King Jacob ZuMa se Poes

The ongoing antics of Jacob Zuma remind me of the Arthurian legend of the Fisher King.

This myth has it that the King is the last in a long line to keep custody of the Holy Grail. He has been wounded, typically in the groin or upper thigh – there are various iterations of the myth – and he becomes increasingly ill and depraved. As he sickens, so his kingdom collapses and decays around him, becoming a barren wasteland (cue TS Eliot). The King whiles away his time by fishing in the river beside his Nkandla, I mean castle, possibly for even more state contracts that involve a kickback, awaiting a cure that his knights have been tasked to find, sustained for the time being only by the Grail itself.

The tale of the Fisher King is one of folly and depravity, and the immediate parallels are obvious. Charged with upholding the principles of the ANC, Zuma, (along with his not insubstantial Spear of the Nation) has instead perverted them – together with his supportive courtiers – to suit his own self-serving agenda. I hardly need to point out the parallel between the state of a country over which Zuma presides, and the failures, past, present and future, which are all simply too depressing to list. Even the current drought and its mismanagement seems to play into the themes of this ancient story. The only lightness (for me anyway) is that the Fisher King’s wound is often interpreted as the result of a punishment for philandering. Too bad the courts never speared The Spear, and instead found its owner not guilty.

But the parallels, as with most parallels, are superficial. An essential difference between the myths of Zuma and the Fisher King is that the King is more or less passive, a victim of his own inaction and errors rather than the active agent of his own undoing. Zuma, we know, has actively taken decisions that build an ever-deeper moat around himself, to the detriment of the country and its citizens, and he is supported by a cohort of courtiers, whom I can only assume protect this idiot for the handouts they are individually afforded.

The original Fisher King wishes to be cured, which suggests some desire for redemption, not to mention a residual sympathy for his subjects. Zuma, however, is not seeking a cure, and so soundly has he lost touch with his voters, those people who embraced what the ANC promised them in 1994, that he is prepared – no, happy – to watch them and their children grow up uneducated and disempowered, if they are not killed in the streets first. And yet, the fingers, deeply tainted from being embedded in our leader’s willingly spread arsehole, are pointed at white privilege. If you, King Jacob, had not misspent, what is it, R300, R500 billion, on things since your tenure that did nothing to lift your people into a position where they could compete with me for my job, fight me economically or intellectually on a level playing field, and therefore for the taxes I pay, you have in a word, failed. You have fucking failed. Failed. There is no other word. If I can sit here on a Friday afternoon on a Mac laptop, connected to the Internet at a tolerable speed, boring anyone who has read this far with my own solipsistic bullshit, why can’t the people who voted for you do the same? Because you never fucking let them, never gave them the opportunity that you’ve allowed me to enjoy since 1994.

We need to understand that Zuma is not stupid, despite his innumeracy, lack of basic geographical knowledge, and tactical buffoonery. Bauernschlau is a German phrase that translates literally as “farmer sly”, and it refers to a cunning that is not learnt from books. Unfortunately, it also seems to suggest a total lack of an ability to foresee consequence. As we watch Zuma storm ahead with his agenda of enriching himself and his cronies, it’s clear that he either does not understand the inevitable outcomes of his actions, sees himself as some kind of Olympian god, or simply doesn’t give a fuck.

         Meanwhile, we sit on our Weylandts couches, gaping and horrified, while our elected leader fishes in his firepool, hoping to land the big one that will get him off the hook. Fishing rod in one hand, the Spear in the other.  Time to go, JZ. Time to fuck off into the nuclear sunset of your own doing, and the sooner the better.

        

Where to now?

So today Michelle and I joined the rest of the Southern Suburbs at Parliament where we chanted “Zuma must fall” in our reedy white voices.

                  On the way there (two of us in a car that could comfortably seat five), I remarked that the march would probably consist of herds of middle-aged whiteys ready to head for the beach afterwards, and Michelle told me to stop being such a cynical old goat.
                   Turns out I was right. A guy about my age started toyi-toying as we made our way from Roeland Street to the Company’s Garden, where we were to meet up with the contingent from the Atlantic Seaboard. Like me, he clearly remembered the grittier, scarier days of the late 80s, where the thrill of a protest march lay in throwing kerbstones at the cops, and the risk lay in being arrested and soundly fucked up in a dark room somewhere. If you escaped the security police, you found an arm around your shoulders, hauling you into a shack and insisting you sit on the only bed and share a warm Black Label quart. Nothing like that to remind you of your whiteness. Or of how you shouldn't toyi-toyi.
                  I’m ambivalent, if not confused, by this morning’s mass white (with a bit of coloured, and some token blacks thrown in) action. There was a man with slicked-back hair from the anti-corruption thing, who got the crowd going to the point where most of them politely shouted “Zuma must fall” on cue. Mpho Tutu brought tears to our eyes. There was a muttering of Nkosi, which cringingly swelled to Welsh choir proportions once the Afrikaans and English bits kicked in. There was on the air a taint of Chanel and Dior and Ambre Solaire.
                  And then there was something of a lecture by another white guy who, I’m sure, peaked while he was a member of the banned ANCYL back in the day – back when the ANCYL still meant something. It was the white privilege thing he went on about, and I have to admit, I rolled my eyes in sheer political incorrectness. Yes, I am previously privileged. Yes, I still benefit from my whiteness, my education, my rambling old house with its mature plane trees in the garden. But in my defence, my eye-roll was directed at the ANC, and how it has facilitated white privilege for the last 21 years. It’s human nature – provide people with opportunities, and they will take them. I’m not saying our new rulers should have chopped down my plane trees, or confiscated my too-big car, or through BEE enriched a few smart black people on the way – but you can’t make the poor rich by making the (relatively) rich poor. What the ANC should have done is to have spent the 55c (at least) in taxes that I pay on every rand I earn on what the they promised they would spend it on in 1994.\
             Back then, when for the first time we stood in multiracial queues to vote, laughing and joshing each other like kids on a first date, not one of us on the colour spectrum foresaw the arms deal, Nkandla, R27bn in “irregular expenditure” for the 2015/16 financial year alone. Nobody foresaw the train tender, the inept girlfriend at SAA, the Airbus deals, Hlaudi With A Chance of Meathead totally fucking up the SABC, the Russian nuclear contracts on the horizon, the desire to spend billions on a personal fucking jet. Nobody foresaw a degree of nepotism,  patronage, the appointment of totally inept cronies to vital positions, that would have taught the Nat government a trick or three. Nobody foresaw the impending crackdown on the media – which alone will be worse than the restrictions and censorship of the 80s, with every word put into the public domain assessed by an idiot aparatchik with a red pen. 

If that’s what we see in the daily media, imagine how deep the rot really goes, probably all the way down to tenders for pencil-sharpeners and toilet paper. 
Here’s the rub: it’s not just Zuma, it’s the ANC. It’s the ANC, which is nothing like the ANC of twenty years ago, and light years removed from where it was a hundred years ago. 
So why is the party bolstering this man, why is it building laagers around him, why does it keep him at the head of the long table? Because they’re all on the take, feeding off the scraps that Zuma drops on the ground, and the fear is that when he goes, so will the gratuities. Zuma obviously has to fall, but seriously, what the fuck is next? Will it be better, or worse?

And there we were, ten thousand (apparently) of our country’s ten million tax-payers on the lawns of the Company’s Garden, polite fists in the air, demanding the recall of the despised president. Not so much because we of Contantia and Fresnaye wanted to preserve our ways of life, which of course we do – it’s instinct, it’s survival – but because a collective light-bulb turned on, and it shed light on what could have been achieved with all that money over the past two decades, and what hasn’t.
                  The saddest thing, standing there in my sweaty Woolies T-shirt and my Geox takkies, was the realisation of how the ANC has betrayed the people to whom it promised the most. Moi, I’ll be okay, I think, in my employment at a fantastic company, and with my all-powerful neighberhood watch. But what I hoped for on that fresh April day in Jo’burg in 1994, as some wag inflated a few condoms that the queue of voters bounced between them, was more than anything to see an end to 1993. And near fuckall has happened since.
                  As we peacefully dispersed in our Tommy Hilfiger sneakers and our Calvin Klein underpants to get into our Audis and Jags and head off for a well-earned flat white and a chilled glass of Valpré at Truth or Haas, I was left wondering what I could do. A something, no matter how small, that would make a difference to just one person the ANC has lied to and betrayed. How could I use what I do best, those things I’ve been educated to be good at, to help nudge someone from despair to hope? And as I passed the Book Lounge, which has neither of my books on its shelves, a thought occurred, and I liked it. What are a few hours of a Saturday morning anyway?
                  I do hope I have the balls to implement this little idea in the new year. After all, we’re all in this together, and if those of us who can don’t, we’re collectively fucked. So what are you going to do? We’ve run out of continent – south of Agulhas is only water, folks.

Stop creating. Now.

So this is what our government is sneaking into law while nobody watches. The quick version is that the copyright of whatever you create will (if the legislation is passed) belong to the government once you croak.
       In terms of the Berne Convention, to which twelve point nothing eleventy six and a quarter seventy countries have subscribed, copyright vests with the heirs of the estate for fifty years after the creator dies. This is ensconced in the Copyright Act of 1978, and is about to be undone by the Copyright Amendment Bill of 2015. The Rand Daily Mail gives you the taste of nothing to come right here. And PEN SA is really grumpy about this too. 

       So here we are, the cultural collective. Authors, musicians, choreographers, poets, playwrights, singers, photographers, illustrators, film-makers, poets, actors, whatever. Whether we sell heaps like Wilbur Smith, or a little dribble as I do, when Wilbur dies, or I do, our Department of Trade and Industry would have it that the government is to benefit from the royalties and other income our work might continue to generate.
        How is this logical, first up? Let’s say that someone puts up an office block. He draws an income from the rental, and the value of the property itself increases. After he pops his clogs on the golf course, the property is inherited by his offspring – who then benefit from the fruits of his labour. The state does not step in and assume ownership of this inheritance (yet, anyway. I mean, we’re not Zimbabwe, are we?). So why should Mr Smith’s children and grandchildren be deprived of fifty years’ worth of royalties on his work?
       To my mind, it’s simply another channel our government is seeking to open in order to secure further funding for its nepotism and its corruption. An insidious and cynical theft disguised as yet another tax, if you will. 
       But, shame, I suppose they’re running out of ways to squeeze pennies out of a base of only ten million taxpayers. Individuals already shell out a sizeable chunk of their income for PAYE.  
       Another 14c of every rand we spend goes to VAT.
       Every litre of fuel we buy carries a levy of around R5 in tax and to fund the hapless RAF – the tax component alone is around 30% of the cost. 
       We’re taxed on dividends paid out by shares that we used our after-tax money to buy.
       For some of us, eTolls chip away a little more.
       And now there’s talk of a wealth tax on the way, where individuals who earn a million rand or more per annum will be punished further for their efforts. 
       I will bet all my royalties that this figure of a million rand means pre-tax earnings. I’m hardly an actuary, but in terms of PAYE and VAT alone, my primitive maths says this individual is already forking 54c of every rand they earn to the treasury. And this excludes whatever they’re spending on petrol, or property rates and taxes, or eTolls. This means that the million-rand man will face a wealth tax on what in reality is at most R460,000 – less than the median income of full-time employees over 25 in the USA, on which they pay personal tax of just 25%.
       Not that many writers and artists can look forward to this kind of income in South Africa anyway. If you’re one of the lucky few to sell a thousand copies of a book that retails at R200, you can look forward to an income of around R10,000–R15,000, depending on your agreed royalty percentage. And that’s before tax, of course.

       The Bill put forward by the DTI also, as the Rand Daily Mail points out, creates new criminal offences. Refusing to grant permission to use copyright for educational purposes could see you in jail for 10 years, or fined up to R50,000. That’s great, if you’ve only earned ten grand on the work in the first place, being forced to give away your IP for no income so that it can appear in a text book with a print run of 20,000.

But, listen properly. What is the actual message here?

To me it says don’t bother. Don’t bother to think, and if you do don’t bother to commit your thoughts to material form, and if you do that, don’t bother to sell your work. You’ll only have to get your heirs to hold a book-burning in the back garden if you don’t want the state to benefit from any sales after your death.
       At worst, the Copyright Amendment Bill is a tentative step towards negating all forms of inheritance, where anything of value left behind by the deceased would transfer to the state.
       At best, it’s a kick in the balls of culture. Churchill has been attributed, when faced by a proposal that arts and culture grants be cut to fund the war effort, with saying “Then what are we fighting for?” Whether he said this or not doesn’t matter, it’s an expression of attitude, and it’s tragic that our government takes a view 180 degrees removed from this.
      Surely a truly progressive country would seek to encourage its pool of creators – making earnings on creative works tax-free, for instance, or zero-rating VAT on books – instead of pissing on their batteries? But here we are, on the cusp of having someone go “Heh heh heh” all the way to the bank with our money once we’re six feet under.

Comments on the Copyright Amendment Bill of 2015 closed on 26 August. Attorney Jeremy Speres of Spoor & Fisher, the legal firm specialising in matters of intellectual property, handily summarises the Bill here.

Millisecond

I looked up and saw a shooting star,
immediately gone.

In its dying wake was left
a trail of ash and dust,
falling

through

the winter sky
towards the sleeping crust

of earth.
An alien birth,

a billion years of travelling,
extraterrestrial proof,
sprinkled somewhat randomly
on a suburban roof.

When "African Literature" means "Don't Bother"

So, yes, Wasted has at long last reached the shops. 
    It’s not a very long book, or very thick, but I’d like to think that intensity trumps size every time. Besides, it took me a whole long time to write, even longer for my publisher to read, and months to edit, proofread and print. Make it about two years for this process.
    The first time I held the finished article in my hands was half an hour before the launch event. This skinny, ink-smelling, papery thing made me come over all mushy, and I had to find a quick glass of wine to quell the emotions before I could sensibly discuss it with John Maytham.
    The following weekend, I did what I suspect many authors do.
    I turned into a stalker. A voyeur. A benign Peeping Tom. Creeping in happy anonymity around bookstores to see whether they’d ordered my book, and more importantly, to see how they were “merchandising” it, as we advertising people call it.
    And just like last time, I found it in the “African Literature” section, where it had cleverly been denied any chance of visibility by being placed under “W”, which is approximately where my right shin would have found it, if my right shin had eyes.
    I went to the front of the store to inspect the “New Arrivals” shelves. Among the dozens of “international” authors, Suzanne Collins had a double-billing, there was something soggy by E.L. James, and I spotted a new fantasy thing by someone called Sarah J. Maas.
    No Wasted. 
    Or any other work by a South African author.
    I went back to the “African Literature” stand and put on spectacles that were a little less self-centred.
    Under “B” was Lauren Beukes. Okay, so she hasn’t yet won the Booker or a Nobel prize. But she’s won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction. She’s had Stephen King sing her praises. I believe she’s had a book optioned by some Hollywood bigshot, and that she has a worldwide TV series on the cards. 

It was cute to see J.M. Coetzee’s works lined up next to Ms Beukes’. A Nobel winner, a double Booker winner, he’s been, if I remember correctly.
    And there my book was, rubbing shoulders on the bottom shelf with Ivan Vladislavić, who has just been awarded the 2015 Windham Campbell Prize by Yale University.
    It’s great company if you can get it. Yet, not one of these enormously commended authors had a single work on the actual “Fiction” shelves. And nor did any of my other compatriots, stuffed together as we were, spine out, on our own little lopsided island in the corner.

I asked a passing employee where I might find the Scandinavian and Australian Literature sections. She looked at me as if I might bite her on the ankle, so I explained that I was looking for a), a twee story about an old man who jumped out of a window and b), a maundering lecture on Australian politics masquerading as fiction. She gave me a nervous grin and scampered off to help build a gigantic paper idol to Jeffrey Archer or David Baldacci or someone in the front window.

    Because that’s the point, isn’t it?
    How logical is it to categorize books by the nationality of the people who wrote them?
    It’s like holding an athletics event only for athletes with red hair, establishing a soccer club purely for players who like liquorice, or broadcasting a talent show solely for people who are allergic to bees.
    I draw these parallels because writing, too, is a competition. Even the most minor of South African writers (ahem) competes with the biggest international authors for what advertising people call “share of mind”. And as the old cliché goes, “Out of sight....”

I don’t really buy the commercial argument either – that popular authors sell better, and therefore will make more money for the retailer if they’re displayed front and centre. I’m sure a customer would ask after the latest Dan Brown if she can’t find it on the shelf – but she’s hardly going to ask for the latest Mark Winkler. She’d have to know about Winkler’s book to ask, wouldn’t she? And how could she, if it’s been banished to the African Literature stand – a stand that may as well be covered in biohazard symbols, festooned with quarantine flags, or on fire.
    I don’t see an “African Literature” section doing very much to promote African (or South African) authors.
    It’s only announcing, loud and clear, that African literature is somehow second rate, a curiosity to turn to on the rarest of occasions (like pig’s trotters or escargot), and that African writers simply aren’t good enough to rub shoulders with the rest.
    Sarah J. Maas se…

Happy Whatever

So during the Sydney hostage crisis, we had the agency TV set to Sky. As I took two minutes to catch up, a Muslim colleague came to stand beside me. “It’s Muslims like that who give Muslims a bad name,” he said, shaking his head. But it wasn’t really a Muslim who took the hostages. It was by all accounts a crazy person. I’d guess that 99.9% of Muslims aren’t crazy. Therefore, not all crazy people are Muslim.

                  By the time I got back to my desk, #Illridewithyou was trending. I don’t get teary much, but this outpouring of support for those regular people who happened to be Muslims really touched me. Jeez, we should have gone to live in Oz ten years ago, I thought. As a friend of mine commented on Facebook, the Australians might be completely delusional about rugby and cricket, but this was something truly special. Apparently it’s called “mateship”, my Brisbanite editor Lynda tells me.

                  And then, the next day, all this good stuff was undermined by a bunch of total arseholes snapping selfies of themselves on Martin Place. Grinning as if they had just burned through the corporate lunch account, or were on their way to the circus. Sometimes the human race really sucks.

                  It might sound a little glib, but the ideal workplace should be a microcosm of society. In my real job at our ad agency, we have Muslims and Christians and Jews and Hindus and atheists and probably one or two Pastafarian members of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster all spending their daylight hours there. Respecting each other and working together and getting things done as professionally as possible, and then laughing and hugging each other at beer o’clock on Fridays and at our various agency get-togethers. Those 10 or so working hours a day, those celebratory occasions, are when religion is forgotten, or at least when belief systems and their entrenched animosities are set aside.

                  The oldest extant version of the Christian Bible resides in the British Museum. It’s dated at approximately 500 years AD. It’s in Greek. It was written by a phalanx of authors, mostly unknown, and most of whom never spoke or wrote Greek. If you work in the ad industry, you will know, by hard experience, that the difference between the one-page client brief and what is relayed to the creative team a day later can be two completely different things. So, how much can be changed within a thousand or so pages, over 500 years? How much has actually been expunged, added, or altered over that time? From the exclusions of the many parts of the Apocrypha, to the mistranslations, to the ecclesiastical editing brought about to bolster the agenda of whomever was boss of the Church at the time?

                  Has religion brought about more wars than anything else? Probably not, if you did the numbers. But it has caused so much hurt, so much pain. Two dead in Sydney. The next day, over a hundred Pakistani pupils slaughtered by the Taliban. And God – ha! – only knows what Boko Haram has been up to in the last twenty-four hours.

                  For what? The roots of all modern religions (Pastafarians aside) lie in Bronze Age superstitions that have barely evolved over 5,000 years, and are today neatly packaged in explosive little parcels for different tastes. And all of that in the face of simple logic, basic empiricism, rudimentary science, and the proven laws of nature.

                  We were in Mauritius a few years ago, and on an outing from our wonderfully fake resort, we passed a Catholic church. Outside, twice life-sized, a sculpture showed Christ on the cross, hang-headed with bright crimson blood running from his hands, feet and chest. My youngest, who is Jewish as my wife is, was horrified. I dug into my Catholic past and tried to explain. The more I tried to clarify the mythology, the less sense it made to her.

We were on our way to a Hindu temple, which was populated by blue elephants and beings with banana-bunches of extraneous arms. My daughter was no less puzzled about the crucifixion sculpture than she was about the Hindu gods. Such is the innocence, and the impartiality, we've all lost.

                  If only we were more concerned with our fellow beings, on a practical, tangible, day-to-day basis, than we are with trying furiously to bat for the particular fairy-tale that makes us each feel warmest and fuzziest, we’d be on to a damned fine thing. As they say, having a religion is like having a penis. It’s okay to have one, but don’t whip it out in public, don't thrust it on anyone, least of all small children or your dinner guests. Don't think with it. Don’t compare sizes. And don’t ever try to write laws with it.

                  Merry Whatever, everyone.

                 

Almost lost for words (but not quite)

I can’t do religious rants – I’m not religious. So this isn’t one, even though I’m a recovering Catholic, my wife is Jewish, and yes, some of my friends and colleagues are Hindu and Muslim.

Consider this a rant against those intellectual amputees who have plumbed the depths of hypocrisy by clutching their Woolworths shares in one hand and a placard demanding that I boycott the company in the other.

Excuse me?

That’s like expecting me to flagellate myself with a bicycle chain because my neighbour’s dog keeps you up all night.

My issue isn’t particularly about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Or that I hear no outrage at the chopping off of heads and the kidnapping of young woman that’s going on in some quarters of our wonderful world.

It’s just that you don’t make any sense. 

Not the slightest, tiniest bit.

God, how stupid do you have to be to try to destroy your own investment? Perhaps the answer to an otherwise rhetorical question lies in the fact that the pig’s head which appeared Woolies’ Sea Point branch was actually placed in the Halaal section of the store. There is no kosher section.

(Much to the surprise of many a Sea Point kugel: “Oy, so since when is Woolies selling kosher food?”)

Here’s what I suggest you do. It may help lend a little logic to your otherwise fraught campaign.

If you don't like the way Woolies conducts is business, sell your shares and shop somewhere else. It's a free world (for the time being).

Find a retailer that has no connections with Israel and buy your food and clothing there. 

But be careful. 

Your favourite new store had better not use Microsoft Windows on their computers. Much of it was developed in Israel. 

Check out their hardware. Chances are that their PCs and other devices contain a Sandybridge, 8088 or Centrino chip, developed and manufactured for Intel in Israel. Or that their CCTV system in fact originated there.

Before you enter, throw away your cell phone. Without Israeli engineering, it must be the size of a small shoebox, which will surely get in the way while you’re stocking up on Iraqi or Chinese or Russian produce.

On your way home, please hand the following to the first beggar who comes to your window: your iPad, iPhone, MacBook Air and any Samsung products that use Anobit flash technology. Its Israeli origins surely mean you can’t keep any of them. 

Once you’re home, fling your Kindle out of the window – the Java system that drives it was definitely not developed by COSAS. Indeed, it may come as a surprise to learn that it was developed in Israel.

Take that little flash drive off your key ring and smite it with a rock. Sift through your medicine cabinet and toss half of the medicines in it down the loo. Stop eating the Zionist poison of cherry tomatoes at once.

Then, on a clay tablet, begin a petition demanding that AngloGold Ashanti close its Western Deep mines as punishment for being so naughty as to use Israeli-made cooling systems.

There.

Feeling better now?

Perhaps you should do what I did and spend fifteen minutes on Google to find out exactly where, when and how you (and I, and much of the world's populace that has learnt to balance on its hind legs) benefit from Israeli inventions and products before going off on a hysterical and misguided zombie attack of a single random retailer.

And for fuck’s sake, grow up and stop trying to make up my mind for me.

The only reason that I’d consider boycotting Woolworths is that I don’t really like frogs, least of all in my salad. 

But I’d bet my MacBook that the ratio of frog-infested salad to frog-free salad in Woolies is pretty much on a par with the ratio of Israeli to non-Israeli products on their shelves.