Frustration

South Africa, a changing country, but also a country full of frustrations. The images of the past few days about the shootings are shocking and a lot of the analysis as well. Politicians fight over who is to blame. It is the fault of the ANC, it is the fault of the police, it is the fault of the unions, it is the fault of everyone ... but perhaps most of all of poverty. The riots last week in Cape Town as well. During my stay in the past few weeks I have been constantly trying to wonder how I could survive in these circumstances. People try to be creative, some try to make something out of it, others try to make their dreams come true ... but we can try to romanticize, the harsh reality remains that many have no running water, many no electricity, no plumbing and alcoholism, drugs, abuse of women is rampant. Take the miners, they live in similar settings, working in very unhealthy conditions and earn a mere 400 Euros per month. In all honesty, I have to say that in all my despair, frustration and anger I would protest as well and probably would do stupid things. Because, what have  have you got to lose? If you no longer have human dignity, what remains? Twenty years after apartheid, the weak still have to battle. All their hope was aimed at having a better life but still a lot of people are waiting for it to happen. Twenty years after apartheid, apartheid still remains. Not necessarily the white against the black, but the rich against the poor. And yet change must come. That's what this is all about, 'change'. Hopefully the political leaders will realize that change must come for everyone. Talking to people, the main tone of the conversation is frustration. There are probably political theories, economical, and certainly also anthropological, but sometimes when one witnesses images as the mining killings, one must be one's reason aside and let the heart speak. Once again, the poor Africans are the victims. Let me end with one of the figureheads of the negritudebeweging.

Aime Césaire

those who have invented neither powder nor compass

those who could harness neither steam nor electricity

those who explored neither the seas nor the sky

but those without whom the earth would not be the earth

gibbosity all the more beneficent as the bare earth even more earth

my negritude is not a stone, its deafness hurled against the clamor of the day

my negritude is not a leukoma of dead liquid over the earth’s dead eye

my negritude is neither tower nor cathedral

it takes root in the red flesh

of the soil it takes root in the ardent flesh

of the sky it breaks through the opaque prostration with its upright patience

Eia for the royal Cailcedra!

Eia for those who have never invented anything

for those who never explored anything

for those who never conquered anything