|
 |
12 October 2002 |
The SACP's Blade Nzimande states the obvious:
The South African Communist Party has warned that efforts to give blacks a bigger chunk of the economy is creating a small, new wealthy elite and is not beating poverty.
I was musing about just how incestuous this black business elite is when reading in last week's Sunday Times of the coronation of mining magnate Patrice Motsepe as boss of NAFCOC:
He and his wife, Dr Precious Moloi, who is expecting their third child, share a multimillion-rand mansion in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, and he counts among his vehicles a state-of-the-art Porsche, a top-model Jaguar and the latest 7series BMW.
...... Motsepe's elder sister, Bridgette, who is married to Public Enterprises Minister Jeff Radebe, is founder and CEO of empowerment group Mmakau Mining. His other sister, Tsepiso, is a medical doctor married to Johnnic chairman and former politician Cyril Ramaphosa.
Some pretty powerful names in that lot!
Meanwhile, in this sober article about the outlook for the SA economy, the name of Moeletsi Mbeki, brother of you-know-who, is featured strongly.
Less sober opinion about the economy comes from Dave Bullard.
[Glad I've got last week's Sunday Times out of the way, before checking out tomorrow's edition - just where do these weeks go to?]
11:16:49 PM 
|
|
Prometheus Unbound.
In this week's edition of The Economist, a lengthy survey of Greece. Mandatory reading for me when I receive the print edition next week. In the meanwhile, let's review the opening article.
...your senses will be assaulted by the feverish energy and wild contradictions of modern Greece at the start of its third century of existence.
Good description
Despite the appearance of chaos, the quality of life in Athens has improved with the completion of a new metro line and the opening of a shiny new airport whose capacity vastly exceeds that of Hellinikon, the old airport that strained pilots' nerves on windy days. Within a few years a new highway around greater Athens will make it easier to travel north from the airport towards Salonika, or west towards Patras, without getting entangled in the capital. Further afield, the Peloponnese will be linked to central Greece by a bridge, and a new road from the Adriatic to the Turkish border will speed up east-west travel.
Actually, a very old and important road, the Via Egnatia, the old imperial route between Rome and Byzantium (Constantinople/Istanbul), brought up to date with the expenditure of vast EU funds. Yes, the infrastructure of the city, and the country, has made a differnce, and will continue to do so.
...the still baleful influence of a self-serving bureaucracy, whose clumsy regulations often force Greek citizens to behave deviously and irrationally...
Don't we know about that! And this:
...the persistence of corruption in high and low places all over Greece.
But the economy is strong:
All Greece's internal strains—between left and right, town and country, native and immigrant—have been eased by rapid economic growth, recently running at about 4% a year.
Let's see if we can keep it up.
9:46:31 PM
|
|
What Is a European [New York Times: International News]
Am I a European?
Don't know.
I'm certainly a South African, always will be, never will forget or stop missing my African roots. But I'm a "European" South African, a white-skinned, Eurocentric South African of British origin, father born in Scotland, died in South Africa, my mother of longer African pedigree, all of her great-grandparents were born in Natal, but she is the most "English" lady I know (in a pre-WWII sense, so very different to the English lady of today).
But I live for the majority of the year in Greece, with a Greek wife, and two South African-Greek daughters. I am reminded all the time of the debt European language, thought, culture owes to classical Greece. I feel at home in Europe, more so than I would in the USA.
So I think I'm European also. But, more than anything else, a citizen of the world.
8:31:14 PM
|
|
Comment about Tina Brown's new weekly column in The Times. I happen to have bought the Times both last week and yesterday's, and revelled in her column each time, but the professional commentator reviews it much better than I can.
12:42:44 AM
|
|
Oops! What a tangled family story this is! Doesn't say what the daughter's reaction was.
12:33:28 AM
|
|
We've got our license!
 Today (Friday, October 11) was a very auspicious day in our life in Zakynthos: after two years of waiting, we were told that we will get our building license, which means that the illegal structure we have in front of the house will now be legitimate, we probably won't have to pay a huge fine for illegal building, or it will be a nominal fine, and from next summer we can operate as a beach bar/snack bar and earn an income again. Yippee!
A nice bottle of Moet & Chandon was cracked open, and suitable celebrations took place.
Electrical work was completed today, final painting of the roller shutters is happening, we have varnished the bar counter, and we have invested in a handsome pair of Pitharia (Greek pots) to add character to the verandah. The place is begining to look really nice, and will look a great deal better when it sports a framed, signed license!
It's been a long, hard struggle, and there is a story to be told, which I will do one of these days, and we are probably only on the fringe of more interminable bureaucratic struggles, neighbourly envy and irrelevant obstacles. We also need to get through the winter, and there will be more expenses before we get started, but we'll manage, and we'll enjoy putting the rest of the project together.
While the whole exercise has been financially devastating, there is an upside: we have learned a number of valuable lessons, we will operate the business quite differently to what we were planning two years ago, or even last year, we now know who our friends are, and who are not, and we have met a number of very useful people, including virtually every elected official on the island, whose offices we have been haunting for the last six months. I'm sure they're as pleased as we are that it all appears to be over. Let's hope that all the good guys get re-elected in the local government elections coming up this weekend, and the wicked witch in Corfu (periferiarchis, or regional governor), who did as much as anyone to hold us up, gets defeated. Whatever happens, we will have the piece of paper. The timing is quite crucial, because who knows what happens after the elections?
More later. In the meanwhile, be happy with us.
12:15:45 AM
|
|
© Copyright 2006 Robert C Wallace.
|
|
|
