Sandile Dikeni
There is still that deep sense of discomfort at the thoughts on March 21. Remember far from the current human rights vibe, there was a huge sense of unease around this month! I can recall my discomfort around this day. The PAC and Azapo used to claim a sense of authority on it but so did the UDF.
Honestly, I am reluctant to try to recall what the differences were in the ideologies about the time. I just remember a deep sadness in me when March happened. True, the romantic in me would ascribe the deep sentimentalities to a Taurus consciousness. But I later dismissed this sentiment.
March is a month that we need to say much about. Speaking with fairness, it is general knowledge that the humility of an autumn is more noticeable at the beginning of the season. Okay the apartheid guys did not think so, because they shot and killed in one day about 69 people in Sharpeville. We used to call that day Sharpeville Day.
But now the day is Human Rights Day. I like that. Many people in this country like that. Believe it or not, FW de Klerk likes it too. Honestly though, let me confess that I do not know if his children like it too.
I, in fact, do not know his children. I also do not know the children of Pik Botha. I feel I should know them to celebrate their humanity on March 21. I am suggesting that we walk with deeper care into this new human rights consciousness, not looking at or visiting the past with eyes that still dance with the babelaas of yesterday.
I am saying this knowing that the task articulated is first going to be a challenge to me. Let us be honest, it is a scary moment for me. I am also inclined to think that South Africa should not be foolish enough to simplify the task as something as easy as that first chapter in our social discourses in our political sciences or sociologies at tertiary education level. Something in me screams that we should meet now and again during that special ceremony of circumcision that they hold in Gugs or Langa. Methinks there is something about Mfuleni visiting certain moments in Muslim ritual moments.
There is also something about our academic institutions offering these rights in a manner and style that will engage a South Africa that must walk the new paths away from the narrow confines of our yesterdays. It is not a liberal suggestion. It is a must for the sociologies of South Africa.
It is, I think, important that we do not forget that 300 and something years are not merely shoved aside by 20-something years of whatever dynamism suggested and practised by whatever authority and epoch. A humble suggestion is that we admit the limits of a social project called South Africa as presented to us by the dynamism of rainbow nation.
I am not the one to point a social finger at the many boundaries and borders that need to be crossed, but let’s agree that there is not much of a shame at pointing a careful finger of consideration at the many dynamisms of a future of human essences. It is not a shame to say that we see a dynamism in sharing the many different human moments that places like our country dangle in front of us.
It is also not a shame that we face our many different moments and challenges with a face that knows how to sometimes laugh or blush at the many complexities of the many lives in this space.
There is something special about us dodging the narrow corners of diverse anthropologies and seeking to harmonise our life in that beautiful dynamism of humanity.
I am scared you might think that I am preaching at a nation-building ceremony. True, I might be. But I am more wishing for the human essences that sometimes dance in the state discourse to cuddle the softness in you and your neighbour to dance the futures of human existences. It is not an easy project, but I can say I am eager to experience the many successes of the path that are now only possibilities.
I am in practice for that great moment of laughter when the magnificence of life is exhibited in the many capabilities of the human soul.
Let us also agree that prospects of the moment are greater when organised and designed by you.
It’s just a moment that we need to celebrate the many beauties of the combined lives that we lead. It is in my humility a precious thing that South Africa is a space in the human experience that celebrates that humility called us.