Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 298

Uptown griots

All images credit Gili Levinson

Last month Mali celebrated 56 years of political independence from France. A few weeks later, on October 9, thousands of miles to the West in New York City’s “Black Mecca,” Harlem, the city’s Malian community marked the occasion with the 9th Mali Music Festival.

The first mass migration of Malians to New York City started in the late 1980s, as part of a third wave of African immigrants. They settled mostly in Harlem and the Bronx. Today the Malian community in New York City numbers approximately 8,000.

The role of musicians in the Malian community can not be underestimated. “Griot” is a title held by storytellers, poets, praise-singers and musicians, and it passes from one generation to the next. Griots are recognized as the community’s heart, the living  archive of its traditions. They are also known for their great ability to give advice and to mediate disputes to those who need it, including leaders. Historically Griots served as advisors to royalty.

Community participation is integral to these types of gatherings. If an audience member’s family is mentioned in the Griot’s song it is customary for the former to give the latter a token of appreciation, usually money.

A common instrument played by Griots is the Kora, a 21-string “double-bridge-harp-lute”, made from a large calabash and cow skin. Its origins date back to the 16th century.

The annual festival in Harlem–produced by Modoussou Productions and the United Malian Women Association–features musicians from Mali and the U.S. diaspora. On stage this year were, among others, Astou Niamé, Néné Diabaté, Diamy Sako, and Dabara.

Alex Boil, the festival’s music producer, says that in recent years, American rap music has influenced some Malian musicians to develop a new Malian rap style. Today all these Griots are traveling around the world and through singing and music, they are the caretakers of Mali’s cultural history.

Uptown Griots

All images credit Gili Levinson

Last month Mali celebrated 56 years of political independence from France. A few weeks later, on October 9, thousands of miles to the West in New York City’s “Black Mecca,” Harlem, the city’s Malian community marked the occasion with the 9th Mali Music Festival.

The first mass migration of Malians to New York City started in the late 1980s, as part of a third wave of African immigrants. They settled mostly in Harlem and the Bronx. Today the Malian community in New York City numbers approximately 8,000.

The importance of musicians in Malian culture can not be underestimated. One category of Malian goes by “griots.” “Griot” is a West African title held by storytellers, poets, praise-singers and musicians, and it passes from one generation to the next. Griots are recognized as the community’s heart, the  living  archive of its traditions. They are also known for their great ability to give advice and to mediate disputes to those who need it, including leaders. Historically Griots served as advisors to royalty.

Community participation is integral to these types of gatherings. If an audience member’s family is mentioned in the Griot’s song it is customary for the former to give the latter a token of appreciation, usually money.

A common instrument played by Griots is the Kora, a 21-string “double-bridge-harp-lute”, made from a large calabash and cow skin. Its origins date back to the 16th century.

The annual festival in Harlem–produced by Modoussou Productions and the United Malian Women Association–features musicians from Mali and the U.S. diaspora. On stage this year were, among others, Astou Niamé, Néné Diabaté, Diamy Sako, and Dabara.

Alex Boil, the festival’s music producer, says that in recent years, American rap music has influenced some Malian musicians to develop a new Malian rap style. Today all these Griots are traveling around the world and through singing, and music, they are the caretakers of Mali’s cultural history.

Enter the bulldozer

Military parade at the inauguration of President John Magufuli of Tanzania. Credit: GCIS

As with any foundational figure, Julius Nyerere’s memory bears all the contradictory passions of Tanzania’s modern history, and his name becomes a talisman for all sorts of politically charged commentaries on history and its relevance for the present. This entire symbolic infrastructure is a means by which we explore the influence of the past upon the present. In Tanzania the past includes Nyerere’s one-party state, but also the paternalist colonial state, and the undisciplined state of Tanzania’s present. Actual political change seems to happen very slowly in today’s Tanzania, and as a result the youthful society and growing economy seem to be hurtling into the future faster than institutions can adjust. Nyerere was famously quoted by the journalist William Edgett Smith a saying “we must run while they walk.” The people are running, but until last year, the government seemed to be walking very leisurely indeed.

Enter the Bulldozer. It is the nickname – perhaps more popular among foreign reporters than the Tanzanian masses – of the current president, John Pombe Magufuli. Formerly a hyperkinetic and hardnosed minister of works, Magufuli was elected last October with a 58% majority, which is the lowest margin of victory for a Tanzanian president in history, and even that total is disputed by the opposition parties. The Bulldozer nickname is apt in its reference to his eagle-eyed oversight of thousands of miles of new paved roads across the country during the last administration. Under his new administration the nickname refers to his attitude toward the big businessmen and “big potatoes” of government bureaucracy, flattening big and small alike in his quest to get people on the job, to eliminate waste and corruption in government, and (seemingly) to silence voices of protest.

Magufuli’s arrival in the State House – and immediate visits to ports, factories and government offices in search unpaid taxes and ghost workers – was a refreshing bit of political theater showing he was ready to take on all special interests in an effort discipline a widely resented culture of official inefficiency and graft. Magufuli’s energetic insistence on official integrity recalled the last president still seen as incorruptible, Julius Nyerere himself. As he then sacrificed $500,000,000 in American aid and soft loans on a point of political pride, and seemed to lean toward more regulation, labor protections and trade restrictions on top of his tax collection efforts, businesspeople began to see not a little of Nyerere’s short-sightedness. Anti-corruption efforts measures by themselves were not a strategy for economic growth. In fact, without clearing the deadwood of socialist-era regulation, anti-corruption efforts could well cut out the (illegal) shortcuts that had long allowed businesspeople to navigate the immobilizing forest of regulation.

Thirty years after Nyerere’s retirement, and three subsequent administrations widely perceived as increasingly corrupt, economic growth has been clipping along at 6%-7% annually during a period of stagnation in Europe and Latin America. More than just sour grapes from businesspeople coughing up something closer to their lawful share of taxes, their frustration stemmed from the looming shadow of the failed state-controlled economy under Nyerere’s socialist government. Contradictory incentives and political demands for state-owned enterprises in the 1970s created fertile ground for the ubiquitous habits of embezzlement and bribery that came to define bureaucratic management at all levels of Tanzanian society. Trade restrictions and an overvalued currency created shortages of everything but the most basic products of the agrarian economy by the 1980s. Nyerere blamed these problems on an unjust global economic structure and an epidemic of dishonest bureaucrats, whose arrest and dismissal would return the system to a level of productivity that had never existed.

As Magufuli proposed this year to ban the import of used clothing and refuse a long-in-the-works Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union, many hear echoes of Nyerere’s truculent temperment. Magufuli’s efforts, like Nyerere’s, to identify and prosecute corrupt officials easily expanded into a more general restriction on any criticism or opposition to his efforts. Magufuli refused to revisit the short-circuited election in Zanzibar (the reason for the refusal of the US $500 million), banned political rallies during non-election years (i.e. the next four years), and has used cyber-security laws to impose fines and jail terms on online critics and to shut down media outlets. Nyerere justified his one-party state and restrictions on free speech in service to the rapid development of an impoverished postcolony and the need to foster national unity in a post-colonial world full of ethnic conflict and civil war. Worthy goals, but in the case of the economy, haste led to its proverbial waste.

The legacy of Nyerere’s state and state-run economy is a government (and ruling party) that values decree over debate, and control over entrepreneurship. Magufuli is a model student of this system in its ideal form. He represents a return to Nyerere’s integrity and energetic efforts at good governance, but also a return to Nyerere’s presumption that opposition is mere obstruction. The tragedy of Nyerere’s time was that the lack of real debate over his policies created outcomes that undermined his goals of good governance and economic growth. Magufuli’s well-intentioned emulation of Nyerere’s purposeful leadership may lead to similar disappointment if he cannot find a way to adapt to a mature political field of serious opposition parties offering debate, criticism and considered policy alternatives.

Enter the Bulldozer

Military parade at the inauguration of President John Magufuli of Tanzania. Credit: GCIS

As with any foundational figure, Julius Nyerere’s memory bears all the contradictory passions of Tanzania’s modern history, and his name becomes a talisman for all sorts of politically charged commentaries on history and its relevance for the present. This entire symbolic infrastructure is a means by which we explore the influence of the past upon the present. In Tanzania the past includes Nyerere’s one-party state, but also the paternalist colonial state, and the undisciplined state of Tanzania’s present. Actual political change seems to happen very slowly in today’s Tanzania, and as a result the youthful society and growing economy seem to be hurtling into the future faster than institutions can adjust. Nyerere was famously quoted by the journalist William Edgett Smith a saying “we must run while they walk.” The people are running, but until last year, the government seemed to be walking very leisurely indeed.

Enter the Bulldozer. It is the nickname – perhaps more popular among foreign reporters than the Tanzanian masses – of the current president, John Pombe Magufuli. Formerly a hyperkinetic and hardnosed minister of works, Magufuli was elected last October with a 58% majority, which is the lowest margin of victory for a Tanzanian president in history, and even that total is disputed by the opposition parties. The Bulldozer nickname is apt in its reference to his eagle-eyed oversight of thousands of miles of new paved roads across the country during the last administration. Under his new administration the nickname refers to his attitude toward the big businessmen and “big potatoes” of government bureaucracy, flattening big and small alike in his quest to get people on the job, to eliminate waste and corruption in government, and (seemingly) to silence voices of protest.

Magufuli’s arrival in the State House – and immediate visits to ports, factories and government offices in search unpaid taxes and ghost workers – was a refreshing bit of political theater showing he was ready to take on all special interests in an effort discipline a widely resented culture of official inefficiency and graft. Magufuli’s energetic insistence on official integrity recalled the last president still seen as incorruptible, Julius Nyerere himself. As he then sacrificed $500,000,000 in American aid and soft loans on a point of political pride, and seemed to lean toward more regulation, labor protections and trade restrictions on top of his tax collection efforts, businesspeople began to see not a little of Nyerere’s short-sightedness. Anti-corruption efforts measures by themselves were not a strategy for economic growth. In fact, without clearing the deadwood of socialist-era regulation, anti-corruption efforts could well cut out the (illegal) shortcuts that had long allowed businesspeople to navigate the immobilizing forest of regulation.

Thirty years after Nyerere’s retirement, and three subsequent administrations widely perceived as increasingly corrupt, economic growth has been clipping along at 6%-7% annually during a period of stagnation in Europe and Latin America. More than just sour grapes from businesspeople coughing up something closer to their lawful share of taxes, their frustration stemmed from the looming shadow of the failed state-controlled economy under Nyerere’s socialist government. Contradictory incentives and political demands for state-owned enterprises in the 1970s created fertile ground for the ubiquitous habits of embezzlement and bribery that came to define bureaucratic management at all levels of Tanzanian society. Trade restrictions and an overvalued currency created shortages of everything but the most basic products of the agrarian economy by the 1980s. Nyerere blamed these problems on an unjust global economic structure and an epidemic of dishonest bureaucrats, whose arrest and dismissal would return the system to a level of productivity that had never existed.

As Magufuli proposed this year to ban the import of used clothing and refuse a long-in-the-works Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union, many hear echoes of Nyerere’s truculent temperment. Magufuli’s efforts, like Nyerere’s, to identify and prosecute corrupt officials easily expanded into a more general restriction on any criticism or opposition to his efforts. Magufuli refused to revisit the short-circuited election in Zanzibar (the reason for the refusal of the US $500 million), banned political rallies during non-election years (i.e. the next four years), and has used cyber-security laws to impose fines and jail terms on online critics and to shut down media outlets. Nyerere justified his one-party state and restrictions on free speech in service to the rapid development of an impoverished postcolony and the need to foster national unity in a post-colonial world full of ethnic conflict and civil war. Worthy goals, but in the case of the economy, haste led to its proverbial waste.

The legacy of Nyerere’s state and state-run economy is a government (and ruling party) that values decree over debate, and control over entrepreneurship. Magufuli is a model student of this system in its ideal form. He represents a return to Nyerere’s integrity and energetic efforts at good governance, but also a return to Nyerere’s presumption that opposition is mere obstruction. The tragedy of Nyerere’s time was that the lack of real debate over his policies created outcomes that undermined his goals of good governance and economic growth. Magufuli’s well-intentioned emulation of Nyerere’s purposeful leadership may lead to similar disappointment if he cannot find a way to adapt to a mature political field of serious opposition parties offering debate, criticism and considered policy alternatives.

#WhatWouldNyerereDo?

Military parade at the inauguration of President John Magufuli in November 2015. Image Credit: GCIS

Seventeen years ago today, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Father of the Nation, passed away. For Tanzanians this amounts to a “where were you when…?” moment.  I was in school that fateful Thursday when the bell unexpectedly rang and we learnt that Mwalimu (teacher in Swahili) had passed away in London, where he was being treated for Leukemia.

Domestically, Mwalimu played a key role in freeing the country from British colonialism. His leadership was also credited in uniting more than 125 tribes into a unified nation. When he finally stepped down in 1985 (he had been the only leader Tanzanians had known since independence) , the literacy rate was at 91% and the inequality gap was one of the lowest in Africa.

But his legacy went far beyond Tanzania. Continentally, Mwalimu made Dar-es-Salaam the capital of Southern Africa liberation movements. Freedom fighters from Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana and Angola had offices and training camps in Tanzania, including Mozambique’s Frelimo and South Africa’s African National Congress. Globally, he made the University of Dar-es-Salaam the magnet for anti-colonial activists and thinkers. Che Guevara, Malcolm X, Mohammed Ali and Walter Rodney, passed through, stayed and strategized from Dar-es-Salaam.

Even in retirement and posthumously, Mwalimu remained our reference point for counsel, wisdom and direction. Consequently, past and current leaders in Tanzania like to be compared to him. Take current president, John Magufuli. He has been working hard to claim Nyerere’s mantle. Barely 100 days into his presidency, Magufuli became the focus of a hashtag on social media for his anti-graft and anti-waste measures. #WhatWouldMagufuliDo was trending across the continent. But Magufuli also displayed autocratic tendencies, spawning another hashtag: #WhatIsMagufuliDoing. His government became associated with shrinking the civic space, restrictions on media freedom, newspapers suspensions, social media arrests, and bans on live parliament broadcasts as well as citizens participation in political activities.

Some see parallels to aspects of Magufuli’s autocratic tendencies and Nyerere’s years in government. The difference is Mwalimu had incredible foresight and effectively made a U-turn in early 1990s. He foresaw the inevitable democratic changes that were happening across the continent (following the fall of the Soviet Union) and understood that if the government did not peacefully initiate the shift to a multiparty system, sooner or later the citizens would chaotically demand it.

The post-1990 Nyerere would probably say to the current government what he said to his own party that was unwilling to end its monopoly of political activities in 1991. Despite being the architect of one-party rule in Tanzania (1965-1990), Nyerere said: “the people of the majority view have to accept the rights of minority to express their opinions without intimidation. Indeed, must accommodate those views as far as possible.” Likewise, regarding those offering a false choice between democracy and development, Mwalimu would probably repeat what he said in 1973: “If real development is to take place, the people have to be involved.”

Finally, some wonder what Mwalimu would make of the intolerance of the current government to alternative viewpoints, and its penchant for making impromptu decisions and visits that lack legal basis and are devoid of concrete plans. In a farewell address to parliament in 1985, Nyerere said: “We never pretended to have any special wisdom about the means of developing our country. We made false starts and mistakes, but we had the courage and the wisdom to correct our mistakes.”

What would Mwalimu do if he was to return to his beloved country today? He would weep over the tragedy of missed opportunities; that we have failed to discern the signs of the times and the government has gone back, politically, to the pre-1990 era. In typical Nyerere fashion he would then berate us about the huge divide between the rich and the poor. He would chastise the current and previous governments for immortalizing him in buildings, airports and bridges, but not in his principles. He would also rebuke them for ingratiating themselves to neighbors with dubious human rights and democratic records. Finally, he would warn us to leave him alone and stop comparing him to anyone else, ever again. He wouldn’t linger any longer, because the pain would be too much to bear.

Congo needs fewer metanarratives from the West and more of this

A still from the “Kolwezi on Air.”

Following the Democratic Republic of Congo’s highly politicized implementation of its decentralization policy–also known as découpage—a new province, Lulaba, was created. It’s capital is Kolwezi which is also one of the major mining towns in what used to be Katanga, located in the southern DRC. In Fiston Mujila’s new novel, “Tram 83,” Kolwezi, like many other cities in Katanga, is described as a melting pot. Migrant workers from neighboring provinces such as Kasai, but also southern Africans, especially from Zambia, encounter there mining multinational corporations from China, Australia, Canada, and Belgium.

Kolwezi also happens to be the site of a unique media experiment: Radio Tele Manika, the largest local radio-and television station in the city, more popularly known by its acronym RTMA.

Radio Tele Manika is now the subject of a documentary film. The radio host Carlo Ngombe usually greets his listeners with this poem: “Kolwezi, be the land where vagrant breeze will sing me a symphony of justice. But above all Kolwezi be the inexhaustible source, from which I will draw a persisting zeal, and most importantly an oblivion of bitter memories.”

Reporters in Kolwezi, have to prove very adaptive by transforming different constraints into opportunities. Gaston Mushid Mutund, director of production at RTMA, drives through a miner’s town at the outskirts of the city, and explains that the ordinary residents do not have access to political authorities, but if the media covers an issue it can spark political reactions. Since “newspapers are only published in Kinshasa, 2,000 kilometers from here,” video and audio outlets have to highlight recurrent issues in mining towns such as the lack of proper sanitation, or the need to trust a doctor, not a magician with the treatment of HIV/Aids.  

RTMA reporters, hosting segments in French and Kiswahili, have differing talents. Patrick Busasa alias “Top One,” is a very confident man as his nickname might indicate. He sees himself as a role model of the Katangese media scene, a perfectionist, who often is a sound technician, cameraman, and moderator at the same time. He interviews popular artists such as Sando Marteau , or D’laranta, whose song “Au Nom du Seigneur” openly challenges the corruption, which characterizes one of Katanga’s thriving new business models: the church and its self-made preachers.

Fidelie Muyongo is another RTMA talent, not fazed by what she describes as societal prejudice against female journalists. One of her segments covers the dining characteristics of Chinese residents of Kolwezi, and their fondness of Skol, one of many excellent Congolese beers. The exchanges portrayed in the segment were a very different perspective from the usual metanarrative of “China-in-Africa”, which is too often mediated by Western intermediaries with their own agendas.

By showing RTMA intimately engaging with issues in Kolwezi, the film indirectly manages to portray the distance, and bias from which international-, or even national media outlets would engage with local complexities. This is especially salient in the context of the DRC, a country that knows recurrent metanarratives and objectification all too well.

“Kolwezi on Air” also shows that RTMA’s crew is not afraid to take on local politicians. Whether it’s scrutinizing the salary gap between employees of the state-owned railway company SNCC and Members of Parliament (monthly wages $80 and $8000 respectively), the expulsion of tradeswomen from the market, or questioning a ruling party politician over his claim that the constitution merely exist in order to obtain foreign aid, RTMA is on it. Ironically, the politicians often demand from journalists to justify the failures of the Congolese political class, and criticize them for what they call “deceiving the masses.”

Being a reporter in Kolwezi is far from easy. “There are realities of power that we face.” Especially when questioning the activities of “the powerful,” journalists in the DRC are frequently intimidated, and private stations shut down. Other forms of power also pose challenges. Congo’s notoriously inefficient power company SNEL, is a frequent source of blackouts and technical failures, causing delays in segments, which anger RTMA’s advertisers.

On the radio, Carlo Ngombe’s voice constantly accompanies Kolwezi’s citizens in their day-to-day lives:  “We are no victims and there’s no culprit. We have a capacity to adapt that many people on earth do not have. So our precariousness, but especially our self-preservation, our ability to get by should command respect, not compassion, but respect.”

These words not only characterize the psyche of Kolwezi’s 500,000 residents, but also very well describe the objective of the film. Some might argue that the film engages in the “glorification of the local”, and it could do more to highlight the broader realities of political, economic, and historical dynamics of Kolwezi, Katanga, and the DRC (colonial history, multinational mining, etcetera). But director Idriss Gabel and his team have recognized that the international perception of the DRC has already been shaped sufficiently by controversial metanarratives about why Congolese people are constantly victimized. If one considers the coverage of RTMA carefully, the discourse of its reporters, and their encounters with mining sites, state employees, politicians, magicians, Chinese residents, and musicians all embody this assemblage, which defines Kolwezi’s broader reality.

More importantly, “Kolwezi on Air” achieves to demonstrate what makes RTMA’s perspective so important. The station embodies the struggles of Kolwezi’s residents, whether they are coping with power outages, making ends meet, or having to pursue multiple obligations simultaneously. The DRC needs less objectifying metanarratives from the West, and needs more RTMA’s.

“Kolwezi on Air” (2016) screens on October 14th at the annual Margaret Mead Film Festival in New York City. The screening is co-presented with the Africa Film Festival.

Ousmane Sembene invented a new cinema for Africa

Sembene on the set of Moolaade in 2003. Image Credit: the Sembene Estate

The legendary Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembene (he passed away in 2007) is back in the spotlight thanks to a new documentary film, Sembene! (2015), that addresses his decades-long career as a writer, director, and charismatic exponent of African cinema.

Co-directed by Samba Gadjigo and Jason Silverman, Sembene! is currently playing in cinemas throughout the United Kingdom, alongside revivals of three of Sembene’s masterpieces: La Noire de… (1966), Sembene’s first feature film, which turns fifty this year; Xala (1975), Sembene’s mordant take on male chauvinism and postcolonial corruption (the two are hardly mutually exclusive in Sembene’s work); and Moolaadé (2005), Sembene’s swan song, which powerfully dramatizes resistance to the tradition of female genital mutilation.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Gadjigo, Sembene’s longtime friend and official biographer (author of Ousmane Sembène: The Making of a Militant Artist), about his film and the recent resurgence of interest in Sembene’s remarkable body of work.

As Sembene’s friend and biographer, how did you approach the challenge of making a film about the director?

Ousmane Sembene’s work had a huge influence on me as a young man, and we recognized that the influence he had was part of his project as an artist. Therefore, we decided to weave my own story — of a young man who rediscovers his African-ness through Sembene’s stories — into the structure of the film. As we later worked so closely together, right until his passing, those two stories intersected in ways that were both practical and, for me and hopefully the audience, very emotional.

Sembene! is at once biographical and autobiographical, as it features some of your own reflections on growing up in Senegal and encountering Sembene’s novels as a teenager. Can you say more about it what was like to discover Sembene’s work at a young age?

Before I went to school, the stories I heard were from my grandmother and elders, stories about the world that I knew, the beautiful world of the small village that I grew up in. Once I was sent away to school, hundreds of miles from the village, I began to lose those stories, and my connection to the land and to my family. They were replaced by stories from places completely foreign to my existence — stories from Europe, from Africa. I was forbidden to speak my native language in my high school. And after a few years, I found myself aspiring to be something I never could: a European. But then I discovered the novel God’s Bits of Wood (1960), by Sembene. It was set in places that I knew, with references to the cultures I had experienced. It even had a character named Samba. Reading that book was a moment that forever altered my life, a moment that a switch was thrown. I realized that, as an African man, I had stories — beautiful, powerful, inspiring stories — that were mine, that were familiar, that celebrated my people. I didn’t need to look to Europe to find meaningful stories. Here they were.

A number of African languages, from Wolof to Diola, can be heard in Sembene’s films. How important was it for Sembene to feature these languages in addition to French and Arabic?

Sembene was deeply committed to the use of African languages in his work. In his first films, due to funding constraints, using Wolof was impossible. But he fought to use them in his later works. For Mandabi (1968), he convinced the French funders to make a Wolof-language version of the film. Thereafter, his films included indigenous languages. He also started the first Wolof-language literary magazine. For Sembene, the loss of African languages meant the loss of African cultures. You can’t have one without the other.

La Noire de… (1966) is perhaps Sembene’s most enduringly popular film, a reasonably accessible introduction to his thematic obsessions and stylistic proclivities. Why does this film continue to speak so powerfully to audiences all around the world?

It is a film that, though steeped in the specificity of a Senegalese woman, touches upon the marginalization that the majority of those on the planet experience. It is a story of a woman who is unseen and unheard, who, due to the color of her skin and her gender, is automatically assumed to be some sort of lesser being. But, of course, Diouana, like all of us, has her own gifts, her own voice, her own power. And the French couple that exploit her in fact also miss an opportunity to grow, to learn, to connect, due to their implicit biases. The film’s themes are entirely relevant today, as we deal, in the U.S., with police brutality, with the invisibility of people of color in the media, and with other less sensational but equally destructive forms of institutional racism.

Sembene was increasingly critical of French funding after the experience of making Mandabi in the late 1960s, suggesting that foreign financing was “tainted with paternalism and neocolonialism.” What are some of the most important lessons to take from Sembene’s experience of cultural and economic imperialism?

A few notes about Sembene: he believed in the Marxist ideology, but ceased to be a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. That’s because he didn’t fully respect the institutions. He came to his Marxism through manual labor and through the unions, rather than through learning about it at university. He came to know exploitation by living in a fully exploitative system, and his lifelong desire was to liberate other workers, and, especially women, from the systems of exploitation. And while Sembene liked to rage against the imperialist machine, he also was savvy enough to use whatever tools he could to get his work done. In fact, all of his films were funded with money from abroad, and he had steadfast and essentially allies around the world. One thing I admire about Sembene is that, despite what he would say in his interviews, he was as much pragmatist as ideologue. He wanted to get his stories told, and understood the importance of those stories. And thus he adopted an “any means necessary” approach to making work. To be honest, he could be equally tough, if not tougher, on the Africans he worked with. The goal was to tell stories that empowered workers and women and the marginalized, and he did it with unprecedented energy and consistency for 50 years.

Samba Gadjigo and Sembene. Image Credit: Lisa Carpenter

Far from a hagiographic account of the filmmaker, Sembene! addresses some of the controversies in which Sembene was embroiled, including those related to the production of Camp de Thiaroye (1988), a project that Sembene was accused of having “stolen” from a protégé. Did Sembene see himself as being in competition with other African filmmakers?

I don’t think it was competition. One of the complexities of Sembene is that the work he did necessitated having a very large ego, and that ego at times kept him from giving full support to other artists. He grew quickly impatient with those who did not have the willpower and single-mindedness to get the work of storytelling done. To him, African storytelling was a job one did, just like farmer or leatherworker. And those who did not do the job with what he judged to be full integrity and passion lost his respect. I think he made a mistake in this realm; there were many, many young artists who could have greatly benefited from his tutelage, whom he dispensed with too quickly.

Sembene faced considerable opposition in the late 1970s following the completion of Ceddo (1976), a film that explores the arrival of Islam in West Africa and critiques the religion as a tool of social control—a source of oppression whose proponents were complicit in the spread of imperialism. How do audiences receive this controversial film today, particularly in light of the success of the similarly themed Timbuktu (2011), by Abderrahmane Sissako?

It is a fantastic comparison, and a great question. Unfortunately, Ceddo has not been widely seen in years, and so its message, which is not actually anti-Islam, but anti-oppression, has not been critiqued in this new era of heightened attention to Islam. We are working to have the film restored, and when it is, we hope it will reach audiences throughout the world, and continue the conversation that Sissako’s incredible film re-kindled.

Recently, scholars have drawn attention to contributions to African cinema that predate Sembene’s Borom Sarret (1963), calling into question Sembene’s status as the so-called “father of African cinema.” The Senegalese filmmaker Momar Thiam, for instance, adapted a Birago Diop story as Karim (1963), a film that was completed before Borom Sarret. Surely the designation “father of African cinema” has to do with more than just chronology, however. What does it mean to continue to think of Sembene in this way? Or does his legacy transcend such honorific distinctions?

People love those phrases. And in addition to its potential inaccuracies (we also have Egyptian cinema dating back to the 1920s and before), there is an element of paternalism that some have noted. We also like to consider Sembene in the context of Third Cinema — a global cinema of resistance that is more associated with Latin America than Africa. But I will also defend the concept of Sembene as the defining figure African cinema to date. His example of a cinema that was not only African in theme and subject matter, but which is told with a fierce social conscience, and with a deep sense of African storytelling traditions, remains the standard. You can’t make a film in sub-Saharan Africa without having Sembene as a reference in some way.

What are some of your favorite Sembene films, and why?

I am deeply moved by them all. Xala (1975) has a special place in my soul, because, as a young man who did not understand the have/have-not elements of African society, it opened me up to a new reality of exploitation. And so does Moolaadé (2005), as I was on set with Sembene, seeing him on set, as an 80-year-old man, going blind, but still outworking all of the young ones … It was an example of focus, determination, passion and heroism that has kept me inspired every single day for the past 13 years.

Finally, what should audiences new to Sembene know before approaching his films?

What is amazing about Sembene is that you really don’t need much context. Watch the films, and you will feel them in your heart and soul. They were made out of a true sense of urgency, and that sense of urgency never goes out of style.

Image Credit: Kino Lorber

Apparently, I love Africa. I’ve been told this by people who hardly know me.

Construction worker in Luanda. Image via Stephen Martin Flickr

In 2003, I was among the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, who marched through London to demonstrate against the war in Iraq. I thought a lot about Angola that day. I felt very sad that there had never been a big march against the war there – even though, by then, it had already ended. In the public eye, some wars matter more than others. In Trafalgar Square, I tried really hard to squeeze back my tears when Adrian Mitchell read a twenty-first-century remix of his poem, To Whom It May Concern (Tell Me Lies About Vietnam).

On a Saturday or a Sunday afternoon, my mother would do the ironing and my sister would fold up in an armchair in the front room and they’d watch romantic black-and-white films together and they’d cry. I was wholly perplexed by their response.

I tear up easily these days. Outside Blackhorse Road tube station, three Romanian men were sitting on the pavement playing the accordion, the violin and the clarinet. Their music reminded me of the Cape Verdeans on Luanda’s ilha. Was this a Romanian morna obeying the cycle of fifths? I gave them a pound and something within me juddered. Inside the station, the acoustics were perfect, like a cathedral, and as I descended on the escalator, I felt myself being swallowed by the sounds from the street.

When I started out as a journalist, I thought I understood the meaning of objectivity. But within a few months of reporting from Angola, I lost that faith and ceased to believe in objectivity even as a possibility. Yes, you can give a voice to as many sides as possible – but that’s not objectivity. Today I don’t even believe that objectivity is a useful goal. It’s false and it’s a lie and it doesn’t help people to mentally engage in events taking place around the world.

I was astounded when I realized how television reporting actually worked. A BBC team was visiting Angola. They’d gone to a hospital to do a story about landmine injuries. Their piece showed the British reporter conversing earnestly with a patient lying in bed. In fact, the reporter was nodding and pretending to talk: the real conversation took place between the patient and an Angolan freelance interpreter, who was never shown on camera. The idea of the foreign reporter as an omniscient multilingual hero is a trick. I hate the way the news plasters over the rough edges of truth.

I was in my forties when a woman from Malaysia called Su taught me how to put on eyeliner. But at your age, she said, all you really need is a bit of mascara. Not long before I met Su, my mother had told me that I’d reached the age when I could no longer get away without makeup. Whenever I tell people this they laugh.

Apparently, I love Africa. I’ve been told this by people who hardly know me. I’ve been introduced in pubs, on demonstrations, in emails and on public transport as someone who really knows Africa and who is dying to go back to Africa. But I’m not sure I know what Africa means any more. I went through a phase of thinking that the word itself should be banned. Perhaps then people might be forced into thinking more carefully about what they’re saying.

Not so long ago, an Angolan woman got quite cross with me. What is it with you? she asked. What is it that you’ve got with our country? With my country? Why are you so interested in us? We’d spent the afternoon at an art gallery in London, walking and talking and looking at huge pieces of work, and just as we were about to part, her distrust of me came tumbling out. It felt like a loathing. If she’d had a little more courage, I think she would have spat on me.

The trouble is, I couldn’t answer her question. I tried. But nothing I said was quite what I meant. So I’ve carried on asking myself: What is it I’ve got with their country, with that country?

The only answer I’ve been able to come up with is that I was there during a war. It was an incredibly intense experience, one that influenced me radically. For a long time, I tried to work out how I could retrieve it. I wanted a repeat, like that absurd sensation you get when you first take certain class-A drugs. I was sitting in Shoreditch Town Hall. Duncan was holding my hand. I was thinking that my head was going to shoot off like a rocket launching from my neck. Get up! Dance! he said. You’ll be OK if you dance.

Angola was a bit like that, but it went on for weeks and weeks and months and months – and I miss it.

Despite being forty-eight, I still haven’t fully come to terms with being British and being white. A lot of people think I’m posh too. It’s in my voice, my face, my whole manner. Even with my mouth shut, you can see the privilege. It’s etched into me.

There’s a primary school at the bottom of my street. In summer, when my windows are open, I can hear the children playing games outside. I imagine them standing in circles, clapping hands and taking turns to skip and jump.

One afternoon I was walking past the school gates with a friend. In the middle of a conversation about his new dog, he hesitated. Then he looked at me with an expression that reminded me of the first time we’d met. Have you ever noticed those gates? he asked. I stepped forward: I wanted to show him I was giving them my full attention. Then I said that yes, I had, perfectly, yes, noticed. But it was only in that moment, my Jewish friend at my side, that I understood what he meant. Standing at about three meters high, they form an arch at the side of the school. Each gate consists of a row of vertical iron rods, set just far enough apart to push a man’s fist through. To either side of the lock that holds the gates together is a circle of metal the size of a small satellite dish. Inside each circle, a letter: M on the left, G on the right. At dusk, all you can make out is the top of the gates and the bare concrete wall running behind the back of the school.

When we lived in Bamako, J used to allow us extra time to walk anywhere because, he used to say, You can’t go down the street without talking to every single person we pass even though you don’t speak Bambara. We did try to learn Bambara, both of us. We took classes. J was a much better student than I. But in the end, we left Mali after just a few months because I was pregnant and had begun to bleed. I remember sitting in the doctor’s office, half-listening to him advising me to go home and half-reading the notice on his desk discouraging female genital mutilation. He said he couldn’t guarantee a clean blood transfusion should I need one. So I flew home, bleeding all the way, but having to pretend I was fine because you aren’t allowed on a plane if you’re bleeding – especially as much as I was. And perhaps I didn’t really like Bamako very much anyway. I spent a lot of the time wishing I was still in Luanda. I still do. Moments when I get desperate pangs for the place.

*This is an excerpt from Lara Pawson’s new book This is The Place to Be, which can be purchased here.

Shutdown — on the death of compromise in South Africa

Police firing teargas at protesting students on the South African parliament grounds in 2015. Image Credit: @LionelAdendorf on Twitter

“War will bring the revolution; revolution will stop the war”–-Jhumpa Lahiri

For some time now people who write about South Africa have been suggesting that the country is in the process of changing.  It is now time to accept that the country has changed.  We are in a new phase, one that is characterised by a rejection of compromise as a tactic for managing democratic intercourse. There has been a tendency to suggest in recent weeks that student leaders within some Fallist groupings are highly intolerant, and that they are engaged in a dangerous form of brinksmanship.  It is clear that it is incorrect to suggest that it is only some in the student movement who are like this.  The rejection of compromise politics does not come from one quarter alone.

We see brinksmanship across the political spectrum, from the smoldering campuses in KwaZulu and Fort Hare, to the burnt schools in Vuwani, to the charred remains of the African National Congress.  We see brinksmanship in the serious battle lines that are drawn between business and labour; the sort of impasses that result in protracted disputes every year.  Who can argue that Marikana was not the result of brinksmanship.  We see brinksmanship in the failure to reign in rogue elements within the National Prosecuting Authority and security services.  Similarly the slash and burn tactics that have placed the CEO of the public broadcaster, Hlaudi Motsoeng, and the head of the national airline, Dudu Myeni, in positions of leadership indicate a willingness to exact maximum damage in service of broader objectives that are sometimes opaque.

These sorts of divisions are indicative of a new phase in our politics; one in which intransigence and radicalism take centre stage.  Unlike others who worry about radicalism and intransigence, I am not convinced about whether the digging in of heels we are witnessing will take the country forward or backwards in the long run.  It is too early to hazard a guess.  While there is much that is worrisome about stubbornness, it is also important not to dismiss obstinacy as a mechanism for resolving long-standing impasses that have not been dealt with because not enough pressure has been applied.

In the conventional model of democratic politics, you put forward an idea, debate it and then work to build support for your view.  Democratic societies reward those leaders who work out solutions, bridge divides and calm tensions.  These rewards exist not simply in the electoral set up, but also through other sorts of incentives.  Prizes and awards are given to bridge-builders; buildings are named in their honor and they are rewarded with public accolades, academic honorifics and so on.

While bridge builders continue to be seen as ‘leaders,’ their credibility is diminishing.  As the very notion of democracy goes on trial, radicalism and intransigence are increasingly replacing compromise as the go-to instincts of the body politic.

This is of course because the strategy of compromise has had mixed results in the last two decades. On the one hand, the compromise brokered in 1994 has resulted in a relatively ‘stable’ society and the growth of a significantly larger black middle class than existed at the end of apartheid.  Educational opportunities have expanded for all black children, and many more South Africans have access to services like water and sanitation than did under apartheid – both in real terms and as a proportion of the population.

At the same time, compromise has suffered a bad rap because of the ways in which it has been linked to other negative phenomena within the ruling party. It is widely accepted that careerism, political thuggery and an obsession with big-man politics have ascended in the ruling party.  Unfortunately what has blossomed at the same time is the cynical notion that t mediation and negotiation were mere strategies for self enrichment.  In other words, because the ANC has both championed compromise as a tool for managing conflict, and has also become more and more corrupt in its dealings with big business, it is easy to conclude that compromise politics is in fact corrupt politics.  Compromise has also suffered from the fall of Rainbowism. In many ways then, through its association with a compromised ANC and a compromised racial politics of Rainbowism, compromise as a political tactic, has come to be associated with selling out.

This is a pity.

For the purposes of clarity it is important to separate the ideological underpinnings of a politics that embraces compromise (what I refer to here as compromise politics) as a necessary and important aspect of moving forward a social agenda, from the other tendencies that have deepened and solidified in the post-apartheid ANC.  For example, it would be easy to suggest the ANC’s cosiness with big business is a function of a politics that embraces compromise. Certainly, compromise brought the ANC and big business into closer proximity to one another, but it is careless to argue that at its heart the ANC’s neoliberalism is only or even largely the result of its reliance on negotiation and compromise with external actors as a political strategy for securing and then sustaining democratic practice.   One can accept political compromise as a tactic, without accepting that concessions must be made on each and every issue confronting a society. One can hold firmly to principles, whilst accepting that at a macro level compromise is a critical tactic in a democratic society.

So, we are now in a new era.  We are no longer wondering where we are going, it seems we have arrived in a new place in which we are witnessing radicalism and intransigence as a modus operandi across our society.

We see it in the ruling party, where administrative matters like appointments and parastatal deployments take up inordinate amounts of time and leave blood on the floor time and again.  We see this radicalism and intransigence amongst university administrators who took far too long to comprehend the tactics of the student movement and so made strategic blunders early on, that have lost them trust and vital time.  We see it in the radicalism and intransigence of some of the leaders of the Fallist movement who are prepared to inflict maximum damage now in order for long-term goals to be achieved.  We see it amongst many white South Africans who continue to bury their heads in the sand by continuing to organize, protect and enrich themselves on the basis of race.

We see this radicalism and intransigence also in the actions of protesters who burn schools because of municipal demarcation issues or to highlight lack of water and sanitation.

I say this without assigning moral equivalence: I do not of course believe the intransigence of AfriForum is the same as the intransigence of the Fallists; nor do I think the intransigence of ANC factions intent on evading accountability is the same as the intransigence of Vice Chancellors whose role is primarily to run universities not to find the money to deliver free higher education.

My observation is merely that where the country stands today is a consequence of many separate sections of society saying that they have had enough of compromise.  This is especially interesting because we are a very young nation but we were founded on the very notion of compromise.  We were celebrated the world over for our ability to bring together disparate views.  During the 1990s, South Africans elevated the middle ground to the high ground.  Yet here we are today, gripped by radicalism and intransigence and an outright rejection of the compromise tactics that carried us to this point.

This is both startling, and completely unsurprising.   It is also not as frightening as some might think.

Those of us who were already adults during the heady transition days prided ourselves in being a nation of negotiators who pulled ourselves from the brink. The brink was a bad place and we were happy to no longer be on it.  I certainly believed, as the new millennium dawned, that South Africa might face some tough times ahead, but that the country would be defined by its ability to talk its way from the ledge.  Today many in our society are not as frightened of the brink as I was.  They see the brink as an important space to occupy.

Compromise politics was part of the national bloodstream – it would save us.  So of course it is startling to observe the way in which across many fronts, we are failing to resolve impasses today. Given the widespread embrace of compromise politics across South African society until recently, it is now disconcerting to note that  the rejection of compromise as a tool for social progress.

At the same time of course I am completely unsurprised by the starkness of this development and the ways in which it is manifested.  Make no mistake: There are valid and ethical reasons to reject compromise, even if one is not a political purist. There are some issues and some moments in history in which compromise makes no sense; moments in which moral and economic victories are within reach and ought to be fought for unequivocally without compromise.

The rejection of the compromise politics  by many protesters on the left is the logical conclusion of almost two decades of insipid and terrifying compromises on the running of the economy, institutional racism, the functioning of our education systems and the layout and structure of our urban and rural spaces.  One can in fact, embrace Rainbowism, and also recognize that compromise has not taken the poorest South Africans very far.

 

I have less patience of course for those who reject compromise because they are reactionaries – those like Afrikaans singer Steve Hofmeyr and his slightly more urbane ilk in Afriforum.  Still, it is worth nothing that the absence of a political narrative explaining why compromise continues to be necessary has allowed these elements to strengthen their voices and mobilize broader support than they should have.   In other words, regardless of what you think of Mandela’s latter-day politics and irrespective of your thoughts on the ANC leaders who negotiated the settlement that lead to the historic 1994 elections, there is no denying the amount of effort that went into building and sustaining the narrative of the Rainbow Nation.  It was potent because it was carried forward consistently and eloquently, even in the face of its obvious weaknesses.

 

There has been no commensurate energy invested in revising and recalibrating that narrative to take account of growing social strife today.  The limits of the 1994 political compromise have inevitably begun to give at the seams and yet I cant think of a single leader inside or outside the ANC who has managed to coherently and productively steer the conversation about politics and inequality towards calmer waters.

The present crisis on campuses illustrates this point.  The university crisis is above all, a failure of those who championed compromise politics to adapt to a dramatically different political context.  The old words no longer fit and the old guard are now too old to restrategize.  The problem isn’t so much that they don’t understand the radicalism of the youth, or even that they don’t know how to communicate with a strident new generation.  The problem seems to be that those who sit in positions of power within the state and universities simply do not see their politics and their positions as being as radical as those of the students they so oppose.

When the militant protest for free education meets the militant defence of the rights of those currently enrolled in schools (which implies a defence of the status quo, albeit for pragmatic reasons to which I am deeply sympathetic because I am of a certain generation and so I do not reject pragmatism), we have a stalemate.

Leadership matters most in times like this and thankfully there have already been some creative attempts to broker peace.  Still, South Africa seems to be tainted by its past embrace of compromise.  The last two decades have turned compromise into a swear word.

The transition in 1994 saw both a revolution and a war averted and many of us were pleased with this.  It seems however that we had only reached a temporary and insufficient peace.  We are now howling at the past:  all of us barking with regret at the time we have lost to superficial agreement.

The whites and the blacks and the young and the old; the government and the activists; the progressives and the conservatives: We are all regretting what we gave up because twenty years ago.  The party is over and in the cold light of dawn we see that compromise became both a means and an end and perhaps this was our mistake.  We did not yet know that sitting down does not mean giving in.

Perhaps the cacophony of noise; the howling and the barking and the sound and the fury this time will signify that we are wiser now, and more prepared to accept that compromise is a tool; that facing one another in discourse, eye-to-eye is the only mechanism we have at our disposal to save us.  We have to stand close enough to breathe one another’s breath. It is the only thing that will save us from having to burn ourselves anew each time we rage.

Shutdown–On the death of compromise in South Africa

Police firing teargas at protesting students on the South African parliament grounds in 2015. Image Credit: @LionelAdendorf on Twitter

“War will bring the revolution; revolution will stop the war”–-Jhumpa Lahiri

For some time now people who write about South Africa have been suggesting that the country is in the process of changing.  It is now time to accept that the country has changed.  We are in a new phase, one that is characterised by a rejection of compromise as a tactic for managing democratic intercourse. There has been a tendency to suggest in recent weeks that student leaders within some Fallist groupings are highly intolerant, and that they are engaged in a dangerous form of brinksmanship.  It is clear that it is incorrect to suggest that it is only some in the student movement who are like this.  The rejection of compromise politics does not come from one quarter alone.

We see brinksmanship across the political spectrum, from the smoldering campuses in KwaZulu and Fort Hare, to the burnt schools in Vuwani, to the charred remains of the African National Congress.  We see brinksmanship in the serious battle lines that are drawn between business and labour; the sort of impasses that result in protracted disputes every year.  Who can argue that Marikana was not the result of brinksmanship.  We see brinksmanship in the failure to reign in rogue elements within the National Prosecuting Authority and security services.  Similarly the slash and burn tactics that have placed the CEO of the public broadcaster, Hlaudi Motsoeng, and the head of the national airline, Dudu Myeni, in positions of leadership indicate a willingness to exact maximum damage in service of broader objectives that are sometimes opaque.

These sorts of divisions are indicative of a new phase in our politics; one in which intransigence and radicalism take centre stage.  Unlike others who worry about radicalism and intransigence, I am not convinced about whether the digging in of heels we are witnessing will take the country forward or backwards in the long run.  It is too early to hazard a guess.  While there is much that is worrisome about stubbornness, it is also important not to dismiss obstinacy as a mechanism for resolving long-standing impasses that have not been dealt with because not enough pressure has been applied.

In the conventional model of democratic politics, you put forward an idea, debate it and then work to build support for your view.  Democratic societies reward those leaders who work out solutions, bridge divides and calm tensions.  These rewards exist not simply in the electoral set up, but also through other sorts of incentives.  Prizes and awards are given to bridge-builders; buildings are named in their honor and they are rewarded with public accolades, academic honorifics and so on.

While bridge builders continue to be seen as ‘leaders,’ their credibility is diminishing.  As the very notion of democracy goes on trial, radicalism and intransigence are increasingly replacing compromise as the go-to instincts of the body politic.

This is of course because the strategy of compromise has had mixed results in the last two decades. On the one hand, the compromise brokered in 1994 has resulted in a relatively ‘stable’ society and the growth of a significantly larger black middle class than existed at the end of apartheid.  Educational opportunities have expanded for all black children, and many more South Africans have access to services like water and sanitation than did under apartheid – both in real terms and as a proportion of the population.

At the same time, compromise has suffered a bad rap because of the ways in which it has been linked to other negative phenomena within the ruling party. It is widely accepted that careerism, political thuggery and an obsession with big-man politics have ascended in the ruling party.  Unfortunately what has blossomed at the same time is the cynical notion that t mediation and negotiation were mere strategies for self enrichment.  In other words, because the ANC has both championed compromise as a tool for managing conflict, and has also become more and more corrupt in its dealings with big business, it is easy to conclude that compromise politics is in fact corrupt politics.  Compromise has also suffered from the fall of Rainbowism. In many ways then, through its association with a compromised ANC and a compromised racial politics of Rainbowism, compromise as a political tactic, has come to be associated with selling out.

This is a pity.

For the purposes of clarity it is important to separate the ideological underpinnings of a politics that embraces compromise (what I refer to here as compromise politics) as a necessary and important aspect of moving forward a social agenda, from the other tendencies that have deepened and solidified in the post-apartheid ANC.  For example, it would be easy to suggest the ANC’s cosiness with big business is a function of a politics that embraces compromise. Certainly, compromise brought the ANC and big business into closer proximity to one another, but it is careless to argue that at its heart the ANC’s neoliberalism is only or even largely the result of its reliance on negotiation and compromise with external actors as a political strategy for securing and then sustaining democratic practice.   One can accept political compromise as a tactic, without accepting that concessions must be made on each and every issue confronting a society. One can hold firmly to principles, whilst accepting that at a macro level compromise is a critical tactic in a democratic society.

So, we are now in a new era.  We are no longer wondering where we are going, it seems we have arrived in a new place in which we are witnessing radicalism and intransigence as a modus operandi across our society.

We see it in the ruling party, where administrative matters like appointments and parastatal deployments take up inordinate amounts of time and leave blood on the floor time and again.  We see this radicalism and intransigence amongst university administrators who took far too long to comprehend the tactics of the student movement and so made strategic blunders early on, that have lost them trust and vital time.  We see it in the radicalism and intransigence of some of the leaders of the Fallist movement who are prepared to inflict maximum damage now in order for long-term goals to be achieved.  We see it amongst many white South Africans who continue to bury their heads in the sand by continuing to organize, protect and enrich themselves on the basis of race.

We see this radicalism and intransigence also in the actions of protesters who burn schools because of municipal demarcation issues or to highlight lack of water and sanitation.

I say this without assigning moral equivalence: I do not of course believe the intransigence of AfriForum is the same as the intransigence of the Fallists; nor do I think the intransigence of ANC factions intent on evading accountability is the same as the intransigence of Vice Chancellors whose role is primarily to run universities not to find the money to deliver free higher education.

My observation is merely that where the country stands today is a consequence of many separate sections of society saying that they have had enough of compromise.  This is especially interesting because we are a very young nation but we were founded on the very notion of compromise.  We were celebrated the world over for our ability to bring together disparate views.  During the 1990s, South Africans elevated the middle ground to the high ground.  Yet here we are today, gripped by radicalism and intransigence and an outright rejection of the compromise tactics that carried us to this point.

This is both startling, and completely unsurprising.   It is also not as frightening as some might think.

Those of us who were already adults during the heady transition days prided ourselves in being a nation of negotiators who pulled ourselves from the brink. The brink was a bad place and we were happy to no longer be on it.  I certainly believed, as the new millennium dawned, that South Africa might face some tough times ahead, but that the country would be defined by its ability to talk its way from the ledge.  Today many in our society are not as frightened of the brink as I was.  They see the brink as an important space to occupy.

Compromise politics was part of the national bloodstream – it would save us.  So of course it is startling to observe the way in which across many fronts, we are failing to resolve impasses today. Given the widespread embrace of compromise politics across South African society until recently, it is now disconcerting to note that  the rejection of compromise as a tool for social progress.

At the same time of course I am completely unsurprised by the starkness of this development and the ways in which it is manifested.  Make no mistake: There are valid and ethical reasons to reject compromise, even if one is not a political purist. There are some issues and some moments in history in which compromise makes no sense; moments in which moral and economic victories are within reach and ought to be fought for unequivocally without compromise.

The rejection of the compromise politics  by many protesters on the left is the logical conclusion of almost two decades of insipid and terrifying compromises on the running of the economy, institutional racism, the functioning of our education systems and the layout and structure of our urban and rural spaces.  One can in fact, embrace Rainbowism, and also recognize that compromise has not taken the poorest South Africans very far.

 

I have less patience of course for those who reject compromise because they are reactionaries – those like Afrikaans singer Steve Hofmeyr and his slightly more urbane ilk in Afriforum.  Still, it is worth nothing that the absence of a political narrative explaining why compromise continues to be necessary has allowed these elements to strengthen their voices and mobilize broader support than they should have.   In other words, regardless of what you think of Mandela’s latter-day politics and irrespective of your thoughts on the ANC leaders who negotiated the settlement that lead to the historic 1994 elections, there is no denying the amount of effort that went into building and sustaining the narrative of the Rainbow Nation.  It was potent because it was carried forward consistently and eloquently, even in the face of its obvious weaknesses.

 

There has been no commensurate energy invested in revising and recalibrating that narrative to take account of growing social strife today.  The limits of the 1994 political compromise have inevitably begun to give at the seams and yet I cant think of a single leader inside or outside the ANC who has managed to coherently and productively steer the conversation about politics and inequality towards calmer waters.

The present crisis on campuses illustrates this point.  The university crisis is above all, a failure of those who championed compromise politics to adapt to a dramatically different political context.  The old words no longer fit and the old guard are now too old to restrategize.  The problem isn’t so much that they don’t understand the radicalism of the youth, or even that they don’t know how to communicate with a strident new generation.  The problem seems to be that those who sit in positions of power within the state and universities simply do not see their politics and their positions as being as radical as those of the students they so oppose.

When the militant protest for free education meets the militant defence of the rights of those currently enrolled in schools (which implies a defence of the status quo, albeit for pragmatic reasons to which I am deeply sympathetic because I am of a certain generation and so I do not reject pragmatism), we have a stalemate.

Leadership matters most in times like this and thankfully there have already been some creative attempts to broker peace.  Still, South Africa seems to be tainted by its past embrace of compromise.  The last two decades have turned compromise into a swear word.

The transition in 1994 saw both a revolution and a war averted and many of us were pleased with this.  It seems however that we had only reached a temporary and insufficient peace.  We are now howling at the past:  all of us barking with regret at the time we have lost to superficial agreement.

The whites and the blacks and the young and the old; the government and the activists; the progressives and the conservatives: We are all regretting what we gave up because twenty years ago.  The party is over and in the cold light of dawn we see that compromise became both a means and an end and perhaps this was our mistake.  We did not yet know that sitting down does not mean giving in.

Perhaps the cacophony of noise; the howling and the barking and the sound and the fury this time will signify that we are wiser now, and more prepared to accept that compromise is a tool; that facing one another in discourse, eye-to-eye is the only mechanism we have at our disposal to save us.  We have to stand close enough to breathe one another’s breath. It is the only thing that will save us from having to burn ourselves anew each time we rage.