What it Must Be Like to Be a Woman

For Mothers and Daughters.

Men.

Have you ever in your short life wondered what it must be like to be a woman in this day and age?

Love in the time of the Virus.

Again, I must apologize to Senor Marquez, Columbian maestro of magic realism, renowned for masterpieces such as Memories of My Melancholy Whores, One Hundred Years of Solitude. And of course, Love in the Time of Cholera.

His work does remind me of one other great writer, Albert Camus who produced the masterful The Plague. Africa should be so proud. Always just remember that Camus was not only French – he probably spent many a year musing through the streets of Paris, eternal city of Love – he was Algerian.

And yet still. Men. Forgive me for saying this but how can Africa be proud, the way it continues to treat its women. Call me a rabble-rouzer, I really don’t care anymore what you think of me, but I cannot stand by idly while you, a Zulu King, can pick and choose any virgin, old enough to be your grandchild, to deflower – or rape? – at any damn time you damn well please.

You call it the annual Reed Dance. I call it Mass Rape. A man does not necessarily need to rape a woman physically. He can do it with his eyes. If I must have the courage of my convictions, then I must be prepared to make that acknowledgement. Yes, I too, have wondered what it must be like to wantonly take a woman and do as I please with her.

And in the transaction, the exchange that takes place between a man and what is impassively referred to as a sex worker – she’s been called many names; prostitute, whore, harlot, Gentoo. I cannot excuse my loneliness. Or even my curiosity. I’m ashamed to say it. But there it is.

Sexual fantasy. And much, much worse.

And before you judge me.

Be very careful. How is plowing a woman with one drink after another a more acceptable transaction? It’s not a fair trade, and she’s the one who ends up paying, sometimes with her life.

Sexual fantasy. Taking what you can get when your own woman cannot or will not.

I can’t blame her.

It simply isn’t right.

Goodwill. King of the Zulus. What a name! King Shaka must be rolling in his grave. Do I hear the Ancestors calling? Go roll your bones for all I care. Yoweri Museveni, the strutting, longest serving president of Uganda. What despicable, despotic Idi Amin could not do, he appears to have done.

And is still doing, lock-down or no lock-down.

And yet.

No. It just isn’t right what Museveni and many Ugandans continue to do to so many lesbian women and gay men over there. And trans-gendered women too. Ugandans’ claim to fame is selective appropriations of the Holy Bible, otherwise known as the Word of God. Go on. Go read the Book of John. This is a predominantly Catholic country, by the way.

Bench warmers over there obviously missed Pope Francis’s famous sermon in which he proclaimed;

‘Who am I to judge?’

He could only have been inspired by Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, because it was He who said; let he who has cast no sin, cast the first stone. And yet. Have the victimized really sinned? Because it seems to me that they are mostly in it for the Love. And why not take what He said literally. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. It’s how you feel inside, your heart, right? Love your wife, man, if you have one. A heart. Do not hurt her. Do not abuse her. If you cannot love your wife, you cannot love yourself. Instead of beating her to a pulp, why not beat yourself up.

Until you get it right in your head.

Until that day comes, as far as I am concerned, women are off limits to you. But who am I to judge? Certainly, women are off limits to me as well if I cannot love them. I cannot love them if I cannot love myself. But today, I feel glad. After all this time, I must love myself after all. The lock-down owing to COVID-19 could not have come at a better time.

But yes, I know. It is really hard. People have been losing their jobs. People have been losing their livelihoods. And people have been losing their lives. As far as I am concerned; unnecessarily. Not through the novel Corona virus. But through the regular beatings. It has been going on for years. Indeed, it is said that women and children enjoyed a brief reprieve once my country’s version of the Lock-down came down.

Because guess what, chaps; no more alcohol, read my lips, no more alcohol. And no more barroom brawls either. Hooliganism, and worse, stamped out. Overnight. Bars, pubs, shebeens closed, lock, stock and two smoking barrels. But plenty of cigarettes and crystal meth – we call it tik here in Cape Town, a city ironically named the Mother City. Smokes and meth. If you can afford it. Actually, you can’t.

Guilty as charged. What a twelve-dollar pack of cigarettes could have bought in fresh fruit and vegetables, enough to feed a poor family of five for a few days. Yes, loving in the time of the Virus is hard. Today, let me state quite emphatically that I am NOT proud to be a South African. Men, our country holds the ‘proud’ record of having the world’s fifth highest COVID-related infections in the world.

Who lies above us in this inestimable record? I tell you what; two countries stand out. Clue. They hold the record for harboring the world’s largest nuclear weapons arsenals. So much for reducing the stockpiles, Mr Obama. Anyhow, something else stands out about these two great countries. They are ruled by misogynists, one with an iron fist, the other with a limp dick.

Yes, they don’t always have nice things to say about women. And they don’t have nice things to say about me and you either. Lesbians. Gays. Bisexuals. Trans-gendered men and women. And fun-loving queer kids too. But Messrs Trump and Putin, sorry to go breaking your hearts because boy, have you got a mountain to climb.

Because, lads, you’ve got some way to go before you can catch us. We hold some of the highest records for the most beatings, most murders and, of course, proud record this, most rapes. South African-born literary luminary, JM Coetzee, was not far off the mark when he wrote his Booker Prize-winning Disgrace .

Amongst the highest rates in the world. For murder. Beatings. Rape. But here, you see, we murder our women, we beat them too. And if we’ve got time, we’ll rape them until Kingdom comes. We even correct them. We correct lesbians. Oh, we rape boys too, most of us when behind prison bars. See if you can top that, guys!

And we rape them before, during and after Holy Mass.

Disgraceful! Indeed, it’s worse than that.

Mr Coetzee packed his bags for Perth. And he actually went! The thought has crossed my mind. But I have somewhere else to go. Not to escape the harsh realities of daily life here in South Africa. Because, Julius Malema, I too am a son of the soil. And my reasons for going elsewhere are motivated by love.

Not violence. Not hate. I certainly do not hate my fellow man, but I wish he would just stop already. More has to be done to stop this scourge. And to think, just the other day I had this to say to a lady with a lamp. I said this to her. Heck! If I can survive in this country, I can survive anywhere in the world. Oh! That’s just so easy for me to say.

Because get this; I am not a woman. And while I may still tremble at times, I am still able to defend myself. But not a woman. She could try but, nine times out of ten, no. Now try and do this if you can. I tried this in the past. I have been trying in recent days. But be warned. It’s not easy to imagine yourself in a woman’s body. No, it’s not that I have gender-bending feelings from time to time, not that.

No, because in South Africa, if you are powerless as a woman, life is extremely hard. Today marks the early days of what we South Africans commemorate as Women’s Month. We wish to stand up for the rights of all women in this country, and for that matter, the rest of the world. I for one wish to stand up for the children too, those without food, and those who are beaten, and raped by their uncles.

Uncles, my arse!

I wish to stand up in church one day once the lock-down restrictions are a thing of the past and shout and scream at the top of my lungs. Stop raping the boys! That’s going to be quite a challenge for me because I’m not accustomed to raising my voice. But when it does happen, very rarely, thank God, I’m extremely angry.

Nevertheless, it’s on my mind all the time. I wonder sometimes, lovely man that he is, if it’s on Pope Francis’s mind too.

And he’s still not my father.

There’s this old English saying. Women are the fairer sex. That they are, and God Bless them for that, I adore them for that. But weaker sex? I think not. Men. Come on now. Admit it. It is we who are the weaker sex. If we’re not violent, we don’t always seem to know what the hell we’re doing. Let’s use this as an example.

Let’s look at those countries with the worst COVID-related infections in the world. And compare them with some who have slayed the virus like Wonder Woman would a demon from out there in the universe. Cyril Ramaphosa is South Africa’s State President. He’s also a billionaire. How he got his hands on that lucre is a story for another day.

Donald Trump is the USA’s President. They call him the Commander in Chief over there. Huh? Anyway, he’s a billionaire a few times over. How did he make it? Actually, he didn’t. He inherited it from his immigrant father. I’m led to believe that he still had a silver spoon in his mouth when Trump Snr handed over the poisoned chalice. And then there is that man.

Vladimir Putin.

Tsar of Russia.

Rumor had it that he was the wealthiest man in the world at one point. Prizes for guessing how he might have got to that point? And is it any wonder that our country’s former statesman, Jacob Zuma is a huge admirer? And he’s a huge admirer of women too. On the charge of raping one, here, in a court of law he was adjudged to be not guilty. For crying out loud, the man took a shower!

But today that woman is dead.

Putin the richest man in the world? Today; perhaps not. That disputable record belongs to none other than Jeff Bezos, the Amazon king. While thousands of people are losing their jobs every day as a result of COVID-19 (somehow I doubt that that’s the real reason) Jeff Bezos is making more of those billions.

Where others fall, go steal from them.

How stuff works. Go read an Amazon book.

Speaking of the Amazon. If you thought COVID-19 was bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Because just you wait and see what happens when Jair Bolsonaro finally burns the Amazon jungles to the ground. Putin, Trump, you can pack away your nukes, we might not need them  after all. Bolsonaro, we’ll he’s a billionaire too.

And he’s a misogynist as well. Let’s not even talk about what he thinks of the beautiful Brazilian trans-gendered women over there.

But enough of these men.

Let’s talk about the women. Not for nothing is Germany’s longest serving Chancellor, Angela Merkel, referred to over there as Mutter. And today, COVID-19 is under control in Germany. It’s under control in Finland as well. But Finland’s Prime Minister is far too young to be referred to as that country’s mother.

Or is she? I ask you. Jacinda Arderne is what you could refer to as the consummate multi-tasker. Women are good at that sort of thing. Multi-tasking. And leading. You’re surprised? I’m not. Now, this gorgeous lady, first known holder of office to parade with others on Pride Day, breastfeeds her baby while running her country. And running it very well indeed. And beating the living hell out of the virus.

Just like New Zealand’s mighty All Blacks beating the crap out of our beloved Springboks. Today, the people of New Zealand are walking their streets at night without any fear. There’s no virus, you see. But it’s more than that. Because New Zealand also enjoys amongst the lowest crime rates in the world. And by that read that women and children are relatively safe.

I wish I could say the same for my country. Heck! We may be Rugby World Champions, but we’ve got nothing to be proud of over here. I’ll say it again. Jacinda Arderne. You really have outdone yourself! You’re a swell gal if you don’t mind me saying so. And it would not surprise me at all if Time Magazine makes you its Person of the Year in this year of the Virus.

Men. Forgive my emotions. Forgive my anger. I’m guilty. Don’t you feel it too?

Women. I really do have tears in my eyes, no really, I do. It’s Women’s Month here in South Africa and in that spirit, I would really like to wish you well for tomorrow, come what may. I pray that it will be safe.

May God be with you.

Gandhi Before India

 

“Gandhi’s message of peace and non-violence holds the key to human survival in the twenty-first century.”

• Nelson Mandela –

Ask any avid reader and lover of books. Books should be cherished. They are also frightfully expensive, particularly the longer and exceptionally good tomes. An earlier visit to my local library was the setting for a rare find. Public libraries are bereft of funds and worthy donors, but there are occasions when there is a rare spurt of generosity. Finding Gandhi Before India by Ramachandra Guha displayed prominently during my search for other biographical works, was a gift. While it was already published by Allen Lane in 2013, this book was resplendently brand-new when I clutched it for the first time. I had written some notes towards other essays where I touched briefly on the monumental contribution Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi made to human history over two centuries. I was already familiar with aspects of his life through the film medium, and re-watching Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi remains an occasion.

But, Guha’s work towers far higher than Attenborough’s award-winning opus. Attenborough was a director of note and as a life-long opponent of apartheid was well-qualified to produce such a tribute to the Mahatma. But, that is all it remains when compared with Guha’s contrite work. There is much to learn and gain after a dedicated reading of Gandhi Before India. Over five hundred pages long, it is merely the first part of an extensive biography of the life, times and philosophies of Gandhi. And Guha has already produced India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy. By dint of that book’s title, I remain convinced that the legacy that Gandhi left us remains alive and well. Forget for a moment the ominous signs to the contrary. While most nations’ politicians and leaders have selfishly manipulated and abused their countries’ constitutions to the detriment of the citizens that they are designed to serve and aid, freedom and democracy still seems to be the better solution to a troubled and divisive world.

Today’s India is ruled by Narendra Modi, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, originally a Hindu Nationalist party. His realm stretches across twenty-nine states and a melting pot of many cultures and religions, particularly the sects of Hinduism and Islam. In comparison to previous years since independence from the British Empire, this country of over a billion people has enjoyed a period of relative peace and phenomenal economic growth. But, the MAN Booker Prize-winning author, Arundhati Roy will argue otherwise. The problems of inequality, poverty and religious and cultural oppression still run deep and won’t be overturned in the near future. But, comparatively speaking, Indians are slowly but surely growing more tolerant of each other. Gandhi, born into a relatively prosperous middle-class Hindu family, became aware of these blights later in his life. Perhaps it was fortuitous, or divine intervention itself, that Gandhi, a loyal subject of the British Empire as a newly qualified barrister, experienced racism first hand during his earliest travels through South Africa.

There is a famous scene in Richard Attenborough’s film where Gandhi, dressed impeccably in an English-tailored suit, is brutally thrown off a train by a racist conductor and his complaining passenger. Gandhi insisted that he had every right to sit in the first class compartment of that train’s car since he was the rightful owner of a first class ticket. But, little did he know at that time of how inherently divided along racial and economic lines South Africa already was. Guha writes that Gandhi would have to endure many similar train journeys before realizing just how bad it all was. But, before Gandhi’s awakening to the problems of racism, oppression and inequality, the reader must learn what shaped this mystical, unusual and eccentric man.

As we already know, Gandhi, through the prejudices of his Hindu religion and culture, had a premature marriage to Kasturba foisted on him. The peculiarities – as he would describe it – of his religion and culture would also affect his relationships with his children. It would trouble Gandhi throughout his life that he could never shake off the yolk of patriarchal traditions. Surprisingly we learn of who and what influenced Gandhi the aesthete, never mind the religious mystic. It was none other than the Russian literary giant, Leo Tolstoy, that would assist Gandhi in seeking out a life which is inherently harmonic and peaceful, if practised. One would have to travel all the way back to Gandhi’s time in England while studying law, to learn of his decision to become a life-long adherent of vegetarianism. While he may not have known it then, and Guha does not mention this in his biography, much of what Gandhi practised and preached is more urgently valid to us in the second millennium encumbered with the critical problems of global warming and environmental degradation, all consequences of inequality, mass production and over-consumption.

By the time Gandhi was a prominent activist in South Africa, the arch-colonist and oppressor of South Africa’s indigenous people, Cecil John Rhodes had already left the scene. But he made his mark. While his dreamed of Empire did not stretch across the whole of Africa, his dream of a Union of South Africa did come to be. Designed to rally white Anglo-Saxons and Afrikaners into a peaceful co-existence towards realising common goals, the Union of South Africa’s earliest years would be presided over by two Afrikaner Generals of Anglo-Boer War fame, Louis Botha and Jan Christiaan Smuts. These two men were Gandhi’s greatest rivals in the struggle for equality for Indian men and women originally brought to South Africa to serve the white population’s labour needs. Smuts was every bit the unusual aesthete that Gandhi was. This is peculiar, because he was inherently racist.

Safe from the vagaries of his own culture, Gandhi was free to do as he pleased during his years in England. He would, however, not be tempted by strange, foreign mores. He consumed much in a literary sense. After being introduced to the London Vegetarian Society, Gandhi immersed himself in  alternative thoughts on culture and religion. What was  illuminating to him at the time, would also profoundly influence his later years as an activist in South Africa and as India’s liberator was the Bible’s New Testament stories on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. The young Gandhi could not believe that such generosity of spirit and servitude was possible given his own Indian background.

The most important aspect of Gandhi’s many philosophies was surely the adoption of the practice of satyagraha, passive, non-violent civil disobedience and resistance. In view of the oppression meted out by the South African regime, this was a just cause, but it was never violent. The extent of Gandhi’s charisma and influence over the many people who chose to follow his example remains astounding because of Gandhi’s modest stature, both physically and personally. It was always difficult for him to speak before large crowds, but they heard him and listened to him. They would willingly go to prison in the hope of contributing towards their eventual emancipation. During Gandhi’s time in South Africa, it never came, but it took root and had a profound effect on Indians living on the sub-continent and it reverberated across most parts of the world.

A painful aspect of Guha’s narrative is the detailed narration of the continuous trails of letter writing and meetings with Smuts which were all to no avail. But, it is necessary because it is evidence of how resilient both Gandhi and his oppressors were. Neither would budge. While Gandhi represented the interests of the Indians in South Africa, Smuts always argued that his reluctance to concede to their demands was in the best interests of his white English and Afrikaans-speaking constituents. The popular belief, still to this day and with justification, was that most white South Africans were racist. But within Gandhi’s entourage of many helpers and followers were a number of white men and women, Christian and Jewish, who would influence Gandhi immeasurably. Much like Mandela in later years, Gandhi learned that there was much that was good about the so-called white race and there was much to be gained and learned from them.

A critical aspect of Gandhi’s saintly and mythological life in South Africa often spoken about among South Africans is his ignorance of the indigenous Africans who were regarded as lower in status and class by his own followers. The excuse is always bandied that Gandhi was “a product of his times” and this much is clear in Ramachandra Guha’s biographical writing. The emphasis on the Indian population is necessary to tell the true story of Gandhi’s growth as a human being and leader. But, Guha does mention Gandhi’s belated awareness of the Africans’ plight. Gandhi’s forthright decision to leave South Africa for good and return to his motherland to address the – at that time – greater cause of the liberation of India was understandable and necessary. It was also welcomed by Smuts who famously hoped aloud that Gandhi had indeed left South Africa for good.

But, by the time Gandhi had left South Africa, the seeds for practising passive resistance among the African people had already been planted. No-one can argue that Gandhi would fail to address the injustice against all South Africans had he stayed longer in the country. Even to this day, Gandhi’s legacy remains alive for many South Africans who argue in favour of peaceful co-existence and equality. The consequences of those alternatives are also clearly felt today. A new debate has surged, arguing for the re-writing of South Africa’s history since long before the first European settlers arrived. But the danger of erasing it entirely remains alive while there are those who wish for it. No-one need be a saint like Gandhi to realise that it only requires common sense to at least begin to follow the example laid at the foot of Africa by Gandhi. In recent years, it was Nelson Mandela who came closest to emulating the Mahatma, but like Gandhi, both history and time was against Madiba.

Conflict in any form always sows contempt and hate. Mediation and co-operation, fair and just, equal no matter what the citizens’ circumstances and status is the only solution. During the National Party’s rule of the country after defeating Smuts at the polls in 1948, the practice of Gandhi’s passive resistance continued mainly under the leadership of the Pan Africanist Congress’ Robert Sobukwe and the African National Congress’ Albert Luthuli, the first of four South Africans to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Around the time of the ANC’s fateful decision to abandon peaceful protest against apartheid, Luthuli remained firm in his belief that non-violent forms of protest remained the better option towards gaining emancipation from oppressive rule. When Mandela took the decision to take up an armed struggle against the NP regime, he remarked that it was not taken lightly and it was no doubt taken with a heavy heart.

There will always be those who favour armed resistance as the ultimate and most effective measure for overthrowing an oppressive regime. But, long after the dust has settled when this measure has succeeded, more conflicts, old, unresolved problems and new issues, will arise. And where armed or violent conflict as a means to an end is contemplated elsewhere, it is quickly suppressed by a militarily strong government. At the time of South Africa’s formal emancipation from legislative apartheid, the South African regime had one of the strongest military forces in the world. Today, while South Africa’s military structures corrode, its police force, corrupt and inefficiently managed, is used to suppress the physical manifestations of anger and frustration felt by many impoverished South Africans.

Had South Africans decided to take advantage of the lessons and actions of Mohandas Gandhi, I am certain that a better and brighter future would beckon for their children in a land as rich as Gandhi’s homeland. While I believe in Gandhi’s way, it seems to me that at this present time, the legacy of Cecil John Rhodes is alive and well. And this is not the fault of the newly oppressed minorities.

George Orwell’s Window on the World

One of the most fascinating and haunting novels I have read is George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.

A few years ago, I read through it fleetingly. Reading time was almost non-existent. I will be returning to Nineteen Eighty-Four soon. But this time i will align my reading with Yevgeni Zamyatin’s We and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. This journey will be disturbing. Nineteen Eighty-Four’s protagonist is a thoughtful, but peculiarly interesting character. After all, his creator named him obscurely as Winston Smith. It was not long after World War Two had been concluded when the brilliant journalist’s unappreciated manuscript finally saw the light of day as a published novel.

Perhaps Mr Orwell had in mind that war’s protagonist, Winston Churchill, one of the founding fathers of the new world order that we are only now coming to terms with. I recently came across a documentary of Naomi Wolf’s work, The End of America, which focusses on how George W Bush’s administration manipulated and abused the American Constitution and installed the primary device deviously termed The Patriot Act. During Wolf’s lecture before a small audience, continuous reference was made to the concept of Big Brother who is Smith’s antagonist in Nineteen Eight-Four. Big Brother is only seen as an intimidating and grainy mug shot which dominates every telescreen in every home, work place and arena across Oceania.

Oceania is perceptively and perpetually at war with Eurasia and Eastasia. At the time of my reading, I imagined that it was America at war with both Europe and Asia where Africa serves as a garbage site of what is left of humanity and its resources. More specifically, I imagined America at war with Russia. Perhaps I lost some focus during my reading of Orwell’s text, because I imagined a pristine and sheltered environment, clean and habitable and much like the universe that Yevgeny Zamyatin created in We. But when I saw Michael Radford’s masterful adaptation the other evening, I knew then that I would have to return to 1984, both book and year.

In nineteen-eighty four, I failed at my first attempt at the matriculation exams. I was forced to learn by rote and conscripted into a military regime which taught my fellow-conscripts to hate the other and trained them to kill the other. At the height of this masterful indoctrination was the fear of Communism and the false sense of security that was given to a small, but elite minority of citizens. I was far too young and loyal to family to be brave enough to conscientiously object to this form of oppression which spared no-one no matter who they were. The alternative was an undefined jail term.

Radford researched Orwell’s work very well. The mis-en-scene that he created is extremely bleak, damaged beyond repair and reminiscent of the so-called scorched earth policies pioneered by Churchill and his colonial predecessors. It shows up the consequences of men and women’s ignorance in believing just about everything that their politicians put before them while promising them the earth. The false notion of living harmoniously amongst your peers is drummed into everyone. And now that Big Brother has overpowered everyone, the propaganda machine is allowed to press on unabated alongside mundane statistics such as increased chocolate rations and coal outputs which is meant to bring some hope to the repressed souls. Here, the freedom of the press has been obliterated, as Winston Smith (John Hurt) realises quite early during the film’s mis-en-scene. It is he and not the benevolent Big Brother who is responsible for the increase in chocolate rations.

The thinking worker’s mind wanders. What if two plus two equals four, he asks himself. The possibilities are endless and abundantly clear, but they remain a disturbing and unattainable allusion for the concerned protagonist who indulges in uninhibited, but prohibited sexual congress with Julia (Susanna Hamilton). After they strip themselves of their dusty overalls, the naked body, even though theirs are frail and very white, becomes a work of art. But, inevitably this brief period of bliss and freedom for the two lovers expires after the Thought Police violently nab them. Freedom becomes an illusion once more for Winston and Julia. it remains a non-negotiable tract. And it is not even a memory for most of Oceania’s oppressed and thoughtless population.

During my reading of Orwell’s novel, I imagined the provocative interrogation room of O’Brien (Richard Burton) as being clinical and reminiscent of a doctor’s consulting rooms or a diplomat’s office. O’Brien is no diplomat and he indoctrinates, but does not educate young and thoughtful Winston on the benefits of having no memories of the past. Verbosely, Smith continues to put two and two together, but as a consequence, O’Brien tortures him brutally. Worse still, Smith is led to Room 101. While watching all of this, I could not help being reminded of Naomi Wolf polite allusions to the National Socialists’ methods of interrogation, intimidation and torture. We know them as the Nazis. Wolf was comparing the Bush administrations’ methods of torture allowed by the Patriot Act with the atrocious acts committed against six million or so Jews.

Painfully, Wolf excuses Israel’s security apparatus, because they are dealing with legitimate threats from “terrorists”. She was, of course, comparing Bush’s heinous methods with the Zionists.

The New World Order, spoken of in glowing terms by Winston Churchill, is an ominous threat to humanity’s free existence. They are threats, because in order for Big Brother’s New World Order to flourish and rule entirely over the rest of the world, people must be brought in line. There is no room for dissent or conscientious objection. Like the Jews, over one million Americans, never mind foreigners, were marked. In Wolf’s documentary these marks were vividly displayed on air plane tickets. SSS. And let us not forget the cryptic symbolism on the American dollar currency. Forget about “In God We Trust.”

Reading Michael Radford’s production notes was fascinating. George Orwell’s novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, was produced and shown in nineteen eighty-four. I couldn’t decide whether this was deliberate. Now, I think it was. If you were around in 1984, you may have noticed that the New World Order was rumbling into shape. An inept American actor was in control of the affairs of state and the rest of the world. Or was Ronald Reagan and his White House administration really in control? His deputy was George H Bush who was the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency during Richard Nixon’s infamous terms of office. But, most of us may have been too young anyway. What I do remember is British rock star, David Bowie’s anthem, Nineteen Eighty-Four. It’s worth listening to. Curiously, Richard Burton died in the same year. His portrayal of O’Brien was masterful. Cold, calculating and even mesmerizing at times.

Radford had faith in his talented cast. Burton came dangerously close to usurping Hurt’s ornate portrayal of young Winston Smith. The legendary actor’s screen charisma was imposing to say the least. Provocatively, Orwell believed that this new world order would be upon us already during the nineteen-eighties, but viewing events throughout the thirties and forties, he could not know what shape or form it would take. He died shortly after his novel was published. I wonder whether he would have felt a sense of vindication or expressed shock when this New World Order began to progress rapidly as early as the nineteen fifties when the Cold War began and America and Russia vied for supremacy mainly through a new arms race which included the manufacture of deadly nuclear warheads and territorial wars which started in Korea, an Asian peninsula which is still a hot-bed of global uncertainty today.

Presently, events remain ominous. Guantanamo Bay Prison remains open for business. Barack Obama has yet to use his presidential privilege and pen and invoke an executive order to completely reverse the damage done by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. While Obama has set in motion the return of American troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and NATO has formally declared that the war in Afghanistan is over, geopolitical events prevent Obama from meeting all of the promises he made during his historic election campaign and during the melt-down of the stock markets in 2008. The threats made by IS (which is not an Islamic State in the truest sense of the word) and Vladimir Putin’s violent war charades across Ukraine may excuse Obama’s reticence. But this thoughtful president knows very well who or what started all the trouble in the first place.

And by putting America’s interests first, primarily their economic interests, Obama disingenuously contributes towards the increased possibilities of a third world war, rather than nudging the world towards global peace. It can also be argued, and has already been done extensively, that the ex-KGB agent is not one who can be manipulated or coerced. Time has favoured Putin, because through a then-constitutional imperative in Russia, Putin bided his time as a lowly prime minister while George W Bush provoked and bullied the world into believing in his ‘axis of evil” theory. He fooled British libertarians. but he did not fool Barack Obama who used his own mantra of change to reach the White House.

I cannot help aligning my own country with George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. South Africa in 1984 was ruled with an iron fist by PW Botha and his National Party regime which propagated racist theories of the powerful control of a few over millions of others. Botha’s predessessor, BJ Vorster was an active sympathiser of Hitler’s National Socialists. In the context of apartheid South Africa it is also possible to draw a line in the sand and compare the bloody rule of the National Party over South Africa from 1948 to 1990 with Orwell’s Animal Farm where HF Verwoerd’s theory of separate development can be compared with the ruling pigs’ declaration that they were more equal than all the other animals on Orwell’s farm.

But the phenomenon of Big Brother was not confined to apartheid South Africa. In a remarkable volte face, the communist Joe Slovo proposed the Sunset Clause which essentially assured the outgoing Nats and their monetized followers a safe and secure journey across the Rubicon and the handing over of all organs of state to the Communist alliance which includes the country’s oldest established political party, the African National Congress. Today, South Africa is misruled by Number One, Jacob Zuma, who in his heyday was a spy much like his comrade in arms, Vladimir Putin. Nearly twenty-one years into this regime’s rule, the sun has yet to set.

Similarly, Big Brother has ruled over most of Africa since the fall of colonialism. Freedom and democracy, and with that, freedom of expression and the right to life, was promised, but never given. There are many pertinent examples of Big Brothers. Kenya had Jomo Kenyatta. Today they have Uhuru Kenyatta. Uganda had Idi Amin. Today they have Yoweri Museveni. Zimbabwe had Robert Mugabe. Today they still have Robert Mugabe who now holds the chair of the African Union which is incompetently presided over one of Jacob Zuma’s concubines, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma. Perhaps the worst despot of them all was the Congo’s Mobutu Sese Seko. It fell to Nelson Mandela to banish this larger than life kleptomaniac and murderer to Switzerland. The land that he left behind promised so much to its indigenous inhabitants.

Infamously, their land was also ravaged by Polish-born Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness.

These African giants spent most of their lives blaming the West for Africa’s perilous state while quietly allowing Communist China to rape the continent’s landscape and remove most of its natural resources, including its wildlife. But what the African dictators continue to do to this day is merely emulate what the Chinese and the Western rulers continue to do each day. An annual impromptu gathering in Davos dots all the p’s and q’s making sure that the rest of the world is never able to fully factor young Winston Smith’s heinous thought of two plus two equals….

 

The Day The South African Revolution Began

 

One day and twenty-five years ago Nelson Mandela walked out of prison a free man to lead South Africa to freedom and democracy. He became the country’s first democratically elected president a few years later. One day and twenty-five years after Madiba was freed, freedom and democracy and all the privileges and rights that come with it, formally began to die a slow death. After the 2015 South African Parliament was declared open, the House’s official opposition, the DA (Democratic Alliance) raised a point of order. Cellphones, media networks and other reporting tools were blocked. Mmusi Maimane reminded the House that this was a vital ingredient of providing feeds of information to the rest of the nation.

What Maimane could have said, but was not obliged to say, was that the country’s national broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is controlled by one man.

The speaker of the house, Baleka Mbete, was obliged to “look into the matter.”

The SABC did not show the country’s people what happened in Parliament later. But, no matter, those who could, saw what happened.

The leader of the South African revolution to rid the country of kleptocracy, corruption, abuse of power and incompetence under Jacob Zuma and his, not the country’s African National Congress, is ironically, the Economic Freedom Fighter’s (EFF) commander in chief, Julius Sello Malema. One of the country’s independent op-ed sites, Daily Maverick, named Malema as South Africa’s person of the year in 2014. I disagree. I mentioned this before, standing head and shoulders above many other civic-minded South Africans are the nation’s Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela and Imtiaz Sooliman, the founding leader of one of the world’s most proactive charity organisations, The Gift of the Givers.

It was indeed the current president who prophesied that Malema will be the country’s future leader. Unless Zuma resigns soon, this becomes a possibility. True to his promise to the country, Malema and EFF party members raised various points to address the outstanding business of Jacob Zuma’s misappropriation of the country’s resources and gross manipulation of its fiscus. The leader of the DA (Democratic Alliance & official opposition), Helen Zille remains adamant that over 700 charges of corruption and theft be reinstated against Jacob Zuma.

The ANC’s speaker, Baleka Mbete, ordered Malema and his right hand man, Floyd Shivambu, to “leave the house.” They refused to leave parliament, and at that stage they had not broken any rules. They were swiftly escorted out of the house by “security operatives.” The DA’s parliamentary leader, Mmusi Maimane, raised this matter with the speaker and was shown the middle finger. He promptly led his party out of the house. Helen Zille followed. It was Nelson Mandela who once told the nation’s people that if they felt the incumbent government was not doing the job that they were elected to do then the people must use their vote to remove the ANC from power. Sadly, this did not happen in 2014, but violent service delivery protests by dissatisfied citizens (or not) continue daily.

This is because the ANC under Jacob Zuma has failed to deliver adequate services and endangered the rights to freedom and dignity of most South Africans who chose to put their faith in the ANC and the legacy left by Madiba. Zuma has stubbornly refused to account to the people that elected him. Those that continue to support him are now on the cliff of the abyss because it is quite clear that he will not aid them, or serve them. He answers only to himself. and BBBEE (Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment, a devious acronym for the successful implementation of the communist Joe Slovo’s Sunset Clause which was implemented before Nelson Mandela took office.

Just before the Democratic Alliance staged their walk out, the Inkatha Freedom Party’s Mangosuthu Buthelezi rose to speak. The House’s elder statesman voiced his disgust at how this once dignified and austere place of political business on behalf of the people of South Africa had degenerated to what it has become today. This old man rarely speaks these days, but when he does, he still offers words of wisdom. And when he rose, out of order, to speak, I believed that the writing was on the wall.

Parliament in South Africa is today nothing more than a house of Lords and Dames who answer to one man only.

It was Buthelezi and his IFP (Inkatha Freedom Party) who objected to the implementation of the Sunset Clause and proposed a fairer, sensible, equitable and democratic federal option similar to those that exist in Germany, Australia and the United States of America today. I was part of that movement then, but left shortly after the country’s historic elections were concluded mainly because I began to sense that nationalism, in this case Zulu nationalism, was beginning to take hold within the IFP. By dint of its very name, nationalism, on an unexpected scale, has planted its roots within the ANC. It is a danger to democracy.

Disgusted, the United Democratic Movement’s Bantu Holomisa also left the house. Chief Gatsha Buthelezi is Prime Minister to the King of the Zulu Nation. He no longer has power over the Zulu King Goodwill Zwelethini who has thrown his lot in with Jacob Zuma who resides not far from the King at Nkandla.Zuma has promised this king riches beyond his wildest regal dreams. Bantu Holomisa was once ousted from the ANC for showing dissent against corrupt practices which started under former president Thabo Mbeki. Holomisa remains a close confidant and friend to the Mandela family.

Julius Malema has an axe to grind.

He, too, was thrown out of the ANC by the country’s deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa who, thanks to BBBEE, is now one of the country’s wealthiest men. While Malema was disruptive within his own party as leader of the ANC Youth League, the official line is that he was banished for threatening to overthrow the Botswana government. South Africa’s neighbour is one of the most stable nations in the world. While it has its faults, it is a far cry from Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. South Africa is on that path that Mugabe dictated. For as long as Zuma stays in power, and his State of the Nation Speech has given such clues, South Africa has reached that fork in the road. Veteran political journalist, Max du Preez, recently made a big push for Cyril Ramaphosa to become the country’s next president. Given his legendary history with BBBEE and his present reticence towards Jacob Zuma, I no longer believe this is a wise choice

If there are members within the ANC in the half-empty house who would much rather see freedom and democracy, equality and economic opportunities for all South Africans flourish, then this is the time they need to act. They need to recall Zuma tonight. But this will not happen. If Zuma remains in power, the DA will, I repeat, will win at least three of the country’s main metropolitan regions; the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolis (Port Elizabeth), Johannesburg, and the country’s legislative capital, Pretoria, in next year’s municipal elections. The DA already controls Cape Town and is not likely to lose it. Yet.

Elsewhere, because it remains strongholds for the ANC, Bloemfontein and Ethekweni (Durban) will remain in Zuma’s hands. But it is in the rural areas where the revolution will ignite. Julius Malema’s EFF, without doing too much, are likely to win several towns, because as we say in Cape Town, the people are gatvol – they have nothing and they have had enough and have lost patience with Zuma’s regime. His predictably short speech was a vacuous and disrespectful litany of empty promises and lies. This president dared to laugh. Several times. He even excused failure to deliver and used the country’s treasured national soccer team, Bafana Bafana shamelessly to make his point. He has that much power. Or has he?

The country’s state-owned energy network, Eskom, is on the brink of collapse. South Africa is now importing power from its smaller neighbour, Namibia. The country’s electricity grid is hovering dangerously close to Level 3, and closer to a complete Black Out. While Zuma continues to lie to the country, the DA is forced to regroup. They want charges of corruption and theft against Zuma to be reinstated. They will continue to work towards this on behalf of their constituents. What is Malema and the EFF doing? And what will they do next? They have so far met the promises they made to their constituents. Their plan is to usurp all organs of state and nationalise all forms of private enterprise, including banks and mines. They plan to forcibly take over farms and other entrepreneurial and vital businesses currently owned by “white” South Africans. The recent Soweto riots in which Sowetans and policemen looted foreign owned dry goods stores. is but a curtain raiser.

Wise questions have been asked. The EFF are not likely to succeed in delivering their threats, not promises, because, after all, they do not have the power to do this. But how have all revolutions of the past begun? How did Lenin succeed in overthrowing the mighty Tzar? How did Hitler rise to power? How did the American revolution and many other African revolutions begin and end? It started with a rumour and a whisper, then it became a murmur. It erupted into a mass revolt of the people. It did not always begin in Parliament. Here, in South Africa, it has. Jacob Zuma is addressing a house which does not represent the people of South Africa. I firmly believe he has addressed Parliament for the last time. It lost all legitimacy tonight.

I am wondering tonight what the rest of the world makes of the chaos in South Africa’s parliament tonight.

The Wall Street Journal wasted no time in reporting to their readers. Correctly, they reported that South Africa’s Parliament disrupted into chaos, but didn’t link the security forces’ actions to any particular opposition party. They did, however, refer to “Mr Malema’s” polite question to Jacob Zuma;

“We want the president to answer a simple question: when is he paying back the money?”

It was a legitimate question and well within Malema’s right as a Member of Parliament to ask. The matter of Jacob Zuma’s extravagance in regard to his sprawling, but crumbling Nkandla homestead remains outstanding since last August as the ANC proceeded to dither from one session to the next. Millions of South Africans are without adequate housing or shelter. And those who have that luxury pay a hard and high price while Zuma and his cronies allow themselves a long list of unearned and undeserved privileges. In view of former American President Richard Nixon’s paranoia which cost him his job and Bill Clinton’s indiscretions in the Oval Office and elsewhere, Zuma’s crimes against the people of South Africa are heinous by comparison. The Democratic Alliance wants Zuma to be tried in a court of law, never mind merely paying back money. I want this man imprisoned for a lot longer than the minimum sentence for corruption of fifteen years. Simply put, he disgusts me.

But, I ask myself what would the great Nelson Mandela, have done.

While in other functioning democracies, or dictatorships, the state maintains its power over their people through a strong contingent of security networks, police services and armed forces, South Africa does not have this. Twelve year old guerilla soldiers elsewhere in Africa are able to kill South African soldiers without much effort. The South African Police Forces (SAPS) is in disarray. Such insecurity plants the seeds of a revolution. It was in Russia and Germany that the armed forces jumped ship and joined their revolutions. George Washington and his legions defeated the mighty British Empire. When the lessons of history are not learned and observed, it has a nasty habit of repeating itself, it matters not where in the world it happens. And it matters not why.

The South African Revolution has begun.