Trump's leadership traits are bad news for democrats in Africa

African governments are understandably concerned about how Donald Trump’s surprise election as the 45th president of the United States might affect their interests.

Thus far Trump has given no sign that he will accord Africa any higher priority than his predecessors. His promises to expand and escalate America’s so-called war on terror, however, are raising fears of US military intervention in Africa. Beyond that he has offered no policy views on Africa and his campaign had only a tiny team of foreign policy advisers.

Unlike his opponent, Hillary Clinton, and all previous US presidents Trump has had no previous government or military service. His temperament and personal behaviour, however, have been on public display for most of his 70 years.

These too mark a sharp departure from past standards of presidential behaviour. At this stage, Africans might benefit more from an assessment of Trump the man we already know. His most distinctive personal attributes are not so foreign.

Consider the following leadership traits evident during Trump’s contentious campaign and current transition to his presidency.

Traits that will give demagogues comfort

Favouring strongmen over strong institutions:

His accusations questioning the integrity of the US electoral process and governing institutions were unprecedented in modern US presidential politics. And promises that he alone could save the nation sounded more autocratic than democratic. This will surely reassure the strongman in the Kremlin (Russian President Vladimir Putin) as well as those who still rule many African states and chafed at US President Barack Obama’s call for institutional reforms to limit executive powers.

Crony capitalism:

The bane of many African countries, this risks becoming endemic to the new administration. Trump has demonstrated a disregard for conflicts of interest. In fact, he claims that he is legally exempt from such constraints. If America’s president can profit from public service, why should Africa’s strongmen not seize such opportunities?

Transparency:

Trump’s refusal to disclose his US tax returns is also unprecedented among modern major party presidential candidates. It is also a warning that his administration will lack transparency. Trump, no less than Africa’s strongmen, said whatever he felt served his selfish interests, with little regard for the public good.

Trump is tribal:

His campaign to “Make America Great” became a motto primarily for a return to an America dominated by white, Christian men. This appeal to ethnic rather than civic nationalism has a long history in Africa’s failed democratic experiments. Trump’s appeal to white nationalism may not spur a renewal of African tribalism but it is definitely an example Africa’s democrats will not welcome.

Dignity and equality for women:

Trump’s disregard for dignity and equality of women rivals the most orthodox behaviour of traditional African leaders. His glamourising of male dominance with a modern gloss is likely to resonate perniciously in Africa’s media and society.

Infallibility:

This is another self-righteous trait Trump shares with African autocrats such as Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. It means never accepting responsibility and always blaming others. While Trump cannot ascribe his failures to American imperialism, his so far successful conjuring of conspiracies and excuses for his self-inflicted shortcomings may reassure his like-minded peers in Africa.

Freedom of expression: One of America’s most revered constitutional principles, this was repeatedly challenged by Trump’s extreme campaign rhetoric. And his recent call to make flag-burning a criminal offense suggests he is either ignorant of the constitution he will soon swear to uphold, or considers himself above the law. This is an all too familiar affliction of African autocrats, and even some duly elected.

Repression:

Trump doesn’t accept criticism, whether in the media or from human rights and other civil society organisations. Repression of both groups has a long history in Africa and has recently been shown to be resurgent. Trump’s example that should alarm those in Africa who advocate for greater government transparency and accountability.

“Fact-free” world:

Trump’s “fact-free” emotional appeals during his campaign contained hundreds of easily verifiable falsehoods that appeared not to trouble his supporters. This new “post-truth” politics has continued with wrongful post-election claims of voter fraud. Such practices are not unknown in Africa.

Climate change denialism:

Trump’s disregard for facts and scientific evidence could undermine African governments and harm millions of their citizens imperilled by the effects of climate change. His likely failure to honour America’s commitments will deny badly needed relief to African countries, exacerbating local conflicts, imposition of emergency powers and suppression of dissent.

If aspects of Trump’s character and temperament appear as familiar threats to Africa’s democrats, this may be a timely reminder that no democracy is ever secure, including the country that was until recently the continent’s democratic champion, South Africa.



John J Stremlau, Visiting Professor of International Relations, University of the Witwatersrand

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Man beats dog – locals give him a brutal dose of his own medicine

A man recently stole a family’s beloved pet dog, beat and tortured the animal, and finally locked it in a cage to slowly starve to death. As soon as angry locals spotted the infamous dognapper, they decided that the proper punishment would be to give him a brutal dose of his own medicine.

Each year, around 5 million dogs are routinely butchered to be sold for their meat to hungry customers in Vietnam. Often times, producers will snatch family pets to fill their disturbing quota, leaving civilians distraught and outraged over the loss of their adored canine.

These dogs are often horrifically abused before they are left to either waste away in filthy compact cages or suffer the gruesome slaughter that sees them sometimes skinned, burned, or boiled alive. Unfortunately for one businessman, he messed with the wrong pooch.

Tuoi Tre News reports that a crowd of furious locals identified the man accused of stealing a neighbor’s dog and chose to dish out a savage dose of mob justice. In a 20-minute video, citizens of Nghia Tru Commune in Hung Yen set upon the unnamed man, tied his hands behind his back, and delivered the same pain he allegedly inflicted on the poor animal.

After hurling insults at the thief, locals took turns beating him and tossing him around a muddy trench like a rag doll. Determined to make him pay for the dog’s suffering, civilians tied the animal’s corpse to the man and forced him to lie next to his victim. However, they weren’t done yet.
WATCH THE VIDEO -  MAN BEATS DOG
 Published on South Africa Today

Whites in South Africa are caught up in a genocide

The white minority of South Africa are caught up in something far worse than genocide; they are caught up in something far worse than a war. They are caught up in an organized mass slaughter by forging history, applying unlawful criminal and immoral reassessment of history, to portray whites as criminals. It is all part of a new world order, and the video “White genocide – fact or fiction” will give you the answer.

The ANC government have implemented hell-bound laws that deny survival rights to the minority. The three million white minority is denied job rights, based on the black empowerment laws, food aid, medical assistance, and public housing is denied. The hundreds of white squatter camps around the country confirm that whites are denied the right to survive. Over one million whites live in squatter camps, and it is mostly the elderly and children, who are forced into poverty because they are barred from the job market.

It’s not hundreds but thousands of whites that are murdered by black terrorists in and around farms, cities, and towns. It is a regular mass slaughter of whites.

Six murderers hailed as heroes for killing the Potgieter family execution style on their farm, during in 2010. A gruesome and motiveless massacre of a family including a two-year-old girl, by one of the criminals who held the child by her hair and then fired a bullet through her skull. This farm murder was racially motivated.

How many gruesome murders have been reported over the last ten years, and the number of murders escalates all the time. When will the genocide, the elimination of white people end? It is hard to ignore that white genocide is happening when you look at the facts.

Jan Van Riebeeck had noted in his journal on February 7, 1654 “We will never be able to trade peacefully with the denizens, which is an uncultivated bunch. They want nothing but to steal and plunder all that they can, without ever departing with one sheep or cow. Only the sick, lame and cripple animals are traded, despite the fact that they have the best of everything.”
Published on South Africa Today - Please use this link to watch the video "White Genocide"

A glimpse of hell on earth where a nation threw away their shame

At one time, it was a rubbish dump, a place where people discarded rubbish. Useless and obsolete objects in their homes and lives that were no longer of any use to them. Broken goods discarded because it became a source of shame.

Now its people that have been abandoned on this rubbish dump. Elderly men with wrinkled hands. Children with big eyes … only eyes with no expression. Children who look at what they see, because things around this place are just there, and has no use or meaning.

A man sitting in a tin shack, which from a distance looks like a typical doghouse on a farm stand, but for this man is a form of shelter. Recently the man was operated on for a hernia and the 13cm long, 5cm wide wound is open. The smell emanating from the infection of septicemia is unbearable. “Did you bring me patches?” He asks. The old man walking beside me said, “I’ll give him another week, it’s the fifth person this year. The wounds become septic and they die, I have witnessed so many.”

Not far away in another tin shelter, live two elderly 70 year-olds who left behind a life of security and dignity. While he lived in Zimbabwe, he was considered a wealthy man and worked as a plumber. He was driven off his land and could not get assistance in South Africa, now forced into a squatter camp, his only place of survival. His wife cannot walk, just lays down while, suffering from fermenting wounds on the bottom of both her feet. Clinic sisters will not visit this forsaken place. It’s a struggle; the woman needs support to get her into a taxi that can take her to a government hospital.

The clinic sisters are not the only ones who choose not to visit this dreadful place. Pointing to another tin shack the man said, “The woman over there, her husband died a while back, the ministers did not want to come here and help. We had to ask a black pastor who works in a field church to help assist with a burial.”

People do not come here. People do not go to visit a “scrap heap of souls”.
Between the stones a bunch of kids play, it’s a hopeless game, a game without purpose or reason. They do not understand basic skills, and when some children learn to count from their mothers who would say, “go get me 3 eggs” or “quickly run to a cafe with this R20 note and buy a loaf of bread. Check that you receive the correct change, “the others do not know. For in this place, it is seldom that you get three eggs and to hold a twenty-rand note, it is a fortune that they do not know. The only point of this little game is to make them tired so that they can go and sleep.

The children usually speak Afrikaans while playing their game and it is as though the words they utter are not of this rotten earth. It is not a language that you want to hear upon a dunghill. There is no shade, no trees or shrubs, no fertile soil for vegetables, no water. It’s just the gleaming white sun above them that they observe. Yet they play … It’s the eyes that speak volumes. Large dark pools of blue expectation of which they cannot identify.

This is the contradiction, the hard diversity of realities that hits one the deepest when you walk into this place. The inferior huts that are painfully neat and tidy with the handwritten notice on the door: “Knock before you enter”. Not because there is something to hide – because in rubbish dump of human decay nothing can be hidden. Nevertheless, it is the last bit of self-respect and self-esteem there is.

In contrast, the loss, shame, and self-respect, is most visible to the children. There are three boys, two with blond hair, and probably brothers, and a dark haired child with a crown and scattered freckles. The three boys scratch in the bin behind the black family’s shack. They do it every morning…

In front of one of the shelters is an unsteady wooden bench and a little girl is sitting there. The curls of her light brown hair cling to her face and into her neck. Maybe she is three or perhaps six years old. Children do not develop normally stuck in a place like this. Most of the children are older than they appear to be. The little girl is filthy, probably a few days dirt clinging to her body. She coughs as she calls for her mother. “Her mother left here with the Nigerians and will return with food for the baby tonight,” said the old man walking beside me.

Tonight when the mother returns, she will walk over to the clustered shacks and RDP houses where the black people of this place live. At least they have water and toilets. She will beg for a bowl of water to wash off the stench from abusing her body. Everybody is doing it, because running water and toilets promised three years ago, were never delivered. The white people all go and beg for water to drink and wash from the black shantytown.

The mother will try to clean her body but not the festering ulcer on her mind, there is no cure, it is permanently etched into her mind. The man will die from his wound and the black pastor will bury him near the ashes. He will not be remembered. The little girl who might turn four, or five or six next year does not know what fate beholds her, or how long it will be before the Nigerians rape her or lure her into their prostitution ring. Simply because there is no one who can stop this worsening situation....................

READ THE ENTIRE STORY ON SOUTH AFRICA TODAY  
This is the story about a white squatter camp situated on the West Rand Gauteng. This is the reality of what is happening in South Africa today, whites are forced into poverty by being excluded from the work place, there is no assistance from government and soon, we will all be murdered.........

Help our people – who else is going to help? – VIDEO

It is shocking to see how many white people live in squatter camps and the numbers keep growing. These squatter camps do not always have enough food to provide for all the hungry people and there have been up to three days that people have not eaten. An adult might be able to endure the hunger pains for a day or two but the little children, how can they be forced to go to bed hungry. Can you imagine the devastation of a parent not being able to feed his or her child?

The Christmas project is currently running and donations are welcome, in order to supply food and basic necessities for these homeless people. Especially the children, they are the real victims here and even though through no fault of their parents have been forced to grow up in a squatter camp. We all know that the white people have been excluded from the job market through the affirmative action laws and that without work, there is no money and so they lose everything including their dignity. The only way these unfortunate people can survive is to depend on the generosity of the squatter camp facilitators. We also know that the government does not offer support to the white squatter camps.

Open up your hearts this Christmas season, and know that it will be through your generosity that a few thousand or more children and adults will have something to eat on Christmas day and hopefully throughout the entire holiday season.

Donations of food,tin foods, toiletries, tents, blankets, school stuff, toys, garden equipment or furniture, cash, clothing(grown ups and children), toys, building equipment, and any unwanted goods will be much appreciated.

In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ (Acts 20:35 NIV).

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Published on South Africa Today 
Watch the video - Help our people