NjaloNjalo

I've moved

2005-06-01T13:19:00.000+01:00

I'm back in the hood, but am now blogging at Soul South, an exciting new blog that I've started with Rethabile Masilo, previously of On Lesotho and now of Sotho. The blog covers Southern African people, politics and culture and is still in its infancy, but lookout for bigger and better things to come.

In the meantime I may post a few of my more personal, random or controversial comeents here, but I'l mainly be at Soul South. Check you there.

Coming back soon...

2005-05-05T12:22:00.000+01:00

Hi all. Well it's been a very long time since anything was written here and I'll be surprised if anyone comes here anymore. This is just to let you know that I will be making my return to blogging very shortly, either here or on a new blog that's in the pipeline.

Later,
Nick

The prodigal son

2004-11-06T22:14:00.000Z

I'm returning to SA tomorrow. For good. I can't wait. As my entire life is in transit, ther won't be any posts for a good few days.

My only post on the elections

2004-11-04T08:08:00.000Z

I heard an interesting comment from a disillusioned Democrat yesterday. She reckoned that 11 of the states added the question of same-sex marriages to the ballot in order to lure the far-right Christians to the polls - "a bit of red meat for the seething Evangelical masses to feed off" is how I think she put it. An interesting tactic, if it's true, and not one that I've heard any comment on.

Who's not paying attention?

2004-11-01T16:15:00.000Z

This is an interesting little story. On the surface, it seems like the ANC-dominated National Council of Provinces (NCOP) has taken a firm stand against Mbeki on his neglect of rape in South Afirca. At a second glance it seems like the DA member just caught all the ANC delegates napping.

Louis on the loose

2004-10-30T20:06:00.000+01:00

Louis van Schoor, East London's most famous racist serial killer has been released from prison. I remember the horrific stories that used to fly around town about this ruthless man. He was notorious well before he was arrested (East London is a small place, after all).

I saw him once - he came to watch a rugby game at my school in 1992 just before he went to prison. I remember shuddering as I recognised him. He was sitting menacingly on the sideline, a giant of a man with a long flowing beard and dark, dark eyes. He was the epitome of evil.

To me, van Schoor represents the dark, ugly face of apartheid and what it can do to people. I hope there has been a change of heart in prison, but I'm doubtful. Some people, like Eugene Terreblanche, never change.

Only in Oxford

2004-10-30T01:13:00.000+01:00

I've just been pulled over by the police...on my bicycle. I was winding my way up the road at midnight, well inebriated, when a guy in a lumo yellow jacket waved me over. Now I've come to learn that riding your bicycle while under the influence is a crimial offence in England, so I was rather nervous. The police officer said:

"I'd just like to congratulate you on having lights on both the front and the back [which I have], unlike the poor fellow behind you who is about to get a £30 fine. You are free to go."

And with a massive sigh of relief I meandered my way back home. The English police are so polite. Can you believe it?!! R340 for riding your bike without lights?!!! Geez. I'm glad I was only pissed.

COSATU kicked out of Zim

2004-10-27T14:11:00.000+01:00

...but I just had to blog on this!

It seems that COSATU's fact-finding mission to Zim to report on their labour and human rights culture was not acceptable to the powers that be, so they kicked them out. Of coures, it's because they're working for Tony Blair! This has got to raise some eyebrows amongst South Africa's working class, many of whom still praise Mugabe as the hero of the people for his land redistribution programme - if they hear about it, that is. So far the only state response from the SA Department of Home Affairs is that it defends Zimbabwe's right to "determine and apply its own immigration laws as it may deem appropriate" - predictable. Though it seems COSATU is keen to put pressure on the government to react.

Still, it is amusing to see the DA jumping up and down to defend COSATU.

Apologies

2004-10-27T13:20:00.000+01:00

Apologies for the lack of posting, but this week is a bit insane work-wise. I have 30 000 (coherent) words to write by Monday, so writing in any form that is not my thesis is unjustifiable. Aish.

Home Affairs

2004-10-22T11:21:00.000+01:00

This is quite funny.

Political Compass

2004-10-21T21:23:00.000+01:00

I've just taken the Political Compass test pointed out at Vaz's Lube. It is an interesting test with some questions that really get you thinking about what you believe. I wasn't too surprised to come out as a way-out lefty with 8/10 on the economic scale and a 5/10 moderate libertarian on the social scale.

(Not to brag or anything, but as I scrolled down the page I was quite chuffed to see that the famous figure closest to me on the political compass was none other than Madiba himself!)

South African High Commissioner in Oxford

2004-10-19T23:58:00.000+01:00

I have just attended a lecture by the South African High Commissioner to the UK (i.e. the South African ambassador), Ms Lindiwe Mabuza, and thought I’d share my impressions (sorry, this is going to be a long one…)

Most of the lecture was very boring and was aimed at patting the British on the back for all the help during the anti-apartheid struggle and describing all of the “10 Years of Democracy” celebrations held this year with “old friends”. Then she turned to talking about the issues facing South Africa and, quite surprisingly, decided to tackle the two issues of HIV/AIDS and Zimbabwe head on. I suppose it was to pre-empt some prickly situations during question time.

On HIV/AIDS, she begun by saying that she needs to “dispel the myth” that President Mbeki ever doubted the link between HIV and AIDS. She said, straight out, that Mbeki never, ever made any “official statement” denying the link. Honest. I couldn’t believe it either. She then went on to describe how the government’s programme of nutrition provision was endorsed by the WHO, and how condoms are universally available in South African clinics. Not a word about anti-retrovirals.

On Zimbabwe, her comments were unsurprising. She stated that under no circumstances would South Africa ever militarily intervene in Zimbabwe or contemplate cutting off its electricity or any other resources - this was “quite frankly, illegal”. She promoted the use of the UN, the encouragement of the Zimbabwean people to sort out their own problems, and perhaps a quiet word to Mugabe from Mbeki because “they actually get on”.

The interesting bits came during question time. The first question, from a South African student, questioned that if Mbeki had never denied the link between HIV and AIDS, why had he never confirmed it? Surely the people of South Africa deserved this? She remained steadfast that Mbeki had been consistent in his views.

The second questioner, another young South African student, basically directly accused her of lying and quoted Mbeki out of a Time Magazine article saying that he doubted the link between HIV and AIDS. She brushed this off as not understanding how it related to his official stance, which is unchanged. His question to her was whether the South African government believed that the election that returned Mugabe to power in 2000 was “free and fair”. She replied that the observers only knew what they saw and what they saw indicated that that it was legitimate, so that was the government’s official position.

The third question, from me, was as follows:

“Given that you have said South African will never intervene militarily in Zimbabwe, and given that you said South Africa’s greatest challenges now relate to poverty, could you elaborate on the direct threat to our country that has prompted the government to spend more money on hi-tech weapons than it does on housing?”

[long silence]

High Commissioner’s response (as best I can remember):

“I cannot comment on how much government spends on housing, or health, or education, or whatever else... [pause]. We fought hard for our democracy, and now it must be protected. [and I’m thinking, “From whom?!!”]. We must protect it from attack. It can be attacked from anywhere…from the sea…you may have heard about some trawlers that were captured off the coast…”

[Another long pause during which she (and many others) just stares at me]

Chairman: “Is that all you are going to say?”

High Commissioner: “Yes, that’s all I’m going to say”

Super. All my fears of government corruption and crony capitalism seeping into the higher echelons of the liberation government have now been allayed. It is quite clear that we justifiably bought R66 billion (or more?) worth of jet fighters, submarines, Corvettes, and whatever else, so our fish will forever be safe from Taiwanese trawlers. Fantastic. I’ll sleep better tonight.

The rest of the questions were mostly from British ex-anti-apartheid movement people patting the government (and themselves) on the back for doing so much for South Africa, and asking what they could do to continue helping the government with its good work. Yawn.

It struck me that there may be a fundamental difference between the way that the “apartheid generation” and the youth of South Africa view the country and its issues. While the older generation constantly looks back to the struggle and how things have or have not changed, the new generation is looking forward. We are looking at current actions and decision that affect the future of our country. We speak out about the failures and the imperfections and we look positively towards solving them in the future.

Now I am the first person to say that apartheid should never be forgotten, and that its effects will continue to be felt in our country for many generations. However, the history of our country cannot act as a buffer with which those in power defer responsibility to act on current issues. We can relish in our history and our successes over the last 10 years, but don’t let self-congratulation get in the way of progress.

Achebe shuns Nigerian honour

2004-10-19T11:33:00.000+01:00

I was interested to see this article about world-famous Nigerian author, Chinua Achebe. Achebe, who became famous for his insights into the impact of colonialism on African culture in Things Fall Apart, has turned to point the finger at the mess that has been created by his own country's government. He has rejected Nigeria's second highest honour as a "wake-up call" to the government, saying:

"Nigeria is a country that does not work:Schools, universities, roads, hospitals, water, the economy, security, life."

I really respect him for doing this. So often, 'Western' commentators point fingers at African countries, without really getting to grips with the challenges that the continent has to face. The legacy of colonialism and continued exploitation of Africa by the West, as well as the lack of responsibility they have for the consequences of any action taken, means that the authority of their voices is greatly reduced in the eyes of African politicians. So I think it is up to significant African figures like Achebe to stand up and do the pointing when it is clearly necessary. I hope African leaders sit up and take notice.

Quote for the day

2004-10-18T16:48:00.000+01:00

“Only intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding, can lead to discovery; the daily effort comes from no deliberate intention or programme, but straight from the heart.”
– Albert Einstein

Low-cost banking coming to SA

2004-10-16T13:18:00.000+01:00

It seems that all the banks are trying to break into the low-income market with the new Mzansi Account. It is a positive trend, but I still don't thinnk that banks are doing anything serious to alter their approach to the poor. To me, it seems like a PR excercise to attract more people to banking, rather than providing a product that actually helps.

How the poor get into debt

2004-10-15T11:18:00.000+01:00

I recently got an email responding to my earlier posts about consumerism and debt. It came from a friend who's opinion I respect greatly and who is eminently qualified to comment on such matters. I have posted his extensive comments as I believe they provide a very valuable dignosis of the problem.

"Your column on consumerism is one where I am well positioned to give comment. I live in the deep, dark murky waters of credit to the underserved, and as such have observed several trends. There is no doubt that SA is overindebted, and the efforts to regulate this are getting dictated by big business. Here is basically how the poor are generated into a poor and over-indebted bunch with ruined credit records.

1) We have a large working class base, who cannot afford to buy all of the things the retailers want to sell them ( fancy clothes are as much a problem as the furniture and appliance pulls that you mention). Simple solution - give them credit - some of it is secured, but much of it is "on account", not h.p.

H.P. in itself is not particularly bad - I have no problem with it. In a place where a savings culture is non-existent and financial literacy is low, the only way these people will ever be able to afford this kind of stuff is through HP. And the interest rates are not too bad - prime + 5 I think is the max. The only place where HP goes wrong is in making sure that the people can actually afford the repayments on the stuff they buy, but that is common to all retailers(see below)

2)So the reatilers want to give credit - what are the criteria they use? First they check that they getting some sort of salary, and calculate the maximum the customer can afford. Then they check the credit bureau and make sure he is not bad. Then they give him the ability to spend up to the max of his "affordability" in their store. If he does not stop paying, they allow him to take more. On the surface this all looks fine and dandy. However there are several retail groups (Edgars, Foschini, Woolworths, Truworths etc) And they all do this. And many of them offer interest free periods so that you don't feel the pinch until 6 months down the line.

3) The result is that middle to lower class South Africans have on average 3-4 store cards - essentially credit cards. And because the stores do not take into acct lines of credit extended by other retailers when figuring out how much a person can afford to pay back, people end up with credit 3-4 times higher than they can realistically afford. In fact, if the person has credit with a competitor, the incentive is to give them as much, if not more, credit with yourself to encourage them to buy from you.

4) It would seem at this stage that the pack of cards would all fall down, and the retailers would lose a whole bunch of money, and wise up to their faults (most clothing is unsecured, and that is where credit is granted most freely). However, there are two things that push the spiral further out. Firstly the clothing guys are making 50-100% markup on the stuff they sell. This means they can absorb higher than normal losses on money lent, and financially still justify the sale. (give me a whiteboard, and half an hour to explain the nuts and bolts of this). Secondly, they contribute to the Credit Bureaus. If someone goes bad with one of the retailers, this goes to the bureau, and the common misconception is that they are "blacklisted" (which I suppose they sort of are). Their credit record takes a knock and their ability to ever get credit again is lost, and more importantly, they will lose their ability to buy clothes etc. So rather than face that, many of the people go and take microloans to pay the retailers.

5) Microlending is an alledgedly formalised and regulated industry - it is a space where the govt, in its infinite wisdom, decided to make an exception to the Usury Act (where limits of prime plus 5 are in place) and allow interest rates up to ten times prime (some actually charge more). You don't need me to expound on how this can become a problem, and trust me it is. You end up with 15% of the population getting charged "reasonable rates" for credit and then a massive chasm to the microlending sphere (60-120% a year on 24 month loans, cash loans up to 500% a year). At this point affordability of payments is regulated, and without the buffer of having made a packet on selling them clothes, it is actually in the lenders best interest to make sure the person can afford to pay them back.

6)However the damage is done, and trying to climb back up the credit ladder is also tricky - lenders only contribute negative info to the credit bureaus, so trying to rebuild a credit record is tough, and most of these people will have picked up a judgment or adverse with one of their accounts (12% of the adult SA pop has judgments, a process that is also seriously flawed).

Anyway, not sure how much of that you understood - my viewpoint is that the primary cause for the debt problem are the clothing retailers, and if their lending is not properly regulated, this problem is not going to go away. A new credit bill is being put through govt. now that should address this, but if it is going to impact the retailers, they will no doubt squash regulations that will inhibit them. To read up on the whole microlending/microsaving topic ( this also deals a lot with housing type stuff which should interest you) go to the Finmark trust web site."

I'll respond to this as soon as I have the time.

The forward French

2004-10-15T11:11:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I was standing on the beach in Dover with France barely visible 30-odd kms away through the haze of the English Channel. Suddenly my cellphone beeped with an sms from a French cellphone network welcoming me to France! I presume this is because the French signal is stronger than the local UK signal. The Brits must be highly offended by this French invasion of their airwaves, particularly the people who live in the area. If I made a call would I have been charged an international rate? I wonder. This problem must be so much worse in continental Europe where you're never too far from a border and a potentially forward neighbour.

Local government in Africa

2004-10-12T16:05:00.000+01:00

In state theory, debates on the local state revolve around the role and powers of the state, on the one hand, and the autonomy of the local state from the central state on the other. I have been looking into this latter question with regards to Africa and have come to the conclusion that autonomy of the local state is a function of the perceived political security of the central state.

Decentralisation of state power and functions to lower levels of government have accompanied the democratisation process the world over. This devolution of power is generally considered to be a positive process; many functions are achieved more efficiently at the local level, legitimacy is improved through increased representation and participation, and state interventions can be altered and negotiated to suit the local context. South Africa is in the process of empowering local state, but why is a strong local government not being created in the rest of Africa?

I believe it has to do with the wide-spread political instability in Africa. If powers are delegated to the local level within a decentralised democratic system, the local state is able, to a certain degree, to challenge the central state. I think it is true to say that in many African countries the most enlightened political involvement takes place in the cities and this is where challenges to corrupt regimes generally originate. Autocrats tend to get there power from lesser-educated rural majorities. So it makes perfect sense that politically unstable governments with a weak track record would want to withhold political and administrative power from the local government.

Zimbabwe is a good example of this. In 1980, Zim did what all other newly independent countries did and drew all the power to the central state to consolidate a fragile new nation. However, this caused a crisis in service delivery for the towns and cities, and in the late 1980s they had to make reforms to allow for the efficient running of the place. They developed a strong local government as a major element of their development strategy and Zim was praised for this bold step in the way of democracy. However, notice that this only happened after Mugabe had crushed the Ndebele and consolidated his power. He felt secure enough to release some power to the local state. Now jump forward to 2000 when ZANU-PF received a serious challenge for power from the MDC – mostly originating in Bulawayo and other urban centres. What does Mugabe do? He withdraws all the power to the central state: autocratic decisions start to be made and the cities fall into a crisis of service delivery.

South Africa is finally building a strong, developmental local government largely because the ANC no longer feels threatened by challenges from the local level. Most of Africa does not have this luxury. So I guess it is a Catch-22 situation. You need a politically secure central state to democratise local government, but you need this decentralisation to ensure legitimacy.

Happy happy

2004-10-12T13:39:00.000+01:00

Yes, yes, it is my birthday today - happy 22!

Consumerism continued

2004-10-10T22:06:00.000+01:00

When I re-read my post below, I remembered something that I read the other day. In 1994, negotiations were held at the National Housing Forum to determine the new national housing policy in South Africa. One of the arguments put forward for the mass delivery of formal 'RDP' housing was that if more people had proper homes, the demand for 'white goods' (fridges, stoves, microwaves, etc) would go up, thereby stimulating the local economy (this policy was subsequently adopted and implemented).

What kind of logic is this?!! Get the poorest of the poor, who can't even afford to provide shelter for themselves, to buy appliances they can't afford so that mysterious entity "the local economy" can benefit! Meanwhile the poor get in to bottomless debt and have to sell their houses. I would guess that one of the most common sources of bad debt and garnishee orders amongst the poor is the hire-purchase of furniture and 'white goods'. It probably right up there with cellphones. But how do you stop people buying things they can't afford? Well, I suppose you could start by not deliberately designing national policy to get people to spend money they don't have.

White guilt and privilege

2004-10-07T22:48:00.000+01:00

Regular readers of this blog will know that one of my pet interests is exploring issues of white guilt in South Africa. I read an interesting quote the other day that got me thinking on this topic once again:

"South Africa’s value system is changing, in ways largely independent of the mood of racial rapprochement and egalitarianism associated with the end of apartheid. These changes, including the consolidation of free-market ideology, the profit motive, privatisation and the commodification of popular culture, may work against the very values which the overthrow of apartheid was supposed to promote, instead exacerbating the individualistic hedonism characteristic of the privileged minority"

- DM Smith (1999) Social justice and the ethics of development in post-apartheid South Africa, Ethics, Vol. 2(2), pp 157-177.

I was chatting to a black colleague about two months ago when I was working at the City of Cape Town. We were discussing all things material: cars, cellphones, houses etc. It was fascinating for me to hear his perspective on wealth and materialism, coming from a completely different place from me. He told me that when he left school in the township and first went to Tech, that was the day he decided that he would never travel by train or by taxi ever again. He got himself into debt and bought a nice car. It was both a matter of pride and a determined desire never to go back to the conditions he had come from. And so he will never live in a township again. His goal in life is to drive a yellow Lamborghini – to be the first black guy in town to do so.

Then the conversation turned to me and he was rather surprised to hear that I don’t own a car, or a house, and I have a pretty basic cellphone. I explained that I didn’t really need a car right now, but that I will probably need one next year. “With the salary you’ll be getting, you could easily afford [payments for] a new Golf or something”, he assured me. “Actually, I’ll probably just get a second-hand Tazz”, I replied. He was shocked.

There is a fundamental difference to the way we view wealth, and it has, for me, a lot to do with white guilt. You see, for him wealth and status symbols represent accessing opportunities that were formerly deprived of him, his family and his ‘people’ (his term, not mine). This is a totally understandable position. On the other hand, as a self-consciously white South African I am embarrassed by outward displays of wealth. I feel that so much of white South Africa’s prosperity has been (and still is) gained at the expense of South Africans of colour, that flaunting it is a bit crass. The continuing inequality in South Africa also means that these displays fuel the feelings of resentment that the poor still have against whites. That so many whites can shamelessly celebrate their wealth, in my opinion, indicates how they blissfully choose to ignore the realities in our country. It is fairly simple to link white wealth to our privileged position in society. Our wealth is, in most cases, gained from inheritance or attributable to the social capital that was afforded to us through access to superior education and job opportunities. You cannot simply argue that apartheid is now over and everyone now has equal opportunities.

This rambling post may seem to be a bit of self-flagellation, or a hypocritical attempt to shun materialism, but it is all part of a process of coming to terms with what it means to be a white South Africa and about finding a place in our society. I am also not judging those previously disadvantaged South Africans who are embracing the opportunities to accumulate wealth. However, I have seen what damage a consumerist culture can do and the dangers of debt in a materialist world are real and potentially life-destroying. The “individualistic hedonism” referred to in the quote above is certainly not a positive force in our country.

The myth of the black Oppenheimers

2004-10-07T21:15:00.000+01:00

Great article from Jeremy Cronin in the Mail & Guardian (subscription required). He argues that the only reason why white big business is pushing for the establishment of a black elite (such as through BEE deals) is so that they can sell the capitalist ideals to the government. They can sell the idea that "cold, marketplace logic" should supersede political social agendas. A de-racialised boardroom means that one can forget the means through which South Africa gained its wealth. I believe that to be true, but would also argue that the government has wholeheartedly adopted capitalist ideals already; very little persuasion is required. Not so, eh Cyril?

South African outlooks

2004-10-06T09:38:00.000+01:00

I found this photo essay on the BBC website. It gives the comments of eight South Africans on how life has changed after a decade of democracy. Of course an anecdotal snapshot like this can never be representative and could be biased in so many ways. I thought the BBC did a fair job of trying to get a wide range of perspectives. I can relate to all the people and where they are coming from, but I was a bit disappointed that the outlook was not a bit more positive. Then again, I guess my overly-rosy, highly enthusiastic perspective on South Africa is somewhat atypical. I often fool myself in to thinking that it is not.

Quote for the day

2004-10-03T21:05:00.000+01:00

"When the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'let us close our eyes and pray'. When we opened them, we had the Bible, and they had the land."
- Desmond Tutu

100 Greatest South Africans

2004-10-03T11:11:00.000+01:00

Rethabile at On Lesotho has posted about the results of the SABC's recent poll to determine the 100 Greatest South Africans. I agree with him, and with Max du Preez - it was an opportunity lost. The list is a joke with Hedrik Verwoerd, Steve Hofmeyer, PW Botha, Alan Boesak and Jeremy Mansfield (!) cracking the nod. Meanwhile, people like JM Coetzee, Moshoeshoe I and Braam Fischer don't make it in. Unbelievable.

What makes this a fascinating, if disappointing, exercise, is the amazing mix of people on the list. The juxtapositions are so ironic, for example: Chris Hani next to Hendrik Verwoerd, Steve Hofmeyer sandwiched between Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo, Eugene Terreblanche next to (and above) Helen Suzman, and Mamphela Ramphele next to Cecil Rhodes. For me, the greatest point that this list proves is that the diversity in South Africa is, at present, far from unifying - as claimed on our national coat of arms - and we still have a long way to go before South Africans can identify around common cultural icons.

The last Straw?

2004-09-30T23:36:00.000+01:00

One little story that's caused quite a fuss in the UK is British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw's controversial handshake with Mugabe at the UN last week. What is interesting is how the media has portrayed the incident. The BBC reports that Straw didn't really recognise the pariah president, but later justified the handshake on the grounds of being courteous. Meanwhile The Guardian has jumped on Straw's "political faux pas". They quote Straw as saying that he didn't recognise Mugabe because "It was quite dark in that corner...". Doesn't look so dark to me - unless he was referring to all the president's aides.

The best bit is when a former senior diplomat explains that "there are a lot of people and quite a lot of them are black, and it's quite difficult to sort them out"!! But then again, all those darkies look the same, don't they...

I tend to believe the BBC's version, but the blatant bias of The Guardian certainly makes an amusing read.

P.S Check out the guy in the background having a good chuckle.

Jake stays on

2004-09-28T18:35:00.000+01:00

Glad to see Jake White getting the vote of confidence to coach the Boks to the 2007 World Cup. Lets just hope that the media, South African rugby fans and SARFU are willing to stick by him throught the tough times as well.

The racialisation of language

2004-09-27T23:13:00.000+01:00

Issues of race infuse South African society. Race remains both an informant and determinant of culture, history, politics, spatial patterns and social relations in our country. Thus it is difficult to avoid the use of racial classifications when talking or writing about South Africa; in fact, it is often very useful. I have often justified the use of the terms ‘white’, ‘black’, and ‘coloured’, as have many other academics, because they maintain relevance even today. This view draws authority from the way that members of these socially constructed groups will self-identify with one of these terms. But does the use of these terms perpetuate racial discourse and divisions in South Africa?

I would argue that it is still necessary, in some cases to refer to these classifications, but one has to be careful, and aware, of how you use them. For example, I think it is pragmatic to talk of ‘black townships’, the ‘coloured vote’ or ‘white guilt’. Speaking of the ‘formerly-black townships’, the ‘so-called coloured vote’ or ‘aparthied-oppressors-and-their-apathetic-beneficiaries guilt’ gets a bit clumsy – others may disagree. However, there are some obvious, as well as subtle, ways in which these terms betray some underlying prejudices in South African society. For example, I don’t believe it is necessary to say “I have this black colleague, Steve, who can help you”. To me the insertion of the word ‘black’ indicates, firstly, that the speaker believes it is an anomaly that his/her colleague is black, and secondly, that if the persons name does not immediately allude to their race then it is necessary to clarify this. Similarly if someone says “There was this white cop waiting at my car”, it would, in my opinion, betray some prejudices (or favouritism) toward white policemen because of their race.

I don’t think I can generalise my observations to be able to say when it is, or is not, ok to make racial references. All I am trying to say is that I think one needs to be aware of how often we, and others, still use racialised language, even when it is not necessary. It is something to watch out for – and, if you feel strongly enough about it, to correct. I think as South African society starts to normalise we will hear a lot less of this language, and only feel the need to use it in reference to past injustices. To be sure, racial language will never disappear from speech and print in South Africa, but one needs to think about whether its use is pragmatic and necessary, or whether one is simply perpetuating a social evil out of habit.

Ridiculous

2004-09-23T16:31:00.000+01:00

Zim's Johnathan Moyo is always good for a laugh. If only the issues he was talking absolute s@%t about weren't so deadly serious. He just gets worse and worse.

Floor crossing continued

2004-09-22T22:14:00.000+01:00

I went to the IEC website today to check out the results from the rescent floor crossing period. I know that za blogger and Farrel have commented on it, but I thought I'd add my own brief comments.

The biggest winners were obviously the ANC with a net gain of 332 seats. The next best winners were the IDs with a gain of 39 seats and the DA with 23. The Freedon Front + (whatever the plus is for) gained 15 of the most right wing NNP members, but the others are inconsequential. However, for me the most interesting thing is to note who took the biggest hits. The Next-to-Nothing Party (NNP) obviously lost all of its 290 seats, but following them is the UDM with a net loss of 53 seats. What does this mean? Is Bantu Holomisa now losing serious favour with his party leaders? He has always been a bit of an autocrat, but I really was quite partial to their leftist ideas and the way they have made a gutsy fight of the political landscape in the Eastern Cape. For me this is a bit of a loss.

The other notable loser was the PAC with a net loss of 19 seats. This may not look a lot, but it has got to be a significant amount of the total PAC local governmnet representation - yet another indication that the political left just hasn't got it together. The PAC has become a bit of a joke and are loosing credibility fast. The IFP lost 17 seats which I suspect is but mere opportunism on the part of a couple of the councillors in Kwa-Zulu Natal.

All in all I agreee with za blogger that it is time for a reassessment of the floor-crossing legislation as it does make a bit of a mockery of representative democracy.

As an aside, one very surprising comment on the website was:

"Ten applications did not comply with the requirements for floor-crossing. Of these, eight did not meeting the 10 percent requirement; for one no confirmation of acceptance was received whilst another applied to cross outside of the window period for floor-crossing...These councillors will lose their seats. The PR vacancies will be filled by the party while for the ward vacancies by-elections will be held."

This just boggles the mind. What councillor, in their right mind, would give up their job (and for many it is their only source of income) simply because they were too stupid to find out when the window period expired?! But then again, I suppose I have never really had too high a regard for professional politicians.

Violent crime decreases in the Western Cape

2004-09-21T19:22:00.000+01:00

This can only be good news, but I'm still very conerned about how much capacity the police have for controlling gang violence on the flats. This is a complex issue without a single, identifiable root cause. Poverty is up there with the main ones, but there are other factors like drugs, location and spatial form, poor education levels and political marginalisation. These all feed back on each other into one big, nasty mess of gangs, drugs and violence. I believe a solution is a long time coming.

Who would have thought...

2004-09-19T20:17:00.000+01:00

...that Fanta was a Nazi creation?!!

Painful transitions

2004-09-16T23:57:00.000+01:00

It was hard to leave Cape Town. Very Hard.

Of course this was mostly because I was leaving my amazing, incredible, beautiful fiance for another two months, but also because I just love the place. It is so much a part of me now. Oxford will be my temporary host for the next two months - for the last time - but never my home. So much of the novelty the excitement and the inspiration that I felt when I first arrived here two years ago has gone. It still is a beautiful city, filled with history, wonders and stimulation. But I would trade it any day for the rawness, the dust, the difficult challenges and the tearful victories of spirit that I know in Africa.

My heart is in South Africa. My home.

Yes! NjaloNjalo enters the 21st Century!

2004-09-16T23:43:00.000+01:00

Well, I finally got around to re-doing my blog - new template, permalinks, site feeds, a personal profile (with email address), and much more to come. Apologies to all those who posted comments on my site - they disappeared with the new template and I'm not capable of getting them back. The changes are due to the pleasure of free broadband in my bedroom. It is amazing what difference 10Mb/sec does for your enthusiasm as opposed to 36kb/sec (if I'm lucky) on a Telkom dialup.

You'll also notice that I've updated my blogroll. It was a sad goodbye to Andrew and Murray at Southern Cross - such a pity since they were the ones who first got me started. What happened to you guys? Added to the list are Isangqa, Jo'blog (both well worth a visit) and Mike Golby at YBLOG ZA (who I've been reading for a while but never got around to adding).

While I'm pretending to be a techie I'll also mention that I've just discovered the wonders of Mozilla's Firefox browser - very cool. For years I had been Bill Gate's dream 'cluless consumer' and used Internet Explorer by default, not knowing its shortcomings because I didn't know what else was out there (and not being hardcore enough to do the Linux thing). What I enjoy about Firefox is that multipe webpages can be opened in tabs along the top of the screen (even as a multiple homepage), so no more tripping down to the botton of the screen every time you want to switch windows as with IE. Check it out if you're fed up with IE.

S’bu vs the SABC

2004-09-15T06:32:00.000+01:00

There was some bizarre mud-slinging taking place between the SABC and the ANC on Monday. Premier of KwaZulu Natal, S’bu Ndebele publicly accused the SABC of political bias in its reporting (“that must not go on!”), while the SABC lowered themselves by bothering to respond to this with a blunt rejection aired on their 8pm news broadcast on SABC 3. As I recall, it was not so long ago that opposition parties were claiming that the SABC was overwhelmingly biased towards the ruling party and that by appointing former Department of Labour spokesperson Snuki Zikalala head of SABC news, it destroyed all attempts at being impartial. Thus it seems strange to me that the ANC is attacking at this time. Some possible explanations…

1) Ndebele just wants some air time and he knows that if he slags off the SABC he will be guaranteed to get it.

2) There are some personal issues between himself and the SABC that are driving this outburst and he hopes to score some underhand points by it.

Or, my favourite conspiracy theory:

3) The ANC is quite comfortable with its tight alliance with the ANC and wants to create a cunning little diversion by claiming that the SABC is biased the other way.

…but that would be a little too cunning for them, now, wouldn’t it?

Housing policy response

2004-09-11T07:07:00.000+01:00

Farrel made some insightful comments on my previous post. My response was too long to put in the comments box, so here it is:

You’re right on both counts, Farrel. This does amount to some degree of social engineering, and I don’t entirely agree with the mass relocation of people, particularly in a South African context. I am a firm supporter of in-situ upgrading of informal settlements. However, it is a bit like the argument for affirmative action where some form of intervention is necessary, otherwise apartheid spatial patterns - placing the poor furthest from services and employment - are perpetuated.

The issue of developers buying the cheap property has been one that has plagued the national housing department with all its RDP housing, hence they brought in the law which prohibited the sale of RDP houses to anyone except the state within the first 8 years of occupation. Of course this did not stop the practice and people just sold illegally out of desperation. State rental is one option, but the state is quite averse to this because of the difficulty of collecting rent from the very poor. One innovative option is rental to a community structure who then rent it to the residents and maintain control of so-called ‘downward raiding’. Surprisingly, land reform in urban housing projects is very much a secondary agenda – it seems to have far more political currency in the rural areas.

The great integrated housing debate

2004-09-05T16:49:00.000+01:00

In their characteristic sensationalist style, the Sunday Times splashed “Low-cost houses for elite suburbs” on its front page today. No doubt many people are going to comment on this (with housing markets being right-winger’s pet point of polemic), so I thought I’d get my two-cents’ with in early.

This is not a new idea at all. The whole ‘compact city’ debate and the need to address the spatial atrocities of apartheid have been discussed in academic circles, particularly amongst planners, architects and urban geographers, for over 10 years. The idea of integrating cities and bringing the poor closer to jobs and services has even been written into every piece of national and local post-apartheid piece of legislation to date. The only problem is that nobody has stopped to think what the physical and political consequences of this type of policy might be – until now. The reason it has surfaced into the realm of public debate is that the ANC now has the political clout to think about taking this highly controversial step.

For me it is essentially an ideological debate. It is a question of how much power the market has versus the power of the state to ensure social justice. The property market typifies everything that capitalism stands for, and as such will be defended to the death by those with interests vested in it (including almost all of middle-and upper-class South Africa). This is pitted against the need to address the social inequality in South Africa and to provide a decent roof over the heads of all of its citizens. In order to do this, the state needs to intervene (in the case of South Africa, quite significantly) to make sure that the priorities of the market do not dominate the needs of the poor. It has been shown quite clearly, by academics like David Harvey, that the free market is inherently hostile towards the poor and will locate them as far away from the city centre as possible.

This brings us to the question of human rights. Dr Marie Huchzermeyer, a housing researcher at Wits (quoted in the Sunday Times), has argued elsewhere that it in South Africa, the rights to the protection of private property is treated as an absolute right, while the right to housing is a qualified right. In other words, one has the right to adequate housing, so long as this does not infringe on anyone else’s private property. In South Africa this type of logic is applied by all NIMBYs (Not-In-My-Backyarders) who protest at the thought of having low-income housing built next to their property because it will lower their property value. What right does the state have to deprive them of the potential value of their assets?

The problem here is the way that different people interpret the concept of ‘property’, and here it is useful to use Thabo Mbeki’s concept of a ‘first’ and ‘second’ economy. Those in the ‘first economy’ treat property as an investment first and a home second (if at all), while those in the ‘second economy’ need housing to serve their shelter needs. Perhaps more important than this, though, is the need to be close to services and employment opportunities. If you want to argue that the need to protect an investment is more important than the need for access to a livelihood, I’m afraid you’re on morally shaky ground. The problem in South Africa is that separatist mentality apartheid spatial divisions helped to cement the perception of the sanctity of the property market – one was secure in the belief that the value of property could not decrease because all the ‘unsavouries’ would be kept well away.

There is a lot of bullshit out there about how people of different income groups will not be able to ‘get on’ because of cultural differences, how the poor will automatically ‘degrade the environment’ (a classic NIMBY argument), or how crime levels will inevitably increase. Two very comprehensive studies on the impacts of informal settlements on the surrounding ‘white’ neighbourhoods in Cape Town (Imizamo Yethu in Hout Bay and Marconi Beam in Milnerton) showed that there was no correlation between the presence of the settlements and the levels of crime, and that there was a slight decrease in property prices. The most pertinent point, however, is that this decrease in property prices is totally inconsequential compared to the increase in quality of life for the people living in the informal settlement because of their location and access to services. Too often this side of the equation is ignored.

This having been said, the market remains a very powerful force and the ANC has yet to tackle it head on with the sort of interventions speculated about in the Sunday Times. My impression is that it will take a very cautious approach to this because of the fights it will inevitably cause and the messages it sends to international investors. The reality, unfortunately, is that the majority of new low-income housing will continue to be built on the outskirts of cities. Not even the reams progressive legislation and the heaps of pro-poor, near-socialist rhetoric of the ANC are powerful enough to take on market forces and the power of NIMBY. My only hope is that the government will have the political balls to push through the interventions that really count. By this I mean vacant sites like those of Youngsfiled, Wingfield, Ysterplaat, Culemborg and District Six in Cape Town which, if used properly and innovatively, could have a huge impact on the dynamics and equity of the city. If not, and they are pawned off to greedy developers, then they will have failed in the project of urban reconstruction in our dysfunctional cities.

Ryterwacht – a case in point

2004-09-05T16:46:00.000+01:00

It is coincidental, but amusing that this debate (above) follows after the screening of a very shocking but interesting edition of Special Assignment on SABC 3 this past week. It covered the racial riots in the poor white suburb of Ryterwacht in Cape Town when a group of black learners from Khayelitsha occupied a vacant high school in 1995. The reaction of the Ryterwacht community was absolutely disgusting. I, along with many other people I spoke to, couldn’t believe that this sort of thing actually happened. However, after thinking about it, if that event had to take place today in any one of a number of highly conservative communities in South Africa, you would probably see the same sort of violently racist reaction. I guess I just live in quite a protected environment and have had limited exposure to these sorts of extreme views.

Just watch what happens now with the talk of locating poor communities adjacent to richer ones - the racist language will be replaced by economic language, but the sentiment remains the same.

Joburg and about

2004-09-05T16:45:00.000+01:00

Apologies for the lack of blogging for the last 2 weeks. I spent a week doing research in Joburg and have been madly busy with my thesis since then. I only have a week left in South Africa, so this is likely to be my last burst of posting until I am settled in Oxford again.

Firstly, a note about Joburg: I don’t know the city well at all and it was nice to drive around and get to know the place a bit better. I was particularly impressed by Wits University. I had always arrogantly and ignorantly assumed that UCT had an incomparably beautiful campus – ivy-covered buildings, pseudo-classical architecture and an amazing view over the Cape Flats. I must now humbly submit that Wits is right up there. Besides the striking similarity between the facades of the main halls of the two university, Wits has a number of very appealing buildings, good facilities and an even better vibe. The student recreation centre, The Matrix, is ten times better than the equivalent at UCT, with loads more shops and facilities and a very appealing atmosphere, complete with live music. From the short time I was there I have no grounds to compare the two universities academically, but Wits definitely made a very positive impression on me. I will be back.

Another highlight in Joburg was a visit to the Constitution Hill complex. Although not yet complete, the tour around the old fort, the ‘number four’ ‘black’ prison and the new Constitutional Court is truly world-class. The multi-media interactive exhibition does an amazing job of mixing the horrific brutality of historical fact with the positive growth that has occurred in our country. For those interested in architecture and/or South African culture, the new Constitutional Court building is something truly revolutionary. It is the most symbolic building I have ever been in – experiencing it nearly brought me to tears. Without being clichéd or gaudy, it is functional, yet uniquely South African. It is what I believe a modern, African building should look like. It is a definite ‘must-see’ for anyone visiting Joburg. BlueIQ is doing some really positive things in Joburg – good on them. I desperately wanted to visit the Apartheid Museum as well, but the intricacies of the M1 off-ramps thwarted my efforts to get there and I ran out of time.

Two other random outsider’s observations from my short visit are:
Crime really does dominate people’s lives in Joburg. It is a difficult issue to come to grips with, and I don’t have any good ideas, but it is sad to see so many people living in fear.
I was amazed by the huge amounts of open space around the city – Joburg still has so much room to grow, particularly in the Midrand area. My impression is that it is going to get a helluva lot bigger before anyone starts getting distressed about urban sprawl. It is going to take tough policing of the urban edge to prevent this growth.

Manto again

2004-08-20T22:46:00.000+01:00

SABC News yesterday covered the release of the new bill on the Certificate of Need for South African doctors. Doctors will have to apply for a certificate of need before opening a new clinic or surgery anywhere in the country. The certificate will expire after 20 years. Those who do not comply will be fined or imprisoned.

Now that’s a great idea, Manto. Just lock up all the doctors ‘cos they’re the real baddies. That’ll really solve the health crisis in South Africa.

Technical note

2004-08-20T22:45:00.000+01:00

After Farrel finally gave way to adding permalinks and RSS feeds to his blog, attention has now focussed on my prehistoric blog. I will be returning to Oxford in a month, and will then have the time (and the free broadband!) to do a complete overhaul – permalinks, images, new template, the works. Please be patient – I’m a techno-weenie.

Positive messages

2004-08-20T22:33:00.000+01:00

It’s taken me a while to write about this, but it was good to read the article that Richard linked to a while ago by John Blundell on his impressions of South Africa. All very positive stuff and I was impressed by how accurately he portrayed the real-life experiences of South Africans. Of course he unashamedly adds his rosy free-market spin on the situation (“What’s really needed are the sort of popular Thatcherite measures that will bypass the tiny in-crowd and truly empower the tens of millions of poor people” – hmmm, well, we know what I think about that…), but I’m willing to overlook that because of the positive vibes it send out to the rest of the world.

Olympics

2004-08-16T09:24:00.000+01:00

Roland Schoeman, Lyndon Ferns, Darian Townsend and Ryk Neethling have just become national heroes; they deserve every bit of the glory. Watching them burn the Aussies and the Yanks in their wake yesterday was a fantastic spectacle. They made me proud to be a South African. Never mind that three of them train in the States – the fact that they paraded around after the race with the South African flag means they are proud to call South Africa home. Well done, guys.

The Olympics truly is an amazing event. While I was watching the opening ceremony on Friday night (Greece really outdid themselves), it struck me that it is the only occasion on which representatives from almost every single nation in the world gather in one place for a single purpose. The Olympic ethos has always been to promote peace and friendship between nations. That it has sought to extend this to spheres of life other than sport is admirable, and they may be succeeding. Seeing Iraq, Palestine, Israel and Afghanistan parading out was courageous and moving, but the real winner came when North and South Korea paraded out holding hands under one banner as a unified team. If anyone thinks that sport is a meaningless waste of time, that single display of unification should have proved otherwise.

What’s the BIG deal?

2004-08-16T09:22:00.000+01:00

There has been much debate in the media about the Basic Income Grant (BIG) which hit the political arena when it formed the backbone of the DA’s social development strategy. Writing in the Mail & Guardian last week, Charles Meth argues that the BIG is the quickest way to alleviate poverty in the country. To me, the choice between a welfare state of social grants, growing the economy to create jobs, or a combination of these (as the ANC government is trying to do) is almost exclusively ideological. One can draw on as much evidence from other countries as one wants, but the multitude of country-and economy-specific factors mean that you can never tell, before the fact, whether any one system of social welfare/development is going to work better than another. This is a fundamental problem. It also means that if one system fails, it is not to say that another system may have worked any better – the exogenous factors (such as corruption, market fluctuations or government capacity) are too varied to pinpoint the reason for failure. When failures happen, more often than not it is an ideological reason that is given. The moral of the story is that whatever system is adopted, it has to be flawlessly executed and backed up with all the political will the government can muster.

I personally support the idea of a BIG in principle. However, there are a few problems. Meth claims that the BIG would be relatively easy to put in place – I disagree. The government struggles to release pensions and other social grants on time and without significant skimming through corruption (just go to the Eastern Cape to see what I mean), so who’s to say the distribution of a BIG would be any better? I say, wait until the pension and child grant processes are running effectively and then one can think about piggy-backing a BIG onto these. A problem, however, is that the government has recently announced they will be centralising the management of the social grants which can only result in a bureaucratic nightmare of inefficiency.

It is quite surprising that the ANC has not jumped at the idea of the BIG and it was the DA who tacked it (rather incongruously) onto their otherwise liberal economic strategy. To me, it seems the easiest way to gain mass support, but they obviously decided that the promise of jobs was a greater election draw-card than the promise of handouts. It definitely indicates a more ambitious outlook towards alleviating poverty than simply providing a static lifeline. What I suspect is going to happen is that once the temporary jobs created during the Extended Public Works Programme cease to exist, the ANC will adopt a more comprehensive social welfare system. This will be just in time for the 2009 elections, when the promise of a regular monthly income won’t go unnoticed by the (still) unemployed masses.

Religion in South Africa

2004-08-03T19:40:00.000+01:00

A question related to the Christmas issue: I am often asked by foreign acquaintances what the dominant religion of South Africa is. I have always assumed that it is Christianity, and within the Christian faith the Zionist Christian Church (ZCC) probably has the largest following - but I don’t actually have a clue. Does anyone know the answer and what the percentages are?

Play TV, South Africa’s brainless youth and Christmas chaos

2004-08-03T19:36:00.000+01:00

Just to let you know how stressful my days are, I came home this afternoon at 3 and turned on Play TV on SABC 3. I hope that all the people reading this are intelligent enough to stay well away from that sort of thing, but if you’re as sad as me, then you will know that it has to be the biggest load of inane drivel ever to (dis)grace our TV screens.

Why I bring it up is that Laurence and Zablogger have both commented on the Sunday Times “story” about Christmas being cancelled. They had obviously just mentioned the same story on the show because there was a strong reaction to it from the viewers. For those of you who haven’t had the privilege of watching Play TV, viewers can sms messages to a number and they will be broadcast across the bottom of the screen. It is obviously not very closely censored because I was absolutely amazed at some of the stuff that came up there and felt that I had to share some of the pearlers.

There were a variety of responses to the Christmas issue, all of which were particularly uninformed. Now I know that kids’ TV is not meant to be about academic discussion, but this was just ridiculously brainless. From the very put out Christian kiddies who could never forgo the birth of Our Saviour, to others who made the astute observation that all the other religious holidays aren’t celebrated and thus Christmas should go too. Here are some of the best:

“The guverment is chommy if they think they can take away Xmas”
“Rather take workers day cos of affirmative actiom”
“It is obviously Saturn at work to take away the birth of OUR SAVIOUR”
“They should do more about he Aids academic instead of having meetings to take away xmas”
“JUST TAKE THE GOVERNMENT AWAY”

and my favourite…

“KEEP XMAS. Anders is Kersvader en sy elwe ook werkloos” (Otherwise Father Christmas and his elves will also be unemployed!)

The other surprising thing was that these messages were interspersed by quite typical and fairly direct teenage flirt messages and desperate calls for relationships (“Good looking guy seeking Indian or white chicks in Pretoria. 16-20. call me”). The mast shocking thing was that there was then a message looking for a 30-40 year-old single male! Do people this age watch the show?! More shockingly, do they actually get successful with these pickups advertised on kids’ TV?!! It all looks a bit dodge to me.

More info

2004-08-02T08:45:00.000+01:00

Following my last post, Richard asked me a number of very interesting questions about informal settlements and Townships in Cape Town. I have tried to answer them as best I can here.

Informal Settlement Myths

2004-07-29T11:49:00.000+01:00

It was nice to see Richard’s positive post about the efforts to make the N2 safer for Cape Town motorists. I agree with most of his sentiments, but would like to clear up a wider myth about informal settlements that he alludes to in his post. Sorry if I go on a bit, but informal settlements are my thing – I’ve been researching those particular settlements for the last 4 years.

The myth I am referring to is that informal settlements are a result of rural-urban migration. This is the traditional urban growth model for developing countries that many of us were taught in Grade 10 geography classes, but does not actually apply in South Africa – apartheid managed to make sure of that. Certainly, rural-urban migration from the Eastern Cape contributes to the growth of informal settlements, but to a much lesser degree than most people think. Numerous studies have shown that the majority of residents in informal settlements are actually urban-born.

The reason for this is that the state placed a moratorium on the construction of housing in Cape Town’s African townships from 1969 until 1980. This resulted in a chronic shortage of housing and overcrowding with the obvious consequences that people spilled over into informal settlements. The most rapid growth in informal settlements occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s - a time when the influx control laws were at their peak. The most significant factor contributing to growth of informal settlement is thus natural growth of the poor urban population of the city and a simultaneous shortage of housing at the lowest end of the market – not rural-urban migration.

Many of the settlements along the N2 were established as a result of factional violence in the informal area of Crossroads in 1983/4 (allegedly instigated by apartheid forces), when many people fleeing the violence were forced to invade land and erect shacks. The reason that area is so popular for settlement is that it was the nearest open land adjacent to the black townships of Langa, Guguletu, Nyanga and Khayelitsha as it was intended to form a ‘buffer strip’ between these settlements and the N2, the airport and the industrial areas. Unfortunate characteristics of the land are that it is alongside a dangerous freeway (as Richard has pointed out), it is flood-prone, and much of it is covering an old landfill site. However, as I mentioned in my previous post, plans are underway (driving by the national Housing Department) to upgrade these settlements as part of a pilot project for upgrading informal settlements. This should start happening next year.

Another fallacy is the rate of rural-urban migration and the perception that all these people just knock up a shack on the nearest available piece of land. To correct Richard’s ludicrous figure of 25 000 people a month, the rate of influx from the Eastern Cape is closer to 3 000 people a month. Studies have shown that there is a complex pattern of integration into the city. These people do not all settle in informal settlements, but instead will share a room with a relative and may move around the city a number of times and eventually, if circumstances force them, they may have to move into an informal settlement.

I think I’ve said enough for now, but now my favourite topic has been broached, be warned: there may be much more…

Local politics in Cape Town

2004-07-27T08:13:00.000+01:00

Last week, Farrel gave his predictions about the 2006 local elections. I agree with his first two comments about the IFP and NNP, but when it comes to Cape Town, he’s got it all wrong.

The DA should be able to take control of the Cape Town city council and with that will at least have some ammunition going into the 2009 elections to show that transformation and delivery is not something the ANC has exclusive rights to.

For the last 3 months I have been based at the Cape Town city council and have first-hand knowledge of what the ANC administration has been up to. With the amount of effort they have been putting into their ‘people’s contract’-type projects, there is no way the DA will take back the city. There is a massive campaign underway to upgrade informal settlements and R30 million set aside to purchase land for low-income housing next year alone. What the ANC is effectively doing (and I have it from a good authority that this is all being driven by the mayor and her cronies up at the top) is killing any political competition in the townships through delivery. And this is precisely where votes count. No matter how the DA will go on about it’s so-called coloured voter base, if you win the poor, you’ve won the race.

Did you know?

2004-07-21T14:28:00.000+01:00

The term Blue Moon is believed to have originated in 1883 after the eruption of Krakatoa. The volcano put so much dust in the atmosphere that the Moon actually looked blue in colour. This was so unusual that the term "once in a Blue Moon" was coined. The term is now used to refer to the second full moon in a single calendar month. This is not that unusual, and occurs on avewrage every 2.5 years.

2004-07-21T08:46:00.000+01:00

Well, well – always good to stir up a bit of controversy. I’m never one to shun criticism, so here’s where you can find Laurence and Andrew shooting me down.

Besides nit-picking over a badly-worded paragraph, they miss the whole point and I’m surprised that they neglect the economic realities of our country. Talking about ‘building people up to the same level’ is all well and good, but it doesn’t really happen that way. In the medium term there are always going to be poor people in South Africa (which I am NOT happy about) - all I am saying is that we shouldn’t be surprised if a representative percentage of these people are white.

It is not about deliberately making whites poorer; it is about taking away previous advantage and judging that the consequences of that are only fair.

Whites trashed

2004-07-17T08:28:00.000+01:00

I tend to be very unsympathetic to whites in South Africa. It is probably due to my own white guilt and an over-reaction to the privilege that I have been afforded and am now ashamed of. The Mail & Guardian last week carried a story on poor whites who lived in informal settlements. My first reaction was “Wow, that’s interesting..” and my second was “Who cares?”.

There are currently around 6.5 million people living in informal settlements; the fact that a handful of these people are white should not matter at all. That they are treated by the press and the public as a curious anomaly to be pitied, is an indication of how white privilege is still alive and well in South Africa. If we were a truly non-racial democracy (if there is such a thing), around 17% of all informal settlement residents would be white. We are certainly nowhere near this figure yet. It is still a shock to whites to see fellow whites living in shacks or begging at traffic lights. This betrays lingering sentiments of racial supremacy that people pretend are not there.

This situation, where blacks move up on the economic ladder and whites move down a notch or two, is exactly what affirmative action and black economic empowerment is intended to do, and, in my opinion, should do. It is all part of transforming and equalising our society; whites have to get poor. It is unfortunate for those people who are marginalised, but that is the way it has to be. We should no longer be surprised, and they should no longer be pitied, unless you feel the same for all the rest of our fellow South Africans in similar situations.

The M&G highlights the tendency for poor whites to cling to religion, xenophobia and racism. It is such a shame to read that these people still think that their white skins entitles them to more than blacks, and that they are undoubtedly “better” than blacks. How can one be sympathetic to those sorts of views. They are also ignorant of, or refuse to take, government social grants – another damning consequence of “white pride”. In reading the article it also occurred to me that a fundamental difference between poor whites and poor blacks is levels of political awareness. Poor blacks are extremely politically aware as politics affects their survival. Poor whites don’t have a clue. They cling to racist ideas, I suppose because that was what ensured their survival in the bad old days.

I think it is apt for the M&G to label poor whites “the detritus of democracy”, but they needn’t remain that way. My view is that those who resist change the most and don’t grasp the reality of their circumstances will always sink to the bottom. I remain unsympathetic.

Small town living

2004-07-14T14:34:00.000+01:00

I come from East London and I make no apologies about it. In fact, I’m rather proud of it. ‘Slummies’ gets knocked all the time for being a retirement village, “dead”, “boring”, “skanky”, or as someone I know likes to call it, “an outlying suburb of PE”! If anyone watches “The Weakest Link” they will have noticed that there are regularly people who (I am convinced) go on that show just so they can call East London “the butt hole of South Africa”. Now is the time for a little defence for my hometown, which really is a beautiful spot.

Yes, living is slow. But that’s the whole beauty of the place. From anywhere in the city (yes, it does have the status of a city), you are no more than 15 minutes drive away from at least 3 amazing, unspoilt beaches. At these beaches you can actually swim in the water (unlike in Cape Town) and the views are not spoilt by huge hotels or persistent street vendors. There are no macho show-offs parading in skimpy shorts or driving flashy cars, no trendy beach babes in designer bikinis – just people enjoying the peace, quiet and beauty of the uncrowded beaches.

Streets are clean, suburbs are safe (relatively speaking), schools are good, town is accessible and the people are friendly. There are sufficient shops to cater for all your consumerist needs. And I haven’t yet mentioned the cultural diversity. The are is bursting with history, being the frontier of British colonial expansion, the heartland of the amaXhosa, and later, a troubled white enclave squeezed between two doomed homelands. It is no surprise that East London was a hotspot for the apartheid struggle and the site of the first TRC hearings in the country.

Sure, East London has its problems – most notably unemployment, but people there are making a huge effort to do things about it. Next year I am going back to live in East London and am hugely enthusiastic about it. If you’re ever in the area, come and check it out for yourself.

I’m back

2004-07-14T14:33:00.000+01:00

Well rested after two weeks in Durbs and East London and ready to get back into blogging mode (if anyone out there is still visiting my site!). I hope I’ll be able to keep up with my blog a bit better than I did last month.

Hi Bye

2004-06-25T11:55:00.000+01:00

Apologies for the lack of blogging recently. Work has been pretty hectic and I’m now off to Durban and East London (EL rocks!) for two weeks. I’ll try and post from there, but don’t expect too much.

Catcha lata.

Stupid White People

2004-06-19T18:34:00.000+01:00

Last week, Fodder provided this link to the website of some very stupid white people. I went to the site and my blood boiled. There is very little in the world that ticks me off as much as racist White Africans who get enjoyment out of slagging off their country and continent (or former country as is often the case). If they hate the place and the people so much, why don’t they just not associate themselves with it? – a solution that I think everyone would prefer as they are an embarrassment to our country. All I can say to those stupid white people is “Bugger off and stay there, we don’t want you”.

Land redistribution and the US black diaspora

2004-06-13T15:21:00.000+01:00

A couple of days ago, Rethabile linked to an article on land redistribution in South Africa written in American back rights magazine, "Black America Today". I’ve had a look at it and have a couple of comments. At first glance it looks pretty outrageous – it seems that South Africa is doing terribly badly on the issue of land redistribution and is on the brink of Zimbabwe-style land invasions.

I had a closer look at the numbers and, surprisingly enough, they seem to be correct. They have, however, been presented in a very biased and misleading way. Firstly, the land that they are talking about is only that land that is disputed and has claims against it. The South African government has been very cautious with its land distribution policy. There is provision in the law for expropriating private farmland, but it is rarely used for fear of causing panic in the agricultural sector and in the South African economy as a whole. The government has up until now operated on a "willing buyer, willing seller" basis. They have only expropriated land in the most contentious of cases – only around 2% of the cases thus far. As the article rightly says, "The enforced selling law is only expected to be used in about 5 to 10 percent of claims..".

As far as the later statistics go, they talk about the government promising to redistribute 30% of farmland (as opposed to all land). It is not clear whether the 2% that has been handed over is all land, or just the contested farmland. The fact that 90% of the contested farmland (again this is not clear) is still owned by whites is a bit misleading as well. It is not due to failure of the redistribution programme, but rather the way in which the system works. Apartheid resulted in 100% of farmland being owned by whites or the (white) state. When it came to addressing this, blacks who had been forced off their land were given the option of submitting a land claim or a claim for compensation. It is my understanding that many people opted for compensation as it is far easier to resolve.

The South African government is well aware of the contribution that commercial farming makes to the economy and the food security of the country; they are understandably reluctant to disrupt this. At the same time they are making a concerted effort to right the wrongs of Apartheid through the Land Claims Commission. The allegations that this is happening slowly may be justified and groups like the Landless Peoples’ Movement are putting sustained pressure on the government to deliver on their promises. I think most would agree that this cautious approach has been wise given the instability caused by event sin Zimbabwe and Namibia.

What then is the purpose of the article? To me it seems to claim that justice is being done in South(ern) Africa by asserting the rights of blacks over the evil and selfish whites (or am I just being a bit too defensive?). This may be true, but I think it is forcing the issue. This kind of racially confrontational propaganda disturbs me. There are numerous cases of a racially confrontational spin put on the article, such as "Landless Blacks" being able to claim "White-owned farmland". This is the case in Zimbabwe, but not is South Africa, where the truth is that dispossessed blacks are able to claim back their rightful property or compensation from whoever might own the land at the time. The fact that the owners are likely to be white is irrelevant in my opinion. I get the impression that the Black civil rights movement in the States has long drawn on South Africa for examples of racial inequity during apartheid and then racial justice through the liberation of our country. This was evident in Don King’s sickening display of gushing praise on Madiba during his recent visit here. Fortunately Madiba had little time for it.

I think what I am trying to say is that I dislike the paternalistic claims that high-profile members of the American black diaspora make on any issues that affect blacks elsewhere in the world. These are very complicated issues which require a certain level of historical understanding to analyse. They have plenty racial and historical issues of their own to sort out – why stick their noses into ours?

Environmentalism and destruction in Pondoland

2004-06-06T16:04:00.000+01:00

Even before the advent of the khaki-clad Kortbroek becoming the Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, there was much debate over two environmental hot potatoes in the Eastern Cape: the mining of the Pondoland dunes and the realignment of the N2 between Umtata and Port St Johns. I’d like to add my two cents worth on these issues.

At the outset, one has to look at whose interests are being served by these projects. In the case of the dune mining, it is unquestionable that the primary interests are those of the Australian consortium, Mineral resource Commodities, who have prospected there and now have a preferential lease in the area. In the case of the N2, interests are less easy to distinguish, but I suspect that the project is largely driven by the consortiums of consultants and contractors bidding for the project, accompanied by the Eastern Cape provincial government whom they have heavily lobbied with the prospect of “massive employment and a boost to the local economy” (whatever that means). In both cases the environmentalists and the proponents of the projects claim to have the interests of the locals at heart. This seeming contradiction means that either they are talking about different groups of locals, or else it is a case of “selective research”: I suspect the latter.

Say, for instance, one approached a rural umPondo and asked her/him whether he/she would like to preserve their culture and heritage and save their ancestral lands from destruction. No doubt they would say "yes". Approach the same umPondo, who has struggled to subsist off their land while the rest of the family fruitlessly seeks work in the cities, if they would like to see jobs, tourism and money in the area, they would say "bring it on". Hence the futile battle of words persists. I think far too much has been made of this type of simple perception without presenting the locals, and the general public, with a thorough and objective assessment of the benefits of each of the projects. It is disingenuous to claim that jobs, tourism and a “boost to the local economy” will result simply because the N2 has been rerouted. At the same time, one cannot claim to have the interests of the locals at heart when one refuses any development and traps them into poverty simply to retain the land in its “natural” (whatever that means) state.

Personally, I think that given a true, objective picture of what the costs and benefits of the projects are, the locals would probably choose to sacrifice some of their land for employment and some food in their stomachs. However, I do not claim to know this for sure – these people need to be asked. I am very sceptical of environmentalists who jump on their high horses over a couple of rare plant species when thousands of people are going hungry. For those of you who have been to the Wild Coast area, you will notice the vast amounts of unutilised land which, if used for a road or a dune mining operation, would hardly be missed. However, there needs to be a careful evaluation of how these projects should be undertaken to best serve the interests of the local population. There needs to be transparency in the process and representation from local groups. I am sick of people, politicians, businessmen and environmentalists alike, speaking on behalf of the "local people", when they have absolutely no say in the decisions that are made.

The reality of rape

2004-06-06T16:03:00.000+01:00

I’ve just been reading an article in the Mail & Guardian about teenage abortion and rape in South Africa. It occurred to me that most of what you hear and read about rape refers to the horrors and atrocities faced by women. Discussions abound about the vulnerability of women and their rights to protection, as well as many of the commendable initiatives that have been put in place to provide support for rape victims. But none of this really addresses the real cause of rape.

Where is the comment on the culprits and the malaise that seems to have infected male sexual culture in this country? Why have no men in South Africa stood up and said to their own peers "This is not ok"? It seems to me that a fundamental step in addressing this social evil that is strangling our society would be a campaign aimed at re-awakening the consciences of those that think rape is acceptable. This could take the form of a simple, aggressive TV, radio and print campaign featuring men speaking out against other men. I imagined a blank set with a man, preferably someone respected and who can be identified with, saying something along the lines of:

"Men of South Africa, it is our responsibility, and well within our power to eliminate rape in this country. Those who rape are cowards and not fit to be called men, or even human beings. Respect your wives, girlfriends, and daughters: respect all women of South Africa. To rape, or abuse women in any other way is not cool; it is a crime - always. If you know of men who are cowardly enough to do this, speak out against them. Rape is evil, and it is tearing our country apart."

One has to ask why a campaign of this type has not been attempted before. Rape has yet to be cast and perceived by men, as an unforgivable sin, and I want to know why. Is it perhaps because it might make people believe that rape is more prevalent in South Africa than it actually is and that the country is populated by a disproportionate amount of rapists? I think it is too late for that – the truth hurts. Perhaps the public would find this kind of aggressive campaign offensive and uncomfortable, particularly for children. Is this not necessary? Another more ominous reason might be that it tackles some socio-cultural attitudes that have not yet been adequately questioned. Patriarchy and spousal abuse have been cultural norms in this country for far too long. It is only recently that the legislation was amended to include unconsenting sex with one’s spouse in the definition of rape.

I would hope that there is sufficient agreement amongst men around the unacceptability of rape in order to speak out forcibly and aggressively against it. There can be no questioning about rape, in any form, as an absolute abhorrence. This message has to be broadcast, loudly and publicly, by men to their peers and sons.

2004-06-06T16:02:00.000+01:00

More political hot air this week from Laurence . I try as hard as I can not to make our blogs into boring, contrived ideological confrontations, but I can’t seem to let this go. Silence on the issue might make Laurence think that everyone shares his views.

Firstly, I think his take on the role of parliament is wrong. My experience of government structures is quite the opposite. A firm tradition has been established in South Africa where the executive takes orders from the politicians. I don’t believe that this should be the case as the politicians are many times out of their depth and make rash decisions, but this is how it is. Sure, the officials are responsible for drawing up legislation and advising politicians, but it is the latter who have the power to chop, change and veto their submissions. Officials know this and sculpt their humble contributions to parliament in order to please the politicians and increase the chances of them being passed. As for your desire to get rid of parliament and the executive, I don’t even think that warrants a response.

Secondly, I’d like to question the statement:

"If the DA's "base" had been more secure, and they were able to throw more resources into chasing after ANC votes, then it might have turned out differently."

What’s that all about?!! Is that an admission that money buys votes? Well, that sort of reasoning sounds a lot like the politics of a certain rich country up north…but then, again, the capitalist cronyism of the American political system has always been his ideal, hasn’t it? I wonder when he’ll come around to the realisation that some people actually vote according to their beliefs and for a party who will look after their interests, not because of who’s radio adverts are the most impressive. In South Africa, the ANC most closely represents the interests of the poor working class; thus they get a proportion of the vote that directly correlates to the proportion of the working class (I’m not saying that all these people vote for the ANC, just that the proportions are the same). The DA, on the other hand, represents the interests of a largely-white elite, and their proportion of the vote reflects that.

This has nothing to do with whether we have a on- two- or multi-party system. If it were a two party system and the DA got 40% of the votes, would that mean that more people’s interests were served by the DA? No, of course not. It just means that more people had fewer options. South Africa is one helluva diverse, divided, unequal society and it’s politics reflects that. Stop looking for all those sinister plots, led by the ANC, to topple the might and the righteousness of the DA.

Mud slinging as a national pastime

2004-06-01T13:05:00.000+01:00

As Farrel has noted, the Ngcuka / Zuma affair is far from over and now Maduna and Mushwana have been brought into the fray. My impression (and I may be wrong on this) is that Ngcuka was actually doing a pretty good job. He was unafraid to take on sensitive and potentially damaging investigations and almost had the political clout to pull it off. It seems that Ngcuka and Maduna’s attack on Mushwana was based on the fact that Mushwana did not have the guts to defy Zuma’s malevolent authority, and that he sacrificed a thorough investigation for appeasing the powers that be. It surprises me however, that two men (Ngcuka and Maduna) who are so intimately aware of the law and the practice of defamation suits (Ngcuka is a veteran), should use such harsh language on national television. It was either an absolute last-ditch effort to retain moral superiority on the issue of the Zuma investigation, or they were just really, really pissed off and didn’t think of the consequences. Whatever the case may be, it is a sad indictment on the nature of the so-called “Chapter 9” institutions if the guy who is brave enough to take on the big men gets the boot and the “yes man” keeps his job.

2004-06-01T13:04:00.000+01:00

A while ago I wrote about the allegation made by the The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria made against the South African government for witholding AIDS mony. If anyone wants to know the official party line on the matter, you can read it here. There is one particular part of Thabo Mbeki’s justification, under the heading of "Accepting goodwill should not make us subservient", that I find particularly telling:

"In his comments, Professor Feacham referred to the Global Fund grants voted
for South Africa as "our money", to emphasise the relationship between a
benefactor and a recipient of benefaction. In the comments he has since
denied, he emphasised the power of the benefactor to do in our country as it
pleases, and our helplessness to do anything in this regard, because of our
poverty.

"It is true that we are poor and need the support of people of goodwill. It
is however also true that we would betray those who sacrificed for our
liberation, and corrupt our freedom, if we succumbed to the expectation of
some of those more richly endowed than ourselves, that our poverty should
condemn us to perpetual subservience. This we will not do."

This might help shed some light on the issue of how some people still can’t understand Mbeki’s hesitant view on AIDS. Mbeki is a fierce Africanist, even a pan-Africanist if you like, and thus will do almost anything (including denying one’s own citizens AIDS treatment) if it means defying the paternalistic patronage of the “First World”. This is a very strong undercurrent in all of Mbeki’s thinking and one that must no be underestimated.

Update

2004-06-01T08:48:00.000+01:00

Sorry for the non-existent blogging in the last couple of days - the research is hotting up (as hot as research in a government department can get). I've just updated my blogroll, including an interesting Kenyan blog. I'm just wondering what has happened to Andrew and Murray at Southern Cross; have the hallowed halls of Oxford finally swallowed you guys up?

Circumcision Caucus

2004-05-26T09:52:00.000+01:00

A meeting of traditional leaders is being held in Cape Town to discuss the issue of circucision. It will be very interesting to see what the result is for a number of reasons. Firstly, it represents a clash of traditional values and culture versus the technology and ‘arrogance’ of Western medicine and ideas. Secondly, the fact that the situation has got out of control is an indication of the declining power of these leaders in their areas – not being able to regulate the intiation schools and practices. I hope a compromise can be found in which traditional culture can be maintained without endangering the lives of the initiates.

SABC on AIDS

2004-05-26T09:51:00.000+01:00

It was interesting to see the SABC News screening an insert on Monday night that was harshly critical of the national Health Department for holding up R1 billion of AIDS funding. Then last night they reported that Minister Tshablala-Msimang flatly denied that this was the case and would be writing a letter to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria telling them off. What has been achieved, however, is that now everybody knows about the allegations, and if Tshablala-Msimang is going to deny it, she is going to have to prove it. Well done to the SABC.

2004-05-26T09:50:00.000+01:00

Here’s an interesting article on the vuvuzela – the official instrument of soccer, and (I’m guessing) soon to be of South Africa. I live next to Newlands Stadium and I have to say that these things really bugged me at first. But in chorus, they’re actually quite cool and sound like a swarm of bees, not to mention the fact that the’re helluva satisfying to blast. Now I’ve got my own one; do you?

Mad Bob

2004-05-26T09:46:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Gauteng Blog for pointing this out. Calling Tutu “an angry, evil and embittered little bishop” has got to be the most ridiculous thing Mugabe’s ever said. Surely people have got to see that he’s finally gone nuts.

Privatisation Reply

2004-05-26T09:44:00.000+01:00

Well, well, it seems that my anti-privatisation post seems to have caused quite a stir. It seems like even a hint of socialist thought unsettles (threatens?) much of the right-wing discussion in this bloggosphere. It needed a bit of dilution anyway. I am going to try and avoid turing this into a war of words between myself and the guys at Commentary, so I’ll just clarify some things and move on.

Yes, Laurence, you are a capitalist and I am a socialist. I think anyone reading this would have figured this out. Lets move on then, shall we. It is a pity that Laurence doesn’t share Wayne’s economic logic, so I’ll focus my comments on Wayne’s post.

My issue with economic growth not necessarily meaning an improvement in living standards needs to be qualified. I meant an improvement in the lives of the majority of South Africans, who happen to be poor and earn only a fraction of the country’s GDP. The question is how you measure an increase in the standard of living. If it is by per capita income, then that hides any amount of inequality. A true measure of increase in living standards can only be made by using a whole range of qualitative and quantitative variables, over and above income, like social security, personal security, access to resources, relative inequality, access to employment, etc.

So if the rich are getting richer, with a simultaneous growth in the Gini coefficient, then we are no better off than when we started. My argument is simple. One can have economic growth without the improvement in the living standard of the poor (yes, even if the growth is higher than the population growth) and one can have an improvement in the standard of living of the poor without major economic growth – but in order to achieve this one needs to follow a socialist economic model.

It seems we do agree on a couple of issues: firstly, that some state functions should remain in the public sector. Wayne suggests public education and health care as well as “some form of minimal welfare system”. To this, and he would probably disagree, I would add service utilities, housing (I will write more about this another time) and transport networks that serve the lowest economic group. This excludes SAA which serves an elite group and as such should not be state-owned. I also agree with Wayne and StrawDog that Telkom is inefficient and its monopoly needs to be broken. Fortunately the government is showing signs of backing down on that one.

The final point on which we agree is that some sort of a compromise needs to be made to avoid the nonsensical blowing of hot air from the extremes of the political spectrum. That was the main issue I was dealing with in my previous post – that right-wingers are so keen to jump up and shout as soon as privatisation gets raised without looking at some valid reasons for public assets. In the same light, lefties like me get all hot under the collar as soon as they hear the trigger word “privatisation”. I’ve enjoyed the healthy debate and now we all know where we stand. Now we can wait and see what happens to Transnet and whether Spoornet can get their act together before the 2010 World Cup.

Privatisation bollocks

2004-05-21T12:14:00.000+01:00

A couple of days ago, Wayne Wides at Commentary.co.za wrote about the inefficiency of state corporations and felt it necessary to perpetuate the privatisation myth. He is completely entitled to his opinion, but in the same vein, the word “privatisation” moves me to counter this narrow view.

Wayne writes that:

“the extensive strangehold such corporations hold on the asset base of the country retards economic growth. This ultimately prevents a faster increase in per capita incomes, as well job growth in the private sector.”

Let’s just examine the assumptions behind this statement. It is assumed that Privatisation = efficiency = higher profits = economic growth = higher per capita income = good news for everyone.

While I will not dispute the fact that state corporations may be inefficient, they serve other purposes as well. These sectors can be classified as “strategic” (the reason why the apartheid state retained a stranglehold over Iskor, Eskom and Sasol) and thus can be used for the states advantage and protection. The reasons for this are obvious, but South Africa’s bargaining power gained through selling electricity to the rest of Africa illustrates this well enough. This power is lost through privatisation.

The biggest issue I have here is the assumption hidden behind the words “per capita income”. Higher profits in the private sector mean bonuses for top management, increase in share price and perhaps higher dividend payouts for shareholders (while higher turnover does mean an increase in state revenue through taxes, if you are in the right wing camp you will probably be arguing for tax cuts at the same time). The fact that when these income gains are averaged out across the entire population, a higher “per capita” figure is produced, is the biggest lie of capitalist development theory. The simple truth is that the rich get richer and the poor get left out. But then again, with the individualistic outlook of the liberal capitalist that wouldn’t really matter now, would it?

Even though I don’t believe the case for privatisation has ever been valid, it is particularly not the case in South Africa at present. The government’s extended capital works program relies heavily on these agencies, parastatals and its internal departments to provide jobs that are not necessarily in the best interests of capital and profit. What are the first steps that would be taken if these corporations became private? Management would “rationalise” the workforce replacing labour with capital wherever possible and causualising the unskilled workforce to cut costs and avoid union action. They would then be able to outsource contracts and even top management positions to foreign companies. Great news for South Africa’s unemployed. Utilities would stop providing free services to the indigent because there are no profits to be had and no incentives to maintain these services. Experience of privatisation in South America has shown this time and time again and the South African experience of privatising Gauteng’s water supply to Rand Water echoes this. Great news for South Africa’s poor.

It is rather sad that people can cling on to the debunked philosophy of “trickle-down” economics just because it serves their interests and preserves the status quo. Economic growth does not equal a general improvement in the standard of living. The government’s realisation that it does not work in a country with gross inequality is evident through its shift from the principles of GEAR towards is People’s Contract for large-scale employment. Knee-jerk reactions to support privatisation just because you subscribe to neo-liberal economic dogma are not particularly helpful: open your eyes to the context.

Taxi Transformation

2004-05-21T12:13:00.000+01:00

A while ago I wrote quite a cynical post taking a cheap shot at taxi drivers in Cape Town. I know have an entirely different perspective.

Until two weeks ago I’d never been on a minibus taxi. An American friend of mine was visiting and, as I don’t have a car, I decided to give him (and me) a truly South African experience and catch a taxi into town. We both found it incredibly efficient and enjoyable. The gaardjie (the guy who shouts out the window and collects money) was incredible to watch. Between soliciting business he was rearranging people in their seats according to where one was getting out, collecting money, remembering exactly who was going where and whether the had paid, and even helping passengers carry their shopping bags and children. I am ashamed of being a neurotic whitey and never having used them before. I now catch a taxi to and from work every day. I get picked up right outside my house and taken to within 100m of my work – a 10km journey that costs R4! What a deal! I’ll never hoot and swear at another taxi again.

2004-05-18T08:41:00.000+01:00

Just added Gauteng Blog to my links - interesting stuff. Who needs to surf the net when you've got guys like this trawling for useless information - keep it coming!

Proudly South African

2004-05-17T09:54:00.000+01:00

Anyone watching a lot of South African TV over the last month or two will have noticed the significant increase in “Positive South Africa” advertising. These have undoubtedly been stimulated by the landmark events of 10 years of democracy and the World Cup bid. The cynics may label this opportunistic advertising, but I think it’s great. Almost every night one sees those spine-tingling ads that used to be the restricted to Castle Lager, and that made one proud to be South African. From the big business ads of Telkom and Eskom, to an SABC Education insert on the origin of the SA flag, to an inspiring clip from the Marketing Board of South Africa, and even a rather surprising ad from the Ministry of Intelligence reminding us that SA is much safer than it could be – it’s all very positive stuff. South African advertising has long been up there with the best in the world and that it has turned to make a positive contribution to perceptions in this country gives even more kudos to them.

UPDATE: Anyone who saw Thabo Mbeki’s response to winning the World Cup bid on Tuesday night in between “The Weakest Link” will see what I’m talking about. You can hardly call yourself South African if it didn’t move you. For the full text of Mbeki's epic speech "Iam an African" read during the ad, check out fodder and CherryFlava

Tampering with Transparency

2004-05-17T09:35:00.000+01:00

Farrel comments on the ANC’s appointment of an ANC member of parliament to chair the Standing Committee on Public accounts (SCOPA). I must agree with Max du Preez, writing in The Star last week, that this is a clear example of the ANC's growing authoritarianism. The ANC provides a weak retort, claiming that two terms of an opposition party chair does not constitute a tradition, and that there is no evidence to suggest an opposition chair would be any more non-partisan than a member of the ANC.

I have no problem with the ANC gaining 70% of the public’s free and fair vote, but clamping down on transparency in public spending is questionable to say the least. In addition they appointed Vincent Smith, the man who allegedly prevented SCOPA from ever providing clarity on the arms fiasco – undeniably the biggest misuse of public funds to date. Smith’s appointment gets added to that of the Public Protector, the National Director of Public Prosecutions, the South African Revenue Service Commissioner and Secretary to Parliament as posts filled by ANC affiliates. Surely Mbeki must have foreseen that this was going to cause an uproar amongst the opposition, so what message is he trying to convey? That the internal dealings of the ANC and the government are nobody else’s business? That the end of social upliftment justifies the means, no matter how many back-handers are involved? Even if, as the ANC claims, the appointments that were “filled in accordance with the relevant procedure, consistent with the law and constitution of the Republic of South Africa”, a little transparency wouldn’t hurt in order to promote political goodwill from the opposition.

African Asylum

2004-05-17T09:29:00.000+01:00

Fodder provides a convincing argument as to why Jean-Bertrand Aristide should be granted asylum in South Africa, provided a number of conditions apply. What is not questioned, however, are Mbeki’s motives in accepting Aristide, and indeed, in getting involved with him in the first place. It is all part of Mbeki’s growing Africanist agenda: promoting solidarity amongst African nations (which, somewhat questionably, includes Haiti). Thus, what worries me is not whether Aristide stays in South Africa indefinitely or not, but what further lengths Mbeki might go to, and what kind of denial be led into regarding the character of certain African leaders, before the African Renaissance implodes from the rot of cronyism.

Inside track on the Eastern Cape

2004-04-29T21:44:00.000+01:00

With very little (if any) blogspace being dedicated to my home province, the Eastern Cape, I thought I’d share some insights into the newly-elected premier, Nosimo Balindlela, that I got from a source who knows her quite well. Balindlela is apparently a very open, outgoing and likeable person with solid integrity (essential in this province). However, while serving as the MEC for Education firstly, and later for Arts, Culture, Science and Technology she has been fairly ineffective. General opinion in the province is that she will battle to control the volatile high-level politics that are played out in Bisho with a number of ANC heavyweights tossing their weight around. The only way she can prevent being steamrolled is if Mbeki sends her some bigshots from Pretoria (similar to the Interim Management Team sent to sort out corruption and mal-administration in the province in 2003) to stabilise the situation.

She wears groovy clothes, but has a HUGE job ahead of her. Good luck to her.

Gigaba's gaffes

2004-04-29T21:42:00.000+01:00

There has been a lot of speculation and comment about the new cabinet so I’m not going to add my 2 cents worth about Manto or Kortbroek. I did notice, however, that Malusi Gigaba, the president of the ANC Youth League has been appointed as given a deputy minister of Home Affairs. I suppose this is his reward for his loyal 8 year term at the Youth League, but during those years, in my opinion, he has turned the Youth League into a bit of a joke. I say this because of the absolutely diabolical press statements that he has published. His meaningless rhetoric, blended with aimless finger-pointing and aggressive language, result in a quite laughable polemic against no-one in particular. If this is Mbeki’s attempt at bringing the young blood into the cabinet (although Gigaba is hardly “youth” at 33), it does not bode well. He has impressive political credentials, but let’s hope his work at Home Affairs will be better than his prowess as a public speaker/writer.

In reading his CV a while ago I was somewhat amused to see he has a Masters degree in Urban Social Policy with a dissertation on informal settlements….pretty much exactly what I am doing! Maybe there is hope for me in politics yet…

2004-04-22T11:08:00.000+01:00

With reference to yesterday’s post, I was very interested to read an article by FW De Klerk in the Cape Times. In contrast to what I wrote about a possible break-up in the tripartite alliance, De Klerk does not believe that this split is imminent:

“The ANC leadership has firm control of the reins of power and patronage, and will in the short- and medium- term continue to be in a position to slap down serious dissent from any quarter.”

The reason he gives for this is that in return for their support, the ANC has reportedly agreed to allocate 12.5% (almost 40) of its parliamentary seats to the SACP – more than this party could ever hope to get had it run on its own. The COSATU leadership apparently gets allocated an even greater proportion of the parliamentary seats. So, now the glue that binds them together has been revealed. But to what extent can these groups’ ideological cause be compromised before they are prepared to break the alliance and forfeit their seats in parliament?

The most interesting aspect of De Klerk’s article is that he seems to have given up all hope in opposition politics. Instead, he believes that opposition to the government will be taken up by civil society: groups like the Treatment Action Campaign and (yes, he actually wrote this) the Afrikanerbond, who are able to effectively challenge the government on specific issues. I must say that this was quite an interesting perspective, and one that may actually unfold, but one has to question how this will affect the political landscape and the institutionalisation of the ANC’s power. It is more likely that the DA (or another opposition party) will try and co-opt these civil society groups and their causes to reinforce their support. In retrospect, this is what happened, with almost all the opposition parties making the provision of anti-retrovirals central to their campaign. Now if they can just be proactive about it and jump on the issues before the civil society groups become more popular than they are.

Blog update

2004-04-22T11:00:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Bronwyn and Rethabile for pointing out the SA blog, Fodder. Some insightful comments and a site definitely worth a visit. Sorry I hadn't heard of zablogger earlier.

I'm back

2004-04-21T09:12:00.000+01:00

Apologies for the complete lack of blogging over the last couple of weeks. Not having a permanent internet connection makes it difficult to keep up with what is going on in the world.

Election comment

I guess one of the main questions that people are asking is: why did the ANC increase its votes so significantly in spite of so much criticism of government performance? As I have said before, I don’t believe that the majority of voters vote on policies; instead they vote on a complex mix of racial, ethnic and historical associations, media portrayal of party leaders, and party advertising. When it comes to whether or not to vote for the ANC, in addition to these factors, voters look to the government’s track-record. Much of the media and the opposition have publicised the government’s failures (like the AIDS debacle and the complete waste of money that is the arms deal), which makes one think that the poor masses would be disillusioned with government performance. However, the ANC focuses on a different set of statistics. Without wanting to sound like too much of and ANC apologist, consider for a moment that between 1994 and 2004, 1.9 million housing subsidies were allocated, 9 million people were provided with water, and in 2003 alone, 2.6 million people accessed social grants. These people are very likely to vote for the hand that feedeth – that’s a hell of a lot of votes. One has to ask the question that if any other party was in power, would delivery of social services amount to this much? I guess this is why many choose to re-elect the ANC, even if it is a case of voting for the devil you know.

If however, one does actually scrutinise party policies, I still think the ANC can justify its support. Economic policy is a significant reason why many people who have traditionally voted for ‘white’ parties switched sides. In terms of policy, the strength of the ANC, I believe, is that it is the only (serious) party not promoting poverty alleviation through trickle-down economics – a strategy that has been shown to have failed in the developing world. Instead it promotes direct spending on social welfare through social grants, housing subsidies, free basic services and significant health and education budgets. One may argue that this is what the DA’s Basic Income Grant was meant to achieve, but this is not sufficient to counter the disastrous effects and exploitation that would be caused by their naïve proposals to deregulate the labour market. The UDM tried to advocate food parcels and tax benefits that aid the poor, but nobody seems to have bitten.

Although the ANC’s move to the centre through GEAR has been shown to be necessary in stabilising the economy and promoting investor confidence in SA, the ANC has realised that a return to the more social agenda of the RDP is what the people want. Promises for (and delivery of) social expenditure win elections. Some commentators allege that the ANC increased its majority because of blind and irrational support based on race politics and deception. This would be to fall into the trap of assuming that the majority of voters are not free to think for themselves. It is ludicrous to allege that the result of the election is ‘dangerous’ or ‘incorrect’; an overwhelming majority of the country has spoken in favour of what the ANC has done, first of all, and secondly, what it still has to offer. A free choice was made. Isn’t this the crux of democracy?

Now to offer my modest speculation about the future of South African politics:

The ANC now seems to have monopolised the centre-left of the political spectrum. The UDM positions itself slightly left of the ANC (if not directly on its toes), but the lack of charisma from Bantu Holomisa is a large part of the reason their message has not been heard (not to mention his apartheid homeland baggage). The ANC has even silenced the far left through the tripartite alliance. Left-wing voters hardly have a credible outlet in the Socialist Party of Azania, Azapo and even the dwindling PAC. The ANC has therefore secured its dominance in that department, for now anyway. How then, might this dominance eventually be broken?

As long as the majority of South Africans remain poor, I cannot see any threat coming from the right of the political spectrum, who, as it stands, essentially look after the interests of the middle-class and business, first and foremost, with a secondary consolation to the poor in order to win votes at election time. I believe a challenge to the ANC has to come from the left. One has already seen a number of flare-ups between the ANC and its tripartite partners, as well as internal divisions between the leadership and those that it labels “leftist radicals”. No doubt these divisions will emerge once again if the ANC ignores its election promises and continues with the neo-liberal economic policies that it adopted post-1999. The result of this could be a move to the left by the ANC (as I have argued before) or the break-up of the tripartite alliance. The latter option could then result in either COSATU going political, or its members throwing their weight behind the SACP. And one must not underestimate the power of COSATU; a membership of 1.2 million, (more than twice the that of the ANC), not to mention the families of all these members, can win you a lot of votes and seriously damage the ANC’s political hegemony.

On a slightly different not, it is somewhat amusing to see President Mbeki quoting George W Bush in this week’s ANC Today newsletter. Although the message is valid enough, I think Mbeki is far too liberal in his choice of people to quote and often doesn’t consider the implicit messages that this sends out. Or does he?

Attitude adjustment

2004-04-02T17:34:00.000+01:00

A survey of attitudes in South Africa was recently conducted by the Washington Post, the Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University called "South Africa at Ten Years of Democracy". They interviewed 3000 respondents of all race groups on a range of social and political issues and presented the findings according to race group.

One of the most interesting findings was the difference between white and black perceptions around the future of our country. Six out of ten white South Africans believe that the country is heading “in the wrong direction”, while two-thirds of blacks say the opposite. This to me is tragic and represents one of the biggest obstructions to reconcilliation in South Africa: white negativity. I don’t believe that the disillusionment that seems so pervasive is anything to do with new-found material hardship, but is more a result of lost privilege. A friend of mine gave me a graphic example of this the other day. A guy he had met on a game farm in the Limpopo Province was complaining bitterly how “the blacks” had messed up this country and that it was almost impossible to get a job or be successful if you were a white male. My friend quickly pointed out that that he, who drove a double-cab bakkie, had a job, had his own flat in Johannesburg and could afford frequent weekend excursions to his uncle’s private game farm, was far from hard done-by. I would argue that the situation is quite the opposite; whites in South Africa still enjoy an unjustified amount of privilege. The Washington Post report notes that:

“among top managers, whites still outnumber blacks nearly 10 to one, according to government statistics released in 2002. Even among middle managers, whites still comfortably outnumber blacks”

So what are we complaining about? Of course, being on the receiving end of an affirmative action rejection is a hard pill to swallow, but it is a reality that we have to face with an un-blinkered view of where we fit into South African society.

Another interesting statistic from the study was that two out of three South Africans believe that the ANC has “too much” political power. However, four out of ten respondents believed that “sometimes” a strong leader who was not answerable to the electorate was necessary to deal with the problems facing South Africa. I won’t go into what I think about this now, but it is food for thought in the debate about the relevance of democracy in Africa.

Taxi trials

2004-04-02T17:32:00.000+01:00

Who said South Africa wasn’t innovative when it comes to solving some of its most vexed problems? Yesterday I saw a billboard advertising the 2004 Cape Town Taxi Awards, offering prizes of up to R20 000. It is certainly a novel way of trying to curb the insane antics of Cape Town taxi drivers, but will it work? I’m not sure what the categories are, or how you enter, but I imagine they include things such as roadworthiness, regularity and road safety – a positive start. On the other hand, they could include prizes for: the most passengers squeezed into an E20; quickest time between Bonteheuwel and the city centre; or most lanes crossed in a single swerve during rush hour. One wonders.

My new partner in crime...

2004-03-29T22:06:00.000+01:00

I’d like to introduce my great friend and colleague Waldimar Pelser, who will shortly be joining me on NjaloNjalo. As a former Huisgenoot journalist, three-time Olympic oarsman and professional stamp collector, Waldimar will certainly add some quality and class to my very haphazard efforts at blogging. He tries to use the excuse that he is very busy trying to finish his MPhil thesis in Development Studies and can’t contribute much at the moment, but we look forward to his first post.

Watch this space.

Robben Island

2004-03-29T21:57:00.000+01:00

On Saturday I finally got around to visiting Robben Island. Even though it sounds clichéd, I think it is something that every South African should try and do. Most of the general info about the island I knew beforehand, but you cannot get a sense of what the political prisoners went through without visiting the place. The best part of the visit for me was the fact that the guides on the island are all former political prisoners. They were able to share personal insights into how the island operated, what it stood for and what it symbolises to them now. I thought they did an amazing job at summarising South African political history, in their own words, for visitors who may not have known about our past. What was interesting is that both of our tour guides added their own input as to what they thought of the process of reconciliation in South Africa, and also what they thought still had to happen. As depressing as the prison itself is, I feel all the foreign visitors must have been left with a very realistic but positive impression of contemporary South Africa.

Sure, a lot of money is being milked out of Robben Island, but I am not sure who is to blame for that, or whether it is necessarily a bad thing. I can’t think of a better use for such an important symbol of the struggle for freedom in South Africa. So I recommend forking out the R150 to go; for those who care enough to educate themselves about South African history it is definitely worth it.

2004-03-24T12:45:00.000Z

It is so good to be back in South Africa. Unfortunately I have to start my blogging from home with a gripe. Not even the 11 hour flight with no sleep could dampen my excitement about returning home, until the moment I stepped off the plane…

The shuttle bus from the plane to the arrivals terminal was packed – including a large contingent of foreign tourists visiting SA for the first time. For some reason one passenger insisted they get off half way to the terminal building and people started shouting at the (black) driver to stop. He couldn’t hear the shouts and carried on to the terminal. After some mutters of incompetence, a middle-aged white South African woman felt obliged to announce loudly to the entire bus extremely sarcastically: “Welcome to Africa. You can look forward to a lot more of this”.

I told her off for having such a negative (I wanted to say racist but didn’t) attitude, but the damage was already done. Why do these people feel it necessary to drag down our country just to reassert their own racist perceptions? It makes me angry. Perhaps it is just something I am going to have to get used to.

Back home

2004-03-21T15:15:00.000Z

Boy, am I glad to be arriving back in sunny SA tomorrow. Can't wait to be back on home soil. I don't know how well I'll be able to keep up with blogging, but I'll try my best. Cape Town here I come!

2004-03-19T18:48:00.000Z

Hee hee. Talk about getting shot in the foot. Evita vs Tony Leon - no contest.

2004-03-19T10:32:00.000Z

I’m not going to get too defensive about my views – it seems that my fellow bloggers and I disagree fundamentally on a couple of things, but that is a good thing. I’ll just make a few comments before we move on:

In response to Laurence:
As long as inequality in South Africa is racially specific, so too will South African politics be racial. This is not to say that this will always be the case; we are already seeing inequality becoming increasingly class-based in South Africa. As this process continues, we are likely to see the left increase in political power. It is then highly likely that the ANC will shuffle back to the left and continue to win the majority of votes. Material inequality is the greatest politically destabilising force in South Africa, and the focus of this year’s election campaigns on poverty, employment, education and health reflect this. Just ask the Nats – they learned the hard way.

In response to Andrew:
Africa has a depressing history of "kleptocrats, dictators and genocidal maniacs”, as he correctly points out, but this fact is used to smear all African politics and to portray Africans as being unable to govern themselves (which is why I mostly agree with Laurence’s feelings on Zimbabwe). This portrayal is also a result of a strong Western bias in focusing on the ‘failure’ and ‘crisis’ in Africa, while ignoring the good.

What I argue is different about African politics and societies are the very reasons that such poor leaders come to power in the first place. In the analysis of this phenomenon one cannot ignore colonial and neo-colonial interventions, including the arming of our continent as the Cold War was played out on our soil. History is important, and history is biased.

2004-03-19T00:26:00.000Z

While reading what the guys over at ~~Conserva-Tory~~ Commentary have to say, I can’t help wondering why they are so hung up on US and European political models. It surprises me greatly to see that their ideal political scenario in SA would be that of the UK. Wayne writes:

“It would also aid in gradually normalising local politics on a non-racial level, such that the local political makeup would begin to mirror foreign ones in the general split between the two major political parties acting as the left wing and right wing respectively of the local political spectrum.”

Does (South) Africa not have anything to offer? Do you see no difference in either the social history of our country/continent or how society is structured in Africa to that of the UK and the US?

Western-style politics has shown to be, and always will be, extremely difficult to implement in Africa. This is why I believe the seemingly inconsistent policies of the DA, as pointed out by Murray, are not so much a function of an uncertain positioning on the political spectrum, but a realisation that pure liberalism (or pure anything, for that matter) does not work in our unique country. These may have worked during apartheid, but these ideologies were missing one key ingredient – democracy. Now that things have moved on, Tony Leon and the other “traditionally white” parties fail to understand how African politics is different. Andrew suggested that me may be too sophisticated; I say no, just too Eurocentric.

As much as I dislike Thabo Mbeki’s constant reference to the struggle against apartheid and to African history, it has a distinctive purpose. Following the tradition of many great African scholars like Cheikh Anta Diop, V.Y Mudimbe and Kwame Anthony Appiah, his aim is to recreate a social history of Africa as told by Africans. The logic is that what stems from this is a politics that serves the people it describes. This is why he appeals. He has created a space in which African politics can create itself.

There are two reasons why political commentators in Africa constantly refer to Western philosophies and political models: firstly, these principles are portrayed as universal truths that apply to all societies; and secondly, alternative (in this case African) philosophies are that much harder to come by. There is plenty of scholarship to draw from but you have to actively seek it out. An alternative to this very theoretical approach is to just open your eyes to politics in Africa; to see who is winning what and why.

____________________________________________

As for Laurence suggesting that the Tories are more likely to field the first black PM: come on, give us a break! These are the people who rely on racist Britain (yes, it does exist – in a big way) for their votes, and who would send foreign immigrants back to their concentration camp in Calais if they had half a chance. Just take a look at the lily white Shadow Cabinet versus the present Cabinet with two black ministers. Get real.

2004-03-17T00:42:00.000Z

Oops. Just discovered that I was using the same template as Way South and Darkie's Place - that'll never do. So...I changed the colours. Hope you like it!

Was just chatting to two Zimbo's who were explaining how they really enjoy it when things in the UK don't work. Like when there is a power failure, everyone here goes bezerk; they just sit back, enjoy and think of home. Oh, what it is to live in Africa...

2004-03-16T00:33:00.000Z

Jacob Zuma is going to seriously regret this little episode. When the opposition is playing on the public's fear of a one-party African state and a number of the opposition explicitly claim to hold Christian moral values, saying:"the ANC will rule South Africa until Jesus comes back" is not the brightest election slogan. Joe Seremane seems to to be the first to lay into him for the comment, but no doubt the ACDP will have a word or two to say.

2004-03-16T00:25:00.000Z

In response to a post by Andrew at Southern Cross: I’ve also noticed a harsh anti-DA sentiment amongst white South Africans and a leaning towards the Independent Democrats and have a couple of thoughts on the reasons for this.

The DA does have well-thought out and comprehensive policies, but why don’t they make a BIG deal about this? Why is it that whenever we see the face of the DA, it’s the face of Leon attacking the government? I agree that there is a very necessary role as a ‘watchdog’ to the government, but this should be complemented by a constant offering of the alternatives they advocate. I also think that Tony Leon draws too much attention to himself, rather than the party or its politics. Perhaps it is just because of his ‘Westminster’ style of politics, but people are getting tired of it. What to people think of when they think of the DA other than Tony Leon? How many people actually know who Joe Seremane is? Unfortunately, Andrew, the vast majority of voters fail to analyse party policies but vote instead on what the posters say, who said the least stupid things (see above) and who they perceive to represent their cultural group.

Andrew’s scapegoat theory is plausible, but I think there is another subtle reason for the dislike of Leon amongst young white South Africans. He represents all that it means to be a ‘liberal white’ in South Africa; a category into which many of us would have fallen pre- and post-1994. There is a lot of unrecognised ‘white guilt’ associated with this position; they/we are the people who would protest against apartheid and racism, but never really do anything meaningful about it. To me, the position of the white liberal is associated with apathy. Tony Leon does not do enough to firstly admit that white guilt exists, and secondly, show how whites can deal with their complex role in South Africa’s history. The DA advocates policies that are not honest about the social history of our country and seem too distant from the messy daily realities that many people face. It is just not enough to consider ourselves a happy, non-racial democracy and to get on with the what works ‘best in the West’.

Thus us left-leaning, former-liberal whities are forced to seek alternatives. I think a lot of people would like to support the ANC, but feel (justifiably) uneasy about the danger and complacency caused by too much power. Or they just can’t abide Mbeki’s stance on AIDS and Zimbabwe. The next best centre-left not-yet-racially-aligned party would seem to be de Lille’s Independent Democrats. She is an established ‘people’s champion’ and is vociferous on a number of topical issues. The party is new and no one has had time to offend the electorate or say anything stupid. So I checked out their website…

…and was very disappointed. They do nothing to allay the suspicions that ID is a one-woman show. The only place on the whole site where anyone other than de Lille is mentioned is on the candidate lists, and even there only a couple of names ring a bell. The policies generally look good, but lack substance and numbers. More irritating is the fact that they don’t answer the questions posed to them on the digital forum (perhaps de Lille is too busy). It is a pity, but it is still early days, and if de Lille gets some good support at the polls (and I suspect she will) then people will sit up and take notice. Then perhaps she can attract some top quality people to give her the institutional support that she needs. We’ll have to wait and see.

2004-03-13T19:25:00.000Z

I don’t know if anyone bothers to read Thabo Mbeki’s ‘Letter from the President’ in the ANC Today newsletter. It is quite an effort to get through it, particularly if you object to having Mbeki’s revision of African history shoved down your throat every week, but it does provide some interesting insights into the views of the president, his current tactics and his pet projects.

This week’s diatribe took a tack that I think was particularly inspired. By taking defence behind South Africa’s rock-solid Constitution, Mbeki managed to allay fears of constitution tampering and score a huge blow to many opposition parties in the process. Basically, Mbeki categorically states he has no intention of amending the Constitution and then goes on to point out that the insistence of the ACDP that the death penalty be brought back would necessitate an amendment to the Bill of Rights. All the other parties (and there are an amazing number) that have joined the ACDP in their death penalty lobby will battle to present any credible retort to this. I think Tony Leon has made a grave mistake in supporting the death penalty and is being suitably lambasted in the press because of it.

Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya makes a very similar point in this week's Mail & Guardian in his well-argued objection to the death penalty. This leaves me wondering whether perhaps Mbeki relies on the Mail & Guardian for arming the more intelligent of his political offensives. Does it not seem strange that the M&G is published on a Thursday and ANC Today comes out early on a Friday morning…

2004-03-13T19:19:00.000Z

So here it is: the first post on my new weblog. What an intimidating prospect.

Firstly, I have to say that this blog is largely inspired by Southern Cross – a great source of updates and analysis on South African news and events. Andrew and Murray have complained about the lack of South African blogs, so, even though many have arisen since I first intended to start NjaloNjalo, here is yet another.