1861 Mr Malema

Often when the stresses of daily life start getting to me I do a little exercise which helps to put everything back into some sort of perspective. Hopefully it will assist some of you lot as well, in not only easing the pain of modern day living but also in gaining a bit of knowledge while you’re at it. My reference to ANCYL president Julius Malema above is not a further dig at his matric results but rather expressing the sincere wish that he, like some of you, will join in the fun and begin to realise that most things in life are never as important as we believe them to be at the time.

“So dont yield to the fortunes
You sometimes see as fate
It may have a new perspective
On a different day
And if you dont give up, and dont give in
You may just be o.k.”

(Mike Rutherford)

Select a year, Google it, choose Wikipedia and read up on everything that happened in that year. For the purposes of today’s exercise I have selected 1861 because, most importantly for me, there is not a single human being living today who was alive at that time. The entire population that inhabited the Earth during that year has subsequently died out.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1861

Pause for a second to think about that – everything that I am about to tell you, or you are going to read about 1861, relates to people who no longer exist. All their hopes and fears, their ambitions, the causes they died for and everything else they considered vital to the planet is simply history for us in 2008. Had they not done the things they did things may well have turned out very differently for us, they might not have, perhaps we would have been better off…or worse, the simple fact is that we would still be in 2008 while they irrespective of how rich or poor, important or irrelevant they were, are not.

Their history might be here but the population of 1861 has ceased to exist.

1861

Without doubt the defining event of 1861 is the American Civil War. In January and February the Southern states secede from the Union and Jefferson Davis is elected as their president. In early March Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, becomes the president of the United States. The war commences on the 12th April 1861 at Fort Sumter, South Carolina and would end with victory for the Union in April of 1865 after the death of 620 000 people. Add to that over 400 000 wounded and you have in excess of a million people directly affected by the war.

In South Africa Sefako Mapogo Makgatho, the 2nd African National Congress’ president, is born in GaMphahlele near Polokwane (man was he lucky he wasn’t there in December!).

The Kingdom of Italy is proclaimed, with Victor Emmanuel II as its king.

An earthquake completely destroys Mendoza, Argentina.

In Britain, the death penalty is limited to murder, high treason, espionage, piracy with violence and acts of arson perpetrated upon docks or ammunition depots.

If you then read Wikipedia you’ll notice a list of significant births and deaths during that year. I’d have called it “hatch, match and dispatch” but there’s no reference to any marriges in the article.

In sport “Archer” wins the very first Melbourne Cup (probably fixed), baseball (yep it was going) was interupted by the civil war and many teams disband, Oxford win the annual boat race and in golf Tom Morris Senior wins the second ever British Open golf title.

In art Paul Cezanne arrives in Paris while Antoine Bourdelle the sculptor passes away.

“Abide with me”, the hymn composed by Henry Francis Lyte in 1847 finally gets a hymn tune composed by William Monk. This is important because? Yes, you guessed it, the fans sing it every year on FA Cup Final day.

Of course there are tons of other items about 1861 in the Wikipedia article and in the many other searches that are available to you. Things that were considered vital to the population which inhabited the planet in that year. Things which, in the main, are totally irrelevant to the population of 2008 unless we learn about them in history.

Of course I am aware that it is one link in the chain of years that brought us to where we are today but as I said not necessarily for the better or worse.

Now just for a second I want you to close your eyes (FFS do not tell your bosses that Traps said you could do this! I’m still getting calls from your wives about the time I said you should get in touch with your feminine side and you all went to visit your girlfriends and said it was my idea).

Imagine that you are Joe the plumber called up to serve in the Confederate Army to go and fight the Union. Would you do it? You probably would because like everyone else that is what you did in 1861 or faced ostracism on a grand scale (if you lived).

Now imagine that you are Joe the plumber sent back in a time machine from 2008 to 1861 and are called up, would you still do it? I don’t believe that you would because your perspective would have changed and seceding from the Union as a cause worth dying for may not rank right up there. Even if the Union called you up and slavery was the issue I don’t believe that you would be prepared to give up your life for it. Slavery in 2008 is very much alive and while the police and traders are involved in a grim life or death struggle I don’t see armies of young men going out to do battle to combat it.

While you have your eyes closed picture what it must have been like to be in love in 1861. Probably like our kids today obsessed with a particular boy or girl who keeps turning their nose up at you. What if yours was the most passionate love story in history? A love so intense that without it you could not breathe or sleep or even eat? 147 years later do you think anyone gives a toss?

The loves, hates, wars, causes, dreams, desires and on and on that filled the planet of 1861 are today as if nothing at all. All those people who gave up that most precious thing a human being has, their lives, forgotten or, at best, given a passing thought.

Class of 2008 when you think that everything in your life is vital to you and the rest of the planet just remember that 200 years from now it will be as if you were but a blip on the radar. When you suggest dying for leaders, destroying other people or even demeaning them you lose a lot now and gain very little if anything from the future.

And if you really think about it no cause is worth dying for.