District 9 :: Spacism in the Kasi

There is a raw and maverick quality to the short film Alive in Joburg. Ever seen a prawn Poleepkwa in a bio-suit toss a casspir at a pair of pestering soldiers? Not only did the 2005 project showcase some slick computer-generated imagery but it also put a curious spin on the theme of discrimination by dropping found-footage from the Apartheid era into a story about intolerance towards stranded aliens. South Africa’s subsequent xenophobic attacks bathed the piece in a glow of surrealism and made it even more clever than it was intended to be. The compelling stylistic amalgam earned director Neill Blomkamp a string of jobs to promote the release of Halo 3 and got him earmarked to direct a feature based on the Halo franchise. When the project fell through, Peter Jackson came to the rescue by offering to produce a feature-length re-working of Alive in Joburg. Jackson stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out US$30 million in loose change. Blomkamp went to the kasi and came back with District 9.

Technically a product of New Zealand and the United States, District 9 is set in South Africa in the late twentieth century and features live action shot on location in the townships of Johannesburg. What makes it different to other international productions that exploit South African themes and stories (i.e. Invictus) is that it is directed by someone who grew up in South Africa and features South Africans in the lead roles. The fact that Blomkamp is an ex-South African is significant insomuch as he uses the long arm of science fiction as a tool to engage the Apartheid experience. What else but Blomkamp’s displacement from life in South Africa as well as his need as an immigrant to resolve his South African identity could result in such a schizophrenic rendering of the social and political environment he grew up in?

District 9 has exposure to the SABC of the 1980s written all over it. The mock news footage in the film speaks to white South Africa’s mediated experience of the realities of township life and reminds us that our contemporary understanding of Apartheid “unrest” is predominantly televisual. We tend to forget that township tours in the 80s were restricted to gun-wielding security forces, meaning that life in the slums was imaginary for those who had never been there. The mystery of life in urban squalor has since spawned a genre of films that brings the experience of township life into vivid existence for the international bourgeoisie. While “slumsploitation” has been delivered in racy packages likes City of God, Tsotsi and Slumdog Millionaire, District 9 is by far the most radical township fantasy the world has ever seen.

In a nutshell, District 9 uses a documentary framework (i.e. Carte Blache) to tell the story of a man’s strange biological metamorphosis (i.e. The Fly) and how it facilitates solidarity with a homesick alien (i.e. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial). Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is reminiscent of fictional Afrikaans forebears like the quirky, pathos-driven characters of Leon Schuster and the stammering biologist played by Marius Weyers in South Africa’s most famous contribution to world cinema to date. In fact, District 9 is probably the most profoundly South African film since The Gods Must Be Crazy. Both films use political incorrectness to mock prejudice and both are hinged on novel, captivating premises. However, after an inspired opening sequence that satirises modern life, The Gods Must Be Crazy descends into slapstick banality (albeit great entertainment). Similarly, everything conceptually brilliant about District 9 is told in the six minutes of Alive in Joburg. The allegorical spear at the centre of the feature does deliver some sharp thrusts but can’t support the narrative it’s yoked to and promptly self-destructs. Nevertheless, we do get to see guns that turn people into pasta sauce (which is what most people came for in the first place).

Xenophobia :: Fear of Zen

The word “xenophobia” is fraught with contradiction. It has kidnapped Zen from the realm of enlightenment and tossed it into a world of fear. A word that belongs to the shortest chapter in the dictionary, xenophobia is not only directed toward minorities but is a minority itself. Moreover, when pinned to the atrocities committed by South Africans in May 2008, the word slides from the tongue with clinical detachment.

Xenophobia seems to suggest that a combination of quantifiable conditions can account for violence and murder and evokes a less passionate outcry than the word “racism.” In contrast with racism, xenophobia is seen as an unfortunate result of complex socio-economic influences. In contrast with xenophobia, racism is considered an ethical perversion. Both acts are equally abhorrent yet one term is considerably “sexier” from an editorial point of view than the other.

Xenophobia is far more than the fear of strangers its etymology implies, far more sinister than unflattering assumptions about individuals based on their nationality or physical appearance, far more unfathomable than an innate collective mechanism designed to protect resources. The word is a linguistic cop-out designed to prevent reality from annihilating sanity. As long as we fail to see it as such, this strange brand of indiscriminate targeted violence will continue to elicit a cursory public response.

A little over a week ago, seven Zimbabwe nationals died in a fire in a township near Worcester. Less than seven lines were dedicated to the story on IOL on Monday 23 February. The shack was “allegedly set alight” according to the report. The story reappears on Tuesday 24 February with the announcement of a murder probe via Sapa as well as a xenophobia probe according to an IOL writer.

On Wednesday 25 February, IOL posts a Cape Argus report that states that a suspect is to appear in court and mentions witnesses describing that “youngsters surrounded the shack, armed with knobkerries and sticks.” According to the residents, the uninvited guests “attacked the occupants, locked them in the shack and left them to die in the fire.” Despite the nationality of the victims and evidence of mob violence, police “ruled out xenophobia as the motive behind the attack.”

The latest and most comprehensive online report following the incident appears on a Zimbabwean site on Thursday 26 February. The ZBC News article reports a bungled robbery attempt on two Zimbabwe nationals who sought refuge in “a shack belonging to their compatriots.” The robbers then assembled “a reinforced group of about 10 to 15 people” who “doused the shack with an inflammable liquid that looked like fuel and set it alight.”

The fact that this mysterious story has created such a marginal blip in South Africa’s mediascape is worrisome. Given what occurred in South Africa last year, news like this demands adequate public response and debate. South Africans can’t afford to let even an alleged case of xenophobia escape scrutiny let alone the strange tale recounted above. If what it takes is a new word that strikes real fear into heart of the population, our scribes need to come up with something fast.

Zapiro :: Will Z News Survive?

The evolution of democracy is hinged on people’s ability to shake the cage and when it comes sticking it to the zookeepers, few are as elegantly insubordinate as Jonathan Shapiro. Political cartoonist for the Mail & Guardian and Sunday Times, Zapiro has been in the game for over twenty years. It was during Nelson Mandela’s presidency that he injected himself into the national consciousness with flattering depictions of Madiba. In recent years, however, he has found a nemesis in the form of Jacob Zuma, creating iconic renderings of the President of the ANC with a showerhead protruding from his oddly-shaped cranium.

Last year, Zapiro collaborated on a television concept that has transformed his caricatures into puppets for a mock current affairs show entitled Z News. The idea was given legs at the SABC but has since been mysteriously paralyzed. Some suggest that the show’s uncertain future stems from attempts to censor its political content while others say that it simply lacks broad appeal. Nevertheless, fragments of a pilot episode have generated viral interest on the Internet. Queue Thabo Mbeki performing “I Will Survive” in drag on Idols.

Z News describes itself as “the most fun you can have with latex with your clothes on.” Although it is populated with profoundly South African characters like Godzille, it is by no means an original idea. Britain’s Spitting Image is its key ancestor and, given the fact that the godfather of the genre has spawned so many similar shows internationally, it’s hard to imagine that South Africa’s biggest audiences aren’t ready to exercise their right to mock political authority.

Julius Malema :: DIY Album Covers

“Thought leader” Khaya Dlanga has produced a series of profoundly South African album covers. Julius Malema’s Greatest Hits feature the miscalculated blunders of the President of the ANC Youth League pasted onto COPE election flyers. Albeit work of viral campaigning genius, these randomly snatched quotes do little to concretise the vision of a party that magically materialised no more than four months ago. Instead, COPE is positioned as the party to vote for in order not to vote for the ANC.

COPE can’t have expected to enter the national consciousness on its own two feet. With such little time on its hands, the fledgling party’s campaigning strategy can do little more than brandish an opposition flag and count on novelty appeal. Naturally, hinging its identity on the ANC is what it will take to carve out a piece of South Africa’s political pie. As such, COPE is raking in educated voters who are alienated by what Dlanga describes as Malema’s aptitude for eloquent buffoonery.

Malema certainly does have a knack for lending ammunition to the ANC’s opponents. His skills are such a conspiracy theorist might suggest that he is a COPE mole. If you examine the howler above, a little bit of deconstructive linguistics has a lot to say. Malema employs the zero conditional to express certainty. Put bluntly, the condition is that Zuma is corrupt and the result is that we want him. In a single sentence, Malema maligns Zuma, himself, the ANC and its constituency. Is this an act of suicide or is Malema on a quest to bring down the ANC from within?

Jo Ractliffe | David Goldblatt :: Preoccupied Terrain

Should photography draw attention to a specific space and time or is seeking to capture universality a more venerable undertaking? A conversation between esteemed South African photographers Jo Ractliffe and David Goldblatt (held at the National Gallery in Cape Town on Wednesday 25 February 09) was inadvertently hinged on this question. Goldblatt played the role of interlocutor and described the discussion as a “regression.” The process saw him interrogating the trajectory of Ractliffe’s career from past to present and culminated in an introduction to her recently published book.

Entitled Terreno Ocupado, Ractliffe’s most recent body of work assembles emblematic photographs of contemporary Luanda. Nevertheless, she explained that the images aspire to something transcendental. By way of example, she drew a connection between the overalls she photographed on an Angolan roadside and T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men.” In contrast, Goldblatt was more concerned with the work’s response to the particular social reality it depicted. The sample of work exhibited at the event (which included the ironically-named “Shack on the Boa Vista Cliff”) portrayed crumbling makeshift dwellings in Luanda’s slums.

What makes Ractliffe’s work interesting is the fact that both hard reality as well as universal aesthetics are at play. What’s more, given the subject matter of her recent work, this dichotomy is fiercely conflictive and far more profound than the difference of opinions that was at the centre of the conversation. Ractliffe’s slumscapes are framed in a way that brings aesthetic balance to what in reality is a horrific environment. From a distance, these black and white images are beautifully textured while up close we can identify offensive piles of rubbish. The experience raises the more significant question of how misery can be pleasing to the eye.

Barrack Obama :: Get Ahead Man

As the world grows more accustomed to the face at the helm of the United States, the phrase “first black president” is being less frequently tagged to the name Barack Obama. Given the history of discrimination in the United States, Obama’s achievement lent itself to being branded as symbolic of America’s progressive attitude towards race. The media, however, has all but exhausted this angle, providing an opportunity for free thinkers to reflect on what has really happened.

Naturally, President Obama’s physical appearance does have historical significance. In this respect, Obama’s inauguration provided an opportunity to reflect on America’s extraordinary Civil Rights Movement and the contributions of key African American figures to shifting the consciousness of the Unites States.

Nevertheless, by blindly dubbing Obama as “black,” the media has brought into play an old-school method of considering the slippery notion of race. Barack Obama is a person of dark-skinned Kenyan and light-skinned Hawaiian parentage. Describing him as “black” reflects a strain of binary mentality that harks back to America’s One-Drop Rule or South Africa’s profound Pencil Test.

What makes Barack Obama a really progressive choice from the perspective of race is that the fact that he is a figure who resists a simple racial tag. Ambiguity does a good job of dismantling categorical thinking. In reality, the concentration of melanin in Obama’s skin had as much to do with his success in the elections as the fact that his first name rhymes with Osama and his middle name is Hussein. For starters, he put together a much stronger campaign.

If American liberals insist on patting themselves on the back for breaking the mould, let them take pride in contributing to bringing about neoconservative regime change. As for the world’s most significant “first black president,” this title belongs to South Africa. Nevertheless, South Africa’s new national consciousness has yet to deal with prospect of a presidential candidate with a light complexion. Inconceivable? As a person of light-skinned Scottish and dark-skinned Jamaican parentage once said, “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery.”

Spud Part 2 :: Safe House

The Kwazulu-Natal Midlands is where John van de Ruit’s Spud novels are set. The “Kwazulu” part, however, was absent when the events in the books took place. Nevertheless, van de Ruit conceived a profoundly South African setting for his upmarket boys boarding school. He took a lesson from the old adage that “truth is stranger fiction” but names were changed to obscure the identity of the people and places involved.

Van de Ruit’s Spud novels are a South African publishing phenomenon. Despite our demographic penchant for not buying fiction, heads have popped up, ears are pricked, and hands are digging into pockets. Penguin has swept modesty aside and the first instalment’s cover now heralds the fact that not 60 000, not 70 000, but over 80 000 copies have been sold. Their logic is implicit. If Spud is flying off the shelves, you should buy it too.

True, the Spud novels do have a lot going for them. Moreover, the beauty of their formula lies in its simplicity. Van de Ruit takes the familiar framework of school diary and inserts local content. For South African readers bearing the yolk of a private boarding school background, the experience is akin to watching a True Hollywood Story of your adolescence. For the great unwashed, it’s a window onto the codes and rites of a Masonic fraternity.

In spite of his nickname, the central character of the books has enormous appeal. A stranger in a strange land, Spud has entered an upper-class enclave on the back of a middle-class upbringing. The world filtered through his diary is engaging and his naivety (as the publisher puts it) is “wickedly funny.” It’s an easy read and the pages turn quickly. To top it off, van de Ruit has done an exemplary job of promoting himself and mobilising South Africa’s book-selling community.

Nevertheless, there is a bigger picture to the success of Spud and its sequel. What really sets them apart from other South African novels set in the 90s is the way they interrogate South Africa’s wobbly transition to democracy. In short, the “interrogation” part is absent. Spud’s boarding school diaries marginalize the realities of his bipolar country. Despite a handful of nuggets that provide social and political context, Spud’s world renders the outside one virtually inconsequential.

While Spud shows adequate disapproval for his family’s old-school take on South Africa, it is the ins and outs of his immediate surroundings that really count. As such, Spud’s diaries reflect an adolescent experience of the old South Africa where politics hover on the periphery of the playground. He’s a kid with nothing to feel guilty about. In fact, for many book-buying South Africans in their thirties, Spud may very well be the first South African novel that legitimises their Apartheid experience. Could this be its best-selling ingredient?

► Spud Part 1 :: Apple of the Earth

Spud Part 1 :: Apple of the Earth

Way back in the 1440s, the word “spud” described a digging instrument used to inter the seedling of a plant that yielded a starchy tuber. By 1845, the word was used to describe the starchy tuber itself. And so began a word’s etymological journey through the mysteries of language, at least until a meddlesome polyglot by the name of Mario Pei came along. Author of The Story of Language (1949), Pei attributed the origin of the word “spud” to the acronym of a league of potato-fearing Englishmen called “The Society for the Prevention of Unwholesome Diet.”

Although linguists sniggered and pointed fingers, Pei’s assertion was founded on a subterranean history of British potato suspicion. It started with the concern among Scottish clerics in the Seventeenth Century that potatoes weren’t mentioned in the Bible. When the first Great Irish Famine (1740-1741) saw infected potato crops decimate the population of Scotland’s neighbour, the Holy Order had a field day. To top things off, the first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (published in Edinburgh in 1768) referred to the potato as a “demoralizing esculent.”

Things settled down and potatoes lay dormant in the Scottish psyche until Spud returned in the form of a bespectacled and emaciated heroine addict slinging brown slime across the breakfast table. It was 1996 and the film was Trainspotting. Democratic South Africa was two. Ten years later a South African would write a novel entitled Spud. The book would tell the story of a boy in a boarding school in South Africa in 1990.

►  Spud Part 2 :: Safe House

Michel Foucault :: The Unequal Gaze

It’s the mid-70s and a French philosopher and historian by the name of Michel Foucault (15 October 1926-25 June 1984) has just hammered out a book concerning the birth of the prison system. The work tracks the evolution of the social and technological mechanisms used to entrench discipline in Western Society. His ideas serve up an effective theoretical means of understanding the dystopian world conceived by George Orwell in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Moreover, Foucault has devised a philosophical matrix through which the existence of Big Brother can be perceived in familiar contemporary contexts.

Discipline and Punish asserts that we live in a state of perpetual imprisonment, drawing connections between the mechanisms of law enforcement in modern society and the panopticon. A type of prison building dreamed up in the Eighteenth Century, the central characteristic of the panopticon was that the guards could observe prisoners while prisoners were unable to see the guards. The bottom line was that the prisoners never knew when the guards were looking. Fewer guards were needed, costing taxpayers less money. Everybody was happy.

Needless to say, Foucault would have drawn profound conclusions concerning the evolution of enforcing the speed limit on South African roads. Once upon a time, traffic cops crouched behind bushes and cables were intermittently stretched across roads in unexpected locations. When it was discovered that the income generated by speeding fines was not commensurate with the cost of conducting these stealth operations, the government turned to the panopticon method, slapping up signs like the one above.

As there were no cameras to go with the signs, people quickly realised that there weren’t any guards on duty. Big Brother was caught napping and all the mice came out to play. When the cameras arrived, the farmer’s wife raised her carving knife and speeding vehicles broke wildly to avoid persecution. However, they remembered where the cameras were located and formulated a strategy of slowing down in all the right places. In a flash, the intuition of South African drivers sped to the lofty philosophical heights of Foucault.

Kurt Vonnegut :: Honorary Citizen

A profoundly South African sign that commuters pass as they shuffle onto Metrorail trains. Kurt Vonnegut (11 November 1922-11 April 2007) would have approved. The American novelist and social commentator contemplated the mess that dangerous weapons make during his involvement in the Second World War. Held as a prisoner of war in Dresden, Vonnegut took shelter in a meat factory during the infamous bombing of the German city in 1945. He emerged to find piles of rubble and death.

Vonnegut later drew on his experience in Germany to create a novel entitled Slaughterhouse-Five. An exploded narrative that skips backwards and forwards in time, the book is laced with science fiction and provides a gloomy picture of war. Published in 1969, it was embraced by readers who were puzzled and drained by America’s Vietnam blundering. Around the time it hit the shelves, polls in the United States indicated that only 33% of the nation supported pursuing a complete military victory.

Vonnegut concocted a distinctive brand of hopeful pessimism in his literary contributions to Planet Earth. His final work, an exhortation of the Bush administration entitled Man Without a Country, sees him soaring the lofty peaks of intelligent insubordination. “What can be said to our young people,” he writes, “now that psychopathic personalities, which is to say persons without consciences, without senses of pity or shame, have taken all the money in the treasuries of our government and corporations, and made it all their own?”