Tired of Brinkmanship

It has not happened something that does not happen in Thabo Mbeki’s government. Democratic governments that overstay their welcome tend to haemorrhage from loss of moral authority caused, inter alia, by scandal, sleaze, arrogance, incompetence. As the late Xhosa poet S.K. E. Mqhayi would say; ‘Lento kaloku yinto yalonto, thina nto zaziyo asothukanga nto. . .’ [‘These things happen as thus, we who know are not surprised at all . . .’]

During the national strike of civil workers last we wrote in these pages that Thabo Mbeki’s administration has grow ‘too big for their boots’ when the minister of Public Works, Geraldine Fraser-Moketsi, demonstrated reckless conceit in addressing the worker’s grievances—obviously taking her cue from his master. We wrote that if the ANC (African National Congress) knew what’s good for it they should fire the whole of Mbeki’s administration. That is exactly what happened on the ANC 52nd national conference late last year at Polokwane—by changing its NEC (National Executive Council) the ANC effectively got rid of Mbeki’s administration for the next government. And I was the first one to be dumbfounded.

I was dumbfounded by how swift and effective the democratic system inside the ruling party is. The move to get rid of Mbeki’s administration was orchestrated from the ground roots (regional offices of the party).

It is almost an unwritten law of democracy that governments should never last for more than 10 years. Politicians who take this long in office tend to be infected with the virus of arrogance and insensitivity. Most of Mbeki’s ministers are typical rusted long serving servants, had taken an attitude of talking patronisingly to their audiences. They had become slipshod in their briefs and all. With the exception of few, many never took off, in any case, never up to their jobs from the start.

Most of us were shocked at the naivety of Mbeki in deciding to contest the third term as the ANC president. Nothing except that he’s been too sheltered from reality for far too by surrounding himself with a cocoon of sycophancy and careerists. He collided with Ortega y Gasset's “revolt of the masses”, and learned reality against the stone in Polokwane. It looks like it did him a lot of good too, for it fostered a spirit of humility on him, even inspired him to come out of his cocoon and emotional insularity.

Mbeki’s speech of apology for failures of government during his opening of the parliamentary section for 2008 was too little too late. We elect governments to foresee ‘problems and lead events rather than merely react to their own failures’. Reacting to their own failures is exactly what the government of Mbeki has been doing for the past six years or so. It is enough, they must hand the baton over to others who might have better ideas.

But the manner by which the opposition parties grandstanded by calling for early elections, due to what they called loss of confidence in Mbeki’s government, was ridiculous and self-defeating. Naturally they have their vested interests, wanting to harvest people’s disillusionments for their political gain.

Tabling a vote of no confidence in Mbeki’s government was a stupid opportunistic move of wanting to get on stage lights for the opposition parties, and feast on the carcass of lame duck president. Mbeki must be allowed to finish his term, if anything to set right the mess he has put the country through; otherwise we’re going to be in a situation where the next leader will excuse his incompetence to his predecessor’s failures. Mbeki must find a way getting us out of this reversal of values and general confusion.

Be that as it may, the ANC needs a way to avoid the present fiasco of Parliamentarians being reduced into plotters and mutineers in the festering boil of underground tug in the clout between the president of the ruling party (Jacob Zuma) and that of the Republic (Thabo Mbeki). Things have already gotten out of hand, with MPs wandering into rebellious factional plots instead of reflecting and doing their proper jobs.

There probably is no way Mbeki can redeem his name now with the fiasco of dissolving the crime busting unit, The Scorpios; and firing the head of National Prosecuting unit under suspicious circumstances. Hostility on him and his government from all direction has prevailed, fanned by his nemesis, the media, which influences public opinion. Now is not the time to pick media scabs, well-known failings and prejudices. Mbeki has himself to blame anyway, for developing a bunker mentality towards the media, which usually spells the first falling step for a public figure.

Mbeki is/was the ultimate spinner, a habit he learnt in England during the struggling years. The wages of spin are always political death, why should he be any different? The only way left for Mbeki is graceful exit by lowering his neck to raise the stature of his successor, Jacob Zuma, for the stability of the country if nothing else. So the country maybe rid of political brinkmanship, démarche and all. He had more than ten years for siloviki self-gratification, now its time to be saintly.

By the looks of things, in the respect he paid to Jacob Zuma during the opening of Paliamentary session for 2008, the lesson is beginning to sink on him. Besides that, the only interesting thing left for him to do is to sit down and write frank and honest memoirs so the rest of us could have an idea of what the fuck actually happened within the echelons of the ANC.

Xhosaland

Most of us are born and live in places without ever really discovering their treasures because we take them for granted. It usually takes the coming of fresh eyes for us to see our homes with born-again eyes. It took my need to showcase my home to my girlfriend, who’s from Botswana, for me to discover home.
We started from the township of PE where I am closely associated with the founding of an NGO (Non Governmental Organisation) called Ubuntu Education Fund, “an international organization dedicated to developing grassroots health and education programs in South Africa and promoting ubuntu—the South African belief in a universal bond of sharing that unites all of humanity”.

My homeland is the land we may, for convenience sake, call Xhosaland. It is situated in the province of the Eastern Cape (South Africa), roughly extending from Lady Frere through the Winterberg Mountains; incorporates the former Ciskei and Transkie, sweeping to the coast along East London to PE (Port Elizabeth), eBhayi. So it was ideal for us to start at PE.

Anyone who knows anything about the history of SA (South Africa) knows that British settlers established PE around 1820. It was called Algoa Bay until the then acting governor of the Cape Colony, Rufin Donkin, named it after his recently died wife Elizabeth. But the history of South African coast encountering the distant people goes much further than that if the ancient Greek historian Herodotus is to be believed.
According to Herodotus the first ships to sail along the coast of Southern Africa were those of an expedition dispatched from the Red Sea by the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho, which were manned by Phoenician sailors six centuries before Christ. The ships found their way to the east coast of Africa, rounded the southernmost point of the continent, proceeded up the west coast, passed through the Pillars of Hercules, and arrived back in Egypt at the Rosetta mouth of the Nile after an adventurous journey that lasted three years. Herodotus tells us the ships anchored each autumn at some convenient spot on the coast and the crew planted grain and rested while it ripened, and after harvesting the plants their sea journey was resumed. Historians suppose that one of the autumnal sojourns was made on the part of the coast that now constitutes the sea boundary of the republic of South Africa, most probably the east coast where Xhosaland is situated.
There are other apocryphal later versions of the Phoenicians rounding Africa from the likes of Strabo, the Greek geographer. But we know for sure that Batholomue Diaz’s expedition sailed into Algoa Bay, passed to St Croix and Bird Island, eventually anchoring near the mouth of Bushman’s River. There they erected a stone column or prado on the rocky promontory on the mainland we now know as Kwaihoek. The date was 3rd of February 1488. They sailed for three days passing the mouths of Kariega and Kowie Rivers until they arrived at the Great Fish River where they reluctantly turned back. On their return journey to Europe their two ships passed within sight ‘of magnificent promontory’ past which they had been unwittingly driven by storm on the outward journey. They named the imposing landmark Cape of Storms which was changed by his King John II to Cape of Good Hope. Vasco da Gama completed Diaz’s work by sailing round the Cape of Good Hope in 1497, up the coast of Africa to cross to India. The British settlers of 1820 sailed to Algoa Bay exactly three and one third century after Diaz, and all hell broke loose in Xhosaland.

In the words of C.L. Stretch, the beloved Xhosas Resident Agent with the Ngqikas during the middle ninetieth century: the Xhosaland “presents a fine background to the finest pasturage interspersed with fine clumps of bush, beautifully [dispersed] and extending along an extensive tract of country east and west.” The Governor of the Cape Colony from April from 1814 to March of 1826, Lord Charles Somerset, though not partial with his love towards the natives, especially the Xhosas— whom he saw as restless savages adverse to the advantages of Western civilisation— described the land to the then Secretary for the Colonies in Britain, Earl Bathurst, in his usual grandiloquent manner and false delicacy of his era, as resembling a “succession of parks from Bushman’s River to Great Fish River in which, upon the most verdant carpet, Nature has planted in endless variety, the soil well adapted to cultivation is peculiarly fitted for cattle and pasturage.” Needless to say he coveted this Eden for white settlement, if only it could be rid of the serpent, the Xhosas, whom he regarded as ‘barbarous savages, whose lives are ruled by ignorance, cruelty and superstition, the stock-in-trade of clever witch-doctors.’
To the white colonists the Xhosas were known as kaffirs, a Moslem word for unbelievers. Some say they were called so because of the texture of Xhosa hair that resemble sorghum, which the colonists called kaffir-corn. To me it is highly likely that sorghum was called thus after kaffir hair than the other way round since most colonists regarded Xhosas as ‘incorrigible unbelievers earmarked for eternal hellfire without the assistance of the master race.’ I am, according to a Sheridanean quote, indebted to my imagination for that fact. Xhosaland rises from the sea in Port Elizabeth in gentle varied contours. On uplands the air is so clear the eye can rise to the sky indefinitely and peep at the gods. The earth, once it leaves the caramel sands of dazzling dunes of sensitive vegetation on the seashore, is copper coloured. Verdure of trees grows on it. It is not rare to see semi-tropical birds flashing their bright coloured plumage, sucking nectar from the scarlet flowers of prickly-pear cactus that grow in the scrub bush that is very nutritious to herds of bushbucks, kudus, gazelles, elands and other variations of antelopes like the elastic springbucks. Various other wild animals habituates the area to the extent that the region boasts of numerous game reserve where you can still watch the big five without worrying about diseases like malaria. The Addo Elephant National Park is one of them and plans to be the first game reserve in the world to offer sites for the “Big 7” (elephants, lions, leopards, buffaloes, rhinos, whales and great white sharks) in their natural habitant. It is a great park comprising a 240 000 hectare terrestrial zone and a 120 000 hectare marine zone. Only lions still have to be reintroduced to the "Greater Addo" area. It also includes islands that are home to the world’s largest African penguins and gannets, unrivalled natural diversity, with five of South Africa’s seven major vegetation zones (biomes), and rich heritage of archaeological and historical sites. Accommodation and activity options are for all
tastes as wild life meets the marine wild life to create one of the most endearing sights in the world. It was in this area that the "Big 5" (elephant, black rhino, buffalo, lion and leopard) were first documented before vast numbers of wild animals were greatly reduced, some even to the verge of extinction, due to irresponsible hunting practices. Places like the private Shamwari Game Reserve are succeeding in reversing that. Shamwari is probably, I kid you not, the most successful effort at nature conservation and responsible tourism in the world. A visit to it though comes at price, but you’re guaranteed to rub shoulders with the likes of the Prince Charles of Whales and the John Travolta’s of this world. A way to sneak in for the not so rich and famous is by a gap year or something. They’ve various conservation programmes of wildlife reserves for those who wish to learn more about nature conservation called Eco Africa Experience program.

Between Sundays, which the Xhosas call iNqweba, and the Great Fish, iNxuba, Rivers was the bone of most contention between the natives and early white settlers of the eighteenth century. The Cape-Dutch farmers, commonly referred to as Boers, met up with the Xhosas, the Khoi, and the San people. The Cape-Dutch farmers, on account of the sourness of the grass, called the area Zuurveld. These groups mingled in the area in ill-fated relationship of their first encounters as compact racial groups towards the end of the Eighteenth century. Mutual plundering that lead to skirmishes between the groups was common. The white farmers, who got away with mischief with more impunity, because the called upon the assistance of British forces, when the region fell under Cape Colony, or Batavian Republic when it was once under it, whenever things got too hot, got the better benefit from the skirmishes. The colonial forces identified the Xhosas as the nuisance of the area and drove them further beyond iNxuba to minimise the risk of reiving. The river was eventually declared the border between the Colony and Xhosaland, which was then called Kaffirland. This made the Xhosas very resentful, returning like birds that have been disturbed by violence to a tree whenever the danger passes. The danger being ‘The Red Devils’ (the scarlet-coated British ‘Red-Coats’) as the Xhosas called them.

The end of slave trade, Napoleonic wars, the flood of wondering migrants fleeing the wars of Shaka (eventually known as Wonderers (Mfengu)), exacerbated the conflicting situation between these racial groups. It did not help matters that the white settlers saw the natives as the inferior labouring race. It was easier for the white farmers to hire and apply, mostly severe, control over the despondent Mfengus; to attract the covetous Khoi with the jangle of harnesses; but the Xhosas and the San people were another matter. The San were incorrigible hunters and gatherers who were mostly not interested any other form of life. The Xhosas saw themselves as self-sufficient custodians of the land. Whoever wanted to settle on the land, in the eyes of the Xhosas, had to assimilate and abide by the, sometimes, despotic authority of their chiefs. This caused discontent and was the beginnings that eventually caused the liaison between the two racial groups to be a crushing burden of suspicion and animosity, which embroiled the Frontier for the greater part of the nineteenth century, easing only with the weakening of the Xhosa nation towards the end of that century.

When you extend the borders from iNqweba all the way to iVuba (Zuurbergen) Mountains near Uitenhage, you get what today is referred to as the Nelson Mandela Bay. From those mountains, along the banks of pellucid Nqweba River, in the midst of thick Addo Bush, are prosperous citric farms that offer bush camping experience. We stayed a weekend on one of them called Umlambo, meaning the river. The owner was an easy going fourth generation Afrikaner on the farm. When we were checking in he jokingly wanted to verify if “you’re not terrorists”. That an Afrikaner farm can joke with a black dude like that, to me, shows how far the country has come. He told of wonderful things happening to the farms post 1994; how the partnership with his workers has improved the production capacity of the farm and all. He also told us about things his grandfather experienced in his youth on the region, like the trekbokken. “They say when the trekbokken comes you’re awakened one morning by a sound like the strong winds before the thunderstorm. This is then followed by the trampling of thousands of all kind of game—wilderbeest, bleskop, springboks, quaggas, elands, antelopes of all sorts and kinds. This covers the area and fills the streets and gardens as far as eyes can see. They graze off everything edible before them, drinking up waters in the furrows, fountains, dams and wherever they could get it. Fagged and impoverish people would kill them in numbers in their gardens and streets. It takes about three days before the whole trekbokken passes living behind a country looking as though destructive heat had passed over it. But it’s indeed a wonderful sight.”
The camping facilities are basic, self-catering wooden cabins, with donkey geysers for ‘warm washing water,’ one luxury yours’ truly, like Napoleon, can’t do without. The air is fresh, sounds recreationally natural, and the river, with minimum intrusion of paddling boats, even the bilibili kind, is quiet, slithering through the bush like a shinning green mamba. In most places the banks are precipitous, covered with rank bush and tall indigenous trees.
Drinking whisky and braaing steaks and green peppers stuffed with bacon around a bonfire felt natural. The silence and the vastness of the sky was divine. In the morning we couldn’t help, though we had promised no gadgets, connecting the Ipod, to the car radio. Leonard Cohen completed the picture for us:
Suzanne takes you down When he walked upon the water
To her place near the river And he spent a long time watching
You can hear the boats go by From his lonely wooden tower
You can spend the night besides her And when he knew for certain
………. Only drowning men could see him
And Jesus was a sailor He said, “All men will be sailors then . Until the sea shall free them.”

When you leave PE by the N2 route after about twenty kilometres you meet up with construction works. They’re building a deep-water port near the mouth of iNqurha (Coega) mouth to host the first Industrial Development Zone in South Africa. From time in memorial native people came there to collect salt from the natural salt plates. When the white settlers came the area became more industrious with sometimes fierce battering. There are concerns now that the industrial development will come at the expense of nature conservation and tourist attraction. As a person who lives among the grinding poverty of township I’m inclined to say, as much as I love the beauty of the area, the trade-offs for job creation outweighs the negative consequences. All modern means of development, to gain credence, must reconcile themselves, in a healthy balance, with the dignity and life needs of man of all classes.




Governor Somerset was aware the importance the Xhosas assigned to their land, yet his careless and provocative vacillating policies eventually led to the annexation of the land by the British. This was the watershed of Frontier politics. The Xhosa, in desperate attempt to reclaim their land, went to war with the Cape Colony. Subsequent Frontier Wars were, one way or the other, an attempt by the Xhosa to reclaim this land. The land issue was never far from most active war chiefs of amaNgqika like Maqoma and Tyhali. They’re perhaps the fathers of Pan Africanism in the Xhosa nation. Ngqika, their father, fell foul in the eyes of other Xhosa chief, and eventually that of his sons, because his friendship with the colonial government was perceived as the major cause for loss of Xhosaland to white settlers.
If ever a land was haunted by it’s past, it is Xhosaland. If you cannot find something to satisfy your yearn for an African adventure there, the chances are you’ll never find it anywhere else.

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• Ubuntu Education Fund can visited at www.ubuntueducationfund.org
• Map of the Eastern Cape by compliment of Coega development.
• Pictures taken at Addo National Elephants Park, which can be contacted at www.addoelephantpark.co.za and Shamwari Game Reserve www.shamwari.co.za
• Nelson Mandela Bay can be contacted at www.nelsonmandelabay.com
• Eastern Cape is home to some famous sons and daughters of South Africa like Nonjoli (Ngqika’s mother), Nongqawuse, Nxele alias Makana, Ntsikane, Nelson Mandela, O.R. Tambo, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Steve Biko, Thabo Mbeki, etc.

Buying Flowers in Cape Town

January 2007: I’m holidaying in Cape Town. I’ve just eaten lunch at Nando’s restaurant. I’m standing at a shaded corridor called Trafalgar Place. Costermongers are selling flowers. I stand dazed, spellbound, as if struck by lighting.


What’s the matter?



I’m not the one who usually cares much for pressure points of guide books, but I had read in one of them that the shaded area was once where they sold human slaves in the eighteenth century. It just sort of came to me all of a sudden. I stand there imagining how they must have sat there in rows, bruised and harried, damp and fever fogged, waiting to be auctioned while the buccaneering hardiness of their blackbirding sellers auctioned and documented their misery.



I buy two bunches from a coloured lady whose eyes dance with joviality. She looks at me strangely as I lay them down not far from where she is seating. On second thoughts I bruise them. “Arnica and eyebright; to treat bruises and for pained eyes.” I say as I move away. The panhandling car park guide, used to tourists and never shy of audience, poses for me to take a picture; but I decline, not wanting to be part of the pasquinade. He smuggles his way into my affection anyway.




I had been wondering how best to explore the Mother City; through buying flowers the motif came to me. I immediately took to quick research on the internet. In the end I discovered that it’d take a lifetime to explore everything associated with slavery in the Cape—since seemingly the region was built on slave labour—so I decide (for sanity) to limit myself to the city centre, the Company Gardens in particular.


Knowledge is burden.


With the acquired knowledge the city changes in my eyes, utterly. Everywhere I go I see tragic undertones of human slavery; old buildings, and gardens. The studied ebullience of statues, especially, look more like a kowtowing exercises to the narratory of Western colonialism and imperialism.


Cape Town, of course, as a city was established when Dutch East India Company (DOC) formed a half-way station, a toehold on the African continent, at the Cape in 1652. The idea was not to colonise, but to maximise profits of spice trades to India. Jan van Riebeeck became the first commander at the Cape and the founder of the city; mandated to plant fresh vegetables for the Company, which is how the Company’s Gardens were established at the top of Heerengracht, now Adderly, Street.


The problem is that there was not enough labour, so in 1654 the ship Roode Vos went on a slaving expedition to Mauritius and Antongil Bay in Madagascar but returned empty. The first slaves in the Cape arrived on 28 March 1658 brought by the ship Amersfoot after being captured from a Portuguese slaver that was on its way from Angola to Brazil.


About 63 000 slaves were imported into the Cape between 1658 and 1808, the year slave trade was abolished throughout the British Empire. Most of them were brought from India {Bengal, Malabar and Coromandel (36.4%)}, East Indies (31.47%), Ceylon (now Sir Lanka, 3.1%), Mozambique, Madagascar and East African coast (26.65%), and the rest came from Malaya and Mauritius.


I seat on a public bench to read the edifying correspondence between Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson during the foundations of the American Republic: ‘I am contending for the rights of the living, and against their being willed away and controlled and contracted for by the manuscript-assumed authority of the dead.’ Says Jefferson.


The voorlopers (drum majors) are drumming Dutch liedjies (songs) to keep the dead on their wake. It’s 2nd January, the time of Minstrel Festival in the Mother City. At this time denizens of the city get a modicum of care-free camaraderie between each other, especially those of different races. I am obstructed by a frozen disgust at the violence that lies at the foundations of the city. The caravan moves on, sowing bustle. I go up Wale Street, take some few photographs of the Slave Lodge before entering the Company Gardens.


‘The earth belongs to the living and not to the dead,’ Thomas Jefferson insists in another letter exchange with James Madison in the fall of 1789. Madison wrote back intimating that; ‘the social world, unlike the natural, genuinely has been inherited. It is the manufactured.’ The gist of his argument is that the social order was built, maintained, and left to us not just by a vague and nameless antiquity, but by particular people, within living memory and link to the past.


The Company Gardens is now a botanical. It gives a relaxed ambience for lovers, families, and all those who want to escape the metropolis compelling distresses for a while. It hedges Parliament buildings and the South African presidential palace called Tynhys [Summer House]. Tynhys was built on slave labour by Simon van Da Stel, the first governor of the Cape and brother-in-law of Riebeek.


Madison, of course, was of the opinion that we receive the buildings from those who came before us. We speak the languages they spoke, read the books they wrote, and are basically the avatars of their biological and moral choices; just as others will receive ours. Just as others will receive ours. That thought strikes a chord. What will others receive from us? Crimes of complicity, of evasion, of silence, of going with the comfortable flow because we don’t want to disturb the status quo; or prejudice a superficial reconciliation?



The American fathers, and those who use these kind of arguments, wanted the new Republic to find stability by accepting public debt and the consequent role of prior generations. Fine! Why then there’s a minimum of two statues of Smuts in the Company Gardens while you don’t find a single one dedicated to slaves? Didn’t their blood and toil erect those gardens? Is the silent hidden Bell enough?

There are heated debates about changes of street names and all in our country all most in every municipality building you go to. Up to this present day the U.S.A still vacillates between two points of view; wanting to acknowledge or forget the past. South Africa has just set in on that course. One says; ‘Let us forget the past.’ The other answers; ‘Because you want to rob me of its strength.’ Then another says; ‘Let’s live in the past.’ Another answers; ‘Because you have not prepared yourself for the future.’

I seek not apologies, nor reparations; just awareness of what has been with a promise to be better than we are. Just to take a moment from living in the dizzy heights of the moment without descending to presentism. History is enough Gorgon’s head as it is. Human manufacture settles nothing. We may buy flowers to ward off the stench where human beings were auctioned like animals, but pray we don’t trample on their graves.

Ernest Renan insisted that the nation is constituted in large measure by the shared memories of sufferings and sacrifices of the past that make the present generation willing to endure sufferings and sacrifices of its own. To keep faith with those who have come before the role of memory is crucial. Is it any wonder that Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address invoked the “mystic chords of memory”. People are usually ready to sacrifice for a greater future when they see that the sacrifices of those who came before them have been honoured.

I seat at another park bench watching the birds career the air in matinal excitement. The pulchritudinous tranquillity feels insulting to my mood. Table Mountain, bandaged in mist, is scowling at my neck. Grief is the beginning of the healing process. I had come to Cape Town intending to be merry, instead I found a home. Home is often where the heartache is, especially for those of us caught up on TS Eliot’s communication of the dead with their tongues of fire.

It was another American, Edmund Bruke, who said; ‘If a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds of men will be fitted to it; the general opinions and feeling will be drawn that way . . .’ I can’t wait change to come and my country be normal. Though the scars run too deep, there’s a clamp of hope on the aching mist (Philip Lark).

The Dye is cast

Lately, since he received overwhelming majority nomination on regional ANC (African National Congress) branches, JZ (Jacob Zuma) has been gallivanting on the globe acting like a an incumbent president, selling the skin of bear he has not even shot—the actual elections are only happening at the ANC conference from 15-20 December 2007 in Polokwane.
There’s no doubt that JZ sees his presidential mission as fait accompli. But what is the word from the ANC delegates who’d be voting in Polokwane? From the few I’ve talked with the general attitude is that ‘I’ve nothing personal against JZ, but my take is that, with all the baggage he’s been burden with it’d reflect badly on us as the country if he were to be our next president. You must not worry; the ANC in the end will come to its senses.’ I’ll doff my hat off if they manage to pull that one off, that is, preventing JZ from being the next president of the ANC.
Personally I prefer what I see as the lesser evil of Mbeki’s click (President: Thabo Mbeki; Vice president: Nkosazana Dlamani-Zuma; and so on) to continue for another five years. My concern is that; the voice of the majority on the ground is clearly for Zuma. What message would be the delegates passing if they ignore that voice? The ANC motto is that ‘The People Shall Govern.’
Having said that; the dye is now cast. The two elephants are about to clash in Polokwane next weekend. As those who grew on the struggle the only thing to say about this kind of confrontation is: Ayihlab’ ihlome!
I’ve in the past weeks, in agony of diplomacy, been trying to join the debate about the election of the next ANC president. Now that the direction of things is clear I think I shall close to this topic with a very frank talk. I imagine listening to a fresh leader—something the ANC is clearly adverse to—speaking in the opening ceremony of the ANC 52nd Conference (Polokwane). This is what he would say:
My pity collects and is roused when I look at you. I think of the glorious manner by which you conducted yourself in fighting the scourge of apartheid over years. It is up to you now to continue on that path, or to divert from it for strange sayings and principles. You have in the past elected leaders that were blameless as flowers, others not so blameless, but you’ve always managed to wade through because you allowed the principles of democracy and human rights to guide you.
Now you’ve come to your 52nd National Conference to elect your next president. Leading to this conference has been disappointing signs of your neglect, even shunning, the founding principles of your organisation. Others among you want to be in power in perpetuity, against your traditions and principles. Others behave immorally against the principles of human rights you purport to support, yet they still want to be elected leaders of your party.
There is nothing wrong with ambition but one wishes its objectives were more edifying. I see now that your fantasies have generated realities. Is there been a dearth of leadership material in your party that you should allow yourselves to be manoeuvred to this unattainable self-defeating position. You stupid, stupid people! Wake up! This is your last chance or soon you shall be fondling your dust and weep over your own ruins.
I face your idiocy with stunned astonishment. Go ahead and elect your paranoid kings and false prophets. Build tyrants who’ll enslave you through your greediness. You’ve shown that in this matter you’ll not accept the command of reason, you shall then be degraded by your bellies. You stupid, stupid people walking plagues of foolishness. Looks like now you’ve decided to ‘cast shadows that are contrary to the sun.’ All good and well then; ‘we bring our years to an end, as it were a tale that is told, . . . Now, gods, stand up for bastards!,’

Ngxola Boys At The Gates

When I was growing up in the township of Mlungisi in Queenstown we were terrorised by a gang of organised criminals called Ngxola (Noise) Boys. Just going to the shops was a scary thing and sometimes meant your death. People abhorred the Ngxola Boys but were helpless because they were unorganised. The apartheid government, naturally, did care anything happening in the townships so long it was not politically motivated. It came to an extent that people organised vigilante groups—I remember one called Inyosi (Bees) that finally broke the back of Ngxola Boys. But not before the township was thrown into tremendous turmoil, more like a civil war.

The thought of JZ (Jacob Zuma) becoming president, bringing his Ngxola Boys—Vavi, Mbalula and the rest—brought back that feeling and I shuddered to my soul. I’ve never hid from the fact that I’m adverse to Zuma’s presidency; I just think it’d be bad pro job for the country, but more to the point I don’t think his has sufficient suave to understand contemporary politics, especially intercontinental and international.

The popular currency of JZ is the weariness with Thabo Mbeki’s regime. Mbeki in most people’s minds has come to symbolise everything wrong with our country. Black people blame him for delayed economic freedom; that is for economic policies that favour big business (read white business). White people fear his independence of mind and blame him for abandoning the so called Mandela legacy (read maintaining the status quo of white affluence served by black servile class).

In my book Thabo Mbeki is the best president this country—hell this continent—has ever had, and yes I mean even better than Mandela who was mostly just a ceremonial snow haired daddy figure. I’m all for reconciliation, the so called Mandela’s legacy, but fuck it if it must be maintained but the servitude and sacrifices of only one race. The so called Mbeki intransigency and style of government has been his downfall, especially among the vox populi who see him as a distant enigma whose vision does not seem to take them into immediate consideration.

Of course the cynic echo of the gutter that fast racked Mbeki’s demise is the South African chattering class, from which he radically dissents. Mbeki is not intellectually or politically clubbable, something that’s very frustrating to the lazy lot of our chattering class. He does not fit any labels they echo. For instance, most of what is directed against Mbeki as the blight to his leadership is the South African government dithering at a point of Aids crisis. No one cares to point out that this failure started even during Mandela’s era; in actual sense Mandela was in a better position to show some real leadership concerning the issue but deferred it to the background. If anybody should take the brunt of this failure, without excusing Mbeki’s failures, is Mandela. It is unfortunate that our chattering class cloaks its frustrations and hate for Mbeki in this moralistic righteousness manner.

It has become fashionable in the chattering class circles to call Mbeki a tyrant, equating him to a budding Robert Mugabe. None are able to provide you with clear evidence of course of his tyranny except that he happens to have different opinions to their prevailing consensus which is not necessary that of the people on the ground. And lately, making strange birdfellows, they have been in collaboration with those whove been left out of the career wheel with the Tripartite Alliance.

Methinks if we need protection against the tyranny of the president we also need one against the tyranny of prevailing opinion of the chattering class and the empty howlings of careerists. We need a break from the chattering class’ tendency of imposing, by overt scribbling means, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct. Our chattering class, especially the clowns at Johnnic Media, give off too much heat with paeans to sensationalism and thoughtless commentary. They want to fit our minds into their own agendas because they happen to have the weapons of publicity at their disposal. Most of their criticism of Mbeki is more of an empty teapot telling a kettle it’s out of steam.

If Mbeki is perceived as being not in touch with the general gestalt JZ, our Priapus, has fulfilled the role of a messiah with feet of clay, or should that be schlong (penis) of clay. JZ has come with the popular wave against Mbeki, not because of any discernable qualities, but because he happens to be seen as the victim of Mbeki’s vindictiveness since he was fired as a deputy president of the country. The irony is that with all its hate of Mbeki the chattering class has prepared a way for a candidate they fear more—not for originality and independence of mind, but for exactly opposite qualities; clumsiness, gullibility, and too much association with the left. They had been canvassing, to no avail, for the magnate Tokyo Sexwale, who would have been perfect as a teddy bear leader to be pampered with media flattering compliments into submitting to their vision of things. JZ instead comes with the burden of expectations on the ground, and will probably sing from the trade unionist tune to pay his dews.

The crux of the matter is that the people seem to have made their preference in a clear voice during the regional nominations of ANC. JZ is their preferred next president. Whether that will be endorsed at the coming ANC conference where the actual elections will be held between 15-20 December is now an ANC internal matter. As the fifteenth-century philosopher and Roman Catholic cardinal Nicholas of Cusa: “There is in the people a divine seed by virtue of their common birth and equal natural right of all men so that all authority — which comes from God as does man himself — is recognized as divine when it arises from the common consent of the subjects.”

The people’s voice is that of God, if that makes you shudder, perhaps it is time you re-examine your values. Personally I would have preferred Cyril Ramaphosa to be our next president, and Nkosazana Dlamani-Zuma as his deputy; but the people are speaking and I’m listening.

Pruim is Polokwane This Year

Watching the giddy excitement around the country on ANC (African National Congress) branch meetings preparing for the coming conference in Polokwane (5-20 December 2007) one is much reminded of the Jewish celebrations of Purim.

Pruim celebrates the bravery of a Jewish woman, Esther, who married King Xerxes, one of the great warrior kings of Persia the Bible named as Ahasuerus. King Xerxes’ Grand Vizier, Haman, plotted to kill all the Jews in Persia—a large flourishing community who were descendents of Jews seized and deported from Judea by king Nebuchadnezzar.

Haman was willing to pay cash to anyone who would come up with a way of killing Jews efficiently; and even casting lots to determine how to destroy all the Jews throughout Xerxes whole kingdom. Letters and stern decrees were sent throughout the provinces on Haman’s orders. The Jews were to be killed and their belongings taken as booty.

Haman’s last straw against the Jews came by the hand of a certain Mordecai, who happen to be Esther’s cousin also. Mordecai refused to bow down to Haman with reverence necessitating Haman to prepare special gallows where he would hang him. Mordecai obtained a copy of the decree against the Jews and sent it to Esther begging her to save her people and herself. To cut the story short, Esther prevailed in convincing the king to reverse the decree, and Haman was hung instead of Mordecai on the special gallows.

Since then the Jews have celebrated the day with much joviality and cussing of Haman’s name. For instance, whenever the name of Haman is read on the Scroll of Esther in Jewish congregation the children make loud noises with rattles and banging so that his name will not be heard above the din and be blotted out memory. Anyone who has been attending the ANC regional conferences lately would have noticed the same tendency when either the name of Mbeki or Zuma was mentioned; childish din to blot out and cuss the name out. The non-partisan, like Buridan’s starving ass, stand perfectly equidistant between two piles of hay, undecided, even sometimes disgusted, which way to turn.

Jewish friends during Pruim send themselves Hamantaschen (Haman’s ears)—delicious sweet-filled pastry with poppy seeds. The custom these days during the celebrations is much drinking, ‘joy and gladness’ to an extent that one no longer knows weather he is blessing Mordecai or cursing Haman (Naturally the rabbis do not approve of this excess). It is the same feeling you get on ANC meetings these days. People are so excited, so elated, you find it difficult whether they are blessing Zuma or cussing Mbeki. Of course things are much more serious than that, since it is—let’s cease these pretensions—no longer just about politics but careerism. If Thabo goes down he goes with a trail of his hanger-ons. That might spell a lot bank repossession of X5 (BMW).

Our kvetch media (political) commentary, not to be outdone, has joined the fray. They are glad to have some excitement to the usual dull straightforward ANC politics engineered backstage. They are having a field day striking and trying to chip the ANC rock, but the harder they struck the more it just emits sparks in no particular consistent direction. Hence with the help of survey after survey—those wonderful invention to answer ancient’s custom of studying bird’s entrails—they sleep with this and wake with that.

Personally I’ve come to the conclusion that it’d take years to understand what is happening within the ANC now. Hence I’m not surprised when conveyed commentary on the presidential race tends to be skewed, confused, and even contradictory. We are on uncharted grounds here with no authority of precedents. These elections are doubling up as another means to explore the concept of our nationhood that operates through the complex tensions of our past, like ethnic, regional, even racial identities.

We all know that both the Mbeki and Zuma camps have no different political identities. Their identities are predicated on the personalities and vested of their leaders, give or take fluid edges there and there. Even the tacit assumptions upon which both these leaders differ tend to be inchoate and vague. I sometimes suspect they themselves do not know. Theirs has now become just another Darwinian struggle. No body has who understand the feeling on the ground has ever doubted the popularity of Priapus, the minor Hellenistic deity with the major schlong who inspired laughter but was himself “not a happy god”. But if it ANC history tells us anything it is that the popularity of a leader is no guarantee of his being elected a president. Otherwise we would have had president Winnie Mandela at some stage of our political life.

The growing consensus within the higher echelons of the ANC is that both Zuma and Mbeki have failed the organization by standing on the coming presidential race. But it seems the voice that is adverse to a Zuma presidency than that against Mbeki’s third term is in the majority; so the game is not over yet. The ANC NEC (National Executive) has tremendous powers and influence. Be that as it may the organisation finds itself without an inclusive collective voice except the usual appeals to the historical structure of the organisation that favours Zuma.

Single-party systems reach their heights when, like in SA, their vision has been universally received. To maintain their popularity they must renew from the centre, or employ totalitarian softer tactics, like state-backed propaganda and, at worst, use coercive force. When a regime moves towards strict authoritarian models it is often a sign that it is loosing grip on society. Which stage the ANC is at seems to depend on one’s political persuasions, but I personally don’t think things are forlorn.

The truth of the matter is that no one can really predict what will happen in Polokwane. The only thing certain is that Zuma’s supporters are louder, and even vulgar sometimes, but that does not mean Zuma has secured the majority vote yet. Another thing is certain, the frumpy, eclectic, broadbandness of the ANC has reached another watershed point this year. Things will never be the same again within the party regardless of who holds the reigns. It’s settled assumptions have been tested and found wanting. It might be possible for the ANC to go back to the unifying effects of its structure, but it has certainly lost the collaborative strength between its members.

All democratic governments are in a learning curve, a perpetual state of maturity, by the virtue that they derive their mandate from the people. In democratic dispensations the voice of the people is the monarch. The ANC’s homogenising effect, better known as comrade effect, abuses the monarchy and encourages anachronism. It is what needs to go to make way for authentic political and economic policy parity or antipathy of its members. That is the only way the ANC will find a way of renew itself for the twenty first century without relying on past conditions all the time. There is no running away from the fact that our identity is conditioned by, and mediated through the past. But there comes a time when the past too must adapt or die.

Then again, as the Yiddish saying cautions: ‘A high temperature is not an illness and Pruim is not a festival!’ Unfortunately some people are not privy to that saying. As we speak people are involved in various forms of fitrah (the cleansing rituals, on top of all the manicurist obsession of cutting nails and armpit hair, trimming moustaches and clean shaving hair that have befallen comrades lately), and numerous visits to amaGqirha (witch-doctors) to cast or ward the spells. Bobby Zimmerman, alias, Bob Dylan, would probably describe this sheer giddiness of things with his song Desolation Row: They’re selling the postcards of the hanging / they’re painting passports brown / the beauty pallor is filled with sailors / the circus is in town . . .

As the din rises I’m reminded of another senile old man, Shakespeare’s Richard III. In Act 4, Scene 4, Richard has drums beaten to drown his mother’s curses: ‘A flourish, trumpets! Strike alarum, drums! Let not the hearers hear these tell-tale women Rail on the Lord’s anointed: Strike I say!’ I wonder if president Mbeki has re-read Richard III lately since the days he made the farewell speech, in high spirits, for Mandela?

The Bobobo Life

My friend and were seating chatting in of those Sunday afternoons when nothing seem interesting seem to happen. You kind of feel caught in between things, wanting to rest and finishing off the weekend. So instead of having a couple of beers you decide on watching, more like surfing, TV. And so that’s why you end up watching a National Geographic documentary on bobobos.

“I think I wanna be a bobobo in my next life.” Says my friend with an usual assumed determination. You watch the program t into the end. You talk and laugh it over. And then you decide to learn more about bobobos. With the help of some quick research on the internet you get more information.


Apparently, along with chimpanzees, bobobos are humans’ closest animal relatives, sharing more than 98 percent of our DNA. Yet they are completely different to their warlike cousins because bobobos live in matriarchal tribes.

“That not entirely good.” Says my slightly parochial friend.

“Listen to this,” I say interrupting him. “In bonobo society conflicts are settled by sex, and since the quarrel a lot they have lots and lots of sex. Surely if that does not make you wish for a woman next president that alone should persuade you.”

“Yes I saw that part on the program; they even have sex to greet one another, which I think is way, way cool.”

“They use sex to socialise, resolve conflicts . . .”

“Imagine all that make­up sex, and more of it sex as the current of negotiation. What I found most impressive is the variety of positions they have it on.”

“And they are not finicky about gender either. Partners can be male or female, of literally any age, and are often taken from within an individual’s immediate family as well as outside of it.”

“Okay, I’ll admit that’s creepy.”

“Within each tribe,” the information goes on, “even the lowest-status female is considered superior to the highest-status male. Older bobobo females keep younger females in check by snubbing them: walking away from a grooming attempt or refusing to share food.”

“Grown male bobobos cling to their mothers in order to attain status and protection.” “Listen to this, I think it is the kicker: Male bonobos live longer and are generally healthier than male chimps, since they aren’t required to fight for status and don’t live with the stress that chimps do.”

“That’s a clincher. I’m choosing to be a bobobo in my next life. The bastards have it made.”

South African Presidential Race

It is goes to the natural arrogance of every age to feel its era is the most important in history, but the 52nd ANC (African National Congress) from 15 to 20 December 2007 will probably go down in the history books of South Africa as a much anticipated political conference of all time. The next ANC (African National Congress) president, ipso facto, of the republic, will be elected there by the structures of the party.

By the time Nelson Mandela stepped down as the president of the republic Thabo Mbeki and his supporters had manoeuvred the internal structures of the ANC into making him the only candidate at the national conference that elected him. Constitutionally Mbeki now cannot stand for a third term as a South African president though he has recently been giving Caesar like indications that should ‘the party’ structures elect him to stand as the next president of the ANC he would accept the nominations as his duty. Most people fear the untenable situation of two seats of power should the president of the ANC be different to that of the republic. Or wourse a situation where Mbeki, as the president of the ANC, would become a puppet master of the next president of the republic.

I was glad when the ANC branch of Gaby Shapiro in Rondebosch, Cape Town (where I stay) elected Cyril Ramaphosa as its preferred candidate to be the next president of the ANC. The election was by an overwhelming vote against the likes of Mbeki, Jacob Zuma and Tokyo Sexwale. It’s a pity that our province, Western Cape—termed the Cape of political storms—seems not privy to the advantages of endorsing Ramaphosa’s nomination (the candidacy of Mbeki is ahead overall in the province).

It seems to me Cyril Rhamaphosa is the only non compromised candidate among the choices we presently have. He competently represented the ANC in the CODESA negotiations in Kempton Park that saw the establishment of a government of national unity, a precursor to a fully fledged South African non racial democratic government. He had the blessing of Nelson Mandela to be his successor until the ANC party stalwarts convinced Mandela otherwise. Ramaphosa has a long history with the trade union organizations, and just might be the one candidate to restore COSATU’s (Congress of South African Trade Unions) confidence on the Tripartite Alliance without alienating the so called Mbeki and Zuma factions. The majority of those, sometimes termed ‘inxiles’, who made for the general movement that fought apartheid from within the country known then as the UDF (United Democratic Front), would have their ayes behind Ramaphosa who also has deep roots in that movement.

With the credentials of a trade unionist, businessman and lawyer Ramaphosa would enjoy the confidence of business, the erudite class, and the lumpenproletariat (underclass). He just might be the only leader who can achieve the mammoth task of repulsing the reciprocity of suspicion between South Africans concerning the remerging beast of race and worrying class divide. He’s such an obvious candidate that only those with other vested interests object to his candidacy as the next president.

What’s the alternative?

The later-day overnight magnate, Tokyo Sexwale, is too much spin, pose, samizdat fanzines and feigning of cultivated taste with false humility. He has a worrying tendency of manufacturing and manipulating facts for show, plugging inculpating twigs as goes walk along; involving himself in this and all that as only characterless individuals would do. He’s too much of a drama queen; and of course the white liberal press love him. He’s married to a white woman, and his millionaire status assuages the upper middle-class fears and flatters their aspirations.


Sexwale shot to fame with his Mark Anthony grace after the then most popular politician after Nelson Mandela, Chris Hani, was murdered by Right wing hired guns for his communist beliefs. Sexwale was the first politicians to be caught on camera on the scene his track-suit dripping the blood of his comrade and all. He was then appointed to be the premier of South Africa richest and economic engine province, Gauteng. He refused to take the second term, opting to shedding his communists pelt by going to full time to business where he acquired enormous wealth at a lightning speed through some Black Economic Empowerment mining deals. Sexwale’s major error was trying to mint his own coins by independently declaring his availability for candidacy, through foreign press (BBC) nogal. The usual ANC practise is allowing the organic process of the ANC’s structures to nominate one starting at branch level. He has since been tangling and hanging himself by his own words and ambitions.

Jacob Zuma, the current ANC deputy president, blends balderdash with shoddiness; unites vacuousness to suspicious morality, and tends to accommodate his passions to historical prejudices. His recent loosing a High Court case against the National Prosecuting means he’s liable to be charged for corruption soon, which might make a terrible PR job for the country. But he is without a doubt the most popular candidate among the vox populi. His stalwarts, amongst whom is the ANCYL (African National Congress Youth League) and COSATU are unfazed in their support for his candidacy. The majority of Zuma’s supporters are the disgruntled lot who feel South African economic growth and fiscal has been largely at their expense for the benefit of the business class alone.

The ANC electoral process has a history of shunning popular candidates; but the dark cloud of the corruption case might make Jacob Zuma desperate enough to adopt Caesar Borgia’s motto: Aut Caesar aut nihil [Caesar or nothing] at which state all hell might break loose. He has the support of the people behind him even if scoffed by the general middle-class aspired and usually conservative with subtle right wing tendencies.

Jacob Zuma has laid hold of the popular disquiet and discontent of ordinary South Africans who, are now starting to show serious signs of being tired of making sacrifices to perpetual illusions of economic panacea, have very little to lose. People on the ground have started to disdain submission in the name of unfulfilled promises. What the next presidential elections will clearly reveal is reconciliation and ruin faces of the same coin; and how the failure of the other inspire the success of the other where the dream has been deferred.


President Mbeki, no matter how competent, has been on the helm for too long. It’s time he made way fro some new blood, new ideas and all. Besides there’s been too much meed of clucking and cackling involving his name, like the so called Aids denialism and Arms Deal scandal. The green flies [rumour] has it his office is proposing the alternative idea of making Joe Netshitenzhe, the current government strategist, the next president of the republic. Netshitenzhe is on the high circles of Mbeki advisers and thus will probably present a seamless transition from his government.

Be that as it may, I personally feel it is time for new blood and fresh ideas. Ramaphosa has consular dignity needed for the first citizen of a country. Coming from the meretricious argumentation and paradox-mongering of our outgoing president, Ramaphosa’s lawyerly chaste brevity might be the breath of fresh air we need. But it looks like the only chance he has now is a highly unlikely 25% backing in the next ANC conference at Plokwane in December; or if the Mbeki and Zuma faction should reach a stalemate.

I’m of the opinion that the master chess player, Thabo Mbeki, has done it again. It’ll be a miracle if anyone except himself comes out victorious from the Polokwane ANC Conference. The only real question now is who’ll be his deputy who surely will be the next president of the republic and most likely a pawn in the hands of our master player. Looks like whichever way you look at it, South African politics shall be defined according to Mbeki for a foreseeable future.

What South Africa needs from its next leader is someone who would be able to build a conducive and enabling atmosphere for business to thrive, while giving support to the general populace to gain economic participation, and regain its civic conscience and cultural patrimony that was destroyed by decades of racial and colonial oppression.

There is, especially in the township—a social ticking bomb—instances of unrest rising exponentially. This obviously suggests a rising tide of discontent. If this anger is not well managed it will degenerate to the clumsy pyrotechnics of Zimbabwe-like situation. The next leader would be well advised to take seriously this fire of restlessness. Thomas Paine was of the opinion that; “Whatever the apparent cause of any riots maybe, the real one is always want of happiness. It shews that something is wrong in the system of government, that injures the felicity by which society is to be preserved.” It is easy to lament or condemn the clumsy aggression of a populist regime, like that of Robert Mugabe, but much harder to accept that it usually emerge as result of political and economic decomposition that left millions to survive without support. Neglected and polarised people tend to give their alliance to promises of instant remedies of populist movements.

What South Africa needs is what Thomas Paine called a revolution in the state of civilization. “A revolution in the state of civilization, is the necessary companion of revolution in the system of government. If a revolution in any country be from bad to good, or from good to bad, the state of what is called civilization in that country, must be made conformable thereto, to give that revolution effects.”

Rant The Beloved Country

Remember that ditty circulating in the internet round about the time the U.S.A. attacked Iraq: If you cannot find Osama, / Bomb Iraq. / If the market's hurt your Momma, / Bomb Iraq. / If the terrorists are Saudi, / And they’ve repossessed your Audi, / And you're feeling kinda rowdy, / Bomb Iraq!

Wide spread loss of trust in public authority is chic in our era. In South Africa we go further by making the government a repository of all our dissatisfactions. Lucky for us we’ve the tyranny of opinion polls—the modern day answer to ancient practise of reading the animals entrails for guidance—leaping about in response to every latest headline or cock-up to back our illusions. And so it goes:

The news is yo-yoing your opinions as the corollary to the loss of anchorage you feel deep within making you feel kind of fanciful and abstract. You are not in the mood of confronting your illusions? Why not undermine the government in cross-stitched logic and vague quatrains of Nastradamus. Call it the crime thing.

You feel a little exhaustion from your imperialist hangover and nostalgia, and are walking around tired of being a nonentity why not manufacture your popularity from the flattering delusions your barmates give you when you are ‘out to lunch’. Better still; you’ve been having bad dreams lately of apocalypse and deeper misgiving of Cassandra fantasies that we’re tilting to wards Zimbabwe like situation. Rant! Rant, my epicurean fad; there are government’s inefficiencies all over, only the business class is perfect (and of course they promote you). Rant! The barbarians are at the gates.

You support political leaders not on principles but on shallow fancy of whether Hugo Boss shirts are in, or Armani? Base your support not on any deeply held belief or commitment, but on the fact that you wanna get on the Gravy Train. Bring on the rip-roaring umshini wam Zulu boy to fan factionalism and scar liberals out of their wits.

You are irritated by party politics and desperate for life style politics that judge your leaders by personality rather than political factors? The leader does not have a Cheshire cat smile, and is an unapologetic dweeb who walks like he’s wearing sock garters. All this flames you but can’t really nail his fault except he looks down and expose your sophisticated ignorance? Scandalise and ostracise him. Everyone is distancing themselves from their past to be pc while dwelling on its weeds in their hearts of hearts; why can’t he just go with the flow and let sleeping dogs lie?

If your moral campus is spinning out of control and you are not sure why; blame it on the government. If your partner is living you, and your first born is doing drugs. The government is surely to blame.

If you kind of feel like some publicity-generating eccentric with a tinpot flare. Pluck a crisis from thin air, and like a Pharaoh getting his authority from Ra, suck your thumb and implicate the government on your delusions. If they deny it proof enough they’ve done it. Besides, who cares, you got publicity spin-offs. You need to demonstrate to occidental masters that Africa has an independent free non subordinate press.

If you are feeling a little relative morally; feel like crapping on some pities because you are annoyed that the fundamentalist do not respect or give a f#*% about your Switzerland position—but are shit scared to offend them lest they are hiding Osima or an Inquisitor on their backyard—transfer it to the government. Those ignorant former terrorists are safer target for your blunt fictions.

You kind of feel dissatisfied with economic growth, and feel, as Clive Hamilton writes in his book, The Growth Fetish, “restless dissatisfaction, chronic stress and private despair, feelings that give rise to a rash of psychological disorders” of anxiety, depression, substance abuse that makes you “engage in a range of behaviours aimed at compensating for or covering up these feelings.” It’s definitely the government’s fault. Shout out! Get some attention. ‘Me! Me! Me!’

Who’s your Tata now? Madiba! Help, we’re sinking!

Feeling déclassé; can’t afford brands that define the fetishism of your imagined trendy self style. You discover pen marks on the surface of your expensive handbag, or too much accumulated lint at its bottom? The government is polluting your world. The made is late? This government of fishes and loaves is giving her ideas that are making her too big for her boots. You diss and dish without creative drive; it’s not that you’ve confined your ambition to the consumerist’s mentality; no it’s the government that’s clipping your wings.

In the end what is all this noise but “a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing” feeling intoxicated by freedom and the yo-yoing of moods, grateful to the times, and the government, for allowing freedom to run amok. “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!” Wisdom here is not the purchase of the day.

Well Done To The Springboks!!!

We did it! Thanks to the concerted support of the nation and the Springbok's hard work, South Africa is the 2007 Webb Ellis Trophy winner. In Gugs, we celebrated the win with tom-toms and vuvuzelas blasting on the streets. Braai fires were lit in every corner. Other sheebens went as far as to give everyone a free round at the strike of the eighth minute as the Boks proudly lifted a very proud president Mbeki on their shoulders. We decided to honour the Boks with the metronymic name of our township, Gugulethu (Our Pride).



Of course, there were spoilsports who thought us mad for celebrated a still leaves too much to be desired when it comes to transformation South African Rugby team. To me they were the missing the point, which is to put it pithily: My country, right or wrong.



Understandably England was not just going to hand us the victory. In fact the game was too much on the technical for charlatans like me, which was a good thing I decided to watch through the expert's eyes next to me. With my limited knowledge it seemed the English were more committed, almost desperate, than the calm and collected Bokke. The Bokke played as if they were the defending champions and not the other way around. The Proteas can learn a lot from the Bokke with that calm under pressure, and sticking into your game. And Bafana would do well to learn precision of skill in executing and punishing the opponent's mistakes.



Something that spoilt my celebrations in my eyes was the surly attitude of English players after the game. Perhaps I was spoilt the graciousness of Fiji players after loosing to SA, those long lap of humility and all. As the result they become my second favourite team. I counted about three English players who snubbed president Mbeki's extended handshake during medal presentation. I was thinking what's that all about. My friend, when I asked, just shrugged his shoulders and sighed; "There goes our colonial masters again."



It takes just a quick perusal in the sober stile of history to see how bad losers the English are, not just in sport. Remember the battle at Ntab' Enzima, which history books as Waterkloof. In that Frontier War, amaXhosa, in the leadership of Maqoma, a chief of amaNgqika and son of Ngqika, routed amaJoni, otherwise know then as the 'Red Devils' then. Today you'll hardly find a single English historian admitting to that. The Zulu Impis did the same at the battle of Isandlwana; the same happened in many of the skirmishes that made for what used to be called Anglo-Boer War, now the South African War.



As I write the English press, ever easily led away by ancient prejudice, are spouting rants of sophisticated ignorance about this or that concerning the game, our players, and our country. Well, you know how the saying used to go: "Nothing doth make havock of mankind as the sons of Albion." Always when involved in anything they want to flourish even to rankness by uniting prejudice and fraud to force, trying to out master the Roman imperialistic mischief. In their outrage I see their weaknesses, polished and published as wounded pride.



In 1994 we made a contract, called a Constitution, which, in the words of Mandela was 'to lead our country out of the valley of darkness." The following year it was cemented by the euphoria of winning the Rugby World cup. The euphoria is back again to assist us with the renewal of our vows. Luckily the majority of us still agree to stand by our contract, the general kind of commitment; a commitment not merely of the will but that must be of deeds also.



We all each have to compromise there and there to further this collective deal. We must divest ourselves from prejudice, paternalism, and worship into the deal the ideal of 'nationhood' as defined by Ortega y Gasset called 'nationhood'. Gasset was of the opinion that we must first get the statehood right. "State begins when man strives to escape from the natural society of which he has been made a member of by blood or any other natural principle like language, race, or ethnicity."



I truly believe this country of ours is destined for glory. Of course there will be prices to pay, like proper differentiation of the burden of our history and overcoming the baggage of attitudes that need to be changed. "A State is," said Gasset, "a superation and cross-breeding of these natural origins." As the young poet (Philip Larkin) saw it; If one can accept the dream / The rest is best forgot.