Measles, misery, tonsils, medicine and doctor's waiting rooms - more and more doctors waiting rooms

If you follow my blog, you will have noticed a certain - (how shall I put it?) - lack of posts, over the past while. It has been due to the above. And it continues! It continues erven now - I have just returned from another incredibly long wait at the Mediclinic with my youngest child - Joshua. I swear, if I see another one, I am going to jump over a cliff!

Anyway, eventually the mist clears and the sun breaks through. Eventually!

The bed he made for himself.

Jopie Fourie

Eugene Terreblanche was, by all accounts, a dreadful man. He has been a part of my life for a very long time now. He formed the AWB, the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, a neo-Nazi organisation which even modeled its flag and insignia on the swastika. They rode around on horses, invoking the brave days of the Boer Commando. When he spoke, even I would listen! His Afrikaans was unbelievably beautiful, lyrical, passionate, inspiring - if racism was the kind of inspiration you were looking for.

When you started to analyse what he was actually saying, as opposed to the sound of what he was saying, it was all a load of utter rubbish. It was premised on the innate superiority of the “white” race. It believed that there was some kind of connection between this “white” race and the Christian God. It saw itself, in the Afrikaner version of the white race, as the true successor to the special relationship which, biblically, was once held by Israel.

And it is at this point that serious psychological disorientation starts to set in. With it comes paranoia, insecurity, false aggrandisement, a serious lack of reality and perspective. The followers (because there must be a “leader” and there must be “followers”) pattern themselves on the struggles of Israel (though, for reasons unclear to me, they hate Jews). They are engaged in a titanic struggle of the light (them) against the darkness (anyone else, especially the English and “blacks”). Everything is seen in grandiose apocalyptic terms. The defeat of the Satan is their goal.

These are lofty positions. And I have often found myself wondering, especially when I had some proximity to these people (when I still worked near Krugersdorp and in the vicinity of Ventersdorp, what these Khaki-clad beer-bellied visionaries might be thinking. The last thing they would want is for South Africa, under black leadership, to succeed. In discussion with them (such as is possible) this thing becomes clear. South Africa cannot succeed, unless the Afrikaner is in control. Because only the Afrikaner is chosen by God. Only the Afrikaner understands what needs to be done to put us all on the right path again.

Of course, the sub-text is a kind of strange contorted logic about self-preservation. There are forces ranged against the Afrikaner Volk at every side. There are even forces ranged against the Boer nation, which are within. The paranoia is profound and all-embracing. It never rests. It never goes on holiday. It never gets any better.

And, sure enough, the self-fulfilling prophesies start to play themselves out. Crime gets worse in the country. Zimbabwe implodes. Corruption increases beyond any even vaguely forgivable levels. Racism increases and the kind of white people who collected tins of sardines and built bunkers in their back yards to get themselves through the predicted catastrophe of the first democratic election, now see themselves, individually, as the direct victims of black racism and exclusion.

It is these whites, which have been largely sidelined, disarmed and silenced, who are now raising the Vierkleur on the gates at the entrance of the Terreblanche farm. You are I know he was just a has-been before his death but he is now raised immortal. That is how resurrections tend to happen. Violent deaths often seem to be an indicator.

It all reminds me of the archetypal Boer hero, Jopie Fourie. He was born in the Pretoria district in 1878. He was a scout and dispatch rider during the South African War, and was wounded and captured in an action north of Pretoria. After the war he became a captain in the Active Citizen Force, and in 1914 decided to join the rebellion in protest against Prime Minister Louis Botha’s decision to invade German South West Africa as part of the international war effort against Germany. He was captured in the Rustenburg area on 16 December 1914 and was court-marshaled. On 20 December of the same year he was executed by firing squad.

That is the tradition in which the AWB sees itself. They feel that they have been betrayed. They feel their cause against the state is just and they feel that they are martyrs. The memories of the Concentration camps in which the British incarcerated 23 000 of their number, are ever present. And what they see as the ultimate betrayal of FW de Klerk simply stands in that long line of betrayal and deceit and evil against the Volk.

So, with this burden, this weight of history, the actual numbers of the AWB and the things they do, (like riding around on horses and wearing Khaki shorts) – has always seemed to me to be a rather pathetic shadow of the ideals themselves – however much one might not want to support them.

But now, they have a martyr. Crime has given them a martyr. He was reprehensible and criminal himself. His thoughts were ugly; his vision limited by hatred, fear and prejudice. But now he is a hero and he will live forever as the flag-bearer to this crazy ideal of separate nationhood and self-determination.

I looked, today, at the picture of his unglamorous rough-hewn and now bloodstained bed, in a house that spoke very clearly of extremely poor circumstances. This is now a shrine to racial superiority. This is now a place of pilgrimage to a divisive and destructive philosophy. This represents the resurrection of hate.

One of the most profound theological insights I ever had as a student was when I read a theologian called Paul Tillich, following Rudolf Bultmann. It was there that I first considered the possibility that resurrection, if it happens ever and at all, it is most likely to happen inside of us. We each have a level of choice in the matter. Will the bloodstained and divisive spirit of Eugene Terreblanche be born in us today? That is the question, I suppose.

Getting the thing I wished for

So, being Easter, I went to hear the Messiah last night at the beautiful Cairp Tahn City Hall. It is a really magical building, with frosted decoration on the ceiling and booths, and grand chandeliers which have a thousand light bulbs. The stage is backed by a massive organ. The woodwork is wonderful and the seats suitably uncomfortable for a building of that age.

Now, I always have mixed feelings about going to the Messiah. I mean, apart from the fact that one has heard it a gazillion times, you never know what you are going to get. I have sat through Messiah’s with a “cast of thousands” – which sounded like Messiah for the very hard of hearing. Then, on the other hand, I have had Messiah on authentic instruments played and sung by males only, wearing wigs. That was an equally strange experience.

I have wept in the Messiah. I have fallen asleep in the Messiah. I have regretted going because I was bored out of my mind and I have wondered why I thought, even momentarily, that I wouldn’t go, because the experience was so wonderful.

So last night, I went, with this “lucky-dip” mentality. Last year, there was a counter-tenor singing the Alto part that was spectacular. This year a mezzo that I had heard before and has a harsh edge to her voice and a tendency to have so much vibrato, that she frequently quavers right off the note – so I wasn’t expecting very much. Nicholas Cleobury was conducting, though – so it stood some chance of being, at least tolerable.

Curiously, there was a row of empty seats in front of me. I looked around the Cairp Tahn audience. Predictably white. A dot, here and there, of another colour but mostly, blindingly, depressingly white.

It started. Cleobury was taking it at quite a cracking pace. The tenor was lyrical and sweet – “Comfort ye, my people”. Suddenly, one of the side doors burst open and in walked a row of young , hip, gum- chewing, black, (I would say) 20 year olds. One of them had a T-shirt which read “Reaching your full potential IN GOD”.
They had the extensions; the dreds; the shiny African-American relaxed and gelled look. They carried bottles of Coke and they seemed intent on sitting in the row in front of me. They showed no sign of guilt or embarrassment at their lateness. They sat down. They giggled at the irritation of the people around them. They whispered loudly to each other, then they settled down to enjoy the performance. They conducted the air. They twiddled their fingers at the string sections. They lip-synced the words, (when they knew the words). If there was the slightest hint of a beat, such as in “Why do the nations rage”, for instance – they jived along with the music, while mercifully still seated in their seats.

Sometimes, with some of the less well-known recitatives and choruses, they started sending and receiving text messages on their phones and passing them to each other to read. They opened their coke bottles with a loud hissing sound. In a word, it was profoundly disturbing. At the end of part one, there was a moment’s indecision on the part of the conductor. They clapped. There was some lacklustre support for them from one or two others in the audience. They complained to each other loudly, that “these people are scared to clap!”

During the interval, I thought about what I was witnessing here. On the one hand, I have long complained about the complexion of Cape Town Symphony Concert audiences. On the other, here I was complaining where black youngsters sitting in front of me didn’t know how to behave!

On the one hand, it is a question of them simply not understanding the conventions. On the other, it is precisely the conventions which have kept people like them outside the concert halls and attending hip-hop events instead.

The point I reached, eventually, was that it was infinitely better for them to be there – visibly enjoying the music of a European composer who died 251 years ago, to them not being there at all. I am not saying that they shouldn’t shut up and sit still during the performance. What I am saying, is that all that kind of stuff can follow.