Tag: south africa

Ruth Archibald: A brave, brave woman

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In a country in which white people “stick out like sore thumbs” and “are persecuted by black people”; a country in which “there is a hatred of what we did to them” and “it’s all about the colour of your skin”, I give you The Canadian High Commissioner, Her Excellency Ruth Archibald. (She’s the one on the left).

Ruth

Quite how the Canadian Government could put a white person in such danger by posting her to South Africa, I don’t know. In doing so, I feel it demonstrates “clear and convincing proof of that state’s inability or unwillingness to protect her”.

Please someone – anyone – send the helicopters and SWAT teams to get her safely back to Ottawa.

More serious note: Image from SA Army site, detailing a ceremony honouring two SANDF members who had saved the lives of Canadian soldiers serving in Sudan. Worth a read.

White bloke moves to Canada: makes news

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I really wasn’t going to follow this up, because it’s utterly stupid (if it’s even true), but I have had a lot of emails and this blog is yours*, so here goes.

This was on news24.com yesterday:

Ottawa – A white South African man has been granted refugee status in Canada, after an immigration board panel ruled he would be persecuted if he returned home to South Africa, the Ottawa Sun reports. This is the first time a white South African has been granted refugee status in Canada claiming persecution from black South Africans, the newspaper said.
Brandon Huntley, 31, presented “clear and convincing proof of the state’s inability or unwillingness to protect him”, the Canadian immigration and refugee board panel ruled last Thursday.
“I find that the claimant would stand out like a ‘sore thumb’ due to his colour in any part of the country,” tribunal panel chair William Davis said. 
Huntley’s “subjective fear of persecution remained constant and consistent” up to the time he made his refugee claim, Davis noted.
The Canadian newspaper reported that Huntley – who grew up in Mowbray, Cape Town – claimed he had been attacked seven times by black South Africans. He said he was called a “white dog” and a “settler”.
“There’s a hatred of what we did to them and it’s all about the colour of your skin,” Huntley reportedly said.
He first went to Canada on a six-month work permit in 2004, and returned in 2005. He stayed on illegally and made a refugee claim in April 2008, the Ottawa Sun reported.

And of course, the people who hate South Africa, many of whom have actually left and only get selective news snippets like this, have jumped on the bandwagon with glee. And they are shouting about the “white dog” and the “state’s inability or unwillingness to protect him” as if the Canadian immigration board panel is an expert on the situation in South Africa. Which they are obviously not.
If they were, then why would they make statements like “I find that the claimant would stand out like a ‘sore thumb’ due to his colour in any part of the country”, which is completely laughable, but will be conveniently ignored by the desperate and baying expat masses overseas because it doesn’t fit their agenda.

The whole thing is nonsense.

What about when Jeremy Clarkson went to Johannesburg and caused a sh!tstorm of note in SA by telling us that it was completely safe? The expats and their wannabe mates over here dived right in, screaming that “he didn’t go to [suburb]” and “he had an armed guard” etc etc, once again ignoring the rest of the column which detailed how lions in Kruger National Park were contracting HIV from the Mozambicans that they were eating. Now, despite my best efforts in searching, I didn’t see a single whining whitie complaint about that little gem, so I’m assuming that they fully agreed that it was true.
Which just shows you selective their vision is and how Looney Tunes their blinkered viewpoints are.

But back to the story at hand.
Brandon Huntley comes from a suburb about 5kms from where I live. It, much like South Africa, is a melting pot of many different colours and cultures. I would happily walk around there: it’s a safe, friendly and open place. In fact, the only minor issue is that it’s full of students. Maybe he was actually trying to get away from them (which I could completely understand), but then even Ottawa has a University, so that’s a non-starter, Brandon. Sorry.

At the end of the day, if Huntley had anything to offer Canada, he would have been welcomed with open arms. That he slipped in illegally through the back door means that SA is better off without him and his strangely paranoid views.
As for Canada; well, if you can just make stuff up about where you came from and they’ll believe it, then her doors are open. I would imagine that Brandon is already making plans to enjoy their extensive benefits system.

As I’ve said before… Good riddance.

* is it hell…

EDIT: Update here:

On Monday evening Russell Kaplan, Huntley’s legal representative, told Beeld that reports in South African newspapers concerning the problem of crime, among others, was used as proof.

I don’t know about you, but I believe absolutely EVERYTHING I read in the newspapers.
More selective vision, more cherry-picking the sensationalist stories and soundbites. The fact that the board believed it proves that the Canadian immigration procedures are an absolute joke.

EDIT 2: Another update here.

Are The Killers coming?

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I had a whole heap of people in a very brief frenzy with this post:

Capture11

But – whatever the comments said and however dysfunctional the Computicket link was, that post was based on at least some small degree of truth, as iAfrica states here:

It all started with an entry on the Computicket website listing The Killers performing at a Cape Town wine farm during December.
The event, discovered on the ticket booking website on Tuesday 11 August, revealed that the ‘Human’ hitmakers were playing at the Val De Vie Wine and Polo Estate on 6 December, with bookings set to open on 14 August.
A source at the venue confirmed she had also heard news of the forthcoming show and we are currently awaiting confirmation of the event details.
However the event was removed from the Computicket website later on Tuesday.

We live in hope. It would be a stunning venue for a stunning band.

Patience is all that is required. And of course, the RSS feed for this blog – because we’ll keep you posted.

British Journalist Speaks Sense About South Africa SHOCK!!!!!

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It seems that Chief Football Commentator at The Times, Patrick Barclay, thinks that England can win the World Cup in South Africa next year. And he may well be right. They’re playing some great football and getting some great results. And, of course, the 2010 World Cup will be held in the middle of winter in South Africa… 

Now the strength-sapping summer heat of Italy, France, Japan and even Germany gives way to an English footballer’s dream: the coldest World Cup since records began.

…bringing with it the probability of weather conditions which will play right into England’s hands. We like the cold; the Portuguese (if they even manage to qualify) – don’t. Shame.

Barclay’s comments on South Africa were refreshingly honest as well. After all the hysteria which has surrounded South Africa’s preparation for the World Cup, the allegations that stadiums would not be finished, that the infrastructure couldn’t cope, that a lack of security would mean that everything was shifted to Oz at the last minute; well, here is a viewpoint from someone that’s actually been here and watched football. At last!

In Germany — not to mention Japan — trains were a fine method of getting about. In South Africa, forget it. Put yourself at the mercy of the roads and inevitable match-day congestion, get organised into bus-loads with local guides (though security should be less of a worry than some suggest, only a fool would take undue risks) and allow four or five times as long as is recommended for every journey.

To be fair to the hosts, most of the traffic jams we encountered were because of road improvements designed to ensure a smoother flow next year. But do reset your watch to take account of the time-difference between aspiration and reality. Then it can be fun; I have especially fond memories of a day in Soweto, which is keen to take budget guests and will, I was assured, be safe (unlike downtown Johannesburg, which apparently is full of bloody foreigners and hence crime-ravaged).

This isn’t Japan. It certainly isn’t Germany (thank goodness – do you really think I’d be here if it was?). This is South Africa and when in Rome, do as the Romans and expect everything to take longer than it would in Berlin. Or Rome. And of course there will be match day congestion, just like there is at Bramall Lane when United are at home and just like there was before and after the rugby at Newlands on Saturday. This isn’t a problem peculiar to South Africa, nor to football.

Barclay’s piece is not sycophantic, celebratory or (in some ways) even hugely positive about South Africa. But it’s first-hand (compare and contrast Louise Taylor’s Guardian article, mentioned here) and it’s honest. Fans coming to SA next year expecting another Germany or Japan are going to be left confused and possibly even a little disappointed. Not because we aren’t going to do a great job of hosting the World Cup, but because it’s going to be  hosted in South Africa and it’s going to be hosted in winter. Not for us the slide-rule punctuality of the Germans or the Japanese (if you can measure punctuality on a slide rule?), nor the wall-to-wall sunshine of a European July.
Things here are done at an African pace: vive le difference. (We can’t do much about the weather).

Better then that visitors arrive informed, with their eyes open and can get straight down to enjoying themselves instead of having to spend the first 2 weeks of their stay adjusting  to how things are done here and how wet and cold it may be.
All in all, this promises to be a brilliant tournament – just read more of the Patrick Barclay stuff and less of the Daily Maily hysterical rubbish. Oh, and back England to win it. Cos I think they can.

Twitter and Facebook attacked

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Social networking sites Twitter and Facebook were both unavailable for long periods this afternoon (Central African Time) due to a Distributed Denial of Service attack or DDoS, a process whereby huge numbers of infected computers, controlled by a single “master computer” besiege the servers of a site with demands for data until the servers – and the site – breaks.

Graham Cluley, a computer security expert, likened the attack to “15 fat men trying to get through a revolving door at the same time.” and while this explains the situation nicely, there is no definition of how fat the men are or how small the revolving door is. Some shopping malls (Meadowhall, Canal Walk) have huge automatic revolving doors which wouldn’t have any trouble fitting 15 fat men in. I can only imagine that either Twitter has a very small revolving door or that the men in question were exceptionally obese.
It’s also interesting to note that it is men who are taking the rap for this. In this age of political correctness, I sincerely hope that Graham considered the implications of his perceived single-sex attack. While it may reflect rather negatively on the male sex, I’m sure there will be – at some point down the line – some mouthy lesbian who will claim to have been struggling to get through the revolving door as well.

And already, accusations as to who employed the 15 fat men and the angry lezza are flying around. Some have suggested that Iranian President Mahmood Ahmadinajacket was getting back at twitter for the rather unsupportive stance it took around his brutally putting down opposition protests last month. Others have suggested that it was some sort of coalition or consortium of bosses who just wanted their employees to actually get on with some work for once. Especially those in Port Elizabeth.
But it seems most likely that this was basically an attack by aliens who were just warming up to take on a really big site like this one. But don’t worry, we’ll be on the lookout for a group of fat bastard martians trying to get in through our revolving door. And this being South Africa, we’ll be ready and waiting to defend 6000 miles…the only way we know how: with a gaggle of angry black mamas toi-toi’ing their way to greet them.
There are few sights more terrifying than Nkosazana, Thandiwe and their chums singing and dancing their way towards you while holding up illegible placards made from torn cardboard boxes. Believe it, because it’s true.

Once the large social networking sites have seen how well we in South Africa defend our revolving doors, they will be flocking over to Mzansi, servers in hand. We’ll have a plethora of twits in Pretoria, loads of MySpace in the Karoo and Friends Reunited in Cape Town (as long as they went to the same school). All of which can surely only be good for the economy.

Then all we have to do is somehow stop them from noticing how slowly our revolving doors actually revolve.