AFRICAN NOT

We all pay

For citizenship

Obeying the foreign hand

Borrowing time

Treading gingerly

Along the borders

Of a stolen land.

Drenched and dying

Depressed and dispossessed

Birthright discarded

After birth

Our blood

Is branded and sold

In a red can.

Life is death

Commonplace

Living a cliché

Timeless

Sometimes life

Is just death

But warmer.

FIRST THINGS FIRST

First things first

Everything that you believe

Is not fact

Everything you’ve been told

Is all wack;

Most of what we think of as truth

Are in fact

Just a bunch of lies

Time to wipe the sleep from your eyes

Realize

That knowledge

Is not one version of a story

Praise singers paint oppressors

In benevolent shades of glory

And the truth is lost

Amid conjecture and theory.

I’ve been trying to tie down

This thing that we’re sold

Google it, you’ll see

What I mean

The first page that comes up

When you type in ‘African Pride’

Is a list of game lodges

With a couple of NGO’s:

And I had to turn to google

Because I didn’t find it on the street

And most of the books I read

The authors were trying too hard

To be like white men

But that affliction affects us all

We’ve forgotten how to stand tall

We’ve forgotten who we were

How can we know who we are

We all walk around like puppets

Trying so hard to fit in

To be a part of this paradigm

That laid the foundation

For our shame.

All of this shit started 12000 years

Before the common-era

As the clans became tribes –

The first signs of over population

Our lands could no longer sustain

The co-operative collective

Necessitating the expansion of territory

Giving rise to agriculture

And animal husbandry

And through the accumulation of food

New occupations emerged

As well as more complex social hierarchies

But inevitably

The complexity resulted in conflict

And ultimately

We developed warfare.

No longer did we rely

On the rule of the elders or the wise

A different trait is required

To ensure victory in battle

So we followed the ruthless

With their bloodlust the banner

And business as usual

Became a whole other matter

As slaughter and slavery

And loyal servitude

Was declared our lot

By the kings and the masters

Who wrote the books

And told us how great they were but not

How great we are without them.

As far back as 10000 years

Before the common-era

History is littered with ancient references

To the glory of the sun

That is a source of warmth

And food and light

And at night

The stars by which we could navigate

Our position in the universe

Out of which was born

The oldest conceptual image

The cross of the zodiac

Which is a visual representation

Of one complete cycle of the sun:

Around 3000 years

Before the common-era

In ancient Egyptian mythology

Horus was the sun-god

And his dark nemesis Set.

Horus was born on December twenty-fifth

The child of the virgin Isis

His birth was marked by a star in the East

He was adorned by three kings

He was twelve when he started to teach

He was baptized at thirty

And had twelve disciples that followed him

Sound familiar?

And yet all the Christian fundamentalists out there

Don’t want to know what the story’s really about

The star in the east is Sirius

Which aligns with the three brightest stars

In Orion’s belt on December twenty-fourth

These three stars are actually still

Called the three kings

Which aligned with Sirius

Point to the east and the rising of the sun

On December twenty-fifth

But don’t just take my word

Do the research.

All my brothers and my sisters

With your fake accents

Making no sense with your fake hairdo’s

And your hypocritical Abrahamic values

That has you convinced

And even preaching the lies

Bending down and closing your eyes

While human beings are being killed like flies

All because they face a different direction

When they pray

And everyday

The facts are right there

At your fingertips

Make the effort and check out the parallels

Search beyond what you’ve been told are the limits

You’ll be surprised

I guarantee that.

So before you claim

How you will lay down your life

For the things you profess to believe

Let me ask you this:

Is the brutality of this dominant psycho mentality

A part of what you perceive

Do you possess the intellectual agility

To conceive of the four horsemen

Shiny and new and yet so old

Galloping over the landscape across the millennia

Striding almost abreast, all subsidized industries

Pro-creation, agriculture and red meat

But edging ahead is warfare

By far the most profitable

Defining our dreams purposefully

While feeding our fears gleefully

And we smile and glow with self-importance

Actually enjoying the pat on the back

As we are sent out to pay

For the privilege of having a birth right

That means nothing

While I remain

An illegal squatter in my homeland.

GONE

Gone

Is the time when

With heads held high

We could proclaim

We are proud

To be

South Africans.

Lost

Is the moment

When with eager eyes

We looked

Into a brighter future

For this

Troubled land.

Broken

Lie the dreams

Of the millions of children

Who watch

Internalizing

What they see

Through the haze.

Dead mothers

Dead fathers

Dead sisters

Dead brothers

Litter the footpaths

Of the mental slum

That is their inheritance.

Not so random...

Lots of blog views... Mostly for all the wrong reasons...

No random thoughts...

I have discovered that to use certain words will result in undue suspicion and unwanted traffic. Accounts and passwords and identities are not safe. My thoughts struggle to find expression in this surveillance state. Couching random thoughts in such a way that there is no room for misinterpretation: no misinformation, no misconception... Just the pervading ill-perception that attempts with all of its might to subvert and suppress and silence the random will. The random expression of random thoughts... Randomly.

SO FINALLY

So I finally had the mandatory Thai massage – voete en als – I enjoyed the som tum, the tom yum and the phad thai; i experienced an afternoon cloud burst and wading through the streets, but nou sit ek met ‘n snot-nies!

Nothing like a half'ie of 100 Pipers from the 7-eleven to have me feeling as right as rain for tomorrow’s journey home…

TEXSTYLE

I had an eye-opening (final!) shopping-traipse-along today. After all, someone has to carry the packets…

From Boebae Towers to Pratunam; from rock-bottom bulk prices to more exclusive items; thousands upon thousands of square meters devoted to thousands of small, mostly textile related businesses with the odd accessory bulk supplier and a jeweller or ten in-between. Shoes, bags, belts, hats and cosmetics; couriers, deliveries, agents and buyers; whatever anyone could need including mannequins and shelving with food stalls to feed every worker; and an effective public transport system that includes elevated, underground and ‘normal’ rail as well as buses, taxis and rickshaws: and let me not forget the river taxis!

But the eye-opener was the booming textile industry and beside the big-buyers from across the globe who are standing-by on their tablets and ordering via email, there are the locals who are buying and wearing the locally produced clothes. I couldn’t help but try to imagine a South Africa where every big retailer and informal trader was selling clothing that is being made in South Africa? Of course, we would still have to import the fabric and buy cheap cotton from China and probably source the buttons from someplace else; but then again with the standing international trade agreements that are in place we would probably have to start importing something else of even less intrinsic value to society so that we can continue to buy some other essential item – like rice or a value-system – from one of South Africa’s many bed-partners… I mean trading-partners.

And in the Argus I had to laugh at the narrow-angle-reporting that announced directly from a press statement:

“R60m gives Langa a lift”

A lift where? I wondered… When a few more small businesses will be forced to close; a few more unemployed; more security, more minimum wage labour, more cheap imports of inferior products and bigger performance bonuses for the likes of good old Whitey because fuck knows, it’s an achievement for any developer to secure a Shoprite and a Pep as major tenants. And in addition to the obligatory exclusivity clauses that such retailers insist on, as well as incremental rentals, there will not be many residents or businessmen from Langa who will qualify for the bankrolls that will ultimately only benefit whoever is ‘earning’ the major profit.

En almal klap han’ne en smile…

UIT GE-CHATUCHAK

At some point during the night it rained and the morning was decidedly pleasant as I sat quite early with a decent coffee and my pipe and watching the traders emerge. By the time I had showered and was ready for the day the streets were steaming, but we had a mission. We took a bus to what is one of the largest weekend markets in the world, covering an area of 27 acres with 15000 stalls that sells every conceivable little thing from every part of Thailand and includes a media centre and hospital.

It was around ten-thirty when we disembarked at Chatuchak Park with a short list of specific items and after about five hours of dwaal’ing that included a delicious lunch, we had covered only a fraction of the endless labyrinth of lanes, but I did manage to get a hoedtjie that I have been searching for, for a few years as well as a leather pouch for my pipe and tobacco that was so cheap that I was tempted to buy extras as gifts. Fortunately, the one friend who smokes a pipe already has a pouch!

The combination of heat and humidity however meant that all we wanted to do when we returned to the guesthouse was sit in our air-conditioned room and chill. And chill we did! With a litre of duty-free Gin, Thai Schweppes and a 5 baht bag of ice, we were reg for the evening.

This morning I am sitting beneath a lazy fan in the communal area downstairs, looking out at the bustling street. Right next door is a liquor store where a couple of hardy regulars are already at it; uniformed students are buying breakfast at the food stalls on their way to the nearby college; the doors of the air-conditioned 7-eleven across the street are standing open to afford the constant stream of workers access; already the air is filled with a mind-boggling assortment of aromas as cars and vans and bikes and rickshaws and motorized vendors pass by. It is 9.30 on a muggy Monday morning in Thewet and almal is klaar kak biesag met hulle wiek!

BENOUT IN BANGKOK

We left Goa just after 6 on a pleasant’ish Friday evening with a Spice Jet flight that took us to Mumbai where we sat in the plane for half-an-hour before heading to Kolkota. We arrived after ten and were scheduled to depart just after midnight, but there was a delay during which I wish I didn’t see the technicians first fucking around with the front landing gear and then one of the engines. At least the aircon in the departures terminal was set cold enough so that I could at least wear my Nepali dik-trui for a bietjie. 

We eventually left at four in the morning for a trouble-free two-and-a-half hour flight to Bangkok where the humidity had already managed to turn the baking thirty-two degrees into a decidedly distasteful Saturday morning tom yum. Thank Buddha for air-conditioned gas-driven taxis! At the hotel it’s the usual dilemma. Too hot to sleep and yet too moeg to do much else, so we walk through the backstreets where local food stalls line the road and fill the air with an assault of aroma’s; through a market, over a bridge that spans a canal, and then a side street lined with nurseries selling plants and flowers and herbs and clay pots and bamboo and, and, and.

At midday the streets were not yet too crowded, but as we neared the fabled Khaosan Road, I began seeing palefaces for the first time since our arrival. Another exotic city; another tourist trap; same shit, different flavour; different branding even, but ultimately still the same shit. I mean for fuck’s sake, there is a St. Patrick’s Day Pub & Restaurant in Khaosan Road; Diagonally across from the McDonalds’ and around the corner from the Burger King… Once again, thank Buddha for democracy! Or is it the monarchy? Or should I say the Monarchy? And mind you, it is a constitutional Monarchy too. And on the front page of today’s Bangkok Post a lesser headline proclaims “Court jails three MORE of EX-princess’s kin” so maybe it is just monarchy, but then again on page three there’s a story of a 67 year old man who was jailed for three years for writing defamatory remarks about the Monarchy in a shopping mall toilet. Best I leave this topic for further deliberation when I am safely back home in my own apartheid state of mind… 

Anyway, I have been checking out for some good music in the city tonight but it seems that either there is not much online marketing of events happening or there is nothing happening tonight. And it being always six in the evening, it is much too late for a nap and much too early to call it a night… What to do with one night in Bangkok?

Postscript!

We ventured forth for dinner into the teeming streets and right across from the guesthouse at the local food market we bumped into a ‘live music’ scene! It was an engagement party and the clichéd Asian Karaoke from hell was klapping virtually right on our doorstep. I will definitely make a note never to complain about the live music scene in Bangkok – or anywhere else for that matter.

DAAI TYD

As this idyllic retreat reaches its inevitable conclusion, my thoughts return to the everyday reality that awaits us upon our return. Body and mind are rested and rejuvenated and ready for the work that lies ahead. There is a longing for the familiar and an eagerness to complete what has been simmering on the creative back-burner. The possibility of a much anticipated return to the stage; the final rewrites on the novel; the new collection of poetry; the screenplay; the ongoing collective enterprises; the domestic projects: and the plans for other journeys…

Journeys to places held dear because of the friends I left behind; journeys to places that I always wanted to see with the companion who now accompanies me; and the most exciting journeys into worlds that exist only in my imagination where the fictitious reality is constructed in order to explore themes and the lives of characters to whom I have given birth, but with whom I have not spent sufficient time. I look forward to the return to a creative madness where my life’s purpose finds form: where my human experience and the voices of my gods find expression.

This journey never ends for even after my mortal expiry, there will be the everlasting journey of consciousness of which I am only a part. It is that consciousness which speaks to me now in the constant whisper of the waves tripping onto the shore; the wind, the trees; the incessant prattle of the birds and the insects and the pigs and the dogs all speaking a foreign tongue, but one that I am able to understand – the collective voice of consciousness that I am constantly trying to decipher.

But now I yearn most for the return to a familiar silence in which lies a different dissonance; an all-together different discord against which I often have to close my ears and shut off my mind; a visible disharmony which is made more bearable by the painstaking chipping away at the glossy, but bland and blurred marketing veneer behind which is hidden a much more macabre reality that contests everything that we are intended to blindly believe. 

DRY DAYS

The by-election for the Panaji legislative assembly seat that was due to take place in mid February was postponed to today because the model code of conduct which prohibits the sale of alcohol before, during and after an election would have hampered the Valentine’s Day celebrations and the Goa Carnival had it taken place when originally scheduled.

Imagine that in South Africa! A model code of conduct that imposes ‘dry days’ during a period when any sober-minded citizen needs a drop or ten of sterk-dop just to deal with the farce of elections and to temper the excess bullshit that is inevitably spewed before, during and after such non-events?

This more than anything else speaks of a cruel and unusual punishment that is meted out to the electorate as a reward for indulging in and legitimizing the machinations of the State.

Good thing that our time here is drawing to a close. ‘n Man maker mos ‘n dop amid the endless speeches and grandstanding by politicians… Of hoe?