2009 October | GlassPearl.co.za/blog

Archive for October, 2009

Julius Malema, Future President of South Africa?

Monday, October 26th, 2009

It appears that Jacob Zuma has annointed Julius Malema as a future president of the South Africa.

My first reaction when I heard Gareth Cliff mentioning it on 5fm this morning was: HEAVEN FORBID!

Malema hasn’t exactly shown himself to be anything other than a stirrer – making one controversial statement after another.

And on occasion it appears that the media elevated Julius Malema to rockstar status – quoting his nonsensical rantings, even when it wasn’t necessary.

I guess he sells newspapers.

However what struck me was within a few minutes of ridiculing Malema’s possible presidential candidacy, Gareth mentioned his influence in getting underperforming municipal workers fired after the recent service delivery protests.

Imagine what that must look like to the striking residents of these townships.

Julius Malema = Hero!

Now a blog post on timeslive.co.za speaks of a Malema faction.

Again the media are making Malema into a populist leader in the same way they advanced Jacob Zuma – by demonising and ridiculing him.

It didn’t work with Zuma and it in all likelihood will not work with Malema.

Because both those politicians know how to work a crowd. They say what they think many people want to hear.

Personally, I wish I had never heard of Julius Malema and that he crawls back into the hole he came out of.

But mine is not the only opinion that matters.

Perhaps if the media stopped singing the same old song or hire journalists with a bit less bias, we might have fewer us against them votes in the next election.

Then maybe people will vote on the issues and not just for the man.

The media got it very wrong when the chose a side against Jacob Zuma in the last election and they will undoubtedly get it wrong again if they take the same stance with Julius Malema.

Posted in media, politics | 4 Comments »

Thunderstorms in Cape Town

Monday, October 26th, 2009

I woke up in the early hours of this morning to what sounded like hail falling in our suburb in Cape Town.

What followed was high winds, lightening, thunder and inevitably rain.

This morning there’s more of the same – a rare Cape Town thunderstorm.

Arghh, I hate thunderstorms. Just give me a ‘normal’ Cape Town spring day – blue sky, sunshine, a bit of white clouds on Table Mountain and the South Easter cleaning the air.

Maybe the storm is a welcome to Matric Exams?

Ps. Good luck to all our matrics for their exams!

Posted in cape town, weather | No Comments »

Prof Jonathan Jansen Backtracks

Sunday, October 25th, 2009

After stubbornly defending his decision to forgive the Reitz four, Prof Jonathan Jansen has seen the error of his ways at last.

He withdrew his controversial offer to accept back two of the four students involved with humiliating and degrading his univerity’s cleaning staff.

The Prof took a criminal matter and made it political.

At least he brought out some of those like Rhoda Kadalie, who screached like a banshee on Capetalk last Friday afternoon about the ANC this and the ANC that, when asked about the University of Free State situation.

But no word of sympathy or anything for the victims.

At least Prof Jansen has opened up that can of worms of embittered former supposedly ANC members who used the struggle for their own intellectual pursuits to show how liberal and smart they are.

As if the people on the ground were mere statistics.

Sometimes even for the intellectual types like Ms Kadalie, as in the instance with the Reitz four, there are situations which are either right and wrong.

And can’t be intellectualised with your like-minded buddies over red wine.

Those students were wrong to debase those women like they did and should be treated like the criminals they are.

And Prof Jansen and his friends tried to take a crime and made it into something political.

And then they were surprised when it turned political.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »