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Township Festive Seasons: Laissez-faire?
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2013!
In a flash it felt very strange for me to be sending an Instagram Happy New Year 2013 greeting to the world from the platform of the place of my birth, Thabong Location, Welkom, South Africa. Cruising into a new year here for the first time since 1974.
For me, Festive Seasons in Zambia 1975-1984, and 1986-1987 came and went nonchalantly as did the Independence Day, Youth Day, KK’s birthday, etc. celebrations. My own birthdays 1975-1980, and 1982-1988 were but just notable events on the calendar. Festive Season 1985 I was in Greece. What a ball! 1981 I turned 21, and my parents spoilt me. What a groove!
The Norwegian Festive Season is one climatically cold, colourful, vibrant affair so full of love, where over the years the people I’ve had anything to do with have shown me humbling generousity, kindness, warmth, protection, and care. Seen only with my own eyes, processed in and by my own mind, and felt in my own heart, this time of the year in Norway gives the impression that life is here to stay, cherish and nourish it all life long.
So, every time, since 1992, I come to mark the Festive Season with my mother and my two siblings in South Africa, I come here in a Norwegian-Festive-Season-State-of-Mind. But when my parents came back from exile in Zambia, they bought a new home in Bronville, a formally Coloureds Only township in the old Apartheid South Africa. Here, the standard of housing was/ is better, with bigger yards. So were/ (are?) the provision of social amenities, and service delivery.
More yard space translates to more privacy for neighbours, thereby reducing chances of conflicts arising from occasional or regular trespasses into one another’s private domains. My mother and one of her neighbours have a cat-and-mouse relationship though. Both very beautiful and strong women are extremely jealous of each other. I think though that the essence of their mutual dislike has its core in one fundamental, very sensitive issue in South Africa vis-à-vis Black-Coloured relationship as moulded from the earlier colonial times, and fostered during the Apartheid era to this day: the one Coloured Maria lives in strong denial of ‘Black blood’ flowing in her body, “ONS IS NIE KAFFIRS NIE! MY GRANDFATHER WAS SCOTTISH!!!”
My mother Maria on her part has long lived with a painful denial of ‘White blood’ in neither herself nor her people, “RE BASOTHO, HA RE BARWA/ WE ARE BASOTHO, WE ARE NOT COLOUREDS!!!” This, however, is another long and heavy story to tell on another and different occasion.
As the Instagram Happy New Year 2013 greeting whooshed out to the world just after midnight December 31, 2012, recollections of the 1965-1974 Festive Season fun times in Thabong came to mind in a flash. Much as I recalled, there were here many, many people partying out on the streets as the mid-night hour approached. Loud music everywhere, with booze flowing everywhere. Smoke and smell of braai everywhere. Everyone looking good and sexy. Such exuberant, free spirited enjoyment of life. Wow, this IS my element. I love it!
The strange feeling came when I realized that there was also this strong, acrid smell in my nose. This special smell I hadn’t registered since New Year’s Eve 1974. What I knew from the streets as a child was that during the Festive Season everything was allowed, including murder. That another so-and-so killed one so-and-so especially on Christmas and New Year’s eves was as normal as the great anticipation for Father Christmas children will show in Norway.
At perhaps age 6-7 years old, I remember thinking to myself how nice it would be to kill certain people on one fine New Year’s Eve when I’m grown up. By then I had already seen several dead bodies on the streets on various occasions. But it wasn’t till about Easter time 1969 that I first witnessed at close range one man stabbing to death another with a knife. The murderer could have been slaughtering a cow. The dying man’s blood spewed so I could have been watching a burst running water pipe. And then the acrid smell of the man brutally breathing his last’s blood hit me. Festive Seasons were extremely violent those days.
Simon Chilembo
Welkom
South Africa
Tel.: +4792525032
January 01, 2013
NOBEL PEACE PRIZE 2012: EU, USE IT OR LOSE IT!
EUROPEAN UNION CALL
I once again emphasize that I am the proudest Black African man I know.
©Simon Chilembo, 09/ 12-2012
My fear of China is not so much of the people of the land, but the mode of governance and social control of the people by the ruling state apparatus. The people of China have given us Bruce Lee after all. They have given us TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) as well. But life without Google must be an excruciatingly painful emotional experience. On the other hand, and seen from a purely business perspective, Communist China impressively runs globally the most efficient and effective State Capitalism industrial-commercial complex expansion today.
One of my best long assignment papers while a student at UNZA almost 30 years ago was in response to the question: IS AFRICAN POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC INTEGRATION FEASIBLE? I took the position NO! Acknowledging, though, that the political and economic integration of the continent would be a massively effective development and progress machine were it to be attainable and sustained. I argued that if the concept failed to work at the then EEC level, there is no way it can work in Africa. This was because, I went on, post-colonial Africa was/ is polarized in more or less similar political and philosophical thought, as well as political economy orientation as the former European colonial masters. The same polarization is observable at the socio-cultural influence levels also.
It is my contention that 21st century Europe owes it to Africa, and not in the least the world, to get its act together. From a historical perspective, it is an acknowledgeable fact the events in Europe, as well as consequences of global European adventures and misadventures, have had a bearing as to the direction of progress and development of/ in other parts of the world. I shudder to think about the likely nature of power relations in the world should China eventually break and take over the global hegemony of the Western European way of living and social organization. Therefore, it is my hope that the NOBEL PEACE PRIZE 2012 awarded to the EUROPEN UNION will continue inspiring Europeans to continue working towards finding a common ground of addressing and solving the enormous economic and political challenges facing Europe and the world today. The Union must continue the decidedly important effort of contributing to “… the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe”, as well as the rest of the world.
Simon Chilembo
Oslo
Norway
Tel.: +4792525032
October 10, 2012
SECRET OF PERSONAL SUCCESS: Don’t care about people?
©Simon Chilembo, 09/ 12-2012
If you are normal, and you want to be successful and happy (it’s okay to be not normal and still want to be successful and happy; if you don’t want to be successful and happy because you really don’t care, just pretend you do want to be successful and happy anyway) do the following (if you don’t want to do the following, pretend it’s a cool thing to do and just do it anyway):
- Be yourself (you can also be someone else if that’s what you’d rather do because it’s cool, and it works for you).
- Be where you are (if you don’t like where you are, find a new place to be; if you can’t find a new place to be you like, pretend you like where you are and be there).
- Do what you do (if you do not like what you do, find something else you like to do; if you cannot find something else you like to do, pretend you like what you do because it’s so cool after all).
- Be honest to all the above. It’s also okay to be dishonest to all of the above if it’s the honest and cool thing to do.
- Be the best you can be in all the defining things you do. If you can’t be the best because it doesn’t matter or because the going is tough, just believe you are the best because you believe it’s cool to be the best even if you don’t want to be.
- Don’t care about people! Just serve them well and good all the time.
– People are not stupid, even if some like to pretend to be clever in order to be stupid.
– Normal people know what’s good and what’s bad. Not normal people also know the difference. People normally like and approve of things and people that are good to them, people and things who add value to their lives.
– If you are good to people, and you serve them well, they will share the happiness you give them with you; they will make you successful. So, - Be nice to people. If only simply because it’s cool to be nice, and it’s nice to be nice. Your relative degrees of personal success and happiness are a measure of how well or not well you interact with people in your serving endeavours, both in general and specific terms.
Simon Chilembo
Oslo
Norway
October 08, 2012
THE LONE TRAINER
My Strength, MY Power
COOL Coaching®’s journeys of Self-Discovery, Self-Knowledge, Self-Renewal, and Self-Reinvention are not only about stimulating or rekindling creativity and innovation today for constantly better tomorrows. They are also about retrieving, and applying, from your fundamental life education those experiences that lay the foundation for the SuperStarInYou® that you have grown up to be today.
Thursday morning (22/ 11-2012) I crossed a threshold by unexpectedly overcoming a physical handicap due to a long-standing medical condition impeding execution of certain movements relative to heavy and intensive physical exercise workouts. In my elation, the COOL Coaching® Successful Living Through Magic and Wonder® flash came through. Then I realized that since I embarked on a new training routine at the end of June 2012 after a first ever six months’ pause, the words of my Karate teacher, Professor Stephen Chan, 9 Dan, OBE, have been ringing in my head everyday, “The academic mind is a mind of structure, Semmy … Go and read TS Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions!”(Greece, December 1985)
So were also the words of one of my first ever Karate Sensei, Anver Bey, Sho Dan, a year or two later, “Semmy, you must train with an open mind. You must also read a lot. The more you read the more you’ll find that no one has monopoly on knowledge of how to train, and how to live in general. When you know, nothing and no one can fuck with your training and your life”. During my later years in Lusaka, Anver and I grew to be very close friends, and he taught me a lot of things about life and training. The news of his passing on years ago truly broke my heart. He invariably visits me each time I do power training in the gym though.
I do not recall to have ever trained so patiently and systematically before; paying particular attention to, and respecting, my moods and feelings from day to day. The latter have a bearing as to how strong and enthusiastic I’ll get about things. The structure of my training since I started to train with conscious and clearly defined desirable outcomes since I was 4½ years old has been in relation to three important external factors: Self-protection, Competition, and Leadership (as at age 17 years I started to teach Karate and lead my own groups, and subsequently my own clubs in Norway). Both as practitioner and teacher of Karate I simply had to be stronger and better than anyone else. Nothing else mattered, just I glossed in the glory of my personal victories and successes, as well as those of my students. This was very important for my ego; given my constant struggle against outsider/underdog prejudices directed towards my person everywhere I go.
These days I train alone, for myself, by myself. Renewing my Mind, Body, and Soul according to fundamentals of my teachers’ teachings of my once young, wild, and (still) mad me. It’s a new way to work directing my strength and power first and foremost into myself. The older paradigm by which I worked was to primarily think about how to project my strength and power out to the world as intensely as possible. Waste of time and energy. I’m free. It feels good to know and understand that I own my strength and my power inside. So, I can from the outset do with my Mind, Body, and Soul only the things that make sense to me. My self-reinvention visions have never been more vivid, modelled after what I see and feel inside of me for myself alone. I now know that this is the essence of my education in the fundamentals of life and living by all my teachers so far. Thanks to COOL Coaching®’s journeys of Self-Discovery, Self-Knowledge, Self-Renewal, and Self-Reinvention. My life gets better all the time.
SIMON CHILEMBO
November 24, 2012
OSLO
Norway
MY OSLO SUNRISE
©Simon Chilembo, 2012
Sun rose at 6
In Oslo today
She looked up
From her phone
Her stellar eyes petrified me, momentarily
She beamed
“Hei! Morn, morn!!!”
My day was made
We alighted the bus at same stop
My dazed eyes followed her
Round the corner
I went my way
Glorious light all the way
No sunset
In Oslo tonight
©Simon Chilembo, 14/ 11-2012
OSLO
Norway
Tel.: +47 97000488/ +27 717 454 115 (South Africa)
LAUNDRY DAY REFLECTIONS
• If poverty knew how much I loathed it, it would stop knocking on my door. It’s been trying to encroach my life for 52 years now. Time to give up.
The most treacherous thing about poverty is that it not only makes people stupid, ignorant, and vulnerable to all sorts of life’s indignities, it also is so very easy to get used to. Because it is relatively easy to adapt to poverty subjugation, it is just as easy to sell. That’s why the poor will always stay poor: “Poor people are happier than rich people; money is not everything; material things will not bring you happiness; it is God’s will; …” bla, blah, blah… go the wealthy, and those who know better. Fuckin’ hell!
• FACT, and this isn’t just another Afro-macho-ego-emptydrum-bigmouth-bullshittalk: I am a grown up man, I’m well-educated both academically and professionally, I’ve been around long-far-and-wide and so I know a lot things, I’m good at what I do and nothing compares to me. If you want my professional services, you pay my price. You want to drive a Rolls Royce you pay the price. It’s as simple as that, really.
Simon Chilembo
November 11, 2012
OSLO
Norway
Tel.: +47 97000488/ +27 717 454 115 (South Africa)
SOUTH AFRICA HERITAGE DAY SONG: KE YA ITHOKA!
SELF-INTRODUCTION PRAISE SONG (Sesotho)
©Simon Chilembo 2012
Ke thelleleng
Ke le ‘tloholo sa Waloba
Morena Bende
Motumbuka seja tau
Ke le letsibolo la Lisebo moradi’a Mabote
Sebentsha letsatsi
Setla ka ngwedi?
Khanya mora’ Chilembo
Di tshereyane noha tsa marabe
O bontshe ditshaba tsela!
SLIDE THEN!
(Why must I slide and fall
When I am
Headman Bende
Tumbuka man
The-Lion-Eater’s grandson
When I am son of Lisebo, Mabote’s daughter
The one who shines the sun
The one who comes with the stars?
Rise and shine
Son of Chilembo
Turn puff adders into harmless fools
And show people the way)
©Simon Chilembo, August 20, 2012
OSLO
NORWAY
TEL.: +4792525032
September 24, 2012
LAW OF ATTRACTION POEM
THE LAW OF ATTRACTION
So, where is
The Law of Attraction
Here I am walking around
With pre-come tension
Jammed hard
I’m looking everywhere
I want her
I need her
I long for her
©Simon Chilembo 2012
I dream I’ve collapsed into her
She has clamped my upper body onto hers
Biting my neck, my ears
Her breasts under my chest
Are Rolls Royce ride
I feel the milk of her motherhood swirl
Her nipples feel like thumbs
Prodding my chest
In agony of passion
I too bite her neck, her ears
Her hair is dewy
Smells like a wild flower early spring
Her legs have come over my hips
She drums my bums with her heels
I tremble
I turn into jelly
She twines her legs across my back
She squeezes
I gasp
I scream
I die
She cries
Come, my love!
END/ ©Simon Chilembo, 18/ 09-2012
Simon Chilembo
Oslo
Norway
Tel.: +47 97000488/ +27 717454115
September 18, 2012
REAL CHAMPIONS DON’T NEED MONEY. HA?!
IF YOU ARE REAL GOOD AND ARE REALLY COMMITTED, YOU’LL BE CHAMPION ANYWAY. JESUS!!!
The Zambian National Karate Team that would meet Zimbabwe in April 1981 went into the country with heads bowed. We checked into a Harare hotel unZambianically hushed up, like sheep entering a slaughterhouse. That was my impression. We had already lost against Zimbabwe, long before we would embark on the goodwill trip to mark Zimbabwe’s first independence anniversary celebrations.
A few weeks earlier on our National Team Coach had told us that, to be honest, we were no match against the Zimbabweans. The latter were rich and were almost exclusively White. This meant that by default they had better terms and conditions of training, with access to training facilities Zambians could only dream of. But we had strong minds, so we’d be fine, he told us. Ok … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA BLOGS – As I See It”. Order Simon Chilembo books on Amazon)
Simon Chilembo
Oslo
Norway
September 05, 2012
Simon Chilembo 