Thabo, show us that you have balls

Not since the darkest days of apartheid back in the 1980s have I been so acutely embarrassed to be a South African as I am now.

For the past two years our country’s president has stumbled from one foreign policy disaster to the next, in the process flushing his predecessor’s great moral legacy down the toilet - but his handling to date of the Zimbabwean tragedy has now verily gone beyond the pale.

In my opinion Mr Mbeki has finally stripped off whatever tatters of credibility he may have retained as our country’s leader.

Our brave president has one final chance to show us something of the young liberation fighter who crossed the border in those desperate early years of the struggle to take up arms (although in his case it was a pen, as Mr Oliver Tambo’s private secretary).

Show us too that the African Union has teeth. Do what Tanzania did to troublesome neighbour Idi Amin in Uganda some 30 years ago – send in the military. Invite Zambia, Mozambique, Botswana, Uganda, Namibia, Malawi and every country in Africa to dispatch a military unit to invade Zimbabwe. He cannot fight all of us - let them pour across the borders from every side to crush the Zimbabwean military and police, who are mostly as guilty as their puppetmaster Mugabe in subjugating the population.

Let our pretty new jets bomb military nerve centres and sow panic among the guilty.

There will be little resistance as most Zimbabweans are eager to throw off the heavy yoke of oppression. Once they realise the game is up for the uniformed and Zanu-PF thugs, they will turn on them at once. Any survivors can be tried for crimes against humanity at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Show the world that Africa can deal with its bullies and the AU has meaning. Who knows, you may actually leave your presidency with your head held high and some respect from those- such as I – who have completely lost faith in you.

Back to blogging

I stopped blogging for a while - particularly about politics - for jolly good reasons that I prefer not to mention here.

But that is all behind me now.

Prosecution of Adriaan Vlok and others

This week the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) announced that it is charging Adriaan Vlok, a Minister of Police in the apartheid era, and Johan van der Merwe, chief of the South African Police at the time, for attempted murder.

The immediate case on hand is the attempted poisoning of the Reverend Frank Chicane in 1989, but this incident is probably only the tip of the iceberg. It is common cause that - particularly since 1976 -  multiple crimes were committed against South African humanity that remain buried, like the bodies of the “Pebco 3″ until uncovered this past week.

It is time that the legalised thugs of the 1970s and 80s are brought to book. They had scant regard for any human rights and were let slip like the dogs of war they are. For many their only interest in the TRC was in how best they could circumvent it.

South Africa has a desperate need to re-establish civil morality and I fervently hope that these monsters, who for too many years have sneered contemptiously at their living and the dead victims, will see the light - of justice.

Pres. Mbeki reads my blog

On Tuesday I suggested in my blog “Why this public strike is needed” that President Mbeki and his cabinet should give up their recommended 50% plus salary increases and rather take the percentage their government employees get.

Lo and behold, the headline in “The Times” this morning says that he has set his recommended increase aside.

Nice one Mr President!

I gather that Mr Mbeki regularly surfs the internet, so he obviously stumbled across my nugget of wisdom and acted.

Glad to be of assistance Mr Pres, read my blogs anytime. They’re full of good advice for your government.

Why this public strike is needed

President Thabo Mbeki was recently awarded a 57% salary increase and his cabinet members, including Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi (Minister of the Public Service), an average of 50%. Are they really surprised at the anger of public service when offered 6%? Is the leadership and performance of our national cabinet over the past year really worth a 50% plus increase?

For 10 days now South Africa has lived through the turmoil of its biggest national strike ever, with national government workers downing their pens and rubber stamps.

We are aghast as parents evacuate their kids from school threatened with violence and nurses abandon their patients on the coldest days of the year. Yet this second week could be even more disruptive as the strike appears set to escalate to include municipal workers and other unions from COSATU, South Africa’s biggest trade union federation.

Why has this happened? Surely this is so unnecessary?

NO – on the contrary - this is actually so necessary.

Government and its employees have been on a collision course for years now, and like two heavyweight boxers in the ring, the one is trying to strike his opponent out with heavy blows, while the other keeps his defenses tight, convinced he’ll outlast the attack.

This is the moment for a trial of strength that may – or may not – leave one of the opponents defeated and the future of South Africa’s history altered.

This is not a tale of wrong or right - nor black and white. It is obvious government has wretchedly bungled the transformation of the civil service and associated public services such as teaching, nursing and policing. Misguided or missing political leadership and too hasty replacing of experienced “whities” with the inexperienced - just to get the black headcount right - has damaged, and in certain departments even wrecked, government’s delivery of its duties.

We, the general public, now openly deride government and at times take to the streets against its ineffectiveness. For heaven’s sake, I haven’t had an accurate electricity or water bill since I bought my current Jozi house in 1998 – what about the millions of poor buggers in their freezing and flimsy shacks still trying to GET electricity and water!

But what of the strikers that are now being demonised in the public media?

I have no doubt that the overwhelming majority are decent people who love their country and want to do an honest day’s work. But they need to be led; otherwise they’ll find their own leaders, as they’ve now done through the unions!

Our “government” features cabinet ministers and director-generals missing in action; inexperienced (but not inherently incapable) managers and supervisors struggling to perform their duties and cope with the extra burden of 30% vacant posts in certain government departments(“whities” need not apply). No wonder many have become demoralised and simply given up. They observe the new black political and business elites with comradely snouts sucking deep in the trough – is it any surprise that their apathy explodes into rage when they’re offered an insulting 6% wage increase?

And what of “government”?

Our rulers are marvelous at crafting new legislation and planning ambitious programmes. Yes, there have been duds - like the new firearm licencing fiasco – but excellent legislation such as the new National Credit Act and the forthcoming national pension scheme are all for protecting the financially naïve.

South Africa’s captains of industry – and their BEE fatcat partners - are puffing Havanas and quaffing Johnny Walker Blues in glee at government’s hugely ambitious and highly fanfared R400 billion infrastructure development programme, designed to dramatically upgrade our country’s transport and leisure facilities up to the 2010 Soccer World Cup and beyond.

Wonderful – but who will do the actual work? That is the question that our elegant and eloquent and hitherto hands-off ruling elite must answer.

Because at this rate there will be no-one able or even willing.

The cracks are showing - this strike is unveiling the monster created by inept and elitist transformation and empowerment across South Africa.

Public workers, undertrained, under-managed, often without the resources to adequately do their jobs, no longer can stomach that their “superiors” are awarded massive increases and they not – they are striking for their slice of the cake.

And government? It needs to now start earning its keep and sort out the unholy mess it has created. What is obvious is that government will sink deeper into the mire until it introduces effective (and authentic) performance management; finds means to develop and/or attract the necessary skills; adequately rewards skills and performance; and last but by no means least, regains the trust and participation of its employees.

The transformation of SARS and the Finance Ministry are striking (hehe) examples of what can be achieved (All hail Trevor Manuel or Pravin Gordham as our first Ministers of Performance Management and Productivity?)

My fervent hope is that our government, through its swaggering indifference and incompetence, hasn’t sparked off a class war, even though a social democratic breakaway to the ANC’s left may be a healthy development.

They can set an immediate example by handing back their salary increases and agreeing to receive the same rates as the workers.

In the meantime, bag your refuse securely and stock up on the candles.

And don’t get sick – it may just kill you.

Arise ma’am Goodzilla

Interesting times in South African politics indeed. The penny has finally dropped for our Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula (ie. The Pou-lice!) that crime is getting out of control in South Africa, so he’s scrambling to reassure foreign investors and put a viable crime-fighting strategy in place.

Hmmm… this ANC government is great at planning, but actual implementation? I’ll believe it when I see it. In the meantime I’ll keep the dogs hungry and my powder (or pepper gas…) dry.

However this weekend did witness a rare sea-change in South African politics. Tony Leon, long-standing Leader of the Opposition and of South Africa’s biggest opposition party - the Democratic Alliance (DA) - stood down. The DA federal congress elected Ms Helen Zille, the tough-as-nails Cape Town Mayor, to replace him.

This event put me in a strange place that I haven’t come to terms with yet.

In the 1980s I was a political activist and a founder member of Denis Worrall’s Independent Party and the later Democratic Party, the precursor to today’s Democratic Alliance (DA). These parties played key roles in the ending of apartheid and the transition to a democratic government. I look back with pride on representing principled democracy in the face of bristling hostility, and the much quieter role of an unofficial communicator between the banned ANC/PAC and government authorities in my region.

With Zac de Beer a highly respected but aging leader, the DA had to choose its next champion between Tiaan van der Merwe, a social democrat, and Tony Leon, who represented the centre-right.

Those were dangerous days and in the end it was no contest. We social democrats were shattered when Tiaan was killed in a car accident (while investigating the mysterious car accident deaths of several PAC leaders) and Tony took the top job.
Believing (as I still do) that Tony was an unrehabilitated elitist who would make our party a narrow defender of minority interests, I felt compelled to resign. And was I so proved right!

I consequently joined the ANC (it was genuinely social democratic then, not masquerading as its Mbeki leadership does now) and was briefly a branch secretary before I retired from politics in 1997, believing that the fight for justice was won (hehe).

Now after 13 long years Tony is gone and Goodzille is in. I hear from friends in the DA she is an outstanding choice. Tough, principled, astute, and with struggle credentials (all-important in African politics) stretching back over 30 years. Helen Zille is already saying what I never heard from Leon – coalitions without selling out, inclusion over exclusion, interests rather than identities, values as opposed to tactical positions.

For years now I’ve felt that no political party in South Africa really represents my views - and I am by no means alone. If Helen Zille can offer us a vision that can bring us in from the wilderness – more power to her elbow. She certainly deserves the chance.

On the other hand, in the ANC the struggle to succeed President Mbeki reaches its climax this year, and the personalities that emerge as its new leaders – as in USA politics – will determine its political direction in coming years. I would thrill to a Ramaphosa victory and be most dismayed by a Zuma (husband or ex-wife) triumph.

South Africans are entering intriguing days. Will a next generation of visionary political leaders – of the calibre of the 1991 to 1999 Mandela-de Klerk era - replace our current incompetent, misguided and/or “let’s make a deal” crew (notably excepting Trevor Manuel, Douglas Gibson and similar) of the Mbeki and Leon years?

I earnestly wish so.

But for this moment, ma’am Goodzille, centre stage is yours.

A perfect MWEB summer

Last evening as the sun dropped below the horizon, I felt the first chilly blasts of approaching winter. Panicking at the prospect of changing my summer uniform of sandals, shorts and T shirt for warmer gear, I immediately sought the reassurance of my internet service provider’s weather page.

Yep, there it was – MWEB weather showed the current temperature in Johannesburg was 23˚ C, so it was perfectly warm and I was spared another day from my winter wardrobe.

Notwithstanding that - according to the MWEB weather page for Johannesburg - the current temperature has been 23˚ C since about November 2006.

It has been a perfectly mild warm summer, thanks to MWEB, whose head office is less than a kilometre from my home. Others may have suffered in the alleged February heat wave, or been lashed by the torrential rain of December and the windstorms of January, but here in MWEBland, in the comforting proximity to its servers, we’re enjoying our perfect mildly warm 23˚ C.

Yes, I must admit I was tempted on occasions, as I sweltered in my study, to lose my faith and switch to another weather page. But MWEB has been my service provider for years, even though these days its home page fails to load with the regularity of Big Ben and its newsfeed from 24.com goes pear-shaped most weekends and public holidays.

In a moment of weakness I even went so far as to download a freeware programme called Weather Watcher (author Singer’s Creations) from a USA site called MajorGeeks. But the American programme was most alarming, it kept showing different temperatures to the MWEB weather page, and these temperatures varied between morning and evening! Not what I want to see at all in sunny South Africa.

I much prefer the consistency of my MWEB 23˚ C which, if I have faith, can sustain me in perfect mildly warm comfort through another bitter Highveld winter.

So as I pack up at the keyboard now to catch the Saturday afternoon rugby and cricket on the telly, let’s check the weather on MWEB before we light the fire for the braai.

Yep, it’s 23˚ C. What a perfect autumn afternoon!

March hare

Way too much work, an old neck injury (was it rugby or pole-dancing?) that stabs me at the keyboard, an unexpected funeral in Cape Town and a house bought with mother and brother on the Zululand coast, have sped the last few weeks by in a blur.

Now I’m back blogging again in a moment rescued from the reality of busy, busy to a digital reality that I believe is becoming more real, as sci-fi author and scientist Isaac Asimov predicted decades ago. I know this as a 1970s teen techno geek - though we only had hard copy in the 70s

So I’m back at the blog (after some exploring with trig and facebook) and it’s going to take some discipline from me to mean anything.

So here goes again.

Has apartheid just changed colour?

According to a report on iafrica.com today, Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana said [at the annual Ndebele King Silamba commemoration in Pretoria on Saturday], “Contrary to Parliamentary calls by opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), affirmative action and current employment equity legislation would never be repealed but would be intensified instead,”
Disturbing words indeed - especially for the hundreds of thousands of South African patriots of all colours who risked their lives (many making the ultimate sacrifice) to remove legalised racism from our fair land.
Now I am no great supporter of the DA (I was a founder member who resigned in protest when Tony Leon became leader – ironically because I believed him to be a racist, and still do). Nor am I an ululating and traditional weapons carrying supporter of Buthelezi’s Inkatha.
But both these long-serving political leaders - along with the leaders of most other parties currently in Parliament - are rightfully concerned that the pendulum of apartheid is swinging from white to black.
Again, I have no issue with a short term redressing of “historic imbalances”; in fact I surrendered my own career in SAA (South African Airways - in hindsight, not a bad decision) to make way for an incoming black generation.
But for permanent inequality? No way!
I have as much sympathy for South Africa’s white kids of today who struggle to get jobs as for the black kids who were systematically discriminated against when I landed my first post in SAA in 1978.
It’s hard to tell the white kids to be patient “as this is a process”, especially as they had nothing to do with its cause. No wonder those that can, depart our shores – many forever. But how do you explain that this process has no foreseeable end (what happened to the originally agreed 2014 cut-off)?
I sincerely hope this is report is a misinterpretation, or that the “good shepherd” Minister had a rush of blood to the head and an attack of runaway mouth (as he is wont to do).
If not, and he is echoing official government policy, then our young democracy is being betrayed by its so-called liberators.
Maybe our “rainbow nation” isn’t so special after all. Every day I open the newspaper I get the sense that the Mandela Miracle is being disassembled – prick by prick.

A President trapped

Right now I can think of two Presidents of nations with nowhere to run or hide. Sure, George Bush is the automatic first choice – but who else is so painted into a corner and wishes the spotlight would focus elsewhere – why if it isn’t our very own President Thabo Mbeki!

While paging through the Sunday Times, still on a high after watching our Lions rugby team thump the Crusaders at Ellis Park the night before (a rare occurrence indeed!), I reached Zapiro’s cartoon – brilliant!

Again, he captured the political moment perfectly.

Thabo Mbeki - then Mandela’s deputy president - presided over the South African government’s infamous Arms Deal of the late 1990s. It was on his watch that the “deals for bucks” for connected homeboys (or girls) got underway.

With government’s top echelon turning a blind eye – if not actively enriching itself first – the next tier saw a green light for GO and line your pockets as quickly as you can. This money-grabbing by any means by our leaders (or dealers?) has obviously been interpreted by desperate “have-nots” as their licence to acquire wealth and status – by violence if necessary – from the “haves”. As we law-abiding citizens are finding out – night after terrifying night.

Where does that leave our hapless president – by all accounts an upright and hard-working man?

It leaves him diminished and his legacy in the balance - his vultures are coming home to roost.