Having withheld from commenting on the pledge issue, I ask myself if such a thing could help heal my country as it gets sicker by the day.
Friday was one of lowest points this year, as members of my profession, our craft, exposed their racist hearts and were endorsed by an amoral autocrat thug who could be this country’s next president.
Such a nadir is only slightly offset by the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union adding its voice to the mounting condemnation of the pledge. The union says it is a “top-down approach” by the ANC government. Duh, like what isn’t?
The term top-down is a PC euphemism for authoritarian, which is the next-door neighbour of dictatorial, which is characteristic of all strict hierarchies.
I have no problem with the concept of a pledge and would tell my son so. He is intelligent and wise enough to decide for himself if he would take such a pledge. That is his decision. The statement of faith Anglicans call the Nicene Creed is akin to a pledge of allegiance to God, His church and His creation (including man) and I say it every week. Not only as part of the formal liturgy, but to remind myself what it’s all about.
Do I think the current concept of a pledge serves any purpose, has any real value? No, I don’t. School kids with hands on hearts reciting some words do not a noble nation make. Maybe such things had some weird form of social value 100 or 200 years ago, when paradigms were different and nationalistic fervour and visions of empire ruled the waves.
But today “to cement social cohesion” as Pandor claims, it’s more like using a pea-shooter against a herd of buffalo.
The religious leaders’ concept of a Bill of Responsibilities, taught as part of the curriculum and as counter-balance to the existing Bill of Rights, is a far more intelligent, rational, equitable and moral response to the hypocrisy and corruption of society. Doubtless, should it go through — and I pray it does — the ANC will claim the kudos as it has done with virtually every other good thing it has permitted private citizens to drive.
I recall with no small amount of shame how I would stand as a boy, eyes fixed on that unimaginative flag, singing about groaning ox wagons and echoing crags (sure Langenhoven’s poetry was libraries better than Sontonga’s, but still). A child’s heart is such a malleable thing that to toy with it verges on unforgivable sin to me.
Despite their contextual origins and thus possible shortcomings, I would attach more value to Rudyard Kipling’s If- and William Ernest Henley’s Invictus and Desiderata to inculcate tolerance, acceptance and stimulate “social cohesion” (whatever that means).
Their vastly superior literary value aside, they are more robust, more inspirational, more profound and far more durable than this tacky little pledge so reminiscent of Hitler youth and big-eyed little boys and girls with romantic notions of Alan Quartermain and King Solomon’s Mines awash with gold and treasure.
Social cohesion, my aching gat.
You lead by example, not by reciting a few words.
When I see the pledge mirrored by the actions of our politicians, I may change my mind.
To wit: our President in waiting sees no problem with excluding whites from their little gathering, based only on pigmentation, and they, THEY, are going to lecture my children on the values enshrined in our ‘constitution’?
Social cohesion, my aching gat.
It’s like a pyromaniac admonishing someone for playing with matches.
It was ALWAYS going to happen, Mr Kriel. The exclusion of one race by the race wielding power.
And it was ALWAYS going to be accompanied by a stubborn refusal to apologise or even to reflect upon the actions thus taken.
Black means never having to say you’re sorry or that you’ve erred. You have the numbers. Might is right.
Surely that does not surprise you?
In the late ’80s, I came within a snick of being blown to bits by a limpit mine in a bungled attack during ‘The Struggle’. It was winter, and the cadres had been advised to warm the lead timing strips restraining a spring loaded blade carrying the firing pin, to compensate for the cold.
The unfortunate comrade, probably a young person, overheated the strips, and made the ultimate ‘sacrifice’ in the struggle.
As far as I’m concerned, a young life was needlessly lost.
Our children are now supposed to honour, albiet in a veiled and indirect manner, these senseless acts from a turbulent past, in a pledge.
Liberation did not come because of the armed struggle, it came because physical constraints on capacity of the regime made it unsustainable. The armed struggle did not force the government’s hand, it instead fostered a ‘laager’ mentality which spawned a huge standing army, the development of a wasteful, costly armaments industry, including nuclear weapons, and delayed liberation, which was inevitable anyway, by many years.
Fortunately, I have no children, but if I did, I would ask them to think about hounouring any liberation movement which foisted violence and death upon its own people.
This applies not only to MK, but all armed wing liberation movements which are established, and in which people die, in order to realise the political aspirations of the eventual ruling elite.
Most of our schoolkids were born after 1994, if we indeed must have a pledge at all, let it be allegiance to strictly noble ideals, and leave the revolutionary liberation stuff for the history class.
WOW! Perry, that is really powerful!
I’m humbled & honoured that you added so poignantly and compassionately to some writing of mine.
Commentators such as you make it all worthwhile, give me hope for the future and restore my flagging faith in South Africans. I pray that one day soon there will 48-million like you so we can get on with changing the future!
Thank you so very much!!
Llewellyn, I heartily agree with what you say, but I’m puzzled by this contradiction:
On one hand you say, ‘A child’s heart is such a malleable thing that to toy with it verges on unforgivable sin to me.’ I couldn’t agree more, particularly when it comes to religious ‘instruction’.
On the other hand, you say you recite the Nicene Creed every day: ‘…not only as part of the formal liturgy, but to remind myself what it’s all about.’
If you’re an Anglican and a believer (and I have to assume you are, given your use of caps you when writing the word ‘His’), where did you learn this belief, and when? As a child?
Can you see where I’m going with this argument?
Llewellyn Kriel, do you have children?
Just another pie in the sky minister! Propounding posh first world strategies and academic approaches — completely outside the realms of realism!
Sort out the protestations at universities, establish why 50% of college graduates are dropping out, instaed we spend time writing some stupid pledge to send millions more high school students into a dysfunctional higher education system which is in chaos!
FACTS
(South African Institute of Race Relations) (SAIRR)
The population pyramid of White South Africans show a definite loss of young people and children under the age of ten. The figures for 2005 put the number of White South Africans in the country at 4.3 million, 841 000 fewer than the 5.2 million of 1995.
Because the crime figures are NOT going to decline rapidly and affirmative action is to continue, more Whites are going to leave “The young people reckon they are being punished for what happened in the previous dispensation. They are furious, because they feel they had no part in it,” They also feel unsafe and boxed in.
According to a SSA report the productive emigrants are between 20 and 40 years old.
“This is the educated, hard working, tax paying group of normal people that have children and help grow the population, but now they’re getting their children overseas because of the sick environment. And they don’t and will not come back, to what? That means the white population is going to continue to shrink.” The decline in the white population in the decade to 2005 is estimated at 16.1%. I happy to say that I will not be here to give you the 2007- 2008 results
Discount air fair, containers and travel rates available at the department of Tourism.
THE EDUCATION MINISTER (PONDER) WAS NOT HOME FOR COMMENT.
Talk about “barking up the wrong tree”
Here’s the situation on the ground!
Pupil stabbing leaves one dead
Pupil, 14, shot dead
They confessed because they ‘couldn’t sleep’
Teen killed after ‘boy’ insult
No fee-capping, say VCs
Students call for free education
Students call for moratorium on fee increments
High drop-out rate due to poverty
Nearly a quarter of students do not finish their university …
Troubled university takes action
Significant’ school drop out after grade nine
And our ministers response:
a 4 or 5 line piece of poetry and now
From rights to responsibilities
Rights and responsibilities Bill unveiled.
Madam…before we start lecturing the children on rights and responsibilities. May we live up to our responsibility to keep them safe at school, and to make sure that the education system benefits them and offers them something. May we live up to our responsibility to instill in them a love of learning….we are sending our kids to school to die.
And before we start asking them to respect and pay dues to those who fought for a past they never knew, can we ask them to pray for their own fallen comrades, who are falling around them right now, and may we ask them to respect and honour those around them to prevent the senseless slaughter that is taking place in our schools.
Pew, what trash you write up!
Your automatic oppositional response so predicable, and so negative it does not give even the slightest hint the idea of a pledge may conceal a genuine and deeper desire to move this country out of its current violent morrass.
Funny, you have no problem/shame with this zombie like admission of superstitiuo, which barely conceals your confusion aboit your identity:
“The statement of faith Anglicans call the Nicene Creed is akin to a pledge of allegiance to God, His church and His creation (including man) and I say it every week. Not only as part of the formal liturgy, but to remind myself what it’s all about.”
You shun the overture from the ANC for some action to promote social cohesion” at your peril, trust me.
Dear friend…..why conceal it?
Just get it out in the open and let’s rid ourselves of the violent morass! Let’s not hide/conceal our deeper desires in silly little poems…….hands to the wheel we say, and that means gitting down into the 20% of factors which cause us the 80% grief.
Address why school children are violent, and why education is illuding them and we cement the foundation of a cohesive society with a balanced and educated youth.