Just Being Brutally Honest

Three things got me fascinated recently and laughing all the way through my nationwide travels. Me and my friends have been having abridged conversations about the tender system. You all know the government's flawed procurement system that doesn’t always deliver the best results because the chaps hired to man it are bloody greedy and want a slice of every pie they have to offer to hungry contractors. Now, our conversation was largely about how this system undermines excellence and rewards mediocrity and incompetence. Herewith are three scenarios.

ONE: The way the tender system is so corrupt it is most likely that if the South African Blood Service issued an invitation for a qualified company to supply it with 100 litres of blood a month for the next five years you would get comrades winning it and later supplying chicken, goat, sheep and cattle blood to the bank. For all you know people might start dying in droves, all with their blood sucked out.

TWO: if South Africa desperately wanted to win a gold medal at the next Olympics and issued an international invitation to bid from a person who can run on our behalf and win the tender, believe me the tender would go to the obese guy who drives an ML Class, that’s even if confirmed fastest man on earth Usain Bolt bidded. The fat comrade will the be told by his inside connection to go and hire Bolt since he scored high in functionality.

THREE: An initiation school is a very important institution to some of our tribes since it lies at the belly of our very survival. Thus, such a ritual is carried out first; by a trained minder who at times should be the child of someone who has run such a school for generations; second; it should be someone with the right ethnic orientation and blessings from the tribe’s elders, traditional leadership and traditional doctors since they are going to entrust their kids with not only his scalpel but his vision. One of my friends said that if such a service was put to tender you would get tenderers from tribes that don’t even initiate bidding or it, claiming that once they win it they will hire a MoPulana, uMndebele or UmXhosa to run it for them as they will be putting invoices to the House of Traditional Leaders.

What a fucked-up patronage rooted system we have for procurement. No wonder two-thirds of government services, that which is procured sucks. Government should stick to supplying IDs, imagine what would happen if they were supplied by a dodgy company called UMXABULO IDENTITY SOLUTIONS?

Immortal Technique on Russian television

God is white – that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!!!

This is not a conspiracy theory because I’m not trying to conspire against anyone; it’s a fact base opinion, if there is such a thing. I’ve grown to learn and know about God our father, who art in heaven, its lovely story of a lifetime that gives a man like me hope and hope is not something you can pick up from a street. Hope brings life and life…..! Well, Common says life is a bitch depending on how you dress it, I say life is but after death now back to my story, I say I’ve seen God and the dude isn’t black. In my 29 years on this earth I’ve seen everything in black translated into a white superiority. What I mean is, there is a certain favour that is bestowed upon the Caucasian nation and there’s nothing we can do about it. My black consciousness brothers and those who embrace Africanism preached to me about the false ideologies of the white man, through the demonic media, I received and repented but my repentance fell short. They told me about the history of African colonisation and how the white man stole everything from us. I pondered the story and realise that, if the white man can do that, have that kind of power and the rest of wasn’t sleeping then he’s got some godliness behind him. In the bible, which I grew up reading, it is said that God favoured certain people and certain nations (Israel to be specific) just to show-of his glory, well there’s no reason in there why he chose Abraham to be the father of all nations or why he chose Abel over Cain, so I assume it is for show-off…after all he’s the creator. You might be thinking blasphemy at this moment but like Eminem said I’m just giving you things that you think about or talk about in the living room but I have guts to say them in front of you. Ironically Marshall Manthers is a white rapper who dominated the genre, which is known to be a black music or black culture, like poverty over Africa. Now you tell me if that’s not favour bestowed by some high power? Beside, Em’s story, there is a whole lot of the world’s spectre that is dominated by Caucasians like the Media, Entertainment, music, business, finance, sports and controversially, even religion, they presided over us and other races to level where Chika Onyika (the author of The Capitalist Nigger) lambasted to the African nation. Who can blame him?

Although it sounds cliché and funny in a way, but it is true that when you have the favour of God like Moses did, you walk on water or part seas, while your counterparts are just the King Pharaohs following suite but failing to do the same. The charismatic preachers will and can agree with me on this one. Now, the race which I’m accusing of being godly, has apparently stolen everything from the Egyptian philosophy, our resources, history, religion even our identity but they didn’t just steal it they turned it into class. I mean the Germans made cars and we feel like god in them, Russians made guns and feel glory with them, Swedish made porn glamorous and we are addicted to it and the American took a black man to slavery and made American out of him and we cherish him. Now how’s that for being on the Almighty’s side? I sometimes think that maybe my mind is colonised by the white man mentality which sometimes I’m accused of but religion states clearly that there are those who are chosen and those that aren’t, like there’s right and wrong, heaven and hell, white and the others. It is evident that religion is classed according to race and ecology but one thing in common is the fact we put a spiritual figure (God) which we pray to, unfortunately on this case also there is a dominating religion which is run by them white folks. The Veticans, Catholics, they dictated the figure or the picture we should have about their God because they were favoured amongst others. This is not blasphemy; I just saw everything in black translated into white superiority but we don’t see the same…..”Sepedi sere, sehlare sa mosotho ke lekgowa, and the bible says God is our healer”

Chapter 2 (the Bible version coming soon)

The Truth

Two weeks ago City Press publhised article penned by talented and award-winning poetLebo Mashile (Live, Love and Belong) once again exposed the high levels ofintellectual bankruptcy in our society and our ongoing celebration ofmediocrity. For anyone to have opted for Mashile to deliver such a flawedspeech during such an august occasion insinuates that South Africa has runout of history scholars with a proper grasp of anthropology – I protestthat Mashile carries such a mantle lest I proclaim our collectiveappraisal of mediocre intellectualism.First; there is no ‘small’ nation in the face of the earth calledBapulane. There is a ‘big’ nation called Mapulana rooted not inBushbuckridge (as a matter of fact Bushbuckridge is in Mpumalanga and notLimpopo) but Mapulaneng which covers a sizeable chunk of Mpumalanga.Mapulana are found in every corner of South Africa, largely in Gautengwhere they have a footprint. This is information so in the public domainthat a first year anthropology student could have delivered a betterpresentation on. That Mapulana did not have their own Bantustan and arecognized (official) language does not make them less of a nation thesame way Palestinians are not less human by virtue of being denied landand self-determination.Mashile should also understand apartheid’s (especially Bantustans) role incrafting the modern South African identity. Tribes and languages weredeliberately suffocated under the homeland system. I know not of a singleMoPulana who is “very comfortable referring to themselves as both Pedi(sic) and Bapulane (sic)”. The biggest insult one can dish against aMoPulana is to call them a MoPedi.To position Mashile’s flawed analysis within a cultural context I wouldprofess that identity is inherited and never chosen to suit a populisthegemonic agenda. Contrary to her calculated definition of her ownidentity the Mashiles are not Basotho (from Lesotho) but one of the fiveoffspring of the lion (Bana ba Tau Sethlano). They are royalty inMapulaneng. They are in the same league with Mashego, Malele, Chilwane andMogane.Given that Mashile’s diatribe was during the World Summit on Arts andCulture one can sadly conclude that the world now carries that distortednarrow interpretation of our cultural identity as fact. It will beencouraging next time for the organizers to offer such a privilege tosomeone more qualified on the subject like Professor Pitika Ntuli or DrMathole Motshega instead of a poet.All Mashile had to do was to Google ‘Mapulaneng’ and she would have endedup with more academic references, websites and Facebook groups aboutMapulana to assist in her speech instead of perpetuating a dangerousfascist analysis of Mapulana, a victorious and proud nation.

Oppression redefined!!!!

For the first time in my life, I really understoond what it meant to be the "token BLACK person".

From people making sure that I knew that I was different even with my good accent and "great" people' skills to putting in extra hours and effort so that others can see my worth in the work place and not see me as the person as the person they hired just to ration out the whole "affirmative" action thing that - for a long time didn't matter much to me.

In the 9 months that I have spent in this company, I have felt emotions I had not felt in a long tme - anger, hate, frustration, weakness etc.

I had to teach myself most of what I now know, deal with a woman (that has spent the last 18 years of her life in the same company) that wanted to prove to everyone that she knows all things related to work and we (the whole department) are nothing without her, defending myself every second day because no matter how good I thought my work would be - she would always find an error, insults from retailers and so on!!!!! I t goes deeper than this though, more on a tip of "corporate sabotage" as I would call it!!!!!


People just do not want to see other people succeed or simply being better at certain things than them..... you see that, that is what makes people go to hectic extents to destroy all that is good in a person - I would call that evil behaviour and a different kind of oppression.

For that reason and more personal ones ( me failing to see how I could possibly grow in a company that had an extremely intelligent person working a junior position for 12years only to be promoted just because we spoke out when an idiot of not - who happens to be white- got promoted to a more senior position in less than 2years in the same company) and 1 woman that has made me feel how it is to despise a person that I have only known for less than a year.

What angers me more is that I have put myself in an invironment that has changed the person I had been for 25years into this petty thinking, uncreative, nagging person that I have grown to dislike! I don not want that for myself and am leaving it for those who are willing to put up with all types of bullshit in a work place for a constant salary that amounts to peanuts. I have turned myself into a prisoner and have deprived myself of the things I actually do want in my life!

If you are wondering what I am bitching about........... I have just resigned for my job!

The MADNESS has to stop!

If The Bible Carried Ads…

Here I am having an inspirational talk with a guy from the left and he wants to know how far is the South Afrikan media with the discussion on who should dictate editorial policy between the advertisers and the readers. We end up on politics really; I bemoan the fact that MDDA is not well-funded and that government should put more money into the agency to unearth more grassroots media with a pulse.

I go as far as mentioning that those who run the media actually set the agenda on what national discourse should be. Then we come to the point I have been wondering relating to the influence of ads on content. Okay, Google Ads can not do that because they are content relevant. You publish stories about Mandela and the Long Walk To Freedom book retailers’ ads pop up. You write about China and The Dalai Lama’s ads dominate your page. But the real talk is about the ads that try to influence content – by throwing money at the publication.

Then our discussion came to the point where we wondered why is the Bible, thick, printed on the best paper on the market retail so cheap? If those who are propagating the spread of Christianity can put so much money into its production and distribution why can’t those who want to propagate their own leftist rhetoric do the same with newspapers. For all I know newspapers are published on cheap newsprint, are less than forty pages thick and are distributed at restaurants and beer halls. Where’s the hiccup?

Then my friend wanted to know my take on how ads influence content. I told him that I reckon if the Bible welcomed ads, you would have a lot of inaccurate information and omissions in the Holy book. Imagine this scenario;

Obviously SARS would have loved putting ads next to Jesus’ sermons about ‘giving to Caesar what belongs to Caesar’. Picture reading about all the taxes that Jesus preached about and at the bottom of the page you get a strip ad from SARS, reminding you of your obligations.

Also imagine reading about the miracle of walking on water at the Sea of Galilee and then getting an ad from Vodacom or NOKIA. After St Peter failed to cross to Jesus due to his lack of faith you can have NOKIA claiming, ‘connecting people’ or Vodacom advertising its power of connecting people.

On another note you could be reading the story of Christ’s crucifixion and at the bottom you have an ad from AVBOB, selling their funeral covers. I’m quite certain Kaizer Chiefs would have bought a half page to advertise Ikusasa LaMakhosi.

Now something that would tickle the fancy of our plastic millionaires. Imagine reading the parable of the Lazarus and the Rich Man and on the reversal of roles. And then there is an ad from ABSA selling an investment scheme. ‘Don’t end up like the Rich Man, Invest with ABSA, today, tomorrow, together’.

Well, I can dissect the inspired book to shreds because I know it so passionately but I reckon you can also think of ads to go with the story. On the issue of influence I swear to you after Cain killed Abel you would have an AK47 influencing the content by claiming that Cain used a Kalashnikov to pop Abel and not a stone. Then they would buy the strip and sell the AK47.

Share your thoughts with me, choose a scripture in the Bible and tell me what ad do you think it would go with it. Go to Facebook and post me your thoughts, you might become a copywriter someday.

barbarians uprising

it's the rise of the barbarians

it's the rise of the black afrikans

it's the rise...

the rise

the rise

the rise

the uprising...

x2

they call me a barbarian/ a communist/ a killer terrorist/ not rastafarian/ i'm madiba' it's 1976/ locked on the island outside they killing my kids/ my own comrades eating my bitch/ amandla,they scream as they skit/ sweaty lips licking her tits/ but this is the work of apartheid, i know what it is/ they don't know what it means/ how it feels, being judged based on yo skin/ being separated from yo next of kin/ for a stupid job groveling in town/ far from home you travelling for brown/ bread and achaar, these people is clowns/ but nobody gives a fuck/ fuck, all they know is to fuck/ fuck, all they know is to klaap/ chisa mpana, chisa lebutsi la leburu/ chisa stlamatlama ke black mapuru/ i'ma shock everybody when i come out a guru/ an awesome god, ka go loya ke thuru/ that's the barbarian mind rising to the fore/ that's the henrietta marie anchoring on the shore/ welcome home as we sing the barbarian song/ come for a ride, let madiba feel the billa bong...

it's the rise of the barbarians

it's the rise of the black afrikans

it's the rise...

the rise

the rise

the rise

the uprising...

NOW WE IN THE ZONE/ I'M TELLING THEM LEAVE A NIGGA ALONE/ THEY GO FOR SEKHETI LE BRUKU/ VOROS LE KUKU/ BUT THEY WARNED YA, SHUT UP SPOKO/ SKATLO TSOSA DIMOKO TSA BO KOKO/ DIPOKO TSA MEKHUKHU/ DIPUKU, MAFOKO, DIGLOGO MADI MO SETUPUNG O SETOPO/ YOU FUCKING DIE/ LOL, NIGGA LMAO/ NIGGA LE WENA MMAGO/ I LOST AND FOUND THE PLOT/ SOON AS I DOWNED THE TOT/ GALLOP GALLOP, KA PHOLOSELA KA QUART/ YOU KNOW, WITH SMOKE EVERY CORNER NIGGAZ BLAZING THE POT/ IT'S FREEDOM GAINED AND LOST/ CHILDREN ON THE STREETS KHENKING THEY LEGS AIN'T CROSSED/ THEY FATHERS ON TOP/ THEY MOTHERS ARE FLOP/ SHE GAVE HIM A DROP/ NOW HE GAVE HER THE POP/ SHE'S LICKING FROM NINE TO FIVE, HOLDING DOWN A BLOW JOB/ COME TO POPPA HE KICKS HIS CLOTHES OFF/ TIME TO FUCK HIS OWN DAUGHTER/ IT'S DARK AND IT'S GETTING LOUDER/ DON'T WORRY THE MADAM AIN'T HOME BA OWNER/ MEET THOMAS, MAKGOLWA KA GO BONER...

it's the rise of the barbarians

it's the rise of the black afrikans

it's the rise...

the rise

the rise

the rise

the uprising...

this is the south african story, very real, very sad, but be glad, for you can still change it, and make it better. RIP to those that got killed in this song. Mr CEO, Mr In-Charge, you know who you are...

MegaMak, 2009

What Law?

Today is my birthday: September 22. On this day God has just proven to me that I was born for a purpose. For years I knew that there was something that I could contribute to the lives of people that had never, or at least, been scarcely contributed. You may ask, what's new under the sun? Nothing really. Nevertheless, old things can be renewed until they look 100% new. Today I will share with you the next wave of esoteric revolution that the Lord has been keeping for times such as these.

At Divine Construction Ministries (DCM) we are aware that you have been looking for ways to connect yourself to the Law of Attraction. Well, you don't have to waste your time. Laws are meant to be broken and no one can follow the law to the letter, for “The letter kills but the Spirit gives life.” You do not need any rules to attraction. You need grace. Therefore, let us welcome you to the beginning of an explosive ministry: The Grace of Attraction.

In these series of teachings and reflections, you will learn how to do everything wrong in relation to the law of attraction and still get all the results you want. You see, Ronda came with the Law but Awesome God has come with the Grace. The Grace of Attraction will lead you into new paths of Balanced Thinking. It's really not just about positive or negative thinking. It's about which Company you are working for.

Fact: No matter what you can try to do, it is only natural to think negative thoughts. There is no one person who can think positive thoughts only. With all the negativety happening around the world, people killing, people raping, people stealing, people destroying, etc, how can you claim that you don't see what is going on? Is the law of attraction supposed to be denial? Just by merely noticing the blatant negativity in the world, we are admitting to thinking negatively. You can't see it and claim that you don't perceive it. You can't perceive it without using your mind's thought channel. Whether we would like to admit it or not, we are all negative thinkers, and also positive thinkers. The challenge is how do you balance it? Remember, even the Lord Jesus Christ himself more often thought negatively, attracting poverty, sickness and death on our behalf. Therefore, we don't have to pay transgressing the law of attraction any more. He did it all. That is the Grace of Attraction. All you have to do is believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is the Lord. Negative thinking is just like stinking breath, just like smelly armpits and a dirty body; it's all natural to the mortal man. Just like sin was. So, instead of fighting to think good thoughts, how about accept that he fought on your behalf? The bible teaches that “They that receive the abundance of grace, shall reign in life.” All you need is to receive grace and give thanks to the Lord that all good things in life are coming your way. When you do this, the Seven Waves of Prosperity will sweep through your life and you will be called the most blessed person on earth. This is real and very biblical. This is not just prophetic, it is apostolic. This is the beginning of the manifestation of the sons of God. We are moving from potential to substance. Aren't you just tired of being a Walkie Talkie Believer? You have been declaring and confessing for years but you are still attracting all the wrong things in life. Well, here is an opportunity to become a Talkie Walkie Believer – You Speak the Word and You Walk in Victory. Indeed, in him we move, in him we have our being.

Heaven and Hell

Recently I posted it on my Facebook Wall, that if there was email beyond in the afterlife people will be surprised to find that their beloved friends and family members who they think are sitting on HIS right hand are actually burning in that other place churches want us to believe exists. For a fact; I don't believe in heaven and hell but only earth because it's here and I can touch it any minute I fell like lacing my shoes.

So, there could be a situation whereby if we lived in an Egalitarian Society we would all be hooked on the internet, either on cellphones or Apple Macs and browsing the net on leisure, not to have it as a domain of a few. In this ideal situation our email addresses would be our names and surnames followed by our email service provider; something like goodenough.mashego@earth.co.za or barack.obama@earth.com. Thus there wouldn't be all these stress of different service providers, we all would be logged on to earth.

Now, the point behind this post comes in the afterlife. Here is a brother you all loved who passes away and you decide that you are going to get that charismatic pastor to perform his last rites and tell all of you that he is sitting on the right hand of the Most High. He will yep stuff about; suppose he's a musician, his introduction to the orchestra beyond where he is performing with Bob Marley, Tupac Shakur, Notorious BIG, Marvin Gaye, Miriam Makeba, Jabu Khanyile and others. They call that troupe; The Orchestra Beyond. But then you know this chap was really bad, into groupies, too much alcohol, too much cocaine, too much lying, cheating, stealing and bad music.

So, in that event imagine getting mail in your email from tshepo@hell.org while you expected him to be in heaven since the charismatic pastor who gave him his send-off made all of you to feel that he was on his one-way ticket to paradise with a VISA signed by St Paul. You bloody expected him to mail you on tshepo@heaven.gov.

I reckon life would be interesting and we would have long answered questions like Tupac's I wonder if Heaven got a Ghetto and "is there a heaven for a g". All those fantasies of being in heaven that fuelled Tupac's muse would have been laid to rest. Obviously we would still receive spam mail from some of the naughty angels with aspirations of getting shareholding on this Matrix.

Remember Biggie, remember this Suicide Thoughts lyrics, "When I die, fuck it I wanna go to hell/ Cause Im a piece of shit, it aint hard to fuckin tell/ It dont make sense, goin to heaven wit the goodie-goodies/ Dressed in white, I like black tims and black hoodies/ God will probably have me on some real strict shit/ No sleepin all day, no gettin my dick licked/ Hangin with the goodie-goodies loungin in paradise/ Fuck that shit, I wanna tote guns and shoot dice/ All my life I been considered as the worst/ Lyin to my mother, even stealin out her purse/ Crime after crime, from drugs to extortion/ I know my mother wished she got a fuckin abortion/ She don't even love me like she did when I was younger/ Suckin on her chest just to stop my fuckin hunger/ I wonder if I died, would tears come to her eyes? Forgive me for my disrespect, forgive me for my lies"

Biggie's heaven is different from the one you saw on Tupac's I wonder if Heaven Got a Ghetto and I Ain't Mad at Ya videos. Food for thought. And now you know!

The star throwing poor blacks under the bus

Originally published at PoliTrick or TreaT

This is just a simple observation of how differently news can be reported depending to the class of the people at hand.

This morning iol.co.za ran a story about a guy named Respect Mkhwanazi, a 34 year old Sandton restaurant manager who's studying for a BComm degree. He has a wife and two kids, two

Photo credit: Chris Collingridge, the star

and twelve. Mr Mkhwanazi worked hard to be were he is, he started out as a cleaner 13 years ago at his restaurant and now he manages it. One evening while he was driving home, he was


Stopped by police officers, After 20 minutes, the cops signalled for him to proceed. He drove a few metres, stopped at a red light when the light turned green he accelerated, the cops thought he had stolen his BMW, shot at him and when he stopped, they took him out of his car, banged his head against the car, when they finally realized that the car isn't stolen, they apologized and let him go. [Full story here]

The second story appeared just two weeks ago on the same publication. This one goes like this: A gunmen fires shot at a BRT bus, two people get injured. The gunman flees to the near, Nancefield Hostel.

Photo credit: Jennifer Bruce, the Star

Hours later while Hostel dwellers are asleep, Police officers, Metro Cops, Security forces and soldiers raid the hostel, armed with heavy artillery. They kick in doors, wake people up while they're still half naked, Turn their rooms upside down, confiscate a few guns and make little to no arrest. [Full story here and accompanying image gallery here]

It should be noted that on both stories, our law enforcement used excessive force, on the first story they shot at an innocent man on the second story they raided people's homes carrying riffles, asked them to lie face down in their underwear and turned their rooms upside down but if you read both stories you notice that on the first one, they made it a point to mention the car the victim drove, his occupation, the fact that he's a family man who made a name for himself. The police officers were painted as the villains, who shot at an innocent man. While on the other story, law enforcers are painted in a positive light, they are just trying to catch criminals, leaving no stone unturned. Nothing is mentioned of the innocent men who got woken up early in the night by cops kicking down their doors. In fact, a female photographer took picture of these innocent men in their underwear. The pictures of the half naked men were posted on page two of a national paper with the implication that these men were criminals (How humiliating).

The moral of the story: If you're poor, you're not worth a shit!

The Best Place to Hide Anything From a Black Person

Often when I’m having a chat with my intellectual artist friends we like to reflect on our earlier literary influences – which are as diverse as the universe. Recently we have been wondering why on City Press Pulse’s Back Page whenever our plastic celebrities (people who work for TV and radio) are asked what books are they reading they always say, Long Walk to Freedom, Re-discovering the Kingdom, Threshing Floor, Some of my Best Friends are White, Colour, Once in a Lifetime, Women Thou Art, I Write What I Like, Capitalist Nigger, Rich Dad Poor Dad, The Scramble for Africa, Da Vinci Code, Anatomy of South Africa, Stupid White Men, Walter & Albertina Sisulu: In Our Lifetime, Staying in Touch With your Fertility, Run Your Own Business and Make Lots of Money, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Hardy Boys, Petals Of Blood, A Child Called It, Losing My Virginity and Bible.
The only people who confess to not reading are DJs like Clock and Tira and it’s fine, the probably listen to more overseas music to make sure that what they do is not plagiarism or vice versa.
We wondered because the way most of the so-called celebrities conduct their public lives and affairs defies the content of some of those books they claim to have read to the back cover. Imagine someone telling you that they read Capitalist Nigger but still believing in welfare and voting based on which political party can give them free stuff instead of which one will give them more opportunities to work the system.

Also imagine someone who claims to have read I Write What I like still treating his kind with disdain by exhibiting the material that s/he has to them and personalizing his German model’s numberplates to stand out like a horny penis. Where’s the consciousness?

So, this is just a precursor to most of our discussions. We end up agreeing that actually these folks don’t read any book but are afraid to just tell Pulse that they ain’t reading none because it will mean a manifestation of the claim that ‘the best place to hide anything from a black person is to write it in a book’. But I mean there’s nothing wrong with not reading a book, if you are not because we can’t all be reading books – we ain’t a homogenous species.

It’s like someone claiming that they are reading the Bible because they know you won’t ask them a question about a collection that is 66 books thick with two equally important Testaments. To me it’s like being asked who my favourite painter is and I just rush to say Vincent Van Gogh or Pablo Picasso without intimately knowing their pieces. Just knowing that Van Gogh cut off his ear and that Picasso sold only one painting before he died is not enough.
if you asked me what was the last film I watched I will be brutally honest and tell you that my viewing is not even captured on Box Office because I wait for the film to be released on DVD or be flighted on DsTV, I don’t watch them in the cinema. If that makes me less sophisticated, it’s fine but that’s the truth. There are no cinemas where I live, same way there are no libraries or bookstores where others live.

So, why am I telling you this? It’s because when me and my friends discuss our influences and which author did we lose our virginity to most are quick to tell me about Bessie Head, Doris Lessing, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Chinua Achebe etc. they look at me with disdain when I tell them I was seduced by James Hadley Chase (real name Rene Brabazon Raymond – b. 24 December 1906 d. 6 February 1985) after just being platonic with nameless Scottish novels dealing with horse-breeding – before George Orwell’s Animal Farm. I mean my first novel was given to me when I was around 12-years-old by my parent. When I grew up everybody was reading Chase novels which were circulating amongst us like a bulbous blunt at a street corner.

We were all a bunch of oppressed Bantu-educated darkie kids reading Chase novels. At least 70% of boys I grew up with were religiously reading those novels and aspiring to be thugs. We knew the storylines and characters by title, Safer Dead, Come Easy Go Easy, Just Another Sucker, Rollo, The Dead Stay Dumb, He Won’t Need it Now, Twelve Chinks and a Woman, The Doll’s Bad News, Lady, Here’s Your Wreath, Miss Callaghan Comes to Grief, Miss Shumway Waves A Wand, Just the Way it is, Eve, More Deadly Than the Male, I’ll Get you for This, Make the Corpse Walk, Blonde’s Requiem, No Business of Mine, The Flesh of the Orchid, Trusted Like the Fox, You Never Know with Women, You’re Lonely When you are Dead, The Paw in the Bottle, Lay Her Among the Lillies, Figure it Out for Yourself, The Marijuana Mob, Strictly for Cash, Why Pick on Me?, But A Short time to Live etc.

It’s only later that I started reading Afrikan literature and that from the Diaspora. I started reading Molefi Kete Asante, Alice Walker, Oonya Kempadoo, Maya Angelou, Terry McMillan etc.
Then I mixed with brilliant Caucasian authors of note like Sydney Sheldon, Robert Ludlum, John Le Carre, Jack Higgins etc. and when I came back home trying to find an author I can fiend I found that everybody was writing about politics from one side of the spectrum. Everybody was trying to sell to me the allegation that only one political party liberated this country while some of us only knew about it during the State of Emergency, together with five others.

I then read old classics by E'skia Mphahlele and Miriam Tlali. I tell my literati friends that I can confess that I have never read Long Walk to Freedom and any motivational book written by dodgy charismatic born-again fundamentalists.
I needed inspiration in 1989 when I was locked in a jail cell and those clergy were blessing Boer weapons before their township rendezvous, not in 2009 when the sheepskin has been removed. So, while today I am an adjudicator for the South Afrikan Literary Award (Literary Oscars) which means I read tens of books a year I still feel I need to read more – not for the culture of reading but because once you stop reading you stop learning. I need to be exposed to Chinese, Indian and South American literature.

Today’s voices are equally brilliant as long as they shy away from politicizing their literature. Writers like Kgebetli Moele, Niq Mhlongo, Zukiswa Wanner, Fred Khumalo, Kopano Matlwa, Siphiwo Mahala etc.

So, I want my Chase novels back. I have started with a collection and am paying good money for these classics. If you have a Chase (which I rather raise my daughter on than Long Walk to Freedom) contact me at goodynuff@hotmail.com

What would Biko do?

I don't wanna lie, I was never really into Biko. I didn't know who he really was until I came to college and the people at campus who were into Biko were either: 1) Members of the SASCO SRC who acted like hooligans half the time. 2) Cheesy poets of the Yeoville variety turning Biko's into cliches (Raise your hands if you have rolled your eyes whenever someone says "Black man you're on your own" or my personal favourite "De-colonise your mind") 3) Those typecast Rastafaris who would be preaching black love and black unity while they spend most of their time trying to bang a white chick so I unfortunately had a misdirected aversion to Steve Biko, plus it didn't help that Denzel washinton hammered our accent on the movie based on Biko's life. It wasn't until half the people I know kept pestering me to read "I write what I like", I tried countless times to get it from the Campus library but somebody seemed to beat me to it. I finally got hold of the book about two weeks ago, being a natural hater and a cynic, I was ready to declare the book the most overrated in South Africa but I can't, "I write what I like" is as good as everyone says it is, everybody should read it. 

But this post isn't about that though, it's about what I notice to be trend lately or maybe it's been like that ever since, I don't know what I do know is that it seems a lot of columnist are making their obligatory "what would Biko do" "how would Biko feel type post" type column. I remember some time ago, my current favourite columnist Andile Mngxitama, one of the editors of Biko Lives: Contesting the legacy of Steve Biko,  wrote an article about how if Steve Biko would still be alive he wouldn't bother to vote and on June 16 this year he made a column on the Sowetan about how Biko wouldn't approve how the ANC Hijacked Youth day to make it seem like they were somehow involved in it when in reality they were in exile and so on and so forth. Right now I see that Onkgopotse JJ Tabane made a similar post on thought leader. 

All this sorta reminds of Rapper Tupac Shakur, I apologize for mentioning Biko and Pac in the same post 'cause Tupac was probably the most overrated artist who was popular 'cause of all his Bullshit antics and Biko was a true visionary and a leader. But both of them died and certain people decided to 'speak on their dead bodies' behalf', in the case of Pac who never knew him like Eminem and 50 would make ridiculous claims in their songs like "if pac was here now, he would never ride with Ja" and in the case of Biko's case people who also didn't know him are making similar statements "If Biko was still alive, he would never do this or that. he would be saddened by this etc". It's amazing! Since we're talking about Rap and shit, I found it appropriate to quote Political activist/ Rapper Immortal Technique's lyrics on the issue:

......but you know what the **censored** I think is just pathetic and gay/
when niggaz speculate what the **censored** 'Pac would say/
you don't know shit, about a dead mans perspective.....

Really thought, If Biko were to be rise up, and read this post, would he be happy? sad? enraged? I guess you'd have to ask the above mentioned columnists about that.

Why Mzwakhe Mbuli Sucks

This week I had the misfortune of listening, for the second time to Mr Mzwakhe Mbuli’s post-incarceration -liberation recorded rants. I remembered the Mzwakhe of the late 1980s whose recordings I could recite by heart. I even bought his poetry book.

Even though it (his poetry) was spruced with a lot of Aghostino Neto punchlines and other revolutionaries like Marcus Garvey and Patrice Lumumba it still made a lot of sense. It made sense because it was conceived and presented at an epoch that South Afrika was going through at the time, similar to what Angola, Jamaica and DR Congo went through.

Then The People’s Poet was thrown in jail for robbing a bank and being picked at an identity parade by a witness. I think his stay in jail really messed with his mind and his ability to litigate. Today he is known more for pioneering the battle against the technology that make people burn CDs, DVDs and other media and not spending money on actually buying the records. This is stealing from artists’ tables – it sucks as well.

His media-hyped crusades against Chinese and Indians hawkers reminds me of a guy who is said to have wondered why his business was stalling and when he was told that it was some people using cyberspace to do the same thing he was doing demanded that they be hired to work for him – when he was told that they make good money working cyberspace demanded that his CFO buy the whole fucking cyberspace in a hostile takeover.

What Mzwakhe fails to understand is that these days there are more file sharing sites than record bars. There are more DJs remixing and playing other people’s music than arenas to perform. I don’t need to leave my workstation to get a hot song for free. I can either go to a club to listen to some DJ playing Mzwakhe over a house beat.

Okay, the point behind this point is to critique why Mzwakhe is dangerously caught in a time warp. I picked this when I was listening to his empty rants against society. I still remember that his first recording after doing time in prison contained lines that demanded to know what was the bone of contention between Zuma and the Scorpions. That was shallow given that there are more newspapers in prison than in my whole neighbourhood but we knew what the two elephants were battling for.

Now his latest recording, with a religious twist, which is actually gospel - left me feeling bad for what prison does to people and their perception of society. Your clock stops when they lock those giant gates and only starts ticking again when they jerk them open after your parole hearing. And in your mind you are still at 10h30 when it’s already 23h46.

I can say with conviction and without any fear of contradiction that Mzwakhe sucks as a poet, not because of his own doing but the system that denied him the opportunity to move with the times. For a man who spoke for a lot of people and for rights his stand on gays and lesbians is hypocritical – Sodom and Gommorah? Please, I would understand if it came from Pope Benedict XVIII and not a man who lamented for freedom which comes with the right to be.

It is unlike Mzwakhe to moralise about crime and homosexuals when he was convicted of aggravated armed robbery. Will he feel comfortable if he was compared to the thugs who robbed the traveler who found solace in the house of the Samaritan in the New Testament? His rhetoric against abortion sounds as if it comes from the mouth of a person who was comfortable with our sisters dying in backstreet abortion labs since abortion was invented – not by us but those who were doing it in London during apartheid.

In his heyday (when he still sat on the UDF Cultural Desk) he never protested about the absence of proper medical facilities for termination of pregnancy for black sistas. What does he expect them to do when they miss their periods after a night of binging? Give birth and starve the kids or put them on welfare? Or do backstreet abortions and die like mongrels?

Finally, when I tried to fall in love with his sermons I ended up seriously offended. Mzwakhe tries to redeem himself through the use of punchlines as if he was some older version of ProKid, reminiscent of his protest poetry. But overall, the People’s Poet sucks as a poet. I would recommend that police commissioner Bheki Cele hook him up a badge and make him a sheriff in the new SAPS Cyber Unit.

F*ck the Fascists - Let them go to Canada

Since yesterday I have been wondering about the furore surrounding the chap whose name I don’t bother to know who decided to apply for asylum in Canada and was granted on grounds that he has been attacked seven times by blacks and required protection from Affirmative Action. Why do we even have to worry about a racist that decided to find new people to oppress?
I understand the government’s argument that he is painting this country with a dirty brush by insinuating that this country’s crime situation is so out of control that the government can not protect him. Nice for Canada because it can. Nice for them as well because they don’t have AA, while the chap was comfortable in South Afrika when it used to have Job Reservation which excluded blacks from participating in the mainstream economy and employment opportunities. That is why we call him a racist; because he never opposed apartheid. And that is why we call Canada a racist regime; because I doubt if they can grant asylum to millions of Zimbabweans and Darfurians on wholesale because they have been attacked more than seven times by blacks.

I however think that we shouldn’t stress about this dude who decided to conjure up reasons to justify his asylum application which was going to be granted anyway. Obviously the dude always wanted Canadian domicile but couldn’t find a Canadian chick to impregnate. Indeed he might probably have been attacked seven times by ‘black’ South Afrikans and has Case numbers to prove it; he just can not prove that those darkies were South Afrikans as there are millions of blacks in South Afrika who are not South Afrikan. It’s like being attacked by a Hispanic in Los Angeles and you claim they are Americans while a large number are Mexicans with passports.

There are blacks from Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and Swaziland to mention just a few and to make my point clear. Can the dude put his dick on the line and tell me the difference between isiSwati (spoken in both Swaziland and Mpumalanga), isiZulu (spoken in both Kwazulu-Natal and Zimbabwe), isiXhosa, Sesotho (spoken in both Free State and Lesotho) and Setswana (spoken in both Botswana and North West)? If he can’t then how does he know that the person who attacked him was from South Afrika or neighbouring countries since all the above mentioned languages are spoken by blacks of different nationalities who are all resident in South Afrika?

My point here is that he is not running away from black South Afrikans and Affirmative Action but from Afrikans as a collective. He doesn’t want to live in Afrika with black people and that is why he is running, tail between his legs. And poor Canada thinks they can tame a jackal.

Unless Canada intends to be a haven for dirty scoundrels who are obsessed with racial purity they will in the long run find their society defiled by these groups of racists who take advantage of the country’s open door policy. If his issue is crime and he left South Afrika to escape from it what will he do when crime catches up with Canada? He obviously will run away to another country, apply for asylum and defame Canada’s crime situation to justify his application. I reckon he will probably say that he is running away from Canada because he has been attacked seven times by ‘Native Canadians’, since he can’t say whites given that he’s a dirty little white racist scoundrel.

It doesn’t make sense for him to complain about being attacked by ‘blacks’ in Afrika. Who does he expect to attack him, Chinese, Arabs? This here darkies are the majority and if you are going to be attacked by anyone 9 out of 10 they are going to be black. The Krugersdorp Samurai Sword killer is white and attacked whites; do I hear someone saying ‘isolated incident’? In the US the Virginia Tech massacre was carried out by a Korean-American on majority whites; did I hear someone saying ‘isolated incident’? The former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was killed by a Jewish assassin; did I hear someone saying ‘isolated incident’? JF Kennedy was killed by a white assassin; did I hear someone saying ‘isolated incident’? This goes to show that crime is discriminate and no racial justification should qualify anyone for asylum.

I personally have been robbed of my cellphone before and guess who the robbers were; blacks. If I was robbed by whites it would have made frontpage news in national newspapers. If I was I China I would obviously have been robbed by Chinese not Arabs or blacks. If I was in Saudi Arabia I probably would have been robbed by Arabs.

The dude decided that he doesn’t want to be part of any solution but always runs away when the heat catches up with him. I personally wish him well in chilly Canada and I wish Canada well in its accumulation of racists.

Women of South Afrika, Listen to your Aunt Condi

By Derrick Z. Jackson, 11/20/2002

WASHINGTON- CONDOLEEZZA RICE was reminded of her decision to become a Republican after the 1984 Democratic National Convention. She said the Democratic Party's speeches to ''women, minorities, and the poor'' really meant ''helpless people and the poor.'' In a profile in The Washington Post, Rice said, ''I decided I'd rather be ignored than patronized.''
The national security adviser to President Bush was asked if she thinks the Democratic Party still patronizes ''women, minorities, and the poor.'' Laughing, she declined to answer the specific question last week before the Trotter Group, an organization of African-American columnists. But her answer was as riveting as if she had actually gone on to trash the Democrats.

''The fact of the matter is, race matters in America,'' Rice said. ''It has, it always has ... It is not that I mind being associated with the group. I am African-American and proud of it. I wouldn't have it any other way. And it has shaped who I am and it will continue to shape who I am.
''I do not believe it has limited who I am or what I can become. And that's because I had parents who, while telling me what it meant to be African-American and exposing me to that, also allowed me to develop as an individual to be who I wanted to be.''

Rice said the 1963 church bombing in Birmingham that killed four girls, including friend Denise McNair, shaped her views on the war on terrorism. ''If you've been through home-grown terrorism,'' Rice said, ''you recognize there isn't any cause that can be served by it ... Because what it's meant to do is end the conversation.''

In profiles, Rice talks about being hollered at as a child by a white store clerk for touching a hat. Rice's mother told the clerk ''Don't you talk to my daughter that way!'' Her mother then said, ''Now, Condoleezza, you go and touch every hat in this store.''
That reminded me of around 1965 when I was about 10. I bought comic books and ice cream in a drug store in DeKalb, Miss. Later, my grandfather informed me that was the ''white folks'' drug store. He could have berated me for breaking white folks' rules. Instead, he smiled and said, ''Good.''

For me, not accepting racial barriers would mean going on to little things like being on the first integrated child championship bowling team at a particular alley in Milwaukee, then bigger things like sportswriting when there were few African-Americans covering pro teams for major newspapers.

For Rice, it meant parents who ''didn't say to me, 'You know, it's really weird for a black girl from Birmingham, Ala., to want to be a Soviet specialist.''' Rice said that she liked Motown, the blues, and funk music like most of her friends, but her parents drove her to learn Brahms. Rice has often said bluntly that she had to master the white world better than a whole lot of white people to succeed.

''Sometimes when we say to our kids, 'You are a minority,' we don't say it in a way that says it is part of who you are, we say it as if it's an impediment that cannot be overcome by hard work and access to education and all of those things,'' Rice said. ''And I just think the messages are wrong when there is only focus on what group you happen to belong to, rather than the group is part of who you are, but also, who you are is who you are as an individual.
''We don't talk about it very much, but, yes ... it is a very good thing for the rest of the world that when Colin Powell and I walk in with the president of the United States, we are there as secretary of state and national security adviser, because I think it says to people that there aren't boundaries in which black Americans are not supposed to play ... I think it's an extremely important message to our kids. That's why I talk so much about the individual. It's not to deny the group, but I really think it's important that we appeal to each individual's worth and capability.''

Such reflections do not make Rice's political views and America's global arrogance any more appealing to me. But those who dismiss her as a hotheaded cold war queen miss a chance to dwell on her focus and drive. Unlike many black conservatives who shout louder than white ''color-blind'' conservatives that race no longer matters, Rice has no problem saying race matters, and since it is so, black folks had better work to get the most out of their individual talents.

In a Newsweek interview last year, Rice said, ''It wasn't as if someone said, 'You have to be twice as good' and 'isn't that a pity' or 'isn't that wrong.' It was just, 'You have to be twice as good.''' One does not have to like Rice's politics to appreciate how being twice as good has made her the most powerful woman in the world.

Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address ismailto:%20jackson@globe.com.
This story ran on page A19 of the Boston Globe on 11/20/2002. © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.

The evolution of JZ

Originally published at PoliTrick or Treat

A few weeks ago the media was buzzing with a dumb American gimmick that is totally irrelevant to South Africa. I'm talking about that silly "100 days in office" PR stunt that was pulled. Predictably, everybody and their mamma had nothing but praise for our leader. Everybody was giving him cliche titles like "man of the people" "approchable" and so on and so forth. In the words of the great Andile Mngxitama, The same people, including the moral crusaders, who were telling up Zuma is not fit for the presidency were now dick-riding Zuma to the fullest. But has anybody asked themselves why? I mean, Zuma is still Zuma what exactly is it that he did that transformed him from Supervillain to hero? I'm gonna offer a reason for this:

The reason is simple. Unlike the likes of Malema et al, Zuma (or rather his PR team) is smart enough to practise an art I'd like to call "tip toeing around whitey", He knows well that media serves the interest of the minority because the minority have the money and money is power. The bottom line is money has to be made, one can do the honourable thing and speak the truth or they can tell everybody what they want to hear to get them to buy shit and advertise in their papers. So Zuma goes about telling people what they wanna hear and I'll point out two instances where he did this.

1. His stance on crime

Those of us who were fortunate enough to live in a society that wasn't cocooned from the real world know very well that the whole bullshit that the media is trying to sell that crime has grown out of control is....well, bullshit. The real story is that crime used to affect one section of the population, once it started affecting the other section, the wealthy and powerful section, We then got to hear about th ''crimminals that are taking over our country". What's the best way of winning over the wealthy section? Tell them that it is time to get tough on the crimminals. The asshats who lost at Polokwane used to boast by releasing crime stats, telling the country on how crime rate is declining then comes this guy who tells everybody what they wanna hear, "the crimminals have more rights than the victims, it's time we get tough on crime".

2. His stance on race issues

By now we all know the story, Julius being Julius says something sensational, Julius Malema raises the issue of minorities in the economic cluster, Defence and Military Veterans Minister Lindiwe Sisulu suggests that we need a dialogue on the race question and what did Zuma say? The smart thing: "The ANC is a non-racialist organization........Debating race is backwards" (I'm paraphrasing here). Some people where up in arms over that statement, I was disappointed as well but Zuma and his PR team are very smart people, they know very well that because of past injustices the majority were left penniless, the majority were left with the bulk of the wealth. Like I've said before, money is power. Who wants to guess which section of the population were left powerless? Anyhoo, Zuma has been a villain for almost five years he wants to feel appreciated for once, can we all give him a break. The worst thing he could do is threaten white hegemony. Let's get real we live in a country were the "minority" own almost all the wealth, some (if not most) want to keep it that way, a debate on race would include a debate on such things. Zuma has to appear as if he's the non-threatening black guy not willing to do anything worthwhile for the people who got fucked for four hundred years. If you've seen the type of comments at the times lately, you'd know that people would like to see the majority in the situation their in, they don't want change. They feel like change would mean upliftment of the previously oppressed at the expense of them by saying we shall have no debate on race Zuma is basically telling them "you can relax, things will stay exactly as they are". That's exactly what they wanna hear.

Let me leave it at that before I piss more people off. If you feel different then bad luck, we live in the age of Zuma, "there shall be no debate on such matters". Kidding, if you disagree with me. Speak on it!

Forget Caster Semenya, let's audit Women in general - especially in this August

Regardless of what hundreds of women tried to do by explicitly backing athletics gold medallist Caster Semenya in her 'struggle' against being profiled, their recent behaviour leaves a lot to be desired. We release as scorecard that does not take into cognisance cheap political point scoring at the expense of the IAAF.

“Wa thinta abafazi wa thinta imbokoto”. These six words must have sparked serious fear into the hearts of the apartheid regime back in 1956. They should have; the regime was facing a pack of women whose bravery and resolve is still legendary 53 years on.

In 2009, with the mass media behind the manifestation of the mantra, it dismally fails to ignite. It has become an empty slogan akin to ‘we shall overcome’. Women have become such a less-intimidating species that there are already fears that efforts to affirm them on all fronts are likely to be an eternal national project. Nowhere are sisters seen fighting their own battles without searching for blame or demanding to be carried on the shoulders of men. Fifty years from now men will still be compelled to have women in their businesses to fulfill a gender equality mandate. Of course men will do it even if it’s mere window-dressing.

The sisterhood has not formed a solidarity front outside of the limiting confines of politics and business. South Africa has had women-inspired arts organizations like Feel-A-Sistah which never mentored any woman outside its narrow circle even though at their peak they hyped women emancipation as the departure point for empowerment. The situation has deteriorated to the point that women are not even together in sports and civil society. The sisterhood has been divided into a few affluent clusters that don’t accommodate simplicity.

Banyana-Banyana and the women Springboks have a serious difficulty attracting women fans whenever they play. The sisterhood is good at championing issues outside this country while the girl-child here is left to her own devices. Efforts like the Take A Girl-Child to Work campaign have become mere PR exercises than real empowerment of the girl-child (the future woman). There’s still no consensus on the prostitution debate while the trade mostly victimizes them.

The vibrant township netball teams of pre-’94 have been replaced by long queues of teenage girls collecting child support grants. Gender Links which is perpetuating a Eurocentric (feminist) solution to African problems and many other like-minded organizations claim to be advocating for women while their beneficiaries continue to be businesswomen looking for infrastructure contracts from government and not the village girl whose scholar transport has been hijacked by that other woman who won the contract without owning a bus?

Where is Gender Links as that Limpopo woman holds on to the contract to the detriment of schoolchildren, mostly girls? Where are the women-teachers in unions as male teachers continue to sleep with the girl-child under their watchful eye? Why is it hard for the South African Council of Educators (SACE) to gather evidence to discipline male teachers while unionized female teachers should be members of society first before pledging solidarity with pedophiles?

Where is the sisterhood as women becry harassment in the workplace and demand for sexual favours to gain employment, tenders, drivers licenses and many other such incidences?

The silence of influencial women like Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Gracá Machel, Nosimo Balindlela, Lebogang Mashile, Bonang Matheba, Carol Manana, Ria Ledwaba etc is deafening. Where was the Commission on Gender Equality when Helen Zille, a woman was repeatedly referred to as a ‘girl’ and labeled promiscuous on the grounds of political differences? Why didn’t they speak out against such blatant patriarchy and a punch to the sisterhood?

The absence of the ANC Women’s League during the trial of Khwezi who accused Jacob Zuma of rape was very disturbing. Women in South Africa today place political party loyalty infront of gender redress. Why does Judge John Hlope have a fan club and not Judge Bess Nkabinde? Why haven’t women nominated a women for the position of Chief Justice but are out backing men candidates?

Where is the ANCWL as the Men’s Forum is taking ANC Youth League president Julius Malema to the Equality Court to demand that he apologise for defaming a women by insinuating that Khwezi enjoyed sex that is why she asked for taxi fare and left in the morning?
Today, women-owned SMMEs are forming a bulk of service providers providing catering services to government departments during functions. Immediately emphasis is put on capacitating them on that front accusations of pigeonholing fly that there is more to women than catering, hospitality and tourism.

Where is Nolitha Fakude, Monhla Hlahla, Uyanda Mbuli, Lebohang Pheko, Basetsana Khumalo, Sibongile Sambo, Lorraine Letswele to mentor these women before they are given big projects by virtue of being women?

“Wa thinta abafazi wa thinta imbokoto!”. They say 'the loudest one in the room is the weakest one'. And with the slogan sounding louder in August, it’s the more the weakness is highlighted. Malibongwe! What for?

It is a women’s month

Before the women’s month can disappear into abyss until we resurrect it in the next year, I thought it will be unfair not to write something about this month we love and cherish so much. I mean we’ve got our African mothers and sisters that we can write books and articles about their heroines. I, for one suffered the trauma of confusion when it came to this women’s month, firstly I wanted to dedicate this month and tell you about my dearest, bravest late grandma (Leria Malele), but felt the cliché. I contemplated on taking on the angle of the value of a woman, with my God-rearing mom (Miggot Malele) and SA women in general in thought, but backed out of it. In a minute, I felt a bit like a writer; keyboard in my hands, a subject at heart but confused and frustrated. Then it came to me that I should dedicate an article to the hard working young women in the world with Beyonce Knowles and Lebo Mashile in thought. The former Destiny’s child member made an impact on me, she has evolved into an epitome of a women hustler; she turned herself into a diva, a 20th century phenomenon. As for Lebo, the woman tunes me on,(Wa ng'yenza) in a good way though, she envelopes the sincerity of an African woman, with sensuality, intelligence and raw beauty. Damn I wish I could say that twice.

But all plans fell lose when the Caster Semenya’s controversial IAAF world championship story came through the media. All politicians took words out of me when they got the chance to address the issue, for god’s sake it was women’s month in Mzansi, couldn’t the organization pick another time. I got desperate, because I wanted to put a pen on paper on this one, but, while I was obsessing about this like some of the politicians are about the Semenya issue, I sat and listen to my females colleagues (Africans to be specific) converse about their personal lifestyles. I listened at how frequently and bluntly they mention the pleasures of cheating, flirting, one night stands and jokingly slandering their husbands or fiancées. It haunted me that women of such class and intelligence can fail to epitomize the respect of women of 1956. I decided to address this issie but also failed, Maybe I’m reading too much into this but I’ve checked the statistics of failed young marriages and the numbers are staggering and if women talk about their partners in a disrespectful way, where is the marriage or the relationship? I’m not leaving men as saints here but like they say ‘wa thinta mfazi wa thinta e mbokodo’, we have to give it to our African females for the hardships they endure. Although its not all glitz and glamour like Selimanthuzi suggests, I pondered on the way we lead our lives as Channel O puts it young, gifted and black, I like it, cherish the moment but we are a society that degrade itself. Young women fail to respect and pray for their partners like our mothers use too, it’s a shame but big-up to all those chicks who put us on the map. This year, this month I thought about the women in my life, the women in Mzansi and the women of the world and I thought about Leria Malele.

Check the hardcore version of this article on www.theplatform2.blogspot.com

Lehlogonolo

Who Said These Words and To Whom were they Said?

"In the African National Congress whenever a challenge arises we look back into history to see how a similar situation was solved at some stage of our rich past. We know, that the movement is still going strong today means that the solution befitted the situation when it arose. We have only one instance where the remedy failed and the centre could no longer hold and the Charterists had to find comfort in the departure of the Pan Africanists. With the benefit of hindsight it is a situation we could have handled better.

We learnt nothing from that as last year we were once again confronted with that and we again split. In the ANC we don't seek new remedies for old ailments but old remedies for new ailments, because nothing is new excerpt for the strand - there's nothing BORSTOL can't fix that cough related. However the challenge posed by former president Thabo Mbeki to the movement was unprecedented, that's why even the pill we applied to remedy it was too bitter for most of us. I hope we learned, and the situation never arises.

If it does I hope we shall know how to handle it wisely, plus that pill is still there, already prescribed."

Aluta Continua! Aluta Continua! 'Til the Chicken Come Home to Roost

I recently heard a sad but funny story. It is sad because it’s based on poverty and funny by the way the narrator was telling it. It was the story of a family so poor that the mother works at a poultry farm. This is how it was told to me;

“The other day she quit working there because the other women who work as domestics also wanted to work at the poultry. And when we asked her why didn’t she want to work in the house given that it’s warm, cozy and the food is galore she said that she’s tired of competing for dead chicken with them. Apparently she loved working in the poultry farm because even though everyone earned R300 a month wherever they were working, at the farm she also had her way with dead chicken. On an average morning you would have eight dead chicken and sometimes thirteen and she took them all home and plucked them, then cooked them.

“So the other day we were surprised because even though that family is known for poverty we noticed that the children always chowed half-chicken each with their dinner. You would find a child struggling with half-chicken and I was like, ‘for the life of me at home we are not that poor but we eat chicken potions, not half chicken each. That’s when I realized that it is the dead chicken. There are four children and whenever the mother comes back from work she just plucks three birds, and serves each half chicken with pap”

That was sad, I thought and funny they way the two chaps went ahead and shared the story, “so we haven’t been eating chicken for some time because everytime I look at my chicken I’m thinking about the decomposing one I saw being relished”.

I shared their frustration. I remembered that I have been to a mortuary only once, and on that day that I walked in and out of that doomed house I had difficulty eating anything with gravy or flesh. And for me it was clear that no-one can serve anyone human flesh but it still gave me creeps. And for my two buddies I felt apathy, and for the family eating dead chicken I felt that those who have something little must share with those who have nothing. We need a caring society that makes sure that nobody endangers their lives (eating dead chicken) under our guard. Aluta Continua!

Three Doses of Reality a Day for Nigga Barack Obama – from the Nigga Nas

When Nasir Jones (born September 14th, 1973) went into the studio to record his album last year he didn’t envisage it ending up being the bone of contention in America with lawyers seeing the Billboard crashing and politicians failing to stop the war in Afghanistan suddenly coming out to stop him. The slain Tupac Shakur rightfully said in How Do You Like It, "Delores Tucker you's a motherfucker/ instead of trying to help a nigga you destroy a brother/ ??? Bill Clinton Mr Bob Dole/ you too old to understand the way the game goes/ you lame so i got to hit you with the hot tracks".

Nas' case was disturbing more especially since America was supposed to be focused on the impending presidential elections instead of a side-show like the release of a much-anticipated hip-hop album. I mean for all you know many people including Young Jeezy released their albums last year and didn’t even cause a stir like they way Jones had Newsweek magazine noticing his and knitting a few words about it.

Untitled, the album that was supposed to be titeld Nigger is good, actually it’s brilliant, it gives us vintage Nas, the Nas we lost when he started doing jams with En Vogue, Mariah Carey and Genuwine. The Nas who tried to make Braveheart a conscious bunch but ended up with a mob of niggas whose only obsession was sex and the good life. Those were your Fifty-Deep crew whose hobby was dropping verses on mixtapes. What do you make of Horse interplorring Biggie, 'when it comes to sex I'm similar to the thriller in Manila' and then going on to tell us about how he thinks Kelly Price is the shit.

On Untitled, which Nas is quick to announce that he changed nothing with the name and that unlike Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel and others it’s his soul speaking, he sounds more raw, more in-your-face, more like Tupac at his prime and later on The Don Killuminati; Seven Day Theory. He’s actually a crossover between rugged Harlem assassin Immortal Technique and Black Pantherised Tupac.

Exploring his battles with the powers that be to be allowed to speak, he says in Hero, “But people remember this/ If Nas can't say it, think about these talented kids/ With new ideas being told what they can and can't spit/ I can't sit and watch it/ So, shit, I'ma drop it/ Like it or not/ You ain't gotta cop it” Earlier on he shares the story of the pressure put on Universal Records to dump the recording and render him a failed emcee. He's not soft on Rupert Murdock either, attacking everything from his Fox to MySpace assets.

We make the world go Round is a jam where he is featuring The Game (and not Lil Wayne, fresh air!!!) and Chris Brown (before he became an amateur boxer) and he fantasizes of booking the whole Trumps Hotel for his ghetto ‘hood. “get the whole Trump Tower top floor for the hood’ he raps before The Game takes over and tells us about how he went from robbing armoured cars to armoured stars , walking red carpets and throwing red dice at the Mirage.

The album contains tracks like Queens Get Their Money, Sly Fox, NIGGER, Louis Farrakhan, You Can’t stop us Now, Nigger Hatred, Be a Nigger too, Fried Chicken, Project Roach, Ya’ll my Niggas and We’re not Alone.

Whatever they call it I call it the Nigger album and it rocks. For a full version of this post go to www.kasiekulture.blogspot.com

Don't F___ With Me

Just yesterday I was looking for a Garmin since I had to navigate some dodgy dorpie called Moletsi somewhere in _________ (ask Garmin). I went to Google Earth and all I could tell was that there is a dam approximately ten or fifteen kilometres from it. And I knew that there is a community radio station that I had to be at to meet some very important and influencial people.

However I ended up not going because like any other business when you engage with it you have to tell them upfront how much are they likely to make. But when someone wants me to fly to some dodgy town in these days of service delivery protests without telling me how much will my sojourn reward me they are committing business suicide. Imagine me in this dodgy town looking all suspicious and the dudes there thinking that I am a spook sent to detect a Third Force.

Bang-bang, I just died like that. For what? Greed? No ways, I'm fine. So I couldn't tell my good friends that I was not going to rent a Garmin and navigate the bundu but I just chose to; let the call pass by. Some things are better off left unattended to. I mean how can someone tell me that they want to engage me for four days without telling me how much is my worth. Also I have serious beef with this trickle down service provision.

I mean that if Pan South Africa Language Board wants the constitution translated to my Sepulana language don't just bid for the job, pay the bribe and then ask yourself after signing the appointment letter how are you going to execute it. Don't think that the fact that I'm on your dial means I will say yes. I might be broke but I'm not cheap. I will tell you where to get off until you are ready to give me all that they are paying you. Because simply; you chewed more than you can swallow, so deal with it.

So. my heart is sad that I am disappointing some potential clients for the second time in one year. The same fucking people who always think of me as a secondary service provider. Forget Garmin and Google Earth, I'm home chilling, busy with my 1000 piece picture puzzle and collecting wines.

The cost of being Black - R12,00

How hypocritical was the activities of the last week for South Afrika. We have recently been grappling with issues of race with some saying racism will be dead when the Democratic Alliance finally condemns all whites who put dogs in front seats while the darkie farmworker catches flu in the base.
We can't assume that white means DA and darkie means ANC since I'm darkie but not ANC. Some saying racism will be gone once they have white aunties cleaning their floors. It’s interesting times for South Afrika because finally people are talking about these things that Nelson Mandela was comfortable with them being swept under the carpet.
The native son Thabo Mbeki sparked this discourse with his stories of two nations, one rich, one poor, one white and one black.
Okay, I didn’t intend to be political but to raise an issue that left me cold – literally. It was the appointment of Gill Marcus as the new Reserve Bank governor from November 9, 2009.
I was left wondering this weekend where were those equally competent darkies that Black Management Forum and the Three Musketeers (ANC, SACP, COSATU) always rhetorise about when a white person is appointed to a position of power in the private sector when President Jacob Zuma appointed a white woman to head the Reserve Bank?
Marcus is as white as they come and no cosmetic interpretation of race will change her. The ANC is not a laboratory that changes whites to darkies as people walk into the organization with their race and stay there with it. Do you mean to convince me that the self-confessed ANC Boer thief Carl Niehaus became a darkie the moment he joined End Conscription Campaign (ECC). Otherwise given that ANC membership costs R12, this should be the cheapest membership to any race in the world.

Outgoing governor Tito Mboweni had three darkie deputies who according to Zuma do not cut it as potential governors. I don’t want to say because they were appointed by Mbeki, no I might be wrong. However if it was Anglo-Gold or Alexander Forbes that made such a dodgy appointment you would have had the musketeers blowing hot and cold, threatening rolling mass action, but because it’s homegrown felony – it’s honour amongst thieves as always.

Hawkish Tito ruffled feathers when he allegedly said that it was not easy working with darkie executives because they have a tendency to job-hop in search of bigger pay and can’t be relied upon to build sustainable organizations. He said that they were all about more money (probably bigger cars and bellies) and not building careers and organizations.

Coming to Marcus, the truth is that a white person is a white person and her political affiliation does not change the fact that her appointment is the saddest day for Affirmative Action and transformation. We need independent voices in this country and dissenting ones for that matter. My argument is not that people should be appointed because they are darkies but that there needs to be consistence on the part of the ANC on what constitutes an executive appointment, which ones are reserved for darkie execs and which ones go to converted whites like Marcus.

PS. I’m stacking the Tito Mboweni banknotes to boycott the Gill Marcus ones for at least a year – hahaha, joking.

for an extended version of this post go to http://www.kasiekulture.blogspot.com/

67-Minutes My Foot

The funniest questions I fielded today (Monday) have been about what did I do with my installment of 67-minutes on Saturday. I could easily have said I spent it working a prostitute which I later tipped with double what she charged me.

But I know ladies of the night wouldn’t have adored me working that thing for 67-full minutes since no matter how hard I plunged, I would still end up without giving her an orgasm.
However it did cross my mind to spend my 67-minutes giving a whore its first transactional orgasm.

Instead I spent Saturday working, covering stories of people who were spending their 67-minutes doing something. I spent it with politicians and their friends (not Priests though), a bad combination. Yeah indeed they were ploughing derelict fields, donating food, blankets and toiletries, deweeding arid vegetable gardens, cleaning hospices and doing all the other stuff that they should do without Nelson Mandela’s birthday being the point of departure.

I mean these folks who get elected into political office by the masses should make time to do this kind of thing without playing for the camera. I can say I spent my day with hypocrites.

I tell you it was like an E-entertainment reality show for them and you know how it goes, with reality shows everyone from Kim Kardashian, Snoop Dogg, Kimora Simmons, Khanyi Mbau and all others are fucking playing to their own script. When the camera is rolling don’t lie to me that you are not acting.

So, my humble 67-minutes were not that beneficial to humanity. Covering stories is what I do for a living, giving stuff bought with government money is working for politicians, ploughing is working for everyone in a communal setting and they were there where they came from before the Benzes and Beemers.

Me, I give 67-minutes at least thrice every week. And I don’t call the media to record me doing it and don’t need the old man to turn 91 to do it. So, I aspire to leave that mark not on people’s t-shirts but on their hearts. Which is why I’m sort of cynical about this 67-minutes gimmick because those hordes of people who were performing at New York would not make time for the child with a face deformation who resides across the streets.

For all I know even the SABC will not cover the story of a girl who fell into a manhole. So, who’s giving what to whom and why? Think about it before you ask me that question.

You Can (un)Kiss The Bride

The other day, actually two days ago at the gym when almost everybody was nearing exhaustion one of my friends started a conversation about getting married. Now, you know you'll hear a bunch of shit if unmarried people try to interrogate an institution they only read about in O Magazine, hear about in the Thobela FM dramas and watch on Desperate Housewives.

Now this other dude said that if someone is brave enough to invite the whole community to his wedding he should be brave enough to invite them to the divorce and stage it the same way he did hid union. I protested that when getting married you invite people to come and share in your happiness and that melancholy is not something you want to share with others.

He said that the same way the pastor is invited to make a man and a woman whole he should be invited to declare them unwhole. So, you see the women at the gym bought into this conversation and asked how do you make things unwhole when making them whole was easy. 'Simply put how do you unscramble an omelette?'

The dude who pitched the proposal said the two should go back to church infront of the congregation and remove the rings from each other, put them back in the vase and hand them to the church to auction and raise some cash for renovations. Then they must stick their tongues int each other's mouth and the pastor say, 'you can unkiss the bride', at which they shall pull back and part ways. Sort of like turning back the hands of time (ala R.Kelly's song)

Now someone asked why should the engagement ring be given to the church as well given that engagements don't happen in church, to which some dude asked if darkies still did engagements.
'Yeah, they do, that's why you find three rings on the bride's fingers', responded a chick. To this some guy said, 'these days we don't put rings as a form of engagement, we impregnate you and you know you are taken. We engage you with a baby'. Hahahahaha! That was funny. It was funny then and yesterday at the gym the guys were still cracking jokes about it.

Haha!