Extremes

Its nearing the end of October already, the time flies so quickly. The weather this month has been both extremely hot and extremely cold, alternately. In Ceres, not far from here the temperature reached -3 degrees destroying millions upon millions of rands worth of crops just into bud. Many thousands of already poor farm labourers were subsequently put out of work and the farmers themselves worried how they will survive the year. In the affected areas there will be no picking this year so expect your South African fruit exports to Canada to cost more. Famous Western Cape South African seedless table grapes, for example, were decimated.

The country also is up and down with many other extremes, and so much is uncertain; the succession battle, the corruption, the murdering once again of a South African music icon; this time it was ‘Lucky Dube’. He was shot three times last Thursday in front of his children in a botched hijacking. South Africa has lost so many artists to crime in the past two years it is difficult to keep track of those murdered. For nearly 30 years Dube has been a Continental Africa and international music star. During the apartheid era he was one of the most defiant of the protest singers, and although his music was banned, it was played throughout that period in the townships and hovels of the people. He is a huge loss to the soul of South Africa.

In his more recent “Crime and Corruption” album he predicted his own demise as follows:

Do you ever worry
about your house being broken into?
Do you ever worry
about your car being taken away from you
In broad daylight
Down Highway 54
Do you ever worry
About your wife becoming
The woman in black
Do you ever worry
About leaving home and
Coming back in a coffin
With a bullet through your head
So join us and fight this
Crime and corruption.

Dube left behind 6 children and his wife Zanele, and is only one of the 60 murdered daily in South Africa. On Friday, when my men took a load of garden refuse to the dump they came across a woman murdered and tossed in with the garbage.

To balance all this craziness in South Africa, and it couldn’t have come at a better time, there was the Rugby World Cup won by South Africa on Saturday evening in France. South Africans as a whole are as fanatical about Rugby as we Canadians are about our hockey, perhaps even more so. When the Springboks play, the streets are significantly diminished of traffic. Just prior to a game one witnesses drivers speeding on mass to insure they get to view a game with friends in a pub somewhere.

This Cup was a big one for South Africa, now embroiled in a very fearful period, and also there has been much government interference and pressure on the team to be more affirmative versus selection of players by merit. Government is demanding the players represent the population demographics while white South Africans want selection by merit. In South Africa the Blacks own Soccer, the Whites, Rugby and Cricket. It’s about identity, pride and being the best, for both groups. Our Springbok coach, Jake White, who led them to victory has had enough. This was his final game. Rumors are he will coach England or Australia next season. Since the win, however, there is an outcry for White to remain.


As a final addition to this, my October blog, I’ve decided to include a letter to Madiba by Xolela Mangcu (South Africa’s leading black intellectual, as published Oct 16 in Business Day), and a second article, the lead ‘Opinion’ on the Editorial page of the previous Sunday, October 14, by Sunday Times senior analyst, Justice Malala, titled “Deafening silence as Mbeki and Co reduce South Africa to a state of fear!”

You may not be interested, but herewith for those of you who are:
.
An open letter to former President Nelson Mandela from Xolela Mangcu

"Dear Tata:

I hope this letter finds you well. I am not well. Tears came to my eyes as I read news of the imminent arrest of Sunday Times editor Mondli Makhanya and Jocelyn Maker. I am not exactly sure whether I was crying for Mondli or for myself or for our country or for you in particular.

I was probably crying for all those things and more. You see, Tata, the foundations of our democracy have never been shakier, the credibility of our justice system never more suspect, the institutions of state never more compromised and our public culture never more hateful as it is under your successor, Thabo Mbeki.

He has single –handedly taken this country to its most dangerous and most perilous moment. He has become a god unto himself, accountable to nobody in particular but himself. He fires, suspends and punishes those who stand in his way.

Everywhere I go people are shaking their heads in disbelief. “What has gone wrong with this man?” they ask. I will not presume to comment on the legalities of the cases and the dismissals of high-level ANC cadres such as Jacob Zuma, Nozizwe Madlala-Routlege, Billy Masetlha and Vusi Pikoli; and now Makhanya.

These are just the state’s most public victims. That is what dictatorial regimes do – they isolate individuals and punish them in public in order to demonstrate that they will not tolerate dissent.

You know from your experience, Tata, that power knows no limits. Stalin showed us that not even the most loyal comrades were beyond the gulag. Power jails, power silences, power banishes and power ultimately kills those who are a threat to it. Power is conscious of itself but power is most dangerous when it is unconscious of its actions or when its actions take on a certain automacity.

The reflexive instinct to punish takes over all faculties – public perception and consequences be damned.

For a while, there have been rumors that the wolves are circling around Makhanya. I don’t think there is a journalist more hated by Mbeki’s regime than Makhanya. This is because he has dared to expose the depravity at the heart of Mbeki’s government.

Now we hear that Makhanya and Maker’s cell phones have been tapped. When the news broke that the SABC had a blacklist of certain commentators, I said any state that blacklists its citizens is only a step away from assassinating them.

Someone called me the other day, under the guise of a journalist, seeking commentary about the leadership succession race in the ANC. But I could immediately sense that I was talking into a tape. Maybe I am being paranoid. How could I not be paranoid when there are allegations of links between the highest offices in our land and the criminal underworld?

The very things that were done to us – the reflexive instinct to punish through imprisonment – have become the order of the day in this land at its birth. To paraphrase the scholar Achille Mbembe, we have forgotten that this democracy was born at the edge of the grave.

I read Justice Malala’s painful plea for ordinary South Africans to stand up and express their outrage. But it is his conclusion that scared me so much: “When one day, we open our eyes and our mouths, our children will not have a country to live in. This country will be a Zimbabwe because we allowed Mbeki and his cronies to rape it.”

Those of us who can run will, of course, run, if we can get out before the wolves get to us. Another writer, Jacob Dlamini, described Mbeki as “one of the pettiest presidents South Africa is likely to ever know”. And this is based on the view that he uses state institutions to persecute anyone who mildly disagrees with him.

In such a short space of time, since you stepped down from the presidency, the state itself has become indistinguishable from the individual (President Mbeki).

This is a disgrace for a country that was held aloft as the beacon of freedom, democracy and justice just a mere decade ago. How did we fall so quickly from grace? Where are the good men and women of the ANC? How could they allow their senses to be deadened this way? How could they connive in the dismemberment of the very project everyone gave up so much for?

How could people who were so brave under apartheid, just cower under one man? What is it that they know that we do not know?

I am writing this letter, Tata, to say that you are our last hope, our only chance. You cannot watch silently while your successor deliberately pulls apart everything you and your departed comrades so carefully put together.

Your voice would reverberate across this land, across this continent and across the world. Your voice, Tata, could help avert evils that are certainly going to be visited on the people of this country by a power-mad bunch in the Union Buildings.
Your voice could pull this country from certain ruination. Your voice could save our lives."

Mangcu is executive chairman of the Platform for Public Deliberation at the University of Witwatersrand.

Also herewith the following article, published by the Sunday Times senior analyst, Justice Malala, titled “Deafening silence as Mbeki and Co reduce South Africa to a state of fear”

“I am angry and I am afraid, I am deeply afraid for my country. The sound of silence has fallen over our country while the government of President Thabo Mbeki, in its anger and its shame over its numerous failures and acts of deceit, uses state security apparatus to go after every man and woman who dares to speak truth to power.

While all this happens, the many good men and women in Cabinet, in government, in business, in the trade unions and in civil society, keep quiet. Where are the good men and women of the United Democratic Front? Where are the many good men and women of the SA Council of Churches, such as Brigalia Bam?

They are silent. They are in agreement while the democracy they fought for is abused to protect the increasingly paranoid and discredited presidency of Mbeki and to settle petty personal scores. We should all hang our heads in shame.

I write this having just heard that the editor of this newspaper, Mondli Makhanya, and its head of investigations, Jocelyn Maker, will be arrested this week. Their crime is that they published a story alleging that the Minister of Health, Dr. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, screamed at hospital staff and drank huge amounts of booze while in hospital for a shoulder operation.

The minister, the custodian of our nation’s health, has denied none of these allegations. The newspaper also published allegations that Tshabalala-Msimang was a drunk and a thief. This story has not been refuted by the minister nor any other government official.

Instead, the minister of Health has abused public funds by getting two of her generals to publish wasteful, unintelligible advertisements in various newspapers to allege that it is a crime to access personal medical records. No one has said a word about the public interest. Instead, the case was handed to the Western Cape’s top detective.

The imminent arrest of Makhanya and Maker is nothing new in the ignominy that is now the Mbeki regime. It has long been alleged that Jacob Zuma, the ANC’s deputy president, was investigated by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) under Bulelani Ngcuka, husband of the current deputy president, because he dared dream of succeeding Mbeki while the President did not wish it to be so.

I have always dismissed this allegation as conspiratorial bunkum. I am not so sure anymore. Where once I would have asked Zuma’s supporters to show me the evidence, I am forced to ask Mbeki and his cronies to show me the evidence that they did not indeed set the Scorpions on Zuma’s trail.

Of course, the worst abuse of state apparatus is playing itself out today while we consider the fact that Makhanya and Maker will be arrested, prosecuted and perhaps even jailed. That abuse is the refusal by Mbeki to let the law take its course and have National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi, an Mbeki confidante, arrested by the Scorpions.

Mbeki went to extraordinary lengths to stop the current NPA head, Vusi Pikoli, from arresting Selebi (National Police Commissioner and Head of Interpol) on corruption-related charges, despite a warrant of arrest and search warrants being issued by magistrates and judges.

But Mbeki went further. For more than a week he and his office lied to the public and the parliamentary opposition about the existence of such a warrant. These past two weeks they have been going to extraordinary lengths to cover up this outrage.

The question has to be asked: is this the South Africa of Nelson Mandela and Albert Luthuli? Did the heroes of June, 1976 and the veterans of the fires of ‘80s lose out on schooling and normal lives to be in a country where journalists are prosecuted as happened under apartheid?

The Mbeki regime has been an unmitigated disaster from the onset. But ineptitude – ranging from the failure to deal with HIV/Aids and rampant crime to consorting with criminals such as Robert Mugabe – is different from pure, unadulterated corruption such as we see unfolding today in the Pikoli saga and now the persecution of Makhanya and Maker.

These are steps into the worlds of Mobute Sese Seko and Mugabe. Only 13 years into our democracy, Mbeki’s Stalinist leanings are fully on show: journalists and editors arrested and jailed; opponents jailed on trumped-up charges; everyone in government living in fear that they are been followed, watched and bugged.

How long before a bullet arrives for a pesky journalist or Jacob Zuma? Remember, we used to say Mbeki would not interfere with the judiciary. We were wrong.

The worst part of this whole outrage is that Makhanya and Maker could go to jail. They will go to jail while good men and women stand and watch. They will be jailed while Mandela and many others stand and watch while the country they fought for so valiantly falls deeper into the hands of a corrupt and power mad coterie at the Union Buildings.

I am angry and I am afraid. But mostly I am ashamed; ashamed and embarrassed to call myself South African. Ashamed that in this country we all keep quiet while evil is so routinely perpetuated by a bunch we ourselves put into power.

When one day, we open our eyes and our mouths, our children will not have a country to live in. This country will be a Zimbabwe because we allowed Mbeki and his cronies to rape it."

Thus ends my blog for October, 2007.
What does the future hold
for South Africa,
for the Continent
for this Canadian boy
Onder Blopunt

solinus

On the State of the Nation

It may appear I’ve given up on my blog; rather I have been too occupied with all our many successful projects. And for the past 6 weeks it’s been non stop planting in the gardens, like spring planting in Canada. Success has its own pros and cons, and one of the cons is the overwhelming detail which accompanies continuance of success. With now close to 200 gardens in the Montagu disadvantaged communities, a large community and market garden and requests to start the program combined with soup kitchen in two other communities, I’ve been literally swamped with details. And to be honest, I’m having trouble keeping up. Having had no break from my duties since returning from Canada three years ago, I’m a little worried about my health and how to slow down, or at the very least how to work smarter.

I am proud to tell you that Rural Women Association, of which I am the project manager and treasurer, won the National JET Award for Social Development in the West Cape Province. It was both an honour and a surprise and puts us on a short list of five organizations in South Africa now being considered for first prize in November, the national South African award. In some ways I think it would be best if we didn’t win this one; the initial prize is enough, can’t imagine Rural Women getting any busier and such an award would be as demanding as it would be recognition. One of the ironies is that Rural Women has never been able to acquire sponsorship for the organization itself, only for specific programs with very tight budgets. Our work is volunteer and our fuel, office and communication costs horrific. It’s very challenging at times.

In our initial years we were regularly treated like beggars by all we appealed to, an attitude unique not just with the civil servants we must deal with but government leaders who tell us to quit whining or leave South Africa. In contrast, recently President Mbeki authorized a R90 million wall to surround his personal residence while cutting budgets for major hospitals and reducing their capacity by about 30%. R90 million is about $13 million Cdn at the moment. The security wall must be gold plated.

Of note, my work on developing the Victim Support Room, the Huis Tuintjie program and the ECD Crèche and Soup Kitchen cost about R100,000, that about $14,000 Cdn. Makes one think, doesn’t it.

The biggest mistake our new Black government made when coming into power in 1994 was to fail to realize that it is the people who are the Country’s greatest resource and who if given competent opportunity, would transform this country. Instead, it’s the new political pig at the trough and black elite who have taken charge, and they are very rich indeed on the backs of the people. And consider this, the ANC of which I am a member, came in on a social democratic agenda to right the wrongs of the past, to uplift the majority non white population and keep peace with the whites, coloured and Indians, and to end poverty. Ha.

Since 1994 it appears the freedom fighting comrades’ real intent, and this is expressed virtually across the spectrum of government and civil service, showing that the ANC and other political parties have been running for government positions to get rich, or more simply put, to rule by the Law of the Jungle. It’s their greed which blinds them to their own corruption and constant ‘Denial’ which appearance-wise, is official government policy, denial after denial, and ‘No Comment’, naturally. Undoubtedly there were well intentioned and concerned activists who initially formed the government, and of course there was and still is Madiba, who commentators now wonder how uncomfortable at 89 he must be with the present state of ANC affairs. And can we blame the former oppressed population if when thinking about Democracy they see that Democracy means acquiring wealth by any means. If they are to be free they believe they must make big bucks. It’s an economic thing rather than desiring to serve. Thus corruption is swamping effective government. The top dogs are fortressing, having lost their integrity, principles and the country's trust.

What is not being denied by some ANC and all opposition politicians, and responsibly detailed by the Press, is that the ANC has now in Constitutional Crisis, and that the Party is split within itself and with its alliance partners. No one knows what will happen and fear abounds for our future. Why do we have a Constitutional Crisis? It is because our President fired the head of the National Prosecuting Authority for issuing an arrest warrant for the National Police Chief. The President is constitutionally required to keep hands off Justice. By firing Pikoli to protect his Police Chief, the President committed an act to 'obstruct Justice'.

Sadly, since writing my last blog in early August, our deputy Health Minister was also fired. She is the amazing woman who brought about a complete change in government policy towards HIV-Aids while our ultra incompetent Health Minister was having a liver transplant brought about by her alcoholism. Press also detailed how when our Health Minister was a Hospital Superintendent in Botswana she was not only fired but deported and banned from Botswana for stealing a watch from an anethesized patient in her hospital. When Deputy Health Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routlege responded to her dismissal she voiced a new 'in' quote as follows: "Speak truth to Power". But Power here won’t listen.

Both Rutledge and Pikoli are considered intensely principled. It was Rutledge who disclosed that 200 children were dying unnecessarily each month in each of two hospitals in the Easter Cape. Mbeki used the pretext of her attendance at an overseas Aids convention without permission, which she thought she had, for firing her. Most think our President and Health Minister’s distaste for Rutledge really flowed from her incredible competence in changing policy and uplifting the HIV-Aids battle while the Health Minister was in hospital for a liver transplant. The economic connection here is that many US10 million dollar cash consignments in US$100 notes, have been detailed moving from the President’s office to a company supporting an illegal and toxic HIV treatment. The stink goes deeper in that the head of that Company is expected to be appointed Chair of SABC, (CBC type format), widely regaled as being the unabashed mouth piece of Mbeki and government.

You will recall in an earlier blog my excitement that finally South Africa, which is losing 1,000 people a day to Aids, many of them children, had finally got serious about the epidemic. Well, that has now all changed with our Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang back in full control of both government HIV-Aids Denialism and the Dept of Health, continuing to promote beetroot, garlic and African potato as a cure to Aids, while also supporting and promoting a legally banned treatment, all the while pushing her belief that anti retrovirals are toxic. Whew, talk about hopelessness on the part of suffering victims and concerned loved ones. And I do see them as victims. Alice, for her part in Wonderland is still living on a Snakes and Ladder board. She complains constantly but no one listens, certainly no one in position to do anything. Fortunately our Press is excellent and for a while yet relatively unfettered pending new legislation, otherwise we'd know little.

I’ve written about Selebi, our national Police Chief, also head of Interpol, who is widely regarded as the top international gangster in South Africa and very close to Mbeki. This week, as I referred to earlier, Vusi Pikoli, who was head of the National Prosecuting Authority, responsible for overseeing the Scorpions (similar to the US FBI) filed an arrest warrant against Selebi and was summarily fired by President Mbeki the day before Mbeki left to address the UN. No one now knows what has happened to the warrant for Selebi’s arrest, of which there are two, one to arrest, one to raid his office, not even the BBC can get the truth. The question which beggars to be answered is... where is Interpol in all this…? Don’t they feel an investigation is in order from their end? What gives? Selebi’s their present Head. Hmmm.

The corruption in the South African political realm is so rife as to be unbelievable to this Canadian farm boy. Mbeki gives a certain impression to international leaders and business, these all putting their hopes on 'the man', our President, and viewing South Africa as the springboard for the resource rich continent of Africa. Mbeki’s promoting of NEPAD (Ethical governance in exchange for foreign Aid) is a joke which westerners seem ever so happy to swallow. However, the most telling of all actions is in the pipe line. Legislative moves are afoot to clamp down on media which is daily filled with news on corruption and court cases against the mighty and powerful, and also legislation to weaken Justice and the Scorpions who give the top gangsters and political pigs at the trough so much headache. Media publishers and watchers are aghast at the intended legislation going the rounds. Government rattles off a spin assuring their citizens that these growing restriction proposals (such as submitting copy to government before publishing) is to protect us all from child porn, something I never see here. There is not the slightest indication that we have a serious problem with child porn, other crime, yes, corruption, yes, child sex tourism yes, child rape yes, internet child exploitation yes, but child porn in our daily and weekend papers, hardly.

I should tell you that SA democracy appears to me more and more as a pseudo democracy. Representatives are not really elected by the people. Voters can’t throw them out of office in the next election for incompetence, fraud or other misbehavior. We do not have constituency democracy. We have representative democracy. And what we also have is a Party, the ANC liberators now presently holding, I believe, 76% of the seats in government, the representatives appointed in accordance to ANC loyalty lists. Scattered throughout are the occasional diamonds sincerely striving to serve the people. I'm fortunate to work with one.

To be fair there are elections, and individuals within each community run for office. Generally these punters are appointed by their local party cell and subsequently spin one lie and promise after another. Then we see them only rarely in their expensive cars or in meetings that go nowhere. I have spoken to many of these representatives, and in my most charming voice of course, I say: “You should work with us. We succeed. Failure is not an option for the people and our successes will be on your watch and thus to your benefit.” Unfortunately my experience is that in almost all cases the political representatives and officials will not support organizations like ours and others. The most used excuse is: There is no money for that. Our new ANC Executive Mayor for example did not support us when the local Municipal officials took us to High Court for land invasion, which it wasn’t, and without consulting Council before having us charged as they were required by law to do. I saw this as straightforward intimidation and recalled David Lewis' cry: "Fight the Good Fight." We won. Thank you David.

We also unwittingly elect ‘floor crossing’ representatives. We refer to this greedy lot as ‘crosstitutes’. Every two years members in any of the parties are able to cross the floor to another party. It is inevitably about a better position and more money. Simply put, it’s disgusting. You have to live with it to recognize how shameful and undemocratic it is. There is no accountability whatsoever to the voters.

The President of the ANC, and thus to date also the President of South Africa, will be decided by the delegates in December and not by the common citizens of South Africa. Period! And without question it’s all about patronage. We don’t have democracy, we have patronage and sycophancy. They rule the day and the country. And the result is delayed advancement for the people, and suffering and death for far too many citizens.

Since Mbeki cannot constitutionally run for a third term without changing the constitution, he is running for president of the ANC party so he can control the man or woman who becomes President of South Africa. This new direction has resulted in a huge and acrimonious split in the ANC. Why, like Mandela, can’t African leaders step down? “It’s the money stupid.” And it is also fear of future legal action against them. If you are confused at this point, I do understand.

Of note, South Africa’s ‘Mail & Guardian’, I think our finest paper, has polled the listed delegates for the December election of South Africa’s 2009 incoming President and has found to the horror of all thinking caring South Africans, that Jacob Zuma is in the lead. This is the Zuma who is to be charged with corruption on the Arms deal, charges now pending for more than a year, although with Pikoli having been fired, perhaps not. This is the Zuma, who as head of the HIV Aids and Moral Regeneration Committee while he was Deputy President but subsequently dismissed by Mbeki, raped the daughter of a deceased exiled liberation friend and then claimed when questioned in court why he didn’t use a condom, said that he took a shower immediately afterwards to insure he didn’t contact Aids.

Additionally, Zuma stated under oath that he was aware the young woman who considered him a father figure, was HIV Positive. The trial was typical. The victim became the bad woman seducing a high public figure to tarnish him…. Everything was used against her. The result on the ground, significantly fewer rape charges across the country and even women columnists advising women to stay clear of laying charges. Incoming victims at our Victim Support Room were significantly reduced and most who do come in are not willing to lay charges. Generally they head off to the hinterland once released from hospital so detectives can’t pressure them to lay or continue charges.

Subsequently, Jacob Zuma’s victim and her mother had to be whisked out of the country to some unknown European destination since the crowds were screaming: “Burn the Bitch!" Burning by the way means ‘necklacing’, and that is a horrific and cruelest of acts, placing a tire around the victim’s neck, throwing gas on the poor soul and setting them alight. It’s a favorite punishment utilized by our more emotional South Africans. This retribution has continued since the anti-apartheid days when it was regularly used to settle scores and erase those considered traitorous to the cause, often falsely.

Jacob Zuma’s election theme song is: “Bring Me My Machine Gun”. All his populist fans sing along with him at every opportunity. On the rape trial, Zuma was acquitted. “Finish and Klaar”, as they say here.

Do we need to be worried? Yes! I am however optimistic that truth and justice will prevail, largely thanks to our Press and the ‘diamonds’.

Oh well, at least I’m not in Burma or Zimbabwe.

May All Beings Be Happy
Solinus
In South Africa