Some people itching to see the ANC fail in government

BARNEY Mthombothi’s piece, “The ANC’s good story, sadly, does not tell the whole truth” (May 4), was most disappointing. Mthombothi gives the impression that the voting by “South Africans of all colours” 20 years ago was what the struggle was for.

Neither in 1912 nor in 1944 was it the national liberation struggle’s main objective to get South Africans of all colours to vote, especially since whites had always voted in this country.

The struggle, from John Dube and Albert Luthuli to Nelson Mandela, has always been about self-determination for African people. Apartheid threatened to turn black people into animals or worse as it undermined our humanness as a race and as a people.

It is only right, now that we have triumphed, that we expose the devilish system that failed to achieve its cruel intentions. As a government system, apartheid was one of the most corrupt systems in the world.

Too many people in this country seem to suffer from short-term memory loss or are being deliberately selective when recounting our recent past.

Ever since the ANC took over the political reins of this country, there has been a group of people who have just been itching to see it fail.

These people have never allowed for the young state to make any mistakes, however small, which explains why every mistake it has made has been blown out of all proportion.

And when Mthombothi says that instead of democracy we have an “incompetent, corrupt and shameless kleptocracy”, he uses the exact words used by those people. — Bhungani ka Mzolo, Pretoria

Not state’s job to cater to king

‘CULTURAL village for reed dance to cost taxpayer a royal R300m” (May 4) refers.

King Goodwill Zwelithini is a Zulu king and not a South African monarch.

Twenty years into South Africa’s constitutional democracy, Zwelithini is imposed as a king of kings. This is a provocation, and the powers that be are stoking the embers of a tribal feud that the ANC sought to bury in 1912.

It is not the mission of the government to build a cultural village for Zwelithini. — A proud Thembu of the royal house of Ceduma, by SMS

Zumaville raises doubts

‘ZUMA wants R2bn town in his back yard” (May 4) calls for a serious question: Is the president the leader for the country or only for a region?

Surely it is not up to the president to decide which areas should be improved? Or are these ideas of Jacob Zuma a diversion from the Nkandla saga?

About 70 000 people could have had their lives improved through houses with the money spent on the president’s extravaganza.

In a multiracial society, an ideal leader should not be aligned with or be seen to cater for sections of the population. Areas, race, religion and ethnicity should be of no consequence.

We should not be fooled by the display of ignorance by the president. He proved to be quite capable as head of the ANC intelligence in exile.

Therefore, the continued display of being an innocent, unsuspecting victim of an unwanted upgrade is pathetic. Zuma is well versed in security and intelligence matters and is playing a strategic game with the acceptance of the ANC’s national executive committee.— Erwin Schwentzek, by e-mail

Brilliant grasp of world in flux

LARRY Summers left me in awe with his brilliant and wise “Will 2014 be the world’s new 1914?” (May 4).

Those of you with channels to people in power, please transcend our natural inclination to be passive bystanders on history’s dangerous international and national roads.

And should you be a teacher, please let the wisdom of Summers be discussed in your class. Stretch those young minds to understand how we should be involved in this world that’s forever in flux. — Wim van der Walt, Bellville

My heart’s broken, by George

‘FAREWELL, Mr Fantasy: you had the whole world in your hands” (May 4) refers.

My darling Mr Clooney. After holding out all these years, he’s broken my heart. He’s gone and done a Warren Beatty and found his Annette Bening — and it’s not me. — Barbara Andrews, Lakeside

Bus branding will cost Siemens

‘ROW over ANC’s school-bus grab” (May 4) refers. I am just an ordinary taxpayer. But if I see party adverts on a sponsored bus, I will be careful where I spend my money — and that starts with Siemens. — Ian, by SMS

Syria clouded in claims

REGARDING “Assad’s yellow clouds of doom” (May 4), many now understand why certain international key players would like the world to believe this.

After all, it worked with destabilising Iraq.

If accusations of chemical weapons and weapons of mass destruction toppled Saddam Hussein, perhaps it may happen in Syria as well?

Foreign-funded rebels overthrew a democratically elected government in Egypt, resulting in chaos — perhaps the desired outcome.

Countries wishing for peace in the Middle East favour engagement, diplomacy and negotiation with fairness rather than threats and warmongering by players with vested interests. — Shirin, by e-mail

Mourning at a rally?

WHAT was Winnie Madikizela-Mandela doing at the Bekkersdal rally if she is in mourning, as reported in “Winnie in Bekkersdal, but others do the talking” (May 4)? — Richard, Rockville

Don’t chide Hout Bay on crime

FROM 1 500km away, Johannes Vogel of Johannesburg condescendingly lectures Hout Bay residents about crime in the area, as depicted in Gordon Clark’s much publicised documentary (Letters, May 4).

Crime is unacceptably high throughout South Africa, but Hout Bay certainly doesn’t stand out as significantly worse than other areas of Cape Town. According to official crime statistics, Hout Bay suffered 143 robberies with aggravating circumstances and 620 residential burglaries in 2013, which is not out of line with other large policing precincts in the southern suburbs such as Wynberg (166 and 501) and Claremont (156 and 664).

Of course, all these figures are bad, but one would perhaps have expected Hout Bay to be worse than the other two because the precinct includes the largely informal settlement of Imizamo Yethu, which has almost as many residents as the rest of Hout Bay combined.

For Vogel to insinuate that white residents of Hout Bay are only concerned with their property values and do little to engage with the poor of Imizamo Yethu is insulting.

There are numerous initiatives to uplift and help the communities of both Imizamo Yethu and the harbour settlement of Hangberg, from the privately funded volunteer service attending to medical emergencies every weekend to the activities of the Lions and Rotary clubs and many individual residents in mentoring students, assisting at local clinics, helping the aged and disabled, working at the drug rehabilitation centre, repairing wheelchairs, and so on.

I doubt there are many other communities in South Africa in which the better-off residents commit as much of their time and money to assisting their less fortunate neighbours.

As for the documentary, and as much as I have deep sympathy for the victims of crime featured in it, the fact that it was bankrolled by a company selling a security product should alert any viewer to expect a production laced with exaggeration and scaremongering.

One would expect the same were a pothole repair company to sponsor a documentary about the state of the roads in Johannesburg. — William Bowler, Hout Bay

Graft robs poor of a better life

I HAVE never felt such anger in my life. When I was involved with prayer meetings for elections in 1994, I was praying for the lives of people, especially in rural areas, to improve, for schools in the rural areas to have proper facilities. I am talking about basic things like toilets.

Unfortunately, through corruption, that remains an unanswered prayer. Money is wasted by civil servants who are involved in tenders. May God help our beautiful country. — S’boniso, by SMS

Picking on white mine owners

‘NOT the SA I want to live in — and I’m one of the lucky ones” (April 27) by Jan Bornman is of great interest. Although one must agree with him that the current democratic situation we experience in South Africa is demonstrably failing, as he clearly illustrates, he appears to miss the whole purpose of democracy.

He confuses it with economic upliftment, but even on the economic side he is confused. Why refer to mine owners as “mostly white” when Aurora and others are all black? Incidentally, Aurora doesn’t pay its workers at all.

The rand exchange rate, effectively the share price of the country, has collapsed. Mismanagement of the economy and the country is the cause, not “white mine owners”.— Barry Steinberg, Marina da Gama