November 6 to 12 2009

Talking without coping

In ‘Coping without a vision” (October 19) Palesa Morudu reflects on her interpretation of events since the historic national convention that led to the founding of the Congress of the People (Cope). She makes valid points, but these are lost in the ANC nostalgia in which she herself wallows, and in her shallow political analysis. Cope is not ANC Lite and it is certainly not dying. It is a new party, it has a vision and it is growing. It is a pity that activists such as Morudu forget that change is about hard political work and not only catchy sound bites. Bitterness and nostalgia are no substitute for scientific analysis.

Morudu asserts that Cope was born out of the departure of disgruntled members of the ANC after the Polokwane conference. Yet Morudu knows the discussion about ‘finding a new home” began long before that among South African Communist Party (SACP) members who objected to the populist and kleptomaniac leadership of the party, among Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) members who objected to the hijacking of the trade union federation by anarcho-syndicalists who mobilised it to defend an individual, and by those in the ANC who saw the ‘Zumani” for what it is — a counter-revolution.

In the Western Cape, where Morudu was active, it was the factionalist, counter-revolutionary agenda of those in the ANC who leaked information to the Democratic Alliance and who rigged the provincial conference that led to a mass exodus from the ANC. Importantly, those involved in the discussion to form a new party were clear from day one: it had to reach out beyond the traditional support base of the liberation movement. Hence the national convention and the discussions with other opposition parties. To act as if talking to the DA, Independent Democrats (ID) or United Democratic Movement (UDM) is reactionary is to accept that the ANC is progressive.

Cope has defended the Constitution since its formation. It has challenged the ANC in Parliament and legislatures on many issues. Rehashing issues such as the list processes, so-called leadership squabbles and other chestnuts is no substitute for political debate. All new parties have leadership contests. That Cope will not ‘pronounce” on such issues does not mean members don’t have views. It means they will deal with these democratically.

On the issue of labour brokers, Morudu reveals that she is the one who is ‘ANC Lite”. First, cooperating with the DA, ID and UDM cannot be a sin if realigning South African politics is a strategic objective of Cope. Morudu’s criticism of the ANC clearly suggests that this is necessary. In the case of this policy Cope and the DA jointly drafted a position that seeks to regulate labour broking to protect workers, since the current practices of the labour department don’t ensure this. Clearly Morudu has not even read Cope’s position on labour brokers.

She proposes that Cope elects younger leaders. This presumes younger people to be more progressive, visionary and capable than those who are older. This is just another populist agenda. The difference between Morudu and Julius Malema is that the ANC Youth League leader does not dress his populism in pseudo-intellectualism. Trite statements about self-serving leaders, while simultaneously campaigning for oneself, are hardly virtuous.

Cope has established a solid political base. It has contested and won seats at national and provincial level and is winning by-elections at local level on a regular basis. Cope has a programme to build branches, launch regional and provincial structures and work towards the national elective conference. It campaigns for clean, affordable, sustainable energy for all households, against government corruption and conspicuous consumption, for decent services for all, for workers’ rights regardless of their trade union membership and to realign politics to defeat the ANC at the next elections, to mention but a few of its activities.

The fact that Morudu is not involved in these activities is obvious. As a founding Cope member she should be. Why does she have the right to sit in her armchair and issue a crass critique of Cope, pretending it passes for considered political analysis? There are many criticisms that members of Cope can make of their party, but they should do it from a collective point of view and with self-criticism. The question is not only what have others failed to do, but what has one failed to do oneself. Nothing Morudu raises cannot be addressed in Cope structures. That she is absent from these is unfortunate. Her piece in the M&G displays her own distance from the political party she professes to support. — Roscoe Palm, Cope media liaison

Come on, get Happy

As the creators of the critically acclaimed stage show, Happy Shabalala, now at the Joburg Theatre, we were astounded that some (media and audience) felt disappointed and insulted when Harry Sideropoulos transformed his face by painting it black to portray Bongani Khumalo and Sibongile Sisulu (‘The great white send-up”, Friday, October 30). Not many minded. A few did, though.

It was fascinating. They appeared to be outraged that we would take the pretence that far. They seemed to have missed the theatrical device of physically transforming Harry into those characters while they talk of transformation in South Africa. Was this device too cerebral for our commentators? This reaction is strange considering that everything around us is painted over with veneers. Let’s face it: we’re a nation that loves ideals — in theory. Marketing messages about togetherness abound. In ads people hug, service providers care, telecoms connect, banks are on your side and government delivers. But none of us buys the bollocks, do we? Come on, smile. It’s a funny mirror, too tragic for tears.

Crime and poverty persist and service delivery does not; our education system is churning out functional illiterates; our major telecoms operators hamstring us with exorbitant costs and mind-numbing inefficiencies; our banks are an informal cartel charging what they like (how can we help you help us push up our share price?) and there’s more scandal in government than in a 15-year omnibus of Egoli, Generations and Isidingo combined!

As Bongani, the gardener in the show, puts it, for him the only things freedom changed are the names — Baragwanath to Chris Hani, Jan Smuts to OR Tambo, ‘garden boy” to ‘flora-enhancement executive”.

It’s the South African way — paint it over and smile for the camera. So we could argue that painting Harry’s face is, in a very real way, endemically South African, but completely different in our context. Did we want to offend? Never. Did we want to ­portray genuine characters? Certainly. Was the black face necessary? We believe so.

Satire should dig deep, should provoke and not shy away from uncomfortable truths in the interest of political correctness. The lies, half-truths and omissions we are bombarded with daily as a nation are the real mask that should be removed –with laughter and understanding.

Come see Happy Shabalala before the paint dries. It’s free speech with funnies, not hate speech for dummies. — Strato Copteros, Charmaine Weir-Smith and Harry Sideropoulos

Gordhan doesn’t need to borrow

In the current economic predicament, government is considering borrowing vast sums (October 30), which taxpayers will have to repay with interest, incurring a heavy economic burden over many years.

But no government need ever borrow money to fund a deficit: it has the power to create money, debt-free, out of nothing. If it doesn’t, banks do, and lend it for profit, including to governments.

Anyone who understands fractional reserve banking knows that every loan creates new money, which is why interest rates are used to control inflation and why total debt closely parallels the total money supply in so-called free-market economies.

Of course, reckless money creation, Robert Mugabe-style, while destroying the real economy, generates runaway inflation. But controlled creation of debt-free money to fund effective public spending can add real value, create employment, grow the economy and defuse the time bomb of wealth disparity.

Get wise, Pravin, avoid debt slavery — you have the power to issue debt-free money for the benefit of all citizens.

This is probably the secret of China’s economic ascendancy, relative to the United States. Yet it was Abraham Lincoln who said: ‘The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of government, but is the government’s greatest creative opportunity.”

When the looming post-peak-oil global depression unfolds, we will really need debt-free money for sheer economic survival. We achieved a political miracle — let’s show the world an economic miracle, involving serious poverty reduction, funded by debt-free public money. — John Roux, development consultant, Cape Town

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s first budget (the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement; October 30) is an excellent piece of work. It oozed confidence. Yet his solution to the downturn is a three-year programme. Who can forecast so far ahead when the world is moving so fast?

My real concern is the taxes of the municipalities — rates, water, electricity. Gordhan may not increase income tax, but municipalities are going to keep increasing such ‘taxes” exorbitantly.

Income tax is collected from the rich to care for the poor, but as the government struggles with this the burden falls on to the municipalities, in particular the ratepayers. — Frank du Toit, Ballito

Blatchford’s got it twisted

I read Mathew Blatchford’s long, involved, rambling letter (‘Race to the finish”, October 30) with some irritation. The demise of Zimbabwe seems to be the fault of all sorts of people; the International Monetary Fund and structural adjustment are singled out.

It beggars belief that there are still people who will not admit the failure of the former breadbasket of Southern Africa is to do with Robert Mugabe and his cronies and their policies. Blatchford makes no mention of Mugabe’s not honouring the Lancaster House agreement, the gross human-rights abuses perpetrated by his henchmen, or the confiscation and trashing of white-owned farms, which led to swift economic collapse and starvation. Mugabe stands as the main culprit in this farce. — K Reeves, Cape Town

Blatchford entirely twists my point (‘Race as a value in itself”, October 23) that apologists for Mugabe seem prepared to overlook attacks on black Zimbabweans so long as he gives whites hell. Blatchford neatly confirms such double-think. He invents arguments I didn’t make in order to shoot down his own phantoms. I wrote that an exclusive focus on whites makes ‘unpeople” of the greater number of black Zimbabweans who have been displaced, beaten or killed. Ingeniously, Blatchford first smears me as a stooge of imperialism then quickly denigrates me as a ‘Western leftist”. Gosh. – Bryan Rostron, Cape Town

100% Zuluboy?

Khaya Buthelezi (‘Do we want a nation of coconuts?”, October 23) seems to think the world should hold him in high esteem because he’s Zulu. What drivel! Listen to this (of his son): ‘In his veins runs the blood of Ngqengelele, Shenge of the Buthelezi clan, who built the mighty Zulu nation with King Shaka —” He should inform his son that Shaka was responsible for thousands of deaths and rapes. It’s fine to spout cultural nonsense to satisfy your ‘Cultural Day” ego, but Buthelezi fails to see the irony in his effort to send his son to ‘white” school so he can speak better English. Khaya, if you care about your culture, send your son to an African school. — Victor Bokaba, Johannesburg

In brief

In ‘Inertia in Balfour” (October 30) you reported that the initiative to ‘rehabilitate” foreign shopkeepers followed the president’s visit to the town on August 4. But on July 25, when I conducted interviews in Balfour, the community had already agreed to this approach, and to do so by means of a public ceremony held in the stadium, which is exactly what happened. — Peter Alexander, director, Centre for Sociological Research, University of Johannesburg

Jacob Zuma is both the product and the promoter of rabble (Zapiro cartoon, October 30), and education diminishes the power of the rabble. He pays lip service to education while at the same time working to disarm the public, strengthen the police, nationalise the land’s resources and, of course, muzzle Zapiro and the press. This way he will lead South Africa into conformity with the traditional values of African ‘liberation” and remove our liberal-democratic Constitution. — Oliver Price, Cape Town

Dr Thavi Govender and his team of medicinal chemists, he claims, ‘understand both chemistry and biology”, and their ‘skills are in international demand” (Innovations, October 23). These statements are perhaps inflated. Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative organism of TB, is not a virus, as stated by Dr Govender, but a bacterium. — Dr Samantha Adey, Howick