Jacana

Raymond Suttner, an activist and author (most recently of The ANC Underground in South Africa) – and a person familiar with Jon Qwelane’s controversial career as a journalist – takes a closer look at what the rumoured appointment of Qwelane as South Africa’s ambassador to Uganda means for our democracy:

AT THE moment columnist Jon Qwelane is in the middle of controversy about possibly being appointed ambassador to Uganda. Before focusing on the present, let us rewind to the 1980s when Qwelane was a reporter for The Star. At that time a fake priest in Port Elizabeth, Ebenezer Maqina, purporting to represent the Azanian People’s Organisation (who later disowned him), repeatedly claimed attacks by United Democratic Front supporters. He was awarded honours by cities and given similar recognition. He was exposed in the late 1980s and it was found by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that Maqina had been a SADF agent and had incited the abduction of then-trade unionist, Dennis Neer and journalist Mona Badela. Among other matters he was implicated in killings.

In the meantime, Maqina’s false claims had been popularised and never scrutinised by Qwelane. He has never returned to the subject, where he misled the public and helped spread lies on the word of Maqina. I do not thereby claim that there were no misdeeds by the UDF. I merely point to an element of Qwelane’s past that has receded into the memory of a few people who were politically active then.

The response of ANC spokesperson, Jackson Mthembu, to objections to a self-confessed homophobe being sent to a country which has strong backing for legislation to hang gays/lesbians, is “bring the proof”. Now Mthembu seems to confuse his role. He forgets that he is not a government spokesperson and it is Foreign Affairs or the Presidency which ought to answer.

• Read the complete article in the Daily Dispatch

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• The ANC Underground in South Africa by Raymond Suttner
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  EAN: 9781770095977
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Author of Native NostalgiaJacob Dlamini names no names in this article about South Africa’s latest high-profile and controversial appointment to its diplomatic corps (our guess: he’s writing about a certain homophobe due for a sojourn in Uganda), but he does question what exactly the prerequisites are for representing South Africa abroad. Racism and bigotry, he muses, don’t seem to be considered to be reasons for disqualification. But what about insanity?

A COLLEAGUE once showed me a string of text messages he had received from a man who is now being considered for a job as SA’s high commissioner in central Africa somewhere. The texts were manic, crude and downright offensive. They reflected poorly on the writer and suggested a mind that was both troubled and unhinged.

Written in a mixture of English and Sesotho, the texts were nothing but a string of insults. Creative insults too. The author seemed determined to drown his target in a cesspit of vulgarity. Fortunately, the intended victim had a formidable sense of humour and was able to laugh off the insults. In fact, the recipient of the texts felt pity for the sender, who was a good writer and maybe, at one time, a good man.

I do not recall if the intended victim responded to the texts but I do remember that we both concluded that the man who had written and sent the texts was certifiably mad. He had to be. We decided that no self- respecting and sane person would have written and sent out such nasty messages.

• Read the complete article in the Busines Day

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• Native Nostalgia by Jacob Dlamini
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  EAN: 9781770097551
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The ANC’s Quatro was best described in a terse statement by Zaba Maledza, when he said: “When you get in there, forget about human rights.”

This was a statement from a man who had lived in Quatro during one of the worst periods in its history, from 1980 to 1982.

Established in 1979, Quatro was supposed to be the rehabilitation centre of the ANC, where enemy agents who had infiltrated the ANC would be “re-educated” and would be made to love the ANC through the opportunity to experience the humane character of its ideals.

Regrettably, through a process that still cries out for explanation, Quatro became worse than any prison that even the apartheid regime – itself considered a crime against humanity – had ever had.

• Complete excerpt in the Sunday Times

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• Inside Quatro: Uncovering the Exile History of the ANC and SWAPO by Paul Trewhela
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Sue Williamson’s South African Art Now, or “The Book” as art insiders refer to it, is at the centre of her recent chat with Janine Stephen:

SUE Williamson is generally quite the diplomat, but she’s no great fan of Jean Pigozzi — an Italian man who owns a huge private collection of contemporary African art, which he pimps out to the museums of the west.

There is a photo of him in a 2005 edition of Vanity Fair, standing loud-shirted amid a collection of “his” artists (including Esther Mahlangu and Chéri Samba). He has chosen them according to three criteria: they “must be black, breathing and living in Africa”.

Williamson — who, with the publication of South African Art Now, has three respected books under her belt — is infuriated that Pigozzi’s uneven collection has managed to shape popular US perceptions of African contemporary art: he evidently seldom considers work by fine art-trained artists, so traditional materials predominate in his collection.

Thanks to the influence of glossy books on the Pigozzi works (one, funnily enough, titled African Art Now) and prestigious shows at institutions such as the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, the American public doesn’t expect “sophisticated video installations” to come out of Africa, says Williamson.

• Read the complete article in The Weekender

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• South African Art Now by Sue Williamson
  EAN: 9781770097216
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Jacana Media and Exclusive Books are pleased to invite you to the launch of The Democratic Moment: South Africa’s Prospects under Jacob Zuma by Xolela Mangcu with guest speaker, editor of Business Day, Peter Bruce. Please see the event details below.

About the book

The Democratic Moment is, among other things, a look at the mass forces that swept Jacob Zuma to power in 2009 and put an end to the elite politics of the Thabo Mbeki era.

Trenchant and provocative as always, Xolela Mangcu looks at the new configuration of power in South Africa and in the process illuminates such topics as the new black elite, the role of Julius Malema, the cartoons of Zapiro and the fortunes of COPE. This is a book that will stimulate ideas, provoke discussion, create controversy and help us understand where we are as a society and a nation.

We look forward to welcoming you in Hyde Park:

Event Details

• Date: Thursday, 05 November 2009
• Time: 5:30 PM for 6:00 PM
• Venue: Exclusive Books, Hyde Park, Shop U30, Hyde Park Corner
  Jan Smuts Avenue
  Craighall, Johannesburg | Map
• Guest Speaker: Peter Bruce
• RSVP: hydepark@exclusivebooks.co.za, 011 325 4298

About the author

Xolela Mangcu is well known as a newspaper columnist and public commentator. He writes regularly for the Sunday Times, Business Day and The Weekender. He is executive chairman of the Platform for Public Deliberation and a visiting scholar at the University of the Witwatersrand. The Platform for Public Deliberation is a not-for-profit think-tank set up to promote a culture of open dialogue on political, cultural, and economic matters affecting South Africa, Africa and the world. His most recent book was entitled To the Brink: The State of Democracy in South Africa (2008).

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• The Democratic Moment: South Africa’s Prospects under Jacob Zuma by Xolela Mangcu
  EAN: 9781770097742
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Sue Williamson is well known for her artistic portrayals of women involved in the struggle against Apartheid. These days Williamson is still actively protesting – now on other social matters. Jackie May met with Sue to discuss the role of art in activism and her new book, South African Art Now:

The Big Interview: Sue Williamson first came into my consciousness in the 1980s. During my coming out years, her series of silkscreens, A Few South Africans, impressed on me tales that had been skilfully hidden from a white student freshly released from a girls-only boarding school.

Sue Williamson first came into my consciousness in the 1980s. During my coming out years, her series of silkscreens, A Few South Africans, impressed on me tales that had been skilfully hidden from a white student freshly released from a girls-only boarding school.

These images told personal stories of women who were involved in the struggle against apartheid. Some were quite ordinary people who were swept up by extraordinary events. One of the images is of a black woman in beret and working overalls, set against a background of marching people. The woman is Caroline Motsoaledi. Another image is of Mamphela Ramphele framed by handcuffs, roses, police vans and stethoscopes.

• Read the complete article in the Sunday Times

Book details

• South African Art Now by Sue Williamson
  EAN: 9781770097216
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Sue Williamson should be exhausted, but she hides it very well. She manages to produce new work steadily; she shows it both in the metropolitan centres of art-world gravity and on the far-flung fringes, but somehow, in between, she finds time to be a persistent, consistent recording angel of South African art history.

Williamson is the motivating force behind the website artthrob, which is probably the most complete record available of the past decade, but if you want a quick synoptic view of where we are, and where we have been in the past four decades, you could do a lot worse than to take a look at the covers of her three major surveys of the local scene.

Resistance Art — 1989 –features a Bureau of State Security cop imagined by Norman Catherine. It is a crude but effective thing, bristling with violence, which, like the book, does what it says on the tin.

• Complete article at the Mail & Guardian

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• South African Art Now by Sue Williamson
  EAN: 9781770097216
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Jacana Media and Central Library in the Drill Hall invite you to celebrate An African Christmas Cloth: an exhibition of the embroideries by Reviva Schermbrucker.

Join the author of the exhibition’s eponymous book for her discussion entitled “A Ball of Threads” , which will be about the through processes and discoveries she made while working on the intricate and extraordinary embroideries. The book is now available for sale: click here to purchase your copy.

Event Details

• Date: Wednesday, 21 October 2009
• Time: 5:30 PM for 6:00 PM
• Venue: Drill Hall, Central Library, Darling Street
  (entrance on Parade Street)
  Cape Town | Map
• RSVP: Thando, thando@jacana.co.za, 011 628 3204

About the exhibition

Reviva has subverted the traditional advert calendar and created priceless embroidered pages stuffed with a plethora of zany European and African Christmas images.

It’s a visual, tongue-in-cheek, South African “concoction” – a unique fusion between cultures, with authentic detailing. There is foam snow and a snowman made of hail; a Christmas thorn tree, home to yellow weaver birds; and Church of Zion members praying under the trees celebrating the coming of Christmas.

This extraordinary visual treat is made of only two stitches that show that embroidery can be a surprisingly direct way of communicating – as well as an art form in itself.

The exhibition will be on display from 21 October 2009 to the 29th January 2010.

About the book

This book is not only a labour of love but a stunning story… The story is a travelogue with a differance and punctuated with African scenes that are heart-warming.” – Trish Beaver, The Citizen

This is the children’s book parents will buy for themselves, as much for their children!

Artist/writer, Reviva Schermbrucker, has done what must be a first in the history of publishing -embroidered an advent calendar for children in story form. Two and a half years of inspired, meticulous ’stitching’, a stellar reproduction and imagery with a South African flavour makes for an original book that hearkens back to a bygone world where things were not judged merely by their usefulness, but by their charm, wit, quality and integrity.

The illustrations have a three dimensional effect. With thread on textile, the shapes are raised and have a toy-like, vital and expressive quality. The electric way in which, for instance, Reviva’s Christmas tree grows by the stitch, is pure magic. It is the ‘folk history’ connected to the craft that comes alive. Each thread becomes real: a tangible link with the picture. And each picture is pulled out from the world of images, and becomes an object where the viewer is part of the physical process of its making.

Yet An African Christmas Cloth is also irreverent and contemporary.

About the author

Reviva Schermbrucker qualified as a high school art teacher, and she writes and illustrates children’s books, among which is Charlie’s House (illustrated by Niki Daly). She worked for many years as a materials developer at the Early Learning Resource Unit, producing multilingual posters, games, books and tapes for children. She has also written a novella for newly literate adults, a book on children and gardening, and a number of readers and picture books. Her first full-length novel, Lucky Fish! was published to great acclaim in 2003 by Jacana Media.

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• An African Christmas Cloth by Revivia Schermbrucker
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  EAN: 9781770091513
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Bryan Rostron, the author of Black Petals responds to the ANC’s recent recent confession of power abuse and greed:

“ANC says sorry to the Cape,” was the splendid headline in the Cape Times on Wednesday. The reason for this “mea culpa” (or rather, “nostra culpa”), according to Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana, was that the regional structures of the party had allowed themselves “to be torn apart by factionalism, abuse of power, patronage and greed”.

It was only apologies to the Western Cape. But why stop here? Take the Eastern Cape. Quite a lot of regrets to be expressed there, you’d think. Or the Northern Cape. This could be catching. But that’s probably the last we’ll hear of it.

• Complete article in The Weekender

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• Black Petals by Bryan Rostron
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Get ready for Zapiro’s new annual, Don’t Mess with the President’s Head – which is sure to be a runaway bestseller like last year’s Pirates of Polokwane – with this terrific piece on Jonathan Shapiro’s life, written by the man himself, in the Guardian Weekly:

My father was an advocate, my mother a social worker. He was born in South Africa and they met at the London School of Economics. They got married in England and came out to settle in South Africa. My dad was well-known for being the most ethical, courteous, gentlemanly, lawyer around. The word “gentleman” crops up whenever he is mentioned. He had a strong sense of justice and fair play, but didn’t really buck the system like my mother; he didn’t join the organisations and kept within himself.

My mother worked as a social worker in the East End of London, with very deprived kids. She was born in Berlin. Her family fled Nazi Germany and got out just in time, at the beginning of 1938. They went to England and her father was interned as an enemy alien, even though he was a Jewish refugee.

My family were all supportive of the anti-apartheid movement, but we only really found a political home when the United Democratic Front started in 1983. We were all inspired by the UDF. My sister Yvonne was detained in 1985, during the first state of emergency. My mother was detained in 1986 – the second state of emergency – and I was detained in 1988.

• Read the complete article

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• Pirates of Polokwane by Zapiro
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  EAN: 9781770095984
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• Don’t Mess with the President’s Head by Zapiro
  EAN: 9781770097575
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