African Republic of South Africa

By Prince Mashela from the Sowetan Times.

In the midst of the political confusion that has gripped our country many people are wondering if we have come to the end of South Africa.

The answer is simple: the thing called an "end" does not exist, not in relation to a country. SA will be there long after Jacob Zuma is gone.

What Zuma has done is to make us come to the realisation that ours is just another African country, not some exceptional country on the southern tip of the African continent.

During the presidency of Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, some among us used to believe that the black people of SA are better than those of other African countries.

We must all thank Zuma for revealing our true African character; that the idea of rule of law is not part of who we are, and that constitutionalism is a concept far ahead of us as a people.

How else are we to explain the thousands of people who flock to stadiums to clap hands for a president who has violated their country's constitution? Such people have no idea of constitutionalism.

Now that we have reclaimed our place as another African country, we must reflect on and come to terms with our real character, and imagine what our future portends.

In a typical African country, ordinary people don't expect much of politicians, because people get tired of repeated empty promises.

In a typical African country, people have no illusions about the unity of morality and governance. People know that those who have power have it for themselves and their friends and families.

The idea that the state is an instrument for people's development is a Western concept, and has been copied by pockets of Asian countries.

Africans and their leaders don't like to copy from the West. They are happy to remain African, and do things "the African way".

The African way is rule by kings, chiefs and indunas in a setting of unwritten rules. Is there anyone who has seen a book of African customary laws?

The idea that a commoner can raise questions about public money spent on the residence of a king is not African. The ANC MPs who have been defending Zuma are true Africans.

Asking a ruler to be accountable is a foreign - Western - idea. In a situation where there is conflict between a ruler and laws, Africans simply change the laws to protect the ruler. This is why no single white person has called for King Dalindyebo to be released from jail.

The problem with clever blacks is that they think they live in Europe,where ideas of democracy have been refined over centuries.

What we need to do is to come back to reality, and accept that ours is a typical African country. Such a return to reality will give us a fairly good idea of what SA's future might look like.....

This country will not look like Denmark. It might look like Nigeria, where anti-corruption crusaders are an oddity.
Being an African country, ours will not look like Germany. SA might look like Kenya, where tribalism drives politics.

People must not entertain the illusion that a day is coming when SA will look like the US. Our future is more on the side of Zimbabwe, where one ruler is more powerful than the rest of the population. Even if Julius Malema were to become president, it would still be the same.

African leaders don't like the idea of an educated populace, for clever people are difficult to govern. Mandela and Mbeki were themselves corrupted by Western education. (Admission: this columnist is also corrupted by such education.)

Zuma remains African. His mentality is in line with Boko Haram. He is suspicious of educated people; what he calls "clever blacks". Remember that Boko Haram means "Against Western Education".

The people who think we have come to the end of SA don't realise that we have actually come to the beginning of a real African country, away from the Western illusions of exceptionalism. Those who are unsettled by this true African character need help. The best we can do for them is to ask them to look north of the Limpopo River, to learn more about governance in Africa.

What makes most people restless about the future of SA is that they have Western models in mind, forgetting that ours is an African country.

The idea that a president can resign simply because a court of law has delivered an adverse judgment is Western. Only the Prime Minister of
Iceland does that; African rulers will never do that.

Analysed carefully, the notion of SA coming to an "end" is an expression of a Western value system - of accountability, political morality, reason, and so on.

All these are lofty ideas of Socrates,Kant, Hegel, and so on. They are not African.

All of us must thank Jacob Zuma for introducing us to the real African Republic of South Africa, not some outpost of European values.

Vote local

The vote has come and gone and now they are trying to build coalitions (without having to compromise), but these were my thoughts then.

I was so thankful when we voted on the 3 August because it was getting to a point where we couldn’t bear to watch another politician slinging mud, not listen to another false promise, not look at another poster with an insincere smile.

So the morning started with our neighbourhood vuvuzela blower calling us to vote at 6:00, just as the birds were starting to chirp and the dogs went out to pee. He blows that vuvuzela often but never this early, usually it’s late afternoon or before a soccer match. I have pulled out my vuvuzela from time to time to converse with him. He often sounded so lonely, like a Black-collared Barbet trilling uninterrupted all day and getting no reply.

Then Helen phoned me. I thought Mmusi Maimane was the DA leader, so why on earth would Helen be phoning me. Although I must admit I did not let her finish her recorded message, for all I know she wasn’t even canvassing for votes but trying to sell insurance.

Soon after I received an SMS from both the ANC and the DA. Another thing that had been driving me crazy during the election period, the constant SMSes with no stop option. STOP.
So the queue at the voting station seemed long but I had only got to page 3 in my book before I had to pluck my ID out of my handbag. 15 minutes from the back of the line to back in my car.
Last time it had taken two hours so now I had the rest of the day off. Yay! I bought jeans, plants and had a nap.

As I was driving to the nursery they were discussing, on the radio, whether families all voted for the same party, was there this shared loyalty etc. Whoa, the calls were so entertaining. The one girl had proudly put on her DA t-shirt and her mother told her to take it off, she can’t go out dressed like that. Another woman phoned in to say that her and her husband have never discussed politics in all the years they were married, I think she said 37 years, I can’t remember the exact figure. It reminded me of the time I went to lunch with a friend and before the bill even arrived we were no longer friends. She was screaming at me eventually because I was too thick to realise things were better before. For whom, I asked. Politics, dis ‘n lelike ding. A hateful email received and a hateful email sent. Then the end. I have seen her once since, in Woolworths, I pretended I hadn’t and she probably did the same.

Anyway, back to the present. So the next day you would have thought we had the IEC as a client at the agency because every screen was open on that map tracking the vote. Some of my colleagues were more enthusiastic with this process than I have ever seem them. Let see some of that on the next project please.

They interviewed a professor from Unisa days later, after the official results, and he said yes, the writing was on the wall for the ANC. Another statement he made that provided food for thought was that history has shown that liberation parties don’t survive. And why is that?

The local elections are behind us now and they were pretty intense. I wonder whether the next national elections will surprise. Wait and see.

EISH!

A colleague of mine designed these t-shirts and had them printed. Watch out next week for the other one (black on white t-shirt).

Rationale:

The word EISH is an African slang word used in South African English and Afrikaans to express exasperation or disbelief. The word was first transliterated from the Xhosa language to Afrikaans, and then into South African English. Eish (aysh) - Used to express frustration or outrage.

I used the word EISH! as the main design element, to portray the outrage and shock people feel when a rhino is slaughtered for its horn. The red exclamation mark, depicts the severity of the act and the blood shed every time a rhino is poached. I used black and white in the design to tie back to the ‘black’ and ‘white’ rhino.

Both black and white rhinos are used on the design, the rhinos enter and exits the word ‘EISH”, when they exit the rhinos becomes smaller and diminishes in numbers until there is only one left, this is to show that our rhino numbers as reducing at an alarming rate and that if there is not a drastic turn in events they may become extinct.