By PHAKAMISA MAYABA
It is only those harnessed to the SAffer psyche who will chortle and enjoy the music in such tense times. Who will mow the lawn, feed the cats, fetch the mail. On the porch, they will daydream of the mom who went too soon, the nameless cats goosing down beneath the marijuana, and the nephew who’s way too young to know which road he’ll take one day.
Under the fig tree, the neighbour and his posse will sit spread-legged and play ludo. Blowing into the die clasped in parched hands before hurling them down with a flourish, as they’ve been doing since the soldier was discharged and the unpaid security guard had told his boss to go F… himself.
In his overall, sun hat and tin lunchbox, the labourer will make for work. He’ll kiss the vat ‘n sit goodbye and the barefoot child clinging to the gate reminding him not to forget the yoghurt, or the sweets, or to come home safely. The mutt will bark, the taxi will hoot and and the shopfront will rattle open. Likewise the police van into which another man will answer to his sins. Into the brazier the logs will go, into the dark night the scantily-clad woman will strut. So too the hungry youth with a knife in his pocket. The mother won’t stop him; morality is unspeakable when the tummy is grumbling and the kids are without diapers.
Crime is redemption, a sick causeway to a perverted dignity. Into the tik dealer’s crackhouse, teens will disappear, even young girls who’ll not always be paying in money.
At grandma’s feet the children will listen to iintsomi, fairytales of other times, other people who’ve seen the happy ending. And the man in a suit will read the newspaper and grow sullen. Too many bad headlines, too much gloom and doom. Hate, expropriation, severed aid – the vulnerable are collateral, fated to have it worst. They will descend into the grim six-feet-under not so much a tombstone to say here lies So-and-so, a father whose only sin was to die poor. Just another man, the one whose grave was dug overnight by men who cared, now gone and forgotten.
Animosity will flood social media – liberals versus commies, educated versus morons, black versus white. Insults ad naseam, anger on steroids. Will we ever leave the paranoia, distrust, resentment behind, like the man who walked out the gaol and told the faithful to throw their pangas into the sea? Leg-iron the ugliness and throw away the key so it may never again roam amongst us. Only then might we find it in our hearts to pull over for the hitchhiker. To adopt the maimed dog. Hug the cashier.
Such lamentations will fall on deaf ears as the separatists and the dark of heart and the trolls dry the powder kegs and unleash an online volley.
They’re incompetent, they’ll post.
Your homes, your farms, your language – they want to burn it all to the ground. The potholes, the Acts, these guys don’t care, they want what’s yours, don’t let them anywhere near you. Pay up the membership and we’ll stand up for you.
In the chaos, I’ll hop into a friend’s car and we’ll go somewhere – anywhere – to get away from the hysteria. Mas’bangene – let’s go mingle. Perhaps a few drinks at the local with my white friend, because against all hope one must believe that this is still the Rainbow Nation, a country for all who live in it. Doesn’t matter the guy’s hair, it’s the content of his character that sustains the belief.
Except suspicion lurks at every turn, kasi or dorp — you must first die to be free from the leering eyes and embittered hearts. What’s up with these two and the bromance? What are they hatching? Is the homeboy selling out, flogging as he always seems, the revolution in his articles? No room here for equal opportunity offenders; if you’re not with the mob, your forehead might catch the first blow. Best hit the road on a Karoo Sunday afternoon, the clouds rolling low above the steaming tarmac and just drive, the windows down, talk of dead poets and recall the forgotten words.
At the Gariep Dam, we’ll stand on the railings and look out at the vast body of water. We’ll admire this monstrous feat of engineering, of human ingenuity. We’ll agree on at least two things: apartheid was a crime against humanity, and the Afrikaners were great builders. Patriotic to the hilt. Never forgot their leaders when they named the dam after Hendrik Verwoerd. Of course the new dispensation chose not to build something similar, it was easier to simply erase the name. Many names, gone, new signs put up, lots of money for the connected, kickbacks to the comrades, but the potholes grow bigger.
Now this is where politics are best unspoken, the truths simply left unsaid. That moment when men must accept that the cock-ups are Stone-Age deep and winding over the valleys and coursing within his very veins. Sometimes the sins aren’t our own, but our fathers’. A history stretching so far behind and ahead that it has us in its tentacles and won’t let go. So many times I’ve been on this road. The one that those who sometimes find themselves with people from the other side of the tracks know all too well. Today though, I will not intellectualise it. Will not be defending any position or explaining myself.
Instead I’ll read Max du Preez’s recent open letter and thank God that I’m not a madman. Behind a locked door, I’ll click on Penuel Mlotshwa’s YouTube channel and pray for him. More than most, they seem to understand that charity begins at home.
Poor Bra Max, no stranger to being flogged for his beliefs – then and now. Mlotshwa, a black man who’s unashamed to admit to an Afriforum membership because despite all the darkness, he appreciated some streaks of light in their agenda. Courageous men, both of them, and likely be dragged out to the cyberspace gallows. None will be brave enough to hang with them, fewer will come to their rescue. Someday, though, everybody will agree; it is people like them who were closer to ridding themselves of the octopus than any of us. And on this Valentine’s Day, my admiration goes out to them.
FEATURED IMAGE: The Gariep Dam at Norvalspont, near Colesberg. … apartheid was a crime against humanity, and the Afrikaners were great builders’. Image: SA Tourism on Flickr.
This is an edited version of an article that first appeared on Phakamisa Mayaba’s website, eParkeni. Used with permission.