2010, and welcome to the world!

As we celebrate the New Year in South Africa, we are very excited about the 2010 World Cup, and the opportunity to welcome new visitors to our country. The stadiums are ready and all our international visitors are in for a treat!

Mr Sepp Blatter – apparently the head of Fifa – has been critical of South Africans for not being enthusiastic enough. I cannot say much about Mr Blatter, but I am sure he is an honourable man. He has been feted and wined by our Ministers and other officials whenever he comes here – I have seen it in the media – so he must be honourable.

I looked him up on Google – this man who, while no doubt honourable, has the nerve to tell us to be more enthusiastic about the World Cup.

I was interested to read about his nephew getting a very lucrative world cup contract (in the news just 2 days ago).

And apparently there is a journalist called Andrew Jennings, who has reported extensively on what he sees as the corrupt way in which the Hon Mr Blatter has governed world football for many years.

I am somehow reminded of the great speech by Mark Anthony:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him;
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones,
So let it be with Caesar ... The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it ...
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,
(For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all; all honourable men)
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral ...
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man….
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason…. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.


The Right Honourable Blatter has something still to learn if he thinks he is the King of South Africa, even for only a year. Whoever we as South Africans are, we are not the kind of people to come out on to the streets and cheer just because some Fifa official tells us to – even if he is very honourable. We will blow our vuvuzelas when we are ready.

Apartheid where it belongs – in a museum

Today I went again to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. On 23rd December, we did not expect it to be busy. We were wrong – there were hundreds of visitors – many from overseas and also many South Africans, of all shades and hues.

Visiting the Apartheid Museum is a moving experience – whatever your prior knowledge or experience of apartheid. It is difficult not to be moved when reading the official execution notice of Andrew Sibusiso Zondo (hung in 1986), or to read the words of Solomon Mahlangu before his execution in 1979 - "My blood will nourish the tree that will bear the fruits of freedom. Tell my people that I love them. They must continue the fight."

I was there with Gary Friedman. Gary is a puppeteer who lives now in Australia but whose heart is still in South Africa. Gary was the creator and master puppeteer with Puppets Against Apartheid in the 1980s, Puppets Against AIDS in the 1990s and Corporate Creatures (now). The Puppets Against Apartheid included caricatures of former President PW Botha (Pee Wee), Konstabel Kaaskop, Bishop Desmond Tutu, the green alien ‘CT’ who was unable to find a place where green people could live in South Africa, and various other memorable characters.

Working with puppets is an amazing way to communicate with people about very real issues in a medium that enables messages to be transmitted and taboos to be explored - whilst allowing us to laugh at ourselves at the same time. This was the power of Gary’s work, and was especially effective in addressing issues related to HIV and AIDS. The work that Gary and others did in prisons was incredibly valuable – giving prisoners the opportunity to become empowered in exploring what goes on in prisons in the context of HIV.

Gary still has many of the original puppets, and is now exploring a new home for them – we hope that the Apartheid Museum may be the right place!

Paul Keursten comes to South Africa in 2010!

My good friend and colleague Paul Keursten is moving to South Africa in the next few weeks. Paul is one of the founding partners of our company in Holland and, not the first and surely not the last Dutchman to fall in love with South Africa, is taking the great step of buying a one-way ticket and will be setting up home with his family here from January onwards.

Paul is an entrepreneurial visionary. He has the wonderful quality of being able to see and appreciate the opportunity in almost any situation! He doesn’t see problems or blockages, and when he experiences them first-hand finds them completely intriguing, and as opportunities for change, growth and learning. We are so lucky that he will be joining us here in South Africa!

One of the initiatives that Paul has pioneered is the SEE Trust. The germ of the SEE Trust idea came from his engagement with Susan Rammekwa and the work she is doing with the Tshepang project in Roodepoort. Susan is another incredible person. She has established an incredibly vibrant community project at Princess – near Westgate in Roodepoort, Johannesburg This project has at its heart a crèche-school for vulnerable children (that has grown from a mere handful to over 200 children now) from the community, who are educated, fed and cared for every day. Around the school, Susan has mobilised volunteers from the community and has established a computer centre, a sowing initiative, a large vegetable garden, and a feeding scheme for elderly community members – above all a community centre that people can involve themselves in and make a difference.

Around the Tshepang project, the SEE Trust plans to build some low cost rental accommodation and a high school (currently children from the community have to travel great distances every day to get to school). The Trust mobilises investors who take a stake in these initiatives.

This is an exciting initiative that seeks to transform communities and peoples’ lives – assuming that people will take responsibility – and provides a new developmental model liberated from the normal constraints of donor funding and ‘service delivery’. It will be very exciting to see how the SEE Trust plans unfold in the next few years. Paul, Ineke and Florian – welcome to your new home!