Southern Africa

The Irene Morning Market

I wrote this article for a course I was doing in 2012 – it was enthusiastically received and I thought I would share it – for those who may never have experienced South Africa?

Sadly, this market is no longer held at the location I have described here – in about early 2016 it was moved to another venue several kilometres away. It is still very popular but somehow not the same? I was last there in late 2016.

Irene is a small suburb south of Pretoria with a village-like atmosphere. It used to be a sleepy hollow but is now enormously popular – even trendy, particularly at weekends

In Irene is “Smuts’ House” that was once the home of General Jan Smuts, a statesman and soldier who was instrumental in the establishment of the League of Nations. (see https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jan-Smuts)

Smuts House is a museum and national monument surrounded by extensive grounds and, twice a month, the Irene morning market takes place there. People travel from all over the region to attend and stall holders arrive early to set up.

Most popular is the food stall area where you can buy almost any kind of food. From Indian delicacies to Portuguese snacks to Chinese spring rolls and custard tarts. There are traditional South African stalls with boerewors rolls (literally “farmer’s sausage”) Spicy and delicious, these are our answer to the New York hot dog.

Artisanal cheeses, preserves, pickles and jams. “Waatlemoen konfyt”, a watermelon preserve using watermelon rind to make a crisp, sugary, delicious treat.

The pancake lady and her twenty-five litre barrel of batter – with a tap. Rotating twelve pans on the burners and flipping pancakes. Her son manages the cinnamon sugar and rolling – they barely stay ahead of the crowd.

Moving on to find curio sellers, local and regional, with carved wood and soapstone, wire sculptures, beadwork and leatherwork.

Bedding, clothing, art, a children’s painting table, coffee and soft drink stalls. Second hand book stalls and plenty of old bits and bobs that my sister describes as the “one man’s junk is another man’s treasure” section. Oh, and collectables of all sorts from old tins to badges, brooches, toys and, and, and…

Pets, particularly  dogs, feature a lot. I learned about “Merle” Great Danes from a tired looking couple ( http://www.all-about-great-danes.com/merle-great-danes.html ) with their magnificent young grey-dappled, white-chested Merle in attendance. Two chaps had a Scotty dog in a zippered “medics uniform” of waistcoat and peaked cap. A beautiful, bored Labrador retriever and a dignified border collie and a man with the slobberiest, puffingest bulldog named Larry!

Camel rides – on aloof-looking camels with the most exotic eyelashes.

A young blonde girl had a colourful “jewellery” stall – a real splash of colour. So eye-catching, I asked if I might take a picture. Poised and relaxed her bright eyes and friendly, unselfconscious smile made the braces on her teeth a part of her sparkle. There is a lesson in this for young people with orthodontic problems because that smile, already so dazzling and natural, will be a real winner when the braces come off.

 

 

People. Fat and thin, well-to-do and modest. Mothers and children, babies and grannies, hot and bothered and cool, calm and collected. Sleeping, exhausted babies and wide-eyed demanding tots in prams with grannies and mommies in attendance revealing varying degrees of love and tired defeat. People, bewildered and brash, shy and outgoing, smiling and grim-faced but all with a common purpose – the Irene morning market.

Military life, Random Blogs

The Medal

I was not in the infantry or special forces – I was in the Corps of Signals but this is a bit of fiction that occurred to me after meeting, reading about and hearing some stories. You could not make up some of that stuff. Like when I was on attachment to RLI on the Moz border and one of the guys (he has a bravery decoration) described having to run for their lives up a sandy rise with rounds striking at their heels. He said, laughing about the ludicrous insanity of it “…we just ran up that hill with the rounds hitting everywhere behind us, just like a fucking movie….!” (The quote may not be EXACT but close enough).

So I created this bit of fiction – because my own basic training probably saved my life once or twice and I certainly used my signals training all my working life after leaving the army. Often the question that was asked, “Where did you learn that?”, was answered “In the Rhodesian Army, starting in 1964!” and got me some odd looks!

So here is my fiction…no reference to any person, living or dead…

“What did you get the medal for?” asked the trainee.

“I got if for paying attention” the instructor replied.

The squad were sitting around with the instructor near the end of their training – out in the sticks, mission completed and awaiting transport back to base.

“I was a recruit once,” he said “just like you guys”.

I had to learn drill, and drill and drill and drill.

Then drill with a rifle – also over and over and over.

They only taught us ONE THING about rifle handling at first – how to make safe. …and we had to clear the rifle EVERY TIME we got it from the armoury even though we KNEW the armourer would never issue a loaded rifle and we had to show it was clear on handing it back. EVERY TIME.

Then we started learning to FIRE THE RIFLE and the drills around safety and handling became more painfully repetitive. There was a chuckle from the men.

Then we had combat training and learned to use hand grenades. That was interesting – preparing the grenades, carrying them and throwing them. And learning, as you have, that they do NOT make a bang and explosion of flame and debris like a 500-pound bomb. Another chuckle.

Skirmishing and patrolling and leading and walking tail end. Setting and initiating ambushes and all those boring things called training, training, TRAINING.

The tedium and the repetitiveness, the punishments. And why did they put so much emphasis on CLEANING YOUR KIT. Why did knives and forks and mess tins have to gleam?

And then I was told I was a qualified soldier.

I reported to my unit and was treated like shit! I was treated like a recruit – like an untrained useless add-on.

After a while I was gradually accepted and given certain responsibilities – responsibilities that I still thought were a bit beneath me.

One day though, I realised I was one of the team and that I had been accepted and that I belonged.

Then we were deployed on operations and I was shit-scared. Realising that nobody was free of their private fears made mine manageable.

And when the shit hit the fan on one deployment and I had to perform – it was no longer me, it was the training. All that instinctive rifle handling and obedience to shouted commands – THAT kept me alive.

And one day they presented me with this medal and I was a bit bewildered and even vaguely embarrassed. I was not the only one on the scene and I felt that, like everyone else, I had just done what I had been trained to do.

The citation that came with the medal seemed to be about someone else and I understand why people laugh and joke about these things – it is how you deal with it.

But, you asked how I got the medal? I got it because I paid attention and when I was caught NOT paying attention I was pulled up short – punished if you will. But I DID get trained – tediously, repetitively until I could handle the weapons in the dark, understand instructions and react to commands instinctively but still use my own brains.

I became a trained soldier.

The TRAINING got the medal. The instructors earned the medal for me.

No one goes into this to be a hero and when they get called HERO they are generally confused and bewildered – because they did what they had been trained to do.

If your intention is to be a hero and get a medal you are in the wrong place – you need to be a functioning soldier first.

No matter what you do in the army – pay attention to the training and you will do it well. That is all that is required. You do your best and you do it well.

Oh, and keeping your kit clean means you do not get sick – it is as simple as that.

My life, Random Blogs

The Black Dog

Depression – The BLACK DOG

I hope the Australian organisation using the name https://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/ will forgive me but I believe that no lesser persons than Samuel Johnson and Winston Churchill (http://theconversation.com/winston-churchill-and-his-black-dog-of-greatness-36570) coined the term many years before when referencing their own status, that of being the sufferers of depression, quite likely being manic-depressive.

I was married to a sufferer. Indeed, we had a REAL black dog, Digger was his name, an irrepressible, goofy and lovable Labrador/Border collie cross…and my then wife, Rose (Rose-Marie) had her personal, invisible BLACK DOG. Depression is an awful condition that has only in the modern era been identified as a real illness. An illness partly of the mind and partly of the chemical make-up of the body of the sufferer.

I am not going to address the difficulties of her childhood that no doubt contributed to her state of mind as an adult but suffice to say, the condition is apparent in her family as related to me by her cousin, a woman who quietly takes her medication and who shows no sign of her black dog to the outside world.

Rose, when I met her, was a startlingly attractive woman of about thirty-two who must have been (and still was ,actually) quite beautiful in her teens and twenties.

Having been shy and introverted, when she was introduced to the world outside the confines of her family she cut loose with a vengeance.

A short-lived flirtation with LSD and a few other drugs was to trouble her once or twice in the years before we got to know each other but she had the strength of character to KNOW that this would be the end of her.

She was a fairly heavy smoker and her DRUG of choice was to become alcohol.

Rose was always well-groomed and outwardly confident but inwardly she seethed with insecurity and anger. The anger was directed inward at her inability to stand up to people because of a fear that she would be thought lazy or incompetent or not fun-loving. It resulted in her becoming overwhelmed as people loaded their work onto this helpful, seemingly cheerful, woman.

Another result of this fear of being found wanting was that she was bullied. By men in her life and by bosses and colleagues who should have known better.

She had few friends because she suspected everyone who tried to get close to her of having an ulterior motive. The men wanted to get her to bed the women were, in her mind, snide and nasty and as soon as people seemed to become her friends she pushed them away. Not so you would immediately notice but she would just find excuses not to meet them, to not accept their invitations to visit for a party or drinks or a braai (barbecue to the uninitiated). In her mind everyone was criticising her. People would eventually give up.

After several years of knowing her we were married and almost immediately the problems started. The accusations of an ulterior motive to anything I did. The raking over of my previous relationships and the often cruel and vicious personal attacks.

From denigrating my manhood, accusations of wanting to beat her, accusations of wanting other women (I dare not comment on some film star for example – yes, I was likely to meet them, NOT). It did not matter that these things were irrational – they were brought up to provoke. And even when the AA had managed to get her off the booze and she was enjoying the company of the members of her group she remained fragile and volatile.

If she visited a psychologist or counsellor she would find a reason to distrust them, to stop seeing them. I came to the conclusion that as soon as the psychologist started getting too close to the matters that were important the distrust would take over. There would be some reason – “He tries to look down my neckline” to “She criticises me” (sometimes the criticism accusation would be made against an innocent comment on the colour of her skirt but it could be turned into CRITICISM if the need to claim such was there).

After seeing several psychologists over a period of years, she had started to see a psychiatrist and was taking medication. I, we, had hopes for her future.

In 2013 at the age of 53 she went into hospital – a supposedly good, private hospital – for a comparatively minor operation from which she was recovering when inadequate care was to blame for her dying. No one has been held to account and no cause of death, just UNDER INVESTIGATION, appears on her death certificate. Our fifteenth wedding anniversary was eight days away – we had known each other for about twenty years and lived together for sixteen.

My point here is that this lovely, attractive woman did not believe she was just that – a lovely attractive and capable person. She believed everyone had an agenda against her and she trusted no-one except her mother – not even me. She screamed abuse at and accused both her mother, who lived with us, and me of the most awful things. Often the most absurd and hurtful things would be screamed at us as she retreated to her corner, believing that only her truth pertained. No matter that she was wrong, and demonstrably so, her self-loathing and insecurity meant that, in her mind, no one told the truth to her.  

For us who loved her and wanted nothing more than that she should learn to love herself and shine as we knew she could this was the MOST PAINFUL thing to experience.

Some sufferers of depression are openly aggressive, are often highly talented yet believe themselves to be failures. Some are withdrawn and hide the aggression and anger inside. In all cases the anger, the distrust, the feeling of being alone against the world the introversion and the extroversion eats at them.

It slowly and inexorably erodes them. They gradually find themselves without friends or with VERY FEW friends and only close family will generally persist with them. For these supporters it is exhausting, totally exhausting for they will never know if what they say will be construed as criticism, and not as gentle criticism but as harsh, judgemental and condemnatory. The reaction will vary from hysterical withdrawal and tears to very hurtful (to the supporter) shouted accusations and condemnation of the imagined slight, often made in the most confrontational and aggressive manner.

It is usually those closest to the sufferer who experience this behaviour and if anyone not “in the know” were to be told of it they would generally exhibit utter disbelief. The may even buy into the narrative of the sufferer and join with them in condemning those who know and care about the person.

Rose and I never had children together but my experience leads me to believe that the children of such persons learn to co-exist out of an instinctive sense of self-preservation. Rather be on mommy (or daddy’s) side and be with them rather than to even be suspected of not buying into the fiction. The long-term effect of this on children can be devastating and lead to estrangement in later life with sometimes quite tragic outcomes.

The BLACK DOG affects not just the sufferer but their family, their friends, their relationships – intimate and otherwise – but the ripple effect can be damaging to many persons that one may not even imagine could be affected. It is an insidious, scary and very harmful condition.

Many sufferers do not realise they have the condition or, if they do, they play it down. Many avoid or refuse treatment and counselling. There is nothing the people on the periphery can do except hope that the need will be realised and the help sought.

It is a horse and water situation and cannot be forced. It is tragic.

*****

Subsequent to writing the above I came to learn about BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder. Also called: BPD, emotional dysregulation disorder). Could Rose have also been a sufferer of this horrible condition, this very treatable condition? She certainly exhibited some of the symptoms? I don’t know and would hope her psychiatrist would have ruled it out but her life, already difficult, must have been torture if this had been added to her burden.

The Hamburger Page

Recipe – perfect burger patty

Here is a NO FAIL recipe for a delicious beef patty- the heart of a good hamburger. (I am told this is a RISSOLE and not a burger patty – this is my version of a burger though)

  • 600g to 1kg good beef mince
  • One medium-to-large onion grated (grated is best and let the onion juice get into the mix [fine chopping is OK but not really as good])
  • Half-to-one teaspoon of mixed herbs (start conservatively [½ tsp] and use more once you know how you like it)
  • Large pinch or two of salt (again, you will learn what you like)
  • Pepper to taste (I use normal white table pepper for the best flavour – just a couple of pinches)

Place mince and onion in a large bowl and mix well – keep seasoning in a saucer or eggcup for the moment.

  • tip – use a fork to mix because you want the flavours to be spread throughout and hand mixing can clump the mince and trap seasoning
  • tip – after starting to mix the mince and onions sprinkle the seasoning over the mix to get a more even flavour distribution

Sometimes, (especially if using very lean mince) the addition of a raw egg in the mix will help it to bind and not change the taste at all.
A final hand mix is ok but not for too long. 
Now the patties can be rolled and shaped between the hands and made ready for cooking. You would have to judge size but try to keep them as evenly sized as possible.

I usually fry batches in a covered pan in a little vegetable oil but they can be cooked on an open-flame griddle, in the oven or whichever method you prefer but take care that they are cooked through but NOT dried out. If you dry them out the texture of your burger will not be great!

In my family we use these patties (we call them frikkadels) not only for hamburgers but as main course meat with potatoes (mashed or boiled) and vegetables, with eggs and chips and, if you make them really small, you can do a great spaghetti and meatballs – wait for another simple recipe… 

Now, back to building that burger – assuming you have a few buns. Lightly toasting is optional as is a smear of butter on the bun but build your burger as I described and judge for yourself. If you love salads have them as a side dish don’t try to make the burger the salad carrier, please!

Acceptable variants for me are a lettuce leaf (PATTED DRY, PLEASE) a few slices of pickle, a slice or two of cheese.

Above all have a bite of the basic burger BEFORE you start adding sauces and extras and disguising the taste.

I often do not have buns at home but a couple of slices of bread will do the trick…

Now that's...

Tent pegs and storms

I used to do a lot of camping.

One year when it was very stormy and several people were putting storm straps on their tents I decided I had better try to do something or run the risk of my tent and belongings being scattered around the camp and the adjacent areas of the Kruger National Park.

Not having a storm strap I became aware that the wind was acting like air flow across a wing – when the airflow creates an area of low pressure above the wing there is lift and it is this lifting effect that was causing the tentage – read fly sheet and shade net – to billow out and snatch at the tent pegs.

I had to find a way to stop the tent pegs from being pulled out and came up with the idea that I have shown in the (rather amateurish) sketches.

I had spare tent pegs and a lot of rope so I drove in extra pegs between the tent and the pegs already in place and faced to take the strain in the opposite direction. I then made up loops that I could adjust the tension on and looped them over the outside pegs and the inner (new) pegs.

The result was that as the wind BELLED the tent up and out and the ropes tried to pull “their” pegs out the INNER pegs attached to them with the short rope loops would not let them move outwards.

I found that I needed to go around a few times and re-tension my opposing loops but we survived the storm and I noticed a tent that HAD had a storm strap had been blown away.

When I camped after that if there was the slightest sign of a storm I would put in my innovation and have few, if any, problems.

Another wheeze that someone came up with was a drill and, using an 8 or 6 mm extra long masonry bit, when the ground is like iron – pre-drill the tent peg holes. Saved me some broken pegs, some sore arms from rebounding hammers and the neighbours’ ears from the blue language that resulted!!!

Military life

FLOT

FLOT –
The acronym stands for Front Line Own Troops and quite literally means the point at which one’s OWN troops are closest to the enemy in an engagement. It is important information for air support so that they do not hit the friendly forces they are trying to help. It is one of the reasons coloured smoke grenades are carried.

This is another of those stories that are legend and there is some doubt around the ACTUAL events but, in the craziness that is war and the characters that emerge, I have no doubt that it is solidly founded in fact (with a smidgeon of embellishment perhaps?).

Anyway the story is that some of our coloured troops were caught up in a contact with terrorists. As mentioned in another story these men were some of the most quick-witted humorists one could ever meet – even in moments of high stress.

While they were pretty much holding their own, the situation was not good and the group of terrorists looked set to get the upper hand.

The patrol called in for assistance and an armed aircraft was diverted to see what could be done.

  • Shortly the pilot’s ever-laconic voice was heard calling the patrol: 
  • “47 this is Cyclone 4 how can we assist over”. (it may have been one of the other squadrons of course…)
  • “Where you ouens?” comes the reply from the ground in a slightly surprised, almost defensive, tone.
  • “Approaching your position from the South, over”
  • “Roger, this gooks is in front of us and we can’t move”
  • “Roger that – can you mark your FLOT, over”
  • Something of a pregnant pause…then “What?”
  • “I need you to mark your FLOT, over”
  • Live mic for a few moments with obvious whispering in background, then…”What do you mean? over”
  • “I can’t see you – can you throw smoke, over”

Another longish pause then… “Madison or Kingsgate? over”

Kingsgate and Madison cigarettes (smokes)

 

 

 

 

Military life

COMBAT !

From 1965 to about 1967 while I was stationed at HQ 2 Bde, Old Cranborne Barracks, we did a lot of Brigade exercises.

The entire Brigade Headquarters would deploy to the bush for up to a week at a time to practice everyone in the duties of a conventional war scenario – with an African twist of course.

We would generally deploy to an area within a reasonable distance of Salisbury although on a few occasions we did exercises a few hundred kilometres into the bush.

We would get into the area and form either a circular (irreverently called a dog’s ball) configuration or a linear HQ configuration. We would set up communications, workshops, messes and kitchens even a bush bar.

On occasion we would have been settled in nicely for about two days when we would be told to move and the entire setup had to be taken down, all the vehicles formed up in convoy and off we would go to a new location to set up again.

After a few of these exercises they became rather boring and, apart from a couple of memorable BIG exercises against 1 Bde, the routine was frankly irritating because we felt we were playing soldiers and nothing was going to happen.

A few years later of course all the brigades would have headquarters elements deployed in the field – none of them remotely like the ones we had sweated at practicing!

After one exercise, having been playing conventional warfare for a week with brigade headquarters, I was walking home wearing bush kit with my webbing on and with my pack on my back. Attached to the pack was my steel NATO pattern helmet.

It was a bit of a hike to where I lived and I was on the last stretch across a little park where some small boys were playing. As I passed the children one of them stopped to look at me. He grabbed his friends and, pointing at me, he said to his mates, “Look, look, just like COMBAT !“

I was tired but not too tired to smile at this rather flattering comment!

Check this out….https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat!_(TV_series) …and this http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055666/

Southern Africa

Irresponsible unions

I make no claims to be a businessman, economist or entrepreneur. I am just an ordinary person in the early evening of his life but I am saddened and angered by a number of things and try to engage when and where my small voice might cause someone to pause for thought.

I once managed a small factory in South Africa that employed a number of people. Black people, mostly from Zimbabwe.

One day our welder, who was also our driver, came back from collecting a cheque and I noticed him talking to some of the others and gathered it was about the cheque – which had not been placed in a sealed envelope so had been carefully scrutinised before being handed in to the bookkeeper.

Asking what it was all about I was told (I will refer to the owner of the company as Mike) that Mike had just received a cheque for R400,000.00. The general feeling was that he was really lucky to be getting such a big amount.

Curious, I asked if the cheque had been made out to the company or to Mike in his personal capacity and of course it had been made out to the company. So I asked if they really, really thought that that money was going to Mike in his personal capacity. I could immediately see that this was considered a silly question – of course it must be for him as he is the boss and he sent for it to be collected.

I then asked them if they budgeted their wages and proceeded to describe an oversimplified family budget – rent, school fees, clothes, food, water and electricity, transport et al. I ended by saying that once all that has been taken care of then, and only then, could one look at what, if anything, is left over. If there is some left over then maybe one can go to a movie, have some friends over for a meal and maybe even put some aside – savings for a rainy day.

This concept was clearly understood so I now proceeded to ask them what they think becomes of money that the company gets in – earns. I got a kind of a puzzled look and asked if they had given a thought to the fact that the company also had overheads.

Wages, utilities, vehicle finance and fuel and maintenance. Equipment maintenance and new tools as necessary.

Once wages have been paid…and I went on explaining that every penny that comes in has to be accounted for in terms of expenses and then raw materials to make more product and then, and only then, could the owners and directors look to taking a share, or their wages, out of what was left from the month’s income.

It took some effort to get these men to realise that the buildings were not just there for us to use. That we paid for the phones and electricity and water and everything else out of the income from sales after we had paid all our accounts, paid our staff and so on. It was a bit uphill but the message got through. It was obvious that the costs associated with running a business had not really been given any thought. The business was just there, where they worked.

We all know that making rich or wealthy people poor, will not benefit the worker or the job seeker. The person with the vision who is prepared to take the risk in business will take his abilities elsewhere, where they will be appreciated and not be penalised for creating an enterprise that provides the means for others to earn a living.

Now interestingly these factory workers were mostly men who had immigrated from Zimbabwe in the late 1980s and early 1990s and had benefited from the one thing Mugabe had got right up to that time –  education. It was interesting to hear from these men that they were surprised by the levels of illiteracy they encountered in the townships but for all that they were still relatively ignorant in terms of the VERY BASICS of how a business operates – and a small/medium business at that.

The point of all this is that every year South Africa has the same riots and demands over wages and these demands are often, USUALLY in fact, outrageous and not sustainable – not to mention destructive and wasteful with town centres trashed, shops looted and even burned. All supposedly to protest poor wages…there is no logic to it.

In my considered opinion the unions carefully do NOT school their members and shop stewards on how business works and whip up their uninformed members every year regardless of the harm that it does to the economy and the image of the country as a business destination.

The unions are irresponsible and culpable in this because if their members were informed and basically knowledgeable on how businesses function then they would better understand why certain things are not easily granted. They would know that minimum wages are keeping many of their friends and family on the outside of the workforce. They might even begin to realise that the riots and strikes for unsustainable and unreasonable increases are mischievous in the extreme.

Until there is better understanding – REAL UNDERSTANDING – by the various workforces around this matter it will never be resolved.

Building a home requires everyone to work together but building a nation that is prosperous NEEDS a united vision and every time that vision starts to take shape it is quickly obscured by irresponsible, inept, greedy and selfish agendas.

Can the unions be rationalised? As long as they see the ANC as their protector and benefactor I rather doubt it and until then the country will continue to suffer because what the union is meant to be there for – to see to the fairness or otherwise of the workers conditions – has been subsumed by that thing that seems to be at the heart of everything – power to the few.

 

 

Southern Africa

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

When the government of South Africa sought to protect the labour force from unfair labour practices, it was no doubt a laudable intention.

However, what becomes apparent to me, a mere layman, is that the new dispensation went so far to swaddle the baby that they choked off the oxygen to the parent – that is to say the employers of said labour.

They gave the labour unions huge power out of all proportion to the good that should have been achieved, creating a situation where labour effectively dictates to employers.

Industry, the education system, the police and army are all so unionised as to make them ridiculously ineffective a lot of the time.

When one trains in the army (make that a good, well-disciplined army) one has to do drill and weapons training. Many, many people are under the impression that all the square-bashing and shouting and associated hard-arsed training is just unnecessary bluster, breaking their darling children down.

Thing is though that when real action occurs all that training kicks in. Nobody questions when a member of the patrol, leader or otherwise, yells DOWN! The training kicks in and you get DOWN. Why do you do that? You do it because your TRAINING and your own instinct for self-preservation, and the good of the team, kicks in.

It is generally accepted that in a good army the leadership is well trained and professional and that by its very nature the military should be an autocracy of sorts. Precisely the same should be the rule in industry and commerce – perhaps less rigid?  The bosses, the employers, the leaders should be in charge not the workers and cleaners who lack the experience and training for such positions.

MOST IMPORTANTLY those who think a job is just another name for the security of a monthly stipend should be rudely awoken to the fact that WORK is the means by which that remuneration is EARNED. An unproductive workforce is something that employers should be able to rectify quickly and easily.

The lack of will to break the power of the unions speaks directly to the government’s lack of will to chance losing even a portion of the huge, union-controlled, vote. As long as that is the case they will be unable to even try to properly run the country.

I have no doubt that among South Africa’s vast population, and even among the ANC, are people of integrity and great ability but they will never come to the fore where ineptitude rules because of that feudal mentality that gives privilege and power to the least capable and most sycophantic.

Should capable people, under such a bad dispensation, actually find themselves in a position to achieve anything, through hard, disciplined work, they will not last. Stories will appear to discredit them. They will be threatened and then, to appease voters who do not want to pay for services nor follow the rules, those good people will quietly be redeployed to positions of neutrality or dismissed – if they are not already (suspiciously) dead by that time.

Sadly, that is the feudal village mentality – calling for loyalty to the chief at all costs.

Southern Africa

Corruption and ineptitude

Some time ago, and while still resident in South Africa, I saw an article about the corruption in that country’s government and how the people in charge seem to think all government monies are there for their personal gratification. I wrote some comments to a friend intending also to write to the press. It never happened and I recently dusted it off and added a few words here and there because the subject remains relevant.

When the current dispensation took over in 1994 there was plenty of aid available with the world’s governments falling over themselves to contribute to their new darling, Mandela, and his supposedly rainbow nation. Having taken over a working, albeit skewed in places, world class country they then proceeded to plunder and divert money to themselves and allowed the infrastructure to slide into disrepair and dysfunction with service to the citizens becoming a passing interest – just about enough to keep people quiet – not happy but, most of the time, quiet – all the time playing to the apartheid bogeyman to scare the majority into voting for the ANC – for more theft and ineptitude.

The abovementioned article was about the personal ATM that the South African politicians and their henchmen deem the government to be, and the comment that they are not inept people doing the job badly but bad people doing their corrupt activities well, it occurred to me that there are very different attitudes in our society when it comes to criminal activity and imprisonment.

I – and many others, black, white and khaki – would, I am sure be appalled and ashamed at being sentenced to time in jail for an offence. That is because our mindset sees such a thing as embarrassing and a slur on our good name. We would feel shame at the fact we had been in prison or even that we had been accused of a crime.

When, however, you have people who do not understand that mindset, whose entire lives are built on envy and a grasping sense of entitlement and who have NO sense of shame AT ALL you are definitely on a road to a beating.

We have seen corrupt politicians who have served a jail term, being feted by serving government ministers as they are being RELEASED FROM PRISON – actually being carried on the shoulders of these serving ministers as they celebrate that corrupt person’s release.

I think I would be uncomfortable to be seen even visiting a prison and as for collecting someone…. Well I would do it but I would feel conspicuous and uneasy unless perhaps the person being released had been exonerated. Such is the mindset, I would dare to believe, of most law-abiding persons.

Not so the ruling (I use the word ruling VERY loosely) elites of South Africa. With their mindset and the envy and admiration of the don’t haves directed at them – instead of horror and condemnation – why worry at all?

Throw into the mix a police and legal system that is dysfunctional at best…and many of whose members largely share the feelings of the abovementioned don’t haves, and the recipe is rancid. Vast swathes of people see these swanky people and their vulgar displays of ill-gotten gains, as role models to be emulated. They believe that the end always justifies the means and, given the opportunity, they too would trample on their peers, their friends – their family even – just to elevate themselves. They see nothing wrong with this quite feudal approach to being the elite.

What a disastrous situation when a huge part of the populace appears to think like that?

Then, of course, those doing the grasping (the ruling elite) naturally exploit that feudal mindset and keep the people constantly off-balance and in awe of the apparent power that they have – displaying it in fancy cars, blue light convoys and flocks of fawning lackeys…

…and the people do not care how that status and vulgar wealth was obtained, they just want some of it and they openly admire those who have this wealth and status – irrespective of how it was achieved and oblivious to how much they themselves may suffer as a result.

Military life

Bravo Tango Oscar

This story is the stuff of legend and I must confess to having heard it from someone else. If it is not perfectly true then it is certainly EXTREMELY LIKELY to have happened, knowing the nature of the persons involved and their incredibly quick, inventive wit…

If you had ever been in an ops room on a really quiet day – perhaps a weekend – you would remember the desultory reports coming in from the OPs and remote relay stations…

  • “OscarAlphaone, NTR over…”
  • “OscarAlhpathree, NTR over…”

…and so the boring NOTHING TO REPORT, nothing to report, nothing to report communications would roll in.

Typical newly established (day 1) temporary relay on a high, remote point near Kanyemba, Zambezi Valley.

Apart from the occasional observation of traffic on a dirt road or some kraal dwellers ambling across a field there would be very little to break the boredom on days such as this. It should also be remembered that many of these RADIO RELAY stations were purely that – REMOTE – and their remoteness meant that there really was bugger all for them to see – or do – most of the time.

One such relay was being manned by a contingent of RDR (a coloured Regiment) and they were obviously seriously bored…until this exchange of calls took place…

  • “Zero this is Xray Zulu over…”
  • “Zero go…”
  • “XZ Bravo Tango Oscar over…”
  • “Zero say again? over…”
  • “…Bravo Tango Oscar over…”

…..looooong pause, then:

“Xray Zulu this is Zero, we do not have code Bravo Tango Oscar –  explain? over…”

“…Like er, Bachman Turner Overdrive, ek se, us ouens Ain’t seen Nothing Yet, over…”

Check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7miRCLeFSJo

 

 

Military life

Flat Dog

Some explanation of terms used is probably a good thing here:

  • ouens – (oh-wins) blokes, men, lads etc
  • Callsign – (Context 1 – original) The numbers or letters allocated to identify a unit on the radio network
  • Callsign – (context 2) slang reference to a unit or sub-unit by using their radio callsign
  • Sitrep – Situation Report
  • RLI – Rhodesian Light Infantry
  • Net – A radio NETwork
  • Ops room – Operations Room
  • OP – Observation post (sometimes in the context of OBSERVED)
  • NTR – Nothing to report
  • “…roger so far?” – have you received up to this point?

To the story…

I have a theory that this is when the term flat dog escaped from in-house use by the ouens of 1RLI and into the general population of Rhodesia and, ultimately, into the world at large. 

I was a young signalman, probably some time in 1965/66(?) and on ops room radio duty at HQ 2 Brigade. (The term used for deployed troops then was BORDER CONTROL.)

Although the war at that time was pretty low key with relatively few incidents it was to hot up considerably in a fairly short time. This however was a quiet, lazy weekend and everything was pretty routine and everyone – in HQ and in the bush – was suitably bored but doing their duty.

I am not sure who the duty ops officer was – I suspect it may even have been one Capt John Peirson?

In any event the callsigns were sending in their sitreps. The RLI callsign in the bush was on the net as callsign 5C (Five Charlie) and the duty RLI signaller at Chirundu, in the Zambezi valley, was Terry Miller.

Terry, who was in the RLI signals troop, spoke the callsign as FIIIIVE Charlie (drawing out the five) so you always knew when he was on duty! 

He was sending his sitrep and it was the usual boring stuff:

“…patrol here, patrol there, patrol this or that river and OP on that position…” and so on. It was all NTR or, maybe, “…observed movement at XYZ…” – pretty mundane stuff. From time to time an exciting report would come in on a callsign that was scattered by elephant or some other incident involving wild animals.

Eventually, after yet another “…..roger so far” duly acknowledged by me “Roger, over”…

“Fiiive Charlie callsign 15 – incident – shot one flat dog at grid 123456 over”

“Seven, Roger out” (I can’t for some reason remember our callsign at HQ but Seven comes to mind!)

I passed the report to the duty officer – I think the Bde Comd was there as well as another person so there were about four of us in the ops room.

The duty officer had heard the last transmission and been checking code word and nickname lists and came over to me and asked me if I had any idea what this code “Flat Dog” meant.

 I did not and was asked to get 5C to clarify.

“Hello 5c this is 7 over”

“Fiiive Charlie go!”

“Seven, we don’t have a code Flat Dog are you able to use plain over?”

“Fiiive Charlie, FLAT DOG is a crocodile, over” comes Miller’s voice.

For a moment, in the ops room, you could have heard a pin drop then the laughter started.

The rest, as we all know, is history but I wonder if anyone else from that era in Rhodesia has a comment around this?

Random Blogs

Guns – letter to the editor

This is a letter to the editor of my local paper when I was living in South Africa. I think it is excellent – short, sharp and to the point.

Letter in the Kempton Express 30 May 2002

 ARE STOLEN GUNS GUILTY? By Sebella O’Donovan

There are far too many crimes taking place in South Africa and even more innocent people lose their lives due to these crimes.

Every week we read of yet another murder.

What really concerns me, is statements made that “it is the stolen guns on the street that are responsible for the deaths of so many innocent people”.

Do people really believe that should there be no guns, that crime will not take place?

How many people are murdered with axes, knives, strangled with bare hands, poisoned or even burnt alive? The list is endless. Yet we continue to blame the tool. (one particular tool).

We are also led to believe that the more helpless we are, the safer we are from criminals.

That an intruder will be incapacitated by tear gas or even spray, but if shot with a .44 magnum will get angry, and kill you?

That ordinary people, in the presence of guns, turn into slaughtering butchers and revert to normal when the weapon is removed?

That a woman, who is raped and strangled with her own stockings is morally superior to a woman with a smoking gun and a dead rapist at her feet?

Is it not time for all of us to remember that it is the evil in a man’s heart and not the tool, which causes the crime?

Criminals need to be punished and the more of our liberty and freedom that we sacrifice, the less we’ll have of either.

Perhaps we should be looking at a society where innocent and free people don’t have to live in servitude to a government or to criminals?

Military life

A BIG DEAL softy

In 1976 I was posted to the Rhodesian Armoured Car Regiment (RhACR) as their Regimental Signals Instructor (RSI) where I stayed until the end of 1977. For about half my stay with the regiment I was the Acting Regimental Signals Officer/Troop Commander.

One day my instructors were giving their signals course PRACTICE TIME on some VHF radios to get them used to the radio procedures, sending and receiving messages and generally getting used to just TALKING on a radio net (network).

They had been given a sheaf of small practice messages to use and a couple of scenarios to get VOICE TRAFFIC going on the practice net.

We had a monitor radio at the Troop HQ and were listening in to the traffic and realised that one of the call signs was not rotating the radio operators. Each detachment consisted of two or three trainees meaning we could reasonably expect to hear different voices at different times.

The course instructor and I decided to take a walk around and came up behind the two-man detachment that only seemed to have ONE voice. We stood and watched and this rather large young man was sitting back letting all the work be done by the other young trainee.

After checking the other detachments, we returned to the offending group. They were reminded that they needed to BOTH use the radio and get practice in. The one doing the operating seemed to squirm as he gave the big lad an apprehensive look.

We strolled off and monitored for another ten minutes then we went back. Asking why only one person was doing the work we got a mumbled thing about “…I like the operating…” from the one and “…he just wants to do all the talking…” or something like that from the other.

Realising that the more timid youngster was being bullied just a bit we told him to go back to the lecture room and stay there and then told the other fellow to start sending messages.

Big boy looked at us, now pale-faced and rather like a rabbit in the headlights, “Uh, me, Staff?” he quavered.

“Yes you, now get on with it.”

Picking up the hand microphone in his huge fist he seemed intent on squeezing it to death. Then he started to shake and stammer/gurgle and I think he had tears in his eyes. He was angry, embarrassed and scared among other things and I reckon he HATED us just then. He was totally mic-shy (this happens when people are literally so scared of talking on the radio that they freeze up with anxiety). Every member of an Armoured Fighting Vehicle HAD to be able to use the radios installed in the vehicles and this young man was no exception if he wanted to pass out as a crewman.

It took some tact and persuasion but we got him over his fright after a while. Within a day or two he was as blasé about using the radio as the rest of the men.

I think his peers knew or suspected what had happened but, he being a rather large, strong young man, I don’t think many people tried to tease him.

While on the subject…another stand-out mic-shy incident I remember happened when a reserve officer, at a brigade HQ in the bush, had to talk on the radio and he froze. He grabbed the hand mic in a DEATH GRIP and squeezed the press-to-talk (PTT) switch so that we thought it would disappear into the mic.

After saying his bit, he held the mic up to his ear without releasing the PTT, shaking all the while. My operator had to grab his hand and prise the mic out of it so that the reply could be heard on the loudspeaker –we only heard the last couple of words and had to ask the other party to say again.

By this time the officer was sweating and shaking and we had to help him by telling him what to say and intervening once or twice. His plight was not made the easier by the fact that he was talking to a particularly blunt (and unpopular) staff officer at base. Realising that the caller was a novice this officer made some derogatory comment about the radio not biting/stop being an idiot.

He was a well-liked, if inexperience officer and I remember squirming with embarrassment for him at the time. After a few days he loosened up although – in the same way some people will not talk to answering machines – he did not enjoy using the radio.

It was a very real thing that happened (happens?) to people and quite puzzling to us operators to whom it was second nature to talk on the radio.

Military life

First kill

My friend, John Peirson, with whom I served at HQ 2 Brigade in 1965/66-ish –when I was a Signalman and he a Captain – tells this true story. 

In the early days of Operation Hurricane in the 2 Brigade area (that would probably have been in the early 70s) members of C Squadron, Rhodesian SAS captured a GOOK after a contact (firefight) in the Zambezi Valley.

Looking north over the valley floor that is 1000 feet (440m) below.

The captured man was painfully thin and rather obviously starving and it was decided he should be given some food before they tried to interrogate him.

Accordingly, they gave him a tin of meat from a ration pack and he proceeded to wolf it down greedily, so ravenous was he. So ravenous, in fact, that he proceeded to choke on the food and, in spite of their best efforts to revive him, he died…

Afterwards Major Brian Robinson, the SAS Commanding Officer, sent an official message, through the correct channels, to the Central Ordnance and Supply Depot. The message read: “Congratulations on your first kill!”. 

Actual sign in KGVI barracks, Rhodesia

The Major’s efforts were rewarded with an official rebuke from some humourless cardboard replica of a senior soldier at Army Headquarters.

Random Blogs

Bureaucracy

I was still living in South Africa when I found an 87th Precinct book that I had not read. In it I came across this passage that I thought was just so apt in relation to the drama I had recently gone through in order to have some plans registered at my local municipality.

While I did not have to purchase a postal order I DID have to go to the lift, down three floors, go out of that building and through security then walk around the civic centre offices to the rates hall – several hundred metres. There I had to stand in a queue to make my payment and make sure I got a receipt to take back to where I had started. I then had to go down the passage for the second part of this procedure and lo and behold they ALSO needed a payment, and they ALSO were unable to take payment.  I am sure we have all had experiences that this scenario might fit. 

In this city, ten people were necessary to do the job of one person.

What this city did was hire high school dropouts, put them in suits and then teach them how to greet the public with blank stares on their faces.

In this city, if you needed a copy of, say, your birth certificate or your driver’s licence, you stood in line for an hour and half while some nitwit pretended to be operating a computer. When he or she finally located what you were there for, you had to go over to the post office and stand in line for another hour and a half to purchase a money order to pay for it.

That was because in this city, municipal employees weren’t allowed to accept cash, personal cheques or credit cards. This was because the city fathers knew the calibre of the people who were featherbedding throughout the entire system, knew that cash would disappear in a wink, knew that credit cards would be cloned, knew that personal cheques would somehow end up in private bank accounts hither and yon.

That’s why all those people behind municipal counters gave you such hostile stares.

They were angry at the system because they couldn’t steal from it. Or maybe they were pissed off because they couldn’t qualify for more lucrative jobs like security officers at any of the city’s jails, where an ambitious man could earn a goodly amount of unreportable cash by smuggling in dope to the inmates.

Quoted from The Last Dance by Ed McBain – an 87th Precinct novel
Ed McBain is a pen name used by Evan Hunter (The Blackboard Jungle, Privileged Conversation)

Military life

Antenna – again

I first learned about antennas on my National Service signals course in the period December 1964 to February 1965 (that I mentioned in another post). I then did two further courses – my Regular Army Class 3 course followed by a Class 2 upgrade course some years later. In addition, I not only had to USE this knowledge in practical applications in the field but I also had to instruct on communications.

In order for people to understand that antenna size is dictated by the frequency that is being used we would do a lecture titled THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FREQUENCY AND WAVELENGTH.

As part of this course we would do simple calculations at different frequencies. This was so that the class could have some basic understanding of why different antennas would be found in use with different types of radio according the frequency band in which that radio operated.

Without belabouring the point, the basic calculation for a WAVELENGTH is 300 divided by the frequency in MEGAHERTZ (MHz) that would give a measurement in METRES.

Very simply at a frequency of 10 MHz the full wavelength would be 30 metres.

Very simple diagram of an open dipole for HF use

At those low High Frequencies* (HF) we used what are termed HALF WAVE DIPOLES and we calculated a quarter wavelength because the radiating element of the antenna would be a half wavelength overall with a quarter wavelength on either side of the feed cable (see the simple diagram).

*(Sounds like a contradiction in terms but is correct and quite a long subject to address)

Now, in about 2005 t0 2010 I found myself regularly doing orientation lectures, where I worked in South Africa, for new staff so that they might gain SOME degree of understanding of two-way radio industry equipment.

I was doing my calculation (which we in Rhodesia had shortened somewhat) and I told the class that to calculate a quarter wavelength they needed to use the standard of 75 over the frequency in MHz – writing it out and showing the result for 10MHz as 7.5 metres. Before I could finish a radio technician (should I use that term advisedly?) who was sitting in “just for interest” interjected that that formula was WRONG.

I invited him to call out what I should do and he said that I needed to use 300 over the frequency and then divide by 4 and as I followed his instruction and it became obvious that this longer method was going to give the same result I noticed the man heading for the door – while the people in the class started to smile.

“Where did you learn that?”, about all manner of communications-related matters was a question I was quite used to and always delighted in replying “In the Army, in Rhodesia, in 1964” which by then was 40-plus years previously.

Proofing and Editing

Really?

I was looking at a news report the other day and found this gem of a leader:

XYZ posted photographs taken by XYZ photographer John Doe showing commuters hanging out of trains and even hanging onto the roofs in their desperation to reach their destination on Facebook.

…and I wondered about the destination on Facebook that they could be headed for. 

Grammar and punctuation matter so this would have been better perhaps…

XYZ posted photographs on Facebook, taken by XYZ photographer John Doe, showing commuters hanging out of trains and even hanging onto the roofs in their desperation to reach their destination.

 

Proofing and Editing

Proofing and Editing

EriktheReady – for all copywriting, proofreading, and light and substantive editing requirements, business press releases, advertising copy – in fact any business and product-identifying copy.

EriktheReady’s mission is to provide a professional service that is quick and easy to use.

A service that will enable small and large businesses to have confidence that all published matter is relevant, accurate and easily readable.

Poor grammar, punctuation and spelling, which is not everyone’s particular strength, can damage the credibility of any offering. Generally unnoticed by many there will be those for whom such inaccuracies will be important when deciding on the credibility of what is being offered.  

EriktheReady also writes, proofreads and edits INSTRUCTIONS.
The great majority of instructions appear to be written by the creators of the product. Products with which they are intimately involved and that they use intuitively. In-house jargon, and the assumption that the buyer knows things (…everyone knows that…?) can be seriously confusing to the purchaser using the product for the first time.

Good examples are:
•Electronics – when the instructions assume the user KNOWS to save each step and the instructions do not clearly state how to do this (press MENU, for example).
•Flat-pack furniture and other items needing assembly often have the most rudimentary, even misleading, instructions. This results in items being mutilated due to the frustration of the user.

ABOUT EriktheReady’s…
    …proof reading, editing and instructional experience.

I have always enjoyed writing and have an eye for detail.

During my time as proof reader for a typesetting company my accuracy and careful work was rated excellent and it was something I enjoyed doing.  I, and the company, received many compliments from clients after I spotted errors and suggested rewrites.

As part of my military service I was taught to instruct and compile instructions in an environment where peoples’ lives could depend on the accuracy of the instructions.

As a civilian I have been required to do proofing and editing for my employers and write instructions on equipment supplied to our customers. This was in addition to delivering lectures on the equipment we supplied – both in-house and to clients.

The EriktheReady focus is be on the use of simple, expressive phrasing that can be understood and appreciated by anyone who uses the English language. I am confident that a top notch service is always provided.

Here are two reviews posted to my FaceBook page by two of my clients – the first, Anita, is in Santiago, Chile.

Anita Aguirrebeña Labra reviewed Erik The Ready – 5 star

13 March

Thank you for your patience and engagement to my projects as if they were your own. 

Check out the website: http://kumiko.co

Masaya Nagayasu reviewed Erik The Ready – 5 star

13 June at 10:39

For more information, contact erik@eriktheready.com

Leadership, Southern Africa

Demands and tragedy at Marikana

In 2013 an incident occurred at Marikana, a mine in the North West province of South Africa. There was much discussion of the matter (and still is for that matter) and left and right wing takes on it passed blame around like the proverbial hot potato. I was in the habit of writing to the press at the time and drafted my comments but various things, including the death of my wife at the time, intervened and the draft has languished on my computer.  My comments on tactics are based on my own training, reading and common sense.

I believe the Marikana matter has still not been properly resolved and probably never will be.

In my opinion the overweening power of the unions and the misinformation that they allow their members to be fed is largely to blame as is the poor handling of the operation by mostly untrained and inexperienced police. Of course the management of the mining house did not come out entirely squeaky-clean either. Altogether a debacle but here, for what it is worth, is my take on the matter as written in 2013…for those interested I suggest a web search for Marikana/Marikana killings and similar. (I have added one or two explanatory asides for the wider audience)

Firstly, long before we get to strikes and protests there is the matter of free choice in the job you choose to take.

Having looked for work and chosen to be a miner you knew what the remuneration was to be and you can’t, and should not be allowed to, suddenly demand that you want double pay.

When you took the job you knew the nature of your responsibilities in respect of family and home. It seems though, that if you are in a unionised environment where the union has overwhelming representation it is accepted that once you are in you can behave as you please. You can do just enough to avoid any serious sanction against yourself. You know that you are fire-proof in terms of current legislation that is so skewed towards labour that it loses sight of the requirements of good business practice.

It is in this environment that DEMANDS are born. Not reasoned requests or applications at appropriate times but savage demands backed up with brutalising behaviour.

Notwithstanding the above it appears that the employer in this case was clumsy in their handling of certain issues around pay. Furthermore, they, the mining house, should still shoulder the blame for not being sensitive to what is going on within its organisation and they should have been in a position to respond or even pre-empt the escalation of the matter. That they remained obdurate when the situation started to deteriorate and the first deaths occurred is shameful.

Before proceeding to my next point – journalists please note:

There were NO machine guns on site. There were semi-automatic rifles (probably in 5.56mm) and semi-automatic 9mm pistols – NO machine guns so learn the difference in the interests of accurate reporting.

As to the reaction of the police it appears that poor training and even poorer leadership – on the ground and all the way to the top – is to blame and not the men on the spot. Bear in mind that they had seen not only the bodies of two of their own men who had been killed and brutalised with pangas but also the bodies of similarly mutilated miners. These now fearful individuals may quite reasonably have felt: “If they could do that to their own people then what could any police member expect”.

Oh and why would the rioters attack fellow-miners? Perhaps those miners had tried to be reasonable – comment has been made that a moderate voice on that hillock would have got short shrift – or were they denounced by a sangoma (witch-doctor in common parlance)? Maybe an opportunity to take care of a grudge presented itself?

It appears that among the police were a fairly large number of poorly trained, nervous people concerned that what had happened to their colleagues might happen to them – bluntly these were armed, jittery men who were, in military slang, SHIT SCARED, without experience or appropriate training for the situation.

When, on film, I saw the miners burst out of the bush a moment before the police opened fire I got a fright – and I was only watching a film!

Notice that the FIRST reaction of a number of the police was to run AWAY from the oncoming charge. Only on hearing the firing of those who stood fast did they turn and add their fire to the fusillade. Well trained men do not run and certainly do not fire from BEHIND the firing line endangering their comrades. Press photos also appear to show some members ducking away behind their colleagues – or could that have been when the first shots came from the rioters – something one gets the distinct impression is being denied or suppressed?

A good riot control squad would firstly have had disciplined, trained and respected section leaders in control. NO-ONE would have opened fire without a clear instruction and that instruction does not seem to have been given on the evidence presented.

The first volley might have been birdshot, or similar, designed to hurt and break up the charge. And the sharp pain of such incapacitating ammunition would have dispelled any thoughts of muti protection actually working! (muti protection being some kind of charm – even an oil or ointment – given by the sangoma [witch-doctor] that the users are told – and which they believe – will make them immune to the bullets/weapons of the police – this practice and belief has been seen a lot among terrorists in Africa).

Only if the charge could not be broken should high velocity ammunition have been used and then it should have been controlled and aimed and not been a random volley of shots. Stop the leaders, break the charge. Of course the main instigators hang back and send a few fierce, ill-considered firebrands to lead the charge so it would be no surprise to learn that not one of the dead will be identified as a leader or instigator.

All the repeated cease fire calls also point to belated attempts to stop a panic reaction.

But I am on the side of the police here – the poor buggers who should have been properly trained and led. Well trained police and soldiers are not fearless but they are disciplined and work as a team. Through continuous training and discipline they learn to trust each other and their leaders and they understand the dynamics of situations because they were trained for them.

Furthermore, it is no good having a nucleus of a few well-trained individuals and padding it out with poorly trained and inexperienced members – there is going to be no trust and no cohesion.

Just giving the police military ranks was not going to magically endow them with the appropriate training or ability either.

Had the specialised paramilitary reaction units, trained for such situations, been maintained it may well have been a different matter. Even this is debatable with the decreasing standards that are evident everywhere.

eriktheready is a work actively in progress