Putting a finger on the Year of (Im)pulses

US President-elect Donald Trump Picture: Carlos Osorio/AP

US President-elect Donald Trump Picture: Carlos Osorio/AP

Published Dec 31, 2016

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Measured thinking, rationality and real ideas did not appear to be a driving force in most of the year’s big events, writes Michael Morris.

Just about everybody you might care to ask will tell you that, of all recent years, 2016 was the pits.

It’s been a year of impoliteness, of rude awakenings, of waking up to find that what’s real has been replaced - seemingly with befuddling effect in national and international affairs - by what’s on social media.

Suddenly, feelings matter more than ideas, and they are mostly not good feelings.

A lot of people weren’t paying attention when an august trio of international councils (of science, social science and philosophy and human sciences) named 2016 the International Year of Global Understanding - although, possibly to their credit, the mandarins of internationalism at the UN General Assembly aimed lower in declaring this the International Year of Pulses.

Peas and beans aside, globalism wasn’t much of a warm fuzzy feeling over the past 12 months.

In the wake of the brutal excesses of Islamic State, and the repressive instincts of shaky regimes across the region and elsewhere, the mammoth migration of desperate modern-minded people from backward, failing states to the brighter promise of Europe and elsewhere proved tragically to be the ideal condition for a resurgence of conservative nationalism and xenophobia, and a readily abused gift to fear-mongering populists.

And in an age of choose-your-own news consumption, along with the elevation of ego and emotion, more masses than commentators ever appreciated became hooked. It could be that never before have the opinions of the most forgettable among us been rewarded with such riveted attention. And perhaps not without cause.

This, after all, has been the common thread running through some of the big events of the year. It is true of the jolting impact of little Englander sentimentality in the Brexit result in June, and of Donald Trump’s brazen November triumph.

Closer to home, it is a slithery theme in Jacob Zuma’s breathtaking endurance on the strength of a collective loyalty that stands at a distant remove from what might objectively be considered the national interest. And it is true, too, of the months-long rage fest of often fashionably clad, cellphone-thumbing students, along with the misdirected lightning strikes - and torching of books and paintings - that have illuminated some of the more modest intellects at work in the decolonialist/fallist landscape.

Measured thinking, prosaic rationality and real ideas did not appear to be a driving force in most of the year’s big events.

Somewhat beyond the realm of “serious” politics, lots of at least moderately intelligent if chronically maladjusted people appeared to forget that social media is, well, social, and went ahead and made complete asses of themselves in public by - almost creditably - simply being their deeply unattractive selves, calling others animal names, or wishing the worst for “racial” categories to which they think they don’t belong.

KwaZulu-Natal real estate agent Penny Sparrow started the ball rolling in January by referring to black beach-goers as “monkeys” - she was later lumped with a sizeable R150 000 fine for her mean sentiments - and umpteen others followed suit. Among them was the benighted Velaphi Khumalo, who took the trouble of sharing his thoughts with the world on why, for instance, white-skinned people deserved to be dealt with in the manner of Jews under Hitler.

This was strong meat, and he was duly suspended from his job at the Gauteng Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation - until, a few months and a disciplinary hearing later, Khumalo went back to work, having received a talking to, and a final warning. His job as sports promoter, the department said without a hint of irony, would be aimed at “getting Gauteng active”, clearly not a post a slapped wrist disqualified him for.

These and other racist outbursts, according to more febrile news organisations, were said to have “rocked” the country - which of course they didn’t. They set fire to social media (prompting an ill-judged effort to criminalise nasty thinking in a new hate speech law), but, as calmer citizens know, that's not the same.

What did rock the country, in August, was the ruling ANC’s unprecedented reverses in the local government elections, with the DA (here and there aided by a modestly advancing EFF) consolidating its metropolitan foothold. And, in case we forget it, this was a mostly peaceful election that demonstrated a popular commitment to democracy, not revolution.

There were further rockings down the road - almost all related to Jacob Zuma’s marred presidency, although, as they were not entirely unexpected, the effect was less than seismic. In the words of prominent Zuma critic Sipho Pityana, what we got in 2016 was “a cataclysmic anti-climax”.

As evidence of the rot piled up - public protector Thuli Madonsela’s damning Nkandla report, Secure in Comfort; the Constitutional Court’s finding that president and Parliament had acted in a manner inconsistent with the constitution in their handling of the report; the later Madonsela report on state capture and the Guptas; Zuma’s initial attempt to block it, and the high-risk gamble of gunning for hostile Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan - many believed Zuma was finished.

Yet, as University of Pretoria professor Tinyiko Maluleke has observed: “As an experienced shepherd would marshal a herd of cattle on the rural plains of Lusikisiki, so has Jacob Zuma marshalled the NEC, the ANC parliamentary caucus, the cabinet and the alliance partners.” He went on to say that the top six in the ruling party, along with the rest of the ANC, “appear hypnotised by Zuma’s political footwork”.

South Africa scraped through with a reprieve from the ratings agencies - which had threatened to consign us to junk status - though there is scant sign of the policy reform most analysts believe is needed to turn the economy around.

This is a deficiency compounded by the staggering December announcement that we shall tackle democratic South Africa’s now 22-year-old education crisis by lowering the pass mark for maths in some grades to 20 percent.

And so the South African year ended pretty much as it began.

Writing in The Guardian recently, Simon Tisdall estimated that “(i)f he is to survive, Zuma must hope his many critics dislike each other more than they dislike him.” And there you have it - feelings will likely trump reason, again.

But there were good feelings, too, this year. In the Rio Olympics, stunning performances especially by athletes Wayde van Niekerk - winning the 400m gold on his way to shattering the great Michael Johnson’s 17-year-old world record - and Caster Semenya - who triumphed in the 800m event - put a real shine on South Africa’s total medal count of 10, the best haul by a national team in 96 years.

There was little to celebrate, however, in the Springboks’ 2016 performances, crowned in November by Italy’s historic first 20-18 win, condemning the Boks to their seventh loss in 11 Tests in the year.

Sporting spirits soared, though, at the Proteas’ emphatic Test series victory over Australia.

In a very different arena, South African opera star Pretty Yende - described in a British news report this year as “one of opera’s fastest rising divas, a star of Milan’s La Scala, New York’s Met and a top billing at London’s Covent Garden” - launched her debut solo album.

In a mostly applauded departure, the Nobel grandees gave the 2016 literary prize to a singer and songwriter who defined the sound and the sentiment of an era. Bob Dylan did not attend the December ceremony, but the speech read on his behalf conveyed a sense of his own seeming puzzlement. “That I now join the names on (the Nobel list)” he wrote, “is truly beyond words.”

History of a similarly rare quality was made in February when Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill signed an Ecumenical Declaration in the first such meeting between leaders of the Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches since their split in 1054. Such spiritual amity was not universal. Religious fervour and tribal antagonism played their part in continuing terror and counter-terror, with lethal attacks this year all over the world, including in Brussels, Istanbul, Lahore and Aleppo.

Better minds were focused on human achievement and planetary sustainability. In June Nasa's Juno spacecraft entered the orbit around Jupiter to begin a 20-month survey of the planet, and, in September, the agency launched Osiris-Rex, its first asteroid sample return mission.

Old technology lapsed in the manufacture of the very last videocassette recorder by Japanese company Funai on July 22. Just a few days later, the future was heralded when Solar Impulse 2 became the first solar-powered aircraft to circumnavigate the Earth.

The need for a switch to renewable energy was underscored in September when global CO2 levels exceeded 400 parts per million at a time of the year normally associated with minimum levels. This is believed to be higher than anything experienced in human history.

The grim reaper took his share of talent, expertise and fame in 2016. Big-name deaths included celebrity dictator Fidel Castro, ace guitarist Prince, boxing legend Mohammed Ali, soulful poet and singer Leonard Cohen, the inimitable David Bowie, and pioneering spaceman John Glenn.

Among other prominent and accomplished people who died in 2016 were composers Pierre Boulez and Peter Maxwell Davies, stellar architect Zaha Hadid, playwright Peter Shaffer, chess grandmaster Victor Korshoi, conductor Neville Marriner, golfer Arnold Palmer, statesman Shimon Peres, director Michael Cimino and actresses Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, along with leading writers Umberto Eco, Harper Lee, Anita Brookner, Michel Tournier, Michael Herr, Elie Wiesel, Alvin Toffler, Edward Albee and William Trevor.

Then, again, some among the year’s births - a staggering 340-odd million (upwards of 380 000 a day) - are likely to be remembered in generations to come as the marvels who breathed their first in 2016. Life, after all, does go on, the Trumps and Zumas and whatever must fall notwithstanding.

Weekend Argus

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