Xenophobia South Africa; turning the tide

Xenophobia South Africa; turning the tide

Because of their complexity and depth, the tides and currents of xenophobia that have swirled though our country will only return to calm if diverse, precisely targeted strategies are used to ease tensions. Foremost amongst these is the address of poverty, a debilitating phenomenon that underlies almost every other social ill in this country. This is where the past Masifundisane project could help.

A few years ago, the Masifundisane literacy programme was run successfully in KwaZulu-Natal, under the conscientious leadership of Mrs Cynthia Mpati of the Department of Education. It was directed at adults whose education had been fractured by apartheid. Cuba provided a model. Local unemployed KZN matriculants provided much of the teaching manpower, but local communities owned it and provided monitoring.

Masifundisane gave participants an education focused on their home language Zulu, as well as the language of the economy and much of the outside world, which is English. A more widely-scoped curriculum is now needed.

We need a national endeavour that encompasses;

·         The home language and English literacy

·         Numeracy and financial/business literacy

·         Entrepreneurship and how to run a small business such as a co-operative

·         Economic geography of the surrounding environment, business opportunities

·         Selected vocational skills suited to the region

Every component of the courses would be focused on achieving economic independence for the participants in the region in which they live, either as an individual, member of a collective or seeker of employment. There would be no wasted theorizing; just solid, practical, usable knowledge and skills. The development of suitable certification would be explored.

Every component of the curriculum above should also be integrated into the public schooling system, perhaps in the Life Orientation curriculum of Grades 7, 8 or 9.

We could adopt the Masifundisane (Google it, or check www.alexeducational.co.za and its linked sites for a summary) project as a model. It was a brilliant endeavour. Lessons were run in community halls, churches and school classrooms after hours, and every other venue available was employed in the task. Unemployed matric students taught for a modest salary, and the local community monitored and reported on progress. 

SABC radio and television programmes, NGOs, churches and businesses could be harnessed. SETAS could be incorporated (but solely for initial, basic curriculum content and emphatically not for the suffocating administrative and bureaucratic constraints the SETAS must implement).

Instead of trading insults on the floor of parliament in the unseemly manner that has recently held sway, politicians might join forces to ensure that the proposed programmes work. Our society has not benefited from the past, indulgent mud-slinging; the fracas has given the nation a particularly bad model to follow and we are currently reaping the whirlwind. We need a return to propriety and proper work.

Although a measure of socialism underlies the suggested scheme, businesses must surely see the advantage of striving to develop social equilibrium based on a proliferation of micro- and meso-businesses. Big companies and banks might adopt a local or municipal region and reap some cudos from their investment. ‘Ordinary’ citizens might contribute greatly. Basic funding can be built into the education budget each year, and some money might be transferred from the SETAS.

Politics would have to be kept out of the mix as far as possible, if a programme such as that envisaged is to be run successfully throughout the country. The goodwill, input and resources of all political parties would have to be invited and accessed sensitively, while retaining a healthy measure of independent action and conscience.

At a time of acute stress in international relations generated by the recent outbreak of xenophobia , the added burden of inviting internal social and political collaboration would be difficult to orchestrate. With the inbuilt oppositional tensions inherent in our democratic Westminster parliamentary system, it might prove impossible. But it is surely worth discussion and if feasible, implementation. The benefits of success would be enormous.

A model derived from Cuba, involving government initiatives might smack too much for some people of ‘creeping socialism’. On the other hand, success would bring economic freedom for many, with a measure of independence from the present widespread state support. I believe that in this case, the ends justify the means. It would mean a brave new world for many.

The Masifundisane project is described in some detail under Community empowerment through enhanced literacy at www.alexsolutions.wordpress.wordpress.com and www.alexstoriesandart.blogspot.com .

You might like to look it up. It’s a South African initiative of worldwide importance.

Xenophobia South Africa

Xenophobia South Africa

 

 

Desperate people are fleeing out of both ends of Africa; the north and the south. In North Africa, refugees are searching for a better life in already-crowded Europe. Many have come from war-torn countries. As a result of desperation, many have endured terrible deaths at the hands of brutal agents bent on making a quick buck without regard for the savage fate to which they are committing their victims.

Politicians in European countries are searching for ways to accommodate a regulated, ‘manageable’ number of migrants. In this, they are discharging the first duty of any government, which is to secure the safety of their citizens. They are also attempting to stem the tide at source by targeted action on the African continent itself. They face a titanic battle between expediency and conscience, with the lives of thousands at stake... and also the reputations of their countries.

In the far south, South Africa has over the years accommodated several million economic and political migrants, some of whom no doubt also qualify as refugees. Past Government immigration policy had been one of benign understatement. Now for some migrants as well as ‘local’ people, especially for those deeply in poverty, a breaking-point has been reached.

 

While most of South Africa has gone about its business relatively unperturbed, pockets of vehement, violent conduct have broken out.  Many migrants, especially those who are involved in commerce, have been generalised as corrupt, ruthless, exploitive, and perhaps even ‘colonialist’. Only now as mature reflection intrudes at last, is their economic contribution to society being recognised.

South Africans think so easily by classifying individual human beings into ‘groups’. We are besotted by ‘group-think’. One’s race, social class and family name come before one’s personal identity, character, service or other achievements. I do not blame any single sector of our population for this skewed thinking, which often leads to tremendous injustice, as the apartheid years showed. Group-thought and mindless generalising are alive and well. We all do it. Individual character, service and personal accountability are often glossed over.

Where their citizens have been terrorised or even killed, African Governments have responded vehemently. Some response from these countries is justified, understandable and worthy of recompense and an assumption of responsibility on the part of the South African Government. Yet, a considerable number of perpetrators of violence were tried and sentenced after the 2008 riots.

In the short term they were no doubt slow to react to the present eruption, and in the long term, poverty has remained addressed less effectively than it should have been. In that regard, we citizens who actually comprise ‘the state’ are also culpable. We have become numbed. It’s not only Government.  

In a few cases, there is a distinct taint of politics inherent in some of the statements from Africa; also a measure of envious denigration and no doubt economic competition. I doubt whether any other state in Africa could have acted with any greater speed than our Government did. To prove the case, readers can choose from many recent examples of laxity on the part of other governments. Indulge yourself.   

My wife and I are white South Africans, born in this country of parents also born here. I did not support apartheid, although I enjoyed its benefits. As educationists, my wife and I pursued education as career paths, and both of us served until it hurt, drawing salaries no greater than the comparable salary paid to any other ‘cultural group’ of the time.

Increasingly uneasy and later opposed to the prevailing political dispensation, I judged my white skin to be worth a million rand in indirect (or perhaps direct) benefits during my early years. I became a social activist while in a senior position in the education sphere. I researched racism with a D. Ed., and spoke against the policy and practice  for many years.  In the capacity of a college Vice Rector, such public speaking was controversial, but never threatening to me or otherwise heroic to do.  Two of my public addresses were broken up by the advocates of apartheid;  interesting experiences.

My wife and I of course rejected violence, and sought initially to make a contribution through NGO’S, but then decided to operate domestically outside politics. We became ‘father’ and ‘mother’ to four young Zulus (one was a week old) whose mother had died in my wife’s vehicle en route to hospital.  The mother had lived with us for six months while ill. So, for thirty-five years we assisted a growing, extended Zulu family in building their houses, pursuing career paths and getting employment. We were all too busy to indulge ourselves with racist thoughts.

There was nothing particularly commendable about this. I’m sure many others in South Africa have done the same, or more. And, we were well rewarded. We paid our two-million rand virtual social debt, retained a measure of dignity, and were rewarded with several of our youngsters becoming teachers. Another qualified as a Catholic priest (he was ordained within the Catholic Church on 07 March 2015), and another as an electrician. There was also a financial administrator and several others are still training. We did it on state educationist/educator salaries and have been well rewarded, with very few disappointments. Old gogo (granny) was the mainstay of the family through their difficult years, as is quite usual these days; not us.

I am ‘white’ and, being born in Africa, I am an African. I am proud of it. And, I shall define myself as I wish. No-one else shall. I’m tired of being labelled indirectly as colonist, exploiter, or any other unpleasant implied epithet. I’m sure millions of other South Africans who have contributed to our economy and served in other ways greater than mine feel the same. Even the African immigrants who were born in other countries are now being praised for their economic contribution. Initially damned, many are now feeling affirmed.

As the xenophobic fracas settles and the country returns to normality, I hope the shock of the most recent xenophobic episode focuses our minds on a national scale. Above all, I hope that we as a nation can learn to look at such things as character as something worthwhile, rather than race or the banal trappings of wealth. The poor have been used as political fodder for long enough. And civil society is not blameless.

We in South Africa are a cultural kaleidoscope and a microcosm of the world. I hope that every citizen who has a bit more than average assets, no matter how little the reserve is, will occasionally use it well in the service of the needy.  And the rich can always do more. In a world currently bent on suicide that will be a means to build a people worthy of the accolade ‘Rainbow Nation’.

Xenophobia: quo vadis, South Africa?

Xenophobia: quo vadis, South Africa?
 

 

Recent events in and around my home city Durban have sent shivers down the spines of South Africans. Xenophobic attacks have occurred against foreigners, initially amongst owners of small businesses in Isipingo, central Durban and Verulam. There have been deaths. The social disturbances have now spread to the Witwatersrand in Gauteng province, and no end to the disturbances is yet in sight. Similar unrest occurred in 2002, 2008 and 2014.

The trigger for these events seems to be a rising antipathy and even hatred on the part of impoverished local communities. It is largely directed against foreign nationals who have migrated to South Africa in huge numbers because of political or economic pressures in their own countries. The total of such people is estimated at four million. The broader setting has been conducive to social disruption, since during times of international economic, political, religious and social disruptions, migrants and refugees are obvious targets for the focus of anger amongst those already under pressure.

President Zuma has spoken on the subject, and has apparently invited answers to the problem, from whatever quarter. This present post is a response to that invitation.

Allegations of thoughtless statements by public figures and even underlying political intrigue are emerging, and need to be investigated thoroughly. If necessary, people must be held accountable. The response by government was tardy initially, but it is gathering momentum. Numerous statements have been made by government officials and members of civil society condemning the violence. We must all do so.

Many commentators have condemned the initial media reaction, which for a time focused on debates about whether the problem represents xenophobia or afrophobia. As the problem deepened, there was a realisation that the country needed vigorous action, not words. After some vacillation, the government responded with police action to ensure the safety of people whose lives were most in jeopardy. They have now correctly discerned the wellbeing of the civilian population as a first urgent step. In Durban and Gauteng, police have clamped down on crowd violence and associated criminality.

Several thousand people have been displaced. They are being housed temporarily in tent villages, police stations and other shelters. Angered and dismayed by the harsh events, some will no doubt return to their home countries. An exodus has begun. Several states have already taken action to repatriate citizens, and South Africa’s reputation as an exemplary country where a brilliant constitution holds sway has been besmirched and the underlying social fragilities revealed.

Condemnation of the violence and desultory initial response has come from Nigeria, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and also Boko Haram and Al Shebaab. Political and economic retaliation have been threatened. The Department of Foreign Relations has been hard pressed to respond to and placate these criticisms. It is probable that South Africa will suffer in its international relations.

Some foreigners have not got relevant residence permits, and complain of experiencing corrupt practices in the registration process, muddled thinking and sometimes, enormous distances to be covered to get documents renewed.

In due course there will be the preparation of long-term plans to manage the crisis, to ensure a return to reasonably normal social interactions, and the development of a strategy to forestall recurrence. The process of introspection and planning has already begun. Unfortunately, as is so common with the managements of these sorts of events, initial reaction is to see and address only the surface manifestations, but not to drill or probe more deeply into the underlying aetiology. Clearly, the current events are symptoms of deeper things than those appearing at the surface. These have incubated and festered over decades, exacerbated by apartheid but also by mistakes made during the past few decades of ‘freedom’.

Many of the transgressors are Zulus, a nation that at one stage was the most powerful military and political body in South-east Africa. Read Shaka.The Story of a Zulu King for background. The fact is still embedded in the collective unconscious of large numbers of people, and fuels an underlying but tangible, simmering political resentment. Despite being the largest identifiable cultural entity in Southern Africa, historically they never consolidated into a nation-state such as that of the Sothos (Lesotho) or Swazis (Swaziland). There has apparently never been a satisfaction of historical ambitions.

A further provocation is that many live in a state of comparative poverty. The result is often a sense of hopelessness, loss of initiative and surrender to a sense of impotence and hopelessness. Yet amongst them are the most remarkable, kindly and precious people one can hope to meet. I have admired them for their ineffable strength of character, fortitude, courtesy and compassion despite their being in the grip of undeserved, grinding poverty. Some have become ‘family’.

In general however, South African society seems to harbour a deeply rooted propensity to resort to violence to get one’s way, and the concept of ubuntu sometimes appears more like a fragile, politically expedient construct to be trotted out when necessary, rather than a reality. It seems at times to extend no further than a narrow clan allegiance based on related names and interests. In our society there is also a measure of allegiance to larger ‘tribal’ entities whether black, brown or white, but little empathic regard for humanity in a wider context. We delude ourselves by accepting the designation ‘rainbow nation’. We have yet to earn that accolade.

The present outbursts of aggression are focused on xenophobia, which implies a fear and even hatred of foreigners or even strangers. It is a reaction that flies directly in the face of the ubuntu ethic. It has given vent to opportunistic criminality and the looting of shops and other property. Some of the anger is even alleged to originate in an attempt to clear debts by driving away the implicated business owners.

Poverty has over many years been exacerbated by the apartheid legacy which is not yet entirely expunged from current economic, political and social activities. White people are still pilloried en bloc, including those who fought apartheid. The persistence of poverty is recent years is due to a composite of syndromes such as corruption emanating from the elites within government and business, shocking labour relations underlying such events as the Marikana Massacre that have scared off overseas and domestic investment, a contested trade union battle for national hegemony, recent appalling behaviour within parliament that has set a new low bar for what can be tolerated within human interactions, and persistent and entrenched feelings of elitism, superiority and entitlement characteristic of many.

Then there is the dismal performance of many municipalities as well as parastatals such as ESCOM and SAA that have further damaged our economy. One can add the schooling system which consuming massive resources, yet produces little to reassure taxpayers and especially parents.

As usual, these current disturbances have loaded further stress onto the shoulders of the police services, still reeling from such exposes as the Marikana enquiry while trying bravely to maintain morale in the face of poor performances by some members.

South Africa has for long been describes as a ‘microcosm of the world’. With a world in turmoil, we have not needed these horrific events. Well, now a brave new world is needed. We must penetrate to current and historical fundamentals and address them responsibly to the advantage of both contesting blocs.

Some solutions might lie in the following suggestions.

1.    We are engaged here with disruptions of a complex social system. To address the trauma adequately demands intelligent systemic thinking that penetrates to the roots of the problem and tracks the various underlying threads that cause the surface manifestations we now see.

 

2.    We can accept that the present events will be brought under temporary control, as if a lid was put on a boiling pot. But, they will resurface in a month, a year or a decade, just as the pressure in a pot is likely to repeatedly dislodge the lid. Action and reaction will continue until lasting solutions are found. The solution lies in an impossible vision; the development of an unshakeable empathic national character that pursues a common good for all people resident in South Africa.

 

3.    While some roots of the present turmoil can be traced back to apartheid, events in South Africa in the past two decades have also exacerbated a steady descent to chaos. Amongst these, appalling widespread corruption coupled to political arrogance are probably the most disruptive factors that have driven people apart. More than anything else, these factors have shaken faith in positive change.

 

4.    As a nation, we must consolidate nationally. We must accept that historical factors are tenacious. On the massive scale inherent in our South African society, poverty is abominably difficult to ameliorate. Each individual must accept responsibility for addressing the underlying economic realities across a breadth of social entities including races, classes and genders. Civil society must more actively address poverty in creative ways. The government cannot do it all, although when one notes the past profligate and wasteful expenditure, it is clear that it could do far more than it does at present.

 

5.    Individuals might accept a personal project. Families that can cope economically might help someone to build a small two-roomed house, educate a child or find employment. My wife and I have been engaged with this for the past thirty-five years. It is reaffirming and immensely enriching. I’m sure many others have done the same. The trend needs to spread.

 

6.    Government must accept and value positive inputs from any quarter, insofar as it is predicated on the national good. This implies listening to opposition parties as well as ‘ordinary’ citizens. But we need action, not ‘talking heads’.

 

7.    Government must stand firmly behind the Constitution and the laws that emanate from it. In practical terms they must support the Police Service in undertaking a difficult and sensitive task, uphold the courts in their decisions, and maintain the morale of municipalities in the discharge of their related duties. Their present policy of placing the security of individuals as a top, practical priority is sensible and commendable. This avoids immersion in senseless obfuscations surrounding debates on terminology and ideological imperatives.

 

8.    Without fear or favour, anyone found culpable of fomenting or propagating a resort to violence or who has resorted to violence, theft or the destruction of property must be censured and if necessary brought before the law.

 

9.    Government should establish a firm yet compassionate immigration/border control. This will of course always prove a contradiction. With people from other countries flooding into South Africa, many impoverished citizens feel that they are being sacrificed while the more opulent make no sacrifice. This fuels feelings of xenophobia. Yet the entitlements of migrants must also be honoured and respected.

 

South Africa is signatory to international conventions, and there are entitlements to recognise and accommodate. Many refugees feel humiliated and let down. Those who wish to reintegrate into their communities need police protection if they are to do so safely.

 

Accordingly, on the one hand the country must meet the dictates of conscience and international law, and on the other one needs to protect an over-burdened social service while also protecting the citizenry within our borders. More vigorous programmes of adult education such as that mounted under the Masifundisane banner some years ago will help. Whatever is done, the present muddled thinking must end.

 

10. The education system must be overhauled and transformed. It is matter for individual teachers to put right, by adopting a professional and not self-centred ‘trade unionist’ approach. Many who are in poverty in this country are the victims of an inadequate education. Many emerging from grade 12 schooling are apparently proving unemployable. I suspect that much of the fiercest resentment arises through the perception of local communities that they cannot compete fairly against the better-educated people flooding into the country.

 

Further, school curricula need the infusion of programmes promoting interpersonal tolerance and a multi-cultural approach.

 

11. We as a nation must learn to value character, empathy and service beyond wealth. We have yet to earn our indulgent, self-accorded characterisation as a ’rainbow nation’. At present, there’s no rainbow. The darkest storm-clouds are still gathering.

Haste comes before a fall.

I fell on wet verandah tiles a few weeks ago, and fractured my ulna at the elbow. It was apparently a spectacular, if complicated, flight. A bit of bone schrapnel was thrown in for good measure.

Such things take years of practice. Nuyerev would have been proud.
A hospital excursion, surgery and rehab. have been interesting experiences; no doubt suited to the needs of a writer.

I'll not be able to post for another month, but look forward to getting back to it as soon as my elbow treats me kindly again.

Alex Coutts

The Military Career of Shaka, Zulu King

The Military Career of Shaka, Zulu King

This is a summary of a presentation done on in Durban on 12 February 2015 for the Military Historians Society of South Africa.

During the early 1600’s, a small band of people under the patriarch Malandela settled for a time on the Highveld in the proximity of present Vryheid. After trouble with local tribesmen during which the stone walls of their cattle kraals were damaged, they migrated down the White Umfolozi Valley, sojourning for a time in the area later known as Emakhoseni.

 

In due course they settled in the Valley of the Umhlatuze under Malandela, who established an umuzi on the long slope north of the present maNdawe Church.

 

After a quarrel between his sons Zulu and Quabe, Zulu returned with his mother Nozinja to the beloved Emakhosini Valley they had traversed earlier. He is recorded as living from 1627 to 1709. From these origins sprang a long line of Zulu chiefs (kings).

 

The otherwise nondescript valley holds the grave-sites of Zulu, Phunga, Mageba, Ndaba, Jama, Senzangakhona and Dinuzulu.  Shaka’s entire life was influenced by the heritage of the emerging Zulu nation, centred on the Emakhoseni valley, the ‘Valley of the kings’. Much of his military career can be attributed to his mother Nandi’s insistence that he take a rightful place in that dynasty.

In 1787, after a tryst between the Zulu heir Senzangahkona and Nandi, princess of the Elangeni tribe to the south, Shaka was born as an illegitimate. The Zulu dismissed the pregnancy as the work of ‘an intestinal beetle’. Shaka’s strong-willed mother became the unloved third wife of Senzangakhona. The fact resulted in humiliation for Shaka and his mother, leading to many hatreds and grudges and an urge to fight his way to supremacy.  

 

Nandi kept the kingly vision in front of Shaka from his birth until her death and constantly brought to his attention that he was the son of a Zulu paramount chief (king). She urged him to resurrect the Zulu nation to dominance in opposition to his many less robust half-brothers.

 

This ensured the honing of Shaka’s character and skills during a tough and even brutal childhood. He endured torment and hardships as a young herder, and oppression from the Elangeni tribe of his mother. These cruelties are supported by many anecdotes. He learned stick-fighting and perfected it until left severely alone by the other boys, apart from grudging respect. After an indiscretion involving disagreements with the Elangeni heir apparent Makedama and the stabbing of an unmanageable cow during the famine of 1802-04, he was obliged to flee with his mother Nandi to Mthethwa territory closer to the coast. They lived with that tribe for a decade.

 

Quick to learn military techniques and tactics, Shaka became a rising military star of the Mthethwa and a favourite of the renowned Dingiswayo. Shaka stamped his authority and presence on the younger warriors, and recorded notable achievements such as killing a cattle-raider known as Lembe.

 

In due course Shaka’s patron Dingiswayo engineered the young warrior’s supremacy amongst the Zulus in order to secure his western flank militarily against the feared Ndwandwe living to the north along the Phongolo River. Shaka arranged the assassination of his brother Sigujana and assumed the kingship while backed by a Mthethwa regiment. On Dingiswayo death at the hands of Zwide, he was free to extend his powers further.

He innovated the short, powerful iklwa stabbing spear and huge war shield, buffalo attack formation and hardening of his troops for battle. A strict regimen of discipline was instituted. Selected campaign strategies were refined and practiced on smaller local tribes. The Elangeni were overrun and a brutal vengeance exacted on those who had done him or his mother any hurt. The Buthelezi were defeated. Their leaders were incorporated as councillors, if compliant enough. Shaka steadily incorporated tribes near and far, and embarked on campaigns worthy of more historically lauded military leaders elsewhere, even Napoleon.

In his prime, Shaka as king was a magnificent physical specimen, resplendent in ceremonial dress. He showed an acute intelligence, capable of weighing evidence dispassionately, hypothesising, applying critical analysis and engaging with creative strategising. He showed acute awareness of how complex social and natural systems tend to operate. Many of these thinking processes are evident in his complex and usually successful military strategies.

Major battles includes Kwa Gqokli, involving an intricate deception to divide the Ndwandwe army between assaulting the Zulu regiments ensconced on Kwa Goqlkli hill, and pursuing a small herd of Zulu decoy cattle. Shaka used many elements such as thirst, breaking up the invading forces by various stratagems, superior fighting weapons, disciplined troop formations, and the constant availability of food and water provisions, to his advantage. The outcome was a far greater loss of manpower on the Ndwandwe side than with the Zulus. The result was more than satisfactory, because the Ndwandwe reward was a limited number of cattle as the spoils of war, while the Zulus bought time during which to build up their forces.

 

A major defensive campaign a year later was also concluded successfully, with the Ndwandwe suffering tremendous losses. The Ndwandwe were finally reduced to impotence in a savage campaign of retribution that took the Zulu army as far as the upper Phongolo River.

After the death of Shaka’s mother Nandi in 1827, the king introduced severe constraints to ensure a satisfactory period of national mourning for her. Sexual intercourse was banned. Living women were recorded as having been opened to check the presence of the unborn. Many cattle were also killed as result of the mourning period, while solid food might not be eaten. Resentment grew.

 

Shaka seemed to be suffering from schizophrenia, with wild mood swings consuming him in his last year. He was wounded by Quabe or Ndwandwe attackers, with a blade driven under his left biceps and into his ribs. The wounds were attended to by Farewell, to the king’s gratitude.

A few years after first meeting the white settlers who became ensconced in Port Natal in 1824 as traders, in 1828 Shaka engaged them with his army in an attempt to carve a way through Southern Natal and Xhosa territory to establish trading relations with the Eastern Cape town of Grahamstown.

The traders had a broad strategy of setting up a trading empire that would eventually link in with the Cape authorities. This involved a major campaign to Xhosa territory to the south. The policy brought mutterings from the Zulus, who felt that Shaka’s relationships with the traders were too warm, and too disparaging of the Zulus themselves. There were rising intrigues against the king.

The king was murdered in September 1828, in a side-kraal Nyakamubi of the great ikhanda (military village) at Stanger in Natal. The role of Shaka’s aged aunt and previously regent, Mkabayi, is clear in approving the actions to be taken by Dingane, Mhlangana and Mbopa to ‘save the nation’.

The book Shaka.The story of a Zulu king is available for a few dollars on Amazon Kindle and in hard copy from Createspace, under Alex Coutts. The web site www.alexeducational.co.za and blog site www.alexstoriesandart.blogspot.com will get you there. Alternatively you might just enjoy looking at the 50 paintings on the website or reading of the blogsite stories set in KZN.

 

 

 

The Coelancanth and Other Marine Creatures

Coelacanth at Durban Watersports Club

Relics of the past

For anyone interested in palaeontology and pre-history, South Africa is a good place to be.  Our unique and precious geological and palaeontological histories have left magnificent relics of the past in the form of fossils. Many of these are of interest to South Africans and tourists alike. KwaZulu-Natal has its full share of these gems. More exciting yet, we have a ‘living fossil’.

 

During the Cretaceous period from about 100 million down to fifty million years ago, Maputaland in the north of the province was under a warm, shallow sea. Great creatures roamed the waters. Simple, shelled organisms were plentiful. Billions of marine molluscs decayed to form part of the sediments of present-day Maputaland. These are most prolific along the banks of the present rivers that have eroded the overlying sediments and some are far from the present seashore. Ammonites and trilobites are plentiful. To the perceptive observer, they come as a reminder of the instability of our earthly topography.

 

Great sharks and other things

The Maputaland coast re-submerged about twenty million years ago and then emerged again, during the Early Cainozoic period. The sea receded, and then returned five million years ago. Before the waters receded again, they left sand deposits that formed into low ridges roughly parallel with the present coastline.

 

As result of this many shellfish fossils are now unearthed far inland. Great sharks (carcharodon megalodon), probably related to the present-day great whites (carcharodon caracharias), shed their 15 centimetre teeth and left them as part of our palaeontological and tourism heritage. These beasts were perhaps the length of present-day whale sharks. That means they were fifteen or more metres long.

 

Lethal waters of the East Coast

Sharks have also made their mark in recent times. Since World War 11 especially, while going about their business of attacking and eating a wide range of creatures venturing into the aquatic environment, sharks have also made their predations felt amongst the human population.

 

The last month of 1957 and during the first months of 1958 was a dreadful period for bathers off the East Coast of South Africa. I remember it well since I was part of a group of Northlands High School students who during the holidays spent spare hours two hundred meters out at ‘seconds’ waiting for the perfect wave. On rare occasions these reached five metres, enough to drag one for a hundred meters under water before one could catch one’s breath.

 

We very occasionally saw the ominous flash of a grey fin when the Umgeni River brought down sediment, and one of our gang went off a whale’s back as it surfaced close to shore. So our lives were not without incident. But nothing would touch us. We were protected utterly by what the writer Robert Ardrey used to call ‘the illusion of central position’. Reason told us it was always the other chap who’d get the chop, never us. We were seventeen, and therefore innately immune from harm.

 

On 23 December 1957, Vernon Barry suffered fatal mauling while swimming at Margate, and three days later at Splash Rock on the South Coast Donald Webster suffered wounds to the head and neck. On 30 December, a shark savaged Julia Painting at Margate. Julia lost her left arm and was mauled on the thigh and torso. The incident set newspaper headlines ablaze. On 9 January 1958, Derryk Prinsloo became a further victim and a few months later there were more victims, one at Port Edward and one at Uvongo. People dubbed the tragedies, collectively, ‘Black December’.

 

Revenge

As with so many other scenarios where humans venture into the realms of powerful predators, observers laid blame solely on the wild creatures, and revenge in the form of their destruction became a powerful motive. During the years that followed, men with .303 calibre rifles turned up regularly at the Blue Lagoon promontory adjacent to the Umgeni River, to shoot at any fins that presented in the offshore waters.

 

One or two bullets ricocheted off the surface, and the stories of yacht sails impacted by ricocheting bullets grew in number. Faced with heated complaints from offshore yachtsmen and ski boat owners, the authorities banned the hunting. In 1962, the Sharks Anti-Shark Measures Board was established and in due course, they implemented the netting of beaches. Unfortunately, over the years the nets have taken the lives of turtles, dolphins and other sea creatures as well as sharks. The practice remains controversial.

 

Destruction of species

Apart from sharks, the coastal waters of KwaZulu-Natal have been host to myriads of fish species, now badly depleted from over-angling, defiance of legal catch quotas, neglect of the law in a variety of other ways, and the view that natural species are so plentiful that they can be consumed endlessly. The annual sardine migrations up the KZN coast and the schools of shad and other predatory species that follow them have fuelled the view of bountiful, even endless ocean life. Repeatedly, research is proving that contention wrong. Coastal species are highly vulnerable.

 

In good years during ‘shad season’, certain coastal locations will see two or three kilometres of fishing rods, with anglers standing shoulder to shoulder. Where the shad (pomatomus saltatrix) are in particularly high concentrations, some anglers in the throng are forced to cast their baits directly over those pushing in front of them.

 

Offshore, ski boats carry the more opulent anglers to fishing grounds where pelagic species occur. In sheltered locations where fry and territorial species congregate, a few seine netters still ply their trade. The result has been an incremental reduction of fish stocks, to the detriment of angling as a sport and, ultimately, fishing as a subsistence occupation.

 

Gone is the concentration of some territorial species, and the diversity of this form of life is now increasingly reduced. Only further north on the protected coastline of Maputaland is a wide range of species found in plenty. In one or two small, heavily protected locations, wild creatures of special interest still survive.

 

Enter the coelacanths

Of considerable interest are the coelacanths, a further unique life form that has a long history of habitation identified with KwaZulu-Natal and the East Coast of Africa, Indonesia and one or two other places. Dating has recorded many species of coelacanth from forty-seven genera and five families in the fossil records of several countries. Fossil specimens come from as early as 380 million years ago.

 

In earlier times Marine biologists thought the coelacanths had died out seventy million years ago along with the dinosaurs. In December 1938, however, to the astonishment of the scientific world, a fishnet off East London on the southeast coast of South Africa dredged a living specimen up. Prof J.L.B. Smith published a description in the international journal Nature and named it Latimeria Chalumnae. Smith spent fourteen years attempting to identify the home territory of the fish species, and finally in December 1952 identified a specimen off the Comoro Islands in the proximity of Madagascar. From that time interest in the species spread.

 

Modern research

Anglers have caught about 200 specimens since then and scientists have done initial studies of their appearance and habits. From the 1980’s to recent times, the Germans Hans Fricke and Jurgen Schauer have used a submersible in a search for further living specimens. Divers have recorded recent sightings in canyons off Sodwana Bay. The fish have proved fascinating. They are slow-swimming ambush predators that feed on unwary fish passing by their lairs. Live ‘pups’ are born after a year-long gestation.

 

On 28 October 2000, Pieter Venter and colleagues located a living specimen at approximately 100 metres in Jesser Canyon off the Maputaland coast. He then conducted several further dives, some with use of Jago, a German submersible. A number of sightings occurred, of coelacanths in the Jesser Caves that protect the fish from the strongest sea currents. Casual divers may no longer interfere with the species, although scientists are considering installation of a benign and non-intrusive camera, the ‘seacam’.

 

In honour of the coelacanth, I painted one in oils and donated the painting to the Durban Undersea Club, a body of people who formed the core of the later Durban Watersports Club. One trusts that the painting will never come to be amongst the only remaining records of these beautiful creatures. The painting is at the head of the present article.

Stranger than the coelacanth?

While the surprising and unusual coelacanth has substantial verified claims to reality within the realms of science, some other discoveries in our coastal waters have remained within the orbit of the bizarre and inexplicable … at least by usual biological or palaeontological standards.

 

The so-called ‘Margate monster’, encountered during 1922, is one such perplexing creature. T.V. Bulpin’s 1966 book Natal and the Zulu country describes the incident. In 1919, Hugh Ballance purchased land on the coast that was later to become Margate town. He divided the farm into properties for sale. With poor road and sea communications and no publicity, sales were poor. By 1922, Ballance was desperate. Then, fate took a hand.

 

He wrote to the newspapers and told of a most astonishing event that had occurred of the coast at Margate. He reported looking out to sea on 1 November 1922, to see two whales locked in combat with a creature resembling a polar bear, but ‘of truly mammoth proportions’. The battle raged no more than a kilometre from shore, and ended with the retreat of the whales and the death of the other extraordinary creature. It washed ashore at a place known as ‘Tragedy Hill’.

 

Ballance records the creature as forty feet (twelve metres) long, ten feet (three metres) wide and five feet (one and a half metres) high. It was ‘clothed in snow-white hair and seemed to be devoid of blood’. During the ten days that the decomposing carcase lay on the beach, a span of thirty-two oxen could not shift it. A spring tide then did so with embarrassing ease, sparing the world’s scientists a fruitless journey to study the thing.

 

It was no doubt a dead whale whose carcase had rotted into a stringy mess of stinking flesh; but the creature gave Margate much needed publicity, and a story that has endured sufficiently long for me to repeat it here. Still, it is by such tales that our precious natural heritage lingers in the minds of humanity.

 

Durban has recently been designated a top spot for world tourists to visit. If you come in summer, you’ll be able to bet on a particularly warm welcome. There is much to discover for yourself.

Death of a black mamba; death of all life

 

Death of a black mamba; death of all life

 

Many years ago, as a lad of seventeen I spent school holidays working on a friend’s sugar cane farm near Umzinto on the south coast of KwaZulu-Natal.  On a hot summer day while on the farm, I killed a black mamba. It was a male, a little more than eight feet (2.4 metres) long. The execution was done with a pellet gun, half-dozen pellets and a stick.

At first, there was the modest sense of triumph one might expect of a teenager, since I’d ensured the safety of a number of people. But, later with the passing of years as I engaged increasingly with wild creatures, I thought back to that mamba with only a hollow feeling and enduring sense of regret. And the regret was tenacious and pervasive. It was just one of many such feelings that can come with growing maturity and change in outlook.

 

One the day of the encounter I was told that the tractor driver of the farm wanted to see me. It was an urgent matter. He was sweating from exertion when he arrived, and his words came in a rush. He’d just seen a huge black mamba coiled in an orange tree next to the footpath from the farmhouse to the labourers’ quarters. Although the snake probably wouldn’t be aggressive unless provoked, it was in striking distance of anyone using the footpath. It must be killed.

 

I was perplexed because neither the farm owner nor his mother was on the premises. Only they had access to the double-barrel twelve-bore shotgun which was locked in a safe. The cartridges were stored elsewhere.

 

Two other workers appeared. “It’s a big mamba close to the road,” they said. “The children go past that tree. What will you do? You must come now.”  I could think of no good  answer. The men persisted. The farmer didn’t let me use the shotgun; nor was it available for my use even if I had permission. It remained locked in the gun safe of the farmhouse. All I had was the rusted BSA pellet gun, a small-bore rifle that was not a suitable weapon of execution for so large a creature.

Still, the pressures were mounting. I must do something. I took the gun and a few pellets and approached the tree. The labourers were standing a respectable distance away in an erratic ring of excited, gesticulating onlookers. With the gun loaded, I approached the tree until I was a couple of metres from it, but could not yet see the snake. There was an expectant hush. I edged closer.

 

There, deep within the orange tree I saw the first evidence of what I had to deal with. A thick coil of dark grey tinged with a hint of brown and sporting a dull cream underbelly showed where the snake was draped. My head was not a half-metre from it as I tracked the sinuous body of the reptile. It was comprised of layer after layer of coils. The scales were beautifully patterned in little regular rows, like small shields melded together.

 

It looked enormous, and I had visions of something spanning four metres. The reality eventually proved more modest, but with a rampant imagination at work at the time, the snake seemed huge. It was as thick as my wrist, perhaps thicker. The crowd fell silent, waiting expectantly for action.

 

I pushed the muzzle of the air rifle against the reptile until it was in direct contact, and fired. The mamba didn’t flinch. I fired twice more, noting that the pellets had entered cleanly. The snake began slowly to resettle itself. It was a remarkably slight reaction because three pellets were now embedded. The mamba then slid forward a hands-length. It paused again, staring out at me with its jet black, mesmerising eye. There was no expression beyond the riveting intensity of the stare. It seemed to ask why I was driving these sharp, wounding missiles into it, but offered no threat at all.

 

I was making a hash of the job, and wanted desperately to finish the mamba’s suffering. Only later did I give any thought to the danger from a creature known for its virulent neuro-toxic venom and fearsome reputation for speed and aggression, draped through the foliage only a metre from my head.

 

 After placing several pellets, I flushed the reptile from the tree. The crowd scattered, leaping and scrambling away with cries of alarm. The snake shot from the foliage on the far side of the tree and slid swiftly to the ground in a long, fluid movement. Despite the pellets, it managed to glide into a patch of rank grass where it lay concealed from view.  I followed.

 

Two African kitchen staff arrived, carrying a heavy metal drive-shaft. We edged gingerly forward until we could make out the body of the snake amidst the grass stems. With a heave the men cast the metal rod onto it, pinning the snake and causing it to thrash and flail as it tried to escape. After discarding the rifle I despatched the stricken snake with a stick. We dug a shallow hole, dropped the mangled body into it and covered it with earth.

 

The cruelty of its death troubled me for years, yet I felt that I could not have left so venomous creature in peace when it was frequenting a habitat close to the staff living quarters. The larger snakes such as mambas no doubt came close to the farm buildings because rats, which were their major food source, were attracted by the grain stores. To leave the mamba in the vicinity could have led to an accident.

 

The troubling nature of the execution was deepened by several other encounters, during all of which the snakes I came across showed no aggressive intent. They only wanted to lie immobile as a camouflage, or else escape from the vicinity as quickly as possible. Not one came at us. Although my brother and I caught several reptiles for a Durban snake park, I never had cause to kill another snake.

 

On reflection, my brief anecdote about the mamba illustrates a syndrome that has operated continually throughout the world in recent times. It tells a microcosmic story of the worldwide destruction of wild creatures. Wildlife has been annihilated almost everywhere to make way for humankind as top predator. My home city of Durban, a port, can provide a good example.

 

In the year 1824 after literate Western settlers arrived by sailing vessel, they described the lagoon of Port Natal (Durban) as one of the most beautiful places in the world. There were mangrove forests, thick coastal lowland forests, reed beds, grasslands and scattered bush. Large and small game was everywhere, and the coastal seas were swarming with fish. The seashore was well populated and the river estuaries were thriving with an astonishing variety of life. Birdlife was plentiful. It had been an Eden.

 

And then, to these shores came Western man with his technology. Elephant herds were decimated, and buffalo, hippopotamus, the large carnivores, antelope beyond count, primates, reptiles and so many of the other wild creatures woven into the bio-diverse population of creatures were steadily annihilated for profit or sport.

 

Clearly, if we humans were to live here and use the marvellous resources the lagoon offered as a harbour, then the destruction of wild creatures was inevitable. How could the history have been different? If we were to survive and proliferate, it could not. We simply could not have continued to co-exist with the cornucopia of wildlife as our numbers increased and our properties expanded. One or other party had to give way. Inevitably it was the wild creatures that did so.

 

The question inevitably arises: what of the future? Will the present world-wide destruction of biodiversity continue unabated? Before I turn to that question, let me get back to mambas.

 

I was recently invited by herpetologist Jason Arnold, a noted snake-catcher living in Durban North, to join him in a ‘snake-release’. He was often featured in the local newspapers for his exploits in catching a variety of reptiles that had made some domestic residence or other its home, to the dismay of the registered human owners.

 

On this occasion, Jason had six black mambas ready for release. Each snake was secure in a spacious plastic container. There were adequate air inlets. A couple of centimetres of fresh water had been poured in to ensure that each reptile was well hydrated when it was released to explore its new home. They ranged in length from a young female of a bit over two metres, to a large male of more than two and a half metres. They were beautifully constructed creatures. Each was sleek and muscular; each sported the characteristic jet-black mouth cavity, a clean creamy-white belly and dark brown-grey back.

 

We drove for a half-hour to get well clear of human habitation that surrounds Durban, and found a remote spot along the inland Umgeni River Valley some kilometres from human habitation. Free of buildings, it was a unique wild location ideal for the release. Jason was well prepared for the job in hand, and efficient. He was focused and measured in his movements, with no sense of bravado. I was reassured. It was not a time and place for amateurs.

 

“I’ll get each one out of its box, and then scan it to see if it’s a repeat offender. If it already has a chip, I’ll know for sure. Finding a chip is unusual, but it happens now and then. I like to keep a check on their movements,” he said.

 

“Where do you catch most of them?” I asked.

 

“Outhouses, garages, storerooms, sometimes in the main house.”

 

“Is it dangerous?”

 

“Not really. Not if you’re careful. They just want to get away.”

 

“Have you been bitten?”

 

‘‘A black mamba got one fang into me, and that wasn’t too bad because there was almost no venom. I think it was a mistake. As first choice, they’re not aggressive. They’d rather get away. I’ve had a couple of bites from other snakes, but nothing serious. I don’t take risks. Sometime, I think, people are unlucky. You know; really scaring a snake, or blocking its way when it wants to get away. And, as I say, they just want to get away. Sometimes when I’ve got them ready for release, they crap simply because they’re so afraid.”

 

In each case a procedure was followed; first re-catching the snake, then scanning its neck for an embedded chip, then searching for a good release site. This was usually a low branch on one of the acacia thorn trees. The body of the snake was first draped along a clump of branches or twigs until the reptile had a firm purchase, then the head was released with a gentle flicking action of the wrist to get it pointed away.

 

In every case, the snake wriggled uncertainly for a moment to get balance in the foliage, then got its bearings and settled down calmly. It first looked around to sight us, then moved away a metre or two before pausing, draped immobile across a couple of branches. There was no threat or aggression. The snakes all showed the gentle grin that the jaws of a mamba usually show.  They seemed secure in their camouflage.

 

The images brought back memories. I knew that the gentle, smiling look of a mamba holds the promise of unspeakable horror.

 

After a while, most of the snakes slid slowly through the foliage seeking denser vegetation, and climbed further in the acacia trees to be well clear of the ground. They then lay immobile for a time, apparently feeling secure in their natural habitat. When we looked again in a few minutes, they had disappeared. It was time for extra care on our part.

 

Once we had released three of the snakes, we shifted our vehicle a hundred metres further along the road to ensure that the next three releases were free of interruption from those mambas already released. They could still be in the vicinity and there was no need to tempt fate.

 

I’ve seen one or two snake programmes on television, showing ‘experts’ engaging with snake encounters. Sometimes this is focused around provoking the snake to get it to show sustained aggression to which the presenter can react while showing bravery. It’s understandable as a strategy to enhance viewer enjoyment, but my preference is to watch a thorough professional who understands the usually non-hostile nature of the snake and handles the situation accordingly. If aggression needs to be shown, it should surely be kept in context and balance. Aggression is not the usual behaviour and overdoing it is tasteless and sometimes cruel.

 

These creatures are not malignant killers seeking out human victims to envenom. A human is, of course, not a food source. Mambas live largely on small rodents or young rock hyrax where these latter creatures have colonies. They immobilize them with their virulent neuro-toxic venom. They simply want to get away from a larger creature that they realise intrinsically is a threat with the means to do them serious harm.

 

Nevertheless, all snakes with highly toxic venom must be treated with deep respect. This is especially true if one encounters them in a confined space. One runs a serious risk if one behaves casually or carelessly in their immediate proximity, or misreads a situation. It’s best to retreat to a safe distance. There’s also always the possibility of simply being unlucky.

 

As with so many other beautiful creatures, mambas are by default identified as aggressive creatures posing an immediate threat, and are being killed systematically. The best protection these and other living creatures can have is to be provided with as much natural environment as can be afforded in the present climate of exploding human populations.

 

Indeed, the growth of human populations in most countries needs urgent stabilization or reduction. Surely we need to have fewer children and to devote more resources to each child? Obviously, in doing so we will have to confront enduring and pervasive, primeval instincts embedded deep within our consciousness. But now, has the time not come when we must confront overpopulation seriously? With climate change, it is the most difficult problem we humans face.  Our very survival as a species depends on finding solutions..

 

We must give more resources back to the wild wherever we can, and must think more compassionately about the creatures that share our planet as we learn to empathize more. We need to re-establish biodiversity as best possible. We need to engage with the big picture beyond our personal concerns. And we must do this urgently at a particularly difficult period in our history as a species.

 

We also have a critical disadvantage no other species has; we are intelligent enough to destroy our own species totally and completely, but without sufficient empathy to prevent the catastrophe from happening.

 

I’ve written far more comprehensively in Adventures with African Animals, obtained for a few dollars from Amazon as well as Createspace (hardcopy) under Alex Coutts. They are displayed on www.alexeducational.co.za