Tag Archives: Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Table Mountain reaches New7Wonders of Nature climax, for the wrong reasons!

Just when all of Cape Town, and even South Africa, is feverishly voting to make Table Mountain a New7Wonders of Nature when voting closes today, damning articles were published yesterday in the Cape Times and The Guardian, questioning the credibility of this competition.

The Guardian wrote that the 4-year competition has become controversial, with some countries having been charged millions of dollars for the marketing use of the campaign.  In its final leg of voting, to select the top seven ‘natural landscapes and places’, a short-list of 28 includes Table Mountain, the Great Barrier Reef, the Maldives, Mount Kilimanjaro, Uluru, the Dead Sea, and the Amazon rainforest.  Charged a mere $199 registration fee to enter initially, some participating countries have since been charged exorbitant fees for a global marketing campaign, leading to the threatened withdrawal from the competition by the Maldives and the Komodo Island national park in Indonesia.  The organisers have encouraged these two attractions to remain in the competition, without any further payment.

Past CEO of Cape Town Tourism and past Mayor of Cape Town, Gordon Oliver, is quoted in The Guardian as asking: “What authority does this organisation have to determine a natural wonder as a finalist? It’s important that our authorities get the credentials of such organisations who set themselves up as the authority to decide the prominence of natural features”. The New7Wonders Foundation has denied charging excessive fees, yet it has confirmed that there are fees to be paid if the Foundation’s branding is used. A spokesperson said that the income derived from the competition funds the running of the competition and ‘maintaining a voting platform’.

In its lead story yesterday, the Cape Times wrote a damning report about the New7Wonders competition, the Foundation earning half of the R2 SMS fee per vote (potentially generating up to R1 billion, if it achieves its goal of 1 billion votes). The report also states that the campaign does not have any standing with international official or scientific bodies.  It has no relationship to UNESCO, which governs the World Heritage sites.  The article also quotes Oliver, and he asks what additional benefit the New7Wonders of Nature title would have.  Being based purely on a vote by SMS or on MXit restricts the campaign to a vote by cellphone and computer owners, and does not reflect the views of the ‘entire world’, said a UNESCO spokesperson, the organisation having distanced itself from the campaign.  The City of Cape Town confirmed that it has spent R1,7 million on advertising country-wide, to encourage South Africans to vote for Table Mountain.  The City has justified its expenditure , in that Table Mountain has made it to the finalist list of 28, from 440 initial entrants.   It also quoted research by Grant Thornton (the consultants who grossly over-estimated the economic value of the World Cup), which estimated that Cape Town specifically and South Africa generally could benefit from being named a New7Wonder of Nature, through an increase of R1,4 billion in tourism revenue.

We have seen that the accolades which Cape Town has received this year, including being named top world travel destination by TripAdvisor, have had little benefit for tourism to date, and therefore question the value of the New7Wonders competition for tourism.  Earlier this week it was announced that votes for Table Mountain were lagging badly behind those of many other finalists destinations.  It has been noticeable that Cape Town Tourism has given Table Mountain little support for its New7Wonders of Nature campaign, despite Sabine Lehmann, Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company CEO and driver of the Table Mountain New7Wonders campaign, being a Board member of the tourism body.

Voting for the Top New7Wonders of Nature will end at 11h11 GMT (13h11 in South Africa) today, 11 November 2011, reports The Guardian.  In a Southern African Tourism Update article received last night, it is announced that the result will be announced at 21h00 in the V&A Waterfront this evening. www.new7wonders.com

POSTSCRIPT 11/11: I read the City of Cape Town’s ad properly after writing this blogpost – it features Archbishop Tutu with outstretched arms, standing on top of Table Mountain, so badly photographed by Oryx Multi Media that he is unrecognisable.  It also contains a quote by him: “I really can understand how, when God created all that there is he said, ‘I think I’ve got to do something special here’. And so God produced this fantastic gateway in the South – Table Mountain – our mountain, what a wonder!”. Over-optimistically, the ad claims boldly that becoming a New7 Wonders of Nature will ‘boost the South African economy by R1,4 billion per annum’, and that ‘11000 new jobs will be created’.

POSTSCRIPT 11/11 21h15: Table Mountain has just been announced as one of the New7Wonders of Nature, with the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil, Halong Bay in Vietnam, Iguazu Falls in Argentina, Jeju Island in South Korea, Komodo in Indonesia, and Puerto Princesa Underground River in the Phillipines.  What is extraordinary is that the organisers write that the list of seven is provisional, and subject to verification, as late as the start of 2012!

POSTSCRIPT 12/11: Tourism consultants Grant Thornton have issued a media release today, predicting that Table Mountain’s inclusion in the New7Wonders of Nature will attract 108000 new tourists per annum, and that this translates to additional tourism revenue of R 1,4 billion per year, for the next five years.

POSTSCRIPT 12/11: City of Cape Town Mayoral Committee member for Tourism Grant Pascoe has been extensively quoted in Kfm news reports this morning, stating that Table Mountain’s inclusion as a New7Wonders of Nature will boost tourism and create jobs, emphasising the latter in particular.  One hopes that the expectations he is creating will not be dashed!

POSTSCRIPT 12/11: The organisers of the New7Wonders of Nature have found a new way to generate income, and announced last night that they are starting a new campaign to choose the New7Wonders Cities, for which city nominations close on 31 December.

POSTSCRIPT 13/11: A surprise sentiment is expressed in a media release sent today by Cape Town Routes Unlimited, its CEO Calvyn Gilfellan subtly requesting lower rates for ‘ordinary people’ to go up Table Mountain: “We want to salute the thousands of ordinary South Africans who voted for Table Mountain, and whose support ensured that the city’s iconic peak was named one of the New7Wonders of Nature. These ordinary people, we believe, stand tall among the real heroes in this accomplishment. Together with the official organizing committee, they deserve our richest praise and congratulations. Now the challenge is to make Table Mountain, and the rest of Cape Town’s tourist attractions usually associated with visitors who have deep pockets, more accessible to ordinary people. After all, it was the ordinary people who stood up to vote for Table Mountain. We at Cape Town Routes Unlimited, the official destination marketing voice of Cape Town and the Western Cape, stand ready to assist with this”.

POSTSCRIPT 13/11: Earlier this week provincial Tourism Minister Alan Winde did a tandem jump from Signal Hill, taking a ‘leap of faith‘ in the vote for Table Mountain.  He said: “As nervous as I am for this jump, I am far more nervous about this vote”. The Minister stated that the win for Table Mountain would mean a 20 % increase in tourism numbers, reported the Cape Argus.

POSTSCRIPT 4/5: The status of Table Mountain as a New7Wonders of Nature has finally been confirmed, six months after Cape Town’s landmark received a provisional award, subject to a voting audit.  All seven New7Wonders of Nature have had their status confirmed.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage

Toffie Food Festival:’Hunger for Freedom’ a ‘gastro-political’ tribute to Nelson Mandela!

One of the highlights of the Toffie Food Festival and Conference was the entertaining and informative talk by Dr Anna Trapido, author of  ‘Hunger for Freedom – The Story of Food in the Life of Nelson Mandela’,  which came alive for all of us through a most unusual lunch. 

Inspired by Dr Trapido’s book, TASTE  magazine and Woolworths had created a 19-course meal, each course individually packaged and numbered, and packed in a  paper bag with a legend, referencing each item with a phase in Madiba’s life.  The idea was that the delegates were to collectively eat their food from the packet as Dr Trapido talked us through each of the stages of Madiba’s life, and explained the meaning of food to him in each of these stages.  It was a tremendous amount of information to comprehend in the hour, and I was very fortunate to obtain Dr Trapido’s notes after the presentation.

Dr Trapido told us that her book is not a cookbook, but rather a ‘gastro-political biography’, and demonstrated that one comes full circle to one’s beginning through the food one eats. Foods we like says who we are, she said, and food can be used to express love, dislike, wealth, poverty, protest, celebration, and reconciliation.  A number of women were important in Madiba’s life in preparing food for him, but are not recognised in his biographies.   Madiba’s fellow prisoners have been interviewed, and tell the same story over and over again.  Telling the story of Madiba’s life via his food is unique.  She quoted Madiba as saying: “I was not born with a hunger to be free.  I was born free. Free in every way that I could know…. It was only when I learnt that my boyhood freedom was an illusion … that I began to hunger for it.”

Madiba’s story commenced in Mvezo, born as Rolihlahla Mandela on 18 July 1918, and here his mother Nosekeni gave him Amasi to drink, still his favourite sour milk drink.  ‘Amasi is the ricotta of Southern Africa’, said Dr Trapido.  Madiba wrote about amasi:“I long for amasi – the food for which I loved to sharpen my teeth and to stretch out my tummy, the act that I really enjoyed, went straight into my blood and into my heart and that produced perfect contentment.” 

As a teenager Madiba’s father lost his job as headman, and he therefore sent his wives and children to their respective traditional homes.  Madiba spent his teenage years in Qunu, his mother’s home, and here he met Winnie Matyolo at school, who became his first girlfriend.  This was a posh family, eating with cutlery.  When he went to eat at her home, they tried to discourage the courtship by preparing a half-cooked chicken and giving Madiba cutlery, which he had never previously used.  The chicken went flying off the plate.  The girlfriend’s sister mocked his inability to eat with cutlery, to which the girlfriend replied that she would teach him.  Each delegate had a chicken wing in their lunch pack, and was challenged to eat it with the plastic knife and fork in our pack!

At the Clerksbury Boarding School Madiba often was given a scone with apricot jam by Mrs Harris, the headmaster’s wife, a ‘royal feast’ for him at the time, and a taste he did not forget.  In 1938 he went to study at Fort Hare University, but was expelled the following year for supporting a strike by the kitchen staff.  Madiba moved to Johannesburg, living with the Xhoma family, and through them he met Walter Sisulu, an ANC activist, and a number of later leaders of the ANC Youth League, Oliver Tambo being one of them.  Through Sisulu, an estate agent who brought lots of conveyancing work to the law firm Witkin, Sidelsky & Eidelman, Madiba was employed as an articled clerk as a favour to Sisulu.  Saving his money to buy candles with which to study through UNISA at night, he was often hungry at work.  His colleague Nat Bregman shared his pastrami sandwich, by asking Madiba to pull it, as we did with our neighbour at the Festival, and this represented the Communist Party, which shared everything, Madiba was told.  In Johannesburg he met the Naidoo family, and Manonomany Naidoo made a meal of crab curry and rice, the first time that Madiba ate curry and crabs, disliking the taste initially, but he became fond of Indian food generally, and crab curry specifically, over time.

In Johannesburg Madiba met Walter Sisulu’s cousin Evelyn in 1944, and they married a year later. They were married for twelve years and had four children.  In this period he became a lawyer, father, and political activist.   Evelyn was a nurse, and kept the family afloat financially initially.  He loved having his own home, and inviting guests, unannounced to his wife, for dinners.  He planted a peach tree in the garden, the fruit of which went into many favorite dishes. In 1952 a Defiance Campaign for the Defence of Unjust Laws was initiated by the ANC, and Madiba was its Volunteer-in-Chief.   In five months after its launch, 8000 people were imprisoned for using ‘Whites only’ facilities.  It led to a six-month banning order, and Madiba was not allowed to leave Johannesburg, or talk to more than one person at one time.  His wife was happy to have her husband at home for dinner more often!  Madiba and Oliver Tambo opened a law firm in 1953, and many cases related to food, drink and land, e.g. women brewing and selling beer in Cato Manor, and prison labourers exploited on potato farms. The ANC’s Freedom Charter was adopted in 1956, but led to the arrest of Madiba and many others, to be released on bail.  It was Madiba’s political commitments and Evelyn’s religious dedication that led to the failure of the marriage, and they divorced in 1957.  Madiba and the Rivonia trialists were served Besan Ladoo by Thayanagee Pillay for the five years of the trial, as were we as delegates.  Black persons were not allowed to drink alcohol, so George Bizos, their lawyer, served small tots of alcohol, in case there was a police raid. 

Madiba met Winnie, the first social worker in Soweto and a very attractive socialite, featured in DRUM magazine, and it was love at first sight, in that Madiba asked her to marry him at the first lunch they had at a Johannesburg restaurant, one of only two at which Black persons were allowed to eat. She was less enamoured with the lunch, as they were served curry, a dish she had never eaten before, and it made her eyes water and her nose run.  They married a year later. For the wedding at Winnie’s family home in Bizana, Madiba and his friends had to obtain special permission to have the conditions of their banning order relaxed, to attend.  Winnie removed the top layer of the wedding cake, and wanted to take it to Madiba’s family in Qunu, but as they only had 6 days before returning to Johannesburg, Winnie returned with the wedding cake. For the next thirty years it accompanied Winnie: For me, it became a symbol of our love.  I kept it in memory of our wedding and in hopes of a life that never was.  There I was, the most unmarried woman.  I had never lived with him…The cake was really all I knew about marriage… I clung to the cake…”.  In 1988 the cake was destroyed, when the family house burnt down in Soweto.

After the treason trial collapsed in 1961, Umkhonto weSizwe was formed, with Madiba as Commander-in-Chief, and the High Command included Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and Joe Slovo.   Madiba went into hiding at Lilliesleaf Farm in Rivonia.  Winnie was smuggled in on occasion, and was very upset when her husband cooked her a lovely steak and pea, and fruit platter lunch, it looking far too perfect, and made her suspicious as to who had taught Madiba.  In 1961 Madiba went on a trip through Africa, to collect monies for the ANC.  On his return, he went to Durban to report back to Chief Luthuli, head of the ANC.  Madiba ate at the home of the Naidoo’s, who made him a feast of chicken and mutton curry.  On his return, Madiba was arrested.  In 1962 Madiba was charged with inciting a strike and leaving the country without a valid travel permit.  He was sentenced to five years on Robben Island.  Food rations were very sparse.  Prisoners went on a hunger strike, and they were punished with hard labour.  A raid of Lilliesleaf Farm led to the arrest of the Umkhonto weSizwe High Command, and Madiba’s link to it was uncovered, and he returned to Pretoria to stand trial.  He had lost a lot of weight, and fellow trialist Denis Goldberg passed him a piece of chocolate, which the judge saw, as it was visible in Madiba’s cheek.  In 1964 the accused were sentenced to life imprisonment, and sent to Robben Island.  Here food was allocated on the basis of population group.  Black prisoners were given a 250g mealie, 250g vegetables, 15g fat, 1 cup of coffee, 55g phuzamandla, 15g salt, and 60g meat per day, without any bread.  Coloured and Indian prisoners were served 250g bread, 250g vegetables, 30g fat, 2 cups of coffee, 15g salt, 60g sugar, and 110g meat.  Only 16 years later the meals at Robben Island were ‘de-racialised’.  Warders and prison gangsters stole the meat and the warders urinated at their food when they worked outside.  Offences by prisoners were ‘rewarded’ with meals being taken away, and rice water only was served to prisoners in the isolation cells (we received some too in our lunch pack, but were advised not to drink it, due to its awful taste).  Food was smuggled in, e.g. by  a Hindu priest, who dropped some chillies on the floor, from which the prisoners used the seeds to plant on the island, to spice up their food, mixed with olive oil which they could request for ‘constipation’ from the hospital, to make their food more palatable.  Dullah Omar’s wife Farida regularly tried to smuggle in food via his briefcase, but it was usually found and confiscated.  She did manage to get bananas through on one occasion.  Messages were transferred from studying prisoners, who had access to cellotape, and sealed messages with it at the bottom of the pots.  At Christmas the prisoners earned the right to buy sugar, dried fruit and cocoa from the prison shop.  Using pieces of bread, cocoa, sugar and currants soaked in phuzamandla, they made themselves a Christmas cake.

In 1982 Madiba, Walter Sisulu and some other prisoners were transferred to Pollsmoor, and here the food was much better. Dullah Omar’s smuggling of his wife’s samoosas, rotis and curries was much more successful.  At this time, then-President PW Botha and Henry Kissinger argued over the release of Madiba over a malva pudding, according to Francois Ferreira, then PW Botha’s chef.  A bout of TB allowed Madiba to be sent to Constantiaberg Medi-Clinic, the first Black patient in this hospital.  Kind nurses smuggled in ‘real’ food, like pizzas, chocolate mousse, and even arranged a Christmas party in his room.  He started learning social mores from the nurses.  In 1988 Madiba was moved to Victor Verster, and lived in a prison warders’ house (now called Mandela House), kitted out with a microwave oven, fridge, stove, toaster, and a personal chef, being Warrant Officer Jack Swart, who taught Madiba to make gemmerbier.  In 1989 Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, and two more prisoners were released, in the same year that FW de Klerk became State President. 

On 11 February 1990 Madiba walked his first steps to freedom out of Victor Verster with his wife Winnie, spoke to the people of South Africa from the Cape Town City Hall balcony, and spent the first night at the home of Archbishop Desmond Tutu.   They didn’t know what Madiba liked to eat, so they prepared Tutu’s favourite meal.  Madiba’s first meal of freedom was chicken curry with rice, and rum and raisin ice cream with custard.   Returning to Johannesburg, he re-connected with Mrs Pillay and Mrs Naidoo, as well as his old colleague Nat Bregman.  In 1992 Madiba and Winnie divorced, and Madiba moved to Houghton.  Xoliswa Ndoyiya is his cook, and has been cooking for him for the past twenty years, making tripe, oxtail, isophu, umbhakho, dombolo and umxhaxha.  Madiba won the Nobel Peace Price with FW de Klerk in 1993. In May 1994 Madiba was inaugurated as the new Present of South Africa.  His inauguration dinner was organised by the National Party, and the meal consisted of some non-South African dishes, such as Mexican chicken and Spanish rice, but potjiekos and bobotie were included on the menu, as was the only traditional dish umngqusho.  The meal was served with Graham Beck sparkling wine.

Madiba used food as reconciliation, and invited all former First Ladies to a dinner.  Betsie Verwoerd declined, but invited Madiba to come for tea in Orania, a White-only community.  He accepted, being the first Black person to visit Orania, and she served koeksisters.  Mrs Verwoerd commented afterwards that Madiba was a ‘real gentleman’.  We laughed when Dr Trapido told a story about a trip by Madiba to the United Kingdon, staying at the Dorchester Hotel, where he missed his traditional food.  He demanded that umphokoqo be flown in from home, the container wrapped up to look like a present, so that it could get through Customs. Madiba’s PA Zelda la Grange was on standby to contact then-Prime Minister Tony Blair to intervene, should the important package not find its way to the Dorchester Hotel!

Madiba met Graça Machel in 1990, and she visited the family home in Qunu with Madiba in 1996 for the first time, making a traditional Mozambican Christmas meal, with prawns, crabs and other seafood.  The family had never eaten such foods, and craved meat, but over the years they have come to love ‘Aunty Graça’s’ seafood.  Since his third marriage, Madiba has been encouraged to breakfast later, and to eat what he enjoys, e.g. Frosties with warm milk, double toffee ice cream, and ribs.  Madiba moved to Qunu recently, and is expected to stay there, having gone back full circle to where he started his love for traditional Xhosa food.

‘Hunger for Freedom – The Story of Food in the Life of Nelson Mandela’,  Anna Trapido.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com  Twitter:@WhaleCottage

World Design Capital 2014: Cape Town visit not reflective of city’s design wealth!

The visit by two judges from the Montreal-based International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, Dilki de Silva and Martin Darbyshire, to evaluate Cape Town’s bid for World Design Capital 2014, ended off on a better note than its start, at least as far as the weather was concerned!  The judges left town yesterday, after a jam-packed visit.

Oddly, the tourism industry was not informed prior to the visit what exactly the judges would be exposed to, and other than Twitter, there was barely any communication from the Cape Town Partnership, nor Cape Town Tourism, or the City of Cape Town during their visit.  Cape Town Tourism would not even share the itinerary of the judges’ visit after their departure, but fortunately Cape Town Partnership Managing Director Bulelwa Makalima-Ngewana obliged immediately on receiving our request.

The judges were put through an active programme of activities, arriving on Sunday when the city was blowing a storm, perhaps apt as the new Cape Town Tourism video is all about depicting the city with billowing clouds over Table Mountain!  The judges had flown in from Dublin, and residents of Cape Town would have known that something was different, with yellow material wrapped around 100 trees on Heerengracht Street, and the lights shining on Table Mountain having been changed to yellow over the three day visit of the judges.  The bid company Cape Town Town Partnership had used yellow as the colour for its bid, to represent optimism, and it was chosen as ‘an attention-grabbing, creative and inspirational colour.  We chose it to represent our World Design Capital  bid and it represents our passion for design as a force for change.’

On arrival at Cape Town International on Sunday morning the judges were shown the World Design Capital 2014 stand which had been designed for the Design Indaba exhibition in February, a rainbow-coloured perspex structure on which Design Indaba attendees were invited to write their words of inspiration about the city.  The two judges were driven to the city centre in a MyCiti bus, and from the Civic Centre bus station to the Taj Hotel in a Green Cab.  The judges had Sunday afternoon off, a waste of time one would have thought, given that the city centre is dead on Sundays.  There was no rest for the judges thereafter, being driven to the Cape Town International Convention Centre for a 7h00 breakfast on Monday, at which the judges were addressed by Mayor Patricia de Lille, Cape Town Partnership CEO Andrew Boraine, Cape Town Tourism CEO Mariette du Toit-Helmbold, Cape Town International Convention Centre CEO Rashid Toefy, and Premier of the Western Cape, Helen Zille.   After a walk around the Convention Centre, the judges presented the rationale for the World Design Capital project, and its legalities, to which the City of Cape Town responded.  Brad Habana did a presentation on a Private Sector Sponsorship Strategy for Cape Town, a topic which seemed to not fit the design theme of the judges’ visit.

Driven in Africa’s first electric car built in Cape Town, the Joule, the judges were taken to the Montobello Design Centre, hardly the epitome of design excellence in our city!  From there they were driven to Khayelitsha, to view the Violence Protection through Urban Upgrade project and a community library, and thereafter to Mitchell’s Plain to be shown a Design Indaba inspired low-cost housing project, both stops questionable in their impression created, in not reflecting the beauty nor design strength of our city, given the two First World competitors Cape Town has!  A highlight must have been a helicopter flip over the city.  Without lunch and dinner indicated on the programme, and no time allocated to it, the poor judges must have been starving.  On Monday evening they were whipped off to The Assembly nightclub in Harrington Street, the most shabby, unsuitable and non-design venue that could have been chosen, and having no relevance to design at all, with its Japanese paper lanterns, as someone wrote on Twitter.  The advertised snacks were non-existent, and invited guests had to pay for drinks.  There was not enough seating for guests, even though they had to RSVP.  Seating was against the screens, which meant that many guests attending could not see the screens.  Other than the presentation by Design Indaba CEO Ravi Naidoo, the presentations were mediocre, read from notes, and came across as absolutely amateurish, and one felt embarrassed for Cape Town and its design talent that this poor venue and platform was chosen in an attempt to impress the judges.  The speakers did not address the promised topic of ‘What would it mean for Cape Town to be World Design Capital 2014?’, which is what attracted me to attend.  They failed not only the judges, but also the audience, which walked out in growing numbers, especially during a break in the proceedings.  I was surprised that the Design Indaba could have been the co-organiser (with the Cape Town Design Network) of this mediocre event, meant to be one of networking too.

On the third day, the judges were allowed to meet an hour later for breakfast, but 8h00 on a morning after the night which saw widespread snow falling around the country, and a temperature of 5°C at that time, the breakfast at the Green Point Urban Park on Tuesday seemed an extremely inappropriate venue, despite its great beauty and design.  After breakfast the judges were driven to Stellenbosch University’s Sustainability Institute and the Lynedoch Ecovillage. Then they were taken to Spier for a photograph, and even lunch, it would appear.  From here they were driven back to the city centre, to The Fringe in Canterbury Street, not the most savoury part of town, where the judges heard short presentations on the Central City, Creative Cape Town, Catalyst Projects, and the Cape Town Heritage Trust, whereafter they were taken to the nearby District Six Museum.  At the Fugard Theatre they heard a presentation about Cape Town’s educational facilities.  The judges were entertained at GOLD restaurant to a ‘gala dinner’, according to Cape Town Partnership spokesperson Lianne Burton, and shown around the Gold of Africa Museum.  Here our city’s ‘ersatz Madiba’, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, told the judges: “God took special care and time when he created Cape Town”. As if the judges had not heard enough talk, they were exposed to further presentations on their last day, on the planned expansion of the Convention Centre, the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre, and were shown the Freeworld Design Center, and entertained at Hemelhuijs next door.

While Cape Town had the advantage of having the judges in the city for four days, compared to only two days in Dublin, they must have been drained by the number of presentations that they had to sit through.  One also is disappointed that they did not get to see enough of the beauty of Cape Town (e.g. Atlantic Seaboard, the Waterfront, Chapman’s Peak, Robben Island to create the link to our famous Freedom fighter Nelson Mandela, Cape Point, Cape Town Stadium, the winelands, and Table Mountain – cleverly it was closed for its annual cableway maintenance)!   While it would have been difficult to replicate, a mini Design Indaba would have been an important way in which the judges could have experienced the tremendous design talent of Cape Town’s creativity.  The Cape Town Design Route, developed by the City of Cape Town, would have been a further highlight to share with the judges. Perhaps anticipating my criticism, Ms Ngewana Makalima wrote: “Design is interpreted in many different ways. In this context we are referring to transformative design aimed at improving the quality of life of ordinary cities.  It is not about high-end products, supporting a high end lifestyle.  This is why the bid theme is ‘Live Design, Transform Life'”, she wrote.  In the Cape Argus she is quoted as saying: “We hope to inspire the judges with our innovation, passion and humanity. Cape Town has an important story to tell of a city that is using design to overcome our historical problems of disconnection, inequality and urban sprawl to create a more inclusive and liveble city for all citizens”. I cannot see how any design will take away the townships, and the shacks inside them, and how it can address ‘inequality’!

A Cape Argus editorial highlighted that ‘fresh thinking in matching the considerable 21st century challenges’ is required for Cape Town.  Touching on the legacy of apartheid in a complicated wording, it does state that Cape Town can ‘realign(ing) the urban landscape with post-apartheid values and virtues…   Clean government, vigorous debate and a diverse creative sector provide the context for far-reaching innovation in the broad discipline of design with a view to re-imaging the city as a fairer, cleaner, more efficient and more livable space’.  We have previously questioned this focus on apartheid, first mentioned by Mrs Helmbold in blaming design for apartheid, given how far South Africa has come, and especially Cape Town, the city that was streets ahead in embracing its citizens of all races long before 1994.  We liked the conclusion of the editorial: “We are also convinced that giving the award to Cape Town and contributing to fashioning a fairer city will bring credit to the International Council’s faith in design as an instrument of the greater good.”

Ms Makalima-Ngwenyana said that Cape Town’s bid was about design in public transport, public spaces, community facilities, and the upgrading of informal settlements, in other words designing a more ‘inclusive economic vision’.  Mayor de Lille said of the bid: “Cape Town’s bid to be the World Design Capital shows how far we have come as a city.  More importantly, it shows how far we want to take this city. The creative industries make up an extremely important part of our local economy.  The value of an event such as World Design Capital not only exposes our creative design talents to the world, but in turn develops our local industry into an asset for decades to come.” Ms Burton is quoted as saying that Cape Town’s bid comes from a developing world, compared to those of two cities in the developed world, and said that it would be significant if Cape Town won for a developing country for the first time.  “Ours is a serious bid.  We’re solving serious problems.  It’s design for survival, not simply for pretty things.  We need smart ideas for big problems. Smart ideas in inexpensive ways and that’s what Africa’s been doing for years.” Once again, one wonders in which city Ms Burton is living in – the Cape Town I know is largely a vibrant First World, developed city.

Judge De Silva said of Cape Town during her visit: “We’ve been impressed.  We’re very positive about Cape Town’s bid.  We’re seeing examples of what the city promised in their bid book.  We haven’t yet had time to download all the information”.

After the ‘intensive two-day assessment visit’ to Dublin by the judges, the Irish Times reported De Silva as praising the city: “It is very exciting to see so many young people doing creative things in Dublin.  We want people to get involved with design and to educate cities about the value and importance of design in community building.  I have seen a lot of passion here and people who want change.  What you have here is a project that belongs to the community.  I didn’t expect the new facilities like the Grand Canal Theatre downtown and the new conference centre. Dublin has a vibrant European feel to it and I see more similarities between young people here and Eindhoven rather than London.  You are now in the midst of a design community and the rest of the world looking at Dublin.  How you leverage that to your benefit is up to you.” In Dublin the judges visited Irish designers and workshops, the Guinness Storehouse, Ballymum Regeneration, Kilbarrack Fire Station, Baldoyle Library, and the Dublin City Civic Offices.  A lunch was held in the Hugh Lane Gallery, a creative venue choice. Dublin is known for its graphic, animation and gaming design, and architects.  Third candidate city Bilbao celebrated World Design Day with the launch of 4500 balloons at the end of June. No further information in English is available about the judges’ visit to the city, which clearly must be a front-runner for the Capital status, with its impressive and modern Guggenheim Museum designed by Frank Gehry. The city is described as‘a dynamic and innovative city with intense social and business activity’, reports the Cape Times.

We are sceptical of Cape Town’s success in this bid, for its heavy focus on the apartheid legacy and design’s role in this.  After 17 years of a transformed political landscape, and the abolition of apartheid, this is an old hat theme, and not one that will help us to win against Bilbao and Dublin!  It was surprising to see ‘Mr Design South Africa’, Ravi Naidoo, one of our country’s best design brains, and organiser of the internationally acclaimed Design Indaba, missing from the bid committee.  We do congratulate the Cape Town Partnership for its bid making the Finalist stage, however, an amazing achievement in itself.  Claims that winning as World Design Capital in 2014 will bring in hordes of tourists should be taken with a pinch of salt, given that even being the number one TripAdvisor Travel Destination has not brought any tourists to our city!  One had not heard of this competition or any of its past winning cities before, until Cape Town announced its bid last year.  According to the Cape Times, the bids ‘are primarily assessed in terms of vision rather than pre-existing city features’, but no future vision appears to have been reflected for Cape Town, with its too great a focus on the past!

It is also clear now where Mrs Helmbold obtained all her ‘Brand Cape Town’ material, in that most of its content appears to have come from the bid book, given that Ms Burton was a consultant to both Cape Town Tourism and the Cape Town Partnership, and a member of the bid team, having left Cape Town Tourism as its marketing manager last year.  This left a huge marketing hole for Cape Town, at a time in which the city’s tourism industry is bleeding.  It also explains why Mrs Helmbold chose ‘Inspiration’ as the city’s positioning, as it would support the design theme of the bid, even though it is not unique for Cape Town, and has been used by Edinburgh and Korea!

The World Design Capital is awarded biennially, and is ‘more than just a project or a programme: it’s a global movement towards an understanding that design does impact and affect (the) quality of human life’, the President of the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, Mark Breitenberg, said.  Cape Town was chosen a finalist out of 56 bids presented.  The Cape Town 465 page bid book has been nominated for a Loerie Award for creativity.  The winning World Design Capital 2014 will be announced on 26 October.

POSTSCRIPT 28/7: The Cape Town Partnership’s PR agency has just sent the following release about the World Design Capital 2014 judges’ visit:

Cape Town’s Creative Community On Board for World Design Capital Selection Visit

Cape Town has said farewell to the World Design Capital’s selection committee, represented by Dilki de Silva (Canada) and Martin Darbyshire (UK). The two were in the city from Sunday, 24 July till Wednesday, 27 July, for a whirlwind tour of what makes Cape Town a true contender for the role of World Design Capital 2014. Cape Town was the last stop on their itinerary of short-listed cities, after Bilbao and then Dublin. Yellow fever swept the local creative community (yellow is the colour of Cape Town’s World Design Capital bid) as more and more stakeholders saw that winning the title would bring a shot of creative energy and global design-focused attention onto the destination. His Grace Desmond Tutu made a special appearance at a gala dinner held in honour of the World Design Capital selection committee’s visit on Tuesday night. He led a blessing for the assembled guests, which included Premier Helen Zille and Executive Mayor, Patricia de Lille.

At a capacity Cape Town Design Network event (attended by De Silva and Darbyshire), which was held at the Fringe in Cape Town’s East City on Monday, 25 July, Design Indaba founder, Ravi Naidoo, announced a challenge to the Cape Town creative community in the form of a competition; Your Street. The initiative invites creative proposals for how an aspect of Cape Town street life can be enhanced through the power of design thinking. The best idea will receive R 50 000 in cash. If the person who brings in the idea also has the business plan and commitment to funding to achieve it, they will receive R 150 000. Impromptu pledges then came in from the audience as architect (and previous Design Indaba 10×10 Housing Project competition winner), Luyanda Mphahlwa, promised a further R50 000 for the most innovative idea, and design leaders, XYZ, leapt up to add R 50 000 worth of design fees towards the creation of the product in reality. Entry into the competition closes on 31 August 2011. Details are at http://www.designindaba.com/yourstreetaware and competitive environment. Naidoo pointed out that being able to live with an understanding of both the first world and the third world allows Capetonians, and South Africans, the advantage of viewing the world through a unique prism, and as such, allowing us to access two thirds of humanity as a market place.

The Cape Town Partnership has been responsible for managing the World Design Capital Bid to date. Managing Director, Bulelwa Makalima-Ngewana, explained that design in this context goes beyond the creation of product and aesthetics; “In our application for the bid, we focused on design as a tool for transformation and re-integration. Examples include the IRT transport system, which will allow us all to experience less traffic, a project like the Violence Prevention Through Urban Upgrading in Khayelitsha, which has provided a safe, stimulating space for the community, and the Sustainability Institute in Lynedoch where environmental and social sustainability is being both academically rooted and practically applied.” Says Makalima-Ngewana; “We are exhausted but so happy and so very proud of everyone for presenting Cape Town as an inspiring contender for World Design Capital 2014. We are all holding thumbs for October when the winning city will be announced.”

POSTSCRIPT 29/7: In a Media newsletter today Cape Town Tourism writes about the World Design Capital bid, and once again blames design for apartheid: “The story at the heart of Cape Town’s bid theme is about the city’s use of design to overturn the negative legacy of its colonial and apartheid past; a cruel design which aimed to divide people, disconnect the city, and force both people of colour and the urban poor to its fringes”!

POSTSCRIPT 20/10: A media release received on behalf of the Cape Town Partnership indicates that a delegation of 9 city representatives, under the leadership of Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille,  will be heading to Taipei, for the announcement of the winning city on 26 October.  These are extracts from the release:  “A high-level delegation, led by Executive Mayor of Cape Town, Patricia de Lille, is heading to Taipei for the official announcement of the winning city, taking place on the final day of the International Design Alliance (IDA) Congress on 26 October, 2011. The delegation includes Councillor Grant Pascoe, Mayoral Committee Member for Tourism, Events and Marketing; Jo-Ann Johnston, Chief Director of Economic Development and Tourism, PGWC; Alderman Conrad Sidego, Mayor of Stellenbosch Municipality; Andrew Boraine, CEO of the Cape Town Partnership; Bulelwa Makalima-Ngewana, MD of the Cape Town Partnership; Skye Grove, Communications Manager of Cape Town Tourism; Michael Wolf, Chairperson of the Cape Town Design Network and Luyanda Mpahlwa, leading architect and World Design Capital Bid Committee Member. Executive Mayor De Lille said in her most recent weekly newsletter: “I will be travelling to Taipei for the result, proudly representing the first African city to reach this stage of the process. On the face of it, it is a tremendous opportunity for Cape Town to demonstrate how we are using innovation to address the challenges of our past and the inevitable challenges of our future. Past World Design Capital winners have also seen increased visitor numbers as a result of the title. Torino, Italy, World Design Capital for 2008, reported higher visitor numbers in their title year – which coincided with the global economic downturn – than in 2006, when they hosted the Winter Olympics can result in marked tourism peaks and troughs, World Design Capital has the potential to deliver sustained visitor numbers throughout the title year, through a series of design-led events over the course of 12 months. The title also does not require any infrastructural investment, but is an opportunity to leverage our World Cup infrastructure.”

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage

Hollywood comes to SA with new animated 3-D ‘Jock of the Bushveld’

The 1907 South African classic novel by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick about the famous Staffordshire bull terrier Jock, set in the time of the gold rush in the Eastern Transvaal more than 200 years ago, has been made into an animated 3-D movie, and ‘Jock of the Bushveld’ will open in local cinemas on 29 July.  International distribution is being sought, which could put South Africa on the world cinema map.

Hosting a cast of international voice stars, including Donald Sutherland, Oscar winner Helen Hunt, Ted Danson, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, William Baldwin, Mallory Hart, Makenzie Hart, Robert Hobbs, Theo Landey, as well as the voice of and music by Bryan Adams, the world premiere of the movie takes place at Montecasino in Johannesburg as a charity function on 19 July, reports the Sunday Times.  Landey said of the movie, in which his voice is used for Fitzpatrick: “The film is uniquely South African, the story is a classic and the artwork is brilliant”.  Johnny Clegg, Nianell, and Craig Hinds of Watershed also performed music for the movie. 

The concept of the movie came from director Duncan Macneillie, who also wrote the script and was involved with the previous movie based on the book.  Tim Rice of musical writing fame with Andrew Lloyd-Webber, who had written the lyrics of ‘Lion King’, is said to be a backer of the movie.  His brother Andy, Johannesburg-based advertising and marketing strategist, is the Marketing director for the movie, which tells the story of how Jock, the runt of the litter, became the hero of the Bushveld.

Rice has indicated that more money will be made from merchandising than from ticket sales, and licences have been sold for the 14 characters in the movie.  Penguin Books will be publishing a new abridged version of the book, and is printing stickers and colouring-in books.  Toys, games, children’s wear, and bedding will soon be for sale, sporting Jock.  

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com  Twitter:@WhaleCottage