PUBLISHER'S LETTER

I am tired of pussyfooting around. I am sick and tired of American phonies like Al Gore coming here and heaping praise upon the ANC/SACP for "having brought democracy" to SA when all about us we see a broken society and a nation in staggering decline. I am outraged by a "democracy" in which Mathews Phosa pays his speechwriter R600 000 a year while millions of decent people, Black and White, starve or beg on the streets.

This month, perhaps more than before, I met some of our most damaged White victims of the ANC's vin-dictive and destructive labour laws, victims too of a welfare system that these same gauche incompetents with their tinkering and social engineering have virtu-ally blown to pieces. I visited shelters which put some shine on human kindness but are nevertheless cita-dels of misery; monuments to the ANC's unskilled, unqualified, ignorant, clownish and maladroit malad-ministration of our country.

Because I am so outraged at what I saw, I will not use the names of those who took me there, but I will say where we went. First to the ineptly named God's Acre at De Deur in the Vaal Triangle, a refuge for Whites who suddenly in this new society find them-selves obsolete, unwanted, discarded. Launched some years ago on her own initiative by Sheryll Ann Bateman, God's Acre is a sobering experience. Sheryll's is a sad and curious story. She was just nine years old when her mother died, her father dying a few months later.

Then came long, dreadful years that should happen to no child … pushed from relative to unwilling rela-tive, from orphanage to orphanage, on the streets at 12, learning to know the drug scene; and prostitution. Today, she is not bitter about this, accepts that "God was showing me the way to what I must do." Left some money by her first husband, she bought this derelict farm at De Deur, where today she rescues the unemployed, the penniless, the destitute. God's Acre is no dream of ease and abundance, but it does offer sanctuary and some respite to those who have hit their darkest days.

Next we went to the Good Hope Care Centre in Germiston, an entirely different story. Where God's Acre absorbs people so sorely maimed in mind and spirit, often people who have hit Skid Row, Good Hope operates at a higher level, people who in the flippantly named "New SA" have become poor, laid off because of plant closure, affirmative action or be-cause they have reached the commercially dread age of 60 or better. They are housed in old municipal buildings, under church administration, everyone and everything clean and well ordered.

The day we were there the shelter housed 69 adults and children, though normally it takes about 100. Many of the older people are among our "new poor," people who formerly struggled and accomplished, were hardworking and virtuous in the days of their relative prosperity. But now, since 1994, SA's tough times have robbed them of all that.

Most of the rooms at Good Hope are big: divided by sheets into four sections. And it is here you see how still-proud folk try to meet the most fundamental of all human needs: to create a corner, no matter how tiny, they can call home. Many of the "rooms," with their thin cotton privacy, yet have a few books, some family photographs from better times, a few pot plants, even the odd canary.

And here I must pay a tribute to two great Christians, Dominee Martin Bothma, head of the NG Kerk at Newlands, and his splendid wife, Celia. These two selfless people, who have served their community for thirty years or more, take an interest in Good Hope. It was Celia who spotted that some of the women were wearing clothes that had come to us through Mission Rescue.

Last week my very dear friend and fellow worker in Mission Rescue, Hennie Kok, returned to Good Hope, this time with a carload of food. Before offloading, he asked if he could see the food storerooms. Virtually bare. "How are you going to feed all these people to-night?" he asked Braam Oberholzer, the centre's su-pervisor. "We have our people out, working as car attendants and other jobs. Hopefully, they will return at five with some money. We can then buy food." Well, on this occasion, we could and did fill the breach.

Because I am running out of space, let me just say that I am totally outraged that people have been re-duced to this, that here we have good, self-respecting people who are increasingly slipping out of the very experience and consciousness of a nation. I am out-raged that public opinion is not horrified, totally re-pelled by a system which will allow one man to earn R600 000 a year, while millions find their lives fall into terrible disarray.

But being outraged is not enough. We have to do something about it. People need help - and we need to provide it. I myself cannot have a situation where Celia rings me up, asking if I can help provide baby clothes and nappies for a young mother at Good Hope, just about to give birth, but with nothing at all for the young arrival.

It would be lovely to get money, but we also need children's clothes and shoes, baby clothes, indeed any reasonably decent clothing that we can get. Above all, we need food. Before I close, thank you again to the Immanuel Church at Randburg, among our most gen-erous and regular supporters. And thank you to my Swiss friends who sent us R5 000 at Christmas. Above all, thank you to all those marvellous people who have supported Mission Rescue over the years, helping us to try to make life a little better for a great many very sad people.

If you do have relief supplies you can give us, please send them to my office. And if you wish to help us fi-nancially, please pay it into the Mission Rescue ac-count at Volkskas Bank, Northcliff, account no 07 381 75166. God bless.