Even if you think Helen Zille dances like a monkey, there are some real things about her you should know

Politics is nasty business I tell you. I spend a fair bit of time watching Al Jazeera, BBC, e-News and CNN reading the Times online etc. and I can’t help but shake my head at the manner in which politicians conduct themselves. In one instance we have a politician who believes that the country belongs to him and his family and they are the only ones capable of running a country then we have instances where the people who voted you into power have voted you out of power and you refuse to go and the only way you will go is if the city is bombed and people are killed. I don’t know bru?!! I shake my head still as I write this.

So this week I log on to get my daily news highlights and boom front page there is an allegation of an insinuation that Julius made mention that Helen Zille dances like a monkey. If that was said or not and if it was in reference to Mrs Zille, I know not because I was not there nor did I say it. But it got me thinking again. Is it necessary this mud slinging? Is it because I have nothing else to base my attacks on that I have to attack something as trivial as the way a leader of the opposition party dances? Anyway so I know that Helen Zille has some struggle credentials, so I decided to take some time out and google her and came across her biography on Wikipedia.

She was born in Jozi, schooled in St Mary’s then varsity at Wits. She joined the Rand Daily mail a newspaper in that time. She was very politically active in her early days, a strong anti-apartheid campaigner. In Sept 1977 after the NP government put out a statement that Steve Biko had died of an extended hunger strike, her and her editor Alistair Sparks smelt a rat and so they went digging. They managed to find 2 doctors who confirmed their suspicion. They broke the story that Steve Biko had in fact died from head injuries. Anglo American took over the newspaper a few years later and asked the editor to tone it down a little she then left and moved to CT I think. She became a member of the Black Sash an organization founded by Jean Sinclair in 1955, This organization was a non-violent, white women’s movement against the apartheid system which included the ‘Pass laws”. The Black Sash disbanded or metamorphosised into some other non-racial women’s movement after 1994 after the period where political parties were unbanned and Mr Mandela was released from prison. Mrs Zille also campaigned to end conscription in the Western Cape. Add to that the fact that in 2008 she was awarded the WORLD Mayor award out of 820 other mayors for the work she did in the Western Cape, regarding crime, drug abuse etc.

So I then googled Julius Malema and to be honest there is nothing by way of achievement listed on there other than being the leader of the ANC Youth League. Maybe it hasn’t been recorded as yet but there is no mention of any positive contribution or input that he has made that has benefitted even a section of the country. And please, I am not buying into this big media machine, I live in Joburg and I am in Cape Town often, yes fair enough I don’t go to Khayelitsha and Gugs often but to be honest I don’t spend much time in Alex or Soweto when I am in Jozi and the places I do go to in CPT work, I’d like to say the same thing about Jozi, I live in the burbs and the roads here are poked, traffic lights are constantly on the blink. BUUUUUTTTT that’s not the aim of this email, all I wanted to do was give people some insight into this face of the opposition who in my mind has done more for the people of this country than some of her detractors. She walks or at least has walked the talk.

Birthdays
27th March Thuli Z, Fedile
28th Nigel K
29th Philip R, Marc W
30th Randall
1st Gorata, Grace
3rd Shannon
4th Otto
5th Kirsty v/d B

Take care

Y