The days of the total onslaught have returned! But this time, there is no red under every bed. Only on the faces of officials and politicians in the departments of defence and arts and culture. And this time, the total onslaught is one of sheer ignorance and incompetence.
The country’s premier military museum is raided for displaying — wait for it — military weapons. The minister of defence congratulates his department on finding the weapons. In another country, heads would have rolled for having lost the weapons in the first place. But then, no one could say whether the weapons had been lost, destroyed or decommissioned and donated to the museum.
Apparently, at the same time as the defence minister was congratulating his department, officials from his ministry, the police and the museum were preparing a joint statement basically to say that it was all just a dry run for an April Fool’s joke. However, the minister’s statement then obliged the officials to revisit their statement, so that the minister wouldn’t be embarrassed afterwards. What a “Proudly Military Intelligence” circus!
Talking of circuses, the director of golf (DG) in the Department of Arts and Culture announced to the media that “the number of weapons being kept [at the museum] could raze Soweto within two minutes”. When he tires of golf, the DG could certainly try his hand on the stand-up comedy circuit. At least there he’s not supposed to be taken seriously. Next he’ll be closing down the Apartheid Museum because there’s enough apartheid signage to restart racial segregation in Boksburg!
So what’s the real story behind the raid? There are at least three theories.
The first is that Mark Thatcher sold the authorities a dummy. He promised them that he would spill the beans in return for his freedom. As he boarded the aircraft, he gave the authorities an envelope — only to be opened once he was back with his mom — that revealed the location of the main weapons stockpile.
When the authorities opened the letter, they excitedly raced to the address in an upmarket Johannesburg suburb that, like Constantia, could be home to your average coup plotter, and arrested all those on the premises. Only afterwards did military intelligence refer to the dictionary and look up the word “museum”, but by then, Mark was enjoying his tea and coup-cumber sandwiches.
A second theory is that the former National Arts Council (NAC) exco members were stockpiling weapons at the museum to reclaim their positions through force if their impending legal action to be reinstated failed. This would have accounted for the swift response of the minister and DG for arts and culture (not known for their swift responses) in getting to the museum at the time of the raid. Sadly, it was senior curators of the museum who were pictured being led off to prison in handcuffs, and not members of the NAC.
The third theory is that the department itself planted these weapons of minor distraction or instigated the raid in the name of transformation. After 10 years, the military museum is still being run by mainly white staff.
Recent experience has shown the department that labour legislation means lengthy processes that don’t always turn out the way it would like them to; it is easier to get rid of senior management by arresting them. Then they could be replaced by someone who wouldn’t need to know anything about museums or the military but would be grateful for the job, and do the department’s bidding. Maybe someone like Allan Boesak, a one-time black theology colleague of the DG.
Whatever, there will be lots of pressure on the museum staff — who by all accounts were treated appallingly in the circumstances — not to pursue civil claims against those responsible for an incident that has caused us international embarrassment. And those who initiated and who allowed it to happen, will be empowered to wreak their havoc elsewhere. For the health of the cultural sector, let’s hope that the museum staff do the right — not the white — thing.