Unintentional autistic traits

In my life, I’ve found that I have traits that are common in autistics, but completely unintentional. Below are a few of them.

Moving very quietly and consequently scaring people

I can walk while making hardly any noise while doing so. This has resulted in me inadvertently sneaking up on people and giving them a fright when I speak. Recently, it nearly ended very badly.

A few months ago, I was at my parents for Sunday lunch. I walked into the kitchen while my father was cutting up some vegetables. As I turned to leave, I saw a fly and loudly said “oh, buzz off!”

My poor father nearly jumped out of his skin. And since he was holding a knife, it was fortunate he didn’t cut himself. I now announce myself if I see someone with a knife.

Over-precise communicating

I’ve frequently been misunderstood. Sometimes accidentally, sometimes deliberately. So I try to be as unambiguous as possible when communicating. The result is that I am often over-precise. Two former colleagues have praised the writing in my blog, with one stating “You write brilliantly.” I have also been praised for some of the instructional material I’ve written.

Stress/Tiredness disabling my social filters

Working a full day is stressful for most of us. As the day goes on, my energy level drops. And sometimes it drops to a point where my social filters deactivate. I have often been found amusing near day’s end because people find my bluntness hilarious. Given that they could find it offensive, I suppose I’m grateful for small mercies.

Stress/Tiredness disabling my fine motor control

One of the stranger symptoms of my autism is that when I’m stressed out, my fine motor control goes down. On more than one occasion, I’ve staggered around as if I was drunk when under stress. Fine motor control takes energy, and stress drains my energy.

Not recognising people

I have the worst imaginable memory for names and faces. I have failed to recognise people I was at school with, and even former coworkers.
A few months back, I was at the Horwood’s Farm Market, when someone called my name. I stopped, and he came up to me. I didn’t recognise him, and had to admit as much. “It’s John T from High School” he said, and then I finally recognised him. He recognised me despite the fact I had a beard and sunglasses on, while I neede a memory prod to recognise him.

Are there any other strange autistic traits you know of or can think of? Please comment below.

Thabo Mbeki and intelligence vs. wisdom (edited)

Late last month, UNISA Chancellor and former South African President Thabo Mbeki repeated his erroneous and discredited beliefs about HIV not causing AIDS. This is more than 15 years after his administration lost in Court over those flawed beliefs. The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has demanded that he retract his statements and apologise for making them. For all the good it will do, it may as well have told the Drakensberg Mountains to march into the Indian Ocean.

Mbeki exemplifies the simple fact that intelligence and wisdom are not the same. At age 24, he earned a Master’s Degree in Economics from the University of Sussex. Making his achievement even more impressive, he wrote his thesis in English, which is not his first language. In 1994, he was chosen to be the first Vice President under Nelson Mandela. In 1999, he was elected President of South Africa, and late in 2008, he was forced to resign from the Presidency by the ANC.

The problem with smart people is that they frequently know they’re smart, and they get arrogant and intolerant of dissension, and believe they know more than they do about things outside their field of expertise, leading to blind spots. In addition, smart people are often better at coming up with rationalisations for what they believe and are thus less likely to change their minds, even when confronted with irrefutable information that proves their beliefs wrong. It is something I’ve had to fix in myself. Mbeki is no exception to this.

Prior to repeating his wrong beliefs on HIV and AIDS, Mbeki harshly criticised the corruption and incompetence that permeates South Africa’s current government. He hypocritically disregards the fact that he was a party to, and sometimes even an instigator of, the very issues he now bemoans.

During Mandela’s presidency, President’s Question Time was suspended in recognition of his advanced age. When Mbeki assumed the Presidency, he refused to bring it back. Under him, Parliament became a rubber stamp, not a check on the Executive. He consistently and repeatedly responded to criticism, no matter how deserved, with ad hominem attacks, especially the race card. The TAC was a particular target of his ire. He shielded the late Manto Tshabalala-Msimang when she was Minister for Health. He also surrounded himself with sycophants who told him what he wanted to hear and got rid of anyone who wouldn’t indulge his mindset. South Africa’s current lack of accountability is in no small part due to him.

At the ANC’s 1997 Conference where Mbeki was elected ANC President, the decision was taken to introduce Cadre Deployment.

Cadre Deployment is the strategy of making political appointments to non-political positions in government. It places political loyalty over competence, leads to decisions being taken for political reasons, not technical or professional ones, and was fundamental to State Capture. Currently, the DA is fighting a legal battle to get Cadre Deployment declared illegal and unconstitutional, a battle it will likely win given the Zondo Commission’s report.

Mbeki was an active practitioner of Cadre Deployment. Under him, Lawrence Mushwana was appointed Public Protector and did such a poor job investigating the Petrogate scandal that when the Mail and Guardian newspaper took him to court, the Court ruled that Mushwana had conducted an investigation so desultory as to be an investigation in name only, and ordered him to redo it. Another such appointment was Snuki Zikalala as Head of News at the SABC. When Jon Perlman exposed Zikalala as biased, an investigation was done confirming Perlman’s accusations, but Zikalala was kept in his position while Perlman was forced out of the SABC.

Most damaging of all was Mbeki’s treatment of Vusi Pikoli, the former National Director of Public Prosecutions. When Pikoli charged former Commissioner of Police Jackie Selebi with corruption, Mbeki first demanded he drop all the charges, then ordered Pikoli to resign when he refused, then suspended him. Frank Chikane, Director in Mbeki’s presidency, confirmed in a biography of Mbeki that Mbeki viewed Pikoli as a deployed cadre, not as someone whose independence was guaranteed by the Constitution.

Andrew Feinstein was an ANC MP in South Africa’s first democratic parliament and a member of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA). In his autobiography “After the Party”, he details how Mbeki derailed SCOPA’s investigation into the Arms Deal.

In the late 1990’s, Eskom approached government and asked for funding for a program to build new power stations and increase generation capacity. It warned government that unless generation was increased it would soon be unable to supply the increased need for electricity. Mbeki refused Eskom’s request. Not even a decade later, load shedding began. Mbeki has never fully owned his wrong decision.

Another notorious blind spot of Mbeki’s was his support for fellow African leaders, regardless of their actions. The most notable example was of course Robert Mugabe.

By 2000, Mugabe had warped from a democrat into an autocrat. That year, a new Constitution was voted on that would have allowed for expropriation without compensation. The electorate voted “No”, but then farms started getting invaded. Shortly after, Mugabe forced through a Constitutional amendment allowing expropriation without compensation.

Mbeki supported Mugabe throughout. He initially blamed the UK for suspending funding for a buy back program, disregarding that it had been suspended after connected politicians had looted funds. He sent observer missions to oversee two blatantly and obviously rigged elections. He tried to get Zimbabwe restored to the Commonwealth after it had been suspended, without success. And he condemned the sanctions laid on Mugabe and other high ranking members of ZANU-PF.

Mbeki’s refusal to condemn Mugabe led to two consequences. The first was that desperate Zimbabweans, fleeing the economic meltdown caused by the stealing of farms, flooded into South Africa, putting a massive strain on our economy. The second was the end of NEPAD.

One of Mbeki’s ideas was that of an African Renaissance. As part of that, he championed a New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD). Western governments were initially supportive, but when Mbeki showed he was only prepared to pay lip service to the ideal, they withdrew their support. NEPAD died a quiet death.

Even after his presidency, Mbeki continued to support corrupt African leaders. When Cote d’Ivoire’s Laurent Gbagbo was deposed after trying to steal an election, Mbeki wrote an article depicting him as a legitimate leader deposed by a coup.
The truth was rather different.

Gbagbo was the de facto Head of State of Cote d’Ivoire. As part of an agreement with rebels, he was supposed to hold elections. He first stalled as long as possible, only holding them when violence seemed imminent.

And lost.

Gbagbo then had the vote in areas where there had been violence annulled. And still lost. Then he annulled the vote in other areas until he “won”. Nobody was fooled, and an uprising began, ending with Gbagbo’s removal from power. Contrary to Mbeki’s article, Gbagbo was not a valid leader who was overthrown, but a cheat who wasn’t prepared to hand over power to the legitimately elected new leadership.

The most damaging of Mbeki’s blind spots is of course his beliefs on HIV and AIDS. Even as Vice President, he expressed scepticism over the scientific consensus that HIV causes AIDS. That he was not trained in research or medicine did not dissuade him, or lead him to reconsider. He claimed that ARV’s were toxic, declared that a virus on its own could not possibly cause immune deficiency, and accused pharmaceutical companies of propaganda. By one estimate, his policies on AIDS refusal to fund antiretrovirals led to some 350,000 deaths. To this day, he refuses to even consider the possibility that he is wrong. In fact, I am wondering if he is a narcissist.

There is a saying that Pride comes before a fall. And his pride is what ultimately undid Mbeki.

In 2007, Mbeki announced that several people had suggested that he run for a third term as ANC President. What had most likely happened was that he had floated the idea, and the sycophants he had surrounded himself with told him that it was a great idea. Had Mbeki gone outside his bubble, he may have dropped the idea.

In the lead up to the 2007 ANC Conference at Polokwane, people who had a better idea of how the ANC felt about Mbeki running for a third term begged him to drop out and let someone else run in his stead. Convinced that he was the only one who could defeat Jacob Zuma, Mbeki refused. And in December 2007, it all came crashing down. Even the ANC Women’s League, which Mbeki had boosted during his two terms, voted against him.

I used to cut out and keep newspaper articles. One of the clippings has a picture of Mbeki as Jacob Zuma is announced as the new ANC President. His face is a mask of disbelief and despair. I am sure that he did not realise until that moment that he wasn’t as popular as he assumed.

Wisdom demands humility, insight, and a willingness to consider and accept information that conflicts with what we want to believe. Mbeki, like many other highly intelligent people, was not prepared to subject his beliefs to proper scrutiny. And the result to South Africa was disastrous.

Profanity alert: “Quiet Quitting” is horseshit

So recently I came across the term “quiet quitting”. I assumed it meant someone discreetly taking their stuff from their workplace and one day sending an email or SMS that they’re not coming back. Instead, it’s a mendacious term for work to rule.

“Quiet quitting” is defined as going in to work every day, not going above or beyond, and pushing back against unreasonable demands by management.

Um, what the fuck?

That’s not “quitting”, not by any stretch of the imagination. That’s “work to rule”. And in this day and age, it’s sensible. I had to laugh at the commenter who claimed that “quiet quitters” were placing their advancement at risk. Deepthroat Capitalism’s cock as much as you want, you’re not becoming one of the exploiters.

I am a regular browser of several content aggregator websites like Bored Panda, Cheezburger, and Diply, among others. Over the past four years, I have read story after story after story of workers being exploited. Workers who were found guilty of bullshit charges right before they were due for an increase or promotion. Workers who were strung along with promises of bonuses, promotions and/or raises that never happened. Workers who put in massive overtime and got token rewards, or sometimes no rewards at all. Companies who announced massive profits and gave huge bonuses to management, only to turn around and tell the workers there wasn’t enough money for increases for them.

Like I said in my previous post:

Once upon a time, loyalty to a company was recognised and rewarded. If you stayed late when needed, took on tasks outside your job description, and made an extra effort, you could expect to be favoured for raises and promotions. Today, going above and beyond at work is more likely to get you exploited than rewarded. And now, workers have come to realise this.

Rephrasing work to rule as quiet quitting is just horseshit propaganda. It’s part of the exploiters’ pushback against workers’ new awareness of, and refusal to be, exploited.

Increasingly, I’m seeing stories of people quitting and their workplaces giving them laughable counter-offers, then calling the leaving workers “selfish” when they refuse. This is just more bullshit. The real selfish ones are the managers and employers who exploit workers any which way they can, and make token offers to get them to stay, usually unsuccessfully.

Don’t buy the lie. Quiet Quitting is not quitting. And today, going above and beyond more often leads to exploitation than to benefits.

Nobody wants to work any more? No, nobody wants to work for YOU any more!

Recently, there’s been plenty of bitching and moaning from employers that “nobody wants to work any more”. In response, and as mentioned in this Cracked article, someone put together a list of newspaper articles dating back to 1894 (1894!) about employers complaining that nobody wants to work any more. I daresay that had the creator searched back further in time, they would have found similar grumbles from even earlier.

The “Great Resignation” is a misnomer. As the Cracked article mentions, unemployment in the U.S. is at the lowest it has been for a very long time. Yes, huge numbers of people resigned. But they didn’t leave the workforce. They left to take up other jobs.

Why are people leaving their jobs? Because their workplaces have been treating them abysmally and paying badly. An article on the Business Insider website reveals that U.S. workers who switched jobs earned bigger raises than workers who stayed.

Once upon a time, loyalty to a company was recognised and rewarded. If you stayed late when needed, took on tasks outside your job description, and made an extra effort, you could expect to be favoured for raises and promotions. Today, going above and beyond at work is more likely to get you exploited than rewarded. And now, workers have come to realise this.

Modern business leadership doctrine is psychopathic, short-termist, and narrow. It views workers as an expense item, and people to be exploited, not as what earns income for the company. It tries to boost profits in the short term by any means possible, including overworking and underpaying employees. This is ultimately to the detriment of the employer.

Over the past few years, I have read numerous stories of companies lying to and exploiting their workers, only for the workers to quit and leave said employers in the lurch. The person who got loaded with ever increasing amounts of work as time went on and who was always refused raises leaving for a better paid job and a huge logjam resulting. The consultant who found out his company was earning more from his services each month than he was being paid in a year asking for a raise and being told there wasn’t enough money, only to receive the offer of a 50% increase when he gave notice. The driver who delivered to two of a company’s biggest clients being refused a raise and resigning, resulting in the company ultimately losing the contracts because the replacement drivers were not nearly as good as the driver who left. The companies that pay experienced workers lower wages than newbies and refuse to hike the wages, only to lose the experienced workers to companies that actually value the experience they bring.

I also read the story of a company who “promoted” a worker, then promptly fired him when he asked for a raise. A promotion without a raise is not a promotion. If I learnt that my workplace had done that, the first thing I would do is read my contract to find out my notice period. The second thing I would do is put out my CV.

It takes a worker 3 to 6 months to get up to speed, and around two years to get good. At the two year mark, a shrewd company would give the employee a handsome raise to encourage them to stay so they would continue to benefit from the employee’s experience. This is what happened to me at my first job. Nowadays, workplaces view workers as interchangeable objects, not as people with differing skillsets and experience.

The Truth about nobody wanting to work any more.

The bottom line is, nobody wants to work. We work to earn a living. As the joke goes “I would rather be on a yacht in the Mediterranean, being handfed grapes by a naked supermodel, but I’m here.” What has happened is that workers have realised that what they were told about loyalty was a pack of lies, and they are not afraid to leave a terrible workplace and get a better job at a better employer.

On polio, monkeypox, and COVID

Recently, a case of polio was discovered in New York State, in an unvaccinated man. This is the first case in the U.S. in nearly a decade.

Polio has been around since the dawn of humanity. Because people were constantly exposed to poliovirus, paralytic polio was rare. It is believed that the introduction of sewage systems, by reducing constant exposure, led to the rise of paralytic polio. By the 1950s, polio was killing thousands and disabling many times that number every year. Huge numbers of victims had to live out their lives in iron lungs. Outbreaks were checked by closing public swimming pools and other areas where polio was likely to spread.

In the 1950s Sabin and Salk, among others, developed effective polio vaccines. Parents, keenly aware of the harms of polio, literally lined up around the block to get their children vaccinated. Paralytic polio went into freefall, and is now history, in every sense of the word.

There has been an outbreak of monkeypox outside of Africa for the first time ever. So far, some 20,000 people have been infected. As deforestation continues, such outbreaks are likely to become more common. Vaccines for monkeypox are currently being developed.

The polio case, monkeypox, and COVID-19 reveal an inconvenient truth for antivaxxers. Before widespread mass vaccination programs, outbreaks of diseases killed many. One of the few methods to halt diseases were lockdowns. In fact, Isaac Newton developed Calculus during a lockdown for the plague. Once vaccines were introduced, lockdowns stopped being used. When COVID broke out, we had no protection, and lockdowns were brought back. Once vaccines were created and vaccination began, restrictions were loosened and eventually lifted altogether.

Antivaxxers see our modern World, free from previously terrible diseases and want to get rid of vaccination, not realising it is vaccination that keeps these diseases at bay. They would have us return to a World where outbreaks, and quarantines and lockdowns, are commonplace.

Vaccines did not cause Justin Bieber’s facial paralysis

Well, I was wrong about my last post being my last post.

Justin Bieber has announced that he has had to pause his World Tour due to facial paralysis caused by Ramsay-Hunt Syndrome. Unsurprisingly, antivaxxers have jumped on this and blamed COVID vaccines, because of course they would. Unfortunately, they have been abetted by a “satirical” news website which falsely claimed that Bieber had blamed things on the vaccines.

AFP’s Fact Checker website has this to say about the article that appeared on the Vancouver Times:

Social media users shared an article that claims Justin Bieber said his facial paralysis was due to the Covid-19 vaccine. This is false; there is no evidence that Bieber made such a public comment, and the article comes from a website that has previously published false claims under the guise of “satire.”

From the article linked above

Ramsay-Hunt Syndrome is caused by the varicella virus, responsible for Chicken Pox and Shingles. Bieber was born in 1994, and thus received the MMR triple jab, not the MMRV (introduced in 2005) that also protects against varicella. It is ironic that antivaxxers have tried to pin the blame on vaccination, as MMRV would likely have protected Bieber against Ramsay-Hunt. It’s par for the course for antivaxxers to blame vaccines, though. Even for things they couldn’t possibly cause.

Last thoughts on Identity and Advocacy

This is probably going to be my last ever blogpost, even though I’m not 100% certain of it.

I know, I know. I loudly announced an end to my blogging before, only to change my mind, but this time I suspect it will be.

As I’ve gone on, the intervals between me posting have got longer and longer. Originally, I posted weekly, then just a few times a month. Now it’s down to 3 or more weeks between posts, and lately more than a month. I’m running out of fresh things to blog about.

Recently, I’ve seen some neurotypicals mock autistics for using identity-first language, and accusing us of defining ourselves by our autism. This is a straw man argument, and a key reason why nonautistics shouldn’t lecture autistics on autism.

I am a white autistic South African male. Each of those labels describes me and none of them define me, but all of them make up who I am. If any of them were different, I would not be me. This is especially true in the case of my autism, as it affects how I perceive, interpret, and interact with the World around me.

One of the most pernicious falsities used against autistic self-advocates is that they are illegitimate as they can’t advocate for “true” autistics. Leaving aside the problems with functional labels, this is demonstrably wrong. Organisations like ASAN can and have advocated for and helped those severely affected by their autism.

When it comes to advocacy for marginalised groups, advocacy efforts must be led and driven by members of that group, otherwise it’s not genuine advocacy. Non-members of the group can be allies, but the main decisions must be taken by group members. Otherwise you get “advocacy” like the Communication Shutdown in support of autistics, that ignored that Information Technology has been a boon to us. Or organisations like Autism Speaks, which has engaged in “advocacy” that has harmed the very autistics it claims to be helping. Or films like Music, Sia’s supposed “love letter to autistics” that insulted, offended, patronised, infantilised and completely misrepresented us.

Me.

Maybe I’ll blog again, maybe I won’t. If I don’t, it’s been a great ride, and thank you dear readers for riding along with me.

Antivaxx Groundhog Day

The Harold Ramis comedy Groundhog Day is considered one of the greatest comedies of all time, and was one of the most successful films of 1993. In it, Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, a self-absorbed weatherman sent to Punxsutawney to cover the Groundhog Day festivities there. He finds himself caught in a time loop, forced to live Groundhog Day over and over again, until he learns to become a better person. Some people have tried to estimate how long he was in the time loop. Estimates vary, but the best appear to be around 30 years.

We appear to be stuck in a antivaxx time loop, where things repeat over and over. I’ve mentioned Theresa Mulderij, who was dismissed for refusing to be vaccinated. Articled Clerk Dale Dryden was fired from Duncan Korabie Attorneys at the end of August 2021 after refusing to be vaccinated. Duncan Korabie, the firm’s owner, has various conditions and introduced a mandatory vaccination policy. Dryden protested, and used antivaccination propaganda in his response. Korabie then issued an ultimatum, and when Dryden refused to be vaccinated, dismissed him.

Dryden was awarded a settlement as Korabie failed to follow procedure, but his dismissal was upheld.

When Betty White and Bob Saget passed away earlier this year, antivaxxers tried to link their deaths to COVID vaccination. White had suffered a stroke six days prior to her death, and an autopsy has now revealed that Saget had fallen and banged his head, leading to a fatal brain bleed. Undeterred, antivaxxers are now trying to connect the death of Shane Warne from a heart attack to COVID vaccination.

Warne’s death is undeniably sad for his fans, friends and family. However, he was an overweight smoker in his fifties who lived a sedentary lifestyle and followed an unhealthy diet. He was thus a prime candidate for the heart attack that killed him.

Last year, I wrote about Schalk van der Merwe, an antivaxx lawyer who filed papers to get mask and vaccine mandates overturned. He’s now facing charges of conspiracy to commit murder.

Finally, and most Groundhog Dayish of all, Rolf Hazlehurst has lost another Court Case about vaccines causing his son’s autism.

Rolf Hazlehurst is an attorney and the father of Yates Hazlehurst, one of the test cases in the Omnibus Autism Proceedings in Vaccine Court. As a quick refresher, numerous families were seeking compensation before Vaccine Court, believing that the MMR had caused their children’s autism. Yates Hazlehurst, Michelle Cedillo, and Colten Snyder were the three children used in the first test cases. All lost. All three appealed the verdicts, and lost again. The Hazlehurst and Cedillo families appealed to Federal Circuit Court, and lost yet again. Recently, Rolf Hazlehurst reactivated his suit against the physician who vaccinated Yates, alleging that by giving him a vaccine, the physician was responsible for giving Yates autism, and was guilty of malpractice. The jury rejected the suit, and the case never even assessed the causation question.

I understand Rolf’s pain. And yet I want to grab him, shake until his teeth rattle, and tell him to stop. His crusade to prove that MMR is responsible for Yates’s autism is not only futile, it is now causing significant harm to his family. He needs to drop it.

Integrity and Hypocrisy

There is a huge fight going on at Spotify.

Joe Rogan is a successful podcaster with whom Spotify signed a lucrative contract. He is also an antivaxxer. And now, several other people who have deals with Spotify are saying either Rogan goes, or they go.

Neil Young and Joni Mitchell were the first. Both contracted polio as children and still have sequelae from their illnesses. They have been joined by, among others, David Crosby, Young’s bandmate in Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

I hope that Spotify will listen, although I’m sceptical it will. Having said that, I have the greatest respect for the artists who are boycotting Spotify and potentially losing out on money.

And on a related note, despite myself, I have a lot of respect for Novak Djokovic.

But Jungle, I hear you say, you condemned him for being antivaxx. Yes I did, but Djokovic has decided he will not attend any tournament that requires him to be vaccinated. His ranking has dropped and he is potentially losing a lot of winnings.

One of the vices I can’t stand is hypocrisy. Djokovic has shown he’s prepared to live up to his values and pay the price, not just figuratively, but literally as well.

I respect anyone who lives their values, even if I know they’re wrong, and even if I find those values abhorrent, like here. Djokovic has shown integrity. And I respect that, no matter how idiotic I find his beliefs.

Profanity alert – antivaxxers fucked around and are now finding out

When some idiot suffers the consequences of their dumbfuck actions, the response can be sadness, or gleeful schadenfreude. I’m feeling a fair amount of the latter, and some of the former for antivaxx shitheads.

Czech Folk Singer Hana Horká didn’t want to get vaccinated but needed an immunity certificate, so she deliberately contracted COVID.

And died.

Jan Rek, her grieving son, is now urging people to learn from his mother’s mistake and get vaccinated. He is also furious with the antivaxxers whom he holds responsible for misleading her and causing her death.

Singer Meat Loaf (born Marvin Lee Aday) also doubted the vaccine and has also died of COVID complications.

On a local note, a woman who refused to get vaccinated had her lawsuit against her employer dismissed at the CCMA. According to the verdict, Theresa Mulderij “refused to participate in the creation of a safe working environment”.

The facts of the case are as follows: Theresa Mulderij was a business and training officer for the Goldrush Group, which implemented a mandatory vaccination policy. Mulderij did not want to get vaccinated, and initially approached her doctor to get a medical exemption, but was turned down. She then applied for an exemption (Goldrush’s vaccination policy had this provision) but this was also refused as she interacted with co-workers daily. She lodged an internal appeal and was denied again. She still refused to get vaccinated and was dismissed. She then went to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) to either be reinstated or get a settlement.

At the CCMA, Mulderij advanced several typical spurious antivaxx claims. Commissioner Lungile Matshaka rejected them all as the bullshit they were. He ruled that Goldrush’s mandatory vaccination policy had followed all required steps and was sound. He also took into account a memo by Deputy Judge President Roland Sutherland to other Judges:

There has been, as yet, only mild protest that this (no vaccination no entry policy) violates freedom of choice … in my view, this is the wrong question. The proper question is whether or not an individual is sufficiently civic-minded to appreciate that a duty of care is owed to colleagues and others with whom contact is made to safeguard them from harm. If one wishes to be an active member of a community then the incontrovertible legitimate interest of the community must trump the preferences of an individual.

From Sutherland’s memo

Companies have a right to demand that their employees be vaccinated. Mulderij found out the hard way.
An article by Charles Webster sums up the selfishness of the antivaxx perfectly.

They’re not asking for choice. They’re fighting for special privilege on the basis of poor science. They want the privilege associated with the driver’s licence/vaccine without having to take the test/vaccinate.

Charles Webster’s article on the EWN website

Quite right.