Inequality, thy name is Alexandra!

Power hates the poor. South Africans are as screwed by Black Enrichment as they were by Afrikaans Apartheid and White Colonialism.

“Your life is in my hands.”

My foreign readers will shudder when watching a drunk gangster lead Timmy Karter through the Alexandra township of Johannesburg, South Africa.

The conditions there are inhuman, and in painful contrast to next door Sandton which is the richest area in the province (a.k.a. state).

My only trip to Alexandra was circa 1999. I was the only white person I saw. It was memorable for having to leave a bar or be killed, and then meeting a bunch of people who were so happy to see my skin that they insisted on beers and laughs. That mimics my life of facing crime, but with most folk being nice.

Unfortunately, time doesn’t heal in our neoliberal world, and it doesn’t matter that Nelson Mandela and Hugh Masekela were once residents of Alexandra. The only counting is that money = apathy, and no money = violence.

Poverty and early death is guaranteed for most South Africans. They are as screwed by Black Enrichment as they were by Afrikaans Apartheid and White Colonialism. Different names for exploitation don’t change reality. Power hates the poor, and being the same colour doesn’t make people equal. Consequently, Alexandra’s living conditions have sunk since I was there.

“You go outside, there’s rotten water. People cooking there, throwing chicken feet there on the floor there, or the rats running inside the courts. The state is disastrous there.” - EWN

Ask yourself what crime would you commit if your life or your family’s depended on it? Consider how easy it is to see those who have more as the enemy.

I fear the nation’s desperation will ultimately rise into collective destruction (354 corpses giving us a smell of it in 2021).

But I hope you marvel at the beauty of spirit which doubles as a survival tool. That’s a lesson to those of us who are struggling but have more.

JOURNEY INTO ALEXANDRA

CAPTAIN IBRAHIM TRAORE

I’ve hardly been online but used that time to follow war.

Less Gaza headlines the past month has no correlation with everyday mass murder.

I’m going to deliver you an article on Ukraine on June 1. Yeah, I’m going to fulfil my intention to do less but better.

In the meanwhile, keep yourself busy with more of our ‘Dark Continent’.

I encourage you to look up the most under-and-misreported topic in Western news, Captain Ibrahim Traoré. He’s the leader of Burkina Faso that’s making waves by thumbing his nose at Western bankers.

For regional backdrop, read my earlier piece, ‘Is the Cold War Heating Up Africa?’. Here’s a recent introduction to Traoré, and you can listen to last week’s interview with him in Russia. For a deeper dive, there’s this opinion on why the US military has labelled him a criminal, and why African leaders are silent.

You should visit my MIM site and watch the trailer for ‘Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’. That’s the best documentary I’ve seen on post colonialism, and its delivery is unique. You’d be doing your education a favour by watching everything I suggest there. It’s not me that’s good, instead “THANK YOU” to documentarians!

May you ban skim reading and fast forwarding to follow those links over the next couple of weeks instead of now. Consider it an inhalation minus the usual gaseous particles of the latest manager of the USA.