COMMENT , by Pete Bower
GAUTENG
MAGAZINE
HOW TO MAKE YOUR PLOT PROFITABLE
V17 No12 / V18 No1 Dec 2016 / Jan 2017 PUBLISHED BY Bowford Publications ( Pty ) Ltd Established 1985
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FRONT COVER
Given the role of the donkey prior to the birth of Christ , it ’ s fitting to feature one on our cover at this time of year , and to wish all a happy Festive Season .
COMMENT , by Pete Bower
The caravan moves on
What a month it ' s been ! Following weeks of shenanigans , intrigue and gloom and doom at home involving Shaun Abrahams , Pravin Gordhan & Co , Jacob Zuma , Brian Molefe and a motley cast of hangers-on and toadies ~ not to mention flooding in Gillooley ' s Interchange ~ we were able to take a breather , courtesy of the Home of the Brave and the Land of the Free . For news-watchers were treated to the final spectacle of the 2016 US presidential election . Oh , how vicious to each other were the contestants ! Oh , what hubris in the result ! And oh , how awful some of the humour ( example : this is not the first time in America that a white family has ousted a Black family from public housing …) So , what have South Africans , and the rest of the world , learned in the last 30 days ? For ourselves , it is clear that the issues currently feeding our daily discourse bear absolutely no relation to the issues occupying the minds of world players . Here , we are consumed by the activities of one man , his family and his immigrant friends as they seek to plunder as much of our tax money as they can before they inevitably get caught , kicked out of office and ( in the case of the immigrants ) out of the country and even , with a bit of luck and good management , kicked into jail . The South African media , whose efforts are vital in the fight against corruption , are not entirely blameless in spreading confusion and depression among the citizenry , and the way to avoid being drawn into the web of deceit and lies that abound as events unfold is simply to see everything through a sharply focused lens ~ a lens that focusses clearly on Zuma and the Guptas . For everything , whether it be the nuclear deal , or Pravingate , or Saxonwold shebeens , or Chinese massage parloured-links to rhino poaching , all have their genesis in the machinations of Zuma and the Guptas . So while we all need to play along with these charades if we are to stymie the larceny in any way , we need have no fear that any development involving the current cabal has any foundation in a higher purpose , such as adhering to the rule of law or serving the needs of the people . More worryingly , perhaps , some commentators are starting to ask the “ what if ” question : what if Zuma pulls the classic African dictator stunt and , alaMugabe , makes himself president-for-life ? Now THAT ’ S something to fret about . But we focus on our own affairs and our mickey-mouse economy at our peril . There ' s a world out there that ' s changed fast , and will continue to change , and if we don ' t keep our eye on what ' s happening we ' re going to find ourselves left behind . For there ' s a nationalistic ~ some would say right wing ~ wave of sentiment sweeping across the northern hemisphere which started before , but had its first truly public manifestation in , Britain ' s Brexit vote . One can analyse the reasons for Brexit long and hard ~ and many have ~ and one can point out that the European Union , while a grand philosophical idea to prevent the Germans from ever going to war with the rest of Europe again , is hopelessly flawed , not least economically . Its collapse , or at least further fragmentation , is by no means an impossibility . And , apart from Brexit ( and Trump , across the Atlantic ), there ' s more European nationalism on the way . Germany ' s current welcoming mistress Angela Merckel hopes for another term but her countrymen have had a skinful of her open-doors-to-refugees policy , and there ' s a very real possibility that she ' ll be replaced by a more nationalistic leader . Down in France Francois Hollande is far less popular than the right wing firebrand Marine le Pen , who is only marginally less radical than her now-senile father . And there are other examples across Europe of right-wingers on the ascendancy . So Trump , as dishonest , obnoxious , Islamophobic and sexist a bully as he may be , is not the only right-wing candle on the world cake . Our problem , of course , is that attempting to form personal opinions on the basis of pollsters and the media can lead to the kind of disappointment felt by US Democrats following Trump ' s victory . The media and pollsters did the world a disservice by starting to believe their own hype ~ that Clinton would win . And a swing to the right is not necessarily a bad thing . It happens all over the world from time to time , and it remains to be seen whether Trump has real teeth to push through some of his more extreme ideas or if he ' s just a loud-mouthed lout . And , to be frank , a more conservative , localised , down-to-earth approach to life is what sustainable-living proponents worldwide themselves espouse . So while the world gears up for another chapter in its history , we wind down for some time unuder the African sun . “ The dogs bark , but the caravan moves on .”
SAY YOU SAW IT IN THE GAUTENG SMALLHOLDER