AHH, do we have anything formal for this?  “Hezbollah is expected to be part of the future Lebanese government and to have its ministers.”

Good heavens, what a little slip of a country. Must admit, I know nothing about Togo. I really did not even know it existed any longer. I remember Togoland back in the mists of history.

I would like to put this down here so people can understand the Afrikaner community in South Africa. This is also how they are bootstrapping and building themselves up again. They are not shy to point out their faults, but they do say, and I know this is true, that long before apartheid fell, the community understood that it must be done away with. They say their biggest mistake was to become state-focused instead of freedom-focused. These folks are socialist in their actions, but they consider that as a democratic system. One day they will get it. The hatred for socialism and communism come from what was done via the USSR and China to an extent. Bear in mind they live under a non-friendly state, and as they are learning now, their previous state absorbed them. Currently, they are ‘we must do it ourselves’, and that is what they are doing. Plucky people.

Those who think the South African apartheid had only an effect on black people are very wrong. It deeply hurt those that were of the system as well. The speaker explains that the period of statism deprived them of any of the cultural and social bonds and organizations that bound them together as people because the state absorbed everything. A bad state is probably worse than most things.

Anyway, for one Saturday night at the movies ..

Mexico is not caving.  Bear in mind Blood Meridian, the channel, overstates because they are like others damn angry at the US adventures in the LAC.  They are good for news, but not good for strategy.  Scheinbaum will paint Trump’s big mouth with honey for as long as it takes but they are tightening up.  For example, just recently, they told the US embassy that they may not at all contact Mexican companies or Mexican governmental agencies directly.  (Of course, these cretins walked in just wherever they wanted to).  The US Embassy staff are now instructed to work through the Department of Trade or Commerce, or whatever the Mexican equivalent is.

The idea is to nearshore more, i.e., Chinese manufacturers, of which there are many, but to agree that they will buy more local Mexican products.  Currently, they provide many jobs for Mexicans.  They want China not only to sell but also to buy locally and, in this way, increase local content.  That will support local trade, but will also not disturb the free trade agreement – US-Canada-Mexico.  AliExpress, for example, has a big e-commerce distribution warehouse in Mexico, and Mexicans buy from there.   For Mexico, this is a complete rework of their trade relationships, onshore and offshore.  They are combining Federal Power with Local Independent Business in negotiations (following a Chinese blueprint).

Here is but one article about what Scheinbaum and her economists are doing. (It has a Western brush there at the end.) Read the words of Ebrard—he has a wealth of experience and is now leading the Department of Commerce.   Scheinbaum is setting up a local initiative under her own leadership specifically devoted to this change.

https://mexicobusiness.news/trade-and-investment/news/mexico-aims-reduce-dependence-chinese-imports

Bear in mind also that Scheinbaum has an approval rating in Mexico that rivals that of Putin in Russia.

I owe our commentator K an answer.

A bit of an intro. When Trump and his trumpets started with wanting to take Greenland and the canal and Canada and whatever more, my reaction was to get dreadfully and soul destroying tired, until I realised that it is not our business. if they want to eat their allies, heck, let them go right ahead. And then we had the discussion about South Africa and I had the same reaction .. because I have written screeds, explained, told history, gave links to read, suggested books and so on and now, I am tired of that. It is incredibly difficult without writing a book. And then, many stories will remain untold as now, they will not do any good. Perhaps I can make a joke and you’ll understand and I’ll make a few comments.

So, there is this old and fun movie, Cool Runnings, the Jamaican Bobsled team. Here is a clip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8gVG1wKrvk
So, let me tell you the ‘hell of a place’ that I am coming from. I fought politics, I fled a war and we all received military level training with weapons. I grew up in 3 African countries. I studied post grad 3 African countries. I studied the start of and the basis of apartheid in detail, as we knew the man who designed it. It is still today one of the most beautiful documents of state ever, with full freedom for everyone but separate development, but of course, not acceptable. He described this river with big trees on different banks, big trunks separate and in the branches and the leaves, an economic and social interaction. Dreams, I tell you, beautiful dreams.

You see, what we were dealing with, was a clash of civilizations. This was long before any apartheid or any group areas or any harsh repression of anyone. There was of course three colonialists in the mix .. the Dutch initially, and they built a victualling station at the Cape of Good Hope.

The whites were impoverished on their farms. They lived in what was called then, hartbeeshuisies .. take a look at the photos here. https://maroelamedia.co.za/goeiegoed/die-begrip-hartbeeshuisie/ I lived in one of those at some stage, though my dad bought and sold, cattle, farms and we were always in the meat business. As a young child I had one pair of shoes, school shoes – Mary Janes, exactly the same as the local workers on the farms.

As a young child, I remember traveling and migratory tribes calling in for a place to rest, water their cattle, and buy and sell animals. My mom always checked the kids to see if there were illnesses that she could do something about—fixing scrapes and sores and stuff. We were all ate out of one pot and were dunked together in the river to bath and we played madly. These tribes were not short of land, they were living what they always had done, migrating from place to place for fresh grazing for their animals. This lifestyle could not continue into the modern world.

The world changed. There was the results of the Bandung conference, we had the influences of Cecil John Rhodes who killed everyone in sight, and the regime of apartheid slowly became inculcated. In Namibia (at that time South West Africa there were the Germans). It was devastating. What I learned later was the devastation of control of information .. so, we started hearing of the fears .. the ‘black’ danger and the ‘red’ danger. As the fear of communism creeped in, so did the controls and the concept that ‘they are lesser’ because, and I remember this well, as soon as ‘they’ get any freedom, they create relationships with the USSR and China. (Thanks USSR and China, for training the military cadres to kill people like me). The white population were put to work in large social programs in order to deal with the poverty. Only certain colors could vote. The UN played its part with forcing countries to establish themselves according to UN laws and rules. The controls rolled into a racism unbelievable (If you want to talk about those lands, you need to know that racism was the dividing line to force people apart – it is really sickening to me that this is used now again, for the same purpose but turned against the Afrikaners .. the whites. It is like Israel doing the same to the Palestinians that was done to them by the Germans.) In South Africa at the time, the black homelands were legalized and the forced removals started. But this is something that few people know. The Black Homelands were financially support and paid for by the Apartheid government. So, look at it like this .. as the whites received social work programs to lift themselves out of poverty the Black Homelands received ample money, to perhaps do the same thing? Anyway, it was a horrible time.

From one country, we were in war and had to flee. We fled in convoy, all the farmers and it was horrible. I was end of convoy and had to gather those that fell behind. The military had helicopters overhead, big old troop carriers in and out of the convoy. The convoy had all kinds of vehicles, sometimes with a prize bull or a price horse on the back of something, chickens, goods of all kinds and in common, everyone was in fear. So, that forms part of the story of ‘where I am coming from’.

I was working for an attorney at the time. My dad wanted me to be a lawyer and this was part of practical work. We had a local guy working in the office part time, and we chatted a lot. He was paying for his studies with his part time job. He was adamant .. they don’t want the whites, they want majority rule (lots of UK interference and all kinds of things at the time). As we fled, I called him, to tell him there would be no office. He said this is not fair, who is going to pay for his studies now. I am not generally an unkind person as ‘we ate out of the same pot’, but said to him to apply at ‘majority rule’.

Then the harsh repression started. Again, it was different in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia. Segregated schools, group areas act, people taken from where they were to put up in ‘black homelands’ where I could not go in.

In the beginning of the europeans arriving in Africa, these rules were not there. The mines recruited all over the area workers and they were put up in horrible circumstances. But I lived in two worlds. My one grandmother was a founder member with Emma Mashinini of the Garment Worker’s Union and slept in jail many a time when she was out ‘fighting for her girls’. My grandfather fought for the Allies and the other for the Germans in that time South West Africa. My one uncle worked for a big steel manufacturer and he was the union representative and called a ‘sweetheart’ because he worked for his people and would make agreements best for all. My one grandfather in his school days had to wear a sign around his neck – I am a donkey, I speak Dutch. The Afrikaner community fought the Brits to a standstill until the Brits put the families in concentration camps.

Not only did this small community at that time fight the first war against British colonialism, but they also integrated into Africa.

You mentioned that there is a white town in South Africa and used that as a reason that the black community (many tribes – so please do not generalize) don’t have their lands. There is also Zululand, where the Zulus mainly live. (Now KwaZulu, Natal). It is theirs. How come they can have theirs and the white town causes outrage? The Afrikaners and the Zulus got to those lands more or less at the same time in history. Some Afrikaners went and wanted to negotiate for land with them (long time ago) and the leaders got hacked up for their troubles. This led to the Battle of Blood River, where the Afrikaners won and the river was red with blood. So, no, land was not stolen. It was generally bought and negotiated for. I am sure some was stolen. Bulalani abathakathi (Kill the sorcerers…), was the cry. Today the Zulus are in the process of appointing their King (2 brothers had a fight there for a while but this is happening), and the Afrikaners and Zulus work together to safeguard their lands from expropriation without compensation from the State. They also work together for schooling in local languages which is being outlawed. School should be in English you see, and universities should be woke — horrible.

So this is a bit of a rural historical story. There is nothing in here about cities and towns where there were as many rich black people as whites.

Nothing here should indicate that I support the first, or the second or the third colonization, or the learned racism that exists today. I don’t, not by word and not by deed. I was on platforms there, talking about a vote for everyone. The South African whites were and are a very special people and left to their own devices and without the pressure from the world (integrated and clash of civilizations) the place would have been different. The English colonizers came in, and colonized. They colonized the whites as much as the blacks. The Dutch not so bad, as they kept themselves to the Cape of Good Hope and no harshly repressive rules. The Germans, well, least said. Wars broke out for cattle theft, not for land per se. The story goes once the Afrikaners (at that time ‘voortrekkers’ went on trek and crossed the mountains from the Cape and trekked Northerly to get rid of English colonization, if land was open and available, they could take only as much as they could go with a horse in one day, into the 4 directions. There were no people, only tribes that came around to feed and water their animals.

We will talk about the towns next when I feel like it.

I posted up for you AHH.

Syrian Post-Colonial history (1945) until 2011 war

Yikes, some music too! Listen closely 😉

No AHH, that is not true.  The Indonesian statement after the Sandton, Johannesburg BRICS summit was:

President of the Republic of Indonesia (Joko Widodo)

“To become a new member of BRICS, a country must submit the Expression of Interest letter. Up to this point, Indonesia has not submitted the letter, since we want to review and calculate first, we do not want to rush. And also, we have excellent relations with the five BRICS members, especially in the economic sector.”

Indonesia was not mentioned in any way that stood out.

But yes, it is in terms of ASEAN a very good move.

I’ll tell what I think and nobody will like it.  I think Brazil is playing dangerous power games as we’ve seen them do in South Africa (Argentina) and in Kazan (Venezuela) .  This is what it looks like:

As of October 2024, BRICS has nine members and 13 partner countries:

5 original members:

Brazil
Russia
India
China
South Africa

4 new members (invited in August 2023; officially admitted in January 2024):

Egypt
Ethiopia
Iran
United Arab Emirates

13 partner countries (accepted in October 2024):

Algeria
Belarus
Bolivia
Cuba
Indonesia
Kazakhstan
Malaysia
Nigeria
Thailand
Türkiye
Uganda
Uzbekistan
Vietnam

OK, I might be missing here or there, but Indonesia never made a peep and nobody else did.
This time it worked, as there was consensus.  Congrats Indonesia.