Pastor must answer for deaths
IT WAS with great interest that I compared the stories on pages 1 and 2 of The Mercury, September 14. One story is about the beatification of the first South African martyr, Benedict Daswa. The other concerns the remembrance day of the victims of the collapse of the guest house of The Synagogue, Church of all Nations, in Nigeria.
It read “Martyrs of Faith”. My understanding of the word martyr is that it means a person who is killed because of their religious beliefs.
If that is so, then Daswa, who was killed 25 years ago for refusing to join his community in consulting a traditional healer, which would have been against his Roman Catholic faith, is such a martyr.
However, there hasn’t been a clear determination of what happened to the people who died in Nigeria on September 9 last year, among whom were 85 South Africans. By calling them martyrs and celebrating their death, are Pastor R B Joshua and his church admitting the murder of 116 people?
I also have heard many reports about what this pastor has done for the South African victims’ families. From taking them on all-expensespaid holidays abroad to giving them money and gifts.
Where were the other 31 people from, and what has he done for them? I cannot help but wonder if he is giving them money and gifts to prevent them from insisting that the building’s collapse be investigated.
Often, if no one pressures the authorities to investigate, then the matter disappears. The South African government cannot make the Nigerian pastor account for the deaths – only the victims of the families can do this.
I am keen to see how the matter will end. THOLAKELE CHARMAIN SHANDU
Berea
Time to get rid of all dangerous weapons
CENTRISM can be described as finding common-sense solutions to challenges. When it comes to fighting crime, I find it strange that security specialists in the country have not insisted that a total ban on firearms and any other dangerous weapons be implemented at all times.
This will make it extremely difficult for criminals to operate. The ban must be imposed by police every day until the situation is normalised and it must be followed by imposing ridiculous sentences when found in one’s possession.
If necessary the military, who are currently not engaged in fighting, could be used to eradicate these weapons from our society. There should be no reason for citizens to carry dangerous weapons at any time. MARK VAN WYK
Glenmore
Parents have gall to sue over goring
FOLLOWING a report last week concerning SANParks being sued by a family whose daughter was gored by a bushbuck in the Kruger National Park (the event concerned occurred as far back as 2011), I have the following comments to make: I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous.
These people go into a game park where they should be wary of all animals, no matter how tame they seem.
The mother said, “The camp management had a duty of care towards its visitors to ensure wild animals are kept away from visitors.”
Surely the parents have the responsibility to ensure their children are kept away from park animals, as it is their habitat after all. There are usually notices to this effect in the parks. And this family has certainly taken its time in deciding to sue. DI COOPER Cape Town
Sport was and is a great vehicle for unity
THE debate around representative sport is nothing new.
Thirty-one years ago, as a young diplomat, I arranged a tour of the SA Barbarians to Germany with the aim of inspiring integrated sport in South Africa.
I requested the progressivethinking Dr Danie Craven, the president of the SA Rugby Union at the time, to send a team consisting of seven white, seven black and seven coloured players.
This did of course not reflect the reality of sport in South Africa at the time, but my aim was to use the tour as an incentive for the integration of sport.
The German opposition parties tried to stop the tour, but the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee debated the tour successfully in Parliament, based on the compilation of the team and its incentive to integrate sport in South Africa.
At the welcoming cocktail at the SA embassy in Bonn, a burly prop forward told me the team was “too black”. In a heated discussion with him, I pointed out the importance of integrated sport, not only with a view to international participation, but also for the future of our country.
He shared a room with a black player during the tour and had a completely different mindset at the end of it.
We have come a long way since then. Sport remains one of the best vehicles to change hearts and minds and to unite our nation because of our passion for it.
That passion could, however, also be used in a destructive manner if not handled with wisdom.
Madiba understood like no one else how to unite our nation through sport with a non-confrontational “carrot-and-stick” approach. Let us use sport as a unifying rather than divisive force and start by uniting behind the Bokke in this year’s Rugby World Cup. DAWIE JACOBS
Pretoria THERE are times when compliments are nice. An appreciative remark about a new hairdo from someone you know and like can, for a brief moment, make you walk just that little bit taller.
But there are other times when a compliment can put a dent in your day.
In the wrong environment, it can be undermining and embarrassing, which is the very opposite of nice.
It happened to me last year when a male colleague told me I looked well, which sounds innocuous enough, but what he actually said, in a small office in which we were alone, was, “Wow, you look well. Really well. Seriously, you look great,” while giving me the up and down with his eyes, at which point my discomfort was such that I was ready to throw myself out of the window.
And yet there he was, in his cackhanded way, trying to pay me a compliment.
In the case of Charlotte Proudman, the barrister who publicly
We have moved on from the days when men could stare down a secretary’s cleavage or request, with impunity, that they bend over and pick up pencils.
called out a senior lawyer, Alexander Carter-Silk, after he messaged her on LinkedIn commenting on her “stunning” profile picture, the feelings prompted were probably less to do with actual discomfort than annoyance (this isn’t the first time a colleague has commented on her physical attributes).
Proudman has since been monstered on social media and by a national newspaper which, in judging her response to Carter-Silk to be disproportionate, provided its own very measured reaction by calling her a “feminazi” on the front page two days running.
So when, if ever, is it okay to compliment a colleague?
There are occasions when it wouldn’t seem unreasonable – the office fancy-dress party when they arrive in Lady Gaga’s meat dress, say.
Happily, society has moved on since the days when men could stare down a secretary’s cleavage or request with impunity that they bend over and pick up pencils off the floor, and it’s for this reason that personal comments in the workplace are generally frowned upon. This is called progress. And yet, in these relatively enlightened times, women are still objectified, marginalised and disrespected in the office (just read the chapter on working women in Laura Bates’s Everyday Sexism), a place where many must also endure the insult of being paid less than male counterparts.
Holding fire on personal comments is about equality, but it’s also about not being an idiot – something, of course, to be heeded by women as much as men.
I met my husband years ago while working in the offices of a newspaper and he never once sent me leering e-mails or sidled up to me next to the photocopier to comment on my looks, because that would have been gross and it would have been impossible to become friends, let alone anything more, in such circumstances.
Like all human interaction, it’s about context and power.
Compliments can be lovely, but there’s a time and a place for them.
The workplace is neither. – The Independent on Sunday