Enough is Enough

This is the slogan of a movement called the Million Man March, held in Tswane (formerly Pretoria ) yesterday. It is an anti crime initiative, led by comedian and actor Desmond Dube, who was inspired to arrange the event after a neighbour, Bashimane Mofokeng, was killed in a hijacking.

The idea is to mobilise citizens across the country to stand up and be counted, and make a statement to both the Government and the criminals (often one and the same...more about that later) that the people of South Africa have had enough!
Here is the mission statement of the MMM movement:

The Million Man March is an anti-crime initiative formed as a direct response to the unacceptable levels of crime in South Africa.
The March aims to:

• Unite all South Africans against crime, crime can only be defeated if confronted with a collective will, a combined commitment and a united plan of action.The March endeavours to empower people who feel helpless, vulnerable and alone by giving them a specific time and place to join together with others, and provide them with a voice against that which they fear the most.
• The March will call on the Government of the Republic of South Africa to act decisively on the crisis of crime in South Africa. Urgent attention needs to be given to combating crime, more resources need to be allocated to our police, with efficient mechanisms put in place to combat corruption.
• Law abiding citizens have the constitutional right to have an efficient justice system to support them. We want to call on the people of South Africa to recognise that we are part of the solution. We call on each and every individual to take responsibility of his or her actions.
• We aim to challenge the perceptions that our society have about crime and use this opportunity to engage government, business, religious groups and individuals that this is the platform to launch and extensive and aggressive MORAL REGENERATION PROGRAMME.
• Remind one another that there is a lot to celebrate about our country and need to make sure that the negativity of crime does not take away from all the good that has been accomplished.
• The integrity of the march is dependent on the peacefulness of its nature. It is scheduled and planned to take place within the boundaries of the law.
• This march is for all citizens of South Africa who feel passionate about making a positive contribution towards the country, it will not be used as a platform to advance political or financial gain.

The march took place yesterday, and although the goal of a million marchers was not reached, a large number of people did participate, and it was a peaceful event. A memorandum was handed over to Minister Balfour, who received it on behalf of Government. ..... somewhat ironical, since this is the Minister of Correctional Services (the new euphamism for Prisons) who, in response to overcrowding in prisons, resorted to a special remission of sentences, whereby all offenders irrespective of their sentences or offences got 6 months off their sentences. This trivialized the sentences of the courts and was a slap in the face of victims of crime.

Placards saying "where is Mbeki" emphasised the weak leadership this Government has suffered under. From the start of his Presidency, Thabo Mbeki has been involving himself in international diplomacy, at the expense of his own country. Many are deeply outraged that our taxes are used to fund his little jaunts around the world in the Presidential jet, so that he can angle for International glory and a crack at the top spot in the UN, while back home, the country spirals out of control on many levels.

My advice to anyone who considers offering him any leadership post after his term is over would be... DON'T do it! His so called 'quiet diplomacy' in Zimbabwe basically translates into "Mugabe is my buddy so keep your hands off him and leave him to finish the plundering of his country in peace". Every important crisis here is met with "crisis, what crisis?" His silence over the recent spate of Xenophobic killings and attacks on foreigners is nothing short of criminal, weeks went by before he issued a lame statement, and not once did he bother to show his face at any of the hot spots or personally intervene to show how unacceptable it is.

However, I digress, sorry, at the moment the word Mbeki is a bit like a red rag to a bull, I am outraged by his silence on so many critical issues in his own country, and his total lack of concern over the suffering and deaths of people here. And I assure you this is not just me ranting about the ludicrous lack of leadership, check out these cartoons...

To me the statement at yesterday's rally that really hit home hard, and for which I want to applaud Desmond Dube wildly and loudly is the one he made to the effect that "crime is not just when someone holds a knife to you and threatens you. Crime is someone taking money from an institution and failing to provide services to that institution."

Yes Desmond, you hit the nail firmly on the head. We have become so conditioned to extreme levels of violent crime in this country, that we sometimes fail to even see day to day dishonesty and lack of integrity as crime any more, and the threshhold of what is acceptable keeps sliding further and further along the continuum from petty to extreme crime.

But every civil servant or Cabinet Minister who receives a salary at the end of each month, and fails to do the job for which they are being paid, is STEALING from the tax payers who employ them.

Well Done Desmond for highlighting this fact! I salute you for this initiative, for using your celebrity status to get the attention of the nation, and for giving so freely of your time and money to organise this initiative.

(Going back to the irony that it was Minister Balfour who was sent by Government to receive the anti-crime memorandum, it is Ngconde Balfour, the Minister of Correctional Services, who said that 738 members of his department had been suspended on full pay in the 2005/6 financial year, costing the taxpayer over R34-million!!!)

I hope the MMM initiative will continue to snowball, and that ordinary citzens who are tired of being victims of crime will stand together and clearly let the criminals inside and outside of Government know that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

reflections on flying

On one of his visits to PE, our son chartered a Cessna 172 and took us for a flip down the coast to go whale watching. We didn't see any whales, but it was still really beautiful up there. I love this shot of the sea reflected under the plane's wing.

We also got some interesting angles on the lighthouse at Cape Recife, which was obviously a delight for my little inner child who still squeals with excitement when spotting cool stuff like that! (If you want to see more of the lighthouse, I have been featuring it in a series of posts on Port Elizabeth Daily Photo.) And best of all, it is only the second time I have been up in a light aircraft that I didn't disgrace myself by puking my heart out. (Although I must confess we didn't land a minute too soon.....) Motion sickness is a dreadful pain for someone who is a travel/speed freak who adores flying and aerial photography!

Skywatch ...errrr....Saturday

Ok, so I missed the boat a bit, but you know how the old cliche goes, better late than...

and hopefully this sunrise will bring a smile to your dial like it did to mine when I saw it from the dining room window recently.

Links to more awesome skies over at Tom's Place

bizarre topiary

There is a gardener at Malealea in Lesotho, who delights in trimming the bushes into these odd little drum shapes.... they provide a humorous diversion on an early morning stroll.

clicketty clack down memory lane

I love train travel. In Harare, where I grew up, and Port Elizabeth where we have lived for the past 30 years, there are no suburban trains. They have never been a part of our daily lives. So a ride on a train has always been a special event, and brings back so many memories for me.

The circus used to arrive in town on a train, and somewhere in one of the family photo albums are a couple of black and white photos of my sister and I as little girls, greeting the elephants at the station. (Obviously, as an adult, I have different views about all that, and I hate to see performing animals in captivity, but I have to admit, as a child it was magic! )

I went to University in Pietermaritzburg. It was a two day journey by train, as the line didn't go straight South through Beit Bridge at that time. (The direct line was only constructed as an emergency measure during the Zimbabwe civil war, when South Africa was the only country that did not apply sanctions, and a direct link was needed for sanctions-busting fuel and other vital supplies.) So I used to travel by steam or diesel train SW through Bulawayo and into Botswana. Then we would turn SE to Johannesburg. There we would swap onto an electric train to head East for the coast. Those student journeys were great fun, but I did learn one important lesson................. If you are sleeping overnight on a steam driven train, do not lie with your head facing the window, and the window open! I woke up in the morning with my mouth feeling all gritty and crunchy, and when my friends saw me they fell about laughing. I looked in the mirror, and my face was pitch black except for white rings around my eyes. The soot had blown in during the night, and it was a real mission to wash it off!

In Port Elizabeth, there is a narrow gauge line which runs through the outlying farming areas, Westwards towards the Langkloof. For as long as I can remember, (which admittedly is getting shorter by the day, I seem to have the memory span of a gnat these days!) there has been a steam train running on this line as far as Loerie, over weekends, taking passengers for a little jaunt into the country for lunch and back. It is called the Apple Express, and we first went on it for our son's third birthday, my mom was visiting from East London and came with us. The kids adored her, and had a ball on the train. I still remember it as one of those special memorable days that you look back on fondly.

Sadly the beautiful steam engines like this one, called Granny Smith after the apples she used to transport, are in serious need of TLC, and the train is currently being pulled by a diesel engine until they can be renovated.

My sister's family used to visit us regularly from Harare, and one year we realised that their kids had never been on a train. So we arranged to travel from the lovely old Victorian station in PE, which had been freshly restored and had lovely pictures of Port Elizabeth places of interest on the walls, to the nearby town of Uitenhage, and Max, who does not share my love of train travel, was happy to give it a miss, and would drive Dave's car and meet us at the station in Uitenhage.

He was delighted at the opportunity to drive the fancy new Merc, and sat there behind the wheel feeling very good. Then, looking left and right in a Mr Bean-like fashion to make sure he was being admired in the fancy car, he tried to pull out of the parking bay. At this point, things started going pear shaped, because he couldn't get the car to budge. It had a fancy foot operated handbrake, which Dave had forgotten to show him. He sat there at PE station stressing about not getting there to meet us, but luckily, setting aside his usual aversion to reading handbooks, he found the manual in the cubbyhole. Thus enlightened, he set off to fetch us! In the meantime, the 5 cousins (our two and their 3) were having a ball, and to be honest I must confess we adults didn't do badly either, we loved it. I imagine those of you who spend hours commuting every day must think this is insane, but we adored the novelty of it.


Train travel in South Africa is not what it used to be, in fact in Capetown and Johannesburg you take your life into your hands if you have to travel on the commuter trains. Which brings us to this photo, taken a couple of weeks ago, at the PE Station. We took our pepper spray and went to check it out, because it is in a part of town that few people go to anymore due to the poor security situation. It was a pleasant surprise, the station still looks cool, and we had a great time wandering around taking pix for our PE Daily Photo blog. But I don't know when we will ever get a chance to travel by train again, perhaps in Europe, if we ever manage to get there!