The Testicle's Lament

It was with some trepidation that I started listening to the CD my partner, Leon, bought me for Christmas. You see, my experience of his choice of music has not been a good one. Indeed, after 11 years, we have come to a very sensible truce on the matter. He needs to assume that I won’t like anything he likes musically, and vice versa. I don’t waste time and money forcing him to attend symphony concerts with me, where he sits disconsolately playing games on his cellphone and stifling yawns – and he doesn’t expect me to attend dreadful concerts where you are made to stand for 4 hours and get your eardrums blasted out by frantic specks on the stage.

It is a truce. We have agreed that we will not even try to convince each other of the merits of each other’s choices. It is quite fruitless. In the car, things can get a little tense – seeing Leon operates on the seemingly unchallengeable “driver chooses” principle -and then he insists on driving. On weekends, it is slightly bearable, because the compromise channel is one which plays “Golden Oldies”, which I find, if I force myself, I can tolerate.

In the flush of new love, Leon bought me a series of CDs. Every choice seemed to me, stranger than the last one. He had identified that I liked “Classical” Music. So that seemed to mean anything with strings, vaguely playing hotel lobby music. Alternatively, anything that sounded even slightly like church – even if it was Gregorian chant with a beat. In the flush of new love – I smiled. I thanked him. I played the CDs once, and then put them on the shelf until I could secretly donate them to a good cause.

One has lasted, though – Zbignieu Preisner’s “Funeral for my Friend”, which I play, perhaps twice a year. And when I do, I really love it. So, thank you, Leon for that.

But one swallow does not make a classical CD consultant, so I was a bit fearful when I spied that one of this year’s presents was, again, to be a CD. It turned out to be Cecila Bartoli’s “Sacrificium” – an astonishing collection which features 11 world premiere recordings, in which she has teamed up with Il Giardino Armonico and Giovanni Antonini, showcasing music written for castrati. I should not have worried. It is quite brilliant.

But the history and use of castrati in the glory days of the Baroque era, is something extraordinarily odd and it appears to have involved fashion, art, eroticism and business in the same way as, perhaps, the fashion industry has, in our time. But(as the writer of the piece introducing the CD puts it), the cry, which probably rang out thousands of times in Baroque era Opera Houses - Evviva il coltellino! (“Long live the little knife!”) demonstrates just how tied into the cultural milieu this cruel practise had become. In our time, it would certainly cause consternation, if not scandal, if someone were to shout out “Long Live anorexia!” at a fashion show Does that make us less honest than they were about our likes and dislikes when it comes to our artistic addictions?

The history of castrato singing is pretty vile. The European appetite for the voice, in collusion with the ecclesiastical ban on women singing in church, meant that by the 18th century as many as 4,000 boys were castrated in Italy alone. As a matter of historical fact, however, the overbearing presence of castrati on the opera stage, was not simply because of the perceived quality of the voice. (A contemporary remark has it that “a female voice is far more beautiful than the best castrato voice” (Giovani Battista Doni – De praestantia musicae veteris ,Florence, 1647)).

The profiling of the castrato voice had much more to do with, as the writer of the article in the piece argues, more to do with the fact that “ a freshly gelded boy can be introduced to voice training at once, whereas an otherwise comparable girl must wait until the end of puberty , when the mutation of her voice is complete, before serious training can be considered”. This meant that a castrato’s voice training could begin some 10 years earlier than a girl’s.

At the same time, a castrato, at the beginning of his musical career is still a child – and because of the hopelessness of his future, is completely dependent on his benefactors for his well-being. Castrati had access to virtually no other career. At the same time, keeping the production line going and under their control, shrewd entrepreneurs could ensure that the public addiction for the castrato voice could be maintained and fed.

In Rome, for 200 years, women were forbidden on the stage and falsettists could not provide what the public were looking for. This lead to the custom of allowing women’s roles to be played by castrati. Boys of barely 15 years old, benefitting from the head-start in their training, and androgynous in their looks, would transport Roman audiences into a state of what the writer calls a state of “sinful excitement”. And it was this mixture, the sound of the voice, the extraordinary virtuosity, the costume and the almost intentional erotic gender-play that made the castrati into beings quite close to the pop stars of today.

Strange, isn’t it, how much things change, the more they stay the same? Not only in fashion, but in the church, which is now battling to deal with the homosexual under its bed. One wonders, here also, whether there is some sense of tremens et facinens – fear and awe. Because it is nothing different to the present ecclesiastical demand for emasculated gay males (and only such)who may feel called into Holy Orders which seems to be required – for the sake, of what? Order? Theology? Ethics? Pleasing God?

The music on the CD is breathtaking. There are times when I get a little weary of the endless trilling and scales – but it is still, whatever one’s musical proclivities, thrilling. However behind the music, there is a shadow - almost as if it were composed for a condemned man. There is an ethereal sadness. It is difficult to miss. It is like eating Kudu Steak with one grazing outside.

Midnight Mass at St Michael and All Angels Observatory, 2009

There is something extremely peculiar about attending Mass on Christmas Eve. It has, of course, the strongest overtones of pagan ritual - which is historically what Christianity simply usurped. Dead of night. Phallic Christmas Trees. Should be the winter solstice, but we live in the south down here. Celebration of new birth etc

So, to see the priest bearing a tiny (what was it? porcelain? alabaster? plastic?) figurine of baby Jesus on a pillow, (looking from the distance I was at, for all the world like a foetus), it cannot fail to make one think about things like that.

As usual at St Michael's, the music was thrilling. I was glad to say the familiar and do the comforting. I breathed in the smoke and I knelt for the incarnation, as is my habit, Sunday by Sunday. And I faced, afresh, the strangeness - the real peculiarity of a human God. A God who might be, as one songwriter put it, "a stranger on a bus, trying to make his way home". The absurdity of the eternal constrained by the temporal.

And, from that temporal point of view, is it not sobering to see that, if you look around the country, that most babies were born on Christmas Day, in the poorest Provinces? In the Western Cape - there was one child born. We are outnumbered some 60 to 1 in some parts of the country - so great is the disparity. So great is the difference between us.

And then there is the great moment after the Mass, where the priest and sub-deacons kneel before the crib and adore the new-born child. All the lights of the church are turned off and we find ourselves in complete darkness, save for the glinting lights of the two Christmas trees which frame the high altar and the candles. And, of course, the light which shines from the Nativity scene. It is a brief moment, and then the carol "Silent Night" is sung, by all, and from memory.

For me, this is the song my father would sing to me as a child, by way of a lullaby, to get me to go to sleep. He would produce, from a drawer in his bedroom, an old and used Christmas card, on which the words of the carol were printed. And he would sing to me, in a voice sonorous and clear and comforting. My father singing me to sleep.

And of course, the Christ-child is the lullaby of the Eternal to this battered world of ours. When we hear it, we can, even if momentarily, let go of our fears and our struggles. We can find peace, if only for a moment. For the briefest of moments.

We can pause in wonder at the place where divinity empties itself into human form. And we can ponder what the point of it all might be. Because it is far from obvious. It is, in reality, anything but clear. The message of Christmas down the ages has been, that here, in this absurity, is where we find the best and the most comforting truth there is. Into our darkness, shines the light.

Journeying for Justice - Stories of an ongoing faith-based struggle

Journeying for Justice – Stories of an ongoing faith-based struggle”, compiled by the PACSA 30th anniversary Collective, Cluster Publications and Jive Media, Pietermaritzburg, 2009, 144pp
It is undoubtedly the case that the Pietermaritzburg Agency for Christian Social Awareness (PACSA) was, and perhaps still is, a highly significant organisation, in the life of Pietermaritzburg and the surrounding areas of that city. The book correctly locates the beginnings of the organisation within the context of a developing Black Consciousness ideology in the 1970s. The major premise on which it was formed was to start a white organisation, which would set about “converting” white people – or rather to win them over to a more democratic frame of political consciousness.

Now, whether it actually ever really did that, is difficult to tell. The book does not deal with the question directly, but rather suggests that although that may have been the impetus for its beginnings as an organisation, it soon found itself pulled into the whirlpool of broader political involvement in the late 1970’s and 1980’s.

At the same time, the book (and I would understand here that the book comes from the organisation itself) also seems to give the impression that the issue of white “conversion” was so vast and so impossible a task, that perhaps it would be true to say that not even PACSA itself believed that achieving this was ever a real possibility – certainly not to the extent which would have been needed to change the outcome of a whites only election.

What happened, and what is engagingly documented in the book, is a range of information dissemination - “Factsheets” - which provided white people (and indeed anyone else) with the kind of information they would not get easily elsewhere (because of draconian government restrictions at the time, on the media).

Another way in which PACSA sought to create solidarity around the cause of liberation was through “Agape” (fellowship) meals. These were Ecumenical quasi-Eucharistic events in which like-minded people could come together to affirm each other and to share bread and drink in a meal of fellowship. These, apparently died away after a while – but their significance in creating a committed community of like-minded and mutually supported individuals seems hard to overestimate.

Having lived in Pietermaritzburg during the 1980’s and early 1990’s, I knew many of the personalities featured in this book. I never involved myself very directly in the work of PACSA, because I was, in fact, working underground for the African National Congress. And this was the problem: For me to have been an active member of PACSA would have unnecessarily exposed the work I was doing elsewhere to the security police, so I could not. Pietermaritzburg was, however, an extremely small place and whites involved in the struggle at any level were few and far between – so we all knew each other fairly well – and I am sure the security police knew all of us too!

This is one of the features of the organisation which the book does not deal with adequately, in my opinion. I suppose it is understandable in what amounts to a commemorative publication. But the fact is, PACSA also had its problems. It was a small organisation. Its connection to the liberation movements was somewhat idiosyncratic at times. It was, or at least appeared to be, a church organisation, but it seemed to operate almost like a political organisation – taking orders from no-one. This made it fairly unpredictable on the one hand and on the other, sometimes much too close to some of the highly problematic positions taken by the Heads of Churches , at the time.

Let me say immediately that Peter Kerchhoff, founder and major driver of PACSA between 1978-99, was a man I admire greatly. I have said so elsewhere and I have no hesitation in saying so again now. But he did not function politically. He functioned, 99% of the time, from his heart. And that could be extremely difficult, every now and again, from a political perspective.

This aspect, the book does not deal with. It is, of course, part of the bigger issue of the relationship between the Church as a whole and the struggle for liberation. That there was a relationship, is obvious. That the Liberation movements needed the Church, is also obvious. What is not so obvious is how timid the Liberation movements were in the presence of the churches, on the one hand, and how difficult it was, from within the Liberation movements to work with them, because of their almost total lack of strategy and accountability. PACSA seems to me to have fallen, frequently, between these two stools of church accountability and political responsibility.

Bar that point – and I would say it is a fairly significant point – the book is well worth having, if one is either interested in the period, of if you lived through it. It certainly brings us now, to a point of anamnēsis - “remembering”. A remembering beyond nostalgia. A remembering which takes the lessons of the past to be used in the present, in order to change the future. PACSA certainly did that when I was living in Pietermaritzburg. I understand that it continued to do so on a range of issues, including Land and Gender, after I had left. I have no doubt it will continue into the future.

The question for me is always going to be – to what extent is an organisation an extension of the Church, sometimes at its most difficult and its most reactionary and to what extent is PACSA prophetic to both Church and society. Because I am fairly certain the latter is what the organisation wants to be.

Which makes me wonder why such an important issue was, seemingly, avoided in this book.

Questioning my own position

So, it is now holidays. This means that the child-minder has gone off to enjoy three weeks of holiday in Limpopo – well over 1000 kms from where we are; it means that Leon and I are also on holiday; and it means that the children are not at school. It is a recipe for stress, believe me.

We have done Ratanga Junction. How can I describe Ratanga Junction? “Hell”, would be too easy. In fact, “hell” would be too kind. It is more like taking your brain out, putting it through a shredder and then putting it back in your head, while at the same time using a set of pliers to tear pieces of flesh from your body. And, lest I forget the particular form of torture they seem to have perfected at Ratanga Junction – they force you to listen to indescribable music, which is broadcast from hidden speakers in the foliage, so there is no escape.

Most of the experience is standing in very long snaking queues, full of large parents stuffing themselves on hot-dogs together with fractious, over-excited children – in the baking sun. Then what you do is, you get to go on a ride. Now let me say, right away, that nothing on Gods Earth would make me go on one of these rides. They seemed either to be so tame as to be mind-numbing, even for the 3 – 6 year-olds for whom they were intended. Or, so utterly vicious that I felt my stomach heave just watching them!

There were log boats that got dragged up what looked like mountains to me, and then left to plummet down into a water filled gorge below. (A sign warned, helpfully, that you would get wet on this ride. Indeed, said the sign, you may get soaked). There were twisting things, which seemed designed to make you throw up. There were plastic bubbles in a pond, which you got into, and into which via a kind of reverse vacuum machine, they blew in air and then zipped you up, so that you fell about trying to stand up (An extra R20, that one was). On the other hand, there were silly aeroplanes which went round and round in a circle, at different levels, depending on what you did with the joy-stick; and stupid looking miniature game viewing trucks, which were on a mono-rail.

Needless to say, my children had a ball. More than a ball. Two balls! They want to go back! Oh, woe is me!

And then today, worn out by yesterday’s fairly extreme experience, we decided to let them choose any DVD they wanted to from the DVD loan shop. The youngest boy (6) chooses something about Dinosaurs. Well and good. The eldest (8) chooses Barbie.

Now, I suddenly find myself thrown into a quandary. Why a quandary, I ask myself? If he wants to choose Barbie, then let him choose Barbie! He chose it, I noticed, in a somewhat surreptitious way. The system in this particular DVD loan shop is that you choose your DVD. Then you take whatever box is behind your chosen DVD to the counter, for them to insert the actual DVD. The box you take to the counter is anonymous, in that you can’t tell what the DVD is by looking at it. It was this box which he brought to me. Not wanting to have him watch the axe murderer, because of a lack of supervision on my part, I did my parental duty and demanded to see the actual DVD he had chosen. He pointed out Barbie.

Now there was a millisecond – I have to confess – when my instinct said “Barbie! For crying out aloud! Why would you want to see Barbie?!” But I didn’t. I said, so quickly that he would not have noticed the millisecond’s hesitation, “OK, that’s fine”.

Later, ruminating on the matter, I said to my partner – “Should I have shown disapproval?” He looked horrified! “No!” he said, “that’s exactly the way you would open the closet door!”

Of course, he is completely right. The moment my child detects disapproval, on my part, he will hide it. And that I would not want. So, as it is as the moment, he likes Beyoncé and dresses up like her. He likes Ballet and did it last year at school. He wears a long-haired wig a friend of ours gave the kids as part of a range of dress-up outfits. He is happy when he does these things and he does them in front of us. We have taken the carefully thought through position, that we will neither encourage, nor disallow the behaviour. That, it seems, is who this child is.

But it was my own reaction to his wanting Barbie, which was so intriguing. I am a gay man. I know about gender and stereotypes and about gender roles etc. I know about prejudice. I know about homophobia. But I want to tell you, in spite of all of that, the homophobe in me, is pretty close to the surface. It springs out and confronts me when I least expect it. I may not like it. I may not want it. I may thoroughly disapprove of it and intellectually disavow it, but it is there. And like racism, the thing I need to do, is to keep it in very firm check, so that it does not affect my children.

Siena cake

This is an extraordinary recipe, (also called Panforte - or "strong bread") which started out by not turning out as I expected it to - and then DID turn out as I had expected after waiting a while - you have to trust the process! Don't be disheartened when what comes out of the oven resembles a piece of chip-board. It does somehow change after a while. The end result is very Christmas-sy, very chewy and very showy. Not to mention quite exciting to make!

Apparently it is originally a medieval recipe,from Tuscany. It keeps for anything up to three weeks. This version comes from Great Italian food and was published by the Australian Women's Weekly.

I would imagine it would be great with strong coffee - which I don't drink. But if you do...

Siena Cake
120g (3/4 cup) blanched almonds, toasted and coarsely chopped
1 cup hazelnuts coarsely chopped and roasted
¼ cup glacé apricots finely chopped
¼ cup glacé pineapple finely chopped
1/3 cup mixed peel
100g (2/3 cup) cake flour
2T cocoa powder
1 t ground cinnamon
1/3 cup (75g) Castor sugar
½ cup (175g) honey
60g dark chocolate – melted

Mix the nuts, fruit, peel, flour, cocoa and cinnamon together well.
Line the base and sides of a 20 cm diameter sandwich cake tin with baking paper.

Mix the Castor sugar and honey in a saucepan and stir over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved and boiling point is reached. When the mixture boils, leave it to simmer for about 5 minutes on a reduced heat.

Add the syrup and melted chocolate to the fruit and nut mixture and mix well. (Work quickly, because this starts to set fast, so expect it and don't be alarmed as the thing starts to take on the consistence of setting concrete!). Spread the mixture quickly and evenly into the prepared pan. (Use your hands. It should be cool enough at this point.)

Bake uncovered in a preheated over at 150°C for about 35 minutes. Leave it to cool in the pan. Turn it out, remove the baking paper and wrap it in tin foil. Leave it in the foil for a least a day before cutting it into squares.

Dust with icing snow (or not...)

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is dead

Thabo Mbeki’s Health Minister is dead. She died of “complications” which stemmed from a liver transplant she had some time ago. On her tomb, whether she likes it or not, and whether it is “disrespectful” or not, will be the words “Aids denialist”. That will not be speaking ill of the dead - it will simply be stating the truth about some of her life.

She advocated HIV positive patients to eat garlic, beetroot, African potato (Madumbe), lemon juice AS A SUBSTITUTE for ARVs. That is the point at issue. No-one would suggest that eating these things would be bad for you. No-one would suggest that they may not even possibly be good. But to suggest that ARVs are harmful and these things can be used to substitute them, is simply criminal, when you are the Health Minister of the country.

The first time I met her was very soon after the exiles were allowed back into the country after apartheid. It was in the ANC office, in Pietermaritzburg. She and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (who was at the time still married to Jacob Zuma) had come to have a meeting with that extraordinary man, Harry Gwala, who ruled the Kwazulu Natal Midlands with a grip of iron, despite the fact that he had lost the use of his arms whilst a long term prisoner on Robben Island.

It was, really, mandatory for any upwardly mobile returning exile to pay their respects to him. He was, in some respects, a King-maker, in both the ANC and the Communist Party. He was undoubtedly influential, certainly in the early days, after his release. And so, there was a trickle of exiles, returning to the country; somewhat unsure of themselves – and needing to establish themselves, either within an existing powerbase, or alongside one.

Now Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Manto Tshabalala-Msimang had, during their stay in the United Kingdom, run some sort of exiled Health Trust (if I am not mistaken, it was called the Health and Refugee Trust). I never quite understood what it was supposed to have done or what purpose it served. But it seemed to pay them a salary and it seemed to have access to a certain amount of funds. So, they came, ostensibly to talk about transferring that fund (and the work it was doing) back to South Africa, now that the Exiles had been allowed to return.

We sat around a large table, rather squashed in a fairly small room, which is what passed for the ANC meeting room in its then offices. I remember Harry Gwala being his usual, gentlemanly, cultured self (he was a lot of other things as well, but he was also that!). Eloquent words of welcome came from his mouth. His use of the English language impeccable; his speech always peppered with accurate quotations from Shakespeare and Stalin – both of whom he knew extremely well indeed.

And I watched Manto Tshabalala scan the room. She had extremely thick glasses, giving her an Owl-like appearance. She paid extremely careful attention when we all introduced ourselves. I watched her noting who was there and who was who.

A couple of years later, I encountered her again. This time, when I was working in the HIV/AIDS section of a Non-governmental organisation called the National Progressive Primary Health Care Network (NPPHCN). She was not in the Aids section of the organisation. She was in the Primary Health Care part. So I worked with her and watched her behaviour over one or two years, in an organisational setting.

She was extremely difficult to work with. It seemed to me that there was more than a tinge of racism to her make-up – but more than that, I got the impression she was highly manipulative and fundamentally lazy (intellectually and otherwise) – and that she would go to the most elaborate and extraordinary lengths, to mask that laziness.

So, her arguments would be, almost always ad hominem. (Why bother with the details, or the intellectual integrity, if you could bluff and bluster your way through your job?) I also came to see her has extremely ruthless and power-hungry. There was an almost bitter edge to her and this came out in the way she spoke to people – particularly people she did not see as important to her rise to wherever it was that she was going. So, I have to say, I steered clear of her. Once or twice I gave her a lift in my car to places she was going, but at all times I kept the conversation general and vague.

I was, therefore, extremely surprised when she was made Health Minister. I knew she had her eye on the position from the moment she stepped off the plane on her return from exile, but Mandela gave it to her rival, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, instead. But Manto wasn’t going to give up on that one, and eventually she got what she wanted.

That she abused her powers; that she was a disaster as a Health Minister; that she was a kleptomaniac while in Exile; that her medical Degree from the Soviet Union was a little suspect; that she was an alcoholic and that she probably was the cause of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, because of her Aids denialist polities – is common cause. But the issue of how she got to that position and how she was sustained and protected in that position, and how he was rewarded by yet another Ministerial position (even in the Zuma government) and how she maintained her extraordinarily high level of popular support within the ANC (number 55!) – that remains, for me, a complete mystery.

She was given a transplant liver – some say through jumping the queue by abusing her position in government - but that one has no proof of. There were (what seemed to me at any rate) very clear reports of her drinking bouts, even after receiving the new liver. Yet she continued to be supported by people very high up.

I do not understand why she continued to be supported, despite everything. It cannot be because the ANC will support its own, no matter what. There have been numerous examples, in recent history of where the ANC does not do that – where it is prepared to simply kick people out and leave them out in the cold - but not in the case of Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. It is a real mystery.

And her legacy - and consequently the legacy of the ANC in relation to HIV and AIDS, because of her and because of the President who supported her and the members of that government that kept silent instead of opposing her, is the entirely unnecessary deaths of thousands of people. There is no circumspect way of putting that.

I, for one, still continue to support the ANC. I have to say though, her death makes that support, just a fraction easier. The explanation as to why she was supported by the Movement, so unflinchingly, throughout her political life, remains more than difficult.

2010 or D9?

This rather strange piece of art is what I encountered at the recent 2010 FIFA World Cup Final Draw, in the media centre at the Cape Town International Media Centre. It is entitled "Penalty" and it is by a South African artist called Keith Calder. Do you think he got the delivery boxes mixed up for District 9?

The nostalgic condition

I read an extract from Jacob Dlamini's "Native nostalgia" (Jacana 2009) today, which got me thinking. He speaks of a range of anxieties at the heart of his nostalgia:

"I am concerned" he writes in the introduction, "that , in its technocratic drive to erase the legacies of apartheid and bring about economic development, the ANC has created an anti-politics machine in which black people - who allegedly suffered the same way, struggled the same way and lived the same way under apartheid - feature as nothing more than the objects of state policies, or, worse, passive recipients of state-led service delivery".

When I was lecturering theology at the Federal Theological Seminary in the 1980s, I came across several students who were Black Consciousness Movement proponents. I have to say, I am extremely glad I came across them, because they did a whole lot to shape my thinking and my politics. And I really wish, very sincerely, that many more white people had the opportunity to live cheek by jowel with people such as them. Because they never gave me an inch!

They were deep thinkers, most of them. (Some of them were seriously damaged racists, but they were very few and far between). But in the majority, they had come to Black Consciousness through a profound philosophical and intellectual journey. Almost always some of the really critical turning-point moments in their political lives had been caused by white aggression, or white brutality, or white racists. In general, I found them to be somewhat more conservative than their ANC counterparts, but also more radical in relation to their politics. Or perhaps, the latter was just the way I experienced things, because I was the nearest white around. But rightly, or wrongly, I seemed to detect that there was always some element of fairly unbending conservatism as a basic thrust - in relation to culture, tradition and philosophy.

Dlamini distinguishes between what he calls "reflective nostalgia" which is "essentially a revelation that "longing and critical thinking are not opposed to each other, because affective memories do not absolve one from compassion, judgement or critical reflection" - and "native nostalgia".

Then what would "native nostalgia" be? It is, according to Dlamini, a "modest contribition to continuing attempts to rescue South African history and the telling of it from what ... has [been] correctly identified as the distorting master narrative of black dispossession that dominates the historiography of the struggle".

This "master narrative" wants us to believe that all black people experienced apartheid in the same way. That they all suffered in the same way and that they all, in some way, fought against apartheid - and in the same way. But of course, this is patently untrue. It is "Native nostalgia" and it is extraordinarily dangerous, because what it does is to create a world view shorn of difference, or of nuance or of challenge, other than that which it has defined and circumscribed.

It is this nostalgia which can produce the statements "we blacks believe" or "we blacks understand" or "we blacks prefer". The truth is far from this, because of the sheer diversity,complexity and nuance which is available in any culture or group.

But the tragedy is, that once you have defined the world as such, and once you have convinced enough people the the world really is like that, it becomes something quite close to heresy to suggest anything different.

I used to listen, seriously and intently to my black conciousness students telling me that "Black is beautiful". And of course, I could see the obvious importance of that view. When all you have ever heard, throughout your life, is that white is beautiful and Black is second-class and undesirable, the assertion that "Black is beautiful" is indeed a liberating one. It took a certain sophistication and intellectual agility to move beyond that assertion - and many of my students appeared not to be able to make that leap - not during the years that I was with them, anyway.

But they were always stymied and extraordinarily irritated by me when I asked them the question "is Lucas Mangope beautiful?" (Mangope was a "Homeland" leader. A black puppet dictator, created by, financed by and protected by the apartheid state. He was a vicious "Uncle Tom"). Was this black beautiful?, I would ask.

Naturally, it was not easy for them to answer yes. But they also did not want to answer no. And the reason behind that was that then their whole ediface started to become unstable. Steve Biko had a brilliant answer. He called the Mangopes of the world "non-white", cleverly co-opting the terminology of the apartheid state for his own purposes. But Biko was neither nostalgic, nor sentimental. He also happened to be one of the greatest brains South Africa has ever produced. He saw the problem of making all people one thing. Even all in one particular group, one thing. It is, simply, not possible.

So, Jacob Dlamini's anxiety, to my mind, is spot on. Nostalgia of the type he describes, has the effect of seriously objectifying people, and treating them as a same-thinking, same-feeling blob.

The truth is, they are not. It is a critical mistake to see them as such. However to take the other path, one would be forced to give up some of the monochrome view of the universe which has been developed so lovingly and so relentlessly, over the years.

Imbibing Cape Culture

I spent the day today, or most of it anyway, at the end of year staff party. These things are necessary – when else during the year can you get drunk in an office situation and make sexual advances on people you usually pass files to?

This one was held at a government facility on the beach at Melkbosstrand. It is a strange, unimaginative building, built right on the primary sand dune. It was never legal. Some people in the Department got into a bit of trouble in the 1990s and then the matter was forgotten, apparently. So the building remains – a real blight on the fairly rough landscape.

The theme was “West Coast” so there was lots of sand, and sea and West Coast delicacies – like Snoek (fish) on the braai (Barbecue); tripe curry; potjie kos (stew cooked in a three legged cast iron pot. There was also West Coast culture, which I saw, for the first time in full cry today.

My experience of ‘Coloured” (or mixed race) people of the Western Cape has been that they are fairly formal. “Mr” this and “Mrs” that. They are fairly conservative and fairly underexposed. They stick pretty much to themselves. (Naturally, I am talking in huge generalisations here – but this is just my observation. And of course, all generalisations are false...)

So, to see them “letting their hair down” (as my mother would have said) was an interesting experience. They jived. They danced. They did things which I think are called “party dances” where everyone does what looks like an aerobic exercise to music. Women in scarves cooked Snoek over open fires and stirred massive three legged pots. Inside, the Karaoke was reaching fever pitch as slightly flat vocal chords murdered yet another song. (Or maybe not! Maybe that is what they were supposed to sound like!)

The man managing the dance music seemed to cater for the “African” and the “Coloured” groups, in particular. The African set had lots of Kwaito and what I have come to recognise as Hip-Hop; the Coloured set had beat-y sentimental love-song type numbers. And there was an unfamiliar (to me anyway) unity between the two groups on the dance floor. Off the dance floor, the two groups sat apart from each other, in groups of their own. The whites also formed their own group. This is what life in the work environment is like. This is what Cape Town is like.

It cannot be that language is the issue. Everyone in the department understands English. And whereas not everyone may know how to speak Afrikaans or Xhosa – in the work environment, English is the way people communicate. So language cannot be the reason why people choose to sit together.

The other thing I noticed rather a lot of, was alcohol. Alcohol which appeared to have been brought from home in cooler bags – not bought by the state. It was flowing freely. Even after lunch, it was very much in evidence and I battled to understand how people would be driving in that condition. But obviously, they were going to be.

It was, however, the performer who strummed a guitar and his strange accompaniment on the accordion that gave me a taste of Cape musical culture. It was vibrant, simple and enjoyable. And all of this next to a sea that was the most extraordinary azure colour – “Kabbeljou (Cob) water” said someone. "Haai (shark) water", said another. It was astonishingly beautiful – with Robben Island in front of us and Table Mountain to the left. It was a celebratory day I had, for sure. Just a pity it was, as is usual here, a culturally divided one.

Christmas Boxes

I never usually see our Postman. Letters just arrive in the postbox. (Well, not actual letters, but you know what I mean. Crate-loads of junk mail; various bills from doctors and eye specialists; and the occasional request from a charity organisation; telephone bills and electricity accounts - that kind of stuff.) So I was quite surprised when the Postman - or someone I assumed was the Postman, pressed the intercom and stood there fumbling with a particular piece of junk mail he seemed to want to deliver personally, into my hands.

At exactly the same time, the children's school transport arrived. I had to open the gate for them to enter. The postman entered with them - I was doomed.

Christmas Box collecting starts early in Cairp Tahn. What is a Christmas Box, you ask?(lucky you to be asking such a thing!) It is anyone who has ever done anything with you, or for you, or near you - coming to your door and basically demanding a Christmas present. You may never have seen the person before in your life. Their connection with you may be utterly and extremely vague - but somehow, they feel entitled from early in December(I mean I was asked for the first one yesterday - the 8th!)to get "Christmas Boxes".

Now, what does one do? Do you say no. Do you say, look, you work for the Council or for the garden service, or the post office and you get paid for that. Why should I be giving you a Christmas Box? Or do you pretend you have left the City for the month of December? Do you hide? Do you throw water at them? Or do you meekly hand over the dosh and get it over with.

In my case, I hand over the dosh. It is just a whole lot simpler that way. I admit to being a bit irritable about it. I confess to finding it doubly irritating that my black middle-class colleague at work has never even heard of the practise - "because 'they' know 'we' (black people) won't do that" (sic!, she explained.

But I do it all the same. It is part of our programming as white people in South Africa. We did it all through Apartheid. There is no reason to stop it now. And it is the season to be merry (albeit somewhat early!. And I certainly earn more than "they" do (even though I probably have more debt than "they" do as well!)Have done the Postman. Have done the garden service. Waiting for the waste collection people, the meter-readers, the passers-by of one sort or another. They will come. Believe me, they will come.

Queer female Bishops - The world finally ends.

I was recently sent this really interesting post on an interesting Blog : Fr Scott Gunn writes:



Of “bonds of affection” and misplaced anxiety


If you are one of those who glance at 7WD but who are not Episco-geeks, go have a look at this news article about the election this past weekend of the Rev’d Mary Douglas Glasspool as one of two new bishops suffragan in the Diocese of Los Angeles. OK, now that we’re all caught up, I have a bit of a rant to share with you, dear reader.

Mary Glasspool’s election has energized progressives around the Anglican Communion as it has outraged conservatives. Sadly, as in the case of Gene Robinson, many people will work themselves into a tizzy over someone who will serve in a distant realm. What effect will Mary Glasspool have on, say, South Carolina? Not much, unless you’re looking for trouble. And that’s just what’s happening.

Within minutes of her election, Canon Kendall Harmon had issued this statment:

This decision represents an intransigent embrace of a pattern of life Christians throughout history and the world have rejected as against biblical teaching. It will add further to the Episcopal Church’s incoherent witness and chaotic common life, and it will continue to do damage to the Anglican Communion and her relationship with our ecumenical partners.

Of course, this is exactly the argument that fear-mongers make in response to any wider embrace the church is practicing. People said the same thing when the Euro-American church began to ordain people of color and to advocate an end to the slave trade. Racial discrimination was seen as biblical and orthodox. More recently, they’re still being made by some people about women’s ordination. Doesn’t anyone see the pattern? “We don’t want ___ in our club. We’ve always managed without them, so why start now?” Such an attitude is not hard to comprehend, but it is sadly misguided. And it runs counter to the Gospels, the teachings of St. Paul, and indeed the witness of the entire Hebrew Scriptures.

Sure, I could use proof texts to argue against, say, same-sex relationships. But then I’d be opening a whole can of worms in my ethical life. If you’re going to yell at gay people, shouldn’t you be yelling all the more at wealthy people who pull up to church in fancy cars? Oops. They pay the salary. Better not yell at them.

If you’re going to scream about same-sex relationships, shouldn’t you be screaming about divorce? Oops. Several key leaders in the conservative Anglican movement are — guess what — divorced. So loud conservatives choose to make a nuanced exception for that one. And then when you start poking around, you quickly see that the whole motivation for opposing the inclusion of lesbian and gay people is based on fear. People are always afraid of the unknown. It’s human nature. But it’s not the nature of Jesus Christ, who again and again said “be not afraid” while he was holding out a hand to the most marginalized people of his society.

For years, I’ve been urging patience in the US in our relations with the Anglican Communion. Often Americans are too quick to act unilaterally and too slow to listen. At times, our posture in Anglican Communion conversations has been patronizing or neo-colonial. But I think we learned something in the last few years about listening. Certainly, the Lambeth Conference was a watershed event. Now I think more leaders in the Episcopal Church understand our place in the Anglican Communion. I hope more and more people understand the value of our communion with a global Anglican Communion.

Around the Communion, the walls of fear are breaking down. I’ve personally spoken with bishops in two different provinces in Africa who until recently did not ordain women at all. And yet these bishops are now looking forward to enjoying the company of women in their houses of bishops. Experience and grace have transcended fear.

Now we’re told that we have to deny the possibility that God might call lesbian or gay people has bishops. Why? Because it’s not settled yet. Because some don’t like it. Because it could hurt relationships overseas. Nonsense!

We should not expect people in other cultures to share all of our values and beliefs regarding human sexuality. We should be generous in allowing differing cultural contexts. And we should ask the same of our sisters and brothers in other cultures. We should be able to focus on what unites us.

This past week, the parish I serve hosted Bishop John Zawo of the Diocese of Ezo (Sudan). Bishop John offered an inspiring sermon about being prepared to receive Jesus Christ last week, and then he came to our coffee hour and told us about life in his diocese. He was bracingly honest about the brutality of life, but also powerfully inspiring about the vitality of faith in Ezo.

On Monday, he was our guest at home. I spent lots of time sharing conversation with him. I know that he does not share my views or beliefs on the church’s inclusion of GLBT persons. At one point, I asked him what he would say to those who want to separate themselves from the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. I’m paraphrasing, but he said something like this: “Jesus commanded us to be one. We Anglicans are brothers and sisters in Christ. There can be no separation. We need fellowship from one another.”

Embedded in that statement is a sense that we are living through a tough time, but that we must stay together if we hope to be reconciled. As one west African bishop said to me last summer at the Lambeth Conference, “We are family. When families quarrel, they must come together and be reconciled.” I’ve heard similar things from lay people in several countries in Asia and Africa.

The only people who are sowing “incoherent witness and chaotic common life” are schismatic bishops and manipulative Americans. There is no crisis in the pews of the Anglican Communion. The crisis is lived out in business-class airplane seats and episcopal palaces. I will not speculate what the motives are. But I grieve the way we are harming Christ’s body, the church, by our incessant squabbles about second- or third-order matters.

And what of our chief spiritual leader, the Archbishop of Canterbury? He has remained steadfastly silent while several provinces of the Anglican Communion have supported the death penalty for same-sex activity. And yet he was able to muster an almost instantaneous response to the election of Mary Glasspool. Here I’d like to quote his statement in its entirety with some responses to each of his three paragraphs.

The election of Mary Glasspool by the Diocese of Los Angeles as suffragan bishop elect raises very serious questions not just for the Episcopal Church and its place in the Anglican Communion, but for the Communion as a whole.

Well, yes. We need to ask ourselves how long we will tolerate the agenda of our Anglican Communion being set by anxiety- and fear-driven people. Sadly, most of those eager to dwell on schism are, ironically, bishops. The same people who have taken vows to guard the unity of the church seem intent in driving it apart.

The process of selection however is only part complete. The election has to be confirmed, or could be rejected, by diocesan bishops and diocesan standing committees. That decision will have very important implications.

Yes, this decision will have important ramifications. Will the Episcopal Church act in a prophetic manner, giving voice to the millions of gay and lesbian Anglicans living in oppression throughout the world? Will some reactionary Anglicans use this as the latest excuse to go their own way? Will bishops and Standing Committees of the Episcopal Church follow the leading of the Holy Spirit and the canonical process of our church? (Please note: I am not in a position to say with certainty that Glasspool is called by the Holy Spirit; that is for the electing convention and those with a vote to exercise; though I do trust the process in L.A.)

The bishops of the Communion have collectively acknowledged that a period of gracious restraint in respect of actions which are contrary to the mind of the Communion is necessary if our bonds of mutual affection are to hold.

This would hold some water if anyone other than the Episcopal Church had paid a wit of attention to the Windsor Report since it was issued. Since 2003, we’ve consecrated no more gay bishops. As a Church, we’ve authorized no public rites for same-sex blessings. Meanwhile, boundary incursions by Kenya, Rwanda, Nigeria, the Southern Cone, and now even US Anglican dioceses continue unabated. While ECUSA was graciously restraining, Peter Akinola and his friends have been flying all over the world to conferences, holding media briefings, forming new jurisdictions, and utterly ignoring the Windsor Report and the Lambeth Conference resolutions.

Speaking of which, I’m beginning to wonder if anyone has actually read the oft-cited Lambeth 1.10. It calls for the Anglican Communion to listen to the experience of gay and lesbian persons. To my knowledge, no openly gay or lesbian person has ever addressed a Lambeth Conference, a Primates Meeting, or the Anglican Consultative Council. [CORRECTION: See the comments, below, where Solange de Santis reports that one GLBT person addressed the ACC. My general point remains.] When the Archbishop of Canterbury threw a bone toward the listening process in Anaheim, it was done almost in secret. But meetings with Archbishop Bob Duncan are held in the light of day. What does that say?

Lambeth 1.10 also says that we are “condemn irrational fear of homosexuals”. Interesting, that. Where have the primates of Uganda and Nigeria (among others) been while their nations consider criminalizing the mere discussion of homosexuality? Where has the Archbishop of Canterbury been while major leaders in his Communion flout the teachings of the Lambeth Conference? He is quick to criticize the Episcopal Church in the USA or in Canada, but utterly silent on the horrific behavior of other provinces — behavior that has murderous consequences.

I was reminded of an interesting thing today. In the genealogy of Jesus Christ, we are told that Jesus is in the line of David, through Bathsheba. Remember that story? Not exactly what we’d call family values. And yet God can bring about the Incarnation through the line of humans with the worst behavior. Even if I believed that Glasspool is wrong to engage in a lesbian relationship, doesn’t it seem strange to say that God’s grace can’t possibly flow through her? Isn’t one of the key messages of the scriptures that God’s grace is available to all?

What I find especially sad is that this same Archbishop of Canterbury, before his elevation to that role, said some very different things. He said this: “I concluded that an active sexual relationship between two people of the same sex might therefore reflect the love of God in a way comparable to marriage, if and only if it had about it the same character of absolute covenanted faithfulness.” Get that?! Rowan Williams said that God’s love could be reflected in an active sexual relationship between two men or two women — comparable with marriage. (!)

So why the change? Because presumably he views his new role as binding him to take a new position. That’s sad. Any time that fear overtakes hope, we are disregarding the Gospel’s life-giving message. For the Anglican Communion, it’s time to move on. It’s time to focus on the mission of the church, without worrying about a few people who are afraid.

After conversing with lay people, deacons, priests, and bishops from throughout the Anglican Communion, I’m convinced that only a tiny number of noisy people want schism. Most of us simply want to delight in our fellowship as sisters and brothers in Christ, united in the bonds of affection of the Anglican Communion.

Let’s be anxious about living the Gospel, not about pleasing a few people who are intent on spreading an epidemic of fear.

The Final Draw - Cairp Tahn goes soccer crazy

Long Street, in Cairp Tahn is normally a fairly quaint, very ordinary kind of street. It has lots of restaurants in it - some of which are rather questionable. But at night, Long Street is "The" place to be for the younger set. Awash, I suppose, with the normal kind of recreational drugs - I don't know this, I assume it. Parking is quite impossible to find and the blare of music of various genres assaults you at every turn.

The crowd is not really trendy - it is somewhat more downmarket. There is a lot of smoking of cigarrettes and a lot of wearing sunglasses at night. It seems quite a happy place, but one would be slightly concerned about one's teenage son or daughter.

When Long street is not pumping with the close to 17 000 people it gets on a Saturday night, it is just like anywhere else in Cairp Tahn. Enjoyable. Unreconstructed. Fairly laid back.

Long Street today, however, is the site of the Final Draw (for the 2010 FIFA World Cup - in case you live on a different planet) party. 75 000 people are expected. Screens have been erected, to ensure that people can watch which teams are drawn against which teams. The cordon of security around the International Convention Centre - which is where the draw will actually take place, is vice-like. I virtually had to give a DNA sample to get accreditation for this evenings event. Not that I will be going to the actual event, you understand - that is reserved for Kings, Presidents, Joseph Sepp Blatter, visitors from Mars. (Queens don't qualify).

So, "the people" will be revelling, blowing Vuvuzelas, singing, dancing and wearing soccer jerseys, until the early hours of the morning, in Long Street. I heard on various radio stations that everyone is duly excited. Even the stations which mostly white people listen to. This is unusual. Because white people in South Africa, mostly, do not have any clue about soccer. And white people in South Africa, mostly, can only see doom and gloom. To see white Capetonians wandering around in soccer jerseys, I want to tell you, is a fairly amazing sight.

So, this really is a moment for national unity. This really is a time to shine. And we will. Of that I have no doubt. I have no doubt at all.

One small point though - the three random young women in the photograph asked me, as soon as I had taken it - whether I had accommodation for 2010. Perhaps the sudden soccer enthusiasm may have been tinged with just a touch of lip-smacking at the wonderful prospect of easy money next year. Maybe. Just maybe.

The Minaret, the Swiss and the question of tolerance

My memories of working on a pig farm, as a 19 year old, near a village called Chesierès in Switzerland are mostly pleasant. I needed to work on the pig farm, because I had started hitching around Europe with the princely sum of £50 in my pocket. The money really didn’t last long – even then, and as I got deliciously thinner and thinner, living on a diet of powdered soup and demi baguette, I needed to seriously consider my options. One of them was actual work – which hadn’t really crossed my mind previously.

So, I hitched to this very beautiful place, in the Alps and found work as a muck-raker on a pig farm. You get used to it after a while. You even get on a first name basis with some of the sows. The deal was that I didn’t actually get paid – that somehow got lost in translation – but I did get a place to stay and food.

The food was good – pasta in various forms with cheese, as I remember it. The place to stay was the barn, which stank of cat wee and had lots of straw in it. I noticed, fairly quickly, that I was not the only person working in this Swiss slave galley – there were students from all over the world. We were young. We were horny. We were reckless and we were happy.

And that was my experience of Switzerland, besides brief forays into to Basel and Geneva, which I simply could not afford – whatever I did! But even with that, I have a very clear picture in my head of what Switzerland looks like. It has very imposing, very protestant churches in Geneva, with nothing of any interest inside them. It includes red geranium-filled window-boxes and it includes shop windows filled with chocolates. And the picture does not have Minarets in it.

Now, I wonder – is that a good or a bad thing? A new found friend, who is actually an old school friend that I have recently re-found on Facebook (you know how this happens) lives in Israel. He is (how can I put this mildly?) anti-Islamic. I think, from the little I have read, it would be not untrue to say that he hates Islam with every fibre of his being. I would venture to say that it is likely that he hates everyone who doesn’t hate Islam! It is, as I say, something fairly strong.

But his religion is, and always has been, a non-proselytizing one. Judaism has never sought converts. That has been both its strength and its biggest weakness. Its strength, because it has maintained a kind of inner coherence and integrity through the ages – and a fairly strong ethical centre. But its weakness, because it has, to a large extent become focused on and confined to a tiny, disputed, piece of land. It has no room to breathe. Its members who live elsewhere have usually built fairly discrete Temples with architecture not dissimilar to that around them. Because of the ban on art, their presence (certainly amongst the Hasidim) is noticed largely because of their peculiar Eurocentric (and of a particular period to boot) dress and untamed sideburns. But they have always preferred to keep to themselves.

Islam and Christianity, on the other hand, are the exact opposite. They have, in the past and for both of them also in the present, shown no hesitation in expansion. In Empire building. In rampant domination. Christianity has simply adopted prevailing culture where it has encountered a clash, baptised it and then usurped it. Where it met with other forms of resistance, it has shown no hesitation in killing and subjecting everything in its path until it held sway and established itself as primary. And the way in which it did that was by altering the skyline.

And Islam seems to have the same kind of appetite for cultural imperialism, though, I would argue, not quite as virulently as Christianity – yet.

The rapprochement which presently exists between Judaism and Christianity is a fairly recent phenomenon. In the Gospels themselves, and Matthew’s Gospel in particular – the Jews are, pretty much, the enemy. And it has taken many a century to get beyond the “Christ killer” instinct of the early church. And now, the tactical alliance between Zionism (as distinct from Judaism) and right-wing American Christianity (read American dominance in world politics) is much more than mutual respect for divergent views. It is fundamentally a political alliance.

So, I find myself wondering what the real basis for the recent government objection to a Minaret in Switzerland is. Is it cultural? Architectural? Or is there, somewhere in the back of Swiss consciousness, a memory of just how quickly things can change and how other world orders can easily come to dominance? The problem is not anywhere else, but in the proselytizing nature of the religions themselves. I think, like Chinese manufacturing, it is an unstoppable reality.