Racial hatred in SA – there is Hope

Sadly, the Hope in question is Christopher Hope, writing for the Guardian on Eugene Terre’Blanche – his life, his murder, the trial and what it does (or rather what it doesn’t do) for South Africa.

It’s been a while since I’ve been drawn into an article in the way I was drawn into this one. Informative, personal and brutally honest, it’s a really interesting view into Terre’Blanche’s life, his views and his attitude. He even (quite rightly, in my opinion) compares ET to Julius Malema:

It is said that Terre’Blanche has no heirs but I’m not sure about that. He constantly vowed he would die for the volk. This is one of those coded games the power-hungry have always played in South Africa and it rarely fools anyone. Pious protestations to the contrary, what drives politics in this country is fear and anger, and what counts in the end is firepower.

When people speak of dying for their beliefs, they mean, all too often, that they will kill for them.It is a sentiment that has even been set to music. Julius Malema, the ANC youth movement leader until he was suspended recently, has made a song of the struggle years, Kill the Boer, into his theme tune and though a court has condemned it as “hate speech”, it continues to be sung. Hatred is not something that can be suspended by court rulings. There is very real anger in the country and it has not been addressed.

And in closing, more honest truths:

Outside the Pennywise Pawn Shop an old ox-wagon waits on the sidewalk, unlikely ever to find a buyer. The clocks on each bell tower of the three Dutch Reformed churches had stopped; the old order they represented has gone. Gone, too, is Eugene Terre’Blanche. What remains is the bitter disillusion on all sides of the racial divide that his murder has laid bare. You may kill the Boer, as the song invites, but the anger – what will anyone do about that?

It’s something that was unsurprisingly brought out into the open by the murder of Terre’Blanche, but these days, almost everything seems to elicit the same sort of reaction. The DA march to COSATU House was, apparently, not about politics, but about whites inciting  black on black violence. The Spear saga turned from being about having the rights of dignity and of freedom of speech, to being a debate on racism – forget the fact that JZ is the President, how could a white artist have portrayed a black man in that way?

In backing down and removing the artwork from their gallery and website, The Goodman Gallery has apparently saved themselves a court appearance but their action risks the issues which divide the country being swept back under the rug. The trouble is, each time this has happened, it results in a bigger and bigger lump and I have this horrible feeling that someone is going to trip over in front of the fireplace very soon.

So yes, however uncomfortable this is, we need to get these issues out in the open.
The trouble is that those who should be leading the process and guiding people in this regard are actually the ones crying foul.

Eddie & Mike

Ah – another proud moment for South Africa as the world looks on.

Eddie Izzard’s attempt to run 27 marathons in 27 days in South Africa has had to be postponed, “just” four days in:

I set out to run 27 marathons in 27 days as a tribute to Nelson Mandela and his 27 years spent in prison.

Having completed 4 marathons, unfortunately, I have had to put my attempt on hold due to unforeseen medical complications that have arisen due to a multitude of factors including severe terrain, humidity and altitude. But I wish to say that my attempt is not over and I will return to South Africa and run the 27 marathons and finish this story.

I owe that to Nelson Mandela who has inspired the world to struggle and succeed no matter what obstacles are thrown at us.

There are literally hundreds of supportive comments in response to the post.

And then there’s this one from Mike Finch:

This is awkward and embarrassing, at best. Is it meant to be funny? Is it meant to be a bit of a dig at the English?
Or maybe a dig at Eddie personally?

Even runners like you?

It’s not surprising you only lasted four marathons

Really?
This is the guy who did 43 marathons in 51 days a couple of years back. I’m no huge fan of Eddie Izzard, but that is a pretty huge achievement.

Now he is in SA supporting and honouring the South African hero. And yet you ridicule him?

And what on earth is:

This is Africa… where men never cry and women do… a lot

meant to mean?

All in all, it would be a pretty awful comment from anyone, really, but then it turns out that Mike is the editor of Runnersworld magazine.
He’s educated.
He allegedly “knows about running”.
He edits the most popular running magazine on the continent.

And yet he gives us that condescending, uninformed crap?

No wonder I’m not a subscriber. Are you?

UPDATE: Opinion seems divided over the Mike Finch post. The overwhelming majority are with me: the comment is rude, disrespectful, uninformed and crass. Mike does have some support though.
The division exists almost completely (although not absolutely) along the line of whether the individual knows Mike or not. Those friends of Mike are incredulous that I or anyone else could read anything but humour into his Facebook comment. And that, to me, probably shows that Mike’s comment was probably an attempt to be humorous. (I still don’t get the “women cry a lot bit”, though.)

However, what these unobservant birds fail to notice is that the vast majority of Eddie Izzard’s 445,000 fans on Facebook aren’t personal friends of Mike Finch. So on their reading, his comment will have come across as rude, disrespectful, uninformed and crass.

As someone charged with editing a popular magazine, and when commenting to 445,000 fans of Eddie Izzard, perhaps Mike should have thought about writing more for the masses and not for his mates.

Another feather in the cap of Christianity

Some bloke paints a painting which some other people don’t like, how should you respond?

Let’s ask Nazareth Baptist (Shembe) Church spokesman Enoch Mthembu, shall we?

A person who committed such a serious sin deserves to be stoned to death.

And why?

That is according to the church constitution, the Bible, which guides us.

Right.

Cue outraged comments that Enoch doesn’t speak for every Christian.

Oh. OK. Just the ones that are guided by the Bible then, yes?

Literally redefined

From Brian Micklethwait:

Literally used to mean: this is not a metaphor.  Now, literally means: I am really serious about this metaphor and I really want you to listen.

talking about this quote on Obama.

Sadly, he’s right. That’s the way things are headed.
But that doesn’t mean that I won’t continue to ridicule people for using the new definition.

Bloody cheek

Here’s something interesting from today’s Cape Times, concerning the shark-spotting programme operating on some of Cape Town’s beaches.
Lest we forget, this programme is in place to warn those using the ocean when there is an increased danger of a shark attack, like the one last month at (the unguarded) Kogel Bay.

That particular attack came while research into False Bay’s shark population was underway and, of course, there were immediate and vociferous allegations that the two were linked, although this was later rubbished by independent experts. However, the surfing community is still generally unhappy about humans dumping blood into the sea because that attracts sharks which then allegedly eat the surfers. You can see this unhappiness here, with quotes such as:

I don’t like the idea of chumming. 20 years ago, we never saw a shark at Muizenberg. Now we see them regularly.

and:

…anything that brings sharks closer to humans isn’t good.

It seems that surfers are obviously concerned about the danger of shark attacks. Who knew?

All of which brings me back to that Cape Times article today. Aside from a few stats on the shark-spotter programme, it also mentioned some natural chumming:

An injured pygmy sperm whale beached itself at Surfers Corner in Muizenberg on Saturday and the red warning flag was kept up to caution the public that its blood could attract the presence of sharks.
The red flag indicates a recent sighting and a high shark alert.

And how did the surfers react?

hundreds of surfers remained in the water to take advantage of good waves.

So really, how bothered are surfers about chumming? Not much, it seems, when a DYING WHALE FULL OF SHARK ATTRACTANT is spewing its load into False Bay right next to their Mecca, they just carry on surfing.
Why on earth would they do that? Let’s ask an expert, surfer Gary Kleynhans, who was there on Saturday:

The surf is cooking! I understand the shark spotter programme is a safety measure and I appreciate that. But if surfers want to go surfing, they will.

I’ve been doing some rudimentary calculations and it seems to me that when a bloke chucks a bucket full of blood into the sea, that will attract great whites, but if a whale beaches and releases a whaleful of blood into the sea, that won’t.

Especially if the surf is “cooking”.

Am I alone is seeing a slight dichotomy here?