i am scared, because a Jo'burg thunderstorm is raging
she needs some Carl Sagan, during a Jo’burg rainstorm … … … 🐹✌
for more on ‘The Demon-Haunted World’ by Carl Sagan:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle/dp/0345409469
Tag Archive: Education
the subtle constant of mathematics.
rigorous proof.
simple. constant. real.
not this implausible charade,
illogical masquerade,
all our perambulation,
wasted wordy navigation,
our tottering,
our swaying,
our constant need,
to believe,
clinging onto inexplicable human need,
the belief in fantasy:
fantasy as staple nutrition,
upon which our collective illusions, and delusions,
continally feed
wrote this a while ago.
Sadly true today.
It ain’t Xenophobia? Really?
it’s not xenophobia,
the refrain is the same,
it’s the criminals to blame,
we still won’t be calling the attacks by their stinking name,
‘xenophobia’
yes,
that’s what it is,
but,
let us not be simplistic,
we have to face the ugliness of our collective shame,
because when mostly ‘foreigners’ get put to the flame,
how can we ignorance feign?
it’s xenophobia,
simple & plain,
with poverty & unemployment barrelling on a runaway train,
and it won’t just ‘go away’,
for as long as ignorant complicity continues to reign …
_____________________
‘Xenophobia’ is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as:
” noun:
intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries “
The synonyms for xenophobia are:
chauvinism, racial intolerance, racism, dislike of foreigners, nationalism, prejudice.
_____________
As a citizen of South Africa, I am acutely aware of the many challenges that our young country faces.
The iniquities of our tortured past, the legacy of Apartheid, socio-economic issues etc. are just a few of the many problems that South Africa is grappling with.
What is extremely disturbing for me is something that I have personally encountered, in conversations with friends, family, and fellow citizens from all walks of life.
That something is how rife ‘anti-foreigner’ sentiment is within our various, and still divided communities.
I have heard the most atrocious, insensitive, hate-filled utterances regarding the ‘foreigners’ who ‘take our jobs’, and ‘take our women’, and ‘are the cause of all the crime’, and ‘they must go back to their countries’, and most chillingly ‘we will kill these foreigners’.
I am also aware that many intellectuals, think-tanks, NGO’s, and sociologists etc. have written and spoken volumes about how the failure of proper service delivery by the government and local municipalities, and the myriad other shortcomings that plague our country have played a part in the emergence of this abhorrent xenophobic sentiments that are being spouted almost as if one was talking about culling animals in the Kruger National Park.
We have already witnessed the scourge of xenophobia, and not long ago, when organised bands of people marked, attacked and killed ‘foreigners’ in a frenzy of blood-letting and looting.
This was in 2008.
And today, as the father of the nation, Nelson Mandela lies ill in a hospital bed in Pretoria, I hear similar disturbing and blood-curdling hate-speech directed against ‘the foreigners’.
What is going on?
Where and how have we, as a country, failed, or more worryingly, chose to ignore the signs of this cancer that has to be dealt with, and dealt with as a matter of national priority.
The synonyms for xenophobia include racism, racial intolerance, and prejudice.
The neo-Nazis in Europe and elsewhere are xenophobes.
No one disputes that.
The neo-Nazis in Europe and elsewhere talk in almost exactly the same terms when they spout their rhetoric, when they go on ‘Paki-bashing’ sprees in England, when they deface Synagogues and Mosques and Temples, or when they beat up and kill ‘foreigners’ who ‘take our jobs’, and ‘take our women’, and ‘are the cause of all the crime’, and ‘they must go back to their countries’.
What is particularly disturbing about the rise of xenophobia, especially in the South African context is the complicity of silence, and by extension, a shocking acceptance of these racist and murderously dangerous views, by ‘normal’ citizens.
We are Africans.
And above all, we are all human.
This may seem like an obvious and unnecessary fact to point out, but when certain friends, family members, and people one interacts with daily, spew such xenophobic drivel, it needs to be taken seriously.
Pogroms, xenophobic attacks, racism, intolerance, prejudice, casteism, religious bigotry, sexism, and homophobia, do not simply arise out of nothing.
There are societal, religious, traditional, cultural and other factors that do indeed create fertile ground for some of these noxious sentiments to germinate.
It is incumbent on us all, people, just people, to engage with people, however close they may be to us, and challenge and make our voices heard that we will not stand mutely by, as such hate-filled venom is flung around nonchalantly.
We cannot be conspicuous by our silence and inaction when a large segment of our society, those who have chosen our country to be their home, often fleeing economic hardship, political and social violence, and numberless other factors that force, and this is important, people are forced into leaving their countries, often making hazardous and painful journeys in order to find safe-haven amongst fellow human-beings.
As South Africans, we know just how friendly countries welcomed us during the darkest days of Apartheid repression and tyranny.
Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Mozambique, Angola, and the other ‘front-line’ states paid dearly for offering South Africans fleeing Apartheid a place of refuge as well as a base of operations against the oppressive Apartheid system.
Apartheid agents and security forces attacked, fomented insurrections against the governments in the front-line states, and still South Africans of all races, creeds etc. found a welcome home in these comradely countries.
We should never forget this.
Ever.
Our government needs to be more vocal about its stance on xenophobia, and by doing so it will send a message that it will not stand by idly while people from other parts of the continent are constantly under the threat of being attacked.
That said, we as citizens have a voice, and it is morally incumbent on all of us to do our bit so that the scourge of xenophobia is excised from this land.
There is a simmering undercurrent of the possibility of attacks on foreigners as I type these words.
If this is not taken seriously and dealt with, sadly we may see scenes similar to those we witnessed in 2008.
Mayibuye-i-Afrika!
The Struggles Continue!
For Kailash Satyarthi & Malala Yousafzai …
1.
You have struggled for the rights of children in India,
your Bachpan Bachao Andolan has been tirelessly striving for an end to,
child labour,
abuse of children,
hunger,
poverty,
for year after year,
and today,
now,
your selfless work has been recognised by the world at large,
and I am humbled to pen these words for you, Shri Kailash Satyarthi – Ji!
2.
You faced the bigots,
you stood up to narrow religious perversions,
you faced the Taliban head – on,
and though they tried to silence your voice of reason,
their bullets failed,
and today,
now,
your valiant courage has been recognised by the world at large,
and I am humbled to pen these words for you, Malala Yousafzai!
3.
India and Pakistan,
once one land,
torn apart by shallow religious sectarian agendas,
but not today,
not now,
not today,
for today,
We are all one.
We are all human.
May peace prevail!
May universal AND free education for every child be realised!
May justice prevail,
at long, long last!
copy-left afzal moolla 2014
Mido Macia 1986 – 2013
Mido Macia was a 27 year old Mozambican man, working in Daveyton near Johannesburg as a taxi-driver, who was found dead in a police cell, after police savagely dragged Mr. Macia whom they had tied to their police van.
The brutal incident of Mr. Macia being dragged was caught on camera and has shocked South Africa.
The 8 police officers involved are facing charges of murder, and have been suspended from the South African Police Service (SAPS).
This poem is an angry poem that I felt had to be written, because as a society, we need to ask ourselves and each other the hardest questions about xenophobia and intolerance and violence.
Mido Macia 1986 – 2013
Death came to Mido Macia,
a savage, brutal, hellish death came to Mido Macia.
Death came to Mido Macia,
death dressed-up in the colours of authority,
as callous, vile, sadistic policemen murdered Mido Macia.
The video-footage is blood-curdling,
Mido Macia being dragged,
his hands tied behind him,
to a police van.
But death came later to Mido Macia,
death cheered, clapped, and tore into Mido Macia.
Death came to Mido Macia,
in the cells where they murdered Mido Macia.
Death came to Mido Macia,
a fuelled, cheered-on, instigated death came to Mido Macia.
We are all culpable,
every one of us is culpable,
from racist ‘jokes’ emailed and texted,
to self-righteous comments about the ‘foreigners’,
from casual dinner-table conversations,
‘they take our jobs’,
‘they are crooks’
the ‘they marry our women’ kind of lunch-time chats,
racist, xenophobic, hate-filled talk,
to beating a human-being to death in a police cell,
or on the streets of Cape Town, Johannesburg ,
and in Daveyton,
where death came to Mido Macia.
Mido Macia 1986 – 2013
…
Today we rise.
No more hiding in the shadows,
of culture,
creed,
tradition.
No more silent complicity,
defensive arguments,
sickening pretences,
shabby excuses,
for the actions of men,
brutal and coarse and vulgar and obscene and murderous and abusive.
Today, we rise,
as one.
Today the change starts,
with me,
within me.
Today we rise.
…
Scribbled Verse 