Solidarity declares war on crime

"Stop the murders", a campaign designed to force the South African government to act decisively against crime, was recently launched by Solidarity's civil rights wing, Afriforum.

The campaign follows the gory murder of a member of Solidarity, Frans Pieterse. The campaign's website (http://www.stopthemurders.co.za) describes the attack as follows:

"Mr. Pieterse was tortured for more than four hours. His attackers burnt him with boiling water, cut open his head and strangled him with a shoe-lace. The murderers also dripped molten plastic on Mr Pieterse's ten year old son, Gideon. The murder took place in the presence of Mr Pieterse's wife, Daleen, and his children Gideon and Anuscka(3)."

SA crime site 'hacked'

A controversial website called Crime Expo SA, was 'hacked' during the past week, according to it's owner.

Mr. Neil Watson said that the site was broken into on Thursday and that someone "planted" a virus.  The site is partially operational again, but it is said that the website will be  fully operational in the near future.

According to mr. Watson, the site received more than 20 000 hits since it's launch on 4 July 2006.

South African politicians and the feel-good history of Africa

Ever since the postmodern/poststructuralist French philosophers, Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, equated truth with art, the world has witnessed a plethora of revisionist attempts by the West to placate its self-induced feelings of guilt vis a vis its self-determined non-humanist treatment of other races and their places. It is therefore hardly surprising that the 'conquered' in history have grasped this self-recriminatory attitude with both hands (and feet), and are exploiting it like a hooker who has stumbled on a shipload full of gold-laden sailors on an around-the-world-in-eighty-days voyage. It goes without saying that modern popular culture is feasting on this cornucopian quagmire of bad conscience on the part the West.

Kevin Costner's Dances with Wolves showed us that cowboys were the barbaric eco-unfriendly murderers who slaughtered the nature-loving and peaceful Red Indians. Jane Seymour's Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman, showed us that Afro-Americans were actually part of the higher social strata in 19-century America. And Clive Owen's Arthur showed us that Guinevere was actually a tattooed kick-ass 5 ft 2 feminist killing-machine. Art is art, and one shouldn't take the extravagances of its dramatic-license too seriously. It is only when historical facts are blatantly distorted by powerful people, like politicians, that any intelligent person is morally obligated to take them by their delusionary collars and press their faces to the grindstone of implacable reality.

The 'most conquered' in recorded history will obviously spin the tallest tales. South Africa is currently the most virulent example of the feel-good fallacy characterizing the current politically-fashionable marathon to 'rewrite' history. Thabo (AIDS-is-not-caused-by-a-virus) Mbeki, the President of South Africa, is desperately trying to underpin his African Renaissance endeavor by firstly, stealing the limelight from the ancient Egyptian Empire who built the only meaningful non-Western and Non-Arab structures that made Africa part of verifiable history (anthropology/archeology). Secondly, he is having a whale of time in/by accusing the West (ala the Black Athena liberal idiocy) of deliberately whitening all the black faces that supposedly adorned all the vases, murals and paintings of the Macedonian, Greek and Roman Empires.

Even if we are forced to swallow the latter unsavory serving of historical un-truths, Mbeki is still left with the rather unenviable task of trying to explain why his hallowed Egyptian-linked forefathers mysteriously forgot the wheels and written language they used once they crossed the equator. This turn of politically-correct historical events is rather sad, but quite true. Mind you, isn't it curiously reminiscent of the fisherman who came back to tell his friends about the 'big one that got away'?

The best example of aestheticism leading truth by the nose is the recently-unveiled statue of King Ndebele in Pretoria, South Africa. This 'real-life' hero is credited with having known the evil intentions of the diabolical white settlers 200 years before he was actually supposed to have been born. Fiction is definitely more palatable than the truth in our 'everybody-is-a-victim' day and age!

It suffices to say that history is being taken for a very bumpy ride by those who have conveniently forgot that it is not a dish best served warm in order to stroke the egos of the faint-hearted. History is nobody's fool, and it will certainly not be bamboozled by the mesmerizing escapism offered by two French philosophers who have all but succeeded in selling guano as croutons to a civilization that has forgot that which has made it the most enlightened and advanced in the history of mankind. The truth, and nothing but the truth!

Albert Brenner

SA 2010 'far behind schedule'

09/07/2006 21:34 - (SA)

Pieter Malan, Beeld

London - South Africa's preparations for the 2010 soccer World Cup tournament are far behind schedule, according to an article in the German weekly Der Spiegel.

The SA authorities are so disorganised that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing, the newspaper reported.

In Germany, planning was so advanced four years before the 2006 World Cup tournament that the officials knew precisely which streets would be closed before matches, the weekly, the largest in Europe, reported at the weekend.

However, "in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town chaos and confusion are the order of the day at the moment," according to the article.

Der Spiegel reports that Delron Buckley, a South African playing in the Bundesliga, said South Africa was completely behind schedule and had not built or repaired anything.

Members of the German organising committee told the weekly they had had several visits from the SA delegation but that the South Africans would not listen to advice. "I have to start at the beginning every time," a German official said.

According to the report many German soccer officials are starting to believe that the only way to save the 2010 tournament would be to send members of the German committee to South Africa to get things in order.

This, apparently, is a view shared by some South Africans. According to the report, Mpumalanga premier Thabang Makwetla said during a recent visit to Germany the 2010 tournament would be "Germany's next tournament".

Der Spiegel reports that Danny Jordaan, the chief of the SA organising committee, professes, as could be expected, that everything is in order.

Jordaan told the publication that he did not want to elaborate upon the progress made in South Africa because he did not want to steal the limelight from the tournament in Germany while it was still in progress.

Fifa, the body controlling world soccer, should bear some of the blame because "they have created their own version of the reality," the report says.

Der Spiegel alleges that Fifa's progress reports about the 2010 tournament do not reflect the reality.

The reports refer to suburban train systems that are very popular but do not keep in mind that no other significant transport systems exist and that mini-buses are old and dangerous.

The SA authorities have also admitted that the planned Gautrain, an express train between Johannesburg and Pretoria, will not be completed by 2010.

And to make things worse, the South Africans are playing poor soccer and cannot really justify their participation in the 2010 tournament, according to the report.

*Original Source

Crime Expo SA: Good news and bad news

The good news: the website is up-and-running at http://www.crimexposouthafrica.co.za .

The bad news: it seems that it is still under construction (at least partially).

Crime Barometer: What happened?

According to the Afrikaans newspaper "Die Beeld" the Neil Watson "Crime Barometer" website's real domain name (www.crimexposouth-africa.co.za) was "kept secret" after it came to light that someone was trying to sabotage the registration of the website.

According to Watson, the website received 1280 hits on the first day. An additional 231 e-mails and 318 SMS messages were received. However, by the time of writing this article, the website was found to be "unreachable".

Any information regarding this issue can either be posted under the comments section or e-mailed to disasterafrica@hotmail.com.