Me thinks that writer Denis MacShane and I differ in our interpretation of what the term 'woke' means. Yes, after reading the wiki-page, I see that I might have fallen victim to the ironic use of the term:
By 2020, parts of the political center and right wing in several Western countries were using the term woke, often in an ironic way, as an insult for various leftist movements and ideologies perceived as over-zealous, performative, or insincere. In turn, some commentators came to consider it an offensive term with negative associations to those who promote political ideas involving identity and race.<1><2>
So then in long hand..... Tutu stood up to necklacing; he argued that, if necessary, violence should be deployed to dislodge Robert Mugabe in neighbouring Zimbabwe. It is hard to imagine BLM activists taking a similar stand.
In case you are totally unfamiliar.... in both situations cited above, the victims are..... Black Africans.
First, what exactly does kiff mean in this context? Cool? Coolness? Or Durban Poison weed? I smoked Durban Poison in a remote valley we hiked into in Lesotho and it was pretty damn good. Very cool.
I always thought rubber necklaces were an absolutely horrific way to die.....
Wokeist ... I get. Recall how former President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe became a darling of western intellectuals and similar for a few years before the takings and state-sanctioned violence started? It is rather striking how western intellectuals and activists fell silent during Mugabe's 30 plus years of authoritarian rule.
As for the leftist Commie stuff .... well, there is this pretence of being "left" but that is irrelevant because the Republic is falling victim to the same tribal political rent seeking that complicated life in many other former colonies in Africa. Left or right is relevant.
As for Commie, it is true that the ANC was originally inspired by communist ideology and rhetoric but frankly, communists elsewhere in the world have evolved over time. They are often the most conservative of those on the left and as a general rule have become increasingly non-violent.
This tribal mob violence is South Africa's. South African blacks, in this case the Zulu should own it.
You pretty much nailed it. As I understand it, kiff is a derivation from the Afrikaans word "gif", with the guttural "g", which means poison. Being jokingly referred to as the last outpost of the British Empire, the city Durban or the province of kwa-Zulu Natal have Anglicised the word into kiff.... poison, super-cool, very good. Proper.
I also wonder if kif has some Arabic origin, but the general notion in South Africa is that it has to do with the Afrikaans for poison.You tooted Poison hiking in Lesotho?
Magic.....making memories and all that.
Then there is Swazi Gold.
Something like being kicked in the head by a horse with marshmallow hooves.
I once sent some to an RP resident but never heard about it again so assumed it never arrived.
And then there are Malawi Cobs......super-sticky weed flowers wrapped tightly in maize leaves and buried for a time.....the result is a black almost hashish-like product that makes mountains on the horizon go flat at sunset, and cows on remote beaches in Mozambique engage in intellectual philosophical interactions.
Very mellow.
I am happy to hear you have spent some time in Southern Africa, my friend; not many here have.
Agreed, the silence from the West when the darlings of the Liberation struggles turn into despots and violent oppressors of their own people and run their countries into the ground in a generally remarkably short space of time is always noteworthy.
The slaughter of disagreeable subjects passes without comment.
The ANC are Communists.
Many senior ANC officials today were Moscow-educated in the 80's, and the headlong rush into Communism was only paused because the Soviet Union had collapsed and Madiba had become the darling of the world.
We were on a fabulous trajectory post-1994 for a while, but as support from China grew, the ruling party became emboldened again, the policies began shifting direction subtly back to towards their roots, and that trajectory began to dive South again.
The current president is a trade-unionist who has made billions post apartheid simply because he has a black skin and provided connections to foreign corporate interests into the mining and energy sector of the economy at the highest level.
The previous president was an ill-educated thug who ran a network of patronage that gutted every area of the civil service and accelarated the decline at the expense of the country and to his profit. To loosely quote CNN - half the country has been stolen but not one person has gone to jail.
South Africa in 10 years will be another Zimbabwe.
It's the African way.
The current violence is because people are cold and hungry and unemployed and without hope, as a result of lockdowns which the economy could not afford ( I have said elsewhere here that lockdowns are a First-World luxury), and general policies which are rascist and not supportive of enterprise, but are geared towards State capitalism and are destructive of entrepreneurship, and because the lot of the common man in South Africa has not improved post apartheid despite the promises made during the struggle.
The free stuff they were promised requires that they now smash windows to collect.
The pretext is about the Zulu, but the reality is otherwise.
South Africa has not had decent leadership...perhaps ever.
Watch the next municipal elections be 'postponed' because of Covid, and the ANC retain power......how convenient for them.
How calamitous for the country.
I am really happy to hear that you made some cool memories in the region, though.
Yeh, The Kiffness is well......kiff. It's a South African thing. As is the rubber necklace.
It's interesting how Facebook is censoring posts from South Africans relaying video and commentary on what's happening there at the moment....because they care about you. Yay for wokeist leftist Commie nonsense....coming soon to you in America, for your edification.
Enjoy!
First, what exactly does kiff mean in this context? Cool? Coolness? Or Durban Poison weed? I smoked Durban Poison in a remote valley we hiked into in Lesotho and it was pretty damn good. Very cool.
I always thought rubber necklaces were an absolutely horrific way to die.....
Wokeist ... I get. Recall how former President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe became a darling of western intellectuals and similar for a few years before the takings and state-sanctioned violence started? It is rather striking how western intellectuals and activists fell silent during Mugabe's 30 plus years of authoritarian rule.
As for the leftist Commie stuff .... well, there is this pretence of being "left" but that is irrelevant because the Republic is falling victim to the same tribal political rent seeking that complicated life in many other former colonies in Africa. Left or right is relevant.
As for Commie, it is true that the ANC was originally inspired by communist ideology and rhetoric but frankly, communists elsewhere in the world have evolved over time. They are often the most conservative of those on the left and as a general rule have become increasingly non-violent.
This tribal mob violence is South Africa's. South African blacks, in this case the Zulu should own it.
Editorâs Note: Todayâs letter is written by a Sovereign Man team member, Andre Bothma, who is based in South Africa.
In KwaZulu-Natal province, where Zuma is from, supporters of the former
president launched a massive, coordinated protest campaign against his
incarceration. Freeways were blocked with burning tires. Vehicles were
stoned. Trucks set alight across the province.
And then the looting and arson started in Durban and Pietermaritzburg, two of the provinceâs largest cities.
South Africa, once again, is making global headlines for all the wrong reasons.
In case you missed the news, last week former President Jacob Zuma was
sentenced to 15 months in prison for failing to appear at a corruption
inquiry.
It was probably a calculated risk on his part; had Zuma actually appeared
at the tribunal, he may very well have been convicted and sentenced to a
much harsher punishment.
And when his sentence was announced, many South Africans gave a collective
sigh of relief; it had been a long-overdue victory for the rule of law.
But then, virtually overnight, things started falling apart â rapidly.
First it was just small shops. But then entire shopping malls were looted and burned to the ground.
Once the shopping malls were in ashes, these âmostly peacefulâ protesters
moved on to torch distribution centers and loot cargo containers in
Durbanâs harbor.
They even rampaged against some of the regionâs critical infrastructure,
going as far as setting a water treatment facility on fire.
At this point the riots were still localized to the KwaZulu-Natal region, Zumaâs home turf.
But then the rioters started agitating for protests to break out in Johannesburg, the countryâs economic capital...
Nobody thought the violence was going to spread there; Johannesburg is not a
Zuma stronghold, and the locals there enjoy a much greater level of
affluence than those living in Zumaâs native KwaZulu-Natal.
And yet, overnight, the violence spread to Johannesburg.
Bear in mind that South Africaâs national police force has been recently
âdefundedâ, with a massive 11.8 billion rand (roughly $750 million)
budget cut. For South Africa, thatâs a staggering sum of money.
So with a heavily defunded police force unable to quell the violence, more
âmostly peacefulâ protestors rampaged across the country, specifically
targeting supply chain infrastructure.
On Monday night, for example, rioters brazenly looted a BLOOD BANK while being filmed on live television.
As things stand today, the Johannesburg and Durban downtown areas look like war zones.
I live in Cape Town, which so far hasnât erupted. But the atmosphere here
is tense; people are justifiably worried. Yesterday afternoon I came
home to find a police NYALA (a NYALA is an armored 4x4 riot control
vehicle) speeding past my house.
And the panic buying has already begun; I waited in line for ages last
night at my local grocery store, only to find that many major product
categories were totally sold out.
The line of cars waiting outside our local petrol station told the same story.
Economic analysts and observers are now sounding the alarm over food security
risks; theyâre saying that all the looting and burning of major
infrastructure and distribution centers could cause a food shortage.
But South Africa is already running out of foodâ the shortages are here!
Across Durban, finding products like bread, milk and insulin for sale has become almost impossible.
The few shops that are brave enough to remain open are selling loaves of
bread for 4-5X the normal price. And good luck finding any petrol
anywhere in the city.
As of yesterday, the body count stood at 70.
Over a billion dollars in damages to businesses and public infrastructure.
Supply chains decimated and investor confidence gone...
Thousands of retail jobs, gone for good, and even more at risk.
The rational person needs to be intellectually honest about whatâs happening right now: this
is deliberate violence and sabotage designed to destroy critical
infrastructure and terrify people, all in an effort to influence public
policy (and free Jacob Zuma).
But thereâs a word for this: terrorism.
And itâs been coming for a long time. South Africa has long been home to
instability, corruption, and tension. We have politicians like Julius
Malema who pour gasoline on racial tensions and threaten to seize
private property.
Itâs clear that South Africa has been declining gradually.
But then all this violence broke out very suddenly, practically overnight.
As Simon often writes, itâs like how Hemingway described going bankrupt: âgradually, then suddenly.â
Human beings are easily susceptible to normalcy biasâ the bizarre voice in
our heads that tells us âeverything will be OKâ even when the warning
signs are completely obvious.
Our brains simply cannot comprehend that tomorrow could be radically
different than today⦠and that our world could be turned completely
upside down.
It is for reasons like these that Sovereign Man consistently writes about
having a Plan B, which Simon describes as something like an insurance
policy.
But you canât wait until your house is already on fire before thinking about an insurance policy.
Yesterday, I spoke with a successful business owner based in KwaZulu-Natal. He
runs a franchise business, and scores of shops just like his have
already been looted and burned to the ground nearby.
He and his wife are almost at retirement age, and have had the means to get a Plan B in place for at least the last decade.
But they didnât. They procrastinated. They put off taking action because
there was no clear and present threat compelling them to do so.
Now, at a time where literally no one in their right mind wants to buy
commercial property in their city, they are looking to liquidate their
assets to get a Portuguese Golden Visa, which gives them a flexible second residency option in Europe.
Given that the application process takes several months to complete, even outside of Covid times, theyâre way too late.
Having a great Plan B requires NOT procrastinating⦠and taking the appropriate
steps for your situation BEFORE anything terrible happens, while you
still have the resources and presence of mind to do so.
Because if you wait until the proverbial hits the fan, youâll probably be too
frantic and panicked to be thinking clearly about rational solutions.
Donât give in to normalcy bias and assume that everything will always be OK. The last 18 months should be reminder enough that things can (and do) change very quickly.
Two weeks ago, South Africa was still a relatively well-functioning country. Yet the âcivilâ in civil society has been proven to be a precariously thin veneer.
To your freedom,
Team Sovereign Man
A friend comes from a family who have long had a clothing factory. It's been running for over 40 years now. When he finished studying he bought a piece of land adjacent to his family factory and built another clothing factory. He's been running that business for over 25 years, and he and his family have been creating jobs, incomes, and security for hundreds of families, many of whom have second generations employed in the businesses.
Yesterday both factories were burnt to the ground, not by employees, but by mad mobs.
So they've had enough, they are not rebuilding and starting again. They are cashing out and leaving the country. Starting again somewhere else, because when enterprise becomes impossible due to stupid regulations and laws, enterprising people take their enterprises elsewhere.
South Africa is no longer safe and enterprise is being made ever more difficult and onerous.
Those friends are among perhaps 15 to 20 families that I know of who are doing the same; black, white, whatever....
In a country where the official unemployment rate is over 32%, and much higher in the 18 to 25 year old demographic, jobs are precious.
But hey, Viva! Viva!
Because communism works..........
Hilarious. As long as The Kiffness can do this without earning a rubber necklace, all is good.
Yeh, The Kiffness is well......kiff. It's a South African thing.
As is the rubber necklace.
It's interesting how Facebook is censoring posts from South Africans relaying video and commentary on what's happening there at the moment....because they care about you.
Yay for wokeist leftist Commie nonsense....coming soon to you in America, for your edification.
I have forgotten how to insert a link to a video here.
i'll have a look again to see how to do that....
I don't see how to do it from a cursory glance. I will put re time into that.
I don't expect to be understood here, which is hard to come to terms with because i count most of you as friends and would travel a long way to spend time with you.
I guess I believe this mostly because I realise that many who read this will have become attuned to the CNN and BBC-type narratives, but you really, really need to know that at least some of what you see on certainly CNN and BBC is not always true.
For instance this is mostly bullshit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Zp7suN3bgY
I saw another CNN or it might have been BBC thing ( and it was that which prompted my post about fake news) about white farmers responding to Trump, telling him to stay out of their business....definite bullshit. I will look for it.
A single non-white woman farmer who is 2IC at AgriSA ( an increasingly Government allied organisation) made a tweet to that effect.
However, overwhelmingly the South African farmers are grateful for any attention they can get and have posted many many videos actually thanking Trump for his tweet.
I can provide links if you'd like.
There is big trouble coming here and another Zimbabwe is on the cards.
It has nothing to do with white supremacists.
There are white supremacists in SA as there are everywhere, but they are really few and far between and keep a very very low profile. South Africans merely seek a peaceful co-existence and an improvement in conditions for everyone.
White Farmers are absolutely under attack and the Government is refusing to even discuss it and are amending the Constituion to facilitate the seizure of not only land from farmers but have declared that they will look at seizing other assets as well - pension funds, medical schemes, savings.
The land is the thin end of the wedge and the record to date on land redistribution shows that the deeds for the land will not ever be handed to the new owners but will be held by the state. In the recent past, when given the choice between restitution of land illegally taken during apartheid or cash compensation, recipients have overwhelmingly decided in favour of cash.
This land thing....it's Socialism.
The most recent figures I heard about farm murder ratios put it somewhere around 159 or 169 ( I can't remember which) per 100 000. I think the miurder rate in the US, including your mass murders, is smoething like 4.8 per 100 000. INTERPOL has stated that farming in South Africa is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
My 83 year old blind mother was attacked, raped, and terrorised for hours by three AK47 wielding attackers in 2013 and left for dead, nothing was taken - it was not a robbery. But thats besides the point. I have twice defended my family from four armed thugs who were already inside my house on the farm when I woke up.
I know of many many people who have suffered farm attacks and murders of the most brutal kind- -unimagineable brutality...the woman who suffered having holes bored into her bones with an electric drill because she refused to tell the attackers where the safe was...because she was afraid that they would find the angle grinder next to the safe and come back and use it on her instead of the drill...I could go on and on and on....but that is besides the point as I say.
Our small family farm ( about 20 acres) is in the process of being bought, on very very favourable terms, by a young black farmer ( who calls me brother and who I have known for years along with his family) who is hurriedly trying to conclude the purchase before expropriation gathers momentum because he wants the title deeds to the land because, as he said to me, expropriated land does not come with title deeds and thus no access to capital for farming equipment and improvements.
He can see the lie.
The narrative about the land being stolen is incorrect, but popular. I would be happy to give some background to this.
Don't assume that because some South Africans are white and others black that the black South Africans have an inalienable right to land because it was all stolen from them.
It really isn't true. If you want some links to that history I can look and find for you.
It's like having your home and all you possess taken away from you because you look like the people who settled America hundreds of years ago. And then perhaps murdered for fun. For the same reason.
When the real problem is perhaps a failing mismanaged economy and unemployment over 30%.
It is possible that his land uproar is a distraction from the real problems we face. Unimaginable corruption. Lawlessness. Failure to deliver on promises of housing etc.
I leave you with these.....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLrdwVZoPzw
and this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1tdMpm1i2I
I am not a white supremacist, I am not Bokey either. I am liberal.
I would be happy to engage with anyone in calm rational discussion about this issue and others around South Africa.
I don't, unfortunately, expect to be approved of because, I realise, much of what I might say is contrary to the popular mainstream narrative.
And for that I am sad.
Thanks, G. I will look into your links this evening.
I don't expect to be understood here, which is hard to come to terms with because i count most of you as friends and would travel a long way to spend time with you.
I guess I believe this mostly because I realise that many who read this will have become attuned to the CNN and BBC-type narratives, but you really, really need to know that at least some of what you see on certainly CNN and BBC is not always true.
For instance this is mostly bullshit.
I saw another CNN or it might have been BBC thing ( and it was that which prompted my post about fake news) about white farmers responding to Trump, telling him to stay out of their business....definite bullshit. I will look for it.
A single non-white woman farmer who is 2IC at AgriSA ( an increasingly Government allied organisation) made a tweet to that effect.
However, overwhelmingly the South African farmers are grateful for any attention they can get and have posted many many videos actually thanking Trump for his tweet.
I can provide links if you'd like.
There is big trouble coming here and another Zimbabwe is on the cards.
It has nothing to do with white supremacists.
There are white supremacists in SA as there are everywhere, but they are really few and far between and keep a very very low profile. South Africans merely seek a peaceful co-existence and an improvement in conditions for everyone.
White Farmers are absolutely under attack and the Government is refusing to even discuss it and are amending the Constituion to facilitate the seizure of not only land from farmers but have declared that they will look at seizing other assets as well - pension funds, medical schemes, savings.
The land is the thin end of the wedge and the record to date on land redistribution shows that the deeds for the land will not ever be handed to the new owners but will be held by the state. In the recent past, when given the choice between restitution of land illegally taken during apartheid or cash compensation, recipients have overwhelmingly decided in favour of cash.
This land thing....it's Socialism.
The most recent figures I heard about farm murder ratios put it somewhere around 159 or 169 ( I can't remember which) per 100 000. I think the miurder rate in the US, including your mass murders, is smoething like 4.8 per 100 000. INTERPOL has stated that farming in South Africa is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
My 83 year old blind mother was attacked, raped, and terrorised for hours by three AK47 wielding attackers in 2013 and left for dead, nothing was taken - it was not a robbery. But thats besides the point. I have twice defended my family from four armed thugs who were already inside my house on the farm when I woke up.
I know of many many people who have suffered farm attacks and murders of the most brutal kind- -unimagineable brutality...the woman who suffered having holes bored into her bones with an electric drill because she refused to tell the attackers where the safe was...because she was afraid that they would find the angle grinder next to the safe and come back and use it on her instead of the drill...I could go on and on and on....but that is besides the point as I say.
Our small family farm ( about 20 acres) is in the process of being bought, on very very favourable terms, by a young black farmer ( who calls me brother and who I have known for years along with his family) who is hurriedly trying to conclude the purchase before expropriation gathers momentum because he wants the title deeds to the land because, as he said to me, expropriated land does not come with title deeds and thus no access to capital for farming equipment and improvements.
He can see the lie.
The narrative about the land being stolen is incorrect, but popular. I would be happy to give some background to this.
Don't assume that because some South Africans are white and others black that the black South Africans have an inalienable right to land because it was all stolen from them.
It really isn't true. If you want some links to that history I can look and find for you.
It's like having your home and all you possess taken away from you because you look like the people who settled America hundreds of years ago. And then perhaps murdered for fun. For the same reason.
When the real problem is perhaps a failing mismanaged economy and unemployment over 30%.
It is possible that his land uproar is a distraction from the real problems we face. Unimaginable corruption. Lawlessness. Failure to deliver on promises of housing etc.
I leave you with these....
and this
I am not a white supremacist, I am not Bokey either. I am liberal.
I would be happy to engage with anyone in calm rational discussion about this issue and others around South Africa.
I don't, unfortunately, expect to be approved of because, I realise, much of what I might say is contrary to the popular mainstream narrative.
