A close friend stunned me recently with his revelation that, as the oldest child in a single parent family, he lost his name early on, as his mother relied on him to take on the mantle of older brother with all the responsibilities that entailed.
No longer Peter or Pete or Pietie or Peetman, he became "Brother". Well, "Boeta" really. His "real" name just disappeared into the emotional mist that was his family. They needed a big brother who would lead, protect and discipline the rest of the siblings.
By the time we became friends, he'd taken to introducing himself as Peter, which I thought was pretty formal, no abbreviation or diminution. But it was his way of clawing back the identity he thought he'd lost as a young kid.
You're forever defined by nicknames. It's a theme Jane Morgan and her colleagues picked up in their book on the Origins and Social Consequences of Nicknames, writing about how nicknames contribute to class formation, defining members of a close-knit and privileged group in society. But they also reflect on how nicknames mark those who are the "untouchables or non-persons" in society, or scapegoats who are given pejorative names.
One young woman has become so exasperated with the variations on her Mandy - anything from Manda and Mands to Mandisa. She is especially outraged by Mandi-Pandi, considering, she says, that she is not a Mandi-Pandi type of person.
Nicknames say much about who you are seen to be in terms of skill, the lack thereof or personal traits. Even younger generations who've never seen their skill know about Doctor Khumalo, Ace Ntsoelengoe, Vinnige Fanie de Villiers, The Chief Radebe, Loop-en-Val Motshwarateu, Baby Jack Matlala, Mannetjies Roux, Zulu Klusener, Monty Montgomery, Biff Smith.
Ice hockey player Stu Grimson, who became known very quickly as the guy you could rely on to take out the opposing team's top scorer, was nicknamed "The Grim Reaper" by his team-mates. Some of my favourite nicknames have come out of the cricket-mad Indian sub-continent, including "Rawalpindi Express" Akhtar, "God on the off side" Ganguly and Pakistani duo "Sultans of Reverse Swing" Akram and Younis. Pele is a good example of a meaningless nickname, given to him by his mates for his mangling of the name of a top goalkeeper of an earlier era.
But, sometimes, a nickname adds real value. Take Tiger Woods. No self-respecting serial philanderer would be happy going around with his real moniker of Eldrick. No matter how much they covet your fortune, chicks will laugh. They will. But a "Tiger in the bed" may be another matter
Often, especially in the modern era, they are just a lazy play on one or other aspect of someone's given name, ala Feesh Fish and Polly Pollock, I do wonder why a certain syllable in a name is used and not another. For example, why does the name Raymond translate into the shorter Ray and not Mond, which may have an interesting nuanced meaning.
But I think they say much more about the people who name you. And dropping your nickname or the variation of your name imposed since birth or on the school playground may cause some problems in life, not unlike the looks you get if you adopt a fake foreign accent. That's how Gordon Sumner by any other name but Sting would be an offence to the world.
How would it sound if Danny Jordaan suddenly started introducing himself as Dan or Daniel? People would think he was putting on unnecessary airs. Try that kind of stunt in Die Gat down Standford Road in Gelvandale, Port Elizabeth, and you may get taken out for the right reason. Or keep introducing yourself as Allistair when everyone knows you are Tootie Coetzee, and whatever your team does on the field is just rubbish.
Of course, when it starts getting viciously bad, like Tollaman, you have to toss up whether you will stick with a name and a group, or give them all up and start a new life under an assumed identity, that's if your parents were that off-the-planet that they actually put Tollaman on your birth certificate, or Vleis, Engel, Baba or Liefie.
Nicknames have taken on a different meaning in the digital age, whether for online gamers or inveterate bloggers or chat room addicts, hiding the good, bad and ugly, the shy, the racist and the idiotic behind Baby, Goofy, Sparx, Hoer, Native, Pizzaface, Spud, Chillieboy, Bles, Dutchie, Barbi-babe, which are no mere handles but complicated alter ego personas constructed with intent.
It can be the ultimate diss, not being given a favourable nickname by your closest mates. This is why I said to my mate Peter that being named Boeta was the ultimate affirmation of his place in the world, and not one to be discarded too readily.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Grahamstown court debate needs facts not sentiment
A declaration: I have a huge amount of sentiment invested in Grahamstown. It is the place where a number of significant and formative events in my life played themselves out; it is here that many of my most enduring relationships were established; it is the site of my alma mater and the space in which some of my earliest critical ideas germinated.
I love this town. Yes, town, because while Grahamstown may qualify under a British definition of city, that it includes a cathedral and, by implication, the seat of an Anglican bishop, the reality is that this is no more than a large town. Another British definition holds that city status is conferred by the monarch.
And right there, perhaps, is the nub of the debate which has generated much heat in the large town of saints: that too many believe historical decree, providence or precedent mean Grahamstown is forever entitled to be the location of the seat of the High Court of the Eastern Cape.
History is certainly important as a factor in guiding us in taking appropriate decisions for today and for the future. But it is only one factor. And we cannot be held hostage by decisions that have been taken in former eras. Grahamstown must argue its case today, given current circumstances and the assumptions we are allowed to make about the future. The past is a limited reference point.
It is not enough, therefore, for Grahamstown to argue that it will be further disadvantaged as a result of the relocation of the seat of the court. It must show that the move is bad for the administration of justice and not in the interests of the majority of the people of the Eastern Cape. At the very least it must show that the negative consequences outweigh the benefits.
It is ironic that those most vehemently opposed to the relocation of the seat of the court to Bhisho are in academia and the legal fraternity, as they consistently fail to bring the rigour of their professional disciplines to bear on the debate. For example, thus far we have seen no research of any worth, nor any substantive arguments presented, which challenge folk wisdom or answer basic questions such as:
- How many people currently owe their livelihoods directly to the fact that the seat of the court is in Grahamstown?
- How many people, therefore, will be affected by the relocation of the seat from Grahamstown?
- How many legal practitioners – advocates and attorneys - will be displaced as a result of the relocation of the seat?
- What will be the cost of erecting new buildings or renovating existing ones to house those who administer justice at the new seat of the High Court in Bhisho?
- Of what real value is the proximity of the seat of the High Court to the university’s law faculty?
- What does Grahamstown offer which other towns or cities do not, to ensure that the seat remains on High Street in perpetuity?
Much of one’s responses to these issues may be intuitive but intuition is seldom an appropriate starting point in argument in court or in academic disciplines. I have tried to uncover what research underpins the positions. About the only source material to which I’ve been referred is economist Geoff Antrobus’s work from about 10 years ago which, while a valid study still, is somewhat dated, as Geoff would be the first to acknowledge.
Rhodes University’s Institute for Social and Economic Research which, I would have thought, would be the repository of data on Grahamstown’s economy, referred me to the local tourism office for information on how many bed and breakfast establishments owe their business to the work of the court. So, we have very little statistical information on which to base a decision which favours Grahamstown.
On the flip side, of course, Government has not covered itself in glory in failing to lay a solid basis for the move. I would have thought that, in order to be reassured that this political decision can be trusted, we should clearly understand what benefits may accrue. For example:
- How many cases are heard in each of the four divisions of the court in the Eastern Cape which have concurrent jurisdiction – Grahamstown, Bhisho, Mthatha and Port Elizabeth?
- How many appeals from the lower courts are heard in the High Court in the various centres?
- How is the administration of justice within the province negatively impacted by the fact that the seat of the High Court is in Grahamstown and not at the seat of the legislature, Bhisho?
- How many of the cases heard in Grahamstown emanate from far-flung parts of the province, creating difficulties for indigent litigants?
- Are people negatively disposed towards the administration of justice as a result of the location of the seat of the court?
- What benefits, if any, might there be to the entire province of moving the seat of the court eastwards?
- Will people’s perceptions of the administration of justice - if not the administration of justice per se - be enhanced through a relocation of the seat to Bhisho because of its centrality within the province?
The reality is that, whether it is a popular view in Grahamstown or not, we are one province and a political decision may well point to the competing stakeholder or constituency interests which Government has to balance. And much as it may stick in the craw of some, it will be apparent to any Constitutional Law 101 student that the Executive is entitled to take such decisions. An unhappy local populace may well, of course, decide to vote in new representatives when the time comes around.
The hoo-hah around the seat of the court ignores other anomalies in the administration of justice in the Eastern Cape, fundamental to the transformation of our society. These include the lack of a dedicated panel of Labour Court judges (bizarre, given our province’s strong industrial base and a largely unionised workforce) and the continued existence of the Southern Divorce Court (historically for black litigants, although this is finally set to change with increased powers going to the Magistrate’s Division).
But resolution of these issues requires sound reasoning. Sophisticated spin-doctoring (as we have seen on Grahamstown’s behalf), even sentiment - no matter how well-placed - are never adequate antidotes to compelling facts.
I love this town. Yes, town, because while Grahamstown may qualify under a British definition of city, that it includes a cathedral and, by implication, the seat of an Anglican bishop, the reality is that this is no more than a large town. Another British definition holds that city status is conferred by the monarch.
And right there, perhaps, is the nub of the debate which has generated much heat in the large town of saints: that too many believe historical decree, providence or precedent mean Grahamstown is forever entitled to be the location of the seat of the High Court of the Eastern Cape.
History is certainly important as a factor in guiding us in taking appropriate decisions for today and for the future. But it is only one factor. And we cannot be held hostage by decisions that have been taken in former eras. Grahamstown must argue its case today, given current circumstances and the assumptions we are allowed to make about the future. The past is a limited reference point.
It is not enough, therefore, for Grahamstown to argue that it will be further disadvantaged as a result of the relocation of the seat of the court. It must show that the move is bad for the administration of justice and not in the interests of the majority of the people of the Eastern Cape. At the very least it must show that the negative consequences outweigh the benefits.
It is ironic that those most vehemently opposed to the relocation of the seat of the court to Bhisho are in academia and the legal fraternity, as they consistently fail to bring the rigour of their professional disciplines to bear on the debate. For example, thus far we have seen no research of any worth, nor any substantive arguments presented, which challenge folk wisdom or answer basic questions such as:
- How many people currently owe their livelihoods directly to the fact that the seat of the court is in Grahamstown?
- How many people, therefore, will be affected by the relocation of the seat from Grahamstown?
- How many legal practitioners – advocates and attorneys - will be displaced as a result of the relocation of the seat?
- What will be the cost of erecting new buildings or renovating existing ones to house those who administer justice at the new seat of the High Court in Bhisho?
- Of what real value is the proximity of the seat of the High Court to the university’s law faculty?
- What does Grahamstown offer which other towns or cities do not, to ensure that the seat remains on High Street in perpetuity?
Much of one’s responses to these issues may be intuitive but intuition is seldom an appropriate starting point in argument in court or in academic disciplines. I have tried to uncover what research underpins the positions. About the only source material to which I’ve been referred is economist Geoff Antrobus’s work from about 10 years ago which, while a valid study still, is somewhat dated, as Geoff would be the first to acknowledge.
Rhodes University’s Institute for Social and Economic Research which, I would have thought, would be the repository of data on Grahamstown’s economy, referred me to the local tourism office for information on how many bed and breakfast establishments owe their business to the work of the court. So, we have very little statistical information on which to base a decision which favours Grahamstown.
On the flip side, of course, Government has not covered itself in glory in failing to lay a solid basis for the move. I would have thought that, in order to be reassured that this political decision can be trusted, we should clearly understand what benefits may accrue. For example:
- How many cases are heard in each of the four divisions of the court in the Eastern Cape which have concurrent jurisdiction – Grahamstown, Bhisho, Mthatha and Port Elizabeth?
- How many appeals from the lower courts are heard in the High Court in the various centres?
- How is the administration of justice within the province negatively impacted by the fact that the seat of the High Court is in Grahamstown and not at the seat of the legislature, Bhisho?
- How many of the cases heard in Grahamstown emanate from far-flung parts of the province, creating difficulties for indigent litigants?
- Are people negatively disposed towards the administration of justice as a result of the location of the seat of the court?
- What benefits, if any, might there be to the entire province of moving the seat of the court eastwards?
- Will people’s perceptions of the administration of justice - if not the administration of justice per se - be enhanced through a relocation of the seat to Bhisho because of its centrality within the province?
The reality is that, whether it is a popular view in Grahamstown or not, we are one province and a political decision may well point to the competing stakeholder or constituency interests which Government has to balance. And much as it may stick in the craw of some, it will be apparent to any Constitutional Law 101 student that the Executive is entitled to take such decisions. An unhappy local populace may well, of course, decide to vote in new representatives when the time comes around.
The hoo-hah around the seat of the court ignores other anomalies in the administration of justice in the Eastern Cape, fundamental to the transformation of our society. These include the lack of a dedicated panel of Labour Court judges (bizarre, given our province’s strong industrial base and a largely unionised workforce) and the continued existence of the Southern Divorce Court (historically for black litigants, although this is finally set to change with increased powers going to the Magistrate’s Division).
But resolution of these issues requires sound reasoning. Sophisticated spin-doctoring (as we have seen on Grahamstown’s behalf), even sentiment - no matter how well-placed - are never adequate antidotes to compelling facts.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Men complimenting men
I’m writing this in the middle of my Tuesday morning women’s study group. Yes, the goatee and moustache are genuine, but the women let me join their group because I have a couple of hours open at this time of the week.
I can do this –- write in the middle of the group discussion – because the women won’t get mad at me. It’s the whole multi-tasking thing women are about, epitomising the differences in socialisation between women and men.
My study group members have no qualms about knitting or drawing or reading or sorting through a wad of personal papers or texting or having impromptu meetings on the sidelines around the coffee table, totally unrelated to the actual plenary discussion.
Men would be hugely offended that I am sitting here, apparently not totally present, definitely distracted, disrespecting them. My lack of meeting etiquette would not be tolerated.
Women regard being distracted – but not confused – among the 1001 thoughts occupying their life as a necessary part of being human. Men, as we know, can only think of one thing at a time.
Actually, they pretty much think of one thing all the time, but that’s something to explore another day.
I’m sitting in this study group contemplating the really important things about life on our planet across the gender divide because some guy has just paid me a compliment. It was between the third and fourth floors of the building, during my ritual of walking up the stairs to kickstart my heart. Well, crawling really, if truth be told.
This guy – an associate of an associate – comes bounding down the stairs and makes some inane comment, the kind of meaningless pleasantry that is another borderline example of what men don’t do, what separates us from women. And all I can grunt is “Yeah”, having in reality no clue what he just said and being preoccupied with gasping for that extra cubic centimetre of life-giving air.
A few more torturous steps up, I hear him shout out something, and I drag myself back and say “Sorry what?” And he says, “You’ve lost a bit of weight, well done”. And again, all I can muster is “Yeah”, and then an unsure, “Thanks”.
As I continue lugging my heavy backside up the stairs, I’m wondering: what do guys say when another guy pays them a compliment? Because men just don’t do that – pay each other compliments, I mean.
We may, in our adult youth, reflecting (not really, because men don’t reflect, but you know what I mean) on the outcome of a game, say to a team mate who brought down an opposing player with a great tackle, “Jislaaik, boet, you nailed that oke so that he didn’t know who his mother is”. And we’ll all know that a compliment has been passed.
Later on, when you’re in the park with your little guy, one of the other fathers may notice your guy has quite a good southpaw throw on him and may ask: “Did you teach him that?” And you’ll know that, in an oblique kind of way, some guy’s just said a really great thing about your parenting or coaching skills.
As you grow into your maturity, it’s not the done thing anymore for men to be dishing the compliments to each other.
If a woman pays us a compliment, we say a quiet, bashful word of thanks and inside let out a huge “Yeah baby!” Because men really live for women to notice them and say something like “I especially noticed your amazing pecs and abs, and the Richard Gere thing you’ve got going on the side of your temples” or whatever.
Men love that. If any guy tells you differently, he’s lying. Of course, few men realise that when a women does this, it’s how they relate to the world, male or female, and certainly is not the ultimate “come hither” invitation.
But, men complimenting men? We just don’t do that. It’s up there with saying “I love you” to your best male mates, or being ever-so-slightly self- deprecating (we like to deprecate the heck out of that other slob across the room but self-deprecation is not our thing), or feeling each other’s muscles (we learn the hard way how muscled a guy is).
So, how would we know how to respond appropriately to a word of affirmation from one of our own?
Consider this scene from The West Wing, where the American president’s top military aides are proposing the assassination of a terror suspect. A highly decorated admiral asks a general: “Have you changed your shampoo – because your hair looks more bouncy and manageable?”
Script writer Aaron Sorkin has no pithy comeback. He understands the state of total perplexity such moments create for all men. There’s just a lightning quick change to the next scene.
I can do this –- write in the middle of the group discussion – because the women won’t get mad at me. It’s the whole multi-tasking thing women are about, epitomising the differences in socialisation between women and men.
My study group members have no qualms about knitting or drawing or reading or sorting through a wad of personal papers or texting or having impromptu meetings on the sidelines around the coffee table, totally unrelated to the actual plenary discussion.
Men would be hugely offended that I am sitting here, apparently not totally present, definitely distracted, disrespecting them. My lack of meeting etiquette would not be tolerated.
Women regard being distracted – but not confused – among the 1001 thoughts occupying their life as a necessary part of being human. Men, as we know, can only think of one thing at a time.
Actually, they pretty much think of one thing all the time, but that’s something to explore another day.
I’m sitting in this study group contemplating the really important things about life on our planet across the gender divide because some guy has just paid me a compliment. It was between the third and fourth floors of the building, during my ritual of walking up the stairs to kickstart my heart. Well, crawling really, if truth be told.
This guy – an associate of an associate – comes bounding down the stairs and makes some inane comment, the kind of meaningless pleasantry that is another borderline example of what men don’t do, what separates us from women. And all I can grunt is “Yeah”, having in reality no clue what he just said and being preoccupied with gasping for that extra cubic centimetre of life-giving air.
A few more torturous steps up, I hear him shout out something, and I drag myself back and say “Sorry what?” And he says, “You’ve lost a bit of weight, well done”. And again, all I can muster is “Yeah”, and then an unsure, “Thanks”.
As I continue lugging my heavy backside up the stairs, I’m wondering: what do guys say when another guy pays them a compliment? Because men just don’t do that – pay each other compliments, I mean.
We may, in our adult youth, reflecting (not really, because men don’t reflect, but you know what I mean) on the outcome of a game, say to a team mate who brought down an opposing player with a great tackle, “Jislaaik, boet, you nailed that oke so that he didn’t know who his mother is”. And we’ll all know that a compliment has been passed.
Later on, when you’re in the park with your little guy, one of the other fathers may notice your guy has quite a good southpaw throw on him and may ask: “Did you teach him that?” And you’ll know that, in an oblique kind of way, some guy’s just said a really great thing about your parenting or coaching skills.
As you grow into your maturity, it’s not the done thing anymore for men to be dishing the compliments to each other.
If a woman pays us a compliment, we say a quiet, bashful word of thanks and inside let out a huge “Yeah baby!” Because men really live for women to notice them and say something like “I especially noticed your amazing pecs and abs, and the Richard Gere thing you’ve got going on the side of your temples” or whatever.
Men love that. If any guy tells you differently, he’s lying. Of course, few men realise that when a women does this, it’s how they relate to the world, male or female, and certainly is not the ultimate “come hither” invitation.
But, men complimenting men? We just don’t do that. It’s up there with saying “I love you” to your best male mates, or being ever-so-slightly self- deprecating (we like to deprecate the heck out of that other slob across the room but self-deprecation is not our thing), or feeling each other’s muscles (we learn the hard way how muscled a guy is).
So, how would we know how to respond appropriately to a word of affirmation from one of our own?
Consider this scene from The West Wing, where the American president’s top military aides are proposing the assassination of a terror suspect. A highly decorated admiral asks a general: “Have you changed your shampoo – because your hair looks more bouncy and manageable?”
Script writer Aaron Sorkin has no pithy comeback. He understands the state of total perplexity such moments create for all men. There’s just a lightning quick change to the next scene.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Out of all the colours of the rainbow, they chose bland
OUT of all the colours of the rainbow available to them, City Lodge Hotels chose to go with bland for their new beachfront hotel in Port Elizabeth.
Officially a Town Lodge in the “family” of accommodation facilities the group offers, the hotel should have nestled proudly on Nelson Mandela Bay’s beachfront. This is, after all, one of our major attributes.
Instead it sticks out like a sore thumb. There’s lots of facebrick, interspersed with vertical lines of browny-orange and off-white painted surfaces – I’m told it’s a light terracotta, alongside light and dark greys.
It presents a view from Beach Road suggestive of an electrical substation.
An opportunity to create a bright and cheerful new South African building on the beachfront just washed away and we got an image that won’t easily be used on postcards from the Bay.
When I first saw the hotel in its “almost finished” mode, I thought “Eben Donges-goes- swimming”. Imagine relocating the large North End building to the beachfront; it’s appalling enough as a reflection of someone’s sense of aesthetics from so many decades ago. As a memory – for me – of South African history, it’s a terrible feature (an Eben Donges lookalike) to have in such a prime spot on the beachfront. Because architecture is fundamentally reflective of the physical and social environments we find ourselves in at any one time, the kind of buildings which were built during the era – and in honour – of the strong men of apartheid, reflected their impact in dramatic ways.
And once the image is inside my head, I can’t get rid of it.
If this design fits in with the group’s corporate image, as some I spoke to suggest, then it’s really quite a shame. Perhaps some designers don’t get that, or they wimp out when a client insists they must go back to the drawing board.
That’s certainly not the case with Town Lodge architect Jeremy Malan, who tells me from Pretoria the final design of his building must be seen within the context of the constraints that exist – whether in terms of municipal policy, the substrata of the site, busy traffic on a six-lane road or the internal template that hotels must adhere to.
He stresses – and I have every reason to accept – that much design work has gone into the development, from the “podium” on which the structure sits through to the windows which overlook the bay.
Someone asked me if I had been inside, because it’s quite impressive. I haven’t been inside and I don’t doubt it’s impressive all the way through. I can only imagine that sitting inside overlooking this stunning bay has to be a great experience.
And you definitely won’t be wondering what colour the walls outside are painted. But, even though I wish the City Lodge group everything of the best in attracting local and foreign tourists to the bay, that’s not the point.
It’s about how much value these buildings – including the Radisson up the road – add to the aesthetics of our beachfront, for all of us, those who live here as well as those passing through. That value is not discounted by the economic or job-creation impact these investments have in a depressed city like ours.
Malan believes much has been done and they’ve succeeded in “softening the dull monolithic facade” through introducing, inter alia, the facebrick and painted surfaces. It’s here that he loses me, though, as I’m not sure we’ve not ended up with a “dull monolithic facade”.
And, I think we could have avoided having to look on something like that for the next 50 years or more that the structure will be with us.
Our challenge today is less about changing names on buildings and streets, but about developing our cities to reflect the psycho-socio- ecological revolutions we are living through since 1994. Those revolutions are taking place in Africa – yes, at the bottom end of the continent, but in Africa still. Development of our cities must acknowledge and affirm all of this.
Current town planning and building approval processes along the beachfront need to be beefed up – through, for example, introducing a municipal aesthetics committee as in former times, or having mandatory public participation processes. This will ensure even a city such as ours, which too often is seen as the Cinderella of the country when it comes to private sector investment, does not end up giving away the family treasures, even when we may be pretty desperate for some suitor to come along and invite us to the ball.
Officially a Town Lodge in the “family” of accommodation facilities the group offers, the hotel should have nestled proudly on Nelson Mandela Bay’s beachfront. This is, after all, one of our major attributes.
Instead it sticks out like a sore thumb. There’s lots of facebrick, interspersed with vertical lines of browny-orange and off-white painted surfaces – I’m told it’s a light terracotta, alongside light and dark greys.
It presents a view from Beach Road suggestive of an electrical substation.
An opportunity to create a bright and cheerful new South African building on the beachfront just washed away and we got an image that won’t easily be used on postcards from the Bay.
When I first saw the hotel in its “almost finished” mode, I thought “Eben Donges-goes- swimming”. Imagine relocating the large North End building to the beachfront; it’s appalling enough as a reflection of someone’s sense of aesthetics from so many decades ago. As a memory – for me – of South African history, it’s a terrible feature (an Eben Donges lookalike) to have in such a prime spot on the beachfront. Because architecture is fundamentally reflective of the physical and social environments we find ourselves in at any one time, the kind of buildings which were built during the era – and in honour – of the strong men of apartheid, reflected their impact in dramatic ways.
And once the image is inside my head, I can’t get rid of it.
If this design fits in with the group’s corporate image, as some I spoke to suggest, then it’s really quite a shame. Perhaps some designers don’t get that, or they wimp out when a client insists they must go back to the drawing board.
That’s certainly not the case with Town Lodge architect Jeremy Malan, who tells me from Pretoria the final design of his building must be seen within the context of the constraints that exist – whether in terms of municipal policy, the substrata of the site, busy traffic on a six-lane road or the internal template that hotels must adhere to.
He stresses – and I have every reason to accept – that much design work has gone into the development, from the “podium” on which the structure sits through to the windows which overlook the bay.
Someone asked me if I had been inside, because it’s quite impressive. I haven’t been inside and I don’t doubt it’s impressive all the way through. I can only imagine that sitting inside overlooking this stunning bay has to be a great experience.
And you definitely won’t be wondering what colour the walls outside are painted. But, even though I wish the City Lodge group everything of the best in attracting local and foreign tourists to the bay, that’s not the point.
It’s about how much value these buildings – including the Radisson up the road – add to the aesthetics of our beachfront, for all of us, those who live here as well as those passing through. That value is not discounted by the economic or job-creation impact these investments have in a depressed city like ours.
Malan believes much has been done and they’ve succeeded in “softening the dull monolithic facade” through introducing, inter alia, the facebrick and painted surfaces. It’s here that he loses me, though, as I’m not sure we’ve not ended up with a “dull monolithic facade”.
And, I think we could have avoided having to look on something like that for the next 50 years or more that the structure will be with us.
Our challenge today is less about changing names on buildings and streets, but about developing our cities to reflect the psycho-socio- ecological revolutions we are living through since 1994. Those revolutions are taking place in Africa – yes, at the bottom end of the continent, but in Africa still. Development of our cities must acknowledge and affirm all of this.
Current town planning and building approval processes along the beachfront need to be beefed up – through, for example, introducing a municipal aesthetics committee as in former times, or having mandatory public participation processes. This will ensure even a city such as ours, which too often is seen as the Cinderella of the country when it comes to private sector investment, does not end up giving away the family treasures, even when we may be pretty desperate for some suitor to come along and invite us to the ball.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Values must trump innovation
STEVEN Friedman, in his chapter in Mbeki and After: Reflections on the legacy of Thabo Mbeki (edited by Daryl Glaser), comments on the propensity of government in the Mbeki era to mimic the standards and practices of Western Europe and North America.
It is rooted in the age- old question: can anything good come out of Africa? In South Africa, it was born out of a particular need to show racists that blacks in leadership of the polity and the economy could perform as well as white counterparts.
It is not a new notion – this gentrification of African consciousness – that to be accepted as citizens of the world, Africans need to subsume our identity, ideology and values. Apparently, if I’m a well-heeled black business person wanting to enjoy social status equal to entrepreneurs around the world, I need to be able to eat sushi off the belly of a beautiful model, because that’s what they do in other countries.
Bizarre, but such is the thinking in a not insignificant sector of our society.
There is, however, no basis for a holus-bolus adoption of all the world offers in terms of development and a hatred of our own endeavours, meagre as they may seem.
Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the movie Social Network, the brilliantly written if slightly fictionalised account of the development of Facebook by Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg. A low-key campus network connecting Harvard students before being catapulted on to the planet, Facebook today boasts 500 million global participants and has made billions of dollars for founder Zuckerberg, aged 26!
Neither a dating site nor a conduit to people one did not know, it was initially a virtual version of a network of real, close relationships. Its success today still lies in connecting large groups of people with like interests.
Zuckerman’s preoccupation with growth for the sake of it, as his network reached ever-increasing magical numbers of participants, mimics the behaviour of the Facebook adherents fixated on inviting as many friends as possible.
As a means of re-establishing relationships with long-lost friends, or as a low-intensity exercise in voyeurism, Facebook is without peers. But too often after making the contact, the question must be asked: now what?
Facebook has not made it easier to maintain real, meaningful relationships over the ether. That is only possible in real, face-to-face engagement.
Changing lives or relationships for the better around the world was unlikely to be top of mind for Zuckerberg when he invented Facebook. Ditched by his girlfriend and shunned by the exclusive final clubs at Harvard, the tech boffin fled to his keyboard to write a vicious diatribe about his ex and launch a website slating girls on campus.
Rarely does a focus on securing sex, money and status translate into a noble endeavour. In Social Network, we’re exposed to the dodgy ethics which underpin Zuckerberg’s success – from allegedly stealing ideas from colleagues to betraying his partners and cheating them out of profits. And let’s not ignore the misogynist behaviour with women groupies.
All this perhaps epitomises the values deficit of Generation Y (born in the ’80s and ’90s), certainly as they present in first world societies.
Emerging societies like our own must be willing to use technological platforms like Facebook to drive our agendas, even at times leapfrogging today’s technology to the next version of innovation.
This is best evident with telephony in Africa, where communities opt for cellphone masts ahead of cables for landline telephones. The same will be true in our traditional conceptualisation of desktop computing, banking, delivery of health and social services, and even job creation.
In San Francisco today (Tuesday November 9), a Cape Flats-based non-government organisation, Reconstructed Living Lab, will receive a Bees (Best Use of Mobile) Award, an international social media prize, for its work in using especially MXit to reach youth at risk. Its community outreach interventions, which include counselling of drug addicts and gang members, currently serve some 40000 people across the country using their cellphones.
It’s a fascinating case study waiting to be replicated throughout the country.
One imagines Cape University of Technology academic Marlon Parker – who heads RLabs – and his team will be watching with great interest the next waves of technology coming out of Zuckerberg’s Facebook campus. But one hopes that we can do so while maintaining and affirming our core values of human decency.
It is rooted in the age- old question: can anything good come out of Africa? In South Africa, it was born out of a particular need to show racists that blacks in leadership of the polity and the economy could perform as well as white counterparts.
It is not a new notion – this gentrification of African consciousness – that to be accepted as citizens of the world, Africans need to subsume our identity, ideology and values. Apparently, if I’m a well-heeled black business person wanting to enjoy social status equal to entrepreneurs around the world, I need to be able to eat sushi off the belly of a beautiful model, because that’s what they do in other countries.
Bizarre, but such is the thinking in a not insignificant sector of our society.
There is, however, no basis for a holus-bolus adoption of all the world offers in terms of development and a hatred of our own endeavours, meagre as they may seem.
Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the movie Social Network, the brilliantly written if slightly fictionalised account of the development of Facebook by Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg. A low-key campus network connecting Harvard students before being catapulted on to the planet, Facebook today boasts 500 million global participants and has made billions of dollars for founder Zuckerberg, aged 26!
Neither a dating site nor a conduit to people one did not know, it was initially a virtual version of a network of real, close relationships. Its success today still lies in connecting large groups of people with like interests.
Zuckerman’s preoccupation with growth for the sake of it, as his network reached ever-increasing magical numbers of participants, mimics the behaviour of the Facebook adherents fixated on inviting as many friends as possible.
As a means of re-establishing relationships with long-lost friends, or as a low-intensity exercise in voyeurism, Facebook is without peers. But too often after making the contact, the question must be asked: now what?
Facebook has not made it easier to maintain real, meaningful relationships over the ether. That is only possible in real, face-to-face engagement.
Changing lives or relationships for the better around the world was unlikely to be top of mind for Zuckerberg when he invented Facebook. Ditched by his girlfriend and shunned by the exclusive final clubs at Harvard, the tech boffin fled to his keyboard to write a vicious diatribe about his ex and launch a website slating girls on campus.
Rarely does a focus on securing sex, money and status translate into a noble endeavour. In Social Network, we’re exposed to the dodgy ethics which underpin Zuckerberg’s success – from allegedly stealing ideas from colleagues to betraying his partners and cheating them out of profits. And let’s not ignore the misogynist behaviour with women groupies.
All this perhaps epitomises the values deficit of Generation Y (born in the ’80s and ’90s), certainly as they present in first world societies.
Emerging societies like our own must be willing to use technological platforms like Facebook to drive our agendas, even at times leapfrogging today’s technology to the next version of innovation.
This is best evident with telephony in Africa, where communities opt for cellphone masts ahead of cables for landline telephones. The same will be true in our traditional conceptualisation of desktop computing, banking, delivery of health and social services, and even job creation.
In San Francisco today (Tuesday November 9), a Cape Flats-based non-government organisation, Reconstructed Living Lab, will receive a Bees (Best Use of Mobile) Award, an international social media prize, for its work in using especially MXit to reach youth at risk. Its community outreach interventions, which include counselling of drug addicts and gang members, currently serve some 40000 people across the country using their cellphones.
It’s a fascinating case study waiting to be replicated throughout the country.
One imagines Cape University of Technology academic Marlon Parker – who heads RLabs – and his team will be watching with great interest the next waves of technology coming out of Zuckerberg’s Facebook campus. But one hopes that we can do so while maintaining and affirming our core values of human decency.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Unexpected expectations
I THOUGHT I was a good father. We’ve raised two reasonably decent kids and now, in dotage, she’s dragging the family name through the mud. Literally.
Tiggy. The cross-Staffie-cross-Collie-cross-who-knows-what-all.
I’m reminded, as I sit in the vet’s waiting room, of the most recent embarrassment prior to this. I was walking down the hill with the satisfied air of someone who’s stuffed himself with great food and drink, and has enough hours left on a lazy summer evening to carbo-load on even greater TV.
I spotted her in the neighbour’s yard. They (the neighbours) were opening the door for guests and this big discussion ensued about Tiggy. Understand, this is Rondebosch, a pretty decent part of the city. The neighbours, whom I’d not yet taken time to get to know, are likely to be professional types or academics, certainly animal lovers, activists even.
And there she was trying to duck out of their front door with a child’s toy in her mouth. They knew her name – and ours – because, having done what we believed was the right thing for conscientious parents to do, she has those personal details on her collar.
Apparently, according to the snippets of conversation I gleaned as I hovered at their gate, Tiggy was stealing toys, their dog’s and their child’s.
I knew it was true, she having gone through a period of collecting all our daughter’s toys with eyes – dolls and stuffed bears and other cuddly creatures – and hiding them under the bed. She had issues then about toys with eyes, but I had hoped lots of caring had helped her deal with things. Clearly not.
I knew what the neighbours were thinking. Irresponsible owner, that’s why the poor dog comes into their house and steals things.
All thoughts of stepping forward gallantly and claiming her vanished from my mind. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow my satiated butt.
But that bit of embarrassment pales into insignificance now, as I sit here with my 10-year- old cross-Staffie-whatever, knowing the charge of responsible ownership is about to be re-visited.
It started with the sickening realisation a couple of days ago that my girls – the one with issues and Molly, the beautiful Alsatian – were struggling up the hill on our afternoon walk.
Usually, they would drag me up to the field of birds, the one not wanting to be a nose-length behind the other. But, this time, there was Tiggy huffing and puffing like she’d already chased the hadedas for a full hour. And Molly now dawdling just within nudging distance of her, apparently having given up the desire to get ahead of her (it’s a dog thing).
Eyes wide open now, I noticed Tiggy was a little bit rounder than before, even though she had been off her food. It called for a visit to the vet.
“Why is the dog here?” asks the receptionist from her desk across the room.
“I think she’s pregnant,” I say quietly under my breath, the shame almost overwhelming me.
“Sorry, I can’t hear you – why?”
“She’s pregnant,” I mumble again.
“Huh?”
“She’s pregnant,” I shout, almost adding “the bad slut bitch is pregnant and are you happy now that the whole world knows this and thinks me irresponsible even though it’s not my fault she got herself knocked up?”.
And the mutt looks up at me in that tentative way she has when she’s not sure if she’s the most gorgeous, most loved dog in the world.
It takes the vet about two ticks to confirm that the little tramp is packing, but not before he’s wrung out of me that I neither know which hound did the deed or when and where it happened.
I try a bit of humour: “It’s a little bit unexpected – her being expectant.” His response is more of a grimace than a laugh.
And my feeble “I thought we’d zipped her up years ago” does little to exonerate me.
He’s giving me a look that says he suspects I’ve been a delinquent parent and that he really feels sorry for her. Damn this dog.
Much later, Tiggy crawls back from another sortie outside – I have to fix the fence between us and the back neighbours to avoid another oops.
I imagine her this time running through the neighbourhood, sniffing at lampposts and house gates, for a hint of the brute who forced himself on her, who shamed her in her old age.
Or maybe she doesn’t feel shamed. Maybe she’s happy to have done what dogs do.
Maybe it’s we humans who have to deal with embarrassment and humiliation and shame, who have to take responsibility for unexpected expectations. And rightly so.
Tiggy. The cross-Staffie-cross-Collie-cross-who-knows-what-all.
I’m reminded, as I sit in the vet’s waiting room, of the most recent embarrassment prior to this. I was walking down the hill with the satisfied air of someone who’s stuffed himself with great food and drink, and has enough hours left on a lazy summer evening to carbo-load on even greater TV.
I spotted her in the neighbour’s yard. They (the neighbours) were opening the door for guests and this big discussion ensued about Tiggy. Understand, this is Rondebosch, a pretty decent part of the city. The neighbours, whom I’d not yet taken time to get to know, are likely to be professional types or academics, certainly animal lovers, activists even.
And there she was trying to duck out of their front door with a child’s toy in her mouth. They knew her name – and ours – because, having done what we believed was the right thing for conscientious parents to do, she has those personal details on her collar.
Apparently, according to the snippets of conversation I gleaned as I hovered at their gate, Tiggy was stealing toys, their dog’s and their child’s.
I knew it was true, she having gone through a period of collecting all our daughter’s toys with eyes – dolls and stuffed bears and other cuddly creatures – and hiding them under the bed. She had issues then about toys with eyes, but I had hoped lots of caring had helped her deal with things. Clearly not.
I knew what the neighbours were thinking. Irresponsible owner, that’s why the poor dog comes into their house and steals things.
All thoughts of stepping forward gallantly and claiming her vanished from my mind. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow my satiated butt.
But that bit of embarrassment pales into insignificance now, as I sit here with my 10-year- old cross-Staffie-whatever, knowing the charge of responsible ownership is about to be re-visited.
It started with the sickening realisation a couple of days ago that my girls – the one with issues and Molly, the beautiful Alsatian – were struggling up the hill on our afternoon walk.
Usually, they would drag me up to the field of birds, the one not wanting to be a nose-length behind the other. But, this time, there was Tiggy huffing and puffing like she’d already chased the hadedas for a full hour. And Molly now dawdling just within nudging distance of her, apparently having given up the desire to get ahead of her (it’s a dog thing).
Eyes wide open now, I noticed Tiggy was a little bit rounder than before, even though she had been off her food. It called for a visit to the vet.
“Why is the dog here?” asks the receptionist from her desk across the room.
“I think she’s pregnant,” I say quietly under my breath, the shame almost overwhelming me.
“Sorry, I can’t hear you – why?”
“She’s pregnant,” I mumble again.
“Huh?”
“She’s pregnant,” I shout, almost adding “the bad slut bitch is pregnant and are you happy now that the whole world knows this and thinks me irresponsible even though it’s not my fault she got herself knocked up?”.
And the mutt looks up at me in that tentative way she has when she’s not sure if she’s the most gorgeous, most loved dog in the world.
It takes the vet about two ticks to confirm that the little tramp is packing, but not before he’s wrung out of me that I neither know which hound did the deed or when and where it happened.
I try a bit of humour: “It’s a little bit unexpected – her being expectant.” His response is more of a grimace than a laugh.
And my feeble “I thought we’d zipped her up years ago” does little to exonerate me.
He’s giving me a look that says he suspects I’ve been a delinquent parent and that he really feels sorry for her. Damn this dog.
Much later, Tiggy crawls back from another sortie outside – I have to fix the fence between us and the back neighbours to avoid another oops.
I imagine her this time running through the neighbourhood, sniffing at lampposts and house gates, for a hint of the brute who forced himself on her, who shamed her in her old age.
Or maybe she doesn’t feel shamed. Maybe she’s happy to have done what dogs do.
Maybe it’s we humans who have to deal with embarrassment and humiliation and shame, who have to take responsibility for unexpected expectations. And rightly so.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Taxman should let us spend a penny
I have a short fuse, generally. But my irritability today has nothing to do with my fuse.
It’s about my short bowel – and the absence of public facilities in an important public facility.
I’m down at the Receiver’s Chapel Street, Port Elizabeth, offices to sort out a wad of paperwork and outstanding taxes.
I remember this place. In a former life the service hall was an arcade with some arbitrary boutiques, a couple of eating houses and maybe even a pawn shop. It took SA Revenue Services some effort to use this space effectively, although any change from the Nationalist-inspired architectural motif of the permanently congested building in St Mary’s Terrace would have been a positive one.
Since last I was here in Chapel Street, they’ve brought in more cubicles and chairs. The reception counters, queuing ticket dispenser and plasma screens are further improvements, clearly aimed at increasing throughput.
Maybe simple, easy- to-read signage and a couple of sussed ushers permanently directing people on the floor would be a better solution than the hi-tech innovations which face the hard-of- hearing, short-of-sight and just plain psyched-out majority of us who must endure the pain of coming to sort out our affairs here.
I get to the queue shortly before 9am and I’m issued with ticket number 324. I don’t think there are 323 people ahead of me in the queue, but there are enough for me to take note when the guy next to me says it will probably be many hours before we make our way to a counter.
He’s an observant wag. First, he says, pointing to the trail of no-show numbers at the bottom of the plasma screens, they keep calling people’s numbers but nobody moves to a counter.
Maybe those are yesterday’s ticket numbers they’re calling out, he suggests.
I ask him if he’s never heard of ghost clients. It’s one up from ghost employees.
Yes, he says immediately, that’s how they increase their productivity, put ghost numbers that belong to nobody into the system.
And then he points out that some of the counter numbers on the screen to which people are being sent don’t exist, certainly not on this floor. Maybe ghost counters?
It’s at that moment I realise I have to go. There’s a sod’s law for this, I know. You’re forced to go at the most inconvenient moments. I’ve known this law since the bulk of my bowel was removed a few years ago.
Where are the toilets, I ask a security guard. Oh, you must go outside, down Chapel Street to Mutual building, he says, there are no toilets here.
I think he must be mistaken, so I appeal to a Sars official who happens to be walking past. No, she confirms, we don’t have public toilets, you must go to Mutual.
But, you’re a key facility servicing the public, you must have public toilets, I say, in a frenzy now and not because of the short fuse, you understand.
And when she persists that this building has no toilets and Sars and/or the owner are not obliged to provide such, I berate her on the illegality of government departments not providing facilities to relieve oneself.
I’m not going outside to Mutual, I insist. I realise the illegality argument may be tenuous, but it’s either raise a constitutional stink or risk losing a load in the most unceremonious of circumstances.
Later, I consider that perhaps it’s not as tenuous. There may well be building regulations which are being flouted by SARS and its landlord.
For now, it seems the look of sheer desperation on my face and the mumbled reference to a medical condition, get through. Come with me, she says, escorting me past a security guard to a staff toilet.
Back in the queue, the ghost toilets are a hot subject of discussion among the many sitting or standing who very badly need to go.
So, this is a free tip for Bra Prav Gordhan: bring on the toilets, chief.
You can even get us to pay for the privilege of spending a penny.
Could be a nice little income stream which will fill a hole in the Budget somewhere, I’m sure.
It’s about my short bowel – and the absence of public facilities in an important public facility.
I’m down at the Receiver’s Chapel Street, Port Elizabeth, offices to sort out a wad of paperwork and outstanding taxes.
I remember this place. In a former life the service hall was an arcade with some arbitrary boutiques, a couple of eating houses and maybe even a pawn shop. It took SA Revenue Services some effort to use this space effectively, although any change from the Nationalist-inspired architectural motif of the permanently congested building in St Mary’s Terrace would have been a positive one.
Since last I was here in Chapel Street, they’ve brought in more cubicles and chairs. The reception counters, queuing ticket dispenser and plasma screens are further improvements, clearly aimed at increasing throughput.
Maybe simple, easy- to-read signage and a couple of sussed ushers permanently directing people on the floor would be a better solution than the hi-tech innovations which face the hard-of- hearing, short-of-sight and just plain psyched-out majority of us who must endure the pain of coming to sort out our affairs here.
I get to the queue shortly before 9am and I’m issued with ticket number 324. I don’t think there are 323 people ahead of me in the queue, but there are enough for me to take note when the guy next to me says it will probably be many hours before we make our way to a counter.
He’s an observant wag. First, he says, pointing to the trail of no-show numbers at the bottom of the plasma screens, they keep calling people’s numbers but nobody moves to a counter.
Maybe those are yesterday’s ticket numbers they’re calling out, he suggests.
I ask him if he’s never heard of ghost clients. It’s one up from ghost employees.
Yes, he says immediately, that’s how they increase their productivity, put ghost numbers that belong to nobody into the system.
And then he points out that some of the counter numbers on the screen to which people are being sent don’t exist, certainly not on this floor. Maybe ghost counters?
It’s at that moment I realise I have to go. There’s a sod’s law for this, I know. You’re forced to go at the most inconvenient moments. I’ve known this law since the bulk of my bowel was removed a few years ago.
Where are the toilets, I ask a security guard. Oh, you must go outside, down Chapel Street to Mutual building, he says, there are no toilets here.
I think he must be mistaken, so I appeal to a Sars official who happens to be walking past. No, she confirms, we don’t have public toilets, you must go to Mutual.
But, you’re a key facility servicing the public, you must have public toilets, I say, in a frenzy now and not because of the short fuse, you understand.
And when she persists that this building has no toilets and Sars and/or the owner are not obliged to provide such, I berate her on the illegality of government departments not providing facilities to relieve oneself.
I’m not going outside to Mutual, I insist. I realise the illegality argument may be tenuous, but it’s either raise a constitutional stink or risk losing a load in the most unceremonious of circumstances.
Later, I consider that perhaps it’s not as tenuous. There may well be building regulations which are being flouted by SARS and its landlord.
For now, it seems the look of sheer desperation on my face and the mumbled reference to a medical condition, get through. Come with me, she says, escorting me past a security guard to a staff toilet.
Back in the queue, the ghost toilets are a hot subject of discussion among the many sitting or standing who very badly need to go.
So, this is a free tip for Bra Prav Gordhan: bring on the toilets, chief.
You can even get us to pay for the privilege of spending a penny.
Could be a nice little income stream which will fill a hole in the Budget somewhere, I’m sure.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Taking on the mantle of the stranger in our midst
In the early 1990s I was awarded a scholarship to study overseas. I arrived in Boston in September during what the Americans call the fall season, without a doubt the best time of the year to experience the exquisite autumn colours of the gently rolling New England countryside.
And throughout my time there, all my soul yearned for was the barren, drought-stricken expanse of the Karoo where we had spent time in our family’s formative years.
It brought into sharp relief something that Dennis Brutus once told me, that there is no virtue in exile.
It is an extremely painful, debilitating experience, for whatever reason one may be exiled. It is a wrenching, soul-destroying separation from loved ones, parents and children, from the food one was raised on, from the music, dance and poetry which nourished one, from the table games which kept families close and the meanderings which expanded young minds, from the sounds in streets and veld to the smells from chimney stacks and of earth, a separation from the very land where one was birthed.
Today, I am a migrant worker in Cape Town and my tenure has enabled me to connect with refugees from Rwanda, Burundi and the DRC, who experience the pain of exile far more tangibly than I ever could.
Right now, Government and civil society are linking in a massive effort to staunch any outbreak of violence against foreigners. Compared to the outbreak of violence in 2008, there is a greater preparedness, given the experience gleaned in the past and the fact that rumours have been building up over many weeks now, an early warning system which has been heeded by the many who have taken to the road to reach their homelands.
But the majority cannot go home. And that requires a different and a longer-term response from all of us.
Too many locals believe that foreigners, especially African foreigners, are in our city because they have willingly given up their homelands. Instead, they are forced here by social, political, economic, religious, gender and other oppressions, the heartbreak of separation assuaged by the once-weekly or once-monthly call and the ability to transfer funds home, infrequent as that may be.
There is the further bizarre notion that foreigners in our country are living high on the hog at the expense of South Africans. The contrary is more likely to be the case, with a pattern of establishing and continuously affirming legality in some form, securing work and a place to stay, jockeying for acceptance as a fellow human being without being too visible to the rapists and the thugs – the ones on the street corner and at the station, as well as the ones who may employ you or get into your cab late at night. All of that happens under “normal” circumstances; in the madness of this xenophobic season, the stakes are raised beyond belief, as refugees are violated at every turn.
Ironically, apart from the thugs, the ones who are most vociferously opposed to the strangers in their midst are likely to be those who are also recent émigrés, given the history of this place as a preference area for a particular ethnic group in a former era.
And even those who can go back 100 years or more in their family histories to establish a connection with this place may need reminding of voyages from distant shores. To be sure, this settler city’s relationship with new settlers mimics experiences in the US and Australia which were settled on the back of vast influxes of refugees, yet where the fear of today’s immigrants runs exceedingly deep.
As a country, as a city and as local communities, we must move way beyond the humanitarian work which is needed now. We have to begin to accommodate – no, to welcome - the foreigners in a very conscious action. It requires that we have honest conversations around and with the strangers in our midst, who often are invisible to those of us going about our daily lives.
We all have a role in this. But I am particularly struck by how the definitive texts of all the major religions in our country – from the Christian bible, the Jewish Torah, the Muslim Qur’an, to the Hindu Upanishads - exhort us to welcome the stranger. The Jews were an exile people. Shortly after his birth, Jesus Christ was taken into exile in Egypt by his parents to escape the persecution of Herod. And the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) made humanitarian outreach to refugees a key part of his own exile in Medina.
And so faith communities have a particular role to play in starting conversations about how we relate to the exiled and refugee foreigners, the strangers in our midst, conversations that explore what it means to stand in the gap for those who may trace their roots to another country, but are effectively stateless.
In simple ways, ordinary people must and can play a role by praying, by speaking out against the criminal actions of perpetrators of violence against foreigners, by providing sanctuary and hospitality to victims, by re-committing to a society based on human rights for all, citizen and foreigner.
It means taking on the mantle of the other, understanding their plight as exiled, disadvantaged people, but also recognising and understanding their humanity, which is no different to ours.
And throughout my time there, all my soul yearned for was the barren, drought-stricken expanse of the Karoo where we had spent time in our family’s formative years.
It brought into sharp relief something that Dennis Brutus once told me, that there is no virtue in exile.
It is an extremely painful, debilitating experience, for whatever reason one may be exiled. It is a wrenching, soul-destroying separation from loved ones, parents and children, from the food one was raised on, from the music, dance and poetry which nourished one, from the table games which kept families close and the meanderings which expanded young minds, from the sounds in streets and veld to the smells from chimney stacks and of earth, a separation from the very land where one was birthed.
Today, I am a migrant worker in Cape Town and my tenure has enabled me to connect with refugees from Rwanda, Burundi and the DRC, who experience the pain of exile far more tangibly than I ever could.
Right now, Government and civil society are linking in a massive effort to staunch any outbreak of violence against foreigners. Compared to the outbreak of violence in 2008, there is a greater preparedness, given the experience gleaned in the past and the fact that rumours have been building up over many weeks now, an early warning system which has been heeded by the many who have taken to the road to reach their homelands.
But the majority cannot go home. And that requires a different and a longer-term response from all of us.
Too many locals believe that foreigners, especially African foreigners, are in our city because they have willingly given up their homelands. Instead, they are forced here by social, political, economic, religious, gender and other oppressions, the heartbreak of separation assuaged by the once-weekly or once-monthly call and the ability to transfer funds home, infrequent as that may be.
There is the further bizarre notion that foreigners in our country are living high on the hog at the expense of South Africans. The contrary is more likely to be the case, with a pattern of establishing and continuously affirming legality in some form, securing work and a place to stay, jockeying for acceptance as a fellow human being without being too visible to the rapists and the thugs – the ones on the street corner and at the station, as well as the ones who may employ you or get into your cab late at night. All of that happens under “normal” circumstances; in the madness of this xenophobic season, the stakes are raised beyond belief, as refugees are violated at every turn.
Ironically, apart from the thugs, the ones who are most vociferously opposed to the strangers in their midst are likely to be those who are also recent émigrés, given the history of this place as a preference area for a particular ethnic group in a former era.
And even those who can go back 100 years or more in their family histories to establish a connection with this place may need reminding of voyages from distant shores. To be sure, this settler city’s relationship with new settlers mimics experiences in the US and Australia which were settled on the back of vast influxes of refugees, yet where the fear of today’s immigrants runs exceedingly deep.
As a country, as a city and as local communities, we must move way beyond the humanitarian work which is needed now. We have to begin to accommodate – no, to welcome - the foreigners in a very conscious action. It requires that we have honest conversations around and with the strangers in our midst, who often are invisible to those of us going about our daily lives.
We all have a role in this. But I am particularly struck by how the definitive texts of all the major religions in our country – from the Christian bible, the Jewish Torah, the Muslim Qur’an, to the Hindu Upanishads - exhort us to welcome the stranger. The Jews were an exile people. Shortly after his birth, Jesus Christ was taken into exile in Egypt by his parents to escape the persecution of Herod. And the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) made humanitarian outreach to refugees a key part of his own exile in Medina.
And so faith communities have a particular role to play in starting conversations about how we relate to the exiled and refugee foreigners, the strangers in our midst, conversations that explore what it means to stand in the gap for those who may trace their roots to another country, but are effectively stateless.
In simple ways, ordinary people must and can play a role by praying, by speaking out against the criminal actions of perpetrators of violence against foreigners, by providing sanctuary and hospitality to victims, by re-committing to a society based on human rights for all, citizen and foreigner.
It means taking on the mantle of the other, understanding their plight as exiled, disadvantaged people, but also recognising and understanding their humanity, which is no different to ours.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Then they came for me
First they came for the Somalis, the Rwandans, Malawians, the DRCs, the Nigerians and the Zimbabweans; and I didn’t speak up because I was not an African.
Then they came for the Pakistanis, the Koreans, the Chinese; and I didn't speak up because I was not an Asian.
Then they came for the Arabs and the Jews; and I didn’t speak up for I was neither Arab nor Jew.
They came for the people of other religions; and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a person of another religion.
Then they came for the shopkeepers and the traders; and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a shopkeeper or a trader.
Then they came for the gay couple; and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a gay couple.
They came for the albinos; and I didn't speak up because I wasn't an albino.
Then they came for the Aids orphans and the widows; and I didn't speak up because I wasn't weak and marginalised.
Then they came for me - because I was the last stranger in their midst; and there was no one left to speak up.
Inspired by German Theologian Martin Niemoller
Then they came for the Pakistanis, the Koreans, the Chinese; and I didn't speak up because I was not an Asian.
Then they came for the Arabs and the Jews; and I didn’t speak up for I was neither Arab nor Jew.
They came for the people of other religions; and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a person of another religion.
Then they came for the shopkeepers and the traders; and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a shopkeeper or a trader.
Then they came for the gay couple; and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a gay couple.
They came for the albinos; and I didn't speak up because I wasn't an albino.
Then they came for the Aids orphans and the widows; and I didn't speak up because I wasn't weak and marginalised.
Then they came for me - because I was the last stranger in their midst; and there was no one left to speak up.
Inspired by German Theologian Martin Niemoller
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
World Cup Spirit
Back between the posts 35 years later: Glen and Jules and Clifton and Sampies, toughees and nerfies-af. It's under-13 street soccer in Gelvandale in 1973. Yeah, what a life
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