Apart from being stone-cold forthright, Herman Mashaba also has a reputation for being very, very stubborn and harbouring the type of views that verge on the extreme: Condemning rapists and murderers to the noose; mass deportations visited on undocumented foreign nationals; a hardline military presence at our “porous borders” and South Africans who do not owe anybody any apology when its citizens defend themselves against hostile outsiders. These are some of the things one can expect should his party, ActionSA, ever enjoy an outright majority.
As such, stacked high against his character stand disparaging accusations of xenophobia and a callous temperament that, left unchecked, might be seen as skirting on incitement. Given his unyielding disposition, however, it is clearly going to take way more than social media and naysayer criticism for the 63-year-old to work himself into the habit of learning to bite his tongue.
As the brains behind the hair product company Black Like Me, Mashaba has especially been a darling to generations of African women. As a politician, however, he has been known for utterances that leave many of them pulling at their hair.
Just a few years ago he was executive mayor of the City of Johannesburg, – “the economic powerhouse of Africa” – his colours firmly nailed to the Democratic Alliance (DA). In the wake of the party’s poor showing in the 2019 general elections and the subsequent resignation of leader, Mmusi Maimane, this marriage would sour and turn hostile, with Mashaba noting the irreconcilable differences and walking out to go it alone. He took exceptional umbrage at the ascension of Helen Zille to the position of Federal Council chairperson and did not mince his words in how he felt that the party would clearly no longer be pro-black and pro-poor.
By now many had hastened to prematurely pen the obituary of the man from Hamanskraal casting him, like the grim township of his birth, to the fringes of discourse where he might soon be left to be forgotten. Clearly they were unaware of the sterner stuff that has steeled him from the very beginning. He lost his father at 2 years old. “I was basically raised in a child-headed household,” he tells eParkeni, “as my mother had to work as a domestic worker in Johannesburg during my formative years.”
His father had not built the family a house meaning they were always hobbling from one relative’s good graces to the next. “I spent a big part of those formative years in a two room shack.” Despite the material circumstances, Mr Mashaba credits his stable, loving family for the fortitude to weather the storms. “My grandfather played a key role in building my character. He instilled in me a sense of personal responsibility and what characteristics required to navigate life to succeed.”
Success. Was that a word a black man gasping under the whip of apartheid could even use? In 1979, into his second year of a BA degree he experienced first-hand the crushing answer to that question. The regime made “it impossible to complete my studies. I then took a decision to look for contacts to assist me to illegally leave the country to seek military training.” With his designs for the underground stalled, he would take up employment at two companies as a despatch clerk.
At 22, he tied the knot, “bought a car and started a career as a commission salesman selling” everything from life insurance policies to cutlery. By 1983 he was a suave, top salesman of black hair products, a move that inspired the “decision to establish my own manufacturing hair business.” In January 1985 the Black Consciousness-sounding Black Like Me was born and “everything is now history” says a proud Mr Mashaba.
His acumen for getting things off the ground would serve him well in the fallout with the DA. As a successful businessman he could’ve retired into the comforts and hobbies of the wealthy, playing golf and hosting elegant shindigs. Instead, he formed ActionSA, reinventing himself as a crusader who would be doing things as best as he knew how. So why, when money is doubtfully a motive, put himself through the headache of public office? “I believe God has given me the financial independence to allow me the opportunity to serve my country without having to worry about my next meal” he tells eParkeni.
That’s a word that comes up a few times in our correspondence; God. Of the country’s deteriorating education he says, “Without massive investment in quality education, South Africa is bound to fail. We need one education department, with government responsible for the appointment of school principals, not unions. We must reintroduce school inspectors, and more importantly, bring God back into our schooling system. We need investment in technical training as well.”
In what could be seen as unprovoked self-mutilation for a black politician, he is not a fan of race-based policies, preferring instead a non-racial society, “social justice and a pro-poor government. We need a free market economy, with the role of government being to create a fair and equal opportunities for all.” It would not be far fetched to conclude that the fact that he “never saw poverty as an obstacle, but an opportunity to better [his] life” is the motivation behind the economic leanings he stands by today.
He calls for a system where the rule of law, free of political meddling, is sacrosanct complemented by a government that is of strong moral principles and ethics. In defence of his views around immigrants, he says that, “South Africa was built [on] the back of migrants.” As such, he holds no gripes with migrants who come to work or live here legally. The issue that rankles him is when government seemingly allows “international criminal syndicates to treat our country as their playground.”
To the Karoo resident who finds himself despondent without prospect, Mr Mashaba reminds him that, “It is only through voting and holding politicians accountable that South Africans will change the wrong current trajectory of the ANC government. Learn to vote politicians in, and vote them out when they fail you.” Out on the streets he is popularly known as a sharp-dressed, streetwise and jocular fellow. Although of a headstrong nature, within party circles he is a leader said to lead by consensus. As we write, he is due to launch a “groundbreaking policy and consultation process” which seeks to give the ordinary “people of South Africa a voice in shaping our collective destiny.” On the flipside, there are those who remain skeptical. Daily Maverick columnist Ismail Lagardien goes as far as saying that his “anti-politics has more in common with the delusions of free-marketeers and ideologically lost bandits who make things up as they go along.” As for Mr Mashaba; he merely envisions a South Africa that is thriving and prosperous and that cannot be “auctioned to the highest bidders for beer, whisky, meat and bags of cash.”
Editor’s notes: Whether Mr Mashaba will live up to his promises should he someday occupy the most powerful seat in the land is anybody’s guess. But here at eParkeni – a negligible rag based in a throwaway place – having sent a string of emails to some known and obscure public figures, he was the only one who not only responded but treated our correspondence with magnanimity and an open heart, we are most grateful. Sure, the gesture says nothing about his fitness to hold office but it speaks volumes about the spirit of the man. So often we hear platitudes by politicians about serving people at grassroots, Mr Mashaba personified what that entails and how the small things sometimes mean so much to those affected by them.
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