Walking the corridors of South African jails, one cant help but question what it is that compels governments to lock up its own people in such numbers!
Everyday, for the last 6 weeks I have been submerged in bright orange uniforms, behind high-rise concrete encircled in high voltage electronic fences.
But it’s an experience of a kind!!
One gets to meet people of all sorts!
There is for example a white young man may be 16 who was recently bugging the warders to transfer him to the communal section. Apparently, he had been there before until he was moved to a single cell.
The warders told him they wouldn’t do that again because he is a victim of violent behaviour from the big guys. The guy continued pestering the warders arguing that he was lonely!
But I later learnt the man is just missing out on the group orgies of sodomy.
The warders told him off in my presence, and he defiantly told them that the sex was the best he ever had!
I was showed some of the perpetrators and, heavens… they had to be! Men with scars, no teeth, and dirty who are serving sentences like rape.
Because it’s my second year, I am kind of getting used to these stories.
But used to what? The human stench emanating from bodies that seem to react with water like sodium.
Or faces of some of the most violent people in the country! Rapists, murders and hijackers etc.
Day-by-day so many people are finding themselves in South African jails due to various reasons.
But the most accessible of all is POVERTY!!!
South Africa perhaps like India has some of the best examples of extremes in the world!
India is a home to the world’s largest concentration of the poor, 350million living on less than a dollar per day! Yet, also some of the richest people in the world!
One in three of South Africa 37million lives in townships. Many are black and jobless.
Visit Alexandra Township just next to Africa’s richest city-Sandton and witness economic and social sinkholes.
The gap between the rich and poor is so wide that I don’t know there is a structural engineer who can build a bridge to close it!
But probably unlike India, South Africa is polarized based on racial quarters!
One reason why may be the gap is that big.
Many of the imamates are blacks probably 80%.
When I ask some warders, why it is so, they tell me its because of APARTHEID!
Others tell me because of POVERTY!
Of course, there is a correlation between the two! One seems to be the mother of the other!
But again why are they so violent???
What drives a man to kill for a cell phone or chase after the other and shoot him for accidentally stepping on his toes while dancing in a shebeen!
It is true that many come from dysfunctional families where there is hardly any social support! But in Africa, who doesn’t??
To some of us we actually look at it as rites of passage in life!!
Apart from a few on the continent who have been privileged to put on shoes and may be speaking the Queens’ language, to majority it still a dream!!
But why aren’t they all in prison? Is it a question of capacity?
I don’t want to sound insensitive, but ladies and gentlemen there is a spiraling blame on poverty getting out of hand.
Here in South Africa its worse!
Jails are over flowing with majority black people who it is blamed on poverty.
But one thing for sure is an average black South African is still far better off than any other black on the continent.
Blacks here are entitled to medical aid, social grants, have access to gov’t bursaries to a tune of R825 million, some with free electricity and water, best roads in the world.
A sick inmate here in South Africa feeds on a special kind of diet that many middle-income groups might never afford. It’s high in Protein with all sorts of fruits accompaniment.
Some it is believed keep going back to jail because of these benefits.
Recently on Talk Radio 702, there was a big storm stirred up by a right wing fellow who said that black people are predisposed to crime than any other race. He cited statistics in the US, UK and Australia to back his assertion.
Now, that’s such a generalised statement but might it hold some water??
While in juveniles’ prison recently, I went with some notes and an STI chart to use as teaching aids. To my dismay the kids stole almost everything.
Part of their loot was a small book on Obstetrics and Gyneacology and work I was doing on a project in Eastern Cape.
Now these have very complex information that even me I don’t really understand despite using them in learning about Reproductive Health. The guy I suspect had approached me earlier and wanted them-but he could hardly construct a sentence. I am told he had not even reached matric level (s.6) in studies.
cont'd...
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Valentine 2006.
Happy VALENTINE!!
Even though given a chance would have loved anyone of you (recipients) to be my valentine….apart from the bulls; I found you condignly fitting to share this abstract text with you! Don’t take it personal! You can judge me however if you so wish! It’s just an intellectual opinion not based on prejudice but a desire for an honest healthy debate.
LOVE is arguably the most complex phenomena that has befallen man.
It is so abstract and mythical that it has elicited hot debates, sent artists of all sorts into studios to spend sleepless nights writing movies and songs about it! It has exposed cruelty in humanity yet also defined the human soul to greater levels. It has caused untold suffering and hatred yet has bestowed magnanimity in many!
It’s a faith, religion, and a defining philosophy of the 21st century.
But there is one big problem with it.
It’s built on a string of myths and lies. Seemingly to many its propaganda wrapped in a blanket of lies and based on deception. It’s a hoax bordering on a list of conspiracy theories like the Bermuda Triangle.
Friends, we are conditioned to believe that romantic love is eternal, the same all over the world and as basic as breathing, eating and crying. But wake up and smell the rotten bouquet your valentine sent you-IT’S A DELUSION!
For me, if it’s true that love exists, it’s the greatest thing that one can receive and give! Absolutely!! This is all with its sweetness!
But I also contend that with its withering weakness, LOVE you and I as understand it, is the most excruciating pain one could face! (Read “The Road Less Travelled” By Dr. Scott Peck).
I was doing a cyber sojourn and visited www.postsecret.blogspot.com on Valentine day and boy…couldn’t believe what I read! People are in pain though others are rejoicing in the LOVE WORLD!!
But the chemical compounds that manufacture a cloud of concupiscence have never ceased to puzzle me! I am weakened by an urgent, surging infatuation and enchantment to a point of wanting to spend the rest of “myself” with another person! That’s crazy!!
Does it make sense to want to breathe, live and “eat” a stranger for the rest of ones life (call it marriage)??
May be that’s were we derive meaning from just like other mystical and mythical aspects of life! To understand is to get bored!!
But why do we seek to make it permanent; lasting until death?
If all good things as they say come to an end, why should love be otherwise?? It should receive the same fate as the Broadway dramas, a good session of love making (sex), listening to “clocks” by Cold Play etc. At one point, just like life, these all come to an end! Its normal, its nature and so should LOVE!!
LOVE as derived from Eros is the desire for self preservation and uninhibited enjoyment that in the Freudian Theory is one of the two primal instincts. The other is Thanatos (desire of death).
www.Wikipedia.com(latest rival to Britannica) further tells us that LOVE actually means a burning desire for another person that “does not or was not meant to last”!
Now who brought in the marriage concept to complicate our lives?? Someone should explain to me!! May be it was a plot to preserve the fire and prevent it from extinguishing!! SAD!!
But I bet, whoever came up with it was the first victim of the concept. Its must have backfired in their face without any recourse!
Marriage as one day I may find out is based on duty, responsibility and respect! But as men, these are some of our biggest weaknesses and I wish women come to realise it! But how come women are more inclined to offer the above without any effort?
The egalitarian of love assumes both parties enter freely into an open contract and walk away when another stops pleasing them. It dissolves the deadly demand of duty-drudgery and subservience with no end in sight.
Seeing it as everything, why when love is gone, we easily forget the duty and ditch the bitch (bastard) like 2 ply tissue running down a toilet bowl? For me, the confusion emanates from a party’s ability to walk away with impunity and all too casually! How does one do that from said “burning fire”? That means you told a lie that you loved me but make no mistake, karma tells me that you too will be told a lie one day!! Everyone is lying to each other! It’s the way of life!
How about a situation where I fall in love with someone’s wife? (God forbid)! Scary and disgusting as it sounds but some find meaning in it just like you did from the chocolates you got!
Truth: Romantic love-our religion, our purpose, and our first thought when our lives are threatened was just invented just like the Manhattan Project invented the A-bomb! I suspect that someone is bankrolling novelists of Mills and Boon , Sweet Valley, Temptation, Bryan Adams and the producer of When Harry Met Sally” to popularise the theory.
The intoxication is too much that it blinds us to expect more from each other perhaps more than we can give.
Aware of the history of your ex-, why day-dream about settling down forever??
The lesson is also no to give up in search of the elusive! We should live a life of Alchemy.
For LOVE is pain, joy, giving and receiving! IT’S LIFE!
By hannnington.
Acknowledgments from Pretoria News 14 Feb. 2006.
Even though given a chance would have loved anyone of you (recipients) to be my valentine….apart from the bulls; I found you condignly fitting to share this abstract text with you! Don’t take it personal! You can judge me however if you so wish! It’s just an intellectual opinion not based on prejudice but a desire for an honest healthy debate.
LOVE is arguably the most complex phenomena that has befallen man.
It is so abstract and mythical that it has elicited hot debates, sent artists of all sorts into studios to spend sleepless nights writing movies and songs about it! It has exposed cruelty in humanity yet also defined the human soul to greater levels. It has caused untold suffering and hatred yet has bestowed magnanimity in many!
It’s a faith, religion, and a defining philosophy of the 21st century.
But there is one big problem with it.
It’s built on a string of myths and lies. Seemingly to many its propaganda wrapped in a blanket of lies and based on deception. It’s a hoax bordering on a list of conspiracy theories like the Bermuda Triangle.
Friends, we are conditioned to believe that romantic love is eternal, the same all over the world and as basic as breathing, eating and crying. But wake up and smell the rotten bouquet your valentine sent you-IT’S A DELUSION!
For me, if it’s true that love exists, it’s the greatest thing that one can receive and give! Absolutely!! This is all with its sweetness!
But I also contend that with its withering weakness, LOVE you and I as understand it, is the most excruciating pain one could face! (Read “The Road Less Travelled” By Dr. Scott Peck).
I was doing a cyber sojourn and visited www.postsecret.blogspot.com on Valentine day and boy…couldn’t believe what I read! People are in pain though others are rejoicing in the LOVE WORLD!!
But the chemical compounds that manufacture a cloud of concupiscence have never ceased to puzzle me! I am weakened by an urgent, surging infatuation and enchantment to a point of wanting to spend the rest of “myself” with another person! That’s crazy!!
Does it make sense to want to breathe, live and “eat” a stranger for the rest of ones life (call it marriage)??
May be that’s were we derive meaning from just like other mystical and mythical aspects of life! To understand is to get bored!!
But why do we seek to make it permanent; lasting until death?
If all good things as they say come to an end, why should love be otherwise?? It should receive the same fate as the Broadway dramas, a good session of love making (sex), listening to “clocks” by Cold Play etc. At one point, just like life, these all come to an end! Its normal, its nature and so should LOVE!!
LOVE as derived from Eros is the desire for self preservation and uninhibited enjoyment that in the Freudian Theory is one of the two primal instincts. The other is Thanatos (desire of death).
www.Wikipedia.com(latest rival to Britannica) further tells us that LOVE actually means a burning desire for another person that “does not or was not meant to last”!
Now who brought in the marriage concept to complicate our lives?? Someone should explain to me!! May be it was a plot to preserve the fire and prevent it from extinguishing!! SAD!!
But I bet, whoever came up with it was the first victim of the concept. Its must have backfired in their face without any recourse!
Marriage as one day I may find out is based on duty, responsibility and respect! But as men, these are some of our biggest weaknesses and I wish women come to realise it! But how come women are more inclined to offer the above without any effort?
The egalitarian of love assumes both parties enter freely into an open contract and walk away when another stops pleasing them. It dissolves the deadly demand of duty-drudgery and subservience with no end in sight.
Seeing it as everything, why when love is gone, we easily forget the duty and ditch the bitch (bastard) like 2 ply tissue running down a toilet bowl? For me, the confusion emanates from a party’s ability to walk away with impunity and all too casually! How does one do that from said “burning fire”? That means you told a lie that you loved me but make no mistake, karma tells me that you too will be told a lie one day!! Everyone is lying to each other! It’s the way of life!
How about a situation where I fall in love with someone’s wife? (God forbid)! Scary and disgusting as it sounds but some find meaning in it just like you did from the chocolates you got!
Truth: Romantic love-our religion, our purpose, and our first thought when our lives are threatened was just invented just like the Manhattan Project invented the A-bomb! I suspect that someone is bankrolling novelists of Mills and Boon , Sweet Valley, Temptation, Bryan Adams and the producer of When Harry Met Sally” to popularise the theory.
The intoxication is too much that it blinds us to expect more from each other perhaps more than we can give.
Aware of the history of your ex-, why day-dream about settling down forever??
The lesson is also no to give up in search of the elusive! We should live a life of Alchemy.
For LOVE is pain, joy, giving and receiving! IT’S LIFE!
By hannnington.
Acknowledgments from Pretoria News 14 Feb. 2006.
Uganda Independence Party in a Shebeen (2004).
For those of you who have been to this country the word “shebeen” is not so remote from a “kafunda” of Uganda!
After an agonizing 2-year wait we finally had an opportunity of celebrating another independence day as a Ugandan community in South Africa.
With a scintillating football match between the two countries was lying in wait, honestly it couldn’t come at a better time.
Temperatures raise naturally given its summer this side!
But what is it with Ugandans that reduces us to failures when it comes to organizing events??
Honestly, one is given 9-months plus to look forward to the only event that unites us especially now that Gaetano is gone; and you only wish it had never come!
The community is sharply divided on the basis of who is who! Materialism has reduced us to a cat and dog affair!
There is a faction from Johannesburg which to be honest is a little tricky! They are called “nekolela gyange”! They have been accused of all sorts of things from muggings of fellow Ugandans at the airport to conning people into buying fake leaves and grass as herbal medicine!
Not to condone anything but guys it’s tough out here! You gatta survive!! This group would do anything to find its way into any event draped in Ugandan colours!
These guys have created such a bad name for themselves that they are now used as scapegoats when charging exorbitant fees during parties.
The whole idea is to hike any entry fee to eliminate them!
But unfortunately, many of us have turned out the victims inadvertently!
As witnessed at the independence party, all above 18 were charged R100 and those under 14 were charged R50! I don’t know what the 15-17 years were supposed to pay!
A colleague and I were approached by the core part of the organising committee a week before to mobilise the students!
It was then that we haggled on the fee that was fair to students while not compromising the “quality” of the function.
R50 was agreed!
On the very day of the party with many waiting to pay, I am told that it would not work that way for students. Many called me to rescue them and I managed to do for some although a majority I did not.
I tried to explain the whole situation but organisers would not burge! I ended up looking a crook whose independence day was April 1st.
Why would you charge a student the same amount like a doctor who earns close to $30,000 a month!
Even those us who are sketchers and not students per se felt cheated!
I am told the reason is, when one is a student they eat a lot, and they tend to consume more music by dancing longer and harder!
So comparatively they enjoy the most!
Agh! Not at my age hearing a man reason like this!
Some of us were promised first class organisation!
But what kind of party would one expect from a dressing room for Rugby players with all benches (reminds of Budo junior) crammed like in a kindergarten!
South Africa is suffocating with venues! I am sure if the whole country was to sit in a 5-minutes conference at once we would all fit in nice decent rooms!
One can easily argue that there are more conference halls than the chairs that would be used!
As if that’s not annoying enough, the food served made one long for our original bufundas at wandegeya!
After a cool 3 hour wait, Pavlov our famous Russian scientist intervened! His dream of serving our offsprings with Russians evaporated when boeremag (radical right wingers) came with force to complete the hotdog cycle!
I saw kids as young as 4 battle with hotdogs the size of a toilet roll, honestly!
But to my amazement, not even one a glass of water was given! Ladies and gentlemen those kids paid R50!!
Heavens! I am not a father yet, but not even 3-year old child heading a family of HIV/AIDS orphans would forget to give a drink!
Good breeding/slash proper nutrition!
Sorry, it was a cash-bar!
I was approached by one who asked for a sip of my drink! Little did he know I was taking Smirnoff Spin which is 5% alcoholic! Trouble is it looks like bottled water!
Dinner was served late coz of political speeches! Hon. Babu was the chief guest!
You don’t squeeze a hefty fee from poor souls, frustrate their appetites and on top of it talk about Ugandan politics! Boarding school mannerisms!
They should have told us that it would be a political rally and Fidel Castro was sending representatives!
God forbid! We know all our politics by heart!
It’s on the tips of every strand of our hair!
We are actually tired of it to our marrows!!
Now don’t ask me about the music coz I also don’t know why they play stadium like volumes in a cubicle!!! May be because we were at Rugby club!
Honestly it was just a thin line between small business and a rip off!
For sure organizers made a kill for the day and must be laughing their way to First National Bank!
Next time I think Organisers should first organise themselves into an organisation and organise a conference on organising events (a little verbatim is good for you!).
FOR GOD AND MY COUNTRY!
HANNINGTON
+27731627083
After an agonizing 2-year wait we finally had an opportunity of celebrating another independence day as a Ugandan community in South Africa.
With a scintillating football match between the two countries was lying in wait, honestly it couldn’t come at a better time.
Temperatures raise naturally given its summer this side!
But what is it with Ugandans that reduces us to failures when it comes to organizing events??
Honestly, one is given 9-months plus to look forward to the only event that unites us especially now that Gaetano is gone; and you only wish it had never come!
The community is sharply divided on the basis of who is who! Materialism has reduced us to a cat and dog affair!
There is a faction from Johannesburg which to be honest is a little tricky! They are called “nekolela gyange”! They have been accused of all sorts of things from muggings of fellow Ugandans at the airport to conning people into buying fake leaves and grass as herbal medicine!
Not to condone anything but guys it’s tough out here! You gatta survive!! This group would do anything to find its way into any event draped in Ugandan colours!
These guys have created such a bad name for themselves that they are now used as scapegoats when charging exorbitant fees during parties.
The whole idea is to hike any entry fee to eliminate them!
But unfortunately, many of us have turned out the victims inadvertently!
As witnessed at the independence party, all above 18 were charged R100 and those under 14 were charged R50! I don’t know what the 15-17 years were supposed to pay!
A colleague and I were approached by the core part of the organising committee a week before to mobilise the students!
It was then that we haggled on the fee that was fair to students while not compromising the “quality” of the function.
R50 was agreed!
On the very day of the party with many waiting to pay, I am told that it would not work that way for students. Many called me to rescue them and I managed to do for some although a majority I did not.
I tried to explain the whole situation but organisers would not burge! I ended up looking a crook whose independence day was April 1st.
Why would you charge a student the same amount like a doctor who earns close to $30,000 a month!
Even those us who are sketchers and not students per se felt cheated!
I am told the reason is, when one is a student they eat a lot, and they tend to consume more music by dancing longer and harder!
So comparatively they enjoy the most!
Agh! Not at my age hearing a man reason like this!
Some of us were promised first class organisation!
But what kind of party would one expect from a dressing room for Rugby players with all benches (reminds of Budo junior) crammed like in a kindergarten!
South Africa is suffocating with venues! I am sure if the whole country was to sit in a 5-minutes conference at once we would all fit in nice decent rooms!
One can easily argue that there are more conference halls than the chairs that would be used!
As if that’s not annoying enough, the food served made one long for our original bufundas at wandegeya!
After a cool 3 hour wait, Pavlov our famous Russian scientist intervened! His dream of serving our offsprings with Russians evaporated when boeremag (radical right wingers) came with force to complete the hotdog cycle!
I saw kids as young as 4 battle with hotdogs the size of a toilet roll, honestly!
But to my amazement, not even one a glass of water was given! Ladies and gentlemen those kids paid R50!!
Heavens! I am not a father yet, but not even 3-year old child heading a family of HIV/AIDS orphans would forget to give a drink!
Good breeding/slash proper nutrition!
Sorry, it was a cash-bar!
I was approached by one who asked for a sip of my drink! Little did he know I was taking Smirnoff Spin which is 5% alcoholic! Trouble is it looks like bottled water!
Dinner was served late coz of political speeches! Hon. Babu was the chief guest!
You don’t squeeze a hefty fee from poor souls, frustrate their appetites and on top of it talk about Ugandan politics! Boarding school mannerisms!
They should have told us that it would be a political rally and Fidel Castro was sending representatives!
God forbid! We know all our politics by heart!
It’s on the tips of every strand of our hair!
We are actually tired of it to our marrows!!
Now don’t ask me about the music coz I also don’t know why they play stadium like volumes in a cubicle!!! May be because we were at Rugby club!
Honestly it was just a thin line between small business and a rip off!
For sure organizers made a kill for the day and must be laughing their way to First National Bank!
Next time I think Organisers should first organise themselves into an organisation and organise a conference on organising events (a little verbatim is good for you!).
FOR GOD AND MY COUNTRY!
HANNINGTON
+27731627083
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