Tag: South Africa

The Mandela story ends where it began

(Pic: AFP)

The way the Mandela story ended was the greatest comfort I could have ever been given. I could say that his funeral was the greatest gift that could have been given to the people that gave birth to him. It was the greatest tribute to Africa. Something about it was cheeky, it spoke more about the soul of the man who would become famous as the darling of the world. The Mandela who had been sown to everyone else but the Eastern Cape would choose his final resting place to be in the rolling hills of the Eastern Cape. Struggle heroes such as Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu and Chris Hani who all hailed from the rural Transkei were buried in Johannesburg.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, that great giant whose Xhosa name is often misunderstood by the international community, was buried in the region where his umbilical cord lies. This man was not like the men in his village who may have only lived in one place their whole lifetime. This man was once sentenced to life in prison far away from his people, where he was never supposed to see the hills on which he once played or walked. As a free man he became president and he was revered the world over. He has seen the most beautiful places and the worst places in the world. He was celebrated and continues to be the most celebrated human being that has ever walked the earth within their lifetime yet, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela chose Qunu as the place of his final rest. Rolihlahla means “to pull a branch”, which means to cause trouble. African languages revel in idioms and proverbs and his indigenous name is no different. His father named him on purpose. Mandela caused much trouble to the apartheid system until it was brought to an end. As a freed leader Mandela caused trouble with his own people, challenging them to be at peace in a time that was supposed to be marked by bloodshed. In Patricia de Lille’s words: “Many of us believed that we would shoot our way to Pretoria. but he [Mandela] convinced us to talk.”

Mandela famously instructed a heated stadium to throw away their weapons into the sea. He was causing trouble, the kind of trouble that is character-building and takes people to new heights and leads them to realise something greater. Mandela continued to be a trouble maker as president, he infuriated black South Africans by refusing to change the Springbok rugby emblem and by wearing a Springbok jersey at the 1995 World Cup final. That was the kind of trouble that forced South Africans to cross over old barriers and dare to see one another as people who are not playing on opposite sides but as one nation. Mandela was the kind of trouble maker that forced us to face our pain by showing us what is on the other side of the pain if we leave our bitterness behind.

Nelson Mandela, dressed in a number 6 Springbok jersey, celebrates after South Africa beat the All Blacks 15-12 to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup on June 24 1995. (Pic: madiba.mg.co.za)

How does this trouble maker end his story? How does he conclude his life? How does he continue to trouble the leaders who succeeded him? While Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla was still at the centre of national scrutiny, Mandela would be buried where the poorest people of the nation live. He would force the nation to look at the forgotten province of the Eastern Cape. He would make it most difficult for our leaders to ignore the state of the rural community in South Africa. He would add further pressure by being so important that all the leading men and women of the world would want the honour of attending his funeral in rural Transkei. He could have chosen to be buried in Johannesburg or a more accessible, developed area – one South Africa could later show off as a famous site, like we did during the 2010 World Cup. That event hardly registered in the Eastern Cape, nothing happens besides poverty in these forgotten hills. Here, in Qunu, Mthatha, former rural Transkei among the forgotten poor, where development has not yet been imagined, Mandela would host one of the largest events of the 21st century. The world would bury its hero. Qunu would be known. Mthatha would be uttered in the powerful offices of every continent and every major nation. East London would be discovered, along with the famous peaceful hills of the rural Eastern Cape and its beautiful wild coast. He would cause trouble by disrupting ordinary rural life with the arrival of the most prestigious world leaders and celebrities, cameras flashing non-stop. Qunu, despite not being built as a world stage, hosted the world’s greatest leader. Which village in the world can share that same story?

I absolutely love how the Mandela story ends… it ends where it began. It ends where economic justice is still waiting and where recognition and acknowledgement of the rural people is still pending. It ends where the battleground of colonialism and apartheid began. It ends there because it has not yet begun until it has been accomplished and completed where it began. It ends where life is romanticised by onlookers and those who live in it are forced to pack up and live in shacks in the cities because of poverty and lack of resources. It ends here, where Mandela chose to be buried among his people.

The coffin of Nelson Mandela is carried on a gun carrier for a traditional burial during his funeral in Qunu on December 15 2013. (Pic: AFP)

Mandela’s burial place forced the world to look at the seemingly unsophisticated simplicity he came from, the place that most Africans would identify with. He was laid to rest on the hills that taught him the greatest gift his life gave to the world, the power of forgiveness through his ability to preserve the dignity of humanity, even when a human being behaved like an enemy. Here kings, queens and presidents came to behold the humility he came from and returned to. How could such greatness hail from such a place, they must have asked?

The people of the Eastern Cape had to be onlookers as their greatest son was buried. However, they would remain there while the world would leave. They would forever know those rolling hills and have reason to keep looking. This provides all sorts of possibilities. It means that life in the now world-famous Eastern Cape will not remain the same. It indeed cannot.

Siki Dlanga is a writer and poet. She has published an anthology called Word of Worth. She is passionate about nation building, sits on the South African Christian Leaders Indaba steering committee and is a member of Freedom Mantle. Connect with her on Twitter: @SikiWrites

10 years ago

Being an Eastern Cape refugee in Cape Town

(Pic: Gallo)

A lot is made in South Africa of the “refugee situation”; that is, desperate immigrants from other African countries who have chosen to settle in the continent’s southernmost country.

Protestations that Nigerians, Congolese, Malawians and Somalis, in particular, “have come to steal our jobs” are as ubiquitous as the daily furore at the taxi rank over who saw which customer first.

That is complete nonsense of course, and everyone knows it, but it is one of those topics, like dissecting the merits of the Pep Store funeral plan, that locals like to debate endlessly.

Yet in truth South Africans are among the greatest number of refugees going around, so to speak.

Ask any South African on the street where they are originally from, and they will invariably tell you a location hundreds of kilometres away from where they live now.

And in Mzansi, there is no greater natural refugee than one who hails from the Eastern Cape. I should know – I am one.

According to the 2011 Census, in the Eastern Cape, 436 466 people left the province since the last census 10 years prior. Ninety-four percent of the Eastern Cape population was born in the province, compared to 56% of Gauteng’s population.

And almost two million people born in the Eastern Cape lived in other provinces, with the majority living in the Western Cape in and around the Cape Town metro (0.9 million) and Gauteng (0.5 million).

Desperately poor under apartheid and equally so now, the Eastern Cape has never quite managed to get off the ground, despite vast swathes of natural beauty, excellent schools and universities and being home to South Africa’s motor industry for decades.

Every year scores of us leave to work in Johannesburg or Cape Town, either in the industrial or mining sector or to pursue a career in the corporate or entertainment field. “That’s where the money is” we are told, and off we go; an annual exodus not seen since the days of the Biblical plagues.

I myself am a late bloomer in terms of the Eastern Cape émigré, having only settled in Cape Town several months ago. Yet, even now, I can honestly say my reason for leaving was neither financially-driven nor born out of any especial desire to become a master of the universe.

Yes, I was in need of a job upon my return from Southeast Asia, but the main catalyst for my decision was that Cape Town – with all its hipsters, beardy-weirdies, flash public-relations types and movie-extra hopefuls – represented the ideal opportunity for change.

I was reared in Port Elizabeth and will always be proud to call it my home town. But in the last few years I had seen it become a microcosm of Johannesburg where a rat race, and indeed, sometimes egotistical mentality had begun to infiltrate every aspect of your working and social life.

The result was that the city once deemed the friendliest in the land had become disconnected from what it once was – sleepy yes, but a good place to relax and enjoy your days in the sun.

I worked briefly in Johannesburg some years back, but after a few weeks the hustle and bustle of a heaving concrete beast became too much. There was no tangible downtime to take your mind off the previous week’s work, and everyone seemed in too much of a hurry to get onto the next thing – and prove the next thing to others.

I understand perfectly that these attitudes sometimes are required in an economic hub, but they are definitely not for everybody. And neither should they be, especially in a city like Port Elizabeth which was historically always a delightful place to live despite being blue-collar.

So Cape Town it was, a 700-odd kilometre trek up the N2 for this particular refugee.

It has been two months now, so what do I have to report?

Without a shadow of a doubt, change has been effected.

Cape Town, above all, is comfortable with itself, and that is reflected in the attitudes of its residents. Aside from the odd bad apple one encounters, the people are among the friendliest in the country, and that has a marked impact on one’s own attitudes.

The Cape Town native is acutely aware that their city has a reputation for being “cliquey”, but also knows that this arises from a small cross-section of the community who most people avoid at all costs.

Second point: Cape Town residents do not care one jot for the political wrangling that consumes South Africans in other parts of the country.

Contrary to what some might believe, Mother City residents are not in the least bit interested in spending their dinner times dissecting the latest political diatribe from one or other party leader. While they are immensely proud that their city houses the country’s Parliament, one suspects they are even more pleased that the magnificent building bolsters the central business district’s prime real estate value.

It is almost as though politicians are only rolled out when there is an election, otherwise civil society pretty much runs itself.

To be free of South Africa’s great political preoccupation is a huge relief, and it is little wonder that many Capetonians appear perplexed when they see someone ranting and raving about something or other on television.

And finally, how could anyone continue to harbour feelings of anxiety or anger or concern when in every direction there is either a mountain, ocean or vineyard to gaze upon? It is almost impossible to worry about anything for too long.

As South Africans will have guessed by now, the description of myself as a “refugee” in this piece relates to an incident in early 2012 when Western Cape Premier Helen Zille referred to Eastern Cape pupils flocking to Cape Town for improved education as “education refugees”.

It sparked a massive outcry, prompting the ruling party and others to label the Western Cape government an “erstwhile apartheid” regime.

Personally, looking back on that incident now and as an Eastern Cape refugee myself, I don’t see what all the fuss was about.

John Harvey is a media relations consultant in Cape Town. He previously worked as a journalist in Port Elizabeth, Plettenberg Bay and Cambodia, contributing to a number of South African and international publications. He is hoping to obtain his work visa for Cape Town shortly.

10 years ago

Haircare share: Africa’s multibillion-dollar cut

With all the skill of a master weaver at a loom, Esther Ogble stands under a parasol in the sprawling Wuse market in Nigeria’s capital and spins synthetic fibre into women’s hair.

Nearby, three customers – one in a hijab – wait for a turn to spend several hours and $40 to have their hair done, a hefty sum in a country where many live on less than $2 a day.

While still largely based in the informal economy, the African haircare business has become a multi-billion dollar industry that stretches to China and India and has drawn global giants such as L’Oreal and Unilever .

Hairdressers such as Ogble are a fixture of markets and taxi ranks across Africa, reflecting both the continent’s rising incomes and demand from hair-conscious women.

“I need to braid my hair so that I will look beautiful,” said 25-year-old Blessing James, wincing as Ogble combed and tugged at the back of her head before weaving in a plait that fell well past the shoulder.

While reliable Africa-wide figures are hard to come by, market research firm Euromonitor International estimates $1.1-billion of shampoos, relaxers and hair lotions were sold in South Africa, Nigeria and Cameroon alone last year.

It sees the liquid haircare market growing by about 5% from 2013 to 2018 in Nigeria and Cameroon, with a slight decline for the more mature South African market.

This does not include sales from more than 40 other sub-Saharan countries, or the huge “dry hair” market of weaves, extensions and wigs crafted from everything from synthetic fibre to human or yak hair.

A man prepares wigs as he waits for customers in downtown Johannesburg. (Pic: Reuters)

Some estimates put Africa’s dry hair industry at as much as $6 billion a year; Nigerian singer Muma Geerecently boasted that she spends 500 000 naira ($3 100) on a single hair piece made of 11 sets of human hair.

Informal economy
Haircare is a vital source of jobs for women, who make up a large slice of the informal economy on the poorest continent.

But business in Wuse market has slowed recently, said 37-year-old Josephine Agwa, because women were avoiding public places due to concerns about attacks by Islamic militant group Boko Haram.

The capital has been targeted three times since April, including a bomb blast on a crowded shopping district in June that killed more than 20 people.

“The ones that don’t want to come, they call us for home service,” she said as she put the finishing touches on a six-hour, $40 style called “pick and dropped with coils” – impossibly small braids that cascade into lustrous curls.

Haidressers attend to clients in Lagos, Nigeria. (Pic: AFP)

Nigerians are not alone in their pursuit of fancy locks.

“I get bored if I have one style for too long,” said Buli Dhlomo, a 20 year-old South African student who sports long red and blonde braids. Her next plan is to cut her hair short and dye it “copper gold”.

“It looks really cool. My mum had it and I also had it at the beginning of the year and it looked really good,” said Dhlomo, who can spend up to R4 000 rand ($370) on a weave.

Daring styles
While South Africans change their hairstyle often, West Africans do so even more, said Bertrand de Laleu, managing director of L’Oreal South Africa.

“African women are probably the most daring when it comes to hair styles,” he said, noting that dry hair – almost unheard of a decade ago – was a growing trend across sub-Saharan Africa.

“Suddenly you can play with new tools that didn’t exist or were unaffordable.”

The French cosmetics giant this year opened what it billed as South Africa’s first multi-ethnic styling school, training students of all races on all kinds of hair, something that would have been unthinkable before the end of apartheid in 1994.

While the South African hair market remains divided, salons are looking to boost revenues by drawing in customers across ethnic groups, meaning hairdressers who once catered only for whites will need stylists who can also work on African hair.

L’Oreal is looking to build on its “Dark and Lovely” line of relaxers and other products with more research into African hair and skin and has factories in South Africa and Kenya producing almost half the products it distributes on the continent.

Hair from India, via China
Nor is it alone.

Anglo-Dutch group Unilever has a salon in downtown Johannesburg promoting its “Motions” line of black haircare products, and niche operators are springing up in the booming dry hair market.

“We supply anything to do with dry hair, across the board,” said Kabir Mohamed, managing director of South Africa’s Buhle Braids, rattling off a product line of braids, weaves and extensions that use tape, rings or keratin bonds.

Today there are more than 100 brands of hair in South Africa, making the market worth about $600-million, he said, roughly four times more than in 2005.

Much of the hair sold is the cheaper synthetic type and comes from Asia. Pricier natural hair is prized because it lasts longer, retains moisture and can be dyed.

India’s Godrej Consumer Products acquired South African firm Kinky in 2008 and sells synthetic and natural hair, including extensions, braids and wigs.

Buhle Braids, like its rivals, sources much of its natural hair from India, which has a culture of hair collection, particularly from Hindu temples or village “hair collectors”.

The hair is then sent to China where it is processed into extensions and shipped to Africa. Hair from yaks, to which some people are allergic, is now used less.

In one clue to the potential for Africa, market research firm Mintel put the size of the black haircare market in the United States at $684-million in 2013, estimating that it could be closer to $500 billion if weaves, extensions and sales from independent beauty stores or distributors are included.

What is certain is that Africa’s demand for hair products, particularly those made from human hair, is only growing.

“It hurts, but you have to endure if you want to look nice,” said Josephine Ezeh, who sat in Wuse market cradling a baby as a hairdresser tugged at her head. “Hair is very, very important.”

10 years ago

Race and racism in the Republic of Cape Town

(Pic: Gallo)

Cape Town is so conservative. It’s not surprising then that the rest of the country calls it “The Republic” – a country not quite a part of the so-called new South Africa. You don’t have to look far to see whom Cape Town caters for. Just take a short drive from Vredehoek to Khayelitsha, as a start. If you’re not the driving type, take one of those cute red tour buses, plug in those nifty little earphones and learn the unpalatable history of this city, said with such timid self-awareness so as not to give away what nearly every Capetonian knows – that Cape Town is still divided along racial lines.

Anyone who lives in the city centre will vehemently deny this although it’s evidently clear, from the racial makeup of boardrooms and suburbs to those who are left to enjoy the city after 5pm. It is an awkward contradiction for a city that desperately wants to be seen as a progressive “World Design Capital”. Unless by design it means the invisible lines that run across the city, dividing it into specific racial areas: the whites in affluent suburbs and the CBD, the blacks and the coloureds in the townships; a spatial arrangement akin to that of a chest drawer with distinct shelves and compartments that contain each puzzle piece of Cape Town in its place – except for the bergies and buskers who seem intolerable nuisances. (Remember the assault of a blind busker by police last year?)

The other not-so-famous incidents include a “private function” policy at certain bars, such as Asoka, where black people have the unfortunate position of being turned away at the door once the colour quota has been reached. There was also that interesting piece of journalism by the Cape Argus, last year, which uncovered what was evidently a stated preference for white tenants by property owners in suburbs around the City Bowl. The city has vehemently refuted claims that it’s racist. Here, I must concede that Cape Town isn’t racist – at least not in the classical sense of what we see in documentaries and exhibitions about apartheid. There are no “Whites Only” signs around the city. It must be an unfortunate coincidence then that there are hardly any black people who live in the affluent parts of Cape Town. It must also be an unfortunate coincidence that novelist Teju Cole, in his interview with City Press about the Open Book Fair, stated: “[Cape Town] is a divided society where privilege accrues very much to people who are white and who have money.”

A woman carrying a child walks down an alleyway in Blikkiesdorp (“Tin Can Town” in Afrikaans), a settlement of corrugated iron houses about 25km east of Cape Town. (Pic: AFP)

When I went to the Open Book Fair in Cape Town last September, I nearly tripped over myself when I realised how homogenous the audience was – a pale sea of whiteness jostling around brilliant black writers. I distinctly remember thinking: don’t these white folk find it strange that there are no black people at this event, except for a negligible number of tokens, myself included? Contrast that to the Jozi Book Fair or any art opening showcasing a black artist’s work. Johannesburg, as far as art is concerned, has a more diverse audience; a more informed audience than Cape Town, and a notably larger black middle class. Some attribute this to the economic status of the city but the alternative answers avail themselves easily when you speak to black professionals who are about to relocate to the City Of Gold. Often you’ll hear that there is little or no transformation within the organisations and companies situated in Cape Town. The bosses are white, the tea lady is black, Jabu answers to Chris. In a nutshell, Cape Town companies are run by white males.

As if this wasn’t enough, even the visual arts crowd is predominantly white despite the fact that “nearly two thirds of emerging visual artists under the age of 40, in South Africa, are black” according to Joost Bosland, one of the directors of the Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town . The very people, I presume, these emerging black artists would love to have a conversation with through their work never get to see the work, at all. And the art industry seems perfectly fine with this. Typically, you’ll find a group of black artists doing work that concerns something about them being black but it’s shown in spaces and to people who aren’t quite engaged with the stories being told by the artists; people who appreciate the work from a distance. Some artists struggle with this. I chatted to Mohau Modisakeng, a visual artist, about how race plays out in the arts: “I look at art as a language, a language that functions like any other – using pictures and symbols. And my language is informed by my mother’s story and my father’s story, and how I grew up. I’d say my audience is people who share the similar circumstances in life, whether it’s social, political or economic. They are my ideal audience, but I can’t get to them because of these frameworks that are in place.”

These frameworks are a historical fact that persists to this day. A present reality that is burdened by our history of deliberate social exclusion, which makes for very specific demarcation of the various groups who are in or out, or comfortable or not comfortable in a space; a fact currently at play in this city, sans the apartheid signage. The white man who recently told my friend at the Harley’s Liquor store that he wished “he’d gotten rid of all of you when we had a chance” simply because he thought she was jumping the queue to pay for a bottle of red wasn’t racist – he was being conservative, by Cape Town standards. He just wanted her to know her historic place and to remain in it – and that place is nowhere near him and his lily-white Cape Town CBD.

L.L. Fikeni lives, writes and works in Cape Town.