Kin Bentley In Line: English, SA art, Max Mamase, the 2004 elections, Jeremy Cronin

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

English, SA art, Max Mamase, the 2004 elections, Jeremy Cronin

It is possible for political correctness to destroy a country, particularly one with as contentious a history as South Africa has. I was a critic of the ill-suited outcomes-based education from the start (and it failed), and was quick to respond to another pie-in-the-sky plan regarding the use of African languages. My letter on this issue appeared in the Sunday Times, with a response the next week. This segment also includes a couple of art reviews, a few letters based on issues leading up to the 2004 elections and another dig at the communist, Jeremy Cronin.

My letter in the Sunday Times on the need to boost English literacy, along with another by a traditional leader. (Please click on the text to see it in larger format.)

Over and above working as a reporter and then a sub-editor on the Herald, in Port Elizabeth, from about 1993 till 2010 I was the art critic. I often brought present-day issues into my reviews, like this one from March, 2004.

A letter in the Sunday Times of March 3, 2004, disagreeing with my views on language.

The blurring of state and party was the subject of this letter, which appeared in the Herald on March 15, 2004. I first met Max Mamase when he worked for Van Zyl Slabbert's Institute for a Democratic Alternative for South Africa (Idasa) in the mid-1980s. Like so many other struggle veterans, he was seduced by the perks of political office post-1994.

My review of a major exhibition at Port Elizabeth's premier art gallery, which appeared in the Herald on March 25, 2004.

Another letter, this time in the Weekend Post, during the 2004 elections. This appeared on April 4 of that year.

My dig at the 0h-so-self-righteous Jeremy Cronin.

Another letter I had published in the Herald attacking the ANC.

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About this blog

This blog has morphed from one thing to the next, and will continue to do so.

The latest offerings are of a political nature, though the main role of the blog is to put online scanned versions of my sketches, which make up the bulk of the first part.

* Earlier, I returned to a project I suspended on September 12, 2011, namely posting clilppings from my writings in the Herald newspaper in Port Elizabeth. From those you'll have gleaned that I was first prevented from writing political letters and articles critical of the ANC government.

Then my art reviews came under fire - from the hallowed halls of academia, no less.

* Before this, I posted a series of book reviews and an account of recent travels.

* There is also a short autobiographical novel, Little K and the Big World.

Below is a summary of what was posted before that. (NB. To view pictures larger, hold down "shift" and left click on the mouse. Click again to see it even larger.)

* During the 27 years I have worked as a journalist, I have kept random samples of my work. Initially, when I joined the Evening Post in Port Elizabeth in 1984, I kept a scrapbook, so those first years – when the anti-apartheid struggle really started hotting up – are fairly well covered.

By the time I joined the Eastern Province Herald in about 1988, I’d stopped collecting my stories, but I have one article I wrote that year which I think captures the mood of those dark times.

During two years in the UK – 1990 and 1991– when I worked as a correspondent for the SA Morning Newspaper group, I kept no cuttings. The same applies to the early 1990s when, back on the Herald, I covered the gradual transition to democracy. After the April 27, 1994, first non-racial elections, I moved to the sub-editing department, where I have been ever since.

When Robert Mugabe started his crackdown in 2000, I took up the pen again in a big way – and was lucky to have been given space by then editor Ric Wilson to vent my spleen in the Herald. In between, I wrote numerous book reviews and art crits, which balance out the offerings. I began this section with the more recent stuff, from 2000 onwards, and will take up this project again in 2012.

* Having all but exhausted my sketches on this blog - though I have yet to post pictures of my paintings and a few carvings - I thought I would digress into other areas of interest, and use a few of my photographs to illustrate them.

As Thabo Mbeki and the ANC set about rubbishing everything to do with our colonial past, I found myself rather cherishing what our ancestors had done here, notwithstanding my obvious detestation of the apartheid system which, had Jannie Hofmeyr lived to succeed Smuts after the Second World War, may not have happened. It is interesting to note that the National Party came to power in 1948 despite polling 100 000 fewer votes than the United Party. This was the effect of "loading" the urban constituencies.

Anyway, the East Cape has seen a fair share of interesting history down the centuries, some of which is covered here.

There is also history in stamps and envelopes. A few years back I went to a Port Elizabeth antique shop in the hopes I could acquire some old SA stamps from my youth. At first things looked bleak. The dealer only had posh albums of expensive stamps. But wait, he said, I do have a couple of black bin bags cluttering up the place somewhere, full of useless old stamps and envelopes. He gave them to me for about R100, if I recall correctly.

From these I have made several postage stamp-based artworks, photos of which I'll be posting, eventually. I also discovered a treasure trove of envelopes which had been posted to the City Treasurer of the PE Municipality as well as to the Divisional Council and another whole batch sent by dealers around South Africa to the Ford Motor Company in PE. These all date from the early 1960s, so we're talking 50 odd years ago. Each envelope tells a story.

* Initially I started this blog to illustrate how I learnt the art of drawing, after many years of toil, and how, once learnt, this skill has accompanied me throughout my life.

At each step, since about the mid-1970s, I have, where possible, made drawings that are often a more telling record than any photographs.

You will find a plethora of styles and techniques, but the bottom line – forgive the pun – is an attempt to get at the visual truth. As we go along, I explain each work and how I came to do it – that is, where I remember precisely when they were made.

* Remember, as this is a blog, the story starts from the first post and works its way upwards, as it were.

Click on the images to see them in a larger format. If you want an image to fill your computer screen, press F11. Press the same key to escape.

My thanks, again, go to my son, Douglas, who was just 16 when he helped me put together the header for this blog. Most of the more creative ideas - and all the technical expertise - in this regard were his.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

English, SA art, Max Mamase, the 2004 elections, Jeremy Cronin

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