This past weekend, I was running a marathon in the south of Johannesburg, in the Klipriver area, a suburb wedged between Soweto and Kathlegong. It was my first ever and it was my last chance to qualify for the coming Comrades Ultramarathon, from Pietermaritzburg to Durban.
The race went well and I qualified by running the intermediate to difficult parcours in 4 hours and 53 minutes.
One reason for my success was that from mid-way on, I joined the 'bus' led by Tebogo from Kathlegong whose flag that he carried on his back read he would drive his bus over the finishing line in under 5 hours.
The running bus was a piece of black culture in motion. There was about a core group of 10 runners who appeared to know each other well for they run in harmony, even synchronized, in breathing, gesture and rhythm. From time to time, a member of the group would start a chant into which the entire bus joined. "E-zy", "e-zy", one would go. Another went "hayi-bo", 'hayi-bo". There was also "So-ber", "so-ber" and a few others. Members would hurry in front from the back and fire the group on through exhortations. Given the last chant, I could picture the entire group during a church service. Indeed, it felt a bit like being in a black church. But foremost through the running in rhythm, I was taken back 18 years, when I was dancing to the rhythm of the congas at the Othella Dallas Dance School in Basel, Switzerland. It was the same feeling of unity, of captivating rhythm in phyisical exertion that made me feel good and in unity with humanity and the universe.
What struck me also was that this bus was running in formation and with much unity. For those who were a bit tired and struggled, including me, the group carried us forward and over the finishing line in time with ease. Perhaps not with ease, but rather so that the pain no longer mattered.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
The race war that wasn't
Judging from some international media reports, one could have thought that a race war had finally arrived in South Africa. Some local analysts found that racial tension had heigthened. In contrast, a recent survey found that overall race relations were improving (http://westcapenews.com/?p=1389), despite the murder of neo-nazi leader Eugene Terreblanche and the diatribes of Julius Malema, the leader of the African Congress Youth League.
How should we interprete what is currently happening? I think that all of that has only apparently so much to do with race, but South Africa is foremost dealing with political problems that manifest themselves in leaps and bounds.
In my Phd submitted in 2007, I talked to young Afrikaners in order to get their sense of how they feel about the country, politics, black people, the legacy of apartheid, and so on. There was very little sense of taking up arms in order to defend an Afrikaner nation or ward off a black assault.
All manifested displeasure at affirmative action and almost all denied any responsibility for the apartheid past. In fact, there was not even a sense of belonging to a persecuted white group that required minority status protection.
Some scholars claimed that the minorities in South Africa, read, the white minority (for the other minorities, usually referred to as the Indians and Coloureds, are seen to carry much less weight in terms of numerical clout and organisational power), would more and more organise in order to resist the encroachment on their privileges. Yet I fail to see the evidence that this is happening.
The followers of Terreblanche who received so much media attention are hardly representing Afrikaners. Indeed, Afrikaner nationalism is dead and neither the ghost of Terreblanch nor the success of the song 'De la Rey' will galvanize a people into action to take up arms or to mobilize ethnicity.
How should we interprete what is currently happening? I think that all of that has only apparently so much to do with race, but South Africa is foremost dealing with political problems that manifest themselves in leaps and bounds.
In my Phd submitted in 2007, I talked to young Afrikaners in order to get their sense of how they feel about the country, politics, black people, the legacy of apartheid, and so on. There was very little sense of taking up arms in order to defend an Afrikaner nation or ward off a black assault.
All manifested displeasure at affirmative action and almost all denied any responsibility for the apartheid past. In fact, there was not even a sense of belonging to a persecuted white group that required minority status protection.
Some scholars claimed that the minorities in South Africa, read, the white minority (for the other minorities, usually referred to as the Indians and Coloureds, are seen to carry much less weight in terms of numerical clout and organisational power), would more and more organise in order to resist the encroachment on their privileges. Yet I fail to see the evidence that this is happening.
The followers of Terreblanche who received so much media attention are hardly representing Afrikaners. Indeed, Afrikaner nationalism is dead and neither the ghost of Terreblanch nor the success of the song 'De la Rey' will galvanize a people into action to take up arms or to mobilize ethnicity.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
The intellectual emptiness of the post-colony
William Gumede and Leslie Dikeni call it 'the poverty of ideas' in the title of their recently published collection of essays. For Peter Vale, it is the think-tanks that should launch new ideas and provoke through launching challenging debates. Yet all they do is rehash old and tired, ideological standpoints.
Professor Achille Mbembe, in his opening two part lecture of the Sawyer Seminar series at Wits University, reviews Frantz Fanon and his relevance for South Africa, and Africa, today. In Fanon's analysis of the newly liberated countries, ruled by the nationalist parties of the liberation movements, a profound lack of intellectual engagement dulls the spirit of the post-colony. Lazyness, especially of the intellectual type, marks the landscape.
Parallels with our present of this observation are all too close. On the left, we have the resurrection of a revolutionary discourse that adds however little insight. It is a mere regurgitation of apparently anti-colonial, anti-racist, and anti-imperial agit-prop as it has been the staple of left-wing, Marxist inspired discourse since the 1960s. Or how does the equalisation of the white liberal with the racist, criminal murderer a la 'prime evil' Eugene de Kock add any new insights to our contemporary society and politics ?
From the right, we read that affirmative action, as it is practiced today, is the precursor of genocide. Current BEE policies are the same as the policies implemented by the Nazis in the 1930s in Germany against Jewish Germans. This is a variant of a theme that compared apartheid oppression to fascism, an existing strand in standard academic discourse on apartheid. Again, little insight about current predicaments is gained from such arguments.
Unfortunately, I could continue with this list.
So where to can we turn for the emergence of an intellectual discoursre that deserves its name and will provide us with new insights on our current politics and society? We may be quite far away from such a new impetus, and perhaps a long spell of a sobering draught is upon us, but I think it will emerge from a push for a renewed affirmation of non-racialism and in defence of the values enshrined in our constitution.
Professor Achille Mbembe, in his opening two part lecture of the Sawyer Seminar series at Wits University, reviews Frantz Fanon and his relevance for South Africa, and Africa, today. In Fanon's analysis of the newly liberated countries, ruled by the nationalist parties of the liberation movements, a profound lack of intellectual engagement dulls the spirit of the post-colony. Lazyness, especially of the intellectual type, marks the landscape.
Parallels with our present of this observation are all too close. On the left, we have the resurrection of a revolutionary discourse that adds however little insight. It is a mere regurgitation of apparently anti-colonial, anti-racist, and anti-imperial agit-prop as it has been the staple of left-wing, Marxist inspired discourse since the 1960s. Or how does the equalisation of the white liberal with the racist, criminal murderer a la 'prime evil' Eugene de Kock add any new insights to our contemporary society and politics ?
From the right, we read that affirmative action, as it is practiced today, is the precursor of genocide. Current BEE policies are the same as the policies implemented by the Nazis in the 1930s in Germany against Jewish Germans. This is a variant of a theme that compared apartheid oppression to fascism, an existing strand in standard academic discourse on apartheid. Again, little insight about current predicaments is gained from such arguments.
Unfortunately, I could continue with this list.
So where to can we turn for the emergence of an intellectual discoursre that deserves its name and will provide us with new insights on our current politics and society? We may be quite far away from such a new impetus, and perhaps a long spell of a sobering draught is upon us, but I think it will emerge from a push for a renewed affirmation of non-racialism and in defence of the values enshrined in our constitution.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Another taxi blog
This Sunday eveing I was doing my usual jogging in the Emmerentia area. As I was climbing up Hill Street, reaching Judith Street, I heard an enraged yell. "Move you Kaffer, move!" Had I heard right? A small grey car, trailing a fully loaded minibus taxi, was slowly climbing up the road above me. "Move you Kaffer", the agitated, white head shouted again. I did not trust my ears but the repetition made it clear: 'ordinary' racism taking its course.
As I write this, I think back of two other encounters in which white South Africans gave free vent to their racism. It is in theses moments that I doubt my own, usually held view that many young and white South Africans try to break with their heritage of white supremacy and apartheid racism and strive to live with black Africans as equals, as fellow human beings, and not as a racialized and inferior others.
What the chattering white classes forget is that the racialized populism of a Julius Malema, and the race-card-as-trump-card that Thabo Mbeki used to pull, resonate only because of the persistence of racism, ordinary and everyday.
As I write this, I think back of two other encounters in which white South Africans gave free vent to their racism. It is in theses moments that I doubt my own, usually held view that many young and white South Africans try to break with their heritage of white supremacy and apartheid racism and strive to live with black Africans as equals, as fellow human beings, and not as a racialized and inferior others.
What the chattering white classes forget is that the racialized populism of a Julius Malema, and the race-card-as-trump-card that Thabo Mbeki used to pull, resonate only because of the persistence of racism, ordinary and everyday.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Who will take on the taxi mafia?
There is no point in trying to make this look nice. The majority of South Africans travels to work and leisure with transport that is owned and operated by mafia syndicates.
I waited the other day at the gates of a learning institution in Gauteng. There were a few cars around that served as taxis, waiting for students and ferry them to their homes. Parked in front of me were two BMW 325, with rather menacing looking occupants, slim men, physical, cool. One of them went to the taxi drivers, and came back with the money they handed over to him.
Now, I can be mistaken, but it looked like the usual protection racket. In Sicily, it is called the 'pitso' - the daily money collected from small business operators for 'protection'. That I was not too far of the mark was confirmed when my friend told me that the combi operators, the mafia structures that operate the Toyata buses as taxis, had staged earlier a protest at the gates of the institution against the independent taxi drivers from whom they were now collecting money.
While they could not ban the independent taxi drivers, and they probably wanted the institution to do this for them, they went the other route and demanded now protection money from them. The independent drivers were cheaper and more suited to the needs of the students, especially female students who would be dropped right in front of their homes.
The question is what has happened since the end of apartheid to the transport sector? Why are these mafia structures sill in place? At a conference five years ago that evaluated the achievements and short-comings of ten years of democracy, the issue of transport was largely absent. Only a few years later, transport came back on the agenda when it dawned upon government that the delivery of houses, toilets, and jobs, would not be sufficient without infrastructure.
As an apparently efficient public rapid bus system is being introduced in Johannesburg, the taxi mafia is mounting another assault on the commen good by staging strikes and by shooting on buses. In light of the daily revelations of corruption between politicians and business interests, it is not far-flung to think that someone in political offices was benefitting and dragging their feet in taking the mafia on. I am waiting for revelations on why it took so long to take on this mafia. Any ideas?
I waited the other day at the gates of a learning institution in Gauteng. There were a few cars around that served as taxis, waiting for students and ferry them to their homes. Parked in front of me were two BMW 325, with rather menacing looking occupants, slim men, physical, cool. One of them went to the taxi drivers, and came back with the money they handed over to him.
Now, I can be mistaken, but it looked like the usual protection racket. In Sicily, it is called the 'pitso' - the daily money collected from small business operators for 'protection'. That I was not too far of the mark was confirmed when my friend told me that the combi operators, the mafia structures that operate the Toyata buses as taxis, had staged earlier a protest at the gates of the institution against the independent taxi drivers from whom they were now collecting money.
While they could not ban the independent taxi drivers, and they probably wanted the institution to do this for them, they went the other route and demanded now protection money from them. The independent drivers were cheaper and more suited to the needs of the students, especially female students who would be dropped right in front of their homes.
The question is what has happened since the end of apartheid to the transport sector? Why are these mafia structures sill in place? At a conference five years ago that evaluated the achievements and short-comings of ten years of democracy, the issue of transport was largely absent. Only a few years later, transport came back on the agenda when it dawned upon government that the delivery of houses, toilets, and jobs, would not be sufficient without infrastructure.
As an apparently efficient public rapid bus system is being introduced in Johannesburg, the taxi mafia is mounting another assault on the commen good by staging strikes and by shooting on buses. In light of the daily revelations of corruption between politicians and business interests, it is not far-flung to think that someone in political offices was benefitting and dragging their feet in taking the mafia on. I am waiting for revelations on why it took so long to take on this mafia. Any ideas?
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
What the President's view on culture says about his politics
The honeymoon is over.
South Africans desire a government that gets the basics done: education, health care, effective policing, infrastructure, clean water, affordable eletctricity; support for business, workers, and households. In other words, the things that a modern state is supposed to do.
Continuous street protests indicate that too many, especially poor people, no longer believe that government will deliver.
Already in the dying days of the Mbeki regime, such was the declared focus of the men and women in charge.
As the Zuma presidency takes shape, it remains to be seen whether these goods will be delivered.
Instead, what clearly stands out under the Zuma regime is a decisive tilt towards conservative, cultural politics. It is as if the Marxists had it right. The world of discourse and ideas is a mere reflection of the materal basis. The failure to improve on the material basis, the living conditions of people, is matched with the take over of conservative cultural politics - is this a ploy to throw sand in the eyes of the public and the masses?
Mbeki was applauded for having united two strands within the liberation movement: the Congress tradition, with its non-racialism, and the black consciousness tradition. While the black consciousness tradition was driven by the youth, the Zuma presidency now seems to add the black African nationalists and traditionalists, as represented by an elite group of mostly older men who rule over the countryside.
The Traditional Leaders' Bill, currently with the Appeals Court, made the ouverture to patriarchal, if not authoritarian 'traditional' leadership explicit - from this perspective, the ruling ANC had given up its claim to progressive politics, in the style of European social democrats, as Mbeki claimed was the ideology of his party. The usual political incantations of working for non-racialism, non-sexism, and against any form of discrimination remain just that - incantations, detached from the realities of power and the desire to govern a diverse, unjust, and unequal society.
It is in fact astonishing that the large support of the ANC for conservative 'traditional' leaders has not drawn more attention. It also makes sense to see this trend in Thabo Mbeki's and his health minister's, Manto Tshabala-Msimang, support for traditional healers in the face of an HIV/AIDS crisis. While it would make sense to mobilise and combine all health providers that people use, the benefit of traditional healers, especially for women's health, is not established.
Rather, with a bias towards men, traditional healers, with traditional leadership, can be seen as a conservative-traditional complex that works against women. Women are usually blamed by the traditional healers when things go wrong in the household. The leader of the association of traditinal leaders, Patakile Holomisa, only gave a mealie-mouthed condemnation of the practice, in the name of tradition, that abducts young women and sells them off to old men. Clearly, the interests and practices of traditional healers and leaders do not sit well with the Constitution.
In the buil-up to the ANC Polokwane conference in 2007 and the power contest that Zuma won, his statement that he would beat up a gay man in front of him could be interpreted as an exageration surfacing during heated campaigning for rural and conservative support. Zuma apologized. However, it is increasingly becoming clear that with Zuma in charge, the ANC is veering to the right. Culture is the most visible victim of this new celebration of conservative 'values'.
At the opening of the first Zuma parliament earlier in 2010, the leader of the opposition party, the IFP, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, asked all men to stand up in honour of Madiba. Zuma, including all ANC men, obliged. A lonely Naledi Pandor was ridiculed by laughing men across the party lines for protesting the exclusion of women from parliamentary ritual, even tough it was not routine.
Last week, Lulu Xingwana, the minister of Arts and Culture, reportedly stormed out of the opening of an exhibition that displayed photographs of women who love women and failed to give her speech. She said it was immoral and unsuited for children to see such photographs. A press release made the outburst even worse by declaring the photographs were undermining social cohesion and nation building.
The minister's outburst and her ministry's declaration fly in the face of the country's Constitution that aims to protect people in their diversity. It is even more worrisome in that it supports a mindset that views discrimination against gays and lesbians as normal for their lives and loves are supposedly immoral. Hate crimes against gays and especially lesbians are at an all time high, according to recent reports, and perpetrators must feel affirmed in their intolerance and hate by the minister.
In the same way that the 'war talk' of the Minister of Police supports officers who break the law and use lethal force in an indiscriminate manner, Xingwana's statements support those who believe same-sex relations are wrong and give free reign to their hate.
Zuma's usual defence against criticism has now become the claim that such is 'his culture'. Before taking off to London for a state visit, Zuma responded to his stance on Zimbabwe's new law limiting foreign ownership of companies to 49%, that it was not his culture to criticize the laws of other countries.
While there is much to be said and thought about tradition and culture in the post-colony, the elevation of culture as a catch-all explanation for anything and everything by a President who faces many obstacles, many of which are by his own doing, does not augur well for the realisation of progressive and democratic politics.
South Africans desire a government that gets the basics done: education, health care, effective policing, infrastructure, clean water, affordable eletctricity; support for business, workers, and households. In other words, the things that a modern state is supposed to do.
Continuous street protests indicate that too many, especially poor people, no longer believe that government will deliver.
Already in the dying days of the Mbeki regime, such was the declared focus of the men and women in charge.
As the Zuma presidency takes shape, it remains to be seen whether these goods will be delivered.
Instead, what clearly stands out under the Zuma regime is a decisive tilt towards conservative, cultural politics. It is as if the Marxists had it right. The world of discourse and ideas is a mere reflection of the materal basis. The failure to improve on the material basis, the living conditions of people, is matched with the take over of conservative cultural politics - is this a ploy to throw sand in the eyes of the public and the masses?
Mbeki was applauded for having united two strands within the liberation movement: the Congress tradition, with its non-racialism, and the black consciousness tradition. While the black consciousness tradition was driven by the youth, the Zuma presidency now seems to add the black African nationalists and traditionalists, as represented by an elite group of mostly older men who rule over the countryside.
The Traditional Leaders' Bill, currently with the Appeals Court, made the ouverture to patriarchal, if not authoritarian 'traditional' leadership explicit - from this perspective, the ruling ANC had given up its claim to progressive politics, in the style of European social democrats, as Mbeki claimed was the ideology of his party. The usual political incantations of working for non-racialism, non-sexism, and against any form of discrimination remain just that - incantations, detached from the realities of power and the desire to govern a diverse, unjust, and unequal society.
It is in fact astonishing that the large support of the ANC for conservative 'traditional' leaders has not drawn more attention. It also makes sense to see this trend in Thabo Mbeki's and his health minister's, Manto Tshabala-Msimang, support for traditional healers in the face of an HIV/AIDS crisis. While it would make sense to mobilise and combine all health providers that people use, the benefit of traditional healers, especially for women's health, is not established.
Rather, with a bias towards men, traditional healers, with traditional leadership, can be seen as a conservative-traditional complex that works against women. Women are usually blamed by the traditional healers when things go wrong in the household. The leader of the association of traditinal leaders, Patakile Holomisa, only gave a mealie-mouthed condemnation of the practice, in the name of tradition, that abducts young women and sells them off to old men. Clearly, the interests and practices of traditional healers and leaders do not sit well with the Constitution.
In the buil-up to the ANC Polokwane conference in 2007 and the power contest that Zuma won, his statement that he would beat up a gay man in front of him could be interpreted as an exageration surfacing during heated campaigning for rural and conservative support. Zuma apologized. However, it is increasingly becoming clear that with Zuma in charge, the ANC is veering to the right. Culture is the most visible victim of this new celebration of conservative 'values'.
At the opening of the first Zuma parliament earlier in 2010, the leader of the opposition party, the IFP, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, asked all men to stand up in honour of Madiba. Zuma, including all ANC men, obliged. A lonely Naledi Pandor was ridiculed by laughing men across the party lines for protesting the exclusion of women from parliamentary ritual, even tough it was not routine.
Last week, Lulu Xingwana, the minister of Arts and Culture, reportedly stormed out of the opening of an exhibition that displayed photographs of women who love women and failed to give her speech. She said it was immoral and unsuited for children to see such photographs. A press release made the outburst even worse by declaring the photographs were undermining social cohesion and nation building.
The minister's outburst and her ministry's declaration fly in the face of the country's Constitution that aims to protect people in their diversity. It is even more worrisome in that it supports a mindset that views discrimination against gays and lesbians as normal for their lives and loves are supposedly immoral. Hate crimes against gays and especially lesbians are at an all time high, according to recent reports, and perpetrators must feel affirmed in their intolerance and hate by the minister.
In the same way that the 'war talk' of the Minister of Police supports officers who break the law and use lethal force in an indiscriminate manner, Xingwana's statements support those who believe same-sex relations are wrong and give free reign to their hate.
Zuma's usual defence against criticism has now become the claim that such is 'his culture'. Before taking off to London for a state visit, Zuma responded to his stance on Zimbabwe's new law limiting foreign ownership of companies to 49%, that it was not his culture to criticize the laws of other countries.
While there is much to be said and thought about tradition and culture in the post-colony, the elevation of culture as a catch-all explanation for anything and everything by a President who faces many obstacles, many of which are by his own doing, does not augur well for the realisation of progressive and democratic politics.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Do we really need a new morality initiative?
The sexual mores of our President have landed him again in hot water, and as any other shrewed politician would do, he deploys diversion tactics to make the issue go away.
All around the world, when there is a big problem that threatens to subsist, what you do is to instigate a Commission. It gives the impression that you do something and by the time the findings are published, no one will be interested in it anymore -other current affairs will have taken over. It is no different with Jacob Zuma's proposal for a Commission to probe South Africa's morals.
Yet, to focus on morals in solving social and political problems is also the typical stuff of the right wing, straight out of the conservative style book. John Kane-Berman of the South African Institute of Race Relations, taking his cue from US and UK conservatives, usually claims that the statistical absence of the proper South African family (mom, dad, and two children living under one roof) explains many social ills. And the restoration of the "family" will somehow solve the problem. Neglected are then the historical, social, and political dimensions of the problem.
While morality matters, the real question is what kind of morals are we talking about? Concern for morality often serves as a smoke screen for promoting conservative, political values. The scourge of rape and violence against women is hardly caused by young women wearing mini-skirts; pregnant school girls are not the ones to be blamed for their early pregnancy, but rather the (usually older) men who trade sex for (material) favours; HIV/AIDS cannot be controlled by ostracizing those who have contracted the virus, as through marking their buttocks, but by treating it as an illness that requires medical and preventive measures, and so on.
Conservative moralists want to suggest that if only people would be follow the right morals, the social, economic, and political conditions would improve. To me, this seems barking up the wrong tree.
If the zeal to enforce conservative family values was as big as the desire to demand fair behaviour by those with power, be it in government or the private sector, be it by those high up or by exerising merely parental authority, we would go a long way addressing the problems that bedevil us.
Acting in morally sound ways involves more than policing sexual and social behaviour - a starting point would be to reflect as to how power and authority are, should and could be, exercised.
All around the world, when there is a big problem that threatens to subsist, what you do is to instigate a Commission. It gives the impression that you do something and by the time the findings are published, no one will be interested in it anymore -other current affairs will have taken over. It is no different with Jacob Zuma's proposal for a Commission to probe South Africa's morals.
Yet, to focus on morals in solving social and political problems is also the typical stuff of the right wing, straight out of the conservative style book. John Kane-Berman of the South African Institute of Race Relations, taking his cue from US and UK conservatives, usually claims that the statistical absence of the proper South African family (mom, dad, and two children living under one roof) explains many social ills. And the restoration of the "family" will somehow solve the problem. Neglected are then the historical, social, and political dimensions of the problem.
While morality matters, the real question is what kind of morals are we talking about? Concern for morality often serves as a smoke screen for promoting conservative, political values. The scourge of rape and violence against women is hardly caused by young women wearing mini-skirts; pregnant school girls are not the ones to be blamed for their early pregnancy, but rather the (usually older) men who trade sex for (material) favours; HIV/AIDS cannot be controlled by ostracizing those who have contracted the virus, as through marking their buttocks, but by treating it as an illness that requires medical and preventive measures, and so on.
Conservative moralists want to suggest that if only people would be follow the right morals, the social, economic, and political conditions would improve. To me, this seems barking up the wrong tree.
If the zeal to enforce conservative family values was as big as the desire to demand fair behaviour by those with power, be it in government or the private sector, be it by those high up or by exerising merely parental authority, we would go a long way addressing the problems that bedevil us.
Acting in morally sound ways involves more than policing sexual and social behaviour - a starting point would be to reflect as to how power and authority are, should and could be, exercised.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)