Give Phumzile respect
Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka’s trip, which was duly approved and authorised, is one of the prices we must pay to ensure that she is safe, and can continue to contribute significantly to South Africa’s development. She is the country’s second citizen — let’s accord her the respect she deserves.
It is mischievous for critics to compare this trip with the suffering of the majority of the people. Suddenly we have economists and chartered accountants masquerading as custodians of the poor, calculating the cost of the trip with an onion held to their eyes.
No amount of money could have replaced Mlambo-Ngcuka if something had happened to her and her family — except that in South Africa black lives are statistics and, therefore, insignificant.
In regard to her entourage, a policy that prescribes who can accompany the deputy president should have been in place. The fact is that before 1994 carcasses of dead kudus accompanied politicians in their state aircraft from their exotic holidays.
The leaders of this continent, including Mlambo-Ngcuka, are committed to economic reform, putting in place sound policies and structures to ensure equitable growth and reduce poverty. Instead of sniping, let’s unite and join forces to help them realise this dream. — Yolisa Mdoda
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Mlambo-Ngcuka travelled in the equivalent of super-first class, using business and the considerably more expensive first class of commercial flights as the standard. The minister’s style of travel thus propels her — and Cabinet colleagues who use the same or similar aircraft — into the ranks of the super-rich of the world, not just South Africa.
This poses the question: Who does she represent, given the high priority we attach to representivity? Formally, she represents “the people” in terms of skin colour and background. But, given what we now know about the lifestyle she sees as normal, it would be hard to argue that she represents “the people”, most of whom are poor and have never even seen the inside of an aeroplane.
Then who does she represent? Franz Fanon offers answers. Writing in 1961, he noted: “The national middle class [of colonial or newly independent countries] discovers its historic mission: that of intermediary. Seen through its eyes, its mission has nothing to do with transforming the nation; it consists, prosaically, of being the transmission line between the nation and capitalism, rampant though camouflaged, which today puts on the mask of neo-colonialism.
“The national bourgeoisie will be quite content with the role of the Western bourgeoisie’s business agent, and it will play its part without any complexes in the most dignified manner.” — Jeff Rudin, Cape Town
The deputy president’s junket to Dubai, courtesy of the taxpayer, is no different to life insurance companies pocketing R3-billion of contributors’ payments, a major bank paying its CEO a salary of R36-million a year, or a cellphone company blowing millions on a Christmas party. It is called greed.
We live in a country where millions have no jobs, no income, no houses, no water, no regular meals and very little hope that things will get better.
The trip was Mlambo-Ngcuka’s right, according to presidential spokesperson Murphy Morobe. We earn rights by fulfilling our responsibilities as citizens. Madam Deputy President, where is your sense of responsibility? You and the president and every other person in government are servants of the people.
Bill Gates may fly a commercial airliner — but he is spending his own money. — WH, Grahamstown
It is outlandish that someone who has only been in a job a few months should see herself as able to enjoy the full benefits of the job. Like a 13th cheque, perks of this kind should be on a pro rata basis. — Anton de Waal, Claremont
Does the African National Congress elite really care about the gravy plane scandal? After all, the voting masses are uninformed and caught up in a struggle to meet their daily needs. I would be surprised if people in the former homelands have heard of the scandal, or even care.
Come election time, people in the forgotten, eroded and desolate corners of Limpopo and the Eastern Cape will line up patiently to vote for the ANC because it is the party of the struggle.
I now understand why the deputy president was such an aggressive defender of Zanu-PF during the Zimbabwe elections last year. Her “I’m all right, Jack” actions are typical of arrogant and self-indulgent leaders like Robert Mugabe. — Michael Brett, Hartebeeshoek
Rupert gatkruip makes one puke
It’s enough to make you puke, watching the media lick the arse of big business. Anton Rupert was a promoter of substance abuse who made the Staggies look like a corner supplier, main konyn in an empire that exacted a human cost on the scale of the Holocaust.
Don’t editors hear graveyards groan with rotted lungs and livers, retirement villages wheeze, cancer wards croak? Can’t they feel the despair of countless families as they reel from alcohol abuse — broken-spirited men, beaten women, molested and neglected children?
And then the rich pickings from all this misery gets laundered in the arts. A special puke for artists who accept the handouts! — Richard Okes, Kommetjie
Rupert might have been a bastion of conservation and of the arts, but to me anyone who waxes rich from peddling a proven killer — in this case cigarettes — is an unashamed opportunist. — WL Mason, Johannesburg
Guards are last line of defence
Yazeed Kamaldien (“The road to Jerusalem”, January 20) thinks Israel’s border guards are there to tell visitors to have a nice day, when they are the last line of defence against terrorists who are trying to get through that border day and night to kill Israeli citizens.
Unlike South Africa, Israel is not in the happy position to be politically correct, but employs scientific profiling as an aid to prevent terrorist attacks. Thus every visitor to Israel or passenger on El Al, white or black, Jewish or otherwise, is subjected to cross-examination, even when arriving in Israel conventionally and having a reason to be there.
So when Kamaldien asks: “Is it because I am a Muslim?”, in the context of terrorist attacks against Israel perpetrated by Muslims, most of whom pass through the border he attempted to cross, the answer is: “Partially.” But it is also because he was a foreigner arriving, not by the usual international gateway but by way of Jordan, and without good reason to be entering Israel.
Successful terrorist attacks on Israel have decreased, not because fewer have been launched but because more have been stopped by preventative action and border control. This includes the hated fence. — S Kaye, Cape Town
Booze just as damaging
The current and previous ministers of health believe that they have the right to tell adults how not to pollute their bodies. Hence the zealous campaign against smoking.
Particular problems arise when the application of health-preserving urges is so patchy. While smokers are made to feel they are one step removed from pederasts if they smoke in the presence of a child, there are no posters warning South Africans about the dangers of alcohol abuse.
Alcohol is more harmful than tobacco and more in need of control. It is no coincidence that a nation that likes its dop also has one of the world’s highest road accident rates. The connection between our high women/child abuse rates and pervasive alcoholism is equally obvious. We also have the dishonour of being the country with the world’s highest incidence of foetal alcohol syndrome.
Perhaps the cadres in Cape Town have good reasons for not clamping down on the sale of hooch. How many shares in SAB-Miller are owned by the busy bees who frequent the halls of power? Or are our leaders practising Verwoerdean (and Mugabean) statecraft? The Nationalists saw to it that townships were well supplied with cheap liquor, while every village in Zimbabwe has a least one bottle store. No revolution was ever launched by citizens too drunk to wield pitchforks and Molotov cocktails.
The government has the means to tackle the problem. Warning labels on every box of Château de Cardboard sold would not go amiss. Advertising space previously occupied by tobacco merchants has been claimed by booze manufacturers. Why not ban advertising of this harmful substance? Just as the purchase and use of cigarettes has been drastically curtailed, the sale of alcohol could also be restricted to certain shops and times.
Of course, billboards telling consumers about the harmful effects of ethanol will have very little effect on alcoholics whose poverty and powerlessness give them little to live for anyway. But, by doing something to limit the damage of alcohol abuse, the government will demonstrate that it takes this mammoth health issue seriously. — Brent Archer
Are gays higher-risk than straights?
The South African National Blood Service’s policy of preventing sexually active homosexual men from donating blood has been around for many years.
To the best of my knowledge, the questionnaires used by the service do not actually refer to oral or anal sex, as its spokesman suggests, but to any kind of sex. They are not precise enough to cover serious HIV/Aids risk behaviour.
The service’s rationale is that it is okay to discriminate against people from groups with higher than average HIV prevalence, and that men who have sex with men are in the international average more likely to be HIV-infected than the average man who has sex with women. It would be interesting to see whether men who have sex with men in South Africa really have a higher prevalence of HIV.
The service’s claim that this is best international practice ignores the fact that the prevalence of HIV among heterosexual people is several magnitudes higher in South Africa than it is, say, among heterosexuals in Scotland. So it is far from clear that current policies are truly equitable.
The argument would only work if the HIV prevalence among men who have sex with men is consistently higher than the HIV prevalence of other groups in the country who have sex with women, and who for that reason are not discriminated against.
The service cannot rely on international standards applying to countries where the prevalence of HIV among men who have sex with women is substantially lower than in South Africa. — Professor Udo Schuklenk, Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland
Unscientific
Sean Darragh’s assumption (Letters, January 6) that genetically modified (GM) foods are safe, as no health problems resulting from GM crops grown in South Africa have been documented, is unscientific.
GM foods grown here are not segregated or labelled and their effects are not monitored.
However, soya allergies in the United Kingdom rocketed by 50% the year after GM soya was introduced, and about 100 people died and thousands fell ill in the United State after consuming GM food supplement L-tryptophan in the 1980s.
A published peer-reviewed study also showed rats fed GM potatoes developed smaller livers, brains and testicles and compromised immune systems. — Andrew Taynton Linkhills