The Year of the Yay

As the two and a half avid followers of my little blog know, the end of last year did not leave me particularly inspired about the world. Not just the end of the year, the entire second half really. One horrendous and depressing event after the other just grayed South Africa and Cape Town with a haze of discontent and longing for another reality. But the year has been swept from centre stage to recycling depot and twenty-thirteen has shimmied its way out of the wings. I have high expectations for twenty-thirteen; at the very least it can't be worse than twenty-twelve. Below is my list of five things that I hope will transform my laments of last year into something less Old Testament, and into something a little more Madiba Jive.

1. Minimum Norms and Standards for South African schools
Sure, it would have been great if civil society didn't have to take the government to court to demand them to generate a document that should have been compiled shortly after Romulus and Remus got into their little tiff about where to build Rome. Point is, after much protesting and politicking, the Department of Basic Education has to pull itself towards itself this year and outline a set of infrastructural norms and standards for every school. Now, whether such a set of norms and standards will actually result in every school having a sufficient number of toilets and an abundance of window panes is not immediately guaranteed, but it's a step in that direction and it's a step so tangible you can smell the sweat of the activists whose marching feet forced Ms Motshekga into court.

2. The Khayelitsha Police Commission of Inquiry
The first response of the women at the Wellness Centre in Khayelitsha--where I've wiled away a good many days in the last 18 months--to my announcement that I would be taking the bus out to them instead of my car, was that I should never, ever walk in the stretch of Bonga Drive in front of the school. I've driven that stretch so often its every pothole is jaggedly etched in my mind and I've never seen anything worthy of concern, but the women assure me; it's just not safe there. That intuitive feeling of insecurity, that almost imperceptible anxiety that has spent so long on your skin it has become normal, that edginess balanced between fear and content: no one should have to live with that. But in Khayelitsha, as in so many parts of South Africa, many people do. What makes it all the more upsetting in Khayelitsha is that the people charged with protecting residents and for ensuring the visibility of justice are so wholly unsuccessful at fulfilling their mandate. And so the people asked for an inquiry into policing in Khayelitsha. As can be expected, it was first accepted by some, then rejected by others, taken to court, protested outside of court and on December 13 the legality of the commission was heard. While judgement was reserved, I'm putting this on my list because the commission must just take place and I have faith that the judiciary will make the right call.

3. Design Capital Craziness
Yes, yes, I know Cape Town is only the 2014 Design Capital of the World but 2013 will be the year of buildup, which means that like in 2009, people will be employed to buff and shine lampposts, the City will distribute thousands of generically geometrically designed maps (which are mostly useless but well-intentioned) and gaaitjies the Main Road over will have plenty of opportunity to practice the Dutch and German phrases they picked up the last time Western Europe descended en masse to the Mother City. Ofcourse the dark side of it all is the sweeping away of homeless people who live in the City Bowl, along with the other less human flotsam; all cobbled together in the squirming bundle that privilege likes to ignore. Oh, no, wait, no doom and gloom, no no, it's lucky number twenty-thirteen! Maybe the homeless will be allowed to stay so that visiting Instagrammers can take filtered pictures of their romantic destitution, add in a caption borrowed from Chinua Achebe and post it up on their Google+ pages to show how deeply Africa has moved them. Sigh. Look, I think the employment of lamppost buffers and shiners still counts as a win.

4. Cyril Ramaphosa
Controversial, I know. But I'm still looking forward to seeing how his Deputy Presidency of the ANC translates in practice. My optimism is premised on the belief that ANC party politics cannot get any messier than they already are and that Ramaphosa's wealth, while immense, seems more legitimate than most. I don't think he managed his role at Marikana very well, at all, but in the spirit of the new year and second chances, I think that he is able to manage situations like Marikana. He has the background for it--his role in NUM and in the negotiations preceding '94 indicate his competencies--and he's been out of mainstream politics long enough not to have earned the scorn of too many. Also, he respects Motlanthe and he doesn't strike me as the easily manipulatable type, so I'm hopeful that he'll facilitate a dignified exit for Motlanthe that won't make us bear witness to another Mbeki-esque ousting. A hundred years ago when I was on my high school debating team, Ramaphosa was one of our go-to examples of good government officials. Admittedly, that was a while ago but I still like him a hell of a lot more than some of his colleagues.

5. The DA's bright blue Tshirts
I am not the biggest fan of politicians and political parties, no matter their colour of Tshirts. When it comes to social change, I'm a facta non verba kinda person. And politics is way too verba heavy for my liking. So why do the DA's bright blue Tshirts excite me? Simple, they symbolize the lighter side of politics. The side that I can poke fun at, critique, mock and shake my head at. The picture of Helen Zille in her floppy Khaki hat and bright blue Tshirt marching the streets of rural Kwa-Zulu Natal and wagging her PW Botha finger in the black policeman's face could not have been caricatured better. I am not pro-ANC, nor am I pro-DA (if anything I'm pro dismantling every Focauldian institution that regulates my life but that's a dream I'll have to hold onto for a while) but I am unequivocally pro political fashion. Viva the brightly coloured Tshirt that the DA does so well, VIVA!

And so, with one last glance to the wheelie bin of twenty-twelve, I fix my eyes onto the year of yay that will be twenty-thirteen, and thank every god that ever was and wasn't that even if the year starts to fester, I'll always have a cup or twenty-thirteen of rooibos tea.