Report from the runway
Lynley Donnelly’s spread on Sanlam SA Fashion Week (“A designer collection”, March 23) was impressive, and substantial coverage of such events is crucial for the local fashion sector.
My research study endorses Karen Ter Morshuizen’s comment that consumers are not concerned about where their clothes have been made, or about the means adopted to produce the garments.
There is an abundance of skills and creativity in South Africa, as Ephraim Molingoana says, but until designers get their costings right, most South Africans will continue to buy cheap imports from mass retailers and price will govern their buying behaviour.
Pumla Ngxekana’s term “educated consumer” needs definition: to stimulate local consumption of indigenous design content, greater branding and marketing that edifies the consumer about how low prices are achieved and whose “economy” they are supporting must be driven forward.
My research findings contest Jacques van der Watt’s statement that the growth of Fashion Week events is a negative development. The numerous designers I interviewed want more fashion shows, and they object to the gatekeeping that is perpetuated by management of these events.
This is exemplified in Van der Watt’s claim that the industry is becoming “regional”: designers who participated in my research reported being refused entry into Sanlam SA Fashion Week if they had shown the same ranges at events in Durban and/or Cape Town. How can this kind of hegemonic territorialism serve to increase economic development for South Africa’s relatively untapped pool of designers?
In my investigation of the role played by Fashion Week events in growing the local fashion industry, one of the major outcomes was the lack of — and need for — deeper independent analysis and evaluation of the financial returns for the designers whose ranges are shown, and determining the total value these events bring to the industry. — Renato Palmi, MA development studies; economic development consultant to the clothing and fashion sector
I applaud the Mail & Guardian for the article on Napo Masheane (“Big, bold and bootylicious, March 16). She is doing a great job in encouraging sisters to be proud of themselves.
I am one of those women who has a big bum. I have accepted the way I look; I’m even proud to call my bum an African asset. I wish sisters would stop slimming down — they must be proud of how they look because real beauty comes from within. — Wilhemina Modiane, Pretoria
For the love of the game
What a one-sided editorial (“It’s just not cricket”, March 23). It’s not that what you said was wrong, but what you didn’t say!
I came late to sports, by virtue of a son who embraces every and any sport with passion and enthusiasm, if only minimum skill. He also knows that the war in Iraq is wrong and that people who burn effigies of sports players are dangerous idiots. Sport has taught him the meaning and importance of affirmative action and, when Herschelle Gibbs conquered the mighty Australians in the 438 game, he wept for joy — yes, it was rampant nationalism but, Orwell notwithstanding, it was a damn sight better than going to war!
It is obscene that someone who can kick a ball well earns more in a week than our char can dream of in a hundred lifetimes. But no more obscene than the difference in income between the lowest-paid workers and the CEOs in some of our corporate powerhouses — and, I suspect, a lot more egalitarian!
There is no area of our lives that is not compromised by greed and stupidity but, in many fans and many sports players, the true spirit of sport is alive and well. To suggest otherwise is just not cricket! — Janet Shapiro, Johannesburg
Don’t be fooled
Cape Town mayor Helen Zille has announced that an “apolitical” committee will be set up to scrutinise proposed street name changes. Don’t be fooled by this.
Firstly, the committee’s constitution does not allow for apolitical “experts” to be chosen. Each party will identify candidates with the undemocratic process of horse-trading employed to embed political sycophants on the committee.
Secondly, Zille has said that proposed name changes not acceptable (to her and the DA) will not be considered, and that names not an affront (to her and the DA) will not be changed.
Zille has failed at delivery too. There has been a growing chorus of discontent from Capetonians about the non-repair to roads, non-delivery of new roads and building of houses.
All of this while Capetonians are expected to pay higher rates for increasingly poorer quality of services is not acceptable. — E Davids, Mitchells Plain
Who pays the bribes?
In his letter (March 16), Professor Thomas Koelble provides a poor analysis of Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi’s article “Corruption is inimical to development” (March 11).
He blasts Fraser-Moleketi for her closing remarks to the Africa Forum on Fighting Corruption: “The values of ubuntu and ujamaa (familyhood) … are necessary for the creation of a socially cohesive and inclusive Africa that is free of corruption.” These values, she said, constitute “the essence of our spirit of fighting corruption”.
Koelble bases his letter on the assumption that “corruption rarely starts in dealings with multinational corporations and it has little to do with ‘colonisers’ imposing their laws on Africa”. Let me point him to research he may not have seen.
Transparency International’s Bribe Payers Index 2006 surveyed 30 countries (among them the world’s wealthiest) and found them “likely to resort to bribery when working in low-income countries and in Africa”. Sceptics may find it convenient to deny it but, more often than not, Africa finds itself playing the role of the corrupted.
It is worth noting that ubuntu (or selflessness) is an overriding philosophy and not part of the arsenal of fighting corruption that the government has assembled. — Madibeng Kgwete, Tshwane
Good advice
I have a few hints for those in corporate life who are young, black and unhappy: learn creative humility, do the back office and do it well. Train somebody there quickly to take over your job so that you are free to move when the opportunity arises.
Do this not to please your white superior. Do it because such experience is necessary for the development of good, principled leadership, which will be yours to receive.
When you lead, do so as a proud South African and this leadership will enable you to free many young South Africans, black and white together. — Carl J Lotter, Loevenstein, Cape
Cut Zim’s purse strings
In the early 1970s, a branch of a well-known British bank in Oxford High Street was daubed by anti-apartheid activists with the spray-painted slogan “Barclays is a piggy bank”. News that Barclays is lending to the Zimbabwe government suggests that, more than 30 years later, the description is still apt.
In spite of Mugabe’s ravings against the West, it is their financial institutions that are making it possible to pay his civil servants, soldiers and police. The same financiers are also propping up the business empires of Zanu-PF heavyweights.
Financial sanctions played an important part in forcing the apartheid government of South Africa to the negotiating table. Zimbabwe owes South Africa a reputed R2,4-billion for electricity. Now is the moment to call in the debt or switch off the power; and remove other financial lifelines.
Mugabe holds all the cards except those marked economic and financial.
The plight of Zimbabwe’s people, many on the brink of starvation, can only be reversed by the removal of Mugabe and his securocrats.
In their place, a government of national unity, committed to the rule of law and sound economic policy, is the only hope of salvation from hyper-inflation amid incomes of less than a dollar a day.
Whether we look at the crisis in Zimbabwe as a humanitarian disaster or a threat to regional security, the way forward seems obvious. And financial sanctions do not involve rooftop diplomacy, just discreet decision-making that need not even upset the inexplicable sensibilities of the South African government. — Christopher Merrett, Pietermaritzburg
As South Africans living in the UK who were involved in the anti-apartheid struggle, we believe it is imperative for the South African government now to take action to hasten an end to the oppression of the Zimbabwean people. The existing “softly-softly” policy of quiet diplomacy to encourage internal dialogue has clearly failed, as evidenced by the recent dramatic increase of violent repression. We endorse the calls by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and civil society organisations in Southern Africa for concerted intervention. The following steps would give a clear signal to the Mugabe regime that it can no longer rely on the unconditional support of the South African government:
- explicitly condemn the violent actions being undertaken in the name of Zanu-PF and the Zimbabwean government;
- end all defence force, security and intelligence collaboration;
- cease supplies of all military hardware, spares and servicing;
- cease to roll over all official loans to Zimbabwe;
- respond sympathetically to asylum requests from genuine Zimbabwean refugees;
- use South Africa’s influence in multilateral forums, ranging from SADC to the African Union and the United Nations, to increase the isolation of the Zimbabwean government; and
- freeze the assets in South Africa of Zimbabwean officials and party leaders who have been implicated in repression and violence.
Our government’s argument that it is wrong to intervene in the internal affairs of a sovereign country is no longer sustainable.
We find it ironic that it should use the same arguments as did the apartheid regime. Without international intervention against apartheid, the struggle for liberation would undoubtedly have taken longer and been even more bloody. We urge you to take action now. — Councillor Jonathan Bloch, Dr Colin Bundy, Professor Robin Cohen, Mrs Selina Molteno Cohen, Professor Stanley Cohen, William Frankel OBE, Professor Siamon Gordon, Lyndall Gordon, Adelaine Hain, Sally Hain, Walter Hain, Emeritus Professor Shula Marks, Latief Parker and Professor David Simon
When is the South African government going to drop the pretence that it can do nothing about Zimbabwe? Mugabe has become a senile caricature of a leader: the icon who became a con. The sooner everyone realises this, the better.
What a pity South Africa has not taken a lead. — Philip Machanick, University of Queensland
In brief
Ronnie Kasrils categorises Israel as an “apartheid state”. Would he describe Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe as a “post-racist democracy”? — Anthony Posner, Johanesburg
No one should ever accuse me of not reading your paper thoroughly (apart from Tom Eaton’s forced style of writing). In last week’s edition of the M&G, on pages 22 and 23, the date of the edition is printed as March 16 to 22 2007. — Johan Botha
Surely it’s too early for an April Fools’ joke? There is a small statement in your March 23 issue informing us that Madam & Eve will no longer appear in your newspaper! Why would you take such a foolish decision? We are already missing Krisjan Lemmer and now you want to remove a feature that we have grown accustomed to. If there is a valid reason for removing Madam & Eve, please give us the facts. We deserve more than a small note hidden at the bottom of the page. — Alan Hammond
I do not wish to troll the internet for Notes & Queries and Madam & Eve. There are many of us who do not use our computers for news and fun. We buy your paper. — Hannah Lurie