The Dizzying Circles

Recently, Trevor Manuel, the Minister of Finance, writing in Cape Times (Monday, July, 7, 2008), invited our nation (South Africa) to enter into dialogue with him about an age old issue that has baffled almost all economic studies: How do you make a country’s economy grow? Or rather, in our case, as the minister pointed out; how do you make an economy grow in broadband extent that puts serious dent on unemployment and poverty? There have been innumerable studies about how to make a country’s economy grow since the moral philosopher (no he was not an economist, the field had not even been devised by then) Adam Smith, wrote The Wealth of Nations.

Studies mostly look at fiscal policies; others to the relationship between free trade and economic growth. By now the only thing clear is that neither free trade nor protectionism is a cure-all. Some thinkers are even starting to think the field of Economics is more masquillage than real scientific study. Our Minister of Finance seems to still have confidence in what he calls mixed economic policies. In closer scrutiny mixed policies is more or less an arbitrary term that means different things to different people. That, of course, is the ANC trump card, pragmatism and manufacturing illusions of debate while luring your opponent by subjunctive means to your point of view. Still, let’s give the minister a benefit of doubt in any case.

I can forsee Zwelizima Vavi of COSATU (after his preoccupation with march action against food price rises, and dying for Msholozi) contribution. He’d say; foreign investment is crucial for the growth of any economy; but no economy has ever been developed by foreign investment. Foreign investors are like bees; attracted only by blooming flowers that need cross-pollination, but will be on the first flight at first signs of nectar drying up. Private investors, the unionist will declare. Especially foreign ones, are impatient and unwilling to sacrifice immediate returns for future gains. They will not take risks on new industries or poor countries, at least not in the absence of some other advantage (like tariff protection or government subsidy). So the government must come up with aggressive government policies designed to protect and nurture domestic economy.

Heaven forbids, a professor of Economics somewhere will say. There is not even a guarantee that when governments create protective umbrellas—via tariffs, subsidies, restrictions on imports, etc—for domestic companies, these will have a chance over time to become globally competitive, thus raising the level of prosperity of the country as a whole. He will remind us that these umbrellas have costs because they raise prices for domestic consumers, and often cut off access to better and cheaper foreign goods. Can future economic growth of the country justify the present suffering of consumers? The prof will ask, and conclude. The ideal here is to find a balance, and then like our minister, be a little vague on the specifics.

No, no! Dr. Balde Nzimande of SACP will say. It is a fact that history tells us is free trade and free markets are more of a bane to developing countries than a boon. And those rich countries that insist poorer ones should follow neoliberal prescriptions are hypocrites, insisting on solutions they themselves did not follow at this stage of their development. They’re still doing it now; look at how they still protect their vulnerable industries, like farming, from global competition. They believe in free trade only where they have competitive advantage. No country can ever develop meaningfully without state owner¬ship of enterprises. What’s needed is for the government to give our own manufacturers an edge by protection. This will allow our country to ascend to the economic ladder so that we can eventually compete with wealthier nations. Learn from China people.

Nonsense, Helene Zillie of the DA would say. The wealth of any nation depends largely on Intangible Capital; that is skills of the populations and the quality of the country’s institutions supporting economic activity. Any country that does not adequately deal with these two issues might as well forget about any economic development. Most rich countries, for instance, in proportion to their overall wealth, have very little natural wealth; yet they use it efficiently for high production, thanks largely to skills and transparency. They find it easier to attract foreign capital because of trustworthy institutions of economic activity, like civil society, an efficient judicial system, clear property rights, and effective government. Leave business alone, promote free trade, and all shall be added. By the way, I’ve been reading, rather my researchers, the laureate for Economics (1976), Milton Friedman. I think he had pretty good ideas. Why not we just abolition the Reserve Bank and replace its control over interest rates and the money supply with a mechanical rule for monetary growth. And, eh, if you want all that, vote for the DA. We shall show you how to manage the economy with clear decisive hand that benefits all.

Enraged and perspiring, the Reserve Bank will, recalling something he read in the Newsweek by Melville J. Ulmer, come shouting. What we’re trying to do in our country, he’d say, the exponent of laissez-faire economics cannot appreciate, because they ‘oppose government activity of practically all kinds. If it were up to them ‘[they] would abolish virtually all regulations on industry, working conditions, and the professions.’ Despite the blunders of Thatcherism ‘[They] would turn over to private industry the nation’s schools, highways, federal parks, the post office and all other publicly operated services like water supply, local buses and subways.... [They] would terminate all government efforts to stabilize the economy through fiscal and monetary policies, public works or other means.’ They would abolish worker’s unions because they say they help cartelize industry to the detriment of consumer. They would even rubbish the idea of “corporate responsibility”.

A researcher in the Finance ministry department, seating on a cold room, will recall being impressed with Friedman’s book, Capitalism and Freedom, even if it was worse on other issues. He’ll recall how the apostle of “monetarism” (the idea that changes in the money supply are the prime causes of inflation and the business cycle) thought even if “fiscal policy could have some useful effects, there’s no reason to believe government managers could use the policy at the right times and in the proper amounts to achieve the desired effect.” By an argument that fiscal manipulations tend to introduce “a largely random disturbance that is simply added to other disturbances.” He’ll impress his ideas on the minister who’ll immediately call a meeting with the Governor. The Governor, who’s a little obsessed with the Keynesian notion of fiscal policy as government’s best tool to manage the economy, will reluctantly agree. The question is, the Governor would ask, how do we put this in a revolutionary language that’s acceptable to Blade and Vavi. Live that to me, the Minister will say, and duty the researcher to pen an article for him and they send it to the media. The media will want to know how JZ (Jacob Zuma) sees the issue and will be told; “We’ve all confidence in cde Trevor.”

Madiba!!! (Nelson Mandela is 90)

I recently found myself in a rather animated conversation as we watched on television Nelson Mandela’s 90th Birthday Bash held in London, England. The bone of contention involved Mandela’s legacy in Africa. Actually I had started the argument by recalling how once when I was still a varsity student in Jo’burg I met my Madiaba on my way to a vending machine in mid (must have been mid because I remember the night as being quite cold) of 1992.
While passing the long deserted passage through the main entrance of Great Hall to Senate House, where the vending machines were, I was suddenly shoved aside by rude gigantic, mostly white men, in black suites. Before I was able to realise what was happening Madiba came to view. He had apparently noticed how the men had rudely shoved me out of the way. He broke with the procession, extended his hand in greeting to me. I just froze, afraid the security men might not allow it.
“Hallow young man. What is your name?” He said in that hoarse, almost shrill voice of his. I was dumbfounded. He asked me also what I was studying, and when I told him he said in conclusion. “Good! The country needs people to build this country.” The encounter must have lasted less than 20 seconds but I never forgot it. Unfortunately for my ego, none of my friends believed me when I told them I had just met Mandela. I don’t know, but for some reason I felt distant from them and no longer in need to prove myself after.
As I was saying, the argument with my friends was about how black people, especially in Africa, respect the likes of Kwame Nkrumah, Aimé Césaire, Julius Nyerere, Thabo Mbeki, even Robert Mugabe more. The trend was mentioning presidents who happened to be intellectuals. But where did their intellectualism lead us? I pointed to the mess that drove Ghana into Nkrumah’s assignation and military coup after another. I recalled what happened in Tanzania when Ujama failed. Say nothing of present Zimbabwe. In conclusion I said I prefer presidents who are leaders than visionaries. Visionaries tend to be blind to anything outside their vision, and usually ruthless in pursuing their vision.
“What has Mandela done since he came out of jail.” One of my friends asked. “We all know he was just a ceremonious president, with Zizi (T. Mbeki) playing his prime minister and running the show.” He nearly got me there. I recalled how in 1990 we travelled from Jo’burg to Cape Town to listen to Madiba’s first speech since coming out of jail. All our difficult lives in the township we had idealised the moment of Mandela’s coming out of jail as the day of our liberty. We thought he would come sounding trumpet blast with explosive wisdom from all the years he (they) spent in contemplation of our future in jail. To say his speech leaved much to be desired that day is to be respectful. I was awfully disappointed.
But what is Mandela’s legacy?
For me it is seeing a helpless person being shoved around and taking time to reassure them that they matter. It is not intellectualising or moralizing about this or that, but having a heart in a right place, and inviting others to share in the aura of goodness by spontaneous generosity. It is not the aesthetic pleasure of philosophical musing, but life given meaning by ability to forgive, to extend your hand even to your enemies and shame them by goodness if need be. When your heart is in the wrong place, all the education you acquire affords nothing, except you end up being a contradiction even to your own mind.
I’m lucky enough to come from a (African) culture that values what’s in your heart more than what’s in your head. My head has been trained in Western education—I’ll admit to regarding it as a better way of living an authenticity life until, with maturity, I became appalled by some of its falsified posturing and too individualist way of life masquerading as enlightenment. I’ve since strived to liberate my mind both from Western excesses and African atavistic oppressions.
My friend says my choosing Madiba as my best African leader of all time is a symptom of having fallen for ‘white trickery’, what he termed ‘Mandela Cult’. They’ve claimed him away from us. I do not mind that if it is our goodness they’ve claimed. I get the feeling that my friend confuses eloquence with truth. I’ve read enough to discover how sometimes learned men use charm of elegantly arranged words to collapse truth to the fascination superficial charisma; that used to be called sowing silk over sackcloth. I’ll rather be a priest in the Madiba oracle than a malleable automaton in quibbling visions that loose their saltiness with passing years.
Ngxatsho ke tata uMadiba, siyabulela, for all you’ve given up for the freedom of all of us. Now at last, I too, am able to extend my hand to you.
Fourscore and ten, you are very strong tata. But then again the lime quarries of Robben Island knew that already when they could not prevail over you. Ahh! Dalibhunga!!! Madiba omhle!

Writing As the Culture of Celebrity

I first attended the Cape Town Book Fair at the Convention Centre last year (2007). It gave me a sinking feeling that writers were fast becoming what Susan Sontag called “an aspect of the culture of celebrity”. Artists entering the celebrity cult? Of course artists too are people (people who happen to remember and record in a wonderfully transmuted way what make for our life experiences). They make art by depicting the nuances of our lived experiences, something that is rare and cannot be contrived. But why they should be compelled to behave like jobbing preachers is something worrying.

This year I found most people commenting what a good thing the direction of South African writing has taken, with writers ‘telling personal stories more’ as compared to political novels. At first I concurred, but when I read what this entailed in our recent literature I got concerned a little again. When I discovered subjectivism was being made the pinnacle of personal narrative I recalled something Hans Jonas Paton said in criticising existentialist philosophy. “We should be particularly on our guard when the guide makes no pretence at objective thinking, which stands or falls by the argument independently of the personality of the thinker, but rests his case on the inwardness of his own personal experience. . .”

The complaint here is that of making an individual the measure of all things.

Celebrity is a contrived thing, which is why I’m surprised by this trend of artists entering the glamour culture. It can only mean one or two things; that our art is getting contrived—meaning it’s no longer art—or commodified. The commodification of art is a sad but necessary thing in an imperfect world (artists have to make a living too). But there’s difference between commodifying and commercialising art.

A commercial artist is like a performing seal that must do tricks to satisfy the feeding hand. Have artists been turned (turning themselves) into performers? Some do it because they are searching, not only for commercial gain, but mana—power and prestige. I do not suppose there ever was time when artists were indifferent to ambition and fame, but, unlike our times, they always regarded art first and foremost as a calling, or at least pretended to be disdainful of the hype.

I’m not trying to be pious about distant glories, but the truth of the matter is that hype is usually accompanied by poor writing standards. When I mentioned this to a colleague he accused me of being finicky. He was glad writers were getting what he termed ‘the seriousness they deserve.’

Writing as a celebrity cult is different from the ideal of writers being taken seriously. As much as it is always wonderful to meet good writers it is a rare thing to meet them among the celebrity lot, who are mostly celebrated for one thing or the other, but not necessary good writing. Celebrity authors are treated in these Book Fairs like pop stars, and sadly, they turn to behave like some. Book Fairs are now fast becoming parties where writers are solely judged by how much personality fun they dish to visitors. I’m flabbergasted by the flamboyant superficiality of it all.

Writers are not public utility. Their work might be but not their persons.

In her essay on translation, The World as India, Susan Sontag noted. “A writer is first of all a reader. It is from reading that I derive the standards by which I measure my own work and according to which I fall lamentably short. It is from reading, even before writing, that I became part of a community—the community of literature—which includes more dead than living writers.”

As writer-reader I’m daily finding that good books are becoming rarer by the day the more the quantity of publication increases. It is still possible to find nuggets of gold among the rabble, but gone are the days when writers percolated what they wanted to say, and the style by which they say it. Books now compete with other stuff of our instant culture. As the result one rarely finds a book that is elegantly written, charming, candid, mordant, and so on. In instead you find yourself glad at the end for having managed to finish a book; rejoicing with Dr. Johnson that it was not longer than it actually was.

It is said of Edmund Wilson that, as his reputation grew, he printed up a postcard that he sent to those who requested his services. On it he checked the appropriate box: Edmund Wilson does not write articles or books on order; he does not write forewords or introductions, does not give interviews or appear on television, and does not participate in symposia. Perhaps it is time contemporary writers rediscover the wisdom in this so as to get back to serious stuff of writing books, good books.

As for subjectivism in literature, it has contributed a lot in the protection and enhancement of our common humanity. The psychological brooding yielded many fresh and penetrating insights, and gave us more understanding of individual pathos; but it mastered the Hegelian concept of synthesis between the self and the external world to an extent of cloying hallucinatory tinge.

The problem with individual centred starting-point in literature and philosophy is that it tends to show less appreciation for other things, like history. It tends to run riot with morbid forms of subjectivism and individualism; looking only at the personal side of life with unduly anthropomorphic understanding of reality. When a man is isolated as a centre of interests he tends to see himself, and those who share his point of view, as the highest and authentic forms of existence. That’s dangerous narcissism.

Unhealthy intensity of subjectivism promotes anti-socialism, elitism, and escape from necessary collision with history. Every country, every nation, needs means to collide with its past. Escapism promoted by subjectivism avoids this to the detriment of discursive art. Present day German art is good example of a nation trying to grapple with it’s demons through what they call Bildung; that is an engagement of history through art, philosophy and learning in general. Perhaps the South African ideal for literature too should be of that lot, especially since we too have many skeletons on our closet.

The Rot is settling in

It was always going to be a long day. My colleague had phoned to inform me there might be a chance of getting a glimpse of the ANC Secretary General, Gwede Mantashe; "Perhaps we might be lucky to get an interview." I knew chances were slim for that but wanted to see if there was a way we could at least by pass the gatekeepers and schedule one with the SG.

I spent the night before wondering about a best angle to catch the attention of the SG without raising his irk—he is notorious for not suffering fools gladly, which is perhaps why I think he might be ANC's hope in the present mayhem of YL leaders speaking with their foot on the mount. I even contemplated using the little personal information of where he went to school, as told by my aunt who says she was with him in bygone days at Cala in the Eastern Cape. Talk about desperate measures.



It is clear that things are going to the dogs within the ANC as far as discipline is concerned. The ANCYL leadership especially is bent on dragging the organization towards a militant tone. "We're following the legacy of the organization." As its president Julius Malema clumsily put it. The Secretary General of COSATU, Zwelinzima Vavi, never one to shy away from controversy, joined the chorus of what most of us initially dismissed as the howling of the firebrand youth.



So I spent the night before formulating my questions, anticipating his answers so as to compel him into taking a clear stance on the issue. I imagined the SG saying, in his brash finger pointing manner; "You see, the political activism of our people taught the youth to give faith in theatricals, sometimes chaotic confrontations, as source of getting attention denied by apartheid authority. We grew with the ideology of unconstrained voluntarism, triumphalism of political will. Unfortunately because our leaders were mostly in jail or in exile we tended to lack in discipline and ethical standards, as you and would clearly remember from Consumer Boycotts in Queenstown that sometimes had tragic consequences. We grew with contemptuous disregard for authority and exaggerated regard in forceful democratic processes. With adventurist willingness to engage in violence that provokes crises of making the country ungovernable. The consequent is the legacy of militant behaviour noticeable in our youth. What is important now is to instil the realisation in our youth especially that lorhulument ngowabo [this government is theirs]. If they want to engage it with something there are proper legitimate chanells."

My aim was in making him realise that the ANC administration he's part of has come to power in that militant youth ticket, how do they suppose now they can clamp what has put them into power. Needless to say we never got near the SG. As I walked back between Company Gardens and Parliament that wet and cold Cape Town late afternoon I was visited still by more thought. An old Oak tree lay uprooted on Parliament flower garden, having just missed the marble statue of Princess Victoria in its fall from the rot. I wondered if this was some kind of prophecy. I recalled with repugnance that an exact replica stands before Main Library entrance at Port Elizabeth. Victoria stands, bloated with imperialism, a rod in one hand container of burning incense on the other. It was hard to miss the intended implications from Psalm 2: Thou shall break them with a rod of iron, thou shall dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. I recalled how always despised that implication when entering the library to research the Frontier history at the Africana section. The boulder dashed into pieces, in my mind, by Victoria was the Xhosa nation.



The wind was coming in front. It felt as though I was carrying zinc sheets on my head, as the Xhosa proverb goes. I think, when the doors of opportunity opened (freedom) for black South Africans, it found the very values necessary for success—thrift, self-control and personal responsibility— dispensed by culture of greed, euphemistically called ambition. This introduced brèche , a rupture with the continuity of history, especially in organizations like the ANC (African National Congress). The consequence of which are empty howling vessels like Malema, the rot gnawing at the roots of ANC.



What is this thing Malema calls the legacy of ANCYL? A passage in Mike Gevisser's book The Dream Deffered: Thabo Mbeki, came to mind. 'And so after a long dormancy in the 1920s and 1930s, African nationalist politics gathered new energy: the ANC Youth League was formed in 1943, attracting angry young men such as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo. The League's prime mover was Anton Lembede, a brilliant young lawyer with stern morals and evangelical tendencies, who saw redemption for his people in return to African values.' [pp 37]



Stern morals? How does Malema measure on that? Is this the legacy he's talking about? True, the ANCYL has always had an oedipal paradigm (reaction of radical resentment against characterized backwardness of their leadership) towards the progress of their political movement. That's how the likes of Nelson Mandela and O.R. Thambo shot into prominence. The advantage of Mandela's coevals is that they took time to educate themselves, politically and otherwise. Barabula. How does Mamela measure on that, since he's proud of being the present carrier of their baton? Not only that, past ANCYL leadership tended to hold in high regard good ethical standards.

Today's youth, the likes of Malema, capitalize on ignorance, irrationality, careerism, consumerism, drunkenness, driving flashy cars, and so forth. They are typical stereotype of backward evolution of what J.M. Coetzee in his novel, Age of Iron expressed as; 'Now, in South Africa, I see eyes clouding over again, scales thickening on them, as the land-explorers, the colonists, prepare to return to the deep.' The sad part is that rest of the organisation too is hollowing out. The party's hierarchy has lost coherence and control of its own apparatus. What undermines is the present leadership is being blackmailed by the militant wing it came to power on its ticket, coupled with lack of ideas in handling the root causes of the country's tremendous challenges.

Post 1994 ANC politics made an error of focusing on tactics at the expense of vision; of not grooming the next generation leadership as O.R. Tambo did with the likes of T. Mbeki. To compound ANC problems is the present influence of its gate-crusher later-day millionaires who are determined to make themselves electable through their pockets. They themselves do see much beyond the next contested seat, and have little idea how to transform politics by means of ideas. Hence lack of political substance will probably complete the rot of the party. Where their ideas are not anachronistic they are poorly thought out, uninformed and mostly radically inconsistent. It looks like the time for a 'revolution' founded on a philosophy of history was over. I wonder what Mantashe mean to do about that? Meantime, as we are prevented from asking relevant questions, the rot is settling and taking root fast.