Synchronicity - life in the balance

Some days, you just get your socks blown right off. When it happens on a dark day, so much the better. Because that’s just synchronicity and universal grace at work.

I woke up this morning in a thorough state of gloom, stressed out and despairing. The current socio-political climate in South Africa is enough to drive anyone to drink and/or distraction.

The murder, purportedly over a wage dispute, of Afrikaner rightwing extremist leader, Eugene Terre’blanche has created a pivotal and dangerous moment in modern South African history. Murder is bad and common enough in South Africa, especially farm murders (it is estimated that between 1000 and 3000 white farmers have been killed since the ANC came to power), but the situation is inflamed by the constant singing of an anti-apartheid struggle song, which includes the lyrics “kill the boer”, by the leader of the ANC Youth League, Julius Malema. ("Boer" is the Afrikaans word for "farmer", but is also used as a derogatory term for any white person.) It’s not like this benighted country needs people stirring up racial disharmony and animosity and picking on ethnic minorities – there’s quite enough of that as it is (remember the xenophobia I wrote about a couple of years ago). While a court order banned Malema from singing the song, citing it as “hate speech”, it didn’t stop him, and moreover, the ANC sided with him when they vowed to fight the ban. As you can imagine, racial tensions are running high and it would seem like all the good work done in the very early years of democracy by real leaders like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu are being rapidly undone – and by the ANC itself. I was going to write a lengthy post on the subject, but instead let me refer you to the press release from the South African Institute of Race Relations – a liberal and respected think tank – which pretty much sums it up.
(Thank goodness the ANC have today told Malema to stop singing the song - though whether he listens will be another matter.)

Now let me give you the flip side. Having been out, I came home to find a receipt from the post office and duly trotted off to collect my parcel.

Oh what joy! What generosity of spirit! And it couldn’t have happened on a more apt day.

You will recall that a few posts ago I blogged about artist Sara-J, whose work is just so rich, so vivid and, despite the humour, so profound. Since I commissioned my gorgeous painting from her, Sara-J has had several sales.

My totally delicious Sara-J oil painting

She’s wanting to leave the Netherlands and move to France where she’s found herself the perfect studio. But she’s needed to raise additional funds after one of her principal backers let her down. Because I love her work and because I wanted to help, I decided, despite the mutterings of my piggy bank, to buy two small prints.

Craig's Lillies

Summer Lillies

Nice, aren’t they!?

But imagine my delight and surprise when I opened the parcel and discovered not just the two etchings I’d ordered, but three more – a proof of “St Joseph’s”, 1/75 (i.e. a first print) of “St Joseph’s 2” and, joy of joys a wonderfully colourful etching of “Nasturtiums” which I’d considered buying but in the interests of the grizzling piggy bank had refrained from doing.

St Josephs

St Josephs 2

Nasturtiums

I am blown away by Sara-J’s generosity and kindness – and the pictures and her thoughtfulness could not have come on a better day!

Here is someone who not only creates the most stunning art, but who also has a big and wonderful heart. She said, in the note she sent with the pictures, that she wanted to thank me for doing a blog post about her work and for the advice I’d sent her, courtesy of the wonderful Tessa Edwards of Aerial Armadillo, about online galleries where she might promote her work. For me, helping Sara-J was pure pleasure, and her art, which already adorns my walls, was thanks enough, so I am, on one of the rare occasions in my life, left speechless.

All I can say is, “Sara-J – thank you! You are very special and totally wonderful!”

For those of you reading this, do me a favour, and please take another look at Sara-J’s website if you’ve not already done so – and consider buying yourself a little treat! You won’t regret it!

Look at that, a blog post!

Yegods, look at this, a miracle... I'm finally getting my butt into gear and doing a blog post...

I can only say that I appear to have turned into an all-time lousy blogger. Not posting, not reading. I suspect a lot of the problem has to do with the fact that most of the things I want to write about are just thoroughly depressing and mostly centre around the current “climate” in South Africa. I’m appalled, for example, at the treatment of medal winning athlete Caster Semenye both by the local head of Athletics SA and the IAAF. And as much as I am appalled by that, I’m revolted by the media circus that has surrounded it and I’m horrified how the whole thing has been turned into a race issue, which is now bringing the race debate back to the fore - and with a vengeance. Yes, ladies, gentlemen and jellybeans, the Rainbow Nation has proved to be an utterly fallacious dream and is as dead as the poor old dodo. Racism is alive, well and thriving in sunny South Africa. If I start getting into this, I will be going down a road I’m not sure is appropriate for this blog. And since it’s been occupying my mind of late, there’s a good reason, I guess, for not blogging. And oh, this is just the tip of the iceberg... I could mention that crime stats are up, rape stats are up, South Africa's refusal to cut carbon emissions... But oh let's just not go there.

On a cheerier note, and another reason for not blogging - my pc finally started sounding its death knell with much grinding, snorting and coughing. For a hopeful moment I thought it might be hatching a dragon. No such luck. But I now have a new pc, custom built, super fast, frighteningly silent and super powerful. Cool. It means I can finish the book trailer I started making – it was looking quite good before everything crashed…

On a more important note, Blog Action Day is coming up and the topic, somewhat unsurprisingly is Climate Change. Blog Action day takes place this year on October 15th and more details can be found on the Blog Action Day website. The notification I received says:

To be a part of this year's event, all we ask is that you commit to writing one post, in your own voice, on October 15, on the topic of climate change.

More than a dozen top blogs, including Mashable, The Official Google Blog, TMZ,
Autoblog, and Daily Blog Tips, have already registered.

But this event won't be successful with big blogs alone. We want bloggers everywhere, of all types and sizes, involved in discussing the wide-ranging way in which climate change affects us all.

To register to participate, go to the Blog Action Day website.

By the way, has anyone noticed that you can no longer post images without giving Google a bunch of exclusive royalty-free rights? I was going to put up some pictures, but...

Zumamania

I’m feeling a wee bit stressed at the moment.

On Wednesday 22 April 2009, South Africans go to the polls in the fourth democratic elections since the country was freed from apartheid. The ANC will win and Jacob Zuma will be South Africa’s new president.

It all sounds okay so far, doesn’t it?

Okay, let me straighten the picture a bit.

Jacob Zuma has faced 783 counts of fraud, racketeering, tax evasion and corruption. These charges were all dropped earlier this month courtesy of the bungling of the prosecution process. It has been widely suggested that political pressure on the director of the National Prosecuting Authority brought about this happy outcome. Zuma was also previously acquitted of rape. In his defence at his rape trial he explained that:

“the woman who brought the complaint, a family friend less than half his age (she is 31, he is 64) who was staying in his home, had signalled that she wanted to have sex with him. How? By wearing a knee-length skirt and sitting with uncrossed legs. So what was a gentleman to do?”

Regarding the charges of corruption Zuma has declared himself innocent. The likelihood of that is slim given his co conspirator was convicted and jailed for 15 years. At trial the presiding judge, Hilary Squires, found that Zuma had a "generally corrupt relationship" with Shaik. The latter, I should add, was released earlier this year on “medical grounds”.

(I should also add that most of the leadership has been tainted by corruption but Zuma’s corruption has been the most public, for obvious reasons.)

Let me colour the picture for you a little more. Zuma’s election song and favourite chant is Umshini Wam. It means Bring Me My Machine Gun. The crowds attending his rallies love this song and they love to hear Zuma singing and dancing to it. I’ve included a YouTube clip so you can enjoy it too.

Do click on some of the links shown at the bottom of this youtube insert if you require further "entertainment" - some are a little hair-raising.

To take that up a notch, Zuma’s supporters will tell you that the machine gun song is important because:

"We all believe that we got our freedom because of the machine gun. Without those guerrillas, without those guns we wouldn't be here today talking about the government.”

That’s true enough but then add to that the call, last year, from Julius Malema, the leader of the ANC Youth League, to “take up arms and kill for Zuma” and you’ll perhaps start to get a feeling that violence is seen as a very viable means of achieving one’s ends.

I mean, let’s face it, you just have to think back to the xenophobic violence which affected Angela last year. And in doing that, I’m reminded of the remark Angela’s husband made to me about the cult of personality that is Jacob Zuma.

“People will vote for him because they believe that he will be like Mugabe. They want him to take all the farms and to chase the white people away. We tell them that’s not a good plan but they say they don’t care, that’s what they want.”

This is nothing new, whites (and yes, racism is more alive and well than it ever was) have long been told if they don’t like the way things are they can leave – and only two weeks Zuma ago announced that the only true South Africans (the white ones that is) are the Afrikaners – you know, those creators of apartheid... I suspect that leaves the rest of us booking our plane tickets for our ancestral homelands wherever they may be.

But despite all this, despite the failure of the ANC government to truly deliver, on Wednesday we will go to the ballot boxes and Zuma will be elected as our next president.

Not only is it the cult of personality at play here but the fact that the ANC is the heartland of the majority of South Africans. It’s the party that brought freedom. It’s the party that promises everything. It’s a party that is campaigning by singing Umshini Wam and dishing out free food parcels – and you have no idea how that wins votes amongst the impoverished and unemployed. The fact that, corruption aside, the ANC cannot deliver counts for nought – because people don’t see it that way. They believe the ANC when it makes promises. So there will (despite a global recession and decreasing foreign investment) be more jobs. There will (despite a desperate lack of skills –they all left courtesy of affirmative action policies) be houses for all and massive infrastructural developments. There will (despite a corrupt leadership) be less crime. There will (despite xenophobia, violent crime, and the call to take up arms against antagonists) be less violence. There will (despite Zuma publicly challenging the constitution and constitutional court judges) be greater democracy.

Hmm.


But the reality is this: for every thinking person, irrespective of colour, who sees the dangers of a Zuma leadership, there are a whole lot more who buy in to the inflated promises of a better future.

I’m reminded of a story I was told by a friend when I returned to South Africa in 1995 (one year after the country’s first democratic elections when the hopes for the Rainbow Nation were high indeed). Her char, a Xhosa woman, had come to her after the elections and asked when she was moving out of her house. “What are you talking about?” asked my friend, “I’m not moving.” “Oh yes you are,” said the woman, “I’m ready to move in so you must move out.” “I’m not going anywhere,” said my friend somewhat bemused. “But you must, the ANC told me that if we won, I would get your house. So when are you moving out?”

And this is a snapshot of the reality. Vast promises have been and continue to be made and yet the reality for the majority of South Africans is that they still live in shanty towns in abject poverty where they struggle against unemployment, crime and violence, and the ravages of AIDS, while the leadership swans around in Jags, Bentleys, Beemers and Benz’s and live in multi-million rand homes . But that doesn’t stop the majority from believing that things will change - because it will change, Jacob Zuma and his machine gun will ensure that, they believe.

Oh hope that springs eternal…

But here’s the thing. It can’t change. The skills required to create massive infrastructural projects which would create employment have left the country (courtesy of affirmative action policies). This is why each year millions of rand are returned to the treasury because the projects can’t even get off the ground. Now you tell me how you develop a country without skills? You tell me how you meet your promises when you’ve just undertaken to employ even harder hitting affirmative action policies? The ANC simply can’t, with the best will in the world and whilst adopting the policies it has, fulfill the promises it has made. But don’t try telling the majority that because they won’t believe you and will suggest that you leave. But it begs the question – what happens after another five years of unfilled promises? It remains unlikely that the majority will turn their back on the ANC; it is far more likely that they will take up their machine guns and lash out, as they did against refugees last year, in a massive spate of civil unrest. I do not relish the prospect of that day.

What I find deeply sad and ironic is that many of my friends who were not only anti apartheid activists, ANC supporters and ANC members have all left the party realizing that under the ANC government the dream for the Rainbow Nation has failed horribly. Even Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu has descried what has become of the ANC, saying he is ashamed to see Zuma become his president. As the last moral leader of the old guard left standing, Tutu was, for his pains, roundly condemned by the ANC and its cronies.

The only thing one can hope for from this election is that for the first time since coming to power the ANC does not gain a two-thirds majority which will give it carte blanche to do as it likes, including dismantling the Constitution. And for the first time in 15 years there is a very real threat to the ANC’s stranglehold on government. The threat comes from a breakaway party the Congress of the People – COPE, and the biggest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance. It has to be hoped that between these two parties (and the other 24 contesting the elections) that while the ANC will win, it won’t be with a two-thirds majority. However, the most recent reports indicate that the ANC may yet win with a massive landslide. If that is the case, then the way is paved down a very long and slippery slope - potentially towards dictatorship. Already the national currency is slipping against the dollar.

It is impossible to do this topic justice in a single blog post as it is so multifaceted, so instead I will point you to several other articles, should you be interested.

Peter Hichens article probably provides the most comprehensive overview. While some may say it is alarmist, unbalanced and even racist, he makes very pertinent and very valid points.

Sky news provides a brief overview of the elections.

Songezo Zibi’s article provides an interesting and unique insight into the nature of our democracy and the corruption amongst our leadership.

Pearlie Joubert’s article covers the threat to the Constitution under a Zuma leadership.

Chris Moerdyk’s satirical letter to “Dear Mr President” takes a look from a different angle.

The Australian raises the concern of the likelihood of Winnie Mandikizela Mandela being given a senior cabinet post in the Zuma government. (This after having been sacked by her then husband, Nelson Mandela, for incompetence – oh, and not to mention her involvement in necklacing and kidnapping and more besides.)

You can listen to Archbishop Tutu voicing some of his concerns here.

The wikipedia article on Jacob Zuma is very comprehensive. I’ve excerpted some of his more controversial positions for your, erm, entertainment.

• It would seem that the fact that Zuma has four wives and three fiancés and 18 children is a bit of an issue for many people…
• Zuma was criticised by gay and lesbian groups after he criticised same-sex marriage at a Heritage Day celebration on 2006, saying that same-sex marriage was "a disgrace to the nation and to God": "When I was growing up, a homosexual would not have stood in front of me. I would knock him out."
• Zuma's solution to pregnancy in South African teenagers is to confiscate their babies and have them taken to colleges and "forced" (his words) to obtain degrees.
• Zuma also drew censure from religious and secular groups alike when he declared that the ANC would rule South Africa until the return of Jesus Christ, and that its continued governance was just what God wanted: “God expects us to rule this country because we are the only organisation which was blessed by pastors when it was formed. It is even blessed in Heaven. That is why we will rule until Jesus comes back. We should not allow anyone to govern our city when we are ruling the country.” (Posters at the election rally held yesterday in Johannesburg were emblazoned with “Zuma is like Jesus Christ”.)

Spring has sprung, but chaos abounds

The brightness of an orange gazania

Although the mountains around the city still have their layer of snowy icing covering their peaks, today the sky is clear and cloudless, a pristine blue. The sun is shining and the first coucal of the season has been warbling since dawn. The robin is sounding particularly chirpy this morning and even the boubou has been issuing a chirrupy mating call. The guinea fowl are at it all over the garden, much chasing which lasts until he finally catches her, hops on and it's all over in a second. Seems hardly worth all the running, doesn't it!

Guineas at the pond

All around there is the sense of things waking and stretching into life. The trees are already sporting new lime green leaves and the rock rose has suddenly burst into a profusion of pink flowers.

Thank goodness, it's been a long, cold and wet winter with an uncharacteristic amount of snow.

Sunlight on Hibiscus

Meanwhile the rest of the world seems to be falling into disarray. I read that the UK might now be expecting a depression rather than a recession. The US seems to be in a state of both financial and political turbulence. Here, government appears to be falling apart. Thabo Mbeki has been asked to resign following on "political conspiracy" in attempting to bring Jacob Zuma to trial on corruption charges. Although widely reported that said charges have been dropped, they haven't, but the process used against him was declared unlawful - the allegations of corruption stil stand. Meanwhile, it seems we're about to find ourselves leaderless while major divides within in the ANC (long overdue, frankly) are really shaking things up.

Sitting here with plans to move the UK early next year, we're suddenly wondering what to do. Face economic turmoil there, or stay and deal with political and economic turmoil here (not to mention the incessant crime and violence and affirmative action). Ho hum, eh?

Yes, well perhaps it is just best to focus on spring afterall.

West Coast daisies

Politics? Nah, let's stick to beauty.

Which way up, you decide.

Not much to say today - actually, that's not true. I had written a post about the upcoming African National Congress (ANC) election for a new president of the ruling party. But D decided what I'd said was far too contentious and I was likely to get sued. I did say that sometimes I liked to live on the edge. He said he didn't think this particular edge was a good place to be living. So... what I can tell you is that we live in interesting times as the current president of both the country and the ANC, Thabo Mbeki, goes head to head with his former deputy president, Jacob Zuma. One is a manager and a pragmatist with a strong Thatcherite bent and some very odd views on AIDs/HIV. The other's is the people's man, who's recent past has been dogged by charges of corruption and allegations of the rape (unprotected) of an HIV-positive woman.

"Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles."
Ambrose Bierce - The Devil's Dictionary

"In politics, absurdity is not a handicap."
Napoleon Bonaparte

Let it not be said that life is ever dull. But let it also be said that while comrades in the ANC may be at each other's throats and stakes may be high, beauty nonetheless abounds in all sorts of other places.

"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not"
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Simply beautiful.

"Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all."
W. Somerset Maugham