A Rainbow Nation Burns

By Gareth Cliff:

Between a rock and a hard place….

Thabo Mbeki was right: There really are two South Africas. Most people jump to the conclusion that we’re a nation divided along racial lines.
Others think it’s about the haves and the have-nots.
The events of the past few days have made it abundantly clear that the real divide is between those who want law and order; and those who see the law only as a means to make themselves more powerful.
Those are the two South Africas.

Before you read any further, let’s take a moment to appreciate context and perspective, because nothing happens in isolation: We have been living on a powder-keg of unsustainable, teetering and disdainful politics since about 2009 (the seeds of which were germinating in the ugly part of our pre-1994 history). While Jacob Zuma was a big part of the overall toxic mixture, he was not the only reason we have found ourselves in this situation. A combination of the ANC’s inability to bring itself to order; the constant public narratives used to divide us; an economy that has been mismanaged in a destructive alliance between unions, the ruling party and crony corporations; and ultimately a devastating and unpredictable pandemic have created a perfect storm that just needed an excuse to break.

Let’s be very clear: what we’re experiencing isn’t about Jacob Zuma, inequality and poverty, or a lack of vaccines. While those things may have contributed to the overall power vacuum, they’re symptoms, not causes. That all of this started in KwaZulu-Natal isn’t a surprise either: weak political leadership, confusion in the Zulu royal family and an overpopulated province of young people with no reason to wake up every day, no sense of purpose or hope, this was inevitable.

We’re witnessing the final unravelling of the ANC, and especially the elite criminal coterie who have been manipulating the institutions and authority of government for their own purposes for at least the last decade. Their reluctance to act against each other, abide by the law or do what is good for South Africa is a can that was kicked down the road until they ran out of road. Unimpressive and incoherent fools, promoted far beyond their competence in a system that rewarded greed, party loyalty and failed ideology have brought them to a breaking point. That’s what ultimately precipitated this orgy of looting, criminality, violence and stupidity. That has been predicted by much smarter people than me for much longer.

So if you stop reading here, you’ll probably wish you hadn’t read any of this at all – but fortunately that isn’t all.

The heartening and hopeful evidence of good people standing together, taking up arms and looking to protect each other from criminals and scum is everywhere. I saw a group of old and young; rich and poor; black, white and Indian neighbours on the news last night, determined to look after the suburb of Montclair in Durban. Their eyes betrayed not a spark of fear, but a resourceful, determined and strong sense of community – in the best sense of that word. Those men had something powerful to fight for, and they weren’t in it to steal a TV.

We’ve always had poor people in this country (sadly, far too many) who battle through every day – and none of them partake in arson and theft, even if they’re desperate. There’s a moral majority of granny-headed, religious and decent rural families who have as much disdain for the carnage they see as any angry taxpayer does. Together, they’ve watched crooks plunder the land Mandela promised them. Today, they stand united against the mob.

The great divide in South Africa is and will continue to be between those who want a future for themselves and their children, who believe we are a civilised people with enormous potential – and those who have given in to the chaos of destruction, hopelessness and self-loathing. On the one hand we have the steely resolve of the better part of our nature, and on the other the vacant yellow eyes of opportunists and monsters. The real looting (of some R500-billion or more) has already taken place. Those who took it are now deploying their vassals and playing the only card they have left.

It’s time you asked yourself which South Africa you want to be a part of, and what we need to clear out of the way in order to share our place in the sun. It’s always darkest before the dawn.

 

Guns kill people

Anti gun tirade.

One of the favored arguments of those opposed to private ownership of firearms is that guns kill people. However, while it is true that firearms were originally developed as a weapon of war, this argument ignores the fact is that firearms are inanimate objects that are simply not capable of taking action on their own.

Therefore, they require a conscious human operator with a clear objective in order to fire a projectile. Consequently, the truth is that it is not the firearm that kills people but, instead, the human operator who makes a conscious decision to take a life. The firearm is merely a tool to that end

So if the above is true, why do we have lawmakers and anti gun lobbies trying their best to ban guns? Or trying to make it practically impossible to get one.

We already have character checks, criminal record checks, competency checks in place to try weed out those who may inclined to violence or have some mental disorder that makes them unstable to actually handling a firearm.

When we were immature young boys leaving school, with tons of testosterone flowing through our bloodstreams, we were good enough to be armed with an assault rifle, handgun and hand grenades by the government. We were deemed good enough to go to war with the weapons provided and were hailed as heroes if we killed the enemies of the state. Those that didn’t shoot faster or more accurately than the people shooting at them, died. Survival was as simple as that

Now we have the government trying to say that we no longer have a right to protect ourselves or those around us by owning a firearm for self defence. It would seem that the government thinks that criminals are now going to throw their firearms into the sea,rivers or dams because the rest of the population has had to surrender their firearms? I seriously dont think so!

If ones looks at what the government proposes to do by saying that “self defense” is no longer a reason for owning a firearm, and that your current license is only valid for a couple of years, then you would not be in a position to reapply to renew your firearm license. Then you are illegally in possession of a firearm and would forfeit it to the state. You would also not be compensated for your previously legal firearm.

The government managed to disarm all the commandos as well as all police reservist without too much trouble. This has now created a veritable open season for criminals in areas where people are no longer protected. And the police have admitted that they are not in a position to stop crime, but can only react to crimes already committed. Plus the majority of armed police actually failed their competency tests for using a firearm!

If the proposed bill does go through, then the police and Gun Free South Africa who are pushing for the stringent new laws must also accept that the police and all the security companies that carry firearms aren’t doing it for self defense.  They would be carrying firearms to attack defenseless people with impunity.