September 4 to 10 2009

Andile’s victimology

I was starting to respect Andile Mngxitama as a thinker. But now I realise he only peddles a tortured racial pride disguised as intellectual analysis. His article ‘The Alcock vs Hlophe awards” (August 27) saw him fall spectacularly into the logical trap that awaits all ‘victim race” spokespersons of his ilk.

In order to secure our sympathy that Judge John Hlophe is a victim of white supremacists, Mngxitama the victimologist must neutralise the irksome fact that Hlophe himself is a lying judge.

So, how to do this? Step 1: Of course Hlophe is a rotten black judge. Step 2: But the fact is that all black people are liars. Step 3: It is not their fault. Step 4: The whites make them do it.

How long must the black intellectual perform this grisly act of public self-mutilation? When will it dawn on us that, as a crude measure, blame-it-on-the-man tactics might have shocked whites into an admission of a monstrous crime, but now such habits only evoke the contempt one reserves for a junkie? And generation after generation, how long must we watch as the swamp of ‘black victim” politics devours entire cadres of our intelligentsia? — Mandla Zibi, Pretoria

Mngxitama reasons with his emotions, so his piece on the essential ‘vengeful white psyche” and its cosmic racist evil can’t be taken seriously by anyone dreaming of a post-race society unless, of course, you are a racist yourself.

In that case, you’ll love Mngxitama’s piece for its racist sophistry trying to pass for objective reasoning. There are many like him, though, who have yet to see that all this stone-throwing at the white devil could bring down the racist glass house they all cower behind and call Luthuli House, their spiritual home, where an army of technocrats slave away maintaining race-based quotas. Race classification is alive and well in the new regime and its new caretakers are no less zealous than those before them. So, Mr Mngxitama, this yearning you profess for a post-race society is in your hands, not mine.

And to essentialise groups of people as either vengeful or forgiving (your taxonomy) is the kind of typecasting racists employ. When we think with our emotions we miss the contradictions in our arguments. You don’t want a debate; you want an inquisition. — David Erasmus, Port Shepstone

Pray softly and don’t sing

K­­hadija Bradlow’s article ‘Breaking the sound barrier” (August 28) is misleading. Judaism accords women an important role in prayer. In fact, the Talmud teaches many principles of prayer from the way Hannah prayed, as described in the Book of Samuel; to this day she remains our role model in prayer. From Hannah we learn that really important prayer has to be whispered so softly that only the worshipper can hear it. This applies to the central prayer in every service, the Amidah, which must be said softly by both men and women.

There is no problem in Jewish law about certain lesser prayers being said audibly by either men or women. There is, however, an injunction against men hearing women sing.

Bradlow’s reference to ‘one rabbi” having ‘once” said that ‘[a] woman at the Kotel is like a pig at the Kotel” is quite unacceptable. Firstly, such a statement is absurd, outrageous and insulting to women, and has no basis whatever in any value or rule of Judaism, which reveres women. Secondly, she conveniently quotes no source. No real rabbi would think such a thing, let alone say it.

It is unfortunate that this unsubstantiated insult was highlighted by the Mail & Guardian. There is a photograph of Jewish women praying with prayer books covering their faces and your caption reads that they ‘hide their faces”, implying that they were forced to do so. This is absolutely untrue; Jews often cover their faces during prayer to intensify their concentration and devotion, and this is obviously what the women were doing.

Integral to all decent society is the central value of respect. Debate and discussion are important, but if we do not respect one another we will not have a society that is sustainable. An article such as Bradlow’s is written in an unacceptable tone of disdain and disrespect for ancient traditions, thousands of years old and held dear by many people. – Dr Warren Goldstein, Chief Rabbi of South Africa

At cross purposes over Semenya

I laboured my way through Colleen Lowe Morna’s comment ‘We celebrate otherness today”, August 28. It is in effect a mishmash of an academic paper or two, first presented, by all accounts, in the early 1990s, which bears no relevance to the real issues around Caster Semenya.

Who mentioned sexuality, as opposed to sex and gender? Who mentioned her sexual preference? Who mentioned the word ‘lesbian”? No one! Well, not until Lowe Morna.

Her view is off the mark in terms of the initial incident that triggered the media frenzy, in terms of the complicated issues which then ensued in the media, and in terms of the way the press reported on the matter as it transpired.

Not that ‘lesbian” is an unmentionable word, or that gay women (and men) don’t face enormous challenges. But, let’s face it, from the moment Semenya came into our lives, which for most of us was only during the past week or so, we have all been looking at her crotch.

So although Lowe Morna may be right about stereotypes, the rest of her commentary is simply not analogous. Until a week ago, if you had said ‘Caster Semenya” to me, I would have thought perhaps the conversation had moved on to ­Mediterranean fish dishes or Hispanic dancing. That’s not supposed to be a quirky conclusion, it’s just the way news works. — Alexandra Roberta van Essche

This morning I nearly crashed my car because I was in hysterics. I bought the M&G from the friendly lady at the traffic lights and, because of the phasing, I usually have time to glance at a few articles before the lights change.

I turned to page three to read the interview with Julius Malema. At the end it said: ‘See Caster Semenya spread on pages 6 and 7”. Here started the hysterics —

I think the cross-reference could have been more delicately phrased. — Paul

We cannot tolerate corruption

One of the key things government communicators need to learn is simplicity. Nothing annoys the public like a condescending tone such as that of the presidency’s Vusi Mona (‘Let them have business interests”, Letters, August 21). This is an attempt to countenance, instead of condemn, the public-sector corruption exposed by the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) — 2000 civil servants found to have illegally accessed over R600-million through ‘doing business with government”.

No problem, really, with civil servants having business interests — as long as they say so, according to Mona. We must understand that they must also ‘participate in economic activity”. Both assertions are banal and political sophistry.

With his experience in business Mona should know that to do business with government you need to be ‘connected”. What this often translates into is corrupt practices. Business simply has to find a way to bribe them. In the context of this rot, we cannot tolerate any ‘conflict of interest”.

The law requires that permission be sought for outside work by public servants. An accounting officer, in granting such permission, has to find whether the relevant official will benefit unfairly by such economic involvement, judged by their position in the civil service and their level of influence, especially where tenders are concerned. It is not enough simply to declare. This legalistic stance was condemned even by the SACP.

We now know from Scopa that many civil servants, including those at the highest levels, did not bother to ask for permission because it would have defeated their corrupt plans.

Mona seems to think that 2 000 corrupt civil servants out of a million is nothing to worry about. What he is not saying is that these are the most senior people in the service. No one is interested in the balance of civil servants who have nothing to do with this terrible practice. — Onkgopotse JJ Tabane, advisor to Cope parliamentary leader (writing in his personal capacity)

Prawns in the First World

I’m crazy about District 9 (‘Loving the aliens”, August 28). Alien ‘prawns” end up over Jo’burg, are herded into a township and a person gets appointed to remove them. This person ends up fighting for their cause.

It’s a pity Neill Blomkamp didn’t name his hero FW de Klerk. In District 9 II the rights of the ‘prawns” are negotiated and De Klerk hands the ‘prawns” a functional First World country on a silver platter. They get PAA (Prawn Affirmative Action) and PEE (Prawn Economic Empowerment), and a law stating ‘No gender testing on ‘prawn’ athletes”.

The ‘prawns” will then change all street and city names, will ignore infrastructure maintenance and will hand out distinctions to those among them with the flashiest BMWs.

In the 13th sequel we will see the ‘new” (28 years later) prawn government battling to maintain the depleted infrastructure, chasing from one disaster area to the next in their brand-new BMWs.

There isn’t much left in terms of hospitals, schools, transport systems — The skyline shows the remnants of a train system and 765 sports stadiums. Fade to black while the last power station implodes. I can’t wait.

(For Mr Blomkamp’s information, if he uses any of this script in District 9 II, III or IV, up to XIV, he will be sued.) — Johann Marx, Roodepoort

In brief

A 24-month-long randomised control trial conducted by Maria Wawer et el and recently published in The Lancet shows that male circumcision appears to increase the risk to women of HIV infection (‘Dicking around in the dark”, August 28). The female partners of the intervention group contracted HIV at a notably higher rate (18%) compared with the control group (12%). Given that women are already at such high risk of HIV infection, this is a damning finding. It was also conspicuously absent in your coverage of the issue last week. — Alex Myers, Newlands

The government has bankrolled the South African Football Association (Safa) pet project called the 2010 World Cup with R17-billion of taxpayers’ money. The sports minister owes taxpayers an explanation of what is happening and should propose measures to stop this madness. — Thabo Seleke

If Neve Gordon (August 28) ever experienced apartheid he is a liar to equate Israeli efforts to safeguard the lives of its citizens with the Nationalist Party’s attempt to ensure white control of South Africa. Israel fought seven wars to prevent the Palestinians and their Arab neighbours from actualising the secretary of the Arab League’s declaration of May 14 1948: ‘This will be a war of annihilation — ” — Don Krausz, Killarney