Property damage in protests is counterproductive

Ryland Fisher says that he has always had problems with people who wanted to destroy property in pursuit of their demands.

It has not been a good week for public transport in Cape Town, with trains the most affected.

It was not pleasant to hear every morning trains had been delayed by two hours or had been cancelled.

I have not taken a train in a long time but I can sympathise with people who have no alternative other than to travel by rail, including hundreds of thousands of workers. It seems not too long ago I had to do the same. For many years it was my preferred form of transport, although one could argue I had no choice.

I remember working at the Cape Herald newspaper until about 5pm, then going to work as a volunteer at Grassroots community newspaper in the city centre until after 10pm and then rushing to catch the last train home to Mitchells Plain.

It was often difficult because my companion was Mike Norton, a veteran journalist who worked fulltime at Grassroots and who was not the fastest person around. Often we would just about make it in time for the last train. Fortunately we never missed the train, because I have no idea what we would have done.

I saw familiar faces on trains all the time. It often seemed as though the same people travelled at the same time and got into the same carriage every night. It was always a figurative Smarties box of people: from church brothers and sisters to gangsters looking for someone easy to rob.

But after 10pm at night, most of the passengers seemed relaxed. And tired.

But I digress.

In most countries, rail transport is the most popular and reliable mode of transport. It is the only method of transport that can carry thousands of people in one vehicle and in reasonable time.

South Africa should be no different.

Yet the ongoing problems we seem to have with rail transport are making it one of the most unreliable modes of transport. It is not a good feeling to wake up in the morning and worry about whether the trains are going to be late, as they’ve been the whole week.

I would not be surprised to read stories in the media in the next few days about people who lost their jobs because they were late for work due to delayed trains.

This week was, of course exceptional. It is not every day there is a strike on the railways and it is not every day trains are burnt and railway property damaged, apparently in support of the strikers.

I have often wondered about people who destroy their employers’ property when they have a dispute. What happens when they go back to work and no longer have some of the equipment they used to use?

Or the students who apparently recently burnt a university administration building up north when they were protesting for lower or no university fees. Such a building forms an important part of the service the university delivers, just like trains form an important part of the service the railway authorities deliver.

I have always had problems with people who wanted to destroy property in pursuit of their demands. It does not make sense. Protest action – whether it is in the form of a strike or student boycotts – should be seen as a means to an end and not as the end itself.

You should always think about what happens after the protest, when things are supposed to return to normal. It is difficult to return to normal if a building has been burnt down or a few trains have been destroyed.

You should never destroy property that could benefit others and, in the case of trains, thousands of others.

Our country celebrates 22 years of democracy next Wednesday. We are now firmly in adulthood and part of being an adult is accepting responsibility for one’s actions.

One of the freedoms we fought for is the right to protest. In the dark days of apartheid, protesters were often arrested or even shot at. In fact, this was the norm and not the exception, unlike Marikana which appears to have been an exception in post-apartheid South Africa. Marikana is, of course, something that should never have been allowed to happen and will forever be a blight on our democracy.

As we ponder the meaning of freedom, we should consider that, while workers have the right to strike, there are others who have the right not to strike. And there are people who need to continue to get to work despite the turmoil happening around them.

People who burn trains only help to make people antagonistic to the cause in whose name they purport to be doing it.

Freedom of choice means not always making the most popular choices or even those perceived to be politically correct.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 23 April 2016)

Solution to gang scourge lies with the community

The people of Manenberg and other gang infested places on the Cape Flats need to find solutions because the answers cannot, and will not, come from outside, writes Ryland Fisher.

There will, one supposes, always be a contradiction between the beauty of Cape Town for people who live in the more affluent suburbs and the less-than-glamorous reality for residents of the gang-ridden areas of what is known as the Cape Flats.

It is difficult for someone like me, who grew up on the Cape Flats and who now lives in one of the nicer suburbs, to avoid this contradiction. Most of my extended family still live on the Cape Flats and have to cope daily with the social and other problems in the mostly poorer townships.

I grew up mainly in Hanover Park, but also lived elsewhere on the Cape Flats in places such as Bokmakierie, Kewtown, Silvertown, Surrey Estate, Primrose Park, Elsies River, Bonteheuwel and Mitchells Plain. Even if you try to cut yourself off from the problems in these areas to concentrate on middle-class issues, it is not easy.

It is easier if you come from a privileged background where your only interaction with people from the Cape Flats is because they work for you, or your parents. It’s easier when you can talk about “them” or “their problems” as opposed to “us” and society’s problems. It’s not so easy when this is part of your history and social experience and still affects many members of your family.

Crime, irrespective of where it happens, is a societal problem and we cannot pretend it does not exist just because we are safe behind our electric fences and burglar bars. We cannot say at least it is not happening in our areas.

When you read the stories about what has been going on in Manenberg, where young people, some of them innocent, are killed on a regular basis and where gangs have really taken over the community, it hurts.

It hurts more because the situation has not changed much from the days when I grew up on those streets more than 40, 50 years ago. It seems one of the big differences is when I grew up most gangsters used knives and other sharp weapons while the gangsters of today use guns.

Over the years I have watched how generations of leaders and politicians have grappled with what to do about gang problems on the Cape Flats – all with little success.

Gangsterism will continue to be a problem in communities where people feel marginalised, economically and politically, and where many parents turn a blind eye to the wrongdoings of their children, claiming they are not bad but only have bad friends.

It is not an excuse for gangsterism, but you need only to look at the apartheid architecture of a city like Cape Town to realise this still plays a role in many problems we have. Life has not changed much for the people of Manenberg since the days of apartheid.

Taking ownership of any problem is the first step towards solving that problem.

The peace-loving people of Manenberg and other similar places on the Cape Flats need to get together and find solutions because solutions cannot, will not, come from outside.

Leaders need to grow from inside these communities because outsiders, who can go and sleep in comfortable beds at night, can never display the same kind of commitment to finding solutions.

Gangsters are still made to feel welcome in our communities; there are still too many people who protect them for whatever reason. Maybe they benefit financially or maybe there is a familial and friendship bond. Gangsterism can only be dealt with completely if residents decide to apply tough love.

For instance, you should not allow gang members in your house or in your social circles, even if they are family or friends. You should not buy stolen property, even if that is the only way that you will possess something you have always wanted.

But, importantly, residents need to be prepared to come forward to not only report crimes but ensure the police are held accountable for solving crimes.

It is difficult to ask a mother to disown a gangster son – especially when she refuses to accept his gangster affiliation – or to turn against him, but this is the radical step that needs to happen.

I have seen too often how young people on the Cape Flats admire gangsters and aspire to be like them. It is time for proper role models to step forward and help to show youngsters there are alternatives.

It is not going to be easy to tackle the problem of gangsterism, but we appear not to have made significant progress in the past 50 years or more and for this we should all hang our heads in shame.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column on Saturday 16 April 2016)

‘One more party in SA’ as a minister gets the bird

The booing of ANC leaders might become the norm and not the exception, and not only among the middle class, writes Ryland Fisher.

What do Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa, British actor Idris Elba and American hip hop artist Yaasin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) have in common?

They all made unexpected appearances at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival last weekend but the minister’s was the only one that was not welcomed or without controversy.

Elba arrived on Friday night towards the end of a performance by legendary women singers Dorothy Masuka and Abigail Kubeka. Bey did quite a few songs with Canadian band BadBadNotGood, who ended the performances in one of the festival venues. Both were warmly welcomed by fans.

Elba’s entrance was most enthusiastically greeted by the crowd in Kippies, the largest of the festival venues. He did not say much but eager patrons did what most people do nowadays when confronted with a famous personality – rushed to take out their cellphones to take pictures which they might or might not have shared with friends and family.

There were rumours in the audience Bey was not listed on the programme because the festival organisers did not want to upset the government. However, it is not unusual for artists not to be on the bill. Tony Cedras, for instance, performed unannounced with Cassandra Wilson, while Simphiwe Dana performed with guitarist Themba Mokoena.

Bey is still ensnared in a court case after he was arrested for trying to leave the country on an “unrecognised world passport” and not his US passport.

Shortly after his first court appearance he posted a statement on the website of fellow American hip hop artist Kanye West, in which he famously declared “no more parties in SA”. One Saturday night, he rapped “one more party in SA”.

Mthethwa materialised on the main stage of Kippies on Saturday night, near the end of a performance by popular afropop/kwaito/house duo, Mafikizolo. It was a carbon copy of what Elba did the previous night – but the outcome was remarkably different. As soon as Mafikizolo singer Theo Kgosinki announced the presence of the minister, whose department is one of the main sponsors of the jazz festival, the crowd spontaneously broke into loud boos with some showing the substitution sign often used at soccer matches.

The SABC later reported the crowd was upset at having the music interrupted, but this was clearly not the case. It was rather an outburst of frustration with ANC leadership, which had been brewing for a while and was now reaching boiling point.

It was two days after the Constitutional Court ruled President Jacob Zuma and Parliament had violated the constitution and a day after the president apologised on national television, followed by ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe accepting his apology.

There was clearly still a mood of unhappiness in the crowd and Mthethwa should have been advised not to make a public appearance.

It is one thing mingling with the crowd; It is completely different when you try to address it.

The jazz festival is a major musical event – one of the biggest in the world – but it is also a political space and a large number of ministers and deputy ministers frequent festival floors and corporate lounges. Corporates pay huge amounts of money for this access.

On Friday night, as the president was about to speak, many in the corporate village wanted the organisers to switch the television monitors – which show snippets from different jazz festival stages – to the president’s press conference.

Fortunately, the organisers resisted. It is, after all, a music festival and not a political rally.

But music is never far removed from politics and when Mthethwa tried to use the platform to relay a political message, he learnt the hard way.

I have no problem with anyone using a captive audience like this to get across a particular message – in this case I believe the minister wanted to talk about the national anti-racism campaign – because people do it all the time. However, his timing could not have been worse.

I have been thinking about the lessons one can learn from this and the main one appears to be that the ANC, which led the liberation movement in exile for so long, seems to be out of touch with the mood of middle-class people (who include jazz festival patrons).

Watching the impeachment debate in Parliament on Tuesday, one got a sense the ANC is hiding behind its interpretation of the law.

The ANC I grew up supporting never hid behind spin. It did all the necessary to promote the struggle for a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa, values the organisation made sure were enshrined in our constitution, the same constitution it now appears to have difficulty with.

There appears to be a groundswell of unhappiness in ANC ranks, beyond what we see publicly. Most people I interact with nowadays – and they include many senior ANC people – feel something drastic needs to be done to return the organisation to the right road.

Hopefully this will happen sooner rather than later, otherwise the booing of ANC leaders might become the norm and not the exception, and not only among the middle class.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 9 April 2016)

Addressing inequality would reduce crime in SA

The only way to deal with crime effectively is not to introduce harsher penalties, but to deal with the stark inequalities in society, writes Ryland Fisher.

A few weeks ago, as I have done many times before, I picked up a car at OR Tambo International Airport in Gauteng and drove off, still trying to figure out how the gears worked and where the light switches were, among other little challenges.

As I left the airport parking garage, a uniformed policeman jumped out of the shadows and told me I had gone through a stop sign. He asked to see my licence and told me he would have to fine me R500. I did not protest, although I could not see a stop sign. I said he must do what he needed to do. There was a moment of silence when, I suspected, he was waiting for me to offer him something in return for not writing out the fine.

The next moment he stopped another car and shouted at me that I could drive off. I drove away, feeling not relieved, but uncomfortable about what could have transpired. If I had broken the law, then I should be fined, but I was not prepared to pay a bribe to anyone, especially not a policeman.

I suppose at least a few of the people the policeman stopped that day would probably have offered him payment to avoid getting a fine and he would probably have accepted those offers, if one is to believe the stories about Gauteng police. I could be completely wrong and the policeman could have let me go because I looked like a nice, decent human being.

Not too long ago, I had a conversation with a friend in Rosebank, Joburg, who told me he was scared of the police in Cape Town but not the police in Joburg. “At least one can bribe the police in Joburg,” he said.

One of the reasons crime is so widespread is that there is a market for it and this market is sometimes promoted by the very people who loudly profess to be against crime. The more people pay bribes, the more there will be demands for bribes. The more people buy stolen property, the more things will be stolen. I grew up in Hanover Park and I remember how you could place your orders before the start of the weekend for any make of car radio or other appliance and it would be delivered before the end of that weekend.

Crime thrived in what appeared to be more affluent surrounding areas because people in Hanover Park provided a ready market for stolen goods. If most people in Hanover Park had refused to buy stolen goods, there would have been no market and the crime levels in surrounding areas would probably have dropped. For many people in Hanover Park, buying stolen goods was the only way they could own luxury items which many in the wealthier suburbs took for granted.

There are many motivating factors for crime. Poverty is one and in a country such as South Africa where large numbers are poor, it is almost understandable that there is a large amount of crime.

Greed is, of course, another major factor when it comes to crime. Too many people have dabbled in crime because they were not otherwise able to satiate their desire for worldly possessions. In South Africa, with its huge inequalities between rich and poor, it is not unexpected that crime levels will be high, especially crimes involving the redistribution of property.

I remember as a child, even before I was old enough to go to school, going to work with my mother, a domestic worker, in the wealthier southern suburbs of Cape Town. I was fascinated by the opulence in these suburbs. Coming from Hanover Park meant I’d not been exposed to what most people considered normal in middle-class suburbs, including having a warm bath or shower. We were used to warming pots of water on a Primus stove before having a bath.

I was so grateful when the “madam” – that is what we had to call my mother’s employer – gave me her son’s old clothes to wear. Anything they gave me was much better than what I had.

I can never condone any kind of criminal activity, but it is easy to opine and philosophise about crime when you don’t have to worry about where your next meal is coming from. It is not so easy when you have nothing.

In an environment where everything is becoming more and more expensive and poor people are becoming even poorer, it should come as no surprise if crime escalates. Poor people, like everyone else, have to eat and have to feed their families.

The only way to deal with crime effectively is not to introduce harsher penalties, but to deal with the stark inequalities in society.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 2 April 2016)

What's in a kiss?

Every now and then one is shocked at the way some people can be racist in their reactions to what many would assume to be normal behaviour.

For instance, most South Africans would no longer turn their heads when they see a mixed race couple holding hands or even kissing in the street, or even a same-sex couple for that matter.

Yet, one of the big talking points on social media this week was the interracial relationship between two of the lead characters on the popular soapie, 7de Laan.

I must admit that I am an accidental 7de Laan watcher. I normally watch out of the corner of my eye while my wife is watching her favourite programme on TV. I pretend to be doing something else, like reading the newspapers.

Soapies have to keep on redefining themselves in order to keep viewers interested. 7de Laan is no different, having dealt with the death and reappearance of one of the main characters, the false imprison of another main character, and even the relationship of the young second wife of one of the characters having a relationship with her husband’s son. Incidentally, the wife was black, the father and son white.

The beauty of television is that often things are left to suggestion. For instance, two faces might approach each other as if they are about to kiss but the camera cuts just before the kiss. Or someone is about to be bludgeoned to death, but the camera cuts just before the blow is landed.

What appears to have upset the racists in our midst is a picture of two young characters on 7de Laan kissing passionately. The man is white, the woman is black. The fact that there have been similar themes on 7de Laan is immaterial. This was the first time that there was a blatant display of affection between two people from different racial backgrounds.

I could not believe the absolute hatred and vitriol that was expressed in comments below the story about this kiss.

I don’t see what the fuss is about but clearly there are people in South Africa who still long for the days when we were forced to love only people who looked and sounded like us.

One can only imagine what they would have said if the people involved in this display of affection were both women or, even worse, men.

South Africa has come a long way from the time when interracial relationships were outlawed along with same-sex relationships. We cannot allow a small minority of people to drag us back to those dark days.

Our future is in youths’ hands but what makes them tick?

Young people, in their quest to forge their own history, often prefer not to learn from the past and so run the risk of repeating the mistakes of an earlier era, wites Ryland Fisher.

On Monday we celebrated Human Rights Day with a few thousand others at the Cape Town Festival in the Company’s Garden, in front of Iziko Museum. What kept popping up in my head days later was not the quality of the music or the camaraderie of those who attended.

I kept thinking about a nonchalant comment by one of the young performers, who make music about social issues, that she had to go to Google to find out which holiday we were celebrating. Now that she knew, she wished everyone “Happy Human Rights Day”.

I should not have been surprised. On April 27 a few years ago, I asked one of my daughter’s friends if he knew what public holiday we were celebrating. He did not. After telling him it was Freedom Day, I asked if he knew what Freedom Day was. He said it had to have something to do with Nelson Mandela’s release from prison.

I think these two incidents tell us how young people relate to our history and the things we hold important.

One could argue one of the human rights we today enjoy is a right not to care about where we come from as a country and we have earned the right to celebrate in ignorance.

This is not a view to which I subscribe.

We fail our children if we do not teach them our history and the importance of our national days. History is regarded as important by a certain generation but it should become important to everyone.

Unfortunately, young people, in their quest to forge their own history, often prefer not to learn from the past and so run the risk of repeating the mistakes of an earlier era.

On Human Rights Day I also reflected on what is important to people nowadays in an era of social media and instant gratification.

How do we make sure the Sharpeville events of March 21, 1960 – when police killed people protesting against pass laws – have resonance in 2016 and to people who have no idea what pass laws are?

In June, when we commemorate the 40th anniversary of the police killing of Soweto pupils who protested at being taught in Afrikaans, how do we make sure young people take lessons from what was an international tragedy?

I attended a seminar in Sandton on Wednesday where a presenter spoke about the things that inconvenience young consumers. He said a young person who attended an event recently took exception to having to write his name in an attendance register because he had already registered online. It was a small thing but an indication of how, in today’s society, people have become more concerned about themselves as individuals and less about societal issues.

My sense, and I could well be wrong, is young people care more about the material than about philosophical or historical matters.

This would be important to political parties trying to win new voters in the municipal elections which are supposed to happen before mid-August.

Will political parties be able to successfully campaign on the basis of what they, or their leaders, did in the past? Or will they have to campaign around what they are doing now to improve service delivery at a local level?

The political space has opened in ways we have not seen before in South Africa.

There are many people who still claim to support the ANC, despite all its troubles, but in numerous ways, that support is based on what the ANC did for the country in the past. I don’t think the DA has done enough to convince die-hard ANC supporters – and there are many – that this is a good time to change allegiance.

The EFF has mastered the art of gaining maximum publicity at key moments but there are many who are uncertain what its true policies are.

But the big question is how young people – mistakenly referred to as born-frees – are going to vote. Will they side with their parents, who will probably not change voting patterns, or will they make up their own minds?

When I was involved with the Cape Youth Congress many years ago we had a slogan: “Freedom is in our hands.”

In many ways, the future of our country is in the hands of the youth, but here I go again with my historical lessons, which will probably be ignored.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 26 March 2016)

We live in 'interesting times,' but have much to celebrate

My good friend Kanthan Pillay likes to quote Samuel Johnson who said that “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”. I agree with Pillay and Johnson, but only slightly.

I believe that there is true patriotism and then there is patriotism that is often an excuse for something else, such as hiding the faults in society.

I have never been ashamed to declare myself a patriot, but I have never believed in being blind to the problems that exist in South Africa.

I suppose it is how one defines patriotism. For instance, I am extremely loyal to our beautiful country. I believe that we live in one of the most amazing countries in the world and that we have some of the warmest people that one can find anywhere.

As we prepare to commemorate Human Rights Day on Monday, we have to admit that we have many faults and, at the risk of sounding like a stuck record, many of our problems can be traced back to 300 years of colonialism and 50 years of apartheid.

It will probably take almost as long for us to sort out many of the problems that have been created in the past 350 years or so.

It is difficult to understand how some people can wish away the problems created by apartheid when it is still surrounding us on a daily basis.

The homelands might not exist anymore but we still have migrant workers today because there is no work in what used to be homelands which have, for all intents and purposes, become provinces in democratic South Africa. But unemployment in general remains a major problem.

Our education system is still skewed and our housing crisis has not even been mildly addressed in the past 22 years of democracy. Even our justice system still has many flaws that need to be ironed out. Our crime situation is still out of hand and needs drastic action. It remains one of the biggest problems that we face as a society.

Despite all these problems, there is no other country in the world where I would rather live.

I believe the Chinese have a curse that says something like “may you live in interesting times” and one can argue that we are never short on interesting times in South Africa.

Sometimes South Africans can be our biggest critics. There are many South Africans, especially those who have left the country, who feel vindicated when things go wrong. Whenever they read a story about someone being murdered, they appear to silently rejoice because it proves their theory that South Africa is going to the dogs.

But South Africa is far from going to the dogs. If some people looked beyond their hatred of certain public figures, then they would see a large number of people, both in the public and private sector, working tirelessly to improve conditions for the majority of South Africans. Unfortunately, the efforts of these people are never celebrated.

In my book, patriotism has never meant blind loyalty to the government of the day or the ruling party and its leadership. Patriotism for me has always meant being loyal to the people and the Constitution of our country.

This column was inspired by a recent Facebook post by my friend and neighbour, Kashif Wicomb, who questioned why South Africans could not be as patriotic as Americans always appear to be. I followed the subsequent discussion with interest because it is something that I have also always thought about.

Americans can be blindly patriotic, despite their political differences. It is not only Republicans who proudly display the American flag at their homes, but also Democrats.

A few years ago I visited one of my best friends, Buck Belmore, who lives in Las Vegas. Buck’s daughter Sarah was graduating at the time so we attended the graduation. After the academic procession entered the hall, we were all asked to stand and pledge allegiance to the United States of America. Everyone put their hands on their hearts and loudly recited the American pledge of allegiance.

I thought at the time that we needed something like that to bring South Africans together despite our perceived differences. But a pledge in South Africa’s volatile political climate might not work, because it would be dismissed by the opposition as an attempt by the ruling party to force people to become loyal.

The closest we have come to patriotism was when we hosted major sporting events like the Soccer World Cup, the Rugby World Cup or the African Cup of Nations. But we need to find a way of developing patriotism when there is no hype, when South Africans are merely going on with their jobs and building a better society.

South Africans should not feel ashamed to be patriotic. We have a lot to celebrate as a country and we should celebrate it. But at the same time we should continue to try and deal with the many issues still bedevilling our society.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed Column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 19 March 2016)

We all deserve to enjoy our city's beauty in safety

If one is not able to jog in a place like Tokai Forest without fear of being mugged or even killed, there is something seriously wrong, writes Ryland Fisher.

There are some places in Cape Town considered almost sacred. These are places where families can mingle and one can interact with nature in a relaxed environment. One thinks immediately of the mountain and the many beaches dotting the peninsula.

One such place associated with tranquillity is Tokai Forest. But this tranquillity was destroyed this week by the killing of a teenage girl, Franziska Blöchliger.

Franziska’s body was found in the bushes at Tokai Forest on Monday, a few hours after she went missing.

Hopefully, we will hear what happened to her when the accused go to trial and her family will be able to have some closure. But the outrage at her murder is justified.

No one should be taken away in such a mindless manner, especially not someone as young as Franziska.

As a father of three daughters, I feel extremely distraught whenever I hear about such incidents.

I worry about my daughters when they are on the road, although they are adults; now I will probably worry even more.

A father’s concern for his daughters never ends.

But even if I did not have daughters, I would have found this incident disturbing.

One of the key rights of any citizen – irrespective of race or class – is to be safe. If one is not able to jog in a place like Tokai Forest without fear of being mugged or even killed, there is something seriously wrong.

I am one of many who enjoy walking on the mountain and I used to enjoy walking by myself. It gave me time to reflect on issues, think about the challenges I face and often come up with solutions to problems that seemed complicated.

There was nothing I enjoyed more than being alone on the mountain, at peace with nature.

Lately, I have been far more careful about where and when I walk and I no longer do so alone. One cannot help but be influenced by reports of people mugged on the mountain.

Tokai Forest is a place people from all over Cape Town frequent, whether it be to braai, picnic or begin a hike in the mountains. It is peaceful at times, raucous at others, but always a place of beauty enjoyed by many.

It will now forever be associated with murder, irrespective of the outcome of any trial.

There are those who have questioned the media coverage generated by this murder. They have raised issues of race and class and want to know why certain other murders, in less privileged areas, did not attract the same amount of attention.

I sincerely believe this criticism unjustified. If a young, black, homeless girl had been killed in Tokai Forest, I suspect the outrage would have been as great.

It is partly about the age of the victim and partly that it happened in what is supposedly a safe space.

The media have given plenty of publicity to the murders of poor young women in less affluent areas. The most high-profile of these was the case of Anene Booysen, the 17-year-old who was gang-raped and brutally murdered in Bredasdorp.

There are also people who will talk about the impact of this murder on tourism. While this should be a worry, because of the contribution tourism makes to our economy, I think this should not be the major concern. The major concern should be how we make our city safe so young and old, rich and poor, men and women can enjoy the beauty it offers.

Why do criminals have to dictate the way we live and force those who can afford this to put up electric fences and engage private security companies?

Many in Cape Town live in poorer areas where there are no private security companies or electric fences. Those people have as much a right to feel safe as others in more affluent areas.

Incidents such as the killing of Franziska should provoke not only outrage, especially among the leaders in our city, but also an undertaking to accept the challenge of creating a safer city.

The best legacy to leave for this innocent, young girl is to ensure this does not happen again – not in Tokai Forest, not in Khayelitsha and not in Mitchells Plain. One death such as this is one too many.

(First published in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 12 March 2016)

Buildings didn’t traumatise us, vicious police did

Their struggle is different, but surely there are things we learnt from which young people can also learn today, says Ryland Fisher.

Cape Town - Last year I attended an Africa Day celebration with the acclaimed Somalian author Nuruddin Farah at the Centre for the Book. In the audience was a group of student supporters of the #RhodesMustFall campaign, most of them in UWC law school T-shirts.

It was a government-sponsored event which, predictably, ran late because we could not begin before the relevant minister arrived. While we were waiting, the RMF supporters began singing a song about African unity which everyone appreciated. Some even sang along. The RMF supporters then sang a song about Umkhonto we Sizwe and most of the audience remained silent.

I thought how inappropriate a song about MK was where we no longer are engaged in a military struggle against the apartheid regime. It might have been appropriate in a different period. No wonder no one sang along and just kept quiet uncomfortably. Later, during question time, a RMF supporter spoke about how traumatised she was when she had to study in halls named after colonialists and walk past statues honouring colonialists on the UCT campus.

Everything is relative, I thought. When I was young, we were not traumatised by the names of lecture halls or colonial statues. Instead, we were traumatised by police who beat us up and threw us in jail. Some, like Ashley Kriel and Anton Fransch, even gave their lives in the fight for freedom.

I found myself thinking about the Africa Day incident over the past week or so, especially as I watched students at UCT burning paintings on campus, including one or two by the celebrated black artist Keresemose Richard Baholo, who, in the 1990s painted a series of pictures of protests at UCT featuring Jameson Hall in the background. Other paintings that were burnt included ones of anti-apartheid activist Molly Blackburn and other Black Sash members. The Black Sash played an important role in the struggle.

I support the #FeesMustFall protests, not only because, as a parent, I have paid many thousands of rands over many years to educate my children, but I can’t help wondering whether this is the correct way to go about protests.

When I think about what happened this week at other SA universities, particularly North West and the University of the Free State, where I serve on the council, we must be concerned, for different reasons.

The behaviour of white students towards black student protesters at UFS – white students beat up black protesters at a sports game this week – raises questions about the reconciliation project at the university, while the situation at NWU, where buildings were burnt down, should be condemned.

There is a strong school of thought that expired activists like myself must shut up and let the children run their own struggles. Their issues are different and their conditions of struggle are different, goes this school of thought, with which I agree mainly.

But surely there are things we learnt along the way from which young people can also learn today?

Two instances, from two different periods of my life, come to my mind.

The first was when we went on strike in 1980 at the first newspaper where I worked. It was the Cape Herald and it was aimed at the “coloured” community in the Western Cape.

We went on strike because black journalists like me were paid less than our white counterparts with the same levels of experience.

The strike began at the Herald and soon spread through the country. After a month, management agreed to salary parity and we agreed to go back to work. Our colleagues in the then-Transvaal, however, decided not to return to work as they had a few other issues they wanted resolved.

Eventually they returned to work, but the union was much weaker because of divisions over whether they should return, which was exploited by management.

The lesson I learnt then was that one should know when to attack and when to withdraw.

I still think our decision to return to work when we did was correct and our colleagues up north should have joined us.

We could have built the union together and regrouped to fight for our other demands in another way. Instead, the union suffered irreparable damage because some strikers tried to hold out for too long.

The second thing I have been thinking about was the period in the 1980s when, as activists, we tried to make our country ungovernable as a way to bring down the apartheid regime.

Part of making the country ungovernable involved convincing residents not to pay for services and to disobey the laws of the land whenever they could.

Of course, when our country became a democracy, it was difficult to convince the same residents that they now had to pay for services and obey the law. In parts of our country, there are still people who think they should not pay for services.

I thought about how the culture one creates during periods of intense struggle can impact on how one conducts oneself later. It is possible that, if you feed students a diet of intolerance, they will conduct themselves in an intolerant manner later in their lives.

If you teach students to conduct themselves violently to achieve their aims, there is a likelihood they might resort to violent conduct later in their lives.

The South Africa we live in today is significantly different from that one in which we grew up under apartheid. We have a democratic government with a multitude of channels that can be explored if one is unhappy about just about any issue.

Just look at some of the reports of the public protector and some of the judgments of the Constitutional Court.

I am not denying students their right to protest. It is a right that I will protect with all my might. My issue is with the nature of the protests and the potential long-term effects of their methods

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 27 February 2016).

Reflections on Boesak at 70

Ryland Fisher

PRIEST-turned-politician-turned-priest Allan Boesak turns 70 on Tuesday. Many young people who missed the 1980s and maybe even the 1990s could be forgiven for asking: Allan who? Recent history has not been kind to Boesak, who was once internationally arguably the most recognisable of South Africa’s anti-apartheid activists.

Boesak’s rise in the Struggle hierarchy was meteoric. After studying theology in the Netherlands from 1970 to 1976, he returned to occupy several crucial positions in South Africa, among them in the theology department at the University of the Western Cape (UWC).

His doctoral thesis, Farewell to Innocence (1976), is still considered a profound text on liberation theology. Boesak has written 17 books and edited a few more. He became the moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa and oversaw the church’s signing the Belhar Declaration against apartheid and all forms of discrimination in 1986. In his role as president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches – a position he held from 1982 to 1991 – Boesak began to play an international role in moves to isolate the apartheid regime.

He based his opposition to apartheid on his religious beliefs. His oratory style, reminiscent of Martin Luther King Jr’s, was a major strength and helped to fill stadiums and halls throughout the country.

The chant of “Boesak! Boesak!” followed him wherever he spoke. Boesak’s Foundation for Peace and Justice supported the Struggle financially and was often used as a conduit for people and foundations from overseas to support it. In the early 1980s at a conference in Lenasia, Boesak issued a call for a united front against apartheid. This led to the formation of the United Democratic Front (UDF) on August 20, 1983 at the Rocklands Civic Centre in Mitchells Plain.

The UDF played a major role in the opposition to apartheid, especially at a time when most organisations in the liberation movement were banned and their leaders exiled. In 1985, Boesak, along with Winnie Mandela and Beyers Naudé, won the human rights award given annually by the Robert F Kennedy Centre for Justice and Human Rights.

Also In 1985, Boesak called for the release of Nelson Mandela during a march from Athlone Stadium to Pollsmoor Prison where Mandela was held at the time.

Boesak was unable to lead the march, however, because he had been detained by the police shortly before. The march continued and ended in clashes between police and protesters. In many ways this open defiance by a wide range of demonstrators was a turning point in the Struggle.

A few years later, Boesak played a key role on the day of Mandela’s release from Victor Verster Prison in Paarl, when he calmed the waiting crowds on the Grand Parade as the organisers of the welcome rally contemplated for several hours whether they should risk Mandela speaking in a very exposed situation.

In 1991, Boesak became the ANC’s leader in the Western Cape and went on to serve as economic affairs MEC in the province. In 2008 he defected to the ANC breakaway party, the Congress of the People (Cope) for a short while before leaving the country to lecture in the US. He occupies the Desmond Tutu Chair for Peace, Global Justice and Reconciliation Studies at the Christian Theological Seminary and Butler University in Indiana.

While Boesak’s contribution to the Struggle was immense at times, he made some, probably avoidable, mistakes.

This is maybe why Boesak is not mentioned in the same breath as Nelson Mandela or Archbishop Desmond Tutu, although there was a time when his international profile was arguably even bigger than theirs. The first mistakes were the affairs he had, one with a colleague at the South African Council of Churches, another with the woman who later became his wife.

The first affair, with Di Scott in 1985, was costly and damaging because it was exposed by the security police who had bugged a bed where he was sleeping with his lover. They gave this recording to a Joburg newspaper which then reported on the affair. The second affair, which took place around 1990, was with Elna Botha, who was at the time married to a well-known television news anchor. It was the final straw for Boesak’s loyal wife, Dorothy, who left him.

He later married Elna and they are still together after more than 20 years. Boesak was always a larger than life character and he was severely criticised for moving into a house in Constantia at a time when living in Constantia was seen as the preserve of rich white people. Nowadays, of course, it is the preserve of rich people, irrespective of colour.

His most recent mistake was exposed a few years later when the American singer Paul Simon accused him of misappropriating a few million rand that had been donated to his foundation by Simon and two overseas foundations for development projects.

Boesak was charged with fraud. He opted not to testify in his defence. He felt if he gave evidence he might implicate some of his comrades, something he did not want to do. He was convicted of fraud in 1999. He spent just over a year of a three-year sentence in prison. Boesak was pardoned; his record was cleared by President Thabo Mbeki in 2005 and he was able to return to the church.

In many ways, Boesak’s story is one of missed opportunities. He should have gone down in history as one of our greatest statesmen and many people, particularly from the Western Cape, still think he was. This was evident in July 2008 when he spoke at a rally in UWC’s great hall, at the annual Ashley Kriel lecture. More than 2 000 people filled the hall which resonated with the “Boesak! Boesak!” chant.

Boesak’s speech, delivered in his trademark staccato style, did not disappoint. It transported one back to the 1980s when Boesak was the biggest drawcard at rallies throughout South Africa, the unofficial king of the Struggle.

When he reflects on his life on Tuesday, Boesak must surely realise that at times he has lived a charmed life, despite the hardships of Struggle and prison.

But he will also surely see that things could have turned out significantly better for him and he could still have enjoyed international recognition and acclaim were it not for his having made some bad choices along the way.

(First published in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 20 February 2016)

Let’s start with political leaders

It was an honour to attend the launch on Thursday of the Racism Stops With Me campaign, which is supported by Independent Media and a few partners.

It was good to hear Mayor Patricia de Lille tell the assembled guests, which included a who’s who of politics and business, that the city intends to roll out phase two of its racism campaign next week.

Speaker after speaker related personal and political reasons for why we need to combat racism as a nation.

The Independent Media initiative is honourable and long overdue. The city’s initiative is as admirable.

But it will take much more than a gathering at the Mount Nelson of apparently like-minded people to make an impact on the racism in our city.

And it will take much more than a publicity campaign, which is effectively what the city’s initiative entails, to change the mindset of racists who, as De Lille rightly pointed out, appear to have influence way beyond their numbers.

The major challenge in tackling racism is consistency and stamina.

The battle against racism cannot be a campaign with a fancy launch, a start-point and an end-point.

It is something that needs to be imprinted in our DNA. It is something that we need to address every day in all our actions.

The launch is but a start. Now the hard work begins. The bad news is that a campaign like this can never stop.

Long after the million T-shirts produced by the South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (Sactwu) have been sold and the R3.5 million grant from the Fibre, Processing and Manufacturing Sector Education Training Authority – to help develop citizen journalists – has been spent, there will still be a need for a campaign against racism. Long after the city has distributed all its pamphlets explaining racism, there will still be racists.

Over the past 10 years or more, I have tried to do anti-racism work with corporates and government departments, but it has been difficult. Most businesses don’t like you to mention the word “racism”.

There is a sense that if you don’t talk about it, then maybe it won’t exist. Yet we come from a past where racism informed so much of what we did – where we could live, who we could marry, the education we got, the jobs we could do, etc – it is difficult not to mention it by name.

Most corporates also don’t really want to address societal issues unless they impact on their bottom lines.

Most are satisfied merely to comply with what the government and the law expect from them.

Corporates need to be convinced it is in their interest to create a more harmonious work force, which could be the end result of a campaign to inform the public about the dangers of racism.

So many of our beliefs are based on ignorance, and education – not in the formal sense – needs to play a major role in any campaign against racism. When I launched One City, Many Cultures at the Cape Times in 1999, its aim was to deal with racism and related issues, such as cultural and religious intolerance.

The initiative has continued since then, with various degrees of success, but we have seen how support has wavered, depending on who is in political power – in the city, the province and nationally – and how much publicity incidents of discrimination get in the media.

Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa, speaking at the launch of Racism Stops With Me, talked about the need to recommit ourselves to the values enshrined in the constitution and to fight for a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa.

This is at the heart of any campaign against discrimination. One must not only know what one is opposing. One must know what one is striving towards.

At the heart of discrimination is a lack of respect for people who look and sound different to you.

The whites who engineered and implemented apartheid were able to maintain it – and believe in it – for so long because they had no respect for black people.

Here I include Africans, coloureds and Indians, unlike what some people are doing nowadays, because that is how black is defined in our constitution, which is the supreme document governing our lives in South Africa.

Racism can only survive if the one party (oppressor) feels no empathy towards the other (oppressed). But racism thrives especially in situations of inequality.

South Africa is a hugely unequal society. Part of this could be put down to 50 years of apartheid but the ground work was laid during 300 years of colonialism.

As long as inequality exists in our country, it will be easy for racism to flourish. In a country where the majority of people are black it is to be expected that the vast majority of poor people will be black.

The situation will not be changed by making sure that the majority of white people become poor. We need to find ways of uplifting the majority of people and decreasing the gap between the rich and the poor.

Part of how we do this is by creating opportunities that are accessible to everyone. This would be in line with the constitution and the Freedom Charter, which talks about how everyone should have equal access to opportunities, whether they are social, political or economic.

I am glad Independent Media is launching its campaign in a year when we have municipal elections because it is will be needed to keep hot-headed politicians in check – maybe even some of the people who were at the launch.

People who were shocked at the recent racist utterances by EFF leader Julius Malema and the equally racist and childish retort by ANC Youth League president Collen Maine, should brace themselves for much more of the same over the next few months.

It is an election year and my experience is that politicians lose their minds when faced with having to convince voters where to make their crosses.

Let’s focus on them first in our campaign against racism. If leaders are allowed to be racist and irresponsible, then what is to stop their supporters from doing the same?

(First published in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 13 February 2016)

District Six’s diversity should live everywhere

The best way to remember District Six and preserve its legacy is by making sure our children and their children grow up in a society where all colours, cultures and traditions live in harmony, writes Ryland Fisher.

This week I have been nostalgic about District Six. I have been looking at old photos, reading old articles and listening – over and over – to songs by David Kramer and Taliep Petersen which gave life to so much of District Six’s character.

Yet, it was only when I was on Espresso on SABC3 on Thursday morning, talking about the 50th anniversary of District Six being declared a white group area that I suddenly remembered the impact of what had happened.

Before my interview, they showed footage of the bulldozers flattening homes while residents’ possessions stood on the pavements.

Those images almost made me cry because it brought back vivid memories of one of the cruellest acts of the apartheid government.

I remembered going to interview Naz Ebrahim, who was the leader of the District Six residents, in her home in Rochester Road in 1980. She was one of the last people to resist removal and her home stood out like a beacon among the rubble of houses that had been demolished. Her home, Manley Villa, was the last house to fall in that street.

Much has been written about District Six in the past week – including in this column – and I don’t normally write about the same thing two weeks in a row.

But the question that has been nagging me is the best way to preserve the legacy of District Six, a place that influenced many of us as we grew up and continues to influence us today.

District Six was in many ways what Cape Town, and indeed South Africa, is struggling with today.

It was a community where people lived together and in harmony despite apartheid-imposed differences.

Apartheid was an evil system that not only destroyed communities, but also people’s souls. It was designed to divide people, thus giving a minority power over the majority.

Now South Africa is maturing as a democracy – we are celebrating 22 years of democracy this year – it is important to strive for a society that is everything apartheid was not.

District Six was such a society. It allowed Africans, coloureds and whites to live together as neighbours. It was a melting pot of cultures reflected in the music and art generated in the area.

The best way to remember District Six and preserve its legacy is by making sure our children and their children grow up in this kind of society.

We must learn to respect and enjoy each other’s cultures and not confine ourselves to narrow cultural experiences.

We often hide behind tradition and culture as a way of excusing ourselves from exploring other cultures. There is still intolerance of difference.

The response this week to Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Mandla Mandela, marrying a Muslim woman – from Muslims and Xhosa traditionalists – showed how far we have to go as a society.

The chiefs opportunistically want to depose Mandla as a chief while many in the Muslim community have asked questions about his conversion.

I love that somebody from the Xhosa tradition and of royal blood married a Muslim.

This could debunk many myths about perceived differences between groups in our society. This is partly what we fought for when we opposed apartheid.

We wanted the right to live where we chose and the right to get married to whoever we wanted, irrespective of differences.

We are fortunate to live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world but it is also one of the most diverse and we should do more to explore this diversity.

We need to get out of our residential areas, many of which are still race-based, and go into communities where we would not normally go. We might just be pleasantly surprised when we realise most people are not very different from others.

It is easy to shelter from things that might appear strange to you but, sometimes, if you are prepared to open your mind, you will find “strange” cultural experiences can be enjoyable.

This would show a rejection of apartheid and its architects and would be the best way to memorialise the spirit of District Six.

It will probably be impossible to rebuild the vibrant community that is District Six in the area where it was situated, but we can build it everywhere in Cape Town and South Africa.

Let’s learn to embrace each other, appreciate each other’s cultures and not point fingers at people who fall in love across religious, racial or cultural barriers.

If we do this, it would give new meaning to the cry: Long live District Six, long live.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 13 February 2016)

District Six stands as a monument to tragedy

The barren piece of land on the outskirts of Cape Town stands as a painful reminder of a shameful period in our history, writes Ryland Fisher.

Much has been written about District Six, especially over the past 50 years since it was declared a white group area. And much will be still be written, especially in the coming week of the 50th commemoration on Thursday, February 11.

There will be those who reminisce about what things were like in the district; some will remember the vibrancy, some will argue it was a slum.

But irrespective of what District Six was, it remains a blight on Cape Town. The barren piece of land on the outskirts of the city stands as a painful reminder of a shameful period in our history.

There is a part of me that feels it should remain barren, because it is almost a living monument to a time when people thought that they could control others’ lives simply because they looked and sounded different from them. They used bulldozers to force people out of homes where they lived reasonably comfortably and relocated them dozens of kilometres away.

But the best response to those who wanted to create a piece of white heaven close to the city centre – and which they called Zonnebloem as a kind of “up yours” to the residents who were removed – would be to make sure that people return to the area in their thousands and restore some of that vibrancy of years gone by.

Of course, things will never be the same in District Six.

I didn’t grow up in District Six, but like everyone on the Cape Flats, I have family and friends who lived there. I remember as a child going to District Six at New Year from Solent Court in Hanover Park with Boeta Leimie, one of the few people I knew who had a car.

I remember the car getting stuck as we went up one of the hills and all of us having to get out to push.

Fortunately, there were about eight of us in a car meant to seat five, which made pushing a bit easier, but it was still uphill. I also remember the thrill of seeing the klopse (minstrels) walking down Hanover Street, especially the “atchas” who were a group dressed as Native Americans and led by a devil dressed in red and armed with a huge fork.

The devil and some of the other members of this troupe, some with mini axes (not real ones, I think) used to chase us down the street and we ran into people’s houses to escape. We were terrified and excited at the same time.

Thousands of people used to line the streets, waiting to see their favourite minstrel troupe, in much the same way they do nowadays in Adderley Street.

Later, as a teenager, I remember going to one of the few clubs in town that allowed blacks and later sleeping at a friend’s house in the Bloemhof Flats, until one day he told us that they were also being forced to move to make way for whites.

It is difficult to keep memories of a place like District Six alive. It has been 50 years since the area was declared white and more than 40 years since the bulk of evictions took place. Most of the people who applied for some kind of restitution for losing their homes in District Six are now old; some are dead.

If and when they return – and at the rate things have been moving it looks like never – they will move into an area that is completely different to what they left behind. They will have to build a new community, just like they had to do in Hanover Park, Mitchells Plain, Manenberg and all the other places to where they were relocated.

Many will probably be disappointed when they realise it is not the same.

My father-in-law is almost 80 and has dutifully attended all the land claims meetings in Mitchells Plain over many years, after he put in his claim.

Yet after every meeting he returns despondent, after hearing yet another story from officials.

It is because of people like him, who desperately want to return to District Six, that the government needs to fast-track its processes. It is disgusting, to put it mildly, it is taking so long to sort this out, even though I understand the complexities. I remember attending an event outside the Moravian Mission Church in District Six in November 2000 when then-president Thabo Mbeki handed over keys to the first residents who would move back.

More than 15 years later, nothing much has changed in District Six and very few people have moved back. This 50th anniversary presents the authorities – at local, provincial and national level – with an opportunity to make amends and get people back into District Six.

We cannot afford to have more people die without realising their dream of returning.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 6 February 2016)

You don’t have to agree with someone to listen to their words

Ryland Fisher

A few years ago I tried a little experiment. I wrote a column for a website and headlined it something on the lines of “Blacks can be among the most racist”. Of course, a large number of white people agreed with me and many black people disagreed.

The following week, I wrote a similar column and headlined it something like “Whites can be among the most racist”.

This time many black people agreed and many white people disagreed with me.

I wrote roughly the same thing in both columns, but most people, it appeared, did not bother to read beyond the headline to reach whatever conclusion they wanted to reach. I have always believed all of us have potential to be racist and this was the premise of my book on race.

Although I sort of expected it, I still could not believe the vicious comments written under both columns.

Most, it seems, prefer arguments that confirm their beliefs and prejudices and when someone says or writes something with which they disagree, they often show their disagreement in an almost violent way.

We are so set in our belief systems it is often difficult to comprehend there could be a different argument that might be superior to ours.

I see this every day on social media with the people who like certain things I post, but ignore others or sometimes make their voices heard if they disagree with something I have posted.

I do not agree with everything I share on social media but, as a journalist, I find it useful to share with my friends and followers information I think they might find interesting. I don’t vet information according to whether it fits into my belief system.

This is particularly the case with politics, which is in many cases akin to a religion in South Africa. You have people so die-hard in support of certain political parties they can never find anything wrong with what is being done by that party or its leaders.

I have seen how when one posts something that is positive for the ANC, one gets big thumbs-ups from ANC supporters and sneers of “ANC lackey” from DA supporters.

When one posts something that is positive towards the DA, the reverse is true.

I understand people have political preferences and I have never hidden my allegiances, but that does not mean one should close oneself to ideas that supposedly come from outside of your dominant political position.

One of the trademarks of great leaders like Nelson Mandela and others was an ability to listen to different viewpoints and take the best from different political positions.

If FW de Klerk wanted to show that he could rise above political positions, as did Mandela regularly, then he would not have presented to the Human Rights Commission complaints only about what he termed black racism.

He should have asked them to investigate racism. Full stop.

We seem to have lost an ability to be politically tolerant and we seem to believe everything that comes from someone with a different political home from us must be viewed with suspicion.

A well-known columnist, who used to write for Independent titles, found out the hard way this week how intolerant most people can be, when he posted something vaguely positive about President Jacob Zuma. He eventually deleted the post.

I am not arguing for a situation where all of us have to agree all the time, but I am arguing for all of us to at least listen to one another.

I love nothing more than a decent debate on just about any topic and I don’t mind having my mind changed if faced with a superior argument.

Of course, political tolerance is not easily achieved, especially in election year when something seems to happen to all politicians as they become even more hostile and vicious towards their opposition than usual.

Over the next few months, the newspapers, radio, television and social media will be full of attacks by politicians on rivals.

Most will be spurious.

But political tolerance is especially necessary in an election year.

Those of us who are not active in politics might believe we cannot influence politicians. We can.

We need to engage politicians, especially at times when they are desperate for votes.

We need to let them know what type of behaviour we expect, and not just what policies they support.

If politicians are intolerant to one another, it is highly likely they will also be intolerant towards the people who voted them into power.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 23 January 2016)

It’s what you say, not how you say it

Journalists are not often aware of their power and influence, and quite often they say or write things that should be best kept private.

Andrew Barnes is the normally respected senior news anchor on ENCA, the 24-hour news channel which is a sister channel to eTV.

In an off-the cuff remark after a clip on the matric results last week, he quipped that somebody should speak to the Minister of Education, Angie Motshekga, about the pronunciation of “epitome”.

He was quickly suspended from duty by his employers, despite issuing an apology.

Part of Barnes’s problem is his assumption that English is the standard by which every other language should be judged.

It was pointed out to him very quickly that most black people in South Africa – and that is the majority – speak English as a second or third language and most white people do not know how to speak any indigenous languages.

I have never really bothered about pronunciations because it is the content of what people are saying and not how they say it that should be important.

Language prejudice could be seen as another form of racism, as evidenced when the SABC started employing black on-air staff, most with “non-English” accents. The outcry from white people was horrendous. It was like the world, as they knew it, had come to an end.

I grew up speaking Afrikaans in the Western Cape, until 1976 when, in protest against the police killing of students who were protesting against being taught in Afrikaans in Soweto, I decided to only speak English.

It was only after we became a democracy that I started to speak Afrikaans again.

But one of my biggest regrets – and one of the things that apartheid did very successfully – was to make sure that people such as myself never had the opportunity, when we were growing up, to learn to speak Xhosa, like people who lived in townships down the road from where we lived.

As a result, my knowledge of Xhosa is very limited, and I speak English with a strange accent (at least to people who claim English as their native language). But I have no problem with “murdering” English words, even if I’m on radio or TV or doing public speaking, because I have confidence in my beliefs and arguments.

I trust that people will look beyond how I say epitome, machine or anything else, and will listen to my arguments instead.

But because of my upbringing, I don’t only struggle with the Queen’s language. I also struggle with some Xhosa words and even some Afrikaans words, because the strand of Afrikaans with which I grew up could at best be described as Afrikaaps. “Pure” Afrikaans can be a very complicated language and most people on the Cape Flats do not speak “pure” Afrikaans.

My children, who had the benefit of a much better education than me, often point out my mispronunciations, but it is not something that has ever bothered me.

I only hope that next time Barnes, or any other journalist, decides to make a judgment on pronunciation, they consider whether they know how to say “Gedleyihlekisa” or “Mahlamba Ndlopfu”. We live in South Africa after all.

Why white people cannot use certain terms

When I saw the tweet by journalist Carien du Plessis referring to pantypreneurs, it reminded me of a movie a few years ago in which a young white rapper hangs out with a group of black rappers. He is accepted into the group and is very comfortable in the group until one day he refers to one of the other rappers as “my N…”

He could not understand the outcry he caused by using the N-word when he was using it in a friendly, almost loveable way, just like he had seen or heard the others use it among themselves.

The problem was that he was not like them. Despite dressing like them, speaking like them, rapping like them, he was different. He was white and white people are not allowed to use the N-word. It is different when black people use it because they take ownership of an offensive word and use it almost in a satirical manner.

Du Plessis fell into the same trap.

No matter that the term “pantypreneur” is used widely in ANC and SACP circles, that did not give her the right to use the word, because, not only is she not an ANC member, but she is also white. And a journalist, to boot.

The ANC responded with venom, withdrawing Du Plessis’s accreditation to cover their birthday celebrations.

This is one of the conundrums of identity politics. This is why there was so much interest in the case of Rachel Dolezal, who was head of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People in the United States when it was discovered that she was white.

As a black woman, Dolezal could speak with authority about issues related to black people in the USA. As a white woman, she lost that authority, no matter how much she claim that she identified with black people.

Du Plessis finally apologised to the ANC and was allowed to cover their birthday celebrations and, in a column, she tried to explain her slip-up as an affront to women. But it was not only an affront to women, but black women in particular.

Du Plessis said that “sisters” should not do what she did to other “sisters”. That is part of the problem. Even though she is a woman, Du Plessis will never really be a “sister” because she will never be able to change her skin colour, even though people used to be reclassified in apartheid South Africa.

"Sisters" is a term of affection used mainly among black women, in the same way as "brothers" is used among black men.

In the same way, the white rapper would never be accepted as black.

If anything, I hope that this incident will encourage people to be more circumspect before they tweet. It is not worth destroying your credibility and your career because of 140 characters.

Let’s tackle racism where it lives

It has been an interesting week in terms of race relations in South Africa, with social media storms over remarks made by KZN estate agent Penny Sparrow, mobile gym owner Justin van Vuuren, economist Chris Hart and eNCA anchor Andrew Barnes, among others.

Sparrow and Van Vuuren made seriously derogatory comments about black people, Hart referred to black people’s sense of entitlement in a series of tweets and Barnes made disparaging comments about Education Minister Angie Motshekga’s English pronunciation.

Throw in remarks about Hashim Amla and Temba Bavuma’s performances before this week’s cricket Test and you have another eventful week in South Africa. Hopefully Amla and Bavuma would have silenced some of their racist critics with their performances.

The most surprising thing about the outrage over the racial comments which surfaced this week is that it has surprised people.

These kinds of beliefs have been widespread throughout South Africa for a long time and could, until recently, be found in abundance in the comments section on news websites.

The challenge is not to suppress such views, but to find ways of channelling them into something positive. It might not seem possible, but it can be done.

A few years ago the One City, Many Cultures Project, which I chair, hosted a function for about 1 000 older people in the Western Cape to coincide with the International Day for Elderly People on October 1.

We had bused in people from old-age homes from across the province and, as is our custom, we made sure we included homes from diverse areas.

At the end of the function, I was approached by a white Afrikaans-speaking woman who was about 90 and she thanked me for inviting her. She said it was the first time she had been to a function with people of other races and she had enjoyed it very much.

I thought about how this could have been possible and realised this woman had probably grown up in a whites-only area where she only interacted with white friends and probably worked only among whites. When she retired, she moved into a whites-only old-age home (yes, we still have these in the Western Cape and probably also elsewhere in South Africa). As a result, she had managed to remain sheltered from the majority of her fellow South Africans.

Those who were shocked by Sparrow and Van Vuuren’s racist comments on social media should understand this context. There are thousands, if not millions, of South Africans who never interact with people who are different from them and, if they do, it is often only in an uneven relationship such as madam and domestic worker.

The old woman may have had similar views to Sparrow before being exposed to people who looked and sounded different to her.

Sparrow’s comments, while disgusting, are not unexpected from someone who is ignorant of the lives of the majority of South Africans. One wonders what kind of interaction someone like Sparrow has had with black people and whether she has bothered to learn from this.

My experience is that what passes for racism often is based on ignorance. Because people do not know other cultures and practices, they often adopt ignorant positions.

A few years ago I was discussing race with listeners on Radio Sonder Grense, the Afrikaans radio station. One caller talked about how “they steal our farms, rape our women and kill our neighbours”. When I asked who “they” were, he said “the blacks”.

I explained to him that, in a country where the majority of people are black, it probably stands to reason the majority of criminals are black. But this did not mean the majority of black people support crime; in fact, most black people I know are opposed to crime and doing their best to fight it. After I spoke for a while, he said: “You know what, you have a point.”

I realised he probably based his world view on his ignorance and the ignorance of those around him. This was probably the first time his view had been challenged.

I was glad I was able to influence him positively, in the same way we were able influence the old woman positively by creating an opportunity for her to interact with people whom she may not otherwise have met.

But how many people go through their lives without such opportunities?

When we became a democracy, it was convenient for white South Africans to embrace the philosophy of a “rainbow nation”, one in which all of us walk hand-in-hand into the sunset, singing Kumbaya, my Lord, etc. This meant they did not have to deal with their guilt over apartheid. But you cannot go from a situation of severe repression and oppression to one in which we all live happily ever after.

There are a couple of steps we missed in between and the fact we tried to take a short cut to democracy is back to haunt us.

An important step would have been an acknowledgement from white South Africans that they had benefited from 50 years of apartheid and 300 years of colonialism and an apology to those who had suffered. We could have even instituted some reparation tax to ensure we started to undo some of the damage of apartheid.

But we need to go further. White people need to understand they are a minority in South Africa and can no longer act, as they did during apartheid, as if they are the majority. They need to make a concerted effort to begin to understand the languages and cultures of the people who form the majority.

Racism should no longer be seen as a black problem. It should be a problem which concerns all of us.

I believe racists can be found among whites and blacks and those of us with progressive views need to take ownership of the struggle against racism, in much the same way as we committed to the struggle against apartheid.

We need to move from what we oppose to the kind of society we would want to live in and in which we want our children to live. Instead of saying we don’t want racism, we need to say what we want instead. What we want is a society based on non-racialism, non-sexism – in fact non-discrimination of any sort. But it is also a society in which everyone will respect the right of everyone else to fulfil their potential and to have access to the same opportunities, whether in housing, education or employment.

If we deal with racism within this context, it should be easier to identify when people are being racist and to deal with them. It is important to effect a mind-set change in our society. We need to create an environment where life will be uncomfortable for racists. Too often one is confronted by racism and one does nothing about it.

My commitment is to point out, via social media or other means, every incident of racism I encounter and I would encourage others to do the same. It is only when racists realise they cannot live among us if they continue with their old ways that they will change.

The struggle against racism is not an event or a series of events, such as social media comments by Penny Sparrow and others about which we get upset. It is a process that involves pointing out racists, ostracising them where necessary but also rehabilitating them if it is possible.

As long as we don’t deal with racism in a concerted way it will always be a major part of the problems in our beautiful country.

(This first appeared in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 9 January 2016)

We have three chances to remember

Special anniversaries are good opportunities to reflect on what has changed, celebrate the positive and learn lessons from the negative, take stock of what still needs to change and make a renewed commitment to ideals which might be long forgotten.

For instance, the 60th anniversary of the Freedom Charter, supposed to have been celebrated last year, could have been used to mobilise South Africans around the vision contained in what remains a hugely significant document in our history. It could have been an opportunity to encourage all South Africans to assume responsibility for taking our country forward.

Instead, apart from in one or two political speeches, one hardly heard about this anniversary.

It was an opportunity lost.

Another was a chance to celebrate the many anniversaries associated with 1985, a watershed year in the struggle. The year was marked by almost daily protests and a desperate declaration of a state of emergency by the apartheid government, resulting in mass detentions and bannings. In many ways, 1985 marked the beginning of the end of legalised apartheid.

This year we and especially the government, will have at least three more anniversaries that should be used in the manner for which they were intended.

February 11 is the 50th anniversary of the day when District Six was declared a white group area, leading – two years later – to the forced removal of thousands of residents from Cape Town.

On June 16, it will be the 40th anniversary of the Soweto uprising, which brought students – and particularly high school pupils – to the forefront of the liberation struggle for the first time.

And, on August 9, it will be 60 years since the march by thousands of women on the Union Buildings in Pretoria. That protest was against the pass laws but contained much broader demands related to the liberation of women.

It will be interesting to see how the government and the ruling party will reflect on these three anniversaries in a year when they will try to focus on the local government election, but will probably be distracted by a continuation of student protests that marked last year.

Together, these anniversaries represent opportunities to focus on some key issues, including education, language, housing and land restitution, urbanisation and gender inequality.

I would not be surprised if all three are mentioned in the president’s State of the Nation Address at the beginning of February, but there is a need for more than a mention.

This is especially so in the case of District Six. The ways all three spheres of government have handled the District Six restitution process has been nothing short of disgusting. That most of the land still stands empty more than 20 years into our democracy serves not only as a reminder of one of the great apartheid atrocities against the majority population in Cape Town, but also as an indication of the politics which have been allowed to engulf the restitution process.

I know of many people who have been patiently waiting to move back to District Six – as they have been promised many times over the past 20 years – only to be sold new excuses every time they attend meetings called by officials. Many fromer residents are in their eighties and nineties and would love to spend their final years close to where they grew up and had their families.

The 50th anniversary of the declaration of District Six as a white group area presents the government with an opportunity to show intent with regards to the restitution process and the best way to show that is by building some, no, many houses.

The pass laws were apartheid’s weird way of attempting to deal with urbanisation. The apartheid government tried to use pass laws to keep Africans out of cities – except as cheap labour – confining them to rural homelands.

The 60th anniversary of the women’s march provides an opportunity to focus on an issue with which government is still grappling: how to retain people in rural areas. This is something that is never easy to deal with as people will always flock to where there are opportunities usually absent in the rural areas.

Creating opportunities in rural areas requires huge investment and, in a country such as ours with so many conflicting demands on the fiscus, this does not always feature high on the agenda.

Women were particularly hard hit by apartheid pass laws because, while their men were working in the cities, the women were left behind to look after families. For many women, this situation remains unchanged.

There is a need to examine gender issues in our society, which is becoming more and more conservative. Part of conservatism, in my experience, is assigning certain pre-determined roles especially to women. Patriarchy is very much a part of the conservatism that is becoming more pervasive in South Africa, maybe in the world.

Hopefully, this year August 9 will be more than a public holiday when women are supposed to be pampered with manicures, Champagne breakfasts and retail specials. Hopefully, we will be able to seriously reflect on things still impeding the proper contribution and emancipation of women.

Education is bound to feature high on the national agenda once again this year, especially with student protesters having drawn first blood in the form of achieving the removal of certain offensive statues on campuses and freeze on fee increases.

However, the battle on both fronts is far from over and will probably dominate much of the political landscape this year. Further student protests on campuses throughout the country will undoubtedly test the tolerance levels of the government and police.

Hopefully there is a national plan to handle protests and that any plan is based on level-headedness and maturity. One also hopes students are aware it is going to be difficult to secure free education or even another zero percent increase for next year.

Reflecting on the 40th anniversary of the protests which began in Soweto in June 1976, it is also important to consider subsequent protests that engulfed our country, including this province.

For the Western Cape, the 1976 protests laid the basis for the many student-led protests of the 1980s. The Soweto uprising anniversary will also provide an opportunity for a long overdue discussion on language, but this needs to occur in the context of a changing global environment.

Should our focus continue to be promoting – even though unequally – our 11 official languages, or should we be looking at creating global citizens by focusing on language spoken in more populous global markets?

All of this might be too much to be in a year when the government’s main job is going to be stabilising our economy.

Perceptions (right or wrong) of corruption and of comrades feeding at the public trough are not helpful in regaining the confidence not only of the financial markets, but also of the people of South Africa.

In many ways, this is going to be a watershed year for South Africa. We will be faced with many choices, including whether to pursue nuclear power and what should be done with failing state-owned entities.

Here’s hoping those who think they have power (the government) make the correct decisions and those with real power (the electorate) continue to hold them to account.

(First published in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 2 January 2016)

I seek a real Benson sell-out

The announcement this week that George Benson is to tour South Africa next June brought back memories of my first interaction with the legendary and popular jazz guitarist many years ago.
When Benson came to South Africa for the first time in the early 1980s, I was a young reporter at a paper called the Cape Herald, which was aimed at the “coloured” community. But more than that, I was also a political activist involved in youth and civic structures in Hanover Park.
Up until his visit to South Africa was announced, Benson had been, as we used to say on the Cape Flats, “my biggest fan”. Don’t ask. We used to speak like that. People used to ask me, as a child, whose dad I was when they meant to ask who my dad was.
But I digress.
The very first vinyl I bought was Benson’s Weekend in LA, an album I still have to this day and which I still listen to on vinyl when I have a chance.
Benson was an integral part of my growing up years. I recall an English lesson at high school where one of my fellow learners explained that he listened to Benson’s music to broaden his vocabulary. He used as an example the word “masquerade” which he had heard in one of Benson’s songs. This encouraged him to consult a dictionary to find out its meaning. After that, he used the word “masquerade” at every opportunity.
But Benson’s trip to South Africa – while there was an international cultural embargo against the country in opposition to apartheid – was a difficult pill to swallow for someone like me, who was committed to the struggle.
I could not bring myself to attend his concert even though I could legitimately claim to have been working.
The concert, of course, was sold out within hours.
I did, however, attend the press conference he held on arrival at the then DF Malan Airport, where I asked him why he chose to come to South Africa and break the cultural embargo. He replied that he was “only a musician and not a politician”, which was the typical response of all artists who defied the cultural boycott and came to South Africa.
The following day, the Cape Herald carried my story on the tour and the press conference – ahead of the concert – with the headline saying something along the lines of “Benson is a sell-out”, a clever play on his ability to fill the Good Hope Centre and what we perceived to be his political opportunism or, at most, his political naivety.
Not going to that concert tested my commitment to the struggle in a major way. Like most young people on the Cape Flats I grew up with his music and knew the words to most of his songs. I consoled myself by saying that this was a small sacrifice to make for the struggle. There were many others who had made much bigger sacrifices.
However, I quietly enjoyed the opportunity I had to meet him at the press conference and to ask him a question, which meant that I engaged with someone who was one of my childhood musical heroes, even though I was now disappointed in him.
I did eventually go and see Benson perform, twice, but this was many years into our democracy when most people had forgiven others for their apartheid-era indiscretions or had politely forgotten about them.
I figured that, if Nelson Mandela could forgive FW de Klerk and PW Botha and have tea with Betsie Verwoerd, and the ANC could accept people like Vlakplaas commander Dirk Coetzee and apartheid spy Olivia Forsyth into their ranks, then I could forgive Benson for breaking the cultural boycott but also for destroying my belief in one of the people I grew up admiring as a youngster.
Thinking about my first interaction with Benson made me realise once again how far we have come as a country where we no longer have to contend with sports and cultural boycotts against us, where we can all enjoy supporting our sporting teams when they play against foreign opposition and where we can go and watch whatever musicians come into our country without feeling like we are betraying the struggle against apartheid.
If I get an opportunity to see him perform next June, and I probably will, I will do so without any hang-ups and will sit back and enjoy the music. I will probably sing along too, in the way we do in Cape Town.
I hope this time he will be a sell-out once again, but without the negative political connotations.

(This was first published as a column in the Weekend Argus on Sunday 8 November 2015)

 

Inside the mind of Riah Phiyega

Ryland Fisher looks at General Riah Phiyega’s short but eventful stay at police headquarters.

Riah Phiyega was less than two months into her job as national police commissioner when the Marikana massacre took place. She had been appointed in June 2012, and the massacre came in August. But this incident will define her legacy and in effect invalidate whatever good work she has done since.

It appears Phiyega may be out of police headquarters sooner or later.

President Jacob Zuma has informed her of his decision to institute a commission of inquiry into her fitness to hold office, in line with the recommendations of the Marikana commission. Zuma has also asked her to convince him why she should not be suspended while the probe takes place.

She is following the same unceremonious route as her predecessor, Bheki Cele. Cele was asked why he should not be suspended while an inquiry into his fitness to hold office got under way. He was suspended and would not return to police headquarters. He was axed.

It looks highly unlikely that Phiyega will survive Zuma’s chopping board. The Marikana commission’s report, released by Zuma on June 25, was damning about her and the SAPS. Among other damning findings, it found that the police’s plan for dispersing the crowd of striking miners was defective.

It also called for an investigation into Phiyega’s fitness to hold office and into the then-North West Commissioner, Zukiswa Mbombo, who retired at the end of June.

Judge Ian Farlam also recommended that the National Prosecuting Authority probe the police’s actions to determine if there had been criminal liability.

Once Zuma made the commission’s findings public, it was clear Phiyega’s days were numbered – and that she could leave the police as controversially as she had come in.

Phiyega’s appointment was controversial, not only because she had no policing experience, but because she was a woman, and a black woman at that. Her appointment, in an environment dominated by men, and until recently white men, was always going to be a risk for Zuma, who appointed her.

But her managerial skills had been proved in several high-profile corporate appointments.

That Phiyega is sensitive about her status as a black woman was illustrated by the SMS she sent to Dianne Kohler Barnard, DA spokeswoman on police, and which landed her in another media storm this week.

In the SMS, Phiyega said: “I am black, proud, capable. Get it clear, you can take nothing from me and eat your heart out. I am not made by you and cannot be undone by you.”

In many ways, Phiyega has been her own worst enemy. It is difficult to know how many of her actions with regards to the media are guided by advisers or whether she acts on her own.

I had the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time with her recently, including at a conference on the National Development Plan (NDP), where she took part in a panel discussion I chaired, and interviewing her for two hours for a publication on the NDP, produced by Topco Media.

In all my interactions with Phiyega, I’ve been impressed by her commitment to her job and the transformation project she has undertaken in the police service, something that, if it were not for Marikana, might have seen her being remembered as having been a great leader of the police.

I interviewed her at her office in Pretoria in June. Although I was meant to speak to her only about the NDP, I got in a few questions about other things, such as her views on being a woman in a male-dominated environment, and how her family related to all her pressures.

Phiyega started by telling me why, although she was born Mangwashi Victoria Phiyega, everybody called her Riah.

“‘Ria’ is the last part of Victoria. Where I come from you are named after somebody and it’s a prescribed process. When you are the first boy in a family, your first son would be named after your grandfather and so on. We are all girls in the family and I am the second-born. I’m named after my father’s aunt.

“If my father had his way, he would probably have chosen short names because he believes that those names are successful. For instance, my sister is Abigail and we call her Abi. My other sister is Matilda. We call her Tilly. ‘Ria’ comes from Victoria, but my dad said I must put in the H and then it becomes Riah.”

Phiyega said her appointment had taken her by surprise.

“It was an industry I never thought I would be in. I didn’t have colleagues in this industry. But I had a conversation with the president. I listened to what he had to say and I realised that he had done his homework.

“The president said we had good policing skills in South Africa, but we needed to look at a revolution that was not yet complete. (The SAPS) was integrated 20 years ago, when 11 entities were brought together under General George Fivaz. A lot of work had been done to integrate the police, but one of the things that had not completely been done was to look at the change in management processes of building a SAPS with a new culture.

“We needed to define that culture and ensure that the administration and management went along on that journey.

“I understood we had good policy, but we needed to assist the organisation with that transitional process of bringing into the police governance, administration, management, building a common culture and seriously embedding the gains we had made over the past two decades.

“I think the president had looked at those qualities. He looked at where I had been and what I had done, and thought I could do the same in the police. I’m simply a director-general of this organisation. The national commissioner is the director-general of the police and has to administer and manage the environment.

“We have moved into a structure that is starting to show that there is the core business of the police, which is policy, and the resource side, which is sitting in our resource management administration.

“Then there’s the corporate side of policing, which is looking at how we’re managing our people, our strategy, our legal matters and so on. We are not short of people who know how to police. They are there, they have the capability, and they are leading.

“There is perhaps a disjuncture in the conversations that are taking place in the public. The success of the police will always depend on a good director-general who must administer the organisation and allow the core business of the organisation to be run by those who know how to police.

“But the director-general should also ensure the core business, the management and the administration of the organisation, are well-blended.”

Phiyega did not experience resistance to her appointment at the time.

“I experienced an organisation that had a need to do particular things. My attitude was that I’m not coming here to impose myself.

“There’s a serious mutual process. I was coming to learn. I had my own skills set. I was bringing something to the organisation and I was going to learn a lot from the organisation too. If you are a general manager and you have those skills, you can take them anywhere. They are portable. Tomorrow you can put me in any other organisation. When I get there, I learn what the business is about and I bring in my management skills.

“I had something to share with the organisation and I had a lot to learn in terms of the business of the organisation. That is why I didn’t find resistance. They were willing to work with me and to walk me through the organisation, and I was willing to share with them, to look at how we could shape our business.”

At first, however, Phiyega did feel uncomfortable as a woman.

“This is a completely different matter. Now we are talking about transformational issues. Being the first black woman to lead this organisation after a period of 100 years was never going to be easy. I mean, we’re talking about the boys. I didn’t play golf with them. I didn’t go with them to the pub.

“Some of them probably found it difficult to engage me in an unconventional and informal manner.

“It was a learning process for the organisation as well as for myself, to navigate an environment that is so male-dominated and male-oriented. Because of my management skills, I was able to put gender aside. I was able to work with people.”

Phiyega said special epaulettes had to be created for her uniform.

“The women’s ones are very short and because they had never had a woman general, they had to go and create special ones. There are a number of things that one is piloting. If another woman becomes a general, they must find we have paved the way.

“The men in the police service have had to become used to gender issues. All I needed was for them to see a woman could do it. One of my commitments is that I will get through my term to show it can be done. It’s not a gender issue.

“The other issues around this transformation are the introduction of new management processes and building a new governance approach. Some people find it difficult to adapt to your approach in managing the organisation.”

A lot of progress had been made in the police service by the time she became commissioner. She did not have to bring in her own people.

“When I joined, the organisation had 10 years of unqualified audits. That in itself tells me a story about the organisation. Something was going right. I came into an organisation and said I wanted to look at crime performance. I looked at it, found them to be doing it year on year, and said I wanted us to do a longitudinal analysis.

“When you do a longitudinal analysis, you see crime has been coming down. There are problem areas, but when you average the trends over the past 10 years crime has been coming down steadily.

“There were steeper declines at the beginning because they were coming from a high base. Now you are starting to see lower, marginal declines. That made me believe something was going right and there were people in the organisation we could use to advance our strategy going forward. My plan was to discover this capacity in the organisation and look at how we could create a platform for sustaining this success.

“For instance, provincial commissioners have a term of five years, which can be extended for another five years. Some of them are in their second term. Succession becomes a reality. We could have gone out and looked, but we decided to find the capacity in the organisation to build a new team.

“I’m planting and I hope when we finish the planting season there will be those who continue watering and tending whatever plants we have planted. My approach has been to start building a team, using internal SAPS people, and it’s really yielding (results).

“We have just appointed six lieutenant-generals, all from inside. They are good people and I can see that it is taking the organisation in the right direction. We will start seeing a strong SAPS that supports all those good qualities that I found within the organisation.”

Phiyega said the media tended to focus on the negative. “There are so many positive things happening in the police, but the narrative that one sees in the media says something else. Policing is one of the highly contested areas and justifiably so, because it’s an environment that is imbued with a lot of constitutional powers. We can disenfranchise you.

“Everybody is concerned about how we use that power and you then have an avoidance attitude by society. When people are in trouble, they want police, but when they are not, they want to look at the police to see what they are doing. You never have a comfortable relationship in terms of views, attitudes and perceptions of the police.

“Being aware of that, we can do better. We should do better by starting to ask what it is that we should do to ensure that the community understands what we are doing and appreciates the successes we are having. They should be allowed to criticise us because it is through that criticism that we are going to grow. We have to ensure that we build a good, solid communication platform. I know I’m being chastised for appointing a lieutenant-general to be in charge of communication. But with the nature of the reputation that we have, with the narrative that is out there, you can’t do otherwise.

“When I came into the police three years ago, there were many stories in the media without comment from us. The attitude was that there were too many things on which to comment. We have gone through a structured process, which means that we must be in the press, but for the right things. When you watch TV today, they’ll tell you about the fact that we’ve arrested people. They will tell you about the success that has taken place.

“We are now deliberate in what we are taking out there, but the culture of vilifying and talking ill of the police has not stopped.

“All we are doing is saying people should also see the work we are doing as the police. In terms of the criminal intelligence issues, we have done a lot and there are no new stories coming out there.

“But, in terms of the media, it is always a replay of Mdluli, Mdluli, Mdluli. Those political nuances and stories, about the politics of policing, are being continued over and over again.

“In terms of the restructuring, there are probably people who are feeling left out. You will never agree with everybody in terms of how you shape and position the organisation. There will be some stories in the media relating to that. Some people are feeling unhappy, some people feel that things should go this way or that way.

“The police, the National Prosecuting Authority, and the Hawks are platforms that people have interest in and they want to control those. If you have people who are solid in terms of where they’re taking these organisations, you’ll always find some people have issues.”

Phiyega said she was comfortable in her position.

“I’m very okay and I think this organisation is going somewhere. There are many police in this organisation who are working hard, who are focused.

“We’re being short-changed by this crafted narrative that circles on these few negative things. The reality is that, if indeed, the negative narrative was happening, South Africa would be on its knees.

“You can give us Malamulele (in Limpopo, whose residents staged protests early this year, demanding a separate municipality), De Doorns (in the Western Cape, where farmworkers went on strike in 2012) or Marikana, give us whatever, this country will not be on its knees because there are hardworking policemen and women.

“In the past three years, we have made so many arrests, whether it has been with regards to mall robberies or cash-in-transit heists. We have arrested big criminals such as Radovan Krejcir. We made a decision that we will not allow this man to continue. We will arrest him.

“He has been in jail for more than a year. I don’t think he ever thought that this service could put him in jail for a year. He had (allegedly) corrupted so many of our police (officers) and we’ve cut through all those things. This is why we’ve arrested our own with him to say, ‘You will stand there and account for what you have done’.

“I am worried about the negative narrative. But it is okay, I think the truth will vindicate whomever it vindicates.”

Phiyega said she had lost friends since becoming police commissioner, but her family had stood by her.

“I hope that by the time I have finished, some of my friends will still be there. I have caused damage to my family relations because it’s a consuming role. I have a very supportive husband. I know that I’m probably affecting all of them, but they are supportive and I think they’ve become policified, too, if there is such a word. We can now have discussions about the police.

“Being commissioner is not the type of role that leaves you space for other things. It is a jealous road. It consumes you almost completely.”

Phiyega said she hardly had time for anything outside police work.

“If you have a day of doing nothing, it feels like you have had a long weekend. If you can just wake up and not do anything until one o’clock, be at home, you feel like you’ve had an entire weekend.

“I don’t think leave exists in the police. I was looking at our target for members to take leave.

“Ten days a year is compulsory. We are not able to put it at 100 percent. We’ve said at least if we can achieve 65 percent, it will be good.”

About the media

The media do not have an appetite for good stories, so we have to force ourselves into their space. They don’t have an appetite for the things that I’m telling you. Yet we continue to tell them and invite them,” says National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega.

The media were recycling stories about her.

“One relates to Marikana, and you will find a lot of other historic issues. You will find stories related to (former crime intelligence head Richard) Mdluli. You will find issues related to the transformational journey we are taking, including the changing of structures and people.

“You may see stories related to (suspended Western Cape police commissioner Arno) Lamoer, which also has to do with crime intelligence. Any time you read a story about the national commissioner, it will be related to all those issues and then they will throw in that she’s not even a policeman.

“They never talk about the work that we are doing.”

Marikana

At the time of the interview, the Farlam Commission report on the Marikana massacre had not been released, but national police commissioner Riah Phiyega appeared confident that the police would be vindicated.

“When Marikana happened, I was one month and two weeks in this organisation.

“There’s a whole historic picture about the stories that have been put in the press in terms of Marikana. We have very clear devolved roles and functions.

“In terms of Marikana, one thing I can say is that the police fully co-operated with the commission. We put our side of the story and we are waiting for that report.

“I’m sure it will have recommendations and we’d be willing to implement those recommendations.

“The second thing is that it is a very, very sad incident indeed, and we are looking for processes that will help us to bring in reconciliation.

“We still have a duty to police everybody in the country and there are a lot of lessons that have come out of (the commission) in terms of our operations and all those aspects.” 

(First published in the Sunday Independent, Weekend Argus and Sunday Tribune on 23 August 2015)