Ruling Party gone loco

"The Bill of Rights, enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Act 108 of 1996, provides all of us with the right to express our views explicitly so, without any fear or intimidation. This is the South Africa that we live in, and part of the Democracy that many before us laid their lives for. I am very disturbed by your statement that people must stop worrying about things they dont understand. I think you have completely missed the point.

Mbeki was a principled man. He set a vision and a way forward and stuck to it with aplomb. Yes, he made blunders in the process. But were these blunders worth impeachment? He couldnt have been impeached because there were no grounds for such a process, hence this barbaric route. I agree, Mbeki (the person) needed to go so that we could get fresh ideas. But was it necessary to humiliate him, bearing in mind that he was left with only six months to wind down his business in govt. I'm quite disappointed at the current subjective politics at play. What is Zuma's principled stand? What is he bringing to the table? We cant follow Zuma (the person) blindfoldedly. We needed to have known his political and economic intentions before falling for him. I have used the term 'the person' to highlight his subjective state. Where I used his name only, I referred to his stand, his principle and his vision. That is what I think we should be looking at, their objective states.

You tell people not to play media politics yet you yourself explicitly do the exact. Mbeki issued a statement about HIV/AIDS that was misrepresented by the media and in the process your fell prey as well. All he said was that we cannot attack HIV as the sole cause of AIDS. This literally meant that HIV/AIDS is a social and lifestyle pandemic that was exacerbated by the ills of our socio-economic landscape. With Poverty as a leading factor, South Africans were at a much riskier position to be infected due to unemployment, a lack of economic means to upgrade themselves and a further lack of extramural activities, amongst others. And once infected, our fellow brothers and sisters would not be able to afford medication and the necessary ancillary products to manage the disease.

Instead of looking at the object of Blue's argument, you raised a couple of race issues. My brother, the people you have stated in your argument, Wouter Basson, the Waterkloof boys, the Swartruggens boy, etc were all charged and had their day in court. Not only did they have their day in court but all charges against them were tested and they were duly convicted. Remember the South African Judiciary is independent. The question of why their sentences were lenient is valid but that should be addresses to the Judiciary. The object of the matter here is why cant one man, who has 783 charges raised against him, be prosecuted. Is it because he is a populist? He must clear his name so that we cannot have an embarrassing situation of having to defend him to the world once he is elected president.

Yes, Zuma will have advisers. Why then choose a lame duck as a president. Why not choose a competent individual who'll need minimal advisory requirements? Here is a simple definition of competency to trigger your mind. "The quality of being adequately or well qualified physically and intellectually to perform duties assigned to you without unnecessary supervision and guidance". Do you honestly think that out of 43 million people in our country, we lack a better individual? And a clean one for that matter.

Lastly, due to our political background, one must be aware that white-on-black attacks wont be eradicated completely just yet. We still have angry white boere who might still attack us from time to time. But we must fight against that with all we have. But to have black brothers humiliating a fellow brother like this is very disheartening, especially at that level. I honestly never thought it would happen so soon in our infant democracy.

But all in all, my brother, we might differ in our outlook, but that does not mean I undermine your view point. One of the few agreements that I share with you regrading the current state of affairs is that we disagree on various aspects. Much respect!!!

I remain...