Learning from the past

Stanley – Thursday

South Africa has one of the most stringent lock downs due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For the past five weeks, we have been in Level-5 lock down, which has closed all but essential businesses, prohibited us leaving our homes except for medical reasons and shopping for food. The sale of alcohol and cigarettes is forbidden, as is the transportation of alcohol (which has had a huge negative impact on our wine industry). Like everywhere else, the impact on businesses and employees has been devastating, and some predictions call for at least 50% unemployment as the country emerges.

For the most part, people have accepted the strict measures, even though some haven’t been able to follow them due to the desperate search for food. The overarching fear is that the virus will spread in the huge Black townships, where people are living in crammed quarters, in unhygienic conditions. Many of these are already compromised because of HIV.

So,what led to the country being so proactive so quickly?

I think three things contributed to the decision: first, in the last hundred years, the country has suffered two devastating epidemics; second, the quality of doctors in general is very good, and the country has a long history of having outstanding epidemiologists; and third, we have a president who has led the country, keeping it informed, empathising with the hardships people are enduring, but demanding adherence for the good of all.

The Spanish flu epidemic, which started in the United States and rapidly spread to Europe via crowded troopships, hit South Africa harder than most. It was the fifth hardest hit, both as a result of the return of Black troops and a poor understanding of what the virus was all about.

In September 1918, two troopships arrived in Cape Town from England carrying over 2,000 black South African Labour Corps soldiers. On the way to South Africa, they had a stopover in Freetown, Sierra Leone, where the flu was already raging. Within days of leaving there, cases of flu appeared on both ships. When they arrived in Cape Town, thirteen of the soldiers were still laid up.

Members of the SA Labour Corps on the Western Front

As a precautionary measure, the local medical officer had the sick troops placed in isolation The rest of the men were put under quarantine at a military camp. Those that didn’t show symptoms were sent home three days later via the large rail network. Within days, flu cases started appearing all over the country.

By the end of October, six weeks after the ships arrived, between 300,000 and 500,000 people had died--between five and seven percent of the population. There was fear and panic throughout the country because nobody knew what was going on and, worse, nobody knew what to do. Gallows humour became common in newspapers. One, in Johannesburg, reported: "The average Joburg man did not run away from the germs — he fought them courageously. Retiring to bed with a bottle of brandy, and an adequate supply of ammoniated quinine and aspirin, and a pile of the latest novels, he challenged the flu to a 10 rounds contest."

And lost!

In the early 1920s, Reuben Thlakele Calusa, a South African composer, wrote several influenza-linked songs. Here is one, translated by ethnomusicologist, Austin Okigbo. It is titled Influenza 1918.

In the year nineteen eighteen
We’re killed by the disease called influenza
Which finished our beloved relatives

Mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers

In other households no one was left

It took young women and men

It chose the beautiful ones
It even took the good-looking men
It took the teenagers
It took even the young maidens

It took the engaged ladies
It took the strummers [bridesmaids]
Even the grooms
It was like there was a black cloud over the earth.

The one good thing about the Spanish flu was that it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. By the end of November, it had gone. Six months later the government realised that it had to play a role in the health of the country and created the first Ministry of Health.

Fast forward to the end of the century. By 2000, HIV/AIDS was ravaging South Africa, and efforts to treat and contain it were not helped by an inept approach by the government. Deputy President and later President Thabo Mbeki was a denialist. His Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, advocated a diet of garlic, olive oil and lemon to cure the disease. Although many scientists and political figures called for her removal, she was not removed from office until Mbeki himself was removed from office. It is estimated that these policies led to the deaths of over 300,000 South Africans.

In addition, the country rejected the offer of free or inexpensive retrovirals to treat HIV. The whole episode was a disaster. However, when Jacob Zuma became president, the country’s approach to HIV/AIDS transformed and now anti-retroviral treatments are available to everyone. The problem is still huge (for details click here), but it is largely under control.

So, two devastating epidemics provided a backdrop to the COVID-19 situation. A combination of a president, Cyril Ramaphosa, who was willing to listen and act, epidemiologists who understood the ramifications of the virus, and a fear of what would happen if the virus spread through the townships, led to the current lock-down rules. 

As elsewhere, the financial hardships have been horrible. Some current estimates are that a quarter of all South Africans have no money and no food. And there have been a number of incidents of the looting of food trucks. Even a huge injection of funds by the government, in an attempt to get some money to the unemployed, has not been enough. And enormous efforts by NGOs and others to bring food to the starving, will fall short. 

The police and military protect food deliveries

Who can blame people for trying to get food?

But the numbers are still looking good – just over 4,000 confirmed cases and 102 deaths. Testing continues to ramp up and will be crucial as time passes. The goal of the lock down has been to flatten the curve, so the country can prepare for the inevitable spike, which is expected in August or September. Everyone expects the situation to worsen considerably between now and then, but hopefully the country will be as ready as it can be.

The country hopes to be prepared when the spike occurs.

Tomorrow, the country moves to Stage 4, which relaxes the tight control a little bit. I’ll be able to exercise outside the home between 0600 and 0900, which will be a boon, even though I have become quite accustomed to lying in bed until 0800. Sale of alcohol and cigarettes remains banned. However, some businesses can open either gradually or fully, and restaurants can open to prepare food for delivery only.

I am so pleased that I don’t have to make these decisions on when and how to relax restrictions. And I am much more confident in how South Africa is trying to cope than I am in some other countries' approaches.

Displacement activity

Michael - Thursday

As a displacement activity to the news, I’ve been letting my mind come up with a phrase or saying which seems to fit, and then focus on that. Then I think about the origin or derivation of the phrase and what I know (or not) about it. Not only does this lead to some entertainment, but it takes my mind off the news and that’s a very good thing these days.

"A big, beautiful wall"

The first one was the Two Thousand Mile Wall. You know, the one Trump wasn’t really going to build, it was all playing to the crowds? Well, the bulldozers are on the way, and so is a trade war with Mexico. The phrase ‘a white elephant’ immediately popped into my head, and I was intrigued. Obviously a white elephant is an albino elephant and such creatures certainly occur. But why the connection with something useless, and even worse, something that is not merely a waste of money, but also going to be a pain to keep? To quote a definition “a possession that is useless or troublesome, especially one that is expensive to maintain or difficult to dispose of.” That seems to fit the Wall to a tittle. If you think at least Mexico will pay for it one way or the other, you may want to take a look at what Paul Krugman has to say about that.

Indra riding a white elephant

It turns out that white elephants are sacred in the Buddhist and Hindu religions and highly prized for their rarity. Kings of Burma and Thailand who possessed them were thought to rule with power and justice. Naturally the kings made a point of collecting as many as they could. And the gift of one to a courtier or trusted lieutenant was a sign of particular favor. 

White elephant at Amarapura palace
 1855

Except there was a catch. If the king gave you such a noble gift, you certainly couldn’t give it away or sell it. What would you do the next time the king popped round and asked to see how dear old Jumbo was getting on?  Also, since they were sacred, you couldn’t put your white elephant to work, so you received no return on the tons of food it was eating and the people you had to employ to look after it. An empathetic monarch would find other gifts to bestow favor on his less wealthy underlings, but a sly one might well present a white elephant to bankrupt a courtier he wanted to dispense with.

White elephant in Myanmar

The phrase seems to have come into English usage through PT Barnum’s fixation on obtaining a rare white elephant for his circus. He paid $100,000 to a nobleman in Siam (presumably enough money to be worth the wrath of the king) and tried to smuggle it out of the country, but it was poisoned and died. Eventually another $200,000 bought him one from the king of Burma. The wretched creature cost him a fortune to transport and feed, and turned out in reality to be very pale grey with some pinkish blotches. Hardly a superstar attraction.

Then, we recently had a meeting of the ANC Executive here to discuss a motion of no confidence in our president, Jacob Zuma. Plagued by multiple scandals, mismanagement, and corruption, it’s hard to see how anyone could have confidence in him. Yet in the end he squeaked through. Saved by the bell, I thought.

No mystery with that phrase, right? A boxer on the ropes or on the mat, being saved by the end of the round. Yet there is another possible origin for the phrase that is popular as much for being colorful as for being correct.

In the nineteenth century, when medical science hadn’t developed much beyond leaches, there was quite a widespread fear of being buried alive. This was not a vain fear; everyone had heard of miraculous recoveries of people pronounced dead only to revive from a coma. An enterprising inventor came up with an idea for a ‘safety coffin’ and patented it in the mid eighteen hundreds. The device allowed the incumbent to pull on a cord which was then connected to a bell on the surface. Thus if you recovered from a premature departure, you would be able to ring the bell and gravediggers would rush to exhume you and allow you to rejoin the world. Hence you would be ‘saved by the bell’.

Sadly, there is no evidence that the safety coffins were ever actually built or used, let alone that anyone was ever saved by one. Even more damning, the first recorded use of being ‘saved by the bell’ was at the end of the nineteenth century and was a newspaper report of a boxing match. Anyway, if our president chose to be put to rest in a safety coffin to be on the safe side, and the bell started to ring after the state funeral, I’m sure it would rapidly be disconnected.

For that matter a ‘dead ringer’ was supposed to come from the same coffin idea, but that one is much more prosaic. A ‘ringer’ is a horse being passed off for another, and ‘dead’ has the alternate meaning of ‘exact’. Too bad. Made a nice story.

Finally, a positive note. The Finance Minister here says the economy has bottomed out and we've turned the corner. Well, as a South African he should know since the phrase comes from ships turning north after coming south on the trip round the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn.

Enough. I’ll leave you with a parting shot: if you look a gift horse in the mouth, you may find it long in the tooth. Let's see what Jeff does with that one!

____________________________________________

Murder Is Everywhere

Author Recognitions and Events

LEYE ADENLE

Won the 2016 Prix Marianne for the Lagos Lady, the French translation of Easy Motion Tourist: http://www.marianne.net/leye-adenle-prix-marianneun-aller-retour-noir-2016-femme-n-est-pas-egale-homme-son-futur-100246794

Easy Motion Tourist / Lagos Lady, was number 2 on Le Monde's list of best thrillers of 2016: http://polar.blog.lemonde.fr/2016/12/26/top-20-des-romans-noirs-et-des-polars-2016/

Easy Motion Tourist featured in the Guardian's Best Recent Crime Novel Review Roundup: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/04/the-best-recent-crime-novels-review-roundup

  

Upcoming Event:

March 7 to 16: South African Word Festival, Stellenbosch.

ANNAMARIA ALFIERI

Strange Gods: Paperback, Felony and Mayhem, Feb 2016

Idol of Mombasa: Paperback, Felony and Mayhem, Oct 2016

Sunshine Noir: Editor, White Sun Press, Oct 2016

CARA BLACK

Murder in Saint Germain, Aimée Leduc’s next investigation, comes out June 6, 2017.

Just signed the contract for the next two Aimée Leduc investigations in Paris with Soho Press.

 CARO RAMSEY

Signed two-book contract with Severn House.

JEFF SIGER

2016 Barry Award Finalist for Best Novel.

Upcoming Events:

Thursday, February 2, 2017 @ 7:30 PM

BOOK CARNIVAL

Orange, CA

Friday, February 3, 2017 @ 7:30 PM

MYSTERIOUS GALAXY BOOKS,

San Diego, CA

 MICHAEL STANLEY

Sunshine Noir: Editor, White Sun Press, Oct 2016

A much-needed bright star

Stanley - Thursday

Last February, Michael wrote a blog about the then Public Protector in South Africa, Thuli Madonsela.  You can read the blog here.

Her term ended recently, so it's a good time to take another look at a bright star in the corrupt state of South Africa - a person who probably enjoys greater visibility and higher approval than anyone else in the land. If the system allowed it (that is a direct vote for President as in the USA, in contrast to the system in the UK and South Africa), she would run away with the vote.

Thuli Madonsela

Not only is she smart, but also is very tough, as Michael described.

To quote Marelise van der Merwe of the Daily Maverick:

Where shouting loudly can so easily form the dominant narrative, it’s refreshing and intriguing to watch Advocate Thuli Madonsela: that unwaveringly soft-spoken, even tone, which ended up thundering across South Africa and the rest of the globe. In the post-Mandela era, where disillusionment dominated, she became a new symbol of resistance for many.  

TIME magazine described her as displaying “extraordinary courage and patriotism” in her fight for “Constitutional reform, land reform and the struggle for the protection of human rights and equality”.

I think what Madonsela accomplished as Public Protector started the country on the path, albeit rocky and slow, to addressing the excesses and corruption of many government officials.  For example, just last week, a provincial high court banned a senior manager of the South African Broadcasting Corporation from playing any role in the organisation and, furthermore, ordered him to pay all court costs out of his personal pocket.  For government officials and others, not having the government pay for their court battles, wlil certainly slow the flood of appeals to the judiciary.

One of the appealing characteristics of Advocate Madonsela is that she has her feet firmly on the ground.  Despite her popularity, she has remained true to herself.

She is also known for saying things that are very quotable.

"Be the kind of leader who does not need a title.”  

Her actions as Public Protector fitted that very well.

She gave up a scholarship to Harvard to help draft South Africa's excellent Constitution and has always had in the forefront of her thinking the rights of every South African.  In some ways this is not surprising given her background as a civil rights lawyer and activist.

Throughout her tenure, she has faced enormous pressure and opposition from those in government who feared that they were in her sights. Her reaction?

“At times we have to stand alone with only hope as our companion. If you stand for the truth and do so long enough, hope does eventually pay.”

After she released the Nkandla report (see Michael's blog) in which she found that the President of the country had violated the Constitution and was personally responsible for paying back monies illegally used to enhance his private residence, she faced increased opposition and intimidation from the powerful in politics.  Her response:

"Just as the power of water often lies in the ability to bend around obstacles, sometimes the most powerful step you can take is a step back.”

So she let the report work it's way through the system, all the way to the Constitutional Court, which not only confirmed her findings, but also wrote into law that findings of the Public Protector were binding, not just advisory.

I have taken a number of quotes from Marelise van der Merwe's article in the Daily Maverick and have included them below.

"Sometimes we feel like and regret being oddballs, yet it is our uniqueness that makes each of us fit for our individual purpose in life."

"When stuck in a hole, the victim asks, “who can we blame for existence of the hole or getting us in it” while the leader asks how do we get out."

"If you consciously choose to be a positive influence in the world, you will always find opportunities to make a difference."

"It’s not the fear of failure that stops us from acting to achieve our goals, but the fear of disapproval, as by not acting we choose failure."

"We step out in hope that a better world is possible because of our love for peace and faith in humanity’s capacity to make better choices."

The next one should be branded on the forehead of every aspirant politician: 

"We need to recognise and enhance the culture of being a servant of citizens, and not a servant of government, as a prerequisite of the public service delivery programmes."

Some more quotable quotes:

"Through life I have learned that the most important critic whose judgement of my actions matters is my conscience."

"It seems that the firmness with which I make decisions was not expected from a woman."

When questioning Jacob Zuma, the President of South Africa:

"I am concerned, though, that President, you are the President of the Republic of South Africa and you are employee number one. Normally when we are dealing with people who are responsible for the State, we deal with them and the lawyers they come in where necessary, because it is you who is accountable, Sir. It is you who are employed by the State as its most important employee and then you employ the rest."

When Zuma said he needed to consult his lawyers about why he fired Minister of Finance Nhlanhla Nene:

"If we are starting with, for example, why did you remove Minister Nene, why do you need somebody to legally advise you? Because that is a decision you took yourself without legal advice. You took that decision, exercising your power as an Executive. Yes. No, but it is a decision you have already taken, so you don’t need to be advised why you took it."

Zapiro cartoon. The shower on Zuma's head comes from his statement that he prevented any possibility of AIDS by showering after sex.

Some more quotes: 

"Forgiveness does not mean you accept or ignore wrongdoing. It means tackling wrongdoing without hating the wrongdoer."

"I need to listen well so that I hear what is not said."

"As an African woman, I’ve learnt the importance of self-definition and living purposefully. It’s vital that every girl determines, as early as possible, who she is and what her contribution to humanity will be."

"I sleep like a baby. But I do worry about the costs of indifference and self-interest in the public sector. I have seen too much of the pain caused on ordinary people by indifference and selfishness."

"The best advice you will ever receive is from your own soul."

Finally, when she was advising her successor, Busisiwe Mkhwebane, about her role:

"The job is about protecting the public from improper conduct [whatever] quarter it may come from. So stick to that job."

When you see public servants like Thuli Madonsela, you wish devoutly that there were more like her.

We, in South Africa, have a lot to thank her for.  We, in the world, have a lot to learn from her.

The Rule of Three

So the South African election of 2014 is over.  Apart from a few scuffles, things seemed to have gone off pretty smoothly.  We now have the great advantage (over our friends in the US, for example) that we will be left in peace by the political parties for another four years.  As far as free and fair is concerned, there seems to be no question.  South Africa continues to do well.  Even the opposition parties haven’t complained much.  That must be a good indicator for a start.

Certainly there is no danger of fraudulent voting – at least not at the individual level.  “Vote early and vote often” doesn’t apply here.  I recall that a lot of heat was generated in Minnesota in 2012 when the voters were asked in a referendum to approve the requirement of identification for voting.  It lost.  Here there is no question.  When I arrived at the voting station yesterday afternoon, I had to present my barcoded identity document – only this is acceptable.  The barcode was read by a wireless reader, and presumably the information made its way to some central computer.  So that was that, right?  Wrong. When I reached the room where the voting took place and presented myself to an electoral officer, he took the ID again, and painstakingly searched through a print out of the relevant section of the electoral role until he found my name.  He then crossed it off by hand.  Well, computers can crash, I suppose.  You might think that the nation was now safe from any thoughts of electoral fraud on my part.  Not quite. Anyway, it seems that every check is done in triplicate in South Africa these days.  The final step was to paint my thumb nail with indelible ink, and then I was allowed to vote.  I will spend the next two weeks looking as though I hit my thumb with a hammer, but at least the nation is safe from a situation where the bar code computer has its memory wiped out and the man with the ruler and pen crossed out the wrong line.

As another example of rule of three, I had to fill out a form yesterday to become a director of a company.  Naturally, it wanted my ID number.  (It’s practically impossible to do anything in South Africa without that number.)  So I filled it in.  The next question gave me pause.  It wanted my birthdate.  Let’s leave aside why the Companies Office needs to know how old a director of a company is.  (Perhaps Warren Buffett would be too old to be allowed to be a director of a company here?)  The point is that the first six digits of your ID number here is your birthdate.  Is it because they want to check if you actually know your birthday?  (Getting it wrong, I suppose, would be a fair reason to disqualify you from directing a company.)  Perhaps it’s a sneaky way of checking that you didn’t invent the ID number in the hope that the computer had crashed because of all that voting data.  Well, I correctly transcribed it onto the form.  Next it wanted to know my age…

Another interesting example is the airlines.  When you buy an airline ticket over the internet here, it eventually allows you to move to payment.  You are required to fill in the usual stuff – card number, expiry date, and the three digit security code on the back.  (It seems that if someone stole your card, it would never occur to him to note this other information.)  Now a message goes to the bank and a text message comes to your phone with a long code you have to enter before the transaction times out.  Okay, two levels.  But then – even though the flight may be taking place months later – the airline insists on actually seeing the card when you check in.  Bad news if you're paying for another person.  I would love to know what this third check is about.  Maybe just to maintain the rule of three.

Oh, yes, the election.  Well, counting continues – I guess they have to do it three times – but at this point it looks like no surprises.  The Democratic Alliance comfortably holds the important Western Cape Province and the African National Congress everything else.  Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters, who believe that nationalizing mines and banks is the route to wealth and jobs – at least for Julius – got over 5%.  Not too significant, but coming in third in their first outing gives one pause for thought.  The turnout was 75% of registered voters (yes, you have to register some months before the election: you need a bar coded identity document, and…  But you get the picture by now.)  The vote for the ANC was down a bit, but not enough to shake the grip of President Zuma on the ANC, I’m afraid.  Indeed, you can fool most of the people, most of the time.

Michael - Thursday

There are two subjects that I really don’t want to write about.  Of course once you’ve come to that decision, that’s all you seem to think about.  Maybe writer's selfblock?  The first topic is the South African election which takes place in just over a week.  Strangely enough, given the history of violent denial of democratic rights here in the past, the election hasn’t generated a great deal of enthusiasm.  Only around half the people who, over the last four years, became eligible to vote for the first time this year have bothered to register to do so.  Probably there is more interest in whether Hilary Clinton will run in 2016 than in what will happen here on May 7^th.  So if South Africans aren’t very excited about the election, why should outsiders care?

Zuma looking cheerful, as he should

Nevertheless, there was an interesting report at the weekend.  Our national Sunday newspaper released a nation-wide poll and the results were surprising.  At least to me.  They suggest that the African National Congress (ANC) government will receive pretty much the same percentage of the votes as they received in the last election.  So what? you ask.  Well, the conventional wisdom here is that the electorate is disgusted with the government.  The president’s shenanigans with multiple wives (and mistresses) and the widespread corruption – most recently exposed in a $21 million upgrade of his private residence at state expense – is decried by all.  Desmond Tutu, who has iconic status in this country, recently said he wouldn’t vote for the ANC, and so have several ex ministers.  Little has been achieved during the Zuma presidency; people are not better off (although the fault for that probably lies more with the world economy than Zuma’s cabinet).  Then the passing of Mandela was supposed to have freed a generation from a sense of obligation to vote for Madiba’s party. 

This love affair ended in tears

Yet it seems that old habits die hard if they die at all.  It is true that Zuma himself has taken a bit of a hit.  His approval rating has dropped three points to 62%.  62%?  Wow!  Wouldn’t Barack Obama be happy with that sort of rating on a bad day?  Zuma must be doing something right.  I wish I knew what on earth it is.

The predicted tally...sort of

Given that the ANC will win comfortably, the only real interest seems to be in who will place.  The Democratic Alliance which (in the said conventional wisdom) is seen as a white dominated party looks set to improve its position to near 25% of the vote, and firebrand Julius Malema will get less than 1%.  (That surprises me, but it’s a pleasant one.)  Agang led by the brilliant Mamphela Ramphele doesn't do much better.  (Not such a pleasant surprise.) And there’s still a plethora of other new parties touting alternatives to institutionalized corruption – at least in theory.

All this suggests one of two things.  Either people like me – middle-class whites who think of themselves as mature-age – are totally out of touch with how the majority of people in the country think (very likely) or the poll is unreliable because people may lie about their voting intensions, fearing some sort of reprisal (also pretty likely).  I suppose we will have to wait and see.

The other subject I really don’t want to write about is the Oscar Pistorius circus.  Stan and I even agreed not to write about it.  So much has been written already – not only locally but in the international media – that it’s hard to imagine what more can be said.  In case you are one of the tiny minority which has managed to avoid the story, para-olympian Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend – model Reeva Steenkamp – through the locked door of his bathroom on Valentine’s day last year.  He claims to have believed that an intruder had entered the house through the bathroom window and was about to attack him and Reeva, who, he believed, was asleep in bed with him.  I haven’t followed the case in detail, but the fact that he shot Reeva is common cause.  The issue is what he believed at the time.  If he knew it was her, it was murder.  If his story is true, it was at least manslaughter.  (Even in South Africa you can’t just shoot at an unknown and unseen person in the belief that they may intend to attack you.)  Of course, if he actually planned to kill her in advance, it's premeditated murder, but that seems very unlikely.  If this was the best plan he could come up with, I advise him not to choose a new career in mystery writing.  And between manslaughter and premeditated murder there is a variety of different offenses.

Prosecutor Nel knows what he believes

The judge is reputedly doing a good job, and she will have to decide in the end.  We don’t have a jury system in South Africa, and this seems a pretty good example of why I believe that is a good thing.  I certainly wouldn’t want to try to unravel this case and make a decision on Pistorius’ life on the basis of a crash course from the judge on the relevant law.  And I think with her experience, she will have a better chance than I would of correctly deciding what was in Pistorius’ mind when he repeatedly pulled the trigger.  Maybe the ultimate example of a why-dunnit.  We’ll have to wait and see on that one also.

Hopefully I’ll be able to write about something more interesting in a fortnight.  Of course that will be the day after the election…

Michael - Thursday

Theatre of the absurd

South Africa’s politics at the moment are pretty bizarre, given it has an incompetent, self-aggrandizing, polygymous president in Jacob Zuma, whose private residence in Nkandla, Zululand has been upgraded with state funds because of security concerns to the tune of $20 million or so.  

Zuma's state-funded private residence, Nkandla

This whole episode in itself is an example of the theatre of the absurd as one listens to all sorts of Zuma underlings trying to justify it.  An as-yet-unreleased report on the Nkandla expenditure by public protector, Thuli Madonsela, who is regarded as one of the honest members of government, is eagerly awaited.  We don’t know when it will be released, and there are rumours that an ex Commissioner of Police, the fired Bheki Cele, is demanding time to respond to allegations contained in it that the police failed to stop fruitless and wasteful expenditures.

The rumours also indicate that the ruling party, the ANC, is trying to delay the release of the report until after the elections in April.

However, the mind-boggled citizens of South Africa had their minds hyper-boggled over the last week, not by more antics by the ANC or its members, but by the opposition.

The main opposition party in South Africa is the DA (Democratic Alliance).  It is widely regarded as being the party of the whites, a hang over of various anti-apartheid parties of the past.  The head of the party is Helen Zille, an able politician, but white.  Of course this offers and easy target for the ruling ANC.

The DA controls the Western Province, in which Cape Town is situated, and has about 30% of parliamentary seats in the national assembly. 

Zille is smart enough to realize that the future of the DA is to transform itself into a party that does not have the ‘white’ stigma.

I need to take a little detour here to fill in some backstory.

The famous anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko had a life-long companion in a woman whose name is Mamphela Ramphele.  She is quite an extraordinary person – herself an anti-apartheid activist, banned by the apartheid government – she is also a medical doctor with a strong community-health focus.  She was once managing director of the World Bank, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town, and is a successful business woman.

The remarkable Mamphela Ramphele

A year ago, she started a new political party in South Africa, called Agang South Africa, meaning Build South Africa, in her native tongue of Northern Sotho.  I was excited by this, because I found her approach to the future of the country refreshing.  I was impressed by her credentials and was cautiously optimistic that she would not be tempted by the potential pickings of being a senior government member.

Agang SA was likely to garner my vote at election time.

Back to the story.

So with only a couple of months before the next general elections, the DA’s Zille and Agang’s Ramphele decided to form an alliance.  Since the DA was an established party with decent infrastructure and grass-roots support, it looked to me that the very small Agang was going to be subsumed by the DA.  In return, the DA was going to put forward Ramphele’s name as its presidential candidate.

So on January 28, this new alliance was announced with the two women sealing their alliance with a kiss.

The kiss!

I thought it to be a good move for both parties and felt that the DA had taken a bold move to move towards being seen as a South African party, not a South African whites’ party.  The country was abuzz with the announcement.  It was unexpected; it was bold; and for the first time in many years, it offered something new in South African politics, something that had the potential to be a game-changer.

Now for the bizarre twist.

On January 31, three days later, Ramphele announced that she would NOT stand as the DA presidential candidate and would remain leader of Agang South Africa.

The country was boggled, nay hyper-boggled.

Walking the streets of Cape Town, one could see glazed eyes and shaking heads.  “What the F…?” was the question du jour.

It seems that in the rush to make the announcement – the elections are two months away – neither Zille nor Ramphele had thought through the details before calling a major news conference.  It seems that neither party had been adequately consulted about what was going to happen; for Ramphele to be the DA candidate, she would have had to be a DA member; but the Agang SA constitution prohibits an Agang member from being a member of another party.  Clearly Agang supporters must have revolted, forcing Ramphele to change tack.

Which is a great shame – I do think the alliance was a great idea and would have stirred things up against the ANC, which is suffering in the public’s perception.  There has been the Nkandla scandal; droves of its officials are seen as corrupt; and its management of municipalities has been dismal at best. 

So I think a great chance has been squandered.

I guess the lesson to be learned is that one shouldn’t call a national press conference unless one has all the ducks in a row.

And so the curtain comes down on yet another theatre of the absurd, and ANC members are parodying the Zille-Ramphele kiss at every opportunity.

And political cartoonist, Zaphiro, has had a field day.

Stan - Thursday

Don't live too long...

My stepmother, who will be celebrating her ninetieth birthday this year, is fond of telling me that it’s a bad policy to live too long.  I reply: ‘Yes, but look at the alternative.’  I’m sad to say that Nelson Mandela, or Madiba as he is affectionately known, may be in agreement with my stepmother on this issue now.

The Mandela daughters with Madiba in happier times

First, he had to watch his chosen successor to lead his rainbow nation, Thabo Mbeki, lose touch with his people and lose many of their lives by his HIV denialist policies in the process.  At one point Mbeki’s minister of health, who had a highly checkered medical background, proclaimed the efficacy of a type of African potato and of beetroot against the infection.  There is no question that good nutrition is important in a third world environment and these healthy vegetables are valuable in that context.  They are as useful to stave off AIDS as ground-up rhino horn is to cure cancer.

Mbeki was so out of touch that even his party noticed and after one term the African National Congress replaced him by Jacob Zuma.  Zuma walked smiling into the presidency despite accusations of rape (almost certainly trumped up to try to keep him out of the presidency in the first place) and corruption.  Zuma has kept his supporters well-oiled, so to speak, and is cruising to a second term.  A recent biography suggested that Zuma doesn’t even recognize certain actions as being corrupt, for example, the appointment of family and friends to government positions.

Nelson Mandela made it clear when he stepped down as president after one term that he would stay out of politics and, like all his commitments, he’s honored it to the letter.  Nevertheless, he can hardly be pleased with the way things have developed.  Recently the opposition Democratic Alliance party – desperate to gain a bigger share of the black African vote – ran a picture of Mandela with the doyenne of their party, the late Helen Suzman.  The ANC was horrified by this ‘co-option’ of their icon and the senior group rushed to Mandela’s home for a group picture with the ailing ninety-three year old.  Madiba’s expression says it all:

He is not a well person.  He has been in and out of hospital for lung infections and he is very weak.  He deserves a little peace.

Zenani and Makaziwe trying to keep the wolf from the door

But that is not what he is getting.  He has a number of trusts established for his children, but it has been his clear wish that these should not be touched while he is alive.  In 2005 he approached his long-time friend George Bizos to act as trustee.  He was joined by other trusted and financially astute colleagues. Mandela's daughters, Zenani and Makaziwe, have applied to the Johannesburg High Court to remove Bizos, Tokyo Sexwale, Temba Sangoni and Bally Chuene as directors of the companies, contesting the legality of their appointment. They also want their powers as trustees reduced.  Basically the daughters want the money.  The value of the trusts is around three million US dollars – a substantial sum but nothing like the huge fortunes with which many leaders leave office.  To his credit, Mandela’s son, Mandla, who is a traditional Xhosa leader, is horrified by the proceedings. "It is immoral to fight over an inheritance while the individual is still alive,” he said.  “I have never heard of it in my life. It is like he is being stripped of his clothes and they are being sold off."

Mandla Mandela

The grandkids are on the bandwagon too. Tukwini has made scathing public attacks on Bizos, while Zondwa has registered a company - Mandela 95th Birthday - to ‘corporatize’ the celebration of his grandfather’s birthdays. Two others have started a clothing range called ‘Long Walk to Freedom’ (the title of Mandela’s autobiography) and two are behind a reality show in the US titled ‘Being Mandela'.

This week Mandela’s daughters announced that they would be suing Madiba personally for the control of the trusts and his artwork.

Don’t live too long.

Michael - Thursday