Tania.co.za

A week in the life of South Africa

Amongst my family, friends, neighbours and colleagues you'll find a diversity of political opinions, ranging from apathetics and cynics, through those who believe that religion is the answer and that the institutions of man are of little significance, to poor-Whites who still talk about 'kaffirs', well-read FF+ voters, ex-Nats turned DA, traditional DA liberals, disillusioned longstanding ANC supporters with struggle credentials, and active enthusiastic card-holding members of the ruling party. (What I have not come across within my sphere of regular association are any ID or SACP members or die-or-kill-for-Zuma groupies, so unfortunately I can't say I have experienced the full spectrum first hand.)

A week ago as I was checking in to a flight on our state-subsidised airline competing with low-cost private enterprise airlines, I was handed a newspaper with the headline, 'OUT!' Indeed, Thabo Mbeki's announcement that he would be leaving office in accordance with the wishes of his party sparked a wholesale nationwide freaking out, exacerbated by a general misinterpretation of the politically correct 'resignation' of the Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel. I think that many people, not understanding the workings of the Constitution, initially assumed that if Thabo Mbeki went, Jacob Zuma would immediately take his place. It also appeared that many members of the public who had been adamant that Jacob Zuma should vacate the vice-presidency when he was initially charged with corruption, were now adamant that Thabo Mbeki should stay in spite of the fact that he was now under suspicion for political interference! This inconsistent stance and sudden support for a president who had never been good enough for them before was apparently motivated not by any change in performance on the part of the man himself, but by a better-the-devil-we-know attitude which had already started brewing in the lead-up to the Polokwane conference next year. I remember a friend (and old ANC member) sending me an SMS following Jacob Zuma's first televised interview after his election as president of the ANC: "Mbeki at least had a position with which I could agree or disagree. This man has nothing!" (When I recently reminded the same friend to register to vote, he dejectedly replied that he wouldn't even know who to vote for -- in spite of having actively participated in the fight for universal suffrage. Only when I 'nominated' my hero Emile Jansen for president did he seem to cheer up a little.)

Even before the freshly-hatched president announced his Cabinet, one of my colleagues (who is not an ANC supporter) said, "I am going to make a prediction now, and you know me, I am usually right about these things. This is a clever guy. He is not like the rest of the crowd who took over at Polokwane. Kgalema Motlanthe will unite many of these factional elements. He won't just pass his time in office, he will actually work while he is there. Within five to seven months, he will be so popular that people will want to keep him there. You will see."

Well, it seems that he is right so far. Whilst those working at senior levels in government -- not only those in the legislature, but also the various directors and their superiors in various government departments -- will no doubt be shifting and shuffling around for a few weeks, the rest of the non-Zuma-supporting portion of the nation (give or take a few thousand Mbeki supporters who boycotted the ANC's Provincial Congress at the CTICC on Wednesday) seems to be adjusting remarkably well -- and quickly -- to the sudden appointment of Kgalema Motlanthe as president. The events of the past week remind me of how, when we were children and my parents went out for the evening, my mother would leave hidden gifts for us with a series of clues in treasure-hunt fashion, giving us something to look forward to. The new president immediately endeared himself to many of his pouting subjects (as well as to a host of people who previously had no idea who he was), by rebuking the ANC's resident loose cannon and rebel-always-looking-for-a-cause, Julius Malema, and by removing the unpopular Manto Tshabalala-Msimang from her position as Minister of Health. In the words of Kieno Kammies pretending to be the president making a speech (paraphrased according to my recollection): "But she still needs the money, so I haven't fired her, I have moved her to the position of Minister in the Office of the President, where I can keep an eye on her." Kieno's speech, and the effusive response of the TAC who serenaded the new Minister of Health outside her flat that night, attest to a new uncharacteristically South African spirit of looking on the bright side of politics.

Breaking your addiction

I was born in 1965, so for me, breaking a digital addiction simply means going back to find the way I lost, and that requires no faith. But you were born in 1985 and cell phones and the Internet are your cultural heritage, so for you it would mean going forward. Are you ready to embrace the future?

That's life

Since I spent the weekend in Gauteng, I took the opportunity to visit three friends whom I hadn't seen for years. On Sunday, as per my request, my long-lost friend Anni took me to visit our mutual friend Colette in prison, where she is serving a life sentence. Anni's children are young, and although they play games featuring cops and robbers and going to jail, we don't think they know that the place where they sometimes go with their mother to visit "tannie Colette" actually is a jail! Anni has decided that there is no need to explain anything to them yet. I suppose with so many Gauteng residences being fortified, it would take a very long time before they realised that the intention in this case is to stop the residents from getting out.

Colette was pretty chirpy in spite of two recent suicide attempts. Her recent bout of depression had been triggered by having decided to write down the accounts of the rapes she experienced in her youth, and this led to nightmares. Her feelings of distress were apparently exacerbated by the gang activity around her. Although the prisoners can see a doctor whenever they want, there is no resident psychologist who is willing to serve the thousands who live there (or so Colette says, anyway), so the position has been vacant for some time, and if you can't organise yourself a private psychologist, you're a bit stuck.

I always knew that Colette had been the victim of regular sexual abuse by a specific male relative when she was a child (as well as other forms of abuse by female relatives), but until now I had not been aware that all in all she had been raped by twelve different people, including other close family members. She recently started talking to her abusers about what they did, and although she says some are pretending not to remember anything, others have apologised; yet others admit what they did, but show no remorse. As the victim of childhood molestation (although my own experience was really only once-off and nowhere near as severe as hers), I could relate to her approach in dealing with the perpetrators. She has tried to ensure that the families of her abusers would not be affected by her choice to confront her abusers. She told me that when a specific couple recently visited her in prison, she used a moment when his wife popped into the tuck shop to speak to the man alone, and in that time she managed to elicit an admission and an apology from him.

We also spoke briefly about those rapists who were potentially repeat offenders, and the duty of speaking out in order to prevent the abuse of others.

Colette said that many prisoners are victims of past abuse. One of the women whom she regards as a mentor, Heila, is an example. All six of Heila's children were regularly being raped by their father, and when Heila confronted him about it, he simply said that she wasn't giving him what he wanted, and that it was his right to get it where he pleased. With the aid of the children she eventually killed him, but although the entire family was arrested, Heila vehemently denied the children's involvement in order that they might live free. She alone is now serving a life sentence for the murder, and is pretty much at peace.

I am not using real names, because there are various people whom Colette wants to protect. She had been writing an account of her life with the intention of publishing it under a pseudonym, but after a recent attempted escape by one of the other prisoners, everyone was strip-searched, and the manuscript was confiscated as a precautionary measure, because the authorities suspected it could contain a description of the prison's layout. In spite of the fact that the text does not mention anything of the sort, Colette does not expect to get it back, and has therefore decided to start writing the whole book from scratch again. (I have occasionally thought of transcribing the letters she has written to me and posting them on the Internet, because she expresses herself pretty well and it makes for interesting reading, but I don't really have time. If anyone feels up to the task of occasionally doing the typing for a separate "Letters from Prison" blog, let me know. Maybe a typing teacher at a school is looking for a class project?)

I completely lost track of time in there, because they don't let you take cell phones into the prison, and I don't wear a wristwatch. I thought the wardens would chuck us out at a specific hour, but they allowed us to stay on way beyond the official end of visiting time, so I was terribly late for meeting my friend Gabriela on the opposite side of the city. (By then there was no transport back to the entrance of the prison, so we walked back carrying the children, and then eventually managed to drive to the highway. I admire Anni immensely for not getting flustered in that maze of roads.)

Gabriela took me to her home and made me supper before taking me to the airport. I'd last seen her more than twenty years ago, and the reunion (initiated by her search for me on Facebook) brought back some interesting forgotten memories. Also interesting was the contrast between Anni's free and easy home (where children play in a garden bounded by a low wall, and neighbours regularly get together to braai in the middle of the street and that of Gabriela, who has been robbed and hijacked on numerous occasions and who carries a 38 Special wherever she goes -- and a 2nd Dan.

At the airport I was offered a newspaper and learned that the president had resigned, and that there are two nice Nokias available on a single offer from Nashua Mobile.

The management of Fox Fitness and Leisure in Bellville...

... have once again promised me that their salespeople won't phone me again. I wonder why I don't believe them this time either.

So you think you can dance?

This, apparently, is the name of a TV programme. I have no TV, but what I have heard about it sounds interesting to me. So I entered a competition and won two tickets to the recording of the finals of the South African version of the show. In order to justify the cost of flying there -- this is in Johannesburg, and I am in the Cape -- I scheduled some business meetings there too for tomorrow. Fun!

Update

Ironically, it is often the issues of the least consequence in my life that get the greatest prominence on my blog. It is usually because when something really significant is happening, I am too overwhelmed, busy or tired to write about it, and afterwards I am often too exhausted by dealing with it to make a public statement. Tha past two months have been full of "significance". And, as usual, the events and insights have left me too exhausted to write more than a few seemingly unrelated snippets of various degrees of importance and unimportance. Since the end of 2006 I have bought several contemporary music CDs. Their covers and inserts are indicative of the meshing of relevance and irrelevance, reverance and irreverance, randomness and connection which we have come to accept (usually unquestioningly) as subjects of the Postmodern Zeitgeist (think of how many blogs have titles like "Random musings of..."). Most of this is wrong. And dangerous. But I will get back to that on another day -- perhaps once I have finished reading Paul Cilliers' and Remington Norman's books. In the meanwhile, this new tradition gives me the precedential (is that a word?) excuse to do the same. Herewith, then, a a few thoughts and events of varying significance from my life during the past month or two, in no particular order...

Emotionally exhausted, I went on two short holidays, one alone, and one with my mother. The second one was particularly refreshing, but I think Dennis is right: getting back to fullness is going to take two seasons. If I find the energy sometime and decide not to spend it on something else, I will share what he told me.


Snapshot from my first holiday.


Snapshots of relatives and their friends from my second holiday.

The end of the world

As far as I know, the world ended on schedule this morning when the Large Hadron Collider was switched on. The event was interesting in that I did not experience a difference in my perception of reality before compared to after I ceased to exist. This goes to show not only that there is life after death, but also that it does not differ in any way from life before death. Descartes was probably wrong. Whether I think has nothing to do with whether I am.

Integration in rock music

I was at a live rock music performance at Mystic the other night (Die Mystic Boer in Stellenbosch -- I'm not linking to their site, because it's down at the moment).

I arrived feeling tense and unhappy, and the music worked very well in smoothing out my emotions. I enjoyed all the bands, and particularly Shy Guevaras (I'm not linking to them either; their site is down too). I'd never heard them before. Their lead singer has a sense of personal appearance-styling which I find entirely unappealing, and when they started singing about getting stoned together, I used my moment of cognitive dissonance to go to the toilet. (Hey, you never know, maybe it was an anti-drugs song, but I'd stopped listening.)

I liked everything else about them. Although I enjoy rock, I usually couldn't be bothered with the sound of a small live rock band; I like something which is musically rich and layered (like Queen or Muse, although some of my friends tell me that Muse doesn't really count as rock), without too much texture (death metal just doesn't work for me); and a heavy, significant bass is a must. As the group was playing, I was surprised that they were able to produce such a well-integrated sound with so few instruments. No doubt the drummer and bassist must have been providing the foundation for that sound, but I think the rounding off was provided by the intricate guitarwork (including several delightful arpeggio's and wow-wow-wows) and the lead singer, whose slightly rough voice fitted the rock style very well. In fact, it is this roughness that makes up for the lack of backing vocals. (well, hey, if the other guys were actually singing, I didn't notice!) I made a conscious decision to bear the after-effects of a late night the next day by staying till their last song.

On the same subject (and by contrast): I have two CDs of a group called Foto Na Dans, and what's missing for me in their music is integration -- unless that's changed on their latest EP, which I haven't heard yet. Granted, their style and instrumentation is different from that of Shy Guevaras, but there's still something that doesn't work for me, even within their own style, and  I don't think this is a sound engineer thing -- I think it is a singer thing. The lead singer "sits on top" of the music. His voice stands away from the rest of the band and soon becomes tiresome. Besides that, I don't like the way in which the lyrics are fitted to the music at all. There are too many stresses on insignificant syllables which would never be stressed in speech. If they ever brought out a karaoke version of their music, I would give away the CDs I have of them and listen to the same stuff, sans vocals!

I started to wonder also why this particular style of music seems to be a predominantly male thing -- evidenced inter alia by the composition of the bands as well as the audience that night -- but I will leave my thoughts about that for another day.

National Consumer Database

This Web site is frequently visited by people seeking information about the National Consumer Database. I am sorry I have not had the time to update it with the latest details. You may want to contact Effective Intelligence (tel. 021 670 7720) to find out more about how to get de-listed. I will post links later.

Liefdesbriefie in die donkerte

Ek verlang na jou.