“I am tired of paying large sums of money for electricity”
By Kimberly Mutandiro
20 July 2017 Sharon Gonscherowski, known to her neighbours as “Magogo”
has to fend off intruders who connect illegally to her electricity.
Photo: Kimberly Mutandiro
A 66-year-old Brakpan woman says she always has a gun ready at
night to deter people from stealing her electricity. She used to fire a
revolver, but now has a pellet gun. It doesn’t make the same noise so
she now blows a whistle.
Sharon Gonscherowski, known to her neighbours as “Magogo”, lives on
an isolated plot in Witpoort Estates near Brakpan. She moved here in
2003. Her property is not fenced. She says she often has to fire warning
shots into the air to scare people away who come at night to connect to
her electricity.
She says she does not sleep much at night. She constantly wakes up to
check through the window. Sometimes she goes outside. Her dogs bark to
warn her. A year ago, her one dog, Duke, disappeared. His body was found
dumped in a nearby bush a week later.
She says intruders have torches and she hears them whispering. That is when she shouts curses at them, and blows her whistle.
“I am tired of paying large sums of money for electricity,” says Gonscherowski.
There is an electricity box in her yard where people connect their
cables. There is also a streetlight opposite her gate, where illegal
connections were made. It burnt out some time ago and no
streetlights work anymore.
Goscherowski also showed GroundUp a hole dug in her yard where her
main electricity cable runs. Illegal connections were made to it.
A month ago, she was robbed near her home after collecting her
pension. She says many of her neighbours have left because of crime in
the area. Houses around her stand vacant with their electricity cut.
Some are now occupied with several families living in a single house.
At night, Gonscherowski says people sneak onto her property and
connect to her electricity. The overload on her electrical system
sometimes leaves her without any power.
Gonscherowski says she relies on her grandson to remove the illegal
connections. She says she hasn’t seen Ekurhuleni Municipality and
Kempton Park Eskom officials for years.
“In 2014, my plot owed R20,000 for electricity. I’ve only just finished paying this amount,” she says.
Ekurhuleni Municipality spokesperson, Themba Radebe, says they are
investigating the matter. He said Eskom cannot give a reason why
Gonscherowski’s matter “has apparently been ignored for so many years”
until the investigation has been completed. He said this could take some
time because of the work load within the department.
Eskom’s media desk has not responded to questions.
Published originally on
GroundUp
.
Bernoldus Niemand (aka James Phillips) at the Market Theatre Warehouse in Johannesburg, 1989. John Hogg/The Times
In 1967, military conscription became compulsory for all white men in South Africa over the age of 16. In the subsequent two decades the country got ever deeper involved in the so-called “Border War” on the Namibian/Angolan border. The war was primarily fought between the South African Defence Force (SADF) and the South West African People’s Organisation (Swapo). Under the hawk-ish President PW Botha, the role of the military was expanded.
The concurrent militarisation of white South African society, as well as the construction of white militarised masculine identities, were powerful societal forces. However, they grew increasingly unpopular. It elicited some resistance from within South Africa’s white population.
PW Botha. Mike Hutchings/Reuters
This resistance was indicative of wider dissent and opposition to apartheid especially in popular culture. English-language rock bands like Bright Blue, the Kalahari Surfers and the Cherry Faced Lurchers, along with solo artists like Roger Lucey, were openly opposed to apartheid and the conscription of white males into the armed conflicts.
These artists often performed under the banners of the End Conscription Campaign, a lobby group formed in 1983 to end compulsory military service. These performances were highly politicised and held a considerable element of risk for the artists.
Culture supporting the war
In contrast, popular culture in support of the war effort (music, film and literature as propaganda) was common. Numerous pro-war music releases in both English and Afrikaans appeared on the market.
Among the Afrikaans releases were albums by two of the most popular South African singers of all time, Gé Korsten’s “Huistoe” (Homewards) and Bles Bridges’s “Onbekende Weermagman” (Unknown Soldier). Notably, while some English bands were openly opposed to the army, the war and apartheid, Afrikaans music remained almost completely compliant. Protest among Afrikaners was still rare, although there are some exceptions.
The sleeve of the record ‘Hou my vas korporaal’ (Hold me tight corporal).
In 1983, two acts released Afrikaans songs that parodied the army experience. Opposition towards conscription and South Africa’s involvement in the Border War was steadily increasing at the time. Bernoldus Niemand (the alternative persona of English-speaking musician James Phillips) released his single “Hou my vas Korporaal” (Hold me tight, Corporal). The rock group Wildebeest released an EP, “Horings op die Stoep” (Horns on the Stoep), containing the song “Bossies” (Bushies).
“Bossies” is a vernacular term referring to post-traumatic stress following military battle. The fact that these are Afrikaans songs, make them a poignant testimony to the unravelling of Afrikaner hegemony. This was a significant change. Afrikaners as a group had arguably more invested in the apartheid system than their white English counterparts.
Wildebeest’s EP, ‘Horings op die stoep’ (horns on stoep).
The two songs were not successful commercially. Nevertheless, they represented the earliest examples of Afrikaans music that echoed the dissent felt among a large group of troops.
Artists like Wildebeest and Bernoldus Niemand represented a non-commercial sub-category that had little to no exposure to the mainstream. This was in contrast to the “Musiek-en-Liriek” (music and lyrics) movement which had the support of mainstream television and state-sanctioned arts organisations.
Free as a bird
“Hou my vas Korporaal” was followed by the release of the album, “Wie is Bernoldus Niemand?” (Who is Bernoldus Niemand?), in February 1985. It was the first record of its kind and set a certain tone: observant, satirical and couched in the rebellious language of rock ’n roll.
‘Hou my vas korporaal’ (hold me tight corporal) was the unofficial anthem of the anti-conscription movement.
Before becoming Niemand, Phillips played in an English band called Corporal Punishment which hailed from his hometown of Springs, a mining town on the East Rand of Johannesburg. It was a hotbed of punk-styled anti-establishment music in the late 1970s. Corporal Punishment’s songs delivered biting political and social commentary.
Although stylistically influenced by 1970s British punk, South African punk bands could not realistically claim the same links to the working class. In the general local context, their race made them privileged. However, not all whites were equally privileged. Phillips wrote into song the characteristics (and in Bernoldus Niemand, into character) of working-class whites who he no doubt had observed in Springs.
Many consider the album to have started the “Afrikaans new wave” which climaxed in the 1989 Voëlvry tour. The Voëlvry (“free as a bird”) tour was an anti-apartheid uprising of sorts: disaffected rock artists performing in Afrikaans on campuses countrywide.
Not surprisingly, “Wie is Bernoldus Niemand?” was banned by the state broadcaster. The satirising of the army experience – which so many young white South Africans could relate to – would become a regular theme for later Voëlvry artists. “Hou my vas Korporaal” also became the unofficial anthem of the ECC.
The cover of Johannes Kerkorrel & Gereformeerde Blues Band’s album ‘Eet Kreef’.
The music of the other Voëlvry artists Koos Kombuis and Johannes Kerkorrel later mocked the vapidity of middle-class Afrikaner suburbia – from the position of rebellious middle-class Afrikaners. But the white working-class character theme in Phillips’s music represented a different subversion, because in the 1980s working-class Afrikaners tended to support the political right.
Although Niemand’s influence on Voëlvry might have been debatable (as suggested by Pat Hopkins in his book “Voëlvry”), it remains a very poignant comment on white conscription during apartheid.
Afrikaans psychedelic rock
Wildebeest, on the other hand, was an enigmatic group in their own way. For one thing, the bassist, Piet Botha, was the son of then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Pik Botha. The band is still remembered for a rather strange appearance on the fogey Afrikaans kids’ television programme “Kraaines” (Crow’s Nest) in 1981. Long-haired and subversively sporting military style khaki outfits, Wildebeest raucously beat traditional African drums and played heavy psychedelic rock.
Psychedelic rock came to Afrikaans children’s television courtesy of Wildebeest.
The songs were all composed by drummer Colin Pratley who, like James Phillips, was also not a first-language Afrikaans speaker. Wildebeest was influenced by African genres and rock music, and used a variety of indigenous instruments while sometimes singing in Afrikaans. Their EP “Horings op die Stoep” contained four tracks and tellingly, all were in Afrikaans.
In contrast to Phillips, however, Wildebeest was not associated with formal opposition to conscription.
Afro-rock group Wildebeest in the early 1980s. From 'On Record: Popular Afrikaans music and society, 1900-2017'.
Considering the socio-political atmosphere of the early 1980s, songs like “Hou my vas Korporaal” and “Bossies” were significant releases. Both songs touched on sensitive and realistic aspects of a shared experience between many white South African males conscripted into military service since 1967. This was in stark contrast to the numerous music releases in support of military service that portrayed conscription as the patriotic duty of young white South African males.
Songs like “Hou my vas Korporaal” and “Bossies” chimed with wider fault lines in Afrikaner society as the apartheid regime’s grip on power started to slip. Their specific significance is that they offered alternative interpretations of the army experience, and by extension white Afrikaner male identity, that resonated with much wider socio-political shifts.
Edited extract from ‘On Record: Popular Afrikaans music and society, 1900-2017’, African Sun Media, Stellenbosch, 2017.
By Ihsaan Haffejee
19 July 2017 Outspoken ANC MP Makhosi Khoza addressed the gathering at
The Conference for The Future of South Africa at the Rhema Bible Church
in Randburg on Tuesday. Photo: Ihsaan Haffejee
About a hundred civil society organisations gathered at the
Rhema Bible Church in Randburg on Tuesday to participate in The
Conference for The Future of South Africa. Hosted by the Ahmed Kathrada
Foundation and Save SA, the organisers said the aim of the conference
was to unite civil society in the fight against state capture.
Large white banners were placed at the entrance to the conference on
which people wrote messages to Members of Parliament that would be
displayed outside parliament on 8 August when a vote of no confidence in
President Jacob Zuma is held. “Make Madiba proud. Vote Zuma out,” read
one message written on the day on which former President Nelson Mandela
would have celebrated his 99th birthday.
Save SA’s Sipho Pityana opened the conference by quoting Mandela’s last State of the Nation address: “Our hope for the future depends also on our resolution as a nation in dealing with the scourge of corruption.”
Pityana said that South Africa was in the position it finds itself
because as a nation we did not heed the words and advice of Nelson
Mandela on the perils of corruption. “We have made many mistakes as a
nation since we fought for liberation. We have written a Constitution
that did not envisage the sort of corrupt leadership we have today. We
have entrusted untrustworthy people with power. We have allowed the
gains of liberation to be stolen away,” he said.
Several politicians and members of the labour movement also attended.
Former Minister of Tourism Derek Hanekom was at the conference in his
capacity as a board member of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation. “We are
sitting with a situation where the kind of leadership that the people
expect of the ANC is not forthcoming,” he said. Hanekom was one of the
ministers axed by Zuma during his cabinet reshuffle in March. “The way
it’s going at the moment under the current leadership there seems to be
an inability to be able to correct the wrongs because some of our own
leaders are implicated in the wrongs.”
Speaking to the media during the lunch break, former Finance Minister
Pravin Gordhan said that President Zuma should step aside as he is
failing to fulfil the aspirations that Nelson Mandela and his generation
had for South Africa.
The loudest cheer of the day was for outspoken ANC MP Makhosi Khoza.
Khoza has said she has had death threats leveled against her and her
family. This is likely for her criticism of President Zuma and for her
stance in favour of a secret ballot no-confidence vote in Parliament.
She said that the president has lost his legitimacy. “I am here to
defend the ANC mission and not a dishonorable and disgraceful leader. As
an African feminist I find the patriarchal system oppressive. I also
find being led by a man who harasses women extremely intolerable,” she
said.
Khoza accused the president of dismissing anti-Zuma protesters as
racists and “clever blacks”. “This is a president who has made us feel
awkward for being black and smart. Mr President, South Africa no longer
needs you. Mr President uphold the country’s constitution. Step aside
and let moral and ethical leaders, lead this country to a prosperous
path,” she said to rapturous applause.
Published originally on
GroundUp
.
An inmate looks out from his cell in the Security Housing Unit at Corcoran State Prison in California on Oct. 1, 2013.
REUTERS/Robert Galbraith
Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently announced a return to a pre-Obama policy of seeking maximum penalties for all drug crimes, including low-level, nonviolent offenses. Criticism from politicians, criminologists, lawyers and others was swift and unambiguous.
Based on a discredited belief in a zero-sum relationship between crime and incarceration rates, the thinking behind this policy was called “one-dimensional,” “archaic,” “misguided” and “dumb.” America’s unprecedented attempt to jail its way out of crime long ago passed the point of diminishing returns. Drug trafficking in particular sees a replacement effect: Removing one drug seller simply makes room for another (often accompanied by a violent reshuffling of territories). Excessive incarceration can also damage communities and can actually make an individual more, not less, likely to reoffend.
I have been facilitating a writing workshop inside Attica Correctional Facility since 2006. For the past eight years, I have solicited, collected, helped publish and digitally disseminated the first-person writing of incarcerated Americans. Those on the receiving end of the attorney general’s misguided policy will naturally feel his words more deeply than others. The writers among them will be burdened with responsibility to make those feelings known.
Who is listening?
Sessions’ statement no doubt sang to the prison servicing industries, prison guard unions, the private prison industry and everyone else who profits from the salaries, pensions and lucrative contracts generated by the largest prison system on Earth. Despite a bipartisan quieting of the drums of the drug war, if Sessions and Trump make good on their promise to return to the “law and order” politics that made the U.S. the world’s master jailer, more mothers, fathers, sons, daughters and brothers will be removed from their homes and suffer the debilitation that comes from a felony conviction.
What few of this war’s partisans are likely to think about is the psychological damage the announcement may have already done to the men and women awaiting release and those awaiting the release of a loved one.
The vast majority of the writers I have encountered hope for a life of work and family and wish to make an active contribution to the communities they damaged. Face-to-face meetings and hundreds of reports from the front lines of America’s mass incarceration experiment offer invaluable insight into our archipelago of over 5,000 prisons and jails. Yet for every man and woman attending a workshop or the few college classrooms that remain since Bill Clinton cut funding for higher education in prisons, for every person who is able and courageous enough to write about their experience, there are thousands of Americans who have given up hope of changing or even documenting their condition.
Whose voices can we hear?
In 2009 I sent out a call for essays, asking incarcerated people to describe their experience inside prisons and jails. The final deadline passed in the fall of 2012. Seventy-one of the initial pool of 154 essays would become “Fourth City: Essays from the Prison in America,” published in 2014.
But essays never stopped coming. The call had opened a vein that would not be stanched. Writers documented the lives that led them to prison, a broken judicial system and staff cultures committed to humiliation and dehumanization, as well as the labor of living among damaged and broken men and women. The resulting digital American Prison Writing Archive now holds more than 1,300 essays in its paper files – the equivalent of 18 volumes the size of “Fourth City,” with 739 essays now posted online.
As important as these courageous writers are, we must understand that they are exceptions inside a system that metes out debilitating pain, that incubates what an incarcerated writer in Illinois calls “phantom souls,” writers in California call “forgotten” and “lost souls,” and from Ohio, “surplus souls.” The voices one hears in “Fourth City” and the APWA are those that have emerged from the silence of masses of men and woman bereft of hope.
“Is there a correlation between the increase in [prison] violence and the mandatory minimum sentence?….In Dante’s ‘Inferno,’ the opening line upon entering the realms of hell was first ‘abandon all hope.’ The delusion of…false hope will never be a controlling mechanism… for this generation; they have no hope. In attempting to control negative/violent tendencies the traditional B.F. Skinner reward and punishment principle is not working. Why? The incentive for compliance, the hope of parole…was removed from the equation. Their current mindset is I have nothing to lose, but most paramount: I have nothing to gain. Nietzsche said ‘He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.’ With this generation there is no why to live for, so they choose the how and this how is very disturbing.”
When incarcerated people’s objections are echoed by prosecutors, you know you have a bad policy. Sessions’ announcement will resume fomenting despair even among nonviolent drug offenders betting on a national shift toward more rational sentencing. I have seen this despair in the eyes of men inside.
“It was like I woke up in a zombie movie.”
These were the words of a man serving time inside Attica. He was referring to the morning of March 10, 2008 and news of the sex scandal that would end the political career of Eliot Spitzer. The then-governor had announced the creation of a commission to reform sentencing and reduce prison populations. “Guys was walking around light as Macy balloons,” another man recalled of the afternoon of Spitzer’s announcement. Then the governor was revealed as the regular client of a high-end call girl. “It was like the G-forces doubled,” another man recalled, his face recounting that sensation. “My cellie couldn’t get off his bunk.”
Rising out of a population whose hopes are crushed, ephemeral or struggling, the voices that do reach out exhibit a resilience that is humbling. Sessions’ doing what he calls “the right and moral thing” is bound to further challenge such resilience. But we’ll know that only from what some incarcerated people write about others. Dead souls tell no tales.
Doran Larson, Wolcott-Bartlett Professor of Literature & Creative Writing; Director of the Program in Jurisprudence, Law, and Justice Studies, Hamilton College
If you want to hire hitmen, go to Glebelands, hears Moerane Commission into political killings
By Nomfundo Xolo
18 July 2017 Activist Vanessa Burger testifying at the Moerane Commission on Monday. Photo: Nomfundo Xolo
The Moerane Commission of Inquiry into political killings in
KwaZulu-Natal resumed after a month recess. On Monday, the commission,
chaired by advocate Marumo Moerane, heard testimony on why at least 89
people have been murdered since March 2014 at the Glebelands hostel in
Umlazi without a single arrest being made.
Giving testimony was a former Glebelands’ resident and peace
committee member (who cannot be named to protect his identity). He
stayed at the hostel from 1986 to 2016. He said he left after he was
tipped off about a plan to kill him.
He said that the peace committee had been working for peace to
unite Block R and Block 52 which had been at war. “The feud started with
the selling of beds, where some men would sell empty space in the
hostel to people at R1,000. If you stayed in Block R, you could not
visit your friend or relative staying in Block 52, known as Madala
Stairs,” he said.
“For a while, the peace committee worked to break the hostility and
fights. Now it’s members [the peace committee] are getting killed one by
one and it is no longer a functioning body,” he said.
Questioned by evidence leader Bheki Manyathi, the resident agreed
that the killings in the province and Glebelands were a result of
politics, power, financial enrichment, criminality, failures on the
parts of the municipality, the SAPS and the Durban metro police. He also
said that a policeman who stayed at the hostel was the mastermind
behind some of the killings and brought ammunition to the hostel’s
hitmen and warlords.
Human rights activist Vanessa Burger also testified. She said, “If
you want to hire hitmen, go to Glebelands.” She said the police “had not
only failed, they lied”.
The commission runs until 21 July with some testimonies expected to take place in camera.
Published originally on
GroundUp
.
Edited extract from ‘On Record: Popular Afrikaans music and society, 1900-2017’, African Sun Media, Stellenbosch, 2017.
Rising out of a population whose hopes are crushed, ephemeral or struggling, the voices that do reach out exhibit a resilience that is humbling. Sessions’ doing what he calls “the right and moral thing” is bound to further challenge such resilience. But we’ll know that only from what some incarcerated people write about others. Dead souls tell no tales.