From here to there and back again

My best friend, a man of great wisdom, extraordinary intellect and awesome talent, in asking about my plans for the months I will be spending in the United States soon, said, “Well, Kriel, just make sure you don’t go over there and trash this country”.

He went on to explain how so many ordinary South Africans are trying so hard to rebuild this shattered nation, to “make something of the place and fuck the politicians”. But also how so many expats seem to him to delight in “making our name gat” once they’re in another part of the world.

I’ve known Chris Marais, one of the 10 best writers in this country and the finest travel photojournalist we have, since about 1am on April 12 1973 when I was looking for blankets to cover some drunken friends who had passed out on the floor of my tiny room at Jan Smuts residence at Rhodes University. They’d been out drinking. I’d been writing a philosophy assignment.

Chris has survived unimaginable personal tragedy and now lives with his wonderful wife, Julienne, in the Karoo town of Cradock. They’d had enough of Johannesburg and moved there in 2007. As city rats they’ve adapted to the pastoral pace of the Karoo with stunning ease. Visit their website at www.karoospace.co.za. And don’t go anywhere without their new book Karoo Keepsakes. Then get the others too.

Jules is a walking reservoir of compassion, goodwill, intuitive adaptability, boundless insight and ecological knowledge, affectionately known by Chris as “The Oracle” (remember The Matrix?).

Why all this high encomium? To try to dispel any doubt of how seriously I take anything they say. Chris is also the godfather of my eldest son and I would trust them both with my life any day.

But how do I reconcile what he asked of me? I certainly have no plans to embark on some anti-SA propaganda campaign to diss this country. Shit, our corrupt and inept government does that job damned well all by itself!

But I am deeply torn. Republic of South Africa Version 2.009 is a huge disappointment to me. Indeed to most of the world, as reflected by our steadily falling ratings across all sectors bar tourism, and our remarkably consistent relegation to four-line news snippets in the “incidentals” sections of the international news media. A place with all the potential in the cosmos fallen into ignominy like a child prodigy fallen in with the wrong crowd.

I’ve taken all my “Proudly South African” stickers and badges off and resent the fact that my homeland has made me ashamed of what it has become. From a radiant beacon of hope beaming deep into space, it has become the heartland of institutionalised ordinariness.

The machinery of government is as rusted and out of service as a toothless Southern Cross windmill atop a long-dry borehole. We ceased to approximate to being a rainbow nation more than a decade ago (even the originator of that phrase has acknowledged this) and are now a vast archipelago of insular, isolated island fortresses of mistrust, enmity and self-centredness. We have relinquished our membership of the global village in favour of the arrogance of authority. We have deliberately inculcated a victim mindset, which has (in the words of Jeremy Taylor) “rated higher than the Book of Isaiah, the Song of Solomon”. In other words, glorified our rights to almost everything over our responsibilities for anything. “The world owes us huge favours and it’s high time we exacted payback”, describes this mentality.

Every level of society, both private and public, is shot through with greed, arrogance, apathy, laziness and corruption. Our so-called leaders cower behind meaningless “charters” and “codes”, abdicating their responsibilities to the private sector while taking credit for any value that accrues. The few remaining relics of morality and ethical conduct have been put in safety deposit boxes lest they become corrupted too. At least they haven’t been entrusted to our banks because they’re dirty too. It’s every man for himself, but we’ll call it ubuntu, okay?

Our education system has fallen from grace, while our state health system is nothing short of a disgrace (and of that I could write volumes based on personal experience). What passes for “South African Culture” is pretty and decorative, but is held together with sticky tape and packaging twine, devoid of coherent identity. Creativity and beauty only squirt through the cracks spasmodically.

NB: I am not saying other countries are better or worse; I am merely providing a perspective on this part of the planet called the Republic of South Africa.

Our flag should permanently fly upside down — the international sign of distress. We are a country in deep distress — politically moribund, morally bankrupt, spiritually spent, economically antiquated and dissolute, creatively quixotic and culturally as cohesive as a pit full of ADD mongooses and cobras on steroids.

And any form of criticism — this included — is dismissed and condemned in a paroxysm of nettle-rash reactions, thereby exonerating everyone from doing anything. Except, of course, massacre the messengers and tell them to leave if they don’t like it here. What childish maladroit pettiness! We haven’t even learnt from the examples of the prophets of old.

Yes, of course, there are the isolated exceptions, but as Chris said to me, “we might think globally, but we act locally” and by “locally” he meant the Karoo. There are scores of people far better and stronger and more patient than I who keep this country from imploding upon itself. The rest are evenly split between being too fucking stupid to know any better, too drunk or drugged out to know they’re being relentlessly screwed over, or having standards so low they’ll vote the ANC back into power in April.

I wish it were different. I wish all our individual efforts, no matter how big or small, how pragmatic or philosophical, how focused on the here-and-now or on a future idyll, would be successful. The very fact that they are not is demonstrated in any media you choose from Fair Lady to Farmers’ Weekly.

Everything seems to be treading water waiting for some vague messianic event. Most are pinning their salvation hopes 500-and-something days away; for others it is tomorrow. I know the son of a struggle icon who says this country’s maturity is nothing short of 75 years distant. But the water-treaders are getting very, very tired and their actions more closely resemble frenzied splashing with each passing day.

Ya, but life goes on, china. Like what can an oke do, ne?

Well, shame, you could seek some comfort in the wrinkled dangling bosoms of SA — The Good News, the Movement for Good, Homecoming Revolution, the ineffectual IMC or whatever is the latest manifestation of state-sponsored positivity and privately funded hypocrisy. You could equally drown in a skokkiaan-induced oblivion. Neither brings any lasting salvation.

You could do what Chris and Julienne and hundreds of others are doing — their level best to uplift and nurture and empower and be happy in wherever they find themselves and hope thereby to find fresh pasture. I would do the same if the opportunity presented itself. Chris calls it “in-migration” — the reverse migration away from the soulless cities to places such as Cradock. Were it me in their shoes, it would be Postmasburg or Prieska or somewhere in between. But that’s a freedom I no longer have.

I hope to return to something better in a few months’ time, energised and renewed by having been in America. I’ve always believed in miracles and, hey, the God I worship did the Big Bang thing anyway, didn’t He? I might even have picked up some ideas we could use to improve things here (heaven knows, under Zuma Simpson we’re going to need every morsel of help we can find!).

Unlike many others — and I do not question their motives one iota — I am not immigrating to the USA at all. I have been afforded an opportunity to spend time with my son and daughter-in-law in Virginia and play a meaningful role in the early childhood of my first grandson. I will only be visiting.

I hope I will be wiser too. I fully intend to suck the marrowbone of the experience. More and more doors are being opened almost hourly. Being so close to Washington DC will afford a special vantage point. Not the only or even the best vantage point — just special. It will also help me pave the way for my other son to study in the USA.

I will try not to diss SA for dissing’s sake. I certainly won’t either praise or bury the land of the brave and free. I will strive to be honest, balanced, fair, insightful, probing, analytical, sincere and all the other good things editors are supposed to be in blogging on this and other platforms. I will watch what happens here from over there, and there with a heart from over here. More than that I cannot promise.