Mzansi Afrika

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.

Condoms in the classroom

There's a whole big debate going on in the South African media at the moment about whether condoms should be made freely available in high schools. The Education Department has decided against this. Listening to a popular talk back radio show this evening on the topic, predictably most South Africans, at least those who called in to make their opinions known, agreed that condoms should not be provided in the classroom.

The main argument, surprise, surprise, was from the whole moralistic religious viewpoint that condoms encourage sex, and sex before marriage, especially among teens is bad. The other concerns were around sex and HIV/AIDS.

Of course in South Africa AIDS is a huge concern. It's more because of this that I would support the argument that teenagers should not be having sex, especially without using condoms. Where my concern lies, is that I'm not totally convinced that providing condoms causes people to go out and have sex. Teenagers are having sex anyway, so in light of the AIDS pandemic, wouldn't it be better to give them condoms?

On the other hand, a little voice whispers in my head, well what if you could buy drugs at your school canteen? If you had any curiosity to experiment, it sure as hell would make it a lot easier to go ahead.

I think it boils down to education and self-esteem. A lot of people experiment with drugs, and then either either leave it alone once their curiosity has been appeased, or continue to take the occassional drug here and there, no problem. But the one thing that just about every alcoholic and drug addict has in common is low self esteem - the drug of choice gives them a sense of confidence, temporarily removes their sense of being on the outside, and takes away that inner pain commonly described as the "hole in the soul". Girls who become sexually active from a young age, and continue to sleep around, generally suffer from the same problem, low self esteem and a longing to be loved and accepted.

I suppose there's also a gender aspect, boys who have sex are macho hero's, it's about proving your masculinity - so maybe having condoms freely available would make it easier for boys to have sex? And harder for girls to say no - "sorry no condom, no can do".

In an ideal world, teenagers would be properly educated about the emotional and health aspects of sexual intercourse. In an ideal world we would all come from loving families and be able to conduct our lives from a position of self acceptance and relative confidence. Unfortunately, we don't exactly live in an ideal world, and it's more the norm than the exception for people to grow up being emotionally wounded.

So, I really don't know what the answer is.

Slippery slope

Pity about Bafana Bafana in the African Cup of Nations, our national soccer team seems to be on a sad and steady decline. We were unable to score one single goal, that's not even embarressing anymore, it's humiliating! Lets hope that now between Safa, the PSL and the Sports Ministry something is done to save our pride and improve our soccer.

Even the Malawian national soccer coach is warning his players not to waste their time playing league soccer in South Africa despite the lucrative pay.

"Flames coach Burkhard Ziese has advised Malawian players to be more ambitious and dream of playing in more competitive leagues in Europe other than South Africa.Ziese was reacting to Southern African teams’ early exit from the on-going Africa’s biggest soccer showcase—the Africa Nations Cup.“In this part of the continent, the South African league is regarded as the most lucrative and competitive leagues but it is also gospel truth that it is on the decline."

There but for fortune

I hate beggars. Ok, I don't hate beggars. I hate the way beggars make me feel. We have so many beggars in South Africa, and one of their most popular begging spots is at major traffic light intersections. I pass about six sets of beggars on my way to work everyday. I say sets, because three of them consist of couples - a seeing person leading a blind person. It's rumoured that a lot of the blind beggars come here from Zimbabwe.

So there you are, waiting for the traffic lights to go green, and the beggars come up to your car for a donation. What do you do? You can't give money to all the beggars, all the time, everyday. So, do you ignore them and pretend you can't see them, because if they catch your eye it's so much harder to say no. But if you look right through them, without even acknowledging that they exist, not even recognising their humanity, it's as if your treating them worse than you would a dog. If you do look at them and give a weak sort of smile, it's as if you're raising their hopes of a donation. Usually I end up just shaking mu head "no" without looking them in the eye. I can't bear to see the look in their eyes that makes you aware of the lives they lead that they have to resort to begging on a street corner.

Then of course, once you've made it clear that you aren't giving any money, the guilt sets in, and you feel bad, like a greedy, horrible person with no compassion. Sometimes I do give, and another thing we do is when we have old jerseys I put them in the car and then give them to the beggars. It's not even a drop in the ocean.

Every time I see a beggar I feel so grateful for everything I have, and I am reminded of the Joan Baez song lyrics "There but for fortune, may go you or I". I wish I had it in my power to do something about their situation. It really sucks!!!

New local blog

African Voices and Visions is a new South African blog with a focus on Africa. What makes this blog special is that the author is a young documentary and filmmaker with a passion for Africa, and she travels widely through the continent. Her content is original writing with lots of photo's, and she documents some of the fascinating people that she's come accross like the Voodoo Pope from Benin and other interesting characters. These are the untold stories of Africa, giving insight into the side of Africa that the mainstream media media ignores. I look forward to seeing lots more on this blog.

Help....it's an earthquake

Talk about over exaggeration and bad reporting. Today's little earth tremour in the east of Johannesburg is being reported as if it were....well an earthquake? This is way out enough to be absurd.

One woman thought she was going to drown in her bath, another "victim" was quoted as saying, "...it felt like a big earthquake." Sheesh...maybe they should all be sent off to Pakistan.

If I was an ex-pat living in London and I had to stumble across that I'd be booking the next flight out to be back with my family in the aftermath of the tragedy.

Just to put things in perspective, the "earthquake" was measured at 3.2 on the Richter Scale, and 3.6 at the epicentre. According to the Richter Scale:

"Seismologists use a Magnitude scale to express the seismic energy released by each earthquake. Here are the typical effects of earthquakes in various magnitude ranges:

---

Earthquake Severity

Richter         Earthquake
Magnitudes      Effects

Less than 3.5   Generally not felt, but recorded.

3.5-5.4         Often felt, but rarely causes damage.

Under 6.0       At most slight damage to well-designed buildings.
		Can cause major damage to poorly constructed buildings
		over small regions.

6.1-6.9         Can be destructive in areas up to about 100 kilometers
		across where people live.

7.0-7.9         Major earthquake. Can cause serious damage over larger areas.

8 or greater    Great earthquake. Can cause serious damage in areas several
		hundred kilometers across."

Mixed musings from Southern Africa

There’s never a dull moment in South African politics. It’s January and we already have our first political scandal of the year. Every political scandal gets a name - most of them ending in “gate”. Last year we had Travelgate (MP’s scamming the parliamentary travel voucher scheme), Oilgate (ruling party political funding foulplay linked to the oil industry) and Zumagate (the axing of deputy president Jacob Zuma over corruption allegations). Our latest shennanigans however, makes bold departure from the “gate” terminology, it’s been dubbed the “gravy plane”. Our new deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, it transpires, took a December holiday that wasn’t strictly kosher. She took her family on a jaunt to the United Arab Emirates (possibly via Mombassa) using a luxury military jet at the taxpayers expense. She was accompanied by the wife of a cabinet minister, and it’s alleged that the three adults involved had more than sightseeing in mind, and were rather more interested in furthering their private business interests.

Commentary joins the debate over whether the trip was legal or not: “I’ll concede that Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka’s state-funded shopping expedition probably was legal (if only because nobody bothered to cover it up), and I’ll even concede the principle that high-ranking government officials are entitled to use state-sponsored transport for personal use, due to security concerns and so on. But the real problem here is the amount. R700,000 is insanely high. How did she manage to spend this much on a week-long holiday? Was she perhaps chauffeured around the United Arab Emirates in a gold-plated Rolls Royce Phantom? Ultimately, even if the whole thing was absolutely, 100% legal, it still reflects poorly on the content of her character. “Right and wrong” is not the same thing as “legal and illegal”, and this was definitely wrong, irrespective of what the lawyers say about it.”

Scandal aside, the political atmosphere is becoming hot and steamy as we count down to local government elections on March 1st. The main election issues are the high levels of corruption in local government and the lack of service delivery for the poor, relating to housing, water & sanitation, and the provision of electricity. These two factors have given rise to a series of violent grassroots protests in the poor informal settlements of the country. Last year there were around eighty such protest actions, and we’ve already had two so far this year. African Houseit takes a look at a study on the housing crisis in the Western Cape: “The housing backlog has increased proportional to the growth of the population in the province and has reached a crisis point where it is about to spiral out of control. This study argues that the exacerbation of the crisis in housing is as a result of the overall shift towards market-oriented policies, which shapes the approach of housing authorities. ”

Politics.za writes about tensions within the ruling African National Congress (ANC) relating to their election candidate lists: “The ANC is finding that drawing up electoral lists is harder than expected. [President] Thabo Mbeki has stated that he intends to use these local elections to rid council of corruption and ‘populists’ but he’s going to find that hard to do when local ANC branches submit lists full of the people he is trying to get rid of. I don’t think that the national ANC structure can override to much of the choices of the local ANC wards without straining tensions in the ANC even further.”

Well, it’s not all seriousness and politics in South Africa, Red Star Coven is of the opinion our country has finally managed to deliver the great South African movie: “went to see “Tsotsi” in Glasgow the other night. What an amazing, powerful film. For those who know nothing about it, maybe saying it’s South Africa’s answer to “Trainspotting” or “City of God” will give you a picture. It’s about a township gangster in Soweto who hijacks a car, finds a baby in the back seat and decides to look after it.” Cherryflava shows off a set of gorgeous photo’s from a recent trip to Zanzibar, and Lusharazzi tells us why we should avoid going to Cape Town’s annual high society J&B Met horse racing event.

Finally, moving beyond South Africa’s borders to our north western neighbour, the Botswana blog Mr. Twice, has this to say: “Botswana needs to change and needs the change soon otherwise we’ll end up in the same mess as other african countries who used to have plenty but are now starving. …. i would like to say that there are two fundamental things which do not exist and their lack thereof is already eroding our economy and society like cancer. These two things are 1. Meritocracy and 2. Accountability.”

Cross posted to Global Voices

Notes from Soweto

A Merry Christmas for Orphans

There seems to be a tendency for people in our community to show their generosity to orphans when it's convenient and then to forget them when they are too busy or it doesn't suit them.

There is an orphanage here in Soweto called the Emdeni Children’s Home which is situated in Emdeni, in the very south of our township. Most of the children here have lost their parents to HIV/AIDS. What I have noticed is that just before the Christmas holidays, immediately after some fortunate children are taken by foster parents for holidays, those who remain behind are left with no option but to linger around with nothing to do, and the feeling that no one really cares about them. To a certain extent this has created envy and despair among those who are left behind since they feel rejected by the very community which claims it cares and has their best interests at heart.

In 2004 children from Othandweni & Emdeni Children’s Home who were not taken out by foster parents were sponsored by a scripture union to go away for a week to a holiday camp. last year, there were 20 children left behind and no one came through with funding to send them to camp for the holidays. However, some young people from a Christian group in Soweto helped raise funds and the camp was held in Brits from the 23rd till the 30th of December. I went along to visit the children at the camp.

The children ranged in age from about ten to seventeen, and expressed their gratitude at being away from the home which has a lot of restrictions and red tape unlike normal children in the community. “I really enjoyed my Christmas and the food was so delicious, the games we played and mostly, I enjoyed swimming and mountain climbing it was a holiday indeed for me” expressed a young boy by the name of Remember. When I went to the camp on Friday night my intention was to spend a night and leave the following day, nonetheless, I ended up spending my time there until the 26th.

The children get their basic needs provided and paid for by the Department of Social Services, but it is clear to me, that what they really need is to be loved and hugged, and given human comfort, and to know that people care about them.

The challenge that is still left with the community of Soweto is that when we enjoy our time and have World Aids Day’s committing our pledge to the fight against HIV/AIDS we should also consider programmes beyond the days of public awareness, because it seems like these children need us more than we can imagine. Soweto it is time you remain genuine to your own.

Some photo's from the camp: