I very rarely find it necessary to apologise for who I am. I do not apologise for not speaking Afrikaans. It doesn't bother me that most people don't know which way to look when I tell them that I am a drop-out. I owe no one an explanation for why I dress like a '60's hippie, why I don't like 5fm and why I strategically eat lunch after 14:30 to avoid office-kitchen small-talk. I am by no means suggesting to be without flaws, but I am borderline perfect.
If I am to think of one specific moment in my life that led to my unwavering, and often unwarranted, self-confidence I suppose I can - like most things - blame it on my mother. I was a rather big-boned 10 year old, with wild hair and teeth too large for my mousy gums. And although my taste in over-sized men's shirts (retrieved from my brother's "for the homeless" pile of clothes) left much to be desired for any would-be suitor, I was as happy as the size of my waste band, and equally invincible. I was never a nervous child, and my bravado was sculpted by the hands of an abusive older brother and sensitive-yet-protective older sister. Few ten year olds could be found who were as fond of themselves as I was and as a result I was massively (no pun intended) content.
The first time I can remember that confidence wavering was on a family trip to Namibia. As had become customary of all of my family's adventures, we were running horribly late and only crossed the border as the sun was getting ready for bed behind the quiet African expanse, which in Namibia is any time after 8 pm. We were expected to meet up with my dad's friend (who I later learned was a member of the Namibian government) at a lodge hours before, but arrived with our growling tummies long after the dinner pots had been washed and the cooking stoves scrubbed clean. I was not sure what strings were pulled or by whom, but we were welcomed to have dinner in the restaurant, where the owner would see what he could put together for us.
Walking through the restaurant, it didn't take me long to notice that the pale faces were all focused on our small group: father, mother, children and vaguely familiar black man. In my rounder days, I did not know what racism was. I knew that I was light brown, that there were people that were dark brown and that there were still others who were colourless. I also knew that people called these different shades coloured, black and white. But I knew these terms to mean little much more than distinguishing a stool from a couch - both chairs, when you come right down to it. I didn't know that these simple descriptions carried with them a history and a meaning that resonates in the honest soul of every person. I didn't know that there were places where people were treated differently (mostly badly) if their skin colour did not match the one of the man hanging in a picture frame at the front of the room. I didn't notice that the frame in this place was occupied by a colourless face, and that the flag on the walls had been destroyed by most [liberal] Southern Africans in 1994, four years earlier.
I felt ashamed, and I didn't know why. I was 10, and I did not understand what it meant to feel inadequate. But that's what I felt. Suddenly, and for the first time ever, I was ashamed of who I was, and why I was and wished with all my might that I could be someone else. I didn't know why, but clearly something we had done caused these people to feel antagonistic towards us, and I was apologetic of our presence in their space. Without knowing what it was, I knew that we had done something wrong to offend these kind people, and all I wanted was to run away. I wanted to go some place, far away, where I could find my blemish, and fix it. Because if these people could tell what was wrong with me, without even knowing my name or hearing me speak or finding out that I am really good at Maths and English and like to act, well then, maybe everyone saw this problem. And if all these people could tell what the problem was, surely I needed to find out as soon as possible before the kids at school would see the same problem, too. Maybe they had seen the problem, but maybe they couldn't tell me because it was just that bad.
I looked up at my mom, who's left arm I clung to like a sloth on holiday, and noticed something that frightened me even more than realising that there was something wrong with my family. The look in my mother's eyes seemed to suggest that she was not feeling the same shame that had so suddenly and intensely fallen on me. She did not look scared, worried or embarrassed. She looked just like she always did: strong, calm, knowing. My shame was replaced by a strong fear that the problem wasn't my family. The problem was me. Clearly I was the only one that these people were silently detesting, because my mother (who had the power to heal a broken toe with a tiny kiss, who knew how to make even broccoli taste good, and who had the best magic for sore tummies) was not ashamed at all.
I wish I had known then that what I saw in my mother's face was pride; a silent dignity that had been refined by years of fighting for it. I wish I knew then that my mother didn't feel shame, because it's an emotion that she had to learn to shed, and that she was still learning to lose the fear that she had been born with. I wish I knew then that the look I saw in my mother's eyes was the most glorious look that I had ever seen, because then I would have taken a picture and framed it with the same respect and admiration that these people had for the bald man that hung on their wall.
But I didn't know those things, and so I continued to grapple with the fear that I had somehow, in the last 24 hours, developed a cursed disease, and that I needed to be fixed. I stared up at my mother, and whispered (so as not to upset the people whose space we were invading) "Mommy, why are they staring at us?"
I don't really know what I expected the answer to be. Perhaps it's better that way, because if I were to speculate what I thought she would say I probably never would have asked. You see, I had always had a belief in my awesomeness that was more than what we were being told by Disney and Enid Blyton. I knew that God made me, and that he'd made me perfectly, but if I am to be completely honest, that's not really the reason I was so sure about myself. I clearly didn't wear the right clothes, know the lyrics to any of the right songs or tell the right jokes. I was by far not the prettiest girl in my class and although I was fairly bright, my early-onset laziness meant I wasn't the smartest kid, either. I cannot really tell you where my surety came from. I guess I was just born that way. But that night in a small rural lodge, a few kms from the Namibian/South African border, I lost that confidence. I'm not sure where it went, or even what chased it away. But there I was, walking through a sea of displeased eyes, held breaths, silent mumbles and head shakes. If I were to guess what my mother would say, I would have thought, beyond a doubt, that my mother was about to tell me that I had done something wrong and that I should immediately apologise for ruining these nice people's dinner.
I will never forget what she said to me. Partly because I was really shocked by it. But mostly because she found it: she went to the secret dark place that my confidence had gone to, and nurtured her back to strength like she had done many times to me when I had the terrible case of the sniffles. And Confidence came back even stronger than before. And thanks to my mother's words, She has never left.
My mom, smiling, looked down at me and said in a voice that clearly did not mind ruining those nice people's dinner, "They've just never seen such beautiful people before."
'For such as we are made of, such we be" - Viola, Twelfth Night
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
“Every day I’m shuffling”
In matric, I was fortunate enough to go on a school trip to France. There were many things that I enjoyed about that trip (lunch on the beach with friends, making it to the top of the stairs at the Arc de Triomphe, cruising down the Seine River), but there were also moments that weren’t so great (being forced to stammer my way though the French language, the glaring supervision of Nazi-trained teachers). One such would-rather-forget-but-will-always-remember incident happened at a bus stop somewhere between Marseille and Paris. Taking a break from bussing through the French countryside, we arrived at a Travel Stop and, on descending from the bus for our first break in several hours, were given time to get some food. We were also told in no uncertain terms that any food that we bought was not to be eaten on the bus.
Now, I have never been really good with rules and, after buying my food, I made my way back onto the bus, hoping that I could inconspicuously tuck into my burger. At this point, it is necessary for me to point out that I was not the only double-0-seven eating her lunch in the bus. All 25 girls snuck onto the bus with meals in our bags, pockets and under our coats. No sooner had the bus doors closed, had Mrs Rover (*named changed to honour the secrecy of the Nazi) risen promptly from her comically small seat, and demanded to know who had brought food onto the bus.
In what I thought then was an heroic act of martyrdom, and now see as a bold act of stupidity, I admitted to being the culprit. I was tried at the Court of First Offenses, and sentenced to eating my lunch in solitary confinement on the pavement next to the bus.
Did it make it less wrong that I had broken the rule because my peers had done the same thing? By that logic, the more murders committed would mean we should give leaner sentences: moral relativity taken to the extreme. But that’s not what it means. I wasn’t less wrong, there were just more people not doing right. My admission of guilt and subsequent humiliation did not purge my devious “friends” (term used very loosely) of their crimes. I was not the sacrificial lamb that could cover the sins of many, because I was in the shameful process of atoning for my own sins. If justice were to prevail that day, all 25 of us would have been burning our behinds on the sidewalk. But the Nazis were satisfied to use one as an example to many, therefore legitimising their inaction and exempting the others from their crimes.
Now, did I share this anecdote because I am hoping for overdue sympathy? Partly. But, I also think I kind of get how Sicelo and Gwen felt yesterday when His Honourable sacked them as Cooperative Governance Minister and Public Works Minister respectively. My emotions are still mixed regarding this action, and perhaps with time I will shed some of my cynicism. Until then, here are my thoughts.
In general, I have two problems with cabinet reshuffling:
The first is that it suggests a lack of specialist knowledge: we keep going back to the beginning when we should be reaching the end. This is the second time in a year that our President has decided to shake things up. Last year, he replaced existing ministers with those who he felt would better serve the country’s interests. (It worries me that we can appoint people as MP’s who don’t recognise their role is one of service in the first place!) In his Press Conference a year ago, the Big Guy said, "We had to change the way government works in order to improve service delivery. Our mission was guided by improving the quality of the lives of South Africans." That reshuffle saw 7 ministers lose their jobs. Ironically, Public Works Minister Geoff Doidge was replaced by Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde – as a result of a similar lease scandal that ended Gwen’s career yesterday.
I understand that being President must be a difficult job. Without trying to be smug about it, there really are a lot of responsibilities that are put on one man, and the standard by which we judge the Top Guns is [justifiably] rather high. But let’s, for a moment, consider the extent of the satire that lent to two people being sacked from the same position, for the same reasons, less than a year apart. Not even Shakespeare could summon the kind of creative genius needed to fashion that kind of dramatic irony. How is it possible that the country’s Number One could make the same blunder and appoint an ignoramus in the same position twice? Perhaps it suggests that he who chooses is himself an ignoramus (although I am loathe to insult the country’s most important citizen. Whether we like him or not, his position does carry some weight, and demands some – if limited – amount of respect).
I think the issue here is that we need to start appointing people into positions who have some kind of knowledge in the role that they are going to fill. For example, it makes no sense to me that the Deputy Minister of Economics (Mahlangu-Nkabinde’s previous position) would take over the role of Public Works Minister. What happened to the Public Works Deputy? What knowledge did Mahlangu-Nkabinde have to fill that role in the first place, when her only other experience was in Environmental Affairs and Women’s committees? I understand the need to get rid of the loose screws, but am I the only one who thinks it ineffective to replace the screws with bubblegum? Deputy Minister of Rural Development, Thembelani Nxesi, takes over the controversial position, with no experience within the Public Works ministry. I do not want to set the former school teacher up for failure, but now he has to go back to the books and learn how to run a ministry that he knows very little about. How well do we think that will end?
My second problem with this constant two-step is that it works too well as a distraction of what is really going on: our government’s inability to nip corruption in the artery. Zuma’s [delayed] expulsion of the two ministers and suspension of Cele makes people feel warm and fuzzy, and gives more confidence in our government than should be warranted. Much like the injustice that befell me on the cold pavement of a French Travel stop, the Three [dishonourable] Musketeers are mere pawns in a chess game much bigger than just three pieces. Granted, they needed to lose their jobs. But let’s not get so blinded by the party balloons and chocolate cake that we do not realise that there are snakes in the grass who are yet to be caught.
It is not enough to fire a corrupt minister, and then send him/her off to some obscure location as an ambassador. Or, in the case of Toni Yengeni, slap him with a light prison sentence and then give him a spot in the committee set out to investigate the very scandal that got him locked behind bars in the first place! It unnerves me that nothing has been said about the millions that these three have stolen from the tax payers. I salute the President for his actions, but the story should not end here.
Kenya had a good year last year. After the terrors of 2007 – 2009, 2010 saw them sign in a new constitution and experience much needed political reform. In the process of rebuilding their nation, the Kenyan government – led by President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga – created an Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission. The Commission’s mandate and sole purpose is to investigate corruption (http://www.kacc.go.ke/whatsnew.asp?id=197). I call for our government to do the same. Until such a time, I will say ‘Well done for the effort, but I am still not convinced!’
Having said all this, I do believe that this is a good start, although I am not one to celebrate starts. Our country has been going in the wrong direction for a very long time, and it is going to take a lot of retracing of our steps to make things right again. In fact, there is nothing to even suggest that we are on the right path yet. But I do feel comforted that the Public Protector’s job is not just ceremonial, and that the Old Man actually listened to her recommendations (albeit a bit tardy). I also applaud our President for taking action. Let’s not forget that Jackie Selebi had a much longer run than Bheki Cele before he was shot down.
[Side note: I think that it is fitting to mention the exemplary job that Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is doing in the Department of Home Affairs. Not all our ministers are bandits, and yesterday Dlamini-Zuma’s ministry had its first clean audit in 16 years. Kudos for a job well done!]
Whether Zuma’s actions were being spurred on by invisible puppeteers (perhaps promoting a school teacher to such a high position was a favour to COSATU), an ill-intentioned step towards Mangaung (it is no secret that Zuma is crossing fingers and toes for a second term) or a genuine interest in showing some leadership (perhaps he is getting weary of the constant reference to his big head), I am definitely proud that the headlines were good news this morning. I can’t comment on where our country is headed, but if we can keep this up, things are looking bright.
We need to be able to trust our government, and hope beyond all hope that soon the people who govern us do not become as the men described by Shakespeare in Measure for Measure: “The jury, passing on the prisoner's life,/ May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two/ Guiltier than him they try.”
Now, I have never been really good with rules and, after buying my food, I made my way back onto the bus, hoping that I could inconspicuously tuck into my burger. At this point, it is necessary for me to point out that I was not the only double-0-seven eating her lunch in the bus. All 25 girls snuck onto the bus with meals in our bags, pockets and under our coats. No sooner had the bus doors closed, had Mrs Rover (*named changed to honour the secrecy of the Nazi) risen promptly from her comically small seat, and demanded to know who had brought food onto the bus.
In what I thought then was an heroic act of martyrdom, and now see as a bold act of stupidity, I admitted to being the culprit. I was tried at the Court of First Offenses, and sentenced to eating my lunch in solitary confinement on the pavement next to the bus.
Did it make it less wrong that I had broken the rule because my peers had done the same thing? By that logic, the more murders committed would mean we should give leaner sentences: moral relativity taken to the extreme. But that’s not what it means. I wasn’t less wrong, there were just more people not doing right. My admission of guilt and subsequent humiliation did not purge my devious “friends” (term used very loosely) of their crimes. I was not the sacrificial lamb that could cover the sins of many, because I was in the shameful process of atoning for my own sins. If justice were to prevail that day, all 25 of us would have been burning our behinds on the sidewalk. But the Nazis were satisfied to use one as an example to many, therefore legitimising their inaction and exempting the others from their crimes.
Now, did I share this anecdote because I am hoping for overdue sympathy? Partly. But, I also think I kind of get how Sicelo and Gwen felt yesterday when His Honourable sacked them as Cooperative Governance Minister and Public Works Minister respectively. My emotions are still mixed regarding this action, and perhaps with time I will shed some of my cynicism. Until then, here are my thoughts.
In general, I have two problems with cabinet reshuffling:
The first is that it suggests a lack of specialist knowledge: we keep going back to the beginning when we should be reaching the end. This is the second time in a year that our President has decided to shake things up. Last year, he replaced existing ministers with those who he felt would better serve the country’s interests. (It worries me that we can appoint people as MP’s who don’t recognise their role is one of service in the first place!) In his Press Conference a year ago, the Big Guy said, "We had to change the way government works in order to improve service delivery. Our mission was guided by improving the quality of the lives of South Africans." That reshuffle saw 7 ministers lose their jobs. Ironically, Public Works Minister Geoff Doidge was replaced by Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde – as a result of a similar lease scandal that ended Gwen’s career yesterday.
I understand that being President must be a difficult job. Without trying to be smug about it, there really are a lot of responsibilities that are put on one man, and the standard by which we judge the Top Guns is [justifiably] rather high. But let’s, for a moment, consider the extent of the satire that lent to two people being sacked from the same position, for the same reasons, less than a year apart. Not even Shakespeare could summon the kind of creative genius needed to fashion that kind of dramatic irony. How is it possible that the country’s Number One could make the same blunder and appoint an ignoramus in the same position twice? Perhaps it suggests that he who chooses is himself an ignoramus (although I am loathe to insult the country’s most important citizen. Whether we like him or not, his position does carry some weight, and demands some – if limited – amount of respect).
I think the issue here is that we need to start appointing people into positions who have some kind of knowledge in the role that they are going to fill. For example, it makes no sense to me that the Deputy Minister of Economics (Mahlangu-Nkabinde’s previous position) would take over the role of Public Works Minister. What happened to the Public Works Deputy? What knowledge did Mahlangu-Nkabinde have to fill that role in the first place, when her only other experience was in Environmental Affairs and Women’s committees? I understand the need to get rid of the loose screws, but am I the only one who thinks it ineffective to replace the screws with bubblegum? Deputy Minister of Rural Development, Thembelani Nxesi, takes over the controversial position, with no experience within the Public Works ministry. I do not want to set the former school teacher up for failure, but now he has to go back to the books and learn how to run a ministry that he knows very little about. How well do we think that will end?
My second problem with this constant two-step is that it works too well as a distraction of what is really going on: our government’s inability to nip corruption in the artery. Zuma’s [delayed] expulsion of the two ministers and suspension of Cele makes people feel warm and fuzzy, and gives more confidence in our government than should be warranted. Much like the injustice that befell me on the cold pavement of a French Travel stop, the Three [dishonourable] Musketeers are mere pawns in a chess game much bigger than just three pieces. Granted, they needed to lose their jobs. But let’s not get so blinded by the party balloons and chocolate cake that we do not realise that there are snakes in the grass who are yet to be caught.
It is not enough to fire a corrupt minister, and then send him/her off to some obscure location as an ambassador. Or, in the case of Toni Yengeni, slap him with a light prison sentence and then give him a spot in the committee set out to investigate the very scandal that got him locked behind bars in the first place! It unnerves me that nothing has been said about the millions that these three have stolen from the tax payers. I salute the President for his actions, but the story should not end here.
Kenya had a good year last year. After the terrors of 2007 – 2009, 2010 saw them sign in a new constitution and experience much needed political reform. In the process of rebuilding their nation, the Kenyan government – led by President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga – created an Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission. The Commission’s mandate and sole purpose is to investigate corruption (http://www.kacc.go.ke/whatsnew.asp?id=197). I call for our government to do the same. Until such a time, I will say ‘Well done for the effort, but I am still not convinced!’
Having said all this, I do believe that this is a good start, although I am not one to celebrate starts. Our country has been going in the wrong direction for a very long time, and it is going to take a lot of retracing of our steps to make things right again. In fact, there is nothing to even suggest that we are on the right path yet. But I do feel comforted that the Public Protector’s job is not just ceremonial, and that the Old Man actually listened to her recommendations (albeit a bit tardy). I also applaud our President for taking action. Let’s not forget that Jackie Selebi had a much longer run than Bheki Cele before he was shot down.
[Side note: I think that it is fitting to mention the exemplary job that Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is doing in the Department of Home Affairs. Not all our ministers are bandits, and yesterday Dlamini-Zuma’s ministry had its first clean audit in 16 years. Kudos for a job well done!]
Whether Zuma’s actions were being spurred on by invisible puppeteers (perhaps promoting a school teacher to such a high position was a favour to COSATU), an ill-intentioned step towards Mangaung (it is no secret that Zuma is crossing fingers and toes for a second term) or a genuine interest in showing some leadership (perhaps he is getting weary of the constant reference to his big head), I am definitely proud that the headlines were good news this morning. I can’t comment on where our country is headed, but if we can keep this up, things are looking bright.
We need to be able to trust our government, and hope beyond all hope that soon the people who govern us do not become as the men described by Shakespeare in Measure for Measure: “The jury, passing on the prisoner's life,/ May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two/ Guiltier than him they try.”
Friday, September 23, 2011
"To be, or not to be" - the importance of Heritage and Identity
There are a few things that define me as a person, and I hate to admit that a lot of those things centre on race. My race; the race of my parents and their parents; the friends I keep; the friends I don’t. I interact with the world wearing a special brand of the proverbial “rose-tinted glasses” – ones with a multi-coloured hue. It affects the way that I feel about circumstances, and the way that I respond to them. My sympathies and empathies can be manipulated based on the colour of a person’s skin, and my bias leans for or against dependent on pigmentation.
Is this something that I am proud of? Well, no it isn’t. But it is something that I can admit. I know that while this may not be the ideal attitude in a country that is trying to build itself up from the debris that is the apartheid legacy, I do also believe in the importance of being honest about our prejudices. Of course, in our honey-dipped rainbow nation, this is not the case. I am basically taking a Khoisan spear to the heart of unity, and roasting it on a smouldering braai. (I would, at this time, like to point out my clever inference to my heritage.)
Speaking of which, the concept of “Heritage Day” baffles me, somewhat. I can’t make out if it’s a slightly sadistic nuance, or if it’s the ‘Psyche!’ of the century. There really are only two things that I believe South Africans have in common: our genuine confusion, and our fighting spirit nd, much like an oil-covered penguin, the sight just isn’t pretty: in the tug of war towards anything meaningful, we are all hauling in opposite directions, and in the meantime getting serious rope burn.
On the one hand is the notion that we are all South African, and as a result of that one classifier – not identity (identity has a lot more to do with just geographical birthplace. More on that later) – we must have a shared memory; a shared sense of who we are. In my opinion, this notion is as useful as Justice Lamont’s ruling forbidding COSATU to sing “Dubula iBhunu” – lots of gravy but no meatball. Each individual’s experiences are vastly different to their neighbours’, so one can only imagine the gorge that exists between people from different race groups, religious groups, ethnic groups, class, working environment, school attended… etc, etc, etc. So while the idea that we can “all be one” looks as pretty as a rainbow, there is no substance to it, and the rainbow pretty much disappears in the thunderstorm. So if we’re meant to be celebrating our unity, surely Heritage Day is just a further reminder of our differences?
Ok, then you might say that’s the point. We’re meant to see our differences and realise that a rainbow is made up of many colours, and that is where its beauty lies. We must celebrate our differences so that we can better appreciate our country as a whole. Now this doesn’t make sense to me, because it seems kind of counter-intuitive: to celebrate and harp on our differences as a way of bringing us together is like trying to light a fire in the ocean. Who are we trying to kid, here? Shakespeare, the greatest social commentator of all time (granted, this is in my extremely biased opinion) proved in his classic romantic tragedy Romeo and Juliet that there is no way of consolidating differences that will not end in destruction. The concept of difference presupposes an inability to be the same.
Identity is tricky, and historians still don’t know how to really define it. It used to be easy to say that our identity was found in our culture, but cultures have changed over the years, and a large portion of middle-class South Africans (myself included) don’t subscribe to their ancestral cultural identity. One can argue that identity is linked to history, but South Africa’s history is plagued with stories that most of us (whether correctly or not) would rather just forget. Besides, how much can we base our identity on history, if we cannot be certain if the history we know and are taught is the history that actually happened? We can’t say that there is a South African identity, because that argument would lead to the clearly improbable end that we are all the same. In any case, our Heritage Day celebrations clearly negate the legitimacy of that point. We can say that identity is religion, but that really only works for religions like Judaism and Islam, where laws are definite and membership is by birth. Every Hindi I know has different beliefs to the other, and there are so many various Christian denominations that it is becoming difficult to keep up. We marry cross-culturally, cross-religions, cross-race... and so our children cannot find an identity in those tangible constructs, because they do not exist for them. Perhaps the truth is that identity is as malleable and pliable as clay, and there no longer exists something called Identity.
Which makes me wonder why we as South Africans are so obsessed with finding ours. We somehow fear that without an identity to cling to, there’s no security. So we create a make-shift South African identity that is inspired by humorous anecdotes by Evita Bezuidenhout and sentimental speeches by Thabo Mbeki, which is absolute hagger. (Yes, I coined my own word, there. If Shakespeare could get away with it...) When we try to build on something that is not there – when we try to build tolerance on a fabricated identity – we delude ourselves to believing that the structure will stand. But it won’t, and the underlying resentment that South Africans have for each other is a clear indication that we need to get real about what we are as South Africans. We are different; we cannot change that, unless we pass a Bill in parliament similar to that of the Immorality Act, only this time forbidding anyone to marry someone of the same race or ethnic group (we’ll call it the Morality Act. And don’t think that this is a farfetched idea – our government's proposal of the new Protection of Information Bill sounds oddly alike to the apartheid Secrecy Bill). Yet even if we do this, class, religion, education, location will still be a hindrance in forging a unified identity.
My solution is not open racism (although I admit that I prefer this to silent patronising). Here’s what we need to do:
We need to recognise that co-existence does not mean assimilation and/or adaptation of others’ cultures. There is no need to share a common anything. We like the people we like, and dislike those we don’t. Whether it’s skin colour, hair colour, the clothes that one wears, or the accent they have – we all have prejudices. And as far as I am concerned, there is nothing wrong with prejudice in and of itself. Choosing Spur over McDonald's is a prejudice, because it all relates to preference. If you opt to not have white friends, or only to date black men from Umtata, opt away. Preference is part of who we are, and a right enshrined in our constitution. When things become problematic is when we apply hegemony to that preference, and treat people differently based on our partialities. Not liking McDonald's doesn’t give me the right to burn down every franchise I see. Preferences are subjective, and we need to learn that while we are different, and while we are entitled to have our opinions, we do not have free reign to assume that our opinion is The Truth By Which All Should Stand.
I don’t buy into a South African cultural identity. Enjoying the occasional braai doesn’t make me more South African than an Eskimo who cooks his fish on an open fire in Alaska. And being born in the southern most country of Africa does not make me obligated to believe in a Rainbow Nation. In fact, if your metaphorical nose scrunches up at the thought of particular racial or ethnic groups, scrunch with pleasure! What is important is that we must learn that the one thing that we do have in common – our humanity – is a good enough reason to treat everyone with equal respect and dignity. There needs to be an understanding that in as much as I am entitled to my prejudices based on my standing as a citizen of this country (the only part of our “identity” that South Africans share), so are the other people who also share their origins here. And so the same amount of respect that is afforded to me to have those opinions, is afforded to everyone else – even those that I prefer to hate. We treat people with respect not because we necessarily like them, but because we know that we want respect as well. Let's put aside this childish ambition to find tolerance in heritage and identity, but rather seek for it in the more attainable attributes `of dignity and respect.
When Juliet fell for the handsome - if somewhat fickle - Romeo, she made a very profound realisation. When considering Romeo's identity as a Montague, she bellowed from her balcony, "Thou art thyself, though not a Montague./ What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,/ Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part/ Belonging to a man." The conclusion that Juliet came to is one that would be beneficial for all of us to grasp: we are what we are, and not what are called.
Is this something that I am proud of? Well, no it isn’t. But it is something that I can admit. I know that while this may not be the ideal attitude in a country that is trying to build itself up from the debris that is the apartheid legacy, I do also believe in the importance of being honest about our prejudices. Of course, in our honey-dipped rainbow nation, this is not the case. I am basically taking a Khoisan spear to the heart of unity, and roasting it on a smouldering braai. (I would, at this time, like to point out my clever inference to my heritage.)
Speaking of which, the concept of “Heritage Day” baffles me, somewhat. I can’t make out if it’s a slightly sadistic nuance, or if it’s the ‘Psyche!’ of the century. There really are only two things that I believe South Africans have in common: our genuine confusion, and our fighting spirit nd, much like an oil-covered penguin, the sight just isn’t pretty: in the tug of war towards anything meaningful, we are all hauling in opposite directions, and in the meantime getting serious rope burn.
On the one hand is the notion that we are all South African, and as a result of that one classifier – not identity (identity has a lot more to do with just geographical birthplace. More on that later) – we must have a shared memory; a shared sense of who we are. In my opinion, this notion is as useful as Justice Lamont’s ruling forbidding COSATU to sing “Dubula iBhunu” – lots of gravy but no meatball. Each individual’s experiences are vastly different to their neighbours’, so one can only imagine the gorge that exists between people from different race groups, religious groups, ethnic groups, class, working environment, school attended… etc, etc, etc. So while the idea that we can “all be one” looks as pretty as a rainbow, there is no substance to it, and the rainbow pretty much disappears in the thunderstorm. So if we’re meant to be celebrating our unity, surely Heritage Day is just a further reminder of our differences?
Ok, then you might say that’s the point. We’re meant to see our differences and realise that a rainbow is made up of many colours, and that is where its beauty lies. We must celebrate our differences so that we can better appreciate our country as a whole. Now this doesn’t make sense to me, because it seems kind of counter-intuitive: to celebrate and harp on our differences as a way of bringing us together is like trying to light a fire in the ocean. Who are we trying to kid, here? Shakespeare, the greatest social commentator of all time (granted, this is in my extremely biased opinion) proved in his classic romantic tragedy Romeo and Juliet that there is no way of consolidating differences that will not end in destruction. The concept of difference presupposes an inability to be the same.
Identity is tricky, and historians still don’t know how to really define it. It used to be easy to say that our identity was found in our culture, but cultures have changed over the years, and a large portion of middle-class South Africans (myself included) don’t subscribe to their ancestral cultural identity. One can argue that identity is linked to history, but South Africa’s history is plagued with stories that most of us (whether correctly or not) would rather just forget. Besides, how much can we base our identity on history, if we cannot be certain if the history we know and are taught is the history that actually happened? We can’t say that there is a South African identity, because that argument would lead to the clearly improbable end that we are all the same. In any case, our Heritage Day celebrations clearly negate the legitimacy of that point. We can say that identity is religion, but that really only works for religions like Judaism and Islam, where laws are definite and membership is by birth. Every Hindi I know has different beliefs to the other, and there are so many various Christian denominations that it is becoming difficult to keep up. We marry cross-culturally, cross-religions, cross-race... and so our children cannot find an identity in those tangible constructs, because they do not exist for them. Perhaps the truth is that identity is as malleable and pliable as clay, and there no longer exists something called Identity.
Which makes me wonder why we as South Africans are so obsessed with finding ours. We somehow fear that without an identity to cling to, there’s no security. So we create a make-shift South African identity that is inspired by humorous anecdotes by Evita Bezuidenhout and sentimental speeches by Thabo Mbeki, which is absolute hagger. (Yes, I coined my own word, there. If Shakespeare could get away with it...) When we try to build on something that is not there – when we try to build tolerance on a fabricated identity – we delude ourselves to believing that the structure will stand. But it won’t, and the underlying resentment that South Africans have for each other is a clear indication that we need to get real about what we are as South Africans. We are different; we cannot change that, unless we pass a Bill in parliament similar to that of the Immorality Act, only this time forbidding anyone to marry someone of the same race or ethnic group (we’ll call it the Morality Act. And don’t think that this is a farfetched idea – our government's proposal of the new Protection of Information Bill sounds oddly alike to the apartheid Secrecy Bill). Yet even if we do this, class, religion, education, location will still be a hindrance in forging a unified identity.
My solution is not open racism (although I admit that I prefer this to silent patronising). Here’s what we need to do:
We need to recognise that co-existence does not mean assimilation and/or adaptation of others’ cultures. There is no need to share a common anything. We like the people we like, and dislike those we don’t. Whether it’s skin colour, hair colour, the clothes that one wears, or the accent they have – we all have prejudices. And as far as I am concerned, there is nothing wrong with prejudice in and of itself. Choosing Spur over McDonald's is a prejudice, because it all relates to preference. If you opt to not have white friends, or only to date black men from Umtata, opt away. Preference is part of who we are, and a right enshrined in our constitution. When things become problematic is when we apply hegemony to that preference, and treat people differently based on our partialities. Not liking McDonald's doesn’t give me the right to burn down every franchise I see. Preferences are subjective, and we need to learn that while we are different, and while we are entitled to have our opinions, we do not have free reign to assume that our opinion is The Truth By Which All Should Stand.
I don’t buy into a South African cultural identity. Enjoying the occasional braai doesn’t make me more South African than an Eskimo who cooks his fish on an open fire in Alaska. And being born in the southern most country of Africa does not make me obligated to believe in a Rainbow Nation. In fact, if your metaphorical nose scrunches up at the thought of particular racial or ethnic groups, scrunch with pleasure! What is important is that we must learn that the one thing that we do have in common – our humanity – is a good enough reason to treat everyone with equal respect and dignity. There needs to be an understanding that in as much as I am entitled to my prejudices based on my standing as a citizen of this country (the only part of our “identity” that South Africans share), so are the other people who also share their origins here. And so the same amount of respect that is afforded to me to have those opinions, is afforded to everyone else – even those that I prefer to hate. We treat people with respect not because we necessarily like them, but because we know that we want respect as well. Let's put aside this childish ambition to find tolerance in heritage and identity, but rather seek for it in the more attainable attributes `of dignity and respect.
When Juliet fell for the handsome - if somewhat fickle - Romeo, she made a very profound realisation. When considering Romeo's identity as a Montague, she bellowed from her balcony, "Thou art thyself, though not a Montague./ What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,/ Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part/ Belonging to a man." The conclusion that Juliet came to is one that would be beneficial for all of us to grasp: we are what we are, and not what are called.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
"To Flaming Youth..."
The other day, I burned my hand. Not just a finger or two, but the entire thing. Now, my left hand looks about 35 years older than the rest of my body. I would like to say that I burnt my hand while saving a young child from a burning house, or from heroically putting out a angry flames that threatened to destroy a mielie farm. Alas, this injury – like most – befell me in the unwittingly dangerous nerve centre of our home: the kitchen. For reasons that I am still trying to discover, I decided that I would put my hand under the cake tin containing a delicious chocolate cake that had just been taken out of the oven, and in the process, seared my hand.
As I was staring at my hand this afternoon (taking a break from staring at my computer screen, and doing an exemplary job of feigning busyness) I started to think about the many ways that we as South Africans burn ourselves. It occurred to me that, whether we realize it or want to acknowledge it or not, we are so prone – like infants – to burning fingers on a hot stove plate.
And this week, the youth of our country really out did themselves. Not only did they singe their hands, but out rightly threw themselves into the furnace. I will admit that, although he is not my favourite human, Julius Malema really speaks to the youth and reaches them where they are. Not all youth, yes, but a large population of young people believe in what he has to say. And his message of Black Economic Freedom is not a bad one. In fact, I tend to agree with a surprisingly large number of the things he says (once you sift through the racial slurs and ignorant slander). Yet the behaviour of the ANCYL this week can only be called barbaric.
Somewhere between Madiba’s inspirational inaugural speech in 1994 and the fall of the oppressive Libyan regime in August 2011, South African youths have picked up that the only way to get their voices heard and their opinions recognised is to riot in the streets, and disregard all who dare stand in their way. (This includes groping and insulting journalists, attacking the police, and intimidating shopkeepers.) We don’t care about integrity, and we have long forgotten about respect. We are claiming victories that are not our own, and think that we can surf on the backs of martyrs of the past who virtuously fought for our freedom. Yet we shame them with our vulgarity and base judgements and actions. We destroy, with the fire of our own hate, the foundations that have been laid down for us by the youth of darker times. We interpret “Born Free” as “Born Deserving”, and are overcome by our own self-indulgence and selfishness. Our sense of entitlement outweighs our sense of responsibility and hard work.
The “youth” are called failures in a number of areas: we can’t pass matric and fail to complete our degrees in the minimum required time; we flippantly satisfy our carnal desires in the back seats of strangers’ cars, then fall pregnant too early and without the stability or maturity to take care of another human being; we smoke and drink our futures away in dingy back rooms where the music is too loud and the smoke too thick for us to really come to grips with our own hopelessness. And as we continue to fail in all things, we continue to thrive in our propensity to destroy. Our self-annihilation becomes so common, that we are no longer aware of our own retardation. With disregard to the struggle of braver, wiser and more honourable youths, we feed the fire of despair, hatred and shame, forging for ourselves a new future that is void of anything praiseworthy or admirable.
We think only of our own desires, what would be of greater benefit to us, and not of the consequences of our selfish acts that follow these selfish thoughts. I don’t know what made me believe that the best plan of action would be to put my hand under a steaming hot aluminium cake tin. But perhaps it was the same thoughts of want and self-satisfaction that was going through the minds of the flocks of young people who streamed to Sauer Street this week. A thought that pays no heed to rationale, logic or pure common sense; it only thinks about what you want and how you can get it, and who cares about anyone else or the consequences?
However, I want to reassure those who are reading this who are not barbaric. The part of the youth who believe in respect and hard work; they believe in wanting to be better, and knowing that the best way to achieve what you want is not to be loud and rowdy, but to be hardworking and logical. To those of you who are as disgusted as I am, I want you to read this open letter posted by Jonathan Jansen today on Times Live:
http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2011/09/01/an-open-letter-to-sa-s-youth
I will not be negative enough to believe that all of South Africa’s youth are lost in the flames of their entitlement and, really bluntly, stupidity. I will hold onto the belief that most of us also build fires, but not to destroy. We build fires of knowledge and integrity; of hope and kindness. For those young people who are tired of the destruction, feed your fires with knowledge and action, and do not sit passively by as hate destroys this otherwise beautiful land. We can beat fire with fire, and as awareness grows, so ignorance will lessen, and the youth of this country can start to shine a light that doesn’t blind with hate, but that glows with pride.
Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, allowed herself to be overcome by lust and married her brother-in-law shortly after the suspicious death of her husband and Hamlet’s father. Hamlet, eventually too outraged to be submissive, implodes and says “To flaming youth let virtue be as wax/ And melt in her own fire”, referring to how easy it is to manipulate Gertude’s character and virtue. Gertrude allowed her lust to be the fire that ultimately ledto her shame. Do not fall prey to such weakness.
Shine on.
As I was staring at my hand this afternoon (taking a break from staring at my computer screen, and doing an exemplary job of feigning busyness) I started to think about the many ways that we as South Africans burn ourselves. It occurred to me that, whether we realize it or want to acknowledge it or not, we are so prone – like infants – to burning fingers on a hot stove plate.
And this week, the youth of our country really out did themselves. Not only did they singe their hands, but out rightly threw themselves into the furnace. I will admit that, although he is not my favourite human, Julius Malema really speaks to the youth and reaches them where they are. Not all youth, yes, but a large population of young people believe in what he has to say. And his message of Black Economic Freedom is not a bad one. In fact, I tend to agree with a surprisingly large number of the things he says (once you sift through the racial slurs and ignorant slander). Yet the behaviour of the ANCYL this week can only be called barbaric.
Somewhere between Madiba’s inspirational inaugural speech in 1994 and the fall of the oppressive Libyan regime in August 2011, South African youths have picked up that the only way to get their voices heard and their opinions recognised is to riot in the streets, and disregard all who dare stand in their way. (This includes groping and insulting journalists, attacking the police, and intimidating shopkeepers.) We don’t care about integrity, and we have long forgotten about respect. We are claiming victories that are not our own, and think that we can surf on the backs of martyrs of the past who virtuously fought for our freedom. Yet we shame them with our vulgarity and base judgements and actions. We destroy, with the fire of our own hate, the foundations that have been laid down for us by the youth of darker times. We interpret “Born Free” as “Born Deserving”, and are overcome by our own self-indulgence and selfishness. Our sense of entitlement outweighs our sense of responsibility and hard work.
The “youth” are called failures in a number of areas: we can’t pass matric and fail to complete our degrees in the minimum required time; we flippantly satisfy our carnal desires in the back seats of strangers’ cars, then fall pregnant too early and without the stability or maturity to take care of another human being; we smoke and drink our futures away in dingy back rooms where the music is too loud and the smoke too thick for us to really come to grips with our own hopelessness. And as we continue to fail in all things, we continue to thrive in our propensity to destroy. Our self-annihilation becomes so common, that we are no longer aware of our own retardation. With disregard to the struggle of braver, wiser and more honourable youths, we feed the fire of despair, hatred and shame, forging for ourselves a new future that is void of anything praiseworthy or admirable.
We think only of our own desires, what would be of greater benefit to us, and not of the consequences of our selfish acts that follow these selfish thoughts. I don’t know what made me believe that the best plan of action would be to put my hand under a steaming hot aluminium cake tin. But perhaps it was the same thoughts of want and self-satisfaction that was going through the minds of the flocks of young people who streamed to Sauer Street this week. A thought that pays no heed to rationale, logic or pure common sense; it only thinks about what you want and how you can get it, and who cares about anyone else or the consequences?
However, I want to reassure those who are reading this who are not barbaric. The part of the youth who believe in respect and hard work; they believe in wanting to be better, and knowing that the best way to achieve what you want is not to be loud and rowdy, but to be hardworking and logical. To those of you who are as disgusted as I am, I want you to read this open letter posted by Jonathan Jansen today on Times Live:
http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2011/09/01/an-open-letter-to-sa-s-youth
I will not be negative enough to believe that all of South Africa’s youth are lost in the flames of their entitlement and, really bluntly, stupidity. I will hold onto the belief that most of us also build fires, but not to destroy. We build fires of knowledge and integrity; of hope and kindness. For those young people who are tired of the destruction, feed your fires with knowledge and action, and do not sit passively by as hate destroys this otherwise beautiful land. We can beat fire with fire, and as awareness grows, so ignorance will lessen, and the youth of this country can start to shine a light that doesn’t blind with hate, but that glows with pride.
Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, allowed herself to be overcome by lust and married her brother-in-law shortly after the suspicious death of her husband and Hamlet’s father. Hamlet, eventually too outraged to be submissive, implodes and says “To flaming youth let virtue be as wax/ And melt in her own fire”, referring to how easy it is to manipulate Gertude’s character and virtue. Gertrude allowed her lust to be the fire that ultimately ledto her shame. Do not fall prey to such weakness.
Shine on.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
"Don't know much about history..."
Although much more interesting, blogging is like homework. And, much like when I was in school, homework is not my strong point. I clearly remember the first time I realised the term homework is just about semantics, and that homework done at school can lead to the same result as homework that takes you away from watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch at home. I was in Grade 4, and the homework was mathematically inclined. While watching Sabrina, I knew that the homework had to be done. But I thought back to the story of the shoemaker and the elves, and thought that my general awesomeness had warranted me my own pair of elves who would creep into my room late at night and complete the work I simply did not have time to do myself. It was only when I arrived at school the following day that I was reminded about the work by the way-too-eager-to-have-done-their-work girls in my class. Not one to panic, I decided that I had a few minutes before the ringing would signal the beginning of the school day. I did the work, not really concerned with its correctness. When we were marking the work in class (needless to say, things weren’t going too well for me) I came to another realisation about “homework”: it doesn’t have to be right. As long as there was writing in your book, you’d be good to go!
But I digress. Closely related to the anecdote that you’re not particularly interested in, is the topic of discussion for this blog. Education in this country is a conundrum. It’s the most important puzzle to work out, but we are all like ADHD students, easily distracted by the shiny objects of Juju drama and Springbok failures. But I have another anecdote:
During teaching training/ boot camp last year, as part of our “hands on practical experience”, our class was sent in groups of about six to various schools within Grahamstown and the surrounding areas (for those who are not familiar with the Eastern Cape, surrounding areas is really anything up to about an hour’s drive away). The school that I was assigned to attend was in the rural community of Bathurst – about 12km from the idyllic holiday hideaway, Port Alfred. Bathurst is also home to one of the Eastern Cape’s greatest attractions: the Big Pineapple (yes, it is a massive pineapple structure in the middle of nowhere – you’ve gotta love the Eastern Cape!). We were required to spend at least four days travelling to the school each day, but our group decided that we would go for five (interesting how I always get stuck with the eager lot!) and so we got into a Rhodes kombi at about 06:45 every morning and trekked 45 minutes to Bathurst and the 45 minutes back to my dorpie for a week.
I must admit that, since this assignment fell quite near to the beginning of my short-lived teaching experience, I was really excited about the task. It would be our very first opportunity to engage in formal teaching, and it is needless to say that we were all rather eager to show that we, indeed, were going to be the next best thing to hit the South African education system since the abolition of Bantu education. We had been told in the lectures leading up to this practical that the South African, and especially the Eastern Cape, education system is faulty. We were not thoroughly prepared. Faulty implies a few cracks. What we witnessed wasn’t a fault line, it was the Big Hole.
Driving in, the first thing you notice are the tennis courts and the beautiful cricket pitch. The school is small, but the buildings are neat and have a quaint, farm school feeling of older times where students were still taught how to milk cows and make cheese out of the bounty. We really couldn’t believe that our lecturers had lied to us, and although the school was at the end of a bumpy dirt road, one could tell that education was a priority and the pupils who attended the school are looked after and blessed.
We were horribly mistaken. The school that we had been assigned to was across a flimsy wire fence, and the only thing that the two had in common was the bumpy dirt road leading up to them. The school that we saw initially is the private school next door, and the kids from our school are not allowed to play on their cricket field in case they damage it (because, as we all know, poverty means barbarianism). The only sports field that our school had were two net-less netball poles on a flat piece of sanded off land. The classrooms were aluminium prefab structures; the school hall a 200-year colonial chapel that looks like it hasn’t been painted since the settlers had their services the 1820s. If students needed to relieve themselves in the lavatory, the ablution facilities are pit toilets that the government had built about 15 metres from the classrooms. The base of these undignified structures had been cemented close. This means that soon the dungeon beneath the toilets is going to fill up, because a proper sewerage system has not been installed. According to the principal, once this happens, the school is going to have to call the government, who will then send large trucks to suck the waste out from the chambers below, but it is anyone’s guess how long the government will take to send these trucks. He also said that, at the point that we were talking to him, asking for flushing toilets was completely out of the question.
While most of the high school teachers are qualified educators, the primary school teachers can barely speak English. Grades 1 -3 are all put in one class, and their teacher cannot string together an English sentence and is therefore forced to teach the kids in Xhosa. Not that this is a problem, because most of the grade 7’s can barely speak English, so trying to teach History or Science in anything but Xhosa would be a waste of time. By the time the pupils reach grade 11, the 5 that still remain can’t speak English and are more likely than not going to fail matric. There are dedicated teachers who are sincere and want to see the pupils succeed, but the students’ favourite is the teacher that always arrives at school with alcohol on his breath, never able to stand still but rather sways gently while giving his Life Orientation lesson. The school does not have a library, and the only computer that it had was stolen the month before we arrived.
I want to be able to say that there are not many schools like this in South Africa. Or at least to be able to say that this is one of the worst. But the truth is that our little school in Bathurst is actually one of the better ones in the Eastern Cape. I have seen pictures of schools where the principal’s office is in a pit toilet hut, with a cardboard box covering the hole on the floor; grade 1 classrooms with 50 children covering the entire surface of the floor; mud structures (formally classrooms) that have been destroyed by the seasonal rains. I have met pupils who have to walk 20 km’s to get to school, and when they get home do not have electricity to complete their homework. Six year olds who sit in classes with thirteen year olds, learning the same lesson because there are not enough classrooms or teachers to go around. I have been told by teachers that the government has forgotten to deliver the oats for the feeding scheme, and so the kids do not eat for that week because school is the only place where food is available.
And after all this, we are more worried with the low matric pass rate. We allow our students to suffer and fight for eleven years and for the very few who make it, we judge their courage and success based on one exam at the end of it all. We blame the teachers for not caring, the students for having no respect and the parents for not working hard enough. We pull up our noses when mother-tongue education is suggested, and are disgusted when we hear of young people being the leading perpetrators of violent crime.
Perhaps I don’t really get to have a say. Worse than ignorance, I actually had access to the problem firsthand, and I easily walked away. Far from being Super woman, I was more a Mojo Jojo-type character who saw that the problem was just too big for me to handle and, sadly, whimpered away. I guess that everyone has their calling and perhaps I am not noble enough for my calling to be Educator. But, like most South Africans, what I lack in valour I more than make up for in my ability to complain.
I will not bore you with my sentiments on the matter just yet. I think that what I have written is already enough to take in. Hopefully I will become a much more diligent student and write a follow-up blog soon about what I think the problems are and, hopefully, begin a discussion on coming to solutions that do not involve waiting for The Bureaucracy to come back from tea.
In The Tempest, Prospero tells his daughter Miranda "My library was dukedom large enough." Shakespeare makes clear the strong correlation between knowledge and power. We need to make sure that we are building a nation on the foundation of knowledge, or else it is not going to be strong enough to stand.
But I digress. Closely related to the anecdote that you’re not particularly interested in, is the topic of discussion for this blog. Education in this country is a conundrum. It’s the most important puzzle to work out, but we are all like ADHD students, easily distracted by the shiny objects of Juju drama and Springbok failures. But I have another anecdote:
During teaching training/ boot camp last year, as part of our “hands on practical experience”, our class was sent in groups of about six to various schools within Grahamstown and the surrounding areas (for those who are not familiar with the Eastern Cape, surrounding areas is really anything up to about an hour’s drive away). The school that I was assigned to attend was in the rural community of Bathurst – about 12km from the idyllic holiday hideaway, Port Alfred. Bathurst is also home to one of the Eastern Cape’s greatest attractions: the Big Pineapple (yes, it is a massive pineapple structure in the middle of nowhere – you’ve gotta love the Eastern Cape!). We were required to spend at least four days travelling to the school each day, but our group decided that we would go for five (interesting how I always get stuck with the eager lot!) and so we got into a Rhodes kombi at about 06:45 every morning and trekked 45 minutes to Bathurst and the 45 minutes back to my dorpie for a week.
I must admit that, since this assignment fell quite near to the beginning of my short-lived teaching experience, I was really excited about the task. It would be our very first opportunity to engage in formal teaching, and it is needless to say that we were all rather eager to show that we, indeed, were going to be the next best thing to hit the South African education system since the abolition of Bantu education. We had been told in the lectures leading up to this practical that the South African, and especially the Eastern Cape, education system is faulty. We were not thoroughly prepared. Faulty implies a few cracks. What we witnessed wasn’t a fault line, it was the Big Hole.
Driving in, the first thing you notice are the tennis courts and the beautiful cricket pitch. The school is small, but the buildings are neat and have a quaint, farm school feeling of older times where students were still taught how to milk cows and make cheese out of the bounty. We really couldn’t believe that our lecturers had lied to us, and although the school was at the end of a bumpy dirt road, one could tell that education was a priority and the pupils who attended the school are looked after and blessed.
We were horribly mistaken. The school that we had been assigned to was across a flimsy wire fence, and the only thing that the two had in common was the bumpy dirt road leading up to them. The school that we saw initially is the private school next door, and the kids from our school are not allowed to play on their cricket field in case they damage it (because, as we all know, poverty means barbarianism). The only sports field that our school had were two net-less netball poles on a flat piece of sanded off land. The classrooms were aluminium prefab structures; the school hall a 200-year colonial chapel that looks like it hasn’t been painted since the settlers had their services the 1820s. If students needed to relieve themselves in the lavatory, the ablution facilities are pit toilets that the government had built about 15 metres from the classrooms. The base of these undignified structures had been cemented close. This means that soon the dungeon beneath the toilets is going to fill up, because a proper sewerage system has not been installed. According to the principal, once this happens, the school is going to have to call the government, who will then send large trucks to suck the waste out from the chambers below, but it is anyone’s guess how long the government will take to send these trucks. He also said that, at the point that we were talking to him, asking for flushing toilets was completely out of the question.
While most of the high school teachers are qualified educators, the primary school teachers can barely speak English. Grades 1 -3 are all put in one class, and their teacher cannot string together an English sentence and is therefore forced to teach the kids in Xhosa. Not that this is a problem, because most of the grade 7’s can barely speak English, so trying to teach History or Science in anything but Xhosa would be a waste of time. By the time the pupils reach grade 11, the 5 that still remain can’t speak English and are more likely than not going to fail matric. There are dedicated teachers who are sincere and want to see the pupils succeed, but the students’ favourite is the teacher that always arrives at school with alcohol on his breath, never able to stand still but rather sways gently while giving his Life Orientation lesson. The school does not have a library, and the only computer that it had was stolen the month before we arrived.
I want to be able to say that there are not many schools like this in South Africa. Or at least to be able to say that this is one of the worst. But the truth is that our little school in Bathurst is actually one of the better ones in the Eastern Cape. I have seen pictures of schools where the principal’s office is in a pit toilet hut, with a cardboard box covering the hole on the floor; grade 1 classrooms with 50 children covering the entire surface of the floor; mud structures (formally classrooms) that have been destroyed by the seasonal rains. I have met pupils who have to walk 20 km’s to get to school, and when they get home do not have electricity to complete their homework. Six year olds who sit in classes with thirteen year olds, learning the same lesson because there are not enough classrooms or teachers to go around. I have been told by teachers that the government has forgotten to deliver the oats for the feeding scheme, and so the kids do not eat for that week because school is the only place where food is available.
And after all this, we are more worried with the low matric pass rate. We allow our students to suffer and fight for eleven years and for the very few who make it, we judge their courage and success based on one exam at the end of it all. We blame the teachers for not caring, the students for having no respect and the parents for not working hard enough. We pull up our noses when mother-tongue education is suggested, and are disgusted when we hear of young people being the leading perpetrators of violent crime.
Perhaps I don’t really get to have a say. Worse than ignorance, I actually had access to the problem firsthand, and I easily walked away. Far from being Super woman, I was more a Mojo Jojo-type character who saw that the problem was just too big for me to handle and, sadly, whimpered away. I guess that everyone has their calling and perhaps I am not noble enough for my calling to be Educator. But, like most South Africans, what I lack in valour I more than make up for in my ability to complain.
I will not bore you with my sentiments on the matter just yet. I think that what I have written is already enough to take in. Hopefully I will become a much more diligent student and write a follow-up blog soon about what I think the problems are and, hopefully, begin a discussion on coming to solutions that do not involve waiting for The Bureaucracy to come back from tea.
In The Tempest, Prospero tells his daughter Miranda "My library was dukedom large enough." Shakespeare makes clear the strong correlation between knowledge and power. We need to make sure that we are building a nation on the foundation of knowledge, or else it is not going to be strong enough to stand.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
“I hope you can accept a wonderful truth: we are family. We are family. If we could get to believe this we would realise that to care about the other is not being altruistic. It is the best form of self-interest.” – Desmond Tutu
It is nearing that time, once again, when responsible citizens head to the polls to make a mark on history.
Yes, this is what responsible citizens do. Before I even go into the crux of my thoughts, I want to make that clear. Apathy is not responsible. Ignorance is not responsible. And, contrary to what many people believe, Abstinence from voting – for whatever reason –IS NOT RESPONSIBLE. I do not accept that a responsible citizen will glibly absent from picking a side because of a ‘lack of viable options’. That’s just not how democracy works. If you struggle to determine, based on a rational, logical and well thought out conclusion, that the policies and promises of no party tickle your fancy, not voting is not the responsible choice.
I would like to offer you an easy solution to your problem: vote for the party that best supports democracy. I’m not talking about policy, here; I am talking about proportionate representation. Vote for the party that is going to be the loudest mouthpiece against those in power that you feel are not living up to those promises. I do not have political affiliations and subscribe to no party, but I do value opposition and for those who are not sure about whom to give their power vote to, vote for opposition because that is a vote for a functional democracy.
However, today’s blog is not about voting, or even really about the elections. I have been having chats with quite a few people lately who wonder what the South African problem is. Sure, we can name the obvious: unemployment, racism, violent crime… the list truly, and sadly, is endless. But the real issue, the one that I think really goes to the heart of the matter, is why things are not getting better; why, in fact, they are getting worse. I have been struggling with this, and I know that many people have, too. We love South Africa, but there is very little that is convincing us to want to stay. We can’t seem to understand why people – politicians and civilians – are so self-interested and malicious.
While chatting to a friend a while back, I suggested that the solution to our problem as South Africa and South Africans is found in the structure and characteristics of a family. He disagreed, and so I thought that perhaps my ideas, while noble, were too naïve. But, I seem to have agreement with a wiser mind, as the above quotation suggest, so I am going to confidently submit my idea to you and hope that, like the great Desmond Tutu, you will be able to understand and accept what I offer you.
I think that we need to strive to be more like a family. Firstly, that does not mean that we are meant to get along. People who are so diversely different usually don’t. (Anyone who has organised a family event will know that there is no truth in that). And so, as a spinoff of that, we are never going to see the world the same way. We are going to prioritise different things, cherish different things and believe different things. There are always going to be some people that we just do not like: an uncle who hugs you too long; a cousin who dated your ex; an aunt who keeps asking you for money. But, at the end of the day, you’re family. Not because you share the same history, or values or agenda. But because you share the same blood. It goes that deep and that is all that matter.
I barely speak to my extended family (roughly every second Christmas) but I would kill anyone who would try to hurt them. And I might moan and complain about my uncle to my sister, but never to a stranger. Because their embarrassments reflect badly on me and when they succeed, I look good. Because we’re family. Maybe it sounds too simple, but I think that maybe that’s the solution. Let’s stop trying to get along and like each other and all believe in the same things. Because that’s not really the stuff that’s really important. Once we get the fundamental – that no matter how different we are, we can’t separate ourselves from each other – then we’ll stop seeing the difference and just start seeing the FAMILY.
I may never speak to my uncle, but I would never deny him bread. You see, once we get rid of this need to be more than we really are, then we can start being what we already are: different people born into one family. That’s when everything else will fall into place. Because who would want to steal from their family? Who would want to rape and murder their blood? And if, and when, it happens, who wouldn’t be surprised? Because you do not do those things to your family.
Perhaps that explains why sport can bring a nation together the way that it does. Because we find a commonness in sport; a common aim and dream that surpasses the many differences we have between us. Because when John Smit holds that cup in the air, we’ve all won. All of us. We are all a part of that victory. If only we could learn to transfer that victory back into everyday life. Which, in essence, is what LeadSA is all about. Find the part of you that sees yourself in someone else. As Desmond Tutu says, looking after each other really is all about self-preservation.
"The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." - Mark Antony in Julius Caesar
Thursday, April 28, 2011
The Great Escape
"That is a good trick about this world, Sarah. No one likes each other, but everyone likes U2."
It's difficult to determine what the important things in this world are. What are the things that we should really be concerned about? And the truth is that, when we find the answer to this question (or at least, when we think we have), we are so busy trying to survive everything else that those things that we would like to place as priority end up being the thoughts that occupy our minds in that semi-lucid time between consciousness and dreams. And so the good intentions that we have often fall prey to the intentions that become imposed on us by family, work, school, society... and we find ourselves only being a fraction of the person that we could be. Unfortunately, I have begun to realise that this same disease has taken hold of my blog. Sadly, those things which are important have evaded these pages, and I apologise for allowing what should be a great platform to become somewhat of a journal.
Thus, to atone, I have been inspired to tackle a topic that we do not think about enough: refugees. Do refugees exist in a globalised society? Should they? And what about policy? Should government policy prioritise refugee legislation, or perhaps it is not even that important? I do not really know the finite answers to any of those questions, and I do not wish to offer any solutions to an idea that continues to baffle minds much greater than mine. As always, however, I do wish to purvey some of my thoughts on the matter, and hope that a discussion will be started that will lead us, all of us, to asking the questions that need to be asked and have to be answered.
If being a history major has taught me anything, it is that one cannot begin to discuss anything before first defining that which is to be discussed. So let's take a moment to determine what, for us, a refugee is. While I do not rest on the authority of the United Nations in terms of policy and implementation, I do believe that the chaps over at HQ in New York are really good at the semantics of the whole thing. I suppose that when you're being ineffective, time opens up nicely for you to create definitions. And they also make them sound so intelligent, albeit only for aesthetic appeal as opposed to actual World Peace (how dare we expect so much from them?). But I digress. According to the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (how fancy!) a refugee is:
"A person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.."
What a verbose way of saying "A person who does not belong". So, according to the wise cranks at the UN, a refugee is someone who cannot return home for fear of persecution for various reasons. I think that this is a fairly accurate definition, at least for the intents and purposes of this here blog. There really is no real need to delve further into the philosophical anomalies of what this definition means. We can just accept it at face value, and move on.
I think that the biggest question, and the one that I would like to tackle first, is: What is society's responsibility to refugees? I definitely understand the moral dilemma: as much as we are all citizens of God's green earth, surely it cannot be expected that those nations that struggle even to look after their own citizens, be morally obligated to care for others. I also know that this sounds heartless, but consider a country like Tanzania. By 2008, Tanzania had played safe sanctuary to nearly 433 000 refugees. This while being one of the world's poorest economies, in terms of per capita income. Does that sort of impoverished society have the capacity to act as safe haven? And should they? Since then, Tanzania have somewhat begun to deny the refugee issue, and are in the process of derefuginising (?) their state - quite undercover. And there seems to be this shock-and-horror cry from our fluffy friends in the Human Rights aisle, because clearly Tanzania should equate the needs of the refugees to those of their own citizens. Surely...?
And then there is the issue of legislature. In the developing world, issues on immigration and refugees are a much bigger boiling point than they are for us. I wonder why that is, and I wonder if perhaps they have it right. Ok, yes, we love the spirit of Ubuntu and singing Kumbaya and the warm fuzzy feeling we get from the spirit that unites us citizens of the horned continent. But surely this is an issue that warrants more than a brief thought, especially in a country where we have proven we're not really fond of those African brothers and sisters from across the way. How much thought do we give to our government’s response to refugees? Last year, we basically handed out free residency to all Zimbabwean citizens, without so much as a voter-friendly warning. How surprised, then, are we really going to be when there are more xenophobic attacks because people feel threatened by the growing mass of foreigners? Am I advocating for panga warfare? No. I find the attacks and those who supported them grossly despicable, as would any morally conscious person. But it seems as though the waters will continue to boil if government fails to educate us on refugee matters, and how much we as citizens need to contribute/sacrifice to the pan-African brotherhood. Government has to (or at least, should) justify the decisions that they make when governing us, so that we can know that the choices they make are the ones that are best going to protect us. If a portion of my tax-payer’s income is going to the cause of the fellow man, I should know how big that portion is, because it is a portion that is going to be taken out of my mouth.
Ok, but then we cannot actually discredit the other side of the argument. Something must be said for the humanitarian argument; the argument that I am sure a large section of the population would subscribe to. Perhaps even an argument strong enough to supersede the analytical and rational arguments as stated above. Because as much as we try to deny it, we are not only thinking beings, but we are feeling beings, as well.
There is a truth in the "do unto others" proverb. We never know the situation that we are going to find ourselves in, or when we are going to be the ones in need. But I do think it’s more than that: none of us choose our lot in life. We do not know the circumstances that we are going to be born into. In the same way that Paris Hilton scored MAJORLY big by being born a Hilton, the members of our society who are forced to flee their homes did not choose to be born into such terrible times. We cannot hold refugees responsible for their need to become refugees, and so there is a moral obligation to look at our own privileged situation and recognise that our rights are perhaps not really, or only, our own. We cannot really be arrogant and elitist in our thinking and practices, because the benefits and freedoms that we are afforded are nothing that we have really earned or worked for, so what right do we have not to extend those same benefits and freedoms to others? It is more than being selfish, really, if we hold on to our rights as citizens of a free society without recognising the unfortunate situation that other people are stuck in. It is ungratefulness and self-entitlement that makes us think we are more important than others, and it is living a lie that this importance is divinely given to those who are more deserving.
But perhaps we need to go even further back in the process of this argument, and ask ourselves whether or not refugees should even be possible to exist in a globalised community. The world is getting smaller, and not just in terms of social and technological areas. Economically, our pockets are very closely linked to the pockets of others across our borders. When there is turmoil in the Middle East, we all feel it with the increase of petrol prices. Nobody was safe from the recent global recession, not even our humble Mzansi, and so we cannot deny that we are all – in a strange way – connected. Major consulting firms like Accenture, Bain and Peppers and Rogers have the Chinese working in Portugal and the Portuguese in Argentina. We are meeting people every day from different countries who, for various reasons, have landed on our shores and now call South Africa home. The lines of division that used to be so solid are being erased by pop culture, philosophy, politics and religion. Regional organisations like the African Union, NATO and the EU are slowly eroding what was once sacrosanct national sovereignty. And so it seems almost juvenile that we can say a refugee flees one country to go to another, because the concept of the nation state is slowly becoming more sentimental than anything else. And so if the ties that bind us are becoming stronger than the lines that divide us, than the notion of citizenship is also a loose one. Our global passports are open, so do we have the authority to deny anyone entrance and the opportunity to strive and succeed?
I guess the defining factor has to do with give and take. We want the individual to be able to flourish, and I suppose that is why we give them asylum: their own states are unable to provide them with that “pursuit of happiness”. But I also think that we need to keep in mind the “give”. Is it fair to call refugees parasites? Is it morally acceptable? Politically correct? Maybe the word is strong, but I do believe that if a country (in the loose sense of the word) is going to open its borders to a person, then it is that person’s responsibility to give back to the community that is housing him or her. I understand the limitations in the capacity of the individual, but perhaps we need to change the notion of refugee as asylum seeker to refugee as enhancement seeker to change the role that refugees play in our societies.
There are many elements of this argument that there is not time to discuss now. Perhaps we will come back to this at a later time. However, whether or not you’re a refugee, a citizen by birth or ancestry or have allegiance to more than one state, I would like to leave you with a simple thought. This is not a new thought, and I am positive that there are others who have and will put it in much more eloquent words. The quotation at the top of this article is from the book Little Bee by Chris Cleave. The sad truth about what is being said is that humans seem to find similarities in everything, but our humanity. I do not know the answer to The Great Refugee Question, but let us just start with this one commitment: to treat others as though they are neither greater nor lesser than us, but rather as equal foreigners in a journey that we are all experiencing for the first time: life. Let those of us who have never had to flee, escape, hide or fight be thankful for those who have made that possible. And let us never forget those who have not had the same fortune.
“How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.” Portia in The Merchant of Venice
It's difficult to determine what the important things in this world are. What are the things that we should really be concerned about? And the truth is that, when we find the answer to this question (or at least, when we think we have), we are so busy trying to survive everything else that those things that we would like to place as priority end up being the thoughts that occupy our minds in that semi-lucid time between consciousness and dreams. And so the good intentions that we have often fall prey to the intentions that become imposed on us by family, work, school, society... and we find ourselves only being a fraction of the person that we could be. Unfortunately, I have begun to realise that this same disease has taken hold of my blog. Sadly, those things which are important have evaded these pages, and I apologise for allowing what should be a great platform to become somewhat of a journal.
Thus, to atone, I have been inspired to tackle a topic that we do not think about enough: refugees. Do refugees exist in a globalised society? Should they? And what about policy? Should government policy prioritise refugee legislation, or perhaps it is not even that important? I do not really know the finite answers to any of those questions, and I do not wish to offer any solutions to an idea that continues to baffle minds much greater than mine. As always, however, I do wish to purvey some of my thoughts on the matter, and hope that a discussion will be started that will lead us, all of us, to asking the questions that need to be asked and have to be answered.
If being a history major has taught me anything, it is that one cannot begin to discuss anything before first defining that which is to be discussed. So let's take a moment to determine what, for us, a refugee is. While I do not rest on the authority of the United Nations in terms of policy and implementation, I do believe that the chaps over at HQ in New York are really good at the semantics of the whole thing. I suppose that when you're being ineffective, time opens up nicely for you to create definitions. And they also make them sound so intelligent, albeit only for aesthetic appeal as opposed to actual World Peace (how dare we expect so much from them?). But I digress. According to the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (how fancy!) a refugee is:
"A person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.."
What a verbose way of saying "A person who does not belong". So, according to the wise cranks at the UN, a refugee is someone who cannot return home for fear of persecution for various reasons. I think that this is a fairly accurate definition, at least for the intents and purposes of this here blog. There really is no real need to delve further into the philosophical anomalies of what this definition means. We can just accept it at face value, and move on.
I think that the biggest question, and the one that I would like to tackle first, is: What is society's responsibility to refugees? I definitely understand the moral dilemma: as much as we are all citizens of God's green earth, surely it cannot be expected that those nations that struggle even to look after their own citizens, be morally obligated to care for others. I also know that this sounds heartless, but consider a country like Tanzania. By 2008, Tanzania had played safe sanctuary to nearly 433 000 refugees. This while being one of the world's poorest economies, in terms of per capita income. Does that sort of impoverished society have the capacity to act as safe haven? And should they? Since then, Tanzania have somewhat begun to deny the refugee issue, and are in the process of derefuginising (?) their state - quite undercover. And there seems to be this shock-and-horror cry from our fluffy friends in the Human Rights aisle, because clearly Tanzania should equate the needs of the refugees to those of their own citizens. Surely...?
And then there is the issue of legislature. In the developing world, issues on immigration and refugees are a much bigger boiling point than they are for us. I wonder why that is, and I wonder if perhaps they have it right. Ok, yes, we love the spirit of Ubuntu and singing Kumbaya and the warm fuzzy feeling we get from the spirit that unites us citizens of the horned continent. But surely this is an issue that warrants more than a brief thought, especially in a country where we have proven we're not really fond of those African brothers and sisters from across the way. How much thought do we give to our government’s response to refugees? Last year, we basically handed out free residency to all Zimbabwean citizens, without so much as a voter-friendly warning. How surprised, then, are we really going to be when there are more xenophobic attacks because people feel threatened by the growing mass of foreigners? Am I advocating for panga warfare? No. I find the attacks and those who supported them grossly despicable, as would any morally conscious person. But it seems as though the waters will continue to boil if government fails to educate us on refugee matters, and how much we as citizens need to contribute/sacrifice to the pan-African brotherhood. Government has to (or at least, should) justify the decisions that they make when governing us, so that we can know that the choices they make are the ones that are best going to protect us. If a portion of my tax-payer’s income is going to the cause of the fellow man, I should know how big that portion is, because it is a portion that is going to be taken out of my mouth.
Ok, but then we cannot actually discredit the other side of the argument. Something must be said for the humanitarian argument; the argument that I am sure a large section of the population would subscribe to. Perhaps even an argument strong enough to supersede the analytical and rational arguments as stated above. Because as much as we try to deny it, we are not only thinking beings, but we are feeling beings, as well.
There is a truth in the "do unto others" proverb. We never know the situation that we are going to find ourselves in, or when we are going to be the ones in need. But I do think it’s more than that: none of us choose our lot in life. We do not know the circumstances that we are going to be born into. In the same way that Paris Hilton scored MAJORLY big by being born a Hilton, the members of our society who are forced to flee their homes did not choose to be born into such terrible times. We cannot hold refugees responsible for their need to become refugees, and so there is a moral obligation to look at our own privileged situation and recognise that our rights are perhaps not really, or only, our own. We cannot really be arrogant and elitist in our thinking and practices, because the benefits and freedoms that we are afforded are nothing that we have really earned or worked for, so what right do we have not to extend those same benefits and freedoms to others? It is more than being selfish, really, if we hold on to our rights as citizens of a free society without recognising the unfortunate situation that other people are stuck in. It is ungratefulness and self-entitlement that makes us think we are more important than others, and it is living a lie that this importance is divinely given to those who are more deserving.
But perhaps we need to go even further back in the process of this argument, and ask ourselves whether or not refugees should even be possible to exist in a globalised community. The world is getting smaller, and not just in terms of social and technological areas. Economically, our pockets are very closely linked to the pockets of others across our borders. When there is turmoil in the Middle East, we all feel it with the increase of petrol prices. Nobody was safe from the recent global recession, not even our humble Mzansi, and so we cannot deny that we are all – in a strange way – connected. Major consulting firms like Accenture, Bain and Peppers and Rogers have the Chinese working in Portugal and the Portuguese in Argentina. We are meeting people every day from different countries who, for various reasons, have landed on our shores and now call South Africa home. The lines of division that used to be so solid are being erased by pop culture, philosophy, politics and religion. Regional organisations like the African Union, NATO and the EU are slowly eroding what was once sacrosanct national sovereignty. And so it seems almost juvenile that we can say a refugee flees one country to go to another, because the concept of the nation state is slowly becoming more sentimental than anything else. And so if the ties that bind us are becoming stronger than the lines that divide us, than the notion of citizenship is also a loose one. Our global passports are open, so do we have the authority to deny anyone entrance and the opportunity to strive and succeed?
I guess the defining factor has to do with give and take. We want the individual to be able to flourish, and I suppose that is why we give them asylum: their own states are unable to provide them with that “pursuit of happiness”. But I also think that we need to keep in mind the “give”. Is it fair to call refugees parasites? Is it morally acceptable? Politically correct? Maybe the word is strong, but I do believe that if a country (in the loose sense of the word) is going to open its borders to a person, then it is that person’s responsibility to give back to the community that is housing him or her. I understand the limitations in the capacity of the individual, but perhaps we need to change the notion of refugee as asylum seeker to refugee as enhancement seeker to change the role that refugees play in our societies.
There are many elements of this argument that there is not time to discuss now. Perhaps we will come back to this at a later time. However, whether or not you’re a refugee, a citizen by birth or ancestry or have allegiance to more than one state, I would like to leave you with a simple thought. This is not a new thought, and I am positive that there are others who have and will put it in much more eloquent words. The quotation at the top of this article is from the book Little Bee by Chris Cleave. The sad truth about what is being said is that humans seem to find similarities in everything, but our humanity. I do not know the answer to The Great Refugee Question, but let us just start with this one commitment: to treat others as though they are neither greater nor lesser than us, but rather as equal foreigners in a journey that we are all experiencing for the first time: life. Let those of us who have never had to flee, escape, hide or fight be thankful for those who have made that possible. And let us never forget those who have not had the same fortune.
“How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.” Portia in The Merchant of Venice
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
I don't believe in the stars
It is not surprising that it took a long Rhodetrip home to inspire me to start writing again. While I had known that my relationship with Joburg had ended when my love affair with Grahamstown began, I had thought that the break up was an amicable one. Sadly, I am not exempt to the age-old wisdom of: thou canst not a friend to thine ex be. And I finally understand why: because your ex is everything you were, who you used to be, the food you used to like and your waste-high, faded jeans that used to be in style.
Joburg and I no longer have anything in common. We do not listen to the same music, watch the same movies or find the same jokes tolerable. While Johannesburg is concerned with building of the road, I care more about where the road is headed. Johannesburg counts the pennies; I am more accustomed to not having any to count. At some point, Joburg became more of a 'Time Magazine' reader, whilst I took on a liking for 'The Economist'. When we go out for lunch, Joburg and I can no longer share a meal because I like the pasta, and Joburg prefers the steak. Johannesburg grew up listening to The Rolling Stones, whereas for me, it was Michael Jackson who really changed my life.
Not to say that there is anything wrong with this. I think that it takes a great deal of maturity (yes, on my part) to admit that I have lost familiarity with my oldest friend. And it is this thought that really gave me the impetus to begin to feel the feelings that led me to be sitting, once more, in front of a computer.
In as much as we find it difficult to say farewell to a relationship that has already ended, we also find it difficult to see that life is actually not as complicated as it may seem. Sure, the detail changes here and there, but for the most part the structure can be deemed as somewhat predictable. If [barely] completing Drama 3 successfully has taught me anything, it's that everything must have a beginning, middle and end. Nothing can last in this world, because nothing is meant to last. That's just not the option we are given. And so, as I have learnt with my relationship with Johannesburg, life, too, must come to its inevitable denouement. The sad part, however, is that instead of "Rage, rage, rage against the dying of the light', our lives become dim and pointless. We accept that because life began without our consent, and it is going to end without our knowing, we abdicate our control of whatever happens in between
And what a shame. Not a shame that we let our lights die, because that it how we are brought up. We are told to dream whatever we want, and then when we turn 8 we are told that those dreams need to be limited. We are told to strive for more than mediocre, but we are brought up to treasure a comfort and security that can only be achieved when we do what everyone else is doing. So there is no shame in letting our lights die out.
The shame is that we let the darkness in.
I do not have to travel very far in my own history to remember a time when I believed that I could be different. Where I aimed higher than the bull's eye on the ceiling. And now here I am, stuck (yes, I use stuck wisely, here) in a job that is pointless and with a life that does not satisfy. Back with Johannesburg, thinking that I can have a relationship with one that had stopped to satisfy me a very long time ago.
While I write what is in my heart, I never want this blog to be about me - a topic that, I do not doubt, is of great interest but that will not be of much value to whomever may stumble across my cyber space. What I aim to do is to leave you with a thought that started in my brain, and that would like to take residence in yours.
I no longer believe in the stars, at least not in the way that it has been taught. Our sun is so pathetic in comparison to the billions that sparkle in the heavens, and yet we seem so content with it. How very pathetic of us!
Week challenge: my light is not compared to the light of the sun, neither is it compared to those balls of fire that burn so far away. My light is exactly that: MY light. I refuse to let it be defined by anything or anyone but me. I am my star, and my light is bright. I will not suffer myself to settle for a light that shines dimmer than the one I know shines within me.
This is not a motivational message. This is a message to the little kid in all of us who IS Batman, who CAN fly and who WILL change the world. This message is to that star. I'm sorry I told you to stop shining. How foolish of me. I want you to take me to the end of the world, remind me what it's like to ride on a unicorn and to jump off a rainbow. I miss my star.
From now on, I do not just believe in stars. I believe in Shakespeare's "auspicious star" that catapulted the world's greatest romance, stirred up a Tempest, and changed the world.
Joburg and I no longer have anything in common. We do not listen to the same music, watch the same movies or find the same jokes tolerable. While Johannesburg is concerned with building of the road, I care more about where the road is headed. Johannesburg counts the pennies; I am more accustomed to not having any to count. At some point, Joburg became more of a 'Time Magazine' reader, whilst I took on a liking for 'The Economist'. When we go out for lunch, Joburg and I can no longer share a meal because I like the pasta, and Joburg prefers the steak. Johannesburg grew up listening to The Rolling Stones, whereas for me, it was Michael Jackson who really changed my life.
Not to say that there is anything wrong with this. I think that it takes a great deal of maturity (yes, on my part) to admit that I have lost familiarity with my oldest friend. And it is this thought that really gave me the impetus to begin to feel the feelings that led me to be sitting, once more, in front of a computer.
In as much as we find it difficult to say farewell to a relationship that has already ended, we also find it difficult to see that life is actually not as complicated as it may seem. Sure, the detail changes here and there, but for the most part the structure can be deemed as somewhat predictable. If [barely] completing Drama 3 successfully has taught me anything, it's that everything must have a beginning, middle and end. Nothing can last in this world, because nothing is meant to last. That's just not the option we are given. And so, as I have learnt with my relationship with Johannesburg, life, too, must come to its inevitable denouement. The sad part, however, is that instead of "Rage, rage, rage against the dying of the light', our lives become dim and pointless. We accept that because life began without our consent, and it is going to end without our knowing, we abdicate our control of whatever happens in between
And what a shame. Not a shame that we let our lights die, because that it how we are brought up. We are told to dream whatever we want, and then when we turn 8 we are told that those dreams need to be limited. We are told to strive for more than mediocre, but we are brought up to treasure a comfort and security that can only be achieved when we do what everyone else is doing. So there is no shame in letting our lights die out.
The shame is that we let the darkness in.
I do not have to travel very far in my own history to remember a time when I believed that I could be different. Where I aimed higher than the bull's eye on the ceiling. And now here I am, stuck (yes, I use stuck wisely, here) in a job that is pointless and with a life that does not satisfy. Back with Johannesburg, thinking that I can have a relationship with one that had stopped to satisfy me a very long time ago.
While I write what is in my heart, I never want this blog to be about me - a topic that, I do not doubt, is of great interest but that will not be of much value to whomever may stumble across my cyber space. What I aim to do is to leave you with a thought that started in my brain, and that would like to take residence in yours.
I no longer believe in the stars, at least not in the way that it has been taught. Our sun is so pathetic in comparison to the billions that sparkle in the heavens, and yet we seem so content with it. How very pathetic of us!
Week challenge: my light is not compared to the light of the sun, neither is it compared to those balls of fire that burn so far away. My light is exactly that: MY light. I refuse to let it be defined by anything or anyone but me. I am my star, and my light is bright. I will not suffer myself to settle for a light that shines dimmer than the one I know shines within me.
This is not a motivational message. This is a message to the little kid in all of us who IS Batman, who CAN fly and who WILL change the world. This message is to that star. I'm sorry I told you to stop shining. How foolish of me. I want you to take me to the end of the world, remind me what it's like to ride on a unicorn and to jump off a rainbow. I miss my star.
From now on, I do not just believe in stars. I believe in Shakespeare's "auspicious star" that catapulted the world's greatest romance, stirred up a Tempest, and changed the world.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Unscientific Calculation
I've been moved by the inner vibes of me to follow on my theme from last week: this one of Love. I do not wish in any way to advocate that Love is easy to understand, let alone write about. But I definitely know that it exists. I think that there are very few Loves that are real, and I would like to discuss for a bit two of those Loves that I believe extend far more than what we read in books or watch in [extremely-depressing-but-really-difficult-not-to-watch] movies.
What I have come to figure out (and it didn't take me much time to come to the conclusion that I have always known) is that when it comes to Love, we're all clueless. Because no matter how far out into the universe we go, no matter how many sea caves we discover, and no matter how many small little pieces we can break an atom into, we just have NO idea where to even begin defining and, even more, understanding Love. The greatest philosophers and mathematicians can come up with theories such as corpuscularianism and calculus, but they cannot come up with a formula that gets us just an iota closer to understanding what Love is. Is it a physical reaction or an uncontrollable emotional force? What separates Love from affection, curiosity or pity? Can you measure Love?
Regardless of the many questions that may arise, there are some things that I do know about love. One of those things is that Love is a choice. It's not passive or uncontrollable as Hollywood would like us to believe. Love is actively deciding that no matter what, I am sticking by this person. Because I Love. The only love that is real, or at the very least that matters, is a love that is selfless; sacrificial; unconditional. So then it raises a question in my head: ja, right. Who?
I think about the kind of person I am, and what it takes to DECIDE to love me. To decide means seeing my imperfections and choosing to look past them... and you would be looking a REALLY long distance to see past them. There are days that I wake up and even I find it hard to love myself. Days when my jeans are too tight, my eyes are too small, or I'm just not that funny. I think about how I could be taller, smarter, thinner, prettier, just like her, a bit more like him and a lot less like me. I think about the person that I want to be, and how very far away I am from even starting to become her. I look and see people who are cooler, nicer, quirkier, more talented and have more friends than me. And then I think about CHOOSING to love, and whether or not I would choose to love me. And most days... well, most days, it's pretty tough.
And even more than that, I don't understand why my mother loves me. Science dictates that all things have a reason and that everything can be explained through methodical calculation. If I were to use that logic in trying to understand why my mother loves me, here's what I would come to: she shouldn't. From soiled diapers at 6 months old (gross!), to selfish tears at 6 years old, all the way to broken curfews at sixteen, there is an endless list of why my mother should not love me. I can think of countless times when I have shouted at, lied to and fought with my mom. When I have disrespected her, mocked her and told her she's ruined my life. Where I have not regarded her feelings, and when I have outright disobeyed her. The times that I have made her cry: in front of me and in secret. I can name times when I have openly despised her, publicly humiliated her and inwardly detested her. When I have done everything in my power to manipulate her, belittle her and get my way.
If I were to think of the times that she should love me, the list is not so long. In fact, from the time that I was taking up lodging in her womb, I have been nothing but a pain in her back and burden to her wallet. After all she has sacrificed, I still manage to undermine her love through my intolerance and selfishness. I expect too much and thank too little. I seldom acknowledge her contribution to my successes, but am quick to blame her for my failures.
But she loves me. When I disobey her, she loves me. When I yell at her, she loves me. When I prove to her in my actions and my hateful words that she should do anything but love me, she loves me. She was at every school play, at every debate. She made me soup when I was ill, even though she told me not to play in the rain. She hugged me, kissed me and held my hand when I had done everything to push her away. She loves me, and I don't know why. You see, Science says that I am a parasite. I leech off her, taking what I want and doing what's good for me. Loving me is not healthy, and yet she does.
If I can't even figure out why my mother - with her human flaws - can love me, how much more flabbergasted am I to find that GOD loves me. In fact, I think that He shouldn't. But I thank God that He does not think the way I do. I thank Him that He does not have a pros and cons list of why He should love me, because to Him that does not matter. I don't have to understand why He loves, and trying to figure it out would be a waste of time. All I have to know is that He does. You see, the thing with God is that He doesn't choose love, He IS love; He doesn't give grace, He CREATES it. And God doesn't just tell me He loves me, He SHOWED me He loves me: way back when He hung on a wooden cross, He demonstrated a love so immeasurable it REDEFINED love.
I don't know how it's possible to get seedless grapes, or why mice have really long tales. I don't know why some people like blue cheese and why others don't. I don't know where dogs learn to swim, or why pigeons are grey. I don't know why my mother loves me. And I don't know why the all-powerful ruler of everything would look down and notice me; why He would love me and care for me; why He would die for me.
There are tons of things that I do not know about Love. What I do know is God loves me. And to me, that's all that really matters. God's love for me IS selfless, sacrificial and unconditional. How? Well, I don't know. But I do know that The Duke of Romance has a way of describing Love that has resonated over the years of war and famine and disease. Shakespeare may not have been thinking about God's love for us when he wrote this, but it sure is a close description of a Love that even the greatest poets and literary legends would never be able to fully explain, even if they were to try forever.
This week's challenge: know that you are loved. Because even when you look in the mirror and there are three more pimples there that weren't there yesterday, there is a Prince Charming who loves you so much, you'll never be able to wear Him out. And isn't that just a joy to know!
"... Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom."
Shakespeare, Sonnet 116
What I have come to figure out (and it didn't take me much time to come to the conclusion that I have always known) is that when it comes to Love, we're all clueless. Because no matter how far out into the universe we go, no matter how many sea caves we discover, and no matter how many small little pieces we can break an atom into, we just have NO idea where to even begin defining and, even more, understanding Love. The greatest philosophers and mathematicians can come up with theories such as corpuscularianism and calculus, but they cannot come up with a formula that gets us just an iota closer to understanding what Love is. Is it a physical reaction or an uncontrollable emotional force? What separates Love from affection, curiosity or pity? Can you measure Love?
Regardless of the many questions that may arise, there are some things that I do know about love. One of those things is that Love is a choice. It's not passive or uncontrollable as Hollywood would like us to believe. Love is actively deciding that no matter what, I am sticking by this person. Because I Love. The only love that is real, or at the very least that matters, is a love that is selfless; sacrificial; unconditional. So then it raises a question in my head: ja, right. Who?
I think about the kind of person I am, and what it takes to DECIDE to love me. To decide means seeing my imperfections and choosing to look past them... and you would be looking a REALLY long distance to see past them. There are days that I wake up and even I find it hard to love myself. Days when my jeans are too tight, my eyes are too small, or I'm just not that funny. I think about how I could be taller, smarter, thinner, prettier, just like her, a bit more like him and a lot less like me. I think about the person that I want to be, and how very far away I am from even starting to become her. I look and see people who are cooler, nicer, quirkier, more talented and have more friends than me. And then I think about CHOOSING to love, and whether or not I would choose to love me. And most days... well, most days, it's pretty tough.
And even more than that, I don't understand why my mother loves me. Science dictates that all things have a reason and that everything can be explained through methodical calculation. If I were to use that logic in trying to understand why my mother loves me, here's what I would come to: she shouldn't. From soiled diapers at 6 months old (gross!), to selfish tears at 6 years old, all the way to broken curfews at sixteen, there is an endless list of why my mother should not love me. I can think of countless times when I have shouted at, lied to and fought with my mom. When I have disrespected her, mocked her and told her she's ruined my life. Where I have not regarded her feelings, and when I have outright disobeyed her. The times that I have made her cry: in front of me and in secret. I can name times when I have openly despised her, publicly humiliated her and inwardly detested her. When I have done everything in my power to manipulate her, belittle her and get my way.
If I were to think of the times that she should love me, the list is not so long. In fact, from the time that I was taking up lodging in her womb, I have been nothing but a pain in her back and burden to her wallet. After all she has sacrificed, I still manage to undermine her love through my intolerance and selfishness. I expect too much and thank too little. I seldom acknowledge her contribution to my successes, but am quick to blame her for my failures.
But she loves me. When I disobey her, she loves me. When I yell at her, she loves me. When I prove to her in my actions and my hateful words that she should do anything but love me, she loves me. She was at every school play, at every debate. She made me soup when I was ill, even though she told me not to play in the rain. She hugged me, kissed me and held my hand when I had done everything to push her away. She loves me, and I don't know why. You see, Science says that I am a parasite. I leech off her, taking what I want and doing what's good for me. Loving me is not healthy, and yet she does.
If I can't even figure out why my mother - with her human flaws - can love me, how much more flabbergasted am I to find that GOD loves me. In fact, I think that He shouldn't. But I thank God that He does not think the way I do. I thank Him that He does not have a pros and cons list of why He should love me, because to Him that does not matter. I don't have to understand why He loves, and trying to figure it out would be a waste of time. All I have to know is that He does. You see, the thing with God is that He doesn't choose love, He IS love; He doesn't give grace, He CREATES it. And God doesn't just tell me He loves me, He SHOWED me He loves me: way back when He hung on a wooden cross, He demonstrated a love so immeasurable it REDEFINED love.
I don't know how it's possible to get seedless grapes, or why mice have really long tales. I don't know why some people like blue cheese and why others don't. I don't know where dogs learn to swim, or why pigeons are grey. I don't know why my mother loves me. And I don't know why the all-powerful ruler of everything would look down and notice me; why He would love me and care for me; why He would die for me.
There are tons of things that I do not know about Love. What I do know is God loves me. And to me, that's all that really matters. God's love for me IS selfless, sacrificial and unconditional. How? Well, I don't know. But I do know that The Duke of Romance has a way of describing Love that has resonated over the years of war and famine and disease. Shakespeare may not have been thinking about God's love for us when he wrote this, but it sure is a close description of a Love that even the greatest poets and literary legends would never be able to fully explain, even if they were to try forever.
This week's challenge: know that you are loved. Because even when you look in the mirror and there are three more pimples there that weren't there yesterday, there is a Prince Charming who loves you so much, you'll never be able to wear Him out. And isn't that just a joy to know!
"... Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom."
Shakespeare, Sonnet 116
Sunday, February 13, 2011
My new boyfriend
On the Eve of the day that probably divides the world the most, I thought that I would leave one for the ladies. I wrote this a while ago, but I hope that it can be a blessing:
"I think that I am going to start dating Jesus.
He has never broken my heart, and I know that things will work out between the two of us. He is not afraid of commitment - He has already called me His bride and planned an amazing wedding. I also have a really good relationship with His father, who loves me, too. Jesus has really good foresight and acts with my future in mind. And He has a superb CV, and a wonderful life plan. He even has me in His will.
Plus, we don't have to worry about where we are going to live, because He has been spending 2000 years preparing the perfect house for me. And not just the house. He has picked out the perfect neighbourhood – I hear that the streets are made of gold and that the neighbours are the nicest people that you have met in your life.
And I know He loves me; He proves it every day. He loves me so much that He is there in the morning when I wake up and goes as far as to watch me when I sleep. He never forgets my birthday, or any of the other days that are important to me for that matter. And He always brings me flowers – not only on special occasions. He never puts me on voicemail or sends me a please call me, and His love letter to me is filled with promises that He does not break.
Sometimes I may be a little ashamed to say that I know Him, and I don't stop people who make fun of Him. I all out reject Him through my silence, and sometimes I even laugh when they say mean things about Him. And even though He is my best friend, I sometimes forget to talk to Him. I often choose to go places that I know He does not like and I do things that I know will make Him sad. I tend to be extremely selfish and seldom think about how upset I make Him feel when I do certain things. I even get arrogant at times and question His love for me when I out rightly defy Him by suggesting that I know more than He does. I don't even consult Him when I make decisions.
But He remains faithful even when I stray and He never acts out in revenge, but continues to make sure that everything works out well for me. He has given His all to be with me, and loves me even when I forget to call.
So I think that I am going to start dating Jesus. Because I do not know any other guy who will die for me, having done nothing wrong himself. No other guy wants to be with me so badly that he is willing to leave his loving father and awesome home for me. Most guys don't even notice when I change my hair. But Jesus turns his head when a strand falls off my head! Jesus does not expect me to wear the best clothes and the nicest make-up. You see, Jesus sees me when I look my worst, and still thinks that I am beautifully made. Besides, Jesus is more interested in what's on inside. He takes personal interest in what I think and feel. Jesus actually cares about my personality. And Jesus is not scared about what His friends will think of me. I may not be the best person – I know I'm not - but He thinks I am, and He even tells His dad that. In fact, He defends me when I make Him sad and He really should just break up with me.
But Jesus said that He will not leave me and that He will be there when things get really tough. He lets me cry, and holds me while I do. And then He wipes my tears from my eyes and makes me happy again. And when I am worried or scared, I know that I can rely on Jesus to take away my anxiety and give me peace.
Yes, I think that I am going to start dating Jesus. I am going to take Him everywhere and show Him off to everyone. I want all my friends to know that my boyfriend is the most important person in the world, and yet He spends time with me all the time. Jesus is better than anyone that I could ever love. He is the only One that owns my heart, and the only One that matters. Jesus is everything to me."
Happy Valentine's Day! Challenge of the week: whether you're covered head to toe in red and pink, or if you've taken sick leave and plan on staying in bed re-watching "Casablanca", may you celebrate the greatest love all. Not just on Valentine's day, but every day.
I'm still waiting on my own personal Shakespeare. And as I wait, I would like to leave you with these beautiful words from the Scribe of Love himself:
"My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee
The more I have, for both are infinite."
Juliet in Romeo and Juliet
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Winds of Change
It's almost silly to be discussing change when we are already over a month into the New Year. But it seems as though February is a little more adventurous than January, and with her came a few surprises that are bound to wake us up from our summer haze. In politics, sport and life, there are a few changes that I have experienced that I would like to share with you.
A weekend of registration for the upcoming municipal elections got my family talking yesterday. We weren't very surprised that the first time any of the political parties have been visible in our ward of Highlands North was when we were seeing smiling faces on street poles. Not much has changed since the 2009 general elections, except perhaps that the potholes have gotten bigger. But generally, it seems that South Africans are not as eager for change as our Egyptian and Tunisian counterparts.
Elections are meant to form part of a healthy democracy, where citizens get to consider thoughtfully the changes they want in their communities and demand it from their local governments. But that does not seem to be the case. I had voted in Grahamstown in the last elections, so that is where I have been registered. Today, I was a responsible citizen and went to register in my area. While fulfilling what I consider a very important duty to my country, the gentleman who was supposed to be checking my form was engaged in a duty of his own - deciding whether he wanted mild or peri peri for his Nando's order. Perhaps expecting change in a country where we are almost so close to a complete deterioration of ethics and justice that we no longer notice the speed limits on the highway is asking too much. Political change can only exist where apathy doesn't, but in this beautiful land it seems as though apathy is sharing the thrown with the one-eyed king.
But now that I am registered, I need to consider who I am to vote for. In our conversation last night The Sister suggested a viable candidate when she asked "Can I vote for Dial Direct or Outsurance?" A strange question, you may think, but Dial Direct and Outsurance are the only organisations that we have seen in our area who have positively contributed to the well-being of the community. Dial Direct are systematically trying to cover all the potholes on the roads, and Outsurance can always be counted on to adequately handle the traffic when the lights inevitably decide not to work on Louis Botha at 7am on a Monday morning. Perhaps the true solution is to vote for the Taxi drivers. After all, the cops fear them the same way a Grade 1 student fears a Grade 6 bully. They have the unrivalled ability to get drivers to follow their rules, and punish any indiscretion with immediate action. They seem to be a lot more successful in implementing their laws than the government are. At the very least, they believe in transparency: they openly show their corruption, unlike our politicians who (unsuccessfully) hide theirs
And in the beautiful game, things have gone from freezing cold to boiling hot: this season has been a wild rollercoaster ride for Liverpool supporters, especially this week. The should-not-have-been-surprising move of Spanish striker Fernando Torres from the Reds to the Blues was a shocker for everyone - almost, but not quite, as shocking as Wolverhampton’s victory over Man United yesterday. Reports showed that Torres had been hoping for a move from as far back as the English summer, and he proved it in his comments leading up to a highly-anticipated blue and red scuffle at Stamford Bridge. According to the transfer-record-breaking Spaniard, his move from Liverpool was long-time overdue. But, as Chelsea supporters got to experience firsthand tonight, so are the goals that everyone has been expecting of the highly-rated striker. Change doesn't come cheap, as the London team have discovered, and Torres' weak 65-minute display of almost football has many Chelsea supporters begging for their change from the 50 million pounds they spent on Monday. Torres should have paid more attention in Science. If he had, he would know that when a substance goes from extreme heat (Red) to extreme cold (Blue), the substance becomes rock hard and utterly useless. After all, that's how The Fantastic Four defeated Victor Von Doom!
A change that's going to be slightly more difficult for me to stomach is Liverpool's signing of Uruguian footballer, Luis Suarez. If you recall, the striker's excellent goal keeping is what kept the Black Stars out of the World Cup Semis back in August. However, last season's Dutch League Footballer of the Year added to his negative number of brownie points by scoring in his debut for Liverpool against Stoke on Tuesday. This is not a welcome change, but it is a much-needed one if Liverpool has its eyes set on next season's Champion's League.
Unlike Torres, Newcastle gracefully reacted to change (and a four-goal deficit) by ending a rather exciting game on a four-all draw with the Gunners, who - as always - ran out of ammunition in the last half an hour of the game at St James' Park. Even with the loss of their top player to a better team ;) Newcastle showed courage in what appeared to be a very sad situation. Nani also added change to his list of accomplishments this week when he set an impossible-to-beat record by scoring against Wolves in under 4 seconds. But not every change bears good fruit, as Man U demonstrated yesterday. United supporters were extremely silent on the inter-web this weekend, and that is a welcome change in and of itself.
A little more closer to home, I started my first Big Person’s job this week. This brought on a number of changes: fewer sleeping hours; more money in my bank account; experiencing Sandton traffic. But the best change that I have experienced is the growth of my wardrobe. If I am forced to join the capitalist machine, I may as well look pretty while doing it. Not long ago, a family friend said in jest: “If you’re not a communist at 20, you have no heart. If you’re still a communist at 30, you have no brain.” Though I still stand strongly by my socialist sentiments, it’s easy to see the comfort in joining the system. How long can change be resisted?
The Winds of Change is never a gentle breeze. There's always a major gust when life throws a curve ball. But even though we are powerless to control when the winds may blow, we are always in control of our actions. This week's challenge: decide how you are going to respond to the Winds of Change in your life. Either you're going to be the awkward lady in a chiffon skirt, trying desperately to keep her dress down as the wind cheekily keeps trying to reveal her unmentionables. Or you can be that kid wearing yellow shorts and a blue T-Shirt: holding tightly onto one end of a piece of string as the orange diamond climbs higher, higher into the clear blue sky.
"We know what we are, but not what we may be." Ophelia in Hamlet
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