Don't spank your child!

Outlawing corporal punishment in the home might be the biggest family destroyer our government can do! I am not only concerned with interfering in the family but there are many other avenues that can be explored rather than writing into law such communal factors. No loving parent spanks to kill their children. There are other ways of dealing with violence in our communities. In the well meaning children's bill there is section 139 which bans any form of corporal punishment including by those who have 'parental responsibility' over children.

Activists are urging parliamentarians to sign the bill so it can become law. Then a great teaching campaign will begin country-wide; educating parents of alternative forms of punishment. Now if you are into government Tender-chasing; here is a tip: In your multi-purpose CC (holding) open a training section where you can go into our rural areas to spend a day with people who will tell you 'to go tell your government to kiss their behinds but they will not be dictated to on how to raise children.' We, the middle class, have made lots of money from government this way. I know! Laws that are passed but impractical for OUR society. Look at corporal punishment at schools; a practise which still continues today.

This enlightenment project and the 'reasoning' was excusable when it was driven by academics sitting in 'ivory towers,' now with scanty Internet research and loud mouth placard wielding attitudes, we write laws that misshape our societies. What is wrong with us? When we hit a real quandary like the effect of the Bill on child headed households we don't seek a corrective but work around it as this bill has done. There is no addressing the lack of ubuntu and how this problem can be resolved. Those who wrote the bill know the reality is we are going to see a lot more child-headed households so then just build it into the bill. You can almost see the argument as you read it. Section 136 (5) "The child heading a child-headed household may take all day-to-day decisions relating to the household and the children in the household as if that child is the adult care-giver." Wow! These kids are already doing this so what has the bill offered? Nothing except that now a government agent or some other person can be designated to run their budget! In a system riddled with corruption? How do we allow children to continue carrying such responsibilities without the budget control. I know of a lot of people who leave their jobs because they can't control their own budgets.

The bill in section 139 (2), repeals all common and cultural laws regarding corporal punishment but in my scanning it said nothing about the religious beliefs (which are arguably, neither common nor cultural laws) of families, which are protected by the constitution as well. I can hear "spare the rod...!"

Yes we have big issues in our society regarding violence but my plea is that we would not be so reactionary and be influenced by numbers of countries and states that have implemented this law or that law; we are different. Why aren't we searching for home brewed solutions rather than wanting to be like other people.

It takes a community to raise a child! Speak about that in your church, school governing boards, shebeens or braais; wherever you gather with other grown ups. Challenge in your community those who do wrong to children; such as those supporting this bill. Let us spend the money we can spend on teaching parents how not to spank their children; on setting up new policing forums to deal with offenders of this law and whatever other repercussions this bill might have on positive things. Building facilities for children whose parents wake up before dawn and leave them to return after dusk trying to earn a living. What ever happened to companies that had family days/ Christmas parties? Ah, those were the days; even though it was deductibles from the very parents' pay, those tractor drawn trains filled with black and white kids who spoke 'child' to each other helped towards building our nation. The funny plastic toy, sweets and...eh, the helium filled balloons; they said 'we sorry that we do you parents all year round but here is a little something, grow up so we can do you too!'

Seriously though, the bill has been long in coming but as usual; normal community avenues have not been 'sufficiently' sought to discuss it and WE, as community have been complacent about it. We ca not think that by creating laws for everything we will build a community; there are better ways and those are found in being community!

LIVING IN A DIVIDED WORLD

I suppose I can't speak much for South Africa for we have our own problems and maybe being here has opened my eyes of either the miracle our country is or the fools paradise we live in. It has taken a while for this reflection to come but there is no time like the present.

Racism, racial hatred and prejudice are still so rife you actually can sense it in the air! Will people ever come to a place where they learn to live with each other as human beings or will there always be divides of one form or another?

In light of the news that people back home SA might have heard or seen; I thought about where we are. There is the Jena 6, The talented young Genarlow Wilson, star material, serving a ten year sentence for having 'sexual relations' with another minor kid. There is Micheal Vick, a black football star with a multi million dollar contract who is on trial for dog fighting and the brutal killing of dogs.

These are not the only cases but there are many more like them; where you find there is just so much racial baggage that the facts are so obscured it is not easy to rule in one direction or another. There is such feelings of pain and hurt that you are just not sure how to relate any hope in such situations.

I have unfortunately seen this divide even in places of worship that my heart aches each time I think about going to worship. I don't think the idea of a community united in worship has crossed the minds of many people here; nor the possibility of reconciliation around the table of our Lord. It may be good on academic paper but not in practice. This may sound judgemental but it comes from a place of hurt and great struggle. Is the church really the vessel to transform society or is the church so caught p in her dogmas and practices that it makes the Pharisees and Sadducees of old deserve to be called Saints and the rest of us 'dogs' in dogmatics. Don't give me the crap about the Church being a united body or her Missio Dei being greater than the problems here and now. If you believe that bull then show me how you have lived it or else; realise with me, we are in the heart of the sewer tank together and we need to call on God differently to get us out! Theologising Theologising, stuff is hitting the fan (and it stinks to high heavens, or are they high? hell, It stinks,period!!!) let's talk to God!

Of course, I'm no fool. I know 'our cultures' are just different and so we worship differently! Bull!! In the US, the language is the same and yet they can't even bring those wild and wonderful cultures together using the tool of language to praise God! Whatever happened to a people from every race and tribe gathering together before the throne or coming from 'all four corners of the earth' (Apparently Jesus believe the world stood on 4 corners as well! mhh, strange that, God lost the design?) to worship the King? I'm sure I learnt that in Sunday school, where we worshiped God! As I grew older we spoke more about glorifying ourselves in order to make God proud that I am more His/Hers/It's image then the other!

You see in South Africa we hide behind the difficulties created by different languages, which necessitates worshiping differently, but is it really?

I have lived amongst many people who praise SA's miracle transition from apartheid to 'democracy!' Quite frankly I wish somebody would give President Thabo Mbeki the book 'Animal Farm' to read, in fact give me a week to read it to his cabinet and then we talk about governing God's people!

These people to be governed; ag shame; poor people!

You have the blacks (real blacks) who claim to be so badly abused that some refuse to look to tomorrow because of the scars of the past. It is so pathetic when all you here is how apartheid has ruined us and we can't even think anymore; but then again even that, was taken away from people. Others are milking that cow to become the latest instant millionaires. I am yet to meet a more self hating species of people then many of us in the black middle class. If there is any worst genocide I am yet to read about it; and I'm well read! We (the Black middle class) not only have forgotten where we come from but are consistent in erasing that past so that even our children don't see it when they grow up. We have sold our souls to the devil and never stop to wonder what we are doing? Has anybody ever wondered about this Christianity we preach and teach our children. Have you ever asked yourself what the one God of Africa is saying when we no longer worship our God but the Jewish God in Western Exile and denied by the Jews. Is it possible that Africa's being second best in all things is because we abandoned our God for this exiled God whose gender is even a point of argument? We want to be the best in all things so we have become so selfish, we forget about our poorer side of the family; they are a nuisance and an impediment to our careers. We want to excel in our careers so we prostitute ourselves to our learning and work that everything else suffers. Has it ever crossed your black tea-girl or garden-boy mind that just maybe you are not succeeding because you started on the wrong foot anyway. You are fighting a strange battle in enemy territory and your strategy, supplied by your enemy! Is it possible that even the Nigger in America is suffering the same effect. The Jesse Jackson's and Obama's will not shine because they are using the wrong lamps. Maybe we need Nehemiahs who can own being exiled and yet burn for the restoration of their 'home!' How do we rebuild the fallen walls so Africa can be a gift to the world as Africa not the little UK or US? We search for Theology cooked in African pots; are we prepared to set aside even the ingredients we have been provided and search for African ones if the call comes to that? Or do we want to continue to use the Western ingredients and just give them the African flavour? We are fooling ourselves and the Verwoeds (Apartheid pioneer and stalwart) of the past are laughing in their graves; they have us where they want us; 'damn monkeys dancing to our tunes!') How can you be the best African Engineer, economist, architect and whatever. You can even try being an African Doctor, like our Minister of Health and give beetroot and garlic for all ailments (uzifo zonke), if you believe it will work. No but seriously, have you in your own field ever considered how Africa dealt with your problems and how these can be solved now. Where are the political scientists who are going to investigate why is it so difficult for African leaders to give up power regardless of foreign education and funny looking multi-coloured collared shirts and others continue to marry many wives and breed like rabbits (even with the supposed help of soldier/bodyguards) in spite of their 'civilisation.' Why has this education not helped democracy to be a tool for the whole world. They will tell you: 'Democracy is not perfect, but what else do we have?' Well, have you ever seriously looked? We are a dying nation, God help our children. HIV/AIDS, crime, poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, self-hate are all diseases we going to perish from.

Then the so called blacks! (Coloureds, Indians, etc) [these are the people who in the apartheid years benefited all be it a little but would have killed you if you said they were black, now; 'were they ever any other colour?'] How the need for the vote became the pencil test of our age. (pencil test: blacks who straightened their hair and changed their surnames to pass off as coloured. Police ran a pencil through your 'kaffir hair' (kaffir, SA derogative term for blacks) and if it went with ease you were then considered the so called coloured.) The hatered I have experienced from these people as a race issue is greater than that which I have seen in white people. When people like Mbongeni Ngema sing and tell of these stories, we silence them so as to protect to votes, yet people are perishing! There are also many good folk in this catergory who have really owned being 'black' and they are to be commended!!!

You then get the White people, as my father always wondered when he saw some generous white people; whatever happened to the white people who brutalised blacks in the old apartheid regime. Well, I wonder! They all died or moved to some other place! There are white people who have stuck with SA as their home and they will live and die there; in spite of whether the kaffirs are ruining their motherland or not! These are brothers and sisters in the Lord who know where we've been and do not wish for us to ever return. These are the people committed to the emancipation of the black person and Africa as a whole. People who sing with gusto our Southern African song 'Who will save our land and people? Christ enough for one for all!' These are the ones to be applauded.

Others have seen what is happening in SA as reverse racism and they have chosen to leave the country to go and live elsewhere. I say GOOD RIDENS! But then poor Aborigine people of Australia and New Zealand. History has shown me that it is this exploration spirit of 'white people' that has brought destruction almost to all continents. (Today giant walls are being built to keep out the Mexicans from 'the US', I wonder who got here first, and perhaps pushed out? (I really don't know the answer to this, but suspect!) Africa has seen the worst of any holocausts due to racism, need I say more; oh! Greenland. It's climate wiped out the Vikings for it to be spared) It is strange that these expeditions were a run from something! Poor Australia and New Zealand, if only you knew you would ship them out before they gain full citizenship, learn from the mistakes of others (Africa)!

Shit, I'm in America; what am I saying? Ah but you see; I'm on a mission. My suspicions were right the way we doing study at home is lacking in some ways. I needed to come and see how the owners of this kind of learning understand and perpetuate it. I have seen and think enough but am stuck here for a little while longer, so the expedition continues. I still need to figure out who or what is perpetuating either the greatest 'truth or lie' called Christianity and what they stand to gain from it! You see there is another option to Jesus being either Lord, Lunatic or lier! He could be the greatest teacher there was!?

When you have young white people claim reverse racism and how things like the 'Affirmative Action' hurts them and that we are now thirteen years into the New SA and things must now change; my blood just boils! My standard answer is; how long do you think it would take to correct the wrongs of more than 3 centuries, well lets be so generous as to say 50 years? We need to remember some of the people with these complaints can't really count beyond the day 'apartheid' was legislated! The answer 13, 14, 15 years is not enough. It will never be enough until we all sit around a table and talk about how we do it. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is the beginning of that journey, not a destination as many think. We are still not equal and never will be for generations if we continue at this rate.

The Australians are not the only ones to learn lessons from others. We need to learn from the struggles of black people in America. Where 'freedom' was won so long ago! There is no freedom even in the house of the Lord! Somebody needs to call on God for help! Which God, I don't know. Is it the God of Israel possessed by the West; the God of Israel or Is it the God of Africa untainted by any other! Somebody needs to call on God, Does God not care that people are perishing? We are perishing!

CAMP OUT 2007

What happens when you put 2000 students in a bush for 36 hours with only mobile toilets and no showers?

THEY STUDY!

They also do community service in the surrounding area such as: GET THIS; handing out Planned Parenthood pamphlets at the neighborhood Gay/lesbian march (LOL!) Sorry this made my weekend (LOL!!!)

OR THEY PARTY!!!

THE PARTY of the year!!!

Here is the idea and to prove students will find any excuse to have a jol! The Duke Basket Ball team is really very good. The coach is now also coaching the USA national team; that's how good these boys are! The stadium is rather small so there is never room for all to watch games. The graduate students have a number of tickets allocated to them as season tickets but it's not enough. So they devised a plan: CAMP OUT!

It's a lottery. You camp out for 36 hours and in that time there will be spot checks with a whistle and register. If you miss more than 2 check ins you are out of the game. If you make it; wait for it: U might win an opportunity to buy a B-Ball season ticket for $150. There were 700 tickets and about 2000 of us.

The week is spent in preparation and students setting up tents and parking spots for their Removal Vans (trucks) and Camper Vans. This is such a business drive for the whole state coz I'm sure there were not many people moving, every removal van was hired out to Duke about a month ago. Companies sponsor food, drinks and some other items to make this a success.

The idea is to get as many people to miss check ins as is possible (like the guy below and this was Friday nite already!); by repetitive checks in the middle of the nite, by getting them so drunk that they can't get to the check point or by any means necessary.

All this happens in an open lot behind the University President's house (Vice Chancellor or Principal whatever name you use in your neck of the woods.) SO of course at some stage he has to come out and do the civil greetings and 'inspection!' He of course wouldn't have left without saying hello to the 'Divinity Students' to check if the connection with the good Lord above was still in tact. that's the reason we were there; I PROMISE!

There are many other photos that I could pin up but the censorship laws don't allow. So use your imagination!