op paternoster waar donkies
ure lank lê en sigare rook
en osse soos kanaries fluit
tussen maagdelike madeliefies
wat fyntjies en wit
soos homoseksuele
oor broodrotse draf
waar mense snoek en patats
binne gate in hul gesigte steek
en blou seekomkommmers
weggemoffel word van
wit huisies wat hande in die
heupe onder vermakerige
hoedjies van riet staan
hier marsjeer lelies
in spekkige swart sooirye
langs vet adamsvye
wat tussen kinders se tone
berus by die werklikheid
net op paternoster
ken hotnotstoontjies
nog hul tyd in hierdie
opgedonnerde wêreld
en die dou op die huilbos
se bleek wange koggel parmantig
die stoeiende peerboom
in my voos ou lyf
"Henri Burger" writes: >
> Gloudina skryf:
>
>> Nee Henri,
>> So maklik kom jy nie los nie.
>> Vertel ons wat jy doen.
>
> Maar ek vertel jou mos wat ek doen - lees net die hardekoolvuur storietjies.
> Die helfte is fiksie, en die res is realiteit. Om te onderskei, natuurlik 'n
> ander saak.
>
> As jy nou bedoel 'tweede klerk by die poskantoor', of so-iets, sal jy moet
> bly wonder. Jy sien, Gloudina, sodra 'n ou dit weet, dan lees jy die ander
> ou vanuit 'n sekere perspektief, en nie noodwendig wat hy skryf nie.
>
>> Die feit dat jy, lyk
>> my. jouself as totaal as deel van Afrika
>> sien.
>
> Korrek. Soos David Kramer sê, 'Wat ken ek anders as die bloudam se
> branders?'
>
>> Ek sien jou altyd in my
>> verbeelding in 'n formele khaki-
>> pak. Ek wonder hoekom?
>
> Moontlik agv my AWB-verbintenisse? Tensy jy nou bedoel in die 'Dr
> Livingstone, I presume?'-konteks.
>
> Groete
Wel, my eerste inklinasie was om te dink dat
jy 'n dokter is. Maar toe begin ek weer twyfel.
Miskien is ek tog reg.
Snaaks dat jy daar in Noord-Transvaal praat van
die bloudam se branders. Is dit omdat jy in
Barrydale grootgeword het en dus naby die see,
relatief gesproke? Dis snaaks tot watter groot
mate die Afrikaner 'n seekultuur het. Seker
as gevolg van die feit dat dit so baie kuslyn
het.
Het jy ooit 'n onderwyser op Barrydale gehad
met die naam Pierre de Wet?
Wel jy sal net nog meer stories om die hardekool-
vuur moet skryf, sodat ek meer kan uitvind. Is
jou Cessna werklik rooi.
>
> Dis snaaks tot watter groot
>> mate die Afrikaner 'n seekultuur het. Seker
>> as gevolg van die feit dat dit so baie kuslyn
>> het.
>
> Ek het nog nooit iemand ontmoet wat nie van die see hou nie. Ons lot wie se
> voorsate van Europa gekom het, het mos maar almal oor die see hier aangekom,
> of hoe?
Daar is egter 'n verskil tussen "van die see hou"
en 'n see-kultuur. Hier in Kanada het die Maritieme
provinsies 'n seekultuur. In Ontario se geestessfeer
speel die see egter nie 'n baie groot rol nie. Miskien
moet 'n mens sê hulle het 'n meer-kultuur. Die
prairies het weer 'n ander soort kultuur, waar storms
en ys en vloede 'n groot rol speel. Dis eers wanneer
jy by die B.C.-kusgebiede kom, dat jy weer 'n seekultuur
kry.
>
> Onder die swart kulture is daar groot geloof in die helende kragte van
> seewater. As ons see toe gaan, het ek 'n lang bestellingslys vir bottels
> seewater, wat ek dan getrou saam karwei.
Ja, as ons swart studente by Adams College vir
die eerste keer by die see gebring word, dan
vat elkeen ook sy bottel seewater huistoe.
Dis natuurlik primitiewe wetenskap om te
weet dat seewater belangrike minerale het
en seker ook jodium.
Het jy ooit 'n onderwyser op Barrydale gehad
>> met die naam Pierre de Wet?
>
> Hy was my skoolhoof, en het ook vir my wiskunde gegee. 'n Bietjie
> eksentriek, maar 'n uitstekende wiskunde onderwyser. Sy bynaam was ou 'mol',
> vanweë sy liggaamsbou. Op 'n stadium het hy ook wetenskap gegee. Vir ons as
> kinders was dit skreeusnaaks toe hy op 'n dag sê hy gaan die begrip 'mol'
> vir ons verduidelik.
Wel, nou het ek 'n aparte informasie-bron
om dinge oor jou uit te vind!
> About 1966 or so, a NASA team doing work for the Apollo moon mission
> took the
> astronauts near Tuba City where the terrain of the Navajo Reservation
> looks
> very much like the Lunar surface. With all the trucks and large
> vehicles were
> two large figures dressed in full Lunar spacesuits.
> Nearby a Navajo sheep herder and his son were watching the strange
> creatures
> walk about, occasionally being tended by personnel. The two Navajo
> people
> were noticed and approached by the NASA personnel.
> Since the man did not know English, his son asked for him what the
> strange
> creatures were and the NASA people told them that they are just men that
> are
> getting ready to go to the moon. The man became very excited and asked
> if he
> could send a message to the moon with the astronauts.
> The NASA personnel thought this was a great idea so they rustled up a
> tape
> recorder. After the man gave them his message they asked his son to
> translate. His son would not.
> Later, they tried a few more people on the reservation to translate and
> every
> person they asked would chuckle and then refuse to translate.
> Finally, with cash in hand someone translated the message, "Watch out
> for
> these guys, they come to take your land."
Die see bult blou by Mosselbaai.
In die donker kamer
brand die vlamme van siekte
jou lyf stadig op.
En toe, vroeg een oggend,
was die vuur verby
en was jy stil en soet
omring deur dood.
Soos 'n klein, ronde klippie
in 'n yskoue stroom.
11
Dit was 'n koue, winderige nag
toe jy uitgestap het uit die kamer.
Jy het af teen vreemde trappe geloop
wat soos 'n spiraal wentel en daal
deur vlakke van die geheue
tot jy weer 'n klein dogtertjie was:
By jou ouma se huis
langs Mosselbaai se see
waar krismisrose in die nat lug
kleur uit die swart grond druk.
Toe was jy weer
in die arms van jou ma.
En kon jy sterf.
Ek het hierdie gelees. Ek kon dit nooit so perfek sê.
STATEMENT OF DEPUTY PRESIDENT THABO MBEKI, ON BEHALF OF THE AFRICAN
NATIONAL CONGRESS, ON THE OCCASION OF THE ADOPTION BY THE CONSTITUTIONAL
ASSEMBLY OF "THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA CONSTITUTION BILL 1996", CAPE
TOWN, 9 MAY 1996
On an occasion such as this, we should, perhaps, start from the
beginning. So, let me begin -
I am an African.
============
I owe my being to the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the
glades, the rivers, the deserts, the trees, the flowers, the seas and
the ever-changing seasons that define the face of our native land.
My body has frozen in our frosts and in our latter-day snows. It has
thawed in the warmth of our sunshine and melted in the heat of the
midday sun.
The crack and the rumble of the summer thunders, lashed by startling
lightening, have been a cause both of trembling and of hope.
The fragrances of nature have been as pleasant to us as the sight of the
wild blooms of the citizens of the veld.
The dramatic shapes of the Drakensberg, the soil-coloured waters of the
Lekoa, iGqili noThukela, and the sands of the Kgalagadi, have all been
panels of the set on the natural stage on which we act out the foolish
deeds of the theatre of our day.
At times, and in fear, I have wondered whether I should concede equal
citizenship of our country to the leopard and the lion, the elephant and
the springbok, the hyena, the black mamba and the pestilential mosquito.
A human presence among all these, a feature on the face of our native
land thus defined, I know that none dare challenge me when I say - I am
an African!
I owe my being to the Khoi and the San whose desolate souls haunt the
great expanses of the beautiful Cape - they who fell victim to the most
merciless genocide our native land has ever seen, they who were the
first to lose their lives in the struggle to defend our freedom and
independence and they who, as a people, perished in the result. Today,
as a country, we keep an audible silence about these ancestors of the
generations that live, fearful to admit the horror of a former deed,
seeking to obliterate from our memories a cruel occurrence which, in its
remembering, should teach us not and never to be inhuman again.
I am formed of the migrants who left Europe to find a new home on our
native land. Whatever their own actions, they remain still, part of me.
In my veins courses the blood of the Malay slaves who came from the
East. Their proud dignity informs my bearing, their culture a part of my
essence. The stripes they bore on their bodies from the lash of the
slave master are a reminder embossed on my consciousness of what should
not be done.
I am the grandchild of the warrior men and women that Hintsa and
Sekhukhune led, the patriots that Cetshwayo and Mphephu took to battle,
the soldiers Moshoeshoe and Ngungunyane taught never to dishonour the
cause of freedom.
My mind and my knowledge of myself is formed by the victories that are
the jewels in our African crown, the victories we earned from
Isandhlwana to Khartoum, as Ethiopians and as the Ashanti of Ghana, as
the Berbers of the desert.
I am the grandchild who lays fresh flowers on the Boer graves at St
Helena and the Bahamas, who sees in the mind's eye and suffers the
suffering of a simple peasant folk, death, concentration camps,
destroyed homesteads, a dream in ruins.
I am the child of Nongqause. I am he who made it possible to trade in
the world markets in diamonds, in gold, in the same food for which my
stomach yearns.
I come of those who were transported from India and China, whose being
resided in the fact, solely, that they were able to provide physical
labour, who taught me that we could both be at home and be foreign, who
taught me that human existence itself demanded that freedom was a
necessary condition for that human existence.
Being part of all these people, and in the knowledge that none dare
contest that assertion, I shall claim that - I am an African|
I have seen our country torn asunder as these, all of whom are my
people, engaged one another in a titanic battle, the one to redress a
wrong that had been caused by one to another and the other, to defend
the indefensible.
I have seen what happens when one person has superiority of force over
another, when the stronger appropriate to themselves the prerogative
even to annul the injunction that God created all men and women in His
image. I know what it signifies when race and colour are used to
determine who is human and who, sub-human.
I have seen the destruction of all sense of self-esteem, the consequent
striving to be what one is not, simply to acquire some of the benefits
which those who had imposed themselves as masters had ensured that they
enjoy.
I have experience of the situation in which race and colour is used to
enrich some and impoverish the rest. I have seen the corruption of minds
and souls as a result of the pursuit of an ignoble effort to perpetrate
a veritable crime against humanity. I have seen concrete expression of
the denial of the dignity of a human being emanating from the conscious,
systemic and systematic oppressive and repressive activities of other
human beings.
There the victims parade with no mask to hide the brutish reality
-the beggars, the prostitutes, the street children, those who seek
solace in substance abuse, those who have to steal to assuage hunger,
those who have to lose their sanity because to be sane is to invite
pain.
Perhaps the worst among these, who are my people, are those who have
learnt to kill for a wage. To these the extent of death is directly
proportional to their personal welfare. And so, like pawns in the
service of demented souls, they kill in furtherance of the political
violence in KwaZulu-Natal. They murder the innocent in the taxi wars.
They kill slowly or quickly in order to make profits from the illegal
trade in narcotics. They are available for hire when husband wants to
murder wife and wife, husband.
Among us prowl the products of our immoral and amoral past - killers who
have no sense of the worth of human life, rapists who have absolute
disdain for the women of our country, animals who would seek to benefit
from the vulnerability of the children, the disabled and the old, the
rapacious who brook no obstacle in their quest for self-enrichment.
All this I know and know to be true because I am an African.
Because of that, I am also able to state this fundamental truth - that I
am born of a people who are heroes and heroines. I am born of a people
who would not tolerate oppression. I am of a nation that would not allow
that fear of death, torture, imprisonment, exile or persecution should
result in the perpetuation of injustice.
The great masses who are our mother and father will not permit that the
behaviour of the few results in the description of our country and
people as barbaric.
Patient because history is on their side, these masses do not despair
because today the weather is bad. Nor do they turn truimphalist when,
tomorrow, the sun shines. Whatever the circumstances they have lived
through and because of that experience, they are determined to define
for themselves who they are and who they should be.
We are assembled here today to mark their victory in acquiring and
exercising their right to formulate their own definition of what it
means to be African.
The constitution whose adoption we celebrate constitutes an unequivocal
statement that we refuse to accept that our Africanness shall be defined
by our race, colour, gender or historical origins.
It is a firm assertion made by ourselves that South Africa belongs to
all who live in it, black and white.
It gives concrete expression to the sentiment we share as Africans, and
will defend to the death, that the people shall govern.
It recognises the fact that the dignity of the individual is both an
objective which society must pursue, and is a goal which cannot be
separated from the material well-being of that individual.
It seeks to create the situation in which all our people shall be free
from fear, including the fear of the oppression of one national group by
another, the fear of the disembowelment of one social echelon by
another, the fear of the use of state power to deny anybody their
fundamental human rights and the fear of tyranny.
It aims to open the doors so that those who were disadvantaged can
assume their place in society as equals with their fellow human beings
without regard to colour, race, gender, age or geographic dispersal.
It provides the opportunity to enable each one and all to state their
views, promote them, strive for their implementation in the process of
governance without fear that a contrary view will be met with
repression.
It creates a law-governed society which shall be inimical to arbitrary
rule.
It enables the resolution of conflicts by peaceful means rather than
resort to force.
It rejoices in the diversity of our people and creates the space for all
of us voluntarily to define ourselves as one people.
As an African, this is an achievement of which I am proud, proud without
reservation and proud without any feeling of conceit. Our sense of
elevation at this moment also derives from the fact that this
magnificent product is the unique creation of African hands and African
minds.
But it also constitutes a tribute to our loss of vanity that we could,
despite the temptation to treat ourselves as an exceptional fragment of
humanity, draw on the accumulated experience and wisdom of all
humankind, to define for ourselves what we want to be.
Together with the best in the world, we too are prone to pettiness,
petulance, selfishness and short-sightedness. But it seems to have
happened that we looked at ourselves and said the time had come that we
make a super-human effort to be other than human, to respond to the call
to create for ourselves a glorious future, to remind ourselves of the
Latin saying: Gloria est consequenda - Glory must be sought after|
Today it feels good to be an African.
It feels good that I can stand here as a South African and as a foot
soldier of a titanic African army, the African National Congress, to say
to all the parties represented here, to the millions who made an input
into the processes we are concluding, to our outstanding compatriots who
have presided over the birth of our founding document, to the
negotiators who pitted their wits one against the other, to the unseen
stars who shone unseen as the management and administration of the
Constitutional Assembly, the advisers, experts and publicists, to the
mass communication media, to our friends across the globe -
congratulations and well done|
I am an African.
I am born of the peoples of the continent of Africa.
The pain of the violent conflict that the peoples of Liberia, Somalia,
the Sudan, Burundi and Algeria is a pain I also bear. The dismal shame
of poverty, suffering and human degradation of my continent is a blight
that we share. The blight on our happiness that derives from this and
from our drift to the periphery of the ordering of human affairs leaves
us in a persistent shadow of despair. This is a savage road to which
nobody should be condemned.
This thing that we have done today, in this small corner of a great
continent that has contributed so decisively to the evolution of
humanity, says that Africa reaffirms that she is continuing her rise
from the ashes.
Whatever the setbacks of the moment, nothing can stop us now] Whatever
the difficulties, Africa shall be at peace] However, improbable it may
sound to the sceptics, Africa will prosper]
Whoever we may be, whatever our immediate interest, however much we
carry baggage from our past, however much we have been caught by the
fashion of cynicism and loss of faith in the capacity of the people, let
brynie...@TheOffice.net (Bryan) writes: > On Sun, 31 May 1998 09:34:23 +0200, lou wrote:
>
>> Jammer dat ek nou miskien onkundig klink Gloudina maar weet jy hoe om 'n
>> nuusleser te gebruik? Antwoord asseblief tog in die thread en moet nie
>> elke keer 'n nuwe een begin nie. Dit is heel irriterend as mens nou moet
>> gaan soek om te sien wat die konteks van die woorde was waarop jy
>> reageer.
>>
>> Dankie
>> Lou
>
> Ek stem heeltemal saam. Dit lyk asof 80% van die boodskappe op
> hierdie ngroep deur Gloudina gepos word omdat dit elke keer 'n nuwe
> artikel begin. As mens dit egter lees, besef jy dat dit eintlik maar
> net 'n opvolgartikel op 'n ander oorspronklike artikel was.
>
> ASSEBLIEF Gloudina, pos jou artikels op die korrekte manier, deur op
> "post follow up message" i.p.v. "post new message" te druk. Dit sal
> die struktuur van die nuusgroep se uitleg baie vergemaklik as mens dit
> lees en ook nie jou woorde (soos gewoonlik) uit konteks plaas nie.
>
> Bryan
Ag julle ou kla-balies en julle ou kekkelbekke,
wat nie eens die ander moontlikheid oorweeg
nie: dat ek wel die "post follow up message"-
knoppie druk, en dan die titel bo-aan uitvee
en 'n nuwe titel daar skryf. En van wanneer
is julle aangestel as die direkteure van die
nuusgroep. En besef julle dat julle klaery
heelwaarskynlik spruit uit die feit dat julle
'n nuusleser soos Netscape gebruik, waar die
threads as 'n werklike string verskyn. Op my
nuusleser gebeur dit nie. (Internet Explorer.)
In alle geval, om die stringe te behou, selfs
op Netscape, word later ook belaglik. Wanneer
die titel lui "Hierdie droewe land" en iemand
oor leermetodes vir kleuters praat.
Ja, ou Lou
Nou ek het 'n r ingesit waar daar in die
oorspronklike pos van "nuuslese" gepraat word.
Kom ons sien nou of dit vir julle in Netscape-
nuuslesers 'n nuwe draad begin. So iets tegnies
sal hopelik julle benepe klein breintjies vir
'n rukkie besig hou.
Die tannie wat weet hoe om 'n nuusleser te hanteer,
maar nie die nuusleser se slaaf is nie.
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