DURBAN - “My grandmA was a kitchen girl, my mother just had Standard 4!” Oh yes, Mr Malema, I too can join in and sing along with you in satirical unity!
My Granny Dillon, I find in the old British census, was removed from her very poor large family of 11 children (no contraceptive pills then) and placed in a (later notorious) children’s home in Aberdeen, Scotland.
At the age of 16, she was discharged and wandered, refugee-style, like an Irish Dick Whittington, poor and destitute, to find work in London.
She was in luck. The British census of 1890 says under occupation: “domestic servant”.
After sailing to Australia, where she was shipped in a funded scheme that invited women workers to make up the shortage of females, she married Grandpa. Ten years later, she, my grandpa and their children emigrated to South Africa - he to risk better earnings as a soldier in the Anglo-Boer War.
As for my mom, with her father volunteering to fight in World War I, she and three destitute siblings were placed in the children’s home in Verulam.
She left school early to “mother” the reunited family, in effect, being an unpaid “kitchen girl”. So don’t bring me tales of woe and stories of poverty.
Yes, real democracy wasn’t around universally then, nor is it now. Humanity edges forward, fumbling in its search for social justice.
Some have more luck than others. Life often isn’t fair. What’s the answer? More chaos and bloodshed?
We hope to smooth bumps in the playing fields, but the time for war and revolutions is over. We do learn from history, even if you don’t, or is it that you won’t?
I, like you, honour my ancestors and, though you might doubt it, yours too. And honouring them often means learning from their mistakes by doing things differently, not copying them through a misguided sense of loyalty.
Viva youth, viva! Let’s change the way we change.