One of the most basic tenets of democracy is the transparent dissemination of information, something that is written into our own Constitution, some claim in the metaphorical blood of our struggle heroes. Fulfilment of this role is the sworn duty of the ethical journalist, who undertakes to report the news without fear or favour.

Throughout the history of journalism, a significant component of this news has flowed from regions of the world which are embroiled in conflict, military, civil or both. But being a journalist in a conflict zone (what used to be called a war correspondent), has always been a risky business.

History is littered with the names of journalists who have been either injured or killed in conflict zones, from the WWII Waffen-SS reporter Kurt Eggers (shot), Robert Cappa and Bernard B Fall (both killed by landmines in the First Indo-China War), Dickey Chappelle, (the first woman war correspondent casualty, killed by a landmine in Vietnam) to Joao Silva, the South African photographer who lost both legs to a landmine in Afghanistan last year.

According to the media NGO Reporters Without Borders, five journalists have already been killed in 2011, 152 are in custody, and 850 have been killed worldwide since 1992.

With the ever increasing number of hot spots around the world, and the insatiable demand for news of those conflicts, odds are these numbers will grow.

Not only do journalists face the very real possibility of being shot, blown up, or in some other gruesome fashion deprived of limb or life, they could also end up a prisoner of the very people whose conflict they are reporting on.

Our most recent “casualty” is freelance photographer and former picture editor of the Saturday Star, Anton Hammerl, captured by Gaddafi’s forces in Eastern Libya near the oil town of Brega on April 5. Initially believed to have been detained with Clare Morgana Gillis, James Wright Foley and Manuel Varela de Seijas Brabo, it now appears his whereabouts are unknown, the other three having been seen in a detention camp in Tripoli.

In pursuit of our disgracefully confused foreign policy agenda on the Libyan conflict (initially South Africa voted for the no-fly zone in Security Council resolution 1973, and has ever since expressed the muttered contradiction that it is unacceptable and must come to an end), Jacob Zuma led an AU delegation to Libya last weekend in an attempt to find a solution to the push-me-pull-you war that is rapidly going nowhere.

Aside from the fact that he clearly demonstrated his unimpeachable impartiality by referring to Gaddafi as “our Brother Leader” (he may be yours, President Zuma, but he most certainly is not mine) during their mutual hand-washing session, and refusing to meet with the rebel leaders in Benghazi, he further disgraced himself by not raising with Gaddafi the matter of the detained Hammerl.

According to presidential spin doctor Zizi Kodwa, this particular matter was “not on the agenda”, as there were obviously “far more important matters” to discuss.

Belatedly, the clumsily named international relations and cooperation department is pursuing all possible avenues to secure Hammerl’s release, but that equates to little more than reversing after jumping a red traffic light.

But Anton Hammerl is after all a journalist, isn’t he? And the ANC is hell bent on establishing a media appeals tribunal and passing into law the malevolent Protection of Information Bill, isn’t it?

Is it therefore in any way surprising that President Zuma explicitly chose to ignore a golden opportunity to secure Hammerl’s release?

What’s the difference between Libya and Côte d’Ivoire? Aside for a few degrees of latitude and longitude, that is?

They are both African countries. They both have substantial mineral wealth. They are both ruled by that largely African peculiarity, a “strong man”. They’re both in turmoil. The UN has imposed sanctions on both countries because of continued violent bloodshed.

Ah, of course! Libya has oil; Côte d’Ivoire does not. For that matter neither does Zimbabwe have oil, but we don’t see coalition forces – an uncomfortable collective for those politically strange bed fellows the US, EU, NATO and certain Arab League countries – making haste to implement no-fly zones, and to lend help to the opposition in either of these countries.

Libya, on the other hand, enjoys the undivided attention of the coalition forces, as the engagingly titled Operation Odyssey Dawn forges ahead in pursuit of UN resolution 1973, accompanied by earnest justifications by the likes of Barack Obama and David Cameron that “we’re doing the right thing”.

This self-serving pontificating is accompanied by stout denials that regime change is the goal, which is immediately contradicted by demands from these same two gentlemen – and pretty much the rest of the world – that “Gaddafi must go”.

And as the rebels struggle to defeat the far better trained and equipped Gaddafi loyalists, the coalition gaily rains ordinance down on selected targets, in an attempt to “safeguard civilians” and avoid a “humanitarian crisis”. Gadaffi is clearly a very unpopular man.

Which is puzzling, because up until his ‘subjects’ decided to give him the boot six odd weeks ago, this was clearly not the case. So, what has happened?

It all goes back to 2000, when Gaddafi was granted a de facto pardon, after he agreed to give up two of his own people for the Lockerbie bombing. Tried in a Scottish court, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was convicted for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 and sentenced to life imprisonment, while his co-accused, Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, was acquitted and sent home.

Needless to say, Libyan oil started to flow freely once more to the west, particularly to Europe, and Brother Leader was once more seen shaking hands with – and in some instances embracing – many world leaders who a short while before, wouldn’t have touched him with a ten foot barge pole. How easily politicians forget.

Eight and a half years later, on August 20, 2009 Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds because he was reportedly terminally ill with prostate cancer and expected to live no more than three months. He is still alive some 18 months later, although a December report indicates that he is now in a coma. (Does any of this sound familiar?)

Fast forward to Tunisia last year, followed remarkably rapidly by Egypt, and we end up in Libya, where the man who has run “his” country with a brutal iron fist for 42 years, suddenly discovers that the tiger he has had by the tail all these years, is slightly ticked off.

True to form he blusters, postures and threatens, and all of a sudden those who tolerated him, turned on him, and we were deafened by shrill calls of “Gaddafi must go, and go now”, that democracy must be allowed to triumph.

What changed? Well, without putting too fine a point on it, the oil stopped flowing as the recalcitrant Libyan population, sick and tired of oppression, and heartened by events in neighbouring Egypt, decided it was time for Brother Leader to go. Recent reports say that the wells are only pumping one third of Libya’s 1.56 million barrel capacity, and guess whose hurting?

At least UK prime minister David Cameron had the good grace to admit, during a recent visit to Kuwait, that cozying up to tyrants, as the UK has done in the past, may not have been a good idea. Of course, we mustn’t forget that he’s pointing fingers at his Labour predecessor, Tony Blair who was involved in brokering Megrahi’s release. Clearly, this had nothing to do with the £500 million BP oil exploration deal signed with Libya on August 20, 2009 the very day that Megrahi was released on medical parole, now did it?

So now there is talk of arming the poorly organised, led and trained Libyan dissidents, as Gaddafi loyalists continue to make life difficult for them, and Gaddafi castigates the West for having the temerity to attack the sovereign soil of “his” Libya. And mark my words, the specific restrictions included in UN resolution 1973, which disallow coalition action to effect regime change in Libya, are highly unlikely to prevent weapons from flowing into rebel hands. No, the oil is just too important for that.

Meanwhile, in Côte d’Ivoire, Laurent Gbagbo continues to defy the UN, AU and the Economic Association of West African States, not to mention Côte d’Ivoire’s own electoral commission, all of whom declared the October 31 presidential run-off election which returned Alassane Ouattara, free and fair.

Even South Africa managed to make vaguely condemnatory noises about Gbagbo after dithering for weeks over how to respond. What didn’t help was the ACDP leader Kenneth Meshoe’s visit to Côte d’Ivoire in January.  He announced that the election was null and void and that Gbagbo was still the lawful president, because the results had been announced by only one of 30 constitutional commissioners, neatly and disingenuously contradicting his December 6 statement in which he called on our government, the AU the UN and everybody else, to recognise Alassane Ouattara.

Côte d’Ivoire is now at war with itself, split into north and south, with fighting intensifying every day. As the death toll of combatants and innocent civilians climbs, the UN passes useless sanctions, calls on Gbagbo to step down, and does little lese.

Now, if only Côte d’Ivoire had oil….

Why is it, that South African heads of state seem to think that what’s happening in the rest of the world, is more important than what’s going on at home?

One of the reasons Thabo Mbeki was pushed onto his sword with indecent haste post Polokwane 2007, was fuelled by the perception that he spent far too much time out of the country on the diplomacy circuit, tending to trouble spots in other countries, conveniently ignoring what was going down in battered and bruised South Africa.

When Jacob Zuma became president, and redesigned his Cabinet, foreign affairs received short shrift. It was renamed the department of international relations and cooperation, and the savvy Nkosasana Dlamini-Zuma was replaced by Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, a virtual unknown with little foreign policy experience. (Stints as high commissioner to India and Malaysia hardly qualify, since such appointments are largely titular in nature, with career diplomats driving Government’s foreign policy agenda.) The fact that she only just made the cut onto the NEC – she was the lowest scoring of 80 candidates with 1337 votes – lent further fuel to the perception that foreign policy was on the back burner.

But that has all changed, with our President adopting the mantle of his predecessor, and dispensing his diplomatic wisdom to all comers.

Like Mbeki before him, he has regularly engaged in mutual hand-washing sessions with Robert Mugabe, in a vain attempt to get the Global Political Alliance in Zimbabwe back on track, with as much success it seems.

He has officially visited mainland China, to cement relations with the Asian tiger that embraces capitalism, while ruthlessly supressing any aspirations to democracy.

India has also received him officially, along with a significant business delegation, although that visit was mired in controversy because of allegations of preferential treatment of a small coterie of “inner circle” businessmen, over the rest of the delegation.

He lent his wisdom to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January (fortunately accompanied by the likes of finance minister Pravin Gordhan, economic development minister Ebrahim Patel and trade and industry minister Rob Davies, amongst others) and then attended the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa.

Now it seems he wants to travel to Libya as part of the African Union delegation that is going to plead with Brother Leader to be reasonable. Granted, he did eventually, if belatedly last week, publicly express his disdain for Gaddafi’s attempts to cling to power, and has ordered Treasury to implement the UN resolution to freeze the South African assets (and significant they are) of Brother Leader and his cronies.

But Libya has been in flames for nigh on four weeks now, and there is the delicate matter of his recent cosy chat with Brother Leader, reported widely apparently on Libyan TV (read Gaddafi’s personal propaganda machine), but not at all at home. Presidential spin doctor Zizi Kodwa has of course steadfastly refused to comment on the substance of the call (which does little other than fuel lurid speculation), despite predictably shrill calls for transparency from the DA’s parliamentary boss man, Athol Trollip.

Now that the UN has overcome its attack of moral constipation over the matter of a no-fly zone over Libya (the Arab League approved it a whole four days earlier), the threat of violent retribution by Gaddafi against the rebels, may well be containable after all, yet President Zuma still plans to head for Libya with the AU delegation.

At the time of going to print, reports were streaming, in of surgical strikes by collation aircraft against Gadaffi and his forces, which means the end is clearly nigh.

All things considered, it is deeply puzzling why Mr Zuma seems to think that his presence will lend impetus of significance toward settling the growing conflict, when he is incapable of reconciling the warring factions in his own party back home.

Talk about fiddling while Rome burns….

The United States – and the rest of the world for that matter – ought to be fervently grateful that George W Bush no longer sits in the Oval Office. If he did, chances are the speed with which he would have sent troops into Libya, would have made the decision to invade Iraq second time round, seem positively pedestrian.

Thankfully, we have a man in the White House who is less inclined to base his executive decisions on gut feel and decidedly dodgy intel. Clearly, Barack Obama is no George W Bush.

The US is approaching the Libyan crisis with due caution, if the recent statements by secretary of state Hilary Clinton, and secretary of defence Robert Gates are anything to go by.

Both of them have made it clear that implementing a no-fly zone over Libya, a first order of business if military intervention is actually contemplated, is still a long way into the future. Talking to a senate committee recently, Mr Gates noted calmly that imposing a no-fly zone would commence with an air strike into Libya to disable its air defences, after which the no-fly zone could be implemented. He also pointed out that it would require more aircraft than are on a single aircraft carrier.

Ms Clinton, presumably also addressing the same senate committee, recalled the protracted decision-making process that eventually led to the UN sponsored no-fly zone over Kosovo, when the Balkan states erupted into vicious ethnic conflict after the artificial glue which held the USSR together melted when the Berlin Wall fell. She too said that a no-fly zone is “a long way off”, but added, ominously perhaps, that “no options are off the table at this time”.

The unprecedented move by the Arab League last Friday, to call on the UN to implement a no-fly zone over Libya notwithstanding, both NATO and the US are still most reluctant it seems, despite the appalling loss of life, and the gains made by Gaddafi loyalists  against the rebels.

It is perhaps worth speculating about how that perspective might change depending upon what plays out in Libya, and the broader Maghreb. Brother Leader, the man who has shamelessly touted himself as the first president of a United States of Africa, has made it quite clear that he is not going quietly. In a rambling and barely coherent address on state television, Muamar Gaddafi warned the Libyan people that he would fight to the last drop of blood (presumably not his own of course), adding that his supporters, few though they may be, will be supplied with arms and ammunition to fight the Al Qaeda-inspired aggressors who are attempting to oust him.

Libya is the seventh largest OPEC oil producer, pumping 1.56 million barrels per day, according a to December 2010 International Energy Agency oil market report. Libyan oil is desirable, because it is close to European markets, and production costs are relatively low. A recent report says production has been cut by half since the population rose up and told Brother Leader to go. If other major producers like Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE and – horror of horrors – Saudi Arabia (29% of OPEC production) are dragged into the pro-democracy maelstrom, the starkly bleak prospect of the world economy literally grinding to a halt for lack of oil, may cause the policy wonks in Washington and Brussels to re-evaluate their options.

The consequences of a world without sufficient oil to drive the world economy will make the recent global financial meltdown look like a teddy bears picnic, the prospect of which could easily make military intervention to ease the process of regime change in selected countries –thereby ensuring continuity of oil production – significantly more palatable than it currently is.

I elected to republish this after listening to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela speaking on the steps of the Equality Court last week about the immense favour Afri-Forum has done Julius Malema, to whom she refers as “our next president”. 

If current political scuttlebutt is to be believed, it seems President Jacob Zuma’s ventriloquists dummy, Julius Malema, may well have presidential aspirations.

As things stand, the likelihood of the present incumbent seeking – and getting – a second term seems pretty certain, but much water must still flow under the country’s political bridge before the next “Polokwane” in 2012, and so much could happen in that turbulent maelstrom that is South African politics.

The apparently rock-solid edifice upon which Jacob Zuma ascended to the highest office in the land – and the party – is beginning to show some cracks, despite the voluble protestations of the tri-partite alliance to the contrary.

Ministers are openly criticised by alliance partners – and rightfully so – for their nauseatingly opulent choices in official motor vehicle, Comrade Blade being a prime, and one of the most recent, examples.

A tense face-off in the Eastern Cape recently saw a pitched battle between ANC and SACP candidates for the provincial leadership, and ominously, the SACP candidate won, albeit only by the width of the cell wall of a staphylococcus bacterium.

Belligerent industrial action has accelerated to unprecedented levels since April, and besides the uptick in frequency, the level of violence accompanying the strike action has increased concomitantly. Even the security services have participated, most recently 1300 SANDF members in a violent and illegal wild-cat strike at the Union Buildings. In a typically knee-jerk and ill thought out retaliation, Minister Lindiwe Sisulu fired the lot of them on the spot, and if the union’s utterances are anything to go by, the problem is a long way from over. Cleary, the alliance partners are far from being as in lock-step as they would have the country believe.

The ongoing and increasingly violent protest action in townships, demanding what was promised to the gullible voting fodder so callously by President Jacob Zuma and his allies during the election campaign – they new full well they could never deliver – is placing further strain on the already fragile relationships amongst alliance partners.

And late last week, violent student protests atWitsUniversitysounded an ominous alarm bell, warning of unrelenting demands for something that government is incapable of providing.

As hard as it may be to believe this soon after the election – we’ve only just seen the first 100 days come and go – President Zuma faces the bleak possibility, nay probability, that he may well fall from favour before the next big party indaba in 2012. After all, it is the outcome of this gathering of the party faithful, with all the attendant political skulduggery and pursuit of personal ambition before and during the congress, that largely shapes what the government post-2014 will look like, just as it did in 2007 at Polokwane.

So where does Julius Malema fit into all of this? How is it possible that he can even contemplate aspiring to the highest office in the land, considering his remarkable ability to fit both of his feet into his mouth simultaneously?

The cold hard truth of the matter is that we ridicule, discount or ignore Mr Malema at our peril, because we seem to forget that he speaks to a substantial constituency that listens avidly to virtually every word that he says. Out of our population of 47 odd million citizens, fully 50% fall into that category loosely referred to as “the youth” and to say that the majority are disaffected, disillusioned and angry would amount to a monumental understatement.

Adding fuel to these smouldering embers is a sure-fire way to garner a groundswell of support, no matter how illogical or irrational Mr Malema’s rhetoric might be. As much as we think he’s loony, his utterances touch a chord with the disaffected youth, and the more inflammatory he is the greater will be the support afforded by his constituency. And 2012 looms.

The argument that he is too young, that he must wait his turn in the highest tradition of the party, may well carry weight with the current leadership generation, the grey beards, but the big question must be: Are the likes of Julius Malema prepared to wait their turn, probably for another 15 to 20 years? His age contemporary, Fikile Mbalula, is already a deputy cabinet minister, so why pray could Julius not aspire to becoming president?

The self-deception of his suitability for high office is fostered by his inclination to comment on virtually every aspect of public life. Nobody and nothing it seems, is spared his frequently illogical and generally odious attention, and the media’s willingness to report his utterances – easily misinterpreted as adulation – serves only to reinforce the illusion.

A further source of compelling inspiration was the phenomenal success achieved last year by Barack Obama – at the age of 43 – in wresting the Democratic nomination from Hilary Clinton, and the presidency from the Republicans.

Mr Malema attended the inauguration, and according to City Press editor-in-chief Ferial Haffajee on a local talk radio show last Thursday, the play of emotion on his face during Barack Obama’s inaugural address, trumpeted the conviction “If he can, so can I.”

In an approximation of Lloyd Bentson’s “Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy” to Dan Quayle when he likened himself to President John F Kennedy during a vice-presidential debate in the 1988 US presidential election campaign, “Mr Malema, you’re no Barack Obama”.

But selective human memory being what it is, we seem to forget just how significant a role Mr Malema played in getting Jacob Zuma elected president of both the ANC and the country. What if he were to focus that malevolent and ruthless energy on satisfying his own presidential ambitions?

Since neither intellectual capacity nor education appear to be determining criteria in the achievement of high office in the ANC, the unthinkable it seems, may well be possible.

Unbeknown to his family, Mohamed Bouazizi bought a can of petrol and set himself alight. In just short of a month, the flames of that self- immolation had brought to its knees, one of the most cleptocratic and repressive dictatorships in the Arab world.

Mohamed Bouazizi - the self-immolation that ended a dictatorship.

After almost a month of mass demonstrations, which were met initially with brutal state violence, Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali folded up his tent and fled into exile, with his much despised family in tow, ending  23 years of iron rule. Question is: what happened?

Jonathan Schell, in his seminal work “The Unconquerable World” (Alan Lane, 2004) postulates that the power of collective action has the potential to change the way the world functions. In a detailed and thought provoking analysis of some of the great events of history – the French Revolution, the American Revolution, the fall of the British Raj in India, and the collapse of the Soviet Union – he deconstructs each event to find the fundamental source of the power that brought about, sometimes frighteningly rapidly, far reaching change.

Jonathan Schell

In each instance, he argues convincingly that change came about because of the power of largely non-violent collective action. Mohandas K Ghandi was one of the early proponents of non-violent or peaceful resistance, what he called satyagraha, or “soul force” and under his stewardship, it brought to its knees, one of the most powerful countries in the world at the time.

The ANC too, in its early days, had a clear policy of peaceful resistance, gleaned from the interactions of some of its leaders with Ganhdi while he practised law in South Africa in the early 1900’s. But the continued violent intransigence of the apartheid state – the Sharpeville Massacre a case in point – eventually persuaded the ANC to take up the spear of resistance, and its armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe was born.

Political theorist Hannah Arendt, in her book “On Violence” (Harvest Books, 1969) wrote “Power corresponds to the human ability not just to act, but to act in concert.” Twenty years later, the wisdom of her observation was manifested in the largely peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union, symbolised by the destruction of the Berlin Wall.

Robert Gabriel Mugabe, virtual dictator of Zimbabwe. How much longer can he cling to power?

It is this very power of people acting in concert, which brought to an end Ben Ali’s vicious dictatorship, unleashing a chain of events, the conclusion to which is as yet unclear, but which will no doubt change forever the way in which we understand our world, as fundamentally as did the remarkable events of November 1989.

And the contagion is spreading. The worst nightmare of the dictator has come to pass. Protests have erupted in Algeria, Morocco and Jordan, and the 30 year long death grip of Hosni Mubarak on the throat of Egypt is fast loosening, as crowds take to the streets, rejecting his every promise of change and reform, demanding his immediate abdication from power.

Who knows what the eventual outcome will be, save to say that North Africa and the Middle East (already a veritable powder keg), teeter on a knife edge as populations sick and tired of decades of brutal repression, stridently demand their freedom – and are prepared to fight for it. It is a time of great peril but also a time of great promise.

And as the domino effect takes hold up north, the likes of Robert Mugabe must be wondering sweatily whether the contagion can leap the great quarantine belt symbolised by the Rub’ al Khali (The Empty Quarter), and infect sub-Saharan Africa as well.

The meeting took place at 11.30am Monday, January 24 at the Municipality’s offices adjacent to the town hall. Two members of the media were present, a number of municipal officials, and a number of members of TATIB, lead by Ian Odendaal. Jurgen Schirmacher, a founding member of TATIB, and a well known environmental activist participated in the meeting via Skype from Australia where he currently resides.

Davidson, in his opening comments welcomed the TATIB delegation, and assured them that it was in the municipality’s interests to address the issues at hand because “Stellenbosch has some of the most expensive real estate in the country” and that this must be protected.

Davidson unilaterally assumed the chairperson of the meeting after an exchange with Odendaal, in which he initially refused to accept the agenda proposed beforehand by TATIB. “Let’s see how things go,” he said.

He then asked all present to introduced themselves and to state their interest in the proceedings, and once he realised the media was present, he refused to proceed.

Odendaal and Schirmacher both challenged his decision, citing the need for transparency, but Davidson insisted that it is the policy of the municipality that the media are not permitted to be present in “planning meetings” where matters of a “technical nature” are discussed.

At one point he agreed to observe the TATIB agenda, but only if the media left the meeting.

Odendaal pointed out that the meeting was in fact a public meeting called at the request of TATIB,  as a follow-up to a series of meetings last year with community services and public safety, the last of which took place on May 25. Certain undertakings had apparently been made at those meetings, and TATIB wanted feedback on the progress the municipality has made on those undertakings.

Schirmacher said that in his view the municipality “must have something to hide” if Donaldson insisted that the media leave the meeting, but Donaldson was adamant.

When challenged by a member of the media to divulge who had ordered him to exclude the media, he said that it “wasn’t a person, but a municipal policy”. When asked to produce the written policy, he said “We”ll have to get our hands on it then forward it to you.”

He agreed that the minutes of the meeting could be made available to the media, and also to the media having free access to speak directly to the officials present at the meeting,  if the media had any questions about what is recorded in the minutes, adding “That’s normal procedure.”

Both members of the media then agreed to withdraw from the meeting, albeit it under protest, to ensure that the meeting was not postponed.

The story goes that both companies put just about everything they had into their respective marketing campaigns, fully aware of just what was at stake. At the time, the average per capita consumption of CSD in the US was just over 200 litres. Multiply that by a population of 240 million and the magnitude of the prize at stake becomes evident.

Pepsi focussed its strategy on advertising, taking the unprecedented step of signing Michael Jackson for its advertising campaign. The two companies slugged it out eyeball to eyeball, until one of them blinked … and lost. And that was Coca Cola, who made the catastrophic blunder of replacing its massively successful Product 7X formula with New Coke.

The parallels between this titanic battle and the bitter struggle between the ANC and Cosatu, playing itself on the battleground of South African society, are unmistakable. The cardinal difference is that while the CSD market in the US at the time was worth around $24 billion a year, the prize at stake in the current war – the heart and sole of our country – is by definition infinitely greater.

The strike action seen thus far has paralysed our fatally wounded education system, and our crumbling healthcare system.

The possibility of at risk matric learners – and those in most other grades for that matter – being adequately prepared for their final examinations recedes with every day of the teacher strike that passes.

Although it is not possible to unequivocally link the deaths of patients in the public healthcare system directly to the strike by healthcare workers, it is disingenuous to suggest that it is having no impact at all. HIV positive people for example, who are not getting their anti-retroviral medication, are exponentially more at risk with each passing day. It is inconceivable to expect that deaths will not result in this critically vulnerable population as immune systems crumble, and secondary infections take hold.

The ANC has stated that government it will unilaterally implement the 7% increase and R700 housing allowance. It is in effect, the final offer. The cupboard, we are told, is bare.

Cosatu is adamant that its member will remain on strike – and bring the economy to its knees, according to more than one union official – until government agrees to an 8.5% increase and R1000 housing allowance. The protagonists are as much eyeball to eyeball as were Pepsi and Coca Cola in the mid 1980’s. Trouble is who is likely to blink, and what are the likely scenarios?

With President Zuma in China on a state visit, the normally indecisive and dithering leadership in the ANC is now little other than paralysed.

Cosatu on the other hand, is uncompromising in its view of what it wants, and secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi is very obviously at the helm, and firmly in control.

Ominously, Mr Vavi has now stated publicly that the tri-partite alliance is not unbreakable, the first tangible admission that the glue which BINDS the alliance partners together, is far weaker than they would have the nation believe. He’s also said that Cosatu support at the polls in 2011 for ANC candidates will be piecemeal, limited to those who Cosatu believes are worthy.

Predicting the likelihood of future events in circumstances as fluid as our politics, is fraught with peril. Indeed, respected scenario planner Clem Sunter once said that using history as a predictor of future events is like walking into the future looking backwards: you will inevitably trip over something. Instead, in the tried and tested process of looking at current trends as predictors of future events, there are some tantalising sign posts before us.

Whether the ANC or Cosatu blinks first, the bonds that bind the “broad church of the ANC” – the alliance partners – will have been fatally weakened. Disparate political bedfellows who came together to fight the common enemy – apartheid with all its attendant evils – have triumphed. Apartheid is dead (well in name anyway), but with the common enemy vanquished, the former allies now turn upon each other, as the ideological differences that have always existed between them, papered over while fighting the common enemy, now drive a wedges into the ever widening fissures in the relationship.

The alliance splitting raises the intriguing possibility of Cosatu and possibly the SACP forming a party to the left of the ANC (the genesis of the MDC in Zimbabwe is, after all, organised labour), resulting in a seismic shift in our politics. For the first time since 1994, we’ll have a real opposition in this country. The question mark over the SACP’s future arises because, ever the opportunist it will go wherever its bread is best buttered, and considering Comrade Blades’ most un-Communist penchant for a fat salary and million Rand plus transportation, it will probably remain the anal tag of the ANC for the time being.

That such a new party will give the ANC a goodly number of grey hairs and sleepless nights as the 2011 local government election rolls around, is an added bonus.

Importantly, the massive majorities heretofore enjoyed by the ANC as if by divine right, will no longer be a foregone conclusion and the possibility of Jesus coming sooner than Mr Zuma expects will be that much greater.

Irrespective of who blinks, our politics is likely to be changed forever.

Why is it that points of intersection, unexpected and often coincidental, can force one to look deep inside ones self, to dredge up memories that have been packed away for years, buried deep below a veneer of equanimity, an outward facade of inner peace?

Reading an article about the imminent release of Franz Marx’s latest motion picture, “Egoli”, and following a link to a music video by Bok van Blerk on YouTube entitled “Die Kaplyn” from his latest album “Afrikanerhart”, is one such point of intersection.

Never having been an Egoli fan when the soapy was running – the final season concluded recently on M-Net – I read the plot outline initially with little other than idle interest. It purports to encompass to some extent the original Egoli story, but the focus seems to be on the experiences of two middle-aged men who have shared experiences of the Bush War, now most frequently referred to as The Forgotten War, and the impact it has on their lives decades after their part in the conflict.

In Marx’s own words: “The male Afrikaner of the 1970’s and 1980’s experienced a 15 year long, immoral, inexplicable, illogical and politically inspired war and was brainwashed to expect (perhaps in deliberate naivety) an alternative future than what came to pass after 1994.” Marx goes on to say that the film is to some extent a study of the longer-term impact of post-traumatic stress disorder (PSD), and the impact it has to this day, on so many South Africans who fought in the protracted conflict.

“Die Kaplyn” is a skilfully crafted sequence of film clips and images of the Bush War, with lyrics that force one to confront the reality of ones conflict experiences, underpinned by the illogical and inexplicable yearning for a return to those days, those places, those battles.

February 3, 1976, Grootfontein Military Base, South-West Africa. Around 1000 troops sit in an enormous aircraft hanger, restlessly waiting for the then defence minister, PW Botha, to address them. They’ve just returned from Angola, having been in action almost constantly since early October 1975. They are the battle hardened troops of Force X-Ray, a little known and largely unacknowledged battle group that first saw action in Angola some weeks before Orange, Zulu and Foxbat, the main battle groups of Operation Savannah.

Flown into Silva Porto in the centre of Angola in C130 Hercules transporters, mostly civilian aircraft crewed and piloted by civilians, many of them had already blooded their spears in the Caprivi Strip (Two Sub-Area) and One Military Area, before heading north. Combat was no stranger to most of them, and neither was waiting, something they often did ad nauseum in the course of their time in the Angolan conflict. But now they are going home, so the delay in boarding the train to Potchefstroom is endured, although not at all welcomed.

Eventually the illustrious defence minister bestrides the stage, complete with pork pie hat, slightly crooked wagging index finger, and trademark lip-wetting flick of the tongue that we were all to come to know so very intimately in future years.

He speaks glowingly of our titanic struggle against the forces of darkness, of the “Swart gevaar” and the “Rooi gevaar”, of the vaunting prowess of South Africa’s military juggernaut pitted against not only battalions of MPLA troops, but also against regiments of battle-hardened Cuban troops.

He says nothing of the dirty deals cut with the CIA, about the promises of arms, ammunition and logistical support never fully realised, in return for which South Africa sent the prime of its youth to fight one of the last proxy conflicts of the Cold War, a conflict that took even the USSR by surprise, and elicited virtually no support for Cuba from its Communist progenitor.

That all came much later, as the euphoria of returning home largely unscathed (or so many of us thought), gradually dissipated, to be replaced by resentment, anger, bitterness, an abiding sense of betrayal, and the stark realisation of having been sold down the river. For many, that survives to this day.

We were not only Afrikaners; many of us were English, but we were all South Africans. We were young and impressionable, easily misled, and the prospect of fighting a war was beguiling, exciting, exhilarating. So we went.

Many of us now know that the war was wrong; but as many of us will never admit that. We all lost friends, many of us family members, sometimes right next to you.

Frank DeWinter* lives in Somerset West. He’s in his early forties, a family man with three boys. He served in one of the Special Forces units in the early 80’s, and saw action at amongst others, Cuvelai, Onkongo and Cassinga. Twenty years after the conflict, his PSD surfaced. Over a harrowing seven odd years, his family – specifically his wife – supported him through the agony of psycho-therapy, as he tried desperately to confront and lay the ghosts created during his time in action. He is largely okay now, but not always. PSD has a habit of coming back at the most unexpected times, and for the most obscure reasons. He’s damaged goods, and will have to take medication for the rest of his life.

Graham Folsom* lives in London. He was a member of Special Forces for seven years (’77 to ’83), and saw extensive action in Angola. He demobbed and returned home, found a job, and settled down. Over time, he started a fabulously successful business, and the world seemed to be his oyster. Then one day, he just went off the rails, upped and disappeared. His business partner was in a quandary, his family was distraught. He eventually surfaced, came home, and went into therapy. He’s a lot better today, but he’ll never be completely well.

Freddy Bell* was in Angola with Force X-Ray. A couple of months ago he said: “They sent us up there to fight their bloody war, and just when we were ready to win it, they pulled us out. Then they turned us loose, sent us back home, just left us“. The anger, the bitterness, the sense of betrayal is palpable.

And so, many South African men to this day live with the dichotomy of having fought in an “immoral, inexplicable, illogical and politically inspired war”, yet have fierce pride in the sense of camaraderie which they experienced with their fellow combatants in that futile conflict.

War can never be justified. The politicians will try to, dressing it up in high-minded rhetoric, appealing to the sense of patriotism and duty, but the politicians never fight the wars: they just send men to die.

And in a sober moment I’d imagine, most all of us who fought in The Forgotten War will agree that war is an abomination, while acknowledging the fierce almost atavistic thrill of being in the presence of death and surviving, and the unfathomable yearning that emerges to go back there again.

* Names have been changed to preserve identities.

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more”

One could be forgiven for imagining Helen Zille engaging in similar inspiring rhetoric as she cajoles her jaded followers into engaging in yet another court battle with the ruling ANC, this time over the withdrawal of corruption charges against Jacob Zuma.

Shortly after acting NPA head Mokotedi Mpshe announced that he was withdrawing all charges against Jacob Zuma – a short breath before polling day April 22 last year – the DA erupted in a volcanic display of righteous indignation, vowing to pursue court action to have the charges reinstated.

Founding and answering affidavits were duly formulated and lodged, and the whole matter died until last week, when the matter came before the North Gauteng High Court. The legal contortions of the opposing camps aside – the NPA is strenuously opposing the DA’s application to have the decision reviewed – it is worth contemplating what it might mean for the country if the DA is successful in its court bid.

A pre-cursor to this court action was the call by columnist Max du Preez, as far back as July 2008, for a plea bargain and political solution to the then outstanding charges against Jacob Zuma. Whilst the responses to his call inadvertently exposed the racial fault lines that bedevil our society, it did get support from some surprising quarters, not least of which was constitutional law expert Pierre de Vos, himself a candid critic of Jacob Zuma, albeit with a caveat or two.

This columnist was at the time, vehemently opposed to any form of political solution, and ardently supported the DA’s move to have the charges reinstated, but the passage of time, and the unfolding of political events, has served to temper this view. Why? Because reinstating the charges at this time might well be a very bad thing rather than a very good thing.

This stance must not be read as either a pronouncement of guilt or innocence, or for that matter, as an expression of support for subversion of the legal process. Indeed, it was subversion of the legal process that was cited as precedent (in a Hong Kong appeal court judgement, since discredited) by Mpshe to drop the charges, so that would be the ultimate irony, would it not?

Rather, it is an appeal for sanity to rule in a time when our political stability is probably more at risk than at any time since 1994. Whereas the prospect of Jacob Zuma being elected president with a string of corruption charges hanging over his head would have placed South Africa in an invidious position internationally, reinstating the charges at this juncture would be arguably even more damaging.

Once the euphoria over Jacob Zuma’s ascendancy had subsided, and his manifest inability to deliver on ANC election promises surfaced, there was a massive spike in often violent service delivery protests countrywide.

The gradual deterioration in the relationship between the ANC and its Youth League, driven largely by its destructively self-interested, leader Julius Malema, has further contributed to a climate of political intolerance.

The deep divisions that exist in the Alliance – the ANC and Cosatu/SACP are once more at war with each other – have surfaced the possibility of a catastrophic split.

Once the euphoria of the FIFA 2010 World Cup™ has worn off, the smokescreen behind which Jacob Zuma and the ANC have been hiding will be rent asunder by the re-emergence of the fight for control of the ANC, and by extension the levers of power, and ultimately for the self-enrichers, access to the goody-bag of State spending. The poor and marginalised will once more turn their attention to that which they still do not have, and the protest action will once more escalate.

The re-instatement of charges against Jacob Zuma, a sitting president, could be the mortal body blow that our fragile and threatened political stability will be unable to withstand, because it may well distract Msholozi sufficiently for him to lose what tenuous grip he has on the reins of the ANC and the Alliance, and who knows what political mayhem will then ensue.

Read concurrently, these circumstances raise the spectre of increasing political instability, something that the country can ill-afford at this juncture.

In order for the DA to defeat the ANC decisively, it must do so at the ballot box, not in the courts, but what are the chances of that? It makes sense to not only pick your battles carefully, but also to pick the timing of those battles.

Why not therefore wait for the outcome of the ANC’s elective conference in 2012 before pursuing this court action? After all, if the anecdotal evidence is to be believed, Msholozi may no longer be on the throne…