LAST WORD

ONS VIR JOU SUID AFRIKA, HAPPY FREEDOM DAY

Last year Minister of Safety and Security Mr Charles Nqakula said something very disturbing about people being free to whinge until they turn blue or having an option of leaving these shores. That was bad because only whites turn blue when they whinge. It was wrong not because of that innuendo but because the biggest victims of crime are the people who will never turn blue and who have no option of leaving. Thus when I made an entry in Kasiekulture interrogating the SA Blog Awards I ended up feeling like Nqakula but decided to let sanity prevail. I wrote another letter to coincide with Freedom Day on Friday and I will once again title it 'Dear Blogger'. A very talented blogger named Piet van der Walt sent me this cartoon above. I couldn't help but find the humour of it and so I decided to publish it. Copyright is held by Mnr van der Walt

Some weeks ago I was tempted to put together a profile of the people who visit kasiekulture so that I can prepare them custom-made gifts. I was half way there until I published that Bloggers of Mzansi, Abandon the Ossewa! entry. It was then that I became aware that Kasiekulture has got a crossover appeal, more like Freshlyground and Mandoza's Nkalakatha. I found that I'm more popular than the African National Congress and FF+ and thought fuck it, why can't I register as a candidate for the upcoming 2009 General Elections. I'm more popular than DJ Fresh was on his first day at 5FM when listeners questioned his accent and attitude.

For those who have been in Siberia since 1990 here's little information of what happened since then; There's a small piece of land called Orania, with a sizeable population, a leader and own currency called the Ora which is weaker than the Zimbabwean dollar. They are until now self-sustaining and have pursued their vision of racial purity all the way to a desolate part of this vast country. Theirs is limited separate development because they don't have airpots, soldiers, police and intelligence organisations. Their overall security strategy is still largely financed by the South Afrikan taxpayer, which is good because we don't kill disabled minds but legislate to protect them.

I've never been there but am reliably informed that they, when they go for their sixth glass of mampoer claim to be independent of South Afrika, which is also good because I also think we would all prosper if we started functioning like birds and only flocked based on the colour of our feathers. It only became inspirational stuff when they wanted to have their own radio station (Oops they still watch SABC and etv if not home videos of dancing contests and edited speeches of erstwhile Afrikaner leaders) and instead of putting together a makeshift studio and set up a transmitter they decided to apply from the country next door (ICASA) to award them a license. Imagine Swaziland applying to have a station from ICASA, that would be a joke.

Orania people are still on MTN, Vodacom, Cell C and Telkom, but hey, they are not with the rest of us.

Now, the country next door (ICASA) says Orania doesn't deserve a license because the airwaves are saturated as their reasons for seeking a license are not convincing. They can't even get them a frequency on Short or Medium Wave. You need a certain number of signatures to justify your application for a community radio station and they can't gather those as well. Why? Because some of the people who aspire to live there tell themselves every night that they are in exile (South Afrika) and some put it more romantically that they are in the Orania Diaspora.

Okay, what's the point of this little information? First and foremost I'm a Afrikan - a black South Afrikan who is far from apologetic about being black because that means I've already been coloured (dyed). Which means I was once white. And this here blackness is the culmination of what went into my head to mould my perfection. See, along the way to blackness I have learnt to speak fluently so four South Afrikan languages including Afrikaans. That's why I write in English the same way I can write in some of the indigenous languages. I'm not a genius, because that would be denoting that all darkies are geniuses but I'm just too smart. I'm the culmination of God's creation - the ultimate human species destination.

I say this because I realised after my 'Abandon the Ossewa!' entry that in South Afrika there still are a lot of mentally disturbed white people. Disturbed because they read the wrong history and science books in primary school. Some disturbed because they grew up behind walls and never interacted with other civilised people all over the world and think that throwing racist innuendo equals being smart whereas it's barbarism because you breath the same air as me and drink the same water. I have lived behind a wall and discovered my claustrophobia. And I say from an informed position when I say that there are disturbed whites out there who need therapy. That Korean boy in Virginia Tech is not isolated to America but there are similar freaks in many of the towns which's names end with 'dorp', 'stad', 'burg' and 'fort'.

For me, there are four things I like about South Afrika. None of those things is government as I'm an anarchist. Triple distilled Scotch whisky (single malt), braaivleis, day-night cricket and white people. For me, this is my ideal South Afrika, you take away one and the puzzle remains incomplete. I'm not the type that says 'some of my best friends are white you know'. I don't have a white friend (unlike Steve Biko) but whites with whom we have common interests and who we relate to each other in a big way. I'm an artist and some of the whites I like are artists as well or are in the media which is where I ply my trade. We do for each other what we need to do at any given time and at the end of the day we both disappear to our comfort zones and communicate by email and SMS. I love my white comrades smitten because they are not colour-blind. They know the difference between blue and yellow, which is important if you are going to co-exist with me. They know that South Afrika hasn't changed since 1994 which is fine cuz I don't want to be told that the black leadership in this country has saved anyone from civil war when we all know that's not the truth. I don't want a whitey who will praise Nelson Mandela thinking that they are appeasing me when I think the man might have done more damage than repair. I can't handle a white who will tell me he wants to visit my neighbourhood only as a form of flattery to me. Actually I don't want a white who feels obligated to visit my neighbourhood because I don't feel obligated to visit his. I've lived in a Jewish suburb of Bramley for a year in 1994 and I never liked it.

This is my ideal South Afrika, where racist don't hide behind smiles while denying everyone who has different feathers an opportunity to shine. Comments on the entry I mentioned differed; some which I rejected and decided not to publish were blatant hate mail and I don't want the black visitors with two brain cells like the whites who commented barbaricly ending up boxing all whites as full of hatred. There's more to a white/black person than the colour of the skin. I've been called many things in my long journalism career and no amount of venom can subdue me. I've been called an anti-Semite (for saying Israel is keeping Palestinians in a prison called Gaza Strip), a misogynist (for calling some women bitches and whores in my poetry), a moffie (for playing volleyball and basketball) and recently a racist (for speaking my mind about SA Blog Awards). I've just never been called a 'kaffir' but I still wouldn't mind as long as it makes the name-caller happy. I'm all for happiness, especially since to me 'kaffir' (Keen At Fighting For Individual Rights) means nothing except small minds - which actually should worry the Creator than the creation. I will pray that bigger brains be given to the folks with low self-esteem in the future.

My point behind the SA Blog Awards was simple. Call them anything, call them the Orania, Vrystaat, Transvaal, Kaffirsdorp Blog Awards or anything else but don't call them South African when, contrary to what I've been recently told that an attempt was made to track down black bloggers, you are going to be exclusive. I'm sorry broer, no attempt was made to track anyone.

I took personal offence to this revelation about trying to track down black bloggers. What's this? Another BEE deal where whites co-opt darkies to create an Irish coffee effect? Don't go out looking for darkies, they are a majority in this country, just put your notice in the right media and darkies will come looking for you. Even if darkies were to put together a similar event there won't be any point in going out looking for whites when they can put a notice in Beeld, Cape Argus, Citizen, The Star, Pretoria News, Sunday Times, Die Son and many such media which is equally liked by lots of white people.

I also liked a point relayed to me that nobody was invited to enter the SA Blog Awards. I just lack the energy to engage some of the comments posted to kasiekulture but can somebody tell me how did they end up on that list? Is it like the National Orders maybe? For the life of me I can't comprehend how you'll have people entering a contest where there were no invitations, unless it's a very different world I'm living in. Maybe I'm in Baghdad's Sadr City and invitations are circulated in the Green Zone. How did those people know that it will be held at Fourways? Hunch, K9 instincts? Somebody please treat us like adults.

I protested about the location being exclusive and some hater who I should hook up Ku Klux Klan membership forms accused me of being a cry-baby and started fault-finding (the Irish and Canadian links not getting him to where they are supposed to). The poor sod acted as if he's a newcomer to search engines whereby stuff happens with links and you end up on some porn site you didn't know existed. He never even commented about the links that took him to where he wanted to go.

The location issue; If I was going to stage the Suid-Afrikaanse Safer Neighbourhoods Awards at night and choose to take the event to Zola (Soweto), and ends up being won by Alexandra Township and I come out bragging about a token white (liberal) who came to 'represent' with a suburb called Vaderland and who got position two in all categories he entered- would that make any sense? In the head of someone stuck in a hole in Durban and called Capdog it would. Those are the people that Home Affairs should hurry the processing of their papers for a safe emigration to Down Under.

Many of the comments were fair, constructive and informative and will inform my interrogation of similar issues in the future - thank you. Special thanks to Dave and Rouvanne especially. However some people think we are all impressed by an occassional smile and fake hugs from a blue crane because we doves. No ways. Darkies are not homogenous my fellow white people, they are like you, you are not going to be judged by the fuck-ups of Hendriek Verwoed, John Vorster or even Eugene Terreblanche. So, never attribute an entry made by a lone darkie as the voice of blacks. And sarcasm is my gasoline, I thrive on it and the more sarcastic comments I get the further I'm gonna shoot my venom. So come forward with your fancy OR, JFK, PW, LKJ, FW, MLK blog names and expect me to shut up while the first thing on my mind when I see these initials are Oliver Reginald Tambo, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Piet Willem Botha, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Frederick Willem de Klerk and Martin Luther King. It might be guerilla marketing but it smirks of creativity deficiency. I hate hypocrisy my people and there's no way you can change me. I'm not surprised given that when Winnie Madikizela-Mandela wanted to register her website some years ago she discovered that some (white) man in Tshwane (not Pretoria) held ownership to the domain name (www.winniemandela.co.za) , so I'm far from surprised cuz my other name is Nando but I feel intellectual inferiority to set up a Nando's Blog.

Some of us are way past the stage of finding pretensions charming. I take younger Condi (Condoleeza Rice's) stance when I deal with issues of black and white (SA Blog Awards included), 'I'll rather be ignored than patronised'.

About those that thought they can flip a cry-baby gimmick and box my rant as 'so typical....whenever blacks are not # 1, the race card comes out', who told you that I'm black if not for the 'black and white' picture I deliberately put there to simplify your gutter analysis of my opinions suppose you finally decided to remove your blinds and rise to my colour-consious level. Welcome to the real world and Happy Freedom Day (whether you like it or not - otherwise the Dromedaries is leaving for Wellington in 24 hours)