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

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