Gangsterism a way of life and death on the Flats

I witnessed my first killing in Hanover Park when I was not even 10 years old. It was a Saturday afternoon and we watched the gangsters “entertain” us in the way they did almost every weekend. Two gangs were chasing each other up and down the street, brandishing pangas, axes and “walking talls” (pick axe handles).

The gangsters did not really make contact with each other. It seemed like they were merely chasing each other, in one direction and then back again. One got the sense that they did not really want to fight, but were merely passing time, as we were doing by watching them.

Then one of the gang members fell and was left behind by his fellow gang members. The members of the rival gang were able to set upon him. They stabbed him, hacked at him, kicked him, hit him as hard as they could and finally left his lifeless body lying in the street.

That was the end of the gang fight, as the gang members blended quickly into the blocks of flats where they came from, no doubt with the gang who had lost a member contemplating their revenge.

We were watching from our kitchen window, like one would be watching a street soccer game. The body lay there for a few hours before an ambulance and police arrived to take it away. In that time hundreds of residents, not directly linked to the gang, had gone up to watch the body. Someone covered it and, if we had lived in the time of cell phones and selfies, pictures would probably have been uploaded to Instagram and other social media platforms within seconds.

I don’t know what happened to the killers but I’m almost convinced that they walked away scot-free, despite the fact that the killing happened in broad daylight and in front of witnesses.

I was not traumatised, because this is what we expected should happen in our township. Watching someone being killed was as natural as being mugged on your way to school in the morning or being terrorised in other ways by gangsters.

I remember once walking with a good friend past the bus terminus in Hanover Park at night. We were warned not to walk past the terminus, because it was one of those places that could be dangerous even during the day. But we were going to visit two sisters who lived on the other side of the terminus and it is difficult to keep testosterone-driven teenage boys away from girls. Even if their lives were in danger.

Suddenly we sensed that someone was behind us. We both moved out of the way and a guy who we recognised came tumbling in between us, with a knife in his hands. We quickly grabbed him and disarmed him. We asked him what he was doing and he said that his brother had been attacked earlier by the gang that lived across the road from the terminus – I think it was the Mongrels – and he was seeking revenge by attacking anyone in sight.

He pleaded with us, because we had overpowered him, to finish him off. But that was not our intention – we wanted to get to the girls as soon as possible – and we let him go, realising that he was probably not going to stop his “revenge” attacks. He would probably end up finding someone else to attack.

I am often asked how I ended up not getting involved in gangs, and I don’t know the answer, which is probably complicated. But gangsterism informed much of my young life. The people involved in gangs were our brothers, cousins and friends.

Quite often the only thing that determined which gangs you would end up joining was your geographical location. So, if you lived in Solent Court, like I did, you became a member of the Bowa Kids; if you lived in Derwent Court, you joined the Sexy Boys; and if you lived in Soetwaterhof, you ended up in the Pipekillers.

For many youngsters who felt rejected by society, gangs became family, a home where they felt they belonged and they were determined to prove their loyalty and commitment.

What I described above happened about 40 years or more ago, but the situation has not changed much in places like Hanover Park, with the only difference in most cases being that gangsters now brandish guns more than knives.

I no longer live in Hanover Park but I realised how all our lives remain intertwined when someone who lives around the corner from me in Rondebosch got arrested for allegedly supplying guns to gangsters. Without trying to pre-empt the courts, if he is found guilty, his sentence should send a warning that these kinds of activities will not be tolerated.

The gang situation on the Cape Flats is complicated as it is, and will probably never really be sorted out as long as you have people living in economic conditions which are ripe for the growth of gangs.

But people should know that if you sell guns illegally to gangsters, you will be jailed; if you buy stolen goods from gangsters, you will be jailed; if you harbour gangsters and help them to avoid the police, you will be jailed.

We might not be able to change economic conditions overnight, but we can reclaim our communities and make sure that gangsterism is curtailed, if not completely wiped out. There are many amazing people who live on the Cape Flats, but their stories and contributions to society are overshadowed by gangsters who make the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

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

Video - The Complete Interview With Ebrahim Rasool

Ebrahim Rasool on Obama, Western Cape politics, the Middle East

Former ANC leader in the Western Cape, Ebrahim Rasool, was recalled as Premier of the province in 2008. After a short stint as a special adviser to Kgalema Motlanthe, who later became President, and a member of national Parliament, Rasool was sent to the United States as South Africa's ambassador.
His ambassadorship came about because in 2006 Rasool was the only serving politician prepared to meet with an unknown senator from Illinois called Barack Obama.
In this exclusive interview, Rasool talks about his relationship with Obama, his views on American politics, his relationship with South Africa's ruling party - of which he is still a member - and their chances in he upcoming local government elections. He also talks about the work he has been doing in conflict areas around the world and the conflict he sometimes feels between his religious beliefs and being a politician.

Video - The Complete Interview with Jonathan Jansen

Jonathan Jansen on education, Madiba and the Blue Bulls

When Professor Jonathan Jansen announced that he was stepping down as the vice-chancellor of the University of the Free State (UFS) less than half-way into this second five-year term, it caught many people by surprise. He is leaving the university next month, after taking office less than seven years ago.

But Jansen insisted in an interview this week that his senior colleagues and the university’s council were not surprised because they knew from the beginning that he was going to stay in this position for only seven years.

“I believe that you have seven years in which to impact on the organisation and if you have not made a major impact by that time, you never will. For me it is a wonderful time to make some major changes, consolidate a new team, do some succession planning, and then to move on.

“The seven years have been wonderful, I really enjoyed it, but it is enough,” Jansen said in a wide-ranging interview in which he reflected on his time at the UFS, gave some advice to government on how to sort out the country’s problems, including education and the economy, and also spoke about his respect for Nelson Mandela, his love for social media and his support for the Blue Bulls.

A more detailed article on this interview appeared in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 16 July 2016, but here follows a video of the interview.

Locally, power does grow from the barrel of a gun

An encounter with a KZN induna and his armed henchmen reminded Ryland Fisher why so much is at stake at the municipal elections.

Last week I encountered first-hand how traditional authorities assert power over rural communities and realised why so much is at stake at the municipal elections, to the extent that people are prepared to kill to safeguard positions, as has already happened in some areas.

I was in Empangeni in northern KwaZulu-Natal, interviewing and photographing a psychologist who had benefited from a bursary scheme sponsored by an overseas foundation. With help from this foundation, he qualified and went back to rural KZN where he initiated a project to provide psychological services to more than 550 000 people.

The photographer asked whether we could take a picture of him in a rural setting, so we drove out to a small village, about 10km outside town. We took some pictures at the village entrance and drove further inside to take some more photos, with the backdrop of the rolling KZN hills.

After parking our cars next to a gravel road, we were preparing for the photo shoot when two big 4X4 vehicles pulled up and out jumped three guys armed with what looked like submachine guns and Uzis. I’m not an expert at guns but the men looked ominous. And nervous, which made them more ominous.

A big man (in a physical sense) in one of the vehicles asked us what we were doing there and when we explained, they asked why we had not asked permission from the “tribal authority” before we began taking pictures. We assumed he was the induna of the area because he said he needed to know what to tell people if they asked him why people were allowed to take pictures in their villages.

After much negotiation, under the beady eye of the armed men, they agreed that we could continue with our photo shoot.

Later we saw several blue-light brigade vehicles driving into the town and the photographer remembered he had heard that one of the political parties was announcing mayoral candidates or candidate lists for the municipal elections on that day.

This might explain the twitchiness of the induna and his men. They may have been nervous we were journalists wanting to write a negative story about their village. But even that would not have given them permission to stop us from taking photos and to display their guns in a threatening manner.

The experience left us shaken, even the psychologist and photographer who’d both grown up in rural communities and experienced the power of traditional leaders.

It was my first such experience and I realised why traditional leaders initially opposed succumbing to elected municipal leadership. It would appear that in some of these smaller communities, traditional leaders are considered close to gods. No one questions them and no one does anything without them knowing.

For someone who has always lived in a big city this is difficult to understand. But I understand power is important to most people and the traditional leadership structures ensured people subjected themselves to power. This might also explain why the ANC leadership quickly caved in to the demands of traditional leaders and began paying them after 1994.

In the 1980s, most of us involved in the Struggle never expected payment or positions, but times have changed. With power comes jobs and remuneration. And councillors and traditional leaders earn a reasonable amount of money, especially if one had nothing before.

Things have also changed and most people no longer get involved in politics because they want to make a difference to society. It appears most people get involved because they see some potential benefit for themselves.There are many communities, not only in rural areas, where one cannot do anything without the permission of leaders, some of whom are self-appointed. Naturally, these “leaders” always stand to benefit from whatever happens in “their” communities.

The concept of a “captured state” probably extends to “captured comrades” in a much broader sense. People in public service often put their interests ahead of the interests of the people they are supposed to serve. This is probably why most people in government employment don’t speak out about the problems in society. It is ,therefore, up to civil society organisations and ordinary members of political parties to instil values of selfless service into party and government structures. This, of course, is easier said than done. As a result we will probably have to live with gatekeepers and selfish political leadership for a long time.

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

Censor-in-chief can't cover up the flaming issues

Hlaudi Motsoeneng has been allowed to step over the line and he needs to be reined in by the people who placed him there, writes Ryland Fisher.

It would have been a good time to write about the significance of the Freedom Charter, which celebrates its 61st anniversary this weekend. It was adopted at the Congress of the People at Kliptown, Johannesburg, on June 26, 1955 after two days of deliberation by thousands of delegates from across the country, and still has relevance today.

If you were watching SABC News, you would not have known Pretoria was subjected to some of the worst protests we have experienced in our democracy, says the writer. Picture: Oupa Mokoena. Credit: INDEPENDENT MEDIA

But after watching the scenes unfolding in Tswhane, where there was mass destruction of property, apparently after protests about the ANC’s choice of mayoral candidate, I had no choice, but to write about what we are not seeing on the SABC news services.

The reason for this is because, if you were watching SABC News this week, you would not have known Pretoria was subjected to some of the worst protests we have experienced in our democracy. The protests started even before the ANC announced they were bringing in an outsider as their mayoral candidate for this crucial municipality, but escalated soon afterwards.

The ANC initially blamed the protests on hooligans and said there was no evidence members had been involved, and all the parties who’d been implicated claimed innocence. The protests, which appeared to be based on factionalism, quickly spread to several townships in Tshwane.

While the country’s capital was burning, the SABC pretended nothing was happening. To the credit of staff at the SABC, they did try to report on the protests, but, in line with the recent policy announced by the chief operating officer at the SABC, Hlaudi Motsoeneng, they were not allowed to show footage of protests. The best they could do at first was to show some talking heads discussing the protests. Later they showed visuals of people congregating, but not really doing anything.

I have previously praised Motsoeneng for being brave enough to impose a 90 percent local content rule for music on all SABC radio stations, something which I still support.

I believe it could revitalise our ailing music industry. I’m not sure if I agree with the same rule for television, but that’s another subject altogether.

I cannot support his decision not to show protests on SABC television channels. I also cannot support his decision to ban the reading of newspaper headlines on television and not to allow open-line call-ins from listeners.

It appears to me to be a knee-jerk reaction to protests against the ANC government. Anyone who has ever been an activist knows you do not stop protests by pretending they are not happening. The only way to deal with protests is to deal with the issues making people unhappy.

For instance, if the protests are about service delivery then the only way to stop them is by delivering proper services.

You cannot stick your head in the sand and hope they go away.

Censorship has never helped anyone. It leads only to ignorance and we all know how dangerous ignorance can be. There are many people who today claim to have been ignorant about what was happening under their noses during apartheid.

We have come too far as a country and too many people have sacrificed for our freedoms for them to be taken away because some people fear dissent.

Instead of trying to silence critical voices, the government and the ANC should be trying to listen to why there is criticism, even from people who are not usually critical. Why are more and more people who used to be loyal to the ANC speaking out about things that are wrong inside the organisation? Not everyone who criticises the ANC is in bed with the opposition.

If Motsoeneng really wants to help the ANC, he should not be trying to censor news and viewpoints. Instead, he should be encouraging discussion between who essentially want the same thing for our country - for it to prosper.

He should be encouraging his journalists to investigate the causes of violence and looking at ways in which concerns can be addressed.

The role of the media in any vibrant democracy is to interrogate what is going on, not only to report on it. This is a role we performed even under apartheid when we were not allowed to report on certain things in terms of the law and not at the whim of someone who thinks he is more powerful than the organisation that he represents or the people he purports to serve.

I agree there are way too many outlets for negativity in the media space. However, the way to deal with this is not to pretend negativity does not exist, but rather to try to understand why it is there.

An adage says where there is smoke, there is a fire. You cannot have so many unhappy people in democratic South Africa without a reason; you cannot have so many people protesting merely because they saw others doing it on television.

There has to be a reason for the protests, not only the ones that those happened this week, but the ones over the past few months which encouraged Motsoeneng to become censor-in-chief.

I am not one of those parrot-style critics of Motsoeneng who believes he should be fired because he does not have qualifications. I believe if you are capable, you should be allowed to do the job, irrespective of qualifications.

However Motsoeneng has been allowed to step over the line and he needs to be reined in by the people who placed him there in the first place, before it is too late and he does even more damage to what should be a prestigious public institution. And to our democracy in the process.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 25 June 2016)

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).