Letters to the Editor: Politics, Power, History and Public Safety

Letters to the editor

A fact’s a fact, and you can’t change that!

Dear Editor,

In response to the proposal that “Natal” be dropped from the name of our province because it is somehow “colonial”, allow me to point out some historical facts:

The name “Natal” was given to this part of the Southern African coastline by Vasco da Gama when he sailed past the opening to the bay on Christmas Day, 1499 (Natal means Christmas in Portuguese) ie Natal is most definitely not colonial.

The Great King Shaka established the Zulu Nation in 1820, more than 300 years later!

In other words, Natal is 300 years older than the Zulu Nation. | John Wheaton Kloof

Finally, Steenhuisen Out

Dear Editor

Not before time John Steenhuisen is reported as no longer seeking re-election as DA leader.

I see that Reuters and Bloomberg are carrying the story so it must be true. I wonder who finally pushed him?

He’s got no shame so will no doubt try and stay on as an MP – where else can he go unless the ANC take him? No qualifications and clearly needs to earn a lot of money to fund his lifestyle.

Will the ANC offer him a post as they did to that other failed leader, Kortbroek van Schalkwyk?

What a shame that he almost broke the DA for personal gain. And what a shame that so many in the DA backed him. Disgraceful. | Mark Lowe Durban

Leadership when populism fails

Dear Editor

When KwaZulu-Natal’s John Steenhuisen assumed the leadership of the Democratic Alliance, many political analysts hastily declared the party to be on its last legs. Too often, these commentators have confused ANC dominance with democratic inevitability. The prevailing assumption was that a party rejecting racial nationalism, resisting populism and insisting on constitutional limits could not survive in South Africa’s political climate.

However, that assumption underestimated South Africa’s voters and misunderstood leadership.

While the ANC doubled down on liberation-era entitlement and the EFF perfected politics as performance art, Steenhuisen led the DA in the opposite direction: Towards institutional stability, policy seriousness and delivery-led governance.

This approach was not always fashionable, but it was deliberate. Under his leadership, the DA won its first municipality in KwaZulu-Natal, Umngeni, puncturing the myth that voters are permanently locked into historical loyalties. Unlike parties that treat support as a birthright or trade in perpetual agitation, the DA asked voters to judge it on outcomes.

More significantly, Steenhuisen helped lead the DA into South Africa’s first genuine multiparty government at national level. This marked a clear ideological break with the ANC’s obsession with dominance and the EFF’s politics of destruction. Where the ANC clings to control even as institutions decay, and the EFF seeks collapse as a pathway to relevance, the DA chose co-operation anchored in the Constitution.

This distinction matters. The ANC governs as though accountability is optional and failure carries no consequences. The EFF thrives on anger without responsibility, promising economic miracles without governing credibility. By contrast, the DA has positioned itself as a party that governs where it can, co-governs where necessary, and accepts limits on power as a democratic virtue rather than a weakness.

Steenhuisen’s announcement that he will not be available for re-election at the Federal Congress marks the end of a significant chapter. He leaves behind a party that is helping to co-govern a country showing signs of recovery. It is now up to the next generation of leadership to build on this foundation with confidence and integrity.

Having stepped aside from party leadership, Steenhuisen has chosen to focus fully on his ministerial responsibilities, particularly the urgent fight against foot-and-mouth disease, which is devastating SA’s livestock sector. While other parties remain paralysed by internal battles or chase headlines, this reflects leadership rooted in problem-solving and economic protection.

Steenhuisen does not leave behind a perfect party – no such thing exists. But he leaves a DA with an ideological spine: committed to non-racialism in a racialised political economy, to constitutionalism in an age of populist shortcuts, and to governance in a system fatigued by failure.

The question now is not whether the DA can survive without him, but whether South Africa will choose leaders who build institutions – or those who burn them for applause. | Thulani Dasa Khayelitsha

N2 safety demands tough action

The letter by Farouk Cassim refers.

The Berlin wall served its purpose for about 50 years. Circumstances and change facilitated the breakdown of the barrier.

Here in KwaZulu-Natal, current circumstances require stringent measures devoid of emotion and historical reference on the N2 hell run.

Build the wall with the necessary oversight measures as we can only make it difficult for these criminals who have no feelings. I’m not moved by the silly reference to apartheid because I am non-white and just want peace and tranquility for my family.

Talk and politics are cheap. | Johan Smith Tongaat

Davos 2026 and the new world order

The world is in chaos as planners of the Next World Order met in Davos. Demonstrations are taking place across the globe, as citizens express anger and frustration at the current state of affairs.

Unbeknownst to many, the architects of regime change are stealthily implementing a master plan for global control. Orchestrating and directing chaos has become their potent weapon to dominate the planet and its vast resources. Currencies are being debased, crises are worsening, democracy is being subverted, and social justice is fading. Parts of the world are caught in orchestrated crises designed to extract trillions of dollars from developing nations.

The emerging Next World Order will establish supranational authorities to regulate global commerce and industry. War, as history shows, is often a racket based on lies, with political leaders following the orders of hidden powers.

The United Nations is increasingly serving as an international enforcer for the edicts of these global elites.

Former US President John F. Kennedy warned about this New World Order before his untimely death in 1963, when he said: “For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence, on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice... Its preparations are concealed, its mistakes buried, its dissenters silenced.”

Davos 2026 has concluded, and future events will steer the world into a new trajectory.

Yours sincerely, | Farouk Araie Benoni

When clients make your day

Here’s an actual conversation with a client:

Client: Hi, how are you?

Me: Pretty good, and you?

Client: I”m a bit low on money, I just want to check... will the logo design cost less if you use a lowercase font?

Me: Haha, no! (longish pause).... Wait, are you serious?

Client: Was that a dumb question?

Me: Very dumb. But I’ll do your logo for free because you made my day.

Client: Knock Knock!

Me: Who’s th..... wait! rather quit while you’re ahead.

Client: I hear you. | Al Chapo Tshabalala Cape Town

Fatal flights and the shadow of power

The death of Libya’s Chief of Staff, Lieutenant-General Mohammed Ali Ahmed al-Haddad at the end of last year raises troubling questions.

His death in a plane crash in Türkiye on December 23 follows a pattern that history has seen far too often.

Al-Haddad had been in a private Dassault Falcon 50 jet that crashed near Türkiye’s capital, Ankara, shortly after taking off from Esenboğa Airport while returning from an official visit. The aircraft lost radio contact after reporting an electrical malfunction and requesting an emergency landing.

All eight people on board, including al-Haddad and other senior military officials, were killed.

Last year, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and others died in a mysterious helicopter crash in north-west Iran.

The 20th and 21st centuries are replete with unexplained air crashes and assassinations that have altered the course of history, often with grim consequences for humanity.

On September 18, 1961, UN ­Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld was killed when his aircraft crashed while on a peace mission in Africa. Evidence later emerged suggesting the crash was orchestrated by elements within the global intelligence community. Eyewitness accounts describing a smaller aircraft approaching Hammarskjöld’s plane were dismissed at the time.

On October 19, 1986, Mozambican President Samora Machel died when his plane crashed into a hillside near the South African border. Western governments accepted the apartheid regime’s explanation of pilot error, despite reports that the aircraft may have been diverted by a decoy VOR beacon transmitting on the same frequency as Maputo airport, which coincidentally suffered a power failure that night.

On April 6, 1994, the plane carrying Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana was shot down by surface-to-air missiles, triggering one of the bloodiest genocides of the century, in which some 800 000 civilians were massacred.

Other cases remain equally disturbing.

Pakistan’s President General Zia-ul-Haq and five top generals died in a plane crash on August 17, 1988. To this day, 250 pages of the crash report remain classified.

On June 27, 1980, Itavia Flight 870 crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea, killing all 81 people on board. Known in Italy as the Ustica massacre, evidence later revealed a Nato aerial encounter during which a French missile struck the civilian aircraft.

Former Italian prime ministers have since acknowledged that the incident was linked to a failed attempt to assassinate Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

More recently, in August 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin and 10 associates died in a mysterious plane crash near Moscow. Witnesses reported hearing explosions before the aircraft plunged to the ground. Prigozhin’s attempted mutiny against the Russian state may well have sealed his fate.

Since 1936, more than 20 political and military leaders have died in air crashes. Many of these incidents were never satisfactorily explained, with evidence concealed or classified.

When one joins the dots, a chilling message emerges: The world remains a dangerous place, especially for those in power. | Farouk Araie Benoni

Globalist narrative on Trump obsolete

If analysts like Dugan Brown (The Mercury, February 2) want to remain relevant, they are going to have to accept that US President Donald Trump has made their globalist narrative obsolete.

Trump has flipped the geopolitical chessboard against globalism while simultaneously doing what no other Western so-called leader is doing, namely, erecting roadblocks on China’s imperial ambitions through tariffs, trade, America first policy and military deterrence.

Brown writes critically of “unrestrained power,” of which he accuses Trump, but he is silent about China’s unrestrained encroachment in the Indo-Pacific, Greenland and through ownership of industry in Western countries.

He bases his narrative on the issue of legitimacy with which he uncritically associates EU countries but by implication asserts that Trump’s foreign policy lacks legitimacy. Wrong, Dugan Brown.

Trump is the only leader of a Western state who has a solid, legitimate mandate. No globalist leader of any European country, including Carney of Canada, can boast of that. In fact, the majority of Europeans and Canadians would sack their leaders tomorrow if they could.

Trump has contempt for the globalist EU for the following reasons: Its betrayal of Western values through mass migration of unassimilable people, censorship of free speech, bureaucratic dictatorship and its insistence on perpetuating conflict in Ukraine by providing finance as a means of provoking a full-scale war in Europe.

Brown’s view that Trump’s foreign policy is strengthening BRICS is also off key because the main components of BRICS are each tending their own agendas. India has strong trade ties with the US. Russia is wary of China’s geopolitical ambitions. Brazil is mired in failed socialist policies. ANC-misguided foreign policy has cast South Africa as a supporter of Iran and a foe of Israel while simultaneously being at odds with America. BRICS, like globalism, is obsolete.

The most conspicuous omission in Brown’s attempt to de-legitimise Trump’s foreign policy is reference to his Board of Peace to which 59 states are aligned and which has the approval of the UN Security Council.

The establishment of the Board of Peace outstrips anything that any other leader has achieved and deserves serious credit. | DR DUNCAN DU BOIS Bluff

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