ANCYL president Julius Malema today supported ASA president Leonard Chuene whom he believes should not have apologised for his conduct because he was genuinely attempting to protect Caster Semenya
He then went on to advise that “he did not believe human beings could be hermaphrodites”. (Eyewitness News)
In other words he denies Semenya’s medically and scientifically recognised sexuality which, even for him, has to be an all-time low.
In the case of Chuene, what Malema seems to overlook is the fact that the ASA president — despite knowledge that Semenya could not compete in terms of IAAF rules — allowed her to run, create an international incident that went as far as the United Nations complaint (by far SA’s biggest embarrassment to date) and start a local uproar over racism in respect of what is clearly a gender issue.
Then to carry it on as if this was somehow the fault of the IAAF who were picking on our athlete.
Finally to be caught out lying and only then apologising.
Which part of the apology didn’t Malema appreciate?
Of all the qualified people who care about ASA and the athletes involved therewith, who cry out for proper leadership, why does this dishonest individual merit support?
What could he possibly have to recommend him?
He’s a liar, a cheat and unable to comply with the laws of the international body which oversees the sport we compete in.
As for Chuene trying to support Caster — that should have comprised a fatherly chat as well an offer to see how ASA could support her as she is. NOT to throw her to the wolves. To cheat the system. To lie and accuse our friends overseas of racism when they played an enormous part in ending apartheid.
That shows a disgusting lack of compassion for Semenya and judgement overall.
An apology should have been the least of it.
That pales however in comparison to the insult he dished out to Caster.
Forget science and medicine Malema doesn’t recognise — which the rest of the planet does — that Caster is a hermaphrodite.
This suggests that he believes it is some sort of aberration and wholly unacceptable rather than accepting Caster for what she is.
That she is blessed by her difference which should and does endear her to us all
Who is he to discard doctors and scientists because he is too prejudiced to accept Caster for what she is?
How can he lead the ANCYL when he refuses to accept people for what they are?
It is an insult of the worst kind — I can’t accept you for what you are so I’ll deny that and worse support a liar and a cheat who behaved in exactly the same disgusting way.
An outrageous disrespect for Caster and the people of this country.
@dee
Please tell your fellow doctors to change all medical lexica, because they do include
‘hermaphrodite’
If you are not a doctor, please STFU and keep your PC cr*p to yourself.
Chuene is a liar, a cheat and a fool. How anybody can defend him is beyond comprehension. As far as Malema is concerned, he must be clever, because no
human being can be THAT stupid.
And yes, you are becoming the laughing stock of the world, what with your complaint to the UN amongst other things. As it was pointed out to me during a debate: This is Africa, if you can’t fix it, break it.
Good luck to you all, you need it.
I forget who it was who said that it is better to keep quiet and appear ignorant than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. As far as I am concerned Mr. Malema has removed all doubt. As for Sifiso’s argument that the issue goes away if you bury your head in the sand one can only smile, nod your head sagely, suppress your urge to shake something and say “more power to you, Neanderthal”.
“The hand that rules the youth, rules the country.” JZ realises this, hence his unwillingness to rein Julius in. A powerful “Julius” means a powerful “JZ.” The concept of lowering the standard of education is part and parcel of the overall plan, easier to control the masses when they are incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong, politically speaking. African leaders are renowned for declaring themselves “President for life.” This is the next step. Whites who take Julius lightly, do so at their own peril. He is hell-bent on vengeance. That’s why I left.
Is there any country where the views of an uneducated – almost illiterate – child matter only to his friends, and no one would even attempt to listen to them? Could it be because of our reputed high rate of illiteracy that we would scrutinise and analyse each and every statement from such a child?
It could be due to our lack of leadership that we scrape around for even the basest of statements from children lacking education and intellect.
Normal societies would never take seriously statements made by a child due to lack of experience, even if the child were a genius, or a prophet. What happened to South Africa?
Some of the somments supporting Malema suggest that some are already jostling for position in a future Malema government. Simphiwo,Lipinsky and Dave Harris come to mind.
Siphiwo Siphiwo ; every day you have to wake up and be yourself. How do you do it? How do you always manage to say something so unimpressive and shallow? Do you carefully filter out the most thoughtful arguments and present us with only the rubbish? Or are you simply the mindless, empty drone that everybody thinks you are; devoutly mimicking the flawed thinking processes of your idols?
Erm. While I don’t want anyone done over like Caster has been in public — spare a thought for the other women athletes (black and white) who effectively had a man in their races. It’s why we seperate genders in sports: to make it fairer – testosterone develops musculature. So ASA cheated not only the world, but our own women athletes.
Hermaphrodite or ‘intersex’? What is the difference? Literacy! There is no such word as ‘intersex’. It a piece of non-medical, non-technical, dumbed down, ‘politically correct’ but linguistically impoverished jargon.
An hermaphrodite is an animal, plant or human which has BOTH male and female sex organs. If the information in the press is accurate, it would appear that Caster is physiologically a male.
The absence of ovaries and womb, the consequent inability to menstruate, the absence of breasts and mammary glands, mean that Caster does not have a set of female sex organs. She/he does have undescended testes, a male characteristic.
There are many other questions here: the conformation of the urethra, the presence or absence of labia, are just two of the as yet undisclosed factors that contribute to the determination of biological gender. And spare me the lecture on ‘gender’ being subjective! Species are differentiated on the basis of sex organs to determine their gender. How we ‘identify’ ourselves with one or the other (or no) gender is part of self-image and quite a different matter from the biological presence or absence of sex organs related to gender.
Caster has a gift: the ability to run like the wind. Perhaps her/his uniqueness is part of that gift. Differentness challenges belief systems and social controls. Perhaps humans are moving toward androgyny in terms of evolution. Caster may be one the pioneers of that future.
For now? We know Caster runs brilliantly. That should be enough.
hmm, I lifted my pic of Jelly Totsi (thanks Andrew D)from a story from IOL about his attack on Nedbank. Short and funny, but you should see the pic – his pudding face and confidence tells the whole story. http://www.nicborain.wordpress.com
Leave young Julius alone, he is a great representative of the African people! Viva Malema Viva.
He shows the old white racist imperialist establishment, and the world, how we as Africans are moving forward together.
@Nic Well said. If I had seen your comment before I wrote mine, I would have simply endorsed yours–which I do now. Common sense and an informed mind are rare on these blogs.
It is an unfortunate and unavoidable fact that news media will publish/broadcast anything that increases circulation/viewing public. We, the long-suffering public cannot hope that Malema’s ridiculous utterances will not be broadcast. Therefore, the only way to shut him up and rid us all of this dangerous fool, is if ANCYL kicks him out and elects a new leader. However, this is also unlikely to happen, since as we should all be aware, it is not the way of “African” politics. On no other continent would Zuma with all the baggage he is carrying, no matter how good a president he might turn out to be, have been elected, or Mugabe have stayed in power for so long and have been allowed to run the country into the ground. As long as we vote along tribal and racial lines, and not for those who will BEST serve the WHOLE country, it will be status quo. Generations of it.
@Jack I suspect between you and Malema there is hardly any difference.
@Neuren in the last 15mnths people have been ranting and raving about Malema I see no signs of him getting better, instead he gets more and more unbelievable, so you can carry on discussing him, and hope that it all sink in through him in the future and he sees the error of his ways.
Malema is plowing a very fertile furrow with this one as there are a lot of people who would appear to be quite sensitive about it.
We all know that Julius’ litteracy is not high, but even his sePedi seems to be substandard. sePedi has a word for hermaphrodite: “setabane”.
It is interesting to note that Castor, Julius and Chueni are Pedi.
@ Rose.
Yeah Rose, you prob. right.
Easy: One man, one vote=placing the welfare of the land in the hands of the majority who, let’s face it, are clueless.
This evidenced by the many, many people in SA voted into powerful, influencial positions regardless (or in spite)of their poor credentials, ie, criminality, education status, unproven/proven track records. You might want to challenge me on the interpretation of what is good, and not so good in the above categories, but then I believe that I am very well aware of what ingredients, energies etc are required to a/. build a great country and b/. sustain it.
In this case: a great country was built (no question – note I am avoiding the term ‘nation’. And now we look on (helpless!!) as it is destroyed.
Julius Malema, voted in by his peers (not the general public admittedly) holds substantial power. And I sure hope you agree with me that this man is not a leader’s poepie valve. He is surely another Idi Amin in the making…..and the sooner Africa stops embracing his sort as mentors and leaders, the sooner Africa has a chance of being taken seriously by…..um…sucessful (read: donor) nations.
Siobhan – so is humility lacking on the blog apparently. Your point about Simenya is well made and perfectly reasonable but spoilt by the pompous comment that followed it.
Mark, my opinion of Melema as a dangerously irresponsible youngster is well documented. Sadly, I am disillusioned with the caliber of several of the top ANC leadership, including JZ, which caused me to turn away from the ANC in the last election. However, notwithstanding the many problems we face, we, surprisingly some would say, live in a reasonably mature democracy where opposition leaders, commentators and media practitioners are ferocious in their criticisms of the ruling ANC. Upon his recall, Mbeki departed the presidency without a backward glance. People strike and protest ad nauseam and we are free to share our opinions on national radio, blogs or any other place – hate speech and incitement to war excluded. This is extremely healthy and somewhat unexpected. Once we have a united opposition not perceived to be race orientated, the ANC will probably see its majority significantly eroded and this is evidence of a healthy democracy in action. What system would you have in its place Mark? Dictatorship? Communism? Apartheid? Against all odds, the ANC government has performed way beyond expectations in several important areas and predictably it has failed dismally in others. We will all have to get our hands dirty in building this new nation – take ownership of our country, care about all the people, and find ways to help our fledgling democracy. Only then is there a snowballs hope in hell of it working in the long term. Crass negativity and destructive criticism is never a recipe for nation building.
I’ll pre-face my statement by noting that I am totally indifferent to the whole “it’s a man-ya” saga …What I got from Juluis’ rants was that:
• Chuene was in an invidious position constrained by cultural etiquette and
• found it difficulties to broach a rather sensitive subject on gender with what he regarded as a girl-child;
• that Chuene (a Pedi) could not articulate what to most (inclusive of writer) is a complex and mind-boggling notion of transgender or a person having both male (not visible) and female anatomical parts ….anyway ….
• There is no such word in Pedi to describe such medical term…such being a medical term expressed in a western language, (i.e) English…..
And Mark, a great country may well have been built to benefit the few, be owned and enjoyed by the few, be governed by the few and ultimately come to the brink of destruction because of the few. We honestly have to take up the plough and work hard, care deeply for everyone and finally build a nation practicing democracy in every sense of the word – then we will indeed be the rainbow nation of which Madiba spoke.
If tommorow I would want to open a bank account Nedbank will be might ultimate choice in total defiance to the call to boycott Nedbank!
Reason being that I would be doing that to express my satisfaction that Nedbank has excelled in its functions whereas those who call for the boycott of it are doomed and dismal.
fIRST OF ALL ITS THE QUESTION OF WHAT ARE THEY DOING AT NEDBANK SINCE THEY SHOULD BE AT SCHOOLS FIGHTING BULLYING AND THE STREEYS FIGHTING DELINQUENCY!
ON ANOTHER NOTE ITS THAT IF I WOULD HAVE MANNING FEMALE AND MALE ENTRANCES AND SEMENYA CAME ALONG THERE WAS NO WAY I COULD HAVE ALLOWED HER TO ENTER THE FEMALE SECTION SINCE IN HER I SEEE A MAN.SO I WOULD ALSO HAVE DEMANDED THAT SHE PROVED HER SEXUALITY IN ONE-WAY OR THE OTHER.I THEREFORE DO NOT SEE WRONG IN THE TESTS THAT WERE DONE.
@Rose Morrow: I respect and admire your enthusiasm and take heed of your ideals. However, my enthusiasm waned a long time ago. I speak out of experience, having been fortunate enough to travel throughout Africa. I do not see South Africa emerging from the quagmire it has descended into. Tribalism does not allow for the type of governance which you seek. This feature still has to rear it’s ugly head in totality, in South African politics. I wish you all the luck and pray for your safety. Your heart’s in the right place.
Thanks Mark and may God bless and keep you safe too
Sihiwo siphiwo – the fact that you dont bother to check how to spell “haemophradate”, which is how you write hermaphrodite, speaks volumes about your spineless inability to engage with the real issues. Come on, you are just Philippa Lipinksi in drag aren’t you?
@Rod
Thankyou thankyou, thankyou, and just in case you missed the intent of my message, thankyou yet again. You have made my day with your comments to Siphiwo Siphiwo and indirectly to Philippa Lipinski who is equally unfathomable. I have sparred with him on various blogs over last few months on current issues such as Hlophe, corruption, crime, ANC, and virtually anything else you can imagine. Having seen him in action, you can probably imagine his viewpoint on all of those. I don’t mind his viewpoint but I do mind his inability to face facts or as you put it “to engage with the real issues”
Thankyou again.
I was a fan of your blogs before this, even more so now.
So there’s no word in Pedi for hemaphrodite.
I daresay neither is there any word for ‘DNA, silicone chip, atom, neutron, quadratic equation, gravity, internal combustion
But Malema drives a car & uses a cellphone. Such is the towering nature of the new ignorance.
@ mpho radebe
I think (I hope) that Jack was being satirical when he submitted those words!
Caster Semenya’s Gender Condition
The Australian media has claimed that Semenya is a hermaphrodite with both male and female sexual organs. However, her medical results have been reported to show no ovaries.Semenya could have Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome.
What is Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome?
- AIS is a rare genetic condition which can be inherited or caused by spontaneous mutations.
- There is a 1 in 20 000 chance of getting it.
- Complete AIS prevents the body’s cells from responding to androgen – the “male” hormones.
- It is possible for these individuals with karyotype 46 XY to develop testes which produce mullerian inhibiting hormone (MIH) and testosterone.
- In a typical male fetus, MIH causes the fetal mullerian ducts to regress, so the fetus will not develop a uterus, fallopian tubes, cervix or upper part of a vagina.
- Cells fail to respond to testosterone so the male structures can be absent.
The Stigma
“Physicians and parents have been most reluctant to be honest with AIS girls and women about their condition. This secrecy and stigma has unnecessarily increased the emotional burden of being different,” Says the Intersex Society of North America.
What does this mean?
Semenya seems to have normal appearing female genitals, no ovaries and internal testes. This could mean that she has AIS.
Can AIS be Treated?
Surgery can be performed to remove the testes, preventing the risk of testicular cancer.
Is Caster Semanya a Man or Woman?
The Intersex Society of North America says that, “AIS individuals are