Oligarcy

Ahh... life, the weather and inanity. Not much has changed in the 3 years since I started university. I got smarter, read better books and learnt that there is no real greater power than DC++. But all good things must come to an end and luckily for me, I have another year left of idle contemplation between 2 minute noodles and popcorn for breakfast. There are of course those few unlucky sods that will be graduating this year and feebly attempt to find their place in the world. Sadly, this process will transform reasonable cool university students (like me) into reasonable boring people (like the rest of the world). 

There is nothing to look forward to in growing up, and as the great and admirable Adrian Mole teaches us; this in itself is often painful. Nay! I say that it is high time science comes up with a way to keep us forever young. But then again, that's just me.

I wonder what happened to the avid Shathley supporters and the many many reluctant first year bloggers. Actually. I wonder what happened to sQ himself. I take his silence to be some sort of sign or maybe he has been called to a Higher Place. Like the top floor of the Leslie Social for example.

As I am currently Searching For Truth. I feel it only appriopriate to end off by saying that we are all, rather suddenly, going to die.

The End

I was on one of the Myspace literature forums (yes, Myspace. Facebook is of the devil), when someone goes to me; "Oh cool, you're South African". I wasn't sure if it was meant to be insulting, but I did take slight offense. It is my understanding that to be South African is NOT cool. In fact, to be South African is UNCOOL. I mean, if you had a supposed youth leader like Julius Malema; what does that say about the state of youth development in S.A.? Mostly that we're a bunch of wagon hopping, gun popping, power tripping, slightly pot bellied type of people. Of course I'm not proud to be South African.

People go on about the views and how great it must be to live in a Mandela liberated, not overly racist (ha!) country. Rumour even has it that the world cup was a success (although that could just be part of a conspiracy to make us THINK it was a success). People is what makes a country and lets face it, we've got some dumb bums in power elected (allegedly) by the people. 

Hey, maybe I'm a sticky pessimist with a wet vest and a bad case of cranky but I honestly don't think South Africa is cool. 

Some UCT staff has sticks up their bums (proverbially speaking of course). They sit behind desks -heavily guarded by staplers (which they selfinshly refuse to borrow) -with pasted smiles, staring at a distant spot somewhere above your shoulder as if to stare into existence some urgently forgotten mirage. I don’t see the point in employing people that hate, loath, sneer and plot to kill students. I’m too young to die.

The funny part is that most of the time when I DO need to make some sort of enquiry or need to pick up a reading (ESSPECIALLY when I need to pick up a reader), the person dispensing take it as a personal insult to their existence that I decided to so. It’s not like they’re doing me a favour. It’s their job.    

I’m thinking of wearing a bullet proof vest the next time I approach The Older People (UCT staff).

Note aside: This is actually all in honour of a notorious department somewhere in the realms of the Arts Block and I’m actually proud of myself for not making a big scene. I even resisted the urge to make a poster and stage a protest.

A.A.T. Update: "a poster a stage a protest" was supposed to be "a poster and stage a protest" Thank you for pointing that out.  

Was looking at the comments on Writer's Block latest (cough) post and noticed that there were two "commenters" that weren't commenting but advertising whatever product they were selling. 

It's funny actually that spam manages to creep in everywhere and anywhere all the time.

It's true that the blogsphere kinda died when the REL department decided not to make blogging for first years compulsory but nobody is actually doing anything to get more people in here. (Short of holding up posters on Jammie and screaming "Taking back freedom! Blog for blog!"; I really don't see myself winning over students that way).

Maybe this is the end after all.

George

I was listening to the news the other day. It was terrible. I sat waiting half an hour before I realised that the nearest thing to news I'll be hearing is world cup related and the death of Mandela’s great great grandkid. Even the weather report sounded suspiciously world-cupish.... “and tonight, scores of rain has been predicted...”. I am thoroughly convinced that it's a conspiracy. By the government. And maybe the US one too. And Iraq's.

Since Jane Klue was beginning to bore me to the extent that merely looking at the subject line puts me to sleep; I decided to splay myself across the blogs. I must say that my ReallyBadPoetry.com is coming along quite well; it already has a cult following. I would like to thank Brandon for being my biggest fan. Without him, my true potential would have gone unrealised.

Praise aside, it is rather good to be here at UCT; such a fine institution. It makes me proud to dither around the Jammie for a few hours in a bid to look cool. Spring refuses to play along however and I am forced to don the Eskimo thing. It must be noted that there are some people who simply don’t care about the whack weather at all. In my eyes; they have reached the height of admirableness. The joy at seeing a flip flopped foot and a strappy topped torso floods my soul with immeasurable joy and I cannot express the magnitude of feelings that makes its way into my heart. How else will the world revolve if it were not filled with people doing things that make no sense at all? Nay! I say! Existence would come to a halt and colour will drain away slowly leaving us with the likes of David Beckman passing off as actual role models. It is for this reason (and deep dank fear) I still wet the bed at night.

On a slightly depressing note, the VARSITY paper is of the devil. Who can fathom why their writers actively seek to bore their readers to utter tears?? In another world, I would claim it part of a bigger conspiracy by the government in which we will all die. But I am reasonable and so I’ll settle for a conspiracy by the ANCYL; I would divulge but I know they’re watching.

The End

Normal 0 false false false EN-ZA X-NONE X-NONE

I was going to blog about my most favourite topic in the whole wide world (ANCYL) to follow up my last blog post, but Siwapiwe’s post caught me by surprise. Wrapped safely in the arms of Confusion, I was a bit hesitant on how to properly berate the skewered ideas that I was confronted with.

Yes, I do think it terribly foolish to stick the blame on Malema for ET’s death, but that doesn’t mean I condone the needless singing of a senseless song. “Black identity” my left bum cheek. I’d be extraordinarily ashamed if someone said “You boy, you kill da boer”. It was a song part of the STRUGGLE and the STRUGGLE (on the surface at least) is OVER. There is no reason to “kill the boer” just like there is no reason for the De La Ray song to be sung.

I have said before and I will say it again; we (you and I) are being led by a sad and incredibly stupid government and other such public figures. This can be easily fixed by a heavy machine gun no doubt, but I lack the necessary capital. (Also, I can’t be bothered)

I'm sure you must have seen the bright yellow posters smeared with sh*t around campus. I suppose you must have read the bits conveniently done in bold to make sure the eye does not stray away from the main point

The UCT ANC Youth League (MM Lengs) branch felt that Max Price overstepped his mark when he said (according to Them mentioned above) in his memorial service march that "If you are flippant with our lives, as you have been, we will object. We will show the middle finger at your convey and we will vote you out. We say: enough." It lies very heavy upon my heart to fall down and worship Max Price. Never was there truer words spoken. 

 While the ANCYL (and by that I am referring to the UCT cult branch section) have the nasty habit of doing and saying things that upset the general UCT public, I am of the opinion that they have gone too far by demanding that Max Price apologize to Jacob Zuma for the remark he made. I am sorely tempted to add many four letter words to this post; but I was brought up polite.

This open difference unsettles me. The lack of action taken against UCT ANCYL disturbs me. The overwhelming desire to let loose a torrent of hate speech is slowly coming to surface...

If it's a war with politics they want, why does someone not give them one? Darwinit. 

When is enough not enough? When you have dweebs with low or no intelligence levels in powerful public positions.

I live a very miserable life. No doubt that a large part of it can be attributed to the fact that Jacob Zuma is The President and surely we are all going to die. Nevertheless, I have scrapped myself off the bottom of some barrel and now bravely attempt to inflict my bitter and distressed plight upon those among the land of the living.

So, in an effort to remain clear and understood, I have made a list of the top 10 things that depress me. Cough.

10. UCT's inactivity on the student blogs (I'm convinced it's part of a bigger conspiracy when they stopped forcing 1st year REL1013H/REL1012F students to blog)

9. Varsity Newspaper. Simply said, it's boring.

8. That boy in myth class that asks questions he already knows the answers to.

7. UCT student blogs. (See #10)

6. Jacob Zuma is The President.

5. My dead cat Horace.

4. 6am. (Have you tried waking up that early everyday? THAT is depressing)

3. UCT student blogs. (see #7)

2. Julius Malema WILL be The President.

1. We are all going to die.

I could go on and on and on and on. But these are a few of my depressionable things.

That's all.

Love, 

George G.

It has been said that Death waits for no-one. I feel obligated to disagree.

There are many times when I have seen Death waiting aimlessly around highways, internet cafes and high school musicals. At brief instances, Death would turn to see me watching. I think She knows I'm onto Her. There's no place to hide anymore. I know Stuff and will hesitate at nothing to get what I want.

You may ask (rather ignorantly I must add) why all this is revelant... the point is, it's not. In a world where everything is guided upon purpose, where everything that is done has hidden motives, where speech is a form of progress and where failure is the only means of success... well; then irrevelance is the only freedom left. And even that has been corrupted.

And so I launched my mission to weed out unseemly characters that so easily beset us. Death being a rather troublesome Woman, I chose to observe Her first. Like all Woman, Death seems to be picky about Her victims. Size, beauty and shoe styles often counts.

Death waits for mistakes, right choices that are wrong and bad music with beer. 

Death wiats for no-one? Ha! Read and fear mortal. 

George G

There are three things in life, I believe, that one should refrain from ever doing:

1.       Thank a Jammie driver

2.       Have faith in campus printers

3.       and Make fun of Fat People

There comes a time in each man (or woman’s) life where the temptation is great and the spirit is weak; I have set out to make it strong, therefore what I most wish to address out of the three mentioned above is the third one.

We have all seen a Fat Person somewhere. Stuffing their faces with a double burger; trying (vainly) to hide behind a computer in Beattie; or even occasionally WALKING to the food court. These people could be your friends; they could be your family, but the horrifying of all; it could be you. Do not make fun of them; they deserve our love, friendship and meal vouchers.

I would not be writing about Fat People if there wasn’t a problem of some sort that I desperately need to address, the problem is this; the blatant disregard that Fat People are in fact People too. For years I have tried to get Thabo Mbeki to pass a law that makes it illegal to make fun of Fat People. He just sent me a year’s subscription to the Virgin Active gym in reply. I am convinced that it’s all part of a big conspiracy.

The extensive research I have done proved to bring to light startling revelations! There have been occurrences where Fat People briefly do not think about food, but actually think about GOING to the shop to BUY more food. Although this moment is brief, it shows that they are able to register emotion in more or less the same way we do. At times, I am almost certain that I have seen smile, but I can’t be sure because it can sometimes be mistaken for a wind.

My dear ones take heed to my very wise words and smile in a friendly manner (but not too friendly, they might be encouraged to speak actually words; which is a traumatising experience) at the next Fat Person you pass. The gods shall look with fondness upon you.

Love,

George

The Varsity paper is Boring. English lectures are Boring. The blogs is Boring. Boring boring boring.

Why doesn’t someone give me material to ridicule? It’s not fair.

Why don’t the first year REL students blog? How am I suppose to make fun of them if they don’t show themselves? It's also unfair.

The Chappie is boring. For a brief (glorious) minute I actually thought that I’d finally gotten someone to play with. Instead s/he hit once and seemed to have backed away very slowly even though s/he had the upper hand (supposedly). It is very much sad.

Charl? Where are you? Do something worth fighting about (and not politics because I can’t COPE with Zuma anymore, he gives me bunions).

Sigh…  I had a fly once. I called him Ant.

The End

There has been the claim that apartheid has ended and that we are all equal in moral status if not in height, yet it is with a mournful and slightly heavy heart that it has once again fallen upon me to relate the sad details In Which I Momentarily Forgot and Remembered That I Am Not White.

UCT promotes equality (or at least that is my view) and to forget silly things like skin colour is extremely easy. Of course the thing that unites us most is the infamous UCT ‘accent’ (Girl to Boy: “I think that’s weally gweat??” [Note that sentences/statements are always said in a questioning tone]), but it should be remembered that although it is perfectly acceptable to adopt this style of speaking and forgetfulness of colour on campus; it is frowned upon Outside.

It was trailing after my dear mother in Pick n’ Pay at the Waterfront that made me realize why some people of ‘colour’ still hold to the belief that the Great White Shark Men are the true rulers of this sad world.

The security guard followed me.

From the Sweets isle to the Tin food isle.

I suppose my gruff appearance didn’t help much but just because your t-shirt isn’t ironed and your skin isn’t white doesn’t mean you’re out to steal tinned peas; I would have worn a balaclava for that. The sad thing was that the boy also wandering around in the store looking like 2-Pac reincarnated in white skin simply received a smile for his unusual attire.

Another funny thing is; something similar happened in a bookstore once. As soon as I stepped in, the assistant (white) hastily finished a transaction and asked (very politely) if there was anything she could help me with. After replying with a negative and turning to scan the shelves, I found that whenever I looked up, behind me or glanced to either side of me (or even up my bloody butt crack), she was there; with a patronising smile, while completely ignoring the other (white) customers.

No, no, I am not paranoid; just sad. Very sad.

The whole race thing never bothered me much until EDP (the Extended Degree Programme) and the above situations came into my life. It wasn’t necessary to think in terms of ‘she’s white and therefore above my station’, ‘he’s black and therefore a thief’ or even ‘they’re coloured and therefore have no front teeth’.

Is South Africa (and some other parts of the world for that matter) doomed to remaining in some shackle of apartheid?

I am of the opinion that the Varsity paper has gotten a bit dull as of late. O sure Liam Kruger (pg. 8) makes a fair attempt to fill Anton Taylor’s smelly shoes but sadly he lacks… something. So it came as a surprise when I saw the “…UCT guide to blogging” (pg. 9) and immediately felt compelled to read it.

Of course I knew all along that I was going to be ‘discovered’ and eventually become famous for my genius ability to write ReallyBadPoetry. What I did not bargain for was Berndt Hannweg pointing out my misspelled blog title. Even brilliant minds like mine make mistakes; take the philosophers that think the earth is round when it is in fact flat held up by elephants and floating in space for example. It’s appalling.

You shouldn’t laugh, it’s not very funny.

Also, Hannweg mentioned my stunning “good political commentary” (haha Linde!) and “views on the UCT today”. I’m slightly confused about my “views on the UCT today” but as Britany Spears once said; “all publicity is good publicity even if it means shaving my hair off”.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my dog, pet fly Ant and my Left Big Toe that inspired my second ReallyBadPoem.

Btw. I’m convinced that the Printers are conspiring against me. How else would you explain the Printer breaking down just before I have to use it after standing in a long line? A conspiracy I tell you.

The following article appeared in the Sunday Times 2 years ago. BEE is much debated; in fact it’s very nearly a cliché, overused and much abused. Funny that I haven’t come across something like this sooner; the most common moans comes from ‘whites’ that claim BEE favours ‘black’ (not Coloured, Indian, ect.). However, Moeletsi Mbeki (the author of the excerpt below) takes on a completely different approach. It makes an interesting read.

Angelo

25-03-2007, 07:34 PM

There has been a lot of debate about BEE (not to be confused with AA) and how it is benefiting only the elite and failing the masses, here's an article on its origins and motives:

How SA kissed genuine redistribution goodbye

The article that appeared last Sunday in the Business Times on Cheryl Carolus’s Black Economic Empowerment group is an incorrect and superficial presentation of the massive damage that BEE is doing to the economy and politics of this country.

Invented by South Africa’s white-controlled mega mining and finance corporations in the early 1990s, BEE as it is now affectionately called, is a magic wand that turns previously disadvantaged black politicians into instant millionaires.

Whites in South Africa invented black economic empowerment, you ask? It may sound unbelievable but it happened.

When Mandela came out of prison in February 1990, in the first public speech that he made, he restated the ANC’s political platform for which he had spent 27 years behind bars. The ANC manifesto, called the Freedom Charter, which was adopted in 1955, among other things advocates the nationalisation of the mines, the banks and other commanding heights of the South African economy.

Speaking on the steps of the Anglican Cathedral in Cape Town soon after his release, Mandela said he and the ANC, stood by the nationalisation objective.

This understandably struck fear in the hearts of South Africa’s white mining, banking and insurance oligarchy. Far from taking to their heels, however, the oligarchs immediately got to work to find another formula that could placate the angry ex-political prisoner and his fire-eating, radical communist and trade union associates.

BEE was the counter-proposal that the oligarchs eventually put on the table.

BEE looks deceptively like a form of reparation. It appears as a way for South Africa’s rich whites, atoned for their sins of exploiting cheap black labour to dig for the fabulous diamonds and gold for which South Africa is famous.

The reality, however, is very different. BEE is a formula for co-opting — and perhaps even corrupting — ANC leaders by enriching them as private individuals.

The objective was to play on the leaders’ weakness of many years of deprivation in prisons and in exile by dangling in front of them unimaginable riches that would be given to them by the oligarchs, free.

The first company to implement this magic formula was Sanlam, the second-biggest insurance company in South Africa — which had been closely associated with the apartheid regime.

Sanlam owned a subsidiary called Metropolitan Life, Metlife, most of whose policyholders, in keeping with apartheid strictures of “separate but equal”, were black. Metlife had assets in the region of R2-billion — small change in Sanlam’s world, but unimaginable wealth in the eyes of erstwhile black anti-apartheid political activists who had spent much of their lives in the dungeons of the apartheid government.

To make this asset transfer look like a serious, arm’s-length commercial transaction, Sanlam assisted its black partners — made up of Mandela’s family doctor, the secretary-general of the ANC, the vice-president of the Pan Africanist Congress, and the leader of a black business chamber, among others — to obtain a loan from an apartheid state bank called the Industrial Development Corporation.

Through further financial wizardry, Metlife’s shares were split into high-voting and low-voting shares so that the black shareholders, by owning a tiny portion of shares, could control the company.

Needless to say, once they controlled the company, the black shareholders paid themselves large sums in directors’ fees. Several of them built themselves palaces a few kilometers outside of Johannesburg that make Kubla Khan’s stately home in Xanadu look like a bungalow.

As they say in the movies, the rest is history. The ANC has long forgotten about nationalising the commanding heights of the economy. And you will be hard pressed to find an ANC minister or senior civil servant or former ANC minister or former senior civil servant who is not in, or working on, a BEE deal. Seventeen years after Mandela made his nationalisation speech on his release from prison, South Africa remains an oligarch’s paradise, which it has been since the British defeated the Boers in 1902.

But what about the black masses? Well, the English have a famous song (sung to the tune of the Red flag) which goes: The working class can kiss my arse; I’ve got the foreman’s job at last.

By Moeletsi Mbeki

Mbeki is deputy chairman of the South African Institute of International Affairs, an independent think tank based at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg