Compatriots

South African politics at the moment is more exciting than a good Isidingo story line (which were far and few between when last I was watching Isidingo, incidentally. Maybe that is why the nation has turned to politics for some excitement).

I really don't know how well COPE is going to do. I'm waiting to see what their policy documents say, for one. That must be one major job, putting together their policy. Because as much as they protest, they are really just a group of people united by their desire NOT to be the ANC.

But in spite of that, I think COPE is an organisation whose time has come. Khaya recently wrote about COPE being a response to the "fierce urgency of now." Exactly. Exactly exactly.

In ancient Greek there were two words for time. Chronos time is the ordinary sequential step by step time. And then there was Kairos time. Kairos time is a time in between, a moment of undetermined period of time in which something special happens (wikipedia). Kairos time is the time of opportunity. It has the connotation of being a time of crisis, where things can change dramatically.

As Galadriel said in Lord of the Rings, "The quest balances on the edge of a knife."

What Lekota and Shilowa and COPE have done is to recognise the kairos moment South Africa is in. A few years ago the announcement of an ANC breakaway party would have fallen completely flat. Today COPE is riding on the urgency of now, on the frustration of masses of people in our country.

Me, I haven't decided who will get my vote yet. I have toyed with the idea of joining COPE, just because I want to be part of moving our nation forward. But I haven't decided yet if the best way to do that is through COPE. We will see.

I once took note of Thabo Mbeki adressing a speech to "compatriots." I noted it because it was different to the usual struggle veteran, "comrades." And because I liked it. Compatriots - fellow patriots. Nice. Comrade is word that only includes people with a certain mindset, and a certain history. And for the people with that mindset and history, that is great. But that is not all of us. Compatriot. Fellow patriot. That is all of us.

I read on the Friends of Democracy webpage comments, someone suggest we change our language to move from "comrades" to "compatriots". Which I thought was excellent. And very discerning.

So yes, to my fellow patriots!

State of the Nation Address

I was waiting to hear the State of the Nation Address by Thabo Mbeki today. Its funny how people spent pages speculating about what he was going to say.

Anyway, I thought it was a *great* speech, but then I am a bit of a Thabo Mbeki fan. There seem to have been mixed reactions to it, with some people saying it was great (Jacob Zuma, for example, seems to have approved) and some people not being pleased at all. Helen Zille, for example, wrote a scathing response to it. Which I think was a bit petty really. Maybe they thought they had more favour with him than they did, maybe they saw him as more removed from the ANC than he is. But he is there as representative of the ANC after all. And he is an ANC man, of course, and losing at Polokwane doesn't make that any less true.

But anyway, what do I know!

He ended with the optimistic:

Having said all that I have said, I come back to the question: what is the state of our nation as we enter 2008!

What I do know and hereby make bold to say is: whatever the challenges of the moment, we are still on course!

For the full text of the State of the Nation Address, go here.
And for a *wonderful* four sentence long summary of the 16 page long speech, go here.

Dear President Mbeki

Stealing my style from Gavin Foster (who called me "a humble person with much to be humble about." Which is quite true of course.):



ATT: President Thabo Mbeki

Dear President Mbeki

As a South African citizen and enthusiastic reader of ANC Today, I just want to let you know how much I miss your weekly letter. Perhaps its for the best as it must have taken up a truly disproportionate amount of your time. But nonetheless, its a real loss.

Today I found myself lingering over a volume of Xhosa poetry at Exclusive Books. Probably something I never would have looked twice at before reading your "We are children of a rich heritage."**

Even though I sometimes disagreed with what you were saying, I loved being able to see what you felt was important enough to write about. I loved the insights your letters offered into current events and other topics relevant to our nation. I loved to hear you respond in your own words and from your own conviction to various topical issues in South Africa. I loved that there were so many things you wanted to write about, to tell people about. I loved having my world expanded by topics or ideas I hadn't thought much about before, or from angles I hadn't considered them from.

I first subscribed to ANC Today becasue I kept seeing it referred to in Mail and Guardian stories and I thought I might as well go to the source. I never regretted signing up and every Friday I looked forward to some interesting reading in my inbox.

It looks like things have changed for ANC Today. I so enjoyed your letters and the additional pieces by other people. I hope the new ANC Today manages to continue in the same spirit you led it with.

And if I can make one request, as your audience, I ask that you carry on writing! Start a blog, write a book, write a column somewhere. But I hope that your stepping down from the President's letter in ANC Today isn't the end of us seeing you in print.

Thank you.

Regards,
Laura



** Incidentally, that 28 September 2007 volume of ANC Today also included a piece entitled "Economic growth needs affordable and sustainable energy." FYI to people who thought the governement weren't thinking about these issues till January this year.