Understand each other already!

Hi already again, my dear friends.

Since I have concluded (for the time being) my 'historical research' on the subject South Africa, I came to the fresh opinion that if we all want to have better lives in this magnificent country, we MUST aim to achieve mutual understanding and the ideal would be tolerance. This is my new quest for the famous zero defect.
Mutual understanding in 2015 is very far away from most of us. It is rather a case of total denial, or even condemnation. I am referring to the important stuff here: Culture, tradition, religion and inbred ways of seeing and doing things. We all have them, but especially in Africa, they could not be more different from each other.

I personally know a lot of highly educated, South African born and bred white women, and I got their honest attitude in a mini-opinion poll.

 Before I go on I want to point out the link to the Wikipedia - encyclopedia on the right sidebar. You can ask questions in the search bar and the link will lead you to the respective page. For example 'tokolosh', or 'sangoma' or 'racism' or 'apartheid' etc.pp

Back to my opinion-poll:
Let's take one of the most important aspects in African daily life: the 'tokolosh'. He is a small ape like creature with an evil mind and everybody is scared of him. Certain things really displease him and one of many result in not putting the head end of your bed against the wall (you might squash him!)and putting your whole bed on top of bricks, again not to squash him. In the European culture he might be called a 'polter-geist', poltering around in cupboards etc. and never being really seen. Here, millions hear and see the tokoloshe every day.
When I came here I, for the life of mine, could not understand why my pillows ended up on the floor behind my bed each night. The      rural housekeeper of mine (Emily) seems to have liked me a lot and always pulled the whole bed off the wall to protect me from the          'tokolosh'. It takes time and especially the curiosity to find out these things.
Anyway, one of my white ladies, when I asked her about all this, claimed from her heart: The tokolosh is long dead! Hahahaha! Another, being queried about 'sangomas', said: That is a long dead tradition. Sangomas are so-called traditional healers who's craft is entirely based on ancestor worship.
These days they advertise themselves on social media, in family magazines and most importantly by word of mouth. Plus: they keep on making thousands and thousands of people happy and better!! Most African babies have colorful string bracelets on their little

arms, given to the family by their sangoma, to protect them.

It's complicated! But it is all totally undeniable and partly understandable. And -if you set your mind to it - it is acceptable. In this case I can only say: poor thousands of white missionaries, who did not get it quite right.....

So I will from now on not dwell on the negatives any more, but highlight the abyss in a way, that hopefully will bring about understanding and tolerance. I realize that I have taken upon me a mammoth task, but it's more than worth a try,and for most white people (not all!) a novel way to try and get peace with each other.

Here is a short video clip concerning the reality young sangomas of today:

http://mg.co.za/multimedia/2014-06-02-sangomas-of-the-21st-century#.VYkmnp5ZylY.gmai


Greetings,
Barbara

The "Truth" about South Africa

From here.....

Dear friends,

today I want to share a short result of my quest to find out what lead to today's frazzled politics in South Africa.

                                                        

                                                            To here....

I came here in 1982 and did not have any quests except from enjoying the solitude on a Free State farm, the beautiful nature, weather and freedom from having to comply to social norms. It was the time of apartheid, yes, but I was a guest and did not question, nor was interested in politics. Then there were some bombs, talks of civil war and then the start of democracy. All that was fine with me. I was growing herbs and pumpkins, having found profound happiness. Democracy could only lead to a better life for all, I thought. Well, that did not happen and I started to ask myself how is it, that the Europeans who allegedly had messed everything up, got to be here at all. Before the Africans from North Africa and the Europeans from North of the Equator fell into today's South Africa, it was a real and pure paradise, albeit with it's own savage cruelties. And a couple of years ago I started looking for the truth about South Africa. To my surprise I found out:

 There is no truth about South Africa 

Tons of books have well be written about this elusive truth, thousands of blogs and websites claim to have found it and are discussing it with great passion. That alone proves the non-existence of one truth. There are in fact millions of truths about my new home country. The more I researched, the more "truths" turned up. I would assume that this goes for the whole world, but here many truths are dramatic, violent and, yes, barbaric. The mine worker deep underground must of course perceive the truth different from a rural tribe, and the city dweller's truth is different from a historian's. A collective truth is impossible to find.

This time of wondering and searching was a nervous time and I want it to come to an end and go back to only the flowers, birds and bees colonizing my mind.

However, to illustrate the conglomerate of  'honest personal opinions' I want to cite 2 authors, whom we all know. 1. The creator of the famous 'Sherlock Holmes', Sir Arthur Canon Doyle's description of the 'Boers';  and Rudyard Kipling's  (of Jungle book fame) poem

Canon Doyle was a hugely prolific writer and for some reason volunteered as a field doctor in the Boer Wars 1899-1902. He even came up with a whole book about the Boer Wars. The first chapter starts with a rather hilarious description of what he decided makes the Boer tick:

"Take a community of Dutchmen of the type of those who defended themselves for fifty years against all the power of Spain at a time when Spain was the greatest power in the world. Intermix with them a strain of those inflexible French Huguenots who gave up home and fortune and left their country for ever at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The product must obviously be one of the most rugged, virile, unconquerable races ever seen upon earth. Take this formidable people and train them for seven generations in constant warfare against savage men and ferocious beasts, in circumstances under which no weakling could survive, place them so that they acquire exceptional skill with weapons and in horsemanship, give them a country which is eminently suited to the tactics of the huntsman, the marksman, and the rider. Then, finally, put a finer temper upon their military qualities by a dour fatalistic Old Testament religion and an ardent and consuming patriotism. Combine all these qualities and all these impulses in one individual, and you have the modern Boer—, the most formidable antagonist who ever crossed the path of Imperial Britain. Our military history has largely consisted in our conflicts with France, but Napoleon and all his veterans have never treated us so roughly as these hard-bitten farmers with their ancient theology and their inconveniently modern rifles."

As far as the Africans were concerned in this, they did not even have the smallest chance of successfully defending the country they thought was theirs. (It was not, they were immigrants too). They were the vast majority in numbers, but they could not use the animals like elephants, rhino, hippos etc. as horses, they had no firearms and there was no African unity (identity). 
This solves my most important question as to how could so few Europeans get their feet into Southern Africa for good. Now, after another century+ the 'for good' part is not all that certain anymore. 
Rudyard Kipling touches the 'why was and is unity (between black and white) nearly impossible' in the following poem:

The Stranger
The Stranger within my gate,
He may be true or kind,
But he does not talk my talk—
I cannot feel his mind.
I see the face and the eyes and the mouth,
But not the soul behind.

The men of my own stock,
They may do ill or well,
But they tell the lies I am wonted to,
They are used to the lies I tell;
And we do not need interpreters
When we go to buy or sell.

The Stranger within my gates,
He may be evil or good,
But I cannot tell what powers control—
What reasons sway his mood;
Nor when the Gods of his far-off land
Shall repossess his blood.

The men of my own stock,
Bitter bad they may be,
But, at least, they hear the things I hear,
And see the things I see;
And whatever I think of them and their likes
They think of the likes of me.

This was my father's belief
And this is also mine:
Let the corn be all one sheaf—
And the grapes be all one vine,
Ere our children's teeth are set on edge
By bitter bread and wine.

No, this conclusion of my findings does not exclude that there will be solutions in the future. Miracles happen!


To here:  2015        

 
As far as the present is concerned: it is once again a jungle out there. And I rest my case.
However, nobody can stop me from dreaming my own peaceful and beautiful 

SOUTH AFRICAN DREAM

Greetings from Yours Truly,

Barbara

Did you know South Africa like this?

See the wonderful sides of South Africa:

10 Interesting Facts About South Africa You Never Knew

1. Table Mountain in Cape Town has been identified as one of the oldest mountains in the world.

2. Table Mountain itself is noted to have over 1500 different species of plant life which is more than England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland combined.

3. South Africa has the longest stretching wine route in the world.

4. The Palace of the Lost City hotel is the biggest theme resort hotel in the entire world and is the largest building project undertaken in the southern hemisphere.

5. The Karoo area is home to some of the greatest dinosaur fossil remains. 

6. South Africa has the most luxurious train in the entire world, called the Rovos Rail.

7. South Africa is home to the highest commercial bungy jump in the world, called Bloukrans Bridge Bungy (216 meters)

8. South Africa is the only manufacturer of the Mercedes Benz C Class right hand drive cars.

9. The only street in the world to house two Nobel Peace prize winners is in Vilakazi Street, Soweto, South Africa. (Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu)

10. Three of the five fastest land animals in the world live in South Africa: the Cheetah, the Wildebeest, and the Lion.

GREETINGS,

BARBARA