Gay-friendly fairy stories

Some years back, I went to fetch my son, Gabriel, from his school for a doctor’s appointment. Now let me explain – Gabriel is adopted. He is black. I am white. The school he went to then was almost completely black, barring most of the teachers.

So, I arrived. My younger son, Joshua the extrovert (at the same school, also black, also adopted and, I suspect closely related to Osama bin Laden) rushed up to greet me. Gabriel is much more reserved. He was not unpleased to see me, but concerned, I think, to look in control of the situation. He sauntered up to me, case in hand, and as we left, I heard one of the children shout “Joshua and Gabriel’s daddie is white!”

Now that, I suppose, is a fairly big issue, in an almost all black school. The good thing about them going there is that they consider us (my white partner and I) to be the strange ones. They, on the other hand, are very comfortable in their skin. On the question of my partner and I both being male, we had some nervousness initially, about the school, when one of the kids came home one day saying that they had been talking about families at school. We phoned the school first thing the next morning. We wanted to know whether there might be any difficulty with our situation. “Oh no!” Said the principal, “The class was talking about who had a daddy and who had a mommy and things like that. And Gabriel was pleased as punch, because he had two daddies and most people in his class had none!”

We have sometimes wondered how we should handle the matter, should it come up, with the kids. The other day it did. Joshua at dinner, one evening, suddenly started talking about his mommy. We all turned to him, wondering what he was going on about. On he went – his mommy this and his mommy that. His brother had been quietly considering him for some while. Suddenly he shouted at him “You don’t have a mommy! You have two daddies!” Joshua shut up and that, in a nutshell, was that!

I was interested to read, some time ago, about books which are now being introduced in UK schools, introducing children from as young as 4, to gay and lesbian issues – the so-called “No-outsiders” project, which ended in March 2009. Naturally, conservative religious groups and people are huffing and puffing. “It is tantamount to child abuse!” said one. “It is propaganda designed to warp children’s minds”, said another.

Now our connection with the project is, I admit, slight. But it was enough to make me read the article with some interest. My partner has been very concerned, from the beginning, that our children should grow up seeing themselves (and us) as normal - as indeed, we are! Our family is as “normal” and “ordinary” as you can get. The kids get up every morning, have their breakfast and go to school. When we get home from work, there is the usual stuff that happens in every home with children. Joshua "bin Laden" gets shouted at because he is breaking something; there is a fight over eating healthy things on their plates and bribes with ice-cream to follow if they do; there are demands for cooldrinks after the magic hour of 5pm, indeed there is extreme resistance to going to bed at 8.00pm - and so it goes and so it goes. Just because one of us doesn’t wear a dress as parents, doesn’t make the slightest difference to the sheer normality of the situation.

And there is the bed-time story. My partner scoured the internet and found several storybooks which we read to them, along with Cinderella and Jack-and-the-beanstalk and all the other usuals. One is called “And Tango makes three”, which is a sweet (apparently true) story about two male penguins in the New York zoo. The zookeeper notices that they don’t seem to like the girl penguins very much and instead seem to prefer each other. They set up a nest together. Together, they try to hatch an egg shaped rock unsuccessfully. The kindly zookeeper takes pity on them and puts a real egg in the nest which they made for themselves – which they successfully hatch this time and raise a healthy chick called Tango – because it takes two to tango.

Another is called “King and King”. An elderly Queen decides she has had enough with ruling and that her only son should take over. She arranged for all the likely Princesses in the land to process before him, so that he can choose a suitable Queen for himself. No-one seems to catch his fancy. Would-be Queen after would-be Queen comes and goes. The son and heir is bored to distraction. But one day, a young hopeful just happens to bring her brother with her for support, and it is love at first sight! They get married and everyone lives happily ever after. And everyone called them King and King!

The last one is called “The Sissy Duck” and it is about a male duckling who likes cooking, cleaning and art. Now, as I say, we read these to the children periodically, mixed in with all the other favourites. I can’t say that they leaped up and down with enthusiasm when we read these particular stories, but they each had their own favourites and prefered those to all others.

And the point of it all? Well, just that what we are doing, and the life we are living - feels terribly ordinary. Because that is what it is! And it is both a pity, and I would say ridiculous, that there isn’t a range of literature and other support mechanisms, which would help to support that ordinariness.

My partner recorded bits and pieces on the TV about the Ellen Generis marriage. We encouraged the children to watch - giving no comment. His point was that they need to see that who we are is not something odd or entirely unusual. There are other people in the world who are also engaged in the same kind of relationship that their parents are.

I had a discussion with the Gabriel, the oldest child, not so long ago. I asked him whether his friends at school ever ask him where his mother is? he said some did. I asked him what he answered them. he said "I tell them I don't know where she is". Isn't that brilliant?! Because he doesn't, and neither do we!

And that is why I think the UK Education department seems to have managed to get things right. I have no doubt we will get there in the long run, but it is a real pity that it seems to be taking so long. Because same-sex child rearing is hardly new – but it is going to become much more evident, now that marriage (or civil union) is legally permitted. That is just a very plain, simple, fact of life.

And the fears that people have of corrupting children through educating them to different lifestyles, is just plain irrational. What I fear, deeply and not irrationally, is the consequences of not educating children – because what happens then is bullying, hatred, teasing and hurt. All because they don’t know any better.

I am just waiting for the same-sex fairy story, which has children of a different race from their parents in it, to feel really covered!

Tandoori Prawns

You need

1kg peeled prawns tail- Lemon wedges for garnish, oil

Tandoori Marinade

3 teaspoons crushed garlic
2 teaspoons finely grated ginger
3 cups of plain yogurt
2 chilies crushed or whizzed in the blender
Juice of 1 lemon
4 tablespoons Tandoori masala powder
Salt and pepper

The process

In a large bowl, combine all of the marinade ingredients and mix until well combined. Add the prawns and mix to coat each prawn well, Cover and place in the fridge for about 4 hours. You can also use a plastic, sealable bag to marinade. Marinating for a long period is very important in this recipe, the flavor permeates the prawns beautifully.

Remove the prawns from the marinade and allow the excess marinade to drain away. Use a sieve.

Grill the prawns under a hot grill (as hot as possible), turning to ensure they are cooked through. You can cook them on the braai or in a grill pan on the stove, each method will give it a slightly different taste.

Pile them up on a plate, garnish with fresh mint or coriander and a good squeeze of lemon juice.

From: www.cookbook.co.za

Warning Sign at work

I was a little alarmed ...

Hate Crimes

Show solidarity with the family of Eudy Simelane -- murdered captain of Banyana Banyana -- in a homophobic hate crime. The trial of the murderers takes place in Delmas, South Africa, 29-31 July 2009.

Show the following as your status on your Facebook page for the next few days:

End hate crimes against all people -- lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, Jewish, Muslim, refugee, immigrant or black.

Spicy Apple Chutney

This is one my most successful chutney recipes. The peeling and coreing of the apples is what takes the time, but otherwise, you just dump the ingredients together in a large saucepan and stir occasionally. The taste is quite strong, but the chutney goes with virtually everything and lasts forever.

1kg cooking apples (Granny Smith will do well)
2 large onions
2 chillies chopped
3 cups brown sugar
2t allspice
2t cloves
1t salt
½ t pepper
1t Cayenne pepper
2 t curry powder
2T chopped ginger
3 cups cider vinegar (don't use wine or spirit vinegar)

Peel, core and chop apples (you can whiz them in a blender). Peel and finely chop onions Place all ingredients in a non-reactive saucepan and bring the mixture to the boil. Cook over a medium heat for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally. Spoon into sterilized jars and seal.

You can't eat a stadium

Whenever I turn on the radio, and the FIFA 2010 World Cup™ is being discussed, I am sure to hear someone with an opinion very similar to the title of this article.

At first glance, there is some validity to the concern. The argument goes, (or at least part of it) that one should not bother with luxuries and ‘nice-to-have’ items in our emerging economy. There are “too many poor people” they say. Their needs are for the basics, like housing, food, jobs, water and food. To expend 3 billion or more on a soccer stadium is almost like fiddling while Rome (or Cape Town, or Rustenburg!) is burning. It is, in fact, on the face of it, something quite close to obscene.

Well, it would be, if one took nothing else into consideration. Consider the journey we have come. There was a time, not too long ago, when there really was only one sport which was considered worth the government supporting. That sport was not football. It was Rugby. Rugby was the only game in town. And Rugby received billions from the government, in support. And so, if one stops to look around, it is not difficult to see that Rugby is fully resourced, and very well supported.

The fact that it is largely supported by whites is, of course, a consequence of the racializing of the game, which was something which was done quite consciously by the apartheid government, in its day. But it is very well resourced and very well supported, within an extremely narrow band. Broadening that band, is something which the game has not yet managed to achieve very well.

Soccer, on the other hand, has been up to this point, completely under-resourced. Even more than that, counter-racialised, scorned, belittled, ignored. But try as they might, it was never possible to obliterate. Soccer continued to be the game of choice for the masses of our people. And they played it on dusty streets, on sandy fields with makeshift goalposts, in schoolyards and even on slopes! Soccer, despite all the odds, continued to be the game which the majority enjoyed.

On a world scale, of course, soccer beats any other game hands down. Its popularity is vast and, as anyone who has had any dealings with the organisation will testify, FIFA operates more like a super government than a football organisation.

And so, given the opportunity of playing on this vast world canvas and to profile all the very best that Africa can offer, how could we have ignored the opportunity? How could we have folded our arms or sat on our hands when the chance to host the world’s biggest tournament came our way? And with it, the opportunity to leave a lasting legacy in all sorts of ways, but perhaps most visibly, in the mighty stadia which the tournament will leave behind for our people to enjoy forever?

In Cape Town, there are two stadia which are directly a result of the tournament. Greenpoint – the most visible and the most extravagant – and Philippi, in a "township" outside the City of Cape Town - much more modest, but no less important.

The former is almost a symbol of us coming of age as a nation. Of putting our money where our collective mouth is. Of standing up and being counted in the world of nations. That grand stadium will be used, going forward, in a hundred different ways, giving pleasure to millions of people, not only on the televisions of Europe, South America, Asia – but here, in this our home. It will be a source of pride for us all. It will be the platform for us all to stand on, in the glare of the spotlight, and be proud of being who we are and what we represent. It will be a wonderful and lasting legacy for the people of the Western Cape in 20, 40, 50 years to come. A legacy from this generation, to our children and to theirs, to mention nothing at all of the significant jobs it is creating and the food that is being placed on tables because of them.

And Philippi stadium? That too will gain from the fervour and spirit of 2010. Just because of the 2010 tournament, that stadium in the middle of an extremely poor area, will enable those children as well, to play and to excel.

Sure, they can’t eat it, but the trick for us as a nation is going to be to ensure that they eat well enough, going forward, to play in it, and to shine! We are building tomorrow. And as someone said, a long time ago, people can’t live on bread alone.

Back to school

In Cape Town, in a way I had never understood it to be in Johannesburg (or even, for that matter Pietermaritzburg), access to resources depends pretty much entirely on where you live. So, when we decided to move to Cape Town, a friend implored me to only consider buying in the Southern Suburbs. Her reason was straightforward. “That is where the best schools are”, she said.

So, being the compliant type that I am, I obeyed. And subsequently, we spent a few months of laast year looking for an appropriate school for our oldest child. Now, yes, it is true, our circumstances are not the usual. We are a same-sexed, white couple, with two adopted black children. And most of the time, life is just as ordinary and as straightforward as anyone could want it to be. But sometimes, one is taken aback by how different, apparently, other people’s reality is. Our first interview with a prospective school principal was a case in point.

She is a homely looking, somewhat pleased with herself white woman, with very clear understandings of what a teacher is and what a parent is. Things have changed somewhat from our first encounter, but I could not help feeling vaguely patronised, then. Perhaps it was the unfamiliarity of the situation. It was difficult to tell.

Now understand, this interview process is, by its very nature, a lopsided one. She is in a position of some considerable power. And you, the parent, are trying to put your best face forward, because you want your child to have access to the school, which, from all accounts, is one of the “good” ones.

So, when she sits you down, folds her arms and says “Look, I’m a very straightforward person. How long have you two been together?” you might be pardoned for wondering whether she would ask a heterosexual couple the same question. You may be pardoned, too, if you bit a large hole in your tongue and refrained from asking her that question, which would certainly be what she deserved. The problem is, she is in a position of some considerable power in this situation, and you are not. So you sit there like a deer in the headlights and meekly say you have been together nine years, for what it is worth.

Then you are then told that your child would not be allowed dreadlocks, if he were to be accepted at her school. You are given a bogus anthropology lesson on the “meanings” of various styles of black hair. They were so preposterous and bizarre, that I can’t even remember them, but what they pointed to was a mindset which remained, shall we say, underexposed?

This was followed, some time afterwards, by an orientation session with all the parents and children, she started by addressing the children. “Let me tell you”, she said, “this is a safe place. And the teachers are going to be just like your mummies. You will get to love them, and they will get to love you, just like your mummies love you”.

Now there is nothing essentially wrong with this. The sentiment is obviously well intended. But she hasn’t thought a centimetre beyond what is usual. Our child doesn’t have a “mummie”. (And, I bet sitting in the audience, our child wasn’t the only one without a “mummie”. ) Furthermore, “Mummies” sometimes don’t love their children. “Mummies” sometimes run off with others and leave their children with someone else. That isn’t something gay, or straight, it is just the way the world sometimes works.

In our search, we also went to another school – a much more “free-spirited” school – where the same-sex thing was seemingly of no consequence. But the prospective teacher, with both parents and the child in the room starts saying “Oh, but he doesn’t have parents, does he?”

I don’t despair. I have no doubt that they are all good and kind people. But isn’t it weird that in this day and age, that this kind of thinking is probably the norm?

It is, essentially, about the dominance of one particular world view over everything else. It is there when whites do it to blacks. It is there when blacks do it to whites. It is there when straights do it to gays and when gays do it to straights.

The problem is, it is mostly unchallenged and unchecked. It is insidious. It gets passed on down the generational line. And it is reinforced, fed and nurtured in the school environment, unless something is actively done to challenge it.

Talking of which - the school my child now goes to has a "diversity group". Very nice. My partner sent them an email, enthusiastic and willing. We never got any reply.

The Queer God

The Queer God

By Marcella Althaus-Reid
Routledge, London and New York, 2003
186pp

I have been having some discussions recently with one or two people in the South African ecclesiastical scene, who are wanting to take forward the issue of equality for Gay and Lesbian priests in this corner of the world. I am constantly struck, however, by the way in which Gay and Lesbian people, inside the church, are often considered beggars at the table. They are treated fairly nicely. There is some measure of respect (certainly in the South African context - I am not talking of elsewhere in Africa). But there is no thought that actually we could ADD something to the rather sterile world of hetero-normative theology. That is taken as the given. So my thoughts turned again to a book I read some years ago, which changed absolutely the way I thought of theology. That doesn't happen often.

On the cover of this book, is a picture of Jesus. Nothing unfamiliar, particularly if you are Roman or Anglo-catholic. But under the title, the picture takes on a bit of a different meaning. Because, Jesus is, frankly, as camp as a row of pink tents! Clearly effeminate, limp-wristed, positively trans-sexual and probably transvestite as well.

The cover of the book is powerfully descriptive of what is the major concern of the book – a relentless exploration of the somewhat contradictory hegemony which patriarchal, heterosexual theology has on the way in which the Bible (and God) is perceived and read.

Some years ago I wrote an article on the tension between “gay” and “straight” perceptions of God. I gave an abridged version of it to my priest to read. His comment at the end of it was that there were one or two things with which he radically disagreed. One was the matter of multiple sexual partnerships, which I had raised as a feature of gay sexuality. He said that was an absolute non-negotiable for a Christian.

I thought of this incident when I watched the shenanigans following the so-called Windsor Report, where Queer priests and bishops in the Anglican Communion were firmly put in their places in 2004. I wondered what possible credibility, for instance, a political settlement would have had in South Africa, if a solution had been drafted by only one side of the conflict – and then imposed summarily and vigorously on the other. None! is the answer. And I would venture to suggest that the same is true on the question of homosexuality.

Marcella Althaus-Reid describes the Queer person as “the stranger at the gate”, the “exile”. The Queer Theologian is confined to the attic or the dungeon.(p.88). We are expected to behave in a “neutral” way, which has the same effect as putting our heads through one of those funfare cut-out figures, being forced to adopt a variety of cross-dressing identities, all of the time (p.90)

We are only allowed to speak, if it is in the language and grammar of the hegemonic power. We are not allowed to explore our own language, our own culture, our own norms, our own reality. That is the dungeon to which we are confined, within the church and the dominant theology.

But she explores a range of oddities within that dominant theology, utilizing symbols and images from queer expression and experience, together with the extreme sexual subversiveness of the Marquis De Sade. It is sometimes bewildering and certainly makes for extremely difficult reading. But it is also, I found, exhilarating. This is not, I want to warn, a book for the faint-hearted!

Her view is that Queer Theology is not, as are many liberation theologies, a theology from the margins. Rather, it is a theology from the other side completely! God is seen not in the familiar, but in the completely strange. The theological project is one then, of “queering” divine relationships and ensuring that the heterosexual obsession with binary relationships is challenged and reformulated. The Trinity, after all, is anything but binary, and the relationship between genders within it, deeply suspect from a heterosexual point of view. The queer theological project consequently sets God free from the dyadic/procreative formulations of origins. The queer project points to a world where reproduction is neither a necessity, nor a requirement of the evolutionary trajectory. In other words, human evolution needs to be more than the endless succession of what happens between sperm and ovum. She calls this “sodomising hermaneutics”, which involves processes of subversion, submission and deconstructionism which cannot be found in heterosexual presentations of God. This is the true “emptying” or kenotic process of the divine.

I have always found the story in Genesis chapter 19, of Lot and the two “angels” who came to visit Sodom, a very peculiar one. Besides anything else, why on earth does Lot offer his daughters to the “men of Sodom”? I mean, where is the morality in that, for heaven’s sake? And why is this seen, by hetero-normative readings of the text, to be the preferable, or even moral option? But one thing which I had not noticed before, which Althaus-Reid drives home so forcefully, is the essential over-riding violence pervading the text. A violence, from which not even God is exempt. The men from Sodom have violent intent against the visitors. The father has violent intent against his own daughters. God has a violent intent against everyone and everything, threatening to destroy both people and the environment alike. However, underlying this violence in the text, there is another discussion. In Sodom, the issue (and the warfare) is about sameness and difference. In Sodom, otherness was the norm. That was unacceptable to the monochrome God of same-ness. Difference – otherness, needs to be systematically uprooted and destroyed. It is a warfare between two projects: the dominant and the subversive. “The Sodomites must be resurrected one day …(and) by them, sexual justice will become a key hermeneutical clue for any reading on the sacred and people’s lives”. (p.93)

This is, as I have said, an extremely difficult book, not only because of the ingenuity of the approach, but also because of the sometimes opaque language which is used. But it is quite brilliant in its approach and its uncompromising , scandalous utilization of symbol to confront symbol. I give you the following: The bisexual nature of the theologian; Finding God in dark alleys; The Voyeur God; Leading God by a dog –collar; The closeted Trinity; God the Sodomite; Premature ejaculations – God in transit; Sade and holiness – and you will get a feeling for the approach. It is bold, original, perhaps disturbing but also extremely enlightening. I doubt many will read it. What I do not doubt however, is that it will set a direction for Queer Theology in a way which has not been done so far.

Because, in the end, in the fullness of time, we Queers will make ourselves heard. And not in a way which accepts that the dominant heterosexual project is the right one and that we somehow fit in with that. Queer Theologians are saying, you have got it thumpingly wrong! If we are excluded, if we are kept at the gate, if our voices are silent and if our culture and practice is condemned and excluded, you are wrong! Do not think for a moment that we will give up the struggle, or that we will be marginalized or silenced. Because the God is not a heterosexual God. In fact, that God is a blasphemy, an abhorrence and a sham

Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem!

Zackie Achmat is reported today in the Sunday Times as leading a call for a Jewish charity orginasation on culture and education, Limmud, to withdraw its invitation to an Israeli Defence Forces legal advisor, Colonel David Benjamin, from addressing a conference in South Africa.

It has been planned that he should address audiences in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg about Israeli policies on Gaza and the so-called "Operation Cast Lead", (known in the Arab world as the Gaza Massacre, which left more than 1000 Palestinians dead).

Benjamin attained a law degree from the University of Cape Town, before moving to Israel in 1989 and worked in the Israeli Defence Forces legal department for 17 years.

The Limmud programme sports various luminaries from the South African scene. Judge Dennis Davis; Jeremy Gordin; human rights lawyer Shlomy Zachary; cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro. The argument from Dennis Davis is, unfortunately, the usual "let both sides be heard", then we will have a real argument. How familiar this is. How many times we heard it during the years of apartheid. The problem is, while the power balance remains the way it remains, it can never be a real argument

I found myself, some time ago, making small talk to a group of white farmers. I was on my best behaviour, trying very hard not to offend or say the wrong thing. We could talk about all the rain we are having at the moment. That lasted, well, a short time. Then I passed a comment on the building we were in. It is one of those places which people, deprived as they are of any imagination, use for wedding receptions. A thatch set of buildings, off the beaten track, but with the inside full of billowy white curtains draped over brass curtain rods and hanging brass chandeliers and plastic chairs all covered completely with white material and a bow tied at the back, making it look like a commode on speed. "Oh", I said, glancing around, "froof and thatch". I was met with a stony silence. Then I said, because really I was interested, to one of the farmers, why was it that his head was completely bandaged. "Cancer", he said. Ah well, it wasn't my night.

Then, desperate I thought I might comment on current affairs. Not South African current affairs, you understand. I'm not completely mad. No, I said something like, "It's terrible what's happening in Palestine at the moment". I knew immediately it was a mistake. The man standing next to the man with the cancer on his head in the bandage rounded on me like a viper. "What about what's happening in Israel?" he asked, "Never mind about bloody Palestine!" I backed away, the thing wasn't going to go anywhere at all, so I just backed down.

In my youth, there were lots of people booking airtickets to "UzRahl" to go and "work on a Kibbutz". The concept didn't appeal very much to me, I must say. Picking oranges in a desert somehow just didn't appeal to me. But it did to a whole host of my friends and off they went, never to be heard of or seen again. I had friends in church who used to get a glazed, almost beatific look on their faces at the mere mention of "UzRahl". The "Holy Land" they would say, and sigh. And off they would go and take in Oberammergau as well if they got the year right. They wanted to "walk where Jesus walked" and nonsense like that. They came back with the beatific look a little jaded and stories of people shaking tins in their faces while they were trying to meditate at the Church of the Holy Nativity and stuff like that. But they still declared that it was worth it, through they probably wouldn't "do it again".

Personally, I have never wanted to go there, but I think more so since reading a book in the 1970s, which profoundly effected the way, I thought about "UzRahl". It was a book by the Old Testament scholar, Lucas Grollenberg, called Palestine Comes First (London SCM, 1980) and it changed my understanding of the conflict there completely. I had grown up in a mainly Judeo-centric universe. My fellows at school were Jewish, by and large, and their view of the world, particularly the Middle East, became my view of the world as well. All of this was constructed in the added context of Apartheid where the racial spin was not far away. Consequently, the Israelis were the good guys and the Arabs were the bad guys. In any case, the Israelis sided with the Nationalist government and the Arabs sided with the ANC. I remember even feeling slightly incensed by Helen Suzman and Selma Browde, of the Progressive Federal Party as they were then, and by implication, siding with the ANC who sided with the Arabs who, therefore, wanted to destroy Jerusalem! It was complicated, but it did have a sort of warped inner logic about it. Locked in the depths of the argument was a deep seated racism and hatred of anyone whom the Apartheid state did not determine was white and a suspicion, even of some that it did!

It would not be too much of an oversimplification of things to say that the State of Israel was born of the guilty conscience of the West, after the Second World War, in 1947. The victorious powers met; didn't know what to do with Jews all over the world; felt guilty about what had happened; and so simply grabbed land from the Palestinians (which belonged to no-one but them) and handed it over to the new Israeli state. It was as cut-throat and as simple as that. They handed the Israelis someone else's country! Let those who screech with alarm over Zimbabwe ponder, for a moment, what happened here.

Now we have a situation where the State of Israel, aided and abetted by significant world powers, not to mention the good old US of A, can simply shoot and kill people on a daily basis, as was demonstrated in the dying days of the Bush Administration. Even its own citizens, just because they are Arabs! It uses live ammunition against people armed with stones and then it has the audacity to feign outrage when bombs get let off in its marketplaces because of what it is doing.

It is not going to stop. You don't have to be a genius to see that. Surely we as South Africans know that better than anyone - it is simply not going to stop. The only question is, how much longer is it going to take the world community to come to the aid of the Palestinian people?
But that, of course, is a silly question. It was only when the struggle here was almost over, that world powers like America started becoming a tad warmer to the ANC. Who can forget that Dick Cheyene, George W Bush's second in command, once opposed a motion calling on the Apartheid government to release Mandela from prison?

Unfortunately, it is not only the dewy- eyed religious Christians who support the Israeli government it is also the very rich and the very powerful. Jews in the so-called diaspora still send lots of money to support what is fundamentally a terrorist state. God forbid an American Presidential hopeful should ever knowingly criticise Israel. And the South African government, poor thing, is so limp-wristed about everything in general that it will probably make some sterling statements when everything is over, bar the shouting.

Of course, there are Jews and there are Jews. And there are Jews and there are Israelis. I friend of mine, proud to call himself a Jew confessed himself to be deeply disturbed by what he is seeing taking place in Israel (and Palestine). In no way, would he want himself to be associated with what is going on there. I asked him the other day how his health was. "I've got flu," he said through a very snotty nose. I commiserated. "What can I say" he said, "I'm a Jew! I was born to suffer!" We laughed.

Bitterly, of course, because that, in a nutshell, is the issue. And that, in a nutshell, is the way in which the Arab-Israeli conflict is presented. The West does not feel the same about the Arab world. There would be no substance to the joke!

And I have no doubt that I will be listed somewhere on some anti-Israeli website for this article. Because that is precisely the way the thugs in Mossad and the Israeli Defence Forces operate (and have done before, from personal experience). The terror which they impose is as wide as it is broad. It is not something which one can dispassionately discuss in a lecture hall.

Diet is a state of mind

I am glad to say that I have never really had much of a problem with my body. I realised fairly early on, that I was going to look pretty much like my father. My father was fairly bald – so am I. He was unbelievably hairy – so am I. My mother liked to describe her children as “big boned” (meaning tending towards overweight) - well so am I.

But even though it is true to say that I have always been fairly comfortable about what I look like, it doesn’t mean that I don’t sometimes notice that things are starting to get a bit out of hand. And I suppose I can put it down to a whole lot of things. When any kind of trauma enters my life, whether it be a baby (God forbid ever again!) or a move …or anything like that, I tend to head for the fridge. And I usually tend not to leave it alone until, one day, I look at the burgeoning podge starting to show on my face and think, “Oh dear – not looking my usual film-star quality!”

So, as you can imagine, I have been on diets before. Up to this point, none, that don’t require someone else to monitor me on a regular basis. I once needed a small operation in the stomach area. The specialist said, matter-of-factly – “You need to lose 10kgs, otherwise I am going to have to cut you and the cut will leave a scar and it will look hideous”. So I did. I went to a dietitian, who told me all sorts of stuff about nutrition and glycemic levels and conversion of something or other to sugar. All very technical. My eyes got a glazed look in them. I pretended to pay attention and went on my way trying to make head or tail of the complicated diet regime she had given me. I am glad to say I did it and I don’t have an ugly scar in the stomach region to prove it.

I also went to Weigh Less. The world of sneaking past healthy, thin people doing Ballet and twisting themselves into Yoga knots at the local community hall, so that you can go an weigh yourself on a weekly basis, after having staved yourself on tiny fragments of tasteless food for a week. There is a lipstick-ed trim woman there, who writes down what your score is. She beams brightly if you lose and looks sympathetic, chiding and disappointed if you don't. You pay her to be some kind of in loco parentis. It works, because you are mildly scared of her, and because prior to the weigh in, you forgo eating and drinking entirely; select the lightest clothes in your wardrobe; cut your hair; blow your nose; take purgatives; cut your fingernails to the quick. But it works. Sometimes, you reach nirvana - called your "Goal Weight". This is sometimes just shortened to "Goal" as in , "Oh, Elaine reached Goal!" - awe from the rest of the room. You also have to sit around while the lipsticked one tells you all about how various overpriced weigh less products (which are essentially all the things you would like to eat, but denuded of any actual nutrients, wrapped in a green and yellow label).

But then things start getting a bit out of control again. It happens gradually. Slowly. Somewhat imperceptibly. You stop going to Weigh Less. You start to notice that this pair of trousers won’t fit. Then you notice that that shirt is a little too snug. But you ignore it. You pretend it isn’t happening. You pretend things are just the same as they ever were. And when you next bother to get onto a scale, the results are mildly embarrassing.

Then, for a few months, you dither and dather about it, but it is there at the back of your mind. You tell yourself, I shouldn’t be eating this thing or that thing. But you do anyway. You start to spiral into a vortex of bad habits. The bad habits start to become slightly compulsive. And before long, there is more than just a hint of compulsion in them. They start to be slightly overwhelming. You start to be controlled by them. You start to do things (and to eat things) you normally would not. It is only then, when things are teetering on the very brink of really dire consequences that, I take some form of action.

I was sitting, some months back, in one of the most boring training sessions you can imagine. So boring I cannot even remember what it was all about. But the boring trainer said something which stuck with me and then made me think. He said (it was about some bad management practice or other that you are not supposed to do) “The strange thing is, that every day, you do precisely the thing you shouldn’t do. And then you wonder why you have problems”.

This is, of course, not wildly novel. There is something about it in the Anglican Liturgy about “doing the things we ought not to do and not doing the things we ought to do”. It is that same thing. But we all do it (or don’t do it) as the case may be. And then we wonder why we have the consequences which the doing of it or not doing of it has in our lives.

Naturally thin people (I’m not talking about obsessively thin people here – just people with well-tuned eating habits and few compulsions) have very little understanding of the depth of difficulty there is here. And the harshest critics of fat people are often these people, who simply do not understand the difficulty. Because it is not simply about control. Nor is it simply about discipline. Nor about greed. Nor about other notions like wanting to “protect oneself from society” and other easy explanations.

No. It is far more complex, far more invasive, far more subtle. It is about the struggle to be oneself in a world where doing just that is often a very difficult thing. In a world where people actually won’t let you. I don’t think I really understood this struggle until I read a book called She’s come undone by Wally Lamb (Washington Square Press, 1992)

So, this time, when the seams started bursting and the mother-in-law noted, once again, that I had piled on the beef, I took myself seriously in hand. I call it the “Move more – Eat less” diet. And by crikey has it worked! I have lost an amazing amount of weight, just by doing those two things, moving more and eating less.

And yes, I have lost weight – quite a lot actually. But not because of the hype, or the jargon or the religious fervour or the paid parent. I have lost weight because I wanted to and limited the amount I eat. Sounds easy to all you thinnies out there, but it really isn’t. The only way I do it is by becoming somewhat compulsive in the opposite direction. That is just the way I am and probably the way I will always be, I suppose.

And why am I like this? I don’t have the slightest clue. I just am. I have a quirky eating lifestyle. But I have the greatest respect for fat people. Well maybe 'respect' isn’t the right word – something more like fear and fascination. Because I know them. I recognise them. I know their struggle.

Children at risk during the Soccer World Cup

The Soccer World Cup in 2010, is going to bring with it a range of (what do we call them these days?) … “challenges” to our already over-challenged society. Like on our roads, and infrastructure, challenges to our police services and our drug teams and our tourism operators. But consider this. All schools will be on holiday for the entire month. Most of the big matches are going to be played at night and, in my now fairly extensive experience of Fan Parks, kids will be either brought to these Fan Parks and dumped, or they will just arrive there and be there, completely unsupervised. That has got to be a rather large “challenge”.

More, there will be child predators on the loose in a way in which we have just not experienced before – so we are led to believe by the National Intelligence Agency. It is, apparently, a feature of major events such as this, the world over.

Several years ago, that eminently sensible director of Childline, Joan van Niekerk, was interviewed in television. She was asked, in a leading kind of way, whether she thought it would be a good idea to start a register of “known pedophiles” so that “these people could be exposed”? A night or two earlier, we were shown footage of a house in the UK (where such registers are kept), having been attacked by a crowd because the crowd wanted quick justice for someone who had been “named” on the register.

Joan van Niekerk said that all the research had shown that keeping a register of known offenders appeared to have no effect whatsoever on either the dissemination of child pornography or on instances of abuse. And surely, those are precisely the things one would want to have an effect on. But what the evidence (rather than the emotion) seems to show is that keeping such a register appears to have no effect at all, except in perpetuating the fondly held myth that this kind of “punishment” is an effective deterrent. The evidence does not back up the belief. But, I suppose, like with the generally held beliefs about capital punishment, the evidence shouldn't deter us, should it? I mean, who bothers about things like that?

The other points which she made were, to my mind, of real importance to the issue. She said that behind every instance of child porn, there is an abused child. A child who has been, perhaps, physically held down and forced into sex acts by people who exercise power over that child. A child who, most likely, will be damaged psychologically or alternatively, a child whose social circumstances are so awful that in order to survive, they have no alternative but to allow themselves to be abused in this way. It is a sad reality that it is often the very people who shout loudest about exposing and punishing pedophiles that care least about the condition of children in the broader society, abused or otherwise.

Another point which Joan van Niekerk made (and it is a well known one) was that it is frequently the case that child abusers were themselves victims of abuse, and so the terrible cycle perpetuates. This is not to condone their actions, for goodness sake, but it is to at least acknowledge some societal, and not simply individual responsibility for the whole thing. The cycle of abuse will continue in the kind of social conditions which encourage it and you won't stop it by putting a few people here and there on a register.

We need to ask ourselves, though, why there is such a big reaction when children get abused sexually? What about all the other forms of abuse we seem quite happy to live with, like poor education? And forced underage labour on our farms? And social conditions which force children into sex, just to eat? These seem to elicit considerably less rage and angst in South Africa. In fact they are frequently just ignored.

The 2010 soccer event is proving to provide something of a magnifying glass to some aspects of our rather damaged society. The risk posed to our children is one of them. But let us not suppose for one single moment, that the risk is primarily external, nor that it is an isolated risk. Children are raped and abused on a daily basis in our society. Children live in absolute poverty and have very poor access to anything like a good education. For some reason, these things seem to be of less concern to people.

Practical hints for race relations

Living in Cape Town, one has to learn to do things a bit differently. Like, for instance, being constantly aware of where “the Mountain” is. Because all directions to anywhere and everywhere are given in relation to “the Mountain”. The weather, also, seems to be determined by which side of “the Mountain” you are on.

You have to get used to rain in winter. You have to scale everything down in relation to your living requirements, because buying the tiniest little dwelling here, would probably buy a whole street anywhere else. So, in the spirit of all of this, I decided that I needed to get rid of some of my books. To be honest, I don’t know why I had so many of them. It isn’t as though I am constantly referring to them, but somehow, like old friends, and pleasant memories, it felt nice to have them around.

But – given the fact that space is now at something of a premium, I decided to get rid of many in my collection. And in the process – which brings me to my point – a yellowing newspaper article fell out of one of them. It was a clipping from what I think was “The Star”. It is entitled “An Afrikaner’s Diary” and is signed Jan Burger.

The date of the piece is 4 May 1958 and is mostly about an interview which the author did with poet and dramatist Uys Krige, condemning the prudishness of the censors at the time. But it was the last few paragraphs which caught my eye. The author refers to a “recent Sabra congress” (apparently this is short for "Suid-Afrikaanse Buro vir Rasse-Aangeleenthede" which I think means something like the "Bureau for race relations", or something) where some pactical hints were shared about how whites could create a bit more goodwill between themselves and “non-Whites” (sic). I am going to quote the paragraphs in full, because – well you will see why…:

“Mr F.J van Wyk, Assistant Director of the Institute of Race Relations, asked whether the names of Native casualties could not be mentioned in newspapers. Natives feel that the omission of their names is discrimination.

Mrs E.S. Bell of Bloemfontein asked parents to restrain children from mocking Natives in the street. Mr Krynauw of Worcester said that our attitude that Natives must greet us first is wrong. The Bantu’s tradition is that the superior should take the initiative.

Mr B Steyn, senior information officer of the Department of Native Affairs, asked Whites serving behind shop counters not to throw change at Natives. It hurts.”

I have read and re-read the passage, wondering whether behind it, there might be some attempt at humour, perhaps. Perhaps in the last sentence? But then the other “hints” don’t seem to indicate this. The passage gives one a glimmer of what the majority white mindset of the day was. You will agree with me, even without the considerable benefit of hindsight, it is as extraordinary as it is absurd.

But then, at the same time that I found this piece, I read of a court case where a certain Zanele Magubane was given an apology and R10 000 by her employer, Cameron Forsyth, in settlement for a text message which was about her and mistakenly sent to her, (but intended for his wife), calling the childminder a “kaffir bitch”.

The ongoing tragedy today, besides the fairly substantial mess we are in politically, is that most white people still have no concept of their absolute continued contribution to that mess. By thinking the things they think, by believing the things they do, and by saying, the moment they think they have a sympathetic ear, the sort of crud they say. In Cape Town, (in many ways the last hiding place of the un-reformed), I hear these opinions, beliefs and statements, more than I ever have before elsewhere.

And the most irritating thing of the lot, is that they continue to think that they are somehow superior – even after apartheid!

Children's Spirituality

Pic: Two dads on Joshua's collection day from the Princess Alice Adoption Home. Leon is holding Gabriel

It was our Muslim social worker who asked us a question which was to set back the adoption process of our first child, Gabriel, by a good couple of weeks. She asked what religion we were intending to bring our child up in.

We both balked and the matter required intensive discussion and thought. At the time, I had not seen the inside of a church for a good 12 years –( well I suppose I had, dragged kicking and screaming into one or two weddings, or sneaking into the back row of a funeral or two – but nothing more). Leon, my partner, on the other hand, was so damaged by his experience of the church, growing up as a gay person in a church environment - which hated, despised and rejected what he knew he was - that he wanted to stay as far away from anything even sounding like the “C” word, for the rest of his life.
So we discussed the matter. We debated the matter. We pondered. For weeks! And finally, we decided that the issue which the social worker was asking us about, was actually that of culture. We are two white men. The child which we were getting, was black. We are a same-sex couple. Then, it was fairly uncommon for people like us to be adopting children. What “culture” would we be bringing this child up in?

I said to Leon, “Look, I know what my culture is. It is High Church Anglicanism. That’s what I have grown up in. That is what I know. That is where I learned my values, and those values are what I continue to value”. The debate went on. I had, after all, shaken the dust of the church off my feet and was not missing it in the least. But I knew, without any doubt that I wanted the church to be part of my raising of my children. I wanted them to know faith. I wanted them to experience mystery. I wanted them to become acquainted with the long traditions of Anglican experience. I wanted them to know what had shaped me and moulded me and what had established the value system I held. Leon agreed and further agreed to support me in enabling this to happen – which meant that – without much relish, but with no disapproval, he would also come regularly to church and be with the family.

An atheist friend of mine was talking to me about this issue one day and said this. She said that she had brought up her children as atheists and it was a decision she deeply regretted. She regretted it, because, she said, when they were frightened, or alone, or worried, or distraught, they had nowhere to go. They had nowhere to go for comfort. They had to face what they were facing alone. They had to face the void all on their own. She said if she had the chance to do it over again, she would not have brought them up as atheists. For me, that discussion was determinative.

The immediate difficulty would be finding a church. We were living outside Pretoria at the time, so I did some research on likely candidates, and found Christ Church Arcadia, with its priest Fr David Swanepoel. I phoned him and we had a very long conversation. I explained to him that I was a priest who hadn’t been to church for many years and hadn’t really missed it. I said I was in a same-sex relationship and that we had two trans-racially adopted sons. He paused briefly and then said this – He said, “Michael, I have no idea what my parish is going to make of two gay white boys with adopted black children, but why don’t you come along and see if you like us?
I found that extraordinarily enlightened. We went and we did like it. The congregation was fairly white, but not entirely. The theology seemed accommodating and reasonable and the music was spectacular – so we decided to join. Returning to church, for me, was like getting into a warm bath. The words rolled off my tongue. I could go back to that place in my being, which for me speaks of my essence – that place where I can find my language, my grammar, my words. That place from where the rest of me can be interpreted. As I said, my partner, Leon, finds it all rather less exalted in every way, but our agreement is that he will come with to support the decision. And that is what he does.

Fr David and his wife Margie are remarkable people. Initially, every Sunday they would both wait outside the front door, to welcome us at the church. In that way, they made it plain to the congregation, what we were welcome there. And consequently, the rest of the parish did welcome us warmly. Both our boys were baptised there and on their baptism certificates, the word “mother” is replaced by another “father” – so we both appear as the children’s parents and were both referred to as such during the service. All it took, was leadership. We worshipped regularly there for a number of years.

We moved to Cape Town to be close to Leon’s family. I have looked around for a church which is well mixed racially and which is accepting of gay people generally and would be of us in particular. The Cathedral was always an option, with its long and proud history of struggle and human rights but I was looking more for a parish church setting. I am happy to have found a home in St Michael’s and All Angels, Observatory. It is a parish with a bit of a history, but it has been extremely welcoming to us as a family and the boys feel very at home there now. In fact, to my mind, they are a bit too enthusiastic about going to Sunday School!

But I found this church after a lot of dithering and dathering. I visited many churches in the area, trying to make a good choice. One day Gabriel came home and asked me “Daddy, is God’s name Allah?” I paused for a moment and said “Well, yes, it is! God’s name is also - (and now I thought very hard indeed, and came up with...) God!” It was then that I decided that it was well nigh time for the children get back to church.

So, in a strange and roundabout way, my two children have also brought me back into the church. And I can see them more and more getting the point of it all – so very quickly. Soon, Gabriel will be making his first communion, because he has asked for it. And before I blink, they will be rebellious teenagers, and then they will make their own decisions. But I have no doubt, the groundwork will have been done. They will know faith, even if they want to reject it. And I hope in their life’s journey, that when they are frightened or lonely, they will, at the very least, have somewhere to go for comfort.

My Friend Tito

I first met Tito Mboweni, the soon-to-be retired Governor of the South African Reserve Bank, in Lesotho, where we were both living in exile. The year must have been 1981. Our paths crossed in that strange, former British protectorate, which in the 1960s had achieved independence. It was, and is, a country completely surrounded by South Africa. It relies on South Africa for every bag of maize meal, every matchstick, every candle. And yet, because it was independent, it was a place where the then outlawed African National Congress (ANC) could operate.

I was there, having fled the country in order to avoid conscription into the Army. Tito was forced to flee the country because of political activism and was now in the underground ANC. We would, almost certainly, never have met in South Africa, and if we did, we would never have done so as equals. Because that is what apartheid was all about. It was about inequality. It was about keeping people apart and it was about ensuring that if people of different colours did meet, the one would be the master and the other the servant.

But there, in Lesotho, we met as equals. As comrades. Tito was my recruiter and controller, in relation to the ANC. We never spoke of it as such, but that is what brought us together. I did not realise then, that it was going to be the beginning of an incredible journey for both of us, in very different directions.

Tito was a young student, but honed in the fires of revolution. I was just a justice- minded white boy, who thought that apartheid was wrong and not worth defending. But more pertinently, I could quite easily have been a spy. So getting involved with me was a risky business for Tito.

My then wife, Jane, and I grew very close to him. We taught him how to drive in our little Volkswagen Beetle. We spoke long into the night, about “home” and about what the struggle was all about, and about our history and about the nature of oppression and revolution. Sometimes, it was about simpler things. Like how to roast a chicken, or to his incredulity, me explaining what the “Tube” is in London. Tito could not get over the weirdness of a train which travelled underground – until, of course, he saw one for himself.

That friendship changed my life. And for the better. I remember several years later, when both of us were in London or Zambia, how we would be homesick. Not for South Africa, but for Lesotho – where for the first time we were able to live and ordinary human beings together. Lesotho gave us back the humanity which apartheid had robbed us of .

There were times of terror which we experienced together. Like the raid in 1982 into Maseru, when the apartheid army entered the country and killed several sleeping comrades. I remember Jane and I hearing the news in the morning and leaping into the car to drive to Maseru. On the road, we found Tito and another friend Ngoako Ramalhodi hitching into the Capital. On the way in, they were speaking about the struggle – and how we needed now to pick up the fallen spear. There was no bitterness in what they were saying. There was no hatred of white people in general. We were together with them in this struggle. We were one of them. We were together in the struggle for peace and freedom in South Africa.

Moments like these are unforgettable. They change the way one thinks. They shift the way one understands one’s place in the universe. They come very rarely - if ever, for some people. I am one of the lucky ones.

I was Best Man at Tito’s and his then wife Mamokotlana’s wedding. I was amazed and honoured that he asked me to be his Best Man. The marriage ended, but my friendship with both Tito and Kotli has lasted through the years. Tito, on his return into a liberated country, was given a Cabinet post in the new government, and then went on to become Governor of the Reserve Bank. It was an orbit and a realm which I was, obviously, unable to keep up with. But through the years, we have kept in contact, through the occasional text message, a phone call late at night, a chance meeting. He has been at the launch of two of my books and he has done so happily and the feeling between us has been warm.

Now the tide has turned. New political realities have changed the landscape and, for whatever reason, Tito has decided not to be reappointed in the position of Governor of the Reserve Bank. It will be difficult for him, because it was a position he enjoyed. He enjoyed the power, the prestige, the sheer uniqueness of the job. He enjoyed the adulation of people and he certainly enjoyed obeisance. He had some really odd quirks – such as insisting on being called “Governor”, even by those close to him apparently - (something I could never do, and never did). He insisted on having his own photographer, and that only the photos taken by that photographer could be used in the media. These are conceits and affectations, which he has lived with for the past 10 years. I suspect they will be difficult things to give up.

I have heard it said by more than one person (and not only his political enemies) that he is arrogant. That is certainly true. He is. And the job he has held for the past while has allowed that arrogance to grow and perhaps to be unchecked. The arrogance is there, certainly, together with a lack of concern about people, which is sometimes difficult to justify. But I have also experienced something very different as well. I have experienced kindness, and gentleness and friendship and commitment. I have not minded the arrogance, because the other was there also, in good measure. He is a complex character.

I remember sitting in a car, in Roma, the little University village in Lesotho, some 30 minutes outside of Maseru, late at night talking to him. I said to him there was something I needed to tell him, because it may, perhaps, have security implications. I told him I was Gay.

His response was, firstly, surprise. Then he said this. He said “You know, in the struggle, you sometimes see really terrible things. You see necklaces (the terrible method which was used for a while, of placing a burning car tyre around the neck of a suspected spy). You see dead bodies. You see torture.” He went on, “In that spectrum, to find out that someone is Gay, is a very small thing indeed”.

I have always valued that comment, for putting things in a bit of perspective.

Sugar Twists

These are the most amazing sweet pastries. I remember them from my youth, when my mother would bake them for special occasions. The cutting of the butter into the flour is a bit of a schlepp, but the result is fantastic! Try to work fairly quickly with the dough, while it is still cold.

3 cups flour
250g butter or margarine
½ t salt
2 beaten eggs
1 ½ cups of sugar mixed with 3 or 4T vanilla essence
1 pkt dry yeast
½ cup milk

Cut in the butter or margarine into flour and salt and dry yeast. Add beaten eggs and milk and form into a soft dough. Leave in fridge for 2 hours (don't miss this step!).

Roll out dough and layer with sugar/vanilla essence mixture. Fold over and cut into strips, twist and bake on a baking sheet at 180˚C until just turning brown.

Suicide, assisted and otherwise - 2. Learning how to grieve

This is another of the articles I wrote, soon after the suicide of my partner, 10 years ago. The issue is, of course, not the people who kill themselves. That is a decision they have made, and they are dead. The issue is how do the people who are left behind cope with that decision.

Obviously there is a huge difference between coping with the death of someone who is terminally ill, or elderly, or who has at least discussed the matter with those whom s/he loved, (or are likely to find the body) - and that of the sudden shock of discovery of someone who gave no sign that they were planning to kill themselves.

This piece was written really about the journey I found myself on - of coming to terms with my partner's shocking, and to me, completely unexpected decision - and learning how to grieve properly.

Learning how to Grieve

There was a time, not so very long ago, before urban sprawl and megacities and afforestation, when it was expected, without very much qualification, for people who had lost someone close to them, to mourn for a fairly extended period of time. When I lived for a time in rural Lesotho, I was extremely interested to see how traditional Basotho dealt with death. If the man in the family had died, for instance, the woman would be placed on a mattress in a room. She would have two or three supporters, who would be with her constantly. She would be required to say nothing and to do nothing at all. She would just sit on the mattress and weep, or not weep, as she felt fit. Wave after wave of sympathisers would be ushered into the room. The story of how the man died, what had happened; who said what; when; how - all the questions would be dealt with and answered in the telling of the story. And the story would be told over and over and over and over gain - for a week!

This is not my culture, of course, but in many ways I wish it were. One of the things I found necessary, when my partner died by hanging himself was this constant re-telling of the story. People who knew Brian needed to hear it. And somehow, the re-telling of it over and over again dis seem to have something of a healing effect. But it was extremely emotionally exhausting and it would have been very nice if there was someone else to do it for me and I could just sit on a mattress somewhere listening or weeping as the case may be.

Then there is the business of how we actually deal with the dead. The woman who worked for me then wanted badly to come to the funeral. She was originally from Malawi. She eventually plucked up enough courage to ask me why I had simply left Brian lying in the crematorium. She found this to be the strangest thing in the world. I explained to her the whole business about cremation and scattering the ashes, but she still looked at me more than a little incredulously. I could see us peering at each other across a very wide cultural gorge. It is not that she didn’t accept what I had done, it was simply that it didn’t in any way comply with the steps she understood to be necessary for the grieving process. “You have to see the person buried”, she said. Who knows, maybe she is right. I hadn’t really given the matter much thought before then.

When I was working as a priest in Manchester many years ago, one of the real difficulties of the job was the extraordinary amount of funerals I was required to do. It verged, sometimes, on 8 or 10 a week! The difficulty was that I very often had no idea of who it was that I was burying. Frequently, it was me, the undertaker and the coffin at the funeral. I often was left to ponder the tragedy of a long life, now over, with no-one to mourn its passing. I was often left to wonder about a society so compartmentalised, so lacking in community, that here could be the lonely sight of a body, a priest and an undertaker with not a single interested soul beyond them. That must be the saddest thing.

But I also frequently had no idea of what the person looked like that I was burying. In Britain, there was never any filing past the open coffin, as is frequently the case here in Africa. I once found myself in a very strange situation. I was informed by the undertaker that a woman, some way up the street where I lived, had died. Now, I lived in a street which was just two very long rows of front doors with windows on either side. It was difficult enough to get onto speaking terms with the next door neighbour, let alone someone down the road. Anyway, this woman had died and she didn’t have any relatives living with her, so it would have been useless to go to the house. I tried to picture where she lived and who she was. Ah yes! I remembered her. I often used to wave at her and sometimes used to exchange pleasantries on my way to work. She was an old lady with callipers who walked with some difficulty and she liked sitting in the sun outside her front door.

So I spoke at the funeral about the difficulties she had faced so bravely. I spoke about her lovely little garden that she seemed to be so proud of - and then rambled on in a very general sort of way about conversations we had had and that sort of thing. You can imagine my surprise, then, when I saw her sitting the next day outside her front door, soaking up the sun! I had buried the wrong person. I have no idea what the family made of what I had to say. In a strange, very British sort of way, it didn’t seem to make very much difference.

To get back to my point, I don’t think we white western types know how to grieve very well at all. It all seems to be tied up with nonsense about stiff upper lips and “just getting on with things” and “pulling oneself together” and “putting the past behind us”. Of course, all of this is true. And it is certainly not that people don’t care or that there is a lack of support. It is just that there is a sense in which we often tend to deal with grief as an inconvenience rather than a necessity. What I have come to see, which I did not see before as clearly as I do now, is that the only grief which does not end, is the grief which has not been fully faced. That can happen in a number of ways: By idealising the deceased person; or by suppressing one’s grief; or, conversely, by hanging onto feelings of sorrow and failing to resume one’s life fully at some point after the death. There will be some who see perpetual sorrow as a testimony to their love. Consequently it is easy to get stuck in time, believing that by holding onto the pain, you are holding onto the memories. What is true, though, is that sadness is a natural part of life, but self-pity immobilises.
The psychological boffins tell us that there are basically three stages to the grieving process and it doesn’t really matter what cultural persuasion one comes from. The first stage is basically shock. The second is a period of suffering and disorganisation. The third is a period of reorganisation. It does not really matter how long it takes to move from the first to the last, but it is critically important that there is movement. After the trauma of the second stage, with its sense of numbness; its preoccupations with last encounters and unfinished business; its feelings of abandonment and guilt and anger and blame, it is important to move on. Or even if one cannot do that immediately, at least it is important to know that this is the direction in which one should be moving.

What I learnt over the few months after the death was that it is crucial to experience all the feelings which the death has brought about for me, but it is equally crucial to say goodbye and to resume my life. That does not mean the end of the love or the memories. It does mean that I did learn to accept the death and in time, the pain and the sorrow lessened as well. And eventually (and this I do believe), in the words of Mother Julian of Norwich, “All things will be well, and all manner of thing will be well”.

Death by detail

Pat Hopkins, Johnny Golightly Comes Home: A Portrait of Eccentricity, Penguin, Johannesburg, 2009

The first half of this book is fairly engrossing. It is a curious weave and intertwining of the lives of the author, and a few selected South African eccentrics, whom he has sought out and tried to record, as much as he is able in this non-fictional novel.

It is frequently engaging, and often very interesting. However, and this is a very big “however” - it is also extremely irritating to read. Now, I don’t know whether this was supposed to be some kind of literary gimmick, or some carefully crafted mechanism to irritate the reader to the point of distraction (because the subject of the book was irritating the author throughout) – but really, it is a book very over-written. There is just far too much meaningless and useless information.

Conversations with every one the author ever meets in relation to his research, are recorded in minute, yawn-inducing detail, down to noting that the wind was blowing; or the cat was purring; or the dishwasher was washing; or the pot-plant was growing. This gets much worse in the second half of the book, which one only plods through to the end of out of a vague sense of curiosity, but it is there throughout. And it completely kills any enjoyment one might glean from it. As I say, that might be the point – I don’t know – but it has much the same artistic appeal as root canal treatment.

The subjects are fascinating, though I have to say for myself, I found the main subject John Anthony Boerma, tedious and affected. The others, such as the author's own father, “Bunny”, who grew Dagga, had constant affairs and eventually died in a shootout with police; Helen Martins and her Owlhouse in Niew Bethesda; Meredith Crimp - (not sure who she might be) - of Pietermaritzburg and her dog Prince Twinkletoes which would “raise a warning lip” whenever the author tried to ingratiate himself; Nukain Mubasa, who painted a mountain and of course Johnny Golightly, aka John Anthony Boerma, aka Johnny Gochristly, whose father and grandfather were Nazis.

But the detail! Oh dear Lord, the detail… It is there on every page, lurking in every corner, hiding under every bed. Every conversation, even on things like when to turn off the stove, or where to place boxes, get recorded lovingly. Why? How is the reader helped by engaging in this unbearable round of trivia. It’s a bit like reading “Big Brother”.

And this is, I think, a pity. Because the subject is a fascinating one. And some of insights of the subjects (real or fictional) are fascinating too. “Never start with a premise”, advises Meredith Crimp, “If you know where you’re going, there is no point in starting out. The only justification for travel is the unknown landscape – one that you discover for yourself”. (p.47). He remembers her observation, at the end of the book, that the only thing separating extreme eccentrics and serial killers, is their particular passion.(p.219).

But the dreary detail of how he gets to those insights, including a whole long, seemingly endless cataloguing on how he comes to writing the book he eventually does write, as opposed to the book he thought he was going to write, as opposed to bits and pieces he wrote along the way – is just uninteresting and could all have been cut with no-one other than the author noticing the difference, or needing the information.

And that is the other problem I have with the book. All the time, the author lurks in the background of other people's stories. While the story of his attempted suicide is both gripping and necessary, many of the other author appearances have more than just a hint of egotism. And this is a pity – because the subject is rich. That’s a given! It’s been done a gazillion times before. And because of that, I don’t really need to know that Bridget Hilton-Barber, or her friends, or the next-door neighbour, or the person he meets on a plane also think so, for goodness sake!

Doing the best I can - Gay parenting - the trials - the joys.

I have just spent the last two hours trying to work out why my ADSL isn’t working. I have tried this and tried that. I have switched this off and switched that off and on again. And it was only when a cousin phoned on my cell, complaining that she couldn’t get through on the landline, that I realised that our youngest son, Joshua (5) (“bin Laden” – so dubbed because of his extraordinary propensity for death, mayhem and destruction) has been up to something. Like phoning America, or planning a coup in Guatemala.

My life could have been quiet. I sometimes imagine myself getting ready for early retirement now at a cottage near the sea, reading a book, doing a course in astronomy – whatever. Instead, I am defending my ADSL line against attack, shouting because Joshua bin Laden has drawn with indelible ink on his wall and inside his cupboard, and worried about some of the often rather peculiar behaviour of our oldest child, Gabriel (7).

Let me start at the beginning. My partner of 9 years, Leon, was broody from the day I met him. And when your partner says they want children - achingly, desperately, completely – you either shake their hand firmly and wish them a nice life, or you get used to the idea. I had never considered children. (Well, I suppose I might have, briefly, when I was married to a woman – but the thought soon perished, along with the marriage.) And suddenly, at the age of 45, I was faced with some extremely uncomfortable prospects: Nappies! Projectile vomit! Teething! It is, you will agree, rather strange, when most other Gay boys in Cape Town are driving around in cabriolet splendour and planning their next holiday on a little known Greek Isle with beautiful local waiters.

Well, it happened. First, 4 month old Gabriel. We learned the ropes. We stayed up at night. Leon, my partner, read all the books. (I looked longingly at the sedatives). Gabriel was, and is, a quiet child. He bonded spectacularly with Leon, and regarded me as an obstacle to his unfettered relationship with his other father. In six years, not a great deal has changed. Leon is still this child’s raison d’être. I am still the mild encumbrance. But we get along.

From the earliest days, there was something innately feminine about Gabriel, evidenced, not only in his focussed attachment to Leon, but also in the fact that he seemed more interested in things unusual for a boy. We have chosen to let him make his known decisions and to go his own way. We neither encourage, nor resist. We simply allow him to express his preferences, as far as birthday gifts are concerned, as far as things he like to do, (like dance) – as far as what he likes to wear.

When I was in Ghana a few years back, I saw a really unusual pair of furry sandals. I just knew Gabriel would like them, and I was not disappointed. They were certainly a bit strange – typically Ghanaian – but strange to the South African eye. They had strips of yellow fur – long yellow fur – for the straps. (Our equivalent would be something like doggie slippers, or sandals studded perhaps with diamante). They were difficult not to notice. However, Gabriel chose to wear them to school, and said to me the next day, that some of his friends had laughed at him (I wasn’t surprised!). I said to him, “Look – what you need to be concerned about, is what you like, and what you think looks and feels right. You must never allow other people’s opinions to dictate who you are and certainly not what you want to wear-” – or, you know, words to that effect. I could see he was listening to me. And I have to say, I have never been more proud of him than when the next day, completely unprompted by me, he wore those same gaudy sandals to school again!

Joshua, on the other hand, couldn’t care a damn what anyone thinks anyway. As Gabriel is reticent, so he is forward; as Gabriel is shy, so he is bold. As Gabriel is artistic, loves dance and seems perfectly comfortable on the stage, Joshua will one day, probably be a good prop in Rugby. They could not be more different. And what one hears is that this is often what happens, even with biological siblings.

Joshua, from the word go, was a free spirit. As the tiniest baby, if you teased him, he would not hesitate to give you a sharp crack on the chops. He knows what he wants, and most of the time, he gets it. He is also an extraordinarily happy child. He loves danger, he thrives on thrills. One day, I am sure, he will indulge in the most extreme of sports. (As I write, he has decided to take advantage of a beautiful mild pre-spring day, by leaping into a freezing cold swimming pool!). He loves everyone, indiscriminately and seems to have very little shyness. I am quite sure he gets his own way on the playground.

We noticed, after moving to Cape Town, from Johannesburg, that it took exactly three weeks for Gabriel to adopt the most broad of the local accents. So he will say things like “Naaaa-ooooh!” for “No” and “Chuldrrin”. Joshua, on the other hand, didn’t adapt at all. He just carried on with exactly the same accent he had before. Somehow, from somewhere, he doesn’t need anyone’s affirmation, or acceptance.

Nevertheless, despite his cheery disposition, he has one or two behavioural habits which concern us. At the moment, we are trying to make sure that one day, when he is fifteen, that he will have no fear to tell us whatever his problem is, no matter how serious. We both expect something, sometime and all we want is that he will not fear to take us into his confidence and ask for help if and when he needs it.

In the beginning, when Gay adoption was still a new thing, there would be the questions, the occasional stares, the occasional insensitive questions to the children, like “Where is your mommy?” But, by and large, these don’t happen anymore – (though I must say, Cape Town is really another, rather underexposed planet which seems to revolve entirely on its own axis!). A long time ago, we were sitting at the dinner table, and Joshua suddenly started talking about his mommy. His mommy this and his mommy that… We all looked at him slightly puzzeled. It was Gabriel who shut him up by yelling “YOU DON’T HAVE A MOMMY - YOU HAVE TWO DADDIES!” - and, really, that was the end of that!

Children at Gabriel’s school asked Leon why he was pink and Gabriel brown. They seemed to be satisfied with the explanation that he’s adopted. And what does “adopted” mean? It means that his mommy couldn’t look after him and so she asked us to look after him for her. So that makes him really special, because we really wanted to have him live with us and be our little boy.

So now, we can point to a whole network to which they belong, which was much more dispersed in Johannesburg, from where we moved. Here they have loving grandparents, an uncle, an aunt and cousins their age. They belong to a family that loves then and will always care for them. And we make the effort to see them all regularly, so that the kids can all get to know one another as family. And I am pleased to say that it seems to be working very well.

The social worker told us, when we were limbering up for our first adoption, to expect that the child would have “abandonment issues”. She was most emphatic. “All adopted kinds have abandonment issues,” she said. “Yours will be no different”. And I think she was right, though it’s hard to say exactly how the thing manifests. It is perhaps in Gabriel’s extraordinary need for Leon; in Joshua’s surprising fear of the dark and his nightly 2 am trek from his bed to ours, his hating it when you are lost in the car, his hatred of a closed door. These are things which are not, in themselves exceptional, but when placed alongside other things, then seem to us to add up to “abandonment issues”.

Now, the thing is, should we be getting worried? Should be getting therapy? Should we wonder if we are not doing enough? Nah. I don’t think so. My philosophy about childrearing has been, and still is, fairly straightforward. What we are giving them, is the best we can. This is their package in life. They are black, we are white. Most parents are heterosexual, we are not. Most kids have a mommy and a daddie, they have two dads. That’s the package they have been given and they need to learn the tools to deal with whatever life throws at them. And that, nothing else, is the very best thing we can do for them. Their lives are what they are going to make for themselves. Our role is to enable them to make good choices – I don’t even say the best choices, just good ones.

On the question of being a parent, I have come to a fairly simple conclusion. I have decided that the world isn’t what it seems at first glance. It isn’t divided between rich and poor, black and white, north and south, gay and straight. My great discovery is that it is divided only once – between those who have children and those who don’t. Those who don’t may well be very nice people, but there is something so essential, so critical to their existence, that not to know it, is a kind of non-being.

Because this is the truth. If you let them, children give you back - pressed down and running over - a contentment that nothing else can. Even when I am screaming at Joshua for doing something so completely and utterly dangerous and crazy, I know that I love this child completely. And when Gabriel, on the rare occasions that Leon isn’t around, will come and cuddle next to me, sucking his thumb and starting to fall asleep, I know that this is more than mere words can dare to express. It is a bond forged deep in the human psyche. It lies buried in some unfathomed region of the brain and it bursts to glorious life, when a child enters your world and takes it over.

When I see primped gay boys sitting at coffee shops around Cape Town, looking delicious and lovely, I sometimes ask myself what is different between them and us? I was never the natty dresser. I was never the theatre diva or the intellectual guru. I have, mostly, just trundled on with my life, and been Gay as well.

With children, that all changes in a flash. Because a baby doesn’t care whether you are Gay or not. Babies want nappies changed and food put in their mouths and sleep. Their needs get a bit more complicated as they grow up, but there is seldom any debate on who does for whom.

So, Gay or Straight, Lesbian, Transgendered, Bi, it really doesn’t matter at all to the child. All they need is love and care. And for that, they pass no judgement on you, just so long as it is there.
Surely, these things will get more forgrounded as they get older – but we have decided not to bother about that, until it happens. And in the mean-time, to spend quite a bit of time and energy on helping Gabriel and Joshua on how to cope with under-exposed people around them in a way which hurts them as little as possible

Suicide, assisted and otherwise - 1. Not waving, but drowning

I read with interest a piece in the local newspapers about British maestro, Sir Edward Downes, who in his career conducted both the BBC Philharmonic and the Royal Opera. At the age of 85, he and his wife Joan (74) decided to terminate their lives. He had become increasingly deaf nand his sight was failing badly. She, a former dancer, choreographer and television producer, was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

After 54 years of living together, they could not imagine living apart and so they decided to die together in an assisted suicide clinic in a Zurich clinic, run by the group Dignitas. The couple's son and daughter (named Caractacus and Boudicea!) issued a statement, saying that they had decided to end their own lives "rather than continue to struggle with serious health problems".

Personally, I have always believed in the right to end one's own life. The right to a dignified death is as much a right, I believe, as the right to life. It has always struck me as odd, that we are often more than willing to allow our pets to be "put to sleep", but when it comes to human beings, suddenly we have qualms. And this is not denying that there are massive ethical issues involved - of course there are - but why would one insist that a person must suffer, when they do not need to?

I have, in my own life, experienced first hand that choice being made, though in a much more violent form. My then life partner, 10 years ago now, hanged himself. I found him hanging and to some extent, to this day, I am still haunted by the sheer violence of the act. It is a very different decision that he made to that of Edward Downes and his wife, but it was still a choice for death rather than for life.

I know that I am still haunted by it, because the terror of it hits me when I least expect it sometimes - even at this distance from the event. The other day we took the kids to a thing called a "Pirates experience" - basically a circus dressed up in Pirate's gear - all very Arrr Arrr and Yo Ho Ho - but at the end, there was a hanging - and I reacted immediately, the old wounds refusing to be ignored.

Violent my partner Brian's choice might have been, but I have never questioned his right to do it. I just wish he hadn't done it quite like that. Here is something I wrote at the time. I think it is one of my best pieces and part of a trio of articles I wrote fairly soon after the death. Re-reading it 10 years after the event still evokes some of that terrible anguish I felt then. I called it

“Not waving, but drowning”.

I have always felt, always, that everyone has a right to suicide. I have pondered the conditions under which I might do it myself. They are few, for me anyway. I could, I suppose, imagine myself terminally ill; in extreme pain; or sick and old and incapacitated and needing to just give up and let go and get out.

But it needs to be said that contemplation of suicide for me has always been rather abstract and rather removed from reality, because I have never, not even in my darkest hours, considered it for myself. Perhaps I have never been in extremis. Perhaps I am not really the suicidal type. Perhaps I am a coward. Who knows? But for whatever reason, suicide has not ever presented itself to me, in any of the difficulties which I have faced, as an option.

The thing which stands behind it, of course, is death. And death is final. It doesn’t matter how much one might believe, or not believe in the life hereafter – death by one’s own hand, remains a dark and final choice. A kind of absolute rejection of any of the options or possibilities which life might present us with. To embrace death in this way can only mean that life has become so terrible, so horrific, so utterly destructive to oneself, that the natural repulsion and fear which all of us have of death is not enough to turn us from it. This is a valley in which I have never walked.

The suicide of my partner, Brian, made me ponder all these things anew, because beyond the horror and the shock of being confronted by the person one loves most in the world hanging on the end of a dog leash; beyond the pain and the agony which the living must cope with, one needs to – or at least I need to – come to terms with that terrible decision. Everyone tells me (indeed I frequently tell myself) that I must not blame myself. That, of course, is the most difficult thing to do, because there is no-one there to argue the case with anymore. There is no-one there to win the case with. There is no-one there any more and you are just left with you. And the arguments and the case quickly seem to wear very thin indeed. Everything starts to melt and dissipate.

Of course, suicide is the ultimate checkmate in life’s game of chess – because there is no answer beyond it. Of course it is cruel. Of course it is meant to hurt. But still, how does one avoid the voice in the back of one’s head which breathes “if only”?

And so I have tried to unpack his mind and stare into the pond of his life and try to make sense of this awful thing which he did. Naturally, I will never succeed, because it can’t be done. But that doesn’t stop me trying. I find myself trying to imagine what his last moments were like – why he plugged in his cellphone for charging. Why he closed all the curtains. Whether he said goodbye to the dogs. I try to imagine how, or whether he struggled as he jumped from the low pine stool on which he finally stood. I wonder how long it took for him to die and what it was like. I know he was playing his favourite piece of music from Handel’s “Watermusic”, but I wonder what the other terrible sounds were. And what the thoughts were in his head.

What I saw, when I found him, as I was meant to, was grotesque. A manikin, entirely still. What he had done, by forcing me to find him, was to drag every childhood fear from under the bed; from inside the cupboard; from behind the door and said “Here!” “Here it is!” “Look at it!” “Boo!” “Got Ya!”

No-one hangs themself on the spur of the moment. They decide a long time before that this is what they will do. And they plan how they will do it. Which beam in the ceiling? Which stool? How? Perhaps not when – but certainly how.

What comes to me now, over and over again is that poem by Stevie Smith “Not waving, but drowning”. The image is of a dead man, but still moaning. And the people around him speculating on why. “Perhaps it was too cold for him?” “Perhaps his heart gave way?” they wonder. “Oh no, no, no”, moans the dead man. “ I was much too far out all my life. And not waving, but drowning”.

Throughout his life Brian waved – or appeared to be waving. The impression he gave was of contentment and energy and movement. And this is the most shocking part. That we who knew him and loved him were all wrong and that the frantic waving was not what we thought it was. And the real tragedy was that he didn’t seem to be calling for help. He seemed to be calling for attention. And we all gave him attention – lots of it, but not help.

I have had letters of sympathy from people who have also experienced the suicide of someone close to them. They all say the same thing. They know exactly the depth of the pain I feel, because they have felt it themselves. They know it is a different pain to other kinds of death and other kinds of loss. They know it is one thing for someone to die in a car accident or from an illness and quite another to deliberately take one’s own life. This is not to demean or belittle other forms of dying. It is just to say that there is a very profound difference between them. The difference is that he had a choice, and he chose death. And that is what is so terribly difficult for we, the living, to cope with.

The way some people cope is to lean on God – and somehow God helps them. Many people have told me that they are holding me in their prayers and I am very grateful to them. Some time ago, before all this, I was listening to Radio phone-in programme late one night, while driving home. The topic was life after death and they had some guy on the programme who sounded like a mixture of some sort of psychic and New Age chrystals and oils type specialist . Lots of people were phoning in with experiences of loved ones who had come back to them in one form or another. Grandad was spotted sitting on the verandah in the hat he always wore. Husband appeared at the foot of the bed in his running shorts and vest.

There was almost complete unanimity about the fact that there was life after death and dead people seemed to want to come back and make the people whom they had left behind feel better about things. I felt the need to phone in with a somewhat different perspective. I have never experienced anything of the sort – nor do I really expect to. I said that although I recognised that by far the majority human experience is a religious one, that it would be unscientific to ignore the experience of many – which is this – of nothingness. I immediately elicited sympathy from the chat show host and her guest. I was quick to counter. The contemplation of this nothingness does not alarm me.

Nor does it make me a pessimist. I am totally happy with it and I have no expectations of it. But it is sad as well, because I know, inasmuch as I am ever able to know, that I will never see him again. He is gone from my life forever. It was always, during our 7 year relationship, “till death us do part”. And death has.