And so it begins... no 40 hectares, no mule

[MajGenl.Meade]

11 Nov 2014 The Times (South Africa)
SIPHO MASOMBUKA

‘Malemaville’ mayhem Police fire rubber bullets as 3 000 people attempt an EFF-inspired land grab
"We are implementing the EFF policy of expropriation"

THE Economic Freedom Fighters’ land-grab policy kicked off in Pretoria yesterday when local party leaders led an invasion of council-owned land earmarked for low-cost housing development. The executive committee of the party’s Nellmapius ward 86 delivered local people to “Malemaville” but the exercise ended in blood and broken bones when Tshwane metro police fired rubber bullets.


MISSION ABORTED: People run for cover as Tshwane metro police open fire with rubber bullets in Nellmapius, east of Pretoria, yesterday. The EFF was offering council-owned land set aside for low-cost housing development

About 3 000 people had queued in the rain to get their names on the EFF’s list of people to be given land along the N4 highway. More than 100 portions were allocated on Sunday and about 1 200 people were on the list by yesterday afternoon.

Willy Kubayi, 31, who queued for a piece of land, paid a heavy price. His upper lip was torn when he was shot in the face at close range by the police as he ran for cover. A woman in her 40s fell and broke a leg as the running crowd trampled on her. After the shooting people blockaded the road with tyres and rocks.

Tshwane metro police’s Isaac Mahamba could not confirm the number of people injured. “We cannot allow people to occupy land illegally. We are monitoring the situation to make sure no land invasion occurs,” he said.

EFF branch chairman Vusi Msiza planned the takeover and named the land after party leader Julius Malema. “People have nowhere to stay but there is plenty of empty land. We are implementing the EFF policy of expropriation of land and we will fight to stay on that land,” he said. Msiza said he had told the party’s Tshwane regional chairman and Gauteng legislature chief whip Benjamin Disolwana about his branch’s “programme of action”.

An ANC member who travelled from Kwaggafontein, in Mpumalanga, to claim land said she supported EFF policies. “EFF policies are best for the poor and I like that they are not cowards — they stand up for what they believe in,” she said, asking not to be named.

Next year, says the local EFF branch, it will implement the party policy of free education — pupils will not pay school fees.
Steve Msiza said local EFF supporters wanted their branch of the party to be the first to implement the party’s policies and other branches should follow suit. He said the EFF would use force if necessary to collect report cards from schools at the end of this year if they are being withheld for nonpayment of school fees.

“We are the first to implement the expropriation of land without compensation, and free education; other branches will follow. These are the policies of the party. We do not need the national leadership to tell us to start implementing,” he said. EFF land and education policies call for the transfer of land ownership to the state and free education up to undergraduate level. Neither Malema nor EFF spokesman Mbuyiseni Ndlozi could be reached for comment.

Tshwane University of Technology political analyst Levy Ndou said yesterday that a party could implement policies only if it were in power and had consulted the citizenry. “What they are doing is illegal and politically wrong. Only a party in government can implement policies. We need to educate our people that they can participate in policy making but cannot implement it,” he said.

Local ANC councillor Precious Marole said the EFF was taking people for “a ride”, creating drama to attract attention. “The EFF is misbehaving. They will never occupy that land. They made people queue in the rain for nothing. I am going to call a community meeting to make that clear,” Marole said. He said the land was sold to the council by a farmer and that about 60 families already lived there. They had worked for the farmer and stayed on the land when he left

.

[rubato]

One of the reasons we should care about rising inequality and a falling median standard of living is that this is what happens eventually.

People willingly support a social order when they see it as 'fair' to them. We are moving the wrong way.


yrs,
rubato

[Jarlaxle]

Seems to me that a couple rounds of canister shot from a tank might work better than rubber bullets...

[Big RR]

You mean kind of like the fire hoses and brutality worked in Selma all those decades back?

People will only put up with the BS for so long; even the Nazi occupiers in WW2 were the recipients of a lot of sabotage despite their brutal methods.

As they said in Star Wars (to someone from the Empire)--"the more you tighten your grip, the more we'll just slip through your fingers".

[Guinevere]

I believe it was Princess Leia who said that (to Gran Moff Tarkin) ---

[Big RR]

I'll defer to your knowledge here, but it might well have been.

[Jarlaxle]

You mean kind of like the fire hoses and brutality worked in Selma all those decades back?

People will only put up with the BS for so long; even the Nazi occupiers in WW2 were the recipients of a lot of sabotage despite their brutal methods.

As they said in Star Wars (to someone from the Empire)--"the more you tighten your grip, the more we'll just slip through your fingers".

No, they used fire hoses and rubber bullets. Canister shot from a tank cannon would probably be somewhat more effective.

[Beer Sponge]

...People will only put up with the BS for so long...

I get that a lot!

I believe it was Princess Leia who said that (to Gran Moff Tarkin) ---

Would it be wrong to say I love you at this moment?

[MajGenl.Meade]

12 Nov 2014 The Times (South Africa)
SIPHO MASOMBUKA

Defiant EFF shacks up
EFF can’t impose Nazi policies to influence people to grab land

LAND GRABS Economic Freedom Fighters-style are likely to spread throughout the country. The EFF’s ward 86 branch, in Pretoria, yesterday claimed it had been inundated with calls from the party’s branches in other parts of the country wanting to know how it had pulled off the invasion of council-owned land, along the N4 highway.

“They want to follow suit in implementing the party’s expropriation of land,” EFF member Eddie Mathiba said. He claimed he received calls from as far as Northern Cape, Free State and Limpopo. EFF leader Julius Malema distanced himself from the campaign. “I know nothing about it, I was writing exams,” he said.

Several people were injured on Monday morning when Tshwane metro police fired rubber bullets to disperse a crowd queueing for stands. This did not stop people from clearing their portions and erecting shacks in “Malemaville”. By late yesterday, five shacks were built on 10 of the 400 allocated stands.

Alvin Legodi, 31, of Senotlelo in Mpumalanga said he borrowed R700 to buy seven new corrugated iron sheets to erect his shack. “I am serious about this and I know many people who got land by fighting,” he said.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Who wooda thunk?

13 Nov 2014 The Times (South Africa)
SIPHO MASOMBUKA

Land-grab turns to theft
EFF denies responsibility after group of 100 plunder councillor’s house

LAND-GRABBERS allegedly raided the home of a Pretoria councillor yesterday, making off with a flatscreen TV, a microwave oven, a fridge and a washing machine. The Economic Freedom Fighters party has led a bid to forcibly expropriate land in Pretoria’s ward 86, in Nellmapius.

After law enforcement destroyed shacks put up on the site, the landgrabbers seemingly turned their attention to the local councillor’s house. A group of about 100 people broke down Precious Marole’s gate and front door and loaded several items into two sedans and a bakkie. Some were seen dividing up Marole’s frozen beef patties before throwing the box in the driveway...

...Gauteng ANC spokesman Dumisa Ntuli said the EFF must take full responsibility for the robbery. Said Ntuli: “Police must take action and all those involved in the attack must be arrested. EFF is taking advantage of the people.”...

...Earlier, the land-grabbers engaged in running battles with metro police, littering the area with rocks, burning tyres and tree branches. Angered that their shacks were being demolished, the crowd pelted the cops with stones. The police responded with rubber bullets. Pretoria Road was closed for about an hour as police cleared it of burning tyres...

...Some of those who had come to stake their claim expressed regret that they had. Mandla Ndala, 39, of Bushbuckridge in Mpumalanga, said he had been told that EFF leader Julius Malema had bought the land for them.

He said: “I would not have taken a day off, borrowed money and worked in the rain for my shack to be destroyed. I am really angry with the EFF people, but I am more angry with myself for not checking the information.”

[rubato]

Meanwhile ... the 3rd and forth generation are allowed to continue to enjoy the fruits of gains ill-gotten by 80 years of murder and terrorism and shroud themselves in a cloak of superficial innocence.

yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

Well they still need people who can pour piss out of a boot without needing instructions written on the sole

[liberty]

For any society to advance there must be a degree of social discipline. Individuals are reluctant to make investments in time, labor and money if they feel the out come will not be safe. In other words, businessmen are reluctant to invest money and time in a business if they fear the government will take it or a riot may destroy it. Would you invest money in Zimbabwe or start a business in Ferguson? If property rights are not safe the whole society suffers.

[rubato]

And yet they were so happy to invest in a society ruled by murder and driven to keep blacks as ignorant as possible.

Forbidding the teaching of English, sound familiar? many generations of evil.


yrs,
rubato

[Crackpot]

And yet they were so happy to invest in a society ruled by murder and driven to keep blacks as ignorant as possible.

And so Rubato committed his life to doing his part to even the scales.

[MajGenl.Meade]

"Forbidding the teaching of English, sound familiar?"a

No, not really. But in the interests of promoting education amongst west coast USians:

How it was:

In 1955, a policy of teaching in both English and Afrikaans on a 50-50 basis in the secondary schools was adopted. However, the shortage of black teachers proficient in Afrikaans (all teacher training schools for blacks are in English) allowed this policy to be carried out in only 26% of the schools.

Since that time (1976), the government ... allowed individual school boards to choose the medium of instruction. Ninety-nine percent (chose) English. The vernacular is required as medium of instruction for only four years rather than six.

How it is now:

Today, 16 years after the advent of black-majority rule, English reigns supreme. Not only is it the medium of business, finance, science and the internet, but also of government, education, broadcasting, the press, advertising, street signs, consumer products and the music industry. For such things Afrikaans is also occasionally used, especially in the Western Cape province, but almost never an African tongue. The country's Zulu-speaking president, Jacob Zuma, makes all his speeches in English. Parliamentary debates are in English. Even the instructions on bottles of prescription drugs come only in English or Afrikaans

Yet most black South Africans are not proficient in English. This is because most of their teachers give lessons in a language that is not their own. To give non-English-speaking children a leg-up, the (ANC) government agreed last year that all pupils should be taught in their mother tongue for at least the first three years of primary school. But outside the rural areas, where one indigenous language prevails, this is neither financially nor logistically feasible

.

[Lord Jim]

You realize those documented facts have no chance of dislodging the lampry....

[rubato]

Forcing the teaching of Afrikaans:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soweto_uprising

Causes of the protests

Black high school students in Soweto protested against the Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974, which forced all black schools to use Afrikaans and English in a 50–50 mix as languages of instruction.[7] The Regional Director of Bantu Education (Northern Transvaal Region), J.G. Erasmus, told Circuit Inspectors and Principals of Schools that from 1 January 1975, Afrikaans had to be used for mathematics, arithmetic, and social studies from standard five (7th grade), according to the Afrikaans Medium Decree; English would be the medium of instruction for general science and practical subjects (homecraft, needlework, woodwork, metalwork, art, agricultural science).[7] Indigenous languages would only be used for religion instruction, music, and physical culture.[8]

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the system began to weaken. Influenced by many events—such as the death throes of colonialism in Africa, the rise of "Black Power" in the USA, and a growing worldwide antagonism towards apartheid — Africans began to fight back.

The association of Afrikaans with apartheid prompted black South Africans to prefer English. Even the homeland regimes chose English and an indigenous African language as official languages. In addition, English was gaining prominence as the language most often used in commerce and industry. The 1974 decree was intended to forcibly reverse the decline of Afrikaans among black Africans. The Afrikaner-dominated government used the clause of the 1909 Union of South Africa Act that recognised only English and Dutch (the latter being replaced by Afrikaans in 1925) as official languages as pretext to do so.[9] While all schools had to provide instruction in both Afrikaans and English as languages, white students learned other subjects in their home language.

Punt Janson, the Deputy Minister of Bantu Education at the time, was quoted as saying: "A Black man may be trained to work on a farm or in a factory. He may work for an employer who is either English-speaking or Afrikaans-speaking and the man who has to give him instructions may be either English-speaking or Afrikaans-speaking. Why should we now start quarrelling about the medium of instruction among the Black people as well? … No, I have not consulted them and I am not going to consult them. I have consulted the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa …"[10]

The decree was resented deeply by blacks, because Afrikaans was widely viewed—in the words of Desmond Tutu, bishop of Lesotho and later Dean of Johannesburg—as "the language of the oppressor". Teacher organisations such as the African Teachers Association of South Africa objected to the decree.[11] A change in language of instruction forced the students to focus on understanding the language instead of the subject material. This made critical analysis of the content difficult and discouraged critical thinking.[12]

The resentment grew until 30 April 1976, when children at Orlando West Junior School in Soweto went on strike, refusing to go to school. Their rebellion then spread to many other schools in Soweto. Black South African students protested because they believed that they deserved to be treated and taught equally to White South Africans. A student from Morris Isaacson High School, Teboho "Tsietsi" Mashinini, proposed a meeting on 13 June 1976 to discuss what should be done. Students formed an Action Committee (later known as the Soweto Students' Representative Council)[13] that organised a mass rally for 16 June to make themselves heard.

In a BBC/SABC documentary broadcast for the first time in June 2006, surviving leaders of the uprising described how they planned in secret for the demonstration, surprising their teachers and families (and the apartheid police) with the power and strength of the demonstration (see "Radio" section below).

yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

Forbidding the teaching of English,

Forcing the teaching of Afrikaans:

Is this going to be yet another one of those deals where rather than admit you fucked up, you're going to substitute a completely different statement and pretend it means the same thing?

[MajGenl.Meade]

Forbidding the teaching of English

rubato

In 1955, a policy of teaching in both English and Afrikaans on a 50-50 basis in the secondary schools was adopted. However, the shortage of black teachers proficient in Afrikaans (all teacher training schools for blacks are in English) allowed this policy to be carried out in only 26% of the schools

.
Meade

Forcing the teaching of Afrikaans: Black high school students in Soweto protested against the Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974, which forced all black schools to use Afrikaans and English in a 50–50 mix as languages of instruction

rubato

It is of course ridiculous to state (in terms of the language of instruction) that blacks wanted the same deal as white children. Most white children, depending upon heritage/location, were taught mostly in Afrikaans and the rest in English. The policy for whites was to teach in mother tongues or 'home languages'. The black South Africans did not want to be taught (in secondary schools/universities) in their mother tongues - they wanted to be taught in English, the heritage of colonialism rather than Afrikaans, the heritage of oppression.

As stated, Afrikaans was used in only some 26% of schools - Soweto is among the 26% found more heavily in the areas close to the apartheid government which had its base in the old Afrikaner strongholds of the Orange Free State and more particularly the Transvaal. In the Cape province, Afrikaans was also strong - just outside Paarl there is a monument to Afrikaans, possibly the only monument to a language anywhere. I have no intention of defending apartheid policies or National government oppression of the majority in Mzansi.

rubato's wide experience of South Africa and close acquaintance with black and white South Africans (both Afrikaner and English) is no doubt is why he made the schoolboy error of equating "50/50 Afrikaans/English instruction" with "forbidding the teaching of English".

Comprehension of English is clearly a challenge in South Africa and in some small parts of California