Items by Dino
Politically incorrect
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The thing that made me smile today
Posted: November 21, 2008, 8:17 am by Dino
Barack Obama plans to nominate Hillary Clinton as US Sectretary of State.
Not sure why it made me smile, but it did.
I really do not have much to say about it yet, but I wanted to record it:-)
I will definitely say something on it when am good and ready! -
Unmasking the devil
Posted: November 19, 2008, 6:22 am by Dino
Part of living against the grain is having to put up with so much hate and prejudice. I say 'put up with' because that is essentially what it is. It is about walking down some corridor and having somebody avoid your glance. 'Avoidance'.
Avoidance, as defined by Gordon Allport, is the intensional prejudice against a member of an out-group by avoiding contact or relations with members of this group. It could be that blank smile dished out as if it be a priceless gift to fight for, or the conscious movement to the wall everytime you have to share a corridor, or perhaps just sheer inability to occupy the same space with the person, whatsoever.
But perhaps, the more obvious one is antilocution, where people feel free to speak with prejudice among like minded friends (Allport 2000). The internet has made this an extremely attractive aspect, and people think they can abuse it the way they want.
Take for instance, a recent web-war with Søren Dalsgaard,
http://scdalsgaard.wordpress.com/2008/11/04/african-obamania-mere-tribalism/#comment-1207
In this war, Dalsgaard writes for a Norwegian public, assuming of course that either his readers are clueless about Africa in general and Kenya in particular, or that they are 'like minded' in their prejudice.
hence his tragic title "Kenyan Obamania: mere tribalism!!"
For those of us who have had to suffer in silence for a while as the world moves about us as if we do not exist, this is a golden opportunity to vent. Not because we dislike Dalsgard, but because he, at this particular moment in history, represents everything we hate, and disapprove of. He represents what we feel is wrong with the world.
He moves on from using words such as 'the average african', 'frenzy' filled Kenyans, 'tribalists' and whatever else to sum up experiences that are indeed more complex than he gives credit to, as mere tribalism.
Maybe in such cases, one ought to move on, and ignore yet another attack, that criticizes one because of skin colour, but also because one comes from the poorest continent in the world. Maybe, in spite of the opportunities the internet offers us, we should continue to respect the power structures, and respect those who call the shots.
Maybe one mustn't get agitated when, on actually deciding to read the blog, one comes across a line like this,
"In Africa, however, it is about getting your own tribe in the most powerful position in the world."
Even our celebrations have to be measured, and judged. Our joys become frenzies. We become the everage africans.
"When will African politics distance itself from ethnicity and focus on politics instead?", he asks?
Perhaps his post was meant to be a reflective piece, informed by his experiences in Lamu and elsewhere, proudly and candidly displayed in a series of pictures in his blog
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nairobbery/?saved=1.
But do mere observations by someone who has been to africa as a tourist qualify as authoritative source? To the extent that he reduces our joys and celebrations to mere frenzied tribal displays? We, who have lived and gone through so much in the same countries, expected to remain muted and silenced forever in history? Is this what is expected of us?
Perhaps, yes, we are too hard on such sorts. They are but a mere speck in the larger structures of power that dictate how we are seen, percieved, understood.
Perhaps he just expressed what many are feeling. That while the 'developed' nations of the world see Obama's win as a rational move to tip the scale of world politics towards a favourable angle, the Africans specifically, see it as a way of getting a tribal king in.
Tribe. yeah, me too. It annoys the crap out of me, that word.
But to continue, it always amazes me how quickly we have to be disciplined and reminded to know our places, even today, in so-called democratized societies that are in fact so warped, only a certain skin colour can ever trully prosper. We are taught to be patient and wait for our turn, even though they know, and we know, that our turn may never come.
To digress, I had a dream last night, and our tribal king had gone to some African town, and people were booing him. He was not recognized there, because he had failed to recognize them. Tit-tat. The tribal King was pleading because at the end of the day, he was of there, but no one wanted to listen.
I woke up.
But there is a moral. The tribal king and all, may not be as closely linked to our lives as others want to see it. He does not change the fact that I still have to get up every morning to get to my destination point and get some work done. Neither does he change the fact that I am now buying cooking oil for such a disgustingly ridiculous amount (did I hear Amen?)
But the fact that he is there, reminds me that in spite of having to wait my turn, I will finally get there. I will break those boundaries that right now seem so strong and inflexible. I will in my own right, be able to throw a tuntrum without someone calling me irrational and emotional. I will be able to celebrate without being called insane. I will be able to look at a wandering tourist in the eye and know that he is just trying to as hard as me.
Yes we can.
To belittle what has been achieved just so as to feel better is a cheap way of trying to feel relevant in the world. Just work hard, stop trying to damn hard to close off opportunities for others. Just do your thing. Move on. It is in deed a very short life!
It is sad, that even as I write this, somebody's butt is being kicked metaphorically or otherwise for no other reason but...
In a world that is so free, its amazing how jailed we are, how much negotiating we have to do just to get a breath of fresh air every damn day.
It's amazing that I have to put up with people who pretend it ain't a big deal that I have to work extra hard to prove myself at work, or school, and that it aint a big deal that I can spell, and count and use the internet, and go to college, that it aint a big deal that I can be the best of what I can be...no it's just another day, so moving on.
But that's just it. It aint a big deal...to them. It is a big deal to me.
If there was a way to speak, i could. I would let it all out, and have it known. But so far, it lands on deaf ears, so i fight on, and on. -
Of Race and Gender in the White House
Posted: November 7, 2008, 7:26 am by Dino
I have been holding back on saying anything about the Oba-mania especially in Africa. But also, generally on what it means for the black race, in America especially, and in the rest of the world, for two reasons. First, I think at such moments, everyone has something to say, and so what I say or not say will probably have very little impact. Secondly, I have been looking for the counter-story, the excesses of what Obama's victory means.
Well, I have decided to break my fast. I think if I do not say something now, the time will never come. Anyway, my curiosity begins with the fact that Obama is obviously a black man. Today, I heard on CNN that the Italian Prime Minister, Berlusconi (sorry got this wrong the first time) in his congratulatory speech to Obama, said that he welcomed Obama, who he thinks is a good looking young man, with an even skin tone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, one can throw a chair and jump up in the air in anger, but truth be told, Berlusconi said what a lot of people think is politically incorrect to say, and are therefore keeping mum about.Is his reduction of Obama to a cute guy with a light skin tone just that, or is there more to this statement?
bell hooks writes about racism in an interesting way, that it is not only between races, but also intra-racial. She draws attention to the way in which even among black people who have been cultured to think of themselves as better or worse than the next black person because of the colour of their skin or as mentioned above, skin tone, there is racism.
In reading Berlusconi's comment about Obama, it is clear that the 'even skin tone' refers generally to the fact that at least Obama's colour is closer to the white skin than most black people. But I digress.
I have been interested in the way race is playing itself out presently, and even more interesting, how gender is rudely cast aside, and blamed for the failure of the republican Party. By gender of course I mean Palin. I will return to this presently. In part of my research into the question 'is America ready for a black president' I have uncovered some pretty uncomfortable truths. For the extremists, the answer is more obvious. It is the subtle ones that are a bit uncomfortable. For instance, in a blog about whether Obama had been elected because he was black or inspite of it, one person, arguing that race had nothing to do with it, continues to say something seemingly unrelated to the Obama race question,
"No, there arent any indigenous Australians capable of running for PM.
None have the experience or the desire to do anything but scrounge up more welfare payments for fellow aborigines."
I know, this is about Australians and aborigins, but why does it make its way into the Obama discussion? What is being threatened that other white governments and societies that have their share of native non-whites (not as is the case with polilical refugees, illegal and legal immigrants etc who have no claim to the land)feel they have to come up with a new narrative to comfort themselves that their relevance is dwindling or threatened? What is it about native American Indians that makes another person say they are less likely to ever get into the white house? Wasn't the war against Apartheid a sure sign that race can be pushed aside in search for humanity and freedom?
Ok. Next issue: Why is race a bigger issue than gender in these elections? bell hooks has mentioned previously in her analysis of the OJ simpson craze that the case had been reduced to a race thing, and no one was paying attention to the fact that a woman, albeit white, had been abused and then murdered. Okay, little comparison here but why is it not a factor that history would have been made if we had had a female president (Hillary) or a female Vice President (Palin)? Why is it easy for America and the world to accept these defeats that to accept race? Big question, but in all this I am also following the media's reports about Palin, who is now being shooed away in disgrace, when we all know she had been of mateiral importance for McCain when he needed a woman to be his running mate so he could beat Obama.
I feel let down by this. i feel that we had our moment, and now, because of Palinisque effect, it is gone. we of course here, means women. Now all the men in power will always have an excuse to not get a woman, because all she will think about will be buying new clothes (ala Palin's mad shopping spree of $150 000 in the middle of an economic crisis) or be a pretty face with nothing much to say. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I believe the fall of Palin has more significance than anyone is acknowledging! It will hurt a lot of female aspirants, it will be held as an example to justify why women ain't no good in positions of power.
Palin will continue to be in the media for all the wrong reasons, while Hilary Clinton, will as we have seen already, be tucked into the books of history, as one of the rare cases of women trying for the white house. Maybe there are more examples, I do not know, but so far, that is my take on it all.
But when all is said and done, I think Obama's win has symbolic significance for all of us black people, especially some of us who continue to face racism in our day to day dealings. The world is changing and with it our ideas, and opinions. Let us all keep hoping that it will get better. And let's all pray for Obama. I hope he continues to inspire all of us for many years to come. -
If only Kenyan elections were like these...
Posted: October 16, 2008, 11:13 am by Dino
Last night, I sat up patiently and waited to listen to the final pre-election debate between McCain and Obama. While I admit I was half asleep when it began, I found myself paying attention to what McCain was saying, how Obama was sitting smilingly next to him, taking punches, even as McCain threw harder punches. I wondered at the way the election campaigns were being monitored and how, even a single pause or blink caused the polls to take a dive/dip. Everytime Obama stammered on a word, the graphic lines representing the undecided votes from both males and females dropped, when McCain was trying to swim out of a difficult spot by bullshitting, the dip was so huge. And when both spoke honestly and cadidly about issues, the graphs reached the upper limit.
Watching this, I began nightdreaming about the possibilities it held for African Countries, where physical brawls and public humiliation of opponents was still very much the name of the game. What if we started seeing elections as a platform for allowing citizens to decide on what they wanted, rather than using it as an opportunity to bribe, cheat, humiliate, fight, be abusive, or whatever else African leaders are always upto during such times? It is still a dream in Africa that we will achieve the state that USA takes for granted, where election capmpaigns are organized and the battles do not have to involve or rbuise the public, where citizens still have a large amount of power, and where presidents (potential) are taken to task about their manifestos...
Its a dream world, but a good one nonetheless. -
Being foreign
Posted: October 15, 2008, 10:57 am by Dino
I am still rattled by the police raid. I have been asking myself a lot of questions, including, why did I agree to leave Kenya to come to SA? Before I came down, did I even know about the existence of xenophobia? perhaps in the dictionary, but really, did I really understand what it meant to be foreign?
To be foreign means having to renew visas regularly. Each time you renew it, you are filled with trepidition. Will they ask me to buy medical aid for next year? Will it mean, as usual, that I will have to pay a year's worth of medical aid at once? Meantime, Its the middle of this year, can I use my medical aid for this year? What if they deny me a visa, what then? will I get a letter from the relevant faculty confirming my status as a legal foreign student?
Its always about paying more than anyone else, going through so much more pain, waiting, suffering. even at the banks (foreign xchange) and forex exchange bureaus, where majority of the customers are foreigners, you get that special vybe, like people are doing you a favour by serving you.
I suppose I am okay because I have a choice as to whether or not I want to remain in this country. I can move if I want to. But that will not solve the issue of being short-changed on my rights because I am a foreigner. I wonder how I will feel when I eventually go back home. Sometimes I think I will be treated with contempt there as well. after all, why did I leave the country? why am i back? why couldn't I just have stayed away?
I hope I did not make a mistake to leave my home country. This feeling of alienation is probably always going to be with me, but i hope I manage to handle it better with the years.
Sigh. -
Police Raid - Is this even legal?
Posted: October 13, 2008, 12:09 pm by Dino
Today, I caught a glimpse of what people who have been on the receiving end of police raids go through. At about eleven in the morning (I had just woken up, having slept late marking essays) - I heard loud pounding on my door. Yeah, this was surprising, given that I hardly ever get visitors, albeit door-pounding ones. I open the door to this stream of cops. Okay, at first, it was a policewoman, who immediately got into this monologue in Zulu. I told her I wasnt quite following what she was asking me, upon which she asked,
"Are you Zimbabwean? Where is your passport?"
Okay, I am kind of used to the idea that being foreign in SA places me in a certain position of disadvantage sometimes, but even this was new. Surely they should respect the privacy of my home? But no. I told her I was Kenyan.
"Where's your passport?" She snapped.
" In school."
"The law says you must have it on your person at all times. I must arrest you."
Okay, this was not funny. I was in my damn PJs and this woman is threatening to place cuffs on me for the first time in my life, for a crime I wasnt sure I had committed? I calmly explained to her that I was a student at Wits, and if she wanted, we could walk to campus, and I would give her my passport, which happened to be in school. Meantime, another officer had strolled into my tiny kitchen. The first cop kept asking if I lived alone, as she made her way to my bedroom, and opened my wardrobe and things. At this point am beginning to get irritated.
"so what must I do?" she asked.
"You can wait for me outside, I will run and get my passport".
"No. My job is to arrest anyone without papers."
Then i remembered I had a certified copy of my passport. I found my wallet, pulled it out and gave it to her.
"Where is the police stamp?"
"Its certified, officer".
"No, it must have a police stamp". Pause, "so what must we do? Give us something!"
Its only then that I noticed I was being harassed by this woman. The other cop was busy going through my CD collection.
"Are you selling these?"
I frowned. That is my CD collection. Its in a CD holder. It contains different CDs. How could I-
"Next time, you must have your passport. Otherwise we will arrest you!"
"Close your door!"
Okay.
This whole bizzare episode could not haqve lasted more than 20 minutes, but I felt the effects of it. I could no longer focus on the essays, even though I had a one oclock deadline. I am still asking myself if its even legal to do what they did. Or I am expecting too much from the Law? Are surbabian homes raided in the same fashion, or is it just flats located in a particular area? How many more times should we expect these raids?
God, its gets wierder everyday, doesn't it? -
the normal manifesto
Posted: October 7, 2008, 9:27 am by Dino
today, I managed to write a manifesto. Nothing earth shattering, just NORMAL. See, I believe I do not have the capacity to think radically. I do the, 'i believe in honesty bullshit!' No wonder I was accused of sounding normal.Ouch! Ouch ouch ouch! That hurt. especially because I had been in cloud nine, just thinking that I had done something nice.
But one thought stuck by me even as I wrote this manifesto (oh which i had to submit somewhere)...I felt that these are the things I wanted out there, to represent who I was, and what I wanted. I wasnt looking to be radical, or cause a stir...that is for the ones who are talented in that area. I was looking to just say what it was that I believed in.
In a world where everyone is striving to be different, what is wrong with normal? why do we think of normal as something that should be arrested and put in jail, in chains? Is this the same thing that drives us to bunjee jump? this desire for excitement and thinking out of the box? I don't know. Like I said, I am just a normal gal with a normal brain who rarely leaves the security of what she is, knows, wants.
Perhaps one day, when I am tired of being normal, I will become radical in my thoughts, writings, expressions, life...until then though.
Yours
Shockingly normal,
Me -
And the award goes to...miss kwa kwa
Posted: October 6, 2008, 9:21 am by Dino
Book: Miss Kwa Kwa
Author: Stephen Simm
Publication date: 2006
Publisher: Jacana
After months of listening to my friend go on about Stephen Simm's Miss Kwa Kwa, I finally read it. And boy oh boy, was it a read! It begins with a typical slowness that marks books of this kind, books designed to make you crack a rib in laughter. The creation of the character of Miss Kwa Kwa begins innocently: Black girl in search of opportunity, even at the expense of destroying one man's life, the King of Kwa Kwa, Pieter Depeenar.
It is a book with many faces, humor, mistaken identities, and stereotypical representations. Through laughter, we are forced to engage with serious racial and class issues in today's south africa. For instance, because she is black, the first mistake that anyone who meets her makes is that she is stupid.
This more so in Kwa Kwa, where racial prejudices are still very deeply embedded, where blacks are only seen as farm hands and domestic workers; where white farmers' wives play bridge, and where white people still command the unquestioned respect from black subjects.
In other words, a small town.
A town that Miss Kwa Kwa finds too small for her. Miss Kwa Kwa is the ambitious alter-ego of Palesa Moshesh, a quiet but brilliant girl whose ambitions know no bounds. She wills her personality to be absorbed by her other side, Miss Kwa Kwa, ambitious airhead, beautiful, and as daft as a blonde doll. I mean, how else would one explain her answer to the question, "In a country characterized by such racial and cultural diversity, what culinary delight do you most enjoy?" to which she replies innocently " I'd like to take this opportunity to enrich my vocabulary and ask you what does that mean?" anyway, the perplexed interviewer explains, "what's your favourite dish" to which, unfazed, Miss Kwa Kwa replies, "Oh I see, I see! My favourite dish is ... Tupperware."
Did I introduce you? Meet Miss Kwa Kwa.
Behind the facade of stupidity, she is as sharp as a razor. She makes her way to Jozi, convinces a TV station to hire her as a television presenter, where she gets fired of course, before engaging in a series of exciting adventures, including her bulling a possible mugger and taking his gun away... you have got to admire her. And I think the best part of all, is that she really believes in what she is doing.
Like when, after losing her TV job, she, wearing her Tiara, stands by the robot with those begger signs reading, "TEN YEARS OF DEMOCRACY: Asking a rand per year".
Trust me, I laughed my way through the pages, hardly putting it down. I can't wait to read Miss Kwa Kwa 2. It should offer me even more laughter, which I have been needing more of lately. -
As Onyango-Obbo sees it
Posted: September 25, 2008, 9:59 am by Dino
At the rate it is going, South Africa could soon be expelled from the African Union for “setting a bad example” to the rest of the continent.
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CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO: Is power-sharing the panacea?
African leaders, generally, hate three things. First, anyone who tries to take power away from them, even legitimately at an election.
Secondly, another African leader who shows that you can leave power when your second term is up.
Thirdly, a leader who resigns “prematurely” just because the public has become disgusted with their rule.
First, in 1999, when the iconic “Saint” Nelson Mandela would have won a second term without even getting out of his bed to campaign for president, he walked away from it and retired to his village.
His deputy ,Thabo Mbeki, duly stepped up to the plate and won the election.
Now, with less than a year left before he retires, the ruling African National Congress has revolted against Mr Mbeki. Instead of rounding up all the dissidents and feeding them to the crocodiles, he announces that he was respecting the ANC’s wishes and stepping down!
Before the continent had fully absorbed the shock of his actions, on Tuesday, it was announced that Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka too was resigning, along with 10 ministers, and three deputy ministers.
Mr Mbeki has a thousand faults, and he drove folks like myself to near-insanity with the way he mollycoddled Zimbabwe’s strongman President Robert Mugabe when he was ruining his country and tormenting its citizens, but on the whole, his achievements were quite remarkable.
While his critics have slammed Mbeki for being too business-friendly and not doing enough to tackle poverty and inequality, he presided over South Africa’s longest period of steady economic growth.
Mr Mbeki was, without doubt, the most intellectual African of the last two decades. Some years ago, an American magazine reported that when he travels abroad, aides usually go and knock on his hotel door at 3am, and remind him to go to bed because he has an early morning meeting. Sometimes, they sneaked back at 5am, only to see the light still on. Mbeki would still be either surfing the Internet, or reading a book.
The Internet was to be part of his doing, for there he met some chaps who had some crackpot views on Aids, and argued that it was not caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), but by various conditions arising from poverty.
MBEKI BOUGHT INTO THAT VIEW, which influenced his approach to fighting the disease even as South Africa became the country with the world’s highest infection rates. Mbeki’s government was slow to get on the ARV bandwagon, and become an object of hate for many Aids activists in the world.
South African newspaper The Times, quoted human rights campaigner Zachie Achmat, who had a memorable confrontation with Mbeki over HIV and Aids, saying: “This (Mbeki’s departure) is long overdue. Personally I would have liked to see him impeached for causing the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of people living with HIV...”
His attitude towards Aids, though it changed to conform largely to the conventional scientific view, nevertheless led his Health minister to encourage sufferers to treat themselves with a concoction of ginger, beetroot, and a mix of lizard tail powder or something like that.
Mr Mbeki was paranoid, and thus became the architect of the slash and burn culture that saw him hounded disgracefully out of office. In the end, the monster he had created devoured him.
Mbeki was aloof to a fault. You have to look hard to find a photograph of him holding a child, like other African leaders like to do. In the 2004 elections, he showed his aversion for the lowly moments of political rallies by campaigning mostly by walking through neighbourhoods and talking to small groups of people. Mbeki is not one to join traditional dancers, and would never don monkey skins and prance around on the stage.
He would never do a Raila Odinga, and turn up as the Prime Minister used to, with his wife Ida wearing uniform clothes for a public function.
He was also sometimes famously tactless. One case, not written about in South African media, but the subject of every dinner you have with journalists in the country, is how he treated Mandela.
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CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO: Is power-sharing the panacea?
One of the reasons Mandela broke up with the fiery Winnie Mandela, is that she was cheating on him. One of the incidents happened when she was flying with then president Mandela in the same presidential plane from a foreign trip.
While the “Saint” napped at the front of the plane, in the back Ms Mandela was doing Satan’s work, making out with a young ANC activist. Mbeki later appointed this impertinent lad to head a major public corporation.
To the very end, Mbeki remained true to form. When he delivered his resignation speech, he was regal, and absolutely dry-eyed. A very presidential performance. -
Conspiracy theory?
Posted: September 22, 2008, 12:23 pm by Dino
This year has been one heck of a strange one. My world as i have known it has turned on its head.
I am talking about the madness in Kenya (with the killings, the hate, and the displacements)
The xenophobic attacks on foreigners in South Africa
The crashing world markets! Between the Lehman brothers, AIG and now the series of banks that had to be rescued
Mbeki stepping down as president
Gordon Brown and the Isreali PM (not sure)
Its as if the world is reacting to an invisible fullmoon; as if we have been infected by some virus that is setting things in motion, ensuring that the world changes and things do not remain as they have been.
I think this is how discoveries are made, how geniuses are created. events such as these, which require superhuman brains to fathom. It may seem unrelated, but why is everything happening at the same time? Why can't the concept of predictability apply here? Is the world conspiring against us? Is the end coming??????????????
I have been reading Awake! so no, am not going crazy.
But seriously, what is happening to set these events off? Between the earthquakes, the tsunamis, the whirlwinds, hurricanes and so on, and the human initiated ones, am not too sure we are safe anymore (been watching sci-fi).........
Or maybe I just have too much time in my hands. -
TV don’t teach nobody nothing!
Posted: September 15, 2008, 12:32 pm by Dino
I was reading Barack Obama’s Dreams from my Father the other day, and flowing with this man’s poetic language, when I bumped on a line that made me put the book down. He was talking about Maya, his sister by his Indonesian step-dad. He said,
“I scolded Maya for spending one evening watching TV instead of reading the novels I had bought for her” (DfMF 123)
I remember my feelings at that particular moment. Affront. Indignation.
Ok. I lie.
I remember wondering if in fact it was true that television did not teach anybody anything. I was astonished by how much I wanted to defend television. I felt a powerful emotion towards this piece of machinery, especially given my rather African background. Isn’t it true that the world has come to believe that radio is the one technical gadget that defines Africans? And isn’t it true that television in Africa has been regarded as the luxury that only the few rich ones can afford?
I remember growing up without television, until I turned nine. Then my dad brought into the living room this (it seems to me now) rather small strange looking television set. It wasn’t as big as our neighbours’. It was squeezed, reminded me of maths. You see, our teacher taught us the essentials of a cubicle. It was like a square, only three dimensional. That is how I imagined a real life cube to be. Small, compact, perfect. And it was black and white. I loved it.
Anyway, from the time this thing made its way into our house, I was glued. I never could explain it. My father could never explain it. In fact, my father tried to pry me away from it with everything he had. On some nights, when all the other children were asleep, and I was left there, staring into this machinery, my dad would stumble into the sitting room, reeking of alcohol, for he loved his beer (of course he had just arrived home). He would try to string enough words together, words that were designed to threaten me from the television.
“You have school tomorrow, what are you still doing up?”
Or
“This thing will make you go blind!”
I would calmly turn around and tell him I was doing homework. That without TV I could not do my homework.
Too drunk to argue, he would leave the room, sighing, and possibly look for my mother to blame for the destruction of one of his daughters. Nonetheless, they basically left me alone.
My older siblings, realizing that I got away with it, began joining me in my night vigil, watching, droning, thinking.
But none of them ever understood what it was that drew me to that television. It wasn’t the images per se, it was the comfort it brought me, the knowledge that a better or worse life than mine existed out there. It was the way in which I could lose myself in some senseless movie for hours without blinking, and the way I would be irritated when my mother chose a particularly interesting TV moment to send me to the shops, which were far away, at least by my standards. A kilometer journey was way too far, because I had to make the journey back, and then I would miss half of my He Man cartoon programme, or Sheera. I despised it when mum came home, bountiful, loud, interefering.
Yes, I watched way too much TV.
Then I grew up. I went to boarding school, where there was none. I entertained myself with watching people, following routine, numbing myself against the inevitable drone of class, games time, dining time, preps, sleep. I read novels. I discovered the hidden world of fantasy. I got lost in it. First, it started with the interesting stories from African writers. Kenjo Jumbam, I remember. I loved The White Man of God. I was fascinated with the child’s point of view that the author employed. I read. I later discovered Mills and Boon, and I thought I would die from the enticing romantic stories. Still, I discovered other romances, books that were taken away from me before I reached the end of these tantalizing narratives. The pain of loss that I felt then, I cannot dare to recount.
Meantime, in between, our television set was stolen, so for a whole year, as my mother pestered my father to buy a new television, we listened to radio. I got lost in the fantastic stories of Radio Theatre. Most of them were about romance, and AIDS. I enjoyed listening to the triumphs of the voices, and was as defeated as the characters were, when disaster struck.
Then I went to college. There was TV, but then there were so many other things going on. And so, once again, my love for TV was in abeyance.
Many years later, I could finally afford my own TV. I watched. I bought every single television series I could get my hands on. I hated movies, because they ended. I bought the entire series of Friends, bought Ally McBeal, Desperate Housewives, Nip/Tuck, Prison Break, 24….the list is endless. I was a woman possessed.
Then one day I asked myself, what had I learnt watching all this TV? People are busy reading. There is this new fad all over me. People no longer buy TV sets because its so …. Working class? People now only listen to Classic FM, or read M&G, or just read plain old classics.
Elizabeth Gaskell. Theodore Dreiser. Charles Dickens.
What was I doing to myself, enjoying this?
To make it worse, I wasn’t even a fan of news, and newspapers. I was doomed.
I was often chastised for not being more receptive to good books, and newspapers, and the news. But what was I supposed to learn from all these, if not repeated narratives of war and destruction, and mayhem, and cheating politicians. What was I supposed to do with things I had absolutely no use for? How was I supposed to learn from all these?
I thought. Then repeated the last series of Ally McBeal. She was funny. Very confused. Too much angst. Like me. But still quite funny.
Perhaps TV was bad, but it was definitely good for my mental health. -
Sharlene Khan - What I saw, what I thought
Posted: September 5, 2008, 12:08 pm by Dino
On 4 September 2008, I had a rare opportunity to see the work of one of South Africa's young and upcoming artists' work on display. The exhibition titled 'What I look like, what I feel like' wasn't her usual work on urban immigrants, the work that has occupied her imagination for a while now. It was on an interesting theme, her.
While any work that is reflective of ourselves is often a risky project to undertake, many autobiographers often do it, because within the story of the self, emerges the story of others, in which concerns about one's identity become key in relation to the general context of the work's production. I am talking about great names like Eskia Mphahlele and Richard Wright, in literature, for example. Often, people who write or produce autobiographical work recreate their stories to embrace a certain theme that touches base with the stories of hundreds, even millions of others. Such has been the case for some of the most famous autobiographers.
It is with this is mind that I approach Sharlene Khan's exhibition at the Gallery Momo, in Parktown North. Her work was a collection of photographs, each telling its own story, yet all of them forming an intricate narrative of how she sees herself personally and as an artist in South Africa today. The style of presentation was quite interesting. Each piece consisted of two separate yet related photographs, which together told a story of how she viewed herself and her identity.
Her work rotated around questions of gender and power, education and unemployment; and unequal race relations in post-Apartheid South Africa. The displays were at once personal and public. Personal because the artist used the opportunity to directly speak about her feelings towards how very specific groups have viewed her in the last few years during her struggles to make a mark in South Africa as a young, black, female artist. She makes references to several controversial landmarks in her career.
For instance, one display titled 'Doing it for Daddy' makes special reference to an article she wrote a couple of years ago about the disadvantaged position of the black artist in the present South Africa. It inadvertently makes reference to the backlash she received for writing this piece. She also has a mounting based on a phrase that appeared quite recently in a blog spot which picked on her as an example of those artists who were not doing much to help in the Xenophobic violence. She clearly uses this space to speak to issues close to her heart using the most effective form of expression available to her.
An array of her pictures speak to more general themes. For instance, one of the pieces titled 'Princess Warrior' was particularly telling in a freudian kind of way. This is a picture of the artist dressed in army gear, holding a blood-stained knife on one hand, and on the other hand, holding a severed (white) head. She is in the process of wiping her brow with the knife-holding hand. Next to this photogragh is a rather completely different picture. It is of the artist sitting on a toilet seat, blowing into a air-bag, perhaps nauseous from the earlier exprerience?
In the 'gender room' we had a most inspiring piece about her identity as a Muslim woman, who although free, struggles with the demands of her culture. A very provocative piece, which was, quite naturally, the first to sell! In one picture, we have the artist standing naked, free, but already defined by the boundaries and expectations of her culture (demonstrated through the intricate stitchings in the form of gown measurements around the naked body). In the second picture, she is covered from head (face) to foot, in a bou bou, a prisoner in her clothing!
I was honoured to have been a part of this opening night, not because I know much about art, but because I thought this was a form of rebirth for many, who felt, thought and exprienced the things they saw on display.
An inspiring display of courage, determination and artistry! An evening well spent. -
What I think of Barrack Obama
Posted: August 29, 2008, 5:46 am by Dino
What I think of Barrack Obama -
What I think of Barack Obama's DNC acceptance speech
Posted: August 29, 2008, 5:46 am by Dino
I woke up early today to catch a repeat of Obama's speech. Anyone who heard it will agree with me that the guy is gifted. The manner of his speech is such that you come out of it remembering most of what was said, rather than latching on to some obscure comment as is normally the case with standard speeches. Obama spoke strongly and candidly about several things, but what moved me, and got me sitting at the edge of my seat (a speech, not a horror movie, or a thriller, a speech), was the manner in which his words were able to resonate with the things that I believe in, the principles that I have embraced through out my life; principles of hard work, a fair economic system, and humanity.
Fundamentally, Obama touched on 'those' issues that the Republicans possibly wouldn't dream of dealing with.
(But I think my greatest amusement was the sub-text of his speech. I sense a marxist/socialist/communist in him. The way he goes on about the rights of the working class. Wow! And to think that America is the epitome of capitalism!)
When he said the only reason him and Michelle were able to be part of today was because they had been given a chance, because they had had an education; he stole my heart, even though his presidency will possibly never affect me in any way. I felt I was part of the change he was propagating. If I were an American, that's the point at which I would have sold my heart.
But as I heard later, the Republicans are calling his speech 'exuberant' and full of empty promise. They are latching on to their song, 'Obama lacks experience'.
I thought to myself, if some of us had never had the kind of chance given to us by others, would we be where we are, wherever that may be?
Barack Obama may not have the 'proper' white house experience, but there is a man who can light millions of hearts with hope. He is able to penetrate even the most doubtful of hearts, and to sway people into believing in the idea of a possibility. -
Food adverts, and the concept of sacrifice
Posted: August 25, 2008, 10:06 am by Dino
I don't know about you, but I am starting to feel really selfish and brutal lately, everytime I eat a piece of chips, or bite into a cob of maize.
No, I've not yet become one of those zealous vegetarians who do not eat anything that once breathed/had legs etc.
I am simply responding to the recent television adverts on SA tv. There's the Aromat one, 'Maize cobs are boring, but with aromaat!'. and the recent one about Simba chips. 'I wanna be a simba chippy'...
Does anyone find anything absurd in the manner in which these poor potatoes are marching to their deaths, much like how one would march to glory, or some kind of eternal grace/heaven...
Okay, maybe the Christian comparison is a bit much, but really. I find something extremely sick in the reasoning that brought about such adverts.
Why would anyone celebrate death? Because in essense, that is what is happening here. The various food types are celebrating death, joyously going to join those who have gone before them.
Or the one about that stalk of wheat (i think) or sorghum, that has to be sacrificed so that I can enjoy my Castle lager.
Maybe I read too much into this , but I will not lie when I say that these adverts freak me out, big time. Soon, we will be like the proverbial ogre in every story, only this time, the poor victims of our greed will be willing to self-sacrifice for our personal satisfaction.
-Sigh- -
Zilizopendwa
Posted: August 22, 2008, 8:12 am by Dino
Playing in my mind over and over are the golden voices of Daudi Kabaka, Fundi Konde, David Amunga and Fadhili Williams.
Just been listening to a whole recording of them.
Tausi, ndege wangu....
Its a pity such a rich array of voices died so poor.
But did they have a hot ensemble or what? I wish there was a way I could load the music on this post and play them. But between Wits' bandwidth drama and my own comp illiteracy, that may not be. -
Behind every successful man - Zukiswa Wanner
Posted: August 19, 2008, 8:02 am by Dino
This is a book every woman should read, no, every black South African woman should read...okay, its a book every (black) woman should read.
It embraces the desires, fantasies and aspiration of every woman, be thy the fancy independent ones or the desperate housewives.
In fact, it does remind me of them soap operas, where you get a woman who has to find herself against all odds.
In the case of Nobantu, she absolutely has to find herself in the dark matrix that is Andile, her brilliant but extremely, blindly concieted husband.
Reading it, and I am sure a lot of us felt the same, while I was reading it, I kept feeling frustrated on her behalf. Every time Andile did something or said something, I cringed. Like when he has to find space in his busy schedule to 'accomodate' Nobantu. Or when he says, 'she's just a housewife' and does not see anything wrong with it. Or, when he threatens her with divorce if she dared carry on with her dreams of starting a baby/teenage clothes label...
But because of its melodramatic style, these moments are momentary, fleeting, especially because you know she will eventually come out of it stronger. You know because 'it is that kind of novel'. The painful moments are short - lived. More focus is placed on Nobantu's desire to succeed, and very little on any self-pity or reflection or regret. Can only happen in a novel such as this.
I always thought novelists who dwelt on pain loved to make their readers suffer. Part of why I loved, and am sure a lot of people loved Behind was precisely because it did not seek to cause pain, but to teach, and people reading it are expected to learn a thing or two.
Its interrogation, not just of the BEE world, black success, money and glamour, but of the place of the woman in this new South African world continues to fascinate. It offers us a glimpse into a world that we would otherwise not have been able to enter. And in writing the narrative, Zukiswa simply deletes other things.
For instance, why is it that I cannot remember a single white character in this novel. Oh, maybe the Jewish guy who co-owned the law firm with Anant's father (Ackerman). We only catch a glimpse of him though, as we hurry along to more interestig things. However, even in that small glimpse, we are allowed to scorn at this character's love for money above simple things such as loyalty.
Domestic violence: As usual, Wanner takes advantage of the narrative space by inserting the issue of domestic violence. Perhaps one could question the manner in which this violence is presented as the problem of the working class. However, to her credit, Wanner introduces the reader to the many layers of violence that take place on society against the woman. Andile is abusive in every sense of the word. But Wanner has also elsewhere engaged with middle class domestic violence in The Madams, where Lauren's husband Mark beat her to a stain (Marechera still jazzes me).
Short of it, Behind is just as interesting and fascinating and one can apply several readings to this 187 paged book. -
WOMEN WHO MURDER THEIR HUSBANDS: WHY DO THEY DO IT?
Posted: August 13, 2008, 9:02 am by Dino
Yesterday, I caught the end of 3rd Degree, a programme that comes on e tv. It was a special feature of people who are jailed for murdering their spouses. I missed the bulk of the interviews, but the last one caught my attention. It was about a woman who arranged for her husband to be killed.
I still remember what she said about why she did it. For her, ‘it was okay for him to beat me. I could almost handle it. But then he turned on my kids, and that I could not take.’
What played on my mind then was this: what are the limits of abusive relationships? At what point does one snap?
We are told that statistically, the number of women murdered by their husbands is quite high. Take for instance, this report
[home.cybergrrl.com]
For me, such statistics only reinforce what I already know, the vulnerable positions of women in relationships and marriages.
But then, there is the other matter of women who murder their husbands.
Sure some of them do it for the money, but quite a bulk of them do it because they cannot take abuse anymore! Again, I will give you the link. You can follow up on it - [www.websleuths.com]
But then, that is not in Africa. Does it happen here? Of course. On the 18 of February 2007, I received a disturbing email about this woman, Nompumelelo Manyapeelo, who wrote a piece titled Born to Suffer.
She begins thus:
I am serving a thirty year sentence for my actions, substituting the prison of abuse for a prison of bricks. A prison where even my thoughts and feelings are held captive. My pain is for my children who lost both parents, and everyday I am reminded of what I have done. I still clearly recall that final act that made me snap (p 2005: 111).
Then she proceeds to give us the details of the event that led to the murder. Be patient with me, as I reporduce a chunk of what she says:
He arrived home after 2am as usual. He was as sober as a judge when he opened the bedroom door and greeted me cheerfully. I was half asleep but moved to the other side of the bed to give him space to sleep. He took off his clothes and got into bed beside me. He started caressing me and telling me that he wanted me to perform oral sex on him. It was something I had never done before and I did not want to do it. Not like this, not when he came home in the middle of the night and just demanded it. I tried to explain, but he said that there was always a first time. I tried to explain my feelings that the first time – for anything – should not be in the early hours of the morning. I resisted his advances, but he grabbed my nightie, pulled me and gave me a heavy klap (slap). I surrendered, but when I knelt down and saw the bits of toilet paper stuck to his penis, I realised that he had had sex with another woman – again. Something inside me just cracked. It could not go on.
I felt angry and humiliated, but also helpless. Finally, I cooperated after being beaten. I did it crying. After cuming inside my mouth, he released me and he slept. I felt so used and humiliated. He had been with another woman and then expected me to do this, showing off the evidence with no regard for my feelings. Years of abuse had finally taken their toll, and it had to end (Agenda 66 2005 p.111).You know, reading this story - please go to the link above to read part of the narrative- anyway, reading this story made me realize just how vulnerable women are. And worse still, the role that society plays in accelerating the situation. For instance, when she speaks of her mother in law's treatment of her, its just sad.
It is not as if she did not try to do other things before the murder. She says she tried to commit suicide twice.
She does say something important:
Looking back, I believe that there are three stages of abuse, whether its mental or physical in nature, and certian choices that can be made. The first stage starts with the relationship. It may be a single incident, but that is when rational people get out and irrational people remain. I was embarrassed about what people and my family would say and quitting a marriage is against my culture....the second stage, in my experience, is when the abuse increases. Some women walk out at this stage. Those who stay think that if they managed it up to now, the can continue to manage. Or you love him and think that tomorrow he will stop. Or you think of the children and finally you start beliving that somehow you were responsible-that you actually deserve the punishment. You feel helpless, incompetent, stupid, inferior, a second-class citizen...it reaches a point after he has hit you, he calls you and explains why he did it, and you accept his reasons. The third stage is the point of no return. You feel you have reached the edge. You either then allow yourself to fall over the egde by committing suicide or you fight the hungry lion by killing him...
What makes women snap? -
ZUKISWA WANNER AND POPULAR FEMINISM
Posted: August 11, 2008, 4:49 am by Dino
‘I love my life. I love my cute, smart-ass five year-old son, Hintsa. I love his witty beer-gut-lugging father and my significant other, Mandla…I am tired of having to be a Superslave at the office, a Supermom to my son, and a superslut to my man…I have somehow fallen short of the high standards set for me as a modern woman’ (Zukiswa Wanner, The Madams, 2006).
…
‘Why are you so ungrateful? Many women are dying for what you have and you are complaining. Your husband gives you and your children everything…Stay with your husband and stop complaining…better to cry in a limousine than laugh in a taxi!’ (Zukiswa Wanner, Behind Every Successful Man, 2008).
When I picked up The Madams by Zukiswa Wanner sometime last year from Xarra bookshop in Newtown, I was generally drawn to the cover (some say it’s KB on it. Well, I really don’t know. You see, her eyes are closed). The salesperson was also quite good at convincing me to buy it. I was at Xarra hunting for back copies of Chimurenga when my eye fell on the blue, gay cover, and my first thought was, it’s so un-South African. What I mean is, in Kenya for example, you can find that kind of book quite easily. My Life in Crime, or the Minister’s Daughter, have similar covers designs and fall within the general category ‘popular fiction’. Well, the girl at the counter told me that the books were ‘selling like hot cake’. So being me, I bought it, more to suit the demands of the cosmic powers than anything else really. I mean, why did I see it when I saw it etc?
Anyway, great book, easy read, page turner. In a recent interview during the book launch of her second book, Wanner was irritated with one male critic who had called her books ‘chic lit’. Sex and the City, the movie, was recently dismissed as a boring ‘chic flick’ by the South African film critic Shawn de Waal who writes for the Mail and Guardian. The problem is, why do such critics (usually male) find it necessarily easy to categorize, then dismiss works that have women as central characters; as irrelevant narratives fit for female airheads? Do they believe that such books/movies/shows are nonsensical and irrelevant in the face of grand (phallocentric) national narratives?
Anyway, The Madams revolves around three chics, uThandi, who is the main character; Nosizwe and Lauren. It is a mix of races and class. Thandi is ‘coloured’ (a problematic racial category she rejects even before she begins narrating the story), Nosizwe; black and born rich, and Lauren, white and born/bred dirt poor. The novel is clearly a complete reversal and challenge to popular perceptions of race and class in South Africa.
But the clincher of the novel is that uThandi hires a white maid.
Now in today’s South Africa, this is a bit much. A white maid? Mhhh....
In the novel, gender is central to the narrative, and class (in the case of the poor white maid and the other maids really, and their relationships with the middle class trio) and race are bystanders in the greater story. The white maid, Marita, is a jailbird, something about murdering her abusive husband. She is, in the narrative time-frame, in some kind of rehabilitation programme. She grows to love Thandi’s five year old son, Hintsa; and forms a close relationship with the other maids, Pertunia (Siz’s maid), MaRosie, Lauren’s maid-btw, Lauren is quite abusive to MaRosie. Treats her like she’s some kind of leper. I love how Wanner captures this particular complex narrative strand; that while Lauren treats MaRosie so badly because she is black, she treats her girlfriends differently, because they are ‘better’ blacks worthy of her respect and attention. This is unfortunately. a familiar trend in SA’s racial politics. It doesn’t matter that Lauren, in all ways, shares a similar history with MaRosie, they both come from working class backgrounds. For her, Thandi and Siz are ‘better blacks’ and therefore deserve the better treatment she gives them- But I digress....
The men: uMandla, the quiet, nice jamaa who loves and takes care of his family, until Thandi learns she isn’t the only woman in his life; Vuyo, the all-time loser of a man, with several baby mummies and who later has an affair with Pertunia, the house maid; and that Michael, Lauren’s husband, earlier referred to as ‘the lamb’ but who later turns out to be such a schmuck…He has been abusing Lauren behind the walls/doors. He is only discovered when he knocks her out after one of his drunken episodes.
Wrapped in the story is Ma, Siz’s mother: the strong, pushy, gets-what-she-wants type, unapologetic about the manner in which she got her wealth etc. She strings in a HIV narrative. She is infected by her ‘mute’ husband who I think dies (been long since I read the book). Quite an interesting character though.
But why do I say the book represents popular feminism? Because it is about poetic justice, where all the women win, and all the men must come back and bow at the feet of these women. They are all independent working women: Thandi, a manager in a tourist company in Soweto; Siz (God I can’t remember what she does, but I do know that she has loads of money, and loves to shop at designer shops, and that she takes care of Vuyo, her husband and his two bastard sons), and Lauren, a lecturer at Wits University. Because of their economic leverage, they can just about do anything and go anywhere they want.
Their men are at first portrayed as 21st century progressive men who have embraced the idea of the modern woman. But later, we find out that these men are particularly backward, patriarchal and egocentric. When they are not cheating, see case of Mandla and Vuyo, they are beating up their wives, in the case of Mike. (And one thinks Things Fall Apart is outdated). The novel is therefore about retribution i.e when Siz shoots Vuyo in the leg, Vuyo is unable to sue her because of some legal complication; and about justice; when Mike is jailed or given a retraining order or sth; and respect: when Mandla is forced to plead with Thandi to have him back. The best part is that Thandi does have an affair with Martin (this part so reminded me of that Whitney movie….with the four women…will remember it in due course...Waiting to Exhale), but yeah, she lets him know what she has done, and Mandla is so jealous, he could kill sth/sb. But why is it so hard for him to swallow Thandi’s affair when his betrayal is possibly worse? I mean, Thandi has a one-night stand with a stranger; Mandla has an affair with his ex-girlfriend. Which is more likely to come back and bite who in the butt?
But beyond its embrace of popular feminism, I am very interested in the kinds of solutions the book suggests for the rainbow nation. It suggests that people of different races and nationalities in South Africa can come together in harmony. By overturning popular perceptions and assumptions about race and class relations in South Africa, Wanner arrives at her own idealistic suggestions. That Marita is a white maid who eventually gets into a relationship with a black woman (turns out Marita is gay), ((pushed to it by her late abusive husband?))
The dominant theme is female power, and everything else is secondary. But Wanner also raises the characters to national significance. In a country affected by serious racial tensions, in a system that squarely embraces what bell hooks calls ‘white supremacist capitalist patriarchy’ Wanner does well to put gender on the agenda. Suddenly, we are looking at an alternative nation, a nation in which women rule, judge, love, hate but all the while remain united in their shared suffering and pain. The men become disposable. They are no longer the centre of the new South Africa. Just mere secondary characters in the grand narrative of the nation.
What is the opposite of phallic/phallocentric? ‘Cuntcentric?’ ‘Cuntocentric?’… a female version of phallocentric, equally in your face…something other than gentle matriarchy…Mmph! a thinker.
Anyway, loved The Madams.
And now, Behind Every Successful Man…just starting it, but sth tells me I will have a wonderful time. I love the line, ‘better cry in a limo….’
Blah blah blah
Fish cakes
Alas a fish cake.
Yet more fish cakes
Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.
The end of the fish cakes
