The real celebration.

 

Every great and challenging upheaval that upsets the apple cart of humanity will beget an individual who will not only challenge the status quo, but will be willing to lay down his life for the sake of the greater good.

Nelson Mandela dared the apartheid regime to do it's worst. It did. Apart from hiding him away from all that makes life worth living, it killed, massacred, maimed, tortured and generally engaged in behaviour  which in my view should be a subject of the International Criminal Court.

Be that as it may, Mandela persevered and went on to live an exemplary life and sojourned to the land of his ancestors. There are those who have walked by him and are therefore better qualified to examine and comment on the life and legacy of this illustrious son of Africa.

The human mind is the most prized engine of the human body. The apartheid system sought and managed to control the African mind through education. The basis of the African education was based on the following words:

 "There is no place for [the Bantu] in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour…what is the use of teaching the Bantu child mathematics when it can not use it in practice?"

When you look at these words that were uttered by Dr. H.F. Verwoerd, with malice aforethought, you cannot help but understand why the majority of Africans in that rainbow nation continue to behave like fish out of water, when it comes to handling the challenges that independence brought and continues to bring.

When, with a magnifying glass, you study those words, you will come to the stark realization that the African, across colonial Africa, was subjected to the same mind sapping ideology. Consequently, the African has grown up with the sole purpose of pleasing the former colonial master. To this day, Africa is at the mercy of its colonial master.

In spite of all the 'freedom' fighters whose names will bring a shudder in any European and American capital; in spite of all the blood that the African shed in the name of 'freedom'; in spite of all those chains that shackled the calloused feet of the African; in spite of all the whip marks on the broken back of Africa, Africa still remains a continent that is at the beck and call of the same colonial masters that looted, plundered, and generally had their way.

It is not surprising that many Africans will sell their birth right to face the harshest conditions that nature has to offer, in order to 'find' life in the streets that are supposedly paved with gold; gold that was looted from their very backyards. 

It is not disappointing that the best and brightest of Africa either live or were educated under an education structure whose sole purpose is to promote the vices and virtues of the colonial master at the expense of the obvious values of Africa.

It is regretful that I write in English. I was brought up to understand that the language of my motherland could not and cannot compare to a language with international appeal. It was drummed into my mind that my mother tongue did not, does not and cannot have the vocabulary that permits me to effectively relay my thoughts to all and sundry.

There is not a single soul in the world that can gainsay that Mandela lived true to the dictates of his very words; There is no passion to be found playing small-in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living; there are few people who can contradict the fact that South Africa, like the rest of Africa is and will continue to be a grand project of the colonial masters then and the colonial masters now.

Africa needs to re-invent herself. She has undergone many revolutions that have further tightened the noose of servitude. Africa needs an evolution. That evolution must occur in the African mind. For that is where the battle for Africa continues to be fought.

I will be the last to stake my name that the mind of Africa will somehow manage to originate a thought that best serves Africa. Now that the Chinese are knocking at every black door, one can only shudder at the consequences of this new marriage.

If that mental tree is not uprooted, and this is not impossible if, Africa will continue to celebrate the passing of her best, brightest and most courageous, but the real celebration will be at the tables of the master puppeteers.

 

 

 

Cry, the bleeding nation!!!

There is something lopsided occurring at the very foundation of Africa. The roots are reeking of immorality that will surely spread to the veins of this giant tree and then this tree will collapse. Or will it?

In 1948, Allan Paton penned a book that spoke of the treacherous and gruesome nature of Apartheid. This system so ensnared the African that he was made prisoner in the land of his birth to this day.

It dehumanised the native physically, mentally and most significantly, morally. To the extent that, visiting pain and torment on the weaker sex has become a matter of course in this part of earth that was baptised the rainbow nation.

Just last week, the world sat up to the news that a question in the national leavers' drama exam asked students to direct a rape scene. They were asked to describe how they would get an actor to maximise the horror of the rape of a baby, using a broomstick and a loaf of bread as props.

That the Department of basic Education facilitated a system that permitted that particular mandatory question to see the light of day is in itself a pregnant statement. It gives birth to very alarming statistics

Over 60,000 people are raped in South Africa every year; 1 in 4 men admit to having raped; South Africa has the highest incidence of rape in the world; in most instances, the rapist and the victim are known to each other; rape occurs in mainly poor communities that are dotted all over this nation.

There is a large body of work on the subject of rape. Almost all of it speaks of rape as a weapon of war; a weapon used to subjugate a people; a weapon used to demoralise and dehumanise men; a weapon used to spit in the face of all that is right. A weapon so fierce that it silently wreaks the very fabric of any society.

The last time I checked, South Africa was at peace, or so it seems.

Poverty, in the land of gold, has brought forth a society that fears its own shadows. The gated communities serve to wall in the rich from cardboard homes that encircle them. 

These cardboard homes are the breeding ground for violent, hungry and angry boys and men who are preying on the week and defenceless. Their favourite weapon of choice is rape.

The temptation is to blame poverty or their history that is steeped in mindless violence or the continental gap between the rich and the poor or peer pressure or some twisted notion of a rite of passage.

There is something inherently wrong in a society where every minute of every day is a witness to someone, somewhere being raped: where a nine month old child is raped by her mother's boyfriend: where a 17 year old girl is raped and disemboweled: where two and three year old girls are plucked from the security of their doorsteps, raped, murdered and dumped in a public toilet. There is something wrong.

The truth of the matter lies in the words of James Allen:  Circumstances do not make the man, they reveal him. Take any of those men and boys and land them in Delhi  Saudi Arabia, New York, Kampala or even on the moon; once the opportunity presents itself, these men will let lose that which is ingrained in them and that part of the world will bear witness to the most horrendous form of rape known to man.

To paraphrase that lawyer in the book made famous by Allan Paton, all that is wrong must be placed at the soul steps of all those men and boys.

Until that time when the perpetrators of this violence sit down, reflect and rein in the devil in their veins, the rainbow nation will continue to bleed.

Allan Paton titled his book, Cry, the beloved country. From that place where we are all destined, he must be holding his head in shame as he pens his next book, Cry, the bleeding nation!!!