ISSUES WEDNESDAY MAY 25 2011 17

WHEN did this mania for “politicalcorrectness” start turning us intogibbering fools?

Life is filled with serious issues,but we waste our time and energythinking up bizarre ways of beinginoffensive.

Good heavens, even the Noddybooks have been censored becausethey allegedly show the police in apoor light.

PC Plod is a toy, for goodnesssake.

Now I read that the animal rightspeople are demanding more digni-fied names for animals.

According to the British Journalof Animal Ethics, we must nolonger refer to domestic animals as“pets”. This is a very demeaningterm, they say.

It’s all very well to refer to nakedwomen in porn magazine as “Pets”,but animals are no longer pets.From now on we have to refer to ourdogs, cats, goldfish and parrots as“companion animals”.

And, of course, we do not “own”them any more. We are “human car-ers”, not owners.

The word “wild” apparentlydenotes barbarism, so there are tobe no more “wild” animals.

Instead we will have “free living”animals, or “free roaming” ones.

The silly thing about this is theanimals concerned obviously don’tgive a hoot whether we call thempets or companions or fur-balls.

All they’re interested in is beingfed regularly, exercised and lookedafter.

My cats (if I am still allowed to

call them cats and not “feline housesharers”) don’t even have names.They are referred to as “black cat”and “yellow cat”. They don’t seem tofind this demeaning, as far as I cantell. Black cat has hung around myproperty (if I am still allowed torefer to it as mine) for almost 20years, without showing any indica-tion of resentment.

Yellow cat is too lazy to care whatanybody calls her. She seldommoves out of earshot of her foodbowl. I can call her until I’m blue inthe face and she doesn’t even openand eye, but the tinkle of cat pelletslanding in her bowl gets her fullattention.

Wild animals have no idea whathumans call them. Nor do they care.Whether we think of them as freeroaming, free-range, or simply wild,they still have claws, sharp teethand beaks and are best left alone.

The idiots who think up thesedaft, bunny-hugging ideas would dobetter to keep their silly notions tothemselves and save the trees cutdown to make the paper on whichthey publish their inanities.

The planet would be a littlehealthier for that.

Last laughA six-year-old girl was allowed tostay up for dinner one night as a spe-cial treat when her parents wereentertaining guests.

Once the family and guests hadbeen seated at the table, the wifeturned to the little girl and said:“Mary, would you please say gracefor us.”

The little girl blushed. “I don’tknow what to say,” she mumbled.

“Of course you do,” promptedher mother. “Don’t you rememberwhat Daddy said at lunch today? Hestarted by saying, ‘Dear God…’ I’msure you remember.”

And the little girl rolled her eyesto the ceiling and said: “Dear God!Why on earth did we ask those bor-ing people to come to dinnertonight?”

Tavernof theSeas

Tel: 021 788 9710Fax: 021 788 9560E-mail: dbiggs@glolink.co.za

D A V I DB I G G S

Let’s all do our bit to help better the lot of vulnerable childrenDEE MOSKOFF

THIS week is Child Protection Weekin South Africa. It is a time to hon-estly evaluate how safe a countrySouth Africa is for children andwhat we are doing to make our coun-try safer for the most vulnerableamong us. Given our heinously highincidence of child rape and childabuse, we need to do a great dealmore than what we have done andare doing to protect children.

When we speak about the protec-tion of children, it is easy to focusnarrowly on the obvious issuesaffecting their personal safety andmiss the bigger picture. Of course,we need to protect children from sex-ual predators, but they are not theirbiggest threat. Poverty and depriva-tion are.

The SA Child Gauge, which isproduced annually by the Children’sInstitute at the University of CapeTown, monitors the progress madeby the government and civil societytowards realising the rights ofchildren.

Children in South Africa have aconstitutional right to parental or

family care, shelter, dignity, safety,basic health-care services, educa-tion, and protection from neglect,abuse, degradation and exploitation.

According to the 2009/10 SAChild Gauge:

● 21 percent of children in SouthAfrica (about 3.9 million) areorphans who have lost one or bothparents.

● 23 percent of children do notlive with either of their biologicalparents.

● About 34 percent of childrenlive in households where no adultsare employed.

● Nearly two-thirds of children(64 percent) live in households witha per capita income of less than R569a month.

● 18 percent of children live inhouseholds that report child hungerand 18 percent of children betweenthe ages of one and nine have suf-fered from stunting, which indicateschronic malnutrition.

● Children under five account for80 percent of child deaths in SouthAfrica. These deaths result fromneonatal causes and childhood infec-tions (HIV, diarrhoea and lower res-

piratory infections). Injury is theleading cause of death among olderchildren.

● Most childhood deaths arerooted in poverty.

The picture that these stats por-tray is consistent with the picturepresented by people who work atgrassroots level with orphans andchildren at risk.

Connect Network is a coalition of98 NGOs working with vulnerablewomen and children in the WesternCape. Collectively, these NGOs serve22 218 women and 50 036 children permonth.

According to Connect members,the big issues facing vulnerable chil-dren include:

● Absence of maternal care, love,hygiene and food because parentsare either deceased or unemployed,ill or addicted to alcohol and/ordrugs.

● Lack of access to education(often due to children not havingbirth certificates, which prohibitthem from being able to register at aschool).

● Lack of access to the childgrants because they do not have

birth certificates.● Lack of access to health care

and immunisation.● Emotional, physical and sexual

abuse, most often at the hands of anadult known to the child.

● Deprivation as a result of par-ents/caregivers who abuse the childgrant system.

● Abandonment and neglect atthe hands of grandparents who aretoo old or frail to care for toddlers oreffectively parent teenagers.

● Commercial and sexualexploitation by drug-addicted par-ents or caregivers.

● Developmental setbackscaused by foetal alcohol syndromeand/or HIV/Aids.

It is the role of the government toprovide a safety net for children atrisk, through social developmentinitiatives and the system of socialassistance grants. The 2009/10 SAChild Gauge reports that “just overnine million children received thechild support grant in July 2009,almost 110 000 children received thecare dependency grant, and a fur-ther 511 000 children received thefoster child grant”.

Commendable as it may be, thesocial grant system is but one inter-vention by the government toaddress the basic needs of vulnera-ble children. But the governmentalone cannot fix the problem. Andnor can the tens of thousands ofNGOs, complementing the work of

the government. Civil society andthe corporate sector must help carrythe burden of responsibility.

Connect Network exists to facili-tate the networking of organisa-tions, churches and individuals withChristian values.

We endeavour to enhance theChristian response to women and

children at risk through:● Providing care and support to

the people working in memberorganisations.

● Advocating effective relation-ships, synergies and a “collectivevoice” between members.

● Identifying and assisting withpartnerships and collaboration.

● Sharing information,resources and solutions.

In the Connect fold some of theedu-care centres are run by volun-teers who are themselves illiterateand innumerate. Very often they are“gogos” and in their care are chil-dren in grades 4 and 5 who cannotwrite their own names.

Our mission is to encourage andequip the good people who do thissacrificial work to improve the qual-ity of care they give to children.

One of our programmes is acourse called quality improvementsystem (QIS) comprising six mod-ules – governance; financialaccountability; project planning anddesign; people care; child protec-tion; and child well-being.

The course takes two years tocomplete and costs Connect R24 000

an organisation, but the NGO paysonly R4 800. Connect fundraises tocover the balance.

Fifty NGOs have benefited fromone or more modules of QIS, and 18NGOs are committed to the wholetwo-year cycle.

One NGO has applauded the training it received on child protection.

When a concerned motherreported her suspicions that heryoung child was being sexuallyabused, the staff knew exactly howto handle the situation appropri-ately. They have a Child ProtectionPolicy which outlines their dutiesand steps in reporting abuse.

Many NGOs cannot even affordthe reduced price of the course.Why not make a worthwhile invest-ment in building the capacity of anNGO by introducing them to theinternationally recognised stan-dards and biblical principles in QIS?

● Dee Moskoff is the director of

Connect Network, a coalition of 98

NGOs serving vulnerable women and

children in the Western Cape. For

more about Connect, visit www.con-

nectnetwork.org.za

LOST in translation. That’s oftenwhere we are in South Africa, stum-bling about in misconstrued andclumsy words spoken or heard in asecond language or translatedthrough the idiosyncratic filter ofan interpreter.

Many better brains than minehave explored the bedrock impor-tance of language in the daily func-tioning of our complex society withits 11 official languages and severalmore on the streets imported fromelsewhere in Africa (I can recom-mend Antjie Krog’s A Change of

Tongue and Begging to Be Black asgood examples) but still we grosslyunderestimate the issue. EspeciallyEnglish speakers. We have a breath-taking arrogance.

Fortunate enough to be schooledfrom birth in what has become theglobal language we simply expectthe rest of the nation to come to usand to be judged on our terms. It’san extraordinary truth that mostdomestic workers in Cape Town cancommunicate effectively in morelanguages than those who employthem (and who enjoyed far moreextensive and expensive education).I know I am guilty in that regard.

Should Blade Nzimande suggestthat our children must master anAfrican language to graduate froman African university, we instinc-tively and intemperately rageagainst the notion. And so many of

us dismiss President Jacob Zuma asa poor communicator. In Englishundeniably he is hesitant but what’she like in Zulu? I’m ashamed to sayI don’t know – he may well be a bril-liant speaker in his first languageand surely that matters more thanwe ever acknowledge.

The reverse applies as well.Thabo Mbeki was hailed by many asan intellectual, I suspect simplybecause he had a dense mastery ofthe English language which actuallydisguised an alarmingly closedmind on many issues. He also rarelyspoke in public in Xhosa. Why?

I always found it intriguing, andremarkably uncommented upon,that Mbeki, the champion ofAfricanism, was the first presidentof this country to give his entire

state opening of Parliament speechin the coloniser’s English. HisAfrikaans predecessors always usedplenty of their own taal and NelsonMandela switched languages fre-quently. Even Trevor Manuel’sbudget speeches occasionally veeredoff into Xhosa as many listeningbusiness heavyweights wonderedwhether he was whacking up corpo-ration tax while they couldn’tunderstand him!

Typically, Helen Zille is one ofthe few politicians to tackle thisproblem head on. Apparently, shehas become a masterful (or wouldJulius call that ‘madamful’?) Xhosaspeaker, giving colloquial platformperformances in the languagewhich political analyst Aubrey Mat-shiqi in Business Day said weremore effective than most of the ANCleadership could muster.

It’s a pity that more media atten-tion was given to Zille’s dancingshoes than to her speaking skillsbecause this stuff matters as thedreadfully overblown EqualityCourt case about the dubula ibhunu

song has shown. Julius Malema’s lawyer claimed

that dubula ibhunu has becomeshoot the boer via “a media transla-tion”. Many dismissed that claimquickly. Too quickly in my viewbecause that singular translation ofthe original expression has gainedimmutable status in most reporting.

I am not remotely qualified toassess any alleged political shifts inthe meaning of ibhunu since 1994but, from where I sit, even the word“boer” has enough complexity on itsown. Does it refer to a farmer, anAfrikaaner or, as one interpretationhas put it, all white people? And ifwe make it “Boer” with a capital B,it becomes a reference to an extraor-dinary group of freedom fighters inanother historical context.

In a separate case Judge LeonHalgryn in the Johannesburg HighCourt has ruled that the song isprima facie an incitement to mur-der. No doubt he is right. Prima faciemeans “at first face or at first look”and, on that basis, it is obviously avery disturbing lyric, but this needssecond and third looks, which is pre-cisely why it shouldn’t be before thejudiciary as a theoretical issue, itshould only be concerning them ifit’s material to the cause of a spe-cific crime. I am not justifying thesong, nor doubting the very realfears that it can raise, and I deeplywish that the ANC leadership hadthe good sense to abandon it but thisis a far more nuanced debate thanthe one we have been exposed to.

Words are complex and layeredbeasts. Writing them can make myhead ache and leave me saying; “Iwould kill for a cup of coffee”.Prima facie I am a potential murderer.

SA’s language largesse translates into trouble

Street peoplebook their placeon library shelf

THE POOR are not a particu-larly engaging lot, any morethan you and I, and povertyof education is a fact that

means the poor will be with us for avery long time. Thus, the recentpublication of No Land, No House,

No Vote is impressive.It is not a political exercise –

though, what is not politics in SouthAfrica? – but the stories of the Sym-phony Way pavement dwellers toldby themselves.

A number of conditions werepresented by them to the publisher:no one’s story was to be refused,despite repetitiveness; there was tobe minimal editing, despite peculiar-ities and, sometimes, obscurity oflanguage; and the proceeds of thebook were to go to “the community”as a whole.

One by one they rose to speak atone of the launches of the book inCape Town this month:

“We want you to live with us and

be part of people who live inshacks.”

“We not stupid, we people ofprinciples, we can speak on our ownbehalfs… it was our social problemsthat put us where we are now.”

“We need to stand up against ourgovernment, not left to be rotten…”

“There is a time for bad things,there is a time for good things.”

It was clear at the launch – wherethe well-heeled brushed shoulders

with the less well-heeled in a warmand well-lit room – that, as onespeaker put it, “in this country wehave two countries”.

Despite the absence of a struc-tured presentation, salient datesemerged and some statistics – with abacklog of 400 000 houses in theWestern Cape alone, none of thepoor present was likely to be gettinga house in the near future.

Some people had already beenwaiting for more than 26 years. Itwas claimed that only 2 percent ofthe national budget is allocated tohousing whereas in other countriesit is closer to 5 percent.

That the divide in the country isnot a racial issue needed to be saidand was, in fact, debated in termsthat led all the way back to VanRiebeeck and other white “visitors”.

One of the most passionatespeakers at the launch claimed thatyou could “count the coloured peo-ple (in the New Gateway houses

adjacent to Symphony Way) on thefingers of one hand”.

This aspect of the story, which istold in detail, relates to the origin ofthe pavement dwellers’ occupationof Symphony Way.

A DA councillor (unnamed at thelaunch but very much a presence inthe book) invited backyard dwellersfrom Delft to occupy newly builtGateway houses adjacent to Sym-phony Way, which were being re-allocated to the largely black formeroccupants of the burnt down shacksof Cape Town’s Joe Slovo settle-ment. He made it a racial issue andhad said something like: “If youwant houses, go and kick doors.”

Many people did just that.The law was quick to come down

on them and, despite an initial stayof eviction, removed them with bru-tal force from these houses on Febru-ary 19, 2008.

It is a story that can, and did,bring tears to one’s eyes. In this and

subsequent developments, no politi-cal party is exempt from guilt: ANCas well as DA councillors and otherexecutives are equally involved.

The people’s solution, as wit-nessed by the title of the book, wasnot to vote and, further, to spoil bal-lots. A march on Parliament tookplace on May 16, when another booklaunch was held in Cape Town.

Ultimately, the people who block-aded a stretch of Symphony Way fora year and a half – the longest civicprotest in the history of the country– are intent on telling their story.And on telling it themselves. Theirblockade ended in mid-2009, prior tothe World Cup, when they wereforced to move to Blikkiesdorp, oneof Cape Town’s infamous TRAs(Temporary Relocation Areas).

Among the ironies that emergefrom their book is that they man-aged to form a community at Sym-phony Way that should serve as amodel in the housing crisis in this

country. “We staying like a family onthat road”, one of the members said,“and after that people decided to telltheir stories”.

When one of them was arrestedand spent three months in prison forstanding up to aggressive lawenforcement, he said that all hecould think of in prison was Sym-phony Way.

And he was sure that he wasbeing thought of by all in Sym-phony Way.

Blikkiesdorp is not a community.It is described by the pavementdwellers as “for pigs”, a place whererapists live around the corner anddrug dealing is rife.

In appearance it is like a concen-tration camp and facilities are poor,with four families to one toilet andtin walls that let in heat and cold.

No Land, No House, No Vote is thestory of the poor, a book all SouthAfricans should read.

It has two well-written introduc-

tions: one by writer and activist RajPatel, author of the New York Timesbest-seller The Value of Nothing,and the other by Miloon Kothari, for-mer Special Rapporteur on Ade-quate Housing, UN Human RightsCouncil.

That it was successfully assem-bled and has found its way into thepublic arena is not least the work ofa middle-class activist who prefersto be unnamed.

Without people like him, the poorwould have even less of a voice.

The publisher also deservescredit. Pambazuka Press (www.pam-bazukapress.org) is a small non-profit Pan African publisher withoffices in Cape Town, Oxford, Dakarand Nairobi.

The heartbreak of many of theSymphony Way stories and the styleof their authorship carries this mis-sion even further.

● Jeanne Hromnik is a freelance

journalist

A remarkable book written by theSymphony Way people has a message forall about the spirit of community amongthe poor, writes Jeanne Hromnik

OpenMike

M I K EW I L L S

OUR STORY: The residents of Symphony Way rose above their hardships to write a book. PICTURE: HENK KRUGER

Among the ironies

that emerge from

their book is that

they managed to

form a community

Our mission is to

encourage and

equip the good

people who do

sacrificial work…