When is Too Much Too Much?

Just days after Mr Ramaphosa's anaemic response to allegations of corruption and criminality run riot in the Police 'Services', with collusion from 'business people and Honourable Ones, this:

'DA condemns transfer of arrested, untrained Brigadier to head Moot Vispol, demands immediate reversal and proper suspension'

When is too much too much? What more must the gangrenous ANC do, before they are frogmarched out of office like the confidence trickster bums that they are?

'The Democratic Alliance strongly condemns the temporary transfer of a 29-year-old Brigadier who has never worn a SAPS uniform, never undergone formal police training, and is currently out on bail on serious corruption charges into the post of Head of Visible Policing (Vispol) for the Moot District in Pretoria.'

This would be beyond belief, beyond wildest imagination, beyond drug-induced hallucination, if this were not South Africa, land of the vilest possibilities.

Truly, this is George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' come to life in our country. What we say in every forum and in our media is as far removed from our reality as the sun is from the moon. 

Things have fallen apart. We are in crisis. We are in hell. The convicts run the institution without fear of consequence. The media play the game, floating woolly, fleecy news bites, while rampant crime, corruption, incompetence and buffoonery gnaw at the nation's jugular. Politicians sell their souls and their constituents for half an hour of fame plus salary slip. Never did Rome burn as fiercely to manic fiddle music.

The time for commissions, euphemisms, think tanks, national dialogues, oil and  glibness from fat, fleshy political lips and dried stalks of long discredited, failed ideologies, is long past. Where is the scalpel to sever the gangrenous limbs? Where the cold steel of handcuffs for those who have plundered, raped and betrayed? Now, before we perish.  Before we are poisoned for generations to come; when we will be spoken of as those whose foolishness, willful blindness and deafness destroyed a nation of much promise. Who danced between the crazed fiddlers and the fire. Whose short sightedness and meanness of spirit chose greed, grievance and revenge over the future of our nation.

The Brigadier in question was one of several senior Crime Intelligence members arrested just weeks ago on charges including fraud, corruption and abuse of SAPS secret service funds. SAPS management now claims this is a “temporary transfer” under the Disciplinary Regulations, which allow for redeployment if a member’s presence in their current post is untenable. But nothing in the regulations justifies failing to impose precautionary suspension, which exists specifically to protect investigations and institutional integrity in cases exactly like this.

That this even needs to be pointed out is evidence of how far we have fallen; how deep into the mud and slime we have sunk. Too long ago, we crossed the line that integrity and decency used to hold, guarded by consequences. So many lines that we have crossed, so difficult to recross them.

Appointing an untrained, operationally inexperienced officer to oversee front-line visible policing undermines public safety, the credibility of SAPS and the morale of honest, hardworking police officers who have earned their rank through service and merit. It also places ordinary constables and sergeants under the command of someone unfamiliar with the realities and risks of policing on the ground.

A low budget movie on shenanigans in a banana republic would not dare include such a scenario. It does not meet the abysmally low minimum requirements for cheap movie scriptwriting.  Yet it doesn't raise an eyebrow in South Africa anymore.

That the ANC must go in order for our country to be saved, is as axiomatic as a + b = a + b. Those who waste breath debating this issue, as plain as the curve on Mantashe's midriff, are still frozen in 'liberation' cryo-sleep. They need to be liberated.

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Capitec Bank, South Africa  

1378565477

O Tichmann 

+27 833970723

Tipping Point, South Africa

Dear Mr Ramaphosa 

Many express disappointment with your tepid, lacklustre response to a chilling warning of the catastrophe facing us, as we descend further into the hell of your party's making. 

I refer to the General Mkhwanazi saga. Just want to clear that up, as it's one of the many that have been coming thick and fast since you first made 'tepid' and 'lacklustre' your mantra.

You do not disappoint. You lost the capacity to do so many, many ineffectual responses ago. You merely weary, bore and nauseate, like a dose of some dreadful laxative, taken at dreary intervals.

You are the surgeon who, after being appropriately surprised, shocked and dismayed at the size and growth of the tumour, calls a commission of inquiry. Three months into the also wearying, boring, nauseating and, inevitably, ineffectual performance, the patient dies - having lingered on in agony all the while.

We understand that your team is not exactly composed of the brightest and the best that South Africa has to offer. Nor do they shine brightest in the firmament where integrity, honesty, reliability and the like dwell. That is common cause. The evidence is compelling. If you are unaware, scan the news of the past few years. You may even be shocked.

But, Mr President, leaders clean up such messes with alacrity. In the crudest terms, they fire the asses of those who are dragging us to the lowest level of the pit toilet that our country has become. Time and consequences are merciless, for countries, as for individuals. Ask Zimbabwe.

So, sir, you do not disappoint. You merely fulfill your own prophecy. As did so many ANC luminaries before you. You merely confirm, as if any further confirmation were needed, that you need to go. Without delay. We have a country to save. You and your comrades may continue your games of make believe and your good stories from your fantasy and fairy tale shelves. Please, get out of the way. Let those who have a care for South Africa and South Africans do what so urgently and desperately needs to be done. While you dream gently in the sun of deeds done in the struggle for liberty and the far more successful struggle for wealth, ease and power.

Yours in the struggle for sanity and clarity of sight.

Richard 

Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted 

Capitec Bank, South Africa  

1378565477

O Tichmann 

+27 833970723

Cops 'n Robbers

So our gallant men and women in beribboned, bemedalled blue are mired in allegations of corruption. No surprises there. There have been hints and allegations, (as Paul Simon sang), for decades. 

What is surprising is the silence of the sacrificial lambs, you and I, fellow South Africans. What is the point of democracy, when there is a sense of overwhelming powerlessness in the face of the worst excesses? 

Cancer cannot self-correct or reinvent itself, except as a more virulent, malignant version. It has to be cut out. Voters have the knife. But, to quote from that English bloke's 'Julius Caesar', if Caesar had stabbed their mothers, they would have done no less (than vote for the stabbers).

I think of two possible reasons for this bewildering phenomenon. One: the liberator halo shines strong and dazzling, despite the fact that the only liberating done of late has been the liberation of vast sums of money from public fund captivity. "Ag, shame, they suffered for us, in the struggle'. A bit like having your head held underwater by someone who swam to your rescue from drowning. Through a stream of bubbles, you mouth: "Ag, shame, he really tried to save me". 

The other reason may be phrased thus: "Don't disturb me while I'm eating".

Of course, General Mkhwanazi may not be aware of a massive, brilliant undercover operation, headed by the minister himself. Perhaps, once all the many, many villains, like sardines in the KZN sardine run, are gathered, the net will be closed. 'When?', you ask. Patience, my fellow citizens. You have already waited some thirty years. What's thirty years more?

"Dem Herren sind eine tausend Jahren Wie ein Tag,

Ihm ist ein Tag Wie Tausend Jahr".

(To God, a thousand years are like a day,

To him, a day is like a thousand years".

There, that's comforting, isn't it?

If there is substance to the allegations, then, to the opposition parties, we expect the usual feeble bleating in protest, but it would be nice if you:

'Do not go gentle into that vile night

Rage, rage, against the dying of the light'.

(Apologies, Dylan).

Some historian will probably say, years hence:

"This was their darkest hour". 

Good night, South Africa.

Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted 

Capitec Bank, South Africa  

1378565477

O Tichmann 

+27 833970723