FOLK who pass my window might suspect me of wife abuse when they hear my voice raised in anger.
They are greatly mistaken. I love her dearly, but I do annoy her when I rage at the populist and sensational revisionist history at times dished up by our television presenters.
My wife considers the discussion of “landsake” (national issues) a great waste of time and prefers to watch Wimbledon or cricket instead.
Rugby, she believes, is a game for hooligans no longer even played by gentlemen – a poor training school for the young thugs of tomorrow!
So I get little sympathy when I lose my cool about Julius, not even when I point out that he has a large and gathering following and that we are all in urgent need of re-education about communication and reconciliation, à la Madiba. We are no longer singing from the same hymn sheet.
I also don’t go along with my right-wing friend in Pretoria who complains: “Ek het niks teen swartes nie, maar waarom moet hulle voortdurend hier in my sitkamer kom raas wanneer ek die kassie aanskakel!”
He may also have been the one who suspected that every time Trevor Manuel appeared on the TV, he was looking around the room to see what he could tax.
Not that everyone in Blue Bull country has such chauvinistic inhibitions about racial issues. In fact, some are becoming quite upset that the Stormers may win the Currie Cup and that whites no longer have the monopoly on racism. Two can play at the same game.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am a firm believer in a free Press and am grateful that my profession does not always get it wrong.
But, when they do, it is mostly because some of the younger reporters and news editors fall for the PC (politically correct) slant.
Some have a soppy sentimental attitude towards human-interest stories and overhyped “good causes”, such as global warming, fracking in the Karoo or the myth that farmers must always be to blame for ill-treating their workers.
PC or not, these things often require a much more balanced investigation. Not the least would be the fruits of our so-called National Democratic Revolution and the yawning gulf between what it means to those in the leafy suburbs and those grovelling for a toehold in a growing wilderness of shacks.
Some of us, after all, were right there at the coal face when many of these evils were initiated in the heady days of apartheid.
Sane leaders of the ANC, such as Walter Sisulu, Chief Albert Luthuli and Prof ZK Matthews, pleaded in vain for a non-violent, non-racist and non-sexist solution to our racial dilemna.
What they got instead was “kragdadigheid” and a botched-up imitation of the Swiss canton system.
As a cub reporter, I spent some time being driven around Thaba ‘Nchu by old Dr Moroka in his Packard. I also often chatted to Walter Sisulu and Chief Luthuli and was present at Kliptown when the Freedom Charter was formulated, claiming that South Africa belonged to everyone who lived in it regardless of race.
ANC leaders, at the time, appeared to be a responsible educated elite not set on racial dominance, or so Walter Sisulu assured me. Yet, lately, the youth seem to have lost the plot.
And the youth is our future, as Mrs Obama has reminded us. But, they cannot survive without education and dedicated hard work.
The exemplary family life of the Sisulus and the inspirational leadership of the past should help them overcome the hardships and challenges they will inevitably have to face without woodwork qualifications.
So, let us in Paarl and elsewhere, look upon our youth as a blessing and an opportunity to guide into the paths they need to go – not following the elusive tune of every piper that promises easy pickings without productive hard work. A mine is just a hole in the ground and a farm a fenced wilderness, until someone makes things happen. With some 65% of its youth under the age of 25, Africa can hardly afford to let them down with a “Hamelin ideology” (that has failed wherever it has been tried - ask Uncle Bob) and the rats!
