"Cheers, Neil..."
...and take your wife, kids, and cat to New York as soon as possible; "Vat jou 'jecket' en 'line'," you miserable son-of-a-bitch. Grindrod, hold that offer of a ticket for this bastard. He lives in Camps Bay and can afford to pay his own way. Just see that he makes it to the airport on time. Give the cash to some other whinging, whining, cosseted arsehole willing to follow the Watsons to their new den of conspicuous consumption. Alternatively, give it to people who deserve it.
Okay, I'm as pissed off as all hell with this miserable misanthrope. There's a story to this. Apparently, Neil Watson's an insurance salesman hacked off at South Africa's high crime rate — and perhaps looking for a way to increase his business by tapping into a like-minded, fear-driven market. We head the global list in most categories of violence, in line with our being the country most beset by AIDS, TB, motor vehicle deaths, drunkenness, suicide, divorce... i.e. general malaises and / or depravities of all types.
What does he do about it? Rather than tackle these problems head on, i.e. joining the police reserve, neighbourhood watch, or local policing forum, making some politician or station commander's life hell, standing for local-government election or funding training for underpaid, under-skilled police officers, he sets up a Web site spewing the most obscene right-wing bullshit I've read since the Nats replaced the commies under the bed in 1994.
And, uh, yes, he wants to kill tourism and South Africa hosting the 2010 World Cup. Nice guy. That'd be several hundred thousand jobs down the drain. To achieve his goals, Neil writes to the prime minister. Yeah, right, we don't have one. So he writes to "Yo, Blair!" Listen to this sycophantic bullshit:
While I know that you have a lot to contend with at this time with Israel and Gaza/Lebanon conflict (and I agree with you on the causes), please spare a thought for a subject that is going to be another Zimbabwe in a few short year’s (sic) time.Screw crime in South Africa. This prick's already shown himself out of synch with common sense, reality, and the Twenty-first Century. Bring back apartheid and shoot the fuckers, eh? Yeah, we know who you mean Neil, and if you don't piss off, you might find a member of your family raped or murdered by one of 'them' (my family has experienced several such incidents).
I refer to, of course, the very dangerous situation that has existed for some years now since 1994 and is still no better, where an average of 20.000 (sic) people a year are reported murdered (how many are not reported?) and the rapes, robberies and serious violence since Apartheid ended, plus of course the serious levels of corruption and waste at all government levels.
Watch out for Patricia de Lille, man... (remember international hotels?)
If you were wondering who Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula was addressing when he told the whingers and whiners to get the hell out of South Africa as they don't belong here, Neil Watson's your man. While I know nothing of this obvious jerk, any salesman able to afford a Camps Bay lifestyle is not earning his money; he's taking it from the overwhelming number of South Africans either unemployed or paid a sub-standard wage by fat cats who grind their employees into the dirt with their sense of self-importance, self-entitlement, and over-priced SUV.The average South African lives in poverty, but the fat-walleted, well-oiled smoothies of the wheel an' deal set live in the perfumed lap of a softly cushioned income gap that has widened alarmingly since Trevor Manuel was forced to cave into America's bankers, the IMF, WB, and WTO in 1996. And, yes, if you can direct me to any 4-million strong North American city boasting as many Mercedes Benzes, BMWs, Audis and exotic cars as Cape Town, I'll pay your fucking ticket over. And that city needn't have as many people living in conditions similar to most Capetonians.
There are still way too many of these chicken-shit bleaters cluttering the Cape. It's embarrassing. Most have never been into or stayed for any length of time in one of Cape Town's townships or shantytowns. Neil, about ten or fifteen years back, my wife and I got to know Steven, Portia and their two kids quite well and visited their home in Site C. Spotless as a bloody pin. Steven was stabbed twice in the chest — for no reason — coming out of a shebeen. Portia and the kids were left penniless. Cira spent nine months in JP Stals after arriving emaciated, delirious and riddled with TB on our front doorstep. He made it. Don, like Mankunku and so many others, was a Gugs legend. His home was filled with music and I called it "The Soul Clinic".
You ever been to these places, Neil? Ever get to meet great South Africans like Dannayi Ndlovu, Max Diyamani, Stoto Zibi, Ephraim 'Cups' Kanuka? As far as I know, two of the five are dead now, but all four — who shaped and formed the music we listen to today, lived and died in Langa.
Have you or your supporters been into the Cape Flats, to Belhar, to Elsies, to Bonteheuwel, to Hanover Park, to Manenberg, to Mfuleni, to... agh, fuckit, I doubt it. Life's hard out there Neil, but most of the people living out there don't do crime. They're victims of a socially imposed poverty and, most importantly, they're the first to suffer the crime you so glibly speak of from behind the electric fence of your gated suburb.Don't live in a gated suburb? Don't have an electric fence? Well, let me tell you a little story. After shopping at Constantia Village, my fifteen-year old daughter commented on the security measures in places like ... that walled suburb they have there. I can't remember its name. Silverhurst Estate or something. Anyway, she has friends in the strangest places and remarked that she saw no need for such absurdities. "Constantia already has a security fence encircling it," she advised me. Bemused, I asked her what the hell she was speaking about.
"Money," she replied promptly and with not a little cynicism in her voice. She's a kid, Neil, but she sees through your lies. She mixes with the weirdest types. She's enjoyed Sunday lunch with the Zumas and swum in the President's pool. She's counted cabinet ministers and gangsters' kids among her former Model C classmates. What can I say? It's a different world. Why write to Blair when you can phone Thabo? I swear on it. Our national leaders are that accessible. I'll swear on something else too. Cape Town has no crime problem. It has a people problem and, as is usually the case, money's at the root of it.
'...bye, Meneer Watson...'
Inequity. 'Haves' and 'have-nots'. When you're on the 'outers' with nothing to sustain you, and you're constantly slapped in the face by flagrant opulence, crime doesn't seem such a bad thing. About a month ago, two restaurants, one convenience store, and a video store on my block were held up by differing numbers of guys with guns. Nobody expects any arrests. It's called levelling the playing fields, Bubba, and we've along way to go. We need more and not less BEE, of a real and meaningful kind. We need affirmative action in every sector of our benighted society.
At some clubs in Bloemfontein, Die Stem is still sung at midnight.
It's not the government's problem, Neil. They're there to legislate and regulate. The public sector, riven with old-guard insecurities, and the private sector, making hay while the sun shines, are the places to look if blame is to be placed.
Neil, you sound like a man who'd learn something from a popular chap like M. Scott Peck. I used to loathe him, Neil; but, then, I'd never read him. I picked up The Road Less Travelled one day and made it to the first chapter, wherein the good cornflake psychiatrist starts out by saying something to the effect of: "Nobody ever said life was going to be fair." I read the rest of the book based on that first line. Here was somebody who, while remaining relatively pragmatic, recognised and felt comfortable with contradiction, opposites, conflict and dis-harmony as a natural part of life.
He did not seek to duck it.
You're trying to duck it, Neil. And, if I've learnt one thing in life, it's that it has a habit of catching up on you. And that's why I'll never need a security fence, ADT, or a gated suburb. I have friends. They hang out at the local intersection and they sell The Big Issue. I look after them. Why? Because they look after me. It's a funny thing, Neil. Once you start behaving and living like a South African, crime ceases to be a problem. And then you really start to appreciate what a remarkable country we have.
I love this place, man. Don't damage it.
Note: Okay, I've hammered this out after reading the aticle quoted above and will insert links in the days ahead. I'll also write more on it because, although angered by the possible consequences of Neil's action, he's voicing the fears and prejudices of far too many white South Africans. It gives us all a bad name. Also, the risk of criminal attacks against tourists? Absolutely minimal. But more later. It's late and I'm up at 05:00.
That said, I've just taken a break and enjoyed a smoke out on the balcony. Two guys were arguing down on Main Road. I didn't listen, but I did catch the end of it. "Jou ma se poes." Hey, when you hear that phrase, you know you live in Cape Town and you know you're alive.
