Armistice Day
has a special meaning and poignancy for those of us of a certain age and upbringing.
This centenary one was particularly moving. It was also quite a shock to
realise how little this sort of event means to most people, even those whose
homelands and cultures were preserved by the sacrifice of so many young lives. The
passage of time makes most things that happened long ago seem irrelevant. One
exception to this is the arrival of a small party of Hollanders in Table Bay
over 300 years ago who are being blamed for current events. It matters not a
jot to the zealots that this landing and all the history that followed needs to
be understood in the context of the times in which they occurred. It is further
alarming that campaigns of denial and rewriting of historical facts are
becoming so successful. A nation that seems to welcome and admire intellectual impoverishment
and blatant dishonesty is in deep trouble when it comes to raising its citizens
to the levels needed to compete for the wealth and rewards of the modern world.
Many of our competitors survived far worse events than Jan van Riebeek wading
through the shallows of the South Atlantic.
The Chinese, who
have had their fair share of bad leaders with axes to grind, have a very
different use for November 11th. Rewritten as 11.11 and named Singles
Day, their merchants have worked hard to get the population to treat it as day
to go shopping on an epic scale. Reportedly it is highly successful and now
dwarfs similar opportunistic reasons to get out and buy stuff. Even here in SA
we are exhorted to wield the credit card on Black Friday. Heaven knows, our retailers
desperately need to see customers thronging their stores and carting goods out
of the front door (after first paying for it – an often-forgotten part of the transaction
in these days of entitlement). Although Google offers at least two reasons for
the name Black Friday, how long will it be before some fragile ego is
threatened by the name and organises a protest and burns down a store (or a
clinic or a library) just to show how really offended they are?
This sort of
response from mobs, however, must be based on unimaginable levels of
frustration and desperation at realising that they will never receive an
effective education, never find work and be unable to live a family-based life
in the comfort that their efforts could provide. On top of this is the
awareness that not one of the people shouting at them through a poor sound
system in a dusty tent or hall will do anything to help them after they slide
away behind a phalanx of costly body guards,
How many individuals
with interesting and explosive tales to tell about their recent political life in
SA are there waiting in the wings to tell their story? The #metoo Twitter tag
was coined for a very different purpose apparently but seems perfectly suited
to this trickle of disillusioned castoffs from the political stage. Despite the
impeccable credentials of a struggle hero, Barbara Hogan told JZ what he didn’t
want to hear, and she was quickly out of the door. This perhaps is the most
soul-destroying aspect of living in SA: The total refusal by the decision makers
to accept (or even debate) fact-based ideas.
As we have remarked
before, the kiss and make up spell between the SABC and the national soccer
body was short lived. The former has no money to spend on what licence-fee
payers (who are they?) want to watch and the latter have a vastly inflated view
of what their ball-hoofers are worth. The broadcasters muddied the water somewhat
with odd stories about their fourteen-million-rand celebration party while
coping with employee complaints about the withdrawal of a free biscuit ration.
Like SAA, this outfit needs to be sold immediately.
Tidemarks
will not appear next week as not only is it my 70th birthday but
also I am attending a very select reunion of those of us who left Prep in 1961.
By the way, I don’t especially celebrate multiples of ten. I prefer to mark the
attainment of prime numbers. There are more of them in the early years.
James Greener
Friday 16th November 2018
