The CHANGE is in your pocket

For the past five months I’ve been living in fear that some horrible illness or accident is going to befall me. Every time I walk out of my front door, I look over my shoulder expecting that Murphy guy to come along and trip me up with his law of inevitability.

The reason for all this paranoia? I’ve let my medical aid policy lapse. I was meant to switch over to a new one, but just couldn’t bring myself to sign on the dotted line to fork over close to R900 a month for a basic hospital plan just in case something nasty happens to me.

So I decided to just wing it. After all, what are the chances of me having to go into hospital for the first time in my life? But, every day, as my paranoia grows, the odds seem to be stacking up against me, and embellished visions of being stuck in the snaking queue of a government hospital, while bleeding to death, keep plaguing me.

And therein lies the rub: we know we’re being extorted by the medical aid cartel, as I like to call them, but those of us who’ve been fortunate enough to never have suffered through the floundering state health system are just too damn scared of the alternative. So we hand over the dosh, month after healthy month.

Overly dramatic paranoid visions aside, I truly believe the majority of doctors and nurses working in state clinics and hospitals are competent, caring, dedicated and by no means offer sub-standard care. But the harsh reality is that there are only just over 33 000 doctors caring for our population of 49 million-plus people, more than 80% of whom use public health facilities. It doesn’t take a mathematician to work out that that they are radically overburdened, and the natural result is long snaking queues and, in some cases, sub-standard care.

Government also seems to be aware of this painful reality, and I imagine that’s part of the reason it’s planning to implement a national health insurance (NHI) scheme for South Africa. I, for one, love the idea. Free, comprehensive and efficient healthcare for everyone. No day-long queues; free medication, no more dental bills and, for me, no more paranoia.

That’s the idea on paper, but the more you look at the facts and figures, the more government’s great NHI dream starts looking like exactly that — a dream.

So what’s the solution to upgrading the standard and access to public medical care for the majority of South Africans who can’t afford exorbitant private care? I honestly don’t have any vaguely wise thoughts on this, but I’m hoping Brendon Bosworth’s intensively researched article on a NHI for South Africa in the latest edition of The Big Issue will open up a much-needed and meaningful debate around this crucial topic.

Go check it out, and please let me know whether or not you think a NHI scheme could be the solution to my medical aid dilemma.

Melany Bendix
Editor

Culture is on everybody’s lips. Another game at the fan park: Spain vs Switzerland, if I remember correctly. Cold beer in hand, I am engaging in conversation with a middle-aged gentleman about the World Cup vibe. It’s a chilly, grey day and the sparse crowd is quiet, subdued, passively absorbing Spain’s demise. Minutes later, a group of about 10 or so excited Bafana Bafana supporters congregate in my vicinity and start generating some gees. They sing popular local songs in isiXhosa, and blow their vuvuzelas in time to the tune, all the while drawing foreign bystanders into the enticing rhythm.

The scene is priceless and I remark that once people get hold of vuvuzelas they go mad. “Ja, ma wat kan jy doen is os culture”, [Yes, but what can you do, it’s our culture], he replies curtly. “A culture van geraas maak en tekeere gaan?” [A culture of making a noise and showing off], I cheekily quip. “En Party” [And partying], he adds, and we both laugh.

Just then an excited female South African fan comes bounding by, blasting her vuvuzela wildly past the gentleman’s face. “Blaas it in’ie lig, nie in ons gesigte nie” [Blow it up in the air, not in people’s faces] he complains. “Haybo Mr, this is South Africa, vuvuzela is our culture,” she retorts.

This notion had been pointed out to me some days before already when I approached an elderly lady to find out how she felt about vuvuzelas and the idea that it was an African thing. “My boy, [the vuvuzela] is our culture. You must be proud. This is your inheritance. This is what we struggled for during apartheid,” she emphatically declared.

Outside of the fan park, the word culture is inescapable, featuring daily in the print and digital media, in advertisements and in the conversation of everyday, ordinary people. And in most cases these discussions about culture probably had to do with vuvuzelas. This little plastic horn, in the context of all the media attention during the World Cup, has really got South Africans talking about national culture and cultural identity.

The incidents cited above highlight three of the most common ways the vuvuzela elicited the word culture amongst the South African public. In the first instance, culture is something that is to be put on display, on show, out in the public, as a mark of the nation’s cultural distinctiveness. Secondly, culture is invoked as a means of defense when questions about the legitimacy or tastefulness of certain beliefs and practices are raised. Thirdly, culture is something which cannot be explained but its existence is always beyond question.

The way people talk about culture here is not unique, but it is really interesting because, since the fall of apartheid, South Africans have struggled to forge a truly united national identity. During this time, sport has emerged as one of a few common denominators that touch the hearts of South Africans from all walks of life. This has lead many to suggest that the World Cup has been a real plus for helping to unite the nation. As a friend of mine remarked, seeing the number of South Africans in the stadiums out to watch the games, suggested to him that the kind of togetherness the tournament fostered is priceless.

All this engagement with and about culture does have its drawbacks. Since the start of the World Cup there has been an outbreak of a condition known as vuvuzela lips — a particular cracking and swelling of the front, centre lip tissue, not unlike a bee sting, that results from excessive, rapturous blasting of the horn. Like I said at the beginning, culture is on everybody’s lips.

— Duane Jethro

Duane Jethro is a PhD Student at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of VU University Amsterdam. His research focuses on post-apartheid cultural heritage initiatives.

I love spoken word poetry, but seldom go to performances or festivals for one (admittedly childish) reason-I find it hard to deal with the crowd. You know the type: Constantia ladies embracing their African-ness in full shwe-shwe and caftan-clad splendour; the bespectacled UCT intelligentsia in their dishevelled designer gear; the angry looking mohawked lesbians; the black guy with the fake American accent wearing the mandatory black horn-rimmed spectacles.
But the line-up at this year’s Badilisha Poetry X-Change festival just looked too good to miss. So I tried to stuff my inner snideness into a box for one night and headed to the grand old City Hall.
I was not to be disappointed.  Not only by the performing poets, but by the crowd itself.  Plenty of shwe-shwe frocks, topped off by a woman in a knitted pink beret (which I’m pretty sure I saw at Accessorise in Constantia Village), who was attempting to ululate. Plus, my favourite, “Jay-D” who introduced himself in an American drawl thick with deception, and when probed on where he was really from, said — and I swear I’m not making this up — “the universe”.
But all the posturing and awkward ululating couldn’t even taint what was the best range of performance poetry from some of the most extraordinary poets I’ve ever had the privilege to see.
D’Bi Young, the Jamaican-born dub poet wowed the audience with her warrior-like power and poise. She truly is, in her own words, “young, black and brilliant”.  Juxtaposed with her attention-demanding performance was Kwame Dawes, a prolific poet whose downplayed, relaxed style was equally powerful.
But the best was kept for last.  When introducing Anis Mojgani, the MC rattled off his long list of achievements, including that of two time individual Champion of the National Poetry Slam and the first winner of the World Cup Poetry Slam in France. From the build-up, I expected a colossal man; an eight-feet tall enigma.  Then Anis walked onto stage.  Unassuming, a bit weedy, not much more than five-feet tall and somewhat nerdily dressed with a grungy blue beanie and old-school spectacles like the ones SABC news anchor Riaan Cruywagen used to wear before he got contact lenses and was pickled in formaldehyde.
Then he spoke, and with the simple words, ‘Come closer, come into this’, he grew into the giant he is. Listening to him is like being sucked up onto a mesmerising carpet ride where you get to explore all corners of his magic realism world. Like the wizard of words he is, Anis seamlessly weaved together fantastical tales of a fisherman telling poems to his catch before rolling back their skins like bed sheets and stories of growing up in New Orleans, catching catfish and locusts and employing a giant white knight to protect against the darkness.
He made all the cynicism that usually evokes my snideness disappear. He made us forget about all the pretentiousness and come into the beauty of the moment.  He made us — scathing journos, ululating Constantia soccer moms and guys from Langa aspiring to be P-Diddy — all come closer.

Melany Bendix, Editor

For more on the Badilisha Poetry X-Change, visit:  http://badilishapoetry.com

Us Capetonians have a nasty reputation for being a bit uppity, cliquey and stingy when it comes to sharing our mother city with those who are not her biological children.

We can probably debate the truth of this until the cows come home.  Us “born and bred” Capetonians (as we sometimes like to introduce ourselves) will insist that we have no sense of superiority whatsoever, while at the same time sniggering at the Vaalie family trying to order deep fried hake at Paranga.  The “outsiders” will then argue that we’re unfriendly, un-sharing and just plain snobby, and on-and-on and round-and-round it’ll go.  Or, they’ll just get really pissed off and go on a rant. Like writer and journalist Hagen Engler (one of the country’s best) did when he got so gatvol of Cape Town’s “trendoid” scene that he wrote an article entitled “10 Good Reasons Why Cape Town Can F$*#k Off”, which includes salient points like: “They’re a bunch of namby-pamby poncey glamour queens who think they live in a magazine.” Ironically, Hagen was appointed editor of FHM magazine shortly thereafter (can you hear the snobby chuckle?)

But I digress. The fact is that, although I hate to admit defeat in any area (least of all in an argument with a Vaalie), I sometimes think they’re spot on in their criticism of us.  It really is undeniable that there is a certain amount of arrogance attached to having been born and raised in a city like Cape Town.  We just can’t help it. We’re like those kids born with beauty and brains and, worst of all, we know it. It makes us infuriatingly smug and obnoxious but, at the same time, we’re the envy of all the other less-blessed kids.

So, in an attempt to break the stereotype that us Capetonians most likely deserve to be slapped with, The Big Issue’s come up with a novel idea:  get the citizens of this fair city to give up their top insider tips, compile these treasures into an easy-to-use “Real Guide to Cape Town A-Z” and share it with thousands of visitors coming to Cape Town.

Now before you shout “heresy” and “traitor” while tightening your clutch on the weather-worn map to your “secret” sunset spot wedged in-between between Bakoven and the other beach that shall remain nameless (for now), hear us out—there really is method to the madness…

And it goes like this:  If anyone seriously thinks there’s a secret spot left in Cape Town that no tourists know of or that some khaki-clad adventurer won’t “discover” in the next season or two, then they’re blissfully disillusioned.  The jig is up. And it has been since our tourism boom a good couple of years ago.  So let’s stop fooling ourselves into thinking we have some sort of rights over this city’s gems. Rather, let’s use this as an opportunity to show visitors we’re not the stuck-up, “namby-pamby poncey glamour queens” some ou from PE (chuckle chuckle) thinks we are.

Let’s share the love.  In a city as damn smart and pretty as ours, there’s plenty to go around.

*Check out more on the “Real Guide to Cape Town A-Z” campaign: http://tinyurl.com/yayeqns

Melany Bendix, Editor

When I first read Saliem Fakir’s comment piece on Julius Malema (published in the latest edition of The Big Issue under the headline “Malema’s nobody’s muppet”), I was hesitant to run it.

I wasn’t concerned about causing controversy or stirring up debate; I just wasn’t keen on giving the leader of the ANC’s “youth” any more press. The chubby-cheeked troublemaker has been the source of media hysteria ever since he became top dog of the ANCYL in 2008, and I believe that his rise to power has been swifter because of all the attention the media has given him—some of it deserved but most of it nothing but pure hype.  (Incidentally, the joke in newsrooms lately is: What do you do when there’s a slow news day?  Call Malema for a comment.)

Malema has been doted on by the media so much that he doesn’t even have to hire a PR company; the media has inadvertently become his publicist for mahala. If you had to translate all the television, radio and newspaper coverage he’s received into advertising rands, we’re talking moolah probably equal to that of the R140-million in tenders he’s alleged to have profited from plus the multi-million rand houses he reportedly bought cash, the Mercedes Benz C63 he drives and that swanky watch the self-proclaimed “champion of the poor” proudly wears on the same wrist he thrusts into the air as he shouts “Amandla!”

But I digress. The point is I was loath to add to the media hype that has fanned the rabble-rouser’s popularity.  To be clear, when I say media hype I’m not talking about The Star or City Press newspapers’ reports on allegations that Malema has had his hands in the tender cookie jar—we need more of that kind of investigative journalism. I’m referring to the constant, superfluous coverage of Malema’s gaffes and outrageously crass behaviour.

And this is exactly the point Saliem Fakir makes in his article; we have somehow all been drawn into the spectacle that is Julius Malema. We can’t seem to help ourselves—it’s like watching a car accident that you just can’t avert your eyes from no matter how appalling the sight is.

But, as Fakir points out, while we gape, snigger or shake our heads in disgust at Malema’s crude and infantile politicking, he’s busy amassing great power and support from those who continue to rebel against the pseudo-intellectualism that characterised Thabo Mbeki’s reign.

Or, to put it in a less poncy pseudo intellectual way, while we’re all gormlessly staring at the car accident, Malema has already secretly paid off the traffic officer, tip-toed away from the accident scene and hopped into another Mercedes C-class to continue his drive straight to the gates of parliament.

The bottom line is that, when it comes to politics, Malema’s nobody’s muppet, and I think it’s about time we all stopped laughing at him for long enough to realise this.  And that is why, despite my initial hesitation, The Big Issue ended up publishing a double page spread on Malema in the latest edition.

By running the “Malema’s nobody’s muppet” article, is the Big Issue now also guilty of drumming up yet more publicity for the Youth League prez?  Or does the article achieve its author’s aim of making readers see Malema’s buffoonery for what it really is?

Let us know what you decide.

Melany Bendix, Editor