An unintended encounter with Joseph Sepp Blatter

I was innocently sitting chatting to a long lost friend in the Sandton Convention Centre today, when there was a sudden and unexplained media scurry. I knew it was a media scurry, because everyone was fighting each other, using very large shoulder carried cameras as weapons. Behind them were hapless people holding furry things on poles. They were all pointing them, seemingly, into an empty circle which a burly group of bodyguards had made.

It was rough stuff. Elbows jabbed. Bodies were used as battering rams. Pencils were lunged into the spines of people in the front row. But I, for one, had no idea what the fuss was about. So I decided to join the throng. It was about thirty paces away that I managed to see the object of everyone’s interest. Why, it was Joseph Sepp Blatter himself!

It immediately brought back to me the Gospel story about Zaccheus, the tax collector, who climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus. The ambiguity in the text is in the reason which is given as “because he was a little man”. The question of course, is who was the little man? Zaccheus or Jesus?

In the case of Sepp Blatter – it was Sepp Blatter. He is a little man. “Short”, is the word which comes immediately to mind. And he has a continuous smile playing about his lips – the kind of smile children produce when they have done a poo. Sepp Blatter is pleased with things. He is pleased with FIFA. He is pleased with “Johennesborg” and he is pleased with “Sous Afrika”. He is pleased with Soccerex. He is pleased with progress in the stadia. He is pleased with “Foootball” and he is pleased with “FuFusellaas”. I have no doubt he was also pleased with the throngs of dancing Zulus and the busloads of ululating women. Because he seems to be pleased with everything in sight.

I found myself wondering why Sepp Blatter’s hair never seems to grow, or his hairstyle change. I wondered why, after 35 years of work in “Fooootball”, he was still wanting to be reappointed for yet another term. Meanwhile, I heard people around me discussing in animated terms, his “legacy” – being, apparently that he brought the World Cup to Africa and took it back to Latin America.

I looked at the throngs crowing around him. I watched the vastly overweight women, whom I later discovered were local councillors, clattering about on shoes which really should not have been punished to the extent that they were, on heels far too high. They were guiding him around. Pointing out this to him, and that to him.

His comment on seeing the Cape Town stand was something like – “Ah - Cape Town”. And then he nodded and smiled that just-done-a-poo smile of his. He looked pleased again. And the media scurry moved on to something else for the tottering councillors to point out to him.

All I can say – all I can really say, is that it is a bloody strange world we live in. Nations may rise and fall. World poverty may be on the increase. Disease, drought and flood is taking whole swathes of our continent – but FIFA, it seems to me, will stand forever.

Hip Hop enters my life

I found myself yesterday evening sitting in a darkened Primary school hall, waiting for a Hip Hop (what does one call it” Show? Exhibition? Display? Performance?) ... choose any of those words ... to begin.

The crowd was standard primary school parent fare. There were the trendy mothers; the matter-of-fact no-nonsense mothers; the mothers with too much time on their hands; the mothers with too little; and some grandparents looking scared. There were fathers as well, some looked a little unwilling, but everyone was putting on a brave front.

The music is not hard to describe – especially for those of us who demand that it is turned off the moment it makes its appearance on commercial radio stations one may be listening to on one’s travels – it is unbearable.

The lyrics ... or perhaps more accurately, words to accompany the unbearable throb of the other stuff are impossible to unscramble. The opening one went something like this:
Da da de Da da ... wanna be a mole; Da da de Da da ... all about control; Da da de Da da ... sitting on a pole; Da da de da da ... lookin’ at a hole.

I have no idea what they might mean, but I could not fail to notice the extraordinary things the dancer on the stage was doing. He was an older bloke of (it’s difficult to judge these days and was a bit hard to see, because his shirt kept on sliding down his torso to cover his head) something like 18 perhaps? He was balancing on one arm, T-shirt around his head and woolen cap having fallen off, naked torso and jeaned legs thrusting and contorting in the air.

For a novice, like me, it was a fairly eye-catching and dramatic beginning to an evening which really was revelatory. Hip Hop is a whole cultural thing, which I have absolutely no idea about. It has happened around me, for the past 20 years, and I have simply been able to turn a switch to get rid of it. There are movements the kids were doing with and to each other, which I have no idea of. Poses, stances, jerks which signify stuff. Stuff like – “well that’s me”; or “I’m done, your turn now”; or “ yes, I acknowledge your clapping out there”.

It was a bit like watching athletics, ballet and mapantsula - all rolled into a Tik pipe and lit with the American flag. But it is, for better or for worse, common culture.

The clothing they were wearing was most improbable – and it meant that the skill was not only in jerking your legs in the air, while you swapped hands in your handstand. But you also needed to make sure your oversized jeans would not fall down when you were right side up, or that the crotch had not fallen down so low, that you would be completely restricted when you wanted to disengage your legs from your hip joints – which you would do often. You also have to manage your cap on your head, when you are upside down.

I was lost in wonder and amazement! And the amount of technical skill was almost unbelievable. I mean, these were not professional dancers, they are kids! Some of them were kids at Primary school and others were from the nearby High school. I could not believe my eyes, when I saw my own, usually somewhat shy child, leaping around and doing cartwheels, in time and in sequence!

So, what do I make of it? It was, certainly, bewildering. And as my partner’s father commented afterwards – “If we had to do that we would need a Hip op!” But the fact is, it was all really impressive. And I saw this phenomenon in a completely different light last night.

Does that mean I am going to allow Hip Hop on the car radio – bloody hell, no!

Yesterday in Mosselbay, with a darkie

My work colleague is beautiful. She has one hell of a body. She wears high heels that require the equivalent of tightrope-walking skills. She dresses like a model and shops to calm her nerves. She has long, LONG dreadlocks - natural ones; she boasts well manicured nails. She gets up at five in the morning to start her beauty routine. She eats like a horse and never seems to put on weight. And, oh yes, did I mention she is black? No? Well, she is.

I see the way men look at her. They pause, when she walks into the room. Their eyes tear her clothes off of her. They find themselves lingering over her lips, her boobs, her crotch, her bum, her legs. They follow her around the room. And, because we appear to be together, they sometimes stare ruefully at me. Normal behaviour, I would imagine.

But in Mosselbay, I also saw something else, which she pointed out to me. We went to the restaurant in the hotel we were staying in, for supper. As she entered, men and women looked up, and kept on looking. Ah yes. This wasn't lust, it was unfamiliarity. It was something just this side of alarm. Because then I noticed - which she of course had noticed in a glance - that the room was entirely white.

Then I get glared at. I glare back and they back down. But only after some point has been made. Some strange point which they are making. Only after they have maintained the hostility for just a millisecond, do I get the point.

You see, apparently, in Mosselbay she would have to be my whore. So unlikely is it, that a man of my age and a beautiful black woman could just be enjoying an evening together.

Sunday school

St Michaels and All Angels Church, Observatory, Cape Town


Sometimes I wonder about Sunday school. I take my kids to church most Sundays. They lounge about on the pews, completely disengaged from the service - which is, after all in Cranmer's English. They play with their collection money. They drop it on the floor. They lose it. They play with the hassocks. They pile them up and stand on them. Or they pile them up and then they sit on them. They fall off of them. They make others in the pew, who might want to use them, beg for them. They pile them in the space between the next pew and the seat, so you have to clamber over them to get into the pew. They read the hymn books upside down. They drop the hymn books. The spread themselves out luxuriously on the pews. They kick each other and then they fight.

All the while, I am talking to them in that strict parental whisper which all parents would recognise immediately. It is done either without moving the lips, through clenched teeth. Or, mouthing the threat with exaggerated lip movements and no sound at all. It usually works for about 3 seconds.

The fact is, they are fairly bored in church. However, on Sunday, I watched the younger one listening fairly intently to the soloists at the Haydn "Heiligmesse". He was listening. Of that I am sure.

They don't object to going to church. I see they are bribed with sweets in the Sunday school, where they run to, gleefully, after the reading of the Gospel - and I sigh a sigh of great relief and relax into the rest of the service.

"Is God's name "Allah"? asked my eldest child, some time after moving to Cape Town. "Yes!" I answered brightly. And Christians call him or her ..." (at this point I paused, flayling about wildly ...) "God"! - I came up with.

Last Sunday I watched Sunday school in action. It was the festival of Christ the King, so they made crowns to wear on their heads. They were asked what kind of a crown Jesus wore, even though he was the King of the whole world? Answer? - a crown of thorns.

She took it forward and asked the children what they wanted to do with their lives, because anyone could be a leader. I thought that was quite sweet and noted that my one child aspires to be a school principal.

The Sunday school teacher seems a lovely woman. She is kind, dedicated and constant. But would she say that God's name is Allah? I doubt it, somehow. And how do I explain to my children that the model of kingship is obsolete, wanting and should be confined to the waste-bins of human governance experience - within the context of a celebration of Christ the King?

Soetkoekies

I have been looking for a good recipe for this traditional South African biscuit for quite some time now. The first few I tried were total disasters. They are interesting biscuits which call for both spices and Port wine, or Sherry.

The taste is memorable - and certainly brings back smells and memories of childhood for me. The only pain about them is that they have to rest for a minimum of 2 hours in the fridge - so you can't just whip them up in a jiffy. But I keep getting told about the joys of delayed gratification (something I have very little - I lie - NO experience in), so I suppose this is an instance to hand.

Soetkoekies

4 cups Cake flour
1 t salt
1 t ground cloves
1 t ground cinnamon
1 t ground ginger
1 t Bicarb
1 cup sugar
250g butter
100g ground almonds
2 large eggs
50 ml Port or Sherry


Sift the flour, salt, spices and bicarb together. Add sugar and rub in butter. Add the ground almonds. Mix in the eggs and the Port. Mixture should form a stiff dough. Place in a plastic bag and leave for a minimum of 2 hours in the fridge – preferably overnight. Roll out onto a floured surface, about 5mm thick. Cut the biscuits using a biscuit cutter and place on a greased baking tray. Press half a peanut, or slivers of almond into the middle of each biscuit. Bake in a preheated oven for about 10 minutes at 200° C. Cool on a wire rack and store in an airtight container.

Roof wetting the Cape Town Stadium

Cape Town Stadium - and the view FIFA demanded

So, I get this invitation – very glossy, very smart - very welcome drinks; followed by light snacks; followed by speeches; followed by concert; followed by supper; followed by more concert. I sort of knew it was going to be “popular”, so I didn’t take the instruction to wear smart clothes terribly seriously.

Parking was a bit chaotic – we were asked, in the middle of the street (before being requested to do a U-turn away from the site which was shown on the invite for parking), whether or not we were VIPs. So security, I would say, was a bit of an issue!

The outside of the stadium, now almost complete, looks like a large Afro-chic hat. The inside looks very much, to me - well, like a stadium! There is a green patch of grass in the centre, seats and a great halo of open space above you. The one thing which caught my eye was the grey colour of the seats. There are lighter and darker shades – randomly spaced, giving the impression of Mother-of-pearl, or the inside of a shell, or something like that. Of course, the entire effect would be lost if the stadium was full – but I thought it was quite a clever, and classy touch. (For almost five billion Rand – the very least I would expect was a nice touch, here and there.)

The speeches were as one would expect – everyone praising everyone who had anything to do with the construction of the stadium. Endless clapping this or that thought about how wonderful, how unique, how special and how beautiful it all is. The Premier, Helen Zille gave a rabble-rousing speech, preceded by one that was, (how can one put this gently?) less engaging, by the Mayor of Cape Town, Dan Plato.

Then on to the concert. Now, before I say anything, let me say how much I genuinely admire Richard Cock, the conductor. He is an extremely humble man and one who certainly knows how to bring music to the people. I don’t think he is a great conductor – but he is a populist supreme - and a gentle one at that. He knows what buttons to press amongst the musically uneducated and he really manages to get real rapport with them. This is a good thing – but I do have some slight problem about the actual level of musicality he seems content to allow in his efforts to do so.

Nevertheless, we started with what he called the “FIFA theme”. Apparently this is a piece of music owned by FIFA. (I was somewhat surprised that he didn’t announce that for the period of the tournament – FIFA owned ALL music – but he didn’t. Note to FIFA – this is something you may have missed for Brazil...). Needless to say, the FIFA theme was awful. Dreary, tub-thumping crashes and bangs which sounded not unlike the theme from “Dallas”. Indeed, it could have been the theme from “Dallas”, because who would remember the theme from “Dallas”?

Then we had the “Twenty Tenors” – (Geddit? Twenty Tenors???). Well, we had twelve of them, because (due to the fact that the stadium costs have ballooned from 1.8 Billion to a mere 5 Billion, in the space of three years),apparently the budget for the roof wetting needed to be somewhat limited. The singing was mediocre. But, and here is something worth noting, at least the singers were mostly black! They stood in the sharpest of contrast to the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, which was, not to put too fine a point on it, blindingly white.

And then, there was a group called the “Sterling Electric Quartet”. It consisted of four women playing an electric cello, violin, viola and flute. They wore dresses the size of serviettes and they seemed to be doing practise moves for the filming of the female part to the Karma Sutra. The audience loved them. Cameras flashed. Men approved. They can play – of that there is no doubt – but dear Lord! Why did they bother? It was a bit like watching porn with strangely shaped musical instruments.

My overall impression was one of sadness. Not at the kind of music the majority of the crowd seemed more than content to endure, but at the fact that this huge stadium can really only be used for three things: Soccer, Rugby and concerts. No Athletics. No cricket. Perhaps the occasional boxing match – who knows? Why? It has no athletics track because when the price was thought to be R1.8 billion, it was thought to be too much, so the size of the stadium was reduced to exclude an athletics track.

And sad, because I don’t buy the argument that the stadium is in the right place. Greenpoint Common is not a central point for Cape Town and nor is it, in my opinion, a developmental node. It will simply benefit the already rich of the area, who are mostly white. I have listened to all the arguments, over the years and I have to say, that I just don’t buy them. The reason why the stadium was put where it is, was quite simply, because that is where FIFA wanted it to be. And FIFA wanted it there for the view of Table Mountain.

Christmas in Fairyland

Joshua - Xmas 2004

I have said often, that the world isn’t divided North and South; or Gay or Straight; or Black of White. The world is divided between those people who have children and those who do not. It is as simple and as straightforward as that. If you don’t have children, you simply cannot imagine what life is like with them around.

Let me start at the beginning. My partner of 12 years, Leon, was broody from the day I met him. And when your partner says they want children - achingly, desperately, completely – you either shake their hand firmly and wish them a nice life, or you get used to the idea. I had never considered children. (Well, I suppose I might have, briefly, when I was married to a woman – but the thought soon perished, along with the marriage.) And then suddenly, at the age of 45, I was faced with some extremely uncomfortable prospects: Nappies! Projectile vomit! Teething! It is, you will agree, rather strange, when most other Gay boys in Cape Town are driving around in cabriolet splendour and planning their next holiday on a little known Greek Isle with beautiful local waiters.

Indeed, when I see primped gay boys sitting at coffee shops around Cape Town, with the time to look delicious and lovely, I sometimes ask myself what is different between them and us as we are now? I was never the natty dresser. I was never the theatre diva or the intellectual guru. I have, mostly, just trundled on with my life, and been Gay as well.

But with children, all that calm and relaxed way of life changes in a flash. Because a baby doesn’t care whether you are Gay or not. They are not interested in whether or not you look your best or whether there is anyone out there to impress. Babies want nappies changed and food put in their mouths and sleep. So, Gay or Straight, Lesbian, Transgendered, Bi, whatever ... it really doesn’t matter at all to the child. All they need is love and care. And for that, they pass no judgement on you, just so long as it is there.

Take other things, like Christmas for instance. Pre-children, Christmas was a bit of a sentimental chore. You bought the statutory soap-on-a-rope and you wrapped it, gave it, chewed your way through the turkey and felt stuffed on the pudding. And that was that for another year.

Post-children, it is something else entirely. It starts with lies and threats about what Father Christmas will or won’t bring - round about June – and this rather fatuous attempt at bargaining continues, unrelenting, until the Christmas Eve. And it ends with very expensive plastic toys which seldom make it intact until the end of the day.

But in the middle there is a rediscovered world. A world of involvement and excitement and anticipation. A world before lies are exposed and half-truths suspected. A world where adults are trusted entirely for what they promise. It glitters. It gleams. It shines.

Every year, we have a ceremony, in our house. The Christmas Tree gets dressed. The lights are wound around it, the bells and the baubles and the glitter-encrusted stars are carefully hung on the tree by all of us. And the last thing we do, in this little ceremony of ours, is that the Angel is placed on the top of the tree, by our eldest child, Gabriel, his namesake. And then we all stand back, and we switch on the lights. They twinkle and pulsate. And the sheer magic of Christmas is there again.

Christmas had always seemed to me as a Gay man, to be a celebration of something I would forever be an onlooker to. It is, after all, about a woman giving birth to a child. And this was not something I was reasonably expecting in my life. So I was essentially a voyeur to the whole event. I experienced Christmas from the outside. It was nothing unhappy, but just strangely irrelevant to my life.

That is simply not the case any more. The scales have fallen from my eyes and I have been blessed with another glimpse into the purity of a child’s world. Oh, believe me, it isn’t always sweetness and joy - but for that moment, when we switch on the lights on the Christmas tree and they shine in the eyes of my children, I understand, fleetingly, momentarily, the joy of birth – the hope of the future. Could it be a glimpse of the divine?

Lettuce soup

A lot of people, including those nearest and dearest to me, recoil from this. "Lettuce soup!" they screech and won't even try it. Well, trust me, it is a wonderful soup. And unbelievably quick and simple. Put aside your prejudice. Live on the wild side! Try it!


Lettuce Soup

3 large lettuce leaves (they don't need to be in mint condition)
1 medium onion chopped
1 T olive, canola or avocado oil
Juice of half a lemon
2 lt water
500 ml chicken or vegetable stock
4 T plain yoghurt (or cream if you insist - and sometimes I don't use either)
1/2 t nutmeg (or a bit more if you like the taste)
Salt and pepper to taste


Brown onions using in a little oil. Add the stock, lettuce and nutmeg. Bring to the boil and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. Add lemon juice. Blend. Add salt and pepper. Wait for it to cool a little. Stir in the yoghurt, a spoonful at a time and serve.

Protecting our children

I grew up in suburbia in Johannesburg in the 1960s and '70s. Apartheid was at its height. White people were safe and black people were not. And black people didn't come to bother us much in the suburbs, because they had to live "elsewhere".

In this idyllic white world in which we lived, I can remember having freedom of the streets. At first, I was expected to walk to Nursery school and back home - on my own. It was four or five fairly decent sized blocks away. That would have made me 6years old, or so.

My mother didn't trust me entirely at that age, and I found her once, hiding, dressed in green, in a hedge opposite the road. It was most embarrassing - but her motives were pure. She wanted to see for herself that I looked left, looked right, looked left again before crossing the road. And when she was satisfied that I was doing that, I walked there and back on a daily basis, on my own.

As friends in the neighbourhood, we played on the streets, on our bikes. We had wars withe rival groups. We walked to primary school - most of the time alone. Later, I rode to primary school on a bicycle.

I remember this now, because my children are virtually incompetent on the roads. And. I have to say that we have made them to be like that through ensuring that there is an adult with them, every second of their day. They are taken to school, they are delivered home after school and the rest of the time, they are never left to their own devices.

I am not so certain that this is a good thing. Perhaps it may be a necessary thing in a world of child predators and human traffickers, but is it actually a good thing in the development of the child? The fact is, they are growing up in a world where they almost never have to take control of their own lives. They depend on adults all the time. And they simply expect that an adult will be there to deal with whatever potentially dangerous situation in which they may find themselves.

Of course, there is the other extreme. In setting up Public Viewing Areas for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, throughout the Western Cape Province, one of the things we have found (I have to say to my astonishment) is that parents simply come and dump children at the site, and then disappear, leaving the children there for the entire day, unaccompanied by any semblance of an adult. The risks of this are, of course, enormous, but it does not seem that the parents are in any way concerned. What is true, however, is that those children learn street savvy, fairly early on. Probably too early and probably far too much in too many areas. To compare them with my children would be chalk versus cheese. But, in my opinion, both are disadvantaged.

Crafting the national team

Mpumemelo and Bliksem

As one of the opportunities (read "lean pickings") from the 2010 FIFA World Cup, crafters can make things which soccer tourists will buy. There is not a great deal of space, because FIFA has tied up the brand space so extraordinarily tightly, that really, one has to be a bit of a genius to navigate one's way to even the most megre profit out of the mega tournament.

For instance: you can't use the figures "2010" (or the word form) in relation to any or all of the following - the National flag; the words "World Cup"; or a soccer ball. Naturally the FIFA logo belongs to FIFA, and you would use it at your peril. We have heard of instances where a lollipop manufacturer made a wrapper in the form of a football, with the letters 2010 on it. FIFA sued. They have made it abundantly clear that they will tolerate absolutely no breach of the marks they have ownership over. If you could, in any way, reasonably infer that there is a relation to the tournament, they have ownership over it.

They own the words "Fan Fest" and "Fan Zone". They do not own the word "FanJol" because the Western Cape Provincial government has registered that name in its interest. (A "Jol" is a party, or a gathering where fun is happening. It is a Cape Flats word, which every South African understands. It is one of the few words in any language, which FIFA does not own!)

So, in our quest to find things which local people can benefit from, we commissioned this adult man sized wire figure, which we are calling Mpumelelo, which means "overcome" or "advance" in one of the local languages - isiXhosa, and his smaller (and as yet undressed) side-kick, Bliksem which is another local word, meaning "to anhialate", or "to destroy". It also has a playful meaning, because it is an extremely strong word - and one wouldn't necessarily take it very seriously if someone threatened to Bliksem you.

We are going to take these figures with us, to major events and to shopping malls and other public places. It is unlikely that a tourist is going to buy them - because they are pretty bulky. But they will point to the other amazing wire work talent which we have in this part of the world. Smaller figurines, dressed in the colours of all of thew participating teams; wire ear-rings, in the form of soccerballs; wire cups and saucers, with the word "CUP" in beads on the cup - (Sorry FIFA, you don't own cups!) and a host of other really imaginative items.

Hopefully, the football tourists, (who seem, from all the research, to be extremely single-minded, wanting to watch soccer, drink, eat and have a place to stay - and not much else) will be amazed by our wire crafting skills. And hopefully one or two of our wire crafters will be able to look back on the tournament and feel that they benefitted directly from it.

The late, great, Rissik Street Post Office

The oldest Public Building in Johannesburg burned down two nights ago. It stood opposite the Gauteng legislature, for the past 10 or more years, with a fence around it, in a vain attempt to stop vandals, thieves and homeless people from entering it and living inside it.

Recently, it has been used as a place for film shoots and suchlike. Some years ago, someone stole the clock. The wooden windows were left to rot and bit by bit, this beautiful building just crumbled and decayed.

It was rumoured, at one point, that a Saudi firm had bought it and were going to turn it into a hotel. No sign of any Saudis. Even less of any hotel. There it stood. Every morning, as I drove into work in the city centre, I would see it, with the clock tower ignominiously wrapped in some kind of sheeting, to protect it from the elements. That stayed on so long, that a tear developed in the protective covering, which became a gash, which eventually let the elements right back in.

Politicians from all sides of the house could not have failed to see the building, everytime they entered or exited the Legislature. It was just there, assailing the eye for years and years and years. They did nothing about it

Now it is gone. Forever. It is a crying shame. It is a Provincial and National disgrace. It is a blight on the whole lot of us.

The State of the ANC in the Western Cape

Robbie Waterwitch and Coline Williams Memorial - Athlone, near Cape Town

The fact that the End Conscription Campaign is celebrating its founding 25 years ago in Spier Wine Estate, here in the Western Cape this weekend got me thinking back on the place of the Western Cape in the politics of this country. I remember, back in the 1980s, how we in Kwazulu-Natal used to admire our comrades in the Western Cape. We were, after all, stuck in situation which could not have been more different. Kwazulu-Natal (or Natal as it was then) was politically owned by Inkatha, the creation, oddly enough, of the ANC itself and the stepchild of the Apartheid state.
Inkatha was a Zulu nationalist organisation, run by Mangosuthu Buthelezi – a despot who was once within the fold of the African National Congress (ANC), but had broken away from it when he didn’t get what he wanted. His movement, which was supposed to have been a cover for the ANC, turned against the movement and became a vicious, right-wing, nationalist band of thugs, which played on black people’s deepest fears pandered to white power. It had no hesitation taking arms handed out to it from its white master, while at the same time condemning the armed struggle against the apartheid regime, by the ANC and other liberation forces. In Natal, we would look longingly down to the Western Cape, where Inkatha didn’t exist at all and where the struggle was , apparently, very simple. The majority, against the apartheid state.

I remember when the deaths of Robbie Waterwitch and Coline Williams happened. Two 20 year old comrades from Athlone, in Cape Town, mishandled explosives, and the bomb they were making went up in their faces and killed them. Their deaths were a tragedy. Not only because of the fact that they were so terribly young, but also because of the violence which our country was living with, mostly from the state, but sporadically, and mostly fairly ineffectively, from the liberation forces as well.

The point I am getting to, though, is that their death was a symbol of the level of commitment which was present in the “Coloured” community of the Western Cape. A level of commitment, not only to the African National Congress, but also to the goals and ideals of freedom. We all stood in awe of it. We watched it in wonder.

I was warned, when I was contemplating moving down to Cape Town from Johannesburg, that politics in the Western Cape was “a little odd”. I had no idea of what I was going to find. Most particularly, in the ANC. I had expected racist whites, because Cairp Tahn was actually step one before Perth. So all the dreadful moaners and groaners, all the naysayers, all the glass half empty types, all the solid, unreformed white racists, headed down to the Western Cape. That I knew. But nothing could have prepared me for the level of discord and factionalism I was going to find in the ANC itself. Nothing. Because it was - and is - completely indescribable. (This is not to say that there are not probably the same levels of discord in the Democratic Alliance, because I understand that it is pretty much the same – but it was the ANC that I was most shocked by).

Firstly, I noticed the dreadful, arrogant way they handled governance. The people who had the positions in government, treated them as though they were their own personal possessions. They ran rough-shod over rules, over people and over policies. They made imperial commands. They ruled by fear and by intimidation.
They made one critical mistake, however. They made “Coloured” people feel alienated from them. And so, with the stroke of a ballot pen, they voted for the opposition, and the ANC was unsurprisingly trounced at the recent election. I think their chances of getting back into power in the short to medium term are rather remote. More than that, the factionalism and dreadful nature of the politics in the region, meant that the party also managed to lose, in addition, a fair amount of black votes along the way to the other parties, including the newly formed Congress of the People (COPE), (which is really just an ANC faction).

They managed to alienate all in sundry. They fractured and fought internally. What this has meant at branch level is that there is widespread and general disinterest. This, coupled with the fact that there is a rather extreme lack of confidence in the people actually in decision-making positions. It all amounts to an unmitigated disaster.

I spent part of Friday with the present Premier – Helen Zille. She is Premier, because her party wrested power from the ANC. We visited the Philippi Stadium, in one of the poorest parts of Cape Town. The reason for the 54 Million Rand upgrade of the run-down stadium that was there, is that this is one of the very few social legacy projects which will actually flow from the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The roads were going to be done anyway – as projects they were just pulled forward. But Philippi Stadium was never going to have anything done to it. It was the one of the previous Ministers of Cultural Affairs and Sport, the ANCs Whitey Jacobs, who decided to put resources into the Philippi Stadium. And it was Helen Zille, the Democratic Alliance Premier, who was now taking the glory.

I bear her no grudge for this. She is the Premier and she represents all of us, whether we support her party or not. That is exactly the way democracy works. But I did find it somewhat ironic, that the party who actually did not really want the 2010FIFA World Cup in the first place, would be now gaining such palpable kudos because of it. That is the way the worm turns. It is just the way things are.

I remembered the chaos which once presided in her party, the Democratic Alliance. There was fraud, there was crookery, there were idiots and scoundrels who were its leaders in this province. They now have someone of somewhat more substance, whatever one might think of the policies. And just that, just the fact that she holds some kind of perceived moral compass on her hands; just the fact that she is not afraid to speak her mind – and just the fact that she is against the ANC, has been enough to propel her to power. Her party holds power no-where else, just here, in the Western Cape. And the reason for this is, of course, the complete mess which the ANC allowed to develop here, while all their snouts were firmly in the trough.

Because it is not that people in the Western Cape do not support the ANC. It is simply that they will not support this particular form of the ANC. It is not as though there has never been support for the ANC amongst the Coloured community of the Western Cape – there have been spectacular examples of how they have done so in the past. But they will not do so now. And they will not do so, because they do not see it as being in any way in their interests to support the ANC. To quote President Zuma on a recent visit here, the ANC has failed the people of the Western Cape.