Tell the editor, September 16

Your WhatsApps

The Daily News covers a lot of topical issues affecting ordinary citizens, here are some of our reader’s feedback on some of the stories we posted last week.

Anonymous: Foreigners are occupying top jobs in most government departments in KwaZulu-Natal. They hold senior positions earning up to 1.5 million. Sadly they occupy ordinary posts in admin, legal and research. These are not scarce skills. Only explanation is that nepotism is at play.

Kamal Panday: The GNU comprises a bunch of opportunists. The ANC dangled the carrot to give most of the fools ministerial and deputy ministers position. They can’t think rationally as was provided when all the parties supported the VAT as proposed by the ANC. All of them had rotten eggs on their faces when the ANC backtracked.

Tommy Munsamy: If all those rogue officials up there didn’t steal not only our Healthcare system but all the government departments will be functioning without a problem and all the poor people will be very happy. Its so rotten that it stinks right from the top down to the bottom.

Your letters

When recognition comes too late

For more than 40 years of their lives, both my parents – like so many thousands who emigrated from India to South Africa – were regarded as “people without a proper country” or “stateless.” As a child, I could never fully understand what that meant. They couldn’t vote – just like the rest of us “non-blankes” – so I was unsure what truly made them different.

But let’s move to another area that sadly resembles what our country once was. Dared to be different, yes, but not in any heroic manner.

The world is now recognising Palestine as a “State.” By “world,” I refer to the more rational portion – excluding the pariahs like Argentina and the United States – who, at this rate, will need to relocate to Neptune or beyond if and when this tragedy is finally over.

However, as Israel – backed by the U.S. – accelerates the destruction of Gaza, killing men, women, and children with ruthless efficiency and every possible diversion, the outcome is becoming chillingly clear: instead of a people without a state, Palestine risks becoming a “State without people.” | Ebrahim Essa Durban

Ignoring ordinary people

So Sunday morning I thought of taking a ride out to Umhlanga. Why? Because until now, driving on Route M4 past the new “iconic” malls there – to shop for expensive Gucci bags, or to

dress up in Ralph Lauren, imported Pringles, Calvin Klein, et al – has never caught my fancy. But others are excited by the seductive lures of city lights: skyscrapers, glamour, expensive living, retail therapy, or simply the tantalizing innocence of youth. Not the lifestyle I dream of, nor would comfortably afford.

“Small fry” like me find the older shops and restaurants now belong to a fading, though not jaundiced, past.

By then I had enough to puzzle over as I drove seaward towards “Granny’s Pool” – my memory lane. In my mind’s eye, there was the friendly village library on my left; more dear childhood images of yore, of coastal forest, of bouncing on obliging low branches of red milkwood trees; of the grassy caravan park sprinkled with discarded double-decker trams up for holiday hire; a beach shop-on-stilts selling ice-cream cones and unshelled peanuts in pepper packets.

But soon my attention was rudely brought to the present, dwarfed and cramped as I was by the new malls towering triumphantly over me. I was surprised to see a group of about twenty capped and kandora-clad men busy snapping photos. Visitors? Tourists full of “oil money”? Looking to invest in this giving land? To capitalize on our struggling communities? Are there big deals in the pipeline? Are there millionaires, billionaires, maybe even budding aspirant “oligarchs” living and lurking at this seaside? Are they beside themselves with glee, I wondered.

My lone tour inside these malls, however, suggested all is not flourishing as greedily, desperately, or thoughtlessly hoped for. Go see for yourselves! I noticed only a few shops – empty echoes of the retail “giants” to be found anywhere in the country – occupied the vast shopping spaces. Poorly stocked, and not full of “big spenders” at all, simply representative of those who can buy within their earnings.

And what of the many strollers in the streets? Mostly job-seekers, car guards, or beggars. Given the current unemployment rate, should we rejoice at profligate spending in our midst? Ask how much should really be sensibly spent on the Moses Mabhida Stadium. Why erect such oversized buildings and statues? Would Mandela have approved of such a misguided extravagance?

What are the reasons the Durban Municipality is promising, or perhaps threatening, a great “spend” to develop the tired-looking Durban beachfront? Are there vested interests? We, the people, need a municipal dialogue to see how local government visualizes town planning to develop a fair and flourishing eThekwini. Identity clarification is desperately needed here.

Who are we? Do we really want to show off? To become a “Little Dubai-by-the-sea” surrounded by shacks? | Desiree Halse Durban

China’s $10 billion investment bondage

While noting the global ambitions of China’s Belt and Road strategy, the case Nomvula Mabuza makes for a $10 billion investment by China in South Africa is premised on structures that don’t exist.

Certainly the potential benefits of such an investment cannot be disputed. But Mabuza premises the investment on a big “if.” It is unrealistic to expect accountability, transparency and competent management to anchor the investment. Under the ANC, corruption has become institutionalized. That is a reality throughout most of Africa of which the Chinese are aware and which suits them as it facilitates the extension of their influence and control.

Despite the appeal of the low-hanging fruit China is offering, it would be far better to avoid getting into another debt trap the corollary of which is compromised national sovereignty. China’s long term ambition is to own the world by means of economic leverage. Unfortunately for the majority of us who do not support the ANC and its ideological umbilical attachment to Marxism, we face the prospect of bondage under the Asian superpower

.That would not be the prospect if our rulers were accepting of the deal the country could get from the Trump Administration which is alive to China’s global ambitions. Moreover, a Trump deal would be on the basis of rigid accountability and transparency which would diminish the scourge of corruption.

The situation cries out for the sane elements within the GNU, on behalf of the anti-ANC majority, to thwart the poisoned chalice China is touting. | DR DUNCAN DU BOIS Bluff

Celebrations should be kind

Everywhere on social media, I see the same disturbing trend: People smashing cakes on someone’s face during birthdays.

The smasher gets a cheap laugh while the person smashed is forced to perform gratitude for their own humiliation.

People say” “Relax, it’s just a joke.” A joke? Since when did cruelty become a synonym for humour, or for making someone look like a clown in front of friends and family?

What is funny about shoving someone’s face into a cake? What kind of sick pleasure do people get from humiliating someone on their special day? How can you look at a person’s ruined clothes, hair, makeup, and the look of embarrassment on their face, and call that a “celebration”? Imagine spending your one day a year centred on you, only to be publicly humiliated and left sticky and upset for everyone else’s amusement.

This is not only humiliating, it is dangerous. Cakes are not soft toys or squishmallows. Beneath the cream and frosting, there are toothpicks, wooden dowels, and even plastic stands that bakers use to hold the cake together. Forcing someone’s face into it can poke their eyes, cut their skin, and even cause permanent damage.

Many decorations are hard and bumpy. Chocolate shards, sugar glass, wires, metal picks, and rigid toppers can break skin, chip teeth, and puncture gums. Are you ready to break a friend’s teeth because you wanted a laugh?

What is worse is how normalised it has become. Children grow up seeing these videos and think this is the standard way to celebrate. Young people are taught that ruining a person’s special moment, destroying their appearance, and possibly injuring them is “ritual.” We are teaching that disrespect equals love, that humiliation equals fun.

Birthdays should honour and protect the person whose life we celebrate, not turn them into a target for humiliation and danger. | Yumna Ali Karachi, Pakistan

DAILY NEWS