Kamerad Mhmbi watched the rugby game between the Boks and the British and Irish Lions this weekend. The press on these ilses are in a tizz because Schalk Burger ‘gouged’ the Lions wing, and was not sent off.
The Bok’s coach reponded:
“Do we really respect the game? If not, why don’t we all go to the nearest ballet shop and get some nice tutus, get a great dancing show going on, no eye-gouging, no tackling, no nothing and then we will all enjoy it.” Peter de Villiers
Four of the most eloquent, interesting and analytical South African writers are in my humble opinion, Rian Malan, Xolela Mangcu, Jonny Steinberg and Mark Gevisser.
Of these I have only met the enigmatic wild child Rian Malan. So I was very excited last night when I had the opportunity to listen to and meet Gevisser at London’s School for Oriental and African Studies. Gevisser has just published a shortened version of his magnum opus - A dream deferred - a biography on Thabo Mbeki.
Alec Russell, not South African, but a man that has a lot to say about the country was present as well. His recent book After Mandela: The Battle for the Soul of South Africa has received rave reviews. Although I have to admit I have not read it yet.
So Russell and Gevisser were there to talk about their books and speculate about the Zuma presidency. Speculating about Zuma and what he portends for SA is all the rage right now.
As I pointed out previously Thabo Mbeki and South Africa could have benefited with this kind of critical scrutiny in 89 and 2004 before he became president. But back then Afro-pessimists were not quiet as visible as they are now.
And well spoken they were. Gevisser has much of the academic about him, lacing his sentences with words like ‘contestation’ and ‘notion’. Although he constintly seasons his sociologist jargon with creative flourishes. And his lines are energetically delivered. He has a lot to say and one sense he feels he barely has the time to do his opinions justice.
Russell is the ace journalist, with above average vocabulary and analytical skills for a normal ‘hack’. Russell is not ‘just’ a hack. It’s obvious he is a keen observer and listener. A measured commentator.
No wonder Thabo Mbeki called him regularly. Even late on Saturday nights. Russell recounted the following when he attended Zuma’s birthday party (read from his book):
It was April 2007, and South Africa’s then president Thabo Mbeki and Zuma were in the midst of their tumultuous battle for control of the African National Congress, a fight that threatened to define the future of not just Africa’s oldest liberation movement, but also the post-apartheid state.
A young management consultant on my right was deftly saluting the talents of both men when my mobile phone rang. It was Mahlamba Ndlopfu (“The new dawn”), the president’s residence. Moments later I heard Mbeki’s distinctive deep, mellifluous voice. He had just returned from the Sudan. He wanted to send me an e-mail about a conversation we had had the previous week. Mbeki had long been mocked by critics for his penchant for surfing the internet at night – and here he was at 9pm on a Saturday catching up on his e-mails. “God moves in mysterious ways,” he said in conclusion, although to what I could not quite hear. Back in the ballroom, Zuma was taking to the dance floor for a solo performance.
Jacob Zuma I read Mbeki’s e-mail message late that night. He had wanted to draw my attention to recent cases of supposedly inaccurate reporting of his government. He passed on a friendly message to my family and concluded with a flourish, that to understand the media I needed to know a Xhosa expression, “Alitshoni lingenandaba”. This, he explained, could be translated as, “Each day brings its fresh baggage of news”. I wrote back vowing to bear it in mind. Within hours, back came another e-mail. To help me to understand the saying, Mbeki had composed a mock news item in which “President Mbeki [is found] riding a goat on the grounds of the Union Buildings [the government headquarters] stark naked”. High jinks ensue, with the police who discover the naked president winding up in hospital, treated by a specialist in exorcisms of ghosts and evil spirits. “One might then respond to this news,” concluded Mbeki, “by exclaiming alitshoni lingenandaba! This usage would be akin to the meaning that the ancient Romans attached to the expression Ex Africa semper aliquid novi [Africa always brings something new]!”
It was vintage Mbeki, encapsulating the inquisitive man groomed from his youth as a future leader – yet whose hypersensitivity and desire to be an African intellectual tarnished his and his country’s reputation as he pursued disastrous policies on Aids and Zimbabwe. It also highlighted the contrast with the ebullient, larger-than-life Zuma who would soon be Mbeki’s successor: he won the party’s leadership contest eight months after his birthday celebrations, paving the way for his election as the country’s president at Wednesday’s elections.
Quoting Latin is not Zuma’s style. He only learnt to read and write as an adult, and appears more comfortable telling stories and passing around a vat of sorghum beer with clansmen (though he doesn’t drink) in rural Zululand than discussing policy, one of Mbeki’s favoured pursuits. Mbeki agonised over what it meant to be an authentic African leader. Zuma, it seems, is one. He is the ultimate modern tribal chief, a man who will listen to his people, who understands their concerns and who will not necessarily let the niceties of western political convention impede his plans.
After the talk Russell told me, Mbeki had some character flaws but:
“This did not make him evil, but it did make him a bad leader”.
Gevisser never realy came to understand Mbeki fully. I put it to him that his book starts of great but that one gets the impression towards the end that Mbeki is still a bit of a mystery to him. “It’s a fair comment”, he replied.
Nethertheless one senses that Gevisser feels far more comfortable with the mysterious Mbeki than the man of the people that is Zuma.
Gevisser had also read a passage from his book, his was about the revolution that happened at Polokwane. Only in his version the King had been dealt a bad hand, or so he seemed to suggest.
He recounted the run up to Polokwane, and then claimed Mbeki would not have run for president in the first place if he had not been persuaded to do so by others in the ANC. Their aim? To stop Zuma.
I’m not convinced about this argument. Much of Mbeki’s moves early in his presidency seemed designed to ensconce himself as leader. Even by proxy Putin style if it must.
Gevisser made it sound as if Mbeki was much the underdog, while I think the smart money, almost right up till the end, was that Mbeki would clinch it. (I have to add however that Gevissers book does not create the same impression of obvious bias towards Mbeki.)
But what Gevisser was saying last night made him look like a more firm Mbeki defender vis-a-vis Zuma than I would have imagined.
When an audience member and the chair said as much Gevisser retorted that if he had created that impression it was wrong. Neither Mbeki or Zuma woud have been his choice for president.
Still Gevisser pins the blame on the attacks and the undermining of South African government institutions firmly on Zuma. The lack of accountability of Mbeki’s administration and the abuse of state organs during Mbeki’s time was glanced over by him.
Haffajee described Mbeki’s support for the rule of law by institutions as “reed slim”. Achmat said Mbeki had practised an “executive lawlessness” in which he saw himself “above the law and outside the Constitution”.
Be that as it may one could not argue with Gevisser when he said its too early to judge Zuma. But he added, he was a skeptic.
Gevisser clearly does not trust Zuma. He explained this with reference to the next ANC succession. Zuma had initially said he would only stand for one term.
Gevisser was very suspicious about recent news that Zwelinzima Vavi, the head of Cosatu - South Africa’s powerful trade union federation - had declared that Zuma should stand for two terms. Gevisser seemed to infer that Zuma was in on this. That he had colluded with Vavi to make this statement. (I’m not so sure - both Gwede Mantashe (the ANC general secretary) and Julius Malema, (the ANC youth leader) - has taken issue with Vavi on the two terms issue and Zuma has been quiet himself.)
I asked Gevisser afterwards whether much of the anti-Zuma sentiment is not firstly middleclass, secondly white, and thirdly an English bias against Zuma. I had previously written on this blog about white and middleclass bias against Zuma.
“Yes”, he agreed. But in particular that there was “a middle class bias” agaisnt Zuma.
In his book Gevisser - through meticulous research - rather brilliantly makes the case that Mbeki was some kind of Afro-pessimist himself.
I was left wondering if Gevisser and a few in the audience had not come to share Mbeki’s views.
If your on London tonight there’s a talk featuring Mark Gevisser and Alec Russell, author of the acclaimed book “After Mandela”. Both these gents are eloquent and knowledgeable commentators on South Africa.
Ferial Haffajee former editor of South Africa’s Mail & Guardian said of Russel’s book:
“After Mandela: The Battle for the Soul of South Africa (Hutchinson) by Alec Russell, world editor of the Financial Times, breaks the mould. It is pacy and well written, but, more vitally, it is rooted in real research among real people.
Moreover, it is authoritative, because Russell draws on interviews with both of South Africa’s post-apartheid presidents, Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, and also with Jacob Zuma, the man who will be our president by this time next month. Russell was part of the corps of foreign correspondents who worked here as freedom came: he knew our nooks and crannies from the hideaways of right-wing secessionists to the self-defence units of the Vaal townships.”
Mark Gevisser is the writer of the mighty fine tome on Thabo Mbeki. But although a great read he never managed to quite explain our ex president. Still Gevisser is a great intellect and it should be good to see these two gents together.
Here is the invite:
Royal African Society & Global South Africans network
South African leadership requires a skilful balancing of four interlinked imperatives: Political stability, Economic growth, Legitimacy and Redistribution.
How will the government of Jacob Zuma fare?
Alec Russell is World News Editor at the Financial Times, and former Johannesburg bureau chief. He was nominated by the Financial times for a Pulitzer Prize in 2008 and Britain’s Foreign Correspondent of the Year for his reporting from South Africa in 2007.
Mark Gevisser is one of South Africa’s leading journalists whose book Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred won the Sunday Times 2008 Alan Paton Prize and the NB Books 2008 Recht Malan Prize.
Please RSVP to palesa.madumo@omg.co.uk/ 0207 002 4095
You can now purchase our African Arguments books and Recommended books directly from our website. By purchasing through our Amazon aStore, you will be supporting the Royal African Society.
Apparently, Iran has the third most blogs of any country in the world. Quite a stat.
But as the Huffington post reports, Twitter, Facebook and many other websites including the mobile phone network has been made inaccessible, presumably by the government, the last few days.
It seems some Twitter messages are getting through though, and (on the Huffington post’s recommendtion) you can follow the account of Farhad (@change_for_iran) @keyvan and @IranRiggedElect.
The Huffington Post has done a very good job ‘curating’ all the information about the violence in Iraq. Grabbing videos from YouTube, pictures from Flickr. And there are a few. The ubiquitous of mobile technology including mobiles with video is making for lots of footage. The following video I found on the Huffington post shows police beating women at a bus stop. One of the women kicks back and gets set upon by three policemen.
This one filmed from behind a wall shows Iranian police running from crowds.
Veteran journalist Robert Fisk is in Theran - wish he was on Twitter- but this is his account in today’s Independent:
“Thus did I arrive opposite the Interior Ministry as the police brought their prisoners back from the front line down the road. The first was a green-pullovered youth of perhaps 15 or 16 who was frog-marched by two uniformed paramilitary police to a van with a cage over the back. He was thrown on the steel floor, then one of the cops climbed in and set about him with his baton. Behind me, more than 20 policemen, sweating after a hard morning’s work bruising the bones of their enemies, were sitting on the steps of a shop, munching through pre-packed luncheon boxes. One smiled and offered me a share. Politely declined, I need hardly add.
They watched – and I watched – as the next unfortunate was brought to the cage-van. In a shirt falling over his filthy trousers, he was beaten outside the vehicle, kicked in the balls, and then beaten on to a seat at the back of the vehicle. Another cop climbed in and began batoning him in the face. The man was howling with pain. Another cop came – and this, remember, was in front of dozens of other security men, in front of myself, an obvious Westerner, and many women in chadors who were walking on the opposite pavement, all staring in horror at the scene.
Now another policeman, in an army uniform, climbed into the vehicle, tied the man’s hands behind his back with plastic handcuffs, took out his baton and whacked him across the face. The prisoner was in tears but the blows kept coming; until more young men arrived for their torment. Then more police vans arrived and ever more prisoners to be beaten. All were taken in these caged trucks to the basement of the Interior Ministry. I saw them drive in.”
Some of you who follow this blog regularly may know of my fondness for two Texan photographers. Rose and Olive.
Well Rose and Olive recently blogged about an Israeli photographers - Rachel Papo - whose work amongst other things - document female Israeli soldiers doing their compulsory military service.
Says Papo:
“Each image embodies traces of things that I recognize, illuminating fragments of my history, striking emotional cords that resonate within me. In some way, each is a self-portrait, depicting a young woman caught in transient moments of introspection and uncertainty, trying to make sense of a challenging daily routine. In striving to maintain her gentleness and femininity, the soldier seems to be questioning her own identity, embracing the fact that two years of her youth will be spent in a wistful compromise.”
Iran is in the throws of great turmoil. AP describes some of the scenes today:
Protesters set fire to tires outside the Interior Ministry and anti-riot police fought back with clubs and smashed cars. Helmeted police on foot and others on buzzing motorcycles chased bands of protesters roaming the streets pumping their fists in the air. Officers beat protesters with swift blows from their truncheons and kicks with their boots. Some of the demonstrators grouped together to charge back at police, hurling stones.
Plumes of dark smoke streaked over the city, as burning barricades of tires and garbage bins glowed orange in the streets. Protesters also torched an empty bus, engulfing it in flames on a Tehran street.
An Associated Press photographer saw a plainclothes security official beating a woman with his truncheon. Italian state TV RAI said one of its crews was caught in the clashes in front Mousavi’s headquarters. Their Iranian interpreter was beaten with clubs by riot police and officers confiscated the cameraman’s tapes, the station said.
Condemnation of the polls results are coming form many, including influential Iranians.
Effat Marashi, the wife of Hashemi Rafsanjani Iran’s former president and the head of Assembly of Experts, which officially monitors the Supreme Leader’s performance: “If people see that [the government] has cheated, they should protest in the streets.”
And there are claims on Iranian blogs that “The President of the Committee of Election Monitoring: Hojjat-ol-Eslam Yali Akbar MohteshamiPour officially requested that the Guardian Council to cancel this election and schedule a new election.”
Why are there reasons to doubt the outcome of this election? The previous time they had a high turn out, a reformist president won. Secondly Mousavi, the chief opposition leader this time, according tot this poll, even lost in the cities like Tehran, where most of his support comes from.
It is claimed that Ahmadinejad won the city of Tabriz with 57%. His main opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, is an Azeri from Azerbaijan province, of which Tabriz is the capital. Mousavi, according to such polls as exist in Iran and widespread anecdotal evidence, did better in cities and is popular in Azerbaijan. Certainly, his rallies there were very well attended. So for an Azeri urban center to go so heavily for Ahmadinejad just makes no sense. In past elections, Azeris voted disproportionately for even minor presidential candidates who hailed from that province.
Cole also explains that two other candidates got impossibly low totals and speculates:
“The reason for which Rezaie and Karoubi had to be assigned such implausibly low totals was to make sure Ahmadinejad got over 51% of the vote and thus avoid a run-off between him and Mousavi next Friday, which would have given the Mousavi camp a chance to attempt to rally the public and forestall further tampering with the election.”
And on the Mother Jones site you’ll find more information and a graph at how consistently and suspiciously Ahmadinejad polled.
This election is about identity. With the campaigns for the incumbent characterized by gender split rallies and women in Islamic dress. And the campaign for the reformists having integrated rallies and women showing their hair. This is not unlike France’s 1968 rallies. A protest for freedom including personal freedom.
Kameraad Mhambi cant help but thinking that the election of Barack Obama and the speeches that he has given has contributed to this upheavel against the conservative Iranian religious repression.
Kameraad Mhambi is not alone in his opinion that the South Africa middle-classes, the press and the mink set, underestimate Jacob Zuma. Jeremy Gordin published an excellent article, titled: Its time to take Zuma seriously.
He was as amused as I by the opposition parties’ and press’s response to Zuma’s opening adres to parliament.
Why was this?
Why were the opposition politicians and analysts in a state of apparent perplexity about Zuma’s speech? Why was damning him with faint praise the best they could do?
I think there is a two-part answer to these questions.
The first part of the answer is that Zuma’s speech was pretty damn clever and this took everyone aback.
Zuma covered all the bases for which he would have been lambasted if he had not covered them. He made certain to connect clearly his administration to Nelson Mandela’s.
Zuma also moved seamlessly between the requisite Olympian overview and the personal touch that we mere mortals love - telling school kids to do their homework and teachers to come to class on time. By trying to speak Afrikaans, by not speaking isiZulu (and choosing instead Sotho and isiXhosa), and via his comments on national unity, he stayed well away from former President Thabo Mbeki’s petty-minded, divisive carping.
Most importantly - and only the Freedom Front Plus’ Pieter Mulder seemed to have picked this up - Zuma firmly closed the door on the Mbeki-type denialism that we have had our noses rubbed in for a decade.
Zuma might have been short on detail. But at least, and at last, HIV-Aids, crime, the Zimbabwean situation and a host of other ills - from the global recession to unemployment and the state of health care - were dealt with in an adult fashion as realities, and not defensively either.
But why were people apparently unable to recognise these qualities? Why did they not know what to say?
The second part of the answer to these questions is that, for reasons with which we are all familiar, the media and the opposition (from whom it might be expected) still do not trust Zuma.
There is still a strange air of begrudging disbelief that hangs around members of the media and analysts when it comes to Zuma.
It’s almost as if they expect him suddenly to stop making a measured and careful presidential speech and to rip off his suit and tie, revealing leopard skins beneath, and to start frothing at the mouth and calling for his machine gun.
Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo. The Rocky Mountain News is one of many newspapers closing around the world today. Reams are being written as to why newspapers are closing, whether bloggers can replace them and what can be done for newspapers to stay open. But this is just a documentary about all of that.
Last night on Radio 4: Rugby Football is a game for gentlemen played by thugs, rugby a game of thugs played by South Africans. Ha ha
02:18:21 PM July 03, 2009 from TweetDeck
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