Markers of change

The daughter of a friend of mine - a beautiful, lithe Lesbian aged 20 – recently went on that mandatory trip to Europe, which every student is supposed to do. You are supposed to visit every art gallery you possibly can. You are supposed to party till dawn in a foreign city. You are supposed to starve, because you don’t have enough money over there. You are supposed to hitch rides, because you can’t afford the train. You are supposed to be wild. You are supposed to be free. That is all part of being a student.

So she went. And she had a ball. And she spent her last penny. And she was standing in a long queue at Heathrow airport waiting to catch her flight home. There were mostly South Africans standing in that queue. Behind her was a large-bellied, shorts-wearing, Afrikaner. He had a greying, nicotine-stained moustache. The lithe student had made up her mind that this was not the kind of person she would see herself associating with. She was fairly certain about that.

Some way in front of them, also standing in the queue was a woman in full Purdah, wearing that suddenly controversial garment which covers the face, the Burka. She was called out of the line by the security officials. In full view of the other people in the queue, she was ordered to take off her head-dress. At first she resisted, but then complied, when it became clear that if she did not, she would not be allowed to board the plane home. There she stood. To her, she could have been stark naked. She tried to hide her face. She squirmed in shame and embarrassment.

My friend’s daughter felt the blood rise to her head. She felt utterly powerless and utterly outraged. And then she heard the man behind her, muttering under his breath these few words: He said “Dis nie reg nie”. (That is not right).

She turned to him and they spoke to each other in Afrikaans. They both agreed that what was happening was outrageous. Why was the woman not taken into a private space, if they were so desperate to search her? Why was she allowed to be so publicly violated, in a so-called liberal country?

So there were these two individuals. A pot-bellied Boer and a young Lesbian student, bonded together in their disgust for what was happening to a Muslim compatriot. And their whispered converse left them both with an extraordinary pride in what they were and how far we as South Africans have journeyed, to become what we are.

During the World Cup, my job took me to every corner of the Western Cape Province. I have had detailed negotiations with virtually every municipality in every District. And this is what I have seen: I have seen white people and black people and coloured people working together, and working hard. I have seen honesty and integrity. I have seen competence and I have seen government officials willing to work overtime, without recompense. (I have seen idiots and crooks as well). But in general, I have to say, that what has impressed me the most are the white officials, mostly Afrikaans speaking, who do their jobs and do them well. And who have changed beyond recognition. They are comfortable in their own skins and the people around them are comfortable with them.

Transformation has happened and it is a wonderful thing to see. And it is things like this that should give us as a nation, real pride in the journey we have taken and the point we have reached. But besides anything else, I would want to say that it is very likely indeed that it is because minority groups like the Muslim community feel not only respected in our society, but integral to it, that we could host a totally safe World Cup.

I am a Mandela dissenter

I hate to admit it. In fact, it is probably dangerous to admit it. But I am. I really am a Mandela dissident! I have to confess to being more than a bit bewildered by the "proclamation" of "Mandela Day". As I am by the extraordinary zeal that there is, in his universal and international adoration.

Now, let me say immediately that of course he is a wonderful human being. Of course he is! And I have no doubt that these musings of mine will be swept aside on the tide of popularism, but these are some of the things which alarm me:

Firstly, I have a real problem with political and national deification. Analysis later on almost always proves the greatest heroes to be flawed, in one way or another. Think of the Churchills; the Malans; the Smuts's; perhaps even the Gandhis and the Nehrus. Time exposes them and their flaws lie there in ridged profile against the sky, for all to see. And what becomes completely clear, with the benefit of hindsight, is how time and context bound each of them are.

Secondly, popular opinion is a very unreliable test of sainthood. Hitler, after all, was an exceedingly popular man.

Thirdly. Have we forgotten the Arms deal? I think, somewhere down the line, when all the euphoria and adulation has died down, this single deal, under Mandela's presidency, will prove to be the source of a great deal of the poison in South African society today.

Fourthly, despite occasional, weak appeals to the contrary, a cult of personality (benign though it might be) has been allowed to develop - not only within the ANC, but within the country as a whole. And that, to my mind is going to be our great undoing. It is anathema to the ANC - or at least it was, during Oliver Tambo's time. And the fact that it is allowed - (and now more than encouraged, it is virtually institutionalised) is, (or at least should be) a very worrying development.

The result has been to take the sting out of ANC policy - and replace it with warm fuzzy feelings, while the crooks can just get on with their business. And is it not extremely strange that Mandela - the man - can somehow be divorced from the ANC as an organisation, in some sectors of the popular mind? Because it is one thing to love Mandela and call him "Tata". It is quite another to accept that his vision for the country is an ANC vision, and always has been. On the other hand, the annual hullabaloo about Nelson Mandela seems to have absolutely no impact on the divisions and ructions within the ruling party. Everything just carries on as it has before, after brief pause of tearful adulation.

Fifthly, I do not believe that one can heal either the racism endemic in our society, or issues of economic disempowerment, by creating fantasy all the time. That, after all, is what the 2010 FIFA World Cup was all about. We all walked around in a fantasy - the fantasy was that we all love each other and that we are all happy together; the fantasy was that we can all walk around at night in big cities in fancy dress, without looking over one's shoulder all the time.

Mandela is another fantasy. He is the fantasy that we all love each other and respect each other and do good for each other. He is the fantasy that we are a major player on the world stage and that the world gives a fig about us. He is the fantasy that personal sacrifice and hardship will do good to everyone generally.

So we can love Mandela and underpay our workers. We can love Mandela and be an unconverted racist on every other matter. We can love Mandela and steal the state coffers blind. We can threaten and kill foreigners who come from other African countries and ignore the fact that Graca Machel comes from Mozambique. We can do it, because we can hoist the fantasy - and everyone will be so busy cheering and waving flags in an orgy of patriotism and fuzzy feeling that they don't see the wood for the economic trees.

Lastly, and in this regard, I don't think that Nelson Mandela can take very much credit for the fundamental task of changing the lot of the poor in this country. Yes, he got Oprah to build an elite school here, and other rich people to donate towards this hospital and that child clinic there. But the lot of the poor remains - to this day - mostly unchanged. That is Mandela's other legacy.

The really important question.

Many years ago, when I was working as General Secretary for the Christian Council of Lesotho, there was a knock on the door and into my office walked two hippies. You could tell they were hippies, because of his shoes and her sandals. You could tell they were hippies, because she had her hair braided in a particular kind of way and wore a particular kind of dress. He had a particular kind of haircut and he carried himself in a non-macho kind of way.

They introduced themselves as Justin McCarthy and Amanda Heddon. They were newly arrived, back from New Zealand and they wanted to start a leather working outfit in Lesotho.

They explained that they would use local shrubs to extract tannins and they would use local leather and would teach Basotho how to do what they did and make what they made. They wanted to know if I was interested in partnership at all. I was more than interested. To what extent I could help, if at all, I can’t remember. And we kept up contact after that.

I remember being so utterly impressed with them. They were so purposeful. They had no airs and no graces. They seemed to be such good and honest and likable people. Over the many years that I continued to know them, I found out that they were, just plainly and simply, all that they appeared to be.

After a while, frustrated by the lack of interest of Basotho in their project, they decided to relocate to Curry’s Post, in Kwazulu-Natal and start afresh. And it was there that they set up the now hugely popular and internationally known “Groundcover” brand. Justin told me gleefully how he had seen a wood-and-iron house advertised in the press, on day and how he had bought it. And how it arrived in bits and pieces and how he had to fit it all together, like a Jigsaw puzzle.

I visited them both often in their wonderful house overlooking a green and peaceful valley. I would walk sometimes with him to their dam. He once stripped naked and jumped in, mid-sentence, just because he felt like it. Their children seemed to grow up carefree, integrated and wholesome. Their business thrived and the quality and attractiveness of their goods became renowned throughout the country.

It was, of course, deeply shocking to hear of Justin’s death some days ago. He was killed, entirely unnecessarily. He was on his mountain bike and a car overtook another on a blind rise. We have not been particularly close, for many years, but I know that if last week I had walked unannounced into their kitchen, it would feel as warm and as friendly as it always did.

On a long drive that I have just done, with nothing but spectacular scenery to keep me company, my thoughts wandered back over the many years I have known them. And about Justin himself and the gentle and lovely person he was and the fact that he is now dead.

Death is always so damn final. It is that full-stop at the end of a saga. It brings a silence. It does not allow for argument or negotiation. It says “that is the end of that”. And all you are left with, if you are lucky, is memory.
And what is sad, is not so much that death happens. What is new is that when I next walk into that kitchen, Justin won’t be there. That is just the way it is. His voice is now silent. We can only remember him now. We can only bring him into our living through piecing together the bits and pieces of residue and shadow that we have left. There will be echoes of him. But he will not be there. Not ever, and not again.

Some people fear death terribly. Like a child sometimes fears the dark, or being on their own. There is that terror of abandonment, that inner scream of utter loneliness.

But why should it be so? Why should death not be as basic as birth? As individually unnoticeable as passing from one age to another? And why should it not be so, no matter how it happens?

Unlike me, my father was a man of very few words. On his deathbed, he looked at my distraught sister and said, “Everybody has to die”. I have always marvelled at the simplicity and profundity of those words. Because in the end, we can spend our whole lives fearing that, or we can just get on with the business of living in the best way we can.

The real and difficult question for me has always been not “Is there life after death?” There is a real sense in which that is a useless question. A question with very little content. The really important question is, “Is there life before death?”

A death at the office

Well, I have said it many times – the 2010 FIFA World Cup is not for sissies! Some months ago, we purchased six LED screens at some quite considerable expense. We had to go out on tender. It took months and months. Before that, there were negotiations with District Municipalities about which local municipality would be the recipient of these screens. That took months and months and months!

And what was the intention of these screens? Well, twofold really. The first use would be for the screens to serve as count-down clocks to the 2010 FIFA World Cup. This would create excitement about the impending tournament (how little it takes to get people excited apparently.

But the second usage would be for legacy. They could be used as information boards; they could be used for advertisements and income generation for the local municipalities; they could even be used as big screens for mini Fan Parks for the future.

Now, the tender processes of government are agonizingly slow, and often do not produce the best results. This, in my estimation was one of the best examples of the worst results. A company we had already used, very successfully, for the supply of one LED screen, had to be knocked out of the process, for reasons I forget. But, I want to emphasise, that we had very good service from them. So now, we had to go with another company. This company has given us the worst service imaginable. But apart from anything else, to actually change anything on these screens is a complete nighmare!

So, the other day, we noticed that even though the screen outside our office was counting up – i.e. this is the 12th day of the 2010 FIFA World Cup – it was 12 hours ahead and days were changing at Midday, instead of midnight.

So, we ranted and we raved and eventually someone came to fix the clock. On his way out, he dropped dead outside the lift on the first floor. I was not there, but it was apparently very dramatic.

Now, two things happened. After the medical emergency people and the police were called, the news quickly spread that a man had died on the first floor. Black people in the building went into what I can only describe as “funeral mode”. Something deep inside them made them want to sit with the body. To “respect” the dead person. So there they came and there they gathered – sitting with the dead body. To such an extent that it eventually needed to be announced on the email that the 1st floor was now out of bounds, because there were too many people there!

White people on the other hand (and here I include “coloured” people as well, as part of the same kind of cultural milieu),fled. They couldn’t be seen for dust! If they found themselves in the unfortunate position of the lift doors opening on the first floor, they would suck in their stomachs and hide in a corner of the lift. They wanted to be as far away from the dead body as they possibly could be.

And then, after several hours, the wife of the dead man was brought to the scene. For whatever reason, and who knows what it was, the black guardians of her dead husband were shocked to hear that what she seemed to be most concerned about was that he had been carrying Dollars and she was worried that the Dollars might have been taken from him!

So, this is the way it played out. There was this white dead body lying on the floor, outside the lift. The black employees – or several of them – felt in some way culturally bound to come and “look after the body” and show it “respect”.

On the other hand, apparently, the man who had died was supposed to be going overseas the next day and had gone to the bank to get Dollars. These were apparently in his pocket. But what the black people sitting around, being respectful to the corpse heard – not having that piece of information - was that the wife was concerned that they might have robbed her husband’s corpse.

Who knows why she said it. It could have well been part of the confusion which profound shock brings. It could have been anything. But that is what got heard across the racial divide. (It was reported to me, some time later, I have to say, by a black colleague - and in good humour).

Such is everyday life, in a country - and with a people - which has effectively been robbed of its humanity. We are on the verge of bidding farewell to the hundreds of thousands of foreigners who have visited our shores to watch the soccer. At the same time, there are persistent rumous of threats being made to black African foreigners, whgo happen to be living here. We are, all of us, damaged. That is just the truth.