CAST YOUR X WISELY

With Election 2009 now in full swing, parties across the country are pulling no punches in trying to secure our votes. The ruling ANC has now flighted its first television ads and I must say, they make for really touching viewing. The theme is still the same; alleviate poverty, make a better life for all etc. These days it’s not enough to be the ANC, you have to go out and work for all the votes you can get. Plenty of work ahead for the party since people are increasingly becoming very disillusioned with its record of delivery over the past 15 years in government. More and more we see it losing by-elections in towns where communities are getting tired of rhetoric, corruption and lack of houses. The people see ANC fatcats in their posh cars and houses, dining in the finest restaurants and their kids getting the best education while they (the people) struggle to meet basic monthly expenses. I personally know people who have been empowered by Thabo Mbeki’s administration being empowered over and over and over while others have doors shut in their faces. Promises are just not going to cut it this time and loyalties are changing. To add chillies to the wound they have Julius Malema who, with every passing day, inflicts more pain in the ANC than any opposition party. Ironically the very youth he is supposed to represent are the ones he irritates the most. Come end of April the ANC will be licking its wounds and counting casualties caused by young Malema.

The Democratic Alliance could be a winner in this election of fighting and disillusionment. Helen “GodZille” Zille has rebranded the country’s biggest opposition party as a party of “the people”. We see this daily in media images where she is campaigning and you only see black people alongside her. Sadly the DA is not expected to win the election precisely because its leader is white. And a woman. Mzansi is still a very much race-based society and we are still paternal in our instincts. Besides that, GodZille is much more concerned about Cape Town than anything else. How else do you explain the leader of the biggest opposition party in the country deciding that she would rather be a mayor than an MP in parliament where she can take on her foes directly? She’d rather send in the weak Joe Seremane, the man she totally annihilated for the leadership of the DA when Tony Leon retired.

There is of course always Shenge and the IFP but that bunch doesn’t appear to be headed for anything significantly higher than what it garnered at the 2004 affair. The IFP has not transformed itself from a tribal gathering into a political party. Its leader, who started the Inkatha (later called the IFP) after leaving the ANC in the 1970s, is still in that position. Sure he claims his party keeps asking him to stay when he wants to leave but no reader of this blog is young or naïve enough to believe that lie. Leaders leave their positions all the time, even when parties say they want them to stay. In fact that is the mark of a great leader.

Bantu Holomisa has his UDM but no one can say exactly what the UDM plans to do and HOW it will do it. In fact who can tell me what the UDM has done for them in or outside of parliament except to rubbish the ANC? There’s no creativity there, the ANC is easily rubbishable. Holomisa’s credibility as a pseudo-visionary went straight off the cliff with his bold prediction in 2007 that Thabo Mbeki would convincingly defeat Jacob Zuma at the ANC conference in Polokwane. Anyone with enough eyes could see that was never gonna happen.

Then we have the PAC and the PAM, two parties of the same mother. It’s a bad idea because you are splitting votes that way like the MDC of Zim. Azapo will not play a role in Election 2009. Its ideas are good and form the ideal for returning Africans to their rightful place in their own minds first. Implementation is another story altogether. Azapo’s ideas need proper marketing but I have a feeling the Azanians would rather spend what little budget they have taking care of their leaders than selling themselves.

Lastly we have the new kid on the block which is the Congress of the People (CP). Formed out of anger for the new ANC, the CP has almost become the main opposition party through extensive media coverage. Leadership squabbles and Malema-like utterances by its leader Terror Lekota will dent its chances no doubt. For those seriously disenchanted with the ANC, the CP looks to be the best alternative. Whether this turns out to be true after the polls, only time will tell.

Votes are a precious commodity and we only use them once every five years. So let’s vote for people we know will look out for us in the best possible way. There’s no greater travesty in the democratic world than a wasted vote. Actually there is; it’s failure to follow-up on your vote, to keep checking if it’s being used in a good way or if it’s being abused.

WE CAN SECURE OUR OWN FOOD!

When my family moved to a Boksburg suburb in 1995 I was amazed at how many farms were in the land around the suburb. It was almost as if we’d moved to this massive farm where there were houses here and there. Farms on the land grew vegetables like beetroot, cabbages and the usual mielies.

Close by there were about three fields growing these and other crops. Five years later there were two fields. Today ne former field is barren and where there were two fields before there are now more houses. To me that says housing is a priority over food, which doesn’t make much sense. Food is the most important need that humans have. It sits on top of the food chain, so to speak.

I read a report in the Sunday Times earlier today and it said Mzansi is now a net importer of food, which basically means we buy from outside countries more than we export to others. Thinking about those disappearing farms it made me super concerned that our population is growing but yet our food production is not growing as fast. Not only is farming becoming less and less attractive as a career choice for young people, but it’s also not encouraged by society. Parents would rather see their children becoming BEE moguls than farmers. Even our role models in business are not people who struggled to build businesses from the ground up; they are people with enough political and societal clout to go out and borrow money in order to buy into a business built by someone else. I guess farming is not sexy and glamourous.

The little communities all over the country, from Upington to Umlazi, from Musina to Malmesbury need to get back to community farming. We need to start thinking about providing for ourselves as much as possible. Have you been to the supermarket lately? Have you seen the prices they put on food, on meat especially? The other day I was shocked to discover that a pair of avocados which I used to buy for less than R20 three years ago, are now over R30. A loaf of brown bread goes for R9 right now. Food prices are not going to decrease because input costs like fuel, labour and interest on farmland (mortgages and bonds) keep increasing.

In cities and towns we have an obvious space problem yet a garden the size of a door can make a huge difference to our everyday food bills. In the rural areas where they have vast tracts of arable land there seem to have been a death of will in people making their own food. I don’t know if it’s because they are expecting the government to feed them or if it’s just pure laziness. Whatever it is it contributes towards pushing up food prices because the fewer people make their own food, the more they rely on supermarkets to provide it, the higher prices go up (demand and supply). As a kid I had a small garden at home which produced veggies like spinach, carrots, green beans and cabbages. Not difficult to run and the results were excellent.

*picture courtesy of Photobucket.com

Obama: too powerful?

President Barack Hussein Obama. The name could not be more un-American, especially that middle name with its Arabic/ Persian origin. His last name rhymes with George Bush’s number one enemy, something that Fox TV viewers will be well aware of. Oh, he’s also black.

The election of Mr Obama to the office of the most powerful human being on earth has not only given black people all over the world hope for the future, but it has quickly elevated his country’s status as the most progressive in the world. For the past few years now the US has been seen as a hi-tech cave built for only those inside, cold and unwelcoming to those seeking the mythical “American Dream”. Its standing as a respected leader had dwindled to such an extent that world powers were beginning to look at Europe and Asia for leadership. So when Mr Obama spoke of a long road to change during his victory speech, I had already seen so much change because of that win.

Last time the world stood this still, watched in awe, cried real tears, laughed and spoke one language was when Dr Nelson Mandela became Mzansi’s first president. No disrespect but the others before him were not democratically elected, and can therefore never lay claim to that title. Sorry. People in Japan were singing “Yes we can!”, monks in Tibet watched in disbelief on television, teenagers in São Paulo danced on the streets in jubilation, middle-class Mzansi held celebratory parties in Umhlanga. My mailbox got so much Obama-related mail that the system mistook it for spam and killed most of it.

Much has been said about how Mr Obama conducted his campaign of almost two years, how he started off as a no-hoper, taking on that powerful Senator Mrs Hillary Clinton (with her husband Bill), eventually winning that battle after long deep scars had been cut through their party. Few thought the Democrats would survive that fierce internal fist-fight, let alone that Mr Obama would take it. A senator from Illinois. Black even. At the time I had wondered out loud to a friend about whether America was ready to accept a woman President or a black one. Tuesday the 4th of November 2008 answered that quite clearly.

Mr Obama is set to be the most powerful US President ever elected. He will preside over a government ruled by his party and a Senate smitten with him. Moreover, he will run a world that totally adores him, has exceptionally high expectations of his Presidency. Come to think of it, this could be worrisome. A figure of this nature would be dangerous not because he would do bad things, but because he could do anything he wanted and people would back him 100% no questions asked. I worry about that aspect.

On the other hand he will need all the help he can get in order to sort out the problems his country is facing, and as a consequence, the world is facing. Issues of “terrorism”, racial tensions, global hunger, global warming, diplomatic timebombs (Iran, North Korea) and Africa. Heavy burdens for anyone, worst for someone who’s going to be judged by the colour of his skin. But this is where the real test of character comes in, where his true mettle shines through. He can’t please everyone all the time, so it will be interesting to see who he pleases first and who he pleases the most.

SHIKOTA - WHAT'S YOUR OFFER?

I’m confused. I’m really confused. This week there was a debate on 702 Talk Radio where the ANC, ID, DA, ACDP, UDM, FF-Plus and Shikota were invited. Shikota of course is the name now unofficially given by the media to the movement/ party/ understanding that Mr Patrick Lekota and Mr Mbhazima Shilowa are involved in forming.

My confusion came from the other parties which at every turn, instead of selling themselves as potential voters’ homes, lambasted the ruling party. While I fully understand the whole rival-bashing thing to score political points, these organisations left me with so many questions on their own policies and plans, that I felt they wasted an entire two hours of airtime. Aren’t elections all about what you can do for me as a party, what your policies are, how you’ll improve my life as a voter? As a small party you should be using each and every available opportunity to inform voters about how you would make their lives easier, your programmes of action and so on. I can’t (under)stand parties that constantly attack with no grounds to stand on without offering viable alternatives.

When it came to Mr Patrick Lekota my feeling was, the man still has deep-seated issues with his former party the ANC. Throughout the discussion he kept referring to ANC history and anecdotes as if he was campaigning for the party. But what really got my ears in a perk was when he said the ANC had been led by educated intellectuals throughout its history and promptly went on to name a few. The killer shot though was when he said the ANC had been led by intellectuals, people with [education] degrees, all the way up until Mr Thabo Mbeki. You see where this is going right? Was that reason enough to leave the ANC?

Now, by extension, would Mr Lekota object if he himself was not elected as leader of this new movement, and instead Mr Shilowa, with only his Matric certificate in the cupboard, got the nod? The National Convention as it has been dubbed, is going on today. When Mr Lekota first touted the idea of a convention in public, he mentioned that a possible political party could be formed, that it obviously had no name, but the delegates at the convention would give it a name. So it appears the movement will be a highly democratic one where the people make the rules, and the people make decisions, instead of one committee or “cabal”.

Speaking of cabal, Mr Lekota and Mrs Jesse Duarte who was representing the ANC, had a heated exchange where Mr Lekota accused the ANC of pandering to what COSATU and the SACP’s demands.

“You’re [Mr Lekota] not there, you can’t be making decisions for us…you were the cabal before, Terror. You were telling us what to do. And we all had to jump up when you and the cabal told us what to do, and silence ourselves. That’s over now…” - Duarte

Mr Lekota had made the example that he and other bourgeois who own capital had been flooded out of the ANC leadership structures by the alliance members at Polokwane 2007 because the new ANC leadership does not want intellectuals and businesspeople in its ranks anymore. Confusing to me is that a number of prominent, millionaire businesspeople lead the ANC, including Mathew Phosa, Tokyo Sexwale, Max Sisulu and Cyril Ramaphosa. We know the third richest Mzansizen Mr Patrice Motsepe is a big supporter of the ANC, whether he is a member of the party or not I’m not sure. Intellectuals? Broad definition, but a few spring to mind; Pallo Jordan, Joel Netshitenzhe, Naledi Pandor, Valli Moosa… Was that reason enough to leave the ANC?

Anyway, the point of this letter is that it seems to me Mr Lekota has left out a few gaping holes in his strategy going forward, and for that one reason a good showing at the Polls 2009 cannot be guaranteed. Unless. Unless? Yes, unless he gets Mr Thabo Mbeki to join him…