No Hout Bay ‘apartheid’
Your coverage of Hout Bay is simplistic and immoral. It is not an “apartheid” conflict, as you suggest, with racist, affluent whites on one side and poor, victimised black people on the other. It is about upholding the law and trying to find a humane and practical solution to unhealthy, overcrowded conditions.
Many shack-dwellers would willingly move to an area where there is serviced land and a chance of a better life.
“Hout Bay Rep Calls for Forced Removals” (February 16) contains inaccuracies and half-truths. DA councillor Marga Haywood did not use the words “forced removals”, nor did she call for the relocation of shack-dwellers in Hangberg, most of whom were born there. There are already property owners in Hangberg, and there will be many more once plans to release serviced land go ahead. Voters in this former ANC stronghold showed their approval by voting 3 to 1 for the DA.
In Imizamo Yethu, more than 300 property owners have received title deeds. But other promises to the original beneficiaries have not been honoured. Some were dispossessed of their plots and land rights by new arrivals; others have still not received title deeds promised 13 years ago.
Why should they share what little land is left with newcomers, queue-jumpers and land-grabbers? Why should they give up their dreams of an integrated Hout Bay in favour of opportunists who by weight of numbers selfishly claim their land and resources and cause them to live in misery and squalor?
“Ask Some Whites to Leave” (February 23) implies squatters have the same land rights as homeowners and that overcrowding would ease if white people left Hout Bay.
If ratepayers left their homes for poor people to live in, jobs and rates that subsidise services for the poor would dry up. If a person steals someone’s property like a cellphone it is illegal. Yet your writers seem to argue that if people steal land, that’s okay and land-grabbers should be rewarded.
In future, I shall read the Mail & Guardian, if at all, with scepticism. — Sue Ball, Hout Bay
Lorna Levy (Letters, February 23) relies on hearsay and conjecture to try to paint the majority of Hout Bay residents as unrehabilitated racists. She has no proof of this.
A one-time unsuccessful ANC election candidate and ANC boot-licker extraordinaire, Levy appears unable to accept that in a democracy, people’s election choices are their own.
Just because the majority of voters chose to reject the ANC does not make them a bunch of racists. In fact, it is racist and undemocratic to label people in terms of their skin colour and to insult them for exercising their democratic rights.
More than 5% of the voters in Imizamu Yethu chose the DA candidate. Are they racist too?
Thankfully, South Africa’s Lorna Levys are making way for a new generation, who are not guilty about their skin colour and are willing to work with, for and among all their fellow citizens for a better life for all.
The ANC had better wake up, as its neo-racism is going to alienate it more and more from young people who want to break free of the past and move ahead into the new South Africa. — Steven Mitchell, Somerset West
So now it’s the DA’s fault that thousands of people can’t be accommodated on 16ha of land in Hout Bay? I know the DA is a great party, but isn’t it a bit much to expect miracles of it?
The ANC allowed the residents of Imizamo Yethu to be further disadvantaged by allowing too many people to settle on land that was clearly too small to accommodate them all, and by failing to address issues of overcrowding and lack of access to transport, jobs and infrastructure.
Fossils like Pat Hopkins (Letters, February 23) just can’t accept that the ANC sometimes messes up, and that criticising the ANC is neither racist nor subversive. It is people’s democratic right. — Mike Anderson, Somerset West
George Monbiot’s fallacy
In his book Heat (February 9), George Monbiot discusses the huge cost of tackling climate change, but claims these are manageable in the long run because the global economy will keep growing by 2% to 3% a year through the 21st century.
He assumes the required 90% reduction in CO2 emissions is attainable by 2030 based on the United Kingdom’s present population and economy, which are growing slowly. But unchecked world population could easily double this century, while the global economy is expected to increase tenfold!
The iron-clad fact is that endless material expansion is impossible in a world of finite resources, and that replacing capitalism with a steady-state, non-growing economy is the only way to avert utter ruin. — Ivan Brezovic Mlinaric, Halfway House
Your rewarding of innovative programmes that lessen the carbon footprint on the world (Greening the Future, February 23) may actually result in more heating than greening.
Monbiot points out how energy-saving schemes such as Eskom’s demand-side management programme can result in more carbon emissions by people and industry.
As the cost of energy falls as a result of more efficient practices (helped by Eskom’s 100% funding of load-management projects), unattractive, energy-costly enterprises become attractive to investors. The result is more energy consumption, not less. — Mike Foxon, Benoni
Nationalise for equality
The ANC policy conference must debate the feasibility of nationalising the “commanding heights” of the economy, with the aim of investing in free tertiary education, water and health. In Nordic countries, citizens are entitled to top-class education regardless of their parent’s earnings.
In his budget speech, Trevor Manuel spoke of injecting millions of rand into tertiary education, particularly engineering and science. But I don’t believe this will make a big impact on university drop-outs and exclusions from tertiary institutions.
Only students from well-resourced schools, who can pay for themselves, will benefit, while rural students won’t qualify for bursaries.
We must distribute these funds equitably, targeting students from low-income families. — Maoto Molefane, Pretoria
Farmers are not involved
‘Unfinished Business of Land Reform” (February 23) wrongly states that “at Gongolo in KwaZulu-Natal … cattle farmers asked for prices based on the prospective value of the planned mega-game reserve — even though the reserve is not yet a reality”.
Cattle farmers are not negotiating land values. That is being done by the Gongolo Wildlife Reserve (GWR) company, which bought the land in 2001 — a year before any claim on the land.
The principles relating to land values sought by the GWR are merely those contained in government legislation. — Nick Green, CEO Gongolo Wildlife Reserve
We’ve lost our values
‘I eat with robbed money” (February 16) made me very angry. By thinking that government should solve all our problems, we have lost our values.
Our parents struggled, but gave us values. They worked hard to put food on the table and to educate us so that we could be better off than them.
Like “Nomsa and an estimated half a million other people who live in Enkanini”, I also moved from the Eastern Cape to the Western Cape. I live in Guguletu and work for my money; I would never steal for food.
A moral lesson I learned from my community back home was that I will never live in a shack. There, houses were built of clay bricks that were made with our own hands. My parents’ house has been standing since the early 1960s.
How can anyone live in a shack because government is not building RDP houses fast enough?
If I lose my job, I will go back home, where there is no shortage of food. We grew up eating from our gardens, which is hard work. Food parcels or basic income grants from government are the easy way out.
Hard work is a value we were taught, and laziness was punished. I recently went home and saw that there was no garden that was not planted. Spinach, potatoes, pumpkins and mealies are the norm.
In rural areas, single families have so much space. Why do people choose to live in Enkanini, which is so crowded?
I was educated by my father’s cows: every January my father would sell a cow or two to have enough money to send eight children to school. Any rural person will tell you how hard it is to look after these animals.
Those who stayed at school, even when it was difficult, can now see democracy is delivering to them.
To Nomsa and all other parents who encourage our youth to commit crime in the name of poverty: I beg you to go back home. Use the values our parents taught us, so that along with government, which is giving much more than past governments gave our parents, we can help reduce crime and poverty.
Teach your children that nothing comes easily in life, and that if it does, they will not value it. That is why most people sell their RDP houses and live in shacks. — Velisa Maku, Woodstock, Cape Town
Satanagram
I enjoyed Tom Eaton’s new book Texas at first, but soon became very disturbed by its anti-Christian tone.
Imagine my horror when I discovered that it contains a Satanic anagram. If you take the names of all the characters (George, Madadoel, Rhonda, Alix and Gabriel), plus the book’s title, you get this anagram: “God is dead. Baal ex litera. Gomorrah ex angel.”
I am not a student of Latin, but even I know that the last two sentences mean: Baal out of books, and Gomorrah (made) by an angel.
I urge all Christians to be very careful about buying this book. — Disa Stanhope, Bergvliet
Cosatu’s Zuma threat disgraceful
Monday’s statement by Cosatu in KwaZulu-Natal that there will be “blood on the floor” of the high court if corruption charges against Jacob Zuma are reinstituted by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is a disgrace.
Section 165 (3) of the Constitution states that “no person or organ of state may interfere with the functioning of the courts”.
Likewise, the preamble to the NPA Act states that legislation should ensure that the “prosecuting authority exercises its functions without fear, favour or prejudice”.
Cosatu has contravened both principles. An organisation that claims to represent the interests of thousands of workers has no place making irresponsible and populist statements that threaten to undermine the course of justice.
When Zuma’s case was struck off the Pietermaritzburg High Court roll last year it simply indicated that the state was not yet ready to proceed, not that he had no case to answer. If the NPA has now completed its case against Zuma, it has every right to reinstitute charges.
Zuma has publicly said he wants his day in court. He has not had the opportunity to clear his name as he so clearly desires. Does Cosatu want to take this opportunity away from him?
The authorities must ensure that the NPA and the courts proceed with their duties without fear, favour or prejudice. — Sheila Camerer MP, DA spokesperson on justice
In brief
Xolisa Mabhongo, chief director of South Africa’s political directorate at the United Nations, writes (M&G February 2) that “the South African government has consistently stated that human rights abuses anywhere in the world must be condemned”. We call on government to publicly condemn the continued repression, beating, rape, torture and killing of Zimbabweans by agents of Zimbabwe’s government. — Quakers, Eastern Cape
I was finally convinced that John Pilger’s writing is satirical after he quoted Professor Juan Cole as saying “that when Iran’s Ahmadinejad calls for Israel to be ‘wiped off the map’, it does not imply military action or killing anyone …” (February 23). Pilger could probably call on another learned academic to tell us that the nuclear power Ahmadinejad is intent on developing will facilitate the delivery of chicken soup to Tel Aviv as a goodwill offering. — Sydney Kaye
The United States is in breach of UN resolution 1737, which emphasises “the importance of political and diplomatic efforts to find a negotiated solution guaranteeing that Iran’s nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes”. Where are the negotiations? — Bill Hudson
I travel frequently to Cape Town International Airport in the early morning and am constantly angered to see hundreds of street lights burning long after sunrise. Let’s free up revenue for communities who really need it! — CT Smith, Simon’s Town