Don't overlook the 'inconvenient truths', Mr letterwriter

IOL News

19-05-2025

Let's not skip the inconvenient truths
L Oosthuizen's letter (May 16) reads like a thriller – unburdened by fact, but rich in imagination.
He claims that 'most of us' reject the International Court of Justice (ICJ)case against Israel. Yet no supporting evidence or polling data is provided.More striking, though, is his call for South African Christians to denounce the ICJ process. On what grounds, one wonders?
Arab Christians in Gaza have seen their churches reduced to rubble. Is solidarity now a matter of geography?Critique political parties, by all means, but let's not mistake spectacle for substance.
This isn't about 'left-leaning elites.' Supporting the ICJ case is about justice – and the inconvenient truths too often ignored. | O Parak Pietermaritzburg
Beware Trump's evil machinations
I think everyone nationwide should be alerted as to what Trump is planning! He is planning a global blackout for 10 days during which there will be no communication except from Trump himself!
How will he orchestrate this? The satellite Odin has already been tested to interfere and cancel with all radio waves so that Trump can override global communication to broadcast 'his truth'.
During this 10 day blackout the US military will be making massive arrests on all major criminals worldwide. What will this do to South Africa? There will be mass looting, theft and carnage as those in the dark retaliate!
Trump does not understand the nature of the black beast!
This act of sabotage of Trump's can be acquainted to global terrorism. He does not understand the chaos and turmoil it will steep South Africa in. This is a stupid, selfish and uneducated move on Trump's behalf. We do not know the time, day or month. It is 'a surprise'.
But we cannot allow this! | Vivienne Viljoen Sheffield, Ballito
A voice for Palestine
I am writing to express my full support for Palestine and to speak about the Nakba.
Nakba is an Arabic word meaning 'catastrophe.' This word refers to what happened to the Palestinian people in 1948, when over 700 000 men, women, and children were forced to leave their homes. Villages were destroyed, families were broken apart, and many people became refugees overnight.
This was not just a tragedy of the past, it marked the beginning of decades of occupation, violence, and injustice that continue to this day.
In Gaza, more than 2 million people live under blockade that controls their food, medicine, and freedom. What makes worse is the silence.
Governments all over the world say that they care about human rights, but ignore Palestine. The world rushes to defend the powerful countries, but turn away when Palestinian children are killed or when homes are being destroyed by airstrikes. Even speaking about Palestine is being seen as controversial, when it should be seen as urgent.
Despite everything the Palestinians have faced the people have never given up.They have lost their homes, land, and lives, but they have not their strength and hope. They keep going and they keep fighting no matter what happens. That kind of strength is powerful.
They are showing the world that no matter how hard people are trying to silence them, they will never be silenced and they will never give up. | Aisha Port Shepstone Islamic School – Grade 9
The Nakba – a wound that shaped a nation
I have long admired your voice and your sensitivity to history's complex edges. I wanted to share a reflection of mine on the Nakba – not just as an event, but as a living echo that still pulses through generations.
The Nakba was not merely a moment of displacement in 1948; it was the birth of a collective memory stitched with exile, longing, and an unyielding pursuit of dignity. For Palestinians, it is not just history – it is inheritance. A grandmother's silence at dinner, a father's defiant pride in a homeland he's never seen, a child learning to pronounce 'Haifa' before 'hope.'
The world often demands Palestinians forget for the sake of peace, but memory is not the enemy of peace – erasure is. True reconciliation is not built on silence, but on the courage to confront painful truths and to honor the humanity of every life touched by them.
Palestine is not a metaphor. It is people. It is poetry smuggled under occupation. It is olive trees older than borders. It is a map folded too many times, yet never torn.
The Nakba is not over – because justice delayed is not history past. It lives in refugee camps, in the stateless passport, in the empty chair at a family table. And yet, remarkably, so does resilience. So does art. So does life.
I believe editors hold a rare power – to not only tell stories, but to awaken truths.
Thank you for giving space to those truths. I hope this perspective finds a home in your thoughts, for Nakba did not commence on October 7 2023. | Zahra Dhooma Port Shepstone Islamic School
US Middle East trip only about business
American President Donald Trump and his entourage's pompous visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE is most certainly not about finding solutions to the illegal settler colonial occupation of Palestine, stopping the genocide in Gaza or about healing a conflict-ridden world.
It was a pretentious display of opulent fanfare and vacuous ceremony, reasserting Trumps personal persona and business interests. The agenda was informed by selling arms, and propping autocrats who fear their own people due to their illegitimate rule and mismanagement of oil resources.
Flush with abundant reserves from the sale of petroleum and revenues earned from the pilgrimage to Makkah, the house of Saud and the other Middle Eastern treacherous regimes have enormous wealth to squander.
Instead of demanding an end to apartheid Israel's relentless destruction of life in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, these tyrants, who can have influence over Western imperialists, have shamelessly sold their souls to Trump by rewarding him with extraordinary honour, gifts and investments.
Besides Trump returning with trillion-­dollar deals, his ally Elon Musk, who once referred to Arabic as 'the language of the enemy', also returned as a substantially wealthier man after securing billion-dollar deals from these immoral regimes.
This miserable cabal of dictators remind me of Korah, and Pharaoh, despots mentioned in the Qu'ran who are depicted as exemplification of arrogance, rebellion and evil. | MOHAMED SAEED Pietermaritzburg
The ANC cannot self-correct, it must die
Some believe the ANC can self-­correct itself after the 2024 elections and some still consider the ANC a brand, but I'm reluctant to believe that.
The ANC used to be not just a brand, but a brand among brands. But now?
The brand ANC that was carried on the shoulders of Oliver Tambo for almost 25 years has been collapsed by greedy leaders who dragged the ancestors name through the mud. They do not care about the sacrifice made by Tambo, or those before and after him. They do not even care about people who died fighting for the liberation of this country.
What about the poor majority of Eastern Cape, Limpopo voters they see in front of their own eyes? The addressing of the social ills is of paramount importance because the ANC is the leader in the Eastern Cape, Limpopo and in the country. One undeniable fact is that the previous ANC had two important features the current one does not have. Real and genuine comrades.
First, those were people with integrity.
Second, the ANC used to have intelligent people. Now instead of advancing intelligence to defend itself and the country against the enemies of the people (unemployment, poverty, diseases, corruption etc), the corrupt agents of destruction and retrogression, they are part of that. They use poor people plight to corruptly enrich themselves.
They master corruption such that they blindfold the poor voters to benefit from their corruption. That is what gangsters do; to appear as saviours in the eyes of the poor. ANC leaders are like chameleons; they sleep saying this, and wake up saying something different.
Now it's time for change that will make South Africa work for all it's people.
A change that will create jobs; keep the government accountable; put an end to loadshedding; ensure all those who steal taxpayers money will be kept behind bars; and bring hope to South Africans. | Thulani Dasa Khayelitsha
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