He knows the path best...he who has not travelled it.

I may not be best qualified to espouse on the matters that I wish to but I hold some qualification in being a stakeholder - surely?

The FIFA 2010 World Cup has been and gone. It was a month of euphoria. Reality however came barging through the glass doors with reports of a resumption or rather escalation in xenophobic attacks in the Western Cape and Joburg's East Rand. If we needed a reminder - this was it. We are back to business now. Our lives have resumed. Make no mistake to assume that anyone doubted that this day would come. Why even on twitter people remarked how the ironically christened "BaGhana BaGhana" would revert to Makwerekwere should they progress no further than the quarter finals of the World Cup. Good-will towards the Black Stars of Ghana did, admittedly, extend into a few days after their quarter final defeat. The all round boos directed at Suarez each time he got the ball down in Port Elizabeth bore testimony to that. The Black Stars even enjoyed a roundly successful parade through the streets of Soweto. So there is some love for the Makwerekwere in our black South African folk. The resentment is down to jobs, houses, opportunities and women I believe. Maybe the Black Stars were immune to resentment because they only threatened the last of these? However I digress. I am a lover of the beautiful game and this is why I am writing today.

The Discovery Sports Centre with Robert Marawa on Metro FM weekdays at 1800 hours is an institution in the sports fraternity - especially amongst black South Africans. The radio station itself is packaged for a black audience so this is to be expected. One of it's much maligned but non the less popular guests is one Mamadou - an Ivorian Sports journalist who also appears on Super Sport. He is revered as much for his in-depth knowledge of African football as he is for the catchiest sound bites. He is on record labelling South Africa as a nation that rewards and celebrates mediocrity. Sadly he is right. We have lauded Bafana Bafana for failing to make it to the second round of the world cup, stood aside as power hungry old men have made football a hotly contested fiefdom to serve their own selfish ends, cheered on mediocre players, stood by mutely as said old men have belittled continental competition and allowed sentiment to cloud our judgement.

The World Cup has proven beyond reasonable doubt that it is only those that invest in youth structures that actually make an impression. A blend of youth and experience without replacing technical capability and talent is the ethereal mix that produces a team worthy of challenging for honours on the international stage. A capable coach also helps.

South Africa needs to have already started the process of building a team to challenge for honours or forget about grandiose dreams of ruling the football roost in Africa. Our most celebrated footballer was announced to the World at the Africa Cup of Nations - none of the "stars" we celebrate today are good enough to go anywhere. The overwhelming majority of those that have won overseas contracts by hook and or crook have languished in the reserves or played in obscure leagues where the only highlights we might catch are on you-tube if we are lucky. There are of course exceptions to the rule. But we need to divest ourselves of the notion that playing overseas makes one a shoo-in for the national team. Kudos to Parreira for showing the way in this regard. But it is back to business now and our lives have resumed. Watch the next selection.

For the longest time Sasol put money into the junior structures of football. So much so that the team was named Amaglug Glug. Where do these young players go? We hardly hear of any of them breaking into the senior side. We could possibly count on one hand those that rise to the top. Why so? I suppose the fact that the School of Excellence was too dilapidated for the national team to camp there and SAFA only knew of this three weeks before the World Cup speaks to how seriously SAFA takes development. We need a serious development system to nurture talent and start teaching our footballers the nuances of the game at an early age. So much talent goes to waste because we let it.

The coach selection process would be better handled by Paul the Octopus I suppose. Pitso is a good man. But he should not be gauranteed the job merely because he has been around the national team long enough. The famous saying goes going to church does not make you a Christian just as much as sitting in a garage does not make you a car. What is Pitso's pedigree to qualify him as a national coach? What has he achieved in his coaching career that qualifies him to coach the national team. The national team is not a proving ground. We select the best players to play there. Then why not select the best coach to coach them? The best coach in our midst is Gavin Hunt. Can anyone out there tell me any different?

I may not know enough to be an authority on this subject but I am pretty certain that should we continue down this path we will not qualify for the Africa Nations Cup, we will never qualify for another World Cup and certainly never ever wear our Bafana Bafana shirts to celebrate winning an international competition. The last I checked we lost in the Castle Regional Competition to a country whose population is 2% of ours. Our football cannot continue in this way.

We need it to be saved. Mark my words - appointing Pitso assisted by Neil Tovey is not the coming of a new dawn in our football. It is the darkening of our night. The stars have faded!

Philip is here...eats here...Feel it, it's here

Marketers pride themselves immensely on the ability to coin monikers that infuse popular culture to the extent that these monikers become a part of mainstream pop culture. Many have tried this and failed dismally. Others have stumbled upon this holy grail quite by accident while others have crafted beguiling strategies that have come to nought in pursuit of this holy grail. Being a student of pop culture I am fascinated by the activities of marketers. Their main brief in my opinion is to harness the tide of pop culture, steer the river of popular opinion and preference through the pockets and minds of consumers so that when that all important purchase decision is made - it is in effect an enactment of a choice made way before. Rambling - yes but I am not a marketer and I a certain someone out there can put this in better words.
But why the rambling and the title of this post? Well South Africa is smack bang in the middle of the FIFA World Cup 2010 edition and never in this world's existence has there ever been such a marketers dream as this quadrennial event. It is the biggest sporting event in the world and FIFA's sole means of profiting is by selling tiered marketing and television rights with status ranging from global to local supporters.

So what better playground to ensure you create an invasive moniker than at an event where the playing field is devoid of legal competition and it is legally so (fair trade is foreign to FIFA and their choice is yours so be good and thankful to Father Sepp - Budweiser beer refers). FIFA guard their marketing rights jealously - very jealously, and have no fear to enforce their rights via legal means - Bavaria beer refers. So those corporates whose pockets are deep enough to have paid for this hallowed platform from which to pimp their wares have not disappointed. Here are a few words and phrases that are now a part of our lives - thanks to the FIFA 2010 WorldCup in South Africa:

Ayoba - coined by MTN the Pan-African Cellphone giant with interests in the Middle East. Ayoba loosely means good, cool, acceptable, on point basically all things nice. There is talk that the chap who originally coined the phrase is not too pleased with the yellow juggernaut but - yah MTN has taken Ayoba into Ayobaness and beyond. Ayoba is definitely a part of our lives for the forseeable future. Here is hoping that face of Ayoba chap did not get robbed blind by a thieving agent and actually gets to enjoy real economic benefit for his role in this campaign!

Feel it, it is here - coined by the official broadcaster of the 2010 Worldcup as they are fond of reminding us, The South African Broadcasting Corporation - this has now been "bastardised" into Philip is here or Philip eats here. No doubt the result of someone thinking they heard something they did not. The entire World Cup is now referred to as Philip. The premature (though well deserved) early exit of Bafana Bafana from the tournament was met with wails of Philip has left among the local folks. Thankfully due to Ghana's progress and a hitherto unheard of solidarity with foreign Africans that the average black South African now exhibits (reference the xenophobic attacks of prior year that threaten to return once Philip leaves) Philip is still here and the local folk can still feel it.

Vuvuzela - this one is special because not only has the instrument found itself in South African homes and cars that it would never have made it's way into before the arrival of Philip, it has taken the world by a cacophonous storm. Literally. A hand held trumpet of sorts made of cheap plastic - this choice accessory for the average local football league supporter at one time threatened to steal the headlines indeed from Philip himself and even Jabulani (who we will speak of next). Needless to say the Vuvuzela appears to have spawned a global following. It's monotonous droning sound is apparently a sworn enemy to broadcasters and sensitive viewers at home, drowning out the wise commentary of football pundits and inducing ear-numbing headaches. It is reported that many other nationalities have taken a shine to the Vuvuzela and German, British and American shops that are selling the vuvuzela have seen them fly off the shelves. The Chinese factory that makes them has gone out to find some more children.

Jabulani - I doubt anybody named Jabulani will escape a playground kick-about without constant ribbing from their mates for at least the next four years. Jabulani is the name of the much maligned match ball that FIFA especially commissioned Adidas to make especially for the World Cup. Accused of matching the kind of balls one picks up in the payment aisle at their local supermarket - Jabulani has been blamed for, quite bizarrely, the lack of and the conceding of goals during the World Cup. It is the bane of goalkeepers and the scourge of strikers apparently not being able to make up it's mind on a steady trajectory once in mid-air and also bouncing awkwardly off the even surfaces that are the World Cup stadia turf. I doubt Jabulani will find much use beyond souvenir value after Philip has left.

While the catchy words and or phrases above will surely be part of the FIFA 2010 World Cup legacy for South Africa there are a few others phrases and or items that will not leave with Philip. They are in no particular order:

1. The love that South Africans black and white have for this country. The outpouring of that last vestige of the dictators and other sovereign scourges - Patriotism was in great abound in the run up to the tournament. Wing mirror socks,Bafana Bafana tops, car flags - all I can say about these three things is that you have to have seen it for yourself to know what I am talking about. The naysayers and doom mongers were shamed. We have all conveniently forgotten in the pomp and fanfare that Helen Zille was determined that Green Point stadium construction be halted.
2. The spirit of entrepreneurship that is embodied in the "hustlers" that man our traffic light controlled intersections - especially in Johannesburg and the generous nature of us all who support them. Hands up those that bought their socks and flags at the robots - as we like to call them. That was the best "FICK FUFA" act I saw. In addition of course to the actual t-shirts that bore that message. Long may such an enterprising spirit continue and I bet FUFA is wondering how to get a share of the wing mirror socks revenue come Brazil 2014. Respect to the hustle.
3. The England dressing room "invasion" shows us just what great lengths others will go to undo us. Hopefully the lesson there is we need not do this as South Africans. There are many for whom it is a full time job already. May the positivity seen in denouncing acts of aggression and downright bias against South Africa continue after Philip has left.

Admittedly this may well be an early obituary of sorts as Philip is still here and just about to get into the business end of the tournament. However it has been an enjoyable tournament with many twists and turns and I thought to capture some of my thoughts while I was still in the moment in which they were spawned.

Enjoy Philip wherever you are and good luck to The Black Stars !!

A letter to my sister....

Dear Petina,
The month of April is one that is such a blessing to the working folk. The four and three day official working weeks seem to be in a race to out-do each other. If you are resident in Zim your reduced working hours have the added bonus of Independence Day to add to them.
I fought so hard to avoid the temptation to actually look up a definition of the word; lest what I believe it to be is not what it ought to be. I barely fought down that compelling urge.
Just as I won that battle I came upon Petina Gappah's column in the Sunday Times and thought; Damn I really must look up that definition after all.
Petina lists as the successes of independent Zimbabwe "the end of settler rule, the legal emancipation of women, enhanced standards of education and national cohesion".
I beg to differ, Petina, as have numerous others in response to your column in The Gaurdian. While I will not go so far as to label you, an erstwhile author, a Zanu PF apologist I beg to put forward my thoughts on her take on the successes of Independence.
Ruling a country is about excercising power and the only real power that we can speak of is economic. Can we truly say that the people of Zimbabwe are economically emancipated. Did we not swap a ruling looting elite of caucasian descent for one led by the off-spring of Malawian immigrants? If settler rule indeed came to an end in 1980 why do we today as we speak have a debate raging over indiginisation without a single dissenting voice? Only Douglas Munatsi CEO of Abc Bank has come out to say that we do not necessarily need to indiginise but rather rethink allocation of government banking mandates. Even this is only for just one sector of what was once a vast economy.
I imagine it is because while the settler's handed over political power they retained economic means. Their descendents who now claim to be as African as any black man still hold these means in their hands. How many poor white people do you see in Zimbabwe? Surely in a place where a dominant group is no longer such the random distribution of wealth and poverty will mean that any and all peoples populate both sides of the fabled tracks. Why is this not so in Zimbabwe? Why have young, vibrant, enterprising and bold Zimbabweans left Zimbabwe?

While I am not too conversant with changes in legislation that have resulted in the legal emancipation of women I suggest the fact that such emancipation is so qualified points to the truth that such emancipation means little else other than a statute in a big book somewhere. How emancipated are these women when the Border Gezi graduates raped and maimed countless women in the run-up to the last elections and if present reports are credible still do so with impunity. Why is the founder of the Girl Child Network sought out by the dreaded C.I.O? I put it foward it means little that the legal statutes and such are in place when the justice system that should uphold them is such a mockery and as a result cannot enforce these statutes. What comfort is legislation to a dispossessed widow if such statute cannot restore possession of that which is legally hers? The practice of offering nubile virgin girls as appeasement for ngozi is rife and oft reported in the NATIONAL PRAVDA. It continues unabated. What emancipation for women?

Enhanced standards of education - Petina, shuwa here? Really. One acronym. ZIMSEC. Need I say more? Where are the teachers? Working as security guards and restaurant waitrons in South Africa or as care assistants in England? Figures in the billions have been bandied about as being necessary to the rehabilitation of the education system by David Coltart. Is he insane? Petina do you know something that the rest of us do not? How many public schools has the government built since 1980?

National cohesion? When the mere fact that my politics does not agree with yours is enough reason for you to petrol bomb my car - an atrocity for which you are given immunity from prosecution (R.I.P Tichaona Chiminya) step forward C.I.O Operative Kitsiyatota. How cohesive is our nation. When a vast and prolific national resource is plundered for and to the benefit of a few how cohesive is our nation (Chiadzwa). How are we driving towards a common goal. When mass graves are filled in a time of peace and without a hint of civil war how do we have national cohesion. Going back some moons ago - I doubt the people of Matebeleland have much to say on that. Gukurahundi. A known fact. Now we have the Korean soccer team coming over to say and a government minister fully aware of the history and a veiled admission of guilt by Baba vaChatunga (moment of madness he called...a long moment if ever) asks people to be calm.
How cohesive are we?

There are successes in there somewhere I am certain Petina. I will be the first to admit that I am bitter. The rampant looting and plunder, outbreak of diseases, record obliterating inflation, hunger, poverty, unemployment, lack of remorse, vulgar pontificating, disregard for others, blatant self preservation and aggrandisement....I could go on - have made me rather bitter and I will be hard-pressed to see the successes of our 30 years of independence. Truly I agree with you that this does not mean I would rather the injustices of the past regime were thus perpetuated.

However I suggest that you dig a little deeper for these successes and not gloss over all that is not right. Of course there is always the danger of falling into the category of those that continue to whine over how Zimbabwe is now a basket case. But that is what it is.
Dig deeper Petina - I know you can.

All the best,

Tich

p.s please keep on writing. I enjoy your work immensely.

to revive a movement...

One of the fascinating attributes of human beings is their ability to rally behind a common cause. Often this rallying transcends the barriers of race, colour and creed. Yet, too often and perhaps sadly so, it is actually informed by any or all or some of race colour and creed. Living in a country that has endorsed 11 languages as being "official" I am acutely aware of the differences that are meant to define us. My daily existence is littered with words such as transformation, affirmative action, previously disadvantaged et. al.

Even in our unity we are divided. While it is generally accepted that the ANC is the party of the people - within it are the Zulus and Xhosa's two dominant ethnic groups whose battle for the soul of the party culminated in what is now nonchalantly referred to as Polokwane. While the outlook of the party is not disctinctly Zulu as we speak one could say it is less Xhosa. As much as the ANC is party of the people - the AWB is deemed to be representative of Die Volk. Perhaps a little less than the ANC is deemed to be the party of the masses - because one does not quite see too many of the volk walking around in khakhi fatigues emblazoned with 3 inverted 7s.

However recent events have not only brought the issue of the relevance of the AWB into perspective but also raised questions regarding the relevence of the movement.

For a news junkie I am hard pressed to remember the last time that Eugene Terreblanche made the news or sense for that matter. He increasingly appeared to be a relic of the past - remembered more for falling off his horse than for his vitriolic rhetoric. While to his credit he had the courage of his convictions and spoke boldly what I no doubt believe many of like mind were even afraid to whisper - I never felt that he could one day stir such conviction in the volk as to have them all rise up and take a stand. Even with tensions simmering under the surface most people and volk had settled into a perhaps uneasy but in reality workable existence. Everybody went about their business. There was a thawing of hostilities on both sides. South Africa would not have come this far if it were not that way.

Sadly the reality of our existence is such that others take "things" more seriously than others. So we have binge drinkers, binge eaters, adrenaline junkies, kleptomaniacs, obesessive compulsives etc etc. Our extremists. So while the average member of the volk is getting on with life there are those that miss the heady days of the early 90's. Constant TV coverage of the leader Oom Eugene accompanied by limp displays of some power at rallies where Oom rode his mighty fine horse and made rousing speeches in aid of "the cause". For these Oom's death could not have come at a better time. Suddenly out of the annals of irrelevence the volk are again thrust into the glare of the public eye. Aided and abetted by a lack of guile and tact on the part of a certain Julius, spurred on by an international press desparately hell bent on ensuring that Fifa World Cup is a failure and playing on fears that in the most part are not as founded as we are led to believe - the AWB has found some relevance. It's lieutenants acting in the leadership vacuum that has been left by the death of its general have been quick to downplay the facts of a pay dispute gone awry to harp on about a people whose culture and way of life and indeed very lives are under siege from a targetted onslaught.

While none of these facts are new to the debate, indeed these points have been stated ad nauseum, they had to a degree become white noise (pardon the pun). Noone was listening and life carried on. Increasingly the call for a homeland was dissipating at a rate of knots. Until that is Oom Eugene was brutally murdered and effectively matyred by two employees who had reached the end of their tether.

Now the Afrikaner debate is once more topical both within and without the borders of South Africa.
So how do you revive a dying movement? You kill it's leader. In a macabre twist to this tale - the volk may have some hidden thanks for those two farmhands.
The AWB is milking this event for all and more than it is worth make no mistake. A PR dream appearance on an E TV talk show did not quite go as planned but hey what are the chances that such an opportunity would have presented itself to the AWB last week? What appeared to be a dark cloud may well be a silver lining.

all things in moderation but looting??

My last post spoke to my love/ hate relationship with the press. I reckon it should be love in caps and hate in lower case as there appears to be more love than hate. My Sunday is normally incomplete without a dosage of what the Brits commonly refer to as the red tops or tabloids. So yes - I read the Sunday world. Religiously. So imagine my aghastness when I came across this gem of a  shocker.
Nary USD 2 MILLION in CASH sitting on a farm in Mpumalanga !! Stolen and noone bothers to report to the police.
Money laundering, bill washing whatever term you want to call it is characterised by the movement of large amounts of cash, exchange of assets at discount prices etc etc.
The report then details how CCTV records have been spirited away....
Flabbergasted !!

bizarre....amusingly or grotesquely strange or unusual

Having spent a great deal of my life in Zim and being a voracious consumer of news - news junkie - I have a rather ambivalent relationship with the press in particular and journalism generally. I am under no illusion as to the importance of the fourth estate in matters of governance and forming public opinion on matters outside of governance that may also concern the public. Indeed one of my regrets is that South Africa does not have a widely distributed ANC controlled press. Stay with me now - just for two seconds. Can anyone out there imagine what such a publication would need to publish in order to counter all the negative press that Julius Malema attracts? I for one would love to see this.

Zimbabwe you see has the Pravda oops...The Herald. A newspaper so partial to the ruling party (note I do not say government) there is little if any daylight between it's editorial policy and the Zanu PF manifesto. On the other hand you have the Trevor Ncube led independent news stable which acts as the foil to the party rag. There is also the Financial Gazette whose patron's fortunes hinge on the ruining ruling party but with an editorial policy that sits square centre if a little off and leaning towards the patron's benefactors. A pedestrian analysis of the Zimbabwe media landscape, I will be the first to admit, but such analysis is not the point of my commiserations.

I term my relationship with the press and journalism an ambivalent one because it was during the height of Jonathan Moyo's reign as Goebbels that I learnt the power of the fourth estate. Since then I have treated newspaper and other reports with scepticism if not downright suspicion. Looking for the catch and trying hard to read between the lines. In the naivette of youth I read newspapers and accepted their utterances as an almost gospel truth. As Johnno fought hard to dig Zanu PF out of a hole he wrote an obituary for my unqualified belief in the press. Newspapers and other publications are pawns and putty in the hands of those that control them for the purpose of advancing said owners' and controllers' various agendas. So my love affair with the fourth estate is a love / hate relationship. I do not for one second doubt the role they play or their importance but I loathe them for how easily they can be manipulated.

Take for example a headline I stumbled across today on Moneyweb: Investec's bizarre deal.

Working as I do in Financial Services and having a keen eye for a good story related to the industry that pays the bills I hastily clicked on the link to read it. After reading it I hastily consulted a dictionary and arrived at the definition that is the title of this post. So I concluded if anything was indeed bizarre it was in fact the use of the word bizarre itself. Read the story here.

From this I can infer a couple of things:

1. Lindo Xulu needs a dictionary - badly.

2. Moneyweb or at least Lindo Xulu believe the hoodwinked and oft ill-informed notion that nothing can come out of Zimbabwe and they should be running Investec not the "fools" that are running it now.

I am certain with time I could draw further conclusions. But Investec are in the business of making money. They are not a fly-by-night operation. They employ some of the best financial brains in the country. They may have taken a bath in last years' meltdown but who did not? They are investing $5m. How material is such an amount to a business as large as Investec? In short how is it by any stretch of imagination bizarre that Investec are buying a 20% stake in a retail business that survived world record hyper-inflation, remained trading during that period, turned profits and now operates in a single digit (if not deflation characterised) environment where hard currency is used? Further Investec have been mandated to do this deal by an unnamed customer of theirs. The article mentions this. Who are Investec to refuse this business? A small deal no doubt but the deal fees on 35 million rands can surely pay a blue-eyed boy or two for a couple of months - so why not?

Again I come across that which Jonathan Moyo proved to me. Press is about an agenda. Sometimes a little less obvious at times so overt as to be ludicrous. Other times just plain bollocks! Other times just a show of how badly a good dictionary can make a world of difference.

Utterly bizarre.

card games and lives....you outdid yourselves boys!!

One of those pin you to the couch TV series that M-Net is fond of including in their programming played out a most interesting scene yesterday. More probably last week but commitments during the week mean I relish the Sunday afternoon couch vegetating that accompanies trying to catch up with M-Net's fare. A high-stakes game of poker was won by sleight of hand. Now any card player worth their salt will know that fortunes are made and lost by sleight of hand. I rush to mention fortunes because these are topical in our democratic republic lately. There are of course those that are making them - R 140 million later there are R 250 million waiting and those whose fortunes are in jeopardy due to drunken exploits - step up Jub Jub and mate (if you are a nobody that rolls with a somebody you will be reduced to a body and not a person thus possibly not suffering equal ignobility).

Speaking of drunken exploits and fortunes at risk one Jackson Mthembu immediately comes to mind.

Three times over the limit and driving in the bus lane - he got pulled over the other night. Those that followed the debacle that ensued after one Tony Yengeni got pulled over violating his parole on two counts - one of which surprise surprise was due to alcohol intake - would have rubbed their hands with a smirk of satisfaction at knowing that such debacle did not follow the arrest of Mthembu. This was not for want of trying on the part of the ironically named Law Enforcement.

Just getting the old codger booked proved to be a greater mission than arresting him. Case numbers were tampered with and responsibility was shunted left right and mid-centre. But finally the man was booked and kept in the aptly named cooler overnight to emerge the next morning spouting forth "they allege I was drunk but the matter is sub-judikay" - his enunciation and not mine. Look I never took Latin lessons so sub-judiss still does it for me.

I laughed it off then. What was the man meant to say? Break into a sweat and tell the world his goose had been cooked and his ass was now grass. After all a drink-driving conviction was a criminal offence which in most functional democracies would preclude one from holding public office. That would have been the least of his concerns though as the ANC takes care of its own. Convicted criminals et-al!
But how now to make it go away? The Yengeni-Houdini act had been halted before it began. The tests had been done and the results widely publicised. Three times over the limit.
However I must now confess my naivette. A study in the shenanigans of one special Central African Republic should have taught me to never under-estimate the excesses of those in power. Many a time when I thought a politician was cornered I was astounded to discover the walls were made of reeds.
So with the possibility of certain conviction staring Jackson Mthembu in the face - that paragon of virtue and custodian of the laws of our land, champion of right and defender of the faithless - the National Prosecuting Authority came up with this gem.
Launched with much fanfare only a few months past how can these units not have been tested ? Just how so?
So guess whose results will be the first to be discredited. Jub Jub pick a number. Hopefully the lab that tested you for the other stuff is run by the NPA too.
Ag Sies!!