Tony+Hall+on+the+Debaters

07 May 2006

 * Dominic,**

Thanks again, for your postings, and the way you set them in context ... One can only hope that the more manic of the Debaters, and the infantile disorderists among them, are taking note, and will start getting the message; for instance in your latest set, [CU148], you point out "...the way feminism is used in the last analysis as a tool of reaction..."

In the report on Bulelani's latest gain on the non-productive gravy train, the CEO of Asset Alliance (now 20% owned by Bulelani's company) says: "We anticipate huge opportunities relating to the privatisation of state assets..." So much for the claim that government is slowing down on selling the family silver.

It makes you shiver with dread.

How interesting, how sad, that Debaters have so little to say about the confirmation of the General Steyn report on top apartheid leaders collusion with and even directing of the third force violence through the early 1990s. Should they not be strengthening pressure on government to bring it all out into the open, and start charging these people? Or are some embarassed at references to PAC members being used to help with the train killings?*

Why do some Debaters scorn Tutu as "stating the obvious" when he comments that whites should be grateful... and that we are sitting on a powderkeg of poverty and unemployment -- isn't that what a crusading archbishop should remind people?

Why do some Debaters put down the chavez-morales-castro plan with typically overdone critical analysis, rather than welcome this historically bold attempt at progressive integration -- even perhaps be inspired to urge Southern African progressives to network and coordinate demands to prepare for similar moves? [Patrick, if it is far too late, and you write off any chance of progressive anti-imperialist action stirring in the political mainstream, then what are you fighting for -- 'today, the poor peoples pure republics of south durban and orange farm [as promoted by middle class academics] -- tomorrow the world'...?]

Why are COSATU and Vavi virtually ignored, sneered at, when they are the force that speaks out and protests against the AIDS cover-up, Mugabe's repression, feudal oppression in Swaziland, the victimisation of a struggle hero, let alone embarking on rolling mass action against unemployment and capitalist-friendly government policy?

On the Zuma question itself -- don't people realise that those trying to put him in jail are doing critical harm to the cause of women, and to the promotion of [I never thought I would have to use this phrase again] tribal harmony?


 * a few points on the third force thing above, on truth, and reconciliation:

1. We know that the ANC/government has mumbled and murmured about the Steyn report and other truths of the time -- because they are scared. The day after the airport bombing, the night before the 1994 general election, the ANC leadership was called by top apartheid officials and told: These bombings are rogue actions, not our doing, but we can call off the bombers and your election can go ahead peacefully, provided you don't try to act against any of us -- we want indemnity, or else...(fast forward to Boeremag escapes?)

2. The Truth Commission was a noble and useful process, but it was a forum for closure, not for the need to understand and strengthen the struggle...someone phoned SAFM's morning talk show the other day to say that those who needed reparation and compensation should get it, but many who survived, and whose relatives and comrades died in the struggle, including the third force years of the early 1990s, did not expect compensation: "We were fighting a war for our liberation," he said. "We were not victims..."

3. Who was the woman with the American accent who phoned in to SAFM after the Steyn report story last week? She said the appropriate forum to deal with these abuses is the International Court of Human Rights, to take the issue away from politics, expose all human rights abuses, 'including those of ANC and SWAPO in the camps'... Oh yeah? The voice of the serpent...


 * //Tony Hall//**

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