Remembering Nelson

Today is the 2nd anniversary of the death of Nelson Mandela - a man who is justly called one of the fathers of our nation.  There are many of us who might have problems with some of the positions he took and some of the compromises he made.  But no-one can doubt his greatness or his significance. Or his remarkable ability to bring together opposing opposites.

A poem I wrote  at the time:

WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE
(Remembering Nelson)


When all is said and done
And the sound of the earth falling on
The box that holds
Your body
Is muffled
And the bugle
And the poet
Rasping "Aah Dalibhunga"
Is dim

Then, in that moment,
Let me look upwards
And see the broad sky.

When all is said and done
And the flags are folded
The chairs stacked
The tents stowed
For another show
On another day

Then, in that quiet moment,
Let me look outwards
And see the far horizon.

When all is said and done
And the social medias
Have found another saint
Or another sinner
To hail
Or to hang
To praise
Or to pillory

Then, let me think
Of this shining day
Of this bright
African son

When all is said and done.

Out Damned Spot.

I have had my share of dealing with large government tenders.  It is a hell of a process and it would, in my experience, require an enormous amount of collusion to get round or to manipulate in favour of one or other particular company.  That it can happen, and does happen, is undeniable.  But what is clear from the recent price fixing revelations of the major construction firms involved in the bids for the 2010 soccer infrastructure tenders, is that they recognised this – and sought a more reliable and more effective way of beating the system.  Price-fixing only requires the collusion of others who stand to benefit in the industry – not rogue government officials.  That is why it is, generally, such a reliable mechanism for corruption.

I once, in casual discussion with a relative of mine who was high up in the business stratosphere, asked him why it was, in his opinion, that I had never been asked by anyone to manipulate a tender. In all the years I have worked in government, I have never been approached by anyone in business, to do anything. I found this strange, because frankly, in some of the large tenders I have handled, I had been expecting it.  But nothing! Not a knock on a door.  Not the offer of a holiday in France. No cars, no shopping vouchers, no houses, no expensive suits, no Rolex watches. Every year, I have filled in my disclosure of interest forms, disclosing the paltry fact that I own one serious debt - my house, and nothing else. No shares, no gratuities, no gifts over R300. I am director of no companies.  It is a fairly depressing disclosure, to be sure.

My relative looked at me amused – (actually it was worse.  He looked at me as though he had suddenly come to understand just how stupid I really am).  “Michael”, he said wearily, “do you not know that in every serious business, there is a whole unit which is dedicated to profiling people like you.  They will have done a detailed scan on you and come up with the fact that you would probably have too many difficulties with an offer.  So they look for other more likely candidates”. I was scandalised.  His quizzical look turned to unabashed pity (verging on disdain) at my naivety.

So, “corruption” is very much a word bandied about today, as if the ANC has invented it.  But if we are in the least bit honest, we will admit that corruption is much bigger, much deeper, much wider, much more endemic to our society than being simply an ANC or government problem. To characterize it as such is really not to understand the nature of the problem. It is a problem which reaches back far into the country's nationalist part, where corruption was pervasive, state enabled and unchallenged. Those same nationalist politicians, in close alliance with big business and multinational companies, simply carried over their corrupt practices, virtually unchanged, into the democratic era -  but now enabled, where it has succeeded, by black and government (by which I mean the whole span of government, from ANC to DA) support, either explicit or implicit.

I have certainly had personal experience of less than savoury demands made by non- ANC politicians, who happened to be my political heads at the time. On the scale of things, the demands made on me were minuscule and did not succeed, because of the tight prescripts of the Public Service Management Act.  On the other hand (and let me say this clearly) in all my years of government, I have never had any similar demands made on me by ANC politicians, nor have I witnessed anything personally, amongst the senior officials I have worked with which could be termed corrupt behavior. I am merely making the point that the ANC does not own the sole rights to corruption, nor is it the only party which can be corrupt.  Nor would I want to ignore blatent cases of corruption where the ANC is involved.

I agree completely with the assertion that corruption is key to the attainment of justice in our society, but I would urge that we don't get sucked into the easy and comfortable analysis that this is merely an ANC problem. Get rid of the ANC, I sometimes hear, and corruption will miraculously vanish, day will dawn, birds will sing overhead, rainbows will form in the sky.  I don’t think so.  The ANC has no monopoly on corruption in our society.

Clearly, yes, it is a government problem, but it is also very obviously a private sector problem as well. And even more than that, it is a problem which involves every citizen. It involves every one of us when we pay a bribe, because we are in a hurry. It involves us when we grease a deal. It involves us when we make a call to a friend or relative in a government department, who can fast-track a decision, or tweak an employment process. It is about feeding the demand.  These are the ways in which corruption is fed and sustained. 

Corruption is a state of the collective mind.  It cannot happen in insolation.  It requires two to tango. It cannot happen only somewhere else – with others – over there somewhere.  If you think about it, hard enough, you will likely start to see how uncomfortably close a thing it is, to all of us. And if we do that, and if we are honest, perhaps that might be the beginning of the end.

When Mandela Goes

Cavendish Mall is one of the key meeting places of complacent, white, southern suburb Capetonians. They have Lattes there, skinny and otherwise, topped with the lightest hint of chocolate powder. They can wander around shops sporting expensive jewellery, overpriced nik naks and the latest fashion accessories. They can meander through the bookshop and shop at a leisurely pace for their necessities at a Woolworths, where even the next available till announcements are delivered in slightly hushed tones.

It is a wealthy environment. But you would not know that if you were not awake to the signs, because they are not entirely obvious. At any restaurant in the complex, you will battle to find a black patron. It is a safe haven for white people. They can see their art movies there on a Saturday evening. They can be at home with each other and relaxed. As they look around them, it is as if democracy never arrived with all its uncomfortable side effects, like taxis on the roads, and riff-raff being given too much freedom, and black people being allowed to do what they want. Cavendish Mall is a safe and pleasant environment. It is tasteful, without being loud. In it you can be assured that standards will be aggressively maintained and everyone will have the same expectations.

You will notice that most people have an attitude. It comes with a particular angle of the nose on the face – as though it has only recently sniffed the unpleasantness of lower forms of life. As I have said, you will notice that wealth is not flashy, nor brash, nor worn on the sleeve. No. The cars are usually ordinary, sun-blasted and with dents that have never been attended to. Even the clothes are not flashy, or loud. Hairstyles are usually the simplest. Makeup is not much in evidence. Things are tasteful and understated.

But it is an environment where like recognises and affirms like. This crowd of people have a set of rules which they all know from birth and follow rigourously until they die. Nothing changes. This is Cairp Tahn. This is the Southern Suburbs.

So I was interested to see some graffiti on one of the walls on a toilet in Cavendish Mall. It read this, in an unsteady hand – “I AM WAITING MANDELA DIE.” I am sure it is already attended to and has been removed – because graffiti is a very rare thing in Cavendish Mall, you underestand – (and we don’t want any of that, do we?)

But it made me think. Something about the sentence made me think, immediately (maybe it was the lack of correct English grammar), that it had been written by someone who was black. Not because I think blacks can’t write correct English, nor because I think only a black would write on a toilet wall – no. It was because I am white and I grew up under apartheid and because those are the kind of assumptions I am bound to make. But let us assume, just for the sake of argument, that my prejudices and my instinct are correct in this instance, and that it was written by a black person – what could it possibly mean?
Is it simply a statement of fact? Does it mean nothing more than what is being said? Someone was sitting on the toilet in Cavendish Mall and decided to write those words on the wall, because that is what he was thinking. He is waiting for Mandela to die. It would be odd indeed. Of the same ilk as “The sky is blue”, “I am bored” and “John loves Mary”. Except it isn’t.

The context of Cavendish Mall inevitably makes this some kind of a political statement. It is intended to be read in that context. It has a meaning more like “Troops out of Iran” or “Nationalise the mines”. It is not a bland or a neutral statement. And it is meant to feed into the deepest fears of the majority of the patrons of the Cavendish Mall. When Mandela dies, all hell will break loose. The black hoards are sitting around waiting for the day. It is only out of respect for the old man that they have kept their pangas under their beds, but when he dies! Then we will all be braaivleis.

And I expect, if it hasn’t happened yet, that there is going to be much buying of tinned sardines, stockpiling of water and matches – just as was the case during the first democratic elections. Why? Because it is a real possibility? No. It won’t happen.

Then why? Why the subliminal fear? Why the mounting hysteria? Why the bewailing of certain doom and racial misfortune? I will tell you why. Because deep down, in the recesses of their consciousness, white people in this country know just how big a compromise was made in the interests of peace. When they lie in their beds at night, they know that the poor cannot be fooled forever and the lid has got to blow on the sham at some point. That is why, this simple, ungrammatically correct sentence, written on a toilet wall in Cavendish Mall, has profound resonance.

"Skoonheid" - (Beauty)

So, I have this cousin, who lives in Fish Hoek. He likes to walk on the mountains which surround the village, barefoot. He has a head full of shockingly white hair and a Stalin type moustache on his lip. He is a straight up-and-down kind of guy, in most senses of the word. I was therefore very interested when, casually, he told me about this movie that he had seen recently, “with loads of graphic gay sex in it. I was expecting him to dismiss it – but he didn’t. Far from it! “It was a brilliant movie!” he pronounced.

The movie he was talking about was “Skoonheid” – (translated Beauty), which has been getting some measure of high regard at the recent Cannes festival. It stars Deon Lotz – an actor, I have to admit, I have never heard of - and a range of other people I have never seen before in my life.

What is the movie about? Well, it is about this very ordinary Afrikaner who lives a very ordinary kind of life. Of course, he is gay (though he would not admit that) and fixates on a good looking young man at his daughter’s wedding. He becomes extremely compulsive about this young man. Essentially – that is what the film is about.

Now, you might think that is hardly novel – and indeed it is not. But what is so extraordinary about this film is the intensity of the primary role. The film is layered – repressed Afrikaner males, hypocritical, violent, angry, tending toward psychotic - and all the expected avenues are explored at that level. But there is another level, the ease and unfettered freedom of the beautiful young man – uncluttered with the history of the country. The electrical “charge” in which the younger generation operates, where older men on the prowl are simply invisible. The straightforward unedited, un-nuanced, almost naive business orientation of the new generation – happy to simply use contacts, situations, relationships etc, for whatever scheme they might have in mind.

And yet another level is that of the kind of inner turmoil in which some people still labour – there are frequent references to how little the government does, or cares; how the law enforcement agencies are sadly wanting; how the country is falling to pieces. Yet these remarks are made within a ring of deceit and evil which is carefully hidden from view – but indulged in and continued.

The layers are all there – in the veneer of respectability; in the role of father, husband and provider; in the lostness of someone still essentially damaged by apartheid; in a culture of ipods and trance music; in the hypocrisy of a person living an individual lie, but never hesitating to point to failure and corruption in the state.

The main character, Francois, is plainly a very disturbed individual. He cannot cope with the reality of his sexual orientation, but that does not stop him (and a portly bunch of similar men), gathering on a regular basis at remote farmhouses to have orgies. He starts to spin completely out of control – becoming completely predatory on the one hand and then reacting like a 12 year old, when he discovers his daughter in what seems to be not much more than a casual friendship with the object of his own desire. He stalks his wife and stalks this younger man. He plots in a cringe-making, amateurish way, to engineer a sexual encounter with him.

The result is explosive, extremely violent and utterly awful. The tension gets ratcheted up to an almost unbearable level – and then, one is faced with the mundane once again, with all of the contradictions still intact.

There is no resolution. There is no light, no glimmer of hope. The man continues, corrupt, abusive, self-destructive and unrepentant - dispensing either money or forgiveness to the people who are actually his victims. It is shocking to watch. Particularly if one is, let us say, of a certain age.

The title, “Skoonheid” is an interesting one. It is translated beauty – and the beautiful young man is the obvious object of the older man’s desire. But it can also mean “displaying an excellent character” – and with that in mind, the movie is certainly worth pondering.

Some reviews have criticized the movie for being "plodding". I have to say, I did not feel that. I thought it was brilliantly acted, nuanced and certainly unpredictable. But more than that, it has a gritty realism about it, which kept me wide awake.


Starring: Albert Maritz,Charlie Keegan,Deon Lotz,Michelle Scott,Roeline Daneel,Sue Diepeveen
Director: Oliver Hermanus

Me and the sangomas

Look, I’m not your average white boy. I can’t jump particularly high, or run or dance – but I’ve seen a thing or two in my time. Like, for instance, the things that sangomas do.

Now, for the uninitiated amongst you, let me tell you how to spot a sangoma. Number one – they wear lots of beads in their hair. Or, at least, they wear a wig over their hair, with lots of beads on it, dangling down. Next, some of them wear strange looking yellow bubble-like things on their heads, which, I discovered, are dried goat bladders. (Listen, don’t criticise what you haven’t tried!). These are attractively arranged, usually, with a spray of chicken feathers.

Next, they wear a sort of cross-your-heart bra like thing, either made out of beads, or skin. Often there is quite a lot to cross, but they never seem to be too bothered. Often they wear strings of bottle-tops around their ankles, which sort of jingle as they walk or stamp, which they do when they dance.

When they are together, the dancing is rhythmic , often circular, and the singing, extremely repetitive. On top of all of this “herbs” are burnt (nothing I have ever smelt before) and vast quantities of snuff is taken. Meetings with sangomas are punctuated by alarmingly loud sighs and even louder yawns. These indicate the presence of the ancestors – or something.
Now, the reason I’m telling you all this is because I thought I was fairly au fait with the sangomas of KwaZulu-Natal. At least, I could recognise them a kilometre away. I knew how to greet them – “Makhosi!” I would say, hands beating together. And again “Makhosi!” and they would respond in kind.

So, with all this intimate cultural knowledge, I found myself travelling along a very rural road in Deepest Limpopo. I was told, helpfully, that we were going to be meeting “a group of women” – nothing more.

Now, I want to emphasise the rural nature of the surroundings. I mean, this was rural with a capital R. After about four hours of hard travel, we reached a settlement of sorts. In it, we asked where the meeting was going to be. We were directed to a spot further along the road, where there was a large shady tree. Under this large shady tree were seated about thirty women. But there was something extremely odd about these women. They were all wearing tinsel on their heads!

Now, I know what KwaZulu- Natal sangomas look like. I know what Cape Town sangomas look like, but I had absolutely no experience of Limpopo sangomas. But … after all if you can wear blown-up goat bladders on your hear, why not tinsel? Why not indeed!

So, I treated them with the utmost respect. I clapped my hands and said “Makhosi!” They looked at me a little strangely, but responded in a good natured sort of way. (I put it down to linguistic and cultural differences.) I then engaged the person who was translating the rather rapid Northern Sotho for me in conversation about the difference between the way Western medicine views disease and the way in which traditional healers view disease. He listened attentively, responded cautiously and politely changed the subject. I returned to the topic, which I found extremely interesting and which I assumed he did too.

After a while, his eyes lit up. “Oh, I see!” he said. “You think these women are sangomas. Well, they are not. They are drum majorettes!”

(First published in the Natal Witness 24.04.1996)

A visit to the dentist

I think it might have been because I wasn’t expecting the dentist to be a woman that we started our brief relationship on a slightly rickety footing. She, not I, was 25 minutes late for the appointment.

The receptionist and I glared at each other from time to time. She busied herself on the telephone with friends from far and wide. After a long while, she actually spoke to me.

“Uh dunnah wheh she uz,” she said. I glared. There was an awkward silence. Then, out of the blue she said, “Hev you evah met a blek then invented anything?” I said I had not. “Thet’s right!” she beamed. She hadn’t either! This appeared to prove something profound to her. She was quite unmoved when I added that I had never met a white that had invented anything either. I pondered the prospect of what it must be like to look at a picture of, say, Thomas Edison, and experience a feeling of deep racial pride swelling in my breast.

Her next conversational offering was “Wheh does your waahff buy her washing powder?” I explained that I did not have a “waahff” – (“shame”, she said) but that we bought it anywhere we happened to be shopping. (“Rehlie!” she said). Could she interest me in a whole complicated scheme of biologically friendly products, so pure you could literally drink the water after doing your washing? There were facial creams for the girlfriend (she decided I must at least have a girlfriend), and slimming products – (she wasn’t sop rude as to say for whom these might be put to use). Oh, and gardening products as well. Before I could blink, she had a glossy pamphlet out, with all her products on display. I was sampling the Aloe Vera suntan lotion and she was filling in a list of items I would be purchasing.

Luckily, at that moment, the dentist came in, gesticulating and muttering about the children and school. I listened hard, but I didn’t hear any apology. But then who has ever been apologised to by a health practitioner who is late?

I was shown to another room and made to lie in that extraordinary position which, I imaginbe, would be ideal for giving birth. “Ah”, she said, endearingly, as she snapped on her rubber gloves. “I like this kind of mouth. So big and wide!”

Then she started poking about and counting things off. The hygienist type person, behind me, was writing things down. There was lots of counting. “H1” and “B12” and “S12” – and stuff like that. I wondered what it could all mean. Then X-rays were taken. “Shouldn’t you be hiding behind a screen wearing a lead vest?” I asked. “Oh no”, she said in a rather patronising voice, “technology is so advanced these days” (don’t you just love that…?) “that the dose is completely harmless”.

I was told that there was nothing “essentially” wrong with my teeth. I could have told her that. But despite this fact, it was her considered opinion that I should have all my “ugly metal fillings” removed and replaced with porcelain fillings. “You have a lovely smile”, she said, pandering to my not inconsiderable vanity, “why ruin it with all these ugly shadows?”

I suddenly saw my mouth in a whole new way. What was before, just my mouth, had now become a ghastly pit of black, shadowy fillings, begging to be removed! “And how much would this whole thing cost?” I asked gingerly. “Oh” she said vaguely, “what medical aid are you on?”
Before I knew what was happening she had the oral hygienist on the telephone to my medical aid asking how much they would pay “for this kind of procedure”.

The news wasn’t good. The medical aid would only pay R2 000 a year. That translated into about one-and-a-half teeth, she said. “But”, she brightened considerably, the new medical aid year is in April, so we could fit one in now and then get more in the new financial year!”

And I, gormless twit that I am, allowed her to book an appointment for me for the next week. It took me an entire day to see the light and change my mind. I related this story to someone who sells things for a living. He smiled knowingly. “All she needs is one in eight clients to buy her line and she will make a very good living. That is the way we all work it.”

This article first appeared in The Natal Witness, March, 1998

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.

Invictus

Let me be clear – I don’t understand Rugby. I have no idea what they are doing when they run in lines across the field, throwing the ball to each other backwards and charging each other down and making spit fly. Even less, when they thud into each other in a kind of low-slung group hug and make a collective kind of “Ugh” sound. I have studiously avoided the game all my life, so it was, you understand, with considerable reluctance that I agreed to go to see Invictus, with a rugby-mad friend of mine from the UK.

The start of the film did not bode well. Mandela’s release from Victor Vester prison, driving past a groups of white boys playing Rugby – the coach (or the teacher, or whatever he was) with a thick Afrikaans accent, says words to the effect of “Remember this moment, because nothing is going to be the same after this”. He says this, like he is reading, with difficulty, from a cue card. I squirmed in anticipation and settled down for a ghastly experience.

But then the whole thing changed!

One could not help being struck by the way in which Morgan Freeman was made to look so extraordinarily like Mandela. (Wait until he speaks, I thought, ruefully!) He had managed to recreate, perfectly, the walk, the stoop, the mannerisms and then - not without blemish, but pretty damn near it - the speech of Mandela. My naturally cynical self started to weaken.

Then Matt Damon as Rugby captain Francois Pienaar. He looks nothing like him, and it took a long while for him to actually do anything besides look handsome and pensive and visionary – (Oh, God, I thought – wait until he speaks!) and then he did – and he actually got the accent! I was now seriously engaged.

Of course there were gimmicks. Like the fact that Mandela insisted on going for an early morning walk every day with a minimum of security; like there were real dangers to his life; like the collapse of his marriage; like the white people who looked extremely grim and the black security people who also looked extremely grim. But you know what? The film really does manage to re-create a moment in our history – an instant – when Rubicons were crossed, and bridges were made and where people changed their minds about other people.

I was too young to remember where I was when Kennedy was assassinated. I do remember where I was when the rugby World Cup was being won. I was in the airport building in Johannesburg, waiting for a flight. I wasn’t watching the match. I was watching the crowd at the airport. I was completely astonished to see black people completely caught up in the moment. (Of course, white people were too, but that was to be expected.) But for that moment we really were a united people, with everyone cheering for the same team.

It was, perhaps, the only time when we have done so. We were not united during the famous election (or any since). We were not united at the inauguration (or any since). Indeed, I cannot think of any instance, besides this unlikely one, where unity has been seriously considered or freely demonstrated. And when I think about it, the reason it happened was this, and only this: because of the kind of leadership which was shown - not by any of the political parties. Not by the sports bodies. Not by the churches or shuls or mosques. It was entirely due to the kind of leadership which Mandela displayed.

Invictus captures that leadership, and it is a timely reminder. We are, as I write, exactly five months away from the FIFA 2010 World Cup. Will this major event have a similar effect on our country? Certainly, the business people (black and white) are slavering in anticipation; the soccer watchers will all have a jolly time; many more white children will be captivated by soccer than ever before; and I am pretty sure we will all be able to pat ourselves on the back and proclaim the event “incident free”. But will it add to our character and substance as a nation? That, as before, will depend very largely on the quality of the leadership.

Go and see this movie, if you can. It is really well worth it. Not least because of the superb acting, but also because of the message it took an American like Clint Eastwood to remind us of.

Journeying for Justice - Stories of an ongoing faith-based struggle

Journeying for Justice – Stories of an ongoing faith-based struggle”, compiled by the PACSA 30th anniversary Collective, Cluster Publications and Jive Media, Pietermaritzburg, 2009, 144pp
It is undoubtedly the case that the Pietermaritzburg Agency for Christian Social Awareness (PACSA) was, and perhaps still is, a highly significant organisation, in the life of Pietermaritzburg and the surrounding areas of that city. The book correctly locates the beginnings of the organisation within the context of a developing Black Consciousness ideology in the 1970s. The major premise on which it was formed was to start a white organisation, which would set about “converting” white people – or rather to win them over to a more democratic frame of political consciousness.

Now, whether it actually ever really did that, is difficult to tell. The book does not deal with the question directly, but rather suggests that although that may have been the impetus for its beginnings as an organisation, it soon found itself pulled into the whirlpool of broader political involvement in the late 1970’s and 1980’s.

At the same time, the book (and I would understand here that the book comes from the organisation itself) also seems to give the impression that the issue of white “conversion” was so vast and so impossible a task, that perhaps it would be true to say that not even PACSA itself believed that achieving this was ever a real possibility – certainly not to the extent which would have been needed to change the outcome of a whites only election.

What happened, and what is engagingly documented in the book, is a range of information dissemination - “Factsheets” - which provided white people (and indeed anyone else) with the kind of information they would not get easily elsewhere (because of draconian government restrictions at the time, on the media).

Another way in which PACSA sought to create solidarity around the cause of liberation was through “Agape” (fellowship) meals. These were Ecumenical quasi-Eucharistic events in which like-minded people could come together to affirm each other and to share bread and drink in a meal of fellowship. These, apparently died away after a while – but their significance in creating a committed community of like-minded and mutually supported individuals seems hard to overestimate.

Having lived in Pietermaritzburg during the 1980’s and early 1990’s, I knew many of the personalities featured in this book. I never involved myself very directly in the work of PACSA, because I was, in fact, working underground for the African National Congress. And this was the problem: For me to have been an active member of PACSA would have unnecessarily exposed the work I was doing elsewhere to the security police, so I could not. Pietermaritzburg was, however, an extremely small place and whites involved in the struggle at any level were few and far between – so we all knew each other fairly well – and I am sure the security police knew all of us too!

This is one of the features of the organisation which the book does not deal with adequately, in my opinion. I suppose it is understandable in what amounts to a commemorative publication. But the fact is, PACSA also had its problems. It was a small organisation. Its connection to the liberation movements was somewhat idiosyncratic at times. It was, or at least appeared to be, a church organisation, but it seemed to operate almost like a political organisation – taking orders from no-one. This made it fairly unpredictable on the one hand and on the other, sometimes much too close to some of the highly problematic positions taken by the Heads of Churches , at the time.

Let me say immediately that Peter Kerchhoff, founder and major driver of PACSA between 1978-99, was a man I admire greatly. I have said so elsewhere and I have no hesitation in saying so again now. But he did not function politically. He functioned, 99% of the time, from his heart. And that could be extremely difficult, every now and again, from a political perspective.

This aspect, the book does not deal with. It is, of course, part of the bigger issue of the relationship between the Church as a whole and the struggle for liberation. That there was a relationship, is obvious. That the Liberation movements needed the Church, is also obvious. What is not so obvious is how timid the Liberation movements were in the presence of the churches, on the one hand, and how difficult it was, from within the Liberation movements to work with them, because of their almost total lack of strategy and accountability. PACSA seems to me to have fallen, frequently, between these two stools of church accountability and political responsibility.

Bar that point – and I would say it is a fairly significant point – the book is well worth having, if one is either interested in the period, of if you lived through it. It certainly brings us now, to a point of anamnēsis - “remembering”. A remembering beyond nostalgia. A remembering which takes the lessons of the past to be used in the present, in order to change the future. PACSA certainly did that when I was living in Pietermaritzburg. I understand that it continued to do so on a range of issues, including Land and Gender, after I had left. I have no doubt it will continue into the future.

The question for me is always going to be – to what extent is an organisation an extension of the Church, sometimes at its most difficult and its most reactionary and to what extent is PACSA prophetic to both Church and society. Because I am fairly certain the latter is what the organisation wants to be.

Which makes me wonder why such an important issue was, seemingly, avoided in this book.

The nostalgic condition

I read an extract from Jacob Dlamini's "Native nostalgia" (Jacana 2009) today, which got me thinking. He speaks of a range of anxieties at the heart of his nostalgia:

"I am concerned" he writes in the introduction, "that , in its technocratic drive to erase the legacies of apartheid and bring about economic development, the ANC has created an anti-politics machine in which black people - who allegedly suffered the same way, struggled the same way and lived the same way under apartheid - feature as nothing more than the objects of state policies, or, worse, passive recipients of state-led service delivery".

When I was lecturering theology at the Federal Theological Seminary in the 1980s, I came across several students who were Black Consciousness Movement proponents. I have to say, I am extremely glad I came across them, because they did a whole lot to shape my thinking and my politics. And I really wish, very sincerely, that many more white people had the opportunity to live cheek by jowel with people such as them. Because they never gave me an inch!

They were deep thinkers, most of them. (Some of them were seriously damaged racists, but they were very few and far between). But in the majority, they had come to Black Consciousness through a profound philosophical and intellectual journey. Almost always some of the really critical turning-point moments in their political lives had been caused by white aggression, or white brutality, or white racists. In general, I found them to be somewhat more conservative than their ANC counterparts, but also more radical in relation to their politics. Or perhaps, the latter was just the way I experienced things, because I was the nearest white around. But rightly, or wrongly, I seemed to detect that there was always some element of fairly unbending conservatism as a basic thrust - in relation to culture, tradition and philosophy.

Dlamini distinguishes between what he calls "reflective nostalgia" which is "essentially a revelation that "longing and critical thinking are not opposed to each other, because affective memories do not absolve one from compassion, judgement or critical reflection" - and "native nostalgia".

Then what would "native nostalgia" be? It is, according to Dlamini, a "modest contribition to continuing attempts to rescue South African history and the telling of it from what ... has [been] correctly identified as the distorting master narrative of black dispossession that dominates the historiography of the struggle".

This "master narrative" wants us to believe that all black people experienced apartheid in the same way. That they all suffered in the same way and that they all, in some way, fought against apartheid - and in the same way. But of course, this is patently untrue. It is "Native nostalgia" and it is extraordinarily dangerous, because what it does is to create a world view shorn of difference, or of nuance or of challenge, other than that which it has defined and circumscribed.

It is this nostalgia which can produce the statements "we blacks believe" or "we blacks understand" or "we blacks prefer". The truth is far from this, because of the sheer diversity,complexity and nuance which is available in any culture or group.

But the tragedy is, that once you have defined the world as such, and once you have convinced enough people the the world really is like that, it becomes something quite close to heresy to suggest anything different.

I used to listen, seriously and intently to my black conciousness students telling me that "Black is beautiful". And of course, I could see the obvious importance of that view. When all you have ever heard, throughout your life, is that white is beautiful and Black is second-class and undesirable, the assertion that "Black is beautiful" is indeed a liberating one. It took a certain sophistication and intellectual agility to move beyond that assertion - and many of my students appeared not to be able to make that leap - not during the years that I was with them, anyway.

But they were always stymied and extraordinarily irritated by me when I asked them the question "is Lucas Mangope beautiful?" (Mangope was a "Homeland" leader. A black puppet dictator, created by, financed by and protected by the apartheid state. He was a vicious "Uncle Tom"). Was this black beautiful?, I would ask.

Naturally, it was not easy for them to answer yes. But they also did not want to answer no. And the reason behind that was that then their whole ediface started to become unstable. Steve Biko had a brilliant answer. He called the Mangopes of the world "non-white", cleverly co-opting the terminology of the apartheid state for his own purposes. But Biko was neither nostalgic, nor sentimental. He also happened to be one of the greatest brains South Africa has ever produced. He saw the problem of making all people one thing. Even all in one particular group, one thing. It is, simply, not possible.

So, Jacob Dlamini's anxiety, to my mind, is spot on. Nostalgia of the type he describes, has the effect of seriously objectifying people, and treating them as a same-thinking, same-feeling blob.

The truth is, they are not. It is a critical mistake to see them as such. However to take the other path, one would be forced to give up some of the monochrome view of the universe which has been developed so lovingly and so relentlessly, over the years.

Imbibing Cape Culture

I spent the day today, or most of it anyway, at the end of year staff party. These things are necessary – when else during the year can you get drunk in an office situation and make sexual advances on people you usually pass files to?

This one was held at a government facility on the beach at Melkbosstrand. It is a strange, unimaginative building, built right on the primary sand dune. It was never legal. Some people in the Department got into a bit of trouble in the 1990s and then the matter was forgotten, apparently. So the building remains – a real blight on the fairly rough landscape.

The theme was “West Coast” so there was lots of sand, and sea and West Coast delicacies – like Snoek (fish) on the braai (Barbecue); tripe curry; potjie kos (stew cooked in a three legged cast iron pot. There was also West Coast culture, which I saw, for the first time in full cry today.

My experience of ‘Coloured” (or mixed race) people of the Western Cape has been that they are fairly formal. “Mr” this and “Mrs” that. They are fairly conservative and fairly underexposed. They stick pretty much to themselves. (Naturally, I am talking in huge generalisations here – but this is just my observation. And of course, all generalisations are false...)

So, to see them “letting their hair down” (as my mother would have said) was an interesting experience. They jived. They danced. They did things which I think are called “party dances” where everyone does what looks like an aerobic exercise to music. Women in scarves cooked Snoek over open fires and stirred massive three legged pots. Inside, the Karaoke was reaching fever pitch as slightly flat vocal chords murdered yet another song. (Or maybe not! Maybe that is what they were supposed to sound like!)

The man managing the dance music seemed to cater for the “African” and the “Coloured” groups, in particular. The African set had lots of Kwaito and what I have come to recognise as Hip-Hop; the Coloured set had beat-y sentimental love-song type numbers. And there was an unfamiliar (to me anyway) unity between the two groups on the dance floor. Off the dance floor, the two groups sat apart from each other, in groups of their own. The whites also formed their own group. This is what life in the work environment is like. This is what Cape Town is like.

It cannot be that language is the issue. Everyone in the department understands English. And whereas not everyone may know how to speak Afrikaans or Xhosa – in the work environment, English is the way people communicate. So language cannot be the reason why people choose to sit together.

The other thing I noticed rather a lot of, was alcohol. Alcohol which appeared to have been brought from home in cooler bags – not bought by the state. It was flowing freely. Even after lunch, it was very much in evidence and I battled to understand how people would be driving in that condition. But obviously, they were going to be.

It was, however, the performer who strummed a guitar and his strange accompaniment on the accordion that gave me a taste of Cape musical culture. It was vibrant, simple and enjoyable. And all of this next to a sea that was the most extraordinary azure colour – “Kabbeljou (Cob) water” said someone. "Haai (shark) water", said another. It was astonishingly beautiful – with Robben Island in front of us and Table Mountain to the left. It was a celebratory day I had, for sure. Just a pity it was, as is usual here, a culturally divided one.

Christmas Boxes

I never usually see our Postman. Letters just arrive in the postbox. (Well, not actual letters, but you know what I mean. Crate-loads of junk mail; various bills from doctors and eye specialists; and the occasional request from a charity organisation; telephone bills and electricity accounts - that kind of stuff.) So I was quite surprised when the Postman - or someone I assumed was the Postman, pressed the intercom and stood there fumbling with a particular piece of junk mail he seemed to want to deliver personally, into my hands.

At exactly the same time, the children's school transport arrived. I had to open the gate for them to enter. The postman entered with them - I was doomed.

Christmas Box collecting starts early in Cairp Tahn. What is a Christmas Box, you ask?(lucky you to be asking such a thing!) It is anyone who has ever done anything with you, or for you, or near you - coming to your door and basically demanding a Christmas present. You may never have seen the person before in your life. Their connection with you may be utterly and extremely vague - but somehow, they feel entitled from early in December(I mean I was asked for the first one yesterday - the 8th!)to get "Christmas Boxes".

Now, what does one do? Do you say no. Do you say, look, you work for the Council or for the garden service, or the post office and you get paid for that. Why should I be giving you a Christmas Box? Or do you pretend you have left the City for the month of December? Do you hide? Do you throw water at them? Or do you meekly hand over the dosh and get it over with.

In my case, I hand over the dosh. It is just a whole lot simpler that way. I admit to being a bit irritable about it. I confess to finding it doubly irritating that my black middle-class colleague at work has never even heard of the practise - "because 'they' know 'we' (black people) won't do that" (sic!, she explained.

But I do it all the same. It is part of our programming as white people in South Africa. We did it all through Apartheid. There is no reason to stop it now. And it is the season to be merry (albeit somewhat early!. And I certainly earn more than "they" do (even though I probably have more debt than "they" do as well!)Have done the Postman. Have done the garden service. Waiting for the waste collection people, the meter-readers, the passers-by of one sort or another. They will come. Believe me, they will come.

Save us, dear lord, from more resolutions

The Anglican Church in South Africa – well, more specifically, the diocese of Cape Town, has taken a resolution. It could not be described as “groundbreaking” or “earth shattering”. It is really little more than a timid little whimper. According to the Cape Argus (24/08/2009) the resolution “ask(s) the Archbishop to request the synod of Bishops to provide pastoral guidelines for those of our members who are in covenanted relationships (sic – how they got into these, needs some explanation, seeing that the Church itself won’t allow this), taking due regard of the mind of the Anglican Communion”(Sic!)

Clarifying the resolution, the Dean, Rowan Smith – himself Gay, said that “the mixed signal which the church was sending out needed to be clarified”. (I’ll say!). “We allow gays and lesbians in same sex relationships to become reverends and bishops but refuse to acknowledge their relationships as valid. This causes confusion and we as the clergy have no idea how to advise people”.

This seems to have been followed by other extraneous issues, like that while South Africa has a constitution which accepts civil unions between same sex partners, other countries i9n the region do not. (The resolution, you will notice, immediately, is not that these countries SHOULD have things like the recognition of same-sex partnerships, but merely noting that they don’t – causing a bit of awkwardness and unpleasantness.

Well, that really blew my hair back. Don’t know about you!

Slave Mentality

I came across an article recently, by political commentator Andrew P Jones, which made a very interesting point, in the after-glow of the Obama victory. His point is that while indeed the Obama ascendancy to the Presidency has been great and historic, the unquestioning support which African-Americans have given him is something deeply rooted in a master-slave mentality.

African Americans, he argues, have proved themselves in the past, to be virtually incapable of rallying around the “ideas” of liberty (incorporating such issues as restitution and reparations for slavery and psychological independence from the majority) but when a charismatic leader such as Obama comes along, they will follow him, blindly, to the end.

Jones relates conversations he had with his grandfather, who was born in 1861, four years before slavery was abolished. His grandfather had many recollections of the history (which largely preceded him), given to him by others. Most startling was that, contrary to popular belief, many slaves did not hate their white masters. Indeed, slavery was unbelievably hard, but rather than see their masters as tyrants, they saw them as benefactors who looked after them, so long as they acted like slaves. Slaves, he contended, had much more affinity with their masters than they did with other slaves, whom they treated with contempt – since the only way you could survive as a slave was by doing others down.

Most slaves didn’t have any concept of freedom, because being slaves was all they knew. Rather than being free, the fantasies they harboured was about living in the big house, and being the master. Jones’ grandfather had said to him that slaves didn’t want to be free. They wanted to be the master.

I have thought about this startling comment quite a lot recently as we enter a period of elections in this country – particularly in the context of the rather toxic politics of the Western Cape. And I have said before, in this column, that their Obama and our Mandela are not the same thing, by a very long shot. Obama had whites voting for him a-plenty. Mandela most certainly did not – however much they might now love him – I doubt whether they will, even now vote for his party the ANC, in any significant numbers.

But Jones’ argument puts a whole new perspective on it all. What he is saying is that African-Americans, in general, have voted for a master. Behind this master are all the institutions (political and otherwise) which are not in the control of blacks, but rather remain in the control of whites. This is very different from South Africa, where the black majority, once it gained political power immediately set about the task of remaking those institutions. To quote Jones:

“…white people, I submit, via their institutional control of the political system in the United States, elected their first black president, just like black people did … (in South Africa)... We African-Americans, on the other hand, because we do not have that kind of institutional control, nor the mentality that would create it, chose ourselves a master whom for now we shall treat like a king.”

In the Western Cape, slavery has left its mark in the psyche of the majority of the people, in a way in which it simply has not done in the rest of the country. Jacob Zuma’s ancestors were never slaves. They were oppressed, but they were never slaves. And yes, both have suffered immense oppression, but there is a psychological difference between them which plays itself out in the politics of the present (among other things). Because I would bet my bottom Dollar that what the majority of people in the Western Cape really want, and will demonstrate at the polls, is not freedom. Not real freedom - political, institutional, social and psychological - which they build for themselves, from scratch if necessary. What they want, is a master to look after them well.

25 January 2009

The Article referred to in this column is Andrew P Jones: “A people chained by a slave psyche” in The Argus 20 January 2009.
Andrew P Jones is a political commentator and author of the book Barak Obama: America’s Saviour or Judas Goat, Diary of a mad black voter