September 11 to 17 2009

SA state has also erred

The recent Canadian decision to grant Brandon Huntley refugee status (‘The Mark Shuttleworth of con men”, August 28) was clearly incorrect. But the ‘open season” that seems to have been declared on Huntley for making his claim is even more troubling.

All people have an international right to seek asylum and it is the responsibility of states to consider such claims seriously. Canada is highly respected for advancing ­progressive forms of refugee protection. It is not unusual for mistakes to be made in any refugee-determination system, particularly in first-instance decisions. Canada may have erred in the case of Huntley, but this error was in favour of protection.

In expressing its outrage, the South African government forgets that it too may have erred in its obligation to protect refugees. By failing to properly recognise and respond to the plight of Zimbabweans in South Africa, the government has placed hundreds of thousands of lives at risk. — Dr Graeme Rodgers

I’m totally disgusted at the comments made by so-called white South Africans with regard to the irresponsible Brandon Huntley. Some whites say Huntley was just exercising his constitutional right. They ignore the fact that whatever Huntley told the Canadian officials painted so-called blacks as criminals. Our genetic sympathy as Africans is backfiring now.

There have been multiple attacks and killings by so-called whites on so-called blacks all over Mzanzi. People have been ‘mistakenly” shot because somebody thought they were dogs, baboons or vultures. Huntley didn’t tell that to the Canadians.

Let me call on all so-called whites in South Africa to shape up or ship out, without making a noise, if they feel uncomfortable in Africa. Australia, Canada and other countries are waiting for you. I use the phrases ‘so-called whites” and ‘so-called blacks” because I believe we have only Africans and Europeans, together with Asian descendants, in this country. I don’t subscribe to this degrading paranoia that refers to some as whites and others as blacks. I’m an African and not a black person. — Mapo-Phaahle wa Mokoena, GaMasemola

With regard to Brandon Huntley, if the silly chap had just quietly gone about his business and been granted refugee status without making a song and dance about it, we would be none the wiser.

Is it fair for him to say that he has been targeted by criminals? I believe it is. We all are. Let me list the crimes my immediate circle of friends and family and I have experienced in the past six years:

I have been burgled in my flat three times. A colleague and his family were held up, tied up and robbed at home. Two female friends were attacked by knife-wielding men in their homes. My sister, her two-year-old daughter and father-in-law were held up in their car by a gunman. I have had three cars stolen in the past 10 years. An elderly couple were pistol-whipped and robbed on their farm. Another elderly couple were tied up, threatened and robbed in their home in Johannesburg. There was an attempted robbery at a friend’s house. I witnessed a mid-morning mugging on the street outside my flat. A friend was robbed, at gunpoint, of his business’s weekend takings.

Most of the victims on this list happened to be white and all of the known perpetrators happened to be black. Not one of the above cases resulted in an arrest, let alone prosecution.

Instead of bitching about some arbitrary whitey exaggerating in order to live elsewhere, why don’t those who are getting their knickers in a bunch do something about crime? — John Reunert, Green Point

Breastfeeding needs broad view

The article ‘Professors provoke breastfeeding outrage” (August 21) contains a number of unsubstantiated and false claims which — given their implications for thousands of women and infants throughout South Africa — must be carefully addressed.

The article describes a recent Lancet paper (by Coutsoudis et al) that advocates breastfeeding to protect child health. The authors recommend that government clinics stop providing free formula to HIV-positive women. They make this recommendation based on the fact that formula feeding — when not practised appropriately — can have disastrous effects, with more babies dying from diarrhoea than from HIV. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has therefore established five criteria under which formula feeding is recommended. Providing free formula satisfies only one of these criteria (affordability), and this is not enough to render formula feeding safe. Beyond this, free formula in clinics is by no means guaranteed, as clinics very often run out. Provision of free formula — often seen as an endorsement from the clinic — unfairly biases women towards believing that it is affordable and the best choice.

Additionally, the article suggests that exclusive breastfeeding — the recommended alternative to formula feeding, for it reduces HIV transmission while still protecting child health — is not feasible because ‘it is not the cultural norm”. While true that it is not the cultural norm and that it requires significant commitment and support, much evidence has demonstrated that — when supported — exclusive breastfeeding is indeed possible.

Yet perhaps the most problematic claim is that advocating exclusive breastfeeding means settling for lower standards for certain people. It is true that HIV-positive women in resource-rich settings almost invariably use formula, as this is the only absolute means of preventing HIV transmission after birth. However, in resource-poor settings where the WHO criteria are not met, the risks of not breastfeeding and the hazards of formula feeding outweigh the risk of HIV transmission through breastfeeding.

Given constraints on resources — the result of global inequities that must be addressed urgently — this issue must be approached from both ends of the spectrum: long-term efforts towards empowerment and development, but also interventions that are applicable in the current situation. Exclusive breastfeeding is intended to ensure the lowest possible rate of HIV-transmission while being feasible within existing socioeconomic conditions.

Furthermore, researchers continue to pioneer strategies to make breastfeeding even safer for HIV-positive women, such as heat-treating expressed breast milk to inactivate the virus while maintaining the milk’s properties.

Ultimately, what is at stake is the health of thousands of infants, women and communities across South Africa, and their interests must remain at the forefront as we work towards greater well-being for all. — Alissa Petrites, Durban

‘Reporter withheld facts’

In her article about Cosatu and Offshore Fishing Company (‘Careful what you fish for, Cosatu”, September 4), Yolandi Groenewald deliberately withheld information so she could make false allegations that Offshore has ‘paper quotas”. If Offshore owns a vessel, how can it have a ‘paper quota”?

Manuel Martinez-Martinez was employed by our company after full disclosure on his part about his previous activities related to the Scorpions. In the past three years that we have worked with him we have had no problems from the fishing authorities. In any case, we ensure that we meet the permit conditions. The reporter was surely aware that Martinez-Martinez was convicted and has been clean for six years.

Groenewald sent a message to me saying she would include my comments, but instead she states I did not respond. Should I have been at her beck and call and responded in the limited time she gave me?

I am of the opinion that by the time she phoned me at my office at 10am and sent an SMS to me at 11.31am she had already sent the article for printing, because when I first got an opportunity to respond (at 3.59pm), she said it was too late to include my comment. — Lester Peteni, director, Offshore

M&G replies: We cited opinion to the effect that the Offshore fishing company was a ‘paper quota” operation, meaning it held fishing rights, but did not own a vessel. That view was based on research conducted by the Institute for Security Studies, and the opinions of fishing-industry players. The research was conducted at a time when Offshore did not own its own vessel, and a Spanish boat operated by convicted poacher Manuel Martinez-Martinez fished on its quota. Offshore has since purchased and insured that vessel, Eyodidi, and can no longer strictly be classified as a ‘paper quota” company. Martinez-Martinez operated the vessel on a management-contract basis until the end of July. We regret the confusion.

White skin, my foot!

Andile Mngxitama, I have just read your piece ‘The Alcock versus Hlophe Awards” (August 28). Your excitement with race war is disturbing. Your aside, ‘Zimbabwe is destroyed because Robert Mugabe thought he could touch the sacred white skin and get away with it”, suggests that you are an addict of fascist propaganda.

Come off it, Bra Andile. My skin is blacker than any object you could imagine and it is no less ‘sacred” than anyone else’s, so that touching it (whatever that means) would make a lot of difference to the welfare of the human race!

Apart from that, your explanation of ‘why Zimbabwe is destroyed” is patently false. How many thousands of black people must be murdered, raped, tortured, starved, displaced, battered and impoverished before you recognise the colonial racist in your black idol? Is it part of your racial jihad to rig elections and enslave fellow Africans? And what does that have to do with ‘touching sacred white skins”? If you don’t know the truth, rather than denying it, try shutting up. — Chimbwa Mupengo

It is sad that Jacob Zuma has put a lid on the racism debate. He feels there is no need for the nation to talk about this demon. I beg to differ. Our country is sitting on a time bomb: if we don’t honestly deal with racism, a racial bloodbath may erupt. — Thabile Mange

Vision for the future

Alexandra Roberta van Esche (letters page, September4) responded to my article ‘We celebrate otherness today” by seeing what was not there. Nowhere did I comment on Caster Semenya’s sexuality. I wrote about the inconsistency of celebrating difference in the case of a superstar while persecuting other forms of difference. I used homophobia towards lesbians as an example. It would be flattering to think my thoughts are unique, as Van Esche implies, but Mark Gevisser, in an independent article in the Sunday Times, raised very similar discomforts. The way the news works, Ms van Esche, is that it not only echoes the sentiments of the moment, but questions the vision for the future. — Colleen Lowe Morna

In brief

Like some modern-day Puck, Moammar Gadaffi seems determined to establish his role on the world stage as stirrer-in-chief. Not content with embarrassing the British government with revelations about the al-Megrahi release, and offending everyone by inviting a war-crimes suspect and Somali pirate to his 40th anniversary celebrations, he has also managed to offend the Moroccans. At the African Union summit he spoke of the need for self-determination for the Saharawi people of Western Sahara, a territory occupied illegally by Morocco for 34 years. — Stefan Simanowitz

It is unfortunate that Eskom has spent more than a decade dreaming up reasons why renewable energy is ‘unsuitable” for electricity generation in South Africa — there is not enough wind, renewable energies are too expensive, renewable energy cannot generate the capacity we need, electricity generation in South Africa cannot do without coal and nuclear technologies — Yet Mozambique, Angola, Kenya and Botswana have all secured funding for feasibility studies for renewable energies. Why is Eskom so unyielding? Perhaps there is too much wind — from MegaWatt Park, that is. — Craig Morrison

What a beautiful and positive Madam & Eve cartoon (September 4). It made my morning. Congratulations. — Sershan T Naidoo

Factual errors in article

I am a white African, and proud of it!

As a white African and a South African citizen, I really take umbrage at so much of what Mapo-Phaahle wa Mokoena has had to say in his letter about the Brandon Huntley case.

For starters, I am an actual white (not a ”so-called white”) and I am an African (not a European) since I, and my ancestors, going back many generations, were born in Africa. In fact, going back even further in history, the entire population of the world is descended from the SAN people of Southern Africa! Hence, we are all Africans!

As a South African citizen I am as entitled as any other South AFRICAN, of any colour, to state my opinion and I resent the fact that white South AFRICANS are constantly being told to shape up and shut up or ship out. I believe it would be infinitely more constructive for me to remain in the country that I love and try to be part of the solution in rebuilding our divided nation. I will not be able to do that if I’m not permitted to contribute to the reconstruction, or the debate on how we can improve our society.

As far as Brandon Huntley is concerned, he is equally entitled to formulate his own views and make his own choices, even if I or others’ don’t agree with them. Unfortunately, I can certainly relate to his perception of not being safe in our crime-ridden society, although I think the causes are rooted in the lack of adequate education and economic opportunity, and not because whites are being targeted by black criminals.

Every race group in South Africa is subjected to the scourge of crime. Furthermore, given that black people form the largest population group in our country, it is statistically probable that the majority of perpetrators of crime will come from that population group, even before taking into account contributing factors such as poverty.

I am a white African, and proud of it! I am not going to shut up or be chased out of my own country simply because I happen to have a white skin. I’m going to stay, have my say, and make my contribution to our society. I don’t believe that South Africa will benefit from the exclusion or expulsion of whites from the debate, or from the country.– H. Scholz, Rivonia