Witterings & Warblings from a Less than Absolute Vanilla Pod

First off, let me say a huge and grateful "THANK YOU" to all of you for your kind wishes and thoughts on the last two posts - your support and care is so very much appreciated. The ordeal of "Welcome to My Africa" left me pretty traumatised and the flu virus, ever ready to pounce on an opportunity struck with a vengeance. I'm still not over it, (she typed, amidst much hacking, wheezing and coughing) but I'm getting there - after all, you can't keep a good vanilla pod down.


Secondly, there are things happening in blogosphere.

Opening Chapter's Blag - a Blag = Bl(og) + (M)ag(azine) - has finally been launched. There are articles in it by some bloggers known to you - including this blogger...

The Blag is an online arts and literature magazine - and they're open to submissions... So...you might also want to become a blagger! Check it out!


Then, the Shameless Lions appear to be regrouping for the creation of a collective story. Should be fun, might get out of control... Go and take a peek...


Finally, given my recent ordeal, I decided to watch the local premier of an excellent documentary by ex-South African and Oscar winner, Jon Blair, last night. Presented by another ex-South African, Sir Anthony Sher, it is called Murder Most Foul and deals with crime in South Africa. (The documentary had its world premier on the True Stories strand on the UK's Channel 4 on 25 September.)

In it Blair describes crime in South Africa as being on an "industrial scale". Archbishop Desmond Tutu says "something has gone horrendously, badly wrong". The Minister of Safety and Security, however, says (of people like me): "They can continue to whinge until they’re blue in the face, they can continue to be as negative as they want to or they can simply leave this country...".

What struck me most forcibly was this: I expected to be harrowed and horrified by the film. I was not. Why? Because I am numb. Because this is what we live with every single day. This crime - it is becoming South Africa. We say "it is not acceptable" and yet we all accept it. I was not shocked or overwhelmed by it as Anthony Sher was, because this is how I know we live - white, black, brown - crime isn't interested in race. We have, unwittingly, become desensitised and, as such, dehumanised. And that is indeed a sad indictment of South Africa and South Africans - and more so that it takes a documentary like Murder Most Foul to make us sit up and take note. (I hope we will sit up and take note and not, instead, start berating the producer and presenter for being "white sensationalist shit-stirrers".)

What I find even more disturbing are the South Africans who seem unwilling to accept this horrific crime is happening. I'm not talking about the government here - we know they are asleep - they, after all, denied there was an AIDS pandemic until the world stepped in and opened their eyes so they could see the thousands dying. No, I'm talking about fellow South Africans who are so determined to focus only on the positive - got to be "positively South African" you know to be a good South African - god forbid you should criticize (but where would we be without criticism?) - but it is they who fail to see the woods for the trees. One South African blogger said: "Quotes like “Violence has always been a way of life in SA” are bullshit and misleading." Hmm, I wonder where he was when all the children were being gunned down in Soweto in 1976... I wonder where he was when families were being torn apart by apartheid, women were being raped by the police and activists and ordinary people lived in fear of their lives and police brutality. Where was he when people were put in detention without trial? Anyone who thinks violence is not part of our heritage and our legacy is floating down a very long river called Denial. I would say beware to them, there be crocodiles...

At the end of the apartheid era many feared a bloodbath - but it didn't happen and the world marvelled at our peaceful transformation to a democracy. But as Sher commented - there is a bloodbath it's just happening slowly and over a very long time. Last year 18 500 South Africans were murdered. In the past year 20 000 have been murdered. This does not include the unreported cases, the rapes, the child rapes, the mutilations, the torture, the robbery, the hijackings, the attempted murders...

If you are interested and get a chance to see Blair's documentary, do. Unreported World - also UK Channel 4 - will also be reporting on current levels of violence in South Africa tomorrow night 28 September.

Funny that it takes outsiders to see our problems while so many of us are hell-bent on playing ostrich and others are intent on screwing their rose-coloured spectacles to their head. Sounds, in fact, rather frighteningly familiar of our not too distant past...