I Offer a Presidential Candidate for the ANC Women’s League

Sent to The Star, Johannesburg, Wed 17/12/2014 08:42. Published

Sir

The ANC Women’s League has reportedly said that it is time for South Africa to have a woman President.

I have just the candidate.

This woman has impeccable anti-Apartheid credentials.  She was a politically active journalist and exposed the Apartheid regime’s false claim that Steve Biko had died as the result of a hunger strike.  She worked for the Black Sash and the End Conscription Campaign, and provided a safe house for anti-Apartheid activists.

She has extensive experience at all three levels of Government: City, Provincial, and in Parliament.  She has been a Mayor, and turned the fortunes of her city around, cutting debt and crime.  She won the 2008 World Mayor award against 820 other candidates.

This woman also has experience in leading a province: She has made it the best-run province in South Africa.

Unlike many figures in government, she has never been implicated in corruption, and she speaks in support of the Constitution at every opportunity.

I urge the ANC Women’s League to throw their support behind this worthy candidate for President: Helen Zille.

The ANC is Now Above the Law

Sent to The Star, Johannesburg, Thu 13/02/2014 14:54

Sir

I was part of the DA’s 12 February March for Jobs.

The march was planned for 4 February but Johannesburg Metro Police refused permission.  The DA had to go to court to have the decision overturned.

Ill-informed ANC members gathered at Luthuli House on 4 February and, when they found there was no march, tried to disrupt preparations for a DA fund-raising dinner that evening at City Hall.  There were no arrests.

On Wednesday 12^th, the DA held an approved, legal, orderly, and unarmed march.  Even the burly security personnel carried no visible weapons.  Some marchers wore hollow plastic builders’ helmets.  These are designed to give construction workers a measure of head protection against small falling debris.

The ANC neither applied for nor received permission to march.  Yet it bussed in supporters form as far afield as Kwa-Zulu Natal.  As seen in photographs, many were armed with bricks, batons, and other dangerous weapons including petrol bombs.  The SAPS and Metro Police appear to have made no effort to disarm them or to stop the busses.

Beyers Naude Square had been approved by the Metro as the destination for the DA’s march.  This was agreed to by the ANC in court that morning.  Nevertheless, ANC supporters occupied the square: SAPS and Metro Police, instead of telling them to leave and then arresting those that did not, prevented the DA march from reaching its destination.

We on the DA march turned back a block short at Rissik Street, and returned peacefully to our destination to be addressed by Helen Zille.

Meanwhile, ANC supporters were trying to attack DA marchers and petrol bombing the police who stopped them.  ANC leaders have attempted to excuse this.  Four arrests have been reported.  There is no talk of the ANC or its many supporters being prosecuted for an illegal march and thuggery on a grand scale.

It is clear that the ANC has become a party of intolerance and violence, while the DA is peaceful, law-abiding, and democratic.

It also seems from police behaviour that there is one law for the ANC and another for other organisations.

Loos(e) Talk Avoids the Cape Facts

Sent to "The Star, Johannesburg", Tue 15/06/2010 20:05

Luther Lebelo ("Would Zille use an open loo?", The Star, Mon June 14) shows what great propaganda one can make if one ignores all the facts.

It is well known that the City of Cape Town entered into an agreement with the community (brokered by the ANC Youth League's local representative, mind you).  With the money they had been given, the City would provide a toilet per family instead of one per five families (the government standard), if the recipients enclosed the loos.

97% of the community kept the agreement.  3% tried to get an advantage by breaking their word.

The local ANCYL saw a chance to get some cheap publicity at the expense of whatever integrity they still had.

It is very fair that the 3% of liars and chancers now have to share a loo with five other families.

This has nothing to do with the dignity or otherwise of black people.

It is about not rewarding those who wreck society for their own ends.

Christine Qunta's Racism Tarnishes The Star

Sent to "The Star, Johannesburg", Thu 21/05/2009 08:51, never published.

One wonders why The Star continues to publish Christine Qunta, such as the leader page article in of 20 May.  Is The Star out to reduce its credibility?  Perhaps you have to have a quota of loonies?  Maybe it is a way to discredit the ANC.  Or perhaps she keeps the Readers' Letters well stocked?

Ms Qunta is unmoved by facts, ignoring inconvenient ones in favour of her fantasy.  Perhaps a world view based on merit is so anathema to one of her talents that it cannot be tolerated?

The DA policy is that of free choice: Unlike in the ANC that dictates, DA people have choice about whether they stand for the Province or Parliament.  It's not Helen Zille's fault that most DA women chose to go to Parliament.  (Note that the ANC has nothing to say about the number of women the DA has in Parliament)

Ms Qunta drones on about Helen Zille "surrounding herself with men" in the Provincial Cabinet, but did she do this as Mayor of Cape Town?  Obviously not, since Ms Qunta doesn't mention it, and inconvenient facts are to be ignored.

It must be sad to view the world, as Ms Qunta does, through a racist lens: The truth is that all races voted for the DA –its voters are probably the most racially-mixed of all the parties'– but Qunta can only see the whites.

We have the DA's "Stop Zuma" campaign painted as "Swart Gevaar".  So anyone who is anti-Zuma is anti-black?  What nonsense!  Many intelligent black people don't want a president who is an unapologetic adulterer and willing to expose his wives to AIDS.

Ms Qunta finds Helen Zille and Julius Malema's exchange as "equally offensive rantings".  Zille's comments were factual, the ANCYL's a complete fabrication (which I look forward to seeing them justify in court).  Facts from an opponent carry the same weight in Ms Qunta's mind as fantasy by a colleague.

Despite fighting against it, the DA's members are somehow responsible for Apartheid, per Ms Qunta.  She is of course silent on Martinus van Schalkwyk and the party to which he now belongs!

Ms Qunta has the DA "portraying Africans as corrupt and incompetent people with poor sexual morals".  No, Ms Qunta,  Zuma is NOT "all Africans".  Kindly remember that Helen Zille is also an African, by virtue of being a South African.

If Ms Qunta want to eliminate "crude racism", she can do no better than start with her own thoughts.  The ANC is not the sole representative of blacks.  Anti-ANC is not anti-black:  It's a concept called "democracy".

Finally though, do spare some sympathy for Ms Qunta: Judged on the quality of her logic, the only way she can get a job is through cronyism and gender quotas.