Killing Afghan Culture – America Needs a Women President

When i was young and growing up my ideal holiday destination used to be the United States of America. The Empire State Building, Disneyland, Golden Gate Bridge etc. I wanted it all and to me that Land of the Free symbolised everything that was right with human existence.

And then i grew up and noticed that it was actually more difficult to enter the US and witness for self the majesty of those iconic landmarks. They try to stop you from entering by asking you how much you have in your....wait for it... account. That is not all; they also want to know whether you have a credit card or not. Well, unless i’m grossly mistaken the majority of the credit card companies are actually American. So, they want to know how much business are you doing with them.

I’m not going to touch on how impossible it has been since 9/11 but my point is to question who is America to preach civil rights to the world?

I was recently watching a documentary on Al Jazeera English about how American NGOs and advocacy groups are trying to change Afghanistan and uplift women to equality. They got to Afghanistan, found women wearing veils and subordinate to their men and not working on television or aspiring for political leadership.

America told them that they can work on television; the idea is to get US companies business in the television business in Afghanistan. Now, those old age cultured women started seeing themselves as Barbara Walters and while that irked the bearded men of the East, it should be understood in the context of culture.

Their culture, age old and celebrated accorded Afghan women a space where they could be in charge and make an impact in society. Truth be told; Afghan women haven’t been always sitting cooking in kitchens before Americans invaded that country. That’s what the US media is trying to sell to the world and that’s a narrative that should be countered with information sourced from thousands of cultural books and literature that are today being cleansed from Afghan’s literary landscape. The first practise of colonists is to destroy everything that will remind you of your own greatness so as to buy into a narrative that they brought you civilization – Western civilisation.

Americans have managed to convince a small educated Afghan elite that they should aspire to take over political power and that with American funding they can achieve that. They are not interested in those women’s welfare or political clout but to undermine the Taliban narrative.

The only reason America wants to elevate Afghan women is to undermine Afghan culture and its civilisation. And while those bearded men who kill women for trying to go to school might claim to be upholding honour – the truth is that the only way to triumph over a bad idea is to bring to the fore a better idea. And killing people is as ugly as killing a people’s culture.

And America; well it can promise those women the possibility of being presidents when America itself with all its talk of an equal opportunity society and a democracy to be envied has never had a woman president in its two centuries history. Makes you think doesn’t it?

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Get the Hell out of here Brown Dash!


The easiest thing to do in this time of uncertainty is to hide our heads in the sand and pretend that this so-called ‘long illness’ does not exist. It is to pretend that people who die of this ‘long illness’ are saints who; some of them didn’t go all out to infect others with this illness.

I had a conversation with a friend this morning who asked me if i was distraught that ‘my friend’ died. I asked who that friend was and he said Siphiwe ‘Brown Dash’ Mpamile. I know he was joking because Dash was never my friend even though I met and interacted with him once during a Reconciliation Day event in 2006. A fit healthy Dash still marvelling in the hype created by Phansi Kwe’ mthunzi we langa.

Dash was everything young kids would have wanted to be. I’m not certain if he was single but he came across to me as having a roving eye. However, roving eyes don’t kill people since they are not a ‘long illness’. But the mishap is that roving eyes can’t see the ‘long illness’. The so code-named illness that continues to claim young people in our country. It is Stephen King’s It.

Former minister of COGTA Sicelo Shiceka died a week ago after a ‘long illness’ and nobody is prepared to disclose the name of the illness even though as taxpayers we paid thousands into his medical bill. We don’t care much because to a larger extent we know what the ‘long illness’ is. We might be dodgy about calling it by its name; which is actually the first wisdom but we can count its fatalities and dare those who survive them and feel aggrieved to sue us; armed with proof of something contrary to our assertion.

I hear that the unnamed ‘long illness’ killed Sizwe Motaung (soccer), Khabzela (DJ), Zombo (musician), Sicelo (politician), Parks Mankahlana (Nelson Mandela’s spokesperson), Peter Mokaba (politician), Zodwa Khoza (business executive), Freddie Mercury (musician), Eazy E (musician), Makgatho Mandela (business executive), Dash (musician), Thabang Lebese (soccer) and many others whose names keep slipping our memory. It is unnamed and that might be the reason why it’s so strong.

However i was annoyed by those who on Facebook tried to sugar coat the kind of celebrity behaviour that often leads to people dying of ‘long illnesses’. I am not moralising but like i told my friend this morning; there are many people who get infected by this ‘long illness’ but continue to live for many years. I told my friend those who get infected and rush to the morgue are usually the types who say ‘ya, i was infected by these bitches and i’m going to infect as many as possible before i die’.

I think Dash represented everything that adversary races have accused Black men of being and something that many men have down the years died trying to prove that we are not; reckless, sexually charged, self-hating and most likely to point the gun in our hands at the next Black person.

Sonsofbitches risk reinfection and do not understand that the causes of the ‘long illness’ are not footprints which you leave everytime you walk on the desert. With your worst intention you can fail to leave a drop of the cause on your victim. This ‘kudla bantwana’ lifestyle is the undoing of many so-called pop icons (sport and music).

So, while the rest of the country is prepared to bury their head in the sand; pretend that they couldn’t see Dash was dying when he performed with Spikiri at the SAMAs two weeks ago and will act surprised when they read the tabloids in the coming days I refuse to join the mob.

I don’t condemn anyone because in an ‘unrelated’ article years ago Marianne Thamm wrote about socialite Adam Levin (AIDS Safari) and Khabzela (Yfm); to paraphrase her, “promiscuity does not cause AIDS, it’s sex without a condom that causes AIDS”. So if we are going to behave like pop stars and chow groupies at backstage let us at least put that Jimmy on the dick and we can chow the chicks until chickens (no pun intended) come home to roost.

Hamba Dash! Say hi to Khabzela, Zombo, Sizwe and Chillies

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Sistas with BIG Egos – Parenting 101

Now my business is not griping but I think so-called celebrities should strive to build own brands that do not rely on human props to suffice. I was terribly offended when i saw the covers of Real and Soul magazines featuring two women whose claim to ‘celebritica’ still beats me. I mean these are just two ladies who have day jobs like the rest of society but when does that make them ‘celebrities’ evades my reasoning.

These two are Dineo Ranaka and Kelly Khumalo. Well, i know Dineo used to work for Yfm and even tried her hand at acting with dismal consequences. She even claims; due to her television work to being a DJ. Her real claim to fame is allegedly dating swagjacker Kenny Kunene. Now, that’s her, not her child.

Now, regardless of this being Mother’s month i struggle to understand why she has to subject her child to the limelight at a time when there is more money from kidnapping children for ransom than working your butt off. Real celebrities don’t expose their children in the media but try hard to keep them as far as possible since like their cars and houses; their children are not an extension of their brand.

Real and Soul magazines really outdid themselves this time. When trying to understand the justification Kelly should pose with her son i always end up with zilch. I mean it is gross enough that she has pierced the young boy’s ears and fitted earrings already without its permission but to go further and plaster the poor boy on the cover of a gloss is just not on.

I probably am old-fashioned and believe that only daughters should be involuntarily pierced. But boys? No ways – not even when your father is Jub-Jub.

This brings me to the point behind this post which is child abuse and media exploitation of ‘black girls’’ naivety. Both magazines do not give two hoots about the welfare of those kids or their self-declared ‘celebrity’ mothers. They are just milking them for whatever they claim to be worth. However those two boys smiling for the cameras infront of those magazines to brush mommy’s egos and at her whim is grotesque. To me it was as sickening as some version of porn.

Plus all those kids on parents’ Facebook profiles make me wanna puke. Respect children’s right to privacy and to be raised in an environment that allows their development without a sick and callous world counting their every step.

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