/ 18 September 2015

Letters to the editor: September 4 to 10 2015

Letters To The Editor: September 4 To 10 2015

Useful idiots, wake up

The so-called Wits 7 (Suspended Wits 7 violent or vexed?) should not be mistaken for victims; they are toxic racists with no respect for anyone and a nasty streak a mile wide.

These are people who have internalised an ideology in which being white, being Western and/or being a capitalist (including any variants thereof) automatically makes one an evil criminal who should be gotten rid of for the good of the rest of the world, and being black automatically makes one a victim and puts one on the morally correct side of anything, regardless of one’s behaviour.

This is quite obviously completely wrong, as only a passing knowledge of almost any subject – bar the “intellectual” rubbish dumps that make up much critical theory (which should be renamed “biased theory”) and “whiteness studies” (which is pure racism masquerading as low-quality academic thought) – would bear out.

The Economic Freedom Fighters and their supporters have proven themselves time and again to be so ignorant that it marks them out as egregious even within the folds of much of the radical left, which has usually been just as ignorant, bigoted and unpleasant as the radical right, if not more so.

The behaviour of these thugs, for that is what they are, is but a taste of what will be running this country if the extreme left ever takes over. South Africa will not look much better than Zimbabwe; in fact, it may look worse.

It is worth asking whether the alienation apparently felt by many black students is, in fact, so widely felt and whether this is not coaxed emotion. That is, it does not accurately reflect the external reality of most students, but is encouraged by those who feel they can use it for political ends or whose personal problems lead to the externalisation of their own toxic inner world in the outer one.

It is also worth looking at why transformation, which increasingly is simply a euphemism for attempts to push whites out of various fields and institutions, is allegedly so slow. Have these bigots ever considered that many academic posts at universities have a very low turnover rate anyway, and that academic employment is generally based on who happens to be available and how qualified they are?

Have they ever thought that with the education system being the disaster it is and the ANC’s policy of lowering standards so that its statistics look nice, this may be part of the problem? No, they have not and will not, because they are mostly interested in pushing an anti-white message.

The political left is systematically destroying this country with its idiocy and ineptness. South African whites are becoming like the Jews in Nazi Germany: an eternal scapegoat, an invisible enemy who is incapable of redemption, a problem group to be dealt with.

As for all the so-called white liberals who have internalised this closed-minded view of the nonwhite, non-Western, noncapitalist left as the good guy, be warned: you are wrong and you will not be spared.

This is not a call to hate people unconditionally; this is not an anti-black message. It is a call to wake up and start thinking for yourselves, a call against ignorance and stupidity. As Lenin put it, liberals are useful idiots. Do not be that sort of liberal. – Nicolaus Halladen, Johannesburg


Acid water noncompliance on West Rand a nonissue

The article Departments admit to acid water slip-up reported there are no environmental checks on Gauteng’s emergency response to the mine drainage crisis, in which polluted water seeps into rivers and land. This is incorrect. Furthermore, after quoting a department of environmental affairs official, the article also reported that the department of water affairs has never submitted any document as required by the conditions of this environmental authorisation.

Environmental affairs conducted a site inspection for the western basin on December 8 and 9 2014. Its findings demonstrated that water and sanitation was in noncompliance with some conditions of the authorisation. Environmental affairs then wrote a letter to water and sanitation to bring the inspection’s findings to their attention. Water and sanitation requested a meeting to discuss the findings, and then submitted its official response to environmental affairs, in writing.

After reviewing the report, environmental affairs found water and sanitation had clarified most of the noncompliance issues. Water and sanitation submitted evidence of compliance in the alleged matters and has planned a follow-up inspection for September 2015 to confirm this.

At this stage, environmental affairs has not instituted criminal proceedings or initiated administrative action against water and sanitation and its implementing agent, and will only do so if substantial noncompliance is found. – Albi Modise, spokesperson for the department of environmental affairs


We didn’t fight for black diamonds

As I was reading Thabang Sefalafala’s article History has poisoned the fruits of the black middle class, it suddenly dawned on me that the building of the so-called black middle class and their subsequent so-called guilt was never on the agenda of the liberation struggle in the first place.

I stand to be corrected, but it’s but one of the unintended consequences of our liberation struggle.

The agenda was the total liberation of the oppressed and exploited majority of black people, in particular the African people. Yet we find ourselves where we are at. Don’t we? The so-called growing black middle class and guilt? – Joseph B Gumbi, Pietermaritzburg