BARSTOOL NATION

There’s a lot of chatter in South Africa at the moment: offensive paintings, tweeting imbeciles, money-grubbing football coaches, and the usual day-to-day pillaging and looting that is the spirit of modern democracy. The media packages it all and we read and re-tweet it, but the real conversations are the ones that take place between actual people, like the one I observed last night.

Once in a while I stand in with a blues band down on Wilson’s Wharf in Durban. Tuesday nights in the city are nothing to write home about for white people anymore, and those that venture out aren’t exactly your typical Investec suburbanites. Last night, the white guy on the left in the picture, with all the grace and social skills of a failed sprocket salesman, downed goblets of red wine at the  bar and then turned his burgeoning invincibility on the black guy to his right.

The black guy was sitting quietly by himself two stools down sipping a draught and reading, of all things in a city bar on a week-night, a pocket-sized edition of Sun Tzu’s “The Art Of War”. White Guy noticed the title and pounced.

“ ‘The Art Of War’, hey? You fucking ANC guys…”

What followed was a loud stream of invective accompanied by wine-induced slouching and gesticulating (see picture), all  from the white guy and all based on two assumptions: 1. This particular black guy was responsible for the the state of the country at the moment, and 2. ‘The Art of War’ was some kind of ANC/black terrorist text.

The black guy, to his credit, just sat and listened. The white guy got louder and louder, throwing out phrases like “fucking kaffirs” etc. The bar staff in the immediate vicinity started paying very close attention in case it started getting nasty.

Then, inexplicably, the white guy goes, “Well, fuck it, I’m leaving anyway. Soon as I can get out of this bladdy country I’m gone”. After complaining and accusing, he’s leaving anyway? Then, even more inexplicably, the white guy and the black guy, unable to continue the one-sided conversation because of the barrage of white-guy blues rock from the guest band, get up and go outside to share a smoke and carry on their fireside chat. They came back in a few minutes later practically arm-in-arm, all national issues resolved.

As much as people like Julius Malema may make it embarrassing for some black people to be black, white guys like this make it excruciating to be white in a country like South Africa. When previously-advantaged white people show themselves to be more ignorant and uninformed and just plain dumber than their previously-disadvantaged countrymen, it’s teeth-clenchingly awful.

Somewhere down the line, though, this belligerent drunk smirking racist and this graceful, thoughtful quiet African man found some common ground, shared a drink and a smoke, and the staff reported back that they were ‘friends now’.

National Democratic Revolution be damned: this is the real South Africa.

THIRD WORLD AMERICA

I’m currently reading Arianna Huffington’s “Third World America”, her treatise on the escalating economic woes of the wealthiest nation in history. Aside from her constant need to create quotable soundbites and her tendency to write like the blogger she is, it’s a good read, and an alarming one (not just for Americans). Two things have jumped out at me so far:

1. America is a country, but is also an idea, and a fine one at that. Over more than three centuries, the idea of a democratic utopia for mankind has inspired the rest of us plebians toward greater ideals, although in the last century at least the idea has started to yield less and less.

That’s why I raised an eyebrow at the end of the list of superlatives Mz Huffington uses to describe her adoptive country: aside from the obvious ones, she uses the word ‘noble’.

The traditional understanding of ‘noble’ as ‘being of high moral principles’ may have been applicable in another age, but not anymore. In fact, if anything, I would say that ‘noble’ is the least appropriate word one could use to describe modern America. Powerful, yes. Great, indisputibly. But noble?

Western values are corrupt and morally bankrupt, and no nation can claim the blame quite like America. That’s not to say Americans are guilty as a nation, any more so than ‘Germans’ are collectively guilty for World War 2. America post-WW2, however, has presided over the collapse of any notion of Western moral superiority (for better or for worse), and of all things, ‘nobility’ went first.

2. A March 2010 Harris Poll is quoted in which Republicans are polled regarding their feelings  on Barack Obama. Apparently, 57% of those polled  believe he is a Muslim, 38% believe he’s doing ‘many of the things that Hitler did’, and 24% believe ‘he may be the Anti-Christ’ (chapter 2 page 86). 

Paranoid and frightened they may be, and justly so in the face of the steady decline of America, but aren’t these the same people who voted for George W. Bush? Twice? The man who, more than any other elected President (including Nixon and Reagan), presided over the key events that have resulted in America’s current condition? Bush 43 was the harbinger, and yet Obama is ‘the Anti-Christ’? 

The American Society of Engineers’ 2009 report on America’s infrastructure was described later as ‘the kind of report card you would have expected on the eve of the collapse of the Roman Empire’ (p94).

America’s degeneration began long before Obama. It’s not Bush’s fault either of course, but here’s the thing: of the $2.2 trillion needed over the next five years to just make America’s infrastructure barely passable, only $975 billion has been budgeted. Where are the spending priorities? Overseas wars (begun under Bush), and the unfair bailing out of multi-national corporations. Obama’s not perfect, but there’s one word I would ascribe to him: noble.

Post-script: “America is like a middle-aged man, still clinging to a perception of himself at age twenty-three, refusing to take in the wrinkles and the bald spot showing up in the mirror. And the bad knee. And the clogged arteries that could make his heart stop beating at any moment. We still see ourselves as a youthful nation, when it simply isn’t true anymore.” – Arianna Huffington, “Third World America” 2011

SAVAGED

The esteemed Rolling Stone magazine launched in South Africa recently, at the behest of a few wealthy hipsters with nothing better to do. Whether or not the South African music scene will benefit from Rolling Stone’s brand of music journalism is beside the point (although the fact that the hipsters chose Rolling Stone over Mojo or Uncut is telling). The fact is, until the money runs out, South Africans have yet another American brand making taste amongst its youth culture.

With the print version, featuring Van Coke Kartel doing the only thing they do well (a fashion shoot), came the obligatory online version, and a teacup-sized storm was unleashed when RSSA published an op ed piece by one of the supposed gate-keepers of the South African music industry, a muso-turned-radio-DJ named Jon Savage. Savage’s piece, despite being appallingly badly written and full of grandiose self-glorification, attempted to stir up some kind of debate about the state of modern South African music, and thankfully failed on all accounts.

I say ‘thankfully’ because God forbid someone as rabidly untalented and far too over-connected as Savage should have any claim to the state of the modern South African music industry (except perhaps as one of the many perpetrators of personality-less muzak that define modern SA rock music).

That being said, his unsupervised (and obviously unedited; great start, RSSA) time in front of his laptop has ‘everyone’ (read: concerned white rock fans) talking, and some of the comments, including Savage’s own, are revealing. Most respondents happily rubbish his piece, which at least says something positive about the state of critical reasoning south of the Equator. The odd few responded positively to his piece with what amounts to “fuck yeah!!!” After all, his diatribe against local music ended with some kind of call-to-arms: 

“So let's act like we've grown up! Let's break down the walls! Let's revolt! Lets hoist our fists mightily in the air and announce together ‘LOCAL IS NOT LEKKER!’ “

Yes, let’s.

Pressed for a response, he whined:

It feels like a) people haven’t read my article, or b) don’t understand what I wrote. The whole point of my article was to say that 10 years ago, you could HEAR that a band was South African when they were on the radio. Partly due to production, and partly due to not being exposed to enough of the international scene, and partly because there weren’t enough really top bands so the bar was set low! And therefore, loving music BECAUSE it was South African was necessary to help grow the industry. But now days, our bands are finally standing up on an international level in every way! We’ve got bands like Shadowclub, Zebra and Giraffe, Aking, Jack Parow etc etc – and many others who are categorically world class in every way and you can no longer distinguish between “local” and “international” bands because our bands are great! And therefore, the bar has been RAISED!!! We need to stop thinking of SA bands as “local” and we need to start thinking of them as bands!!! And local bands need to realize that the bar is no longer at Prime Circle level (a band considered to be hugely successful in SA), but we need to be aiming at Kings of Leon level (a band considered to be hugely successful on planet earth!!!!).

So,  apart from an over-reliance on exclamation marks, no clarity there either.

The point of all this, and this blog, is this: for over 40 years, white South Africans of a particular musical persuasion have wondered why South African rock ‘n roll has never been able to make an impact on international music markets. We’ve blamed apartheid, population demographics, lack of access to inspirational music through the apartheid cultural blockade (which is patently bullshit), lack of studio techniques, lack of equipment, idiot record companies (true), lack of talented producers and engineers (true, until fairly recently)… in short, everyone. 

White South African English-speaking rockers have never made it overseas in a big way, in the way that Australia produced INXS, Midnight Oil, or even pop legends like Kylie and Olivia Newton-John (not to mention AC/DC and the BeeGees). Or New Zealand produced Split Enz/ Crowded House. Or our other old Commonwealth cousin Canada produced Bryan Adams, Neil Young or Shania Twain.

Why?

It is kind of odd, you have to admit.

We’re not talking about white Afrikaans rock and pop. In their limited market, they sell outstandingly. And black South African music is, of course, hugely innovative and internationally successful.

But the sout-piele just can’t cut it. White South African English-speaking rock is of a dismally low-standard in the one crucial area that all music revolves around (although the way things are going internationally, not for long): songwriting.

Most SA bands have gotten technically more proficient. There are more rock bands per captia than at any other time in SA’s short music history, and most of these bands have access to cheap consumer versions of recording technology that enable them to record singles and albums with minimal expense. The whole landscape has changed, and in one area some SA bands at least are world-class: videos. There are a lot of talented visual people here, and some innovative, groundbreaking music videos have been produced.

But hardly any actual songs.

Lots of gurning and aping and shape-throwing and hipster-fashion and Cobain/Nickleback-esque white-angst, but nothing to really sing along to.

That’s been the bane of white South African rock music since time began, although along the way people like Robin Auld, Johnny Clegg, Bernard Binns (The Helicopters? Anyone?), Tully McCulley and Patric van Blerk have done us proud.

Is that what you’re kinda-sorta trying to get at, Mr Savage? Do you think mediocre nothingness like Zebra & Giraffe or aKing is world-class?

Really?

How exactly do people like you end up dictating to the heaving masses what’s cool and what isn’t? And how do you expect SA rock music to have any future if people like you are the tastemakers?

We obviously can’t rely on Rolling Stone.

They let you write.

And then they published it.

STORMONE

Have you noticed how social media is breeding a new level of social incompetence amongst younger people? If you’re teenagery these days, you’re more likely to engage with the opposite sex through some form of social media and its attendant technology than you are an actual person. Teenage social ineptitude is a common-enough ailment, and has been since Elvis invented the teenager in 1955, but there’s a new strand of it in the world today, and it’s fascinating.

What makes this even more interesting is the personality of the one person who virtually invented social media as a form of human interaction. Mark Zuckerberg is not by any means Mr Geniality, and that in itself accounts for Facebook’s personality: a place for shy geeks to spy on hot chicks without actually having to encounter them in the flesh and be rejected.

Interestingly, the use of Facebook seems to perpetuate social ineptitude, not dispel it. Guys are asking girls out through messaging, girls are using status updates to bitch at other girls, snide teenagery awfulness is IM’d, BBM’d, SMS’d, tweeted and (SO last-year!) MixIt’d. Girls and guys ‘like’ and ‘unlike’ each other and announce their availablitiy, jiltedness or successful coupling online. It’s a digitized storm of hormones, a ‘stormone’ if you will.

This doesn’t exactly bode well for future international relations, much less the propagation of the human race. In-the-flesh meetings are, after all, so boringly one-dimensional after you’ve spent half the night looking at someone’s pictures on their profile. Also, it’s much harder to think of the right thing to say than to type, don’t you think?

So thanks, Mark. The Geeks shall inherit the earth.

COMPASSION: SOUTH AFRICAN-STYLE (A TALE OF TWO ATTITUDES)

A friend of mine regularly buys food for street children, which she hands out of her car window whenever she's stopped at traffic lights and asked for help.
Yesterday, as she handed a store-bought cheese sandwich to an uncomfortably-young street child, a guy in the next car rolled his window down and hurled abuse at her for her actions. "It's people like you", he lectured, "that encourage these kaffirs".

Needless to say, the guy was white, and the street kid was black.

What do we do with this stuff?
Would we really rather glare menacingly through our windscreens at 'bloody beggars' than actually provide a little respite from the ravages of hunger? Fair enough, there's an argument to be made against giving cash, as we all know how that system has been abused by lazy parents pimping out their kids to get beer money. But food? Come on. Feeding someone is  quite different to enabling their vices.

And how about the race issue? The intolerance? The lack of compassion? The right this guy thought he had to judge the actions of a complete stranger? The sheer arrogance and lack of humanity his attitude betrayed?

Incidentally, her response as she drove off was, "It's people like you that are fucking this country up".

A QUIET 2011 SO FAR...

In lieue of a boring mailer, here's some updates on what's been happening with me in the last few months, and a few reasons why I haven't bothered blogging since mid-April:

1. I produced Melanie Lowe's new album I Choose Me in Durban, and we mixed it with Jake Odendaal in Joburg. It took a while, and it's only just started seeing the light of day now, but it's done.

2. I produced Melanie's friend Krystle Temmerman's EP "Closer To The Fire", which came out very quickly after Jake mastered it.

3. I had a great run of solo acoustic shows at this year's Festival of Arts in Grahamstown.

4. I've played a number of rock and solo acoustic shows around the country, including a few with the esteemed Barry van Zyl.

5. I jammed with with Just Jinger in Durban, the unforgettable Alistair Coakley in Joburg and with Ard Matthews at this year's Mr Price Pro.

6. I got to play guitar on Ernie Smith's upcoming album, as well as two songs on Natalie Rungan's newest album "This Is Me". I also played on Canadian Randal Arsenault's record and on ex-Idol Lize Heerman's yet-to-be-released album, both produced by the legendary Brian O'Shea.

7. I recorded three new full-band and 19 new acoustic demo's for my next record.

8. The video for "Maybe (Just Maybe)" was shot in Durban and finally released.

9. "Come Out Fighting" was nominated for a South African Music Award in the Rock Album category.

10. I read a lot of books, taught a lot of politics, stared aghast at TV news, stopped believing in a lot of nonsense, walked on a lot of beaches, watched a lot of Monty Python, started liking a lot of things for the first time, stopped saying sorry, drove a lot of miles, bought a lot of Tom Waits CD's, laughed a lot, marked a lot of test papers, bought a lot of books, sang along to  a lot Goon Show songs with my kids...

All in all, a relatively quiet few months.

THE CYBER-STRUGGLE

Recent and ongoing political upheaval (and dare I say it, revolution) in the Middle East is the first of its kind to be dubbed 'cyber-resistance'. From Egypt to Syria, people have been informed, persuaded and inspired, not to say mobilized, by social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. So much so that the ousting of Egypt's Mubarak has been labeled the 'Facebook Revolution', while the earlier protests in Iran following that country's 2009 presidential elections have become known as the "Twitter Revolution".

Whether this is media-hype or not is beside the point. The internet is a powerful tool, and Twitter and Facebook are the means to a lot more interesting ends than banal, vapid status -envy.

With this is mind, here's a bit of what-if: what would Apartheid in South Africa have looked like if the internet and its' attendant social networking capabilities had existed during, say, the 1970's and '80's? 

How would the banned and exiled ANC have used Twitter to rally the people of South Africa against the Apartheid regime?

How would the beleaguered National Party government have made use of Facebook to marshal the troops to hold back the tidal wave of Die Swart Gevaar?

It's an intriguing fantasy. Of course, humanity doesn't need technology to affect political discourse, but it sure helps. Kira Baiasu makes the point in a piece entitled Social Media: A Force For Political Change in Egypt, saying that social networking gives protestors invaluable anonymity, instant access to the masses and an opportunity to politicize an otherwise apathetic or disinterested body politic.

So allow yourself to imagine the Struggle on Twitter. Umkhonto we Sizwe's Facebook profile. The Robben Island group page. The 1976 Soweto Uprising sending out invites. End Conscription Campaign emails. Black Sash tweets. Chris Hani's status updates. 

Or, for that matter, AWB blogs, National Party 'likes' and SADF Google campaigns.

I'm not trying to be facetious. I would love your suggestions on what could've been.

Of course, the obvious next step then is, "Well, if not then, why not now?"

No wonder Julius Malema suggested closing down Twitter last year...

ANDRIES TATANE

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Robert Kennedy, Cape Town, 1966

This is Andries Tatane, a 33-year-old maths teacher, a resident of Meqheleng, a poverty-stricken township just outside of Ficksburg in South Africa. 

Andries is lying dead in a friend's arms, having just collapsed after a brutal beating by eight riot policemen that ended in one of them shooting him.

You can watch his beating and death on YouTube if you want to.

Why was he killed? 

He had intervened in the over-zealous policing of a group of protestors. He stepped in front of an old man being sprayed with a water-cannon, took off his own shirt and told the police to spray him instead of the old man. In response, the police beat the life out of him.

This happened on April 13 2011.

Last week.

Not during apartheid.

Why were the people protesting?

After 17 years, the people of Meqheleng are still waiting for the State to provide them with basic amenities. 'Service delivery'. That's the buzz-word in these post-Apartheid Rainbow-Nation days. 

So, Andries Tatane is brutally beaten and killed by the government's police force. 

Police Commissioner Bheki Cele's new policing policy is 'shoot to kill'. Zero tolerance of crime. And zero tolerance of people too, obviously.

Andries Tatane, a brave husband, father and South African, who lost his life at the hands of the State by standing up for another.

Look familiar?

Please tell me you know this famous photograph and what it represents.

Please read the Deputy Chief Executive of the South African Institute Of Race Relations Frans Cronje's open letter to the Minister of Police, Nathi Mthethwa. 

So far, the police have failed to suspend the policemen involved, and neither Bheki Cele nor Nathi Mthethwa have offered to resign. 

What are we to make of all this, people? 

One thing is for sure, you can't ignore it. 

But somehow, most of us will. 'It's just the government', we say. 'It's just politics'. 

'It's nothing to do with us'.

Tell that to Andries Tatane's family.

A luta continua.

Devemos resistir.

Viva Andries Tatane Viva!

ROB(BING) HELL

The biblically-proportioned storm currently raging in the U.S. over 'Hipper-Than-Thou' pastor Rob Bell's new book "Love Wins" looks so different from out here at the end of Africa. Don't you think? 


More like a storm in a tea-cup.


Like jealous minor celebrities squabbling over who's boss of the sand pit.


And also, like what it probably really is, a massive payday for HarperOne, Twitter, Mars Hill, John Piper, Time magazine and everyone else who's risen to the surface.


The essence of it all is Rob's new book, subtitled 'A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived'. It's Famous Pastor musing, really, and an interesting addition to a debate that began organically years ago: what does it really really really mean to call yourself a 'Christian'? 


John Piper set Twitter on fire with a three-word tweet: "Farewell Rob Bell". Neo-Calvinist (read: tone-deaf Christian fundamentalist, pretty-much-everyone-goes-to-hell-except-people-who-buy-my-books") Piper insists he meant "Fare Well Rob Bell". Dagnabit, AutoCorrect sucks hey John?


If you live in America and are an Evangelical who thinks Rob Bell rules (and of course, Brian McLaren just goes too far), then this will all feel very close to home. You attack Rob, you attack Jesus, basically. Even you, John Piper.


Out here in Africa, it looks more like a publishing war, followed closely by a social networking Event. Cynical? Moi? 


People's ideas about heaven and hell will change naturally. 
On their own. Over time.


We do not need to be led into a revolution by celebrities.


We can think for ourselves.


And Christianity, as with all religion, will evolve.


Yes, I used the word evolve.

DISCIPLES

He that has a Gospel

To loose upon Mankind,

Though he serve it utterly-

Body, soul and mind-

Though he go to Calvary

Daily for its gain-

It is his Disciple

Shall make his labour vain.

Rudyard Kipling

In 1911 Pixley ka Isaka Seme pronounced, "Forget all the past differences among Africans and unite in one national organisation." The end result was the African National Congress, which, all current shenanigans aside, generally and successfully opposed political oppression in South Africa and served (and still does) as the source of political freedom for millions of South Africans. The nature of revolutions, however, is such that freedom fighters invariably end up as bureaucratic oppressors. Even Karl Marx dissociated himself from much of the 'Marxism' that sprang up in his lifetime. In terms of Kipling's verse above, how does Mandela feel today about the activities and public outpourings of modern ANC 'disciples' such as Julius Malema, Jimmy Manyi and Jacob Zuma? How would Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu or Chief Albert Luthuli react to the state of their 'gospel' today? And yes, ok, is modern Christianity really what Jesus was talking about? Would Frank Sinatra approve of the modern music industry? Would George Washington want to live in modern America? Do the disciples end up destroying the gospel of the saviour?

POLITICS, LIKE, SUCKS

How do you make people interested in politics?

And how do you then make them interested enough to get involved in politics?

How does a disinterested person become an activist?

Is it even worth attempting?

South Africa is/was a highly politicized country. Apartheid gave us all something to have an opinion about, a side to join, a cause to believe in, a future to fight for. Good or bad. We all cared, because the stakes were so high.

Yesterday, the students in both my Communication classes and Human Development classes gave a resounding thumbs-down to any kind of political interest.

“Do you watch the news on TV?”    NO!

“Do you read newspapers?”    NEVER!

“Do you go to political party rallies?”     WE JUST WANNA PARTY!

Last week at an otherwise great gig in Durban, the crowd just stared blankly during my songs that had political content (“Rant”, “A Luta Continua”, “Government Song” etc).

White, black, Indian or other, younger South Africans have not inherited the previous generation’s passion for political engagement. Most black kids I know love the ANC Youth League president Julius Malema because he’s a large personality, not because of anything inherently political he has to say. That’s normal: kids just want to be kids. We want to move on, not live in the past. That’s why Winston Churchill was voted out of office just after WW2.

So how do you politicize people?

How do you turn them on to their own political power?

How do you show kids that politics isn’t just boring old men in three-piece suits, but everything to do with their own future?

Above all, how do you encourage democratic people to act democratically, hold their own government accountable and actively oppose bad governance?

Your suggestions, please.

IDIOCRACY

My President informed the nation over the weekend that God has taken sides in South Africa, and that He is decidedly in the ANC’s corner. If that wasn’t enough, my President then said that a vote for the ANC in the upcoming municipal elections was a vote for heaven, and a vote for the opposition was a vote for hell. The Honourable Mr Zuma proclaimed the carrying of an ANC membership card as a sign of heaven’s blessing, and party spokesman Jackson Mthembu stood by these statements this morning with this: “We are, therefore, in agreement with the president that not voting for the ANC is tantamount to throwing your vote in burning hell”.

This has, of course, caused an uproar in our liberal democracy. As it should. Not because these statements are ‘offensive’, ‘blasphemous’ or even incendiary, all of which are matters of opinion. No, Mr Zuma’s remarks are merely stupid. We really are heading into Idiocracy, what with these “ANC=heaven” proclamations from On High, and Julius Malema eating sushi from Down Low. The burning question is: how did a nation like South Africa end up with people like this in charge? Do we deserve this? After all we endured and fought for and hoped for and prayed for? Is the legacy of Luthuli, Tambo, Tutu, Sisulu and Mandela going to be a cabal of tuna-munching, champagne-guzzling, bling-flinging morons?

Jackson Mthembu closed his statement with this absolute pearler: “Those who are ‘alarmed’ by [Zuma’s] expression are probably driven by jealousy for not having thought of the expression themselves.”

People of SA, these are our leaders!

They’re not blaspheming Anti-Christs, don’t let that distract you.

They’re just plain common-or-garden idiots.

The question really is, how do we get rid of them and get back to the business of forging a strong, vibrant, inclusive democracy?

Is that even still possible?

Your suggestions, please.