United chase the blue and red carousel shadows.

This Champions League final was no mere matter of football, this was sheer artistry.The Catalan legends mesmerised their opponents from Manchester in what was billed as the ultimate showdown this season and then turned IT into one way traffic.

There will be comparisons drawn between the carousel at the fairground as Barcelona spun and passed the ball, retaining possession for lengthy periods leaving United players shell-shocked and dizzy.
Passing the ball the way they do Barcelona don’t make many more passes than other teams, they just make sure that the ones they do make hit the mark about 86% of the time.

Wizardry does not describe the effect on their opponenets as Barca played patiently and waited for the minutest gaps to tear in the United ranks before taking advantage. Picasso or maybe Duchamp might have made something abstract from this perpetual motion but for the viewers it was one of those, “I was there occasions”.

Chasing carousel shadows seems to arty and abstract a portrayal of what was just a simple game of football but if you’d watched it you’d understand the poetry in motion, the ghosts of artists long gone participating in a whirlwind on a kaleidoscopic canvas. Football might just never be the same again.

Earlier in the season, I had a prophetic moment when I posed the question as to whether there was a team that could beat Barcelona. The answer is, going on last night and it’s tutorial in abstract football, no club team and very few national sides.

The Road is a haunting, haggard tale that can leave a reader feeling hunted for days after the journey.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a journey through a ravaged land where the reader is in no danger of becoming entangled in a dense, word-filled bush and verbose, overgrown crops that need a bushknife to hack through.

Minimalism and an economy of words drag the reader kicking and screaming through this ultimate apocalyptic survivors tale. Ultimate because it could so easily come true. No real imagination necessary to download this nightmare in the early hours of a sleepless morning.

The blurb is curiously uninformative, “A father and his son walk alone through burned America, heading slowly for the coast. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. They have nothing but a pistol to defend themselves against the men who stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food – and each other.”

McCarthy does not build plots, he weaves tales endlessly using only words. I was warned about this book by an English Literature grad student from Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. She simply said that I wouldn’t be able to put it down and when I stumbled upon it on the backpackers communal shelf I snapped it up forthwith.

She was right about not being able to toss it aside, even when I had to squint through matchsticks. This book stands as a challenge to anybody who does not enjoy reading. Defy this book and you might as well defy life, the universe and everything. It doesn’t get more real, visceral and tactile than this.

A sample follows that I throw out as bait, knowing I won’t lack for plenty of catches.

“In the morning they came out of the ravine and took to the road again. He’d carved the boy a flute from a piece of roadside cane and he took it from his coat and gave it to him. The boy took it wordlessly. After a while he fell back and after a while the man could hear him playing. A formless music for the age to come. Or perhaps the last music on earth called up from out of the ashes of its ruin. The man turned and looked back at him. He was lost in concentration. The man thought he seemed some sad and solitary changeling child announcing the arrival of a travelling spectacle in shire and village who does not know that behind him the players have all been carried away by wolves.”

The idle and inane, kindergarten sqabble that goes on around the planet about global warming is brought into bold, believable relief against a background of stark, lifeless skylines that do nothing but highlight what used to be there.

The Road
Cormac McCarthy
Picador
2006

Barcelona versus Manchester United in best of the best showdown.

The showdown desperately wanted by both teams, managers, players and many neutrals has almost come to pass (within the next 12 hours it will all be history and material for forensic investigators).
Barcelona and Manchester United will tee off with the stakes of best club in Europe and some might say the world at the mercy of the team that delivers on the night with their immense individual and team potential.
Barcelona chase a treble having already taken the Spanish domestic title and cup. United are world club champions, domestic league champs for the third consecutive time as well as Carling cup winners.
There is a great deal already proven for both teams with gilt-edged histories but the potential that will be made actual in the winners pedigree after tonight is almost too huge for the rest of the football world to conceptualise.
Both teams can attack and score goals almost at will. United have Ronaldo, currently the world’s top player and Barca have Lionel Messi, the diminutive Argentinian and the heir apparent to the individual crown.
United have a defence that went 14 consecutive games without conceding a goal. Barcelona have a strength in midfield that serves to protect their defence and is the springboard for launching lethal attacks.
Both teams like to be in possession and love to pass and build patient attacks rather than spur of the moment brilliant goals from nowhere. However, both also have players capable of strikes from out of nowhere.
Those looking forward to a goal spree might just be disappointed though as finals bring out cagey teams patiently waiting for the minutest crack in the opposition concentration.
Last year they played in the semi-final and in 180 minutes only one goal separated the two teams sending United through to face Chelsea and win the coveted trophy.
Predictions are for gamblers but all I will say is that it will be one of those, “I was there occasions”, and for those who can’t be at Roma stadium, watching is the next best thing to sex, maybe better. Especially if United make it two in a row.

Facebook, nudity and Helen Zille, free speech and ANC Youth League.

According to News24 an employee was fired for calling his employer a “serial masturbator”. That’s a rough description of anybody to throw online as it raises all kinds of questions. The offender posted on Facebook and was snitched by a co-worker.

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2522718,00.html

Legal opinion in the article states that one can say anything, “provided that what is expressed is based on fact”,  “serial masturbator” is a difficult allegation to back up in a court of law. One would imagine calls from the prosecution to provide valid evidence over a significant period of time to justify the appendage “serial”.

A serial is a story shown in regular instalments and that could be used to describe the ubiquitous ANC Youth League who had a page on Facebook taken down replete with the usual, same-old, scurrilous and defamatory statements against Helen Zille.

Facebook has taken flack recently for lack of action against people denying the holocaust and yet they employ approximately 150 able and energetic activists on their daily or maybe hourly nipple patrol. An exposed nipple equals offensive nudity and one can understand the sensitivities of people, especially Americans.

However, political offensiveness surely deserves the same policing, maybe more as people go to war based on politics but don’t really mass rockets, tanks and subs over an exposed nipple or a strand of pubic hair.

The ongoing strand through all of this is that most people seem unaware of the implications of posting on Facebook or anywhere online for that matter. The fact that Facebook owns content and also the deeper, maybe, implications of using hate speech and inciting anger or hatred against people of a different colour or creed.

It’s as easy as clicking away on a keyboard but may take longer, much longer to dissipate.

Free speech is not an inalienable right as it comes complete with a responsibility not to infringe on other people’s rights to privacy, dignity and reputation. Compared to hate speech, nudity seems a bit soft core, in fact it would be interesting to see the stats comparing people against nudity to people against hate speech on Facebook.

Killing the messenger and vitriol reigning in the vacuum.

Helen Zille was castigated from all sides over her all male executive in the Western Cape and let’s face it, she made a serious miscalculation but the insults, threats and intimidation by the ANC Youth League over her personal criticism of President Zuma show a political battleground that has lost perspective and focus with vitriol reigning in the vacuum.

Zille never criticised Zuma and his polygamy, she criticised his wrecklessness in exposing his wives when he had unprotected sex with a woman he knew was HIV-positive. He also was happy to state that he knew he wouldn’t be infected as long as he had a shower afterwards.

Answers to questions put to youth on HIV/Aids illustrate how President Zuma is a huge figurehead and example with many believing they can’t get infection if they shower after unprotected sex. The personality of the ANC encourages a belief that everything certain sectors of the the media writes is lies, even to the extent that many people still believe Manto never claimed that a diet of beetroot and garlic is sufficient to counter Aids in Toronto in 2006.

What is critical to understanding these deep seated and firmly held beliefs that defy all logic is the critical role that the media plays in everyday South African life. The Sowetan newspaper had a headline of comments by Zille about Zuma and his sexual irresponsibility that was taken verbatim from a longer letter and was taken out of context.

The spin of this particular headline then took flight and was taken up as a cultural slight by the ANC Youth League and MK Vets who threatened militancy. In the process the dangers of people believing that a shower can prevent Hiv infection were totally lost in the bombast from the Youth League and Vets about Zille and her supposed sexual promiscuity.

The way that the media are interpreted on different levels by the South African tribe according to background, education, prejudice and political leanings means that for many the scurrilious accusations against Zille are believed regardless. She is now the enemy and all tactics and drastic measures are justified in silencing her. Her warnings about the youth that actually believe in the efficacy of showers preventing infection have been lost as she has been discredited by Youth League lies.

The Youth League don’t ever seem to be involved in finding solutions to the spread of the virus, halting violence in schools, halting rape in schools as well as teacher abuse of learners. I might have missed something in the media or conversation but I don’t recall the Youth League ever being involved in any positive and constructive contribution to our democracy.

As far as the way forward is concerned there is very little positive to take out of this hostile engagement. Lies, insults, threats and intimidation were part and parcel of the struggle war but in a democracy they only polarise which for certain segments in the political game in South Africa is all that they want.

Cosatu in the Western Cape took the path of going to the Equality Court and also looking at the possibilities around a vote of no confidence in Zille as Western Cape Premier. This is the way democracies interact when disagreement occurs as there are tools that can be utilised instead of resorting to militant threats to make the Western Cape ungovernable.

When a workman only has a hammer then every problem looks just like a nail.

Police Minister goes to war against crime and criminals with army and detectives.

Police minister Nathi Mthethwa has reiterated the word from President Zuma that police must not hesitate to defend themselves against criminals even if that means shooting to kill. Human rights practitioners have played a huge role in South African government policy since independence but there comes a time when the police death toll has to be taken as evidence that maybe police respect criminals too much.

This is not new but by reiterating this again and again government show intent to build it into policy and that could spell a change in the balance of power between state and criminals.

A further idea expressed by Mthethwa is that of the army taking over from the police and patrolling the borders of South Africa. This makes a lot of sense, giving the army a role to play in the security and integrity of the country. A further part that the army could play has been the suggestion that it takes over security for cash-in-transit vehicles which would bring more firepower into play against heist gangs and free police officers to concentrate on hijackings and robberies.

He went further to say that detectives are to be retrained in forensics which can only benefit the overloaded criminal justice system. The large amounts of prisoners awaiting trial has burst prison capacity and also leads to petty offenders celled together with rapists, murderers and armed robbers thereby offering them a cram course in advanced violent crime.

Increased prosecutions leading to convictions could break this vicious cycle and remove violent and repeat offenders off the streets not just to await trial and maybe get bail, but to serve a sentence keeping them out of circulation for a decade or more.

There is  a bill before Parliament dealing with forensics so that the attention to detail at the crime scene is improved making evidence gained admissable in court and making sure of convictions. Old fashioned detective work and following up leads may just get a new lease on life as the minister looks at focusing on convictions, not only arrests. 

The popular CSI series on TV recently has investigators spending hours at the scene of the crime, that has been sealed off to prevent evidence being messed up and lost, and this is imperative in ultimately putting violent and repeat offenders securely behind bars.

A two pronged attack is looking like the only way to successfully combat the South African crime scourge. The first prong involves ”fighting crime’ by having officers on the street and visible policing including roadblocks and cordon and search operations. This prong has to be run in tandem with ‘fighting criminals’, making sure that offenders are prosecuted and convicted successfully thereby sending a message out to the South African tribe that offenders are going to prison when they get caught.

The South African tribe can do with a strategy that starts to break up the hold that crime has in too manycommunities. It has long passed the stage of stealing to eat and has a gang structure which leads to being faddish, earning peer-group prestige as well as being deeply entrenched in popular culture.

This two pronged approach was brought forward and tabled by Anthony Altbeker in his book, ‘A country at war with itself’, and the Police Minister deserves to succeed in his tenure at the helm with these kinds of ideas. 

 http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20090517064357988C939676&newslett=1

‘A country at war with itself’. South Africa’s crisis of crime.

Anthony Altbeker wrote a book published in 2007  entitled, ‘A country at war with itself’, where he looked at the problem of crime in South Africa, the crime wave explosion after 1994 and the deeper, far more scary problem of the levels of violence used with seeming impunity in SA crime.

Altbeker examines some interesting angles on crime South African style including the idea that crime has become almost faddish as enough people in certain communities have adopted a criminal lifestyle for others to feel less inhibited about diving in too.The analogy he draws is that of a party where once a critical mass of dancers are up on the dancefloor than most of the rest will join in as there is less chance of being noticed.

If some of the most uninhibited dancers were kidnapped would the rest of the group not then be a little bit more hesitant to get up and strut their stuff out on the dancefloor. If the most uninhibited criminals were removed off the streets and successfully prosecuted and sentenced would other citizens then not be more prone to making different choices and decisions about how to live out their lives.

He goes on to focus on where he thinks government has gone wrong in focusing the police on crime prevention with more police visible and more community involvement by the police with joint ventures and campaigns. This he says has led to a downgrading of the process involved in prosecuting and gaining actual convictions of criminals with the result that not enough hardened criminals are convicted and seen to be punished.

The large quantities of awaiting trial prisoners in SA prisons are testament to this focus on preventing and not solving crimes already committed.

As a result of this emphasis detectives were seen as of secondary importance to uniformed officers on the beat and were put in charge of community policing forums and/or required to don uniforms and take part in roadblocks or cordon and search operations.

“The upshot is that we have too few detectives with too little experience and motivation. This helps to explain why the conviction rate for murder hovers around 20% despite a large proportion of these crimes having been committed by people known to the victim – crimes which should be relatively easy to solve.”

“The most important issue of all, however, is strategic, and it revolves around reframing the purpose of the criminal justice system from ‘fighting crime’ to ‘fighting criminals’.”

The incapacity of our prisons to adequately hold the prison population and awaiting trial prisoners celled with violent repeat offenders is also a factor in the ongoing national crisis.

“Finally our overcrowded prisons will rehabilitate no-one. They are also a potential time bomb that needs to be defused.” This time bomb hinges around prisoners awaiting trial for petty crime housed with rapists, murderers and armed robbers, effectively doing a cram course in advanced, vioilent crime. 

The difficulty in comparing stats with other developing and third world countries that don’t keep or else doctor stats makes it impossible to say, for certain, that we are the crime capital of the world but we do have more violent crime than most.

“Violence has become a cultural phenomenon. It is a form of behaviour driven by its own logic and attractive in its own right, one that is, for a significant minority, an expression of their selfhood, something towards which young men are drawn by the ‘enticement, or incitement,of peer-group prestige’.”

“Suggesting that violence in South Africa is a cultural phenomenon, like any culture-based argument, is controversial, even provocative. And yet it seems a much more fruitful explanation than some of the ‘root cause’ (poverty, unemployment etc)  thinking we’ve been offered.

“It implies, however, that simply implementing existing policies is unlikely to work by itself. Raising people out of poverty is a good and noble thing, and it needs to make no impact on crime to be justified. But the impact of this on crime will be less an effect of reducing material need than of the manner in which increased income changes the self-concepts of the people whose lives improve.

“Economic reality must be remade, but so too must be the climate in which social conditions are translated by people into forms of human behaviour.”

The South African tribe as a whole needs all kinds of preconceptions and prejudices turned around, both criminals and non-criminals, for any lasting change to take place in the dominant position that violence and crime hold in conversation, debate, argument and reactions to differences of opinion and confrontation as well as the national psyche of the nation.

A country at war with itself. Anthony Altbeker

Jonathan Ball Publishers

973-1-86842-284-5

It was a Red under every bed, now it’s communists in the cabinet.

The presumption that a communist serving in any government must somehow be a security risk as well as a bad person incapable of contributing to effectively governing a country is such an antiquated yet still widespread viewpoint.

The corollary of this idea is that a capitalist or free-marketeer is by definition always good and an effective member of any government is not worth arguing with. It is sufficient to simply point at George W. Bush and use his time in the White House as an effective gag to silence the autopilot critics of communists.

The South African cabinet chosen by President Zuma who was chosen by the South African tribe, features a number of high profile communists and has given rise to debate and also criticism. Communists versus capitalists was a favourite kindergarten slanging match during the Cold war and McCarthy who started all the witch hunts in the US was to blame for encouraging a view in the Western world that a communist by definition was simply a bad and unregenerative person.

South Africa under the apartheid government also spread all kinds of rumours and scandal about communism and coined the phrase, “A red under every bed”. Gone are the days of totalitarian and fascist misfits like Joseph Stalin, Mao and Erick Honecker of East Germany (German Democratic Republic) amongst others, who provided plenty of ammo and fuel for the idea that all communists were raving fascists only out to plunder the rest of the world and torture and kill their own people..

Nowadays, communists are more likely to promote goverment spending, install tariff barriers to protect local business and jobs and object to the way that the US and the UK to a certain extent strut around as if they own the globe. The comunist mistrust of globalisation can also be of benefit to a developing naton like South Africa.

In South African terms, increased government spending might not be a bad idea to kickstart the economy and tariff barriers against cheap imports that wreck local business and jobs especially the textile industry would make a lot of sense in a country where there there is increasing unemployment and many people that have not seen the fruits of independence as their lives have not changed much or at all since 1994.

With President Zuma on record as saying that the fundamental economic and financial policies inherited from Thabo Mbeki will not be tampered with and Trevor Manuel moving to head a National Planning Commission after his successful stint as Finance Minister the odds of a massive communist take over and the disastrous, idiocy of the  nationalisation of all assets and price fixing from central government allied to the closing of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange look slim.

It all boils down to a balance and not throwing the baby out with the bath water as cabinet now moves to focus on delivering to the marginalised, poverty stricken and unemployed. With a foundation created by Trevor Manuel in his years in the Finance ministry allied to the ever present example close by of Robert Mugabe, a communist of sorts, and how to run a country (Zimbabwe) into the ground, the South African future is patently not red.

In other words, what exactly is the danger of having communists on board in the cabinet. The different angles and debate that will ensue over development and just how to alleviate poverty and reduce unemployment will be a breath of fresh air. Capitalists and arch free-marketeers have had their day in the sun and it hasn’t been pretty for most, only the treasured few at the top of the tree that have gotten ridiculously rich. Time for a change.

Racism, stupidity and the ANC Youth League – asset or liability.

The diatribe from the ANCYL aimed at Helen Zille thise week shows the league sinking to new depths in its attempts to insult and ridicule anybody who says anything supposedly bad about Msholozi (President Jacob Zuma).

 Zille made what could be a bad miscalculation in naming her executive in the Western Cape. The executive includes six white men, three coloured men and one African man. Never mind gender equality, what Zille is effectively stating is that there is no woman in the entire Western Cape capable of measuring up to her standards and delivering in the Western Cape executive.

That is the situation as it stood until Zille responded to criticism from Cosatu and threats of action in the Equality court by stating that President Zuma put his three wives at risk of infection by having unprotected sex with a HIV-positive woman thereby showing just how he feels about women’s rights and deflecting attention away from her faux pas.

Enter the ANCYL and their pre-school release to the press accusing Zille of racism and of keeping a harem of concubines and boyfriends (the Western Cape executive).

http://www.thesoutherntip.net/anc-youth-league-statement-about-helen-zille/

All quite humourous in a kindergarten kind of way except that the word racist conjures up far more serious crimes than simply maintaining a harem of supposedly willing slaves. It conjures up detention without trial, denial of education, seperate public transport and people relegated to sub standard existence based on the colour of their skin.

In criticising the decision by President Jacob Zuma to have unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman Helen Zille was not being racist. In fact the decision making process through which he went en route to risking everything has nothing to do with skin colour as HIV/Aids does not target any specific colour or creed, it is non-discriminatory.

Where then does the racist allegation come from and what effect does the Youth League wish this epithet to have on Zille. Surely they must have considered the impact of their insults, maybe not.

The word racist is a kneejerk reaction that has a long history and it leads to white people being labelled racist when they quite obviously are not being racist. It does not forward the agenda for total emancipation of previously disadvantaged people from centuries of racial abuse and discrimination.

The story of the little boy who cried wolf so often that when a wolf really did arrive the people did not believe him is an important lesson here. Furthermore, it trivialises real racism and incidents that still go on, racism against all colours and creeds, racism that still leaves us divided on critical levels of possible interaction in continuing to build and sustain a strong democracy in South Africa.

The ANC Youth League has a mixed background with public nudity, drunken stupidity and vote rigging marring the election of Julius Malema as president. The ridiculous grammar and language abuse that comprises the league press releases and the absence of Julius Malema in the day to day running of its affairs point to a kindergarten class playing at politics.

It’s about time that President Zuma reigned them in and placed a class monitor to vet and veto any interaction with the public or media. It really is that embarrassing, not just for the ANC but for the South African tribe as a whole.

JuliusMalema soared to infamy with his statement that he would kill for President Zuma. It’s been downhill from there and he helped the ANC bring the rural vote home in the recent election but now it is time for more sophistication and marketing suss and for him to take responsibility for the mess that is the ANC Youth League .

That the ANC Youth League are by default the ANC spindoctors is like watching a B grade comedy. The fact is that Helen Zille has erred, hugely, in her choice of executive members in the Western Cape but that mistake is getting lost in the focus on the ANC Youth League and its incompetence. Time for a change.

DA leader, Helen Zille takes aim at President Zuma over his womanising.

“Jacob Zuma is a self-confessed womaniser …who put all his wives at risk by having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman”

This headline in The Sowetan daily paper yesterday sums up the feelings of a number of women and men about Msholozi (President Zuma) and his decision making process when he weighs up going to bed with a woman. According to some there is no process at all, he just goes ahead.

As per the script this comment is all part of the tit for tat, the mud slinging that takes place in South African politics. Zille was responding to criticism of her choice to fill her Western Cape executive with only males,(http://riffingonthefly.wordpress.com/2009/05/10/helen-zille-bends-gender-seesaw-breaking-point/) where she effectively stated that in the entire Western Cape there is not a single woman worthy of serving on an executive run by Helen Zille.   

Helen Zille has hit a raw nerve with this womanising comment and it wouldn’t be suprising to have the ANC Youth League launch into battle complete with crazy comments and fictional counter allegations to try and protect President Zuma. It’s a PR method that worked during the election when the ANCYL leader, Julius Malema, deflected media and Helen Zille from attacking Jacob Zuma and ANC policy by keeping their attention distracted with crazy comments and rabble rousing but back in the real world can it do the trick.

The facts are that Jacob Zuma had unprotected sex with a woman he knew was HIV-positive and then had a shower afterwards to clear his name. The woman accused him of rape and although he was aquitted his decisionmaking process still remains in question and he has done nothing to dispel the suspicions that he doesn’t always look before he leaps.

A PR method with which to solve this niggling problem that just won’t go away might be an admission from Msholozi that he erred and that he is only human. People might have more time for a president who admits to making the same errors of judgement that us mere mortals, the South African tribe, do rather than a larger than life presence who never puts a foot wrong.

Helen Zille has obviously picked her moment with this comment and despite her protestations of being quoted out of context, the media now has the bull by the horns and the South African media tend to have the staying power and persistence of swinish rumuors predicting a global pandemic.