COLUMN
February 7, 2007
Posted to the web February 6, 2007
Elias Biryabarema
Mr. Yoweri Museveni has a background of good education. A calm and
well exposed man. Straight thinking and intelligent. His grasp of
contemporary world affairs, including some quite complex stuff, is
commendably firm.
For years he burned his young energies battling vile governments.
Narrowly escaping death on occasions, he showed resolve, sacrifice,
devotion to his people and a deep abhorrence for oppressive
leadership. Sure. This man had no shortage of good qualities.
And yet, to the astonishment of history, Mr Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has
still failed us. 20 years at nation building have produced
incompetence so shocking that some think a psychopathic illiterate,
Idi Amin, did better work.
Uganda has been fairly stable long enough. The conditions for an
economic takeoff have been there for 20 years. Mr. Museveni has
enjoyed generous goodwill from nearly all the world's rich
governments. Their largesse has poured in ceaselessly and in hefty
amounts.
Uganda should have taken off. We haven't. We're stuck. And so is
Tanzania, Sudan, Ethiopia, Mali, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Eritrea,
Malawi, Congo Republic and pretty much all of Black Africa, excluding
the region's sole economic power, South Africa. This led me to pose a
question to myself: can Black people build prosperous societies?
Just about every reason-from slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism to
inequitable world trade rules-cited for the backwardness of Black
African nations has been so debunked by time that it has now become
necessary to look beyond the realm of such contemporary explanations.
The maddening inertia of Black people and the mystical forces that
keep tamping down our nations, in fact, seem to have their roots deep
within us, not from without as has been argued for decades.
Just about everywhere you look, evidence abounds. Vietnam suffered a
war of colonial conquest and it was eventually subdued by France in
1884. For almost a decade, it again fought a devastating independence
war until France was vanquished in 1954. And then came the epic battle
of 1965 to 1973 with US military and its allies, seeking to squelch
the North Vietnamese communists.
When the guns fell silent with the withdrawal of US troops in 1973 and
the eventual fall of Saigon in 1975, the Vietnamese toll stood at a
horrifying three to four million. Diplomatically isolated, its economy
shredded and its population maimed and traumatised on a scale
unparalleled in any Black African nation (except DR Congo), Vietnam
would seem to have no chance at success.
But just two and a half decades later, Vietnam is storming the world
stage as an economic powerhouse. Its exports are flooding western
nations; heavy and advanced manufacturing is thriving at a rapid pace.
Its GDP, $258 billion, is having an average growth rate of 8%, the
second highest in Asia after China. Europe had to put curbs on the
country's shoe exports after they nearly sunk much of the continent's
manufacturers.
According to a news report in New York Times on October 25, 2006,
Vietnam now sells "nine times as much to Americans as it buys from
there." Since 1990, a space of 15 short years, Vietnam has pulled off
one of the most stunning economic feats: reducing absolute poverty-
World Bank standard: subsisting on $1 a day-from 51 to 8% of its
population.
Vietnam
Back home here, the sort of wars and the scale of devastation that
Uganda has suffered since independence can hardly be said to be as
crippling as the cataclysm that struck Vietnam.
This is true for many of the Black African nations. But the difference
is staggering. Vietnam's economy is roaring. Sub Saharan Africa is
dead stuck known more for: constant disease outbreaks, emergency food
relief appeals, civil strive, genocide, chronic corruption, flimsy or
nonexistent infrastructure, constitution breaches, state failure than
anything else. This disgusting state of affairs after, according to an
estimate by South Africa's Brenthurst Foundation, a colossal $580
billion worth of donor money has been poured into the region since
independence. Why have the Vietnamese overcome their historical
setbacks and prospered while Black Africans stagnated or regressed?
Or if we may ask another question: why is it that White people prosper
wherever they settle while Black people head for the opposite
direction. The British crown started asserting its colonial rule over
small territories on the continent of Australia in 1788, taking
several decades before it brought all the areas into a unified
Australian colony.
Throngs of Europeans emigrated en masse and settled there throughout
the 1800s. These émigrés went ahead, starting from really little or
nothing, and established one of the world's economic and military
powers that is Australia today. The history of New Zealand, the other
White country in the Southern Hemisphere, is pretty much the same.
Now contrast these nations with Haiti, the only black nation outside
of Africa. It gained independence in 1804. It's near the US, the
richest market on earth and Haiti has a coastline unlike other African
nations whose landlocked status is blamed for their underdevelopment.
And fine, it has had a fairly brutal past but nowhere near Vietnam's
horrors. But what have our Haitian brothers made of these generous
natural advantages: it remains the most backward country in the
Western hemisphere, bound up by privation, cyclical coups, spasms of
mayhem and blood-thirsty gangs. At home and away, that's your Black
people!
Images
Relevant Links
East Africa
Uganda
In fact Haiti is perhaps just about the best that we can achieve in
nation building. Ethiopia never had colonialism. It registered
impressively high levels of literacy as early as 1970, a fact a friend
of mine brought to my attention recently. It has a rich and widely
shared cultural heritage, a common ancestry. This should have
propelled Ethiopia but see the shameful portrait of hunger and disease
that this country projects to the world.
And so, to go back to that question that I have been chewing over and
over again of late: can Black People build prosperous societies; I
firmly believe the answer is a sad NO.
The dumbfounding incompetence of President Museveni thus is not a
failure of an individual. It's a failure of a people: Black People.
Museveni only rose and touched our low ceiling. The shamefully limited
achievement of his "fundamental change" regime thus should be
interpreted in this cruel context.
Sonika Johnston
OUDTSHOORN. - 'n Skoolhoof hier het die sing van Bok van Blerk se
liedjie "De la Rey" verbied by sport- of ander amptelike
skoolbyeenkomste.
Leerders mag dié lied nie meer op amptelike skoolbyeenkomste óf "waar
groot groepe Gimmies bymekaar is", sing nie, het mnr. Hillie Schultz,
skoolhoof van Langenhoven Gimnasium, gister gesê.
"Dit is die eerste skool in die Wes-Kaap wat die lied verbied," het
mnr. Gert Witbooi, woordvoerder vir die Wes-Kaapse minister van
onderwys, mnr. Cameron Dugmore, gister gesê.
Dié besluit is geneem ná oorlegpleging met die skoolbestuurspan en met
die medewete van die voorsitter van die skoolbeheerliggaam, het
Schultz gesê.
"Langenhoven Gimnasium verteenwoordig en dien 'n diverse
skoolgemeenskap in 'n tydperk waar skole, skoolbesture, -beheerliggame
en leerders met arendsoë dopgehou word. Dit is belangrik vir ons om te
sorg dat alle leerders, gemeenskappe, sosiale en ander groeperinge
betrokke by die skool gemaklik is met dinge wat by die skool gebeur."
Volgens Schultz het die skool geen probleem met die lied nie, maar
sodra die sing daarvan of enige ander aktiwiteite wat daarmee
gepaardgaan "ongemak by leerders veroorsaak of aanstoot gee, is dit
onaanvaarbaar en sal daar opgetree word".
Ek het 'n gratis speller wat baie maklik aan Microsoft Word gekoppel kan
word. As iemand 'n plek het waar ek hom kan download sal ek dit so spoedig
moontlik doen
Tot tyd en wyl, sal almal wat deesdae so ewe skielik op die "jou spelling is
kak" ossewa geklim het, asb
a. Aanmeld by Soois se apteek vir 'n jaar se voorraad Prozac's
b. Ophou om die ander persoon se spelling te gebruik as verskoning vir
jou onvermoe en afwesigheid van die nodige grysstof tussen jou ore om op 'n
plasing te reageer
Op watse drugs is FW de klek , ek soek ook van sy drugs vir my ma!!!
Former South African President FW de Klerk defended President Thabo
Mbeki's stance on Zimbabwe when he delivered a lecture on Africa at
the University of Pretoria yesterday. Answering questions, De Klerk
said while Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe presided over a dwindling
economy, "South Africa has taken the right stance on Zimbabwe. ~ but
South Africa is left?
"We cannot just send an army into Zimbabwe because we think Zimbabwe
is undemocratic. The only way to solve any conflict is through
negotiation and dialogue. We cannot be involved in a country without
the wishes of that country." ~ simplistic, coming from a confused
wannabee liberal ex-lawyer like you FW?
President Thabo Mbeki has come under increasing criticism from the
media and opposition parties for his "quiet diplomacy" approach to
Zimbabwe. De Klerk praised Mbeki on his "tireless" efforts to promote
peace in Africa, saying considerable progress had been made. ~ like
two peas in a pod, one a failed libby ex-Prez, the other a failed
racist pathological-liar current-Prez.
"The devastating wars in Angola and Mozambique have ended. Fragile
peace has returned to the Congo and Southern Sudan. ~ and the
devastating Azanian war?
"Nevertheless warfare, hostilities and tension persist in too many
areas, most notably in Darfur. However, in all these areas the African
Union - strongly supported by South Africa - continues to work
tirelessly to find peaceful solutions." ~ but surely you meant work
greedily to plunder, to stuff their frigging pockets?
De Klerk called for the former colonisers of Africa to help in every
way to end conflicts, alleviate poverty, tyranny and relieve countries
of their debt. ~ gad must be mad.
---
Question for FW: What's loud, obnoxious, stupid ~ and has a tendency
towards violence?
Ek beskou myself, soos Henry Higgins, as 'a very gentle man'.
Tog het 'n artikel gister in ons plaaslike koerant my bloed laat kook.
Die artikel is geskryf deur 'n Afrikaner wat gereeld bydraes instuur,
maar die keer het hy, na my mening, sy hand oorspeel. Hy teken 'n
wilde karikatuur van die Afrikaner, wat seker sy pelle sal plesier,
maar wat erg onbillik is.
Ek sê nie ons is kiemvry nie - ek voel net hierdie ou het sy gehoor
probeer plesier ten koste van sy eie mense.
Lees wat sê hy, nadat hy eers die geskiedenis van die lied so 'n
bietjie beskryf het:
I had to take a flight to the O R Tambo airport, hire a Fiat Palio,
get lost in downtown Johannesburg and drive through Potchefstroom to
Klerksdorp in the North-West Province to meet the youngsters who now
so proudly support De la Rey.
It was a wedding on a game lodge with a Sotho name in the old Western
Transvaal. At midnight the song rang out: "De la Rey . . . De la
Rey . . . Sal jy die Boere kom lei?" ("De la Rey . . . Will you come
and lead the Boers?") Each one of them stood to attention and sang the
song with more conviction than the Boks could ever muster for Nkosi
Sikelel' iAfrika seconds before taking on the All Blacks.
I couldn't help but think: "These De la Rey people? Where the hell did
they suddenly come from? How could I - an Afrikaner to the barest of
my bones - have missed them until now?"
I did national service in the '80s on instruction of the apartheid
government. I have to this day to deal with guilt about it and I will
most probably eat humble pie for the rest of my life for growing up in
an apartheid state.
But these De la Rey people are arrogant, defiant, racist and just
plain stupid.
They came from De Aar, Waterkloof, Stellenbosch, Mossel Bay and London
to be there. They were fascinated by four canned rhinos posing in the
background for the wedding pictures and thought the lions in the eight
square metre cages were the best things since the invention of
cellphones.
Each one brought a pretty girl or handsome boy, depending on their
sex, but not always in sync with their true sexual orientation.
They loved the happy clappy pastor who, incidentally, did not preach
from the Bible but from his own personal self-indulged experience of
his own perception of the world.
After hearing for the umpteenth time that he loved his 20-year old
fiancee just as much as God loved him, they all drank too much and
puked in their smart cars which are still registered in their fathers'
names. And the next day when they got lost on the Gauteng freeways
back to the O R Tambo they phoned mother dear who had been drinking
semi-sweet white wine (with ice) since 9am.
The De la Rey generation is also lost. Its members left the church
they grew up in, went overseas for a gap year, used cocaine and had
unprotected sex with foreign partners the guys now unashamedly call
slette (sluts). They became part of a grey world where right and wrong
became liquidised.
When they came back from a world without parent and rules, they found
cushy jobs in companies their fathers and uncles had built up during
the apartheid years.
They bought double cab bakkies, hired loft apartments behind electric
security fencing, learnt to drink copious amounts of brandy and Coke,
and only talk about money, more money, DStv, brand names and big
houses.
In their post-apartheid equal opportunity homeland they suddenly feel
the urge to live in a black and white world with right, wrong, left,
right and no quota systems in their favourite pastime: rugby on TV.
They desperately all want to get married as soon as possible and they
all want to join happy churches where everybody hugs each other all
the time and the pastors crack reassuring jokes before they baptise
hundreds of fresh white babies born in private hospitals.
Most of all they need a leader of their own race, language and beliefs
to lead them somewhere - but there are none.
Maybe that is why they have to latch on to someone who was shot in
1914 in order to find a symbol of hope.
If we take into account that songwriter Sean Else originally thought
about using generals Christiaan de Wet, Piet Cronje or Louis Botha for
his song, but found De Wet, Cronje and Botha didn't really rhyme with
anything, it spells out the irony of these young lost Afrikaners' new-
found hero of hope.
Edward Longshanks het met meer as 4 000 troepe Suid Afrika toe gekom om die
Boere op te fok.. By die Slagveld gekom sien hy doer in die verte op n
koppie staan, n figuur met blonde hare, kortbroek aan met n kam in sy kous.
"Rooinek !" skree die Boer op die koppie. "Kom hier jou Engelse moer ! I
will gives you one helluva gatskop !"
Edward draai om na sy bevelvoerder en sê: "Take 20 men and deal with that
Boer upstart !"
Die bevelvoerder stuur 20 man om die Boer te gaan soek.
Tien minute later staan die Boer weer op die koppie. "You English donner !
Stuur the rest of your Rooinekke. I will fok them almal op !"
Edward raak nou ietwat geirriteerd en sê vir die bevelvoerder: "Take 100 men
and kill that little guttersnipe !"
Die bevelvoerder stuur 100 man oor die koppie.
n Rukkie later staan die Boer so waar as wragtig weer op die randjie en
skree: "Hey, you soutpiel ! Jou ma se moer ! I is just warming up ! Come
moer me dik, as jy kan !"
Toe verloor Edward kop en stuur 400 troepe om die Boer dood te maak.
Tien minute later staan die Boer weer daar. Sy klere is geskeur en sy hare
staan wild. Dis net snot, bloed en Klipdrif. Weer skree hy: "Is dat de best
you can do ? You bloody vrot pommies ! Come on, come souties ! Kom klap me
stukkend !"
Rooi in die gesig sê Edward vir die bevelvoerder: "Take the rest of the men
and don't come back until you have killed him !"
Vyf minute later kom een van die troepe al gillende en vol bloed oor die
randjie gestorm: " Sir, Sir ! skree hy, It's a trap ! There are two of them
!"
Mandela: Herrese uit die dood, of besig met `n spel?
Dit is Maandag 26 Februarie 2007 en daar is tans heelwat verwarring rakende die gebeure van die afgelope twee weke. Daar kan twee moontlike verklarings wees vir die skielike "skynbare" verskyning van Mandela:
Die foto's in Rapport van Sondag 25/2 is ou foto`s en die berig is vals.
Die foto`s in Rapport 25/02 is eg en Mandela is lewendig en gesond, veral as mens kyk dat hy Winnie se verjaardagpartytjie gisteraand bygewoon het.
Ons sal konsentreer op die tweede scenario, aangesien die verskyning voor soveel mense op `n partytjie, nie maklik vervals sou kon word nie. Die vrae wat egter gevra word, is die volgende:
Waar was Mandela vir twee weke lank, terwyl die land se blankes byna in `n massa-histerie was en sommige swartes in `n massa-euforie oor sy "dood"?
Waarom is die weermag, Nasionale Intelligensie en lugmag op 24h bystand geplaas na die berig oor sy dood?
Waarom is vals inligting versprei rakende sy siektetoestand, na blanke weermaglede, polisielede, en medici wat na aan Mandela is?
Waarom was Zelda le Grange nie saam met Mandela in Mosambiek nie.
Waarom was daar geen weermagvlug geskeduleer na Maputo gedurende hierdie tyd nie?
dalk is ek , maar watter afrikaner is nie regs of koserwatief nie?
On Feb 26, 11:00 am, Ferdi Greyling wrote:
> Vuurvreter he? Klink vintage rightwinger.
>
> On 25 Feb 2007 09:54:37 -0800, "Vuur" wrote:
>
>
>
>> It just struck me that there is no difference between Mbeki and
>> Mugabe's policies .
>
>> Mugabe is been out to annex land , Mbeki is annexing Job's and wealth
>> through AA and BEE.
>
>> Nobody has given it a name yet , but that is why saffies are so
>> unhappy but don't know what to do since they know something is wrong .- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
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