Time to compare these two world leaders and ask: what's next?
A Great Graphic Novel Experience about a bi-racial African with a musical soundtrack featuring the hot new sounds of urban South Africa! www.whiteshaka.com
Showing posts with label Mandela. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mandela. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Trevor Noah in the US - South Africa's Comedian Connects
Vulindlela - A South African Voice on TV
For the first time, a South African stand up comic appeared on Leno. On Jan. 6, Trevor Noah, a young comedian from Jozi. Come to think of it, he may be the only South African comic to be on any major talk show.
TREVOR NOAH on LENO
Is he what Zulus once called Pal Simon when his
Graceland with Ladysmith Black Mombaza broke through musically: vulindlela -
opener of the gate?
Noah may be the only comedian in the world who can
really make fun of Mandela in front on a American audience, then take on
African Americans ("not really African - but we'll play along with
that") and then flawlessly switch in and out of their accents.
He dresses like a young stockbroker and speaks with
a plummy accent that sounds almost midatlantic - vaguely American, vaguely
British and occasionally South Efrican.
When he does Julius Malema - his Africanisms are
uncanny. When he pays Jacob Zuma telling the World Bank that he doesn't have
the $150bn he owes them you'll die laughing. "Did you put that money in my
hand, no!" When he can't get the IMF off his back ask his assistant for
"mashini wami." You might have to explain that to an American friend
but somehow they'll be laughing anyway.
Noah's story is that his mother is Xhosa and his
father Swiss ("you know the Swiss, they like chocolate"). He grew up
at the tail end of apartheid where he was technically an outlaw. He is
bi-racial but not culturally what South Africans would call
"colored."
That buys him a lot of license to take on just
about anyone - which does with great intelligence and rare mimicry. It also
makes him a kind of insider-outsider - rather like Obama who shares a similar
characteristic of being bi-racial but not of the traditional African-American
community.
All this makes Noah the first of his a kind - a
biracial African comic that Americans of all races can get their heads around.
The question is - will his insight open the lid on
South African culture generally? This really is the new Africa and one that
American of all races can relate to.
I'm guessing that sooner or later his managers will
put him in a Mandela shirt or at least stick some type of kente cloth in his
breast pocket. But he's the new Africa, so who knows?
What I do know is that he is a talent worth
watching and he will certainly make American want to know more about the
amazing cultures and stories underlying the new South Africa.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Review: Robert Mugabe....What Happened?
|
The Trillion Dollar Man as the Scar of Africa
by Alan Brody
 |
| Mugabe |
 |
| Scar from the Lion King |
If you're one of those people with a $100 Trillion Zimbabwe banknote you will definitely wonder what to make of the NY movie premiere of "Mugabe - What Happened?
"So many people flocked to the NY Institute of Technology theater that they had to open a second screening room. The audience response to the panel interview with director, Simon Bright and distinguished Zimbabweans might even have made your head spin.
"So many people flocked to the NY Institute of Technology theater that they had to open a second screening room. The audience response to the panel interview with director, Simon Bright and distinguished Zimbabweans might even have made your head spin.
 |
| $100 gone wrong |
Bright is a white Zimbabwean film director with impeccable credits as an anti-Rhodesian government activist in pre-independence days and a former official of the Zimbabwean Ministry of Agriculture. He adds current-day interviews with people who grew up or worked with Mugabe to this footage, painting a straight-forward picture of a very smart, determined man who rose to the top of his liberation group, wowing the Western powers as he overthrew Ian Smith's white rule.
 |
| Let's Dance: Thatcher-Kaunda Style |
This is an Horatio Alger tale of an impoverished Jesuit-trained Shona boy with a single mother who is educated in Britain as economist and becomes a lecturer in Ghana where he witnesses black Africa's first post-colonial independence. Then it is on to Zambia where their independence means we are treated to the supremely awkward Margaret Thatcher-Kenneth Kaunda waltz (worthy of its own documentary, I would say!). Mugabe gives up academia for the pursuit of self-determination in Rhodesia. First he joins Joshua Nkomo and the Matabele-led party only to drop them for the majority Shona tribe's ZANU Party, which he soon takes over and leads to victory.
So, "what happened?" The young Mugabe comes off as hyperarticulate and forthright in a way that captains of industry once were before lawsuits, PR and TV consultants taught them to act humble. Once in power, Mugabe reaches out to the whites offering them "love." That's when you notice his resemblance to Scar, the evil, throne-stealing uncle from the Lion King. His trademark landing strip version of the Hitler mustache is still an ominous shadow while his deeply furrowed philtrum seems the embodiment of the new Africa's stiff upper lip. His accent and his manner resonate with a dapper Britishness, buttressed by Saville Row suits and a locution that lets him transcend his very un-British rat-pack gatherings with the likes of North Korea's Kim Il Sung, Fidel Castro and Yasser Arafat. |
Amazingly, peace holds, the old Rhodesian whites settle down and go about their way of living as if nothing had happened. They run their massive tobacco and wheat farms and rest assured that, as the backbone of the economy and employer of a half million Zims, their way of life is secure. Black Zimbabweans see an improvement in their lives, particularly in the form of education and all is seemingly well for 15 years or so.
That should have been the story of Africa's first Mandela and it just may be that the ensuing panel pandemonium took place because so many people want to think of Zimbabwe that way - no matter what. The reality is a little different. The first sign is that right after Mugabe took power in a coalition government with the Matabele, he got wind that his political partners had a cache of weapons. He sicked his ruthless, North Korean trained 5th Brigade unit on them resulting in the brutal ethnic cleansing that took the lives of around 20,000 tribesmen. This campaign even had its own catchy name Gukurahundi, a kind of cleansing
Since the Matabele are a breakaway from the South African Zulu tribe, they are without support anywhere - neither loved by the Zulus nor the Shona they displaced - and so this genocide was conveniently overlooked by all the powers that be. Do you know a Matabele, anyone?
This brings us back to the night's panel (im)moderated by Douglas Rogers, author of the poignant but hilarious book about his family' survival in Zim, The Last Resort. Just as theywere going back and forth discussing the fine points of the documentary - how did Bright get the footage, was it film or digital, did he get permission to shoot (really?), where will it be playing and so on - the audience began to rumble. They had far more pressing questions in mind as in: "what can we do about it?"
Even that wasn't simple because many non-Zimbabweans, like Mugabe's partymembers, would rather see him as a hero than confront the damage he has caused. Within Zimbabwe, Mugabe isn't exactly a lonely dictator - he has a big party following with plenty of high-fiving military and political cronies, decked in outfits that could have looted from a Gilbert & Sullivan opera. The capital, Harare, is full of Mercs & Beamers that have flowed to insiders and savvy white and Asian businesspeople. It is only the dispossessed in the slums and countryside along with his hapless MDC opponents who experience his wrath and devastation.
 |
With Mugabe, the 100% came not from the IMF but from the War Veterans Benefit fund and may have been for his cronies and not necessarily for him. Once the veterans found out he had a real crisis on his hands if he wanted to stay in power. In any case, unlike the IMF, those guys don't make prissy speeches and cut off your credit cards while you go running to Bono for relief. They know how to fight with guns and bombs and they know exactly where you live. To get them off his back he invited them - with the assistance of his police - to invade the white peoples' farm. Think of Scar from the Lion King - beaming as marvels at this solution.
It may be possible that Britain could have underwritten that loss but Tony Blair had already dropped their land redistribution payments, apparently because he thought it was being looted. The White Farmers could have paid off the veterans or for that matter, Mugabe. But neither of these options came up and one has to conclude from the dazed interviews and the "I built this place" kind of tone, that the white farmers don't normally think that way and just forgot where they really were. Payoffs would not have been very proper and it's adubious whether Mugabe could have been trusted. But, when in Rome.
According to at least half the audience, Mugabe wasn't necessarily to blame. One questioner said that she lived in Zimbabwe at the time and since the rules of the game were written by the IMF in Washington and London, Mugabe was not at fault. Then there were another group, African Americans mostly, who felt that West had done enough of its own mischief from colonization, slavery and the economy that it had no business criticizing Mr. Mugabe.
 |
| Mapfumo & Bright |
The real fireworks occurred when Thomas Mapfumo, the legendary Zimbabwean
Unfortunately, they already have an African solution. Zimbabwe is a landlocked country that survives at the mercy of South Africa and no one, not even Mandela - back when he could have - saw any value in taking on Mugabe.
 |
| Loser News... |
| Which brings us to the real message of Mugabe. I'd like whatever he's drinking. Think about it. He's killed tens of thousands, impoverished millions, turned the economy into a joke, beaten back two electoral losses - and by beaten, I mean with sticks, knives and serious guns - and here he is, in his mid-eighties riding as high as ever. Betty White has nothing on this guy! If you don't mind a little violence, he could be the poster boy for the AARP. It's hard out there for tyrant. Dictatoring is not that easy at 50 - but at 88! And he stills sounds about the same. It takes him a moment or two to warm up and the 'stache is getting a little raggedy but this one-man rule is definitely a healthy lifestyle. He laughs off the comparisons to Hitler - as he should - since Hitler, as we all know, was a loser. |
The proper way to think about Mugabe is that he is the living "Secret" - Napoleon Hill meets Oprah gone bad. He willed away the great forces of the West, his political rivals, and the pesky farmers who ran the economy. He outlived all the other dictators of his era and just as you think there is no chance for the country to survive under him - he gets lucky! The last
 |
| Diamond Mining - Mugabe Style |
time they were going broke again and were looking to change their notes from trillions to gazillions, they found diamonds near Mutare. It took about 2 years for all $4 billion of those diamonds to, shall we say, de-carbonize - but it was enough to buy him more years in power and attract Chinese investment. They turned out to be less generous than he hoped, but rumors abound of more diamonds and mineral wealth.
Mugabe has overcome his chief rival, Morgan Tsvangirai twice - even though he lost and the world backed his opponent. Those wacky Westerners allowed Mugabe to create a coalition government which would be something akin to putting your pet dog in cage with a pit bull and saying "nice dog." Better yet, make that a lion cage.
As for Thomas Mapfumo, who now lives in Oregon, and all those Zims, ex-pats and poor people left behind, you can only sympathize. Or not, if you choose. One member of the audience was a freshly arrived college student from Harare who expressed amazement at all these negative stories about their great hero. And she has a point. If Hitler had stuck it out, the Reich would probably seem like an admirable regime today and the 'stache might even be a fashion statement. In a bizarre way, this is almost happening within Zimbabwe.
As for American intervention, it has already happened. The $100 trillion notes have been shelved along with the Zim dollar and now the economy runs on our greenback. It could be worse - it could be the yuan. As for Mugabe, at this point, only the Lion King could take him out. Simba, where are you?
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
"Invictus" - A South African Review
Great Try!
If you don’t know rugby, a touchdown is called a try. This movie about the great World Cup rugby game at the beginning of Mandela’s Presidency definitely scores. It takes place when South Africa’s shaky new multiracial democracy was still finding its feet after years of white rule. Mandela needed to make peace and heal the land. He saw an opportunity to create rapprochement and a national bonding experience by embracing the game beloved by his former enemy and despised by his supporters.
However, there are also some fumbles - the other meaning if you will – of “try”.
Without doubt, Morgan Freeman gives an Oscar-worthy reincarnation of Mandela – thus putting himself firmly in the King-Poitier-Ali-Crosby-Oprah-Obama pantheon of black-people who radically changed white perceptions. Matt Damon too, gives a great aw-shucks performance as an innocent racist who understands how much he has to change. You’ll barely recognize this bulked up version of Damon and his South African accent is flawless. But, for the most part they are stock characters – you don’t really know what makes Mandela tick and you can’t fully grasp the transformation of Pienaar (Damon), the rugby captain, because you just don’t know that much about him.
While the movie works well at the storytelling level, it also rings somewhat hollow. You see this momentous change in a terrible political situation through old newscasts but not through the cast. The black presidential security detail has to make peace with white special service cops who may once have jailed them. The white cops are now reporting to people who may once have tried to blow them up. But you see none of this in personal backstories. The pacing is slow but it is steady and it builds. The end may be predictable but the audience still applauded. If you have no idea what rugby is you will leave the theater unenlightened and those of us who know about rugby can see the ball was somehow dropped.
Therein lies the problem: this is a movie about symbols, the kind that can bring everyone together, make peace and bind a nation. If you can’t really explain the true nature of rugby, you can’t really explain its significance in this story. As for the title: what is a nice Latin word like Invictus doing in an African movie? Shouldn’t Mandela - just one generation away from living in a hut with a polygamous family - be reaching back to an African poem for inspiration? Wouldn’t you expect something more African than classical?
In a way, it echoes the story of the kouros statue the Getty Museum once acquired. Scientists analyzed the stone and lawyers certified the paper trail. But when Thomas Hoving of the Met took one look at it, he knew it was fake because it looked “fresh” – something you don’t expect in a 3,000 year old statue. In fact, it was a modern reproduction made from authentic stone from that period.
That is not to say this movie is a fake but it is obviously made – well made, mind you – by people of a different age, place and time who have fused the authentic with something that isn’t quite right. The author is a British journalist who covered South Africa, the screenwriter is a non-rugby loving ex-patriate South African living in Morro Bay, California. The supporting actors and Damon’s voice coach are all authentic South Africans but the director and the two lead actors are American. As good a job as they did technically, something got lost in the mix. Instead of being too lively, this movie is, if anything, muted - even somber. You’d have to wonder what it would look like if a South African director had made it. What if, say, Gavin Wood (Tsotsi) or an up-and-coming African director had done it, how different would it would be?
First, you would get a visceral sense of the times. People were very scared, very divided but also hopeful. The townships were bursting with exuberance. The whites experienced fear, loathing but also optimism. You see it in Invictus but you really don’t feel it. The celebration of the blacks matched the viciousness of the old white regime while the crime spree justified their old fears. Houses once designed to be open - even admired - became surrounded with walls, then barbed wire, power gates and finally, electrified fences. Yet the whites felt somehow liberated too and to understand that you’d have to see how war and rebellion-weary they had become. You never quite feel the two different cultures – an African world drenched in music, dance and excitement versus a stiff, though cordial white world where the music is at best, restrained.
Most of all though, you would understand why rugby really matters. It is not just that the white Afrikaners were the country’s exclusive payers of rugby, it is that it’s a territorial game. Rugby is played around the scrum, that beehive formation of men from each team pushing against each other in contention for a ball thrust in its midst at the beginning of each play. Whichever team plucks it out – usually by foot – gets to run with the ball. The traditional advantage of the South African team is that they are one of the heaviest in the game. That is why Damon filled up on pap ‘n wors for the role. The heavier the scrum the better the chance they have of pushing the other team out of the way and grabbing the ball.
The point about rugby in South Africa is not just that it is the game of the oppressors but a kind of reenactment of the way they pushed the indigenous people off the land to get at its resources. That explains why the formerly great Bokke had lost their mojo. Thanks to majority rule, they were being pushed off their land and they just couldn’t pull off their old act on the rugby field any more. At least, not until they had gotten permission, marching orders and reassurance from the new black president.
The poem, Invictus, is never fully fleshed out and in truth it was an obscure 19th century poem written by a 12 year old who’d lost his leg to TB. While understandably awkward as a poem it ends with these two resounding lines:
“I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”
In fact, Mandela never sent that poem to Pienaar. He had been inspired by it in jail but he actually sent the rugby captain a version of Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” speech to inspire him.
Regardless of the actual poem, what matters is that Mandela reached out to a third place – a non-African heritage - to bring these former warring Africans of different races together. How do you explain that to Americans? They see these great aerial shots of Cape Town, the sophisticated cities contrasted with the black shantytowns (although you never go into any of these “informal” houses) and they must wonder: What Africa is this?
That is not say this isn’t a very good movie. It is not “Biko”, “Gandhi” or even “Chariots of Fire” though it is at least at the very front of the second tier. There is an academy award nomination or two in this and Clint deserves kudos for taking on something so far afield from his usual fare: Dirty Harry reincarnated as a couple of near-saints. As a feel-good movie it does indeed score: almost everyone wins – the whites, the blacks (he did forget the Jewish guy, Joel Stransky, a kind of South African Sandy Koufax who actually won the game with the drop kick.) The New Zealanders - ironically called the “All Blacks” on account of their uniforms - get to be the losers here even though they were a much more racially integrated team.
Not only that, but the All Blacks began each game with a fearsome Maori wardance called a Hakka which seemed to be lead by the blondest player. All the Bokke could do was glare back. But any South African knows they have their own ceremonial weapon, which is just as formidable: the Zulu War Dance. Yet no one mentions it – perhaps because Afrikaner rugby players don’t dance like that – ever - and Mandela was Xhosa as were most of the ruling ANC party and they were feuding with the Zulus. The New Zealanders even had rugby’s first true superstar, Jonah Loma, a terrifying figure who could simply plough through the opposing team with legs as thick and as unstoppable as tree trunks rolling down a cliff.
Nevertheless, Mandela’s support, Afrikaner determination and a little Hebrew footwork won the day and put the country on the track toward unity. In the end, this movie wins the cup but you get the idea there is more to be drunk from it along with a few more visits to the well.
© Alan Brody
If you don’t know rugby, a touchdown is called a try. This movie about the great World Cup rugby game at the beginning of Mandela’s Presidency definitely scores. It takes place when South Africa’s shaky new multiracial democracy was still finding its feet after years of white rule. Mandela needed to make peace and heal the land. He saw an opportunity to create rapprochement and a national bonding experience by embracing the game beloved by his former enemy and despised by his supporters.
However, there are also some fumbles - the other meaning if you will – of “try”.
Without doubt, Morgan Freeman gives an Oscar-worthy reincarnation of Mandela – thus putting himself firmly in the King-Poitier-Ali-Crosby-Oprah-Obama pantheon of black-people who radically changed white perceptions. Matt Damon too, gives a great aw-shucks performance as an innocent racist who understands how much he has to change. You’ll barely recognize this bulked up version of Damon and his South African accent is flawless. But, for the most part they are stock characters – you don’t really know what makes Mandela tick and you can’t fully grasp the transformation of Pienaar (Damon), the rugby captain, because you just don’t know that much about him.
While the movie works well at the storytelling level, it also rings somewhat hollow. You see this momentous change in a terrible political situation through old newscasts but not through the cast. The black presidential security detail has to make peace with white special service cops who may once have jailed them. The white cops are now reporting to people who may once have tried to blow them up. But you see none of this in personal backstories. The pacing is slow but it is steady and it builds. The end may be predictable but the audience still applauded. If you have no idea what rugby is you will leave the theater unenlightened and those of us who know about rugby can see the ball was somehow dropped.
Therein lies the problem: this is a movie about symbols, the kind that can bring everyone together, make peace and bind a nation. If you can’t really explain the true nature of rugby, you can’t really explain its significance in this story. As for the title: what is a nice Latin word like Invictus doing in an African movie? Shouldn’t Mandela - just one generation away from living in a hut with a polygamous family - be reaching back to an African poem for inspiration? Wouldn’t you expect something more African than classical?
In a way, it echoes the story of the kouros statue the Getty Museum once acquired. Scientists analyzed the stone and lawyers certified the paper trail. But when Thomas Hoving of the Met took one look at it, he knew it was fake because it looked “fresh” – something you don’t expect in a 3,000 year old statue. In fact, it was a modern reproduction made from authentic stone from that period.
That is not to say this movie is a fake but it is obviously made – well made, mind you – by people of a different age, place and time who have fused the authentic with something that isn’t quite right. The author is a British journalist who covered South Africa, the screenwriter is a non-rugby loving ex-patriate South African living in Morro Bay, California. The supporting actors and Damon’s voice coach are all authentic South Africans but the director and the two lead actors are American. As good a job as they did technically, something got lost in the mix. Instead of being too lively, this movie is, if anything, muted - even somber. You’d have to wonder what it would look like if a South African director had made it. What if, say, Gavin Wood (Tsotsi) or an up-and-coming African director had done it, how different would it would be?
First, you would get a visceral sense of the times. People were very scared, very divided but also hopeful. The townships were bursting with exuberance. The whites experienced fear, loathing but also optimism. You see it in Invictus but you really don’t feel it. The celebration of the blacks matched the viciousness of the old white regime while the crime spree justified their old fears. Houses once designed to be open - even admired - became surrounded with walls, then barbed wire, power gates and finally, electrified fences. Yet the whites felt somehow liberated too and to understand that you’d have to see how war and rebellion-weary they had become. You never quite feel the two different cultures – an African world drenched in music, dance and excitement versus a stiff, though cordial white world where the music is at best, restrained.
Most of all though, you would understand why rugby really matters. It is not just that the white Afrikaners were the country’s exclusive payers of rugby, it is that it’s a territorial game. Rugby is played around the scrum, that beehive formation of men from each team pushing against each other in contention for a ball thrust in its midst at the beginning of each play. Whichever team plucks it out – usually by foot – gets to run with the ball. The traditional advantage of the South African team is that they are one of the heaviest in the game. That is why Damon filled up on pap ‘n wors for the role. The heavier the scrum the better the chance they have of pushing the other team out of the way and grabbing the ball.
The point about rugby in South Africa is not just that it is the game of the oppressors but a kind of reenactment of the way they pushed the indigenous people off the land to get at its resources. That explains why the formerly great Bokke had lost their mojo. Thanks to majority rule, they were being pushed off their land and they just couldn’t pull off their old act on the rugby field any more. At least, not until they had gotten permission, marching orders and reassurance from the new black president.
The poem, Invictus, is never fully fleshed out and in truth it was an obscure 19th century poem written by a 12 year old who’d lost his leg to TB. While understandably awkward as a poem it ends with these two resounding lines:
“I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”
In fact, Mandela never sent that poem to Pienaar. He had been inspired by it in jail but he actually sent the rugby captain a version of Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” speech to inspire him.
Regardless of the actual poem, what matters is that Mandela reached out to a third place – a non-African heritage - to bring these former warring Africans of different races together. How do you explain that to Americans? They see these great aerial shots of Cape Town, the sophisticated cities contrasted with the black shantytowns (although you never go into any of these “informal” houses) and they must wonder: What Africa is this?
That is not say this isn’t a very good movie. It is not “Biko”, “Gandhi” or even “Chariots of Fire” though it is at least at the very front of the second tier. There is an academy award nomination or two in this and Clint deserves kudos for taking on something so far afield from his usual fare: Dirty Harry reincarnated as a couple of near-saints. As a feel-good movie it does indeed score: almost everyone wins – the whites, the blacks (he did forget the Jewish guy, Joel Stransky, a kind of South African Sandy Koufax who actually won the game with the drop kick.) The New Zealanders - ironically called the “All Blacks” on account of their uniforms - get to be the losers here even though they were a much more racially integrated team.
Not only that, but the All Blacks began each game with a fearsome Maori wardance called a Hakka which seemed to be lead by the blondest player. All the Bokke could do was glare back. But any South African knows they have their own ceremonial weapon, which is just as formidable: the Zulu War Dance. Yet no one mentions it – perhaps because Afrikaner rugby players don’t dance like that – ever - and Mandela was Xhosa as were most of the ruling ANC party and they were feuding with the Zulus. The New Zealanders even had rugby’s first true superstar, Jonah Loma, a terrifying figure who could simply plough through the opposing team with legs as thick and as unstoppable as tree trunks rolling down a cliff.
Nevertheless, Mandela’s support, Afrikaner determination and a little Hebrew footwork won the day and put the country on the track toward unity. In the end, this movie wins the cup but you get the idea there is more to be drunk from it along with a few more visits to the well.
© Alan Brody
Friday, March 27, 2009
The Dalai Lama and the Land of the Zulus....?
OK folks - here's where we get a little serious. Recently, South Africa pulled the welcome mat from under the Dalai Lama. There's a whole lot more to this than meets the eye, and in a way, it reflects on the book, White Shaka Boy.......
Read on - it's an eye-opener!
Owned by China: South Africa, Dalai Lama and.............America?
By Alan Brody
When South Africa disinvited the Dalai Lama from their Peace Conference on Monday, they did a lot more than become the laughing stock of the Civilized World. They signaled that China is the New Colonial Master of the Universe.
The Great Game is afoot again but only China seems to be playing. And this time, they are making up the rules: be bloodless, as invisible as possible and try to dominate world’s resources. So when the economy recovers and we need commodities again - guess who will be naming the price? And if China decides to call in our national debt, who will we be working for, Mr. Obama?
The South Africa incident is just the first, indirect public display of China’s ten-year resource invasion of the 3rd World. In the land of Mandela, sports officials, exhilarated at hosting the 2010 World Cup Soccer Games call on the Man of the Mandala. With billions invested in stadiums, housing and airport infrastructure, the country is ready to take their seat as the New Africa’s finest at the table of leading nations. So their three Nobel Peace laureates, Nelson Mandela, Bishop Tutu and F.W De Klerk grandly invite the Dalai Lama to join their showcase Peace Conference to let the World know - it’s more than soccer. They’ve arrived!
Then the government, under President Kgalema Motlanthe, very casually informs the World that the Dalai Lama is not welcome because his issues with China “will distract attention from the games.” Amazingly, even the South African Business Press is taken by surprise asking essentially how much business does China do that they would sell their prized moral status down the river? According to South Africa’s Business Day, China only purchases 20% of their commodities. They actually suggested that China needs South Africa more than they need China.
Wake up fellas – you are in post-20th Century, post apartheid-liberation denial. Europe is fading, the US has been leaving town. China is your leading trading partner at over $50+ billion and they just opened a $500 million investment fund in your backyard. What has Tibet done for you lately, anyway?
That South Africa just didn’t see it coming is testament to their economy’s diversity and advanced infrastructure. China’s influence is barely visible, showing up only in banks and lines of credit. So when China dropped $3.6bn in South Africa in 2006 - it was for a chunk of Standard Bank – the bank with Africa’s biggest reach.
But elsewhere in Africa, where there is little development, China’s simple goal – extract resources and cut out competition – is plain to see. They will pay off whomever they need to build whatever infrastructure it takes to get raw material “A” to port “B” to get it to Chinese factory “C.” In the truly impoverished but resource-rich countries, the locals see the new mines, the hydropower dam and one new road with the trucks driving their booty directly to the port. Scads of Chinese engineers show up, learn the language and do the job. Chinese food becomes available in the jungle, the locals get a lowly job or two and ton of Chinese manufactured goods which obliterate most local manufacture. However, Presidents stay in power, new Palaces and luxury cars appear and numbered accounts are opened.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo they have done something no western colonialist has done – built roads into the jungle – swapping some $6 billion for raw materials. They are developing mines and even planning a $60 billion dam that will tower over the colossal 3 Gorges Dam in China. In Nigeria, they put $8 billion into hydropower, and in Kenya, $580 million into dams. In Zimbabwe it is whatever weapons Mugabe needs to stay in power. China is the biggest investor in the Angola’s oil bonanza - putting our easy access to a huge spigot of Atlantic Ocean oil in question. In Darfur, you might want to ask who is funding the oil pipeline?
When I visited South Africa in 2005 to research my book, White Shaka Boy, a kind parable of western neo-colonialism, the only hint I saw of China was in the malls. Almost every product – except the local foodstuffs – were identical to those we found in America. The only reason we scooped up bargains is because we have opposite seasons, as theirnsummer approached, my family loaded up on winter closeouts to take back home.
If it were not for the seasonal arbitrage, the prices would have been about the same as the US. The brands were either exactly the same or jarringly similar. The products however, were exactly the same because, guess what - they are all made in China just like ours. Welcome to the Great Wall Mart, folks……..
Yet, just 10 years earlier when I had visited South Africa – before China began its great resource grab - there were few Supermalls and the products on sale were truly different. Clothing and furnishings were locally made. They were cheap and had genuine African and Indian influences or unique interpretations of European design. Now it’s all world brand/world design and made - in China. From clothes to housewares to electronics – almost every local attempt at manufacture has been hollowed out. Africans are now shopkeepers like everyone else in the world with mostly small scale and specialty manufacturing, assemblers of goods made elsewhere and producers of foodstuffs and of course, raw materials
Like Americans, South Africans have also been blinded to China’s encroachment because the visible side of overseas investment was in Real Estate - fueled by oil money. The northern coastal land, once relegated to sugar cane fields, was being rapidly transformed into luxury housing and resort complexes. The area on the KwaZulu/Natal coast where my Graphic Novel is set, is the site of South Africa’s leading filmmakers’ own multimillion dollar Miami-style real estate play - funded by Middle East money.
Yet event that has faded – the massive $500 million theme park – AmaZulu World, once planned by a Dubai company for the very area where my story is set on the Zulu coast, fell off the map when oil prices plummeted.
China however, remains.
Our only trump card is that Africans like us and they love the fact that we have an African America president. They create Rap on their laptops, wear Yankees caps, Knicks t-shirts and acquire our products wherever they can. Except that they are almost always made in China. So even if we decided to create a kind of African Marshall Plan to grow both continents economies, we’d very quickly discover the new Bamboo Curtain
That’s dark side of the Great New Game which we will see when the economy picks up again. As we need fresh commodities, those checks drawn on the money we borrowed, will all be made out to China at the prices they are likely to dictate. And it is not just Africa - if the Dalai Lama were to keynote a Peace Conference in most of Latin America, my guess is he’d find the welcome mat just as quickly removed. They’ve been dong the same thing there…….
So thank you Mr. Motlanthe, you just informed us of not only of who you’re working for, but who we’ll be working for: and it’s not Uncle Sam, because right now, he too is getting his paycheck from China.
Read on - it's an eye-opener!
Owned by China: South Africa, Dalai Lama and.............America?
By Alan Brody
When South Africa disinvited the Dalai Lama from their Peace Conference on Monday, they did a lot more than become the laughing stock of the Civilized World. They signaled that China is the New Colonial Master of the Universe.
The Great Game is afoot again but only China seems to be playing. And this time, they are making up the rules: be bloodless, as invisible as possible and try to dominate world’s resources. So when the economy recovers and we need commodities again - guess who will be naming the price? And if China decides to call in our national debt, who will we be working for, Mr. Obama?
The South Africa incident is just the first, indirect public display of China’s ten-year resource invasion of the 3rd World. In the land of Mandela, sports officials, exhilarated at hosting the 2010 World Cup Soccer Games call on the Man of the Mandala. With billions invested in stadiums, housing and airport infrastructure, the country is ready to take their seat as the New Africa’s finest at the table of leading nations. So their three Nobel Peace laureates, Nelson Mandela, Bishop Tutu and F.W De Klerk grandly invite the Dalai Lama to join their showcase Peace Conference to let the World know - it’s more than soccer. They’ve arrived!
Then the government, under President Kgalema Motlanthe, very casually informs the World that the Dalai Lama is not welcome because his issues with China “will distract attention from the games.” Amazingly, even the South African Business Press is taken by surprise asking essentially how much business does China do that they would sell their prized moral status down the river? According to South Africa’s Business Day, China only purchases 20% of their commodities. They actually suggested that China needs South Africa more than they need China.
Wake up fellas – you are in post-20th Century, post apartheid-liberation denial. Europe is fading, the US has been leaving town. China is your leading trading partner at over $50+ billion and they just opened a $500 million investment fund in your backyard. What has Tibet done for you lately, anyway?
That South Africa just didn’t see it coming is testament to their economy’s diversity and advanced infrastructure. China’s influence is barely visible, showing up only in banks and lines of credit. So when China dropped $3.6bn in South Africa in 2006 - it was for a chunk of Standard Bank – the bank with Africa’s biggest reach.
But elsewhere in Africa, where there is little development, China’s simple goal – extract resources and cut out competition – is plain to see. They will pay off whomever they need to build whatever infrastructure it takes to get raw material “A” to port “B” to get it to Chinese factory “C.” In the truly impoverished but resource-rich countries, the locals see the new mines, the hydropower dam and one new road with the trucks driving their booty directly to the port. Scads of Chinese engineers show up, learn the language and do the job. Chinese food becomes available in the jungle, the locals get a lowly job or two and ton of Chinese manufactured goods which obliterate most local manufacture. However, Presidents stay in power, new Palaces and luxury cars appear and numbered accounts are opened.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo they have done something no western colonialist has done – built roads into the jungle – swapping some $6 billion for raw materials. They are developing mines and even planning a $60 billion dam that will tower over the colossal 3 Gorges Dam in China. In Nigeria, they put $8 billion into hydropower, and in Kenya, $580 million into dams. In Zimbabwe it is whatever weapons Mugabe needs to stay in power. China is the biggest investor in the Angola’s oil bonanza - putting our easy access to a huge spigot of Atlantic Ocean oil in question. In Darfur, you might want to ask who is funding the oil pipeline?
When I visited South Africa in 2005 to research my book, White Shaka Boy, a kind parable of western neo-colonialism, the only hint I saw of China was in the malls. Almost every product – except the local foodstuffs – were identical to those we found in America. The only reason we scooped up bargains is because we have opposite seasons, as theirnsummer approached, my family loaded up on winter closeouts to take back home.
If it were not for the seasonal arbitrage, the prices would have been about the same as the US. The brands were either exactly the same or jarringly similar. The products however, were exactly the same because, guess what - they are all made in China just like ours. Welcome to the Great Wall Mart, folks……..
Yet, just 10 years earlier when I had visited South Africa – before China began its great resource grab - there were few Supermalls and the products on sale were truly different. Clothing and furnishings were locally made. They were cheap and had genuine African and Indian influences or unique interpretations of European design. Now it’s all world brand/world design and made - in China. From clothes to housewares to electronics – almost every local attempt at manufacture has been hollowed out. Africans are now shopkeepers like everyone else in the world with mostly small scale and specialty manufacturing, assemblers of goods made elsewhere and producers of foodstuffs and of course, raw materials
Like Americans, South Africans have also been blinded to China’s encroachment because the visible side of overseas investment was in Real Estate - fueled by oil money. The northern coastal land, once relegated to sugar cane fields, was being rapidly transformed into luxury housing and resort complexes. The area on the KwaZulu/Natal coast where my Graphic Novel is set, is the site of South Africa’s leading filmmakers’ own multimillion dollar Miami-style real estate play - funded by Middle East money.
Yet event that has faded – the massive $500 million theme park – AmaZulu World, once planned by a Dubai company for the very area where my story is set on the Zulu coast, fell off the map when oil prices plummeted.
China however, remains.
Our only trump card is that Africans like us and they love the fact that we have an African America president. They create Rap on their laptops, wear Yankees caps, Knicks t-shirts and acquire our products wherever they can. Except that they are almost always made in China. So even if we decided to create a kind of African Marshall Plan to grow both continents economies, we’d very quickly discover the new Bamboo Curtain
That’s dark side of the Great New Game which we will see when the economy picks up again. As we need fresh commodities, those checks drawn on the money we borrowed, will all be made out to China at the prices they are likely to dictate. And it is not just Africa - if the Dalai Lama were to keynote a Peace Conference in most of Latin America, my guess is he’d find the welcome mat just as quickly removed. They’ve been dong the same thing there…….
So thank you Mr. Motlanthe, you just informed us of not only of who you’re working for, but who we’ll be working for: and it’s not Uncle Sam, because right now, he too is getting his paycheck from China.
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