Balderdash & Bunkum

The terror of anti-terrorism laws and why Facebook, Twitter and Google’s fail to protect privacy

2010-11-05T13:06:00.001-07:00

Over the past couple of days I have seen quite a few articles in which people have been complaining about Facebook invading people’s privacy, being creepily Big-Brotherish and encouraging online stalkers. The tide also seems to have turned against Google, with the ever-unpopular Street View cameramen admitting that they had “inadvertently” downloaded private data from household Wi-Fi networks, including sensitive information such as passwords and e-mails.

It’s no secret that law enforcement officials and security forces the world over can or will soon be able to hack into anyone’s Facebook, Skype or e-mail accounts and collect data such as private conversations, photographs or status updates to gather information about suspected criminals.

The trouble I have with this is: how do officials decide who is a potential criminal or terrorist? Do they use racial and religious profiling? For over twenty years, key-word technology has been developed as part of state security. Mention the word “bomb” or similar such terroristy word over the internet, the phone or in a text or e-mail and a little red flag is raised somewhere on a server.

Of course, most of the time it’s a false alarm. Nevertheless they must be looked into, which takes up time and resources. And the technology has to get more and more sophisticated as the years go by, because more and more people are getting connected and internet traffic is growing exponentially year-on-year.

The anarchist in me would suggest that everyone should put the word “bomb” in every single e-mail you send out and say it on every single phone call you make, and if millions of us do it, it might make their servers explode and their operations director commit suicide.

However, the real threat to our privacy is not just Facebook, but the whole kit and caboodle. Facebook, Twitter and Google and the millions of app developers and advertisers watching your consumer habits. Turning your computer on or using your mobile phone means that you are leaving a trail of your behaviour on servers all over the world. Your IP address. Your friends. Your shopping habits. Your Google searches. Your location. You think that just because your “add your location” option on Facebook is disabled that no-one will know where you are?

Puh-lease, biatch.

Everyone’s cellphone is a tracking device. GSM technology allows network providers to track the location of a mobile phone using cell tower triangulation methods. Even if you have a Nokia 3310.

Most passports are now so-called biometric or electronic passports. These passports contain RFID chips which can be read from up to 30 feet away, enabling your personal information to be read and updated on a central database without your knowledge whenever you are travelling with your personal documents. And those are just the RFID chips we know about. There may very well be others that we are not aware of, hidden away in things we would never suspect.

Calls can be tapped and Facebook/Twitter communication can be logged. Even Voice-Over-Internet Protocol (VOIP) calls such as Skype can be monitored, recorded and traced.

I would say that Twitter is becoming a larger threat to privacy than Facebook. With the new revamped version of Twitter, conversations between groups of people can be seen and analysed, and multimedia platforms are available on separately-developed but interlinked applications. The more worrying aspect of Twitter is that most people’s Twitter accounts are public, meaning anyone can see them, whereas the vast majority of Facebook accounts are protected by privacy settings.

Some people can Tweet up to 100 times in one day, leaving nothing about themselves to the imagination but the regularity of their bowels. That means that just about anyone can get a good feel of who you are, what you do and what your political stance is just by reading your Twitter feed.

Naturally, there will be a mindless sheep here somewhere saying, “but if you haaaaaven’t done aaaanything wrong, then you don’t have aaaaaanything to fear.”

Well, you smug little anal-retentive government-employed drone, you are more plastic than flesh and bone. Every normal person has something to hide, whether it is a big something or a small something. Everyone has committed some kind of a sin that they wouldn’t want the entire world knowing about. Everyone is guilty of something and hopes that they are clever enough to fool the world into thinking that they are moral, law-abiding citizens. There is no such thing.

The wonderful thing about life is that mistakes and bad judgement can be left in the past and there is always the opportunity to turn over a new leaf. But that was before governments got all 2.0. Now, nothing will be forgotten.

In the United Kingdom, the deceptively-named “Interception Modernisation Programme” (IMP) will require all mobile phone and internet service providers to collect and store the "traffic details" of all internet and mobile phone use in the country. In the face of several concerns about this legislation, there have been a sudden slew of terrorism scares, from a crazy old lady who stabbed her MP to printer ink cartridge bombs defused “seconds from detonation” at UK airports. Convenient, eh? I get the feeling that the laws will be pushed through in the wake of the Islamophobic hysteria, as it always is, and we are once again stuck with a law that has stripped us of our privacy and placed us inextricably in the Orwellian sphere.

Statistics released by the British government suggest that under the Regulatory Powers Act of 2000 (RIPA) – meant to combat terrorism - one in every 78 people is placed under state-sanctioned surveillance each year, with well over half a million official requests to access private information by councils, police and other officials in 2008, for infringements of the law such as benefit fraud, illegal fly-tipping and bringing a dog into the country illegally.

And the worst part? People who were found to have done nothing wrong, not even to have breached a council by-law, are not entitled to be informed that they were the subject of a surveillance operation.

Between CCTV, credit and debit cards, cookies on our computer, wiretaps on the phones and RFID chips in our documents, the net is closing in on Joe Soap, not Osama bin Laden. And governments all over the world are using terrorism as an excuse to ensure that no deed, good or bad, goes unpunished. And of course there is reality television to keep us all glued to the box while our civil rights dissolve like ice in the Sahara desert.

The next time Facebook asks you “what’s on your mind?” I’d suggest you think twice before you tell it the truth.

Why writing takes time, patience and a vow not to commit murder

2010-09-21T05:14:00.000-07:00

Being a writer is often a thankless job. It entails many hours of isolation, swearing at your computer screen and any living thing that moves around you and insomnia. Insomnia is a big part of being a writer.

Wordsmiths are also supposed to conform to the fine traditions of drinking surreptitiously from a hip flask and wearing a wide-brimmed floppy hat to let everyone know how eccentric you are, but being religious-ish I have yet to take up the drinking part and the wearing of a scarf interferes tiresomely with the big floppy hat idea.

My original point was that it is for the most part, unrewarding and wretched. And there is no shortage of people telling you to “hurry up” and get published. Which makes me want to stab them with a rusty ice-pick. But there are those brief moments that make it worthwhile, like finding the R100 note that I stashed in an old jacket pocket a year ago (most writers live below the bread line, and I am no exception) and the day I got the email from StoryTime’s editor, Ivor W. Hartman, telling me that two of my short stories had been nominated for selection in the literary e-zine's second anthology of short stories, African Roar 2.

I always knew that if I took up writing fiction, the road would be a long, empty monstrosity with many potholes and misleading signs, sort of like driving in the Tshwane Municipality formerly known as Pretoria. I prepared myself for millions of rejection letters and editors’ secretaries slamming the phone down on me. That’s how the industry rolls and I’m not in a hurry.

The only problem is that I wish someone had told that to my nearest and dearest. It’s almost as if someone put the evil idea into their heads that I would be an overnight success and that I would suddenly be transformed into a multi-millionaire, giving television interviews, accepting awards and cutting red ribbons inexpertly at opening ceremonies. The worst part is when they start mentally spending the non-existent money from a non-existent publishing contract for me. I’m talking beach houses and speedboats.

The two stories I mentioned earlier are both very special to me. “Trapped” was the very first short story I ever wrote and within ten minutes (figuratively speaking) it had been accepted for publication and was generating a lot of discussion and awareness about the problem of woman and child abuse in South Africa, an issue which is close to my heart.

“Longing for Home” was a story I put a lot of work and attention into. It centres around a young Zimbabwean girl, who, sent to England to study towards a degree, finds herself the sole breadwinner of a large extended family when violence erupts back home in Zimbabwe. It is a story of broken expectations, an African sense of duty and finding love in unexpected places.

So please feel free to read my two stories at the links above and you can also check out some of the other fine offerings by my fellow StoryTime writers. If you liked my two stories you can vote for them here – select Trapped by Hajira Amla – StoryTime#77 and Longing for Home by Hajira Amla – StoryTime#91, then scroll down to the bottom and click on the Vote button. Finding out my stories have been selected to go into the anthology would be one of those sweet, sentimental moments a writer waits for. My lower lip is ready to tremble theatrically any time. Voting closes on the last day of September 2010!

Thanks
Hajira

Facebook and Twitter: are you optimizing your social media strategy? [SPOOF]

2010-09-20T04:18:00.000-07:00

There are times when I feel I must educate the masses about the proper and correct use of Facebook and Twitter as a medium for making friends and impressing people. Some of you are just not doing it right at all.
So for the socially inept, here are some pointers:

1. Use the right language
Some of you are putting full stops and vowels into your communication. This is unacceptable and so last century. Wen itz tym t0 tlk 2 ppl, u r sup0sd 2 b v edgy n kewl lyk dis. iT aLS0 hElpS iF U tYpE LiKe thIS. No-1 knws y.

2. Don’t hold back so much
Your friends on Facebook and Twitter WANT to know the size, colour and consistency of the vegetables you threw up in the car after a hard night’s clubbing over the weekend, what your boyfriend of two seconds whispered in your ear on the backseat last night and what emo feelings you are going through because your daddy pays more attention to his lady friends than to you.

3. My friend is your friend
This is a free world. You are more than welcome to hijack my Facebook status and verbally attack any of my other friends who comment on it, including people who are old enough to be your mother.

4. Stalking – the new way of saying I love you
Guys love it when young girls ignore all the security and privacy advantages of Facebook and have their Wall and Photos available for the world to see. It makes it that much easier to stalk you and groom you until you are ready to perform certain acts that could make you famous in the video entertainment industry. Go for it – experts say making porn can build self-confidence among the young ladies of today.

5. Tag, you’re it!
Please, by all means, upload a random picture of a fat woman with camel toe to pollute my news feed. And just in case I am unlucky enough to miss it, tag me in the picture, so that when my other ~~stalkers~~ friends look for pictures of me, they think I look like Gabourey Sidibe in a thong.

6. The Farmville Mafia
Everyone loves Farmville. Everyone loves Mafia Wars. Hopefully, if we invite every friend we have onto these apps repeatedly, there will be no need to live in the real world any more. We can farm by day and kill one another by night. Yeah.

7. Invitations
The University of London Fresher’s Events, The Bomb Squad, Stop Randomly Poisoning Dogs in Seychelles and I HATE TYPICAL INDIAN HARROW/KENTON/KINGSBURY BOYS & GIRLS!! These groups are awesome. My life is now so much more fulfilled and meaningful. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.

8. Justin Bieber
I love it when #hornyforjustin is trending and I get to find out how many of the people I follow on Twitter are closet paedophiles.

9. Trending topics
Trending topics are such an insightful tool into the current affairs of the day. “I wear flip flops, even in the rain #BecauseImAGangsta”. Yes. Because all gangstas wear flip flops. In the rain. That’s what makes them gangstas. And after all, discussing why you are a gangsta is so much more important than politics or poor people getting killed in Kashmiristan. Or summin’ or nuffin’.

I hope that this list has given you a clear insight into the many, many benefits of social media. If you can think of any more of the benefits, please feel free to add them in the comments.

Oh no! The Game Drive has been postponed!

2010-09-01T08:20:00.000-07:00

If I have been very quiet lately it has been because I have been hard at work trying to organise the game drive for the children’s home at the Sultan Bahu Centre. However, things have not gone quite as according to plan as I would have liked and the major stumbling block has been around finding a suitable date for the event to take place. The Sultan Bahu Centre is going to be quite busy this September between all the craziness of the last ten days of Ramadaan, Eid celebrations and then the children must all be packed up and sent to Durban for their annual holiday over the school holidays.

The only free weekend that the children would have had would not have worked for the Krugersdorp Game Reserve as weekends are generally quite busy for them and they would have to provide us with a game ranger to go with us on the bus through the reserve. So after tearing my hair out and making lots of waily-waily noises, my dear friend and fellow organiser on this project, Zakiya, gave me a bit of a slap (metaphorically) and told me to calm the hell down.

“We can do it in October, what’s the hurry?” she said calmly.

And I realised that the timing wasn’t really that important and that trying to get everyone to do everything on such short notice when it wasn’t convenient for them wasn’t the right thing to do in the first place. So insha-Allah it will indeed happen when everyone is ready for it to happen.

So to everyone who volunteered donations or items for the party, please hang on to that bag of crisps or that packet of paper plates for a little while longer while we reschedule this event. There is no point in cancelling it since so much of the groundwork and organisation has already been put in place. Plus it is for such a good cause that I must persevere.

So thanks again for the support and please remember me in your duas. I will keep everyone updated as soon as we have the new date finalised.

Regards
Hajira

List of items for game drive lunch – donations needed!

2010-08-19T02:45:00.000-07:00

As I’m sure you know, Fasting For Change is making arrangements to take a group of children from Sabera’s Children’s Home on a visit to the Krugersdorp Game Reserve the weekend after Eid, insha-Allah. This is one of the initiatives we are embarking on as part of the task challenge and as the saying goes, the devil is in the details, so we are working extra-hard to ensure that the children have everything that they need for the day.

So many wonderful people are involved with making this project a reality that I can gladly no longer call it my own task any more – it has grown into a collective effort that everyone involved can be proud of.

One of the things we will need help with is providing lunch for approximately 50 people (33 children and the rest would be the organizers, caregivers and media) so if there is any item on the list you can possibly provide, please let me know.

- Salt & pepper sausages
- Fresh rolls
- Coldrinks & juice
- Disposable plates and cups (donated)
- Mineral water (donated)
- Tomato sauce (donated)
- Mustard sauce (donated)
- Cupcakes (2 batches donated)
- Potato crisps (donated)
- Any other easy-to-serve confectionery or treats are welcome

Obviously you would have to live in or around Johannesburg to donate these items. All food must be strictly halaal. As I receive pledges to donate I will update the blog with a (donated) sign. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

The Quran, the environment and my view of city life

2010-08-16T23:44:00.000-07:00

"And the earth We have spread out; set thereon mountains firm and immovable; And produced therein all kinds of things in due balance.

"And We have provided therein means of subsistence for you, and for those whose sustenance ye are not responsible.

"And there is not a thing but its treasures are with Us; but We only send down thereof in due and ascertainable measures.

"And We send the fecundating winds, then cause the rain to descend from the sky, therewith providing you with water. Though ye are not the guardians of its stores.

"And verily it is We who give life and Who give death: it is We who remain inheritors.

"To Us are known those of you who hasten forward and those who lag behind.

"Assuredly it is your Lord who will gather them together for He is perfect in Wisdom, Knowledge."

Holy Qur'an 15:19-25

Nothing can compare to the beauty of the Qur'an. This morning before Fajr I came across this and it gave me a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the widsom of these verses that describe how everything placed by Allah swt on the Earth is set in a delicate balance, that he gives us resources on the Earth to use for our subsistence, but that everything should be used in its due measure.

Look at the amazing description of the fecundating winds, rich with seeds to be spread over the soil and the rain that is sent after it to make the seeds grow and provide us with drinking water. We are also pointedly reminded that Allah swt is the sole guardian of fresh water - neither our scientific knowledge or our technology can avert a devastating flood or bring an end to drought.

The Qur'an tells us that our natural surroundings are Ayat (signs) but that most take no heed of them. It is when I am surrounded by natural beauty, at the coast or in the mountains, or looking at a beautiful night sky, that is the time I feel the closest to Allah swt. I feel a beautiful sense of peace that washes over me, a wave of joy, a feeling that everything makes sense. I am at my happiest at these moments. I want to jump up and down and laugh and shout a declaration of love to the sea and the mountains and the sky. Which is considered strait-jacket behaviour among most individuals, but as long as I stop doing it before the police arrive I should be fine.

You can never have that feeling in the concrete jungle, where its inhabitants can be vicious, violent and vindictive. Kind of makes wild animals look like bunny rabbits in comparison... If I had to choose one or the other for companions, I know who I would choose.

Three great task ideas from @tasoo

2010-08-13T13:58:00.000-07:00

I received a wonderful e-mail from @tasoo on Twitter (follow her, she knows things about people just by touching their avatars) and she has some really great ideas for her three tasks, which she kindly permitted me to share with the rest of you. Behold the greatness below:

Asalaamu alaikum

Firstly, I'm thrilled to be part of this, its a fabulous idea. My three changes are

1. Community-joined Sister 4 Sister campaign. I am paired with a student from Baitul Ilm and we will be completing a task a week together until Eid. We sent off our 'getting to know you' letters today, and tasks will include things like feeding a fasting or needy child and praying for each other. We will then get to meet each other on the last iftaar insha Allah.

2. Environment-well these were ideas I had before I read about your FFC project. I have bought fabric to make shoppers, really nice ones in funky colours. Now I'm just battling to find someone to sew them for me. The idea is to empower a person who does not have a job or needs a supplementary income - its not easy, but I know I will get there. And I'm also starting a herb an veg garden to promote healthy eating and also save some dosh :)

3. Spiritual-a para a day (not easy with 2 kids) and my 4 year old wants to be taught 'how to write quraan'. My goal this year is to spend an hour alone every day and think only about Allah and why I'm fasting.

Shukran

Will keep you updated

Tasneem

Fasting For Change – finally, a decision on my three tasks! [Updated]

2010-08-11T09:24:00.000-07:00

Ramadan Kareem to everyone out there that is about to embark on a month of fasting, praying and generally trying to get closer to the Almighty. Everyone who has signed up for Fasting For Change holds within them a desire to achieve something a little different this year. As I’ve said before, I don’t want to go through the obligatory motions and then end up feeling disappointed or disillusioned that I didn’t do all that I felt I should.

I wanted to get into the true spirit of Ramadan and for me it’s not about isolating yourself from everyone and just fasting, praying and reading the Qur’an. It’s about doing all of the above and sharing the positivity from it with everyone else you come into contact with. It’s about not being grumpy when some inconsiderate individual does something that would ordinarily make you lose your temper. It’s about not spreading stories about others. It’s about not just paying your zakat into a charity, but rolling up your sleeves and saying “what else can I do to help?”

So for all those people who are genuinely going to set themselves three tasks this month with me, I say may the blessings of Allah be with you and may He open doors this month for you that you never dreamed were possible.

When it came to my own three tasks, I procrastinated a bit (my best skill) and then I got into the whole self-doubt groove (which is also something I do frequently at almost Olympian levels), but the day before the 1st my brain mercifully kicked in again and a massive idea struck me. I got on the phone and schmoozed a bit and the results have astounded me – people started offering assistance and I was blown away by the way that things just came together in my lap.

So the three tasks I have picked for myself are as follows:

1. Spiritual: well, I decided to change this one after realising that my seven-year-old daughter puts me to shame in the Qur'an recitation department. She already knows about three times as many Surahs as I do. So I have vowed to make her teach me some (whether she wants the job or not). Some of the easy ones. So I am going to resolve to learn as much as I can and let you know how my slow silly muggaj fared. Hopefully, my daughter won't hand in her resignation for this job before the end of the month.

2. Environmental: plant a small vegetable patch in my garden in a small step towards self-sustainability. Mostly I chose this one because I can’t bear paying R20 a kilo for tomatoes and R10 for a cucumber.

3. Humanitarian (with a touch of environmental too): take the kids from the Sultan Bahu Children’s Home on safari to the Krugersdorp Game Reserve for the day.

I still have to meet with Oom Japie Mostert from the Krugersdorp Game Reserve to finalise the arrangements for the kids, but it is most certainly in the works and is being planned for a few days after Eid-ul-Fitr.

This trip will be wonderful in so many ways. The children will have a fun day, they will get to learn about nature conservation and any media interest generated from the trip will be directly beneficial to the Game Reserve which has suffered the loss of all their rhinos from poachers as well as their hippos being under threat from the Acid Mine Drainage toxic water tragedy in Johannesburg.

If anyone can offer any help in terms of transport or food for the children, please contact me, but please kindly note that we will not be able to accommodate extra people on this trip as space is extremely limited, although I imagine anyone that would like to come along and pay the Game Reserve’s entrance fee for the day would be most welcome.

So now you all know what I am planning to do – I am waiting for all of you to tell me what you plan to do now! And remember to encourage friends, family and colleagues to join in too…

Happy fasting!

Hajira

What Islam says about caring for the environment

2010-08-09T03:05:00.000-07:00

The Messenger of Allah (SAW) said, "Ramadan has come to you. (It is) a month of blessing, in which Allah covers you with blessing, for He sends down Mercy, decreases sins and answers prayers. In it, Allah looks at your competition (in good deeds), and boasts about you to His angels. So show Allah goodness from yourselves, for the unfortunate one is he who is deprived in (this month) of the mercy of Allah, the Mighty, the Exalted." [Narrated by Tabarani]

I’d like to think that Fasting For Change isn’t only about Muslims doing something good during the month of Ramadan. I’d like to see people of all faiths and from all types of backgrounds join us on this endeavour. And I would like to see it as a rallying cry to all my fellow human beings out there to pull our heads out of the sand and realise that some of our habits as consumers and members of the society we live in are unsustainable and inequitable.

Do we really need designer labels and V6 engines? When the time comes to settle down and build our own houses, is it really necessary to live in a six-bedroom mansion?

Is there some way we can build that will take less of an impact on the environment around us and consume less energy resources? Why shouldn’t we say no to genetically modified foods in our supermarkets? What can we do to touch the life of someone who really needs empowerment?

Islam prescribes kindness to all animals

"There is not an animal (that lives) on the earth, nor a being that flies on its wings, but (forms part of) communities like you. Nothing have we omitted from the Book, and they (all) shall be gathered to their Lord in the end." - Qur'an 6:38

This verse clearly explains that every kind of animal in the wild lives in communities with social structures just as humans do, and implies that they are not so different from us after all, thus deserving of our respect and protection. The last sentence is clear in its meaning: just as human beings will be raised up on the Day of Judgement, so will all the animals be returned to the Creator.

“We were on a journey with the Apostle of Allah(s), and he left us for a while. During his absence, we saw a bird called hummara with its two young and we took the young ones. The mother bird was circling above us in the air, beating its wings in grief, when the Prophet came back and said: 'who has hurt the FEELINGS of this bird by taking its young? Return them to her'.” - Narrated by Abdul Rahman bin Abdullah bin Mas'ud. Muslim.

This hadith demonstrates the empathetic nature of Muhammad (s) towards all living beings and shows that we should not only worry about the physical well-being of animals, but their emotional well-being as well and that we should not upset the natural order of things.

And another hadith states that:

“The Prophet(s) was asked if acts of charity even to the animals were rewarded by Allah. He replied: 'yes, there is a reward for acts of charity to every beast alive.'” (Narrated by Abu Huraira, Bukhari, 3:322. Also Muslim, Vol. 4; Hadith No. 2244.

Islam entrusts care and protection of the environment to human beings

Allah says: "Lo! We offered the trust unto the heavens and the earth and the hills, but they shrank from bearing it and were afraid of it and man assumed it Lo! he is a tyrant and fool." Qur'an 33: 72

“Corruption doth appear on land and sea because of (the evil) which men's hands have done, that He may make them taste a part of that which they have done, in order that they may return.” Quran 30:41

The Qur’an often discusses the beauty and majesty of our natural surroundings and orders us to pay heed to them as a sign and a warning: the sky, the stars, the moon, the sun, the seed, the rain, the oceans and the mountains are all mentioned repeatedly and we are asked to understand the signs that are in them. But how can we be appreciating these signs if we are systematically destroying them?

Another injunction in the Qur’an is against waste:

“But waste not by excess: for Allah loveth not the wasters” Quran 6:141

With six billion souls alive on the planet, jostling for resources, can we really afford to be so wasteful? Islam forbids us to waste water, food or spend of our wealth on unnecessary things. Each one of us is responsible for wasteful behaviour and we will be held accountable for it spiritually.

Reward for those who strive for good

"When My servants ask thee concerning Me, I am indeed close (to them): I listen to the prayer of every suppliant when he calleth on Me: let them also, with a will, listen to My call, and believe in Me: that they may walk in the right way." Qur’an 2:188

This Ayat was revealed to Muhammad (s) to let his followers know unequivocally that Allah is with us, listening to our pleas for help. He is also reminding us that although he does personally care for each of us, we also have a responsibility to reciprocate that love by trying to do the right thing in all aspects of our lives.

The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in a Hadith, quotes Allah as saying:

"When a worshipper moves closer to me by good virtues and voluntary acts of worship (nawafil), I will be his hearing by which he can hear, I will be his eyes by which he can see, I will be his hand by which he can act, and his feet by which he can walk. If he asks Me [to give him] I will give him what he wants, and if he asks for protection I will protect him." (Al-`Asqalani, 1959: 11, 341)

So it is obvious that Islam is not just about going through the motions of obligatory prayers and other things which we feel we have to do. It is about giving of yourself freely and striving to be a better person and making the world around us a better place. By doing this we attain a closeness with Allah that is akin to Oneness.

On that note, I wish all of you a Ramadan Mubarak and I urge you to take this opportunity to do three things: one that will benefit another human being, one that will help the environment and one that will uplift and refresh your own soul. Let it be a springboard for changes in your life long after Ramadan 2010 and let it be the line that ties you to your Cherisher, Sustainer and Provider.

Encouragement from Greenpeace Africa

2010-08-08T12:02:00.000-07:00

I received an encouraging e-mail from the guys at Greenpeace Africa this week with some advice on how to make green lifestyle choices:

Hi Hajira

I think it's amazing that you guys have embarked on this amazing project and including the environment is even better, Climate change is the major issue currently and whether people believe it or not it's happening. we recommend that you initiate an energy efficiency program for you and your group where everyone gets to calculate how much energy they use and if it's all necessary which we call an Energy audit.

Once they have seen how much they use and what is necessary people can then start using less and the energy they do use will be used efficiently and another audit can be done to see how much money and energy has been saved. The key is to start with yourself and then transfer it to those around you. I hope this helps.

Thanks.

Tshepo Peele
Outreach Coordinator
Greenpeace Africa

Task Suggestions from Maulana Aslam

2010-08-04T15:12:00.001-07:00

Today I popped on over to the Sultan Bahu Masjid in Mayfair to have a chat with the imam, Maulana Mahomed Aslam Suliman, who is generally an all-round cool and likeable fellow (I should know, since he performed my nikah a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…). Oh, and just as an aside, I don’t follow any particular madhab, I just appreciate religious organisations such as this one for the good work that they do in the community.

He was pleased to hear of the Fasting For Change initiative and happily filled me in on the events the masjid has got planned for the upcoming month of Ramadan as follows:

* Distribution of 500 food hampers to the needy

* Haleem distribution every Saturday during Ramadan between 3 to 5 p.m.

* Iftaar food distributed to approximately 300 men every night in Ramadan

* L’tikaaf program for approximately 30 men – sehri and iftaar meals provided

* Food hampers are also made by the learners at the Sultan Bahu Madressah and given out at a special assembly during Ramadan

* The Sultan Bahu Centre also runs a children’s home for approximately 25-30 orphaned children from a wide range of ages and family backgrounds, and clothing donations are welcome for these kids, as well as any other initiative we might want to take to fill their lives with a little more love and attention.

* Appa Zaybun runs revert classes every Saturday between 10am and 12pm, any enquiries regarding helping out that particular class of ladies can call 011 837 6185.

As far as helping us out with our spiritual task, Maulana Aslam suggested that we check out some of the special programmes being held during Ramadan which include the following:

* Q&A session with Ml. Aslam every Sunday after Zuhr salaat

* Talks and lectures held every night (for the men only, unfortunately) in the last ten nights of Ramadan after Taraweeh.

The Maulana and his team at the Sultan Bahu Centre do lots of good work, so if you are thinking of helping out with any of the above initiatives, please contact him on 011 839 2025.

If anyone knows of any other special talks or programmes being held anywhere in Johannesburg, Durban or Cape Town that Fasting For Change participants can attend – especially those that include or are specifically geared towards ladies - please put the details up on our Facebook page.

Thanks

Hajira

The Fasting for Change Challenge

2010-08-03T03:44:00.000-07:00

After my last blog post on what our aspirations and goals should be over the fasting month, it occurred to me that setting some real, thinking-out-of-the-box goals for the month might be just the thing to get us in the right mood to experience a Ramadan unlike any other. So I’m challenging all my blog buddies – Hamish, Queen Lestat, Azaad, Azra, Zakiya, MJ, Saaleha One, Saaleha Two, Fatima and anyone else on Facebook and Twitter who would like to participate.

The challenge is thus: pick three tasks which have to be done during the month of Ramadan which would make a positive difference to the world, no matter how big or small. Ask friends and friends of friends to do it with you, and then blog about it or if you don’t have a blog, send me an e-mail and pictures describing what you did. I will have a link to all related posts on my blog and we will from there be able to calculate all the good that has been done.

The end result? Before Eid we will have completed a knock-on effect project that will have contributed towards making a real difference, for ourselves, for others and for the environment.

Why three tasks, you might ask? It would be the goal to do a good deed in three distinct fields to make it well-rounded: humanitarian, environmental and spiritual. It doesn’t have to cost you money or take up huge chunks of time. Just three little things that you think might make a difference for the better.

I have compiled a list of suggestions in all three categories to help get the ball rolling, but lots of heads are better than one, so add your own suggestions in the comments below for anyone to use as they wish.

Humanitarian

- Volunteer at Habitat for Humanity to build eco-friendly housing for those who need it most.

- Bake cupcakes or other edible goodies and give them to children who don’t ever get the chance to enjoy treats like this.

- Donate old clothes or toys to welfare organisation or children’s home

- Rustle up some educational toys and children’s books to a crèche or primary school

- Ask Age-in-Action if there is an old age home in your area that could benefit from a visit

- Collect teddy bears for the Teddy Bear Clinic for abused children

- For the school-kids: get people to sponsor you for each day that you fast and donate the money to your favourite charity

Environmental

- Plant your own vegetable garden in time for spring

- Plant an indigenous tree

- See how far you can cut down on your use of plastic packaging, harsh chemicals and energy in the home

- For the creative talents among us: make innovative, funky designs out of junk like this

- Boycott BP – I have said it many times on my Facebook page, but I don’t think it can be said enough – the company that is responsible for spilling five million barrels of oil since April 20th in the beautiful Gulf of Mexico and ecologically sensitive wetlands of Louisiana. Don’t buy their petrol and don’t go to the convenience stores – if the forecourt owner had half a brain, he would already have switched brands to another oil company by now.

- In addition to fasting, why not try to go vegetarian for a week? Eating beef, lamb and chicken has a high impact on global warming due to methane pollution, plus growing the amount of grains to feed these animals contributes directly to deforestation. Eating fish also has a negative impact on ocean life, as overfishing is a problem shared by just about every country in the world, including South Africa. There are plenty of tasty vegetarian dishes out there that could just make you want to give up meat forever.

- Don’t buy plastic bags when you go shopping – they are only partly biodegradable and the ink they are printed with is highly toxic to the environment. Rather invest in long-lasting material bags and take them with you every time you go shopping instead.

- Join Greenpeace and the WWF and become online activists.

*I am also waiting to hear back from Greenpeace Africa for a list of environmentally-friendly tips and possibly some field activities where we could get directly involved. When I get that I will add an update on to this section.

Spiritual

- Attend a halqa or taalim class at your local mosque. You might discover you don’t actually know everything there is to know about your religion

- Get connected to the religious leaders in your area you feel comfortable with and attend talks and lectures.

- Participate in mosque activities and think of ways to get families more involved in the masjid. I was invited to a Shia mosque in the UK during Ramadan and I was blown away by the level of spirituality, participation and togetherness enjoyed by men, women and children alike.

- Write about your spiritual thoughts and experiences during Ramadan. Use the opportunity to share positive stories. Dig deep and confront some of the big issues which are challenges to us as South African Muslims: race, caste, gender issues, extremism, societal ills, greed and wealth.

- instead of stuffing yourself at iftaar time with unhealthy fries and oily curries, why not get personally involved with distributing wholesome food to needy Muslims at iftaar time and eat with them?

For all the cynics out there (viz: those who like to crack wise-ass comments and then go back to fantasising about iftaar time), this is NOT an attempt to jump up and down and say, “look at me and how good I am!” – but rather an opportunity to start something that galvanises us as a group of people into action as opposed to inaction.

This month of fasting and prayer are only the beginnings of the realisation that we are more fortunate than others out there in this world. And yes, we can donate money to charity, something which many of us will be doing before the month is out. But throwing money at a problem can’t always be the solution – there need to be individuals behind the resources who are committed to giving their time and energy to changing the status quo.

Please put your name down in the comments to indicate your willingness to participate and tell me what you are thinking of doing. Get creative and remember it’s all for a good cause. Remember, it’s not fun unless you take pictures (and no disgusting comments from the tuppenny seats please – I know your filthy minds)! If there are enough people on board to make it interesting I will create a Facebook page and let everyone post their own pictures and links.

An honest look at Ramadan: finding hope

2010-07-27T13:02:00.000-07:00

For many Muslims, Ramadan means different things. It comes around once a year, and each year we find ourselves in a different place than we did the year before. We may be in different surroundings – it may be somebody’s first year as part of a married couple; someone else’s first year as a divorcee. Perhaps it is someone’s nervous first fast in a strange town where they are away from their family, and maybe someone else across the road is feeling reluctant to deprive themselves of food for 30 days.

Somehow though, we always find ourselves hoping that this year will be better than the last. We always promise ourselves in the days leading up to Ramadan that this year we will take the opportunity to be much more pious, we will sit and read Qur’an, we won’t engage in gossip or slander, we really will keep ourselves from getting angry and we will be sitting on that musallah each time the Azaan sounds, five times a day.

By the last week of Ramadan, reality has bitten hard and I think most of us feel quite ashamed to look at ourselves in the mirror because we are all dying for the last ten days to go by already. What amazes me is that there are those who lie through their teeth and say that they are enjoying the last blessed ten days just because that’s what everybody says. Fasting is not the Oxford definition of fun - it’s supposed to be a test that gets harder as your body gets older and more decrepit each year.

Every year we tell ourselves that this is the year we are going to make that positive change for good, that when the month is over, that the Qur’an won’t ever be gathering dust again up on the top shelf, that those skinny jeans will not win over more modest clothing, that we really will indeed this year stop smoking for good.

Then Eid day comes around, and by the time the Zuhr Azaan sounds, we have already forgotten that we promised ourselves we would become permanent five-time namazis.

Round and round we go, each year, making the dizzying transition from gangsta rap to Qari Ziyaad Patel and back again in a matter of weeks. Where does it all end? Will we just stop making the effort one of these years?

There are a number of things that I personally don’t do during Ramadan. I don’t rush through the Arabic Qur’an, with no idea of what I’m reading, just so I can khatam it x amount of times in the month. I don’t spend my day slaving over a stove so that I can lay on a fantastic spread for my family that will go to waste because our eyes are bigger than our stomachs. I don’t spend the month pretending to be more pious than I usually am on any other month in the year. I think those kinds of things defeat the object of what it’s supposed to be about.

To me, Ramadan means a lot of things. Indeed, for me, Ramadan takes on a different meaning every time it comes around. Every year it has taught me a singular, clear lesson, and I believe it does so for everyone who allows themselves a little genuine introspection instead of mindlessly going through the motions and rituals just because everyone else is doing it. If you use Ramadan as a true litmus test for your faith, Allah will surprise and reward you every time.

The fasting month is the holiest of all months in the Muslim calendar. The first surahs of the Holy Qur’an were revealed in this month to the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) and it continues to be a month where problems are resolved, truths are revealed and beliefs strengthened.

Even if you didn’t accomplish all those things you said you would do during this month and after it, if you came out of it with your imaan strengthened, even if only slightly, wouldn’t you consider your spiritual self to have won a victory against your physical self, even if it is only a small victory? It means you live to fight another day; that you continue to strive towards the Creator despite the difficulties you face.

The philosophical essence of Islam is “surrender” – complete and utter acknowledgement that Allah is the disposer of all our worldly affairs and that He will not forsake us if we ask Him for help, nor give us a burden greater than we can bear. There can never be peace without trust.

I hope that all of you have a blessed Ramadan this year wherever you are. Asalaamu alaikum!

Breaking the blockade of Gaza. One dead body at a time.

2010-05-31T08:34:00.001-07:00

This morning I woke up to news that made my stomach churn with anger and utter disbelief. The Freedom Flotilla, a convoy of nine boats carrying aid to Palestinians living under siege in the Gaza Strip, was attacked in the early hours of Monday morning in international waters by Israeli security forces. Video cameras streaming live showed the moments the Israelis being lowered down on ropes from a helicopter gunship, while heavily-armoured warships flanked the aid boat on either side.

The men that came on board from the helicopters were armed to the teeth with automatic rifles, bulletproof vests and night vision goggles. It must have been the most alarming sight to see them descending from the ropes, fingers on hair triggers.

The activists on the deck of the Mavi Marmara, the lead vessel in the convoy, were obviously frightened but determined they would not go down without a fight. There was an ensuing melee. I did see an activist give an Israeli a good couple of thwacks with a folding chair, just like they do in the fake wrestling programs you see on TV. But I never saw a wrestler get shot dead for hitting someone with a chair.

As yet, the Israeli government has still not confirmed the exact number of dead, but sources have put it at 19 thus far, with up to 60 people wounded. The remaining activists were escorted to the port city of Ashdod in Southern Israel, where the wounded were taken to hospital and the others were held in a makeshift detention camp where they would be processed and probably deported later. The 10,000 tonnes of aid in the boats would be unloaded, checked, searched and slowly “dripped” into Gaza at the mercy of the Israeli government. Dangerous and subversive contraband, such as cement, would not be allowed into the Strip due to a ban already in place.

The Free Gaza Movement organised this flotilla with the aim of breaking the siege that has been strangling the people of Gaza for three years. The group was comprised of approximately 700 pro-Palestinian activists from over 50 countries, including a Nobel Laureate and several European legislators (including a Turkish MP who was found to be one of the victims killed in the military operation).

However, the Israeli Army (I refuse to call it the Israeli Defense Force) would have you believe that the people who organised the flotilla are part of a “radical Muslim organisation” with ties to Al-Qaeda and Hamas (yeah, like my grandmother. If you had to believe the Israelis, only that Muslim gal who was a stripper before she became Miss America doesn’t have ties to Al-Qaeda, and that’s probably only because she doesn’t wear enough clothing for her to conceal a bazooka underneath).

Andy David from the Israeli foreign ministry would like to convince you that these people “were not there to deliver peacefully (sic) humanitarian aid. They were waiting with knives, with metal bars. They were there to attack.” The Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, Daniel Ayalon, referred to the Freedom Flotilla as an “armada of hate and violence”. And to think that they pay their PR people top dollar.

Other spokespersons from the Israeli Army tried to defend their trigger-happy behaviour by saying that the activists were waiting for them and they were “lynched”. Because that’s what peace activists do. And the Israelis were so defenceless and afraid for their lives. They are also obviously too underfunded and backwards to have heard of tear gas, rubber bullets or crowd control training.

I hate that anyone had to die or even get hurt for this, but if anything, it will make Joe Bloggs more immune to the brown stuff that is constantly being spewed out of the Israeli PR machine. It also shows the power of social media. Twitter and Facebook have been overloaded by today’s events, and I’d like to think that ordinary folk have made a difference in bringing the issue home to all of us. Today, we shared, discussed, argued, re-tweeted and got information directly from the ground.

That’s the kind of democracy and freedom of speech that counts, but it’s also the kind that the leaders of the “free world” don’t really like because it can’t be edited to suit them. Today, the Israelis found themselves on the back foot while trying to bluff their way out, and everyone in the world has called their bluff.

Tuneless Muezzins – criticism IS fair

2010-05-12T08:32:00.000-07:00

I read an interesting article today on how Istanbul’s muezzins, after a slew of complaints from local residents, have been sent for voice training classes to ensure that they are able to give a melodic, spiritual Azaan in the correct tempo for the correct time of day.

So why can't we send our South African muezzins for voice training? I don't mean to be offensive, but some of our muezzins here in Johannesburg sound like zombies on tik. If Hazrat Bilal RA could hear them droning on as though they were doing the world a favour, he would be turning in his kabr.

Reading Azaan is an honour and a privilege, and yes, it is a task which many of the modern” in-name-only-Muslims” would never have time to do. It comes with a great sawab, but also a great responsibility.

Done correctly, it has the ability to make the heart of a human being yearn with willingness to prostrate before his Creator, burst to seek the understanding and wisdom of the Universe and bleed at the sheer beauty and inexplicable sadness of the call itself. Done incorrectly, it can make the die-hard Jamat-wallah want to bury his head deep into his pillow and beg for mercy.

At least in Istanbul one can actually complain about a tuneless Azaan and be taken seriously, but any voices of dissent here are drowned in a sea of stubborn dismissals from the ulema as follows:

“Can you do it better? You are welcome to come and try.”

“The muezzin is making a sacrifice in his old age to get up for Fajr and make Azaan. You are being rude.”

“Why are you mocking your pious fellow Muslim who is doing a service to Allah?”

Being “funny” about it doesn’t change the fact that the guy is croaking instead of singing and is turning the faithful into munafiqun instead of turning the unbelievers into Mu’mineen.

When Hazrat Bilal RA gave his last ever Azaan at the funeral prayer of Rasulullah SAW, it was so filled with deep spirituality and love for Islam and the Prophet of Allah that none who stood in the courtyard of the mosque at that moment was untouched. Tears ran down the Jamat’s faces and sobbing filled the courtyard.

Every muezzin should aspire to re-creating that feeling among the members of the Ummah who hears the Azaan. Muslims in South Africa are descended mainly from Indians in Durban and Johannesburg and in Cape Town from Malaya and Indonesia. Correct me if I’m wrong, but people from India are known for their ability to belt out tunes.

Once I heard a Jummah Azaan that was given by an old man who sounded as though he was in sakraat. Halfway through the thing, he came to a stop and began to choke very loudly over the loudspeaker and everyone on the street stopped what they were doing, fearfully wondering if he was going to die mid-Azaan. Luckily, he lived to croak another day.

Why is it that as South African Muslims we have lost our pride to such an extent that being a Muezzin is a “dirty” job, suitable only for old men who have retired and are waiting for death? Or might already have died, judging from some of their voices.

Perhaps another point to raise is that as parents, do we only aspire for our children to become doctors and lawyers, and leave the religious jobs to the retarded ones whose only other option is working in “Deddy”’s hardware store? So is your faith in the material life of this world or in what is awaiting us in the Aakhirah?

Non-Muslims who live among us in our communities must hate us so, so badly.

The question on my mind is: are we ready to change the way we represent ourselves as Muslims in this country? If we put our minds to it, we too can get a trainer to help our faithful old muezzins hit the high notes and train some younger ones the correct way.

Glossary of South African / Muslim terms for Americans and other people on tik:

Muezzin: is a chosen person at the mosque who leads the call (azaan) to the five daily prayers (salat) from one of the mosque's minarets (in most modern mosques, electronic amplification aids the muezzins)
Azaan: the Islamic call to prayers, given five times a day from mosques
Tik: Methamphetamine
Munafiqun: sing. Munafiq – one who is a hypocrite, mocks other Muslims behind their backs
Kabr: the grave
Aakhirah: the hereafter or afterlife
Sakraat – in the throes of death, on one’s deathbed
Mu’mineen (sing. Mu’min) – Believers in the One God of Moses, Jesus and Muhammad (peace be upon them)
Jamat – (collective noun) the attendees of the prayers at mosque
Jummah – the Friday noon prayers
Ulema - religious leaders and scholars
Sawab - heavenly reward

Dear United States, How can we take you seriously?

2010-05-04T01:17:00.000-07:00

On the heels of Saturday’s attempted bombing of Times Square, Washington has announced the detention of a ~~scapegoat~~ US citizen of Pakistani origin, Faisal Shahzad.

According to the US Attorney-General, Eric Holder, the suspect returned from a trip to Pakistan, bought a Nissan Pathfinder, rigged it amateurishly with propane, fireworks and ticking clocks, then paraded around in front of CCTV cameras so that the authorities could get a good look at him before running off and trying to board a plane for Dubai.

This is so hilarious it almost made me slap my thigh. Almost.

On Sunday, New York’s Mayor ~~and head of the NY Chapter of the Illuminati~~ Michael Bloomberg said in a carefully worded statement: “We Al-Qaeda didn’t do it. We are sure of this because ~~we didn't instruct the CIA to do it~~ there is no evidence to support this claim”.

After the City Police Chief, Raymond Kelly, revealed that police were examining CCTV footage of the bomber, he told the media that he was looking for a “white male in his forties”.

Now they are telling us they caught the evil, naughty, ~~Pakistani~~ Islamist just before he could run away to Dubai. He’s not white. He’s not even 40. He’s a brown-skinned 30-year-old guy. Way to go, NYPD!

Now, I’m no naughty, evil, smelly ~~Asian~~ terrorist, but I have a couple of brain cells to rub together. If I were to think of planning something like this, it kind of stands to reason that I would want to cover my tracks a bit if I was planning to make an escape and not commit suicide like most of the ~~CIA-programmed sleepers~~ terrorists do these days. Would I use my own car with registration plates and VIN attached, proudly proclaiming to the world who the car belonged to? Uh, no. Would I make a bomb that hissed, emitted clouds of smoke and had CLOCKS THAT TICKED????? Good Lord! Would I then arm the bomb and walk around in a famous place with lots and lots of surveillance cameras for all the world to see me? Uh…. No. Would I bother to do it at all if all it was going to was maybe make a little fireball? I’d rather just run a couple of people over with the car, it would be more effective, and this being New York City, maybe no-one would even notice.

So you see, America, perhaps if you got your story straight in the first place, people might be more inclined to believe you your lies. Almost makes us blind sheep miss Richard Nixon, doesn’t it?

Marriage: flatulence, warts and back hair.

2010-05-03T08:58:00.000-07:00

Women spend a lot of time looking for their soulmate. The “One”, the proverbial knight in shining armour, the man with the golden member. Whatever. Guys might think they’re looking for the “One” (you know: cooks, cleans, is contracted to wipe your mother’s backside when she becomes too old to eat solid food, etc. Oral sex is a plus.), but in reality, most guys will settle for whatever they land up with, as long as it has nice breasts.

The truth is, there's no such thing as a soulmate. There's simply a process that must be followed in marriage, and not everyone has the stomach for it. Sometimes the mixture goes green and has to be thrown out.

Guys don’t often look at the long-term picture here. Breasts hardly ever last forever - even the fake ones. Usually they are so surprised that a real live woman lets him touch her, he will, after enough nagging, settle down and have 2.5 kids. Trouble is, Married Utopia is like cheese – it may taste pretty nice, but after a while it gets stale and eventually, slightly furry. Especially after 2.5 kids.

Women have a knack for working with what they have. They will take that weedy underpaid office clerk and make him into that knight in shining armour, or he will die trying. Women see men as malleable lumps of clay, waiting to be moulded into a desirable shape with a late model car. She dutifully reminds him daily of his shortcomings and inspires him to be a richer, more successful man who will give her more money. She never gives up until he has become a tortured shadow of the dream she married. Still, by the time she has it, it is hard to deny the fact that he is balding and farts when he is nervous.

Men, on the other hand, tend to get disheartened quite easily. Just one year into the future, your glamorous sexy wife is transformed into a lumpy, misshapen mutant that either cries when you touch her or leaks milk out of her breasts, which, incidentally, used to be the object of desire of all the guys but now resembles uncooked dough in two long plastic bags.

So, you’ve been married ten years and your husband has avoided all your attempts to murder him and collect the inheritance. You’ve twice caught him texting other women and he now has enough scars and just enough brain cells left not to try it again. Your kids are big enough to start becoming their own people, and you have both realised that they are the kind of people you don’t really want to know. Getting to that plateau is the key. It is only then that the two of you will finally unite in mind, cellulite-stricken body and capitulating soul. The war is over. It is time to call a truce, wax each other’s backs and avoid your kids at all costs.

Addicted to the Matrix

2010-03-16T14:17:00.000-07:00

“Hi, my name is Hajira and I’m addicted to the Internet.”

“Hi Hajira!”

Phew, you say to yourself, that cow is finally getting the help she needs. You might be right about the cow part, but the only problem is that the support group is an online one…

It’s a common problem faced by many of us – we spend so much time on the internet that our relationships, activities and work in the real world come off second best at times.

Remember the real world? The place where you could reach out and grab somebody’s hand, feel the blood pulse beneath the skin? The place where you could be reasonably certain that your friend is actually a young lady and not a middle-aged man who breathes heavily and keeps the Kleenex handy whenever you post a new profile picture of yourself?

I think the only thing that keeps us coming back to the real world is food. When we can eat food on the internet, we won’t ever bother to press the disconnect button.

That sign on the door that says “On lunch - back in 15 minutes!” will be staying up much, much longer than that. Even the prospect of real, sweaty, fumbling sex can be passed up these days in favour of, ahem, “researching” one’s more taboo proclivities in a much more glamorous format.

Recently, a Korean couple who starved their baby to death while they looked after a virtual baby at the internet cafe showed the world how far this thing can go. Just give them a bowl of shark fin soup in their virtual world and they wouldn’t have even resurfaced to find out that they had killed their own kid.

So now there are only three categories of people who still exist in the real world. They are as follows:

1. “Celebrities” – these people have to go into the real world to have pictures taken of them passed out in the gutter with their underwear around their ankles. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be famous for anything. They do occasionally pass their time in cyberspace by having Twitterfeuds with other "celebrities".

2. Politicians – often found running amok (impregnating random women, embezzling taxpayers’ money, running over joggers, etc.) in the real world because everyone else is in cyberspace stalking other people they don’t like and playing Farmville.

3. Poor people – these people don’t have computers so we think their opinion doesn’t really matter until we realise it’s election time again. Can often be found burning tyres in service delivery protests, but still can't be expected to think outside the box when putting a tick in the old ballot box.

On the other hand, living completely in the virtual world might mean that we get to eat whatever we want and still stay virtually thin. If they develop a decent mutton biryani then I’m buying myself a plot of land in Farmville. Hyuk.

Child licenses

2010-03-10T02:30:00.000-08:00

Just recently I have had cause to question the ability of the human race to rear children decently and responsibly. I therefore propose that we implement legislation to enforce child licenses. Psychiatric evaluations, home inspections and competency tests should be compulsory on prospective parents to ensure that children brought into this world are brought into it by loving caring people who will give children stability and love.

It’s difficult to adopt a kid, right? There are all kinds of procedures involved to ensure that the orphaned child in question doesn’t end up being abused by the adoptive family, trafficked into a child sex ring or enslaved. So where are the checks on people who just go the easy route and just manufacture them themselves?

Unless you are Angelina Jolie or a person who is infertile but really desperate to have a child, you are not going to adopt. Why go through all the trouble and paperwork to prove that you would be a fit parent when you could just knock yourself or your partner up?

The sad reality is that all the sick paedophiles and child abusers out there are parents themselves and are quite happily using their own children as punching bags or pawns in their little sick games. So if we are really so concerned about preventing child abuse, why not implement child licenses?

The social services in any country can only step in AFTER some kind of terrible, noticeable abuse or neglect has taken place. The damage is already done by that time. There is no cure for a child who has been abused, so why are we not paying attention to prevention?

Children grow up to be the society of tomorrow. Today’s society is already filled to the brim with the damaged children from yesterday’s abuse.

Positively positive: the buck stops here

2010-03-10T01:41:00.000-08:00

There are many different theories floating around out there about the meaning of life, why we are here, what the hell forty-two has to do with any of it, et cetera.

Whatever your personal or religious beliefs, whether you are a by-the-book religious type, a New Age spiritual sort, a hedonistic atheist or anything inbetween, I think the one thing we cannot possibly argue with is that life is hard. It sucks sometimes. Of course, then sometimes it doesn’t, but there’s always that moment when you think, “really? Does it really have to be this stupidly hard?”

Perhaps it would be better to think of life as a great video game, filled with tough challenges and levels. Only you don’t get given a bazooka to blow up anybody that irritates you and sadly, you only have one life.

Whether you live in a shack or a mansion, you will be faced with challenges and burdens. No-one has the right to say that their life is harder than the next person’s. It is also stupidly pointless to play the blame game. We could all blame our parents for traumatising us beyond repair by making us listen to Billy Ray Cyrus singing “Achy Breaky Heart” on repeat in the car all the time. All the time!

But this is not about me. Whatever gave you that silly idea?

If someone did something to hurt you in the past, you can’t carry on living your life until you have truly forgiven that person. Some things can’t be changed. Sometimes we have to accept a reality that we don’t like.

If you live with any bitterness or hatred in your heart for any person, situation or event, it begins to define who you are, and the negativity slowly seeps through into every aspect of your life, your being and your attitude.

We may not be able to change what has happened in the past, but we can change how we react to it. It is not an easy process, and may take years to successfully achieve.

There will always be negative people in the world out there. You will come into contact with them, you will work with them, you may even have the misfortune of living with them.

Negativity is a chain reaction. Let’s say this morning you woke up and found that your neighbour (who found out a week ago that his wife was cheating on him with her best friend’s husband) smashed your car’s windscreen and put a sizeable dent in the bonnet with the half-brick he threw over your fence to shut your dog up in the wee hours of the morning. You get into a screaming match with him, he tells you he’s not paying for the damage and you go to work fuming.

During the course of your day, you get a quote for the damage to your car, which is astronomical. You snap on the phone to your colleagues, you bite the cashier’s head off at the bank because the queue was long, there was a big sweaty fat guy who had just eaten what smelled like a steak and kidney pie breathing down your neck while you were in said queue and your lunch break was over half an hour ago. Then, when you get home, you pick on your kids because they haven’t done their homework and get into a fight with your spouse because he’s not sympathetic enough when you start bitching about what a crap day you had.

All those people who you acted negatively towards during the course of the day, will in turn feel very wronged and injured and will proceed to take it out on the people whose paths cross theirs. Then those people will take it out on other people. And lo and behold, you have just spread a tsunami of low-grade negativity over the whole city in just one day. Happy now? Who can you blame it on? The neighbour? The neighbour’s wife?

The wave can stop with you. Only you can decide not to pass on the negativity to others by calming down, looking at the problem objectively and deciding that you are not going to allow it to turn your day into something brown and smelly.

You can do it – put a smile on that face and kill ‘em with kindness, charm and wit… and if you are having a rough day, just remind yourself that it takes thirty-six muscles to frown and none whatsoever to think to yourself “you’ll be dead from a heart attack in two years’ time, asshole”.

Ten reasons why it's awesome to be Muslim

2010-03-05T06:14:00.000-08:00

1. You get the benefit of skiving off work on Friday afternoons long after you’ve finished at mosque. Unless you work for a fellow Muslim, in which case, you’ll be lucky to get fifteen minutes.

2. You get to play practical Al-Qaeda jokes on the conservative old couple sitting next to you on the plane.

3. You can name your kid Osama and take him to the park, saying his name at least five times per minute. Have fun watching all the non-Muslims clear out.

4. If you go out in traditional Muslim clothing, you will always have plenty of personal space, no matter how busy your surroundings are.

5. You can invite a non-Muslim colleague from work to your house for supper and tell your mother / wife to make the curry diabolically hot.

6. If you send your toddler to a pre-school where there are lots of non-Muslims (especially teachers), teach him to scream at the top of his voice “Infidel!” When the teacher gets around to complaining, you can look all innocent, shake your head and say, “Haha! I just don’t know where he picks these silly things up!”

7. You can brush up on your Arabic alphabet and write all your work notes in your own Arabic secret code. Anybody that works with you will be totally screwed.

8. If one of your colleagues does something requiring disciplinary action, suggest at the next office meeting that he / she should be stoned in order to save his / her immortal soul. The looks you’ll get will be worth it.

9. Make friends with a Jewish person and then tell everyone at work one week that you are converting to Judaism, then the next week tell everyone that your friend is converting to Islam. Then send everyone an email announcing that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is over.

10. Go to the office Christmas party and suggest that all the guys go to Teazers afterwards. When you arrive, pass all the strippers full-body burkas and ask them to put them on for the sake of your soul. Then ask for the Halaal menu.

Letters from the brink of madness

2010-03-04T00:11:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, while my seven-year-old daughter was at school, I decided I would write her a little letter to tell her I loved her and leave it on her pillow for when she came home. After completing the letter (along with a very badly-drawn pumpkin in it), I decided to fold it up in the shape of a heart. She would really like it if I did that, I thought, seeing as how she is such a girly-girl.

Then the realisation struck: I had lost the ability to fold pieces of paper into hearts! Calamity! This is the slippery slope to old age, people, the slippery slope!

This made me think back to my high school days – yes, this was before the age of the cell phone, and yes, I really am that old, shhh! – when my friends and I used to write letters to one another, seemingly incessantly, then fold them up in our own unique ways and give them to one another, usually in the mornings before we all went to our separate classes or just before it was time to go home (that’s what Accounting was for - don’t you judge me!)

So I thought to myself, I should go into my little shoebox and go through the letters to see if there was a heart-shaped one there, and this would perhaps help me veer away from the seemingly-inexorable path I am travelling on towards Alzheimer’s.

I didn’t find any heart-shaped letters, but I did end up going through the lot and reading some of them. I laughed hysterically at most of them. I have always picked my friends on the basis of their kookiness. They have never, ever disappointed me on that level.

There were a few letters I opened that brought back some awful memories. Adolescence – it’s awkward, there are pimples and you mostly crave death. All the time. Mental note: have daughter induced into a coma from the age of 13 to around about 25. That should do it.

I thought I’d post a picture of some of the most interestingly-folded letters. Most of them are from Michelle. Coincidence? (Click on the images to enlarge)

It’s all gone pear-shaped…

2010-02-25T12:45:00.000-08:00

It’s been nearly a year since I came back from England and the thing that’s probably the most terrible thing about that fact is that I haven’t really walked anywhere. For a year. Walking around in a mall just doesn’t count, and anyway, what’s the point of walking around a mall when you have a wallet that would resemble Kate Moss’ cranium if you opened it up and peeked inside?

I can’t afford the luxury of a gym – not even the dodgy ones you see in the movies where they have cockfights in the basement. Going for a quick run in the neighbourhood would be a cheaper alternative, but the problem comes in when the police have to identify my remaining body parts to notify the next of kin. Yeah, this is Jo’burg baby! Love it or hate it, you can’t run in it.

The point is, I haven’t exactly been very active of late, and when your primary function in life is sitting in front of a computer all day and the highlight of your week is driving down the road to Checkers for groceries, you are going to end up with a flabby, square butt. Things tend to atrophy, and then gravity takes over.

Okay, I’m probably lying – my trip to Checkers every week isn’t really the highlight, but it does come a close second. I also go to my mother’s at some point during the weekend, and when that happens, I invariably end up stuffing my face with Mother’s Food. So it gets worse.

During the week my lovely husband is fond of having chocolates, ice-cream and popcorn (not necessarily in that order) after supper in front of the television before going to bed. Naturally I participate in this tradition because I wouldn’t want him to feel lonely, eating all those terrible, terrible things by himself.

It’s pretty darn obvious from reading the above that I needed to make a bit of a change in the way I live. When I realised that I could no longer walk in front of the full-length mirror in the hall without my eyes closed, I decided something had to be done.

I’m not terribly large. I wear a size 10 (34). But the thing is, I’m really short. Like really, really, really tall to the negative power of 5 billion. Dwarves would be allowed on the roller-coaster before me. I’m 147cm tall (about 4ft 8in, I think). Twelve-year-olds tower above me. Ominously. That’s why, even though I now weigh 56kg, I still have to lose about 10kg to look proportionately normal.

To make matters worse, I’m naturally pear-shaped. I have hips that make Oprah look like a catwalk model. Well, in my mind, anyway. It probably looks worse when you’re looking down at them all the time. When I was around thirteen I woke up one day and boom! Hips for Africa. I’m still waiting for the boobs, fifteen years later.

But lately, when small objects started to gravitate to and orbit around me, I knew that the time for action had come. So, I started The Diet yesterday. So far, apart from a bit of muscle ache from jumping around in my lounge like an simpleton with a skipping rope, it is going pretty well, but it’s still early days yet.

When I start fantasising about biting Francois Pienaar dressed up as a giant Lays potato crisp, you might just see me standing at the traffic lights with a cardboard sign which reads: “will write Mills & Boon novels for lipo”. Please spare some change...

Ten things I should have told my husband before we got married

2010-02-18T11:53:00.001-08:00

I have taken up the challenge from the indomitable Hamish and compiled a list of what I should have put in the fine print for my poor husband.

1. I expect you to eat my delicious curries and cakes and get fat during the course of our marriage, thereby rendering you unattractive to all other females, while I munch on lettuce leaves and develop a body that everyone, male and female alike, would lust over incessantly (that was the plan, anyway. If I grew taller by an extra thirty centimetres and looked more like a supermodel, less like a midget it might have helped, too).

2. Rule number one: I am always right. Rule number two: I am never wrong. Rule number three: if in any doubt, please refer back to rules one and two.

3. Any chocolate of yours left in the fridge will be eaten while you are at work.

4. There is absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing, that can persuade me to listen to Bala and Peru on Lotus FM. Same goes for watching Scandal!, WWE Wrestling and the Steve Wilkos show. If you insist on listening to/watching any of them I will cut you.

5. I am an obsessive neat freak and minimalist. I will take all the things you have left lying around and squeeze them into your cupboard, even if it means your life is in danger every time you open the wardrobe door.

6. Don’t expect me to do anything manly around the house, like oiling locks or changing light bulbs. Do I pay you to stand around and look pretty?

7. I expect you to listen to my incessant prattle about various things, such as how my mother’s neighbour’s daughter ‘s boyfriend’s uncle’s gynaecologist is being sued for malpractice and repeat it back to me at a later stage as and when deemed necessary by me.

8. If I want chocolate, even if it is midnight, I expect you to get in your car and go buy me some. Otherwise a sulk of epic proportions (due to low blood sugar) will follow. I shall be forced to demonstrate peaceably. In which case there is bound to be violence.

9. If you fail to remember my birthday or our wedding anniversary and make a big fuss of your lovely wife thereupon, the police will never find your body.

10. Don’t make me come back there and beat you.

Ten types of South African Muslims

2010-02-17T01:57:00.001-08:00

Lately I’ve been having a good giggle over Hamish’s blog and something he said today reminded me that we South African Muslims are stranger than fiction. So, even at the peril of mortally offending everyone’s sensibilities, I have made a tongue-in-cheek list of the different types of Muslims you get in this country. This is by no means an exhaustive list, so feel free to contribute to it in the comments box.

The Dariwallah

This guy wears pyjamas in public and has a long, usually unkempt beard. I’ve seen beards that could hide small mammals in them. Biologists could spend years studying what’s in them. I digress. He usually starts sentences with “Bismillah” and more often than not finds a way to justify his chauvinistic and warped opinions by quoting from an obscure Hadith or from allegorical verses of the Qur’an. Dariwallahs usually find it hard to sit down when speaking. Flecks of foam usually emerge at the sides of the Dariwallah’s mouth and large veins begin to bulge in his forehead and neck when he is riled up, and he usually gets riled up about everything. It’s often a good idea to keep the paramedics on speed dial and sharp objects hidden when trying to defend your non-jamiat approved view of a certain aspect of Islam. Won’t look directly at, speak to or save a woman from drowning because it might awake carnal desires and send him directly to jahannum. The Dariwallah often gets a hard-on from watching the Oprah Winfrey Show.

The Lesser-Spotted Niqabi

The Lesser-Spotted Niqabi is rarely seen in urban areas, and when she does make an appearance, she often seems to labour under the misapprehension that every woman she recognises, even someone she met briefly at a book fair ten years ago, will recognise her simply by noticing her veiled face and muffled voice. In the company of other Muslim females, the niqab comes off and the devil comes out. Possibly the wickedest group of Muslim women I have ever come across. The best place to observe her outside her natural habitat is usually at Adult World, where she can be observed furtively purchasing studded underwear.

The Taliban-Wannabe

Usually young and inexperienced, this boy is typically the son of a Dariwallah. He can be found in ~~sheep’s~~ Western clothing, having developed a severe distaste for his father’s kurta-pyjama from an early age. He normally has a short, neat beard and looks like the kind of boy you’d want your daughter to marry. Until he opens his mouth, that is. Taliban-Wannabe is obsessed with guns, killing people and defending Islam (not necessarily in that order) and often expresses a desire to go to Afghanistan to fight for his Taliban brothers, but will never really end up going. What’s in his pants is normally a disappointment and is the most likely to end up murdering his own wife and kids. Quotes incessantly from the Qur’an but is a notorious skirt-chaser.

The Beauty Queen

Strikingly beautiful, slim and intelligent, this woman is a sight to behold. Sadly, she knows it and will remind you of it every chance she gets. She likes to put millions of beautiful profile pictures up on Facebook so that her army of unattractive male “friends” can gush creepily about how ~~much they would like to get her into bed~~ pretty and amazing she is. She is also fond of updating her status with deep, intelligent statements in the hope that one day, people will like her for her brains and not her beauty. Usually has daddy issues and is cold in bed.

The Player

Not normally the brightest kid on the block, the Player relies on his good looks, pimped ride and the money from Daddy’s hardware store to get him by in life. The Player usually gets married before he develops pubic hair, more often than not to his first cousin in order to keep the money in the family, but doesn’t see that as an obstacle to pursuing his ambition: being the biggest slut on the face of the earth. He has been known in the past to get involved in wife-swapping activities with his Player friends and has a predilection for paying for sex with transvestites. The Player often has nasty personal habits and is most likely to get arrested in a public toilet with George Michael.

The Harassed Mother

The poor soul is worn out from having four to six children and spends her whole life cooking, cleaning up puke, lactating and changing nappies containing sloppy green stools. She lost her figure after the second child, doesn’t have time for makeup and can often be found snoring during sex. She hates her husband for being able to leave the kids behind and go to work. She has forgotten what the second-last kid’s name is and he grows up thinking his real name is Bhaiyya.

The Repressed Nerd

Usually the guy all the girls want to be friends with. Often writes in programming language better than he can write in English. Is obsessed with gadgets and technology and spends hours searching for javascript arrays, SQL injections and porn. Repressed Nerd finds it difficult to communicate human emotions to others. His mother phones him once a week to ask him when he’s going to get married and give her grandchildren. Whenever he works up the courage to make a move on a girl, the typical response includes contorted facial expressions and pepper spray. Will remain a virgin until he realises it’s better to just pay for it.

Manhattan Wife

The Manhattan Wife is usually married to the Player. She knows her husband is a man-whore and sees more vaginas in a week than the average gynaecologist sees in a year, so the only thing she has left is his money. She would be hideous if it wasn’t for her regular visits to the cosmetic surgeon. Fond of Dolce & Gabbana, Louboutins and the South of France. The Manhattan Wife drives a gas-guzzling SUV that is far, far too big for her and wouldn’t know a prayer mat if someone flagellated her with one. Sandton City has given her VIP parking. Often has sex with random people and of course is no stranger to the wife-swapping phenomenon mentioned earlier. Manhattan Wife spends more time in rehab than out and has invariably had butt-fat injected into her lips.

The Sap

The Sap will always work for a fellow Muslim because he has been made to believe it is his moral obligation to be enslaved for a fifth of his market-related salary. Can be typically found working seven days a week in hardware stores, supermarkets and for charitable organisations. Has no ambition and his only thrill in life is from sexually harassing dolly birds at the shop. The Sap thinks it’s his right to steal from his boss because he is paid so little. Is usually married to the Harassed Mother and also can’t remember the second-last born’s name without having to consult the birth certificate folder.

The Hardcore Thinker

The Hardcore Thinker is a woman that will nag and annoy any man or child unlucky enough to be near her to the brink of suicide. She is fond of overly sentimental and hardcore religious status updates and thinks her poo smells like roses. She can often be found lamenting that she is misunderstood. The Hardcore Thinker is very fond of drama and can be found to be stirring pots of shit in a variety of different locations simultaneously. She is not afraid to embarrass others. She tries very hard to give off the impression that she is a serious person who contemplates very serious things all the time. Quick to judge and lose her temper. If any man ever has the balls to dump her she will most likely take out a billboard ad to tell the world how he did her wrong and how small his penis is.

If you have been offended by this blog post it’s a sign that you probably take yourself too seriously. Go and be a Nazi on someone else’s blog.

Checklist - How Jacob Zuma knows when he's doing it right

2010-02-03T00:51:00.001-08:00

Jacob Zuma knows he’s doing it right when:

1. An entire day goes by and Julius Malema is not made fun of in the press
2. The national police commissioner's daughter tells him she is not pregnant after all with his 47th child
3. A new law is passed requiring all men to have a minimum of ten wives
4. The African Christian Democratic Party stops trying to book him into the same rehab clinic as Tiger Woods for sex addiction
5. Helen Zille decides to form an alliance with the ANC to disband the Democratic Alliance in return for a position as Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs under Marthinus van Schalkwyk
6. Schabir Shaik really does die of a terminal illness so he can say “I told you so!” about letting him out of prison early
7. COSATU and the ANC Youth League agree to go on regular playdates at Zoo Lake so they can bond better.

Checklist - how you know if you're doing it right

2010-02-03T00:44:00.000-08:00

You know you’re doing it right when:

1. People smile at you often
2. You get invited to events and parties
3. People add you as a friend on Facebook
4. Your mother makes your favourite dishes for you
5. Your significant other spends quality time with you
6. Dogs wag their tails when they see you
7. Your biggest problem is wondering what to make for supper

You know you’re doing it wrong when:

1. People move their heads back and try not to breathe when you speak
2. You get voted the designated house-sitter every time your flatmates go out
3. People block you on Facebook
4. Your mother tells you not to come over because she has gone out, but you’re already there and you can see her car in the driveway
5. Your significant other spends quality time with you and the judge while explaining why he/she needs a restraining order against you
6. Dogs wag their tails when they see you – just before they jump up to go for your jugular
7. Your biggest problem is trying to figure out who your baby’s daddy is

Some thoughts on the Israel-Palestine conflict

2010-01-20T01:39:00.000-08:00

Quotes and prophecies from the Pentateuch (first five books of the Old Testament, thought to have been recorded at the time of Moses)

Genesis 49 – Israel’s prophecy

8 “Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hands shall be on the necks of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down before you.
9 “Judah is a lion’s whelp; from the prey, son, you have gone up. He stooped down, he crouched as a lion and as a lioness; who dares rouse him up?
10 “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs (Heb: until Shiloh comes); and to him shall be the obedience of the people.”

Exodus 20 – the Ten Commandments

13 “You shall not kill
15 “You shall not steal
16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour
17 “You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbour’s.”

Exodus 22:21

“You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

Leviticus 19

33 “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.
34 “The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.”

Numbers 35

33 “You shall not thus pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and no expiation can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of him who shed it.
34 “You shall not defile the land in which you live, for I the Lord dwell in the midst of the people of Israel.”

Deuteronomy 28

47 “Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of the heart, by reason of the abundance of all things, 48 therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and in thirst, in nakedness and in want of all things; and he will put a yoke of iron around your neck, until he has destroyed you.
49 “The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you do not understand, 50 a nation of stern countenance, who shall not regard the person of the old age or show favour to the young, 51 and they shall eat the offspring of your cattle and the fruit of your ground until you are destroyed; who also shall not leave you grain, fruit, wine or oil, the increase of your cattle or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish. 52 They shall besiege you in all your towns, until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout all your land, which the Lord your God has given unto you.
53 “And you shall eat the offspring of your own body, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you.
54 “The man who is the most tender and delicately bred among you will grudge food to his brother, to the wife of his bosom and to the last of his children whom he is eating, because he has nothing left him, in the siege and the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in all your towns.
56 “The most tender and delicately bred woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot upon the ground because she is so delicate and tender, will grudge food to the husband of her bosom, to her son and her daughter, 57 her afterbirth that comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears, because she will eat them secretly, for want of all things, in the siege and the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in all your towns.”

Deuteronomy 32:39

“See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.”

Draw from it what you will…

Forced removals

2010-01-19T07:45:00.000-08:00

I have been doing a bit of research for one of my short stories, and the subject matter was Johannesburg in the early 1960s. I am absolutely transfixed by the stories I have read, the pictures I have seen and the sad relics that still remain today. The Mayfair / Fordsburg area is something that gets under your skin - if you allow it to - and never leaves you. Every time I drive around this area I am transported to another time.

Mayfair was a white suburb, built for poor whites working on the railways. Fordsburg was also a predominantly white area into which some Indians moved around the 1950s. Fietas, otherwise known officially as Pageview / Vrededorp, was an area which is remembered by most of the people who inhabited its colourful streets with sad regret and painful nostalgia. Sophiatown was a suburb initially developed for whites, but after the government slapped a sewage plant next door to it, the owner of the land began to sell the remaining land to Indians, coloureds and blacks.

I try to see all this history when I am out and about. Now it is Mayfair and Fordsburg that are the colourful, vibrant areas, much like Fietas of old. Today, these two neighbouring suburbs are filled with Indian Muslims, Indian Hindus, coloureds, Pakistanis, Somalis and even some old whites who never sold up. Yes, there is practically a drug dealer on every street corner. It is also a place of stark contrasts. The old burnt-out shell of an old railway house can exist merrily with its drug-addicted occupants right next to a brand new two-storey, five-bedroom house with a Mercedes and a BMW parked in the garage.

I prefer the old houses, myself. I’m an old-fashioned kind of gal. When you are in an old building with a history, the soul is filled with appreciation in a way that can’t be obtained from standing in a shiny new building, full of glass doors and stainless steel trimmings. The house I live in is a typical old railway house, with beautiful hardwood floors, dado rails, pressed metal ceilings and a fireplace in the lounge. When I look up aimlessly at the patterns on ceilings I do so wondering what kind of people lived in this house over the years and whether they too looked up at the ceilings in the same way I do now.

Whenever I have reason to cross the divide of seventeenth street, I enter completely into the past. For who can roam the streets of Fietas without being haunted by ghosts of the people who were forcefully removed from this place? Unlike Sophiatown, the people of Fietas were evicted over a long period of time, due to resistance from the residents and a lack of concerted organisation on the government’s part. And unlike Sophiatown and District Six, Fietas was sort of half-demolished. Some buildings were only partly torn down, and remain to this day, ghostly reminders of the destruction wrought by the apartheid regime. And of the houses that were demolished properly, relatively few new ones were built upon the vacant stands that were cleared for the sake of the whites.

Fietas is a sad, seldom-visited museum. Its patches of unkempt grassland speak volumes about the children who grew up in the houses which now only exist in their fast-fading memories and crinkled back-and-white photographs. Its grand mosques speak of a time when the surrounding neighbourhood was a community. The solitary remains of its dilapidated 14th street bazaar tell little of a trade mecca that invited patrons of every race from far and wide.

I can also imagine the terror and the sadness felt by the residents of Sophiatown in 1955 when they were rounded up by heavily-armed military personnel like dogs and put on trucks headed for the South Western Townships. The whole area was then razed to the ground by government bulldozers and the area re-developed for whites. It was as if Sophiatown never existed. The new suburb was named Triomf (Triumph in Afrikaans) – a final kick in the teeth to the people who grew up listening to the sounds of jazz music and tsotsitaal in the vibrant township.

Did those residents of Fietas, Sophiatown and District Six ever think that the cruel regime under which they lived would come to pass bloodlessly? Did they think it would happen in their lifetime? Did they think they would ever get rid of the Special Branch coming into their homes late at night? Did they ever conceive that their grandchildren would grow up going to school alongside children of all different colours and religions, and that they would be free to study what they wished, apply for any job they wanted, marry whomever they wanted to and live wherever they pleased? And finally, did they imagine that a non-racial, democratic South Africa would be a utopia? Would you choose to live in Fietas in the fifties or Mayfair in 2010?

Social media gives mainstream media the finger

2010-01-03T10:20:00.000-08:00

At the start of a new year and decade, it is a time to pause and reflect upon both past, present and future, a way, if you will, to mark a large “You Are Here” in red on the timeline. It is a time to note emerging trends and make predictions about the year ahead.

One thing that cannot have failed to have grabbed everybody’s attention by now is the rise of social media. You would have to be living under a bridge, or approaching your second heart bypass, to be unaware of things like Twitter, YouTube, blogging and Facebook and the impact that these media are having on modern society.

The younger generation of the world is one that demands many things. This crowd is not known for their patience or understanding. They want to have contact with their peers at the touch of a button and they expect news and information to be constantly at their fingertips.

They are also not very good at keeping things to themselves. While I would call this “oversharing”, teenagers and twentysomethings are telling the world about their angst, their heartaches, their funny stories and the things that make them angry.

Their thirst for information is insatiable. Sure, they might not be reading as much as their parents or grandparents, but they are adept at gleaning the bare facts from 140 characters or less. Their parents had to go to the library and search through dusty old tomes for the information they sought, learning to summarise and make their own notes from printed textbooks. But now all that is required is to pick up a mobile phone or turn on a laptop, point it in the general direction of Google or Wikipedia and the gist of the information is absorbed.

It is perhaps not surprising then, that the mainstream media, generally led by wrinkly men with a grey hair or twelve, are struggling to keep up with the spread of news and views on the internet. These would be “unauthorised” news and views. They haven’t been vetted. These stories never sat on a news editor’s desk and the angle of the story wasn’t carefully calculated.

You could argue that it has turned the entire internet into a large corporate office, rife with rumour and gossip, snatches of misinformation whispered between cubicles. But on the other hand it could be said that it keeps the fat cats on their toes and checks their ability to get away with murder without creating a tsunami of whispers and suspicions.

The rise of the use of Facebook and Twitter as means of communicating news has led to many young people questioning the role of the mainstream media and the relevance thereof.

A typical case in point was the recent gathering of about 1400 Gaza Freedom Marchers from 48 countries. They gathered in Cairo, Egypt, intending on travelling through the Rafah border crossing into Gaza and holding a demonstration to draw attention to the plight of the people living in Gaza under blockade, a year after the Israeli attack on the area.

The Egyptian government refused to open the Rafah crossing for them and Egyptian police attacked a group of European female demonstrators, punching, kicking and tearing off headscarves. One French protester reportedly died of her injuries.

Through all this, however, these images were nowhere to be seen in the international media such as the BBC or Sky News, and nowhere in the local media outlets. This is a clear indication that the news corporations are too concerned with toeing the political line. Bad press for the Israelis is something they usually avoid at all costs – even when the cost is a human life.

Climate change is also a big bone of contention which threatens to turn on world leaders and bite them in the rear ends. With the leaking of documents at the Copenhagen climate change summit, the world saw a cancerous clot of greedy bureaucrats stuffing up the last real chance we had to undo decades of pollution and reckless consumerism.

Perhaps an inevitable conclusion is that the social media-using millions will begin to grow restless in the coming years when it begins to sink in – years of inaction and cover-ups by politicians, as thick as thieves with the newsmen. Unfortunately, this may mean years of unrest and demonstrations, perhaps also civil disobedience from protesters and heavy-handed punishment from governments clutching desperately onto power.

I sincerely hope that when the discontent reaches fever pitch it will usher in some kind of new era where ethics and accountability prevails, but the undying cynic in me is prone to point out that the “free” world is more likely to end up resembling the end of George Orwell’s prophetic but terribly depressing novel, 1984.

Freedom fighter extraordinaire

2009-12-28T05:35:00.000-08:00

WARNING: this blog post has been written from a sardonic point of view. If you find yourself running low on humour, please visit the SABC’s website and you should be fine after a few minutes.

I have been a veteran in the struggle against apartheid since 1993. Yes, the year I arrived in this country, at the tender age of twelve. As young as I was, I was nobody’s fool. Although I was slightly disappointed to be unable to see any Zulus throwing spears up at the aeroplane on the way to Jan Smuts airport in Johannesburg, I figured that since it was a public holiday, even Zulu warriors needed a break from throwing spears at the whites.

No, you would never catch a bright person like me, brought up in God’s own country (just to make it clear, this would be England), being ignorant about African current affairs. Although I will admit that when I heard the news about Nelson Mandela being released from prison after 27 years, I struggled to understand why everybody was making such a fuss over a convicted criminal. But I was only a pipsqueak of eight back then. To be sure, I knew by the time I moved to South Africa in ’93 that Mandela was a very dangerous man.

Since we were brought over by a white South African family with whom we were living, I had the advantage of being able to learn a lot about South Africa very quickly. Yes, I learnt all about the kaffirs, and how they were all ready to kill us in our beds and take our BMWs.

We had two maids, Pinky and Mabel. They used to speak Afrikaans very oddly, I thought, with all sorts of funny clicking noises and no-one could understand them when they did that. I gathered that it was some kind of secret code. Eugene Terre’blanche will tell you that there are enemies everywhere, and boy, was he ever right.

Since the elections were fast-approaching, there was little to do except instruct the women and children in combat shooting. We stocked up on baked beans and candles, sandbags and ammunition. We kids were told to practice re-loading firearm magazines until our fingers bled, for it was us children who would be relied upon to reload for the adults when the bloodshed began.

The time of the elections was nearly upon us, and we went on what could possibly have been our last holiday. It was a long and weary trek in our air-conditioned BMW down to Richards Bay, and we outspanned when we got to the lobby of the hotel. For some unknown reason I became embroiled in a political discussion with a black man sitting in the lobby. Fancy me, an educated Englishwoman of twelve, imparting my erudite political views to a savage!

Nevertheless, I asked him politely who he would be voting for in the elections, to which he replied he would be voting for the National Party (an old party from the times of apartheid and the last bastion of hope for the whites). I was very pleased with this man’s valour and common sense, and I remarked that the National Party was the ideal party to vote for, because as I put it, “things will stay just exactly as they are”.

I think that from the way the poor man's face dropped in utter horror, that he probably made sure that he was the first person in the line at the polling station on the first day of voting, and I’m almost 100% certain that the tick he made was next to the box that read “African National Congress”.

So you see, I really was doing my bit for freedom even back then, when I had more pimples than common sense.

Restless nights

2009-12-13T02:09:00.000-08:00

It has been my second night straight without any sleep and about two or three weeks since I knew a proper night’s slumber. Yes, I have been bitten by the fiendish insomnia bug. The bags under my eyes are now large enough to accommodate all of Mariah Carey’s luggage, and I have changed my Facebook picture to that of a rather attractive-looking donkey. Yes, sleep is a fickle thing indeed.

The romantic in me suggests that during these restless nights I should be true to the writer’s stereotype and sit up until the wee hours of the morning, a double scotch in hand, cat on my shoulder and a shotgun on my lap, hacking away feverishly at the keys, but I don’t drink, the cat can be homicidally averse to being awoken from his carefree night-time slumber and I am sadly lacking in the shotgun department.

It is also challenging to be properly eccentric when you share a house with non-writers. The desire to sit up nights and slump into the horizontal position during the day may oft be looked at askance by the people and children in the house who expect to be fed at regular intervals during the day. Their clothes stand in ridiculously frequent need of washing, hanging and ironing, their dirty dishes pile up in the sink begging to be washed. This is the pitiful impasse of the female writer who is reasonably cognisant that her offspring should preferably not be removed by Social Services.

It is thus that I remain in bed all night, trying hour after dolorous, humdrum hour to find new joints to crack in a reasonably loud and satisfying manner, a myriad of inconsequential and mediocre thoughts stampeding inconsiderately through my echoing cranium. And when the birds begin their pre-dawn song and the call to morning prayer sounds, I may perchance thereafter fall into an inert, dreamless unconsciousness, only to awaken abruptly as the morning’s clamour begins.

To be a truly great writer, one should preferably be a convicted criminal and one should die an honourable writer's death - suicide, syphilis or consumption. I am working myself up towards all of these lofty goals, but in the interim I hope to get some sleep first.

Death of a Beatle

2009-12-08T00:09:00.000-08:00

At around the very time that I was conceived, an event occurred that was to send the Western world into shock and mourning. On the 8th December 1980, across the Atlantic from the place of his birth - and the place of my impending life – John Lennon was shot in the back four times in New York City and was pronounced dead on arrival at the nearby Roosevelt Hospital.

It has been twenty-nine years since the death of one of the most successful singer-songwriters ever to have lived, but it is an anniversary I still comemmorate with countless others throughout the world. The Beatles have been the largest single influence on modern songwriters today.

I often ask myself what it would have been like had John Lennon lived to a ripe old age like Paul McCartney, but I know, and always have known that even at the age of 40, Lennon had reached his expiry date. Somehow, when I think of the song “When I’m Sixty-Four”, I can imagine Paul losing his hair, sitting by the fireside, but John Lennon’s existence was so full of creative angst and tortured emotions that it was almost impossible for him not to become immortal by dying a tragic death.

Growing up, my entire life from the age of about five was affected and influenced by the Beatles. My brother decided to take up the guitar at school, and our headmaster, Mr. Hill, was a huge fan of the Beatles. Simon came home from school one day with a tape Mr. Hill had given him, and I remember that the first song we listened to was Strawberry Hills. From that moment onwards our home in North Yorkshire became an effective shrine to the Beatles. When my brother taught me to play the guitar soon after he took it up, it was mostly the Beatles that we were playing.

I recall when he obtained a book which contained the concise anthology (music and lyrics) of the Beatles’ works. On the front cover were pictures of Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr. There was something about Lennon, though, that was different from the rest, a piercing look that the others didn’t have. Simon asked me which Beatle was my favourite and I remember being devastated when he told me that out of the four band members, I had to pick the one that was dead.

As I grew up, my passion for the Beatles - their music and their lives - was never tempered. I devoured as much information about them and the period that I could lay my hands upon.

I know every single lyric from every single song. I wished and longed to travel back in time just to wallow in the glory that came from their songs being on the charts. This was perhaps one of the reasons I was such a loner growing up – I have always felt that I was born in the wrong decade.

Yes, Lennon is a true and typical immortal. A man with an intensely troubled childhood, he was determined to make his name in music. But upon achieving superstardom, the pressures and pitfalls of fame almost destroyed him. After leaving the Beatles in 1969, Lennon’s new identity and life as a somewhat unconventional anti-war activist, influenced greatly by his equally eccentric wife, artist Yoko Ono, brought him once again into the spotlight.

Just eleven years later his life was taken by an apparently deranged fan, Mark David Chapman, who had been stalking Lennon for months. The world continued to turn, the sun continued to shine and the mountains, for the most part, stayed where they had been put. But perhaps little pieces of Lennon’s soul flew into places where they could not be erased, and I would like to think a little piece of him embedded itself into the depths of the heart that would belong to me.

2009 in retrospect

2009-12-05T00:25:00.000-08:00

I can’t believe it’s the end of the year, and it’s been a pretty strange one for me. It’s been one of mixed emotions, of failure and of success. I’ve explored some unchartered territories and been bloody scared out of my wits on occasion. But looking back, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

My daughter came home on Thursday with an excellent report from school. I'm very proud that she managed to adapt to a new school halfway through the year and managed not only to catch up, but to excel.

This year I finally come to a place within myself that gave me the courage to start writing, when I’ve known for years that it’s what I should be doing. And while I expected a slew of rejection letters, it came as quite a surprise that a number of my short stories have immediately been accepted for publication in various literary journals.

I’ve met some really wonderful people this year, and I’m all the better for knowing them. And for the people in my life that have not exactly turned out to be panaceas to my soul, I’ve let them go on their path while I’ve continued along mine.

While standing up for yourself and what you believe in is extremely important, this year I learnt that at times stating your position, taking a step back and just having faith is far more powerful than arguing and starting conflicts.

Speaking of faith, this year saw me take a huge leap of it in moving back to South Africa from England. And the person I was putting my faith in was my husband. Now, I’m not a soppy person, but I am allowed to have a moment once in a while. He has supported me through thick and thin this year, as always, and he never ceases to amaze me. For the good, kind, intelligent person he is, and all the things he does for me, I am truly grateful and he deserves all the kudos in the world. For being enthusiastic about my writing, for buying me ice-creams when I was fed up, for building me - with his own hands - my very own writing desk and making supper when he saw I was under the weather, thank you Ahmed, for the support and love.

As nice as being back in England was in some ways, being back in South Africa, which I consider to be my true home, is better. I have my wonderful, supportive parents; I have natural African beauty surrounding me, a beautiful home, I’m within six hours’ drive of one of the wildest, most breathtaking stretches of shoreline in the world and I feel a sense of freedom and joie de vivre that I could never feel in London.

I have also given up one of my biggest addictions – Tab. The Coca-Cola company is evil, I tell you. It has been one month and I’m going strong. This is coming from a person who thought that the only thing water was good for was showering with. Hopefully my memory will start improving now from the lack of aspartame in my system. That’s right – now I will actually remember conversations for longer than 5 minutes after they take place. I think I’m up to 6 now.

Bah! Humbug...

2009-12-01T07:30:00.000-08:00

Many things irk me, indeed. And I am usually quite vociferous about them, so you readers already know that. Perhaps it is my British heritage coming out of the woodwork here, but I like to have a little moan and groan now and again. But I find South Africans, white, black, pink and purple, simply have no idea how to complain, and this leads us to being what I think is a terribly exploited country when it comes to consumer goods.

South Africa is a country governed by fat cats. And I’m not just talking about politics. We have allowed big business to make walking a**holes out of us. We are paying far too much for the following:

* Mobile phones
* Fixed line phones
* Electricity
* Supermarket food
* Banking

And those are just the obvious ones. We all know that we pay the highest mobile phone and fixed line phone charges in the world and by the time Eskom is finished with us we will be paying the highest electricity prices in the world. And despite ICASA forcing the cellphone operators to drastically reduce their interconnect fees by next year, I still don’t think that’s good enough.

You could be forgiven for naively thinking that Pick n’ Pay was a distant relative of Tesco in the UK. But I’ve shopped in both shops, and let me tell you where Pick n’ Pay is royally stuffing up. Tesco has a generic brand, a brand which covers just about everything from over-the-counter medicine to chocolates to electronic goods. These products are anything from, I'd estimate, 40 to 75% CHEAPER than the branded product.

This is (stay with me now, South African boys and girls) the whole concept of “we give it to you cheaper because the packaging is cheaper” thing.

So why do we accept Pick n’ Pay’s No-Name brand as being MORE EXPENSIVE than the branded products? And no, it really doesn’t taste any nicer. I have noticed this anomaly on a very wide range of products, from toilet paper to frozen vegetables. Where it is cheaper, it will just be a few cents below the others.

Then Pick n’ Pay has the famous trick of charging you MORE to buy in bulk than to buy the smaller items. Plus they put the bulk item on “special” to make you think it’s cheaper! They should be held accountable for robbing the man on the street for so many years. And it’s not only Pick n’ Pay, to be sure, but they are the ones who are the most blatant and unapologetic about it.

Now on to the banks. I hope that there is a special place in hell reserved for South African bankers. They charge you for everything – including just looking to see how much money you have. They charge you to withdraw money, to deposit money, to write a cheque, to deposit a cheque, to make a transfer, to receive a transfer, to draw a statement, to replace a lost or stolen card, to pay for transactions using your card, and I could go on and on forever.

In the United Kingdom, as bad as the weather is, you don’t pay for banking. Obviously you pay interest and charges on your debts, but that’s just about all. All the things I mentioned above that you have to pay for here in South Africa, are free there. Perhaps that’s why the banks nearly collapsed when we had the economic crash in 2008, because they haven’t spent years and years siphoning money off millions of people who don’t know any better. The South African banks didn’t even bat an eyelid when the recession hit here, because they were too busy sitting in their money tower and diving into the piles of cash like Scrooge MacDuck.

Capitec have recently come out with some ads criticizing their ~~partners in crime~~ peers in the industry for high charges, bad service etc. Their main selling point is that you pay zero fees when you pay for something using your debit card. Whoop-de-do. They still charge for everything else – I’ve seen the charges brochure.

As far as services go, I’ve never seen a country where business is so quick to swallow your money and then laugh at you when you expect good service in return. And don’t even think of asking for a refund – after two hours of listening to elevator music on hold, you’ll just end up having a tantrum like an overgrown 2-year-old because no-one calls you back or answers emails and they’ll still laugh scornfully at you. This is especially true for anything to do with the telecommunications industry.

Perhaps it’s not just a case of the consumer not complaining enough – maybe it’s the media we can place the blame on, for not drawing enough public scrutiny to this matter. And I think we can also blame the people we elected to office for not raising questions and putting pressure on big business on behalf of the ordinary citizen, but on their salaries they can afford to be ripped off.

The ten essential qualities of a real woman

2009-11-26T05:33:00.000-08:00

One of the many things that bugs me is adult females who act in ways which I think disqualifies them from the honour of calling themselves real women. I wish I could have given myself this advice when I was in my late teens / early twenties. So here are the qualities that I think every woman should possess, in no particular order:

1. Take responsibility: whether you have kids, are in a marriage / long-term relationship, are working or studying, you need to take responsibility for yourself and any dependants you may have. Being older than 20 and expecting your family to pick up the pieces every time you drop the ball is not on. Feeling a sense of entitlement without earning it is rubbish on every level. If you can vote, you are responsible for your own actions. If you feel that your private life is nobody’s business but your own, don’t expect anyone to pay your bills or fix your mess if you stuff up.

2. Be reliable: of all the words you would like people to describe you with, “flaky” is probably not one of them. Don’t let people down, don’t be late for meetings, appointments, work or exams and perform tasks and responsibilities on time.

3. Show honour: as an adult you must see all people as human beings and respect them equally as such. Put other people first and put yourself forward as an upstanding member of your community, your company and your family. Don’t follow; lead instead.

4. Find your dignity: this is not self-righteousness. Dignity comes from others respecting you as a person, and you perpetuating that respect. If something negative happens to you, don’t react negatively. Don’t drag yourself down to the antagonist’s level. If you feel angry or hurt, try to keep a cool head, don’t spit out abuse and go somewhere to cool off before you respond to the situation. Also, expect others to treat you with dignity. Don't allow your partner to treat you unequitably. If he can't treat you right, it's time to move on.

5. Lose the drama: I have known of plenty of women (whom I have since "unfriended") of all ages who share their sob stories with everyone to get sympathy. Their Facebook and Twitter statuses are filled with sordid details of make-ups, break-ups and insults aimed at in-laws, bosses, colleagues and friends. But often, making your personal issues public to the world can only cause more conflict, because gossip spreads like wildfire. Ultimately, you will come off worse for being immature.

6. Give instead of taking: Don’t expect everything to always be done for you. People who work and earn without depending on others for bailouts generally are much more independent, driven, ambitious and successful. In addition to this work ethic, helping others in any way (it doesn’t have to be financially) helps you to be a more compassionate person. Being a selfish human being is not a particularly desirable or attractive personality trait. When you become more considerate and helpful, you will find people will be more willing to help you when you need support. Remember, being negative attracts people who will respond negatively in turn and being positive attracts people who will react positively towards you.

7. Empower yourself: Don’t be a vegetable and wallow in misery or boredom. Get out there in the world and have a can-do attitude. Always expand your horizons and be willing to learn new things. Even if your current circumstances prevent you from fulfilling a dream, there is always an alternative, another path to travel that will lead you towards what you really want. It doesn't mean you have to be a ball-breaking business executive, though. Whatever makes you happy and boosts your self-confidence is just as good. Don’t put yourself down and say you’re not intelligent enough. Prove your inner demon wrong.

8. Be comfortable being alone: Don’t ever, ever allow a man to affect your happiness. If for some reason your relationship doesn’t work out, don’t abase your dignity and crawl back to him just because you can’t see yourself without him. And if it’s really over, don’t go jumping into the arms of the next man that makes a pass at you. You are a human being in your own right and if you can’t stand the thought of being a lone unit, one whole person that doesn’t need another to survive, then you need to talk to a qualified counsellor to figure out why you feel invalid as a single person.

9. Accept blame: Don’t blame your parents or your ex for your personality problems. You are an adult and as adults we all have to accept responsibility for our actions as adults. Yes, all of us have mother and father issues, sibling rivalries, previous boyfriend/husband issues. I’d guess over half of the readers here would consider themselves having had a ‘tough childhood’ or ‘bad parents’. However, any person should be able to work through their issues, learn from them and become better people, not worse. It’s a poor example of a woman that blames someone else for her inadequacies when it comes to life choices.

10. Do what is right: No matter what our religious background or family dysfunction, we have all learned the difference between right and wrong. Period. There are no excuses for lying, stealing, committing adultery, etc. A strong moral foundation is essential to being a strong woman. You can pretend to be a good, strong woman, but if you keep breaking the rules and acting unethically, one day the truth will come knocking and you will be exposed.

We all need time and experience to reach maturity after leaving school. Some people, however, can die of old age before they get there. So beef up and take responsibility for your actions before it’s too late!

Oh, and in case any guys are sitting back in their chairs comfortably, smiling at this post, your turn is coming…

Sarafina III

2009-11-26T01:02:00.001-08:00

(Click on the cartoon to enlarge)

It emerged on Wednesday that the South African Department of Human Settlements, previously known as the Department of Housing, has spent over R22,5 million rand on producing a play to "educate" people about their efforts. This ridiculous waste of money even beats the scandal provoked by the Department of Health's R14 million production of Sarafina II to educate the public about HIV and AIDS.

The previous minister, Lindiwe Hendricks (now the Minister of Defence), signed off on the play and its expenses during the 2008/9 financial year, despite the fact that the backlog of people waiting to receive government housing is so APPALLING it has backed right up to 2 million and the expected bill for fixing up existing shoddily-built RDP houses is expected to top R1 billion.

I'm sure the play was very effective in furthering the aims of the Department (~~to steal as much money as possible from the poor and place it in the pocket of the family member who produced the play~~). After all, it's only a recession...

"Every one of you is a guardian"

2009-11-18T11:11:00.001-08:00

In a world of six billion people, survival is an important part of life. India is a perfect case in point; where in a country with a billion inhabitants, the act of merely getting a place to sit on a train has become something you could easily be maimed over. Capitalism, consumerism and industrialisation are the key proponents of inequality in democratic countries, but in all other types of economic models that have tried and failed, poverty and inequality have always been enduring problems.

Should the CEO of a large corporation be allowed to have a Lear jet and a castle in Scotland while the employee who manufactures his products in a Chinese sweatshop earns less than a dollar day? Is it right for an actor to get paid millions of dollars for appearing in one movie while 246 million children around the world are classified as child labourers? Should the entertainment industry be glorifying sex and the objectification of women when a million children are exploited by the commercial sex trade every year?

“Every one of you is a guardian, and responsible for what is in his custody. The ruler is a guardian of his subjects and responsible for them; a husband is a guardian of his family and is responsible for it; a lady is a guardian of her husband's house and is responsible for it, and a servant is a guardian of his master's property and is responsible for it." - Prophet Muhammad S.A.W. (taken from Sahih Bukhari, [Book #46, Hadith #733])

This saying indicates how far we have strayed from the natural order of life, responsibility, justice and humanity. Many guardians seem to have turned a blind eye while their wards are violated in plain sight.

This puts me in mind of another quote:

"The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues." - Rene Descartes

Money and the acquisition thereof is the primary objective of almost every human being on this planet. Even if we don’t like the system, we toil away at whatever we can to make a living for ourselves and our families. For people who live above the bread line, money is something we always need more of, because we are always desirous of the latest technology, a better car or our own home. Money is the primary source of stress, a leading cause of divorce and it makes those who have it think they are better than those who don’t.

Recently, I had the privilege of sitting in on an HIV workshop for refugee women and one of the things I noticed was the huge divide in desires between the haves and have-nots. The facilitator asked each woman in the room to say what made them happy. The non-refugee (and obviously better-off) women who were there to assist, like myself, said our families made us happy, or gave some arty-farty intellectual response to this question. But almost every single refugee sitting at that table said that two things made them happy; food and money.

"One should never direct people towards happiness, because happiness too is an idol of the market-place. One should direct them towards mutual affection. A beast gnawing at its prey can be happy too, but only human beings can feel affection for each other, and this is the highest achievement they can aspire to." - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

So apart from a lot of talk and no action, what is the point of this post? Maybe to remind all of us that this is the world we live in. We may not be able to change it by ourselves, but walking past the person sitting on the roadside with our noses in the air, while we wait for our governments to sort out the mess is just plain hypocritical.

Maybe we need to find a way to pass on our skills, be they in agriculture, English, computer literacy or entrepreneurship to the people who need it most. Perhaps we need to mentor a disadvantaged person, or adopt an orphaned or abused child.

What we don’t need is another million-dollar talk shop for our leaders, where little or nothing ever gets accomplished.

"A good motivation is what is needed: compassion without dogmatism, without complicated philosophy; just understanding that others are human brothers and sisters and respecting their human rights and dignities. That we humans can help each other is one of our unique human capacities." - Dalai Lama

We also need to be so much more vocal about the things in our society that we know are unacceptable and unjust. Up until now, we have never spoken out. But laissez-faire may just be passé for 2010.

"We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

It’s foolish to think that one little blog post could change the world, or make this broken, overpopulated, sick world an altruistic utopia, but if we all exhorted one another to enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong (to paraphrase the Qur’an), perhaps we would be less likely to forget.

I will climb down off my soapbox now, but not before I leave you with these beautiful words of wisdom from the Mahatma:

"The Roots of Violence:
Wealth without work,
Pleasure without conscience,
Knowledge without character,
Commerce without morality,
Science without humanity,
Worship without sacrifice,
Politics without principles."
Mohandas K. Gandhi

Peace,
Hajira

La Sezon Kreol

2009-11-05T02:40:00.002-08:00

I’ve never been rich. Ever since I was small I remember feeling very envious of all my friends in primary school who had televisions and telephones in their bedrooms and thinking I was the poorest kid in the whole school. We lived in a council house, had a black and white television in the lounge and didn’t have a telephone.

My mother sewed all my clothes and I envied the other children their Disney merchandise and the latest Barbie dolls, Cabbage Patch Kids and Care Bears. I coveted all these things wantonly and I was never grateful to my parents for the two times a year I would get a present – Christmas and my birthday.

Not that my brother and I didn’t have toys, but they were generally hand-me-downs. I used to look forward to seeing my grandparents or godparents because they would squeeze a couple of pounds into the palm of my little hand as they were saying goodbye. It was the best feeling in the world.

I’d never spend the money, unlike my brother, who would blow it all on sweets within a week. I would always carefully salt my gift money away together with my princely pocket money of 50p a week (which was payment for a list of household chores I did for my mother). When my money tin was full I would go down to the bank with mother and deposit it in my savings account. When I left England with my parents at the age of ten I had managed to amass a fortune of a thousand pounds.

Then my father used my savings in Seychelles because we were in a financial mess. Well, my parents did put me through school, feed me and clothe me throughout my childhood so I guess I am the one that still owes them.

I thought we were poor in England but Seychelles introduced me to a new world of poverty. We lived in a house (for want of a better word) in the middle of a rainforest. The “house” was made of tin, or corrugated iron, the walls and the roof. The floor was cold concrete. We had no furniture and my parents slept on the floor for a year and a half. My brother and I slept on deck chairs, the long type that can be set out straight. They often collapsed or snapped shut in the middle of the night, leaving crooked limbs sticking out unnaturally, bruises to be counted the next morning.

Our stove was paraffin and we had no fridge. We also had no hot water, so my mother would fill a large kettle and boil it, then put it in a large plastic bucket and we would wash ourselves like that.

When you live in a rainforest one thing you will get tired of very quickly is, er, rain. And humidity. If you wash your clothes and put them out to dry on the line little black spots of mould will form on them before you have a chance to take them down.

Even though I am still not well-off enough to stop having panic attacks about the end of the month, I now live in South Africa, and although it’s not first-world, we have all the amenities here (unless you are unfortunate enough to be one of the millions of people in this country who live in an informal settlement). But in urban areas, we do enjoy the trappings of modern life. We have televisions, fancy cars, brick and mortar houses, high-speed internet access, geysers, electricity (most days - ha!), refuse removal and all the rest of it. However, if you asked me which kind of life I preferred, I would take the rainforest in Seychelles any day over this over-sexed, over-stressed rat race.

The Seychelles is not a utopia. It has many problems associated with your typical third-world country. Corruption, nepotism, inflation, socialism with all its pitfalls and an unstable food supply are just some of those things. It’s tough to make inroads in a country where the entire population is about 75 000, everyone knows one another and they are distrustful of outsiders. It’s a bit like being a mouse living in a cattery.

However, it may just be one of the best places in the world for your kid to grow up. Mahe, the main island, boasts pristine white beaches around the coast and lush, diverse rainforests inland. The islands abound with unique flora and fauna which cannot be found anywhere else in the world.

Three languages are spoken in Seychelles – the native Creole, French and English. A working knowledge of French is recommended, but the Creole language is one of the easiest in the whole world. Imagine, no masculine or feminine! No “le” or “la”! What joy abounds in my heart! Everyone and everything is an “it”…

Every weekend, my brother and I used to explore the stream running past our house. We would take large sticks to break down the cobwebs (in Seychelles you get orange-and-black spiders as big as dinner-plates) that would stretch from one side to the other. We hopped from one rock to another while our dog Churchill would forge ahead in the icy water ahead of us, urging us on with incessant yaps of joy.

The rainforest was full of cinnamon trees, and the smell of the bark was indescribably delicious. I would often pick the hard, bright green leaves and break them in half just to drink in the smell of cinnamon. If I close my eyes I can still get the outline of the smell in my memory.

My mother’s parents had an estate near Anse Boileau, and everything you could possibly imagine was grown in that place. Jack fruit, oranges that looked like lemons, bread fruit, zamalak fruit (my personal favourite and unique to Seychelles), coffee, tea, coconuts, bananas, pamplemousse (a sort of sweet grapefruit) and so much more. The smell I associate with the estate is coffee beans, being roasted slowly in a large Marmite pot on an open fire by my grandmother.

Just a short walk and you were at the beach, where my uncle would go out in his boat, wearing only his underpants (cringe). Every evening he would return with the most beautiful fish you have ever seen or tasted in your life, lobsters, crayfish, crabs, octopus and small sharks. The fish would be grilled and served with plain rice and sometimes vegetables. My mother’s family’s estate was one of the few truly self-sufficient farms I have ever seen. The only foodstuffs they ever needed to buy were things like rice and perhaps oil and flour.

There are two things which were quite difficult to obtain in Seychelles – milk and potatoes. I hated milk powder with such a passion that I still can’t drink it today. I’m sure that these days the Seychelles Marketing Board imports long-life milk from South Africa or India, so I could probably live with that. And potatoes… how this little English child longed for fried chips! They tried to make chips from bread fruit, which was deliciously sweet, to satisfy my craving but to my mind it was, well, close but no cigar.

The schools in Seychelles are big on corporal punishment. My headmistress, Miss Lize, was a lady who, if you had met her socially, would never seem the type of person who would stalk the corridors with a large cane gripped in her dainty fingers, searching for a suitable child to beat the living crap out of, but there you go.

This is actually a huge improvement on my mother’s time at the same school I attended, Baie Lazare School, which was back in those days run by nuns. When you think of nuns, you invariably conjure up a picture in your head of humble, wrinkled, smiling old ladies doing the Lord’s work. But if you were to believe my mother, they were sado-masochistic agents of the devil, continually devising new methods of torture upon any children unfortunate enough to draw attention to themselves.

If a child was caught doing anything funny in class, his or her offending head would be cracked against the blackboard. If two of them were caught talking in class, two unfortunate skulls would be cracked together. Anyone caught speaking Creole instead of the more “civilised” French would be made to stand outside all day on one leg holding two large bricks up in their outstretched hands while the tropical sun beat down on them. Cries begging for mercy or water went unheeded and if the child lost his balance or dropped the bricks a public caning was in store.

Every day beatings were handed out left, right and centre, rained down upon hands, heads, buttocks and any other area of flesh available. This is probably why my mother was never very interested in pursuing an education.

It continually amazes me that my mother still thinks of herself as a devout Catholic. My experiences with the Church were enough to put me off for life, but she is a real keeper, for better or worse.

All in all, I am proud of my Seychellois heritage. I am proud to be a Seychelloise citizen. Not many people can say their country’s president visited them at their house. Hardly anyone can say they grew up in an island paradise. And very few people even know where the Seychelles is. They don’t know about our traditional Sega music and dance. They don’t know what it’s like to live off the land and make soup from clams dug from your very own beach. So perhaps I was not really poor, perhaps I was rich and just didn’t know it at the time.

©Hajira Amla 2009 – all rights reserved.

Ashes of a woman

2009-10-21T12:21:00.000-07:00

She bears the burden no man can know. Her hands, dry and cracked from her toil, move busily as she bends over her ceaseless work.

A nursemaid, caregiver and nurturer to her children, constantly on call day and night, worrying, fretting, preparing. Wiping tears from their eyes when the children fall, dispensing wisdom, nerves fraying at silly questions and chores not yet done. Mending clothes, stretching the food, making do when all she wants is a time to close her eyes and be at peace.

Her own tears fall when solitude eventually finds her in a woozy, exhausted state, but there is no-one to wipe them from her eyes. As she pours the warm water from the cracked jug over her ravaged body, her mind still races with the thoughts of the children she must feed and shelter.

There were times when she thought that surely death would be a welcome reprieve from the endless violence, the humiliation and the pain of bruises and shattered bones left to heal themselves. From the pain of the petrol he poured onto her body and set alight, laughing at the sound of her screams of agony and the sight of her begging him for help.

She sees it anew as though it were yesterday. Feels the excruciating coolness of the water her son throws on her burning, smouldering flesh. His anxious young voice cracking with pity and despair. Being rushed to hospital and waking up with only memories of pain where her legs once were.

The police want her to lay a charge against him but her children beg her to spare their father. As always, the mother’s heart, not blackened by the flames that licked her flesh, succumbs to their pleas.

A burnt shell, she arrives back home to find out he has left her and is living with another woman nearby. Oh Allah, why do you test me with such hardship? How can I bear so much pain? Where is Your mercy? I am Your servant. Deliver me from this torture!

The wheels of the low metal trolley squeak and turn with excruciating heaviness as she uses her rough hands on the hard tar to propel her along the road. Each day she pushes herself into central Johannesburg to buy the brooms and mops she sells from her home to support her children. She does not complain any longer. She is still a woman, looking after her children, like all other mothers do. So does the phoenix rise from the ashes of violence.

Weak bladders, hot tempers and servitude

2009-10-15T07:03:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when you are married and living in domestic bliss you get these moments where you could just drop what you are holding and move to another country. Change your name. Dye your hair. The little things that have been grinding you down build up to a point where you feel one day, “fuck it, this is not what I signed up for”. At least if I murdered all of them I would probably be out in five years. This is South Africa.

Now let me do the cliché thing and tell you that I love my husband. I certainly love my daughter more than anything else in life. And Lord, shoot me for bothering, but I love my step-daughter too. We have a fairly peaceful, happy home, all things considered.

Then WHY do they all make me so stressed I can feel my hair greying when they are at home? Why do I feel my boobs begin to sag after one hour around them? Why do I feel I can never win?

And no, it’s not that time of the month. I checked.

Every day I calmly tell myself that today I am going to be as cool as a cucumber. I’m going to be happy and walk around with a big smile. No matter what any of them say to me, I will not react negatively. I am a fucking island. It usually lasts five minutes.

Yesterday it all started when I went to pick up my daughter from school. Aayah is a total dreamer. She got into trouble previously because she forgets to go to the toilet at break and then asks to go during class. Then she will muck around in the bathroom, dreaming and singing to herself for perhaps fifteen to twenty minutes. Eventually when she gets back to class she has missed the whole lesson and the teacher and class get disrupted on her account.

So I did what any good mother would do - I threatened her on pain of… well, pain, that if she didn’t stop it there would be Consequences. And all was well in the land of Aayah for a while.

However, this afternoon, as I arrived to collect her, she was on her way back from the bathroom and the teacher informed me that she had again been going to the toilet during class constantly. I gave her a lecture in the car and we headed off to the library. As soon as we got there she started performing for the toilet again – even though she had just gone about ten minutes before. So she had to go to the public library toilet which smells of urine and in which there is no toilet tissue. OK. So now I’m at boiling point. After the library we went straight to Pick n’ Pay to buy bread.

“Mummy, I need the toilet again. I need it really badly.”

Wow. Add to that the everyday homework drama where half an hour of homework is transformed into three hours of telling her every five minutes to concentrate on her work and stop dreaming, punctuated by about ten trips to the toilet, and we have a mother that is ready to jump off a handy bridge.

So I ask myself: does she really have some kind of a problem with her bladder or is this kid just winding me up?

Then I come to the realisation that I am the bad one here. I just have no patience. Is there some kind of magical elixir, a pill perhaps, that I can swallow? “Patience in 5 minutes – guaranteed!” Wouldn’t that be deliciously easy…

Kids are just kids, and I need to admit that I have issues with anger.

The same hot temper gets fired up when my husband gets home. Everything he says to me, I want to jump down his throat for, and make him see that he is wrong and I am right. When I look at my own behaviour afterwards I see a fishwife staring me in the face.

I’m not saying they don’t all have their faults. But my need for control overpowers everyone, even the person I am inside. It’s as if I need everything to be so perfect it could be straight out of a magazine. I suppose that my past has left me with such strong feelings of helplessness that now I want to exert my will and authority over everyone to make sure I am never treated badly again. I expect Aayah to be perfect because I want her to grow up not making the mistakes I made.

Every night after I have put Aayah to bed I regret the harsh words I have spoken to her. I ask myself: today did I build my child up or did I break her down? Did I shatter her self-confidence? Did my kind words, hugs and kisses outweigh my shouts and criticisms? Just about every night I fall lower in my estimation as a good parent.

Today it has been a full hour since she came home from school and I have not yet shouted. I have calmly and patiently asked her to do her work quickly, promising to read her a story if she finishes before 5pm.

Wish me luck.

English skills

2009-10-14T01:24:00.001-07:00

I know I live in South Africa, but I find it intolerable when I see people whose home language is English, who presumably at least studied English right up until Matric, fail so miserably whenever they put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). It’s like a pustule, a repulsive boil on my skin that I wish would go away but won’t.

I owe my career in journalism to the very fact that this irritates the living hell out of me. When I was twenty-one my provincial newspaper annoyed me so much with its constant spelling mistakes and grammatical faux pas that one day I picked up the phone and gave the Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper group a dressing-down for his employees’ inability to represent his newspapers in a professional manner. He immediately offered me a job as Chief Sub-Editor.

Microsoft Word Spell Check is not enough, people.

I was reminded of my pet hate when I read a local newspaper recently and saw with horror that the Editor’s letter was full of typical primary-school errors. Seriously, you shouldn’t be allowed to become a newspaper editor unless you have undergone some kind of screening test.

One cannot wish all Hindu’s a happy Diwali. That would translate into: you wish all Hindu is a happy Diwali.

And don’t you dare write that something is nerve-racking. It’s nerve-wracking.

Please do not say I could of, you should of, or they would of. It’s HAVE. I could HAVE killed you, but I won’t. You should HAVE paid more attention in class, but you were too busy passing badly-written notes around. They would HAVE passed Matric if they had studied English a little harder.

Back to the apostrophe. You can’t say “Put the hat back in it’s box”

That type of apostrophe is a contraction – it shortens a word.
It’s = it is
I’m = I am
You’re = you are
Can’t = can not
Isn’t = is not
Won’t = will not

And my personal favourite: people who write things like “John and Cassandra think their the cutest couple ever”
They’re = they are

Then we have people who have no idea how to apply words such as whom or shall in a sentence. I won’t even go there.

If you wish to provide your undoubtedly valuable opinion on something, please make an effort not to use the word “nice”.

Here is the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of nice:

nice
• adjective 1. pleasant; agreeable; satisfactory. 2. good-natured; kind. 3. satisfactory in terms of the quality described. 4. fine or subtle: a nice distinction. 5. archaic fastidious.
— ORIGIN original senses included "stupid" and "coy, reserved": from Latin nescius ‘ignorant’.

Please do not read a classic piece of literature, look at fine art or go to the ballet and say that you thought it was nice. The word nice, as you can see above, has various meanings in the English language, and in any case, surely you can be a little more imaginative and use some other adjectives? Here are a few useful ones:

Interesting, moving, delightful, alluring, refined, resplendent, magnificent, marvelous, ideal, stunning, bewitching, tasteful, absorbing, provocative, exquisite, seductive, tantalising, winning, winsome, engrossing, electrifying and magnetising.

Many people hold positions where they are issuing written communications to others. Journalists, bloggers, authors, PROs, managers and marketers need to up their game in terms of their English skills because it not only makes the writer look bad, but also casts an unprofessional pall over the organisation they represent.

Everyone makes mistakes. They are unavoidable. However, everyone who is in a communications role should ideally brush up on their English skills, if only to avoid having to feel guilty when they read blog posts like this one. That would be NICE.

Through the looking glass

2009-10-13T08:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when I'm reading news on South Africa, I think I'm reading a post on the satirical news site www.hayibo.com. I laugh away, reading the ridiculous quotes and story. Then, a few paragraphs on, I realise it's actually real. And people have actually said those things.

Julius Malema himself is a walking Hayibo post. Everything that comes out of his mouth is prime fodder for the writers. They don’t even need to change anything.

Take, for instance, the story where he refuses to be nominated as Drama Queen at the Feather Awards, accusing organizers of questioning his sexuality. Or the one where he calls IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi a “factory fault” and the IFP a “terrorist organisation”

Everything that spews forth from the retarded brat’s spittle-flecked mouth is pure hatred. No-one is spared his idiotic vitriol. Today I saw a journalist had used the words “no-one is spared his sharp tongue”. I would hesitate before I said that anything connected with JuJu is sharp. His whole being is blunt, rotund and ignorant. The sharpest part of him is his bald, shiny, vacuous head.

But everything, from Eskom’s tariff hikes to the ANC spending millions on cars for their ministers, makes me feel as though I’m living in some sort of surreal topsy-turvy world where day is night and wrong is right. All it means is that the spin doctors are doing their jobs, I suppose.

The scary part is that the youth of this country support Malema, the government supports the electricity hike and no-one can do anything about the ANC’s spending spree. The dollar has weakened, petrol has gone down and South African stocks have strengthened, but the price of food and basic necessities still goes up and service delivery still goes down. And no-one is going to stop it.

Welcome

2009-10-12T14:17:00.000-07:00

Here it is - a little corner shop in cyberspace where you can browse my top-quality rambles, rants and ruminations to your heart’s desire. But if you break it, you bought it. Shoplifters will be hung, drawn and quartered, like in the good old days.