Читать книгу In your face - Rhoda Kadalie - Страница 5

RHODA KADALIE’S writing never evokes a neutral reaction. It is either liked or disliked. Between this fraught continuum, the gamut of reactions to her opinion columns over the years is reflected in some pieces in this new publication whose very title evokes Rhoda Kadalie’s expository bearing: here are the basics of truth-telling. Reading her is guaranteed never to be a dull moment.

South Africa since 1994 has never seen a dull moment. Change has driven the excitement at the heart of our public life. Policy changes in the entire range of national life were a key feature of the Mandela presidency. Implementing those policies can be said to have been the key objective of the Mbeki presidency. Indeed, change has been a consistent feature of our national life in the last fifteen years.

The lively witness of Rhoda Kadalie’s pen has been in synchrony with South Africa’s unrelenting change. How has our engagement with that change, a central feature of our dramatic history, been shaping our national character. Public figures, private or public organisations and institutions, have an enormous capacity to shape and influence public opinion and behaviour. That is why in a democracy it is mandatory that they deserve our closest scrutiny.

Rhoda Kadalie is one of South Africa’s public agents on behalf of that mandate. The import of her focus on any public figures who happen to be in her sights is about their credibility, their judgement, and the choices they make against the standards they have declared themselves to be measured against. They can either affirm or condemn themselves in their expressed thoughts and actions. Thought and action in public figures are self-defining. By the time Rhoda Kadalie writes about them, they have already assessed themselves, even though at times they may want us to believe what is contrary to the real visual or conceptual import of what they have done. This disparity is what raises Rhoda Kadalie’s ire.

The same goes for the behaviour of organisations and institutions: their credibility, judgement, and choices, and the often lack of consistency between self assessment and the actual reality of the outcome of some of their actions.

I once thought that her unrelenting forthrightness could eventually be dismissed as her ‘usual thing’. That has not happened. What rescues her writing from the predictability of sameness is precisely the varied reactions it evokes. They guarantee the freshness of impact. It is a total package of forthrightness, passion, strong belief, strong-mindedness, and unflinching witness.

And so, In Your Face – Passionate Conversations about People and Politics is guaranteed to please, annoy, embarrass, amuse, unnerve, anger, frustrate, empower, cajole, and even revolt. Profoundly, Rhoda Kadalie invites you to yourself, to your own thoughts and feelings, and their implications for your own interactions with the world around you. For this reason, she will always make you look over your shoulder. She performs a vital service to ensure a lively and self-aware democracy.

njabulo s ndebele

October 2008