I Want To Be a Writer

 I want to write, where do I start! I guess you do, by doing. So I have to write to be a writer, there can't be any other way.

Is it easy as that, hammer on the keyboard! Word after word, after word! Words to paragraphs, chapters and voila a book is born!

It isn't as easy as that! It takes a lot of reading  and writing.

You have to read a lot to be a writer. Read everything you can lay hand on, more especially in your line of writing.

I am set on this journey. I will take you along, share every step of the way.

MEDIA24 2020 LITERARY AWARDS

Media24 Publishers 2020 literary awards are an all-white affair! So much so for South Africa's over two decades of freedom which were meant to bury apartheid roots and all.

                                          Guyo Bookshop, Makhado Town, Limpopo

But then Media24 publishers are not of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu's rainbow people of God. They are of the old South Africa of white domination in every aspects of society, including publishing and its subsidiary activities like like literary prizes.

The awards were rightly met by outrage by right thinking people in general and black people in particular.

As if the disregard of black writers and literary experts was not an insult enough, Media24 dismissed their crimes as a mere oversight which will be addressed by the inclusion of more black people in the judging panels. This amendment to the judging protocols falls far short to what is desirable for a free and democratic South Africa.

The problem is not in the judging panel, it is in the untransformed nature of Media24 Publishers. Media24 publishes minority languages and therefore primed the literary prizes to produce white winners even if you have an all-black judging panel.

Anything that doesn't touch the status quo will perpetuate the apartheid inequalities.

The onus is on black writers and their organisations like National Writers Association of South Africa to fight the apartheid-era inequalities in publishing and take over the publishing industry and make it representative of the demographics of the country - nothing less and nothing more.

TITO TITUS MBOWENI IS TRIED AND TRIED

The new Minister of Finance, Tito Titus Mboweni is tried and tested in any imaginable field - he rose through the ranks of the ANC, spending time in exile, to serving in the national executive committee of the liberation movement.

After the unbanning of the ANC he became part of the Economics Sub-

Committee and went on to serve in the first democratic cabinet of Nelson Mandela as Minister of Labour where pioneered South Africa's post apartheid labour relations legislation which continues in operation to this day.

Analysts reckon he was a key member of Mandela's Dream Team of economic pragmatists, who they herald as smart and greatly admired.

Mboweni was later appointed the eighth governor of the South African Reserve Bank and the first black South African to occupy that position. 

As Minister of Finance Tito Mboweni will be put in charge of South Africa's R1,5 trillion national budget.

Under the difficult political and economic circumstances, only a tried and tested cadre of the calibre of Mboweni would do the job.

Tito Mboweni is tried and tested.

RAMAPHOSA COMES OF AGE

President Cyril Ramaphosa has just completed his First 100 Days in office. It is the days in office, universally viewed as enough to measure success or failure by a political office bearer. Bearing the universal expectation on them, incumbents set themselves targets of their First 100 Days in office.

Incumbents normally choose what are called low lying, easy to pick fruits.

Low lying fruits clothe incumbents in glory and success after their first days in office.

Ramaphosa had no such luxuries and comforts. His performance indicators were chosen for him. He had to swim and drown. There was just no easy way out.

He inherited a country in near ruin because of corruption and maladministration. The country was generally a banana republic not preferred by investors. International economic rating agencies downgraded the country to junk status. The situation was growing bad day by day.

Ramaphosa was not in an enviable situation.

He had taken this positions with his eyes wide open, fully aware of the state the country was in. It was a tall order, he was made to fit though.

Looking back he has showered himself in the glory success. Confidence in the country has returned. South Africa is once more a preferred investment destinations, its rating has improved remarkably.

Some smart cabinet changes have been made, notably the return of Nhlanhla Nene and Pravin Gordhan at Treasury and Public Enterprises respe tively. This goes to show he means business he cleanses the stables like Hercules in Greed mythology.

State Owned Enterprises have undergone far-reaching changes in their boards and administrations. Their bail out days are over, they now have to fund their way around the mandates.

The South African Revenue Services has had the winds of change sweep across its administration to restore it to its days of excellence.

A cursory glance at a few aspects of Ramaphosa's First 100 Days places him as a success story and a super headache for his detractors from the oppossition and within the ranks of the ANC.

With Captain Ramaphosa at the helm, South Africa is destined to a tomorrow that's better than today.

Out ten I score him eight. The score could have easily been a ten out of ten, but then he is only human and fallible.

Life Goes On in South Africa

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ME AND MY BOOKS

I love books. I have always loved books, from a young age I have been reading. This was from when I couldn't afford to buy books and there were no libraries. I relied on handouts, secondhands and book exchanges to attempt to satisfy my insatiable habit for reading.

This was until I went to college and my first encounter with a library full of all sorts of books. I was like a child in a candy store, spoilt for choice. I didn’t know what to read and what to leave out. I thought I would read them all in a short time. I was at college for three years and I was nowhere near reading a fraction of the books in the library at the time of my graduation.

I read as much as I could during my three years at college. I had also begun to  collect books by myself from my meagre pocket money and money from my holiday jobs. I bought  my books one title at a time. Over many years I have hoarded a substantial collection of books. I buy books regularly. When a book is published I am on it.

I am lagging way behind in reading all the books in my collections. This didn't work in the beginning because I bought more than I could read. To mitigate this discrepancy I have suspended the purchases of new books for the next two years.  I think that by that time I would have devoured all the books in my collections and ready to replenish new titles.

This is me and my books, we belong to the same WhatsApp Group.

READING : Woman in the Wings Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and the Race for the Presidency, Carien Du Plessis

This is the  book that I have just started reading. It is about Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma,  member of the ANC National Executive Committee, ANC Member of Parliament and frontrunner for party presidency. Until recently she was Chairperson of the African Union Commission. Before that she served in the Cabinets of Nelson Mandela,  Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma as Minister of Health,  Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs.

I'll publish a review of the book when I am finished with it.