Sometimes There Is a Void

by Zakes Mda

  I was right. A few months later when the final list was published in the newspapers my name was not there. Nelson Mandela had vetoed it. It was not an amorphous presidency this time but the president himself.

  Many months later an Afrikaner woman came to my house to discuss a television series the script of which she wanted to commission me to write. She was one of the well-known Afrikaners who had been with the ANC even before liberation. As we sat in my lounge sipping coffee she asked, ‘Who was your father and what did he do to Madiba?’

  Many young ANC members don’t know who my father was and what role he played in their liberation. But I was surprised that this woman – who must remain nameless because I don’t want her to be marginalised for my sake – should ask me about him and should also imply that he must have done something to displease Nelson Mandela.

  ‘My father was one of the founders of the ANC Youth League. As far as I know, he and Madiba were friends. Madiba has said as much in his autobiography. When my father was the president of the Youth League, Madiba was on his executive committee.’

  She told me that Carl Niehaus, another ANC Afrikaner who was a close adviser of Nelson Mandela’s at the time, had told her that the president had vetoed my name from the board of the SABC because, firstly, I was too outspoken, and secondly, my father betrayed them when they needed him most. I burst into laughter because it all sounded so silly. Was it not a virtue to be outspoken? As for the sins of my father – namely that he supported the Africanists who broke away from the ANC – was I going to be crucified for that? And by a man who forgave his oppressors and jailers and extended a hand of reconciliation to them? Why was his reconciliation only between black and white, and not between black and black?

  Yes, Nelson Mandela spoke of inclusion and compassion and reconciliation, but I was seeing something different from his government. I was seeing black South Africans being excluded from participating in the development of their own country by a patronage system that was centred solely on greed and on rewarding the comrades for past services to the party. Many months later, on December 28, 1997, I wrote him a long letter.

  After a few pleasantries wishing him a bountiful and healthy 1998, I got to the point. I wrote:

  Sir, I am writing you this letter to voice my concerns about the corruption, nepotism and cronyism that have found their way into the South African civil service and parastatals. Accompanied by a burgeoning patronage system and the greed that has taken over our lives, these threaten to destroy the wonderful country that you and your comrades have created for us all. They threaten the great gains that the ANC government has achieved.

  I apologised for bothering him with such matters when he, as president, was obviously busy with many pressing issues – what with the whole world wanting a piece of him. But we were sitting on a powder keg, I said. I continued:

  Like you, sir, I love this country, and I do want to save it from the impending doom. I do not want to see it becoming another Nigeria (sorry to my Nigerian friends, but that’s what I wrote to Madiba) where bribery and corruption rule every aspect of the people’s lives in all sectors of society.

  After relating some anecdote that happened in the 1950s when I was a kid staying at his place I assured him that I was not writing to rekindle old relationships. I wrote:

  I am not the type that hobnobs with the high and mighty – especially politicians – even when they are the world’s statesmen that are universally admired. I am a humble writer who wants only to write his novels, plays and film scripts.

  I think I should just reproduce the rest of the letter here verbatim rather than summarise it as I have been doing. Of course in parts it repeats some of the concerns I have stated elsewhere in these memoirs, but I think it is important for you to get its tone and intent directly:

  Before I decided to be a fulltime writer I had great ambitions of serving my country in any capacity in which I might be useful. I had no doubt that my qualifications and experience would be useful in the development of a new South Africa. After all, I was coming home with masters and doctoral degrees in varied fields such as mass communication (radio and television), development communication, development studies, theatre, and film making. I was coming home as an international expert who was consulted on a regular basis by international organisations such as UNICEF (on social mobilisation), World Health Organisation (on using popular media in health education), USAID (on using radio drama in family planning campaigns), International Labour Organisation (on participatory communication in worker education) and the Lesotho government (on rural development strategies, the Institute of Land Use Planning, Village Water Supply etc). I was coming home as an author of a book on development communication that was prescribed at universities in such countries as Austria, France, USA, Ghana, Zimbabwe and South Africa (since writing this letter that work is used even more widely). Surely my country would find me useful!

  But I was wrong. For reasons that I still do not understand I was sidelined at every turn. I diligently applied for employment, but people with less qualifications and no experience were employed instead. Why was I denied the right to serve my country by your government, sir? Why was I accused at job interviews by the awestruck bureaucrats of your government of being too educated for the post, of being too experienced (have you ever heard of such poppycock?), or of being overqualified? How is it possible to be overqualified? Is education not a good thing? Then why was I penalised for acquiring too much of it? These jobs (and I can name them if you like) were subsequently given to people who had zilch training or experience, but who were close relatives of ANC party loyalists – what I have referred to elsewhere as the Liberation Aristocracy.

  Before I go any further, let me make it clear to you that I am not looking for a job. I do not want a job. I am happily working for myself as a writer and filmmaker, and I continue to share my skills with the international community which consults me. I therefore earn a good living for myself and a lot of foreign exchange for South Africa. The market for my activities is an international one. I also create employment for fellow South Africans. For instance a British company with British finance will be shooting a movie of my novel worth millions in South Africa in the course of 1998, using South African talent and crew; next week I am sending a crew of South African camera and sound operators to Ethiopia to work on a German documentary production there etc.

  It is not because I want to boast of my achievements that I am mentioning these projects. I am only trying to assure you that my motives to write to you about nepotism, patronage and corruption in your government are not based on self-interest. I have nothing to gain from raising these issues. I have no personal axe to grind. I am mentioning my personal experience of being sidelined as proof to you that these things do really exist in your government.

  But this is not only my experience. It is the experience of many other South Africans. I have actually interviewed and written about a number of highly qualified black people who have since left their country to work in America, the Far East and other African countries because they did not have the necessary party credentials to get jobs in South Africa. I have written about these things, after which I have been contacted by numerous others who have suffered the same plight. Many are still in South Africa, squirming in their bitterness. They can easily be dismissed as whiners and whingers by your fat bureaucrats, but the fact of the matter is that your government is busy cultivating a field of bitterness from which our children shall reap crops that will not be palatable at all. Things began like this in Nigeria. Before we know it we shall be swimming in a similar quagmire, for we seem to be determined to emulate some of the most unsavoury aspects of that society.

  I repeat: when you discriminate against black people you are creating a lot of unnecessary bitterness. And it is not only me who is saying that. There is a lot of unhappiness out there, and people are talking. Recently an African woman wrote in the Mail & Guardian (December 24, 1997 to January 8, 1998): ‘The future i
s decidedly bleak for black and white who feel they are being excluded from making a contribution to the government of the country, without the requisite struggle credentials, or at the very least, membership of the ANC.’

  Indeed many victims of discrimination by your government have ‘struggle credentials’. I met them all over in Europe and America actively participating in demonstrations against apartheid, organising local communities for disinvestment campaigns and sports and cultural boycotts. Only they were doing these things outside the structures of the ANC. Even inside the country people participated in mass actions, were shot at and died, without necessarily being members of the ANC. I lost relatives in this way, and some of them were not members of any political party. The struggle in South Africa was not the sole preserve of ANC members. I myself have a struggle record that speaks for itself in my numerous writings and campaigns in Europe and America, even though I was never a member of the ANC.

  However even if these sons and daughters of South Africa had not actively participated in the struggle, by virtue of being South Africans who are keen to contribute their skills in the development of their country, they must not be discriminated against.

  After all, you and your comrades have forgiven your jailers. You have embraced people who tortured you, kept you away from your families for thirty years, exiled you, and murdered thousands of your compatriots. Surely it is reasonable for black people to expect you to show the same magnanimity towards them, even if they did not actively participate in the struggle, or even if they participated in other ways and in other organisations that were not necessarily ANC aligned.

  I have said before that every government in the world must have political appointees. For instance no one expects your spokesperson or political adviser to be a member of the PAC or NP. It must be somebody who shares your political vision. In any government there will be a few of such sensitive political positions. However every South African, irrespective of political affiliation, must have a place in the sun.

  Lest you think that my concerns are only for the elites who have returned with degrees from foreign lands, let me hasten to add that I do a lot of work in the communities in the townships. I talk with the youth in community centres in Dobsonville and Alexandra. I create theatre-for-development with them – a concept of using theatre as a vehicle of a critical analysis of the problems that beset the community – and all the time they express their disillusionment at what is happening in South Africa today. I have a play, created with the actors and produced by the Market Theatre Laboratory, that has been touring the townships of Gauteng for the past three years. The play is on child and spousal abuse, TB and AIDS. But invariably when the time comes to discuss the issues raised in the play, the youth will mention the corruption and nepotism that is prevalent in the country.

  The youth have a perception that generally our political leaders are thoroughly rotten. Many of our youths are despondent and have lost hope. The older ones talk of having been used as cannon fodder in the struggle, yet now they are forgotten while ‘the leaders ride on the gravy train’. They believe that since they do not come from families that have names that count they have no future in the country of their birth. All doors are closed to them. The concept of the Aristocrats of the Revolution has taken root.

  The youth are beginning to talk of violence. They put blame on everyone: politicians, white people, ‘exiles’, members of the chosen families – all of whom they believe are responsible for their woes. When Jon Qwelane and Thami Mazwai wrote in the Sunday Independent (December 21, 1997) of the gatvol factor that has built up among the youths of our country, to the extent that they are threatening to ‘meet them (recalcitrant whites) bullet for bullet’, I knew what they were talking about. I have come across these sentiments myself out there in the communities. Only they are not just directed to whites. They are directed at all those the youth feel have failed them … all those who have closed doors and are dispensing favours only to the favoured ones. When you try to dissuade them from such thoughts, and show them the great gains that this government has made, they laugh at your face. It is a reality they refuse to see, for what is dominant right now in their perceptions is the corruption and nepotism in the government. Now, we can easily blame the media for these perceptions. Indeed the media does make great song and dance about government weaknesses, and nary a word about its great achievements. But, however misguided some of the sentiments expressed by these young people may be, there is a grain of truth somewhere there, especially in matters pertaining to nepotism and corruption, as I have personally experienced them myself.

  The democracy that you fought and suffered for, that a lot of South Africans died for, is working, sir. That is why I am able to write you a letter of this nature. There is no doubt that we live in a wonderful country. I have lived in many countries of the world over the past thirty years of exile, but never have I had such a wonderful lucrative time as I am having in South Africa today. That is why I am fearful that this dream will not last if the corruption and nepotism prevalent in your government is not nipped in the bud. I do not want my children to inherit a country that has been wrecked by greed and stupidity. The decay has begun to set in. Only you, Madiba, can stop it!

  Do not ignore my pleas to you, sir. I am one of the millions of South Africans who voted for the ANC, even though they were not card-carrying members of that organisation. But that is not the reason why you and your government must not sideline me and those who are like me. The reason is a simple one: I am a South African. Even if I had voted for the NP, the PAC, the Inkatha or the DP, I would still ask that you heed my call. I would still demand not to be sidelined in my country. I would still say that I have the right to serve South Africa!

  Nelson Mandela did not write back. No. He phoned. He told me that he had received my letter and somebody would call me to arrange for a meeting with some of his ministers so that I might outline to them these problems I was talking about. And indeed after about two weeks or so I got another call from the presidency. Whoever I spoke with there – maybe a personal assistant or a secretary – told me that reservations had been made at Sahib Indian Restaurant in a Pretoria suburb where I would have lunch with three cabinet ministers: Joe Modise, Minister of Defence, Penuell Maduna, Minister of Minerals and Energy Affairs, and Zola Skweyiya, Minister of Public Service and Administration. I could understand why Mr Mandela had chosen Zola Skweyiya to meet me; I had complained about the public service and the patronage system that had emerged particularly in doling out jobs for pals and political cronies. But I had no idea why the military guy and the energy and minerals one were part of this. Even though I didn’t have any idea what the agenda was going to be, I agreed to the lunch.

  On the appointed day two ministers were there promptly, Maduna and Skweyiya. They conveyed Joe Modise’s apologies. He had been urgently summoned by the president because of the Meiring affair.

  ‘The Meiring affair? What is it exactly?’ I asked.

  ‘You’ll hear about it soon enough,’ said Maduna. ‘It’s bound to be in the papers this week.’

  If I was a newspaper reporter I would be digging further for a scoop, but I let it rest.

  Skweyiya struck me as a very quiet guy; he did more listening than talking. Maduna on the other hand was garrulous. Once more I outlined my position as already stated in my letter to Nelson Mandela. Skweyiya did not say much on the issues I raised. He just looked at me sadly. Perhaps he thought I was making a fuss over nothing. He didn’t say so, though; it was just my own impression. Maduna, on the other hand, was clearly dismissive of my concerns. Instead he tended to lecture: the youth must pull themselves up by their bootstraps. He presented himself as an example; he came back from exile with a law degree from Zimbabwe. He didn’t just sit there but went back to school. He continued his education even when he was already a minister until he got a PhD from Wits University.

  ‘As we speak, I’ve enrolled at RAU for a diploma in energy and in transportation so th
at I don’t depend on experts and consultants in my cabinet portfolio,’ he said. ‘I need to be an expert in my own right.’

  RAU was the Randse Afrikaanse Universiteit, which has since become the University of Johannesburg.

  I admired Maduna for his resolve and dedication, though he didn’t strike me as a likeable fellow. There was a tinge of arrogance in his attitude.

  ‘You are indeed a good example that all South Africans – not just the youth – should follow,’ I told him. ‘I like people who pursue education as relentlessly as you do.’

  After the lunch I drove back to Johannesburg. I didn’t know what the meeting had achieved. I wondered what the ministers were going to tell Madiba, or if they were going to report back to him at all about it. It looked like a public relations exercise to me. Nothing changed in the areas that I complained about; today patronage and cronyism are worse than ever before. We are overtaking Nigeria. Worse still, blatant racial arrogance – ‘closing ranks’ – and a culture of impunity have developed among some of the ruling elite who have obviously taken good lessons from the laager mentality of the Afrikaners of yesterday.

  Perhaps the meeting was just a way of shutting me up. Well, I shouldn’t complain; in other countries they shut you up by imprisoning you if you’re lucky, or by feeding you to the crocodiles instead of feeding you sumptuous Indian cuisine of vegetarian biryani, assorted pickles and chutney, served with garlic naan.

  The Meiring scandal broke in the weekend newspapers. General George Meiring, who had been inherited from the apartheid era, was the commander of the South African National Defence Force. He presented what he claimed was a military intelligence report to Nelson Mandela that an organisation called FAPLA – Front African People’s Liberation Army – was plotting a coup to assassinate Mandela and overthrow his government. What made the story even juicier was that FAPLA was alleged to be composed of well-known ANC loyalists, including the president’s ex-wife Winnie, the deputy chief of the defence forces Lieutenant General Siphiwe Nyanda, former MK guerrilla Robert McBride, and politician General Bantu Holomisa and a host of black soldiers. Don’t laugh now, but even pop star Michael Jackson was implicated in the plot. One hundred and thirty names in all were listed in the report. Nelson Mandela appointed a judicial inquiry which concluded that the report was utterly fantastic. It was the work of what was referred to in the press as the ‘third force’ of the old guard security operatives who were bent on provoking uprisings and mayhem. Meiring resigned in disgrace.