Overall Mayhem

Well who would have thought?  A dress code in Parliament? 

There is no written guide anywhere in existence that stipulates what you can wear or not wear into South African legislatures.  Instead, the conduct of Parliaments in other democracies has simply been borrowed as the “gold standard”.

Do I remember correctly that Pierre Trudeau once raised eyebrows by wearing sandals into Canadian Parliament?

Now the Economic Freedom Fighters have been wearing red overalls into the legislatures, and the ruling alliance is literally seeing red!  In the case of Gauteng province legislature, the red overalls have been banned.  This week that caused 50 000 “fighters” to descend on their provincial legislature, force their way in, and stage a sit-in.

These guys really know how to capture the news headlines, and how to win the support of the people that they identify with, the ones they represent.  It seems like a triviality, but let me ruminate on this a bit…

James 2: 2 – 4

Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

The red berets of EFF say that the gains of the first 20 years of democratic rule have been too uneven.  SOME black people are better off, in a growing middle class, but MOST have not yet felt the economic gains.  So they are trying to set themselves apart from the “centrist” black people in government, and coming too parliament in overalls is their way of identifying with the miners, gas jockeys, waitresses and farm workers that they claim to they represent.  It is a clever approach that is winning them a huge amount of publicity.  Especially among youth…

By the time the next election rolls around, youth (under 35s) will constitute more than half the electorate.  So the EFF are thinking strategically.

Good habits

St Francis of Assisi also took exception to the unequitable concentration of wealth, particularly the church’s role in this.  Echoes of this thinking are being heard from Pope Francis I.  He has said that we should drive “humble cars” and he is saying a lot by his own lifestyle.  He has declined to occupy the Vatican Palace, and lives in an apartment with some other priests and youth.  There are rumours (reminiscent of the Scarlet Pimpernel) that he slips out occasionally at night to help feed the poor in Rome’s soup kitchens.

I found the next 6 paragraphs on Google:

The word "friar" comes from the Latin word "frater", meaning "brother". When St. Francis founded a religious community, he intended its members to live as brothers without distinction of rank, title, or education.

Capuchins are a religious community of both lay brothers and ordained priests. Yet, in the spirit of St. Francis, friars - lay and ordained - see themselves as brothers, as equals, with no one greater or less than the next, respectful to one another and to all of creation. This humility is a characteristic still evidenced in the lives and even the name of Capuchins, who go by the title OFM Cap., meaning Order of Friars Minor, Capuchin.

People sometimes comment, "How can you tell who's a priest and who's a brother?" With Capuchin Franciscan friars, you can't, and it is a testimony to their style of life that emphasizes the common brotherhood that St. Francis created.

A "habit" is the official garb that identifies a religious man or woman as a member of their individual order or community. The word came into use as it was the habit of religious men and women to daily dress in their respective, distinctive clothing.

St. Francis not only wanted to serve the poor; he wanted to be poor. When he devised a habit for his brothers, he chose the clothing typically worn by the poor: a plain brown robe with a hood for protection, a cord fastened around one's waist, and sandals for one's feet. It is the habit that Capuchins wear yet to this day.

Capuchins received their name because of the long, distinctive hood that is part of their habit, a hood that in Italian is called a "capuche".

Now, if I am not mistaken, a cuppa of coffee with a hood of frothy milk on it is another good habit!  But how many poor people can afford one these days?!  Maybe EFF can take that question up with Parliament’s cafeteria?

So I see the “overall mayhem” as both symbolic and significant.  Lifestyle audits are needed both of government leaders and of church leaders.  I have read that Pope Francis has reined in a few extravagant bishops on this note?

C4L has taken steps to scale down and re-dimension itself.  It has also chosen quite intentionally to focus more on youth and more on enterprise development.

James the brother of Jesus, (I think he’s the one they called James the Just?) asks if we have not discriminated among ourselves?  He rightly points to the attitudes that undergird such behavior.  His question is incisive:  have we become judges with evil thought?  I have to say that the arrogance of those in power is manifest most clearly in their spending crazes – from the Arms Deal to Inkandla.  Tenderpreneurs are South Africa’s public enemy number one.

Beware the prosperity gospel and the pastors driving flashy cars and wearing rings on several fingers.

I have a lot of time for the Fransciscan Cappuchins and for their fraternal approach.  I think it would be better for the ruling alliance to dress down, than for the Economic Freedom Fighters to dress up.

Three Key Themes Revisited

Earlier this year, C4L launched three blogsites, on three themes that seemed distinct, important, and recurrent in our bulletins and prayer letters over 7 years.  The trilogy includes:

1. Altruism, philanthropy and missions
2. Leadership (which frequently raises related questions around non-racialism)
3. Youth

Well, today’s Sunday Independent just made it too easy for me!  I simply cannot resist sharing with you some tasty and nourishing morsels from it…

On Youth                                                                               www.trilogy-youth.blogspot.com

There is an article by Craig Dodds called “Young bloods paint parly red”.  Here are some excerpts:

The changing of the guard has begun.  It may have been that President Jacob Zuma was not completely fighting fit when he delivered his State of the nation Address on Tuesday, but he brought into sharp focus a telling contrast between the political veterans and the young Turks now stalking the corridors of power.

“You are a man of tradition – a tradition of empty promises,” EFF commander-in-chief Julius Malema mocked.  “You can’t tell me what to say,” Malema told National Council of Provinces chairwoman Thandi Modise when she ordered him to withdraw a remark about Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande’s “factional tendencies”.  On that occasion he complied, eventually, but on Thursday evening he finally earned his ejection from the House when he refused to withdraw a statement that the ANC government had “massacred” 34 miners at Marikana.

All of this was highly distracting, and set off a social media frenzy seldom achieved by parliamentary debate.  But it is clear the game has changed and the ANC, in particular, will have to adapt.  For one thing, it finds itself in the novel position of being painted as a party of the status quo, serving the interests of white capital, as Malema put it.  It has never been attacked so effectively by a party it cannot dismiss as either inconsequential or as a remnant of the old order – its favoured method of dismantling opposition criticism in the past.

But the real Achilles heel may prove to be the age of its top leadership… we are a young country, and getting younger.  According to Census 2011, almost 60% of the population was under the age of 35.  But older ANC leaders who have waited their turn for a bite at the presidency or a spot in the higher echelons my find the ship has already sailed for their generation.

Mouseland

Mouseland – A political fable first told by Clarence Gillis and later made famous by Tommy Douglas in Canada in 1944 has been paraphrased.

The Moral of the Story

As leader of the CCF amd later the NDP, Douglas used this story many times to show in a humorous way how Canadians fail to recognize that neither of the two major parties were truly interested in what mattered to ordinary citizens; yet Canadians continued to vote for them.

The story cleverly deals with the false assumption by some people that CCF'ers (NDP'ers) are Communists. The ending shows Tommy Douglas has faith that someday socialism, which recognizes human rights and dignity, will win over capitalism and the mere pursuit of wealth and power.

The parallels with the 2014 election in South Africa are self-evident.

Mouseland (paraphrase)

This is a story about a place called Mouseland…

Mouseland was a place where all the little mice lived and played, were born and died. And they lived much the same as you and I do.

They even had a Parliament. And every five years they had an election. They used to walk to the polls and cast their ballots. Some of them even got a ride to the polls. (And got a ride for the next five years afterwards too!) They were just like you and me. And every time on election day all the little mice used to go to the ballot box and they used to elect a government. A government made up of big, fat, white cats.

Now if you think it strange that mice should elect a government made up of cats, you just look at the history of South Africa and maybe you'll see that they aren't the only ones who get confused about who to elect.

Now I'm not saying anything against the cats. They were nice fellows. They conducted their government with dignity. They passed good laws - that is, laws that were good for cats. But the laws that were good for cats weren't very good for mice. One of the laws said that mouseholes had to be big enough so a cat could get his paw in. Another law said that mice could only travel at certain speeds - so that a cat could get his breakfast without too much effort.

All the laws were good laws. For cats. But, oh, they were hard on the mice. And life was getting harder and harder. And when the mice couldn't put up with it any more, they decided something had to be done about it. So they went en masse to the polls. They voted the white cats out. They voted in the black cats.

Now the black fat cats had put up a terrific campaign. They said: "All that Mouseland needs is more vision." They said: "The trouble with Mouseland is those round mouseholes we all use. If you vote us in we'll establish square mouseholes." And they did. And the square mouseholes were twice as big as the round mouseholes, and now the cat could get both his paws in. And life was tougher than ever.

And when they couldn't take that anymore, they tried a government half black cats and half white cats. And they called that a ruling alliance.

You see, my friends, the trouble wasn't with the colour of the cat. The trouble was that they were cats. And because they were cats, they naturally looked after cats instead of mice.

Presently there came along one little mouse who had an idea. My friends, watch out for that plump little fellow with an idea. And he said to the other mice, "Look fellows, why do we keep on electing a government made up of cats? Why don't we elect a government made up of mice?" "Oh," they said, "he's a Communist.  He hasn’t paid his taxes - lock him up!" So they put him in jail.

But I want to remind you: that you can lock up a mouse and you can lock up a man - but you can't lock up an idea.

Why whites must vote for the EFF

A reply to Andile Mngxitama
Why should white people vote for the radical new political party led by Julius Malema?
You raise many provocative points.  But they tend to be overstated, even though I agree with your conclusion that not only black people but all people including whites have good reason to vote for the EFF.
You say that “a settler minority that has become an economic, political and cultural majority in a foreign land it has usurped.”  This is an overstatement.  Certainly economic freedom has not yet been achieved.  But politically and culturally this is now a rainbow nation.
You say that “whites haven't even bordered to learn the native languages, instead they have forced blacks to learn white languages and as part of cultural domination.” Is everyone on the planet learning to speak Chinese just because of their numbers?  Look at America which adopted a single lingua franca intentionally as a way to unite its citizens from diverse ethnic backgrounds.  Some rational voices are saying that this might be worth considering in SA too. 
You say that “whites owe blacks such a huge debt they can never repay in full.”  This is an extreme view.  European expansion, like Chinese today, was a kind of economic development.  Certainly there was a lot of external investment in Africa.  In the real world, investors expect a return and you just have to factor that in somehow.
You say that “the majority of whites will respond as all guilty people do, by denial and derision” but that you still need to “indulge whites sometimes, so that no one says I didn't know on the day of reckoning.”  Well sometimes your expectations in framing questions can foreshadow the answer.  As for me, I welcomed your rebuke and signposting of a way forward for all citizens of all colours.  That is why I am already an active EFF supporter.
You say that voting for the EFF “provides a path to salvation out of the terrible burden of unearned privileges of whiteness”.  Yebo I agree.  Did you know that since the Pope was elected about a year ago, that he has not moved into the Vatican palace?  He lives in an apartment with some priests and youth.  Please note that there are white citizens looking for a path of salvation out of the gridlock.
You mention that “new relations can be founded on a different foundation completely.” Then your line of thought goes on to “redress”.  You are stereotyping whites when you say that we all see blacks as only cleaners, domestic workers and hungry desperate job seekers.  This is really quite out-dated, and sounds prejudiced.  The same goes for your generalization of the “status of whites as beneficiaries of theft and genocide.” Their denial may run too deep as you suggest, but I disagree that all whites are supremacists.  Some are true democrats and genuinely like the prospect of a rainbow nation.
You say that poor and landless whites show a race solidarity that makes them go against their best interests.  Agreed that they should rather vote for the EFF platform.  However, you overlook the fact that many white intellectuals articulate the conditions of the poor and the causes – like Sampie Terreblanche who exposes Neoliberalism and the failure of structural adjustment to bring substantial improvement to MOST citizens.
You mention race prejudice as if this was only a white curse.  What about the Rwandan genocide (Tsutis are Nilotics and Hutus are Bantus – different races)?  What about xenophobia?  All South Africa’s children – not just white children – need to heed your best line:  “For whites to vote EFF is to vote for a shared future that works.”  Thank you for that insight.
You say that “the privileged are not in the habit of voluntarily surrendering”.  You overlook the deep influence on Western culture of St Francis of Assisi.  He shed that white burden that you speak of.  Finally a Pope has chosen his name – evidence that not all whites carry the burden of power and affluence.
Pope Francis compared Neoliberalism to a cup.  Economic success is supposed to fill the cup to overflowing – causing a “trickle down” for the social agenda. Then he added that the problem is… they keep making the cup bigger!  Exactly!  You don’t have to be black to see that.  The system is rigged.  No matter the colour of those who are in charge.
You mention that “Blacks also have a burden to redress the past”.  Pan-Africanism has always been divided about whether an inclusivist approach (a black man in the White House) or an exclusivist approach (Africa for Africans) is best.  Malcolm X was assassinated by other blacks (not whites) defending their own intolerance.  There is such a thing as Black Supremacy.  Economic Freedom is not ultimately about colour but about sharing – redistributing wealth to reduce inequality.
Democracy is basically a place where two forces collide – freedom and equality.
EFF is surely seeking more equality.  A modicum of freedom has been gained, but the “new relations” between haves and have-nots cannot take place until the playing field is leveled.  More economic language about redressing inequality is more likely to attract white votes to the EFF than tirades of about racial differences in the past.  Look to the future.  Don’t look at they way things are and ask Why?  Look to the way they could be and ask Why not? 

Soapbox:

Why whites must vote for the EFF

20 Mar 2014 07:29
By Andile Mngxitama
The Economic Freedom Fighters are the only party truly set on redressing apartheid inequalities, and through that whites can finally find salvation.

Why should white people vote for the radical new political party led by Julius Malema? The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) does not mince its words, it stands for the expropriation of land without compensation and nationalisation of mines and banks. EFF basically wants to end the 350 years of white domination that started with the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck in 1652. The white and black relations over this time have been defined by conquest and subjection of black people by a settler minority that has become an economic, political and cultural majority in a foreign land it has usurped.
Whites domination has been so complete that in South Africa,  that whites haven't even bordered to learn the native languages, instead they have forced blacks to learn white languages and as part of cultural domination even forced blacks to have white names for easy instruction as servants. In fact, in the eyes of whites blacks are impersonal mass of labour suppliers, we could all be Pieter, John or whatever the individual white wishes. Growing up in the old Transvaal now North West province, it was common occurrence that a random white would call a black they have never met before by any name they wished and the black would sheepishly comply to the erasure of their beings. Basically, whites could do as they wish with blacks, literally.
Jani Allan has asked me on Twitter to write her a letter, to try persuade her as a white woman to vote for EFF. As a Black Consciousness adherent, I generally have nothing to do with whites, I honestly believe that whites owe blacks such a huge debt they can never repay in full. But I also believe the responsibility for redress is a burden of black people alone. We blacks must determine what it would take to get reparations without regards to the feelings of those who benefited from our oppression.
Allan is the disgraced and ostracised one-time supermodel and influential Sunday Times columnist. She is currently in the USA, working as an overqualified waitress. Allan has been niggerised for her alleged romantic transgressions with the now late arch white supremacist Eugène Terre'Blanche?. Those old enough would remember the scandal of peeping through keyholes and tattered green underpants. Vile stuff of friends' betrayal and tabloid destruction of personalities.
The treatment Allan suffered is generally what the white world reserves for blacks, that is why I believe she has been temporarily niggerised, a little like what Hittler did with Jews, the holocaust is what defines whites relations to blacks since the begging of our encounter. Jews were “"niggerised", as the Afro-American scholar Cornell West says.
I have a weird sympathy with Allan, I believe she was punished as part of the general white psyche designed to shirk responsibility by sacrificing one or two whites to absolve the rest from blame. Allan’s association with Terre'Blanche was used as a mechanism to claim moral superiority so that collective accounting for the oppression of blacks is removed from view. She is basically a scapegoat. Anyway, it's almost four months since Allan asked me to write the letter. I know such a letter would be a futile exercise, the majority of whites will respond as all guilty people do, by denial and derision. I will be called a mad racist. But I think even then we must indulge whites sometimes, so that no one says I didn't know on the day of reckoning.
Whites must vote EFF because it's the only party that provides a path to salvation out of the terrible burden of unearned privileges of whiteness founded on the mass murder of blacks. The Khoisan were decimated from the surface of the earth by whites. Furthermore, the current wealth and relative security provided by suburban life while blacks are condemned to townships and squatter camps is a direct outcome of land theft and forcing blacks into a labouring class in the kitchens, gardens, farms and mines of white owners. Whites' wealth is created on the slave wages of blacks. Whites are the beneficiaries of genocide, land theft and are a group that lives off of the continued exploitation of blacks - what we can call the generational white curse. No white is immune or above this curse. The circle has to be broken so that new relations can be founded on a different foundation completely.
There is a truth that can't be shied away from forever: as long as there is no historical redress, whites will correctly be seen as usurpers. It doesn't matter how long they have been here, so long as they have the land and wealth and blacks are excluded then the curse shall cascade to generations to come. And every generation of whites shall try to perform its position as master as we see with the emergence of neo-Nazi groups at white universities by white children born after 1994. They believe they are the master race, and the material reality confirms this terrible belief. And why wouldn't they, when the only blacks they see are the cleaners, domestic workers and hungry desperate job seekers that come to their parents?
EFF seeks to end these relations of coloniality and white supremacy through radical economic redress. This is the only path to black salvation out of the indignity of poverty, dispossession and defeat. Ironically, the same path is the only way to break the white curse so that the status of whites as beneficiaries of theft and genocide can end. But whites have over the ages covered themselves in hypocritical justifications, including the absurdity that their relative comfort comes from hard work, when it has been blacks doing all the hard work. The denial runs too deep.
White supremacy breaks down class differences amongst whites. It creates white solidarity against reparations claims of blacks. It has been interesting to see how relatively poor whites, including those struggling to pay their rent and bonds would protest against land redistribution. These are landless whites. Land in South Africa is owned by only about 50 000 white families. Similarly, it has been a marvel to see how, on social media, whites have decided to stand with Johan Rupert, the global capitalist who owns large chunks of our economy against EFF. It is race solidarity that makes whites go against their best interests.
If whites read the EFF Manifesto without race prejudice (an impossibility) they would have seen that in fact, justice is good for all, more so when it redresses historical injustices. Without breaking the white curse, our children and their children and all our progeny shall be confronted with this ugly reality. It can be said that white supremacy has a massive blind spot and parties like the Democratic Alliance are exploiting it for short term gains. Black are a majority in South Africa, sooner or later they will claim their redress and lets us hope, like the poet Don Mattera, that it wouldn’t be too late for the whites' children whose fathers raped the sea and sand.
For whites to vote EFF is to vote for a shared future that works. But as we all know the privileged are not in the habit of voluntarily surrendering their power. This leaves the dispossessed with no option but to reclaim their lost land and dignity by any means necessary. Whites have the burden of whiteness, a burden that they have no immediate desire to shed. Blacks also have a burden to redress the past; it is a burden that can’t be tolerated much longer.
Andile Mngxitama is a commissar of the Economic Freedom Fighters.

Inclusion - from BEE to YEE

DA presidential candidate Mamphela Ramphele says South Africa deserves better than Black Economic Empowerment, even though it was a noble idea.  “In that greatness that is us, there are better ways of creating a more inclusive (economic) system,” she said.

Ramphele was speaking shortly after DA leader Helen Zille had announced that Ramphele would be the party’s presidential candidate for the 2014 general election.

Gwede Mntashe’s reaction to this announcement was a quintessential ANC one-liner about a “rent-a-black” strategy.  The ANC always plays the race card.  Pan-Africanism has perennially been divided between the inclusivists who are inclined to assimilation or “mainstreaming”, and the exclusivists who believe that Africa is only for Africans.  This is the underlying sentiment.

The debate rages whether BEE is really affirmative action, or whether affirmative action in favour of the huge majority is just benefiting an elite.  Yes, wealth is being transferred to blacks, but not to all blacks, and not fairly.  This is exacerbated by greed that manifests itself in both waste and corruption.

Youth Economic Empowerment

YEE is the order of the day in election year.  BEE is waning; youth power is waxing.  Age apartheid is a major issue in the 2014 elections, as unemployment has replaced AIDS as the primary social evil in this decade.   What good is freedom when you are unemployed for so long that you become unemployable?

Oliver Tambo said: “A nation that does not take care of its youth doesn’t have a future.  And doesn’t deserve one.”  Yet those with jobs in South Africa continue to get pay increases, while the number of school leavers grows every year – who have little hope of finding work.  Mo Ibrahim warned of a coming “tsunami of youth”.  Neither is government employing everybody the correct answer!

Where there should be sharing, there is protectionism.  Where there should be nurture, there is deprivation.  Nkruma said that Africa should not look to the East or to the West, but it should look ahead.  To the future.  Whereas South Africa still hasn’t gotten over its past.  Mamphela Ramphele calls it woundedness.  Government especially should stop blaming apartheid for its own lackluster performance.

Only from citizens healed of this malaise can come new attitudes like: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”  This is the opposite of the African proverb that says “A goat eats where it is tethered”.  It is very spiritual.  It is conversion.  Matters like this are far too important for politicians or even judges; this is the work of priests and pastors.  To paraphrase the Rev. Martin Luther King:

We come to our nation's rulers to cash a check.

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution,

they were signing a promissory note to which every South African was to fall heir.

This note was a promise that all women and men

Yes, young as well as old

would be guaranteed paying work and sufficiency.

It is obvious today that the nation has defaulted on this promissory note

insofar as so many of her citizens are unemployed.

Instead of honoring this sacred obligation,

South Africa has given its youth a bad check,

a check that has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.

We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults

of resources and opportunity in this nation.

And so we've come to cash this check,

a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed indaba to remind South Africa of the fierce urgency

This is no time to engage in the luxury of fat-cat salaries

or to take the tranquilizing drug of patronage

Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.

Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of corruption

to the sunlit path of honesty and transparency

Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of malpractice

to the solid rock of integrity

Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

Power to the Young People

You have heard of people power, gender power, black power and now this.

Africa is relatively progressive in gender terms:

• In Asia, 88% of parliamentarians are men and 12% are women
• In North America, 79% of parliamentarians are men and 21% are women
• In Africa, 76% of parliamentarians are men and 24% are women
• In South Africa, 71% of parliamentarians are men and 29% are women

South Africa is leading in this respect, but there is not yet full gender balance.

The 2013 MDG Report says: Among 22 of the 48 countries where elections were held in 2012, the use of either legislated or voluntary quotas (usually in combination with a proportional representation system) were largely responsible for the above-average increase in the number of women members of parliament. Where quotas have been legislated, women took 24 per cent of parliamentary seats; with voluntary quotas, they occupied 22 per cent of seats. Where no quotas were used, women took just 12 per cent of seats, well below the global average.

The Quota System

In a Democracy, everyone is supposed to be represented, to have a voice.  Of course minors (under the age of 18) don’t vote, so they are supposedly represented by their elders.  But what do you do when two-thirds of the population is under age 35?

In C4L programming, we found that the best counselors for orphans and vulnerable children are not pastors or teachers, who are older, but peers.  We deployed 18 – 28 year olds to care and support 8 – 18 year olds in extra-curricular Kids Clubs.  This only made sense because of the age proximity.

What about parliament?  Here are some United Nations statistics

• World-wide, 6% of the parliamentarians are under 35
• In Africa, 11% of the parliamentarians are under 35

Once again Africa is relatively progressive, but still way short of equity.  Why not introduce a quota system for age representivity?

The 2013 MDG Report also says:  The gender gap in employment persists, with a 24.8 percentage point difference between men and women in the employment-to-population ratio in 2012. The gap is most acute in Northern Africa, Southern Asia and Western Asia, where women are far less likely to be employed than their male counterparts. The differences in the employment-to-population ratio between men and women in these three regions approached 50 percentage points in 2012.

Young people have borne the brunt of the crisis.  Negative labour market trends for youth accounted for 41 per cent of the decline in the global employment-to-population ratio since 2007, due to rising unemployment and falling participation.

It is a well-known fact that the rate of youth unemployment is much higher than the overall unemployment rate.  In South Africa, 75% of the ranks of the jobless are under 35.  Yet they do not themselves have a proportionate voice in Parliament.  Not yet.

Youth Power

The ANC Youth League was once considered to be the way the voice of Youth was heard.  Under senior pastor Zuma you had a youth pastor named Malema.  Whether it was a good configuration or not, it is functionally useless for the 2014 elections.

So who speaks for the Youth?  Who will the under-35s vote for?  If two-thirds of the population is under 35 and those under 18 cannot vote – do the math!  About half of the electorate in 2014 is between 18 and 35.  (Given that the average life expectancy is in the low 50s.)  That’s about the same as the gender baseline – half/half!

The DA has now merged with Agang, with Mamphela Ramphele as its candidate for president.  But guess what?  She is 67 years old.  A woman yes, but she is going to pull the average age of Parliament up, not down!  She is 5 years older than Helen Zille and Patricia de Lille, who are both 62.  It’s reminiscent of Chernenko taking over from Andropov!

The only youth-led party out there is the EFF (Economic Freedom Fighters).  They are led by Julius Malema who is 33 years old.  That’s the same age that Thomas Sankara was when he became President of then-Upper Volta.  He changed his country’s name to Burkina Faso.  In both the major languages there, that means “Land of Upright Men.”  What would it take to make South Africa fit that description, instead of broken promises, waste and graft?

Sankara followed the formula that we need in 2014 – conservative in terms of the rule of law and liberal in terms of economic freedom.  Thus he was both right and left at the same time.  He reigned in on waste and corruption.  Usually that is best done by dictators, remembering that before Solon’s experiment with Democracy in ancient Athens, there had already been a millennium of prosperity.  In other words, you don’t need to vote to prosper – you just need safe and secure conditions for business and trade.  Sankara was tough on waste and corruption.  For both bleed away resources that are needed to help the poor.

Then he also made many radical pro-poor changes.  For example, in the capital city, Sankara converted the army's provisioning store into a state-owned supermarket open to everyone (the first supermarket in the country).  Innovation.  He redistributed land from the feudal landlords to the peasants. Wheat production increased from 1700 kg per hectare to 3800 kg per hectare. Equal opportunity.  His government banned female genital mutilation, forced marriages and polygamy; while appointing females to high governmental positions and encouraging them to work outside the home and stay in school even if pregnant.  Gender… and youth rights.

Albert Einstein said:  "The world will not evolve past its current state of crisis by using the same thinking that created the situation".  We need more young people in Parliament, to think out of the box.  We need to drive “humble cars” and end an era of “unfettered capitalism”.

The Bible and the Almanac

We lament the departure of this great artist and human being yesterday.

When Seeger wrote If I had a hammer in 1949, Bono was but a twinkle in his father's eye.  But that song has become like our International anthem.

I wrote the tribute below in 2007 - to my own father on the occasion of his winning of the Order of Canada for humanitarian service.  It was never before posted as a C4L Bulletin, so this is not a re-run.  All I can say is this gives you some idea of the stature of Pete Seeger - the yardstick against which I measure greatness.

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The Bible and the Almanac

In the 1940s, two musical groups were formed which would have a great influence on my life.  One was called the Med's Gospel Team, in Canada, because the members were all studying medicine.  One of the team members would later get married and become my father.  The other was called the Almanac Singers, in the USA, which included Pete Seeger and Woodie Guthrie.  Obviously the emphasis of these groups differed – one was evangelistic and the other was social/cultural.  The better known group (by far) had chosen its name out of its belief that most farm homes had two books – a Bible and an almanac.

Maybe this explains why my two favorite forms of music are hymns and protest songs?  I love to hear my father playing hymns on the piano, and I still agree with Pete Seeger's comment at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival – when he said he wished that he had an axe to cut the cord of Bob Dylan's microphone!  This because Dylan had just been accompanied by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and no one could hear the message in his music.

As a young man, Pete Seeger embraced the conviction that songs are a way of binding people to a cause.  John and Charles Wesley were the minister and the musician that launched Methodism.  Seeger's father - a music academic - wrote that the necessary question to ask was not “Is it good music?” but “What is the music good for?”

Pete Seeger's influence is amazing.  Dylan was not just Seeger's heir apparent, perhaps more of his legitimization.  Johnny Cash was but a teen idol until he re-recorded his song Folsom Prison Blues in a new setting – not in a concert hall or recording studio, but live at Folsom Prison.  Songs like Man in Black, that influenced me personally, put deeper meaning in the music and that placed Cash (the other JC in my life) in a whole new league.  He in turn influenced others - like Bono, who in the Cash tradition usually dresses in black.  And Bruce Springsteen, who was asked to record a tribute album to Seeger in 1997.  In the end, he recorded but did not include the song that has surely influenced my life more than any other... it just asserted itself too forcefully among the others in his collection:

            It's the hammer of justice

            It's the bell of freedom

            It's the song about the love between my brothers and my sisters

            All over this land

No wonder Bono would be named Man of the Year by TIME magazine, for following Seeger's lyrical advice - and example.  I have certainly tried to live my life in alignment to these lyrics.  Recently, Seeger was introduced at a “pro bono” school concert with these words: “He's probably the person who's done more for this country than anyone I can think of.”

You need both spirituality and activism – Bible and almanac.  Upon graduation from medical school, the members of the Med's Gospel Team all became medical missionaries.  They headed for three continents - into Ecuador, Zambia and China.  However, en route to China my father stopped in Europe to study tropical medicine.  During that year (1949) the Bamboo Curtain came down and missionaries were no longer able to enter.  So he diverted to the Belgian Congo, where I was born.

The principle that both groups shared is that all human beings are created equal.  In the mid-20^th century, this meant either you could either become a missionary or a socialist – Bible or almanac, I suppose.  The medical missionaries exerted huge influence in remote parts of the Third World.  Meanwhile, Seeger got called up before Congress's Un-American Activities Committee.  For pleading the First Amendment (not the Fifth) he was indicted for contempt of Congress, but this was later overturned by an appeals court.  Advocacy is seen by many as a higher calling than service provision, but it often comes at a cost in terms of your reputation.  But having a bad reputation does not always mean that you lose your influence.  Medical missionaries in countries that joined the Second World (communist bloc) often lost their reputation when they were called reactionaries, but this seldom diminished their influence.

Here is a story recorded by Alec Wilkinson in the New Yorker (April 17, 2006).  It is told by a man named John Cronin, who is the director of the Pace Academy for the Environment, at Pace University.  Cronin has known Seeger for thirty years.  “About two winters ago, on Route 9 outside Beacon, one winter day, it was freezing – rainy and slushy, a miserable winter day – the war in Iraq is just heating up and the country's in a poor mood,” Cronin said.  “I'm driving north, and on the other side of the road, I see from the back a tall, slim figure in a hood and coat.  I'm looking, and I can tell it's Pete.  He's standing there all by himself, and he's holding up a big piece of cardboard that clearly has something written on it.  Cars and trucks are going by him.  He's getting wet.  He's holding the homemade sign above his head – he's very tall, and his chin is raised the way he does when he sings – and he's turning the sign in a semi-circle, so that the drivers can see it as they pass, and some people are honking and waving at him, and some people are giving him the finger.  He's eighty-four years old.  I know he's got some purpose, of course, but I don't know what it is.  What struck me is that, whatever his intentions are, and obviously he wants people to notice what he's doing, he wants to make an impression – anyway, whatever they are, he doesn't call the newspapers and say, “I'm Pete Seeger, here's what I'm going to do.”  He doesn't cultivate publicity.  That isn't what he does.  He's far more modest than that.  He would never make a fuss.  He's just standing out there in the cold and the sleet like a scarecrow.  I go a little bit down the road, so that I can turn and come back, and when I get him in view again, this solitary and elderly figure, I see that what he's written on the sign is Peace.”

Advocacy is legitimized by social activism.  It is important to be out there, doing your part, not just speaking on talk shows and stuff.  Which brings me to the purpose of writing these reflections.  My father is almost as old as Pete Seeger, and he is still an activist too.  Already in 2007 he has spent two months overseas, helping out his favorite cause.  It was good to observe him back in a position of influence – helping to bring about intellectual and attitudinal change...

But best of all, for a career that has included both overseas and domestic health service, and for his example of serving others through faith-based organizations, he was awarded the Order of Canada this month.  This is the highest civilian honor that can be bestowed on a citizen, and he deserves it.

This month also, TIME magazine released its annual issue containing the 100 most influential people in the world.  I was wondering how many of those listed will have the staying power of these two personal heroes of mine - one who taught me to revere the Bible, and the other who wrote protest songs for the Almanac Singers?  To love my neighbor, and to hammer out injustice.  If only two of the 100 can do so, the world will be a better place for our grandchildren.