The Media and Mitchell's Plain

Mitchell’s Plain is very special to me. I came to live here in 1982 as a young adult, after our family had lived in Hanover Park for most of my formative years. Like many others, we were hoping to have a better life in this new township.

My first interaction with Mitchell’s Plain was as a young journalist towards the end of 1980. I was about five or six months into a career at the then Cape Herald. Many of you might not remember the Cape Herald, but it was an important newspaper at the time and the only place where people who looked and sounded like me could find jobs. Jobs at papers like the Cape Times and Cape Argus were, in the main, reserved for whites in those days. It was somewhat ironic when about 15 years later, I became one of the first black editors of the Cape Times. But that is a story for another day.

Back to the Cape Herald. I remember coming in especially to work on a Tuesday – our normal day off – and travelling to Mitchell’s Plain with Rashid Seria, who was our deputy editor, to conduct interviews with several people who would be trading at the Town Centre, which was about to open. The interviews were for a special edition of the Cape Herald, which would be focused on the opening of the Town Centre.

I remember working on the stories over the weekend, at least a week ahead of publication. But then something strange happened. The entire staff of the Cape Herald, with the exception of the editor, decided to go on strike to demand better pay. We had discovered that most white journalists working at the Argus Company, our employer, were earning at least double what we were earning, with the same skills, education and experience. The result was that the special edition was never published. The bosses brought in scabs, but they were not able to produce the paper – and we also sabotaged them by telling shopkeepers who belonged to the Western Cape Traders Association, who was sympathetic to the struggle, that, in the event of the paper being printed, they should take the paper when it was delivered, but put it under the counter and not sell it. When the distributors came to collect unsold papers, all the papers would be returned. A month later we won our strike, and we all earned a lot more money. My pay went up from R250 a month to R500. I was rich.

I did not know at the time that I would join Grassroots community newspaper a few years later and that my family would move to Mitchell’s Plain in 1982. Through my involvement in Grassroots, I began to report more and more about what was happening in Mitchells Plain.

I was also an activist in Mitchell’s Plain and saw first-hand how the struggle was developing in the area.

I was involved in many of the campaigns in Mitchell’s Plain, many of which we reported on in Grassroots and other publications, such as City Press, which closed down last week, where I freelanced to supplement the meagre salary that I earned at Grassroots. That, too, is a story for another day.

I remember the stories about the campaigns such as the demand for lower electricity prices, for a general hospital in Mitchell’s Plain, among others. But I was also there when the young learners from Spine Road, Glendale, Mondale and other schools in the area stood up against apartheid and especially inferior education. Of course, one cannot forget the historic launch of the United Democratic Front at the Rocklands Civic Centre on 20 August 1983. The UDF was an important organisation in the 1980s as we pushed to end apartheid.

Grassroots reported on these and other community stories and this enabled us to use the paper as an organising tool. We had community selling blitzes all over the Cape Flats, including Mitchell’s Plain, where we were able to show people that the paper contained stories about them and their neighbourhood.

I am giving this background because I think to many of us, the story of Mitchell’s Plain has always been a political one, from the time it became a dormitory township for many people who were forcibly removed from District Six and other areas declared white around Cape Town. Far away from any jobs or amenities, Mitchell’s Plain was a place where people only came to sleep. They did not come here to live.

Over the years that changed, as more development took place in the area and the community became more settled. Yes, there are still problems, but I think it is time that we begin to tell the story of Mitchell’s Plain a bit different to what we did in the past.

We should not be ignoring the stories about the many problems in Mitchell’s Plain, but we need to also begin sharing the stories of the people of Mitchell’s Plain who have succeeded despite their living conditions. We need to show that there are role models who deserve to be emulated by the youth.

A few years ago, one of my friends, who has been successful in his career, came to visit his mom in Eastridge, in his new Audi. A young boy in the street asked him if he was a gangster. The assumption was that, because he appeared to have money, he must have earned it in an illegitimate way.

It is up to us in the media to show people such as the young boy in Eastridge that there are other role models, who can also be looked up at. These include the business people, the community activists, the doctors, the teachers, and many others who have and are still trying to make a difference in the community.

I have also believed that the media has a role to play that goes beyond being a mirror on society. In a society that is as troubled as ours, it is important for the media to open people’s eyes to the possibilities that exist beyond that which limit our potential for growth. The media’s role is not to merely report on what is happening. It must also provide answers to questions about why it is happening, and, in the case of social issues, what can be done to solve them.

There are many people who come from Mitchell’s Plain and who have achieved huge things in their lives and careers. They are from all sectors of society, including arts and culture, sport, the media, business and education. We need to find ways of showcasing these people to a younger generation who are desperately looking for role models.

We need to show our youth that you don’t need to aim to become a gangster or a taxi driver or the girlfriend of a gangster or a taxi driver. We need to make youngsters aware of the opportunities for advancement that exist and how they can access those opportunities.

Overcoming apartheid divisions

One of my biggest regrets is that the apartheid spatial divisions continue to this day and I believe the media can play a role in breaking this down. Mitchell’s Plain and Khayelitsha are neighbouring townships, but it is almost like they are miles apart. One way of breaking down apartheid divisions is to foster closer cooperation between the peoples of Mitchell’s Plain and Khayelitsha, and the media should be encouraging and reflecting this.

Imagine having a forum, whether is a newspaper, website, app or other social media platform where the people of Mitchell’s Plain and Khayelitsha can share their stories, learning about each other and destroying the myth that we are all so different from each other. This can, of course, lead to regular interactions between these communities where we can explore our similarities as opposed to staying apart because of our perceived differences.

This mission, of showing that we have more in common than what we think, is what drove me almost 30 years ago, when I was editor of the Cape Times and I embarked on a major editorial and promotional project called One City, Many Cultures. The aim was to demystify the supposed differences between us. I believe that, quite often, we don’t get along with others because we don’t know enough about each other. We don’t know enough about each other because we don’t talk to each other.

This results in ignorance, which can often result in intolerance and even hatred, and there is no limit as to what can result from hatred.

I believe the media, when looking at areas such as Mitchell’s Plain and Khayelitsha, should be actively looking at ways in which we can help the people in these areas to understand each other better. We will discover that we have much more in common than we realise. We must learn to have empathy with our neighbours and share their struggles and successes.

The importance of social media

I now want to turn my attention to social media, something that did not exist when I was growing up. Social media has, in many ways, levelled the playing fields in terms of media access. Most young people nowadays don’t depend on what is known as legacy media for their news updates. They get it from Tik Tok or other social media platforms. This, of course, presents a challenge in terms of the narratives that they support and promote.

When we talk about media nowadays, we no longer talk about newspapers, radio or television. We need to consider the impact of the social media platforms when it comes to news about our communities. This is a huge challenge, but also an opportunity. All of us need to become au fait with how social media works and explore the opportunities that it presents to tell our stories. You no longer need to produce a book when you have a lot of information. You could easily use a website or an App that will serve the same purpose and maybe even have a much wider audience.

The beauty of social media platforms is that it has completely democratised the media space. You no longer need the large media houses to tell your stories. You can do it yourself via these platforms. The only cost is data and a bit of your time.

Let’s change the narrative

In conclusion, I want to say that Mitchells is still a relatively young community, even though 50 might seem old. There is still room for us to create a proper and truthful narrative about the area: one that goes beyond the common narrative about the gangsters and drug leaders who control our communities.

Let us starts celebrating those who have achieved great things in life. Let us support the people who helped to deliver us into our democracy, such as Johnny Issel, Shahieda Issel, Marcus Solomon, Theresa Solomon, Willie Simmers, Veronica Simmers, Neville van der Rheede and Carol van der Rheede, May Prins, Arthur Voegt, Lucille Meyer, Zelda Holtzman, Vernie Petersen, June Petersen, Trevor Oosterwyk, Logan Wort, Donny Jurgens, Eunice Jurgens, Fatima Swartz, Yasmina Swartz, Hilda Paulsen, Marlene Paulsen, Willie Swartz, Leon Swartz, Norman Jantjies, Gael Reagon, Ibtisaan Fisher and many, many others. If I mention everyone, I could possibly stand here all night.

But let us also celebrate those who have carried the flag for the Mitchells Plain community into our democracy and those who still play a role in the community, such as the people who are involved in this project to celebrate the 50th anniversary and my old comrades in organisations such as the Mitchells Plain Development Action Collective (MPDAC) and the Mitchells Plain Bursary Trust. Let us report on social issues not in a way of recording stuff that happened. But let’s do it in ways that begin to seek solutions to our many problems. This message is not only for those involved in the media. It is also for the community activists who work in the area.

Mitchells Plain has changed a lot from the dormitory township it was in the beginning. Let us help to change even more for the better over the next 50 years. Let us make sure that our story is told properly. And let us start by finding ways of telling our own stories. One of the joys I have every year is attending the Cape Flats Book Festival at Westend Primary School in Lentegeur, and every year I am amazed at the number of Mitchells Plain residents who have written their own books and, often, also published their own stories. I want to encourage more people to write up their stories and I want to encourage those who have the skills to tell stories to help those who do not have the skills. These stories should not necessarily be shared via books, but could also be shared on social media, maybe via short video interviews.

There is an old saying that I first heard years ago from Zane Ibrahim, one of the founders of Bush Radio. He told me that, “Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” I later learned that is a famous African proverb often popularised by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe.  This resonated with me. If our stories, our history and narratives continue to be written by those who are not from our community or our country, they run the risk of ignoring or misrepresenting our perspectives as a community which has struggled hard to have its voices heard.

Thank you for coming out today and for listening. I hope I have given you some food for thought. I hope there are some among you tonight that will take up my challenge.

Thank you.

(Speech to an event to celebrate the 50th birthday of Mitchell’s Plain on Thursday, 14 May 2026 at Hazeldene Primary School, Portland, Mitchell’s Plain)

Journey to Jazz: Lessons to be learned from a beautiful and different festival

We attended Journey to Jazz in Prince Albert for the first time last week and felt sorry that we have missed out on the previous years. It is beautiful festival, set in a charming Karoo dorp that is not without its uniquely South African problems.

The musical highlights were many, but the real highlight was discovering the town, its history and seeing in action the real efforts to make difference to a community where the rich have realised that their peace and prosperity are interwoven with uplifting the poor of which, in keeping with the rest of our country, there are way too many.

The town is clean, the people are friendly, and it felt safe to walk around late at night after shows. I found myself sometimes walking in the middle of the road, forgetting that there might be cars approaching.

Former political activist turned businesswoman Cheryl Carolus, who was a keynote speaker at the festival, said it best: “Like so many rural South African communities, it holds within it both the weight of inequality and the stubborn, daily work of people who refuse to let that be the final word. Journey to Jazz exists inside that tension – and it exists on purpose.

“Yes, this is a world-class music festival. The artists on our stages are exceptional, and the setting is unlike anywhere else on earth. But if that were all we were, we would simply be a beautiful event in a beautiful place. We want to be something more than that.”

There were many small touches that made this festival different to other festivals I have attended over the years.

One was attending a session called Almal se Stoepstories, at the Fransie Pienaar Museum, where elderly local women, mainly from the North End side of town (where coloured people were forcibly removed in the 1960s under the Group Areas Act) told their komvandaan stories to an appreciative audience.

The idea was that the women would be interviewed by learners from the local school, but the women did not need to be prompted to tell their stories which explained the realities of rural living, where baasskap ran supreme for many decades, if not centuries, and where the black and coloured people, despite the pain that they clearly still feel, call for reconciliation instead of retribution.

In fact, the guest speaker, Samuel Delport, the retired principal of Prince Albert Primary School, in his speech, quoted from Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney’s hit, Ebony and Ivory: “Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony / Side by side on my piano keyboard, oh Lord, why don't we?” It might sound corny, but it appears to be a true reflection of what the people of Prince Albert and the surrounding towns are trying to do.

My feeling after the event was that, while it was good, the people of Prince Albert, many of whom have had to restart their lives due to being forcibly removed from homes in which they grew up, probably deserve a bit more than a performative event – they need a process of healing that includes counselling, talking, reflecting, education and, probably, lots of crying.

Two other small highlights were witnessing the Prince Albert Rieldansers performing opposite the Museum and the Outeniqua Jazz Band performing at the local market. Both were performances we stumbled on by accident, which made them more special.

Musical highlights were plenty and, as is the nature of festivals, one is not able to see everyone. But I made sure that I saw Vusi Mahlasela and Nomfundo Xaluva, as well as attend an open-air concert on the Swartberg Pass, which was very special for all who were lucky to attend.

Our journey started on Thursday night with pianist Paul Hamner performing songs from his popular Trains to Taung album with a trio. Hamner has been mentoring young people in the area and made several appearances during the festival, including a master class on Friday morning, a solo piano performance on Friday night, and a guest appearance at the “People’s Concert” which closed out festivities on the Sunday morning.

On Friday night, we saw beautiful but different performances by vocalists and pianists Amy Campbell and Nomfundo Xaluva. Campbell performed some of her swing favourites, while Xaluva performed some of her favourite songs which she wrote and recorded. She is probably my favourite South African singer at the moment.

But the big day was Saturday, starting at the PACT (Prince Albert Community Trust) Centre with a master class by bassist Jonathan Rubain and saxophonist Donvino Prins, who spoke about how koortjies helped shape Cape Jazz. The two played several popular jazz songs as part of their master class. This was followed by a master class discussion between Nomfundo Xaluva and Yonela Mnana which explored “jazz as a hybrid musical heritage”. It was a stimulating and intellectual discussion which challenged a lot of the conventional wisdoms about jazz and other music forms in South Africa.

Using what is known as the “dansvloer” for special concerts in the Swartberg pass was a masterstroke by the organisers. We missed Zoe Modiga’s performance on Friday night (we woke up too late to book), but we were privileged to attend the performance by singer and uMakhweyana bow player, Zawadi Yamungu, on Saturday afternoon. It was a soulful and spiritual performance which showed respect for space in which it was performed: surrounded by the special mountain peaks of the Swartberg. This performance on its own made the festival worth attending.

The evening choices were difficult. We chose Linda Sikhakane, Vusi Mahlasela and Jonathan Rubain, but could so easily have chosen Nomfundo Xaluva, Yonela Mnana and the Soultee Sisters, and Kyle Shepherd.

It was my first time seeing Sikhakane performing, and he and singer Paras Dlamini did not disappoint, carrying forth the soulful and reflective sounds that we had just experienced on the mountain.

Vusi Mahlasela’s performance was, as always, special. What made it even more special was when he related his health challenges in recent years, having to go for dialysis four times a week and not having much energy, while also struggling to reach the high notes as easily as he did in the past. Despite this, he performed more than 15 minutes longer than scheduled and showed that his voice remains as beautiful as ever. This performance was the second reason I was glad I attended the festival.

The major music venues – the NG Church and The Showroom – are quite close to each other, as was the place to hang out in between sets. Called Ons, it is a community development project where young people are being taught culinary skills which could help them find permanent employment. The food was inexpensive, and DJs kept the party spirit going until late each night.

The final highlight, and something we did not really know what to expect, was the free “People’s Concert” at the NG Church on Sunday morning. The people of Prince Albert showed with this concert, which is meant to pay tribute to the people who worked on the festival, why this festival and the town are so special. The free concert was different to all the other events.

When we arrived about 15 minutes before the show, the staff were lined up on both sides of the entrance and applauded everyone who passed to enter the venue. It was a nice touch that made all the festival goers feel special.

Ingrid Wolfaardt, founder of PACT, explained that the festival employed 80 young people, 50 of whom had never worked before. She emphasised the close working relationships between different stakeholders of the festival, including the municipality and police.

The concert itself opened with a spiritual classical solo piano performance by Yonela Mnana, followed by performances by various formations of the Outeniqua Jazz Band, accompanied for some of the songs by the Prince Albert Primary School Choir and other guests, including Paul Hamner and local singer Waldon Paul Ewerts of the Karoo Jazz Project.

One of my greatest takeaways from this festival was the collaboration between everyone to make it a success. There was a sense that the people own the festival, despite the social issues that the town might be experiencing and the history of dispossession that those classified as coloured will always remember.

One of the mottos of the people of Prince Albert is that “groet is ’n moet” (greeting is a must) and this has been passed on to the young people in the area. As one of the speakers said, greeting others allow you to see their humanity. Maybe that is the greatest lesson from this festival and town for the rest of South Africa. We need to go back to basic decency, reconnect with each other and work together to sort out our many problems. The people of Prince Albert have shown that it can be done. It is time for others to follow.

(First published on this website on Monday, 4 May 2026)

Nothing stupid about this play

It was with a sense of trepidation that one went to see Stupid Fucking Bird at the Baxter Studio last Saturday. Trepidation because one had no idea what to expect. Yes, I knew it was based on Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, but that it was a modern adaptation, meant to make the work relevant to a new audience.

But how does one adapt one of the best plays ever written and modernise it in a way that does not steal its soul? How does one update the messages of love, lust, betrayal and trying to turn the world into a better place through one’s creativity? Does the message need to be updated? Or will an update ruin an otherwise great play with modern, one could say eternal, messages despite the fact that it was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896?

Added to this was that we saw the play on Saturday evening after viewing a 96-minute documentary about the Rivonia Trialists in the afternoon, which had already sapped by energy. The more important question for me was whether the play was going to be able to keep me awake, and when they announced that it would be two hours long with a 20-minute interval, I knew that I would not be able to keep awake.

I was so pleasantly surprised that, throughout the play, I did not feel tired or yawn once. Maybe it was the tempo of the play, maybe it was the actors, maybe it was the story or the direction?

I suppose it was a little bit of everything.

Stupid Fucking Bird, directed by Swedish director Maria Weisby with a cast of seven, kept everyone engrossed for the entire two-hours and a bit.

The cast consists of Awethu Hleli, Carlo Daniels, Nolufefe Ntshuntshe, Lyle October and Tamzin Daniels (all with The Baxter’s Fire Burning Company), along with Lwanda Sindaphi and Nirel Sithole.  

The script, written by award-winning American playwright Aaron Posner, was fast-moving and engaging, the seven actors were believable and moved around with ease on the small Studio stage. It kept me rivetted until the climax at the end when it ended on a cliff-hanger: will he or won’t he?

I don’t really believe in reading too many cryptic messages into plays, but I believe that the play could be a commentary on the state of world today, where warmongers and celebrities vie for attention on the main news channels. The cry for the play to stop at the end could also be seen as a plea for the madness in the world to stop. If only we had a switch where we could switch off what is happening in the Middle East, Ukraine and other parts of the world, including our continent. If only we could return to a world where people do good because it is the right thing to do and not because it is going to earn them hundreds or thousands of likes. If only the world would be more concerned with the needs of the majority instead of the desires of the few. But maybe I am reading too much into a stupid fucking play?

Stupid Fucking Bird is on at the Baxter Studio until 2 May. See it before it is too late, even if you are feeling tired at the time. It might make you think about the world differently.

Sadness and joy at Cape Town International Jazz Festival

On Friday night at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, I witnessed one of the saddest moments ever in my long history of following music. I also witnessed one of the most joyous moments a few hours later.

The sad moment was watching legendary jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim performing in Cape Town for what will surely be the last time. It was sad to see his frail 91-year-old body being brought onto the Rosie’s stage in a wheelchair. It looked like his body has been broken by old age. It was sad because I remember how fit and healthy Ibrahim was not too long ago, a result of his training in Japanese martial arts.

The same could not said about his hands, as he moved smoothly through snippets from some of the vast repertoire of songs he recorded over the past seven decades or so.

He received three standing ovations, and deservedly so: when he entered the hall, when he finished his 30-minute solo piano piece, and when he completed his 15-minute encore with a short reading and a chant, which he delivered without using amplification. But the entire hall could hear what he said, and if you couldn’t hear it, you could feel it. It felt like he was saying goodbye.

I cried throughout the entire performance. I used to work closely with Ibrahim at some point and I know that his biggest regret in life has always been the fact that he felt that he was not respected by audiences in his hometown. The crowd who filled Rosie’s on Friday night put all of that to rest and indicated to Ibrahim that he had, at the age of 91, achieved something that he had struggled to achieve his whole life.

This was the closest he would come to receiving flowers in his lifetime and not only at his funeral, as the case when most musicians, and people in general, pass away.

The joyous moment came shortly afterwards when we joined thousands of festivalgoers in the biggest venue, Kippie’s, for a performance by British artist, Jacob Collier, who has won several Grammy Awards for his music. His was a solo performance with a difference, with him effortlessly floating between guitar, piano, bass guitar and other instruments, as well as audience interaction. The sound of several thousand people singing along to the South African national anthem is always special, as it was when led by Collier. Yes, he brought on a few guests, but for most of the time, he was on stage by himself. Collier’s infectious energy could be felt throughout the crowd, and they responded in kind. This was just one of the performances that gave me hope for the future.

Festivals of any nature can be strange beasts. There are people who criticise the jazz festival for not being jazzy enough. Yet, they have no answer when you ask them how you grow festival audiences if you play only strict jazz. The audience last week was probably the most diverse and youngest that I have ever seen. This is a good sign and shows that the festival is investing in growing future audiences and not just resting on it laurels and depending on an ageing audience, many of whom are dying out.

We have been to every single festival since it began as the North Sea Jazz Festival in 2000, and we normally stick to the serious jazz, but decided to test different genres this year. So, we watched snippets of or, in some cases, the full performances of Sipho ‘Hotstix’ Mabuse, the Yellowjackets, the CTIJF Jazz Orchestra (consisting of mainly young people), BCUC, Sio, Tutu Puoane, Justin-Lee Schultz, Raveena, Sheila E and the E-Train, Seba Kaapstad and The Yussef Dayes Experience. There are many others that we regret not seeing.

There are people who complain about the Jazz Festival every year. Some complain about the ticket prices, others about logistics, and many complain about the sound. This year, when it comes to ticket prices, they had more to complain about the South African leg of the Montreux Jaff Festival that made its debut in Franschhoek on the same weekend as the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, which cost more than double for one stage only. In Cape Town, your money brought you access to four stages. Logistics will always be an issue, but I noticed how, with the access to the Rosie’s and Moses Molelekwa stages, the security changed plans quickly when they realised that what they were doing was not working. In general, I thought the sound was much better in all the venues. But this was my experience, and I am mindful that others might have had a different experience.

While the CTIJF started off sadly for us with the Abdullah Ibrahim performance, it ended hopeful about the future of jazz as well as the jazz festival.

(First published on this website on Wednesday, 1 April 2026)

Contrasting goodbyes to a cultural icon

A few years ago, after watching Lekker Jas/Nice Coat, Soli Philander’s witty and funny but serious love letter to Cape Town, at the Baxter, my wife and I were on our way back to our car when we walked past a white Afrikaans couple who appeared disappointed with the show. They had expected something more in line with Liriekeraai, a popular TV show which Soli had hosted years before.

This explained the dichotomy of the complex character that was Silamour ‘Soli’ Philander, who passed away on 4 March 2026 less than two months after his 65th birthday.

This dichotomy would follow him into the grave as we witnessed the traditional New Apostolic Church funeral he had on Saturday, 14 March, and the almost raucous memorial service that was held for him at the Artscape Concert Hall on Tuesday, 17 March.

Soli had played different roles in his 50 or so years in the entertainment industry. He was the gang leader, Nines, in District Six: the Musical in 1987, and acted in movies such as Kaalgat Tussen die Daisies (1997). More recently, he played a supporting role in Devil’s Peak (2023). He hosted several game shows, including Liriekeraai and Let’s Fix It. He also hosted a talk show on Punt Geselsradio and later Cape Talk. After that, he launched Taxi Radio, and, in his final years, he launched the Soli Philander Foundation, which worked mainly with housing insecure people in and around the city of Cape Town. Five years ago, he received the Lifetime Achiever’s Award at the Comic Choice Awards.

The funeral was a beautiful and solemn affair, with the officiating Apostle, Gavin van der Hoven, talking with reverence and admiration about Soli being a “larger than life” character and the legacy of “faith, hope and love” he has left behind.

He said that family had decided that there should not be an obituary read out at the funeral, but he read from social media messages that had been left after Soli’s passing – he had been fighting cancer – which described Soli as being “more than a name, but a presence” and “a soft-spoken voice of wisdom”. Soli was also described as “a son of the soil” who understood the struggle of the most vulnerable in society.

The Apostle spoke about how proud Soli was to grow up in Elsies River, where he first began to go to the New Apostolic Church. “He remained close to the church ever since and even sang in the church choir,” he said.

Soli was also described in Afrikaans as “a Kaapse klong met ’n gladde tong” (a Cape boy with a smooth tongue) and a true South African icon.

The powerful New Apostolic Church choir and the accompanying musicians provided the only cultural items at the funeral of a cultural icon.

Things could not have been more different at the memorial service held at Artscape in Soli’s honour on Tuesday night.

Hosted by comedian Marc Lottering (who described himself as “the poor man’s Soli Philander”, and directed by Basil Appollis, the memorial began with tributes from Artscape CEO, Marlene le Rox, and Western Cape MEC for Sports, Arts and Culture, Ricardo McKenzie.

Unlike the funeral, where only the Apostle, another priest and Solly’s daughter spoke, several people from the entertainment industry, came to pay tribute to one of their own in the way they know best.

Those performing and/or reflecting on their relationship with Soli included keyboard player and vocalist, Celeste Williams; singer Natalia da Rocha who sang Tina Turner’s Simply the Best in tribute; choreographer Didi Moses, who read a poem; singer Robin Pieters, accompanied by Trevino Isaacs on piano, who sang Whitney Houston’s Run to Me; actors Vinette Ebrahim and Albert Maritz, who spoke about working with Soli at Punt Geselsradio; saxophonist August West, who performed with singer Carmen Xclusive; and performer and breakfast show host, Noel Oostendorp, who hosted Soli on his show in December, probably the last such engagement he had. Oostendorp led the crowd in singing I Can See Clearly Now, which he described as one of Soli’s favourite songs.

The cast of the drag show, Ab Fab, who was discovered through a process hosted by Soli, closed the evening with a trio of songs – This is Me (from The Greatest Showman), I’m Every Woman (made famous by Whtiney Houston and Chaka Khan) and Abba’s Dancing Queen – which, literally, brought the house down.

Collectively, the funeral and memorial service gave a fitting send-off to someone who was so much more than a comedian. He was a sensitive soul who grappled with the complexities of our troubled society and sought, until the very end, to make a difference to those most in need. I would often bump into Soli in Woodstock or District Six, where he hung out in recent years, and he would tell me about the work he was doing to help those who lived on the streets.

As the crowd left the Artscape building after the memorial service on Tuesday night, I could not help thinking about the loneliness that will now befall his family: his ex-wife, Toni, who he described as the love of his life, their children, Danya, Kyla, Caleb, Ethan and Lauren, and his extended family. I also could not help thinking about what will now happen to the foundation which carries his name, even though his close friend, Sharon van Schoor, has promised to keep it alive as part of his legacy. It will not be an easy task.

Rest in peace, Soli, and may your memory and legacy last forever.

(First published on Substack on 18 March 2026)

Commit to positive change in 2026

Early this morning, as I walked through the area, I noticed dark clouds gathering over Table Mountain, signalling that rain was imminent. Traditionalists, of course, will say this is a good sign, that the gods will celebrate the start of the new year with us, while the rain will wash away all the bad things that happened in 2025, allowing 2026 to start on a clean slate.

But life is not that simple and much of what was bad about 2025 will continue into 2026, including much of the uncertainty. For me, this was probably one of the words that best described 2025: uncertainty. About politics, globally and locally, about the economy, globally and locally, and so much more. The only certain thing was death. We ended up attending funerals of friends, comrades and family almost every weekend.

2025 was a year when the world moved decidedly to the right, buoyed by Donald Trump becoming the president of the United States of America, and his multitude of actions to promote those who look and sound like him internationally. Ok, maybe not sound like him, but definitely look like him.

The almost impunity with which he has mis-governed America has made him the envy of dictators throughout the world, causing uncertainty in many countries with tentative democracies.

Trump’s limited grasp of economics led to him causing havoc with the world’s economy, forcing many countries to explore alternative markets even though the USA had traditionally been one of their key markets. His key economic weapon has been tariffs which ultimately impacted negatively on the American people he is supposed to serve.

Trump’s political actions seem to indicate that he is beholden to two people: the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

With Trump steadfastly in his corner, Netanyahu has been able to commit a mass genocide in Palestine for more than two years, killing tens of thousands, including many women and children. Among the main targets for the Israeli killers have been journalists, who have been bravely trying to report on a one-sided conflict where no live is sacred.

The people of Palestine have been living with uncertainty for two years, and will continue to do so in 2026, despite America’s promises of ceasefires and peace plans.

There is a strong call within America for the Trump administration to be effectively dislodged in the mid-term elections in 2026, but there is no certainty that the people who are disgusted with Trump will be able to generate enough votes to do so.

He has defied logic in the past and he can do it again.

In South Africa, we are dealing with our own challenges, apart from those visited on us by Trump and his believers.

Our economy has been stagnant for too long and it has been almost impossible to make a dent in the huge unemployment figures. Added to that is the rampant corruption which has been exposed by several high-profile commissions of inquiry with little concrete action being taken afterwards.

Closer to home for me, there is another genocide happening in the area known as the Cape Flats, where I grew up and where gangsters and drug dealers rule without much fear of being caught by police. Thousands of young people have made the ultimate sacrifice as gangsters and drug dealers fight for turf in poor communities.

It is easy to become despondent if one looks at the state of the world today. There are conflicts in many countries, and in some cases, there seems to be no end in sight. Against this background, it is easy to become despondent.

But one thing that can change in 2026 is our attitude. Instead of complaining about what is wrong with the world, we should look at what we can do to help change things in a positive way.

Those of us who were involved in the struggle against apartheid, need to revisit the lessons we learned in those days and see if they could be useful to help a new generation of activists.

The words that I hope to take into 2026 are positivity and change. I hope to make a positive contribution to change in our society so that we can create a better world for the people around us.

I hope your life will be filled with positivity in 2026 and that changes will help to enhance your life and the lives of your loved ones. Happy new year.

 (First posted on SubStack on 31 December 2025.)

Israel's genocide in Gaza cannot go unpunished

As a journalist with more than 45 years of experience, I have always believed that there are at least two sides to every story. I have also always never rushed into condemning anybody for wrongdoing because I believe that we all make mistakes. Sometimes mistakes are unavoidable, and sometimes they are forgivable.

At the same time, I have never believed in objectivity, because it is sometimes a convenient excuse to camouflage wrongdoing by powerful people. I am proud to have been an anti-apartheid activist while not sacrificing my commitment to treat everyone fairly in my reporting.

It is against this background that I have been observing the genocide that Israel is committing in Gaza for the past almost two years.  

I have been wracking my brain and studying all the evidence and, try as I might, I cannot find the other side of the story that justifies the ongoing genocide and destruction currently happening under the illegal Israeli occupation of the Gaza strip in Palestine.

All I see is the indiscriminate but intentional killing of babies and young children, women and men, combined with the silencing of journalists who are supposed to inform the world about what is happening in one of the major trouble spots in the world.

The Israeli government and army say their actions are in response to what the resistance group, Hamas, (and Israeli supporters would prefer the word ‘terrorist’, just like the Nationalist Party used to call the ANC terrorists) is alleged to have done on 7 October 2023, when the resistance group launched a military attack on Israel, killing hundreds, and captured more than 250 hostages, some who had attended a music festival.

Outrageous as the Hamas attack was, the Israeli government and army want people to forget about the illegal occupation of the Palestinian land and the way they have subjected Palestinians to killings and bombings for decades before 7 October 2023. They also want people to forget about the hundreds of Palestinian hostages they have detained over many years.

If they are successful, the Israeli government and military will erase a long history of their illegal occupation of a land that never belonged to them, but which they claim to be the “promised land”.

The Israeli authorities also believe that Hamas is a bunch of bad people, which is their right, but this does not explain their actions against hundreds if not thousands of innocent men, women and children whose only loyalty is to the land of Palestine, irrespective of who is in charge.

But the facts and optics matter. The reality is that even if Israel’s actions against the people of Palestine in response to the Hamas’s action on 7 October 2023 were vaguely justifiable in the beginning, it has become a clear genocide aimed at eradicating Gaza and killing all its people, clearing the way for Israel and American billionaires to turn it into a luxury beach strip where they intend to make billions more dollars for the benefit of a few. No lesser a person than American president Donald Trump has made his intentions clear in this regard.

Despite all the clear evidence, there are many people in the world who do not see what is happening in front of their eyes. They continue to insist that what Isreal is doing is to legitimately defend itself and its people.

How do you use cutting-edge weapons technology, enough to fight another World War, to defend yourself against people who have no resources to fight back? How and why do you destroy all the infrastructure and then try to starve an entire population by refusing to allow humanitarian aid for those who have been dispossessed of their land?

South Africa was the first country to stand up for the people of Gaza and Palestine when it took Israel to the International Court of Justice for committing genocide. A few other countries, but still not enough, are now finally beginning to speak up against Israel while some, like Great Britain, are prosecuting people for showing support for the suffering Palestinians. How cruel is that?

What the world should be seeing is a warmongering excuse for a nation reacting to their supposed enemies in the only way they know: with unbridled violence.

It does not matter that the people they are killing does not have the resources to defend themselves and are mainly homeless and starving. It does not matter that many of those who were killed in the past few months have been ruthlessly shot down as they queued for much-needed humanitarian relief. It does not matter that they are deliberately silencing journalists who have bravely shone a light on the atrocities being committed in the region.

What Isreal is doing in Gaza is wrong. Like apartheid was wrong. Like the holocaust was wrong.

It is ironic that the same people who suffered from genocide under the Germans during the Holocaust after now subjecting others to the same fate in Palestine. ‘Never and never’ again clearly applies only to some people and not to others.

In a perfect world, everyone should be held accountable for their actions. The Israeli government should be held accountable for committing a genocide against the Palestinian people. Their leaders should be convicted of war crimes and jailed, and the people of Israel should ponder about how they voted into power people who could be so vile and murderous.

The governments who supported the Israeli government and made it possible for them to act with impunity, should be tried as accomplices at the International Court of Justice, and this should include the media who refused to report on the Palestinian story as it has really unfolded and pandered to the strong financial interest of the Israeli government’s supporters throughout the world.

Nelson Mandela, speaking at the Johannesburg Press Club in 2001, said, “There can be no greater cause in the world today than peace. Nothing is going to stop the peace process in this country”.

Mandela was speaking about South Africa where extremists were trying to derail the peace process, but he could have been speaking about the situation in Palestine. Mandela also famously said that the freedom of South Africans will not be complete without the freedom of Palestinians. The evidence suggests that ordinary Palestinians want peace, and ordinary Israelis probably want the same, but the Israeli government and army want war until all of Gaza and maybe Palestine has been turned to rubble.

Those of us with a conscience cannot allow this to happen in our lifetime and under our watch. We all need to stand up against the Israeli government and army and for the people of Palestine. History will judge us if we don’t.

(Written especially for this website on Tuesday, 12 August 2025)

'I have learned to live': A prostate cancer survivor's touching journey through a life-changing year

Ryland Fisher shares his personal journey of overcoming prostate cancer, reflecting on the challenges and lessons learned one year after his life-changing surgery.

On Friday, 1 November, it will be one year since I underwent an operation to remove my cancerous prostate gland.

I had never anticipated becoming a cancer survivor, having lived a reasonably healthy life without any major operations before.

Last year this time, I had no idea what my life would be like after the operation and whether I would ever be able to live a normal life again.

The cancer diagnosis had come a few months before then and was followed by a whirlwind of emotional days, weeks and months in which I had more downs than ups.

The diagnosis followed a simple annual check-up with the general practitioner, who told me that it appeared my prostate was enlarged.

“But, not to worry,” she said. “Most men, as they get older, have problems with their prostate.” She said there was a possibility that it might not be cancer but merely an enlarged gland.

This was followed by a visit to a urologist, who confirmed that there was a growth on the prostate, but we should confirm this with an MRI scan. The MRI scan involved lying absolutely still for 45 minutes in the MRI machine, which makes a pounding and incessant noise. It was incredibly uncomfortable, but nothing compared to what was to come.

The MRI scan confirmed that there were two growths on the prostate, but not whether they were cancerous or not. A biopsy would be required to confirm that. I had no idea what a biopsy was, but agreed to do it. I remained positive.

After the biopsy at Kingsbury Hospital in Claremont, I woke up with an attachment to my penis and I was told to urinate into an attached bottle. Once I had passed more than 1.5l of urine, I would be okay to go home. My urine was red and every drop of urine I passed was an extremely painful process. Finally, after a couple of hours, I was able to go home.

I had to go back to the urologist to hear the results of the biopsy, which confirmed that I had cancer. I was devastated and did not know how to react.

It took a while for the news to sink in, and once I realised that I had cancer, my immediate reaction was to feel sorry for myself. My youngest daughter, who had gone with me to the doctor, drove me to Muizenberg beach and called her two sisters to join us. My wife had to take her mother to hospital at the same time and could not be there.

But the positive outcome of this bad news was that I got to spend a beautiful morning with the most important three young women in my life at one of my favourite beaches.

We agreed to do the operation to remove the prostate on Wednesday, 1 November 2023.

The next few weeks were filled with research, exercise, physiotherapy and psychological therapy in preparation for what would be life-changing surgery. I also had to consult a dietitian to ensure that I was the proper weight before the operation.

The doctor sent me a list of former patients who I could consult, and I discovered at least 10 people I knew on the list. But I had no idea that they had dealt with similar issues.

On one of my visits to the physiotherapist, we spoke about how men don’t speak about health and other important life matters, but it was important because other men can learn from your experience.

The visits to the physio were mainly to help me prepare for life after the operation when the doctor warned me I would have problems controlling my bladder, in some cases for as long as a year. The physiotherapist taught me Kegel exercises to help me control the bladder. The other side effect of the operation would be on sexual performance, the doctor had said, but that was of less importance to me at the age of 63.

I researched extensively and spoke to many friends who had similar procedures. It was important for me to know that I had made the right decision. At some point, I had to stop researching and thinking and make a decision.

It was clear to me that the solution was robotic surgery – where a robot makes a few incisions on your body, with a bigger incision through which the organ is removed.

The operation itself went off without any serious problems, but the days immediately after that were some of the worst that I have ever experienced in my life.

For the first few days, I had to wear a catheter, which meant urinating into a bag attached to my penis. It was as painful as it was humiliating. Fortunately, my wife acted as my nurse; otherwise, I have no idea how I would have survived.

After the catheter was removed, I had to wear a pad which could contain my urine when I lost control of my bladder, which happened regularly. The doctor had said that most patients took six months to stop wearing pads, while some wear them for a year. I lost the pads after less than a month.

But the bladder control has not always been good over the past year. I remember the first time I flew to Gauteng after about two months. I lost control of my bladder while still on the plane and had to replace my pants as soon as we landed. Fortunately, it has not happened again and I have had regular periods of two to three hours when I have not felt the need to go to the toilet. Regular toilet visits are, of course, something that becomes more necessary as one gets older.

The main discomfort after a few months was a nagging pain where the organ had been removed. This pain only disappeared after nine months. The other discomfort relates to sexual performance, which I have learned to live with. If it improves, which it appears to be, it will be a bonus, but if it doesn’t, I will learn to live with that.

The urologist confirmed at my three-monthly and now six-monthly check-ups after the operation that the cancer remains “undetectable”, which I understand to mean that it has left my body, but clearly, the doctor needs to protect himself in case it comes back.

I have done a lot of reflection over the past year, valuing every minute I am still allowed on earth. I have decided that I need to focus on myself more instead of continuously working. I am determined to enjoy as much of the beauty of our wonderful country as I can, and I will strive for the perfect balance between the need to work and the need to live.

I have learned to accept that my life and my body will never be the same again. Yes, the cancer is, for all intents and purposes, gone. But the discomfort after the operation will be with me for a long time. The reality of having, and possibly defeating, cancer will be with me forever.

- Ryland Fisher is a veteran journalist and editor.

(First published by News24 on Friday, 1 November 2024)

A better life for some

The ANC has delivered somewhat on its elections promises since 1994, but it might not be enough to convince voters to give it another chance in the next elections, writes Ryland Fisher

In its 1994 election manifesto, the African National Congress, which had just moved from being a liberation movement to a reluctant political party, promised to provide “a better life for all”.

The party stated:

“To build a better life for all requires clear goals and a workable plan. Any solution to the crisis of apartheid needs an approach which rises above narrow interests and harnesses all our country`s resources. It requires:

·         a democratic society based on equality, non-racialism and non-sexism;

·         a nation built by developing our different cultures, beliefs and languages as a source of our common strength;

·         an economy which grows through providing jobs, housing and education;

·         a peaceful and secure environment in which people can live without fear.”

The promise of a better life for all had its roots in the Freedom Charter, the document drawn up at the Congress of the People in June 1955, which had been the driving force behind the liberation struggle over the years. The Charter states in its introduction 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”. Among its declarations are that “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”, “all shall enjoy equal human rights”, “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 is therefore not surprising that South Africa’s Constitution, which has been lauded throughout the world, draws heavily on the Freedom Charter, which, its Bill of Rights, talks about affirming dignity, equality and freedom and its preamble, it states that it “believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity”.

It is therefore, also not surprising that the ANC drew on the Freedom Charter when drawing up its manifesto to guide it in its first election our post-apartheid democracy.

Despite all its good intentions, this promise of a better life might have been the ANC’s undoing over the past 30 in which it has governed South Africa, all but one of its provinces and most of its municipalities.

You cannot ever improve the lives of all South Africans. In order to improve the lives of some, it would require taking from others. For the past 30 years, the ANC has been performing a fine balancing act between giving and taking – and I am not talking about corruption here, which is a whole book by itself.

I am talking about legitimately taking from an increasingly reluctant taxpayer base to improve the lives of an impatient majority who expected more, in the form of housing, education and, importantly, jobs, and, more recently, social grants.

Depending on who you speak with on the political spectrum you will find parties telling you that the ANC has not delivered in the past 30 years. Very few outside of ANC loyalists will argue that the party has delivered.

I am not one of those who support the notion that live was better under apartheid. It was a vile, oppressive system which made victims of all of us, the victims and the perpetrators. It was meant to benefit the few at the expense of the many.

The ANC, as political analyst Dr Oscar van Heerden pointed out at the recent launch of his new book, Is the Party Over?, has delivered a better life for some, despite a host of challenges, many of its own making.

If one made an analysis of the various Presidents since democracy, one can see that each one, bar one, has delivered on what was seen as their major objective. Nelson Mandela was seen as the reconciler and he made sure that he brought South Africans from different racial and cultures backgrounds together. Thabo Mbeki was seen as Mr Delivery, and it is no coincidence that the ANC won the highest percentage of votes under Mbeki. People can often not see reconciliation, but they can see the electrification of their homes, having access to fresh water, decent schooling and health service, even though these remain imperfect to this day. Kgalema Motlanthe’s had an eight-month stint as a caretaker, so he doesn’t count. Jacob Zuma was the one who undid a lot of the good work done under Mandela and Mbeki, from a reconciliation and economic perspective. Cyril Ramaphosa has had the unenviable job of cleaning up Zuma’s mess, reviving the economy and increasing employment prospects, especially for young people, while trying to pull a recalcitrant ANC leadership along with him on his journey of renewal.

In fact, Zuma has continued where he left off when Ramaphosa replaced him as President of South Africa in 2018, a few months after replacing him as president of the ANC. Zuma came to power in the ANC and, subsequently, in government on the back of Zulu nationalism (in reality tribalism) in 2007. He has now used the same tactics to boost the electoral fortunes of the uMkhonto weSizwe political party, of which he is the presidential candidate.

At his book launch at Exclusive Books at Cavendish Square in Claremont, Dr van Heerden shared an anecdote about the ANC’s 2007 elective conference when he asked two comrades why they were not joining the commissions discussing ANC policy. Brandishing a political of expensive champagne and cigars, they told him that they were not there to discuss policy. They were only there to vote for Zuma.

Zuma’s term as ANC and South African President marked the beginning of a feast of corruption, which eventually resulted in the Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, led by then Deputy Chief Justice, Raymond Zondo.

Van Heerden believes that President Ramaphosa is on the right track with undoing the damage done by Zuma.

“He has replaced incompetent people who were put in charge of key state institutions with the sole purposes of capturing them, and he has replaced them with competent people,” said van Heerden. He mentioned the National Prosecuting Authority (where Shamilla Batoyi replaced Shaun Abrahams as the National Director of Public Prosecutions) and the South African Revenue Services (where Edward Kieswetter replaced Tom Moyane as Commissioner) as among those institutions which were now in safe, capable hands.

One of the areas where Ramaphosa has struggled was with the performance of state-owned entities, where particularly Eskom and Prasa have underperformed since been hugely looted under Zuma’s watch. There are positive signs, however, that we might be getting on top of the performance of these two SOEs, that the trains might be running regularly and on time soon, and that loadshedding might no longer be as severe as what South Africans have been used to for the past few years.

A major boost to Ramaphosa’s efforts has come from stalwarts and veterans of the ANC, many of who remember the glorious days of Africa’s oldest political organisation.

These include former President Mbeki, who indicated recently that he would vote for the ANC despite his earlier criticism, as well as the work done behind the scenes by the ANC Veterans’ League, whose deputy president, Mavuso Msimang, recently resigned and un-resigned in quick succession to highlight some problems in the ANC that he has now being promised will be addressed.

What has also been helpful to Ramaphosa has been the push from outside, by non-governmental organisations wanting to see the “better life” that the ANC has promised. Another clear sign that things are changing within the governing party is the recent resignation by the Speaker, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, to deal with corruption allegations against her. This is something that would not have happened not too long ago.

Will the changes be enough to convince voters to give the ANC a fresh mandate after the national and provincial elections on 29 May or, like Van Heerden asks in his book title, is the party over for the movement that brought South Africa the freedom we are enjoying today?

(First published in the Empowerment magazine, inserted into the Sunday Times on 28 April 2024)

Wilson Sidina: Tribute to a true comrade

When someone like Wlison Sidina dies, it is almost like a part of our history dies with him. He leaves a void that goes much further than the loss of an individual, but it erodes the memory of people who became involved in struggle because of noble goals and not because they wanted to enrich themselves.

Sidina, who passed away at the age of 81 at the end of July after a long illness, in many ways encapsulated what it means to be a comrade, a term which has lost some of its value in reason years because of the crime and corruption caused by people who called themselves by that name.

But Sidina was one of those who deserved to be called a comrade, because he embraced the values of non-racialism, unity, ubuntu, cooperation and selflessness that informs most of the decisions and actions of true comrades. And he lived it until the end.

An unheralded struggle icon who lived most of his life in Gugulethu, Sidina was part of a group of leaders in Cape Town’s African townships who embraced nonracialism and served the African National Congress loyally until his passing – despite some misgivings in recent years.

Sidina was a prominent activist who was involved in civics, trade unions, sport and also recruited many young people to join MK during the struggle. Those who were involved with him – some younger, some older – included people such as Oscar Mpetha, Zoli Malindi, Christmas Tinto, Annie Silinga, Mama Mtiya, Mama Holo, Mildred Lesea, Alpheus Ndude and Mzonke Pro Jack. Of these, I think it is only Mildred Lesea, who turned 90 a few months ago, is still alive.

My first interaction with Sidina was in 1980. I was a young reporter at the Cape Herald and we reported quite prominently on the meat workers’ strike which had led to a red meat boycott in order to put pressure on the employers to give into the wage demands of the striking workers.

Sidina was one of the organisers at the General Workers’ Union, who organised the workers at the Maitland Abattoir, who realised that all tactics could only work for a limited time frame, and this applied also to the meat boycott. He gave me my first scoop as a young reporter: the suspension of the meat boycott. It was a tough decision for the organisers of the strike and, with hindsight, it was the right decision at the time.

Sidina, as a union organiser but also as an activist, believed in supporting community and workers’ struggles irrespective of where it was taking place. He became involved in the early 1980s in the Wilson Rowntree strike and boycott, the Leyland workers’ strike, and the schools and bus boycotts.

My interactions with Sidina were plentiful over the past four decades, mainly as an activist but also as a journalist.   

He was one of the first people I would contact if I was confused by decisions taken by the township leadership on any issue. He always took the time to explain their position on the issue to me.

Sidina was at the forefront of trying to resolve many conflicts in the townships, including in Crossroads where a violent war had been raging between Johnson Ngxobongwana’s “witdoeke” and the rival group led by Oliver Memani.

Sidina was one of those leaders who believed that one could not only play a political role, but one had to be involved in various strata of society.

He had played rugby as a young man and was considered as one of the best flank forwards of his generation. He was one of the founder members of the Fly Eagle Rugby Club in Nynaga. Later, he became involved in sports administration.

After the banning of the ANC and other organisations in 1960, he played a major role in recruiting young people to join the military wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) in exile. Many of his recruits came from the various sports clubs with which he was involved.

Sidina was among hundreds of activists in the Western Cape who were detained during the state of emergency in 1985. When he was released in 1986, he was slapped with a five-year banning order.

After the ANC was unbanned in 1990, Sidina became the first chairperson of the ANC branch in Section 4, Gugulethu and served the ANC in many other capacities.

Since we became a democracy and after the ANC leadership returned from exile, Sidina was one of those who were not fully recognised for the role they played in the struggle.

He became an ANC councillor in the City of Cape Town for many years, but he could have done much more.

The last time I saw Sidina, at Alpheus Ndude’s 80th birthday, he expressed some unhappiness with the state of our democracy. We agreed we would have a catch-up meeting soon, but that never happened. It was clear to me then that he was no longer as healthy as he used to be, even though he still displayed some of his normal wit.

I am sorry we never had our catch-up meeting. I really wanted to hear what he thought went wrong with our democracy.

(First published in New Agenda 90 - Third Quarter 2023)

Speech to UFS graduation ceremony

Thank you, Professor Witthuhn

Let me start by welcoming the most important people here today, the students who are graduating and their loved ones. Rector and Vice Chancellor Professor Francis Petersen, the Deans of the Faculties of The Humanities, Natural and Agricultural Sciences, and Theology and Religion, whose students are graduating today, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. As they say in government, all protocol observed.

It is such a wonderful feeling to share this special day with you. Congratulations to everyone who is graduating here today. For most of you, today represents the reward for three or four years of hard work, where you often had to forego the pleasure of being young in order to concentrate on your studies.

And you have achieved this at a time when our country is going through all kinds of turmoil, not least still recovering from a pandemic that crippled our economy and defined a new reality for many of us. We will never be able to forget the lockdowns, wearing masks in public and keeping social distances. We will never forget not being allowed to visit family and friends. But we have survived.

I want to share a few lessons from my life based on just two of my experiences: growing up in Hanover Park on the Cape Flats and working at the anti-apartheid community newspaper, Grassroots, in the early 1980s.

I spend most of my formative years living all over the Cape Flats. This is basically the euphemistic term for the poor areas where most black people live in Cape Town. I travelled with my mother and two older sisters from house to house until we eventually were offered a municipal house in Hanover Park, which was then and still is one of the most depressing townships you can find anywhere. The poverty levels are extremely high and, when I drive through the area nowadays, I see hundreds if not thousands of able-bodied young men standing on street corners at all hours of the day, unable to find work and without any hope of furthering their studies. Many of these young men have completed matric but just gave up hope after that, with some turning to a life of crime because they have run out of options.

It was tough growing up in Hanover Park, where I had to sleep in our toilet because that was the only place available for me to sleep. I could run quite fast as a young man and, I suppose, part of it had to do with the fact that I often had to run away from gangsters who could be found in every block of flats in the area and would strip you of every possession if they caught you.

The school I went to was in a prefab building and the year before I matriculated, we went to buy the newspapers to see who passed. Our school’s name was not in the newspaper. When we went to school later, the principal told us that the reason our school’s name was not in the newspaper was because no one had passed. We were determined to make sure that we would not fall to the same fate, so we called in former students, who were now at university, to tutor us, and we divided our fellow learners into groups of six to eight and each of the supposedly brighter children took charge of a group. We studied together and tutored them at the same time. In the end, we had a decent pass rate, with quite a few of us qualifying to study at university.

We did this despite our teachers and not because of them, and we realised that we had to give life to the old Congress of South African Students (COSAS) slogan of the time: Each one, teach one. We had to become students and teachers at the same time.

I learned so much about leadership during that period and still apply many of those lesson today. I also learned a lot about leadership and management when I worked for Grassroots community newspaper in the mid-1980s. I had worked for a mainstream newspaper which was part of the Argus Group, South Africa’s biggest newspaper company at the time, and I left to join the community newspaper for less than a quarter of my salary. But I did this because I was committed to the struggle against apartheid and felt that I could make a bigger contribution working at Grassroots.

The Grassroots experience was amazing and that is where I learned most of my management skills. I still use many of those skills today.

Grassroots was owned by community organisations such as residents’ associations, youth groups, churches, trade unions, sport clubs and women’s organisations. We had to check everything we did with representatives of these organisations. For instance, the paper came out every five weeks and the first week we would have a newsgathering meeting where up to 50 representatives would meet to go through our diary. We would sit in a circle and everyone would get an opportunity to speak and tell us what was happening in their organisations or communities. We would then decide which stories would work best for our next publication. The representatives would then go and write up the stories with the help of their media committees. The following week, everyone would meet and those with stories would read them out aloud and we would comment. Our meetings often lasted five hours. After three weeks of newsgathering, we would hand over to the production committee, which consisted of me and another trained journalist, working with youngsters from various youth groups from throughout the Western Cape.

I am telling you about this because I believe the best education can be obtained by simply listening to the people around you. I never dismiss anyone because they are perceived to be lower than me from a societal perspective, because I believe you can learn from anyone.

I learned from the gangsters in Hanover Park and I suppose that is one of the reasons I never became a gangster myself. I learned from the aunties and uncles in our communities, who worked hard every day to give their children better lives. I learned from the people I worked with at Grassroots and in other struggle organisations such as the United Democratic Front and the Cape Youth Congress.

Among the most important lessons I learned in life were that:

1.       You must always treat others with respect, because you cannot expect people to respect you if you do not give them respect;

2.       You can learn from everyone, because many people might not have riches, but they have wisdom;

3.       You must always be guided mainly by values and morals and not by political, business, religious or other affiliation, because otherwise your decisions might not always consider the bigger picture, which is always wanting the best for the most vulnerable in society. Always try to do the right thing based on values such as respect, fairness, nonracialism, non-sexism and a belief in a more equitable society;

4.       You must never forget where you come from and always appreciate the people who sacrificed and helped you to become successful in whatever it is that you plan to do with your lives. We must always try to find ways of giving back and helping others to also achieve their dreams.

5.       But the most important lesson I have learned in life is that learning never stops. It only stops when you pass away. I count myself among the lucky ones who have an inquisitive mind and who is always hungry for new knowledge.

In conclusion, I want to welcome all of you who have stopped studying to begin working, to a new reality where you will soon realise that while the lessons you learned in university will always be valuable, the lessons you will learn in life are priceless. Congratulations on your achievements and I wish you all the best for the future.

Thank you

(Speech delivered to the University of the Free State afternoon graduation ceremony on Friday, 9 December 2022)

Mlambo-Ngcuka: men and women must work together against gender-based violence

The University of Johannesburg has just appointed Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka as its Chancellor. I interviewed her in August, just before she completed her term as the Executive Director of UN Women. This is the unedited version of the story I wrote.

Former South African Deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka ends her eight-year term as United Nations Under Secretary and Executive Director of UN Women this month (August) and can’t wait to return to South Africa to contribute to the struggle against gender inequality and gender-based violence.

In an interview from her office at the UN head office in New York, she said she was leaving UN Women in a much stronger state than when she started.

“We were a $350 million organisation then. Right now, we have managed to raise US $40 billion. But we are not rich, the money is not for us. The money will go to member states, to civil society and to youth. For member states, the money will fix the things that we have been pushing them to fix.”

The US $40 billion – made up of donation from member states, corporates and civil society – was announced at the recent Generation Equality Forum in Paris.

Mlambo-Ngcuka said she was “hopeful” about the efforts South Africa was putting into the struggle to promote women’s rights.

“At the recent conference in Paris, which came 25 years after the historic Beijing Declaration, South Africa focused on economic justice, financial inclusion, increasing procurement for women, and they were mobilising and lobbying countries all over Africa.

“South Africa focused on young people, making sure that young people can access economic activities, and they focused on ending gender-based violence.

“The country was very strong on innovation and technology, and the need to propel women to be much better represented and active in innovation and technology.

“We all have to make sure that we support South Africa’s efforts. I can’t wait to come back, so that we really live up to the expectations.”

Mlambo-Ngcuka said that women throughout the world were worst affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

“Two thirds of the jobs lost during the pandemic were lost by women. Many of these women had an informal employer or were informal employers themselves. We have also seen the impact on women also who are in sectors such as tourism, which has been hit the hardest by the pandemic.

“Many of the women do not have contracts, so they do not have rights in those jobs. They are the first to go when there is a crisis. Women will take the longest time to recover, unless we intervene more aggressively and address the situation.”

Violence against women also increased significantly from the start of the pandemic.

“Within a week of the pandemic starting, we were hearing from our colleagues internationally who were getting messages from the police stations about the increase of reporting of cases involving violence against women. The increase was as high as 30% to 50% in some countries.”

Women were also affected by an increased burden of care, said Mlambo-Ngcuka.

“Many people who could not go to hospital because of the situation in our hospitals in. In most countries, those patients stayed at home and needed someone to look after them. It is the women and girls who do their job. The burden of care increased significantly.”

The role of young people in a country such as South Africa was crucial, she said.

“We have to allow them to be as angry as they need to, because there is radical impatience among young people that can encourage change and policies. We should encourage them, because they don’t make demands without putting in the work that is needed.

“It is about working collaboratively and their advocacy is important for us to move forward. Their engagement and participation are always going to be critical.”

Mlambo-Ngcuka said that South Africa had a particularly serious problem with regards to violence against women.

“There is gender-based violence all over the world, and it is a problem. The fact that women are reporting it in South Africa is progress, because women are not staying in violent situations and stomaching the violence.

“Violence against women in South Africa is a serious problem compared to many countries. We have a violent history in our country that we have not been able to overcome.

“We really have to make sure that we have a stronger way of dealing with violence against women, and we should not allow men to get away with violence against women.

“We need to instill the right values among men. We need men to be engaged, and we have to start early. We have now been pushing the engagement of men and boys in the struggle for gender equality.

“The future is going to require men and women to work together. You need men to be much stronger in playing that role, in sacrificing, in making sure that their contribution counts and is significant.”

 (First carried in Celebrating Women, a Business Day supplement in September 2021)

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu’s legacy will live on

Ryland Fisher

There is a certain irony in Archbishop Desmond Tutu choosing his last day on earth to be 26 December 2021 – the Day of Goodwill in South Africa and a day after the world celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ.

I use the word “choosing” because I know that, over the past few months, he had basically prepared his family and everyone around him for his final day. Everyone knew he would be going soon; it was only a matter of when. The cancer which he had been battling for many years was eating away at his body and it must have been sad for his family to see someone who was so strong being so weak in his final days.

Irony has always been a strong part of Desmond Tutu’s life. Even during the days of apartheid, while he was in the forefront of the struggle, there were some young comrades, including myself, who felt that he might have been too soft on the proponents of apartheid. There were many others, including conservatives in the church, who felt that he was too outspoken against apartheid.

Later, after I became one of the first black editors of a major South African daily newspaper, the Cape Times, in 1996, I began to interact with him a lot and developed a greater understanding of this great man whose only fault was to love South Africa and his family unconditionally.

The Arch loved to laugh, especially at himself, and would often tell jokes in which he was the subject of the humour. But he was also prepared to tell jokes which might not seem politically correct. Once, he said that the first time he boarded a plane and heard that the pilot was black, he started praying. And when he asked the (black) air hostess for black pepper, she brought him the Sowetan. He would then laugh out loud. He told these jokes as a way of pointing out certain absurdities and ironies in life.

At 90, the Arch had a good innings and made his mark on the world, whether it was as the Bishop of Johannesburg, the general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, the chairperson of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) or as one of South Africa’s four Nobel Peace Laureates.

Publicly, he dealt with the big issues in society, but privately, he dealt with many seemingly smaller problems, including a host of requests from family and friends.

I remember once, in 2003, when I was at the home of my good friend, the Rev Buck Bellmore, who was Archbishop Tutu’s chaplain while he was convalescing from prostrate cancer at Emory University in Atlanta in the late 1990s, I received a call. It was unusual for me to receive a call at Buck’s house, because no one really knew I was there. The person on the other end of the line greeted me in Afrikaans with a “Hoe gaan dit, boet?” (roughly translated as “How is it going, brother?”) and I spent a few second trying to figure out who it was.

It was the Arch who told me he was in Atlanta for one night, staying at his daughter’s house, and he wanted to know if I would like to come for dinner that evening. Buck and his wife, Connie-Dee, were away at the time and I was helping to look after their children, Thomas and Sarah, but I agreed immediately. That evening, I drove Buck’s car on the wrong side of the road (like they do in America) and went to meet him at the house his daughter, Thandeka Tutu-Gxashe, shared with her husband and son.

For a few hours that night, Thandeka, her husband, the Arch and me, spoke about South Africa and the world and his frustration with Thabo Mbeki, who was still President of South Africa. He spoke about how Nelson Mandela had to intervene to ensure that Mbeki accepted the report he had prepared as the chairperson of the TRC, after Mbeki was initially reluctant. The report had made some adverse findings against the ANC, among many others. But we also spoke about many other things, such as the importance of family and the Arch cracked many jokes, which we all appreciated.

A few years later, Buck had left Atlanta, where he had a parish, to join another Episcopal church in Mobile, Alabama. He did not last long and soon found himself unemployed, mainly because of his outspokenness. I went to visit Buck in Mobile while he was unemployed and, soon after I after I returned, I went for dinner at the Arch’s house in Milnerton. I told him about Buck’s situation and asked him to see whether he could put in a good word to someone in America on behalf of Buck. I also asked him to give Buck a call, especially as it was shortly before Christmas.

The day after Christmas, I received a call from Buck, saying that he had been offered a job in Las Vegas and Archbishop Tutu had called him on Christmas day.

Tutu never hesitated to give of himself to the world and, in his later years, became as outspoken about more “modern” issues, such as climate change, xenophobia, gender-based violence and the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community.

When I wrote my book, Race, which was published in 2007, the Arch willingly agreed to write the foreword, even though he thought I was “a little bit crazy”.

He wrote in the foreword that “This [writing a book about race] was not a job to be approached lightly and, irrespective of how you approached it, it was bound to upset some people.” He was very pleased when I went to take him a copy of the book after it was published, but still insisted that I was crazy.

I interviewed Archbishop Tutu on his 70th and 80th birthdays. He did not do any interviews when he turned 90 in October this year because he was already very weak. The last time I interviewed him, we spoke about many issues, from child marriages to his views on the quality of South Africa’s freedom and some of low points of his life. Some of the low points, he said at the time, was when Barney Pityana and others were expelled from Fort Hare University because they were protesting, the Boipatong massacre and the death in police custody of people like Steve Biko.

I asked him about his legacy. His response was: “You can’t ask someone about his legacy. That is for other people to worry about. You cannot sit and say you want to be remembered in this way or that way.” He remained self-deprecating until the end. But his legacy will live on.

(First published by IOL on Sunday, 26 December 2021)

The night jazz and classical music gave me hope that it will take more than a virus to silence the industry

I felt a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye several times during the 2021 Jazz & Classical Encounters Festival Vol 3 at the Spier Amphitheatre on the night of Saturday, 4 December.

One was when the amazing soprano Zandile Mzazi, accompanied by pianist Yohan Chun and bassist Francois Botha, in their tribute set to Sibongile Khumalo, played some of the late opera and jazz singer’s famous hits, such as Thula Mama and Ntyilo Ntyilo. It was almost as if one could feel the deceased’s spirit in the room, beyond the huge posters of her and another late, great musician, Andre Petersen, which adorned the stage.

The second moment was when the acclaimed New York-based, South African-born pianist Kathleen Tagg ended off her set with the mellow but haunting Rachmaninoff Prelude in G Major as a dedication to the late jazz and classical pianist Petersen, with whom she had often collaborated. This was after she had played an extract from former President Nelson Mandela’s inauguration speech as an opening to one of her songs, a day before we marked the eighth anniversary of his death.

The third was when the night’s main attraction, trumpeter Feya Faku, spoke about how he survived a serious illness which had incapacitated him, making him believe he would never perform again. There was another such moment earlier when he introduced his band members, including pianist Bokani Dyer, who Faku had known since he was eight years old when he played with his dad, Steve Dyer, the celebrated saxophonist.

I felt a lump in my throat every time I looked around the reasonably small audience and realised that it has been almost two years since we have been able to do this: watch amazing live music with a mix of local and foreign-based artists in a beautiful setting.

Yes, it was strange to see so many people sitting with masks while watching the show, and we had to undergo all the necessary protocols before we were allowed into the venue, such as taking our temperature, filling in a form confirming our Covid-19 history (or lack thereof) and leaving our contact details in case there was a need to get in touch if anyone tested positive after the event. There was no indication of the event being open only to vaccinated people, which, I suppose, is the logical next step.

It was the first time in a long time that we went out to an event with so many people, even though the venue was not even half full. But we were nervous in the days leading up to the event. I kept on thinking about the possibility of contracting the virus, even while I was sitting at the concert and even though I am vaccinated.

This is, I suppose, the reality of living in a pandemic. We all have to take precautions and make sure that we keep each other safe if we want to return to any sense of normality.

It has been a tough time for the music industry, in particular, and I found myself wondering how one sustains one’s loyalty to such a craft when there is no clear path to any sense of normality. Many musicians have told me that it is not the same to perform for an online audience. Musicians thrive on their interaction with their audiences and audiences, likewise, value the live interaction with musicians.

Apart from the lump-in-throat moments, there were so many highlights of Saturday’s performances that give me hope that it will take more than a virus, with all its alphabetical variants, to silence the music industry.

Bokani Dyers’s fingers flying over his keyboard; the artistic versatility of the married couple, Yohan Chun and Francois Botha, who both played piano and bass on stage; the you-could-smash-glass-with-that-voice of Zandile Mzazi, making one wonder how high can anyone’s voice realistically go; the intimacy and vibrancy of American-based South African-born violinist Elinor Speirs, accompanied by the hugely talented and versatile Mark Fransman on saxophone and piano, Brydon Bolton on bass and Jonno Sweetman on drums; the piano wizardry of Kathleen Tagg, who convinced Shane Cooper to join her on stage playing an electronic instrument and not his usual double bass; and the energetic drumming of Ayanda Sikade in Feya Faku’s backing band, bringing back memories of the late, great Louis Moholo. All the musicians performed at their best, as if this was the last time.

It was almost like the gods did not want to interrupt the music, with the expected rain only coming after the encore by Faku and his band and as people were making their way home after the 10-hour show.

The Spier Jazz & Classical Encounters are unique in that they bring together some of the best proponents of jazz and classical music and they are able to show the similarities between the two genres, where many people often only see differences.

This year’s rendition was dedicated to Sibongile Khumalo and Andre Petersen, among the many musical greats that we have lost in the past year or two. I am sure that the two of them smiled happily from wherever they are and that others, such as Hugh Masekela and Robbie Jansen, nodded in agreement.

(First published on the Daily Maverick website on Sunday, 5 December 2021)

Trumpeter Feya Faku performing at the Spier Jazz and Classical Encounters Festival on Saturday, 4 December.

80th birthday interview with Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Ryland Fisher

Ten years ago, just before Archbishop Tutu turned 70, I was the only South African journalist and, as far as I know, the only journalist in the world who interviewed him.

It was less than a month after the terror attacks on the United States and the world’s media was, momentarily, not interested in South Africa.

As the Arch, as he is affectionately known, prepares to turn 80 next Friday, things were a bit different this time. I had to join a list of journalists, local and abroad, who wanted to interview the man who, despite announcing his retirement last year, refuses to get out of the media headlines.

I have to declare upfront that the Arch has always been one of my favourite people and, in our many interactions over the years, he has never failed to impress me with his humility and willingness to help others.

One of the first indications for me that Tutu is serious about his retirement is that his daughter, Mpho, has returned home to run the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation and, all indications are, that in the years to come, she will become the Tutu that everyone will be quoting.

It is for this reason I thought I should take my daughter, Raisa, who is starting out as a journalist, along to conduct the interviews with Desmond and Mpho Tutu.

I also decided, in my limited time with the Arch, I would not ask him about the big stories that have been in the media lately, but to reflect a little on his life and the times he became frustrated with God.

Despite his age, and getting tired quicker nowadays, Tutu is still very lucid and very snappy in his comments. I could see this when he tried to interview Raisa and me, in response to questions we had asked him.

I reminded him that I interviewed him 10 years ago and he quickly responded: “So, what changes have you seen in me” and gave one of his trademark Tutu chuckles.

When Raisa asked him about whether he had concerns about his daughter becoming a priest, he asked her in return: “Now what did your dad say when you said you also wanted to be a journalist?” once again accompanied by a chuckle.

Raisa began by asking him about his passion against child marriages and what can be done to stop this concerning practice. For once, the serious Tutu stepped in.

“We’ve just been to New York and we’re very thrilled to have had the opportunity of highlighting such a ghastly custom. If nothing happens, 10 million girl children under the age of 18 will have become brides, 10 million in a year. All of them would have stopped going to school and if they give birth at age 15 or under, they are five times more likely to die than young women 19 and over.

“Researchers have found that we would not be able to achieve six of the eight millennium development goals because of child marriages.

“You obviously want to enlist the support of as many people in the community as possible. We found that it can happen. We visited Ethiopia, and found that, as a result of organisations working with religious and other community leaders, that it is possible for people to begin to discuss and say that this is something we want to stop.

“Our goal is to end this problem in a generation. If you are able to get a girl to stay at school, at least until high school, when she gets married, she’s not likely to agree that her child should get married when she’s under 18.

“The repercussions for communities are very considerable. Women who are relatively well-educated are some of the best multipliers of community wealth. If you want a community to develop, you have to educate the women. What is needed is to end this practice and to keep girls at school for as long as possible, getting them to become professionals.

“There is no question at all about the positive effects of that. You’d be able to, with one stroke as it were, improve child health, maternal health, and you could begin to make a difference on gender equality.

“Most of the girls we saw were married at about 12. One of the girls said to us: ‘You know what, previously, my husband never called me by my name, he used a derogatory term. I had to do everything, I had to clean the house, prepare the meals, I had to clean the children and then I had to go work in the field, and he sometimes even wanted me to wash his feet.

‘Now that the things have changed’ – and you could see her face glowing – she says, ‘he calls me by my name. He even fetches water. Now we sit and we discuss, we share chores.’ And you could see that the marriage has also been enriched.

By dealing with child marriages, you’d also be able to deal with things like HIV/Aids, because when a girl marries a much older man, he’s usually someone who has been very sexually active and possibly HIV-positive. Just imagine a 12, 13-year-old with a 40-year-old man. It’s almost just so ghastly.”

Raisa asked Tutu whether it was a proud moment in his life when he found out that his daughter was becoming a priest.

“We were proud whatever they chose. We said we would support them in whatever they chose. In fact, originally, Mpho said that she wanted to become a lawyer. However, her first degree was in electrical engineering, which she has not used. We were quite surprised when she said that she wants to go to seminary.

“Well yes, I am glad. One daughter is in public health. We supported her and we are thrilled that she is doing something that she wants to do.

“I supposed I’m just a tiny little bit more proud of Mpho, because she is following in her father’s footsteps more or less (he bursts out laughing). But I hope that most parents would say: ‘my child, whatever you choose and believe, if that is what you want to do, we are thrilled for you and we would want to support you in your choice.’

I noticed, but did not point out to him, that while he spoke about his two daughters, that he did not mention his son Trevor, who has been known to be very controversial, for some of the wrong reasons.

Raisa asked whether he had any concerns about her decision.

“No, not really, do you mean that I might have been jealous that she preaches better than me? (laughs) I think she does actually. She’s very much smarter than her daddy.

“I just hope that she will be the best that she can be in what she has chosen and that she will find it fulfilling.

“Now what did your dad say when you said you also wanted to be a journalist?”

“My dad asked me why,” Raisa replied. “After that, everybody would say the same thing about, oh, you are following in your father’s footsteps. After a while it gets a bit annoying.”

Tutu responded: “You chose it because you wanted it, not because your dad happened to be a journalist.”

“Yes”, Raisa replied, “I suppose he had some sort of impact, but we are on different paths of journalism.”

Raisa then asked him about writing a book together and how this impacted on the relationship with his daughter.

“I said to you half facetiously that she is better than her dad. In this book, she does most of the work, almost all of the work, Someone had sent me an email saying that he had noticed that, at the end of each chapter there was something from God, which Mpho composed, and this person was saying how incredibly helpful he had found those last bits in each chapter. This was all Mpho’s creation.

“I would say that God has given her certain gifts. One can only marvel at how generous God can be and one would want to see her blossom.”

Did he have future plans to write another book with his daughter?

“Ha, I don’t know. It may possibly be and since our first experience was a very fulfilling one, I would not dread that possibility. I’ll be glad for it to happen. I hope my judgement is not clouded by the biological relationship. (laughs) I think she does have a gift in counselling and I have to be careful that I am not blinded by, as you say, blood is thicker than water. If I have to make an assessment, she has constantly surprised me by the very sound pieces of advice that she gives.”

I decided to ask him about some of the low points in his life. Most of his higlights, such as receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 and becoming South Africa’s first black Anglican archbishop has been well documented.

“One of the low points of my life was when I was the chaplain at Fort Hare when people like Barney Pityana and others were in the student body and they were all expelled because they had been demonstrating, asking for a more accountable administration. I remember on that particular occasion being very upset with God, when these kids were turfed off campus with nothing. They were told go get their luggage and each one was accompanied by a police officer.

“They were put on buses and trundled off to a station with no food. I was really very angry with God and it was at similar kinds of situations, eg June 16, finding that so many of our kids had been killed and God was doing nothing about it. I found this deeply upsetting. It made me challenge God.

On many of the occasions when one had those massacres, Boipatong, etc. when the security apparatus rode roughshod and were completely unaccountable, at those moments, we were at a very low ebb and things were not looking good. When you had people killed in detention, like Steve Biko in 1977. We had a spate of that kind of stuff and it just seemed they were blatantly getting away with murder and that really shook one’s fate. We had hit rock bottom. And then, when we had the intergroup strife, so-called black on black violence, when it seemed that black lives were cheap.”

I asked him whether, in those dark days, he believed that we would end up in a situation where we would have our freedom.

“Oh yes, I had no doubt that we would eventually win our freedom. The only question was whether one would have been there. There was never any doubt that we would be free. And when it came, the speed at which it all happened was quite breath-taking.

“But, even as you know, that period, 1990 to 1994, was an awful period for us. The intergroup strife was abominable. We had the national peace accord, which was an instrument that tried to rein in the carnage. It was awful; there were drive-by shootings, people being mown down on the trains. They (and he did not indicate who he was referring to) really wanted to subvert the process, and if you consider what was happening in KZN and in some of these areas like Sharpeville, where you had hostels. They were quite vicious. Even with all of that, one never abandoned that belief that we were going to make it, that we were going to be free.”

And what does her think about the quality of our freedom today?

“There are many, many good things. The most important is that we are free. No one can stop me in the street to ask for my pass. People used not to have the freedom to go anywhere in life, where you had curfew laws, the influx control laws. When I was Bishop of Johannesburg, I had to go to the pass office to be endorsed in and Leah had to have her pass stamped with a thing that said she had permission to be in the area of Johannesburg as long as she was married to this man. (laughs)

“We lived in both our house in Soweto and the bishop’s house in Westcliffe, and they would stop us because they wanted to strip-search my wife and daughters on the side of the road. It’s incredible really.

“All those abominations are gone. It is very difficult to talk to people who have never been un-free and try to describe to them what it feels like to be free when for so long you were not. There is such a massive difference between what we are now and what we were.

“The fact that at least on paper, you are saying there is free medical care for kids up to five and expectant mothers.

“For all of us, what we have become was demonstrated in the soccer and rugby world cups. If you had predicted in my presence that South Africa could be so patriotic, I would have told you to go see your psychiatrist.

“I mean, where else have you heard of a sports team being given a send-off? I can’t think that I have ever come across something like that. Yes, teams are welcomed back when they have won the trophy, but here 65 000 people come to say goodbye to the team and I can bet you that many of those in the crowd would not have known the difference between a try and scrum and yet they were there. We really do have an incredible spirit.

“The pride that we have now in the Springboks is quite incredible when you think that, only a few years ago, almost all black people supported the team opposing the South African team.

“And it is a team that still has not significantly transformed. It only has about three black players, yet that has not significantly shaken people to say what about representivity. There are many good things about our country today.”

And some of his concerns?

“Unlike in the apartheid dispensation, when parliament had the sovereignty, we now have the Constitution. That does change the quality of the debate. I think the ruling party has not yet understood that the Constitution has the sovereignty, the last word, and not parliament.

“Maybe we assumed a great deal. We assumed that we would remain as altruistic as we were during the struggle. If you had approached anybody who had been involved in the anti-apartheid struggle, all of them would have said that they are involved in the struggle for the sake of freedom. Whether I am there to enjoy that freedom or not is totally irrelevant. I am going to give it my all for the sake of the freedom of us all. We thought that spirit would transfer automatically to the post-apartheid era and sadly it has not.

“We have lost or seemingly have lost that self-sacrificing, altruistic, being there for the sake of others and not for the sake of self-aggrandisement.”

At this point Tutu started getting restless and I realised that we would have to end the interview soon. He said only half-joking: “Wanneer gaan ons klaarmaak, man? Ek wil gaan slaap. (When are we going to finish, man? I want to go sleep.)

I asked him whether he always wanted to become a priest.

“No, I wanted to become a doctor and I was even more determined when I contracted TB. I was admitted to Wits medical school, but we did not have the lolly. (He laughs out loud.)

“So I went to teacher training. I was a teacher until Verwoerd introduced Bantu education in high schools. He had already introduced it into primary schools. I did not have too many options, but my wife and I were very clear that we did not want to be part of ramming down our children’s throat this travesty of an education and the only viable option that remained was to become a priest. Fortunately for me, I was accepted as a candidate. I don’t know what I would have done if the bishop said to me: nee, nie jy nie (no not you).” He gives another huge laugh.

I asked him whether he thought things would have been different if he pursued a different career, for instance if he became a medical doctor or had remained an English teacher. The world might have been deprived of Desmond Tutu, the spiritual leader.

“One of the most outstanding leaders in Soweto was Dr (Nathatho) Motlana. I don’t think he has been given the recognition that he deserves, he died about a year or so ago. He was the chair of the Committee of 10, a most extraordinary person. If I had done something else, I might not have had the platform, but you did have people like Dr Motlana, and you also had some teachers. For instance, Tom Manthatha (another member of the Committee of 10) was a teacher and they stood out against the system.”

I had to ask him about his invitation to the Dalai Lama and whether, at this late stage, he remained optimistic that he would receive permission to visit South Africa.

“Sensibly, if he was going to be given a visa, they would have done that long ago. It is highly unlikely and the trick is not to have too long a period where people could have a field day clobbering government. I mean, they could still surprise us, but it is something of a sad spectacle.

“You would think that in a truly democratic South Africa, he would be welcome. This is a great man. In any other part of the world, he would be treated like a head of state. The last time I was with him in Paris, he had a huge retinue, security, outriders and things like that, you know. You would have thought that South Africa would have welcomed him.”

I told Tutu that, when I interviewed him 10 years ago, he indicated to me that he intended to retire and he restated this last year. He laughs.

“Last year when I reiterated and re-confirmed my decision, I had engagements to which I had already committed. I said that there were two things from which I would not retire; the Elders and a new initiative, e-health telemedicine – I think I’m a patron or something there. I am going to continue because I think it is a fantastic innovation.

“But I am going to surprise you – ek gaan swyg.” He laughs out loud again and turns to Raisa. “Why are you smiling like that, you don’t believe me. How can you have someone not believe an archbishop?”

Roger Friedman, a former colleague at the Cape Times who now works closely with Tutu, asked: What is swyg?” to which Tutu replies: “You don’t know swyg. It is to keep quiet, man.”

My final question is about his legacy.

“You can’t ask someone about his legacy. That is for other people to worry about. You cannot sit and say you want to be remembered in this way or that way,” he said as he gets up and said he was going to rest a bit in his room. It was just before noon.

After the interview, Tutu asked me about the welfare of a mutual friend from the United States. The Rev Kent “Buck” Bellmore, who used to be his chaplain at Emory University. Loyalty, it is clear, is one of his strong trademarks.

Friedman pointed out that I did not get to ask him about his support for Arsenal football club, but I did not want to embarrass him. I asked him, however, and he just shakes his head.

At 80, he remains as sharp as ever.

(In the first picture below, I interview Archbishop Tutu in Milnerton. In the second picture, I am with my daughter, Raisa, and Archbishop Tutu’s daughter, Mpho. We interviewed the two of them together.)

70th birthday interview with Archbishop Desmond Tutu

In 2001, I was the only journalist, as far as I knew, who interviewed Archbishop Desmond Tutu. I struggled to place the interview in international publications, because it was a few weeks after 9/11, but I did get it published in South African newspapers. I am sharing here, unedited, on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu turns 70 on Sunday. In a rare interview, with Ryland Fisher, he reflects on his life.

THERE are many sides to Archbishop Desmond Tutu. There is the self-deprecating wit and the infectious laugh, which is what most people see nowadays. But there is also the serious side to Tutu, the side which inspired and infuriated so many during the dark days of apartheid.

Contrary to popular belief today, Tutu was not universally loved during the struggle years. He was loathed by many whites, who saw him as a troublemaker, and he often incensed the anti-apartheid “comrades” with his strong moral stance on many issues.

But as he celebrates his seventh birthday today (Sunday), it is as one of the most loved South Africans still alive.

Tutu said he intended to have several birthday celebrations over the next few days.

“On the fifth, which is two days before my birthday, my successor, (Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane) has invited me and Leah to a meeting of the bishops in Bloemfontein. We will be having a dinner celebration there. We will probably have a family bash on the day itself in Soweto. Then we travel down to Cape Town by train.

“There is a concert in St George’s Cathedral on October 10 and on October 14, which is Leah’s 68th birthday, we will have a joint celebration in Bishops Court. The Archbishop (Ndungane) is giving a little party there.”

Speaking to Tutu about the highlights in his life is easy. There are so many for this Klerksdorp-born son of a school teacher and a domestic worker: winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, becoming the first black Archbishop in the Anglican Church, his leadership of the South African Council of Churches and his chairmanship of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, among others.

But the highlight he savours most is when he was told that he was a father for the first time.

“That was one of the most magical moments in my life. It made me feel so like God,” said Tutu in an interview this week.

He also singled out the release of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first democratic elections and “perhaps being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize”.

“At that particular time in the history of our country it was such an incredible thing.”

Receiving the Nobel Peace Prize was also what made him feel most hopeful, in the apartheid days, that South Africa would change for the better.

“When I was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, I knew that God was going to help focus the attention of the world a little more on our situation. (Receiving the Nobel Peace Prize) gave notice to the perpetrators of injustice that the world was watching. It was encouraging our people that their cause was just.

“It opened doors. The minute it was announced I got a call from the White House. We were in New York at the time and I had been trying to see Ronald Reagan, but he did not want to see me. Then suddenly the doors were being flung open.’”

Asked about the low points of his life, Tutu again chooses something personal.

“You know when your child doesn’t go in the direction in which you were hoping. The pain of that is severe,” he said, with obvious reference to his son, Trevor, who has hit the headlines several times for the wrong reasons in the past few years. Tutu also has three daughters and several grandchildren.

But Tutu also bore the pain of being involved in the struggle and “shared in the anguish of so many who were being made to suffer so totally unnecessarily”.

“It was painful when you visited some of apartheid’s stamping grounds, the Bantustan homelands, and saw people who had been uprooted.

 “It was also painful when you were in places where there was violence and you had to visit in the aftermath of that violence, looking at the devastation.”

Tutu becomes almost tearful when he recalls another devastating aspect during the struggle years, this time on the part of the so-called comrades.

“ When our people were using the necklace (killing of people by burning a tyre around their neck) and we saw our children dancing around a burning corpse, you just shuddered and said: ‘What has happened to us that we could sink so low that our children could actually exalt in this?’

“I was addressing a funeral on the East Rand, soon after a necklacing had happened in Thokoza. I didn’t know what to say to register my abhorrence and I said if we didn’t stop using that method I would take my children and my family and leave the county that I love. I did not mean it literally but I was just trying to say how appalled I was.”

His time with the TRC is coming to an end at the end of December when the commission is supposed to hand their final reports to the government.

For Tutu, there were many highlights and many low points during his term as chairman of the TRC.

“One of the highlights for me was at the first hearing in East London, when someone who had suffered quite extensively, as it happened a white person, spoke so very warmly about forgiving.

“ Another highlight would be the Bisho hearing where the former head of the Ciskei Defence Force greatly incensed people, not so much with what he was saying but how he was saying it. The hall was packed with the loved ones of victims of that massacre, and the tension was very high. After this army officer had spoken the tension shot even higher. Then four officers came up and said they had given the orders for the soldiers to shoot and you thought the place was going to go up in flames.

Then this man turned to the audience and said: ‘Please forgive us’ and, totally unexpected, the place erupted in thunderous applause. You would have thought that the opposite reaction should have been the appropriate one, given how the people were feeling. It was an incredible moment.

“The low point for me must be the sadness at non-participation by white people by and large. Despite all the statements that we made, they still claimed that the TRC was a witch-hunt against whites and it was set up to be biased in favour of the ANC. The quite extraordinarily ungenerous attitude of many whites in the face of the magnanimity that was coming largely from black people was disappointing.

“Many on white side missed a golden opportunity of being able to account for the past in which they were involved, whether voluntary or involuntary. They were part of a horrendous system that had visited untold suffering on their fellow South Africans who happened to be black.

“They may not all have supported apartheid but they benefited and were collaborators, willingly or unwillingly. There was a great failure on the part of the white leadership because, on the whole, they did not do what they alone could have done which was to have said to their fellow whites: ‘Hey, let us recognise just how lucky we have been.’

“The history around us in the world, the Bosnia’s, the Middle East, the Northern Ireland, just show what we were saved from. When you think riots are happening, not in South Africa, but in Britain, and children are escorted by soldiers, not in South Africa, but in Northern Ireland.

“When you see the awful carnage that is happening in the Middle East, with suicide bombers and the retaliation that happens there, we have been spared that. Had one prominent white leader said to the community: ‘We have been exceedingly fortunate and let us translate our gratitude into a generosity,’ it would have made a difference.”

Asked if there was anything he still wanted to achieve with his life, Tutu said: “I want to be able to help people develop the good that is in all of them to the fullest possible extent and to make them know that we are made for reaching out for the stars.

“Sometimes our kids think that the people who have achieved were born with silver spoons in their mouths. It will probably be a good thing if we could just remind them how many came from poor circumstances. There are very few of my contemporaries who would say that they came from a home that had running water and electricity.

“Circumstances were not conducive to achievements, but they have achieved. I wish to be able to make people believe that you are a masterpiece in the making. You are really special. And that while material circumstances are important, they are not as important as who you are, the kind of person you are.”

During the apartheid days, when Nelson Mandela was still in prison and the ANC banned, did he ever think that South Africans would once day have their freedom?

“Yes, I never doubted that it would happen one day. The thing that did surprise me is the speed in which it happened. Once it started, there was no stopping.

“The pieces sort of fell in place much more quickly than I had thought. I didn’t even think that I would be around to see it. Although I had been making predictions in 1984, when I would say in 10 years time we would have a democratic country, but that was also a kind of whistling in the dark. It was meant to keep up our spirits and boost our morale. That was one of the things that we needed to do, to say to our people: ‘Don’t give up, don’t despair’.

“And the people were tremendous. They were remarkable in the resilience that they showed.”

Tutu attributes the speed with which apartheid ended to events happening in the world at the time.

“There is a nice passage in the bible where someone speaks about ‘in the fullness of time when things are just right. Not a moment too soon, not a moment too late’. We would not have seen the same speed, even perhaps the same kind of transformation, if all these things had not happened in the world at the time, for instance if the Berlin Wall had not fallen.

“We might have eventually arrived at it, but I think it would have been a great deal more tardy. (Former president FW) De Klerk would have found it very difficult to persuade his people that it was right to release Nelson Mandela. It was right at the time because he couldn’t with any credibility claim that they were still the bastion against Soviet expansionism, when there was no Soviet expansionism to deal with. It was crucial that Gorbachev happened when he did.

“I think it was largely that and the new leadership in the world that that was demanding a greater space for the observance of human rights, freedom and democracy. Things gained a momentum. But you also need to have the right people in the right place. Had (former president) PW (Botha) remained, maybe he too would have also been bowled over and stampeded by the force of events, but he would have been a more unlikely agent than De Klerk, although he too had the kind of anticipants that had not held up a lot of promise.”

Tutu said he had several periods of depression during the apartheid years.

“Remember in 1977, when you had (the killing of Steve) Biko and you had all of these things, including the bannings (of several organisations and newspapers).

“In those days it really seemed that those guys were the top dogs and they were going to remain ensconced in power until kingdom come. We realised that we were in for a long haul. Also, the outside world was by and large supportive of apartheid, apart from the Scandinavian countries that continued to give us wonderful support.

“The powerful were not on our side, and it was awful but also it was thrilling to see and experience the support one was getting from ordinary people, when the Margaret Thatchers and Ronald Reagans of this world were against us.

“But we did have remarkable support. In 1988 when we were celebrating Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday. That turnout of nearly quarter of a million, especially young people at Hyde Park Corner, was fantastic.

“Yet there were times when you felt saddened and like you were hitting your head against a stone wall. I remember going to see Maggie Thatcher in 1987. I was trying to get her to see our point of view about sanctions and she was saying that she was quite firmly set against sanctions. Of course, she then had the Falklands war and she was one of the first to call for sanctions against Argentina.”

Tutu said he did not always want to become a priest. In fact, he had wanted to become a doctor and had been accepted at Wits Medical School.

“I didn’t take up my place, because my parents didn’t have money and I didn’t have a bursary. I became a teacher. I taught high school for four years and really enjoyed teaching. But then (former president Hendrick) Verwoerd introduced Bantu education, and I felt I couldn’t collaborate in this so-called ‘gutter education’. I didn’t have too many options. I resigned as a teacher and the only thing that I could do was to train for the priesthood.

“I was fortunate to have been accepted. It has been fantastic. It has had many moments of sadness but very many high points and has been really tremendously fulfilling.

“I have to pay a very warm tribute to my wife, Leah. She has been incredibly supportive. Many people will not easily believe it, but she is far more radical politically than I am. I mean, compared to her I’m a softie.”

Tutu said the most impressive political leader he has met was former Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere because of “his extraordinary humanity and transparent intelligence”.

“Tanzania is a strange country. It is poor, but I have never seen people so at peace with themselves. They have an incredible dignity about them. Nyerere clearly influenced the ethos of that nation in a remarkable kind of way.”

Asked if there was anything about the situation in South Africa today that concerned him, Tutu said that his greatest longing would be “for us to recapture the spirit of altruism, which was such a shining characteristic of the struggle.

“During the time of the struggle, it was almost uncanny. Many young people were ready to undergo some of the most awful experiences. They didn’t mind teargas, dogs, quirts, being arrested, tortured and even killed. You can almost say they had a kind of bravado. But when you said to them: ‘Look, you could get killed’, they would say: ‘Well, I don’t mind if it means that the condition of our people is going to be changed, and changed for the better.’

“I wish we could recover that.”

Tutu is clearly upset about what has happened in the United States and concerned that the response of the United States “will not find itself being in the same league of awfulness as the outrage that provoked it”.

“One can understand the calls for revenge and retribution. But then you first have to ask: ‘Revenge against whom?’ The perpetrators, those who masterminded the attacks, should be brought to justice, but it must be justice that operates under the rule of law. It mustn’t just be suspicion; there must be hard evidence.

“One of the things that has made these attacks so horrendous, is that it has involved innocent civilians. If you are going to have a strike, say against Afghanistan, innocent civilians are going to suffer. That can’t be right, and one has to be highly critical of the terms that are used. How can one talk about collateral damage, when you are talking about mothers, sister and fathers?

“Yes, inflict damage on whichever target is chosen, but what is the point, because all it will do is deepen the resentment that people have, the sense of grievance and this will be the best recruiter for the next suicide bombers.

“One hopes that the people of the United States, who are great people, a great nation of very generous people, should realise that their greatness should not be measured by economic or military strength? It should be measured by their moral greatness.

“If they can remember Nagasaki and Hiroshima. If they can remember little girls running naked, aflame from napalm bombs. If they can remember Nicaragua, remember and realise what we realised here in South Africa, that true security will never come from the barrel of a gun and that without forgiveness there is no future.”

Tutu said he has been “less busy” the past year in South Africa than he had been the previous two years in the United States.

“I have been travelling. I still get asked to speak here and there. I have done a fair amount of pulbic speaking but not as much as I used to.”

Asked what he was doing with his spare time, he said: “I try to read a little bit, sleep and pray a bit more.”

Asked about his health (he is suffering from prostate cancer), he said he was feeling “a lot better”.

And did he have a message for South Africa and the world on the occasion of his 70th birthday?

“It’s great to be alive. Enjoy life, enjoy it, live it to the full man.”

Remembering the United Democratic Front

Thirty years ago, almost to the day, on 20 August 1983, I was sitting on the rafters at a packed Rocklands Civic Centre. The occasion was the launch of the anti-Apartheid coalition, the United Democratic Front (UDF), which was formed out of a few hundred organisations opposed to reforms introduced by the Apartheid government.

I was sitting on the rafters because there was no other place where I could comfortably follow proceedings as nearly 15,000 people packed the hall and the huge marquee that had been set up outside. Nowadays my activities would probably be considered illegal, as stringent city by-laws now control how many people are allowed inside public spaces. Sitting on the rafters would be frowned upon by the city fathers.

Speakers at the launch included struggle stalwarts such as Helen Joseph, Frances Baard, Archie Gumede, Oscar Mpetha, Samson Ndou, George Sewpersadh, along with younger activists such as Aubrey Mokoena and the Rev. Frank Chikane. The youngest speaker was eight-year-old Leila Issel, who spoke on behalf of her father, Johnny Issel, who was “banned and cannot be here today”. From where I sat on the rafters I saw Issel, probably one of the most formidable activists in the country at the time, sitting in the audience in disguise. Knowing Johnny the way I did, there was no way that he was going to miss this important event, banning order or not.

But the biggest cheer was reserved for the Rev. Allan Boesak who had mooted the idea of a united front against Apartheid when he spoke at the Transvaal Anti-SAIC committee in January that year. Boesak’s proposal led to a committee being formed to investigate the feasibility of such a structure and, once agreement had been reached, in July 1983, the UDF was launched within three weeks.

The ANC and other political organisations were banned at the time, and the UDF signalled a new upsurge in internal protest against Apartheid. While the organisers of the UDF insisted that it was not a front for the ANC or any other organisation, it became clear very early on that the organisation would be a key ally to organisations forced to operate from exile. The ANC was banned, of course, and any organisation openly aligning itself to the ANC and its aims would also have been banned, almost with immediate effect.

Starting from a focus of attention on the tricameral parliament which was launched by the Apartheid regime as a way of involving coloureds and Indians in their own parliaments while excluding Africans, the UDF very quickly started taking up other political issues and became the main opposition to Apartheid inside the country. Through its continuous mass protests it played a key role in forcing the Nationalist government to the negotiating table with the ANC.

The UDF’s strength was its community structures. It was comprised of of community, youth, women, worker, religious, sport and other organisations, many of them with strong roots in communities throughout South Africa. The organisation was strongly anti-Apartheid but based many of its decisions and activities on a strong commitment to non-racialism, non-sexism and the desire for a more equitable society. It provided a solid training ground for many activists who ended up occupying senior positions within government after South Africa’s first democratic elections almost 20 years ago. Of course, as soon as the ANC was unbanned and its leaders returned to South Africa, it disbanded the UDF, perhaps sensing that it could pose a threat to South Africa’s oldest liberation movement.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) when the UDF turns 30, it will not be celebrated in any major way, except for a paid televised breakfast which appears to have side-tracked from its original intentions to include a tribute to the UDF.

This is not surprising, given the suspicion with which the UDF has always been viewed by some people within the exile section of the ANC. There is also, I suppose, the fear that one would not want to create confusion with the recently re-launched UDF by disgruntled Western Cape activists, who have even hijacked the original UDF colours, logo and slogans. But while the UDF enjoyed mass support, the new organisation appears to enjoy only sporadic support, despite trying to trade on the original organisation’s history.

But while there might not be mass rallies celebrating one of the key organisations against Apartheid, it is important to revisit the values that we learnt from the UDF as young activists. Some of those values still drive many activists to this day. It is important to ask what the UDF stood for and to see how far we have come as a free country in delivering on the demands that people had 30 years ago. It is a good barometer of what still needs to be done in our country.

One of the key lessons we can learn from the UDF today was its commitment to democracy and transparency. Every decision made by the UDF was discussed at length at community level and, as a result, gathered widespread support when implemented. Despite existing under the watchful eye of the security police, the organisation still managed to consult widely. There was always a tendency to share more than was necessary with the people on whose behalf the organisation operated.

Tomorrow I hope to find a quiet corner where I can reflect on the impact that the UDF had on my life and the lives of many others. I will think about the many comrades who sacrificed their lives so that we can be free today. And I will try to think of ways in which I can help to achieve the South Africa for which they were prepared to lay down their lives. DM

(First published by the Daily Maverick, Monday 19 August 2013)

My vaccination journey

There are many myths that get spread easily, especially in the days of social media. One such myth is that government is always incompetent and the private sector is always (more) competent.

My experience of the vaccination process, my wife’s experience and what I have heard from friends, while it is not a definitive or scientific study, show that sometimes the private sector can get it wrong, while government can get it right.

I had my first injection more than six weeks ago at the Life Kingsbury private hospital in Claremont. My second jab, on Monday morning, was at the Clicks pharmacy/store at Cavendish Square.

As someone who is always trying to abide by the law and regulations, after registering promptly on the Department of Health database after registration for those aged 60 and over opened, I waited patiently for an SMS with details of an appointment. I refused to just walk in before I was called.

My SMS arrived on the afternoon of Friday 18 June. I had to be at Life Kingsbury between 8am and 10am on Monday, 21 June.

It was all fairly well organised and I was in an out in about 90 minutes. There were a few walk-ins, but they had to wait on the side while those with appointments were helped immediately. Apart from standing in a short queue, we were seated throughout the process. We were even offered a free cappuccino while we waited.

I had mild side-effects. I was extremely tired for a day or two and felt nauseous, but otherwise I was fine. I began to worry about my second vaccination because some “ friends” told me that it would be worse than the first.

A few weeks later, I went with my wife to the hospital in Lentegeur, Mitchells Plain, for her vaccination. Despite the long queue when we arrived, I was impressed with the organisation. They moved swiftly and efficiently and were also in and out of there in about 90 minutes. There were also plenty of seats, which is necessary considering that you are dealing with mainly older people.

I received an SMS last Friday evening to inform me that I had to report for my second vaccination at Clicks at Cavendish Square in Claremont on Monday morning between 9am and 11am. On Sunday morning, I received a call from someone at Clicks, checking whether I was still coming and asking me to be there between 9am and 10am.

I was there shortly after 9am and joined a queue outside which, somebody told us, was the vaccination queue. After waiting a few minutes and with no sign of any movement, my wife went inside the shop to find out what was happening. She was told that we had to wait for someone who would tell us what was happening.

While we were waiting outside the shop, there was at least one woman of 85 also standing in line with us. We offered to look for a chair for her, but she said she was okay. Her daughter eventually when to look for someone to speak to inside and she was allowed to take a seat inside the shop.

After more than 30 minutes, someone finally came out and told us to sit on chairs just inside the front door or the shop.

We waited there for probably another 30 minutes. One of the shop attendants came to check whether we needed vaccination cards and I told him that I already had one. He said that was fine.

While waiting there, no one came to ask us who had appointments and who were walk-ins. The most painful thing about the wait was probably listening to the canned music that retail shops – because this is what Clicks is – routinely play. I don’t know the psychology of it, but I am convinced that if you played the music backwards, you will hear then urging you to “buy, buy, buy”. But seriously, having to listen to the Spice Girls and others of their ilk so early on a Monday morning is just not on.

After waiting for more than an hour, we were finally told to go to a counter where we were registered, our details taken and told to wait to be vaccinated. The woman at this counter told me and another man who had been there since 9am that those of us with appointments should have come through immediately. There were quite a few “walk-ins” who were vaccinated ahead of us.

She did not ask me for the proof of my appointment, but she did ask for my medical aid details.

She apologised before sending me to Sister Nokulunga Zulu who handled my vaccination with friendliness and professionalism, in stark contrast to the way I had been treated up until then. The vaccination itself, like the first one, was over in a minute.

As I left the sister, I was told by a shop assistant that I had to go sit for 15 minutes in the queue at the pharmacy, among the people waiting to receive medication from the pharmacy.

No one came to check up on me, unlike at Kingsbury where there was always a nurse or nursing assistant asking if you were okay. Two guys who were vaccinated after me just walked away without waiting the required 15 minutes. But, like I said, I am law-abiding, so I waited.

At the end of this process, I found myself thinking about why it is that people always think that corporate is always better than government. Here was a clear case that proved that this is not always the case.

Since I have had the vaccination, I have had many friends and associates asking me how I felt and whether I had any side effects. I have not felt any side effects, except feeling a bit tired immediately afterwards and my arm feeling a bit painful a day or two later. Contrary to expectations, the second vaccination was more comfortable and less painful than the first.

I am glad I got the injection when I did, and I am under no illusion that I am now completely safe. In fact, I have seen some people referring to themselves as being “fully vaccinated”. I don’t think that is possible. But I am glad that I have taken the first step towards protecting me and my family. I don’t intend to start partying, and I will still wash my hands regularly, sanitise obsessively and keep a safe distance from other people and mask up.

My vaccination journey might be over for now, but the battle against the coronavirus is far from over.

(Written especially for this website on Thursday 5 August 2021)

Sister Nokulunga Zulu administers my second vaccination on Monday morning.

A good life and an unfulfilled dream

All Ebrahim Jabaar wanted in his old age was to return to District Six, the place from where he and his family were forcibly removed more than 40 years ago.

But this did not happen and Boeta Hiema, as he was known to the community or Papa, as he was known to us as close family, died early on Sunday morning – at the age of 84 – without that dream being realised.

The fact that Papa left this earth without being able to return to District Six has left me and other family members angry. I am angry at myself for not being able to help him more, but I am especially angry at the government – at all levels – for failing this man who religiously went to meetings over the past 20-odd years to listen to all kinds of supposed community leaders and government officials telling him why the progress on the District Six restitution process has been so slow.

The national Minister and Department of Agriculture, Rural Development and Land Affairs, their provincial counterparts, the Land Claims Commission and the City of Cape Town all need to hang their heads in shame as another former District Six resident – who desperately wanted to return home – has died before his wish was granted.

District Six, as most people know, was declared a white group area in 1966, leading to the forced removal of thousands of residents over almost a 20-year period. Papa and his family were among those to be removed in the late 1970s. 

Papa’s reference number for his District Six restitution claim was J150, a number he memorised because he had to repeat it every time he interacted with officials. I remember how Papa was often the only person on a bus from Westridge to Lentegeur to attend meetings where he would be briefed about what was happening in District Six. He would always come back dejected.

In later years, as Papa became weaker, my wife Ibtisaan and I would go with him and Mama to attend meetings, whether it was in the City Hall or at a school in District Six.

Papa had grown fed up with the excuses and just wanted to know when he was going to get a house.

The last official interaction we had with the people who are supposed to make this happen was in mid-April when Papa was interviewed online by a panel set up by the Land Claims Commission who vetted prospective candidates for houses in the next section of the rebuilt District Six, which they called District Six Development Phase 3.

He gave the panel a hard time. It consisted of young people who probably have no empathy for the original residents of District Six (but I could be wrong). Papa told them that he has been going to meetings for more than 20 years, but he has been waiting for more than 40 years to return.

They told us they would get back to us by the middle of May with an answer as to whether and when he would get a house, but this was another broken promise. We are still waiting to hear from them.

Every time we visited the family home in Westridge, Mitchells Plain, Papa would ask whether I had heard from the Land Claims Commissions. and I could feel the disappointment every time I replied in the negative. We had hoped that he would get a special birthday present when he turned 84 on 2 May this year.

Papa was so much more than number J150, something the District Six officials failed to understand. 

It makes me angry that, in writing this tribute to Papa, I had to start with his unfulfilled dream.

Papa worked as an ironer in the clothing industry for many years and Mama (Gadija née Saban) has always been an amazing dressmaker. She made all my daughters’ matric ball dresses based on a sketch or a picture – and they were perfect.

I used to marvel at how meticulous Papa used to iron his and other people’s trousers. He took great pride in his work. If you looked at pictures of Papa from earlier days, you would see that he always went to work wearing a suit and tie.

As long as I have known Papa – and I have been part of the family for more than 35 years – he has always been an active person. He did all the shopping for the house. I don’t think Mama has seen the inside of a shop in decades. They were married for more than 57 years and Mama has just turned 81.

Papa was a true patriarch of the family and – before COVID – his modest house was always full of family who came to visit: from his three children, the grandchildren, and the dozens of great grandchildren and great great grandchildren, to extended family members who he loved almost equally and entertained with stories of yesterday.

Papa loved his tea and coffee (he insisted that we bring him filter coffee so he could enjoy a special brew from time to time) and he made hot drinks every couple of hours for him and Mama. For as long as I can remember, Papa would get up every morning and make Mama a cup of tea and/or porridge while she was still in bed.

And he loved to drive to one of the local shopping centres and then just walk from shop to shop.

Sometimes, when we talked about politics, Papa recalled how he attended political rallies on the Grand Parade in the early 1960s and he spoke about the march from Langa to Cape Town led by Philip Kgosana. He was a strong rugby supporter, and only supported non-racial sport in the apartheid days.

In the past few months, as his health declined, it was sad to see Papa being bedridden and not being able to look after himself. But I also sensed that he felt bad about not being able to look after Mama in the way that he had done for years.

When he accidentally fell and broke his hip bone during a recent visit to hospital, it was the beginning of the end. He had to have an emergency operation and, while he was trying to recover at home, his blood sugar levels shot up so dramatically that he had to be re-admitted to hospital.

For most of his last hospital stay, Papa was unresponsive and we knew, even though none of us would admit it, that his end was near.

But we were still shocked when we received the call at around 2am on Sunday morning: Papa had just passed away.

In accordance with Muslim rites, he was buried around 11am on Sunday morning after short Janaazah prayers outside his house in Prairie Court, Westridge. 

Papa would have wanted everyone in the court to participate and witness his final goodbyes, I thought to myself. He was a community person at heart and we used to joke about how, over the past ten years or so, all the widows in the neighbourhood called on him to help with plumbing and other jobs.

We buried Papa at the Mowbray cemetery in accordance with his wishes. It was the closest we could bring him to his beloved District Six to which he will now never return. 

May he rest in peace.

(Written especially for this site on Tuesday, 15 June 2021)

Papa on the day after his birthday in May 2021.

Papa and Mama with daughter Ibtisaan, son Sierag and granddaughter Farieda outsdide their house in Mitchells Plain.

Papa and Mama in aclassic Van Kalker photo taken outside the post office in Cape Town.

We shall overcome - 27 years of freedom

On Tuesday, democratic South Africa turns 27. It is an age when our country can no longer be considered young and when we would have been expected to deal with many of the problems we inherited from our apartheid past.

When I think of the number 27, three instances come to mind. The first is that 27 is the number of the prison gang which, according to criminologists, are the guardians of gang law and responsible for peacekeeping in prisons. The second is that the 27 Club is a group of talented musicians who all died at the age of 27, after already making their mark on the music industry. The third is that Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison for our freedom.

South Africa is not a prison gang and is too young to die, even though, with the state of the economy and the rampant corruption that we hear about almost on a daily basis at the Zondo Commission into state capture, there are some political analysts who believe that our democracy is seriously if not fatally under threat. There is always a need for our democracy to be guarded against those who are trying to subvert it.

South Africa is in crisis, but, in my humble opinion, this too shall pass. We have overcome worse under apartheid and we shall overcome this tumultuous period as well.

The mistake that many make when they talk about South Africa is to talk only about politics and the economy. While these two things are important, they are not what makes up our society in totality. There are so many aspects of our society to consider: arts and culture, sport, education, housing, social cohesion, civil society, but, most importantly, the people of South Africa. We have some of the most resilient people in the world right here in South Africa.

Politically, South Africa is facing a difficult period with the national ruling party, the ANC, facing an identity crisis with two factions fighting for control of the organisation. Both factions, which would like to be known for promoting certain policies, are strongly based on support for prominent ANC leaders: president Cyril Ramaphosa on the one side with former president Jacob Zuma and/or general secretary Ace Magashule on the other.

On the face of it, this is a battle for the soul of the ANC, but whether the ANC’s soul can still be saved is debatable. The party appears to have moved too far away from the one that had leaders of the calibre of Oliver Tambo, Chris Hani, Walter Sisulu and Nelson Mandela.

The choices for voters outside of the ANC is rather barren, with the DA appearing to be going back to what they know: appealing to white voters, and the EFF trying hard to be revolutionary while enjoying middle- and upper-class luxuries not normally associated with revolution.

South Africa’s economy, which was already battered and bruised after the last global economic recession, was given more serious blows by the coronavirus pandemic which all but crippled the country and the economy over the past year and a bit.

The unemployment rate has gone through the roof with, depending on who you speak with, figures of between 30 and 60 percent being bandied about.

Several industries have been severely affected by the pandemic, including tourism, events and arts and culture, as people who depended on audiences for income had to find ways of reinventing themselves.

The demise of tourism, in particular, has been felt greatly in South Africa, where it was seen as one of the pillars of our economic growth strategy. The great fear is that the sector will take several years to recover, even if COVID is defeated and everyone is successfully vaccinated.

The government’s response has been to throw little bits of money at the problems, for instance the R350 monthly grant which is meant to support people who lost their livelihood because of COVID. Government has not been helped by the ineptitude of officials in certain sectors, such as arts and culture, where a mixture of corruption and inefficiency meant that many artists did not get the money they were supposed to get to help them deal with the pandemic.

Government has vacillated with a succession of economic plans to take the country forward. It started with the Reconstruction and Development Plan (RDP) which was headed up by special ministry led by Jay Naidoo in 1994. This quickly gave way to the Growth, Employment and Redistribution Plan (GEAR) in 1996, but this also did not last long.

Government began to implement the National Development Plan in 2013 with the noble aim of eliminating poverty and reducing inequality by 2030. Even before COVID, the NDP appeared to be heading into trouble and began to look increasingly impossible to implement.

Twenty-seven years into our democracy – remember the long queues when we voted for the first time on 27 April 1994 – South Africa has not made much progress to deliver the country we were promised at the time.

Corruption and an inefficient public service are easy to blame for this lack of basic service delivery. A bigger and more sinister reason could be a lack of political will.

(First published as an opinion piece in the Sunday Independent on 25 April 2021)