Just Thinking

"The blows stopped, and I knew I had crushed him. I had crushed him with the sheer force of my presence. I was there, and would be there to the end of time: a perpetual symbol of his failure to have a world without me. And he walked away to his car, a man without a shadow. The sun couldn't see him" From Njabulo Ndebele's short story "Fools". This character (Zamani) says this after withstanding sjambock blows.  He did not run and at some point started laughing until his attacker gave up and walked away crying. This reminds me of the concept of a 'soft vengeance' that is found in Albie Sachs' writings. As Albie puts it   "Soft vengeance is the triumph of your life, of your ideals, of your goals."  I agree with him, as in the case of Zamani, it is the sheer presence of a you that is an undeniable force even though some wish you were not.  Just triumph and that will be the best vengeance, the soft one.

In congratulating Luvo Manyonga, the long jump world champion from my home town Mbekweni, I am  posting a column I wrote for the Paarl Post in 2012. Here it is: The world’s eyes are now focused on the London Olympic games. We, from Mzantsi, hope for a better medal haul than the last two Olympics. This is the message that the country’s President has conveyed to our team. Carster Semenya led our team through the stadium in the opening ceremony. It is a feeling of excitement that accompanies the return of Caster to the world stage after the fiasco that accompanied the 2009 World Championships and caused her hurt and embarrassment. For those with short memories please be reminded that in 2009 she won a gold medal and evil people started questioning whether she was a man or a woman. She had to be subjected to gender testing and only cleared to run eleven months later. She is back and carrying our flag in leading our team into the Olympics opening ceremony. I continue to cross my finger

Failure Having done All you can To discredit Undermine Paint me evil Hold me back Derail Build high walls to Block my way Throw boulders Scare me stiff Render me a failure And destroy me We’re here now Tell me please How does it feel To fail?

This was written around 2011.  What is happening now in South Africa reminds me that we need to talk some more about what is democracy.  Democracy is one of those concepts that everyone believe that they understand better than others. It is used and praised when it suits people and mocked and disowned when it does not. There is a lot of academic and non-academic definitions for it. In fact what is democracy? The South African Concise Oxford Dictionary defines it as “A form of government in which the people have a voice in the exercise of power, typically through their elected representatives. It is control of a group by a majority of its members”. For such a column this definition suffices. I want to reflect on what has shaped my understanding of democracy as I got involved in organizations at a very early age and had to deal with what we viewed as democracy since then. I learnt as far back that democracy will not always make you happy and you must live with that. In the