Apartheid finally ended for Markus Jooste on that fateful day when he killed himself above the rocks where the Indian Ocean crashes onto the southern shores of Africa’s Deep South. He killed himself on one of the most important days on the South African calendar; the day when South Africans remember the Sharpeville Massacre of 21 March 1960.
I cannot associate anything even vaguely “brave” about Jooste’s last act among the living, nor do I feel “a bit confused and a lot traumatised”. Such claims are terribly Nietzschean. It was he (Nietzsche) who conceived of suicide, or “voluntary death”, as courageous, laudable and deserving of reverence… In the case of Jooste, it is difficult to sustain the idea that (his) suicide was a consequence of meaninglessness.
Allow me a brief ompad. Life is invariably a result of accident or chance, after that, drawing on our own resources (this is an important point), we give it meaning. Until he killed himself, Jooste’s life had meaning. He spoke, for instance, about his passion and the inspiration he took from working with a “class of directors like Bruno Steinhoff, Jannie Mouton, Christo Wiese”. This is the elite capitalist class I often refer to.
He also said he was a bad loser, that he was disciplined and shared a “high regard” for Amazon. His life, Jooste said, “has always been about relationships” and about trust. He added that his objective (as part of Steinhoff) was to be “a listed, very well-run corporate governance company in an environment where a 100% full-blooded entrepreneur can live out his dreams. That, really, is our culture”.
It is in these iterations where meaning to Jooste’s life is found, and as he explained in that interview, he used the resources given to him by the privileged standing of the Afrikaner, which Jan Petrus van der Merwe described in his doctoral dissertation as “a white population group”.
As the last of the summer wines were running out last week, Jooste probably saw in his rear-view mirror, disappearing into a tiny dot, the prestige and privileges that he had enjoyed throughout his life, and that all of it was coming to an end.
There was a time, probably, when he would have got away with things because of his place in society, a privileged white man in a world created and maintained by privileged white men, and where white men watched each other’s backs. For Jooste that time ended in the minutes and hours before he pulled the trigger that killed him.
I have never ascribed to the belief that one should not speak ill of the dead. There are some among the dead of whom nothing remains but their legacies of cruelty, venality and the legatees of their worst acts of inhumanity — and in Jooste’s case, the greed remains.
It is difficult, at the best of times, to imagine that there is no such thing as a “victimless crime” — otherwise it would not have been a crime. In other words, if smoking a joint is a “victimless crime”, then smoking a joint should not be a crime.
After he killed himself, the Financial Times wrote about his crimes, crimes for which he faced the prospect of arrest and which “plunged [South Africa] into a crisis in 2017”, without any reference to the social and historical contexts of those crimes.
Every crisis is the child of an earlier crisis and has to be understood in the multiplicity of contexts (social and historical) and not simply as an accident or a set of bad behaviours unmoored from history and society.
From Giambattista Vico, we reach the understanding that human history has to be understood as the history of societies and not individuals. Historical analyses have to, therefore, consider society as the appropriate unit of analysis.
Afrikaner solidarity and the old white boy network crumbling
Jooste belonged to that most prestigious group of Afrikaner business people whose economic power and influence, and the vertically segmented privileges of more than 300 years of white dominance and control, did not match their loss of political power and influence from about 1990 onwards.
Much of their wealth and opportunity and open doors were purposefully built and enabled by political influence. The Broederbond was almost always at the centre of white power, in general, and Afrikaner power in particular. It was white solidarity that helped sustain their power (it is really hard to associate Jooste’s rise and ultimate death with “bravery” and it is even more difficult to feel “confused and traumatised”).
For most of the apartheid era, the wealth of Jooste and his former billionaire and millionaire colleagues did not fall from the sky from about 27 April 1994. It was all accumulated through “a very powerful sense of fellowship, solidarity and commitment… [and]… intense comradeship”. It was vertically segmented.
Reading the extract of Rob Rose’s book, “Steinheist”, one gets a sense of the centrality of Stellenbosch in the Jooste saga. We should remember that notwithstanding the entry of black students to the university, Stellenbosch remains the stronghold of a “Mafia” which I would suggest is a new name for the old boys club that got their start under Afrikaner Christian Nationalism, and today represents what Deon Wiggett described as an “Afrikaner-industrial complex seated in the town. Its members include Johann Rupert and Jannie Durand from Remgro; Dr Edwin Hertzog from Mediclinic International; Jannie Mouton of PSG; and the now-embattled figures of Christo Wiese, Whitey Basson and Markus Jooste.”
In this sense, the Broederbond has not fully dissolved, it simply adopted a new name, so to speak, and like a children’s colouring-in book the basic story remains the same — the colours are all that can, and have been changed. Wiggett goes to great pains to avoid referring to anyone of this old boy club as “criminals”. To save my bacon (and my income) I should probably echo that sentiment.
Jooste and his gabbas are all well-meaning and upright citizens filled only with innocence and goodwill. As the Afrikaans in me would add slyly: Hulle staan regop, maar ek kannie sê hulle is opreg nie…
With respect to the Stellenbosch mafia, Wiggett explained, “born and bred secure in comfort, they form less a mafia than a Broederbond 2.0 — leaner than the legacy ware and optimised for a captured South Africa.”
It is clear, then, or it should be, that I am quite unoriginal in tying the current old boys club to the embedded (and vertically segmented) privileges of being white and an Afrikaner, in a “Broederbond 2.0… optimised for a captured South Africa”.
When considering the statement made above, that apartheid ended for Markus Jooste on 21 March 2024, an important element is this: whenever something, anything went wrong, at the height of white dominance and control, a quick word in the right ear (of well-placed politicians including Cabinet ministers and prime ministers) would protect the Afrikaners from “becoming slaves in the land of their birth”. These passages were drawn from Dan O’Meara’s research on the Broederbond as “the Class Vanguard of Afrikaner Nationalism”.
It should be said that there are Afrikaners who have embraced the changes that came after 1990, and who did not cling to the vertically segmented privileges that guaranteed or promised immense wealth in a democratic future.
Jooste and his colleagues continued to amass wealth through “old boy networks” to which they simply added dark-skinned faces to somehow sanctify their continued accumulation.
However, South Africa became a democratic country in 1994, and for people like Jooste, there were no longer sympathetic ministerial ears and the solidarity they enjoyed for decades, arguably for centuries, was not spread wider across today’s elite capitalist class.
This does not mean that there are no longer people who began their passage to wealth and power as a direct result of Afrikaner Christian Nationalism with its attendant old-boys network. It simply meant, in some ways, that if you screw your brethren (and they are all white men) you will be abandoned.
Jooste was abandoned. There was no longer the protection of apartheid, of white privilege. That system was kept alive by “old boys’ networks” (and their new members); as a system, it was no longer available to Jooste. Apartheid finally ended for Jooste.
The National Prosecuting Authority that Cyril Ramaphosa refreshed with the appointment of Shamila Batohi as National Director of Public Prosecutions in 2019 has been slow at bringing accused people to justice.
Batohi assembled what was the best legal team comprising Michelle le Roux SC, Wim Trengove SC and Michael Mbikiwa, to act as prosecutors in the Steinhoff case. Justice may be slow at getting to the criminals in the system, but its arc eventually reaches its target. Or, as the Sunday Times editorial explained last Sunday, “justice was closing in on Jooste — slowly but surely”.
What remains left to say about Jooste’s death are the words of the former Minister of Justice, Jimmy Kruger, when he heard about Steve Biko’s death:
“It leaves me cold.” DM
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Zondo commission, state capture, Nkandla, money stuffed in a couch and a partridge in a pear tree… if you made a group of all the people who truly thought the Jooste issue was about race, you could not fill a phone booth…
Thank you. They just cannot let go, can they?
Absolutely.
Peppering your article with irrelevent references to Nietzsch and Giambattista Vico is a rather under graduate method of trying to add weight to what is lightweight. Yes he did operate within a social and cultural circle but your attempt to characrerise that as a uniquely white thing fails for obvious reasons. If any group of criminals benefits from racial solidarity, you don’t have to look far to identify it.
DM is allowing a lot of drivel to slip through these days but this piece isn’t it!
It seems your limited recollection of apartheid evils (you were too young to understand – but obviously taught to hate white people during its dying years) is starkly disclosed in this piece. It drips with racisim and lacks any sense of humanity. It is an opinion to be ignored.
100% Gavin
Well said.
1000% agree, well said, and thank you.
1000% agree, well said, and thank you.
100%. Classic case of an Ideologue trying to sound clever but shows how completely blind they are to humanity and reality. So stuck on promoting identity politics and skin-deep racism that totally lost perspective that ethics has nothing to do with skin colour or race or whatever other divisive identity can be promoted. Written to stir up and incite negative emotions. “What does it profit a man to win the world (comments) but lose his soul”
100%. Classic case of an Ideologue trying to sound clever but shows how completely blind they are to humanity and reality. So stuck on promoting identity politics and skin-deep racism that totally lost perspective that ethics has nothing to do with skin colour or race or whatever other divisive identity can be promoted. Written to stir up and incite negative emotions. “What does it profit a man to win the world (comments) but lose his soul”
The pain and shame of perceiving you’re being wrapped in one dirty cloth! Especially when some rogue members keep letting out that ‘we too aren’t t perfect’! Ain’t nice is it?!
On the other side of this, some will without a doubt or hesitation, put 100% on anything that says every ANC member is corrupt. In this article, if you replaced the name with JZ etc. their vibe would be very agreeable.
In any society, when bad things are done by one group to another, the are actives who do the deeds and passive agents, the onlookers and enablers. Some people just become overwhelmed and powerless. Some very brave rise up in defence or support of the underdogs, risking rebuke from their own.
So, not everyone ANC is corrupt, not all Whites supported apartheid, not all Zulus are violent, not all Muslims are terrorists, etc etc. You can perhaps argue that some people are enablers.
You mean like Germans did ‘know’ what the Nazis were doing during the holocaust … or currently the Zionists are doing in Palestine ? Surely acknowledging ‘complicity or inaction’ is a start ?
The whole world operates on elites, mafias and old boys clubs. Like turning a chess board South Africa has just changed the colour of the pieces. It may matter little to the deceased but in fact the point chosen for his demise actually overlooks the South Atlantic Ocean.
The point of an old boys club is to reserve privilege for a few, not millions. I think the author owes the 99% of white afrikaner men that were never part of the club an apology. Those networks exclude them as much as they (still) exclude men from other races or languages.
Our government learnt well from the old boys, as we see in cadre deployment committees and BEE legislation.
Thanks,agree
There is a great irony that the author of this article is making this about race and privilege, when so much of what he writes could so easily be applied to the ANC and its buddies today. They too are saturated with privilege, they too ensure it’s their cadres turn to eat. Comparisons to the mafia are much more apt and fitting when applying them to the ANC than to Joost and the so called “Stellenbosch mafia”. With people actually being extorted and killed all the time, illegal businesses and their thug like practices (think taxi industry) openly supported.
I agree that such “old boy” connections are disgusting and need to be called out, but most of the accusation in this article (apart from of course race, as there are no white people with any real power in the ANC) seem to describe the ANC to the T. Old cadre networks covering each others back no matter the reason, whenever something goes wrong, a quick word in the right ear of well-placed politician fixing things, clinging to the vertically segmented privileges that guarantee or promise immense wealth are all very typical for the ANC, and the frequency of corrupt practices, length of time, amount of money the ANC have stolen in the last 30 years makes Joost almost look like a choir boy.
I however never would come to the conclusion this greed in the ANC has much to do with race, similarly, such networks Joost belonged to are likely to be much more about greed and keeping the group small, than about race per se.
John Stupard and DM, I always thought that you stand for honesty, nation building and equality, but this Article from Ismael is a solid Rasist article with the intention to devide people and play one race against the other, this is really taking a old dead cow of 30 years ago and try to resurrect it again to stir hate by using a wrong doing person in society to lable an entire race group as criminals. This is an article that come from a sick mind thinking to poisen a country that has grown so much away from racism.
Like many other readers and supporters I am on the point of moving away from DM reading something like this that do not build our nation but actually trying to destroy all the growth of the last 30 years. Ismael I have no other conclusion, you are a destructive thinker and your way of interpretation of the Jooste case is based on hate and not on any balanced view of the case. DM you want loose readers and close down? Keep on having this crap published! Readers if you support this then you just as crazy and see no future in South Africa. Ismeal you sound like standing for a high political position in the comming elevtion, DM not the place for you , try the Governing party, you will fit better there as you can make more money there. Good luck.
Exactly!
The usual test. Substitute the word ‘white’ with ‘black’ and re-read.
Maybe our kids will be able to read ‘person’ instead of white or black but with parents like us I am not so sure the race cards will end with their generation. Which is sad. Star Trek politics is probably only due in the 23rd century after all.
Mr Largardien, technically, Hermanus is not on the Indian Ocean—one of several mistakes in this piece.
Christo Wiese and Whitey Basson and 100% not embattled. Please explain why you think they are.
Dear Ismail, the ANC implemented their own version of networking since 1994. The Afrikaners were successful. Albeit only for their own. The ANC failed dismally. For everybody. Why? Please explore THAT intellectually!
Stealing money and protecting each other’s backs – what he accuses Jooste and co of – is the one thing the ANC has been brilliant at since 1994, to be honest…
Thank you for an exceptionally well written opinion piece. Judging by the comments, an opinion which ruffles some feathers, yet clearly and unapologeticly articulated. The thing about opinions being that each is entitled to their own, and though one may not agree with everything said, something is to be said for the skill in weaving the argument.
Call it what you will, but drivel it is not.
An exceptional piece would have noted the irony of the parallels to the ANC and would have conceded that maybe , just maybe its not just about race, and that greed is very much race agnostic.
An exceptional piece would have noted the irony of the parallels to the ANC and would have conceded that maybe , just maybe its not just about race, and that greed is very much race agnostic
Laurette … your observations are pertinent … but there are the usual group of self appointed ‘experts’ who would say otherwise to deflect their feigned outrage …and indulge in whataboutism.
“but there are the usual group of self appointed ‘experts’ who would say otherwise to deflect their feigned outrage …and indulge in whataboutism.”
Pretty much describes you to the T Kanu. What was that saying about stones in the glass houses again? The only difference is that I don’t have the resort to racial prejudice you seem to default to so often.
Seems like the mere disagreement to your opinion (that you are absolutely entitled to, just like I am to mine) even with proper arguments is enough for you to label people. Yet with all these accusations, very rarely do I see you respond to the substance of the comment you are criticizing.
So what exactly was wrong with my opinion? How is the irony I point that the ANC is worse in every way to the old boy connections of the so called Stellenbosch mafia a whataboutism? How is my opinion that this article is not exceptional but heavily biased in any way me “deflect(ing) their(my) feigned outrage?”
It is your American style hubris and smugness and superiority that is the issue here . Off course you will not be able to ‘see’ it .. as a matter of choice … choosing to be blind .
“It is your American style hubris and smugness and superiority that is the issue here . Off course you will not be able to ‘see’ it .. as a matter of choice … choosing to be blind .”
I am sorry Kanu, but if you cannot even form a coherent argument after spouting accusations such as “feigned outrage and indulge in whataboutism”, I cannot really take your comments very seriously. But it really does reaffirm that this accusation seems to describe you quite well.
Let me give you another chance. Please explain how my opinion is “American style hubris”?
What exactly is “American style hubris”? What part of my initial comment do you define as smugg and why? How do you deduce I feel superior (which I never mentioned in any way and deny strongly)
I am merely asking you to clearly articulate reasons logically, without ad hominem attacks.
I may sometimes like all of us have to battle with bias, but if someone has a well formulated argument, I will generally try and learn something from it, even if I don’t always agree with it.
I am afraid the only one who chooses to be blind here is you. Seems like you are blinded by hate and anger, preventing you to see anything clearly beyond it.
Jooste’s death was cowardly, no honour at all.
This enduring, persistent, narrative about old white males has always been off-point.
They are there because they are good at what they do.
AND you can bet they will choose to employ new people that are competent.
Not based on race, etc.
Why would they hire less than the best that they can afford, after building up a successful enterprise only for it to potentially fail after all their skill and hard work over the previous decades ?
Ismail, Jooste was a criminal and I don’t agree with your assumption that he would have gotten away with it in the apartheid era, this is pure speculation based on your biased opinion. Move on my friend, if you can’t write articles that get traction without bring race into it you are in the wrong business. DM I am disappointed that you allow this crap. Keep it up and I will leave.
This is a disgraceful comment. Incitement to suicide is a crime, and I urge the DM moderator to take note of your comment.
I agree, totally.
What utter drivel.
Lagardien’s level of self righteous generalisation to spew cheap racist slander is amateurish and sad at best. Maybe he should apply his profound psychology to the criminals in other fields of criminality – who are the gang leaders, the drug lords, the fraudsters of state funds, nepotists and falsifiers of licences, and qualifications, money launderers and illicit traders. Who are the people with the bank accounts and properties in Dubai….
And then, for any body under any circumstances, to quote Jimmy Kruger,
is just vulgar. How low can you go?
As low as you can ? By the way the last I heard is that Dubai is has been traded in for Vanuatu .. at least by the Guptas .
Wow, little doubt as to your affiliations Dr Lagardien! I doubt whether any of the readers condone any of Jooste’s deeds or the manner of his “escaping” the Law, but your article as far as I’m concerned is nothing but a scathing attack on white Afrikaner men(who I might add did a GREAT deal in establishing an Economy that once flourished, now crippled by an inept ruling ANC Government.)
And yes, you are right, “there were no longer sympathetic ministerial ears”, they are to busy with their own shenanigans, self enrichment, covering up on state capture and cadre activity to listen to anyone else or concentrate on their actual function of governing.
If now only the same vigilance and skill could be applied to all the “alledged”culprits of State Capture who just seem to stay two steps ahead of prosecuting authorities, their “apartheid” can also come to an end!
Right on Hannes
How you came to link apartheid and Jooste’s suicide is a mystery. I read the article with the hope of finding a gem which will explain how apartheid is linked to the suicide. I get it, you have to write to earn but here you missed the point by a mile. You tried to square a circle and failed, dismally. Its a 2/10 for me.
Why does your ‘scorecard’ mean anything to anyone but yourself ? It is called hubris !
Kanya you are a bore
“write to earn”, now you’ve lost me?Perhaps you should try reading again and not attribute your conclusion to what I said, besides I did not realise there were invigilators scoring comments, pardon my ignorance.
I’ve never been a fan of Lagardien based on his articles up to now. Typical LSE trained leftist living in his own world. But he’s managed to hit a new low with his post-mortem smearing of Jooste with accusations of racism, mafia networking etc. In contrast to the billions stolen by the ANC and their henchmen Jooste’s fraud was minuscule and did not involve stealing from the state, ie taxpayer money.
…but he did steal from the average man in the street, the people who invested in his company – I was one – based on the reported performance. I’m not “rich” and have taken the knock on the chin; I’ll survive. Having Christo Wiese as a major shareholder gave a degree of confidence in the company. He’s lost billions.
Would that the State Capture thieves emulated Markus Jooste’s final action. Or should I say alleged thieves as it seems that no orange suits are being worn up to now. I feel that for them it should perhaps be “Guilty until proven innocent”?
Falls down a bit when you look at his age, he would have been in early 30s in 1994, a bit young to be in the magic Broederbond circles — which were always older than that.
His seed money, as far as I have read, came from traditional banks, not the special BB units which the apartheid state used to promote Afrikaner capitalism.
The myth of secret societies (Jews, Freemasons, Broederbond, Al Qaeda) is very strong, and often does not stand up to scrutiny — is Al Qaeda in Africa part of the main group or opportunist factions fighting for power?
The danger is that perpetuating the myth leaves the door open to the crazies of this world to use them for bad — Hitler and the Jews /Queers/ Gypsies being the prime example.
It would have been preferable to use the word “homosexuals” instead of the pejorative term “Queers”
You do know what the Q stands for in LGBTQI+, yes? I’ll give you a clue, it’s not “Qomosexuals”. If you absolutely have to take issue and get upset on someone else’s behalf, won’t you spare a thought for the Gypsies?
Chips, multiple, on both shoulders, hence an alarmingly skewed vision.
Sad, it is attitudes like this that drag the country down, prevent it from realising anything like it’s potential.
Do we really have to endure Americanisms like “voluntary death”? The word is suicide.
And by the way Ismail, the trigger didn’t kill Markus Jooste – the bullet from the gun did.
What a genius you are ! Pity Einstein isn’t around .
This article is an Opinionista and an individual’s point of view so open minds are called for and DM should, in the interests of balance, give space to all viewpoints. Having said that I did find the comments far more interesting and enlightening than the article itself as I am getting very bored with the old refrain of “White Privilege”. I’m white and still searching for that. Maybe authors such as this one could come up with something less dated and more original. I suspect that the people he names as members of this privileged group had that privilege in their DNA, handed down over generations, in that they were smart, hard working, saw opportunities and were not scared to take risks. Their efforts not only enriched themselves but thousands of others of all races as well. For example Whitey Basson, who he names, grew a small 8 store enterprise worth a million rand into a R114 billion 2300 store empire employing 140000 people across 14 African countries. Have the comrade cadres or, indeed, the entire ANC come anywhere close to matching that? A little research, sadly lacking in this article (Hermanus on the Indian Ocean) , would reveal the massive contribution to economic wellbeing and upliftment of the previously disadvantaged made by all the others he mentions. If that is the result of privilege, of whatever color, bring it on!
Nice try at deflecting that white privilege did not exist … like colonialism and slavery did not exist either. Keep up the brilliant ‘research’ !
Unadulterated crap.
Jooste seems to have been a narcissist until he pulled the trigger, still thinking what he did was ok.
At least they built, they did not destroy everything.
EISH wena!! I think the author had all this bumpff ready to drop on the next POSSIBLY relevant article! The reading “left me cold”. and that is not my opinion on the death of MJ, or any other human being.
I am an old white male and I certainly am not a member of the Afrikaner Mafia, and have never received any benefits from any old-boys club. I also have friends who are old black males who have never received any benefits from belonging to the ANC or any of the other Mafia – taxi, building industry, civil service, SADTU, SAPS, SAFA, and a myriad of others.
The criminality involved is about greed, power and avarice. Nothing else. This is about people who when placed in positions of trust, lose their morality and take advantage of the situation to benefit themselves.
This articled should have highlighted the fact that Jooste had aided and abetted criminal activity, that he had caused huge losses to the man in the street, and the real tragedy is that he will never face justice for it.
To blame the boere mafia for his crime, is like blaming the ANC for Zuma’s criminality. Complicity after the fact, perhaps, but the crime was committed by the main character.
This piece should have been published in one of Iqbal Surve’s papers – it has that sort of ring about it.
A couple of lessons in grammar would not be amiss. And do try to get over the hoary apartheid drivel. Jooste was in his early thirties when the current bunch of crooks and thugs took power.
You certainly got the Old Boys all riled up there, Ismail! They get upset when you speak about them as “corrupt criminals”, the way they speak about us. How quickly they fall over themselves to emphasise “it’s not all, just some.”
You really should have added, “just look north across the Atlantic at how crooked they are.” This one pays off a pornstar; that one over-inflates his business’ value to get more credit; that one changes his issues according to who pays the most; that one employs his entire family in his government-funded office; that one’s son-in-law secures cheap land for favours; that one buys an hotel near his government-funded office so he can profit off visitors; this one tweets that he is Christ, etc.
Thank you for not letting them forget, no matter how defensive they become. Stay woke.
Me thinks 2 villages are missing their idiots!
Bla bla bla
Articles like these can be depressing. It makes me realise – and I often forget – that some people only see things through the lens of race. A criminal about to be held accountable performed a cowardly act; Nope, it was a racist Afrikaaner, and Apartheid. No evidence provided, of course. Just some tenuous arguments. The dissonance is flabbergasting.
And this is where the depression comes in. Ismail is clearly not un-educated, but his viewpoint is radically skewed by his racism. I truly hope there are not many more people like Ismail who cannot see the world more realistically.
Yet another pseudo-intellectual masterpiece from a (racist?) pseudo-intellectual. Well answered by some real intellectuals (and others) below. Crooks are crooks no matter the colour of their skins, but I wouldn’t expect this oke to even start to work that out.
I was pretty certain when I saw the heading of this article and the name of the author that most of the comments at the end would be almost incoherent diatribes against the content and the author. I was right! It’s a pity that only a few of the comments are sensibly critical and constructive.
This pamphlet is the culmination of the hateful tirades I have read from this author. A slap in the face to everyone who approaches each other in this country with an honest willingness to reconcile. Doesn’t he himself show the profound racist bias that he accuses others of?
Frankly this ‘racist crap’ article ‘leaves me cold’!
Some racist stuck in the mid 1900’s. Go look at Nkandla, Guptas, etc.
And of course, you have let the cat out of the bag.
“What remains left to say about Jooste’s death are the words of the former Minister of Justice, Jimmy Kruger, when he heard about Steve Biko’s death: “It leaves me cold.” ”
You have now shown your true colours, Lagardien – you are as well rounded and fit to be called a human being as was Jimmy Kruger.
And of course, you have let the cat out of the bag.
“What remains left to say about Jooste’s death are the words of the former Minister of Justice, Jimmy Kruger, when he heard about Steve Biko’s death: “It leaves me cold.” ”
You have now shown your true colours, Lagardien – you are as well rounded and fit to be called a human being as was Jimmy Kruger.
Jooste was a despicable individual and an out-an-out criminal, but I fail to see the point of this article focusing on his race. Does the author want a different level of punishment for criminal based on their skin colour? I suggest that he buys a farm in the Karoo, and populate it with like-minded individuals that carry huge chips on their shoulders.
A very disappointing article Ismail, suicide is tragic, regardless of the circumstances.
Time to move on from the “Afrikaner, Stellenbosch” bashing and “White privilege” myopia and focus on the causes of SA’s current situation and future prospects under current governance and administration.
What about an article on the Medupi, SAA, PRASA and arms deals, et al, and the key players involved?
In bad taste and not true and not well researched. Very sorry for you actually to go to such lows. Electionering for the ANC? Get over your hatred for Afrikaners I would say