A foreign viewpoint exposes SA’s harsh reality

Ryland Fisher says we should not accept the inequalities in our society, but should work hard in order to truly say we have forsaken all vestiges of apartheid.

I am often asked to speak to groups of overseas visitors. Sometimes they are people interested in investing in South Africa; sometimes students.

This week I spent time with visitors from South East Asia attached to an overseas foundation with which I have been working closely over the past few months.

What was different this time was they asked me to show them around Cape Town and the Cape Flats and they were particularly interested in seeing inequalities, how these manifest and what people are doing to cope with them.

Most of the group are involved in healthcare initiatives in their countries.

I’m not a tour guide, but I realised they did not want a guided tour and I am a proud South African and welcome every opportunity to speak to foreigners about what we are doing right and wrong in our country.

I took them to Khayelitsha, where we visited some health facilities and the newly built Isivivana Youth Centre which will house several NGOs. It is similar to Salt River’s Community House but far nicer.

I also took them to Hout Bay because I have always been fascinated by how three distinct and different communities live side by side and depend on one another for survival there.

I also thought after a day of seeing all the hardship many experience on a daily basis, my guests should also be exposed to the beauty of Llandudno, Camps Bay and Clifton, which we passed on our way back to their hotel in the southern suburbs.

Nothing speaks more about the inequality in South Africa than comparing these beautiful suburbs to places like Khayelitsha.

But first, on the way to Khayelitsha, I decided to show them the Trojan Horse Memorial in Thornton Road, Athlone and the Gugulethu Seven Memorial in what is now known as Steve Biko Street in Gugulethu.

I have been to all these places many times before, but it is different when one is accompanied by people from other countries because they sometimes see things one would not observe.

The questions were many and some seemed strange to a South African hardened over the years by having lived under apartheid. At the Trojan Horse Memorial, some of my guests kept asking me to explain what had happened because they could not fathom that anyone could do what police did on that day in October 1985, when they jumped out of crates on the back of a South African Railways truck and started shooting indiscriminately at youth gathered in the street, killing Jonathan Claassen, aged 21, Shaun Magmoed, 15 and Michael Miranda, 11 and injuring many others.

“What kind of person would do such a thing? This is incomprehensible,” said one of my guests.

My reply was that apartheid was incomprehensible. The same type of questions were asked at the Gugulethu Seven Memorial.

Today it seems weird a group made up of roughly 15 or 20 percent of the population could oppress the majority for so long. They determined where we lived, who we could sleep with or marry, where we could go to school, where we could work.

They determined every aspect of our lives and got away with it for three centuries of colonialism and 46 years of legalised apartheid.

As we walked through a clinic in Khayelitsha and the nursing sisters were telling us about the struggles they deal with on a daily basis, I could not help thinking about how fortunate so many of us are who don’t live in a township like Khayelitsha, even those who live in the suburbs and go to do good work in the townships.

The difference for those who live in the suburbs and work in the townships is they get to go home every night to a place more comfortable than anything you might experience in the township. They can also, at any time decide to withdraw completely.

Those who live in places like Khayelitsha do not have that luxury.

This is their home and they have to make things work there in order to be able to provide their children with a better future.

This might sound like platitudes, but ultimately we all want the same things for our children. We want them to grow up in a decent environment, have a good education and afterwards have access to the best possible employment opportunities.

It is of course much harder if your starting point is Khayelitsha or Mitchells Plain as opposed to Camps Bay or Constantia.

My guests this week could not understand why so many people continue to live in poverty. Many South Africans have accepted this as part of our reality.

But we need to start imagining a reality where things will be different for people in townships such as Khayelitsha, and where the gap between rich and poor is no longer so wide.

Sometimes all it takes is to walk through the townships and commit yourself to working with others to change the living conditions of people. I kept on wondering how many local white people have ever gone willingly into places like Khayelitsha.

My guests told me they had learnt a great deal from me.

I learnt much from them because their realities are different from ours.

I learnt we should not accept the inequalities in our society. We should be working hard to change things so we can truly say we have forsaken all vestiges of apartheid. Otherwise townships like Khayelitsha will always be stark reminders of our dark past.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 18 June 2016)

Government and business need to work together

When the National Development Plan (NDP) was adopted in 2012, it was greeted with a lot of excitement. It was the only document, as far as I know, that was adopted by most political parties, with the SACP being one of the notable exceptions. There was general agreement that Trevor Manuel and his 25 independent members of the National Planning Commission (NPC) had done a sterling job of painting the society that we wished to see in South Africa in 2030.

Since then there has been a perception that not much has happened with the implementation of the NDP. At a conference in Gauteng this week, hosted by Topco Media and supported by the NPC, government representatives were at pains to say that this is not so. They pointed out that the NDP informs all government activities, including their strategic medium term expenditure framework and the priorities outlined by the President in his state of the nation address in February.

They instead pointed fingers at the business community, saying that they are not doing enough to promote the NDP.

I facilitated the two-day conference and, as I sat there listening to speaker after speaker talking about the need for business and government to work together, I found myself thinking: why are they not working together? Is the mistrust between government and business so huge that they cannot work together to turn this country into the place envisaged in the NDP?

I realised that, more often than not, government is only interested in promoting its own interests while business is only interested in the profit margin. Both end up saying what they think others want to hear, and hear only what they want to hear. A lot of the time they end up talking past each other.

Which is why I love someone like Matthews Phosa, who understands government and business and who is still enough of an activist to care about the future of our country and not only care about making profits, even though he is now firmly ensconced in business.

He has no political ambition, having already being the Premier of Mpumalanga and the treasurer-general of the ANC. My sense is that his comments are made honestly and with the best interests of the country at heart.

Phosa, who spoke on a panel with Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe, Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba and SA Revenue Services Commissioner Tom Moyane, said the NDP was not a plan for government, but for society and that “we can and must make it work”.

Among the things standing in the way of the successful implementation of the NDP, Phosa said, were “the poverty of capable, committed and visionary leadership”, “lip service being paid to the NDP”, the lack of a “capable state that is strong on governance” and “deployment of politicians to executive operational positions”. These things, he said, were “hurting our ability to implement the NDP”.

Phosa argued that for economic transformation to take hold in South Africa, we must start treating each other with dignity and respect.

The “most significant outstanding issue on our agenda of liberation” was to deal with the unequal society that we find in South Africa, he said.

“It is clear that government cannot create economic growth and prosperity on its own, and is also clear that the private sector cannot create economic growth and prosperity in isolation.

“Economic growth and prosperity is only possible when all role-players overcome issues of trust and other obstacles to work together in order to achieve a common objective that will bring prosperity to South Africa.”

Phosa said that South Africa could not “cling to the successes of the past to achieve our goals”. He said South Africa needs to work towards being the number one economy on the continent once again.

“We need to decide, as a nation, whether we want to be governed by history or the future that we can create ourselves. Can we continue to blame apartheid while we have the power and the opportunity to shape our future?”

Phosa said that South Africa has “been spared the humiliation that accompanies an investment downgrade in the market – for now. To avoid a downgrade in the future, we must take matters in our own hands and not wait for guidance or humiliation from the rating agencies.”

He drew loud applause when he quoted the Seven Social Sins published by Mahatma Gandhi: wealth without work; pleasure without conscience; knowledge without character; commerce without morality; science without humanity; worship without sacrifice; and politics without principle.

In all likelihood, the leadership in the ruling party and in government will probably react with anger to Phosa’s assertion that they paid lip service to the NDP. He said he had previously asked the leadership of our country to make the NDP central to all government’s activities and budgets and to evaluate the implementation of the NDP in performance agreements with ministers and senior officials. In his input, Radebe said that they were already doing this.

All the government representatives at the conference proclaimed loudly that they are implementing the NDP. Maybe the problem is in the way government is communicating their progress and their plans. It is possible that they are winking in the dark. But that is probably the subject of another column.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on 11 June 2016)

Cape Flats communities were always part of Struggle

It is difficult for me to accept that it has been 40 years since 16 June 1976 when police shot protesters in Soweto who did not want to be taught in Afrikaans. The first and very dramatic victim was Hector Pieterson, with the picture of his body, brilliantly captured by Sam Nzima, putting South Africa on the front pages of newspapers all around the world for all the wrong reasons.

The protests started in Soweto but quickly led to a nationwide uprising, including intense almost civil war in the Western Cape, in which hundreds more people were killed.

The government-appointed Cillie Commission of Enquiry found that 575 people died throughout the country, with 451 being the result of police action. These figures have been criticised as being way too low.

Why I find it difficult to accept that it has been 40 years is because what happens in that year is still imprinted vividly on my mind. It is like it happened yesterday.

I have previously written about my own story and how the happenings in 1976 was effectively what convinced me as a 16-year-old to throw my lot in with the struggle. It felt like the only thing to do.

It is important to remind ourselves that the protests, while it started in Soweto, did not end there. In fact, it continued in the Western Cape for a long while afterwards. And, like in Soweto, many people were killed and injured in the Western Cape for showing their support for the students’ struggle.

Because there was no television at the time, we depended on the newspapers and word of mouth for our information. As a result, the reaction from students in the Western Cape was relatively slow, with the first real support reported in the last week of June, when students from Langa came out. However, over the next few weeks, students at the University of the Western Cape came out in support as well as students from high schools across the Western Cape, and mainly from what we call “coloured” areas.

There is a narrative which has gained a lot of currency in recent years that “coloured” people, particularly in the Western Cape, never really supported the Struggle and that is why it was easy for the Nationalist Party and subsequently the DA to rule in the province.

But what transpired in 1976 was not an aberration. It was a natural conclusion to what had been happening in the Western Cape politically and a natural forerunner to what was to come in the 1980s with the huge support in the Western Cape for the United Democratic front (UDF) and its subsidiary organisations.

Organisations who supported the Black Consciousness philosophy had been very prominent in the Western Cape in the 1970s, led by people such as Johnny Issel and Peter Jones. It was therefore not a surprise when students at UWC and many of the “coloured” areas decide to come out in support of the students in Soweto.

It was the same Johnny Issel who played a key role in the early 1980s when he pushed for the formation of the UDF and for its launch to be held in Mitchells Plain in 1983. By that time Issel, like many of his contemporaries, had moved on from supporting black consciousness to broadly supporting non-racialism.

Much has been written, and much more will probably be written about why the ANC lost the elections in the Western Cape in 1994. One of the reasons is probably because the ANC has never really bothered to fully understand the people of the Western Cape.

They tried and there was a period, especially when Ebrahim Rasool and/or Chris Nissen were provincial leaders, that they appeared to make headway, but since then it has been mainly downhill. There appears to be an acceptance that the ANC will probably never win the province and the city of Cape Town back from the DA.

I have never really worried about who is in charge politically. All I have always asked is that they dedicate themselves to the project of uplifting the majority of poor people and help to transform our society into one where there will be less inequality and more prosperity.

If the ANC is serious about wanting to win back the Western Cape politically, they will need to analyse why “coloured” people came out in their thousands to support the events in Soweto 40 years ago and why they had so much confidence in the UDF, a confidence that they have not transferred to the ANC.

Maybe they need to start by acknowledging the contribution of comrades in the Western Cape and see those contributions for what they were: part of the process of truly liberating our country and instituting a democracy based on non-racism, non-sexism and other values. It was never about making contributions based on being a member of any racial or ethnic group.

In fact, it was the complete opposite which is something the ANC – caught up in racial and tribal factionalism – is struggling to come to terms with. The best way to pay tribute to the students who gave their lives in 1976 is to continue the non-racialism project in South Africa.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 4 June 2016.)

SA’s economic divides will take long time to bridge

Ryland Fisher says that the Franschhoek Literary Festival reminds him apartheid South Africa in terms of the demographics of the people who attend.

I did not go to the Franschhoek Literary Festival this year. I went last year and it was a bit much.

Like many others, I found it stifling to be in an environment that reminded me of apartheid South Africa, not in terms of the content but in terms of the demographics of the people who attended.

Apparently the situation was not much different this year, if the posts and tweets on social media are anything to go by. Perhaps I will go again in a few years’ time when people have convinced me the demographics have changed significantly. It certainly appeared to be much of the same this year and this might explain why apartheid assassin Eugene de Kock thought he would be welcome.

I don’t think the organisers are to blame, because it is not unusual for South Africans to congregate based on special interests, especially race. The festival appears to be one of those places white people feel comfortable because they are by far in the majority - they are probably in the majority in Franschhoek most other times too.

This realisation - that people don’t really like to get out of their little boxes - hit me many years ago when I was doing research and interviews for my book on race and racism in post-apartheid South Africa.

It was pointed out by one of the people I interviewed, Carel Boshoff junior, a key player in Orania, the white homeland established in post-apartheid SA.

Boshoff said he did not think there was anything wrong with Orania. They were merely doing what most South Africans were doing. Most South Africans, he believed, loved to live, work and socialise mainly or only with people who looked like them and sounded like them.

I thought about this after the interview with Boshoff and reluctantly had to concede he was probably right - those who make an effort to socialise across racial and cultural barriers are really in a minority. But this still did not give him and the people around him the right to establish Orania.

Part of the reason for this phenomenon, of course, is that the majority of people are poor and confined to townships because they cannot afford the transport costs to socialise outside their areas. Most people love to create comfort zones, where you can say what you want to say without fear of contradiction and where you are bound to get nods of approval for views you realise might not have much currency with groups of people who might be perceived to be different to you.

I was speaking to a friend, who owns a number of big retail outlets, and he told me how his choice of branch manager often determined the demographics of the staff in the store. He said when he appointed a Muslim store manager, most of the staff tended to be Muslim. The same occurred when he appointed a Jewish store manager and most of the staff was Jewish. When he appointed a lesbian manager, most of the staff were lesbian.

One of the ways in which the apartheid government divided people was by using language. They also used geographic locations and made sure only people who looked and sounded similar lived in certain areas.

Now we have a democracy, one should be able to argue people no longer need to congregate in these apartheid-defined silos, but integration is made more difficult because, more often than not, the silos in which we operate are also based on economics and in SA, the link between race and class cannot be ignored. I can’t help thinking about these self-imposed and society-imposed divisions when I visit Franschhoek.

Rich people (and in most cases one can probably substitute white for rich) have disposable income, so they can afford to attend events like the festival. Most black people, even those perceived to have money, do not have the same level of disposable income and are hard at work trying to earn a living because they did not have the head-start most whites have in South Africa. I am fortunate that I am able to go to restaurants, theatre and music concerts regularly - sometimes I am invited but most of the time I pay - and I have noticed often how most of the patrons are white and most of the staff are black.

Unfortunately, this reality will be with us for a long time in South Africa. You might be able to change political power patterns reasonably quickly - especially with democratic elections - but you do not change economic patterns overnight. It will take generations for us to change the ownership of the economy and until that happens, only certain people will feel welcome at events like the literary festival.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 21 May 2016)

No need to fear genuine transformation

The transformation of sport, like the rest of society, is not a choice. It is essential if we are to move forward as a country, writes Ryland Fisher.

A few years ago I attended a function where I could count on one hand the number of people who were not white. I ended up listening to a conversation where someone said words to this effect, very strongly, and almost angrily: “They must leave rugby alone. I don’t care what they say, blacks have never played rugby. They can mess up other sports but must leave rugby to us.”

It was one of those awkward moments when I felt obliged to respond but did not want to risk getting involved in a huge argument, which I did not feel like at the time. I have learnt over the years that you should choose your battles wisely in the hope of winning the war eventually. So I kept quiet but could not stop thinking about what had been said.

I found myself thinking about this again this week when I noticed the vitriol with which Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula’s action against untransformed sports bodies, including rugby, was greeted.

The minister decided four major sports federations could no longer bid to host international events until they had met their transformation targets.

I don’t think people were as upset about cricket, athletics or netball. But in many quarters, “rugby is not a religion, it is much more important”, as a former sports editor at the Cape Times used to say.

Of course there are many myths about the support for rugby from a player and spectator point of view. Rugby, while many would like to believe it has always been played mainly by whites, has actually been played by blacks (especially coloureds and Africans) for many years, especially during the apartheid years.

I grew up having to choose between rugby and soccer. You could not choose both because both were winter sports and were normally played on a Saturday.

At some point I played rugby on Saturday and soccer on Sundays, but this could not be sustained.

We played all over, on the Cape Flats, in the townships and even toured the Eastern Cape where we played mainly in the African townships.

There was huge spectator support wherever we played and we were not even professionals. But we were aware that white rugby, if one can call it that, enjoyed huge corporate support and those were the only people featured on television and radio.

One of the arguments that is always raised whenever there is talk about transformation in sports is: what about soccer?

So, what about soccer? Soccer has never had a problem with transformation. It has never sought to actively exclude the majority of the population, like some people in rugby did.

One of the problems with soccer is white South Africans see it as a black sport, even though it is, by far, the biggest and most profitable sport in the world.

They prefer to support foreign soccer teams but turn their backs on local teams. How many former Model C schools offer soccer as an option? Not many.

And this is part of the reason whites have never really thrown their support behind soccer.

If you have to get up early on a Saturday morning to take your little one for soccer games - as many parents do for rugby, cricket or hockey - then it somehow forces you to develop an affinity for the game.

One of the problems with rugby is it is perceived as a white sport and there are people who are trying to retain that skewed status quo.

The transformation of sport, like the rest of society, is not a choice. It is essential if we are to move forward as a country.

We cannot, 22 years after we became a democracy, still have the sports minister having to resort to heavy-handed tactics to get sports federations to transform.

We also cannot have a situation where the report of the Commission on Employment Equity finds most management positions are still occupied by white men. It shows things have not really changed in workplaces throughout the country.

There are genuinely some people who believe if you embrace transformation, you will lessen your chances of success, whether it be in sport, business, academia or any other sector of society.

I believe people who embrace transformation fully and totally, and not because they are forced by legislation, the minister or a commission, will grow as our democracy grows.

It makes sense, after all, to have a wider pool of talent from which to choose, in the case of sport or academia, and to have a potential wider market, in the case of business.

Transformation should be seen as an opportunity and not as a problem.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 30 April 2016)

Save the ANC by leaving, Zuma

Rivonia trialist Denis Goldberg urges President Zuma to step down and allow his party to regain the respect of its members and the voters, writes Ryland Fisher.

Cape Town - Denis Goldberg likes to laugh – sometimes at stuff that might seem strange, like when he recalled how the judge in the Rivonia Trial (he was accused number 3) had sentenced them to life imprisonment instead of applying the death penalty.

“I’m really glad he did not sentence us to death,” he laughed when I interviewed him a while ago.

But this week, in an interview at his Hout Bay home, Goldberg was not in the mood for laughing. In fact, on more than one occasion, his eyes were filled with tears.

“I have spent my lifetime speaking truth to power, but I think I am more nervous doing it now than I was in apartheid times, even though they wanted to hang me then. I see a violence and a roguery within our ranks, I see people in KZN and Mpumalanga, who raised the cry of corruption, getting murdered, presumably by our own people.”

Goldberg, who turned 83 last week, recently joined the ranks of several senior ANC activists who have called on President Jacob Zuma to stand down.

“I am very angry, but this is painful, sad stuff. It is very sad, but I have to call on people to speak up,” he said.

Goldberg described Zuma as “dishonest”.

“He used to be a great leader, he was courageous. Now he has consciously broken the law to serve his own narrow self-interest and not the interest of his people and he has misrepresented his own position.

“He says now that he always intended to pay, but he vehemently said that he did not ask for these things, so why should he pay? He then ducked and dived for two-and-a-half or three years to avoid paying. To now say he meant to pay is an unacceptable apology.

“I believe that if he stands down, the confusion in people’s minds will go away and they will say, ‘That is the ANC that we can respect. While he is there I don’t think we can’. That is my opinion.

“I want him to go further. I want him to admit that he has made mistakes and to stand down and commit to support his successor, as a disciplined ANC cadre. This is what Thabo Mbeki did when he was asked to step down. He made a wonderful commitment to being a loyal ANC member.

“That’s what I would like. Otherwise he is going to be terribly humiliated and why should we humiliate a person who once was a great and courageous leader? I would like him to reclaim his own greatness, his own dignity, because I find it painful to speak about him in the way that I do.”

Goldberg said he had expected better leadership from Zuma.

“For a president who is a hero, I wanted him to say, ‘Enough. Don’t defend me with lies.’ I can’t tell you at which moment he went wrong. I have always admired him and so, for me it is very painful to talk this way. But it is not that I’m betrayed, it is that our movement and our values are betrayed.

“That’s the point really. It is not really about me. There are lots of people speaking out and I’d like lots more to do so.”

Goldberg said one of the differences between the leaders of his generation, including Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu, was that the older leaders were principled. “I don’t think we are now.

“Then the only price was freedom. Now, the amount of money people have access to, the way top people live, as against ordinary members, is outrageous.

“There are too many temptations. We live in a society where day after day we are bombarded with comments like ‘you are nothing unless you have a smart car’ or ‘you are nothing unless you have lots of bling’. The notion that you have arrived only if you can splash it about is really powerful.

“We have leaders who live ostentatiously and they get trapped in this. A minister has to defend his president who is doing something wrong because, if he doesn’t, he is going to lose his post. What does he do about school fees for his children if he loses his post? What does he do about his mortgage? What does he do about his fancy car? You’re locked into a world of having arrived and getting a fat salary and so you lose your objectivity.

“Pallo Jordan, Kader Asmal and Dullah Omar were among the few who lived in private homes when they were ministers. It gave them independence, they did not get locked into the notion of ‘I have to keep my job and therefore sell my principles.’ That makes a big difference.”

Goldberg said it was up to ANC members to make sure the president stepped down.

“We must be loud enough, we must make it clear that we will only respect the ANC and vote for it if he stands down. We are hoping that he will stand down, so that we can rebuild for the 2019 elections.

“The ANC needs to be committed to legality, to upholding the laws that we have written. We need to be honest with our people. We cannot go into Parliament and lie.”

Asked why he and others are only speaking out now, Goldberg said he had been speaking out for the last three years, but it was not picked up as a story by the media.

He said many others had raised reservations in private but did not want to speak out publicly.

“But I suppose people are speaking out now because the dam wall has broken. People are saying that this is too much. We have had enough of it.

“Another reason I did not want to speak out was because I didn’t want to be part of the DA attack on the president. I had to finally get to the point where I could say I’m not attacking the president, I’m defending the ANC.

“There just came a point where I could no longer evade my responsibility to speak out. I did this reluctantly because it is an attack on our government, my government and my comrades.”

Goldberg said the ANC would only be able to reclaim its moral authority if it convinced Zuma to step down. “Somehow we need to find the mechanisms to get President Zuma to remove himself because, one way or another, he is going to be removed and that would be humiliating and he does not need that. We don’t need that.”

Despite his misgivings, Goldberg said he was still encouraging people to vote for the ANC.

“I think we have to support the ANC because none of the opposition are really capable of making the major transformation. People must support the ANC but insist on a change of leadership. Vote insisting on a change of leadership. That you have to do through your branches.”

Goldberg said the ANC was at a key moment in its history “which will decide whether this great liberation movement will survive”.

“There is no law that says that the ANC must rule forever and being in power for me only matters if we do the right thing. If we are doing wrong things, what’s the point of being in power?”

(First published in the Weekend Argus on Sunday 24 April 2016)

Property damage in protests is counterproductive

Ryland Fisher says that he has always had problems with people who wanted to destroy property in pursuit of their demands.

It has not been a good week for public transport in Cape Town, with trains the most affected.

It was not pleasant to hear every morning trains had been delayed by two hours or had been cancelled.

I have not taken a train in a long time but I can sympathise with people who have no alternative other than to travel by rail, including hundreds of thousands of workers. It seems not too long ago I had to do the same. For many years it was my preferred form of transport, although one could argue I had no choice.

I remember working at the Cape Herald newspaper until about 5pm, then going to work as a volunteer at Grassroots community newspaper in the city centre until after 10pm and then rushing to catch the last train home to Mitchells Plain.

It was often difficult because my companion was Mike Norton, a veteran journalist who worked fulltime at Grassroots and who was not the fastest person around. Often we would just about make it in time for the last train. Fortunately we never missed the train, because I have no idea what we would have done.

I saw familiar faces on trains all the time. It often seemed as though the same people travelled at the same time and got into the same carriage every night. It was always a figurative Smarties box of people: from church brothers and sisters to gangsters looking for someone easy to rob.

But after 10pm at night, most of the passengers seemed relaxed. And tired.

But I digress.

In most countries, rail transport is the most popular and reliable mode of transport. It is the only method of transport that can carry thousands of people in one vehicle and in reasonable time.

South Africa should be no different.

Yet the ongoing problems we seem to have with rail transport are making it one of the most unreliable modes of transport. It is not a good feeling to wake up in the morning and worry about whether the trains are going to be late, as they’ve been the whole week.

I would not be surprised to read stories in the media in the next few days about people who lost their jobs because they were late for work due to delayed trains.

This week was, of course exceptional. It is not every day there is a strike on the railways and it is not every day trains are burnt and railway property damaged, apparently in support of the strikers.

I have often wondered about people who destroy their employers’ property when they have a dispute. What happens when they go back to work and no longer have some of the equipment they used to use?

Or the students who apparently recently burnt a university administration building up north when they were protesting for lower or no university fees. Such a building forms an important part of the service the university delivers, just like trains form an important part of the service the railway authorities deliver.

I have always had problems with people who wanted to destroy property in pursuit of their demands. It does not make sense. Protest action – whether it is in the form of a strike or student boycotts – should be seen as a means to an end and not as the end itself.

You should always think about what happens after the protest, when things are supposed to return to normal. It is difficult to return to normal if a building has been burnt down or a few trains have been destroyed.

You should never destroy property that could benefit others and, in the case of trains, thousands of others.

Our country celebrates 22 years of democracy next Wednesday. We are now firmly in adulthood and part of being an adult is accepting responsibility for one’s actions.

One of the freedoms we fought for is the right to protest. In the dark days of apartheid, protesters were often arrested or even shot at. In fact, this was the norm and not the exception, unlike Marikana which appears to have been an exception in post-apartheid South Africa. Marikana is, of course, something that should never have been allowed to happen and will forever be a blight on our democracy.

As we ponder the meaning of freedom, we should consider that, while workers have the right to strike, there are others who have the right not to strike. And there are people who need to continue to get to work despite the turmoil happening around them.

People who burn trains only help to make people antagonistic to the cause in whose name they purport to be doing it.

Freedom of choice means not always making the most popular choices or even those perceived to be politically correct.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 23 April 2016)

Solution to gang scourge lies with the community

The people of Manenberg and other gang infested places on the Cape Flats need to find solutions because the answers cannot, and will not, come from outside, writes Ryland Fisher.

There will, one supposes, always be a contradiction between the beauty of Cape Town for people who live in the more affluent suburbs and the less-than-glamorous reality for residents of the gang-ridden areas of what is known as the Cape Flats.

It is difficult for someone like me, who grew up on the Cape Flats and who now lives in one of the nicer suburbs, to avoid this contradiction. Most of my extended family still live on the Cape Flats and have to cope daily with the social and other problems in the mostly poorer townships.

I grew up mainly in Hanover Park, but also lived elsewhere on the Cape Flats in places such as Bokmakierie, Kewtown, Silvertown, Surrey Estate, Primrose Park, Elsies River, Bonteheuwel and Mitchells Plain. Even if you try to cut yourself off from the problems in these areas to concentrate on middle-class issues, it is not easy.

It is easier if you come from a privileged background where your only interaction with people from the Cape Flats is because they work for you, or your parents. It’s easier when you can talk about “them” or “their problems” as opposed to “us” and society’s problems. It’s not so easy when this is part of your history and social experience and still affects many members of your family.

Crime, irrespective of where it happens, is a societal problem and we cannot pretend it does not exist just because we are safe behind our electric fences and burglar bars. We cannot say at least it is not happening in our areas.

When you read the stories about what has been going on in Manenberg, where young people, some of them innocent, are killed on a regular basis and where gangs have really taken over the community, it hurts.

It hurts more because the situation has not changed much from the days when I grew up on those streets more than 40, 50 years ago. It seems one of the big differences is when I grew up most gangsters used knives and other sharp weapons while the gangsters of today use guns.

Over the years I have watched how generations of leaders and politicians have grappled with what to do about gang problems on the Cape Flats – all with little success.

Gangsterism will continue to be a problem in communities where people feel marginalised, economically and politically, and where many parents turn a blind eye to the wrongdoings of their children, claiming they are not bad but only have bad friends.

It is not an excuse for gangsterism, but you need only to look at the apartheid architecture of a city like Cape Town to realise this still plays a role in many problems we have. Life has not changed much for the people of Manenberg since the days of apartheid.

Taking ownership of any problem is the first step towards solving that problem.

The peace-loving people of Manenberg and other similar places on the Cape Flats need to get together and find solutions because solutions cannot, will not, come from outside.

Leaders need to grow from inside these communities because outsiders, who can go and sleep in comfortable beds at night, can never display the same kind of commitment to finding solutions.

Gangsters are still made to feel welcome in our communities; there are still too many people who protect them for whatever reason. Maybe they benefit financially or maybe there is a familial and friendship bond. Gangsterism can only be dealt with completely if residents decide to apply tough love.

For instance, you should not allow gang members in your house or in your social circles, even if they are family or friends. You should not buy stolen property, even if that is the only way that you will possess something you have always wanted.

But, importantly, residents need to be prepared to come forward to not only report crimes but ensure the police are held accountable for solving crimes.

It is difficult to ask a mother to disown a gangster son – especially when she refuses to accept his gangster affiliation – or to turn against him, but this is the radical step that needs to happen.

I have seen too often how young people on the Cape Flats admire gangsters and aspire to be like them. It is time for proper role models to step forward and help to show youngsters there are alternatives.

It is not going to be easy to tackle the problem of gangsterism, but we appear not to have made significant progress in the past 50 years or more and for this we should all hang our heads in shame.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column on Saturday 16 April 2016)

‘One more party in SA’ as a minister gets the bird

The booing of ANC leaders might become the norm and not the exception, and not only among the middle class, writes Ryland Fisher.

What do Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa, British actor Idris Elba and American hip hop artist Yaasin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) have in common?

They all made unexpected appearances at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival last weekend but the minister’s was the only one that was not welcomed or without controversy.

Elba arrived on Friday night towards the end of a performance by legendary women singers Dorothy Masuka and Abigail Kubeka. Bey did quite a few songs with Canadian band BadBadNotGood, who ended the performances in one of the festival venues. Both were warmly welcomed by fans.

Elba’s entrance was most enthusiastically greeted by the crowd in Kippies, the largest of the festival venues. He did not say much but eager patrons did what most people do nowadays when confronted with a famous personality – rushed to take out their cellphones to take pictures which they might or might not have shared with friends and family.

There were rumours in the audience Bey was not listed on the programme because the festival organisers did not want to upset the government. However, it is not unusual for artists not to be on the bill. Tony Cedras, for instance, performed unannounced with Cassandra Wilson, while Simphiwe Dana performed with guitarist Themba Mokoena.

Bey is still ensnared in a court case after he was arrested for trying to leave the country on an “unrecognised world passport” and not his US passport.

Shortly after his first court appearance he posted a statement on the website of fellow American hip hop artist Kanye West, in which he famously declared “no more parties in SA”. One Saturday night, he rapped “one more party in SA”.

Mthethwa materialised on the main stage of Kippies on Saturday night, near the end of a performance by popular afropop/kwaito/house duo, Mafikizolo. It was a carbon copy of what Elba did the previous night – but the outcome was remarkably different. As soon as Mafikizolo singer Theo Kgosinki announced the presence of the minister, whose department is one of the main sponsors of the jazz festival, the crowd spontaneously broke into loud boos with some showing the substitution sign often used at soccer matches.

The SABC later reported the crowd was upset at having the music interrupted, but this was clearly not the case. It was rather an outburst of frustration with ANC leadership, which had been brewing for a while and was now reaching boiling point.

It was two days after the Constitutional Court ruled President Jacob Zuma and Parliament had violated the constitution and a day after the president apologised on national television, followed by ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe accepting his apology.

There was clearly still a mood of unhappiness in the crowd and Mthethwa should have been advised not to make a public appearance.

It is one thing mingling with the crowd; It is completely different when you try to address it.

The jazz festival is a major musical event – one of the biggest in the world – but it is also a political space and a large number of ministers and deputy ministers frequent festival floors and corporate lounges. Corporates pay huge amounts of money for this access.

On Friday night, as the president was about to speak, many in the corporate village wanted the organisers to switch the television monitors – which show snippets from different jazz festival stages – to the president’s press conference.

Fortunately, the organisers resisted. It is, after all, a music festival and not a political rally.

But music is never far removed from politics and when Mthethwa tried to use the platform to relay a political message, he learnt the hard way.

I have no problem with anyone using a captive audience like this to get across a particular message – in this case I believe the minister wanted to talk about the national anti-racism campaign – because people do it all the time. However, his timing could not have been worse.

I have been thinking about the lessons one can learn from this and the main one appears to be that the ANC, which led the liberation movement in exile for so long, seems to be out of touch with the mood of middle-class people (who include jazz festival patrons).

Watching the impeachment debate in Parliament on Tuesday, one got a sense the ANC is hiding behind its interpretation of the law.

The ANC I grew up supporting never hid behind spin. It did all the necessary to promote the struggle for a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa, values the organisation made sure were enshrined in our constitution, the same constitution it now appears to have difficulty with.

There appears to be a groundswell of unhappiness in ANC ranks, beyond what we see publicly. Most people I interact with nowadays – and they include many senior ANC people – feel something drastic needs to be done to return the organisation to the right road.

Hopefully this will happen sooner rather than later, otherwise the booing of ANC leaders might become the norm and not the exception, and not only among the middle class.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 9 April 2016)

Addressing inequality would reduce crime in SA

The only way to deal with crime effectively is not to introduce harsher penalties, but to deal with the stark inequalities in society, writes Ryland Fisher.

A few weeks ago, as I have done many times before, I picked up a car at OR Tambo International Airport in Gauteng and drove off, still trying to figure out how the gears worked and where the light switches were, among other little challenges.

As I left the airport parking garage, a uniformed policeman jumped out of the shadows and told me I had gone through a stop sign. He asked to see my licence and told me he would have to fine me R500. I did not protest, although I could not see a stop sign. I said he must do what he needed to do. There was a moment of silence when, I suspected, he was waiting for me to offer him something in return for not writing out the fine.

The next moment he stopped another car and shouted at me that I could drive off. I drove away, feeling not relieved, but uncomfortable about what could have transpired. If I had broken the law, then I should be fined, but I was not prepared to pay a bribe to anyone, especially not a policeman.

I suppose at least a few of the people the policeman stopped that day would probably have offered him payment to avoid getting a fine and he would probably have accepted those offers, if one is to believe the stories about Gauteng police. I could be completely wrong and the policeman could have let me go because I looked like a nice, decent human being.

Not too long ago, I had a conversation with a friend in Rosebank, Joburg, who told me he was scared of the police in Cape Town but not the police in Joburg. “At least one can bribe the police in Joburg,” he said.

One of the reasons crime is so widespread is that there is a market for it and this market is sometimes promoted by the very people who loudly profess to be against crime. The more people pay bribes, the more there will be demands for bribes. The more people buy stolen property, the more things will be stolen. I grew up in Hanover Park and I remember how you could place your orders before the start of the weekend for any make of car radio or other appliance and it would be delivered before the end of that weekend.

Crime thrived in what appeared to be more affluent surrounding areas because people in Hanover Park provided a ready market for stolen goods. If most people in Hanover Park had refused to buy stolen goods, there would have been no market and the crime levels in surrounding areas would probably have dropped. For many people in Hanover Park, buying stolen goods was the only way they could own luxury items which many in the wealthier suburbs took for granted.

There are many motivating factors for crime. Poverty is one and in a country such as South Africa where large numbers are poor, it is almost understandable that there is a large amount of crime.

Greed is, of course, another major factor when it comes to crime. Too many people have dabbled in crime because they were not otherwise able to satiate their desire for worldly possessions. In South Africa, with its huge inequalities between rich and poor, it is not unexpected that crime levels will be high, especially crimes involving the redistribution of property.

I remember as a child, even before I was old enough to go to school, going to work with my mother, a domestic worker, in the wealthier southern suburbs of Cape Town. I was fascinated by the opulence in these suburbs. Coming from Hanover Park meant I’d not been exposed to what most people considered normal in middle-class suburbs, including having a warm bath or shower. We were used to warming pots of water on a Primus stove before having a bath.

I was so grateful when the “madam” – that is what we had to call my mother’s employer – gave me her son’s old clothes to wear. Anything they gave me was much better than what I had.

I can never condone any kind of criminal activity, but it is easy to opine and philosophise about crime when you don’t have to worry about where your next meal is coming from. It is not so easy when you have nothing.

In an environment where everything is becoming more and more expensive and poor people are becoming even poorer, it should come as no surprise if crime escalates. Poor people, like everyone else, have to eat and have to feed their families.

The only way to deal with crime effectively is not to introduce harsher penalties, but to deal with the stark inequalities in society.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 2 April 2016)

What's in a kiss?

Every now and then one is shocked at the way some people can be racist in their reactions to what many would assume to be normal behaviour.

For instance, most South Africans would no longer turn their heads when they see a mixed race couple holding hands or even kissing in the street, or even a same-sex couple for that matter.

Yet, one of the big talking points on social media this week was the interracial relationship between two of the lead characters on the popular soapie, 7de Laan.

I must admit that I am an accidental 7de Laan watcher. I normally watch out of the corner of my eye while my wife is watching her favourite programme on TV. I pretend to be doing something else, like reading the newspapers.

Soapies have to keep on redefining themselves in order to keep viewers interested. 7de Laan is no different, having dealt with the death and reappearance of one of the main characters, the false imprison of another main character, and even the relationship of the young second wife of one of the characters having a relationship with her husband’s son. Incidentally, the wife was black, the father and son white.

The beauty of television is that often things are left to suggestion. For instance, two faces might approach each other as if they are about to kiss but the camera cuts just before the kiss. Or someone is about to be bludgeoned to death, but the camera cuts just before the blow is landed.

What appears to have upset the racists in our midst is a picture of two young characters on 7de Laan kissing passionately. The man is white, the woman is black. The fact that there have been similar themes on 7de Laan is immaterial. This was the first time that there was a blatant display of affection between two people from different racial backgrounds.

I could not believe the absolute hatred and vitriol that was expressed in comments below the story about this kiss.

I don’t see what the fuss is about but clearly there are people in South Africa who still long for the days when we were forced to love only people who looked and sounded like us.

One can only imagine what they would have said if the people involved in this display of affection were both women or, even worse, men.

South Africa has come a long way from the time when interracial relationships were outlawed along with same-sex relationships. We cannot allow a small minority of people to drag us back to those dark days.

Our future is in youths’ hands but what makes them tick?

Young people, in their quest to forge their own history, often prefer not to learn from the past and so run the risk of repeating the mistakes of an earlier era, wites Ryland Fisher.

On Monday we celebrated Human Rights Day with a few thousand others at the Cape Town Festival in the Company’s Garden, in front of Iziko Museum. What kept popping up in my head days later was not the quality of the music or the camaraderie of those who attended.

I kept thinking about a nonchalant comment by one of the young performers, who make music about social issues, that she had to go to Google to find out which holiday we were celebrating. Now that she knew, she wished everyone “Happy Human Rights Day”.

I should not have been surprised. On April 27 a few years ago, I asked one of my daughter’s friends if he knew what public holiday we were celebrating. He did not. After telling him it was Freedom Day, I asked if he knew what Freedom Day was. He said it had to have something to do with Nelson Mandela’s release from prison.

I think these two incidents tell us how young people relate to our history and the things we hold important.

One could argue one of the human rights we today enjoy is a right not to care about where we come from as a country and we have earned the right to celebrate in ignorance.

This is not a view to which I subscribe.

We fail our children if we do not teach them our history and the importance of our national days. History is regarded as important by a certain generation but it should become important to everyone.

Unfortunately, young people, in their quest to forge their own history, often prefer not to learn from the past and so run the risk of repeating the mistakes of an earlier era.

On Human Rights Day I also reflected on what is important to people nowadays in an era of social media and instant gratification.

How do we make sure the Sharpeville events of March 21, 1960 – when police killed people protesting against pass laws – have resonance in 2016 and to people who have no idea what pass laws are?

In June, when we commemorate the 40th anniversary of the police killing of Soweto pupils who protested at being taught in Afrikaans, how do we make sure young people take lessons from what was an international tragedy?

I attended a seminar in Sandton on Wednesday where a presenter spoke about the things that inconvenience young consumers. He said a young person who attended an event recently took exception to having to write his name in an attendance register because he had already registered online. It was a small thing but an indication of how, in today’s society, people have become more concerned about themselves as individuals and less about societal issues.

My sense, and I could well be wrong, is young people care more about the material than about philosophical or historical matters.

This would be important to political parties trying to win new voters in the municipal elections which are supposed to happen before mid-August.

Will political parties be able to successfully campaign on the basis of what they, or their leaders, did in the past? Or will they have to campaign around what they are doing now to improve service delivery at a local level?

The political space has opened in ways we have not seen before in South Africa.

There are many people who still claim to support the ANC, despite all its troubles, but in numerous ways, that support is based on what the ANC did for the country in the past. I don’t think the DA has done enough to convince die-hard ANC supporters – and there are many – that this is a good time to change allegiance.

The EFF has mastered the art of gaining maximum publicity at key moments but there are many who are uncertain what its true policies are.

But the big question is how young people – mistakenly referred to as born-frees – are going to vote. Will they side with their parents, who will probably not change voting patterns, or will they make up their own minds?

When I was involved with the Cape Youth Congress many years ago we had a slogan: “Freedom is in our hands.”

In many ways, the future of our country is in the hands of the youth, but here I go again with my historical lessons, which will probably be ignored.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 26 March 2016)

We live in 'interesting times,' but have much to celebrate

My good friend Kanthan Pillay likes to quote Samuel Johnson who said that “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”. I agree with Pillay and Johnson, but only slightly.

I believe that there is true patriotism and then there is patriotism that is often an excuse for something else, such as hiding the faults in society.

I have never been ashamed to declare myself a patriot, but I have never believed in being blind to the problems that exist in South Africa.

I suppose it is how one defines patriotism. For instance, I am extremely loyal to our beautiful country. I believe that we live in one of the most amazing countries in the world and that we have some of the warmest people that one can find anywhere.

As we prepare to commemorate Human Rights Day on Monday, we have to admit that we have many faults and, at the risk of sounding like a stuck record, many of our problems can be traced back to 300 years of colonialism and 50 years of apartheid.

It will probably take almost as long for us to sort out many of the problems that have been created in the past 350 years or so.

It is difficult to understand how some people can wish away the problems created by apartheid when it is still surrounding us on a daily basis.

The homelands might not exist anymore but we still have migrant workers today because there is no work in what used to be homelands which have, for all intents and purposes, become provinces in democratic South Africa. But unemployment in general remains a major problem.

Our education system is still skewed and our housing crisis has not even been mildly addressed in the past 22 years of democracy. Even our justice system still has many flaws that need to be ironed out. Our crime situation is still out of hand and needs drastic action. It remains one of the biggest problems that we face as a society.

Despite all these problems, there is no other country in the world where I would rather live.

I believe the Chinese have a curse that says something like “may you live in interesting times” and one can argue that we are never short on interesting times in South Africa.

Sometimes South Africans can be our biggest critics. There are many South Africans, especially those who have left the country, who feel vindicated when things go wrong. Whenever they read a story about someone being murdered, they appear to silently rejoice because it proves their theory that South Africa is going to the dogs.

But South Africa is far from going to the dogs. If some people looked beyond their hatred of certain public figures, then they would see a large number of people, both in the public and private sector, working tirelessly to improve conditions for the majority of South Africans. Unfortunately, the efforts of these people are never celebrated.

In my book, patriotism has never meant blind loyalty to the government of the day or the ruling party and its leadership. Patriotism for me has always meant being loyal to the people and the Constitution of our country.

This column was inspired by a recent Facebook post by my friend and neighbour, Kashif Wicomb, who questioned why South Africans could not be as patriotic as Americans always appear to be. I followed the subsequent discussion with interest because it is something that I have also always thought about.

Americans can be blindly patriotic, despite their political differences. It is not only Republicans who proudly display the American flag at their homes, but also Democrats.

A few years ago I visited one of my best friends, Buck Belmore, who lives in Las Vegas. Buck’s daughter Sarah was graduating at the time so we attended the graduation. After the academic procession entered the hall, we were all asked to stand and pledge allegiance to the United States of America. Everyone put their hands on their hearts and loudly recited the American pledge of allegiance.

I thought at the time that we needed something like that to bring South Africans together despite our perceived differences. But a pledge in South Africa’s volatile political climate might not work, because it would be dismissed by the opposition as an attempt by the ruling party to force people to become loyal.

The closest we have come to patriotism was when we hosted major sporting events like the Soccer World Cup, the Rugby World Cup or the African Cup of Nations. But we need to find a way of developing patriotism when there is no hype, when South Africans are merely going on with their jobs and building a better society.

South Africans should not feel ashamed to be patriotic. We have a lot to celebrate as a country and we should celebrate it. But at the same time we should continue to try and deal with the many issues still bedevilling our society.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed Column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 19 March 2016)

We all deserve to enjoy our city's beauty in safety

If one is not able to jog in a place like Tokai Forest without fear of being mugged or even killed, there is something seriously wrong, writes Ryland Fisher.

There are some places in Cape Town considered almost sacred. These are places where families can mingle and one can interact with nature in a relaxed environment. One thinks immediately of the mountain and the many beaches dotting the peninsula.

One such place associated with tranquillity is Tokai Forest. But this tranquillity was destroyed this week by the killing of a teenage girl, Franziska Blöchliger.

Franziska’s body was found in the bushes at Tokai Forest on Monday, a few hours after she went missing.

Hopefully, we will hear what happened to her when the accused go to trial and her family will be able to have some closure. But the outrage at her murder is justified.

No one should be taken away in such a mindless manner, especially not someone as young as Franziska.

As a father of three daughters, I feel extremely distraught whenever I hear about such incidents.

I worry about my daughters when they are on the road, although they are adults; now I will probably worry even more.

A father’s concern for his daughters never ends.

But even if I did not have daughters, I would have found this incident disturbing.

One of the key rights of any citizen – irrespective of race or class – is to be safe. If one is not able to jog in a place like Tokai Forest without fear of being mugged or even killed, there is something seriously wrong.

I am one of many who enjoy walking on the mountain and I used to enjoy walking by myself. It gave me time to reflect on issues, think about the challenges I face and often come up with solutions to problems that seemed complicated.

There was nothing I enjoyed more than being alone on the mountain, at peace with nature.

Lately, I have been far more careful about where and when I walk and I no longer do so alone. One cannot help but be influenced by reports of people mugged on the mountain.

Tokai Forest is a place people from all over Cape Town frequent, whether it be to braai, picnic or begin a hike in the mountains. It is peaceful at times, raucous at others, but always a place of beauty enjoyed by many.

It will now forever be associated with murder, irrespective of the outcome of any trial.

There are those who have questioned the media coverage generated by this murder. They have raised issues of race and class and want to know why certain other murders, in less privileged areas, did not attract the same amount of attention.

I sincerely believe this criticism unjustified. If a young, black, homeless girl had been killed in Tokai Forest, I suspect the outrage would have been as great.

It is partly about the age of the victim and partly that it happened in what is supposedly a safe space.

The media have given plenty of publicity to the murders of poor young women in less affluent areas. The most high-profile of these was the case of Anene Booysen, the 17-year-old who was gang-raped and brutally murdered in Bredasdorp.

There are also people who will talk about the impact of this murder on tourism. While this should be a worry, because of the contribution tourism makes to our economy, I think this should not be the major concern. The major concern should be how we make our city safe so young and old, rich and poor, men and women can enjoy the beauty it offers.

Why do criminals have to dictate the way we live and force those who can afford this to put up electric fences and engage private security companies?

Many in Cape Town live in poorer areas where there are no private security companies or electric fences. Those people have as much a right to feel safe as others in more affluent areas.

Incidents such as the killing of Franziska should provoke not only outrage, especially among the leaders in our city, but also an undertaking to accept the challenge of creating a safer city.

The best legacy to leave for this innocent, young girl is to ensure this does not happen again – not in Tokai Forest, not in Khayelitsha and not in Mitchells Plain. One death such as this is one too many.

(First published in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 12 March 2016)

Buildings didn’t traumatise us, vicious police did

Their struggle is different, but surely there are things we learnt from which young people can also learn today, says Ryland Fisher.

Cape Town - Last year I attended an Africa Day celebration with the acclaimed Somalian author Nuruddin Farah at the Centre for the Book. In the audience was a group of student supporters of the #RhodesMustFall campaign, most of them in UWC law school T-shirts.

It was a government-sponsored event which, predictably, ran late because we could not begin before the relevant minister arrived. While we were waiting, the RMF supporters began singing a song about African unity which everyone appreciated. Some even sang along. The RMF supporters then sang a song about Umkhonto we Sizwe and most of the audience remained silent.

I thought how inappropriate a song about MK was where we no longer are engaged in a military struggle against the apartheid regime. It might have been appropriate in a different period. No wonder no one sang along and just kept quiet uncomfortably. Later, during question time, a RMF supporter spoke about how traumatised she was when she had to study in halls named after colonialists and walk past statues honouring colonialists on the UCT campus.

Everything is relative, I thought. When I was young, we were not traumatised by the names of lecture halls or colonial statues. Instead, we were traumatised by police who beat us up and threw us in jail. Some, like Ashley Kriel and Anton Fransch, even gave their lives in the fight for freedom.

I found myself thinking about the Africa Day incident over the past week or so, especially as I watched students at UCT burning paintings on campus, including one or two by the celebrated black artist Keresemose Richard Baholo, who, in the 1990s painted a series of pictures of protests at UCT featuring Jameson Hall in the background. Other paintings that were burnt included ones of anti-apartheid activist Molly Blackburn and other Black Sash members. The Black Sash played an important role in the struggle.

I support the #FeesMustFall protests, not only because, as a parent, I have paid many thousands of rands over many years to educate my children, but I can’t help wondering whether this is the correct way to go about protests.

When I think about what happened this week at other SA universities, particularly North West and the University of the Free State, where I serve on the council, we must be concerned, for different reasons.

The behaviour of white students towards black student protesters at UFS – white students beat up black protesters at a sports game this week – raises questions about the reconciliation project at the university, while the situation at NWU, where buildings were burnt down, should be condemned.

There is a strong school of thought that expired activists like myself must shut up and let the children run their own struggles. Their issues are different and their conditions of struggle are different, goes this school of thought, with which I agree mainly.

But surely there are things we learnt along the way from which young people can also learn today?

Two instances, from two different periods of my life, come to my mind.

The first was when we went on strike in 1980 at the first newspaper where I worked. It was the Cape Herald and it was aimed at the “coloured” community in the Western Cape.

We went on strike because black journalists like me were paid less than our white counterparts with the same levels of experience.

The strike began at the Herald and soon spread through the country. After a month, management agreed to salary parity and we agreed to go back to work. Our colleagues in the then-Transvaal, however, decided not to return to work as they had a few other issues they wanted resolved.

Eventually they returned to work, but the union was much weaker because of divisions over whether they should return, which was exploited by management.

The lesson I learnt then was that one should know when to attack and when to withdraw.

I still think our decision to return to work when we did was correct and our colleagues up north should have joined us.

We could have built the union together and regrouped to fight for our other demands in another way. Instead, the union suffered irreparable damage because some strikers tried to hold out for too long.

The second thing I have been thinking about was the period in the 1980s when, as activists, we tried to make our country ungovernable as a way to bring down the apartheid regime.

Part of making the country ungovernable involved convincing residents not to pay for services and to disobey the laws of the land whenever they could.

Of course, when our country became a democracy, it was difficult to convince the same residents that they now had to pay for services and obey the law. In parts of our country, there are still people who think they should not pay for services.

I thought about how the culture one creates during periods of intense struggle can impact on how one conducts oneself later. It is possible that, if you feed students a diet of intolerance, they will conduct themselves in an intolerant manner later in their lives.

If you teach students to conduct themselves violently to achieve their aims, there is a likelihood they might resort to violent conduct later in their lives.

The South Africa we live in today is significantly different from that one in which we grew up under apartheid. We have a democratic government with a multitude of channels that can be explored if one is unhappy about just about any issue.

Just look at some of the reports of the public protector and some of the judgments of the Constitutional Court.

I am not denying students their right to protest. It is a right that I will protect with all my might. My issue is with the nature of the protests and the potential long-term effects of their methods

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 27 February 2016).

Reflections on Boesak at 70

Ryland Fisher

PRIEST-turned-politician-turned-priest Allan Boesak turns 70 on Tuesday. Many young people who missed the 1980s and maybe even the 1990s could be forgiven for asking: Allan who? Recent history has not been kind to Boesak, who was once internationally arguably the most recognisable of South Africa’s anti-apartheid activists.

Boesak’s rise in the Struggle hierarchy was meteoric. After studying theology in the Netherlands from 1970 to 1976, he returned to occupy several crucial positions in South Africa, among them in the theology department at the University of the Western Cape (UWC).

His doctoral thesis, Farewell to Innocence (1976), is still considered a profound text on liberation theology. Boesak has written 17 books and edited a few more. He became the moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa and oversaw the church’s signing the Belhar Declaration against apartheid and all forms of discrimination in 1986. In his role as president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches – a position he held from 1982 to 1991 – Boesak began to play an international role in moves to isolate the apartheid regime.

He based his opposition to apartheid on his religious beliefs. His oratory style, reminiscent of Martin Luther King Jr’s, was a major strength and helped to fill stadiums and halls throughout the country.

The chant of “Boesak! Boesak!” followed him wherever he spoke. Boesak’s Foundation for Peace and Justice supported the Struggle financially and was often used as a conduit for people and foundations from overseas to support it. In the early 1980s at a conference in Lenasia, Boesak issued a call for a united front against apartheid. This led to the formation of the United Democratic Front (UDF) on August 20, 1983 at the Rocklands Civic Centre in Mitchells Plain.

The UDF played a major role in the opposition to apartheid, especially at a time when most organisations in the liberation movement were banned and their leaders exiled. In 1985, Boesak, along with Winnie Mandela and Beyers Naudé, won the human rights award given annually by the Robert F Kennedy Centre for Justice and Human Rights.

Also In 1985, Boesak called for the release of Nelson Mandela during a march from Athlone Stadium to Pollsmoor Prison where Mandela was held at the time.

Boesak was unable to lead the march, however, because he had been detained by the police shortly before. The march continued and ended in clashes between police and protesters. In many ways this open defiance by a wide range of demonstrators was a turning point in the Struggle.

A few years later, Boesak played a key role on the day of Mandela’s release from Victor Verster Prison in Paarl, when he calmed the waiting crowds on the Grand Parade as the organisers of the welcome rally contemplated for several hours whether they should risk Mandela speaking in a very exposed situation.

In 1991, Boesak became the ANC’s leader in the Western Cape and went on to serve as economic affairs MEC in the province. In 2008 he defected to the ANC breakaway party, the Congress of the People (Cope) for a short while before leaving the country to lecture in the US. He occupies the Desmond Tutu Chair for Peace, Global Justice and Reconciliation Studies at the Christian Theological Seminary and Butler University in Indiana.

While Boesak’s contribution to the Struggle was immense at times, he made some, probably avoidable, mistakes.

This is maybe why Boesak is not mentioned in the same breath as Nelson Mandela or Archbishop Desmond Tutu, although there was a time when his international profile was arguably even bigger than theirs. The first mistakes were the affairs he had, one with a colleague at the South African Council of Churches, another with the woman who later became his wife.

The first affair, with Di Scott in 1985, was costly and damaging because it was exposed by the security police who had bugged a bed where he was sleeping with his lover. They gave this recording to a Joburg newspaper which then reported on the affair. The second affair, which took place around 1990, was with Elna Botha, who was at the time married to a well-known television news anchor. It was the final straw for Boesak’s loyal wife, Dorothy, who left him.

He later married Elna and they are still together after more than 20 years. Boesak was always a larger than life character and he was severely criticised for moving into a house in Constantia at a time when living in Constantia was seen as the preserve of rich white people. Nowadays, of course, it is the preserve of rich people, irrespective of colour.

His most recent mistake was exposed a few years later when the American singer Paul Simon accused him of misappropriating a few million rand that had been donated to his foundation by Simon and two overseas foundations for development projects.

Boesak was charged with fraud. He opted not to testify in his defence. He felt if he gave evidence he might implicate some of his comrades, something he did not want to do. He was convicted of fraud in 1999. He spent just over a year of a three-year sentence in prison. Boesak was pardoned; his record was cleared by President Thabo Mbeki in 2005 and he was able to return to the church.

In many ways, Boesak’s story is one of missed opportunities. He should have gone down in history as one of our greatest statesmen and many people, particularly from the Western Cape, still think he was. This was evident in July 2008 when he spoke at a rally in UWC’s great hall, at the annual Ashley Kriel lecture. More than 2 000 people filled the hall which resonated with the “Boesak! Boesak!” chant.

Boesak’s speech, delivered in his trademark staccato style, did not disappoint. It transported one back to the 1980s when Boesak was the biggest drawcard at rallies throughout South Africa, the unofficial king of the Struggle.

When he reflects on his life on Tuesday, Boesak must surely realise that at times he has lived a charmed life, despite the hardships of Struggle and prison.

But he will also surely see that things could have turned out significantly better for him and he could still have enjoyed international recognition and acclaim were it not for his having made some bad choices along the way.

(First published in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 20 February 2016)

Let’s start with political leaders

It was an honour to attend the launch on Thursday of the Racism Stops With Me campaign, which is supported by Independent Media and a few partners.

It was good to hear Mayor Patricia de Lille tell the assembled guests, which included a who’s who of politics and business, that the city intends to roll out phase two of its racism campaign next week.

Speaker after speaker related personal and political reasons for why we need to combat racism as a nation.

The Independent Media initiative is honourable and long overdue. The city’s initiative is as admirable.

But it will take much more than a gathering at the Mount Nelson of apparently like-minded people to make an impact on the racism in our city.

And it will take much more than a publicity campaign, which is effectively what the city’s initiative entails, to change the mindset of racists who, as De Lille rightly pointed out, appear to have influence way beyond their numbers.

The major challenge in tackling racism is consistency and stamina.

The battle against racism cannot be a campaign with a fancy launch, a start-point and an end-point.

It is something that needs to be imprinted in our DNA. It is something that we need to address every day in all our actions.

The launch is but a start. Now the hard work begins. The bad news is that a campaign like this can never stop.

Long after the million T-shirts produced by the South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (Sactwu) have been sold and the R3.5 million grant from the Fibre, Processing and Manufacturing Sector Education Training Authority – to help develop citizen journalists – has been spent, there will still be a need for a campaign against racism. Long after the city has distributed all its pamphlets explaining racism, there will still be racists.

Over the past 10 years or more, I have tried to do anti-racism work with corporates and government departments, but it has been difficult. Most businesses don’t like you to mention the word “racism”.

There is a sense that if you don’t talk about it, then maybe it won’t exist. Yet we come from a past where racism informed so much of what we did – where we could live, who we could marry, the education we got, the jobs we could do, etc – it is difficult not to mention it by name.

Most corporates also don’t really want to address societal issues unless they impact on their bottom lines.

Most are satisfied merely to comply with what the government and the law expect from them.

Corporates need to be convinced it is in their interest to create a more harmonious work force, which could be the end result of a campaign to inform the public about the dangers of racism.

So many of our beliefs are based on ignorance, and education – not in the formal sense – needs to play a major role in any campaign against racism. When I launched One City, Many Cultures at the Cape Times in 1999, its aim was to deal with racism and related issues, such as cultural and religious intolerance.

The initiative has continued since then, with various degrees of success, but we have seen how support has wavered, depending on who is in political power – in the city, the province and nationally – and how much publicity incidents of discrimination get in the media.

Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa, speaking at the launch of Racism Stops With Me, talked about the need to recommit ourselves to the values enshrined in the constitution and to fight for a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa.

This is at the heart of any campaign against discrimination. One must not only know what one is opposing. One must know what one is striving towards.

At the heart of discrimination is a lack of respect for people who look and sound different to you.

The whites who engineered and implemented apartheid were able to maintain it – and believe in it – for so long because they had no respect for black people.

Here I include Africans, coloureds and Indians, unlike what some people are doing nowadays, because that is how black is defined in our constitution, which is the supreme document governing our lives in South Africa.

Racism can only survive if the one party (oppressor) feels no empathy towards the other (oppressed). But racism thrives especially in situations of inequality.

South Africa is a hugely unequal society. Part of this could be put down to 50 years of apartheid but the ground work was laid during 300 years of colonialism.

As long as inequality exists in our country, it will be easy for racism to flourish. In a country where the majority of people are black it is to be expected that the vast majority of poor people will be black.

The situation will not be changed by making sure that the majority of white people become poor. We need to find ways of uplifting the majority of people and decreasing the gap between the rich and the poor.

Part of how we do this is by creating opportunities that are accessible to everyone. This would be in line with the constitution and the Freedom Charter, which talks about how everyone should have equal access to opportunities, whether they are social, political or economic.

I am glad Independent Media is launching its campaign in a year when we have municipal elections because it is will be needed to keep hot-headed politicians in check – maybe even some of the people who were at the launch.

People who were shocked at the recent racist utterances by EFF leader Julius Malema and the equally racist and childish retort by ANC Youth League president Collen Maine, should brace themselves for much more of the same over the next few months.

It is an election year and my experience is that politicians lose their minds when faced with having to convince voters where to make their crosses.

Let’s focus on them first in our campaign against racism. If leaders are allowed to be racist and irresponsible, then what is to stop their supporters from doing the same?

(First published in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 13 February 2016)

District Six’s diversity should live everywhere

The best way to remember District Six and preserve its legacy is by making sure our children and their children grow up in a society where all colours, cultures and traditions live in harmony, writes Ryland Fisher.

This week I have been nostalgic about District Six. I have been looking at old photos, reading old articles and listening – over and over – to songs by David Kramer and Taliep Petersen which gave life to so much of District Six’s character.

Yet, it was only when I was on Espresso on SABC3 on Thursday morning, talking about the 50th anniversary of District Six being declared a white group area that I suddenly remembered the impact of what had happened.

Before my interview, they showed footage of the bulldozers flattening homes while residents’ possessions stood on the pavements.

Those images almost made me cry because it brought back vivid memories of one of the cruellest acts of the apartheid government.

I remembered going to interview Naz Ebrahim, who was the leader of the District Six residents, in her home in Rochester Road in 1980. She was one of the last people to resist removal and her home stood out like a beacon among the rubble of houses that had been demolished. Her home, Manley Villa, was the last house to fall in that street.

Much has been written about District Six in the past week – including in this column – and I don’t normally write about the same thing two weeks in a row.

But the question that has been nagging me is the best way to preserve the legacy of District Six, a place that influenced many of us as we grew up and continues to influence us today.

District Six was in many ways what Cape Town, and indeed South Africa, is struggling with today.

It was a community where people lived together and in harmony despite apartheid-imposed differences.

Apartheid was an evil system that not only destroyed communities, but also people’s souls. It was designed to divide people, thus giving a minority power over the majority.

Now South Africa is maturing as a democracy – we are celebrating 22 years of democracy this year – it is important to strive for a society that is everything apartheid was not.

District Six was such a society. It allowed Africans, coloureds and whites to live together as neighbours. It was a melting pot of cultures reflected in the music and art generated in the area.

The best way to remember District Six and preserve its legacy is by making sure our children and their children grow up in this kind of society.

We must learn to respect and enjoy each other’s cultures and not confine ourselves to narrow cultural experiences.

We often hide behind tradition and culture as a way of excusing ourselves from exploring other cultures. There is still intolerance of difference.

The response this week to Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Mandla Mandela, marrying a Muslim woman – from Muslims and Xhosa traditionalists – showed how far we have to go as a society.

The chiefs opportunistically want to depose Mandla as a chief while many in the Muslim community have asked questions about his conversion.

I love that somebody from the Xhosa tradition and of royal blood married a Muslim.

This could debunk many myths about perceived differences between groups in our society. This is partly what we fought for when we opposed apartheid.

We wanted the right to live where we chose and the right to get married to whoever we wanted, irrespective of differences.

We are fortunate to live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world but it is also one of the most diverse and we should do more to explore this diversity.

We need to get out of our residential areas, many of which are still race-based, and go into communities where we would not normally go. We might just be pleasantly surprised when we realise most people are not very different from others.

It is easy to shelter from things that might appear strange to you but, sometimes, if you are prepared to open your mind, you will find “strange” cultural experiences can be enjoyable.

This would show a rejection of apartheid and its architects and would be the best way to memorialise the spirit of District Six.

It will probably be impossible to rebuild the vibrant community that is District Six in the area where it was situated, but we can build it everywhere in Cape Town and South Africa.

Let’s learn to embrace each other, appreciate each other’s cultures and not point fingers at people who fall in love across religious, racial or cultural barriers.

If we do this, it would give new meaning to the cry: Long live District Six, long live.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 13 February 2016)

District Six stands as a monument to tragedy

The barren piece of land on the outskirts of Cape Town stands as a painful reminder of a shameful period in our history, writes Ryland Fisher.

Much has been written about District Six, especially over the past 50 years since it was declared a white group area. And much will be still be written, especially in the coming week of the 50th commemoration on Thursday, February 11.

There will be those who reminisce about what things were like in the district; some will remember the vibrancy, some will argue it was a slum.

But irrespective of what District Six was, it remains a blight on Cape Town. The barren piece of land on the outskirts of the city stands as a painful reminder of a shameful period in our history.

There is a part of me that feels it should remain barren, because it is almost a living monument to a time when people thought that they could control others’ lives simply because they looked and sounded different from them. They used bulldozers to force people out of homes where they lived reasonably comfortably and relocated them dozens of kilometres away.

But the best response to those who wanted to create a piece of white heaven close to the city centre – and which they called Zonnebloem as a kind of “up yours” to the residents who were removed – would be to make sure that people return to the area in their thousands and restore some of that vibrancy of years gone by.

Of course, things will never be the same in District Six.

I didn’t grow up in District Six, but like everyone on the Cape Flats, I have family and friends who lived there. I remember as a child going to District Six at New Year from Solent Court in Hanover Park with Boeta Leimie, one of the few people I knew who had a car.

I remember the car getting stuck as we went up one of the hills and all of us having to get out to push.

Fortunately, there were about eight of us in a car meant to seat five, which made pushing a bit easier, but it was still uphill. I also remember the thrill of seeing the klopse (minstrels) walking down Hanover Street, especially the “atchas” who were a group dressed as Native Americans and led by a devil dressed in red and armed with a huge fork.

The devil and some of the other members of this troupe, some with mini axes (not real ones, I think) used to chase us down the street and we ran into people’s houses to escape. We were terrified and excited at the same time.

Thousands of people used to line the streets, waiting to see their favourite minstrel troupe, in much the same way they do nowadays in Adderley Street.

Later, as a teenager, I remember going to one of the few clubs in town that allowed blacks and later sleeping at a friend’s house in the Bloemhof Flats, until one day he told us that they were also being forced to move to make way for whites.

It is difficult to keep memories of a place like District Six alive. It has been 50 years since the area was declared white and more than 40 years since the bulk of evictions took place. Most of the people who applied for some kind of restitution for losing their homes in District Six are now old; some are dead.

If and when they return – and at the rate things have been moving it looks like never – they will move into an area that is completely different to what they left behind. They will have to build a new community, just like they had to do in Hanover Park, Mitchells Plain, Manenberg and all the other places to where they were relocated.

Many will probably be disappointed when they realise it is not the same.

My father-in-law is almost 80 and has dutifully attended all the land claims meetings in Mitchells Plain over many years, after he put in his claim.

Yet after every meeting he returns despondent, after hearing yet another story from officials.

It is because of people like him, who desperately want to return to District Six, that the government needs to fast-track its processes. It is disgusting, to put it mildly, it is taking so long to sort this out, even though I understand the complexities. I remember attending an event outside the Moravian Mission Church in District Six in November 2000 when then-president Thabo Mbeki handed over keys to the first residents who would move back.

More than 15 years later, nothing much has changed in District Six and very few people have moved back. This 50th anniversary presents the authorities – at local, provincial and national level – with an opportunity to make amends and get people back into District Six.

We cannot afford to have more people die without realising their dream of returning.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 6 February 2016)

You don’t have to agree with someone to listen to their words

Ryland Fisher

A few years ago I tried a little experiment. I wrote a column for a website and headlined it something on the lines of “Blacks can be among the most racist”. Of course, a large number of white people agreed with me and many black people disagreed.

The following week, I wrote a similar column and headlined it something like “Whites can be among the most racist”.

This time many black people agreed and many white people disagreed with me.

I wrote roughly the same thing in both columns, but most people, it appeared, did not bother to read beyond the headline to reach whatever conclusion they wanted to reach. I have always believed all of us have potential to be racist and this was the premise of my book on race.

Although I sort of expected it, I still could not believe the vicious comments written under both columns.

Most, it seems, prefer arguments that confirm their beliefs and prejudices and when someone says or writes something with which they disagree, they often show their disagreement in an almost violent way.

We are so set in our belief systems it is often difficult to comprehend there could be a different argument that might be superior to ours.

I see this every day on social media with the people who like certain things I post, but ignore others or sometimes make their voices heard if they disagree with something I have posted.

I do not agree with everything I share on social media but, as a journalist, I find it useful to share with my friends and followers information I think they might find interesting. I don’t vet information according to whether it fits into my belief system.

This is particularly the case with politics, which is in many cases akin to a religion in South Africa. You have people so die-hard in support of certain political parties they can never find anything wrong with what is being done by that party or its leaders.

I have seen how when one posts something that is positive for the ANC, one gets big thumbs-ups from ANC supporters and sneers of “ANC lackey” from DA supporters.

When one posts something that is positive towards the DA, the reverse is true.

I understand people have political preferences and I have never hidden my allegiances, but that does not mean one should close oneself to ideas that supposedly come from outside of your dominant political position.

One of the trademarks of great leaders like Nelson Mandela and others was an ability to listen to different viewpoints and take the best from different political positions.

If FW de Klerk wanted to show that he could rise above political positions, as did Mandela regularly, then he would not have presented to the Human Rights Commission complaints only about what he termed black racism.

He should have asked them to investigate racism. Full stop.

We seem to have lost an ability to be politically tolerant and we seem to believe everything that comes from someone with a different political home from us must be viewed with suspicion.

A well-known columnist, who used to write for Independent titles, found out the hard way this week how intolerant most people can be, when he posted something vaguely positive about President Jacob Zuma. He eventually deleted the post.

I am not arguing for a situation where all of us have to agree all the time, but I am arguing for all of us to at least listen to one another.

I love nothing more than a decent debate on just about any topic and I don’t mind having my mind changed if faced with a superior argument.

Of course, political tolerance is not easily achieved, especially in election year when something seems to happen to all politicians as they become even more hostile and vicious towards their opposition than usual.

Over the next few months, the newspapers, radio, television and social media will be full of attacks by politicians on rivals.

Most will be spurious.

But political tolerance is especially necessary in an election year.

Those of us who are not active in politics might believe we cannot influence politicians. We can.

We need to engage politicians, especially at times when they are desperate for votes.

We need to let them know what type of behaviour we expect, and not just what policies they support.

If politicians are intolerant to one another, it is highly likely they will also be intolerant towards the people who voted them into power.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 23 January 2016)