by davidrobertlewis -

BRICS, a boondoggle of dictators, homophobes & outright misogynists.

LAST MONTH Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were invited to join a grouping of ‘top emerging economies’ known as BRICS dreamt up by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill. The only thing linking the bloc previously was their economic status. Nowadays, the addition of six new members, appears to add weight to the notion that the club is less an economic convenience than a means for these nations to escape pressure from Western values which emphasise elections and human rights.

While Argentina is a democracy, the other new additions are not. Ethiopia’s authoritarian one-party system has largely excluded the public from genuine political participation, while the UAE has been described as a “tribal autocracy” where the ‘seven constituent monarchies are led by tribal rulers in an autocratic fashion’. There are no democratically elected institutions, and there is no formal commitment to free speech.

Saudi Arabia on the other hand is an absolute monarchy. According to the Basic Law of Saudi Arabia, the country’s de facto constitution adopted by royal decree in 1992, the king must comply with Sharia law and the Qur’an. With neighbouring Iran competing as an oppressive theocracy called the “Islamic Republic,” with a religious “Supreme Leader” overseeing all aspects of Iranian life.

This month marks one year since Mahsa Amini died in the custody of the Iranian morality police, setting off mass protests. Authorities continue to quell any new unrest. UN experts in March expressed outrage at the deliberate poisoning of more than 1200 schoolgirls in Iran’s major cities by a regime intent on maintaining religious strictures against women who are forced to wear the Hijab.

Despite the threat of arrest, millions of Iranian women actively oppose the hijab, wearing it loosely around their heads or on their shoulders.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Saudi Arabia face severe repression and legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. LGBT rights are not recognized by the government of Saudi Arabia. Both male and female same-sex sexual activity is illegal. In Iran, LGBT face the death penalty. In Ethopia homosexuality is criminalized under the country’s penal code,

The newcomers for the most part lack universal rights for minority groups. In Saudi Arabia, Jews are restricted from practising their religion in public and the country bans non-Muslims from entering the city of Mecca.

In contrast, Iran’s Jewish community is officially recognized as a religious minority group by the government, and, like Zoroastrians and Christians, are allocated one seat in the Iranian Parliament.

by davidrobertlewis -

BRICS neo-colonialism demonstrated by Putin’s threat of war against South Africa

REVELATIONS of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s temper tantrums, with a threat of armed aggression against the Republic, including a possible declaration of war, have come to light, after a judge ordered that President Ramaphosa’s affidavit on an ICC arrest warrant be made public this week.

The Gauteng High Court ordered that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s confidential affidavit related to an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin be made public by 2pm on Tuesday.

Constitutional and international law expert André Thomashausen was reported as saying President Cyril Ramaphosa‘s confidential affidavit is of a “very high quality” and speaks of the seriousness of the Russia/Ukraine conflict which is the biggest crisis since World War II.

The saucy affidavit, which was made public on Tuesday, claimed arresting President Vladimir Putin if he travelled to South Africa for the Brics summit in August would be a ‘declaration of war with Russia’. Putin has previously threatened to attack any nation which resists his efforts to crush Ukraine, with nuclear weapons, a threat already discounted by the West.

The president told the Pretoria High Court in Gauteng that South Africa ‘does not have the capacity nor appetite to wage war with Russia and Putin’, which begs the question as to who exactly our partners in BRICS are?

BRICS is the fanciful result of an acronym invented by an economist at Goldman Sachs, Jim O’Neill in his report, ‘Building Better Global Economic BRIC’.

Rock, paper, BRICS?

The informal group, much like the now defunct FAANG, is dominated by China, but added South Africa in 2010, with the resulting politicking and economic intrigues, tending to distract attention and energy from another more important, tangible bloc, the African Union.

BRICS member states include members with an autocracy, and even a one-party state where trade unions are banned, have increasingly sort to formalise their political and economic ties to compete with groups such as the G7 and western nations, despite major secular differences in approach to issues such as Gay marriage, minority rights and women.

As part of this neocolonial, brutal one-upmanship, dedollarisation alongside the introduction of a much-vaunted new BRICS currency backed by gold, has been mooted by Putin supporters, eager to escape Western sanctions.

Lavrov promotes ‘dedollarisation’ as if not having access to Western markets (which account for over 50% of South African trade), is somehow a positive move, and all that is required for Russia to succeed, is to avoid post-Bretton Woods financial institutions, while engaging currency unification talks with China?

Return of the Gold Standard?

Exactly where all the required gold lucre would come from to pay for the war, and who would pay for the storage of the hard asset in a system long-since abandoned, is unclear. The gold standard was abandoned in 1971 due to its ‘propensity for volatility, as well as the constraints it imposed on governments: by retaining a fixed exchange rate, ‘governments were hamstrung in engaging in expansionary policies to, for example, reduce unemployment during economic recessions’.

In a speech filled with sketchy ideological keynotes, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma speaking in Durban, attacked South Africa’s financial institutions whilst promoting the BRICS bank (and by implication, gold standard) as some kind of panacea for development financing.

The problem with this rhetoric is that gold itself is in reality, a non-productive asset, since it does not produce interest nor even dividends as such. Gold as a metal is historically favoured for its being inert, but in an era of bitcoin and crypto-currency, it is not entirely certain what role such an asset should play in our future?

Dlamini-Zuma claims without any proven research, “we need an alternative public banking and finance system beyond the dominant one, and we need it urgently. The New Development Bank is thus a step in the right direction, but we need to domesticate alternative banking as a matter of urgency.“

Banks are a mirage, what is Dlamini-Zuma talking about?

While banking institutions have certainly opened up in South Africa over the past years, with several new online banks, some with zero-fees, being given licenses, the so-called BRICS bank is already hobbled by the fact that it exists, like most banks, as a patron and client of the global financial system, which begs the question, in which world, would the new system reside?

The mirage of a separate banking reality, is seen by the fact that China itself, has had a policy of yuan devaluation for decades in order to promote exports and would find it extremely difficult to move towards a system in which it provided a physical asset such as gold for every yuan or Renmimbi printed.

Brazil on the other hand is heavily in debt to its eyeballs, and would certainly benefit from offloading its debt and banana economy onto poorer nations such as South Africa.

India is the only shining light so far as real economics is concerned, but most of this is the result of the ICT service sector, in which the West and Western markets play an enormous role. Apple Computer for example, just posted outstanding results for its India division, with the kind of numbers that political appointees such as Dlamini-Zuma tend to ignore.

South Africa which is blessed with a modern and open financial system, after decades of exchange controls, could do better than empty rhetoric, by focusing on the key element that has driven India’s surging economy, a digital growth strategy that presents a vastly different picture to that of China’s state corporations, many of whom, like China Rail, are running at a loss.

Admittedly, Chinese policy-driven expansion, where the party pulls the strings, has delivered remarkable engineering achievements, but it is also leading to gross dislocations of capital, as seen by the recent Evergreen property boom and bust.

Jim O’Neill’s unproven theory seemed like a good idea at the time.

BRICS may seem like a good idea, but its political impact as shown by Putin’s threats of war, and fallout from the West, shows it also has a lot of shortcomings. Indeed the ‘BRICS Bank’ has already demonstrated its unwillingness to fund member states such as Russia. And thus a lot of the takeaway points being thrown around by cuckold politicos on the left, are really meatless bones provided to the masses to gnaw on.

As delegates arrive in South Africa for the BRICS schmoozefest, attempting to show a unified face while dining on cream puffs, remember that efforts to expand the BRICS group in recent years, to include nations such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, both of whom practice gender apartheid, would lead to a paradox of shrinking influence for smaller states according to Patrick Bond. It has also resulted in the diminution of the AU as a focal point in our own backyard.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) thus went to court on Monday to compel Ramaphosa to share the Putin document” on a ‘mission of clarity regarding the ICC threat of arrest’. Ramaphosa had argued the contents could not be shared because he was prohibited from doing so due to international law that governs the workings of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

by davidrobertlewis -

US historical relations with South Africa are being mischaracterised by Putin propagandists

RONALD REAGAN’S REPUBLICAN USA may have been a tough nut to deal with during the 80s, but harping on about the perceived slight caused by his party’s treatment of Nelson Mandela, whom they Republicans’ labelled a ‘terrorist’, ignores the substantial contribution of many other personalities from within the ranks of the Democrats and broader American civil rights movement.

Personages such as Dr.Martin Luther King Jr., late John F Kennedy, the late Robert F Kennedy, the Reverend Jesse Jackson and UN ambassador Andrew Young, demonstrate the enormous USA impact which ultimately boosted the anti-apartheid movement (AAM) both within and outside the country.

The first American political leader to show genuine interest in South Africa was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. By the time of Senator Kennedy’s visit in 1966, Dr. King had publicly linked the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.

“Our responsibility presents us with a unique opportunity. We can join in the one form of non-violent action that could bring freedom and justice to South Africa – the action which African leaders have appealed for – in a massive movement for economic sanctions.” Martin Luther King’s London address 1963

It was this democratic movement for universal rights which formed the basis for the anti-apartheid movement, a movement whose historical trajectory spans decades of progressive extra-parliamentary activism and whose aims were far broader than the narrow ideological constraints of party politics.

Robert F. Kennedy’s historic visit to South Africa in 1966, remains one of the most important visits by an American during the worst years of apartheid. As Senator Kennedy’s address at the University of Witwatersrand and meeting with Albert Luthuli, shows, he was a strong advocate for liberty, equality, human dignity, democracy, human rights and justice.

Later it was Andrew Young whose trip to SA in 1977 first raised the spectre of serious economic pressure on the apartheid government and ushered in a sanctions campaign which did more to liberate the country than any Russian-supplied weapons and Soviet-style rhetoric.

The Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 was thus a law enacted by the United States Congress. The law imposed sanctions against South Africa and stated ‘five preconditions for lifting the sanctions’ that would essentially end the system of apartheid.

It is an historical fact that the conclusion to apartheid and white minority rule came as the result of broad economic pressure and that the military campaign at the behest of MK and others, at the end of the day, played a rather minor role.

Partisan propagandists stuck inside Cold War rhetoric forget that Paul Robeson’s American Committee on Africa (ACOA) was the first major group devoted to the anti-apartheid movement, and predate the later boycott movement formed in 1959.

Later incarnations played an equally important part, with the result evolving into the African Growth and Opportunity Act of 2000, which lowered trade barriers by lowering tariffs, and providing economic opportunities and incentives.

It would be a shame to see South Africa lose its beneficial trade status in exchange for appeasement of a Russian dictator opposed to the democracy and civil rights we take for granted? It is no secret that Putin’s United Russia Party is opposed to LGBTIQ rights, and perceives the conquest of Ukraine as a colonial and imperial endeavour.

In 1984, TransAfrica became a founding member of what it termed the Free South Africa Movement resulting in demonstrations on US campuses. While supportive of UN resolutions against apartheid, and the chief supplier of weapons during the conflict, Russia played a marginal role and absolutely no part in the transition process. In fact it was the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and end of the USSR in 1991 which brought a wave of democracy and freedom  across Eastern Europe, whose impact is still felt in South Africa today.

by davidrobertlewis -

Glenda Grey & Cheadle silent as WHO declares official end to Covid pandemic

THE head of the UN World Health Organization (WHO) has declared an end to COVID-19 as a public health emergency, stressing that it ‘does not mean the disease is no longer a global threat’. The move vindicates Medialternatives earlier prognosis based upon historical public health data indicating that respiratory epidemics ‘last no longer than two years on average’.

In this respect, extra-Constitutional proposals for compulsory, involuntary vaccination ( a removal of patient consent under article 12), mooted by Glenda Grey and that legal huckster Halton Cheadle, appear to have been made in haste and sans consideration of the overall impact upon our democratic and free society. You can read my earlier pieces directed at creeping totalitarianism and its crackpot advocates such as Pierre de Vos, who was amongst the first to lump ordinary citizens within the ranks of the criminally insane.

The WHO announcement should give democracies pause to consider the cost and effectiveness of containment strategies rolled out during the height of the pandemic back in 2020, and cause all of us to reconsider the legal ramifications of a hasty resort to draconian ‘special measures’ under the rubric of public health and solidarity? Need I remind readers of the National Coronovirus Council and its special state of disaster?

The economic impact of successive lockdowns is still being felt by those countries like our own, which unlike Sweden, embraced containment as a public health strategy, with serious socio-economic consequences.

As much of the world shut down early in the COVID pandemic, Sweden remained open. The country’s approach was controversial writes researcher Emma Frans, with some calling it “the Swedish experiment”. But more than three years after the pandemic began, what can we say today about the outcomes of this “experiment”?

Frans explains Sweden ‘largely stuck to its pandemic plan, originally developed to be used in the event of an influenza pandemic. Instead of lockdowns, the goal was to achieve social distancing through public health recommendations.”

‘Swedes were encouraged to work from home if possible and limit travel within the country. In addition, people aged 70 or older were asked to limit social contact, and people with COVID symptoms were asked to self-isolate. The goal was to protect the elderly and other high-risk groups while slowing down the spread of the virus so the healthcare system wouldn’t become overwhelmed.’

‘As the number of cases surged, some restrictions were imposed. Public events were limited to a maximum of 50 people in March 2020, and eight people in November 2020. Visits to nursing homes were banned and upper secondary schools closed. Primary schools did, however, remain open throughout the pandemic.’

Although Sweden was hit hard by the first wave,” Frans who is a “senior research specialist, C8 Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institute” says, the country’s total excess deaths during the first two years of the pandemic, “were actually among the lowest in Europe‘.’

While noting the plan was not without its flaws, and the ongoing controversy over the overall impact upon the elderly and infirm, at least during the first stages, Frans concludes: “the focus of Sweden’s strategy was to reduce the spread of the virus, but also to consider other aspects of public health and protect freedom and fundamental rights. While the Swedish strategy remains controversial, today most countries are taking similar approaches …”

It remains to be seen whether South Africa’s resident ‘experts’ on health and legal matters, those who made headlines during the pandemic, proposing draconian extra-constitutional measures without much opposition nor debate, will retract their former pronouncements?

READ: Mandates: Statist power grab undermines personal autonomy as well as collective rights

READ: Mandates: Public peril or just plain baloney?

by davidrobertlewis -

Gay Malema: Good for the Goose, not just Uganda?

LITTLE MORE THAN one year ago, Julius Malema delivered a bellicose address aimed at expressing his party’s unconditional support for Putin and the United Russia Party (URP) which opposes Gay Marriage. The Russian president had just delivered a Valentine’s Day address stating same-sex marriage “will not happen” as long as he was in the Kremlin.

The result is a series of URP-sponsored Russian laws which ban “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” amongst all age groups — anyone caught committing these “offences” may be held liable for 400,000 roubles (ZAR 90 083), with much higher fines for organisations or journalists. There has been a veritable crackdown on LGBT rights in the country this year.

Juxtapose this situation with Malema’s latest pink-inspired speech before a large crowd picketing outside the Ugandan Embassy in Pretoria to protest Yoweri Museveni’s Anti-homosexuality Bill.

The leader of South Africa’s third largest political party, can be seen draped in the Rainbow Flag, synonymous with Gay Pride, professing open support for LGBT rights: “This bill is anti-human because gay rights are human rights,” enthused Malema.

“How are you going to identify that a person is gay, what scientific methods are you going to use to determine a person is lesbian? The only thing you can do is to look at a person and out of hatred decide this one is gay or lesbian and you want to kill them. That cannot be correct” he said.

Is this the self-same man, the red finagler who recently stated he would provide escort protection for Putin if the Russian President arrived in the country for a BRICS summit later this year? There is currently not a single person of colour in Putin’s cabinet, ditto LGBT.

Despite the fanfare, lofty words and woke posturing, Malema’s track record when it comes to LGBT-rights has proven quite the opposite of the puff pieces put out by his militant powdered ‘battalions’. The EFF is in a coalition with the openly homophobic Al Jama-ah Party, whose political platform opposes events such as Gay Pride, the annual Jozi Pink Pages event.

A press release put out by the party put the position on LGBT bluntly: “Their lifestyle is condemned and unacceptable.”

In the Russian Federation, (one hesitates to add Johannesburg), LGBT people face legal and social challenges not experienced by others, the country provides no anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people and does not have a designation for hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

But as Malema explained, he intends to ‘kiss a few frogs in order to gain power”, just not that kind of frog?

Leftist political expediency, cast in broad brush strokes, could turn into an awkward ‘trill and whistle’ during the coming BRICS Summit? If the EFF want to be seen as credible voices for LGBT rights, not merely the authors of kissing points — amphibious croakers tickling electoral boxes —  then they should explain to the public their abject silence and total acquiescence when it comes to Russian rights?

Surely what is good for the Goose is good for Uganda, and is good for the rest of the globe?

The EFF pink virtue signalling certainly falls flat when it comes to the party’s other policy hallmarks — unconditional support for Hamas whose authoritarian regime has implemented penalties for homosexuality, including 10-year imprisonment terms. Male same-sex activity is still illegal and punishable by imprisonment in Kuwait, Egypt, Oman and Syria. It is also punishable by death in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

In Yemen and the Gaza Strip, the punishment might differ between death and imprisonment depending on the act committed.

by davidrobertlewis -

Putin presents Pretoria with a not-so-pretty pickle

NO SOONER had Pretoria (Tshwane) shown the world that it cared very little for the UN Charter codifying the major principles of international relations, from sovereign equality of States to the prohibition of the use of force in international relations, it found itself facing a legal problem presented by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The issue of Putin’s attendance at a BRICS summit  the upcoming 15th BRICS Summit from August 22 to 24, in Durban following the ICC issuing an arrest warrant, comes after the SANDF conducted military exercises with Russia and China on the anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine.

It was an embarrassing show of support for the aggressor, presenting a major predicament. On the one hand foreign minister Naledi Pandor claims South Africa is neutral on the issue of the Ukraine war, supposedly practising a ‘continental tradition of non-alignment’, on the other, the country has aligned itself with an emerging power-bloc that includes Russia.

The embattled Ramaphosa government may just have to decide which side its bread is buttered. It cannot simply pretend the world is not watching, or that ANC civil rights history translates into eternal immunity from world opinion. The fading Mandela Miracle which birthed a Rainbow Nation has rapidly turned into a tragic story of hubris and self-defeating political intrigue.

While many within the ruling party, see the BRICS Development Bank as an all-important counter to ‘Bretton Woods’ financial institutions, the reality is far from the rhetoric — most of the country’s economic activity involves the West, with trade far outweighing business within the BRICS bloc. Though China ranks ahead of the USA $11.69B vs $10.73B, the addition of the EU, UK and Japan make such a comparison seem absurd.

Germany$8.83B2022
Japan$8.50B2022
United Kingdom$6.30B2022
Netherlands$6.02B2022
Trade with the West far outweighs BRICS trade

The BRICS bank, a hallmark of the political project which begun under Zuma, is by no means independent, and the price of gaining an international banking conceit, one which translates into an essentially unproven claim, a counter-weight to the Washington Consensus, (Putin’s much vaunted “multipolarity”), may yet turn out to be a unsustainable, too expensive and complicated in the long run.

Much like the G20, BRICS (a product of the Left) is merely an artificial acronym invented by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill , to denote the five biggest emerging economies. It is currently neither a political nor an economic union, and stands awkwardly on the world stage, unlike the more important African Union and SADC, both also teetering on the brink of collapse, the product of ANC neglect.

South Africa’s economy has been unable to post meaningful growth figures over the past five years, despite the launch of the African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA). The welcome trade surpluses (a factor under Ramaphosa’s drive for R1 trillion investment) have swung into a deficit of R23.05 billion — a significant decline from January 2022’s R4.64 billion trade balance surplus — amidst signs that multinationals like BP may be quietly withdrawing from the country, sensing sanctions on the horizon?

Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor is thus effectively steering the nation down a rather bleak path, (in step with Iranian Ayatollahs) one that could lead to outright sanctions, trade embargoes and equivalent loss of influence and prestige.

Twenty-six African countries voted in favor of a resolution rejecting Moscow’s controversial 2022 referenda in four Ukrainian regions, with South Africa increasingly isolated and outmanoeuvred on the continent.

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana is already battling grey-listing by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for falling short of international standards for the combating of money laundering and other serious financial crimes, and Pandor appears to be working hard to essentially sabotage his efforts. It is no coincidence the FATF action also occurred on the anniversary of the Ukraine invasion.

More worrying is the manner in which the country, (more so under its previous President Zuma), appears to be importing organised crime — adopting Putin’s kleptocratic system of state capture and oligarchy to some extant, a system benefiting economic elites at the expense of ordinary citizens.

The findings of the Zondo Commission into corruption and state capture have yet to translate into meaningful prosecution and jail-time for the culprits.

South Africa may yet return to the period in which it was viewed as the polecat of the world.

SEE: Pandor’s prevarication over Ukraine, Lavrov parallels Pik Botha statements on special military operation against SWAPO

by Robert Train -

Jozi Mayor Thapelo Amad: ‘No Homos please, we’re Muslims’

WITH the colors of Pan Arabism and the words ‘Palestine’ written in bold, Johannesburg’s new major Thapelo Amad made his inaugural appearance. The politician and imam is a member of the far-right, minority Al Jama-ah (Arabic: الجماعة, lit. ’the Congregation’) party, which has found itself with a golden vote, as part of a strange coalition between the Metro’s ANC and EFF.

All three parties have diverging, and perhaps irreconcilable policies when it comes to the status of LGBT, women, secularism and the Middle East.

While the Al Jama-ah manifesto opposes “moral sexuality education for primary school children to ensure they not issued with soft porn material in violation of the sexual offences act”, it has a host of feel-good policies on poverty alleviation, economic upliftment and the like.

But it significantly also opposes events such as Gay Pride, much like its counterparts, Fatah and Hamas, and is actively positioning itself to introduce moral policing in the Metro, informed by scripture.

The ‘Palestinian Embassy’ in Johannesburg were quick to shower Amad with awards in the aftermath of his successful mayoral campaign (see photo left).

One need look no further than a press release by the party in October 2022 which takes issue with News24 and its supposed “Diabolical Headlines” where the party strangely felt the need to respond to a news-story about a potential ISIS attack.

Amad’s party proceeded to upbraid reporter Qaanitah Hunter for ‘implying that only Muslims are opposed to Gay Pride’. The party then went on to claim there are several Christian organisations also ‘vehemently opposed’ on religious grounds.

Hunter claims the News24 report referred to, “implies that only Muslims are opposed to the Gay Pride event; they are aware that there are several Christian organizations — based on religious grounds – that are also vehemently against it.”

Amad’s Party ‘vehemently opposed’ to Gay Pride

The Party according to spokesperson Shameemah Salie “does not identify with any LGTQ (sic) activities whether it be Gay Pride parades and even comedy shows, it rejects any insinuation in which Muslims are not just negatively implicated but persistently fingered for wanting to cause chaos in that city. Whether – from a religio-theological perspective – we determinedly disagree with their forms sexual orientation and their queer belief system, it should unambiguously be stated that most of our communities do not support these LGBTQ groups.”

According to Salie: “Their lifestyle is condemned and unacceptable with the practices of Islam and Muslims. “

She also accused News24 of Islamophobia and said: “The paper’s repugnant headline undoubtedly is an unambiguous expression of purposeful Islamophobia; they want communities of other faiths to view Islam and Muslims negatively.”

The statement also said the party was “aware of constitutional rights” of LGBT and would find ways to ‘deal with them’.

Ed note: Secularism, as the man who coined the term George Holyoake asserted in his principles of Secularism, is not the absence of religion, but rather the absence of religious rule.

In particular Holyoake stated “A Secularist guides himself by maxims of Positivism, seeking to discern what is in Nature—what ought to be in morals—selecting the affirmative in exposition, concerning himself with the real, the right, and the constructive. Positive principles are principles which are provable. “

UPDATE: The press statement now appears to have been taken down alongside all the party’s press material and is no longer available on their website. However the document pdf and its url is still referred to on the Net and a copy is in our possession, and available below:

by davidrobertlewis -

SABC Monitor Tax: Is this a tax on general-purpose computing?

TECH Website Mybroadband are reporting that “SABC has started demanding that South Africans pay TV licence fees for computer monitors, even if they are not receiving broadcast signals on these devices.”

Hanno Labuschagne writes: “As has been the case for the past few years, the annual e-mailed TV Licence Renewal Notice letter explains that broadcasting legislation requires that owners of a TV set must have a valid (paid-up) TV licence.

“However, this year’s notice comes with an additional sentence stating the definition of a TV set includes a “TV monitor (without receiving capabilities) able to receive a broadcast signal by virtue of being connected to any television receiving equipment.”

“The broadcaster specified that the receiving equipment could include a “digital box/decoder, DVD [player] or PC”.

This looks a lot like a tax on general-purpose computing and echoes earlier 2020 proposals to tax the Internet. It is far worse than the proposed Household “Hut” tax that I wrote about here in March 2022. Similar hair-brained schemes to force computer users to get ‘drivers licenses’ were once proposed by attorney Ray Brink, formerly of the Computer Education Computer Society (CECS).

If SABC are allowed to tax monitors and PCs by treating such devices as a source of revenue, they are likely to target any Internet-connected device, including your Laptop and Xbox.

In essence a tax on the tools of your profession and trade in addition to entertainment, and thus an assault upon constitutional rights.

Previous proposals to tax internet connected devices would mean the broadcaster would have been taxing copyrighted content and material for which it may not have express permission to resell nor benefit.

This time around, it looks the state broadcaster is rolling out a simple ‘dumb-tax’ which professes to ignore connectivity and instead relies upon novel definitions of what constitutes a monitor or computer device, this in order to supplement income from advertising and funding from government.

It remains to be seen whether the public broadcaster, which is a merely a company incorporated under the Companies Act, but subject to broadcasting legislation, has the authority to do so without the matter first being debated and tabled in Parliament.

by davidrobertlewis -

Unfortunately for our ‘statistician general’, Eskom maths just doesn’t add up (updated)

AVAILABILITY of electricity in South Africa is now at its worst in living memory. Prices are skyrocketing, tariffs are set to increase by a whopping 18.65% and the ruling party is hamstrung by its inability to unbundle Eskom into separate units. This at the same time as government insists on maintaining a facade, that the SOE will be able to provide for the entire nation’s energy needs moving forward.

Instead of examining the facts and figures, Dr Pali Lehohla, former Statistician General of South Africa, delivered a media sermon over the weekend, one whose message is painfully against privatisation and consumer choice. His comments reported by IOL, lack statistics, facts, figures, nor percentages. There is not a single prime number in a piece which rattles on about the President ‘being in the war-room’ to defund Eskom by ‘not funding maintenance in order to promote privatisation’.

Instead of examining the massive debt balloon run-up by Eskom over the course of the past decade (R401. 8 billion 2021, R396. 8 billion 2022), fruitless and wasteful expenditure compounded by tender fraud, unlawful contracts, R659 million lost in 2016 alone to a coal scam, alongside decreasing availability, (as if there were no maths problems here worthy of his academic qualifications), Lehola insists on misdirecting the public with a red-herring regarding the issue of maintenance of what is left of Eskom’s ageing fleet.

At the beginning of December, writes Ketshepaone Modise of Earthlife Africa, only 52% of Eskom’s fleet was generating electricity, and by the end of that month, the figure slipped below 50% for the first time. This means that of 48,000MW of potential capacity, less than 24,000MW was operational.  The entity posted almost a R12 billion loss for the year ended 31 March 2022.

by davidrobertlewis -

Most of all I am offended as a Secularist

IN 2010 I led evidence in a South African court that ‘Judaism was not monolithic’, or to use the parlance of Amma Khalid (see link below) ‘monothetic’, i.e based on a single basic idea or principle. There were many different expressions of Judaism I told the court, in particular there were those who disputed claims made by the Orthodoxy regarding the origin of the Torah, as too were there divergences on issues of Sabbath observance.

The Torah itself was unclear and contradicted itself. Since the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) or Reform, progressives such as myself believed in a ‘separation between Synagogue and State’. Instead of upholding my right to privacy in the face of the obscene ecclesiastical charges and racist propositions put to me by Kahanovitz SC acting for apartheid media company Media24, the court decided to adopt a moral position consistent with ultra-Orthodox, Rabbinical Judaism.

AJ Cheadle found that since I was a ‘Jew in breach’ of my alleged religion, I could not claim discrimination i.e. Antisemitism on the basis of the offensive inquiries and objections made by the respondent in the matter, who not only disputed my Jewishness but had proceeded to impugn whether or not I was indeed a Jew and outrageously denied they knew I was Jewish even though they were now insisting on authoring and issuing such inquiries.

As Thomas Jefferson put it in an 1803 letter to an English politician, 26 years after establishing an Act enshrining religious freedom in 1777: “I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others”

Cheadle then claimed to reserve judgement in the doctrinal dispute, despite his open bias towards the respondent (who it turned out was not simply his client, but also a business partner) demonstrated by his adopting their position in the matter.

The company had initially objected to my attendance at a ‘mixed race’ music venue on the Sabbath, and appeared to also object to my use of a company vehicle on Shabbat, supposedly in contravention of Jewish law. My own pleadings in the matter were simply ignored and mocked, with the respondent’s version of the case along with false and misleading narrative, uplifted and handed down.

The result is an anti-Secular screed at best, the product of a kangaroo court lacking objective reality.

Thus Cheadle upheld a false claim inter alia, reiterating apartheid-era justifications for separate development, whilst proceeding to trash the findings of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission, an inquiry into gross violations of human rights under apartheid in which the company had essentially been found guilty as one of the ‘handmaidens of the apartheid regime’.

The company had also attacked my byline, infringed upon journalistic privilege, sought a gagging order, and made a number of frivolous and vexatious allegations regarding several interviews conducted with jazz musicians. In turn I accused the company of censorship, race profiling of readers, de facto newsroom segregation and denial of my rights as a journalist. Restrained from calling any witnesses in the matter, I was forced to lead my evidence from the witness box, sans an attorney.

I was not given leave to appeal nor even present when the decision was handed down and a petition to the Labour Appeal Court was turned down in my absence. You can access a repository of material related to the case here.

Today I was thus surprised to find pretty much my own case regarding the racist Anti-Secular Inquisition by Media24, reiterated in support of an Art History Professor, cast out due to similar sensitivities to do with religion. It is a welcome respite from the machinations of the religious police and theocrats in my own country to read the argument in support of an Enlightenment in Islam.

Almost 17 years since the initial incident which led to my complaint being filed, I continue to condemn the anti-Secular, partisan,1994-denialist decision of the corrupted Labour Court of South Africa. I once again demand that my rights to an identity independent of the state’s religious authorities and especially religious policing, be restored alongside my rights as a journalist.

SEE: Did ‘ou krokodil’ Ton Vosloo just wake up to the fact that his company continues to mock the TRC report?

SEE: Living in the Heart of Kakness