In his efforts to expunge from himself all blame for the Democratic Party/New National Party divorce (“Is there love after Kortbroek”, August 2), Tony Leon suffers a serious lapse of memory.
The motivation for a combined opposition came from the “stop the African National Congress” white right wing, not from Leon or the DP. While it is true that it was on this platform that courtship of the NNP would be proclaimed, it was Leon’s ambition to be the leader of a single strong opposition/alternative government under the banner of the DP that set the pace.
The process had already started on Leon’s orders at the beginning of 2000 with the wooing of all councillors from other parties who were concerned about their re-election. The DP leadership structures at provincial and regional levels were badgered by Leon to bring in more converts, whatever their political belief or persuasion, but particularly those from the NNP. Any attempt by the second tier of leadership to try to bring some order to the process was rewarded with accusations of “gate-keeping” by Leon, and instructions to get on with it or else! I enjoyed the wrath of an incandescent Leon in this regard myself.
Whatever may have transpired between Leon and Marthinus van Schalkwyk is known only to themselves, but I can state categorically that the primary reason for the merger that was given to the DP Federal Council by Leon and Ryan Coetzee on June 10/11 2000 was that the DP could not afford to continue fighting on two fronts (the ANC and the NNP) and the solution was to ingest the NNP and remove it from the political arena.
This was to be accomplished by the removal of all the senior NNP politicos from the management structures of the new party (the Democratic Alliance) at the founding congress. Later on, it was Leon’s insistence that voting at that congress must be on the basis of votes secured in the 1999 general election, and not on membership, that was the final straw for the NNP.
Far from Van Schalkwyk having to face the hard fact that the DP was not his for the taking, it was Leon’s blatant attempt to ingest the NNP that brought on the divorce. Further, Leon’s nose was badly out of joint because Van Schalkwyk outperformed him at pre-election rallies in late 2000, culminating at Ellis Park the Sunday before the election. Then, despite all the Leon hype, Van Schalkwyk got a more enthusiastic response from the bussed-in audience. After that Van Schalkwyk was not invited again to share the platform with Leon.
I carry no brief for Van Schalkwyk or the NNP, but Tony Leon’s version of events cannot go unchallenged. –Carl Werth, Pretoria
Radical black literary movement vanishes
As is usual with hit parades, there are all sorts of ways in which the decisions of the judges of the list of “100 Best Books from Africa of the 20th century” can be queried (“Books for Africa”, July 19).
Not only is the list over-replete with “old chestnuts”, but the impulse to select only one book per author per category in each language seems to relate to a generous but nonetheless political urge to keep as many people happy as possible. This loses sight of some of the major achievements of African literature — Wole Soyinka’s poetry is just one example.
It is noticeable that the final list also downplays or ignores many of the continent’s (and Southern Africa’s) more formally experimental or ideologically radical works. Where are the novels of the technical masters and social critics Alex la Guma and Etienne Leroux, for instance? Where is Agostinho Neto’s poetry? In terms of what criteria is the self-consciously subjective and impressionistic In the Country of My Skull included, in the light of the dismissal (one work excepted) of the significant South African revisionist historical scholarship of the 1970s and 1980s?
What is perhaps most shocking in this regard, locally, is that a recent period of great social ferment — South Africa of the 1970s and 1980s — is represented here by four works, all by white authors. Thus the emergence in the country of a radical and experimental black literary movement in exactly that period, which gave rise to many important artistic works, vanishes from sight.
Yet the main problem is that any attempt to name “great works” has at its heart a contradiction. Despite attempts to foreground African literary achievements, Africa’s 100 Best Books ends up recycling — with different details — the conceptual and structural shortcomings of the United States Modern Library Board List it seeks to correct. Despite the gestures to a wider inclusiveness, it cannot help but contain criteria of selection and judgement that are subjective and open to question, both ideologically and aesthetically.
As someone who has tried to teach students for years about the dangers of canon-formation in literary criticism, it seems to me that the positive, “feel-good” gains and exposure publishers, journalists and academics appear to think will accrue from such a list are compromised by the rigidification of evaluation and consciousness it potentially brings in its train. –Kelwyn Sole, Rondebosch
Look where the real blame lies
Yes, Israel’s intelligence sources were wrong. Yes, Israel made a blunder when on July 23 it killed civilians while bombing the house of Hamas militant Salah Shehada. But let’s look at the whole context, as well as international comment.
Hamas is at war with Israel and has never recognised Israel’s right to exist. The New York Post pointed out on July 24 that the Fourth Geneva Convention demands that Shehada should have separated himself from the “protected persons” (civilians) into a military camp and worn a uniform; international law actually gives Israel the right to conduct military operations under these circumstances.
The United States Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, denounced terrorists who use civilians as cover. One remembers snipers hiding among rock-throwing children then scurrying to Christian suburbs to hide among the houses — never mind the Church of the Nativity.
The Chicago Sun Times of July 24 pointed out Israel’s record of trying to avoid civilian casualties, even losing 23 ground troops in Jenin’s “terrorist cesspool” rather than bomb the area from the air. (Remember the hysteria over the massacre-that-never-was?)
Were there peace talks on the go prior to the bombing? Two days before Fatah had called for more, not less, attacks. The Times of London recalled that the ceasefire did not have the backing of Hamas, whose terrorists have not been careless but deliberate in killing men, women and children.
Shehada’s wife was shown in Time magazine in full military gear holding an assault rifle. It was Hamas that bombed the Tel Aviv disco, the Sbarro pizzeria, the Moment Café and the Passover Seder. The Wall Street Journal on July 25 called the group “human monsters”, who should not be allowed to hide in homes, churches, mosques or foreign countries.
Where is the outcry when terrorists bomb and machine-gun Israeli men, women and children? A terrorist who two weeks ago machine-gunned civilians fleeing from the bus bombed outside a settlement said he was “satisfied” at killing “the enemy”.
Yes, Israel made a mistake, but in the larger context look where the real blame lies. If the Arabs put down their weapons today, the violence will cease to exist. If the Jews put down their weapons today, Israel will cease to exist. –David Woolf, Johannesburg
Aid is a weapon against us
Since the international community watched Robert Mugabe carefully prepare and execute one of the most illegitimate elections of all time, only saying “we hope it will be OK in the end”, I have lost my spirit. We are too outnumbered (in arms only, but then who will be the first to cast a stone at a tank?), weak from hunger and, I must admit, afraid to stand up for ourselves.
However, my blood boiled again when I read that although Britain, the United States and the European Union have given millions in aid, Zanu-PF’s foreign affairs spokesperson, Didymus Mutasa, said in an interview: “There are true and genuine friends, like China, like Libya, like the Arab world, who will help us, and they will help us at our request. The rest of you can please keep your money, keep your aid and keep yourselves out of Zimbabwe, and we will manage — thank you.”
For the love of God, all you are doing is giving Mugabe food to use as a weapon against us. Have some dignity, some pride — all this man does is insult you, and you all come running back. You have given enough to satisfy your conscience, so do as he asks and let this place collapse. It is the only way we will get rid of him. –T Karanga, Harare
On SABC news on August 1 Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said of Zimbabwe:”Before we concentrate on dialogue, we have to make sure the people … have food.” That is, she is finding an excuse for prolonging Mugabe’s stay in power and doing nothing to reconvene talks to end the political impasse.
She went on to say: “Zimbabweans must learn to live together, whatever political party they come from.” She claimed the election was held in accordance with the Constitution and that Zimbabweans had accepted the result.
I am sure Dlamini-Zuma is aware of the Helen Suzman Foundation opinion poll held in Zimbabwe after the parliamentary elections, which found that less than 20% of the electorate supported Mugabe. What makes Dlamini-Zuma think there was a major swing back to supporting Mugabe when all he could offer was more violence?
The people of Zimbabwe do not hold that the election was acceptable. One way of proving the validity of her claim would be for South Africa to organise for the Suzman Foundation to return and do a new poll now, obviously with South African Defence Force escorts to ensure fairness.
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is challenging the election results in court and Dlamini-Zuma says this is acceptable democracy. Why should it be so in Zimbabwe if it is not acceptable in Madagascar? We all know that if the court rules in favour of the MDC, the African Union will refuse to recognise the result.
If South Africa is committed to the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, politicians should stop their double standards and recognise Marc Ravalomanana’s government as a start. The donor community is not stupid. — A McCormick, Harare
More rights, fewer workers
I read that one of President Thabo Mbeki’s leading priorities now is the creation of jobs.
Presumably he is looking to create jobs in NGOs because the latest new rights granted to workers to add to the heavy burden already on employers in South Africa will certainly do just the opposite in the commercial sector.
Why is it that in Britain, for instance, deliveries by milkmen are being reintroduced, yet in South Africa milkmen are a forgotten memory? The answer is that investors here avoid labour like the plague because, with all the rights labour has, that is exactly what it is!
Of course, it is not impossible to be an employer in South Africa. But the many additional rights that workers have here add to the negative factors when an investor makes decisions.
As most decisions are made in the “balance area” of 10% to 15%, factors like excessive workers’ rights often result in decisions not to invest — whether by large or small business, foreign or local.
So we will see an intensification of the trend already established: fewer workers with more rights. And more NGOs to try and solve the problem of poverty.
And having more NGOs fundamentally means looking for more charity from the First World. –Brian Constable
Fact or fiction?
‘It’s just a matter of good journalism,” lectures Richard Calland, but manages to throw in a rhetorical: “If the weapons sold to Israel are to be used to murder innocent Palestinians, is that in the public interest?” (“A question of write vs wrong”, August 2).
There you are then. It is now an incontestable fact, slipped in in the course of a secondary argument, that Israel uses its weapons to murder innocent Palestinians.
How about trying: “If weapons sold to Israel are to be used to protect the state against vicious, unrelenting terrorist attacks on its people and its very existence …” — Sydney Kaye, Cape Town
In brief
Please make sure you have all your changes to the M&G well bedded down by the time my subscription is up for renewal at the end of the year! — Bruce MacDonald, Rondebosch
Perhaps it’s a bit far-fetched to suggest that President Thabo Mbeki’s taste for private jet travel has prompted our poor neighbour, Swaziland, into making a similar disastrous investment. However, what I can suggest is that, should Mbeki choose to travel via normal commercial airliner, this would be noted by the rest of the developing world. He is, after all, one of the “serious” leaders in this category of global pecking order and, as such, what he says and does is noticed. Please, Mr President, be forever careful and thoughtful about what you choose to do. –ML Jacobs, Bantry Bay, Cape Town
Minister of Education Kader Asmal recently claimed the use of Afrikaans as medium of instruction at historically Afrikaans universities acts as a barrier to access to non-Afrikaans students. To illustrate this he mentions that the government has to send previously disadvantaged students to Cuba to study medicine there. There is some faulty logic at work here. If a “language barrier” is the cause of black students’ low level of entry to historically white institutions, how could sending them to a Spanish-language university remedy the problem? One suspects that the real barriers have more to do with prohibitive costs and stringent selection criteria than with language. Moreover, how does Asmal explain the fact that the number of black students at historically Afrikaans universities is fast overtaking that in English universities? –Gerrit Brand, Stellenbosch
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