Kill all Palestinians, a Munich middle school had displayed, while my husband’s colleague said, they all come out the same, when another mentioned, rather meekly, they’re still human, the consensus was that in war our souls are expendable in right’s name.
My husband, a man of honeyed green eyes, raised to love a volk to the point of being blind, who knows better what role-modelled indifference preserved in liquid contempt, does to a people, a country, in need of a new mind.
Imagine his worn-out despair, where can he hide, where can he run, to find escape from the lie that equal humanity bears no right, the callousness that hides self-interest, promising a brighter socio-economic sun.
We say we are past days old, but in 2009, El-Sherbini was four months pregnant, her neighbour called her names for covering her hair, stabbing her eighteen times in a Dresden courtroom, forcing her three-year-old to witness her blank stare.
And you have to wonder if you wear a wide brim hat, will you offend too? If you shave your head, or get tattoos. Should you prefer summer skirts or minis, full costumes over bikinis, at what point is a woman’s choice anywhere free of social whinnying?
On a video, Union Jacks discuss the great replacement threat, amongst millions of likes, a Svensk comments under his real name, saying that most of what he sees in the city in which he stays, are blacks, Muslims and fat chicks, his Armageddon is his frightening shame. He appears uninterested in whether those “Muslims” were born Swedes, or whether the “blacks” and “fat chicks” are Swedish too. Somehow, by their physicality alone they are presumed less Swedish, I’m sure he is colour-blind, racism and sexism, a long dead milieu.
On a random social media post, a local news site celebrates a woman getting a job, after twenty years of trying, she finally found career income. A man says she should have removed her helmet, spoken better Swedish instead of being a blob. Hijab, you mean? A woman points out, which he ignores, Does he realise he supports economic exclusion on the basis of religion and language? Proposing unfair discrimination that deprives people of economic thriving, And is he a company team leader, an HR exec, filtering out “those CVs” like excess baggage?
A TV series in 2024 received a rating, from an ordinary “expert” on gangs, calling children sucked into criminality: monkeys, monkeys and more monkeys. I dare ask if he is a doctor, a social worker or a court judge, someone who in reality hurts regularly the dehumanised young.
Are these questions impolite, or poking at used-to complicity hidden, now feeling discomfort with ideas that no one leaves at home, showing how many of us are capable of human sins forbidden.
Where is this going, you must be wondering, well, I wonder too. What I hear and see, is the call for permission, the rulers consent, to find Capra hircus to sacrifice and maim, if only a few.
Find me a Capra hircus who looks almost human, I enjoy their torture the most, I’ll take them young or old, girl or boy, I’ll hack them from head to toe with policies, inaction or overwhelming force.
Find me a Capra hircus who speaks in their desert, savannah working tongues, the ones that I can mock, dismiss, undermine and rage against, when they dare believe we are equal or could be one.
Find me a Capra hircus, so I may say they deserve to die, in the womb, in the crib, by police or army hands, sleeping in tents, I want to imagine their loss, dream of their visceral cries.
Find me a Capra hircus, so I don’t have to inspect, the decades-long choices of governmental, intergovernmental, and multi-business effects. I don’t want to discuss geopolitical rug-pulling, economic exclusion, whether intended or not, lonely children, traumatised parents, pressures and stress, the working of class weaved into everyday choices, our melting pot.
Find me a Capra hircus that I can tear into shreds, at least one who walks alone to school, skinny in round spectacles, maybe aged eleven or sixteen, the kind not abundantly fed.
Find me a Capra hircus alone on a municipal bus, scrolling through social media, I want to talk dirt behind her back, or, even better, pull off her scarf with strands of her hair, as I walk past, eating my mid-lunch snack.
Find me a Capra hircus that asks the question, why? who needs a good yank or shove under police gaze, who’ll be presumed a terror fan, those are the lesser-thans I love to leave in a daze.
Find me a Capra hircus who will say stupid stuff, like human rights matters, or what about human life? Would you do the same to people who looked like you? Silly billies, that’s not how this works, it’s not our fault you were born to the wrong class or flying kite.
Of this, I have seen too much, I watch comedy shows and listen to music, to escape in brief moments the inescapable rush. I am shocked over these last months. Lost amongst indifference, lost over and over again. How many unpublished cases of sheer cruelty have gone unseen, while bottom drawers allow divide and conquer to be played.
Higher-ups sitting on plush seats, talking about cultural marxism, a remix of nationalist us versus them, old sieg heil’s bolshevic narrative, which has no reference to actual German Marx, theirs is a class divide hierarchism.
Whilst the braying vik slaughtered almost a hundred children of his country, gets to be an exception, a one-off extremist, a pregnant woman, the unemployed or a child, male and lost, is undoubtedly a universal threat just by breathing.
So in 2022, when combatting nazism, neonazism came to a vote, should we be surprised that fifty-two countries voted against, stopping exclusion, undermining, abuse, any ethnic cleansing of note.
For me, this is shocking, only insofar that I am seeing this everywhere, I watched video after video of Hindus in India, abusing neighbours for digesting Islam, not rare. It is one thing to debate the political use of religion, weaved into government, business, institution’s processes and policies. All the religions have that problem, Christians used the bible to justify South Africa’s apartheid. And of course, the papal decrees of the church, Doctrines of Discovery, suggested barbarous nations should be overthrown, brought to the faith instead of left without worry.
Even now, women are arguing against religion, mixing-in with politics, economic practices and rules, some see a world attempting to lock them, barefoot and pregnant in their homes.
Their bodies aren’t theirs, whether raped, dying or young and afraid, They’re having to justify why they’re choosing sex without marriage, a scary road covered in shame, ridicule or rage. Others are wondering why religious criticism, or not believing is a threat, or how gender determines who gets to be schooled, drive a car or even protest.
Our human family in Iran are fighting for their right to choose. A hashtag showing women being assaulted on video, for daring to suggest as a prank they will no longer cover their hair, their own husbands, brothers, fathers abusing them for made-up choices…their despair.
Separating religion from power is one thing, discussing what human beings deserve is fair, but that’s not what is happening, is it? There’s contempt-soaked indifference being shared and spread, and we capitulate to it while declaring to be better.
I can’t be the only one, noticing the setting of a window-dressing sun, the base ideology, a shadow fog rising from mental graveyards, declaring to the world, that we need to eradicate “them” in order to maintain our soul-withering fun.
The same powers that say, “tough shit”, who drove Evangelical plans to seize land, hold no moratorium after Ayesha Younis Salam, was shot dead in bed beside her siblings, three-years-old, marked twelve on the cheek, another kill trophy in Capra Hircus sands.
Who are mine, you ask? Everyone, buddy, ev-ery-one. The Israelis frightened till death on videos we were forced to watch, the too few anti-occupation critics now dead. The Palestinian villagersslaughtered, tortured, raped and sickeningly abused pre- and post 1948. The Iranian and Afghani women challenging unfairrules. Illan Pappé called self-hating, raising the sword of Jewish honour, I will not stop, he says, I know who I am, Hundreds more, Jewish kin, sons of Moses, voices pouring down, let my people go, they rain. My people? The children forced to eat animal feed, Hind Rajab begging for her life. The children disabled, once walking, skipping out of school, shot in the legs by hidden soldiers, in an occupied home with bullshit rules. Ashira Darwish showing us where, olive trees weep, reminding us that chains on one, are chains on all, successive powers knew and chose to sleep. The Nordic doctor crying on screen, scolding higher-ups for their complicity, a helpless man surrounded by patients that lie screaming, children being amputated without anaesthesia, a natural war cost we are led to believe, independent investigators denied entry, western journalists losing their jobs but told they are free, while ongoing profits stream in for war makers, pre-election speeches of misdirection, cannot hide higher-ups connecting geopolitical dots, an old formula of crushing resistance, Obama Trump von der Leyen speeches smell of rot.
My people are the children forced from their mothers’ embrace and piled onto trucks, named vermin, human form animals, sent from concentration camps to their cold deaths, while cannibalistic powers now repeat those very same sentiments. The mobilisation of hurt and trauma into raging Arab voices and fists, who say to Arab leaders and monarchs, you too are complicit with our land loss and death for years. The same disenfranchised who say we were always owed a presiding say: Who are you to come to our home, and tell us to be quiet, lie down, just die or go away.
The ordinary everyone are my people, every human life. And that’s what I don’t understand, How could great powers in the 1900s, architect or approve mass displacement, dehumanisation and seizing of land?
How could they continually justify cruelty for self-interest and in modern times? This did not happen in 1562, our families were alive when the media ignored the full breath of what they knew. And that is why so many of us did not know what our governments allowed, a soul crushing riddle spread across crowds.
It is the numb, dead souls that tell us full-truth, context and human life does not matter. Children, malnourished to death, leaves me unrested while resting. My mind wanders in quiet moments, I know one thing to be true, we are none Capra hircus, sacrificial meat, we are each other’s mirror image, and I don’t think those with influence will ever see this common thread, humanity honouring humanity is our long-forgotten hope, while under tons of rubble mothers and their babies lie rotting and dead.
We would like to be represented, she said, a passive question to a revolutionary leader, hanging on his every word, on tippy toes, hoping that his response would truly see her.
He spoon-feeds her cultural lines, how African women have always been kept top of mind. Look who does most of our campaign work, who feeds our children, cleans our homes, attractive girls you are fine.
He leads her back to African queens, framing inequity through walls of the top floor. She seems satisfied, a bit shy, but why then is she, we, asking for more?
Because he missed her point completely, that’s why, it’s not his fault he’s sleeping, most men, once boys, struggle, conditioned not to see us as equals, well-wishes deny the South African reality, girls left weeping.
Young women, dark, light, and shades in-between, from south, east, west, north regions, if you’re asking for sufficient space, you’re making a mistake, rather, come to the table in your mass legions.
Stand as one before the boardroom table, leaning your hands on the surface you cleaned, your sisters at your back, on your sides, focus on better channelling those inner screams.
Listen buddy, say you, friend, lover, brother or uncle Sam, you acknowledging our unpaid, paid labour, is cute, not good enough, no matter how big a fan I am.
Here’s how this is going to go, in a world where we make up 50% in sheer numbers, we are owed equal paid work, education, corporate, government equal space, the right to wear whatever we like, we don’t need your permission or approval to put up a fight.
I know you like the look of us, you love us, your mothers, grannies, your daughter, Betty Boo, but we don’t need your love, or appreciation, right now, actual change is why we are talking to you.
You misunderstand us though, we don’t need to ask, in this Africa’s southern south, we outnumber you, by about one million, they say, we don’t need women’s political leagues, female SRC chairs, awards for best mother, best lover, hip hip whatever hooray.
In a country where we are the majority, fully human like you, we expect our needs and desires, our voices at the table, no more mere faces, token numbers, your assistant, the usual few.
Don’t hide justification for inequity, behind cultural practices, policies and rules, a culture should evolve, it must, we women are not born to be your cooks, slaves or fools.
Let’s not insult the intelligence of lacy bras, we know about the court case involving lions’ trust, charging rent for culturally stewarded land, or Rahube warriors, pushing against cultural pride, that made a home grab muss.
Ukuthwala is no joke, child marriages, child rape, built into customs, practised post ’94, many a girl-child forsaken.
When an old friend, a Muslim flower, complained to the Muslim Council, telling them a gun was pointed at her, the all-man team of cultural experts, told her to work on her marriage, smothering her with a wet towel.
And so when women want to drop the hijab, in South Africa, Iran or any other, their choice is what matters, if they’re making the rules, it’s not freedom if equal decision power, institutional power is not honoured.
Cultural history is good, religion too, but romanticising feminine struggle, our work, unsupported, unpaid, your comfort with being served, serves you, buddy, this may not be our collective future way.
Before we talk, about the one African queen you can name, from the hundreds of chieftains, noble men, let’s discuss why still religious bodies, dominated by you not us, make rules for the collective, that we—only some—rubber stamp, a marketing token folly.
The issues women face go beyond ripple effects, of historic ideas of entitlement and possession, baked into religions and cultures, is the fear of power equity, that causes men, to attack flowers challenging domination.
It should come as no surprise, that as more and more African women, economically emancipate, the business, political, religious systems, come under threat. Who will define the rules? Will the rules be changed? For the traditional controllers that’s the bait.
But do you really think we are less capable, of leading you and our sons, soft, delicate, bad-driving creatures, who do you think decides and makes your lunch?
How many of us decide how we live, making choices that juggle multiple interests. In South Africa, millions of women, raised families alone. We are no flying Icarus.
So sweet girl, black child, African born, stop asking, waiting, passively hoping, for what is rightfully yours.
Privilege is a pair of blinkers, placed on my head from birth, directing my vision, seeing only my troubles, no direct lines, only my worth.
Privilege is hearing about crime, shocked or worried through a TV screen, never having to face a gun or knife to the neck, never knowing real fear, always distant by a few feet.
Privilege is debating war at coffee shops, on social media, in office blocks, while children die, burning up from the inside, decades of shooting at their legs, tortured and displaced, whole flocks.
Privilege is a minority, the asset portfolios, surfing, bike-riding, skiing, connoisseurs of holiday homes, telling the salary-dependent classes below, that wealth control, distribution is of little use, their fine noses grow.
Privilege is living in the world’s most inequitable country, a place once full of hope, realising that the system was designed, then and now, to do many wrong, any second you could slide on economic soap.
Privilege is going to posh schools, enjoying small classes and teacher attention, neurologically standard, not divergent, the losers of public education, unmentioned.
Privilege is a girl learning about old boys funnelled into battle, young and eager, wanting to be brave, their bodies ripped, minds ripped too, millions of boys murdered in waves.
Privilege is a boy, teenage promiscuous king, getting high-fives like an undeclared sport, the girls shamed for speaking out of turn, one kiss too many, hers a dirty game…no doubt.
Privilege is never having to use the word, colonialism, you’re allowed to forget how it served, when those left without, mass extraction, exploitation, a system still in use, veiled under new words.
Privilege is knowing you’ll likely die before the planet does, children left behind to fend, polar bears shrinking, species erased, humans racing to their carbon end.
Privilege is leaving your country behind, worrying, on and off, whether they’ll make it, every happy moment stained with their despair, how I wish their suffering would dissipate.
Privilege is loving your children, wanting for them the very best, being comfortable with different standards, for children not yours, “those people” and all the rest.
Privilege is buying hair extensions or weaves, for a normal day or special event, never having to think of the women in temples, the desperate poor, selling their hair, no rest.
Let’s be honest, privilege is a warm blanket, a frosted glass bubble, a life of relative comfort, class, intersecting with race, nationality, less to no trouble.
Privilege is not a sin, rather a product of systems, local and overseas, compounded by history, current or no redress, personal paths taken, there’s no shame attached, for you or for me.
However, privilege is – it must be – a platform to speak out, quiet, loud, creative or policy bold, to say, this here stinks, we cannot carry on while dignity, life itself, has and is being sold.
Can you see yet, proletariaat? SASOL had a close integrated connection with government through shareholding, governance relationships, and through its elite networks, which were strongly aligned to Afrikaner Nationalist leadership of the apartheid government. In addition to financial support from the state, SASOL was able to count on a cheap labour force, unregulated labour laws and Draconian political laws that used military and policing methods to control society. In this context, during the period between 1948 and 1979, people were not in a position to challenge safety in the workplace or environmental damage…For example, Sappi was fined only R600 for a spill at its Ngodwana Paper Mill in 1989 that devastated ecosystems of the Elands and Crocodile Rivers…on October 1 1987, a wage strike at the SASOL I petroleum refinery in Sasolburg turned ugly when management called in police and vigilantes to break up the workers’ strike. The result was the loss of 77 workers’ lives, and 2400 jobs. SASOL never accepted responsibility for its actions.1
Mense van African threads, have you figured out what’s going on yet? you, in die laer klasse, boere without holiday homes, yachts, Woolworths mustard, no European citizenship through property ownership, horse riding lessons, the good leef, Wim, a locksmith, Ronel the hairstylist, Jannie, an automechanic, special is a braai list, new cars for 21st birthdays is not your life, you who should understand more the werkersklas fight.
This year, when the hoër klasse went to Brakpan, to make an online video of you, did you notice your homes and families, framed by three ryk seuns as a “rof en tof” gross zoo. Are you their white savages, my klas mense? The side-joke, the laer klas doormat. Are you the people expendable, by economic string-pullers, their go-to entertainment is how you’re rendered. You call them broer, they some say buht for boet, even if their name’s Kruger, de Klerk, Verwoerd, kan jyregtig not see what game’s afoot?
Because I remember in 2006, wit ryk seuns from the poshest schools around, told me I should not enter the Oos Rand, they’re “rough” monstrous, I may not be found. Yet, almost ten years later I married, the Oos Rand’slaer klas seun, a boer, not a monster, who felt bad, deep-down wished things were fair, that equal was real.
So, are you their wit woeste? The lesser whites of class frame… I ask because of double B and C, This year they sent a posh South African race mate, to interview the werkersklas, a former Apartheid polisie man, disabled. He murdered readily, children too, and Ms high-and-mighty gave him the boot, but here’s the farce, the media mask, high-and-mighty would have benefitted more, from the economic structures his murders kept in place. She sits on camera and acts like, racism, an entire system, was only about violence and hate. She does not mention if her mum or dad, is a British immigrant, French, German or Nordic, who, unlike polisie boer, chose racism, flying from all over the Western world, making my jaw hurt. While laer klas was born into the system, conditioned, what chance did he have? Shaped from birth. What’s the immigrants’ excuse, for coming to racism (in their thousands) to build hoër klas hearths.
On why she thought dragging out polisie boer was news, a cheap sensationalist attempt, there’s something about dangling your sins, laer klasse, that I bet she knew would earn her a career boost, leaving you with contempt.
And do you believe her, my klas broer? My suster too? Has it dawned on you yet? That he, you, the many laer conscripted tools, were used to keep the wealth imbalance in place, a minority and foreign checkmate.
I was listening to a podcast while making our dinner, a story about poisoning miners, the name, Dirk Jooste. An American accent meant I did not recognise the name at first, until I heard his voice, stopped stirring to look up the miner’s birth. And suddenly, all I felt was accustomed rage, like explosions from an inner volcano, an inferno that never abates. These bastards, I thought, they never stop, South African elites in business, corporate kings, with their political puppets treating the laer klasse like toilet mops. Dirk’s trembling hand was seen while at work, only to find out he was already poisoned. The manganese, fine dust, zooming into every orifice, he can’t possibly be the only one, how many werkersklas broers have Parkinsons symptoms, are we allowed to frown?
And the executive mine leadership, are they white or are they black? You know why I ask… White-on-white exploitation, where is it honoured by your leads? Especially when it involves class.
Your collective voice will cry foul, but only for affirmative action. A man, a human being, once healthy, is now damaged in the head, living with shivers while his higher-ups remain stealthy.
The collective voice says nothing, NOTHING, of equal vehemence and might, against white-heavy upper elites, who killed a man’s quality of life. There’s no social media posts, panel discussions, no protests on streets, no trips to foreign countries, demanding to know the full, industry-wide truth, how typical…how disappointing. And why would you mind this? Ja-broer politics worked for you. Ja-broer collective voice did you comparatively well in the past, but how’s that working out for you post-apartheid laws, I have to, I must ask.
[In 2012] One of the primary demands of the [South African Lonmin mine] workers was a wage of R12,500 per month. Lonmin [mine] management considered the R12,500 increase to be completely unreasonable and the miners responded by engaging in protest and strike action. This demand [for a R12,500 per month wage] is ten times less than the wage of mineworkers in Australia and the United Kingdom…the voices of workers become the revealing testimony of the dehumanisation and reduction of labour at the Lonmin mine at the mercy of capitalism…one of the salient aspects in the events that preceded the massacre [the murder of 34 striking mineworkers by police officers] was the way in which the management of Lonmin [mine] related to labour. A mineworker referring to housing noted that they were closed in by wire like they were cows…A miner sadly recounted how he explained to the employer that they (the miners) were also human.2
Jy dink Dirkie is the only one? Let me enlighten you, on what laer klas Afrikaners put up with, my Mister, raised by a single mother, a school teacher who also worked as a delivery driver, trying to give her child a life, a boy who couldn’t afford University, even though he was awarded a bursery, his mom needed his support, so he worked in the Oos Rand, where he was born, teaching himself computer programming words, nog ‘n wit seun, from the hoër klas group, a childhood friend from a multi-million Rand home, asked him to do work on a government project, their business needing work done for their profit, multi-million then did not pay for the work done, avoiding my Mister’s calls, for no reason at all, boasting, planning to charge the state more than a million, for a website that was worth thousands at most, a hoër klas friend-not friend gets away with stealing earned funds, and do you think we could afford, thousands of Rands on attorney fees, no, not us born in the trenches, but yes, tell us again how we are all free to your friends, South Africa’s elites.
My man’s long ago ex was abused, over and over again, a sexual torment, incest, a childhood’s pain, a werkersklas girl of no name. And why does this come as a shock? Because when many live next door, too many pretend that they’re inherently, magically more. You’re not laer klas, with us in a similar trench, you’re white, you’re special, not inferior class savages like the rest.
He pointed out that the process of identifying the interests of this labour aristocracy with those of the ruling class is an element arising out of the development of capitalism during its imperialistic stage. And nowhere is this phenomenon more apparent than in South Africa, where white labour has completely divorced its interests from those of the natives, to the detriment of the latter, upon whose exploitation it fattens. For “the European worker is haunted by fear of competition with the great masses of native labourers,” is the declaration of a South African trade union memorandum.“….Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and so the policy hitherto adopted has been one of ‘keeping the native in his place’, in order that certain of the higher-paid jobs might be retained as the special preserve of the European worker.” This policy, which has the endorsement of the Labour Party of the Union, is implemented by legislation, and has accentuated the division between white and black labour.3
It’s worse than you think, my swaer is in and out of jobs, in and out of self rehab, blonde and blue-eyed, something missing inside, a laer klas man who doesn’t see his class, only skin, he hides, from “those darkies”, me, them, all the same, hiding slurs behind closed doors, the poor man, born African, not by choice, he has no escape. He will never join the trade union, the most powerful, all black, he will risk exploitation, low wages, management abuse, even contract traps, and he does this for one reason, a minority who cannot bear to see himself as equally “them”, in a country where the overwhelming majority, a brother laer klas, do not look like him, and isn’t that sad? Tragic? A laer klas man, without love for black magic, in a black country, a black continent, that he, his parents were born to, generations of his family, who could have been led, lived and comfortable with, black cultures, African power allegiance and films too.
But no, the system, real racism, did a real number on him, on us, every single community and family, has been touched, soaked, pretending of late, this is only about public service, and three decades of votes.
There is ample evidence that the violent attack [of 2012] by the [South African] police on the Marikana miners was well planned. There was collusion between the police commanders, the Lonmin management and South African government ministers. The day before the assault, the police ordered 4,000 rounds of live ammunition for R5 assault rifles and four mortuary vans...The South African extractive economy was deeply integrated into the world market [post apartheid] and the new rising black elite eased into the neo-colonial relationship with the established [white minority and/or foreign] economic power. The ownership of land, factories, mines remained unchanged leaving the majority of the black communities in poverty. The legacy of social inequality and violence continued as before.4
So when ryk seuns, whether cousins or strangers, paint my swaer with the laer klas savage brush, will he stand up for himself? Hold them to account for their class greed, the real stuff. Will he tell them, they’re the white kingpins, who masterminded his lived experience, separating and degrading, the greater half for their gains, they needed his obedience.
Will he say, ek is nie jou wrede proliteriaat, I will no longer be used! I see the machination, masses divide and conquer, racial blinkers on, us laer klas still your useful tools.
Race matters only because race is class in good ol’ SA, but in every racial category, there is, there was a sliding scale. And so for you, the forgotten, the shamed laer klas, what is the plan? Are you hoping white masters, upper classes, bring back legal race protection or segregation? You must know by now that your elites, white and Afrikaners too, were not ignorant during apartheid’s fall, knowing exactly what it would do to you, ensuring above all, their interests remain served, they could have argued for socialist democracy, but you and I both know, that’s a class prayer they were not willing to observe. Thirty years later, some höer klas say, we can debate social democracy homemade, consider what was asked for decades long ago, but rooi gevaar is unacceptable, enjoying still their PR charade. What was denied on purpose was redistribution policies, holding onto African resources, land and control. They pushed back and pushed back for thirty years, while media back pockets, served us public corruption, not system design flaws. And who did their policies benefit, if white state-led protection was missing? Was it you, laer klas? Truly, were you paying attention? This is my biggest issue with us minorities, those who have less, the laer klasse determined to ignore, the issue of black and class redress, out of deep ignorance and fear, we vote for our own exploitation, our own economic impoverishment without thinking it through, while certainly not less capable than the hoër mense, who look like me or you. They will tell us to keep voting, the usual cattle call, tell us they got it all under control, but that’s precisely the problem, their actions, chosen inactions, push-backs, have led us here, inequity consequences continue to enfold.
The [South African] Farlam Commission of Inquiry wanted an investigation into whether or not Lonmin [mine] was in a financial position to meet the [South African mine] workers’ wage demands, since Lonmin’s management originally refused to negotiate with the workers on the pretense that the corporation was unable to afford the workers’ wage demands…Lonmin’s Chief Financial Officer Simon Scott provided testimony on LMS’ finances. That testimony, read with other documents, showed that LMS, a so-called “Head Office company,” in turn paid management fees to Lonmin PLC in the UK of between 20% and 37% of its revenue, amounting to R429 million between 2007 and 2010. Transactions made for the sole purpose of shifting profits are called transfer mispricing. Transfer mispricing is but one of the tools in transnational corporations’ (TNCs) bag of tricks, used to reduce the profits declared in countries with higher corporate income tax levels—like South Africa—and reduce companies’ tax liabilities…Critically, if Lonmin did not shift profits out of the country, it could have afforded the RDOs’ [mineworkers] wage demands.5
You cannot possibly believe, men who can afford overseas flights, worth thousands, are your true post-apartheid kin. The men so wealthy, they own your debt, your jobs, the ground at your feet, homes, you still can’t pay for all of it. They own every estate, private beaches, commercial agri and game farms, while you, laer klas sukkel for affordable meat and recreational yarn.
Women will write books skewed, arguably fake news, before moving to Swiss cheese with Phds, the hoër klasse lying about the apart-system, how it benefitted a few.
And are these the people you betray us for? A class betrayal you will deny, even while your children lie closer to us, not them, on the same exploited floor where we’re all about to die.
The South African Revenue Service (SARS) estimates that the country loses approximately R100 billion in tax revenue annually as a result of Illicit Financial Flows (IFF) and Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS). At a corporate tax rate of 27%, a R100 billion tax loss means that more than R350 billion leaves the country illicitly each year. A recent report indicates that more than 75% of workers earn below R5,800 per month. At the same time, SARS estimates that an estimated 500,000 people earn above R750,000 per annum, and approximately 250,000 people earn more than R1 million each year.6
I understand, I throw no shame, confronting the loss of state protection, superficial race, must be hard for a proliteriaat, not used to different faces.
But at some point, you have to accept the class system, seeing all laer klasse deserve better, you’re not their savage, their distraction, you’re more like us, And I am sorry not-sorry that we look different.
When you learn of abuse of legal frameworks, capital flight, interest rates beating you down, hearing words for years: “union busting”, “labour laws problematic” or, “scrap minimum wage”, do you get that they’re threatening all of us? Killing us in multiple rounds.
It will be your daughter, a marketing intern, or perhaps your son, a mechanic graduate, who must beg and hustle for something better, scrapped minimum wage, rely on market-related while chasing falling living standards.
When they talk about private investment, private interests, over state-owned resources, what makes you think the state does not include you? You’d see the wealth of your birthplace go to ABC Limited elite, and not used to make you and your klas maat new boots.
And on innovation, modern creation, a competitive streak for global business, our economic enrichment, liberal capitalism, minority dominant, inherited from apartheid, has brought us how many new inventions, since 1994, kan jy nog sien?
The minority run, largely owned and enriched system, the free market-leaning economic three-decade machine, is not, as the hoër klas argued, this innovation-generating guarantee. Innovation comes from human ingenuity, resourcefulness and imagination, financial support, guidance in droves, any economic system socially-structured can bring about good renovation.
Changing the engine, bettering a national system, imagining its reinvention, includes you, us, laer klasse, it must, are we not capable of reading, critical thinking, African-bound imagination, No? We must rely on ryk seuns so-called genius, shoo, you must be kidding.
Since the 19th century, South Africa’s political economy has been structured around the Minerals-Energy Complex (MEC)—the integration between mining, energy, and other upstream sectors (like steel) continues to shape the country’s post-apartheid economic structure. Cheap labor, migration, fossil fuel-powered energy, and uneven spatial development are central features of the MEC [Minerals-Energy Complex]. In post-Apartheid South Africa the character of the MEC [Minerals-Energy Complex] changed following the rapid deregulation of financial markets through the phasing out of capital and exchange controls beginning in 1995….South Africa’s political economy has become over-reliant on the financial sector and capital markets, as well as the speculative and consumption-based economic activities associated with this finance-led growth trajectory…In other words: profit shifting, increased shareholder value and lessened regulation of international financial flows are key markers of South Africa’s finance-led MEC [Minerals-Energy Complex].7
A people’s movement demands no blind allegiance, You must question, listen openly, and find forums to ask tough questions. Common goals are what is needed, not blind love, you do not have to agree with everything, but restructuring the African machine we must all agree upfront. If that’s not your tea, power and privilege askew, being your beat, hide it behind “conservative” or “liberal”, that’s also fine, your eye prefers honing in on management issues, we don’t all have to honour human lives. But if you persist to rely on ja-broer politiek, you cannot cry to us later that dear master hurt you between the butt cheeks. Laer klasse there are two camps in South Africa, the All lives matter, not equally, because it benefits us so, and if All lives matter, it must be in substance, in this country and for all. The one keeps you focussed on management change, incidental corruption not the system’s structures, the other says, look at the house: the walls, stairs, floors, windows and doors, and says, tell me which race and which classes needs a house restructured. If you believe that inequity, domination, keeps you safe, healthy and free, you are, I submit, terribly mistaken, dare I say, short-sighted, afraid and sadly quite weak. Fear not though, the biggest betrayal comes from the höer klasse, so-called liberals or centrists at home, people who claim to want a just system but only in their way, centring still, white and black buddies, a minority preference rather than what should be a majority choice.
Are you worried they’ll be no future place for you, I have been worried, I feel it too, hey look, brown and white laer klas kids stand on common ground. Maybe we need to share our vulnerability, more honestly, our black brothers and sisters, can hear our post-apartheid sound. But what’s not appropriate though, is to hold hostage a majority “them”, expecting a just system, just outcomes should be compromised, avoided, because justice makes “us” uncomfortable, a select few we’d rather condemn. The cost to our elites, cannot take precedence, whatever our frustrations or fear, if we truly believe we are civilised and just, our focus should be on policy evidence. Undoubtedly, it is not their job to place our fears, at the top of their priority list, when race, class, systemic injustice continues, built in, they’re still for centuries more at risk. For those sincere, we must process our grief, a rippling racial trauma, over and over again, until we can separate what is truly just, from our feelings, minority self-preference, privileged protections, theirs is a long road, which cannot be subsumed by our fears at this stage.
For those insincere, the laerklasse who frown, where’s free speech when we’re racist? I ask, why would you want to be racist? Are you so dead inside that feelings only come from being a sadist? What about culture? Our culture? We’re different, too different, we’re special, we’re more, we can’t be expected to mingle, be led, be culturally aligned with the economic “majority horde”. They’re victimising us, I say, “us”, you sure? Us is a wholly wide word. There’s a wholescale reverse racism, whenever I don’t get a job, a university entry or, perhaps a smile from the domestic worker, And there’s the nugget, the class betrayal once more, some of us minorities of the laer klasse are so desperate to be victims of racism, we’d cut out our own kidney, just so we can claim: look what they did, black hatred. But many laer klasse won’t push back on the education system, when Cape Town minorities sell black students in cages for fun, when accusations that teachers were role-modelling racist, the potential endemic disease, we deliberately shun, turning what should be mental disease eradication, into an incidental annual distraction, our winning elation. We won’t talk about years of undeclared white minority affirmative action, brown minorities too, how mostly hoër klasse slide into positions, former alumna bias, big business or political Daddy, a preferred potential donor, client or system influence, or the deleting of black CVs, firing black workers, because the demographic majority, the laer klas disgust you, losing court cases is too painful, sure sounds like deliberate impoverishment, mass exclusion, reminiscent of those “good ol’ days”, the demographic majority growing pissed, our leads placing the blame solely on their management ways, when they accuse “us” of economic apartheid, minority domination, you’ll pretend we, “us”, are wholly innocent, no room for total responsibility resulting in their decimation. Then, there’s the years long equating not-white people, and just about all women with “incompetent”, suggesting diversity automatically means, you’re the department idiot. What did that headline say in 2017, “We are running out of whites”, Geez Louise, and in a country that is what? 85% NOT-white, sure, makes total sense, no need to fight. Shall I also tell you about the höer klass seun, the wit laaitie, a rowing champ from elite university, who took my work research, and sent it to the client under his name, a real weenie, and when I told my boss, she said “these things happen”, that’s their game. but my vagina, my brown skin, makes me the target, worse, if you’re born laer klas, from schools they’ve never heard of, then conveniently, you’re the threat, not a blessing doing most of the work, told to work harder. Kan jy nog sien? Or is this not enough? when class betrayal has been your African standard, a banner you’ll stand behind, ons laerklas gesin aim knives at our backs, not random. No wonder, red berets have had enough, of our nonsense, our duplicitous muck. All lives matter. Psych! Just kidding. We suck!
Making matters worse are those who exploit, who massage your obvious worries, your fear, laying on thick, butter on toast, how awful blackness, laer klas is when they’re near.
After the last forty years of redistributed wealth from the poor and middle to the top 1%, they now denounce as “wealth redistribution” when people want to redistribute in the opposite direction. The richest 1% only want one-way redistribution. – Richard D. Wolff8
The elites will blur the sliding scale of class between you, and tell you what they believe you want to hear, white lives matter variety, not equally, of course, don’t ask what they mean by neutrality, or whether the laer klasse get a veto vote. They need you more than you need them, but dare you figure that out, you may stop treating ryk seuns as cute demi-Gods, and start questioning the economic layout. They will give you an enemy, always someone economically closer to you, first, swart nou rooi gevaar, add black immigrants or visibly poor Arab “terrorists” from far, not our own training camps teaching eugenicist ideas, “smaller brains equals black people”, local militarism cannot be domestic terrorism, their PR spins hurting my ears. Politically, it’s only the ANC or maybe a faction, Russia, China, tomorrow it’ll be India or Taiwan. Not the system, never them in crisp suits, tongues of articulate routes, friends, higher ups, planned obsolescence ignored, we’re not going to mention the geopolitical wars, those aligned that conspired to illegally bury Assange indoors.
A capitalist rooted government is fundamentally a business-run government. While non-market rooted interests do exist such as educational policy, abortion rights and so forth, they are vastly overshadowed, directly and indirectly altered by market incentives, market forces and the vested power interests related. [It is the] Vested market interests and market incentives that forever sabotage hope for any true democratic effect in government. Just consider the structure of business itself. Firstly, is it democratic? Obviously not,it is a hierarchical command structure with power and control moving from the top down, with loyalty and submission moving from the bottom up, rooted mind you in a scarcity-based game, which requires the use of multiple levels of strategic exploitation and manipulation in the game of competition, which translates into being not only a strict power hierarchy, it is a predatory power hierarchy. And yet, as obvious as it should be people have been conditioned to not see it…What you find is the whole thing is held together by slogans and jingles, and a general superficiality that isn’t based on evidence but rather half-truths, dangerous half-truths that sound like they make sense but actually do not. Slogans like, “you get what you work for” sound like it makes sense but doesn’t account for system influence.9
Vote, support whoever you want, but try harder to let go of your blinkers, I know times have changed, but that’s life, a growing phase, and your frustrations are easily immense, but be brave.
we care for you, we do, we, I, care. I know what happened to our class, to you, however, we can’t drag you laer klas broers to the street table, while you’re sitting on the stoep like a good pet, ready to still serve meester and enable.
Sasol: Profits from Poison by Ferrial Adam, Earthlife Africa Johannesburg, November 2010, earthlife.org.za ↩︎
Boëttger, J.F., Rathbone M…The Marikana Massacre, Labour and Capitalism: towards a Ricoeurian alternative. Koers (online) [online] 2016, vol. 81, n.3 [cited 2024-08-30], pp 1-7, available from www.scielo.org.za ↩︎
George Padmore, Whiter workers v Black,Controversy, Vol. 2, No. 20, May 1938 ↩︎
Remembering the Marikana Massacre: Demanding justice and accountability, Saleh Mamon, Jul 2022, londonminingnetwork.org ↩︎
We need to talk about wage theft, Khwezi Mabasa, Dominic Brown, Dec 2022, africasacountry.com ↩︎
10 Feb 2019, Richard D. Wolff (author of Democracy at work: A Cure for Capitalism), social media post on X ↩︎
Peter Joseph, author: The New Human Rights Movement: Reinventing the economy to overcome oppression, Episode 50, Revolution Now! with Peter Joseph podcast ↩︎
*Mense – People *Van – Of *Die laer klasse – The lower classes *Leef – Life *Braai – Barbeque *Werkersklas – Working class *Hoër klasse – Upper classes *Ryk seuns – Rich boys *“Rof en tof” – “Rough and tumble” *Broer– Brother *Boet – Brother *Klas – class *Kan jy regtig – Can you really *Wit – White *Oos Rand – East Rand *Wit woeste – White ferocious *Polisie – Police *Boer – Afrikaner or farmer *Suster – Sister *Ja-broer – Yes-man *Jy dink – You think *Nog ‘n wit seun – Another white boy *My swaer – My brother-in-law *Ek is nie jou wrede proliteriaat – I am not your brutal or cruel proletariat *Sukkel – Struggle *Maat – Mate *Kan jy nog sien? – Can you still or yet see? *Laaitie – young person, normally male *Gesin – Family *Politiek – Politics *Swart nou rooi gevaar – Black now red (socialist/communist) danger *Stoep – Front veranda *Meester – Master
The grip comes softly, like a tangling web. An annoyance on the skin, no screams, jerks, nothing to turn his head.
But slowly it grows, spiralling out of control. Lining every crevice, a mind ready to be pulled, it’s got hold.
Suddenly, one day, he wakes in the middle of the night, blistered in sweat, he’s preparing for death, his world’s about to fall, there’s no safety net.
His breathing is staggered, he’s stumbling for the reins, or maybe he is lying awake, counting the hours, minutes and days.
When the sun’s up and out, he tells himself all’s well. He ignores the pull that says, come and explore, but soon, the voice begins to yell.
His mind is rapid sprinting, did he say, do, remember to lock the door before he left? Is he to blame, a useless guy, his usual frame, a broken spirit from childhood, he’d rather forget.
He does not need extensive counselling, or journals or friendly heart-to-hearts, not when he’s a man, such things are the opposite of what he was taught.
Boys don’t cry, they shout or they steel, they give as good as they get, without fear. They provide the most, success and fancy suits. Never afraid, video game player, ya ready for war? Here’s it, it’s near.
When our boy murdered Annelene at work, the shooting of Monique in the parking lot, Was Debbie afraid? Her lifeline severed without consent. Our child, Anene, brutalised, and Susan too, their places now blank dots.
These boys now men… we are losing our sons, if we ever had them, their sweet innocence spoiled and crushed, what must we do to save our brothers, ourselves, a shared grief without name.
But hey, boys are not raped or assaulted, just a grab on the wrestling mat, Guantanamo fun or training Pakistani boys to be dancers, sports coaches, TV celebs, they all despise a rat.
Proper consent is not a thing for a boy, we think, he is born to drown in the sea sexual, an appetite he can hardly control, why shouldn’t high school come home, there’s no rest for him.
Tell a preschool boy to call you, when he’s eighteen, Laugh it off, he’s a heartbreaker, a future fresh meat.
And we laugh with you, why not? Boys are boys, they are not us.
Are we going to talk about commodifying human bodies? Imagery on kids videos, ads, sexualising on video game chats, porn addiction, normalising incest, teenage-adult sex, boys as young as ten know where it’s at.
Are we going to talk about forcing boys into boxes? Do you have a girlfriend in grade one? Exposing boys to vulgar language, cruel pranks on little ones, an online fame, we are told it’s all in good fun.
When a boy is desperate for inclusion, acceptance, imagine what he’d say or do in popular’s deference, and how many are looking for community, for love, drug running, gangs, bullying, sexual experimentation, do you really need a reference?
We will send them to war, call them heroes, after and before, never curious, whether war games, were what they were meant for.
We will tell them it’s fine, to prep for mass shootings before lunch, they should be fine with supreme camps saying, “those people” have smaller brains, and when their inner ache begins, we’ll say toughen up, here’s some boozy punch.
When boys hammer their facial features, to look like some guy named Chad, we call them stupid or pathetic, our babies, they need us, theirs is a massive red flag.
The boys told they’re meant to provide, a God said so, read from the history cultural book out loud, but when they say, we can’t afford a house, a car, fucking lobola or a gold ring. Does that make them failures, a waste of space? Who led them there? Not a sound.
Boys living at home, seeing the lived dreams wafting from upstairs, they wish they could have, not all, just some. They’re hustling for just outcomes, a mad sad despair.
Are we going to mention the impact, of fatherlessness worldwide, the dads there, not there, emotional neglect, a moving statue, who sees and offers little, his owed money aside.
We think abuse is a punch in the gut, to the cheek, what about being called names, you’re not good enough, you’ll be slapped for an opposing view, oppression is role-modelled, their spirit being maimed.
Will the boy know what to do, when disappointment or rejection melts into rage. Is papa bear doing the introspective work, to be his boy’s wise, family sage.
Does hurting mum or dad in front of our boys count? spousal cruelty, excuses, bullying in front of innocence. Mothers and grandmothers full of rage, there’s plenty of boys prevented from transcendence.
We talk of violence, criminal or behind doors, almost all boys, who set the rules? Can they resist or go far? In what ways did we set up our babes blue to fall, they’re not monsters, behaviour monstrous, they’re ours, something’s wrong, they need their mamas.
When they give you a blank stare, making choices poor to bad, How are we failing them? What is missing or hurtful? Why do they avoid us, rather turning to herds of lost lads?
Boys, Boys, there they are, Our innocent, born as pure as the female root, needing our protection, our understanding, help them! class, colour, religion, they are all our young, precious shoots.
You know what they did, you know what we saw, when we were two stupid stags, white boys making our way home.
We were laughing, a raucous friendship, when an airgun rang shots at our heads. A white man’s arm hung out a flat window, declaring we should be close to dead.
A group of black children, in their school uniforms were walking close by. They began screaming, while we poorly hid, avoiding the shots at our eyes.
A cop van came by and stopped, the shots stopped too, the children pointed in our direction, where the shots seemed to be coming through.
The policemen, all black, barely explained, demanding we get in the back of their van, disobeying, a forbidden option, when they’re unwilling to understand.
They drove around the block, speeding and twisting around bends, throwing us this way and that, we were alone without family or friends.
They took us to the police station, interviewing us on the case, we told them about the white man, the airgun, we told them about the flat, where we knew he lived.
They listened and ignored, we were disbelieved without inquiry, dumped in a brick shell, a holding cell, full of black men, a cement floor, the stench of sweat, our prison diary.
We were forced to stay in the cell for two days, our moms rushing to gather money for lawyer fees, while charges of attempted murder were made, there was no point to begging on our knees.
A cellmate, his skin dark, eyes darker still, asked what size my shoes were. My heart suspended in my throat, I barked size ten, not knowing for sure.
Hours of sun beat our faces and arms, drinking water was brown and cloudy, the broken toilet full of shit and piss, we had no will to be rowdy.
At night, we slept close, as the temperature dropped, the cellmates surrounded us. I felt like calling TV cops.
The cellmate asked what we were in for, I could have killed myself. Murder, I said boldly, wondering about details I’d need to concoct, shaping my own delf.
The cellmate stared, examining my face, as if calculating the size and length of my fib, of course, he is black, in South Africa he couldn’t possibly trust my race.
To avoid further lies, I asked him what landed him here. He said he was walking, when the police stopped, pushed him into a van, a criminal cure.
He was given no call, while we were afforded ours. They shouted at him, beat him in the interview room, for refusing to agree, he was made to see stars.
His jeans were cheap, his shoes needing repair, a sheen of sweat on his brow, matting his exhausted, winding hair.
Suddenly, the world felt black, black like him, truth and justice were empty words, in a world of an invisible caste, bad things happened to innocence, poverty was a curse.
These cops wore uniforms, state given, badges of honour we were told, but they were setting up the cellmate, for a crime he knew nothing of, a criminal mould.
And how many of us would see cellmate’s dark skin, his class, in his clothes and face, and presume his guilt, supporting the pain inflicted by the state-functioning mace.
Then it hit me. Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, we, black and white, were in the same cell, they’re doing to us, what they do to black you. I am in white, what’s usually black hell.
Every vessel contracted, I began to feel faint, my mother worked two jobs, how would she rescue me from this place?
When a Sandton lawyer arrived, quoting sections off cash our mothers gave him. I knew relief was knowing I was still not black, and poor, the double kick in the shin.
But even now, when I see a police car or officers, dressed in blue, I resist the urge to bolt, to run, thinking it can only get worse.
I am not a kid anymore, I am a man, far from home, trial biking on an empty parking lot, before I head back to our apartment door.
A cop car drives slow up the road, and I immediately flush pale, I get off my bike, wishing I could turn and bail.
The cops drive up, as close as can be, looking me in the eyes, I could have almost peed.
My first thought was, what will I do if they get off their car, instruct me to enter theirs, suggesting I broke the law.
Will they beat me once inside, bake or exaggerate evidence, can we afford an attorney, we are not Nordic, oh Heavens.
With my heart pounding in my chest, they made a U-turn and left, I could have cried, a grown man thankful that we never met.
People think they know the harm of police gone wrong, back home and all over the world. They think they know corrupt defence, because of a man choked to death, so-called justice served.
They know nothing, they have not lived. When you’re innocent and lower class, no fancy lawyer on call, safety guaranteed, a fun twist.
No, to my cellmate I would say, you think we are so different, you think we all don’t see, when you’re born lower class like me, my broer, we are more like you, black with lighter skin, human but barely.
They will dump you in a cell, pile crimes you’ve never heard of, they have the power, you’re expendable, you must do as you’re told.
Cellmate, this won’t stop until you gather, fight back against the lie, we know better, cellmate, we share the same brutalised hands held high.
The SARS protests are a good start, our African giants know what’s up. They have seen the back of vans or cars, the sharp tongue of the state whip.
I know there’s many that look like me, who have done you wrong so mercilessly, but trust, power is what they actually crave, race is a knee-jerk excuse, seek full truth, full pertinency.
I avoid words like trauma, I hate being a victim at all, But when my heart races at the sound of a siren. A memory unfair echoes through my mental halls.
To the invisible, the poor, I see you, cellmate, I think of you, I remember, whenever I hear of brutal handcuffs choking a young man’s fate.
Most often, I try not to think, of what they did to me, to you. I push out the memory of those nights, and I hope you do too.
If you made it out, I hope, I don’t know, I pretend, I have to pretend in my head, that all went well for you, as I settled home, grateful and sick, in my childhood bed.
In honour of the lived experience of my Mr to my Mrs.
