On Pardoning de Kock

I've been a lazy blogger recently (Facebook seems to have stolen all of my internet effort, sadly). But Andile Mngxitama's M&G article "Let Prime Evil Go" just shook me out of my laziness.

My first response to this article is just "wut?"

I understand how people who committed apartheid related crimes have been let off by the TRC. In this massive unjust system, they had a job to do, they did their jobs, they were following orders and doing so on the mandate of the government. In many ways then their actions were the responsibility of the government, of the apartheid system. So if they came clean at the TRC, they could be let off.

It doesn't sit so very well, but I can understand it. If I was a young man in the SADF in the 1980s, maybe I would have done some unimaginable things. Because I was ordered to, maybe, or because I was in some situation where I was (rightly or wrongly) afraid for my life, or because I had some skewed picture of the world where "the blacks were out to get us", and all that was standing between us and anarchy and war was my brothers and I in our cassipers.

I get that.

And I get that Joe Nobody soldier on the ground should not have to take the blame for carrying orders that were given from the top. The people at the top, with the appearance of clean hands, should take the primary blame. I get that.

I also get that the apartheid system benefited not only the guys with the guns, and the guys at the top giving the orders to shoot, but the average white South African, in his house in the suburbs. And in one sense, while there were politicians and generals and police commanders giving orders, the order to maintain apartheid was given by highest authority in the land - the voting populace. All of white South Africa who enjoyed the fruit of apartheid and turned a blind eye to the atrocities committed to maintain their way of life, bear some responsibility for those atrocities.

Down with all of that.

So we had the TRC and absolved lots of people.

Judging anything like this isn't clear cut, of course, but it seems to me that there are pretty clear guiding principals for letting people off for apartheid era crimes.

It can be argued that de Kock should be let off because he was acting on orders, just carrying out the will of the state. A soldier doing the bidding of his commander. But I just don't think that holds water in his case.

I stand to be corrected, because I have a limited knowledge of what went on with de Kock and Vlakplass. But from what I know it was a place of wanton murder and torture and cruelty. The little I have read about it turns my stomach.

If you are a soldier and your commander tells you to kill someone, then you do, fair enough. But you don't mutilate him them, then douse them in paraffin and burn them alive. And if you do, you are no longer a soldier acting on orders, protected from personal responsibility.

And even if we are just speaking about killing people, without torture and so forth... how can you be a soldier fighting for a nation that would be appalled at you if it knew about your existence? Do you still have their authority behind you, protecting you? Surely not. I know that white South Africa turned a blind eye on a lot, and maybe it is naive of me to think so, but Vlakplaas and the kind of assassinations and so on the de Kock was involved in were kept from the public eye, and would not have been approved of by the public. Which means he was less a soldier for an army, as a hit man of the acting regime. The powerful of the time. Surely he knew that.

Apparently the lawyer prosecuting de Kock said that "this is a pure crime. This is not a political crime."

I am open to have my mind changed on this, because I could do with knowing more about Eugene de Kock. Maybe he was a scapegoat. But with what I know now, no, he was not just a soldier doing his duty. And he should not be indemnified as if he was one.

Holiday Read #2: Ways of Dying, Zakes Mda

My second holiday read was Zakes Mda's Ways of Dying. I enjoyed my first holiday read, Bitches' Brew, but this one was just a cut above. Shame for Fred Khumalo, he was great until he faced such competition!

I've actually avoided Zakes Mda books before, because they just sounded so macabre. A proessional mourner? Weird and macabre. So I thought before I read it.

I took it out of the library because I thought I should just give him a try to enlarge my South African literary education. But wow, this book blew me away.

It was a bit macabre actually. Lots of death. And a story that would be altogether too harrowing if i wasn't also altogether too beautiful.

Five stars, I totally recommend it.

Holiday Read #1: Bitches' Brew, Fred Khumalo

The first book on my pile of Holiday reads was Bitches' Brew, by Fred Khumalo.

It is written as a series of letters between Lettie and Zakes. The story begins with Lettie, from Lesotho, leaving her rural home for Durban after realising she is pregnant. On the bus to Durban she meets Zakes, the Jazz musician. Zakes grew up in a devout family. But when he discovered Myles Davis and Steve Biko at university, he dropped out of university, dropped out of his family, and made his own way in the world.

After their meeting in the bus, they part ways. But eventually end up coming in and out of one another's lives. The letters between them reminisce about the parts of their lives spent together, and fill each other in on the times spent apart. The other men and women in their lives, the shebeens they ran, the enterprises they were involved in and Zakes' eventual descent into hardened criminal.

It is a beautiful book. About love and about stumbling your way through life.

It is a bit explicit sometimes (so many local books are! I know I am prudish but I wish this wasn't such a characteristic of local literature.) But I recommend it. It is well worth reading. For the poignant love story and for the array of characters he paints so well. And for an intense picture of the era the book was set in: the 60s, 70s.

Ask people questions

One of the life lessons I learned from reading about Robert Sobukwe:
Ask people questions.

Particularly, people from other African countries. But actually, this applies to everyone really. The people you meet have this great wealth of experience you can learn from.

Know a doctor? Ask them about the strike... what conditions are like in hospitals... what their day to day experience of work in life... how things are different in different areas in SA...
Know a teacher? Ask them about their salaries... ask them about the Department of Education... ask them about the state of schools... ask them about the capabilities of learners... ask them about OBE...
Know a Kenyan? Ask them about their elections... their government... ask them how their nation is managing to get education right...
Know an Afrikaans person? Ask then about how they feel about their place in the new SA... ask them how they feel about Wikus... ask them what their take on home language eduation is...

We all have such different experiences of life, especially in South Africa. You can stand in the queue at the ATM with people whose life experience is SO different from yours, speaking to them could open your eyes. Give you insight into things you really have no other way of understanding. Speak to them. Ask then questions.

I got this from Robert Sobukwe's biography How Can Man Die Better. He spoke about how, in his day, information about what was going on in other places was really inaccessible. Particularly in other African countries. Because of the censorship and propaganda of the South African government I suppose. So what they used to do was just talk to people, make the most of opportunities to ask people questions. When you met someone from Ghana, say - drill them will questions about what is going on there.

And I think the principle easlity extends to day to day life - we can learn so much about the world from the people around us. Speak to them, ask them questions!





(I also learned this lesson from one of my pastors - he always used to tell us to take the opportunities presented to us to ask people questions!)

Lesotho

This last weekend I went on a holiday to Lesotho with some friends. What an adventure!!! The highlight was a completely death defying pony trail in a place called Malealea in the mountains. Beautiful, remote. But the paths were TINY and we were high high up. Sometimes I just had to cling to my pony and not look down!

Lesotho was beautifu. The thing that struck me most about it was how they have this urban-rural thing going. Maseru is *enormous.* But it seemed to me that most of Maseru was what we would call the rurals. Or at least, certainly more rural than city. Lots of big big plots. People herding cattle, vegetable gardens and fruit trees everywhere. Guys wearing the archetypal blanket-over-one shoulder :)


I'm reading an autobiography of a Chinese lady at the moment. Something that struck me in the book was when she was writing about how China was going through a huge famine, some time after the Great Leap Forward. Her family lived on quite a large plot of land so when food became scarce they started growing a lot of their own food. And her family taught some of their neighbors to do the same. So they rode out the national famine and they were fine. But the people living in city centre apartments, high density accommodation, they were literally starving. Because food was not available in the shops, and when it was they did not have enough money to buy it.

It seems to me that that is the best method to protect people from ecomomic crises: ensure that people have enough land that they can grow their own food. Or at least grow some of their own food.

So seeing the setup in Lesotho, I was reminded of that. Then I thought of our RDP housing - some of them are so close to each other you could barely hang washing between them. And it seems to me that Lesotho is getting something right that we are getting wrong.

There is such a stark contrast as you cross the border back into South Africa. In and around Maseru the landscape is just dotted with houses and small fields of crops, little shops, cattle. On the South African side of the border, it is just fences. Commercial farms. No people to be seen. Again, it seems to me that Lesotho is getting something right that we are getting wrong.

A tragic situation

I live just around the corner from a small shopping complex. So I often walk to the complex, or walk through the complex on my way to and from work.

For years there have been a group of ladies informally selling arum lillies outside the shopping complex. Lately a few of the street kids have taken to selling them too. I often walk past them and they try to convince me to buy their flowers, but I haven't ever brought from the kids. I've bought from the ladies who were first selling flowers though, quite often, over the years.

Yesterday as I was driving somewhere I passed two of the street kids with their bundles of flowers. I stopped at a stop street and they came up to my car and asked me to buy their flowers. And I thought, why not, I haven't supported them so far, let me support them now. So I said, sure, how much are they? Then scrambled around for R10.

So I bought the flowers. Then came the next request - ah please sisi, can we have some small change? Shame, its horrible to say no to kids, but giving money to street kids is just not helping them. (Paying for flowers might not be helping either - tough one!)

So I said no. I don't give money, as a general rule. And especially not to kids. I've thought about it quite a bit over the years, because there are lots of people begging in my town. And that is just a principle I have decided for myself. So saying no to requests for money is okay.

Then they said, but sisi, we need money to go home, its getting late.

It was getting late, it was nearly 6pm.

But no, no money for your taxi fare. Sorry.

Then that said, okay, could you give us a lift?

And in that moment I thought, well, what a reasonable request. How could I possibly say no to that? Two kids who want a lift home?

So I said sure, hop in. And unlocked the doors. They scrambled in and (to be hounest) I hoped I hadn't left anything valuable lying around in my car!

But you know, after thay got in, I started getting pretty nervous. Very nervous. They must have been around 10 years old or so. But a ten year old with a knife can be as merciless as a 19 year old with a knife. I actually have a friend who was mugged by a posse of kids with knives. In Grahamstown.

I drive them. And it was all fine. Shame they were actually quite sweet.

But when I told my flatmate what I had done, she gave me an earful. And I had to admit, it was a bit of a reckless thing to do.

What a tragic thing it is that I am afraid of a couple of ten year olds. And more tragic, that being afraid of them is probably a sensible position!

Percentage based salary increases

A visual reflection on why percentage based salary/wage increases will only ever widen the gap between rich and poor:


Over the twenty years from 1995 to 2025, with 5% yearly salary increments,

• The person who started with a salary of R2000 per month ends up with a salary of about R8600 per month.
• The person who started with a salary of R12000 per month ends up with a salary of about R51000 per month.

So the difference in their salaries went from R10000 in 1995 to about R43000 in 2025.

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The problem with Cape Town

I spent the last week in Cape Town work work/studies related stuff. Cape Town is always lots of fun, lots of things to do. And I have a friend there who has the two most lovely little girls, so I get to do things like go to the beach with kids - it's so much more fun with kids!

But one of my worst things about going to Cape Town is that I'm never allowed to pay for my own meals. Yup, I go out for lunches, dinners, with friends... and they always pay. I have quite a few friends who have moved to Cape Town. And now they all have jobs and all the trappings of having jobs in the big city. So they think, I suppose, that it will be generous of them to pay for their student-friend's meal.

And it is generous. Only after person after person after person insists on paying for your meal, it becomes quite humiliating!!!

Of pretense and protest

A wonderful article by Professor Njabulo Ndebele:

Of Pretense and Protest

At the end of his recent Mail & Guardian article, "In the rainbow nation, colour and class still count", David Smith recalls "a cynic whispering" in his ear that's not easy to forget: "The whites are pretending it didn't happen; the blacks are pretending to forgive." As I thought further about this, I concluded that, in the light of the interracial events Smith recalls in his article, there may in fact be a positive value to pretence.

...

The rest here.

Kennedy Road petition

If anyone wants to sign an online petition, asking for President Zuma to intervene in the wake of the Kennedy Road attack, here is the place to go:

Petition

The letter to Zuma is a bit sensational. And I'm unsure of all of the facts of the situation myself. But for me, calling on government to act is at least one form of action we can take against this.

We are often admonished to keep our government to account, that democracy requires active citizens working with government, insisting that government meets its responsibilities to us.

Sometimes when I hear important people saying things like that I get inspired. But sometimes it just irritates me because I feel like I am being commisioned to do something I have no power to do. And there this important influential person is exhorting me to use my non-existent influence.

So I signed the petition, bacause at least it is one small thing I can do.

Kennedy Road Attacks

"Kennedy Road Development Committee (KRDC)

Emergency Press Release, Sunday 27 September 2009

Kennedy Road Development Committee Attacked – People Have Been Killed

Last night at about 11:30 a group of about 40 men heavily armed with guns, bush knives and even a sword attacked a meeting of the Kennedy Road Development Committee (KRDC) in the Kennedy Road community hall. There was no warning and the attack was a complete surprise. The Abahlali baseMjondolo Youth League was holding an all night camp for the Youth League nearby. The camp was not attacked but the people at the camp were intimidated and threatened. An international film crew at the camp witnessed the attack.

The men who attacked were shouting: 'The AmaMpondo are taking over Kennedy. Kennedy is for the AmaZulu.” The KRDC and other community members who rushed to their aid were unarmed but tried to defend themselves as best they could. Some people were killed. We can't yet say exactly how many.

The attackers broke everything that they could including the windows in the hall. It was later discovered that they had destroyed 15 houses belonging to people on or connected to the KRDC before launching their attack. They were knocking on each door shouting 'All the amaZulu must come out' and then destroying the shacks. Some are saying that three people are dead. Some are saying that five people are dead. Many people are also very seriously injured. As far as we know two of the attackers were killed when people managed to take their bush knives off them. This was self defense.

The Sydenham police were called but they did not come."

Read more here.

And more info on the Abahili site and the Western Cape Anti-eviction campaign site.

An interview with two young women living in Kennedy Road:

"Rushed (and Rough) Transcript of an Interview (anonymous of course) with Two Young Women Still Living in Kennedy Road

It’s not just demolishing shacks now, it’s moved to full-scale looting. They takes fridges, TV’s etc, and put them in their shacks.
- when people try to ask about who has taken their stuff, the answer is just ‘the community’ took it
- everyone who has been working at the community hall is associated with ‘the forum’. even people who are working at the drop in center.
- no one can enter the hall without being escorted by Jackson Gumede, senior official in the ward and active ANC members
- Another shack was demolished last night because the mob found out that the shack owner was part of the KRDC. they destroyed the shack, are taking people’s possessions.
- We are so angry about attacks on S’bu, S’bu has done so much for this community, the hall was like a bush before, he erected the drop in center. community is going to miss him. for the past fifteen years, ANC has done nothing, he organized so much, send children to school. we are lost without S’bu. we need those leaders like him. i wish he was the councillor. i don’t konw what we’re going to do without him. there’s now no creche to take the children, the mothers are now staying at home to take care of the kids, can’t work. the people to take care of the people with HIV and AIDS, they are after them now, they don’t care what contribution you made to the community but because you’re not ANC, you’re not amongst them…
- Baig is happy that Sbu is gone, he’s not going to expose that Baig is not doing his job properly.
- they promise to bring SAPS, last night the poeple’s shacks were destroyed but the police were parked at the community hall, they don’t even go down to see what’s happening in the informal settlements. they promised to take care of it but right now they are not there. they said they will be there. we are on our own. it’s risky even for them too. i think it’s better if they brought the soldiers.
- the councillor is the one who is working the situation, in other places ANC is doing a good job, here Baig doens’t know how it is to live in informal settleents, he doesn’t know how hard it is to sleep without food in your stomach, he never felt that pain, that’s why he’s acting like this. Our sufferings is his victory. Baig is happy when we suffering. he’s getting paid to oppress us. our government is paying baig to oppress us.
- they are opposing everything that is good about south africa – the constitution, the freedom charter.
- People can’t openly say they are Abahlali in Kennedy.
- She had left a bag with a friend, her friend was asked by other community members to ‘choose sides’ – Cope or ANC. people from the community hall/drop in center are called Cope. Why are you supporting her, they asked. She feels bad for her friend because she’s going to suffer for being her friend. they have been friends for a long time."

from here.

My big dilemma

I have a BIG BIG dilemma at the moment. I am going to finish my PhD soonish (good grief, I must, I am already a year late!!). So I need to decide what to do next around nowish. Because if I want to do a postdoc, especially an overseas postdoc, I need to organise it soon.

I am finishing a PhD in astronomy. I like what I do. I love numbers, I love data analysis, I like lecturing. And now is exactly the right time to be in astronomy in South Africa - astronomy is really booming. We have lots of big astronomy projects going on (SALT, MeerKAT, SKA), there are lots of opportunities in astronomy. The South African government, almost inexplicably, is enthusiastically backing astronomy projects.

So it almost seems like a "for such a time as this" thing.

So if I want to launch myself into a career as an astronomer, what I should probably do now is a postdoc overseas somewhere. Spend a year or two getting some international exposure, making some contacts, learning some skills, getting some experience. Then I could either carry on working overseas. Or come back home and bring my experience back, join the astronomy community here.

I really don't want to settle overseas. I suppose that could change, but for the moment I really really want to settle in South Africa. So doesn't the second option above just sound ideal? Go overseas, work in some interesting research group, bring the skills back home and join one of the astronomy teams here!

But here is the thing. Whenever I talk about doing a postdoc overseas, I cry. This is not an exaggeration, I really cry. Its by force of will that I surf the web looking for info on overseas postdocs. I just desperately desperately don't want to leave SA.

Its not about leaving family or friends, although I will be sad to leave family and friends. It is hard to understand even for myself exactly what it is about. But somehow the thought of leaving SA just makes my heart break.

I have travelled overseas before, to Australia for about a week and to the US for a month or two at a time a few times for work. I'm not afraid of being lonely. I like to travel. I like experiencing different parts of the world.

Maybe I'm just being a diva, I don't know. I went to a panel discussion about "The state of our constitutional democracy" this evening, which was pretty good. And as one of the panelists was ending off an answer to a question I thought about leaving SA and I got all tearful all over again.

I really don't know why I am being so weird about this. I could grit my teeth and survive two years somewhere far away for the sake of learning. And I'm pretty easy going, I'd probably be happy pretty much anywhere.

So why am I making such a fuss?

I don't know really. Sometimes I battle to figure out what is going on in my own heart. I think it may be because I am so conflicted on what I want to do with my life. There is this part of me that loves loves loves numbers, maths, thinking through complex things, mastering a problem, computer coding, data analysis.
But there is this other part of me that worries very very very much about the state of our schools. And Home Affairs. A part of me that things TEACH South Africa is the coolest project ever. And the Equal Education campaign - wonderful. And there is a part of me that feels very strongly that we need as a nation to unearth and study our own literature. And that we need more mobile libraries. And and and... :)

Gah, it sounds like I am saying "I want to make a difference in the world." How utterly cheesy. I suppose that is sort of what I am saying though.

If I live my life, do my science, get some great exposure overseas, do some cool research, come back home and get a nice post somewhere and write papers and maybe get a "Prof" before my name. Well, for what?

I want the story about my life to be about more than me, you know?

So I suppose I'm saying that the path of career advancement, it just feels a bit empty.

But I don't know where that leaves me really.
Because... I actually do like what I do. And I want to be good at what I do. And its not as if I have a burning passion to do anything else.

Then there is the other factor, which could be an entire other post on its own. What I do is really difficult. Intellectually difficult, and also difficult because the way to move forward in my field is really to put yourself out there. Meet people, make contacts. Science research is all about collaberation. It is completely telling, for example, that when my supervisor and I made an arrangement to meet at a workshop next week, we made it to meet at the workshop cocktail party. Being a sucessful scientist is all about speaking to the right people at cocktail parties.

I'm sure there are lots of fields like that, actually. But I'm just not sure that I myself am cut out for that sort of thing. It makes my stomach hurt just thinking about that sort of thing.

Oh dear!!

Advice??

Something to think about

One of these is a paraphrase of a statement that I heard Dr Oz make on Oprah tonight:

People of far-Eastern descent are missing the enzyme in their liver that breaks down alcohol. This is why in their cultures they mostly drink drinks that have been boiled (like teas) rather than fermented (alcohol).

People of far-Eastern descent are missing the enzyme in their liver that breaks down alcohol. This is because in their cultures they mostly drink drinks that have been boiled (like teas) rather than fermented (alcohol).

Two fundamentally different statements! Want to guess which statement he made? Which one would you say is true?


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You get what you measure

"Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. ... The gross national product does not [measure] the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.
It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile."

Spoken by Robert Kennedy in the US in 1968. True in SA in 2009.

Stolen from Roger's blog.

What an incredibly insightful quote! We measure RDP houses built, but not families in homes. We measure unemployment statistics, but not the ability of young people to enter the job market. Or the excitement of your first pay check. We measure pass rates, not the pride of parents watching their children excel. We measure crime stats, but not the feeling of safety in your home. Or relationships with our next door neighbours. We measure death rates, but not grandparents loving their grandchildren.


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Ben Trovato's application to the Canadian Review board

Because it made me smile:

"Application to William Davis, Grand Wizard of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada"
by Ben Trovato.


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1 school 1 library 1 librarian

Last night I went to a talk by Zackie Achmadt about access to education in the New South Africa. It was very good, I left really inspired! The work they are doing is so great. He has moved away from TAC, handing it over to the next generation of leaders. He is now involved in an organisation called Equal Education, which seems to be an activist organisation that fights for education in a similar way that TAC fought for HIV/AIDS related issues.

One of the Equal Education projects is called "1 school 1 library 1 librarian" - they are campaigning for school libraries. IOL reports that "There are functional libraries at only four of Khayelitsha's 53 public schools serving 57 000 pupils" (here).

I have mixed feelings about the need for school libraries myself. I don't think they are a bad thing, I just think that community libraries are perhaps a better use of resources. I suppose there is something to be said on either side. Myself, I never really used the school library. But I went to our local suburb library probably at least once a week for much of my childhood.

I remember graduating from having a children's library card to having an adult's library card. Children's cards only let you take books from the children's section, but adult cards cold take out any books. It felt like quite a big transition in my life!

I think the benefit of community libraries is that they can serve a wider group of people, so they can be bigger, they can have more specialised library staff, they can run fun reading events for kids, they can have a wider range of reading material, etc. I think putting specialised libraries in schools just limits access of those books to kids at one particular school, and duplicates the effort of running a library.

That said though, I grew up in a reading family with a librarian mother. So using the library has been the norm since as far back as I can remember. Perhaps for kids who grow up in families that don't use libraries, perhaps having a school library that they are encouraged to use will help form the habit of reading. Where maybe they would not have been exposed to larger community libraries.

But still, I favour community libraries. If they are running well, if they advertise. If they have good staff. They can even run projects in conjuction with local schools.

What do other people think?

What I really REALLY am in favour of though, is mobile libraries! Our local library was being rebuilt at one stage, so every Wednesday the mobile library used to come park in the parking lot of the shops a few block away from us. So on Wednesday afternoons we used to go get books from the bibliobus!

It was really just a minibus, with the walls lines with shelves of books. The books would rotate from a central library, so their used to be a different selection every week.

I think mobile libraries are brilliant because they give *everyone* access to books - they can rotate through different areas of a city, and also go to small towns and rural areas.

I googled to look for mobile libraries running in SA at the moment and I found some projects:
* The Mobile Library Education Project in Khayalitsha.
* A mobile library project in the Free State (followup info here).
* Mobile libraries in Limpopo.
* Donkey drawn mobile libraries?
* Even the ANC commends the use of mobile libraries!
* And I know I shouldn't laugh, but this is kindof funny: Please help us find our stolen mobile libraries.
* Finally, some general info on SA libraries.

The Bua article above says that "About 21 mobile libraries are currently visiting 380 schools in four provinces, Free State, Western Cape, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal on a daily basis."
21 doesn't sound like a lot! Better than nothing though, I suppose. Perhaps the mobile libraries need a "5 schools 1 mobile library 1 librarian" project!


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Home Affairs

Apologies, I know I haven't blogged in ages. Mainly because blogger.com has been giving me hassles. But also because I have been powering on with work - I have quite a serious amount of work to do at the moment!!

Now blogger.com seems to be working again, so I resolved to blog. But I keep starting posts and then losing focus.

There is just one thing I do want to comment on though. I stumbled across this article on iol. It is about a young guy who managed to get a job, he just needed to produce his ID book to start working. But Home Affairs messed him around, told him he couldn't get it for whatever reason. And he ended up committing suicide.

My flat mate said she saw Minister Dlamini-Zuma speaking about it on TV. The minister was broken about it, tearful.

And you know, I am sure that she is a caring lady. And of course, of course, she isn't personally responsible for this tragedy.

But to be honest (and a bit brutal) I think it is about time that these kinds of high up officials realise what their departments are doing. When things aren't working, when ID books are getting lost or sold, taking months and years to process, when work permits are withheld for no reason other than the belligerence of Home Affairs staff who want a few hundred bucks for the effort of giving you the correct forms. When these government departments are messing up, people's lives are being messed up. People rely on the services of these departments. When they are not working, it causes people real problems.

It is not a small problem. It is a huge problem that impacts on many people's lives.

A kid I know has spent close to four years (FOUR YEARS!!! FOUR YEARS!!!) trying to get his ID document sorted out. He must be about 20ish. Somehow his name and ID number have been duplicated by someone in Joburg. Does this mean that some Home Affairs official in Joburg sold his ID so someone? I have no idea. But what it does mean for him is that Home Affairs still won't give him an actual ID book. Which means that his NSFAS student loan keeps refusing to pay his fees. Which means his results get withheld. It means he nearly lots his pace in residence at the beginning of this year, and very nearly lost it again this term. I've been helping him shout at people about this for the past 7 months. To no avail. Still no ID book, still empty promises by Home Affairs.

Come back after two weeks, he is told. How many months or years do you keep that up?

So I say, yes, Mrs Minister, stand in front of the TV and cry. Go home and lie in your bed and cry. Not because this is your personal fault, of course not. But because there are people crying all over our country because of your department. There are people who queue over and over again, only to be told to go away. There are people who travel long distances to get to their nearest Home Affairs office, only to be met with unyielding bureaucracy, with closed doors, with inefficient systems and disinterested people. There are people who eventually resort to buying IDs, work permits, residency papers. Not because they are corrupt people, but because the only way to get things done is to grease people's palms. And if you have no money to buy them... well, sorry for you.

We know you just stepped into your job. We appreciate that you really seem committed to it. We really hope you do well. We really hope you manage to turn things around.

But for the moment, we want you to cry. Every day we want you to go into the office under the weight of the helplessness and hopelessness of thousands of South Africans who contend with your department. And then we want you to fix it.

And then we will rejoice with you.




* I just found a more detailed story about the Minster's response here. "She said the department was a "difficult" one, which had never had a proper culture of service." - indeed!

A question on blank spoiled votes

Question for the floor:

I heard today that there were a surprisingly high number of blank spoiled votes in the April election in the GHT region.

Was this because:

a) These were people who did not want to vote (for whatever reason) but felt they needed to be seen to vote, because of real or perceived intimidation.

b) These were people who had supported the ANC in the past and perhaps still support the ANC, and who believe in the importance of voting, but felt they could not vote for the ANC in this particular election (for whatever reason). But out of loyalty to the ANC they also could not vote for another party.

c) These were people who believe in the importance of voting but felt that their views and concerns were not represented by any of the parties on the ballot.

d) Other reasons (please expand!)


I'm curious because at the talk where I heard this fact, people proposed a couple of reasons for the blank votes. And I had my own thoughts. And I'd be interested to hear what other people think...

Whats happening to our server?

My brother John is a geek. He finished his Computer Science Masters earlier in the year, on artificial intelligence and it's application to internet worms (or some such thing). Now he works in Jobug spending half his life writing perl scripts and the other half driving to and from his job. He blogs about his semigration** to Joburg here.

The other day he sent me a transcript of an internet conversation he had with a friend. South African current affairs in geek speak...

(11:40:06) Alex: maybe if we had competent governement... oh wait, thats a pipe dream
(11:40:22) John: Dude, a lot of the current government is competent.
(11:40:26) John: Some parts aren't great.
(11:40:38) John: But quite a lot of it is, at least, substantially improved.
(11:40:49) Alex: well.. i guessd their not entirely incompitent.. but i think they should be the best
(11:41:05) John: Think about this for a second:
(11:41:10) John: If you were running a server.
(11:41:17) John: And it permanently ran at 10% load.
(11:41:30) John: And that's all you'd ever had, so you'd never been able to test it.
(11:41:40) John: And suddenly it hits 98% load.
(11:41:43) John: What is the server going to do?
(11:41:51) John: What's gonna happen?
(11:41:56) Alex: very likely fall over
(11:42:00) John: No.
(11:42:07) John: The term you're looking for is "undefined behaviour"
(11:42:11) John: It might handle it.
(11:42:12) Alex: ah
(11:42:14) John: It might fall over.
(11:42:15) John: Now.
(11:42:39) John: Our government, 15 years ago, catered for 10% of the populace. Then, in the course of about two years, began to cater for more like 98%.
(11:42:51) John: You wonder why home affairs queues are so long?
(11:43:00) Alex: yeh true


** John tells me that semigrating is moving withing your own country, but to an area that is so different that it feels like you have moved to a new country. Semigrating, like emigrating, only semi-emigrating... The jump from East London to Joburg is apparently big enough to feel like you have moved to a whole new country - semigrating!

Some thoughts

I haven't blogged for a while so this will just be a random Aquilogy style list of my thoughts:

* I am becoming more and more pro mob justice by the day. A guy I know was shot a couple of weeks ago for his CELL PHONE. For his cell phone!!! And the guy who shot him is from a family of thugs who have been in and out of jail, killed people, raped people. The justice system is just useless. Apparently when some ladies went to speak to the police about getting this guy, they said their hands were pretty much tied. And the community should do what they need to do. Gah.
You know, he wasn't a guy I knew well but I really admired him. It makes me sad, then angry, then sad all over again. Then angrier.

* Whats going on with all of these service delivery strikes? Someone care to enlighten me?
Are people burning things down because of sewage system etc issues? Problems with their municipalities not delivering? Or is it anger at seeing corruption in local government? The failing justice system? Crime? Lack of opportunities? Joblessness? Is it opportunistic agitating prior to local elections next year? Is it criminal, or instigated by criminal elements? Is it people at their wits end after grappling with useless local government for so long and just getting nowhere? Or is it people who have become more and more angry, feeling trapped in poverty? Why is it happening all now?? Are people disappointed that after all the ho-ha about electing Jacob man of the people Zuma into power, nothing much has actually changed?

* My continuos ponderance is this: What is Blade Nzimande up to nowadays? I would totally like to work for that man, just for curiosity's sake.

* Aaaand... nationalisation??

* Finally... my friends saw Vavi at the airport the other day but didn't have the guts to speak to them. Brushes with fame!

* Oh wait, one last thing... I was standing in the queue at KFC the other day and the guy in front of me hovered around and finally greeted me with something like "aight?" - now really, I am not cool enough to know what an appropriate response to that is. Anyone care to enlighten me?
I figure "aight" is "alright?" which is pretty much "how are you?" so I responded with "fine thanks, and you? Hehe, I'm such a dork, really!

**