My first in-personal encounter with Jay Naidoo was in 1992 when we were on opposite sides of a wage negotiations table. Having recently arrived at the Corp – and rapidly promoted because of its dearth of talent – I was awed at how the anti-Apartheid icon used superior intellect to befuddle my suddenly eager-to-please new colleagues who had seen the winds changing. For a couple of years thereafter, my interviews with Jay and many ANC colleagues developed into lengthy Green Room chats after TV where we swapped stories and many of them savoured the State Propaganda Machine’s whiskey. During my own corporate adventure from 1994 to 1996; and subsequent return to entrepreneurship, I never forgot those pre-democracy interactions with characters who became leading players in the New South Africa. Jay Naidoo ended up serving five years as a senior member in the Nelson Mandela cabinet and of all my now powerful new acquaintances, he is one who never strayed from his activist beliefs. Even when moving into his own business, he ensured its North Star was to ‘do good’ – and he left it with his honour and reputation intact. Now 68, Jay Naidoo has added a dollop of wisdom to his bottomless passion and enthusiasm for his homeland. He shows us in the powerful Op-Ed below, he still possesses all that old courage to risk his own reputation by questioning what he believes is an unjust status quo. Jay Naidoo also shows us that although they might have left the public stage, many extraordinary South Africans remain deeply involved and concerned at the Beloved Country’s trajectory. Providing a reminder that one good man (or woman) really can make a difference. – Alec Hogg
By Jay Naidoo
What I am witness to today has brought me back to the tyranny I have fought against all my life. And this time, it is affecting all of us, with no exception.
I was a statistic under apartheid. At four years old, my family was evicted from our home, our stable community, from our friends and extended family, alongside 3 million black South Africans by apartheid’s perverted social and political engineers because we were a black spot. We were non-beings to be abused, used and discarded on the rubbish bin by a crime against humanity – apartheid.
That’s what plunged me into activism. I was part of the 1976 generation, shaped by fiery activism of social justice fuelled by iconic heroes of our struggle like Steve Biko and Nelson Mandela. We were prepared to die for the freedom of our people.
And many did.
But now at 68 I see an even bigger struggle against the subjugation now facing the whole of humanity. A new apartheid at every level of our society is now determined to take our lives. In the past two years it’s ugly spectre of the pandemic response has sowed its seeds of division, coercion and conflict across the world. It’s fear mongering tactics has divided families, relationships, communities, nations and the whole of humanity.
In this battlefield I see the broken bodies of the innocent again. And mounting vaccine injuries and death tolls. From the colonisation of land and countries, we are now facing colonialism of our bodies through the greed of BigPharma penetrating the once sacred citadels of democracy, manipulating and corrupting our leadership. And ultimately usurping our rights over our personal freedoms and even the right to informed consent.
We haven’t been informed as to what is in these vaccines. And our watchdogs of society chose to ignore the 80,000 pages Pfizer wanted to hide for 75 years but was forced to disclose. In these pages they reveal the 1,291 side effects of this “vaccine”. I see cases of vaccine injuries in my family and around me.
We also know that most people dying from Covid now are vaccinated. And interestingly enough, excess deaths figures are exploding across the world except in countries with low Covid vaccination rates.
I want to hear both sides of this debate of a divided medical profession. Hundreds of thousands of doctors from neurologists to cardiologists to endocrinologists to oncologists are sounding the alarm bell. But we have chosen to listen to Pfizer, who has paid one of the largest criminal fines in the history of human kind. And doctors and specialists to whom we have been seeking advice and care for decades but all of a sudden are ostracised and demonised because they do not espouse the narrative of the government and their allies in the pharmaceutical industry. And that reminds me of the dark days of apartheid repression and censorship.
It is an established fact that the Covid mRNA vaccine given to billions does not give us immunity. It does not stop transmission. In fact, in the papers of Pfizer and Moderna, they admit that this is an experiment. Furthermore, Stefan Oelrich’s, head of pharmaceutical giant Bayer said at the World Health Summit 2021 in Berlin “We are really taking that leap [to drive innovation] in cell and gene therapies…ultimately the mRNA vaccines are an example of that cell and gene therapy. I always like to say: if we had surveyed two years ago in the public – ‘would you be willing to take a gene or cell therapy and inject it into your body’ – we probably would have had a 95 percent refusal rate.” They are not hiding their sinister agenda anymore.
Adding to that, the number of reported vaccine injuries and deaths now exceed those of all vaccines combined in the last 30 years. Be it the Yellowcard scheme in the UK, the VAERS in the US, or the VigiAccess of the WHO, all indicate an alarming number of injuries and deaths never seen before. According to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency of the UK, the injury reporting may be less than 10 percent of the actual figures.
To see South African workers who I have spent most of my life with, broke bread with and built family with threatened by employers with dismissal and many actually fired if they refused an experimental untested vaccine without informed consent is a breach of the hard won freedoms and worker struggles of our past. And even more appalling is senior labour lawyers, media journalists and medical doctors are still supporting and actually forcing workers at the threat of losing their jobs is arbitrary, illegal and in conflict with the spirit of our Constitution.
I was shocked to see the once eminent lawyer, Halton Cheadle, a stalwart of our workers struggle and a key advisor to me as General Secretary of COSATU in the turbulent Eighties and in shaping the labour legislation post-apartheid say that, “ it is legally possible to fire a employee who refuses to get the COVID vaccine.”
This is the most bizarre interpretation of our Constitutional rights that hark back to dark days of our exclusionary apartheid politics. I am however heartened by some labour leaders, including the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), which says it will “fight tooth and nail to protect its members from the repercussions of resisting the jab, should it become compulsory to inoculate.”
“Just as it was done with TB and HIV, testing was voluntary and the process proved to be a success. We are of the view that when it comes to Covid-19, the same principle should apply,” said NUM deputy president Phillip Vilakazi. I have seen reports of nursing staff and doctors threatened if they talk about vaccine injuries they are seeing.
I ask myself why the courageous defenders of workers of the past when employers in the public and private sectors corporates discriminate, victimise and dismiss workers for refusing to take this vaccine?
I take a stand on this this because I am aware that lurking on the horizon are new pandemic scenarios being hatched by political and economic elites of the world while we are still reeling from the catastrophic impact of this current Covid pandemic response.
Like millions of others I have personal experience of vaccine injuries. I reiterate the call by eminent global cardiologist, Dr Aseem Malhotra and many thousands of others that we pause especially the vaccination of children. That is why we need a proper scientific debate across a very divided medical profession. And that we as citizens are given access to both sides of this debate.
Dr Aseem Malhotra and many outstanding medical professionals have spoken on the data that suggest there is when the official statistics indicate one injury in 800 vaccinations.
If we had to look at previous data the swine flu vaccine was withdrawn in 1976 when it recorded data showed one serious injury per 100,000. The Rotavirus vaccine was withdrawn in 1999 after two serious injuries per 10,000 and now we see that there are one serious injuries per 800 vaccinations.
And we want to extend these vaccines to children when they have practically zero risk of dying from Covid. Between 0-19 years, there is a 99.997 percent survival rate.
Between 20-49 years, 99.98 percent; 50-69 years 99.5 percent and 70 years + – 94.6 percent (source: CDC.gov) We also now know that the FDA, the American Government and Twitter to name but a few admit that they squashed information about the role and power of natural immunity.
As a grandfather I stand up and will go back to the trenches to defend the rights of my grandchildren and the millions of others from what is a horrendous invasion of our rights to safe health and human well-being.
I believe that humanity is at a tipping point. And our guardians and watchdogs against vested interests are missing in action. Real debate has been suffocated under the deluge of ridicule, demonisation, censorship and labelling so crude that it should be regarded as hate speech.
The union movement needs to look itself in the mirror. There are more grassroots doctors fighting for worker’s rights than union leaders. What is being flung out the window in this high-handed pandemic response is the standard operating procedures we have followed in the past.
Early treatment protocols have been jettisoned, effective medicine to cure from Covid, banned. Dr Sankara Chetty in Port-Edward for example has treated 14,000 patients with Covid, many with comorbidities. Not one hospitalisation. Not one death. But we don’t want to listen to him. In fact, he was banned from YouTube for disclosing his lifesaving recipe.
We are witness to the disembowelment of solidarity. The old slogan of an injury to one, is an injury to all is now buried under the baggage of compromised leadership.
It’s time that union leadership in our country take a stand. To demand a proper debate of the data and facts of this pandemic response, which has negatively impacted on the lives of millions of South African workers.
In this battlefield as in the past let the Truth be the only victor.
Jay Naidoo is a former trade unionist and General Secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions.