This is an impression that’s written on the spur of the moment. News has been circulating for the last ten days about Mr. Nelson Mandela’s health that I have difficulty to accept as truthful. We are more or less told that a plane with medical people on board was sent by the SAAF to Mr. Mandela’s residence for unexplained reasons. That plane, on its return journey crashed in the Drakensberg Mountains at 3000 metre altitude. Uncertainty about all the people on board.
The next day Mr. Mandela is reported to be in a hospital in Pretoria, apparently with respiratory problems. How he got there is not explained. It does not make sense to send an old man with all his money in an ambulance from the East Coast over buggered up roads to Pretoria. The Presidency announces that he is responding to the doctors’ treatment. Who is this ‘Presidency’? Mr. Zuma, checking up on his old boss? Then, Silence!
Then, a day before the ANC Party conference to decide who will be president of South Africa, the Presidency decides that there was bugger all wrong with dear Madiba’s lungs but that gallbladder stones had been the trouble. Not surprising, with Zuma as your apprentice president you might suffer from much more.
I don’t believe anything that has been said about Mr. Mandela’s latest adventures, I think he’s dead! I can only hope that this death tiding is premature.
SINK THE BIRKENHEAD ! which is the story of Maqoma´s Last War
by Nicholas Dekker
This is the story of a lone Xhosa Chief who destroyed a British Navy troopship that threatened to annihilate his nation in 1852. This is the story how the attack was carried out by a few African black people. [...]
OCEAN ADVOCATE by Nicholas Dekker
All the campaigns of ‘Save the dolphins, albatrosses, whales´ have made people aware of the plight of these animals but have not saved a single life. My friend Jeff decides to take drastic measures against plundering fishing boats. He builds a 32 meter sailing trimaran that can attain speeds of more [...]
WINE TIME or The gentle art of wine tasting and the making of a natural wine by Nicholas Dekker
Wine Time, why I wrote this wee bookDear reader, you have already read about my book ‘Sink The Birkenhead’, maybe you even read it. I have explained why I wanted that story to be known but before a story is [...]
