There’s no putting dhotis down
POST-IT
BLAME the father of our freedom Madiba for the hullabaloo around the parliamentary dress code.
Perhaps he went a tad too far in jettisoning conformist clothing.
Thus we now have Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema vowing to fight to the death for the right to wear red overalls and domestic worker uniforms in Parliament.
The rule book has been thrown at the EFF in the Gauteng, Eastern Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal legislatures because the party’s garish signature gear for its MPs has been deemed inappropriate.
A defiant Malema has said 500 000 voters gave his party’s MPs – who did not see themselves as being above ordinary workers – the right to be in the legislatures. They will not be bullied into submission.
Time was when men had to have a jacket and tie when appearing before a magistrate or judge. Many witnesses were sent out of court for contempt if they were not properly attired.
For generations, the dress code in South African courts was formal, conservative, and archaic relics of a colonial past. Older lawyers tell horror stories of scathing judges who refused to “see” a colleague who had unthinkingly donned a striped instead of plain white shirt or left the jacket unbuttoned. Why, even Mahatma Gandhi was not spared.
After qualifying as a barrister in London in 1891, Gandhi wore “western” clothing. However, when he arrived in Durban a few years later and entered a courtroom, he was ordered by the magistrate to take off his turban. Gandhi refused, and left the courtroom.
Decades later at his meeting with King George V of England at Buckingham Palace where he pleaded India’s case for independence, Mahatma Gandhi refused to wear anything other than his usual white dhoti (cotton loincloth) and chappals (hand-made sandals). When asked by a correspondent how it felt to be so dressed, Gandhiji reputedly retorted: "The King was wearing enough clothes for both of us."
Meanwhile South African courts continued the decades-long enforcement of British era dress codes.
I remember about 30 years ago, some enterprising people set up informal businesses within court precincts in and around Durban. For a small fee they would hire jackets and ties to those witnesses who arrived inappropriately attired.
Then suddenly all this changed when Nelson Mandela was freed after 27 years in prison.
As a young lawyer and ANC firebrand in the 1950s, Mandela sported double-breasted suits in the tradition of London’s Savile Row.
Several decades later as a free man, Mandela refused Giorgio Armani’s offer to design for him as he believed that wearing a label denoting glamorous imported elitism would be tantamount to committing political suicide.
Mandela settled on his own sartorial style. He began wearing local suits by long-term tailor Yusuf Surtee. When President Suharto of Indonesia presented Mandela with print shirts in 1990, he took an immediate liking to them. The fabric was batik, decorative, and distinctly unWestern. This gave birth to the famous Madiba shirt – a loose-fitting, comfortable, and visually attractive garment worn over the trousers.
Wearing an informal garment was Mandela’s way to identify with the majority who could never afford suits. He changed the dress code for men in South Africa overnight, giving them the right to wear a shirt without a tie, yet without appearing too trendy or bending to informality.
When Mandela became president, he continued wearing his trademark shirt – even on formal occasions when a conventional suit would have been de rigueur.
Thus the role of ties and jackets was adjourned. Now which judge or magistrate dare order a witness to leave the courtroom for not donning a jacket and tie while, simultaneously, the country was being rebuilt and run by a president in a colourful, informal shirt?
Meanwhile in Chennai last week, I chuckled when I considered that had the EFF been in Tamil Nadu, Malema would have had no dress code problem.
The Tamil Nadu Cricket Association Club in Chennai has been pilloried for refusing entry to a Madras High Court Judge in a dhoti. The club only allows members or guests dressed in full trousers, shirts and leather shoes, as also do many other anti-dhoti clubs like the Gymkhana, Race Course and Boat Clubs.
A senior official of the cricket association club said the ban on the dhoti was “to prevent a wardrobe malfunction under the influence of alcohol”.
Jayalalithaa Jayaram, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu State, has proposed revoking licences of clubs that don’t allow traditional attire.
Malema can be thankful he has Madiba in his corner.
Yogin Devan is a media consultant and social commentator. Reach him on: yogind@meropa.co.za