[I have posted excellent articles from Jon Qwelane in the past. And to think this guy was once a staunch ANC supporter. On this page where his article is posted, go and look at the Reader’s comments. There are some good ones there.

Jon points out, as have I, that something is weird about the way Mbeki and others seem to turn a blind eye to Selebi. That makes me suspicious… There may be more to the Selebi issue than meets the eye! Jan]

Going to the dogs
Date: 22/11/2006 13:34 – (SA)
By: Jon Qwelane

Something is very, very wrong about this country and it will require something extraordinarily huge to put it right.

The cries for help about the unbearable crime “ whingeing, Charles Nqakula calls such cries “ are falling on deaf ears, though the new way now is to lie officially but brazenly that the rate of crime œgoing down; there is just no way to verify the claims indepedently.

Boggling the mind is the rather well, er, curious œchummy-chummy relationship which the national commissioner has with some men of highly questionable credentials, among them people suspected of being very powerful leaders of underground crime syndicates.

And would you believe that the commissioner actually boasts of being friends with such people, claiming it is œnot criminal to be associated with them. Yet revelations continue to dribble worryingly out, and Thabo Mbeki™s cabinet has already passed a vote of confidence in the commissioner.

Former airports™ security chief Paul O™Sullivan has been repeatedly making damning allegations about the commissioner, and even suggested that crime in this country would never go down for as long as Jackie Selebi remained commissioner. The commissioner™s lame response has only been to call a press conference and declare self-righteously: œThese hands are clean…

If Selebi is convinced about his self-proclaimed clean hands, then let him sue O™Sullivan to force him to retract and apologise. Otherwise the commissioner must shut up and resign.

Something is terribly wrong in this country.

Promises, promises

Talking about the commissioner, how come he seems never to have held any suspicions about one of his œfriends regarding the murder of Brett Kebble, scumbag supreme?

His promised œarrest in the next two weeks never materialised; it was not his policemen who made the breakthrough in a murder that was committed almost a quarter of a year ago, with the clues being deliberately destroyed and the police investigation slowly but certainly fizzling out.

Will the Cabinet pass its vote again, and openly identify each member who holds such views? Shall we please know the reasons for their unshaken belief?

Please, do not give us that spiel about Interpol again: it is a sham. The commissioner is president of the organisation and to me that fact alone suggests that the Interpol verdict is as tainted as the man heading it.

Something is horribly amiss in this country.

It has also been suggested that schoolgirls be given œmaternity leave from their studies, and to be allowed back after giving birth.

And one always thought classrooms were places of learning, not maternity wards. At this rate, I am afraid, prefects could very soon be appointed marriage officers.

The constitution is being seriously undermined by the plethora of œrights which anyone can claim to bolster their crazy ideas, just as, I am sure, someone out there will say by complaining loudly about such things I am myself œundermining the constituion.

Laughing out of the circus

The chief whip of the ruling party has been playing a game of hide-and-seek with the courts “ a shame that, coming from those who always claim to œrespect the rule of law “ and being helped by the speaker, who will not allow child support summonses to be served on the man.

He has now been accused of sexually harassing a young parliament staffer, and for that he will appear before a disciplinary committee. But having so far allowed him to ride roughshod over the law, I have little faith in the disciplinary committee. My bet is Mbulelo Goniwe will laugh his way out of the circus.

Just this week the ruling ANC steamrollered the so-called Gay Unions Act into law. Multitudes of citizens are dead opposed to the act, but it never bothered the ANC; it actually ordered every MP on its card to vote for the measure, and to hell with exercising one™s conscience.

Forcing people to vote against what may have been their clear consciences calls into question the constitutionality of such action I seriously believe that some judges of the Constitutional Court may be gay themselves; otherwise there seems no sensible explanation for them to want to insist on it in the first place.

Something is rotten in this country, seriously stinking.

Jon Qwelane’s column is published each week on News24, courtesy of Jon Qwelane and the editor of Sunday Sun, which originally carried the article.

Source: News24.Com
URL: http://www.news24.com/News24/Columnists/Jon_Q…/p>