So much more than a maid

I was quite touched by the recent movie, The Help. For sure it’s the type of tearjerker designed to do just that, and it wasn’t the best scripted film either, but it had some wonderfully poignant moments. I think it has particular resonance with South Africans. For us the moral message of the film is more than just an appropriate sentiment – it’s a slice of our own past.

Much has been made of the cultural similarities between the highly segregated American Deep South and apartheid South Africa. Many generations of white children developed close relationships with their family’s black domestic workers who served as their childminders, and in many cases, their friends and confidantes. As my mom only worked part time when I was growing up, I didn’t have a maid to look after me like many of my schoolfriends did. So I can’t draw on personal experience here, but can only imagine how difficult it must have been for these women, many of whom had left their children in the care of a relative back home.

In the movie Skeeter asks the maid Aibeleen, “What does it feel like to raise a white child when your own child's at home being looked after by somebody else?”

The film reminded me of this image that was part of a David Goldblatt exhibition I saw at the V&A Museum in London in July.

In the photograph entitled  'A farmer’s son with his nursemaid, on the farm Heimweeberg, near Nietverdiend in the Marico Bushveld' Transvaal, December 1964, the tenderness between the boy and his companion is evident. They both look happy but she has sad eyes. Maybe she’s thinking about her little boy or girl far away in another village.

The amazing story behind the photos in this collection is told by one of the items in the exhibition, a letter from Goldblatt to the V&A’s former Senior Curator of Photographs in 1987.

115 of Goldblatt’s photographs had been on display in several venues in the UK during the 1980s. With the exhibition ending and the political circumstances in South Africa worsening, Goldblatt was concerned about what could happen to the photos on their return to SA. He felt the need to secure his photographs in a safe, though publicly accessible, place outside his country.

He wrote, ‘Obstinately, and probably unrealistically, I still believe that this can become as reasonably ‘just’ a society as can be hoped for, and that the transition to that distant state might happen without catastrophic conflict. Increasingly however, that belief is becoming baseless. In the face of the awful things happening here and the worse that are very possible it is ridiculous to be concerned with anything as paltry as photographs. But I am. And it seems to me that considering their vulnerability to destruction, it might one day be useful and even valuable to have a fairly wide ranging collection of photographs from South Africa, such as this exhibition, housed outside this country in a museum which is publicly accessible and as likely to be permanent as any institution can be. Hence the V&A’.

Apartheid may be over but domestic workers are still a fixture in many middle class homes, except now the madams are of all different hues. While they remain a relatively inexpensive form of labour compared to most countries, it doesn't seem as though maids will go out of fashion any time soon. In fact, this practice is what keeps some people here. A well-to-do family we know recently went through a traumatic experience that's sadly not unusual in this country. Having been held at gunpoint and robbed in their home, they decided this was not the place for them, and were planning to emigrate. But then they decided to stay because the wife decided she couldn't live without her maid.

New luxury hotel for Kruger Park

The Kruger National Park is South Africa's most well-known game reserve – the flagship brand for wildlife if you like. As one of SA's largest national parks, it generates R2 billion each year. And now it seems there's an opportunity for even more income. The SA government has approved the construction of two hotels in the Kruger Park, which will almost certainly entice some wealthy visitors to part with their cash, as well as create jobs for members of the local community. While the authorities claim nothing will go ahead without the appropriate environmental impact assessment, there are concerns that the hotels could harm the biodiversity of the park.

Surprisingly, South Africans make up the vast majority (78%) of the park's tourists, with Germans (29%) leading the pack in terms of foreigners. Those Germans, zey love ze animals! But do they need to stay in a five star hotel? I would have thought the attraction of places like the Kruger was the opportunity to experience something completely different to what you'd normally get on holiday anywhere in a city. The park already has some rather larney lodges, where one can experience 'rustic Africa' without being deprived of life's essential luxuries, like hot baths, w-fi and hairdryers.

Ag, what the heck, let's paint paradise and while we're at it, put up a parking lot.

Our skool holiday was a reel riot

My housemates and I were having a girly night in, watching Titanic (for the umpteenth time). The boat had just sunk and panic was setting in aboard when one of my housemates got a text message from a friend saying, “It’s kicking off in Clapham Junction!” We switched over to Sky News and watched with horror as a different kind of disaster unfolded. As a resident of Wandsworth I consider Clapham Junction my ‘hood’. So it was with a sickening sense of disbelief and anger that I witnessed the trail of destruction there last Monday.

The rest of the week was spent fielding messages and calls from friends in SA asking if I was OK – oh the irony!

In a former life as a high school supply teacher in London I got to experience on a daily basis how badly behaved this country’s youth are. I had my purse stolen from my handbag under my nose in a Lambeth classroom. I counted it a successful day if there were no fights in my class, and I didn’t need to cry in the bathroom at lunchtime. I used to avoid taking the bus home at 3pm because it was usually overrun with unruly teenagers who didn’t need any encouragement to threaten you just for looking at them.

These kids don’t have money to go on holiday, and in the absence of suitable diversions they spend their school holidays getting up to mischief.

I remember spending my July school holidays attending pre-season athletics training or doing holiday homework assignments – and I was by no means abnormal – it’s just something we did.

These riot hoodlums think the world owes them something because they have nothing but I wish they could go to Zandspruit in Johannesburg to see what that truly means. A shack and no running water. That would quickly put their problems into perspective.

Solve the boredom problem and the discipline - holiday military boot camps?

Government to start mass deportation of Zimbabweans

While Britain and SA have many differences, they also share a number of similarities. One of the dilemmas they have both had to grapple with is the issue of immigration.

In the last few years neither country has been particularly successful at stemming the tide of illegal immigrants, and have recently only woken up the necessity of a tougher stance on border control.

The UK has taken some successful steps to rectify the problem, but of course the legacy of its formerly friendly immigration policy will not be removed so easily. A large number of unskilled refugees who can't
speak English and cannot work drain the welfare state, and of those who can work, many argue they are taking jobs from British workers in these hard economic times.

In South Africa the number of asylum seekers has steadily spiralled, with the country now the number one refugee destination in the world. And with at least a quarter of the working population unemployed, many
citizens have unleashed their frustration, not on the government, but as xenophobic violence on the people they see as taking their rightful jobs.

The government has realised the situation is out of control, and has promised to clamp down by deporting these people. It's heartbreaking to refuse someone asylum, but there's only so much one country can do to shoulder the burdens of an entire region.

However, with the department of Home Affairs and the police already swamped, it remains to be seen now effectively this plan will actually be implemented.

Happy Birthday dear Madiba!

Johnny Clegg and Savuka's 1987 song 'Asimbonanga' means, 'We have not seen him'. It refers to

Nelson Mandela, whose image was banned for the 27 years of his incarceration until he was released on 11 February 1990.

It's amazing to think that the face of the man the world never saw for nearly three decades is now one of the most familiar on the globe. Our former president has become an international icon for justice and compassion, so it's fitting that his birthday on 18 July is recognised as a day of community involvement.

There are many ways to get involved, wherever you are in the world. Why not give your 67 minutes in honour of this precious man and his legacy.

Happy Birthday tata!

Princess Charlene to sink or swim?

So Charlene's wedding appears to have gone swimmingly (sorry, couldn't resist), but are things are rosy as they seem? Could there be any truth in the rumours that SA's new princess tried to duck out at the last minute after finding out about her hubby's third love child?

But then again, she was prepared to marry him knowing he already had two children, possibly more, given his reputation as a ladies man with a somewhat murky romantic past. So would this new revelation really have deterred her?

While she looked absolutely beautiful in every outfit she wore during the two day marital extravaganza, she certainly seemed a little tense and ill at ease - not the traditional demeanour of a radiant bride on her big day. Maybe the stress of it all was a bit too much to bear.

Or perhaps she did try to escape, not because of Albert's past, but because the prospect of a life under a permanent spotlight was quite frightening. That would be enough to make any young beautiful girl who grew up on a quiet Benoni street reconsider her priorities I suppose.

Let's hope the gossip is all nonsense and that Charlie and Bertie will cast off the Grimaldi curse to enjoy a happy life together.

Government to bribe media?

Media freedom in SA is a hot topic, so when the national government announced it would buy advertising only in publications that presented a good image of the government, anger was bound to ensue. The looming shadow of the proposed media appeals tribunal and related Protection of Information Bill adds a darker sense of unease to the whole situation.

Perhaps it’s true that the media largely reports government failures, and not its successes (bad news sells, etc) but I wonder if those people in government have a persecution complex. Do they honestly believe the media is out to get them? Is it guilt? I certainly believe we need to give credit where credit is due, but the last thing we need is a sense of complacency when there is so much still to be done. 

And the ANC government seems to forget that, despite complaining that the media doesn’t report its service delivery successes, it still managed once again to garner the overall majority in the recent municipal elections. Perhaps this is because many of the people who voted for the ANC cannot read or live in rural areas without access to mainstream media. Or maybe it means voters don’t pay attention to what the media says anyway…

The other thing that bothers me is the proposed monstrous advertising budget of R1 billion. Where does this money come from? Could it not be better spent elsewhere, like um, service delivery? 

Eish, no wonder the government is an easy target for the media.

SA film fest to debut in London

For a long time the term ‘SA film industry’ was practically an oxymoron. But over the last few years things have changed. The quality and quantity of homegrown movies seems to be growing. As a result our
films are receiving international exposure and scooping up accolades, proving you don’t need a big budget to produce a well-crafted product. Skoonheid, the first Afrikaans film to be shown at Cannes, has just won a major award at this prestigious festival.

To give you an idea of how much the SA film industry has grown, it now employs 40,000 people – 10 times what it did a decade ago. This may be a drop in the ocean in terms of the overall unemployment rate, but it
shows how much potential there is for job creation and income generation.

So in light of such positive developments, it’s exciting to hear that the long-overdue SA UK film festival will make its debut in London this year. This will no doubt lead to more opportunities for directors, actors, screenwriters and technical personnel, while promoting our country as a tourism destination. In addition, we hope the bursaries and awards on offer will allow the creative talents of disadvantaged filmmakers to be developed. 

At this stage it would be unrealistic to try to compete with giants like the UK and USA, which
both have an illustrious heritage of film-making that goes right back to the birth of film itself. But then again, do we want to? Let's rather take this chance to show our unique strengths and tell our own stories.

SA: Friend of dictators since 19...?

There have been rumours that South Africa could grant asylum to our Libyan dictator friend, Uncle Gaddafi. However, this type of thing is not unprecedented in SA, and thus quite possible. Eyebrows were raised when the government welcomed first Haiti’s ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and then Marc Ravalomanana of Madagascar. 

These days it seems if you are politically well-connected, no matter what atrocities you have committed you can carve out a comfortable life for yourself in another country for several years before standing trial (if you are even unlucky enough to make it to court). 

President Zuma’s ambivalent stance towards Robert Mugabe’s human rights abuses also points to this buddy-buddy system that’s prevalent throughout Africa, and forms the backbone of the Dictators for Life Club. Perhaps the recent uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia are encouraging signs that the people have had enough of this nonsense.

Let’s hope South Africans will kick up enough of a fuss to make it clear they do not want to shelter a mass murderer. We have enough of our own already.

Volcanoes and elections

Forgive the pun, but Iceland’s volcanoes seem to be pulling out all the stops at the moment. Almost exactly a year ago, the eruption of the volcano with the unpronounceable name disrupted thousands of flights and cost airlines millions of dollars in losses. And now, once again, the world is gripped by the fear that the most recent eruption, this time by a volcano with the (at least more manageable) name of Grimsvotn, will ground flights once again. We wait to see whether the experts will deem the air safe to travel in. Until that happens, if you’re planning a trip this week, you’d better start investigating alternatives.

Meanwhile back in SA, the people pulling out all the stops last week were the politicians ahead of the local government elections, which dominated, if not monopolised, the headlines for several days. The results show the ANC is still very much in the lead, but the DA has certainly proved itself a force to be reckoned with, gaining 24% of the vote to the ANC’s 62%. In an unprecedented turn of events, the DA even won the entirely black ward of Kliptown in Soweto. The opposition party also remains in control of Cape Town. And true to form, the ANC rewarded its loyal voters with new houses and electricity. No, of course it didn’t. It spent taxpayers’ hard-earned money on a big party.