvincingly, that “concerns among Africans that the African Command [sic], Africom, is a global policeman are unfounded.” This comment alone undermines the intelligence of the African people. Africom is meant primarily to entrench US imperialism through intimidation.

That Africom will confront poverty, disease, terrorism and “other challenges that affect regional security and stability” is not true. Why does the US need to fight poverty and disease with gun-totting soldiers? Any plan to fight poverty and disease in Africa should have Africans supporting and driving it. That won’t be the case with Africom.

Bost’s dishonesty gets worse when reminded about the fact that his country invaded Iraq without being sanctioned by the United Nations (UN). He answers the charge with a dubious comparison between the situation in Iraq and that in Dafur, Sudan by suggesting that, “although the UN and 25 other countries have agreed that they need to do something about Darfur and nobody does it, nobody asks why.”

Bost himself knows that, with Iraq, his government ignored the UN and defied international opinion to invade Saddam Hussein under the guise of searching for “weapons of mass destruction (WMD)”. We now all know that Hussein did not possess the WMD as claimed by Bost’s president and comrade, George W. Bush.

Darfur is a different story altogether. Unlike Iraq, the international community agrees that intervention through the UN and the African Union (AU) is urgently needed to stop more deaths and suffering. The basis for intervention is purely humanitarian, unlike Iraq, where Bost’s government is interested in oil and not human life.

Bost is quick to blast the South African government’s alleged foot-dragging in fighting HIV and Aids. He seems to think of his role as that of a big brother. And you cannot blame this on his apparently outspoken personality. Interference is his government’s foreign policy.

The US under Bush and his Republican comrades has effectively reduced the UN to a talk shop. The UN member states have set themselves targets on how drastically they want to treat Aids and cut the rate of HIV infection. Bost just doesn’t seem to see where the problem lies: the problem with the HIV and Aids rate in South Africa must be put squarely on people’s sexual behaviour.

Instead of blaming the South African government’s approach to Zimbabwe, HIV and Aids and other domestic matters, Bost must work hard to repair his country’s damaged reputation. That should be his first task.

• An edited copy of this article appeared in the Sunday Independent newspaper under the headline, “Bost should attend to his own country’s failings,” (09 December 2007).

Vengeful voting will hurt ANC and country

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 27 November 2007

African National Congress (ANC) Secretary-General Kgalema Motlanthe is reported to have expressed concern that factional voting in the run-up to the ruling party’s December conference might exclude talented leaders.

Motlanthe’s concern is perfectly legitimate, particularly given the outcomes of the weekend’s provincial nomination conferences.

The Kwa-Zulu Natal province, with its overwhelming support for ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma, is said to have purged suspected supporters of President Thabo Mbeki, replacing them with the likes of ex-deputy minister of health, Nosizwe Madlala-Routledge.

So far, several talented ANC leaders such as Trevor Manuel and Joel Netshitenzhe have been omitted from most of the provincial nominations.

The result would be loss of organisational memory at government level and, as always, “the masses” for which the government exist will be robbed of several skilled and hardworking politicians.

ANC members with voting powers at the December conference still have time to correct this and other mistakes. Vengeful voting will only work against the party and the country.

ANC power struggle good for our democracy

There is no reason to believe that ANC members do not understand what is good for South Africa

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 20 November 2007

Just last week, The Star newspaper reported that Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said she would accept nomination as ANC president at the party’s December conference in Turfloop, about 30km north-east of Polokwane.

According to the Sowetan of Tuesday, 20 November 2007, former First Lady and erstwhile ANC Women’s League President Winnie Madikizela-Madela would also “not say not” if nominated to one of the positions in the ANC’s top six positions.

It is also public knowledge that other individuals such as ANC National Chairperson Mosioa Lekota, Secretary-General Kgalema Motlanthe, businessman Tokyo Sexwale and NEC member and state deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka are eying President Thabo Mbeki’s shoes.

Over and above all these names, the one potential candidate generally favoured by South Africans of all races and classes is businessman Cyril Ramaphosa, the former unionist who earned a name for himself by the central role he played in crafting South Africa’s widely-celebrated constitution.

In analysing the ANC’s internal jostling for power and positions, the media has constantly been one-sided, only reflecting the divisive nature of the ruling party’s succession battle.

There is very little commentary on the fact that, for the first time in a long time, the ANC is going to a national conference without having resolved the leadership issue behind closed doors. This may sound like a stalemate, but it is actually good for democracy. After all, South Africa is not a monarchy, where leaders inherit positions regardless of what people think about them.

The current leadership competition in the ANC may not be reflective of what we are told are “party traditions and cultures,” but it is good. Instead of holding our breaths in anticipation of the outcomes of next month’s ANC conference, we must be celebrating the competitive nature of the battle.

I may not be an ANC member, but I have no reason to believe that ANC members do not understand what is good for South Africa. After all, ANC members are South Africans too. If they elect a weak leadership collective that will bring South Africa to its knees, they too will feel the pinch.

So, let us stop worrying about Mbeki’s so-called third-term ambitions, Zuma’s and Sexwale’s campaign for leadership. Let’s sit back and enjoy the competition.

US and Pakistan: partners in crime

Washington's siding with a big dictator such as Musharraf whilst campaigning against tyranny is purely hypocritic

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 05 November 2007

Amidst claims of human rights abuses and accusations of dictatorship directed at Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf, the New York Times reported on Monday, 05 Novemver 2007: “The Bush administration signaled Sunday that it would probably keep billions of dollars flowing to Pakistan’s military, despite the detention of human rights advocates and leaders of the political opposition by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the country’s president.” (1)

The US government continues to support Musharraf’s government despite the fact that the dictator has suspended the constitution and fired most of the Supreme Court judges, including Chief Justice Iftikar Chaudhry. “Private television news channels, foreign and Pakistani, have been hauled off-air,” according to The Economist magazine. (2)

The manner in which the US deals with the Pakistani situation exposes the hypocrisy of the world’s biggest imperialist regime, headed by President George Bush. Washington preaches democracy in countries such as Zimbabwe and then ignores such ideals when dealing with what is clearly an undemocratic state, Pakistan.

Washington’s bias towards Pakistan must not be misunderstood: the US hopes that by taking sides in favour of Musharraf, the miliraty dictator will help them defeat Ismalic militants in countries such as Afghanistan and, more specifically, Iran.

The US foreign policy (if they still have one) towards countries in and around the Middle East suggest that the world superpower is preparing for another war – this time against Iran. And that will signal the end of the US hegemony, thanks to Bush and his country’s hegemony-at-all-cost stance.

1. US is likely to continue aid, New York Times, 05 November 2007.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/05/world/asia/06diplo.html

2. Coup number two, The Economist, 05 November 2007.
http://economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10088419&top_story=1

• A copy of this article was published on the News24 website under the headline, “Partners in crime.”

Zimbabwe: diplomacy makes way for propaganda

Britain’s arrogance in dealing with the Zimbabwe problem points to one thing: Mugabe’s rivals have abandoned diplomacy in favour of propaganda

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 11 October 2007

After failing to resolve tensions with their fiercest African rival – Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe – through diplomatic means, the British and United States governments have resorted to an aggressive propaganda campaign.

According to Peter Mavuma, a British-based Zimbabwean journalist, “[The Western media] have a single-minded preoccupation with demonising Zimbabwe and propping up the opposition, especially Morgan Tsvangirai [the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)], well above his station.” (1)

In the latest episode, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has threatened to boycott the forthcoming European Union-Africa Summit if Mugabe attends, arguing that Mugabe’s presence at the summit will divert attention from important agenda items.

By starting the controversy over who may attend and who may not, Brown himself has already diverted attention from important matters to be discussed at the summit. So he wanted to be the first one to divert attention from the work of the EU-Africa summit?

Various observes around the world may differ on the approach needed in solving the political crisis and economic meltdown in Zimbabwe, but one aspect appreciated by both sides is that something needs to be done to return Zimbabwe to normality.

It’s just strange how senior British politicians want to discuss the Zimbabwean situation without their Zimbabwean counterparts. This amounts to gossip diplomacy, intended mainly to cause mistrust amongst African leaders.

According to media reports, Brown’s government would be comfortable with a Zimbabwean delegation as long as it excludes President Mugabe. So that Brown can talk down to the Zimbabweans?

Once described by South African political commentator Patrick Lawrence as a “wily and increasingly unpredictable octogenarian president,” (3) Mugabe’s refusal to submit to external and internal pressure has irked his rivals, most notably the British, Americans and Australians.

Talk of “targeted sanctions” against top Zimbabwean officials is misleading. How targeted are the sanctions when international companies are encouraged to disinvest from Zimbabwe, when the United States has adopted a law (Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act) that legalises external meddling in the affairs of a sovereign state?

In June, United States ambassador to Zimbabwe, Christopher Dell, predicted that Zimbabwe’s inflation rate would reach 1.5 million % by the end of year 2007. (2) At the time of Dell’s prediction, non-official figures put Zimbabwe’s inflation rate at around 10 000%. How that figure would jump to 1.5 million % within six months remains a mystery!

In another misleading development, British ambassador to South Africa, Paul Boateng, was recently on the SABC current affairs programme, Interface, emphasising his government’s supposed commitment to an “African solution” to the problems in Zimbabwe. Yet the current diplomatic stand-offs are not started by Africans, not even the economic sanctions!

This “African solutions” gospel is meant primarily to stupefy the African community. Practically, Africa’s former colonial masters want to keep remote-controlling the continent. They even want to determine who is fit to rule which part of Africa and who is not. Surely that should be left to us Africans?

If Britain and her fellow western allies believe that Mugabe is the problem in Zimbabwe, why does it seem unwise to have Mugabe in attendance at forums such as the EU-Africa summit? Why prioritise a propaganda campaign in the media whilst the subject of the campaign, Mugabe, is available for talks on a face-to-face level?

References:

1. Mavunga, Peter. “Media hype more Western froth and bubble,” New African, Zimbabwe Special Issue, Summer 2007, page 66.
2. Dell, Christopher. “US predicts regime change in Zimbabwe as hyperinflation destroys the economy,” The Guardian, 22 June 2007.
3. Lawrence, Patrick. “Mugabe risks more than displacement in a coup,” Zimbabwe Independent opinion section, 29 June 2007.

'Madibeng, are you a unionist?'

An edited copy of my article, “Our companies are laws unto themselves,” (Pro-Africa Analysis, 05 October 2007), was published on the letters’ section of the News24 website under the headline, “Deaths go unnoticed” (MyNews24, 09 October 2007). The following are readers’ reactions to the article as published by News24:

1. Those who agree that big companies are laws unto themselves say:

1.1. Companies are only concerned about the bottom line. The executives get fat bonuses and little thought is given to the miners who risk their lives on a daily basis. - Jennifer

1.2. You make a very good point, but the fact is that our justice system has effectively totally collapsed. Even if a trial (either crime OR workplace-issue) makes it to court, it'll drag on forever, costing law-abiding citizens tax money.. and in the end the sentence imposed on the purpetrator will be waay lenient. – Juan

2. Those who disagree say:

2.1. Excuse me, 300 people die a YEAR in work related accidents in SA and this is very upsetting,but nobody forces these people to work down the mines,its a dangerous job and they do get paid more money for the danger.How could you possibly relate this to 500 violent deaths or 1200 reported rapes a WEEK,of people who have no choice and just happen to be in the wrong place or sometimes just hanging around their own home?The GOLD mining industry is one of South Africa's few forex earners leave it alone. - me

2.2. Not the only deaths in SA that go unnoticed, so do a lot of deaths in suburbs and on farms. Unfortunately if you can't stop the thug on the street with your police force, you won't be able to stop big companies from doing the same. Start small, be effective and you will reach the high level offenders. – Sun

2.3. Madibeng, is jy so effe 'gebriek'? It is a mine. How safe can you be when you are hundreds of metres beneath the surface. Some jobs are inherently dangerous. My father spent time in mining, as have some of my friends. There are horror stories, but it comes with the job. You fail to appreciate that ALL the workers came up safely thanks to the efforts of the rescue workers. Where there are geniune working environment abuses the state should definitely step in but don't whinge about nonsense. - European-African

2.4. You sound like a unionist - you want jobs and growth but you also want strict safety standards. The fact is big companies employ people who would otherwise be "poor individual criminals or small township gangs". as long as there is minning and major infrastructure development - there will be casualties. At the moment we are chock full of both. You comparing our reasonable rate of mining or constructions incidents to the ridiculous crime rate is so COSATU like... - Fern

2.5. It's terrible that deaths happen at work sites. We're all pleased that these 3000 workers had fresh air and survived their time under. Yet I'm surprised that you feel this is of the same importance than crime? These workers know the risks everyday they go down the shafts. Crime is about people coming into your house and killing you, countrywide. How can you possibly relate the two? Government by companies - you sure? Who are the 'people' holding EVERYONE to ransom with violent strikes. – MJ

2.6. Good article but I was under the impression that miners belong to unions to which they pay a fee...and what do the union's do about the safety issue of workers or are they also to busy enjoying the benefits rolling in to their coffers... - SB

2.7. That some die while @ work, but like others have said, how safe can it be working in a mine underground, Yes maybe there must be better settlements in the event of a death/injury, but thats unfair for me to say cuz i don't know the amount offered.What i do know,is that mining is a very hazardous occupation & i would assume that u get paid extra for the danger involed.. but heh what do i know... - skarr..

Our companies are laws unto themselves

We’re quick to target petty offenders whilst our mega companies continue to get away with murder

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 05 October 2007

The accident at Harmony Gold’s Erlandsrand Mine that saw over 3000 mine workers trapped under the surface has once again brought the subject of workplace safety to the fore of public debate.

Our company executives often list crime as one of the impediments to doing business comfortably in South Africa. Some of them have gone as far as attempting to launch publicity stunts to get government’s attention to the crime problem.

Remember the First National Bank (FNB) and its botched campaign aimed at flooding the office of the president with anti-crime letters from Sunday Times readers?

Campaigns against the high levels of crime in South Africa are unquestionably justified, considering the insecurity that we feel with violent criminals roaming the streets. Nobody disputes the danger that we all are due to the high levels of crime in our country.

However, the high levels of deaths and serious injuries that people suffer due to unsafe working environments such as mines often go unnoticed; and, even if noticed, the culprits (firm owners and chief executives) seem immune from any form of legal action.

We are very quick to demand justice when those endangering our lives are poor individual criminals or small township gangs. The big corporations, which do not comply with safety requirements at their workplaces, continue to get away with murder.

It’s as if our legal system was introduced specifically to shield grand offenders from the smaller and financially inferior citizens. The corporations (and not the people) shall rule!

Understanding Mugabe's tirade at the UN

Like some heads of state facing sanctions from the US government, Mugabe delivers a tirade aimed at further discrediting Bush

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 27 September 2007

At the recent sitting of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe literally breathed fire, accusing (with unusual bravery) the President of the United States of America, George W. Bush, of “rank hypocrisy”.

Mugabe further accused Bush, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his [Blair’s] successor, Gordon Brown, for thinking that their “sense of human rights precludes our people's right to their God-given resources, which in their view must be controlled by their kith and kin.”

Mugabe’s outburst was not unexpected, though.

Merely days before his address at the UN, Brown threatened to boycott the European Union-Africa Summit if Mugabe attends, arguing that Mugabe’s presence at the summit will divert attention from important agenda items.

Like his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chavez, a year before at the same podium in the UN General Assembly, Mugabe had Bush as his prime target – and, because his country has nothing to lose in lambasting the US, Mugabe was not going to mince his words.

Amongst other things, Mugabe told the General Assembly: “[Bush] imprisons and tortures at Guantanamo. He imprisoned and tortured at Abu Ghraib. He has secret torture chambers in Europe. Take Guantanamo for example; at that concentration camp international law does not apply. The national laws of the people there do not apply. Laws of the United States of America do not apply. Only Bush's law applies.”

Speaking at the UN General Assembly a day after Bush’s address last September, outspoken Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called Bush “the devil”, adding: “Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world.”

So sarcastic was Chavez that he even suggested to the packed General Assembly that a psychiatrist be called “to analyze yesterday's statement made by the president of the United States”.

Chavez went on to call Bush “the spokesman of imperialism” who went to the UN “to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.”

Harsh criticism of the US through the General Assembly is not new.

In 1960, Cuban President Fidel Castro delivered a long tirade at the UN, mainly accusing the US government of forcing its will upon smaller states such as his. Castro lambasted the US and other permanent members of the UN Security Council for holding on to undemocratic seats.

Castro described then US President John F. Kennedy as “an illiterate and ignorant millionaire” who does not understand that it is impossible “to carry out a revolution supported by landowners against the peasant in the mountains, and that every time imperialism has tried to encourage counterrevolutionary groups, the peasant militia has captured them in the course of a few days.”

Kennedy, as Castro claimed, “seems to have read a novel, or seen a Hollywood film, about guerrillas, and he thinks it is possible to carry on guerrilla warfare in a country where the relations of the social forces are what they are in Cuba.”

For a long time in international politics, the UN General Assembly has served as a platform from which the leaders of countries under US sanctions could launch verbal counter-offensives. With varying degrees of success, the verbal counter-offensives serve to discredit the US and her leaders.

Sources:

1. President Robert Mugabe’s address at the UN General Assembly, 2007
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/un34.16973.html

2. President Hugo Chavez’s address at the UN General Assembly, 2006
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/9/20/123752.shtml

3. President Fidel Castro’s address at the UN General Assembly, 1960
http://www.school-for-champions.com/speeches/castro_un_1960_3.htm

Are you concerned about 'animal cruelty'?

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 21 September 2007

1. Introduction

Readres of the daily right-wing newspaper, The Citizen, won't let me get away with accusing them of being concerned more about cruelty to animals than cruelty to black people.

Published below is the letter I wrote to the right-wing newspaper, followed by the readers' responses -- also published by The Citizen.

2. My letter, as published by The Citizen on 10 Sept. 2007

THERE is one thing I can’t figure out among many readers of The Citizen – and I would like honest answers to this.

These readers are very concerned about cruelty to animals, but they keep silent when cruelty is unleashed against human beings – particularly when the perpetrator is white and the victim is black.

How dare you express outrage when a dog is injured and keep mum when a white farmer shoots his employee and argues that he mistook him for a dog, for example?

Is the life of a dog more important than the life of a black person in a country where the majority of the population is black?

3. Readers' responses

3.1. Animal abuse is worse

Madibeng Kgwete, there is no excuse for shooting anyone, no matter what their colour. “Mistook him for a dog” is a lot of hogwash. But anyone who mistreats animals is worse. Remember how outraged the public were with the fireworks issue, blowing dogs’ rectums to pieces? If you abuse animals you should be treated the same. A murderer should be given a death sentence. –BRIAN (Johannesburg)

3.2. And farm murders?

Your story is so typical of the worn-out, one-sided, racist mindset that black people love to display. I say how dare you express outrage at readers showing more concern about cruelty to animals than to blacks? But in turn you have remained silent on the cruel murders black perpetrators commit on white farmers each day. Maybe you feel they deserve it, and maybe the whites siding with the plight of animals feel so too. -- REALIST (Brackenhurst)

To be honest, we've dumped Biko’s philosophy

The same black people who go around preaching “Black Consciousness” have deserted their indigenous African languages. They are proud that their kids can't speak any language other than English!

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 13 September 2007

Perhaps the saddest thing about the celebrations marking the 30th Anniversary of the death of the leader of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), Steven Bantu Biko, is that they coincide with a period in which blacks are becoming their own greatest enemies.

In Biko’s own words: “We do not want to be reminded that it is we, the indigenous people, who are poor and exploited in the land of our birth. These are concepts which the Black Consciousness approach wishes to eradicate from the black man's mind before our society is driven to chaos by irresponsible people from Coca-cola and hamburger cultural backgrounds."

Today, 13 short years after the attainment of freedom and democracy in South Africa, “the irresponsible people from Coca-cola and hamburger cultural backgrounds” have had the upper hand. Black people are proud when their children cannot speak a single African indigenous language. Speaking English is the new measure of wisdom!

To be honest, we black people in the new South Africa – including those in Biko’s movement, the Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO) – have dumped Biko’s philosophy of black consciousness. Talk about being black and proud and you’ll be called a “counter-racist” that is unappreciative of Nelson Mandela’s great reconciliation efforts.

Name-changes: where do you stand?

A refined copy of my article, "The lobby opposed to name-changed is deceitful”, (posted here on Pro-Africa Analysis 04 September 2007 and published on the News24 website on 06 September 2007) attracted a wide range of responses. The following are some of the responses as they appeared below my article, 'Don’t delay name-changes’:

1. Those who agree with me on name-changes say …

1.1. At first when I heard of name changes I thought what a waste of time, but when u take a harder look I think it needs to be done. We take our street names for granted, not understanding the significance, eg Durbans Smith, West,Russell,Grey streets, they are all named after apartheid contributors,we need names that is relevant to South Africans,our history, & struggle which takes contributions of all races into consideration. – ayesha

1.2. Very well said, Madibeng. I've always found it ironic that people opposed to name-change, those who argue that it is a waste of time are invariably not black Africans, invariably middle-class. One wonders why they shout so loudly for "service delivery" ostensibly in the name of the poor. altruism? I think not – me

1.3. Never thought it that way. But you are right. Name change is indeed a delivery issue. People's dignity is so important that if you look through the history of human kind where there was an oppressor, their names have been removed because of the insulting connotation it carries. There is a reason why Hitler street is not to be found in Germany, Israel or even the USA. Influence of Mussolini in Italy is limited. India has adopted native names for their cities. Well written and well said. I am poor and want change - Len v Heerden

1.4. Viva Name Changes: It's the only way forward. Viva to name changes. Amazing how white folks suddenly become aware of service deliveries. It's like their senses have resurrected after centuries of hibernation throughout colonialism & apartheid. During which they became deaf and blind to other peoples sufferings. – VivaNameChange

1.5. I think what Madibeng is trying to say, and I take the writer's point, is that whether we change the names or not, it will not affect the service delivery in other areas. There wont be more manpower or more money for introducing running water if we decide not to re-name streets as other departments have their own inept people and the same budget regardless. Bit of perspective please. – Johno

1.6. Even though I am dead against name changes (yes, as a White Afrikaner), I find Madibeng's argument well-written and cannot fault his logic. As I see it, he does not advocate name changes IN STEAD of service delivery, but rather as PART OF it. Right? - cedb00

2. And those who disagree with me say …

2.1. Pride and identity: Yeah right, the poor need pride and identity. Maybe you have a place to sleep tonite and a full stomach when you do so, maybe you should sit without a job for a year, sleep on newspaper in a shack, eat whatever you can swallow .... then tell me about prie and identity. When do you want to start changing the name of Mercedes Benz and BMW, when do you want to start changing the nams of all the planets? Grow up and get positive, get real, start seriously providing a life for the poor. - Blah blah

2.2. How far do you want to go back? Mr Kgwete You end your letter with: "Are we forgetting our pre-colonial history?" Might I remind you that you are very selective in when the pre-colonial timeline starts. Scientific evidence have proven that first Homo sapiens in South Africa where the Khoi and San people. All the so-called black Africans migrated from central Africa. So why don't we allow the Khoi and San people to lay claim to all their land and name all the places? Or are we forgetting our pre-migration history? – Jonix

2.3. Easy to sit in the lap of luxury and speak on behalf of the homeless masses isn't it Madibeng. Take an opinion poll and see if the people want houses and infrastructure or new name sign boards. They care not for the quotes of Franz Fanon. – Tubz

2.4. Im sure if you ask a poor person if they want their town to be renamed or whether they would like clean running water or electricity, they would choose the latter. Lets get our priorities straight, then we can change then names to whatever we want. – JB

2.5. Have you lost it??? People die daily in SA because of a lack of nutrition, water and shelter. Who died of living in a city where the name is not to their liking??? Does your fellow South Africans mean so little to you that you would rather see them perish in a newly named city instead of having a fighting chance. Your attitude towards this country and it's citizens make me sick! Get lost. – Johan

2.6. I'm sorry, service delivery does not include name changes; i fail to see how this will benefit anyone living without proper sanitation. Madibeng you fail to realise or maybe don't want to realise that european people also played a part in forming what South Africa is today, so when you change names you are also stripping them of their heritage. Some names should be changed but not on the scale government is doing it...its a free for all. We all want to be proud of OUR COUNTRY. – Trevor

2.7. Madibeng, you make some good points, or at least get your appoint across quite clearly so i assume you're an intellectual. Well, tell me this: how does changing a place's name feed the hungry in that area, educate the children, care for the sick, develop the economy? Pride doesn't provide! Is wanting to provide the basic necessities being materialistic? What world do you really come from? – Gareth

2.8. So are you saying spending millions on changing names is far more important than addressing poverty, feeding the hungry and taking care of aids orphans, Madibeng? Get real! So a name changes, then what??? Big deal! Find some other frivolous thing to spend money on, while the underpriveledged are STILL out there starving??? You are hilarious! – Mike

2.9. I gather from the fact that the author has internet access, from his wide reading and his use of complicated words that he is quite well off. Yet he comments that name change is just as important as service delivery. He should tell that to the people in Protea South. They are most certainly not throwing rocks at journalists and setting fire to a councillor's house because they demand name changes to be made! – Dewald

• Please visit the following link for the whole debate: http://www.news24.com/News24/MyNews24/Letters/0,,2-2127-2129_2178406,00.html

The lobby opposed to name-changes is deceitful

The name-change process is also a service delivery matter. Those who delay it are just as bad as those who delay the delivery of houses, roads, water and electricity.

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 04 August 2007

In the letter, “We need more service than we need names” (The Star, 04 September 2007), Howard Drakes suggests that government must stop worrying about changing names and concentrate on “addressing service delivery backlogs (housing, roads, water and electricity), job creation, youth development, education, crime, etc”.

A few paragraphs down the same article, Drakes contradicts himself thus: “The issue of name changes is ultimately a political one. It is a matter of how we write and remember history. The history books in this case, however, are being written by the hands of the elite, on both sides of the name-change divide”.

Drakes ignores the fact that the sensitive name-change process is also a service delivery matter and that those who delay it are just as bad as those who delay the delivery of houses, roads, water and electricity. Non-delivery in the changing of apartheid and colonial names is no better than non-delivery of any other service.

Much as they need houses, roads, water and electricity, the poor people of our country also have pride and identity. The notion that all of poor people’s needs are material is nothing but deceit. And there should be no excuse for putting the name-change process on hold, for this process seeks to reclaim the rich culture of the natives.

Of the importance of culture, Franz Fanon wrote in his essay, Reciprocal Bases of National Culture and the Fight for Freedom, that, “in the colonial [one can also add apartheid] situation, dynamism is replaced fairly quickly by a substantification of the attitudes of the colonising power. The area of culture is then marked off by fences and signposts”.

Fanon went further thus: “While the mass of the people maintain intact traditions which are completely different from those of the colonial situation … the intellectual throws himself in frenzied fashion into the frantic acquisition of the culture of the occupying power and takes every opportunity of unfavourably criticising his own national culture”.

Consciously or otherwise, the lobby opposed to name-changes in South Africa is working tirelessly – ostensibly in the name of better service delivery and saving taxpayers’ money – to shift focus from the need to change what Fanon correctly described as the “culture of the occupying power”.

Those opposed to name-changes must read Fanon, for he correctly observes that: “The struggle for freedom, which aims at a fundamentally different set of relations between men, cannot leave intact either the form or the content of the people's culture. After the conflict, there is not only the disappearance of colonialism but also the disappearance of the colonised man”.

In South Africa ’s case, the scars the people bear from colonial and apartheid battles are slowly disappearing, but the “colonised man” will live on for as long as he resides in a country that can easily be mistaken for a European outpost because of its foreign names and culture.

What we should be worried about is the fact that the name-change process is currently focusing too much on the naming of places after recent historical figures. We must ask ourselves: Are we forgetting our pre-colonial history? Are we underplaying the role of our heroic tribal kings who fought gun-wielding European occupiers with bows and arrows? Have we forgotten our ancestral roots?

Criticism leveled at Mbeki is not uncommon

History is pregnant with many examples of leaders who come under severe criticsm in their final years in office

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 29 August 2007

The unfair generalisations contained in the letter by Andy Beytell, “On issues from A to Z, ‘racist’ Mbeki gets an F”, (The Star, 28 August 2007), explain a common phenomenon in countries where leaders are in their final years of office. This phenomenon is characterised mainly by severe criticism leveled at the leader and an impatient desire for change.

The recent outpouring of criticism leveled at President Thabo Mbeki from various stakeholders, including members of the Tripartite Alliance he leads, is not uncommon, particularly when one considers the fact that the president has less than two years before his term of office comes to an end.

History is pregnant with many examples of leaders who come under severe criticism in their final years in office. And the criticism usually ignores the fact that the leader is not running the country by himself, that he is serving in a collective and that he is carrying out a mandate normally sanctioned by the ruling party.

Take, for example, the case of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. He was pressurised out of office before the end of his term as Prime Minister in a rebellion championed by his Labour Party comrades. His sin? He, with the support of the same comrades in the British Parliament, took his county into an illegal war in Iraq .

Considering the politicking that goes with the run-up to the December conference of the African National Congress (ANC), where Mbeki’s successor may be elected, it is not surprising that our society’s desire for change often (and deliberately) ignores Mbeki’s strengths and achievements.
Our obsession with the succession battle going on in the ANC, coupled with our highly impatient wait for a new leadership at government level, renders many of us unfit to provide any fair assessment of Mbeki’s leadership.

His imperfections on the Aids pandemic not withstanding, Mbeki has led South Africa with unmatched skill, unique diplomacy, high intellect and dignity. Under Mbeki’s watch, our economy has grown (though not enough to satisfy everyone’s needs) and our country has broadened its influence internationally.

Many of Mbeki’s critics hate the fact that the president is more knowledgeable than they are. These armchair critics, many of whom are half-baked, hate it more when Mbeki hits back through his popular online letter in the ANC Today newsletter.

They want the President to sit back and take punches, but not only does he refuse to oblige, but he also exposes the hypocrisy of his critics and the racist pessimism they often seek to advance. Even his harshest critics will miss Mbeki when he joins the list of former African heads of states and government.

Beytell quotes Stephen Mulholland who is said to have written that Mbeki was "bitter, narrow-minded, vainglorious, officious, arrogant, pompous and racist". Yet the same can be said of Mulholland, one of the critics who cannot see any good in all of Mbeki’s work. What single positive thing has Mulholland said about Mbeki?

In evaluating Mbeki’s performance, critics must put the ANC succession battle aside and see the facts: like every human being in the world, the President has not perfected every aspect of his work, but he has led the country (and, to a degree, the African continent) with distinction.

• An edited copy of this article appeared in The Star newspaper on 13 August 2007 under the headline, “Criticism of a leader in final years in office is common”.

'A view of the summit': objections to my views

Online readers of the British newspaper, The Guardian, raise objections to my take on the political and economic situation in Zimbabwe.

Background

The British newspaper, The Guardian, runs a popular blog called “Comment is Free (CiF)” on its website, http://www.guardian.co.uk/. On Monday, 20 August 2007, one John M. Morrison wrote an article, “A view of the summit”, based on the summit of the SADC heads of state and government, held in Lusaka, Zambia. Morrison, a former foreign correspondent who was based in Zimbabwe from 1987 to 1990, mainly argued in his article that “African leaders meeting in Zambia proved all too adept at ignoring the ongoing disaster of Mugabe's Zimbabwe”.

My initial response to Morrison was the following: “For a man who is said to have reported from Zimbabwe for three years, it is baffling that Mr Morrision does not know what SADC stands for. Amongst other falsehoods in his article, Mr Morrison writes about ‘last week's Southern African Development Society (SADC)’! SADC correctly stands for the Southern African Development Community. Mr. Morrison must firstly get his facts right before we take him seriously”.

Morrison wasted no time in clarifying this: “I never called SADC the Southern African Development Society. These are minor errors which have crept in during editing. Subeditors (even at the revered Guardian) aren't perfect, as I know because I was a subeditor for many years”. Then followed other responses to my comments, published below as they appeared in the CiF blog.

1. 'SADC stands for Southern African Despots Club'

By DrJazz, Comment No. 769321

Madibeng: You should know that SADC stands for Southern African Despots Club. It does amongst black Zimbabweans. And they only speak of Mbeki to curse him. The economic problems started in earnest in 1997 when Mugabe gave the entire annual take from income tax to war veterans in the form of life pensions. Even war veterans in well paid jobs benefited. I have no idea why he did it, although I do know it was in response to unrest resulting from the elite helping themselves to the secret War Victims Compenation Fund.

2. 'See the facts, you the apologist for Mugabe'

By Sikandarji, Comment No. 769689

Madibeng: well DrJazz did suggest that things started to go badly wrong in 1997 when Mugabe gave the entire tax revenues to the 'War veterans', but presumably you overlooked this. In fact there were ominous signs well before: the Matabeleland massacres in the early 80s which I mentioned, his attempt to turn Zimbabwe into a one-party state in the late 80s when he also combined the offices of President and Prime Minister in one person (i.e. himself) and, yes, the so-called land 'reforms'. What you and other apologists for Mugabe overlook when you bleat on about Britain's failure to pay compensation to farmers for land redistribution is that Britain did fund such a scheme in the 80s', only to terminate it when it emerged that all the land purchased from farmers under this scheme ended up in the pockets of ZANU-PF politicians. Sound familiar?

It should, because of course when the land seizures did get underway in earnest in the late 90s, only a tiny proportion went to the poor and landless. All that has happened is that a wealthy white minority has been replaced with an equally wealthy but far less productive black oligarchy. You can call that 'progress' if you want, but the four million Zimbabweans (almost all of them black) who have been forced to flee the land they love might disagree. Perhaps more than anything else it is this which gives the lie to the feeble pretence amongst African leaders (which you appear to share) that criticism of Mugabe's regime in the West is motivated purely by racist concern for the welfare of the white minority. If that were ever the case, the battle was lost long ago.

There are only about 20,000 whites left in Zimbabwe, and the farming sector has been destroyed. There are at least two million Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa - why don't you ask them what they think of Mugabe's 'reforms', his handling of the economy? If you really think that life in Zimbabwe (where the land has been 'liberated' and 'returned to the people') is better than life in South Africa (where you complain that 80% of the land is controlled by the white minority) then why don't you go and see for yourself? Or even stay there? You might find a lot of people rushing in the opposite direction, but I'm sure the roads leading to Beitbridge and beyond will be pretty free of traffic.

3. 'Mugabe’s critics don’t want to keep land in white hands'

By Gareth100, Comment No. 769747

madibeng, I would suggest that all people in the west would like is for Zimbabwe (and many other African countries) to be run by people who have the interests of all their countrymen at heart, rather than an opportunity for personal enrichment for the leaders and their cronies. Not too much to ask is it? Surely the number of Zimbabweans fleeing into South Africa would suggest that something is gravely wrong? The question of returning the land to the black community is a complex one but surely it benefits no one if it contributes to the collapse of the economy? As for the 2002 elections being "free and fair", even the SADC voiced misgivings over the process, the only country not to voice concerns was South Africa, I wonder why?

4. ‘No country on earth has prospered from a peasant economy’

By DrJazz, Comment No. 770085

Madibeng: I don't want to take punitive action against Mugabe's regime. What I would like is for SADC to ensure that free and fair elections are held in Zimbabwe under a new constitution that doesn't give the President the power to appoint one fifth of parliament.

Zimbabwe went seriously wrong, as opposed to gradually wrong, with the award of unaffordable pensions to 50,000 war veterans in late 1997. They received the whole of the take from Income Tax. How much worse can you get? The ZimDollar halved in value overnight and continued the downward trend as the government printed money and entered the Congo war (so magabe could upstage Mandela, or so he thought). The next turning point was when Mugabe rejected the offer of finacial assistance from the inetrnational community for a transparent and fair land reform programme.

The next major turning point came in 2000 with the referendum on a new constitution which Mugabe lost. It was probably the only free and fair election in the history of Zimbabwe. That's why there was election rigging in the parliamentary elections a few months later which Mugabe narrowly 'won.' There were successful appeals to the courts against some of the results of that election, but the appeal process was allowed to kick in but was never resolved. In the 2002 Presidential elections there was even more rigging.

The critics do not want to keep land in white hands. They want it given to black FARMERS who would contnue to employ the hundreds of thousands of farm workers and continue to produce food and produce for export. Not Mugabe's cronies who can't/won't farm, or landless peasants who can barely support themselves from their small plots. A simple calculation shows there isn't sufficient land in Zimbabwe to support the peasant way of life.

No country on earth has prospered from a peasant economy. Small farmers in Europe have to be propped up by subsidies and second or third jobs.

• Visit the link, http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/john_morrison/2007/08/a_view_of_the_summit.html,for the full debate on Mr. Morrison’s article.

Substance abuse in South Africa

It’s time we stop pointing fingers at government

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 22 August 2007

Commenting on a radio talk show the other day regarding causes of road rage in South Africa, a caller blamed government for not deploying enough policemen on the roads. Road rage, the caller argued, would be avoided if government committed more resources to ensuring visible policing on the roads.

Fairly speaking, government has a constitutional responsibility to ensure the safety of citizens. However, much of the discourse relating to road carnage, crime and substance abuse neglects mention of citizens’ responsibilities. Now, research has revealed not only the extend of substance abuse amongst South Africans, but it has also highlighted the high costs of such abuse.

The World Drug Report of 2006 puts the number of “problem drug users” in South Africa at more than 200 000. A 1998 report by the Medical Research Council noted that South Africans consume “well over five billion litres of alcoholic beverage per year”.

The Minister of Social Development, Dr. Zola Skweyiya, has recently estimated that alcohol abuse is a factor in nearly half of road crashes. This, according to Skweyiya, results in a cost to the country of around 7 000 lives annually.

The alarming figures of substance abuse beg for a nationwide introspection, an analysis of the high rate of crime in South Africa in relation to substance abuse and the overall moral degradation in our society. More importantly, the alarming figures call for action from government, non-governmental organisations, religious organisations and individuals.

With regard to the role of individuals in combating drug and alcohol abuse, Dr. Skweyiya put it correctly thus: “The abuse of drugs and alcohol is influenced by the degree of tolerance by citizens in a particular country. The promotion of the perception, for example, that the use of dagga is not harmful, or that excessive or binge drinking is acceptable behaviour over weekends, undermines all efforts of combating this scourge”.

Apart from urging individuals to behave more responsibly in relation to the use of substances, government has drafted a new bill called the Prevention of and Treatment of Substance Abuse Bill this month, August. The Bill, once passed into a law, will replace the Prevention and Treatment of Drug Dependency Act of 1992.

However little government is doing to prevent and combat substance abuse, much of the blame and responsibility should be put right on the door of individuals, for they (and not government) are the ones who initiate the abuse. Government will not succeed in lowering the high crime rate if our society continues to tolerate substance abuse.

Quiet Diplomacy (Part II)

The one question Zimbabwe's critics are reluctant to answer

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 20 August 2007

This is the second in a series of articles focussing on the rarely explained reasons behind South Africa's reluctance to take tough action against Zimbabwe, a country the United States Secretary of State Condolezza Rice once described as "an outpost of tyranny".

The finished work will be included in one comprehensive essay titled "QUIET DIPLOCAY: Why South Africa Refuses to Take Tough Action Against Zimbabwe". This article focuses on "Resistance to act in favour of 'regime change’ ", which will form part of a chapter in the finished work.

The question critics won't answer

One of the troubles with the political crisis and economic meltdown in Zimbabwe is that those who want punitive action to be taken against President Robert Mugabe’s regime refuse to answer the simple question: where did Zimbabwe go wrong? Was the turning point the controversial 2002 presidential elections, or was it the equally controversial land reform programme?

The heads of states of the Southern African countries, under the banner of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), do not seem to think that the problems in Zimbabwean were caused by either the 2002 elections or the land reform programme, and this is confirmed by the decisions they take in their regular meetings.

Just recently, in Lusaka, Zambia, the SADC heads of state and government not only refused to condemn Mugabe as demanded by critics, but they went further to call for more cooperation with the Harare regime, with a view to forger stronger economic cooperation and closer political ties.

SADC and its refusal to condemn Mugabe

President Thabo Mbeki, who was appointed as the mediator between the ruling Zanu-PF and opposition Movement for Democratic Cgange (MDC), presented a confidential report to the heads of states in the Lusaka meeting. He then told the media afterwards that the leaders accepted the report, which, as Mbeki said, will be forwarded to finance ministers in the region so that they can devise means of contributing to the rebuilding of the Zimbabwean economy.

At their earlier meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in March, the same heads of state again defied their critics, saying the much talked-about 2002 elections were “free, fair and democratic”, adding, on the controversial land reform programme, that Britain must “honour its compensation obligations”.

Clearly, SADC is not convinced that the mounting pressure to punish Mugabe and his regime are worth heeding. In fact (and rightly so), SADC leaders are doing the opposite of what some pressure groups, some international organisations and certain Western countries want them to do in Zimbabwe. They are helping Zimbabwe instead of punishing it.

Human rights abuses and hypocrisy

The allegations of “human rights abuses” levelled against Zimbabwe do not warrant the amount of pressure that Mugabe’s regime is put under. This is because there are countries here in Africa and elsewhere in the world whose human rights records are far worse than those reported in Zimbabwe.

For example, the Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2007 observes: “Ruthlessly repressive governments impose enormous cruelty on their people in North Korea, Burma, and Turkmenistan. Closed dictatorships persist in Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. China is slipping backwards. Russia and Egypt are cracking down on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and Peru and Venezuela are considering similar steps. Iran and Ethiopia are silencing dissident voices. Uzbekistan is crushing dissent with new vigor while refusing to allow independent investigation of its May 2005 massacre in its eastern city of Andijan”.

Like other critics of the Harare regime, the same report by the Human Rights Watch is not clear on where Zimbabwe went wrong. Instead, the organisation says of Mugabe’s country: “In Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe would rather drive his country to ruin than tolerate a political opposition”.

Is the problem in Zimbabwe really Mugabe’s alleged intolerance of the opposition? If yes, and if intolerance of opposition is enough justification of regime change, then the first regimes to be changed are those in which opposition parties not allowed to exist. We have a plenty of such regimes in Africa and elsewhere in the world.

Another one of South Africa’s neighbours, Swaziland, has been harassing and banning opposition parties for a very long time. In Sudan, President Omar el-Bashir had banned opposition parties for as long as it took his country to experience a long, deadly civil war. In Libya, there is still no opposition. In both the Sudanese and the Libyan cases, the international community prioritised negotiations. What, we must ask, prompts the high levels of impatience when it comes to Zimbabwe?

The real answer to the question

Though Africa’s critics will not say it, the situation in Zimbabwe is caused by the West’s refusal to have Zimbabwe’s land in black hands. Those pushing for regime change want to maintain Zimbabwe’s economy in the hands of the white minority. They want Zimbabwe to be like South Africa, where 80% of land is in the hands of the white minority, where only four percent of land has been given back to black people since 1994.

If the rigging of elections was enough reason why a regime should be pushed out of office, Nigeria will not be having Umaru Yar’Adua as its new president. After all, Yar’Adua’s election was marred by allegations of vote-rigging, with the European Union observer mission reporting that over 200 people have died due to election-related violence and that “minimum standards for democratic elections were not met".

You won’t hear this coming out of the mouths of those demanding “urgent reform” in Zimbabwe, but the struggle in our northern neighbour is the struggle for economic liberation. The harsh treatment against Zimbabwe, in the hands of the so-called international community, sends a message to younger democracies such as South Africa: “Interfere with the wealth of the white minority and face the music”. And, of course: “We [the West] are never without excuses to change a regime”.

• An edited copy of this article appeared in the City Press newspaper of 09 September 2007 under the headline, “World must play fair with Zim”.
• Another edited copy of this article appeared in the October 2007 edition of the New African magazine.

How about a state-run newspaper in South Africa?

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 16 August 2007

This may sound like the suggestion of someone living in and supporting an authoritarian regime, but, on a serious note, is it not time that the South African government considers introducing its own newspaper? I suggest this for two serious reasons. And, before you could read this article in full, you do not qualify to comment on the suggestion made.

1. Many good stories to tell, limited and skeptical platform to tell them

The first reason behind my suggestion for a state-run (not state-controlled) newspaper is that the new South African government, in its 13 years in office, has made great strides that have gone unnoticed because there is a limited platform through which such strides can be communicated to the people. In instances where this limited platform is utilised, the level of skepticism overwhelms the good news.

The same government, in the same period of time it has been in office, has also failed to do better in many critical areas, particularly in lowering the numbers of the unemployed, improving the standard and quality of education in public schools and distributing land equitably amongst racial groups. Where these shortcomings were observed, the privately-owned media has failed to provide thought-provoking analysis and useful recommendations.

People who are educated and experienced enough to provide the high level of intellectual debate we need are not given the platform to do so. Much of the newspaper spaces are occupied by lazy, half-baked columnists who do not read enough. They make incoherent and reactionary comments on the state of our young nation. The less said about our mostly junior, equally half-baked and lazy journalists, the better.

For all its sins, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) was correct in its 2005 series, The Sociology of Public Discourse in South Africa, when it stated: “The challenge intellectually to define the future of our country has been and will remain as demanding and bruising as has been the continuing challenge practically to change South Africa into a democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous homeland for all our people”.

Our media practitioners, particularly journalists and their editors (however denial they can be), also face the same “demanding and bruising” challenge to change our country. Unfortunately, many of them never admit that they need as much transformation as the rest of the society they live in. Worse still, they seem to have added the word “transformation” to the category of vulgar words. They want transformation almost everywhere, except in the mythical Tenth Province they live in.

2. The privately-owned media are not development-oriented

Secondly, I would like to use as an example the joint efforts of the Department of Education and some media houses in the education recovery plan following the recent public sector strike.
The introduction of the very useful “Study Mate” supplement to help learners catch-up with their studies is one classic example of how newspapers can contribute to the development of our country. Unfortunately, many of the privately-owned newspapers lack initiative and are in a bad habit of waiting for government to come up with ideas on nation-building partnerships.

The private newspaper industry is dominated by people who are good at pointing out the bad and the ugly in government, but do not ask them what they are doing to further develop the country they also live in (hence their mythical Tenth Province). Many of our newspaper editors are excellent finger-pointers.

Under normal circumstances, our jounalists won't go, for example, to the poverty-stricken Sekhukhune District Municipality in the Limpopo Province unless they are following the Preisdent on an imbizo. Our journalists pretend to be innovative and investigative, but, in reality, they are mostly scandal-mongering, narrow-focussed and just shoddy in their reporting.

I know that the ANC has pronounced itself on the issue of a state-owned newspaper before, saying that they want to leave the space open for independent voices. That's fine when you have media personnel who provide food for thought and see themselves as part of the society they write about. We do not have such media here in South Africa, which is why I believe government must again lead the way, just as it leads journalists into areas of our country they would ordinarily not go to.

We need a state-run newspaper to challenge stereotypes and provide a different, fresh perspective -- a newspaper with learned commentators, a paper that will be written mostly by the doers as opposed to the privately-owned newspapers that are written by the talkers. We need a state-owned newspaper to keep our lazy journalists and their half-baked columnist colleagues on their toes.

To Khutsong residents: You're not more South African

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 13 August 2007

Grade 12 pupils in Khutsong were this past weekend taken to a camp in Taung, in the North West Povince, where they are expected to catch-up on their school work, following months of school boycott.

All the drama follows uprisings in their township related to government’s decision to place their area under the administration of the North West Provincial Government.

The ugly situation in Khustong, which is attributed to the demarcation saga, is very sad if one considers the damage the dispute has brought not only to public property, but also to the future of learners in that area.

Those responsible for the chaos are setting a dangerous precedent, encouraging the use of force and disruptions to the smooth running of the country. Clearly, the people are being misled, and the misleader/s is/are getting away with murder.

What kind of a country are we living in, where children are denied access to education because the people of the area in which they live are embroiled in a conflict with government on demarcation issues? This is pure lawlessness. It is really disgusting.

How special are the people of Khutsong when it comes to service delivery? Whoever is responsible for the chaos (all in the name of “service delivery”) must know that all of South Africa ’s people, from Cape Town to Musina, have the same needs as they. They are not more South African than the rest of us.

In the municipality where I come from, the Greater Sekhukhune District Municipality in the Limpopo Province , people are in dire need of the very basic of services, ranging from clean water, electricity, tarred roads to schools. Most parts of Khutosng have all of that, but look what they are doing? It is shameful.

Not so long ago, black people were out on the streets, fighting for equal rights, amongst them the right to education. Today, 13 short years down the line, the same black people are out on the streets, preventing their own children from attending school. How quickly things change!

The prevention of learners from attending school is totally unbecoming in a country where the number of educated black people with post-graduate qualifications is still unacceptably low, where pass rate amongst Grade 12 learners went down last year.

Former President Nelson Mandela once described education as “the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. Clearly, the people responsible for the chaos in Khutsong do not share the same view.

It is one thing to blame government for lack of proper consultation. It is quite another thing to make young children bear the high cost of such blame game and disagreements.

Because of the showdown between the so-called concerned residents and government, taxpayers' money is now being used to transport and accommodate children far away from the parental supervision they still need.

Imagine the sort of environment the learners have been moved to. Imagine adolescents staying in a camp far away from their parents. Instead of producing the good academic results they have been relocated to produce at the end of the year, some learners will produce positive pregnancy tests. All this because they have been forced out of their area by the very adults they are supposed to learn from.

All those responsible for preventing Khutsong learners from going to shcool must not only be ashamed of themselves, but they must also be held accountable for their highly disruptive behaviour. Shame on them.

Why question Africa's contribution to development?

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 06 August 2007

In his book, “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”, Walter Rodney says: “In order to understand present economic conditions in Africa, one needs to know why it is that Africa has realised so little of its natural potential, and one also needs to know why so much of its present wealth goes to non-Africans who reside for the most part outside of the continent”.

Rodney continues thus: “When the ‘experts’ from capitalist countries do not give a racist explanation [of why Africa remains underdeveloped despite its wealth of natural resources], they nevertheless confuse the issue by giving as causes of underdevelopment the things which really are consequences. For example, they would argue that Africa is in a state of backwardness as a result of lacking skilled personnel to develop”.

In essence, Rodney decries the over-simplification of Africa’s underdevelopment – the very deficiency Janine Grobler succumbs to in his response to my letter, “Picture Africa without the West’s interference” (The Star, 06 August 2007).

Grobler’s argument that “the West would like to leave Africa to its own devices, simply because it costs them too much and nothing seems to change” would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious and so often repeated without denunciation.

Far from costing the West too much, Africa has always been the engine behind the West’s development. Through the slave trade, Africans have shed tears and blood to lift Europe and North America out of poverty and underdevelopment.

It is one thing to think, as Grobler does, that Africa is a burden to the West and the rest of the world. It is quite another thing to imagine the West without the slave trade, Africa ’s oil and mineral resources.

Europeans obtained much of their wealth from Africa without paying a cent. Rodney puts it aptly when he says: “When citizens of Europe own the land and the mines of Africa , this is the most direct way of sucking the African continent”.

It is one thing to imagine Africa without Westerners, but what about the West without Africans? Think about it. Think about the cheap labour that Europe enjoyed through the slave trade. Think about the looting of resources and the raping of Africa ’s women. All at no cost to Europe !

Today we Africans are expected to rise to the heights to which Europe and other parts of the world have risen. But, can we invade Europe and loot its natural resources, enslave her people, all at no cost to us? Can we own land in Europe and have Europeans camping in shacks out of the cities in their own countries?

We Africans have neither the capacity nor the will to develop at the expense of the West. We may be ridiculed for failing to emerge out of undemocratic governance, corruption and power-hunger, but these are just symptoms of the greater imperialist project to which we have been subjected for many decades.

Blaming the West for our underdevelopment may not help us, but when loyalists of the Western empire continue blame us for slow progress or sheer backwardness without any reference to historic facts, we must refuse to bow our heads in shame.

The several civil wars still going on in some parts of Africa (such as Dafur in Sudan and Mogadishu in Somalia) are not wars for war’s sake. After all, there is no fun in killing each other. Our wars have a long history, and this is the same history that we are urged not to refer to in analysing our continent.

There is no question or doubt about the many positive contributions that Europe and North America made to Africa, and so should be no question about the positive contributions that Africa made (and continues to make) to Europe and North America .

The West might have “pumped billions into the [African] continent, written off debt, saved the masses from starving” as Grobler argues, but what about Africa ’s contributions to the West? Why all the silence about Africa ’s immeasurable contributions to the West and the rest of the world.

We may be having despots, civil wars and corruption in Africa but, again, what about the West? Look at the recent or current ugliest wars in the world and ask yourself who was involved. Look at Irag , Afghanistan , Lebanon , Israel and Palestine . Is Africa involved or responsible?

In as much as we Africans have problems, the West has its own. And there are some problems that we can solve without lectures from the West, in as much as there are many problems the West can solve without Africa .

One of those problems we Africans can solve is the Zimbabwean problem. We can’t allow ourselves to be pushed around, to be shouted at on the urgency of “regime change”.

Response to Alister Sparks' article on Mugabe

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 26 July 2007

In his article, “Imagine if Madiba turned evil” (Opinion & Analysis, 26 July 2007), Alister Sparks says he is amazed that “so many Africans, including South Africans, continue to admire Robert Mugabe”.

Well, I hope that, after reading this letter, he and many like him will no longer be amazed. I hope this letter clarifies the so-called “admiration” for Mugabe and that such clarification leads to sober, future debates on Zimbabwe .

First of all, the growing opposition for the West’s involvement in Third World countries should not be confused with support for those who are in disagreement with the West.

Simply put, those who oppose Britain and the United States ’ punitive actions against Zimbabwe mustn’t be thought to be Mugabe loyalists.

The most contentious issue about Zimbabwe at the moment shouldn’t be whether or not there are severe problems in Zimbabwe . That is too obvious. The question is: who, between Africa and the West, should be trusted with bringing the situation back to normality?

And my take is that a Western solution to the problems in Zimbabwe will not benefit the people of Zimbabwe . It has been said on many occasions by various analysts that Britain and the US ’s foreign policies are dictated by their powerful corporations.

We as Africans must continue to oppose any business solution to the political problems in Zimbabwe , and that must not be confused with support for any dictatorship. The problems our continent faces are bigger than individual leaders, no matter how powerful they may be thought to be.

Secondly, we must ask (and answer soberly) where Zimbabwe went wrong. Were the controversies that marred the 2002 presidential elections the scapegoats for a regime change in Zimbabwe ?

Is the problem rooted in the land reform programme and, if yes, does the seizure of land belonging to a few (not even a hundred) white farmers warrant the onslaught we have seen unleashed against Zimbabwe, a country of no less than 12 million people?

With regard to the 2002 elections, the recent SADC Extra-Ordinary Summit of the Heads of State and Government, held in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, in March, noted that “free, fair and democratic presidential election were held in 2002 in Zimbabwe”.

On the land issue, the Summit “reaffirmed its solidarity with the government and people of Zimbabwe ” and further “reiterated the appeal to Britain to honour its compensation obligations with regards to land reform made at the Lancaster House”.

So, the message should be clear to Sparks , the West and everyone else: the Western countries, whose cupboards are so full of skeletons, cannot be trusted to bring a solution to the problems in Zimbabwe . You only need to look at where they have tried their regime-change menu to agree that they shouldn’t be trusted.

As for Sparks ’ conclusion that the elite “will start feeling the pinch – and they will turn against [Mugabe]” because of the collapsing economy there, well, that is a symptom of a well orchestrated regime-change.

The elite-vs-government scenario follows logic (if no remedy is found soon) and should not be seen as an intellectual argument.

An edited copy of this letter was published in The Star newsaper on 01 August 2007 under the headline, "West can't be entrusted with solving Zim crisis". The edited copy is accessible on http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3961373

Book Review: Eats, shoots and leaves

Book: Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
Author: Lynne Truss
ISBN: 1-86197-612-7
Reviewer: Madibeng Kgwete

Posted on 24 July 2007

On the same day that I got Lynne Truss’ book, Eats, shoots and leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, as a present, a former schoolmate e-mailed me and several others the resolutions of the South African Communist Party’s [SACP’s] 12th National Congress.

On the first page of the resolutions was a sentence I found to be objectionable. In bold, capital letters, the sentence read: “COMMUNISTS TO THE FRONT FOR A BETTER SOCIALIST WORLD”.

I found the sentence vague, so I replied to the sender, thanking him for the information before I put it to him that: “Truthfully speaking, there is no ‘Socialist World’”.

As I paged through the book, with particular attention to the chapter that emphases the importance of using commas when writing sentences, I realised that, had the writer of the SACP statement put a comma between the words “better” and “socialist”, the meaning would have been different.

The sentence would have read: “COMMUNISTS TO THE FRONT FOR A BETTER, SOCIALIST WORLD”. A “better socialist world” is a completely different thing from a “better, socialist world” – and I believe the SACP meant the latter in their bold statement.

You firstly need to have a “socialist world” if you want to build a better one. Which is why I found the “better socialist statement” vague because, in reality, there is no socialist world at the moment.

Let’s say, for example, that we have two people: one wants to build “a better socialist world” whilst another wants to build a “better, communist world”.

These two people will have two different objectives. The former already lives in a socialist world and wants to improve it. The latter wants to build a world that is better and that is socialist.

Had the writer of the SACP resolutions heeded the many calls made in the book about punctuations and how necessary they are, I would not have had the argument with my schoolmate who, knowing very well that I like reading, sent me the SACP resolutions.

The economic costs of African unity

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 11 July 2007

Those who support the immediate formation of a union government for the entire African continent argue that their position is premised on the view that political unity is a prerequisite for economic developlemnt – that there cannot be any economic development if political unity is not forged.

Those arguing in favour of this view may well be labelled Nkrumahists, for it was the former Ghanaian leader who famously said: “Seek ye first political wisdom, and all else shall follow”.

On the other hand, there are those arguing that Africa must firstly strengthen its regional institutions, such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the East Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Delivering a speech at a Ghanaian university after he was honoured with a doctorate, President Thabo Mbeki said those arguing for the immediate formation of a United States of Africa are failing to realise that you cannot start building with a roof – that the key to Africa’s political unity is in the viability of its regional institutions.

A variety of political arguments have been exhausted, but very few have calculated the monetary costs of merging African states under one union government to enable faster cross-border trade.

In 2002, when South Africa’s population was still standing at around 43.6million citizens, there were, for example, nine African states the combination of whose populations was slightly above a half of South Africa’s population; and the combination of their economies could not even account to a quarter of South Africa’s economy.

These countries are Burundi, Comoros, Gambia, Lesotho, Mauritius, Rwanda, Togo, Seychelles and Swaziland.

The combination of the populations of Gambia (01, 455 842) Comoros (614, 382) and Mauritius (01, 200 206) was slightly higher than the population of the South African city Johannesburg (03 000 000).

In 2002, South Africa’s GDP was worth about US$255 155, which is 836 times more than the GDP of the West African country of Guinea Bissau. If the country experienced an annual growth rate of say 06% in its GDP, it would take it 139 years to be where South Africa was in 2002.

Some countries in Africa are so poor that a single rich US$ billionaire can run them using his own money.

Sources:

(1) Wikipedia; List of African countries by population density.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African_countries_by_population_density

(2) Wikipedia; List of African countries by GDP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African_countries_by_GDP

What does Charles Taylor’s trial mean for Africa?

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 06 July 2007

As the Summit of the African Union (AU) Heads of State and Government came to an end on 03 July 2007 in Accra, Ghana, one of the former colleagues of the heads of African states, former Liberian president Charles Taylor, appeared for the first time in court at The Hague, facing criminal charges ranging from murder to rape.

As the United States publication, the Los Angeles Times, put it: “Taylor pleaded not guilty to 11 charges that he controlled and armed rebels who killed, raped, mutilated and enslaved civilians during Sierra Leone's civil war, which ended in 2002”.

Taylor’s trial raises serious questions that the people of African decent, both at home and across the diaspora, need to grabble with, for the trial itself of the former Liberian leader suffers from two serious deficiencies.

Firstly, the trial is premised on selective justice. One need not to be a historian or a legal expert to realise that, up to so far, only heads of poor states are held accountable for war and related crimes. The rich and the powerful seem immune from this law.

Considering the recent wars in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan etc, one wonders whether or not there are no sufficient legal grounds to charge United States President George W. Bush and his ally, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, of war and related crimes.

If yes there are sufficient legal grounds to charge the two, the question then is who, of all the nations of the world, is capable of standing up to power? It is clear that those who bankroll many of the nations of the world in the name of aid are immune from the sort of justice unleashed against Taylor.

Secondly, the authoriries (whoever they are) at the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, were politically smart in choosing presiding officers, with the judge being a black woman.

The selection of the judge raises questions as to whether the decision of the authorities at The Hague was informed by an attempt to hide the extend of Western pressure in what seemed like a near-abduction of Taylor from his country.

The details of the pseudo-abduction were later related by Libyan leader Muammar AlGhattafi in a speech welcoming the election of new Liberian leader Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, at a dinner during the latter’s official visit to Libya.

AlGhattafi told Johnson-Sirleaf that he considers Taylor “as having sacrificed [his residency] for the sake of Liberia, because on 11 August 2003 he voluntarily gave u power in favour of his deputy and he went into exile in Nigeria, ending a civil war that lasted 14 years”.

AlGhattafi expressed his opposition to Taylor’s trial, adding that: “Our brother, [former Nigerian President] Olusegun Obasanjo, offered asylum to Taylor in Nigeria, and Taylor, accordingly, handed power over to his deputy”.

AlGhattafi correctly pointed out that the violation of Taylor’s asylum “represents a dangerous precedent like that of Hissene Habre, the former president of Chad, who is under threat of being handed over to an international court”.

The circumstances surrounding Taylor’s transfer to The Hague are as controversial and unsatisfactory as is the legal team defending him.

There should be no question about the need to hold war criminals accountable for their actions, but if this applies only to leaders of poor countries, then the world in general and poor countries in particular, must oppose this selective justice.

The sooner Africa unites and forms institutions of governance, including her own continental courts of law, the better the chances of having a truly independent bloc of African states under the envisaged United States of Africa.

Book Review: The Mystery of Capital

Book: The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else
Author: Hernado de Soto
ISBN: 0-552-99923-7
Reviewer: Madibeng Kgwete

What distinguishes Peruvian author and economist Hernado de Soto from the rest is the intensity of his research and the wealth of personal experience he boasts.

De Soto puts these two qualities to good use in his book, “The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else”.

The author blames, amongst other things, red tape in the public sector, lack of information and the inability by poor “Third World” countries to bring what he calls “dead capital” into the mainstream economy.

In Egypt, for example, the author says his research has established that: “To build a legal dwelling on former agricultural land would require 6 to 11 years of bureaucratic wrangling, maybe longer”!

This, according to De Soto, “explains why 4.7 million Egyptians have chosen to build their dwellings illegally. If, after building his home, a settler decides he would like to be a law-abiding citizen and purchase the rights to his dwelling, he risks having it demolished, paying a steep fine and serving up to ten years in prison”.

On growing urbanisation and why many developing countries struggle to cope, De Soto says “extralegal ventures [such as illegal occupations of land, unregistered small businesses in the inner cities, etc; reviewer’s own example] have already overtaken government efforts to provide housing for migrants and the poor”.

The book is quite fascinating, more so when one tries to compare the examples the author uses to the situation here in South Africa.

The idea of the US of Africa is not al-Ghattafi’s

By Madibeng Kgwete: Posted on 04 July 2007

There are two problematic issues emanating from the media’s coverage of the recent African Union summit, which took place in Accra, Ghana, from 01 to 03 July 2007.

Firstly, there is a generally false notion doing the rounds regarding the idea of the United States of Africa. It is widely reported that African leaders have “rejected Libyan leader Muammar al-Ghattafi’s proposal for the formation of a union government for the African continent”.

The idea of the United States of Africa is not al-Ghattafi’s. As the online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, correctly puts it: “The phrase ‘United States of Africa’, was mentioned first by Marcus Gavey in his poem 'Hail, United States of Africa' in 1924”.

“Garvey's ideas”, according to Wikipedia’s correct version of events, “deeply influenced the birth of the Pan-Africanist movement which culminated in 1945 with the Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester, England, attended by W.E.B. Du Bois, Patrice Lumumba, George Padmore, Jomo Kenyatta and Kwame Nkrumah”.

It is therefore incorrect to keep saying that the idea of the US of Africa is “al-Ghattafi’s”. Ironically, even Wikipedia contradicts itself by saying: “The latest meeting of the African Union, which began on July 1, 2007 [in Accra], was called with a purpose of discussing Gaddafi's idea [own emphasis] of a federation of African states”.

The second problematic issue is the notion that, by disagreeing on al-Ghattafi’s push for the urgent formation of the union government, African leaders have effectively “rejected” the idea. That is not accurate, as the resolutions of the summit suggest.

Amongst other things, the Accra summit resolved to “rationalise and strengthen the Regional Economic Communities, and harmonise their activities”, “conduct immediately, an Audit of the Executive Council”, “establish a ministerial Committee to examine the contents of the Union Government concept and its relations with national governments”, etc.

Quiet Diplomacy

Why South Africa refuses to take tough action against its neighbour, Zimbabwe

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 02 July 2007

This is the first in a series of articles focussing on the rarely explained reasons behind South Africa's reluctance to take tough action against Zimbabwe, a country the United States Secretary of State Condolezza Rice once described as "an outpost of tyranny".

The finished work will be included in one comprehensive essay, titled "QUIET DIPLOCAY: Why South Africa Refuses to Take Tough Action Against Zimbabwe". This article focuses on "The role of the colonial master", which will form part of a chapter in the finished work.

South Africa and Zimbabwe are bound not only physically by borders. The two Southern African countries are bound also by a common colonial history, a common struggle for independence and freedom from colonial Britain and, quite significantly, by the fact that whatever difficulties that face one affect the other.

The story of the two countries, penned down in great but not absolute detail in this book, is much more complex than what many analysts and critics seem to believe. Even more complex are the turning points at each of the two countries’ paths to independence, freedom and democracy.

South Africa gained its independence from Britain on 31 May 1961. Zimbabwe gained independence from the same colonial master almost twenty years later, on 18 April 1980. However, South Africa’s earlier independence was more of a blow to the majority black population that a victory. Confirmation of this is contained in the fact that the new democratic South Africa does not celebrate independance day.

Whilst the end of British rule in Zimbabwe marked the beginning of self-governance and the emergence of freedom, with Robert Mugabe elected as the first indigenous leader, the end of Britain’s colonial administration in South Africa signalled no positive change for the country’s black majority population.

Why rush US of Africa whilst colonial pattern persists?

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 30 May 2007

In his letter in The Star newspaper, http://www.thestar.co.za/, “We need a United States of Africa” (Letters, May 30, 2007), Mncebisi Mashingoane makes some highly significant observations about the need for more awareness, particularly among young South Africans, regarding Africa Day, celebrated annually across the African continent on 25 May.

Relying heavily on Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s pan-Africanist philosophy, Mashingoane rightly opines that: “Because of South Africa ’s late arrival in the fold of independent African states, we need to double our efforts to raise awareness about the significance of Africa Day among the population”.

Mashingoane then spoils everything else he says by arguing, quite narrowly, that: “A national programme aimed at combating xenophobia would be the best tribute to Africa Day in South Africa , as xenophobia (in our country) has become the primary adversary of the ideal of African unity”.

Narrowing down the whole ideal of African unity to some “national programme aimed at combating xenophobia” is to counter the very pan-Africanist philosophy that the likes of Dr. Nkrumah so selflessly dedicated their lives.

Because the sweeping perception that South Africans are generally xenophobic cannot be proven to be correct, we the African people therefore need to think broadly enough to realise that better political unity and economic cooperation must be our first priorities towards the envisaged United States of Africa.

So far, our leaders have done relatively well in working towards political unity and closer economic cooperation. For example, Nepad, though not functioning at its full potential as yet, has been a great stepping stone towards African economic solutions to African economic challenges.

The African Union, also not functioning at its full potential as yet, has proven to be a useful platform towards common African positions on critical international matters, ranging from as controversial as the situation in Zimbabwe to as celebratory as the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa .

We should not rush to forming a United States of Africa if such a bloc is not going to be viable in the foreseeable future, nor should we be so narrow as to place perceived xenophobia as the key towards continental unity. We must be realistic and truly independent in our thinking.

The biggest obstacle to African unity at the moment is Africa ’s dependence on its former colonial and imperialist masters for so-called aid. We need to ask ourselves whether our former masters “aid” us to be economically independent or to keep us as closely tied to them as we currently are.

The so-called “aid”, I would like to argue, is another form of debt, which we will be expected to pay back in some unspecified non-monetary terms: and this may mean keeping our markets and resources (both material and human) open for exploitation.

For as long as we rely on our former masters for “aid”, the United States of Africa will remain a pie in the sky. We can fix everything else, including the supposed xenophobia cited by Mashingoane, but if we continue to rely on the West for “aid”, we aren’t going anywhere.

Dr. Nkrumah wrote in his book, Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism, that: “In order to make it attractive to those upon whom it is practiced, [neo-colonialism] must be shown as capable of raising their living standards, but the economic object of neo-colonialism is to keep those standards depressed in the interest of developed countries”.

Tony Blair's walk of shame

Posted by Madibeng Kgwete: 10 May 2007

The ongoing illegal carnage in Iraq has just claimed yet another high-profile career – that of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has announced that he will step down from his position on 27 June this year following perennial pressure from his Labour Party comrades.

Blair started ruining his career by joining forces with United States President Gorge W. Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard in the invasion of Iraq, ostensibly searching for some “weapons of mass destruction”.

Announcing his decision to support the US’s “coalition of the willing”, as Bush tried to romanticise it, Blair told British MPs that the “new world faces a new threat: of disorder and chaos born either of brutal states like Iraq, armed with weapons of mass destruction; or of extreme terrorist groups. Both hate our way of life, our freedom, our democracy”.

Blair further told the baffled MPs: “My judgment, as Prime Minister, is that this [terrorist] threat is real, growing and of an entirely different nature to any conventional threat to our security that Britain has faced before”.

Four years after the invasion of Iraq, it has come clear that both the “weapons of mass destruction” and the “threat” Blair referred to were fictional. And, for this deadly invention, Blair’s career, like that of his accomplices in the US (Collin Powell, John Bolton) had to end in shame, justifiably so.

Perhaps the greatest demagogue to have presided as British Prime Minister, Blair should be remembered for his hypocrisy, for he:

(a) preached clean governance in poor countries and then stopped the investigation into allegations of corruption in the British-Saudi Arabia arms deal;
(b) spoke eloquently about peace in Africa, particularly Sudan, and then went on to invade Iraq without the backing of the United Nations.

Reporting on Blair’s departure, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) quoted Blair's election agent and close friend John Burton as having said that he expected the outgoing Prime Minister to continue as an MP until the next general election, “unless he was offered a major international job”.

Based on Blair’s terrible record, made worse by the war-mongering that characterised his leadership, Blair cannot be trusted to hold any other “major international job” and speak on behalf of the people of the world.

If he does not qualify to finish his term as British Prime Minister, he should therefore not qualify for any other “major international job”.