16
General Discussion / Um Gangs...
« on: May 22, 2009, 01:19:30 PM »
of Instrumentals.
Let's have it,
Yay or Nay?
Let's have it,
Yay or Nay?
Show Posts
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17
General Discussion / Gen. Nyanda
« on: May 20, 2009, 02:06:32 PM »
So what advice do you have for the new communication minister, I think he is off to a good start and doing much better than the previous minister...
One, he is not dead. Two, he is not 144 years old. Three, not a chick.
I mean how do you expect a magriza to undersatnd the intricate and complex world of trying to get cheaper, better and more pron, faster!
I also suggest he changes hello as a satndard greeting, it's colonial and about about one of the snaffest words in English, I suggest "Ufunani?" or "What kind?"
One, he is not dead. Two, he is not 144 years old. Three, not a chick.
I mean how do you expect a magriza to undersatnd the intricate and complex world of trying to get cheaper, better and more pron, faster!
I also suggest he changes hello as a satndard greeting, it's colonial and about about one of the snaffest words in English, I suggest "Ufunani?" or "What kind?"
18
General Discussion / Choose f***ers...
« on: May 20, 2009, 12:45:44 PM »
Okay,
Or.
Personally, I would quit and take the Merc, f*** trying to deal with Taxi drivers, dump South African drunk drivers and incompetent RAF.
How about you?
Remember nigga also got cattle!
Or.
Personally, I would quit and take the Merc, f*** trying to deal with Taxi drivers, dump South African drunk drivers and incompetent RAF.
How about you?
Remember nigga also got cattle!
19
General Discussion / Hello, homie
« on: May 13, 2009, 01:31:26 PM »
...we homies and all.
That's why I don't mind borrowing you a DVD that I bought for 24 dollars on Amazon, which is probably the only copy in the country and I'm still paying it off on my credit card.
It's cool you can keep it for weeks... years even.
But if you ever say to me, "Ayo I have your DVD and I STILL HAVEN'T WATCHED IT" in that smug, proud tone.
I'm gonna taze your titties...99.
That's why I don't mind borrowing you a DVD that I bought for 24 dollars on Amazon, which is probably the only copy in the country and I'm still paying it off on my credit card.
It's cool you can keep it for weeks... years even.
But if you ever say to me, "Ayo I have your DVD and I STILL HAVEN'T WATCHED IT" in that smug, proud tone.
I'm gonna taze your titties...99.
20
General Discussion / Cape Town
« on: May 13, 2009, 10:37:25 AM »
*If it were up to them every show would cost R10, like some primary school social.
*The clique thing, most complain about it, I stayed there for two years I was too busy partying with people from outside Cape Town and outside the country to notice, which worked our great- I wasn't restricted to R10 or free events.
*No one born raised and working in Cape Town can afford to buy their dream home in Cape Town.
*There is not a single influential black person who is one, under 30, and two not a politician.
*Compared to Jozi salaries, the slave trade is still alive.
*Durban gave us that Durban house, even Pretoria gave us mogwanti, what has Cape Town done for the youth of South Africa?
*The blacks and the coloureds have no respect for each other.
*From the nightlife to the dopest houses, Cape Town is virtually foreign owned.
All in all, why should we take Cape Town seriously?
*The clique thing, most complain about it, I stayed there for two years I was too busy partying with people from outside Cape Town and outside the country to notice, which worked our great- I wasn't restricted to R10 or free events.
*No one born raised and working in Cape Town can afford to buy their dream home in Cape Town.
*There is not a single influential black person who is one, under 30, and two not a politician.
*Compared to Jozi salaries, the slave trade is still alive.
*Durban gave us that Durban house, even Pretoria gave us mogwanti, what has Cape Town done for the youth of South Africa?
*The blacks and the coloureds have no respect for each other.
*From the nightlife to the dopest houses, Cape Town is virtually foreign owned.
All in all, why should we take Cape Town seriously?
21
General Discussion / Sad and Helpless
« on: May 08, 2009, 01:51:16 PM »
I went to bed feeling sad and helpless last night.
This was caused by the doccie on SABC 1's "Cutting Edge" about a rural grandmother who is raising 8 grandchildren and up until her story was shown on TV was in a vicious loan shark circle, her pension went to repayments meaning she had to borrow again.
One of the kids is young boy called Sive, looked bright and smart, but that's besides the point, here was a young boy who finished school and just by virtue of being born into the “wrong” family he couldn't go to tertiary.
And they are millions of them in this country.
You know one.
It made me think about hardship, and how there is nothing glamorous and to be proud of about struggling.
No matter how many books you read about the gardener who became a CEO or even your own personal story.
I can never find the romanticism in hardship.
Because for every one good story.
There are millions sad and desperate ones.
Well this led me to thinking about God, and those who believe in him, obviously I don't.
Funny because just a few days ago I was thinking about how I don't want a president who is going to get on his knees and pray when millions of South Africans are losing homes or dying of diseases.
But back to my point.
I wish we would stop looking for answers in prayers and Sangomas.
I wish we would stop believing in this superstitious nonsense.
You know why, because we don't need it.
The will to do good is already inside us.
It's not in the heavens. Or in dog bones.
Or at the 8 am Rhema Service.
And that will is, despite what they tell you, more powerful than the will to do evil.
We are not evil. We love our neighbour.
We want life, prosperity, happiness.
Not the opposite.
In fact the idea of hate and evil only exist because we chose to define good.
Because we decided that there is going to be good.
There had to be bad.
Let me give you an example, criminals the worst kind, I grew up amongst them.
I shared rooms with the most despicable people you can think of.
And if anyone here has had the same experience as me, they would tell you one irrefutable fact.
Criminals are not proud.
God, they want to change.
They all have dreams.
Simple ones.
And those dreams don't include being chased from Limpopo to Gauteng after a cash-in-transit heist. Or starting a fight at a sheeben just to be noticed.
Just some stories I've been told.
I tell you why we will not solve the crime problem in this country.
Because we have a “them” versus us attitude.
I'm a good person. He is an evil person.
Bullshit we are the same people.
I, personally, never considered crime as an option. People I grew up with have.
They are weaker. There is no way I can pretend that I'm better than them.
But we give up on them, call them evil. Well it's clear what choice we give them then.
Follow this principle, "Politicians are corrupt", so what do they do, they become corrupt.
A president shouldn't be dancing around and singing Mshin wam'. So what does he do?
Good and Evil!
What the f*** is this.
This is what should be happening.
We should expect people to be human.
No strings attached. No nails on a crucifixion.
There is no one who is bewitching you.
No one at the end of the prayer telephone.
It’s quite simple.
To live good lives with love and respect for our fellow human beings, and most importantly leave this world the same or better than we found it.
We just have to be good. To ourselves and each other. Accountable to each other. Judgment day is at the end of each decision and choice we make.
Let's stop getting on our knees. Or answering siyavuma. Or telling people that if they do that, all will be solved.
Let’s work hard for the things we want.
Let's do good. Let's do human.
It's not in the heaven.
It's in our conscience.
In our hearts.
Aaaah f*** it....
This was caused by the doccie on SABC 1's "Cutting Edge" about a rural grandmother who is raising 8 grandchildren and up until her story was shown on TV was in a vicious loan shark circle, her pension went to repayments meaning she had to borrow again.
One of the kids is young boy called Sive, looked bright and smart, but that's besides the point, here was a young boy who finished school and just by virtue of being born into the “wrong” family he couldn't go to tertiary.
And they are millions of them in this country.
You know one.
It made me think about hardship, and how there is nothing glamorous and to be proud of about struggling.
No matter how many books you read about the gardener who became a CEO or even your own personal story.
I can never find the romanticism in hardship.
Because for every one good story.
There are millions sad and desperate ones.
Well this led me to thinking about God, and those who believe in him, obviously I don't.
Funny because just a few days ago I was thinking about how I don't want a president who is going to get on his knees and pray when millions of South Africans are losing homes or dying of diseases.
But back to my point.
I wish we would stop looking for answers in prayers and Sangomas.
I wish we would stop believing in this superstitious nonsense.
You know why, because we don't need it.
The will to do good is already inside us.
It's not in the heavens. Or in dog bones.
Or at the 8 am Rhema Service.
And that will is, despite what they tell you, more powerful than the will to do evil.
We are not evil. We love our neighbour.
We want life, prosperity, happiness.
Not the opposite.
In fact the idea of hate and evil only exist because we chose to define good.
Because we decided that there is going to be good.
There had to be bad.
Let me give you an example, criminals the worst kind, I grew up amongst them.
I shared rooms with the most despicable people you can think of.
And if anyone here has had the same experience as me, they would tell you one irrefutable fact.
Criminals are not proud.
God, they want to change.
They all have dreams.
Simple ones.
And those dreams don't include being chased from Limpopo to Gauteng after a cash-in-transit heist. Or starting a fight at a sheeben just to be noticed.
Just some stories I've been told.
I tell you why we will not solve the crime problem in this country.
Because we have a “them” versus us attitude.
I'm a good person. He is an evil person.
Bullshit we are the same people.
I, personally, never considered crime as an option. People I grew up with have.
They are weaker. There is no way I can pretend that I'm better than them.
But we give up on them, call them evil. Well it's clear what choice we give them then.
Follow this principle, "Politicians are corrupt", so what do they do, they become corrupt.
A president shouldn't be dancing around and singing Mshin wam'. So what does he do?
Good and Evil!
What the f*** is this.
This is what should be happening.
We should expect people to be human.
No strings attached. No nails on a crucifixion.
There is no one who is bewitching you.
No one at the end of the prayer telephone.
It’s quite simple.
To live good lives with love and respect for our fellow human beings, and most importantly leave this world the same or better than we found it.
We just have to be good. To ourselves and each other. Accountable to each other. Judgment day is at the end of each decision and choice we make.
Let's stop getting on our knees. Or answering siyavuma. Or telling people that if they do that, all will be solved.
Let’s work hard for the things we want.
Let's do good. Let's do human.
It's not in the heaven.
It's in our conscience.
In our hearts.
Aaaah f*** it....
22
General Discussion / Lauren Hill
« on: March 19, 2009, 04:53:30 PM »
Sheesh! Lauren Hill was a beast..
Until that Marley boy turned her into a beast.
Yikes!
Anyway listening to "Rumble in the Jungle" she kills it, well we are used to hearing her kill Wyclef and Praz but on this track she adds Q-tip, Busta, Ali and John Forte to the list.
Exhibit A:
We used to bite bullets with the pig-skin casing
Now we perfect slang like a gang of street masons (uh)
Scribe check make connects
True pyramid architects (yeah)
Replace the last name with the X (X)
The man's got a God complex
But take the text and change the picture
Watch Muhammad play the messenger like Holy Muslim scriptures
Take orders from only God
Only war when it's Jihad
See Ali appears in Zaire to reconnect 400 years
But we the people dark but equal give love to such things
To the man who made the fam' remember when we were kings
And to think I could have just posted the chorus as example of the lyrical murder.
Until that Marley boy turned her into a beast.
Yikes!
Anyway listening to "Rumble in the Jungle" she kills it, well we are used to hearing her kill Wyclef and Praz but on this track she adds Q-tip, Busta, Ali and John Forte to the list.
Exhibit A:
We used to bite bullets with the pig-skin casing
Now we perfect slang like a gang of street masons (uh)
Scribe check make connects
True pyramid architects (yeah)
Replace the last name with the X (X)
The man's got a God complex
But take the text and change the picture
Watch Muhammad play the messenger like Holy Muslim scriptures
Take orders from only God
Only war when it's Jihad
See Ali appears in Zaire to reconnect 400 years
But we the people dark but equal give love to such things
To the man who made the fam' remember when we were kings
And to think I could have just posted the chorus as example of the lyrical murder.
23
General Discussion / Soon...
« on: March 10, 2009, 05:30:52 PM »
Okay I know some of you cats have been here so long that your screen-name is on your medical card.
Ever since I've been here, things have been coming; redesigns, interviews...
Tell me, what's an AG soon?
Is it like a "Shabir Shaik is dying soon!"
Ever since I've been here, things have been coming; redesigns, interviews...
Tell me, what's an AG soon?
Is it like a "Shabir Shaik is dying soon!"
24
Movie Talk / Behind the rainbow
« on: December 15, 2008, 11:20:56 AM »
Just watched the documentary, “Behind the Rainbow” about the transition of the ANC from liberation party to a mainstream one.
The doccie itself plays out like a neat, sanitized “Time” Magazine article; inside but not insightful, complete but not comprehensive- A famed international director made it.
The director’s decision to largely focus on the Mbeki/Zuma battle is correct one, as this drama and how it played itself out in the media and communities, I say played out as one of the interviewees points out that they was no difference between Mbeki and Zuma policy-wise up until the snafu started-which is true, is a microcosm of the struggle we have in the country, the uneasiness of the haves and have-nots alliance.
I believe that we all believe in hard work. That it trumps everything.
But, look at it this way, some 18 year old worked hard this past exams to get a university exemption at 20% pa** rate school that he can’t fulfill, whilst money makes and privilege continues to buy anything from a suspended jail sentence to a better education.
How do you reconcile that?
Of course if the story is Mbeki and Zuma, the plot is the “Arms’s deal”.
To that issue I say the truth will likely never be known. Too much has been compromised- Legacies, comradeships, it feels like immediately after Mandela left, the party was turned into a high-school, jocks versus nerds where a life-long friend from primary school get ditched in a quest to climb the popularity ladder.
But this is sadder because there will not be those years of growth and introspection at university or wherever nor that reunion years later where hands and heads are shaken talking about those foolish years.
As an ANC supporter I wish I could press the reset button, but such is life.
It might be a documentary but it does have its villains, heroes, henchmen and third man on the sofa’s, and here, I try to create a credit roll of some sort as I saw it –all opinions.
Thabo Mbeki
Came off second worst, even his defenders had issues were they could not defend him. But the masterstroke was when they played that infamous last speech by Mandela as ANC president cautioning against “yes, man” leadership- talking about Mbeki, and followed by a clip of Mbeki joking about how he can never fit into Mandela’s shoes because there are too ugly. He did it wrong. It the hubris of smart people, they forget that not every occasion is about them.
Jacob Zuma
Still has no business trying to run this country, but, people, there was a conspiracy, which of course he is/wasn’t smart enough to spot. Take the shower statement and multiply by a thousand and you get a picture of how this man will be as a president- my primary school teacher used to say “idrummie idrummie” this cat will embarra** us “until Jesus comes back”.
Terror Lekota
The worse perfomer at an even worse time, what with COPE, launching and all. See I don’t truly believe that he is a lapdog per se, but judged on the comments attributed to him, he did to Mbeki what he hopes Malema will do to the ANC come election time. Snobbish, school-principalish and terrible.
Ronnie Kasril
I’ve been watching some Western movies, and specifically “The Wild Bunch” by Sam Peckingpah, it’s a story about men whose time is coming to an end, old criminals who want to preserve the old honour among thieves code.
He calls the time but fails to acknowledge the day of the week.
He was rightfully pleading for the principle that mad the ANC great, but wrongly never emotionally engages the other side.
The problem with this approach is that it so dividing, and you’re never going to change the minds for those you oppose and you immediately turn off the undecided.
Like me. I felt like I was watching a guy throwing a frog into a pot and telling it’s chicken stew.
Communications guy (?)
My surprise appearance was by this guy who was the ANC communications officer in the early 90’s, just after unbanning, clearly a Zuma symphatiser but until I see him on some government list or carrying Pres Zuma cell-phones, I still found his views most logical despite not agreeing with him on some issues.
The doccie itself plays out like a neat, sanitized “Time” Magazine article; inside but not insightful, complete but not comprehensive- A famed international director made it.
The director’s decision to largely focus on the Mbeki/Zuma battle is correct one, as this drama and how it played itself out in the media and communities, I say played out as one of the interviewees points out that they was no difference between Mbeki and Zuma policy-wise up until the snafu started-which is true, is a microcosm of the struggle we have in the country, the uneasiness of the haves and have-nots alliance.
I believe that we all believe in hard work. That it trumps everything.
But, look at it this way, some 18 year old worked hard this past exams to get a university exemption at 20% pa** rate school that he can’t fulfill, whilst money makes and privilege continues to buy anything from a suspended jail sentence to a better education.
How do you reconcile that?
Of course if the story is Mbeki and Zuma, the plot is the “Arms’s deal”.
To that issue I say the truth will likely never be known. Too much has been compromised- Legacies, comradeships, it feels like immediately after Mandela left, the party was turned into a high-school, jocks versus nerds where a life-long friend from primary school get ditched in a quest to climb the popularity ladder.
But this is sadder because there will not be those years of growth and introspection at university or wherever nor that reunion years later where hands and heads are shaken talking about those foolish years.
As an ANC supporter I wish I could press the reset button, but such is life.
It might be a documentary but it does have its villains, heroes, henchmen and third man on the sofa’s, and here, I try to create a credit roll of some sort as I saw it –all opinions.
Thabo Mbeki
Came off second worst, even his defenders had issues were they could not defend him. But the masterstroke was when they played that infamous last speech by Mandela as ANC president cautioning against “yes, man” leadership- talking about Mbeki, and followed by a clip of Mbeki joking about how he can never fit into Mandela’s shoes because there are too ugly. He did it wrong. It the hubris of smart people, they forget that not every occasion is about them.
Jacob Zuma
Still has no business trying to run this country, but, people, there was a conspiracy, which of course he is/wasn’t smart enough to spot. Take the shower statement and multiply by a thousand and you get a picture of how this man will be as a president- my primary school teacher used to say “idrummie idrummie” this cat will embarra** us “until Jesus comes back”.
Terror Lekota
The worse perfomer at an even worse time, what with COPE, launching and all. See I don’t truly believe that he is a lapdog per se, but judged on the comments attributed to him, he did to Mbeki what he hopes Malema will do to the ANC come election time. Snobbish, school-principalish and terrible.
Ronnie Kasril
I’ve been watching some Western movies, and specifically “The Wild Bunch” by Sam Peckingpah, it’s a story about men whose time is coming to an end, old criminals who want to preserve the old honour among thieves code.
He calls the time but fails to acknowledge the day of the week.
He was rightfully pleading for the principle that mad the ANC great, but wrongly never emotionally engages the other side.
The problem with this approach is that it so dividing, and you’re never going to change the minds for those you oppose and you immediately turn off the undecided.
Like me. I felt like I was watching a guy throwing a frog into a pot and telling it’s chicken stew.
Communications guy (?)
My surprise appearance was by this guy who was the ANC communications officer in the early 90’s, just after unbanning, clearly a Zuma symphatiser but until I see him on some government list or carrying Pres Zuma cell-phones, I still found his views most logical despite not agreeing with him on some issues.
25
Readers Corner - Books / Atlas Shrugged
« on: November 16, 2008, 07:01:43 PM »
I'm currently reading this book and it's shaping up to be one of the most important books I'll ever read in my life, the last one was "The Alchemist", which are read before relocating to Cape Town in one afternoon.
This book champions the individual, the creativity and the human spirit I don't mean that in a corny, "we are all winners" way, but if you often feel like everyone is working against you, and average is the norm and no one strives to win, this is the book to read...
This book champions the individual, the creativity and the human spirit I don't mean that in a corny, "we are all winners" way, but if you often feel like everyone is working against you, and average is the norm and no one strives to win, this is the book to read...
26
General Discussion / Lake of Stars Review
« on: October 23, 2008, 01:16:31 PM »
I attended the, “Lake of Stars” a musical festival in Malawi from the 10th to the 13th of October, what follows is my stream of conscious account of the trip and music reviews, beginning from the day we landed in Malawi on the 9th and left on 13th…*
“Big in Lilongwe.”
When all should be quite, at around 4:30 am- He strikes, the one creature that every traveler dreads on a trip. For this: there is no vaccine. No pill you take a week before and after. No shots. Science, is no friend of yours.
All you have is prayer and therapy after an unfortunate encounter with… the English Drunk.
I insist that not enough books have been written about this animal.
Instead, white-coats spend ridiculous naai-less hours in labs trying to prove if indeed chewing gum can make you hungry **.
Or that if one parent drinks “Miller Draft” their child will most likely grow up to prefer it up the poop-shoot. And they don’t even have to be homosexual***.
You never know what to expect when this one attacks, will it be with that dark cynical wit/humour, or, a head-butt?
But there it was, stumbling and scrimmaging outside my tent.
Me? I lie still. Pretend I’m dead.
He snarls, “Gee woul’ ya look at the size of that. It’s tookin’ up the whole fookin’ field!”.
This is followed by the high-pitched snickers of the second most dangerous threat for a traveler on a holiday, the female English Drunk or scientifically, the Trollop.
He continues, now louder, “How much room do ya need, get a job”. She squels.
I wince. He is actually talking about my tent.
He keeps snapping as he drags the Trollop into his own tent, oh wait… it might have been the other way around.
Relieved I look around and, you know what, I like this tent, granted it’s the biggest one on our side of the field, it’s not that huge and besides, I am sharing it with someone else.
It’s my first tent, and I had to sign-up for a f***ing Makro card just to get this tent.
I love this tent.
Now how did I get myself into harm’s way?
A near fatal collision with the red and stumbling beast?
Months ago my drunk a** wrote a check my sober a** had to cash.
Not complaining mind you, the hardest parts proved the easiest, convincing the Pampered One to come along and dealing with Home Affairs…
With all set I found myself staring at my last meal at the OR Tambo Newscafe.
An omelet so atrocious felt like paying in only one cents for it.
This lovely piece of pure culinary dare-devil-ship consists of a spoon of bacon, a spoon of mincemeat and fifty eggs.
When it’s brought to me the waitress has to put the plate on the omelet and not the other around.
I look at it vast, white and bland. I long for Malawian food I haven’t even tasted yet and for once, thank god for plane food****.
The Malawi airport has the charm of a vegetable stall, like they fold it away every night roll it away until the following day.
Malawi is not beautiful. It doesn’t have to be. It’s a country of over 10 million people and just half are illiterate. The energy here is quite unlike anything I’ve experienced.
Not dizzying of neon lights and skyscrapers.
Or disorienting mess of rusted tin cars and unmarked streets.
It’s just of calmness and progress.
If I had to put Malawi in a sentence it would be; It will happen.
Despite the challenges that the country faces, never once was my Jozi-shesha a** frustrated, annoyed or hopeless.
In Malawi you will finally get. Get it.
So in spite of myself I find myself at an ATM, number 33 in fifty-something odd queue, underneath a hundred degrees sun with everyone in front of me appearing like first time ATM users, surprisingly I’m relaxed at ease.
Only to be awakened when I learn that just for that night I need to draw twenty thousand kwacha notes, but like I told ya, I’m big in Lilongwe.
*Who cares? Someone who’s going to google a “who cares” meme and post it.
**Not true.
***All true.
****Lamb.
Tomorrow, “Condolences on your loss” and day one’s music reviews….
“Big in Lilongwe.”
When all should be quite, at around 4:30 am- He strikes, the one creature that every traveler dreads on a trip. For this: there is no vaccine. No pill you take a week before and after. No shots. Science, is no friend of yours.
All you have is prayer and therapy after an unfortunate encounter with… the English Drunk.
I insist that not enough books have been written about this animal.
Instead, white-coats spend ridiculous naai-less hours in labs trying to prove if indeed chewing gum can make you hungry **.
Or that if one parent drinks “Miller Draft” their child will most likely grow up to prefer it up the poop-shoot. And they don’t even have to be homosexual***.
You never know what to expect when this one attacks, will it be with that dark cynical wit/humour, or, a head-butt?
But there it was, stumbling and scrimmaging outside my tent.
Me? I lie still. Pretend I’m dead.
He snarls, “Gee woul’ ya look at the size of that. It’s tookin’ up the whole fookin’ field!”.
This is followed by the high-pitched snickers of the second most dangerous threat for a traveler on a holiday, the female English Drunk or scientifically, the Trollop.
He continues, now louder, “How much room do ya need, get a job”. She squels.
I wince. He is actually talking about my tent.
He keeps snapping as he drags the Trollop into his own tent, oh wait… it might have been the other way around.
Relieved I look around and, you know what, I like this tent, granted it’s the biggest one on our side of the field, it’s not that huge and besides, I am sharing it with someone else.
It’s my first tent, and I had to sign-up for a f***ing Makro card just to get this tent.
I love this tent.
Now how did I get myself into harm’s way?
A near fatal collision with the red and stumbling beast?
Months ago my drunk a** wrote a check my sober a** had to cash.
Not complaining mind you, the hardest parts proved the easiest, convincing the Pampered One to come along and dealing with Home Affairs…
With all set I found myself staring at my last meal at the OR Tambo Newscafe.
An omelet so atrocious felt like paying in only one cents for it.
This lovely piece of pure culinary dare-devil-ship consists of a spoon of bacon, a spoon of mincemeat and fifty eggs.
When it’s brought to me the waitress has to put the plate on the omelet and not the other around.
I look at it vast, white and bland. I long for Malawian food I haven’t even tasted yet and for once, thank god for plane food****.
The Malawi airport has the charm of a vegetable stall, like they fold it away every night roll it away until the following day.
Malawi is not beautiful. It doesn’t have to be. It’s a country of over 10 million people and just half are illiterate. The energy here is quite unlike anything I’ve experienced.
Not dizzying of neon lights and skyscrapers.
Or disorienting mess of rusted tin cars and unmarked streets.
It’s just of calmness and progress.
If I had to put Malawi in a sentence it would be; It will happen.
Despite the challenges that the country faces, never once was my Jozi-shesha a** frustrated, annoyed or hopeless.
In Malawi you will finally get. Get it.
So in spite of myself I find myself at an ATM, number 33 in fifty-something odd queue, underneath a hundred degrees sun with everyone in front of me appearing like first time ATM users, surprisingly I’m relaxed at ease.
Only to be awakened when I learn that just for that night I need to draw twenty thousand kwacha notes, but like I told ya, I’m big in Lilongwe.
*Who cares? Someone who’s going to google a “who cares” meme and post it.
**Not true.
***All true.
****Lamb.
Tomorrow, “Condolences on your loss” and day one’s music reviews….
27
General Discussion / About Lucky
« on: October 07, 2008, 06:14:09 PM »
In irie-membrance of Lucky Dube.
On the 18th of October last year, the world woke up to a, “where were you when you heard it?” moment, with the tragic news of music icon Lucky Dube’s death at the hands of hijackers.
But, wait, before that, let’s think back to the that other moment back in the 80’s at a packed Ellis Park stadium, with a shirtless Lucky Dube covering more ground than 24 football players and their substitutes, the thousands of fans on their feet just about forgotten that they were there for the beautiful game- not the beautiful sound, at that precise moment the echoes of “I got you baby to make me feel alright” vibrated through out the stadium and into pop culture immortality.
For a while, it seemed like the only good things black people had in the 80’s were football… and Lucky Dube.
Some might have been more popular. Some cooler.
But Lucky Dube was possibly the most important artist of the 80’s.
He chose reggae, this is after a successful Mbanqanga career, to espouse the teaching of black consciousness and spread positive life-affirming messages that helped restore a dignity of a nation during its darkest hour.
But to paint him solely as a black messiah would be a great crime, after all, he did release an Afrikaans album at the height of his career, Lucky was more than that, for instance his take on an issue like apartheid was unique as it acknowledged that there are humans on both sides of the fence.
For him, any injustice whether apartheid or alcohol induced abuse as documented in his song “Slave”, was a brother hurting another brother issue. Nothing more.
We should all remember Lucky Dube the humanitarian, a dreadlocked, red, black and green social worker. His were not mere song titles but human conditions. The tragic way things were, and how they should be.
In the lament “Prisoner” he paints this ironic picture, “They won' t build no schools anymore, All they' ll build will be prison, prison”.
Indeed, we do silence our prophets.
The month of October has been marked as a Lucky Dube Remembrance month, a time where we remember his charmed life and celebrate the irrepressible work.
Listen out for the special radio days on the 17th and the 18th October to hear new exclusive, never heard before material, as well as the old moments like that electrifying Ellis Park performance. And those are the where were you moments we should be remembering.
End.
This is something I wrote for a friend of mine after he was let down by the professional. I literally had no time to write this. Mind you, I'm no journalist, I'm a mere copywriter (in truth I quit that three months ago), but I love writing.
My favourite writing is one which is insightful, dense, lucid, and presents an irrefutable argument, it's what I tried to do here. I have some criticism for this piece, for example the description of the stadium performance starts well but lacks meat and imagination in the middle, but it's done.
I'm looking at writing at least two opinion pieces a day, starting next week
First, is the man's memory served well here?
On the 18th of October last year, the world woke up to a, “where were you when you heard it?” moment, with the tragic news of music icon Lucky Dube’s death at the hands of hijackers.
But, wait, before that, let’s think back to the that other moment back in the 80’s at a packed Ellis Park stadium, with a shirtless Lucky Dube covering more ground than 24 football players and their substitutes, the thousands of fans on their feet just about forgotten that they were there for the beautiful game- not the beautiful sound, at that precise moment the echoes of “I got you baby to make me feel alright” vibrated through out the stadium and into pop culture immortality.
For a while, it seemed like the only good things black people had in the 80’s were football… and Lucky Dube.
Some might have been more popular. Some cooler.
But Lucky Dube was possibly the most important artist of the 80’s.
He chose reggae, this is after a successful Mbanqanga career, to espouse the teaching of black consciousness and spread positive life-affirming messages that helped restore a dignity of a nation during its darkest hour.
But to paint him solely as a black messiah would be a great crime, after all, he did release an Afrikaans album at the height of his career, Lucky was more than that, for instance his take on an issue like apartheid was unique as it acknowledged that there are humans on both sides of the fence.
For him, any injustice whether apartheid or alcohol induced abuse as documented in his song “Slave”, was a brother hurting another brother issue. Nothing more.
We should all remember Lucky Dube the humanitarian, a dreadlocked, red, black and green social worker. His were not mere song titles but human conditions. The tragic way things were, and how they should be.
In the lament “Prisoner” he paints this ironic picture, “They won' t build no schools anymore, All they' ll build will be prison, prison”.
Indeed, we do silence our prophets.
The month of October has been marked as a Lucky Dube Remembrance month, a time where we remember his charmed life and celebrate the irrepressible work.
Listen out for the special radio days on the 17th and the 18th October to hear new exclusive, never heard before material, as well as the old moments like that electrifying Ellis Park performance. And those are the where were you moments we should be remembering.
End.
This is something I wrote for a friend of mine after he was let down by the professional. I literally had no time to write this. Mind you, I'm no journalist, I'm a mere copywriter (in truth I quit that three months ago), but I love writing.
My favourite writing is one which is insightful, dense, lucid, and presents an irrefutable argument, it's what I tried to do here. I have some criticism for this piece, for example the description of the stadium performance starts well but lacks meat and imagination in the middle, but it's done.
I'm looking at writing at least two opinion pieces a day, starting next week
First, is the man's memory served well here?
28
General Discussion / For a lady I knew...
« on: October 07, 2008, 11:46:01 AM »
It was at 12:30 am when I made the call. I waited and it came, dreamy, thick and warm. Instantly my ear had turned into some high-powered, incredibly receptive antenna. Before I could say anything she said, “Don’t worry…. the door… is open.”
I stumbled in four hours later. Made sure I locked the door behind me.
Made sure I wouldn’t touch her body with the same hands doing the touching outside. They say mine was her warmth….
I slumbered towards it and found my spot. Where it has always been.*
“Where have you been dear?” it came again. “Sleep with anyone lately?” she asked. I had forgotten that I hadn’t seen her in three months, but that’s because our moments always felt like moments outside of time.
“No one special” I answered which was a lie. Not a lie really. The words were true but the emotion a lie.
I wanted to make her jealous. Make her hurt.
Someone needs to come up with the term for it. When the words are true but the emotion behind them a lie.
She was always happy to see me. I think she was the only person who was happy to see me. Not excited, I know loads of those- I walk past a bar and they excitedly ask me to come have a drink.
I can never say no to people. I will never refuse alcohol.
She got a boyfriend now because she knows I will never love her.
He’s abusive. A dick. She tells me this and all I can say is “you guys need to play nice”. Then she goes back to him.
I’m the dick.
*I know what I mean, but I'm sure it wont make sense reading, but I've decided not to edit this.
I spend years working in Cape Town and there was this chick who would always let me come over after been kicked out of every joint on Long. I wrote this after on a scrapbook last year, I just found it and decided to share.
Reading it made me feel feel sad, happy and sorry all at the same time. It was a great experience to have that connection, sad that it could not be something more, which leads to being sorry, was I being a dick, selfish pursuing the affair knowing the above.
I stumbled in four hours later. Made sure I locked the door behind me.
Made sure I wouldn’t touch her body with the same hands doing the touching outside. They say mine was her warmth….
I slumbered towards it and found my spot. Where it has always been.*
“Where have you been dear?” it came again. “Sleep with anyone lately?” she asked. I had forgotten that I hadn’t seen her in three months, but that’s because our moments always felt like moments outside of time.
“No one special” I answered which was a lie. Not a lie really. The words were true but the emotion a lie.
I wanted to make her jealous. Make her hurt.
Someone needs to come up with the term for it. When the words are true but the emotion behind them a lie.
She was always happy to see me. I think she was the only person who was happy to see me. Not excited, I know loads of those- I walk past a bar and they excitedly ask me to come have a drink.
I can never say no to people. I will never refuse alcohol.
She got a boyfriend now because she knows I will never love her.
He’s abusive. A dick. She tells me this and all I can say is “you guys need to play nice”. Then she goes back to him.
I’m the dick.
*I know what I mean, but I'm sure it wont make sense reading, but I've decided not to edit this.
I spend years working in Cape Town and there was this chick who would always let me come over after been kicked out of every joint on Long. I wrote this after on a scrapbook last year, I just found it and decided to share.
Reading it made me feel feel sad, happy and sorry all at the same time. It was a great experience to have that connection, sad that it could not be something more, which leads to being sorry, was I being a dick, selfish pursuing the affair knowing the above.
29
Media / AG Journos come in...
« on: October 03, 2008, 11:43:26 AM »
Help a brother out, I read a Sunday Business Times article weeks ago it was about illegal money transfer banks in the JHB CBD and they had a specific name for these banks, any of you journalist types on here know what they are called?
I've tried everything and still can not find it, please help....
I've tried everything and still can not find it, please help....
30
General Discussion / One China in Africa
« on: July 23, 2008, 10:01:18 AM »
For your consideration,
An article written about China in Africa, it's obviously written from an extreme right wing perspective, check out the British Colony fellating. It's information you'll have to find the center yourself...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worl...Y-worried.html
Sir Francis Galton once outlined a daring (if by today's standards utterly offensive) new method to 'tame' and colonise what was then known as the Dark Continent. 'I should expect that the African seaboard, now sparsely occupied by lazy, palavering savages, might in a few years be tenanted by industrious, order-loving Chinese . . ."
Sir Francis Galton was ahead of his time. In the greatest movement of people the world has ever seen, China is secretly working to turn the entire continent into a new colony.
With little fanfare, a staggering 750,000 Chinese have settled in Africa over the past decade. More are on the way. The strategy has been carefully devised by officials in Beijing, where one expert has estimated that China will eventually need to send 300 million people to Africa to solve the problems of over-population and pollution.
Across Africa, the red flag of China is flying. Lucrative deals are being struck to buy its commodities - oil, platinum, gold and minerals. New emba**ies and air routes are opening up. The continent's new Chinese elite can be seen everywhere, shopping at their own expensive boutiques, driving Mercedes and BMW limousines, sending their children to exclusive private schools.
The pot-holed roads are cluttered with Chinese buses, taking people to markets filled with cheap Chinese goods. More than a thousand miles of new Chinese railroads are crisscrossing the continent, carrying billions of tons of illegally-logged timber, diamonds and gold.
The trains are linked to ports dotted around the coast, waiting to carry the goods back to Beijing after unloading cargoes of cheap toys made in China. Ma**ive dams are being built, flooding nature reserves. The land is scarred with giant Chinese mines, with 'slave' labourers paid less than £1 a day to extract ore and minerals. Pristine forests are being destroyed, with China taking up to 70 per cent of all timber from Africa.
All over this great continent, the Chinese presence is swelling into a flood. Exclusive, gated compounds, serving only Chinese food, and where no blacks are allowed, are being built all over the continent. 'African cloths' sold in markets on the continent are now almost always imported, bearing the legend: 'Made in China'. China has seized a vice-like grip on a continent which officials have decided is crucial to the superpower's long-term survival.
Beijing has launched its so-called 'One China In Africa' policy because of crippling pressure on its own natural resources in a country where the population has almost trebled from 500 million to 1.3 billion in 50 years.
China is hungry - for land, food and energy. While accounting for a fifth of the world's population, its oil consumption has risen 35-fold in the past decade and Africa is now providing a third of it; imports of steel, copper and aluminium have also shot up, with Beijing devouring 80 per cent of world supplies. Fuelling its own boom at home, China is also desperate for new markets to sell goods. And Africa, with non-existent health and safety rules to protect against shoddy and dangerous goods, is the perfect destination.
The result of China's demand for raw materials and its sales of products to Africa is that turnover in trade between Africa and China has risen from £5million annually a decade ago to £6billion today. However, there is a lethal price to pay. There is a sinister aspect to this invasion. Chinese-made war planes roar through the African sky, bombing opponents. Chinese-made a**ault rifles and grenades are being used to fuel countless murderous civil wars, often over the materials the Chinese are desperate to buy.
Take, for example, Zimbabwe. Recently, a giant container ship from China was due to deliver its cargo of three million rounds of AK-47 ammunition, 3,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 1,500 mortars to President Robert Mugabe's regime. After an international outcry, the vessel, the An Yue Jiang, was forced to return to China, despite Beijing's insistence that the arms consignment was a 'normal commercial deal'.
Indeed, the 77-ton arms shipment would have been small beer - a fraction of China's help to Mugabe. He already has high-tech, Chinese-built helicopter gunships and fighter jets to use against his people. Ever since the U.S. and Britain imposed sanctions in 2003, Mugabe has courted the Chinese, offering mining concessions for arms and currency.
Mugabe is orchestrating his campaign of terror from a 25-bedroom, pagoda-style mansion built by the Chinese. Much of his estimated £1billion fortune is believed to have been siphoned off from Chinese 'loans'. Mugabe received £200 million last year alone from China, enabling him to buy loyalty from the army.
In another disturbing illustration of the warm relations between China and the ageing dictator, a platoon of the China People's Liberation Army has been out on the streets of Mutare, a city near the border with Mozambique, which voted against the president in the recent, disputed election.
Almost 30 years ago, Britain pulled out of Zimbabwe - as it had done already out of the rest of Africa, in the wake of Harold Macmillan's 'wind of change' speech. Today, Mugabe says: 'We have turned East, where the sun rises, and given our backs to the West, where the sun sets.'
Despite Britain's commendable colonial legacy of a network of roads, railways and schools, the British are now being shunned. According to one veteran diplomat: 'China is easier to do business with because it doesn't care about human rights in Africa - just as it doesn't care about them in its own country. All the Chinese care about is money.'
Nowhere is that more true than Sudan. Branded 'Africa's Killing Fields', the ma**ive oil-rich East African state is in the throes of the genocide and slaughter of hundreds of thousands of black, non-Arab peasants in southern Sudan. In effect, through its supplies of arms and support, China has been accused of underwriting a humanitarian scandal. The atrocities in Sudan have been described by the U.S. as 'the worst human rights crisis in the world today'.
The Chinese - who now buy half of all Sudan's oil - have happily provided armoured vehicles, aircraft and millions of bullets and grenades in return for lucrative deals. According to Human Rights First, a leading human rights advocacy organisation, Chinese-made AK-47 a**ault rifles, grenade launchers and ammunition for rifles and heavy machine guns are continuing to flow into Darfur, which is dotted with giant refugee camps, each containing hundreds of thousands of people.
Between 2003 and 2006, China sold Sudan $55 million worth of small arms, flouting a United Nations weapons embargo. With new warnings that the cycle of killing is intensifying, an estimated two thirds of the non-Arab population has lost at least one member of their families in Darfur. Although two million people have been uprooted from their homes in the conflict, China has repeatedly thwarted United Nations denunciations of the Sudanese regime.
While the Sudanese slaughter has attracted worldwide condemnation, prompting Hollywood film-maker Steven Spielberg to quit as artistic director of the Beijing Olympics, few parts of Africa are now untouched by China. In Congo, more than £2billion has been 'loaned' to the government. In Angola, £3 billion has been paid in exchange for oil. In Nigeria, more than £5billion has been handed over.
In Equatorial Guinea, where the president publicly hung his predecessor from a cage suspended in a theatre before having him shot, Chinese firms are helping the dictator build an entirely new capital, full of gleaming skyscrapers and, of course, Chinese restaurants. After battling for years against the white colonial powers of Britain, France, Belgium and Germany, post-independence African leaders are happy to do business with China for a straightforward reason: cash.
With western loans linked to an insistence on democratic reforms and the need for 'transparency' in using the money (diplomatic language for rules to ensure dictators do not pocket millions), the Chinese have proved much more relaxed about what their billions are used for. Certainly, little of it reaches the continent's impoverished 800 million people. Much of it goes straight into the pockets of dictators. In Africa, corruption is a multi-billion pound industry and many experts believe that China is fuelling the cancer.
The Chinese are contemptuous of such criticism. To them, Africa is about pragmatism, not human rights. 'Business is business,' says Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Zhou Wenzhong, adding that Beijing should not interfere in 'internal' affairs. 'We try to separate politics from business.' The Chinese do not use African labour where possible, saying black Africans are lazy and unskilled.
In Angola, the government has agreed that 70 per cent of tendered public works must go to Chinese firms, most of which do not employ Angolans. As well as enticing hundreds of thousands to settle in Africa, they have even shipped Chinese prisoners to produce the goods cheaply.
In Kenya, for example, only ten textile factories are still producing, compared with 200 factories five years ago, as China undercuts locals in the production of 'African' souvenirs. Where will it all end? As far as Beijing is concerned, it will stop only when Africa no longer has any minerals or oil to be extracted from the continent.
The people of this bewitching, beautiful continent, where humankind first emerged from the Great Rift Valley, desperately need progress. The Chinese are not here for that. They are here for plunder.
An article written about China in Africa, it's obviously written from an extreme right wing perspective, check out the British Colony fellating. It's information you'll have to find the center yourself...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worl...Y-worried.html
Sir Francis Galton once outlined a daring (if by today's standards utterly offensive) new method to 'tame' and colonise what was then known as the Dark Continent. 'I should expect that the African seaboard, now sparsely occupied by lazy, palavering savages, might in a few years be tenanted by industrious, order-loving Chinese . . ."
Sir Francis Galton was ahead of his time. In the greatest movement of people the world has ever seen, China is secretly working to turn the entire continent into a new colony.
With little fanfare, a staggering 750,000 Chinese have settled in Africa over the past decade. More are on the way. The strategy has been carefully devised by officials in Beijing, where one expert has estimated that China will eventually need to send 300 million people to Africa to solve the problems of over-population and pollution.
Across Africa, the red flag of China is flying. Lucrative deals are being struck to buy its commodities - oil, platinum, gold and minerals. New emba**ies and air routes are opening up. The continent's new Chinese elite can be seen everywhere, shopping at their own expensive boutiques, driving Mercedes and BMW limousines, sending their children to exclusive private schools.
The pot-holed roads are cluttered with Chinese buses, taking people to markets filled with cheap Chinese goods. More than a thousand miles of new Chinese railroads are crisscrossing the continent, carrying billions of tons of illegally-logged timber, diamonds and gold.
The trains are linked to ports dotted around the coast, waiting to carry the goods back to Beijing after unloading cargoes of cheap toys made in China. Ma**ive dams are being built, flooding nature reserves. The land is scarred with giant Chinese mines, with 'slave' labourers paid less than £1 a day to extract ore and minerals. Pristine forests are being destroyed, with China taking up to 70 per cent of all timber from Africa.
All over this great continent, the Chinese presence is swelling into a flood. Exclusive, gated compounds, serving only Chinese food, and where no blacks are allowed, are being built all over the continent. 'African cloths' sold in markets on the continent are now almost always imported, bearing the legend: 'Made in China'. China has seized a vice-like grip on a continent which officials have decided is crucial to the superpower's long-term survival.
Beijing has launched its so-called 'One China In Africa' policy because of crippling pressure on its own natural resources in a country where the population has almost trebled from 500 million to 1.3 billion in 50 years.
China is hungry - for land, food and energy. While accounting for a fifth of the world's population, its oil consumption has risen 35-fold in the past decade and Africa is now providing a third of it; imports of steel, copper and aluminium have also shot up, with Beijing devouring 80 per cent of world supplies. Fuelling its own boom at home, China is also desperate for new markets to sell goods. And Africa, with non-existent health and safety rules to protect against shoddy and dangerous goods, is the perfect destination.
The result of China's demand for raw materials and its sales of products to Africa is that turnover in trade between Africa and China has risen from £5million annually a decade ago to £6billion today. However, there is a lethal price to pay. There is a sinister aspect to this invasion. Chinese-made war planes roar through the African sky, bombing opponents. Chinese-made a**ault rifles and grenades are being used to fuel countless murderous civil wars, often over the materials the Chinese are desperate to buy.
Take, for example, Zimbabwe. Recently, a giant container ship from China was due to deliver its cargo of three million rounds of AK-47 ammunition, 3,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 1,500 mortars to President Robert Mugabe's regime. After an international outcry, the vessel, the An Yue Jiang, was forced to return to China, despite Beijing's insistence that the arms consignment was a 'normal commercial deal'.
Indeed, the 77-ton arms shipment would have been small beer - a fraction of China's help to Mugabe. He already has high-tech, Chinese-built helicopter gunships and fighter jets to use against his people. Ever since the U.S. and Britain imposed sanctions in 2003, Mugabe has courted the Chinese, offering mining concessions for arms and currency.
Mugabe is orchestrating his campaign of terror from a 25-bedroom, pagoda-style mansion built by the Chinese. Much of his estimated £1billion fortune is believed to have been siphoned off from Chinese 'loans'. Mugabe received £200 million last year alone from China, enabling him to buy loyalty from the army.
In another disturbing illustration of the warm relations between China and the ageing dictator, a platoon of the China People's Liberation Army has been out on the streets of Mutare, a city near the border with Mozambique, which voted against the president in the recent, disputed election.
Almost 30 years ago, Britain pulled out of Zimbabwe - as it had done already out of the rest of Africa, in the wake of Harold Macmillan's 'wind of change' speech. Today, Mugabe says: 'We have turned East, where the sun rises, and given our backs to the West, where the sun sets.'
Despite Britain's commendable colonial legacy of a network of roads, railways and schools, the British are now being shunned. According to one veteran diplomat: 'China is easier to do business with because it doesn't care about human rights in Africa - just as it doesn't care about them in its own country. All the Chinese care about is money.'
Nowhere is that more true than Sudan. Branded 'Africa's Killing Fields', the ma**ive oil-rich East African state is in the throes of the genocide and slaughter of hundreds of thousands of black, non-Arab peasants in southern Sudan. In effect, through its supplies of arms and support, China has been accused of underwriting a humanitarian scandal. The atrocities in Sudan have been described by the U.S. as 'the worst human rights crisis in the world today'.
The Chinese - who now buy half of all Sudan's oil - have happily provided armoured vehicles, aircraft and millions of bullets and grenades in return for lucrative deals. According to Human Rights First, a leading human rights advocacy organisation, Chinese-made AK-47 a**ault rifles, grenade launchers and ammunition for rifles and heavy machine guns are continuing to flow into Darfur, which is dotted with giant refugee camps, each containing hundreds of thousands of people.
Between 2003 and 2006, China sold Sudan $55 million worth of small arms, flouting a United Nations weapons embargo. With new warnings that the cycle of killing is intensifying, an estimated two thirds of the non-Arab population has lost at least one member of their families in Darfur. Although two million people have been uprooted from their homes in the conflict, China has repeatedly thwarted United Nations denunciations of the Sudanese regime.
While the Sudanese slaughter has attracted worldwide condemnation, prompting Hollywood film-maker Steven Spielberg to quit as artistic director of the Beijing Olympics, few parts of Africa are now untouched by China. In Congo, more than £2billion has been 'loaned' to the government. In Angola, £3 billion has been paid in exchange for oil. In Nigeria, more than £5billion has been handed over.
In Equatorial Guinea, where the president publicly hung his predecessor from a cage suspended in a theatre before having him shot, Chinese firms are helping the dictator build an entirely new capital, full of gleaming skyscrapers and, of course, Chinese restaurants. After battling for years against the white colonial powers of Britain, France, Belgium and Germany, post-independence African leaders are happy to do business with China for a straightforward reason: cash.
With western loans linked to an insistence on democratic reforms and the need for 'transparency' in using the money (diplomatic language for rules to ensure dictators do not pocket millions), the Chinese have proved much more relaxed about what their billions are used for. Certainly, little of it reaches the continent's impoverished 800 million people. Much of it goes straight into the pockets of dictators. In Africa, corruption is a multi-billion pound industry and many experts believe that China is fuelling the cancer.
The Chinese are contemptuous of such criticism. To them, Africa is about pragmatism, not human rights. 'Business is business,' says Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Zhou Wenzhong, adding that Beijing should not interfere in 'internal' affairs. 'We try to separate politics from business.' The Chinese do not use African labour where possible, saying black Africans are lazy and unskilled.
In Angola, the government has agreed that 70 per cent of tendered public works must go to Chinese firms, most of which do not employ Angolans. As well as enticing hundreds of thousands to settle in Africa, they have even shipped Chinese prisoners to produce the goods cheaply.
In Kenya, for example, only ten textile factories are still producing, compared with 200 factories five years ago, as China undercuts locals in the production of 'African' souvenirs. Where will it all end? As far as Beijing is concerned, it will stop only when Africa no longer has any minerals or oil to be extracted from the continent.
The people of this bewitching, beautiful continent, where humankind first emerged from the Great Rift Valley, desperately need progress. The Chinese are not here for that. They are here for plunder.