Clive Simpkins

Time for African 'tradition' to join the 21st Century

I feel like an inverse Rip van Winkel. Fall asleep and you wake up not in the future, but in the superstitious, ill-informed past. Go read the Mail and Guardian article on 'Zulu culture' virginity-testing (for females and males) and you'll probably feel as I do.

The hymen in young females can be broken via exercise or in a number of other [non-sexual] ways. So the fact that it's not fully intact doesn't necessarily mean that the young woman concerned ain't a virgin.

As for the young guys - dear God - piss in an arc and you're declared a 'virgin'? When are these ludicrous facets of 'African culture' going to disappear? They're an embarrassment not only to the practitioners but an even greater one to the people who, because they 'fail' this absurd, illogical and unscientific psuedo-test, are discriminated against and shunned by their very own.

As a footnote, telling us that the woman parting the labia on an endless stream of young women, 'wears latex gloves' doesn't mean much, if she doesn't change them for every examination - which she sure as hell doesn't. So she's potentially a vehicle for transmitting STD's, herpes and who knows, maybe even HIV, if she's coming into contact with mucous membranes.

Africa is its own worst enemy for allowing twaddle like this to be perpetuated - and thus perpetuate the stereotypes about the ignorance and superstition prevailing on our beloved and benighted continent.

Evolution and progress are the keywords...science people, science!!!

Government securocrats never change...

Right. So Benazir Bhutto banged her head on the sunroof handle of her bulletproof 4x4 so hard, that she fractured her own skull and died. Why Pervez Musharraf's Pakistan junta needs to find a kosher alternative to assassination is VERY telling. If you aren't involved, why the need to find an 'excuse' alternative for her death? Telling, wot?

It's eerily reminsicent of the dunderheads at John Vorster Square [the notorious security police HQ in downtown Johannesburg], when Ahmed Timol and numerous others 'jumped, 'fell' or 'slipped from' a 10th floor window to their deaths, or otherwise died in police detention. Astonishing slips those - skid on floor, rise upward and through window. Sounds just like the sunroof handle story. The more things change the more they remain the same. So long we have politicians and their ego machinery, we'll have corruption - regardless of the country.

www.imbizo.com

Masetlha-gate screws beginning to turn on Mbeki

[Thabo] Mbeki must account to Luthuli House is the headline in the print media. The person behind the statement is President Thabo Mbeki's erstwhile spy-boss, Billy Masetlha [pictured - can't find a decent res one]. Basically saying that if Mbeki et al don't 'toe the line' on ANC policy, they can be 'recalled'. i.e. The ANC NEC decides what governmental role they play.

What I find even more interesting though is the veiled threat from some of the newly-elected ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) members. Quote from Business Day article on the topic, 28th December 2007: " They did not want a situation such as that in Zambia, where an outgoing president [Chiluba] found himself on the wrong side of the law because political scores were being settled after the ruling party underwent a change in guard." Embedded in that, is the implication that there is dirt to be dished on Thabo Mbeki. The threat is subtle but quite explicit. Kinda, 'Toe the line or we'll start blabbing later and utterly ruin what's left of your legacy." Interesting.
www.imbizo.com

United States permits electric shock treatment for wayward kids

If you needed any proof beyond the consistent idiocy of George W. Bush, that the USA has totally lost the plot, this is it. Go read the New York Times article on the topic. I checked the date quickly, in case it was April the 1st. It isn't. It's Christmas day. They should change the lyrics from 'God Bless America' to 'God save America.'

Someone in their notoriously litigious society should take this up as a Human Rights or Constitutional issue. Shades of Belsen-Buchenwald or Auschwitz here.

A peaceful, safe and restorative Christmas and holiday season to you!

I had the gift of spending time in Assisi many years back. The tomb of St. Francis, where his relics are kept, is in a crypt below the basilica. The reliquary is located in the central portion, above the two grilles in the picture.

The atmosphere of peace and spiritual stillness in the crypt is something very special. I pray that you'll find some of that peace this year end.

Zumanomics: a market-indicator T-shirt?

I just love it when serendipity drops a Zapiro moment into one's lap. Looking at this pic of Jacob Zuma's wife number one, Sizakele, you'll notice that if she leans to the right (as she has in the pic) Zuma goes from 100% Zulu Boy to just 10%. Can that be why the new ANC NEC has distinctly left-leaning tendencies?

If the percentage fluctuation is reflective of market-indicators or sentiment, does that make it a 'smart' shirt?

By all accounts, by the way, Ma Khumalo, as she's known, is a real sweetie. She's the Matriarch at Nkandla, Zuma's KZN home-base. Maybe she'll become the unpretentious Barbara Bush of State House some day.

Mazeltov to Msholozi's speech team!

A+ for the superb content in Zuma’s conference closing speech. A masterful effort by all involved in the crafting of it.

Inclusive, highly conciliatory and addressed all the main concerns.(Well maybe not that darned NPA issue, but let's not rain on the parade, right?) Bravo!

Zuma's brolly says it all

Don't you just love the pic? Not just a bumbleshoot (brolly for the non-cognoscenti), but a PRINGLE brolly! Is this a portent of the labels and things to come?

I 'borrowed' the shot from the Mail & Guardian online's website.

Goodbye to the Tsar and other thoughts

It’s been described as a ‘triumph for democracy’ within the ANC. One from which the people of Zimbabwe might have learned. A leader who got beyond his mandate and was reigned in and humiliated by his own people. The Romanov of South Africa. Deluded by the Rasputin of his own thinking.

Mercifully, in Thabo Mbeki’s case, he got to shuffle off stage, but with nary a shred of dignity intact. I feel sorry for Mbeki, but it’s a warning to cerebral people not to misread, or worse, ignore, the sentiment, of the visceral masses. Thank goodness, however, for Kgalema Motlanthe in the new ANC deputy president slot. Some hope left, yet...

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did. The finale to the top-six voting at the ANC’s 52^nd national conference at Polokwane was a debacle of note. Whoever Dren Nupen is (Google doesn't know), she ain’t no mistress of ceremonies, results announcer or public speaker and should be banned for life from ever approaching a microphone again. Didn’t she and the dolts who unleashed her in public realise that you can’t have ‘whispered’ conversations in front of a bank of live microphones? Learning to pronounce African names correctly would also have been helpful. Having the results projected live and in an orderly fashion on large screens, even better.

The entire executive team results announcement reminded me of a nursery school concert, such was the chaos and ineptitude. It had clearly not been thought through, or the sequence discussed. Extemporaneous 'rehearsals in public' seemed to be the chosen path. Did Ms. Nupen really expect to announce Jacob Zuma as the new president of the ANC and have his vocal supporters sit politely through her subsequent confusing and repetitive announcements? She was reminiscent of a colonial school mistress trying to bring the native children to order. What an embarrassment. I had no idea something could actually be so bad.

It was also appalling, that for whatever bizarre reason, only the SABC TV feed was permitted (for we locals) from the conference. Camera-men 'pulling focus' on the crowd as if in a training session for camera zoom function. Was that a money-making racket, or yet another visionary brainstorm from the law unto himself, Thabo’s man, known as Dali Mpofu? With a bit of luck he might be replaced by a Zuma-ite in his position as CEO mouthpiece for the government at SABC.

Now we wait for the results of nominations to serve on the NEC (National Executive Committee) of the ANC. The numbers have been seriously bumped up, so this body will become even more ponderous and unwieldy. That doesn’t augur well for enhanced efficiency or slick implementation.

PR people, event organizers and political parties will be able to use footage from this amateur fiasco in Polokwane, as a magnificent reality TV example, of how never to do things in the future. An expensive documentary and training video, for its estimated R 30 million price tag. But in entertainment value, better than Spielberg.

What can the ANC learn from Polokwane?

There are numerous  tough lessons to be taken from the ANC’s 52^nd national conference at Polokwane. Someone – present ANC Secretary General, Kgalema Motlanthe perhaps? – needs to ensure that they don’t go to waste. If I were in charge of ANC strategy development and tactical implementation, here are just a few of the items I’d focus on:

1) Level the playing fields for future such events. If you turn away delegates and voters because of flaws in their branch procedural or nomination processes, then apply the same yardstick to that desperately lacking in emotional intelligence contingent, the ANC ‘Youth’ (mega misnomer) League. How shocking to read in the Mail & Guardian Online today: “The national leadership (of the ANCYL) has extended its term of office beyond the three years stipulated in the Constitution, while the (ANCYL) national conference is overdue. In the Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and Western Cape, there are no elected provincial executive committees for the Youth League.” Neatly captured in ANC Secretary General, Kgalema Motlanthe’s phrase: “The league’s actions sometimes create the perception that it is not quite amenable to the organisational discipline of the ANC.”

2) Take the leadership (wrong word I know) of the ANCYL through some sort of social skills, grooming, dress, deportment and etiquette (i.e. common good manners) process. Harking back to the late Peter Mokaba they’ve been (literally) bloated, over-age motor mouths. Example, the epitome of drama and crassness himself, ANCYL 'leader', Fikile Mbalula (pictured) recently castigating Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel for ‘being a drama queen.’ Why does the ANC not call these yapping curs to heel and manage them better? They besmirch the entire movement with their regular, overly-verbose and intemperate ranting. If you can’t control them in the playpen, ANC, God help you the day they get to the playground. (Update 19th Dec:) Mbalula now claims the ANCYL 'made' Thabo Mbeki and he was 'removed' by the youth league. 'nuff said. Time for the ANCYL to be reined in. Go read the offending Times article.

3) The ANC needs to re-look its whole (seemingly absent) awareness of reputation management. To use the words of Tony Blair’s erstwhile press officer, Alastair Campbell, ‘they’re so up their own bums’ that they have no idea what’s really happening in the world of perceptions outside of their parochial fiefdom.

4) Someone needs to outsource or take charge of the logistics for future conferences. Having media editors and journalists crouching on the floor in front of the stage due to a communications cock-up regarding eligibility for entry or not, is inexcusable. Does the ANC have any idea what this says about their ability to govern South Africa? Or how it plays in the international media – in whose eyes, their much-vaunted ANC Polokwane conference became an acronym for Absolutely Numbing Chaos? 

It's a no-brainer for any junior events organiser to have anticipated rain during voting. Some temporary covered walkways people? C'mon....the marquee-erection folk could have organised it in a trice - if you'd taken the trouble to think it through. The cringe factor surrounding the Polokwane pandemonium should not be repeated. Any corporate CEO would have had his head roll, had he fronted a debacle like this in the business world. Maybe study some video footage of how political parties in developed economies do these things - and try raise the bar a few notches the next time? As the American saying goes, 'If you want to play with the big dogs, you'd better learn to pee in the long grass!'

5) In an era of social media and the reality of the global village of communications, the ANC elite must surely realise that info about ordinary (uninvited) members swanning through the conference ‘networking' (for which read 'patronage sales and influence') area and stuffing mineral water, food and stress balls into shopping bags, speaks inappropriate volumes?

6) There’s a need for some sort of ‘global norms’ social skills grooming for many members of the ANC. I don’t give a toss that this is Africa or South Africa, or that these are predominantly black people. Some of them behave like right-royal yobs, have no manners or social sophistication and are a total embarrassment to all South Africans with even a hint of finesse. You're in the international media eye for goodness' sake.

7) Give up your outdated, romantic notion of the ‘honour’ and ‘commitment’ and all that claptrap that ANC members have historically supposedly espoused. You’re dealing with a new dispensation, in which your very vocal and ill-mannered members are re-writing the rule-book – or shredding it, as the case appears to be. If you don’t direct the modernisation and evolution of your movement, it will become a chaotic revolution of norms and mores, that will produce a totally unmanageable future outcome.

8) Try a little democracy in future. Even if your ANC national executive committee members have to kow-tow and toady at ANC functions, when they’re in national government, help them exercise their brains, assertiveness and independence of thought. So you don’t contaminate the national interest with the crack-pot ideas of the incumbent ANC president. Or have their potential competence limited by his paranoia and control-freak behaviour.

9) When your members behave badly and divisively, don't start blaming phantom 'third-force' influences. That's a careworn old saw. There's an Afrikaner proverb that sums it up beautifully: 'When you're in trouble, light a fire on your neighbour's stoep.' Learn from it.

This entire conference has been an embarassing reality-TV case-study in how not to do something of this sort. Bring on Kgalema Motlanthe - quickly. At least there’s some real intellect, gravitas and dignity in the offing. And of course, if Zuma gets in, dancing on the bonnet of a 4X4 while singing 'bring me my machine gun' will become the new social norm - so who will give a fig for any form of decorum, anyhow.