The floccinaucinihilipilification song of South Africa

I AM MORE than mildly perplexed by Achmat Dangor’s lashback at Breyten Breytenbach’s “attack” on Nelson Mandela.

Firstly, I confess I haven’t read Breytenbach’s article and would dearly love to do so. A subscription to Harper’s magazine, though perfectly justified at the price — it is one of the 10 best English magazines in the world — is quite simply way beyond my means given our exchange rate. If anyone has the article, ag please man, email it to me!

Anyway, assuming Dangor felt the bearded “albino terrorist’s” criticisms of our beloved nonogenarian icon were a tad unfair, what does he as its CEO or the Nelson Mandela Foundation achieve by snapping back? Or was it just a leaf taken from the ANC’s manual, “If You Can’t See Reason, Understand Logic Or Have Anything Worthwhile To Say, Call The Enemy Names”.

Whenever someone abroad (or here at home for that matter) levels criticisms, deserved or not, there is a blind rapid-fire response consisting of five mandatory steps — (1) ignore everything that is said, (2) make no effort to understand what is said, (3) deny everything, (4) retaliate with meaningless verbage or threats, (5) imply cowardice by telling the critic to stop complaining and do something to fix what’s wrong (oblivious to the implied recognition that the critic is right).

Few things in this country get me more riled up than this perpetually purile nettle-rash reaction by those suffering from Slashback Syndrome. SS is characterised by the uncontrollable primitive instinct to lash out at anyone who criticises South Africa, pointing out what fabulous weather we have and how nice the Kruger Park is and that crime happens everywhere and so on ad nauseam.

Among other distasteful and asinine displays, SS is the latter day version of floccinaucinihilipillification, which the OED defines as “the action or habit of estimating something as worthless”.

This marvellous word was explained to us yonks ago by Professor Guy Butler at Rhodes University as the sort of thing pre-schoolers do when one of them says something such as, “My dad’s so strong he can push the car with one hand,”. Without a moment’s thought, another kid will snap back: “That’s nothing!” and a totally pointless, but vigorous argument ensues. I think the great prof was only half joking.

It is the local-is-lekker version of Monty Python’s famous Dead Parrot sketch in which Michael Palin responds to John Cleese’s complaint that the parrot he bought is, in fact, dead by saying: “Beautiful plumage, the Norwegian Blue, ‘ey? Beautiful plumage”.

“Your rulers are corrupt,” says the critic. “Table Mountain is so beautiful, isn’t it?” SA –The Good News says. “Why aren’t you bringing crime down?” the critic asks. “Crime happens everywhere. Oh look, what a beautiful day!” The Movement for Good says. “It’s time you took a firm stand against Mugabe,” the critic says. “The Namaqua daisies should be really beautiful this year,” says the Homecoming Revolution.

Although no cure has been found for SS, it is spreading and seems to have more money behind it than big tobacco had in its heyday. Like any syndrome, it is a cluster of maladies including Tour-ettes Disorder, Twenty-tenitis, SAchosis and Possibility Paranoia.

Ah yes, this “Alive with Possibility” rubbish. It’s the kind of deliberately ambiguous marketing mumbo-jumbo that is simultaneously accurate and completely misleading. After all it’s quite possible you’ll go home in a box. It’s also possible you will not. Fuck the possibilities. Where are the probabilities?

Unlike most other mental disorders, SS pays very handsomely — ask Moeketsi Mosola, head of the International Marketing Council (now out of the closet and openly dot-gov — and what became of Yvonne Johnston?), or Stuart Pennington of SA — The Good News or any of the legions of factotums behind the army of heavily funded fronts spin doctoring our way to Halleluja Day in 2010 when everything will magically come right!

In his slashback reaction to Breytenbach’s criticism of the government’s disgraceful inaction in fighting crime, Dangor politely commiserates with the specific incidents the poet mentions, but denies (shit, we’re good at denying aren’t we?) “the overall implication that our situation is irredeemable”. Wow! That is really helpful. Beautiful plumage, the Norwegian blue, i’nit?

Sapa reports that Dangor took particular issue with Breytenbach’s depiction of Mandela, who is 90 years old, retired and increasingly reluctant to take a public role. Maybe a poet sees an icon wielding power long after he or she is dead, but would rather they do so while still alive. Heck, every civil rights campaigner calls on Martin Luther King when they need to.

But Mandela has left it to his foundation to continue his development and aid work, so get on with it.

Dangor said Breytenbach depicted Mandela “as descending into frivolity while the country burns. In fact the opposite is true.” Dangor said Mandela “has used that world stage, yes, often in glamorous surroundings and in the presence of celebrities to make some profound calls upon his fellow country people — and the world — to act, against Aids, against poverty and inequality, to resist oppression and injustice. And most importantly, for others to take responsibility, to show leadership and to be courageous in that leadership.”

But since Madiba’s pleas are clearly falling on deaf ears — especially where his own “comrades” are concerned — Dangor called on Breytenbach to return to South Africa and help build the country. Yeah, right! We can’t even keep 20 000 people employed until next year, so inspan an aging poet. Even the normally sycophantic Business Against Crime has fingered government ineptitude, greed, corruption, cronyism and the lack of political will, intestinal and testicular fortitude as the biggest obstacles to progress.

Of course Mandela “did not choose to be an icon,” says Dangor, but now that he is — and bigger in Japan than in Jozi — what are you going to do with such incredible stature?

Then Dangor gets on the real roller-coaster. “We South Africans turned him into one.” What utter garbage! Mandela was an icon to millions worldwide while still on Robben Island. He is a global icon — maybe even THE global icon of our times. Mandela walked and the world hoped. Simple as that. Most of those great hopes have been dashed. That’s not the icon’s fault. That’s human nature.

The one place I find myself agreeing with Dangor is when he says South Africans clung to the iconic stature of Madiba “perhaps so that we can absolve ourselves from taking responsibility for our own destiny”. And we saw that in spades in his 90th birthday!

When it comes to taking responsibility for our own destiny we have failed. Now we have no answers because there’s silence from that house in Houghton where we received so much leadership before. Now look at the pile of discards we have left. We’ve got fruit salad. In the words of another poet, Koos Kombuis, “daar’s fokken baie fokkol in die land”.

So all the Slashback Syndrome spin doctors resort to the floccinaucinihilipilification song of South Africa — “Alive With Possibility”.