It’s the tiny gestures that enrich our lives

Masjidul Bargrayn (which means two oceans), but more commonly known as Hout Bay Mosque would provide a meal for mostly impoverished children at Iftar or the breaking of the fast during the holy month of Ramadaan. Picture: Tracey Adams/African News Agency (ANA)

Masjidul Bargrayn (which means two oceans), but more commonly known as Hout Bay Mosque would provide a meal for mostly impoverished children at Iftar or the breaking of the fast during the holy month of Ramadaan. Picture: Tracey Adams/African News Agency (ANA)

Published Apr 15, 2021

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It always the tiny gestures that make life the great experience that it can be. This is not a theme that is going to win me a prize for brilliant writing, but it is going to ground me in those realities that have been side-lined in our angry pre-occupation with what it is that has gone wrong.

This life we are living now was not what we expected or could ever anticipate after the first democratic election. We never thought we would have to say that all men are equal, and that all have an equal need for and a right to justice in all its varied configurations. We didn’t think that we would have to remind ourselves that nothing is free, not food, not accommodation, not education, not wi-fi.

As one WhatsApp meme puts it: please don’t do anything for me if I am going to have to hear about it for the rest of my life.

Covid has created the possibility for cohesion. We were living past each other in our mindless dash to earn our daily bread, often referred to as the rat race. We now find ourselves cooped up in smaller spaces where there isn’t room for turning away. Children see what parents have to do to put food on the table. Parents have time for their children, a condition that didn’t exist before.

When you were born, someone was there to wash you. When you die, someone will be there to wash you. The time you spend in between will reflect the values that you retained and the bad that you abandoned. It is not an external experience controlled by bad political governance, greed for possession or power, or ignoring the kindnesses and cruelties that make up the varied brocade called living.

We have the glorious confection of religious fervour that gives us Lent, Ramadaan and the Passover. Each holy observation of ritual and respect for the faith of others should inform our lives all year round. The practise of faith-based rituals provides heightened perception. Lent tells us that suffering purifies.

Ramadaan makes sure that we understand what a man means when he says he is hungry by observing Sawm. The Passover assures us that God protects those who put Him first.

One doesn’t have to be a scientist to see the truth in the dictum: Lead and teach by example. If there is a chore to be done, share the burden. If there is a chance to show compassion, do not be afraid to cry with the injured or bereaved. If you see a chance to show kindness, don’t doubt for a minute that the act itself is the reward.

Being a pragmatist, I need to address the belligerent and recalcitrant throng out there who know the truths that were covered up since the dawn of time. Murder will out. The phrase or mild injunction to “step aside” as a tacit gesture of probable guilt is not enough. Guilt must be established by confession or judicial proof, money must be recovered, and the policy of appointing the person best suited for the job must become a national imperative.

Honesty of purpose, action or confession must become a way of thinking. Ignoring the plethora of expertise that is overlooked on the spuriously discriminatory grounds of race, gender, religion, age is a dangerous practice. We are not all bound into loyalty to a crumbling dominant party. But we are all of a mind that the stables must be cleaned of the heaped-up ordure of corruption.

I wish all my Muslim friends well over the holy month of Ramadaan.

* Literally Yours is a weekly column from Cape Argus reader Alex Tabisher. He can be contacted on email by [email protected]

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Newspapers.

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