Father Christmas goes “Ho, ho, ho”. The bag of goodies slung over his shoulder, hopefully, brings joy and happiness to the laughing faces of children and adults alike. But one has to ask oneself what there is to celebrate at the end of this difficult year.
One hates to continue being a doomsayer, but the gruesome murders of Avhatakali Netshisaulu Tsedu, son of Mathatha Tsedu, editor of City Press (latest advertising motto: “Liberating the country one Sunday at a time …”) and then of creative personality Taliep Peterson just won’t leave one’s brain.
These senseless killings, we all know, are just the tip of the iceberg of the accelerating spiral of violence in South Africa. They make the news because they are high profile. The government of the day — whose day is soon to pass (although who can tell for sure?) — says precious little about all of this, and does even less. High profile or no, the body count simply rises.
What about Peru? What about Guatemala? What about the gang wars in Mexico and Brazil, comes the defensive response. The world we live in is simply a violent space. Look at Gaza. Look at Baghdad. Look at the machinations that come out of the post-Communist Kremlin. Look at Darfur. Look at the murders of five prostitutes (body count probably rising) in the sleepy eastern English town of Ipswich. Et cetera, et cetera. Frankly, that is not addressing the question that everyone is asking.
Last week I spoke about Kofi Annan’s sorry legacy after 10 years at the helm of the United Nations. The world has become a worse place, not a better place, since he took the reins. The New World Order, of which he was the dark face of reason and decency, pitted against the pocked features of neo-colonialist/imperialist warrior generals George W Bush and Tony Blair, began to look as grey as his elegant haircut, and his increasingly greying face as the chips came tumbling down from Bosnia to Rwanda to the Lebanon, and, hey, even the quiet backwater of Fiji. The gods must be crazy.
Certainly not Annan.
This week one has to wonder: what is the legacy of the post-Mandela government going to be? There hasn’t exactly been a successful Boeremag coup to rival what’s going on in other parts of the world, but those guys are still hanging around in the woodwork, as far as we can tell, and nothing can be called 100% sure. It becomes harder and harder to tell which way South Africa is going, and why — politically, that is. The ruling party and all its limbs are going out of their way to keep us in the dark.
But that’s nothing compared to threats to our personal safety, without which politics becomes a generalised backdrop, a screensaver on your personal computer, an irritation in the background while you’re trying to make an important connection or concoction on your cellphone. The politicians go about their business, jail terms for fraud, rape allegations and general skullduggery notwithstanding.
Schabir Shaik makes an anguished plea from his imprisoned hospital bed that: “Hey, I wasn’t in this thing alone. How come the Zulu guy gets to spend Christmas with his family and I get to eat porridge? Is it cos I’m Indian and he’s Zulu?” And then there’s Yengi and Yengi and Yengi. And on and on and on.
What a way to end the year. The endlessly unravelling mystery surrounding the celebrated Brett Kebble murder (or was it “an assisted suicide” or just an elaborate jape on his part to get back at his sleazy father for calling him “his other daughter”, which a number of interesting characters from the Italian offshore underworld, the African National Congress Youth League, the BEE fraternity in general, the police force and private security outfits, and interests reaching right to the top of the political heap, as it would seem, all appear to be in some agreement about, to a greater or lesser extent), is the cherry on the Christmas pudding some of us are slaving over in these last, dying days of the year.
What happened? Who is really going to talk? What deals have been made, Scorpions, Vusi Pikoli (there’s a sinisterly Sicilian name for you) or no?
Which heads will roll, who’s going to end up in prison and who’s going to slumber on in his plum office job till the unearned pension kicks in, and then go off to vegetate on the farm that has been gratefully supplied by one of those offshore Italian clients or the South African Communist Party, whichever local branch holds sway at a critical, given place and time?
A friend said to me over dinner the other night (and I use this column to remind him that, in fact, dinner never arrived) that there’s a new legend doing the rounds. It goes like this: in the old days, we used to be all “them-and-us” (“hulle en ons”) people. Whites (them) came and stole the land and the Hottentots (us) complained and were shot dead or thrown onto Robben Island, and so on. Hottentots and Bushmen then came and stole the white invaders’ sheep, cattle, candlesticks, and sometimes even their women (and vice versa) in return. No one could tell any more where the problem had actually begun.
Nowadays, since Mandela and Desmond Tutu’s legendary rainbow revolution came to drown us all, there is no longer any “them-and-us”. There is only us –“ons” as represented by the bizarre sight of FW de Klerk delivering a eulogy to Mahatma Gandhi on Robben Island, right now, at the end of the year 2006.
So the new litany goes: “Ons steel te veel van ons eie skape af.” Nowadays there are no more bad guys. We’re all stealing our own sheep.
At last. No more problem. Hallelujah. Father Christmas goes “Ho, ho, ho”. Heppy-heppy-nuwe jaar or whatever.