I was Travelling

Yesterday I was travelling with two of my band to a practice at Amafu Lodge near Hoedspruit. On the way we encountered a roadblock, they were burning tyres across the road.

 

As I contemplated how to get through the road block a mob descended on my vehicle, they were shouting "mlungu mlungu". (This mean white man) Several guys jumped on the back of my LandCruiser and began throwing my musical equipment off the truck. Others placed sharp stones under my wheels so I could not escape.

 

Fortunately I had four wheel drive, so I powered over the rocks writing off a wheel in the process.

 

Then by driving through the bush I was able to get back to the road. As I drove through the bush, the mob was still pursuing me.

 

Incredibly a black doctor from Acornhoek had seen the attack. He then approached the mob and demanded my equipment back. The mob returned one speaker but refused to return the drums.

 

The doctor then drove two kilometers up the road where he found me at a garage and returned my speaker. He apologised profusely for the behaviour of the mob.

 

The doctor informed me that the mob was protesting the state of the roads around Acornhoek and Bushbuck Ridge. I have been on those roads, they are non existent, potholes are everywhere, many are impassable. Acornhoek and Bushbuckridge today are Third World Towns, exceedingly dangerous and run by mafia styled syndicates. The ANC has lost control of these areas.

 

Fourty eight hours after the mob blocked the road, the police arrived on the scene.

 

Down the road on the Hazyview, White River road, gangsters had shot the driver of cash in transit armoured car. Using the explosives they had blown open the armoured car and looted the money . Once again no sign of the police!

 

When I went to the police station to lay a charge for the theft of my musical equipment, the cop informed me that I needed the name and ID of the people who jumped on my car and looted the goods.

 

The vast population of people stretching from Hoedspruit to White River and from Hazyview to Mkuhlu were ANC supporters. Now disillusioned with the ANC. They have either gone to EFF or they simply don’t vote.

 

Parties like Action South Africa are relatively unknown and the DA is regarded as an Apartheid Party. It seems obvious to me that the DA and other opposition parties will never get their act together to unseat the ANC. This plays into the hands of the EFF whose rhetoric is always the same "It’s the white man's fault.

 

The future seems bleak. South Africa has become a failed state. Law and order has broken down and now the mobs rule!.

Our justice system is defunct, Jacob Zuma is still not in jail and Cyril Ramaphosa can hide money in his funiture and get away with it.

 

After the attack I head for Nelspruit to do some recording. However there is loadshedding, so the sound studio gets no money.

 

Five musicians who had work for three days at Amafu Lodge are left penniless because I am unable to reach Amafu.

 

The drums and the musical equipment can be replaced (hopefully I am insured), but my entire bead collection which I started 10 years ago has been stolen. Many of those beads I got in Mozambique, they are unique traditional beads, they are irreplaceable.

 

As I write this I am listening to Don Clarke song called "And the Country Burns" https://youtu.be/Ynr3coM0gjU

 

My thoughts are with Nelson Mandela, Enos Mabuza and other ANC leaders who fought the freedom struggle. Today their beautiful country South Africa is a failed state. Trashed and mismanaged by a corrupt criminal government. The caring, genuine politicians are gone, they have been replaced by uneducated, unemployed mobs who are ruling by force and by crime.

 

I fear for myself, I fear for my family, I fear for South Africa

There are red lights blinking! In the words of Bob Dylan:

"A hard rain is gonna fall"

Tread Lightly on the Earth

JV