A NON SEQUITOR GREETING ON FREEDOM DAY

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A NON SEQUITOR GREETING
ON FREEDOM DAY

Hello to all my friends,

There’s a man down the street who is slowly walling himself in, literally. I can’t help but thinking of Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado” as we watch the red bricks rise. In itself this should not be an unusual sight. In fact, his house prior to the arrival of the sand and bricks and stone, was one of the dwellings in our neighborhood (perhaps 50%!)(MISSING) that did not crouch behind a tall wall, a growling dog, and an automatic gate. In other cities, like Johannesburg, it would be a rarity to see a house that was not protected by a wall. And the walls in that city are higher, more formidable, and topped with razor wire. This one is a pleasant two story white structure that we walk past on a daily basis. No dogs. No wrought iron, just a front door. I can’t say if anything happened to precipitate the arrival of the masons. They just showed up and began to dig, and now his house is disappearing.

A number of weeks ago, in the heat of summer, two men spent a week with shovels and picks, making perfect trenches and then filling them with concrete. Then the brick walls began to rise, perfectly plumb and level with the slap of the mortar and the clink and the trowel. A young tender wheeled barrows of mud and piles of brick. Now the mason is covering the brick walls with a fine coat of cement. Soon there will be gates and buzzers, and maybe a German Shepherd or two Jack Russels. As I say, this is all very ordinary, but to watch the walls go up, as opposed to seeing them already in place, are two entirely separate things. “To wall” and “a wall” carry different weight somehow.

Especially on “Freedom Day.”

I can’t help but daydreaming on this day. My dream goes something like this: One day all the walls that surround the houses in South Africa are torn down and all the bricks are used to rebuild the tin shacks of the poor, the schools, the clinics. I am certain that there is enough construction material in the walls of South Africa to raise a country where everyone could have a fine home. It’s a daydream, I know.

I also have noted, for what it’s worth, something interesting when I am riding my bicycle out in the farmlands, or when we are “motoring” around the country. In the houses of the farm workers, usually desperate concrete shacks set on hard-packed bare earth, the doors are always wide open. None of these houses are surrounded by walls. The smudged and cracked homes sit with a black opening into a dim interior. “When you ain’t got nothin’ you got nothin’ to lose.”

Bicycling. Hmmm.

Going out for a “bike ride” here is incredible, but it is no minor outing. Perhaps that is why it is so popular. Popular with the lycra clad crowd of thunder-thighed people with low geared machines who can afford to buy such a rig. There are almost no people on clunkers riding into town for a liter of milk. Black and coulored men (it is an unavoidable observation) do ride to and from work on heavier steeds, bucking the wind and the hills. A two-wheeled outing here inevitably involves long hills, wind, traffic, and absolutely brilliant scenery. It is tricky to choose between a larger, busy road with a wide shoulder, and a shoulder-less quieter road where the edge of jagged pavement creeps towards the centerline like a torn piece of paper. “Quiet” road is a relative term, for even on the most rural road you may hear the diesel rumble approaching you from behind. There is nothing more thrilling than being shaved on one of these narrower roads by a double articulated trailer truck, loaded with pears, feeling the brush of the truck on your shoulder. But the real thrill is, of course, an autumn tail-wind ride through the Franschhoek Valley, with mountains rising all around you, and the vineyards on the valley floor turning golden-yellow.

I was listening to the radio on Monday morning, the holiday set aside to celebrate Freedom Day. The radio is my window into South Africa, specifically the morning call-in shows on SABC. The question of the day was “What does freedom mean to you?” The answers were so moving and informative, underlining the complexity of this country. The host told a story of an old man who emerged from the voting booth in 1994, the first democratic elections here in South Africa. Upon emerging he took off his ragged hat, raised his arm high, and shouted, “Today I am a man!”
Some callers said, “No one is free as long as there are people who are hungry.” Others told of the days when they could not travel freely in their own country or speak their own language, and today they are free to do so. A 70 year-old white farmer called to lament the deteriorating conditions on farms turned over to blacks, and the frequency with which his house is broken into. “Us old farmers, we must show them how to farm the land.” He truly sounded heartbroken. Committed communists and socialists chimed in as well. Some people noted that “the struggle” (as the fight to end apartheid was known) has not ended but only just begun.

“If you had committed yourself to the struggle and won, you would expect some kind of reward. It’s human, an inherent expectation. Freedom is an ephemeral reward. You can’t grasp it in your hand. One morning you wake up and you are free. But your township is just as much a ghetto as it was yesterday, you are just as poor, your people are just as burdened as before. You can’t eat freedom. You can’t buy a house or a car with it.
“Madiba was Moses and he led us to the Promised Land, but there was no milk or honey.” Deon Meyer from “Heart of the Hunter”

Let me digress. Excitedly so.

We have discovered a new diet formula here in South Africa. It’s most amazing in its effectiveness and its simplicity. We have been contacted by Oprah’s people and also by Parade Magazine, but we are not sure where it will all go. However we are keeping our fingers crossed. The whole thing simply involves getting rid of your kitchen. Yes, that’s right. It may seem radical, but you can’t argue with success. You don’t really cut the room off your house, you just eliminate and/or downsize your appliances. First, the big stove has to go. Replace it with a two burner electric hotplate that can be unplugged and stored neatly in a drawer. Then the refrigerator. Forget that two-door stainless steel Mack truck thing. Trade it in for a tiny, dorm refrigerator. Toaster/convection oven - gone. Cappuccino machine - forget it. Bread machine - oh come on. Yes to a small microwave, and an electric kettle. That’s it. Remove most of your cabinets; toss 90%!y(MISSING)our plates, pots, pans, knives forks. You will be saving your own body and the planet to boot. Small footprint? Ha, Cochise couldn’t track you with a hundred bloodhounds. Donate it all to the poor. Use the extra space that you have created as a studio to write poetry or paint or meditate. Isn’t this a great idea? If you wish to accelerate the diet’s effectiveness it is recommended that you get rid of all chairs in the house but two, thus reducing the possibilities of guests or dinner parties. For the most committed dieter, or perhaps the morbidly obese, it is suggested that you take the proceeds garnered from liquidating the contents of your kitchen and build a wall around your home.

Speaking of great ideas…we went to a wine and cheese festival the other day. At these things you buy a glass and then go around to all the booths, where indifferent men and women pour you little tastes of Shiraz and Rose and Chardonnay. At this particular event they were selling little holders for your wine glass. You draped a string over your neck, much like a strap to hold your reading glasses, and then you attached a clever little piece of plastic to the wine glass. Thusly rigged your hands were now free to reach for the perfectly cut cubes of Camembert. In truth, I did not like the little yoke, despite the fact that it was indeed a great idea. I could not help but thinking that all these people looked like horses with feed sacks around their necks. This wine harness would never be included in our newly designed diet, “Kitchen for a New Planet.”

I have applied, via a brilliant Internet site, for a Doctorate. You may not be surprised to hear that I was awarded the honor. Your cynicism is duly noted. Nonetheless, my name will forever more be followed by the letters - DFN (Dolce Fa Niente). My thesis had to do with numerous deeply thought out ideas, but mostly they were sold on “Kitchen for a New Planet.” I present the following for contemplation, and will gladly refer you to the revered institution that granted me the doctorate if, after required prolonged meditations, you think you have the grapes. Thus:

“There is no present moment that we can locate (try it), and therefore no past and future. Just like that, there is no time.”
Barry Boyce

“Once mass slavery began, white Europeans soon saw that all slaves were Africans; from this they quickly developed the understanding that all black Africans were slaves. They never saw black Africans in any other setting - they did not meet them as tribal leaders or powerful generals or gifted artists or skillful craftspeople, only as helpless pack animals dependent on white Europeans for work, food and shelter.” Roger Osborne

“…no absolute division can be made between mind and matter. Matter…in its subtlest form is inseparable from consciousness. These are two different aspects of an indivisible reality.”
Mr. Dalai

‘In a sense, all human beings belong to a single family We need to embrace the oneness of humanity and show concern for everyone - not just my family or my country or my continent. We must show concern for every being, not just the few who resemble us. Differences of religion, ideology, race, economic system, social system and government are all secondary.” Mr. Lama

“…the mind that perceives the deity and the deity itself are not separate.” Sogyal Rinpoche

“Matter, as it were, is condensed or frozen light…all matter is a condensation of light into patterns moving back and forth at average speeds which are less than the speed of light.” David Bohm

It is also Workers Day here in South Africa, May Day, as it is around the world, There are lots of communists here, Marxists and Leninists, revolutionaries trained in Russia during the days of the “struggle.” I would like to leave you with one final quote, which seems especially appropriate in light of my recent doctoral acquisition. The words come from the play, Three the Hard Way. Albert, the ghostly father character, is reacting to the Aesop’s Fable tale, The Grasshopper and the Ant. The fable concerns a grasshopper who has spent the warm months singing away while the ant (or ants in some editions) worked to store up food for winter. After the winter has come, the grasshopper finds itself dying of hunger, and upon asking the ant for food is only rebuked for its idleness. The story is used to teach the virtues of hard work and saving, and the perils of improvidence. Albert, a pool shark and gambler, advises his daughters:

“That God damned story is just propaganda for the Puritan ethic, and it’s a slander and a libel against artists and athletes and anyone who doesn’t toil needlessly and stupidly.”

Go take a walk.

Dennis Cunningham, DFN

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Photos

TOWNSHIP BOYS AND DOG
photo by K. Shantz

SPOT GETS A LIFT
photo by K. Shantz

Comments

[ethiograndma]

Fantastic writing
Loved your blog...it was sad, funny and insightful all at the same time! The sad part is the continuing problems in South Africa. People in America such as myself tend to think freedom, democracy, whatever you want to call it brings instant success. Look to Russia, Iraq and South Africa and you see that freedom is illusionary and more often brings chaos. Regardless, apartheid was evil and had to go. Mandela is still my hero and always will be! And, no country is entirely free. Americans are chained to THINGS!