Reply to comments on a 'spazza theory'

After publication of my “spazza theory” in May, “Rhythm and Chaos” asked whether I considered submitting my idea to other publications. “JR” was interested in where the “theory” was going, and suggested that I might have been unfair in my application of the “theory” to a group of people. In truth, I called it a “spazza” theory. When I was a kid in Eldorado Park, the word “spazza” generally referred to something that was not real, or when you said something tongue-in-cheek. For instance, because of a lack of shops at the time we usually bought basic foodstuff such as bread, or sugar from something called a “huis winkel”. Much later these (not real) shops based in people’s homes became “spazza shops” because they were not real shops. They did serve a valuable purpose, though. So, in short, there is no real theory. What there was (and still is) is a tongue-in-cheek look at the society in which I live. This is not to say that I have suspended my critical faculties — far from it.

In a more direct response to the comments and as a follow up to the first post, I want to make two points. First, what inspired the term “theory of isolated incidents” was precisely as I explained in my previous post. I made the point that there was a tendency in most societies to dismiss events or states of affairs as “irrelevant” or “unrepresentative” – when such happenings made them feel uncomfortable, or embarrassed. In submitting my “theory” I drew on actual incidents, such as the murder in August 1998 of Matthew Shepard. I specifically included a South African example; so, there ought to be no suggestion that I am singling out the United States for criticism.

Having said that, there is one incident I ought to have included in the initial post; the murder, in 1999, of James Byrd Junior, whom police at the time said, was dragged behind a truck and killed because he was black. At the time of Byrd’s murder, a local Sheriff, Billy Rowles, said: “We have an isolated incident. Guys who are not our kind of people did some stupid stuff.” Following Byrd’s murder and the Sheriff’s comment that it was an isolated incident, there have been several similar acts of patent brutality across the US.

For example:In 2005, a man was dragged behind a truck in Florence, South Carolina. In 2007, in Newport Washington State, a student died after he, too, was dragged behind a truck. On 10 August 2007, a Pastor in San Antonio, Texas reportedly dragged a student behind a truck at a Christian boot camp.

These are some of the incidents that inspired the “theory” of isolated incidents, and, of course, intimations that people who are good cannot be bad.

The second point I want to make, and which is somewhat related to “JR’s” suggestion that my “theory” implicated an entire society. Sometimes when we writers or scholars write articles, commentaries and perspectives, we may well allude to things, acts, events or states of affairs. I posited the “theory” of isolated incidents because I expected/anticipated that some people would, actually make the connection that “load shedding” in South Africa may well not be an “isolated incident” — especially when considered in the context of crime and violence in the country, or allegations of corruption and mismanagement.

Most recently, for instance, Fred Bridgland the British journalist, whom I remember best for his sycophancy of Jonas Savimbi during the Angolan war, (to be fair he did have a change of heart when he discovered that Savimbi was, actually, a blood thirsty murderer) suggested that South Africa, was becoming a “failed African state”

Because I am not in South Africa, and because I refuse to provide fodder for people who make careers or develop life-long habits of promoting Afropessimism, I rarely, if ever, write about what goes on within the country. What I have started doing, though, is to consider the US as critically as I did “my own” country when I was a journalist at home. This, too, has not been easy, but I will write about it at another time. For now, let me conclude that there is no real “theory of isolated incidents,” but this does not mean that it cannot serve as a way of looking at isolated incidents in society. As mentioned in the initial post, my spazza theory is applied as a looking class. So, in writing about these isolated incidents I won’t draw any conclusions. I will, however, continue to draw attention to such incidents in order to highlight the inconsistencies and contradictions (perhaps also the sanctimony and self-righteousness) that is so part of the society in which I live.