Lost Picture

Have you seen me?

Last seen at Whitlock Street, Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape. Lost while loading into a car.
If you spot it (whether retrieved from the street, or anywhere else), let me know via the contact form on this site.

The painting was last seen covered with bubble wrap, and has the contact details of Cape Town artist Inge Semple on the back (possibly not visible through the bubble wrap).

Syria versus Libya

What’s the difference between Syria and Libya?

Of course there are pretty obvious differences. The countries have very different histories, demographics, economies and political systems. Even pre-revolution, Libya was a very different kind of police state to Syria. Whereas Syria is run ostensibly as a 1-party state (if with a dynastic succession), Gaddafi’s Libya was very much a 1-person show, a military dictatorship wrapped in leftist antri-imperialist rhetoric. Ironically, despite this military basis for Gaddafi’s rule, he had a relatively weak army, relying on a network of patronage and fear to rule. The formal military was kept weak so another coup could not follow his. Syria’s military, on the other hand, is designed to project power in the region.

Despite all these differences, there are some similarities in the popular uprising against the state. The uprising has largely been a grass-roots rebellion starting from younger members of society, initially protesting peacefully, but turning to violence in the face of an extremely violent crackdown on protest. In both cases, we have seen tanks and artillery turned on civilian populations.

Once the protest and crackdown proceeded, another big difference opened up: the international response. Whereas the Libyan uprising requested and received an international military response, that has not happened in Syria. Governments and analysts on the left side of politics in countries like South Africa argued that Libya’s crisis would better have been resolved by peaceful intervention, delegations and negotiators, and the like. I have heard tearful commentary on South African radio about what a pity so much of Libya’s infrastructure was destroyed. Well, it’s happening in Syria too, and no one this time can blame NATO bombers.

Of course Syria is not in Africa, but there are enough similarities in the unfolding of events to use this example to question whether the preferred African approach can work. What is happening in Syria is much closer to that option than what happened in Libya, where there was an external military intervention.

I remain very skeptical of the motivation behind the intervention in Libya but we now have a clearly contrasting situation where no outside military intervention is occurring. At time of writing, Al Jazeera reports claims of civilian deaths of 7,000, and the use of extreme force against centres of the uprising continues. The main international intervention so far has been an Arab League observer mission that had to withdraw after making no impact.

The South Africa model of negotiating with dictators for a “political solution” failed in Zimbabwe, and didn’t produce great results in Kenya. Africa as a whole is better off without electoral fraud, 1-party states and military dictators. Syria doesn’t need a South Africa-style intervention. But does it need a NATO-style intervention? At some point if the Assad regime continues to massacre its own people, something has to happen, otherwise why do we have organisations like the UN? And that is where the response really should come from. But with countries like Russia and China loath to set a precedent of intervening in countries with brutal tendencies towards their own people, that is unlikely. The Arab League is really the organisation that should mobilise an intervention. But will that happen? I am not holding my breath.

So on the balance, the NATO intervention in Libya, no matter how self-serving, does not appear to have been such a disaster, compared with a do-nothing (or to be less unkind, talk-shop) approach. Libya post-Gaddafi is no worse a mess than any post-dictator society with no recent history of democracy. But it’s unlikely to happen again, because the NATO intervention happened under a UN mandate, and there’s no sign that this can happen for Syria, which has more friends than Gaddafi’s Libya. The most unlikely scenario for Syria is that conflict will grind on until enough of the army switches sides to turn the tables on the regime. It is very unlikely that the regime will win, because there’s a limit to what a conscript army can do against its own people, and mandatory conscription means a large fraction of the civilian population have military training.

Meanwhile the people of Syria are in for a grim time with rising casualties and the kind of destruction that will make the NATO intervention in Libya look like a minor skirmish.

Finally, for those who thought the NATO intervention exceeded that UN mandate, why weren’t you paying attention when US Secretary of State Robert Gates argued that a no-fly zone required taking out ground defences? Anyone who thought it would be a limited operation is exceptionally naïve.

Save the Wail

Back in 1988, the apartheid regime threatened to close down the Weekly Mail, now called Mail&Guardian. I played a minor role in defending the paper, known popularly as The Wail because it kept complaining about how terrible things were (and rightly at the time). I’ve just had cause to haul out my tattered copy of the paper’s history,  …You have been warned, to compare against current events.

At the time, papers were under attack for “subversive” activities such as telling the truth, including things that were hardly state secrets because they were widely reported in the rest of the world. At one point, after a state of emergency was declared, Weekly Mail and other papers resorted to blacking out parts of articles that their lawyers thought would get them in trouble with the authorities. The Minister of Home Affairs was empowered to close down papers without recourse to the courts after a warning (hence the title of the history), so printing “subversive” material was risky. This is the first edition of the Weekly Mail after the emergency was enforced. Several issues followed equally blacked out, until the government decided that obscuring content like this was in itself subversive.

Mail&Guardian therefore knows fully the power of blacking out parts of an article, and that they should have to do this now, under a democratic rights-centric constitution is shocking. The circumstances of the case, a senior member of the government hiding behind legalities to refuse to confirm or deny that he lied in a police interview, are pretty disgusting in themselves. The stench of corruption of the arms deal in the early years of ANC rule will not go away until the whole thing is properly investigated, and this sort of defence against public exposure does not advance the cause of the ANC, rapidly becoming a rabble of defensive opportunists, far from the idealistic organisation that started out about 100 years ago.

When the minister threatened to close the paper down under provisions where a paper could be closed for a period of months as punishment for “subversion” the paper published this appeal. I was one of many who supported the paper. I collected about a dozen people who were prepared to put up money to buy an ad in the paper, and put their name to it, supporting it. No editor of another paper was willing to add their name. I spoke to one at length and he had all kinds of good reasons not to do so. He didn’t mention cowardice. Many others supported the paper in more meaningful ways than I could. Eventually the paper was closed for a month, a lesser “punishment” than was expected, though a hard financial blow for a small paper. During this forced vacation, I hosted a desktop publishing workshop presented by Irwin Manoim, one of the two editors at the time. This was more a morale-booster than money-spinner. Irwin had great design skills; I’m sure he could have made good money if he hadn’t taken on the impossible task of showing the mainstream media how to take on a police state.

Well, the Weekly Mail (now Mail&Guardian) survived, but the apartheid state didn’t. Sadly, some of the mindset of the apartheid state lives on. A government that is failing is all too easily tempted to blame the messenger. And that’s happening again now, with a law passed by parliament that imposes draconian penalties on whistle-blowers (along with spies etc., but we know in practice those are rarely caught). And now we have the Mac Maharaj case. Does this page of the paper look at all familiar?

Of course circumstances differ. Maharaj has threatened the paper with prosecution for “stealing” information, and has set the Hawks onto two reporters on the paper. Even is he is right, this is an incredibly heavy-handed response. If the paper has indeed broken the law, the evidence is right there, on the front page of the paper. All he has to do is refer it to the director of public prosecutions for an opinion as to whether it’s a prosecutable case. The paper’s lawyers argue otherwise, and in a constitutional democracy, it’s hard to accept the logic that the paper should have published and risked prosecution – but Maharaj is insisting on prosecution anyway. Bluster takes you only so far. Maharaj isn’t acting like an innocent person: he is doing everything possible to avoid answering direct questions. At least in today’s South Africa, these things will ultimately be heard out in the courts. But what is really worrying is that this is how the government behaves now, without draconian measures to punish whistle-blowers. How will they behave once the new law is in effect? And with talk of reining in the courts, and the recent fiasco over appointing one of the least qualified of the potential candidates as chief justice, how much longer will we be able to rely on the courts for protection from government excesses?

The government makes a huge issue of errors by the media, and they do make mistakes. But not half as many as the government, and none with as heavy a consequence. When did a newspaper ever fail to roll out anti-retrovirals, or fail to build RDP houses to an acceptable standard?

Against a hostile government, the media need to be doubly careful not to make mistakes. But we should not forget that ultimately the government is accountable to us, and if members of the government accused of corruption or inappropriate conflicts of interest are unable or unwilling to defend themselves, they are the issue, not the way the matter is reported. Some on the government side have tried to liken this to the Murdoch media scandal in the UK that closed News of the World. This is nothing like it. The Murdoch paper was eavesdropping on conversations to try to dig up dirt on private citizens. The Mail&Guardian has been trying to uncover corruption at the highest level. The UK scandal was about gross invasion of privacy in pursuit of profit. The South African situation is about a paper taking on a government over-sensitive to criticism, and unwilling to root out corruption in its ranks. UK: criminal behaviour with no public interest; South Africa: no proven criminal behaviour, strong public interest.

So how do you respond in a democratic society? A wide variety of civil society organisations have already mobilised around he secrecy bill. They should all mobilise to defend the paper. It just may need financial help to take on a series of big lawsuits. Should it come to that I would be happy to pitch in.

Time to wail again.

Update
The Right2Know (R2K) campaign has issued a statement in support of M&G.

Pumkin and rhubarb pie with Lime Mousse Ice Cream

In another of my rare forays into cuisine (for another, see my trick for making gelato), here is a crossover of my own creation: pumpkin and rhubarb pie. This makes 2 pies (20cm) or 4 smaller (10cm) ones.

Pie crust
4 cups flour
200 ml macadamia oil
2 teaspoons sugar
6 tablespoons chilled water

Mix the dry ingredients thoroughly then gradually incorporate the oil, adding a little extra four if necessary to get a crumbly texture. Add in the iced water as you go. Roll it into a ball, wrap in waxed paper and chill it for 2 hours.

Rhubarb stage
1 bunch rhubarb (500g), trimmed, cut up
2/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons water

Cook the rhubarb mix over medium heat until it’s all softened, and drain off the runny syrup.

Pumpkin mix
4 cups pureed cooked pumpkin
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cm fresh ginger, finely chopped
2 well beaten eggs

Mix the pumpkin ingredients, and add to the cooked rhubarb.

Pie stage
Grease the pie dishes and crumble in the crust mix, spreading it to an approximately even layer. Add the filling.

Cook at 230°C for 8 minutes, then reduce to 160°C and cook for about 40 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.

Lime Mousse Ice Cream

By popular demand, as an accompaniment, here’s how to make lime mousse ice cream, based on a mousse recipe from The Silver Palate Cookbook, with measurements translated to metric. I also reduced the fat content and slightly adjusted the technique to allow for the fact that freezing holds it solid.

50g unsalted butter
5 eggs
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup fresh lime juice (4-7 limes depending on size)
grated zest of 4-5 limes (depending on size)
300ml cream

Melt the butter in a double boiler. Beat the eggs and sugar, and add to the molten butter. Continue whipping the mix over medium heat until it turns to a custard (about 8 minutes), i.e., starts to thicken. Do not overcook, otherwise you'll get sugary scrambled eggs.

Remove from heat and add the lime ingredients. Cool to room temperature.

Whip the cream to the point where it switches from light and foamy to thick, and fold into the custard mix, taking care not to flatten the aeration out.

Chill well, then freeze in an ice cream maker (not absolutely critical: it will not set very hard with this much fat content).