Very blue Monday this, feeling very narfi, I guess cos work is a tad slow at the moment, its raining, it’s a tad nippy but it’s a beautiful day nonetheless.

New additions to the mailing list Gill and Tracey, welcome to our little mailing community that currently boasts over 220 names, how many read it, I don’t know, but anyway welcome, I hope you find it useful, should you or any one else wish to be removed from the list please let me know and I will oblige. To read any of the older mail written or to make any comments, either reply to me or go to www.mondaymail.blogspot.com

Now with the formalities out of the way…what do u have to write about today? Well something I think about plenty speak, about sometimes people even accuse me of having a chip on my shoulder, to which I respond no mate, I think I am a pretty well balanced individual, I have chips on both shoulders. I wasn’t going to write about it, because I thought u guys must be sick of hearing it, but I couldn’t help it, after watching Carte Blanche last nite. For those non-South Africans amongst us, Carte Blanche is a magazine program that discusses a whole lot of topical issues going on around us either locally or overseas. Anyway the story I caught on to was the story about the Waterkloof 4. Waterkloof is a pretty affluent suburb in the country’s capital Tshwane.

The story goes like this one evening 6 guys (2 of them turned state witness after cracking from the ‘guilt’), after a heavy night of going on the pi ss, decided to find some lone negro either old or pi ssed himself, stumbling home…if he had one, and they beat him to death.

Apparently this is not the first time such a thing has happened, nor was it the last, it is almost a favourite past time for SOME young white males in the city of Tshwane. Everyone knows about it but nobody does anything about it. These 4 would have gotten away with it had one of the kids who were part of this whole thing not cracked and told a teacher. How do these guys learn about such a thing, well apparently its introduced to them by either their fathers/older brothers, whose fathers or older brothers taught them. Boys anywhere between the ages of 14 and 19 take part in it. Some of the stories told were insane, once a lone woman with a baby on her back was beaten, she lost her baby. The more things change the more things stay the same I tell u. The reason why many of them have gotten away with it in the past well in the apartheid days, if this was done, and someone found out, I am sure you would be awarded the freedom of the city, but nowadays, the guys prey on the fact that most of them are either drunks or homeless. So if they are homeless then who will miss them? If they are drunk and stumble into the police station well who will believe them? Is there any justice in the world? Tell your parents of what you have done and they say its bad don’t do it again, kinda like stealing sweets before dinner.

At the risk of trivializing the death of that poor soul Leigh Mathews, how swiftly did the police work in finding her killer? There was no stone unturned, yet they had not a solitary clue to begin with, but let a street walker die, well I guess he’s better off? But is he? Does his death investigation not deserve the same sort of attention? Does he not deserve the nations thoughts as Miss Mathews received? Does his/her name not deserve to be written across every single newspaper for weeks…months?

Our generation is one that places far too much emphasis on material possessions. Ours is a generation whose respect for life and other people, parents, older people is close to non-existent. Ours is a generation that needs some intervention

Now that’s just one story, give me an opportunity to vent and vent I will…anyway so I am hanging with my brother this week, now my brother is a doctor at Groote Schuur, he has just finished call and so he heads off to the barber to neaten up his mane, for some poor unsuspecting lass(es) he is to ‘molest’ (I don’t condone that sort of behaviour unless she does, need to be sensitive it being women’s month and all) either that nite or the weekend. On his long walk home he gets pulled over by some cops, where is your id, he tunes nooit boss I have just come from call I don’t think a guy on the operating table that I am saving wants to know if I have a valid damn id, so he gives them his doctors card, they say nooit, not good enough, they give him a bit more lip and then let him go. It’s a full time job this being a foreign black in this here country, but to tell u the truth there is nowhere else I’d rather be, but guys and girls, ask me not why I a Bok supporter am not (and well done to them by the way).

I was having a discussion with some of my peers a while ago about this topic here. Say I am a black guy and I have a white girlfriend. We are pretty cool together, get on like a house on fire, our mates are pretty chuffed with our choices. But her folks. Her folks have caught wind of the fact that she is dating a white guy, and the abuse she is getting, threats of being disowned, how could you disgrace us, how could you do this to us etc. They haven’t even bothered to find out about this cat, is he a scrub or is he at least a half decent young man? Is that racism or is it just the folks personal preference? Initially I was of the opinion that it is racism, and that sentiment echoes still, but I am trying to entertain other thoughts that perhaps just as it is my preference of cats over dogs, black cars over white cars etc. as is it their preference for their daughter to be with a man of their race, not that it guarantees them happily ever after? Maybe I am looking at it from my point of view. I would never see an issue if my sister, brother, mate, daughter or son (no I don’t have any of the latter that I know of) came home with a person different to I, for me it would be an opportunity to learn something new rather than think I am better than that person.

We all ask for an open world where we can all just be…we can all just be people, buyers, sellers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, accountants, bankers, prostitutes, pilots, whatever wherever, we are just being, we ask for a global economy, why not a global world. Imagine a world of no persecution through difference. All you are is a person judged on what you do and how u do it and not what you look like, where u come from what you believe in, a world where you can just be

11 years later and where are we. Well we are in a beautiful country, a country where corruption is laid out there for all to see. A country where all of a sudden people can see the faults of the previous government. A country where the present government can do no right even though the country is in the best place its ever been.

Yes, more can be done. Hell plenty can be done and it starts with me! Sh it I just want break into song sing with me… I see trees of green, red roses too, I see them bloom for me and youAnd I think to myself, what a wonderful world I see skies of blue and clouds of white, The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night, And I think to myself, what a wonderful world The colours of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky, Are also on the faces of people going by, I see friends shakin' hands, sayin' "How do you do?"They're really saying "I love you" I hear babies cryin', I watch them grow, They'll learn much more than I'll ever know, And I think to myself, what a wonderful worldYes, I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Oh yeah – Wonderful world by Louis Armstrong

Birthdays
21st Julius, Nhlanhla
23rd Jem
26th Charl
28th Francois and Mrs Makanda

“today I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but my chief duty is to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble” Helen Keller

‘all of the flowers, of all of the tomorrows, are seeds of today’ unknown

That’s me for this week, comment...how refreshing a Monday mail out on Monday. Maximum respect to the masses.

Lata

Y

Midway through August already, yes I know I must get over it, time is flying, but you guys don’t understand man! I am closing in on 30, there was a time not so long ago that I used to laugh…ha ha ha at 30 year olds, I used to think that eish mara you guys are like old oh well

Trust you guys had a good weekend, mine was potentially rowdy and silly, but I managed to pull myself towards myself most of the time, it was the Cape Town fashion week, I had my crazy (no jokes neither) friend Lebogang Comfort here along with Karabo D, Lauren, Ish and Mike R were also here, didn’t really see much of the latter 3 though cos I just cant do it no more, stamina is just not what it used to be. But all good though.

I have been so slacking these last few weeks I know, so big effort this week. About 3 weeks ago I wrote about the conflict in Northern Ireland, well this week I write about the Israeli-Palestine issue, an issue that began many moons ago even stems back to BC. The reason for this is if you haven’t heard, Isreal is currently pulling out of the Gaza, an exercise that is being met with much apprehension from the Israelis occupying that area, an exercise that could be rather costly for the Israeli government, an exercise that may well lead to peace in the region.

A bit of a history lesson in how the region was initially occupied. The only question is how far do we go back, I found some text that gave the history of this region dating back to 3000BC. Between 3000BC and 1100BC, Israel, The West Bank, Lebanon and much of Syria and Jordan was occupied by Canaanite civilization. In the second century AD, the Romans expelled much of the people from this area and those remaining were farmers, pagans and Christian converts, decendents of Arabs, Persians, Samaritans, Greeks and old Canaanite tribes. The area became increasingly ‘Arabized’ when more Moslem settled into the region and started intermarrying with the residents (if that makes any sense). The area became known as a predominantly Arab and Islamic country at the end of the 7th century. 60% of the population was into agriculture and the remainder were either townspeople or nomadic people. There was nothing but an Arabic majority up until about a week before spring of 1948 when Israel was established, it is written that in 1931 the Jewish population made up 175k of the 1.1mil population. So how did this all change? In 1958 The Ottoman Land Code was enacted and it required all individual owners of agricultural land to register the property in their names. This was a practice that was not entertained by the current peasants and what this meant is that the peasants could be deprived of their land. The law ignored rights of tenure. What resulted, was the wealthier people in the Arab community, who knew people like Mo Shaik knew JZ, registered large areas of land as their own. The peasants, oblivious of this, carried on as they had in the past and only caught wind of this when they realized that their land had been sold to Jewish settlers. And so the invasion of Palestine began. A Jewish National Fund was set up to purchase the land of Palestine from greedy, wealthy Arabs, who’s land it was not to sell. This land was purchased by Jewish people under strict terms and conditions. One such condition, was that the land was not to ever be sold or leased back to the Arabs

As the Jewish presence in Palestine grew, so too did the hostilities against the Arabs, it was kinda like the apartheid era in this country, only it was in that country J, the Arabs were deprived of their rights, subjected to hostility and cruelty, oh it was just messy. This matter was made worse by the involvement of the British. The Balfour declaration, promising a Jewish homeland in Palestine, talk about meddling, it was a declaration made by a ‘European power, about a non-european territory in a flat disregard of both the presence and the wishes of the native majority resident in that territory’ I can clearly see how this was going to work! NOT!! And so the rift deepens…widens. During this time the Jewish settlers known as Zionists, started entrenching themselves in the region, they tried to impose themselves and their way of life on the Arabs inhabiting the land. This was met with mighty opposition. The stand off was as follows, 1/10th Jewish, 9/10th Arabs, do the math, it ain’t gonna work without some external intervention, enter Britain with its 50,000 armed forces to initiate the process.

In 1936-9 the Palestinian Arabs attempted a national revolt with the aim of obtaining a right to self determination, David Ben-Geurion recognized the fact that it was the Zionist who were in fact the political agressors and the Arabs were merely defending themselves and their land…the revolt was crushed by the British with some fierce brutality. In 1938, figures such as Gandhi, even though objecting to the use of force by the Arabs, came to their defence saying that the events in Palestine were grossly unjust and just as England belonged to the English, so to Palestine to the Arabs.

In 1948, Israel declared itself a state, a state made up of land purchased some say illegally by wealthy Arabs, who had no claim to the land; land illegally purchased after there was an order for the Jewish National Fund to stop purchasing land. Apparently Israel is made up of little more than 6% legally owned Palestinian land. In 1947, America emerged as a huge supporter of the call to partition Palestine. Was the partition fair? Well you decide…it was stated that the land would be occupied half by Jewish people (who legally owned little more than 6% of the land) and half by the Palestinians (how this would work I don’t know). But here is the twist in the tale, the Jews would be established as the ruling body of the region. The most puzzling part of this was the fact that this was an idea endorsed by the United Nations. The twist just got even more twisted, the Jewish people who made up about 1/3rd of the population, and were given the right to rule the region were unhappy with the partition, they wanted more of the land. As a result of their superior military capabilities, the Jewish people set off occupying more Arab land in 1948. Tiberus on the 9th April (this attack was recorded as a cold and predetermined slaughter, women, men and children were lined up against a wall and executed), Haifa on the 22nd April, Jaffa on 28th April, all arab parts of the new city of Jerusalem on the 30th April and so on. The Israeli machine was marching on and the Arabs were fleeing for their lives, what else could they do I guess, US, UN and British backed military against ?

The war ended and a resolution 194 was passed by the UN which allowed disposed Arabs to return to the homes, but unlucky, the Jews opposed this, they have found ways to prevent this and to compensate disposed Arabs from their property or to live in Israel as an equal citizen before the law. Winter came, many disposed families, not too from their vegetable gardens and warm homes had to settle for cold caves, make shift tents and hard core hunger, up until the UN food relief acted

In June 1967, Israel fearing what could result from the concentration of the Egyptian Army in the Sinai, chose to attack the Egyptians. The reason for the attack by the Israeli’s was to show the Arab world that Israel would not be intimidated. After this war and contrary to international law, Israel confiscated over 52% of the land in the West Bank and 30% of the Gaza Strip for military use or Jewish settlement. From the period of 1967-1982 over 1300 Palestinian homes were demolished on the west bank, over 300 000 Palestinians were detained without trial.

The effects of the Israeli occupation still rumbles through the region. Families can go up to 5 days without running water (cos the Palestinians have a quota and the Israelis not), the situation was mad, Bethlehemites were buying water from tanks at silly prices when just 5 miles up the road, sprinklers were blazing and little ones were splashing around in pools. Something like 90% of children of 2 years or more have woken up to the sound of the army breaking into their house, beating up a family member or just vandalizing, these same children grow up with this in the back of their minds and they get promised a better life if they die for the cause…enter the entity known as the suicide bomber. Or the story of a man who slaved in Israel just so save and build his family a home only to find that it had been bulldozed, the reason for this was that it was erected without a licence.

To date terrorism has reigned over the region i shoot your people, u throw stones at me and climb on my bus and blow up innocent people going to work, then I come back shoot more people, then tomorrow it’s a mall that’s blown up and so it goes on.

Many a talk of peace had been threatened, but never once did the Israelis want to talk directly to the Palestinians until 1993. Was it because of guilt? “why should the arabs make peace? If I was an arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but does that matter to them? Our god is not theirs. We come from Isreal, its true but 2000 years ago, and what is that to them? There is anti-semitism, the Nazis, Hitler Auschweitz but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we came here and stole their country. Why should they accept that?” David Ben Gurion quoted in the “Jewish Paradox”

The withdrawal from Gaza is a step in the right direction, it also demonstrates that perhaps what is written here isn’t too far from the truth. Only time will tell if peace will ever feature in that region.

All that is written is here is from a booklet published by ‘Jews for justice in the middle east’. It may seem slanted, in favour of the Arabs in the region, but tis the words that I see and those that I hear that a source of my wisdom be for I am not omnipotent…

Birthdays
18th Lerato
19th Rob lee

“Man must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind him to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and a mystery” – HG Wells

Till next week, maximum respect and any comments… www.mondaymail.blogspot.com

Lata

Y