OPINIONS

THEY DON'T MAKE JEWS LIKE JESUS CHRIST ANYMORE
One afternoon me and my highly intelligent friends we were doing an analysis of what is wrong with science as opposed to history, common sense or just plain human reasoning. We picked a few pointers that exposed the futility of our current belief systems. Especially when they have to find common ground with proof based scientific evidence. Everything seems to be benchmarked on scientific methods of proof.

With science, everything that they cannot prove using their own manufactured formulas is dismissed as unreal. The question should be, 'who the fuck do scientists think they are?' Island Def Jam recording artist Jay Z rapped in his Blueprint album, "It ain't real to me therefore it doesn't exist". Narrow scientific interpretation of reality or overzealous and overplaying of God the creator's role? Here ars some of the incidents that scientists are still trying to find a formula to their reality;

* Thando says scientist will tell you Jesus Christ never walked on sea because Isaac Newton's law of gravity defies such a miracle. The question should be, what were people believing in before 1727 when Newton finally died and his theories were embraced as fact? Is Newton's law of gravity so absolute that he couldn't have been wrong on this one? How does one merge Newton's theory with telekenisis and the upheaval seen with deep meditation, especially amongst yoga practitioners? Those folks leave the mat for real irrespective of gravitational force.

You tell scientists that Jesus Christ made beer out of water and the next thing they tell you that it's only through fermentation or distillation that such can be achieved. You push your argument further and tell them that Jesus died, ressurected and ascended to heaven they ask you where did he leave the human body that poet Lebogang Mashile claims to have smoked a spliff with. Only humans can smoke spliffs and Mashile knows exactly where her JC is, maybe we should ask her where they met and what brand of marihuana did they spark, Swazi (velvet) or Durban Pioson (purple haze).

Further on; you tell them Jonah was swallowed by a shark when he tried to drift from his mandate to preach to the people of Niniveh they make the fish 'that can swallow', a whale, before dismissing the whole Jonah story as a fable. Why, because scientifically it can't be proven and there's no precedence. But isn't it what they call magic?
Scientists even protest that Moses split the Red Sea because that disputes Isaac Newton's theory of gravity.

You might start asking what does all that I have mentioned got to do with the quality of the Jew churned out by the Hebrew vending machine these days? Albert Einstein, that smart little refugee set the benchmark for the future interrogation of the physical universe by introducing his theory of relativity. Einstein devoted so much time from the comfort of the Swiss Patent Office to research after he was rejected for a teaching post because he was a Jew.
Old IQ tests also indicate that the people most likely to score high are mostly Jews. These descendants of Shem have been rumoured to possess double digits IQs. I refuse to believe this because I know of smarter folks whose lineage can not be traced to Persia or Canaan. Thus while Einstein could have scored high, the chap who gunned down Yitzakh Rabin was way below. See, my point now?

I can complete a long list of storytellers like Mel Gibson and Francis Ford Coppola whose storytelling antics are as good as Steven Spielberg. Spike Lee and Quiton Tarantino obvioulsy would clock higher than David Cohen and Ben Kach. And is Rudolph Gulliani all that intelligent or is he exactly what people become when the cameras are on? More like those Cosby kids in Kids Say the Dumbest Things? A smart man wouldn't have expelled his enemy from his luncheon as the saying says 'keep your enemies close'. But Gulliani did the late Arafat once when he attended his fete in New York.

And, at the risk of sounding pompous, the last time I checked I was double digits as well, higher than my colleagues Mr Sinclair and Ms Zeffreit. So, people need to go against any rhetoric that blows life into the nostrils of the propaganda contained in The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. Such a spirit of entitlement should be stemmed from the hearts of the Jews as well. For example, there is a paragraph that states, ""God has granted to us, His Chosen People, the gift of dispersion, and from this, which appears to all eyes to be our weakness, has come forth all our strength, which has now brought us to the threshold of sovereignty over all the world."

The remarkable correspondence between these passages proves several things. It proves that the Learned Elders exist. It proves that Dr. Weizmann knows all about them. It proves that the desire for a "National Home" in Palestine is only camouflage and an infinitesimal part of the Jew's real object. It proves that the Jews of the world have no intention of settling in Palestine or any separate country, and that their annual prayer that they may all meet "Next Year in Jerusalem" is merely a piece of their characteristic make-believe. It also demonstrates that the Jews are now a world menace, and that the Aryan races will have to domicile them permanently out of Europe."

From where I am, I don't think any race can successfully claim monopoly to wisdom and intelligence, not even the Jews or the people who put together The Protocols. It's just impossible for you to know everything. Being an outstanding soccer player takes something in the brain of the athlete that not all of us has. We can't all be able to defend our goalposts against menacing Zenedine Zidane. On a good day Didier Drogba can beat any goalkeeper in the world. Rafael Nadal can outplay anyone on clay. Roger Federer is World Number One on grass. Floyd Mayweather can't be beaten in the ring. Robert Kelly is the pied piper of R&B. And Prince is a maestro beyond measure. Are we then saying because these guys did not invent oxygen or make beer out of water they don't have double digit IQs.

Jesus was extremely humble. During his treason trial he was asked by Pilate, "are you the king of the Jews?", he reportedly responded, " you yourself are saying it". That is not how Yitzak Shamir, Benyamin Netanyahu, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert would respond given their stress with being recognised as existing before loosening the grip on the welfare of millions of people.

However the current chaos in Israel and Palestine only emphasize this point. That an act by a group of men who represent Hamas and fire an Al-Qassam rocket over the border to Sderot and kill three Jews should be visited upon a flat housing 200 people just because one of the jihadists stayed there shows an obsession with leadership. That is an unnecessary show of force and lack of humility. What has happened to the lessons from the Good Samaritan? If people did unto others as they'll like them to do to them, we would have a peaceful Middle East. You can't have Palestinian refugees still in Lebanon thirty four years after a war ended. It is surprising, given their ancestry why the current crop of Jews find it so hard to be humble. They often than not fail to see the similarities between Ehud Olmert and Ronnie Kasrils and Alan Kolski Horwitz. The three men alone, in their different endevours for a 'better world' bear testimony to my original argument that they don't make Jews like Jesus Christ anymore. Can I get a witness?

Below, Rootgirl Oscarine comes forward to witness. READ ON

THEY DON'T MAKE JEWS LIKE JESUS CHRIST ANYMORE - PART II

One of the most tragic realities today is that modern Jews are still called in the name of archaic Jews back in the land of the Bible. The Bible, scripted - chaptered and versed words assert that even those who lived when humans beings still swam in sin knew about the Jew called Jesus Christ. However from where I come from, my own neighbourhood, where the only people I see are my kind very few accurately know what a modern day Jew is. It's unlike the Messiah who obviously needs no introduction. Given that modern Jews need serious introduction and definition, it shows that they don't make Jews like Jesus Christ anymore. Him having lived and died for all human beings irrespective of race and creed, Arabs, Palestinians and everybody else. When he died and suffered the humiliation of a torture stake it was to relieve us from painfully carrying our own stakes. He unilaterally did it for our redemption on our behalf.

But then it's painful noticing that the modern Jew loves across skin colour and belief. They classify each other according to bank balances, political affiliation irrespective of both the Bible and the Torah identifying such as an abomination against the Creator. At the rist of being a hypocrite some lifestyles like homosexuality have transceded beliefs and enclaves and are also embraced by the 'chosen people'. Jesus was very cynical about playing judge when it came to people's behaviour though as he told the scribes, "Let the one of you that is sinless be the first to throw a stone at her". That's when they brought a woman accused of being caught in the act of committing adultery. However Jews today are throwing stones at everybody, most notably at the Palestinians. Inside Judaism most sould get entrapped. Statistics assume that there are 13 million Jews in the world today, yet many of them, who reside out of Israel remain unknown to a lot of people trying to identify them. However the only refreshing consolation is the most famous Jew, Jesus Christ remains the popular one ever. Show me one person who doesn't know or has heard the story of the Man and I will show you a liar.

It is sad, almost funny but also cruelly dull that these JEWS who assert to be brainly liberated with an IQ that according to some cannot be equated whilst in the midst of their geniousness, generations are having their souls castrated by the lies they are forced to believe-those that die inside Judaism sin also go to hell. Jesus Christ did not gloat nor parade his intellectuality though he indeed was the most intelligent son of God and the Virgin Mary. show me a Jew that shall die inorder to save the souls of poor Black beings-you shall find none, but the Messiah died on that cross for us all. Think about it, digest it without swallowing. Jews today are discriminative, their bread is theirs alone, they are not in the business of finding lost sheeps, they rather let the ones they have grow fatter than leave them behind to find me or even you. They dare not waste their expensive time on one skinny looking sheep - but Jesus would do that for me. Jews, I bet my poetry on it, never am I only humbled by the courage of Jesus Christ, I am blessed and touched by his love and I shall call out his name forever. You see, no Jew shall get me to that place called home, only Christ is the door, so I am sticking to him - as far as Jews are concerned - I ain't concerned. There definitely can never be another Jew like Jesus Christ

TO COMMENT ON THIS SECOND ARTICLE EMAIL ROOTGIRL OSCARINE

DISCLAIMER: These articles are not meant as an attack on the intergrity of Jewish people. Nor are they meant to harbour anti-Semitic connotations. For what it's worth, if we could stage our own deaths we would like Spielberg to direct the acts so that we can win an Oscar (not Schindler) in the afterlife. Shalom.

PERSPECTIVE

"DE LA REY DE LA REY/ KAN JY DIE BOERE KOM LEI"


"De La Rey De La Rey/ can you come and lead the Boers", so goes one of the most intelligent song lyrics ever written by an Afrikan who is an Afrikaaner. Ek moet tyd maak om my Boere vriende te vra hoekom gebruik hulle twee 'a's' wanneer hulle Afrika(a)ner skryf, want ek het altyd gedink dat dit was mos Afrikaner met een 'a', of iemand wat in Afrika gebore is.

If you didn't understand what I wrote above, get yourself a Boer and start a translating team, because the Boers are going to need a lot of translation when some of the songs which have been made popular by darkies are interrogated in this post. Me, I'm on the advantage side want ek kan Engels, Afrikaans, isiZulu, isXhosa, seSotho, sePedi, sePulana, isiSwazi, isiNdebele, xiTsonga, tshiVenda, Tsotsitaal, Ebonics en bietjie Swahili, Portuguese, Arabic verstaan.

Okay back to the issue. "De La Rey, De La Rey/ can you come and lead the Boers". And then General De La Rey responded from the discomfort of a grave, "Bok my seun, ek is moeg, en ek sal nie weer luister nie, want ek het julle Viljoen gegee om julle te lei, maar wat het julle gedoen? Julle het vir hom nie gestem nie. Julle het die vyande van die Afrikaaner volk gekies".
A point that should not evade people suffering from Boerephobia is that they shouldn't try to dictate to the Afrikaner how to commemorate lost glory and celebrate great men like De La Rey. Darkies especially should always be careful not to try and subject whites to the same censorship bullshit they themselves hated so much to the point that they gave their own lives to defeat.

Bok van Blerk is a talented artist who has been to the bottom of the pit, that is if you make time to find out who Louis Pepler really is. A young artist whose rant of lost Boer glory exposes the deeprooted nostalgia suffered by many Afrikaners of true leadership in these times when Affirmative Action creates another Poor White Problem, a problem the former regime addressed with Afrikaner Affirmative Action which was called Job Reservation. Interesting enough van Blerk told DE KAT magazine that "all boys must report for one year mandatory military service after school". He did not segregate, or say that it should be Boere boys only but all boys. That's van Blerk the patriot talking to you, who sees the need for discipline amongst boys who we hope they one day will become men and take in their strides burning issues that make young Boere feel abandoned.

Just right there is something even the Minister of Arts and Culture Dr Pallo Jordan should interrogate, together with Minister of Defence Terror Lekota. The job reservation system within the Afrikaner-led regime was largely rewarding on them having completed three years military service which was enforced through conscription. Opponents of the draft like the famed End Conscription Campaigners argued that the conscripts of those years were used to fight liberation movements and were sent into townships to terrorise darkies. The soldiers of today are not used for such purposes but to help police arrest marihuana smokers. The question should be; is it too late to reintroduce the draft? Or are today's young boys smoking so much marihuana that if they became soldiers they would turn Lohatla (military training facility in Northern Cape) into a little Amsterdam?

Kasiekulture, the colour blind South Afrikan thinks this might help address the issue of Affirmative Action and the bullshit that comes with it. The law will state anyone anyone who has completed voluntary (not compulsory or mandatory as van Blerk suggested) military service will benefit from a Job Reservation scheme, irrespective of race. And right there De La Rey will stop shouting to the Boers to elect their own credible leader in the wake of the failure of Eugene Terre'blance and his Afrikaner Weerstand Beweging (AWB) to liberate the Afrikaner.

Afrikaners, I'm made to believe, dream, party and hope in Afrikaans. Which is fine because even Xhosas do the same things in their own language. Then why should it be considered wrong for the Afrikaner to praise sing, reminisce and evoke the spirit of an Afrikaner General who provided the kind of leadership to the burghers that General Constandt Viljoen tried to reincarnate in the '90s before being seduced by politics of multiracialism?

Rainbownationalism should not be used to grant exclusive rights to only celebrate Deities Shaka, Mhlaba, Soshangane, Mashego, Malele, Mathibela, Nongcause, Siqcau, Matanzima, Moshoeshoe, Sobhuza, Modjadji, Mzilikazi etc without allowing the Boers the right to remember folks like Gen Piet Retief, Andries Pretorius, Simon van der Stel and others.

Given the post-'94 political reality it is understood for the Afrikaner to be nostalgic about the type of leadership provided by Retief, Malan, van Zyl, Botha and many others. When Afrikaner aspirations are met with opportunistic ideals like Die Vaderland (exclusive to Afrikaners), Orania and the Boeremag terrorism the call for unity reflected through the beautiful lyrics of van Blerk should be applauded. To allege that the song might be hijacked for purposes of insurrection is to insult the intelligence of the Boer. "Kill the Boer kill the farmer" was never taken as a call to genocide by rational darkies when the late Peter Mokaba made it the ANC Youth League anthemn. "One settler One Bullet" only encouraged bunches of youths whose future looked dim to resort to political criminal activity. There are mad Boers correct, and like darkies, they are far in-between.

Analysis of the current crop of Afrikaner leaders indicate that they are qeueing to be cannon-fodder in an African National Congress/South African Communist Party/Congress of South African Trade Unions manned artillery piece pointed at Voortrekkerhoogte (Thaba Tshwane). That is why nothing was as intriguing as President Thabo Mbeki, in full knowledge of the partisan approach to the appointment of senior government officials and public servants, which results largely in the mass exodus of non-aligned professionals of all races to ply their trades overseas, went to Pieter Mulder of the FF+ and requested him to sound a call for the Afrikaner to come and help rebuild this country. Mulder went ahead and did as Mbeki requested.

Question is, while De La Rey was so good to conquered British commander Lord Methuen after the battle of Tweebosch would he have done it without first demanding that the Boers still resident in the republic be absorbed first before he could call those overseas to occupy vacant posts?

Boers later, very much later came to call English military recruits soutpiele (salty penis), I'm told by a reliable source. "They laughed at us and said we have one foot in Britain and one in South Afrika and out penises are sucking the salt of the Atlantic Ocean".

Given the current socio-political state of the Afrikaner (which it must be noted many are quite patriotic), is South Afrika reciprocating for their service to this country? Beyers Naude and Braam Fischer have facilities named after them, but they were too aligned. When will the Boer leaders who were not aligned to the ANC see equal glory for having contributed in small ways to the realisation of the ideal that makes it easy for van Blerk to sing and sell hundreds of albums without hooded security police knocking at his door in ungodly hours of the morning?

"The ANC, without prior consultation, proposes that names of towns, which have huge historical and emotional value for the Afrikaner, such as Pretoria, Potchefstroom and Lydenburg, unilaterally be changed. This then sends a strong message to the Afrikaner that their history and their heroes are not important, and are not being accommodated in South Africa,". FF+ leader Pieter Mulder told Mbeki last year. To which the president responded that he'll look into it with Dr Jordan. He even invited Mulder to visit him on the West Wing of the Union Buildings where he joked that Jan Van Riebeek is the first one to greet him every morning as he walks to his office.

Black Afrikans have got an age-old tradition called ukuphahla (appeasing the ancestors). If it is an Afrikan practise, maybe van Blerk is also doing it in his own way, speaking to the General who art in yonder. And if the black ancestor can respond to his kin, why can't De La Rey also respond, often 200 000 times more as he is called from a quarter million houses over braaivleis every weekend?

Maskandi music, which has its roots in Zulu tradition has got interesting lyrics which one of them was quoted by Sunday Times columnist Fred Khumalo in an article he wrote for The Media, "kwakukuhle kwaZulu, kubhincwa amabheshu, kulalwa emacansini kukuhle kunjeya, kwathi ngenxa yabamhlophe kwaphela kwathi nya! (ancient KwaZulu was divine; we wore our hide apparel, slept on our simple grass mats, oh so divine; but with the arrival of the white man it all disappeared!)"

Freedom of expression can not be exclusive to darkies who sing kwaito and hip-hop. Rapper Molemi has these interesting lines, "Bayethe Zwelinzima Vavi/ you the leader of the people we behind you/ march away Cosatu/ Make the multi-millionaire pay/ Brett Kebble money couldn't a billionaire save/ this is for the black worker in the field/ underground mining Goldfields/ Pat(rice) Motsepe rolling dollar bills/ Ka mo rona bare agela diRDP tse diwang/ building people houses that kill/ if wena o omong wa bare sokolang/down your tools now". Tomorrow one million workers might downing tools, do we hear anyone complaining about incitement? Hell no!

But some critics have already told us that the story of The Night Of Long Knives which circulated some few months ago was a result of De La Rey? Funny double standards hey? Arthur Mafokate had a song titled Kaffir. There are songs with the lines, "Senzeni na senzeni na/ senzeni na maAfrika/ sono sethu ubumnyama/ amabhunu ayizinja". Ask someone.

Maybe at the end of this De La Rey analysis one should look at what Serbian born Eurovision Song Contest winner Maria Serforic said when politicians started interfering with her freedom of expression, "I keep my hands off politics,and I expect the politicians to keep theirs off my music". Or maybe we all need De La Rey to lead us into a new Afrikan millenium.

And whether De La Rey responds to van Blerk or not, at the very end Aime Cesaire had a telling statement, "No race possesses the monopoly of beauty, intelligence, force, and there is room for all of us at the rendezvous of victory". Rest assured, once the General responds, everybody, irrespective of race will find reason to celebrate. We all need a De La Rey.

WATCH THE DE LA REY VIDEO

OPINION

STATISTICS DON'T LIE, BUT...

Whoever built the faith of our television makers in the use of text messages and emails as a means of communicating their feelings must have been created in 1994 or when cellphones were introduced as mainstream tools of communications after the military's monopolystic use of these mediums for many years. This is because every survey conducted by television stations using the text message (sms) or email as a barometre ends up being an untrue reflection of how 'real' people really feel. SABC 2 Morning Live's Leanne Mannas was mildly embarassed last year when she put it to Minister of Arts and Culture Dr Pallo Jordan that an email survey they conducted a day earlier showed that the majority of people did not support the renaming of Johannesburg International Airport to O.R.Tambo Airport. Jordan responded that the people who voted are not the majority of the people but the privileged few who own computers and have access to telephone lines and the internet. The majority of South Africans don't have access to such expensive mediums which means the country can't be held hostage by a privileged clique.

When SABC 3 tried to be smart some few years ago by inviting viewers to nominate the 100 Best South Africans (an idea they borrowed from the United Kingdoms) they were horribly surprised when the nominees topping the list were your Dr Hendriek Verwoed, Cecil John Rhodes, DF Malan, Jan Smuts and all the racists who made this country the ungovernable concept it is today. There was no mentioning of the great General De la Rey or his boss General Piet Cronje with whom they fought on the northern front during the Anglo-Boer War. Your envisaged Chief Albert Luthuli, Robert Sobukwe, Steve Biko, Johnson Mlambo, Dr Nelson Mandela, OR Tambo or Beyers Naude were bottom of the list or somewhere between top and bottom. Problem? The viewers who had access to the voting mechanisms (email and sms) were the privileged few who constitute a majority in their own fortresses. Well I have internet and a cellphone which makes me one of the majority. Imagine a 100 Best Zimbabweans list being topped by Ian Smith, Roy Bennet, Cecil John Rhodes, Morgan Tsvangirai, Oliver Mtukudzi, Mafume and no Robert Mugabe or Joshua Nkomo. Would that fly in Zim? It never did here. SABC 3 was forced to embarassingly pull off the show to avoid disappointment on the part of the partisan board. For sure Mugabe won't stress if Smith topped a list for 100 Best Rhodesians or 100 Best Colonisers.

Funny enough when the British ran theirs the list was made up of people they all valued, William Shakespeare, Winston Churchill, Margareth Thatcher, Richard Branson etc. BBC was right, the Brits have computers and cellphones in real majorities. This is once again not about black and white but Third and First World status.

The question should be; do television makers really think that whoever casts their electronic votes are a reflection of the South African public? Most of us don't take those competitions and surveys seriously. etv has been asking for some time who is the star that is stronger than superman. Everybody could see the person is Chuck Norris but very few people saw the reason why they should stress about it and waste a valuable sms.

etv's Third Degree conducted its survey after the Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqcakula's verbal diarrhea last year. The conclusion of the survey was forgone, it was meant as a stake to legitimately crucify him. If ever the majority went against the crucifixion, your guess is as good as mine, people would be accused of being anarchists as is the case every election year when people continue to put the African National Congress in power irrespective of its shortcomings. In the case of Nqcakula the majority of those who posted comments were not the real crime victim majority but the ones freshly initiated into the crime cycle. For example, Kanyamazane and Msogwaba (Mpumalanga) areas are Presidential nodes in relation to high crime rate and it has been that way for years, but did you hear anyone starting a website domained www.crimeexposouthafrica.co.za discouraging tourists to come here on 2010? No ways. Why? Maybe because the people have been so numbed by crime that it has become their way of life.

True, Nqcakula and his police are out of order because they only see crime when their own get killed, which means if none of them got killed in the line of duty us civilians don't matter and they won't clamp down on crime and arrest 500 suspects in one night as they did last year immediately after their own was shot and killed. But do we need television to redirect us to how we should feel by sending messages, not for free but at an expense? Can't you use that amount you deploy to send a text message to etv to call 10111 in the event of a real attack?
Another real joke was SABC 1's invitation for people to vote for their favourite continuity presenters by sms. Please, wasn't that cosmetic? Wasn't it a foregone idea that they will take the chap from Channel O to present in isiZulu? Correct me if I'm wrong. Same thing with Asikhulume's sms survey. Some critical smss don't end up in the show, and don't be fooled and send during the show because it will never get through. It nearly is the same with MTN Soccerzone but a little interesting fact is that with Soccerzone there are times when the sms gets through, how, nobody knows.

Finally it is the MNet's Big Brother. There are complaints that if you are a black contestant you either need to be ridiculous in behaviour for the majority decoder owners to keep you there. Well, I don't have a decoder and so I can't comment. They say that the majority will just vote for you to be evicted from the house because they don't like you, which then says the process is flawed because the world is not an animal farm and people are not equal, some have money for decoders while some don't, which means those without the money for decoders will never win Big Brother. But careful, we are talking about South Afrika where more than 2.5million darkies are said to be black diamonds, which means black middle class earning above R15000,00 per month. For sure they can afford decoders (they have them) but they hardly take the voting seriously.

Last year on Strickly Come Dancing, contestant Babalwa Mneno was so enraged that she was evicted from the show because she didn't get enough votes. She made the whole expulsion a race issue, arguing that blacks should have voted for her and we should support each other like whites. But, was her victory going to benefit anydarkie if not just herself?

Hasn't it worried you that the number of smss that you have to send in a day are too much as if they mattered? Blow by Blow, MTN Soccerzone, Tooning You, Rugga Live, SMS House, 35050 etc. Maybe televison makers did their research and found sense, or they are the ones who lack that sense. You send a few smss and be the judge. Remember, Statistics don't lie, but you can lie through statistics, ask the Holocaust Denialists,

PROFILE

ONCE UPON A TIME IN ZION

Shaft on the set of 90 Plein Street

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill would have described award winning film director Lehlohonolo "Shaft" Moropane as "a mystery wrapped inside an enigma". That wouldn’t have been far from the truth as Shaft, the township boy who played most of the sports that characterise township folk has evolved into exactly that.

From taking part in Shell Road to Fame as an aspiring singer, taking free train rides to college at AFDA to illegally sneaking into Rand Afrikaans University computer lab to write his film school assignments, Shaft’s life symbolizes an ultimate triumph of the human spirit, an against all odds mentality and a victory over adversity all catapulted into one. Today Shaft is home in Melville (below) where he is as busy as a bee. When it's time to reflect he always finds a way of going back to where it all started, Bushbuckridge. In Bushbuckridge Shaft becomes the guy who plays soccer with the non-ranked team at Serisha High School, exercises at makeshift gyms and still gets time to hang with the same crew he used to share his dreams with.

It's important; they say at the end of everybody's days they will need the people who were there in the beginning. The folks who knew them before the fame and the success. The ordinary boys who can look you in the eye and tell you when you are losing it. Shaft has kept that contact (below right).

Born 29 years ago into a large non-nuclear family, today Shaft likes to say he’s "the embodiment of the South African dream". Three years ago some of his friends used to call him "the 50 cent of the film industry".Around the same time Reel Times, Newsletter of the 25th Durban International Film Festival wrote, "Shaft Moropane is a yet-to-be-developed script about a young talent just unleashed". One wonders what they'll write now after his directing of Tsha-Tsha IV (Curious Pictures), 91 Plein Street and many other entertainment orientated programmes like Ses'khona and SAMA Awards. He has also directed scores of TV commercials, corporate videos and short films.

To realise his full potential Shaft was unleashed by his late grandfather who, out of love, freed then 19-year-old budding musician to go and discover himself in the Jo’burg glitz. Leaving a place like Bushbuckridge, where the repercussions of Verwoed’s experiment are reflected on the eyes of every resident wasn’t going to be easy. Jo’burg offered a promise, but even Shaft knew there were people in Jo’burg who were still queuing for their piece of the pie - worse, they arrived there fifteen years before him. He was however still determined not to get to the back of the line but to rise to the top like cream in a mug of cappuccino.

"Back in 1999 while in Dobsonville I was on my way to the library when I saw this place called Kopanong where they said they did music, which I had a fascination for. I went in and was told that the music teacher was away but could still audition for other arts. That afternoon I went for an interview with Tshepo Maswabi Lekgwale who later became my father figure. He believed I could make it as an actor" Shaft recalls.

Immediately after joining Dobsonville Arts Association he was casted as lead actor in Voices of the Conscience. He says he found himself performing at the Market Theatre during its annual arts festival. It was followed by supporting lead in The Promise. "Again we took the show to the Market Theatre and got excellent reviews" he fondly recalls.

The same year Shaft went to the annual Grahamstown Arts Festival to perform both plays. He smiles when he reminisces about that stage of his life and the reviews they got at the prestigious festival where only real stars shine. Grahamstown can be very hostile if you don't know your story. He later starred in many plays at different theatres, amongst them Windybrow and Hillbrow, until, as he says he was promoted to Assistant Director at DAA.

In 2000 he moved to FUBA School of Dramatic Arts to do a Diploma in Drama and Theatre. "This is where I met many good people who taught me most of the things I know today. There I was lectured by Biza Motaung (Steve Biko Foundation) and the late Sipho Mzobe (Gaz’lam). These are some of the people who believed in me when nobody else did. There was a time when Napo Masheane was directing a play called The Gods Are not to be Blamed" he reminisces.

From here Shaft’s story sound like a cliché and you won't be blamed for thinking you've heard this line one million times before. He says one day the lead actor was absent, he was roped in to play the part and it was permanently offered to him. Unbelievable? We thought so as well.

Shaft says he always wanted to do film but in an interview he gave to Radio Bushbuckridge in 1997 he said he wanted to be a doctor who is into hip-hop. But not like Dr Dre, but a real medical with an IPod. The interviewer commented that he couldn’t imagine him in a white coat bopping his head to a funky beat. Shaft laughed and said he intended doing just that.

He however got into film through the front door. "I started off as an extra in dramas like Soul City and the Sergeant Kokobela story. I was a hustler of serious note. One day I went to audition for Norman Maake’s Soldiers of the Rock where I got a small part as a mineworker. On the set of the film that’s where I got to know about a film school called AFDA. I applied, went for an interview and got admitted," he says.

Shaft’s problem was one and big, he did not have money for tuition. He approached the National Film and Video Foundation, which he says, gave him half of the bursary he requested. "I had to make ends meet. I started doing odd jobs as a runner with Devereaux Harris Films, sometimes working for free, just to make small money to pay my fees. And since I never fell from heaven I got support from my sister Antionette which I’m grateful for" he blushes.

He remembers that he wanted to be a doctor, "I’m a doctor since I am telling stories and healing people at the same time with my stories". Arguable.

The director says arriving at AFDA was a culture shock for him. "I’m a product of Bantu Education and had to learn proper English and integrate fast, that I did by listening to hip-hop, reading authors like Can Themba (The Suit) and writing poetry. From then on I was always glued on TV, I love movies and feel that for me it was more of a calling. I used to rap and sing, but I feel that sometimes your path chooses you. I was chosen, I used to play softball, basketball and soccer. Film chose me"

Shaft had to take a train from Soweto to AFDA and confesses that he was once detained for taking free rides. He says he got down on his knees and begged the security guard to pardon him as he had a test to write. "The train is very much like the ghetto, it’s actually ghetto. We stacked like sardines, you can’t spit sometimes. They put you there to look at each other’s failures every morning and afternoon".

He’s not romantic about ghetto living. He doesn’t believe poverty deserves ceremony. "At AFDA us black cats came from this background where we didn’t have computers, cars and other necessities that whites had. We had to sneak at RAU to type, sometimes for the whole night. AFDA is Boot Camp, you become a soldier, and the English is mostly jargon. First week it was jazz for me, remember we used pidgin English at school".

His first project was a two-minute film Mind, Body and Soul. He later did other film projects, which increased and became stressing on his second year. Between books he directed Robbie Malinga’s Mpompe and other corporate videos.

His first short film was Victim of Circumstance. "On the third year I was the only black director left in the class. It was hectic. There were times when I was walking downtown Jozi and felt the world could just swallow me. I had to watch many films, so I went to Carlton and Good Hope Centre because I could pay R12 for two films. I waited for the eZone on TV since I never had a satellite dish" he laughs. That's before the nowadays weekend late night films on e.

It’s ironic that people needed a dish to watch his award winning short film Ivory Mask (Idia), which is an M.Net New Directions production. Shaft likes to say that he’s paid his dues to the industry and he’s finally arrived. It sounds arrogant, but before he graduated with a degree in motion picture in 2003 he had to complete an experimental film, Prodigal Son that starred Israel Makwe (Yizo Yizo, Gaz’lam) and the acclaimed Small Street that starred amongst others Nomthi Vithi, Henna Sisanda, Thapelo Mokoena and a rapper called Maggz. Small Steet is one of the few student movies to have been screened by the public broadcaster. "The teachers dissed the film but Garth Holmes (AFDA honcho) liked it and send it to film festivals. It was my graduation film which is also how I came to meet filmmaker Dumisani Phakathi. He was impressed with Small Street that he offered me to do Ivory Mask, my first big budget film" he says.

Shaft is very fond of Phakathi who he can pile praise for hours on end. He’s got so much respect for the guy he recalls Phakathi telling him when cynics doubted his ability to pull off Ivory Mask, "fuck experience, go out there and enjoy yourself". You can’t write about Shaft and Ivory Mask without mentioning Phakathi (Producer) Bongiwe Selane (Commissioning Editor), Vanessa Jansen (Line Producer) and his own family, Victor (Brother), Antionette (Sister) and many others. Shaft also provided kwaito star Mandoza with his acting debut in Ivory Mask. Years later he later, more established and comfortable he directed Mandoza's Mama video.

As they say, "the rest is history", Shaft, for the first time in his life flew to the Durban International Film Festival for the screening of his two films. He also conducted some lectures at the University of Natal, interacted with veterans like Teboho Mahlatsi and as he told SABC 1’s Take 5, "I went there as an underdog but came back a star". He won the Best South African Short Film award for Ivory Mask, which together with Small Street also premiered at the Zanzibar Film Festival later that year.

He’s got a list of people to thank but will keep it for the Academy Award. He’s in-too-deep there’s no way the history of SA Film can be written without his name in the Index. He does not even mention his involvement in Mzekezeke's video or his work with Wikid, MXO, HHP and lots of the current crop of kwaito stars. Last year he was invited to Netherlands for the Shoot Me Film Festival where he took his fresh approach to filmmaking and shared it with the world. With most support for this hustler coming from his colleagues in Soul Rebelz Films, Sizwe Mzolo (producer) and Ntobeko Dlamini (cinematographer), (pictured)and not forgetting the Gauteng Film Office.

Shaft is an unabridged portrait of a ghetto boy who made good. A prototype of what every young person can become if they start believing in the beauty of their dreams. Very few people gave him half a chance. He’s one of the few self-made people around. He made himself, with a little help from a few loyal people who believed in a dream called Shaft.

REVIEW II

MAG REVISITED

I must admit that I have been humbled by the comments posted by different respondents on the Review published on 22 March 2007 which was a mock obituary of YMagazine. I am impressed by the level of articulation and comprehension of the issue displayed by most of the respondents. It shows South Afrika is growing as a country. I was just dissapointed that some of them mistakened the attack on the editorship to be a personal onslaught on Comrade Kabomo.

I felt for the sake of a healthy progress I should put this matter in perspective bearing in mind what one of the few intelligent people who ever lived once said that 'I might not like what you say, but I will give my life to defend your right to say it'. First; when a famous patient dies at Helen Joseph Hospital due to cardiac failure following a routine surgery, it doesn't matter what the autopsy report says but the qualifications and competence of the doctor who was in charge are brought to the fore. Whether he has performed such an operation before, how successful was it and how far apart before operating on the famous patient will be brought into question. The sentence about "I'm thinking geniuses in the calibre of Itumeleng, The General and Siphiwe, when miracle of miracles it's Kabomo Vilakazi. Don't get it twisted, I've got nothing against the brother apart from not having seen him in the trenches and having had to find out about his existense under the shadow of a celebrated poet" was meant to emphasize exactly that point. To which Thamie commented, "Another point is that no one knows who Kabomo is, I have an old copy of Y magazine in my house. I am not sure if it was Oct/Nov 2005, he was a contributor and he wrote a piece on the last dead poets. What does his ex girlfriend have to do with his job, are we then judging him by the fact he dated a well known personality...". I think Thamie raised a very important point but he should understand that's how people in Jozi described the Kabomo everytime someone tried to get a description of him. Actually before he was even an editor. And I come from Mpumalanga and know little about Jo'burg arts politics and if that's how a brother is introduced, that's how I'll remember him and that's the truth I'll write about how I found out about him.

"Come on! Let's think before we offend other people.", Thamie continues. And once again I repeat, as I have done on the article, there was no malice in the piece and if anyone felt hard done, then they should blame their allergy to truth.

However I should emphasize it is comments like these that I welcome wholeheartedly because they help craft me into the kind of writer I'll like to be. But once again, that was just a fucking review.

Second; If a cruise liner sinks, the captain, or the person in charge of it at the time of the sinking takes the rap and is expected to be the last one to abandon ship. Whether the liner has been serviced or not in the last five years will be unearthed during the 'post-mortem', but while it is being pounded by waves it is the captain who takes the blame. I wonder why it had to be different with Ymag. Why did Kasiekulture had to do a post-mortem before the patient had died? We tried, "Then for a reason known to some manager at Yired, Paul's co-presenter on his radio show Lee Kasumba was given the editorship", we wrote. But we refused to shy away from the fact that the current captain deserved a tongue-lashing, in his capacity as a captain and not a writer and poet (two trades inwhich he is good - no bullshit). "I do agree that the quality of the magazine has dropped over the years and believe it is due to those who control the purse strings and decide on what it must be like.", someone raised it.

We were confronted with all sorts of election type politics like the revelations that, "6. Rudeboy was not the real editor of Ymag, he was more of a background figure.7. Lee did quite well until she ran into the usual politics of publishing. She then decided it was enough and left of her own accord." These came from Anonymous and we figured in these days of Witness Protection Programmes it is understood some folks would like to remain hooded. What I liked about Anonymous' comments was that they were insightful, informed and sounded like they came from an insider. "3. Under Itumeleng's editorship Ymag never even approached 5000 sales copies.4. Ymag started selling over 15 000 copies in June 2000, under Tshepang Gule (RIP), Thami Masemola and Bulelwa Mtsali over 7 months after the departure of Itumeleng.5. My former colleague Thami Masemola was in fact, the last editor of Tribute before it closed. In its month of closure Tribute made profit for the first time in its 17 year history." Anonymous reported.

I must admit I never went out to verify some of these allegations because like I told you, I published a Review, not opened a Chat Room where we were going to trade info left and right. But I was humbled by the honesty and engagement I received from folks who felt Kasiekulture has overstepped the mark. I've never seen such a mark but I had a feeling some folks were really offended. "I don't think you appreciate the immense pressures some of these people you mention have to work under, with mostly clueless publishers and extremely tight budgets"

Then I received an insightful comment from Bra Kojo which I would encourage you to read for yourself in the comment box. It is souls like him we need. To his comment I had to add a few lines on the article which read, "Let's remember that the first thing Paul Wolfowitz did when he got to the World Bank was to transfer his girlfriend to the State Department, to put to rest any suspisions of nepotism in the future. Maybe our editor friends should do the same to protect the reputations of his writer friends". I also posted a comment on his beautiful blog which I'm not going to share with you unless you go there and find it yourself. I will tell you what yodemo said, "Kabomo, I feel yo hip hop, but stay off the Mag. Let someone the blame for the fall of the mighty and dreadful"

All in all my point behind this little piece is to give back sleep to the folks who thought Kasiekulture waged a campaign to bring down Comrade Kabomo. There are very few black writers, let alone editors in South Afrika and there's no way we should be scared to let each other fly. And in letting each other fly we shouldn't think that we are going to be above criticism. If I was to ask, 'who is Graca Machel?', the most likely answer I am going to get is, 'she is the widow of Samora Machel and the wife of Nelson Mandela'. That however does not take anything away from her as an achiever in her own right. And with every intelligent person it shouldn't offend because it means s/he keeps good company. That's why I wondered why some folks got offended when I mentioned Lebogang Mashile. But I said in the article, "I once again should emphasize that this is not an attack on any person but a tongue in cheek eulogy of YMag. I'm indeed saddened by its impending demise and before anyone accuses me of aspiring to open my own mag, please a blog is doing it for now because it never gets stuck on the shelves.". And I will walk out the same way I came in, " One luv comrades. Let's grow together"

ANALYSIS

THE AFRIKA REPORT (ABRIDGED)


Whenever Afrikan leaders meet and pretend to be solving the problems plaguing this beautiful continent, which they do quite often in Midrand (Johannesburg) they always find a way of putting the blame for the high levels of corruption, poverty, squalor, bad governance and under-development squarely at the door of their former colonial masters. They always succesfully, through well-rehearsed rhetoric manage to do this without analysing their own contributions to such failures or understanding their role in the shortcomings. It was such glorious moments many decades ago when the Union Jack started its final descend, with Uncle Bob (Marley) singing a liberation song ('Zimbabwe') while another Uncle Bob (Mugabe) who has since become a symbol of everything that is wrong with Zimbabwe clapped hands joyfully. In many Afrikan countries the Union Jack came down for the last time many decades ago and was soon replaced by nationalist flags.

Over many years those new flags have come to symbolise oppression, stolen elections, squalor and the haunting power of Harold McMillian's 'winds of change' speeck. No oppressive kingdom stays eternal it must be noted, even if such a regime is led by a black man who claims his country will never be a colony again.

Let's see what's wrong with some African countries in alphabetical order;

ANGOLA; Just a few months before Portuguese High Commissioner, Commodore Leonel Cardoso brought down the Portuguese flag, ending five centuries of Portuguese rule thousands of kilometres away in the United States of America there was a Central Intelligence Agency briefing to the US National Security Council of President Gerald Ford. John Stockwell, a former CIA officer in Saigon who was tasked with setting up a support structure in Angola and who was in attendence testified in 1984, "The CIA director (said) 'Gentlemen, this is a map of Africa, and here is Angola. In Angola there are three liberation movements. There is the FNLA, headed by Holden Roberto, they're the good guys. There is the MPLA, headed by Agostinho Neto, who's a drunken psychotic poet with a Marxist background. They're the bad guys' - and they used exactly that terminology, the 'good guys' and the 'bad guys', so that those people on the National Security Council could get it straight what the game was". But then that was not the game, as Savimbi was not mentioned and he later became a potent force until he was compromised by his friends and assassinated, signaling the end of the civil war. No wonder immediately after Cardoso boarded a warship and sailed back to Portugal, the situation exploded and the aforementioned civil war between MPLA and UNITA started.

Much can be put at the door of the West for having used folks like Savimbi as cannon fodder but today Angola has the worst human rights record. Savimbi is dead, UNITA is a chapter in a history book but the situation for the ordinary Angolan has not changed. Why should Portugal be blamed, especially by MPLA when it gave them the government on a platter? Because darkies suffer from slave mentality, which in South Africa is called apartheid mentality.

ALGERIA; Afrika has many belief systems and faiths, both religious and traditional. It is only fair to embrace a secular approach when it comes to issues of religion because no country can claim to be a fully fledged democracy when people who believe in something contrary to the majority are subjected to long jail terms and bannings. The 'secular' government of Abdelaziz Bouteflika can claim all they want that they are upholding the rule of law when they annul elections won by their ideological rivals but the fact that the continent is crumbling makes it hard to comprehend why should it be a glorious event to celebrate Afrika Day when the people should be mourning. The fact that many Algerians still continue to drown in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea in makeshift boats on their way to Europe is an indictment on Afrikan leadership. There's no way France should be held liable for the deteriorating state of affairs in that country. The ruling party must look within and ask itself why does it always seem that those who count the ballots always win the elections, especially in Afrika.

NAMIBIA; Reporters Without Borders, in their last report claimed that freedom of the media is better in Namibia than it is in South Afrika. However, from the view of the outsider it might seem like there's relative calm in SWAPOland, the truth is that independent voices are being stifled. Journalists who hold a different view to that of the government are ruthlessly censored as public servants are warned not to buy media that has been identified by government as anti-revolutionary. The censorship then goes beyond the publication as even individuals are afraid to be found in possession of censured newspapers as if they are drugs. Blame can be put on Britain, maybe Germany or most probably South Afrika but the truth is that since 1990 that country has been left to its own systems.

ZAMBIA; Former president Frederick Chiluba has been found guilty in absentia of corruption and misappropriating of funds through an account masquerading as an intelligence organisation expense account. He denies all allegations. Chiluba came to power with much fanfare as he was viewed as a potential messiah after upsetting long serving Kenneth Kaunda in free and fair elections. Kaunda has since gone on to become a celebrated statesman. The levels of corruption in Zambia today, which saw the recent elections nearly being fought around a Chinese/Zambia trade relationship expose the levels of poverty and desperation after so many years of democracy. Many Zambians, under President Levy Mwanawasa's government continue to flood South Afrika in search of better opportunities, and to escape a failing dream.

BOTSWANA; It is perceived to be the breadbasket of Southern Afrika with a currency that is stronger than the South African Rand. What is not being told about this very secretive country is that while it can claim that its diamonds are conflict free and have undergone the Kimberely Process, the land from which they are mined is often than not owned by the native San people who have waged a fruitless campaign to get compensation from the government for exploiting their natural resources. They are reportedly being moved around without regard for their human rights and cultural rights. Some years ago they took their case to Britain to challenge the allegations that 'Diamonds are Forever'. But was anyone listening? No amount of wealth is worth people's human rights, Botswana should know better. You can buy the media but not people's voices.

ZIMBABWE; Now this is a classic case of a country that has gone seriously wrong. President Robert Mugabe continues to rule over a country that has since lost more than five million of its citizens to other countries where they are squatting as refugees. One wonders if he can see it when he is driven around the streets of Harare. Or maybe he needs to commission a national census to realise that what South Afrikan president Thabo Mbeki said in the national assembly last week that we have to deal with the fact that we'll have visitors from the North is worrying South Afrikans. No amount of words can start to tell the failures in that country that continue to be piled at the door of 10 Downing. The question to be asked is, what role did Britain play when Mugabe, against any logic chose to host the butcher of Ethiopia Mengistu Haille Merriam in his country? What role did Britain play in his reported massacre of the Ndebele in the 1980s? Did Tony Blair supply the weapons?

MOZAMBIQUE; The fate that befell Mozambique can not be successfully divorced from that of Angola. The CIA with the assistance of the Nationalists in South Afrika made a decision to plunge that country into chaos to stop it from wholly falling under Soviet influence. It was the battlefield of two ideologies during the Cold War. RENAMO was used to unleash terror and suffering to the people of Northern Mozambique and to disrupt rail and road support to liberation movements in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). After Zimbabwe gained its independence, RENAMO's role was in limbo. It was going to be the only proxy presence of Portugal in that country. But what followed later and the refusal of FRELIMO to sit down with RENAMO and sort their problems can not be blamed on anyone but pride. The civil war in Mozambique, which was a US-Soviet war by proxy could have ended many years ago, if the leaders chose to let go of their selfishness and focused on the interests of the people of Mozambique as they seem to be doing now. If any blame should be put on the West, it should be that they are failing to provide money to finance the demining process which started years ago and continues to be held back by lack of money.

TANZANIA; Now this is one of the few model countries in Afrika. Liberated by the late Mualimu Julius Nyerere and having tried to be stable against attempts by the West to gag and destabilize it, Tanzania managed, with little Chinese support to go as far as helping many liberation movements around the Southern African Development Community region. FRELIMO, Umkhonto We Sizwe and even the Ugandan rebels who toppled dictator Idi Amin were once hosted and hosted there, against world condemnation. Tanzania even provided 20 000 troops to help remove Amin from power. However its alleged treatment of the people of Zanzibar and Pemba can not go unmentioned. While it used to believe that people have the right to self-determination, it should also give the same rights to the people of the two islands.

MALAWI; The late President Hastings Kamuzu Banda ruled over this country with an iron fist for decades. And when he finally left it was found that his grip to power was propped by political opponents disappearing without a trace. Malawi is blessed with massive natural resources like textile and fish but they are not enough to feed its own people as it's one of the poorest countries in Afrika.

LESOTHO; Very few people that I have spoken to understand why Lesotho continues to exist as a sovereign country when it's so dependent on South Afrika for its survival. A walk in Maseru is not different from any other town in the Free State province of South Afrika. In 1996 when there was political conflict in that country then acting President Mangosuthu Buthelezi dispatched a batallion to crush resistance and take control of affairs. It was over in a few hours with less than five dead South African National Defence Force soldiers. If the leaders of the mountain kingdom stopped looking to Britain, which continues to fund development projects (which result in corruption) and look to South Afrika as a mother and them as a province, development can be speeded. At the time of writing the Katse Dam Project is benefitting largely the Gauteng Province of South Afrika with water. Maybe the United States of Afrika ideal should start here with the phasing off of passports when one visits the land of the great King Moshoeshoe.

SWAZILAND; This is one textbook case of a failed monarch. AIDS activists are quick to release statistics of infection rate in this landlocked kingdom and the picture is grim. So grim that their king imposed a moratorium on sex while he did not lead by example. Poverty is rampant, opposition parties banned, trade union movements crushed and the King revered. Recently King Mswati III reportedly spent R15 million ($2million) on his birthday bash in a country that is so dependent on South Afrika and donors for its survival. The problem with Swaziland is that while Makhosithive (the King) was trained in England he has not seen the reason why there should be democracy in his own country. He continues ruling the country from the comfort of his palace at Ludzidzini through the Tinkundla system which was only relevant in 1973. He marries a new wife every year whom he builds a palace and buys a BMW X5. This is while the poor people starve and no free political activity is encouraged.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO; There is no ruler more popular than the late Mobutu Sese Seko who allegedly plundered $5 billion of that country's wealth. The country has always had the badluck of falling under bad rulers. In the case of Mobutu, the FNLA's Holden Roberto (in Angola) was the brother-in-law of the dictator. When the CIA was supporting Roberto they were doing so through Zaire (now DRC) and no matter how corrupt Mobutu was he was a very important conduit of American aid and had to remain in power at all cost. It only took a negotiated deal brokered by former SA president Nelson Mandela to get Mobutu aboard the SAS Oeteniqua and out of politics only to die a peaceful death in exile a few years later. The money was squandered under the watch of the US and was never returned by the banks that kept it all these years. Then came rebel leader Laurent Kabila who did not improve the situation but schemed with Zimbabwe's Mugabe and Gen George Mujuru to plunder the country's diamonds in Eastern DRC. And now his son is the president of the democratic DRC but journalists continue to rot in jail. What Joseph Kabila's fears are is a mystery, but the situation is not improving in that country, especially in the presence of rebel movements sponsored by Rwanda and the Interahamwe still hiding in the bushes. And with Jean-Pierre Bemba now in Portugal, no one knows what he's up to.

KENYA; Poverty and rampant corruption continue to haunt this country where locals are quick to tell anyone who listens that former presidents Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Arap Moi gave to their families and cronies half of the country. "Half of Kenya is owned by the Kenyattas", they told me as we walked through a slumvillage of Korogocho. Today, while they say that their current president Mwai Kibaki has done more good than bad, one wonders why are people still held in Kenyan prisons on suspision of belonging to some Islamic Courts fighting over the border in Somalia? There is relative democracy but the gap between the poor and the rich is so wide it raises questions of what is it that Britain did to sustain a legacy of subjudication. The Masai are accusing the Brits residing in a military garrison of copulating with the locals, breeding Coloured kids they refuse to support after they have finished their tours and returned to Britain. They blame the government of acting passive to their pleas for Britain to take responsibility of its 'bastard' offspring and of censuring the country when it destroys their grazing fields to make way for development. Darky leaders are subjecting other darkies to suffering to satisfy their colonial masters, as Kenya is doing with its obsession to satisfy the US and Britain.

SOMALIA; This is another classic example of a failed state. The horn of Afrika has never had a stable government since Mohamed Siad Barre died and chaos engulfed the oil-rich country 16 years ago. This is a story few people know and which I'm told it the whole truth and nothing but the truth; there's oil in Somalia and there are contracts that Barre had signed with major US oil exploration companies at the time of his death. Those contracts were never explored as clans accused each other of masterminding his death. When warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid took control of Mogadishu the corporates in the US pressured their government to do something. The Bill Clinton Administration drafted a UN Resolution that called for the deployment of forces to protect United Nations food convoys to refugee camps. But the story you were never told was that the US Marines volunteered, not to protect food convoys as Pakistani forces were already doing that but to instal a puppet regime that would respect the contracts signed with Barre, exploit the oil and live happily ever after. It's now history that they were ambushed and 13 were killed.
Years went by with lawlessness, Aidid died in a battle with other clans warlords. Then Islamists Courts came to power and put together a stable government. The US in its current war-mongering mood panicked and dispatched the CIA to Ethiopia to advise the government on how to root out the Islamists because 'it was feared Somalia will harbour Al Qaeda. US Special forces (allegedly) were sent to help the Ethiopians uproot the Islamists and instal (the original Clinton plan) a puppet regime. That's the situation today, there's no stable government because the one the US wants to rule does not have a mandate from the people but from Kenya and its friends.

UGANDA; The civil war that has raged there for some time is a result of the president always wanting to flex his muscles and not wanting to open his government to pluralism. In a recent poll one of the candidates was accused of rape and threatened with jail term to disrupt his plans to campaign. A civil war that refuses to end continues to rage with none side trusting the other. Since he toppled Idi Amin president President Yoweri Museveni has never seen any reason to cede power to another person but instead amended the constitution to extend his term last year. The once rich with tea and banana Uganda is not as economically strong as it should be and rebel leader Joseph Koni is in hiding, only delegating juniour officers without resolve to negotiate with Museveni whose only mission is to wipe the Lord's Resistance Army.

SUDAN; This is another Zimbabwe, but here atrocities are committed under the watchful eye of Google Earth. Villages are burnt to the ground in acts of retribution. President Omar Hassan Al Bashir's government is accused of arming the tribesman known as the Janjaweed to kill, rape and raze villages to the ground. He settled with the South to strengthen his war with the Darfur. When they tell him he should protect civilians he says 'yes' even though at the back of his mind they are responsible for an insurrection against his government. He only allows African Union peacekeepers because he can manipulate African leaders who are all like him and have their fingers pointed at Europe. Darfur continues to burn, 200 000 are dead already, 2 million displaced, the US calls for a UN force, but nobody trusts the US these days because it abandoned the Palestinians in a test tube. China has uncovered natural resources and will veto everything resembling sanctions at the UN. And Sudan is an Afrikan country.

RWANDA; This is a country whose president is accused (within) some quarters of having killed the former president. No one wants to believe it because Paul Kagame (a former intelligence officer) is 'one of the good guys' in the eyes of many. But there are very limited human rights in Rwanda. The Interahamwe, who are accused blamed for the 1994 genocide and are alleged to be hiding in the Congolese bushes are still alive and potent. Kagame want them brought to justice, thus he always threatens to invade Eastern DRC to look for them. But there is a report drawn by a former French intelligence officer implicating him in the shooting of the plane that carried the former president. An incident that led to the bloodshed on 1994 and that paved a way for him to become president later. For some time they were blaming Belgium and saying it should fulfil its moral duty towards the people of Rwanda. They were also blaming the US 'for not jamming the radio signal' when a call to kill was made using radio in '94. They also blamed former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for not responding fast enough when he was heading the UN Peacekeeping team responsible for the Great Lakes area. They failed to blame themselves for failing to see the humanity in the next person, whether Hutu or Tutsi.

BURUNDI; This is still an explosive country as South Afrika maintains a military presensce just incase one day it explodes. And it does more often than not. But there have been claims that South Afrika's presence is an imperialist one as it is to soften the huge investments made by South Afrikan companies in Burundi. Yes, soldiers continue to die as a shaky truce keeps the country on volatile ground.

ETHIOPIA; This is the only Afrikan country never to have been colonized, even though Italy tried. However that song that made Michael Jackson famous 'We Are the World' was written to raise funds to buy food and feed the children of this vast country of His Majesty Haille Selassie. Ethiopia is known for its competent athletes and a butcherous president Mengistu Haille Meriam. Mengistu, a close buddy of Mugabe, is now exiled in Zimbabwe. He managed to plunder this country to the point that in 1985 hundreds of thousands of people were starving while the marxist murdered political opponents and refused any attempt at pluralism. Today it should be a stable country, but the US has already gotten to it and is using it to destabilise Somalia.

We'll deliberately stop here and not mention Morocco and Western Sahara's struggle for self-determination, Liberia's many years of agony, Ivory Coast's never ending strife, Sierra Leone's limbless children and adults, Nigeria's many years of military dictatorships and the recent stolen elections, Chad's continuing conflict with its neighbours, assisted by Libya's Muammar 'Brother Leader' Gadaffi, Nigeria's Niger Delta and treatment of the Ogoni people in Ogoniland, Egypt's banning of the Muslim Brotherhood and the long service of their current president Hosni Mubarak, Equatorial Guinea's Obiang Ngwema iron fisted rule, Mauritius's never-ending coup de tats and displaced people from the Diego Garcia islands which is now a US military base and many more failed Afrikan countries that make a mockery of Afrika Day. I swear that if Kwame Nkrumah was to rise from the dead, he would cry a Nile of tears.

SOUTH AFRIKA; Let nobody lie to you and say that South Afrika is the valhalla that everybody from many Afrikan countries aspires to live in. There are good things about this country, like democracy, race and tribal relations (there are more than fifteen indigenous languages and no fights). However the growing economy continues to fail poor people. President Mbeki's ideal of an annual six percent economic growth does not translate into employment. His Black Economic Empowerment ideal continues to enrich a small clique of businesspeople aligned to his party. Education is not the best. Teachers continue to sleep with learners and are protected by a powerful union when brought to account. The police are still taking bribery and raping prostitutes like in any Afrikan country. The army is arrogant and thinks that they are running things around here while the only thing they are running are their own households. The hospitals ill-treat patients and clinics often do not have medication. Unemployment is rife because the little we have we share with three million Zimbabweans, many Swazis, Basotho, affluent Mozambicans, Batswana, Nigerians, Congolese, Zambians, Tanzanians, Somalians, Pakistani, Indians, Chinese, Ethiopians, Egyptians and Angolans. At least the Kenyans and Ghanaians who are here are highly educated and are contributing to the ideal. South Afrika is good but its passive stance against what is happening in many Afrikan countries is worrying. No wonder, while Afrika Day is a holiday in many Afrikan countries it is not in South Afrika.

Bob Marley sang, "We unite/ we will be free/ so long". It was a war-cry of the late 1980s. Often than not articulated by poets such as convicted bank robber Mzwakhe Mbuli, "Africa will know no peace until we the South are free." This time it means the Zimbabweans, and finally the whole continent can celebrate Afrika Day as a unit. Uhuru!