You read the news, but we – the journalists

IOL News

2 days ago

Letters to the Editor.
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And just how exactly is this going to work?
I read in the media that AARTO will be implemented in the near future. But with the shocking state of road behaviour, I have to ask: who will police it?
We see it daily – taxis driven by unlicensed drivers or those with bought licences, totally unroadworthy vehicles, tailgating, shooting red lights at high speed, no idea of how to handle four-way stops, and blatant rule-breaking such as blacked-out windows, illegal exhausts, parking anywhere, and ignoring indicators.
Fatal head-on crashes between taxis and buses, bakkies, and even other taxis happen with alarming regularity. Overloading is routine, and proper driving school instruction is clearly absent.To this, add traffic officials who are corrupt, involved in crime, fraud, and bribery – including at licensing departments where roadworthy certificates are bought.
The taxi industry often operates with impunity, resembling organised crime.With policing already almost invisible and riddled with corruption, how will AARTO be enforced? How do you take away a licence from someone who never had one in the first place?
Unless there is a complete overhaul of traffic law enforcement, AARTO will remain just that – a pipe dream. | Roland Fisher Durban
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It's simple: European lives count more
There has been global outrage and condemnation over the killing of five journalists. Ruthless Netanyahu gunned down the Al-Jeeraza journalists in Gaza on Sunday, claiming they were fighting for Hamas while posing as journalists.
But Hamas and Al-Jeeraza have denied this.
According to the UN, an estimated 241 Palestinian journalists have killed by the Israelis since the invasion of Gaza in 2023. Journalists are enemies of the Israelis. They tell the world about the atrocities Netanyahu's forces are committing in Gaza.
They are trouble-­makers, always nosing around and spreading false information. So they have to be wiped out.
If Netanyahu can kill helpless women, innocent children and even little babies still suckling their mother's breasts, what are journalists to him? They are just paper to him, to be torn and squashed to death.If Netanyahu cannot kill the people of Gaza with his guns, he'll starve them to death. He has, however, rubbished claims by the aid organisations and the media that there is starvation in Gaza. He has called it a 'bold faced lie'.
For once US President Donald Trump has spoken out against his ally and agreed with the media and the aid organisations there is real starvation in Gaza.
But Trump will go no further than merely saying that the people of Haza are being starved to death. He hasn't ordered Netanyahu to stop the bloodshed in Gaza or that the US will stop supplying Israel with armaments. Yet tomorrow he is going to meet with Vladimir Putin in Alaska and ask him to stop the war in Ukraine. So Trump-like, double-faced. Ukraine is a European country and Palestine is not. Israel is helping in the war against terrorism, fighting radical organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah.
The Middle East is of strategic importance to it and Israel is helping it to maintain the balance of power in the region. In the end it boils down to this: whether you are European or not. European lives matter more; Palestinian (and Sudanese) don't. | Thyagaraj Markandan Kloof
Don't shoot the messenger
As a journalist, I am shattered by the killing of five Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza – a grotesque act of barbarity by a military force pulverising a defenceless people.
No nation in the past seven decades has committed killings on such a scale, immune from prosecution because of powerful allies controlling the levers of global governance.
The brutal killing of journalists is savagery the so-called civilised world must condemn as strongly as it has denounced the war in Ukraine. The display of raw firepower in Gaza and the West Bank makes that conflict pale in comparison. Such killing is premeditated murder. The Western media, with its tainted reporting, aids and abets the aggressor.
International diplomacy is absent. The momentum for peaceful dialogue diminishes by the hour, while resort to brute force risks igniting a wider conflagration. A world of double standards turns a blind eye when Muslims are the victims.
Since 1990, more than 2,500 journalists have been killed. Murdering a journalist is the ultimate form of censorship; jailing them is intimidation. When journalists are killed, democracy dies. Violence hangs over the gatekeepers of our freedoms, and ending impunity for these crimes is essential to protect free expression and access to information.
The UN General Assembly has proclaimed November 2 the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists. Journalists are our eyes and ears. As the old saying goes: 'You buy the news – we pay the price.'
The first casualty in conflict is the truth; the second is the truth-teller.Under the Geneva Conventions, journalists are civilians in conflict zones. Harming or killing them is a war crime. Yet killings persist, and when they go unpunished, more will follow. Silencing the messenger will bring catastrophe for humanity.
As the saying goes: 'The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.' | Farouk Araie Benoni
Community narrative is clear
As more details drip out regarding the format of the ANC's 'national dialogue', to some extent the intended exercise may parallel Mao Zedong's 'One Hundred Flowers' campaign of 1956-57.
Fully aware of the peasants' resistance to his policy of enforced collectivisation of agriculture, Mao's open dialogue campaign had a dual purpose: to soften resistance to collectivisation and to identify key political opponents by drawing them out into the open.
'Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend', was an entirely false invitation by Mao who had every intention of emulating the brutal collectivisation Stalin had imposed on agriculture in Russia.
Similarly, the proposed 'national dialogue' is an ANC contrivance because regardless of community opinion, it has no intention of deviating from the trajectory of its historically discredited Marxist National Democratic Revolution.
Thus, the promotion of 'community dialogue' to be held in every ward, not once but three times, is a no-brainer because the narrative of community dialogue is very much alive and clear in social media and the weekly community newspapers.
That narrative calls for an end to the corruption, incompetence and fraud of the ANC. It does not require any money to recognise that, which is why the R700-million dialogue budget is an unconscionable waste. But, as we all know, it will be distributed among the useful idiots the ANC has invited to lend credence to the farce, ANC cronies, the hiring of buses, halls, caterers and disc jockeys to create a suitable ambience while South Africa continues to flounder. | DR DUNCAN DU BOIS Bluff
Sooner all things get better
It is sheer desperation to believe you can prepare the way for the next 30 years of South Africa when you have failed to do so in the past 32. Someone close to President Cyril Ramaphosa should remind him that a leopard doesn't change its spots – and a rapidly declining ANC has proven this to be true.A glimmer of hope appeared when the leadership of the legacy foundations withdrew from the Au 15 gust national convention. Like-minded people in the president's circle should take note and avoid the trap of trying to save a 40% party.
Before we can 'march forward to a people's government,' Mr Ramaphosa must address the matters that have contributed to our failed state:
*Exclusion of the Foundation Nation (Khoisan) from the Codesa process set the stage for future failure, building every government since on the wrong foundation.
*(Zondo Commission recommendations – senior ANC figures were implicated in state capture, and even Chief Justice Zondo admitted it pained him to swear in some ministers.
*Malfunctioning municipalities – the auditor-general has repeatedly exposed failures in financial management, legal compliance, and service delivery.
*Enduring corruption – the public deserves to know how much taxpayer money has been wasted during this presidency before another R1 billion is spent on a national dialogue.
As another voice in the media recently said of the decayed state of Johannesburg: 'When the president expressed shock at the CBD's condition in March 2025, 'one felt the betrayal like a bitter poison in the mouth'.'
Many South Africans no longer trust a president seemingly unaware of what happens under his own nose. It's time to wake up, Mr President, and smell the coffee – because all good things come to an end, some sooner than later. | Clive Solomon Goodwood
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