Writing Africa - Tinyiko Sam Maluleke's Blog

Zuma's Best Laid Economic Schemes for 2012

2012-02-13T02:33:00.003+02:00

In make-shift Radio station outside parliament, Cape Town

With my dangling laptop bag bumping rhythmically against my well-cushioned behind, I sprint from the parking lot at Oliver Tambo Airport (Johannesburg), up and down the stairs and through the crowd of baggage-bag wielding travellers. After tossing my laptop plus all the earthly belongings in my pockets onto the conveyer belt for security scanning, I dribble past the tackles of the shoe-shine guys. Within minutes I present my hyperventilating self at the mouth of the giant winding pipe that pours passengers into the aeroplane. Just as well that I had checked myself in online the night before! Slightly more than two hours later, I am in parliament, Cape Town – where the 2012 state of the nation address is about to be delivered. My job is to decode, unpack and analyise the speech on national radio.

Zuma is in good spirits. Several times, he deviates from his notes. He jokes and smiles and a few times, he gives his signature deep stomach chuckle. His audience catches onto his warmth and exuberance. He seems to be having so much fun that I begin to fear he will break into an unparliamentary song and dance. His preliminary remarks predictably include a positive reference to the ANC centenary and unpredictably (even uncharacteristically) also include a mention of the likes of Biko, Sobukwe and Suzman. May this be the beginning of the de-ANC-ization of the South African liberation struggle history!

Next comes the mid-term review and a report back. Sort of. The so-called review is thin, fast, largely anecdotal comprising mostly of power-point like listing of poorly nuanced, insufficiently developed points which are short on detail. Indeed the report back consists mainly of recently begun works-in-progress. The problem of ‘structural unemployment’ is traced back to the 1970s – curiously if also conveniently. The recession is predictably blamed for slowing things down. The list of ‘achievements’ or ‘encouraging signs’ looms large in this section of the speech. Those who fear ‘nationalization’ are given the assurance that ‘the mining industry is one of the job drivers’ and that government is ‘committed to the creation of a favourable and globally competitive mining sector’ that attracts investment. In speaking about the unnamed provinces whose departments have been put under administration, the president uses the softest of words – ‘we are working with various provinces to improve governance...’. Perhaps Mangaung weighed heavily on his mind, at this point?

Then comes the heart of the address, namely, the announcement of several izingqalazizinda (infrastructure initiatives). To appreciate the need and purpose of these, one must appreciate the problem to which these are designed to respond, namely, the triple challenges of unemployment, inequality and poverty. The initiatives come buttressed by a recently established Presidential Coordinating Commission (PICC) which is overseen directly by the president and his deputy. They straddle virtually all our major economic areas: road, rail, transportation of goods, water sanitation, electricity, mining, ports, exports, industrial development, higher education, the SKA bid and agriculture. As well as the above, the president pledges a home-loan guarantee fund to enable those earning less than R15k a month to access mortgage loans, the installation of a million solar geysers in the next three years, the tightening of the Broad-Based Black Economic Act and the promulgation of Green Paper designed to speed-up land reform. All the initiatives will be driven by and located within state-owned enterprises and government (national and provincial). They are designed to stimulate the economy, create jobs, industrialize the country and generate skills.

We have a tall and rich list of objectives - grand schemes which inspire, bemuse and beguile – all at once. The initiatives must still be fully conceptualized and broken down into projects which are implementable. Funding, capacity and resources have to be found. By their very specialized nature and given our challenge of ‘structural unemployment’, many of the initiatives announced will not generate millions of jobs in the short term. They will only produce knock-on-effect jobs on a massive scale if and once they reach their maturity stage. One also hopes that that impeccable procurement processes and service delivery agreement regimes will be put into place. Otherwise these noble initiatives can lead to a senseless orgy of tender-preneural activities, producing a series of ineffective initiatives which litter our economic landscape with white elephants, managing only to the enrich a few (whose only skill is ‘technical-know-who’) and no stimulation of the economy whatsoever.

This was a state of the nation address thoroughly and almost totally dominated by matters economical – and rightfully so. But does it go far enough to address the triple challenges highlighted above? Eighteen years since the dawn of democracy, Africa’s largest economy has never managed to bring the rate of unemployment below 20%. It is estimated that nearly 50% of South Africans live in poverty. South Africa boasts one of the largest gaps between the richest and the poorest. Nearly three million young South Africans are neither at school nor gainfully employed. Our school system is full of inefficiencies and gaping holes - haemorrhaging nearly half the cohort by the time they reach the last class in high school. The teachers' unions, which Zuma thanked - stunning the nation in the process - are deeply implicated in the dysfunctioning of our schools. The higher education sector is under extreme pressure – with demand far outstripping supply. We know the amount set aside to establish two new universities but how much has been set aside to fix-up the poorly developed and poorly resourced further education sector?

One is struck by the almost exclusive focus on the state and government as the main (if not the sole) stimulator of economy and creator of jobs. Except for the reference to the partnership between the department of Home Affairs and the banking sector, the speech contains little that suggests strong partnerships between the private sector and government or (civil) society and government. Trade union federation, COSATU fails (again!) to obtain unequivocal government support for its call for the banning of labour brokers - the president commits only to the elimination of abuses within the labour broking system. Nor does the speech venture once outside of the borders of South Africa. From listening to the speech, one would not know that Muamar Gadaffi’s wife has recently become a widow. Nor would one know that South(ern) Africa recently failed spectacularly to obtain the position of chairperson of the AU commission – a failure which is amazingly being sold as a form of success. Clearly this speech was focussed elsewhere – on the grand schemes designed to stimulate the South African economy. What comes to mind are the words of Robert Burns’ poem titled ‘To a Mouse’. May Burns be utterly wrong when he says:

...the best laid schemes of mice and men

Go often askew

And leave us nothing

but grief and pain

For promised joy

Dreams From Mangaung

2012-01-15T13:12:00.000+02:00

For every occasion, there is an instant so poignant only the willfully blind and the intentionally deaf can miss it. Such moments tend to happen outside and in spite of the rehearsed and the orchestrated. They can be dramatic or surreal, intended or unintended.

In the FIFA World Cup of 2006, such a definitive moment occurred in the 110th minute of the match between France and Italy – when renowned footballer, Zinedine Zidane angrily stabbed the chest of Italian defender Marco Materazzi with his(Zidane’s) balding head.

In the June 2011 ANCYL conference the moment came halfway through the speech of Zuma, when he paused, pushed his spectacles characteristically up the bridge of his nose and confronted one particular heckler directly asking, ‘what are you saying sir, are you talking to me’ - u thini baba, u khuluma nami? At that moment the relationship between Zuma and Malema became finished and klaar.

The definitive moment in the ANC’s 2007 elective conference in Polokwane was the afternoon of December 18th when Fikile Mbalula and Mluleki George led two rival crowds inside the university of Limpopo Stadium – within a stone throw of one another. At that moment, in that place, Mbeki ‘lost’ his bid for a third term, Zuma ‘won’ and COPE was ‘born’.

On the 8th of January 2012 the ANC centenary was unleashed. In a continent and country where institutions have been hard to build and even harder to sustain, the ANC has achieved a remarkable feat. Over the hundred years and still, the ANC, the PAC, the Black Consciousness movement, the trade union movement and the faith communities have certainly been the most important organizations in the lives of the poor.

On occasion of the centenary celebrations, different people will have chosen their own defining moments – for there were many ‘candidates’ for such moments. For some it was the moment when Zuma slaughtered the cow. For others it was the midnight lighting of the flame on the border between the 7th and the 8th of January 2012. Yet for some, it was the early church service held on Sunday the 8th of January at the Waaihoek Methodist Church – the very spot where the ANC was born.

Let me put it this way: The moment I waited for, was the moment in which former President Thabo Mbeki was meant to carry the centenary flame and hand it over to current President Jacob Zuma. I imagined Zuma stepping forward to meet him, flashing his characteristic and irresistible ocean-wide smile. I imagined them holding the burning flame together for a moment. I saw them each release one hand from the grip of the centenary flame to wave to the crowds in synchrony. Once they had placed the flame on the right spot in the podium, I saw them locking into an emotional embrace.

But alas, my dreams of Mangaung did not quite materialize. Mbeki was assisted by ANC veterans Andrew Mlangeni and Ahmed Kathrada to carry the flame. Who better to represent Mandela and the Rivonia trialists than these two? And yet I did not expect a trio-act at that moment. That is not what was announced and promised. I think I might have seen Mbeki and Zuma shake hands briefly – very briefly – as the trio handed the flame to the duo of Zuma and Motlanthe. As I watched the body language of the two men, Mbeki’s letter of 9 October 2008 to Zuma, flashed across my mind.

For several reasons, the flame handover moment was the moment of the centenary celebrations for me – both for what happened and what did not happen in it. The dramatization of ANC leaders handing over the torch to one another, just like they have done for a hundred years, was a riveting one. But it was a poignant moment also for the fact that Mbeki did not carry the flame alone and Mbeki did not alone hand it over to Zuma. Perhaps the centenary flame is too heavy and too hot for one man to carry – both literally and metaphorically?

The moment was emblematic also for the fact that it speaks of the future of the ANC – the flame must not only be handed from one (set of) leader(s) to another but it must continue to burn brightly. If ‘freedom in our lifetime’ was the motif that inspired and sustained the ANC for a hundred years, what is the compelling vision around which the ANC will galvanize for the next hundred years? Julius Malema has put forward the project of ‘economic freedom in our lifetime’. Upon closer scrutiny, it appears that the Malema Project is a project for and of the ruling classes. In putting it forward, Malema is only stating the obvious and the taken-for-granted; he is only saying what every elite is secretly dreaming and frantically working for in the tender committees, golf estates and board rooms of the nation. Maybe that is why some of them are so upset with him? Indications are that the ruling classes are on course to reaching their goal of economic freedom in their life time. Millionaires and billionaires are multiplying in their ranks. But poverty is also growing outside the gates of their secluded habitats.

What the ANC needs to put forward is a compelling vision that will speak to the dreams of the majority for the next hundred years. Some of that work has already started in the planning commission discussions. But the danger is there for the latter discussions to happen parallel to and outside of the ANC as such. Here is the irony. The compelling vision of which many South Africans dream is both lurking and lacking in the rhetoric of the ‘war against poverty’. A clear and permanent escape from poverty is what the vast majority of South Africans want.

But the war against poverty will not be waged on 4X4s, BMWs and Mercs. The war against poverty will not succeed if education, health and the environment continue to be neglected - especially the scandalous neglect of the education and health of the poorest of the poor. Poverty will not be eliminated on the basis of economic models that have not only failed elsewhere, but models that have manufactured more poverty than wealth. I dream that in December when the ANC meets again in Mangaung, the party will unveil and unleash with energy and clarity of purpose - a comprehensive vision that will ensure that one hundred years from now, poverty will only be part of our history.

Year End or End Year?

2012-01-03T14:57:00.002+02:00

Under the cloak of the African nightly sky, amidst the window-breaking and eardrum-bursting sounds of giant fireworks that lit up the heavens and caused my poor dogs to gnash their teeth in fear; I ‘night-vigilled’ with friends and family to bid farewell to 2011. Together with millions of fellow earthlings living in different time zones, we tried to capture the precise moment when ‘this year’ become ‘last year’.

Now here we are;standing at the foot of mountain 2012, determined to summit by year end. For everyone, rich and poor, young and old, a brand new set of three hundred and sixty five times twenty four hours beckons. In this we are equal; no one has more than 24 hours in a day. And yet if you looked at the discrepancies between humans in terms of productivity and achievement, you would not think that we all have 24 hours in our daily time accounts, would you? I know all about the argument that pertains to starting lines but here is a simple fact - no one ever had more than 24 hours a day.

We cannot tell what will befall us in the year with any certainty. There is likely to be joy and sadness, excitement and deflation, amazing success and spectacular failure. These goodies and baddies will of course not be dished out in equal measure. The bad usually outweighs the good. That is how we tend to experience things, don’t we? We linger long on our challenges and misfortunes. We often fail to recognize the good that comes wrapped up in the bad and the victories that lie buried in the rubble of apparent defeat.

The truth is that as this year unfolds, we have no right to stand here with our hands in our pockets, our faces contorted and disfigured with complaint, disdain, anger, self-doubt and fear. Who said that we are mere objects acted upon by the years? Who said we are at the mercy of hours, days, weeks, months and years? These are but tools in our hands. The years constitute the stage on which we should sing our best and dance our most scintillating. This year will give back only in proportion to what we put into it.

While we may not deserve everything we will get (especially the blessings; not to mention the miseries) we get nothing from doing nothing; nothing from being nothing. So come on my friends, gird your loins, roll your sleeves up, put your soft hands on the deck, look 2012 in the eye and say, 'here I come’!

There is some prediction in terms of which the world will end in 2012. I personally doubt if the world - even the world as we know it - will end in 2012.Yet for me and you individually,2012 could be our last. So whatever your calling, whatever your job, whatever your purpose, wherever you may be located, whoever you may be; go out there, be and do your best. This may not be your year of the end but to what end are your years?

The Suspension of Julius Malema: Meanings and Implications

2011-11-12T11:43:00.016+02:00

[To hear some of my views on the suspension of the ANCYL President Julius Malema, you can watch a television interview I did on the 11th of November 2011. Below is the link.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=ZA&v=rUV9cswXZcQ

It’s time Julius Malema had some afternoon tea with SA President Jacob Zuma. This followed by a single malt evening with former president Thabo Mbeki. If ever there was a time for Malema to think outside the box, this is it. Though he has the option of appealing, there are dire implications, whichever way one looks at this entire saga. In five years’ time he will be too old to qualify as a member of the ANC Youth League, let alone be its president. While others will be plotting, conspiring and caucusing away for the elective conference in Mangaung, Malema will be focussing on his suspension and how to get it annulled or suspended. He might also be too busy putting out the fiery ambitions of persons contesting his leadership within the youth league. All of next year, starting on January 8 2012, the ANC will be celebrating its centenary. The celebrations may, among many things, be used to cement the exclusion of the likes of Malema.

Effectively the ANC has removed its authority, sponsorship, underwriting and “protection” of Malema. He himself said once — taunting those who defected from the ANC to join Cope — that it’s cold outside the ANC. Even if he appeals and retains his position and membership for the duration of the appeal, he will only do so as a marked and stigmatised leader. One whose case is under appeal and whose future and authority is undetermined, compromised, unstable and insecure.

Of course he was “used” in the run-up to Polokwane. But the “using” was mutual and consensual (remember that word?). Malema was no pawn in this sorry saga. He was an active agent. Both parties benefited from “using” one another and both parties were hypocritical. Just because politicians have fallen out, does not mean some are better or worse than others. The argument that Malema should not be sanctioned because culprits with conduct similar to his have not been sanctioned before is a rather desperate and illogical one. I grant that the absence of an opportunity for mitigation may be the one matter on which I think the disciplinary committee might have erred procedurally. But this is a matter to which, among others, the “respondents” can address themselves through the appeal process, I suppose.

As for the question of the youth of Malema and the need to correct rather than punish him, I assume the disciplinary committee has had to do a cost-benefit analysis in terms of the impact of his conduct. They have reckoned it is “cheaper” to suspend him. In short they have surmised that whatever benefits Malema accrues to the party such benefits are outstripped by the costs he incurs for the party.

Clearly his influence at the 2012 conference has been dealt a big blow. His “economic-freedom-in-our-life-time” project is in serious danger of collapse, if it has not begun to crumble already. But let’s not confuse cause and effect. These are the effects of his suspension not the causes.

But there are other effects for the ANC and its youth league. If Malema is a symptom of a creeping malaise in the party, his suspension must not be mistaken for the eradication of the root cause of the problem. A “fall guy” — even if his name is Malema — will not be sufficient for the ANC to regain its former stature and moral authority. It’s time for those who claim to be devoted and loyal to the ANC to fix what is wrong with the party — at root and they must start with themselves.

Can Malema bounce back? Of course he can. This will depend on him not wasting what remains of his youth. Though there are individuals who have fallen out of favour with the party, there are really no precedents and examples for him to follow. No youth league leader has ever been sanctioned in this manner. No youth leader has quite been like Malema, some will argue.

So I return to the trite matter of the two elderly gentlemen I referred to in the first paragraph. They have the closest, most recent experience to the one Malema is going through now. They have immense experience in political activism and leadership — something young Malema has very little of.

Mbeki — someone whose value and wisdom Malema seems to have been on the verge of rediscovering. But this five-year suspension interrupted him rudely. Mbeki could talk to Malema about his thorny road to Polokwane; his experience in building structures, processes and institutions; the humiliation of his recalling as well as the pain of it all. Mbeki could talk to him about life after recall and how to maintain one’s sanity and dignity. The other man who could be a valuable source of wisdom and advice is none other than Zuma. With JZ, Malema could discuss the events of June 14 2005, the day Zuma lost his job as deputy president. A detailed tour of the road travelled by Zuma from June 14 2005 to December 18 2007 — that being the day Zuma was elected president of the ANC — is just what Malema needs at this time. Zuma could point out to the young man that even after December 2007, a lot more remained to be done. The Scorpions were still pursuing Zuma — all through 2008. It was not until April 6 2009 that the Scorpions were neutralised forever. And this was done without Zuma intervening in any direct manner — an art Malema is yet to learn.

Estranged from Mbeki in whose demise he once rejoiced; alienated from Zuma for who he was once prepared to die; cut off from the ANC — the organisation from which he derives all his fame, fortune and power — Malema is truly on his own.

Let Malema eat humble-pie, let him gird his loins, let him bite his teeth and go knocking at the door of Zuma and Mbeki. This is best done in the dead of night when journalists are fast asleep. When the door opens, I suggest he scratches his head properly from back to front — like the good African young man he is about to become — and then nervously rub his hands against each other, respectfully avoiding direct eye contact and say one word only: eish!

Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama and the Elusive Visa: Take Two

2011-10-06T17:40:00.013+02:00

Concerning the small matter of the failed attempt by the Dalai Lama to get a visa into South Africa in order to, amongst other things, attend Desmond Tutu's 80th birthday this weekend; let us begin by giving the South African government the benefit of the doubt. Notice how I have carefully constructed the preceding sentence along the lines suggested and hinted at by several government spokespersons? You see, according to government, it is not so much that the government refuses to give the Dalai Lama a visa; rather it is the Dalai Lama who has failed to get it. And he still does not seem to get it! Do you get it?

While the government was still considering the application, didn’t the Dalai Lama cancel his trip? Even if the government had actually refused him the visa, is that not its prerogative? Admittedly it is kinda sad, but there is nothing special or unique about the Dalai Lama’s growing tendency to fail in his attempts to obtain a South African visa - as we would put it in South Africa. Thousands other blokes fail the same test every day. The words and actions of government shall not be taken out of context. The gun shall not be jumped. And we should not be emotional about this. Ok?

How I would love to carefully examine the words of government on this matter – if I could find them. And this is at the heart of the current national frustration. This is why so many South Africans feel disrespected. Government has not even bothered to provide any words to explain or clarify any thing. The unspoken message is ‘for your own good, we cannot tell you the truth’! Minister Nkoana-Mashabane did say a week or so ago that the Dalai Lama should apply - like everybody else - and once the application was received it would be processed like any other. Various pieces of brief, incoherent, ineffectual words have come from the mouths of various government spokespersons – saying little and meaning even less.

Not much more light has been shed or shared even after the Lama put us all out of our misery by withdrawing voluntarily. I suppose the Lama is liable to being accused of jumping the gun by cancelling the trip prematurely. I heard two cabinet ministers being interviewed on TV. All they could say was ‘please be patient, your call will be answered’. They also referred all questions to the ministry of international relations - poor ministry, poor minister!

The ANC (ruling party) spokesperson sang the same chorus. But he went further. He accused Tutu of jumping the gun and of mistakenly comparing the Apartheid government with the popular and democratic government of the ANC. The spokesperson also said that we must not speculate about foreign policy, China and Tibet as having anything to do with a Visa not granted to the Lama. We must just wait, he said. And so we wait. And wait. And wait in this desert devoid of explanations.

The clearest, most honest and most human spoken statement on the matter has come from Tutu. Yet there is a sense in which the government has spoken clearly through its silence. Through the many incoherent, ineffectual and economical statements, much more has been said than meets the eye. One area in which this government has spoken clearly and openly is in the area of action. Two years ago when Tutu and his friends attempted to smuggle the Lama into the country, government stepped in and sort of refused the visa. They wanted to prevent the hijacking and the jeopardization of the FIFA World Cup event by the Dalai Lama, said a few brave ones among government representatives. At that time, one minister - Hogan - went too far and actually condemned government. She has since been gently and quietly retired.

Enough fudging and fibbing! Remember the stuff we have been told not to speculate about? Remember the things said to have nothing with the refusal of the visa – small matters like the oppression of the people of Tibet? The branding of the Dalai Lama – not as a spiritual leader but as a separatist- by China? Remember the issues of current and future trade between South Africa and China? These very issues are the precise and concrete clues to the astounding behaviour of the democratic South African government, in refusing the Dalai Lama an entry visa twice in 24 months.

Clearly the South African government has done its calculations – assisted with the necessary prompts and nudges from China – and decided that it would be unwise to allow the Dalai Lama in.

The real reasons behind the refusal or the delay in granting a visa to the Dalai Lama must indeed be sought in the forest of South Africa’s relations with China. In this regard, Tutu cannot take it personally - in the most private sense of the word, that is. The intention of government is not to spoil his birthday party even if the effect of the government’s decision will be the spoiling of his birthday party. Current and future trade commitments and expectations with China are clearly at the heart of government decisions. Yet, as a citizen of this country and as a global citizen, Tutu has every right to be angry and to demand an explanation.

Until now, many would have assumed that, not to allow the Dalai Lama into South Africa would clearly and only be in the national interest only of China. After all, in some ways, in relation to Tibet, the Dalai Lama (despite his recent retirement from politics) is what Desmond Tutu was to the Apartheid government. Naturally, China will do everything in its power to deny the Dalai Lama any important space and any hallowed platform from which he may promote the cause of Tibet. This visa denial is a slap in the face of the people of Tibet. It is a signal calculated to douse the flames of their 'separatist ambitions' – that is what this is ultimately about from the point of view of China.

From the South African perspective, the are real issue with which people are struggling and about which some South Africans are angry. Chief among these is; in what ways is it in the national interest of South Africa to prevent the Dalai Lama from coming? Some may understand that some ‘national interests’ may be messy and disagreeable by they will still wonder why their government is not trusting them with a full and genuine explanation.

Perhaps China will enable the government to deliver the millions of jobs they promised voters in the last election. Perhaps China is the silver bullet which will awaken the economic giant that is South Africa, helping us eschew both nationalization and Tunisia-like riots. Maybe China will fund the upcoming elections. Who knows? What exactly is the South African national interest which would be put at risk by giving a visa to a man whose fame comes from advocating non-violence and asking for political independence for his people? He is of course not perfect. He must have made some mistakes in the past. But is that why he has effectively become a persona non grata in South Africa?

The danger exists that the South African government, in pursuit of national interests as defined by itself, may be slowly drifting away from its citizens. This is the danger Tutu was highlighting when he warned that one day when the feelings of alienation between citizens and government reach boiling point, South Africans might start praying for the downfall of the African National Congress government.

Is the South African government happy now that we have managed to keep the Dalai Lama out for a second time in as many years? Is China happy now? One hopes the South African government is genuinely satisfied. China must be ecstatic. But I do not think China’s respect for the South African government and the South African people has been enhanced much.

Climate Change: Is it as Important as Football?

2011-10-04T14:02:00.021+02:00

The hotel room has no shower and no toilet en suite. Did I say room? There is not even enough space for my brightly coloured Shangaan bag between the single bed, the three walls and the door. So overnight, I share my bed with my Shangaan bag. Try substituting a large luggage bag for your nightly teddy-bear (or its warmer-bodied substitute) and let me know how the hug feels. Yet the joint displays the appellation ‘hotel’ shamelessly and prominently outside. I am not visiting some untouched-by-civilization-tribe deep in the Amazon jungle. This is the famed city of London – Russel Square - to be precise. It is the first weekend of October 2011. The after effects of my overnight flight are joining forces with the horror inspired by my London 'hotel squatter camp'. I come down with a stomach bug. Imagine my considerable frame, bent up like a bow (ready to shoot at the slightest provocation), scuttling noisily up and down floors through the narrowest of passages –from my room upstairs to the toilet downstairs – up and down, several times through the night.

Shortly after my arrival at 'hotel squatter camp', a BBC journalist arrives. He had made an advance order for an interview with me. He quizzes my tired mind on the looming visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury to Zimbabwe. Was it a good idea for the Archbishop to go? Of course. Should he see President Mugabe? Why not? ‘Better still, perhaps the Archbishop should pray for President Mugabe to meet his Maker before the Archbishop meets with Mugabe’, I add. What should the Archbishop say to Mugabe? ‘Hands off the church’ and ‘please retire yesterday’. But I also warn that the Archbishop better prepare for a possible assault on his dignity and that of the Church of England given the intimate and historical love-hate relationship between Mugabe and Britain and between Britain and Zimbabwe. At this point the satisfied looking journo packs his high tech recording equipment and disappears into the streets of London. Who knows which of my words he will choose to use? In interviews, you say your say but someone else is going to edit, pick, choose, contextualize and package so that you sometimes end up meaning what you did not say and saying what you did not mean.

The centrepiece event of my visit would happen further north of London in another famed city – the city of Manchester. The next morning - Saturday the 1st of October 2011 - I hop onto a fast intercity Virgin train. Two and half hours later, I am walking down the streets of the city of Manchester United – the most successful English Football club in England and one of the most recognizable brands in the world of football. It is also the home of the resurgent Manchester City. Manchester - the castle of the legendary Alex Ferguson, the laboratory of ambitious Roberto Mancini, home to the amazing Wayne Rooney and the stomping ground of the temperamental if also magical Carlos Tevez. Given the trials and tribulations of my night at hotel squatter camp, I am not as sprightly as I can be. The streets are full of evidence that on this day in this city Manchester United is playing Norwich Football Club. A football crazy friend of mine sends me a text message. He cannot understand why and how I could come so close to the sacred grounds of Old Trafford and miss the opportunity of opportunities. Unforgivable! What on earth could be more important than football, my friend asks rhetorically?

There is indeed such a thing - much more important than football. It is called the earth! I have come to Manchester to speak at a conference on climate change – an event at which I will join others in the UK who are campaigning against (government) practices that exacerbates climate change as well as policies that shift the worst effects and the burden of climate change towards the poorest of the poor. The evidence is mounting up and overwhelmingly so that climate change is a real, present and worsening danger.

Ironically the date of my sojourn in Manchester – 1st of October 2011 – has been recorded as the warmest October day in Manchester ever. On the same week, there were deadly floods in the Philippines. Local weather forecasters in the UK suggest that by the week ending the 9th of October temperatures will drop by so much that there might be frost and snow in several places.

My first Manchester assignment is at the Manchester Metropolitan University – where I take part in a panel discussion comprising anti-climate change organizations with a very strong student presence. The session is put together by two impressive organizations, one called ‘Stop Climate Chaos’ and the other called ‘People and Planet’. It is quite encouraging to listen to students and younger academics speaking so passionately and so intelligently about the dangers of climate change and what their government and their corporate sector should be doing about it.

Later that afternoon, I give my main talk at a service organized by three internationally known humanitarian aid organizations, Christian Aid, CAFOD and Tearfund. I begin by giving my 600-persons strong audience the warm greetings of our Minister of International Relations – the incoming president of COP 17 – the honourable Maite Nkoana-Mashabane. I also assure them of warm regards from Desmond Tutu (who turns 80 later this week) and Nelson Mandela. My audience particularly like the reference to Tutu and Mandela.

In my talk I speak about the arrogance of humanity that makes humans think that they are better than the mountains, the animals, the rivers, the oceans and the forests. I speak of a time when my ancestors believed trees could be cajoled, rivers could be reprimanded, forests could cry out and wild animals could be related to in terms similar to the way humans relate to one another. But my ancestors were told oh no, this is unscientific, backward, pagan and depraved. It is idolatry and animism - the worship of dead things, they were told. And yet it is science that tells us today that the destruction of forests such as the Amazon is responsible for our erroneous and increasingly scarce rains. At the end of the service the crowd moved into a street procession across the city of Manchester towards the venue where Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party was having their annual meeting. I proudly walked in the front row, prominently displaying a poster with a question for the Prime Minister: ‘Greenest Government Ever’? He promised – upon taking over from Gordon Brown and Labour – that his would be 'the greenest government ever'.

Admittedly, climate change is a complex and disagreeable issue, especially from the developing world’s point of view. The fact of the matter is that the contribution of the developing world in the production of toxic waste and the carbon emissions is small compared to what comes out of the wealthy and developed world. Yet the developing world is experiencing the deadliest effects of climate change. This situation is made worse by the approach of some that seems to dissociate environmental issues from social justice issues. In this regard climate change issues tend to be viewed as a replacement of the social justice issues – ‘enough about human liberation now is the time to liberate the environment’. Such arguments are of course mischievous, self-defeating and downright dangerous. It is self-defeating because if environmental justice has nothing to do with the struggle against poverty, imperialism, colonialism, racism and gender violence, tell me what has? Furthermore failure to make connections between social justice issues and environmental justice issues is probably at the heart of current global climate-change government and civil society inertia. It is this failure to make the necessary connections that is tempting some rich countries to outsource and ‘buy’ the management and dumping of their toxic waste to poorer countries. It is this failure that allows for the astounding rhetoric that sees poorer countries blamed for and burdened with the worst kinds of the effects of climate change. Indeed it is this failure that deceives some poorer countries into thinking that climate change has nothing really to do with them. In this regard, developing countries see climate change as the new hobby and pet subject of the rich and powerful countries. Alternatively they see it as an excuse for their continued oppression and exclusion. Until we can make the connections between social justice issues and environmental justice issues we will not mobilize the world for action against climate change.

And yet nothing presents us today with a more urgent issue than climate change. In the final reckoning it will not matter whether a country is rich or poor. If nothing is done by governments and corporations, by NGOS and civil society in order to stem the time of climate change there will be no earth for future generations to inherit or inhabit. In this regard, the COP 17 gathering in Durban, South Africa, becomes one of the most important gatherings on earth. COP 17 cannot be allowed to fail. Could memories of the global anti-Apartheid struggle inspire the COP 17 hosts to the new struggle that beckons?

© tinyiko sam maluleke

Liberating Ourselves from Bankrupt Notions of Liberation

2011-09-19T12:15:00.009+02:00

The theme for this year’s Heritage Month leaves me somewhat cold — even after carefully considering the major statements of the ministry of arts and culture in this regard. “Liberation heritage in honour of heroes and heroines of the liberation struggle”, that is the theme. Not that there is anything wrong with the idea of “liberation (as) heritage”. Nor do I totally begrudge those who continue to employ the nice-sounding and increasingly glib notions of “liberation heroes”, “liberation heroines” and “liberation struggle icons”. Am I the only one who feels the word “liberation” is getting more and more mention and less and less practice — as if repeated mention of the word will substitute for the lack of experience of lived liberation by the vast majority of people in this country?

“We will remember the(se) heroes and heroines of our people by erecting monuments in their honour,” said Minister of Arts and Culture Paul Mashatile on September 14 2011 at a parliamentary debate on Heritage Month. But liberation should be conceived of as more than a “heritage” that is capture-able and display-able in monuments, museums, statues, set-aside graveyards and gigantic tombstones — however splendid the visual displays and however carefully thought out the artefacts. Some of these sites run the risk of banalising some rather complex events and persons. They attempt to capture what should not and cannot be captured in monuments — reducing dynamic movements, fully human persons and multifaceted events into monotonous fixed entities. Intending to give ongoing life to people and events, monuments often succeed in “killing” the memory of the very people and events.

Citizens do not always “connect” with the monstrosities erected to commemorate and memorialise. Daily, they walk past these monuments, see them from the corner of their eyes, subliminally, but barely recognise them as either epoch-making or life-changing. Disconnection is neither the only nor the worst form of reaction towards some politically conjured-up heritage or memorial sites. These monstrosities can traumatise and terrorise. Every time I look at the giant and ugly statue of Nelson Mandela installed at the heart of Sandton’s medley of shopping malls, I cringe and look away with pain. Monuments can traumatise people by dealing trivially and superficially with dear stories, special people and phenomenal events. Trauma can also come when monuments attempt to “legislate” and “manage” how we should remember, which is inevitably what monuments are ultimately about. Terror can occur when we are forced — through monuments to remember stuff we would rather choose to remember through ways of forgetting. Are there events, stories and people who are not worth remembering? Maybe not. But I do think there are people and events not worth monumentalising.

Minister Paul Mashatile presents as part of the rationale for the monumentalisation project the objective of combating the antics of “those who seek to rewrite and distort our history”, those seeking to “wish away the existence of the liberation struggle”. This is ironic because his project runs precisely that risk. Almost by definition, a monumentalisation project seeks to present neat, singular and dominant interpretations of major events — including the power to decide which events are major and worth memorialising. People are instinctively offended by the very attempt to provide one dominating and timeless interpretation of a person, tradition or movement — even if they do not necessarily disagree with the dominant interpretation on display. Surely the meaning and significance of persons and events changes with more/new knowledge and with the passage of time.

The obsession with the role of individuals in the struggle for liberation — a global phenomenon — is part of the problem. This has led to the absurd situation where everybody simply lists as heroes only persons linked to their political party. In this situation, the most powerful party, the ruling party, will supply the greatest numbers of liberation heroes to be mentioned in speeches of national significance and those to be monumentalised in all the sacred sites of the nation. The deeper and related problem lies in the attempt to reduce liberation and struggle heroism to individuals — the cult of individual struggle heroes. What if whole villages and whole townships rather than individuals were the struggle heroes? What if political philosophies and traditions were the real struggle heroes? What if unknown, uncelebrated individuals — men and women — as well as loose groups of individuals, affiliated to no famous political parties, were also struggle heroes? What about those who used means other than the song-drenched protest march, the gun, prison and exile to wage the struggle for liberation? Why are we attempting to limit the notion of struggle only to the known, the obvious and the conventional? Why are we so tempted to reduce the history of struggle to a “beauty contest” of individual heroes and heroines nicely slotted into the narrowest of party political boxes?

One of the greatest liberation heritages of our country, for example, is the Black Consciousness (BC) philosophy. In a context where our grid of criteria for contribution to liberation is the political party and the famous prison-decorated-individual-cum-military-commander, we may miss just how phenomenal Black Consciousness has been for this country. In a context where we are looking for blood-soaked mass events of the “skop-skiet-en-donder” type, as the only milestones in the road to liberation, the more enduring intellectual, psychological and political role of BC can be missed. We all know that the man deserves more recognition than has been given since the advent of democracy, but by BC I mean more than Steve Biko. Nor am I speaking of Azapo or the Black Consciousness Movement — mere political parties which tried to capture (that horrible word again!) the spirit of Black Consciousness.

I am talking about an intellectual tradition that made the pursuit of knowledge a hallmark of the struggle for liberation. Here is a movement that managed to mobilise the arts and sciences for liberation. It helped us reconnect to the Pan-Africanism of Marcus Garvey, Edward Blyden, WEB Du Bois, Kwame Nkrumah and Robert Sobukwe. BC helped us rescale the heights of the intellectual traditions of the Drum magazine generation of black writers and the works of Frantz Fanon in the early 60s. BC taught us that liberation is something to be attained on the inside as much as it must be taken on the outside. In this regard, BC was perhaps the deepest, most creative, and most revolutionary response to the Freedom Charter dictum “South Africa belongs to all who live in it”.

BC is and was not an airy-fairy intellectual philosophy. Nor was it about military bravado. It was a total philosophy rooted in the belief that the oppressed need to help themselves if they and the oppressor are ever to be free. It is and has always been about economic freedom — broadly and comprehensively defined. But this was not economic freedom based on tenderpreneurship. It was economic freedom based on the enlivening and tapping of local knowledge in dynamic dialogue with knowledge from elsewhere. The idea was never about making “the leaders” the richest, fattest and loudest men and women in their lifetime — a warped and wicked inversion of the noble phrase “leading by example”.

Look around you; you will see the (brain) children of BC in virtually all the pockets of excellence you find today. Our best and most progressive traditions in journalism owe something to BC and Pan-Africanism. Some of our best literary traditions owe something to BC and Pan-Africanist philosophy. Look at our current judiciary, remove the BC influence and the Black Lawyer’s Association and tell me how many black judges remain. But I am falling into the trap of the cult of the individual struggle hero and heroine — I will not continue with this train of thought, tempting as it is. There are subjugated schools of thought in history, African and English literature, leadership theory, psychology, theology, sociology, public health and anthropology, to name but a few, which were born from the womb of BC philosophy. BC gave us the best chance of entering the global knowledge economy as self-confident equals with something to give and not merely take. It gives us our chance to integrate with science from inside and not to view science as something wholly external needing to invade our space, time and consciousness.

Many drank from the fountain of BC and Pan-Africanism freely and in broad daylight. Others — from here at home and abroad, black and white, male and female — borrowed, stole, adopted and adapted from it. Here is an intellectual tradition — made in South Africa — that has been exported to North America, South America, Europe and the rest of the African continent.

We only ignore and reduce the place of Black Consciousness as a national heritage at our own peril and at the peril of our black and white children.
© tinyiko sam maluleke

Our Real Heroes

2011-09-07T12:46:00.013+02:00

I will remember the week 28th August – 4th September 2011 for more than the invasion of the city of Johannesburg by Malema supporters. The week will be remembered by me for more than the fiery words of the minister of sport - Fikile Mbalula – who while speaking from underneath a gigantic and an especially grotesque statue of Nelson Mandela in Sandton (North of Johannesburg) - urged the Springboks to go moer and bliksem other teams in the Rugby World Cup about to start in New Zealand. The unusual and deliberately ‘out-of-context’ employment of two famous words in which South African gender, ethnic, class and racial violence has always found expression was as embarrassingly amusing as it was chillingly jarring.

It was also the week in which Libyan rebels walked with guns blazing into Gaddafi’s living room - a feat they accomplished with ‘a little help from their friends’ (flying) in higher places (dropping devastating bombs). With friends like that who can stand against the Libyan rebels? But can they govern? We now know that they can wage war - with a little help from their friends - but can they unite and reconcile? Can they rebuild and put Libya on a path to democracy and development? Or will NATO set-up a permanent camp in Tripoli?

Nor were the theatrics and hysterics of the live TV broadcast of the interview of presidential nominee for the position of South African chief justice – Mogoeng Mogoeng – by members of the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) all there was to the week. The deeply divided and patently biased members of the JSC, under the chairpersonship of a scorned and probably conflicted deputy chief justice, toyed sadistically with their animated subject who was at times clearly out of his depths. Did I hear him say he is not interested in scholarship and publishing?Did I hear him comparing forms of rape? Good grief! To make sure that the unsuspecting TV viewer is thoroughly confused for some time to come, it was later announced that the 23 members of the JSC resolved to reward and endorse their ‘victim’ with a favourable 16-7 vote. What then was the cat-fight all about?

Behind the drama and the theatre, yours truly tiptoed to a different space, there to notice and collect gems of really good news. On the 1st of September the Ministry of Science and Technology and South African National Research Foundation (NRF) announced the names of some exceptional scholars, scientists and researchers in this country. In this regard, seven exceptional scholars were awarded A ratings by the NRF this year, four from WITS (Profs Madhi, Glasser, Pettifor and Wadley), two from UCT (Profs Brombacher and Janelidze) and one from UNISA (Prof Weinberg). According to the NRF, researchers rated at the level of A are ‘unequivocally recognized by their peers as leading international scholars in their field’ owing to the quality and impact of their research outputs.

Three young scholars were awarded the P rating as researchers – two from University of Stellenbosch (Drs Hui and Tereblanche) and one from WITS (Dr Vickey). Researchers rated at the level of P are younger, entry-level researchers who demonstrate great potential by already performing above their rank. Professors Mayosi of UCT and Waghid of Stellenbosch University were recognized for their efforts in the recruitment and development of future and more diverse generations of scientists and researchers.

The Lifetime Achievement Award - was presented to Professor Malegapuru W. Makgoba of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in recognition of his research in the area of Molecular Immunology as well as his role in the development of an HIV/AIDS strategy for the country. Makgoba joins a select group previous recipients who include the likes of Mamphela Ramphele, Philip Tobias and Njabulo Ndebele.

It saddens me that that the role of scholarship and research in the production of the knowledge we need for social, scientific and economic development might not be properly appreciated. As a consequence I have a sense that our great achievers in these areas are not adequately recognized. Our young should look up to the likes of Makgoba, Mayosi, Glasser and Janelidze and not only to the Kunenes, Malemas and Gaddafis of this world. Our media should be making as much, if not more fuss about science and technology as they do about politics. Our A rated scientists should be making the headlines. These researchers, who are part of the 2300 NRF rated researchers (out of a total of about 17500 researchers) located at various universities and science councils, are our heroes.

They are not our only heores;they are only an illustration. Nor are they a perfect type or lot of heroes. There are thousands of South Africans, unsung and unnoticed, in various sectors, working for the betterment of the people of this country, this continent and this world. These then are the type of heroes worthy of both our recognition and our emulation. Real economic freedom only comes to countries whose economies are built on the knowledge they produce.
© tinyiko sam maluleke

Goodbye Zuma. Farewell Malema

2011-08-31T01:26:00.008+02:00

The 30th of August - 30 BC - is the day on which Cleopatra the famous seventh queen of Egypt committed suicide. Apparently, she deliberately poked an Egyptian cobra until it was so angry it bit her. In Shakespeare’s version of the story – Anthony and Cleopatra – Cleopatra died holding the snake that bit her against her breasts. But that is but one of several theories on how beautiful Cleopatra is supposed to have died.

Will the 30th day of August (2011) also become famous as the day on which Julius Malema got bitten by a political cobra called Jacob Zuma? Or am I mixing my metaphors here? Maybe this day will go down in history as the day whenJacob Zuma got bitten by a political cobra called Julius Malema. There is a third possibility. Recent descriptions of the ANC as an elephant which moves slowly and as not-a-pig which is capable of eating its children notwithstanding; at the risk of compounding the animal imagery that is piling up; could it be that the ANC is the cobra in the house? Could it be that having been beneficiaries of the cobra, Malema and Zuma will soon become victims of the same cobra? Afterall, both Zuma and Malema have, in various ways, been poking the cobra rather too vigorously and too frequently in recent years.

On 30th August 2011, when the president of the ANCYL, Julius Malema appeared before the disciplinary committee of the ANC, downtown Johannesburg was brought to a standstill. But ‘standstill’ is an understatement. There was mayhem in the streets of Johannesburg and chaos around the ANC headquarters. There was looting in the shops, t-shirts bearing the picture of Jacob Zuma were openly burnt and there were running battles between the police and the youth. The impact of Malema’s marauding foot soldiers has been such that the ANC has decided to move further sessions of the disciplinary hearings to a secret venue.

Though the party would, for obvious reasons, wish to expedite the disciplinary hearings, it seems unlikely that these hearings will be short. Firstly, Malema is not the only person charged, the vast majority of his newly elected executive committee members have also been charged, producing a real prospect for rather bulky and time consuming hearings. Secondly, the reported engagement of a well-known lawyer Adv Dali Mpofu to represent Malema and Co. – stretching the ANC constitutional provisions to their limits – signals the seriousness with which Malema is taking these charges. He is clearly prepared to explore all legal and procedural nooks and crannies at his disposal in order to avoid a guilty verdict. Thirdly, the engagement of Mpofu may signal, an as-of-now unspoken intent to take the matter to the formal courts of the land should the disciplinary process produce a negative verdict for Malema. Fourth, though I am yet to see the full list of charges, the most known charges as we have them from the formal statements of the party are rather vague. They are the charges of ‘bringing the organization into disrepute’ and ‘sowing division in the party’. The problem with these charges is that not only Malema but several others could and perhaps should have been slapped with these charges several times over since 2008. Why now? Why Malema? Again? Fifth, the vagueness of the charges may serve to strengthen youth league perceptions and allegations that these are nothing but trumped up charges intended to thwart the youth league’s radical economic programme of nationalization of the mines and to remove Malema (and neutralize the Malema factor) in the run up to the December 2012 ANC elective conference. Sixth, the party cannot ‘rush the hearings’ without appearing to disregard due process and therefore intent on reaching a particular outcome. Long and drawn out disciplinary hearings are nobody's interest – but the ANC mother body stands to lose the most.

Should Malema be found guilty, the censures available for recommendation by the disciplinary committee as per ANC constitution are a) reprimand, b) payment (in cash or in kind), c) suspension, d) expulsion.

The vagueness of the charges notwithstanding, a guilty verdict for Malema is not altogether impossible. This is especially because upon entering a plea bargain with the party disciplinary committee sixteen months ago, Malema received a ‘suspended sentence’. Should he be found guilty again, he may be deemed a ‘repeat offender’ and therefore served with a harsher sentence than he received before. The ‘cost’ of Malema’s antics and utterances to the party (and to the country) could be such that the opinion of those who matter may have reached a tipping point against Malema. The ANC does have a track record of letting inconvenient and costly individual members go. Could this be Malema’s moment to be let go? The party through its disciplinary committee must still provide compelling and coherent evidence to support the charges they have laid against Malema. Sloppiness in argumentation will only reinforce suspicions of trumped up charges.

Nor should we miss the political, economic and structural issues at the heart of the unfolding battle. There is an ongoing battle for political leadership in the ANC today. Young Malema, arguably the most eloquent leader in the entire ANC at this time, fancies himself as leader of the entire party and perhaps also as leader of the entire country soon. By extension, the ANCYL which he leads, having taken the lead in proposing some of the most radical political and economic programmes for the country, fancies itself as policy agenda setter for the party and its alliance partners – the ‘new vanguard of the poor and working classes’. As if the frequent war of words between the ANC and its alliance partners are not enough, the ANC now has to manage its own openly rebellious sub-structure. But how will they do this? Previous remedies used to deal with internal instability include disbanding of `leadership structures and the appointment of interim structures. We can expect something similar, should Malema be found guilty. Rumours of intentions to disband the entire youth league are probably exaggerated. It must be remembered that until recently, the youth league has been a ‘useful’ tool in the hands of the ANC (leadership).

What if Malema is found guilty? So what indeed! Whatever happens to Malema, indications are that his fingerprints are all over the body of the ANC and will be there for some time. It must be remembered that except for his rhetorical abilities, Malema is no aberration in the context of some of the current crop of leaders from the ANC and from other political parties. Malema enjoys neither a monopoly nor exclusive copyright on allegations of tender irregularities, a sense of entitlement, inflated egos and a penchant for vulgar displays of wealth. Here lies our deeper problem as a country. Except for the rhetoric about nationalization of mines, there are no ideological, political, ethical and lifestyle differences between those who support Malema and those who do not. What Malema has on the rest of them is his ability to use his rhetorical talent to artificially reach out to the bourgeoning ranks of the hopeless and the disenchanted - the majority of whom are youth. His tactics may be artificial but the hopelessness and the disenchantment to which he appeals is very real.

So what if Malema is suspended or dismissed? Does it mean that Zuma wins? Let us not miss the irony of this entire saga. A little less than five years ago, ANC members were showing their support for Jacob Zuma by burning t-shirts bearing the picture of his predecessor Thabo Mbeki. On August 30th 2011 we saw Zuma at the receiving end of the same practice. Those who pledged to kill for Zuma a few years ago, were baying for Zuma’s blood. But the irony deepens. Zuma detractors used the same tactics used by Zuma when he appeared in court to face a series of indictments related to corruption and rape. Indeed the very spot – Johannesburg library gardens - where men and women gathered to sing their praises to Zuma during his rape trial – was one of the spots where they gathered to denounce him.

If Malema is suspended or expelled, his dizzying political career may be brutally cut short. Yet many in the party will not fail to see Malema as a typical political child of Zuma – an outcome of the Zuma era and style of leadership. Contrary to what Gwede Mantashe – ANC General Secretary - said in the press conference of 30 August 2011, some will trace the problem of growing anarchy in the party, not merely back to Malema and not only back to the ANCYL; but to Zuma himself. Malema may lose, but so may Zuma. Zuma may run out of support for his second term bid with or without Malema. With Malema having thrown the proverbial first stone, Zuma may get his second term but only as a weakened and extremely vulnerable lame duck.

Our cobra is likely to bite both Malema and Zuma. Such is the venom of the Egyptian cobra that its victims die slowly and painlessly – without realising that they are actually dying. Should we move towards a situation of goodbye to Malema and farewell to Zuma, who might we be saying hello to? Is there a politician whose first name rhymes with Malema’s last? Such a politician may stand to gain.
© tinyiko sam maluleke

Zuma's 'Uthini Baba' Moment and the Future of Julius Malema

2011-08-15T08:31:00.011+02:00

Do you recall how Jacob Zuma was made to wait for three hours because the start of the ANCYL’s elective conference (Midrand 16th June 2011) was delayed, by among others, the late arrival of Julius Malema ANCYL president? Once the conference begun Zuma had to listen to Malema‘s wide-ranging 90 minutes speech- a speech that was not all that flattering on Zuma or the ANC. When Zuma eventually got to say his say, there was such disrespectful heckling coming, especially from one particular front row of seats where a section of the ANCYL leadership was seated. Apparently, such was the brazenness of the heckling that at one point in his speech, Zuma had to pause and confront one particularly indecent heckler directly. ‘U thini baba? U Khuluma nami? ’Excuse me sir? Are Talking to Me?

Zuma’s u-thini-baba moment was an astonishing moment. It occured in the middle of one of Zuma’s most important speeches of the year. The speech was important enough for Zuma to wait for three hours in order to deliver it. It was important enough for Zuma to keep a crowd of 55000 South Africans at Orlando Stadium waiting for three hours - not to mention the millions who waited to see and hear him speak on television. Some commentators and observers have slated Zuma for standing the nation up in order to buy ANCYL support for his second term. Others took the Malema bait about the ANCYL being ‘the protector of Zuma’. All indications are that there never was any love lost between Zuma and Malema. Not then and not now. Not even when Zuma touted Malema as a possible future president. They simply recognized how much they needed one another – each for his own political survival.

Ever since Malema burst onto the political scene in 2008, Zuma and Malema have been playing off each other like striker and midfielder. Such has been the intensity of their mutual need for one another it has been necessary for each to routinely check his potential for independence from the other. In 2008 and much of 2009 Malema’s midfielder role included the deflection of attention away from Zuma so Zuma ‘could score the goals’. Of course Malema was but one of a dozen of Zuma ‘midfielders’ – Mbalula, Vavi, Mathashe, Phosa, Nzimande etc. From late 2009 onwards Malema started showing signs of boredom with the midfielder role. Soon he was scoring, own goals and real goals, politically and financially.

The u-thini-baba moment occurs smack on the day and occasion where Malema was officially declaring his graduation from both the midfield role and the striker’s role into the captain’s role. Whereas Zuma’s June 16th speech was framed in didactic and clarification mode, Malema’s June 16th speech was clearly framed as an agenda-setting speech. Malema’s lieutenants sensed that their leader had the upper hand and in their enthusiasm to savour the moment, they catapulted Zuma into the u-thini-baba moment.

Was this the moment in which Zuma came to realize that his partnership with Malema had served its term and outlived its purpose? I want to suggest that the most significant thing on occasion of the ANCYL conference was not the enforced waiting Zuma had to endure; it was not when Malema declared his loyalty to Zuma; it was not the shameful jilting of the crowd-in-waiting at Orlando Stadium; the most significant thing was rather the u-thini-baba moment. Like a spurned lover who knows deep down that the game is up but waits and pleads desperately for denial or unequivocal confirmation, the u-thini-baba moment was the moment Zuma both needed and dreaded.

When the moment came, the least Zuma could do was to acknowledge it. So he pressed the pause button on his speech, forcing a moment of complete silence in the hall. Typically, he pushed his reading glasses up his nose bridge, bit his lower lip and wiping all traces of the smile that sometimes seems to sit permanently on his face, Zuma turned around, looked the heckler in the eye and asked two terse questions: U thini baba? U khuluma nami? Say that again! Are you talking to me? The questions were rhetorical and the heckler knew that instantly. No response was necessary. These were no questions, really. It was a growl accepting the challenge to war, verbalizing a broken relationship and publicly acknowledging a deep sense of mutual disdain.

It was a moment of revelation for the youth league as well. It was a moment that unmasked the webs of deceit and flattery that had characterized Malema’s earlier pledge to Zuma that he was seated among his staunchest and most loyal supporters – his ‘protectors’. The u-thini-baba moment was therefore a moment of truth for both parties. Before that moment things were tricky and difficult for Zuma - much like looking for one’s lost or misplaced contact eye lenses in a poorly lit room. After that moment things became clearer but no less difficult.

We now live in the post-u-thini-baba era. This is the era in which we have seen the installation of Mac Maharaj and Amos Masondo in both of Zuma’s presidential offices – Union Buildings and Luthuli House. But alas! Seduced by the almost total victory at the ANCYL elections and buoyed by the animated responses to the nationalization proposal, Malema and his supporters appear to have either missed or misread the significance of the u-thini-baba moment. From time to time they slip into pre-u-thini-baba mode. They seem to think that they are still covered with Zuma’s boundless blanket of goodwill and goodness. Malema and his friends do not seem to realise that Zuma has withdrawn the political overdraft he had given them.

In the process Malema and the league have proceeded to usurp foreign policy and economic policy leadership from both government and the ruling party. This is how Malema has proceeded to install the nationalisation of mines debate at the centre of national discourse. And this is how he has issued some of the sharpest and most embarrassing criticisms of South African foreign policy positions – on Libya, on Ivory Coast and more recently and most brazenly on Botswana. Nor has Malema stopped doing what he does better than everyone else – manufacturing a thousand red herrings and plausible plastic issues to rationalise and justify his actions and utterances. One such red herring is the suggestion that the threat of disciplinary action against Malema is an attempt to reduce or remove his influence on the ANC succession debate.

Meanwhile the South African media have been hard at work – over the past month - trying to expose what they see as the unseemly side to Malema’s wealth. The Afriforum have laid criminal charges. The Public Protector has indicated that she will investigate certain aspects of the allegations. The ANC has a meeting with Malema and Co. today. Will the ANC have the courage to act decisively? Will Zuma have the courage to act in a post-u-thini-baba manner or will he revert to a pre-u-thini-baba mode of action? All will soon be revealed. Perhaps it is now time to throw the question back at Zuma:'U thini baba'?
© tinyiko sam maluleke

Born at the Right Time: Celebrating Antoinette

2011-08-07T18:27:00.020+02:00

What would you pay for an evening in the company of Lebo Mashile and Don Matera – two of our country’s most gifted wordsmiths? I recently had such an evening at the home of Pitika and Antoinette Ntuli on the 30th of July 2011. Pitika is a world renowned South African sculptor, poet and intellectual. Antoinette Ntuli, a brilliant art critic and curator in her own right, (see her chapter in Pitika’s book Scent of Invisible Footprints published by UNISA Press in 2010), is an integral and key part of the Pitika Ntuli story.

When I arrived at the house, I sought Antoinette out first because the occasion was to celebrate her birthday. I had a warm hug and good wishes to deliver to her. She was dressed simply but elegantly - and she looked gorgeous. Her hairdo brought to mind a line from Hugh Masekela’s song titled ‘market place’. She had ‘corn-row hair in a million braids’ even as her eyes lit up with joy. She was clearly enjoying every minute and every aspect of her role of being at once host and celebrant. Small groups of guests took turns to swirl around her. She basked in the warmth of the attention she was getting. Throughout the evening, there was a beautiful and permanent smile on Antoinette’s face.

As I walked in I saw some of the country’s best thinkers, visionaries, truth-sayers, truth-doers, former exiles and former ‘inxiles’, exiled ‘inxiles’ and ‘inxiled’ exiles, blacks and whites, top-notch artists across the fields - young and old. Almost immediately, I spotted a small rowdy crowd huddled around the petite and dynamic figure of Paul Simon. Yes that Paul Simon - the Graceland Paul Simon. Paul is a great admirer of Pitika Ntuli's works of art. At the other end I saw Hugh Masekela in conversation with Lebo Mashile and Ngila Mike Muendani. A few steps behind them, stood Phuthuma Nhleko, former MTN Group CEO – speaking to a bunch of friends and acquaintances. At the other extreme corner sat a group of women.

I have been in that house before, but this day the very floors felt sacred and the walls stood in reverent attention. The guest list consisted of beautiful minds, gifted hands, fearless lips and spirit voices – the last two words being the title of one of Paul Simon’s most beautifully written songs from the album Rhythm of the Saints. The themes woven into this song are not altogether irrelevant to how I felt at the Ntulis that Saturday. The song speaks of ‘sweetness in the air combined with the lightness in my head’ – exactly what and how I felt as we went deeper into the evening. The song also recounts an occasion in which the powerful haunting presence of spirit voices could be heard summoning rain water and river water to come and cause healing.

Hovering between the sharp-angled living-room ceiling and the heads of the distinguished guests, were multi-coloured poems of hope and struggle, fluttering like winged bugs, jostling for voice, desperate for attachment, calling for re-membrance and hungry for embodiment. A little lower down, brilliant ideas bubbled and sizzled in the multiple simultaneous conversations – producing a prayer-like buzz akin to the one produced when the abazalwane (born-again Christians) pray together all at once. But the Ntuli house buzz of which I speak was inspired by the wines of Stellenbosch and by Scottish spirits far more mundane than the famous holy ghost.

Then suddenly, one of the poems seized old Donald Matera. His face broke into smile. He stood up and a poem titled ‘this land’ delivered him. The pace was slow and deliberate; the words issued in musical staccato and spoken in crystal clear Sophia Town diction. The poem shone in his eyes even as its words danced delicately on his gesturing hands. Out of the blue, the mountains and rivers of our land burst into the Ntuli living room to narrate the tragedies and the triumphs, the follies and the wisdoms; the promises and the problems of us, our predecessors, our offspring and our legacy. The poem spoke of South Africa as a land like no other – a country worth living in and a country worth living for.

You should have heard Pitika introduce and extroduce Don before and after the poem. Pitika spoke as if he was reading from an ancient book of prose lodged somewhere between his ears. Then out of the blue, Pitika ‘ambushed’ his nephew and demanded a poem. In a few seconds the young man delivered an enchanting poem that had a refrain in which Jesus Christ is called ‘a wonderful guy’, delighting the crowd immensely.

Three brilliant tributes to Antoinette left an indelible mark on my consciousness. ‘I am so glad that my wife was born’ said Pitika. Enough said. Then came the tribute from her son. ‘Whereas most teenage boys would have taken offence at being called ‘mummy’s boy’, I was proud of that appellation. I am happy to be the son of one of the greatest people in the world’, he said. ‘That’s my boy’, shouted Antoinette. ‘Mine too’, retorted Pitika. Not to be outdone, the legendary Hugh Masekela stepped forward and said; ‘In South Africa today, there are no more black people and no more white people – just people; and Antoinette is proof of that’.

The magnificent Lebo Mashile, arguably the pack-leader in contemporary South African poetry, performed briefly. Her stage presence is intoxicating. The words of her poems stand besides, behind, before, after, above, below and around one another like the million brush strokes that lie behind an exquisite oil painting. Born and steeped into African American English, this Mosotho woman is more than ‘just a colonized African who breaks down the queen’s language until Sesotho understands it’ as she declares tongue in cheek in a poem titled ‘ABCs’.

Lebo's poem was brief and powerful. It was about the person in us whom we let be and the person in us whom we won’t let be – the ‘me’ inside whom we will not allow to 'breathe on the outside'. She teased, probed, angered and stunned us with words that depicted the tragic life of the phenomenal persons banished to walk the deepest corridors of our minds. Few can match Lebo in her use of voice and emotion; her repertoire of facial expressions, her sudden changes of pace and volume, her amazing command of the queen’s language, her magician-like use of hand gestures and her ability to use her entire upper body to bob and weave like Muhammad Ali as she engages in the complex art of drawing verbal pictures.

Lebo Mashile’s brief poem made me think of the South Africa that lies buried in our souls – the brave and beautiful South Africa we will not allow to ‘breathe on the outside’ – a constant refrain to which Lebo returned again and again in her poem.

Being there, in that eminent company, amidst the wise words and the music, I was persuaded that Antoinette – whose birthday we were celebrating – was born at the right time. So have we been – born at the right time. We live in the right country. Ours is the time of great opportunities to change, re-shape, transform and envision a truly better country for all its citizens and the citizens of the world. These opportunities will not always be available and the window may be slowly shutting already.

It will be a pity if our leaders were to auction away our most valuable years to corruption, divisiveness, incompetence and a sheer failure to discern the meaning of this moment in our history. It will be an even greater pity if our citizenry outsources totally all leadership and all accountability to leaders in the political and economic spheres. It is not enough to vote, once every five years. It is not enough to complain and to blame. Tolerating corruption and incompetence is certainly unhelpful. Not only must citizens do better than divisive and corrupt leaders, they must at all times, hold these leaders accountable.

I bet not many birthday celebrations make you think this long and hard. Then again, Antoinette Ntuli is no ordinary woman. ©tinyiko sam maluleke

No New Mandela on the Horizon

2011-07-20T07:49:00.012+02:00

By pure coincidence, two Apartheid era South Africans, Mkhize and Van der Merwe, a black and a white, find themselves as neighbours in some foreign land far away from their land of birth. Back home they could never have been neighbours. But out there in foreign shores they ‘discover’ that they actually have more in common with one another than with anyone else around them. So they become bosom buddies. Unfortunately Van der Merwe and Mkhize end up on the wrong side of the law of the land. As a result they are both sentenced to death. Mkhize goes into the death chamber first. Once inside he is given a choice – death by the rope or the electric chair. Seeking a quick and painless end, Mkhize chooses the chair. After strapping him up, the hangman discovers that the death chair is malfunctioning – it won’t switch on. As the law of the land provides under such circumstances, Mkhize is set free. On his way out he finds a stunned Van der Merwe who inquires what happened. ‘Broer'(brother), in there they will give you a choice between the rope and the chair. I say, take the rope broer; the bloody chair does not work’, says Mkhize with a wry smile as he walks happily out of the door. That is how much Mkhize and Van der Merwe had in common!

So what do South Africans have in common today? Only one answer can be given with certainty. Nelson Mandela! If there is a message that comes out of the International Mandela day which the world celebrated on Monday July 18, that message is the extent to which South Africans unite around the person of Nelson Mandela. Nothing else comes close. For some time sport has ‘threatened’ to unite us. The excesses of the film Invictus notwithstanding, the 1995 Rugby World cup did generate a warm and unfamiliar feeling of unity – momentarily. But we must question whether even rugby would have succeeded to unite us without Mandela. With the FIFA World Cup last year, soccer had the opportunity to unite us. For two months it almost did. Other sporting codes have tried. Nor have our national days, anthems and symbols succeeded entirely to unite us.

Slightly beneath the surface of many of the things (pick your fancy) that supposedly unite and cohere us positively; we will find the colossal personality of Nelson Mandela. He is at this moment the ultimate glue of the fragile and flailing social fabric of our country and our world. I am aware of no one and no thing that brings South Africans together - children and adults, men and women, blacks and whites, Indians and Africans, rich and poor, Muslims and adherents of African religion, Zille and Zuma – the way Nelson Mandela does. He is the one person that is invoked across all our divides. When South Africans are desperate or in doubt they invoke Mandela - most times metaphorically, many times literally.

On a one hour long radio discussion commemorating Nelson Mandela’s birthday on Sunday evening 17th July 2011, I was confronted by many listeners who were saying to me in no uncertain terms ‘since we no longer have leaders of the calibre of Mandela, what shall we do?’. My attempts to deflect this question by suggesting that they focus their attention to what they can do with what they have from where they are, for fellow South Africans – which is what Mandela Day is all about – did little to discourage them. One after the other they called the radio station to ask me rhetorically; ‘where are the Mandelas of today’?

My listeners were forcing me to face a reality I was avoiding; namely that as a country we and our leaders are in danger of failing to sustain, let alone build on, the foundations of social cohesion that the likes of Mandela has built. The radio programme callers were saying to me that we lack today citizens and leaders who imitate Mandela. ‘Where are the leaders and citizens who sacrifice, inspire and unite’, they asked me.

The radio programme ended, but I continued to reflect on these matters. What does a country do when among the bunch of pretenders to leadership, few if any, are prepared to lead by example, self-sacrifice and the principle of unity? What has happened to a country when the vast majority of citizenry - who live in abject poverty - opt out of holding their leaders to account except through the desperate, disparate and increasingly chronic acts of violence and sheer vandalism? What do citizens do when they find that few of the people who lead them inspire trust and confidence? What should we do with leaders who work for their stomachs and inspire disunity? Most importantly, what do we and our leaders do when we know, deep in our hearts, that the prevailing economic and social system is designed to manufacture poverty and inequality?

The crisis of leadership is of course no South African monopoly. It is a global crisis. Some in the current class of world leaders are hardly inspiring. It includes the likes of Silvio Berlusconi, Sepp Blatter, Muamar Gadaffi, Dominique Straus Khan (until recently), Teodoro Obian Nguema, Nicolas Sarcozy, Bashar al-Assad, Robert Mugabe as well as Barack Obama. Yes, Barack Obama, in whom we have invested so much hope – perhaps too much hope, in hindsight. Unlike some of his fierce critics, some of whose motives are questionable, I do not expect him to right all the wrongs he found on his the desk at the White House. I just wish he would stop authorizing the killing of human beings. Is that too much to ask from a Noble Peace laureate?

Nor is the crisis only one of political leadership. Look across the sectors and you will either be dismayed or frightened or both.

So where is the factory that will produce the next Mandela? Maybe the next Mandela will come from Guantanamo Bay, Gaza City, Kibera in Kenya or Zandspruit squatter camp in Johannesburg. Who knows? I do not see a Mandela in the horizon. I am not entirely discouraged. While charismatic, exemplary and inspirational leaders may not be currently or immediately available, we as citizens must at all times insist on competent leaders and do our part in the building of reliable and sustainable institutions. Perhaps there is truth in the trite suggestion that the leader we are looking for is none other than ourselves. © tinyiko sam maluleke

Nelson Mandela and I: Honouring Mandela at 93

2011-07-15T13:30:00.033+02:00

Mandela and I have come a long way. Our story starts at Lilliesleaf Farm in Rivonia. In those days Mandela slept by day and slipped by night - he was Mandela by day and David Motsamai by night. One moment he was a dirty car mechanic. The next moment he was a Zulu man from Natal – complete with the trademark earrings. Sometimes he became a dust-coat clad chauffeur with a thick hanging beard. At other times he was a man-about-town in an immaculate three piece suit, driving a'colossal Oldsmobile'. Such was the life Mandela led when we first met. I will never forget the actual day I came into his life and he into mine. It was in the wee little hours of a Wednesday on the 27th day of my most significant December. Less than a month before we met, Mandela founded the ANC military wing Umkhonto We Sizwe.

In those days I was innocent and he was militant.

Soon after we met, David Motsamai slipped and skipped off to far-away places to raise funds and to receive military training. I had never heard of the countries and cities he went to. But back home one beautiful Sunday afternoon in August, David Motsamai the chauffer, was driving from Durban to Johannesburg when his car was ominously flagged down by the police at Cedara near Howick. From that time, our frequent meetings were rudely interrupted. We did ‘meet’ a few more times after that – if seeing a man behind bars, being escorted into court, being driven away in a speeding police van could ever be called ‘meeting’ him. First he was sentenced to five years for ‘leaving the country without a permit and for inciting people to go on strike’. Hardly a year into his jail term, he and his collaborators were charged with additional crimes - much more serious crimes. Soon he was back in court. The famous Rivonia trial begun. Mandela had budgeted for the death sentence. 'If I must die, let me declare for all to know that I will meet my fate like a man', he wrote in his diary. But Judge Quartus de Wet stunned us all. He sentenced them all to life imprisonment instead.

Yet for me, Mandela never left. I saw him in the words and actions of my fiery school Principal Curtis Nkondo at Lamola Jubilee Secondary School in Meadowlands Zone 5 SOWETO. During the morning assembly, the immaculately dressed Nkondo would instil righteous anger in our hearts as he warned that unless we took our education seriously we were destined to become ‘kitchen boys’ and ‘kitchen girls’ just like our parents and their parents before them. I also found Mandela in the writings of Frank Talk. Mandela's name was sung in the defiant drunken songs of my father and his drinking buddies, as they huddled around the 'welcome dover' coal stove, on Friday and Saturday nights. The drunker they became,the bolder they said and the louder they sung the name of Nelson Mandela. What a soulful tenor voice my father had! Yet in the day I would be amazed at the timidity and fearfulness of my own father before his ‘baas Hayward’ – a dentist who worked at No. 216 Bree Street, Johannesburg - where I also ‘temped’ during school holidays. As a naïve teenager among the hordes of protesting students in SOWETO 1976, I thought often of Nelson Mandela wondering if he would be proud of us.

Mandela's picture and his words were banned, but I saw him everywhere and heard him deep in my soul. Twenty-seven years later, I and Nelson Mandela met again. I was no longer innocent but he was still militant.

I sat with friends and family watching the TV broadcast of his release at matchbox house No 633, Sedibeng Section, in Tembisa township. For more than an hour before Mandela and Winnie walked out of Victor Vester prison, the SABC TV anchor, Clarence Keyter was fumbling along; clearly unprepared and not exactly well informed about the man of the moment. We now know that his bosses did not even tell him in advance that he would be the anchor on that day. Worse still, he had been taught all his life that Mandela was the devil incarnate. Now he had to joyfully and enthusiastically tell the world that Mandela was free. How crazy is that?

As we watched television on that day, we listened past the bumbling Keyter. We saw through the clumsy black and white television pictures provided as background to the Mandela release. We ignored the horrible sound track. We watched the picture of the tall gates of Victor Verster prison intently. Before we saw Mandela in person, we regarded him in our minds. Before we knew what he looked like, we perceived him by heart. Then he walked out – hand in hand with Winnie Mandela - just like Hugh Masekela had sung: "Bring-baaaaack Nelson Mandeeeela. Bring-him-back home to SOWETO.I wanna see him walking hand in hand with Winnie Mandeeeela. Tomoooorrow!". His stride was graceful and dignified. His energy was touchable; it permeated our living room. Then he smiled warmly. Raising his hand he saluted the crowds. “I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people”, he said to wild applause.

Four years later - on April 27th 1994 - I joined a long and winding queue in Midrand. There I cast my first ever vote as a citizen of South Africa.I remember saying to the people standing next to me that, I wanted the queue to move quickly so I could return to my study where I was busy writing up my PhD thesis. They thought I was joking. They had no clue how far I and Mandela had come. They had no clue how inspired I felt by Mandela.

Nor did they know that I had in fact never met Mandela in person.I was playing football in my mother's womb while the long arm of Apartheid law was closing in on him. Within a year of my emergence, he was in prison. And yet few people have had a deeper impact on mine and the lives of millions of South Africans. Few 20th century leaders – globally - have entered the 21st century walking as tall.

Admittedly Mandela has become a myth in grave danger of being romanticized. ‘Leave Mandela alone’, is a constant refrain in many circles, whenever anyone does as much as attempt to criticize him. But some critics will not relent. They see current Mandela-mania as a function of selective historical memory and a deliberate attempt to wrest Mandela from the bosom of the people who made Mandela possible. From another angle, some critics blame him for having ‘sold out’ at the negotiation table, especially when it comes to matters of the economy. Some locate in the Mandela presidency; the seeds of our current corruption quagmire, our continuing racial divisions and tensions, the growing gap between rich and poor, jobless economic growth and the abject poverty in which black people find themselves today. In other circles Mandela’s name is also used as a baton with which to beat ‘ungrateful blacks’ who behave in unMandela-like ways, by showing anger, displaying impatience and a lack of ‘reconciliation spirit’. I have also heard him criticized for having been a poor army general who founded and led a most poorly organized military organization which could never have secured military victory. As if military prowess was ever Mandela's claim to fame! What has set Nelson apart,is precisely his ability to insert moral authority, negotiation and reason where others might have relied on military action.

His transformation from a world renowned prisoner to a global icon has been phenomenal. The secret must also lie in his proven ability to reinvent himself and the astuteness of those who worked on his image when he could not do it for himself. Consider these abiding pictures of him: Mandela the militant youth leader of the 1940s; Mandela the defiant campaigner of the 1950s; Mandela the commander-in-chief of the early 1960s; Mandela the defiant and dramatic accused number one - 1962 to 1963;. Mandela the banned freedom-fighting prisoner – 1962 to the early 1980s; Mandela the negotiating prisoner – late 1980s; Mandela the de facto president – 1990 -1993 and Mandela the president 1994-1999. He seems to have made each transition with the facility of a nimble-footed footballer.

Perhaps we should not be altogether surprised. Mandela has always been meticulous and deliberate about building his own image – an exercise fanatic and a strategic dresser. If one adds to all these a deliberate campaign of defiance - inside and outside the country – designed to make his name known, the result could only be an icon and a myth of global proportions.

His life story is no different or better than that of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, leader of the Pan Africanist Congress, some have argued. Indeed, for all his talents Mandela was no match for the intellect and debating skills of Sobukwe. Comparing him to Oliver Tambo, George Bizos who is Mandela's long-time friend and lawyer, says Tambo was a better theoretician of law. But I could think of at least four things Mandela has on Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe. Firstly, the Apartheid authorities regarded Sobukwe as being more dangerous and dealt with him accordingly. Secondly, Mandela outlived Sobukwe – reinvention is much harder from that side of the grave. Thirdly, by design or default, alone and together with his collaborators, Mandela benefited from a much more effective, sustained and expansive global publicity campaign. Fourthly, Mandela married Winnie Mandela. With a wife that powerful and that resilient,who could forget his name?

While Nelson Mandela is not perfect, he deserves every accolade and every honour. His remarkable story of struggle is our story. It is not entirely his fault that we are often tempted to portray him as totally self-made, faultless, super-human. Nor can we artificially try to reduce his stature –as I have heard and seen some try - without reducing our own selves in the process.

Truly I and Mandela have come a long way - we have been 'together' from the day I was born.

Mandela has played his part. Now it is mine and your turn to do the same. Happy 93rd Tata Nelson Mandela. Halala!!!!
© tinyiko sam maluleke

Julius Malema, Annelie Botes and the Thula Thula Society

2011-06-28T12:05:00.012+02:00

What does Julius Malema have in common with Annelie Botes? Apart from their chubby faces, that is. She and Malema are going places – each according to their considerable talents. Both hold views generally regarded as shocking on people they consider to be “the other” – blacks in the case of Botes and whites in the case of Malema. Botes announced in a widely publicised interview that she does not understand, trust or like blacks. She is scared of blacks and avoids them because they are needlessly angry, criminal, murderous and lazy. For his part, Malema also states that whites are criminals and thieves of land and wealth. He provided the most animated defence of the “shoot the boer” song. More recently he has vowed to lead an economic war geared, among other things, at wrestling land and wealth from whites.

Nationalisation and land appropriation without compensation are the main strategies in Malema’s proposed war. A cursory glance at his speeches will reveal how the words “education” or “skills” are rare if not altogether absent. Scary.

Botes and Malema seem to share a penchant for saying things they need not say; things that could easily be left unsaid without raising any eyebrows; things that should be left alone. When asked in an interview to name people she does not like did Botes have to name blacks and do so in those terms? Really! Could she not have used a more inclusive and more neutral category of people – eg smokers, drinkers, snorers or liars? Similarly did Malema really have to call whites criminals at a time when his party needed white votes? Did he have to say all those horrible things about the woman who accused Zuma of rape — even with the hindsight knowledge that Zuma was acquitted?

One need not like Botes as a person. One has every right to be disappointed and angry at her shocking and racist views about black people. But, believe you me, Botes is one hell of a writer! Her novel Thula Thula is by far the most powerful book I have read in 2011. It is a shocking and riveting novel. In this novel, Botes typically tackles the taboo subject of incest. Written mainly from the perspective of a white child victim of incest tracking her through adolescence up to her messed-up adulthood years, the novel unbundles, layer by layer, dark national traditions and even darker family practices that provide a fertile ground for incest to flourish and be sustained across generations.

It is a disturbing read that is definitely not for the young or fainthearted. There are aspects and sections of the Thula Thula story that are brutal in description, raw in emotion, chilling in the pictures painted and quite shocking in the display of human depravity. The reader may be forgiven for asking whether Botes had to serve such literary gore and provide such narrative shock treatment, page after page. In this book, Botes the writer behaves like a hardened and cruel tour guide. Instead of taking you to the beautiful landscapes, the high mountains, the coastline highways and the tall skyscrapers, she takes you through the dark and humid spaces, the backyards and the rubbish dumps of society. There she rummages vigorously and finds the filth that society is hiding and throwing away. Ever so carefully, she stacks up the dripping filth and throws it at the feet of the reader. I have read few authors who are as fierce with words, so relentless with their story, breaking it up into little chunks of throbbing shockwaves. Using her pen as a dagger she pierces the heart, boggles the mind and unsettles the soul.

Similarly, Malema is not the most likeable. Many regard his views as half-baked, reckless and plain dangerous. I am yet to see anyone win an insulting contest with Malema ie those who are foolish enough to enter the muddy ring from within which he operates. No one is safe or out of bounds when it comes to his sharp tongue.

Love him or hate him, Malema is the “hottest political property” on our political landscape. Don’t believe me. See how the media runs after him. Note how they turn every phrase he uses into a headline and every word of his into a story. Like Botes, Malema the tour guide, does not take his visitors on a lekker jol down the botanical gardens of rainbow South Africa. He has carefully studied the political landscape. He knows exactly where the fault lines are. He knows where the scars, the open sores and the stinking wounds are hidden. He has studied the rugged terrain of tattered dreams buried in the sunken eyes of unemployed rural youth. He knows how to manipulate the shredded hopes of hungry rural women and angry urban youth.

Realising all the taboo issues society and its leaders will not talk about, he makes a point of speaking of these and doing so in the most brazen, disagreeable and uncouth manner. In the absence of visionary leadership, he has stepped forward and presented his own vision. It is not the best vision but it seems like the only one on the table. In the absence of an honest and vigorous discourse about the continuing disparities, he has stepped forward to frame the discourse of anger and threats. In the absence of a clear national agenda for substantive economic transformation, Malema has thrust nationalisation and land appropriation as the only far-reaching interventions capable of addressing the country’s economic woes. In the absence of courage to speak out on difficult and taboo issues Malema has demonstrated his courage by speaking often about the naked emperor — despite the nakedness of his own emperorship. Now S’dumo Dlamini, Zwelinzima Vavi, Blade Nzimande, Jacob Zuma and many others, can only react and do some damage control. Malema leads, they follow.

In the Thula Thula society, one guards hideous family secrets, one pretends that all is well, one looks after one’s own, one speaks only when one’s direct and personal interests are at stake, one abuses one’s own children and then proceeds to sing thula thula lullabies as the children die slowly. For all their famous weaknesses, Malema and Botes are refusing to thula. © tinyiko sam maluleke

Phenomenal Michelle Obama

2011-06-22T23:42:00.025+02:00

To avoid traffic, I took the Pretoria-Johannesburg western bypass yesterday. Within 50 minutes — at exactly 6.25am to be precise — I joined the snake-like queue rapidly growing in front of the historic Regina Mundi Church in Soweto. It was bitterly cold — about 2°C. I didn’t care. There was warmth in the mood and my companions in the queue were boisterous and patient. Proudly I whipped out my ID and invitation for examination at the accreditation desk. When the lady there horribly mispronounced my name in a heavy southern American accent I smiled helpfully. Further on, at the security cubicle, I gladly offered my body to be searched and searched thoroughly.

Three hours and 45 minutes later US First Lady Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama walked up to the podium and sent the crowd into a frenzy. At that moment I realised I preferred the fact that she and not her husband had come to my country. I also didn’t mind that the president of my own country was nowhere to be seen.

A moment earlier Graça Machel had introduced Michelle with such grace and finesse. She said, among other things, that Michelle was “a daughter of African heritage”, “the queen of our world’, “an inspiration”, one who “stands shoulder to shoulder with Barack Obama”, one who “redefines womanhood in the 21st century”, “one of the most powerful women in the world” who nevertheless “remains accessible”, “powerful without being aloof, powerful without being aggressive” and “one of the most inspiring leaders of the world today”. I was struck by the authenticity with which Graça showered these accolades. Hers was not the voice of duty, protocol or officialdom. It felt genuine. I loved this departure from the tendency in some quarters to portray Michelle merely and mainly as a fashion icon. Here was an introduction which spoke of her character, her political acumen, the global impact of her leadership and stunning beauty. Graça painted a complex rather than simplistic picture of Michelle. She spoke of a feminist thinker and practitioner, the wife of Barack Obama, mother of Malia and Sasha, community activist, daughter of Marian Robinson, community servant and intellectual.

Here she was, the US first lady — 10m from where I sat. Here was this woman, born of working-class parents and apparently raised in a one-bedroom apartment. Here was this woman whose parents sacrificed so much to pay for her and her brother’s education. Here she was, in Soweto, paying homage to the 1976 generation and to Regina Mundi. She praised the “independence generation”, “freedom generation” and the struggle inheritance they left.

“The question today is, what will you make of that inheritance? What legacy will you leave for your children and your grandchildren? What generation will you be?” she asked her audience with a rhetorical nimbleness we have come to associate with her husband.

She spoke of Africa and Africa’s place in the world today. “When it comes to the defining challenges of times, creating jobs in our global economy, promoting democracy and development, confronting climate change, extremism, poverty and disease, for all these, the world is looking to Africa as a vital partner.” Her audience was jolted, bewitched and awed, all at once. She had a message for Africa’s youth, which constitutes 60% of the continent’s population. “We are looking to you to lead the way,” she said.

She debunked the popular belief that leadership is about being president, prime minister, army general, parliamentarian or having a fancy title. Young people should not take heed of those who discourage them by telling them to wait their turn, she said. What, according to Michelle, is leadership?

“True leadership, leadership that lifts families, leadership that sustains communities and transforms nations, that kind of leadership rarely starts in palaces or parliaments. That kind of leadership is not limited only to those of a certain age or status. That kind of leadership is not just about dramatic events that change the course of history in an instant. Instead, true leadership often happens with the smallest acts, in the most unexpected places, by the most unlikely individuals.”

The best definition of leadership I’ve read in a long time.

But that is not all. Consider the gauntlet she threw at the youth of Africa and the world in her speech.

“There are still so many causes worth sacrificing for. There is still so much history yet to be made. You can be the generation that makes the discoveries and build the industries that will transform our economy. You can be the generation that brings opportunity and prosperity to forgotten corners of the world, the generation that banishes hunger from this continent forever. You can be the generation that ends HIV/Aids in our times. The generation that fights not just the disease but the stigma of the disease, the generation that teaches the world that HIV is fully preventable and treatable and should never be a source of shame. You can be the generation that holds your leaders accountable for open, honest government at every level … you can be the generation to ensure that women are no longer second-class citizens, that girls take their rightful places in our schools. You can be the generation that stands up and says that violence against women in any form, in any place, including the home, especially the home, that it is not just a woman’s rights violation but a human-rights violation and has no place in society. That is the history that your generation can make.”

With the phrase “as my husband says” or “in mine and my husband’s experience” she interrupted herself with monotonous regularity. There was no shyness about the fact that she regards her husband’s mission as hers also. There was not a hint of apology for promoting her husband, who he is, where he comes from and where he is going. She revelled in telling the story of how she quit a high-powered and high-paying job as a lawyer to work alongside her husband in the apparently lowly jobs of serving the community in the south side of Chicago. Can I be honest here? I wish she did not overdo the Barack Obama promotion thing. But hey, the man is her husband and as far as they are concerned, they have a joint mission.

Is she perfect? She obviously is not. How else do you explain the fact that at the end of her speech while greeting members of the audience, she came so close to the row of seats where I was sitting but failed to notice me? Of all the things she did on that day, the one thing I cannot understand is how she failed to shake my outstretched hand. Only an imperfect being can come that close and still fail and fail so dismally.

Towards the end of her speech, her voice was breaking. At one point towards the end, I feared that, should she break down and cry, several members of her audience, yours truly included, might have broken down and cried in solidarity with her, with sheer joy. Is her husband the best president of the USA ever? Time will tell. I for one, do not think so. I do actually think he should return the Noble Peace Prize. His chances of a second term depend, in my view, very much on the value Americans will still attach to the killing of Osama Bin Laden by the time of the next election. What a pity. But the election of Barack Obama into the USA presidency is more significant and more inspiring than Barack Obama himself. Little he does or does not do will alter the great historical and inspirational significance of his election. This is not to a take away either from his considerable talents or his tremendous belief in the USA - the two critical factors that propelled him into the White House. Is the USA the most inspiring and exemplary country in the world today? I do not think so. All I want to say is this. From what I have read of Michelle, and after listening to her at Regina Mundi Soweto on June 22nd 2011; she is an awesome speaker, an inspiring personality and a phenomenal woman.
Copyright rights reserved tinyiko sam maluleke.

To all the Tea Girls I Loved Before

2011-05-30T21:10:00.024+02:00

There’s a problem with the tense of a popular, communist freedom song which goes “my father was a garden boy, my mother was a kitchen girl, that’s why I am a communist, a communist, a communist”. Sometimes “socialist” is used instead of “communist”. In this song garden boys and kitchen girls are relegated to the past tense and communists are catapulted into the present tense. Yet when I look around, I see millions of dignified mothers who are “kitchen girls” and millions of decent fathers who are “garden boys”. I can only conclude that it must be a long time ago when our communists had kitchen girls for mothers and garden boys for fathers. At the risk of offending some of my best friends who are communists, when I look around, I struggle to find communists who speak and live like communists. Shouldn’t we rather sing “my mother is a kitchen girl, my father is garden boy, that’s why there are no communists, no communists, no communists”. We may find this version a little more logical, slightly better arranged and a tad more truthful. Clearly the memory of being a communist is alive and well.But it is clear that apart from their memory of the good old communist days, our singing comrades are exremely out of practice when it comes to real communism.

This brings me to a matter that is the focus of this piece. Of all the insults dealt by Julius Malema — arguably the most potent insulter democratic South Africa has ever produced — the one about Lindiwe Mazibuko being a “tea girl” touches a particularly raw national nerve. I hold no brief for Ms Mazibuko who, except for the 2011 local election posters, I have never met in person. Indeed, for all her eloquence — and isn’t she just — I have remained unimpressed with hers and the DA’s general response to the Makhaza toilet saga, for example. Indeed I have grown weary and suspicious of Obama-like eloquence until and unless it is either followed by or matched with depth and integrity of thought combined with action.

Mazibuko is simply the latest of dozens of victims of Malema’s rampant misogyny. This country has more than two million poorly paid and vulnerable domestic servants — the vast majority of whom are women and black — working for black and white families, black and white madams, black and white masters. It is not Mazibuko who is under attack here, Malema’s statement shows the middle finger to millions of women working in the hospitality industry — women who daily make tea, cook and serve food to allegedly important people like Malema. It is a slap in the face of the people who cook our food and serve it. Let’s face it, Mazibuko is no tea girl. Malema knows this as well as I do. She is his, be design or by default, his political equal now. His reported refusal to square up with her in a public debate may say more about him than about her. My poor - literally poor - aunt is a tea girl and know what? She may have voted for Malema’s party in the recent local elections and will probably vote for it at the next available opportunity.

And why is Malema borrowing from the worst of apartheid language and practice to attack a woman — in the process denigrating millions of other women? Was this decorated liberation movement — the ANC — so desperate these past elections as to allow the likes of Malema to stoop so low and insult one of the most marginalised groups in South Africa as part and parcel of its electioneering? While Malema has been accused of “scaring off white voters with his statements” and Jimmy Manyi has been blamed for “scaring off coloured voters” — accusations based on rather superficial and lazy analysis — it is shocking that Malema’s statements, which attack working-class women, have hardly been remarked upon. Neither COSATU nor the ANC leadership seem to get the cruel irony.

Were Steve Biko still alive, he would need to revise his thesis that alienated and self-hating men (sic) were at their most vocal against their oppressors in the privacy of their toilets. There is no more privacy in the toilet! In fact there are no toilets, period. Today tea girls and garden boys are expected to use the ‘is’lahla’ toilets (open-top toilets) in Rammulotsi (Viljoenskroon) and Makhaza (Cape Town). I have news for Biko. Today it seems that alienated, self-hating men are at their most vocal when they torch libraries. They speak eloquently when they die in police brutality, they speak volumes when they shoot-to-kill in police uniforms and gangster masks.

It seems that some South African men are at their most articulate when they rape, gang rape, corrective rape, date rape, war rape, child rape, infant rape, you name it. And who are the rape victims? Tea girls! Add to this the use of violence of language and the language of violence against women by some. Who are at the receiving end of such language and its consequences? Tea girls. Consider the water problems in virtually all nine provinces. Who walks the kilometres to collect water from the river shared with wild and domestic animals? It is the tea girls! Who experiences first-hand the contrast between the lack of water in the squatter camp and the apparent abundance of water in the former whites-only suburbs? The tea girls! Who is daily amazed at the virtually uninterrupted flow of electricity in the former whites-only suburbs while electricity supply to townships and squatter camps is precarious, unreliable and generally non-existent? Who lives in the areas where the so-called load-shedding is and has been a permanent feature of life? Tea girls! Who makes up for the lack of electricity in rural South Africa by spending inordinate amounts of hours a day in search of firewood and then carry it home for kilometres on their heads? Tea girls! Who is holding the short end of the stick when it comes to the country’s economic and healthcare woes? Tea girls! Who is the biggest loser in the post-apartheid BEE and affirmative action regime? Tea girls!

It is possible to argue that Malema a) never meant 'tea girl' literally - a mere figure of speech, b) used it as an insult limited strictly to one person named Lindiwe Mazibuko in relation to one person named Helen Zille and c) meant it as a descriptive metaphor to illustrate relations between black women and white women where such relationships are characterized by inequality. Figure of speech? Figure of speech my foot. There are far too many warm bodies of real tea girls making tea in contemporary South African homes and factories for the notion of a tea girl to be merely and only a metaphor. The insinuation that tea girls are a type and a group generally characterized by docility and by extension stupidity is an actual,real and pulpable insult for all women in general tea girls in particular. But are tea girls really docile? Just because people are perpetually and systematically harassed, disadvantaged, violated and victimized, does not mean that they voluntarily, joyfully and permanently take on the mantle of victimhood. Only those with monolithic ideas about resistence and agency will see tea girls only as docile victims. Are tea girls stupid? Far from it. They are some of the most intelligent and resilient people around. The metaphor and figure-of-speech line is quite thoroughly worn-out. It also undermines our intelligence. What is a metaphorical about tea girls, a machine gun or madam? While I do not like the politics of Lindiwe Mazibuko, She, like any other person, has the right to choose what and who to be (with) - without being dubbed anybody's tea girl.

My concern for tea-girls is as personal as it is political. It is as gendered as it is economical. The tea girls of my beloved country are the unspoken and unacknowledged glue that holds corporations and families together. I am one of millions of persons brought up on the measly wages and the generous love of tea-girls. To all the tea girls I loved before, I say, I love you still and will love you forever.

After all, my own father was a tea girl.

copyright tinyiko sam maluleke.

A Great South African Woman

2011-05-25T01:18:00.027+02:00

If you are anything like me, you have a few debts. No, you are not like me. You cannot be like me. I am bonded and mortgaged through to the bones and down to the core of my being. Yet even for one as riddled with debt as I, not all debts are equal. Some debts are more equal than others.

There is a debt I have owed for decades.

It was a beautiful day and my family homestead was overflowing with people. There was lots of food – even meat (which was a rarity in those days) was in abundance. Every uncle, aunt, cousin, granny and grandpa I know was present. Aged four at that time, I remember bouncing from one loving knee to the next as aunts and uncles took turns to embrace and tickle me. Yet even I realized then that there was something strange afoot on that occasion. For one thing, I was the only one giggly and running around happily. Everyone else was looking rather somber and solemn. Being a child I surmised that the adults were up to their usual boring seriousness. I was not going to let their antics dampen my spirits. I leaped, twirled and frolicked between and among the crowd. Something else was odd. My mother was nowhere to be seen. That was no real bother though. She had developed the nasty habit of disappearing from time to time. But she always came back - sooner or later. For now we must get on with the business of fun, and food and the admiration of a captive audience of seemingly bored old folk - I thought.

All this was happening in a homestead on the outskirts of Valdezia - a Swiss ‘mission station’ 25 kilometres from Makhado (Louis Trichardt) in Limpopo Province. The occasion was a funeral. Either no one had told me about the funeral or my four year old brains simply lacked the capacity to comprehend the notion of a funeral. Maybe I understood it alright but fell into primordial, instinctive and protective denial in order to shield my toddler soul. This was, after-all no ordinary funeral. It was the funeral of my own mother! She had died suddenly after living a rather short life. No illness to write home about. I am the third of four kids she was leaving behind. She also left us one beautiful photograph of her. Was it a heart attack? Probably. What I now know for sure is that it was definitely an attack on my heart whose impact would last a life time. She has since become a constant absent presence in my life.

Back to Limpopo, several years later and fast-forward to the morning of Wednesday May 18, 2011. We are at a ward (named Giyani) at Elim Hospital. My maternal grandmother - who had been ill for some time - is breathing her last few gasps of precious oxygen. By mid-morning medical staff confirm that grandma is no more. She was 97. Unlike her daughter, my mother, grandma stuck around. She was determined to see me and my siblings through the worst of the storms of life. She remains to this day, the most resilient the most constant, most consistent and most reliable presence in my life. With no real memory of my own mother, grandma was the only tangible evidence that I did really have a mother once upon a very short time. But grandma was more. Grandma was mother. Upon the death of my mother she took over the motherhood function so seamlessly, it took me a long time to realize she was not my mother.

She is unlikely ever to make it into a book titled "Great South Africans'. Back in 1914 when she was born, black women were cattle – sold and bought in the currency of cattle, as cattle and treated accordingly. She was no Lilian Ngoyi, no Albertina Sisulu and certainly no Winnie Madikizela Mandela. When women marched to the Union Building in the mid fifties, grandma – then a young widow with two girl children (one of whom was my mother) - was occupied and preoccupied with the small matters of food and day-to-day survival in rural South Africa. Nor has she ever been to Robben Island – not even as a tourist. The only domain in which she beat Nelson Mandela handsdown was age. She was older than him and reminded us often of this great historic fact. She had no university degree and no title before or after her name. Grandma was an ordinary, rural, illiterate South African woman. I have no hope that a monument will ever be erected in her honour. She will never receive a National Order.

She was not perfect either. She smoked copious amounts of snuff and took traditional beer as well as the odd non-traditional beer from time to time. Playing with fire-lighting match sticks one day in my toddler years, I once burnt an entire winter’s harvest of rondawel roof thatch that she had harvested and collected by hand over many months. She was livid. On that occasion, she said things to and about me that are simply unprintable. Yet it all ended with her lovingly embracing me even as she watched the blazing fire consuming months of her hard work. We were both crying. Another rainy season of leaking roofs beckoned.

In my short life, I have been half way around the world, I have met people richer (that was easy) and more educated than grandma; but I am yet to meet a person of more integrity and more dignity. Throughout my twenty two odd years of education - PhD and all - no teacher and no professor has taught me more. Nor have I learned more from anyone about politics, faith and economics. The old woman who brought me up with her bare hands and a heart pulsating with love was my greatest teacher. I have encountered few people as forgiving. Again and again, at various stages of my life, she has single-handedly snatched me from the jaws of hell. For me she was and will always be a great South African woman.

As family, friends and neighbours gather on the 28th day of May 2011, we will give thanks for the life of Madzivandlela N'wa-Diki Maswanganyi - my maternal grandmother. At last, I will get to pay my decades old debt - by attending a funeral I 'missed' many years ago as a twiddling toddler. For me, this will be a buy-one-get-one-free funeral. Two funerals in one. The funeral of my mother and the funeral of my grandmother – both metaphorically and literally. And yet there is a debt I will never be able to repay- the debt I owe grandma for everything she has done, everything she has given, and everything she has been. copyright tinyiko sam Maluleke

Black to the Future vs Back to the Future - the 2011 SA Local Elections

2011-05-19T08:55:00.005+02:00

Never in the 17 years of democracy, has the Democratic Alliance (DA) - which is South Africa's official opposition party and second biggest political party -been driven to appeal so passionately, so desperately and in some ways, so comically, to the black voter. Launching its manifesto outside Pretoria, in Mamelodi, the DA (leader) has been doing a lot of ‘black things’ lately. Helen Zille has not missed an opportunity to throw in the odd Xhosa word or phrase during interviews – sometimes unnecessarily and even inappropriately. Add to this the dancing, the singing and the sloganeering that goes on in DA ralies. Even Brenda Fassie’s Vul’indlela the soundtrack of Thabo Mbeki’s famous election victories has been reclaimed by the DA. From the scandal of an all male provincial cabinet – chosen on ‘merit’ – not so long ago, Zille has now teamed up with two very articulate black women. The faces of the three women have made up one of the most impressive elections posters of the 2011 local elections. As well as reclaiming Brenda Fassie, the DA is now portraying itself as the true bearers of the legacy of Nelson Mandela. Positing the Cape Town metro as a model, the DA suggestion to the black voter living elsewhere in the coutry has been simple. ‘We can and will do for your village, city and town, what we have done for Cape Town’. There is a tacit admission, almost, that the DA growth among white and coloured voters is close to saturation point. The only and sensible direction left for growth is black-wards. But has the DA done enough?

Never in the 17 years of democracy, has the African National Congress (ANC) - South Africa's ruling party, biggest political party in the land and one of the oldest political organizations in the world - been driven to appeal so passionately, so laboriously and so deliberately to its liberation history. Until now, the ANC’s liberation credentials ‘simply spoke for themselves’. Not anymore. As if reading from the same script - speaker after speaker – the priests, Imams and Sangomas included - at the Siyanqoba rally of Sunday 15th May 2011 sought to remind the audience of what the ANC had been and done for them and for the country. Throughout this campaign the history and mandate of the ANC was described, portrayed and sold almost as sacred, the few half-hearted confessions of guilt and failure notwithstanding. A recurring sub-text, sometimes a pre-text, variously stated by various ANC leaders, was that voting for the ANC was a historic duty and a sacrosanct calling. This rather important point, from the point of view of the ANC, was sometimes cheapened and trivialized by exaggerated suggestions that ‘voting for the ANC would lead to blessings from God and the gods alike’. In a sense this trend started in the 2009 national elections already. To be fair, it started, albeit in a sophisticated manner, when Thabo Mbeki’s speeches, in his last days, comprised two seemingly constant items: a list of historical achievements and an increasing smattering of Bible verses. In these elections, the ANC has been very deliberate in invoking the likes of Chris Hani, Oliver Tambo, Peter Mokaba and others. But how and why had the ANC been reduced to such basic and blunt means of connecting to the ‘their’ people? Rattled by seemingly chronic service delivery protests, flustered by a disastrous election candidate list process, distressed by inopportune scandals affecting some prominent leaders, riddled with feuds and contestations internal to the ANC and those involving alliance partners, faced with a Democratic Alliance (DA) which is taking the fight to traditional ANC strongholds; the ANC has staged one of their most poorly organized election campaigns ever. It was only in the last week of the election campaign that their election machinery seemed to get together – when well publicised door-to-door campaigns and big rallies were organized.

Will the DA’s ‘black-to-the-future’ strategy work? The DA is prudent to realize that the future is black. It is the only future available to the DA and to the ANC. But one hopes they truly and really recognize the full meaning of this. It is at once an opportunity and a dilemma. Historically, in most spheres of life, when blacks move in large numbers with the intention to stick around, whites move out. Can the DA cope with a real and massive influx of assertive blacks who come not merely to vote and to be led, but to contribute and to lead? This question becomes important when one looks at the faces of the DA campaign versus the faces of the DA’s Western Cape government. Is the DA willing to reinvent totally and completely? That is the question the DA must answer for itself if it is to really connect with the black voter. Is this the election where the DA breaks through the black glass ceiling? Some forecasters are convinced that the DA national support will grow. We will soon know. It will probably take more than the picture of two black women in the leadership of the party. But under the leadership of Helen Zillle, the DA has for the first time put their finger on the nub of the matter – for the DA the future is black. This could be a bold beginning. Can the DA see this strategy through to its logical conclusion? Realistically though, the DA is unlikely to win the majority of municipalities, metro councils and districts in these elections. What they are looking for is momentum, motivating signs, inspirational gestures, a few but dramatic symbols of victory in key places. In short the DA hopes to keep what they had and add a little to it. That will assist them to achieve two things: project an image of growth to the voter and most importantly, send a message to the South African 2013 voter that they are capable of winning and therefore they are worth voting for.

Will the ANC’s back-to-the-future strategy deliver the votes they require? Will it return the Cape Town Metro to the ANC? Will this strategy assist the ANC in retaining the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro? And will this strategy be enough to calm the tempers of the disgruntled angry ANC supporter who is threatening not to vote and cause her to come out and vote on Wednesday? Will those whose religious sensibilities may have been offended by the crass and crude appeals to religion come out and vote? Will the protesters of Mpumalanga, Gauteng and the Free State as well as those who sympathise with them across the land vote and if they do will they switch sides? We do not have long to wait for the answers to these questions. But clearly, in appealing for a loyalty, historical and identity vote, the ANC has thrown one of their last dices into this election. Seventeen years is not long enough for some South Africans – especially of the older generation – to have forgotten the mess out of which the likes of the ANC, PAC and AZAPO pulled them out. It is not merely about loyalty or identity it is about clear and dangerous history whose legacy and presence is, for many people, still here. One of the strangest things about this election campaign was the extent to which the ANC seemed to struggle to speak coherently and meaningfully about what they have achieved since democracy.

The ANC is expected to win most municipalities and districts in the 2011 local elections – that is what forecasters are predicting. It is not the districts, metros and municipalities the ANC will win that matter. The ones they lose will matter more. If they lose too much ground compared to the last election; that should make them stop and consider the message the voters are sending to them. Were the ANC to lose the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro Council in which the city of Port Elizabeth is to be found, the symbolism of the loss would be huge. For that is a located in an area renowned for its ANC support in the past – a council named after one of the most famous and respected of ANC leaders – Nelson Mandela. The DA can only gain from such a situation. With COPE having already declared willingness to go into a coalition with the DA in that council, the ANC needs either a clear majority there or a coalition arrangement of their own.

What the South African voter is asking for is not that complicated. They seem to be looking for exemplary leaders – not exemplary leaders from the past but from the present. Is that too much to ask? They are not asking for intellectual property rights – they are asking for the most basic of rights, the right to life. They are not asking for highways to be built in their towns, just descent roads to facilitate mobility as they go searching for jobs. They are not asking for sky-scrappers in their villages, all they want are the most basic of dwellings and the most basic of amenities. They are not asking for triple digit salaries, they just want decent jobs. They are not asking to be wined and dined in expensive hotels; all they need is water in their village. They are not asking for busses or bus stops every kilometre or even covered bus stops, all they want are covered toilets with water in them! How much more modest and basic can the voters get? copyright tinyiko sam maluleke 2011.

What is Alexandra to Me?

2011-05-03T07:45:00.042+02:00

alexander is story
story plotting a people without plots
as they search
for meaning and dignity
behind and underneath the city

alexandra is mother
mother to the motherless
scattered within and without
in search
of a home called shack

alexandra is reality
the reality of life
daily lived in dying
sometimes slowly
most times suddenly

alexandra is irony
the irony of beauty
rising out of squalor
poverty and opulence
five minutes apart

alexandra is a witch
bewitching all she has touched
so they never forget
her killer eyes
and her ruthless laughter

alexandra is fountain
fountain of talent
bursting at the seams
with stubborn resilience
and deadly creativity

alexandra is metaphor
metaphor for what it meant
to be black in the past
still a stubborn metaphor
of blackness in the present

alexandra is you and I
from here and all over
the fraying ourskirts and decaying centres
the throw-away peoples
of every town and every village

alexandra is the pride
the tragedy and the dignity
of peoples defined
confined and defiled
but not resigned

praise the dignity of struggle
the small private victories
daily accumulating
along the meandering road
to freedom!
© tinyiko sam maluleke

From Washington to Cape Town: Let Them Eat Cake!

2011-04-30T11:32:00.019+02:00

A lot of cake has been promised to ordinary citizens lately. Such have been the levels of desperation; the citizenry seem to have lost their usual sense of fear of those who lord it over them. Promises of cake when there is no bread will no longer suffice. How else do you explain the amazing bravery of the Egyptian people who rose up against three decades of rule by fear, intimidation and naked terror? How to explain the resilience of the people of Syria who lay their hopes and lives before a regime determined to extinguish hopes and lives alike?

Desperation and utter frustration have led the people of Libya to do the unthinkable — rising up against the seemingly almighty ruler of 42 years. In Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh hangs to power — vowing only to hand power over to “safe” hands — even as the people have been protesting for months against his 30-year rule. I dare say that when Americans voted Barack Hussein Obama into the presidency, they were searching for a different path and a different type of leadership for their country and for the world than the one that was emerging since the Bushes took over.

Ordinary citizens have done everything possible in their quest for democracy. They have given their lives for freedom and liberation. For half a century (at least), they have given the benefit of the doubt to their rulers and to the powerful friends of their rulers abroad.

They have sung generous songs of praise about their leaders; they have filled stadiums and arenas with pulsating dreams and poured these out to the politicians, willing them to become beacons of democracy and midwives of prosperity for all. When election time comes, the people queue up to vote again and again, each time hoping that democracy with tangible benefits will ensue. The people are still waiting. Even the deposition of known dictators — such as happened in Egypt and Tunisia — is no guarantee that freedom and prosperity for all will follow. The fall of a Gbagbo in Ivory Coast, a Bush in the USA, a Mubarak in Egypt and a Ben Ali elsewhere offers no guarantees. You can bet that the ruling elites and their powerful allies, in those countries and elsewhere, are hard at work to ensure that power is transferred to “safe hands”.

The slippery gains made in the “revolutions” of Tunisia, Egypt and Ivory Coast could still be lost and be lost comprehensively.

In my own country citizens are begging and protesting for needs so basic it is surreal. Why did the residents of Meqheleng in Ficksburg recently mount a protest? For water! All they want is some water in or near their houses — instead of water located 10 to 15km away. But here is the irony and where the “let them eat cake” metaphor comes into play. The people ask for water so you send police with, guess what, water canons! As if that is not enough, a week later the mayor of Ficksburg — a certain Mbothoma Maduna — is reported to have suggested that the people of Ficksburg should resort to bottled mineral water!

On Freedom Day — April 27 2011 — some residents of Khayelitsha — a township outside Cape Town — marched in protest. What for? For toilets and water sanitation! This, in a country that raised the funds to host one of the biggest sporting events in the world — the Fifa World Cup — less than a year ago. And still the politicians, on all sides, seem to have seen no more than an electioneering and point-scoring opportunity in the people’s need for something as basic as toilets — a national need and a crying shame that is not exclusive to Khayelitsha and Makhaza outside Cape Town. No one is disputing the fact that the protesters lack the things they are protesting about: water, electricity, infrastructure etc, yet the amount of political spin that comes into discussions about these mundane matters is mind-boggling.

So called “service delivery protests” seem to have become a permanent feature of post-apartheid South African political activism. The methods of the protesters have come under intense scrutiny — the violence especially, the intolerance shown to fellow citizens, the burning of community facilities such as libraries. Especially troubling have been the fact that even as the opportunity to vote in the forthcoming elections is looming, some citizens appear to prefer protests to the ballot box. This should not surprise us too much. Six voting opportunities since the advent of democracy do not appear to have delivered the services people are still crying out for. So why should they think voting will yield different results this time around?

Add to this the growing incidents of police brutality against people who dare to protest. In 2010 alone more than 1 700 unarmed protesters have died in clashes with members of the South African police — about five persons a day. For a country supposedly not in war that is way too much. Police brutality during protests is unacceptable because the message being conveyed on behalf of the government of the day is “if you do not like what we are doing, shut-up or die”. Maybe there is an unspoken and ongoing low-intensity war in the country. South Africa is a country where the wealth of the few is growing as the poverty of the majority grows. The unemployment rate, estimated conservatively a 24%, remains very high. Nor are the education and health systems either accessible or helpful to the poorest of the poor.

How long can the poor live on the promise of cake when they do not even have a place to relieve themselves?

While the media fed us the fat marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on April 29 2011, a war was going on in Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen. Good luck to the Duke and the Duchess. But do they know that 15 protesters were killed in Syria on the day when their wedding dominated the global news media?

A global revolution is brewing. I can foresee a day soon when my entire country will be brought to a standstill through protests. A day is coming when the entire world will come to halt as people in several places around the globe take to the streets to protest the raw deal they are getting. When that day arrives, do not blame it on WikiLeaks, Facebook or al-Jazeera. It will be caused by the greed and insensitivity of the ruling classes and our selfish leaders. copyright tinyiko sam maluleke

Gaddafi and Obama: An Irreverent Comparison

2011-04-26T20:20:00.024+02:00

‘All my people love me. They would die to protect me" said Gaddafi, towards the end of February 2011,in the midst of and in the wake of massive protests against his 42 year-old rule. Did he understand what he was saying? Did he really mean what he was saying or was he (once again) playing the fool – a feat he has become famous for over the years? Subsequent utterances and events seem to suggest that there was more than jest and make-believe buffoonery in his statement. It seems that his man has come to wholeheartedly believe the lies he tells himself about himself. Is he not the revolutionary liberator of Libya? Funder and founder of the African Union! Is that not the real reason why African Union leaders are at sixes and sevens? The shepherd has been struck and the sheep are going helter-skelter. Gaddafi!Proponent extraordinaire for the United States of Africa! The only one brave enough to tell the Arab League where to get off! Did the great Nelson Mandela not make a special pilgrimage in October 1997 – against formidable odds - to go and ‘bow’ before the brother leader? Did he not use the legendary ‘Madiba magic’ to worm his way back into favour with the likes of Britain and the USA? In time, did American, British, Italian and French leaders not go back - one by one - to ‘kneel’ before the 'king of kings'?

Such was his shock at the temerity of those who dared to protest against his ‘popular’ , ‘democratic’ and ‘indirect’ rule, Gaddafi went straight into denial. The protesters were only a handful, he said. They were nothing more than a few youths under the influence of drugs and Al Qaeda. The protests were a fleeting occurrence which would pass as quickly as it had started. From denial he moved quickly to anger and from anger to war - and war he has been waging against his own people ever since!

The UN and NATO have since entered the fray but the goal of their military intervention remains as unclear today as it was controversial at the beginning. Ostensibly they are there for no other reason than to protect civilians and to do so without meaning to change the Gaddafi regime. Can the one thing be pursued in such a way as not to impact on the other? Would and could any of the two be pursued without regard to Libyan oil and to the strategic significance of post-Gadaffi Libya in the Middle-Eastern geopolitics? I doubt very much. It may be that neither the utterances of NATO and the UN on the one hand, nor those of Gaddafi on the other, can be trusted completely. The wording of the relevant UN resolution – pertaining to the aims of the establishment of the no-fly zone - is as dodgy as the aims of the military intervention are. At what point can the Libyan civilians be declared comprehensively and permanently protected – especially if the protection of civilians is to be attained without necessarily seeking to remove Gaddafi from power?

While we may have come to expect double-speak from Gaddafi I thought we could expect better from Barack Obama, no? We had hoped that he would lead us away from the global Euro-American war-Lordism dressed-up variously as ‘war against communism’, ‘war-on-terror’ and more recently ‘war waged in order to protect civilians’. Is it too much to expect the president of the world’s superpower to opt for anything less straightforward than war? Here is a president who tells us that his troops ‘are leaving Iraq to its people, stopping the Taliban's momentum in Afghanistan, and going after al Qaeda all across the globe’. Here is a president currently fighting wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya – all at once. While Obama has assured us that ‘broadening our military mission [in Libya] to include regime change would be a mistake’ he has also declared, much like George W Bush before him that, as Commander-in-Chief of the US armed forces, he ‘will never hesitate to use our military swiftly, decisively, and unilaterally when necessary to defend our people, our homeland, our allies and our core interests’.

But would it be too much to expect from a Noble Peace Laureate - even from one who has proceeded to war as if he had never received the peace prize - a little honesty and truthfulness? If he argues that war is inevitable in Afghanistan and now in Libya, he should at least be honest with us regarding the real reasons and real aims of military action. I for one, do not believe what he said in his recent speech on Libya given at the end of March 2011, arguing essentially that Libya is 'a problem worth solving' for the USA. At the risk of sounding repetitive - what about Zimbabwe and Yemen and Syria and Israel? Are they not problems worth solving?

Otherwise, what is the principle difference between Obama and the likes of George W Bush and Tony Blair who justified their invasion of Iraq on the promise of weapons of mass destruction soon to be unearthed from Iraq? Now we know that Obama has authorized the use of drones and they have already been unleashed in Libya. In the meantime Britain and France have sent specialized personnel to ‘advise’, ‘train’ and ‘instruct’ the ‘rebels’ fighting the ‘pro-Gaddafi forces’.

Does it occur to Obama and NATO that the so-called ‘rebels’ are themselves civilians whom the UN resolution meant to protect? So we call them 'rebels' in order to hide the fact that these are civilians being led like sheep to slaughter? We also call the Libyan armed forces 'pro-Gaddafi' in case some accuse NATO and the USA of violating Libyan territorial integrity! In reality there are two armies in combat in Libya today. The US-NATO army and the Gaddafi army – the rest, including the so-called rebels - are civilians. In between these two armies stand innocent civilians who are being terrorized and butchered. Slowly but surely we are moving towards a full-scale ground war – in which the so-called rebels may become canon-fodder for the Libyan forces as the so-called rebels will sure form the frontline with NATO forces – drones and all - hovering safely in the skies. And the hands of the Noble Peace Laureate become bloodier by the day. I was ready to sell all my belongings in order to afford a ticket to Obama’s inauguration in January 2009. But when I heard recently that he was launching his re-election campaign, I cringed. So what do Gaddafi and Obama have in common? The shape of their noses. And they are getting longer by the day. Copyright Tinyiko Sam Maluleke.

Meet Andries. He Died Yesterday.

2011-04-15T17:33:00.017+02:00

On the evening of Thursday April 14 2011, I took part in an excellent discussion panel organised by the Steve Biko Foundation at Wits university in Johanneburg. Driving back to Pretoria later on, a journalist friend called and asked me if I had watched the prime news on national television. Of course, I had not been able to watch the news. Nor had I ever heard of 33-year-old man called Andries Tatane.

Today (April 15), South African radio current affairs and talk shows could not stop talking about Andries. Newspapers led with the story of Andries Tatane. Overnight, Andries has become famous. Pity his “fame” comes into focus more than 24 hours after his death. He died on April 13 2011. His is a chilling and a hollow kind of fame. Is it not funny how the poor make news through death while the rich make news in life?

But who is Andries Tatane? We know he was 33 — a young man by ANC Youth League standards. He was a resident of Meqheleng, a poverty-stricken township outside the town of Ficksburg. We know he was maths teacher — a scarce, and skilled teacher in this country. Indeed, we know from his friends and that his love for mathematics started when he was at high school. He apparently devoted a lot of time assisting fellow students who had difficulty with the subject. We know he was a community activist. We know he had ambitions for becoming a ward counsellor. For all we know, he might have been on the list of independent candidates for the May 18 elections. He certainly expressed this desire to his friends. He was a family man. His wife’s name is Rose. His little son Molefe is still asking for his father today. He also has another child - an infant who has no clue it has just lost a father.

How did he die? Tatane apparently approached the riot police to try and beg for mercy on behalf of elderly people who were being sprayed-on violently with water canons even though they were apparently not part of the protest. I think Tatane naively believed that members of a police force of a democratic state could be spoken to and reasoned with. He was wrong. So wrong.

If you are brave, watch the http://youtu.be/omWi5PayXiM”>SABC TV footage on Youtube.

Andries Tatane is seen surrounded by a group of between six or eight men armed with batons and guns. The police are clobbering him with batons all at once, much like we used to kill venomous snakes in rural Lipompo. At one stage, probably in a knee-jerk reaction, the desperate Tatane attempts to fight back. But how can one unarmed man fight so many armed men? Clearly helpless, Tatane is clobbered to the ground by the well-armed policemen. It seems that when he attempts to stand up, he is shot through the chest. Some reports suggest that that was the second time he was shot at and at close range. But did the shooter have to aim for the chest? At first Tatane seems almost surprised to see blood dripping down his chest. Next Tatane is seen holding his wound in a desperate attempt to stem the gushing blood flow. A friend and an elderly gentleman are seen trying to assist him. Suddenly he collapses. Next we see his lifeless body being put into an ambulance. End of story.

Andries Tatane died in broad daylight, in full view of TV cameras. The minister of police has apparently threatened an inquiry. I would have expected no less than a resignation from him. His resignation could give meaning and dignity to the inquiry. More than 48 hours since the death of Tatane, the police commissioner, whose favourite piece of advice to the police is “shoot-to-kill”, has not said a word. More that 48 hours later, the screaming silence of our democratic government has been deafening. The presidency has been mum. Nor has the ANC Youth League said anything. Is that how cheap the life of a Tatane is in this country?

Why did Tatane die? To begin with, Tatane and his fellow protesters should never have been put in the situation where they are at the mercy of our shoot-to-kill police force. By the time we reach that scenario, it’s too late. Our political and administrative leaders should never have been so negligent — 17 years since the dawn of democracy. Why were the people of Meqheleng protesting? For electricity and proper water supply, for toilets, for repairs to drains as well as waste removal. Residents of Meqheleng have to walk for up to 10km to fetch water. What makes this community less deserving of services than the communities of Houghton in Johannesburg and Waterkloef in Pretoria? Why are they still waiting for the most basic of services, 17 years later?

Andries Tatane died because he dared to join his fellow residents in a desperate protest aimed at highlighting their plight 17 years since democracy. Andries was clearly a proud South African citizen. Like many South Africans his age, he was a starry-eyed teenager when Mandela became the first democratic and black president of this country. Together with millions of other South Africans, he invested a lot of hope in our young democracy. From what we know of him, he participated vigorously in the democratic processes. Andries took the political promise of the new dispensation seriously. For too long he also took the myriad promises of the politicians seriously. Perhaps more seriously than the politicians themselves. But the patience of Andries Tatane was wearing thin.That is not a crime is it?

He was not just a South African. He was a human being entitled to each and every one of the rights enshrined in the Constitution of this country. Tatane believed that it was necessary and possible for this country to become a home for all its citizens. This is what Andries Tatane died for. Nay, Andries Tatane did not die. He was killed. He was killed for asking for a better life for himself and his fellow South Africans. Andries did not deserve to be killed. Not so brutally. Not on this week. Not in this way. Not for this. Not in my country!© tinyiko sam maluleke

The Year of the List and the Least Amongst Us

2011-04-13T21:09:00.013+02:00

In spite of the promises of the last state-of-the-nation address; in spite of giant funds set up and despite the economic growth path outlined; in spite of Obama-like bail-outs and incentives to certain industries; it is not about to rain jobs. It is the fourth month of the year and the job opportunities being created remain invisible. South Africa has, admittedly, a three year time frame within which to create 750 thousand jobs or job opportunities – aiming for 5 million jobs in ten years. But it all begins this year (2011) – we have been told. Has this not been declared the year of job creation – the year of jobs, jobs and more jobs? Is this not the year of presidential job-creation summits?

All indications are that jobs will continue to be as scarce as sea-water in the Limpopo Province. This does not look like the year of jobs we have been promised. Instead, it is turning out to be the year of the list.

Think of the controversies generated by the forthcoming May 18th local government election lists for the ruling party. The list has become the most prominent election issue. Instead of waiting for the jobs rain, a section of South Africa’s 24% unemployed has realized that to be on the candidate list is to find a job. Not just one job but several jobs in one - for the individual concerned and for other comrades, especially those who help in mounting vigorous protests in favour of one’s candidacy.

But the local elections candidate list is not the only list in town. The list of lists is endless. Check the website of your municipality you are likely to find a page on ‘housing waiting list’ sometimes euphemistically called ‘housing backlog’ – a favourite word of the current minister of human settlement. One city mayor suggested that such is the length of the housing waiting list in their city it might take 20 years to serve everyone.

There are the hospital waiting lists of patients - awaiting drugs and/or surgery. Think especially of those on the waiting list for HIV treatment – many of whom sadly die waiting. There are the millions on the waiting lists for driving licence tests. Think of the list of learners who drop off along the journey from grade 1 to grade 12 – which is up to 60% of them. Add to that the list of those who drop off tertiary institutions. And the lists of communities and household waiting for water, electricity and toilets! In 2007 it was reported that nearly 3 million of the 7 million young South Africans between the ages of 18 and 24, were neither employed nor receiving any formal education. Any wonder so many young people are available for deadly mischief and for protests?

There are- of course - more ‘juicy lists’. The list of tenders and tender winners. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange Listings. Lists of Black Economic Empowerement compliant companies. There is the holy list of pilgrims covered with blessings and on their way to heaven for having voted for the African National Congress - as Jacob the son of God has decreed. Think of the privileged list of those awaiting delivery of their imported luxury cars. And the chilling Radovan Krejcir hit list. The list of South African celebrities. The list of of plotters seeking to topple our beloved president. The list of millionaires and billionaires – 31 billionaires in South Africa in 2010. There are lists such as, the wish list, witch list, elections candidates list, holy lists, tender list, hit list and waiting lists. The hot question for this year is: are you on the list and if so, which list are you on?

Now contrast that list of billionaires with the more than 20 million South Africans who live in poverty – forgotten in rural South Africa and packed like sardines in the squalor of peri-urban squatter camps. To my mind, the list we should all be concerned about is the list of the least – the list comprising the majority of our citizens in this country. Unless we jerk up the education system, rural development strategies, job creation schemes, entrepreneurship levels and service delivery levels, we are in trouble. We might as well start preparing for our own Tunisia day.©tinyiko sam maluleke

The AU Fiddles, While Africa Burns

2011-04-04T16:34:00.045+02:00

Long, long ago, animals from all corners of the earth gathered in one place for a big indaba. Conspicuous by their absence from the great gathering were chicken folk. As animals big and small made their way to the meeting place, chicken folk were seen making their way in the opposite direction to attend to exclusive and unique chicken matters in a uniquely chicken manner. But top of the agenda at the great meeting of all animals was how they might deal with the deadly menace of the creatures called human beings — creatures who were, from the point of view of the animals, as intelligent as they were bloodthirsty.

In a grudging acknowledgement of human superiority and in deference to human ingenuity, the animals voted unanimously to send an envoy bearing a gift of appeasement to the humans. What could they give to humans as appeasement? Chickens! It was decided unanimously. From then on chickens were offered to humans for domestication, breeding, slaughter and wanton consumption … and we have enjoyed Colonel Sanders’ recipes happily ever since!

Taken from Igbo folklore, the original story is told by one of Africa’s most accomplished storytellers — Chinua Achebe. Obviously I have taken the liberty to tweak, nuance and retell the story in my own words for my own purposes. I am afraid that the African Union is behaving like the chickens in this fable. It should not be surprised if it meets the same fate.

2011 will go down as the most momentous in the life of the African continent for years to come — a watershed year. The shape and form of 21st century Africa is being decided even as I jot down these few words. When the events changing the face of the beloved continent are recounted and reviewed, the AU might not feature at all. I think it has been rendered — or has rendered itself — peripheral, to the brink of redundancy.

In three short months we have experienced, and are still experiencing, a radical redrawing of the body politic and political landscape of North Africa. Two long-term rulers — Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak — who between them had been in power for more than half a century — have been swept aside by the sheer force of popular revolt. Within the same period a brand new African state was born — from below and in defiance of the neat African borders of Berlin 1884 — the state of South Sudan. And another state might still be born (or is it stillborn?) — the state of Palestine. The events in North Africa may not be entirely irrelevant to the prospects of the state of Palestine or lack thereof.

But during the first decade of a century, which Thabo Mbeki dubbed “the African century”, we have seen at least two scandalous elections in Zimbabwe (and another one might just be waiting to happen in that country) a tragic election in Kenya, two rival and concurrent presidents in Côte d’Ivoire, thanks to yet another botched election. The residents of Abidjan are living in terror amid a fierce battle between pro-Gbagbo and pro-Outtarra forces — whatever that means. But why? Why must the people be terrorised and killed merely because at the end of 2010 they exercised their democratic right to vote? The AU and the UN oversaw and certified the Ivorian elections but have been impotent ever since.

Then there is the situation of the nightly bombardment of Libya carried out by Nato and the so-called coalition forces under the watch of the UN and with the tacit permission of the Arab League, China and Russia since March 19 2011. The longer the bombardment continues, the dodgier and the less pure the motives appear to be, if ever they were.

The curious spectre of the coalition forces fighting alongside al-Qaeda against Gaddafi has been raised as a very real possibility. Is this Gaddafi’s indirect, back-handed and inadvertent contribution to world peace? Allegations of the coalition forces doing more than protect civilians are multiplying. There are allegations that some of their bombs are killing civilians even though their only moral reason for being over the skies of Libya is to protect civilians. There are allegations that they are arming and training the rebels, clearly going way beyond the mandate of the UN resolution for a no-fly zone. If this goes on for too long even Gaddafi might slowly begin to look like a nationalist hero who is fighting foreigners whose purpose is the instigation of a civil war. We hope that reports of Gaddafi settlement-seeking envoys in London and Athens are not part of his many tricks and delay tactics.

We have not yet fully grasped the implications and impact of these — good and bad — epoch-making phenomena. When these events are recalled and assessed several years later, do you think it will include the names of Monsieur Jean Ping and that of the El Jefe (the boss) Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the much feared dictator of Equatorial Guinea who rose to power through a bloody coup in 1979 and now sits at the helm of the AU? Will historians elaborate on the pivotal role of the AU in peace building, economic development and the enforcement of the rule of law?

What was the role of the AU when Egyptians gathered at Tahrir Square day after day after day? Where was the AU when Tunisia burnt? Not that the AU does not enjoy the goodwill of African countries. Not that they lack documents, founding documents, press statements, constitutions and vision statements — their website is full of those. The AU strives for “an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in global arena”. But how? By wishful thinking? By osmosis? By burying heads in the sand? By doing one thing and saying the other? For example, although the AU opposed the UN’s no-fly zone resolution on Libya, SA and possibly Nigeria — prominent members of the AU — did not abstain, they voted in favour.

The coalition forces and Nato countries met in London to plot the way ahead in Libya — a meeting at which the AU was conspicuous by its absence. Jean Ping is currently making a whirlwind tour of several European countries to sell them the AU road map to peace in Libya. Is it of any significance that Gaddafi is sending envoys to London and Athens and not to Pretoria and Lagos? Yet Ping would like us to believe that the AU has Gaddafi in its pocket. The opposite may be closer to the truth, if you ask me.

I have a sense that when the history of the new Africa is written, the AU will have to be searched with a magnifying glass among the smallest of footnotes in the annexures. Instead the name of one Mohamed Bouazizi of Sidi Bouzid, who on December 17 2010 set himself and Tunisia alight, will feature prominently.

After the guns have gone quiet and an eerie calm has returned, the rickety AU bus will shamefully sneak into town, with Nguema and Ping at the helm. A quick and nervous tour of the streets of Tripoli, Misurata, Harare, Cairo and Abidjan will be taken. Then the AU entourage will proceed to what used to be parliament and state house, now turned into the local headquarters of Nato and the coalition forces. There the AU will go on its knees to beg for permission to collect what remains of the smiling African corpses strewn up and down the streets, glistening in the heat of the African sun. What a feast for the African mongrel dogs!©tinyiko sam maluleke

Libyan Conflict: Let us Not Forget What It Is All About

2011-03-25T02:15:00.007+02:00

What did South Africa expect after voting in support of the UN resolution to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya? That the UN would issue a press statement which would cause Gaddafi to immediately cease all fire and halt all fighter jets? Why then did Zuma sound like he was changing his mind in his Human Rights Day (21 March 2011)speech?

The African Union has fared no better. It has been incoherent about the situation in Libya. The Union has issued statements only to chop, change and partially withdraw the same later. Their most recent statement on Libya – issued on the 23rd March 2011 - sheds no more light than previous jumbled statements. The statement alludes to an AU ‘peaceful solution road map’ whose terms have been accepted by, among others, the Gaddafi regime. But the details of such a road map remain sketchy. The road map also appears to be a parallel effort to those of the UN, NATO and the coalition forces. A lot of hope is pinned on a meeting scheduled for Friday 25 March 2011 – a meeting to be headed by the AU High Level Ad Hoc committee on Libya. But here is part of the problem: At least two of the African leaders belatedly and opportunistically condemning the coalition forces – Zuma and Museveni are members of the AU’s High Level Ad Hoc Committee created specifically to address the Libyan crisis. Mugabe has also joined them in condemning the countries participating in the air strikes.

We have seen the same three-point-turn coming from Amr Moussa the General Secretary Arab League. He has been recently quoted accusing the allied forces of essentially doing something different from what the UN resolution intended. It must be remembered it was the Arab League which made it possible for the UN Security Council to take the resolution in the first place by expressing agreement with the notion of a no-fly zone prior to the resolution being taken. This was the ‘regional clearance’ needed by the UN, NATO and the countries now mounting attacks on Libya. Indeed, this regional clearance is the reason China and Russia, though clearly not in favour of the no-fly zone resolution did nevertheless not veto the resolution. That is very significant. It is not so much the countries which voted in favour of the no-fly zone resolution who brought us where we are today, but rather the conscious choices of both Russia and China not to interfere.

Several things are going on here. First, there is the question of the geopolitical and strategic significance of a post Gaddafi Libya – especially as there is no guarantee that any of the other non-democratic leaders will last for long. A post-Gaddaffi Libya might become an important power broker in the rapidly changing Arab world and in the Middle East itself. Clearly, the shape and form of a post-Gaddafi Libya cannot be left to chance - hence the flurry of actions and statements.

Secondly, there is the small matter of the oil fields and oil reserves of Libya. Each participant in this conflict has their own designs on Libyan oil after the fall of the Gaddafi regime. All sides involved are interested in Libya’s oil. If we do not understand this, we shall not understand the unspoken rationale of the UN resolution, the abstentions of Russia and China, the eagerness of the coalition forces and the seeming change of mind from the likes of Zuma and Moussa. We must remember that as recently as two months ago, all of these countries and their leaders – including those now mounting the air strikes and including the UN, were friends of Gadaffi and the Gaddafi regime.

Third, what about the people, the so-called civilians of Libya? The formal and official reason for the no-fly zone is the protection of innocent civilian lives. This is understandable in the wake of a brutal war being waged by Gaddafi against his own people. It would be a shame if the world was to stand aside and watch Gaddafi kill a defenceless and poorly organized people. It is notable that all sides invoke this rationale both in support of and in disagreement with the air strikes. It is important for the world to hold the UN, NATO and the coalition forces to the letter and spirit of the UN resolution – ensuring that all is done to protect the lives of civilians. The protection of civilians must not become a secondary aim in this campaign. If NATO and the Coalition forces do not avoid and prevent the loss of civilian lives in and through this operation, they will look no different from Gadaffi. Simply put; killing civilians is no way of protecting civilians.

It has been said, apparently by a US Senator around 1918, one Hiram Warren Johnson, that the first casualty of war is the truth. Veteran and dissident journalist John Pilger disagrees. He says journalism is the first casualty of war. I disagree with both Johnson and Pilger. The first casualty of war is an innocent civilian, I say. It is not only the civilian who gets killed who is a casualty. It is the civilian who is the target of a deluge of propaganda statements. The civilian who is terrorized and traumatized is the first casualty of war. The civilian who is paying for the war now – in sweat, blood and tears - and will pay even more for it in the future, is the real casualty of war. The civilians from all over the world who watch ‘wars’ on TV and wrongly believe that they are innocent, are also causalities of war. But the innocent civilian is more than a casualty. She is the truth of which Senator Johnson spoke.©tinyiko sam maluleke