20 YEARS OF DEMOCRACY

It is 20 years since the dawn of democracy in our beautiful but troubled land.

Freedom Day was and remains a defining experience in our country. The actual event of voting in the first non-racial, democratic elections was preceded by much hard work by South Africans from opposing political creeds, and with the support of friends around the globe.

History will record the big role played by the ANC in our struggle, even if there were many ancillary forces, both within the country and abroad, that were part of our liberation.

Among those who contributed were compatriots – across the length and breadth of SA – who paid the ultimate price for our freedom. Some died in the streets of barren townships, in ghastly interrogation cells, at the hands of hit squads, or as collateral victims of the struggle for justice. Many succumbed in lonely exile far away from the land of their birth.

In celebrating this day, we pause to remember all these. We acknowledge those who put aside self-interest and principle – honourable or mis-guided - in pursuit of the common good.

Given the decades of antipathy and the prospect of violence mere days before we voted, our country wobbled on tenterhooks right up to the last.

But April 27, 1994, dawned with great anticipation. Millions of us queued to vote, our joy tempered slightly – but never completely – by the fatigue of standing from dawn to dusk.

Our act of voting then was an expression of hope for a future in which peace would triumph and democracy be entrenched. It was a commitment to finding creative, meaningful ways of dealing with the wounds of our racist past, making ‘justice for all’ our mantra - not least the justice required to redress historical and legalised economic inequality.

Through our vote, we trusted that the political parties against whom we placed our crosses would not disappoint us but lead our united efforts for a better future with courage, optimism and integrity.

Twenty years later we must take time to celebrate what we have achieved. Only the churlish and those with very narrow sectarian interests will not acknowledge that South Africa is a radically different country now than it was in 1994.

But this is also a moment to be saddened by the missed opportunities reflected in the failings of our political leaders, the policy shortcomings and bureaucratic catastrophes, the moral depravity and societal degradation, the tentative – at best - move away from a racialised past. And the frittering away of our democratic dividend. - From the Daily Dispatch

Slumbering Church Begins Collective Lament On Easter

PERHAPS the Christian church – in its many local denominational variants – was built for crisis. Or maybe, crises build or form the local church community.

Certainly, the early church – the small, motley group of people who had followed Jesus and who gathered together in his absence – was built by experiencing his agonising abuse and death on a cross, and by the group’s own persecution at the hands of both religious and secular authorities.

OUTSPOKEN FOR JUSTICE: Archbishop Desmond Tutu will lead today’s march

Of course the message of Christ, especially as it is celebrated at Easter, never ends at his death on the cross, so we know the church was also built by the “Good News”, the resurrection of Jesus, by God’s providence at Pentecost and in myriad ways since then and throughout the ages.

But it is in the quick moment or long years of despair and rejection, of having to deal with serious personal or corporate challenges, of experiencing the ways of brutal opponents including religious or secular states – and of the deep lamenting and crying out to God that flows from those times – that the church, maybe, grows most.

But there are good enough reasons to accept the church may also have been intended for crisis: the crisis of the world – crappy, complicated and conflictual.

Christ envisioned his church as a community of believers who would exist firstly to love God and then to love each other. And loving God and each other meant – as an imperative – also loving the world.

Seasons of rebirth and growth in the church have usually followed a time of crisis. But the church needs firstly to recognise there is a crisis. And then to ask: what are we, the church, to do in this crisis?

In South Africa, since 1948 a few Christian churches, along with individuals who felt alienated from their own conservative churches, recognised that the country under legislated apartheid was in crisis, and they felt compelled to do something about the government’s racist policies.

These churches came down firmly on the side of the disenfranchised and oppressed black majority, poor and mostly confined to the semi-independent homelands.

Among the most enduring images of the 1980s, as the struggle against apartheid intensified, were pictures of ministers leading large groups of protesters in marches of civil disobedience.

It is important to emphasise – lest we give the revisionists too much leeway to rewrite our history – that these initiatives were taken by only a few churches, because the formal position of most denominations at the time was support for the apartheid state, to a greater or lesser extent.

Opposition to apartheid was a radical, kairos moment, which most churches were not prepared to align themselves with.

It is now widely accepted that, in the democratic era, faith communities stepped back from – abdicated would not be too serious a charge – their previous, activist approach, as they left the ANC-led government of national unity and let its successors get on with the job of governing.

But that distancing themselves from the issues of the day has led to a church that has become increasingly inward-looking, stuck in the structural and programmatic aspects of being a community of believers, just another organisation keeping itself going.

The effect has been a church that is increasingly moribund, incapable of being the salt of our society in the multitude of ways that salt is now needed.

But all that is changing again. Christians in South Africa are being called to take sides again as the ANC shows its incapacity to deal with the challenges of government, for whatever reasons, honourable and dishonourable.

It is time to take a stand and do something about poor service delivery, corruption and other social problems in our society, from within the church and throughout local communities.

The church has (finally) realised it cannot leave the future of our society in the hands of a secular state. The issues are too critically important to the lives of the vast majority of South Africans.

Today in Cape Town, ordinary Christians and leaders of churches will join with people from other faith communities, in a “Procession of Witness”, a march from District Six to Parliament during which they will call upon government to ensure a better life for all South Africans.

Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who was the bane of apartheid government officials for his outspoken utterances against apartheid, will be among the key religious leaders to take to the streets at the head of the procession.

The event has been called a “collective lament” for all that has been left undone since the official demise of the apartheid state.

Easter is a festival over three days, because it commemorates the passion, the death and resurrection of Jesus.

It is symbolic the march on Parliament today takes place in the in-between “waiting” period of confusion and misery for followers of Christ, between the brokenness and suffering of Good Friday and the triumphalism of Easter Sunday.

It is a time of waiting not because we don’t know about the suffering, or because we don’t anticipate the celebration to come. It is that necessary preparation before we, too, take up our cross to follow Christ.

These acts of orderly protest, of sending a message of concern to the political leaders, of trying to effect change that affirms life and democracy, that says no to corruption, maladministration, and the abuse of the resources of the state by individuals – however many they are – are not guaranteed to elicit the appropriate response.

Expect vilification, even opposition, from the state security apparatus, using tactics from a former era, from the side of those with an interest in maintaining the heinous status quo in our country.

A recent personal experience of being barred from a local church cell (Bible study) group – because of a report I wrote in the Daily Dispatch about a corrupt municipal property transaction – has reminded me of the very personal challenges we all face in taking a stand.

We may find the South Africa of today cannot easily handle the challenge of people in the same family, clan, tribe, community, standing on opposite sides on the issues we need to address if we are to radically change the lives of our suffering citizens.

That may be especially relevant for the Eastern Cape, where our bonds are very strong.

It was, perhaps, easy under apartheid to be a mass of disenfranchised people – different by skin colour, class, religious affiliation, gender, sexual orientation – but similar in our separation from the right to vote for the government of our choice to lead the country in a just manner.

The ruling party today, however, does not take kindly to opposition from any quarter, even from within its own ranks.

This new period of taking a stand against injustice might be a bit more difficult and painful, especially for a Christian church moving from its moribund state.

Henry Chadwick wrote in 1967 about the early Christians that “the paradox of the church was it was a religious revolutionary movement, yet without a conscious political ideology”.

But, history shows us events such as today’s demonstration in Cape Town will gain momentum.

A group of radicals following the example of Jesus can achieve remarkable things. The church in South Africa has been made for this crisis moment, and this moment will build the church too. — From the Saturday Dispatch, Easter 2014

How important is public interest in celebrity trials?

GAUTENG high court judge-president Dunstan Mlambo will hand down his decision today in the application for television cameras to be in court when the murder trial of Oscar Pistorius starts on Monday, March 3.
Much white heat has been generated in court already over the issue of bringing the cameras in.
On the one hand the debate has been couched in the catch-phrases of media freedom and “open justice” principles, that it is “in the public interest” to have wall-to-wall television coverage of every word uttered, every gesture from the witness box, every argumentative rant from a lawyer, every grunt from the public gallery.
That is unfortunate because, of course, the media will have access to the court.
 Except not all the media because not everyone can be accommodated, so media outfits have agreed to a lottery to secure places in court. Those who don’t get a prime seat will be able to view proceedings from a separate courtroom via a closed-circuit television link.
On the other hand, it is argued that the right of Pistorius to a fair trial will be jeopardised by the intrusive cameras, with potential witnesses intimidated by having their statements relayed live around the world.
But courtrooms are intimidating spaces anyway, even for the innocent, perhaps more so than any television camera can be.
Nineteenth century libertarian philosopher and legal theorist Jeremy Bentham had an extremely healthy dose of scepticism about the ability of legal systems to operate ethically at all times.
His strident “where there is no publicity there is no justice” remark remains an important yardstick for any court system sensitive to public oversight.
It is the basis on which most democracies apply the principle of open justice and access to the courts.
In theory, the libertarian idea is that the search for truth is better served by open justice. Importantly, a transparent process promotes the accountability of all those participating in the legal process, not least the presiding officers.
The media often make the mistake of claiming special rights in relation to matters of public interest such as reporting on court trials. It is rooted in the idea of the media as a fourth estate in relation to the three arms of government – the executive, legislature and judiciary.
The media may well see a victory in a decision today if cameras are allowed into the Pistorius trial.
But the fact that the public is almost perversely interested in what happened that fateful night when Pistorius shot Steenkamp doesn’t make anything that happens in court over the next month in our interest.
In so-called mature democracies – Britain, Canada and some parts of the United States spring to mind – the media may even enjoy a relationship of mutualism, where joint committees of editors and jurists or prosecutors co-ordinate the interaction between the media and the court system.
But, while there is merit in an approach that facilitates the media’s mass communication and watchdog functions in society, we should be wary of arguing for journalists having a better right than any other citizen to access information and, in that way, diminishing the agency of ordinary citizens. Open justice must be attached to freedom of expression rather than freedom of the media.
Our own now-deceased chief justice Pius Langa drew a neat distinction between the responsibility borne by the courts to ensure that justice is done, and the power of the media to determine whether justice is seen to be done.
“Judges and magistrates have little power outside of the courtroom to explain or defend their positions and are uniquely reliant on journalists to convey their decisions to the broader population,” said Langa. “With this power comes responsibility ... to report on the work of the courts accurately and fairly, but not uncritically.
“It is vital for the proper administration of justice that the public is correctly informed about what the courts do.”
Given our apartheid-era history – and the growing tendency even among mature democracies – to use secretive judicial and extra-judicial measures against opponents of the state, we should be less concerned about the public interest associated with celebrity trials.
In the 1980s, the state security apparatus built a high security special court at Kenton-on-Sea, literally to hide the terrorism and related trials of anti-apartheid activists. I was one of a couple of journalists who, over a year, covered the first terrorism trial to be convened in Kenton, which offered very little hope that a fair trial could emerge from the secretive, brutalised environment, out of the public eye, away from human rights proponents.
But for the commitment of reporters and editors (the latter sometimes grudgingly so because of their innate conservatism or concern about resources being soaked up by allocating staff to cover these cases) the public would have been none the wiser about the parade of people who appeared in this special court and the outcome of the cases.
This is the critical role that Bentham had in mind for the media 200 years ago, not a voyeuristic journey into people’s broken and sordid lives.
Our courts hold the line against a state with an authoritarian bent, although there are disconcerting examples – even in the Dispatch area of circulation – of court officials attempting to stymie media efforts to shine the spotlight on the powerful, monied and popular, who find themselves on the wrong side of the law.
 Bizarrely, in a number of cases in East London, women court officials have played key roles in shielding male rape accused from the glare of publicity.
Promoting these key principles in support of open justice are of little benefit for Pistorius, as his every gesture and utterance will be scrutinised by the media assembled in court and possibly (we shall know for sure later today) beamed into living rooms around the world.
The public should not expect scintillating legal cut-and-thrust, although the evidence leading will be carefully orchestrated and the cross-examination stultifying. It’s unlikely that any of the lawyers will plumb the turgid depths.
But wall-to-wall court coverage will prove not to be as exciting as an episode of your favourite reality TV programme.

• From the Daily Dispatch

What can we do?

What are we to do and where do we start - to correct the ongoing poor state of education in the Eastern Cape? Yes, of course, this is not simply about matriculation, but the annual focus on matric results is an opportunity to stand still and ask: what in the name of all that is good is going on? Why is there such a gemors? And what can you and I do to make things different - and better? What do we do, whether we are (take your pick and leave a comment):
Learners / pupils?
Teachers?
Parents?
Grandparents?
Education officials?
Other Government officials?
Academics?
Policy developers?
Politicians?
Activists?
Business people?
Professionals?
Pen pushers?
Unemployed?
What do we do? 

On Tweede, third and fourth New Years

On Tweede, third and fourth New Years

By RAY HARTLE

I cannot trace exactly my roots back to the slaves who worked on farms and estates in the Western Cape 300 years ago. If truth be told, the family history is misty even around three generations ago - it may have had something to do with hiding from some ancestors. Like Uncle Japie, officially a fisherman, but one of the original bootleggers, living on the coast somewhere between Cape Town and Mossel Bay. Japie always just happened to be in the vicinity when a huge hessian bag of goods somehow came unstuck from its deck moorings in the rough seas somewhere off the coast. Or disavowing certain bloodlines in an effort to land on one side of the population registration laws of early legislated apartheid.  

But the slave ancestry is not in dispute; the connections to Khoi, Malay and even St Helenian forebears are rock solid, even if I don't have a ghoema bone in my body. So I take full ownership of the Western Cape's Tweede Nuwejaar (Second New Year) celebration, the modern-day carnival through the streets of Cape Town  from District Six to the Bokaap marking the one day of freedom in the year slaves enjoyed on January 2, after toiling to ensure the slave masters had a "heppy" (sic) 364 other days. Today, after a journey of a thousand miles on New Year's Day itself, that second unofficial holiday allows me to figure out just the right combination of reflection and get-up-and-go voema I need to set myself up for the year ahead. 

In pure South African fashion, we conspired this year to push the Tweede to a fourth New Year's - for ostensibly religious reasons deciding that we couldn't march on January 2. The majority of we irreligious "New-Year's-a-jorl" types would have happily taken the extra holiday on the 2nd with not a thought for our religious sensitivities or sensibilities. But, thanks nonetheless to the Muslim community in this instance - apparently - for the unofficial Vierde Nuwejaar celebrations. It got me out having the ball of the year on the streets of Cape Town on the Tweede, third and fourth days after New Year. It also allowed more time to consider my past year, my ancestors passed (sic) and contemplate  the jorls in 2014 I would yet be let loose for from the drudgery - if not the slavery - of my usual existence. 

Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille was even more South African, however, "decreeing" that politics has no place in the cultural expression that is the Cape Minstrel carnival. Culture arises from who people are, where they are and how they are. It is inherently political and seldom is this seen more clearly than in the minstrel annual celebration. Historically, the minstrels' poignant celebration of life and freedom was rooted in and reflected the lived experience of black slaves of the Cape. It was a hugely politicized moment. They sang, danced, laughed on this one day despite - or, perhaps, because of - the oppressive conditions under which they found themselves. This one-day political expression continued throughout the decades-long legal oppression of apartheid. It is there today on the carnival streets, bright, colourful, raucous, cheery, yet painfully showing off the racialised historical disadvantage evident throughout the Cape flats. How can that carnival not be a political expression? 

But Aunty Pat's ban on ANC armbands during this year's minstrel procession also shows a naïveté about how politics is more than simply the accoutrements and symbolic expressions of party politics. Politics - even in a democracy, nay, especially in a democracy - is more than the formal rituals like voting for public representation. In this context, any democrat must be aghast that a city government can ban anyone - whether or not that individual is a recipient of city resources -  from expressing publicly a view with which it corporately disagrees - and even if that view favours a rival political party. 

I have an affinity with the minstrel parade because something in the depth of my soul remembers and responds to its affirmation of part of my ancestry. That does not apply to every South African. But, for non-black South Africans who have never known the chains of oppression and enslavement, and for new South African blacks who have forgotten in the move from the ghetto to the plush suburbs, cultural moments like these provide an opportunity to reconsider injustice. They must not be quietened.  -RAY HARTLE