Mzansi Afrika

The ethics of inter-racial adoption

Here in South Africa where we have so many Aids orphans and vulnerable children you get cases of white families that adopt black children. It's not common practice, but it's not unusual either anymore to see white parents with a black child or children. White lesbian couples, also adopt black children.

I sometimes wonder if inter-racial adoption is a good thing or not, I have certain reservations, but ultimately I do think it's a good thing. In South Africa there is not a strong culture of adoption among black families - this is something that child welfare organisations have been trying to change. So if people are willing to adopt, it is more than likely going to be a white family. Sometimes they adopt because they can't have their own children, but it's just as common to have white people who already have their own children to adopt a black orphan.

The main reservation I have about inter-racial adoption is that due to circumstances the black children that are adopted end up losing all contact with their own culture and heritage, they speak English and are unable to speak any African languages. I think this must be pretty hard to deal with growing up, and I'm sure that it would affect your sense of identity, and self-image and lead to a lot of painful questioning and soul searching.

On the other hand there's a part of me that feels it has to be better to lose your culture, but gain a loving family,  a degree of material comfort, stability and an education. Surely in this regard, it's better to have love and security and lose your black African culture and language. I don't know what the answers are, ideally it would be great if you could still have both - and are able to educate the child to speak their own language - maybe in school, or by a private tutor (and take lessons yourself). But even so, they wouldn't really be part of their culture. Unfortunately, the reality in South Africa means that it usually ends up being an either/or situation, and black adopted children end up not being able to speak their own languages.

Somehow though, growing up in a difficult family situation myself, I can't help feeling that love and security wins the day. If you grow up with love and stability, you have a better of chance of gaining the tools to deal with cultural alienation. The alternative is to grow up with nothing at all, no love, no education and a life of poverty.

Charlize, Kanye and GLAAD

Actress Charlize Theron has been honoured for increasing "visibility and understanding" in the gay community. The star was presented with the Vanguard Award at the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation's (GLAAD) annual media awards in Los Angeles [Source].

Sisters Talk wonders why the award didn't go to Kanye West, fair question to which I have no response. I do not know the criteria used by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation in choosing who the prize goes to. Theron said on television that she "would not wed boyfriend Stuart Townsend until gay marriage is legally recognised in the US." West says that "hip-hop was always about 'speaking your mind and about breaking down barriers, but everyone in hip-hop discriminates against gay people. Not just hip-hop, but America just discriminates'."

Music in the blood (Part 2)

This is the continuation of a previous post which began, "I've often heard, as I'm sure you have, that black people have 'music in their blood.' The idea is that they sing more often, sing better, listen to music more often, and jive better. The inevitable question arises, they do these things more often, and better, than who? If it is indeed the case, how and why is it so? And while we're at it, exactly what kind of music are we talking about? Does the saying hold true with reference to both hard-metal rock and hip-hop?" 

Naturally, the environment becomes a communal and family-inspired teacher. The United States Census Bureau tells us that there are 211,460,626 Americans of European origin and 34,658,190 Americans of African origin. A rough round-up yields 212 million European-Americans and 35 million African-Americans, or one black person for every six white people. But look at most general music charts of any period, and the ratio turns on its head. There are about 6 black artists to 1 white artist. Remain convinced with me, however, that what these statistics teach us is only that black people "do" more music than their white counterparts. The same is true for basketball, which African-Americans have in their blood, too. On the other hand, who couldn't say as much for ice-skating, or golf, or cricket, or classical music, all of which are "done" more by white folks? We can go ahead and coin it: white people have skiing in their blood. Given what we've been saying, nothing would be more normal. 

Another lesson we learn from this is that colour is more important than we dare admit. Our customs and mores   actually depend on colour, and there are few exceptions to the rule. At my alma mater, in America's deep south, each weekend party was dee-jayed by black students. They played dance music, funk and pre-modern rap material, as well as classic soul. One day some white students went to the Dean and complained that they wanted to dee-jay half the time, to play music that made them dance. The Dean acquiesced and and those students got to play rock. But one wonders why black students were the "logical" choice for dee-jays in the first place. I must add that they were also more natural, communicating with the throng and having a better feel for its mood (Everybody say ho! ho! All the ladies in the house say Oooow! Now somebody screeeeeam!). They sometimes reminded me of the African teaser-response style of singing.

They were more natural as dee-jays because it was something they'd done or seen done often. Practice makes perfect. They were in their element as much as anyone else doing what they control would be, as comfortable as inhabitants of the Appalachians square dancing. The varsity dee-jays happened to be black because in America colour tells us who we are. Central to that student confrontation was colour. In the long run, the kind of music one inherently prefers to dance to mattered but little.

Conventional wisdom holds that black folks originated many of the following, and there's no grounds to doubt that. For reasons that are slowly becoming evident as we advance, black people are, indeed, prolific when it comes to music. But so are white people, when life calls for it. Look at number four below to see what I mean. I've dug up a reference where possible, and of course these are in no particular order.   

   
1. Blues, Jazz and Gospel. "From blues music came great artists, such as Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy, Bessie Smith, and others. But the blues might never have been created if it had not been for the influence of hollers, calls, and the changes that occurred in the lives of blacks. The evolution of the blues provides insight into the changes that took place in the lives of African Americans after slavery ended [Source]."   
2. R&B, Rock & Roll, Reggae and others. Apparently the "first rock and roll record, Ike Turner's Rocket 88, [was] released" in 1951, three years after "John Lee Hooker [recorded] Boogie Chillen' for Modern Records, a single, which topped the R&B charts," and a year before Little Richard's first record was released [Source].       
3. Break-dancing, hip-hop, rap and their derivatives (eg beat-matching, turntablism, dee-jaying, and South Africa's own Kwaito). "The roots of hip-hop music are in West-African and African-American music. Discussion of the roots of hip-hop (and rap) must mention the contributions of griots The Last Poets and Jalal Mansur Nuriddin, whose jazzy and poetic 'spiels' commented on 1960's culture. Hip-hop arose during the 1970s when block parties became common in New York City, especially in the Bronx. Block parties were usually accompanied by music, especially funk and soul music [Source]."       
4. Country and Western Music. "Country music has its beginnings in music styles brought over by the first European settlers. In medieval times, storytelling was a tradition that allowed history to be recorded when few were able to read and write. When the first British settlers came to America, they brought this tradition with them, along with songs they had learned in Europe. The people who settled in the Appalachian mountains and the West did not have an easy life and their music gave them an outlet to express their hardships [Source]." 

Why were the above-mentioned black students the "logical" choice for dee-jays? The answer is simple. Because that's what they're good at, and everybody knows that. If you were shown a photo of a black dee-jay and another of a white dee-jay, you already think you know what kind of music they'd play, don't you? A university bash is an event where students get together to drink and dance and have fun. They want to hear "Now somebody screeeeam!" to the background of a warm, thumping guitar string, a mature rhythm, berserk dancing, the whole culture of dance and hip-hop and using music to do what a bash is all about in the first place: having a ball. I realise that a lot of this has to do with packaging. Many of us buy Coke® more for the prestige that goes with its image, it's renown, its packaging, than for its taste. In other words, Coke® sells more than Pepsi®. Yet in blind taste tests Pepsi® beats its opponent flat out. But if you remember, when the latter was working on its image of a new generation, the gap was narrower.

Music in the blood (Part 1)

I've often heard, as I'm sure you have, that black people have "music in their blood." The idea is that they sing more often, sing better, listen to music more often, and jive better. The natural question arises, they do these things more often, and better, than who? If it is indeed the case, how and why is it so? And while we're at it, exactly what kind of music are we talking about? Does the saying hold true with reference to both hard-metal rock and hip-hop?

Mind you, I'm not interested in whether or not non-black people can or cannot sing and dance. I'm interested in finding out whether black people can, and if so, why? After all, the saying does refer to black people having music in their blood. So what conditions would favour such an ability? If non-blacks underwent the same conditions, could they too sing and dance (well)? In reality, do such conditions exist more for blacks and less for non-blacks?

The Center for Music Therapy Philosophy says that, "Music influences human behavior by affecting the brain and subsequently other bodily structures in ways that are observable, identifiable, measurable, and predictable, thereby providing the necessary foundation for therapeutic applications [Source]." For instance we know that

   
1. In South Africa, black people sing and dance at (politically sensitive) funerals. You may have actually witnessed this on the telly, whenever a prominent South African politician is laid to rest (Steve Biko, for example). But they also belt out songs at political rallies, using the question and response style in which the lead singer sings a teaser, and the rest grab it. If you've ever listened to Ladysmith Black Mambazo you know the style I'm referring to;
   
2. In southern Africa and elsewhere, workers sing or chant to coordinate effort and thus improve the yield. I was about twelve or so when I attended my first letsema (or communal labour), which means people helping each other out to get the job done faster. A house to build? The community pitches in. Harvest in? The community comes over to help. You provide the food and the beer. My first letsema concerned threshing sorghum. All the men, each with a knob-kerrie, gathered round the harvest. Chanting and singing in unison, we raised our knob-kerries to the rhythm of the chant and brought them crashing onto the plants, before raising them again to carry out the movement anew;
   
3. Musicians played an important role as griots and historians in 10th-20th century kingdoms in different parts of Africa. In Lesotho that job belongs more to poets than to anybody else. But of course there's a lot of music in poetry. The performer may or may not scribble reminders (dates, order of events, names, etc) somewhere on their hand. They use the same poetic techniques as other poets: alliteration, consonance, stress, intonation and rhyme, and may go on for quite some time, praising a warrior, a king, a clan or themselves;
   
4. In southern Africa, shepherds sometimes use flutes and other musical instruments to control the movement of cattle. I was a shepherd once, and I remain grateful for it. I learned how to stick-fight, for one, and I learned what wild roots to eat. Stick-fighting (lekallo) involves a lot of moves that are tantamount to dancing, as the fighters circle each other, or thrust stylishly, or block in a certain, imposing way. To see what I mean, think of the dance moves inherent in capoeira, or even in bull-fighting. Herd-people also play very simple musical instruments, like the lekolulo (Sotho flute), composed of a stick, a cord and a reed;
   
5. An African's life span is marked with musical events, from lullabies through play songs, initiation rite songs, weddings, to funerals. Every wedding in Lesotho sees two competing choirs, one from each of the partner's village. They actually wear distinguishing uniforms and just raise hell and dust to sing the other side down. [Some of the above comes from MSN Encarta]
 

Music, then, is serious matter in Africa. By extension, it is also serious matter to African-Americans, whose fore-parents brought it over as slaves, and maintained enough of it for future generations to "have it in their blood." In her 1899 article called The Survival of African Music in America, Jeanette Murphy says that

During my childhood my observations were centered upon a few very old negroes who came directly from Africa, and upon many others whose parents were African born, and I early came to the conclusion, based upon negro authority, that the greater part of the music, their methods, their scale, their type of thought, their dancing, their patting of feet, their clapping of hands, their grimaces and pantomime, and their gross superstitions came straight from Africa [Source]."

This is as far as I could get for now. I will continue to explore the question in parts 2 and 3 of this post, which will probably be less than a week apart (my fingers and my toes are crossed). There are many more angles to consider than I could have ever imagined. I'll try to dig into as many of them as I can.

Minority Report

"A group of people who differ racially or politically from a larger group of which it is a part." That's this Princeton definition of the word "minority." Blacks and Hispanics in the United States of America, Boers living in Lesotho, homosexuals the world over, and Pakistanis in England all fit the definition. I live in France where I am part of a racial minority population. The opposite of minority is, of course, majority.

The mathematical majority doesn't always add up to power and control -- it's not a given. Look at South Africa up to eleven years ago. In that country, a mathematical minority sat on a mathematical majority for the longest time.
Traditional Kenyan DressLook at Rwanda. And look at Lesotho, where a political minority sat on a political majority through the power of the gun, for more than two decades. The white settler was a mathematical (and arguably political) minority in North America; faced with the red majority, he whipped out his technological superiority and used it to subdue that menace.

Another trait a majority doesn't necessarily possess is rightness. Numbers do not make right, nor does might, despite the popular adage. Many-a-crime has been committed from behind the mask of superior numbers. The flock-effect is strong and wins often, so that we tend to follow the behaviour of the group and most everything else: fashion, speech, music preferences, you name it, favouring the illusion that numbers make right. In France if you veer from the customary path you're admonished with a terse, "Ca se fait pas!" Or we don't do that!. To which I like to retort, "Who says?" The majority says, of course, though my interlocutor is always too stunned by the retort to reply.

If you're part of a minority and you're lucky enough, your group will neither be despised nor venerated. Politicians will then bring up the subject of integration, especially where talk is of immigrants. Is integration really feasible? Probably. Is it really desirable? Probably not. Black folks have not integrated into America, as that country is represented by its cultural majority.

Continental WearNot that they were that welcome. They went off and lived in a parallel culture of their own (thank God). White folks (a mathematical minority) haven't integrated into South Africa either, as that land is represented by its cultural majority. Why should they? I say when in Rome don't do as the Romans do; keep the diversity alive. My own personal culture and language are on their way to extinction. I wish I was writing these words to you in Sesotho, not in English. Note that white South Africans were actually the political majority since they had power, were dominant and had total control of their lives.

I think immigrants in Europe and the USA, or elsewhere, should not feel pressed by any circumstance to melt into the mores they find in the new country upon arrival. Their own ways are certainly not "less" than those of their new country. By the same token, immigrants, workers, Peace Corps volunteers and other entrepreneurs in Developing countries can all wear what they please, should eat the food of their choice, and should worship in the church, synagogue or mosque of their choice. Minority has never meant conquered. If it's decent and not disrespectful, why shouldn't one be allowed to do it? I'm not suggesting that a woman of African descent living in Europe should go to work wearing Kenyan traditional clothes; I'm suggesting that she may go to work wearing continentally styled African clothes.

Petty discrimination

A man of European descent jay-walks across the street at the wrong time. You swerve at the last instant and miss him by half an inch. "Son of a bitch!" you yell. A man of Far Eastern descent jay-walks across the street at the wrong time. You swerve at the last instant and miss him by half an inch. "Fucking Chink!" you yell. Spot the difference. Many people refer to this kind of thing as petty discrimination. I call it real discrimination.

Your reaction to both incidents is not really conscious, but comes from the uncalculated depth within. It is what Malcolm Gladwell calls rapid cognition, or thinking without thinking. It is independent of thought and of analysis, and therefore is untainted; unless of course we go back far enough to see why you react in that particular way. But for all intents and purposes it is the real-deal-feeling of the yeller. I contend that what would be appropriate would be yelling, "Son of a bitch!" at both trespassers, or yelling "Fucking Chink!" to one and "Fucking Honky!" to the other.

Sometimes as I walk down the street, handbags get switched from the side (left or right) near which I'll pass the switcher. Other times, car doors get locked when I cross the street at a pedestrian crossing, usually somewhere near twilight. I'm black, if you didn't know. This kind of stuff happened to me more in America than anywhere else. But it isn't all that uncommon in Europe. And South Africa -- does this happen at all to black, white or coloured folks in South Africa?

And is it right to refer to the practice as "petty"? I think not. It is more degrading than being picked up by the former SAP for not having a Pass (which I was, though I wasn't South African. My skin colour qualified me). Why more degrading? You at least expect the latter to happen, and can put up some sort of armour beforehand; the former sneaks up on you as you mosey about like a free person in a free country. Bam! I don't call that petty; I call it ugly.

Ugly discrimination is also the begging caucasian woman in Bloemfontein, Orange free State, who refused my coins; the negroid man in Knoxville, Tennessee, who said to me, "You've lost your way, brother," solely because I was lunching with my caucasian wife. Discrimination is loose in our midst and out on the street. There's racial discrimination, gender discrimination, religious discrimination and I don't have enough space to list them all. Are any of them petty? Petty means "small and of little importance." But this particular behaviour is huge, and it is destroying the world. So next time you hear someone say, "petty discrimination," tell them how wrong they are.

Afmalesy

I have not yet identified the source of the strain in African leaders that makes them go awry, that makes them want to hang onto the reins of power despite evidence that they should not do so. This is often at the expense of their country and their country-people. I do not intend, however, to dedicate such behaviour only to African men, first because other continents have known the same fate, albeit to a much lesser degree, and secondly because African leaders have exclusively been men. Who knows how African women leaders would have turned out?

Here's a quick exercise to do right this minute. Get an atlas. We'll wait for you.

One theory I back is that the African family structure has seeped into politics. At home, the father is all powerful, and his word is carved in stone. The mother and the children are his subjects, literally. Let me quickly point out here that I in no way intend to dedicate this pathology to black, African male leaders only. The Afrikaner has it, too, although not of the same origin. His is tinted with religious overtures, whereas the black African male's has a traditional bent. But, indeed, the woman is treated not in a better way by the Afrikaner, and that fact shows in the way he handles politics.

Got that atlas now? Ok, open it to a political map of Africa. Shut your eyes. Place a finger on the map and move it about for the sake of randomness. Now, open your eyes. Your finger will rarely fall on a country that has not known the African Male Leader Syndrome. Call it AFMALESY for short, and for the fact that it sounds like the disease that it is. Alternatively, do this other exercise: listen to African news on the radio, as I did this morning. What do you hear? So what do you think gives?

Another theory is based on the fact that to date, African leaders have largely been freedom fighters. Put "freedom" in inverted commas for some of those. The result is that you end up with all these heads of government whose main skill is toting a machine-gun and rallying people to fight. In the long run that's exactly what most of them do as heads of government. The bush did not teach them about health insurance and about how to curb unemployment. It taught them how to subjugate others. No wonder they run their countries into the ground. Lech Walesa was a bad president because he was such a good something else, having learned and mastered the art of bugging a regime. President Lech Walesa had  absolutely no regime to bug.

I rather like the idea of having a charismatic freedom fighter run the country she's helped liberate, for a term or so. I rather liked seeing Nelson Mandela as president of South Africa for a while, and I liked seeing him leave the political arena to politicians. Okay, the country's free now, I can go back to doing what I do best. Who can I bug into submission? The same thing happended in Lesotho when Ntsu Mokhehle led the country for a term, following the first free elections in that country, then stepped down and handed the reins to more agile politicians.

Yesterday was Women's Day. It would be good if we used it to remember that there are only 11 female heads of government in the entire world, that Africa has just 1 (one out of 52 countries), and only since November 2005; that numbers for women approach 50% within badly paid sectors of the job market, but remain low in other sectors; that in the Arab world, Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Turkey, Venezuela, Argentina and other places, men still commit what they call honour crimes and killings.

Tsotsi

The good news is that the homegrown South African film Tsotsi has been nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Film category. Who the hell cares about Charlize Theron, she's lost her South Africaness - good for her, she's done amazingly well and it's a boon for us, but the Tsotsi nomination is far more exciting. I haven't seen it yet but will be going to as soon as I get the chance. It's been described as a gritty reflection of township thug culture with a pulsing kwaito soundtrack.

"Six days in the life of a ruthless young gang leader who ends up caring for a baby accidentally kidnapped during a car-jacking.

Tsotsi is a gritty and moving portrait of an angry young man living in a state of extreme urban deprivation. His world pumps with the raw energy of "Kwaito music" - the modern beat of the ghetto that reflects his troubled state of mind.

The film is a psychological thriller in which the protagonist is compelled to confront his own brutal nature and face the consequences of his actions. It puts a human face on both the victims and the perpetrators of violent crime and is ultimately a story of hope and a triumph of love over rage.

"Tsotsi" literally means "thug" or "gangster" in the street language of South Africa's townships and ghettos. "Kwaito" is South Africa's answer to American Hip Hop."

Well done to all concerned - I'll be holding thumbs.

Eish!!!

I was listening to one of our local music stations today, and it struck me (not for the first time) how many competition promos and ads we have that make use of fake American accents. A lot of young South African TV presenters and celebrities, mainly black people, also talk with these phoney American accents to be cool.

I can understand adopting American culture to a point, like when you get local hip hop groups and slam poets that take an American cultural paradigm and then make it their own by bringing in aspects of their own local languages, culture, ideas and musical forms - and out of this whole mish mash comes something new and fresh.

But this whole adopting of the American accent thing, especially when you've never set foot in America - I just don't get it. What's wrong with our own ethnic African accents? Why do you have to be a pseudo-American to be cool? Frankly, I find it annoying.

While on the subject of language, another thing that irritates me is the number of white people who phone in to radio talk shows, or write letters to the editor, and send in letters to radio and TV stations to complain about how black news readers and reporters "butcher" the pronunciation of the English language. So what if we don't all speak the Queen's English - why can't we be more tolerant of the fact that we live in a multi-cultural society and we all pronounce certain words differently? It's not like the white news readers are any better at pronouncing black words and names.

Black clubs and things

More often than not, it bothers me when I find Black people having Black things, like black clubs, or black blog-rings, and so on. What really gets to me is the fact that it would bother me to find White people having White things, like white clubs, or white blog-rings, and so on. I'd rather see California blog-rings, or Moldavian clubs, and so on.

Mind you, it can very easily be argued that Black folks can and should do so. Any minority, for that matter. Otherwise how else can they turn around and beat the odds? How can they "help themselves" in the face of what they and their ancestors are enduring and have endured? Even in the face of that valid argument, it still bothers me that the label is colour rather than a region, or a common activity.

Besides, in my experience, especially in the United States, White clubs and many other White groups have been anything but positive. You can have your Black Student Association, for example, most of whose meetings and get-togethers will be about Kwaanza and a holiday for Martin Luther King. Your average White Student Association, on the other hand, would most probably spend its meetings and get-togethers telling racist jokes and chanting Nazi songs.

Which brings us back to the flipside of the argument about minorities needing perhaps to have clubs in order to better fend for themselves. And the flipside is of course that White folks in America have little to fend themselves against, so that when they do have a club its principal activity will certainly not be to fight for the recognition of St Patrick's Day or for the right to celebrate Columbus Day or something of the sort.

South Africa is the only country on the African continent where Black and White folks mix in a manner that can be compared to that of the United States, albeit with reverse population percentages. How does this kind of situation play out in South Africa? Do universities have colour clubs and unions? How was the situation before the first free election in 1994? How do White South Africans feel about Black groups?

Quote of the day

"We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the internet, we know this is not true."

Robert Wilensky, American academic

Secrets

Post Secrets has been voted one of the top 50 blogs by Time Magazine. People post their  deepest secrets and they get put up on the blog. Some are dark, others funny, endearing or disturbing, all written on homemade postcards and collected by US blogger Frank Warren.  Anyone can contribute, and thousands have.

Technology and relationships

I am one of those people who hate cell phones. Of course, I’ll shamelessly admit to be being a complete hypocrite - I don’t hate them enough to go without one myself. The main reason I like having a cell phone is from a practical point of view - like if I ever happen to get stuck driving alone on the highway in the dark I can call for help. It’s also convenient to be able to contact people if something important comes up when you’re out and about.

The thing that drives me crazy about cell phones though, is that just because you have one, people expect you to be on 24 hour standby. Gone are the pre-cellular days, when if a person phoned you and there was no reply, they just assumed that you were out and that was that. Nowadays, if you don’t answer your cell phone instantaneously, people seem to get unreasonably tetchy, and leave sarcastic messages whinging on about how they don’t understand what the point of having a cell phone is when it never gets answered. Sheesh, you’d think that not answering your cell phone is tantamount to inflicting a grievous and unforgivable personal insult to whoever is trying to get hold of you.

As far as SMSing goes, well I completely missed the boat on that. It takes me half an hour to type a few mandatory sentences, it’s so much easier just to call and get it over with asap. Of course, that’s just me, I really admire other people who seem to acquire the necessary skills and can SMS so fast you can barely see their fingers move. As for anyone who has figured out how to use predictive text, they have my deepest respect. That is totally beyond the scope of my ability. SMS’s have their relationship downsides too, one of my friends got dumped via SMS which is pretty damn low if you ask me. One of my colleagues is currently conducting a flirtation, if you can call it that, with someone via SMS. She hasn’t even spoken to the guy, let alone met him, yet the whole thing seems to be taking up an inordinate amount of her mental space. That’s kind of bizarre.

Email, internet and cell phones have opened up a whole new way for people to conduct personal relationships in a way that it becomes so much more difficult to know what the other person is really about. It becomes possible to conduct a relationship in a sort of void removed from reality and lacking in intimacy. I guess the irony is that while internet relationships make it easier for some people to open up about themselves, it also makes it easier to be conned by unscrupulous people.

Reclaiming our past

One of the important tasks that South Africa has had to tackle since the advent of democracy has been to reclaim the past of the country - historically, politically and culturally. Cynics might argue that historical reality can never be objective - it always reflects the narrative of the ruling class. In the retelling of history new "myths" are propagated. Well, of course this is true of contemporary South Africa, just as we had the Afrikaner Nationalist version of history in the past, we now have the ANC narrative dominating the reclamation of our history. The only difference, and most importantly so, is that the ANC version is closer to the truth, it is for the most part reconcialatory and it encompasses all South Africans.

While we have paid a lot of attention to reclaiming our political history, the so called "arts" have often been given the short end of the stick. But even so, there has been an increasing effort over the past few years, to recognise the important contributions made by black fine artists. An interesting initiative is currently underway to try and track down South African artwork from the 1970s and 1980s. The task is not easy because a lot of "township art" was taken out of the country during the period spanning the Soweto uprising and the 1980s state of emergency. Few South African galleries bought these works at the time, which form an important part of the country's heritage, so much of it left the country in the hands of foreign diplomats and private collectors.

The Ifa Lethu Foundation (which is supported by the arts and culture department and private business), is leading the job of tracking down the missing artworks. So far, it has identified 170 artworks in countries as far apart as Australia, Sweden, Canada and the US.