A summary of events, via Facebook. I can’t authenticate but it seems reasonable enough.
FROM CLEM SUNTER:
Dear friends,
Many of you outside of South Africa are wondering what is really going on. So here is a very simple outline. The thing is obviously far more complex and nuanced than can be set out in a brief note but this will give you some picture of what is really happening.
Following the 1994 democratic elections in South Africa, South Africa did really well economically until about 2008. That was also the year that Jacob Zuma was elected president of the ANC. At that point in time, some of us had a sense of disquiet already. But little did any of us understand then the extent of the corruption and weakening of government institutions that would follow. We have no clear idea of the extent of what was stolen during the Jacob Zuma years, other than that it is a stupendous sum of money which this country certainly cannot afford. Eventually however the internal tide within the ANC started to slowly turn against Jacob Zuma. On 18 December 2017 Cyril Ramaphosa was elected as the president of the ANC (and also subsequently became the president of South Africa). But it was a very narrow margin of victory.
The thing about Cyril Ramaphosa is that he is fundamentally a principled man. And certainly, determined to clean up the history of corruption we have seen since 2008. Various steps have been taken by him and the ANC under his guidance to give effect to this. One of the things that was done was to establish a commission chaired by Raymond Zondo, who is the Deputy Chief Justice of South Africa. The purpose of this commission was to investigate the corruption issues and to expose them to the light of day.
Jacob Zuma was required to appear in front of the commission. He effectively refused to do so. He was ordered by the Constitutional Court to do so. He defied the order of the Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court in turn ordered his imprisonment for a period of 15 months for contempt of court. This, whatever you call it, is fundamentally the rule of law in action.
Initially there was resistance to imprisonment by Jacob Zuma and his supporters. A week ago, however Jacob Zuma submitted himself to imprisonment. And then all hell broke loose.
What you need to understand is that Jacob Zuma has his powerbase in KwaZulu Natal, where the riots have been at their worst. This is also, as the name will tell you, the home territory of the Zulu nation. And Jacob Zuma is a prominent figure in the Zulu nation. Within the Jacob Zuma camp, individuals set about instigating the so-called protests, riots and looting that you have seen in the media. To a significant extent they leveraged the problems of poverty and inequality in South Africa to achieve their ends. Very often in this country we have areas where many very poor people are resident adjacent to commercial complexes. This was an ideal combination to exploit. In addition to that there are the existing fissures along race lines that exist in our society which were also available to leverage. Audio files doing the rounds encouraged people to attack and destroy what are perceived to be white and white owned businesses. In the end though, many black business people also suffered considerable losses.
The game plan was to create a situation which would force the hand of the current government. Ideally, it would result in an overreaction by the security forces, with the result that many of the poor and vulnerable would be killed (which is what happened at Marikana a few years back). If that occurred, it would likely force the resignation or removal of Cyril Ramaphosa as president. Meaning the Jacob Zuma camp would have achieved their objective. This is one reason why the security forces have been so careful not to use excessive force in dealing with the riots and the looters.
While there is still a lot of instability in KwaZulu Natal and certain pockets in Gauteng, what is now starting to emerge quite clearly is that the gambit by the Jacob Zuma camp has failed. South African society of all walks has turned its face against this insurrection. In effect, an attempted coup has failed.
South Africans are a strange nation in many ways. They argue and fight amongst themselves but when pushed to the edge, they always pull together for the common good. This has happened again and again over the decades.
This has been perhaps a necessary test of our democracy and of the rule of law. Make no mistake but that South Africa has many very real challenges. But South Africa will pass through this and will put the locust years behind it.
I pray that they are right, and South Africa will survive.
Huh? I thought he was describing the USA in 2020? The only difference being that the looting and riots in the USA achieved their purpose and principled man in the White House was deposed. And I also USED TO believe that the majority of Americans would come to their senses, pull together and VOTE for the right candidates and policies … but our FREE elections have been hijacked … and may never be honest and valid ever again. God Save S.Africa … because God has forsaken the USA.
God doesn’t save nations, God saves its people’s spirits.
The rest is up to them.
it does remind me of the USA, but what exactly is complexed and nuanced about basic tribalism after all? Thugs rule and be damned with the rule of law. Its an easy road to go down, not so easy to recover from.
Just out of curiosity, why is South Africa’s survival a good thing?
South Africa has certain deposits of certain metals that are used in the production of jet engines. During the Cold War, the Americans wanted easy access to those metals and to deny them to the Soviets.
Yes of course, but this does not mean that SA needs to remain a state. A wasteland with few protected enclaves may well be in the cards in the ling run.
Bullshit. SA is a corrupt shithole, worse now than under apartheid. I hope civilized people find safe refuge. I hope savages kill each other to the last one.
Have you heard how the taxi drivers association in Joburg is actively helping suppress looting, including returning looted goods and assisting police in apprehending looters?
Yes, much is corrupt in SA, but what if the decent people in SA don’t go along? Perhaps SA will show the world how to bypass corrupt elites, and crowdsource a return to peace and order?
Yes yes I heard about it. In the end it does not matter one bit. Different groups of incompetent black Marxists fighting over the scraps left after they have robbed whites and ruined their lives.
Burn baby burn.
COLON, and you know this HOW?
you been there, or just bullshitting as usual?
No unlike you I don’t subsidize foreign communist shitholes.
Hey did your mail order bride from Wuhan arrive yet or did she get cold feet after learning that in your age you still don’t own any property garbage boy?
The country will continue to be plundered as long as the ANC has control, Mandela, Zuma………same filth, different day. Seems to me Chretien was a big fan of the ANC, explains a lot.
+++++/\
yep….Liberals = CORRUPTION INC.
As for Africa on the Whole…its been slavery and conquest much of it Tribal based. Kinda like our so called “indigenous” folks…
Not sure I agree that this will fail, but if it does it will only be until the next time.
South Africa is in its death throes
Funny I don’t hear a lot about Mandela these days.
Stop with the fear porn: the imminent collapse hysteria has been around since the 1976 Soweto Uprising. This is nothing like the early 90s when KwaZulu was in a state of civil war where ironically Jacob Zuma brought peace by possible targeted assassination and the countrywide response to the assassination of Chris Hani before Easter 1993 which almost derailed negotiations.
I append some notes
This is the person being overlooked in current evenrs but very much at its heart.
She is Minister of COGTA, utterly obscure until Covid gave her emergency powers which often exceed those of the President, responsible for the lunacies of the first lockdown which were eventually amended after appeal to Supreme Court, but still in power and directly responsible for the employment of many Cubans displacing qualified South Africans in medical and technical fields. They are paid double as Cuban govt gets half their salary. As all are young single military age men are they her private army of unquestioned loyalty? How have Cuban events weakened her?
She was narrowly defeated in contest for Presidency so has support of almost half of the ANC.
She remains on good terms with her exhusband Jacob Zuma and in good standing with communist party. Her children I presume are participating in the plunder of assets.
She is doctrinaire, autocratic, power hungry…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nkosazana_Dlamini-Zuma
The Cuban crisis feeds into the resolution of the South African one, just as 1989 and communism ‘s collapse opened the door to a new constitution.
When the doctrines of “social justice” and the “social gospel” began infesting the church, the ANC was hailed as being an angelic horde descended from heaven. It was doing the work of Christ by slaying the white devils of apartheid and preaching “liberty to the captives”.
Nelson Mandela was elevated to almost being Christ’s half-brother.
Present-day South Africa is a result of such adulation. The clergy, and the churches it serves, has remained silent.
I used to work in South Africa post apartheid. I could tell the country was declining. I met many wonderful people both black and white. One of my favourite memories was in Koffiefontein where a small elderly Zulu man was helping me dress to go undergound in a mine. He spoke Afikaans but I could understand what he was telling me. He was close to God in the countryside and but found Him absent in the city like Johannesberg. He wanted to know if I was saved by Jesus Christ. He was genuinely concerned about me.
God bless South Africa and I pray for peace.
And I miss the Braais and Boerewors!
Will white South African farmers get their farms back?
Farming is hard when you’re dead.
Ramaphosa – an ANC pseudo Marxist ex trade union leader and “businessman” is worth $US450m or so, one of the richest men in SA. Does anybody really believe he is not just another corrupt black demagogue?
Ramaphosa is not part of the external ANC that headquartered in Zambia and ran itself along strict Stalinist line including “re-education “ and the odd disappearance. Their economic model was a fantasy constructed at Patrice Limumba University, Moscow and in Mbeki’s case University of Sussex. (I knew an economist who was tasked to cram them on market economy!)The internal opposition which practiced democracy within its ranks ie UDF and trade unions were familiar with how a modern economy worked and the necessity of capital wnich is why black leaders were rewarded with stock by white capital, in Ramaphosa’s case as a reward for keeping him out of government (he had been Mandela’s first choice as VP. When he was head of the mineworkers union he was a respected negotiator and understood the necessity of growing an economy. The internal opposition made the mistake of embracing the external ANC, few made it into government and many found themselves cultural attaches remote from power. Thirty years later I don’t think all have sold out.
Sounds like any urban democrat run district.
Ramaphosa says he’s a socialist – believe him!
Those who thought that in Ramaphosa the future of business was secured may be wrong. Despite his extensive involvement in business, he is a dedicated, deployed cadre of the African National Congress (ANC) in the classical Marxist-Leninist mould.
Forbes noted: ‘Although not a member of the South African Communist Party (SACP), Ramaphosa claimed that he was a committed socialist.’
Ramaphosa has certainly never referred to himself as a free marketeer or capitalist or ‘pro business’. Ramaphosa is a committed socialist and his Mandela Centenary Celebration speech made this abundantly clear.
Ramaphosa’s unabashed admiration of Mandela’s being cajoled into adopting an ideology that had been revealed as murderous and unsuccessful, is extraordinary.
Ramaphosa made no reference to the advice Mandela received from China at Davos, forty-odd years later, that a socialist economy would be a disaster.
Ramaphosa and some others in the ANC have said categorically that it would apply expropriation without compensation, ahead of the findings of the Consitutional Judicial Review Commission, which the ANC proposed, with success, in the National Assembly.
At the Mandela Centenary Celebration, former American President Barack Obama quoted Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jnr. and Abraham Lincoln. Ramaphosa quoted Karl Marx.
https://irr.org.za/media/ramaphosa-says-he2019s-a-socialist-2013-believe-him-rational-standard
At least they don’t have nuclear weapons anymore.
Someone posted a link yesterday to Farmlands, the documentary by Lauren Southern about the plight of white farmers in SA. So I watched it last night. Well done and it provides additional context, though it only looks at one aspect of the problem related the impact of violence, but does not delve into the political dynamic. You can find Farmlands on YouTube. Thanks to whoever posted that yesterday,
Farmlands:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_bDc7FfItk&t=207s
The latest interview from Southern and Ian Cameron in S.A.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fEVHx-m_YA&t=70s
Never mind all those stories about the rape and murder of farmers and their families, rapidly deteriorating infrastructure and now widespread rioting and looting. Everyone is pulling together for the common good.
The Dutch need to get their people out of SA and let nature run its course.
Name for me one black-run country that is a success.
Wakonda.
++++++++++++++/\ Chemble..!!!
LMAO…too true..!!
Never mind country, name one large prosperous majority black city.
The situation in South Africa is due to the sensibilities and character of the people that live within its borders.
The majority population are black Africans and they act in predictable ways, as they do in places where they might reside in large numbers outside of Africa, as in cities like New Orleans, Chicago, Detroit and other black majority cities in the USA (and of course elsewhere in the world).
The black folks engaging in the destruction and looting of property, in South Africa, need no excuse to do so. Crimes of opportunity by these fine folk is a constant threat to anyone who reside there.
The situation in South Africa circa 2021 is ample evidence that those that opposed Apartheid have chosen this outcome. There were warnings. This collapse of a society is due to the efforts of anti-racists and equalitarians.
Every Liberal and Conservative in a Western Country that opposed Apartheid and supported the ANC take over of South Africa is responsible for forcing a nation of Afrikaners and English Settlers to relinquesh their country to their enemies.
Western countries will eventually burn next as they import the Third World without abate.
Bullshit!
It’s very simple: wherever the percentage of blacks surpasses a certain threshold, the place turns into a shithole.
Savages being savage.
Another take on SA: http://www.severnej.net/?p=952
RW Johnson *always* has the best takes on the RSA in general, and KZN in particular. This one is epic so I will quote it at length:
“The explosion of looting and destruction which has overtaken South Africa has left the government of President Cyril Ramaphosa shaken and dazed, its credibility and legitimacy undermined. Ramaphosa’s broadcasts to the nation, appealing for calm, full of cliches and generalities, have met with derision. Nobody doubts that South Africa has reached another Rubicon, one which the ANC (African National Congress) government may be unable to cross.
The explosion of violence followed the jailing of former President Jacob Zuma on a charge of contempt for refusing to appear before the Commission of enquiry into the wholesale looting of the state which took place under his presidency. Nobody seriously doubts that Zuma stole millions, probably billions of Rands and he still faces a long list of charges for racketeering, money-laundering and sundry other crimes. But Zuma still has a large following among his Zulu followers and effectively threatened to make the country ungovernable if the government dared to jail him.
Undoubtedly the rioting began as his followers sought to make good on this threat. Zandile Gumede, the former mayor of Durban, removed for gross corruption, undoubtedly played a key role as did former members of the state security services who played such a key role under Zuma’s presidency, together with other members of the Zuma faction which demands sweeping nationalisations and strong measures against “white monopoly capital.” Moreover, Zuma has always had strong connections into criminal networks and these have clearly been active too. (This combination of left wing views, corruption, and criminality can be found elsewhere in Africa too.)
However, once the rioting and looting of shops and hijacking of trucks on the highway began, with the police clearly scared and ineffective, word rapidly spread that you could go “shopping without money,” creating huge excitement among the ranks of the millions of poor and unemployed Zulus who inhabit the townships and squatter camps around Durban and Pietermaritzburg, and from there spreading into every small town of the province. Most of the looters and miscreants were unconcerned about Zuma’s fate. They simply heard along the grapevine that trouble was going on and realised that opportunity was staring them in the face.
They flocked in huge numbers to the shopping malls and began to loot them. Quickly the spree spread to Johannesburg, home to many more Zulus—though many others joined in. It was a whole-of-community thing: most of the looters were poor and on foot but not a few arrived in cars, sometimes very expensive cars. Some even came with vast trailers to haul away freezers, fridges, and cookers. Huge queues of cars swamped the freeways, all heading for the malls, and other forms of criminality blossomed—protection rackets, attacks on and thefts from other motorists, anything that offered a quick buck.
In a sense this had been coming for a long time. When the ANC was first elected in 1994 its posters promised “Jobs, jobs, jobs!” but paid little heed to that once they were elected. In 1995 the average number of unemployed, according to official figures, was 1,698,000 or, if one took the expanded definition of unemployment, including those who had given up looking for a job, the figure was 3,321,000. With only a few exceptional periods to the contrary, that figure has grown steadily and hugely to surpass 11.4 million today. Since the unemployed have little or no income, this has also meant a huge growth in both poverty and inequality. The ANC has routinely deplored poverty and inequality but it has generally tried to pretend that this is part of the “apartheid inheritance.” As the figures show, this is the opposite of the truth.
If you assume that each of those 11.4 million has two or three dependants, we are talking of households comprising 30 million people—half the entire population or even more. They are, for the most part, sitting in shacks, cold, hungry, without alcohol (banned as part of the COVID lockdown), insecure, with nothing to do and with almost no hope of a job. It is a picture of pure misery. These are the greatest victims of ANC misrule. Many of them are young people who have never worked in their life and who have given up hope that they ever will. For the young women among them prostitution is almost their only hope of an income. One looter, when interviewed on TV, frankly admitted that he stole every day because otherwise his 15 year old sister would “have to sleep with a grandad.” …..
“If people who are ignored and treated like this are told that the time has arrived for shopping without money, how can one be surprised that they respond in such numbers and with such enthusiasm? That sort of shopping is fun and exciting and you end up with food, drink, and a new TV. What’s not to like? Compared to that, Ramaphosa’s “appeals for calm” or little lectures about the rule of law are thin gruel indeed.
But among the mass of looters are more sinister elements. Criminals naturally flourish in such an environment, either organizing massive heists of goods or using the mayhem as cover for other crimes. But there are also clearly political elements trying to make the country ungovernable by attacking key pieces of infrastructure—there have been attacks on reservoirs, over 120 attacks on electricity sub-stations, and the road leading to the Sapref refinery in Durban (which produces one third of all South Africa’s petrol) has become so dangerous due to continuous attacks on vehicles that the refinery has had to close down completely. Already there are huge queues at garages and a major fuel crisis is building. Moreover, as soon as a shop, warehouse, or factory has been looted it is set on fire. None of these crimes produce money and the destruction of such buildings is bound to cost jobs and lead to many more people going hungry in future.” …..
“With the forces of law and order so weak and inactive, vigilante militias have sprung up to protect many suburbs and, typically, to protect their local mall or supermarket on which that suburb depends. Often these vigilante groups are multiracial but usually they depend on white ex-members of the security forces. They are armed and determined to stop looting spreading to their homes. Most of South Africa’s Indian population lives in or around Durban and they have strong memories of the 1949 riots in which Zulus killed hundreds of Indians—for there is much ill-feeling between the two groups.
This time the Indians saw trouble coming when others didn’t, and the Indian township of Phoenix (where Gandhi once lived) is armed to the teeth. But the little Indian settlements to the north of Durban are more vulnerable. Verulam, for example, has been all but destroyed and the Indian community, having lost all its shops, has retreated to the Indian suburb of Everest Heights and forbidden Africans to set foot there. Vigilantes with guns, knives, and axes patrol the streets. I have seen pictures of the Africans who attacked one home there and were hacked open with axes.” …..
“As usual in such a crisis there is a huge national hunger for a strong man who will restore order with a firm hand. But Ramaphosa is weak, talks in generalities, and is very slow to act. In most African countries such a large demonstration of the government’s weakness and lack of resolve would result in a military coup but South Africa’s army has been cut to the bone and is probably not up to anything so ambitious. So, as usual in South Africa, some sort of normality will doubtless resume, ministers will return to their venal ways and there will be a pretence that things are alright again.
But they won’t be. The poor and unemployed have demonstrated that their patience is limited and that they are a keg of dynamite waiting to go off. The outlook is for terrible crises of hunger, and shortages of fuel and medical supplies. A great deal of social infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed—some 400 malls were attacked, including many pharmacies. The ANC is more divided than ever and the economy has taken an enormous blow. Without doubt real incomes will continue to fall.”
Lots more at the link
https://quillette.com/2021/07/16/why-violence-and-looting-has-exploded-across-south-africa/
Then the support for secessio of the Western Cape is now in majority territory. I think that will be the logical outcome: the return of the tribal fiefdoms in the North that existed long before South Africa was a Union in 1910. And the Cape Colony reimagined and reborn as something completely new …