The contentious issue of struggle songs in South Africa has sparked considerable debate, consternation, and division for several years now. Last week, President Trump showed a 5-minute video of Economic Freedom Fighter leader, Julius Malema, singing what is called the “Kill the Boer” song at several rallies.
As a result, the issue has dominated the headlines for 8 days straight. The South African delegation, led by President Cyril Ramaphosa, awkwardly squirmed as Trump had the video played and the world listened to “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer … shoot to kill, shoot to kill … Brrr pop, Brrr pop.”
One of the constants in the news is climate change. I began studying and following the issue 20 years ago when it was called “Global Warming.” When the earth wasn’t heating up fast enough, the name was suddenly changed to the more general and easily exploitable “Climate Change.”
The South African government recently applauded the 29th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP29) for committing 300 billion US dollars annually by 2035 to developing economies. This agreement also allows development banks to provide 1.3 trillion dollars annually in loans for climate financing. With this much money available, it is easy to see why the SA government applauds COP29.
Just a few weeks ago, 18 people were massacred in cold blood in the Eastern Cape. In all, 15 women and 3 men were senselessly slaughtered for reasons still unknown. Here in the Cape, 7 people were gunned down last week in Bishop Lavis in what looks like a gang-style murder. The day before the Bishop Lavis tragedy, 5 people were murdered in Atlantis on the west coast north of Cape Town. Sadly, those headlines have already evaporated in the minds of most due to the everyday occurrence of homicide in South Africa. Murder is so common now that most are hardened to this loss of human life.
Reflecting on South Africa’s elections three months ago, I am reminded of how much we hear the word “democracy” in South Africa. The preamble of the South African Constitution includes the clause that says South Africa will be “a society based on democratic values.” The real question for Christians is, how biblical is democracy? Winston Churchill famously said, “Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…”
Over the last 10 years, there has been a great deal of discussion and debate concerning the recently adopted National Health Insurance (NHI) legislation here in South Africa. One of the many overriding concerns of the NHI bill is its hefty price tag and how to pay for it in a country with a limited taxbase. According to a recent article, every tax-paying South African will have to add an additional 30,000 rands in annual taxes to implement NHI.
Over the course of recent weeks, a violent anti-tax protest erupted in Kenya beginning in the capital of Nairobi before spreading to other municipalities. At the time this article was written, protestors stormed the parliament building and set it ablaze. All of the Kenyan parliamentarians safely escaped through an evacuation tunnel. It has been reported that police have opened fire with live rounds. So far, 39 people have been reported killed, while dozens were injured. It has also been reported that some 50 people are missing and are thought to have been abducted by Kenyan police. The president of Kenya, William Ruto, has sought to ease tensions and bring some measure of calm to the uprising.
As a result of the current war between Israel and Hamas, charges of genocide have been levelled against Israel by South Africa and the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Israel has been accused of intentionally targeting Palestinian civilians in Gaza as they seek to defeat their long-time enemy Hamas. Any loss of civilian life is always tragic and regrettable during a time of war. Yet, the matter in this war is exacerbated by Hamas using women and children as human shields, which is a tactic long used by the Iranian-backed Hamas.
The issue of illegal immigration is a persistent problem affecting many nations around the world at the present moment. South Africa has long been impacted by an unknown number of illegal aliens from neighbouring countries. Most of these are understandably seeking a better life. The estimates on the number of illegal immigrants in South Africa range from 5 to 10 million people.
This large influx of people has led to periodic episodes of xenophobic violence as some South Africans feel threatened by those they consider stealing their jobs and opportunities for a better life. Violence against those who have illegally entered South Africa’s borders only exacerbates the problem without offering a positive corrective.
The question before every blood-bought believer in Christ is how should Christians biblically view illegal immigration and immigrants.
Because it is an election year here in South Africa, I am reminded of the humorous definition of “politics”. It is a compound word from poly meaning “many” and tics — “blood-sucking creatures”. And while there may be some truth in this, Christians have an awesome responsibility to vote according to Christian principles derived from God’s word. Sadly, too many people vote according to their wallet, blindly based on past history, or they vote based on what they think the government will give them materially. Some vote out of blind devotion to their favourite political party regardless of the values that the party represents. And then there are those who vote based on an informed decision.
Recently as I returned from a bike ride with my cycling mate, we stopped at a new café that recently opened for a cup of coffee and some stimulating conversation. When it came time to pay the bill, much to our surprise, the waitress announced that they were a cashless business. While we both carry a bit of cash for such an occasion, neither of us had a bank card with us. Fortunately, the establishment in question accommodated us. Not two weeks later Woolworths publicly announced that their coffee shops, attached to their stores, were going cashless.
Whether we like it or not, technology is moving us to a more cashless society. The Payments Association of South Africa is currently implementing strategies to make South Africa cashless by 2030. It remains to be seen if such an ambitious goal is reached in such a short time. The justification for this move toward a cashless culture is that it is much safer for all concerned and it is less expensive for businesses if they do not handle cash. The banking sector certainly agrees with this. But while there is a great deal of truth in such rationale, there are numerous pitfalls to a cashless society. Here are but a few challenges in this rush to a cashless destination:
As I write this piece, the COP28 Climate-Change Conference is underway in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Dubai. Every year for the last 28 years, at this time of the year, the United Nations hosts the COP meetings with up to 70,000 people flying in from all over the world for the two-week extravaganza. The goal of COP and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change is to meet to discuss ways to limit CO2 emissions.
But what does COP28 have to do with Africa? One of the topics of discussion at this year’s COP28 conference concerns negotiations by wealthy oil barons, in the UAE, buying up land rights in Africa to plant trees on protected land to serve as carbon offsets for wealthy polluters in the West and Middle East. Carbon offsets are purchased by those who can afford them to offset the carbon footprint of jetsetters by planting CO2-absorbing trees. So, rather than curbing their own activities, the wealthy continue to live their extravagant lifestyles and purchase what amounts to pollution permits in other parts of the world — like Africa — where trees are planted as CO2 compensation.
It has been said that the first casualty of war is truth. Many confuse the issue of cannabis (“dagga”, etc) by co-mingling two different aspects of the debate — medical versus recreational use of marijuana. In truth, while related, these are two separate ethical issues that Christians need to approach differently.
Ever since the US states of Colorado and Washington legalized the recreational use of dagga, there has been major pressure from the world’s media and pro-pot advocates to push for legalisation of the wizard weed for more than medicinal purposes. In part, the issue came to the fore here in South Africa when IFP MP Mario Oriano-Ambrosini, who has stage four lung cancer, told parliament he uses dagga oil for its palliative properties to help manage the ill-effects of his treatments.
South Africa legalized dagga in 2018, based on truncated logic and blatant propaganda trotted out in hubbly-bubbly fashion to portray cannabis as a Peter-Pan panacea. It’s the same old worn-out arguments that have been in vogue since the 1960s, when the culture took Timothy Leary’s advice to “turn on, tune in, and drop out.” Sadly, many who took Leary’s advice failed to ever surface back to reality.
Here are three of the many flawed arguments based on smoke-screen logic that are used by the pro-pot lobby to convince the public of the benefits of recreational dagga:
Proverbs 22:7 declares the following truism: “The rich rules over the poor, And the borrower becomes the lender’s slave.” This truism extends to individuals and governments alike. Last week’s mid-term budget speech on November 1st by the minister of finance was a good reminder of the peril of falling prey to the pernicious consequences of the debt cycle whereby more is spent than one has money for.
Over the last several years, the South African government has continued to spend far more than it collects in annual tax revenue. This has snowballed with government having to borrow money it doesn’t have to make up for the annual shortfalls. This money is borrowed from various global financial institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
The South African government is now nearly 5 trillion rands in debt and growing annually. Since the budget speech in February of this year, the debt has grown by another 250 billion rands. This means that every man, woman, and child in South Africa owes 83,333.00 rands per person (calculated by 60 million people).
Today is Tuesday, August 15th, A.D. 2023. This is The Africa Review in Five, written by Mark Christopher and presented by Yamikani Katunga.
The daily headlines regarding climate change are relentless. The calls for the African continent to do its fair share and get its fair share are endless.
For Africa to do its fair share the heralds of climate change propaganda make pointed proclamations. They say the limited resources that Africa has should be devoted to developing technologies and finding solutions for the patterns we observe in the climate. They presumptuously attribute many of the deaths from natural disasters and much of the poverty to climate change and prophesy that it will only get worse. This fear-mongering is meant to divert the people of Africa away from rational thinking and scientific reasoning. Only such effective means as fear can cause a people to hastily abandon the more abundant and affordable resource of fossil fuels; which at present remains the best chance Africa has for raising her people out of poverty and developing societies that are less susceptible to the effects of natural disasters.
