27-06-2013 These are highly stressful days for any journalist… in fact for most South Africans and perhaps even the world at large. Our beacon of hope, our best example of a human being Former South African President Nelson Mandela is critical in hospital. On life support. We are again at the precipice of the unknown. We are at a point of no return. Things are changing. Any day now, any minute now we’ll get the call. Life is changing. We are indeed yet again a country in transition, we are “growing up” and regardless of how hard we try to stall, to delay, to postpone hoping and wishing – nature will and must take its course. The book I’m reading now Country of my Skull by Antjie Krog puts that fact so vividly into perspective, makes the fragility of life so ruthlessly definite, and so final. I am beside myself with anger, with anxiety. I have been staring blankly through the window at the IT Corner – trying to finish the last couple of pages. Tears interrupt me they stream down my face. I don’t care this time. I am so full of remorse, full of shame, maybe I feel guilty. I am angry. I don’t know what to do with myself, where to place the anger… how to package my emotions in a neatly coherent articulate English sentence that will make sense to you my dear learnerd reader. What’s worse there’s a huge part of me feels that these “feelings” these “these moments when I feel so tender a look could shatter me, dissolve me,” are a luxuries I cannot afford. They are Illegitimate, Bastard feelings. There’s no time. People before me endured and survived worse. I need strength. More courage. More wisdom.
I stand up – I am finding it incredibly challenging to finish the book. The testimonies of Apartheid atrocities worse that the holocaust. Beyond what I imagine to be humanly possible. I am reading the Epilogue. I have been doing so well. But I stand up and walk up the streets of Melville, Johannesburg, once an artists preferred watering hole…
…I walk up 7th Street and each ever-changing establishments brings back memories…as if it was yesterday, Mojitos at Six the ever popular cocktail bar, dinners with friends at what used to the Asian restaurant –SOI- now dark and empty, nights spent talking nonsense or watching soccer at former Wish, Spiro’s, Now Poppy’s…prawns I devoured with friends at the now vacant Portuguese fish market, which used to be Full Stop where we used to have breakfast. I remember potato skins and cheese at Xai Xai, laughing over Oliver Mtukudzi lament on repeat “ I’m feeling low I feeling low, help me lord I’m feeling low” ahead of a night spent jumping and spinning to Drum ‘n Base in Transkei which used to be home to the famed Jazz establishment the Baseline… now it’s on its way to becoming something else again. The vacant image of 7th street stings and suddenly I feel this emptiness growing in my heart … new owners announce their imminent arrival on a few still vacant shops…but that does not fill my heart with hope…I don’t know what I should put in this gaping hole in my heart..
There’s a soundtrack for this moment in life. It’s Hometown Glory by Adel.
I’ve been walking in the same way as I did
And missing out the cracks in the pavement
And tutting my heel and strutting my feet
“Is there anything I can do for you dear? Is there anyone I could call?
No, and thank you, please madam, I ain’t lost, just wandering”
Round my hometown, memories are fresh
Round my hometown, ooh, the people I’ve met
Are the wonders of my world, are the wonders of my world
Are the wonders of this world, are the wonders and now
I go to the corner café on 7th and 2nd Avenue, thankfully it still exists but like so many business in Melville it’s also under new management. In a quivering voice I ask for a single Stuyvesant Blue, my first cigarette in over two months. I know it won’t change anything now but I want to smoke it. I smoke it slowly as I walk back down I watch as new hiply-weaved young people spill out and smoke coolly on the pavements of what used to be PHAT JOE’s studios. – I choke on mine and put it out. I really could use a glass of the most crimson Pinotage. I understand religion, I understand the need to hold on to a ritual a cleansing, a practice, a fellowship, a heaven, a happily ever after, to be born again, to be absolved, forgiven – Since I can’t even trust myself to quit smoking, keep a roof over my head, or a job, be a functional human being, have friends, stay in a relationship, have children, build my own family. Take care of something. Someone. People who cannot do that are not trustworthy. Does not matter about your Politics. Be optimistic; be balanced, mature. Be responsible, accountable. Make something of yourself for god’s sake… Me too really I want to be happy like Lira. Or at the very least content, grateful, Thankful. I feel more ashamed. What will it take?
Eyewitness news reporter Alex Aleesive is receiving kudos from a fellow colleague and new author Mandy Wiener at Talk radio 702 for writing a great piece on the legacy of Mandela, he quotes veteran journalist Max du Preez – The face of the Truth and Reconciliation reports at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) back in the day. “Mandela is living proof that good can triumph over evil” He is moved by Madiba’s supernatural ability to just be human. I can’t stop myself from crying. I think maybe I’m jealous. I’m young, black and still not qualified to tell the story of our struggle, not free to tell it as I see it. Sorry that position has been filled. We had more qualified applicants. You seem to have a problem with commitment. I am still waiting for so and so to “come back to me”. Thank you. But I know for sure it’s way deeper than that.
Instinctively, intuitively I feel like Madibas daughter, his grandchild, his great-grand daughter – I feel like one of his off-spring who have been pleading, begging asking the Media and the world to back off a while they spend this crucial time with their father – who was never theirs to begin with. I want to say wait. Shut up. Don’t interpret my words, don’t put them another way. Don’t tell me how to feel; don’t translate, don’t tell me what to say and how to say it. Don’t tell me I shouldn’t be angry –just for once back off. Don’t tell me how things should be done, don’t tell me how to be civil, don’t tell me what you think Ubuntu is, don’t outline to me what’s appropriate or inappropriate to do at this time, don’t try and analyze me, understand me, Don’t pretend to know me or to “get” me. Don’t educate me. You’ve spoken for me for long enough. You’ve twisted my story, my history, my culture, my being for long enough. You’ve spoken for, about and over me for long enough. Just don’t tell me how to behave, don’t mediate, don’t HELP! Just Stand back for once, don’t take this moment from me, and make it yours, don’t force me to feel sorry for your pain once again. Don’t try to fit me us him into your ideas of what makes you the better man or human. Don’t taint this time with your pity, empathy or admiration. It’s not about you. Please don’t interfere, don’t try and fit this moment in your very busy schedule, your plan… don’t speed it up or slow it down, just let it be what it is. Its importants. Don’t steal it, make me pay for it, work for it, earn it. Don’t ask me how I feel. Today that is none of your business. I want to be left with my nearest and dearest as we spend time with “our father” to share sweet nothing moments, – for as long as it takes – to exchange sacred secretes, moments, to hear “Things went horribly wrong, and for that I’m sorry.” To Say “I’m sorry too Tata. So – so sorry for making my happiness, our happiness, your sole responsibility. We cannot ask for more. Thank you. I love you”
Related articles
- A day in the life of a soul-searching country: Will good eventually prevail? (dailymaverick.co.za)
- Nelson Mandela on life support (cbsnews.com)
- Nelson Mandela on life support, reports say (wjla.com)
- South Africa: Emotion builds over Mandela (kvue.com)
- South Africa president cancels trip to Mozambique amid worry over Mandela’s health (foxnews.com)
- South Africa: Emotion builds over Mandela (onlineathens.com)
- Nelson Mandela on life support as South African president calls off trip to Mozambique (abc.net.au)
Jedi Ramalapa 