Update October 5:
Well, once again, today it’s been all over our radio news bulletins and talk shows, I wanted to try and find The Arch’s outburst in full but couldn’t, he got quite angry and very emotional, here’s the only excerpt that I can find so far, it’s only 55 seconds but I’m sure you’ll get the idea
Original post October 4 :
It’s Desmond Tutu’s 80th birthday on Friday, would you believe that he invited The Dalai Lama and our lot (not for the first time) refused The Dalai Lama a visa!
So here we are, striving for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, (voting for stuff and not quite understanding what’s going on and then publicly regretting it) publicly humiliating one of the arch opponents of apartheid during the ’80’s and (I think) heading the AU’s response to the Libya conflict, thank goodness we’ve signed up to the ICC and Ghadiffi can’t come here.
And in this weeks newspaper I read that a Chinese motor car parts manufacturer is about to invest £80million in a plant right here in Algoa Bay creating 300 or so jobs!
This story has been on our news day in and day out for the last week. Back to the apartheid analogy it starts like this…
“Our government is worse than the apartheid government, because at least you were expecting it from the apartheid government,” he said in a news conference on the government’s failure to grant Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama a visa.
“We were expecting we would have a government that was sensitive to sentiments of our Constitution,” Tutu said.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Hello Soutie, I would like to say, welcome to Africa, but you have been here too long to be surprised by this kind of stuff. As we say oop north, ‘a very disappointing race’. I guarantee that at some point within the next 20 years, there is going to be a major backlash against the African race.
Sometimes I think the Africans and the Chinese deserve each other.
Is China really that popular in Suid Afrika, though? It’s one thing for the government to play dirty politics. After all, every government from Switzerland to Bhutan to Botswana does. It seems as if Africa is learning the price for making Faustian pacts with the Chinese. The Chinese will give you what you want, but they’ll take your soul as payment. This was addressed by one of the Telegraph’s China-based writers.
For another good source for commentary on China, look up what Tsai Ing-wen has to say about it.
Morning Christopher.
“China has become South Africa’s biggest trading partner” (F.T. article here)
And of course now being a member of BRICS, it’s all about money and politics.
Hmm… In other words, it’s all about money sod all else. We, the colonial masters, have taught our subjects very well indeed.
I don’t see anything different to our politics in this.
One minute we are hugging Gadaffi, the next we are bombing the shi’ite out of him.
Once we were locking up micks like it was Xmas and now we are paying Adams, the most evil leader of the terrorist scum, a healthy wedge of tax payers dosh.
We spent decades on training and equipment to repel Ivan and the communist hoarde, then we tie ourselves in to an expensive coal and gas contract while sending our own producers and industry to the dole queue.
The wheel turns.
When has it ever been about anything other than money?
Ferret, you have a point, but this needs to be put into the context of the history of South Africa and its so-called fight for freedom and where it stands today. The propaganda shoved down our throats everyday about the evils imperialism, racism, colonialism, apartheid, Western capitalism (as opposed to African greed), etc is such that it becomes impossible to move on from the sins of the past, if indeed, in the light of the way this country is going, one can even consider them sins. South Africa has constitutional laws that enforce preferential treatment of blacks, or as they are called, Previously Disadvantaged, over whites, on the basis of historical exploitation. These laws are rationalised daily by various big shots across the political, economic, educational, sporting and cultural landscapes, despite their inequity and the damage they are doing to the country as a whole. White children born after the end of apartheid face legal discrimination.
For the South African government to justify this position, for it to claim that is has one of the most liberal constitutions in the world, for it to claim that it stands for racial equality and human rights for all, etc, etc, and then to deny a visa to the leader of Tibet, a country that has been annexed by a hostile nation and whose people have been subjugated and discriminated against for decades is taking hypocrisy to new heights. It is not as if the Dali Lama was asking for a state visit. It would be understandable for the President to refuse an invitation for a personal meeting, but this is an invitation from a fellow Nobel Peace Laureate to attend a non political, unofficial birthday celebration. It has nothing to do with the government.
This whole affair stinks of corruption not just at a governmental level but at a personal level as well. Some of those ANC pigs are terrified that by granting a visa, the Chinese will remove their troughs from under their porcine snouts. You have to understand, the ANC leaders do not care for the welfare of the country. They do not act or make laws for the benefit of anybody but themselves. If Zuma and his cronies were completely financially detached, at a personal level, from any Chinese contracts or kick-backs, they would be far more inclined to provide the visa.
I grant you that Britiain and other western democracies act with high levels of self interest, but in those cases, the self includes the nation as a whole. Britiain has hosted the Dali Lama on many occasions even if on his last visit in May 2008, Gordon Brown refused to meet him. The irony is that on that particular visit, Malcolm Rifkind urged Brown to meet with him describing the spiritual leader as “the Nelson Mandela of Tibet”. By refusing to meet the man, Gordon Brown almost certainly gained nothing personally, but he probably protected a great deal of trade for Great Britain.
What is even worse in this case is that the SA government has not actually denied him a visa, it has merely taken so long to process it that the Dali Lama has had to cancel the trip. Cowardly and corrupt.
Here is an example that is typical of ANC mismanagement and self interest.
“Plans to shift the construction of a ferrochrome smelter from Rustenburg to China was a blow not only to local beneficiation but also to jobs and economic growth, analysts said on Friday. Minerals company Tharisa says the reason for the change of plan was that Eskom could not provide sufficient power until 2018. Government, however, has been calling for the development of mineral beneficiation projects to create jobs and boost economic development.”
http://www.salabournews.co.za/index.php/home/70-labour-news/2133-lack-of-sa-electricity-means-plant-goes-to-china.html
Effin’ politicians. Damn their corrupt skins wherever they come from.
OZ
Desmond Tutu, a good bloke. He must be, he is an alumnus of the same college as I am. All ANC leaders after Mandela, bad to the core.
100% agreement, FEEG
All ANC leaders after the terrorist?
OZ, spot on.
Ferret, ditto.
A word of caution with regards to Tutu. He is not that great. Actually he says some very foolish things from time to time. He has been advocating a ‘white guilt tax’, whereby all whites must pay a tax, just because they are white.
http://www.thenationalpolicyinstitute.org/2011/08/13/tutu-calls-for-wealth-tax-for-whites/
I’d love them try to introduce a ‘black criminal’ tax over here. The fifth column of apologists and appeasers that currently run my country would have apoplexies.
OZ
Paisley calls himself Reverend, TuTu – Bishop. All religion is total boleaux anyhoo.
It strikes me that it won’t be long before the Chinese own SA lock stock and barrel.
Wait till they transfer it from economic hegemony to actual Empire.
Which they will, they always did want an empire, if they can’t get it one way, time and another approach may work just as well.
The blacks deserve them!
Why any white stays there is totally beyond me, even if you were born there it still will never be your country.
A measure of their stupidity that they would rather have the yellows than the whites.
Quite funny really, pity none of us will still be around to indulge in a little schadenfreude.
I do hope we have view of politics in the afterlife, keep one amused for aeons!
Morning all.
There is probably nobody anywhere on earth who could a) criticise the ANC so publicly and b) not be vilified by the ANC and their cohorts. (Perhaps Nelson but that ain’t gonna happen ;))
I’m enjoying the public spat.
Tokyo Sexwale, one of the ANC big cheeses was on a talk show yesterday and Arch phoned in, I found it quite amusing.
Can’t find a way to place it here so here’s the link:
Tokyo Sexwale: please don’t pray against our government
🙂