Something Stinking In the State of Zimbabwe

If the insult be great enough, the people will rise. So said Montesquieu. Has not the insult by their present government been enough to Zimbabwean people? If so why are they not rising? Perhaps uprisings were easier in the age of revolutions than our own era where regimes, like Mugabe’s in Zimbabwe, demonstrate ingenious ways of oppressing its people. It has become easy for regimes to quickly nip civil discontent in the bud.
Incarceration and beating of opposition party leaders and such sado-masochist tactics are passé. The modus operandi are now invidious fascist tendencies . . .

The Arch Bishop of Bulawayo has recently in South African National radio broadcast recently, called for intervention from the international world against Mugabe’s regime. . . Lately he has moderated the call by advocating for the inclusion of the AU (African Union) and countries of southern Africa.

If we say organisation like the AU, or the UN (United Nations), should send peace keeping forces to Zimbabwe; what happens when the Mugabe regime does not allow them to enter the country? Do they enter by force, declaring war on Zimbabwe; or do they cower, with their tails between the legs, instructing the rest of the world to isolate the state of Zimbabwe? What gains will come out of that isolation besides escalating the already dire state of Zimbabwean people?

The idea of political revolution as the founding principle of Western democracies is obvious from French to Russian revolution—even if it’s support or indignation against, depends on who is using it against who. It was perhaps small wonder that the combined forces of the US and Britain tried to use the so called creative power of force for social transformation in Iran. Even Karl Marx admitted to the necessity of force as “ the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one.” Iran is the best argument that even totalitarian oppression is far better than the unleashed chaos of forced political transformation.
Hence I would have assumed that by now most liberal minded people would regard the unabashed imperialist nonsense about “democracy” being a sovereign right of people that must be exported by force if need be as bullshit। And the fact that sanctions hurt ordinary citizens more than the thugs that rule over them. The only option left then in my mind is some kind of democratic revolution by Zimbabweans, ideally without either violence or coercion, but we’re not in an ideal world.

In my book mass political movements are the only likely route Zimbabweans can liberate themselves through, with the support of international community in the form of NGO. I’m wary of the of the revolutions’ tendencies to liberate with chaos, even degenerate to similar oppression that strengthen totalitarian tendencies in the liberators.
Another complication is that Zimbabweans are not a homogeneous lot. Alexander Solzhenitsyn said that the division between people is founded not on class distinctions, religion or party ideology, but goes through their hearts. The old sense of nationalistic purpose is still fully fledged in rustic Zimbabweans who support Mugabe. Government propaganda has whipped them up with nationalistic feelings that create an atmosphere of deep suspicion of outsiders, especially Western outsiders. What’s more, the rural people are the majority in the Zimbabwe. It might be that the liberation of urban Zimbabweans means the oppression of majority rural Zimbabweans. Not all that panders to ideals of Western democracies is freedom for all.
The Zimbabwean urbanites on the other hand are a fragmented and divided lot। Most of them seek little more from politics than the protection of their own interests. Either as businesses men, union workers, and so on; they use politics for personal reasons, and are not greatly bordered with anything that does not hit their pockets directly. With Zimbabwe now teetering to economic collapse perhaps they’ve now finally awoken to their plight.

Countries like Zimbabwe and Sudan are classic examples of impotence of world organisations against sovereign states. These countries are a muckraking morality tale with many villains and few heroes. Must Zimbabweans endure the weight of oppression if they don’t believe enough on themselves to rise against it, or feel powerlessness in shaping their own future? If so how do we live with ourselves, especially as South Africans, knowing gross human rights violations are being visited on innocent people just across the Limpopo?
Human rights are a primary core value of human civilization, the cornerstones of our daily struggle for human dignity। Protecting human dignity is not only about protecting oneself from violence, but also defending the other. It’s solidarity with individuals who are fighting for their own dignity. Solidarity is not about supporting those who share our precise view of politics. It’s about supporting those who struggle against injustice and violence. Which brings us to the original question.

Does that mean that we are compelled into the position of American neo-cons who push human rights even through military force? Can force be avoided? If yes, let us be done with all these verbal intricacies and talks of poseurs. We must admit defeat into impotence by our own principles.

Blessed are we if the admittance calms the murderous ardour in the name of freedom within us, as seen in Iraqi today. Nietzsche said: Man is something that must be overcome: and for that reason you must love your virtues – for you will perish by them. Let us perish by our virtues rather than be drawn into careless with other people’s blood. There’s something stinking in the state of Zimbabwe, no question about that; but it is in the hands of Zimbabweans to sort it. All we can do is to offer our support. It is time Zimbabweans faced up to the realities of their own country.

Humanist Socialism

As the euphoria of the Rainbow Nation wanes South African politics are evidently showing signs of not being at ease with themselves, especially inside the Tripartite Alliance [African National Congress (ANC), Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) & South African Communist Party (SACP)]. There major divisions are over the economic direction the country has taken since 1994, after its first non-racial elections.

In the eyes of the hoi polli the present South African government has fully embraced the neo-liberal, free-market ideology that has generated economic opportunities for the few while leaving the majority of the population poor and disillusioned. President Thabo Mbeki is seen to be the driver behind this course, something that is starting to make him very unpopular among the hoi polli.

At first the neo-liberal model appeared to be vindicated as South African economic achievements—that includes strong currency, low inflation rate, and a substantial rise in exports—became evident. The South African government fiscal books are in reasonably healthy order. But the very economic success has hurt labour, especially unskilled labour which is the majority in SA. It is not creating jobs fast enough, while at the same time loosing them to modern machinery at an unacceptable rate.

The South African economic growth of around 4.4 per cent, and forecast growth of 6 per cent, is much lower than other major developing countries, which in turn hurts its competitive advantage. The consequent of this are scarce foreign investment in the country. Even domestic companies, though with above average fiscal health and liquid cash prefer to take a wait and see approach, seating on huge amounts of reserve, or consolidating themselves globally by taking over foreign companies. What’s more, foreign investment and GDP per head in SA are also much more below than countries like Brazil and India it wants to compete with. It is this combination that hurts labour most and gives pro left economic theorists ammunition against the Mbeki neo-liberals economic stance.

The glaring signs of discontent within the hoi polli were already blatantly obvious when president Mbeki fired his deputy president Jacob Zuma (JZ) for bringing the government into disrepute since he was found by the court of law to have had ‘a generally corrupt relationship’ with a convicted South African businessman. A lot of people on the ground, and within the ANC, especially the other two members of the Tripartite Alliance, were not happy about the decision.

Signs of voluble frustration were heard from the youth league of the ANC also, who unequivocally supports JZ. They say they see in him a champion of the poor and workers. JZ took advantage of this discontent and portrayed himself as a victim of conspiracy by the neo-liberals, because he happened to hold pro-worker values. There’s no doubt that JZ is more closer to the working class as opposed to the business bias of Mbeki. Consequently the business class distrust him, and fear what they see as his socialist tendencies. Academic analysts and media commentators, with their permanent distrust of the hoi polli, prevalently took the side of business entrepreneurship, defending neo-liberal, free market against left leaning organised labour.

What tightened the screws and upped the ante was the rape trial last year against JZ early this year—the court consequently acquitted JZ from these charges. The acquittal of JZ to his supporters was a vindication of his cause—he had early said the rape trial was part of the neo-liberal conspiracy against him. It gave him more confidence to face up to his critics and resurrect his presidential candidacy hopes. Now JZ can be seen, with thin veil, canvassing for the next presidency, something unheard of in the ANC whose president is appointed by its National Executive Committee. Of course the nomination for election is done by the various structures within the body of the ANC and it’s alliance partners, the COSATU and the SACP. All this has fostered a lot of heated debate among the chattering class of SA.

In the eyes of the hoi polli, the government though professing an option for the poor has done remarkably little more than social grants to address their plight. While social grants have eased the symptoms of poverty, they have done nothing to tackle their causes. And people are rather tired of the same old story of condemning the past apartheid regime for the present assaults of poverty on their human dignity. They see the new-look laissez-faire South Africa equally reprehensible for their plight. Hence the expedient opportunism of JZ has fallen on fallowed ground.

The best thing that came out of the so-called JZ (Jacob Zuma) saga in SA is a clearer, even if less convincing, political debate for the economic direction the country has taken. The JZ saga has roused the youth and the marginalized of the country to storm the barricades they feel are stumbling blocks between them and their hard won freedom. The poor hordes of country are angry and disgruntled. They have used the opportunity afforded by the JZ saga to stick their fingers up the arses of what they see as the political elitist nerve within their party, the ANC.

JZ’s expedient opportunism channelled the disgruntled enthusiasm of the hoi polli that was already creeping into the nooks and crannies of our politics. He became the long for Messiah, seemingly crucified for the disgruntlement of the poor. What’s more, he had an expanding influence within the political network of the ANC. All he needed to do was to embody the issues already raised by the ANC affiliates, like the unions and the re-emerging communists influence. And that he did expediently. All in all, JZ is the embodiment of the rebellious energy within the Tripartite Alliance.

I’ve already said that president Mbeki, in the eyes of the hoi polli, is seen as a technocratic leader, more aligned with Zeitgeist of liberal economic imperatives the hoi polli sees as the major source of their disentrancement. He has become the embodiment of the modern spirit that is disenfranchising the disgruntled hoi polli of less material and sophisticated means.

The JZ saga, of cause, is just a tinpot flare that rallies more on media publicity than real substance. It is destined to go out in smoke with the demise of all personality cults. What will remain striking the nerve within the ANC and its alliance partners is the sense of disconnection from the political elite the masses feel. If this sense of disconnection does not find satisfactory attention and proper channelling it’ll organize itself, first, into a cultural support group of the dissatisfied, ignored, abandoned, exploited, and forgotten, and unrepresented. And when it finds its Marx that’ll organise and codify its grievances into a sound intellectual political economy; it’ll then mature into a fully-fledged political party that will haunt the very roots of political economy in our country.

The challenge for this group is that it is not yet equipped with representative language of expression for its aspirations and ideas, hence it still relies on pop culture emotionalism and forcefulness, indeed even anarchism, in making its point with resultant polemical hyperbole intended to shut down debate or overthrow reason. More than ridiculing this movement though with verbose sarcasm, clumsy paradoxes and crude chiasmus, as our media has penchant for, it might be wise to fledge and engage it constructively.

The disconnected, or rather alienated, hoi polli is what Karl Marx’s philosophy protests against. It is against the dehumanisation and automatization of man inherent in the development of Western industrialisation. In the world today where capitalist hegemony is the order of the day, and the recent tragic failures of the Soviet bloc, the word “Socialism” belongs to the devil. It is one of the peculiarities of history how many people are ready to criticize Marxism without ever reading a single word Marx wrote.

I’m one of those people who are convinced that the only way to understand and deal with our present realities is by understanding the real meaning of Marxist thought. To differentiate it especially from the failed Soviet totalitarianism and Chinese state capitalism that Marx, in his much neglected Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts warned against as what he termed “crude communism”. Crude communism “appears in a double form; the domination of material property looms so large that it aims to destroy everything which is incapable of being possessed by everyone as private property. It wishes to eliminate talent, etc., by force . . . The role of worker is not abolished but extended to all men. The relation of private property remains the relation of the community to the world of things . . . This communism, which negates the personality of man in every sphere is . . . Universal envy setting itself up as a power, is only camouflaged form of cupidity which re-establishes itself and satisfies itself in a different way. The thoughts of every individual private property are at least directed against any wealthier private property, in the form of envy and the desire to reduce everything to a common level; so that this envy and levelling in fact constitute the essence of competition. Crude communism is only the culmination of such envy and levelling-down on the basis of a preconceived minimum. How little this abolishing of private property represents a genuine appropriation is shown by the abstract negation of the whole world of culture and civilisation, and the regression to the unnatural simplicity of the poor and wantless individual who has not only not surpassed private property but has not even attained to it. The community is only a community of work and of equality of wages paid out by the communal capital, by the community as universal capitalists. The two sides of the relation are raised to a supposed universality; labour as a condition in which everyone is placed, and capital as the acknowledged universality and power of the community.”

Hence I say the American crude capitalist mode of economy and totalitarian communism are extreme ends of the same stick. In the crude capitalist mode, “capital is independent, and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality. Immediate physical possession seems to it the unique goal of life and existence.”

The appeal of Marxism in my life is what I call “humanists socialism”; the protest against the alienation of man from his human essence, and the elements of social justice, equality and universality inherent on it. I believe Marx’s philosophy is still a relevant source of insight and hope for man’s realisation of his true potential. The aim of Marx was to liberate man from the pressure of economic needs, so that man can be fully human; to overcome alienation and restore his capacity to relate to self and nature fully.

Keening Against Icy Winds

On the last lonesome rocky hill that overlooks craggy mountains in the village of Zingquthu, less than forty kilometres outside of my hometown of Queenstown, you’ll find sparse and austere cluster of rondavel huts. That’s my father’s home. Standing there in owl’s light, two days before his funeral, I was visited by a vague sense of loss.
Nkonkobe River sent dingy melancholic sighs down below.
The river's tent is broken, Came rushing to my head the words from The Fire Sermon, of TS Elliot’s The Waste Land. A feeling of hollowness embraced me. A gleeman’s song came from the riverside. Someone was drawing water; urging spanned cattle to climb the hill towards the house as my father had done thousand times before my eyes.
My people are hewers of wood and drawers of water.
My father, their son, preferred to die with the harness of manual labour on his back. To die as he lived, with a hovering spirit of poverty around; no more by circumstances as character. He was a toiler by nature. Perpetual toil was the only cage he trusted. The ancient pastoral poet, Theocritus, speaks of things my father understood better:

No wide domain, nor golden treasure Nor speed like the wind across the lea I pray for: here I find my pleasure, In this cliff-shade embracing thee, My grazing sheep to watch at pleasure And sing to you Sicilian Sea...

Those of us who live the drill of stabbing mortality we call ‘urban life’ measure success by ledger books, and so are suspicious of such exquisite simplicity and frugal neatness.
I grew up being told that rural society is brutal and savage, that its customs dictates manners. If you ask me, I see more elements of amoral Darwinism in our urban way of life than the rural one.
My father was disillusioned by the hype of modern living that imprisons by achievements. He followed the spirit of his dissatisfaction, which brought him back to the point where, according to Elliot, he saw anew, with different eyes, the life of his youth. He trusted the rural life more, so went back home. This action lowered his esteem in the eyes of the worldly, including my mother who subsequently divorced him for that and other neglects.
In truth, my father’s life pricks my heart.

It was extremely cold the day we buried my father. The wind blew snowflakes that refused to melt on our shoulders and heads. Mountaintops looked like something off a postcards from Switzerland.
A certain song by James Taylor hummed in my head over and over again:

Lord knows when the cold wind blows it'll turn your head around. . .

It is the coldness that came with my father’s death that turned me around.
Eulogies are the worst part of African funerals; lengthy, irrelevant, and monotonous—noisy gongs and clanging cymbals that signify nothing. My father’s rural neighbour rescued us from that drag. He was of old tribal wisdom and blunt dignity. His Accipitridaean face looked frail and full of tingling sincerity. His speech, a remarkable achievement of economy and deliberate emphasis of frugal neatness. He cut through cant with eminent rapidness of a praise singer; limpid purity and measure of chaste eloquence of words informed by life. I adored him for trivialising the false sacramental gravity of other speakers; for being blithely indifferent and irreverent towards death—a sign of a healthy personality or a lunatic.
I’ll utilise my poor Thucydidean skills to translate him, even though I’m sure his speech will loose its bluff humour and pristine intensity. Only his character can put that across. Only those who still live with a carry-over of realistic detail from oral culture can manage things like those. This how his speech went:
“Today my soul is filled with heartbroken revolt against my own life. I do not know why we should be spared when our children are felled. To bury your child, as Mzoli (my father) was to me, is a harsh fate. Mzoli, you ‘feign-hell’”. A thunder of laughter slashed through the crowd. ‘Feign-hell’ was my father’s leitmotif whenever something went wrong. Hitherforth it became the harlequinade of the day of his interment.
The old man stammered on with a slight lisp in his speech. After an hour of turgid rhetoric and sanitized hagiographic speeches he was breath of fresh air.
“I don't know,” he continued, “who do you think will turn my fields, sow my seeds, and pluck my tares when you decide to join those fainéant you call your ancestors. But alright then Ndlovu [our clan name], have it your way, the faggots will be at you tonight. We’re coming too; so don’t get too comfortable, occupy spaces of your elders. It makes no difference that you go first we’re still your parents.
“Your departure shook our hearts, Ndlovu. Nobody osisimaphakade [lives forever] in this world. It did not happen to you what does not happen to others. You suffered the fate of all mortal men. There’s no resisting death. It levels all, and calls all bluffs. I’m old as the hills; my hair is like ewes on the field, but yesterday I dug your grave with a spade in my own hands against the protest of my family and friends who feared for my health. What do I need my health for if the likes of you are dead? Nothing made me more happy and proud as digging your grave. We’re even then Ndlovu. Don't you be asking for any favours when I get there where you sleep with those striplings you call ancestors.
“Your wordy and obsequious friends from town here say you were going to be a preacher. That’s bunkum. Iyilo elinje ngawe. Still, you were a mast in our village. We’re the people who’ll feel the loss of your departure most.” As he said all this his eyes were trained on the coffin. Then turning to face people he continued. “Allow me, people of my hearth to leak my wounds in quiet. Nobody should drink this common crock more than a mouthful. It’s on its dregs already; let’s bury uMzoli and be done. We’re getting fewer by the day. Damn it! This land shall not see the likes of us again. May God give us the light of His wand in this death journey.” Then he sat in deliberate silence.
The bard accuses us of living deaf to the land beneath us.
During the interment I stood very close to my paternal grandfather, so close I could see myself in his eighty-nine year old rheumy pupils. The bonding warmth and affection between us at that moment no wreaths could define. We were both aware of standing on the ground of our dead.

On the journey back to town soft showers fell like the memory of the departed one. Cars were sliding on mud and sparse snow that lay dingy on the road. It was quiet in our car except for the fan that hovering hot air; blowing comforting familiar odours of my siblings.
Outside I could see progress and consumerism of the capitalist system had caught on with the rural life of our people since the change of government from the apartheid regime. Bridges were built over rivers, electricity installed for those who could afford; purified water coming out of recently installed communal taps free of charge. Things are changing for the better, I thought to myself and wondered what Dr Samuel Johnson would say about that, since he was of the opinion that change of government makes no difference to the happiness of ordinary people.
I was wondered what was going on in my mother’s head who has propensity of gratifying spite where our father is concerned. Perhaps she finally realised that the failure of a marriage is seldom an achievement of one party, I thought. It’s sad that growing up must also mean our parents loose their cynosure quality in our eyes. Still I saw a dead man win a fight that day with his invincible humility.

South Africa Is Living At the Edge

There has been a fear of one man one vote since the establishment of a first recorded democratic system of government in the city state of Athens. The spokesperson of the fearful was none other than Plato, who argued that democracy only gave power to the greatest number of people that may not necessarily be right. Plato used an example of Socrates who found, to the cost of his life, that political rhetoric easily swayed the Athenian population to condemn his philosophical thinking as mischievous and misguiding the young.

Given the ease even today by which large groups of people are easily swayed by populist leaders, mostly without much substance, perhaps Plato's suspicions of democracy should be given more weight than being merely dismissed as elitist, as the philosophy of history has tended to do over the years. The American system of democracy for sale is another factor not to dismiss Plato entirely; but I want here to look at Africa, especially South Africa.

Let me first categorically state that, in my view, the dangers of those who think they know best what their countries needs are a greater evil than the dangers of democracy.

The real danger in African democracies today is ruling party manipulations and rigging of the democratic process, as recently seen (unsuccessfully) in Nigeria, and (successfully) in Zimbabwe. The concern has managed to bring closer to South Africa the nagging fear of ANC (African National Congress) dominance of national politics. In South Africa the ramifications of the fear takes several forms, like the recent rambunctious debate over street name changing, which others feel rides roughshod over minority rights.

I'm one of those who believe, rather than punishing the popularity of a party, rigorous means should be found of consolidating civic conscience of the people towards strengthening democratic institutions of the country. Very little, in my mind, suggests, so far, that South Africa is headed for the much feared erosion of our democracy, except perhaps rampart crime which can be solved by an upped determination in the South African Safety and Security ministry.

When South Africa celebrated its 14th year as a fully fledged democratic state there were overriding concerns about crime in every speaker. The general feeling was that the political freedom people gained in 1994 changed the meaning of human rights aspirations. That the major gross violations of human rights in the country now involve gruesome criminal acts, especially against women and children.

The recent crime statistics argue that there’s a general trend of decline of crime in SA, though what it terms ‘social crime’ are still on the increase. The highest increase is things like bank robbery. It has triggered the opposition parties to, in my opinion, hypocritically and opportunistically to shout at the rooftops, even calling for the resignation of the minister Safety and Security, because they feel he’s incompetent in his job.

Naturally black people, especially in the township, who lived in far worse criminal conditions, in fact under the dominion of criminal state of affairs during the apartheid years are appalled by these out cries. Indeed experience of living in the township now tells me that the criminal element has decreased to what I grew up with, not because criminals have had a change of heart. No, because, since 1994, the criminals have gained greater confidence in their criminal freedom. They no longer fear white people, hence crime has moved to urban areas and suburbs too.

I caution to say that crime in black areas is still more preponderant than urban and suburban areas where there’s still better policing than in black townships. And black people, even in the CBDs and suburbs are still greater victims of criminal acts than white people, due to population numbers, I presume. The sad reality is that there’s more hullabaloo when it comes to white victims than otherwise, while black people have learnt to live with criminal element as an occupational hazard.

The problem with the cynical impostures of SA opposition parties is in trying to politicize crime. We are all living under intolerable siege of the criminal element, but it does not mean the country is going to the dogs because of this, and the right reading of the recent statistics proves this. Without taking anything out of the problem of crime, I feel the opposition parties tend to simplify it by concentrating too much on symptoms than root causes. I feel equitable distribution of economic resources is a much more serious issue facing this country, and the major cause of the so called ‘social crime’.

South Africans do not need studied statistics to realise they are among the worst criminal offenders, and violent society in the world. This is one of the greatest indictments against our democracy. And yes, to blame it on the legacy of apartheid is no longer enough—it plumps the cushion for the proof to lie on. Even the political vandalism and spirit of belligerent mischief inspired by the call of making the “country ungovernable” in the eighties did not give rise to as much criminality as seen in the country today. There’s now intolerable constant and omnipresent reprehensible violence in the centre of our lives. “Things were bad during the apartheid years,” my grandma said as we watched TV news of yet another child-rape-murder the other day, “but what we are seeing now is total moral breakdown, rampant venality.”

Surely poverty and joblessness contribute to the worsening of the crime situation, but does it excuse it? My answer is no. A curtain has fallen over whimsical excuses like that in South Africa’s second decade of freedom. South Africans now need to subject their actions to rational criticism that discards the perpetual flurry of past wrongs if they have any hope of moving forward as a shinning example of democracy in Africa.

“Economics go to the fundamentals of human relationships,” my friend who is a university lecture says. “The brutalising effect on our society is the result of our economic stand, of the exclusion of the majority of our citizens from meaningful and economic/financial activity.” Indeed when one takes a look, especially at South African townships, one sees the atmosphere of haplessness that is gradually impregnating the youth with bibulous sentiments of social revolution. For now the sentiments vent themselves in economic, social iconoclasm, and frustrated criminal activity. The inexcusable brutal murder, for instance, of an ANC councillor in the Free State by criminals, masquerading as dissatisfied political hordes, gives us a glimpse of where the whole thing is leading to if not dealt with properly.

My friend insists that “unless the development of our country’s economic system become an organic process that reflects the character and traditions of our people we are in for a dire future.” Alas, the ever widening gap between the haves and the haves not suggests that we’re not in the right course. South African economic policies have chosen “to follow opaque ambiguities revolving around the halo of globalisation whose objective is mostly to compel necessity and reasonableness of recognising the specious wisdom of the status quo for the benefit of largely global corporations.” This makes South Africa a sitting duck to careless radicalism, as seen also in the loutish behaviour of ANC’s deputy president (Jacb Zuma) supporters outside the court of law when he was charged with corruption charges that were eventually dismissed by the court.

My friend believes “There’s a coming wave of social revolution—its fire has already caught on in Latin America—with slight diplomatic caution. The vox populi of emerging markets are gatvol [sick and tired] with settling for wasp-eaten windfalls from rich economic orchards of their own countries.” If so, don’t we need to manage this anger better before it degenerates to clumsy pyrotechnics of Zimbabwe-like situation, I ask him. “The only thing that can mange it is better distribution of resources; but the funny thing is that the people with most to loose from this blood-curdling threat are blindly bubbling in selfish greed.”

It is true that extreme polarisation of the majority is almost always followed by a climate of violent action by the mob. It is easy to lament or condemn the clumsy aggression of a populist regime, but much harder to accept that it too, most of the time, emerges as result of political and economic decomposition that left millions to survive without support, as Zimbabwe is learning the hard way. Neglected and polarised people tend to give their alliance to promises of instant remedies of populist movements, or criminal activity, in one guise or the other. How then can South Africa make sure it avoids the worse of this?

Let’s start with the structural problems South Africa is faced with.

There’s always a spectre of racism haunting every public relation n our country, even the reading of crime statistics. As a nation we’ve not yet matured to a stage where we can talk openly about implicit attitudes, and our past scars? South Africans are contrariwise conterminous people who do not discuss explicitly their implicit assumptions and fears. The public use of reason is the true condition of democratic life of a country. The aim of civil society is to create a line of critical reasoning in the public sphere.

The problem facing South Africa is what the Roman statesman, Cicero (always alert towards the corrosive effects against democracy) was wont to remind his country men about, that the Greek city-state, as the embodiment of the beginning of Western civilization, did not start out so much as to guarantee personal freedom for all residents, but to ensure the protection of property for a new meritocratic middling class of landowners. Very little has changed in the democracies of the world since then. Hence the South African debate, to my approval, is fast turning into a class issue. However, the peculiarities of South African situation (since the majority of the poor are black) is that class debate naturally overflows into racial issues.

The majority of black South Africans feel, urgently by the day, that political freedom has not extend to their personal and social lives since they are still manacled by economic conditions. The opposite is almost true for most whites, who feel their economic affluence threatened by the political freedom of black hordes. To put it crudely; whites feel threatened by the coming Barbarians, while blacks feel spite from the laughing Vandals. Whites fear blacks, like King Ahab, will soon do away with them (Naboth) if they refuse to sell their vineyard. They fear the government bureaucratic attitude towards economic change will soon turn into Stalinist ruthlessness that will force, by government diktat, and impose targets of change, like in Zimbabwe. On the other hand black people demand change for social and economic justice. Most white people see in that demand personal threats, and unconsciously hope to limit South African democracy to legal and constitutional formalism that unwittingly empowers the educated and affluent minority more than the underprivileged majority.

To that mix comes the complicated personality of the present South African president, Thabo Mbeki. In his weekly Letter in ANC Today (www.anc.org.za), where he often speaks with his mouth on his foot; he insinuated that out cries against crime in the country is “a massive propaganda campaign... in many instances without any regard and respect for truth. ” Mbeki referred to a deep entrenched racist attitude amongst white South Africans that always see the coming barbarians and sons of biblical Cain in black restlessness. He regretted the BBC coverage of crime in South Africa for its unbalanced reportage that does not portray redeeming qualities of South Africa. Needles to say most white people found this letter titled, Freedom from racism – a fundamental human right, rather disturbing, with harsh racial overtones.

The chattering class of South Africa, who usually rant from their bellies, subjected the document to gimlet-eyed scrutiny without engaging much in any of the concerns it raised. A white friend of mine quoted George Orwell as he sat down to write a distrait piece against the document: “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give solidity to pure wind.” What my colleague was ignorant about is the fact that what Mbeki was saying was something commonly held by most black South Africans. When I tried to point this out to him he accused me of being soft against the government, and of being caught up in the mental constraints of cognitive dissonance (the discomfort from holding two conflicting thoughts).

I'm all for trashing leaders that are without substance, but the South African media tends to get trapped in the gossamers of political bias and a predilection to trade in demolishing stocks of icon bashing. It can be very cloying sometimes.

My friend’s use of George Orwell, who was concerned about the degradation of language through political manipulation, avoided Orwell’s real concerns, which is that language should act, in Heinrich Böll’s memorable words, as “the bulwark of freedom.” Indeed, Mbeki’s blunt and static document was itself not an achievement of brilliant analysis, but had enough jolts of reality to snap intellectual callousness of our media back to brain activity. The swooning obstructiveness of Mbeki’s writing style does not negate the veracity of his argument. We must learn to understand that there is something more important than talent and erudition, which is the value of veracity, despite a person’s political beliefs.

The essence of the matter is that South Africans are drifting apart along ill mended racial lines. I remember listening to Mbeki's most popular speech, I am an African, given at the occasion of adoption of the Constitutional Assembly of the new South African Constitution, about a decade ago. The first thing that came to mind then in excitement was; “We'll all be Africans after this.” My reaction were confirmed by the chattering class when, in dissecting, praised the speech to the mountains. But now, a few years down the line, the South African rainbow dream seem to be buckling on its structural faults. Why? Is it a failure of multiculturalism or resurrection of deep strains of racial divide?

What got me wary later on when I thought about Mbeki’s speech even then, was the way he tried to minimise South African racial complexities by mythologizing his identity, and thus of all Africans. The myth in the speech overwhelmed reality. As the result it became fashionable henceforth to identify oneself with previously ignored people. Everyone suddenly became aware of the Khoi-San blood running in their veins, even those in the past who identified themselves more with Europe or black tribal imperialism. For instance the Afrikaner veteran journalist, Max Du Preez, in his book Pale Native described himself thus:

I am a native of this land, but unlike most other natives, I am pale. The tongue of
my heart and my soul is a tongue born in Africa and called after Africa, but after
many decades of abuse it is now resented by many as the tongue of alien invaders.

Du Preez, towards the end of his book, asks in disappointment, after telling us how impressed he was in meeting Mbeki in Senegal: “There’s just one big unanswered question: What on earth happened to the charming, smiling, generous, warm, straightforward Thabo Mbeki we got to know in Dakar?”

Mbeki and Du Preez, in different ways, wanted us to acknowledge the fundamental truth of our mixed blood. Scientific studies, especially genetics, tell us that “The idea that we constitute 'races' is now unquestionably a myth. . . (Prof Wilmot James; Cape Times, Thursday, March 22, 2007). But if recent reports of rising Right Wing sects, and radical left tendencies among blacks in South Africa are anything to go by, things are not as cosy as all that. Mbeki now is being accused of having made a volte-face because he raises the uncomfortable need for frank discussion of “whether we have the courage to engage in a truth and reconciliation process even with regard to the challenge of openly confronting the cancer of deeply dehumanising racist stereotypes that developed over many centuries.”

On the other hand this novel Mbeki, who no longer pander to fashions of specious mixed identities, captures the Völkerwanderung of the black majority. His Letter was followed by similar articles from black intellectuals like, Achille Mbembe, a senior researcher at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research who threw down the gauntlet in his very competent article titled “Culture of Mutual Resentment Precludes Nonracial Future” [Sunday Times (01 April 2007)]. But the challenge, to my knowledge, was not picked up by the white community. What you get is sneaking white liberal tendencies of downplaying the South African project at every opportunity they get overseas, like the recent article of RW Johnson in Wall Street Journal.

I’m one of those who believe that Mbeki’s perceived harsh tone is not the results of a volte- face but of wanting to fix our sight on the vision of a South African future, not only on reinvented ostensible collective identity, but by facing up to the truth of our past. I believe Mbeki wants to deepen our national identity beyond our ancestral commonality into addressing our psychological fears also. Hence he asks in his Letter; “why are the Whites so determined to frighten themselves! The answer of course is that they have taken no such decision. Rather, the problem is that entrenched racism dictates that justification must be found for the persisting white fears of 'die swart gevaar'”.

It is no secret that under the spell of relativist postmodernist theory of the twentieth century erstwhile progressive people tend to seek intellectual refuge in identity politics. Indeed Mbeki and Du Pleez make strange bedfellows in that they fall in this category. Both say are struggling against embedded prejudices, and that their perpetual struggle has always been against the negative role played by the media in sidelining and covering, if not altogether eliminating, undesirable news. Yet they find themselves shouting at each other from opposite banks. Why?

The first answer lies with failure and fear of Multiculturalism. Multiculralism—and this is not unique to SA—seems to act only to divide populations into factions of competing ethnicities. The chaos of the twenty first century is largely based on this division. As nice sounding the South African motto ‘unity in diversity’ might be, it requires the kind of tolerance most of us just seem not to posses.

Multiculturalism presupposes diversity, and diversity demands solidarity of values. Let’s even be done with equivocations and get to the crux of the matter. In Occidental gesalt democracy is great only when it serves liberal values. Nothing wrong with that as far as I am concerned if only liberals were not so illiberal when it comes to other people’s values.

The question, then for South Africa, is not whether we’ll all be Africans, but that as diverse Africans we can learn to live in respect of each other? Sharing a geographical sphere and political inheritance does not make people a nation. Neither does sharing some ancestors, because few Boers and Xhosas had Khoisan wives or chattels. I’m sure Mbeki's intentions of wanting to inject common energy in South African collective identity was based on noble motives, but it was conscious myth making.

Myth is not an entirely bad base for nation building. But conscious myths are a different thing altogether from the myths that emerge from the unconscious history (fears and longings) of a people. Unconscious myths convey truth because they are a residue of life and the after-image of people’s suffering. Conscious myths, however, are instruments of human purpose, that is spin-doctoring.

Plato believed that truth is the business of philosophy, but knew also that it is rhetoric, not philosophy, that moves the crowds. One of the advantages of Platonic school of philosophy is that it encourages us to prefer simple theory to messy reality. But it’s limiting factors is that it inclines us to select only the data that fit our theories. Mbeki’s I am an African speech was chiefly poetic rhetoric. Hence it is incumbent upon us to distinguish lies, even noble lies, among the rhetorical devices of politicians. Mbeki’s speech, with all its intents, was a noble lie whose real sentiments are betrayed by the brass angst of Freedom from racism – a fundamental human right letter.

Perhaps Mbeki’s letter, Freedom from racism – a fundamental human right, should have preceded the I am an African speech, not the other way around. In the Letter Mbeki is irritated by the manner of those who, though ostensible inheritors of progressive rational Enlightenment tradition, still smuggle racism under the banner of preserving cultural values and standards. This is the common thing in South Africa that he should have pointed out before the I am an African speech.

South Africans are in urgent need of true integration. Steve Biko, in his book, I Write What I Like, said, “If by integration you understand breakthrough into white society by blacks, an assimilation and acceptance of blacks into an already established set of norms and codes of behaviour by whites, then yes I am against it.” Integration and multiculturalism has to mean much more than blacks acting white if it has to have true meaning. It is time for South African white community to understand and learn to accept black culture if the country has any hope of forging any pretensions of being a real nation.

It was said—back to the Greeks again—of the laws of Solon, that, though not the best in themselves, were the best “which the interests, prejudices, and temper of the times would admit”. Perhaps that can be said also of South African Constitution with an added aperçu from Gramsci that: “[T]he old is dying, and yet the new cannot be born … In this interregnum there arises a great diversity of morbid symptoms …”

Whatever will happen in South Africa in the future its vital force will rise from the now buried lives in the appendixes of its townships. My overriding fear is that not those who govern nor those who fear them, have any real understanding of what makes them tick. There’ll come a time, in fact it has already arrived, when, as the hordes on the receiving end of the bad South African stick, they’ll run out of patience before the new is fully born. Indeed our country is living its collective life at the edge, unfortunately it is not the edge of reason.

Socialism

The Future Is सोसिअलिस्म

Most communist, bruised and full of self-commiseration, have not truly recovered from the humiliating collapse of Communism in the eighties. Those still visible in our country, like Jeremy Cronin and Blade Nzimande, survive mostly at the mercies of trade unionists and personal élan. They’ve indefatigable spirit that understands that sine qua non for the ultimately conquering the modern political arena is about choosing the popular courses of action. Frankly, it annoys me that such brilliant men are not given more platforms to put their cases by our popular media. My uncle, who was my father figure when I was growing up, insists that Communism was defeated, not by the insight of capitalism, but by ignorance, “ignorance driven by greed”. Most communist I've met share his sentiments.I grew up in the township of Mlungisi, Queenstown, a small town in the Eastern Cape. The promises of the Freedom Charter, which we interpreted to be of Socialist agenda, was our hope for better life, i.e. for those abarabuleyo [politically suave]. The streets we grew up in raised us on the premises of communalism, which in political lingo transferred into Communism; “The people shall share . . .” All that to the chagrin of our parents who were trying to raise us as responsible Christians. As the result, somehow, both Christianity and Socialism managed to merge in my personal convictions. Up to this day, the likes of my uncle, who were very active in the Liberation politics, remains a totally convinced Communist. He believes that Marxist materialism is the only educated outlook towards life. When he looks back to what he calls his ‘revolution days’ he does so with such amazing credulity and nostalgia for Socialism, that you’d think in his mind the Berlin Wall has not come down at all. His staunchness is more amazing when you know how alert he is to the inflated and the absurd. But is it reasonable?
When we were growing up, communist leaders had a way of exciting us out of the boredom of youth. They incited us into bravery. I doubt we would have been foolish enough to charge Hippos with only stones and petrol bombs had it not been for the fire flamed in us by our Communist leaders especially. Most of them had an ability foisting the threatening mayhem that was supposed to be the Liberating Movement into politics of sheer personal vitalism. I remember when I was in High School, sometime in the middle of eighties. We went to Comfimvaba to play sport with our neighbours at Daliwonga High School—I was in Freemantle. We ended up spending the whole day singing revolutionary songs at the banks of a river; waiting for bra Chris whom we had been promised was coming to sign us into Umkhonto Wesizwe. Alas, nothing came of the promise, and we had to return back in our dusty bus that inflammated my tonsils. My point is that Communist candour had a way of arousing our social anger hence we grew up admiring Communism as a cultural phenomenon and political vehicle of our liberation. We idolised the likes of Chris Hani as our heroes who had impatient disdain for the culture of business. We regarded business people as collaborators, if not harbingers of the apartheid system. As the result we burnt most shops in township, even those owned by black people, since most were owned by Indians and Chinese—we didn't think Indians were black then, and Chinese had an invidious honour of being ‘honorary white’ then.
When later on we attended liberal universities—ironically through Transkian government scholarship we looked down on as collaborators of the apartheid system—we were compelled to recognize the utility of business; to acknowledge that it makes the world go around. Still we had a low opinion of it and tolerated only the mechanics of its power as an inescapable occupational burden. At varsity I was personally politically non usurious. Most of my friends involved themselves deeper and deeper into politics. I was by then suffering from a traumatic incidence that saw a girl I grew up with being burnt alive in our township, because her father agreed to be a puppet mayor of the township. The incident ruffled my feathers the wrong way. In fact I ended up fearing and hating the Comrades, as we called freedom fighters then. Even though I accepted the need for radical social reforms in our country, you would not see me singing, petitioning or pamphleteering with front line groups. Perhaps cowardice played a role in this unconscious decision also. My respect for Communism had by then evolved to specifics of Socialism due in particular to the Catholic Church's social teachings influences on my life. I discovered that the two had a lot in common, except, of course, for the materialist outlook. I was not at all surprised later on when prominent English Marxists turned to Christianity for inspiration and revision. One of them, Terry Eagleton, a professor of English at Manchester University, has had tremendous influence in my political and philosophical convictions. Himself he has since reclaimed his Catholic past and now exhorts his comrades to read theology. Others like Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri invoke St. Francis as a model of “the future life of communist militancy.” And Alain Badiou, arguably France's foremost Marxist, upheld St. Paul as the pre-secular augur of revolutionary universalism. Personally I first felt the communist plot lost in our country around 1999 when I attended a Khulata memorial lecture at Vista University (Port Elizabeth Branch) that was given by professor Palo Jordan. I cannot describe my sense of disappointment, of blank consternation that day. Jordan, with his characteristic candour, spoke words to this effect: “Comrades, since we came to power we had to be realistic and play according to the world order so we may gain the ability to sustain our freedom and create working opportunities for our people...” He spoke at length about adopting the middle road, which, to me then came across as a strange mixture of tempered pessimism with active opportunism towards neo-liberal economics. In short, what he was advocating to me was the same as running with the hares and hunting with the hounds. I’ve since noticed the same voice throughout the ANC (African National Congress) structures.My uncle had taught me that the meaning of pragmatism in politics is confused opportunism. He made me understand pragmatism as an improvised solution from bankruptcy of ideas, and a replacement of principles by expedience. Jordan at the lecture was telling me pragmatism excites and vitalises “the pluralism of inspired common sense.” It is through this prism I understand the present government’s pragmatic ideas as series of adventures (PDP, GEAR, NEPAD and now ASGISA) in the void, largely created by the permanent crisis of bankruptcy of ideas that is the condition of our times. Before Jordan's lecture I had thought Communism was just undergoing an identity crisis. After all I had believed Christ Hani when he spoke for more than two hours at the Green Parade shortly after he returned back from exile, words to this effect: “Comrades, History has not ended. We will mould a new, just society....” I believed that our heroes were forming new strategies before coming with convincing plans to take us to the next stage towards socialist egalitarianism. But later on Jordan convinced me that communism had collapsed and socialism was passé. The candour I admired in him worked against my newly earned weltanschauung.
What does an intellectually green young man does when encountering such peripeteia, such sudden change of direction from his hero?My uncle taught me that the capitalistic system of production has always been important to Marx and Engels as a vehicle of ushering a complete Communist state. He said Marx and Engels anticipated and celebrated Globalisation by admiring the universality of Capitalism: “The constant revolution of production and the endless disturbance of all social conditions.” The “everlasting uncertainty” where everything “fixed and frozen...all that is solid melts into air...swept away.” He showed me passages in the Communist Manifesto where Marx and Engels were bewildered by “constant expansion of markets, the daily destruction of old established industries.” What they called “the intercourse in every direction” that leads to “universal interdependence of nations” and the nail biting need for solutions for new emerging wants.
“Marxism anticipated globalism, but still chose against liberal economics;” is my uncle's verdict. The question really is whether they chose well. The glaring fundamental injustices of neo-liberal economic values, which becoming clear to all who have eyes to see, or no vested interests to defend: brutal exploitation of resources, ruthless competition, vulgar materialism, rampant consumerism, morbid individualism, obscene greed, odious hypocrisy, and so on and so on, are starting to vindicate their choice in the eyes of the many. I doubt anyone can dispute the fact that Libertarianism is biased against the poor; its freedom is that of a fox in the chicken coop. The best it can do is to provide windfalls for the poor in the form of social programmes.

The fall of Soviet Union is the stick that is always wielded against Communism; or government intervention into business to restrict injustices of market economies. Yet those who wield it are rarely aware that the Soviet system, though making claims to be “real socialism” wasn’t never a socialist state at all; at least not in a manner characterized by the democratic egalitarianism which defines true socialism. As a matter of fact, the Soviets distorted and defiled the very concept of socialism to an extent that Soviet Communism and American-style laissez-faire capitalism became the extreme ends of the same stick.

The triumphant ANC, as opposed to the struggling liberation movement, has been in pains trying to disassociate itself from Communism, and explain that it is not a socialist movement. In its discussion paper titled Economic Transformation For A National Democratic Society it has finally realised that it is chasing a bouncing ball in thinking that the “changes we seek” will emerge from the “invisible hand” of the market. “People acting collectively in the spirit of human solidarity must shape the contours of economic development. In this process the state must play a central and strategic role”, like in all emerging industrial economies of the world. It admits that; “We are still some way from our vision of the economic base of a national democratic society. The ownership and control of wealth and income, the poverty trap, access to opportunity and so on are, are all in the main defined, as under apartheid, on the basis of race and gender.”
Despite all that it still shies away from pursuing a full socialist agenda; preferring instead what it calls the “Developmental State”. What it actually means about this is vague.
In the modern era, calls for revisiting political discourse of socialist democracy are still met with cynical sighs of disbelief. Yet the situational circumstances of our times point to that as our only option if we are to solve the economic dilemmas of our era. Socialism does not dispute the production excellence of a capitalist system. Nor does it idolise the state as the only a redeeming force for the poor. It does not see the state as a vehicle of political regimentation that will end up creating social dependence on the government. Neither does it demands abandonment of liberty in favour of ideas of state control.

All Socialist Democracy calls for is an equitable distribution of national resources—yes this means coming up with compulsive measures to compel though who undermines the national to tow the line. Socialism means fair intervention of the government on economic issues and “creative chaos” of capitalism. If this is what the ANC means by the “Developmental State” then it is correct in saying it is still keeping to the vision of the Freedom Chater, albeit in evolved state to accommodate the realities of our times. But there comes a time when one has to implement a good, and that time for the ANC is now.

So far what we’ve seen from the ANC government, except managing contradictions, are stagnant programmes of stifling bureaucracy coupled with static state grants, and convocations ad nauseam. Hence it seems a paradoxical vacuousness of our times that even the political rhetoric of “bias towards the poor” serves only to feed the coffers of neo-liberal maintenance of the status quo that is biased against the poor.

Even in the U.S.A. more internal examination is emerging. In his new book, Is Democracy Possible Here?, Ronald Dworkin asserts that “the level of indifference the nation now shows to the fate of its poor calls into question not only the justice of its fiscal policies but also their legitimacy.” Perhaps these are the questions policy makers inside the ANC should also start asking themselves.

Also the firebrand president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, is putting action where his mouth is by ensuring a minimum of equality in an age of globalization. If international business and financial institutions, whose favoured systems power only the elite, deprive governments sovereignty in economics policies, perhaps the lesser evil is for the country to disengage from their transnational loyalties. A new order, based on fair national benefits and equitable distribution of profits from natural resource is being born. It’d be sad for South Africa to miss that boat, and end up prey to internal opportunistic militant populist organisation.

I dare say the only path open to Developing countries, since it is also becoming obvious that the universe will not be able to sustain the world’s Western style of consumerism, is Gandhi’s ethical vision of democracy. The social costs of the obsession with ceaseless economic growth and promotion of multiplying desire have turn into the Beast crouching in the heart of greed.

सुब्जेकटिविस्म इन

Subjectivism In Literature

It is an unwritten rule of literary commentary that, unless you want to be accused of Herostratic[1] honour, you never speak or write about your fellow writers except in praise. But there are times when the merman must mingle his sighs with soughing of reeds. When silence feels more like betrayal than golden.

In every corner I turned to at the recent Cape Town Book Fair, I found commentators commenting that the good thing about the direction of South African writing is that people are starting to “tell personal stories more” as compared to the past when the political novel was popular. I don’t dispute the merit of this. I get concerned though when the vein of Kafka, Becket and, of course, Coetzee, is used as desired pinnacle aspirations of our springs.

Subjective literature has contributed a lot in the protection and enhancement of our common humanity. It’s psychological individual brooding yielded many fresh and penetrating insights, and gave us more understanding of individual pathos. But this individual centeredness, as can be read in Coetzee’s latest fiction, is balding, and has started to pall. It has mastered the Hegelian concept of synthesis between the self and the external world to an extent of hallucinating reality.

What I’m saying is that too much personalism in literature has given rise to cloying escapist blind spots of exaggerations, more concerned, for instance, with animals, than aspects of democratic our ideals. It has become blind to the sympathies and aims of the vox populi. As a theory of intersubjectivity, it started as critical means against dehumanising forms of collectivism. Now the terms by which Hans Jonas Paton criticised some existentialist philosopher apply to it too: “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.

The problem with individual centred starting-point for 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 night 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. From there, as we know it is just few steps to Fascism. Recent history has given us nationalist fascism; and is presently brewing variations in guise of protecting, culture from the barbarians at the gates, or religion from decadent infidels.

Unhealthy internal intensity promotes anti-socialism, elitism, and escape from necessary collision with history. Every country, every nation, needs means to collide with its past. 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. Failure to confront our demons eventually lead to . . . well you know what they say about the plague bacillus; it never dies or disappears for good. It lies dormant, biding its time. But when it awakes, all hell breaks loose.

My quarrel with radical subjective forms of art, especially in writing, is their tendency of neglecting the necessary need with (blighted) history as a step towards regeneration and a stable democracy. Worse still, to closer readers, it has become little more than wordsmith technicality with no lasting substance; especially if it’s hodgepodge of subjective artificial extensions of senescent mediated kitsch, neurasthenic impatience, and bravura profunda does not appeal. It carries very little of value to those who are not interested in semiotic games and fables of insight.

In that sense the likes of Nadine Gordimer as springs of our starting-point makes more sense to me. She has already planted the seed of synthetic balance between individual and demands of qualitative historical engagement. I know we live in an era where the victim trumps the hero; where navel gazing is more appealing than looking to the horizons. But after all, artists are supposed to be interested in the exception that proves no rule.

It may be that both the intensity of internal life and the phenomenon of hope are both alike illusionary as guiding ideas of regenerating to the final destiny of our country and nature. But let us at least bring forth to expression the spirit of our country so as to know what can or cannot be achieved by it. The wounds of possibility are before us.

[1] In 356 B.C. Herostratus, to make his name immortal, burnt the temple of Artemis at Ephesus.

Succession Race

South African public servants have, in the pass month, embroiled the whole country in the necessary inconveniences of national public strikes, demanding a 12% pay increase. More is promised to come if the government does not heed their compromise demand of 10%. The last I heard the government was adamant on what it called its last offer of 7,5%.

Nothing in my mind has exposed the government of the African National Congress to popular condemnation as it’s handling of the present strike. Last Wednesday, on the streets of Cape Town, I was caught up in the striker’s rally march and enthusiastic fury. I marvelled at the supplicating eloquence of their protest songs, like:

Samthatha uFraser; sambek’ egrevini We took Fraser[1], and put her on the avy
Wafik’ egrevini watheth’ ububhanxa When she arrived on the gravy she spoke shit
Yini! Yini! Kanganka. Why! Why! For our lives so much.

The general mood of the strikers was captured by a lady, who was obviously the lead singer, in her statement: “Our government is becoming too big for its shoes.”

What I liked most about the ambience of the strikers was the manner by which it demonstrated the gradual shift taking place in our country; from socio-political to socio-economic aspects of integration. But I’m not now talking about that now.

During the last campaign in our national elections, when president Mbeki showed camaraderie with ordinary people, I commended his astuteness in sensing that his natural rigidity and disconnectedness were going to lead him into trouble. Looks like he since reverted to his old aloof habits.

Mbeki’s overmanned administrative apparatus is starting to show in his management team who, especially under pressure, betrays acquired bad habits from their master’s style of leadership. For instance, they feel exigent need to dispel criticism without acknowledging that sometimes it might be indicative of real fault. They see in present strike, public unions tactics of easy demagoguery to demonstrate their power than real demand for a living wage. This Mbeki temperament will undoubtedly cause the ANC to self-destruct if not checked soon.

Arrogance is ill suited for public servants, and always a sign that they’ve passed their due by date. If the ANC wants to maintain its stronghold on power in the next elections it must placate the angst of the people by making Mbeki and his management team sacrificial lambs. It has to show serious signs of moving away from Mbeki induced style of leadership and temperament of thinking he alone stands at the Archimedean point of African solutions.

Nothing portrays the folly of pragmatic politics as the progressive loss of reverence in modern leaders (Tony Blair & Thabo Mbeki) around the end of their tenures. It proves the obvious point that the glow from the candle of expedience burns contingently from both sides with no conviction to stand on. On the other hand, the likes of Russian Valdimir Putin are modern example for the argument that (any) convictions are still the best way to inspire unfaltering support.

We are told, ad nauseam sometimes, that the reason for some leader’s reluctance to relinquish power is as result of concern for what is termed their “legacy”. Maybe they should take a leaf from Tolstoy’s maxim in War and Peace: “It is only unself-conscious activity that bears fruit, and the man who plays a part in a historical drama never understands its true significance.”

No one can deny the fact that economic stability of South Africa owes much to the discipline of Mbeki and his management team. Economic growth improved the social trends of few middle-class beneficiaries, especially black political careerist boot-lickers, resulting in growing levels of social inequity; living the majority out in the lurch.

It seems impossible now that Mbeki, no matter how deft he may be on behind the scenes politics, will be re-elected as the leader of the ANC, thus become a behind the scenes head of government. I dare say he would not even be able to anoint, or influence his successor, if he has any such designs. Whatever will happen in the country’s governmental structure after his present tenure, it seems certain that it’ll happen without him. It’s time he resigned himself to that reality and move on. Failure to do so will just be setting himself up for the political dogs within the TA (Tripartite Alliance) to lap his blood in the coming ANC National Conference.

The excited debates about possible candidates to Mbeki has fostered a contest of personalities, rather than of competitive political projects and reasoned debate. Anybody who wants to enter the South African presidential race, besides being members of the ANC, will have to find their niche between the present obvious presidential contester’s personalities of businessman, Tokyo Sexwale, and the semi-disgraced deputy president of the ANC, Jacob Zuma, alias JZ.

Tokyo’s disregard for party shibboleths by staging his availability for presidency first on foreign media (BBC) might appeal to liberal sentiment, but it was a fatal error, and demonstrates his naivety about present African politics. He should have known better from the experiences of our neighbours, the MDM (Mass Democratic Movement) across the Limpopo. The MDM has not been able to rescue itself from the hole they dug themselves by associating themselves to an extent of becoming lackeys of occidental whims and capital in the perception of Zimbabwean vox populi.

The former convinced communist, Tokyo, has long made volte-face, and became convinced by liberal economics. As one of the richest black men in South Africa now, he’s pro-business and free-trade. He keeps talking about “creating wealth for all” without necessary declaring how—in any case you don’t have to be that technical to pass the political rhetoric. I'm sure it is safe to assume he is for deregulation of labour market, though, to keep up pretence that maximises his appeal; he does not come out in the open and say so, for fear of labour unions who wield the majority hand inside the TA.

Tokyo will probably soon be promising things like cutting bureaucracy in the government; advocate for anti-xenophobic nationalism, and all that comes with boisterous modern manifestation of global modernisation. In short, he'll make himself the darling of the entrepreneurial and the ambitious. But unfortunately, those policies and attitude do not wield the majority hand inside the TA.

JZ, despite all his troubles (He reminds me of what Ralph Ellison once said of James Baldwin, that he was trying “to inflate his personal problem to the dimension of a national problem.”), has positioned himself as a champion of economic patriotism against the menace of globalism. He’s been talking about the importance of government interventions in economic industries and coming out hostile to crass capitalism and—now that he’s a mannequin pastor also, which has filled him with new boastful confidence—modern secularism. He’ll probably soon be preaching that; “Economic growth and low inflation alone cannot prevent the disintegration of the country if social inequality is not urgently addressed. That a strong, efficient state, is the one that has power to enforce its ‘bias for the poor’, and that the measure of state strength is in how it treats its poor.” We’ve even heard him clumsily trying to capitalise on the burning issue of crime in our country.

I believe none of the above two candidates are exactly in phase with the vox populi. I’m sure there are other presidential candidates who are still buying their time, placing their wetted finger on air, to see which direction the wind is blowing. Silence of the likes of Cyril Ramaphosa—the competent negotiator and union leader whose thunder was stolen by Thabo Mbeki as a successor of Mandela—does not mean abortion of ambition. I reckon we shall be hearing more from the likes after the National Conference of the ANC. His silence so far has worked towards his advantage, as gossip and imprudence has corrupted the chances of others. As a former union leader, present businessman, and competent statesman without too much intellectual pretensions; he looks perfect for the job. He’s also modest, an endearing quality on a public leader.

One thing is certain, anyone who wants to win the coming presidential race will have to stride the divide and find the mean between Tokyo and JZ. South African politics are screaming for a leader of character with conspicuous marks of reflection and intelligence. A leader who knows how to inspire confidence through self-discipline and faithfulness to our democratic aspirations.

Welcome to the real politics of Mzantsi! Fasten your seatbelts; we are going for a ride to the distant future of our deep past.

[1] Geraldin Fraser-Mokeletsi, the minister of public service

My Father's Son (By The River Side)

It’s six in the morning. I’m unable to work. My mind refuses to concentrate. Instead it keeps wondering to the song that’s playing on the radio; Ain’t No Way To Treat A Lady by Leta Mbuli. Ain’t No Way To Treat A Guy, I guess in my case, because it has distended some unpleasant memories of my last romantic affair where I came out badly singed.
The tongue always goes for the rotten cavity around the teeth.
To understand, or rather put in proper perspective the pain; I must begin about a decade ago. I’m seating at a vantage point where Fort Frederick stands in Port Elizabeth. I liked going there when I wanted to clarify things in my mind. The splendid view of Baankens River collapsing to the sea near harbour calmed my nerves. I don’t know whether it is because the first river mouth I’ve ever seen was Umzimvubu, at Port St Johns, where the river water becomes violent as they try to resist the fate of being consumed by the sea, but I always found it strange that Baakens River is so acquiescent to its fate, like a sheep being led to slaughter. I suppose Umzimvubu is a goat among rivers.
It was never far from me to wonder what could have been the reaction of the first Quena or Kung, whom history has grudgingly calls Hottentots and Bushman respectively, or the first Xhosa, as they watched the first ship deck at what later became know as Algoa Bay. What a strange phenomena indeed it must have been, a house floating on water, coming from it, white people with flowing hair like maize hair, whose “ears lighted” when hit by the sun.
I was wondering about such things when my cell phone rung in rather cold windy May afternoon in 1998. My sister was on the other side informing me that our father had just died.
I had not lived with my father since I was about ten years old, when my parents divorced. So the heavy impact of the message came to me as a strange order of things. He died from perforated peptic ulcer.
I had lately then been feeling a compelling need to know my identity and the identity of my nation. His death intensified that feeling. I had been living in the city of Port Elizabeth, if truth must be told, more in retreat from my failures and trying to find a new direction for my life.
The kind of tourism I prefer is that suggested by Nietzsche, whereby we learn how our societies and identities were formed by the past, to form a new sense of continuity and belonging.
The Baakens water went calmly to their fate as if nothing had happened between the thirty seconds I averted my eyes from it to learn of my father’s death and my dropping of the phone. Rivers do what they do best, flow to their destinies.
Deep calls unto deep.
Deep called unto deep. My father’s life to mine.

Rivers are instructive and fascinating to watch. In a river stream there’re levels of flow. Where there are inhibitions swirls occur. A swirl creates noise but does not run deep. If it tries to take short cuts it often eddies, spins off and die, due to lack of depth, or scatter into a swamp. If the eddy is lucky it gets caught up again in the deeper current of the river to become part of the wider, silent stream again.
No stream runs higher than its source.
Parents are natural channels for the run of their children's lives. Without banks channels become swamps that breed infectious diseases. Channels that are too deep become chocking dungeons where children can’t breath, or take a better view of the world. Channels of proper depth and right direction, like a river, carry their children as tributaries to the fertile depths of the ocean, where life gestates life.
There’s a harsh finality about death that changes one’s angle of looking at things. When death invades memories crowd. Neat words and phrases run dead on wounded hearts. My father’s death left me with a strong sense of incompleteness. It is folly to expect to express a lifetime of emotions overnight with a throbbing heart. The best we can hope for is to reclaim what we’ve experienced, and perhaps, if we’re lucky, disperse the ambiguity of our memory.
My father had a patient disposition and weary compassion; kind to the hilt. People easily warmed up to him. He was a man of withdrawing silences. He spent most of his time in his rural areas where he now lies buried.
There’s something insincere about the tenderness I feel for my father since he died. Due to my neglect, I had no inclination to access and express my love for him when he was alive. It is hypocrisy and an attempt to flatter vanity to do so in his absence. What’s the use of sayings things to the dead we couldn’t say to them when they were alive. Why must our heroes always lie in graves? What was this unexpected grief I was feeling? These were the thoughts that run through my mind.
We’re all driven by instincts that transcend our own volition and understanding; by an all-encompassing Reality that shapes our rough-hewn desires.
My life is driven by tragedies (Tupac).
Algoa Bay, is now the Nelson Mandela Bay. Testimony to the winds of change. I don’t like change; but things that remain the same irritate me more.
At he banks of Baakens river I felt as if I was standing at the shore of immensity. The daunting task of it all; having to collapse to the all consuming sea; to disappear in the depth of the deep blue sea.

II

The time has come for me to say what my heart believes for my mind to prove it. If I fail, at least I’ll have a consolation of having tried to let the runnels and streams interfere with my deserts. The future is too distant, the past too deep, and my heart is diseased. “Diseased”? That’s a strong word for a broken heart.
The rivers will neither harm nor assist you.
That’s thing isn’t it. We get no help from the elements. What is the use of philosophy if it does not banish pain? If even an enlightened mind feels the pain when it collides with its heart?

Bendiba uthondo lwethu lolwanaphakade
Shiya, ndishiye sithandwa, ndidanile!
I thought our love was going to last forever
Leave me, leave me darling, I’m disappointed. (Leta Mbuli)

Facing Up To Risk

I'll confess to the fact that I mistakenly went to Linda Mannheim's book, Risk, with reservations. I thought it was just another chic-lit novel, but was wonderfully proved wrong. It says something about Mannheim's considerable talents that her first novel, narrated entirely in the first person and addressed as a letter to an ex-boy friend, should, though dipping into the pool of contemporary historical novels, avoid falling into the common failing of carrying its history too heavily.

The first hundred pages of the book are a true example of good story telling, with acute grasp of narrative tension, dazzling lucidity, precise and nimble descriptions of character; convincing artistic effects and catch your breath phrases like: Morning announces itself with pain. You'll say you've heard such phrases before, but that's just the point with Mannheim's writing; she learns depth and pathos to common sayings.

The book is characterised by in-depth digging of journalistic topics and politics of personal confusions coded as expressive search for individual hallowed place of belonging, all told in appealing realism and sporadic humour. I'm a great believer in William Styron saying that “A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted. You should live several lives while reading it.” All true this is true with Risk.

Perhaps Risk’s major failing is lack of plot, except for vague sense of propulsion that follows the protagonist's earlier lives, which sometimes reads like high travelogue. You often get the feeling that the book is a memoir turned into literature. At its worst the book suffers from information compulsion—the need to insert, sometimes not integrated, everything that it comes along.

Risk reminds us of lack of fairness and tolerance in our (South African) societies of constitutional equality. The gist of the story is contained in this passage: And here I am, so attracted to and repelled by political violence, so in love with a man whose life has been shaped by it, so in love with a man whose most defining moments took place in a language I don't understand. (No Freud, please. It's gotta be more complicated than that.)

The story is the usual one of complications of love relationship.

Risk’s strength is in cutting through cultural divide and exploring confusing complications of bisexualism. Everything in the story, even intimacy, is shadowed by self-doubt, which I found made for fresh difference to the vacuous specious courage of chick-lit literature.

Mannheim attempts a cross-cultural pollination between a South African and American culture with redeeming moments like: Sometimes I wonder what it's like to live your life in a language that isn't your first. I don't mean to go to another country for a few years and fumble your way around, I mean to lose the tongue in which you first began to understand the world.

Mannheim is of the opinion that English, as the language, is the first weapon to escape the provincialism we've been born into, to enter the global village. One tends to wonder how the likes of Salaman Rushdie or V.S. Naipaul would react to that.

We meet the emotionally withdrawn protagonist, Gerhad Eden Marias (alias Gerrie in home Afrikaner society, and a.k.a Gem in liberal circles) at varsity, living in a Cape Town suburb, sharing a house with a coloured friend named Lamya. Gem has promiscuous homosexual tendencies, but likes to befriend women for emotional needs and almost always end up sleeping with them.

Lamya gets Gem involved in South African liberation politics of the day through UDF (United Democratic Front). The inevitable ensues. It starts by visits from apartheid security forces, which compels Lamay to go underground and is eventually detained without trial. Gem too does not escape the torture of detention. Subsequently his political career introduces tensions of misunderstanding in his family, especially with his father.

Gem has a complicated homosexual relationship with Sipho, an MK (Mkhonto Wesizwe—ANC's underground military wing) commander who comes and goes as he wishes without giving much explanation to Gem. When Sipho is killed by a shower of bullets under suspicious conditions Gem decides to migrate to the US. It is in the US, New York in particular, where he meets, at the book store in a rainy day (sigh), Hannah, the narrator of the story. They fall for each other with Gem's homosexuality and history of political violence causing deep seated psychological complications.

The story is told through in a series of rapid, contrasting scenes, going back and forth in historical perspective. I suspect most readers, especially in the middle section, will find many pages to skip, and many extraneous malformed details that cry out for better handling of research material. That section is full of longueurs. It is tangled up in messy fragments that are more of a festschrift in honour of Gem. This kind of drag is occasionally rescued by Mannheim's wonderful sporadic sentences that contain refreshing ingots: The most intimate thing that happens to us isn't sex; its pain. This paraphrase is accurate to the point of clairvoyance.

Mannheim researched South African contemporary history very well, but one gets the feeling that she has not lived it enough. The book tends to be sentimental where political issues are concerned, and sometimes mawkish in cross racial matters. It is heavily, even sometimes unnaturally, peppered with Afrikaans colloquialism. There's also the heavy influence of American cinematography that works well when Mannheim is describing scenic locations like Cape Town, but get to be too cheesy and lack emotionally honesty in other instances. What the book lacks more than anything is the tone of irony and understatement—always a telling fact on non-lived narrative. People who only study events tend to take them too seriously than those who've lived them.

Mannheim places a great deal of stress on the importance of context. She, rightly so, makes quite a lot of fuss in attempting to place her debate about identity in a social and historical context. Her characters express themselves with consistent uniformity; even minor ones are animated by a flick of novelistic attention. Mannheim's great interest in the warped reality of spoken language is magnificent. The book has a studied ineptitude in the middle section that is compounded by Gem's preppy angst against his parents.

In my humble opinion, Mannheim is on the correct side of current South African political arguments. Take one about the TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Committee). Gem's non political father, when he's his opinion—like most white South Africans says: “Past is past,” he reassures me... “Reliving it upsets people. It makes things more tense between blacks and whites is what it does, to remind everyone of the things that happened.”

You'll be hard placed to find anyone who actually supported apartheid in South Africa now, even though it officially existed for more than fifty years. Just like nobody, in the ANC (African National congress), supported Communism. The truth of the matter is that the majority of people are pusillanimous, and will support whatever serves their interests to buy their peace of mind and false sense of security. Mannheim employs the character of Gem's father to explore this typical white South African Zeitgeist.

When asked by Hannah if he knew about what was happening in the black township Gem's father syas: “I am saying people did and did not know. It was both. Did we know the details? For most part, no. And we did not want to. I had a wife and a son to look after. I wanted to have a safe home. I believed that we whites were fighting for our survival. That is what I was born into...This is the situation we came into: to have lived in a place where there are battles, to have lived in a time when such things happened. And, regardless of what Gerrie thinks about such things, about responsibility, I was not responsible for them. A man can't help where he's born.”

Such equivocations are what most black South African find exasperating on some of their white counterparts, especially those who were never part of struggle for freedom before 1994. A man can help how he reacts to the situation he or she's born in. A multitude of white people, the likes of Braham Fischer, Joe Slovo and George Bizos, chose to take off the veil of cultural and race delusion. The question is whether one is willing to pay the price. The Fishcers, Cronins and Slovos of this world paid the price by not choosing the convenience of apartheid security.

To answer the numerous critics of the TRC, if I were Mannheim, I would have narrated the story of Tshidiso Mutasi. Tshidiso's parents were brutally murdered by apartheid security policemen, Jacques Hechter and Paul van Vuuren in front of his eyes when he was four years old. Tshidiso spent that night trying to wake his dead parents. Ten years later, during the TRC process, Tshidiso, then fourteen years old, met the brutal killers of his parents in front of TRC TV cameras. He had one question for his parents killers. “I live with my grandmother and she's very old. She is my only family. You killed my parents. Who will look after me when she dies?” Van Vuuren thought for a while, and then replied with a wry smile; “I suppose you'll have to come and live with me then. I'll have to look after you.”

Risk adds another brick in the growing South African literature that wishes to convince about the impossibility of reconciliation without responsible transformation. Apartheid was not just a political evil but a social catastrophe, as demonstrated by the jungle lawlessness mannerism of today's South African societies, especially in black areas.

I wish I could say Mannheim made plain the terrible things of a South African life, about the time she chose to talk about—I doubt if that was even her purpose. Her story is about love; love complicated by psychological ramifications of a life damaged by a violent culture and racial prejudice. It's urgency is with the body's weakness and the blows of fate. It is more genuine and brilliant when it dwells on the personal. Whatever the book as a whole may lack in purpose or direction, it finds in the starling voice that speaks to the heart.

Somebody at Penguin (South Africa) should have double checked some of Mannheim's Xhosa translations. I assume, for instance, that she got a hand written inscription for the political song below:

Thina iomhlaba sowephendula.
We will transform this land.

Only that would explain the slip since the sentence is supposed to be: Thina lomhlaba sowuphendula. There's not such word as iomhlaba in Xhosa; its lomhlaba, which means this land.

Risk vacillates between longing for the purified undivided self, finding authentic ways to fill the spiritual vacancy of our times, and the belief that the confusion of our identities is no longer important in our fractured, plural modern lives since we've acquired ability to posses multiple identities. I often found myself wishing she would make up her mind on the issue.

The book also tries to conjure up ways to establish a sense of family through political identities that superimpose faith, culture, sexuality and ethnicity. The only problem is that these too keep breaking up, as brilliantly delineated by Linda Mannheim's book Risk.

It's Just Business

I was in my hometown, Queenstown, recently when I unwittingly found myself at, probably, Tokyo Sexwale's first campaign public gathering. The big weights of the ANC Eastern Cape province, like Nceba Faku, the former executive mayor of Nelson Mandela Metropole, were present, giving credence to the rumour that the Province was switching its support for the presidency to Sexwale. [I would have believed it more had I seen Mr. Stone Sizani, the stalwart in the helm of provincial ship at the present moment.]

What first was strange to me about the day was the enthusiasm with which my coeval, who is an attorney and owns several businesses in the town, was taking the whole gathering. The last time I checked he was apolitical. The gathering did not give you the usual vox populli activity we are used to in political gatherings of this tenure. The attandance was mostly the immediate supporters of faction lines within the organsisation, reporters and curious onlookers who were, like me, caught up by the moment.

Ground politics in Queenstown are radical, or atleast they were when we were growing up, due to the palpable influences of people like Bra Chris [Hani], who was born in a dusty town of Comfimvaba, just about sixty kilometres outside Queesntown. I thought if anywhere here would be the place best to tell me about the dierection of our politics, and the leadership race. You could feel something struggling to express itself in the atmosphere but was not openly declared.
The currency of Tokyo's speech was how South Africa needed business people, and the ANC a bridge between its present warring factions. None of that speaking about public good and condemning private pursuit of profit thing. The topic was not misplaced too since most people seem to have gone there to see the wonder of this gnome of BEE who, in such a short space of time, has aquired such enormous wealth; perhaps even looking, in more ways than one, for ways of making it rub off.

Something broke clear within me. So this would be Tokyo's ticket; using to his advantage the general desire for wealth in most people and placing himself as a bridge between warring factions.

I lokked around me, and true as the light of day, the majority in attandence were white collars , Polo golf-shirts, business wallets, and the rest of upper middle-class gudgets and pretensions. None of that Zuma rouble-rousing loathsome marriage of conspiracy theories, mass ignorance, corrupted public virtue and cultural unity in conditions of political barbarism with “steady increase in carnality, vulgarity, brutality,” Tocqueville warned against. I also recalled that Tokyo was rocketed to political stardom by the death of his friend Hani. Was his friend, a staunch Communist, now paving his way or waving his doom. Something is stirring inside the tomb of our past, I thought to myself. But does the whiff sours or perfumes the air? That's the question.
Why did you take me to that meeting, I asked my friend later on. I wanted you to see the future that is here. The Chief [Mbeki] is like Mao. He wants the impossible; open debate to keep the system lively, yet he wants to fix in advance the outcome of the debate. “I told the rightists to criticize us in order to help the Party,” Mao is reported to have once said to his doctor. “I never asked them to oppose the Party or try to seize power from the Party.” There is no longer politics now, just businesses.

My friends' last sentece rang in my ears all the way home. I kept thinking; yes Mao had his faults, but he was right in thinking that a society does require shared moral values; that a good society is more than gadgets and cars; but his idealism did end up in oppression for the majority. Why didn't he just surrender power when the time came? Thought I to myself, and remembered that most people in high places will endure virtually any humiliation before surrendering a position of power.

There's no doubt in my mind that Tokyo might be able to build civic freedoms that can win public middle-class bourgeoisie aspiration. But what will that do for the poor majority? Make them fodder for the grist of our economic mill? Tokyo reminded me of Giancarlo Pajetta, the Italian Communist leader, saying: “I have finally understood what pluralism is; it’s when lots of people share my point of view.” Perhaps Tokyo will change it slightly into; “Now I understand what democracy is all about; it's when lots of people want to be rich like me.” Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose (The more things change, the more they remain the same).