It would be truly embarrassing for me to lie and say where I was on 11 February in 1990. Truth is I do not know. I was young enough to even realise what was happening around me. But yes something big, huge, spectacular did happen that day. Nelson Rholihlala Mandela was released from Victor Vester prison in Paarl.
This amazing and eloquently humble human being spent almost three decades of his life surrounded by the walls of jail. He rejected several offers by the apartheid government to release him. These offers strict had conditions which would have undermined his and the collective efforts of the liberation movements to free the oppressed civilians.
Now 20 years since that day, what has changed? I ask myself. It is an undisputable fact that much has been done to develop the nation and its people. While many would say that very little has been done to protect & preserve the lives of many people. I prefer to put it this way ‘much has been done to let our innocent mothers, brother & sisters thin away into their last breaths’. Nonchalantly put, HIV/AIDS was the cause. While I don’t dispute this scientific actuality, immense contributions to the atrocities of HIV/AIDS were choices made under the era of former President Thabo Mbeki.
While as President, Mr Mbeki worked tirelessly, spending late nights in his parliament office surfing the internet seeking to expand his knowledge to be able to rationalise his stance on HIV/AIDS. Take nothing away from the man. This being holds a Masters Degree in Economics from the University of Sussex in London and posses wealth of intellect. Hence he managed to change the views of many of his incumbents about HIV/AIDS. Mbeki believed and made others believe that HIV does not cause AIDS.
Former Health Minister [may her soul rest in peace] Manto Tshabalala-Msimang worked in the health units of the liberation movements. She succeeded Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma [in 1999] who was the first health minister in the new democratic republic. The mind-boggling and quite understandably so matter is that both never believed that HIV does not cause AIDS until they met the powerful intellectual persuasion of Thabo Mbeki. Dlamini-Zuma exonerated herself when she warned her “Boss” when she left office the health office to occupy one for foreign affairs [now international relations] in the early millennium that if inactions in combating the carnage caused by HIV/AIDS continued, millions and millions will also continue to die.
Tshabalala and Mbeki [both] single-handedly allowed millions of us to suffer physical and emotional scares of HIV/AIDS. Together they disallowed internationally and locally tested vaccines produced to treat HIV/AIDS from being distributed in SA. Some European powerhouses even promised to distribute these for free. Mbeki and his health minister still did not allow them, citing reasons of more tests needing to be done or un-affordability thereof [even though they spent R50 billion on arms while not under any kind or internal or external threat]. Mbeki also said that Africans were used as guinea pigs for Western medical tests. Tshabalala went on to prefer medicinal advice for HIV treatment by self-proclaimed and internationally banned 'doctor' who is not registered under any medical registration council anywhere in the universe, Matthias Rath and not only allowed distribution of his untested methods but also vehemently advocated their efficacy.
In Mbeki’s office in parliament, while they were also rebuffing that HIV causes AIDS and the efficacy of its treatment, a number of his office bearers were HIV positive and secretly on ARV’s even though they later died. This included Mbeki’s late spokesperson, Parks Mankahlane. Mbeki refused point blank all the calls for him to act as leader and take an HIV test, fearing that he might either prove himself or others wrong.
Now I leave you to ponder further in these possibilities.
• Mbeki may be HIV positive and is in strong denial of his state
• He was aware of the dying state [until the final second] of his office bearers and could not take that as it were his servants
• He may have lost a close relative to HIV/AIDS and has still not gotten over his loss
This would, to me, be the most psychologically fitting explanations of Mbeki’s denialism of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
That’s it from me... now I’m going to contact some recruitment agencies in case I loose my job over this account!!!
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
Supplement your income
While a varsity student, I used to envy my friends who were some two years before me into graduation. My envy was not driven by them graduating before me but by the fact that they would graduate, get a job, afford nice clothes and buy cars. I however was & would not have been jealous. Little did I know that it was not as cut & dry as I contemplated.
Recently I was talking to my Fiancée [joking or maybe not, you go figure] and asked her to give me some money to buy lunch. "Huh, you just got paid, where is your money", she responded with a chortle.
I am pretty sure there are millions of people who [some on a regular basis] receive a similar or worse than response from spouses or children. And don’t count on a salary raise... oh NO! Remember the “R” word?
The price of fuel is going up, even though food prices have surprisingly gone down [food CPI], Eskom is vehemently coveting a series of 35% increases on electricity tariffs to fund its capacity expansion for each year in the three to come, school fees have gone up. Things do not seem to be getting any better. My aunt [grandmother] complained to me last weekend that this year government did not give free books to children in the rural areas, as they had done in years prior. She had to surrender 80% of her old age grant to finance her children's education.
There probably isn’t much people in my aunt’s life stage can do to remedy the situation. But there almost certainly is something you and me can do to create a much healthier financial situation for ourselves. I still haven’t figured it out myself but have some ideas. Like starting a new business on the side. It needs not be a formal one. You can bake and sell fatkoeks with chicken livers at a varsity campus. Ask your unemployed cousin to run this for you while she looks for formal employment. Not only will you be supplementing your mainstream income but you will also be enriching a soul and contributing to our government’s goal of halving poverty by 2014, through job creation. Or if you love cars, go work [part-time] at a local car repair shop, preferably not a chop shop – for obvious reasons. If you love dogs, start an enterprise of walking them in the evenings. Create a brochure and deliver in your neighbourhood’s house post boxes and make some money while playing with what you love. Or work [part-time] for some 3 or 4 hours in a call centre after your work.
Trust me, this may seem like the pain but it really is short term pain and long term gain.
I’ll let you know what I decide to do in my “supplement my income” venture.
Till again... Best as always
Recently I was talking to my Fiancée [joking or maybe not, you go figure] and asked her to give me some money to buy lunch. "Huh, you just got paid, where is your money", she responded with a chortle.
I am pretty sure there are millions of people who [some on a regular basis] receive a similar or worse than response from spouses or children. And don’t count on a salary raise... oh NO! Remember the “R” word?
The price of fuel is going up, even though food prices have surprisingly gone down [food CPI], Eskom is vehemently coveting a series of 35% increases on electricity tariffs to fund its capacity expansion for each year in the three to come, school fees have gone up. Things do not seem to be getting any better. My aunt [grandmother] complained to me last weekend that this year government did not give free books to children in the rural areas, as they had done in years prior. She had to surrender 80% of her old age grant to finance her children's education.
There probably isn’t much people in my aunt’s life stage can do to remedy the situation. But there almost certainly is something you and me can do to create a much healthier financial situation for ourselves. I still haven’t figured it out myself but have some ideas. Like starting a new business on the side. It needs not be a formal one. You can bake and sell fatkoeks with chicken livers at a varsity campus. Ask your unemployed cousin to run this for you while she looks for formal employment. Not only will you be supplementing your mainstream income but you will also be enriching a soul and contributing to our government’s goal of halving poverty by 2014, through job creation. Or if you love cars, go work [part-time] at a local car repair shop, preferably not a chop shop – for obvious reasons. If you love dogs, start an enterprise of walking them in the evenings. Create a brochure and deliver in your neighbourhood’s house post boxes and make some money while playing with what you love. Or work [part-time] for some 3 or 4 hours in a call centre after your work.
Trust me, this may seem like the pain but it really is short term pain and long term gain.
I’ll let you know what I decide to do in my “supplement my income” venture.
Till again... Best as always
Friday, January 29, 2010
Friday's state of mind
Knock knock, who's there? Emptiness. Emptiness? Jip, emptiness.
It's 12:07 and by this time, those who are fortunate enought to be called bosses surely should be expecting a degree of productivity from thier employees. I'm not proud to say that today they are not getting that from me. No, no. I'm not mad at them for telling me that salary increases have been frozen, thanks to the flippin' global financial crisis. Damnit!!! I am just not in the mood to do what I am employed to do.
I manage a team of three [myself included] servicing four clients. I am expected, amongst other things, to deliver, lead, motivate, inspire, teach, guide etc. I strongly believe that I do achieve all these and more but it's jus not coming through today. I am only one of three people in the office today. All members of my team are out for most of the day. Could this be the reason for feeling out of "office mood". I'm sure you're dying to find out.
I met an old "friend" yesterday. A friend who had a beautiful black car some few years back. A friend who let me walk some 3 kilometres home at about 11[pm] not to mention that it was raining cats & dogs... a story for another day. He's still a "friend" nonetheless.
He said to me that Thursday has now changed to thirst-day. I actully found myself "drowining" in his creative creation of words. It was one after the other. "Drowning" remember.
I am pretty sure I am not the only one who was "drowning" last night and now feeling as a worthless employee, as I do. But worry not. On Monday we will be refreshed and runinng in full steam like the machine that made the product which made us "drown" last night.
But consider this though "Pocrastination is like masturbation. It feels good but in the end you're only fucking yourself". So understand your work environment at all times. Know when and how to cut corners.
Enjoy the weekend... J&B met and all the after and before parties.
Till again. Cheers
It's 12:07 and by this time, those who are fortunate enought to be called bosses surely should be expecting a degree of productivity from thier employees. I'm not proud to say that today they are not getting that from me. No, no. I'm not mad at them for telling me that salary increases have been frozen, thanks to the flippin' global financial crisis. Damnit!!! I am just not in the mood to do what I am employed to do.
I manage a team of three [myself included] servicing four clients. I am expected, amongst other things, to deliver, lead, motivate, inspire, teach, guide etc. I strongly believe that I do achieve all these and more but it's jus not coming through today. I am only one of three people in the office today. All members of my team are out for most of the day. Could this be the reason for feeling out of "office mood". I'm sure you're dying to find out.
I met an old "friend" yesterday. A friend who had a beautiful black car some few years back. A friend who let me walk some 3 kilometres home at about 11[pm] not to mention that it was raining cats & dogs... a story for another day. He's still a "friend" nonetheless.
He said to me that Thursday has now changed to thirst-day. I actully found myself "drowining" in his creative creation of words. It was one after the other. "Drowning" remember.
I am pretty sure I am not the only one who was "drowning" last night and now feeling as a worthless employee, as I do. But worry not. On Monday we will be refreshed and runinng in full steam like the machine that made the product which made us "drown" last night.
But consider this though "Pocrastination is like masturbation. It feels good but in the end you're only fucking yourself". So understand your work environment at all times. Know when and how to cut corners.
Enjoy the weekend... J&B met and all the after and before parties.
Till again. Cheers
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