Mention 5G anywhere and you’re bound to get a reaction.
There is a wide gap between those who believe that 5G is simply the latest and fastest wireless technology and those who believe little men from Mars are trying to beam messages into their heads, so the only way to protect yourself is to wear a tin foil hat.
There is a certain place of business in Ballito – no names, no packdrill – where I get it in the neck every time I go in: how 5G is going to deform our unborn children, how 5G is behind Covid-19, how Bill Gates is spreading the virus through vaccines or something like that.
I have said loudly that anyone who believes all that also talks to the fairies at the bottom of the garden, but it’s like water off a duck’s back.
Anyhow, what does get me going is the government’s latest little ploy. Our esteemed minister of communications and digital technologies, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, has put out a policy white paper that proposes, among other outlandish things, that cellphone companies can put a mast on my property whether I like it or not.
In 1994 Vodacom sneaked that hideous tower into Elizabeth Drive that marred my view as we lived right behind it, so I have personal justification for saying they can find places where they needn’t be so inconsiderate.
As things stand, anyone wanting to put up a mast would have to advertise and invite objections in the newspaper. They won’t have to do that under the new regulations, if they are approved.
As attorney Andy Horton told us last week, a move like that would ride roughshod over our property rights and the municipal bylaws.
I suspect four months of lockdown has gone to the government’s head. They have realised that they could do a lot of things without having to go through the pesky process of consulting the population.
Apart from one virtual sitting of Parliament, if memory serves, the government has not been accountable to the legislature since the third week of March. It has not had to put up with criticisms or questions from the opposition for four months.
If politicians speak outside of parliament they forego parliamentary protection, meaning they can be sued for defamation, for example. Parliament allows politicians to say things that cannot normally be said in public.
That is an important part of the democratic process.
But I digress. Back to 5G. I have no clue if the conspiracy theorists are right or wrong, though if you adopt the principle of ‘follow the money’, that the West’s opposition to Chinese firm Huawei supplying all the 5G technology is based more on the loss of market share than Beijing wanting to steal our secrets, the explanation is likely to be simpler than little green men and deadly viruses.
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It’s great that gangs of men are digging up the pavements and laying fibre throughout the Dolphin Coast is great, but I do seem to remember this all being done a year or so ago. Is it really necessary to duplicate?
Can’t the cable companies share networks, you know, you do this suburb, we’ll do the other, and share?
Apparently not, but it does provide plenty of jobs, which is a plus.
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My late mother-in-law was a keen student of South African history and in clearing out her flat I came across the second of Deneys Reitz’s books, ‘No Outspan’. I have his first book, ‘Commando’, in which he describes how as a 17-year-old he rode with General Smuts and General Botha against the British in the Boer War of 1902, taking part in the Seige of Ladysmith and many other battles.
In the First World War he served under General Smuts against the Germans in West and East Africa as did many Afrikaners who had followed Smuts, and ended up in France as commanding officer of the 1st Royal Scots Fusiliers.
Nobody bore him any resentment that 15 years earlier he had been fighting against the British. From Boer guerrilla fighter to CO of a Scottish infantry regiment – quite a story!
He tells the story of celebrating Hogmanay with his soldiers and waking up the next day feeling a little delicate, but tradition demanded that before breakfast he had to drink 4 large whiskies, again part of tradition.
He said he did not know how he survived the ordeal but he was teetotal for the next two years!
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Finally, enough with this beach ban! By all means insist on umbrellas being five metres apart if need be, but the wind blows all the germs away, the seawater surely kills the virus and the sunshine and exercise is good for you.
Beachgoers chased away from Ballito and Salt Rock this last weekend just ended up on other, little-used beaches like Sheffield, and nobody died, so what was achieved?
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