That’s what this country is doing to its people. Guilt for the better life for all not being delivered by themselves. If you stay put long enough perhaps that will just go away, away, a court case not heard. Only Jabu giving judgement on herself.
So long as she lives here.
He’s taking cuttings from newspapers and printouts from Internet not only on Australia; about here and now. She doesn’t ask for explanation of this, she has it in herself — surely he’s also realised it has no purpose. He is in negotiations with universities Over There.
Unless — will we still follow. What happens, is going to happen not just to our own we’ve left, Baba KwaZulu; and even his Reed family he isn’t close to. The transformation; it is going to come now. The date of the national election this year is soon to be announced, already there are the promises from those hoping to stand for parliament. Shifting alliances of politicians’ bargaining, power patterns; the new kind of Struggle. What changes are coming, inevitable. At the Justice Centre, it’s the judiciary in debate.
— Too many white backsides seated on the Bench and too few blacks, that’s the first contention—
— Judgments affecting government ministers and high-rank public servants influenced in their favour by government—
— Hold on — perceived to be, ay—
— And if there is — must be — democratic balance in proper proportion to the black majority — that’s going to change pardons for pals—
— Conclusion. Don’t clean up connivances, call corruption what it is. — One of the advocates from whom she has learned so much has the right to reproach her.
— What’s the future of the Judicial Commission? Who’ll survive. Will the Commission continue to be the independent body to appoint judges, with the president-whoever-he-is — The colleague is interrupted — What d’you mean, whoever — (someone barks a laugh, they all know it will be Zuma.) — The President putting up his chosen four along with rubber-stamping the Commission’s choices — won’t he simply disband the J.C., make all appointees to the Branch himself.—
— Himself! Zuma he’s been on the wrong side of the law. So that’s his qualification for knowledge of who is and who’s not fit to be a judge. — At once names of some come up who’ll understand the obligation to keep the President’s men out of jail. She brings this insider disquiet back to the Suburb, the bedroom night talks, and to exchanges with the comrades whose concerns these are going to be. He has for her a cutting from the night’s newspaper in his hand, not yet added to the storage box he’s keeping on the shelf the Australian immigration ones fell from. Nine million illiterates out of a population of 48 million. That’s a figure to sleep on before you begin to think about her KwaZulu Home-Boy wandering the street with straw brooms hitched against his shoulders.
Neither is surprised, but although he’s Assistant Professor at a university, the lawyer is even less surprised than he. — That was one of my first functions when I was a junior. I sat for hours with witnesses reading aloud to them, explaining the meaning of the terms, words. Many couldn’t read for themselves. They were able to write their own name painfully. I used to think the pen was like a handle they couldn’t get a hold on — it was awful, so embarrassing for them and for me, black like them — Paused and drew first finger and thumb down either corner from her fine full lips to her chin. — If I’d been white it’d have been natural I know everything they didn’t. — Another moment. — Wonder how it would be for Sindi and Gary Elias, they’re both, on the look of them.—
At least, there are apparently other Africans, blacks emigrated, accepted for migration. It’s an aspect that hasn’t surfaced, is Australia what she’s applying this thought to, rather than concentrating on witnesses in the defence of Constitutional rights in court. Australia’s become an element of the normal life. How they, Down Under, see beings who are both black-and-white, though not white-and-aboriginal, of course. And — of course — there’s Obama, since last year, how he’s to be seen, that may help identity in the world.
At the Vice Chancellor’s meeting when the university opened for the first term of the New Year, comrade Lesego from African Studies was a commanding speaker. The matriculation results: only 62 per cent of ‘learners’ had passes. No improvement. But his voice rose with his hands as he reminded that 69 per cent of students enrolled at the university during the past year were black and over half were women. There was the stir of applause his volume and gesture expected.
Another hand flagged rather than held up — academics are not ‘learners’ seeking attention to speak in school. Here it is again. — Those among the sixty-two per cent making application to the university this year — it’s on entry standards differentiated between higher school results required for whites and Indians than lower qualifications for blacks. Look at the consequences for those of us who’re going to teach them at undergraduate level.—
But it was not the time or occasion for Lesego to take up, disinter the situation. The term must begin positively. When he with Steve and a few other colleagues went to their pub for a beer, he used his same decisive rousing as he lifted his glass. — Eish, here’s to more and longer bridging hours! Bigger intake this year! — Foam slopped over the lip of the glass and made the prospect of heavy responsibility, flippant.
Would he be there to do whatever could be, had to be, done?
Looked as if it would be Melbourne not Adelaide. The ‘remuneration’—compound term — offered a good level of academic status as well as excellent salary and housing allowance, settling-in benefits. Enquiries about the legal profession were misunderstood: Jabu wasn’t an academic, it was not an expectation of some lectureship for her, in the deal. He had made some enquiries, nevertheless, not mentioning this to her, for the law department here among his colleagues to give information on the legal profession in that far, other country.
Sometimes had the sense that Australia…it was the return, a recurrence of the time of the conference in England: something existing, in him, not revealed, beneath the practicalities exchanges discussions with her — Jabu, there beside him within touch, as the woman with a version of a man’s name was at the mill. A subconscious deception of his own woman. Subliminal, not memory; some sort of constant in the flaws of being.
Promises. Promises.
No election date yet. But election manifestos budding: or shedding leaves already. Newspaper cuttings. The thirteenth day of the year’s first month report the African National Congress promises to rescue South Africa from global recession. Cut unemployment to less than 15 per cent by 2014.
Over with Jake at the Mkizes’ watching a cabinet minister on TV. ‘Change and continuity’ (contradiction?) to reassure investors fearing shift to the left — but faster change (at the same time) assuring the poorest 50 per cent of the population that mantra ‘service delivery’, water, electricity, refuse removal, will be accelerated. Almost half the country’s ‘learners’ dropped out of school last year. The number of university students who failed to graduate was high. A major renewal of the education system, 15,000 ‘trainers’ (not teachers?) to strengthen performance of schools on maths, science, technology and language development (literacy?). Ensure teachers are in class on time.
Jake waggles one leg across the other. — No slipping off to the shebeen to get babelas.—