1992: midpoint of a crisis

Anton Karstel ~ Untitled (1992) - oil on canvas

1992.

It's 2 years since the referendum in which White South Africans voted  by a massive 80%+ to embrace universal franchise and consign (formal) apartheid to History's dustbin. They have voluntarily placed themselves in the hands of those they oppressed: the alternative of a spiralling police state had momentarily brought everyone to their senses. In 2 years’ time the first all-inclusive elections are slated to be held. Talks, negotiations, call them what you will - they are ongoing. A new constitution is seeding, but it's all terribly fragile.

We are at the midpoint in the changing of a nation. Those whose inclinations are towards Fear and uncertainty are frightened and uncertain. Those who have a natural optimism expect something better. Those with hatred stoke it. Those who seek power manipulate and manoeuvre. Those with things to hide desperately try to bury the past: everyone prays for Truth, Reconciliation, and a peaceful reboot. Those with the money and the lack of scruples take it and run, mostly to Commonwealth countries, the UK, Australia and New Zealand especially welcome the money and ignore the institutionalised colonial racism they are seeding into their own communities. Some parts of the country burn, others maintain their outward appearances: luck is a factor for the individual and his community.

It's 1992, and Anton Karstel paints this image of a person which perfectly captures the mood of all those I've mentioned, and many more I haven't. Does it matter that the person looks somewhat like a woman? No: it makes a perfect sense. Women in this patriarchical country have suffered under every regime. She becomes androgynous here.

One face rages or cries out as it stares at the abyss. Another gazes up and calls for help or searches for answers. Its one person, and we are all that person. It was a terrible time, a precarious balancing point with collapse on either side a terrible long fall into a nightmare future. What difference does it make if you fall into this side or that of a chasm? Blood does not care if it sprays to the left or to the right. Blood does not suffer: only people do, the dead do not suffer**.

We were all this image, yet somehow we made it through.
These days, things seem dark and troubled too, what with corrupt politicians, entitled free loaders and a whole new way to express prejudice. When it feels all too much, I pull up this image from my digital archive and revisit it. I'm reminded that nothing will ever be as bad as what we sidestepped, together, all those years ago.

** Robert Green Ingersoll (1883)
Photograph (c) the author: taken at the Pretoria Art Museum Oct 28, 2018; artwork (c) the owner.

Do Vampires Fear Aids?

Aids is only an existential threat to Vampires

Vampires
feeding on blood in the divided dark
dark shadows of a bloody night

Vampires feed and the body bleaches
cold and pale in still moonlight
withering and dying in day made night

For all the shadows of darkness
the fear inducing night
mothers must as mothers do
bring calming light
to nightmarish flight

Aids thrives only in darkness
in the shadows of fear we hide
Bring sunlight to your fears!

Sunlight on mental darkness
Sunlight on a great divide

The cure for HIV-AIDS begins in the community. It starts with those who are healthy, not those who are sick. We who are healthy should not - must not - no, must never drive the sick into the darkness of fear and retribution.
That is the beginning of a Great Divide. Sick people are not vampires to be sent back into the Dark. Let them come out into the sunlight, for sunlight on a problem is the first step towards remediation, and the most important one. Anti-retrovirals are the tools, the community is the framework within which it can operate best.

 If you have it, or suspect you do, or know someone who might ~ remind them, remind yourself: there's help, & hope and a life waiting to be lived. Bring it out into the sunlight and away from Dracula's shadow.

the image© is a detail from Blessing Ngobeni's 2018 acrylic and collage on canvas "Everyone is a VIP" ~ an apposite title for this theme.

I don't live to assuage the guilt of the dead

In the moment of change
its not for the last
nor for the least
not for the next
or even an act of contrition
or a longing for redemption.

sourced from what I know
and've learned about myself.
insight,
absent of guilt, 
in a moment of realisation 
brings a dawning awakening light

knowing how it ripples
as tiny droplets do
rippling across my memories
each ripple washing a neighbour
in waves moving over and on. 
each drop is driving a difference
a necessary needed difference
steering in some small measure
an outlook and new perception.

another droplet will fall
fashioned in its moment to be
another and then another
driving the changing me.

this is no river of tears
it carries no retribution
the past is not assuaged
no garden of Eden intention.

this change is a gift to my future
and a possible gift to yours

All images copyright (c) the author

My grandmother said: Sorry? Three steps: the Mouth, Hands and Head

I'm Sorry - but am I really? Three steps to genuine forgiveness.

The Mouth, the Hands, the Head

We all learn it when we are very young: "I'm sorry Mommy!" "I'm sorry Daddy!"
And if you aren't saying saying it, then someone is saying to you "Say you're sorry now!"

What does it mean, all this saying sorry?
It's a sorry state of affairs that we don't look at the kernel of being sorry: Really, we want to be forgiven for something we did.  How to get forgiveness?. That's the crux of the matter.

Here's my Grandmother's take on it

After the umpteenth time of saying sorry (for the same old thing of course!) she took us kids aside and said:
"Look at me"!
"To be really sorry, you must remember the Mouth" (pointed to her lips) "the Hands" (clapping them lightly in front of her) "and the Head" (tapping her temples quickly). She then proceeded to explain:

The Mouth

The first thing you have to do to show that you are sorry for what you did is to say it out loud. Tell the person. As soon as possible. Its best to do it face to face, that works best of all because the other person  sees it, but sometimes it's not possible, so you send a message. And if you have left other people with the wrong impression with what you did, then they have to hear it too.

The Hands

Its not enough to say sorry.
We all know the phrase "Lip Service". Don't pay Lip Service:
Something is broken, its got to be fixed.
The hands are a symbol for that.
Spilled some coffee? Say sorry - and clean up the mess. Properly.
Spread some gossip? Say sorry - and now go to the people who you told the story to and tell them the truth. And say sorry to them for creating that bad impression.
Broken something? Say sorry - and fix it, or replace it, doing your level best to replace it with the same one.

The Head

But that's still not enough.
Why, you could be breaking someones cups, telling lies, using their stuff without permission and so on over and over again - would saying sorry work? Of course not. they would pretty soon get tired of it all.
No, the only way to show that you are truly sorry is to not do it any more.
In other words, you have to change your behaviour, and sometimes, even how you think.

So that's it.
You show that you are truly sorry by not doing it any more, and by talking and behaving in a different, better way.

And I remember it all by those three quick little motions she made, as she touched her lips, clapped her hands, and tapped the side of her head all the while repeating the Mantra "the mouth, the hands, the head"

The path to true Forgiveness is a 3 step process: and if you follow it, everyone will know that you are truly Sorry.

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