This and that with Maluphosa: If you are angry and you know it

Leader: If you're angry and you know it shouting 'Voetsak!'

The rest: Voestak! if you're angry and you know it and you want the government to know, if you're angry and you know it shout Voestak! etc etc.

This was a new release, or remix of a song we used to sing at Sunday school many years ago. 'If you are happy and you know it…' This time it was being sung at some demonstration in Cape Town recently, and to make sure the government got the message, the demonstrators burned tires and sang their lungs out. Not that this was a new and isolated occurrence here. In fact, South Africa is a peaceful country at war.

Its citizens are at war with anything and anyone they think threatens their security and source of livelihood, for instance, busses, monkeys, foreigners and the government. It is estimated that at last fifteen people die daily in this country at the hands of other citizens. We are talking recorded or reported deaths. Multiply this by 365 days in a year, and you will know why I say this is a country at war.

In Cape Town alone and in just a week, five people were neck-laced.

This simply means a tyre, new or old, is forced around the victim's neck, doused generously with petrol and ignited. At times it is more than one tyre, depending on how long they have stretched your neck during the preparation for 'crowning'. Petrol is abound here, after-all sa vota! Then, while the victim screams and writhes in agony, the perpetrators dance around him, reminding one of how our ancestors use to dance around a freshly killed animal.

The dancing and chanting does not stop until the police have come to record statements from the community leaders. After the body has been taken away, of course with investigations continuing, the perpetrators run home as if they have just witnessed the home coming of a long lost relative. Even after witnessing the funeral of a friend of a friend, one is never in this jovial mood. The witnesses and leaders will harp on the same old and tired song: We are tired of these criminal, and all we know they are Zimbabweans. We never had problem here until this stealing Zimbabweans come to stay in our country. And we will not rest until we have finished him." Really? Really? Really?

Recently I witnessed a heated exchange between Siza and a woman a few streets away. She was telling Siza she would call the police so they can deport. Siza answered that she would not be surprised. How many Zimbabweans are deported on a daily basis from the streets, straight to Lindela, with only the clothes they have on? They leave family, friends, property, jobs – after having worked under the harshest of conditions and go home with nothing! You guys want freebies because you say savota.' Oh! What a mouthful. And Dee thinks she is right.

Sqhezema was deported once, with only an overall on.

There is no country without its fair share of criminals, whether it be thieves, murderers, rapists, or fraudsters. One can not assume just because South Africans are not good thieves, rapists, fraudsters or murderers, we come all the way to do these things for them. I for one would not want to stay in a South African jail. They must fill up their prisons with their own people because it is their prisons. Even before Zimbabweans came here, South Africa already had prisons. Don't tell me they were built in anticipation of the arrival of the Zimbabweans.

"Gijima mfana kwelase Zululand. Ubon 'otsotsi, baphethe kabi. Baphethe kok'ukubi. Okuvezi ngozi zodwa. Amatshe lapha, imkhonto lapha, ingqamu lapha, lovolovolo etc.

We used to sing this song even before I knew where the hell on the map South Africa was. The song, I'm convinced, did not refer to foreigners.

But the people here are naturally very angry. They are angry that the government is not building them homes. They are angry that foreigners have taken away their jobs and women. I hope it is not the jobs I referred to above, and the women who are selling nkukhu in the streets of Hilbrow. They are angry that they did not kill many people during the last council elections. The school kids are angry it has not been officially announced they can hit back at the teachers; the taxi-men are angry because the government imposed on them the rapid bus transport. The miners are angry the government does not want to nationalise mines, for now, and they have destroyed plant machinery worth quintillions,

And it brings back what Dee has always said about the laws and rules here: they are tame laws in a very wild citizenry. These people have shown that if the government does not do it for them, they will do it for themselves; and this is good. Like building houses from discarded pieces of metal and planks, neck-lacing foreigners, and meting out the instant death sentences on perceived criminals. So why does the government not revive the death sentence, officially? It will make many people very happy indeed. After-all, the populace has a very low opinion of life, just like they have a low opinion of the government and its laws.

Just like Sadc and the African Union have a low opinion of their own tenets. And when the United Nations or NATO begins to act, they cry fowl. There are countries in Africa which have been at silent civil wars, and the African union has done nothing but meet and smile about these situations. When NATO and the pragmatic United Nations complains, these guys pretend to be doing something; like a worker who will work only if the supervisor is watching him. Why do these organisations freeze where it is most appropriate and desirable to act? If they had acted earlier on Libya, most of what NATO has done would have been prevented. There are other countries which are potential trouble spots. The African Union will do the world a great favour by identifying such countries and acting before NATO bombs them right back to Stone Age.

Ngiyabonga mina!