Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 198

A worthy ancestor

The world is out of joint and Immanuel Wallerstein, one of its great public intellectuals, has left us���albeit with tools to battle the dying kicks of capitalism.





Image from Immanuel Wallerstein interview with David Martinez, Yale University, 2015. Credit Brennan Cavanaugh via Flickr CC.

Immanuel Wallerstein passed away long before another world was made possible. His hope that somehow���out of this final crisis of the world���s capitalist system���another world would emerge, still hangs in the air. For those of us who worked closely with him in the last two decades (in the International Sociological Association and with the project The World is Out of Joint), his mentoring will be missed. It was in and through his stewardship that saw me lead a wonderful ensemble of sociologists to produce��Gauging and Engaging Deviance 1600-2000��in 2013.��Last but not least was his his support and contribution in constructing the Charter for the Humanities and Social Sciences in 2011 in South Africa, which in turn spawned the National Institute for the Humanities and the Social Sciences.

I was fortunate to be elected president of the South African Sociological Association in 1996, during Wallerstein���s tenure as the president of the International Sociological Association. It thrust me onto the global stage thanks to his Regions initiative. It allowed me to work closely with Teresa e Cruz Silva to gather Southern African sociological voices and allowed us to meet wonderful Latin American scholars, such as Anibal Quijano and Raquel Sosa Elizaga. My first tentative step in India was also thanks to him. Our host was non-other than TK Oommen, who is now being forced to submit his CV to the fundamentalist authorities of the JNU administration to keep his Emeritus status. It was in turn TK Oommen, Hermann Schwengel and I who created the tri-continental Global Studies Masters Program. My indebtedness to him runs into reams of paper.

Many of us after all owe to him the privilege of going global and local, even though we got lost often, in-between.

Image from Immanuel Wallerstein interview with David Martinez, Yale University, 2015. Credit Brennan Cavanaugh via Flickr CC.

Most important was his contribution to, in his language, the vital anti-systemic movements of the late 20th century: African and Latin American national liberation movements; their successes and failures their limits and possibilities. Although he was fond of Frantz Fanon, Amilcar Cabral, Julius Nyerere and Aquino de Braganza, the Mozambican scholar and activist, he was gentler in his critique of the aspirant national bourgeoisies on the continent. Whereas for them the failures were subjective and a question of the wrong choices that led to neo-colonial nightmares, for Wallerstein they were objective, a product of world systemic situations that created insurmountable obstacles to choice. This idea he carried over to his assessment of South Africa���s ruling party, the ANC, in the late 1990s.

Later on, he was to embrace��with open arms the varied movements that came to constitute the World Social Forum and see in their variety a strength that ought not be abandoned. They were about the substance of an alternative as opposed to formal politics that were only defensive reactions to a weakening status quo. In this he kept the spirit of world-historic moments alive��� 1848, 1968 and 1994���revolutions that failed but that have changed the world. The year 1994 although generous to South Africa has its jury still out of court, the dismantling the last race autocracy in the world has led to a serious impasse. We just hope that Wallerstein was right and that the proliferation of racism and authoritarian restorations everywhere are but the final kicks of a dying donkey.

Image from Immanuel Wallerstein interview with David Martinez, Yale University, 2015. Credit Brennan Cavanaugh via Flickr CC.

What was Wallerstein���s contribution? That a world capitalist system was in creation since European foraging and settlement; slavery and the construction of race were key to its creation; that the industrial revolution was not a ���virgin birth��� but a consequence of it; that the system was defined by cores and peripheries; that this system of endless accumulation has its booms and slumps; that European hegemony established a system of inter-state relations; that labor, social and anti-colonial movements have been the animus of change; that we are living through a final crisis that is by now insoluble within a capitalist carapace; that Eurocentrism and the disciplines that were created in and through European hegemony (and colonial and imperial networks of power) have outlived their fictions; that we need��to open up the social sciences and make them serve an array of human forms of flourishing.

But the world is out of joint! In Wallerstein���s words:

Who will win this battle? No one can predict. It will be the result of an infinity of nano-actions by an infinity of nano-actors at an infinity of nano-moments ��� But this uncertainty is precisely what gives us hope. It turns out that what each of us does at each moment about each immediate issue really matters ��� This is an intellectual task, a moral obligation, and a political effort.

The identity politics of wax print

A new film by Aiwan Obinyan explores the origins and "ownership" of a now-famous cloth.





Image still of the director Aiwan Obinyan from Wax Print Film.

���Is wax print African?��� Debates about the authenticity of African print or Dutch wax as it is also called, flare up regularly, with some arguing the fabric is un-African, even Dutch. When English designer Stella McCartney was accused of ripping off African designs by using wax print in her Summer/Spring 2018 collection, some of the push back questioned whether the fabric could even be called African.

This same inquiry���whether wax print is even African���lies at the heart of British-Nigerian filmmaker, musician, and fashion designer, Aiwan Obinyan���s Wax Print Film. Interlacing interviews with makers, sellers, and wearers of African print, with narration about her own personal familial history with the fabric, Obinyan���s 2018 documentary, as its subtitle promises, takes us on a journey through ���1 Fabric, 4 Continents, 200 Years of History.��� In so doing, Wax Print Film makes poignant observations about counterfeiting and cultural identity.

Although wax-resist-dyeing existed for centuries in many regions of the world, the specific style that informed wax print was Javanese batik. The Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) tried to machine manufacture batik in bulk and thereby crowd out local artisans. However their factory printed cloth developed ���cracks��� in the wax, and subsequently in the dye, which made it unattractive to the Javanese. These same ���cracks��� were characteristic of African fabric, and were appreciated for ensuring that no two pieces could ever be the same. The Dutch therefore shifted their focus to the West African coast. With the help of local market women, they adapted the color palettes and patterns of their factory-made fabric to match local demands. Over the decades, designs such as ���sword of kinship,��� ���the ungrateful husband��� and ���you fly, I fly��� remain bestsellers because they so successfully match the tastes of their African clientele.

Today, Vlissingen & Co. (VLISCO) one of the first manufacturers of wax print for the African market in 1848, is still one of the industry���s biggest players. But fake-VLISCO prints from China also now capture significant shares of the market. Wax Print Film considers the detrimental effects that the popularity of these ���modern��� European and Asian prints has on the demand and profits for more traditional, locally-produced fabrics such as kente. It also asks insightful questions about the nature of counterfeiting e.g. how different, really, are the Chinese attempts to copy Dutch wax today, from the Dutch attempts to copy Javanese batik nearly two centuries earlier?

Visually, the film contains some delightful rhymes both about the wax-resist-dyeing process and about working with fabrics as a designer. Among a group of female-dyers in Ghana, Obinyan tries her hand at applying wax onto cotton fabric before it is dyed and then watches the rest of the process, right up until the batik is hung out to dry on lines outside. And later, in the Netherlands, we watch her follow this process again, this time on a much larger scale: in a factory with massive machines and wax rollers. The juxtaposition of the two processes, aptly underlines her point about how wax print has been tailored to African tastes. Although it is possible nowadays to dye fabric without cracks, the cracks are still artificially manufactured onto the fabric���in essence, she tells us, the imperfection has been perfected. Added to the cinematography, which highlights the richness of the fabrics��� colors, Obinyan���s enthusiasm for wax print and her excitement at being witness to the process of its making are infectious.

A second visual parallel exists between the stories of Obinyan and her grandmother, Mrs Elisabeth Oboh. Following the observation in an earlier interview that textile practices are intergenerational and passed down through families, it is endearing to learn how her grandmother was able to build a successful career for herself at a difficult historical period by teaching women to sew, and then to see later how Obinyan herself has made a living designing and selling clothes made with wax print.

Another nice touch, following the interviews where various Afro-descendents speak about wax print as a marker of blackness, is to watch Obinyan narrate her own struggles with identity growing up as a Black-British child in the 1980s, and to hear how the decision to proudly wear African print represented her own gradual growth and decision to stop ���hiding��� or being ashamed of this part of her identity.

That said, it would have been interesting to hear how young Africans on the continent, and not only in the diaspora, think about and use wax print. Though the film interviews women who make and sell wax print in Ghana and Nigeria, it does not engage any young, continental Africans on the subject of wearing wax print, not in the same way that it speaks to festival-goers at Afropunk in Paris, or Cutie BiPoC in Berlin. Given that Wax Print Film insists that the tastes and preferences of African customers shaped the fabrics��� early development, neglecting to interview present-day customers in Africa is a missed opportunity.

Between its personal reflections, observations of the industrial process, vox pop and expert interviews, historical and archival interludes, etc. Wax Print Film occasionally feels like it is juggling too much. This is particularly the case in one of its final scenes, where the director and producer, having just been through a heart-wrenching tour of the Elmina Castle, speak about the hurts done to our black ancestors through slavery, religion, capitalism, etc. These meditations on black pain, though important, seem not to have much, concretely, to do with the subject of wax print.

And yet, all this is perhaps redeemed when, at the end, Obinyan answers the question she has been asking everyone else throughout the film: ���Is wax print African?��� Acknowledging its multi-continental origins, she ultimately ties the fabric���s identity to the black experience itself:

���The fact is, when I walk into a room, my skin speaks before I do and people see a black person before they hear my accent and realize that I���m British too, and so it is with wax print. It���s instantly identified with Africa and Africans before people are made aware of its vast history. So academically, and historically, it���s a fusion of ideas, culture and techniques, but to me it���s African.”

The Kenyan Hunger Games

Philanthropy and celebrities are not enough to remedy the inequalities that persist in Kenya.





Nairobi, Kenya. Image credit Amy Ashcraft via Flickr CC.

About a month ago, Jeff Koinange, a leading news anchor and household name in Kenya made a fervent plea to Kenyans on behalf of his 13 year-old guest, Bianca Wambui who had been diagnosed with breast cancer but could not raise enough money for treatment. In an hour, 2.4 million shillings had been raised.

The comments on the tweet by Citizen TV announcing the success of their fundraiser were varied and ranged from praise of Koinange and tweets by people moved by the generosity of Kenyans. However, like a dark cloud on a sunny day, one comment asked, ���What about the other Bianca���s out there?��� A question which brought to the fore the unsustainability of philanthropy as a method of healthcare management.

In 2015, Denis Onsarigo ran a story titled “Desert of Death,” an expose of toxic waste dumping in the 1980s carried out by an American Oil Company, Amoco in Marsabit County in Kenya during an oil exploration mission. Buried in pits dug in the earth was toxic mercury and arsenic that percolated into the water table and contaminated the drinking water in the wells. The residents and livestock drunk the poisoned water and it began to slowly kill them. The rate of throat and stomach cancer increased and in 2011, two residents were referred each week to hospitals in Meru town or Nairobi city for a biopsy. Most of the time, the residents could not afford the transport or medical bills for treatment.

But this skewed form of existence, where one���s life or death depends on the philanthropy of others, who determine whether or not your story is worthy of a prime-time feature, does not only end with medical stories, it extends to how one earns their daily bread.

These are the hunger games of capitalism where the sponsors or overlords are corporates like Safaricom or Coca Cola, or individuals like SK Macharia, who owns Citizen TV. Their scouts are Jeff Koinange and other influencers who have the clout to lift your life from poverty or fund raise a lifesaving medical procedure.

To see just how pervasive this analogy is, look at the format of popular game shows like East Africa Got���s Talent. The participants showcase their talent to a team of judges who decide whether or not their talent qualifies them for the next round bringing them closer to USD$50,000 cash prize, which could mean a lot of things to the participants, such as better housing, education, healthcare, professional nurturing of their talent and so on. Never mind that their labor power, which is their talent is uncompensated while Citizen TV which airs the show in Kenya makes their cut from advertising, meanwhile Rapid Blue, the South African Company that produces it, rakes millions through sales of the show.

In July, the story of Kevin Obede, a first-class Actuarial Science Graduate who was living on the streets due to unemployment grabbed the headlines on prime-time news. It was tear jerking story. Though his pain and hopelessness were not uncommon among many other graduates around the country, within a week of the story airing, he was flooded with job offers.

On the #IkoKaziKe���a twitter hashtag that helps Kenyans hunt for work���the number of graduates looking for jobs far outweighs the job listings and #unemploymentdisasterke, the testimonies of “tarmacking” (slang for job hunting) can scare you into accepting whatever job is offered to you. Pictures of graduates holding placards of their qualifications in traffic becomes a game of who will spot you, take a picture of the card, post it on social media and when it goes viral, then the job offers come flooding in. But then the participants in the “game” became too many and the posts and pictures lost their effectiveness so they turned to TV. One feature by Koinange and you have unlocked the level of prosperity that is otherwise unreachable in the average person���s life.

Another example is KCB Lion’s Den. Here, aspiring entrepreneurs pitch their businesses to a team of judges���the “lions” who are a group of successful business moguls who have the cash and know-how of what it takes to succeed. As the prey, you have to impress these “overlords” or corporate sponsors who have the power to turn your life around.

There is nothing wrong with competition, but if the ground is uneven, is it now a fair fight or simply playing God?

In the Hollywood film, The Hunger Games, the Capitol���the wealthy city-state of the center of the world���stages a series of competitions involving the 12 districts in a fight to the death scenario where the winner gets access to a better life than they lived in their districts. The games were set up by the Capitol as punishment to the 12 districts who had staged a rebellion years before. The districts are kept impoverished and each year, a boy and a girl from each district are put forward as representatives or tributes in the games. If one has sponsors who give you gifts critical to the winning of the games, then you have a better chance of making it. It is a competition for your humanity and the odds are unevenly stacked among the poorer districts in comparison to the wealthier district 1 and 2, who train their tributes for the games from birth.

We should think of the “districts” as the Northern Frontier Districts, the rural areas and urban settlements. These were areas that were marginalized during colonialism and remained marginalized during flag independence and beyond, when our country���s founding leaders entrenched colonial violence by taking for themselves the land that belonged to the peasant farmers who had been dispossessed during colonialism, and later on through structural adjustment policies by the World Bank and IMF that heralded the neoliberal era.

Wambui came from Huruma, a ward in Mathare constituency. Mathare first started as a quarry where commercial stone mining took place. Most of the miners who worked at the quarry also lived there in caves hewn out of the rock. Later on, the British colonial government allowed them to build shacks. During the state of emergency, the crackdown of Africans suspected to be part of the Mau Mau mostly affected Mathare as it was believed to be the center of the Kenya Land and Freedom Army, also known as Mau Mau. Their homes were demolished during the raids. Even after the war for independence, the new government led by Jomo Kenyatta did nothing to make the lives of those who lived in Mathare better, and instead asked them to go back to the rural areas as they made Nairobi look like a slum. Yet, where was the land? Had they not come to Nairobi because of precisely this reason���to find an alternative livelihood after being dispossessed of their ancestral land?

As you can see, one can draw parallels between the dystopian Hunger Games in Panem���the fictional country were the games take place���and the Hunger Games of capitalism in Nairobi.

Therefore, if you do not get a sponsor who will help you win at the games, you will die of cancer like the residents in Northern Frontier Districts who have to choose between sustaining their families or paying for cancer treatment, and who do not have the smartphones to ask for funds from well-wishers or get on Koinange’s show, or sink into debt as you struggle to pay a medical bill in, or travel back home empty handed if your talent or idea does not please the judges of a reality game show. Perhaps the biggest irony is that these shows serve as weekend or weekday evening entertainment for the workers in the “districts” before they wake up to serve capital. For them (the workers), the taste of hope stays fresh on their tongues and the thought, “If only I get on the show,” are carried like a prayer until the next opportunity to be on a primetime reality show to share their story. The corporates like Safaricom that sponsor the shows are absolved of the crimes of their exploitation of labor and complicity in this cruel capitalist system because they made one person���s dream come true on a game show.

At the end of the day, it is a zero-sum game between capital and labor. A game where capital is always the winner and doles out the “spoils”���healthcare, right to dignified work, food to whomever is lucky and whoever wins in the diabolical game of life in Kenya.

This is an edited version of a post previously published on ROAPE.net.

James Barnor, ever young

A conversation with the curator and editor of the book and traveling exhibition James Barnor: Ever Young.





James Barnor and Ren��e Mussai, 'Ever Young' studio at Rivington Place, London, 2010. Photo by Zoe Maxwell, courtesy of Autograph,��London.

This article is being published online on Africa Is a Country only. The images appear courtesy of Autograph, London. These images are not under a creative commons license. These images are not for further distribution to any third party without prior written consent by Autograph, London.

In October 2010, I was one of seven African curators invited by the Tate Modern in London to talk about our recent exhibitions. During those few days we visited, as a group, Autograph at Rivington Place, then showing the photographic exhibition James Barnor: Ever Young. I was struck by this exhibition: the conceptualization, the history contained in the images, the power of the photography and of the curating, the beauty of and in the images, the finesse of the printing and the overall installation. A few months later, in 2011, I organized to show the exhibition at the South African National Gallery (SANG)���in partnership with Autograph and with the assistance of the British Council���where I was director at the time. It was the first tour of the exhibition following the inaugural Autograph show and significantly, the first���and perhaps only���to the African continent thus far. James Barnor attended the opening at the SANG and was so excited to see his images displayed abroad, he paid his own way from London to Cape Town to be there again for the closing week of the show a few months later.

Fast-forward seven years and guess who I ran into at the 2018 Paris Photo last year, and then in June this year as a fellow resident artist at the Cit�� internationale des arts in Paris? Why, none other than the same master photographer James Barnor! I caught up with the legendary Ghanaian photographer on the occasion of his 90th birthday celebrations and his latest solo exhibition entitled Colors then running at Galerie Cl��mentine de la F��ronni��re in Paris.

James Barnor, Eva, London, 1960s. Courtesy Autograph, London.

Barnor filled me in on his rags to riches story: the exhibition Steve Flynn and Rachel Pepper were involved in organizing at the Acton Arts Festival in 2004 via the Acton Arts Forum; his subsequent inclusion in the exhibition Ghana at 50 curated by Nana Oforiatta Ayim at the Black Cultural Archives (BCA) in London in 2007; and following that the meeting between curator Ren��e Mussai and himself that led to his first major solo entitled Ever Young: James Barnor at Autograph, London in the autumn of 2010, which also doubled as his retrospective exhibition, touring internationally since.

The Autograph show set the standard and art professionals, institutions and collectors started to take notice of Barnor���s work with the exhibition travelling to Cape Town; the Impressions Gallery in Bradford in the United Kingdom (2013); Galerie Cl��mentine de la F��ronni��re, Paris (2015); Stony Island Art Bank, Chicago, USA (2016); Black Artists’ Network in Dialogue (BAND), Toronto, Canada (2016); The Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA (2016). This was after a smaller iteration exhibition preview at Harvard University���s Rudenstine Gallery in 2010, a few months prior to the opening at Autograph. As a result Barnor���s work has since been acquired by international private and public collections in the United Kingdom such as the Eric and Louise Franck Collection (now at Tate Britain), Government Art Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery in the UK, as well as further afield including the Wedge Collection (Canada) and Mus��e du quai Branly (France), etc.

Barnor���s photographs were first formally displayed in Ghana in an exhibition at the British Council and Silverbird Lounge, Accra Mall (2012). Since then his pictures have been included in group exhibitions on photography held at Nasher Museum, Duke University, USA (2012); Tate Britain, England (2012); Tropenmuseum, Netherlands (2014) and in 2015 at The Photographers��� Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum and Foam Fotographiemuseum, (Netherlands).

James Barnor, Self portrait with Kwame Nkrumah, Roy Ankrah and his wife Rebecca, Accra, c.1952. Courtesy Autograph, London.

Since his gallery Cl��mentine de la F��ronni��re showed Ever Young: James Barnor in Paris (2015) in partnership with Autograph, it has been busy days with Barnor���s work presented at the 11th biennale des Rencontres de Bamako, Mali (2017), Mus��e du quai Branly, vitrine jardin, Paris, France (2017-18), Mupho Mus��e de la Photographie, Saint Louis, S��n��gal and Gallery 1957, Kempinski Hotel, Accra, Ghana, the latter two in 2018.

The interview is based on a spontaneous ���stream of consciousness��� (her words) via on-going email conversations since June 2019 with Ren��e Mussai.

Riason Naidoo

What was it like to see James Barnor’s work for the first time?

Ren��e Mussai

The writer, artist and curator Nana Oforiatta Ayim kindly introduced me to James in early 2009, if I remember correctly, after��she had organized an exhibition at the Black Cultural Archives for Ghana���s 50th anniversary of independence in 2007, showing a selection of existing prints from Barnor���s archives. At this time, we were in the middle of a Heritage Lottery-funded archive program at Autograph, with the mission to promote and preserve the work of key���and often unrecognized���artists working in photography and cultural identity politics, so the timing was perfect.

Encountering a treasure trove of negatives, vintage prints, and transparencies reflecting the breadth of his practice spanning sixty years in a seemingly “ordinary” apartment suite in the Elderly People���s Home in Brentford, where James Barnor still resides today, was overwhelming and humbling ��� in many ways a dream come true for a curator with a vested interest in the archive: such incredibly fascinating history, and��culture, stored in an��array of Tupperware [food containers], plastic bags, cardboard boxes, often��still inside��original transparent or brown paper negative pouches, with hand-written notes to contextualize and���importantly���James��� voice and remarkable memory to give meaning and context to it all ��� That day was a great moment, and one I will always be grateful for���to both James, for his work and his trust, and Nana, for the introduction that opened the door to a fruitful, long-term collaboration with the artist.

James Barnor, Drum cover girl Marie Hallowi #1, Rochester, Kent, 1966. Courtesy Autograph, London.

Over the past decade, and intensively between 2009-2011, I���as well as colleagues working in the team���have spent many, many hours listening to James�����stories, his transatlantic journeys, while researching his extensive archive of photographs ��� It���s been a��pleasure and a��privilege.��As you know, and anyone who has met James knows, he is an endlessly fascinating person: he epitomizes ���(for)ever young��� perfectly, and poignantly.

Riason Naidoo

What was going through your mind?

Ren��e Mussai

Joy,��curiosity and the overwhelming sense that everything we have done, collectively, as an organization towards the development of this new archive���a photography research program focused on showcasing post-war culturally diverse photography and different “missing chapters”���and personally as a curator working in this field, was culminating in this moment. The main objective and stated mission of the archive program I was leading at the time was to ensure that important but often overlooked practitioners like James Barnor and their crucial contribution to the cultural/global history of photography are not forgotten. The intention was to advocate for their practice to be recognized as key ���chapters��� missing from the wider narratives: re-introduced into mainstream, for lack of a��better word, cultural histories of art or photography as well as the collections of major institutions who can ensure the legacies of the work long term.

As I researched James Barnor���s archive, which was later temporarily relocated to Autograph, I was amazed to��find ten-thousands of negatives���many still in their original Kodak sleeves, unopened since the 1950s and 60s when they were originally produced���and even more so amazed to see that the work he produced for Drum magazine was in fact shot in London, featuring a multinational host of aspiring black cover models, to then be redistributed on the continent ���

This was an archive of images that��capture individually, and more so collectively, cultures��in transformation, new identities coming into being���both “here” e.g. UK and “there” e.g. Ghana���which��brilliantly��illustrated��the��fragmented experience of migration, of modernity, of��diaspora formation, the shaping��of��cosmopolitan, modern societies and selves, of social mobility, and��changing��representation of blackness, desire and beauty across time and cultures �����I personally do not know of any other African studio photographer from that period who left the continent to practice abroad���professionally, as well as to study���whose camera captures such a diverse range of subjects, in and outside the studio confines, and whose work travels���spans continent���in the way James��� photography does.

James Barnor, Untitled #1, Drum shoot (unpublished) at Campbell-Drayton Studio, London, 1967. Courtesy Autograph, London.

A majority of the images that I eventually selected for the exhibition had not been seen before, in a curated exhibition���the original film stock, untouched for decades, was digitally preserved first, then later printed from restored negatives and transparencies. My curatorial objective was to build a show that spoke to different chrono-political and transcultural moments: the “here” and “there” in the 1950s and 1960s respectively, as mentioned earlier ��� to create a curatorial dialogue across time and place. Part of this story was to highlight Barnor���s own extraordinary transatlantic journey, and how that impacts on and cross-pollinated, if you will, his practice: after a decade of practicing and studying in the UK, he returned to Ghana with the gift of color photography in the early 1970s, opening one of the first���if not the first���color processing laboratories in Accra ��� So, one of the things that always struck me was how his archive��speaks not only of the��journey of the photographer, but also to the��journey of the medium of photography itself, as it evolves and expands across the world.

Riason Naidoo

Can you take me through the process from that first moment of meeting James to the exhibition at Autograph? (Please, if you can, also describe the technical details of digitization of slides, printing, storage, etc.)

Ren��e Mussai

I first met James a few months before his 80th birthday, and on his birthday, I told him that we had just secured the first of many exhibitions to come: at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was over the moon ��� I remember him telling me that ���for someone with no secondary school education or A-levels������his words!������this was quite something ������ The exhibition opened there in the spring of 2010, as a prelude to the retrospective at Autograph later that same year. At Rivington Place his work was shown [in the main gallery space on the ground floor] alongside a display of W.E.B. Du Bois��� The Paris Albums 1900 [displayed in the smaller space upstairs], to open a conversation between photography and the politics of representation 110 years apart. At Harvard, we also held an exhibition-opening symposium on photography and diaspora, which I had the pleasure to moderate, with key figures in the curatorial and scholarly field: the late Okwui Enwezor, Deborah Willis, and Kobena Mercer ��� I believe it may be online somewhere?

During this period���every time James Barnor came to visit us at Autograph, he was laughing out loud���or smirking���either way always beautiful to witness���the moment he stepped into the office: there would be a white-gloved archivist buried in boxes of hundreds, thousands of his negatives, busy cataloguing and transferring original material into archival sleeves and boxes; another member of the team, busy scanning prints and transparencies; large computer screens all displaying Barnor���s photographs being digitally preserved, restored and retouched back to their original state, while other colleagues including myself were working on different aspects of “Operation Barnor” that had taken over Autograph���s offices for the time being ��� that time being at least twelve months if not closer to eighteen months! Which, for a small charitable arts organization, is a big investment in terms of resources.

James Barnor, Selina Opong, Policewoman #10, Ever Young Studio, Accra, c.1954. Courtesy Autograph, London.

The exhibition I organized in 2010 emerged as a direct result of this urgent and rigorous initial process of research, cataloguing, high resolution scanning, digital preservation, and contextualizing led by Autograph and our dedicated if small archive team���and, of course, in-depth curation. The show represents only select aspects of Barnor���s archive: James and I often spoke about how many countless other exhibitions could and should be curated in years to come, from his wide-ranging practice. I���m very glad to know that this is now happening, and excited to see what other curators, gallerists and archivists will introduce.

Riason Naidoo

I saw the exhibition at Autograph in 2010. It was amazing. Some prints were blown up really large and worked fantastically well and then you retained the small-scale postcard size of the original photo album prints. What was the thinking behind that?

Ren��e Mussai

Thank you ��� from a curator���s perspective the idea was to create a dialogue or juxtaposition between the several stages of his practice���street and studio, London and Accra���and to represent the quality of his work at different scales: to make a bold statement, if you will. To��introduce his work as not merely an archive of prints related to his country of origin (as it had been seen before, at BCA for example) but as key contemporary artworks reflecting his talent and visual politics of (trans)cultural history and identity, re-positioned in a gallery context, printed, largely, from digitally preserved internegatives���new surrogate large format negatives made from restored scans of the originals. Enlarging the studio���as well as the street���portraits brought all the finer details and intricacies of his prints to life, magnified: his trademark studio figurine, the pigeons at Trafalgar Square, and importantly representing the��Drum��models such as the formidable Erlin Ibreck or broadcaster Mike Eghan larger-than-life. It imbued the works, and his sitters, with a presence and��stature: commanding admiration, and claiming space. Seeing the works at this scale enabled a different viewing experience �����At the same time, I felt it was important to preserve and respect the intrinsic quality of the archive; hence the exhibition featured both, modern and vintage prints. The show was conceived as a transnational dialogue, a curatorial conversation across time, and place, enabling the [art] world and wider community to celebrate a key figure in the global, cultural history of photography.

James Barnor, Drum cover girl Erlin Ibreck at Trafalgar Square, London, 1966. Courtesy Autograph, London.



Riason Naidoo

Can you also fill me in on what happened before Autograph and after (SANG) that you were still responsible for? How did that feel as curator of the exhibition and what was it like witnessing James experiencing all that attention for the first time?

Ren��e Mussai

As a curator working within an institution advocating for black photographers to be recognized for several decades (Autograph was established in 1988), it was a wonderful opportunity to be able to help Barnor achieve the recognition he so deserves, enjoys, and importantly���during his lifetime. Too often this happens too late, and/or posthumously. I was very pleased that we at Autograph were in a position to invest the necessary resources at a crucial time, and with the exhibition���s critical international reception, and everything that has happened as a result since, especially the acquisitions by major public institutions as these investments ensure the permanent legacy of his work ���

Working with James���s archive constituted an��important phase in my curatorial career and one I look back to with��pride, and gratitude.��It���s always wonderful to be part of something that���s transformative for an artist���s practice���and especially so for a nonagenarian!���as well as addressing a gap or what we tend to describe as a “missing chapter” in existing narratives.

The exhibition at Harvard���s Hutchins Center (formerly Du Bois Institute) was the first exhibition of Barnor���s work I curated, following the initial phase of cataloguing, digitizing, archiving���it was a kind of ���prelude��� to the 2010 autumn retrospective, if you will. In addition to international touring venues, works were also loaned to several group exhibitions internationally���such as Work, Rest and Play: British Photography from the 1960s to Today, organized by The Photographers��� Gallery and shown at the Shenzen and Misheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China or Swinging Sixties London���Photography in the Capital of Cool at Foam in Amsterdam. Major acquisitions we negotiated resulted in James��� work to be featured in blockbuster museum exhibitions such as Another London: International Photographers Capture London Life 1930-1980 at Tate Britain, London; as well as at the Victoria & Albert Museum as part of Staying Power. These moments are always a highlight: when our curatorial work directly affects the diversification of institutional���or “mainstream”���collecting.

Another highlight was witnessing James Barnor participate on the main stage at the Black Portraitures symposium in Paris, for instance, where he was on a panel with other great African photographers such as the late J.D. ���Okhai Ojeikeire.

James Barnor, Drum cover girl Erlin Ibreck, London, 1966. Courtesy Autograph, London.

In 2015, I had the pleasure to edit his first monograph, which was published in 2015 with his gallery Cl��mentine de la F��ronni��re, in partnership with Autograph.

The exhibition is still traveling, on and off���we are currently in the process of confirming the��next iteration of the Ever Young: James Barnor at Casa Africa, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Spain for 2020.

Riason Naidoo

How you feel about it all looking back?

Ren��e Mussai

When I first met James Barnor in 2009,��I knew then that once preserved, and re-presented within a gallery or museum context, these photographs would be celebrated widely, for the illuminating visual evidence they offer not only of an important chapter now deeply embedded within the cultural fabric of the UK���s national story with regards to race, diversity and��representation, but the wider cultural history of photography and most��importantly: African history, African��contemporary art, Ghanaian��history of independence, global cultural��politics, and visual culture.

Looking back today, after almost a decade of continued advocacy by Autograph, I feel proud that this mission has been achieved ��� and that others are continuing this work and keeping Barnor���s practice in the public eye: my colleagues at Autograph, fellow curators and writers such as yourself, dedicated gallerists such as Cl��mentine de la F��ronni��re, other scholars and graduate students and researchers �����as well as his peers, of course.

But above all, I am delighted that James is��alive and well to enjoy the much-deserved recognition, if late in life, traveling��with his work, meeting new people and forging alliances.

James Barnor, Drum magazine cover with Marie Hallowi, East Africa edition, June 1966. Courtesy Autograph, London.



Riason Naidoo

The book James Barnor: Ever Young was published by les����ditions Cl��mentine de la F��ronni��re��in 2015 in partnership with Autograph. It���s a beautiful publication. Can you talk a little bit about the book and the collaboration, if possible?

Ren��e Mussai

Thank you. The book project was championed by gallerist Cl��mentine de la F��ronni��re and Sarah Preston of Neutral Grey agency who first approached us in 2014, I believe, to discuss a collaboration ��� we then began planning the tour of the original Ever Young: James Barnor exhibition to Cl��mentine���s gallery in Paris. Since there was no publication to accompany the show, the obvious next step was to produce a catalogue and that���s how the partnership ensued. Given that we had already digitized and selected key works from James��� archive over the years, including many additional works not featured in the exhibition, it made sense to collaborate and create a book that reflected the curatorial vision of the inaugural show for James��� first artist monograph, in a series of chapters ��� It gave me the opportunity to finally write the story of the exhibition in my opening essay, and to reflect on the work and process. We also invited the great editor, writer, publisher and broadcaster Margaret Busby OBE and leading photography critic professor Francis Hodgson���who had originally reviewed the exhibition for the Financial Times in 2010���into a conversation with James, which was edited and transcribed for the book. Kobena Mercer���s brilliant text ���People Get Ready������also originally commissioned as an extended exhibition review/essay of our 2010 show by the New Humanist���was also reproduced in the book.

Exhibitions disappear, eventually, but books as you know represent a permanent legacy; hence publishing continues to be of utmost importance: knowing that a copy of James��� first artist monograph is forever lodged at the British Library makes me���and I am sure I can speak on behalf of my colleagues at Autograph���very, very happy indeed. It���s part of our original, and ongoing, critical mission to generate new knowledge, affect wider narratives and advocate for black photographers and artists globally.

Rugby and rainbows

Reflecting on white joy, black celebration, and the meaning of the Springbok win at the 2019 Rugby World Cup.





Image via screengrab from YouTube. Credit World Rugby.

News24 is one of South Africa���s largest media outlets and Adriaan Basson is its editor. Because of its size and reach, News24 is an important site for shaping public opinion in South Africa. As a result, when Basson shares his opinion, many people listen.

My sense of Basson is that he is a good man with good intentions and he wears these intentions on his sleeve when he writes about the Rainbow Nation. This sleeve-wearing and rainbow-writing happens fairly frequently because Basson believes that black and white South Africans ought to be able to live together without acrimony. I am more comfortable than Basson seems to be with the inevitable conflict that comes with living in a multiracial society forged in the shadows of apartheid. Still, Basson and I share the same social instinct: we reach for cohesion rather than pull against it. Despite this, our political analyses are often wildly different.

There are some people in our country who believe journalists are the enemy. There is an army of online bots that have been programmed to insist that Basson himself is a serious enemy of black people. He is particularly targeted by members of the ruling ANC and opposition party EFF. Whenever he points out the moral failings of their leaders, particularly in relation to corruption, he is especially and virulently targeted. But the idea of Basson as an enemy is nonsense. I disagree with Basson in this case���and indeed I often do���but he is not my enemy. The very notion of enemies in a democratic system���rather than competitors or interlocutors���is strange to me. When used in service of genuine clarification, rather than point-scoring, disagreement can be useful rather than polarizing.

If you haven���t noticed, South Africa won its third Rugby World Cup last Saturday. The win was remarkable for a number of reasons, not least was that for the first time in its history the team was captained by a black player, Siya Kolisi. From the Eastern Cape, Kolisi seems particularly aware of his role in history. His post match comments, in which he spoke of the class and racial inequalities in South Africa, is already the stuff of legend. Strikingly also, has been how black South Africans have responded to the win. In previous World Cups, many black South Africans have been ambivalent about whether or not to openly support the team. This time there was no question���the team had no shortage of fans.

Rugby culture in South Africa has been stubbornly resistant to change. But the usual crowd shots of all-white South African crowds at rugby matches���sometimes waving the old Apartheid flag���are becoming a thing of the past. It is precisely for this reason that Kolisi���s captaincy and the presence of a number of other black players in key positions has been so important.

As the historian and rugby fan, Derek Catsam, wrote on this site on Monday, ������This was no ‘quota squad,’ ��� but rather it was a squad led by its black players.” It was a squad that would not have been able to ���win the World Cup without those black players.��� Whites are not at the center of the game anymore and so there is a qualitative shift at play in South African rugby. This is what the homecoming scenes of the boys arriving from Tokyo symbolize. This is what the excitement amongst black people is about.

In this spirit then, let me address my concerns about a recent piece in which Basson writes about the Springboks��� brilliant World Cup win. It seems to me that at its core, the piece misses many of the points that critics of the Rainbow Nation (and of the function of rugby and the Springboks for that vision) have been making for many years. This misunderstanding sets us up for further, deeper misunderstandings that can be exploited over time until they drive people of good will further and further apart.

Basson writes: ���The Springboks have revived the much-maligned concept of South Africa as a rainbow nation with a historic Rugby World Cup championship victory.��� He goes on to argue that the Rainbow Nation, ���has been given a second chance by Springbok captain Siya Kolisi, coach Rassie Erasmus and the team, who emphasised one nation working together after its stunning win over England.���

This is simply not the case.

Try as he might, Basson seems unable to genuinely understand that the problem at the core of the idea of the Rainbow Nation lies in the way it centers the experiences and feelings of white people. This���more than anything else���makes it a hard concept to reuse in this millennium, given all we know about white supremacy and late capitalism.

Each and every day, South Africans are offered opportunities to work together across race and across class lines, even as many white people in this country, who have the power to work towards unity, choose to turn away from the national project.

Basson���s sentimentality���his idea that our nationhood will be made in moments of glamour in which white people play a central role���is seductive. And yet, if the last twenty-five years has taught us anything, it is that a captain and a coach can make us weep, but a rugby match cannot give us a second chance at nationhood.

Day after day, year after year in the news cycle that Basson curates, it is evident that the events that tend to move black South Africans, do not on the whole, move white South Africans. Basson���s idea of the rugby match as a second chance functions as a softcore racial imaginarium in which white people���s inclusion is a prerequisite for unity.

If the team had no white members, would the win have meant this much to our white compatriots? This question gets to the heart of what it means to be South African. For white South Africans it means inclusion (even if they are already over-represented) while for black South Africans belonging means justice and equity���it means seeing a group of young men on the field who are there in spite of every obstacle thrown in their paths.

I remember the heady days of the #FeesMustFall movement. While many white South Africans supported the students in broad terms, there was no mass outpouring from white South Africans claiming that all those black children on the streets provided a glimpse of the country South Africa���s liberators had hoped it might become. Instead, there were a number of self-satisfied opinion pieces pointing out that white children were on the streets too, but far too few white South Africans claiming the struggles of black children as their own.

The almost pathological need to place white people at the center of the national narrative about the future is a blind spot for many well-meaning white people. For too many of our white compatriots, the South African story is built around the fate of white people. This inability to see the future without insisting that the photo frame includes white images represents a strange sort of race-consciousness for a group that often professes not to care about race. The stories that count are their stories even though it is widely accepted at an intellectual level that for South Africa to thrive socially and economically, it is black people who will need to make significant progress.

In spite of the objective facts about what constitutes progress for this country, the desire of so many white people to celebrate stories in which white people play a central role while ignoring the national importance of stories in which black children are the focus, should worry all of us.

The point is not that white people shouldn���t also thrive, but that the idea of nationhood should not be contingent on white people continuing to take up disproportionate space within the national story.

I remain committed to the idea that South Africa can be a place of opportunity and justice for all of us. Yet I cannot see how we will achieve this objective is our white compatriots do not rejoice with all their hearts when black children are uplifted.

The Springbok win is great but it is hard, hard indeed, to watch the frenzy of white excitement about it. It is painfully clear that there would not be such joy if rugby were not seen as a “white” sport. Indeed, Basson���s article begs the question of why it takes a rugby match to spur a reclamation of nation-building when all around us each and every day South African whites who have every opportunity to promote unity in private lives flatly refuse to do so.

If the dream of a united South Africa is truly important then white South African managers will hire young black talent without reservation, without resentment or anger about affirmative action. They will see in the faces of young black graduates a second chance rather than a last resort. If the dream of a united South Africa in which each of us can live to our fullest potential is to be realized then the middle class���white and black���will put their children back in public schools. The segregated suburban schools that have been abandoned by whites stand as a testament to how far we have to go to move beyond the seduction of the glittering moment.

Perhaps this summer, white South Africans who want to keep the idea of racial equality alive will celebrate when the beaches are bursting with black people who are free���wonderfully free!���to bathe and swim and share in the beauty of our country���s coastlines. Perhaps they will remember that once upon a time black people were not allowed on our own shores.

While lying in the sun alongside their fellow South Africans who happen to be black, our white compatriots will be able appreciate that very quietly and without much fuss, day after day, month after month for the last twenty-five years, they have accumulated an extraordinary set of second chances. Perhaps this summer they will re-dedicate themselves not to certain colors in the rainbow but to the vision itself.

Can an American TV sitcom get anything ‘right’ about Nigerians?

After having a heart attack, a man falls in love with his Nigerian nurse in the CBS TV sitcom, Bob Hearts Abishola. It is also about Nigerian-Americans��� visibility on mainstream US television.





Promo image from Bob Hearts Abishola.

When American TV network, CBS, first announced that its TV sitcom Bob Hearts Abishola would feature a Nigerian protagonist, a sense of dread came over many Nigerians concerned with their country’s representation in the western media. Just starting with the name ���Abishola������or, rather, its spelling���the title of the show struck many as questionable. Why the ���h,��� when ���Abisola��� is arguably far more common? And how could Bob Hearts Abishola, a Chuck Lorre sitcom, possibly get anything ���right��� about Nigeria and Nigerians? Lorre, known for blockbuster sitcoms (including The Big Bang Theory), is not often associated with nuance.

Nigeria is, on American television, typically reduced to subplots about internet fraud (419 jokes) and other references to, allegedly, endemic Nigerian corruption���when the country is cited at all. Depictions of Nigerian scams have proliferated in British and American popular culture, strengthening racist stereotypes. For instance, the pilot episode of the television series Leverage (2008)���titled ���The Nigerian Job������suggests that all Nigerians are corrupt. Similarly, the Futurama spin-off film Bender���s Big Score (2007) uses a dreaded Nigerian internet scam as a source of terror, pity, and apparent hilarity.

For its part, however, the HBO comedy series Flight of the Conchords (2007 ��� 2009) satirizes the sort of stereotyping that feeds anti-Nigerian prejudice: when the eponymous band���s lovably inept manager, Murray (Rhys Darby), enlists the help of a Nigerian investor, Nigel Saladu (Michael Potts), the other characters assume that Saladu is a 419 schemer, and that the disastrously dim-witted Murray has managed to err once again���this time in a really big way. In the end, however, Saladu emerges as a hero, having demonstrated his keen investment skills and earned a much-needed windfall for Murray and the band. In Flight of the Conchords, essentializing Nigerians as corrupt can only lead to shame and embarrassment for those peddling such parochial views.

Set in Detroit, Bob Hearts Abishola is about the ���unlikely��� romance that develops between a white businessman (played by Billy Gardell, the Mike of Lorre���s earlier sitcom Mike & Molly) and the Nigerian nurse he meets while a cardiac patient. Played by Nigerian-born actress Folake Olowofoyeku, Abishola recalls Saladu in her hyper-competence, which puts the other characters���including, memorably, the physician with whom she, a ���mere��� nurse, works���to shame. (Abishola knows better than the doctor and isn���t afraid to say so, and her willingness to intervene���to act on her hard-won knowledge���saves a patient���s life.) Olowofoyeku���a Nigerian performer playing a Nigerian role���is among the selling points of the series, and she is matched by two other actors of Nigerian descent, Shola Adewusi (who plays Abishola���s meddlesome aunt, and whose rabble rousing comedy style recalls that of Nollywood icon Funke Akindele) and Gina Yashere (who plays Abishola���s closest friend, an incorrigible gossip).

Bob Hearts Abishola does not pretend that African immigrants speak only English, and the series is full of subtitled Yor��b��, featuring, as well, some welcome discussions on the intricacies of the language. The program is very much an advertisement for ���low��� culture���a mere sitcom that is somehow more respectable, more accurate and evocative, than those strenuously ���serious��� accounts of ���Africa,��� like Netflix���s Beasts of No Nation (which can���t even be bothered to identify its national setting even as it makes ample use of Twi).

At its best, Bob Hearts Abishola evokes the Nigerian sitcom tradition, particularly in scenes set in Abisola���s crowded home, which recall Amaka Igwe���s Fuji House of Commotion, a spin-off of Igwe���s popular television serial Checkmate. Tambay Obenson has eloquently described what Bob Hearts Abishola does so well, noting that Gina Yashere was instrumental in the development and execution of the series. Hired as a consultant, Yashere eventually earned a credit as the sitcom���s co-creator, and her oversight pays some obvious dividends: indebted to Bridget Loves Bernie (1972-1973) and other clash-of-cultures sitcoms, Bob Hearts Abishola avoids egregious misrepresentations of Nigeria���including those for which non-Nigerian actors (like Concussion���s Will Smith) have been notoriously responsible.

I expected to detest Bob Hearts Abishola, but I was surprised by how much I liked the first six episodes. The series is full of Yor��b��, and it���s not nearly as exoticizing as typical American accounts of African characters. I tweeted some praise, then deleted the post as soon as I noticed that many users were upset about the show���because of a (rather funny) parody of African chauvinism: there is a memorable scene in which two African-born characters ���troll��� their African-American friend (played by the great Vernee Watson-Johnson) by suggesting that they would date African-American men only as a last resort. Watson-Johnson���s lively character gives as good as she gets, however, critiquing the immigrants��� stereotype-driven hierarchy even as all three women share a hearty laugh over the difficulties of dating and the quest for sex.

As of this writing, over 3,000 people have signed a Change.org petition demanding that CBS cancel Bob Hearts Abishola on the basis of the sitcom���s alleged anti-African-American bias, which, the petition���s author maintains, ���supports the ongoing narrative being proliferated in mainstream media today, that African immigrants are a more desirable class of ���blacks��� in America than American Descendants Of Slavery.��� What the author appears to ignore is the role of two-time Emmy-Award-winner Vernee Watson-Johnson as Gloria, the receptionist at the hospital where Abishola works: as cutting as she is wise, Gloria goes out of her way to mentor the much-younger Abishola in what amounts to a lovely depiction not merely of inter-generational intimacy but also of cross-cultural exchange.

The Change.org petition also claims that Bob Hearts Abishola is being ���presented to a predominantly white network audience������an unsupported assumption that is difficult to maintain at a time of significant demographic shifts, particularly in relation to the medium of television and the platforms on which it is watched.

Bob Hearts Abishola begs the question ���Why Nigerians?������and the answer is perhaps obvious: as the global popularity of Nollywood films, and their growing presence on platforms like Amazon and Netflix, attests, Nigerians are major consumers of popular media, and it makes sense that CBS would target them. Indeed, I know a lot of Nigerian-born Americans who are not only watching Bob Hearts Abishola (on whatever device) but who are also enjoying it���and who are marveling at the extensive use of Yor��b�� on an American network sitcom.

What’s the point of opposition politics in Southern Africa?

Opposition parties, inequality, and the politics of failure in Southern Africa.





Fees Must Fall Demonstration 2, Pretoria. Image credit Paul Saad via Flickr CC.

Recently, the first black leader of South Africa���s opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), Mmusi Maimane, stepped down as leader of the party. Maimane had been seen by some as having a real chance to reorient South African politics by tapping into long-simmering discontent with the ANC by many in the black majority who still do not feel seen or serviced by government. The DA also hoped to capitalize on Maimane���s youth���he was only 34 when he took over as party leader. It was, thus, his race and his youth around which the party hoped to rally younger voters, whose support for the ANC is the lowest of any group.

The idea that opposition parties might be able to tap into the large number of underemployed youth and other discontented citizens across the southern African region has long been a feature of political commentary and politician discourse. Apart from South Africa, in Lesotho, Botswana, and Zimbabwe, the idea that opposition parties might harness those disconnected from the system has a certain appeal. These analyses, however, all assume that these individuals and groups feel like the political system can fundamentally reform to meet their needs. What if, however, the disaffection has spread so widely that youth and marginalized adults are reaching a tipping point, where people are going to demand not merely inclusion into previously exclusionary political systems, but rather a fundamental reorientation of political and economic systems they view as corrupt for having shut them out entirely for so long? Could we be seeing the start of a “new Southern Africa 1968” where protests by youth and the disaffected have a chance of fundamentally altering, or at least shaking the foundations of current systems?

False hope in oppositions?

While some South Africans put forth Maimane (and other now-departed, black, younger leaders in the DA such as Lindiwe Mazibuko) as the youthful, black faces of the future who could lead the DA from being a thinly disguised rump of the old National Party into a national force, it was never clear that the party had fundamentally changed. That is, many viewed it as still being in the hands of a white economic elite living off apartheid-era-based financial privilege. Maimane, in his exit speech, hinted that the party had never truly transformed to the point where it could reasonably represent South Africa���s poor majority, saying that it was clear ���the DA is not the vehicle best suited to take forward the vision of building One South Africa for All.���

Similarly, across the border in Lesotho, the roles of the ruling party and opposition have been rapidly shifting back and forth since the advent of the coalition era of Lesotho politics in 2012. Rather than thinking in terms of ruling/opposition, it is perhaps better to think of them as those in power versus those seeking power since policy differences between the parties are not very substantial. In any case, none of the parties that have been deemed the opposition over the past seven years have adequately represented the majority of the citizens in Lesotho who lack access to the political system and who are struggling economically.

In Botswana, long lauded as an exemplar of functional African democracy, the opposition Umbrella for Democratic Change, led by 50-year old Duma Boko, fell far short in its efforts to unseat the ruling Botswana Democratic Party. Its main strength prior to the election was the media attention given to its endorsement by former present Ian Khama, rather than any strong evidence of mobilization among Botswana���s disaffected. Thus, the opposition here, much like in Lesotho, was based around personality grievances among a ruling class rather than on significant policy differences that had a chance of addressing the unmet needs of the poor.

The destructive stasis of opposition

It seems reasonable to conclude that regional politics in Southern Africa are not in a state of flux, but rather at a point of destructive stasis. Rather than looking to opposition parties for change, many people are expressing their frustrations with the inequality and lack of political access through street protest, strikes, and other out-of-the-system protest actions. Will these lead to accommodation from the systems, or are we reaching a tipping point whereby systems break if they do not address the concerns of the historically-disenfranchised majority?

In South Africa, the ANC continues to be the ruling party, but its faction fights and the recent drop in the numbers of people voting suggests a large degree of alienation from the political process. In Lesotho, similarly, electoral participation has also fallen since the 1993 return of multi-party democracy. Zimbabwe has seen an increasing number of street protests against the government of Emmerson Mnangagwa. Lesotho teachers, who walked out of their classrooms in February over pay grievances, are back again on strike because the government failed to address their issues. There is currently no resolution in sight. Massive protests have also rocked the National University in Lesotho early this term after the government failed to distribute bursaries on time, and the university shut down for weeks. Protests regularly break out in South African communities large and small over the failure of government to provide services. In all of these cases, protestors are notably not appealing to opposition parties or asking for inclusion into political systems but are calling simply for their grievances to be addressed.

At best, opposition politicians, themselves, seem to be merely tinkering at the margins of the problems. The DA has reverted to the leadership of John Steenhuisen and Helen Zille. This is the same Zille who was roundly roasted for describing colonialism as ���not all bad��� multiple times on social media���a stance that signals her and the party���s inability to connect with the majority of South Africans. Perhaps change from within the system could come from the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), under the leadership of Julius Malema. However, many worry that the EFF simply represents a disgruntled faction that broke politically with the ANC, but displays similar autocratic and kleptocratic tendencies, as evidenced by the VBS Mutual Bank scandal. In Lesotho, Parliament is at a stand-still and the political reform process that was supposed to be completed by May of 2019 remains incomplete (though still taking public money). Botswana opposition parties not only can���t win an election, but they also fail to represent those who are disenfranchised either! The opposition in Zimbabwe at least talks about the disenfranchised and poor, but in an autocratic system it is not clear that their tactics have any ability to penetrate a system of massive state failure. Where is the hope for those wanting change within the system? It is certainly not visible to many in the opposition party platforms and actions in South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, or Zimbabwe.

Opposition malaise and new protest forms?

Although the politics of opposition seem to be out of alignment with the increasingly sour mood of the majority in a number of Southern African countries, is this really any worse than what the rest of the world is facing at the moment? Politics in many places seem to be in disarray���from the abject anarchy of the Brexit process/general election in the UK to the muddle that is the ongoing impeachment inquiry in the United States, and then, of course, the massive street protests playing out in places as disparate as Hong Kong, Iraq, Lebanon, Spain, Bolivia, and Chile, among others.

Perhaps what we are seeing is the beginning of another age of global protest, led by youth and those feeling disaffected by political systems the world over. Are we at a new 1968? It is, perhaps, too soon to tell, but what is going on in Southern Africa is at once part of that trend of global protest, and something more than these other direct actions. For one, the structural problems in Southern Africa are significantly worse than the rest of the world. Southern Africa is home to six of the top nine most unequal countries (South Africa, Botswana and Lesotho) in the world according to the GINI coefficient calculations. This, of course, is a lingering legacy of the history and long reach of racial capitalism in South Africa and other regional settler colonial states. It is also, however, a trend that has been perpetuated and accentuated by contemporary politicians. These trends have coalesced in a large generation of disaffected adults and youth who have lost any hope that they will be able to access the political process, economic prosperity, or the social standing that comes with full membership in society. Amplified by social media and wider access to informal networks of solidarity that mobile apps allow, the disparate disconnectedness of marginalized groups in all of these countries could lead to national or even a region-wide movement. Although internet usage rates remain low in the SADC region, it is easy to both see how this will expand rapidly in the coming years, and how it could play out in terms of organizing and mobilization.

So far Botswana, South Africa, and Lesotho have not yet seen mass movements like national stay-aways or strikes to force systematic change. Zimbabwe has. Is this the future for the rest of the region? Another factor that could play into increasing protests is the continued collapse of the informal social safety net precipitated by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Many of the striking students at the National University of Lesotho (NUL) are not simply “entitled kids,” but heads-of-household with no other means of support because so many of their parents passed away prematurely from AIDS. The social safety net that many have relied on in recent years���grandparents���are also passing away, as Ellen Block has detailed in her book. With the ongoing demise of this informal safety net, there will be even more vulnerable youth and young adults. What the impact of this will be on protest movements is, as of yet, unknown, but when something like government bursaries are delayed (as was the case at NUL), this meant that many students were unable to eat. The urgency felt by those asked to study on empty bellies trumped the desire of the political system and institution to silence them.

At the moment, the politics of stasis, the politics of moderate reform, and opposition parties in Southern Africa all represent the politics of failure. Appointing yet another commission to study the problem of poverty or including the same few political leaders in yet another reforms dialogue does not address root problems that leave the majorities in most Southern African countries outside the political and economic systems.

Time will tell, but current political dispositions that attempt merely to engage those already in the political process are running even more risk that the tinderbox of poverty, inequality, and disenfranchisement will soon break out into the flames of more radical protest. Is the current regional political leadership listening?

Why, despite it all, I���m still a fan of the Springboks

We should not let the achievements of a multiracial Springbok rugby team, led by its first black captain, be commodified and commercialized in the service of neoliberalism.





Youtube screenshot of post match interview by Springbok captain, Siya Kolisi.

The Springboks are world champions again after their 32-12 pummeling of England in the final of the Rugby World Cup in Japan. Team captain Siya Kolisi���s post game interview has gone viral, capturing the ideals of the Rainbow Nation; an ideal that has been discredited more recently. Kolisi reminded the world of South Africa���s race and class divides: ���I never dreamed of a day like this at all. When I was a kid all I was thinking about was getting my next meal.��� He later added:

That���s what we wanted to do today and we really appreciate all the support, people in the taverns, people in the shebeens, people in farms and homeless people that had screens and people in rural areas. Thank you so much, we appreciate all the support. We love you South Africa and we can achieve anything if we work together as one.

Similarly, Springbok head coach Rassie Erasmus has been praised for having said all the right things in his post-match press conference. The videos of the most interracial team in Bok history have spread far and wide. Even the most cynical journalists are talking and writing about harmony and hope and inspiration and that most South African of words, ���transformation.��� (Large sections of South Africa���s rugby press are cynical about changing the game���s white face on and off the field.)

By the time the Springbok party lands at O.R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, the victory, Kolisi���s inspirational words, Erasmus��� acknowledgment of things beyond rugby, the clips of black and white players dancing���these will all be commodified and commercialized, neoliberalism being the true force beyond rugby. The 2019 Springboks will be used to sell beer and mobile phones, satellite TV, and sports drinks. Above all, they will be used to sell ���Transformation ���.��� Lock Eben Etzebeth���s missteps (he is accused of racially abusing a coloured man back in Langebaan, South Africa), the mysteries of potential exclusion of black players surrounding the ���Bomb Squad��� (when an exclusive group of white Springboks celebrated separately on the field), and the realities of South African lives in Kolisi���s hometown of Zwide in the Eastern Cape province���these will be swept away, out of view, at least for now, as those with the best of intentions but dubious perspective insist that the 2019 Springboks have changed things, have had an impact, have shown what South Africans can only do if they all just come together as one. It will be the 1995 Springboks 2.0. ���Siya���s Spell meets Madiba Magic.���

And let me be clear, I too am riding the wave of euphoria. For all of Springbok Rugby���s problems, both historically and today, I was supporting this team. I have been swept up in the emotions.

Being a sports fan is always problematic. There is no moral or ethical perfection. You support the All Blacks because you supported them against South Africa during apartheid? That���s great. But you could only support them because they continued to play South Africa, offering a rare port in a storm buttressing apartheid rugby when teams like Australia had chosen disengagement. New Zealand���s South African support always had a whiff of sanctimony to it given that for the vast majority of All Black interactions with Springbok rugby prior to 1992, New Zealand was willing to sell out its own Maori players by not allowing them to tour to South Africa to play the Green and Gold until 1970 (when visiting Maori players were granted the dubious ���Honorary Whites��� status). There is little doubt that All Blacks supporters in South Africa developed their loyalties out of a deep sense of principle. But that principle nonetheless comes with a healthy dose of opportunism. Look into the history of the great New Zealand fullback George Nepia and ask yourself why he never did play against the Springboks. Then think again about principles, but also about opportunism. Even principles can be problematic in the context of elite sport.

If you support an elite sports team the odds are that whether you know it or not you support perpetrators of domestic violence or racists, you support homophobes or Make America Great Again chuckleheads, you support young men and women, some of whom you would not like if you met them and many of whom would look down on you with barely shielded scorn and condescension if they met you. And let us not think about the reprobates and troglodytes who populate every fan base on earth. It is a clich��, but if you support big-time sport and have chosen a side, you cheer for laundry. That laundry might be washed not far from where you live. It might get dried by people who speak your language or refer to your grilling of meat as a ���braai��� rather than a barbecue. It might get sponsored by Castle instead of Budweiser, MTN instead of T-Mobile. It may be the color you once wore or that your dad or mum once wore. But it���s laundry. And as professional athletes show by rightfully exercising their agency whenever possible, that laundry is interchangeable.

And yet the laundry I was supporting on Saturday was green and gold. To me it was the laundry of Beast Mtamawira and Cheslin Kolbe, of Makazole Mapimpi and Lukhanyo Am, of Bongi Mbonambi and of course of the inspirational captain, Siyamthanda Kolisi, a man who, if all of the Rainbow Nation palaver even vaguely lives up to he country���s hopes and ideals and rhetoric, will earn a place more esteemed in the annals of South African sport then 1995 Springbok captain Francois Pienaar.

South African rugby is imperfect and has an appalling history. If they abandon the Springbok logo I will shed no tears and gnash no teeth. As fans we inherit the histories of the teams we support. I loathe the long history of the Springboks even as I support the current if flawed iteration. I wanted Eben Etzebeth to make crushing tackles and to earn hard meters and to play the role of enforcer because that was good for the Springboks, even if I cannot stomach what may have happened in Langebaan just a few weeks ago.

I arrived in South Africa in 1997 knowing shockingly little about rugby, and left a supporter of the only team that made sense to support, not as a historian of race and politics, where the Springboks continually fell short, but that made complete sense in the context of someone who played his first rugby match in the country, whose friends, black and white, were supporters of the Boks, and of their own local teams, and who allowed himself to get caught up in the heat of the still-glowing post-1995 embers. I supported Chester Williams but also Joost and Os, James Small, Percy Montgomery, and Mark Andrews.

In the years that followed I came to use the Springboks to make my own political statements���my favorite players were the Breyton Paulses and Bryan Habanas, the Beasts and the Ashwin Willemses, the JP Pietersens and Ricky Januaries. In sum, I most embraced the black players who stood as a counterpoint to all of those white players who never had to compete against black South Africans on the pitch, in the classroom, or in the boardroom. My peers could try to convince me how wonderful Naas Botha was. But I was far more interested in seeing a Springbok team that looked forward and not one that looked back. I knew the Boks were flawed, but from 1997 I never believed they were fatally so. My vision may have been clouded, but I was never blind.

I was willing to allow South African Rugby to clean the laundry. And so I���ve often been disappointed. But I���ve also been enthralled.

And the 2019 World Cup was enthralling. South Africa began by losing to the All Blacks in their opening Pool B match, a game they dominated for the first quarter or so but could not translate that dominance into points. Given that no team had ever won the Tri-Nations/Rugby Championship and won a World Cup, and that no team had ever lost a group match and won a World Cup, history might have seemed to have been biased against the Springboks. But, history tends to provide suggestions rather than a roadmap, and from that point on the Boks did what they needed to do. When Japan, one of the most joyful revelations of the tournament, defeated Ireland to help them secure their group, it meant that the Boks would face a rematch of the 2015 group match in Brighton in which Japan provided not only the shock of the 2015 tournament, but the shock of the history of the Rugby World Cup. Over the last few weeks, Rassie Erasmus showed a faith in the entirety of his squad, balancing selection consistency with roster experimentation and showing a willingness to go to his reserves early and often. South Africa often played a perfunctory style, choosing utilitarianism over aesthetics, but even then the traditional South African ���dig-and-drive��� brutalism occasionally gave way to real flair on the outside, as Mapimpi, Am, Sibu N���kosi, Damian de Allende and the rest of the backs provided the support to validate the relentless South African pack play. When England defeated the All Blacks in a shock upset many pundits installed them as tournament favorites, as if the long history of Southern Hemisphere dominance in global rugby was honest and for true not the case this time around. It is, I suppose, both charming and frustrating that Charlie Brown thinks Lucy will let him kick the football this time.

But England���s anomalous 2003 title aside, the historically superior quality of Southern Hemisphere rugby was revealed in 2019, as it was in seven of the eight tournaments that preceded it. Faster, stronger, more technically skilled, more committed, and simply better in execution, the Springboks dominated the final from the outset. Indeed the only pause many of us had was that despite an opening ten or fifteen minutes of wreaking absolute destruction onto the poor England side the Springboks did not have much on the scoreboard to show for it. But relentlessness won out, and the Springbok forward dominance provided a platform for the centers and wings to shine. The Bok defenders would not allow England to breathe, and while many of the crushing tackles came from the usual suspects, the enormous locks and the aggressive flanks and the tenacious front row, tiny Faf de Klerk and tinier Cheslin Kolbe (the Financial Times���s correspondent called him, post-final, ���probably the most exciting attacking back in world rugby���) were every bit as formidable, squaring up against ball carriers seemingly twice their size. South Africa won not because of some 2019 equivalent of Madiba Magic, but rather because they were simply better. Any inspirational talk and larger symbolism is just icing on the cake.

And my joy was compounded by not only that the Springboks won, but by the fact that they did so in no small part because Tendai Mtawarira was indeed a beast in the scrums. Because Cheslin Kolbe and Makazole Mapimpi scored electric tries with significant contributions from Lukhanyo Am. Because Siya Kolisi led first by example before he confirmed his inspirational leadership through his pitch-perfect post-match words. That baker in Cape Town from a couple of months back who printed ���Quota Squad��� on a cake meant to represent the Springboks should be shamed not because of their racist idiocy, though racist idiocy it was, but because the critique has been revealed to be absurd. This was no ���quota squad,��� as that baker wanted to have it, but rather it was a squad led by its black players. It was a squad that does not win the World Cup without those black players. It was, in short, a squad that did great honor to that laundry I, and millions of others supported. That problematic, but at least today, triumphant laundry with its equally problematic and triumphant Springbok logo was, however, made significantly better because Siya Kolisi and his teammates were wearing it.

Cold sweats and furtive listening in Angola

Historian Marissa Moorman wrote an important book about radio and modern state power.





Image from the book cover of Marissa Moorman's Powerful Frequencies.

During the 1960s and early 1970s, both the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) regularly transmitted radio broadcasts into Angola from their positions in exile. Angolans���most of whom lived under the repressive authority of the colonial Portuguese state���tuned their radio sets to receive these illegal broadcasts.

As historian Marissa Moorman describes in her book, Powerful Frequencies: Radio, State Power, and the Cold War, 1931-2002, Angolans who listened to guerilla broadcasts planned out their radio listening with care. Furtive listening demanded preparation. Manuel Faria described driving his car into the middle of a soccer field, and only tuning in once the surrounding dark void made him feel secure. A teenaged Ruth Mendes listened to Angola Combatente with her friends in constant fear of getting caught by adults. Other Angolans remembered catching their parents listening in secret, volume turned low, worried that their children would hear too much. In these recollections, Moorman encounters radio consumption as a corporeal, encompassing experience. Angolans who tuned in illegal broadcasts on their radios broke into cold nervous sweats. They fretted about getting caught���by the police, by their parents, by their children���and yet they persisted in listening because they connected with the content. At the same time, the continued broadcasts worried a colonial state that often failed to control transmissions. One can picture members of the International Police for the Defense of the State (PIDE) agonizing as they listened, wondering who else in Angola had tuned in.

What does a cold sweat reveal about the history of radio?��How can the discomfort of a nervous stomach and the sensation of clammy palms tell us something new about the practice of modern politics?

When assessed as technological practices���meaning practices based on the application of technical skills���radio broadcasting and modern statecraft share remarkably similar historical trajectories. During the 20th century, effective broadcasts and modern states mutually expressed power by accessing the emotions and perceptions of populations that fell within their range.��Radio and statecraft emerged as technologies that could permeate people���s senses of self.��As Moorman writes, ���[t]echnologies do not determine outcomes, but how they operate has material consequences��� (p.69).

Like modern state power, radio technology manifested itself within people���s senses.��By noting this, Moorman effectively grapples with and answers one of the most fundamental but also fundamentally complicated historical questions: what is a state? For Moorman, the answer is a layered one, and is best accessed by unpacking a genealogy of radio in Angola. As she describes it, the modern state in Angola (like the country���s radio broadcasts) coalesced in the second half of the 20th century by attempting to stake itself as a useful technology for producing categories of belonging, exclusion, and dissent. Radio producers and listeners invariably understood these insights before state leaders did. Indeed, the first private radio clubs formed in the 1930s provided an outlet for Portuguese settlers to produce their distinctive white identities. The first state sponsored radio stations only emerged in the 1960s as a component of the larger counterinsurgency and military struggle led by a waning colonial state.

As Moorman demonstrates in Powerful Frequencies, the history of radio and of state power are inseparable. She realizes that Angolans perceived the state (and the radio) with all of their senses on high alert.��Powerful Frequencies carefully captures the full sensory experiences that overlapped as radio broadcasting and state power expanded and were redefined in colonial and post-colonial Angola. Readers who start this book seeking an aural experience will quickly realize that Moorman draws together so many additional forms of perception.��Radio existed in 20th century Angola as a truly broad technology: it contained aesthetic foundations (building edifices, carefully designed studio spaces, advertisements); it touched nervous systems (of individuals and states); it invoked emotion (fear, pride, participation, anxiety); it physically moved (with armies, frequencies, blocked/jammed signals); and it articulated competing intellectual projects (broadcast content, state surveillance).

It would be possible to read Powerful Frequencies as a straightforward history of radio content in 20th century Angola.��Likewise, one could also read Powerful Frequencies to a gain a separate, nuanced, view of Angola���s complex political history.��Moorman carefully escorts readers through the major events in Angola���s recent past. Those who presented content over the airwaves, who tuned in broadcasts, who attempted to block rival signals, and who communicated jammed content to friends and comrades all formed an essential place in Angola���s dynamic politics.

Separately, these detailed histories of radio and politics in Angola would make this book well worth reading. Yet, Moorman���s book accomplishes something altogether more ambitious.��Throughout the book, she doesn���t just represent radio content as a particular kind of historical text (think broadcast transcripts, playlists, program schedules), nor does she merely ask how and why listeners consumed and used certain broadcasts. Instead, Moorman thinks broadly about radio as a very particular kind of modern technology, one whose techniques closely overlapped���often in disquieting ways���with the techniques of modern state power.

Within Moorman���s evaluation of radio, we find out that radio must also be thought of as an affective, not just as an effective technology. Yes, radio is effective in reaching people over broad areas, in sharing news and information, and in inculcating ideas and practices of national identity. But radio also permeates our very sense of being.��Even as listeners consumed radio in Angola, they were also often consumed���in body and mind���by radio technology. What does this mean?

In Powerful Frequencies, Moorman demonstrates that radio works as a technology because it acts on and through us. When we turn the dial off on a radio set, the transmission never ends.��Radio waves, while imperceptible, continuously flow. Content just heard continues to circulate���within the psyche of people who listened, and again when listeners share with others what they just heard. Modern states often attempt to gain the same forms of influence.

Moorman allows us to see the history of states at the intersection of so many different projections, desires, experiences, conflicts, and creative works. She refuses to rely on a single framework to tell this history���this is not just about how “ordinary people” (in the classic social history formation) encountered the state, or how government elites implemented their authority.��Rather, she fleshes out statecraft as an encompassing and ever changing set of existences.

In the introduction to Radio Benjamin, a collection of Walter Benjamin���s radio broadcast transcripts from 1927 to 1933, Lecia Rosenthal writes: ���How do we define the shifting boundaries of the radio work���as historical event and surviving text, singular performance and reproducible artifact, live broadcast and published material?��� How, in other words, do we capture and critique something that is simultaneously temporary and permanent?��In Powerful Frequencies, Moorman meticulously replies to this problem through a close reading of the history of radio in Angola.��In Moorman���s analysis, radio does not just exist for its content, it exists as a particular type of modern technology whose very power stems from its capacity to act (and be acted on) by its audiences.

Only radio receivers can feel radio waves. But people feel radio. Radio, Moorman reminds us, courses through our lives everywhere we go and alongside everything we do. And in many regards this is what modern statecraft is like.��It envelopes us in ways that are often beyond immediate perception.��Powerful Frequencies tells us how and why we need to finely tune our receivers, to attend to these ranging forms of power, and to hopefully���like the Angolans that have listened so carefully���find new ways to innovate and protest.

Chester Williams: pioneer of excellence

The late Springbok wing's legacy needs to be sustained, and the hope that he represented is perhaps more critical than ever.





Screengrab from Youtube.

It���s November 26th, 1994. At Cardiff Arms Park, South Africa���s national rugby team, the Springboks, are playing Wales and a lineout move leaves Springbok flyhalf Hennie le Roux isolated in the midfield. A ruck forms with South Africa on the backfoot.

The familiar voice of television rugby commentator Hugh Bladen blares: ���They need to just get it loose now. They need to loosen it up.”

The ball emerges for the dangerous young South African scrumhalf, Joost van der Westhuizen, who snipes through a half gap.

Bladen���s excitement rises: ���This is van der Westhuizen. And he���s got a gap. Look how he goes through it.”

The Springbok backs are suddenly flying, shifting the ball towards the left wing where Chester Williams, South Africa���s lone Black player, is sprinting upfield in support.

Bladen���s pitch jumps again: ���Oh look at this, Andre Joubert.���

Bok fullback Joubert sends a final pass to Williams who receives the ball just inside the touchline, with 15 meters to the tryline, and with both Welsh halfbacks bearing down on him.

Bladen can hardly contain himself.

���Chester Williams!��� he shouts, as Williams bounces off the attempted tackle of the Welsh flyhalf.

���Chester Williams!��� Bladen bellows again as Chester races against the opposition number 9. Williams shifts into fifth gear and dives, with arms outstretched, towards the try line.

���Chester Williams!���

���Chester Williams makes the try!���

A quarter century ago, major rugby test matches were far rarer than today, and each result perhaps more cherished. The Wales test took place only two years after South Africa���s readmission into international competitions. The Springboks had been isolated by the international community, viewed rightly as a symbol of the shame tied up in apartheid���s cultural machinery. The country itself had just emerged from its first democratic election. With a representative government and a progressive constitution promising socio-economic justice and dignity for all, South Africa was preparing to host the world for the first time at the following year���s Rugby World Cup. It was also to be the first time that the Springboks could compete at the tournament, which had its inception in 1987.

Chester Williams was democratic South Africa���s first Black Springbok. Inevitably, with the world soon to be watching, he would be presented as a bridge to a new existence for South Africans.

As he rose from his diving match winner against Wales, Chester Williams raised his arms in victory. His all white teammates ran over to congratulate him.

���For me, Chester is a pioneer of greatness,��� said Gio Aplon, a former Springbok outside back:

For us. For a young boy that grew up in Hawston. A coloured boy, from a small community, our hero was Chester. We could relate to him. He made a dream possible for us. We could see him playing on TV and that made everything for us, playing for the Springboks, a reality.

Another coloured Bok flyer, Dilyn Leyds, echoes Aplon���s sentiments. ���All I wanted to do, playing rugby in the streets with mates, was be like Chester Williams. He was the guy that made it possible, that made us all believe that we can do that.���

In Invictus, Clint Eastwood���s Hollywood attempt at capturing John Carlin���s telling of the 1995 Rugby World Cup, Chester is offensively and baselessly reduced to an unthinking rugby playing machine, separated from any sense of the world off the field. In one of the only speaking lines given to the character,��the on-film Chester is asked his views during a team meeting. The players are debating whether the Springboks should take the time to attend a coaching clinic for a community of kids in an informal settlement. A fictionalized Afrikaner Springbok lock asks Chester to share his perspective with the team. The screenplay captures the scene:

Springbok Lock: What do you think about this, Chester?

All eyes on Chester, as if the poor guy is a magic guide to a world they barely understand.

Chester Williams: I try not to think. It interferes with my rugby.

As with many of the absurdities unnecessarily written into Invictus the film, Carlin���s wonderful book, originally published as Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation, makes no mention of this conversation. And there is no reason to think it happened.

In fact, contrary to Eastwood���s bizarre depiction, a young Chester Williams was acutely aware of what he meant to the country, and took his role seriously. In the lead up to the 1995 World Cup, the 24 year-old��told a journalist, ���I am representing my country. Being the only coloured as well, [I am] helping my community, to tell them that they must believe that they can also get into the Springbok side, no matter their skin or their colour.���

Young as he was, Chester understood that future Aplons, Leyds, and countless others had their aspirational eyes on him. ���All I wanted,��� he told the Economist in 2019, ���was an opportunity so that I can prove to the world that black people can also play rugby.���

Former Springbok captain Francois Pienaar recalled how it was Chester who reported to the World Cup team on the impact they were having. Drafted back into the squad just before the quarterfinals, after having been omitted from the pool stages due to injury, Chester Williams had a unique perspective from outside the camp.

It is true that Chester felt discomfort at his own commodification as the poster-boy of all black South Africans in 1995, and reflected on the marketization of his image to promote a change in the country that had a long way to go in substance. Still, he recognized the potential impact he could make as a role model. While reserved by disposition, Chester did not shy away.

It���s June 24th, 1995. The Springboks play the New Zealand All Blacks at the Rugby World Cup final at Ellis Park, Johannesburg. South Africa looked formidable coming into the game. Two weeks earlier, Chester Williams had scored a South African record breaking four tries against Western Samoa in the quarterfinal. For their part, the All Blacks had destroyed everyone on the road to the final, culminating in a 49-25 demolition of England in the semifinal in Cape Town. Their own incredible number 11, Jonah Lomu, had emerged through the tournament as a combination of speed, strength and skill unlike perhaps any other in the game���s history. Like Chester in the quarters, Lomu had scored his own now famous four tries in New Zealand���s semifinal. He had seven in the tournament overall���a record at the time and one that would be eclipsed by the eight tries he would score at the next Rugby World Cup in 1999. No team had figured out how to keep New Zealand, and Lomu in particular, at bay.

New Zealand lead South Africa 6-3 with around 15 minutes gone. It���s an All Black lineout just inside the Bok half of the field. A prime attacking opportunity. New Zealand move the ball wide quickly. Center Walter Little throws a skip pass out to his right wing, Chester Williams��� opposite for the day, the brilliant runner Jeff Wilson. As Wilson attempts to step inside, Chester rushes him. Dropping low for a thigh level tackle, Chester lifts Wilson off the ground, tipping him 90 degrees to the left, and unceremoniously dumping him back into the turf. In 2019, it is likely a red card tackle. In 1995, it was a legal and laudable cruncher. Wilson left the field later in the game, seemingly injured.

After an exchange of place kicking between flyhalfs Joel Stransky and Andrew Mehrtens, scores are tied at 9-9. The Springboks have a lineout, but the All Blacks steal it. With New Zealand shifting the ball from the right side of the field to their left, the Springboks are at their most vulnerable. They were set up to attack from their own line-out ball, and have no structured defensive line. As Jonah Lomu shifts in off his left wing for a cleverly timed switch call, he finds a sliver of space between Springbok flanker Ruben Kruger and inside center Hennie Le Roux. But Chester Williams has read the move. Sweeping from over on his left wing to the middle of the field, hanging just behind the line of Kruger and Le Roux, Chester meets Jonah. Dropping again into a copybook tackle, Chester does what no Englishman could do one week before. He brings Lomu down clean.

The Rugby World Cup final has gone, for the first time, to extra time. The score is 9-9. New Zealand scrumhalf Graeme Bachop spirals a kick deep into the left pocket of South Africa���s territory. Chester Williams sprints to field it, racing against Marc Ellis (who had replaced Wilson, and had famously scored six tries against Japan in the tournament���s pool stage). Under the pressure of a lifetime, Williams beats Ellis to the ball, deftly collects a difficult bounce, and introduces Ellis to the ground with a strong hand-off. To the resounding roar of the crowd, Chester Williams sprints the ball out of South Africa���s 22 meter area and into safety. The Springboks go on the win the match in extra-time with Stransky���s perfect late drop-goal constituting the difference on the scoreboard.

Chester Williams had planned to attend this year���s Rugby World Cup in Japan, where his new branded commemorative beers would be available. On Friday, September 6, he tweeted a video showing himself swinging boxes of lager with workers at the Goodfellows warehouse in Cape Town. He looked fit and strong, and handled the boxes as well as he had collected that bobbling ball under the impending shadow of Marc Ellis those 24 years earlier. Chester���s tweet told fans that he would be watching that afternoon���s Springbok test match at the Tyger���s Milk restaurant in Durbanville, a suburb north of Cape Town. Later that afternoon, the country learned that Chester Williams had died from a heart attack. He was 49.

Chester struck fans as a cerebral and technical genius on the field, and a kind, warm and humble hero off it. That combination endeared him to the world. His life inspired a generation of black and coloured rugby fans. That is his enduring legacy. But he also reached beyond racial divides. As an eight year-old middle class white kid watching the Rugby World Cup, I also wanted to be like Chester Williams. He was the Springboks��� and Western Province���s, star. The try scorer, the speedster. I remember noticing him at Newlands Stadium when I went to my first match in 1994, and I remember the special issue of Chester Magazine that I cut pictures from to paste around my bedroom walls in 1995. I would play out Springboks vs. New Zealand rugby matches by myself, imagining the remaining 29 players, and always scoring in the corner as Chester Williams. I fell in love with Chester first, and then rugby. Heroes humanize, and I suspect that Chester Williams helped develop the humanity in some amongst a generation of white children who may have been otherwise shielded from developing admiration, and adoration, for black heroes.

At the time of writing, the Springbok team was preparing to contest its first Rugby World Cup final since 2007. Chester���s number 11 jersey was likely to be worn by the brilliant and in-form Makazole Mapimpi. Mapimpi is a Black South African whose story demonstrates both the reality of an unfulfilled societal transformation (he��walked 10km a day��to attend an under-resourced school in the rural Eastern Cape) and the continued promise of a new dawn. The team is more representative than ever, but remains shrouded in the continued class and race challenges of South Africa. Mapimpi himself recently took to social media to confirm that a short online clip of post-match celebrations by a group of his white teammates had been misinterpreted as an act of racism against him, and to assure supporters that the team is unified. But despite the ���Bomb Squad��� debacle having been largely cleared up, Springbok lock Eben Etzebeth remains under investigation for his alleged involvement in a racist and violent incident leading up to the World Cup. While we can hope that this team has, at an internal level, bonded together, it would be na��ve to think that it could exist in a vacuum unaffected by prejudices and divisions that continue to permeate our country. That���s why Chester���s legacy needs to be sustained, and the hope that he represented is perhaps more critical than ever.

It���s July 20th, 2019. The Springboks have just defeated Wales at Ellis Park, Johannesburg. Debutant scrumhalf Herschel Jantjies scored a brace of tries. Jantjies is a coloured South African, born in the small town of Kylemore, some 20km from Chester William���s childhood hometown of Paarl. In 2017 he had been coached by Chester while playing for the University of the Western Cape.

Following the win, Siya Kolisi, the Springboks��� first Black captain, jogs over towards the section of the crowd occupied in large part by the Gwijo squad ��� an ever-growing legion of Springbok fans, led by black South Africans, who bring African songs of struggle and victory to the sport of rugby. Along with teammates Mapimpi, Trevor Nyakane, Bongi Mbonambi, Sbu Nkosi, Aphiwe Dyantyi, Lizo Gqoboka and Bok backline coach Mzwandile Stick, Siya joins the Gwijo squad in song. To Nyakane���s left stands Loodt de Jager, one of the Springbok���s four white Afrikaner locks and the lone white player to head over to the Gwijo squad. He (probably) doesn���t know the words of the song, but he claps along.