April 11 to 17 2008

Lionising a psychotic

Robert Mugabe is a psychotic post-modernist. He has shown how easy it is to destabilise old certainties and shared reference-points and replace them with a post-modern world-view that espouses deconstruction and proclaims that truth is socially constructed.

Mugabe constructs the truth by decree. He did it last week with the elections, which he lost, but decreed were a lie. He’d really won, you see.

No wonder his people have turned into zombies ­- he thinks for them.

Like all bad post-modernists, though, everything he does is ultimately a frivolous gesture of narcissistic vanity. And he didn’t get there by reading Jacques Derrida — it’s simply a case of a narcissistic personality disorder, which all megalomaniacs share.

Narcissists lack any capacity for empathy and, some will argue, this is what constitutes the core of evil. Mugabe’s sense of grandiosity and entitlement is no different to that of other evil dictators like Idi Amin.

Their peacock vanity makes them both cartoon characters and savage burlesque despots. The worst of it is this isn’t a late personality aberration. This evil forms as a deep fault line in the personality and is a life sentence.

Woe betide those who cross him, as this exposes the fault line, and the infantile rage triggered by the slight unleashes hatred and sadism.

One has to question why African leaders want to lionise a psychotic by referring to him as the Father of the Nation. Narcissist and Father are mutually exclusive terms — fathers are supposed to love, while narcissists know only self love.

Watch out. He is sulking now. Tomorrow you will open your door and find an AK47 in your face, courtesy of Father Mugabe. — David Erasmus, Port Shepstone

In your editorial of last week you again showed your prejudice against Morgan Tsvangirai. You can’t admit you got it wrong and that Zimbabweans want him as their leader.

Why you want to foist people who have been rejected by the masses, like Arthur Mutambara, Simba Makoni and Welshman Ncube, is beyond me. What have these people done apart from betraying Zimbabwe at its moment of need?

You further push for a government of national unity and propose names like Emmerson Mnangagwa, Sidney Sekeramayi and Gideon Gono, people who have presided over the worsening economic situation in Zimbabwe.

Again — what will this achieve? What has Gono done other than print cash and plunder the economy?
While I agree Tsvangirai should rebuild the nation and economy and not waste time on reprisals, this does not mean bribing Zanu-PF to respect the people’s wishes.

The people have given the MDC (Tsvangirai) the mandate to to rebuild the country. — Lexa

I was shocked when MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai mentioned in a media briefing that President Thabo Mbeki was instrumental in bringing Zimbabwe to a change of government.

The South African media had me believe that he was merely twiddling his thumbs and patting Mugabe.

It would help if South Africans, led by what is supposed to be the public watchdog, started celebrating all our victories. — Margaret Nosisana Njokweni, Cape Town

It’s terrifying to think that, as I write, Robert Mugage is organising a coup d’état and Zimbabwe will be an even worse police state than it was 24 hours ago. — Richard Frame

At least five times this week I have read that in the early years of his presidency, Mugabe provided the best educational facilities, denied Zimbabweans under the Smith regime.

Not true. Credit must first go to various missionary bodies, one of which brought Garfield Todd to Rhodesia. A teacher, Todd also built a clinic.

Todd then went into politics and became prime minister. During the era of federation he tried hard to get Rhodesia moving in a more progressive direction.

This included doubling the primary schools for blacks and providing additional assistance to mission-run schools to enable them to expand.

The system was already in place when Ian Smith’s Rhodesian Front came to power. The Front, in its propaganda, would brag hypocritically that it provided more schools for blacks than any other sub-Saharan African country, when it had built hardly any.

Mugabe’s contribution was to destroy schooling during his guerrilla campaign in the Seventies, when anyone who would not support Zanu was attacked and children were kidnapped wholesale and marched into Mozambique for indoctrination and training.

Mugabe spent a lot of money getting things up and running again. But should he get the credit for restoring what his own movement destroyed? — Ron McGregor, Mowbray, Cape Town

Facts omitted

”Fury over unspent millions” (March 28), omits key facts.

It is true that universities administer funds on behalf of the National Students’ Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS). But they are obliged to work within the boundaries set by the scheme.

It is perhaps time for the NSFAS to review its allocation formula to avoid the returning of funds by universities.

Higher Education South Africa (including Wits) strongly recommended this in a report on tuition fees submitted to the education ministry in February.

The same NSFAS rules are strictly applied to all students at Wits. — Shirona Patel, Wits University

No arms-deal amnesty

The call for an arms-deal amnesty suggests a cunning plan by certain state forces to make Jacob Zuma a scapegoat.

The National Prosecuting Authority never asked President Thabo Mbeki to answer questions under oath about allegations that he met a German company which did not make it on to the contract short list, yet still got to the front of the queue.

Our former ambassador to France, Barbara Masekela, has confirmed that she remembers arranging such a meeting. For Mbeki to plead ignorance does not help ease the growing suspicion that he kept ANC leaders in the dark about essential details of the arms deal.

We cannot afford general amnesty in this situation. — Morgan Phaahla, Ekurhuleni

A tacky overview

The Mail & Guardian‘s superficial religion edition was little more than a rather tacky overview of what you can buy at which church at Easter and at what cost.

That the greatest issue in human history was treated like a casual, crass and rather asinine hobby is inexcusable.

That the newspaper did this in a climate where vigorous, informed and revolutionary debate is taking place between such colossal intellects as Karen Armstrong, Richard Dawkins, Craig Venter and Robert Winston was deeply disappointing.

I urge you to tackle this demanding issue again. But this time give it the same professional treatment you give politics, sport, finance and crime. — Llewellyn Kriel, Roodepoort

Amnesia

John Pilger portrays March 21 1960 as an event that belongs to the ANC, when it was organised by Robert Sobukwe and the PAC.

In his Rhodes address, published last week, he mentions only Nelson Mandela and Steve Biko, omitting mention of Sobukwe, who mentored Biko and was far ahead of Mandela.

Is Pilger descending into deliberate amnesia? — Sam Ditshego, Kagiso

Pityana see crises everywhere

Unisa’s Barney Pityana is too pessimistic about the new ANC national executive committee and especially Jacob Zuma.

Pityana forgets that Zuma has been placed in leadership on a mandate — if he strays, the mandate will be withdrawn.

The good professor should stop seeing crises everywhere. He should remember the Chinese ideogram for crisis, which contains two concepts — danger and opportunity.

South Africans need hope, especially from a man of the cloth like Pityana. — Ntokozo G Zungu

Pityana displayed disdain for legal procedures and justice when he indicted Zuma without respecting his right to be presumed innocent.

This was a classic case of modern Christians who judge others on the basis of the laws in heaven rather than the laws of the land.

At one time Pityana was also on President Thabo Mbeki’s case, pettily accusing him of spending most of his time out of the country and not attending Unisa events.

He was then awarded the Order of the Grand Counsellor of the Baobab and, since that time, Mbeki can do no wrong. — Muzi Ndlovu

A moving statement

Breyten Breytenbach’s latest contribution, for all its despair, is a moving statement about where we stand in South Africa. Whatever one might think of Breytenbach, his voice from exile is one of our most refined, spiritually enriched and insightful. He touches a raw nerve: our shared pain at the crumbling of Nelson Mandela’s vision; and the sadness that the failure of moral imagination has happened during Mandela’s lifetime.

Breytenbach’s call to us to explore and promote a collective moral imagination through specific actions and recognition of the dialectical relationship between the imaginary and the real, posits the simple but compelling truth that all experience (individual and collective) is constructed through memory and desire, ultimately transformed into reality by the will projecting future shapes into actions shaping the future.

Our personal dream of death and the communal dream of freedom and justice are, in fact, as Breytenbach seems to suggest, the source of the enriched moral imagination we yearn for. The questions we ought to be asking are why have we lost it and how do we regain it.

The worrying venality, corruption, greed, inner privation and criminal banality of too many influential figures in politics and business must be challenged for what it is: a betrayal of Mandela’s revelation and the African Renaissance. Breytenbach’s critique adds to the courageous voices of Pityana and Tutu and is an inspiring exhortation to collective and individual action to refine the dream and to recapture it from the impoverished and unimaginative functionaries to whom we may have too trustingly relinquished it.

Moral thinkers, men and women like Breytenbach, through articulating the collective doubt, help us imagine the actions needed to construct an emergent moral opposition and a more hopeful prospect of renewal. — John Murphy, Kenilworth, Cape Town

Rethink research

Belinda Beresford’s ‘HIV researchers starved of cash” (March 28), comes amid international debate on the need for a modification of HIV/Aids research strategies.

It is crucial to revisit our own expectations of HIV vaccine research, with due consideration for the need for a more holistic HIV prevention and treatment research agenda.

From the view of international Aids vaccine research, the disappointing results of the 2007 Merck Aids vaccine trials saw the announcement of their suspension last year because ‘the product was not efficacious”.

This has set the scene for ongoing international deliberations on the impact and future of Aids vaccine research. This is highlighted in recent reports from the Summit on HIV Vaccine Research and Development, held in Maryland on March 25 this year.

These ranged from the ‘need to return to basic vaccine research to address unanswered questions in the wake of the failure of a major Aidsvaccine trial last year” to radical calls for ‘pulling the plug on HIV vaccine research”. — Derek Hanekom, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology

In brief

”New law challenged” (April 4) implies that criticism of the Land Expropriation Bill represents rejection of land reform. We have repeatedly argued for reform to be expedited. However, this can be achieved within existing legislation. The Bill is unnecessary and draconian. — Nichola de Havilland, Centre for Constitutional Rights

Please desist from putting words into my mouth (‘Africa’s new colonialists”, April 4). It was that counter-revolutionary Zhou Enlai who, when asked what he thought of the French Revolution, replied ‘It is too early to say.” I wouldn’t have been so frivolous. — Mao Zhedong, Outraged of Beijing (Aka Jim Jones)

God is everywhere and doesn’t mind mixing sports and religion (‘God at the goal posts”, March 20). Kaka’s ‘I belong to Jesus” T-shirt may shock, but is an expression of the Christian faith. — Robert de Neef, Howick

How will Eskom baseline electricity consumption to determine whether consumers have met the 10% saving target? Some people, concerned that the previous month’s figures will be used, have started leaving their geysers on to raise baseline usage. Could Eskom please clarify? — Justin Walsh, Milnerton

Re Chris Chatteris’s gibberish (Letters, April 4). GK Chesterton (an entertaining but deluded writer) should have said that if people believed in God they’d believe anything. — Kevin Holland, Westville