Jacana

Jacob Dlamini regularly teeters on the edge of controversy with his alternative historical views. In Native Nostalgia, for example, he investigates the positives of Apartheid while in the following article, written for Business Day, he questions the 1913 Land Act, asking whether it was indeed our nation’s original, political sin:

The 1913 Natives Land Act is considered by many people to be SA’s original political sin. The act, which became law on 19 June 1913, limited African land ownership to 7% (increased to 13% via the 1936 Native Trust and Land Act) of SA and barred Africans from buying land in 93% of SA set aside for white control. It did this in part by enacting a legislative distinction between white-owned areas and native reserves, also known as scheduled areas. It also introduced anti- squatting measures to put a stop to sharecropping.

It was, said Sol Plaatje in his 1916 classic Native Life in South Africa, a “cruel law” that turned Africans into pariahs in the land of their birth. Commenting in 1991, more than 70 years after Plaatje first published his observations, then state president FW De Klerk said: “Of all the processes which have brought about the inequitable distribution of wealth and power that characterises present-day SA, none has been more decisive and more immediately important to most black South Africans than the dispossession of land.”

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• Native Nostalgia by Jacob Dlamini
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  EAN: 9781770097551
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Inside Quatro provides a first-hand account of the ANC’s Quatro prison camp and of the mutiny in Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) in Angola in 1984; articles on the SWAPO ’spy drama’ of the 1970s and 1980s; an analysis of a death in exile with implications relating to Jacob Zuma; and a study of the responses of both the ANC and SWAPO to these episodes of intolerance, repression and excess. In all his essays, Trewelha analyses problems of the liberation struggles with a former insider’s knowledge and a journalist’s ability to ferret out the facts.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

In April 1990 a group of eight former members of Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) returned to South Africa a few weeks after Jacob Zuma, but under very different conditions.

While Zuma was smuggled into South Africa in secret by the government (with Penuell Maduna, head of the ANC’s legal department) to prepare for negotiations with President FW de Klerk, the eight had fled from the ANC in Tanzania following six traumatic years after mutinies of ANC troops in Angola in February and May 1984.

Less than two months after their arrival back in South Africa, one of the eight, Sipho Phungulwa — a former bodyguard of the South African Communist Party leader and MK chief of staff, Chris Hani — was shot dead by ANC members in Mthatha in a daylight public assassination early in June 1990, after he had left the ANC offices with a colleague, Nicholas Luthando Dyasophu.

• Read the complete article in the Mail & Guardian

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• Inside Quatro: Uncovering the Exile History of the ANC and SWAPO by Paul Trewhela
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  EAN: 9781770097766
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In 2005 Jacob Dlamini and a friend first remarked on Jacob Zuma’s rise to popularity and what it would mean for democracy in South Africa. At the time they speculated that his populism would be beneficial. Now Dlamini rescinds that view in an opinion piece for the Business Day.

As with many others who once had high hopes for a better government after Mbeki, Dlamini believes that Zuma has been a negative influence, keeping democracy floating in the murky shallows of corruption and greed. Dlamini is the author of Native Nostalgia.

In November 2005 an American friend and I wrote an opinion piece for the Sunday Times looking at Jacob Zuma ’s populism. Zuma, fired by then president Thabo Mbeki in June 2005 following the conviction of Schabir Shaik for corruption, was at the time conducting what we called a “low-intensity campaign” for the presidency of the African National Congress (ANC) and SA. He had yet to be charged with rape but my friend and I were convinced Zuma would not rise from his weakened position.

We were interested in what we believed was the long-term value of Zuma’s populism for SA’s democracy. Our interest stemmed from two sources. The first was our discomfort with what we saw as knee-jerk and classist opposition to the very possibility of a Zuma presidency. We wrote: “Those allergic to the thought of Zuma inheriting president Thabo Mbeki’s towels (in the presidential residence) share a simple fear: our fragile democracy will go to hell in a hand basket if this cattle herder is let loose.”

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• Native Nostalgia by Jacob Dlamini
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Paul Trewhela’s Inside Quatro has received a great deal of publicity in recent times, significantly after a mention by DA parliamentary leader, Athol Trollip, in his speech during a debate on Zuma’s State of the Nation Address.

Speaking of wasted time, Author and political activist Paul Trewhela in his book Inside Quatro speaks candidly about the balance sheet of 15 wasted years under the guidance of the ANC as the unchallenged party of government. Regarding this he says: “No party ever came to government with such an overwhelming mandate from the people and with such immense goodwill internationally. Few dissipated that trust so convincingly.”

He recognises that the ANC faced a daunting task to redress the stratospheric polarisation and disparities that are due to the centuries old divisions in our society, along the lines of race. No easy walk to freedom and human betterment indeed!

Trewhela singles out education as the greatest failure. He believes, and I concur, that the ANC should have seized on this from the outset and said to the whole nation: “We have limited resources, there are great compelling needs, but this above all – with dedication, good sense and common effort – can rise up and prepare for the future a new generation that will be better fitted to solve the country’s problems than ourselves”.

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• Inside Quatro: Uncovering the Exile History of the ANC and SWAPO by Paul Trewhela
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  EAN: 9781770097766
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Journalist and author of Inside Quatro, Paul Trewhela was recently involved in a roundtable discussion at Cambridge University regarding the human rights records of liberation movements in southern Africa. The discussion focused specifically on Trewhela’s book and was organized by the Cambridge Centre of Governance and Human Rights.

On the eve of the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison, the Centre of Governance and Human Rights at Cambridge University hosted a roundtable discussion at King's College on Wednesday 10 February with leading academics on Southern Africa – Professors Stephen Ellis, Saul Dubow and Jocelyn Alexander – and with Paul Trewhela, the author of Inside Quatro: Uncovering the Exile History of the ANC and SWAPO (Jacana, 2009). The seminar was chaired by the BBC World Service's Africa Editor, Martin Plaut.

Participants set out to examine the human rights record of liberation movements in the region as a whole, with a particular focus on Inside Quatro.

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• Inside Quatro: Uncovering the Exile History of the ANC and SWAPO by Paul Trewhela
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The Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD) invites you to a panel discussion chaired by Prof Steven Friedman, as Xolela Mangcu discusses his new book, The Democratic Moment: South Africa’s Prospects under Jacob Zuma.

Join the author with Professor Raymond Suttner, a former political prisoner and author of The ANC Underground, and Sipho Seepe, columnist at the Business Day, in a discussion.

Event Details

• Date: Tuesday, 23 February 2010
• Time: 5:30 PM for 6:00 PM
• Venue: University of Johannesburg Council Chambers, Auckland Park Kingsway Campus
  Cnr Kingsway Ave & University Road
  Johannesburg | Map
• Guest Speaker: Steven Friedman, Raymond Suttner, Sipho Seepe
• RSVP: Johnny Alubu Selemani, jaselemani@uj.ac.za, 073 553 0726

Book Details

• The Democratic Moment: South Africa’s Prospects under Jacob Zuma by Xolela Mangcu
  EAN: 9781770097742
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“Between these covers you will find all the passion and intelligence Nathan Geffen devoted to the fight against quackery in South Africa. The Mbeki government’s march of folly is fully exposed here. One hopes that this book will serve, not only as a record, but as a lesson.” – Jonny Steinberg

One of the great, iconic struggles for social justice in the 21st century has been the campaign of the TAC against state-supported Aids denialism in South Africa. This struggle between activists, scientists and health workers, on the one hand, and a strange alliance of dissidents, quacks and political leaders, on the other, is here recounted in absorbing and dramatic detail for the first time by an insider.

In Debunking Delusions, Nathan Geffen, one of the TAC leaders, describes how early on in its life the organisation discovered that the greatest obstacle to AIDS treatment was in fact the South African government’s denialism. Not only did this extend to a reluctance to provide antiretroviral treatment to AIDS patients but also to support of a host of quacks and denialists who operated freely in the country to sow suspicion and confusion about the efficacy of standard medical treatment of AIDS. The most notorious of these were the German vitamin seller, Dr Matthias Rath, who along the way sued The Guardian of London and lost his case, and the Dutch nurse Tine van der Maas. It was the TAC that, as a result of a court case it brought against Rath, managed to stop his operations in South Africa; and it was the TAC, once again through legal means, that put pressure on the South African government to roll out an antiretroviral programme throughout the country.

Geffen describes not only the TAC’s response to the puzzling intransigence of government and the spellbinding nonsense of dissidents, but the thought, strategy and discussion that lay behind the organisation’s major decisions. The story of the TAC’s campaign is one of the great triumphs of citizen activism for social justice and human rights.

“An intellectually incisive, engagingly written history of a policy calamity – and the courageous activism it unleashed – that has important implications for our country’s understanding of its past, as well as its future course.” – Edwin Cameron

About the author

Nathan Geffen has been one of the leaders of TAC since 2000. His work has involved confronting the AIDS denialist policies of Thabo Mbeki and Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. He was also the editor of TAC’s magazine Equal Treatment. He has written extensively on AIDS and human rights. He previously co-authored two chapters in Edwin Cameron’s book Witness to Aids, winner of the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award. This is Geffen’s first full book.

Book details

• Debunking Delusions: The TAC campaign against AIDS denialists by Nathan Geffen
  EAN: 9781770097810
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The Daily Distpatch has been running excerpts from Xolela Mangcu’s The Democratic Moment to promote his appearance at the Dispatch Dialogues. Here are excerpts two and three; click here for number one. We lead with an excerpt entitled Why Zuma Is No Lone Warrior, which deals with Zuma’s decisions since his election as president, as well as with his background:

In 1994 the ANC-led government announced the Reconstruction and Development Programme as its blueprint for remaking South African society.

The RDP had laudable goals, such as the provision of housing and social services on a mass scale for the historically disadvantaged black population. I was out of the country at the time studying at Cornell University.

My good friend, the author of Black Athena, Martin Bernal, once shared with me his interpretation of goings-on back home. Not only did he have a knowledge of history but a deep sense of it, as well. Still ringing in my mind is a comment he made about our new beginnings: “It’s as if the ANC has gone back to the 1950s without making a stop in the 1970s.”

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The third extract, titled Building Freedom Bridges, looks at the bridges South Africa needs to build on its past relationships:

In the third extract from his new book The Democratic Moment – South Africa’s Prospects under Jacob Zuma, Xolela Mangcu looks at similarities in the fight for freedom on both sides of the Atlantic and how South Africa needs to build on its past relationships.

I AM always struck by the political similarities and cultural affinities between black South Africans and African Americans. From slavery to the civil rights era, African Americans lived as second- class citizens in the country of their birth.

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• The Democratic Moment: South Africa’s Prospects under Jacob Zuma by Xolela Mangcu
  EAN: 9781770097742
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Xolela Mangcu, author of The Democratic Moment: South Africa’s Prospects Under Jacob Zuma, takes a closer look at the divisions currently found within the ANC. The separation between Zuma’s fans and Mbeki’s supporters, Mangcu argues, is exemplified by the difference between those who “share” in the ANC and those who “keep themselves apart”:

ON THE evening of January 8 — the 98th anniversary of the founding of the African National Congress (ANC) — I had two contrasting social experiences emblematic of the social division that has played itself out in the ruling party over the past decade.

I was at home in Ginsberg for the holidays, hanging out with my “homies” in a shebeen called Gwebindlala. The word itself means “bringing an end to hunger”, though I suspect the place does more to make people forget about their hunger than it does to end it.

Many of the people there were what Frantz Fanon would have called the “wretched of the earth”, those society has cast off as the riffraff. They also happen to be my childhood friends. Karl Marx dismissed them as a group with no historical consciousness, but Fanon had a better appreciation of their political potency: “So the pimps, the hooligans, the unemployed, and the petty criminals throw themselves into struggle like stout working men. These classless idlers will by militant and decisive action discover the path that leads to nationhood.” And that’s exactly what they did when they put their support behind President Jacob Zuma in his tussle with Thabo Mbeki .

• Read the complete article in Business Day

Book details

• The Democratic Moment: South Africa’s Prospects under Jacob Zuma by Xolela Mangcu
  EAN: 9781770097742
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The Daily Dispatch, in partnership with the University of Fort Hare, invite you to a dialogue with Xolela Mangcu – the first Dispatch Dialogue of 2010.

The Ginsberg-born and raised academic, author and public commentator will be speaking on the theme of his new book The Democratic Moment: South Africa’s Prospects Under Jacob Zuma.

Copies of the book will be available at a discounted rate of R170 and questions will be taken from the floor. See you there!

Event Details

• Date: Wednesday, 20 January 2010
• Time: 6:15 PM for 6:45 PM
• Venue: The Guild Theatre, Oxford Street
  East London | Map
• RSVP: Mzamo, The Daily Dispatch, 043 702 2089
  blogs.dispatch.co.za/dialogues/

Book Details

• The Democratic Moment: South Africa’s Prospects under Jacob Zuma by Xolela Mangcu
  EAN: 9781770097742
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!