Where the Hope lies…

In a moment of brave-ity two night’s ago i decided to ask the South African internet a question. I was reading a book that pointed back to the idea of South Africa being renamed Azania and i didn’t think that was the worst idea. After all ‘South Africa’ is just a direction, right. What do you think? Who would be okay with a name change and why?

i also posted an article by Xolela Mangcu on News 24 titled ‘Spinach, Chips and Race’ talking about a negative experience he had had at a restaurant that he saw as directly linked to race and all the white people who jumped on and tried to defend as just being a restaurant/client incident. And many black friends jumping in to confirm that this has happened to them and people they know too many times for the coincidence monster to be invoked. And then more white people jumping on to say the story was not related.

Both of these got a lot of conversation going – some was heated and uncomfortable and absolutely beautiful and i include one of those exchanges below because of where it started and where it ended up. [flashbacks to the ‘What about Bob?’ series of conversations i ran a while back]. Some was just painful and demonstrated an all too typical white response to reflect and defend and misdirect and to refuse to LISTEN to what was really being said and to understand some of the HURT and COMPLEXITY that was attached.

Amidst a sea of frustration and stupidity, there are glimpses and islands of hope and i will continue to lash myself to those as i try to figure out how this ally thing works. Part of it seems to be to continue to invite white people to come to the table and to look inwards and try to recognise the change that still needs to happen without them getting too distracted with who owns the table and how they would prefer the lighting to be and why their particular cushion [you got a cushion?] is not quite as comfortable as they are used to.

Here are some comments and conversations that emerged from yesterday’s posts and shares, followed by some highlights pulled out of a really helpful Jonathan Jansen article [which you should go and read the rest of]:

Debbie: A dream I have is that we would eventually all be referred to as South Africans, because personally I think using terms of black, white, coloured just further entrenches the separation. There are some South Africans not willing to engage with other South Africans, but this does not include all. There are many making the effort and moving forward together.

Linde: I think it’s convenient for privileged white people particularly to use the desire for peace as a means of silencing those that speak about deep racial issues.There are many making an effort, but the social conversations we’re having prove that THEY are not enough. Issues such as Rhodes Must Fall,Open Stellenbosch should not need debating after 1976 and yet here we are.

Debbie: That was not a comment to silence anybody, just a dream for the future. Making broad statements using black and white terms makes me feel further separated from going forward. I then feel I am damned if I do and damned if I don’t. Help me understand then what Im saying that comes across as silencing voices. Genuine question, I really would like to know.

Linde: You do realise that this is not about making you feel comfortable Debbie? There is a majority out there that has been treated in a way no minority should be treated for many years and then we have privileged people such as yourself who are very concerned about their feelings and protecting those feelings. I appreciate that you spoke your mind but accept that others will do the same and they deserve to. Speaking of the reality of the current status of SA will not change things or create greater division as that’s the same as changing a country’s name without serious reform of the real issues that cause the racial divide.

Debbie: Not trying to feel comfortable nor am I so concerned about my feelings in what we are talking about. I used a lot of ‘I statements’ so as not to point fingers, that was the only reason. I really do want that social change and for the racial divide to go. I am all for people talking if they still need to talk, but surely there does need to come a time when moving forward together is important for all, even with conversations still happening along the way on topics that haven’t been properly addressed?

Linde: How do we move forward when you want to mask the truth selfishly at your own convenience? Moving forward can only happen when we talk and address issues frankly. Rhodes Must Fall & Open Stellenbosch are a consequence of the lack of honest dialogue as black people are muzzled by white people such as yourself and those you think you speak on behalf of who consider the absence of racial conversation as a step in the correct direction. Movements such as Rhodes Must Fall, Open Stellenbosch happened cos black people decided to talk regardless of how uncomfortable it makes you and the people you speak on behalf of. Rhodes Must Fall and Open Stellenbosch and many other movements and organisations are the beginning of change. They are the sign that South Africa is moving on and that we’re tackling these issues head on. Your definition of a South Africa that has moved on is a SA where you and the people you speak on behalf of are not challenged by the wrongs of the past and the WRONG that you are so ignorant of doing right now in this conversation. What you’re doing is the perfect example of white privilege at it’s best. You think you can define the terms of “SA moving on”. For you, continuing to discuss racial issues means we haven’t moved on, cos Debbie and the group she speaks on behalf of has said so. To you Black people who speak of race issues are not moving on. We will not keep quiet because the people you speak on behalf of are uncomfortable Debbie.

Debbie: ok this conversation obviously needs to happen in another place as it’s getting lost in translation here. I was trying to dialogue and not be attacking. am happy to talk inbox and that’s not because of being uncomfortable, but truly believing this will not be solved on a FB post with misunderstandings happening.

Linde: I don’t mean to sound dismissive Debbie but I’ve heard this rhetoric before. I can’t tell you how many times people have preferred to challenge ideas with me via inboxes – cos they’re being misunderstood. In SA white voices/opinions carry more authority and we hear them all the time on their terms. I think I’ve heard almost every argument possible about why talking about race is divisive. Surprise me and do something different – CHALLENGE YOUR OWN PERSONAL SENSE OF PRIVILEGE.

Debbie: Ok, a question, what would make you see that I have taken that step? What is the expectation of challenging privilege?

Linde: This Debbie is a 180 degree change of tone from your conversation. This is definitely something I don’t see often and I hope to see more of it from more people.

1. Don’t dictate to the oppressed how they should act. This is what you have been consistently doing in this conversation. The premise of your argument is based on telling the majority to move on as explicitly defined by you or the people you speak on behalf of..

2. Understand that discomfort is part of the process of acknowledging and letting go of prejudicial/racist behaviour. There’s nothing wrong with feeling uncomfortable.

3. That discomfort however pales in comparison to what black people have gone through and what they go through every day today – in the NEW SOUTH AFRICA. Your discomfort is nothing compared to their pain and suffering and it continues – contrary to popular belief it didn’t end in 1994. Their pain trumps your discomfort. As long as one isn’t inciting violence, as you’re also entitled to a safe environment (even online), listen, make a contribution without dictating terms.

BUT THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
It’s been a pleasure.

Debbie: People always tell me to stay out of online conversations because they don’t go anywhere. I beg to differ most of the time, otherwise I would have missed this opportunity in meeting you and furthering my learning. I didn’t see myself as dictating, so I am sorry for that. I have learnt a lot from working with black people and teaching in a black school for the last few years. I hear about the tough life these kids live and it breaks my heart. I seek to help where I can and always want to see myself a learner, so thank you Linde.

Phumzile: Well Debbie, the long and the short is that we have been socialised for centuaries to think in terms of colour, so that’s not going away in this centuary at least, the slow pace of transformation (if there’s any) is not helping. Let’s accept colour cause to a large degree it shows off God’s creativity, colour is no mistake. There are practical things that can speed up finding our country’s identity besides a name change, eg. White people giving back land without compensation, having this conversation in an indeginous language cause it’s mandatory (not a nice to have in order to make black pps feel like u r a nice white person), etc etc. Perhaps then, a name change when what we see in this country is worth summing up in a word or two.

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My friend Simon telling it like it is: You see, a lot of white people – myself included – unintentionally start falling into an unmerited positivity around race in our country, where we feel that apartheid is long behind us, and the hurt and leftover division is largely on the mend. And the only reason we think this is the majority of us still carry the privilege of not being majorly effected by it. We sort of forget it.

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My Facebook status after two very long, draining, mostly painful conversations with white people being defensive and black people being [in my opinion] way too gracious and patient: “South Africa, it is okay to feel uncomfortable in conversations. Without that we will never move forwards. But when that happens do you stay and push through and listen harder and look more into your own heart and really try to hear and see and be honest about what is happening or do you bail? Don’t give up. There is a lot of hard work ahead but it is more than worth it and we need to be more than grateful that people of colour continue to engage with us at all as we try to figure this out. It is not their responsibility to help us figure it out – that is a gift!”

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Lastly, this article written by Jonathan Jansen in the Rand Daily Mail which i have just pulled the key points out of, but click on the link and go and read it in full.

How to be White and Happy in South Africa 

IT HAS long fascinated me, the fact that some white young people fit so easily into the new South Africa but most struggle to live and learn and love alongside black youth.

First, get a grip on yourself. You are not better than the other person because of your skin.

Acknowledge that you are a child of privilege. If you start off with the idea that everything you have is a consequence of the hard work of your parents, you are probably from another planet. Yes they probably worked hard, but centuries of separation and privilege — white affirmative action, in essence — gave your family an emphatic advantage at the expense of black people; that is why you do not live in a shack or never attended a crappy school. Acknowledging this simple fact sets you free, big time. Denying it will make it difficult to ease into this new country since you would never understand how we came to be so unequal.

Learn to listen before you speak. As with any child of privilege, including the black middle classes, you have been subtly trained to think you know more and better than those of lower class or darker race. This I can assure you is bull. But learning to listen is hard, since you grew up hearing your parents bark orders and give instructions to lesser people (in their minds).

Do not listen to your parents when it comes to friendships…  Be better than us your parents; learn and love and live without borders for if your generation cannot make this society normal, we‘re screwed.

Always be on the lookout to learn from your friendships.

And learn to appreciate the traditions and expectations of your different friends and their families.

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Anything jump out for you while reading this? Is there something you’ve noticed in your own life that needs to be worked on? If you’re a white person, what questions do you have with regards to figuring out white fragility or privilege or how to be a better ally to your friends of colour? 

[For more helpful posts on South African related things, click here] 

Taboo Topics: Race – What I would love my white friends to hear – Meet Juliet Paulse

Growing up in Cape Town in a largely coloured area, the perceptions about white and black people were always negative. So naturally I took that on as the norm (as that was my context). I was only in high school when I was first exposed to white folks. All my teachers were white and they knew everything and seem to have everything. I basically unconsciously just ended up assimilating into that thinking that white must be right. My teachers at school were never really outwardly racist but there were those occasional undertones, side comments that one at that age could not quite understand. In this context I never really thought much about the issues of race.

When I went to Bible College a little bit after High School I was confronted with my own racism. One of my classmates who was black got a better mark than me, and this shocked me. Why? Because I grew up being told that black people are not very bright. I went home to tell my parents of this discovery and they just shrugged it off saying “you’re 19 you don’t know anything and not you’re not racist, those people are …” I realised that as a Christian this kind of thinking would not be helpful or gracious it was downright ungodly. So I decided to get to know and build better friendships with black people that I was surrounded by at Bible College. It was and still is an awesome journey. In these friendships I have had to confront a lot of wrong and misinformed thinking and my friends continue to be gracious as we work through these things together. I have found that I am richer for getting out of my comfort zone.

So my friends then exposed some other stuff and brought up my racism towards white people. I couldn’t deny that at all. My experience of many white people is that of ignorance, entitlement, totally unaware of their privilege and so not interested in engaging in issues of race, politics etc.

So my argument for not making an effort to have white friends was, “agh will they ever change? Probably not, and who has time for those people anyway?” So I would just tolerate them but no further and that will be that. Right? Wrong?

I moved to Bloemfontein last year in December and ended up at a predominantly white church. I was like “ahh Help! I see white people, everywhere!” God has a sense of humour for real! Moving here has made me look more seriously at the attitudes and prejudices I hold towards white people. I had attempted to have friendships with white people many times but it always never deepened or went past a certain point. So I never really felt compelled to preserve and be persistent. I wrote to some of my friends and told them I guess I’m going to have to learn to love them white peoples.

I have actively sought to make and build on friendships with white people. What changed for me is that I realised that, had my black friends not been patient, gracious and kind with me then I would have not gotten out of my habitual wrong thinking. My thinking was formed by ignorance and lack of exposure to black people. It was only in my relationships that I was able to move past a lot of things I grew up believing about black people.

So what I want my white friends to know is this:

I am your friend for real, I love you because Jesus made you and I sincerely want to understand the inner workings of your mind. This might mean that at times when you say stuff because you are really ignorant of the world around you; I will in love tell you that you are wrong.

You are not an island. You cannot go on pretending that things are okay or be okay with being in your comfort zone. You are so missing out! You need me and I need you. Further to that I want to need you, because you are part of this epic country.

Be honest. Don’t hold back tell me how you really feel I can guarantee that your anger concerning race and apartheid will often be the root of some misunderstandings you may still hold. I love you enough to wrestle it out with you.

Don’t just moan, own! Don’t just complain about how rubbish things are, own your part in making a difference and changing things. The cop out argument of I can’t really do anything about stuff because I’m white? That’s just unhelpful and only leads you to be complacent and back to what makes you comfortable.

If we want a better South Africa then we have to fight for it. It’s messy and it will mean that we’ll scrape some knees, and come out bruised. But it’s worth it. We have such an opportunity to create a new normal. We don’t need to keep perpetuating our past.

To be very honest it is really rough and tough loving people who just don’t seem to want to get it. I often feel like giving up. But then I realise Christ never gives up on me no matter how many times I mess up and don’t get it. So to my white friends I won’t tap out, by God’s grace I’m all in.

[For other stories from People of Colour who have things they’d love white people to hear, click here]

I Write What I Like – Steve Biko: the perceived inferiority of the black man

This is a hard but necessary passage to share from Steve Biko’s ‘I Write What I Like’ which you should totally get hold of and read in its entirety.

Hard, because it is true. Not true that the black man is inferior, but that the idea of the black man being inferior has been so deeply entrenched in so many of us, that it is an extremely hard and horrible thing to admit to when we see it in ourselves. When i see it in myself…

But somewhere along the line of growing up in an apartheid society, i can see that this idea rubbed off on me. It is a poison i hate to have to admit to, and am not entirely sure of the antidote, except to keep reminding myself daily that it was a construct that the system i grew up in, strongly wanted and enforced me to believe.

This is from chapter 14, titled, ‘Black Consciousness and the Quest for a True Humanity’.

‘It is perhaps fitting to star by examining why it is necessary for us to think collectively about a problem we never created. In doing so, I do now wish to concern myself unnecessarily with the white people if South Africa, but to get to the right answers, we must ask the right questions; we have to find out whether our position is a deliberate creation of God or an artificial fabrication of the truth by power-hungry people whose motive is authority, security, wealth and comfort. In other words, the “Black Consciousness” approach would be irrelevant in a colourless and non-exploitative egalitarian society. It is relevant here because we believe that an anomalous situation is a deliberate creation of man.

There is no doubt that the colour question in South African politics was deliberately introduced for economic reasons. The leaders of the white community had to create some kind of barrier between black and whites so that the whites could enjoy privileges at the expense of blacks and still feel free to give a moral justification for the obvious exploitation that pricked even the hardest of white consciences. However, tradition has it that whenever a group of people has tasted the lovely fruits of wealth, security and privilege it begins to find it more comfortable to believe in the obvious lie and to accept it as normal that it alone is entitled to privilege. In order to believe this seriously, it needs to convince itself of all the arguments that support the lie. It is not surprising, therefore, that in South Africa, after generations of exploitation, white people on the whole have come to believe in the inferiority of the black man, so much so that while the race problem started as an offshoot of the economic greed exhibited by white people, it has now become a serious problem on its own. White people now despise black people, not because they need to reinforce their attitude and so justify their position of privilege but simply because they actually believe that black is inferior and bad. This is the basis upon which whites are working in South Africa, and it is what makes South African society racist.

The racism we meet does not only exist on an individual basis; it is also institutionalised to make it look like the South African way of life. Although of late there has been a feeble attempt to gloss over the overt racist elements in the system, it is still true that the system derives its nourishment from the existence of anti-black attitudes in society. To make the lie live even longer, blacks have to be denied any chance of accidentally proving their equality with white men. For this reason there is job reservation, lack of training in skilled work, and a tight orbit around professional possibilities for blacks. Stupidly enough, the system turns back to say that blacks are inferior because they have no economists, no engineers, etc., although it is made impossible for blacks to acquire these skills.

To give authenticity to their lie and to show the righteousness of their claim, whites have further worked out detailed schemes to “solve” the racial situation in this country. Thus, a pseudo-parliament has been created for “Coloureds”, and several “Bantu states” are in the process of being set up. So independent and fortunate are they that they do not have to spend a cent on their defence because they have nothing to fear from white South Africa which will always come to their assistance in times of need. One does not, of course, fail to see the arrogance of whites and their contempt for blacks, even in their well-considered modern schemes for subjugation.

The overall success of the white power structure has been in managing to bind the whites together in defence of the status quo. By skilfully playing on that imaginary bogey – swart gevaar – they have managed to convince even diehard liberals that there is something to fear in the idea of the black man assuming his rightful place at the helm of the South African ship. Thus after years of silence we are able to hear the familiar voice of Alan Paton saying, as far away as London: “Perhaps apartheid is worth a try”. “At whose expense, Dr. Paton?”, asks an intelligent black journalist. Hence whites in general reinforce each other even though they allow some moderate disagreements on the details of the subjugation schemes. there is no doubt that they do not question the validity of white values. They see nothing anamalous in the fact that they alone are arguing about the future of 17 million blacks – in a land which is the natural backyard of the black people. Any proposals for change emanating from the black world are viewed with great indignation. Even the so-called Opposition, the United Party, has the nerve to tell the Coloured people that they are asking for too much. A journalist from a liberal newspaper like The Sunday Times of Johannesburg describes a black student – who is only telling the truth – as a militant, impatient young man.

It is not enough for whites to be on the offensive. So immersed are they in prejudice that they do not believe that blacks can formulate their thoughts without white guidance and trusteeship. Thus, even those whites who see much wrong with the system make it their business to control the response of the blacks to the provocation. No one is suggesting that it is not the business of liberal whites to oppose what is wrong. However, it appears to us as too much of a coincidence that liberals – few as they are – should not only be determining the modus operandi of those blacks who oppose the system, but also leading it, in spite of their involvement in the system. To us it seems that their role spells out the totality of the white power structure – the fact that though whites are our problem, it is still other whites who want to tell us how to deal with that problem. They do so by dragging all sorts of red herrings across our paths. they tell us that the situation is a class struggle rather than a racial one. Let them go to van Tonder in the Free State and tell him this. We believe we know what the problem is, and we will stick by our findings.

I want to go a little deeper in this discussion because it is time we killed thus false political coalition between blacks and whites as long as it is set up on a wrong analysis of our situation. I want to kill it for another reason – namely that it forms at present the greatest stumbling block to our unity. It dangles before freedom-hungry blacks promises of a great future for which no one in these groups seems to be working particularly hard.’

[For another passage looking at the Internal and External Forces, click here]

How to be One bit Less Racist: We interrupt this series to take a bit of a step back…

i received two sets of comments after the last post in this series and felt that both were worth sharing.

The first was from Sabrina and was really helpful in reminding me that racism can be localised. One strong example we came against when we were in the States is that the term ‘coloured’ there when referring to a person of colour, is very strongly racist, whereas in South Africa, for the most part, it refers to a particular group of people, who as far as i have been able to ascertain, do not take it offensively [although some prefer to refer to themselves as brown] but definitely doesn’t carry the strength it does in the USA. So Sabrina reminded me that the ‘girl’/’boy’ post was referring specifically to the South African context:

Sabrina: I totally hear what you are saying and totally agree that people should respect each other and use respectful terms to do so. But I think that you must also acknowledge that in this particular blog because you used specific terms you are speaking from an ethnocentric perspective and so what you say is culturally constrained and not a universal truth. So for example I live in Ireland and many women of all ages refer to each other as ‘girls’. I’m in my 50s and call myself a girl and refer to my friends as the girls. In fact I smart a little if someone refers to me as that ‘woman’ over there. For most women in our culture the term ‘girl’ would be considered endearing rather than insulting. For males in Ireland the word ‘boy’ would really only be used for prepubescent boys, then they become teenagers, young men or men but just like women use the word ‘girl’ men would tend to use words like ‘guys’ or ‘lads’. So my point is what is insulting in one country or culture might not be insulting in another country or culture. So I totally agree with your point that people should address each other respectfully in a way that is acceptable within that particular society. However to dictate particular words makes it only applicable to the the example society that you discuss here rather than universal to all societies. It is a little difficult to explain so I hope that you ‘get’ what I mean.

My good friend Nkosi [who is probably being way more gracious than he needs to be] weighed in with these very powerful words that really made me stop and think. Boom – punch to the face right there.

Nkosi: My difficulty with this series Brett is that I feel it is more based on individual experience which I always try to avoid. Individual experience leads to reactionary actions which are limited actions. The fact that in this status in particular we are talking about “boy and a girl” and we already know they are black shows the biggest problem of racism. The fact that a domestic worker is black and “must not be refered to be a boy or a girl” shows a problem. Why does the domestic worker have to be black? Now for me the solution to racism will come from asnwering that simple question! Racism won’t end as long as blacks are still the definition of a domestic workers in houses of white people, they are petrol attendants in cars of white people, they are tellers in shopping malls of white people etc. So I am just going to read other peoples responses on this!

Just a further input on this issue, in my culture it is boys who wakes up to clean up after dogs mess and the irony of it all is that the boys are normally wakened up by their fathers but the same fathers wakes up to clean the dogs mess of white people. The dignity of the white peoples gardener’s is what matters for me!

In our culture shacks were created for pigs but it is our fathers who find themselves in shacks (Dignity again).

So basically for me racism is the power that puts white people as a group on top (to be the domestic helped) and black people as a group at the bottom (to be the domestic helper)!

Nkosi makes some strongly helpful points. And i believe he is speaking of the bigger picture and the systems that need to be changed and there is a whole lot of ongoing conversation about that. [Which often feels helpless because it is so huge and so much needs to be done]. So maybe the best thing is to stop for a moment and just read what he said again and let that sink in a little. Maybe it will help emphasise the hecticness if i was to replace myself and my father in that story and then try tune into those emotions.

So i don’t want to remove focus from any of that. It is all true. We need to catch a wake up and really realise what is going on around us. And try to figure out together what can be done to bring change faster. BUT at the same time i do still feel that maybe it is a BOTH/AND thing rather than an EITHER/OR. When the Bible gives slaves advice on how to treat their masters, i don’t believe it was condoning slavery, but in the context of what was a bad and unjust thing, saying that ‘Since you find yourself in this [unjust – understood] place, here is a way to live that is kingdom.

And so while the present situation [with, for the most part, black people cleaning white peoples’ houses] is not a fair and good one, there is still, i believe, ways we can work within that broken system to live in the best way possible until it is fixed/better as a whole. So if you have someone older than 20 cleaning your house or garden or looking after your children, in South Africa, then calling them girl/boy feels unacceptable. As does paying them minimum wage over a living wage. And a whole lot more.

What do you think? Are we able to tackle the smaller subtler racist tendencies that we may not always notice in ourselves while still needing to take on the bigger systemic changes that need to happen? Or do you feel that we need to start at the top and move down? Is this a helpful series to invite people to share their thoughts on, or is it proving unhelpful? 

i would very much love to have your feedback on this before the continuation or decimation of this series…

[To jump back into the series and look at how we refer to people as ‘they’, click here]

I Write What I Like – Steve Biko: Part community over individualism

i am still slowly making my way through Steve Biko’s ‘I write what I like’ and here is a passage that i marked a while ago from Chapter 8: Some African Cultural Concepts:

One of the most fundamental aspects of our culture is the importance we attach to Man [by which i think he is referring to people as opposed to individual – brett] . Ours has always been a Man-centered society. Westerners have on many occasions been surprised at the capacity we have for talking to each other – not for the sake of arriving at a particular conclusion but merely to enjoy the communication for its own sake. Intimacy is a term not exclusive for particular friends  but applying to a whole group of people who find themselves together either through work or residential requirements.

In fact, in the traditional African culture, there is no such thing as two friends. Conversation groups were more or less naturally determined by age and division of labour. Thus one would find all boys whose job  was to look after cattle periodically meeting at popular spots to engage in conversation about their cattle, girlfriends, parents, heroes, etc. All commonly shared their secrets, joys and woes. No one felt unnecessarily an intruder into someone else’s business. The curiosity manifested was welcome. It came out of a desire to share. This pattern one would find in all age groups. House visiting was always a feature of the elderly folk’s way of life. No reason was needed as a basis for visits. It was all part of our deep concern for each other.

Take a moment to pause there and think about what you’ve read. Anything stand out for you? A concept that seemed foreign but sounded quite nice actually? Or does this have a negative ‘not for me’ kind of vibe?

These are things never done in the Westerner’s culture. A visitor to someone’s house, with the exception of friends, is always met with the question, “What can I do for you?”. This attitude to see people not as themselves but as agents for some particular function either to one’s disadvantage or advantage is foreign to us. We are not a suspicious race. We believe in the inherent goodness of man. We enjoy man for himself. We regard our living together not as an unfortunate mishap warranting endless competition among us but as a deliberate act of God to make us a community of brothers and sisters jointly involved in the quest for a composite answer to the varied problems of life. Hence in all we do we always place Man first and hence all our action is usually joint community oriented action rather than the individualism that is the hallmark of the capitalist approach. We always refrain from using people as stepping stones. Instead we are prepared to have a much slower progress in an effort to make sure that all of us are marching to the same tune.

How about that section? This might be a revolutionary concept for some of us. Think about how we do friendship and community and compare/contrast it with what Steve is saying here. 

Nothing dramatises the eagerness of the African to communicate with each other more than their love for song and rhythm. Music in the African culture features in all emotional states. When we go to work, we share the burdens and pleasures of the work we are doing through music. This particular facet strangely enough has filtered through to this present day. Tourists always watch with amazement the synchrony of music and action as Africans working at a road side use their picks and shovels with well-timed precision to the accompaniment of a background song. Battle songs were a feature of the long march to war in the olden days. Girls and boys never played any games without using music and rhythm as its basis. In other words with Africans, music and rhythm were not luxuries but part and parcel of our way of communication. Any suffering we experienced was made much more real by song and rhythm. There is no doubt that the so called “Negro spirituals” sung by Black slaves in the States as they toiled under oppression were indicative of their African heritage.

The major thing to note about our songs is that they never were songs for individuals. All African songs are group songs. Though many have words, this is not the most important thing about them. Tunes were adapted to suit the occasion and had the wonderful effect of making everybody read the same things from the common experience. In war the songs reassured those who were scared, highlighted the determination of the regiment to win a particular encounter and in the case of the Black slaves, they derived sustenance out of a feeling of togetherness, at work the binding rhythm makes everybody brush off the burden and hence Africans can continue for hours on end because of this added energy.

Attitudes of Africans to property again show just how unindividualistic the African is. As everybody here knows, African society had the village community as its basis. Africans always believed in having many villages with a controllable number of people in each rather than the reverse. This obviously was a requirement to suit the needs of a community-based and man-centered society. Hence most things were jointly owned by the group, for instance there was no such thing as individual land ownership. The land belonged to the people and was merely under the control of the local chief on behalf of the people. When cattle went to graze it was on an open veld and not on anybody’s specific farm.

Farming and agriculture, though on individual family basis, had many characteristics of joint efforts. Each person could by simple request and holding of a special ceremony, invite neighbours to come and work on his plots. This service was returned in kind and no remuneration was ever given.

Poverty was a foreign concept. This could only really be brought about to the entire community by an adverse climate during a particular season. It never was considered repugnant to ask one’s neighbours for help if one was struggling. In almost all instances there was help between individuals, tribe and tribe, chief and chief etc. even in spite of war.

Hm, definitely think there is much to be appreciated and possibly learned and assimilated from here. What jumped out for you the strongest as you were reading this piece?

[For another extract from Steve Biko’s ‘I Write What I Like’, this time on the human face, click here]

You can’t “Give them a Voice”!

The other day i was on the bus coming back from camp chatting to someone and they spoke a line that sends electricity through my body [and not in a good way].

i think we were talking about my blog and the other person said something about, ‘Giving them a voice.’

i can never ever give anyone else a voice. 

i can recognise and acknowledge and make space for and step out of the way of, and one thing i really try to do with this blog is share a platform for… but i can never GIVE anyone a voice. And it’s not semantics. It’s a subtle difference in speech which often carries with it a whole deeper seated world of meaning. And i think it’s often the small subtleties in our words and actions that can feed the larger mindsets and prejudices and this is an area we must target.

When i watched this video it demonstrated it much more powerfully than i could say it here and this is perhaps one of the most powerful videos you will see this year on two different fronts…

“The problem with speaking up for each other is that everyone is left without a voice.”

Let’s be aware of where we need to be quiet and step away from the mic and invite others to it so that we can start to hear the beauty and power of their voices. And let us commit to really start listening.

# Who speaks into your life? [do they all look and sound like you?]

# Who are you reading? [do they all look and sound like you?]

# Who are the people you have asked to mentor you? [do they all look and sound like you]

# Where do you get your news?

# Who are the people you follow on social media, you are friends with, you let inform you about world events? [do they all look and sound like you?]

Sh! i think someone else is about to speak… 

Poem: Thoughts from the Blender

i recently discovered the incredibly gifted Dante who writes incredible micro poetry on his blog, Original-Dante. Thinking my poetry would definitely err on the macro side we decided to do a collaboration and use the same title to inspire two different poems and so here is my offering:

THOUGHTS FROM THE BLENDER

i gaze into the mirror
and the person staring back at me is not you
i cast my eyes across to your face
slowly becoming aware of
the lines of a well-worn path
have i even set foot on that road before?

i stare more deeply into your soul
only to have pictures of my life
flood back at me
i fling them to the ground
as i ready myself to dive right in
but am blocked by the life-sized
lifeless cardboard cutout that stands in my way

me
my life
my words
my thoughts
and my experiences
trying to tell your story through my voice
only rings in my ears
like a much-repeated but long-forgotten fairy-tale i thought i knew
so i close my eyes

and it takes a whole long time
minutes pass like hours
or are those indeed hours
that i am waiting upon
until what is ours
eventually starts to ever so slowly fade

days pass
and i can just about make out the
pathetic sad little robotic figure that is me
waving one last goodbye final wave
as it slides out of the peripheries
and i am gone

still me
still here
eyes closed
waiting
listening to the heaviness of
the air being breathed in and out around me

suddenly
as if you had always been there
watching silently from the shadows
my ears catch sight of you
through the words i’ve taken time to hear
to really listen to
and a picture of you begins to take shape
and you look different than i had ever taken time to imagine

i pull my eyes more tightly shut
knowing that to open them again
would ruin my chances
of ever truly opening them again

and i look once more
as your sound travels towards me
in wave after wave of deep illumination

rich colours are realised
and this new person that is you
more you than you have ever been
and yet completely the you
you have always been and are
the you i never got to see
beyond my stereotypic perceptions
of the you i have always ever painted you to be

oh but when you paint you
what a glorious you
you turn out to be
words become stories
which take shape
in, through and around the pain
that lies scarring your embattled torso
and i see
the you that is you is nothing like
the you that is me.

and it is good.

[To read my new mate Original Dante’s much shorter poem with the same title, click here] 

Also we would love to hear what you think of the experiment of doing a long and a micro version using the same title as inspiration – once you’ve read both, please comment on how you experienced the combo…