I have been listening to Bantu Holomisa speak for the past 21 years. On Thursday night I heard him again at the University of Johannesburg. Attendees were told that the Major General would deliver a lecture on his initiative to include a question about citizens’ views on constituency representation in the election manifestos of political parties as well as the realignment of opposition politics and the implications of violence from the ANC.
It didn’t sound like it had the makings of a riveting evening, but I knew better. Holomisa is not a man who minces his words, and the roughly two hours spent in UJ’s brand-new council chambers passed, for me, in any case, as fast as a new James Bond film, with a similar feel-good factor tagged on at the end.
Although recognising that his chances of becoming president next year are to the left of zero, Holomisa, with his characteristic eloquent simplicity, put forward solutions, as he sees them, to some of the current ills facing South Africa. He’s not a proponent of complex plans to retool the economy and create commissions of inquiry into how globalisation is preventing honest workers from affording food to put on the table. No, it’s much simpler than that — put the right person in the right job in both the government and the private sector, a person with the skills to do the job. If the skills aren’t available, train them.
On crime, the needs are similar — the people in charge of policing and security need to come from a background that has nurtured them in these very skills. If police are proud of what they do, and can look up to senior management for guidance and with respect, it is more than likely that the same respect will filter down to the people on the ground who desperately need their services.
And how about food production? I don’t need to tell you how every trip to the supermarket digs a deeper hole in the pocket. Yes, rising petrol prices are partially to blame, but so is government policy. Providing his audience with a lightning-speed course in economics 101, Holomisa pointed out the need for more, not fewer, subsidies to farmers. He correctly reminded us that pro-free-trade Americans are still providing big subsidies to farmers across the US, as are many European countries, especially France. Since farm subsidies have been cut in South Africa, vast tracts of agricultural land have been turned into game farms, Holomisa argues. It’s not hard to figure out what that does to prices in your local fruit and vegetable shop.
The man speaks common sense. He’s a no-nonsense guy, and I’ve listened to and watched from the sidelines long enough to know that he means what he says and does what he says he will do. If only he were in a position of greater power!
I’m not trying to write an anti-ANC sort of piece. I’ve always thought that Bantu Holomisa represents the best of what I believed the ANC was created to be and is supposed to be. It didn’t work out for him within the party but he has remained true to his principles throughout.
Allow me a moment for a flashback.
The first time I heard Holomisa speak was in December 1987, the day he overthrew then Transkei prime minister Stella Sigcau. I heard him speak that day because I had him at the other end of a telephone line. The Major General, undoubtedly still wearing military fatigues, was in the Botha-Sigcau building in Umtata. I was in the newsroom of the now-defunct Capital Radio in the bowels of what had been the Milpark Galleries shopping centre in Johannesburg (today what was the newsroom is part of an underground parking garage for a new apartment complex across the street from the 44 Stanley shopping precinct).
My job was to call up the new military leader and ask him why he did it. What Holomisa may not have known at the time of the phone call was that he had just inherited the radio station to which he was giving the interview. But that’s another story.
On the phone, in a style similar to Graham Greene, Bantu Holomisa is a man of few adjectives; he got straight to the point: “I took over in Transkei to rid the homeland of corruption and racism and to prepare the ground for reintegration into the rest of South Africa.” Or at least they were words to that effect. The rest is history; but a history worth remembering.
Before De Klerk unbanned the ANC, Holomisa, true to his word, created what could be called the first liberated zone in South Africa. He unbanned the ANC and the PAC, and provided both organisations with material and logistical support.
Jump ahead to last month and Bantu Holomisa is the master of ceremonies at the 90th birthday celebrations of Nelson Mandela at Madiba’s Transkei home in Qunu. It was this so-called outcast of the ANC who, he told us, brought Mbeki, Zuma and Madiba together under the marquis for a rare moment of peace on what was predominantly a day of joy, where political differences were, for the most part, checked at the gate.
I’ve watched Bantu Holomisa work for a better life for all in South Africa for more than two decades. I am sceptical and suspicious of most politicians — not just South African politicians, but politicians full-stop. However, it’s nice to pull out a cliché every now and then — there are always exceptions to the rule
Holomisa does talk sense, with a refreshing absence of wild-eyed ideology.
Sadly, his big drawback is total lack of charisma.
Yes, it is True, the Genaral is a different breed, he is perhaps the only political leader that has a facebook profile than is truly his and not PR exercise.
He responds to all emails and pokes people just like all facebooker’s do.
If only he had the sense to stay within the ANC
Aluta Continua
FYI Mr Holomisa; subsidies for farmers mean that profitable farming concerns will be greatly enhanced (increased supply should then lead to a lowering in prices…unless the farmers get greedy and decide to start flusing their surpluses). Bear in mind that subsidies for farmers who aren’t profitable (and should look to work in other agricultural sectors) will just carry them along, uselessly, when by all rights they should be farming something else (i.e. meeting a credible alternate agricultural demand).
Thank you for this post. It is time Bantu Holomisa’s name was cleared. He is one of the many who has been subjected to smear tactics.
Just for interest sake this is what some other writers have said about him:
“I did not think we had a sytematic problem {with corruption } until the feisty Patricia de Lille, then leader of the PAC, and the leader of the United Democractic Movement (UDM) Bantu Holomisa called for a judicial enquiry into the government’s proposed purchase of arms worth tens of billions of rand, popularly known as the arms deal. They alleged the whole thing was riddled with corruption.”
“To the Brink: The State of Democracy in South Africa” by Xolela Mangcu
“In August 1996, deputy minister Bantu Holomisa was sacked, and then hounded from the party, after he accused cabinet minister, Stella Sigcau of taking a cut from a bribe by Sol Kersner, and Thabo Mbeki and Steve Tshwete of accepting favours from the casino magnate”
“Cyril Ramaphosa” by Anthony Butler.
“(On 18 June 1992 Sol Kerzner picked up the bill for Mbeki’s 50th birthday bash in Sun City attended by Joe Slovo and, of course, Mbeki). As a matter of fact, Stella Sigcau , who is on Mbeki’s cabinet, also collaborated with Kerzner when she headed up the Transkei homeland, and when Bantu Hoomisa exposed her corruption he was promptly expelled from the ANC”
“The Other Side of History” by Frederik van Zyl Slabbert
From all the accounts that I have read the Transkei was the best managed and most efficient of the homelands, under Holomisa, in the run up to 1994.
“I have been listening to Bantu Holomisa speak for the past 21 years” – and you said that he does not mince his words…
Subsidies only advantage the inefficient, marginal producer. It keeps people in business when they really have no business being in business at all.
@Mzilikazi: “If only he had the sense to stay within the ANC” …I thought he had been kicked out because he did not like corruption. That should be a feather in his cap!!
I do hope that he can get the opposition parties together for a joined strategy roughly along the lines:
1. make all people vote and not stay at home.
2. ask people to vote for any opposition party they can think of, their promises are largely irrelevant as are the ANC’s.
3. make all opposition parties to use the slogan: “a better life for all” and in small print: “from now on”.
4. Stop bashing the ANC. They have done a good enough job for themselves. Leave that to newspapers and bloggers. Bashing by the opposition creates more friends for the ANC and enemies for the opposition. Boils down to immature politics.
Jon
Subsidies worked under the Nats because the system was run by FARMERS not arsehole politicians and bureaucrats with primary school educations!
Bezol
Well said – ANY opposition party will do!
I’m also a long-time admirer of Bantu Holomisa, but not enough to join the UDM (or the DA for that matter).
He is a proven leader in an era when SA’s leaders are corrupt or incompetent or untested, or all three.
I would love to see the opposition parties put together an alliance of their own and give the ANC a right royal thrashing in the next election.
The ANC, of which I was a member, needs to be disempowered to be brought back to reality.
If the disaffected youth can be persuaded to vote…?
I lived through that turbulent phase in the Transkei where, after 3 and a half years of curfew and state of emergency under the Matanzimas (from June 1994 till the end of ’97) there followed a short-lived stand for power by Stella Sigcau, who was succeeded a few weeks later by Holomisa.
As someone already said, he was forced out of the ANC due to his refusal to back down over subsequent allegations against Stella.
To rid the area of his influence the government closed down Capital Radio and Radio Transkei… closed Transkei Airways, Magwa Tea Corporation, many other parastatals and government departments; and generally gutted the Transkei economy. Their subsequent smear campaign and vilification of Holomisa, after his pivotal role in bringing about transformation – speaks volumes about their tactics, morals and ethics. (http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?doc=/ancdocs/misc/holomisa.html)
(Pleasingly ironic to note, however, that Bantu was the MC at Mandela’s 90′th birthday party at Qunu held just recently.)
There was a comment in the M&G a while back which said: An ANC party source in OR Tambo, the district municipality of which KSD forms a part, told the M&G last week that the ANC has realised that “its strategies to frustrate the UDM when it was in power” were “not premised to benefit the poor.” (www.wildcoast.com/node/100)
Other stuff of interest along these lines (though I admit I’m not the most coherent commentator – I just happened to have lived through this ancient Chinese curse) can be found here:
http://www.wildcoast.com/node/214
http://www.wildcoast.com/node/167
http://www.wildcoast.com/node/162
http://www.wildcoast.com/node/97
http://www.wildcoast.com/node/309
http://www.wildcoast.com/node/299
(In no particular order.)
Strange that there is no mention in the mainstream media about the new coalition of the MPF (Multi-Party Forum) chaired by Holomisa; apart from in the Daily Dispatch, last Friday. Unfortunately I can’t find any trace of it on their website though.
Apologies for my incoherence here… I’m still in a state of shock over the granting of a strip-mining license at Xolobeni to an offshore concern. : (
-Jeff Brown
http://www.wildcoast.com
Actually, that was from June 1984 to 1987.
Jeff
I have not read all your links – but is there not some group which has been appealing this for some time? I keep reading about it in the papers.
Take a lesson from Zuma – if someone has the money to take the matter to court on behalf of the community, with appeals, this can be stalled for years. Certainly until after the elections!
Can’t you submit a Reader’s Post to TL about this?
Jeff
Is not Bantu Holomisa and the UDM exactly the right forum to take this up – it would be high exposure and we would ALL support him?
My own suggestion would be check the Environmental impact studies AND the guarentees. All over the world it has been proved that the mines NEVER land up paying for restoration of land, and they ALWAYS gave guarentees!