ANC candidate list: Winnie and the new/old morality

I love my new teaching job. I get paid rather well, if we convert from the Chinese RMB to the SA rand. It is, after the ridiculously low tax which my agency has wangled, a reasonably decent income by Johannesburg north standards.

That given, I only work just over fourteen hours a week at a school giving Chinese twelve and thirteen-year-olds edutainment in English. That is less hours than a part-time job. Every second Friday is a joke. I stroll over to the school from my home, teach for forty minutes, wolf down a tasty free lunch, grab some free fruit from a box in the canteen and mosey on home. (I can have free lunches and breakfasts every day.) Then I try pub avoidance behaviour, sometimes successful, sometimes not (hell it is a Friday). You could probably tell if I had not been to the pub if a blog appears on a Saturday. If one does not, well, you know where I’ve been.

I am well qualified and do my job. With the kids I am very popular. But I got it by — to be harsh — fraudulent means. Chinese cannot accept South Africans can speak English (“and why aren’t you black?”) so as far as all are concerned, I come from England. The agency complies with the lie. My job interview is a walk in the park by Western standards (certainly South Africa, England and New Zealand, where I have been to job interviews). I met my head of department with the agent, a very sweet Chinese lady. Her only penetrating questions are, “How long have you taught in China?” “Four years” I honestly reply. “Where in England do you come from?” “Southampton,” I cringe, having at least lived in Southampton for six months before “coming” to China. I was then handed a timetable and my books and said I could start on Monday.

Easy as that. No exploration of my pedagogical skills, no demonstration lesson. No other candidates to compete with. Why?

I know the headmaster has already received his share of the deal under the table. He personally knows the head of the work agency who placed me at the school. Many schools in China are not licensed to employ foreigners, so they go through agencies. This creates a lot of employment for work agencies and a lot of fattened wallets. I somehow no longer see it as corruption; this is just how China works. In Rome …

When I ran training courses for children in SA, which I marketed through schools, I would have been appalled if a headmaster asked me for a cut of the deal. Now I would nod my head, negotiate something, confident that my fliers would go out and come back, producing lots of pre-qualified leads for me and something for the headmaster’s back pocket. I would try not to feel too guilty about it.

The tax thing? I freelance elsewhere in Shanghai as the above job leaves me with so much extra time. I should be paying tax, but the other companies I work for just pay me cash, shhhh, nothing taxed. What on earth is the point of querying? The untaxed pay goes waayyy above my head. In fact, my legal position as a foreigner on a work permit working for other companies, not just the one which sponsored me, is a grey area. No one notices, heads are turned.

But that’s how the game works. As the cliché goes, nothing is ever as simple as it seems. (The reason why clichés are clichés is because they are so true and thus keep getting repeated.) If I was completely honest I would be jobless and end up getting deported, instead of responsibly saving every month so the Chook and I can buy a home cash in New Zealand or wherever one day.

I well remember those poor blokes on the off-ramps of Joburg north’s N1 desperately trying to sell all sorts of bric-a-brac. Some of them were illegal immigrants, some working for shady outfits paying them little, but they were desperately trying to earn a penny without doing crime.

Sometimes we have just got to do what we have to do to get by. Morals are defined by context.

But there is a big difference between bringing enormous benefit to Chinese children (I know I do), thus doing my bit to uplift society, but having to do it by playing by Shanghai’s “rules” to stay gainfully employed … and the likes of Winnie Mandela getting the legal nod for a parliamentary position even though she was given a suspended sentence for being found guilty in 2004 for 43 charges of corruption (and the 25 charges of theft were dropped). (My link is to a 2003 piece in the UK’s Guardian before the ruling was repealed; most readers are familiar with the court history or let your Google tool do the walking.)

Let’s look at the figures. I well remember reading the story in 2004 when Winnie had her punishment reduced to a suspended sentence. In the same issue of the Sunday Times was a story of a policeman who had “borrowed” an impounded vehicle from a police compound. He received something like a two or three-year jail sentence. That’s one incident, where the poor chap apparently just borrowed the car for a jol. If you just let Google do the walking there are many incidents of people going to jail for just one charge of fraud, first offence. Winnie was not found guilty of one charge, not by a long chalk. But because of a legal technicality (“the legislation is silent on suspended sentences”) morals, values and integrity are also silenced and she can get a top government position. Again, morals are a contextual issue. I wanted to say, “increasingly, morals are a contextual issue”, but, 45 years old, no longer naïve but still idealistic, I realise that has always been the case for humankind. No increase, no decrease, no surcease. (Incidentally, Winnie would not be allowed to step foot in Canada because of her record, that’s how honourable and insistent on morals that country is.)

Let’s look at the dictionary definition of fraud to consider the kind of character the ANC leadership would now consider for senior positions.

Definitions of fraud:

1) Deceit, trickery, sharp practice or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage.
(We will have to strike “perpetrated for profit” … from our definition in the case of Winnie because the court ruled that she did not commit fraud for “personal gain”, making one wonder, bewilderingly, why she did commit fraud 43 times in a row. For altruistic purposes? Mrs Robin Hood?)

2) A particular instance of such deceit or trickery: mail fraud; election frauds.

3) A person who makes deceitful pretences; sham; poseur.

Let’s look at definitions of sham: something that is not what it purports to be; a spurious imitation; fraud or hoax. A cover or the like for giving a thing a different outward appearance — a pillow sham. Pretended; counterfeit; feigned: sham attacks; a sham Gothic façade. To assume the appearance of; pretend to have: to sham illness.

It seems Julius Malema would give a parliamentary candidate whose character fits the above bill 100%. I give it 0%. What would you give it?

I know the wags out there will just say the above dictionary definitions sum up the character of 90% of politicians anyway.

I am a South African citizen. Increasingly (here I will use the word), as I watch South Africa’s drama unfold, sad, hilarious, a tale told by an idiot, I grow more fond of her, more attached to her. Because I am dismayed by the absolute embarrassment our beautiful country has become.

Makes you slink, doesn’t it?