The potential outcomes of the National Dialogue should be measured against participation in the National Convention, with the ultimate test being whether action will be taken to address problems.
Although President Cyril Ramaphosa stated during question time in Parliament today that all South Africans were represented at the National Convention, he knows it was not the case.
From the outset, the Dialogue elicited valid criticism from various sources. Political parties representing the majority of votes in Parliament, including the Freedom Front Plus (VF Plus) and the DA, well-known foundations, civil organisations and even trade unions, did not participate.
In the Freedom Front Plus’s view, the core issue with the National Dialogue is that the ANC clearly maintained that it will not abandon its policy directions, which include Affirmative Action (AA), Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and expropriation without compensation.
These are the root causes of the country’s problems and seeking remedies for their consequences – such as unemployment, corruption and the decay of municipalities – would merely be superficial.
The majority of South Africans did not attend the Convention for these very reasons. The President knows this all too well, and so do the people of South Africa.
As far as the Freedom Front Plus is aware, no decisions have been taken regarding the thirteen outcomes-focused areas identified at the Convention.
This already gives an indication of the direction in which the National Dialogue is heading.
Discussing and identifying South Africa’s problems will do nothing to solve them. Everyone already knew exactly what the country’s problems were before the Dialogue – the biggest being the ANC.
So, expecting the public to compile a list of issues, such as taps running dry and power outages, is misguided.
According to President Ramaphosa, a “representative committee” will now take the matter further. This was a predictable outcome. It is like kicking a can further down the road without taking any concrete action.
Still, the Freedom Front Plus would like the President to indicate whether the ANC would be willing to amend policies or accept new policies regarding the economy if the outcomes of the National Dialogue were to require it.
After all, it is the only way so save South Africa. The ANC has already stated that it is not open to the idea, though.
FF+ Manifesto on Foreign policy: Promoting a foreign policy that serves South Africa’s interests.
Sun Washer
The Man who could only Drink Milk
I know an old man who had lived a life full of adventure, but his health started to catch up with him. He\’d run the Boston Marathon, was an avid surfer, and climbed Everest, but he\’d started to have abdominal pains around his 85th birthday and went to see a doctor. Sadly, he ultimately was diagnosed with a rare degenerative liver disease that slowly made him allergic to everything he ate.
He kept copious notes, and as an avid gastronomist slowly grew to despair as everything he\’d spent his life enjoying became something he could no longer eat. Alcohol went first, then mushrooms, then bread, then root vegetables, then coffee, one at a time he had to remove them from his diet. The doctor was clear: if he kept eating something his liver rejected the autoimmune response would be quick and severe, and would lead to a painful death. Little by little, everything was taken away as an option, until the only thing that remained was milk.
In some ways, this actually made life easier, because the mental strain of remembering what he could and couldn\’t eat was gone, but then so was the joy in variety. But he took it in stride, and got his own cow and took classes from a farmer to learn everything he could about the only thing that could give him sustenance. And even within milk, he could still have yogurt, butter, cream, some cheeses, and other milk-derived products he hadn\’t fully rejected yet, so it wasn\’t all bad. But then one day a few months later he felt the pain again, and he knew cow\’s milk was no longer an option.
Lacking other options, he tried goat\’s milk, and he was delighted that it worked! The protein structure is just different enough that his body still tolerated it. That bought him another month. And that\’s when we came up with a wonderful plan to go on one last grand adventure around the world. If he could get one month of life out of the milk of every mammal, he\’d actually have a few more years to enjoy life to the fullest and see the world in all its beauty. Each month, we\’d pick a place with a new mammal, and he would immerse himself fully with the locals, learn all the ways to prepare the milk, and just enjoy the hand he had been dealt as much as he could.
We milked sheep in New Zealand. Camels in Egypt. Zebras in South Africa. Giant bats in Indonesia. Do you know how many Peruvian cuy you need to milk to get a single glass? I do. Even as his health slowly faded, he stayed cheerful, and I felt lucky to join him on the adventure of a lifetime. That brings us to today when he got to the very end of his spreadsheet, and declared that he was now allergic to every mammal. He\’d enjoyed his journey, but his time had come to an end, for there was nothing left to milk.
To which I said nonsense, I bet we can milk a few thousand karma out of this post.
Fire Feline
So I\’m real good friends with this guy named Juan Ted. Now, Juan is a pretty astonishing guy. He can steal ANYTHING he wants to. Literally anything. It could be the shirt off your back, the wallet in your pocket, or I\’m even sure he\’d find a way to steal your house (And your spouse too). So anyway, one day Juan and I are sitting around watching TV, and they announced that the hope diamond will not be on display anymore and is now getting moved to an undisclosed location. So as we hear this, Juan says \”I\’m gonna steal it\”. Now I know how good Juan is at this kind of stuff, so I just tell him good luck and he goes on his way. Eventually he narrows his search down to a small cave in South Africa. When Juan gets there, he doesn\’t see any guards or anything outside the cave, so he just walks in assuming he was wrong about where the diamond was. He wanders around for a while until he sees a long lit hallway with the hope diamond at the end of it. Confident in his abilities, he strolls over to the diamond and picks it up before realizing its a trap! Suddenly, red lights flashed, armed men came running out, sirens went off. You could hear one of the men say under his breath \”We finally caught Juan Ted.\” But Juan, being the best thief in the world, said \”Not quite. On the count of three, I will disappear.\” As the men looked around confused, Juan began to count. \”Uno. Dos.\” And he disappeared without a tres.