On money-related irony

Just lately, I have been thinking about some of the ironies inherent in our financial systems.

When we lived in South Africa, bank charges were very high. You paid a cash-handling fee when you deposited large sums of cash. You paid an admin fee every time the bank processed a cheque of yours... or one from someone else that was made out to you. You paid for a new cheque book when the old one was empty. Basically, you paid for everything. Walk into the bank and breathe, and they charged you for the air. This is something that people in the UK simply can't relate to. Here, many bank transactions are still free. But we'll come to that in a minute. Back to South Africa for a moment (sorry, are you getting whiplash?).

If you agreed never to drop below a certain balance, your banking became free. And the balance was not just a few Rands, either. So, basically, if you were flush enough not to need every last cent you had, you could have all your bank services free of charge. If, however, you were balancing on a knife edge, and needed every cent you earned, you had to pay to access this money. And it's no small matter, either - total bank charges could be among your larger expenses.

It gets worse. Let me relate an anecdote that I witnessed on more than one occasion. Person X, let's call him Thando Sijawe, came into the bank to draw some money. He couldn't use the hole-in-the-wall, because, like many South Africans, he was illiterate. He explained to the cashier that he wanted R10, and she wrote out the withdrawal slip for him, which he then endorsed with his thumbprint. She gave him his R10 and he went on his way. What he didn't know was that the bank charged him R7 (I kid you not, that was the exact figure) for this service. If he had drawn out all his money at once, this might have been less significant but crime levels were (are?) high in South Africa, especially in the poorer areas where Thando lived, so the tendency was only ever to carry money enough for your immediate needs, taxis, buses and the day's food supplies. People like Thando had to deal in cash, because their illiteracy meant that they couldn't use the pay-by-card option.

So, not only did Thando get penalised for being poor, he suffered the double whammy of being further penalised for being uneducated, too.

But it's not just Thando. And it's not just in South Africa.

In the UK, much of our banking is free. The flip side is that it is also slower. Everything takes longer. And you can do so much less at the hole-in-the-wall. But you learn to live with that. However, if you're having a bad month and one of your standing orders bounces, there is a fee of £22 that is levied. So basically, they're fining you for being broke.

As I have already (very publicly) stated, my business is being declared bankrupt. This morning, I was advised that I need to pay £2500 for this process. It seems I am too broke to go bankrupt. Go figure.

I'm not sure what happens next. I am going to see an insolvency adviser to discuss my options.

I apologise if this transparency makes you feel uncomfortable. I just hope that it will prove helpful to others who may be having a tough time of things, right now.

I also think it's important to shine a spotlight on some of the things that strike me as being out of balance in society. After all, the fat cats of the banking industry are the ones taking home the huge bonuses.

Everyone knows my understanding of accounting is negligible, but I can't help feeling the wrong people are paying for those bonuses.

Keeping a promise

When there was about a year to go before the football/soccer (choose your name) world cup in South Africa, I visited the country and had grave misgivings that things would be pulled together in time to make the event successful. I expressed these misgivings publicly. Not in any finger-pointing, accusing way, you understand, but with a heavy heart. I thought my homeland had taken on more than it could chew.

I also said that nothing would please me more than to have to admit - after the event - that my fears and doubts were unfounded.

May I take this opportunity to state publicly (as I have done on my Facebook page) that I was unequivocally wrong.

I believe the event was a resounding success. I know there were complaints about the ball, but that was FIFA's problem, not South Africa's. I know that there were complaints about the incessant sound of the vuvuzelas, but (to borrow an Australianism for just a moment) suck it up, princess. They provided a uniquely African soundtrack to the event, just as the steel drums did to the T20 world championship in the West Indies. Oh, and friends and family back home tell me that foreign visitors were just as responsible for the noise levels as the locals... and not just in the stadium, either... vuvuzelas abounded in the streets, in the malls, on the beaches.... everywhere!

South Africans came out in support of the event and their Cinderella team in a way that made my heart swell. Even after their own team was knocked out in the group stages, South Africans chose a team for every game, and supported them with all their hearts. My mother, who has never supported or been interested in a sporting event in her life, not even when I was competing, bought a bright orange T-shirt to show her support for the land of my stepdad's birth.

One thing South Africans can always be depended upon to bring to the party, is passion. It is the single thing most lacking in my daily life since I moved to the UK eleven years ago. I miss that buzz and vibe, and time has not diminished that loss. And it was evident in all its uncynical, unbridled glory throughout the weeks of the world cup competition.

Ndiyaba, abahlobo bam. Ek het my misgis. I was wrong.

Happy anniversary, Madiba

Just before midnight rolls around and brings an end to this red letter day, I would like to just mark the fact that 11 February 2010 is the twentieth anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison.

A very important day in the history of South Africa and - arguably - the world.

Twenty years ago today

It was on this day in 1990 that President FW de Klerk announced the decision to release Nelson Mandela from prison. His actual release date was 11 February 1990. So, once the decision had been announced, the wheels of bureaucracy moved comparatively quickly.

During the next few years, the apartheid regime was systematically dismantled in South Africa and, in 1993, Mandela and de Klerk jointly received the Noble Peace Prize in recognition of the role they had played in this process.

On 27 April 1994, the first fully democratic election took place in the country. For the first time, every adult in the country had the right to vote. 20 million South Africans exercised this right. Many of them standing patiently for hours due to the logistical delays in rural areas.

Not a drop of blood was shed.

It is poignant to realise that Nelson Mandela was voting for the very first time in the election that saw him become President.

Connection speed projections in Sweden

Being a family of Swedes and South Africans living in the UK, we are often afforded an interesting vista of contrasts in terms of life experience in the three countries which impact our lives so greatly. This week is no different.

Here in the UK, there is a big push for improved broadband connection speeds. The goal is 2Mbps for every home by 2012.

Sweden has opted to aim higher. Their Minister for Communications has promised "100Mbps broadband to 90 per cent of its population by 2020, with 40 per cent having it by 2015". It will be interesting to see if they manage it.

Meantime, my South African relatives are still largely on dial up!

...and, speaking of ethics...

This report from the BBC is not new, but it has only just come to my attention.

Once the African National Congress came to power in 1994, the South African government embarked on a programme of land redistribution. The stated goal was that 30% of agricultural land was to be placed in the hands of black people by 2014. To this end, farms were taken away from their white owners and restored to the black communities from whom the land had been taken generations before. Special loan provisions were made available to black farmers who wanted to buy land.

The problem is that much of this land has not been farmed since these provisions were set in place. You can imagine how this impinges upon the food supply and the economy of the region. You can imagine, too, how indignant are the erstwhile owners of the land and how divisive the situation is.

In a surprising move, the South African Agricultural minister has issued a 'use it or lose it' ultimatum. Having set the precedent for taking land from the hands of one group of people it deems unsuitable, it looks as if the government is quite ready to repeat the action.

Interestingly, this story appears to have received less coverage on South African websites than in the UK.

It may have been possible to justify the land redistribution the first time around, on the grounds of history and violated rights and such - although many would dispute that - but I find it interesting that the South African government would consider it within its rights to dictate how an individual may use (or not) the land that he owns, and to take it from him if he fails to comply. Does this fall within the tenets of democracy?

Of course I am saddened by the impact of the reduction in the food production. Of course I am concerned that the current owners of so many farms have allowed them to fall into disuse when the previous owners - forcibly removed - were farming them productively. Of course I dread the logical outcome of this situation.

Nevertheless, I wonder about the ethics of this move...

Inaugural lecture: Jonathan Jansen

The first black Vice Chancellor of the University of the Free State, a province considered by many to be the bastion of racism in South Africa, delivered his inaugural address on Friday night. It is a speech full of hope for the future of the country. I long to see his optimism prove well-founded.

Jansen - author of Knowledge in the Blood, an account of race and apartheid in South Africa - is not known for (as he puts it) snuggling up to power. He is perhaps a surprise appointment, and I hope with every fibre of my being that it this is not window dressing. But he certainly seems to be the man for the hour. Soon after his appointment, a friend sent him a quote from the Old Testament book of Esther 4:14 “Is it possible that you have come into the kingdom for such a time as this?” See the closing anecdote of his speech for evidence of his inspirational qualities among even white Afrikaans students at the university.

I am hoping for the best here!

And as a codicil, while I knew that JRR Tolkien spent time lecturing at Fort Hare University in South Africa and is believed by many to have been inspired to write about Hobbits during many weekends in the nearby Hogsback Mountains, I had not previously realised that he was born in South Africa. Bloemfontein, in fact.

Caster Semenya: my 2p worth

In the furore following the news that Caster Semenya possesses the external genitalia of a woman but internal testes instead of a uterus or ovaries, I would just like to make my views known. Whether or not they make any difference remains to be seen. But one of the points of social media is that they serve as an aggregation of many views. Mine are as valid as anyone else's.

The South African government is making protests about the whole incident being both racist and sexist. This is a view supported by many South Africans in the various discussion forums on this topic.

I do not see this issue as being racist. Track events at international level are currently dominated by black people (I am told that this can be attributed to a genetic predisposition towards heightened fast twitch something or other). Semenya has not been singled out because of her race. The woman who came second is also black. She is also African. It is true, she is from a different African country (Kenya), but I don't think that would make a difference to anyone who was being racist about this. So if Semenya is stripped of her title, it will not further anyone's racist cause.

With regard to the sexism aspect...

If we want to play the sexist card, then we need to decide where the line is going to be drawn and that takes us into very grey territory. Is it sexist to say that men can't run in women's races? If so, then there needs to be just one 800m race in which men and women compete against each other. That day may come, but for now, there would be no women in that event. If then, we agree that it is right ot separate the two, we need to have a definition of what constitutes each gender. A line needs to be drawn somewhere. I think many people have been taken by surprise to learn that gender is far more of a continuum than they had previously imagined.

It is tragic for Semenya and any others like her that a quirk of nature puts them outside of the definition of woman (if indeed it does - this still has to be decided). As far as I know, no-one is vilifying the poor girl, or accusing her of any wrongdoing.

Let us look for a moment at a parallel situation: in the paralympics, athletes compete based on the extent of their (dis)ability. So an athlete who is missing just one foot would not be allowed to compete on level terms against an athlete who is missing both legs. Through no fault of his own, the former has attributes that provide an unfair advantage over the latter.

I am deeply sorry for Semenya. I think she has conducted herself with dignity throughout what must have been an embarrassing ordeal. To learn about this anomaly in the full glare of the world's press must be harrowing indeed. Not only that, but she now probably faces a future in which there is no event in which she can compete in the sport she loves. She is too much of a woman to be able to achieve anything remarkable against men, but she is too much of a man to be allowed to run against women.

And there's nothing she can do about it. If that doesn't tug at your heart strings, I don't know what would.

On being rich

I've had a rough couple of months during which I have had no income. Of course, my husband has continued to earn his (very decent) salary, but our overheads were always based on two incomes and the loss of one put things like our house and our car in jeopardy. It was scary there for a while.

Not for the first time in our lives, we found ourselves on the receiving end of the kindness of friends. Bags of groceries, gifts of money and invitations for meals. It has been hard to accept these gifts, to be honest. I felt like a burden. I also felt embarrassed, because I knew there were people who are far worse off than we are. One friend pointed out we have always been the sort of people who consider it a privilege to do that sort of thing for other people, so we should realise that those who were helping us were seeing it in the same way. It was a lesson in humility.

But, even though I have learned this morning that a new contract is winging its way to me, the lesson wasn't over yet. Anol Bhattacharya (who twitters as SoulSoup) tweeted a link to this site this morning.

It is sobering to see that 99% of the world's population is poorer than we are - even when I don't earn a penny. We are truly privileged.

If you ever travel to Cape Town by air, almost on arrival, you will be reminded of how privileged you are: right next to the Cape Town airport is a squatter camp where people live in shanty houses made of bits of wood, corrugated iron and other scraps.

It gives you a sense of perspective about the air conditioning not working in your hired car!

Image by GNJOR on Photobucket

Friday humour... or not!

A Facebook friend posted a list of questions which had been submitted to a South African tourist website. They exemplify the sort of misconceptions about the country which causes untold frustration and/or much hilarity to its natives. On the other hand, some of these questions seem to me to be perfectly reasonable - and finding them laughable demonstrates a lack of insight into the perspective of the person posing the question. The answers, posted by the website owner, would probably cause most of my readers offence, so I will leave them out. If you desperately want them, email me and I'll send them to you. But, as a matter of curiosity, do you get why at least some of these questions are daft?

• Does it ever get windy in South Africa ? I have never seen it rain on TV, so how do the plants grow? (UK)
• Will I be able to see elephants in the street? (USA)
• I want to walk from Durban to Cape Town - can I follow the railroad tracks? (Sweden)
• Is it safe to run around in the bushes in South Africa ? (Sweden)
• Are there any ATMs (cash machines) in South Africa ? Can you send me a list of them in JHB, Cape Town , Knysna and Jeffrey's Bay? (UK)
• Can you give me some information about Koala Bear racing in South Africa? (USA)
• Which direction is north in South Africa ? (USA)
• Can I bring cutlery into South Africa ? (UK)
• Can you send me the Vienna Boys' Choir schedule? (USA)
• Do you have perfume in South Africa ? (France)
• I have developed a new product that is the fountain of youth. Can you tell me where I can sell it in South Africa ? (USA)
• Can you tell me the regions in South Africa where the female population is smaller than the male population? (Italy)
• Do you celebrate Christmas in South Africa ? (France)
• Are there killer bees in South Africa ? (Germany)
• Are there supermarkets in Cape Town and is milk available all year round?
• Please send a list of all doctors in South Africa who can dispense rattlesnake serum. (USA)
• I was in South Africa in 1969, and I want to contact the girl I dated while I was staying in Hillbrow. Can you help? (USA)
• Will I be able to speek (sic) English most places I go? (USA)
  

Let's look at that list again, with a little editorial input from yours truly:

• Does it ever get windy in South Africa ? I have never seen it rain on TV, so how do the plants grow? (UK)

The first question here, I consider quite reasonable. The second could surely be answered by googling the rainfall figures for the country. Most publicity shots show sunny climes - even for sites here in the UK, known to its detractors as Mud Island.

• Will I be able to see elephants in the street? (USA)

This question reveals an all too common level of ignorance. However, the flip side is that many South Africans tend to think of Americans as being an entire nation of such people, little realising the irony of that assumption.

• I want to walk from Durban to Cape Town - can I follow the railroad tracks? (Sweden)

This is a distance of some 1600km (100miles) by road - and probably significantly further by rail. I'm trying to decide whether the Swede has realised this. Maybe s/he has and is looking to do this as a sponsored event, and this is an early enquiry.

• Is it safe to run around in the bushes in South Africa ? (Sweden)

I'm trying to decide whether this Swede (perhaps the same one as before) is under the impression that South Africa is one endless, untamed wilderness (perhaps crosscut by a railroad track)

• Are there any ATMs (cash machines) in South Africa? Can you send me a list of them in JHB, Cape Town, Knysna and Jeffrey's Bay? (UK)

Once again, the first question, while demonstrating a surprising level of ignorance for someone who is presumably about to travel to South Africa (btw - both Knysna and Jeffrey's Bay are absolutely gorgeous places to visit in the summer), the second is just daft. A list of ATM machines? C'mon!

• Can you give me some information about Koala Bear racing in South Africa? (USA)

Okay. Just no. Surely a little research should have been done, here? Koalas are not bears. They do not live in South Africa... or anywhere else in Africa, for that matter, and - as far as I know - they don't race.

• Which direction is north in South Africa ? (USA)

Erm...

• Can I bring cutlery into South Africa ? (UK)

The website owner took huge offence to this one, believing that it implied that the person didn't expect to find cutlery in the country. But what if they were attending a family wedding and wanted to bring cutlery as a gift? Maybe they just wanted to be sure that they weren't going to break any rules by doing this.

• Can you send me the Vienna Boys' Choir schedule? (USA)

Erm... Vienna is in Austria. Mind you, perhaps they were due to tour South Africa. Who knows?

• Do you have perfume in South Africa ? (France)

You're kidding, right?

• I have developed a new product that is the fountain of youth. Can you tell me where I can sell it in South Africa ? (USA)

I'm not aware of any tourist websites that will do your market research for you.

• Can you tell me the regions in South Africa where the female population is smaller than the male population? (Italy)

The mind boggles!

• Do you celebrate Christmas in South Africa ? (France)

This is a fair question, but I would have thought that the answer could be found very quickly via google.

• Are there killer bees in South Africa ? (Germany)

I don't know why this question offended the site owner. Because the answer is yes, although encounters with swarms of them are pretty rare.

• Are there supermarkets in Cape Town and is milk available all year round?

I find this one puzzling. Where in the world is milk a seasonal commodity?

• Please send a list of all doctors in South Africa who can dispense rattlesnake serum. (USA)

There are probably tens of thousands of doctors in South Africa. But why any of them would dispense rattlesnake serum is beyond me... unless the American in question is planning to bring some with him/her? I would suggest that this might be superfluous. There are snakes in South Africa that make the rattlesnake look pretty mild. If you should ever encounter an angry black mamba, for example, say your prayers. Unlike most snakes, it is aggressive, can move faster than a man can run, and can and does launch itself through the air. It's a doozy!

• I was in South Africa in 1969, and I want to contact the girl I dated while I was staying in Hillbrow. Can you help? (USA)

To quote John McEnroe, "You cannot be serious!"

• Will I be able to speek English most places I go? (USA)

Okay apart from the unfortunately ironic spelling error, this is an entirely fair question. South Africa has eleven official languages and English is not the most widely spoken mother-tongue by a long shot. The language that holds top spot is Zulu, the mother tongue of the new President, Jacob Zuma, at around 24% of the population. Next comes Xhosa at 17.6%. Afrikaans holds third spot at 13.3%, then Sepedi at 9.4%, and English and Setswana are joint fifth with 8.2%. However, many South Africans speak English as an additional language.

I'm sure the every country has its fair share of 'stupid' tourist questions to field. One of the commenters on the Facebook post mentioned that she is often asked about the six months of daylight and six months of darkness where she lives. She didn't mention where that was, though. Can't have been Canada, because everybody knows that's how it is for you guys. ;o)

pic of the day - pineapple upside-down cake

I tried out a new recipe tonight... from the Tessa Kiros book that featured here a few days ago. Note - it hasn't burnt, the dark patches are where the syrup has carameised. Can't tell you how it tastes, yet. It's for tomorrow, when we will have a house full of Zimbabwean ex-pats popping in for lunch.

Main course, a barbecue - or more correctly, a braai (pronounced like the first syllable of bridal) with boerewors, ribs and chicken flatties, as well as sadza... and some salads.

The cake will be served as dessert with creme fraiche and/or vanilla ice cream. I might make a milktart as well (note: the photo in this link has wa-ay too little cinnamon on top, it should be more like this)

South African general election

Yesterday, South Africans went to the polls. In stark contrast to the recent American elections, there seems to have been a lack of optimism. Instead, there appears to have been either resigned desperation or angry defiance.

With the count not yet complete, the ANC has 66% of the votes counted thus far, and is likely -once again- to garner the two thirds majority necessary to repeal entrenched clauses in the constitution. Facebook friends are now clutching at straws like:

...the DA has enough seats to be strong opposition, and will very likely win the Western Cape.

and

I am praying !that there will be enough votes for the DA and Cope to form a coalition and save us from an ANC two thirds majority! Is that a pipe dream?

Breaking news can be found here.

On grieving

A few weeks ago, a video I was watching with a group of people (I forget where), included a clip about the growing violence in South Africa. At one stage, the camera zoomed in on a bunch of hurting, angry (black) women, shouting their fears and concerns into the camera.

Tears welled up in my eyes and I said to a friend, "Look. My people." She laughed, thinking I was joking. Her reaction is not uncommon - after all, my skin is what we term 'white'. But I was born and raised in South Africa among its people, as were my parents and grandparents. Even most of my great-grandparents... and futher back than that.

My bloodline includes English, Scottish and Dutch settlers as well as black slaves. I have an honorary Xhosa name, given to me somewhere along the way - Thandiwe (the one we love). They are 'my people' - the colour of their skin is entirely irrelevant. We share generations of history. So the future of the country is of equal significance to us all.

It is unfortunate that this article appears in a sensationalist UK newspaper, but I ask you to see past the purple prose to the real menace that underlies it.

I don't care that Jacob Zuma has four wives. That is a cultural issue. Many Zulu men have more than one wife. I don't care that he likes to dress and dance like a Zulu warrior. That is his heritage and he has every right to celebrate it. None of that is anything to fear, as far as I am concerned.

But I do fear for the future of my beloved country. And I fear even more when I see Madiba looking so frail. While he is alive, the deep love and respect that most South Africans have for him might hold catastrophe at bay. But he will not live forever. And as he ages, it will become increasingly easy to hide truths from him, should they become too unpalatable.

I have a great deal of respect for Helen Zille and if, as this report states, "her words are heavy with fear for the future," then there must indeed be grounds for fear.

Many of my liberal South African friends (of all colours) are expressing abhorrence for Zuma's increasingly colourful rhetoric. Many have taken up the chant, "Not my president!"

Is my homeland headed for more war and bloodshed?

I suspect so.

I hope I am wrong. To make a successful future for itself, South Africa needs all her people. She needs to leave racial hatred behind, not stoke its hideous fires back up again.

Two stories from southern Africa

My grief grows.

Robert Mugabe's recent 85th birthday bash cost an estimated £105K, while his country suffers hyperinflation of an order that recently saw the release of a 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollar note! This after lopping 3 zeros off the end of all denominations in attempt to curb the spiralling figures. It is to be noted that the country's unemployment level is estimated at 94%. Of course, this presumably means taxpaying employment. No doubt there is a great deal of informal employment going on, with services being paid for in kind. Many Zimbabwean businesses no longer accept their own national currency, and instead demand South African Rands, US dollars or British Pounds.

If you have an interest in the story that is unfolding in the country once called the breadbasket of Africa - get it first hand from an insider.

Moving just across the river to my own homeland, we learn that a campaign of violence has been initiated by the ruling African National Congress against opposition parties ahead of next month's election.

Ahead of the 1994 elections, observers around the world predicted bloodshed. But the churches of all colours took to their knees and prayed. The people from all communities determined that they would prove the world wrong. And so they did. Standing in line to vote together for the first time, Black, Indian Coloured and White (for those were the racial classifications within the country) people were peaceable. They elected an ANC which was led by Nelson Mandela, a man of noble grace respected the world over.

But the age of Nelson Mandela is past. The man who now leads the African National Congress is a man without even a complete primary school education. A man who will assure a group of Afrikaans farmers in Bloemfontein that the Afrikaner heritage will remain and that their contribution to the economy and the future of the country is held in high regard. Shortly thereafter, that same man will assure a fulminating group of young activists that land redistribution in South Africa will follow his election as surely as night follows day. Many have taken delight in pointing out that Zuma has several wives. To me, this is an irrelevant matter - a legacy of his culture. Without looking it up, I would hazard a guess that there are other national leaders with more than one wife. What bothers me far more is that this is a man skilled in the art of saying exactly what people want to hear in order to secure the presidency for himself. Frighteningly, he seems to have no personal values which he holds sacrosanct.

No charges brought against him appear to stick, and one wonders, once he occupies the office of president, whether it will still be possible to level criticisms and/or accusations against him at all!

The southern African subcontinent appears to be going to hell in a handcart. More than once, ex-patriots have been heard to express the view that, had Zimbabwe had even a drop of oil, the US would have invaded them long since in order to depose the dictator and restore democracy.

Well, South Africa has several drops of oil - much of it produced from coal, not to mention gold, diamonds, steel, uranium, platinum and a plethora of endangered fauna and flora. So you never know!

The war on AIDS

I have a young friend in South Africa whom I have known since he was a little boy. He is now permanently bemused to find himself one of that country's top cartoonists.

I subscribe to his feed for my daily dose of his particular brand of humour. I have often been tempted to link to one of his strips on this blog, but have realised that the humour is embedded in the South African-ness of the situation and may be completely meaningless to an external audience.

However, Jeremy recently brought a close to the most locally branded strip and replaced it with one with a broader appeal (and, as a sad but inevitable consequence, considerably less bite). He also has a single panel current affairs commentary type cartoon in one of the country's English language newspapers.

His two daily cartoon strips form the backbone of his blog, although he does also write other posts (in which he reveals that the little boy I used to know remains very near to the surface).

Like all good cartoonists, Jeremy is more than just a print version of a comedian. Today's cartoon from The Times makes reference to the declaration by the the deputy chair of the South African National Aids Council that "the war (on AIDS) is over".

If tomorrow never comes...♫ ♪ ♬

When I was a kid, we used to make the sarcastic crack, "Tomorrow has been cancelled due to lack of interest."

The Shuttleworth foundation has been working on a project called Kusasa, which is the Zulu word for tomorrow. The project was aimed at providing exploratory learning experiences for South African learners. It seems it has indeed been cancelled due to something that pretty much amounts to a lack of interest.

Very sad.

Thanks to Stephen Downes for the pointer.

Sequel to an African tale

My recent participation in a blogversation caused a fresh trickle of traffic to a post of mine from some time ago, including a comment which brought this blog by Kobus van Wyk onto my radar. I would like to encourage readers to swing by and offer support and encouragement.

Xenophobia in South Africa

This landed in my Inbox today, shortly after I had responded to Rina's comment on yesterday's post. I can do no better than to add it verbatim here, and share how my heart aches. I'm a ridiculously optimistic person, but even I have entirely lost hope.

By R.W. JOHNSON
FROM WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPE
May 27, 2008

CAPE TOWN, South Africa

South Africa is taking stock after two weeks of xenophobic riots. By the latest count, 50 people have been killed and thousands injured. Over 600 rioters have been arrested as the violence spread through all nine of the country's provinces. The images are shocking. Large, well-armed mobs of black people rampage through the townships, even the center of the commercial capital, Johannesburg . The necklace (burning tire) style of killing, so familiar from the civil strife that swept the country in the early 1990s, has made a horrific return. The plight of the foreign Africans has been desperate, with some 30,000 displaced and many of their shops and shacks ransacked or destroyed; unknown thousands have gone back home.

The damage to South Africa 's image both within Africa and beyond is very large. Perhaps worst of all, the riots have raised the question of whether the country really made a miraculously peaceful transition from apartheid to multiracial democracy, as so widely trumpeted, 14 years ago. In a ghostly reversal of history, mobs are once more in the streets, and as in apartheid days, the military has been called out to control them. The ruling African National Congress is used to thinking of large, politically mobilized township mobs as masses demanding democracy, and the soldiers out to bring them into submission the instrument of apartheid oppression. Now the roles are reversed, posing some disturbing thoughts about whether one has viewed the past correctly. Certainly the sight of workers attacking workers is a nightmare for the left. The greater fear is that this could all easily spill over into intra-South African tribal conflict.

Nobody knows how many illegal immigrants there are in South Africa . Most estimates suggest that up to four million Zimbabweans have fled here from Robert Mugabe's rule of brutality and enforced poverty. Mozambicans make up the second-largest group. But South Africa 's borders are porous and there are also large numbers of people from Malawi, Nigeria, the Democratic of Congo , Somalia and elsewhere in Africa. At a bare minimum there must be five million such illegals, though some think there are twice that number. Xenophobia is not new -- over 30 Somali shopkeepers were murdered in Cape Town in the last two years -- but the country has not witnessed civil strife on anything like this scale before.

The causes are obvious. A Markinor survey earlier this month found that only 42% of South Africans had jobs. Millions are housed in shacks lacking many basic amenities. It is now winter here and at night on the Gold Reef, on which Johannesburg was built, temperatures can fall below freezing, so the homeless can no longer live on the streets. In addition, soaring food prices and shortages of maize, the African staple, have left many hungry. Tempers have frayed and many point to foreigners as a major source of crime.

But the greatest complaint, inevitably, is that "They are taking our jobs." There is some truth to this: Employers generally find Zimbabweans and Malawians make desirable employees -- they are often better-educated, speak better English and work harder. In my little valley in Cape Town every single domestic servant or gardener is now from one of those two countries.
Some are political refugees from Mugabe's Zimbabwe but mainly they're economic migrants, drawn by South Africa's more developed economy. South Africa's per capita income is, for example, 36 times Mozambique 's.

Thabo Mbeki's government has floundered in response, clearly unaware that it has been sitting on a powder keg for some time -- despite warnings from African ambassadors here. Astonishingly, President Mbeki has failed to visit any of the trouble spots or even vary his program of frequent foreign visits. This has merely added to the general impression that the disaster is due to the government's having allowed everything to drift -- it simply couldn't be bothered to do its job. It failed to exercise immigration control; halved the number of riot police; abolished the rural commando system that used to patrol rural areas; propped up Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe, causing millions of Zimbabwean refugees to flee to South Africa; and did too little about jobs and housing for locals. Above all, in its pan-Africanist naïveté the Mbeki government assumed that all Africans are brothers. It failed to realize that to allow uncontrolled and massive immigration into a society already overflowing with unemployment is inevitably explosive.

The government has been frantically trying to suggest that right-wing whites or Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi's Inkatha movement are behind the attacks. This is ludicrous. Chief Buthelezi has in fact distinguished himself in this crisis. He is the only major black leader to tour the trouble spots, to commiserate with the refugees and apologize to them, and to sternly threaten that any of his supporters who join the rioters will be expelled from Inkatha.

ANC leaders have preferred to give homilies, from a safe distance, about how when the ANC was in exile they received hospitality from many African countries and everyone must accordingly treat other Africans as brothers now. This fails to understand the difference between a country hosting a few thousand ANC exiles and the competitive impact in the labor, housing and other markets of millions of illegal immigrants.

The government has treated the problem as one of xenophobia only, as if it is all about people having the wrong ideas in their heads. The underlying causes have not been tackled and there is no sign that they will be. In its pan-Africanist enthusiasm the government has now signed a protocol allowing free movement of people within the 15-nation Southern African Development Community. When this comes into effect shortly, many million more Mozambicans and Congolese could well attempt to move to South Africa. Apostles of African unity like Mr. Mbeki cannot see why Africa should not follow the example of the European Union. In effect the street mobs are demanding the opposite. Further collisions can hardly be ruled out.

Mr. Johnson is southern Africa correspondent for the Sunday Times of London.

Loading sheds, shedding loads

Apologies for the long silence. I have been on holiday in South Africa for a little over 3 weeks and decided to take the unplugged approach (for the most part). Apart from anything else, the connection speeds available to me were laughable.

I thought I'd share some of my observations about the changes in South Africa for my first post back in the saddle. Before I do, however, let me say categorically that I had the most wonderful time. That, in spite of the fact that we have no plans to return, I felt that my pulse beat in time to the rhythm of the people and the place in a way it spectacularly fails to do in the UK. I hooked up with family and friends and it was as if we had never been apart. The sun shone, the sky was blue and I felt truly alive.

That said: life is harder than it was when we left 9 years ago and when we last visited five and a half years ago. Things are wa-ay more expensive. Crime is up. Unemployment is up. Security measures on houses are even more extreme.

Much of this was largely to be expected, based on what we had learned from the news. However, there were a few surprises.

Loadshedding
Several years ago, the national electricity supplier, Eskom, was set to be privatised. It was known at the time that the infrastructure would soon become inadequate, but the matter was not addressed, because the expectation was that this would be dealt with by the incoming powers that be. This privatisation never happened. Moreover, many of those who knew what needed to be done joined the braindrain and are now probably in the UK, Canada, Australia or New Zealand.

What did happen was that power was laid on for far flung rural areas - something which had been promised for many a year, but for which the existing infrastructure was inadequate. What also happened was that the informal settlements (locally known as squatter camps) figured out how to obtain... ahem... "informal electricity" by running wires directly from the overhead mains cables (and people developed ingenious ways of stealing underground cables to melt down and sell the copper).

As a consequence, Eskom can no longer supply the country with uninterrupted power. A system of loadshedding has been introduced. In East London, where my family lives, the power is shut off every second day for two hours. In Cape Town it is one 3-hour period during the week. Some of the larger stores and/or shopping centres have generators, but many do not, so many cannot operate effectively during these periods. Loadshedding is conducted on a rolling basis across an area, so you might madly set about making up for lost time as soon as your power comes back up, only to discover that your client/supplier is now experiencing their scheduled power outage.

How this country is going to host the 2010 soccer world cup, I have no idea!

Of course, since the loadshedding is a scheduled business, any criminal with half a brain has figured out that all the sophisticated security equipment is disabled during loadshedding. This allows them a neat and predictable 2 hour window to focus their attention on houses where the electrified fences are now not electrified, the burglar alarm is disabled and the armed response units are not going to get to know about the robbery until the burglars are long gone.

Recycling and the environment
When we moved to the UK 9 years ago, we were appalled at how little recycling took place here, compared to the provision in South Africa. Nine years later, the UK has stepped up its provision immeasurably, while South Africa has withdrawn much of theirs. It broke my heart to have to throw aluminium cans and PET bottles into the rubbish bin while we were there.

Mind you, there are other ways of recycling!

Poverty being what it is, there are large numbers of what my mother calls "bin diggers" who go through the garbage bags waiting for collection, looking for items that can be recycled. Aluminium cans are transformed into ornaments, toys and fashion accessories. PET bottles are used as gardening implements. Plastic shopping bags are torn into strips and woven or crocheted into rugs and hats. My parents keep their vegetable waste for the compost heap, but potato peels apparently attract spider mites, so these go into the trash. I was roundly chastised, however, for scraping them straight off the board into the bin. They have to be put into a plastic shopping bag which is tied at the top, so that the bin diggers don't get their hands all mucky.

On garbage collection day, you can spot vast armies of women sitting under trees surrounded by bags filled with the spoils of the day's foraging. In due course, they will be collected, but they're not letting those bags out of their sight until then! Driving along the roads, you would expect to see the impact of their foraging, in the form of some sort of mess or litter. You would be wrong. These women are very careful to replace everything they don't want in the black garbage bags and then tie them closed, leaving them neatly at the end of each driveway as the refuse collectors would expect.

Sadly, this resourcefulness can do nothing to rescue the wetlands that are being drained to build developments which the infrastructure cannot possibly support. Nor can it prevent the wholesale flattening of trees for the same purpose. The environmental organisations are powerless in the face of the bribery of officials to approve this, that and the other new development and corruption of this nature looks set to rob the country of the natural beauty that brings in the vital tourist dollars, pounds and euros (related side issue: my sister-in-law has been sponsoring a group of homeless, bushdwelling children for several years. She has made several attempts to get them identity documents so that they can apply for legitimate work, but the officials have made it abundantly clear that they will only consider the applications in exchange for a hefty bribe which she is neither able to afford or countenance).

Making a difference
Need in South Africa means something very different from need in the UK. Needy children there are likely to live in a home with no indoor plumbing or electricity. They may share a single-roomed dwelling with 6 or 7 others. They may well be physically and sexually abused. They are likely to have TB and/or be HIV positive. The food they receive at school is all the food they get. Small actions can make a fundamental difference. Which is why I am so proud of my many friends who are involved up to their eyeballs in this project (the woman in the blue top in the photo to the right of the logo on the home page is my best friend, Lynda from whom I parted with bitter tears on Monday).

The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling will stop or in what place my touch will be felt.

Karin Colson

This has been a long post. If you've made it this far, thanks for sticking with me!

Wounded Nation (Sunday Herald)

This article in a recent issue of Scotland's Sunday Herald fills me with more anguish than I can find words to express. My gut is tied in a knot. I wish I could cry, but my grief goes even too deep for tears. I have tried several times to come up with an image, an analogy that reflects how I feel, but I have failed. Without meaning to be melodramatic, I can't devide whether I want to scream in wordless anguish or curl myself into a foetal ball, groan and rock.

I am filled with a sense of urgency that something needs to be done before it's too late. At the same time I feel a sense of powerlessness: nothing I do or can urge anyone else to do will make the blindest bit of difference.

Too many of the country's citizens are living in a state of denial, choosing to pretend that things aren't as bad as they are made out to be, and therefore failing to push for the remedial action that may already be too late.

There truly are none so blind as those that will not see.

There are so many parallels and lessons to learn about learning in this scenario, but I don't have the heart to tease them out. Besides, I'm sure you don't need my help with that!