Strikes are by no means unique to SA, and to any other country for that matter. They are IMPORTANT instruments to effect societal change!
The good thing about this government is that it listens to the populace and engage them in debate.
This is why these platforms such as the bargaining council were created. These are dialoguing chambers! This testifies to the spirit and culture of the ANC led government as opposed to the regimes of Verword, Malan, PW Botha and FW De Klerk – where striking workers were bitten by police dogs and beaten to death with “donkie piel” (batons).

What i can tell you about this doctor’s strike is that in the end there will be an outcome and the situation will return to normal the day after that. And next year there will be another strike by another groups of workers, also wishing to influence government and trying to effect societal change or so on.
This is how it works Nda. But when it comes to the election, they (the striking workers) will vote again for the ANC. You see Nda, im not talking about assumptions and emotional thumsucking (like when Mandela dies etc), im talking about evidence based stuff.

South Africa is a multi party democracy. There are more than 100 registered political parties in SA.
To say that, “the majority of people in this country vote with their hearts not with their heads..” is far-fetched and a grave insult to the general populace, the youth, the academics, the religious sectors, women’s organisations, business sectors etc that voted for the African National Congress, in that you allege that all of them cannot think but only yourself.
All i can say to you at this stage is that youve been proven wrong over and over again in the past, and you will be be proven wrong again in the coming local government elections.

Up to date however, elections are and remain unfortunately the most trusted and reliable, yardstick (as opposed to assumptions) to measures the mood of the population. Because if citizens are not happy with a government, they have an opportunity to remove it at the ballot box.
It seems as if the opposite is true here, Sir Nda. I suggest you pause a little bit and have yourself checked out for paranoid dillusions. Because what you see might be a dillusion, because the millions of people are not seeing this ON THE GROUND. And im really putting it very mildly.
There is not even a point at which you can begin to draw comparisons between the ANC and Zanu PF. Because the two are worlds apart. South Africa is having its forth president in fifteen years!
So lets compare apples with apples and stop arguing on the basis of assumptions, but empirical FACTS.
If you bothered to read the Burden of Disease Study (conducted by the government in collaboration with the University of Cape Town and the Human Sciences Research Council), you will clearly see how disease patterns and outcomes have positively changed as a result of the impact of the ANC government’s policies, programmes and interventions on the grassroots – i mean, ON THE GROUND.
Again, im not talking about assumptions, im providing evidence based, well researched stuff, Nda. Im not thumb sucking. Go read this document, i can even email it to you.
Its one thing to talk about emotional stuff (like when mandela one day dies), but its another to substantiate it with evidence.

And im by no means saying that there are no challenges or shortcomings in our health system, but we also need to acknowlege the achievements of the ANC government in this regard and as it currently stands, the populace have recently mandated the ANC overwhelmingly, to build on its achievements of the past fifteen years in terms of pushing back the frontiers of grinding poverty, deprivation, racial discrimination and sexism because they realised that they are today far better off (in many respects) than they were during the days of the apartheid gettho’s, the days of Verwoerd, Malan, Botha and De Klerk.
If you are longing back to these days, then going to Zimbabwe will not even be measurable to what we have endured under the apartheid hell. So for these millions of poor blacks, the ANC is indeed a blessing (as opposed to being a ‘liability’) to the millions of black poors in SA.

We know very well about the fragmented, racially aligned health system that we inherited with hospitals being devided into half – one section for whites and the other for blacks – in an attempt to preserve white supremacy.

We know about the lack of access to health for the millions of poor blacks and how they had to travel hundreds of kilometres on donkeys and wheel barrows only to access inferior and racist health care.

Today health facilities are right on their doorsteps! I am posing the challenge to you, what do you propose should be done to improve our health system! Come on, you are a South African, be constructive!
The NHI is our suggestion, what do you suggest since you are already negative about it – a plan that is still under discussion and not even released yet!
Can you tell us what is in it? What is it that you dont agree with regarding the NHI? Why you are against it? What do you think should happen to improve the situation? Dont be a pessimist, be constructive.

Good Luck and hold your head high

Why are the doctors on strike? If you cannot give a straight-forward, coherent response to why, you haven’t been on the ground for the past 15 or more years.

Why don’t the ANC aristocrats use these public health facilities that they built? Why do they receive exclusive medical attention in PRIVATE health facilities? It’s all very good to say that an individual has a personal choice about matters of that sort, but then these individuals CHOSE to represent public good (or at least pretended to). The BEST advert for your supposed progress on the ground is to utilise your very creation.

Lastly, were I involved in a traumatic accident as we speak, I would rather be taken home than to most of the public health facilities that we have. My chances of surviving the trauma are far greater at home than in your public health facilities. There are obvious exceptions to this odd rule, but they are so few and far between that to even attempt to lump them into the aggregate case is totally meaningless.

THAT, broer, is the situation on the ground. I have NOT shifted goalposts (if you are still taking alcohol, I would like to remind you that you will eventually need a new liver, and little wonder that you are not following what I am saying; alcohol does that, you know). I am ON THE GROUND.

If your mind tells you to say something that does NOT address these matters, be certain now that you will not hear from me on this issue, ever. Just promise not to sear your conscience through continual denial.

As for the seething masses who continue to vote ANC, we all know that you are right: 15 years is too short a time in politics. However, a year is TOO long for your hold on a national budget counted in the billions of Rand NOT to begin to make a permanent, decisive difference for all people in RSA.

However, until such icons as Nelson Mandela have been laid to rest, eventually, as we all do die, the majority of people in this country vote with their hearts not with their heads. They have an emotional attachment to the likes of Madiba, and will continue to vote ANC until Madiba dies. Only then, when no such icon exists, will they be compelled to let their heads consider what their hearts have prevented them from seeing all along: it was all a farce.

Right here and now, that FACT that the ANC-led government is a liability to RSA still stands, irrespective of the voting trends in RSA. I wasn’t born yesterday, and I know for a fact that the machinery on voting is not based on intellect; it is an emotive exercise. 15 to 30 years from now, the reality that Mugarbage up north is facing right now will be staring the ANC in the face. Emotions have a set lifespan. Even Msholozi himself will most likely be no more by then, and all who have been privy to these discussions will just wag their heads and say: “But we told them.”

I am telling you NOW, while you can do something about it. >:-(