Opinion
Billionaire Tomorrow reader Nevi Gabriel took issue with the comment piece we ran from Phumlani Majozi on how South Africa can learn from the rapid economic rise of Singapore. He felt there was another side to the story.
"Is it not time to decide on the death penalty?"
Reading the story of the ‘overnight rise’ of Singapore credited to one envied prolific thinker, one may be tempted to associate it with a mafia-type purge , or Gestapo-ism and especially if you’re highly comfortable with pervading: “politically correct black narratives” and your recoil is instantaneously linked to very well polished world propaganda.
In South Africa, blacks were also responsible for wiping entire tribes out of existence in ongoing warfare and quests for domination. They also captured, enslaved, raped, burned, tortured and sold other blacks.
Squirming yet? Too inconceivable?
Well, you saw it in Rwanda, and Africa is riddled with tales. Of course, everything is tied to “colonialism” and it is the perfect escape route from black accountability.
People call Rwandan President Paul Kagame a ‘dictator’ but he’s inspired a sterling transformation, so all ‘dictatorship’ isn’t necessarily evil.
It is often said that the freedom fighters of yesterday soon step into the shoes of tomorrow’s oppressors and isn’t that exactly what we’ve seen in South Africa?
I could easily compare the situation to the pre-existing conditions in Singapore. Filth, squalor, warlords, criminal syndicates in cahoots with government officials, government itself being tagged as “a criminal entity”, collapsed infrastructure and minimal service delivery.
Those in South Africa present that “in your face” mockery and utter arrogance that many seem to have merely accepted, but there actually is a sense of conservatism beginning to permeate the nation as can be seen with fewer votes for EFF and ANC, but it needs channelling to a new progressive direction. That is, if South Africa seeks to remain on the map as a nation that has not failed. South Africans just cannot afford to be apathetic.
In the example of Singapore, we see that it took executions to bring about the “Monaco of the East”. Every single minister is in the masters’ league in the education realm in relation to their portfolios; they love Singaporeans and are doing a job for the national well-being.
South Africa has mere words of idealism and a promise from Nelson Mandela that went like: “My government will be modest, living among the people, doing for the people.”
Yet, all that has translated to national multi-sector collapse, bankruptcies and the only real success is having turned SA to the nannyism of a World Bank loan, which incidentally will be a burden on generations to come.
The death penalty is frowned upon in South Africa as a ‘mechanism of apartheid’. Again, an easy tagging to ‘apartheid’ while a growing number of citizens are shot, maimed, raped, stabbed and worse. Isn’t it really time to have a referendum on the death penalty? If you’re one of SA’s law abiding citizens, can you truthfully say its inhumane, or peddle all the word salads of so-called human rights activists that mostly never consider the rights of citizens.
What say ye my fellow South Africans? Is it not way past the time to decide on the death penalty, as implemented in Singapore?
Do you want to see SA transformed by a miracle of decision-making and fortitude into becoming the “Jewel of the South” or do we merely accept fast approaching national collapse?
Consider carefully: “It takes considerable knowledge just to realise the extent of your own ignorance” – Thomas Sowell
My background is highly political. I live in Greenwood Park, Durban. I was in UDF at 14, and my sense of disagreement was when I suggested ‘transition govt’ for 10-15 years with proposed people learning governance protocols. My split came at “total removal and domination”. My cousin is Russell Christopher, bodyguard to Mandela & also past security of the Parliament. I met more than a few ‘comrades’ Smithy Pillay was a close friend regardless of our opposing views. I was never wrong in my assessment then. I was against apartheid, but never against the functionality and efficiency of every other govt department. I’m not politically correct at all.

Image : Nevi Gabriel