Category: politics

The curious case of the ex-South Africans

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Here’s an interesting article from Ilham Rawoot in this week’s Mail and Guardian (one of very few that actually made it in – the Christmas issue was rather thin).

Martine Schaffer, managing director of Homecoming Revolution, a non-profit organisation that encourages and aids the return of skilled expatriates estimates that two million South Africans live abroad – mostly in Australia, Canada and the United States. Each month, she says, about 200 of them contact her organisation for advice on how to come home. Emigration is not a uniquely South African phenomenon, she says, but nowhere else is the act of leaving so steeped in guilt.

Schaffer described to the Mail & Guardian the emigration trends that she has seen over the past decade. Although more black people are heading off these days, most emigrants are white, she says. She attributes earlier waves of emigration to hysteria, generated by the political situation: “The people who left in 2000 didn’t want this country to succeed. When the lights went out [in the Eskom crisis] they were celebrating.”

Schaffer says 2008 was the year of “our biggest outflow”. The people who left at that point felt they had “stuck it out and had given the country a chance. Then Polokwane happened, Zuma came into power, there was the Eskom crisis and they felt their fears became rational.”

The article doesn’t make clear whether figures are available for 2009 yet. Probably not, as there may be a huge pre-New Year exodus or something, but I’m interested to see them. Because it seems to me that the “rational” fears of those 2008 emigrants haven’t actually followed through.
While Eskom and Zuma are still a little shaiky (geddit?) around the edges, crime rates have fallen, the country has ridden out the global credit crunch and the weather is superb. There hasn’t been the widespread load-shedding of early 2008, Zuma hasn’t killed all the whities and we have the World Cup coming next year. It’s all good.

For me, the exceptionalism comes not with the guilt of those leaving, but rather with the bad-mouthing of SA once they’ve gone. Now, I know that not all SA ex-pats do this: I can name a couple from the blogroll who definitely don’t. But there’s a huge proportion that do. I’ve not really seen this in ex-pats from anywhere else. Perhaps the odd toot about how Gordon Brown has dragged the UK into Kak Creek without a paddle, but that’s really about it. Nothing so serious, so vehement and so continuous as the stuff you get here. There really is no need to feel guilty for leaving – it’s all about perception and if you really see no future here, then go – but then move on, be positive, celebrate your new home, rather than vilifying your previous one.

Last word to Hilary Alexander, who went to London from 10 years, but is now back home in Cape Town:

Being away from home was like walking for a long time with a stone in your shoe and you can’t shift it. Now it’s as if someone has taken the stone out of my shoe.

And it’s sunny.

Mourning Manto

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Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang passed away yesterday. While foreign readers might not know who she is (or was), she will be well known to anyone with a connection to South Africa. They will know her as the AIDS-denialist Health Minister who associated with quacks and never lived up to her promise upon taking office that she would roll out ARV treatment to those in need in SA.
Perhaps better still, they will know her for her (in)famous comments that HIV and AIDS should be treated with a diet of garlic, lemons, beetroot and African potato.
Oh, and then there was the legendary interview with John “not always right, but never going to admit it” Robbie on Talk 702 where they spent most of the time discussing how she should be addressed: “I’m not Manto to you!”. 
And how could we forget the liver transplant saga? Did she need it because she was an alcoholic? Did she jump the queue? How did the Sunday Times gain access to her medical records? And should they have published them?

But those who choose to celebrate her death are missing some important points. Perhaps most importantly of all, the fact that she is no longer Health Minister and hasn’t been for well over a year now. So her death doesn’t make any difference to the state of the Health system or the supply of ARV drugs in the country. She had no control over that yesterday, nor does she have any today. Their delight won’t bring those who have died of AIDS on her watch, back.
And indeed, I am still left wondering how much of the rhetoric and denialism came from her, and how much came from Thabo Mbeki. Not that that excuses her complicity, but I believe that during her tenure in the Department of Health, she acted as a shield for what were, at that point, ANC and Government policies.

And there was more to Tshabalala-Msimang than just her last few infamous years. She made sacrifices – and as so many South Africans did – went into exile during Apartheid. She had been a member of the ANC for nearly 50 years and, prior to 1994, worked hard in the struggle, using her medical skills to support Umkhonto weSizwe.

“Comrade Manto dedicated her life to the struggle for justice and democracy in South Africa and she left the country to fight outside the borders of our country for the liberation of her people,” said ANC spokesperson Jackson Mthembu.
“She has given many young ANC cadres guidance over the years and her death has robbed the ANC of a truly committed cadre and stalwart to the transformation agenda of the ANC.”

I am not defending Tshabalala-Msimang’s stance on HIV and AIDS. She could have, should have done more. Someone with her knowledge should have recognised the stupidity of Mbeki’s policies and had the integrity to challenge them or to step down. That there were many complex personal and political reasons why she didn’t is no excuse.
What I am saying is that there was more to this woman than will be remembered:

Tshabalala-Msimang’s contribution to our democracy is huge. We should remember her for that. We should remember that she gave up almost her entire life, put herself in danger, and left her family for the cold Russian winter, in the hopes of making things better for her people. She achieved that, and lived to see a better life for all. For that, we should be grateful. But her legacy is also the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Aids sufferers who could have been saved had her beliefs been different.

I wonder how many people know ALL the facts before they begin their celebrations at her passing.

There’s talk of emigration in the air

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Remember when we used to hear that at all the dinner parties, the braais, on the television and in the papers?
The ZumaRumas™. The dangers of another ANC government. Chasing the whites out of the country. Murdered in our beds. How South Africa was going to become “another Zimbabwe”.
I never did get a firm date for any of those unfounded scare-mongering stories.
When I asked, I usually just got a hard stare over my wors and some mumbled excuse about needing another Castle Lite.

Sure, South Africa does have its problems. Many of them, in fact. Which is surely all the more reason for not adding more silly ones that you made up on the way to the party.
But why the exceptionalism? Because nowhere is perfect and everywhere you go, you’re going to face challenges. The grass is not necessarily greener on the other side of the fence. And if it is, it’s probably because of all the s**t that’s around over there.

So – back to the talk of emigration in the air:

There’s talk of emigration in the air. It’s everywhere I go. Parties. Work. In the supermarket.

That’s Jeremy Clarkson in this week’s Sunday Times. He’s fed up with the UK – particularly the way it’s being run – and he wants out:

It’s a lovely idea, to get out of this stupid, Fairtrade, Brown-stained, Mandelson-skewed, equal-opportunities, multicultural, carbon-neutral, trendily left, regionally assembled, big-government, trilingual, mosque-drenched, all-the-pigs-are-equal, property-is-theft hellhole and set up shop somewhere else.

The rest of the piece is a wonderful rant about the amount of control and red tape that is exerted over those in the developed world. And a highly amusing list of the problems with each individual country that he considers emigrating to. And – while it is, of course, written with tongue firmly in cheek – at least Clarkson acknowledges that it doesn’t matter where you go, things won’t ever be perfect. Because that’s really not how life works.

I often think that immigrants to a country are better at seeing the good in it. I certainly think that I have a much more positive opinion of South Africa than many of those who have lived here all their lives. And that goes for a lot of the other ex-pats I’ve met here, too.
I’ve done my best to educate myself on the substance behind the stories, taking opinion from all sides – like The Political Analyst and The Guru amongst others – and I’m finding it easier and easier to recognise nonsense emails and stories earlier and earlier, because – like all lies – they really don’t stand up to any degree of scrutiny. I now regularly have friends emailing me with stories of crime and politics and the ANC, with online petitions and the like, asking me if they are true.
And they never are.

And while I’m happy to set records straight, I find it sad that people still willingly believe all that they read in their inboxes and in the newspapers. And sadder still that there are individuals who will prey on this gullibility to push their agenda across. Thabo Mbeki did some things right and he did some things wrong (and this really isn’t a post about that), but he hit the nail on the head with this line:

It seems to me that the unacceptable practice of propagation of deliberate falsehoods to attain various objectives is becoming entrenched in our country.

Ironically, it now seems that he was behind some of the propagation of those deliberate falsehoods, no matter how unacceptable he found the practice. But it’s still a great quote.

What I’m saying here is that you can’t allow yourself to be dragged down by only seeing the negative side of things and you have to make the best of what you’ve got.
Because you’re never going to have it all.
A lot of people in South Africa fall into that negativity trap and their lives, their outlook and the mood of whole country in general are detrimentally affected because of it.
Positivity costs nothing and it makes you feel a whole lot better.

As for Clarkson – his column has now been removed from the Sunday Times website – probably something to do with his plan to strap Peter Mandelson “to the front of a van and drive round the country until he isn’t alive any more”.
Fortunately, I got there first and have a nice small (35kb) PDF of it for you to read. Enjoy!

Cape to be stripped of power?

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Seriaas?

Seriaas.

Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Sicelo Shiceka has warned the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape provincial government that they will be stripped of their powers if they fail to deliver basic services to poor residents soon.

Of course, the Western Cape is the only Province not to be under ANC control. And the City of Cape Town is the only major municipality not to be under ANC control. But surely these aren’t the only areas which are suffering with a lack of service delivery?
Take the recent protests in Standerton, Balfour (and here), Thokoza and Diepsloot, none of which are in the Western Cape and therefore all of which find themselves under ANC control.

When questioned about this apparent dichotomy in approach to what are basically the same problems and issues, Minister Shiceka was annoyed at the suggestion of any hypocrisy:

Let there be no doubt, if any ANC municipalities are shown to be failing, then they will be taken to task by the ANC. If there is no improvement, we will transfer their powers to the ANC.
And then, if necessary, to the ANC.

So that all sounds fair enough.
Although I think that Helen Zille, Supreme Emperor of the Western Cape, may beg to differ.

Hope for Bafana yet

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Ask any (non-whining) South African about the World Cup next year and they’ll tell you two things:
Firstly, it’s going to be brilliant, exciting, amazing; and secondly, Bafana Bafana don’t stand a chance. We’re talking cat in hell, snowball in hell, fishcake in… hell (?) stuff here. No chance. At all. Not even a little bit. Nil. Zero. Zilch.
You get my point. And that’s still one more than Bafana are going to manage*.

But we’re all singing the praises of the South Africa Homeless World Cup team this week, who are fresh back from Milan, trophy in hand! Fantastic stuff. That is, until you read the small print and discover that they won the trophy for finishing 16th.

It’s all enough to make you wonder if they didn’t just steal the trophy. In the traditional South African way.  I’m not suggesting that they did nick it or anything, but getting a trophy for finishing 16th? It does sound a bit fishy.

You must forgive me, because I recognise that even being there representing their country was a special experience and an honour for those guys. And I can only salute the great positive work that NGO’s and charities do in organising these sorts of events. But, being a traditionalist at heart, I have to say first, second, third… fair enough. But a trophy for finishing 16th? Well, that devalues thing a little for me.
16th deserves more of a certificate and a pat on the back. A well done and thanks for turning up but there were another 15 teams who were better than you kind of thing. Not a trophy.

So South Africa didn’t win. They didn’t even come close. But there are those who can overlooked this minor detail if it brings in some nice publicity. ID leader Patricia de Lille for one:

I am so proud of our National Homeless Soccer Team, who persevered right until the end of the World Cup, beating Malawi in the final.

Poor deluded Patricia de Lille is still under the impression that her political party won the recent election and can’t understand why Jacob Zuma is claiming to be President.
Fortunately, for the purposes of accuracy in this article, reporter Harriet McLea helped de Lille out by adding the word “(match)” into the published quote at an appropriate point.

All a bit of a joke as far as the competition goes, then. But this surely offers some hope for Bafana Bafana in the real World Cup next year. After all, if you get a trophy just for finishing 16th, maybe they won’t be empty-handed at the end of the 2010 tournament.

* That’s enough now. Ed.