Telkom Protest
Friday, I attended the protest against Telkom and their appauling service. Telkom, our national telecoms monopoly, have been raping our country and been causing great damage to our economy for decades now, and a local non-profit, IkamvaYouth, organised the protest. People from all over Cape Town who were fed up with Telkom joined in on the protest. It was actually quite fun, and the first protest I ever participated in. The police and traffic department was amazing, there was plenty of police officers to make sure that we stay together and no one got lost along the way, and nothing got stolen/damaged. The traffic officers did a good job of blocking off traffic where we needed to walk through traffic, and it went quite smooth. Phantsi Telkom, Phantsi! (”Down with Telkom”)
Thank you to the city of Cape Town for allowing us to do this.
Rugby World Cup
Last night I watched the 2007 Rugby world cup final at my father’s place, South Africa vs England, with South Africa winning the cup. The atmosphere here was electrifying. Many high-profile people were there. Amongst others, Nelson Mandela- former president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki- current president of South Africa, Jean-Pierre Raffarin- French prime minister, Gordon Brown- English prime minister and Prince William & Prince Harry from the British monarchy. The ceremony after the game was excellent, but what bothered me a lot was the bad manners of the English team. They shook hands with the French and Brittish prime ministers, but when the got to Thabo Mbeki, many just walked passed him and ignored him. I told my friends that I thought that this is incredibly rude, but they said that the English team might not have known that he was the South African president. I don’t want to believe that the English are that stupid. But they’re either that, or very rude.
Ubuntu Gutsy Release Party
Today I attended our very modest Ubuntu-ZA Cape Town release party. There’s lots of overlap in our local community, and many of us in the Ubuntu-ZA community are also together in other communities such as UCT-LEG, CLUG, CT-WUG, CT-PUG and more. We discussed issues in Gutsy, burned some discs, and briefly discussed goals for the next six months.
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October 21st, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Gordon Brown is actually Scottish (apparently) and he is the prime minister of the United Kingdom, not England.
October 21st, 2007 at 9:18 pm
About the English team walking past Mbeki - I wouldn’t know what he looks like too. You see the French and British prime ministers on TV a lot more here in The Netherlands, I guess the same is true for England.
October 21st, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Nota:
J-P Raffarin is the former, not actual, prime minister of France. He left the office a few years ago.
Renaud
October 21st, 2007 at 9:39 pm
I could understand if they didn’t know who Mbeki was before the match, but the high-profile people were mentioned several times before and during the match, and the players should have been, at least to some level, be briefed on the people they will be meeting after the match. At least, that’s how I feel about it
October 22nd, 2007 at 1:44 am
I’m in agreement. I don’t know what Mbeki look likes, but since he’s the leader of the country that won the World Cup (congratulations by the way, I had predicted them to win :D…pity I don’t bet) so for England to walk past without shaking hands etc would only just make England look like a bunch of bad losers.
(oh well…I’m Welsh…so I was supporting South Africa in this case ;))
October 22nd, 2007 at 8:47 am
[...] can read more here Der Beitrag wurde am Sunday, den 21. October 2007 um 13:10 Uhr veröffentlicht und wurde [...]
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:06 am
I’m glad SOMEONE mentioned the rugby on planet Ubuntu
I also noticed how many of the English walked right on by Thabo Mbeki. It was rude. But who cares . WE WON!!!
Gordon Brown looks like a boring, gormless git though.
BTW the French Premier is Nicolas Sarkozy.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Sarkozy He was elected while we were in Seville. Remember?
J
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:37 am
@Jonathan: Congrats on winning the rugby, but you are wrong to expect the players to know who manages your country. Until reading your post, I’d not heard of, or remembered who Mbeki was. During the game, I’d also expect the players to concentrate on … the match!?! Maybe the reason we lost was because the players were far too busy trying to work out who your president was - in which case that was a nasty devious tactic! Next time can’t you elect someone famous, like Arnie?!
But seriously, how many people do you know who can reel off all the presidents/prime ministers for every country in the world cup! I’d be lucky to get five, thats for sure!
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:43 am
LOL @ Ollie. Good point. Maybe we should get Charlize Theron for president?
October 22nd, 2007 at 10:04 am
@Ollie
Rule of Thumb if there’s a line of people waiting to shake hands, shake their hands!
Don’t assume the black guy is the cleaner. He is our president!
(Was mean to be a (bad) joke, please don’t flame me)
November 1st, 2007 at 9:42 am
I was at the game and I didn’t know that our President was there until he and the French president asked him to join in presenting the cup to John Smit. It was easy to miss him among all those huge players! So I don’t think the Pom players were being rude to Thabo Mbeki, they probably just didn’t know who the little guy at the end of the row was. But on the other hand, wouldn’t it have made sense to shake hands with everyone in the line whether you knew who they were or not?