‘As teachers, we pledge …’
If children have to recite the pledge, how about a pledge for education department officials and teachers? I suggest the following:
“We, the national and provincial education departments of South Africa, recognising the injustices of our past, honour those who suffered and sacrificed for justice and freedom.
“We will see that schools function each day and that learning takes place from the first day of school. We will see that all children have textbooks and learning materials before school opens each year.
“As teachers, we will arrive at school on time, stay the full day and teach when we are supposed to. We will respect children and not abuse them. We will not make girl learners pregnant. We will not come to school drunk.
“As education department officials, we will support principals and not threaten or punish them when they discipline children. Children will be promoted on merit only and we will not pass children who do not meet the competency requirements.
“As senior department officials, we will ensure that each child has a desk in a proper classroom with water, electricity and toilets in the school.
“As principals, we will not take children under the age of five into our schools to boost numbers and our salaries.
“We sincerely declare that we shall uphold the rights and values of our Constitution and promise to act in accordance with the duties and responsibilities that flow from these rights.
!KE E: /XARRA //KE
Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika.” — Eric Atmore, director, Centre for Early Childhood Development, Claremont
Whatever Naledi Pandor’s propagandists might say, the proposed pledge has no resemblance to the one American schoolchildren recite. The American pledge does not mention the Indian wars, slavery, the Civil War or the Civil Rights Movement. It is a pledge to the republic and the values it embodies.
Why should the pledge specifically mention the injustices of the past? What about the injustices of the present, like the billions blown on the corrupt arms deal or the Eskom fiasco? — Michael Brett, Hartebeeshoek
Isn’t this fair trade?
Jocelyn Newmarch’s “The hunt for fair trade coffee” (February 1) gives an incomplete picture of fair trade.
“Fair Trade” is a registered trademark. To use the trademark, a licensing fee is payable to the European company. Depending on your market, you might have to add to this the ISO9000 (HACCP), kosher, halaal and other marks. A significant percentage of the retail price can be spent on licences — and consumers bear the cost.
In South Africa, what about the food miles the product needs to travel? Fair Trade coffee comes from far-away destinations such as Sumatra, Costa Rica and Nicaragua via Europe — because that is where all the big distributors are. Why do we not take the carbon footprint into consideration in the quest for fair trade?
When all the accounting is done and we leave the “cost to the planet” out of our calculations, what percentage of the retail price actually reaches the grower? With all the agents, licensing fees, shipping costs and the government’s cut, growers are lucky to get 10%.
Chipunga Farm Estate Coffee, which Fruits and Roots stocks, is organic and Afrisco-certified. It is roasted and ground on the farm in northern Malawi — adding value and recouping a higher percentage of the retail price. The small farm has 20ha of coffee under cultivation and supports its workers by giving them land, seed and the means to beneficiate.
The farm also supports a women’s netball and men’s football team, as well a school for the children. Of the price to the customer, about 50% goes back to it.
There is no “fair trade” logo on the package and no money goes to Europe for the privilege of using it. But does that mean fair-trade principles are not intrinsic to the process? — Har Bhajan Khalsa, founder, Fruits and Roots
Missing the mainstream
Shaun de Waal (“Bible may sanction gay unions”, February 8) portrays Christians on both sides of the homosexual debate as lacking acumen in interpreting texts. By focusing exclusively on the extremist fringes, he fails to do justice to the mainstream.
Even many sola scriptura evangelicals realise that a very sound biblical case exists for rethinking Christian approaches towards loving, faithful, committed, healthy gay relationships.
And, just to set the record “straight”, only seven passages explicitly refer to homosexuality: Genesis 19 and Judges 19 both condemn gang rape of men; Leviticus 18 and 20 both condemn ritual idol worship involving intercourse with male temple prostitutes; Romans 1 condemns promiscuous orgies; and finally 1 Corinthians 6 and 1 Timothy 1 condemn male prostitution (especially in temples).
Clearly no biblical prohibition of same-gender marriages exists — except where people are willing to twist scripture to suit their own prejudices and insecurities. — Lance Heath, Green Point, Cape Town
Interesting friend
I read with interest your interview with Siphiwe Nyanda (February 15), noting his plan to screen the Scorpions.
According to the Sunday Times of June 24 2001, Nyanda was a beneficiary of a “whopping discount” on a Mercedes-Benz from none other than Michael Woerfel, the source of Tony Yengeni’s whopping discount.
Woerfel apparently left South Africa “hastily” after the Sunday Times confronted him about discounts to various “key players in the arms deal”.
In that newspaper Nyanda describes Woerfel as “a friend”. What a helpful and interesting “friend” he has. I wonder what his “friend” thinks of Nyanda’s plan to audit the Scorpions … — David P Kramer
When a government successfully organises a country’s law enforcement agencies to exclude its members from criminal investigation and prosecution, we might safely conclude that organised crime has taken over the government. — Oliver Price, Cape Town
Zanu’s empty bag of lies
A Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation news item: “Barely 48 hours after the nomination court sat, Zanu-PF has launched intensive election campaigning. Addressing a rally, war veteran leader Jabulani Sibanda castigated Simba Makoni for challenging President Robert Mugabe …”
That will be the flavour of “news” on ZBC stations and in the Herald, Sunday Mail, Sunday News and the Chronicle.
Morgan Tsvangirai should be glad he has only the “imperialist stooge” tag. All the lambasting will be directed at Simba Makoni and he will have no platform to tell his side of the story.
Elections in Zimbabwe cannot be free and fair. In addition to the beatings, food parcels for ruling party supporters, chiefs being wined and dined at the taxpayers’ expense in exchange for campaigning for Zanu-PF, all the state media will be used for pro-Mugabe propaganda.
Zanu-PF’s bag of lies is empty now. It can’t try the land-reform trick on us; we’ve heard it all before. Now that the people have been settled, where’s the food?
It can’t talk of the British intending to recolonise us. Some fools might believe Tsvangirai wants to hand the country back to the British. But Makoni? Thinking there was a British agent in the Zanu-PF politburo is ridiculous.
Can’t Mugabe see that the game is up? Or is he planning to go the Mwai Kibaki way — steal the election?
The people of Zimabwe will not protest as violently as the Kenyans — there’s always the army to mow down protesters. God help us all if that’s the plan. — Shepherd, Bulawayo
Come back, Kgalema!
Kgalema Motlanthe falsifies the picture by arguing in an interview with Ebrahim Harvey (February 8) that it was necessary to introduce Gear to address apartheid debt. Gear was a culmination of the macroeconomic path initiated by the National Party and agreed to by the ANC in the compromises of negotiation.
Beginning with consumption taxes and the whittling down of corporate taxes in 1977, the NP systematically deregulated the South African economy. In the early 1990s there were moves to entrench the autonomy of the South African Reserve, which was already pursuing the fundamental elements of the Gear policy.
In 1993, under the authority of the Transitional Executive Council, of which the ANC was a part, a loan was raised from the IMF on the secret understanding that South Africa would comply with rigid political and economic conditionalities demanded by the fund and World Bank.
Parallel to the Codesa negotiations and the evolution of the Reconstruction and Development Programme within the Mass Democratic Movement, the ANC increasingly engaged the World Bank and the Development Bank of South Africa on matters of economic policy, tying the fundamentals of our economy to Gear. Then, at Davos, Nelson Mandela was railroaded by the big bankers away from the RDP.
Happenstance on the financial markets in 1996 gave the Thabo Mbeki/Trevor Manuel/Alec Erwin axis in the ANC an opportunity to axe Jay Naidoo, the RDP office and the RDP itself. They then walked past both Cosatu and the ANC straight to Parliament and imposed Gear as the centrepiece of financial policy.
The social cost of Gear has included the massive escalation of unemployment and a growing social deficit. Indeed it is thanks to this policy that social delivery is dominated by the social grants Motlanthe laments.
He is quite right to point to the enormity of the apartheid debt, but he simply adopts Manuel’s position that it has to be paid. Since its inception in 1998, Jubilee has consistently argued that the debt should be cancelled as odious and the money used to meet the people’s needs.
Mbeki later forced former justice minister Penuell Maduna to write to an American court attacking the Jubilee-facilitated legal action for reparations against 23 corporations who had financially supported apartheid and profited from the repayment of the apartheid debt.
It is time for Motlanthe and company to return to the masses. — MP Giyose, national chairperson, Jubilee South Africa
We need Collect a Can
We are an independent recyclable collection service operating in the Helderberg Basin. We have created seven sustainable jobs and remove an average 43 tons from the landfill stream every month.
You criticised Collect a Can in your February 7 edition. We use it and other smaller companies that collect the sorted materials from us, as we can’t collect, separate and run to the nearest Buyback Centre, even though we get better prices on most materials from them. Money isn’t everything!
Collections also cost money to make, so the fact that a company that collects doesn’t pay the same as a Buyback Centre makes sense.
Without the support of Collect a Can, The Glass Recycling Company and Cart Away, which removes our waste generated at cost, we could never have succeeded.
Recycling-related companies like these are always willing to give guidance if approached with a viable business plan or even a question pertaining to their fields of expertise.
Recycling in still relatively new in our country. We need the support of all these companies or no recycler will be able to move from a one-man-and-a-wheelbarrow scenario to being able to help create the sustainable jobs our country so badly needs.– Martin Brink, Mr Recycle, Helderberg
Small fry
President Thabo Mbeki’s alleged “selective rule of law” to finger opponents while shielding allies from criminal prosecution is the main reason why the Young Communist League supports Jacob Zuma (“Dexter’s attack is simply a defence of his own interests”, February 15).
Will the league name these important fraudsters hiding behind Mbeki’s presidential shield? Dexter is small fry; protecting him doesn’t explain Polokwane. Who are the big fish, the godfathers beholden to Mbeki for their liberty?
The league must say if it wants its position to be credible. — Jeff Rudin, Cape Town
In brief
You report that when Johann Maree picked up his phone, he heard recordings of his wife’s — Helen Zille’s — phone conversations. I had the same experience in 1970. South Africa is no longer a police state, but eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. Some spy without a search warrant is still violating our privacy rights. We depend on our democracy’s intelligence services to track him down.– Keith Gottschalk, University of the Western Cape
Telford Vice is one of those pathetic sports propagandists who know little, or nothing, about the game on which they write. Perhaps he would condescend to let us know from his lofty, and cloud-immersed, height what team he would have chosen for the Asian tour and why. — Bruce Cooper
According to its advert in last week’s M&G, the water affairs department is concerned that we should have “safe drinking water for a successful 2010 Soccer World Cup” and “therefore a concerted effort is being made to ensure that the responsible authorities are geared for the task”. Well, cheers, and thanks a lot! What about 2009 and 2011? What about the non-soccer-watching, long-suffering public? Let them eat cake and drink bubbly? — M Frey, Somerset West
We have epic heroes and historic struggles, but the proposed school pledge reflects none of these. No Black Pimpernel, no Smuts, no Women’s March on the Union Buildings, no Biko, no 1994. It will bore everyone to death. — Albert van Zyl, Claremont