I am bourgeois. There it is. Admitted. Along with my other big B friends and acquaintances, I trekked to the Network Lounge for “proper” coffee. “Proper” coffee being ground coffee, not the Ricoffy on sale at the student canteen next to the media centre here at the Limpopo University.
At least I didn’t mutter “civilisation” like they did at the sight of all those familiar things we political reporters from Jozi, Cape Town and Pretoria are used to. Like air-conditioned media centres, pretty toilets with two kinds of flushes and a force-feed of press releases and conferences where all we have to do is transmit the agenda of power.
In the democratic chaos that is the Polokwane conference, the ANC’s forgotten all about the media except to chase our arses from the plenary tent or to assure us that all is swell when it patently isn’t. The ANC, normally a media darling, would rather we weren’t here and with big battles to fight, we are on our own to find our own stories. Which is how it should be …
This is why I hot-tailed to the Network Lounge, ostensibly to find a source or two but really for the coffee and the chicken salad. I am probably destined for re-education camp under our new socialist president Zuma. I can’t wait. That coffee costs me a fortune. But then, perhaps we won’t be going to camp. Our new man doesn’t live the live of a man of the people. He has the longest convoy in Polokwane town and, according to the Sunday Times, a sizeable harem.
The network lounge is spiffy. With a high-end internet cafe, lounges, an Absa sponsored bookshop and various stalls, it’s not surprising that it’s such a popular venue. Organiser Nicholas Wolpe walked around like the cat that licked the cream, imploring journalists to do a “nice” story on his palace of patronage.
In the dining room, old power nestled next to new. Ranjeni Munusamy, spin-doctor to JZ (it’s a catchy acronym) had lunch with her favourite journalist and Zuma biographer Jeremy Gordin. Durban businessman Vivian Reddy, who is organising a victory party for his man in Polokwane and in Durban, swanned around looking way more confident than Essop Pahad who told us that “it’ll all be OK” and that it wasn’t over till it’s over.
There were several ministers in the network lounge, directors general (at the conference as “deployed cadres”), mayors, diplomats, a deputy minister and a host of black business leaders making sweet with political power. The cars parked behind the lounge are those that make mad dashes between Polokwane and the university, forcing lesser cars out of the way. Black X5 BMW’s, Mercs, Chryslers, you name it …
There’s too much distance between “us” in the lounge and “them” in the buses and the residences with names such as Che Guevara, Samora Machel and Onkopotse Tiro. The delegates eat in dining halls from where I’ll get lunch tomorrow. The coffee may not be great, but the ANC is shifting from the network lounge to the dining hall. It is an important shift for the ANC to make, but one wonders if all delegates are doing is exchanging one set of networkers for another. One set of glam wheels for another. One us for another us?
The idea of the Network Lounge is a typical legacy of the neo-apartheid era of President Mbeki – patronage, patronage, all the time, patronage.
Now, I find it interesting that kids like Nick Wolpe have been seduced into propagating this kind of bourgeois networking rot in the movement- effectively selling our name. As a fund raising attempt, they could done so many other things to allow maximum financial input by delegates.
Instead,with advice from bourgeois apologist Joel Netshitenze, Wolpe chose a model that displays the heroism of the neo-apartheid capitalists as sources of funds for our movement.
This issue of funding for the ANC needs a more creative approach and I hope the next Treasurer will be as innovative in dealing with it.
You Nick, your father Harold Wolpe produced communists and revolutionaries out of the ANC membership, not bourgeois sympathisers and panderers! Wake Up!
BUILD A DEVELOPMENTAL STATE!
BUILD AN INNOVATION STATE!
VIVA FREEDOM CHARTER!
VIVA SACP! VIVA COSATU! VIVA VAVI!
VIVA ANC! VIVA JZ!
don’t worry ferial – you like me come from the eighties – while we may enjoy the proper coffee in the comforts of the network lounge – we could still be comfortable taking the proper coffee out and enjoy in the students canteen – but it would be easier and would save us the bother if the students canteen gave us the option of buying the proper coffee there. have your lunch in the dining hall ferial and who knows you may even find the source you were seeking! and let us know if its just the same wine (coffee) in a new bottle or can we expect an exciting new blend!
we need to be wary of businessmen like vivian reddy who are so astute that they are able to see an opportunity to repackage the ricoffy and try to pass it off as filtered coffee. and who in return for the victory party will expect favours 10 times over. too much time and money has been wasted on people like him, who have made promises in public, many of which are still to see the light of day. for the new shift the anc must let go of excess baggage expecially old hangers on. there’s nothing rejuvenating like a fresh start.
I’m trying to think where the Neo-Pseudo Socialists/Communists under the leadership of Jacob ‘Messiah’ Zuma will get funding. Or maybe, with advice from capitalist denialist or converts of the orthodox communist gospel, new sanctuaries and holy financial reservoirs will come to replace chancellor house. What do you mean Nobhala when saying “This issue of funding for the ANC needs a more creative approach and I hope the next Treasurer will be as innovative in dealing with it”? Perhaps more clarity is needed on the ‘creative’ approach and innovation. By being creative and innovative, you mean that the new Treasure will have to replace Chancellor House’s mendacious operations and try to ( re)discover new ‘pious’ friends of the post-revolution revolution? Clarity Nobhala
How are you going to go about, building an Innovative and Developmental State? Shall we expect new nebulous policies?
Ferial, I don’t think Prof Friedman will be pleased with your description of the conference as a democratic chaos. On the issue of ANC moving from network lounge to the dining hall,I should think its prematurely to tell, but who am I to think that, for that is for thinkers to think
Good piece, but like all the coverage of Polokwane you don’t indulge in speculation about where all this is leading. I think what many readers have been looking for and have not found is a clear marshalling of the issues between state and party after Zuma’s inevitable election. Will things move quickly? Will Mbeki allies like Selebi and Manto get their come-uppance, maybe as a sop by Mbeki to the party? Or will Zuma be charged soon to neutralise him? These are political moves and those like yourself for who are close the ground should tell us what you’re hearing. Blogging gives you that freedom. Just break out of the “authoritative sources” mould of jurnalism and tell us what you know and what you think. Will Frene Ginwala be forced to speed up her report? (After all, allegations of Mbeki’s abuse of power were most clearly focused on the sacking of the national prosecutor – this is surely a focal issue for the new ANC leadership). Or will the Mbeki faction now pursue even more blatantly the perversion of state power to shore up their crumbling position? To my mind, that’s the real Mugabe-like danger in this situation. If it were to start happening, would the ANC as a party have the power or the will to stop it? These are the questions that your reportge on the spot so far has failed to address though they are in everyone’s minds and were probably topics of convrsation at Polokwane. So where’s the window on all this? Not a word. Conventional journalism plods along analysing events after they occur but blogspace opens up huge realms of discussion and foresight. How about using it?
The critics of big business (Communists et al) attending the conference were rather quite about the presence of big business in the Polokwane conference. This (The Network Lounge issue) might just be a perfect example of what George Orwell wrote about in 1945, in his famous novella (Animal Farm). With their man (JZ)sure of victory, the new contacts from the lounge would come in handy once a new government is put in place…Orwell states this in his book: “Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer- except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs.” Is this what the pigs and the dogs in South Africa intend doing in the government of JZ? Is this why they were conspicuous in their silence over the issue of the presence of big business in the network lounge? Oh, I was made to understand that the Young Communist League(YCL) also had coffee in that lounge, so do not worry Fariel, you are not the only one who is bourgeois, even Young Communists are…