Supporting Bafana Bafana, for better or for worse

AS chief vuvuzelaist of the Bafana for Dummies (by dummies) Facebook group, I am proud to report that the Soccer World Cup support rehearsal we had when Bafana played against Namibia at Moses Mabhida Stadium was a success. The 1-1 scoreline and the shambolic football was not part of our responsibility, so that won’t be mentioned in this report.


In invitations to prospective members, the dress code was stipulated as being “very eager”, “very Bafana” and with certain accessories such as a vuvuzela and a makarapa. It therefore came as no surprise that so many of the fans came dressed as courageously as those frenzied fans you see behind the goal area. In fact, it could be argued that we were moving dangerously into that zone.

The band of vuvuzela players certainly improved, but unfortunately I had a bit of a poor game with respect to my instrumentation. First, an opportunity was given to shine with the deep-sounding kuduzela, a plastic device shaped like a kudu horn. I failed. A pitiful whimper emitted from the flute-like device, which caused great amusement to others.

A group of Durbanites then turned their perfect-sounding vuvuzelas at me, as if to say: “That’s how you do it, buddy.” I will have to do some late- night practising in Hilton to improve on it. Sorry, neighbours.

Then, not wanting to deafen a woman in front of me, I carried on playing my vuvuzela in soft tones, trying to match the boredom of the players in front of me. My companion — whose criticism I take quite seriously due to her brutal honesty — said my playing was rather weak.

In masculine response, I took a huge breath of air, readied my lungs and gave a gung-ho blast that must have shattered the stands beneath. The consequence was that the woman sitting in front of me jumped out of her seat in shock.

“I nearly had a heart attack,” she confessed. I simply could not win — a bit like Bafana.

Our friendly Armchair Expert, Lungani Zama, who again accompanied the eager beginners, taught us a new trick as professional fans. It involved a form of communication with the infamous Bafana striker, Teko Modise, whom we booed off the Harry Gwala pitch a few weeks earlier. It upset the Pirates striker to such a degree that he disappeared into the trashy streets of the City of Choice for over a week, much to the disdain of his coach. It would appear that many Pirates fans who had “gotten over him” infected the whole nation with their antagonism and, so, when he failed for the umpteenth time to boot a decent strike at goals, the trick was implemented.

It was simple, but with the whole stadium doing it, also very impressive. By rolling our arms in a circular motion over each other we were rudely seeking a substitution call: the people’s decision. And it worked. A former Maritzburg United striker, Katlego Mphela, came on and scored a simple yet crucial goal for Bafana’s draw.

It certainly helped his cause and he’s now off to Brazil on Bafana’s essential training camp. What the coach is going to do with them all there is anyone’s guess. But, secretly, I think we’re all hoping he’s going to pull out his magic wand and do some voodoo on the lot.

Part of our own education has been the crossover from that rugby stadium next door to the new, larney soccer one that we found ourselves in. Moses Mabhida brings together the chosen people in many regards. By “chosen”, I refer to the cross-section of races, religions and subcultures — the magic ingredient with which Madiba hoped to build a nation. It was a celebration and every­one was a part of it. Getting all dressed up and acting like a buffoon, well that’s just a bonus.

As our group was having its final photo op at the entrance to the stadium, a woman dressed in a crimson ball gown, who had left her VIP area for a breath of fresh air, asked if she could take a photo of us.

“You guys are just incredible,” she said. “I think next time I’ll bring my own makarapa.”

A night at Harry Gwala

Matthew le Cordeur soaks up the rain and soccer spirit as Maritzburg United stun Pirates in front of an impressive local crowd.

IF you weren’t at The Game* this week, then you definitely missed out. Forget rugby, cricket or canoeing (all sports I actually understand) because if you are not taking an interest in our local soccer team then you’re just not cool.

I am soccer illiterate. There, you have it. Lungani Zama said that I had to clear the air about it or else he would in his Armchair Expert column. I am also an amateur vuvuzelaist. But I’m making progress; more so than in my limited understanding of the game. No matter.

With my Maritzburg United makaraba, my blue overalls and my yellow (Chiefs, I think) vuvuzela, I whipped our gifted sports writer and myself off to The Game this week.

A lot about the evening was an education for me: learning more about the game, the rituals and the politics surrounding soccer and our team.

For readers unfamiliar with soccer (I know, we are a select few), the only way to learn about it is by watching it live and asking questions. It really helps. Just don’t take Zama.

“Why were we penalised?” I asked. Uncontrollable laughter followed. “Are you being serious?” “Um, yes I am.” An irritating smirk preceded his answer: “He lifted his foot off the ground as he threw the ball in.” Thanks. That wasn’t so hard.

There are so many rituals in soccer that a sociologist would have a field day. Zama pointed to a fellow munching on a loaf of bread. It wasn’t simply a meal, according to our Armchair Expert. “Fans like to eat their ‘daily bread’ at a match to symbolise their team eating the other team on the field.” I know Sharks fans enjoy their daily beer crate, but if you do go to a United match, don’t forget that half loaf.

Another ritual involves the use of a vuvuzela­. There have been endless complaints about this plastic device. But really, they aren’t that bad. Not compared with the mini vuvuzela, which makes a Donald Duck- type of cacophony.

“That would make a great tool for duck hunting,” one fan remarked. Eish. It took me a while to make music (if you can call it that) with my vuvu, and my friends were often seen hanging their heads in shame while I attempted to get into the swing of things.

Mechanic Paul Watson, who got himself into the paper (and again today) and on to SuperSport Blitz with his Weekend Witness makaraba, was converted by The Game and has become an ardent United fan.

“The atmosphere at rugby is nothing­ compared with this,” the equally soccer illiterate remarked. “I’m definitely buying season tickets.”

If he can be converted, well, no one stands a chance.

Looking critically at the R87-million revamped Harry Gwala Stadium, it can be seen in two respects: the glass half-full perspective or half empty. It’s great how it is, but with the money that was spent on it, it should have been a lot better. The roof over our heads was awesome (well, I was at the interesting point where the water just drips over the edge), but the opposing stands had no roof at all.

The fan club observed a few missing details that could help improve things at Harry Gwala. Because The Game was more than sold out — an estimate of 12 000 supporters was given for a stadium with a 10 700 capicity — extra temporary stands behind the goals would have done wonders to complete the circle of vuvuzelas.

There are signs indicating vendor points under the stands, but instead of being used, entrepreneurs stand outside with their trestle tables selling hot dogs. As Zama pointed out, “everyone’s taking their own food inside. There should be people walking around selling hot dogs.”

Preceding the game, a group of cheerleaders went onto the field to attempt a dance of sorts. I didn’t want to be rude, but Zama could: “The guys dancing in front of us here are more co-ordinated than that lot. Compared to the Sharks girls …”

That franchise, however, has a lot more experience and cash. It is hoped that in time, these small improvements will add to an already awesome venue.

Ah, but The Game. As Marc Strydom wrote, Maritzburg United were “playing like men possessed” and there “only ever seemed to be one team who would win on the night”. When I dashed up the stands to see him after the victory, the die-hard fans still dancing away, I asked him if he had started writing yet.

“No, no… I’m too excited. Isn’t this atmosphere incredible?” It certainly was. Sport writer Jonathan Cook, standing behind a shield of glass in the VIP box, held up a piece of paper with something scribbled on it: “I predicted 2-1 to us.” He smiled.

Later in the bar, as I sat down to revel in the victory, I turned to Zama.

“Wow, those two tries were awesome.”

Yeah, I have a long way to go.

* The Maritzburg United 2-1 domination of the Pirates receives the rare privilege of being referred to in capitals to emphasise its legend.

Praying for life without Medical Aids

I had been waiting for this day in particular with baited breath: Discovery Health presentation day at The Witness. Don’t mock my sarcasm. When you’re a bloke like me there are only so many things I can get out of paying so much money for a medical aid: Gym and a dentist appointment every six months. For women, it’s different, I am sure. For 27-year-old men, it’s pointless.

Today, sitting in the boardroom at lunch, my stomach croaked out loud with hunger pains as a fit gym-going pregnant blonde with a diamond wedding ring rubbed her belly and told us about the pleasures of getting cancer and having one’s limbs chopped off, due to all the amazing specials Discovery 2010 had on offer.

Now, they know people hate being sold something only for those with dire health. So they spend 15 minutes on the joys of dying and then another 45 minutes on the incredibly complicated way you can earn points and money by living healthily and doing a million and one jumps through hoops. There’s Vitality Health where you earn big bucks by buying veggies at Pick ’n Pay. That’s great for my friends Sharon, Kelly and Bronwen, but not for me. There’s Vitality Virgin Active, which I have done… twice. I’ve cancelled because the gym in Hilton is closer and I am more likely to go there than the one in Maritzburg. Well, maybe.

I tried to raise a point but was cut dead. It was this: To benefit from all this and make money out of my medical aid which I never use, I really need to employ a personal financial director as well as an assistant to correctly cross the t’s and dot the I’s (and do my grocery shopping). If I can’t have them, then I’ll just take my minimal medical aid scheme, and throw it into the drawer of my desk, which like the rest of the junk I collect will grow dust over time.

I guess when I get sick one day I will have to revaluate this diatribe. Until then, it’s party, work, play… and pray.

A new way for journalism

As part of our Press Freedom Day celebrations on October 19, we had Afra (Association For Rural Advancement) director John Aitchison (Professor Emeritus of Adult Education) give us a talk on The Witness and its role as a watchdog and voice in society.

“This important day in media commemorates Black Wednesday, a dark day for the press in October 1977 where The World, Weekend World and Pro Veritate publications were banned for their alleged perpetuation of the black consciousness movement,” Times Live explains. “Celebrating press freedom 32 years later sparked debate as to whether South Africa does indeed have a free press.”

“We need more sarcastic writing,” Aitchison said, in reference to the many idiotic comments made by certain political figures. Everyone in the room agreed. Apart from that, he saw The Witness doing a fairly good job, even in today’s economic recession, when newspapers are cutting down on staff and resources.

But while listening to him, I had an idea about reforming journalism, firstly in Pietermaritzburg, and then further afield. Before I begin …

The main points I hear when people discuss journalism are:

a). The juniorisation of the press is killing press prestige;

b). Journalists are not valued and are paid accordingly;

c). Senior journalists get junior beats due to shortage of human resources;

d). Stories are not being investigated properly due to skill and time shortage

e). The quality of writing is low due to time constraints and poor English writing

f). Journalists are scared of being retrenched and have a low morale (They used to leave once they had found another job, but this is proving difficult under the current economic climate.)

There are journalists who want the press to improve and want to find ways of doing it within their newspaper, but they fail because of the demise of the press and the recession. However, after listening to Aitchison remind us how important our role as the Fourth Estate is, I realized society should get on board and help sustain journalists as watchdogs and feeders of information. Without the Fourth Estate, we would lose a part of our democracy and our soul.

My solution to this problem involves an institute, donors and partnerships. There would be problems with this concept, due to journalism’s integrity being based on autonomy and independence. How many truly, truly independent newspaper or media outlets do you know of? Business and government advertising hold huge sway over media outlets. I see it often with bigwigs marching into our editor’s office demanding apologies and better coverage.

I envisage an institute of excellence for journalists. Funded by international, national and local donors, this institute would demand complete autonomy in its reporting and would feed stories to local newspapers that subscribe, like Sapa or Reuters, except it would be modeled more like the Christian Science Monitor. The salary would match that of high paying NGOs so to lure back the experienced journalists from around the world who have gone into hiding (often as freelancers). Some would work in-house, others out-of-house.

It could start in Pietermaritzurg, if the city shows interest. The institute could partner with NGOs and universities who do research. The journalists at the institute could write research findings into stories that the average reader can truly engage with (sometimes spending time in the place of the research to get one-on-one stories to go with the findings).

The institute’s journalists would have the time to conduct important research of their own and be given the space to write a series of feature stories. Journalists would also get to team up with researchers from other NGOs to work alongside them during their work. The institute would also employ several people to work purely as researchers and photographers.

Several areas of interest would be given special coverage and experienced journalists in these beats would be employed:

Politics

Corruption

Economics

Health

Education

Basic services

Sport

Entertainment

Leisure

Once the institute has taken off specialising in feature writing for the local community of Pietermaritzburg, various avenues could be explored:

1. Branch out to other cities in South Africa and then abroad

2. Incorporate TV, radio and web media, and graphic design

3. Employ translators so stories can be sent to African and Afrikaans media outlets.

The second point is exciting, because a team of journalists (a press, TV, radio and graphic designer) could work on a project together and produce various forms of output for specific media needs.

The third point means the institute could employ journalists with a high knowledge of an African language or Afrikaans and then get that story translated into English. In other words, it would work both ways… not just translating English into the other SA languages.

This institute would greatly help a newspaper like The Witness. It would help the newspaper phase out senior reporters and instead focus on grooming junior reporters. In return, The Witness, paying a small subscription, would get quality feature stories with quality photography on issues that have been properly researched and written with flair.  Reporters could be offered lucrative positions in the institute and a competitive system could be created where one reporter is hired annually (on a year contract).

In later stages, graphic designers could contribute to the newspaper, helping give the paper more appeal.

The time to think as a newspaper with its staff being contained within the four walls of the company has passed. Advertising revenue and subscribers can’t sustain the newspaper of old, with its huge staff of quality journalists. However, an institute funded like an NGO, could have the capital to bring on board these types of journalists.

Why, then can’t a newspaper simply take that money and do it for themselves within their staff structure? Well the institute would eventually branch out to many other media outlets and give a valued service to many areas (each outlet would have stories that cater to their needs and would work at times on an exclusive basis).

The institute would not be a newspaper. It would have relationships with universities and NGOs and would not have to look to advertisers. It would have more freedom to work in a spacious system that allows creativity and quality work.

Eventually, the institute could publish books written by its journalists, produce documentaries made in-house and have a website that brings all its work together.

I believe this partnership within an institute of this nature would protect the role of the Fourth Estate and ensure South Africa’s democracy remains rich with stories that celebrate good figures in society and reveal those who are causing damage to our society.

Living the dream… on the Durban docks.

Five stories high I sit in my luxury five by 12 metre flat overlooking the Daehoo Frontier, a Panama cargo ship anchored in the harbour. I dreamt it came whizzing by me last night, but it is still there, waiting, waiting, like the ghost town of a development that I have found myself in.

The Sails is circular with a little river running through it. It has two stories of empty shops, except for a cocktail bar that opens on Fridays and Saturdays. Most of the flats remain empty, because prospector buyers are waiting for a better time to sell. Some people live in penthouses on top, with their manicured gardens and pools overlooking the Durban beachfront. A canal winds its way around The Sails, continuing on its fruitless journey around several other luxury buildings. It’s beaming with fish, a result of uShaka Marine World releasing its water into the canal.

There are also gondolas with little battery powered motors, which, if you pay R60, will give you a somewhat watered down version of the Venetian equivalent. Walking by them the other day, I met two guys holding leaf catchers. There weren’t any leaves in the canal and they looked bored. But they had to keep holding those leaf catchers, lest someone spotted them (via CCTV) not doing their job.

The whole development area is deserted. There is a private security company that keeps the place as safe as a fortress. When you walk around this area, be it in the morning or past midnight, you feel safe, because there are lights and CCTV cameras everwhere you go. So safe … and dead boring.

There are several reasons why this monster of a development isn’t getting the annoying wealthy residents it so desperately craves. Firstly, the boat club, which has given such joy to Durban residents for so many decades, has fought with all its puny might to stay where it rightly belongs. But money buys politicians and it buys power and it buys land. The club will be demolished soon and a small luxury harbour will be built so a Richard Branson-type of guy can sail right up to his penthouse in The Sails.

The next reason why its still has its gift wrapping on and is lying under the Christmas tree well into September is because the Point Road area has been taken over by Aliens. Not District 9 aliens. No, much worse. Nigerian Aliens. And rich, niave brats don’t like driving through that area to get to their kitsch paradise. I’m sure the powers that be will eventually find a place to evict these unwanted refugees.

Because of these delays in cleaning up the area, certain developments are half finished. The old pub that was so famous, lies half gutted. A beautiful scene lies just in front of my Daehoo. It’s segments of walls that have remained after its building was gutted. The reason for this is that Amafa (who is chaired by the Ilanga MD who I have just worked for and whose offices lie in front of this site) says they must retain the original outer walls in their new design. “The architect is actually pretty switched on,” the MD/chairman told me.

I took a run tonight that really made me happy. It reminded why I love being in this crazy country. I started in my fake Venice, crossing the countless bridges (some already falling apart), found myself in a construction zone with a fellow runner (we were both slightly lost and trying to find our way back to a place of running safety), and then I went down to the fateful boat club where a hundred or so paddlers were getting on the water for a surf ski dice. I ran past two lovers wrapped in each others arms, past poor fisherman who were catching their family meal; I ran past Moyo, a touristy restaurant that has a bar on the beach, past the ship that I had dinner in recently (it has big ragged tooth sharks in a fish tank, which swim past you while you eat the line fish of the day), and past uShaka’s water world.
That’s really where the luxury ends. Suddenly you’re in another construction zone and to escape it I ran into the Point Road zone. Here began the real South Africa. People of different backgrounds sat in their cars listening to music, some starting braais on the sidewalk, others enjoying their hard earned beer. Kids played soccer on a helicopter pad, while in a car park some guy taught his friend the latest hip hop dance move. The promenade that was built over 40 years ago is crumbling. The water rides have no water in them. I imagine the beaches back in Apartheid being in complete working order: I see it full of white people only, I see orchestral bands playing music, kids playing in the water baths; I see the glamourous in the nearby hotels and restaurants that were once so fashionable. Nice. But although that time in the past was so slick, it was also so very evil. And I am so happy that I was never a part of that; I am happy that I am apart of this, even with its crumbling decay, even with its lack of prestige and fashion.

When returned to the boat club I looked back. The sun was lowering over a fabric of the new (uShaka), the old (a vandilised Edwardian building with two fading snakes on the wall revealing its Salvation Army links) and the future (Moses Mabhida Stadium).

When night falls, queuing ships light up the sky, creating a mystical circle with the bright lights on the beach front. This truly is one crazy paradise.

Which is why, home will be such a pleasant change.

The vision that gave hope to PMB children

SOUTH AFRICA, Christmas Day, 1973. A white boy, nearly 11 years old, is sitting on a lounge carpet listening as his family chat. All too soon, as it so often did back then, the talk shifts to race.

As the prejudiced words begin to fly, the boy thinks: “How can they mock people who are living in poverty — people who aren’t living in proper houses and who can’t get a decent education and who struggle every day to put food on their table? How?”

So, as children do, he looks up at one of the adults and says what he’s just thought. Silence follows. Then a pat on the head and a patronising voice saying: “Ag, but you are so young. You don’t know what is really going on.”

Everyone carries on talking, leaving the little boy with no real answers.

Thandanani Children’s Foundation director Duncan Andrew (45) still remembers it all vividly.

As he reflects on the organisation’s 20th anniversary recently, Andrew has found himself reflecting on his own life. He says he feels a personal closing of a circle since that day as a child.

Andrew saw Thandanani, which works with orphans and vulnerable children, through its greatest challenge, a financial crisis in 2004 and 2005. He was employed as a development programme manager, and then took over as the director after the crisis struck. Five years later, his turnaround strategy has been hailed as a huge success, with Thandanani being nominated for a national award recently.

“It was strange reflecting on that Christmas Day,” says Andrew. “Where did I get those questions and thoughts from? It wasn’t like I was exposed to a life in the township. It was just basic fairness of common humanity. I just couldn’t understand how people could ignore the suffering that was taking place and respond in such a callous way.”

Born in 1963, Andrew grew up in Ladysmith and Durban. He attended Queen’s College in the Eastern Cape and then returned to Durban to study. With a masters degree in psychology, Andrew moved to the Pietermaritzburg campus in 1991 to do his internship with the student counselling centre.

Andrew recalls how some of the interns went to Edendale Hospital in 1991 to observe a group of volunteers looking after abandoned children. Those volunteers were a part of Thandanani, a newly established group that tended to about 70 children living in the hospital.

Andrew remained at the counselling centre for seven years and got to know Pietermaritzburg intimately. In 1998, he was promoted to director of the student counselling centre at the Natal Technikon in Durban, where he remained for four years.

Andrew then moved to Cape Town, where he entered the world of NGOs. “I was appointed as the public education and training manager at Triangle Project, an NGO that did HIV-Aids-related work,” he says.

Three years later, Andrew decided to come home, and got a managerial job at Thandanani. He arrived for work on October 15, 2004. He hadn’t been there a week when he was informed by his acting director that he — and the rest of the staff — would not be getting paid for the rest of the year because there were simply no more funds. “I thought they were pulling my leg at first, but then it became very clear that they weren’t.”

Andrew helped the staff process the news that their jobs were more or less doomed, but also tried to find solutions to prevent that doom. “We had our backs against the wall. We were either going to close or we could fight to carry on.”

Andrew and the staff chose the latter option. “There was some very hard and quick thinking. We engaged internally in a very consultative process, because it was up to all of us to pull this organisation out of the situation.”

Andrew started to see hope. “What became clear after interactions with the staff was that over the years Thandanani had done extremely good work and had a good reputation — but that reputation had been slightly tarnished in the period leading up to the crisis.”

With outside stakeholders volunteering to get emergency funding, Thandanani had to operate on a limited budget.

“We had formulated a short-term survival strategy, which included operating on reduced hours and reduced salaries for a period of time to allow us space and time to generate income for the organisation again.

“Fortunately, the goodwill that did exist towards the organisation —and because we had a clear plan to get out of the crisis and knew what we needed and for how long — meant that a lot of the existing donors did then come on board and contribute additional funding.”

During the crisis, the director, a lot of management staff and the board resigned. A new board was appointed and the position for director was advertised. Andrew got the job.

The wave of resignations meant the organisation could start afresh. “Thandanani emerged with a much clearer understanding of who it is and how it functions.”

Andrew’s developmental approach as director has given freedom to his staff to take their decisions in order to grow.

“It’s a type of organisation that needs a director who facilitates in an open, co-operative, transparent and inclusive style of decision-making. People have to be involved in decision-making, so they understand the rationale behind each decision.”

The little boy sitting on the carpet wanted to make a difference to those living in poverty. The full circle Andrew has travelled means he can do that now.

“My role at Thandanani has been the most fulfilling position I have ever been in. A gogo will just go off at one of the development facilitators in absolute gratitude, or a kid will just smile and not stop smiling when you give them their new pair of school shoes. It’s those little moments that make this all worthwhile.”

This article first appeared in The Witness on May 21, 2009

The land has spoken

“The land has been talking to me,” says Professor Cherif “Zwelethu” Keita, the Malian-born director of the French and francophone studies Department at Carleton College in the United States. “It has spoken to me and I have delivered what it wanted: the truth.”


The truth Keita speaks of is contained in his second documentary, Cemetery Stories: A Rebel Missionary in South Africa, which was screened at the 2009 Durban International Film Festival last week. It links 19th-century American missionaries William and Ida Belle Wilcox to John Langalibalele Dube, and reveals how the missionaries’ friendship and mentorship of Dube helped the black teacher and clergyman on his path to success.

Keita was given the name “Zwelethu” by the Inanda elders and the Dube family, who received him into their family after his first award-winning documentary, Oberlin-Inanda: The life and Times of John L. Dube. “Giving me that name was a prophecy,” says Keita. “It started to reveal to me the centrality of the land issue in Wilcox and Dube’s political struggle over the years, hence my strong desire to bring the two families together.”

However, Keita couldn’t understand exactly why a Muslim Malian language professor based in the U.S. was conducting such heavy research into Christian missionaries in South Africa. “Near the end of my research the answer came,” he says. “My house in Northfield, Minnesota, is located right next to a cemetery. And in that cemetery are buried the parents of Ida Belle Wilcox. I believe the land was speaking to me. I believe her parent s wanted me to let the world know the good they had done for downtrodden South Africans, because before I started doing my research, their family thought they were a failure in South Africa.”

The Wilcoxes had been a failure, in Western terms. Most white people who immigrated to South Africa in the 19th century did so to seek their fortune. Not many came to liberate the black South Africans from a lack of education and opportunity. But that is what the Wilcoxes had done. And by the time they returned to the U.S. in their late 60s, they were bankrupt and William Wilcox had to work on an assembly line in Detroit. The couple died in poverty in California, without any acknowledgment for what they had done.

Before Keita’s research, Reverend Jackson Wilcox had only one memory and one inheritance of his grandfather, William. A memory that he never finished anything he started, and a wonky book shelf, an apparent testament to his inability to complete any project.

“It was my duty to reconnect the families and restore pride to the Wilcox family,” says Keita, who brought Reverend Jackson from California and his daughter Deborah from Alaska to South Africa in 2007 to meet the Dubes and to see the mission station the 19th-century Wilcoxes had built in Tembalihle and Cornfields, near Estcourt. The Wilcoxes met with politicians and were enlightened as to how their ancestors had lived and thanklessly worked for the poor.

“We need unifying stories like this to bring us closer to each other,” Keita says. “Positive stories help feed growth, particularly in a time where there is a war of cultures and religions in the world.” He says the Wilcoxes did their work for all races. “Without their sacrifice, we might not have had the liberation struggle in South Africa,” he says. “The Wilcoxes were ahead of their time.”

Indeed, in Wilcox’s own words, which were published in an open letter to Dube in the first issue of his newspaper, in April 1903: “The truth for which you stand is mighty and will prevail”. The truth has finally prevailed, thanks to Keita and the land, which he believes sent him on this long journey.

The Wilcox and Dube families are now reunited and often write to each other. Reverend Jackson Wilcox is currently writing his autobiography, thanks largely to the inspiration of Keita. “Thank you for helping me rediscover my grandparents,” he wrote recently to Keita. The Dubes in turn told Keita: “We cannot repay you for teaching us and the whole of South Africa about our grandfather — you are a member of our family.” Keita, who has done this research over 10 years as a hobby, plans to write a book about the two families and about his own personal spiritual journey. “I will write it soon,” he says. “I have no other choice.”

Who was JL Dube?

The clergyman, teacher and founding editor of iLanga Lase Natal newspaper was also the founding president of the South African Native National Congress, which became the African National Congress. His father, Reverend James Dube, abandoned his claim to the chieftaincy of the AmaQadi clan to become one of South Africa’s first American Zulu Missionaries in the 1860s at the Lindley Mission Station in Inanda. It was here that John was educated and where he met the Wilcoxes.

The Wilcoxes and the Dubes

THE Wilcoxes, educated at ultra-liberal Oberlin College, U.S., arrived in South Africa in 1881 as missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and they settled in Inanda at the Lindley Mission Station. In 1887, Dube travelled to the U.S. with the Wilcoxes and attended their alma mater, Oberlin College. Wilcox gave Dube the opportunity to work in a printing press and let him give speeches in his church. By the end of his time at Oberlin, Dube had written his first book about educating black South Africans, A Familiar Talk Upon My Native Land. Dube and the Wilcoxes returned to South Africa in the 1900s. The Wilcoxes started the Zulu Industrial Improvement Company in 1909 in Tembalihle and Cornfields, the first shareholding company in South Africa made up of sympatheti c whites and 300 blacks who wanted to give Christian blacks the economic power to withstand land appropriation by the Natal government. Keita believes the 1913 Native Land Act was in response to this measure, and its effects on Native landownership completely bankrupted Wilcox. The Inanda community made a collection of money to send blacklisted and impoverished William Wilcox back to the U.S., while Ida Belle Wilcox went to Bulwer to teach and earn money so she could return the following year in 1919. They never returned to South Africa, where they had hoped to die and be buried among the Zulu community. However, Keita is currently working on an idea to make this wish come true in some form. So stay tuned for the rest of the story.

This story first appeared in The Witness on August 11, 2009