The municipal elections

The municipal elections have come and gone. The votes have been counted. The talking heads have talked and are still talking. Why do I add to the verbiage by writing this? Partly to see if events bear it out.

The results show that the ruling African National Congress (ANC, aka “the ruling party”) is losing support. One image keeps coming back to me: the Windhoek carnival in 1970. Namibia was then under South African rule, and they had a float procession through the streets of the city. One of the floats had a lot of chairs falling off the back, with the words “We are losing seats”. The National Party had been in power for 22 years, as long as the ANC has been in power now, and it seemed like an eternity. And for the first time since 1948 the NP had lost ground in an election, losing some seats, and showing reduced majorities in others.

Think of all the things that had happened — the Suppression of Communism Act, the Defiance Campaign, the Treason Trial, the Sharpeville Massacre, the Sabotage Act, the 90-day Detention Act, the Terrorism Act. By comparison the ANC is still blaming its own failures on apartheid, and subjectively yes, our democratic constitution and the like seem quite recent. But 22 years after coming to power the ANC, like the National Party at the same stage, is losing seats.

But though those 22 years of National Party rule seemed like an eternity, we weren’t even halfway. There were another 24 years to go before freedom came.

The ANC has lost control of a number of municipalities, and has a precarious hold over a few others. The exact picture isn’t too clear. One major difference was that back in 1970 the media told us exactly what was going on — how many seats the NP had lost, and by how much its majority had been reduced in others. The reporting in this election has been much more vague.

The biggest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA) has gained a bigger proportion of the vote, and interprets this as a gain in support. I am not so sure. While the proportion of ANC voters has decreased, the absolute number has increased.

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), which was formed only 3 years ago, failed to gain control of a single municipality, but they were happy with the result. Indications are that their support mainly came from supporters of other parties that had broken away from the ANC, like COPE and Agang, which had destroyed their own chances by leadership struggles and infighting. The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) regained some lost ground in the heart of Zululand, indicating that voters there had tried the ANC, had not been happy with the result, and gone back to the IFP.

The DA worked hard to get their supporters to vote, and the percentage poll was higher in DA wards than in ANC wards. Some ANC spokesmen attributed this to the weather. DA supporters interpreted this as a win, but the DA didn’t win many wards in traditional ANC areas. I do know some former ANC voters who voted for the DA, but not enough to make much difference. The main difference was that many ANC voters simply abstained, and not because of the weather, as the spin doctors would like us to believe. The DA didn’t win, but the ANC lost. Even though the ANC controls more municipalities than all other parties combined, it controls fewer than before, and that is a loss. The question is, can the ANC recover from the damage inflicted on it by Zuma and his cronies before the abstainers seek an alternative political home? And can the opposition parties attract the abstaining ANC voters, because they don’t seem to have done so yet?

Some have criticised South Africa’s electoral system, saying that the proportional representation system means that MPs are accountable to party bosses and not to the electorate. That is true, but in the municipal elections there is a mixture of proportional representation and constituency systems, which combines the advantages of both. A pure ward system would have favoured the ANC, and it is proportional representation that gives the smaller parties a voice. In Tshwane, COPE had two city councillors in the old council, and will have one in the new council, even though they didn’t win a single ward. For all its faults, the proportional representation system does allow minority views to be heard.

The biggest question arising out of the 2016 local governmentl elections is whether the ANC can repair itself in time for the 2019 general election. Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa thinks it can — ANC not arrogant, self-serving, says Ramaphosa | IOL:

African National Congress deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa on Friday said, unlike what many South Africans think, his party was not an arrogant, self-serving political organisation.

“The ANC, as opposed to what many people may believe, they think we are arrogant, self-centered, self-serving and I would like like to dispute all that by saying we are a listening organisation,” Ramaphosa told a scrum of reporters at the ANC desk in the IEC’s results operations centre in Tshwane.

But Ramaphosa himself demonstrated the ANC’s arrogance and failure to listen — Gauteng e-tolls here to stay | News | National | M&G:

Gauteng’s e-tolling system is not going anywhere. In fact, motorists will need to settle outstanding e-toll fees before their vehicle licence disks can be issued when up for renewal.

Announcing the new e-tolls dispensation, including price reductions of up to 50% and compliance measures, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa said the new dispensation was about addressing the concerns raised by people in the province of Gauteng and beyond.

But what the people wanted was not reduced toll fees, but the abolition of toll roads altogether. The ANC leaders like to blame apartheid for our problems, but toll roads were introduced by the apartheid government in the 1970s to pay for the invasion of Angola, and the ANC has retained and expanded the system in spite of objections. This is a clear example of the ANC not listening.

Toll roads are not the only issue, of course, but they are a particularly clear example of the ANC’s arrogance and refusal to listen.

There was an even more powerful demonstration of this when, at the final results announcement by the Independent Electoral Commission, four young women stood in in silent protest front of the stage where President Jacob Zuma was making his speech, and leading members of the ANC women’s league went ballistic, demanding that the security people and the Defence Minister do something about it.

Silent protesters at President Jacob Zuma’s speech at the IEC’s final election results meeting

The silent protest was brilliant, and perhaps summed up the whole election and the reasons for the ANC’s loss of support. It was far more effective than burning twenty buses and innumerable tyres.

But the response of leading women in the ANC demonstrated once again the ANC’s arrogance and refusal to listen — SUNDAY TIMES – “You sold us out!” furious ministers tell Mapisa-Nqakula over Khwezi protest:

Furious ministers Nomvula Mokonyane, Lindiwe Zulu and Bathabile Dlamini were seen by the Sunday Times confronting Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula over what they saw as a serious security breach. The four women protesters, dressed in black, stood silently in front of the stage carrying placards as Zuma spoke.

The protesters, who included student activists Simamkele Dlakavu and Naledi Chirwa, staged the protest to mark 10 years since Zuma was acquitted on a charge of raping a woman who became known as Khwezi. The women all had IEC accreditation tags that identified them as part of the EFF election team.

Today is National Women’s Day, and the reaction of these women to the protest shows that any resemblance between the ANC Women’s League today and those who marched on the Union Buildings sixty years ago is not merely coincidental, but quite delusional. The watching world could see the arrogance and the failure to listen for themselves.

As one of the protesters said, “Tomorrow they will be singing wathint’ abafazi wathint’ imbokodo (you strike the women, you strike the rock), yet they touched and violated us in front of everyone” (Woman in Zuma #Khwezi protest speaks out | IOL)

Do we understand democracy? An appeal to the youth

There was an interesting “debate” on Twitter this morning, about leadership and the problems of South Africa, apparently sparked off by an article by Max du Preez, pointing out that South Africa is an open society, and not a “failed state”

One of the exchanges it sparked off was this:

Khandani Msibi ‏@KhandaniM 8h8 hours ago

@Jay_Naidoo @MaxduPreez if we were an open society our people would express their anger differently, nit through violent protest

Jay Naidoo ‏@Jay_Naidoo 7h7 hours ago

.@KhandaniM @MaxduPreez Violent protests are often the result of absent #organization & weak #leadership. Then violence becomes a norm.

Thabani Luhlongwane ‏@tubbzl 7h7 hours ago

@KhandaniM @Jay_Naidoo @MaxduPreez Greed ignores passive actions of resistance and criticism. Violence demands immediate attention.

The 140 character limit of Twitter doesn’t make it the ideal medium for a serious political discussion (which is one of the reasons that I am writing this here, and not on Twitter), but I think that some were saying that violent protests were a method of the 1980s, and this is 2015. In the 1980s South Africa was a closed society. Violent protest was one way of getting the attention of those in power, and changing things.

Max du Preez’s article points out that South Africa is no longer a closed society, it is an open society. Instead of trying to get the attention of those in power, and demand that they do things (like “service delivery”), the way is open for people to take power, and do things for themselves.

Next year we will have local government elections, and if the municipal government hasn’t delivered, there is the opportunity to change them, not by burning tyres and libraries, but by voting the bastards out of office.

This can be done by organising locally, at a local level. Instead of the big national political parties parachuting in leaders as rewards for political loyalty, we need local people to organise and vote them out.

One thing that could be borrowed from the 1980s is the Civic Associations that were organised locally back then. The difference is that back then the Civics could only organise protests. Now that we have an open society they can produce candidates for election and organise the voters, because they ARE the voters. We have democracy. We have an open society, so it can be done.

Max du Preez’s article is important. Read it, and organise. South Africa not a failed state | News24 – Linkis.com

History teaches us that countries with open societies very seldom become failed states. Only when a state’s openness and personal freedoms are destroyed can there be a breeding ground for failure.

The terms failed state, banana republic and “becoming Zimbabwe” are being used freely nowadays to describe South Africa, even more so after Eskom’s failures and the scandalous behaviour during the State of the Nation Address last month.

This is uninformed nonsense. Prod those who use these terms and nine out of 10 times you will find an Afro-pessimist or someone that never believed that a black government was able to manage a modern democracy and economy like ours.

The openness of our society is our greatest asset. This is the product of our constitutional guarantees of free speech and the rule of law, but it has now been internalised and become the new “normal”.

We don’t need to make the celeb-style leaders “listen” in the hope of getting them to do something. We need people who will use the local government elections to push the failed leaders aside and replace them with ones who actually represent the people.

South Africa not a failed state | News24 – Linkis.com:

We live as if it is the most normal thing to criticise the head of state and other politicians using extreme language. The deepest secrets of the state are regularly exposed without endangering the journalists’ lives.

When I wrote nasty things about the last two presidents of the pre-democratic era and exposed their unholinesses, I was dragged to court dozens of times, my office was bombed and agents were sent to assassinate me.

Our openness is one of the most important building blocks upon which our democracy, our stability and our relatively free economic activities are built. This is why South Africa cannot be described as a failing state in any sense of the word. Struggling state, perhaps, state with a multitude of challenges, yes, but not a failed state according to the accepted definition of the term.

As some pointed out in the Twitter interchange, people like Max du Preez (and me) are old. It is up to the youth. But as the youth of the 1980s organised the Civic Associations, surely the youth of 2015 can do something similar.

Thousands Protest After Wisconsin Governor Threatens to Deploy National Guard to Intimidate Unions | Moral Low Ground

They’re rioting in Africa, there are earthquakes in New Zealand. It’s all over the TV news channels. The US government has been expressing disapproval of an armed forces crackdown on demonstrators in Libya, but I had to turn to Russia Today to learn that the Governor of Wisconsin in the USA is threatening to use armed forces to intimidate demonstrators there, and that those protests have been going on for longer than the ones in Libya, but have gone largely unreported in the rest of the world.

Thousands Protest After Wisconsin Governor Threatens to Deploy National Guard to Intimidate Unions | Moral Low Ground:

ThinkProgress reports that Governor Walker has threatened to call out the National Guard if state workers resist his draconian rollback of their rights. Walker told a reporter that the Guard is “prepared… for whatever the governor, their commander-in-chief, might call for.” Veterans groups denounced the governor’s threat to use the National Guard, traditionally deployed to help citizens in times of natural disasters or other life-and-death emergencies, to settle personal scores. “Maybe the new governor doesn’t understand yet– but the National Guard is not his own personal intimidation force,” said Robin Eckstein, an Iraq War veteran, former Wisconsin National Guard member and member of the veterans group VoteVets.org.

I wonder if any National Guard members in Wisconsin will be defecting to Canada, as the Libyan Airforce pilots defected to Malta?

Zimbabwe: Harare Descends Into Chaos As Ruling Party Militia Loot Shops

What’s the difference between Zimbabwe and Egypt?

In Egypt they’re protesting for democracy; in Zimbabwe they’re rioting against it.

allAfrica.com: Zimbabwe: Harare Descends Into Chaos As Ruling Party Militia Loot Shops:

Harare came to a standstill on Monday when a ZANU PF mob engulfed the city in chaos, destroying property worth thousands of dollars, mainly belonging to foreign owned companies.

Our correspondent Simon Muchemwa told us that dozens of shops were looted when the ZANU PF militia went on a rampage, as police details stood by watching ordinary people and shop owners being abused and brutalised. Shops belonging to Zimbabweans were also caught up in the crossfire.

The Burning Times

Burning things (and people) you don’t like seems to be a popular way of getting rid of them. It’s also a great way of getting publicity for a cause. And as people in show business know, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

One of the examples that always springs to my mind is the group of anti-war protesters in California who publicly burnt a dog.

It was during the Vietnam War, and they burnt the dog in protest against the war. The public outrage was enormous, and newspapers editorialised about how they were harming their cause, and their action was counter-productive because it made people who might be sympathetic to their cause more likely to be hostile towards it.

But in fact the negative reaction, the outrage itself, was the whole point. They demonstrated that American society was far more concerned and far more outraged about a dog being burnt in California than it was about hundreds of human children being burnt in Vietnam by American napalm bombs.

And the latest in a long line of such protests is that of Terry Jones, minister of a small church in the backwoods of Florida, USA, who threatened to burn copies of the Qur’an. It caused tweets of outrage to flow through Twitter, and huge protests throughout the world. It certainly put his church on the map.

Terry Jones won’t be the last Qur’an burning publicity hound | Richard Adams | World news | guardian.co.uk:

Jones’s threats will be subject to the law of diminishing returns. Next time he threatens to do burn a Qur’an – and I fear there will be a next time – he’ll be handled with much more caution by the US media, which has made itself look ridiculous in being outfoxed by the crackpot pastor of a miniscule [sic] church in the swamps of Florida.

US President Barack Obama, in a memorable soundbite, said that it would be a recruiting bonanza for Al-Qaeda.

President Obama was probably right, but he has done little to stop the even more powerful recruiting bonanzas for Al-Qaeda caused by burning children in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Those outraged by the burning of the Qu’ran may demonstrate in the streets, wave a few placards, burn an American flag or two, and go home feeling self-righteous, just like the Revd Terry Jones.

It is the ones whose cousins and brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts who were killed when the US forces bombed wedding celebrations, or went on their killing sprees in places like Fallujah who are more likely to join Al-Qaeda.

In the 1960s there was also the phenomenon of the self-immolation of Buddhist monks in protest against the Vietnam War. Instead of burning other people or things, they burnt themselves.

This had a spin-off in South Africa, when staff and students at the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg were protesting against some government atrocity — I think it was the banning of student leader Ian Robertson.

I was overseas at the time, but a friend wrote to me in a letter about the protest, which took the form of a torchlight procession into the centre of the town. As they were crossing the bridge over the Umsinduzi River the procession was attacked by National Party-supporters. One of the protesters was an English lecturer and atheist, Cake Manson (who was thought by the English Department to be the greatest playwright since Shakespeare). He retaliated by sticking his lighted torch in the faces of the attackers, shouting the war-cry, “Burn you Buddhist bastard, burn!”

And that takes us back to California.

Burn, Baby! Burn!:

When rioters in Watts, California, began shouting ‘Burn, Baby! BURN!’ in the turmoil of 1965, they were echoing the most popular cry on rhythm-and-blues radio: The trademark of Magnificent Montague, the most exciting R&B disc jockey ever to stroll through Soulsville.

In Los Angeles on KGFJ, and earlier in New York on WWRL, Montague yelled ‘Burn!’ whenever he was playing a record that moved him. His listeners followed suit, calling Montague and shouting ‘Burn!’ on the air. The emotion in that exchange reverberated with as much excitement as the music of Stevie Wonder, Sam Cooke and Otis Redding.

There’s something about the Burning Times…

Creative community protest – Russian Style

Fed up with those VIP convoys with flashing blue lights that expect everyone to get out of their way and sometimes behave in an arrogantly authoritarian manner when people don’t move out of the way quickly enough? Here’s an idea from Russia The Network: CREATIVE COMMUNITY PROTEST – Russian Style:

Fed up with the blaring sirens used by government officials to get to their destinations faster than the ordinary Muscovite, a group of frustrated drivers, organized by Alexei Dozorov, is fighting back.

Using toy buckets on the tops of their cars to look like sirens, the protesters assemble in a Moscow parking lot and get their instructions from Dozorov.

Obey the traffic rules, he tells them so the police wont have a reason to pull over the drivers. Make sure your drivers license and papers are in order, and know the driving rules, he advises.

In case he is stopped Dozorov has a copy of a court decision erasing a traffic fine for a driver having a blue bucket on top of the car.

It’s incidents like these that make such protests necessary: News – Crime & Courts: Cop in court for assault:

Colleagues of a traffic officer charged with assaulting a Cato Ridge woman for failing to get out of his way on the freeway tried to bar the media from photographing him yesterday.

Edward Xolani Mtshali’s first court appearance was brief and his case was adjourned to May 14, so that his legal team could obtain statements.

Eyewitness News: Family slam blue-light convoy killer:

The family of a Johannesburg man who was killed when a blue-light VIP convoy ploughed into his car say the police officer responsible for his death should have received a harsher sentence.

Twenty-year-old Kyle Harris was hit by a vehicle in South African Reserve Bank convoy at a West Rand intersection two years ago.

Police officer Johannes Ramalope was found guilty of culpable homicide and was given a two-year sentence suspended for five years in the Roodepoort Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday.

Legalbrief – ‘Blue light’ VIP case delayed to next year:

The ‘Blue light’ VIP escort case, in which two Pietermaritzburg policemen are charged with six counts of culpable homicide, has been adjourned to 21 January.

The Times reports that Hlanganani Nxumalo and Caiphas Ndlela have appeared in the Pietermaritzburg Regional Court. Nxumalo, who allegedly fired at a vehicle which then crashed on the N3 highway near Pietermaritzburg, is also charged with the negligent discharging of a firearm, while Ndlela is also charged with reckless and negligent driving. Attorneys John Wills and Mohamed Essa told Magistrate Chris van Vuuren that Ndlela wanted to brief an advocate to defend him.

The doggy rioter teargas show

The dog that hasn’t missed a single riot for years: This Blog Rules:

There has been lots of riots and protests from both anarchists and workers in Athens, Greece specially the past few years. One interesting thing is that there is one dog that is spotted at these riots from 2008 till today

Follow the link for more evidence. My daughter posted the link on Facebook, and I thought it was worth sharing.

Where were you?

People sometimes ask “Where were you when such and such and event happened?” Or, more likely, they remember where they themselves were. And now people are remembering where they were during the first moon landing, 40 years ago this week. Jim Forest’s memories of where he was are particularly interesting because they recall another aspect of the 1960s — he was in jail.

On Pilgrimage: The whole Earth in a prison cell:

Most people at the time saw the moon landing on television. In my case, I listened to it happening via a pair of low-tech earphones made available to me by the State of Wisconsin. I was in a narrow cell at Waupun State Prison.

Prison had become my temporary home due to an act of protest against the Vietnam War – I was one of 14 people who burned files of Milwaukee’s nine draft boards. Now I was in the early weeks of serving a two-year sentence – in fact one year, given the “good behavior” factor.

As for me, I was travelling through the Kalahari. I was doing that during the Apollo XI space mission, and during the Apollo XII mission as well. At the time of the Apollo XIII mission I didn’t make it to the Kalahari, and Apollo XIII didn’t make it to the moon either.

Blog at your peril

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk More bloggers than ever face arrest for exposing human rights abuses or criticising governments, says a report. In 2007 three times as many people were arrested for blogging about political issues than in 2006, it revealed. More than half of all the arrests since 2003 have been made in China, Egypt and Iran, said the report. Arrested bloggers exposed corruption in government, abuse of human rights or suppression of protests. They criticised public policies and took political figures to task. Jail time followed arrest for many bloggers, said the report, which found that the average prison sentence for blogging was 15 months. The longest sentence found by the WIA was eight years. The report pointed out that it is not just governments in the Middle East and East Asia that have taken steps against those publishing their opinions online. In the last four years, British, French, Canadian and American bloggers have also been arrested.

Hat tip to the Christian Radical

Tibet — mixed messages

I’ve been getting mixed messages about Tibet.

On the one hand there have been pro-democracy organisations like Avaaz trying to drum up support for Tibetan rebels:

On Monday, thousands of people in 84 cities worldwide marched for justice for Tibet–and delivered the 1.5 million-signature Avaaz petition to Chinese embassies and consulates around the globe. (Click for photos.) Avaaz staff have engaged with Chinese diplomats in New York and London, delivering the petition and urging action. And a growing chorus of world leaders is joining the call…

Together, we’ve built an unprecedented wave of global pressure. The Avaaz petition is one of the biggest and fastest-growing global online petitions on any topic in history; since it launched on March 18, it has been signed by 100,000 people per day–an average of more than 4,000 per hour, day and night.

Politicians understand that there is power in numbers. We need to show them that they have more to gain by listening to their own people–and heeding the cry for help from Tibet–than by giving China a pass in the lead-up to the Olympic Games. Take action now

http://www.avaaz.org/en/tibet_report_back/5.php/?cl=69533376

And then I read blog posts like this:

The Dalai Lama � Steph’s blog:

You don’t win a Nobel Peace Prize without having blood on your hands and the Dalai Lama is no different, it might suit his followers (the Gelug sect) and the Americans to pretend that the ”God-King” is a wise, benign, pacifist and has some sort of democratic mandate to rule Tibet, but that’s plainly not true.

He’s a murderous, racist, charlatan and Western stooge. When he was in power he was a brutal, merciless, theocratic despot, who lived in the 1000-room, 14-story Potala Palace, and his followers were eye-gouging, child-buggering, corrupt, religious fanatics, (see Michael Parenti: Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth). Although, that doesn’t stop the murderous old fraud and his “Free Tibet Movement” from being a cause celeb for liberal imperialists and gerbil lovers, under the pretext of human rights.

(Gerbils? What do they have to do with it? Are they native to Tibet?)

And then there are fellow South African bloggers like Reggie Nel saying things like Reggie: Stand with Tibet – Support the Dalai Lama: “After decades of repression, Tibetans are crying out to the world for change. China’s leaders are right now making a crucial choice between escalating repression or dialogue that could determine the future of Tibet, and China.”

But then again, on the other hand there is this: servethepeople: Tibet:

For his part, the Dalai Lama has successfully cultivated an image of gentleness, peace and simplicity which ahs an undeniable appeal to Westerners sickened by their own countries’ involvement in or support for exploitative and oppressive relations with the Third World, or alienated by the dehumanising nature of technological change and the general rat race of urban living. The Dalai is a “living Buddha” who has won acclaim, including a Nobel Peace Prize, for his rejection of violence.

The Dalai is also a clever and sophisticated politician, a wily manipulator of media opportunity and celebrity support.

However, he is not so clever that he cannot conceal his splittist intentions as regards China, nor his sham “patriotism” and “independence”.

These sound like harsh words, but they can be substantiated through the Dalai’s own materials.

So who is one to believe?

I think I go with Grant Walliser when he says Thought Leader � Grant Walliser � Free Tibet like you freed Kosovo:

Bottom line: China is a big pimp on the street and Serbia is not. That means you can gang up on Serbia, garner support in Kosovo and build US military bases in nice strategic positions. It means you can run detention centres like Guant�namo Bay in Kosovo and it means you can kick your old enemy Russia and your new one Iran smugly in the balls. And should Russian diplomacy make inroads with Poland and the Czech Republic when you need to put up your missile defence system at the confluence of Russia and Middle East, what a great alternative your new best buddy Kosovo would make. The clues to otherwise indefensible and incomprehensible behaviour are all in the timing and the agendas playing out behind the scenes (emphasis mine).

Come to think of it, what did Avaaz say about Kosovo?