I've never been to South Africa and I can only begin to imagine what the politics are like. From what I read, it can’t be good. I know several families who lived there and loved it. I know other families who were petrified. I’d read about Apartheid and I’d watched enough movies and news programs to know that South Africa was in some deep shit. Racial segregation began during colonial times, but what Apartheid did, seemed to me, to be inhuman. Residential areas were segregated by means of forced removal. Blacks were stripped of their citizenship. Medical care, education and other public services for blacks were greatly inferior to those of whites. Of course, there were uprisings and imprisonment of anti-apartheid leaders. Violence ensued.
"We speak out to put the world on guard against what is happening in South Africa. The brutal policy of apartheid is applied before the eyes of the nations of the world. The peoples of Africa are compelled to endure the fact that on the African continent the superiority of one race over another remains official policy, and that in the name of this racial superiority murder is committed with impunity. Can the United Nations do nothing to stop this?"
— Che Guevara, speech to the United Nations as Cuba's representative, December 11, 1964
President Frederick Willem de Klerk began negotiations to end apartheid, culminating in multi-racial democratic elections in 1994, which were won by Nelson Mandela, who had been imprisoned for twenty-seven years for leading the movement against apartheid. De Klerk and Mandela were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. Mr. Jacob Sello “Jackie” Selebi became the very first black man to bring his family to Geneva, Switzerland, to live in a magnificent home with a stunning view overlooking Lake Geneva, built for wealthy white people, as Ambassador to South Africa for the United Nations, in 1995, the same year my family moved to Geneva.
Our sons became best friends at a school where children from over eighty-eight countries learned about life, thrown into a web of an international world where customs, ideas and cultural backgrounds were taught with deep respect. I tried explaining the powerful historic implications of the situation to my nine-year old son. At the time, I don’t think he cared. He only wanted to go swimming in the Selebi’s kidney shaped pool. He wanted a maid to make his sandwiches and he wanted to sit in the back seat of their car while their driver took them places. The Selebi family was living a magical existence and my son wanted to be a part of it, and frankly, so did I.
Diane Selebi and I became fast friends through our children. I've never met a more gracious woman. I was invited over for coffee, lunch and dinner, always accepting. I was in awe of this woman and how she handled her newfound circumstances. Not once did I hear a harsh word come out of her mouth, not even to her white maids. My son spent many nights in their home, often telling me about their fabulous parties. He and his buddy, Elton, would sneak into the Ambassador’s library where they would sip on brandy and pretend to smoke his cigars. Another time, I went to pick my son up from an overnight and learned he had met Nelson Mandela. I should have sent a camera with him every time he went!! I was kicking myself!
My family was soon transferred back to the United States and our children said their good-byes. Diane presented me with a beautiful ostrich egg from South Africa, which I fear, did not survive the move. Over the years, I have read where Jackie received a Human Rights Award from the International Service for Human Rights in 1998 and he became President of Interpol in 2004.
Now, I read the Selebi family is in trouble. Jackie has been accused of corruption, fraud, racketeering, befriending a drug lord, is on extended leave and has resigned his position with Interpol. I do not want to believe any of it is true. His hearing is set for May 4, 2009. I have never been to South Africa and I can only begin to imagine what the politics are like. From what I read, it can’t be good.
My heartfelt prayers go out to the Selebi family.
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Beth Mann
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I shall add the family to my ever growing list of people needing extra prayers.
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With Selbi the ironies are deep, he was president of Interpol for crying out loud.
Yes I know about Mbeti's lunacy about HIV and the horrible unemployment rate and other infrastructural problems. But at least in the Cape, there seemed to be a friendliness and ease among the people, even the poorest of the poor, that I found astounding. And through it all such hope. It was as if they could get through Apartheid, they could get through anything. This is a sentiment I do not see in the US.
Having been there and met the people of SA, I have a hard time condemning the entire country. I hope that your friend's difficulties get resolved quickly and fairly.
About the country itself, we're not feeling the effects of the credit crisis at the moment since the government saw it coming since 2005. They passed a national credit act in 2005 preventing banks from lending judiciously as well as preventing them from investing too much of their capital overseas. They also increased the government lending rate to over 12 by beginning of 2008 to slow down the demand for credit. Since October 2008 they have gradually lowered it. At the moment South African banks are ranked the healthiest in the world.
So in a sense we've been feeling the effects of the credit crisis since 2007, but more like loosing someone over time as opposed as in a dreadful crisis. So certainly I praise our government for having had the vision and the political will to act well in advance to prevent the economic calamity, but alas, the hole is so deep that I fear within time we too may be sucked in by it considering the size of our economy.
Corruption is a huge thing, hence the Selebi situation. My real worry is that we've elected a president with a very dubious reputation, and that the gains made over the past 15 years since apartheid, will be diminished. To mirror the US situation, we may very well may have elected our own Bush, but only time will tell...
I've lived here all my life, growing up in the dark days of Apartheid, experiencing the astonishing events of 1990 and now as a grown woman in post-Apartheid South Africa. I do not live in hell. In fact, there is no other place in the world I'd rather live than right here in Cape Town (I lived in Europe 18 months too so I have something to compare).
I realise that this post is primarily about your friends but was it really necessary to go with a title that pretty much damns an entire country?
South Africa is not perfect and it never will be. No country can lay claim to perfection. We have serious problems and much that worries us. But we also have a country that is growing - culturally, economically, socially - and there are millions here who have faith that we will overcome our problems in time.
What you read in your newspapers and magazines does not reflect the whoel picture. I've often read articles about South Africa that leave me shaking my head in amazement at how wrong people can be. I wonder if they actually visited the same country I live in.
This is not paradise. Some days I despair at how serious our problems are. But we're not giving up, even though outsiders seem to have already condemned us to failure.
I was writing about S. Africa, but trust me, if I wrote about any place in the world and a friend of mine was experiencing a hellish situation the title would be the same. S. Africa has suffered enough as has most of Africa. If you read my other posts about Africa, you will learn my daughter lived in West Africa for over two years. I pray all of Africa, as well as the rest of the world, finds peace. And I pray my friends, Diane and her family, find peace as well.
Thank you for your response. I appreciate that your post is written from the perspective of a friend of the Selebi family, though I still feel you judged my country too harshly. Also, not to disregard your daughter's experiences but West Africa is not the country of South Africa. Africa is a very large continent with many countries and even more cultures. It would be like me saying I've been to Canada so I know what the USA is like because the two countries are on the same continent.
As for Jackie Selebi's situation - unfortunately he hasn't helped his own case. I suggest you read the articles written by the investigative magazine, Noseweek, as well as the Mail & Guardian.
Neither South Africa, nor our justice system, is responsible for Selebi's woes. I feel sympathy for his family - they don't deserve the stress they're enduring but I can't pretend I feel any sympathy for him. He was a largely ineffective leader of our police service and he chose to obfusticate instead of addressing the very real problems experienced by our police service.
I'm sorry if I give the impression of being cold and uncaring because that's not how I feel. I have a great deal of sympathy for you and Selebi's family. It's just that millions of people are affected every day because of Selebi's ineffectiveness at his job. I have more sympathy for them.