"Don't buy City Press! Don't buy!"

Yesterday’s City Press (23 August 2015) is the perfect expression of everything I cannot stand with the current state of journalism in South Africa and why I believe print media will continue its slow, torturous and somewhat deserved spiral into the abyss of forgotten things. The lead story, about Mbuso Mandela’s latest scandal, lies prominently across its front page, accompanied only by a speculatory insert on who leads the running to act in the national police commissioner’s place when she is inevitably suspended sometime later this week (I’ll give you a hint: it’s not not her 2.I.C) and who else is also in the running (another hint: every other deputy commissioner).

Of course, no edition of this once proud people’s paper could be complete without an episode of Who Wants To Be President? The weekly telenovella about which palace stooge is likely to succeed the incumbent Chief Jester-In-Chief, aka #1, aka Showerhead, aka The Worst Idea Anyone Has Ever Had. Almost one and a half pages dedicated to such asininities as hypothesized presidential scenarios, which include a Gwede Mantashe/Jeff Radebe (and vice versa) presidency.

Apart from the half page MTN ad on page 5, there’s also a small piece about DA financial mismanagement in the Western Cape (running out of money is financial mismanagement finish and klaar!). And also buried into a corner of insignificance on page 6 is a really important story about a young man named Speech and the significance of his victory in Ward 30 of the Nelson Mandela Metro.

Let’s begin with the Mandela story. Oh, but where to begin with that tho?

How about rape culture? Yes, let’s start there. Now, far be it for me to dictate to women and to exercise my privilege as a man to tell women what to speak up about and against. To stand here and lecture women on what is acceptable reportage when telling stories that affect other women would be a gross violation of the trust I hope to engender as an ally. So I won’t do that. I believe that my job as an ally is to share information and ideas about what it is we as men are doing that makes life harder for our fellow humans, and to present alternative ways of engagement with women especially, and with us all in general, that are non-threatening and foster trust and congenial relations between man and woman, and between man and man. So it makes my job that much harder when the front page of one of the most popular Sunday papers leads with a story on a rape accusation with the following sub-header:

“Madiba’s troubled grandson says sex was consensual. Club staff say (sic) the two behaved like lovers”

Now I have the utmost respect for Ferial Haffajee. No, I lie. I have the utmost respect for what she represents: a woman of colour in a position of power. I don’t think I have much respect for her as a person. I have never met her, so I cannot conclusively say I don’t respect her at all. There may be some baseline qualities about her that I may yet come to respect were I to meet her in person, but as a public figure she does not inspire much more than indifference from me. I do, however, find myself disheartened and disappointed to find that a woman editor would sign off on a story on rape written by a woman journalist that proudly perpetuates such elements of rape culture as those espoused in the sub-header. There is more in the story that offends me, but I will not dwell on those. I do not wish to say more about the actual incident itself as I wish to reserve my comment until after the dust settles. Whenever that may be.

No really, but who wants to be president of this shithole tho?

Look, I love this country. I love this continent. I just hate what it’s all become. (Although I remain hopeful of what it yet may be.) But must we be subjected, week after week, to speculation and conjecture from anonymous sources and wild inferences from trigger-happy journos over who may or may not be the next president of the republic? Is this a bukkake circle jerk and are we the piggy in the middle?

Does anyone actually even really care at this point? Were ANC acolytes and sycophants not at pains to reassure us that they don’t vote for the president but for the party, so what difference does it make to us, the general public, who the president of the ANC is if it’s going to be the same party in power anyway? We hear of which faction is backing which candidate but has anyone ever found out why? I mean, apart from the assumed tribalistic and pseudo-idelogical grounds (like, referring to the SACP as communists is irony and oxymoron wrapped up in ALL OF THE LOLZ!) You know what I would like to know about all these candidates? What are their policy positions? What discussion documents have they written for circulation in the ANC? Where do they stand on the issues that really matter? But, I know, ain’t nobody got time for that? Amirite?

I mean it’s pretty damn ironic that the ANC once led a chant of “Don’t buy City Press! Don’t buy!” when the City Press is doing a bang up job of advertising their succession plan and feeling out the mood of ANC members on the list of possible candidates for the top job. Hell, I think at this point the ANC ought to start paying City Press a fee for campaign management services and sundry.

And the DA should pay them for sweeping their misdeeds quietly under the carpet – like a dinner guest dropping unwanted food under the table while retaining a cool visage. Such softly-softly language they use – “cash squeeze”. Andisiwe Makinana is a great journalist and her integrity comes shining through in the first paragraph of her piece on how the Western Cape government is basically working public servants like slaves. You’d never think the DA in that part of the country would ever have to apply austerity measures. Aren’t they the ones always gaaning aan about how wonderful they are with the numbers and how prosperous all the places they are in charge of have become in the last 20 years? I really wanted to know more about this story. As a data analyst, I like to see numbers and comparisons and trends and things when I read. I think readers would benefit greatly from even the most rudimentary quantitative analysis about things like a “cash squeeze”. And I think South Africans, and indeed all people the world over, should demand more of such analyses when it pertains to public finances especially. But the amount of space allocated this story was enough for only one number of any real import: R68 000. No other numbers are provided to compare with this single, lone figure. Which detracts from the consequence of the story and frankly leaves it performing the part of space-filler – which is an insult to the talents of a journalist of Makinana’s stature. But with the mood of the entire paper being intrigue and speculation, it falls on the reader to ask questions that I’m pretty sure the reporter did ask, but the answers to which could not fit the small space allocated. Space taken up by a gigantic picture of Jeff Radebe, ironically gesturing with his hands to indicate size. It’s the second image of #1’s BFF in as many pages. Surely we could have done without seeing his face twice?

On the next page, the repetitive use of an image of the same person is done with such poetic dexterity.  But to get to that, you have to go through a long column headlined “The playlists of SA’s top leaders”. A column inspired by the recent publication on social media of Barack Obama’s Spotify playlist. None of “SA’s top leaders” were interviewed of course, and the entire thing is pure supposition (not even hearsay). But it’s news. But I digress…

The repeated image I alluded to is actually a single picture of Mandla Faltein (affectionately known in KwaMagxaki and Veeplaas, in Port Elizabeth as Speech) standing in front of a UDM campaign vehicle, his smiling face proudly prominent on the poster and the t-shirt he has on, both announcing his candidacy for the 19 August by-election in Ward 30. Speech did what was once unthinkable this past weekend and wrested the ward encompassing those two townships from the clutches of the ANC. His win is of course significant for a number of reasons, chief of which is the following quote from the man himself:

“We beat the ANC at their own game. They no longer conduct door-to-doors which is what made the difference for us in this election. All they do is motorcades, driving around in fancy cars in front of poor people, speaking on loudhailers and chanting slogans, hoping people will come and vote. But little did they know that time is gone. People want substance and tangible objectives.”

The profundity in the statement is self-evident. It is an allegory of the macrocosm, which the City Press would distract us from with talk of succession and the tabloidization of the very real societal pox that is rape. That is, unless you make it to page 6. I’m impressed I did, seething as I already was with frustration. But I could go no further.

Review: May I Have This Last Dance

Over the past two decades many black families of the Eastern Cape have gradually reclaimed their history. Across the province known affectionately by its diaspora as Ephondweni (literally “the province”) or Emakhaya (literally “our homes”), many prominent families from Tsomo to Xhonxa to Mxhelo have erected impressive stone monuments to their ancestry - some tracing their lineage as far back as 300 years and more. AmaXhosa and many other African language speaking peoples rely heavily on oral traditions such as that of iimbongi, as well as also what is known as ukuzithutha. More than mere “praise singers”, as the crude translation will have us believe, iimbongi are custodians of oral history of the highest echelon akin to the griots of West Africa or the Anglo-Saxon heralds of medieval times. Ukuzithutha is a heraldic practice through which each Xhosa speaker is able to trace her ancestry by poetically reciting the succession of male ancestors in her lineage up to and including the ancestor from which her clan derives its name. Some fortunate families are able to continue this poetic recitation to include those who came after the clan name ancestor up to the present generation of family elders.

Mama Connie Manise Ngcaba’s memoir, May I Have This Dance (Face2Face) is an attempt at augmenting the oral record of history, which often overlooks the intimate details and achievements of family members other than the patriarchs of the family. The book opens with a family tree spanning four generations, beginning with MaNgcaba’s parents and the parents of her husband of sixty years, the late Bro Sol Ngcaba. It closes with a family constitution, complete with a vision and a mission, as well as descriptions of the various organisational structures and committees the constitution is meant to give life to. It’s a modern extension and a formalisation of an unwritten code of conduct amongst Xhosa families. It gives shape to what is currently a loosely configured organisation of the extended family structure and provides clear objectives and responsibilities to individual members of the broader family and the family structures on which they may volunteer to serve.

Far from being some dry family  text or manual, this is a story of one woman’s 85 year-long journey. She describes the carefree days of her childhood, safe in the loving cocoon of both her immediate and extended families growing up in the hinterland that is the former Transkei where she was born, to her present position as the matriarch of a family that has made an indelible mark on not only the East London community that is now the family’s home, but also on the greater South African community at large (her fourth son, Andile, was the first director general of the Department of Communications during Nelson Mandela’s presidency). The story is written in a very simple and easy style that traces a deceptively linear arc. This belies the complex nature of real life, which is often much more nuanced than any work of fiction.

There’s a particularly enthralling passage where she describes the nightly ritual of bathing her children. By the time they had all arrived – six in total – the Ngcaba’s had been allocated a “nice, four-roomed house” in Duncan Village, East London through MaNgcaba’s state of employment as a nurse in the local clinic. By then her first-born son was nearly a teenager and the youngest of her six children was but a toddler. She tells of how the feat that was bath time in the Ngcaba’s Bashe Street home was successfully accomplished through much conscientious effort and inventiveness on the parts of both her and her husband, Bro Sol. Through a system of improvised devices and a laissez-faire attitude with regards to getting the kitchen floor flooded by four boisterous boys in two zinc bath tubs, the Ngcaba’s were able to accomplish this and come out on the other side with a fascinating story to tell. Juxtaposed against the time later in her life where she was detained for 3 months for assisting her community in those heady days of apartheid resistance, MaNgcaba’s story is at times comical while also awe-inspiring and even tragic. This is the essence of MaNgcaba’s memoir – a fascinating story of modest origins that has led to equally modest, though immeasurably impactful, outcomes. It is ultimately a story of triumph.

There are many clues that make it clear that this is not the work of a literary scholar or a budding biographer, such as the brevity of the chapters, the concise sentence structure and minimal use of metaphor and other sophisticated language devices – all of which confirm the MaNgcaba’s unyielding pragmatism. It is, however, a succinct archive of a piece of history that is often lost to many families. In this she does not only her family a service, but renders a service to posterity. MaNgcaba’s memoir provides a picture of the participation of ordinary South Africans in world events as it spans the two World Wars, the entirety of the apartheid years, and culminates in the birth of democracy in South Africa. Her account shows how all these events impacted on the lives of ordinary folk in general and the Ngcaba family in particular without getting too bogged down in the details.

One of the things the translation “praise singer” misses completely about the task and role of iimbongi is that they do not merely heap praises on their subjects. As custodians of history and truth, they are duty bound to tell the story of the past truthfully, without fear or favour. As such, they operate under poetic license to offend and shock if needs be. MaNgcaba has written a story that does not sugarcoat her experience and makes little attempt to glorify herself or her family. In a way, she has achieved the task of imbongi  and will hopefully inspire other families to record their histories in similar ways.

(edited by Mary Corrigall and published in the Sunday Independent's 8 February 2015 edition)

Foundations of Morality and Renewal - A Review of Raising The Bar: Hope and Renewal in South Africa by Songezo Zibi

Songezo Zibi’s manifesto, Raising The Bar (Picador Africa) may not come across as revolutionary to most people. After all, literature of this sort – the kind that tackles social ills such as racism, sexism and other social phobias stemming from a combination of the aforementioned with nationalism of some form or other – does tend to attract the type of audience that is generally predisposed to agreeing with most if not all the arguments presented within its covers. A lot like how feminist literature is most likely to be read by feminists, and religious literature is most likely to be read by those who subscribe to religion. In short, it’s a little like preaching to the choir.

Using a combination of some of the more recent scholarly works by thinkers like Cornel West, Xiabobo Lü and Slavoj Žižek amongst others; news items from the first two decades of South Africa’s democratic era; as well as anecdotes from his personal life (the most endearing of which relate to the period during which he was in his grandparents’ care, in rural Transkei); Zibi weaves together a compelling argument that objectively assesses the current ills that afflict contemporary South African society, and in particular its politics. He does all this while providing some rather elementary solutions. That is not to say that Zibi’s analysis is not sophisticated or incisive. In fact, his exposition offers an Occam’s Razor that leaves you wondering why you hadn’t thought of his propositions before, let alone execute them in our own way as per his suggestion.  

For an example, in the third chapter of the book, entitled A Bright Future Is Possible, the Business Day editor suggests that in the process of tackling the race question leaders should view redress as a matter of ethics and justice, as a opposed to one of revenge. This is a call that does not necessarily apply to “leaders” alone, but to all South Africans, as evidenced by the tendency for public discourse to degenerate into a tit-for-tat debate that centres on retributive justice almost to the exclusion of all other forms of justice.

Another example is the chapter on Politics which provides three scenarios that may bring about the change required – the first is a catastrophic event such as a civil war, the second is the emergence of “an intellectual breath of fresh air, which follows a period of deep introspection”, and the third a combination of the two. It is the second that speaks directly to individual South Africans and asks of each of us to become the change that we would like to see in the world, as the hackneyed modern proverb goes.

Raising The Bar is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a flawless work. Each reader will take away from it what they can and quietly (or not, in the case of the ever militant and seldom satisfied #peoplestwitter) observe those passages in the book that deserve further interrogation and scrutiny. One of the troublesome elements of Zibi’s otherwise lucid and cogent analysis, is his insistence on singling out the role of The Church (or churches) in this grand project of “hope  and renewal in South Africa”. You cannot help but wonder if his narrow definition of what may also be understood to refer to human spirituality in general would not be lost on some readers if for no other reason besides the fact that not everyone subscribes to Christianity.

We South Africans are notorious for what National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) secretary general, Irvin Jim, once cleverly phrased as to “listen with your mouth”. That is to say, listening not with the intent to process and understand that which we have heard (or read), but instead listening with the intent to respond. Responding regardless of whether or not we have understood the position or argument to which we are responding – responding merely for the sake of responding.

For this reason it is fair to be concerned that an important work such as this  may get lost in the milieu of 50 million-plus voices expressing their opinion – valid or no. Voices weighing in on an argument which Zibi has, no doubt, developed over a long period of time, applying the requisite measure of careful thought as one might expect from the editor of one of the biggest business dailies in South Africa Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the singling out of churches, and churches alone, as a bastion for morality raises further issues which may or may not be related to each other.

Almost every chapter of Raising the Bar constitutes a clarion call for a return to a single, commonly held set of morals as a panacea to almost all - if not, in fact, all - that ails us as a nation. This is not the first time such a call has been made. During the period in which the current South African president, Jacob Zuma, deputised for then state president, Thabo Mbeki, he was tasked with the noble responsibility of overseeing the nation’s moral regeneration. An assignment which, in hindsight, made for comical irony.

Morality is a very tricky animal to capture because it is almost always the outcome of whatever reasoning and rationalisation predominates within each culturally distinct place and time. It is only the most fundamental of moral tenets that bear a universal quality. In his 2008 essay for the New York Times Magazine’s online edition, titled The Moral Instinct, Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker borrows from the moral foundations hypothesis – an idea developed by a trio of academics led by New York University Professor of Ethical Leadership, Jonathan Haidt – to describe these psychological foundations as “harm, fairness, community (or group loyalty), authority and purity”. The hypothesis suggests that the reason for morality to take on a seemingly fluid and variable character as one moves from one culture to another is due to how much emphasis different communities place on each of these moral foundations. In the same essay, Pinker also fleetingly mentions the concept of a “universal moral grammar”, analogous to the “universal grammar” first theorised by linguistics professor Noam Chomsky who describes it as “genetic endowment, which sets limits on the attainable languages, thereby making language acquisition possible”. To apply the analogy, universal moral grammar, therefore, would be the genetic endowment that allows for the acquisition of moral sense, while limiting which moral senses will be acquired and sharpened.

South African society has suffered a protracted and repeated defilement of its moral fabric throughout its history; from the introduction of slavery in the Cape during the time of the Dutch East India Company’s tenure, onwards to the establishment of concentration camps by the British during the South African War and well into the 20^th century with its hallmarks of massacres and states of emergency during apartheid’s zenith. The timeframe within which this unrelenting assault on South African morality has sustained itself may perhaps even be thought of as evolutionary in its impact on the hearts and minds of present-day South Africans. In fact, if we apply the language analogy to this specific situation, it would behoove any observer to note the stark changes in the linguistic landscape from the lands that were the hunting grounds of the Khoisan and the farmlands of the Xhosa and the Zulu and others, before they were British colonies and Afrikaner volkstaats; to the beleaguered republic we see today.

An expectation of moral regeneration driven from the top down, as Zuma was tasked, or as proposed by Zibi in his suggestion that churches be called to lead the cause, is one that is laudable in its ambition but weak in opportunity for success. For one thing, being that churches are already the self-appointed custodians of morality (this being their chief raison d’etre in the race to prepare good Christian souls for an eternity in heaven), had there been a single iota of hope for their success in this bold new incarnation proposed in Raising the Bar, one would expect the fruits of this success to have already had an impact on South African society or at least be at such an advanced stage of pre-deployment that the anticipation would be palpable to most, if not all, citizens. Judging from the unabated degeneration of the societal moral fibre, as evidenced by daily reports of astounding violations visited by citizens on fellow citizens, it would be safe to assume, sub specie aeternitatis, that churches have not been, and possibly may not be, successful in this regard.

That being said, the book actually reads like a user’s guide to good citizenship and should probably – no, definitely be issued to all living South Africans with immediate haste. One of the many shining moments that struck me was the suggestion that civics should be included in the school curriculum. This book would make an excellent setwork book for such a class. It is of no use for citizens to moralise ad nauseum about the present situation when many of us shirk even the most basic of civic duties, which is to vote.

To be taught the qualities and duties of good citizenship from an early age, would augur well for the establishment of an active and involved citizenry. In place of a campaign for common morality, which is near impossible given the much lauded cultural diversity held within the borders of South Africa, it would seem more logical that a path towards a state of universal mindfulness be sought, governed by such philosophical principles as to inspire a culture of introspection and self-correction, instead of the lazy method currently consuming our society of seeking retributive justice for behaviour that is deemed morally reprehensible.

(edited beautifully by Mary Corrigall. a version of this review appeared in the Sunday Independent of the 7th of December 2014)

Embrace The Detours

My most favourite thing about summer is the roadtrip. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of my grandmother and I, travelling in a Nissan E20 from Mdantsane, in East London, to Cape Town to visit her family. We travelled this route so many times that I need only close my eyes and the smell of freshly-baked bread, umleqwa (a home-reared chicken raised on mielies from the family mielie patch, ceremonially slaughtered for such a journey) and the twist-fizz sound made by a one litre bottle of warm Fanta Orange shared amongst passengers – friends and strangers alike – all come flooding back, belying the two decades in between.

Now in my thirties, the open road has become a bit of a drug. Like an addict searching for his first high – in my case, the first time I remember going into the Huegenot Tunnel and marvelling at the fact that I was inside a mountain – I find myself constantly stretching the idea of the roadtrip. And I have been rewarded handsomely with every endeavour. It also helps that I have an enabling friend whose default reaction to any suggestion of a roadtrip – no matter how long or short – is “Ja, sure. Let's do it!”.

Once we drove from East London, via Johannesburg, to Maputo shortly after Christmas in my friend's long-suffering jalopy.

“Oh, there's something I should tell you about the car.”, he casually informed me when he picked me up from my parents' home. “There seems to be something wrong with the clutch, but the mechanic said I could drive it for another few thousand kilometres or so.”.

Piffle, I thought. He'd driven from Cape Town in it without incident. Such concerns, wholly academic by our measure, would not dismay us. Onward we travelled to Joburg to fetch our other travelling companion, and continued through the highveld, with its vast farmlands, into the wilderness of the lowveld and beyond. Caught up in what the road had to offer, the potential for mechanical trouble became a rumour, a myth. Such is the power of the roadtrip that, even in the face of expert warning, one can think of nothing else other than the promise of magnificent vistas as the scenery shifts, always revealing a little more of itself to the traveller.

We did our best to see as much of Mozambique as we could manage in a car that wasn't exactly equipped for the rugged terrain that is our neighbour's roads. On New Year's eve we found ourselves at a beach party in Xai Xai, dancing the night away on a dizzyingly patterned mosaic floor atop a sand dune. Psychedelic patterns in glass tile that echoed the strobing of the disco lights as fireworks erupted from the sands, competing all the while with the moon for our attention. A fitting end for a roadtrip to a country that had simultaneously beguiled and perplexed us with its contradictions.

We were happily on our way back to South Africa when the mechanic's words came back to haunt us. The long line of cars snaking some 20kms to the border was amusing at first. We joked about how typical it was of South Africans, most sporting Gauteng licenses, to stage a traffic jam in a foreign country. It was this traffic jam that brought the gravity of our situation into sharp focus. The incessant break-clutch-accelerate-break-clutch of our movement as the line slowly dragged us towards the border  proved too much for our poor chariot. Our gearbox gave in and our car died.

We were fortunate to have made a very valuable friend in Maputo - the very generous Donna Manuela Soeiro – who took us in for a few days and saw to it that our car was repaired. In the meantime, we were treated to sights that we had missed. We saw an inner city garden that Donna Manuela had created within the ruins of a semi-demolished apartment building. Here in the midst of the inner city's perpetually decaying buildings that have given in to the unrelenting humidity and the resultant mildew, were specimens of new life – small shallow pots housing indigenous shrubs fixed precipitously atop pillars of chopped tree trunks; flowering plants that look as though they may have grown all on their own, like weeds, scattered around what were once the reception rooms of an apartment building. I enquired about the tree trunks – there were just so many of them. She told me a very amusing story of how she had been driving to her Teatro Avenida one morning when she came across a group of workmen by the side of the road felling dead trees. She asked the foreman how she could go about acquiring the tree trunks. He replied that she would have to write a letter to the municipality, which she did. In this letter, she had offered to purchase the trunks. The response she received was a stern “no”. After weeks of driving past these same tree trunks lying unattended by the side of the same road, she went to the municipality and hired a tractor.

“Why do you need the tractor?”, asked the official.

“I'm moving some tree trunks.”, came the reply.

“Well, in that case, you'll need some workmen.”.

And so it was that, with the help of a handful of municipal workmen, and the payment of a nominal fee for the tractor, Donna Manuela had her tree trunks.

These are the memories that make roadtrips special for me. The drama and catastrophe from which one rises; the friendships made and strengthened; the sights, sounds and smells – all these combine to give us some of the joie de vivre we need to carry on for the rest of the year. While we plan where to allow the open road to lead us next summer...

(written sometime in late 2012 for VISI magazine's summer issue of that year.)

BLACK SKIN, WHITE ASS

The first time I ever heard of anal bleaching was in a seedy leather bar in the depths of inner-city Johannesburg. A place furnished with leather slings and lit by television monitors beaming porn like flashing strobes, with the smells of lubricant and cum commingling in a heavy, sweaty mix. There I was, on the outer reaches of conventional morality, without a clue as to what could be done to the inner reaches of the human body. My companion, the one who broke the news to me, was a handsome middle-aged white man with a tuft of grey fur poking proudly over an unbuttoned leather vest. He sported a studded leather jockstrap, of course, under which I guessed lay a cockring and what looked to be an impressive set of balls. He introduced himself as Paul, and told me I had a nice body. I thanked him politely, and carried on drinking my beer. He soldiered on with the small talk and I tried to deflect it. I was a little self-conscious.

I fixed my focus on a television screen and made quite a ceremony of watching the night’s episode ofGenerations, demurely avoiding the other screens, where assorted men indulged in more vigorous exertions than the inane batting of Queen Moroka’s eyelids. Paul was a persistent fellow. He bought me my next beer and sidled closer. I’m glad he did, because he turned out to be rather charming. I told him what I did for a living. He told me he was an investment banker from Sunninghill and an art collector. I was impressed by the fact that he collected works by young contemporary artists, whose names he carefully recited, taking care to pronounce the ones with Xhosa or Shona names just right.

“You speak so well. For a white guy, I mean,” I said to him. He got the joke.

Once my guard was lowered, we gravitated to more pressing matters. We discussed the aesthetics of sex. Preferences: cut or uncut, long and thin or long and thick, clean or hairy, top or bottom. You know, the usual. Then he asked me if I liked dark or light asses. I was completely taken aback. My eyes narrowed, and I took this as my cue to grind an axe for which I’d long sought a grindstone. I launched into a tirade on how as a black man in South Africa I had issues with dating white South African men. I told him how boring it was to look through profiles on dating sites that read “Caucasians only” and, as if it were any consolation, the condescending codicil “Sorry, just my preference.” But that wasn’t what he meant at all. He told me he preferred an even-toned ass – black, white, Asian, whatever, just even-toned. He pointed to a screen near us. And there I saw it: a flawless, clean-shaven, even-toned manhole. It fluoresced and glistened in that dank bar like a halo in the fog, and I felt my sleeping member stir.

“Like that,” Paul said approvingly. “There are creams you can use to get yours to look like that if you want.”

As an enthusiastic and long-standing homosexual, I have seen my fair share of asses, and yet I had never encountered this preference before. I’m not sure I even understood it. At the time, I had just started shaving my pubes, after impolite remarks from strangers as to whether I was vying for a world record for the largest man-made forest. (My reaction was usually to point out that that was an impossibility: Johannesburg currently held that title and as a size twenty-eight twink, I wasn’t unseating an entire city any time soon.) The words had their effect, however; eventually I got myself some hair-removal cream – and I have been as smooth as the day I was born ever since. It hasn’t been easy. The creams have had their effect as well, and I have painfully learnt that the cost of a smooth groin is constant itchiness and all sorts of ungainly bumps. What’s a man to do these days? It wasn’t enough that I had risked in-grown hair, all manner of infection, and death by toxic vapour in the quest for pubic beauty. No. Apparently I would now have to turn my ass into a pretty pattern that anyone but me could see.

We departed separately. Paul left me a note at the counter where my clothes had been deposited. It was his phone number and an invitation to dinner. He also enclosed a card for a spa he said was reputable and would do me for free if I mentioned his name. Ridiculous, I thought. And also, intriguing. As you have no doubt discerned, I am an impressionable fellow. I’ll try anything once. I plotted a course of action.

***

I first consulted close friends. I broke it to them over dinner.

“What’s that?” Jennifer asked with genuine innocence.

For a moment there was silence as we all tried to figure if she was being for real. Her earnest American-ness had tripped us up enough times before for us to be unsure of her seriousness. Turns out she was. It wasn’t just her – quite a few of my friends had never heard of this exotic ritual.

“It’s right up there with vajazzling in the stakes of weird things people do to their nethers. Should I get you a Groupon for it?” Sarah said. Jen struggled to keep up and we fell out of our chairs laughing

I told Jen what it was. She was genuinely puzzled, and asked more questions – how do they do it? Where do they do it? Is it safe? What’s in the cream? And more. These Americans can be insatiable in their need to know. Jen’s questions lit a tiny fire in me; I needed to know too. Sadly, I had lost the card Paul left for me, so when I arrived back at my flat after dinner that night, I went straight to Google. The first things to come up were YouTube videos of testimonials from female American porn stars. “Basically I wanna be like an albino – but just around my sphincter,” drawled a dark-haired beauty as she made a circling motion with her index finger. I tried localising my search to find South African stories. I found an article on one of our local news websites. Whoever wrote it had done her research thoroughly. She had quotes from dermatologists and local suppliers and concluded that the South African anal bleaching capital was Durban.

I was excited. I tried to track down the supplier mentioned in the piece. I quickly descended into a Google spiral as I fought to keep track of the information. I found a supplier, and I was determined to try it out. What harm could come of it? I had just listened to seasoned veterans of the procedure extol its virtues, and not once did I hear a word of caution. This was it: I was ready to ascend the next rung of sexual aesthetics. I had a vision of the new, improved me – a clean-shaven, even-toned, thirty-year-old twink. I would become the chosen one, just like Neo from the Matrix, the difference being that my kingdom of Zion would consist not so much of embattled, human revolutionaries as seedy Joburgers looking for casual gay sex on the underground scene. I didn’t bother to finish the reading the article and went to sleep a very happy homo.

In the morning I woke with a song in my heart and a spring in my step. I waited until a reasonable hour to call, and dialled the number. The phone rang a few times and a woman answered.

“Hello, I’m interested in your anal bleaching service. Can you please tell me more about it?”

“I’m sorry, what?” she said, sounding a little flustered.

“I’ve been reading up on anal bleaching and I came across an article where you were listed as the sole supplier of this product, so I was wondering if I could come in for a session. It says here that the first application is usua…”

“I’m sorry, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” she said, cutting me off.

“Oh, but…”

“NO, sorry, I don’t know anything about that. Thank you. Bye.”

She hung up.

I was deflated. I thought of an article I had read a few years ago by the late John Matshikiza. In the article, he related the story of how a friend, after receiving one of the most memorable massages of his life from a parlour in Cyrildene (Johannesburg’s Chinatown) had asked the receptionist if he could introduce his friend, John, to the establishment’s expert ministrations. The initial response was an emphatic “Yes, yes, tell your friend to come anytime.” The Chinese parlour’s enthusiasm sustained until the friend, “who is Jewish, by the way, but passes for white” mentioned that John was black. “No, we can’t do that,” the receptionist lady said. “Sorry, can’t do black people.”

What else could I have done wrong but be black? The article clearly quoted the woman’s employers as the sole supplier of anal-bleaching cream. I had corroborated the claim by searching for the company that made the cream itself, and I looked up the names and contact details for suppliers in every conceivable corner of the world – which was incidentally how I found her number. Hold on, how did she even know I was black? I have one of those Model C accents, and growing up, kids in my township called me “umlung’omnyama” (‘coconut’ in common parlance). I did not mention my name when I made the call.

Or perhaps she was put off because I am a man. I have been gifted with a very deep baritone since about the age of ten, from which time onwards, there has been no mistaking me for a woman. Perhaps her company doesn’t administer this service to men; perhaps she was just embarrassed to be talking to one. That was more understandable, but only led to more questions. Where do all these white men have their go to get their manholes bleached then?

I went back to the article as I contemplated my next move. And then I saw a word that made my eyes pop out of their sockets: hydroquinone. That shit they have been putting in skin-lightening creams since our grandmothers’, mothers’ and aunts’ time. That Hitler-affirming-black-is-savage-go-on-and-hate-your-melanin crap that eventually gave them amashubaba. I finally knew what I was up against.

Take the singer Mshoza, who just a few months ago famously bleached her entire body. For her, hydroquinone was a way to make herself more beautiful and more desirable to her (ironically, now ex-) husband. According to Mshoza, she felt great because it made her skin “clear” and made her “look younger.” As far as self-gratification goes, I know this is true: everlasting youth and beauty is about as good as it gets. And I know that I’m not above seeking this gratification myself. I revel in the fact that at my advanced age I still occasionally get asked for ID at bars. I know that I would kill to permanently win my daily battle with acne. In many ways, I understand Mshoza. Sure, it’s unlikely that I will ever personally get to view the effects of bleach on my anus. But that’s not the point. Someone else will; maybe someone who appreciates it, holds it in high esteem and then proceeds to perform annilingus on me until I can’t control myself any more.

Still, I had to ask myself if any of this was reason enough to consider risking amashubaba in so precious a place as that. I remembered how my mother and other well-put-together ladies in her circle of friends would make fun of acquaintances who had fallen into the hydroquinine hole. The scars that these unfortunate women bore were more than just the sub-dermal effects of a dangerous chemical. They were the scars of attempting to be closer to whiteness – and failing. A punishment for attempting to be “more” beautiful and achieving the reverse.

I learned the medical term for amashubaba from one of the doctors quoted in the article on anal bleaching. In medicine, they call it ochronosis, which sounds both ominous and archaic. It’s an unfamiliar word among my set, but the underlying sentiment is widespread and well-known: for black people in South Africa, we know it as the quest to elevate to a different race and a better place. We know it as the indoctrination of black women – and more than a few black men. I hadn’t even begun my treatment for ultimate anal beauty and I was already feeling sick.

***

Nevertheless, I was still intrigued. I retraced my steps, and started at the very beginning. By this time I had moved to Cape Town, which provided the impetus for my renewed search. It is, after all, the Mother City, home to more gay people per square kilometre than any other city, town or village in the country – or so they say. If there was an anal bleaching scene anywhere in the country, wouldn’t it be here?

I found a salon catering exclusively to the grooming needs of men tucked away in a corner of Greenpoint (Cape Town’s gay village). It was called The Glasshouse, and it sounded promising. Moreover, a cursory trawl through the salon’s website confirmed that they stocked the American wonder cream that promised to deliver me a readily rimmable rectum. I called the salon, unsure of how I would broach the subject, smarting as I was from the rebuff I received during my first attempt. My call was picked up, and I was tongue-tied. For some reason, I said “Hi, I was wondering if you cut black hair.” Well, that was silly. Everyone knows that black men in South Africa do not have their hair cut in places that offer hot stone massages and facials.

“Why, yes we do,” came the cheerful response. That took me by surprise. I had come across a number of ‘white’ salons in the country that didn’t, couldn’t or wouldn’t offer their services to black clients. This lady’s warm, welcoming tone was a bit of a shock. I kept my true intentions hidden and stuck to the haircut story. I would sneak the question of bleaching in later. In person, maybe. I set up an appointment.

I’ll admit I was relieved that the lady who cut my hair turned out to be black. I cannot imagine how laborious it would have been otherwise to try and explain what a “German Cut” is. She knew what I wanted. For precisely ten times what my last hair cut cost me, I bought slightly more than a haircut. I bought control. I could spell out every single nuance I wanted, and she executed them perfectly. (My last haircut involved explaining the word ‘asymmetrical’ to a barber who did not understand any of the languages I speak). Emboldened by my perfect hair, and drawn together by the experience of having my hard-earned cash safely exchanged, I struck up an exploratory conversation with the woman who headed operations at the salon.

“I noticed your price list includes waxing of legs and chests, and then there’s mention of “intimate waxing”. What is that about?” I said casually.

“Oh, that’s just for when some of our clients request… uhm… let me get you the price list,” she said, awkwardly.

“So,” I said, scanning the list, “are these the most exotic treatments on offer? I’ve read about some crazy things people do, like anal bleaching.”

Her eyes widened slightly.

“Oh, no! We don’t do that,” she said with a nervous giggle. “But we do have skin-lightening treatments that are specifically for, uhm, sensitive areas. Like… come let me show you.”

She led me towards a display cabinet and showed me the product she was speaking of, the one for sensitive areas. It was to be shortly discontinued. The sole supplier in South Africa was getting out of the business and the new supplier had jacked up the price of the product, which meant she had to raise the price of each jar by two hundred rands. “Ludicrous,” she said. She was considering a replacement: a local product that was available at a fraction of the cost of the imported cream. Instead of hydroquinine, the South African cream contained something called “decabutin” and as many as four “peptides” which I can only presume was better than one or two or three. I tried half-heartedly to research decabutin, and didn’t get very far, except to establish that it advertised itself as a safer alternative to hydroquinone – though how, or why, wasn’t very clear. It also turned out that the retiring wholesale supplier was none other than the person I had earlier called, the curt lady on the phone. That woman did not run a salon and merely supplied salons with the product. Her abruptness had nothing to do with either my blackness or my maleness. I had simply knocked on the wrong door.

As it turns out, we’ve all been knocking on the wrong door, and I don’t mean just black South Africans. Across Latin America, Asia and, of course, Africa, skin-lightening is an absolutely booming business. Native shame may be the least charming colonial hangover of them all, but it works like a charm at the retail till. I even read reports of a certain ‘Clean and Dry Intimate Wash’ from India – because, after all, what Indian women need most is a way to lighten their dark vaginas – and the hangover turned into a splitting headache. In the course of my investigations, a friend of mine said, in jest, “Why don’t you use Lemon-Lite?” Lemon-lite was a famed skin-lightening product I last saw in my teens. I Googled it and found to my horror that it was still available, with an even wider range of products – including its flagship “vanishing” cream.

At the salon, I found out that the American anal bleaching cream is fairly popular. The demographics of its user base surprisingly span both white and non-white men. As to exactly which intimate areas of the body these men are bringing light to, however, no one officially knows. As for my own personal ambitions in this regard, I had none left. Never before had I spent so much time and energy researching a cosmetic procedure so strange and pointless, and frankly, I was just exhausted. My desire to own the best ass in town was finally thwarted by three things: decision fatigue, murky politics, and the disquieting possibility that I might not be the first black man in town with a white ass.

For now, I was the proud owner of an excellent and unique haircut, and it was enough.

(written over the course of several months in 2012 for the Power Money Sex reader at powermoneysex.org.za and edited most wonderfully by Achal Prabhala.)