The shape changers

Michael - Thursday

King Protea
We've planted a couple. Fingers crossed

One of the problems of living in Johannesburg (albeit a first-world one) is that it’s very hard to grow the iconic proteas and pincushions of the Western Cape there. This is a pretty minor problem compared with the more third-world ones of crime and choking traffic. It’s actually the result of one of the attractions of the city—its climate. Johannesburg has dry winters and summer rain, often dramatic thunderstorms, occasionally with impressive hail thrown in. I used to enjoy the drama of the summer weather, and the winters, cold by South African standards, were dry and sunny, which kept you cheerful while you shivered. (Since the climate is supposed to be warm, after the sun sets you huddle over a radiator as the outside temperature moves to freezing.)  Proteas, on the other hand, like their winters moist, and not too wet. They have an important network of roots just below the surface of the soil, and these mustn’t be disturbed (by enthusiastic weeders) or drowned (by, for example, thunderstorms). Furthermore, their leaves are designed for gentle rain, not hail, and they can’t tolerate frost. The mismatch with Johannesburg is obvious.

Waratah

Nevertheless, I grew up in Cape Town and I fell in love with the diversity and strangeness of these plants. They’ve been around for a while. Fossils of this broad family date back to the Gondwanaland era, when the land consisted of a single continent, and thus representatives are found all over the world. A hundred million years ago give or take a few million.

The name of the broad family Proteaceae comes from Proteus, the Greek sea god known for his multiple shape changes in his encounter with Menelaus in the Odyssey. The family includes the Waratah and bottlebrushes of Australia, the Hakeas, Leucadendrons, and even Macadamias. Shape changers indeed. The magnificence of some of the flowers is recognised by, for example, the Waratah being the state flower of New South Wales, and the King Protea being the national flower of South Africa. Furthermore, the common name of the protea family is the sugarbush because of their sweet nectar. This attracts the wonderful sunbirds.

Double banded sunbird on a sugarbush

Well, not quite...

So I did my best. When my partner at the time and I bought a house in Johannesburg, I engineered drained pits with stone soak-aways. I crept out of the house on the coldest winter nights to wrap the plants in hessian sacking to protect them from frost. I watered them in the winter and drained them in the summer. For a while they cooperated, even producing a few half-hearted flowers, but then the drainage system filled up with clay, I was away at critical points in the winter, I became lazy, and so on. One by one the plants gave up the ghost. As I surveyed the dry stems sticking out of the ground, I decided that I’d learnt my lesson.

But now I’ve moved to Knysna and things here are very different. Our new property is on sandy, well-drained soil. The winter is mild with enough rain to keep those surficial roots moist, but not enough to give them the dreaded “wet feet.” Further encouragement was provided by a pincushion that had seeded itself on the vacant plot next to us and flowered last year—just a year after the devastating Knysna fires had raged through the area. Proteas actually like a grass fire moving through and giving their seeds some elbow room from time to time. More to the point, the smoke contains important nutrients for them.

So, forty years on, I’m having another bash. Pat and I have planted nearly two dozen proteas of different species and hybrids from a local nursery that specialises in the so-called fynbos flora of the Western Cape. All but one seem to be doing well without any of the high-end engineering I tried before. The pincushions are spreaders, and flower in winter and spring and the new plants are already obliging.

Red pincushion

Blushing Bride

Yellow pincushion

Carnival Red

The "true" proteas take longer, needing to grow for a few years before they can put effort into flowers. In the meanwhile, we leave them to their own devices as much as possible. That’s what they like. I’ll keep you posted.

I want to be an ostrich

Stanley – Thursday

I have the great good fortune of being able to live where I want, when I want.  Normally this is summer in Minneapolis, summer in Cape Town, and bits and pieces in other delightful places, such as Denmark (and Delta Airlines).

You may think this allows me to get away from it all.

Wrong!  Not only do I have to deal with the fallout of the US elections, but I have also to deal with the shenanigans in South Africa.  So I actually want to be morphed into one of South Africa’s great birds – the ostrich.  Head-in-the-sand Stan is who I want to be.

South Africans, as with people all around the globe, are very concerned about what effects a Trump presidency will have on their countries in terms of trade, investment, aid, and so on.  So our papers are full of people speculating about what is going to happen.  Of course, most people here are also concerned by the Trump electioneering rhetoric, particularly the disparaging of anyone who isn’t male and white.

But most of the commentary I read misses what I think is actually going to happen. 

Trump’s personality, at least to my viewpoint, has four major components: a bullying CEO mentality, an over-the-top narcissism, a short attention span, and basic ignorance about the world outside Trump Tower. 

The bullying CEO mentality has not prepared him for negotiations where he can’t just use his money to force closure.  His supporters trumpet the benefits of having a president who behaves like a CEO.  However, I think his CEO experience is a great weakness.  He is used to getting his own way no matter what, but in politics at his level, you never gets your own way.  No matter what you think or say, it’s always give and take.  Trump only has experience with one of these.

I think this weakness is already beginning to show in how his transition is not progressing: I think he’s trying to please everyone who supported him, from both right and far right.  He’s trying to play politician, when he ain’t one.  He’s trying to give to all sorts of people and give in to all sorts of ideas.  But he doesn’t understand the art of giving nor the consequences of giving badly. 

In terms of narcissism, one only has to look at the cloud of hangers-on at the moment, at the people whom he has either appointed or is considering appointing: lobbyists being prominent among them.  And what are lobbyists good at?  Flattery!  Trump will have his ego polished and stroked in so many ways, he will be in a state of perpetual egotistical orgasm.  He won’t know which way to turn.  He won’t be able to hold a steady course.  He won’t even know which course he should be holding.

And who may be the biggest flatterer of all?  I think it is Putin.  He must be rubbing his hands in glee at the pickings ahead.

Third, presidential politics is a long-term process, requiring attention and discipline.  Nothing Trump has done so far convinces me that he has either of these.  In fact, I thought he may even drop out of the race because it took too much focus.  Lack of attention gives others the opportunity to take advantage of you.  Lack of discipline is like having a rudderless boat.  It knows not in which direction to head.

Finally, having listened closely to most of what Trump said, I believe he is naïve in terms of the world and ignorant of history.  George Santayana once said “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  I would modify this for Trump to “Those who do not know the past are condemned to repeat it.”

So I think the greatest threats of a Trump presidency are not racist or misogynistic policies or a jingoistic approach to international relations, but rather vacillation, policies based on quicksand, changes of direction, uncertainty, and a rotating door of personnel.  He built his campaign on discord, criticism of the establishment, and hate.  Even he can’t ride those through his presidency.  He will modify everything he’s already promised.  And modify them again.  And again.  No one will know what he or the country stands for or where it is going.

All is not hunky-dory in South Africa either.  We don’t have a President-elect, but rather a President who has passed his sell-by date.

President Jacob Zuma

Jacob Zuma was prominent in the anti-apartheid movement, for which he should be complimented and applauded.  However, whatever skills he learned in those years have not made him a good president.  In fact, probably his greatest two skills are graft and survival.

There is not enough space or time to describe the litany of accusations made against him, some of which he has been found guilty in the highest court of the land.  However, his canny survival skills ensured he surrounded himself with people who owe him something – usually because he has given them something, either position and/or its first cousin – money. 

Other people's money is not important to Zuma.  Here he sleeps during the budget debate.

Actually money is probably the more important motivator.  Lots of it.  Siphoned off from much-needed projects to raise people from the deprivations of apartheid.

However, there are signs of a few teeny-weeny cracks in Zuma’s omnipotence:  his party lost significant numbers of votes in the national municipal elections a few months ago; last December he fired a very competent Minister of Finance and replaced him by someone few had ever heard of.  Such was the outcry that Zuma was forced to fire him and replace him by another competent person.  This little episode caused the local currency, the rand, to plummet, wiping trillions off the markets.

Recently, the new Minister of Finance was accused of fraud by the head of the National Prosecuting Authority, and charges were laid.  The markets tanked once again, and legal experts shook their collective heads and said there was no case.  Even to the ostrich, this was a Zuma set up.  Now those charges have been withdrawn.  The head of the NPA probably will take the fall, but a new puppet will rise.

But throughout the land, even ex-colleagues of Zuma are calling on him to resign.  Of course, he won’t since his pocket is more important than the future of the county.  And the pockets of his supporters will continue to bulge.

Oh yes.  Did I mention that the Security Minister has been implicated in the poaching of rhinos?

Did I mention that an family of Indian businessmen, the Guptas, is widely thought to have had Zuma and many other high-ranking officials in their payroll?  That they were indulging in state capture – they wanted the whole country to be channeling funds towards their various enterprises?

To mention everything bad or suspicious within the ruling party here at the southern tip of Africa would be impossible to chronicle.  A truly sad state of affairs.

For which the USA should perhaps prepare itself.  After all the best presidents come from Africa.  Just take a look at this intriguing clip.

To end on a positive note, I have to say that there is freedom of the press in South Africa.  We know about the corruption because the press digs it out – unlike under the apartheid regime, where reporting on corruption was against the law.  Also, the courts have shown themselves to be strong and impartial – particularly the Constitutional Court, which interprets our wonderful constitution without regard to political pressures or personal biases.

And the best news of all is that the Proteas, South Africa’s national cricket side, thrashed the ever-arrogant Australians twice in two weeks – in Australia.  Even the ostrich pulled its head out of the sand and applauded.

Multi-racial, multi-faith Proteas celebrating