Achievements should not be reduced to racial issues

One of the things that have always irritated me, even when our democracy was still very young, was the labelling of achievers as “the first …”

It was not unusual to refer to someone as the first black pilot, the first black woman engineer, the first black train driver, or the first white beggar (ok, the last one was just to mess with your mind a bit).

Almost 20 years ago, when I was still with the Cape Times, I used to discourage such descriptions because, instead of celebrating achievements, they tend to cast aspersions on the person who had achieved.

But, I also believed, and still do, that labelling people in this manner, probably says more about the person who is doing the describing than the person who is being described. It indicates to me that you are not able to accept what the other person has achieved and feel the need to reduce his or her achievements to race and, by invoking race, you invoke all the negative stereotypes associated with race.

But you can also create the perception that the person does not deserve his or her achievements and that they would not have had that achievement if it was not for their race.

I argued with my reporters that, if they thought it was necessary to describe the person as “the first black”, it needs to add value to the story and it should not be the first thing that is mentioned about this person.

I have always been nervous about racial descriptions of any kind in the media. For instance, I used to agonise every time we referred to a wanted criminal by his or her race, because if your main descriptor is that the wanted person is “a black man”, then you could effectively be pointing a finger at every black man in South Africa.

It is not a good descriptor and as journalists, I argued, we should rather find better ways to describe people. I’m not saying that race should not be used as a descriptor, but it should never be the main or overriding descriptor.

Imagine my surprise this week when I read a story about the appointment of Springbok player Siya Kolisi as the new captain of the Stormers, the Western Cape based rugby team. In the headline and the opening paragraphs, Kolisi was described as “the first black African captain” of the Stormers.

I could imagine all the people who think that blacks should not play rugby – and there are still many of them around – thinking that this was the beginning of the end of the world. Then there will also be the people who will hope that he does not fail because, if he does, they might never appoint a “black African” captain again.

I remember when I became editor of the Cape Times when I was in my mid-30s, the newspaper articles all mentioned the fact that I was “young”. By using that word to describe me, they tried to conjure up all the negatives that some people would normally associated with being young, such as being reckless, impetuous and immature.

I realised that a year or two before that, a white person who was younger than me had also been appointed to edit another paper and none of the articles referred to him as “young”. Instead, they called him a “whiz kid”.

The same reporters who happily write about the “first blacks” don’t ever write the race of someone who has achieved if that person happens to be white. It is almost an unwritten rule that white people are expected to achieve these things while for black people it must be an exception.

For how long must we tolerated stories about “the first”? And how deep will these divisive descriptions still go? “The first black”, “the first coloured”, “the first Indian”, “the first Xhosa”, “the first Muslim”, “the first gay”, “the first disabled person”? I must admit I have yet to read stories about “the first Christian”, “the first straight person” or “the first able-bodied person” to achieve something. Maybe they are considered to be the norm and everything else, well, abnormal.

I have no false illusions about how deeply entrenched race, racism and other prejudices still are in our society. We struggle not to see people in race terms because it sometimes helps us to determine how we should react to certain people or what we should expect from them.

All I am asking is for us to think twice, maybe even thrice, before we decide to apply racial labels to anyone. It might not be your intention to cause harm, but they harm that you cause could run quite deeply.

Even if Kolisi does not mind being referred to as “the first black African Stormers captain”, I am sure he would prefer to be known as the Stormers captain and a very good rugby player, which is what he is.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 25 February 2017)

There's only one race, the human race, Ms Marais

There is an old saying, used often in Islamic circles, that the intention is as good as the deed. Of course, this is not always true because deeds often differ from stated intentions.

Take the case of Paula Marais, who claims she set out to produce a book “intended to encourage interactions between cultures”. Instead, what she produced has been widely criticised for being racist, insensitive and full of stereotypes.

The book Marais published, Rainbow Nation Navigation: A Practical Guide to South African Cultures, looks at supposedly different cultures in South Africa. One of her offensive chapters lists a few examples of things “coloured” people are supposed to do, such as women worrying about whether their hair would “mince”.

Marais was quoted this week as saying: “It is a true tragedy that the intention of the book has been lost. My brother came down from travelling through Africa and felt inspired to try to get to know his fellow countrymen. I did too. We both had, or were expecting, children and we wanted them to grow up in a more tolerant country.”

I would like to give her the benefit of the doubt, although it is really difficult to see her book as anything other than a botched economic opportunity.

Similar but different sentiments guided me when I launched the “One City, Many Cultures” project at the Cape Times in 1999, except I would never refer to Africa as if it is on some other continent. We need to refer to it as “our continent”. This, I have learnt over the years, is a mistake South Africans, and particularly Capetonians, tend to make.

The difference between what we did at the Cape Times and what Marais did in her book lies in the execution. But execution is informed by a worldview and if your worldview is based on ignorance, then you are bound to make mistakes, especially when it comes to unpacking different religions, races and cultures.

This is a very complex area of study and not something that can be entered without a great deal of sensitivity.

Readers with long memories will remember “One City, Many Cultures” attempted to debunk the myth that we are all so different.

We showed through our almost daily articles that, while we think we are different, we have far more in common. This was driven by a belief that we are, after all, human beings and part of one human race; race is a construct meant to divide us and culture is also often used as a way to justify keeping people apart.

Every week, we looked at how we related to what I call the important things in life, but which are never really reflected in the mainstream media, such as birth, growing up, teenage years, becoming adults, how we look after our elderly, and death and remembrance.

I will never forget bumping into the person who was writing about death and remembrance. He told me that he had just returned from a Jewish funeral and how remarkably similar it had been to a Muslim funeral he attended the previous week. This was precisely the impact that I, as editor, and everyone else at the Cape Times wanted to create.

In short, we wanted to unite people, rather than divide them, and we used the method of investigating what we have in common. We are all born, grow up, become teenagers and adults, grow old (if we are lucky to live long enough) and eventually die. And all of us, irrespective of our cultures, religions or supposed race groups, mark these life events in some way, often in similar ways.

Marais, on the other hand, seems to have gone out of her way to explore the differences between what she perceives to be cultures and this approach was always going to be a problem.

When you do what she did, you end up “otherising” people (if there is such a word). You end up creating or reinforcing perceptions of differences between people which is often used as an excuse to create mistrust among people.

This is one of the problems I have with anthropology. It seems as though anthropologists go out of their way to find differences between groups of people, and sometimes those differences don’t exist.

Apartheid was premised on the fact that blacks and whites look different and that they were not supposed to mix, and we saw the damage this caused.

Donald Trump’s attempts to keep immigrants out of the US are based on the same premise, and we can see the damage it is causing.

It appears there is a thin line between wanting to do good and what could be perceived as racism or other forms of discrimination. Let’s hope that Marais and others like her learn from this experience and do not make the same mistake in future. Hopefully then, their deeds will reflect their intentions.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 18 February 2017)

Zuma should learn from Tambo

President failed to be a statesman, writes Ryland Fisher

NOT too long ago, President Jacob Zuma opened most of his speeches with a quote from Nelson Mandela or, at the very least, he would use a Madiba quote in his speech. This year, he has been quoting Oliver Tambo liberally, which is understandable, given that Tambo would have turned 100 in October this year.

But what Zuma fails to understand, and this was clear at the State of the Nation Address on Thursday night, is that quoting great leaders does not make you a great leader.

Zuma fell very short of his publicly-acknowledged heroes, Mandela and Tambo, and not only in the delivery of the speech which he began at 20h21 after three attempts and several disruptions. He was supposed to have started at 19h00 but met fierce resistance in the House, mainly from the Economic Freedom Fighters.

After some of the worst scenes seen in Parliament, Zuma began by exclaiming “Finally!” before quickly settling into his trademark giggles and even an irritating “cheers” whenever he took a sip of water. One supposes that he felt comfortable because he was speaking mainly to ANC MPs and what was left of the public gallery where a chemical substance had earlier been used on some guests.

The EFF was forcibly removed from Parliament, as was Cope’s Willie Madisha, even though less violently so, while the DA MPs walked out.

What was of more concern than the exit of the MPs was the behaviour of some ANC MPs who shouted “f… you” when DA MP John Steenhuisen tried to speak and then there were also shouts of “racist” and “sell-outs” when the DA walked out.

Earlier, some of the EFF MPs had made disparaging remarks about Zuma and Speaker Baleka Mbete. The EFF’s Mbuyiseni Mdlozi called Zuma a “constitutional delinquent” while Cope’s Mosiuoa Lekota called Zuma a “scoundrel”.

One expects a lot more from the people who are supposed to be our public representatives.

The drama in Parliament unfolded for three reasons: objections against Zuma’s legitimacy because of his violations of the Constitution, the Speaker’s refusal to allow a minute of silence in remembrance of the 94 mental health patients who died in Gauteng recently, and the presence of soldiers in the police precinct.

While Zuma was delivering his speech inside the National Assembly in his normal deadpan way, the protests continued outside with tense standoffs between the ejected MPs and police. Parliament had never seen such a police presence and intimidation of MPs and the media.

If Zuma really wanted to be like Mandela and Tambo, he would have seized an opportunity to be statesman-like and would not just have expressed relief when he was finally allowed to begin his speech.

He would not have gone straight into his speech and would have made some off-the-cuff comments about what he had just seen and expressed his disquiet about it, not because of the disrespect shown to him, but the potential damage that was being done to Parliament and South Africa by the behaviour of the MPs and the police.

He would have appealed to his colleagues in the ANC to seek a political solution to a problem that refuses to go away. He might have said that he would reflect on his own role in creating this situation and would try to think of ways in which he could assist in resolving the tensions in Parliament (but that’s just wishful thinking on my part).

He might also have said that the Speaker erred by not allowing a minute of silence in remembrance of the mental health patients who died, or he might have called on everyone to stand in silent prayer or meditation when he did mention their deaths in his speech.

Mandela and especially Tambo would have also read their speeches before delivery to make sure that they understood its content and would not be floored by the pronunciation of difficult words or numbers. Zuma gave the impression that he was seeing the speech for the first time. There were too many times when he looked confused about what he was reading or when he stumbled over his words.

By the time he delivered his speech, it was difficult to concentrate on what he had to say, not only because of the delivery but because what had just happened.

In many ways, the contents of the speech were predictable. It was almost like he was reading a report card of the government’s achievements but there was not much in terms of vision.

Zuma premised his speech on the ANC’s latest catch phrase “radical socio-economic transformation” and promised to correct the situation where black people are still mainly detached from the mainstream economy.

He mentioned the National Development Plan and the nine-point plan of government once and spoke more extensively about the need to grow the economy to create more jobs, the successes of the regular interaction between government and business, his joy at the agreement on a national minimum wage, Eskom’s success in the power generation sector, government’s commitment to counter water losses, and efforts to eradicate mud schools and replace them with proper structures.

As it is, Zuma’s comments on the death of the patients was comprehensive and impressive, with a commitment that the government would implement the recommendations of the health ombudsman urgently. There was even a commitment of government support for the families of the victims.

One by one, he ploughed through the work and achievements of various government departments, dealing with the Square Kilometre Array project, university students’ demands for free education, a commitment to lower the cost of data (something that has been demanded by many), improvements in road infrastructure, an increase in tourism, and many others.

China featured very prominently in Zuma’s speech, with news of a co-operation agreement with the People’s Republic of China to build the Moloto Rail Development Corridor. But Zuma also made a commitment to the “One China Policy” and said that the government considered Taiwan as an “integral part of the PRC”.

“We value our relationship with the People’s Republic of China. China is one of South Africa's most important and key strategic partners. We recognise the PRC ‘as the sole Government and Authority representing the whole of China’,” he said.

It was when Zuma spoke about government’s priorities that the assembled MPs and guests appeared to listen more attentively.

“Political freedom alone is incomplete without economic emancipation,” he said, quoting Tambo as saying in 1981 that “it is inconceivable for liberation to have meaning without a return of the wealth of the country to the people as a whole”.

Zuma defined “radical socio-economic transformation as “fundamental change in the structure, systems, institutions and patterns of ownership, management and control of the economy in favour of all South Africans, especially the poor, the majority of whom are African and female, as defined by the governing party which makes policy for the democratic government”.

He listed instances of how the economic situation has not changed in South Africa in the past 22 years, including the gap in the household income of whites and blacks, the fact that blacks only own less than 10 percent of the top 100 companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, and the slow pace of transformation in the work place.

“Today we are starting a new chapter of radical socio-economic transformation. We are saying that we should move beyond words, to practical programmes. The state will play a role in the economy to drive that transformation. In this regard, government will utilise to the maximum, the strategic levers that are available to the state. This includes legislation, regulations, licensing, budget and procurement as well as Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Charters to influence the behaviour of the private sector and drive transformation.”

He outlined some steps that the government would take to achieve this economic transformation, including making it compulsory for big contractors to sub-contract 30 percent to black business.

If Zuma was completely honest with the nation, he would have acknowledged the role that the ANC has played in maintaining the economic status quo in South Africa. The ANC has been in government for almost 23 years and are fast running out of excuses about who to blame when things are going wrong or not happening fast enough in South Africa.

In May 1987, at the Business International Conference in London, Tambo spoke about the challenges that would face the ANC when it became the government.

“As the vanguard movement of our people, the preoccupation of the African National Congress is, and should be, the relentless prosecution of the all-round struggle to achieve freedom and democracy in our country. At the same time, we have begun to face the responsibilities that flow from having to lead our people in the restructuring of our society under the conditions of freedom. At the heart of this process is the need to ensure that the hopes and aspirations of our people find realisation through programmes based on concrete socio-economic facts”

Maybe Zuma should revisit that speech and ask himself why and how the ANC has failed to deliver on a mandate that its longest-serving president realised as long as 30 years ago. Let’s hope that the ANC does not only quote Tambo this year, but also learn from his example.

(First published in Independent Media's Saturday titles on 11 February 2017)

Lack of restitution in District Six is blot on our record

Nobody wants to take responsibility for what has happened to the restitution process in District Six, writes Ryland Fisher

SOMETIMES, when I am trying to beat the afternoon traffic out of the city centre, I drive down Constitution Street, turn left into Vogelgezang Street and then right into Keizersgracht Street, before making my way through Walmer Estate

This route, of course, is through District Six and past what is now known as the Cape Town campus of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, formerly known as Cape Technikon. It is a route I have travelled for many years and I am amazed at how barren much of it has remained for all this time.

Fifty-one years ago today, District Six was declared a white group area, which meant that about 60 000 African and coloured people who lived in the area were about to be forcibly removed.

The forced removals, which began a few years after the area was declared white, lasted until the early 1980s, with former District 6 community leader Naz Gool Ebrahim’s house one of the last to be destroyed by the bulldozers. She and her family were moved to Gatesville, an area reserved for Indians under the Group Areas Act.

I remember, as a young journalist, visiting Ebrahim in her home in District Six – I forget the name of the street – and later in Gatesville. She had to offload some of her furniture when she moved because her new house was much smaller than the home she occupied in District Six.

I remember her defiance before she was moved in 1982. I remember the pain as she reflected in her house in Gatesville on a lifestyle that had ended and a community that had been uprooted.

Ebrahim and many others like her tried in vain to return to District Six. She died in 2005 at the age of 79, not having realised her dream of returning home.

Whenever I drive through District Six, I try to remember the old street names, streets where we used to play as children and where many people hope to return one day. I can still see the narrow streets and the houses which were very close to each other.

It is one of our post-democracy government’s biggest crying shames that they have allowed District Six to stand barren for so long. It was good for it to stand empty during the apartheid years as a reminder of the community who used to live there.

But surely nearly 23 years after we became a democracy, someone in authority should have taken the responsibility to restore some life to what used to be one of Cape Town’s most vibrant communities?

Nobody wants to take responsibility for what has happened to the restitution process in District Six. It has all but ground to a standstill.

National government will blame provincial government and provincial government will blame local government.

Local government will probably blame disagreements between activist groups and people who want to return to land from where they or their parents had been removed.

Meanwhile, thousands of people wait patiently – and I don’t know for how much longer – for their turn to call District Six home once again.

My father-in-law, who is turning 80 this year, is one of them. He has been attending meetings in Lentegeur, Mitchells Plain, for many years to hear if there is any progress. Each time he returns home more despondent.

I listen to politicians a lot – I suppose that’s one of the hazards of journalism – and I have yet to hear anyone speaking passionately and with conviction about what happened in District Six and what needs to happen in District Six.

It seems the only people who are doing anything to honour the memory of those who had gone before us in District Six are the people at the District Six Museum and Homecoming Centre, which appears to be fighting a losing battle in a city that could not care less about what happens to an important part of our history.

Last year I attended the launch of Die Suidoosterfees at the District Six Homecoming Centre and spoke to a councillor who thought that District Six was part of the Bo-Kaap.

She thought that people had been forcibly removed from the Bo-Kaap. Fortunately, they have not. I could not believe that one of our supposed city leaders could be so ignorant.

I support the calls by District Six Museum director Bonita Bennett for the area to be declared a National Heritage Site. It is important to preserve the area so that future generations can learn from the mistakes made by past governments.

But more than that, I support any move that will fast-track the return of people to the area.

I would like soon to be able to visit my father-in-law in his house in District Six and not in Mitchells Plain, to where he and many others were forcibly removed.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 11 February 2017)

Shamed health MEC had no choice but to resign

The good news is that a politician finally resigned as a sign of taking responsibility for wrongdoing, even if it was just hours after she was implicated in one of the most damning reports since we became a democracy. The bad news is that it is probably a case of too little, too late.

Soon after the news of the resignation of Gauteng Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu became known this week, there were already people who lauded her for being “selfless” and “heroic”. There was even one headline that described her as a “victim” after her resignation.

How heroic must you be to have, directly or indirectly (this is for the courts to decide), caused the deaths of 94 mentally-ill patients who you removed from reasonably safe care facilities to private, unlicensed non-governmental organisations?

How heroic must you be to have lied to the health ombudsman during his investigation into the matter? Mahlangu apparently downplayed the number of people who died when she was interviewed by the ombudsman.

No, Mahlangu was not heroic nor selfless. She was forced to resign when she realised that her misdemeanours were being made public.

Calling her a “victim” is an insult to all the real victims, the patients who died and their families who have to deal with their grief.

But resigning does not mean that she can suddenly be absolved of her involvement in one of the most sickening incidents of our democracy. It also does not mean that she should be “rewarded” with another comfortable job in the public service. Already, some people on social media were suggesting that she become an ambassador. I sincerely hope that they were only joking.

She should be facing the full brunt of the law, because this case must go to court if the families are going to get real justice after what happened.

Overall, according to health ombudsman Professor Malegapuru Makgoba, an estimated 1 317 patients were removed from care homes to 27 unlicensed NGOs. The reasons for the move are not clear but the outcome was disastrous.

Makgoba described the decision to move the patients as “reckless, unwise and flawed with inadequate planning”.

One can only hope that Mahlangu will not be the only one who will resign. There are several senior government officials who helped her to implement her foolish decision and they should suffer the same fate.

Maybe there is a lesson in here for government officials who blindly follow the instructions of their political principals.

Public servants need to be guided by the Constitution of South Africa and by what is morally and ethically correct. They should not be guided by the whims of their political masters. They should have the guts to tell ministers and MECs that what they want done is wrong.

The problem is that most public servants just comply with the wishes of the people to whom they report. These are also often the people who placed them in their positions, so they feel some kind of loyalty and gratitude to these individuals.

If anything good is to come out of the Mahlangu incident – apart from the fact that this should never happen again – it is that we should once again review the decision to link public servant positions so closely to political parties and politicians.

I am not making a comment on the ANC’s cadre deployment policies, because there have been many so-called deployed cadres who have excelled in their public service positions. And, in any case, the DA does the same in the province and metros that they control.

What I am asking for is for us to realise the value of career public servants as opposed to those employed by and on behalf of politicians.

If someone is a career public servant, without an allegiance to the politician that she is meant to serve, it is more likely that she would be honest in her interactions with this person.

We do not know whether Mahlangu ignored the advice of people around her, but I suspect – based on my experience of working with government – that she gave an instruction and the public servants looked at ways of implementing without wanting to challenge her authority.

Normally, if a minister says the sky is pink, then everyone around her says ‘what a lovely shade of pink’.

This is a good example where authority should have been challenged, even if it meant risking your job as a public servant, because lives were at stake.

It is 27 years this week since Nelson Mandela’s release was announced and the ANC and other organisations were unbanned. How could an ANC MEC for Health, of all things, be so callous and uncaring? This is a good time for all of us to reflect on where we went wrong and why; and then find ways of getting us back to the human values that drove us during the years of struggle. South Africa deserves better than this.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 4 February 2017)

Double standards about bigotry are unacceptable

I AM NOT a woman and I am not gay, but this has never stopped me from campaigning for and promoting women’s and/or gay rights.

In fact, it is more powerful if people who are not considered to be part of designated groups stand up for the rights of those groups.

But I also believe you cannot choose which human rights you wish to support and which make you feel uncomfortable.

The people who think they can choose which human rights they want to support, as if they are taking them from a supermarket shelf, do not understand what it means to support human rights.

You cannot claim to be non-sexist, and be racist at the same time. You cannot claim to be non-xenophobic but be anti-gay. You cannot claim to be a humanist yet discriminate against certain people based on their religion, race, age, sexual preference or other identity markers.

Supporting human rights in its entirety has nothing to do with whether or not you support the constitution - which is expected of all - but it is about doing what is right.

Too often conservative people hide behind religion and tradition.

But I have never believed one should blindly follow a religion even if it makes you do things that go against your grain. So it is not enough for people to try to hide their conservatism within a religious framework. Even if they followed no religion at all, they would probably still hold those views.

The same goes for tradition. I have never believed in following tradition, cultural or whatever, blindly. Too many bad things have been done in the name of tradition.

Just ask anyone in the rural areas.

The sad thing is these issues are not discussed on a daily basis but only surface when a celebrity is involved, as happened last Sunday when TV personality Somizi Mhlongo stormed out of the Grace Bible Church in Soweto after a visiting cleric, Bishop Dag Heward-Mills from Ghana, made remarks claiming it was “unnatural” to be homosexual.

While the pastor’s anti-gay remarks upset Mhlongo - and the church later half-apologised - the pastor also earlier made sexist remarks against women which appear not to have offended the TV star, or not enough to make him want to walk out of the service.

It would appear Mhlongo, who is gay, is more upset by anti-gay remarks than remarks against women. This is the point I am trying to get across: you should not only get upset about anti-gay remarks and behaviour if you are gay, these should be as upsetting to those who are straight.

Getting upset about anti-women comments and behaviour should not be reserved for women.

Men should also get upset and do something about it.

Until we reach a situation where we realise unfair discrimination is bad, irrespective of who is being discriminated against, we will continue to have discrimination.

There is, of course, fair discrimination, which is meant to address imbalances and inequities of the past, but that’s another story.

I’m sure most of us have been in situations where everyone looked and sounded alike and the conversation quickly degenerated into comments about people who were “different”, whether these were women, gays, whites or blacks.

And I am sure most of us tolerated these conversations for fear of upsetting the people who were part of the conversation.

I have been guilty of doing that. A few years ago I was at a function attended by mainly white people and someone started talking about how blacks cannot and should not play rugby because “rugby belongs to us”. Instead of confronting the speaker and possibly upsetting everyone at the function, I just walked away.

I have often thought about whether I did the right thing and whether I betrayed my non-racial principles by not standing up to a racist who was possibly in the company of many other racists.

I would probably have been man handled, but it might have been worth it if it meant I was defending my non-racial principles.

Before joining in conversations about people perceived to be different to you, or cheering those who make comments against others (like the people at Grace Bible Church last Sunday), please think about how you would feel if those comments were made about you or those you loved.

The sad thing is all of us probably interact at some point in our lives, some more than others, with people who are perceived to be different to us and we survive those interactions. Yet we think nothing about acting against or commenting negatively about those people when they are not around or when we are surrounded by seemingly like-minded people.

Unfair discrimination on any basis is wrong. If you oppose racism, you should oppose sexism, homophobia, xenophobia and whatever other -isms and phobia that have been manufactured to create divisions between people.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 28 January 2017)

Trump's presidency is a fact - learn to live with it

President Donald Trump. For many people, these words are not rolling as easily off the tongue as, say, President Barack Obama or even President Bill Clinton. Hell, even President George Bush was easier to say.

But, by the time you read this column, the former reality TV star and moderately successful businessman Trump would have become the 45th president of the United States of America, leaving much of the world fearing the next four years of Republican rule. Unless of course, Trump outrageously manages to get himself impeached, which is not impossible. We can only live in hope.

Much has been written about how the American media and political pundits misread the mood of the American people. The media have been trying to cover their tracks by saying that Hilary Clinton won the popular vote – by almost 3 million votes – so they were not entirely out of touch with the mood of the people.

The reality is that American democracy is not based on the popular vote, but on an electoral college system which gives the majority winners in most states the right to choose the president. Trump won fairly within the context of the system of democracy that they have chosen in America.

But that is all in the past and the world now needs to work out how it is going to live with a Trump presidency, one that will probably produce quite a few shocks, as it already has. Despite the power shifts in the world in recent years, with China emerging as a rival superpower to America, what happens in American politics and society still impacts on most of the world.

So, if America elects someone who could easily be seen as a sexist, racist and xenophobic bully, it is bound to impact on the way America relates to the world.

Despite this, countries such as South Africa will have to learn to live and work with the Trump administration. International politics is almost like card games. You can only play with the hand that you have been dealt and, if you have been dealt a Trump presidency, then you need to look at the best way to deal with this. You can’t change your hand midway through the game.

America will continue to be an important partner, in trade and other matters, for South Africa, despite all the noise that we make about our partnership with the BRICS countries. Our relationship with the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) is almost about where we want to be, but not where we are at the moment.

But just because a leader is right-wing, as Trump no doubt is, does not necessarily mean that he would not see the potential in good relationships with the African continent and, in particular, with South Africa as one of the biggest and most stable economies on the continent.

We all had high hopes when Democrat Obama became American president, that Africa would be at the forefront of American foreign policy, but this did not materialise. In fact, Republican George W Bush probably did more for the continent than Obama.

Hopefully Trump’s business instincts will make his see the potential on our continent and encourage him to send more American investors our way. Hopefully Trump will also be surrounded by at least some public officials who not only have the interests of America, but the interests of the world at heart.

Hopefully, the kind of investors will be those that help to create jobs and do not merely want to buy up our relatively cheap (in international terms) real estate.

There is no doubt that Trump is a less than perfect human being, but so are most of us. However, it is up to the American people to expose his flaws and to hold him accountable for the many mistakes he will continue to make.

The media will continue to play an important role in this and will have to make amends over the next few years by really beginning to understand their constituency, which are not only their readers, listeners and viewers, but also potential readers, listeners and viewers. The media needs to understand and reflect society, even if they don’t like what they find.

South Africans, and people from other countries, can merely act in solidarity with the American people, but should not expect their actions to have much effect. One such case is the women march in Washington today which is being supported by people around the world, including in South Africa.

We cannot even consider sanctions against America, because they would not be effective. Our influence on the American economy is negligible, unlike theirs on ours. But why should we consider sanctions when Americans elected their president democratically, even if their version of democracy could be perceived as being faulty?

From where I sit, at the bottom tip of Africa, I can only sympathise with my American friends but, as they say in politics 101, you had an opportunity to exercise your vote and this was the outcome of your vote. Votes don’t always go in your favour. All of us, but especially the American people, must learn to live with it.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 21 January 2017)

Video - Thuli Madonsela, The Complete Interview

In an interview this week, Thuli Madonsela speaks frankly about her relationship with President Jacob Zuma, her reasons for letting her ANC membership lapse, and her optimism on the future of South Africa; "South Africa is not sinking". Catch the entire interview here.

We should not let group identity sow more divisions in SA

We are only two weeks into the new year and already we have seen several incidents of racism and religious intolerance in various parts of South Africa and particularly in the Western Cape.

The defacing of mosques in Simon’s Town and Kalk Bay are among the latest incidents of people expressing their hatred for Islam in the most despicable manner. But intolerance is also displayed through more subtle ways, like expecting people to pay to access beaches, which we saw on the West Coast, or to control access to public swimming pools because of the possible impact it would have on a private business, as we have seen in the Brass Bell incident.

Intolerance comes about because one group of people believes they are better than other groups. Those who practise intolerance often believe they are justified because they are dealing with people who are not prepared to “see the light” or people whose value system goes counter to what is commonly considered to be “good” within their group.

One of the problems that I have always had with religious teachings has been the notion of “my religion” being better than “your religion”. I am not saying this only with regards to Muslims, who are obviously the victims in the incidents I mentioned above, but this happens across religions.

When you think that you are better than others, it becomes easier to justify attacking others who you consider to be inferior.

The problem with group identity, which is effectively what religion is, is that you sometimes forget about the many other aspects of identity. None of us have only one identity marker, but in the case of group identity, we expect people to embrace the one thing that binds the group together (it could be religion or race or class) and to forget the other important markers of identity.

Sometimes, groups use a combination of identity markers to distinguish themselves. For instance, apartheid was premised on the superiority of white Christian Afrikaners who felt that they could control the country much better than the majority who happened to be black, with many of them Christians and some of them able to speak Afrikaans.

Being white was obviously the most important identity marker, but being Afrikaans and Christian was also almost non-negotiable.

When we attack people because they are Muslim, we often forget that they are also South African, that they could be of a multitude of races, and they could also be parents or sons and daughters who want all the stuff that parents and sons or daughters normally want.

In the same way, when we deny access to beaches to people from disadvantaged backgrounds, one needs to remember that these are often families who want to do what most people do in Cape Town over the festive season and that is to enjoy its beaches. Most of these people do not have the opportunity to enjoy the beaches at other times of the year, because of economic and other reasons.

I suppose there are times when group identity can be important, for instance when one needs to address the inequalities in South African society.

It is difficult not to reduce the inequalities in South Africa to black and white so it is not unexpected for the ANC president to mention in his January 8 statement that blacks should take control of the economy.

However, the problem with statements like this is that not all black people are poor and not all white people are rich, even though, in South Africa, it is more likely for a white person to be rich and a black person to be poor.

When it comes to inequalities in society, we need to talk class rather than race. The aim should not be to reduce the gap between white and black, because this could just create more millionaires and billionaires, but just of a different colour. The aim should be to narrow the gap between rich and poor.

Because of South Africa’s demographic realities, with black people being in the majority by far, they will benefit more, as it should be.

When faced with these disturbing incidents of discrimination based on group identity, it is important for us to assert our common group identity, as human beings and as South Africans who are loyal to our country’s Constitution.

South Africa’s Constitution, one of the most progressive in the world, talks about healing “the divisions of the past” and establishing “a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights”.

We cannot allow hateful people to take us back into the past where narrow group identity caused so much pain and damage. All of us need to speak out against these incidents, especially those who do not find themselves in the targeted groups. This is the least we can do as we try to build the kind of society envisaged in the Constitution.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 14 January 2017)

We can expect more of the same this year, if not worse

The past year has been a strange one for South Africa. Some people have described it as an annus horribilis (which roughly means a disastrous or unfortunate year), while others have described it as “watershed”. I would not use those words, but 2016 had a bit of everything. And all indications are that 2017 will be more of the same, if not worse.

If your name is Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma then, I suppose, you could have reason to consider 2016 as horrible, what with Public Protector findings against you, being grilled in Parliament, being subjected to protests inside and outside Parliament, and possibly facing more than 700 fraud and corruption charges.

On the political front, 2016 was the year the ANC started losing support: they started losing direction a few years ago. In the municipal elections in August the ANC lost control of three major metros, something that would have been unthinkable not too long ago.

The reaction has been a flurry of initiatives to “correct” what went wrong in the ANC, or to try to lure disfranchised ANC supporters to other parties, most notably the Democratic Alliance and the Economic Freedom Fighters.

Towards the end of last year, there were attempts by veterans and elders, many of them still within the ANC, to try and force the party to address the reasons behind the slump in support at the August elections.

But it is difficult for the ANC to address it because, at the root of all their troubles, most people realise, is the President’s relationship with a prominent business family who many believe have captured the state.

The issue of state capture was probably the main feature of South Africa’s political life last year, with several high-profile individuals making claims to back up perceptions of state capture, leading to an investigation by the former Public Protector.

The Public Protector, with limited time before she had to vacate office, tried her best to present a thorough report, despite attempts by the President and others to frustrate her work. She recommended a judicial inquiry to continue her investigation, something which the President is now taking on review.

The President had previously challenged the Public Protector’s report into whether he had to pay back money spent on upgrading his Nkandla homestead. The court ordered that he had to pay part of the money, which he did by taking out a loan with a relatively-unknown bank.

Whether the flurry to “save the soul” of the ANC will have any impact is still to be seen, but there are many people who feel it is a case of too little, too late. Some of those who feel this way are people who have been loyal to the ANC for years.

One of the good things to come out of the troubles faced by the ruling party is the role of Chapter 9 institutions, such as the Public Protector, the courts, and civil society.

A positive change in terms of the courts in 2016 was the ruling by several magistrates and judges that losing parties must pay costs, personally and not by their companies or government departments. This was seen first in the case of the SABC8 and later also in a case involving the President.

The other thing that gave us hope was when members of Parliament interrogated what has gone wrong at the SABC over the past few years. Hopefully they will interrogate other important issues with the same vigour this year. The SABC, of course, is one of the institutions believed to have been captured, along with state-owned entities such as South African Airways and Eskom.

The one institution that appeared not to have been captured yet is the Treasury, despite the Minister of Finance changing three times in four days just over a year ago. The Treasury remains an important institution to safeguard proper governance and accountability in South Africa.

Some of the security agencies have, on the face of it, unfairly tried to put pressure on the Minister of Finance to resign by charging him or investigating charges against him. At the time of writing, he was still Minister of Finance and will hopefully still be around when the Budget is presented in February and beyond.

If 2016 was difficult, 2017 will not be any better. At the end of this year, the ANC will be hosting their next elective conference. President Zuma has already served two terms as ANC president and already there is huge speculation about who will replace him, even though, in terms of ANC tradition, lobbying for positions is frowned upon.

Things will probably get worse before they get better, and they will not get better in 2017. I hope I am wrong, but my experience is that sanity and decency goes out of the window when the leadership of the ruling party is at stake.

Here’s hoping that 2017 will be better than 2016, even though our politicians will probably make sure that it is not.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 7 January 2017)

It is the season for us to have an open house

Growing up on the Cape Flats many years ago, it was not unusual to find Christians and Muslims celebrating religious holidays which they were not expected to celebrate. Christmas, for instance, was not seen as a Christian holiday but rather as a way of celebrating family unity, irrespective of their religious backgrounds.

To this day, it is not unusual to see many Muslim people rushing around frantically at the local shops, making sure that they have their Christmas supplies.

Like many other people on the Cape Flats, my family has always been a mix of Christians and Muslims, and my friendship circles have always included people from different religious persuasions, or no religious persuasion at all.

Some of my earliest childhood memories include going door to door in the Athlone area on Christmas and Eid (or Labarang as we called it then) extending our greetings in return for money and/or sweets and cakes. Obviously, we preferred money because we could decide how to use it but, also, there is a limit to how many cakes or sweets anyone can eat.

I bought a little tricycle when I was probably six or seven with money that I had “earned” in this way, by greeting people in their homes on their religious holidays. My tricycle was eventually stolen by one of my cousins, but that’s another story.

Later, after we moved to Hanover Park, I became part of a small group of friends who would spend most of our time together. This meant that we attended Muslim school and Sunday school together, attended a Christian youth group on a Wednesday night and a Muslim religious service on Thursday night.

We never saw each other as Muslim or Christian.

Later in life, I would develop problems with religion once it was brought to my attention the damage that had been done over the years, and in many countries, in the name of religion. I turned my back on most religious celebrations. I refused to celebrate anything that could be seen as supporting the harm done by religious zealots whose sole intention was to impose their beliefs on people.

Part of my attitude to religion was because of being introduced, during the Struggle, to the readings of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and others, and being exposed to the notion that religion was “the opium of the masses”.

Taking the train from Kapteinsklip station in Mitchells Plain to Cape Town every morning and experiencing the influence of lay preachers on the trains, convinced me that this notion was correct.

We were very serious about a lot of issues in the Struggle days and, in many cases, there was only black or white, and no grey.

Of course, as one gets older, one warms up to the idea of holidays and celebrations, and spending time with the family.

I still think that there are unscrupulous people who are using religion as some form of drug to cheat poor people out of their money – and here one has to think about the pastors who spray Doom on their congregants, or convince them to ingest Dettol, or eat snakes or grass. These pastors are enough reason for most people to turn their backs on religion.

But, over the years I have also been exposed to people who have shown me the good work that can be done by people with religious conviction. People who come to mind include Dr Allan Boesak and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who led the sanctions campaign against apartheid South Africa and which played a huge role in changing the minds of the Nationalist government who, up until then, appeared committed to apartheid; Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa who, as the secretary of the SA Catholics Bishops Conference, made sure that money was channelled to anti-apartheid organisations; and Ebrahim Rasool and Moulana (now Professor) Farid Esack, who led Muslims into the anti-apartheid movement, the United Democratic Front.

There are many other people who I have interacted with over the years and who impressed me with their commitment to religion and basic human rights.

After interacting with these people, I realised that I cannot let my view of religion be determined by zealots and extremists but that I should rather take my cue from people who embrace the beauty of life and who respect humanity.

This is why, at Christmas time my house becomes virtually an open house for people who might not be lucky enough to be with their families or might feel the need to be with a family. It is not so much about celebrating a Christian holiday but rather about celebrating what is good about religion and about people, in general.

After all, most religions celebrate humanity and the decent thing to do, if you embrace humanity, is to find ways of making sure that others always have reason to celebrate. Merry Christmas everyone.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 24 December 2016)

How not to have fingers pointed back at you

We've all made mistakes. The key is to be able to identify when you’ve made a mistake, take ownership of it and correct it, writes Ryland Fisher.

In the era of social media and instant gratification, it is sometimes difficult to discern between the personal and the public. I found myself thinking about this because of two issues or incidents: the one was the live broadcast of the parliamentary ad hoc committee into the fitness of the SABC board, the other was Nomboniso Gasa’s “open letter” to political analyst Karima Brown.

The issues are related in some way, and not because Brown worked at the SABC for many years. It is linked because it brings into perspective things said in public versus things said in private. It also looks at how people can change in who they support and why.

“I am not responsible for this mess. I inherited it”

In the case of the SABC, with proper and dedicated work behind the scenes, much of the mess at the public broadcaster could have been avoided. It is only now, years after many observers first warned of what is a major crisis, that things have come to a head and will hopefully be sorted out soon.

But, watching part of the inquiry live on television this week, it’s clear they were only scratching the surface. The rot seems to be much deeper and needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. The SABC is supposed to be a national asset and can’t be allowed to be as dysfunctional as it has become.

It would have been great if the minister of communication, as the shareholder’s representative, had taken more responsibility instead of trying to blame everyone else for the problems which she and others, including Parliament, should have expected a long time ago.

She tried to do a Bart Simpson during her presentation to the committee, basically saying “I didn’t do it. Nobody saw me do it” or “I am not responsible for this mess. I inherited it.”

There were many things raised at the hearing which would probably have remained private if there was no crisis at the SABC, which shows the need to be careful how you conduct yourself, in public as well as in private. When you are involved in public institutions, you may lose the right to privacy in many ways.

There are things which should never really become public

Then there are things which, in the case of private citizens, should never really become public. Things that could have been sorted out by talking about it and resolving it in that manner.

This is clearly what happened in the case of Gasa and Brown, both of whom I respect professionally. They were friends who helped each other along the way. In fact, it appears from Gasa’s “letter” that Brown helped her more. Why she felt the need to write an “open letter” to someone who used to be her friend is beyond me. Surely they could have talked about this before allowing it to degenerate into the public arena?

I hold no brief for Brown, even though I have known her for more than 30 years, but I feel that Gasa’s “letter” was completely out of place and unnecessary. I wonder if she thought beforehand of the possible impact it would have and the kind of response it would evoke. Or maybe she didn’t care.

And what happened to the “right of reply” principle? Or is it okay to publish and then give a right of reply later? This is not the way I was taught when I started in journalism.

In brief, Gasa takes issue with Brown’s support and opposition to President Jacob Zuma at various points of her career. She also raises some personal issues which, in my humble opinion, have nothing to do with the broader political decisions Brown has taken.

The problem with taking principled positions in public is that you need to be sure that fingers can’t be pointed back at you. Most of us don’t have this luxury because we are flawed individuals.

Journalists do back politicians from time to time. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be normal. I don’t have problems with people changing their minds about who they support politically, because that is part of democracy.

But the thing about journalism is that you need to be able to justify, through your writing, your political decisions. And sometimes these political decisions change.

When Zuma took office, there were many in the journalistic fraternity who were prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, in the hope that he would prove critics wrong. Even Zapiro temporarily removed the shower head from his cartoons about Zuma.

Many people have since changed their opinion of him, while there are a group who remain loyal, which is their right. Some of them will probably jump ship when his administration ends and will consider who to safely back next.

We need to be brave enough to deal with our failings

We’ve all made mistakes along the way, whether these are related to our careers or who we have backed politically. Many of us have made mistakes in our personal lives. The key is to be able to identify when you’ve made a mistake, take ownership of it and correct it.

If there is any lesson to be learnt out of the two incidents I’ve mentioned, it’s that we need to be brave enough to deal with our personal and public failings.

It’s not enough to say sorry afterwards. It’s about sorting out the issues before it reaches the point where it becomes necessary to apologise. In both cases, it’s probably too late, but we can learn from this.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 17 December 2016)

Let's not paint all people with the same racist brush

One of the questions I always get asked when I host discussions or workshops on racism is whether it is possible for black people to be racist. This, of course, provokes a discussion about what racism is because who has the power to be racist needs to be understood within the context of the definition of racism.

I have always maintained that it is possible for anyone to be racist because racism is an individual action often based on perceptions of group identity. People who think that they are superior to people who might not look or sound like them have the potential to be racist. It is possible for black people to think that they are superior to white people, and act on it, as is the case with the reverse.

I have serious problems with people who want to attribute values to groups as opposed to individuals. By doing this, they can create perceptions that everyone who has certain perceived attributes in common have the same values, hold the same opinions, etc. This is of course blatantly untrue.

You cannot say that all white people share the same views on everything, just like you can’t say that all black people share the same views. You could replace black or white in this statement with any description of a group you can imagine. So, do all gay people share the same views, or all old people, or all left-handed people?

Racism is often based on ignorance combined with prejudices about characteristics attributed to certain groups. Based on our perception of these groups, we react to them in ways that could be deemed to be racist.

I thought about black racism this week when I noticed on social media how some people, mainly supporters of President Jacob Zuma, attacked Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom for daring to ask the President to step down from office. Many supporters of the President started attacking Hanekom on the basis that he is white.

Knowing Hanekom, I don’t think he possesses most of the attributes that would normally be ascribed to whites by people who peddle in prejudice. But that should not matter in this situation. Hanekom, as a legitimately elected member of the ANC’s national executive committee surely has the right to raise whatever motions he feels will take the ANC and the country forward. Those who disagree with him have the right to oppose that motion.

Hanekom was not elected to the ANC NEC on the basis of being white even though his appointment to the Cabinet by the President might have been influenced by this in some way. In a country like South Africa, with a history based on racial oppression, it is important for the President to make sure that he reflects different demographics in his Cabinet.

But if we disregard Hanekom’s contribution because he is white, then are we also going to disregard the contribution of people like Joe Slovo, Denis Goldberg, Bram Fischer, Ric Turner, Neil Aggett, Arthur Chaskalson, George Bizos, Jeremy Cronin, etc. All of them contributed to our society as patriots and not as “whites”. This applies to Hanekom too.

It took a remarkable amount of bravery for Hanekom to propose his motion against the President knowing that he could be relieved of his ministerial duties if he failed. After all, he serves at the pleasure of the President in who he has just expressed no confidence.

But the issue is about much more than Hanekom.

I am concerned about some of the comments on social media by young black people who say things like “I don’t trust whites” or “I hate whites”. I have also been concerned by some people who, when they are attacked because of their incompetence or because of corruption, say they are being attacked because of being black. Very senior members of government are guilty of doing this recently.

Incompetence and corruption are bad and have nothing to do with skin colour. Using the race card is often the last defence of people who realise that the criticism aimed at them is valid or who have inferior arguments.

Trying to reduce everything to black and white is not helpful because you cannot paint all white or black people with the same proverbial brush. This is dangerous and could polarise our already fragile society even further.

I agree that whites still benefit the most from the economy and in general could have done more to contribute towards the equalisation of our society. But we should rather look at this from an economic perspective rather than a racial perspective.

We should rather look at ways in which we can reduce the gap between rich and poor rather than focusing on race and missing the big picture.

Racism in any form is bad, whether it comes from whites or blacks. We can only really fight it if we realise that all of us are capable of practising and perpetuating it.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 3 December 2016)

South Africans must take up the battle of patriotism

Let me admit it upfront: I am a patriotic and proud South African. I love this country almost unconditionally and have never considered living elsewhere for an extended or unlimited period. Whenever I travel overseas I can’t wait to get back home and get goose bumps when I see Table Mountain in the distance as our plane approaches Cape Town International Airport.

But my love for South Africa is not only restricted to Cape Town. I am fortunate to have travelled the length and breadth of our beautiful country and have seen something amazing in every little town or big metro that I have been privileged to visit.

I also have respect for the many offshoots of our democracy, such as the Chapter 9 institutions, the independent judiciary, but also Parliament and government departments. I also have respect for the Office of the Presidency.

It is with this respect in mind that I had no hesitation when I received a call about four years ago from the Presidency asking me whether I would be prepared to serve on the board of trustees of Brand South Africa, the organisation meant to promote a positive image of the country.

My agreeing to serve on Brand South Africa’s board had nothing to do with my attitude towards the present incumbent but was based on my respect for the Office of the Presidency. As a patriotic South African, I believe that, if the Presidency asks you to perform a certain task, you must do it because this is a request coming from the highest office in the land.

My biggest problem during my time on Brand South Africa’s board – which came to an end earlier this year after I had served a three-year term – was to reconcile the actions of individuals with my respect for their offices.

It became very clear to me that individuals, who we sometimes call leadership, can impact negatively on the image of the country, especially when they put their own interests, or the interests of political parties or factions, ahead of the interests of the country.

I’ve never been part of the “Zuma Must Go” brigade, even though I feel that our President could have done a lot better in his time in office. He has failed to live up to the high expectations we had when he was appointed.

Everyone, even former Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille, spoke about how charming he was and how much of a people’s person he was. This was in sharp contrast to the scholarly and aloof behaviour of former President Thabo Mbeki who tended to alienate many people with his apparent distant manner.

I don’t think the President has lost any of his charm, but the many scandals he has faced over the past few years have led to him dropping in many people’s estimation over the past few years especially. It has also seen a significant drop in support for the ANC especially in the past election.

Should the President go? And will that solve our problems?

I don’t believe that, if the President goes, he should be the only one to go. I agree partly with Jackson Mthembu when he says that the entire national executive committee of the ANC should resign.

However, I would go further: I think we need to look at what we require from our political leadership, across political parties. I don’t believe that only the ANC has a crisis of leadership. I think it stretches across political parties.

The EFF talks a good talk and performs some wonderful political party tricks, but do they have the vision for a society in which all South Africans will be able to flourish? The DA, in their desperation to shake off their privileged white image, promotes young blacks to top positions without them having served proper political apprenticeships. The Inkatha Freedom Party is holding on to the past, while COPE, Agang, the PAC and many others are holding on for dear life.

In any case, our politics has become so fluid with career politicians hopping from one political party to another with more ease than the Limpopo pastor spraying Doom on his congregant’s faces.

The President, in answering questions in Parliament this week, appeared very dismissive about a possible downgrade by ratings agencies. But it is something that we cannot dismiss lightly. A downgrade will, among others, see an increase in inflation and in unemployment figures which already came in at more than 27 percent this week.

South Africa is already in a very difficult situation economically and we can only get out of this situation if our politicians work together and admit to their own contribution in getting us into this predicament.

It is time for those of us who love this country and who care about our future, but who are not beholden on political parties for our income and economic survival, to think about what role we can play in making sure that our country gets back on track. We need to take the political battle in our country out of the hands of politicians.

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

Jessica's passing reminds us of the power of unity

This is probably one of the most difficult columns that I have ever written. I wanted to write it last week but could not do it. It is not because I wanted to write about Donald Trump or the latest episode involving South African politicians. The pain was just too raw. The pain is still there but, somehow, writing about it might help with healing.

It is easy to write about politics but it is more difficult to write about something personal such as death, especially when it affects someone who was close to you.

For the past year and a bit, we have been living with the knowledge that one of our close friends and comrades, Jessica Hendricks, had been diagnosed with cancer. In our interactions with her, she continued to put on a brave and happy face. She kept her illness private and people who engaged with her on social media did not know of the pain that she was going through.

In fact, after her passing last Tuesday morning, her family asked us not to post stuff on social media because she would not have wanted it. But you cannot stop people from posting stuff on social media because, that is the way people communicate nowadays.

Very quickly, word passed on that she had passed on and her timeline was flooded with messages of condolences. Many people expressed surprise because they did not know that she was ill.

I met Jessica in the early 1980s when she was a young girl who lived in and went to school in Rocklands. When we formed the Rocklands Youth Movement, she was one of the first to join. She quickly became part of the leadership of the youth movement. Later, when we formed the Mitchells Plain Youth Movement (MPYM) and the Cape Youth Congress (Cayco), Jessica became an integral part of its structures. Being a high school pupil at the time, she was also involved in the Congress of South African Students (Cosas). She also later became involved in the formation of the United Democratic Front (UDF).

There is an amazing bond that we formed in the 1980s. It is based on friendship but it is also based on a commitment to Struggle and our opposition to apartheid. In many ways, because we spent so much time together, we became like a second family to each other.

This bond continued after 1990 and, even though many of us went our separate ways, we continued to have an affinity with each other. Even if we saw each other after a year or two, it was often like we had seen each other a day or two before.

Jessica had gone to study in the Eastern Cape and, at some point, she went to work as a teacher in the United States of America for a few years. But we continued to remain in touch.

Over the past few months, since we learnt of her illness, we tried to increase our interactions. She tried to live her life as normal, going to soccer, which she loved, and music concerts. She never showed that she was in pain.

Last Tuesday, Jessica lost her battle with cancer and passed away in her bed, while her mother was metres away in the kitchen preparing breakfast for her.

I was fortunate to spend quality time with her and her family a few weeks before she passed away.

Jessica was buried last Saturday morning at the Blue Downs United Church at a service conducted by the Reverend Chris Nissen, who was a family friend, and attended by several hundred family, friends and old activists many of whom had not seen each other in years.

There were moving tributes by, among others, her son Riyahn, her sister Noleen, and Professor Derrick Swartz, vice-chancellor of Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, who knew Jessica from when she was a student at Dower College and he was a UDF activist.

Logan Wort, who was an executive member of the Cayco and the MPYM in the early 1980s, spoke about Jessica’s involvement in the local youth movement and the pain that she felt recently about the direction in which our country was going. He made a call to all former activists to “come out of retirement”.

But there were also non-political tributes, with the most beautiful ones coming from the head girl, deputy head girl and the principal of Rhenish Girls High School in Stellenbosch where Jessica had been teaching for the past eight years.

The singing of hymns was interspersed with the singing of freedom songs and a South African flag, which had been draped over her coffin, was handed over to her son at the end of the ceremony.

It was fitting that Jessica’s funeral service was as inclusive as it was, bringing together people from different generations, and religious and political backgrounds. It is something that we used to do naturally in the days of the UDF, when we lived by the slogan “UDF unites. Apartheid divides”.

Nowadays, non-racial gatherings are far and few between and people tend to stick to people who look and sound like them. The only reason we were able to defeat apartheid was because we had unity among everyone who was opposed to apartheid.

It seems that, since the end of apartheid, we have gone into little boxes and have forgotten about the power of unity. Hopefully those who attended Jessica’s funeral service will be inspired to reflect on what we all need to do to take this country forward. It is the least we can do in tribute to a great and brave woman.

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

Republican win part of the movement to the right

It is easy to be shocked by Donald Trump’s victory in the American elections, but it was probably something that should have been easy to predict, writes Ryland Fisher.

It is easy to be shocked by Donald Trump’s victory in the American elections, but it was probably something that should have been easy to predict. There seems to have been a pattern over the past few decades where the Republicans occupy the White House for two terms (eight years) followed by the Democrats for two terms.

Bill Clinton (Democrat) served from 1993 to 2001, George W Bush (Republican) from 2001 to 2009 and Barack Obama (Democrat) from 2009 to 2016.

If all goes according to script, the Democrats should win again in eight years, even though that might be too late because much damage can be done in eight years.

There is, of course, the possibility that Trump might not stand for a second term because of his age. He turned 70 on June 14. If Trump does not stand, it would give the Democrats an opportunity to try to reclaim the White House earlier - it is exceedingly difficult to unseat a sitting president in the US.

 

There are some people who wonder why we should be concerned about American politics. The reason is that the US remains the most powerful nation in the world and if they cough, we often catch a cold.

But there are also disturbing trends that could be applied to the South African political scenario.

The first matter for concern is that there seems to be a trend for the world to become more conservative. We have seen this with the Brexit vote, when Britons voted to leave the EU as a way of trying to keep immigrants out of their country.

Trump’s unexpected victory could be seen as a continuation of what happened in Britain and what is happening in other parts of Europe where people are turning on people perceived to be immigrants.

After all, his campaign was built on keeping people seen as ”others” out of America. He appealed to working class white people who felt their jobs were under threat because of immigrants.

South Africa is no different. We have seen xenophobic violence based on the desire to keep out people perceived to be ”others”.

We have also seen how people have interpreted employment equity legislation and black economic empowerment in narrow terms to deprive others of employment or economic opportunities.

A few years ago, when I was conducting interviews for my book Race, I spoke to Carel Boshoff, one of the founders of Orania, and he said they were doing in Orania what most people were doing in South Africa anyway: wanting to live and work with people who look and sound like them.

I never understood or agreed with what he said, but there is some merit. Most people feel comfortable with people who look and sound like them. Those who interact with people across racial and cultural boundaries are very much in the minority.

This could be an explanation for what is happening throughout the world where many people seem to be retreating into the laager. Part of this is economic - including holding on to jobs - but it could also be cultural.

Please note that I am not trying to make excuses; I am merely trying to understand what is going on.

Another parallel between the Brexit vote and Trump’s victory is how surprised pollsters and experts were by the results. Until Trump won the required 270 electoral college votes needed to become president, most experts were still hoping his opponent, Hillary Clinton, could stage a late fightback.

What this probably shows is that pollsters and experts often construct theories based on what they would like an outcome to be.

In South Africa, experts have written off the ANC many times and, while the ANC lost a few major metros in the last municipal election, it is probably still too soon to predict the end of South Africa’s oldest political organisation.

I believe that, despite its internal turmoil, the ANC can probably still win the next general election, even if with a reduced majority.

The only people who can determine the outcome of elections is the electorate and, quite often, experts and pollsters are out of touch with them. In a country such as South Africa, where most potential voters are poor and do not have access to basic services or technology, it is difficult to determine how they will vote. Pollsters in South Africa probably don’t reach the rural poor who form a significant part of our electorate.

If there is one positive to come out of Trump’s victory, it is that progressive people throughout the world must realise how difficult it is to convince people to be accepting of others and how difficult it is to make people live in harmony.

The task of creating a socially cohesive society is never-ending. We cannot just talk about living in harmony; we need to do it.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in Weekend Argus on Saturday 12 November 2016)

It's very simple: once an activist, always an activist

I sometimes jokingly refer to myself and others from my generation as “expired activists”. The reason for this is that many of us decided after the ANC was unbanned and Nelson Mandela released in 1990 that it was time for us to step aside, to raise our families, pursue our careers and generally just catch up with all the stuff that we missed out on during the years we were engaged in Struggle.

This week, as I watched the protests in Pretoria against state capture and in support of our Finance Minister who had earlier been accused of fraud, I could not help thinking about whether the “expired activist” tag was appropriate.

I’ve realised that, while I might want to expire myself as an activist, I doubt that activism would allow me to expire.

As I thought about this, I received a call from an old friend and comrade, Mike Mulligan, who used to be SRC president at the University of the Western Cape more than 30 years ago. Later, we would be involved in civic structures in Mitchells Plain where Mike still lives.

“I’m still in Mitchells Plain and I will remain here,” he said, “I can never turn my back on the townships.”

We had a long conversation about the meaning of activism and concluded that “once an activist, always an activist”.

“The nature of your activism might change, but it is not something that will ever leave your system,” said Mike. He said he had no respect for people who confuse activism with vandalism and destruction.

I found myself agreeing with most of what Mike was saying. One of the main reasons I became a journalist and an activist when I was young was because I wanted to change the world for the better.

Over the years I have realised that, while I am still committed to changing the world, my definition of world has changed. My definition no longer means the whole world. It is often restricted to one or two people because I have realised that if you change one person’s world, they could go on and change other people’s worlds.

My thinking about activism – or rather my own activism – was provoked by one of the students who I have been teaching journalism in Khayelitsha on Mondays. He asked me whether it was possible that people of my generation betrayed the youth of today because we left the Struggle incomplete.

“You thought that democracy meant freedom,” said the young man and this got me thinking.

He is right. We did think that winning the right to vote meant that we were now free. We did not draw the distinction between political freedom and economic freedom. We assumed, wrongly I must admit, that having a democratic government would mean an automatic improvement in the lives of poor people. We never expected that members of our new government would be more interested in lining their own pockets than serving the people.

One of the other mistakes we made was that we thought, because the ANC leadership was returning from exile, that those who had assumed leadership roles in their absence, should step aside. What we failed to realise is that leadership is dynamic and that when leaders are removed or move on, others step into the breach. In many ways, the internal leadership were now our real leaders and, at least, there should have been some compromise around who and how our country, and more specifically the liberation movement, was going to be led.

We should never have allowed the United Democratic Front to shut down because of the huge support it enjoyed among a wide variety of South Africans, something that the ANC has never been able to achieve. In many ways, the UDF could have played the role of bringing people suspicious of the ANC closer to the once-banned organisation.

But the biggest mistake we made was to say that the Struggle was over and we could now focus on living our own lives. This was to be expected, in some ways, because the Struggle had been intense and all of us who had been involved probably needed a break.

What has happened in the past few years, apart from watching the unravelling of our society, is that many of those who stepped aside in the early 1990s have now raised their children, achieved in their careers and made their money. Not everybody, but quite a few.

This means that you now have a whole group of people who have huge political experience, who have free time and who are reasonably well-resourced.

Many of these kinds of people were seen at the protests and at the “People’s Assembly” in Pretoria this week.

Many of those who support the status quo are not in the same position. They still depend on patronage to survive and will not speak out for fear of losing their jobs or whatever government business on which they can lay their hands.

Faced with the injustices still prevalent in post-apartheid South Africa, it is difficult for me to expire my activism. I am forced to continue my commitment to activism but this time my activism is different. It is mainly through my journalism where I hope to raise issues that should concern us as a society and hopefully encourage others to engage with these issues in a way that will contribute positively to the development of our country.

I hope to do this no longer as someone who is committed only to the liberation movement, but instead to the liberation of all South Africans irrespective of which political parties they support.

Once an activist, as Mike Mulligan said, always an activist.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 5 November 2016) 

Leaders need to listen, and act decisively

The #FeesMustFall movement is a manifestation of a broader unhappiness about the direction our country has been taking, writes Ryland Fisher.

When members of Parliament left the Medium Term Budget speech of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan on Wednesday afternoon, they might have seen the debris in Plein Street, which was the aftermath of clashes between police and students demanding “free, quality, decolonised and Afrocentric education”.

The MPs might also have seen the bricks strewn in the road and they might have noticed a smashed window at a Roeland Street furniture store, the unfortunate victim of an angry crowd. They might have encountered some students who stayed behind after the protests, having managed to avoid the police and blend in with the public.

And surely, they would have noticed the huge police presence outside Parliament - including several armoured vehicles and all manner of firearms - all meant to protect the people inside Parliament from those trying to be heard.

They might also have seen near the entrance to Tuynhuis the rolled up barbed wire, which had earlier been used to block off Parliament from protesters.

As I was walking up Plein Street on Wednesday afternoon, when the action had shifted towards the railway station, I could not help thinking about what happened in the past few months to get us to this point and whether all this could have been prevented by more decisive leadership.

I also thought about what our politicians, the leaders we elected to represent us in Parliament, think about all of this.

Would they be prepared to accept that something has gone wrong in our society? Would they be prepared to admit what has gone wrong? Would they be prepared to accept they might have played a role in fomenting what is happening, if only because they have become completely out of touch with our society and do not have a clue how to address the real (and literally burning issues) in our society? Or would they blame everyone else, a stance which appears to be the norm for South African politicians?

While the politicians and invited guests were sitting inside Parliament, listening to the minister of finance desperately trying to stave off a credit downgrade, and giving him a standing ovation, the students outside were determined to make sure that their issue, free education, remains a serious priority for the government.

It is highly unlikely that those inside Parliament would have heard the commotion outside as students engaged in running battles with the police.

But it is really about whether they are able to listen beyond the noise generated during protests.

What is happening in education is a manifestation of a broader unhappiness about the direction our country has been taking, especially over the past few years.

There is a perception that the political elite are more concerned about lining their own pockets and sorting out their friends and families, at the expense of the majority. This has resulted in disdain for the law and constitution, unless it helps to further the agenda of this political elite, and what has been seen as abuse of compliant state resources while trying to undermine those state institutions where the incumbents are trying to fulfil their constitutional obligations.

I do not support violence, especially not in a constitutional democracy. But what if important voices are not being heard in a democracy? What methods should be used to force those with power to listen?

Our political leaders can no longer pretend it is business as usual in South Africa. We can also not pretend what we are seeing is a sign of a maturing democracy. A maturing democracy is one in which we are able to argue and disagree and then move forward, based on consensus or a majority decision. What we have seen in the past few months, related to the student demands, has been indecision, which has the potential to set back our hard-won democratic gains.

I am glad the students took their protests to Parliament, because that is where the power lies to change their situation, positively or negatively. Vice-chancellors of universities work within budgets and other constraints and cannot reasonably be expected to deliver on free education without serious input from the government and, possibly, the private sector.

Protests need to move off campus, but at the same time the students need to find ways of convincing sceptical members of the public that they remain committed not only to their cause but also to the cause of turning South Africa into the great country we all know it can become.

We need to be able to see their protests within the context of improving our country and not just as another demand for something free, without anyone taking any responsibility to deliver something in return, an approach we are good at in South Africa.

It was interesting that the finance minister, who was excluded by the president from the committee meant to find solutions to the education crisis, was the one who accepted the students’ memorandum. However, we will need more than symbolism to avoid the shutting down of universities, a move which could have devastating effects on the country and the economy.

Let’s see what our leadership can deliver, otherwise I’m afraid what happened outside Parliament on Wednesday will become the norm and our “mature democracy” will descend into chaos from which we might not be able to recover.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday 29 October 2016)

Officials should pay for fighting unwinnable cases

I’ve always believed in doing the right thing as opposed to doing the legal thing. I have too often seen the law being used as a way of justifying things that should never have happened and that could have been sorted out by using common sense.

And before I get accused of promoting lawlessness, let me explain by using some examples.

One of the ways in which the government is trying to transform our economy is through using legislation like Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment and the Employment Equity Act. Most companies, in my humble opinion, will do just enough to comply with the legislation, not because they agree with the need to transform our economy, but because they it as hindering their ability to make money. They will hire black people and pay them huge salaries to occupy non-decision-making positions with fancy titles.

More recently we have seen how high-profile individuals, including our President and the one-who-should-not-employed-by-the-SABC, have used the courts in order to challenge legal decisions with which they do not agree. We have also seen how Parliament has interpreted legislation in ways that made them comfortable, even if it went outside the bounds of the law and human decency.

And this week, we have seen how the Finance Minister has been charged with what, on the face of it, looks like a trumped-up charge and one that has no reasonable hope of success. It is clear that the charges against the Finance Minister is part of a campaign to get rid of him.

Government spends billions of rands on legal costs every year. Part of it is for legal advice, but part of it is to pay lawyers and advocates, and mainly Senior Counsel, to defend them in court. It would be interesting to see an analysis of how government’s legal costs are spent and how successful they have been in court.

The reason for this big spending on legal costs, in my opinion, is linked to managers not being able to make decisions to do the right thing. Quite often, it is also about finding lawful ways of doing stuff that should not have been done in the first place.

Ultimately, what we call government, the private sector or civil society consists of people who are all prone to making mistakes. Those in government can probably afford to make bigger mistakes than others because they have more resources to defend themselves in court in the case of mistakes.

So, you will often find people rushing to court and, if their application is turned down, they consider an appeal or an approach to the Constitutional Court, until all their avenues have been exhausted. But often, they know at the beginning already that they have no hope of succeeding and are merely delaying the inevitable.

This, obviously, amounts to wasteful expenditure because it is money spent while suspecting what the outcome would be.

One hope, and this is courtesy of the Public Protector report on Nkandla and the ruling in the SABC8 case, is that so-called public servants will in future be held to account for wasting public resources on flimsy legal cases. The Public Protector of course ruled that the President had to pay personally part of the costs for security upgrades at his Nkandla homestead, while executives and managers at the SABC were ordered to explain why they should not be held liable for legal costs in the SABC8 case.

Before I continue, let me hasten to add that I am no legal expert. My legal knowledge is mainly restricted to an understanding of the law as it impacts on newspaper publishing.

But even with my limited knowledge, I can’t help thinking that there is a potential challenge to be made against the abuse of power displayed by the head of the National Prosecuting Authority, Shaun Abrahams, who appeared to have spent millions of rands on an investigation looking for dirt on the Finance Minister, only to finally charge him with what appears to be a misdemeanour at best or worst, depending on your perspective.

The same Abrahams has also spent millions on court challenges in an attempt not to prosecute the President for corruption charges.

What will happen, I think aloud, if the Finance Minister is found not guilty and the President is found guilty? Will Abrahams be forced to resign? And will he be held personally liable for the millions of public money that he has wasted on pursuing what appears to be a political agenda.

Will Abrahams be personally held liable for the billions of rands lost to the economy because of his pursuit of the Finance Minister? Will he do the right thing and apologise to the nation for the harm that his decisions have caused?

The time has come to draw a line in the sand and to say that the days of using the courts to determine the outcome of political battles and as a tool of incompetent so-called public servants, is over.

Before going to court, those in government (but this could also apply to corporates or civil society) should ask themselves whether what they are trying to pursue is right – in terms of our Constitution and in terms of the greater values of liberation for which so many sacrificed. If the answer is ‘no’, then it is probably not worth pursuing in court.

They should also ask themselves whether, in the event of it not being successful, they would be prepared to pay the legal costs out of their own pockets. Again, if the answer is ‘no’, then they should probably stop immediately.

It is time to start doing the right thing, as oppose to the legal thing. But what do I know; I am not an expert.

(First published in the Weekend Argus as a Thinking Allowed column on Saturday 15 October 2016)

The complete interview with Njongonkulu Ndungane

In the latest installment of Conversations With Ryland Fisher, former Archbishop of Cape Town, Njongonkulu Ndungane, reflects on 20 years since becoming bishop, 20 years since becoming Archbishop, 50 years since being released from Robben Island, and the state of the South African nation.