[{"id":48387,"date":"2024-12-15T04:10:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-15T02:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?p=48387"},"modified":"2024-12-14T15:04:17","modified_gmt":"2024-12-14T13:04:17","slug":"you-voted-for-expensive-electricity-so-pay-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/you-voted-for-expensive-electricity-so-pay-up\/","title":{"rendered":"You voted for expensive electricity. So pay up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>In the undemocratic era of apartheid, Eskom produced the world\u2019s cheapest electricity, providing plentiful, reliable electricity for households, commerce and industry, and giving us many years of high economic growth.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the democratic era of ANC rule, Eskom\u2019s electricity prices have risen steeply. and there have been years of electricity shortages, electricity failures and blackouts (load-shedding), which have damaged our economy and caused deindustrialisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our growth forecasts for the next ten years are abysmally low, thanks in large part to poor electricity. In October Eskom applied to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) for a massive 36% tariff increase for the coming financial year, something that never happened under apartheid. But you, the South African voter, voted for the ANC, which implemented policies that wrecked Eskom and caused rising electricity prices; and when you saw Eskom being ruined by these ANC policies you continued to vote for it; and even this year, while votes for the ANC went down dramatically, you still gave it more votes than any other party. Indirectly you voted for more expensive electricity. So, you must stop complaining and pay up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Is this a reasonable argument? Probably not. But it does have some points to consider, which I shall now proceed to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most of the public response to Eskom\u2019s price hike, including that during the NERSA hearings, goes like this: \u201cWhy should we have to pay for Eskom\u2019s corruption, incompetence and mad policies?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A speculative answer is this: \u201cBecause you voted for a party whose mad policies were sure to increase electricity prices.\u201d (By the way, the same could be said to British voters, now complaining about rising electricity prices. They voted for a Labour government that promised a huge increase in wind and solar power, absolutely guaranteed to result in soaring electricity prices.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A more concrete answer is this: \u201cBecause you have to pay up, or else South Africa will go bankrupt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The much higher electricity prices Eskom are asking are indeed the result of Eskom\u2019s corruption and incompetence and the ANC\u2019s mad policies, which I shall list below. (Incidentally I should point out that even with Eskom\u2019s higher tariffs, the price of South African electricity is not especially high by world standards.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A main reason Eskom wants higher prices is to pay off its enormous debt, now standing at over R400 billion. If it defaults on this debt, South Africa\u2019s credit rating will fall off a cliff. Investment here will dry up and we shall struggle to borrow from anyone. We must pay this debt, and there are only two ways of doing so: through our electricity purchases or through our taxes (which the government would use to support Eskom). Either way, we pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Made it much worse<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The rot in Eskom began in the decade before the ANC took power – and made it much worse. Apartheid was a racial dictatorship causing suffering and humiliation to the black majority, but for most of the time it provided an excellent supply of cheap, reliable electricity. It did so by the simple method of leaving Eskom alone, to be run by its own engineers and managers, without government interference. It asked Eskom to give South Africa sufficient power and to cover its costs through electricity sales. Nothing else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eskom did so, building new stations on cheap debt and paying it off from its revenue. This worked well until about the late 1980s, when the white Eskom managers became stupid and lost sight of the fact that their only purpose was to supply electricity<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They began to indulge in silly ideas. Sometimes they seemed to regard Eskom as an organ of social welfare, sometimes as a private company seeking maximum profits. Sometimes they asked for tariff increases far too low to cover costs (to provide cheap power for poor people) and sometimes far too high as if they were trying to impress their shareholders. (They have only one shareholder, the government, which is content if Eskom just covers its costs.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They began racial preferment before the ANC took power, making some senior appointments on dark skin colour. At one stage, they believed Eskom had too much generating capacity and begged industries to build new projects using as much electricity as possible, guaranteeing them very low electricity prices indefinitely. The new aluminium smelter in Richards Bay is a result. They shut down power stations. When they realised the folly of these measures, they still refused to admit that we were running out of electricity. They refused to believe that the problem was lack of generating capacity rather than too much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So they refused to build in the 1990s, when a schoolboy could have shown them by a simple graph that we would then run out of electricity by about 2007 \u2013 which we did, and from which we have never recovered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The ANC, taking over government in April 1994, inherited these stupid ideas and added its own stupid ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Affirmative action <\/em>considered a black skin as a criterion for appointing Eskom engineers, technicians and managers. <em>Employment equity<\/em> meant that Eskom should have over 90% black engineers and managers since black people make up over 90% of the population at large. <em>Black economic empowerment<\/em> (BEE) meant that Eskom\u2019s purchases and contracts should first be with black companies rather than companies that provided the best goods and services at the lowest cost. <em>Transformation<\/em> meant kicking out the whites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>More important<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Implementation of these policies was considered to be more important than providing reliable, affordable electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By these standards, Eskom today must be considered a huge success: it did kick out skilled, experienced white engineers and managers; its senior managers got big bonuses for meeting their equity targets even if there were more blackouts; Eskom started buying very expensive, bad coal from little BEE coal miners long distances from the coal power stations, rather than cheap, good coal from the big mining majors right next to the stations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so we had years of blackouts, electricity shortages, very expensive and dangerous accidents at power stations caused by incompetence, massive corruption, and steeply rising electricity tariffs. (On Thursday an accident at Matla Power Station injured nine workers, one of whom is in a critical condition.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another reason for Eskom\u2019s financial problems is the refusal of so many of its customers, especially municipalities, to pay for the electricity they get from Eskom. In the case of Soweto, householders get their electricity directly from Eskom, but here non-payment is as bad. In both cases, the fundamental problem of non-payment is political. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adding to Eskom\u2019s woes was the wretched <em>Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement Plan<\/em> (REIPPPP). Eskom was forced to pay exorbitantly high prices for solar and wind electricity from private producers. Eskom then had to sell this electricity at lower prices, making a total loss on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Except in one case, solar and wind cannot produce <em>dispatchable<\/em> electricity – electricity when you want it – and so are essentially useless for the grid. (The one exception is concentrated solar power with storage, but this has proved prohibitively expensive, even in the superb solar conditions in the Northern Cape.) Usually, this non-dispatchable junk electricity is not too expensive but in the case of REIPPPP it was very expensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So this has added to Eskom\u2019s costs. But renewable energy still provides relatively little of our electricity, thank goodness, and is not a major reason for Eskom\u2019s problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Blessed relief<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We have now been over 250 days without load-shedding. This is blessed relief. The rand has recovered 10% since the worst of load-shedding in 2023. Load-shedding ended for the simple reason that Eskom brought more of its stations into a better state of repair. It improved the <em>Energy Availability Factor<\/em> (EAF) of the power stations, meaning that at any time a larger percentage of them were available to make electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eskom\u2019s electricity production reached its peak of 240,000 GWh in 2007. Production stopped rising not because of lack of demand but for lack of supply. If we had had enough electricity after 2007, electrical demand would have risen and so would economic growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our industry and manufacturing would have been much stronger, and our unemployment much lower. As it happened, even though there was no increase in demand, and on the contrary a drop in demand, we still had load-shedding because we did not have enough operating capacity to meet even this feeble demand. This was because the coal power stations were falling to pieces through bad operation and poor maintenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We have now improved both, and it seems we now have enough available operating capacity to prevent load-shedding \u2013 for a while at least. How long this will last is not known. Much of the credit for the improvement must go to Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, now Minister of Electricity and Energy. He seems a sensible sort, given to practical solutions rather than grand schemes and ideology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The renewable lobby claims that increased use of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels by households and businesses has helped to end load-shedding. This is nonsense. Solar PV can only provide electricity in the few hours of the year when the Sun is shining, and not when it is most needed, especially in long, cold, winter nights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eskom itself could easily provide itself with electricity from PV panels more cheaply than that from households and businesses. It is just not worth its while. It is said that households are now buying solar panels to reduce costs rather than help during load-shedding. If Eskom were purely commercial, it could easily undercut them by charging very low tariffs during the day when the Sun was shining and very high ones when it was not, or having very high standing charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What now for our future electricity supply? The most obvious step is to stop all further wind and solar projects. They have everywhere proved an expensive disaster for grid electricity. The German economy is in great trouble because of them; Britain is going the same way, crippling its power supply and industry with massive expenditure on useless, staggeringly expensive wind turbines and solar arrays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Best option<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nuclear is our best option, being safe, reliable, sustainable and affordable, but if we go out to tender for a new nuclear station tomorrow, it will be about ten years before it comes on stream. Coal has served us well, but it is the most polluting. (I refer to sulphur and nitrogen oxides and not to carbon dioxide, which is not a pollutant but a wonderful life-giving gas). I don\u2019t think we should build any more coal stations. Natural gas is excellent, but we have very little ourselves and would have to import most of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The biggest problem is that we must build more power stations properly and run them properly. To do this we have to use the best available engineering, management and financial skills and use the best available equipment suppliers, contractors and materials at the lowest possible prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We cannot do this unless we scrap affirmative action, BEE, transformation and employment equity. And we cannot do that unless we get rid of the ANC. The problem is that it is difficult to find among the major parties any with sensible policies on energy. The DA rules Cape Town and the Western Cape very well \u2212 with the exception of its energy policies, where it believes in the disastrous green policies of wind and solar for grid electricity, and when it is often hostile to nuclear power, including South Africa\u2019s best power station, Koeberg, 30 km away from Cape Town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The DA is probably the worst party on the anti-science nonsense of climate alarm, believing all its tripe. I even heard a DA spokesperson declare that \u201cclimate change has made the weather impossible to predict\u201d. (The weather system is naturally chaotic and therefore is, and always has been, mathematically impossible to predict, except roughly over a few days by numerical methods.) The EFF and MK do not seem to have any coherent policies on energy, and both seem enamoured with BEE, transformation and the other racial rubbish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Has South Africa got the resources and the skills for ensuring an excellent future electricity supply so that we can make our economy grow, end our gross unemployment, bring prosperity to all and protect our beautiful environment?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course we have. All we need is to get our politics right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>[Image: <\/em><em><a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/users\/sumanley-2265479\/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=1508774\">Sumanley xulx<\/a> from <a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=1508774\">Pixabay<\/a><\/em><em>]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>If you like what you have just read, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/fund-us\/\">support<\/a><em> the Daily Friend<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the undemocratic era of apartheid, Eskom produced the world\u2019s cheapest electricity, providing plentiful, reliable electricity for households, commerce and industry, and giving us many<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":48388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"coauthors":[108],"class_list":["post-48387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>You voted for expensive electricity. So pay up - Daily Friend<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/you-voted-for-expensive-electricity-so-pay-up\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"You voted for expensive electricity. So pay up - Daily Friend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the undemocratic era of apartheid, Eskom produced the world\u2019s cheapest electricity, providing plentiful, reliable electricity for households, commerce and industry, and giving us many\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/you-voted-for-expensive-electricity-so-pay-up\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Daily Friend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/irrsouthafrica\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-12-15T02:10:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-12-14T13:04:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/cable-1508774_1920.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1043\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"671\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Andrew Kenny\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@DailyFriendSA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@DailyFriendSA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Andrew Kenny\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"10 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/you-voted-for-expensive-electricity-so-pay-up\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/you-voted-for-expensive-electricity-so-pay-up\/\",\"name\":\"You voted for expensive electricity. So pay up - Daily Friend\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/you-voted-for-expensive-electricity-so-pay-up\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/you-voted-for-expensive-electricity-so-pay-up\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/cable-1508774_1920.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-12-15T02:10:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-12-14T13:04:17+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/9912025c2bc887c7242d0cde834a4ae5\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/you-voted-for-expensive-electricity-so-pay-up\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/you-voted-for-expensive-electricity-so-pay-up\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/you-voted-for-expensive-electricity-so-pay-up\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/cable-1508774_1920.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/cable-1508774_1920.jpg\",\"width\":1043,\"height\":671},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/you-voted-for-expensive-electricity-so-pay-up\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"You voted for expensive electricity. So pay up\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/\",\"name\":\"Daily Friend\",\"description\":\"The Fastest Growing Liberal News Site in South Africa\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/9912025c2bc887c7242d0cde834a4ae5\",\"name\":\"Andrew Kenny\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/038d769d2c7c0f42ef041f24975d1d2b\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/andrew-kenny-150x150.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/andrew-kenny-150x150.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Andrew Kenny\"},\"description\":\"Andrew Kenny is a writer, an engineer and a classical liberal.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/author\/andrew\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"You voted for expensive electricity. So pay up - Daily Friend","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/you-voted-for-expensive-electricity-so-pay-up\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"You voted for expensive electricity. So pay up - Daily Friend","og_description":"In the undemocratic era of apartheid, Eskom produced the world\u2019s cheapest electricity, providing plentiful, reliable electricity for households, commerce and industry, and giving us many","og_url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/you-voted-for-expensive-electricity-so-pay-up\/","og_site_name":"Daily Friend","article_publisher":"http:\/\/irrsouthafrica","article_published_time":"2024-12-15T02:10:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-12-14T13:04:17+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1043,"height":671,"url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/cable-1508774_1920.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Andrew Kenny","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@DailyFriendSA","twitter_site":"@DailyFriendSA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Andrew Kenny","Est. reading time":"10 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/you-voted-for-expensive-electricity-so-pay-up\/","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/you-voted-for-expensive-electricity-so-pay-up\/","name":"You voted for expensive electricity. So pay up - Daily Friend","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/you-voted-for-expensive-electricity-so-pay-up\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/you-voted-for-expensive-electricity-so-pay-up\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/cable-1508774_1920.jpg","datePublished":"2024-12-15T02:10:00+00:00","dateModified":"2024-12-14T13:04:17+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/9912025c2bc887c7242d0cde834a4ae5"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/you-voted-for-expensive-electricity-so-pay-up\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/you-voted-for-expensive-electricity-so-pay-up\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/you-voted-for-expensive-electricity-so-pay-up\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/cable-1508774_1920.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/cable-1508774_1920.jpg","width":1043,"height":671},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/you-voted-for-expensive-electricity-so-pay-up\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"You voted for expensive electricity. So pay up"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/","name":"Daily Friend","description":"The Fastest Growing Liberal News Site in South Africa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/9912025c2bc887c7242d0cde834a4ae5","name":"Andrew Kenny","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/038d769d2c7c0f42ef041f24975d1d2b","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/andrew-kenny-150x150.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/andrew-kenny-150x150.jpg","caption":"Andrew Kenny"},"description":"Andrew Kenny is a writer, an engineer and a classical liberal.","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/author\/andrew\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48387"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=48387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":48385,"date":"2024-12-15T04:05:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-15T02:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?p=48385"},"modified":"2024-12-14T15:01:28","modified_gmt":"2024-12-14T13:01:28","slug":"debunking-a-libel-israel-is-not-a-colonial-settler-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/debunking-a-libel-israel-is-not-a-colonial-settler-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Debunking a libel: Israel is not a colonial-settler project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>To try to explain the history of the Israel\/Palestinian conflict is extremely difficult. It’s long, complicated and replete with decades of propaganda aimed at delegitimising Israel.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Introduction \u2212 hypocrisy of hate<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The hypocrisy of those bent on perpetuating the libel that Israel is a ‘settler\/colonial’ state is breathtaking. From the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_Muslim_states_and_dynasties\">first Islamic state<\/a> of Medina established by the Prophet Mohammed and the three caliphate successors (the Rashudin, Ummayad and, twice, the Abbasid caliphates), Muslims conquered, colonised and settled in areas as far east as China, the Middle East, as far west as France, Spain and Portugal, as far north as Russia, and as far south as Morocco, Libya, Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia. There were a further 13 Muslim empires which included, variously, Chad, India, Niger and Turkey. Turkey was the seat of the Ottoman Empire and was the last Muslim empire: it collapsed at the end of World War I.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The primary purpose of Mohammed’s conquest and most of those Muslim armies that followed was to spread Islam throughout the Middle East and the world. It was conversion by the sword, as a result of the belief that Islam was the final and true monotheistic religion. The Islamic Empires were amongst the greatest colonisers in world history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The history of Zionism as lived experience<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this article, I debunk the libel that Israel is a ‘Settler\/Colonial’ state and therefore not entitled to exist. Most societies in the world are ultimately settler societies. If they weren’t, most of humanity would still be found in the cradle of mankind in Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This article is a pr\u00e9cis based on a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fT7uLSLunL0\">podcast<\/a> by Haviv Rettig Gur, a Senior Analyst at <em>The Times of Israel<\/em>, a highly knowledgeable historian of Jewish and Israeli history, and an extremely perceptive and articulate analyst of the conflict. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is a historical examination of why Israel, rather than being a ‘settler\/colonial’ state worthy of destruction, is a ‘refugee state’, created and founded to protect Jews from discrimination and death. I have added some comments for elucidation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>It began in Russia<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1881, the Black Hand, an anarchist group, assassinated Czar Alexander II of Russia. He was a reformist who abolished serfdom in the 1860s. On the morning of his assassination, he gave the order to draw up a ‘constitution’ ahead of the establishment of a parliament for the Russian Empire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Alexander II looked at Western Europe to bring Russia into the modern age. The anarchists, however, viewed these reforms as a way to preserve the prevailing social classes, rather than abolish them and bring about equality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The czar was succeeded by his extremely conservative son, Alexander III. He had been educated under the Russian Orthodox Church, and was uninterested in his father’s reforms – he blamed his father’s reformist impulses for his death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Alexander III began a massive crackdown on everything he regarded as inimical to the Russian Empire. He reversed most of his father’s reforms, although he did not reinstate serfdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1882 he passed the antisemitic <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/May_Laws\">May Laws<\/a>. They further restricted where Jews could live, study and be employed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the same time, the Russian Empire experienced the great upheaval of industrialisation, predominantly through the building of railroads and electrification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Industrialisation mostly occurred in the Southern Russian Empire (Ukraine), in cities like Odessa, with mixed Jewish and non-Jewish populations. Industrialisation resulted in massive changes, like urbanisation and the economic weakening of the peasant class. This led to the beginning of mass, popular pogroms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People would march through the streets of cities of Western Ukraine, attack Jewish homes, scream at and grab Jews in the streets, often attack them, and sometimes kill them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pogroms spread from city to city very quickly. The progress of the early pogroms literally followed the rail network. Pogroms became a normal experience: all Jews came to expect them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many Jews were killed between 1918 and 1921, with estimates putting the number of separate and distinct pogroms at 1,300. The number of deaths was thought to have been as high as 250,000 Jews, mostly during World War I and the Russian Civil War (1918 to 1921).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The most famous pogrom occurred in Kishinev, in Moldova, in 1903. About 50 Jews were killed, but what caught the Jewish imagination and turned Kishinev into a rallying cry throughout the Jewish world was not the 50 dead. It was how they died: it was the cruelty of the perpetrators who raped and murdered women in front of their husbands, fathers and brothers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because these pogroms coincided with the <em>May Laws, <\/em>and Alexander<em>‘<\/em>s crackdown and his reactionary political impulses, Jews believed that the pogroms were instigated by the regime. Rettig Gur says that historians generally agree that that this belief was probably wrong – a misunderstanding of the internal mechanisms of Russian politics and society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Pogroms \u2212 genuine, authentic and popular<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Something much worse was happening: pogroms were genuine, authentic, and popular, emanating from the bottom-up. The people around whom Jews lived really wanted them gone: they wanted Jews to be tortured and dehumanised until they understood that they weren’t wanted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In many places, czarist police actually saw the pogroms as a threat to public order and ultimately a threat to imperial rule. So there <em>were<\/em> attempts by the regime to crack down on pogroms, though these were largely unsuccessful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The outcry over Kishinev, particularly in the United States and Britain, where there were Jews of influence, inflicted serious diplomatic damage on Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kishinev also inspired the writing of the infamous <a href=\"http:\/\/www.apple.com\/uk\">Protocols of the Elders of Zion<\/a> in 1903 by officials of the Russian regime who could not understand why the world cared that Jews had died. It was a complete fabrication, mostly likely created under the direction of Pyotr Rachkovsky, chief of the foreign branch of the Russian secret police (<em>Okhrana<\/em>) in Paris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The writers sought to explain the diplomatic crisis by relying on long-held anti-Jewish tropes. They wanted to explain the diplomatic crisis by creating more explicit anti-Jewish politics. The secret police sought to validate the pogroms in intellectual terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <em>Protocols,<\/em> supposedly the record of secret meetings of Jewish leaders, describes an alleged conspiracy to dominate the world. The conspiracy and its leaders, the so-called “Elders of Zion”, never existed. And although proven to be a fraud on many occasions, “the lie that would not die”, has continued to inspire those who seek to spread hatred of Jews. Arabic copies of it are sold widely in the Middle East today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Reshaping of Russian Jew<\/strong>s<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The pogroms reshaped Russian Jews, both mentally and demographically. Approximately 3 million Jews left the Russian Empire over the course of 40 years from 1882. The vast majority (2\u00bd million) went to the United States, the source of the demography of today’s American Jewry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many fled westward to the Austro-Hungarian and German Empires. Both empires were convinced that Russia was trying to dump its Jewish problem on <em>them<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although antisemitism was a feature of these empires, their pogroms were not the same as those which had occurred in Russia. However, between not wanting the Jews and being convinced this was an intentional Russian policy, the Empires withdrew credit lines to Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eventually the pogroms moved from Eastern Europe to Central Europe, and then Western Europe. It happened at different times and in different ways, but it happened systematically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These events were the beginning of 60 years: not just of the steady emptying out from Europe of Jews, but of “the conscious, wilful, purposeful, systematic making of Europe literally uninhabitable to Jews.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the 1920s the Romanians forbade or severely limited Jewish access to higher education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1938 Poland passed a law stripping Jews who hadn’t lived in Poland for the previous five years of their citizenship, to ensure they did not return to Poland. About 17,000 Polish Jews were rounded up by the Nazis, who demanded the Poles take them back. The Poles confined them to a concentration camp until they were murdered at the beginning of World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Immigration… and then there were the Jews<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From about 1880 to 1920 massive immigration into the United States occurred from Ireland, Italy, Poland, Hungary, and Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Non-Jewish emigr\u00e9s usually sent young men ahead to establish themselves. Only thendid the families arrive – one, five or even 10 years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Jews were fleeing; they came as families. No one arrived ahead of them. Jewish organisations, established by the American Jewish community, desperately tried to help these people. The existing community was about a quarter million Jews, mostly German speakers, many who had settled in the Midwest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, between 1908 and 1925, many of these immigrants returned to Europe – 57% of Italians, 40% of Poles, 64% of Hungarians, 67% of Romanians, and 55% of Russians. Among the Jews, the figure was just 5%. For the Jews, there was no better life than in America, even if it wasn’t much better than what they’d left in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A significant factor for these returnees was an economic crash – the ‘Panic of 1907’. Consequently, there weren’t many jobs for people who didn’t speak good English, have family connections, or have higher education. Immigrants couldn’t move up the social ladder in America in the immediate aftermath of 1907.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Quotas sealed the fate of the Jews<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The actions of the Western world that sealed the fate of European Jewry were the imposition of immigration quotas. As the Jews fled westwards, the European nations systematically closed entrance to the Jews, literally making their lives untenable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1921, the United States Congress passed the<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Emergency_Quota_Act\"><em> Emergency Quota Ac<\/em><\/a><em>t <\/em>(Quota Act). The Americans had been trying since 1910 to slow Jewish immigration to America. The pressure on the Jews kept increasing to a point of intensity during the Russian Civil War (1918 to 1921). Every party to the civil war – Mensheviks, Bolsheviks, White Russians, Red Russians, Ukrainian nationalists – massacred Jews when they came to Jewish villages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Estimates of Jews murdered during the Civil War who were not combatants range from 100,000 to 150,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1921 over 120,000 Jews arrived in New York harbour, whereafter Congress passed the <em>Emergency <\/em><em>Quota Act<\/em>, which imposed quotas by nationality. The definition of nationality was engineered to exclude Jews. In 1924, Congress passed this Act; consequently, the number of Jews immigrating to the US was reduced from about 120,000<em> per annum<\/em> to 10,000 <em>per annum<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By 1934, just 2,700 made it into America, while Hitler had come to power in 1933.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the urgency for the Jews escalated, the West closed its doors – America, Canada, Britain, France, Argentina, Brazil, Australia. Essentially, Jews were being corralled into the Holocaust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Genocide made in…..[insert the country of your choice]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Nazis planned and committed genocide, but were not successful in the places where locals did not collaborate. Those Jews who didn’t naturally assimilate into the culture of the countries they were living in, and who lived apart, were exterminated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1944 the Hungarian government joined the Nazi effort to destroy the Jews. The Nazis asked for the Jews, and the Hungarians put about 430,000 Jews on trains and transported them to Auschwitz.They were all rural, Yiddish speakers from the provinces. The middle-class Budapest Jews were <em>not<\/em> shipped off to Auschwitz, because this was distasteful to the Hungarian government: horrifying: a culpability that it didn’t want to face. These urban Jews created a discomfort: they looked too much like Hungarians. The Jews of Budapest <em>survive<\/em><em>d<\/em> the war in Hungary; the Jews of the provinces – the Yiddish speakers, the ultra-orthodox did not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Greeks shipped off the Jews of Salonica and Rhodes, but not of Athens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/story\/75th-anniversary-of-the-lithuanian-holocaust\">Lithuania<\/a> was an example of where the social distance didn’t matter. By virtue of the devoted collaboration of local Nazi sympathisers, between 90% and 95% of the Lithuanian Jewish population were murdered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Holocaust_in_the_Netherlands\">Netherlands<\/a>, with the assistance of Dutch state institutions, some 75% of Dutch Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was the culmination of six decades of a Europe-wide cultural, political, and psychosocial destruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Little change after WWII<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The fundamental Jewish experience didn’t change after the War. The quotas were not lifted. After the war, 250,000 Jews remained behind barbed wire in a network of displaced persons\u2019 camps, formerly concentration and extermination camps. Truman begged Congress, unsuccessfully, to lift the quotas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There were no longer millions of Jews left anymore. In 1939 there were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/short-reads\/2015\/02\/09\/europes-jewish-population\/#:~:text=In%201939,%20there%20were%2016.6,the%20world's%2011%20million%20Jews.\">9.5 million European Jews<\/a>, 57% of world Jewry. By the end of the War, there were 3 million – the last vestiges of a decimated Jewish world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the immediate aftermath of the war there were about 15 million displaced persons (DPs), and almost all found a way to return home. A DP was someone with nowhere to go, either because they’d be killed if they returned, or because nobody would take them. For example, although <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iwm.org.uk\/history\/the-liberation-of-bergen-belsen\"><em>Bergen-Belsen<\/em><\/a> was liberated on 15 April 1945, Jewish DPs were still there in 1947.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>About eight months after the War ended, there were about a million displaced people left. They included Nazi collaborators in places now overrun by the Red Army. A quarter of the million remaining displaced people were Jews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So the US and Britain founded the ‘International Refugee Organisation’ (IRO) comprising about 40 countries. The IRO sent representatives from member states – generally from the West – to these camps to interview DPs to come to their countries to help rebuild economies shattered by the war. Tens of millions of workers had just been killed in the War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1946 these countries absorbed and naturalised 750,000 DPs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The camps only emptied out with the founding of Israel in 1948. Probably a quarter of the Jews who fought the War of Independence in 1948 were DPs. Their experience of World War II was the experience of the new Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Truman appointed <a href=\"https:\/\/encyclopedia.ushmm.org\/content\/en\/article\/the-harrison-report\">Earl G Harrison<\/a>, the dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s Law School, to visit the DP camps to find solutions to resolve the Jewish DP problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Harrison asked Jews, through surveys, to rank the five places they wanted to go to, from most to least. For about 90%, the first choice was “Palestine”, and for about 90%, the second choice was also “Palestine”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Annoyed at this apparent lack of understanding, Harrison asked if not Palestine, where would they want to go? About 20% wrote “gas chambers” or “crematoria”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was not about Zionism, neither ideological nor practical. For a soldier to be an Israel Defence Force soldier after three years in Bergen-Belsen, after surviving the Holocaust, and after knowing that his parents and grandparents lived through the six decades from 1882, is what the founding of Israel was mostly about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was Zionism, not as an ideological construct, but as lived experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Zionism as an ideology simply means a movement to recreate a Jewish presence in Israel. \u201cZion\u201d is a Hebrew term that refers to Jerusalem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Zionism is an ideology and much more importantly, a place of refuge. Having taken over the mantle of determining what to do with the conflict when the British gave up the mandate, the United Nations proposed the creation of two states. Israel accepted and declared independence. The Arab states did not. The United Nations accepted Israel as a nation state. The delegitimisation of Israel is genocide by other means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>[Image: <\/em><em><a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/users\/ri_ya-12911237\/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=5079658\">Ri Butov<\/a> from <a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=5079658\">Pixabay<\/a><\/em><em>]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>If you like what you have just read, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/fund-us\/\">support<\/a><em> the Daily Friend<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To try to explain the history of the Israel\/Palestinian conflict is extremely difficult. It’s long, complicated and replete with decades of propaganda aimed at delegitimising<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":48386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"coauthors":[103],"class_list":["post-48385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Debunking a libel: Israel is not a colonial-settler project - Daily Friend<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/debunking-a-libel-israel-is-not-a-colonial-settler-project\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Debunking a libel: Israel is not a colonial-settler project - Daily Friend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"To try to explain the history of the Israel\/Palestinian conflict is extremely difficult. It’s long, complicated and replete with decades of propaganda aimed at delegitimising\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/debunking-a-libel-israel-is-not-a-colonial-settler-project\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Daily Friend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/irrsouthafrica\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-12-15T02:05:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-12-14T13:01:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/jerusalem-5079658_1920.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1603\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1092\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sara Gon\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@DailyFriendSA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@DailyFriendSA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sara Gon\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"12 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/debunking-a-libel-israel-is-not-a-colonial-settler-project\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/debunking-a-libel-israel-is-not-a-colonial-settler-project\/\",\"name\":\"Debunking a libel: Israel is not a colonial-settler project - Daily Friend\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/debunking-a-libel-israel-is-not-a-colonial-settler-project\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/debunking-a-libel-israel-is-not-a-colonial-settler-project\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/jerusalem-5079658_1920.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-12-15T02:05:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-12-14T13:01:28+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/41f0ec4bbcff7f6312e6d434f2663380\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/debunking-a-libel-israel-is-not-a-colonial-settler-project\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/debunking-a-libel-israel-is-not-a-colonial-settler-project\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/debunking-a-libel-israel-is-not-a-colonial-settler-project\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/jerusalem-5079658_1920.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/jerusalem-5079658_1920.jpg\",\"width\":1603,\"height\":1092},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/debunking-a-libel-israel-is-not-a-colonial-settler-project\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Debunking a libel: Israel is not a colonial-settler project\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/\",\"name\":\"Daily Friend\",\"description\":\"The Fastest Growing Liberal News Site in South Africa\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/41f0ec4bbcff7f6312e6d434f2663380\",\"name\":\"Sara Gon\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/90ada18bfb360571c70b53402874bde8\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Gon-Sara4-Official-TDF-150x146.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Gon-Sara4-Official-TDF-150x146.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Sara Gon\"},\"description\":\"Rants professionally to rail against the illiberalism of everything. Broke out of 17 years in law to pursue a classical music passion by managing the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra and more. Working with composer Karl Jenkins was a treat. Used to camping in the middle of nowhere. Have 2 sons who have inherited a fair amount of \\\"rant-ability\\\" themselves.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/author\/sara-gon\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Debunking a libel: Israel is not a colonial-settler project - Daily Friend","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/debunking-a-libel-israel-is-not-a-colonial-settler-project\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Debunking a libel: Israel is not a colonial-settler project - Daily Friend","og_description":"To try to explain the history of the Israel\/Palestinian conflict is extremely difficult. It’s long, complicated and replete with decades of propaganda aimed at delegitimising","og_url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/debunking-a-libel-israel-is-not-a-colonial-settler-project\/","og_site_name":"Daily Friend","article_publisher":"http:\/\/irrsouthafrica","article_published_time":"2024-12-15T02:05:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-12-14T13:01:28+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1603,"height":1092,"url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/jerusalem-5079658_1920.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Sara Gon","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@DailyFriendSA","twitter_site":"@DailyFriendSA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Sara Gon","Est. reading time":"12 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/debunking-a-libel-israel-is-not-a-colonial-settler-project\/","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/debunking-a-libel-israel-is-not-a-colonial-settler-project\/","name":"Debunking a libel: Israel is not a colonial-settler project - Daily Friend","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/debunking-a-libel-israel-is-not-a-colonial-settler-project\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/debunking-a-libel-israel-is-not-a-colonial-settler-project\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/jerusalem-5079658_1920.jpg","datePublished":"2024-12-15T02:05:00+00:00","dateModified":"2024-12-14T13:01:28+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/41f0ec4bbcff7f6312e6d434f2663380"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/debunking-a-libel-israel-is-not-a-colonial-settler-project\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/debunking-a-libel-israel-is-not-a-colonial-settler-project\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/debunking-a-libel-israel-is-not-a-colonial-settler-project\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/jerusalem-5079658_1920.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/jerusalem-5079658_1920.jpg","width":1603,"height":1092},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/debunking-a-libel-israel-is-not-a-colonial-settler-project\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Debunking a libel: Israel is not a colonial-settler project"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/","name":"Daily Friend","description":"The Fastest Growing Liberal News Site in South Africa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/41f0ec4bbcff7f6312e6d434f2663380","name":"Sara Gon","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/90ada18bfb360571c70b53402874bde8","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Gon-Sara4-Official-TDF-150x146.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Gon-Sara4-Official-TDF-150x146.jpg","caption":"Sara Gon"},"description":"Rants professionally to rail against the illiberalism of everything. Broke out of 17 years in law to pursue a classical music passion by managing the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra and more. Working with composer Karl Jenkins was a treat. Used to camping in the middle of nowhere. Have 2 sons who have inherited a fair amount of \"rant-ability\" themselves.","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/author\/sara-gon\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48385"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=48385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":48383,"date":"2024-12-15T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-15T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?p=48383"},"modified":"2024-12-14T14:58:55","modified_gmt":"2024-12-14T12:58:55","slug":"alarm-sounded-over-microbe-research-risks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/alarm-sounded-over-microbe-research-risks\/","title":{"rendered":"Alarm sounded over microbe research risks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Bacteria research based on constructing mirror images of molecules found in nature could put humans, animals and plants at risk of lethal infections, leading scientists have warned.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to <em>The Guardian<\/em>, the scientists have called for a halt on research to create \u201cmirror life\u201d microbes, amid concerns that the synthetic organisms would present an \u201cunprecedented risk\u201d to life on Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The international group of Nobel laureates and other experts warns that mirror bacteria, constructed from mirror images of molecules found in nature, could become established in the environment and slip past the immune defences of natural organisms, putting humans, animals and plants at risk of lethal infections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Among the scientists are Dr Craig Venter, the US scientist who led the private effort to sequence the human genome in the 1990s, and the Nobel laureates Professor Greg Winter at the University of Cambridge and Professor Jack Szostak at the University of Chicago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The Guardian<\/em>\u2019s science editor, Ian Sample, writes that although a viable mirror microbe would probably take at least a decade to build, a new risk assessment raised such serious concerns about the organisms that the 38-strong group has urged scientists to stop work towards the goal, and asked funders to make clear they will no longer support the research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The newspaper quotes Professor Vaughn Cooper, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Pittsburgh, as saying: \u201c\u201cThe threat we\u2019re talking about is unprecedented. Mirror bacteria would likely evade many human, animal and plant immune system responses and in each case would cause lethal infections that would spread without check.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>[Image: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pikist.com\/free-photo\">https:\/\/www.pikist.com\/free-photo<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bacteria research based on constructing mirror images of molecules found in nature could put humans, animals and plants at risk of lethal infections, leading scientists<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":48384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"coauthors":[94],"class_list":["post-48383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Alarm sounded over microbe research risks - Daily Friend<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/alarm-sounded-over-microbe-research-risks\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Alarm sounded over microbe research risks - Daily Friend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bacteria research based on constructing mirror images of molecules found in nature could put humans, animals and plants at risk of lethal infections, leading scientists\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/alarm-sounded-over-microbe-research-risks\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Daily Friend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/irrsouthafrica\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-12-15T02:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-12-14T12:58:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/microbe.pikist.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2287\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1476\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Staff Writer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@DailyFriendSA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@DailyFriendSA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Staff Writer\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/alarm-sounded-over-microbe-research-risks\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/alarm-sounded-over-microbe-research-risks\/\",\"name\":\"Alarm sounded over microbe research risks - Daily Friend\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/alarm-sounded-over-microbe-research-risks\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/alarm-sounded-over-microbe-research-risks\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/microbe.pikist.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-12-15T02:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-12-14T12:58:55+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/206e9c5fa593a441786c5a1cc14a94ce\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/alarm-sounded-over-microbe-research-risks\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/alarm-sounded-over-microbe-research-risks\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/alarm-sounded-over-microbe-research-risks\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/microbe.pikist.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/microbe.pikist.jpg\",\"width\":2287,\"height\":1476},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/alarm-sounded-over-microbe-research-risks\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Alarm sounded over microbe research risks\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/\",\"name\":\"Daily Friend\",\"description\":\"The Fastest Growing Liberal News Site in South Africa\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/206e9c5fa593a441786c5a1cc14a94ce\",\"name\":\"Staff Writer\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/9f2c156342d8d817d5e75dfc9c6a1a2e\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/staff-writer-150x150.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/staff-writer-150x150.png\",\"caption\":\"Staff Writer\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/author\/staff-writer\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Alarm sounded over microbe research risks - Daily Friend","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/alarm-sounded-over-microbe-research-risks\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Alarm sounded over microbe research risks - Daily Friend","og_description":"Bacteria research based on constructing mirror images of molecules found in nature could put humans, animals and plants at risk of lethal infections, leading scientists","og_url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/alarm-sounded-over-microbe-research-risks\/","og_site_name":"Daily Friend","article_publisher":"http:\/\/irrsouthafrica","article_published_time":"2024-12-15T02:00:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-12-14T12:58:55+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2287,"height":1476,"url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/microbe.pikist.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Staff Writer","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@DailyFriendSA","twitter_site":"@DailyFriendSA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Staff Writer","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/alarm-sounded-over-microbe-research-risks\/","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/alarm-sounded-over-microbe-research-risks\/","name":"Alarm sounded over microbe research risks - Daily Friend","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/alarm-sounded-over-microbe-research-risks\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/alarm-sounded-over-microbe-research-risks\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/microbe.pikist.jpg","datePublished":"2024-12-15T02:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2024-12-14T12:58:55+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/206e9c5fa593a441786c5a1cc14a94ce"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/alarm-sounded-over-microbe-research-risks\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/alarm-sounded-over-microbe-research-risks\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/alarm-sounded-over-microbe-research-risks\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/microbe.pikist.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/microbe.pikist.jpg","width":2287,"height":1476},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/15\/alarm-sounded-over-microbe-research-risks\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Alarm sounded over microbe research risks"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/","name":"Daily Friend","description":"The Fastest Growing Liberal News Site in South Africa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/206e9c5fa593a441786c5a1cc14a94ce","name":"Staff Writer","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/9f2c156342d8d817d5e75dfc9c6a1a2e","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/staff-writer-150x150.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/staff-writer-150x150.png","caption":"Staff Writer"},"url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/author\/staff-writer\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48383"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=48383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":48381,"date":"2024-12-14T12:33:40","date_gmt":"2024-12-14T10:33:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?p=48381"},"modified":"2024-12-14T12:33:40","modified_gmt":"2024-12-14T10:33:40","slug":"new-bee-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/new-bee-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"New BEE laws"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/TDF_250_EquityAmendmentAct-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-48382\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/TDF_250_EquityAmendmentAct-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/TDF_250_EquityAmendmentAct-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/TDF_250_EquityAmendmentAct-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/TDF_250_EquityAmendmentAct-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/TDF_250_EquityAmendmentAct-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/TDF_250_EquityAmendmentAct-250x250.jpg 250w, https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/TDF_250_EquityAmendmentAct-400x400.jpg 400w, https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/TDF_250_EquityAmendmentAct-780x780.jpg 780w, https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/TDF_250_EquityAmendmentAct-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/TDF_250_EquityAmendmentAct.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":48382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[],"coauthors":[180],"class_list":["post-48381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cartoons"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>New BEE laws - Daily Friend<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/new-bee-laws\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New BEE laws - Daily Friend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/new-bee-laws\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Daily Friend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/irrsouthafrica\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-12-14T10:33:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/TDF_250_EquityAmendmentAct.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"David Doubell\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@DailyFriendSA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@DailyFriendSA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"David Doubell\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/new-bee-laws\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/new-bee-laws\/\",\"name\":\"New BEE laws - Daily Friend\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/new-bee-laws\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/new-bee-laws\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/TDF_250_EquityAmendmentAct.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-12-14T10:33:40+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-12-14T10:33:40+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/f1c2481a835fd2300c5d82aeb7810847\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/new-bee-laws\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/new-bee-laws\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/new-bee-laws\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/TDF_250_EquityAmendmentAct.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/TDF_250_EquityAmendmentAct.jpg\",\"width\":2000,\"height\":2000},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/new-bee-laws\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"New BEE laws\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/\",\"name\":\"Daily Friend\",\"description\":\"The Fastest Growing Liberal News Site in South Africa\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/f1c2481a835fd2300c5d82aeb7810847\",\"name\":\"David Doubell\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/732b8f8f20987bade59bfcac87440ecf\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/DavidD2-100x150-1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/DavidD2-100x150-1.jpg\",\"caption\":\"David Doubell\"},\"description\":\"David is an Executive Creative Director by day and a Toonist by night. He has been in the design and advertising world, from the time of the Macintosh IIsi. Since then lots of things have changed, the colour of his hair and the Mac he uses, but some things have stayed the same, like the love of design, and cartoons. When not designing, you\u2019ll find him doodling and on rare occasions having a cold beer or two.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/author\/mariusirr-org-za\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"New BEE laws - Daily Friend","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/new-bee-laws\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"New BEE laws - Daily Friend","og_url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/new-bee-laws\/","og_site_name":"Daily Friend","article_publisher":"http:\/\/irrsouthafrica","article_published_time":"2024-12-14T10:33:40+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2000,"height":2000,"url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/TDF_250_EquityAmendmentAct.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"David Doubell","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@DailyFriendSA","twitter_site":"@DailyFriendSA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"David Doubell","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/new-bee-laws\/","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/new-bee-laws\/","name":"New BEE laws - Daily Friend","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/new-bee-laws\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/new-bee-laws\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/TDF_250_EquityAmendmentAct.jpg","datePublished":"2024-12-14T10:33:40+00:00","dateModified":"2024-12-14T10:33:40+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/f1c2481a835fd2300c5d82aeb7810847"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/new-bee-laws\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/new-bee-laws\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/new-bee-laws\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/TDF_250_EquityAmendmentAct.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/TDF_250_EquityAmendmentAct.jpg","width":2000,"height":2000},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/new-bee-laws\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"New BEE laws"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/","name":"Daily Friend","description":"The Fastest Growing Liberal News Site in South Africa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/f1c2481a835fd2300c5d82aeb7810847","name":"David Doubell","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/732b8f8f20987bade59bfcac87440ecf","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/DavidD2-100x150-1.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/DavidD2-100x150-1.jpg","caption":"David Doubell"},"description":"David is an Executive Creative Director by day and a Toonist by night. He has been in the design and advertising world, from the time of the Macintosh IIsi. Since then lots of things have changed, the colour of his hair and the Mac he uses, but some things have stayed the same, like the love of design, and cartoons. When not designing, you\u2019ll find him doodling and on rare occasions having a cold beer or two.","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/author\/mariusirr-org-za\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48381"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=48381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":48380,"date":"2024-12-14T04:15:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-14T02:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?p=48380"},"modified":"2024-12-13T15:47:53","modified_gmt":"2024-12-13T13:47:53","slug":"rethinking-sas-history-curriculum-an-open-letter-to-minister-siviwe-gwarube","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/rethinking-sas-history-curriculum-an-open-letter-to-minister-siviwe-gwarube\/","title":{"rendered":"Rethinking SA\u2019s history curriculum: An open letter to Minister Siviwe Gwarube"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Dear Minister Siviwe Gwarube,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to you with a deep and sincere concern regarding the way in which the history of South Africa is being taught in schools today.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the Minister responsible for shaping the educational landscape in our country, you hold the power to influence how future generations understand our country\u2019s shared past, and how they view one another. It is for this reason that I urge you to reconsider how we are teaching the history of our country, particularly the period of colonisation, conquest, and the birth of modern South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the current curriculum, European colonisation is presented as a narrative of unprovoked, inherent evil, with the Dutch, British, and other colonisers depicted as the sole perpetrators of the systemic exploitation and oppression of African peoples. While these actions and their consequences are undeniably tragic, I believe that this one-sided portrayal does a disservice to both our history and our ability to heal as a nation. By neglecting the broader context of history, which includes the similar actions carried out by pre-colonial African kingdoms, we risk fostering division, resentment, and a distorted understanding of what truly transpired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>South Africa\u2019s history of conquest, empire-building, and state formation did not begin with the arrival of Europeans in the 17th century. Rather, these processes have been a consistent part of human history for millennia, across all continents, cultures, and peoples. This is why the present approach to history education – one that isolates European colonisation as a uniquely evil occurrence – becomes problematic. By framing history solely through the lens of white colonisation and apartheid, we exclude the broader pattern of conquest and empire-building that was the order of the day, not only in Africa but in every corner of the globe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is therefore not only necessary, but urgent, that we reconsider how we teach our children about the history of this country. I propose that we adopt a more balanced approach – one that presents the full history of South Africa, considering both the indigenous conquests by African kingdoms and the subsequent arrival of Europeans. This will allow for a deeper, more complex understanding of the forces that shaped the South Africa we know today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Zulu and Pedi Kingdoms: Conquests within Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To begin with, let us examine the rise of two of South Africa\u2019s most prominent kingdoms: the Zulu and the Bapedi (Sekhukhune) kingdoms. These two kingdoms are often celebrated as symbols of African pride, resilience, and unity. They are lauded for their ability to resist European colonisation, and their histories are integral to the broader narrative of African resistance to foreign domination. However, what is often overlooked is that both the Zulu and Bapedi kingdoms came into existence through conquest, violence, and the subjugation of other peoples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Take the example of Shaka Zulu, the founder of the Zulu Kingdom, and one of the most well-known figures in South African history. Shaka’s rise to power was marked by extreme violence and the expansion of his kingdom through the forced displacement and destruction of smaller neighbouring communities. The Mfecane or \u2018Crushing\u2019 was a period of immense upheaval in southern Africa, which began during Shaka\u2019s reign. The Zulu expansion resulted in the forced migration of many communities, including the Ndwandwe, Mthethwa, and Qwabe peoples, who were either defeated in battle or displaced from their land. Thousands lost their lives, and entire communities were destroyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shaka\u2019s conquests were not the exception, but the norm in pre-colonial Africa. In fact, many African kingdoms grew through violent territorial expansion. Conquest, empire-building, and the subjugation of other peoples were widespread practices throughout Africa long before the first European ships arrived on the southern tip of the continent. Shaka\u2019s successors, including Dingane and Cetshwayo, continued the legacy of conquest, further expanding the Zulu Kingdom by force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Similarly, the rise of the Bapedi Kingdom under King Sekhukhune also involved the conquest of neighbouring groups. Sekhukhune’s kingdom expanded through violent means, subjugating smaller groups. Like Shaka, Sekhukhune employed military might and forceful diplomacy to bring various groups under his rule. This is a critical aspect of South Africa\u2019s history that is often overlooked in contemporary discussions, yet it is essential to understanding the broader patterns of power struggles that have always shaped the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When we examine the histories of the Zulu and Bapedi kingdoms, it becomes apparent that these empires, which are often presented as noble and pure, were built on conquest and violence. This is not to diminish their significance or the accomplishments of these kingdoms, but to highlight the reality that these kingdoms were, in many ways, no different from the European colonisers in their methods of empire-building. The primary difference lies in the race of the people involved in the conquest – European colonisers were white, while the leaders of the Zulu and Bapedi kingdoms were African. This distinction in skin colour should not be the sole factor in determining whether or not a conquest is deemed just or unjust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Inconsistency of History Education<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is both illogical and inconsistent to celebrate the conquests of the Zulu and Bapedi kingdoms while simultaneously condemning the conquests of European colonisers. Both were acts of empire-building, both resulted in the subjugation and displacement of other peoples, and both involved the use of violence. The key difference is the race of the conquerors, but why should race alone determine whether an act of conquest is considered just or unjust?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When we uphold African kingdoms like the Zulu and Bapedi as models of pride and resistance, while condemning European colonisation as inherently evil, we are not only presenting an incomplete picture of history, but we are also contributing to a false dichotomy between \u201cgood\u201d Africans and \u201cevil\u201d Europeans. This dichotomy is dangerous. It risks fostering a mindset that views white South Africans as the inheritors of a legacy of theft and exploitation, while portraying all Africans as innocent victims of history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The consequence of this one-sided approach to history education is that it has created a racialised narrative in which white people are demonised for actions that were, in fact, part of the global order of the time. While European colonial powers did indeed introduce uniquely exploitative and racist ideologies, the practice of conquest and empire-building – especially in Africa – was not limited to Europeans. The African kingdoms that we now view with admiration, such as the Zulu and Bapedi, engaged in similar practices of domination and subjugation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By focusing exclusively on the wrongs of European colonisation without providing a broader historical context, we risk perpetuating hatred and division. (I use the word ‘wrongs’ because it’s the closest term, but upon reflecting more deeply and considering the historical context, can we truly call it wrong, or was it simply the way things were done at the time? Societies often conquered others, and this was a standard practice. It can only truly be deemed wrong when viewed through today’s lens, as humanity has made significant progress in how power is acquired and exercised). We risk painting one group of people as inherently evil and the other as inherently good, creating a foundation for racial resentment rather than mutual understanding. This approach not only distorts our history but also perpetuates a dangerous and reductionist view of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Need for a Balanced History Curriculum<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Minister, what South Africa needs is a revision of its history curriculum. Learners must be taught that the history of our country is far more complex than the simplistic narrative currently being presented. They need to understand that European colonisation was not an isolated phenomenon but part of a broader pattern of empire-building that was common to all human societies. They must be taught that the Zulu and Bapedi kingdoms, like European colonial powers, expanded their territories through conquest, violence, and subjugation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is not an attempt to justify or excuse the actions of European colonisers, nor is it an attempt to undermine the histories of African kingdoms. On the contrary, it is an effort to provide a more accurate and nuanced understanding of our history – one that acknowledges the complexity of human behaviour and the norms of the time. It is crucial that learners understand that the practices of empire-building, though harmful, were not exclusive to any one group. This knowledge will enable future generations to view the past with a greater sense of empathy, understanding, and critical thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Furthermore, presenting history as a complex and interconnected web of events will allow us to move beyond racial binaries and the harmful stereotypes that perpetuate division. By teaching the full story of our past, we can empower learners to recognise that no group is inherently good or bad, but that history is shaped by the actions of people, societies, and institutions, all of whom were products of their time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>History Education and Race-Based Politics<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the most concerning consequences of the current history curriculum is how it feeds into race-based political narratives. Political parties like the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) thrive primarily on rhetoric that is anti-white and based on race, feeding off the resentment and division that is perpetuated through the current historical education system. These parties leverage the one-sided narrative of history to mobilise support, often casting white South Africans as the enemy and framing them as the sole perpetrators of injustice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A revision of the history curriculum could play a critical role in weakening the grip of race-based political parties that thrive on division. By presenting a more accurate, comprehensive picture of South Africa\u2019s past – one that acknowledges both the colonisation of African peoples and the empire-building that occurred within the continent – it is possible to foster a new consciousness among the South African people. This consciousness would be rooted in the understanding that the complexities of history are not defined by race but by the human actions of conquest, power struggles, and the pursuit of resources, which transcend skin colour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The path forward for South Africa cannot be one that continues to divide people along racial lines. To truly move forward as a nation, we need a shift in focus – from racial narratives to a focus on how we can rebuild, reconcile, and create a better future for all. The history curriculum plays a key role in shaping that future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Importance of an Inclusive History for Reconciliation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, Minister Gwarube, revising the history curriculum is not merely an academic exercise; it is a vital step toward national reconciliation. A more balanced understanding of South Africa\u2019s past will allow us to break free from the divisions of race and begin to address the deeper structural issues that persist in our society. If we continue to teach history in a way that reinforces racial divides, we risk perpetuating a culture of resentment and conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Teaching history in a way that acknowledges the complexity of both African and European conquests will allow us to confront our shared past without resorting to simplistic moralising. It will give South Africans the tools to understand the forces that shaped our country, and it will provide a foundation for moving beyond the racial divides that continue to shape our politics and society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Minister Siviwe Gwarube, I urge you to take the necessary steps to revise the history curriculum so that future generations can grow up with a more accurate, nuanced, and inclusive understanding of South Africa\u2019s past. By doing so, we will not only heal the wounds of the past, but we will also lay the groundwork for a more united and reconciled future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to seeing the steps your ministry will take in this important regard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sincerely, <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tiego Thotse<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>If you like what you have just read, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/fund-us\/\">support<\/a><em> the Daily Friend<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Minister Siviwe Gwarube, I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to you with a deep and sincere concern regarding the way<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":48362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"coauthors":[255],"class_list":["post-48380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Rethinking SA\u2019s history curriculum: An open letter to Minister Siviwe Gwarube - Daily Friend<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/rethinking-sas-history-curriculum-an-open-letter-to-minister-siviwe-gwarube\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rethinking SA\u2019s history curriculum: An open letter to Minister Siviwe Gwarube - Daily Friend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dear Minister Siviwe Gwarube, I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to you with a deep and sincere concern regarding the way\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/rethinking-sas-history-curriculum-an-open-letter-to-minister-siviwe-gwarube\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Daily Friend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/irrsouthafrica\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-12-14T02:15:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-12-13T13:47:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/history.letter.3.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1142\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tiego Thotse\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@DailyFriendSA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@DailyFriendSA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tiego Thotse\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/rethinking-sas-history-curriculum-an-open-letter-to-minister-siviwe-gwarube\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/rethinking-sas-history-curriculum-an-open-letter-to-minister-siviwe-gwarube\/\",\"name\":\"Rethinking SA\u2019s history curriculum: An open letter to Minister Siviwe Gwarube - Daily Friend\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/rethinking-sas-history-curriculum-an-open-letter-to-minister-siviwe-gwarube\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/rethinking-sas-history-curriculum-an-open-letter-to-minister-siviwe-gwarube\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/history.letter.3.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-12-14T02:15:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-12-13T13:47:53+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/20df708771efef41ebb857e5c1335f3b\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/rethinking-sas-history-curriculum-an-open-letter-to-minister-siviwe-gwarube\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/rethinking-sas-history-curriculum-an-open-letter-to-minister-siviwe-gwarube\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/rethinking-sas-history-curriculum-an-open-letter-to-minister-siviwe-gwarube\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/history.letter.3.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/history.letter.3.jpg\",\"width\":1142,\"height\":720},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/rethinking-sas-history-curriculum-an-open-letter-to-minister-siviwe-gwarube\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Rethinking SA\u2019s history curriculum: An open letter to Minister Siviwe Gwarube\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/\",\"name\":\"Daily Friend\",\"description\":\"The Fastest Growing Liberal News Site in South Africa\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/20df708771efef41ebb857e5c1335f3b\",\"name\":\"Tiego Thotse\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/e85d38246b0b027c6a12c9d98210bf2a\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/tiego-thotse-150x137.jpeg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/tiego-thotse-150x137.jpeg\",\"caption\":\"Tiego Thotse\"},\"description\":\"Tiego Thotse is a retired political activist and former Operations and Advocacy Manager of the Freedom Advocacy Network (FAN), a unit of the Institute of Race Relations. Writing purely from the viewpoint of a concerned South African citizen, Thotse believes that classical liberalism holds the key to rebuilding South Africa.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/author\/tiego-thotse\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Rethinking SA\u2019s history curriculum: An open letter to Minister Siviwe Gwarube - Daily Friend","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/rethinking-sas-history-curriculum-an-open-letter-to-minister-siviwe-gwarube\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Rethinking SA\u2019s history curriculum: An open letter to Minister Siviwe Gwarube - Daily Friend","og_description":"Dear Minister Siviwe Gwarube, I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to you with a deep and sincere concern regarding the way","og_url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/rethinking-sas-history-curriculum-an-open-letter-to-minister-siviwe-gwarube\/","og_site_name":"Daily Friend","article_publisher":"http:\/\/irrsouthafrica","article_published_time":"2024-12-14T02:15:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-12-13T13:47:53+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1142,"height":720,"url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/history.letter.3.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Tiego Thotse","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@DailyFriendSA","twitter_site":"@DailyFriendSA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Tiego Thotse","Est. reading time":"9 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/rethinking-sas-history-curriculum-an-open-letter-to-minister-siviwe-gwarube\/","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/rethinking-sas-history-curriculum-an-open-letter-to-minister-siviwe-gwarube\/","name":"Rethinking SA\u2019s history curriculum: An open letter to Minister Siviwe Gwarube - Daily Friend","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/rethinking-sas-history-curriculum-an-open-letter-to-minister-siviwe-gwarube\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/rethinking-sas-history-curriculum-an-open-letter-to-minister-siviwe-gwarube\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/history.letter.3.jpg","datePublished":"2024-12-14T02:15:00+00:00","dateModified":"2024-12-13T13:47:53+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/20df708771efef41ebb857e5c1335f3b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/rethinking-sas-history-curriculum-an-open-letter-to-minister-siviwe-gwarube\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/rethinking-sas-history-curriculum-an-open-letter-to-minister-siviwe-gwarube\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/rethinking-sas-history-curriculum-an-open-letter-to-minister-siviwe-gwarube\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/history.letter.3.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/history.letter.3.jpg","width":1142,"height":720},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/rethinking-sas-history-curriculum-an-open-letter-to-minister-siviwe-gwarube\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Rethinking SA\u2019s history curriculum: An open letter to Minister Siviwe Gwarube"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/","name":"Daily Friend","description":"The Fastest Growing Liberal News Site in South Africa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/20df708771efef41ebb857e5c1335f3b","name":"Tiego Thotse","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/e85d38246b0b027c6a12c9d98210bf2a","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/tiego-thotse-150x137.jpeg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/tiego-thotse-150x137.jpeg","caption":"Tiego Thotse"},"description":"Tiego Thotse is a retired political activist and former Operations and Advocacy Manager of the Freedom Advocacy Network (FAN), a unit of the Institute of Race Relations. Writing purely from the viewpoint of a concerned South African citizen, Thotse believes that classical liberalism holds the key to rebuilding South Africa.","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/author\/tiego-thotse\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48380"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=48380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":48378,"date":"2024-12-14T04:10:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-14T02:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?p=48378"},"modified":"2024-12-13T15:45:21","modified_gmt":"2024-12-13T13:45:21","slug":"how-south-africa-is-being-destroyed-by-envy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/how-south-africa-is-being-destroyed-by-envy\/","title":{"rendered":"How South Africa is being destroyed by envy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Envy is a quiet but powerful force. It whispers, \u201cIf I cannot have what they have, neither should they.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It hides in the shadows of fairness, pretending to seek justice and equality but leaving destruction in its wake. Imagine a small village where one farmer prospers more than the others. He rises before dawn to tend his fields. He experiments with new seeds and techniques. Over time, his hard work pays off, and his harvests flourish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At first, the neighbours admire him. But as his success grows, so does their envy. Whispers start: \u201cWhy should he have so much more than the rest of us?\u201d The whispers turn to anger. The villagers, convinced his success must have come at their expense, demand that his land and tools be taken and divided among them. They march to his fields, seize his tools, and claim his crops as their own. For a moment, they celebrate their new-found equality. But without the farmer\u2019s knowledge, diligence and hard work, the fields wither. The tools rust. The harvest fails and the village is poorer than before. Yet the people feel a grim satisfaction. The successful man has been brought low, and no one is better off than anyone else. Envy, lurking in the shadows, has claimed another victim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This story mirrors what has happened in South Africa. Envy has become a guiding principle in much of our politics and policymaking, not to inspire progress but to punish success. During Jacob Zuma\u2019s presidency, billions of rands intended to uplift South Africa\u2019s poorest citizens have been looted, redirected into luxury lifestyles, and wasted on corrupt deals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These funds, meant to provide clean water, reliable electricity, functioning schools and decent healthcare, were stolen from the people who needed them most. Communities were left to crumble, their hopes stolen along with the money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet Zuma retained the loyalty of many of those he harmed most. Like the villagers in the story, his supporters were convinced that his wealth was a victory for the group; a way to punish the elites or the so-called oppressors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Tragedy of envy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Zuma\u2019s rhetoric painted him as a man of the people, unfairly targeted by conspiracies and enemies of transformation. His personal enrichment was reframed as an act of resistance. This is the tragedy of envy: it blinds people to the harm being done to them, as long as it satisfies their desire to see others brought low.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The story of the farmer also echoes in South Africa\u2019s broader policies. Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), for instance, was designed to address the injustices of apartheid, but has largely failed to deliver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like the villagers seizing the farmer\u2019s tools, BEE policies often focus on redistributing existing wealth rather than creating new opportunities. Businesses are burdened with compliance requirements that favour a connected few while discouraging investment and innovation. The result is an economy that stagnates, leaving the fields untended and the harvests sparse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The same destructive logic underpins South Africa\u2019s labour laws. These laws, rooted in a suspicion of employers, make it costly and risky to hire or manage employees. This punishes small businesses, which are forced to limit growth or shut down entirely, and locks millions out of formal employment. Instead of encouraging prosperity, these laws assume that success must come at someone else\u2019s expense and seek to limit the assumed plunder and the very success that creates jobs. As in the story, the tools rust, and the fields are left barren.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps the most dangerous manifestation of envy is expropriation without compensation (EWC). Like the villagers demanding the farmer\u2019s land, proponents of EWC believe that taking property from one group and redistributing it to others will create equality. But property rights are the cornerstone of any thriving economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Without them, investment dries up, productivity collapses, and hunger follows. EWC does not uplift the poor; it ensures that everyone suffers equally, leaving South Africa poorer, hungrier, and more divided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Brink of ruin<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Envy has brought South Africa to the brink of ruin, but there is a way forward. As Helmut Schoeck argued in <em>Envy: A Theory of Social Behaviour<\/em>, the antidote to envy is aspiration. A society that celebrates success rather than punishes it can inspire growth, innovation, and prosperity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>South Africa must reject the politics of resentment and embrace policies that protect property rights, reduce burdens on businesses, and reward effort and ingenuity. Only then will the fields be tended again, the tools put to good use, and the harvests restored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Envy destroys, but freedom builds. The choice is ours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>[Image: <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/users\/gdj-1086657\/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=6279957\"><em>Gordon Johnson<\/em><\/a><em> from <a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=6279957\">Pixabay<\/a><\/em><em>]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>If you like what you have just read, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/fund-us\/\">support<\/a><em> the Daily Friend<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Envy is a quiet but powerful force. It whispers, \u201cIf I cannot have what they have, neither should they.\u201d It hides in the shadows of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":48379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"coauthors":[267],"class_list":["post-48378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How South Africa is being destroyed by envy - Daily Friend<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/how-south-africa-is-being-destroyed-by-envy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How South Africa is being destroyed by envy - Daily Friend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Envy is a quiet but powerful force. It whispers, \u201cIf I cannot have what they have, neither should they.\u201d It hides in the shadows of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/how-south-africa-is-being-destroyed-by-envy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Daily Friend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/irrsouthafrica\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-12-14T02:10:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-12-13T13:45:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/cain-6279957_1920.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1855\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1279\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Eustace Davie\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@DailyFriendSA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@DailyFriendSA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Eustace Davie\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/how-south-africa-is-being-destroyed-by-envy\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/how-south-africa-is-being-destroyed-by-envy\/\",\"name\":\"How South Africa is being destroyed by envy - Daily Friend\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/how-south-africa-is-being-destroyed-by-envy\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/how-south-africa-is-being-destroyed-by-envy\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/cain-6279957_1920.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-12-14T02:10:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-12-13T13:45:21+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/77b5d522187f836f6a3de30cc7e3ba98\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/how-south-africa-is-being-destroyed-by-envy\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/how-south-africa-is-being-destroyed-by-envy\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/how-south-africa-is-being-destroyed-by-envy\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/cain-6279957_1920.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/cain-6279957_1920.png\",\"width\":1855,\"height\":1279},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/how-south-africa-is-being-destroyed-by-envy\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"How South Africa is being destroyed by envy\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/\",\"name\":\"Daily Friend\",\"description\":\"The Fastest Growing Liberal News Site in South Africa\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/77b5d522187f836f6a3de30cc7e3ba98\",\"name\":\"Eustace Davie\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/6099a268f31cf9abe33311724e9abeb4\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/eustace-davie-150x150.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/eustace-davie-150x150.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Eustace Davie\"},\"description\":\"Eustace Davie is a Director and Board member of the Free Market Foundation, and author of Unchain the Child: Abolish Compulsory Schooling Laws\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/author\/eustace\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How South Africa is being destroyed by envy - Daily Friend","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/how-south-africa-is-being-destroyed-by-envy\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How South Africa is being destroyed by envy - Daily Friend","og_description":"Envy is a quiet but powerful force. It whispers, \u201cIf I cannot have what they have, neither should they.\u201d It hides in the shadows of","og_url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/how-south-africa-is-being-destroyed-by-envy\/","og_site_name":"Daily Friend","article_publisher":"http:\/\/irrsouthafrica","article_published_time":"2024-12-14T02:10:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-12-13T13:45:21+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1855,"height":1279,"url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/cain-6279957_1920.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Eustace Davie","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@DailyFriendSA","twitter_site":"@DailyFriendSA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Eustace Davie","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/how-south-africa-is-being-destroyed-by-envy\/","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/how-south-africa-is-being-destroyed-by-envy\/","name":"How South Africa is being destroyed by envy - Daily Friend","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/how-south-africa-is-being-destroyed-by-envy\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/how-south-africa-is-being-destroyed-by-envy\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/cain-6279957_1920.png","datePublished":"2024-12-14T02:10:00+00:00","dateModified":"2024-12-13T13:45:21+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/77b5d522187f836f6a3de30cc7e3ba98"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/how-south-africa-is-being-destroyed-by-envy\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/how-south-africa-is-being-destroyed-by-envy\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/how-south-africa-is-being-destroyed-by-envy\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/cain-6279957_1920.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/cain-6279957_1920.png","width":1855,"height":1279},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/how-south-africa-is-being-destroyed-by-envy\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How South Africa is being destroyed by envy"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/","name":"Daily Friend","description":"The Fastest Growing Liberal News Site in South Africa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/77b5d522187f836f6a3de30cc7e3ba98","name":"Eustace Davie","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/6099a268f31cf9abe33311724e9abeb4","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/eustace-davie-150x150.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/eustace-davie-150x150.jpg","caption":"Eustace Davie"},"description":"Eustace Davie is a Director and Board member of the Free Market Foundation, and author of Unchain the Child: Abolish Compulsory Schooling Laws","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/author\/eustace\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48378"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=48378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":48377,"date":"2024-12-14T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-14T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?p=48377"},"modified":"2024-12-13T15:37:33","modified_gmt":"2024-12-13T13:37:33","slug":"crime-major-impediment-to-sas-growth-wellbeing-irr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/crime-major-impediment-to-sas-growth-wellbeing-irr\/","title":{"rendered":"Crime major impediment to SA\u2019s growth, wellbeing \u2013 IRR"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Crime is one of the biggest drags on economic growth and a serious obstacle in the way of South Africa reaching its full potential, says the Institute of Race Relations (IRR).<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Both elements are addressed in the latest paper in the IRR\u2019s <em>Blueprint for Growth<\/em> series, which examine impediments to economic growth and offer solutions to overcoming them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The latest paper \u2013 <em>Solutions to SA\u2019s Crime Crisis to Boost Growth <\/em>\u2013 lays out the current situation, noting that South Africa is one of the world\u2019s most violent countries, with high levels of interpersonal violence. It shows how crime is a quantifiable drag on growth, costing South Africa up to 10% of GDP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/irr.org.za\/media\/crime-key-impediment-to-growth-2013-irr\">statement<\/a>, senior IRR researcher and writer, and author of the new report, Marius Roodt, notes that, along with the serious economic consequences, crime takes a devastating personal toll on South Africans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBehind each recorded murder, rape, or assault, there are people and families whose lives and futures have been ruined. Getting crime under control in South Africa is not only an imperative for economic growth, but also vital if we want South Africans to simply be able to live their lives to the fullest, in safety,\u201d says Roodt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The paper proposes a number of solutions, including legislative reform and allowing greater private sector involvement in finding solutions to the crime crisis. In addition, the paper calls for more policing devolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Says Roodt: \u201cSouth Africa is far too diverse to attempt to centralise policing. The type of policing you need in Kakamas is different from what you need in Alexandra in Gauteng. Decisions cannot be made in Pretoria but need to be made closer to where communities are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Evidence from the Western Cape LEAP programme seems to indicate that where these officers are deployed they have made a positive impact on crime, notes Roodt, underscoring the argument that devolution must be the focus of any broad reform of policing in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDevolution won\u2019t even need significant legislative reform; much devolution can already be done within the current framework,\u201d Roodt says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cGetting crime under control is vital if South Africa is to reach its potential and policing reform will be a key component of this. It is something that can no longer be delayed,\u201d Roodt concludes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read the full report <a href=\"https:\/\/irr.org.za\/reports\/the-irr-blueprint-for-growth\/the-irrs-blueprint-for-growth-solutions-to-sas-crime-crisis-to-boost-growth\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Crime is one of the biggest drags on economic growth and a serious obstacle in the way of South Africa reaching its full potential, says<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":34545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[198,2],"tags":[],"coauthors":[94],"class_list":["post-48377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dispatches","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Crime major impediment to SA\u2019s growth, wellbeing \u2013 IRR - Daily Friend<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/crime-major-impediment-to-sas-growth-wellbeing-irr\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Crime major impediment to SA\u2019s growth, wellbeing \u2013 IRR - Daily Friend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Crime is one of the biggest drags on economic growth and a serious obstacle in the way of South Africa reaching its full potential, says\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/crime-major-impediment-to-sas-growth-wellbeing-irr\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Daily Friend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/irrsouthafrica\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-12-14T02:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-12-13T13:37:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/crime-scene-1-1-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1447\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Staff Writer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@DailyFriendSA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@DailyFriendSA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Staff Writer\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/crime-major-impediment-to-sas-growth-wellbeing-irr\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/crime-major-impediment-to-sas-growth-wellbeing-irr\/\",\"name\":\"Crime major impediment to SA\u2019s growth, wellbeing \u2013 IRR - Daily Friend\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/crime-major-impediment-to-sas-growth-wellbeing-irr\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/crime-major-impediment-to-sas-growth-wellbeing-irr\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/crime-scene-1-1-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-12-14T02:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-12-13T13:37:33+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/206e9c5fa593a441786c5a1cc14a94ce\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/crime-major-impediment-to-sas-growth-wellbeing-irr\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/crime-major-impediment-to-sas-growth-wellbeing-irr\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/crime-major-impediment-to-sas-growth-wellbeing-irr\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/crime-scene-1-1-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/crime-scene-1-1-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1447},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/crime-major-impediment-to-sas-growth-wellbeing-irr\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Crime major impediment to SA\u2019s growth, wellbeing \u2013 IRR\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/\",\"name\":\"Daily Friend\",\"description\":\"The Fastest Growing Liberal News Site in South Africa\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/206e9c5fa593a441786c5a1cc14a94ce\",\"name\":\"Staff Writer\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/9f2c156342d8d817d5e75dfc9c6a1a2e\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/staff-writer-150x150.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/staff-writer-150x150.png\",\"caption\":\"Staff Writer\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/author\/staff-writer\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Crime major impediment to SA\u2019s growth, wellbeing \u2013 IRR - Daily Friend","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/crime-major-impediment-to-sas-growth-wellbeing-irr\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Crime major impediment to SA\u2019s growth, wellbeing \u2013 IRR - Daily Friend","og_description":"Crime is one of the biggest drags on economic growth and a serious obstacle in the way of South Africa reaching its full potential, says","og_url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/crime-major-impediment-to-sas-growth-wellbeing-irr\/","og_site_name":"Daily Friend","article_publisher":"http:\/\/irrsouthafrica","article_published_time":"2024-12-14T02:00:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-12-13T13:37:33+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2560,"height":1447,"url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/crime-scene-1-1-scaled.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Staff Writer","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@DailyFriendSA","twitter_site":"@DailyFriendSA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Staff Writer","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/crime-major-impediment-to-sas-growth-wellbeing-irr\/","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/crime-major-impediment-to-sas-growth-wellbeing-irr\/","name":"Crime major impediment to SA\u2019s growth, wellbeing \u2013 IRR - Daily Friend","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/crime-major-impediment-to-sas-growth-wellbeing-irr\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/crime-major-impediment-to-sas-growth-wellbeing-irr\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/crime-scene-1-1-scaled.jpg","datePublished":"2024-12-14T02:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2024-12-13T13:37:33+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/206e9c5fa593a441786c5a1cc14a94ce"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/crime-major-impediment-to-sas-growth-wellbeing-irr\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/crime-major-impediment-to-sas-growth-wellbeing-irr\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/crime-major-impediment-to-sas-growth-wellbeing-irr\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/crime-scene-1-1-scaled.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/crime-scene-1-1-scaled.jpg","width":2560,"height":1447},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/14\/crime-major-impediment-to-sas-growth-wellbeing-irr\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Crime major impediment to SA\u2019s growth, wellbeing \u2013 IRR"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/","name":"Daily Friend","description":"The Fastest Growing Liberal News Site in South Africa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/206e9c5fa593a441786c5a1cc14a94ce","name":"Staff Writer","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/9f2c156342d8d817d5e75dfc9c6a1a2e","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/staff-writer-150x150.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/staff-writer-150x150.png","caption":"Staff Writer"},"url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/author\/staff-writer\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48377"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=48377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":48373,"date":"2024-12-13T04:10:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-13T02:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?p=48373"},"modified":"2024-12-13T13:11:04","modified_gmt":"2024-12-13T11:11:04","slug":"government-took-the-foreign-owned-spaza-shop-bait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/government-took-the-foreign-owned-spaza-shop-bait\/","title":{"rendered":"Government took the foreign-owned spaza shop bait"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Food at spaza shops is likely being poisoned. President Cyril Ramaphosa\u2019s response is exactly what would-be poisoners would have wanted.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today is the deadline for all spaza shops who wish to continue operating to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.polity.org.za\/article\/govt-urges-spaza-shop-owners-to-register-businesses-before-deadline-2024-12-12\">register with their respective municipalities<\/a>. This requirement is over and above the usual company registration and business permits that are required in the ordinary course of formal operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Spaza shops have been part of the informal business landscape for decades. It is where millions of people buy affordable groceries and household items. Thousands of entrepreneurs operate these shops, forming the backbone of the township economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In September 2024, out of the blue, hundreds of people \u2013 primarily children \u2013 began to get sick, and a couple of dozen died, after consuming food bought from spaza shops and street vendors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All of the reported incidents that I have seen involve foreign-owned spaza shops. And all of them involved either <a href=\"https:\/\/pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/compound\/terbufos\">terbufos<\/a>, an organophosphate insecticide used in agriculture, or a mystery contaminant. These contaminants were discovered not only on the outside of food packaging, but inside packets of chips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What changed? Did spaza shop owners all over the country suddenly decide to get reckless with food safety? Did they plant the poison inside the chips packets? Did they suddenly decide, all at the same time, that killing customers makes business sense?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Or is there another explanation for the sudden increase in outbreaks of food-related poisonings involving foreign-owned spaza shops?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Official story<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>President Ramaphosa, in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fZgMZMHi5yQ\">addressing the issue last month<\/a>, said that problems were not limited to foreign-owned spaza shops, but were widespread. He spoke of food-borne illnesses, although it wasn\u2019t about biological pathogens such as listeria, botulism or salmonella, but about food poisoned with agricultural chemicals. He said that investigations did not suggest a deliberate campaign to poison children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The problem, he said, is that shop owners store prohibited insecticides that are used to control rodents in townships right next to foodstuffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why they all started doing that in September, he left as a homework exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Johannesburg officials and police raided spaza shops eleven days later, they <a href=\"https:\/\/www.trtafrika.com\/africa\/food-poisoning-south-africa-spaza-shops-raided-shut-down-18236663\">targeted only foreign-owned shops<\/a>, and discovered \u201cexpired food items and non-labelled goods\u201d, but no poisoned packets of chips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead of issuing fines, which one might expect in such cases, they shut every single one of the raided spaza shops down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Poisoning theory<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr Cloete van Vuuren, an infectious disease specialist from the University of the Free State, doesn\u2019t buy the explanation that it\u2019s merely about poor food safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He noted that the deaths occurred very quickly, which suggests that the victims ingested substantial doses of pesticide, which is unlikely to happen after accidental contamination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhat seems to be happening here is food that is contaminated with poison, with an organophosphate,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/sundayworld.co.za\/news\/spaza-food-is-being-deliberately-contaminated-ufs-specialist\/\">he told <em>Sunday World<\/em><\/a>. \u201cContamination is accidental if it happens in small amounts, and you would have a case here and there. In this instance, we have a huge number of children simultaneously being poisoned in certain places over a wide area and they are exposed to very high doses of organophosphate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He added: \u201cSpaza shop owners won\u2019t poison their customers. The concern here is that there are outside forces involved. People argue that most spaza shop owners are foreigners and people do not want foreigners to trade. They poison their stock, children get poisoned and their shops close. That might be an underlying explanation. It is unlikely that the doses that the children are exposed to, and the number of deaths is purely accidental. This is not a medical food-borne outbreak. Somebody is deliberately contaminating food that is sold at spaza shops to discredit spaza shops to get them to close. Police need to investigate this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Pull the other one<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Is Van Vuuren\u2019s story more farfetched than the president\u2019s claim that these incidents were just accidental and weren\u2019t targeted at foreign-owned spaza shops?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People have been selling and using dodgy pesticides forever. All you need to do is ask around, and you\u2019ll soon get your hands on a bunch of nasty poisons like terbufos or aldicarb (colloquially known as \u201cTwo Step\u201d, for the number of steps a poisoned animal supposedly takes after consuming it). Although it is illegal to sell these poisons to consumers, and they are not registered for domestic use, they are routinely used for the control of pest animals. Burglars also use them to poison dogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And yet despite widespread availability for decades, we are to believe that spaza shops only started mishandling these substances a few months ago?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pull the other one. I don\u2019t believe it. The targeted poisoning theory is almost certainly correct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bureaucratic mess<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The government\u2019s reponse, absurdly, involves requiring all spaza shops to register with their municipalities in less than a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although the deadline is today, the registration campaign is an entirely predictable (and predicted) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sowetanlive.co.za\/news\/2024-12-06-spaza-owners-say-deadline-too-tight\/\">bureaucratic mess<\/a>. Last week, it was reported that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ewn.co.za\/2024\/12\/07\/over-51-000-spaza-shops-registered-in-sa-so-far\">51,000 spaza shops had been registered<\/a> so far, but there are hundreds of thousands of spaza shops, tuck shops and general dealers in the country. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bt\/business-and-economy\/2024-12-08-tiger-brands-eyes-growth-through-spaza-shops\/\">Tiger Brands alone<\/a> deals with 91,000, and plans to add 150,000 more to its network.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Department of Small Business Development will helpfully deploy a national online registration platform by January 2025, a month after the registration deadline. Nobody appears to have noticed the problem with this arrangement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An organisation representing foreign shop owners has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-za\/news\/other\/extend-deadline-by-six-months-foreign-spaza-shop-owners-plead-with-ramaphosa-for-more-time\/ar-AA1vwNJ5\">begged the government<\/a> for a six-month extension of the deadline, which seems entirely reasonable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Illegal immigrants<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While legal immigrants in possession of a business visa, an asylum seeker certificate or a refugee certificate would be permitted to register their shops and maintain a business licence, that does not apply to foreigners on work, student or tourist visas, or to business owners who employ illegal immigrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That said, it would be fairly trivial for an illegal immigrant to set up a fronting arrangement with a South African citizen to bypass all this bureaucratic nonsense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ramaphosa has directed a wide range of inspectors, including police officers, military health services members, environmental health inspectors, members of the National Consumer Commission, and labour inspectors to visit every one of the hundreds of thousands of shops to check that rules and standards are being met.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The only likely result of this inspection blitz is a temporary boost in employment numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ramaphosa might say it has nothing to do with foreigners, but every government action so far \u2013 and some of the statements of other members of cabinet, <a href=\"https:\/\/explain.co.za\/2024\/11\/13\/spaza-shop-food-poisonings-tragic-deaths-new-regulations-and-xenophobic-backlash\/\">like Gayton McKenzie<\/a> \u2013 made it clear that the main target is shops owned by foreigners. Deputy President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/politics\/2024-12-06-listen--dont-register-shops-for-illegal-foreigners-cautions-mashatile-as-deadline-looms\/\">Paul Mashatile has said<\/a> that government wants South Africans to own most shops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is also not the first time that the government has acted to <a href=\"https:\/\/groundup.org.za\/article\/police-shut-down-immigrant-owned-shops\/\">arbitrarily close shops<\/a> operated by foreigners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why? If South Africans were better at running these shops than foreigners, they would already be running them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anti-immigrant groups like Operation Dudula and Put South Africans First have also been vocal on the matter, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/photos-show-lesotho-minimarket-owner-145638406.html\">have been implicated<\/a> in spreading fake news about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Rising prices<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While foreign nationals who own township shops have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-za\/news\/other\/foreign-nationals-owning-shops-weigh-in-on-the-food-poisoning-deaths\/ar-AA1vcbtJ\">spoken out on the apparent poisoning campaign<\/a>, over 1,000 shops have already been closed nationwide, at last count.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All the closures will reduce competition in the market. All the red tape will raise costs. I can\u2019t imagine this ending without violence and vigilante action against more foreign-owned shops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The inevitable outcome will be less choice and higher prices for the consumer segment that can least afford food inflation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If the targeted-poisoning theory is true, and I believe it is, then the true villains in this story will get away with their deadly crimes. Not only does the government appear to be too spineless to tackle them, preferring to pander to the rising tide of xenophobia, but by acting against the victims, they have given the real criminals exactly what they wanted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We are not led.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>[Image: Legal immigrant Hadidja Mgoqi stands in front of her Kraaifontein shop, which was arbitrarily closed by the SA Police Service in 2018, without a court order, ostensibly because unnamed \u201ccommunity leaders\u201d objected that it was too close to a rival shop. Photograph: Vincent Lali, GroundUp, used under CC BY-ND 4.0 licence]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>If you like what you have just read, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/fund-us\/\">support<\/a><em> the Daily Friend<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Food at spaza shops is likely being poisoned. President Cyril Ramaphosa\u2019s response is exactly what would-be poisoners would have wanted. Today is the deadline for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":48374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"coauthors":[96],"class_list":["post-48373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Government took the foreign-owned spaza shop bait - Daily Friend<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/government-took-the-foreign-owned-spaza-shop-bait\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Government took the foreign-owned spaza shop bait - Daily Friend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Food at spaza shops is likely being poisoned. President Cyril Ramaphosa\u2019s response is exactly what would-be poisoners would have wanted. Today is the deadline for\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/government-took-the-foreign-owned-spaza-shop-bait\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Daily Friend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/irrsouthafrica\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-12-13T02:10:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-12-13T11:11:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/closed-shop.1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1082\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"777\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ivo Vegter\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@IvoVegter\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@DailyFriendSA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ivo Vegter\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/government-took-the-foreign-owned-spaza-shop-bait\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/government-took-the-foreign-owned-spaza-shop-bait\/\",\"name\":\"Government took the foreign-owned spaza shop bait - Daily Friend\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/government-took-the-foreign-owned-spaza-shop-bait\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/government-took-the-foreign-owned-spaza-shop-bait\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/closed-shop.1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-12-13T02:10:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-12-13T11:11:04+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/d2237212792a94690ca07053c6a72f9a\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/government-took-the-foreign-owned-spaza-shop-bait\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/government-took-the-foreign-owned-spaza-shop-bait\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/government-took-the-foreign-owned-spaza-shop-bait\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/closed-shop.1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/closed-shop.1.jpg\",\"width\":1082,\"height\":777},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/government-took-the-foreign-owned-spaza-shop-bait\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Government took the foreign-owned spaza shop bait\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/\",\"name\":\"Daily Friend\",\"description\":\"The Fastest Growing Liberal News Site in South Africa\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/d2237212792a94690ca07053c6a72f9a\",\"name\":\"Ivo Vegter\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/15fbd626f08eec7c1d7bc79870481c1e\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/20230610-ESP_8060-Ivo-2-150x150.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/20230610-ESP_8060-Ivo-2-150x150.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Ivo Vegter\"},\"description\":\"Ivo Vegter is a freelance journalist, columnist and speaker who loves debunking myths and misconceptions, and addresses topics from the perspective of individual liberty and free markets.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/x.com\/IvoVegter\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/author\/ivo\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Government took the foreign-owned spaza shop bait - Daily Friend","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/government-took-the-foreign-owned-spaza-shop-bait\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Government took the foreign-owned spaza shop bait - Daily Friend","og_description":"Food at spaza shops is likely being poisoned. President Cyril Ramaphosa\u2019s response is exactly what would-be poisoners would have wanted. Today is the deadline for","og_url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/government-took-the-foreign-owned-spaza-shop-bait\/","og_site_name":"Daily Friend","article_publisher":"http:\/\/irrsouthafrica","article_published_time":"2024-12-13T02:10:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-12-13T11:11:04+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1082,"height":777,"url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/closed-shop.1.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Ivo Vegter","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@IvoVegter","twitter_site":"@DailyFriendSA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Ivo Vegter","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/government-took-the-foreign-owned-spaza-shop-bait\/","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/government-took-the-foreign-owned-spaza-shop-bait\/","name":"Government took the foreign-owned spaza shop bait - Daily Friend","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/government-took-the-foreign-owned-spaza-shop-bait\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/government-took-the-foreign-owned-spaza-shop-bait\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/closed-shop.1.jpg","datePublished":"2024-12-13T02:10:00+00:00","dateModified":"2024-12-13T11:11:04+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/d2237212792a94690ca07053c6a72f9a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/government-took-the-foreign-owned-spaza-shop-bait\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/government-took-the-foreign-owned-spaza-shop-bait\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/government-took-the-foreign-owned-spaza-shop-bait\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/closed-shop.1.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/closed-shop.1.jpg","width":1082,"height":777},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/government-took-the-foreign-owned-spaza-shop-bait\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Government took the foreign-owned spaza shop bait"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/","name":"Daily Friend","description":"The Fastest Growing Liberal News Site in South Africa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/d2237212792a94690ca07053c6a72f9a","name":"Ivo Vegter","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/15fbd626f08eec7c1d7bc79870481c1e","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/20230610-ESP_8060-Ivo-2-150x150.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/20230610-ESP_8060-Ivo-2-150x150.jpg","caption":"Ivo Vegter"},"description":"Ivo Vegter is a freelance journalist, columnist and speaker who loves debunking myths and misconceptions, and addresses topics from the perspective of individual liberty and free markets.","sameAs":["https:\/\/x.com\/IvoVegter"],"url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/author\/ivo\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48373"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=48373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":48371,"date":"2024-12-13T04:05:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-13T02:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?p=48371"},"modified":"2024-12-12T22:49:42","modified_gmt":"2024-12-12T20:49:42","slug":"is-western-civilisation-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/is-western-civilisation-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Western civilisation \u201cback\u201d?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>With so much emphasis on the profound insights of local transgender activist Max du Preez (\u201cbigot\u201d) toward the end of last week, you may have missed something that happened in Paris on Saturday night: Notre Dame reopened.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This wouldn\u2019t have been to du Preez\u2019s taste \u2013 too many white men you see, and not enough London English, blue-haired, power hirsute, pro-Palestine ethical bitches bossing the proceedings, or even ushering folk to their chairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it did appeal to many tastes, and to these and their extensions the return of this magnificent cathedral, restored using traditional, rare stonemasonry and carpentry at a cost of around $900m suggested that, finally, Western civilisation was back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You hear that a lot lately. \u201cBack\u201d presupposes that Western civilisation was on holiday, or convalescing from some dreadful infirmity, but unfortunately, it is gone, extirpated, murdered by the people who were charged with its safeguarding \u2013 some of whom were Emmanuel Macron\u2019s guests for the event. With the exception of the US President-elect, the Saturday gathering included notorious EU climate scammers, lockdown trots, and the forever war faithful: to the best of my knowledge, none of those activities are included on Notre Dame\u2019s famed Rose Windows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These foolish claims only had a few days to delude before two immediately isolated, but upon closer inspection inexorably linked, events evidenced that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Murder<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first involved the murder of a US healthcare executive. Brian Thompson was attending a conference in New York when an assassin casually walked up behind him and started firing. Thompson died in hospital and America\u2019s most urgent manhunt in recent memory was launched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But people following the case\u2019s announcements started noticing something else: in unfolding corners of the internet, there appeared to be unbridled joy at the executive\u2019s murder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Soon that joy had a face \u2013 that belonging to one of America\u2019s worst writers, Taylor Lorenz, whose commitment to quasi Joker-ism as an acceptable form of government was well documented before this occasion. She was thrilled at the relatively young man\u2019s death and was determined to substantiate it by claiming that \u201chis industry killed hundreds and thousands of Americans every year by affording them access to healthcare\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fears that the killer would be this generation\u2019s DB Cooper were struck down on Monday when suspect Luigi Mangione \u2013 a young American of Italian lineage \u2013 was arrested in Pennsylvania on Monday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The second incident involved a young woman from the United Kingdom called Lily Phillips. After some apparent consideration, Ms. Phillips, ordinarily a webcam performer, decided to attempt the world record of having sex with 100 men in one day. When she had done what she did, she became \u2013 for some inexplicable reason \u2013 sad, and complained that all she\u2019d had to eat during the attempt was a Yam Yam and a sandwich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This deprivation troubled her more than the possibility she might have caught the clap or worse (during an interview after the performance, she asked: \u201cIs that how you get Aids?\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Impossibly daft<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s easy to be enthused or disgusted by Lorenz\u2019s commentary. She\u2019s impossibly daft, and very much aligned \u2013 most of the time unwittingly \u2013 to destructive societal changes which have denied young male Americans like Mangione much more than just necessary healthcare authorisation codes. The West has deliberately weakened these people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Their own cultures have betrayed them, thrown them to the wolves by projecting them as potential college frat rapists, smeared them as boasting racial privilege and therefore they must live in perpetual surrender and atonement. Simultaneously, it has transferred heightened recognition onto people like Ms. Philips, who is feted for her expression of sexual congress. Such imbalance is proof enough that Western civilisation no longer exists, and its impostor is some kind of a socially engineered grievance algorithm with a Zendesk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Young men in Mangione\u2019s profile can\u2019t find jobs in the US or in the UK. They can\u2019t get on the property ladder. They are the last in line for subsidy, but the first in the event there\u2019s a restructuring, or mass culling of personnel. At university their heads are filled with expensive rubbish \u2013 like how good Obamacare is \u2013 and they spend much of their adulthood trying to pay off student loans while learning to accommodate the 75% spike in health costs the supposedly brilliant Obamacare welcomed in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unless they agree to believe in the worst they\u2019re told about themselves, their prospects are limited to them excelling at things like addition. So, if one were to caution the correct response, it would probably be that if cheering death is awful, then feigning surprise is wildly dumb. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Notre Dame<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The re-opening of Notre Dame occurred in the same city that only months ago featured a wretched, mechanical pale horse galloping on its river, and a gluttonous if transgender-visible interpretation of the Last Supper \u2013 why the organisers didn\u2019t just go full Mandingo and get Ms. Lily Phillips from the United Kingdom to perform an act featuring the South Sudan weightlifting team on the grounds of Versailles, I cannot tell you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps they thought it would be too vanilla, perhaps they\u2019d like a few more years for their countrymen to digest what happened in 2020, when the teacher Samuel Paty was decapitated by an extremist, and what it really meant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then, all this supposed paragon of Western civilisation could say was \u201cne regarde pas en arri\u00e8re avec col\u00e8re\u201d, or \u201cdon\u2019t look back in anger\u201d \u2212 a response they aped from their cuckolded fellow travellers, the UK. Whatever was is no longer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>[Image: <\/em><em><a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/users\/edmondlafoto-7913128\/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=6661150\">edmondlafoto<\/a> from <a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=6661150\">Pixabay<\/a><\/em><em>]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>If you like what you have just read, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/fund-us\/\">support<\/a><em> the Daily Friend<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With so much emphasis on the profound insights of local transgender activist Max du Preez (\u201cbigot\u201d) toward the end of last week, you may have<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":48372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"coauthors":[305],"class_list":["post-48371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Is Western civilisation \u201cback\u201d? - Daily Friend<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/is-western-civilisation-back\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Western civilisation \u201cback\u201d? - Daily Friend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"With so much emphasis on the profound insights of local transgender activist Max du Preez (\u201cbigot\u201d) toward the end of last week, you may have\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/is-western-civilisation-back\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Daily Friend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/irrsouthafrica\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-12-13T02:05:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-12-12T20:49:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/paris-6661150_1920.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"871\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"579\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Simon Lincoln Reader\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@DailyFriendSA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@DailyFriendSA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Simon Lincoln Reader\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/is-western-civilisation-back\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/is-western-civilisation-back\/\",\"name\":\"Is Western civilisation \u201cback\u201d? - Daily Friend\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/is-western-civilisation-back\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/is-western-civilisation-back\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/paris-6661150_1920.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-12-13T02:05:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-12-12T20:49:42+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/2dbb0d6a50f8748afb067904f4065c24\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/is-western-civilisation-back\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/is-western-civilisation-back\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/is-western-civilisation-back\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/paris-6661150_1920.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/paris-6661150_1920.jpg\",\"width\":871,\"height\":579},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/is-western-civilisation-back\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Is Western civilisation \u201cback\u201d?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/\",\"name\":\"Daily Friend\",\"description\":\"The Fastest Growing Liberal News Site in South Africa\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/2dbb0d6a50f8748afb067904f4065c24\",\"name\":\"Simon Lincoln Reader\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/4f7026e8557256e42d6861790cc77102\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/SLR-150x150.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/SLR-150x150.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Simon Lincoln Reader\"},\"description\":\"Simon Reader grew up in Cape Town before moving to Johannesburg in 2001, where he was an energy entrepreneur until 2014. In South Africa, he wrote a weekly column for Business Day, then later Biznews.com. Today he manages a fund based in London, is a trustee of an educational charity, and lives between the UK and California.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/author\/simon-lincoln-reader\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Is Western civilisation \u201cback\u201d? - Daily Friend","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/is-western-civilisation-back\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Is Western civilisation \u201cback\u201d? - Daily Friend","og_description":"With so much emphasis on the profound insights of local transgender activist Max du Preez (\u201cbigot\u201d) toward the end of last week, you may have","og_url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/is-western-civilisation-back\/","og_site_name":"Daily Friend","article_publisher":"http:\/\/irrsouthafrica","article_published_time":"2024-12-13T02:05:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-12-12T20:49:42+00:00","og_image":[{"width":871,"height":579,"url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/paris-6661150_1920.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Simon Lincoln Reader","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@DailyFriendSA","twitter_site":"@DailyFriendSA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Simon Lincoln Reader","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/is-western-civilisation-back\/","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/is-western-civilisation-back\/","name":"Is Western civilisation \u201cback\u201d? - Daily Friend","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/is-western-civilisation-back\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/is-western-civilisation-back\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/paris-6661150_1920.jpg","datePublished":"2024-12-13T02:05:00+00:00","dateModified":"2024-12-12T20:49:42+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/2dbb0d6a50f8748afb067904f4065c24"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/is-western-civilisation-back\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/is-western-civilisation-back\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/is-western-civilisation-back\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/paris-6661150_1920.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/paris-6661150_1920.jpg","width":871,"height":579},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/is-western-civilisation-back\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Is Western civilisation \u201cback\u201d?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/","name":"Daily Friend","description":"The Fastest Growing Liberal News Site in South Africa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/2dbb0d6a50f8748afb067904f4065c24","name":"Simon Lincoln Reader","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/4f7026e8557256e42d6861790cc77102","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/SLR-150x150.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/SLR-150x150.jpg","caption":"Simon Lincoln Reader"},"description":"Simon Reader grew up in Cape Town before moving to Johannesburg in 2001, where he was an energy entrepreneur until 2014. In South Africa, he wrote a weekly column for Business Day, then later Biznews.com. Today he manages a fund based in London, is a trustee of an educational charity, and lives between the UK and California.","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/author\/simon-lincoln-reader\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48371"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=48371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":48369,"date":"2024-12-13T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-13T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?p=48369"},"modified":"2024-12-12T22:54:56","modified_gmt":"2024-12-12T20:54:56","slug":"cape-town-signs-commuter-rail-deal-with-prasa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/cape-town-signs-commuter-rail-deal-with-prasa\/","title":{"rendered":"Cape Town signs commuter rail deal with PRASA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>After court action, threats of an intergovernmental dispute and more than a year of negotiations, the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (PRASA) has finally signed a a service level plan (SLP) with the City of Cape Town, which could lay the foundation for the city taking over the management of passenger rail across the metropole.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In terms of the SLP, PRASA must regularly report to the city, with the city exercising oversight over commitments to revitalise stations, introduce more train sets, recommission services, and increase the number of daily passengers and train trips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The city also commits to providing the municipal services needed to support and enhance passenger rail, encouraging transit-orientated development along rail corridors and expediting permits through the city\u2019s services and development planning departments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>GroundUp reports that, while the SLP was being negotiated, the city conducted its own feasibility study for managing the passenger rail network. The recommendations based on this study were passed by the council on the same day, 5 December, that the SLP was signed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said: \u201cThis is a big step towards improving the quality and reliability of the service through a legally binding agreement, and I am very pleased that we managed to get this finalised this year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He added: \u201cTaking charge of Metrorail is especially important for lower-income households, who would save an estimated R932m a year if trains were working as they should.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to GroundUp, rail activist organisation UniteBehind said that while the SLP \u201cmarks progress\u201d, it fell short of what was needed for PRASA to fully meet its constitutional and statutory obligations to commuters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDespite PRASA having had over a year to finalise it, the plan lacks enforceable commitments, timelines or measures that would enable it to function as a road map for improving commuter rail services,\u201d said UniteBehind executive director Zukie Vuka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>[Image: PRASA, <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=137760669\">https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=137760669<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After court action, threats of an intergovernmental dispute and more than a year of negotiations, the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (PRASA) has finally signed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":48370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"coauthors":[94],"class_list":["post-48369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Cape Town signs commuter rail deal with PRASA - Daily Friend<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/cape-town-signs-commuter-rail-deal-with-prasa\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cape Town signs commuter rail deal with PRASA - Daily Friend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After court action, threats of an intergovernmental dispute and more than a year of negotiations, the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (PRASA) has finally signed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/cape-town-signs-commuter-rail-deal-with-prasa\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Daily Friend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/irrsouthafrica\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-12-13T02:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-12-12T20:54:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/XTrapolis_Mega_in_Cape_Town.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1313\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"849\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Staff Writer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@DailyFriendSA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@DailyFriendSA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Staff Writer\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/cape-town-signs-commuter-rail-deal-with-prasa\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/cape-town-signs-commuter-rail-deal-with-prasa\/\",\"name\":\"Cape Town signs commuter rail deal with PRASA - Daily Friend\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/cape-town-signs-commuter-rail-deal-with-prasa\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/cape-town-signs-commuter-rail-deal-with-prasa\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/XTrapolis_Mega_in_Cape_Town.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-12-13T02:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-12-12T20:54:56+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/206e9c5fa593a441786c5a1cc14a94ce\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/cape-town-signs-commuter-rail-deal-with-prasa\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/cape-town-signs-commuter-rail-deal-with-prasa\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/cape-town-signs-commuter-rail-deal-with-prasa\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/XTrapolis_Mega_in_Cape_Town.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/XTrapolis_Mega_in_Cape_Town.jpg\",\"width\":1313,\"height\":849},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/cape-town-signs-commuter-rail-deal-with-prasa\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Cape Town signs commuter rail deal with PRASA\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/\",\"name\":\"Daily Friend\",\"description\":\"The Fastest Growing Liberal News Site in South Africa\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/206e9c5fa593a441786c5a1cc14a94ce\",\"name\":\"Staff Writer\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/9f2c156342d8d817d5e75dfc9c6a1a2e\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/staff-writer-150x150.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/staff-writer-150x150.png\",\"caption\":\"Staff Writer\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/author\/staff-writer\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Cape Town signs commuter rail deal with PRASA - Daily Friend","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/cape-town-signs-commuter-rail-deal-with-prasa\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Cape Town signs commuter rail deal with PRASA - Daily Friend","og_description":"After court action, threats of an intergovernmental dispute and more than a year of negotiations, the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (PRASA) has finally signed","og_url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/cape-town-signs-commuter-rail-deal-with-prasa\/","og_site_name":"Daily Friend","article_publisher":"http:\/\/irrsouthafrica","article_published_time":"2024-12-13T02:00:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-12-12T20:54:56+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1313,"height":849,"url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/XTrapolis_Mega_in_Cape_Town.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Staff Writer","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@DailyFriendSA","twitter_site":"@DailyFriendSA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Staff Writer","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/cape-town-signs-commuter-rail-deal-with-prasa\/","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/cape-town-signs-commuter-rail-deal-with-prasa\/","name":"Cape Town signs commuter rail deal with PRASA - Daily Friend","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/cape-town-signs-commuter-rail-deal-with-prasa\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/cape-town-signs-commuter-rail-deal-with-prasa\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/XTrapolis_Mega_in_Cape_Town.jpg","datePublished":"2024-12-13T02:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2024-12-12T20:54:56+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/206e9c5fa593a441786c5a1cc14a94ce"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/cape-town-signs-commuter-rail-deal-with-prasa\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/cape-town-signs-commuter-rail-deal-with-prasa\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/cape-town-signs-commuter-rail-deal-with-prasa\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/XTrapolis_Mega_in_Cape_Town.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/XTrapolis_Mega_in_Cape_Town.jpg","width":1313,"height":849},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/2024\/12\/13\/cape-town-signs-commuter-rail-deal-with-prasa\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Cape Town signs commuter rail deal with PRASA"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#website","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/","name":"Daily Friend","description":"The Fastest Growing Liberal News Site in South Africa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/206e9c5fa593a441786c5a1cc14a94ce","name":"Staff Writer","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/9f2c156342d8d817d5e75dfc9c6a1a2e","url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/staff-writer-150x150.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/staff-writer-150x150.png","caption":"Staff Writer"},"url":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/author\/staff-writer\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48369"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfriend.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=48369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}]