Home affairs and the psyche of identity

Reading the harrowing IOL article about a 24 year old woman who was driven to suicide because of an ID book delay reminded me of Athol Fugard's Sizwe Banzi is dead, an excellent play I went to see last year at the Baxter theatre. Written 30 or so years ago, starring Winston Ntshona and John Kani, the play deals with issues around identity and the ramifications of the lack of it to the psyche. Set in the apartheid pass-law hey-days, a man unable to get a job due to not having a pass, ends up assuming the identity of a dead person in order to survive.

I am sure for many, the article could also have also reminded them of the story about the 21 year old Kabelo Thibedi who held a Home affairs department ransom with a toy gun in November 2005 demanding the details of his ID to be corrected, after having waited for an initial issue for a number of years, and having struggled for 3 years to have the details corrected. The frustrated Kabelo Thibedi had lost academic and job opportunities due to not having an ID. The 24 year old woman who had similar frustrations as Kabelo wrote in an emotional suicide note: "I am going to rest with my father, where I will not be asked for my ID".

While we are sometimes sympathetic to Home Affairs given the the legacy that they inherited post-1994, the reality that it still takes so long for many people to get their identity documents so that they can find jobs and other opportunities remain disturbing. An ID is both a legal token of citizenship and identity in South Africa, these two cases demonstrate a torrent of frustration in the psyche of thousands of bona-fides whose citizenship and identity is not acknowledged due to inefficiency, lack of competence and corruption.

With the capable Mavuso Msimang as the new Director-General of Home affairs and the newly appointed turnaround action team headed by Kevin Wakeford to fast-track addressing the bureaucratic inefficiencies and curb corruption, one can only hope it will be easier to legally obtain citizenship that to buy it; and that hostage or suicides cases and other humiliations that are attributed to issues outside the immediate periphery of legal identity will become things of the past. Hopefully sooner than later!

Solidarity.

Ousmane Sembène: A personal appreciation

About two weeks or so ago, I went to the local second-hand book shop and picked up a few excellent books by African scholars with themes ranging from the post-independence discourse (Marechera) , the feminist bloc (Emecheta's Joys of Motherhood) to the Marxist challenge (Ousmane Sembène's God's Bits of Wood) and a few plays by Athol Fugard.

From the collection, Ousmane Sembène's epic novel God's Bits of Wood caught my attention and I have been reading it ever since. In God's Bits of Wood, the writer 'factionally' evinces the historic 1947 to 1948 railroad strike that took place in Senegal, the longest strike ever in the world in those times. Sembène, a Marxist thinker, was living in France before the stike, he went back to Senegal to join the railroad strikers in solidarity.

Sembène was born in the South of Senegal in 1923. He was highly acclaimed as a poet, short-story writer, novelist, essayist and later as a film maker. His well-researched work was centered around political and aesthetic debates around post-war decolonization & independence of West Africa and the shortcomings of modern African governments. He also explored the ironic contrasts between 'modern culture' and tradition.

Ever since I got hold of his book, I have been preoccupied with his work and have been doing some research around the 1947 railway strike. I was actually hoping to write do a posting contrasting the railway strike and the current public sector strike. It was with a heavy heart that I learnt this afternoon that he passed away after a long illness at the age of 84 on the 9th of June, just a few days ago.

With more than 8 films, 9 novels and countless essays and short stories, one can take solace from the legacy of his important contribution to post-colonial and modern debates in Francophone Africa.

Solidarity.

Propaganda: Does it thrive only on rhetoric?

South Africans are a very lyrical people. I am always amazed how we catch on very easily to certain phrases. I remember how after Shabir Shaik was convicted, the media got on with the phrase "Generally corrupt" like a squatter camp shack on fire. The phrase was big,it was used in a variety of contexts in bars, stokvels and other social gatherings. After a good weekend for an example, if someone would ask me how my weekend was, the reply would typically be "Generally corrupt", the query would have be adequately responded to.

Of perculiar concern, phrases currently doing the rounds are: The succession battle or The battle of the Soul of the ANC or The Polokwane conference or The presidential race. Our media has milked these out so much so that I get sick whenever I hear them. They frequently make headlines and advertisement billboards.

What really irks me about the articles that bear the above phrases in their headlines is that they are neither informative nor thoroughly researched and the format is consistent amongst most newspapers, to a point where I am beginning to suspect they are all written by the same person.

The format is simple: Get a a few potential ANC presidential candidates, write a bit about each candidate's profile, do a speculative discussion on a candidate's attributes on economic policy, leadership, support base and relations with the so called 'Left'. A superficial ranking on a candidate's chances is then made. There you have it, done! It works, It sells!

It is irrefutable that the ANC "succession race" or " the battle of the soul of the ANC" is an interesting topic for readers, what baffles me though is whether there is still interest in these stale articles. Could it be that the readers are just always hoping to get something different and new? I really think the whole ANC succession obsession is suppressing real debates.

Gatvol.

A bit harsh....

I ran into this piece rage a few weeks ago at the bathroom at Carnival Court (a bar & backpackers joint) on Long Street. I did not find it a corrective measure to discipline a typical five year old delinquent. A bit too harsh I thought.

Solidarity.