How SA failed the legend that is Chester Williams

Cape Town – One of the most poignant moments at the memorial for rugby hero Chester Williams at UWC this week was when his widow, Maria, spoke about how he struggled to find employment in South Africa, how doors were closed in his face and he had to travel abroad, leading to long separations from his young family.

At that point it seemed like his 1995 Rugby World Cup heroics - he was a member of the winning South African team and scored several tries, including four against Samoa - were all but forgotten.

Maria bemoaned the fact that Chester was considered good enough to coach at UWC, but not at a national level. Chester had, of course, coached at a provincial level and was also one of the first coaches of the South African Sevens team. But that seems such a long time ago. After that, he seemed to have fallen out of favour with the rugby establishment, leading him to look for greener pastures overseas.

It was a tough period for Chester and, while he was trying to secure rugby-related work, he dabbled in some business ventures, not all of which were successful.

I remember conversations with him about how he struggled to ensure there was food on his family’s table.

In many ways, UWC and the good work he did there revived Chester’s profile, allowing him to once again become a national hero just before he passed away. Under his tutelage, UWC’s rugby team became the first previously disadvantaged university to play in the prestigious Varsity Cup.

They also got their first Springbok and Sevens Springbok in Herschel Jantjies and Kurt-Lee Arendse. These are great achievements for any coach.

There are many similarities between Chester’s story and that of the man who coached UWC before him, Peter de Villiers. De Villiers was one of the rising stars of South Africa’s coaching establishment, having taken several age-level national teams to international glory. His record as coach of the Springboks remains among the best.

But his Springbok team failed against Australia at the quarter-final stage of the 2011 Rugby World Cup, albeit in a game involving dubious refereeing. De Villiers was out very quickly and struggled to coach again in South Africa after that. None of the provincial teams would take him and he ended up at UWC, where he stayed until he got an opportunity to coach the Zimbabwean national team.

Recently, De Villiers was short-listed for the coaching position at the Southern Kings, the Port Elizabeth-based provincial franchise, but then some people leaked information that he had been disqualified because he did not have the necessary coaching qualifications, which he disproved very quickly. At the time of writing, months later, there has been no resolution of who will get the Kings’ coaching position.

Chester’s story makes me think of two things: how much do we acknowledge and support those who bring us so much happiness, joy and pride on the sports fields and even in the cultural world; and what do young people, who only know sport, do after their short careers? 

How do we help them to cope with life after sport?

But it also makes me think about the people who turned their backs on people like Chester and De Villiers, when they could have contributed to sport and the much-needed transformation project in our country. Some of them have been praising Chester.

It is appropriate that Chester’s funeral will be at Newlands Rugby Stadium today and that he will be receiving a national funeral. 

He was a national hero, after all, and Newlands is where it all started. 

We should use this opportunity to think about how we treat our sporting heroes - and our musicians and other cultural workers.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 14 September 2019)

Forget the death penalty, fighting violence with violence is not the answer

THERE were three moments this week when I felt proud to be a South African. The rest of the time I just felt profound anger and shame. I felt sad some of the time but, mostly I felt angry.

The first was when I watched a performance by the inspirational Ndlovu Youth Choir on America’s Got Talent, which saw them through to the finals.

The second moment was when I attended the Cape Town premiere of the new movie, Back of the Moon, produced by Anant Singh, directed by Angus Gibson and starring Richard Lukunku and Moneoa Moshesh. It is a brilliant movie, filled with violence and tenderness, and which left most of the audience feeling shocked, angry, fearful and hopeful at different times.

Much like life in South Africa It made me realise how often, when I am confused about life, I seek salvation in arts and culture, whether it is in music or movies or sometimes in books, and not necessarily always non-fiction. Some of the best lessons in life can be learnt in books, where the author was not restricted to what happened but could imagine what could potentially happen.

That brings me to the third thing that made me happy this week: my participation in the inaugural Cape Flats Book Festival in Mitchells Plain on Sunday. The success of the book festival showed me that there is more on the Cape Flats than gangsterism and violence, which is what is portrayed in the media most of the time.

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This is not the South Africa we fought for in the Struggle

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Let's build a better heritage for all who come after us

Let's make Women's Month about much more than pageants, manicures and shopping

This is not the South Africa we fought for in the Struggle

Amid the doom and gloom, there is hope the country can turn itself around

Let's build a better heritage for all who come after us

Let's make Women's Month about much more than pageants, manicures and shopping

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There are also many people who are trying to make a difference to the lives of people who live in apartheid-designed townships, and who are meant to be resigned to lives of misery.

Most of the time, however, I felt angry this week. I felt angry about the upsurge in violence against women and children. I felt angry about the violence against people described as foreigners in parts of our country. I felt ashamed to be a South African. I felt ashamed to be a man.

It is difficult to take decisions in anger, even though anger is not a bad thing. But anger has, for instance, led thousands of South Africans to support the call to reintroduce the death penalty, which would be a bad decision. The death penalty will not resolve our crime problems.

It might, like the presence of soldiers in the townships, lead to slight temporary relief, but the problem is much bigger. The problem encapsulates society, the economy and, ultimately, issues of values and respect.

These issues can never be dealt with through violence, which is what the death penalty is. By saying we must bring back the death penalty, we are saying we must fight violence with violence, which has never worked.

We need a long-term solution to the problems in our society, whether it is the gangsterism on the Cape Flats, the rape and murder of women or the unwarranted and opportunistic attacks on our brothers and sisters from Africa.

Part of the solution can be found in arts and culture, sport, books and education. Not formal education, but education in homes and communities about the meaning of respect, tolerance and respecting each other’s dignity.

At the heart of what is wrong with our society is lack of respect for people perceived to be different from us, whether they are women or foreigners or poor people. We need to learn that all people are equal and have respect for each other, for life, for dignity.

I am still angry, and I can’t express my anger properly in a family newspaper, but I realise that there are no easy fixes. We have a long road to travel.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 7 September 2019)

Let's build a better heritage for all who come after us

TODAY is the last day of Women’s Month and tomorrow marks the first day of Heritage Month - because, in South Africa, we do not need a day to celebrate or commemorate, we need a whole month.

But it has been interesting to see how various organisations, including the media, have been showcasing the achievements of women over the past few months, with a few also looking at some of the issues faced by women today. It is always important to be realistic and to base our positivity on what is happening in society.

My fear is, now that we have reached the end of Women’s Month, there will be some people - mainly men - who think they can now go back to their bad habits.

The many problems faced by South African women - including gender-based violence, sexual harassment and pay disparities - will not go away because of a monthly focus every year. We need to make sure society focuses on all these issues until they no longer exist, which is probably never.

When my wife and I were newly married, almost 35 years ago, we were nervous about raising children in a country where oppression and exploitation were legalised and where we were forced to live in townships where violence had been the norm.

Despite our worries and concerns, we had three beautiful daughters and I worry about the effects of our patriarchal and violent society on them. We told ourselves that all we can do is give them the tools to survive in a male-dominated world where they would be undervalued and threatened.

We thought that things would improve once we became a democracy, but it is not so. This is evidenced by the thousands of cases of violence against women and here I am not even referring to the high-profile cases involving celebrities who are accused of beating up their partners.

But I am talking about the women who live on the Cape Flats whose men might belong to gangs and who might be addicted to drugs, such as tik, marijuana and alcohol.

Many of these women have resigned themselves to being beaten up over weekends and having to attempt to cover up their black eyes while telling their colleagues that they walked into a door or fell over something.

I have often wondered why some women cover up the violence men commit and I find it difficult that some women would prefer to be with a man who beats them rather than being without a man. My advice to women who get beaten by men has always been: leave the bastard immediately. I also know that it is easier said than done.

Heritage Month is supposed to be more celebratory than Women’s Month, even though South African women have some things to celebrate, such as the advances some women have made in business, education and even in government.

But in Heritage Month, we are supposed to celebrate what makes us unique as a nation. We are supposed to explore our many varied identities as South Africans. Most of us have complex relationships with identity. With me, for instance, the identity that I mainly identify with is not the one that is used by most people to describe me.

As we celebrate our differences, let’s remember that we probably have a lot more in common than we realise. Let’s use those commonalities to build our country together so that we leave a proper legacy for those who will come after us, especially young women.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 31 August 2019)

Looking beyond race to discover the true Struggle

There is a slogan we used to shout in the old days, by that I mean the Struggle days. The slogan was “A people united can never be defeated”.

This signalled our commitment to working together, despite our diverse backgrounds, against a common enemy which we identified as the apartheid regime. We did not care where you came from or how you grew up. All that mattered was a commitment against apartheid and racism.

There were many people who could be described as white who played a significant role in the Struggle. Some were imprisoned, some were beaten or tortured by the police, while others were killed by those who were intent on keeping in power the minority who had subjugated the majority for too many years. Some of the names that come to mind include Beyers Naudé, Bram Fischer, Trevor Huddleston, Ruth First, Joe Slovo, Neil Aggett, Rick Turner, Denis Goldberg and Ben Turok.

But there were many others, such as Raymond Suttner, Graeme Bloch, Marion Sparg, Janet Love, Derek Hanekom and Trish Hanekom, who also played important roles.

For many whites, joining the Struggle meant being ostracised by their families and community who did not understand why they would oppose white privilege.

Not everybody who played a role in the Struggle was from South Africa or made their contribution here. But there were some who came from abroad to see how they could help locally.

One of those was Amy Biehl, a young woman from the US who studied at UWC and became involved in local women’s organisations. She was only 25 when she was brutally stoned and stabbed to death on August 25, 1993, as she was dropping off some colleagues in Gugulethu where they encountered a protest. 

Of the men who killed her, four were subsequently pardoned by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, while two went to work for a foundation founded in her honour. They did not see her as the anti-apartheid activist she was, but merely as a white person. In their eyes, all white people were bad, supported apartheid and did not deserve to live.

Amy’s parents, who visited South Africa many times after her death, realised that they should not seek vengeance. They realised that they would do more justice to Amy’s memory and legacy by attempting to uplift people in the community where her murderers came from. They realised that, in the end, their anger was in response to oppression and exploitation.

I found myself thinking about Amy Biehl this week, especially as tomorrow marks 26 years since she was killed. But I have also been wondering and getting worried about the recent utterances by some young people, who might not understand where we come from and who have expressed some seriously worrying attitudes about race.

For them, if you are white, you cannot be committed to the transformation process in South Africa. You have to be an enemy agent or a proponent of white monopoly capital, whatever that means. Part of the problem with our politics in South Africa is that we do not really understand the national question or, for that matter, the international question.

We are so obsessed with race that we overlook the role of class in our society. Ultimately, racism was the tool used to oppress black people (and here I include Africans, coloureds and Indians) but the oppression was a way to cover up exploitation.

While oppression has a racial profile, exploitation is always based on class and is more dangerous. People throughout the world are being oppressed because of race and exploited based on being poor.

Ultimately, if we want to properly transform our country and the world, we need to deal with the structural realities which lead to poverty. We need to look beyond race, as difficult as that might be.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 24 August 2019)

Amid the doom and gloom, there is hope the country can turn itself around

It seems like everywhere I go people are talking about the crisis in South Africa. Some people define it as an economic crisis, others a political crisis. There is probably a bit of truth in both.

Last weekend, while trying to enjoy the benefits of a long weekend, I ended up becoming engaged in several conversations about what is wrong in our country and whether we have any hope of surviving.

Fortunately for me, I don’t engage only with people who feel negatively. I also have the benefit of engaging with some people who believe that, in the words of the old Struggle song, “we shall overcome”.

One of the people who feels like this is former minister and constitutional negotiator Roelf Meyer, who found time in his hectic travel schedule to speak at a breakfast hosted by the Ubuntu South Africa Foundation in Cape Town last week.

Meyer is one of those who are realistic about the problems we face as a country, but who feels optimistic that we have it within ourselves to come out better in the end.

He started by saying that many people felt hopeless because they were suffering. But he warned that people like himself and others who were privileged to listen to him did not have the right to feel hopeless. There were many under-privileged people who had much more reason to feel hopeless.

Meyer said South Africa had lost 20% of its wealth in the past four years. This was partly due to mismanagement of public enterprises, looting of the government purse and reckless firing and hiring of finance ministers by former president Jacob Zuma.

“We can turn the lack of hope around if we can turn the economy around,” Meyer said.

He explained that, before 1990, apartheid South Africa was on its knees. Our deficit was high because of a successful international sanctions campaign; the ANC’s well-organised campaigns driven from outside the country; the internal uprising which had made the country ungovernable; and the internal recognition that apartheid was not justifiable.

Meyer said that under Madiba’s presidency, we had some of the best growth, but we seemed to have lost our way. “We have a good president now, but the effects will not be seen immediately or even in a year. We have to help him make it happen.”

Among the factors he feels we need to address are education (“the biggest damage done under apartheid was to the education system”), the civil service at all levels and black economic empowerment, which had good intentions but benefited only a few.

Even before we became a democracy, there were attempts to derail the peace process, and Meyer thanked civil society for stepping up to save the process, through peace committees set up under the National Peace Accord.

While he believes we should look only towards the future, Meyer acknowledges that we can learn from earlier experiences to fix what is wrong.

However, he believes we fixate too much on the past. “We can’t keep moaning about what went wrong under Zuma. It won’t solve anything.”

I concur.

On Tuesday, we remember the thousands of men and women who gathered at the Rocklands Civic Centre in Mitchells Plain on August 20, 1983, to launch the United Democratic Front which led the internal opposition to apartheid. In their memory, it would be prudent to draw on the lessons of non-racialism and democracy that we learnt in those days.

If we want to fix what is wrong with our country, we need to know what kind of society we want. That should be our guide as we work on making this country the great place we all know it can be.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 17 August 2019)

Let's make Women's Month about much more than pageants, manicures and shopping

Last week I attended a dialogue on racism at the District Six Homecoming Centre. One of the participants was Professor Courtland Lee from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, who raised a range of issues relating to the psychological impact of racism, which can easily be applied to South Africa as to the US.

As someone who has studied and researched racism and written a book on the subject, I am always keen to hear different perspectives on a very complicated topic.

Take the issue of whether black people can be racist. Lee thinks they cannot and I humbly beg to differ. Lee argued that, while black people can be prejudiced, they cannot be racist. The situation in the US is different to South Africa. They have a black minority. Here, we have a black majority which means that at least some black people have the power and the influence to act in a racist manner.

But I don’t want to challenge the professor’s views in this column. The reason I mention it is because he also spoke about attitudes towards Black History Month, which is in February.

Lee said that some people had problems with it because for that month only in schools and universities they put up pictures of dead black people, which they promptly removed at the end of the month.

As my email and social media were flooded with information on events related to National Women’s Day (and month) this week, I wondered whether any of this would make an impact. The problem with national days is that they focus on an important issue, but quite often that is the only time of focus. People move on to other issues immediately afterwards.

Ultimately, it depends on how we use these focused days and months. While it is important to remember the history behind Women’s Day, and to pay tribute appropriately, it is also important to find ways of relating the day and month to the issues faced by women and girls today.

Women’s Day started as a protest by thousands of women who marched to Pretoria against pass laws in 1956, but today it should give us an opportunity to focus on issues such as gender violence and the problems facing the girls, such as proper access to sanitary pads and violence in schools. Those who will never be women, but who identify with their struggle, should use it as an opportunity to interrogate ways in which they can enhance their support.

I have no problem with women who decide to treat themselves in what is supposed to be their special month, but Women’s Month should be about much more than beauty pageants, manicures and shopping specials.

Focused days and months should help to create awareness of important issues, but it should never be left at that. Not all of us can be activists for women’s rights, but we can be aware of the issues and support in whatever way we can. In that way, Women’s Month will take on more significance.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 10 August 2019)

Collective mind-shift is needed to put SA first and make it work

After last week’s column, in which I argued that we have failed to deliver the South Africa we promised our people when we were involved in the Struggle against apartheid, I received a query from a reader asking whether I was “hankering after the Apartheid era”. He capitalised apartheid, which properly betrays his loyalties.

Of course, I never said that but sometimes it seems that people read articles to confirm their opinions and prejudices, on which their opinions are often based.

I would never wish apartheid on our country or any other country. Apartheid was evil and destroyed so many lives through laws like the Immorality Act, the Group Areas Act, the laws determining and governing homelands and the Mixed Marriages Act.

It also destroyed lives through the active subjugation of the majority in an effort to create a utopia for the minority. I lost too many close friends and comrades in the Struggle to see something remotely positive in apartheid and its evil twin, colonialism.

But just because we think apartheid was bad, does not mean that we think our democracy is perfect. Far from it. What I have been thinking about a lot recently is the role that those of us who were involved in the Struggle can play in improving our democracy.

Part of the contribution that we can make is to continue to point out flaws where we see them and make suggestions on how things could be improved. This is not negative, in fact, it is part of us trying to make a positive contribution to our country.

We cannot continue to sit on the sidelines while the unemployment rate is going up every quarter, the latest figure being 29%, up from 27.6% last quarter. This is the official figure, but I believe the real figure is much higher, especially in poor communities.

We cannot keep quiet while our economy has been reduced to junk status by international ratings agencies, and when our education system does not produce proper skills. And when it does, those skills flee the country because there are no jobs here.

We cannot pretend not to be concerned when crime is spiralling out of control.

I love this country, but I am pulling out what little hair I have left because, like most concerned citizens, I am desperate to help find solutions.

We are in one of the worst spaces we have been in in our reasonably young democracy. However, I still remain hopeful. I remain hopeful that our president will realise that, while there are people inside and outside his party who are trying to divert his attention, he should focus on the job for which he was elected: to turn our country into the great nation we all know it can be.

I am also hopeful that our political parties will realise that now is not the time for factional fighting or political grandstanding. Now is the time for everyone to put their shoulders to the wheel and work together to get us out of the mess we are clearly in.

Now is also not the time for people to say, “I told you so”, especially not the apartheid-era apologists hoping (and sometimes praying) that we will not make a success of our democracy.

I am also hopeful because I know the resilience of South Africans. We absorbed everything that 300 years of colonialism and 50 years of apartheid could throw at us and we emerged victorious. We have made mistakes since we became a democracy, including allowing some people to think that they are leaders when they are meant to be public servants.

This is the kind of attitude which has allowed corruption and state capture to flourish.

South Africa can do better, but it will require a change of mindset and a willingness to put our country first.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 3 August 2019)

This is not the South Africa we fought for in the Struggle

We’ve had another week where it felt like our country was being slapped around by bad news. We had continuing gang violence on the Cape Flats, court challenges to the public protector, and a damning Constitutional Court verdict against her. And we once again had sickening testimony at the commission of inquiry into state capture of corruption in the Free State.

It was a week when I found myself thinking of Smuts Ngonyama’s comment that “we did not struggle to be poor”. I found myself asking: What did we struggle for?

It was very clear in the dark days of apartheid that we wanted a different and better society. One in which all people would be treated with dignity and respect; inequality would be eradicated or at least, seriously diminished; everyone would feel that they have equal opportunities to achieve their potential; everyone would feel safe, and enjoy the beauty of our country.

What we have seen since we have become a democracy has been almost the opposite.

I was one of those optimistic people who have always held out high hopes for our country, and in many ways I still do. But it is becoming more and more difficult to remain positive when you are surrounded by so much negativity.

I visit townships on the Cape Flats often, and I try to understand what is happening and how one can resolve the complex issues there. I always leave feeling more despondent.

Last Friday, I drove through Hanover Park and I was shocked at how the place has degenerated. I entered via Athwood Road and was confronted by piles of dirt lying in and next to the road. As we drove down Derwent Lane, with Derwent and Como courts on our left, I became aware of the number of able-bodied young men standing around on street corners.

I am used to seeing young men idling on street corners in Hanover Park. It was the same when I grew up in the area, but it seems to have become worse. People look dejected, like they have given up hope of their miserable lives ever changing. The unemployment rate here is clearly much higher than the official 27.6%.

Just about every bit of space in people’s backyards has been taken up by one, two or three Wendy houses, leaving no space for washing lines. As a result, people hang their washing on the wire-fences around the courts.

It is difficult to remember what we told people about the society we want to live in when we were doing door-to-door work or having house meetings in the 1980s, when we were trying to build community organisations in areas such as Hanover Park. I doubt whether anyone still believes in the future that we were trying to convince them of.

Instead of all the things we dreamt of, we now have a society where politicians think they are more important than the people they are supposed to represent; where faux revolutionaries wear designer watches and bags, and drink expensive liquor while trying to attack white monopoly capital, the same people who benefit when they buy their watches, bags and liquor.

But I have also been thinking about the people who complain about white monopoly capital. Does it mean that they are okay with black monopoly capital? Do they want to replace white capitalists with black capitalists?

South Africa will only become a better place if those of us who try to serve the people, whether we get paid for it or not, begin to listen to the people we are trying to serve. We need to remember what we promised people in the Struggle years, and deliver on it.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 27 July 2019)

Army deployment is merely applying a band-aid to a festering wound

It has been more than a week since the announcement that troops were to be deployed into the Cape Flats’ crime-ravaged townships (at the time of writing it appears not to have happened yet, at least not in a big way) and, while the deployment might initially calm the situation, peace in gang-infested townships is perilously unstable. It will not be long before the situation implodes and things could potentially be worse than ever.

Gangsters might initially lie low while they check out the situation. Most of them are not stupid and have superb survival skills. They will wait for the opportunity to revive their campaigns of terror on innocent residents, campaigns they might suspend in the face of the army deployment.

But they know, as everyone else does, that troops cannot remain on the Cape Flats forever.

The last time we had troops in the townships was in the 1980s, at the height of apartheid. At the time there were vigorous campaigns, supported by most progressive and liberal organisations, to have the troops removed.

This time, the opinion appears to be divided. There are those who are pulling out their hair, thinking of ways in which to address the rampant gang violence in Western Cape townships, which saw 43 people killed last weekend alone.

This has been a consistent feature, over many years, in these dormitory townships. We all know that people will be killed, especially over weekends; it is just a case of whether the number is going up or down. Those who feel that the troops should not be deployed into such a volatile situation - and I am one of them - argue that crime in South Africa can never be seen in isolation. Crime is a manifestation of communities who feel voiceless and helpless, and where the value of life has become almost meaningless.

The troops might be a temporary solution - a band-aid, of sorts, on a festering wound - but you need more than band-aids in the mainly poor townships on the Cape Flats.

Unemployment on the Cape Flats, for instance, is much higher than the official national average of 27.6%. Many people earn much less than what is considered a living wage. Many households earn nothing at all. Housing is inadequate and that is an understatement.

In an environment of extreme poverty, crime and criminals thrive. Gangsters are known to operate like social welfare agencies in some areas, offering help with rent payments and legal support when youngsters land in trouble.

I grew up in some of these townships many years ago, including Hanover Park, where young people, often innocent, are still killed on a regular basis in the crossfire of gang warfare.

Some of my friends managed to escape the poverty which surrounded us, but we are the minority. Most young people are condemned to lives of misery in these townships.

There are ways to control crime on the Cape Flats and none of them are easy. It will involve listening to the affected communities and working with them. It will involve trying to change the economic conditions of the majority of people living there. It will involve creating jobs and giving hope to young people that their lives matter. It will involve the government - and not only the police - winning the trust of people who have no reason to trust the government or the police.

We have unleashed a monster with the deployment of the army in our townships. They only know how to use force and hope it will result in peace. But you need more than force and fear on the Cape Flats. The police need to work with communities, not only with community organisations or gatekeepers, but with people who truly know what is happening on the ground.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 20 July 2019)

Remember the South Africa that Madiba dreamed of

July is always a special month in our history. July is Cuba month and it is meant to be a time to focus on the progress of the little island, south of the US, where, despite the best and worst attempts at destabilisation by its much bigger and stronger neighbour, some form of socialism has been practised since the early 1960s.

Locally, July is also important. Ashley Kriel, a young freedom fighter from Bonteheuwel, was killed on July 9, 1987, and his comrades, Coline Williams and Robert Waterwich, were killed two years later, on July 23, 1989, in what appeared to have been an explosion gone wrong.

July is the month when some of the leadership of the ANC and its military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, were arrested at Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, outside Johannesburg. The events of July 11, 1963, led to the Rivonia Trial where Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Denis Goldberg, Andrew Mlangeni, Raymond Mhlaba and Elias Motsoaledi were sentenced to life in prison on four counts, including sabotage and furthering the objectives of communism. Ahmed Kathrada was found guilty of conspiracy and also sentenced to life.

Nowadays July is special for most people throughout the world because of the birthday of Nelson Mandela on July 18. Mandela, who died on December 5, 2013, would have been 101 this year.

Mandela Day, as his birthday has become known, is celebrated in many countries and it gives an opportunity for many to do good, often for 67 minutes, in remembrance of the number of years of his life Mandela dedicated to public service.

It is always interesting for me to see how many people pick and choose from Mandela’s legacy what they wish to celebrate and remember.

Most people choose to remember only reconciliation, but reconciliation came after a lifetime of resistance against apartheid and colonial crimes in South Africa, and fierce resistance to all forms of oppression and exploitation. Mandela said, famously, at the Rivonia Trial, and he repeated part of it on the day of his release, Sunday, February 11, 1990: “During my lifetime I have dedicated my life to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society, in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and to see realised. But, my Lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

What I took out of this speech was his undying commitment to public service, as well as his understanding of non-racialism. Mandela, through his speeches and actions, showed us what it meant to be a servant leader. It was never about him; it was always about what would be in the best interest of the people he was meant to represent. He was prepared to give his life in pursuance of the freedom of all South Africans.

Mandela understood that, when he became the president of the country, he was no longer merely the head of the major political party. He had to represent all the people of South Africa. Mandela understood that we all needed to work together. It will take more than 67 minutes, hours, days, months and maybe even years. The best way to pay tribute to Mandela is to help realise the non-racial society that he spoke about in his Rivonia Trial speech.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 13 July 2019)

Forced removal and fines are not solutions to our homelessness problem

Cape Town - The sight as the plane approaches Cape Town is always welcoming, especially to someone who was born in this city and who loves it dearly.

After you fly over the Hottentots Holland mountains, you see the Winelands, then the sea and then, depending on which side of the plane you are in, you might see Robben Island and Table Mountain. It is beauty personified.

But as you approach the airport and after you get off the plane, you start to see another side of Cape Town as you drive past a series of informal settlements - a misnomer if ever there was one because most of these settlements have become permanent - and the Cape Flats townships, before you get to the city centre where many tourists start their experience of the beautiful Cape Town.

In between the beauty, there is a side of the city the authorities have been failing to deal with for years. The only way they know how to deal with the many homeless people on the city streets is to remove them, often forcibly, as media reports said this week.

But removing homeless people from our streets is not something new for the City of Cape Town.

Remember in 2010, ahead of the Football World Cup, the authorities removed all the homeless people from the city’s streets.

Now we hear that they have been fining homeless people R500 each time for obstructing pavements, and other such misdemeanours. It is not small change, even to people with money. How much more of a challenge must it be to someone who has nothing?

For many years the city’s slogan was “The city that works for you”. But if you asked most people on the Cape Flats they would say this should rather have been “The city that works for some”. The "some" are those who live in the leafy suburbs where they have become used to certain privileges.

One of the privileges is not having to be bothered by homeless people.

In a city and society that is as unequal as South Africa, one could be surprised that there are only a few hundred homeless people in the central business district. Someone joked that South Africa is leading the world in at least one thing, and that is inequality.

Cape Town, with all its beauty, is one of the most unequal societies in the world. Cape Town is also a very dangerous city, but the sheltered people who live in the suburbs and the tourists who hang out in the beautiful spots of the city are not affected by the dangers of gangland shootings, incessant violence, and drug abuse.

To those who live on the Cape Flats and who sometimes never get to leave their townships - often because they cannot afford the train, bus or taxi fare - the beauty of Cape Town is something they can only imagine.

Growing up in Hanover Park many years ago, it was not unusual for us to have only one or two outings a year out of the area. In December after my dad got his bonus, my mother would take us shopping in central Cape Town and sometime during the summer we would go to Kalk Bay beach.

Both excursions were by train which, surprisingly, might have been more reliable than it is today. We were among the lucky ones; many of my friends never left Hanover Park.

Homelessness and gangsterism are manifestations of the worst kind of capitalism, which is what we have in South Africa. The rich are very rich, the poor very poor. We will only be able to deal with it if we create more opportunities to lift people out of poverty. As long as we have this kind of inequality, homelessness will be with us. We cannot get rid of it by fining people or forcibly removing them.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 6 July 2019)

No need for Home Affairs visit to be unpleasant

Certain things in life are great levellers. A visit to Home Affairs in Barrack Street, Cape Town, is one of them.

I have been putting off getting my new smart card identity document, partly because I thought I was going to have to give up on my old green ID book, with all its IEC stamps, from 1994 when we voted for the first time. But when my passport expired, I could no longer procrastinate and, on Monday, decided to take the great leap of faith which is a visit to Home Affairs.

Yes, I know that one can also renew one’s passport and get a smart card ID through a bank, but I did not want to deprive myself of a uniquely South African experience.

My wife and I arrived at Home Affairs just before 11am. Like detention without trial in the 1980s, we had no idea where we were going or how long it would be before we saw sunlight again.

We first had to wait outside, in a short queue, before being allowed to go inside. This took only a few minutes before we joined a confusing snaky line inside where our first stop would be the “Meeter and Greeter”.

One learns a lot when you are standing in a queue with complete strangers, some who have lost their ID documents, some who were applying for an ID document for the first time, and one or two who got married or divorced and wanted to change their surnames.

Two hours later, we finally got to the meeter and greeter, a reasonably jovial person – despite the obvious stress of his job. He was the only one who could check that you had the correct documents for your application before sending you off to the correct queue that you had to join.

The Home Affairs website says that, for a passport, you need the following:

·         A duly completed passport application Form DHA-73

·         Your original identity document and a copy, or a birth certificate and copy thereof if under 16

·         If under 18 years, parental consent for issuing of the passport. Please see Tourist passports: persons under 16 for the requirements

·         A completed determination of citizenship Form DHA-529 when applying from abroad

·         Present any existing valid tourist passport or if you have lost your passport or it has been stolen and you are applying for a new passport,  you must provide a loss of passport report (DHA-335 ) and confirmation that you reported the loss to the police

·         Two colour photographs that comply with the Passport and ID Photograph Specifications (NOT needed at smartcard offices as ID images are captured digitally)

·         Pay the prescribed fee for the passport

This is a direct quote from the website.

I took my old passport, my old ID book, a copy of the old ID book, proof of address and, of course, the prescribed fee. I was not asked for anything beyond my old passport and ID book, which were handed back to me afterwards. At least I got to keep my history. I did not have to fill in any forms. Maybe it was because it was a renewal, but then they need to be a bit more specific on their website.

After short conversation with the meeter and greeter, who previously interrupted a consultation with another person to go and help his colleague while everyone waited for about 10 minutes, we were told to join the line for “applying for an ID or passport”. This line was right next to the first queue and all that happened here was that we were given a number and told to go and wait for our photos to be taken. My wife was 439 and I was 440.

I noticed that there was a board in the reception area – if one can call it that – for star performers, but it contained no names, even though there was space for four photos. I don’t know if there were no star performers at this office or if they were just a bit slack in updating the information on the board.

Our meeter and greeter had earlier told us that “this is still better than Wynberg”.

We had survived the first part of our journey at Home Affairs. More was to come.

As we sat waiting in the main hall, we had to watch and listen to the board all the time. If your number was called and you forfeited your turn, you might have to come back another day. A couple in front of us were deeply engaged in conversation with another couple and did not hear their number. They only had to pay and had to back one of the people behind the counters to try and reinstate them. A few minutes later, the board told them to go to cashier one.

There were not enough seats in the main hall and, as soon as someone got up, someone else took the seat.

Of the nine counters that were available, there were sometimes only three or four people working. At most, I counted five people working behind the counters.

One of the people interfacing with the customers was merrily chewing gum while interviewing clients, while another got up to answer her cell phone, even though there is a sign saying that the area was supposed to be “cell phone free”.

At around 13h45, one of the Home Affairs staffers told us, “We have an error message on our system. I will check with head office what is going on and will get back to you.”

He did not get back to us, but just after 14h00, the board started working again and began instructing ticket numbers to go to counter 8 to 16 or cashier one or photo booth 21 or 23.

At times, only one of the photo booths had someone working.

At about 14h15, I got called to the photo booth 21, where I spent about three minutes only: to take thumb prints, sign a digital pad and have our photos taken. “Please don’t smile and keep your head straight,” were the firm instructions given to me.

Then it was back to finding a seat while we waited for our number to be called so that we could be interviewed at one of the counters.

At about 14h40, I was called to counter 16, where I was asked for my passport and ID. I was then asked to scan my left and right thumb and sign. I was asked for my cell number and address, and where I was married, in Cape Town or Johannesburg. This entire process last less than three minutes.

I was told to wait until my number was called again so that I could pay R400 for my passport and R140 for my ID.

A few minutes later, I was called to Cashier 1 to pay, which took another minute or so. I asked the cashier whether that was all that was required and whether I could go home now. It was that kind of experience, where you felt like you needed to ask permission before you could leave.

As we left, just before 15h00, we saw a small line of people waiting to go to the meeter and greeter. According to the website, the office closes at 15h30, but apparently, they help everyone who is inside at that time. Maybe the latecomers had a point.

More than four hours later, we left Home Affairs, feeling hungry and thirsty, thankful that we would not have to repeat this experience again, at least for the next 10 years until my passport expires again. 

Outside, the sun was fighting its way through the clouds. It felt like I had just been released from detention. 

It is clear to me that, with a little bit of better planning, Home Affairs could reduce the time it takes to make applications significantly. The biggest stumbling block is in reception where it took two hours to get to “meet and greet”, effectively reception or information. If they had put more than one person at this desk, the queues would move quicker.

I also did not see why we had to go from the first queue to one next door to be given a number. Surely, that could have happened at the end of the first queue. Like they had one meeter and greeter, they just had one person working at the other counter.

Getting to the meeter and greeter took two hours. There is no reason why that should happen.

Inside the main hall, they should try to make sure that there are more than five people working, especially as they have nine counters available.

I could not help thinking what the place would be like if they had a little restaurant inside, where one could have a bite while waiting, of course after you got your number. As it is, they ban eating inside the building.

There is no reason for a visit to Home Affairs to be an unpleasant experience, and it was not. It just took an incredible amount of time.

Ps. I did not ask Home Affairs for comment because these are my personal reflections. If they wish to respond, I will gladly carry their comments on this website.

Politicians must serve the public, not prance around on red carpets

Sometimes the little things can explain the bigger problems in life. I have been thinking about this the past few weeks as I noticed little things that have been irritating me. One of these is how politicians, who are supposed to be public servants, are being turned into celebrities by their colleagues and the media.

A few weeks ago I noticed an advert for a youth day rally to be addressed by President Cyril Ramaphosa, but he was referred to as “His Excellency”. The last time I checked, “Excellency” is a term used for ambassadors. I suppose “Excellency” sounds royal and the president’s people want him to appear to be royal. I might be wrong.

One of my big irritations are all the photographs of ministers, MECs and even mayors in newspaper ads and billboards, sometimes completely unrelated to the message they are conveying.

There is a billboard outside Bram Fischer International Airport in Bloemfontein urging residents and visitors to save water. It carries a huge picture of Mangaung executive mayor Sarah Matawana. I found myself thinking whether people would be more or less inclined to save water after seeing this billboard. Another irritation is how politicians always try to put themselves at the centre of our sporting achievements - or non-achievements, if events of the past few weeks are anything to go by.

A few weeks ago, when Banyana Banyana returned from the Women’s Soccer World Cup after not making it past the first round, I saw on television a press conference at OR Tambo International Airport where Gauteng Sports MEC Mbali Hlophe was taking centre stage, sitting in between the coach and captain, when surely most people were interested in the views of those in charge of the team and who played in the tournament.

I have also been irritated quite often by the practise of people having to stand up when a minister enters a room at an event. I can understand standing for the president, but maybe it is just me. I remember having to stand for a deputy minister, who was late.

I was also mildly irritated by new Small Business Development Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, who said in her maiden speech in Parliament that negative media coverage mainly targeted female leaders. Up to that point, she was doing reasonably well, but when she tried to blame negative coverage of herself on being a “female leader”, she lost me.

But my biggest irritation over the past few weeks was the red carpet at the State of the Nation Address where journalists were gushing over the outfits worn by politicians. I found myself wanting to shout: “They are not celebrities. They are public servants. They must serve the public, not prance around on red carpets.”

My irritation, I suppose, has been amplified by the fact that we have been losing old comrades at a regular rate in the past year, people who would understand where I am coming from.

The latest was Vivian Magdalene Sarah Daniels, known to most 1980s activists as Aunty Vivvy, who passed away on Wednesday at the age of 82. She was involved in many organisations, including the Cape Areas Housing Action Committee, where she represented Bellville South, and helped to start the Bellville Advice Office.

Aunty Vivvy, like many of her generation, did not join the Struggle to become a celebrity, but to help those who are most vulnerable. When the politicians pay tribute to her, as they surely will, they would do well to remember what drove people like her and that they never lost sight of the goal of improving the lives of the poor.

Maybe if public servants realise that they are not celebrities, people like me will become less irritated with them.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 29 June 2019)

Freedom Charter one of the beacons that guides us toward the SA we want to live in

On Tuesday and Wednesday, it will be 64 years since thousands of people converged on Kliptown, outside Johannesburg, to draw up the Freedom Charter, which for many years acted as a beacon of the kind of society we would all love to live in once apartheid had been destroyed and a democratic government installed.

Most of the people who were at the Congress of the People have passed on, but the document that they left behind is a powerful legacy of what South Africa should have become over the past 25 years of democracy and what it probably could still become.

Most of the key points of the Freedom Charter are contained in the Constitution of South Africa, adopted in 1996 and which has been guiding our democracy since then. What made the Freedom Charter unique is that it was the first document to be drawn up with the involvement of thousands of people of all races from around the country, not all of whom attended the two-day congress at Kliptown.

Many people had sent their demands and vision of a new South Africa in the hope that they would be incorporated in the final document.

What attracted many to the Freedom Charter was the opening paragraph: “We, the People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know: that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people; that our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality; that our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities; that only a democratic state, based on the will of all the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex or belief; And therefore, we, the people of South Africa, black and white together equals, countrymen and brothers adopt this Freedom Charter; And we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing neither strength nor courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won.”

The Charter then outlines certain key demands, most of which have not been realised. They include: the people shall govern; all national groups shall have equal rights; the people shall share in the country’s wealth; the land shall be shared among those who work it; all shall be equal before the law; there shall be work and security; the doors of learning and culture shall be opened; there shall be houses, security and comfort; and there shall be peace and friendship. It ends with the rallying cry: “These freedoms we will fight for, side by side, throughout our lives, until we have won our liberty.”

Oppression and exploitation were at its peak in the 1950s and one can forgive the talk of “national groups” because, at that point, divisions in our society were intense. Despite this, the Freedom Charter talks about an inclusive society. It talks about the need for all of us to share our beautiful country. It does not talk about how we can achieve this, but that was never the intention of this document.

One of the interesting lines is on the issue of land: it talks about sharing the land “among those who work it”. It means, that in 1995, there was already concern about the plight of farmworkers who toil on land owned by others without ever having land that they can call their own.

It will require much more than the limited space in this column to analyse the Freedom Charter and that was not my intention. I merely wanted to remind us of a beautiful document that should become part of our children’s education and that should inspire us in our quest for a different and better South Africa.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 22 June 2019)

The importance of investing in our children

Last night (Wednesday) I listened to my youngest daughter being interviewed on Bush Radio, a local community radio station, about her musical career. Her stage name is Luh’ra and she is a singer/guitarist who often performs alone but also with other musicians.

She had to compile a musical playlist for this radio appearance, which lasted two hours and consisted of some sort of an interview, but more of a chat, with a lot of music being played in between. The music all came from her playlist.

She started off by sharing some of the musical influences that she received from her parents and I was amazed by her selection, starting with Abdullah Ibrahim’s The Wedding to Jonathan Butler’s jazz stuff and Judith Sephuma, among others.

I realised then that, as parents, we are not always aware of the influence we have on our children. We listen to music, but we don’t often consider that our children could be listening too. Sometimes we speak about things without considering that our children could possibly understand what we are talking about. Imagine if my daughter said that the only musical influences she received from us were pop or bubble-gum music? Not that there is anything wrong with those forms of music, but one would like to believe that one’s influence has been a bit more profound.

More importantly, we do not often think about the outside influences on our children.

Years ago, about five of my friends and our families used to go camping every year-end. The five- or six-day holiday always included some musical performances. At one such performance, my friend’s then five- or six-year-old son said he wanted to do a song. He proceeded to perform a song by Eminen, complete with profanities. We were all shocked and did not know how to respond.

But we realised that, while we can try to keep tabs on our children as closely as possible, it is not always easy to protect them from societal influences.

In a world where technology is so easily accessible, it has become even more difficult for parents to make sure that their children are only influenced by things that are acceptable for their age levels, among others.

But while listening to my daughter’s interview, I realised that, while we have always tried to have as open a relationship as possible with our daughters, we will never know everything about them. We can always discover new things about them.

At another one of our annual camps, my other daughter sang a song and I realised for the first time that she could actually sing. I had never heard her sing before.

Sometimes I look at my grandson and I wonder about the challenges he will face growing up and the pressures he will be put under throughout his life. At just over a year, he already watches television and appears to like certain programmes.

Technology has become a part of our lives and will determine, in many ways, whether our children will be employable one day. The key is not to deprive him of technology but to find ways in which technology can help to support certain values in him and other children.

It has become more difficult for parents who believe in controlling and isolating their children, whici is not a bad thing, but it has also become more difficult for the rest of us.

Parent should take an active interest in nurturing their children from an early age. What we invest in them when they are young will eventually pay off when they are older.

Ps. Luh’ra will be performing with Jitsvinger tomorrow (Friday) at 6pm at the Book Lounge in Roeland Street, Cape Town. For more information, email booklounge @gmail.com

#YouthDay and Father's Day two very different reasons to celebrate

There was a time, in my mind not too long ago, when I would have had a double celebration tomorrow: celebrating as a young father both Father’s Day and Youth Day which, unusually, falls on the same day this year.

But that time has long gone, and, unlike the ANC Youth League leadership, I realise that one cannot hang onto one’s youth forever, no matter how desperately one wants to. I am still a father, however, and can at least enjoy celebrating that fact very proudly. I will, as always, reflect on Youth Day and the many who have sacrificed their lives over the years so that we can have our freedom today. Father’s Day, of course, is a commercial construct which often gives families with flawed relationships an opportunity to feel better about themselves - seeking salvation in gifts and other indulgences. For many people, however, it remains a day in which they can express genuine appreciation for their fathers, but these are normally the same people who would express those sentiments throughout the year.

I have never really worried too much about Father’s Day but, like most people I suppose, I have no problem with receiving presents or being spoiled on any day.

But I see Father’s Day also as an opportunity for me as a father to show appreciation to the women in my life, my wife and three beautiful daughters who have stood beside me, behind me and sometimes in front of me over the years.

Commercialism apart, Father’s Day, like Mother’s Day, is a good opportunity to reflect on the importance of relationships and to realise that none of us can survive in this world without the support of those closest to us.

Youth Day is a different matter. It was born out of struggle and sacrifice, particularly the many lives lost on June 16 and 17, 1976 after pupils protested against being taught in Afrikaans in Soweto.

The protests quickly spread throughout the country, including the Western Cape, resulting in even more deaths. In fact, more people died at the hands of police in the Western Cape than anywhere else in the country in 1976, a fact that malicious historians often overlook because it does not fit their narrative of a conservative Western Cape.

In many ways, 1976 was a turning point for the liberation movement and the struggle. There had been many quiet years in the struggle after the banning of the ANC and other organisations at the beginning of the 1960s.

Many young people left the country to join the liberation movement in exile and because the ANC was better organised than, for instance, the PAC, most of these young people ended up in ANC camps, becoming umKhonto we Sizwe soldiers, even though their political sympathies were probably closer to the PAC.

For many years, we commemorated June 16 and 17 as Soweto Days, until it was changed in our new democracy to Youth Day, in some ways removing some of the history from the day. The same happened with Human Rights Day, which we always remembered as Sharpeville Day in memory of the people who were killed in pass protests on March 21, 1960.

It is important to remember our history because quite often, one can learn from the mistakes and successes of those who have gone before.

We owe to the youth who died in Soweto and elsewhere, to make our democracy the best it can be.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 15 June 2019)

A country of hope and despair

I slept with great difficulty on Tuesday night. I kept on thinking about the interactive dialogue we had had at the District Six Homecoming Centre early in the evening. Some of the issues raised were very intense and worrying, but what made them special was the way in which they were raised. We were just a group of South Africans who love our country and who want it to succeed.

The topic of discussion at the event – which was co-hosted by the Community Chest of the Western Cape, the District Six Museum and the One City, Many Cultures Project – was The South Africa We All Want To Live In and, from the first contribution, I knew we were going to have a special conversation.

At these dialogues, we turn the traditional panel discussion on its head, starting with a discussion from the floor before inviting a few respondents to comment.

The first contribution was from a Manenberg father who is worried about the safety of his daughters in a crime-ridden community. The desperation in his voice showed how much he is affected by this situation. Most of us, irrespective of political affiliation, want the same things in life: we want opportunities for ourselves and our children and we want safety and security for our families.

After he spoke, the father, who did not want to be identified, said he needed to leave because he had to take public transport home, when someone in the audience offered to give him a lift home so that he would not have to miss the rest of the dialogue. It showed that, in every situation, one can always find good people.

One of the other impassionate contributions came from a student at CPUT who spoke about the hell of living in Khayelitsha. “I feel safe here now, but I will have to return to Khayelitsha afterwards where I will not be safe,” he said.

One of the rules of these dialogues is that people are not invited based on political affiliation. We have learned from bitter experience that, when people trumpet their political party agenda, it interferes with their ability to engage with others in a constructive dialogue.

But a young man from the Black First Land First movement delivered probably one of the most moving contributions of the evening, asking why the gangland killings on the Cape Flats are not described as a genocide and are not seen as a crisis.

But he spoke in the way we have become used to at these dialogues, not pushing the agenda of the political party he supports.

Crime was not the only issue raised. Other topics included the process of changing the name of what is currently known as Zonnebloem back to District Six, the lack of job creation and the need for entrepreneurship training, the worrying state of the South African economy, the public transport crisis in the Western Cape, the state of NGOs and the role that they should be playing to keep government to account, the marginalisation of young people in our society, the need to improve our education system, drug abuse particularly on the Cape Flats, among many others.

There were also some contributions from people who described themselves as “part of the elite who have no idea what most South Africans are experiencing on a daily basis”.

The overwhelming feeling at this dialogue, which was the final one in a series that started in January, was that we cannot depend on government to do everything for us. South Africans have to take their future in their own hands.

As someone said, “We should not only talk about the South Africa we want to live in, we should all start building it today.”

In the end, I felt hopeful that, despite the many problems we face in our society, there is hope that we will be able to pull through. We defeated apartheid. We can defeat anything else that is thrown at us. But we can only do that if we stand together and we look at the potential contribution that people can make, despite their backgrounds, history and political affiliation.

The contributions made at all the dialogues will be published in a special book, which should come out in the next few months. Our aim is to make sure that everyone in some position of influence has a copy, so that they can understand people are saying about the country in which they want to live.

Doing the decent thing like #NkosikhoMbele should be the norm, not a shock

It is a sign of how messed up we are as a society that, when someone does something decent, s/he is turned into a hero. Doing the decent thing should be the norm, but we have become a society where we expect politicians to be corrupt and everyone else to be bad and, when someone does something nice, we are surprised.

One example is the outpouring of support that has been shown to Nkosikho Mbele, a petrol attendant who paid R100 out of his own pocket to buy petrol for motorist Monet van Deventer, who had left her card at home.

She started a crowd-funding account for Mbele as a token of appreciation and the social media campaign quickly generated just under R500000.

The company that Mbele works for offered to match the online contributions by making a donation of R500 000 to a charity of his choice. They have also earmarked him for one of their special company awards and are flying him to Tanzania to receive it.

But Mbele did not do what he did because he expected a payment in return. He did what he thought was the right thing to do and the reward was totally unexpected, but well-deserved.

Unrelated to this, but similar in nature because of the response from the public, has been the way many people have reacted to Northern Cape Premier Zamani Saul and his promise to deliver “servant leadership”. He has banned new cars for his MECs and bought ambulances instead.

Unlike his counterparts in other provinces, who were inaugurated in plush provincial legislatures, Saul’s inauguration took place in an informal settlement. He has also banned pictures of the premier and MECs at provincial buildings.

Saul’s behaviour, while commendable, should have been the norm after we became a democracy. After all, our struggle was never about creating opportunities for the few, but bringing dignity to the majority of our population.

Maybe, when the ANC took over the government in 1994, they should have revisited all the apartheid-era practices and not just adopted them. Just because they were now applying to a democratic government, did not make them right. Under apartheid, public representatives were put on a pedestal. We should have done differently in our democracy.

I remember in the early 1980s, my political mentor, Johnny Issel, started a few trade unions and one of the rules for those who worked there was that they could not earn more than the workers they represented. If they wanted to earn more, they had to make sure that the workers they organised, also earned more.

Some people would argue that this was false socialism, but the principle is important. Imagine if our politicians’ salaries depended on how well our economy was doing or how many jobs they were able to create? Imagine if politicians earned as much as the lowest earners in our society?

For many politicians, it has become about how much money they can earn, how many benefits they can generate and how they can use their positions to benefit themselves and their families in other ways. For instance, by becoming involved in businesses as shareholders or directors.

The primary purpose of becoming public servants should always be to serve, as Premier Saul has reminded us. One would hope that those in other provinces, and also in national government and local government, would take note of what he is doing and look for ways to emulate his actions.

I hope that soon we will get to the point where the actions of a Nkosikho Mbele and a Zamani Saul are what we expect to happen naturally.

We should be holding everyone, but especially supposed public servants, to higher values than we do at the moment. We did not struggle for kindness and servant leadership to be the exception. It should be the rule in our country.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 8 June 2019)

Stories continue to unfold that have no place in SA 25 years into democracy

How does one fix a country as broken as South Africa? We have many issues to deal with, and we would like to believe that many of them are uniquely South African.

As everyone waited with bated breath for the announcement of the Cabinet by President Cyril Ramaphosa this week, I was more concerned with some of the things happening elsewhere in society, all somehow linked to politics in different ways.

In the past week or so, the body of award-winning journalist Junior Bonase was found next to the N1 in the Free State; Angelo Agrizzi, the notorious former Bosasa executive who has spilled the beans on the company’s bribing of politicians at the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture, was hauled to the Equality Court for racist comments; and Julius Malema has once again issued veiled threats against journalists who have continued to write about alleged wrongdoing by him and the party he leads.

We have also seen Satawu (SA Transport and Allied Workers’ Union) threatening to go on strike at Transnet because of what they say are pay discrepancies based on race.

According to Satawu, black workers earn less than their white counterparts at Transnet. To people who have been in the media industry for a long time, the stories listed above are normal in South Africa, but one would have expected them to become less normal, especially since we are celebrating 25 years of democracy this year.

Take, for instance, the case of Bonase. It was not unusual under apartheid for journalists who exposed illegal activities to disappear mysteriously or to end up dead. But one would not expect something like this to happen in a democracy. Without pointing fingers, this incident just appears strange and one hopes that the police will solve it urgently.

One of the most amazing things for me about the Agrizzi racism case is that there are people who are still surprised that such racism exists. Powerful people often think that they can abuse their power without consequences, which is what appears to have happened in the Agrizzi case.

The Malema incident worries me the most, especially since there appear to be many young people who have been taken in by the obvious racial polarisation that he is promoting.

Malema’s comment, in a tweet, was a reaction to journalists writing about the EFF’s involvement and benefit from the VBS Bank scandal. He said: “We are still cruising nicely, bana ba baloi are not happy. Go for kill fighters, hit hard”

Malema is a populist and populists are dangerous because they depend on sound bites and half-truths to push their agendas. They believe in the truth only if it suits their purposes. The fact that he seems to be able to pursue a racist agenda against his opponents could make his supporters feel that it is okay for them also to be racist.

The final story, about pay disparities, is shocking because, once again, it is not something that one would expect to happen in a democracy.

I began my journalism career in 1980, at a paper which targeted coloured people. It was one of the few places that people like me could find work in those days. Most of the mainstream papers mainly employed white journalists. But within a few months, we discovered that we were earning half of what our white counterparts with similar experience and qualifications earned. We went on strike and all got handsome increases. I did not expect to see this scenario repeating itself in 2019.

South Africa has many problems and, unless we deal with them comprehensively, we will continue to see stories like these in our media. This should not happen in a democracy.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 1 June 2019)

As we shakily place trust in new MPs, citizens must help keep them in check

It was sad to watch the bright-eyed new Members of Parliament being sworn in by Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng on Wednesday and to find oneself thinking: When will they be corrupted or when will corruption allegations be made against them?

It’s a sad situation when one cannot look at MPs, who are supposed to be among the most exemplary citizens, without thinking the worst. But the allegations that have been made almost daily at the Zondo Commission into state capture have forced us to trust our so-called public representatives only as far as we can see them.

Many of those who succumbed to bribes and corruption over the past 25 years (corruption did not start under Jacob Zuma, just ask those involved in the arms deal or the Sarafina! scandal, remember that?) have besmirched their honourable name and those of their colleagues.

Even those who are honourable, will spend months, if not years, restoring the integrity of their names, but also the integrity of Parliament, an institution in which all South Africans should be able to have trust. The confidence in our public representatives is at an all-time low. 

The good news is that it probably won’t get worse and can get better, especially if those with morality and ethics once again put their stamp on Parliament and the Cabinet. Our public representatives will hopefully follow good leadership, which is what the president promised and which is what distinguished South Africans, such as Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng and former public protector Thuli Madonsela, urged after the elections.

There have been good signs over the past few days, including ANC deputy president David Mabuza, declining to be sworn in until he addressed the concerns of the party’s integrity commission, and others like Malusi Gigaba, Baleka Mbete and Nomvula Mokonyane withdrawing their names.

There have also been positive comments from some of the newly elected premiers, such as Gauteng’s David Makhura, and KZN’s Sihle Zikalala vowing to promote clean governance and fight corruption. But we, the electorate, have been burnt before. We entrusted our hopes and dreams in the hands of people who have been less than honest, serving to enrich only themselves, their families and closest comrades.

It is up to us to be more vigilant and take ownership of our democracy. Democracy requires those of us who are not in Parliament to make sure that those who are supposed to serve us, do so diligently and without being compromised.

We should insist that public representatives declare all their assets and business dealings, so we can scrutinise them. Those who are economical with the truth, should be fined or expelled. When was the last time an honourable member was fired for dishonesty? The events of especially the past 10 years or so have shown the need for greater vigilance over the government by civil society.

There should be nothing greater than serving one’s country. But we have seen many people forgetting that they were supposed to serve the people, thinking instead that they were supposed to help themselves.

It is time to restore the dignity of the public service. When the new MPS become old hands, they must know that they served without conflict, without compromise and without a hint of corruption or bribery. We won’t be able to move forward unless we root out corruption.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 25 May 2019)