Doing whatever it takes to chase the economic freedom

The men in red t-shirts and berets descended at the Vanderbijlpark Magistrate’s Court. They were chanting. Julius Malema was making an appearance. He had been nabbed for clocking 215 km/h on a 120 km/h N1 highway. Surely there must be a very good explanation for this. ‘Commander-in-Chief must have been chasing monopoly capital, or something,’ said Just-Ice on radio 2000 this morning. 

Think about it. Any person who fights for the economic freedom of oppressed masses, sailing against the mighty tide of sheer elite opulence, cannot be seen crawling in a Toyota Conquest, on a Malawi-look-alike road, at a full speed of 90 km/h, with exhaust fumes spurting a ray of cloud to make the sight completely ungovernable for trailing motorists. No, the economic struggle requires a snobbish, fast and furious c-class, if not Range Rover. We are running out of time to bring about this “economic freedom in our lifetime” reality!

Steve Hofmeyer has been telling everybody that the marauding Black people are decimating the Afrikaners. He was also nabbed for clocking 160 km/h on a 120 km/h road. Again, there must be a very good explanation for this. Steve must have been delayed by the back routes (thanks to Minister Dipuo Peters’s e-tolls) and pissed off by it, on his way to performing De La Rey in Vlakplaas. It is small wander that Steve paid 10% of Malema’s R5000 bail. I wander if he managed to reach the killing fields where the ungovernable Blacks were decimated by Eugene de Kock and Dirk Coetzeer.

Artists get paid upfront to repeat their studio-recorded songs on stage. So Steve must have had some stash inside the boot already, and parting with R500 must have been like pulling off at Total garage to stock up on the Red Bull and Biltong. As for comrade Julius, chief, economic freedom you are pursuing is not only faster than your German car, it even boasts the sycophants hiding under the trees and subways on the highways, and that mob extends along the forcibly e-tolled route all the way to the Union Building. I know that this is what you are thinking right now. But you are one of them, give or take 2014 elections.

Let me pause here to drink my headache tablets…

Sorry about that.

Now, Maggie Benedict (Akhona) was detained for allegedly stealing a packet of headache tablets. Any random person… including me actually, does, first of all, experience a serious need to drink headache tablets. With so much drama happening around us - booing, bogus (and conveniently schizophrenic) interpreters, threats of split, Christmas season peer pressure, matric result anxiety, de-classified (nxesified) Nkandla report, blah blah blah? Heh? We all admit that we are a nation in distress. So the fact that Akhona had the presence of mind to stock up headache tablets deserves cheers.

Second of all, it takes guts, for any “Black soapie star” to go (driving will be assuming, on my part) to Checkers, inside that busy Cresta mall, to retrieve pain-killers without paying for them. Who wants the world to know that you are broke, or that you have a shop-lifting streak about you? By the way, gory and silly things seem to happen to women who leave Generations. I could be peddling conspiracy theories here but, either Mfundi Mvundla is a witch or he is witch-hunter. One of the two.

That said, consider for a moment how social media has everybody glued to their phones. (Just two days ago a lady at the traffic department sent me to the busy cubicle next to hers instead of helping me; she was busy “qhofozing” her Blackberry the whole time; I wanted to complain but something about her told me she was untouchable; so I placed my tail between the legs and shifted quietly.)
Therefore, something between Akhona having been carried away on her – I bet – humungous smart phone and trying to evade the attention of hysterical Generations followers inside Checkers, must explain how tablets in her possession skipped the scrutiny of cash-till. Need I mention that going to work every day to forgive a philandering Nicholas each time Zodwa shows up does not only require resigning from the set? It also leaves you nursing a terrible “after generations, now what” headache. Life is stressful out there.

Those three eminent South Africans need opportunity to explain to the nation why they are willing to be part of the statistic of road accidents and theft during the festive season. But the fight for economic freedom in our lifetime, the fight for the safe-from-Blacks Afrikaner state, and the fight to escape the clutches of that 8 o’clock soapie must carry on. Viva Economic Freedom viva!

Marching along the path to destroy the narrative of Reconciliation Day

Dingane is known as that terrible man who, in his moment of laziness, must have spent time titivating himself, getting into bed with several women at the same time, and dreaming of a day when he’d be ruling over the entire… to use a modern concept… SADC region. This narrative has been perfected to have us believe that Dingane decapitated Piet Retief, thus inviting upon himself a gruesome revenge in Ncome which culminated in the historic Blood River. Not exactly.

My mother, who worked in the “huisies” of several Afrikaner farmers in the Free State while growing up, told us the story of how the Afrikaners used to celebrate “Tinkane”. They would go to some chosen place. There they’d construct a statue of Dingane with iron sheet or something of that sort. They’d hurl insults, stones and bullets at the statue for the whole day.

The popular historians do not tell us about the personality of Piet Retief. Only his heroic deeds in their march to garner swathes of land come to light. In his book Writings of a Zulu Witchdoctor, Credo Mutwa amplifies this when he says ‘It seems to be that white historians are more concerned about the deeds of an historical figure than with his personality. They thereby turn him into an actor pirouetting on the stage of history. Nobody’s deeds or words can possibly make any sense unless these are seen against the background of the particular person’s character.’

I concur, but, even after this bashing of the ways of white historians, Ntate Mutwa’s attempt at Retief fills one page and leaves me wanting more. In a nutshell, Piet Retief could be heard making jokes and laughing with people wherever he went. He could speak in Xhosa although with a strange accent. I would have loved to know if he also owned a harem, like Dingane, or if he looked like Eugene Terreblanche. I wish we knew if he wanted to build himself a Nkandla homestead after securing a title deed around Natal. I want to know if he was a bully while growing up, and if so, who he may have bullied – Pik Botha’s great grandfather maybe?

Credo Mutwa’s version offers a different anecdote. Dingane was not as bad as we’re told. The circumstances around Piet Retief’s death had not been explained accurately. It was a long story involving Dingane having asked Piet Retief, in exchange for land, to retrieve the cows which the renowned cattle-thief, and wizard, Sikonyela, had stolen from Dingane. It was believed that wizardry could not work against the white people. So Retief was a perfect weapon. A cunning Retief handcuffed Sikonyela. The book says the Sikonyela and his scoundrels had never seen the handcuffs. So they were alarmed at how a handcuffed Sikonyela was reduced to a wailing, helpless moron. Intimidated, Sikonyela released Dingane’s cattle.

Halstead, the man who came with Retief, messed things up for everybody. Halstead remained at Dingane’s homestead when Retief had gone to Sikonyela. Only God can explain why Halstead was travelling with the Afrikaners when he could have remained with his own people in the Cape Colony. (People, colonization did not start with Apartheid in 1948.) Halstead was hobnobbing, spying, sticking his nose in the business of Zulu people when one of Dingane’s women caught him looking into the kraal occupied by Dingane’s wives and concubines, in the dead of night. No man was allowed near that kraal. Dingane’s wife fainted, and suffered a miscarriage. This is what Credo Mutwa knows. The other version of the story is that Halstead had actually raped Dingane's wife. It is said that the sexual indiscretions among white men and African women, and rape, were rampant during that period. White people really mesmerized the black forebears with their strange ways.

Dingane, fearing that the white people had brought their wizardry to destroy his already weakening power, hatched a plan. Credo Mutwa’s version persuades you to think that Retief was guaranteed the land upon his return with the Dingane’s cattle. But the damned spying Halstead messed things up with his spying and disrespectful ways!

The plan by Dingane would be to ambush Retief at the time when he’d thoroughly let down his guard. So he threw a party (feast) and asked Retief not to rush to his newfound land but remain to celebrate with everybody.  Dingane loathed seeing bloody violence. So he pulled away from the scene before ordering the rout. Retief and his men fought back but the ambush was too sophisticated for them to escape.

The Afrikaners took revenge to Dingane even though, Credo Mutwa tells us, Dingane had already been killed by his own men, who had lost faith in his leadership and had defected to a rather struggling Mpande. Accordingly, the Afrikaners never got to lay their hands on Dingane when the bloodshed happened by the river. The other version of the story is that while the bloodshed took place in 1838, Dingane only died sometime in 1840.

In his legendary classic titled Down 2^nd Avenue, Es’kia Mphahlele brings us the picture of how the Dingane Day celebrations used to happen in places like Pretoria around the 1950 and 1960s. He tells us of how he found himself in the crowd of the celebrating Afrikaners in town.

‘We hadn’t been standing long inside there when a huge Afrikaner prodded me in the ribs and said, “Step out Kaffir! This is no monkey show.” His friend replied, “We’re only looking.” In a split second I felt a large hand take me by the scruff of the neck and push me out. Another hand from nowhere reached out for me. Another slapped me a few times on the cheek. My face ran into yet another object, so that I felt a sting on the bridge of my nose. I don’t know how I was eventually thrust out of the crowd, but I stumbled down the curb. Only then did I feel that someone had kicked me in the back as well.’
So the Black people knew to stay inside their houses because those who were found in the streets and around town got the beating of their lives in the hands of pissed off Afrikaners.

The new South Africa’s reconciliation changed the essence of today’s celebration to be what it is now. I cannot say I know what this day should be about. And I am not writing about that, but the historical context of Reconciliation Day. It is ironic that the first black president of a democratic South Africa, Nelson Mandela, was laid to rest just a day before Reconciliation Day, and has, in my view, overshadowed the day considerably. Oh, somebody also pointed out to me recently that Paul Kruger, was buried on 16 December 1904.

While some of us treat it is a holiday, some of us go out to the fun events being organised even by government. And there’d be some of us who take to twitter and facebook to lambast the day’s significance, complaining about how other races are not attending the public gatherings and events to impress upon the spirit of reconciliation.

The broadcast and print media would typically be awash with stories of the day. The debates end up being a racial blow-by-blow, with certain sections of the media giving certain strata of opinion-makers airtime to dominate the narrative. Whatever you are doing today to celebrate, or commemorate, remember the brutality of that time, and the arrogance which still lingers around us to this day. About 74 years after the battle of the Blood River, South Africa, under the British rule legislated land dispossession of black people through the Land Act.

The reconciliation which happens before justice is an insult. The majority of the people of this country need, and deserve, to own productive land which they need to use both for commercial purposes and as rental income of a sort. The sooner we become honest with ourselves, and stop normalizing black poverty, the better.

World, welcome to South Africa

A friend of mine called me yesterday. He was thoroughly amused by the shenanigans of the interpreter. My friend could hardly interpret... I mean speak, properly. He even dropped the phone, dialed again, giggled more and promised to phone me once he had recovered from a bout of laughter afflicting him.

As it turned out, the source of his amusement was that the interpreter has been disowned by everybody who shouldn’t. Yes, nobody is coming up to say they gave the man the task of interpreting at the occasion of that magnitude - the memorial service of Tata Madiba.

I imagine that there were highlights which grabbed your attention. People being people, the things which appeared to be simple progression of events and human behaviour during a very somber moment like this one were spun into stories of alarm, shame and amusement.

Take, for instance, a three-picture collage showing Barack Obama, his wife Michelle and a rather cheerful Danish prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt. Here’s how I interpret (but I ain’t fake, or schizophrenic, or overwhelmed by English, or whatever) Michelle’s train of thought in the three pictures stacked up one on top of the other…

Top picture: ‘Look at this ho!’ (Excuse the French... I mean Black American lingo.)

Middle picture: ‘Imma show this ho that I’m the first lady of the U.S.A!

Bottom picture: ‘Yeah, what you gon’ do now, ho?

Before you start booing me, think of how steeped we still are in the patriarchal culture. The face-off is between Michelle and Helle. Obama’s decorum is not being questioned, and yet the prime minister is already getting public whip lashes, being objectified even by Rush Limbaugh in America who called her a “Denmark Babe.” Now, do you still want to boo me for how I imagine Michelle reacted to the moment?

Then there was the booing of the president; the most unbelievable of them all, for me. Truth is, I saw president Zuma walk in. I swear I did not hear any booing. And my SABC 2 was full blast the next morning when I was watching the news. People, there was nothing. The people are even saying that the crowd was cheering former president Thabo Mbeki. Again, which president Mbeki? My SABC 2 was in great shape, people.

The other story is that Cyril Ramaphosa begged the rowdy mourners to ‘wait until "abavakashi" are gone before you raise issues, if there are issues...’ he said. I say well done to president-in-waiting, except one thing: What issues were you referring to, Sir? All what you were mandated to do was to officiate the memorial service, not to discern “issues” from rowdy mourners and start dropping hints, noh noh noh, order Comrade!

Some people praised Barack Obama speech but scorned how he mentioned Graca and ignored Winnie in his opening. Well, the picture which showed Mama Graca embrace Obama, and whispering in his ear, ‘call me after the funeral’ may have a lot to do with how the great orator adapted the original White House version to suit the after-moment of... you know, embrace. But this is not my territory.

Archbishop Tutu. Yes, the one who’s been praying for the ANC-led government since the day his right to have Dalai Lama at his birthday party was undermined. He stood up, after everybody had spoken, to announce that he wanted to hear a pin drop. Realising that the mourners were not emulating his church fellows (who religiously made it possible for him to hear a robe drop during mass,) is said to have told the mourners, ‘You are going to hell!’ Yes, Archbishop prays for those who sabotage birthday party; sends to hell those who sabotage a memorial service of long-time friend and fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate. 

Like my friend who is laughing at the interpreter, I picked the hell condemnation as my joke of the day.

Welcome to South Africa.

Never challenge a horse to a running match, unless it is for suicide purposes

My brother has just posted the following this morning: ‘Great weather, great jog what more can I ask for...Eh!’ His posting reminds me of something that I should not have done.

One December my Mother sent us to retrieve some dodgy guy who ran away with money even though he had not finished the job he was hired to do on my grandmother’s house.

So my brother and I walked to Saballa, a section of Thaba-Bosiu, in Qwaqwa, just up the hill from where we live. We had agreed that we’d walk until we got to the bridge (which was about 3 kilometers away) and start running all the way up to the end of the steep incline. We got to the bridge, which is right at the foot of the hill. Then we jogged our way up – about 2 kilometers.

I had been thinking that since I am the "groot man", and I have climbed up and down this stretch of road in my teens, I’d teach the kid one thing or two about running. I had forgotten that I stopped playing football, and jogging regularly, much longer than he had been to high school. 

Allow me to to take a detour...

When I was about 6 and older, my older cousin used to get me and my other cousin to jog with him, or to do warm-ups around the yard. He tortured us to his heart’s content. When Matsebetsebe (I call him Tsiba) had had enough, he’d literally stop, or cry quietly or, simply walk away. Because I respected and feared Abuti Tsholo’s strict mannerism, I’d oblige while praying that I do not collapse any minute.

I would hang in there while wishing that... someone, anyone... grandmother, or sister, or my very own mother would appear and order him to give us a break. Whenever something of that sort happened, some lady cousin would appear around the corner, throw dishwater in the air, urge us on, or mutter at the one who was “khekhelezing”, and disappear.

We also ran up and down the very steep hill with the soccer players of Crocodiles (a club founded by the Mokoena family in my neighbourhood). I thought I had gotten used to doing this when, one day, I invited myself to run with a guy called Jappie. He used to run up the hill every morning. We hit the road. Jappie showed me a clean pair of (dirifi) heels.

Realising that my turn to play in the team was a long way off, I joined a newly-formed Arsenal because they had an A, B and C teams. I was drafted into a C team. In between the soccer matches and ball work, which we preferred, our trainer, Bricks, would command us to leave the soccer field, cross the small river to run up the hill towards Makwane. If he was in a mean mood, he’d even instruct us to frog-jump up the hill. In those moments you’d hear young lads like Matela Mthwalo complaining furiously. We would all tell ourselves that we will never return to the team if Bricks carried on like this. But we always came back because playing in a real match, where the two teams used to vie for R20 to R50 prize money, offered us great fun.

So it was against this background that I felt I could take on my then 15 year old brother for a jog to Saballa. I wish I hadn’t done it. Midway through our run I was losing my breath. Not wanting to be outrun by picanin, I pressed on. Bloody laitie just slid up the hill right beside me. I wished he’d left me behind so that I could blame him later for running too hard, or something. No, he just kept right beside me.

I was beginning to see funny stars milling about in front of me – mind you it was in the middle of an overcast sunrise - when I remembered that dude is still an active soccer player. With my chest seeming like a red-hot brazier (paola,) I reached the end of the steep, ready to collapse. By that time the wind sweeping down the mountain from beyond Metsimatso and Qoqolosing was blasting my face. I could not tell whether I was crying or becoming blind.

When we reached the house of Mr Dodgy, I was still fighting for my breath. I could barely speak so I asked my laitie, who was very calm by then, to assist me. Next time you see me take on a fit horse to a running match, kill me!

How I got to know Tata Mandela

The Maloti mountains is what separates Qwaqwa from Lesotho and KwaZulu-Natal to form united cousins of sprawling Drakensberg. There is only one serious exit into the bigger world. Much of the political news came from radio Sesotho. There used to be relative peace until the young boys and girls were brought by their concerned parents from places like Soweto and Sebokeng. The parents wanted their children to get education without the lingering distractions of the 1976 uprising. So they came to live with the relatives. Somehow, Metsimatso high school was suddenly a hive of political unrest.

One day the unrest was so serious that my cousin and her schoolmates arrived home with red faces and teary eyes. Their torn dungarees and shirts bore the proof that they had been jumping through barbed wire running away from police teargas. Even their arrival did not bring sudden relief because the some policemen were combing the area on foot, closing in on them. You ran about 8 kilometers from school, up the hill, to get home, thinking that you finally have a chance to deal with the wrath of teargas assaulting your lungs, only to be flushed out by the men in brown uniform. I remember how some of the learners were saved by brave Mothers who either hid them under their beds or blocked the police from entering the gates.

The bell would ring rather furiously. Our teacher at Miri primary school would leap into panic, ‘Go home, ma-Black Power are coming!’ We’d grab our school bags and clear out in a huff. I avoided the main gate in the north side near the main road. I'd creep below barbed wire and, with my sister Mamothibi at least in my sights, run in the eastern direction towards home as fast as we could. The likes of my cousin and classmate, Ramofubedu Makubo, and his wife today, Mamorena Makubo, who was classmate of my sister, had to literally run home in the direction where mayhem was coming from. Their visibly young age must have saved them from the clutches of the oncoming police.

The little that I heard of politics came from Ntatemoholo Rakgale (my father’s brother.) We were staying together. We had been warned not to upset him. One moment he’d be sitting quietly on his small wooden bench, slowly rolling koerant around a daub of Boxer to make himself a zol. His home-made moqombothi would be inside that Babaton snuff container, between his feet. The next moment he’d be speaking to himself loudly, or laughing, or prancing around the yard, saying things we did not quite comprehend. I used to pay attention. From him I heard for the first time names like Biko, Sobukwe, Mandela, Russia, Amerika, Nyerere, Kaunda and Gaddafi.

Three other moments thrust me into politics. Inkatha-controlled mob were coming to kill all the boys around Qwaqwa! It was a rumour. Nobody took it lightly. We had been hearing through radio the massacres they’d unleashed in Boipatong, Phola Park and Thokoza. I have never been scared like that in my whole life. Word had spread like wildfire.

Those parents who commuted to places of work like Setsing, Difemeng and Harrismith seemed to alight off the Setsokotsane buses before they had stopped dead still. They ran home to make sure that their sons were safe. I was also relieved when my mother arrived. My father was in Messina. How I wished he was there to protect me. A tall neighbour whose right hand was missing two fingers, perhaps wanting to show off his intellectual prowess of unfolding politics, assured everyone, ‘Comrades from APLA and MK will come to defend us.’ The ANC and PAC were mentioned somewhere in the midst of the noisy chatter and gripping fear.

When the night fell in Thaba-bosiu (our section), which had neither Apollo light nor electricity, nobody seemed willing, or able, to sleep. Mothers were ordering their sons to hide, on top of the roof, in the toilet, in the cupboards, behind the thick shrubs, up the trees… anywhere, to evade the impending bloodshed. I anticipated my mother to send me into dark wilderness to be on the run with older boys when I heard her say to a hysterical crowd of neighbours, ‘My son is going nowhere! He is sleeping next to me.’ I felt my stomach starting to run. They pleaded. She did not budge. I wished my father would appear. But he was far away. I did not know if I would ever get to see him.

Brave men went away to conduct night patrol at the bridge connecting Thaba-Bosiu to Ha-Sethunya. ‘What if ma-Inkatha will appear through these mountains?’ another visibly distressed woman asked. ‘De Klerk will not give Gatsha (Buthelezi) the helicopters to do that!’ shouted Mr Two Finger across barbed wire fence. Inside our house, Mma Motaung had placed “botlolo ya sprits” le “metjhisi” beside her pillow. She was to set the mob alight before they could get to me. Mme o tshwara thipa ka bohaleng e le kannete.

The second moment: We were kicking the ball in the street after school when the village went crazy. Cars were hooting. People were running in all directions. Ausi Melita (niece of Two Finger) ran past with hands on her head, ‘Jonna weeee, Mandela o tswile tronkong, joooo!’ Now it was clear to me that there was political consciousness in that house. Up on the graveled main road, the people were on top of cars and buses, and falling, some injuring themselves. They were celebrating. Nelson Mandela had been released from prison. Life would no longer be the same.

In 1990 my family moved to live near Ha-Sethunya. My two sisters and I enrolled at Tebang Junior Secondary School, near Charles Mopeli stadium. A government school bus would pick up my class every Wednesday morning to attend technical training at Makabelane technical college. Whilst some remained seated through the journey to and fro, most of us remained standing, chanting struggle songs. The political winds were blowing. The name of Nelson Mandela was a prominent feature in many discussions. We’d look at our history teacher and wander when he will stop teaching us about the covered-in-glory Jan van Riebeck and the decapitated Piet Retief and start teaching us about Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe.

Much later some of us forced our way to technikons. We were initiated into student politics by the likes of Moloantoa Makhunga, Thandile Sunduza, Owen Ndlovu, Malesela Maleka, Moliehi Letuka and Tumelo Mlangeni who, to this day, never forgets to mention how the marauding Inkatha mob, wielding blood-dripping blades and knobkerries, forced him to spend the chilling night on the roof at his house in the East Rand. We stumbled upon the Long Walk to Freedom and other books which opened our minds to who our struggle heroes were.

We also mingled with those SASCO and PASMA t-shirt wearing brigade, many of whom lent credence to the name - academic ancestor. They introduced us to the liberation struggle culture. One of them would quote Mandela or Sobukwe while making a point to senior management of the institution. You would see some manager with a big academic title before his name yield to the request. We were all under the spell of black political leadership. And that is how I got to know who Nelson Mandela was in my early years.
Robala ka kgotso, ntate wa rona.

Power – the orgy of the fearful

The most dangerous people are the fearful. The fearful are unhappy. The unhappy are not content. The discontented are selfish.

We seek safety not in justice and peace, but in the comfort of privilege, even if such comfort is riding on the back of social mayhem and oppression.

Adolf Hitler suffered from fear. He developed hatred. He became dangerous. He sought safety in exclusion (extermination, rather) of those who threatened the privileged comfort of his ilk. And those who served Hitler feared his fear, and him. So the orgy began.

Colonial oppressors, in their moment of fear, and their quest to resolve internal esteem troubles, developed hatred, and pursued to build privileged comfort, at the exclusion (displacement and suppression, rather) of those whom they found in their way.

Dictators and tyrants, even those who may have risen to power with noble intentions, may end up suffering from morbid fear. They may develop an exaggerated sense of self-importance. It is an enduring esteem problem seeking ways to resolve itself; the void of enduring unhappiness and discontent needing permanent filling.

And what better way to fill the void than to be in charge of the multitudes? To exhort exaltation; to rouse praises; to invite patronage and reward complicity of sycophants. Power is a permanent salve of psychosis, an orgy of those on board, with those begging accommodation.

Those of us who seek power at all cost, are running from our fear; a danger pursuing our very selves. The most noticeable characteristic in us, the dangerous people – seeing that fear can be masked - is loyalty; loyalty to the group of our ilk. We will kill to be in the group. We will kill for the group.

Killing may not always be a violent project of ending lives, but a spreading of lies, the peddling of propaganda, and the praise-singing of those who are faces of social mayhem and oppression may suffice.

Pandering to the whims of the elite, creationists of social mayhem, the heroes in charge of procuring the comfort of privilege, is but another way of killing. Turning a blind eye in the face of naked barbarism, of looting, of extortion, of vandalism, just because I fear to lose the little crumb (love, membership, friendship, a job, business, etc.) falling in my direction, is but another way of killing.

The most dangerous people are the fearful. All what we do, and won’t do, is motivated by fear. The jobs we hold, the social and religious institutions we belong to, the ideologies we are fighting for... all that, we are maintaining because we “believe”* it is human to be doing it; yet, ironically, we are afraid of being human.

What the dangerous people are seeking is access, not redress. What the dangerous people do not want to do is to rock the boat, let alone letting it to capsize. We cannot imagine a utility which is beyond, and better, than this boat of human pain. The boat must carry on, but with us in charge, with us on the controlling levers of social mayhem and oppression.

What the dangerous people want is to be trusted, and loved, by their subjects. We cannot survive without “our” subjects (people, rather). We need “our people” in order for us to continue feeling important. When there are no longer subjects, we will no longer be relevant. Our esteem issues will emerge. We will be tormented by our inadequacy. Our shortcuts will be revealed. We will be left without. We may no longer eat. We may no longer feast. We may no longer orchestrate patronage. We will be spurned.

We are the slaves of our fear. We march to power (disguised as nobility and love for the people) because of it. We are the slaves of our fear. We hold on to power and privilege because of it. Power - the orgy of the fearful.

[“Believe”* = ‘In fact, every belief is an obstacle.’ – Eckhart Tolle (author of The Power of Now)]

A weekend of occasional bliss and permanent assault

The past weekend was busy and fun. I woke up on Saturday to realise that I was now 34. My wife woke me up with a tray filled with loving kisses, and… ahem… the things that wives do...

The next great moment was when we rocked into a birthday song, my wife and I, for my sister, Mamothibi Motaung. Yes, she and I share a birthday. I do not know how my parents pulled that one off.

Later on the same day, my niece, Puleng Motloung, was getting wedded to her charmer, Victor. We had a great time watching her arrive by boat on the banks of Vaal River. We were in those areas which we call "di-plot" in our common lingo. The white people own that stretch of land and they are raking in good money maintaining the area to provide events entertainment by the river. How is land reform coming along? But I digress.

Weddings never go without drama, even if everything may be going according to plan, someone will suffer a fate of sort. It happened to me. I was given the task to deliver the flowers at the venue. I sped off to the venue, only to miss the turn and get lost for a good 35 minutes.

On two occasions I stopped to ask the petrol attendants for directions. They pointed me 7 kilometres away from where I was supposed to go (the punishment you get for not working out the address in advance.) And they did it with that air of certainty they demonstrate when giving out direction. Giving directions to motorists while also filling up a motor tank should be declared illegal.

At one point I found myself pulling off and walking into a lonely store beside the main road. I was making my way to the reception when a large dog appeared from the corner to literally “stop” me. I think I murmured something between ‘hello dog’ and ‘oh shit.’ I cannot recall. All that I know is that my heart raced and I could feel the sensation leading to me wetting my pants beginning to build up. I was lucky that my bladder held on.

Any property belonging to an Afrikaner whom you are there to ask for directions emits a particular assault about it. Two guys emerged from under a shed where several boats were being kept. They were talking. It was only then that I understood why bulldog refused me entry inside the office – there was nobody inside the office. I stood next to the car, waiting for them, and trying to keep a safe distance from bulldog, who literally shepherded me towards the car.

They stopped right next to me and continued to speak to each other, in their language. It was like I wasn’t there. The assault. Thing is, my mind was brainwashed inside a human resources class therefore it reasoned to me that what I was witnessing was possibly cultural diversity at play or that the two men were just conducting pure business. But as I looked at this “customer”, I got the feeling he was just dragging the conversation on just to spite (assault) me.

After about five attempts to interrupt, and having considered getting into the car and leaving, not before having looked around me, to notice that it was only me against two not-interested-in-my-story men, and their cheeky bull dog, I finally surrendered to fear.

‘I am sorry to interrupt you, gentlemen.’
‘Yeeeees?’ said the man whose Afrikaans-speaking train of thought had just been rudely interrupted.
‘I am looking for a place called Little Winds,’ I said.
‘Whaaaaat? There is no place like that here,’ said the shop-keeper.
‘Okay, thank you,’ I said before driving off, relived that the psychological assault was over, for now.

Finally I found my way to the venue. I was angry with myself, thinking that I have messed things up for my niece. To my relief, African time bailed me out. The guests were rolling in, looking swanky and entertaining. The Black guests outclassed their White counterparts in that department, including on the numbers stakes. We dress to kill, ek se.

Moruti Moleli, the priest who officiated, was amusing for the most part. One moment the groom cleared his throat and quietly pointed out that him and bride actually want pre-nup... or I think he said so. Moruti was rattled by this, and admitted that indeed the couple were destabilising his (pre-conceived) way of doing things.

By the end of the day I was physically exhausted. And I am putting the blame on a 2 and half year old guy called Boitshwaro Motaung. The boy spent the entire day running around the park, forcing me to look for him in the midst of the crowd, if not having to run after him and his equally pesky friends who, at one point, were trying to retrieve something which had fallen into the river. Imagine the mayhem that could have ensued had one of them dared the river. When I finally hit the bed, I passed out until 8h30 the next morning.

At 10h20 we proceeded to Heilbron. The bridal motorcade was guided to a house in the suburb. It is a Afrikaans-speaking neighbourhood, with some upwardly mobile Blacks having occupied several houses over there. The suburb looked rather dull, as if reeling from nostalgia of its former Apartheid glory. The bride was to change into her white dress. We literally parked the cars in the street, in front of other houses. People formed sporadic groups of about 3 to five to chit chat, and to laugh. Some were already pulling cold bottles out of the coolers, and looking into the sun as they drank. But that didn’t bother them because they had shades of all sizes and shape on them to bar the sun rays, and to complete their swag. The younger women exploited the waiting period by reviving their make-up.

I was curious to observe the behaviour of the neighbours upon noticing our presence. A certain neighbor came out to lock up her gate. Moments later a band of white kids and two elders (parents, maybe) came out of the car which had just pulled into the driveway. They waved in our direction. Nobody took much notice. A certain Ntate Mkhaba (not his real name - it's just that he had a belly to rival that of Gwede Mantashe) was walking towards us when he noticed the friendly gesture from the white family. He took it upon himself to "hala" back and to find out ‘Hoe gaan dit?’ from them. None of them waverers bothered to reply. It was that awkward.

Wearing a very broad smile on his face, yet without anyone having asked him, Ntate Mkhaba told us that those people were actually waving at him. ‘They are my friends and they love me very much.’ We were stunned by this unsolicited tale. We behave like that when our minds have been assaulted by white supremacy. It does not matter how well dressed, or educated, or how rich one may be. The assault is deeply ingrained in us; it seems permanent.

Entering Phiritona was a spectacle. The bride and groom were driven in a BMW convertible, with their feet resting on the rear seat. I prayed silently that the driver will not step on the accelerator, or brakes, too carelessly. The camera and video crew subjected us to two or three stop and starts - simply to capture the perfect moments. There were about six maids of honour. They were made to drive on the scooters. You should have seen how, poor 19 year olds wearing skimpy but gorgeous traditional dresses, held on to the drivers for dear life. Some of them, we are told, were even crying a little due to fright. The spectacle literally flushed the people out of their houses. Some of them drew to the streets to catch a good look of the couple. ‘Ke bo mang?’ they asked.

There were those of us who drove on high speed while swerving the cars this way and that way in the narrow streets paved with bricks - something which we did not do while we were in the tarred suburbs just up the road. The respect we showed while up there was palatable. You should have seen how some township onlookers, dogs included, were made to dash off the streets to evade possible accident. We harass our own to good effect, in our moment of excitement. And nobody should complain.

At the groom’s house we were ushered into a large white marquee (we don’t say tent anymore). There were great speakers, live performance and great food. One of the speakers even told everyone that the groom’s family had slaughtered seven cows. I could see a few souls lick their lips in anticipation. And we feasted. What a weekend it was.

Not sure if Jacob Zuma is my father or president

When I was young, there were moments when my father used to piss me off!

Like when he'd look up in the Ha-Sethunya direction (which is where my school was) to check if the school was out. And then - I am imagining all of this - he'd quickly open the bonnet of a 1977 Toyota hilux, and proceed to dismember the engine. On a Friday afternoon; Imagine. He did all that – I  suspected – just to make sure that I spent the entire weekend, sometimes in a freezing winter season, handing him the vice grips and sockets.

Sometimes he'd even instruct me as I entered the gate, 'Hlobola kapele o tlo nthusa mona (quickly lose the school uniform and give me a hand over here!)' It was bye-bye to after school lunch, unless my stubborn Mother was around to insist that I ate before starting the grueling shift.

To rub salt in my wound, my playmates would bring the street football match right in front of our gate, and throw the eyes in my direction every time my father shouted, 'Ke itse boutu (bolt), e seng spanere sa 14! Ha o bone mahlong?' Sometimes my playmates (without provocative fathers like mine) would giggle. And I'd be so heartbroken.

Because if only I had had enough practice time with my playmates, I'd still be relegating Lucky Lekgwathi to the bench right now as we speak...

Fathers have pissed all of us off. And I think they have the right to because the okes have been feeding us. But then when your president starts to crate your nipples just like your father used to do, you end up wandering if Jacob Zuma is your father or president.

Choosing painless dreams

I choose to stay out of the Nkandla scandal. It is good for my health, but bad for my black life.

Hospitals are but long walls housing the neglect of medical treatment and care; the despondency of medical talent. Incidental mortuaries.

Schools are vandalised war zones and killing fields. Only the abandoned ones remain peaceful, but ghostly. Universities are institutions of implicit racism sweeping across academia, administration; the factory of in-equitable careerism and output.

Townships, which could have been demolished systematically to build humane communities with close by workplace nodes (to stem the chaos of traffic and racist exclusion), are a point of reference to what lifetime human concentration camp should be.

Mines are the killing plains of those who refuse to extract for continued exploitation.

What of the corporate South Africa, the habitat of the suit-wearing professionals, in the open plans and large corner offices? A band of racially abused but glorified success stories of racist industrial age.

And here we are, frothing in the mouth, stoking our national blood pressure, and inducing depression on ourselves over matters of two-tier convenience - private property built with public funds, and public road built for the pockets of a private (foreign) entity.

Only a gullible sycophant, wading in a sea of state patronage (state tender, deployment job, etc), may afford to remain joyous in this moment.

As for those who care, the ones who must remain positive and optimistic about this nation (the burden which they carry to give hope to 70% of our dejected youth) are feeling low and hurt.

We deserve this, until we chose differently. Let us dream of a positive South Africa. We deserve painless dreams.

My chance to get arrested is finally here!

I have to get this off my chest.

#clearingthroat#

I grew up harboring silly desires. One of them was to get myself arrested, by some powerful woman in the mould of Connie Chiume (Mosadi wa Kop on Rhythm City) and Petronella Sello (streets of mangaung).

In this fantasy, I’d be thrown in jail to be watched over by the all-women correctional services personnel in the mould of Portia Gumede (4play), Zenande Mfenyana/ Noluntu (generations) and Nomzamo Mbatha (isibaya). They’d be watching me like hawks the whole time, relentlessly chewing bubble-gum and blowing it into my face to provoke me.

I’d have a very competent legal team in the mould of Zikhona Sodlaka (montana) and Lindiwe Sokhulu (sokhulu partners/ isidingo) taking on this thoroughly prolonged, who-cares-when-it-will-end, case.

I’d have my real wife’s daily cooking, and messages of hope, delivered to me by a type like Maggie Benedict/ Akhona (generations). She will walk in and out in that Hernesto (chicken licken ad) fashion, with the ready-to-get-nasty officials in the mould of Queen Latifah (set it off) and Celeste Ntuli (LNN with loyiso gola/ isibaya) releasing the AK47 bullets into air for the simple pleasure of intimidating my messenger.

And what will be your crime, Fusi, you ask – driving on what is supposed to be a free road, in Africa, generally, and refusing to pay the e-toll.

Minister Dipuo Peters has just announced, stone-faced, that the etolls are going ahead starting 3 December 2013.

Minister Peters, see you anywhere between Maraisburg and Beyers Naude offramp from 3 December. Bring Commissioner Riyah Phiyega – suspended or not suspended - with you to effect the law (but she should not shoot to kill!) And be sure to request president Zuma to reshuffle quickly to have sis’ Lindiwe (Sisulu) replace bro S’bu (Ndebele) at my nkandla-type of correctional facility. My jail time should be fun, because that way I cannot be expected to pay the e-toll!

Nothing beats the smell of coffee and brand new book

I don’t know about you. As for me, I have silly reasons for hanging around bookstores. If you have been to CNA to buy a book, well not much happens there. But if you are buying at Exclusive Books, the smell of rich coffee would blow you dizzy. That’s if you are in Hyde Park or Sandton (Mandela Square). The Exclusive Books in Rosebank has gone through “not so cool” changes. The coffee shop is no longer there. The bookshop has moved into a smaller space not far from where it used to be.

It is always a pleasant feeling knowing that in Mandela Square, you can still grab a book from the shelf, find a couch, dig in between the pages whilst sipping the smell of coffee. It is not like I drink coffee when I am there. I sip through the nostrils instead. It is for those reasons that I wish my living room was near the African non-fiction section inside Exclusive Books.

Then what follows is that excitement you get while rushing home. But go gently on your accelerator or else Chris Ngcobo’s JMPD contingent will pounce on you. I mean how can you afford paying a spot fine of R200 (bribe), or a ticket bill of a R500 in the next coming months when you have just blown your last R300 in a bookstore a few minutes earlier? So an act of crawling on the M1 South at 80 km/h means that with the small change in your pocket, there is an incident-free chance that you will get a bottle of Four Cousins at the grocery store. I know what you are thinking... Fusi drinks a R39.99 wine. Well, try it and you will know that “kgoze” (rose’) goes down well while your eyes glide between the pages of a great new book. Ooh, the smell of wine and fresh pages… Mama yoh!

Then you get home. And you have to come up with tactics to keep the distractions to your book-and-wine moment at bay. For me it is a difficult task. Luckily I find that particular channels such as Mzansi Music sort of come in handy; they keep somebody distracted. But then there is an owner of the house. He is pushing 31 months this November. When it comes to the issue of me “reading and sipping” in peace, my son had better be sleeping! I mean it.

If it were not for his antics of violently dispossessing me of the books in my hands, I would not have delivered a brand new copy (Confessions of an Economic Hitman) to a likeable brother called Segopisho Mothibi in Klerksdorp this August. A long story involving some silly childhood friend of mine called Matela Mthwalo who unilaterally drove all the way from Potch to Lekoa to “lend” me a book that did not belong to him.

Things came to a head after about two months of reading the book – and wriggling as I followed line after line about the murderous greed of Western governments. Son had pulled his usual stunt and, as I finished blinking, Segopisho’s property was without the front cover! I was ranting about this disappointing incident on facebook the other day when Segopisho coolly informed me that the defaced book actually belonged to him, not to that swindler called Matela!
Truth is, I love my friend a lot. And the same goes for my son. But I don’t appreciate how they gang up on me, forcing me to buy new copies to build bridges with Segopisho Mothibi while I could be feathering my own nest of book collection, and sipping free coffee through my nostrils.

Surely you know who the Nigerians are around here

I was minding my own business outside the house when a man walked into my yard a couple of days ago.  I had not seen him before. As I was taking notice of him, he mumbled something like ‘Hi, Afternoon,’ and then he was silent.

He pulled the phone from his pocket and fixed his eyes on it. Then he turned round as if to check if he was at the right place. Then he placed the phone on his ear. I suppose he was making a phone call. Meanwhile, I am taken aback by this. I am wondering if I should ask him 'can I help you?' But then my Blackness tells me it might be rude for me to say so; I should let him do his business. Then he paces back to the exit, stops abruptly, turns towards me (I am holding a 22 month old in my arms; and I am thinking maybe I should rush the boy into the house and deal with the brother on my own.) As I turn towards the door to effect the precaution I have just thought about, brother paces back towards me.

Now I am caught between showing my back to him much longer than I feel comfortable to because I am trying to perch my son inside the house. At the same time I need adequate time – and possibly empty hands - to face the stranger who's doing weird things in my yard, but then facing him right now means I am placing a child between me and the guy.

He is closing in. Cupping a baby in my arms means that I cannot react swiftly should the guy take the physical challenge at me. At that moment I’m thinking, God I can’t even flee. Before I could say ‘can I help you?’ he looks into his phone again, presses it briefly, carries on at me, and then finally he says, ‘ehm... eh, what number is this house?’ By that time I am thinking, ‘broer, you are looking at the number.’ (It is the first thing you will notice coming in).

Then he says, ‘oh sorry, I’m uh... I’m looking for the Nigerians.’ Before I could say, ‘sorry?’  he said, ‘the Nigerian guys; where do they live?’ I am thinking to myself, How am I supposed to know the Nigerians you are looking for? But instead I say to him, ‘Did the Nigerians give you their address?’ Without looking at me but at the house in the opposite direction he says, “No, they didn’t. But they are Nigerians, you should know them.” I was speechless.