Warwick Bruce Chapman

Dear Julius

In the ANC Youth League press release entitled, “ANC YL FULLY BEHIND SA’S GOLDEN GIRL—MOKGADI CASTER SEMENYA” (11 September), your organisation stated: “The ANC YL is [..] very concerned by the fact that all the media reports about Caster Semenya are generated in Australia, which is the most lucrative destination for South Africa’s racists and fascists, who refused to live under a black democratic government.”

Julius, the true enemies of South African unity are not the racists outside of South Africa but rather those who spread racial prejudice within the borders of our country.  Of course there is the stereotypical white racist, but then there are also people like yourself Julius.  The enemies of South African unity are people who spread words and ideas which are divisive.  In a relatively short period of time you have become a master at sowing seeds of racial conflict and disunity.

Everytime you or one of your Youth League colleagues cry wolf on the issue of race, waving that big red race card, you belittle and undermine the veracity of the fight against racism.  Racism does not exist one way only.  One of the biggest challenges in the fight against racism is to recognise that discrimination on the basis of colour is something that works both ways.

When you stand on your soapbox and tell the country that whites fled the “the black democratic government”, you are doing nothing more than fostering the entrenchment of racism.   We have a hard won democratic government which is supposed to be for all of South Africa’s people.

So Julius, if you truly are interested in uniting this country you need to start thinking before you speak.  Shooting from the lip as irresponsibly as you do does nothing to build confidence in the minds of those South Africans whose skills are being lured away from our country. It does nothing to build confidence in those potential foreign investors who can provide job soaking growth and investment in our economy.

Your vocal commitment to those poor South Africans you purport to represent is not backed up by your regular ill-considered public utterances.  I urge you to think before you speak. Use your platform to spread messages which promote unity and add constructively to the fight against racism.

Warwick Chapman, DA Councillor, eThekwini – ward18@ethekwini.org

Note:  This letter was published in the Daily News 3 September, 2009, especially for my Mum!

ANC Cllr Mthunzi Dlamini during yesterday’s sitting of the full eThekwini Council, berated er… someone, for a person’s title  of “Mr” (or “Umnumzane” as he explained in isiZulu during his tirade) being omitted in an agenda item.  He justified this by suggesting that it was omitted by whoever wrote it because the person in question, Mr Lucky Montana, the CEO of PRASA, was black and so not respected.  He said it was racist.

I noted that later on in the agenda, an item referred to a lease being renewed for a “Sotirios Spetsiotis”, who was also the unfortunate victim of the abovementioned disrespectful omission of title.  Cllr Dlamini did not, however, bring this dreaful injustice to our attention, so I felt it necessary to do so in this forum.

Thus, on behalf of the eThekwini Council, I would like to apologise to both Mr Montana and Mr Spetsiotis for this grand miscarriage of justice.

I would like all South Africans regardless of race to please be aware you should never again misspell someone’s name or omit their title for fear of having to claim asylum status in Canada.

I realised this morning that I knew at least four of these jokes, one of which is not very nice (sorry Celine Dion), so I thought I would share them:

Timmy
Timmy the toothless termite walks into a bar and asked where is the bar tender?

Pause (This needs to be performed more than read)

A polar bear walks into a bar and asks the barman, “Please could I have a gin and … (pause for 5 seconds) … tonic.”

The barman says, “Sure thing, but what’s with the big pause?” and the Polar Bear says, “I dunno, I was born with them.”

Celine
Celin Dion walks into a bar and the barman says, “Why the long face?”

The Duck (This also requires a little perfomance)

A duck walks into a bar as asks the barman for a bread roll.

The barman says, “Sorry mate, but we don’t serve bread rolls here”, to which the duck says, “Ok, well could I have a couple of slices of bread then?”

The barman says, “Afraid, not, we don’t server any bread here either”, and the duck, looking forlorn, says, “Not even an old crust?”

The barman, slightly agitated, says, “No, we don’t serve any bread”, but the duck insists, “What about a mouldy piece?”

To which the barman whispers firmly, “Listen, we don’t serve bread here, and if you ask one more time, I am going to nail your fucking beak to the bar!”

Calmly, the ducks as the barman, “Do you have any nails?”, and the barman says, “No.”

So the duck says, “And bread?”