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𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗣𝗘𝗢𝗣𝗟𝗘 𝗔𝗥𝗘
𝗧𝗥𝗨𝗠𝗣 𝗨𝗥𝗔𝗩𝗘𝗟𝗟𝗘𝗗. 𝗛𝗘 𝗜𝗦 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗛𝗘 𝗜𝗦.
What people are or are not is not always in what they say or not say about themselves. It’s in their attitudes and behaviour observable across the board in all the human relations aspects that make us human and social beings. I operationally define attitude as a spontaneous inherent or learned, measurable response to events in both human relations interactions and natural occurrences.
Behaviour actualizes the active (external) and passive (internal, withheld, private) manifestations of attitudes. For example, upon sighting a snake on the loose, a person that has a phobia (attitude) for snakes is likely to panic (behaviour) and exhibit fear (response) in all sorts of ways: scream, run, freeze with shock, or collapse, amongst multiple other variables according to prevailing circumstances and available supportive resources.
I must make a short digression for a crucial point in my public discourse work:
My eclecticism as a thinker and writer is a function of my formal academic training. Beyond that, I have in my time read, and continue to do so, widely across all sorts of print and digital media, covering all sorts of content from fiction to factual narratives, both for entertainment and insightful reading immersion. Also, I have over the years engaged, and continue to do so, with various degrees of depth and intensity, in all sorts of discussions and debates with all sorts of people from all over the world on a variety of sociological and scientific topics.
On political thought development outside academia, special credit goes to unforgettable, ever intense informal Political Education moments with some of the most inspirational then anti-Apartheid liberation struggle veterans I met in Lusaka, Zambia, 1975-88. Comrade Joseph Nwenya, nom de guerre, I’d later meet in Oslo, Norway, 1988.
Kgoshi, as Joseph and I mutually affectionately address each other, has the special mind-blowing acuity of effectively blending our South African Sesotho traditional philosophy with contemporary political thought. Although he is enduring octogenarian well-being challenges now, Kgoshi and I have remained great friends since.
During my formative years growing up and going to school in Lesotho up until early 1969, some then top Basotho National Party male personalities used to frequent the place at which I stayed. Without exception, they’d each time have these heavily charged debates on boipuso and tokoloho, self-governance and liberation, respectively. Although I never understood much of what they were talking about then, the impact the apparent significance of boipuso and tokoloho for the people had on me reverberates in my body to this day. I am passionate about freedom and self-determination.
Any fallacies or internal logic inadequacies arising in my presentations are my responsibility alone. Bring the heat on to me. Leave my teachers alone. I write with good intentions, seeking not only to make sense of my world for myself, but to contribute to the body of knowledge that aspires to promote love and peace in the world. Those who read read; those who don’t don’t. The human knowledge database grows exponentially every day; all for the taking for free, generally. In the free world, it’s plausible to argue that ignorance is a choice.
People are perceived for what they are through their actions relative to how they organize their lives against their private needs, how they manage their fears, and perceived or real threats against them; their idiosyncrasies. Isolated to the snake phobia example above, the concerned person may be seen to be a coward and irrational.
Nonetheless, cowardice and irrationality are not necessarily all-encompassing traits of the individual; the person may exhibit strength, courage, and resilience in other situations otherwise thought to be dangerous by others. Additionally, people are perceived for what they are through how they apply their personal attributes towards the attainment of their goals; that in sync with, or detrimental to their obligations beyond the individual to the multiple relational segments of the wider society.
For instance, an acclaimed philanthropic ultra-wealthy businessman, say, Jeffrey Epstein, shall remain a venerable figure until he is uncontestably factually revealed to be a paedophile. Epstein died whilst serving a prison sentence after having been judicially found guilty of the crime.
USA President Donald Trump’s influence over his MAGA is slipping away over his vehement refusal to have the notorious Epstein Files released, amongst other factors, including Trump Tariffs. When finally released, it’ll be interesting to see if evidentiary material shall emerge or not to irrevocably tie Donald Trump as partaker to Jeffrey Epstein’s paedophile crimes endeavours. After all, these two gentlemen were once close friends for at least a decade from the 1990s, according to Epstein himself.
Conversely, in the absence of tangible proof, people are not always what third parties assume and conclude that the people are of a certain human attitudinal or behavioural disposition. This is a fundamental legal and philosophical observation. That notwithstanding, Conspiracy Theories are as they are called because their propagators feed on unproven claims about certain phenomena and people.
But when a young man, Connor Estelle, openly and proudly declares on a YouTube multi-million viewer platform that he is, indeed, a fascist, his words are taken at face value. A background check on him will reveal that he got fired from his job specifically for his uninhibited, self-professed extreme political views. No speculations. Case closed. Live up to consequences of one’s choices.
American podcaster Candace Owens has made relentless claims that French President Macron’s wife is a man, not a woman. The couple is suing Candace for defamation. Now, she’s reportedly fearing for her life. As at December 03, 2025, her claims of French government assassination plans of her have yet to be corroborated, according to online fact-check service, factually.co.
- Once we’ve died, we’ll for eternity be destined either to heaven for moral rectitude in life, or to hell for moral corruption. In heaven, there’s the temperamental but ever sweet, live-happily-after-death entity called God.
- Hell is the fiery domain of the mean Satan who thrives on roasting human souls. If, as according to believers, the human soul corresponds to the wind, no wonder, then, that hell fire flames burn infinitely after life. Factual realities of heaven and hell’s existence have yet to be confirmed and documented by the dead-returned-to-life.
Amongst other possibilities, language is developed and applied to identify, explain, and classify objects and phenomena as we relate to them by any means in the universe. For example, sociologically, language identifies the essay writer here as a male human being; a man by the name, Mr Cee.
Explaining who, or what Mr Cee is might initially mention physical attributes such as age (65 years old), height (1.60 metres tall), skin colour (black), and, by extension, origin (African), and current abode (Oslo, Norway). According priorities, or intentions in prevailing circumstances around Mr Cee, he may be classified under the categories of:
- Short (below 1.8 metres stature).
- Senior Citizen (age 60+ years old).
- Race (Black African).
- Nationality – Norwegian citizen (Naturalized immigrant).
- Birth place – South Africa.
- Address – Oslo, Norway.
At the same time, identification, explanation, and classification have each their own unique attributes. Language will designate the latter as constants and universally applicable, all things remaining equal. That, vis-à-vis a given phenomenon, or object observed physically, if not assumed to be reality as per given definition because certain pre-determined criteria having been fulfilled for constancy and general applicability. Therefore:
- Mr Cee remains MR CEE regardless of where he is on the planet.
- Short people are identified, explained, and classified as such irrespective of who, or where they are on the planet.
- An Oslo resident is an Oslo resident independent of, for instance, social status, or origin. Mr Cee has for many years lived in the same residential address zone as that of the King of Norway and the Norwegian Prime Minister’s official residences, respectively.
Whereas identification, explanation, and classification of a specific object or phenomenon (a human being, in this case) may be universally applicable as to the person observed, or experienced, the said person as a unique entity shall remain what they are: a once off creation’s product. Therefore, in the state of being a unique human being, a person ‘A’ may exhibit certain physical and/ or behavioural attributes like those that are manifested by another person ‘B’ of any origin, age, gender, race, religion, or creed. And, that’s as far as it goes. As individual expressions of the unique human species, persons ‘A’ and ‘B’ share equally the essence of being human as extrapolated in the human genome, the core our genetic makeup.
Likening person ‘A’ to person ‘B’ due to identification of certain manifest shared idiosyncrasies does not, and can never make person ‘A’ into person ’B’, or the other way around. Perhaps until human cloning is perfected and morally acceptable, each human being that has ever been procreated and, for purposes of this essay, born and lived is a unique, closed-system individual. This individual can never voluntarily morph themselves, or be in any way morphed into another person. That applies to any other person that has yet to be conceived and born, subsequently, and as far as human knowledge boundaries expand today.
Human attributes comparisons do not, cannot regenerate the people concerned either way. Comparisons do not, cannot replicate. Comparisons are a rhetorical tool applied to help us see different perspectives around matters of discussions in the various endeavours of being human. Comparisons, metaphors, and similes enrich debate; they feed the imagination. They push boundaries of our thinking horizons. That way enhancing our reasoning capacities as we all daily strive to make sense of our existential reality on planet earth, if not the infinite universe of which we are ever such a minuscule and vulnerable part.
In the video WHITE AMERICA = BLACK AFRICA – MAGA AMERICA SAME AS DARK AFRIKA: The Black South Africa Case, published on February 2nd, 2024, I build a case for showing personality traits similarities between Donald Trump and Black gangsters as I recall them from my former township, Thabong, Welkom, South Africa. White Trump will never be Black. Township Black Tsotsies/ gangsters will never be White.
Behaviourally, though, they are very identical; differences in the material conditions of their respective operational spaces granted, of course. Real Estate multi-millionaire son, Donald Trump, was born with a silverspoon in his mouth; spoilt to the core. In extreme cases, which is often as such, many a Black township tsotsie could have been born and raised in abject poverty with non-existent Social Security safety net.
What I know is that longevity is not a concept alive much in a South African gangster’s life. Other gangsters from elsewhere can speak for themselves. Thank goodness that, despite everything else, the law still works somewhat in the USA. As do official VIP Protection services. Eliminating the possibility of inavoidable debilitating health issues arising in the interim, Donald Trump can with good margins look forward to marking his 80th birthday in June 2026. In South Africa, the law works too. Jacob Zuma also has a high probability of celebrating his 84th birthday in April 2026.
The paradox is such that where it works well, as things stand today, USA law protects the Presidency so much that it has enabled Donald Trump to believe that he is above the law. That’s how he, with absolute impunity, has continued to push boundaries to the extreme even more in this his second term of office. And he plays the part well for himself and his allies, much to the bewilderment of his political opponents, and the dismay of other observers, local and abroad:
- DOGE is gone, but the damage is done. Irreparable. Desaster. Uncalled for. With DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), Trump had engaged his former friend, tech billionaire Elon Musk, to identify and eliminate wasteful government spending. But, instead, Musk, went on a spree of unjustifiable, as QUARTZ online news article of December 11, 2025, puts it, “… mass layoffs at government agencies and publicly funded organizations. It also took part in an immigration crackdown and copied sensitive data from government databases.”
- ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)keeps breaking people’s bones and spirits. Trump will never pure-whitify USA with hyper stringent, violent immigration control policies and application thereof. Indeed, illigal immigration breaks the law. But illegal immigrants, definite criminals included, are also humans deserving, entitled to dignified, due-process treatment as provided for in USA law.
It seems that there is sadistic joy in seeing Black-Brown people agonize in pain, some of them American citizens caught up in the erratic ICE raids in big cities like Baltimore. Democrat Senator Mark Kelly has said it loud and clear on CNN TV/ online news channel’ State of the Union programme, “He [Donald Trump] doesn’t want brown people in our country.” - In what they call “Operation Southern Spear“, The US Navy keeps bombing Caribean fishermen in the name of war against drugs. War against Venezuela is looming. According to a The Conversation online news report, Trump sees Venezuelan President Maduro as an anti-USA terrorist group leader and, thus, the latter’s regime is illegitimate.
From the already mentioned video above, I bring forth two traits that, in my view, align Donald Trump with Black South African gangsters’ mentality:
- Ho sa (Sesotho, noun), lumps together the Black gangster vices into one virulent trait: petulance as gross as it can get. The descriptive form of ho sa is “O sele!”, meaning “He/ she is petulant!”
People of all ages manifesting ho sa as a characteristic social interaction trait are some of the most dangerous a community can have. They are heartless, self-centred, shameless, fear-insulated, thrill-seeker types of the worst kind. Makings of despots emerge here. Donald Trump “o sele”! - Manganga (Sesotho)/ Inkani (isiZulu) is absolute stubbornness. This is as Trumpish a trait as can be. Take a stand, be resolute to the very end, whatever the cost. Whether or not original intended goals are attained is not the essence. You are defiant to the extreme. As in say, the “Trump tariffs” matter, or Trump’s assertion that “Ukraine started the Russian war in Ukraine”. Stay rock-steady as a matter of principle because you cannot be wrong; never, or you cannot be denied your demands. You are the truth. You are the light. If you are not the son of God, then you ARE God!
When fact-checked, double-down, triple-down, quadruple-down, quintuple-down, sextuple-down, … just x2-tuple down until they can’t breathe no more. If they don’t fall, bully them, ridicule them, insult them, threaten them; as in the cases of Letitia James and James Comey, for example, overwhelm them with arrays of indictments, flimsy or not – just create enduring chaos. Were it possible, you’d disappear them at a snap of your fingers.
Your opponents shall declare you as deranged, delusional; but that doesn’t bother you at all. You are mmampodi (Sesotho)/ champion; you rule. You live above the law. You own your followers through and through. Each one of them understands that you are their life saviour – the MAGA base. So, in the same fashion that he steadfastly insists that tariffs are paid by foreign countries exporting goods into the USA, Donald Trump holds his ground that “White Genocide” is carried out in South Africa.
Not only USA entrepreneurs and consumers, but also top world Economists, including Nobel Prize laureateslikePaul Krugman, have shown how wrong Trump is, and how inflationary “Trump Tariffs” are. The man doesn’t care. Trumpian tariffs theory is determined to not only disrupt but overturn conventional Economics definition of tariffs.
The non-partisan Govfacts.org defines tariffs as follows, “A tariff is a tax that governments place on goods coming into their country. You might also hear them called duties or customs duties … The most immediate effect of a tariff is simple: it makes imported products more expensive for Americans to buy … tariffs aim to alter economic behavior, discouraging imports and creating an incentive to purchase domestically produced alternatives.”
Unfortunately, Donald Trump is fighting a losing battle on his forcefully unorthodox approach to the application of tariffs contra USA’s trading partners, essentially all countries engaging with the USA in international trade. It’s like the man gets the kicks out of ever striving to change the unchangeable; out of ever striving to push factually false claims no matter what.
It’s like Donald Trump believes that his word is law, the absolute truth. But that will never work to the extent that wisdom and courage in the world are durable. His rigid one-track-minded denialism he even extends to far beyond his country’s borders. Involving himself in the internal affairs of another country, he’ll brazenly endorse and aid push false anti-establishment narratives that align with his own political agenda, and excite his base in the USA.
For instance, regarding South Africa, he has fully embraced the debunked “White Genocide” claims in the country. Numerous prominent South African White people in politics, John Steenhuisen; business, Johann Rupert, and Afrikaner commentator Piet Croucamp have come out and spoken against these claims.
In a CBS online news article of May 21, 2025, Piet Croucamp was quoted as saying, “There’s no sign of it, never has been. In fact, Whites are economically the strongest group in South Africa … 64% of all boardrooms in South Africa are still White. The average incomes of White South Africans are vastly higher than Black South Africans … they have better schools, they have better education, private health care. This is the land of milk and honey if you’re White.”
And, yet, Donald Trump holds his ground. The man is surely a lost cause. The man is losing it, if he hasn’t lost it already. Lawrence O’Donnell, probably his harshest journalistic critic, relentlessly argues that Donald Trump is on a cognitive decline. He emphatically describes Trump as a pathological liar and racist. That says a lot when it is manifest that, on the one hand, Trump is currently effecting an overtly brutal ICE-driven anti-immigration campaign against many non-White immigrants with or without legal issues during their stay in the USA.
On December 11, 2025, Lawrence O’Donnell laid it out on his show on MS NOW YouTube channel, “Well, Donald Trump confessed last night. Donald Trump confessed that he was lying. Donald Trump turned himself in as a pathological liar last night … It’s not news that Donald Trump is a racist … It’s not news that Donald Trump is a vile, ugly stain on American public life …”
Indeed, on the other hand, Trump has arbitrarily opened a political asylum window for purportedly persecuted White South Africans. A blatant racist move he carries out because he can. White Supremacy power abuse as brash as it gets.
Who knows it better than the one who feels it? Since no societal transformation will ever satisfy everyone anywhere, it’s, indeed, hardly surprising that there will be a segment of White South Africans that are bitter at their loss of White Supremacist Privilege and Power in the post-Apartheid Rainbow Nation. A minority, fortunately.
Amicus International Consulting is a Canadian global mobility and related services facilitating firm that has experience working with migratory White South Africans abroad. In an article mentioning the firm in Newstrail.comof May 26, 2025, it’s reported that “Despite media attention on asylum claims, dual citizenship applications, and second passport programs, the majority of South Africa’s white minority is choosing to remain in the country they call home, anchored by heritage, identity, and a commitment to national renewal.”
It’s mind-boggling to have Donald Trump disregard the voice of the majority of White South Africans that, rightly so, speak against the “White Genocide” and White-land grabs claims in the country. In a BBC.com article of May 23, 2025, South African Police Minister, Senzo Mchunu, says, “South Africa crime statistics debunk ‘white genocide’”
In an earlier article of February 25, 2025, BBC.com had reported that “A South African court has dismissed claims of a white genocide in the country as “clearly imagined” and “not real”, undermining comments made by US President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk.”
Just how dum can a man be? President of the most powerful country in the world? Jeeezzuzzz!!! A Masterclass in how The Ruthless Rule as per the American Brains way.
Talk about one hot-nutted man against the world.
In this connection, a township street parlance (Setsotsi) adage goes like this, “Maziwaziwe, maz’bidlikaz’bidlike!” (isiZulu)/ If they (e.g. towers) fall, they fall; if they collapse, they collapse!”
This a manifestation of bodomo / stupidity, fundamentally undelineable ignorance as raw as it gets; the stupid so stupid that they don’t even know how profoundly dangerously stupid they are.
It is what it is. Tyrants, hard-core conspiracy theorists, and charlatans fall under this category.
And, talking about petulance, in the video WHITE CONMAN BLACK INSIDE – The Worst Conman Scandals in Politics Revealed: Trump and Zuma Alike, I expand my Trump eccentrics narrative to zoom onto one South African political leadership face to compare with. The video was published on April 23, 2025. With some modifications to suit this presentation, an excerpt from WHITE CONMAN BLACK INSIDEtextreads as follows:
“Abundantly incompetently stupid leaders are ruthless. They are petulant, lacking empathy. They are buffoons to whom civility is a concept unknown. In geopolitics affairs, as in the recent Trump-boycotted G20 summit in South Africa, they are International Relations disasters. Perpetual dumbheads with skewed views of the world.
“In their extreme madness stunts, some of them could self-annihilatorily nuclear-bomb the world and they wouldn’t care. Should it happen, they’d probably say, “Ooops!”, and die happily. In their heads, satisfied with themselves, thinking that they’d have shown the world the power of alpha-male masculinity. My foot!
“The USA has Donald Trump. South Africa has Jacob Zuma. In my mother tongue, Sesotho, we’d say about these two that they could have been birthed by the same woman. They could exchange countries, and they’d be just as equally dumbfounding as individuals, and as two who share numerous common inherent personality traits. Different outside, but internally driven by significant identical idiosyncrasies in many respects.
“It’s not as if Trump and Zuma are collectively especially unique in this regard. The world is full of numerous others of their particular behavioural attributes. Any list of historical and contemporary tyrants you can conjure from any corner of the world to another will do. Start with Adolf Hitler, for example. Without exception, these are ever destructive, regressive elements responsible for manifestations, if not experiences, of some of the darkest moments of societal leadership dysfunctionalities the world over, all through the epochs to the present.
“At the micro level, I already lived Trump-Zuma-like tyranny through experiences and observations I derived whilst growing up in the hard, gangster-infested township street life in the then Apartheid South Africa. It’s not as if much has changed, though: take a walk in the Cape Flats.
I was born in South Africa in 1960. In late 1965, I became perceptually conscious of, and began to intentionally store memorable experiences of my life in all the environments I’d find myself to this day.
“Looking back, I effortlessly see Trump and Zuma on the faces of all the meanest gangsters, including all other grown-up men that were feared and despised for their ferocity as spouses, fathers, and fellow citizens in other aspects of life.
“These kinds of guys think that they are smart. However, if smartness is judged in terms of abilities to progressively solve the never ending big and ever complex familial and/ or societal engineering challenges, they score terribly bad all the time. Blatant dysfunctional, erratic, myopic, anarchical, and other regressive leadership qualities characterize their governance capabilities, from the smallest organizational units to the largest at the national and international levels.
“Destruction of once, or potentially functional societal services and production institutions and processes is the imminent, if not immediate, outcome of these kind of guys’ rule. The longer they stay in power, the more destruction they cause; ultimately leading to civil unrest and possible social collapse, culminating in civil or international wars at worst. Given the unsurprisingly egregiously disruptive start of his second term locally, and his blatantly disdainful disregard for International Relations protocols, Trump could ignite a third World War …”
The USA is falling apart in real time, right in front of our eyes. Prove me wrong if you can.
In South Africa, Jacob Zuma is still breathing. In the national General Elections 2024, he almost broke the ruling party, the ANC’ back with his newly-formed disruptive party MK (uMkhonto we Sizwe). Zuma Presidency 2.0 is improbable, though. Just like Donald Trump, Zuma and some of his children are ever determined grifters making news headlines for the wrong reasons. Now, they dupe South African young men to go and fight in Putin’s Ukraine war.
With all the events leading up to Donald Trump’s 2.0 presidency to the present, I’m continually fascinated by online debates featuring MAGA and their likeminded against many a Democrat or some other USA progressive pundits. Watching these debates on platforms like Piers Morgan’s YouTube channel, and CNN shock me at the shallowness of thought and analysis of the MAGA people.
In written media, though, more sober analyses are presented. Referring to examples of Ancient Greece and Classical China, online publication The Conversation of July 15, 2025, explains where tyranny comes from and how it develops, to begin with. It makes the increasingly observable point that “We’re just a few months into US president Donald Trump’s second term but his rule has already been repeatedly compared to tyranny.”
Mehdi Hasan’s Zeteo YouTube channel, and the whole media house concept, is a breath of fresh air contra the overwhelmingly dumbfounding poorly structured, word salad, loud-mouthed, overbearing, condescending debating style of some MAGA debaters. Here, and on other platforms that he features in from time to time, Mehdi, with hard-hitting verifiable fact-based discourses, intellectually crushes to pulp many a MAGA pundit. Sadly, they never, never want to learn. In essence, they are uneducable; to some extent not by choice. They simply are inherently as dumb as a rock that no stone-art sculptor would want to touch. Useless.
At times, before I recover from my perplexity and recall that it’s not coded in racial terms how we think, feel, and express ourselves, the grossly traumatized little “Kaffir Boy” residing at my nape finds it truly unfathomable that White people, speaking, yes, English, can be so “effing” unashamedly dumb, pig-headed day-after-day on live global television screens.
You see, already from my formative years whilst growing up in the heat of Apartheid in South Africa until the beginning of 1975, the idea that White people were the most intelligent people in the world was brutally ingrained in my head. Of course, the English were the lords over everyone. We were taught this shit at school, at church, and even in our homes. So terrified were our people. So effective was Apartheid brutality; those who never lived the experience really have no idea.
Just like some people wonder how Black people can still be Christians and Muslims when Black people continue to be subjected to the darkest atrocities in the name of God, it’s a wonder that White people continue to live happily ever after in post-Apartheid South Africa. Those that are not happy are happily allowed to tell lies and happily go away and live Donald Trump’s horrendous American Nightmare. They’ll be welcome back home should they be disillusioned with Trumpland. Afterall, the Bible tells a story of the prodigal son that went out and got battered by the world.
The dude returned home to his wealthy father; was forgiven, got a new lease of life, and lived happily ever after. God is good. Whites Only Orania lives on; thanks to the South African state’s adherence to arguably the most tolerant constitution in the world.
The little K-Boy in me is totally baffled. I calm him down by reminding him that intelligence, as it’s played out through our human relations communication skills, is a function of how we are oiled and wired endocrine-neurologically. This, combined with a myriad of other complex physiological and physical process shall work optimally for some, expressing what will generally be normal behavioural tendencies of humaneness; without being perfect. Nobody is perfect. Who needs perfection?
When nobody is perfect by default, those for whom things go wrong such that their endocrine-neurological wiring functions non-optimally, trouble is their modus operandi. This is the breeding ground for the emergence of divergent, undesirable human behavioural tendencies classified according to various medical and psychological descriptive and clinical terms such as sociopathy, psychopathy, narcissism, and many more.
Good or bad, and as affected by a plethora of known and unknown causalities, human endocrine-neurological wiring is a humancentric blessing or curse that can befall anybody, regardless of race, creed, colour, or faith. Psychologist Dr Mary Trump has described his uncle, Donald Trump, as a sociopath. Therefore, the man shall appeal strongly to those people of his endocrine-neurological wiring disposition, regardless of race.
This attraction is so strong that, given Trump’s MAGA White Supremacist ideology, even those he detests will support him, regardless: Blacks for Trump, Latinos for Trump, Chinese for Trump, Muslims for Trump, Indians for Trump, Somalians for Trump, Nigerians for Trump, Women for Trump, and others. On the 11th January, 2021, I, on my private blog, Chilembo Warrior Moves.com, published an article addressing the above theme.
The article got titled CONSPIRACY THEORIES: TO BE OR NOT TO BE SUSCEPTIBLE; and I quote a passage, “In terms of human power relations contra survival imperatives fulfilment or lack [there]of, people of identical mental dispositions attract one another. This attraction cuts across all unnatural power barriers instituted to justify domination and dehumanization of others.
“Political orientations arising in the organization of society are instituted upon people’s mental dispositions influencing and expressing their value judgements. As such, Conservatives don’t like change to the extent that they rule. Whereas Liberals [or Progressives] seek to overturn the status quo inhibiting liberty, justice, and equality in society.”
On the 6th November, 2020, I had already seen the hazards to which the These-and-Those for Trump special-interests-groups were exposing themselves. So, I couldn’t help but let my frustration out on my Facebook news feed.
I wrote, and I quote, “You’ve got to know who your friends, your brethren are when it comes to big existential questions. You see, in the psyche of White Supremacists, if you are not of 100% European extraction, you are black. That’s it. It doesn’t matter where on planet earth you originate from, least of all, yes, Africa. Needless to say. We are talking solidarity here.
Especially if you are White Supremacy object of hate in the United States of America, amongst other things, get to objective grips with what Socialism really is in the context of actual societal engineering modalities in the world.
“Read books. It never hurts to go to school, where you’ll be taught some interesting things about Critical Thinking contra myths and Conspiracy Theories.
“As things Rock and Roll today, America will never be a socialist state. Not in my life time, anyway. I have at least another sixty years to go. Racism is racism even if it comes coated with vanilla ice cream, wrapped in fake, psychotic The Economy greenbacks. Check what they say about hyenas and sheep skins. I’ll see you in 2024.”
2024 landed full speed. Shameless Donald Trump, whether texting online or spewing vitriol through his vile mouth everywhere showed up missiles blowing, both figuratively and literally; the latter in Ukraine and the Middle East wars, respectively. Now, as already stated above, Trump wants to start a war with Venezuela, starting by bombing innocent fishermen as if they were arbitrary target practice objects.
USA Somalians no longer of strategic and political currency to him hardly a year into his Presidency 2.0 term, Donald Trump has shown his true colours: not only throwing Somalians for Trump under the bus, but also publicly insulting them with impunity. Trump called the Somalians “garbage”, saying that their country of origin, Somalia, stinks”. He went on to make it unequivocally clear that, as reported by Aljazeera, and I quote, “ I don’t want them in our country, I’ll be honest with you,” Trump said of Somalis on Tuesday [December 02, 2025].
There we go, then, USA Somalian MAGA Trumpets, and your fellow other non-White These-and-Those for Trump, including Women for Trump, I really don’t want to say it, but big-lettered “F”, I, WE “EFFING” TOLD YOU SO! I, WE, ain’t Woke for nothing. Jeeezzuzzz!!!
The idea of this essay came forth whilst, a few weeks ago, I was watching yet another atrociously noisy, knowledge value addition shallow MAGA v/s Progressives panel debate online about whether Donald Trump is a fascist or not. The MAGA proponents’ predictable verbal diarrhoea interrogatory debating style rhetorical question, “Are you saying that Donald Trump IS Adolf Hitler, then? Is President Donald a Nazi? Is that what you are saying?” gives me such a headache it makes me wanna holler.
At some point, the panel was so noisy they reminded me of a bunch of stray cats in heat causing an all-night ruckus outside my bedroom window at a lodge I once stayed in a Greek village. At that point, my mind raced. And, in conclusion, formulating in my head how I’d present my case were I on that panel:
Comparing Donald to Hitler does not say Donald Trump is Hitler. Donald Trump can never be Hitler nor Mussolini. Not only because they are dead. Even if they were alive, Trump could never be either of the two. But he is like them in how they separately were as individuals and political leaders: fascists. It’s idiotic to argue that Donald Trump couldn’t be a Nazi because he never committed the holocaust.
Hitler murdered the Jews between 1933-45. Trump wasn’t there. Neither was Trump there during Mussolini’s time. Trump will never commit the same atrocities that the two fascists mentioned did for time and geographical differences, not in the least, different demographical conditions in the 21st Century. Comparative personality traits are functions of the compared, or likened, within the realities of their respective times and spaces.
Behaviourally, a Nazi in 1945 is the same as a Nazi in 2025. It’s only prevailing material conditions at their times and spaces that will determine how, and to what extent they shall play out their inhuman practices. In 2025, Nazi Trump executes mass deportations of Black and Brown people from the USA with DEI’s extreme brutality. If he had the opportunity, he probably would gas and burn the people, much like his hero Hitler did with the Holocaust.
Seventy years after the holocaust, Trump has at his disposal the so-called Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Heading the most powerful army in the world today, according to Global Firepower.com, Hegseth callously bombs Caribbean fishermen without any evidence of the latter posing any drug trafficking or military danger to the USA the land or marine installations in the region.
Venice AI correctly concludes that my case is a polemical and highly charged interpretation of events. It further summarizes that my narrative is that Trump’s fascist nature is not just a matter of personality, but is being actively implemented through his cabinet. The Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, is the instrument through which Trump’s “inhuman practices” are executed, tailored to the geopolitical and technological realities of 2025.
Venice AI concludes that the inclusion of Hegseth’s role forces an engagement with the argument on its own terms: that the actions of the Trump administration, including its personnel choices and specific military policies, constitute a modern form of fascism.
Simon Chilembo
Oslo
07.12.2025
American Brains: A Reflection on Society
𝗛𝗢𝗪 𝗪𝗘𝗜𝗥𝗗 𝗖𝗔𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗬 𝗕𝗘?
American brains
Denied knowledge
Books burnt away
From
American brains
Herded back to
Stone Age
In the name of God
No
Redeem them
Father
For they know not
What they do
Sound
From Jesus
Uhhh, it ain’t Easter yet, dude
Whatever
Silence of the lambs
Strangled on
The highway to hell
American brains
Burning on
Broken infrastructure
We are The World sense
Can’t breathe
Under the rubble
Evil is born
Fear kneed-on-neck
Of the free world
Inside and
Outside of America
Felon re-given power
Highway to hell strangulations
Empowered
I can’t breathe
Utterance
Emasculated
Rock yokes
On people’s necks
Chained
American brains
Mental health issues
Case study
May be true
Maybe not the case
It is what it is
Bring back
The Twin Towers
Heal the land
American brains
Galloping
On
Horse medicine
Bodies hit with ultra-light
Running tummies
In one minute on
Felon’s
Bleach-disinfectant cure
Spewing blood
In
Pandemic times
Thousands plus thousands
Died
20/20 vision gone
2024, felon’s back
Scot-free
American brains
Lost the plot
Art of the deal
Defiled Lady Liberty
To no life
Suicide pack just signed
American Dream’ll
Never be the same
American Nightmare
Just got darker
A thing for horror movies
Hollywood cringes
Sugar glass crumbles
Golden glitter fades
Studious fall
Skies open
Heavenly stars beckon
Angels won’t fly
Waxen wings
Melted away
Black brains
Long for
The Dark Continent
They don’t know
Roots go deep
Black blood
Coagulated in grief
Black brains
Blood-clotted in slow death
See redemption in
American brains
Venomous
Given white a bad name
Colour blindness a
Black curse
Hope is gone
Perished in the Atlantic
Walking on water
On the
Back to Africa trail
American brains
Black
Resilient
Sing
We shall overcome someday
Though
Thrill is on
Want to say it in
Latin
Don’t work
Solidarietas
In White
Beyond Black bodies
American brains
Divide and rule
The real deal
England
Has never
Left this place
Hate
A thing skin-deep
Brains crusher
Immigrants beware
The dogs
Have come to America
They’re coming for you
What’re y’all gon’ eat today
Beneath skin
Blood knows no race
Knows no faith
Splash blood on
God
She’ll be red
Amen
The Budha
Was human
Goes without saying
OM
Heartbeat stops
All decease
CPR
Same for
Ayatollah or The Pope
The rich and the poor
Flamboyant or hermit
Russian brains
Strewn over the steppes of
The fallen USSR
Katyushad to manure
In Ukraine grain soils
Become killing fields
In the name of
The Great Russian Empire
Resurrection
The past
Glorious
Recreated on stage only
Death in
Swan Lake
Stuff for fairytales
No brains dead
For real
On stage
The Bolshoi is open
Tchaikowsky is calling
The brain-dead
Can’t hear
Have forgotten grace
Have forgotten how to love
Russian brains
Lost the plot
Middle Eastern brains
Blown up
Burning in midday oil
Expression
Burning the midnight oil
Turned around
Middle Eastern brains
Burning the midnight oil
Devise illusive conquest
Linear
One way
Another way
Generation after generations
Perpetual
Life-death cycle
Clockwise
Anti-clockwise
Don’t know
Where to go
Middle East long turned
Into chessboard
Human massacre games
Played by infants
Obstreperous
Care not about
Pawns
Knights
Queens
Distinctions
Rules for fools
No brains
No cool
Midday oil burns
Sun don’t set
Middle East brains
Infernos can’t cease
A place called hell
The plagues
Never ceased
In
The Middle East
Hate
Burned clay
Buried in
Desert dunes hearts
Defied
American brains
Bush desert storms operation
On lies
Doomed to lose
From the word go
Bush fires
Unsustainable
In sand storms
Anointing oils
No longer godly
But for the
King of England
Sitting in Buckingham Palace
Watching BBC World News
Showing
Middle Eastern brains
Perish
In real life Armageddon
Could be Brexshit
Goodness gracious
When will this ever end
The King wonders
He should know
English brains
Have a hand in this
Age-old
Brain-spillage
Preceding the written word
On papyrus
Moses carved on stone
God’s
Ten Commandments
Love thy neighbour
Fell on
Brain-dead ears
From day one
Middle-East brains
Lost the plot
As it was in the beginning
Remains to be seen
Which brains
It shall be
That God shall will
To re-part
The Red Sea
For the
Middle-East brains
Omega
At last
It won’t end
There is no God
The Dead Sea is dying
The Red Sea is drying
Soon
Climate change for you
Mon ami
Far-Eastern brains
Build bridges
Connect China
With itself
Beyond the seas
Connect with Africa
African brains see
God in Mao Zedong
Turn a blind eye to
The Cultural Revolution
African brain pain
Chronic
Rivers run dry
No rains
Far-Eastern brains
Dragons
Burn no books
The brain-dead
Comprehend not
How
China is the future
China’s got the plot
Makes everything possible
We visit Tiananmen Square
Another place
Another time
Uyghurs’ voices are heard
The tiger roars
Gouge the eye out
No Rocky
On the movies in Beijing
Cry freedom brains
To see not
The future
We respond
For humanity’s sake
God can wait
For brains’ sake
Pyongyang
Far-Eastern brains
Rejoice
Stone Age
American brains
Returned to power
Fest
Ginger Head
Rocket Man
Love letters
To resume
Second time around
Reckless
Nukes heads agitated
In the name of
World hegemony ambitions
World says to freeze
These brains back
To Ice Age
Ginger Head
Mr President 2.0
Won’t go to jail
American brains
Deranged
God save America
Anyhow
If you’re there
𝗘𝗡𝗗
©Simon Chilembo 07.11.2024
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
November 16, 2024
𝗪𝗔𝗥 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗣𝗘𝗔𝗖𝗘?
𝗔 𝗟𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴
WAR FOR PEACE?
When humanity makes
War for peace
Devoid of love
Hate
The human nuclear fusion powerhouse
Holds humanity survival
Hostage
In wait for one
Hot-nutted man’s
Testicular explosion
To start
The 3rd World War
Blowing humanity
Into annihilation
No historian will write about
There’ll be
No victors
To tell no story of
Humanity burnt to ashes
Blowing in
Nuclear fall-out clouds
Blanketing emaciated
Planet Earth
Across the universe lost meaning
Humanity done trampling the soil
To barrenness
For life
Climate change could never do
A better job
No more ambition
No more brains
No more curiosity
No more dreams
No more exploration
No more fantasy
No more games
No more idols
No more jubilations
Independence a thing
Of once upon a time
No audience
No storytelling
No more memories
No more sex
No more God
No more hallelujah
Jesus just a small boy
Crucified by his own
On track to
Humanity’s self-annihilation pursuits
No more scriptures
Unholy
In shadows of fear
No more cathedrals
Acoustics for
Angelic song voices
Blown up
Into mushroom clouds
Nuclear bombs wars
For you
Baby
No more lies
No more fortunes
No more gold
No more diamonds and pearls
No more black gold
Or is it liquid gold
From beneath arid lands
From ocean floors
Beneath heavy waters
Running wild
Caught up in the money trap
Call it
The greenback
The Euro
The Kroner
The Rand and
The Ruble
Archaic
Imperial Russia revivalists
Untenable Marxism alliance
Workers’ Revolution
Corruption-soiled pipedream
Might as well keep smoking opium
Afghan poppy, needless to say
Vodka-drunk
Drown in
Castle Lager pools
For the Indian Ocean
Mahatma Gandhi
Could have taught them
A lesson or two about
The way of peace
In social transformation
The Yen or
The Yuan
Oriental mystic
Incense stick’
Smoke
Dazes Africa to
Sleep
In sweet-sour
Bloodless neo-imperialism yokes
Subtle
In Shaolin Kung Fu
Masters’ dances
No murderous visions
In Tai Chi meditation trances
Peaceful conquest
In the landmass of the wretched
Yoga’s bhujangasana
Broke Africa’s back
Chant: OM
Namaste
Land of the Rising Sun
Got a rude awakening
In World War 2
Yet, fools of the world
Don’t wanna learn
America-induced blood baths
Flow in rivers of the world
In charred after-World War 3 world
Planet Earth shan’t recall
What a river once was
Blood not even a concept
Yet, America wants to make
A mad man rule the world
Four more years
May be the last
The longest
The permanent
As in
Stillness state
The other side of
I can’t breathe
Last breath
Nothingness lasts
When there’s
Nothing to breathe
See you
On the mythical other side
We meet as atomic particles
In nuclear fallout
Feeding on itself
Mankind finally equal
In a state of nothingness
Humanity obliterated
From planet earth
For nothing
When air to breathe
Is free for
All
Living creatures
Freedom is
All
About that
In wars for peace
It doesn’t work
Like that
America
Ought to know better
Today
In the Middle East
We could still be
Living in Biblical times
Quick sanded in
The Old Testament
Fighting vicious battles
As old as
A thousand Methuselahs
In
Who wants to live forever mayhems
For life
To the last man
The Tigris didn’t save
Saddam
Weapons of mass destruction
Are here for real
Today
World War 3 knocking
On heavens’ doors
For the chosen ones
And they say
Heavenly God
Loves us all
Discrimination from
The source
When all are born sinners
According to
The Scriptures
Satanic hell is a place
Packed in nuclear warheads
Once they all strike
We’re all gonna roast
Right here on earth
No escape
NASA crumbled
Space-X grounded
Space travel
Gone with the inferno
Branson last said
Would star with virgins
In Battle Star Galactica
Bezos last seen in the Amazons
Blue in the face
Heaven can wait
Humanity come to an end
Closed chapter of
Creation’s darkest story
No one to read
Creation’s wasted expression
Of itself through man
No more power
Elon Musk: spaXced out
Gangsters: garroted
Trumpsters: magnetized
Fascists: suicidal
All burnt-up excrement
Like everyone else
Reduced to
Carbon dust particles
Polluting the universe
Lonesome planet earth
Rotating on its axis
Ever since creation
Indifferent to
Love or hate
Humanity’s creation
They could have chosen
Love
We’d live happily
Forever and ever
In peace
Writing human history
Infinite
In all forms
Through the epochs
Let’s
Make love
Not war
Futile cry of
Language impotentized
Falling on imploded eardrums
We write it down
In love letters
Immortalize it in books
Catalogue them in libraries
Of the world
Anyway
Might survive
The apocalypse
Make history
Be not
Beast of war
Grotesque
Be apex-dog of letters
Read history now
You just might
Save Humanity
𝗘𝗡𝗗
©Simon Chilembo 2024
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
September 15, 2024
ＮＡＴＵＲＥ ＯＦ ＷＡＲ
DOES NOT CHANGE
It doesn’t change
Since time immemorial
Women abused
In war
Women distraught
Primordial
Survival instincts driven
Open their womanhood depths
Embrace their men
Cold
Eyes blank
Passion dead
Women seeking comfort
When war sirens wail
Since World War II
Jet fighters roar
Zig-zag the sky
Modern-day drones
Wizz above people’s heads
Missiles crater Mother Earth
In all directions
Extraterrestrials will never land
On earth again
We are the last remnants
Of anything similar
To human civilization on earth
Safety a thing
Only
For explosives encased
In weapons of war
Awaiting discharge
To murder women
With children
In their bellies
Children
On their backs
Children massacred
In wide-open playing fields
No godly shields
To see any place
School buildings
Hospitals
Walls pulverized
Under missiles attacks
Children die
Under their mothers’ bodies
Women wish
Mothers’ backs were
Turtle shell strong
In the least
Woman and child die
Warlords say
Peace is coming
Just another
One more lethal missile rain
This way
And that-a-way
Shredded human body parts
Crumbled with
Concrete jungle
Rubble
Unidentifiable
That’s the idea
These are animals
Warlords say
Weaken the enemy
Just a little more
Pre-emptive attack
Turtle shells strength
Only a metaphor
Terrorism is a chronic disease
Warlords say
Eliminate terrorists
With no mercy
They kill
So they can live
Warlords say
Peace is coming
Paid for at
The ultimate price
Either way
One more woman to demean
One more infanticide cycle
To execute
Ever so easy when
Woman and child can’t run
They can’t hide
Their cries drowned in
Storms of war
Who has forgotten
But one
Enduring calamity
Bush push
Operation Desert Storm
Amongst multiple others
In the timeline of
Human history
To this day
Ceasefire
Talks, talks, talks
Yuppy, yuppy, yuppy
Bla, bla, bla, blas
Give woman a break
More children to bake
Canons ever so hungry
For human fodder
Military-Industrial Complex
Got the Moola to harvest
On the spoils of war
Warlords kill
Every which way
The smart run
To the bank
Smiles on their faces
Wall Street is happy
Who wants to be a billionaire
Peace awaits man’s fall
Into the belly of
The earth’s crevices
Ignite World War 3
Burn motherfucker, burn
If that’s what it’ll take
For peace to find itself
Live for itself
Without man
On the face of the earth
Warlords kill
Women and children in vain
Peace looks with dismay
At war hawks’
Stupidity’s absurdity
War hawks think that
Peace romances carnage
When carnage breeds hate
Germinates vengeance seeds
In blood
That never dries in the earth
Even stones bleed human blood
Here
Dry tears in the rain
Peace waits for us all to die
When we are all gone
Tomorrow will be a better day
For peace
If it is there beyond
Bloodied planet earth
I’ll go to heaven
Bring back the women
Bring back the children
Heal their bodies and souls
There’ll be a few good men
In heaven too
I figure
I’ll bring them along
We give peace a chance anew
We gonna make a change
This time around
No more wars
In the future
Let women live
Let children grow
War hawks
Stand
In the forefront
Go fight in hell
By yourselves
Show us
Then
Who the real men are
The strongest men
In the world
Skew-nutted
Short-circuited
In the head
Afraid to die
I for one
Stand for peace
If I could
I’d be a global
Missile defense system
In all inter-human hostilities
Of the world
Killing wars
Dead on their tracks
Unlike the
United Nations Security Council
Toothless
Permanent members’
Vetoes locked its jaws
Forked its tongues
Might as well build
New Tower of Babel
New York City-style
In Trumpland nightmares’
Post-insurrection killing fields
Vetoes have tied
The hands though
Tragic
Just as well
Better forget the idea
The Twin Towers fell
Misery won’t end
War hawks think
I’m mad
I’m naïve
They have blood
On their hands
Milk and honey drip
Off my hands
Life is sweet
In my land of peace
21st Century Canaan
North Pole side
But then again
These ain’t godly times
Prayer has no meaning
When
Women die
Children die
Nations collapse
In wars
Instigated
In the name of God
Fortified
In the ways of God
Sustained
By the grace of God
The future is bleak
For God’ sake
Hope is no freak
I won’t shut my beak
For peace, shall I speak
Words hard as teak
Never shall I peak
Ever in the mood for peace
I have a woman to please
Children’s fears to appease
Wars must cease
Mother and child beseech
END
©Simon Chilembo 2024
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
September 15, 2024
𝗦𝗘𝗕𝗢𝗣𝗨𝗔, 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝟮
𝗖𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗘 – 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝘆𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘁.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝗛𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
Donald Trump reminds me of sethotsela in South Africa, the land of my birth. Sethotsela is the outcome of a once-buried corpse returned to life by witchcraft methods. This is a creature of the night. It is meant to spread terror in certain human-populated areas, although it may be met in the wild of the night in the forests or mountains. In dark mountain caves, sethotsela can be encountered at any time of day.
With the years, and especially since I started writing and publishing books since 2015, I find myself resorting to my mother tongue, Sesotho, in my efforts to understand sociological phenomena in the world. Growing up and going to school in Lesotho during my formative years in the 1960s, the expression bohlale ba hloleho was used to describe children and adults of exceptional intelligence.
Intelligent children shone at school, and socially. Intelligent adults shone in all human productive endeavours, from agricultural work to national leadership roles. Translated to English, bohlale ba hloleho means natural intelligence, or intrinsic wisdom. People with bohlale ba hloleho are the kind of people who just know it. They just have it. They are effortless problem solvers, ever with viable explanations of how things in nature and society work at all levels.
It is in the concepts and metaphors of bohlale ba hloleho abound in deep Sesotho language speakers that I have found greater clarity in my strive to make sense of my world, its joys, and traumas. The calibre of our world leaders and the outcomes of their work for the good or bad of their respective societies and the global community fascinates me profoundly.
Donald Trump features in this presentation for what I perceive of him as his abundantly manifest disconcerting unhinged intrigues of being. No other prominent incompetent pseudo-politician in the world today does it worse than Trump.
The Donald Trump brand enshrines amongst others, blatant extreme White Supremacist racism, bravado, career suicide, condescendence, denialism, fascism, fraud, idiocy, incongruity, inconsistency, indecency, infantility, ingratitude, lies, manipulation, mockery; there is also misogyny, mayhem, obstinacy, petulance, rigmarole, shamelessness, vindictiveness, vulgarity, and white privilege. It beats me that there exist pro-Trump racial interest groups under the banners such as Blacks for Trump, Chinese Americans for Trump, Indian Americans for Trump, and Latinos for Trump, to name a few. And, then, there are Women for Trump. Jeeezzzus!
CLARIFICATION
This presentation is an extended and updated version of an original essay I wrote and published on my blog, Chilembo Warrior Moves. The publication was on January 13, 2022. I’ve been following with fascination as to how, with his cult of personality intrigues, Donald Trump has managed to polarize the American society.
I do not expect that the stuff that I write or say about Donald Trump will ever make any difference if ever they got to him, or his cohorts. It is not my goal either. I neither write nor speak about the man for his sake. I do this for myself, for the preservation of my sanity. Donald Trump is not my cup of tea.
People have the right to hold opinions on anything or anybody they like or don’t like. However, I am ever so baffled by people who say that they don’t know anything about politics, and that they neither are interested in the concept and practice of politics.
Politics is the science of governance. People that are indifferent to, or ignorant of the various aspects of politics, myopically distance themselves from basic human relations management mechanisms that engineer society at all levels. From society to society in different epochs with time, human collectives will either spontaneously, or through force, arrange themselves in particular ways. The intention being to influence human behaviour contra existential imperatives such as the search for, production, and distribution of food and shelter. That’ll include the creation of systems and structures that enhance and sustain the people’s general well-being, ensuring the propagation of the species.
Historically, different ideologies have emerged in efforts to explain the roles and positions of people in the processes of living in a world of limited survival resources. Marxism looks at how classes emerge in society as to what and how much access the people have to the ownership and control of the means of production. The upper, ruling classes own more at the expense of the lower classes, who are the oppressed. Socialism propagates ideas that the workers shall share ownership of the means of production.
In Capitalism, the means of production are in varying magnitudes owned by individuals or corporate structures. Those that don’t own shall be in perpetual servitude to the Capitalists, the former selling their labour cheaply to the latter. Capitalism aims to earn profit upon selling their goods and services at prices higher than production costs, which include labour costs.
Ideally, Communism eliminates private property and socio-economic classes. Here, the state owns the commanding heights of the economy and manages the economy for the people, who are co-owners and shall be equal beneficiaries of the bounty of the land according to their respective needs. Communism takes Socialism to the next level.
Regardless of where we are in the world, politics permeates all aspects of our lives. It doesn’t matter whether one is oblivious to the intricacies of politics or not. It is the politically ignorant and/ or indifferent that make for the rise of pathetic politicians as to the likes of Donald Trump. To understand politics is to understand humanity and its place in the universe.
If USA’s January 6, 2021, insurrection is anything to go by, politicians of personalities like Donald Trump are some of the most dangerous national leaders we can have anywhere in the world. Being the most powerful country in the world, whatever good or bad happens in the USA has enormous positive effects or repercussions in the world. This affects us all, irrespective of whether we are interested in politics or not.
If you are a practicing or an aspiring International Trade business person, follow events in America in your wealth creation and management endeavours.
Those who follow local and international politics with critical thinking minds are never taken by surprise when world peace conditions or world economic trends point north or south. The well-informed can predict potential outcomes of events at home and/ or abroad. Therefore, because I can see the potential danger that Donald Trump poses to his country, and subsequently the rest of the world, I write and talk about him to quell my frustration with the American Nightmare.
Furthermore, I write and talk about Trump to repeal my anxiety, and to fortify my soul in the threat of the World War III outbreak peril he’d pose to humanity should he return to power in the forthcoming USA Presidential Elections 2024, on November 5. First, there’ll be the 2nd American Civil War. People, get ready! I’ve done my part: I’ve told you so.
SETHOTSELA (continued)
Sethotsela scares the living daylights out of those who encounter it. The unfortunate can even die. Those who have been in the presence of sethotsela and survived can become so traumatized that they begin to worship its mystic; doing everything possible to avoid crossing paths with the dreadful spectre.
This creature can also be deliberately made out of various materials, making a mannequin to represent a likeness of a marked dead person. Witchcraft rituals are then applied to give life to the mannequin. At worst, a sethotsela can be a silent, elusive killer; an instrument of coercion. Amongst others, the idea may be, on behalf of the witchcraft practitioner, to eliminate people from, or to force them by fear to vacate certain areas. That way, enabling the witchcraft people to acquire more land and property, enhancing their power over their fellow citizens.
SEBOPUA
In my mother tongue, Sesotho, the verb ‘to mold’ (with clay) is ho bopa (ka letsopa). By extension, ho bopa describes ‘to form’, or ‘to create’ a tangible, inanimate object out of clay or any other similar malleable material. The objects made may be of functional, ornamental, or both values. They may also be aesthetically attractive or repulsive according to the eye of the beholder. And, they may either be destructive or life-supporting, either by design or accident, through intentional application.
For purposes of this presentation, we shall work with the concept of ho bopa in terms of creation as a force. In this case, creation manifesting a dysfunctional output; a thing, with a potential for destruction of the self and/ or its environment. I define creation here to be the supra-human force that is responsible for the existence of the universe and all that exists or doesn’t exist in it. What is, how, and when creation made the universe is a question answered relative to earthlings’ capacity to fathom the extent of the universe as to the universe’s magnitude and its functional attributes.
Human beings’ capacity to understand creation as a conceptual or objective reality is a function of the individual’s cognitive wiring. This influences the individual’s reasoning power contra existential questions, big or small. Therefore, whilst one person might attribute creation to the power of God, another will attribute it to the Big Bang. In-between, there are alternative explanatory models as numerous as there are humans on earth. I won’t go there.
Etymologically expanding ho bopa leads us to, amongst others, the adjective sebopua. The latter approximately translates as ‘a product of creation’. i.e., a thing, an object the existence of which is acknowledged simply because it exists as a result of creation’s infinite creative potential. Creation gets it right most times; it screws up badly sometimes.
Sebopua is thus used to describe people of various degrees of physical handicaps and intellectual disabilities; often from birth. It may be due to birthing complications, illness, inherent neurological or genetic aberrations, accidents, and many more. The expression sebopua is often applied derogatively. It may also be used in exasperation as a manifestation of grief against a condition of hopelessness, extreme suffering for the afflicted, and the next of kin as well; including national social welfare authorities, where applicable.
On the one extreme, there’ll be a wholly physically disabled person of any age; drawing sympathy from others: harmless, poor, unfortunate product of God’s creation.
On the other extreme, there’ll be a borderline, apparently normal person. But they will have all kinds of eccentricities. These render the sebopua incapable of functioning within socially conventional boundaries of human interactions. Much so in adulthood, people in this category tend to live in parallel universes contra mainstream social wisdom concerning how society is organized; from the smallest family units to the larger national entities. Here, the term sebopua is applied derisively, and it may attract animosities towards the concerned.
Sebopua people break all the rules, either purposely or because ‘it is what it is’. They don’t know anything else but their unique ways of looking at the world. They cannot understand that others can think or act differently from them in given situations. They simply don’t know how to empathize: it’s their way or no way at all. Civility is a concept unknown here. Sebopua people are ever such spoilt brats, from childhood to the grave. They are bullies; outright dumbheads. They are deceitful charmers capable of gross manipulation of the emotionally and/ or mentally weak; instilling lasting loyalty to the self from the subjugated through fear: The Ruthless Rule.
Nevertheless, some of human history’s greatest thinkers and inventors the works of whom society benefits from even today can easily be drawn from the eccentrics above. These often tend not to be too much of a burden to society. For example, love or hate Elon Musk for screwing up by X-ing Twitter; he has given us the Tesla brand, SpaceX and Starlink. It is those that are inclined to destruction that are a curse to humanity. Some of the most perilous leaders in human history have emerged from the latter category of sebopua, a freak of creation. Donald Trump fits into this category. Perfectly.
The thing about sebopua is that they are just a thing. They are devoid of coherent feelings and thoughts expression, be it verbal or written. Sebopua are one-way-traffic dysfunctional communication machines. Their language skills often leave much to be desired. Sebopua given to verbal diarrhoea crap-talk inclinations, talking to one could as well be as good as talking to a clay-molded human figure.
Sebopua can be indifferent to the elements; they might know no pain. The only form of pleasure that matters for sebopua is their staying alive at the expense of their perceived and real enemies, not understanding how anybody can be so stupid compared to their, sebopua’s superior intelligence. Sebopua brutality can be horrendous. Woe to the spineless that fall for sebopua’s deceptive charisma. Woe to non-stayer enemies of sebopua. Find Yevgeny Prigozhin, he’ll tell you about Vladimir Putin. Mike Pence barely survived Trump’s Maga lynching mob
Another thing about sebopua is that an eccentric sebopua is a sebopua. The condition knows no colour; it knows no race. The only difference is the relative extent of power exercised, and access to weapons of destruction according to sebopua’s location on the planet. This here debunks racism as an ideology that claims and pushes ideas that some races are inferior to others. In a perfect world of the free, people group in cliques not always out of racial identity solidarities.
Both for the good and the bad, people are drawn to and bond with one another out of shared mental constructs; i.e., shared world views as to common fears, or other human passions. Opposite poles attract is a magnetic studies principle in Physics. In human relations, bonds reflecting and upholding certain innate behavioural attributes are captured in the idiom birds of a feather flock together.
There’s sebopua in a cul-de-sac in America today: Donald Trump. The walls are closing in. I wonder what he’s going to do when he can’t breathe anymore. They say he farts all the time. In England, another one bit the dust: Boris Johnson with Brexshit. The world must now learn to stop political experiments with dibopua (sebopua plural form) if we have learned anything from the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.
In the old days, dibopua used to be hidden away. Or worse. Democracy is a wonderful thing in our times: everyone has the right to live. In principle. Whatever the cost. However, there’s a tipping point to everything in life. May the fair and just prevail in all holes and surfaces of the planet. May light reign supreme. Ultimately. The future must be bright for all.
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
January 13, 2022
Updated: 20.05.2024
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𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗥𝗨𝗧𝗛𝗟𝗘𝗦𝗦 𝗥𝗨𝗟𝗘, 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝟮
𝗠𝗔𝗚𝗔 𝗔𝗠𝗘𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗔 𝗦𝗔𝗠𝗘 𝗔𝗦 𝗗𝗔𝗥𝗞 𝗔𝗙𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗔: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗵 𝗔𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮 𝗖𝗮𝘀𝗲
I’m ever so fascinated by the USA. At first, it was the illusion of the Dream of America. This Dream of America still lures poor, mostly involuntary wretched souls of the earth hoping to taste heaven on earth before they die. Some get to believe that they have secured a better future for their offspring, just from the first step on the soil of the land of dreamers. Going down on their knees, they kiss the Dream of America’s Mother Earth in deep felt gratitude.
The poor souls will have survived atrocities-extreme and/ or natural calamities in their original homelands in various parts of the world – elimination hole countries, as one elimination munching American mouth has called them. The stench of America emanating from the mouth nauseating the world. Like they’d be anywhere else in the world for they are human too, vile fortune hunters who’d eat their own mothers are also in the Dream of America rat race, abusing the poor hopefuls in all sorts of abhorrent ways.
The vile hustlers get to the land of Lady Liberty. They ride on the American Nightmare blood train, amassing the Green Back by any means. With the Dollar might, they burn and turn the land and the world red with their relentless destructive ways of relating to and managing society, to say the least of Mother Earth. Just hear them crap-talk Global Warming as a concept and reality. Sometimes I wonder if these cognitively inadequate people have their filthy elimination holes as the abodes for their brains. Scum of humanity.
My continuing fascination with the USA is about the elimination holes brains personalities fronting the American Nightmare discourse and social engineering efforts. I throw their supporters in the same boat of inherent or wilful ignorance and bigotry: dim-witted charlatans.
Between 1960 and 1975, I was born and raised in a systemically racist, self-encaged, media-repressive, stifled African people’s education, international relations pariah then-Apartheid South Africa. Elimination holes brains personalities fronting the American Nightmare want to establish a 21st Century Apartheid Dream of America state. A messy, costly, bloody lost cause.
From my childhood days in the 1960s to the mid-teens in the 1970s, the American Dream of heaven on earth was fed into my eyes through beautiful pictures of American life in carefully state-selected and censored magazines and movies. There were, of course, glimpses of pictures of violence on Black people here and there; also, those of gruesome assassinations of politicians and entertainers. Pictures of homeless people languishing on city street pavements, if not under bridges appeared here and there too.
But, the pictures of the glamorous Dream of America were overwhelming; from Miss World-type girls to style, automobiles, and New York City night neon lights, amongst others. The visual impact was accentuated by the sound of music. Some of them aware or not, Mega Stars across the musical genres sold the Dream of America more effectively than any other propaganda agents. In the South Africa of my childhood days, all the adult Jazz and Soul music lovers that I knew dreamt of going to America to see their favourite stars. Many believed that, given the apparent success of big names like Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Louis Armstrong, Sam Cooke, James Brown, Ella Fitzgerald, and Aretha Franklin, to name but a few, America sure was Black people’s The Promised Land. Little did my music-loving South African aunts and uncles know about the history of Black African people’s slavery in the making of the American Dream economic might.
On the radio, jingles accompanying adverts of consumer items from cornflakes to tobacco always left me giddy in the head in their sweetness of melodies and painting of America as the epitome of high living. I couldn’t wait to get to America to enjoy all these amazing products from the source. Man, imagine me drinking Coca-Cola sitting in the Waldorf Astoria New York in the company of an American Miss World! That used to be a truly compelling dream.
And there was sport. Muhammad Ali’s boxing prowess notwithstanding, his political outspokenness in the Civil Rights sphere painted the path for my journey to The Promised Land someday. Post-the-Apollo 11 moon landing of 1969, I would for many years in wonder gaze long at the full moon. I never had ambitions of flying to the moon, but I used to think that if America could send men to the moon and back, then, in America, I could be all the great things I dreamt of being when I grew up.
In reality, though, I only wanted to be a medical doctor so that I could operate on people’s hearts like Dr Chris Barnard had done in Grooteschuur Hospital, Cape Town, on the 3rd December 1967. And I wanted to be rich and famous like the flashy heart surgeon. I was seven-and-half years old, then, and was already beginning to read newspaper headlines. Living in a highly politically charged environment whilst going to school in Lesotho at that time, I had already become an aspiring avid radio news listener. Therefore, I understood early that since I was not White, I could but with difficulty, perhaps, be a heart doctor in then-Apartheid South Africa. Instead, America would make me a great doctor, I earnestly believed.
From South Africa, via Zambia, I would end up in Norway 21 years later. I became a jack of many trades, but not a doctor. It is what it is. No worries. I have become an author; I write books. I am happy. I look at the USA with mixed emotions: feeling lied to, but not crushed. I am disappointed and appalled by the inhumane, parochial, and degenerative side of America that nearly half of the country’s population not only exhibits with impunity but strives to expand and perpetuate. All spearheaded by the insular, living-in-the-past racist White Supremacist MAGA America movement bent on establishing an Apartheid Dream of America state in the 21st Century.
As I write and think, and think and write, I find that the sociology of the American Nightmare half of America is not in any way divergent from that which I left behind in my Black South African township, Thabong, Welkom. This is transferable to urban South Africa across the board from Apartheid days to the present.
South Africa is a perfect USA microcosm match in more ways than one. In that sense, it’s just as well that I’ve ended up in Norway; a country by far better run than both South Africa and the USA. If the then-Apartheid South Africa came close to crushing my soul, the USA would have killed me already, I suspect. By the numbers, and by the guns, vicious MAGA America is more lethal than the pre-1994 South African township at any time, like-minded as they may be.
The regressive nature of American MAGA power relations dynamics is not different from that prevalent in Black South African townships. I’ll shortly demonstrate this in an exposé of the Township Nightmare power relations personality traits. In the same vein, I’ll implicitly demonstrate that human personality traits are driven by inherent internal biological structures and processes that supersede race and ethnicity theories.
For example, a human heart as an organ is a human heart whether it’s in the body of a male or female White, Black, or whatever colour of the spectrum person. Similarly, adrenaline is adrenaline; the nervous system is the nervous system. A certain neuro-hormonal imbalance will cause universally predictable behavioural outcomes cutting across race and ethnicity. That is how MAGA America can be understood in the context of the dark side of South African Black township culture. After all, South Africans and Americans are all human. Any human disease will similarly kill them if no necessary and recommended conventional medical preventive measures or curative treatments are given and adhered to. Needless to say, the recent COVID-19 pandemic caused havoc in much the same it did in South Africa as in the USA, including the rest of the world, of course.
The underlying guiding idea in my exposé is the consideration of psychopathy as an observable antisocial behavioural tendency amongst many MAGA America and South African Township Nightmare types.
Reacting to the strange, destructive behavioural tendencies exhibited by prominent American MAGA proponents, I, on October 13th, 2020, posted a comment on my Facebook feed. I have edited and expanded on the original text for this talk. And it goes as follows:
The hassle about psychopaths is that they cannot listen to reason; it’s beyond their cognitive capacities. For a psychopath, it’s their worldview or nothing. Conventional Ethics (right v/s wrong) and Morals (good v/s bad) are irrelevant concepts to psychopaths.
Depending on where in the world you live, are you on the ‘nothing’ side of a psychopath, they are likely to eliminate you in various ways. You’ll hear threatening expressions like, “We are coming for you!”. So, “… if you fuck around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done before,” Guess Who.
As history documents over and over again, a dead opponent to a psychopath is the preference. Nevertheless, history is full of examples of how psychopaths in leadership roles across the board tend to have tragic demises. Google ‘world despots’, please! It’s free.
Despite its imperfections, where democracy works comparatively kind of okay, people shall seek to talk issues over through various established governance platforms, no matter how challenging or futile the exercise may be. In the end, votes are taken. Assuming a perfect world, outcomes are acknowledged. And the winner takes it all. Life goes on.
Democracy allows for election outcomes to be challenged when irregularities have been observed at any point during the process. Or even when the losing side just wants to be a nuisance. Democracy in practice can stand a lot of crap. Psychopaths thrive on the latter fact.
As current history unfolding shows somewhere in the world, when psychopaths win, humanity gets ever closer to thresholds of self-annihilation. Therefore, be ever so careful about who you elect to power in your land. Don’t allow yourself to be charmed by the cheap-feelgood-chronic-diarrhoea-like buffoonery antics of psychopaths.
If you don’t know how to identify a psychopath, call my number. For I’m not a medical doctor, I’ll guide you through an illuminating philosophical discourse that works all the time. It’s all about, amongst others, a solid academic and professional training background. Go to school. Acquire knowledge for human progress. Take your children to school. Read much and well. Pass exams clean; don’t cheat. Don’t burn books.
Ultimately, the reality is, though, there is a psychopath in all of us. Summarizing my philosophical discourse on what attributes to look out for in deciding, after analyzing a person’s socio-behavioural incongruencies, whether they exhibit psychopathic tendencies or not, a close brother-confidant of mine once said, “So, a psychopath need not be a raving mad personality in our midst?”
Yours truly, “Yepp, that’s right!”
Brother-confidant, “It means, then, that a psychopath may be the everyday smart-looking person sitting next to, or in front of you right now at any place?”
Yours truly, “Sure thing! But it’s all about relativism, see? Know thyself!
Whether or not I have a personal or some other human aspects relationship with the concerned, my labelling of a person as a psychopath is my pre-emptive self-preservation measure. This also helps me to put into perspective events in my immediate and distant worlds given who the dominant actors are in the different parts of the world, them sharing or not sharing common interests.
In my private survival instincts world, I don’t need to have a medical doctor to declare for me whether I am dealing with or am observing a psychopath in my immediate spaces or far out in the wide, wide world. Descriptively, I know a psychopath when I see one. I then behave accordingly to protect myself and my own in the face of actual or potential psychopathic onslaughts upon us. It’s a doctor’s job to diagnose and treat the patient accordingly. They can take all the time they need.
And, talking about personal survival instincts, I had on an earlier Facebook post declared that “Uncivility is an effective manner of attaining some degree of civilized talks with psychopaths. Communication leads to mutually desired outcomes to the extent that involved parties apply the same language and familiar terms of references.
“Failure to break through psychopaths’ noise and deficient knowledge barriers should lead to withdrawal from talks, if feasible.
“Otherwise, the fools must be isolated, if not excluded from civilized social interactions. In the worst-case scenario, it may be necessary to eliminate them. Diplomacy has to have limits even in the free world.
“Democracy is designed to neutralize our passions in common human relations interaction spaces and circumstances. Wars and societal collapse are direct outcomes of lunatics being allowed too generous opportunities to play out their antics for far too long.”
Any reasonably intelligent person who’s gone to school and can read, think, see knowledge linkages, and can thus synthesize functional, universally applicable explanatory models towards understanding how life works on earth, can read many a professional text and make sense of it. If they don’t understand, they ask as a matter of course; they actively seek more information from relevantly knowledgeable human sources or books and other information storage and distribution facilities to debunk or confirm initial conclusions made. This is called research.
Through my various learning pursuits in my time, my private operational definition of what constitutes psychopathy or not is based on readings of publicly available subject literature that is written and wilfully published by qualified medical personnel of various specializations and levels of academic and professional standing across the globe. This includes literature publicized by a plethora of international human behavioural sciences professionals. Google this shit!
Don’t let yourself be intimidated by the arrogance of power from doctors, psychologists, and others whose professional literary works we all, with much admiration, flock to in our efforts to study and better understand the overall complexities of human nature. If they don’t want us free spirits to speak about human wellbeing issues, then, they must withdraw their publications. They must cease making their expertise publicly available reference materials in libraries and social media.
Simon Chilembo
Oslo
12.10.2020
I wrote the exposé essay of the South African Black Township Nightmare power relations personality traits on May 29th, 2021. Posted in my blog on the same date, the exposé bears the title:
THE RUTHLESS RULE
Kassie Jungle Law: Only the Strong Survive
In my never-ending attempt at seeking to make sense of events in the world today, I, as a reflex, regularly look back at the first fourteen-and-half years of my life in South Africa, 1960 June – 1975 January. Growing up in the then-racist apartheid state has profoundly impacted my life. Day-to-day living was ever so dramatically charged. Such that, on the one hand, one could but choose to numb oneself to the volatility of emotions, if not traumas arising, and live on disenchanted and detached from the gruesome, disenfranchised reality.
On the other hand, one could look at, hop onto the intricate traumatic feelings and thoughts bandwagon, learn survival ropes, and hope for the best; longevity being a remote idea. Wishful thinking. Although the OPEC oil crunch of the early 1970s had already begun to make its mark globally, this period could easily be seen as the golden years of the apartheid regime’s economic might. The oppressed Black population segment was subjected to extremes of state security agencies’ violence.
Oppression is some costly business. It curtails human resources’ productive potential growth and manifestation. Atrocious. Oppression will last to the extent that the oppressors’ financial base remains sufficiently robust to sustain the oiling of the oppressive state machinery at all levels. Money talks. Money rules.
As it is with South Africa, a country’s endowment with a variety of natural resources that the world is willing to pay generously for is of crucial importance. Oppressors maximize their hold by capturing the wealth of their nations, therefore. They personalize their wealth, becoming super-rich individually and along with their family members, as well as their power clique hounds: oligarchs’ fangs drooling kleptocracy and nepotism poison in everything they touch. At the same time, their nations get caught in quagmires of long-term poverty and international indebtedness.
The Soweto Students’ Uprising of June 16, 1976, would not only change the liberation struggle course. It changed the political landscape of South Africa as well; further weakening the oppressive state’s capital base. Apartheid had to ultimately collapse. Not because somebody woke up one morning and suddenly discovered that the system was diabolic. The fact is that it simply was no longer economically viable. And prospects of any meaningful bounce back were bleak. Added pressure from the international trade sanctions had brought the country down to its knees.
The effective brutality of the apartheid regime reproduced itself across the entire Black populace by default – in the home; at absolutely all levels of social interaction. That is visible to such an extent that the nature of fundamental survival power relations dynamics cultivated then amongst Black people themselves have endured. It is manifest at even more sophisticated, grander scale, and more destructive levels in keeping with societal management complexities and technological advancements of the times in the 21st Century.
During the apartheid domination years, many a Black South African exile carried along with them these survival power relations dynamics into the Diaspora. Not that it helped the concerned exiles much from the point of view of applying the same survival strategies as generally functional in the township, or kassie culture in Black South Africa. Kassie is a corruption of the Afrikaans language word, lokasie; which means location. Observing, establishing, and maintaining links with fellow South African exiles has kept my fascination with the Black people’s fundamental survival power relations dynamics alive during all these years.
Post-1994 South Africa has also been accessible to me. It’s the land of my birth, the land of my family’s maternal-side ancestry, after all. Thirty-eight-and-half years since living abroad, I returned to stay in the country for five years, 2013-18. As such, I have been in touch with the trends in the land all along. Much had changed drastically at about all levels. However, characteristic personal survival attitudinal attributes have remained constant. I shall dwell on these later on in this essay as I unravel prerequisites for the workings of the ruthlessness of kassie jungle law rule.
Kassie is a funky catchphrase these days. But originally, it essentially implied a slum; not much unlike Brazilian favelas, for example. In practice, the meaning hasn’t changed in any big way. From the colonial era, peaking during the apartheid years, and stretching into contemporary times, tens of thousands-upon-thousands-to-millions of Black South Africans were dumped here. It initially was predominantly male labourers working in the mines and the agro-industrial complex.
There would be a few state functionaries and even fewer professionals in various vocational categories here and there. Much as there would be numerous fortune hunters engaged in all kinds of illicit endeavours; from petty crimes to large-scale organized crime activities involving alcohol, drugs, precious stones and metals smuggling, human trafficking, prostitution, and more. Family units would eventually emerge as a natural human development process, of course. Children would be born, raised, become adults, lead miserable lives, and subsequently die; the indignity of poverty accompanying them to the grave. Causes of death varying, from murder to illness, if not natural causes.
Prevalent land conditions are far from prime in the townships. This makes the construction of decent domiciles a daunting challenge for impoverished people. Sustainable subsistence food production from the land is near impossible. Minimal to total lack of functional social amenities comes with the package here. If there was anything prime about the original townships, it was the potential to induce and generationally perpetuate poverty with all its attendant maladies: disease, moral decay, ignorance. All that to facilitate self-annihilation amongst Black people: kill them; let them kill themselves; create space for more European trash to come to work, settle, and add to the growth of the white population in the country.
Conditions are even worse these days, taking into consideration, since 1994, the influx of millions of refugees and fortune hunters from war-torn, dysfunctional African states to the north. Others come from other parts of the world, especially Asia. Competition for limited resources and liveable spaces in the townships has spiked exponentially, apparently in favour of the new immigrants.
Many of the new immigrants come into South Africa with more by far international hustling experience: higher academic qualifications and vocational experience in both the social and natural sciences, military or guerilla warfare experience, and all that it entails – daring nature, PTSD, and other related outcomes. They also have investment capital for entrepreneurial ventures in various fields, often starting with small-scale grocery stores called spaza shops.
The latter attributes above are often accompanied by extreme manifestations of arrogance of power towards the locals, who are considered to be intellectually lacking, lazy, and fearful of White people, who still own the land, anyway. It’s hardly surprising, therefore, that strong anti-immigrant sentiments have mushroomed across the country, culminating in several outbursts of brutal xenophobia-inspired violence in recent years.Afro-xenophobia expression is ascribed to South African Black-on-African Black violence. In keeping with characteristic basal kassie culture, violence is the first instinctual option to eradicating conflict. Tragedy is ever the outcome that never brings forth solutions for a peaceful co-existence for all in the country.
The reality of the matter is that, much like the Ununited States of America, South Africa owes much of its economic might to the historical inflow of migrants from all corners of the world. As I’ve already implied above, these people bring into the country a wide diversity of creative/ intellectual/ academic, productive, and entrepreneurial skills that contribute to the robustness of the country’s vibrant economic and social advancement in the long run.
There’ll always be a few bad apples here and there. But assuming a functional justice system prevailing in the land, relevant policing and legal institutions are there to deal with lawbreakers. South Africa is truly a multi-cultural melting pot. Bishop Desmond Tutu’s broadly embraced Rainbow Nation nickname for the country supersedes discrimination neither based on race nor origin of the people that call South Africa their home, either by birth or immigration.
From an epistemological perspective, it is clear that the concept of township/ location/ kassie in South Africa was never meant to create ideal, conducive conditions for Black people to thrive and propagate themselves; neither to attain ever higher standards of living in time, in pace with national economic growth prospects.
The rise of apartheid economic might was at the expense of the lives of Black people, both at the hands of the apartheid state security machinery, and intra-Black violence across mainly urban South Africa. Many other Black lives were also lost through fatal accidents and occupational diseases in the agro-industrial-mining complex. Functionally concerning apartheid intentions, townships were supposed to provide temporary shelter for lives destined to be “… solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.”
But then again, survival instincts abode in all humanity. People can remain wretched only for so long. If they are not wiped off from the face of the earth, they shall engage in all sorts of means to prolong their existence. Perhaps fate can change for someone, someday: break the bonds of subjugation, rise and liberate the people, and, ideally, live happily ever after in boundless abundance.
In the meantime, at the individual level in the South African kassie context, survival was and still is about ruthless “semphete ke o fete” (Sesotho: don’t overtake me, I overtake you – the rat race) tendencies. Here, the strong survive. The ruthless rule; applying cruelty as their claim to prosperity and longevity.
Brought forth, elaborated in my Black South African context, and set in alphabetical order below are personal dispositions I’ve identified as being cardinal for relative individual survival and ruling potential in the South African kassie culture of violence. That as a tool for understanding the nature of human relations power dynamics, and consequences thereof, at all levels of contemporary society, both locally and globally (In the latter, i.e., globally, the USA fits in like a glove). The respective attributes may be understood regarding the identification of the individual as to who they are, and what their social standing is concerning behavioural phenomena observed of them. In essence, this is the making of despots ekassie, a microcosm of the Dream of America nightmare:
- Bodomo (street parlance – Setsotsi) is derived from the Afrikaans word dom. Alternatively bokwala (Sesotho), it means stupidity; downright idiocy. Amidst events, act like you don’t know what’s going on. Go about your daily business indifferent as to whether or not you cause others harm in your endeavours; you lack empathy. You are not interested in reason; you are obstinate like hell. You are a denialist. You are a revisionist.
- Bokhopo (Sesotho) is cruelty. When it is deep-seated, merciless, non-benevolent, and non-repentant it is called khohlahalo in the same language. Rule by absolute iron-fisted fearsomeness. Without exception, anybody transgressing you in any way shall suffer the full ruthlessness of your wrath in line with the nature of the offence and the choice of punishment you dim fit. The line between life and death is often very thin here. This tends to elicit baffling loyalty from your cohorts. Much to the bewilderment of your detractors.
- Ho tella (Sesotho)/ ukudelela (isiZulu) is an uninhibited show of lack of respect. Total disdain. You are brazen. You bulldoze your way through towards the attainment of your power or material acquisitions, and other egocentric ambitions. In your interpersonal and other relations in the community, it’s your rules or no rules at all.
- Lenyatso (Sesotho) is the root of ho tella and leqhoko, immediately above and below respectively. It means to undermine, to belittle other people. Tools applied include patronization, ridicule, insults, unjust criticism, passive aggression, isolation or exclusion, subjugation; all propelled by jealousy and/ or feelings of threat irrationally perceived or real because the victim may, indeed, be the better person in many respects. The idea is to crush the victim, cut them to size, and put them in their place of insignificance. This is pure mental and emotional abuse that often easily degenerates to physical abuse.
- Leqhoko (Sesotho) is provocativeness. Be agitative even out of nothingness just so your presence is noticed, is not forgotten. Be relentlessly disruptive. Cause havoc; be an ass. Instigate and sustain fear. Use all means at your disposal: bully, defame, riot, vandalize, pillage, depose, fight, maim, kill. Ultimately, emerge as the leader of the pack; level-headed and solution-oriented, if only to cow and manipulate the terrorized towards aiding to secure attained dominant safe position.
- Mamello (Sesotho)/ Qinisela (isiXhosa/ isiZulu) refers to tolerance capacity; endurance in both hard and good times, depending. Good times are generally no big deal. But in hard times, practice self-preservation by keeping to yourself and your own. Hang in there. Stay away from trouble. Be invisible. Make no noise. Cultivate hope. Keep the faith because everything is going to be alright someday. Persevere.
For the mighty, though, mamello/ ukuqinisela means staying the course no matter what: keep on pushing; stand tall, don’t fall. Never, never, never give up! Never change the course of action once commitment to act in a certain manner is made. Here, mamello/ ukuqinisela becomes an interplay of bodomo, bokhopo, ho tella, leqhoko, and manganga in variable doses and combinations according to the circumstances prevailing at any one time and space. - Manganga (Sesotho)/ Inkani (isiZulu) is absolute stubbornness. Take a stand, be resolute to the very end, whatever the cost. Whether or not original intended goals are attained is not the essence. You are defiant to the extreme. Stay rock-steady as a matter of principle because you cannot be wrong, or you cannot be denied your demands. You are the truth. You are the light. If you are not the son of God, then you ARE God! Your opponents shall declare you as deranged, delusional; but that doesn’t bother you at all. You are mmampodi (Sesotho)/ champion; you rule. You live above the law. You own your followers through and through. Each one of them understands that you are their life saviour.
A street parlance (Setsotsi) adage goes like this, “Maziwaziwe, maz’bidlikaz’bidlike! (isiZulu)/ If they (e.g. towers) fall, they fall; if they collapse, they collapse!”
It is what it is.
Tyrants, hard-core conspiracy theorists, and charlatans fall under this category. So, in the USA, Coronavirus is just the common flu; “… it’ll disappear just like a miracle!”
Not forgetting The Big Lie that Joe Biden and the Democrats stole the presidential elections of November, 2020. And then supporters of The Big Lie insurrect The Capitol peacefully like tourists, leaving destruction and carnage behind. Very special people that The Big Lie spinner loves.
You can also do an egotistical, parochial, typically false premises pushed brexshit and pull your country out of a body of international solidarity in the Western world.
Neither does State Capture exist in South Africa. You know none in your family that has contracted AIDS in South Africa. Therefore, it doesn’t exist. Step aside rule in the ANC? What’s that? If you are indeed going to fall, you don’t go alone. You are vindictive. - Sebete is a Sesotho word for liver.The liver is considered to be an organ of courage in my part of Black South African culture. A courageous person is said to “have a liver”/ O sebete. Courage is a common thread linking all survival, or power attributes in kassie.
Ho sa (Sesotho, noun), lumps together the attributes above into one virulent trait: petulance as gross as only an extremely spoiled brat can display. The descriptive form of ho sa is “O sele!”, meaning “He/ she is petulant!”
People of all ages manifesting ho sa as a characteristic social interaction trait are some of the most dangerous a community can have. Makings of despots emerge here.
Underpinning the relative kassie individual survival and ruling potential laid out above is the question: O tshepile mang (Sesotho)? Which directly translates as, “Who is it you trust?”
Who’s covering your back?
Simple as the question might seem, it is not necessarily a daily conversation question posed in my original part of Black South Africa. The question is profound to the extent that it is asked a person directly, or others are asked about a particular individual when the latter’s negative behaviour defies not only mainstream social protocols across the board, but sheer common sense as well. It is believed that there must be some extra-ordinary qualities, some mystic about these kinds of people. For example:
- What gives them the guts? What makes them tick?
- Whose progeny are they? What are their lineages?
- Do they have some guardian angels, perhaps? In that case, who are the latter? Where are they?
- What do they have that ordinary people do not have?
- Are they working for somebody even more powerful than themselves? Who are these people?
- Are they protected by God? Ancestral spirits? Wizards and witches?
- Or are they just raving mad, sick in their heads? Are they bewitched?
- Do they have magical powers themselves? If so, from where do the powers derive?
- Are they members of some organized crime gangs? Or some secret societies? The Illuminati?
- Is it just because they are too rich? But where does their wealth come from?
It’s only if and when sufficient knowledge about these treacherous people is gathered that concerned individuals or the community can effectively react to get rid of them in one way or another. It’s not unusual that the former fall from glory in the most dramatic and humiliating fashions; those who lived by the sword dying exactly as they lived. Such is kassie life. The ruthless rule but momentarily.
The strong are often the smart with senses of moral and ethical awareness. They tend to survive, break out of the mould of kassie misery and ignorance, and live longer. Some in this category will in time even travel wide and see the world, permanently breaking the spell of kassie anti-life attributes. Expressing themselves through diverse media and creative and performance forms, they may also become proponents of liberty, justice, and equality as fundamental Human Rights tenets all of humanity on earth is entitled to.
Meanwhile, South Africa has yet to cleanse itself of the kassie anti-life attributes spell, to the extent that it’s possible. However, given the current display of elite kassie mentality antics in various judicial and organizational platforms in the country, it is clear that much more work remains to be done at this rate. Well, cumulatively from the onset of contemporary European colonialism in the 17th Century up to the apartheid era in the 20th Century, the mechanizations that facilitated their imposition had at least four hundred years to dehumanize my people and screw up our psyche. The Rainbow Nation is only twenty-seven years old.
Khotso is a common Sesotho name for South African males. It means peace. The female version is Mma-Khotso both as a formal name and may denote that the woman is a mother of a boychild called Khotso. The name has significant connotations. In practice and conceptually, peace is a universal prerequisite for progressive human co-existence. That making for harnessing humanity’s creative potential towards a sustainable, infinitely fulfilling life for all. The South African national anthem, Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika! (Nkosi Sikelela) is essentially a cry for peace, captured in the Sesotho text:
Morena boloka sechaba sa heso/ Lord Almighty, save my nation
O fedisa dintwa le matshwenyeho/ Bring an end to strife and suffering
Were the ruthless and the smart kassie people of South Africa and beyond to realign their attitudes and heed the message of Nkosi Sikelela, the future would be bright for all. I want to be here in four hundred years to gloss in the glory of the heaven on earth that South Africa and the rest of the world will have become. I sit here in a space of relative peace. I breathe. I dream. I write. I make YouTube videos. Ever conscious of the lasting impact that my kassie life background has had on me, I have every reason to want to choose to be hopeful.
I can be hopeful about the future because I am happy all the time. Watch this video here to see how you can be happy all the time, and make somebody’s day every day into the future.
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
May 29, 2021
𝗟𝗢𝗩𝗘 𝗟𝗘𝗧𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗦 𝗣𝗢𝗘𝗧𝗥𝗬
𝗪𝗛𝗘𝗡 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗞 𝗦𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗞𝗦 𝗖𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗩𝗜𝗧𝗬, 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗗𝗢 𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗗𝗢?
DISCLAIMER
I am not an employee of NAM (Nasjonalmuseet/ the National Museum of Art, Architecture, and Design). I work at NAM on behalf of an outsourced service provider, in which I have full-time employment. This presentation today is one of several literary creative inspirations that I have so far gotten whilst performing my formal duties at NAM. The presentation is unsolicited, and it is done with no inherent ulterior motives. It is done and delivered with but the best of intentions, without fear or favour.
Neither NAM nor my employer can or must be directly nor indirectly associated with the thoughts, opinions, and sentiments I am going to express in this presentation. I alone am responsible for the contents herein. I hope, though, that the output shall be of a quality and standard that shall cause neither embarrassment nor disrepute for both NAM and my employer.
The inspirational moment, and its subsequent outcomes, i.e. poem, publication in a book, and the social media video recital here would have happened regardless of whether or not I worked at NAM. All that needed to happen was for my eyes to fall on the particular inspirational object. It could have been anywhere, at any time. It just happened to be at NAM, Oslo, on October 28th, 2022 this time around.
As I walk through, back and forth, round and around in my professional errands in the various public exhibition spaces in the museum, the vast variety of objects on display works my emotions and thoughts in phenomenal ways. Many a time I feel like I see myself floating in this boundaryless enclosure that is an intermingled environment of what I’ve gathered of ideas of heaven and hell. In this environment, the material and the conceptual are all merged into one new reality that defies human speech for description. The opposites as we know them on the earthly plane cancel out one another in this strange new reality. And it doesn’t matter.
For example, in this temporary but recurring new reality, I don’t see the environment as I do with my eyes distinguishing between normal light and darkness. The sensory organs don’t work in the conventional way here. When I expect to hear a sound in my head, as from observing a painting depicting fire, somehow silence claims its space. It’s in conflicting but harmonic moments like these that I get lost in time and space.
And, in silent thunderous flashes of light, clouds of inspiration engulf my thoughts with darkness. Through this haze, I get to sense words in either written or spoken forms. In this state of mind, I lack a background upon which to base my experience of these words that I hear in what I perceive as silent sound in stationary motion. This is how my writings come to be. Preserving my sanity, thereby. I appreciate art for what its charming beauty and its irresistible goriness do to ever kindle my creativity. A work of art has not moved me if my response to it does not inspire an expressive textual idea in my head.
Immersed in the writing process, I do not create writing ideas from nothing. My writing ideas are stimulated through my responses and reactions to my actual interactions with events and attributes of my environments at any one time. It is not always that the writing idea shall be manifest at all. It is one thing to have an inspiration, and it is another to bring the inspiration to life – the mood, time, and space have to be right. That means that my literary output so far is only the tip of the iceberg concerning how much more I shall potentially produce. Every day I can’t help but get several concrete inspirational moments stored in my creative database in my brain. Therefore, I work at the right place at the right time. I shall live to see my 1000th book published before I’m a hundred years old.
Every piece of poetry, essay, or novel that I write helps me to hold my feet on the ground. The writing process cleanses my soul; it elevates my passion for living. This is so because, when I write, I get lost in a realm of being in which asking existential questions and finding functional answers are the imperatives for survival. This is the realm in which, with text, I get to materialize for life my dreams, my hopes, and fears. I am eternally grateful for the privilege of working at NAM for what immense value the workspaces add to my creativity.
Currently, and until January 14th, 2024, NAM has a major exhibition of some of the works of Harriet Backer. The exhibition is called Every Atom is Colour. Whenever I’m in the magnificent exhibition hall, I get a sense of a warm, safe, homely feeling. This is reminiscent of the better part of my formative years whilst attending school in Lesotho, 1965-69. I feel and see so much of my late maternal grandmother’s aura throughout the space.
Harriet Backer gives me a reassuring, here-and-now sensation in my entire being. I see myself walking into a bright future standing still with time in Harriet Backer’s presence. This is much like seeing the visions of the kingdom of God that my grandmother used to tell me about. She used to say that I was a chosen child of God; when I’m grown up, I’d be king of my people. And, when I die, I’ll be headed to heaven, where I’ll sit on the right side of God, and live happily ever after. Amen!
I’m not quite ready to die yet. Heaven can wait.
I first met Harriet Backer in the northern spring of 2022, a few months before the official opening of NAM. Upon entering the room through its main entrance, I saw a portrait of a letter-reading girl hung up on the wall facing the entrance squarely from across the room. This was one of those love-at-first-sight moments that often make my heart sing throughout my body. The girl’s enthralling beauty reminded me of a girl that I once knew as a growing-up boy-to-man in South Africa in the early 1970s.
Each time I entered the room I’d daydream about the many, many love letters I’ve written in my time. The girl in the portrait is there but not there at the same time. I could bring her to life in my fantasies, but I could never have her in the flesh, yet I love her all the same. Hopeless love.
In the same manner, the girls I used to write letters to in many parts of the world were there in my fantasies as I sat down and wrote. The fantasies would get wilder tortuous during the replies waiting phases, which could be weeks to months in those pre-internet days. Upon receiving even only one reply after the long wait, I used to curse my fantasies for failing to bring in the flesh these girls home to me. But I kept hoping that one day, it would happen. I’m keeping the dream of love alive in memories of some of the girls now dead.
I’ve met numerous other new girls since. We don’t write letters these days. Social media and other modern communication platforms do the trick. But it’s not the same. I guess that’s how it took about six months before the poem inspired by the letter-reading girl came forth.
One day, as I stepped into, the Harriet Backer room, I marvelled at the especially silently exuberant nonchalance of my beloved letter girl on that particular day. Thinking that I saw the painting moving like it was being pushed towards the door, I feared she was shutting me out for once. At the same time, I felt welcome as I confirmed that the painting was attached fast to its regular spot.
I realized, then, that I hadn’t before thought about what the message in the letter could have been and from whom it may have come. I also realized that I had never gotten to look into her eyes since they were so fixed on the letter in her hands. Perhaps I should write her a letter, I thought. At that moment, then, I suddenly heard poetic words singing in my head; the poem Love Letter became the real-world outcome.
Before I read the poem, I have to make another disclaimer as I, in my words, describe what art is:
DISCLAIMER 2
I do not have any academic or professional training in art. My articulation of what art is a function of my layman’s instinctual appreciation of things beautiful against the ugly; both in the figurative and abstract manifestations as my senses perceive it in any given situation and space, at any given time. All I know is how to think and write, and write and think. Art is what I feel. If I feel it, I can think it. If I think it, I can write it. Writing is my art, my artistic expression. Writing is what I do; all attributable to my academic training.
WORKPLACE OF BEAUTIFUL THINGS
People do from time to time visit museums of all kinds for all kinds of recreational, educational, and research reasons. I work at Norway’s Nasjonalmuseet. The institution has proved to be an awesome literary creative’s wet dream for me as an author and poet. I get at least one goosebumps moment each day I am at work. Tens of thousands of works of art are on display throughout the eighty-nine exhibition spaces at the museum. In all their widely variable expressive forms, these artworks move me in a way that ever fills me with love and joy like I have never experienced before. Working here is a privilege I am much grateful for.
At different points in all the exhibition spaces in the museum, there are rest stations comprising benches upon extensions of which are placed, amongst other items, wooden playing cards. The cards have various quizzes and games for the guests to have a go at as they sit and rest. I, together with Ole, a fine but ever condescending colleague young enough to be my grandson, happened to have been engaged in a discussion about various aspects of the museum when we approached one such station. Ole then unexpectedly reached out and randomly pulled out a card from the bench extension. It turned out to be a quiz card with the question: ‘What is Art?’; creating a gotcha moment that I saw Ole revelling in.
Talking about Ole’s gotcha moment, this was yet another one of those moments in which a person of European extraction comes to me with the pre-conditioned notion that Black people are not cultivated enough to appreciate the finer aspects of European culture. Anyhow, my immediate response in this case was, “Art is the capturing of an experiential moment in time and space in order to, perhaps, tell a story about that experience in the future. This capture can be in any form or medium according to the proclivities and talents of the artist.”
Ole, “I hear you. But you will have to elaborate more on all that you have just said!”
Seeing as we had to attend to each our respective duties at work then, I replied, “I shall write an essay for you, then. Deal?”
“Deal!”
My definition of art shall be both conceptual and functional. Conceptually, I know art when I perceive it. I do not have to be told. I do not have to be instructed. I know art when my senses register it. Regardless of the representational form, the sentimental response that I get from experiencing any manifestation of art that I consider as beautiful is a constant. Conversely, an unattractive, unpleasant artistic form as I experience it emotionally affects me in the same way relevant to it irrespective of the form or the representational style.
Whenever I read a storybook (or even write one) that I enjoy, my breathing rate slows down, the total bodily relaxation I get gives me a wonderful warm feeling all over; I get goosebumps, and my palms get warmer and moist. This kind of feeling brings me immense joy. The dreamy state it gets me into sends me into a fantasy world of all things possible. If I had been, for one reason or another, going through hard times, this state brings hope home; it fills me with a sweet sense of freedom. In this state, I am invincible. This is my subjective domain for defining what beautiful art is for me as my perceptive senses – eyes, ears, skin, tongue, nose, intuition – register it, feed my hormonal system (feel-good hormones), and the latter instruct my nervous system to induce my being to act accordingly. Pure joy.
Whilst recognizing it for what it is, art that is repugnant to me is exactly that. If it makes me cringe, if it casts a shadow of pessimism over me, if it fills me with negative thoughts and associations, if it gives me a cold sweat, then it is bad art for me. There are times when I can see beauty in bad, ugly art, though. I think about the hands, or some other body parts, that created the work. Every hand shall tell its story according to its owner’s neuro-hormonal wiring and physical capabilities. One man’s apparent gory art may be another’s depiction of heaven. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Functionally, art is a conveyor of messages, a storyteller; a courier of generational narratives in humanity’s dances with nature and itself over time. Art can be an instrument of change. Art can repair the once broken. Art can inspire hope, faith, trust, and love. To the extent that art is a personal expression, art may speak for its creator. Art creators have the potential to make or break society. Ask God, man’s most divisive, master-of-carnage creation. God may have created man instead, her most complex work of art. The outcome is not any better.
Art is identity. Identity may be deception obscured in art. From the outset, art may be true by intent and purpose. But when human perception and interpretation of reality are as polychotomous as there are so many people on earth, art shall be true or fallacious as to the perceptive state
and cognitive capacity of the observer. Therein lies the mystique, the intrigue of art. Who am I? I am a man in love with art.
Art is some powerful stuff. Art is a human creative potential deserving to be handled with tender, loving care. At its best, art is an instrument of peace; art has the potential to stimulate reflection on the human condition. We rise, we fall; art captures all that. Art is beauty. Without beauty, life is not worth living.
Beauty moves humanity forward and higher on the scale of qualitative and quantitative improvements in life. It is not for nothing that nations of the world, interest organizations of all sorts and sizes, wealthy individuals, and many others invest heavily in the promotion, conservation, preservation, and storage of some of our most impactful of artworks over the epochs into the future. Art immortalizes human experience.
WHAT IS ART WORTH?
Your eyes see what they see. Your brains process your perceptions as to their inherent OS programming, i.e. the brain in concert with the hormonal system, which affects behaviour, ultimately influencing our decision or choice-making processes. Your expressive potential is manifest through your creative skills and particular materials and work tools preferences.
The expression of your observed reality or conjured fantasy isolated in your creative expression of choice shall, then, manifest the outcome we see as a work of art in its unique presentation that only you can tell it like it is. It’s up to the eye of the beholder to see or not to see the beauty, the function, and/or the worth of the work.
Simon Chilembo, December 29, 2023
I’ll write you a letter
Etch my words on paper
If it’s a crime to love you
Here is the evidence
My love for you
Is not
A judicial affair
For courtroom theatricals
For juries’ deliberations
For judges’ adjudications
I’ll etch portraits
Of my love for you
On canvas
Lock them in frames
We’ll want to meet again
The other side of
A thousand years ahead
Hanging on walls
In art museums
Of the world
For a billion eyes to see
I couldn’t hide
My love for you
For your eyes
That could never see
My love for you
In plain sight
END
©Simon Chilembo 28/10-2022
SIMON CHILEMBO
Oslo
Norway
January 07, 2024
𝗛𝗢𝗪 𝗜 𝗔𝗠 𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗣𝗬 𝗔𝗟𝗟 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗧𝗜𝗠𝗘
𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗣𝗜𝗡𝗘𝗦𝗦 𝗦𝗔𝗩𝗘𝗦 𝗟𝗜𝗩𝗘𝗦. 𝗧𝗥𝗬 𝗜𝗧!
CHANGE VERSUS SELF-LOVE
I love me just the way I am. That’s a given. If I could go changing, I don’t know if I’d be pleased with the outcome. For as sophisticated an organism as a human being is, change as an objective and subjective process is a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon. If planned and executed with specific, predetermined elements within specific parameters, change outcomes of the changeable could be predicted.
Randomly occurring change can lead to any previously known or unknown outcomes in any direction. A human being cannot be one thing or another, and that’s it. From the outset, human beings become the way that they are out of chance, instantaneous combinations of fixed familial heritage (i.e. genetics) and time-progressive, ever-variable socio-environmental factors (nurture).
INNER PEACE
The day I understood that I could only be what I am and that I could only do what I do at any one time because that’s what’s accessible to, doable, and fun here and now, I found inner peace; I loved myself more. I internalized the idea that I could, indeed, do anything towards the attainment of my dreams only to the extent that what is available and doable is compatible with my values. Compatibility with my physical and mental strengths, and my philosophical and spiritual equilibria, is an important determinant factor too.
THE IMPOSSIBLES
I’ll never venture to do the impossible beyond what my mind and body are not keen to pursue for lack of interest, curiosity, relevant competence, or application tools and other resources. For example, a Mt Everest Mountain climb expedition is out of the question for me. Neither do I even dream of traversing the Antarctic to reach the South Pole. I walk on the moon in my poetry only. I’m simply not cut out for these. No love lost.
Nonetheless, I do profoundly admire those people who partake and succeed in these and other related extreme effort endeavours. Attitudinally, these people inspire my will to win when I know that I do have what it takes to overcome obstacles to triumph in given contexts.
That’s how I could, in the comfort of my creative work studio on a tropical island somewhere, exclusively sit, think and write, and write and think every day of my life until the end of time. That’s me. My extreme sport is my far-reaching, deep-tranced, time-unbound literary creative exploits mind-games.
EXPLANATORY MODELS IMPERATIVE
If I cannot synthesize for myself an independent, scientifically sound, humane explanatory model for some material or conceptual endeavour I’m challenged or tempted to perform or be part of for any purpose, I’m not likely to do it. This attitude has enhanced my sense of freedom in the free world. It has empowered me with the idea that I do have much greater influence as to the direction and extent of the potential of my destiny; unpredictabilities of nature, human vulnerabilities against the forces of nature, and world socio-politico conditions notwithstanding.
My finding inner peace has enabled me to better know myself, appreciating my strengths in the hustle and bustle of living. Whilst not trivializing my apparent weaknesses in given situations, I never put much thought into the former. If I’m weak at it, then it’s not important for me. I care but little about it. I’ll always strive to harness all the strength I need in my efforts to realize the expected objectives of any endeavours that are of significant importance for my survival, or fulfilment of my professional and social obligations.
MY HERITAGE
Thanks to the inner peace that I enjoy, I have come to appreciate my origins more and more. I value more my parents, and I respect my lineages even more. All the glory I’ve basked in, and the hard times that I’ve had to endure in my life so far have more meaning now. The continual existential lessons owing to these life experiences form the foundation upon which my emotional-spiritual and mental-philosophical premises stand.
I have a greater sense of confidence in my perennial work to carve spaces of safety and comfort conducive to my creative work growth and consolidation. My hope for and faith in arriving at a future of light and abundance into longevity and immortality are enhanced. I have never been more optimistic about the future.
In my current state of overall well-being, I find myself risen above, if not distanced from all the major primitive, hate-laden man-on-man murderous wars tragedies in the world today. Daily, the world is online fed in real-time surreal images of extremes of cold-hearted human brutality played out by man on fellow man. All this is beyond my comprehension, defeating my capacity for independent, scientifically sound, humane explanatory model formulations in my endeavours to better understand my world. So, I withdraw, look into myself, and revel in my inner peace state of being in my war-free corner of the world.
BEAUTIFUL THINGS FULL OF LOVE
I look out into my immediate world and marvel at how blessed I am to live the life that I live, where I live in Norway. Many a weekday at my place of work is started by the smallest kindergarten children coming over to check out and learn about the wonderful works of art displayed here. When the mood is right, I get to sing for the children the first lines of the song ‘The Greatest Love of All’. Recollections of the joyous moments this unofficial bonus show creates for all I’ll take with me to my grave, should I die.
Throughout the work days, Tuesday-Sunday, locals and international tourists of all ages and walks of life flock to my workplace of beautiful things. Interacting with all these people is a joyous privilege that invariably contributes to the fortification of my inner-peace state of being. I’m happy at work.
PERVASIVE HAPPINESS
My happiness permeates all aspects of my life: the visible to the external world, and the invisible that form the core of me, my essence, that only I can experience and fathom. The latter is so profound that I cannot explain it in words. I only know that it’s there; and it plays itself out all the time in my interactions with people at all levels, be it in professional work or social settings. It plays itself out in my solitary moments also. That’s how it is that I don’t know what loneliness is as a personal experience. If I have an ever-green, loyal lifelong companion, it is my happy all the time state of being.
My jovial disposition is legendary even to me. I’ve been happy all the time for as long as I can remember. My happiness lives a life of itself inside of me. Of course, people and things will frustrate and anger me from time to time. I’m only human. I will express my frustration and anger in one way or another. The intensity or severity of my sentiments and reactions depends on the gravity of the matter as I see it there and then. But the core of my happiness has yet to crumble. Should my happiness ever crumble, then, that’ll be my demise. Goodbye, world; goodbye, beautiful people!
WHEN IT STARTED
I associate my first conscious encounter with happiness with Boxing Day morning, 1964. I was 4 ½ years old, then. Neighbourhood children poured into our home yelling incessantly, “Christmas box, Simon’s father, Christmas box …!!!”
In what I’d later understand to be Father Christmas style, Pappa came out of our house carrying a large box full of various kinds of colourful and noisy toys. There were lots of candies too. I stood there looking in amazement at these children happily pouncing upon the box, each child seeking to get as much as possible of the presents therein. Letting go of the box and stepping aside in some effusive laughter fit, my father showed the happiest moment of him the like of which I would never see again after this.
A short while later, Pappa, together with my mother and grandmother, gave me my boxed present. I never got to find out what the present was exactly because I soon lost it in the melee of happy children all around me in our yard. That Boxing Day 1964 children’s party would be a one-time event that made a lasting impression on all the neighbourhood children and their respective families. However, Pappa would continue thrilling us children by every so often buying us ice cream from the ice cream bicycle men doing business up-and-down the streets. This would last until my family left South Africa in January 1975.
By the time we left South Africa, the happiness bug had become chronic in me. I’ve got the incurable exhilaration jungle fever. I’m ever happy by default, therefore. Even so, I know how to switch my happiness machine on and off at will according to occurrences around me at any time and space.
DEFIANCE HAPPINESS
Having taken neo-slavery to the next level of sophistication in the 20th Century, the former Apartheid system in the land continued to subject us, Black people, to deliberate, systemic, effective application of extreme violence everywhere every day. This violence was so degenerative of the human spirit that it even reproduced itself in the home. Violence remains endemic in South African society to this day. Despite all that, there were always innumerable remarkable moments of unrestrained joy in various situations every day.
There was always something about anything or anybody to laugh about. My contemporaries and I laughed at each other: friends and foes alike. We could grossly laugh at each other into fights; much as we used to do the same to stop fights and create conditions for a peaceful coexistence in a hard world, short-lived as the peace would be.
Our days on the streets consisted of ever intertwining circles of play, fight, peace, song and dance, mutual or unilateral group mobbing, arguments, fighting, and so on and on and so forth. Repeat. And repeat. All of this was threaded with humour through and through. There was never a dull moment. At the grossest levels, we used to both weep for and laugh at those that got knifed and killed on the streets. Humour as dark as it got. Chilling childhood memories.
ENTER THE MOVIES
The appearance of the bioscope in our midst from about the close of the 1960s onward introduced us to cinematic comedy shows. That took our appreciation of humour and our storytelling capacities to the next level. Unforgettable all-time favourites included The Three Stooges and, of course, the outrageously funny Charlie Chaplin. At the end of the day, we often complained of ribcage pains from profuse laughter all day long. Bodily pains from fighting blows were part of the humour drive. So, they didn’t matter so much to the extent that no one sustained acute injuries.
Looking back, we were a happy lot defying the evils of oppression with humour. We learned to use humour to endure or overcome the most difficult life experiences on the streets, at school, and in the home. To this day, if it’s not worth wasting my breath on, I diffuse potentially harmful human relations tension moments with a smile and laughter. It works all the time. Almost. I have yet to make a stone laugh. But then again, a stone knows nothing about human relations. When a human is as thick as a stone, I can’t help them.
HAPPINESS FOR PEACE
Conditional upon neither the boundaries having been crossed, nor the swords not drawn yet, my ability to manifest my state of happiness through humour has, on many occasions in time, been a powerful diplomacy agent in the face of all kinds of hostilities in all kinds of circumstances. Some people derive and celebrate their happiness states by bombing others. Diplomacy work is explosive here.
If I can laugh about the absurdities of some overtly provocative antagonism towards me, I may be willing to resolve matters peacefully through talk if the talk is mutually tenable. I might also choose to simply walk away to deescalate the potential for violence outbreak; possibly permanently severing any further links with the antagonist. Short of eliminating extreme, unpacifiable antagonists, I opt to isolate and exclude them from my life in spaces and situations that I have control over; as in my feelings. I don’t know how to accommodate detractors of my right and potential to be happy, and to not unduly repress my happiness expressions.
When I’m happy I’m strong, I’m resilient, I’m confident, I’m dominant, I’m optimistic, I’m logical, I’m a charmer, I’m sensitive; I see beauty in all things, I am an open book; I’m discerning, I’m patient, I’m tolerant, I’m free, I’m fearless, I can be brutal; I’m invincible, gregarious like hell, I win my fights clean – no broken bones, no blood spilt, no death.
On the one hand, happiness is my weapon of mass destruction in hostile times. On the other hand, happiness is my ballistic missile shield against personal evil forces. Therefore, happiness is my magic carpet ride to longevity and immortality. It is my means of disabling animosities, ensuring victory over my enemies, with laughter crumbling the grounds upon which they stand.
When I am happy, I am genuinely so. I don’t know how to be fake happy. Although my happiness is self-propelled because I am happy by nature, it doesn’t mean that I go around glaring my teeth and laughing like a fool seeking attention everywhere all the time. My life is a circus. But I am not a clown.
It does happen, though, that unrestrained public expressions of my joy are calculated and intentional, spontaneous as a humorous situation I may have created, or I respond to might seem to be. This may be to create confusion and distraction in foreseen or proceeding conflict situations, pre-empting potential escalation to violence. It may also be to break the ice when meeting people for the first time for any reason, or to ease the tension in challenging inter-personal communication skills scenarios, as in negotiations at any level.
CLEAN HAPPINESS
My happiness expressions are not dependent on any intakes of chemical or herbal central nervous system stimulatory substances. I don’t consume tobacco in any way or form. I don’t do any form of drugs; neither through inhalation nor intravenously. I very rarely drink alcohol.
And whenever I do drink alcohol, it is never because I’m in the chase for happiness. I’m ever so happy with or without the consumption of alcohol. I never touch alcohol when I’m upset over one thing or another. When I’m upset, alcohol tastes like horse urine. Yeuk!!! Yes, I have in my time tasted fresh horse urine from the ground. That teaches you how to fold your lips so that you can learn how to whistle, see?
HERMITISED HAPPINESS
Inner happiness doesn’t have to be expressive all the time. Some of my truly happiest moments are when I feel happy inside, enjoying the happiness feelings as an exclusive, private affair of mine: solitary joy. These are the moments when I’m at my most perceptive and most creative; moments of illumination. These are the moments when solutions to pressing personal challenges of all sorts manifest themselves. In this emotional contentment state, I’m able to see through the mediocrity of thoughts and actions by power players and other thought leaders in humanity’s big existential questions. I crush conspiracy theories from this domain of unlimited, ignorance-proof, pure thought possibilities.
ETHICO-MORAL AWARENESS
It is at this level that my senses of justice (good v/ bad) and fairness (right v/s wrong) get heightened in my analysis of world events. This forms the basis upon which my decisions to take particular stands on certain local and global divisive socio-politico issues are anchored. It is also at this level that my social relations are categorized as to the extent of sharing or not sharing certain critical values as active social beings.
HAPPINESS-PERFORMANCE MUTUAL DEPENDENCY
Outcomes of my happiness-induced high creativity and problem-solving capacity further fuel my happiness state. My happiness, creativity, and problem solutions form an essential functional loop for my existence and my appreciation thereof. If the loop breaks, I might as well be dead. Therefore, my happiness is my elixir of youth, my longevimmortality engine amplified by laughter. Such is the value of my happiness.
I cannot afford to be unhappy. I do not want to be unhappy. If I have an addiction, it is happiness as an expression of my being here and alive for life right now. No one can take that away from me for as long as I consciously strive to be a decent human being wishing and enjoying sharing my happiness with others who see a mutuality of value addition to each other’s lives. My happiness and my ability to sustain it are a gift I’ll treasure for life.
HAPPINESS PRIVILEGE
Commenting on one of my Facebook feeds posts recently, a colleague and friend has said, “Being happy every single day is a privilege that not everyone has.”
I agree with that statement only partially. And that is looking at the statement as an expression of humble gratitude for being able to live on ever-generous doses of happiness daily. The idea is to identify the source of the happiness doses. I shall address this aspect below.
A privilege is a good enjoyed at the pleasure of external forces, be they human relations dynamics, or random if not predictable circumstances prevalent in nature. The privilege may or may not have strings attached. However, the assumption is that the privilege recipient has little control over the provider or facilitator of the particular privilege enjoyed. The privilege afforded to one by the high and mighty could be used as a manipulatory or control tool by the latter. As such, the state of being happy experienced and lived as a privilege may not be sustainable.
HAPPINESS AS A FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHT
In my world, happiness as a lived experience and feeling is a personal, non-negotiable human right to enjoy and share with others, if so desired. The sharing is done through various communicative means and platforms. I do acknowledge the ubiquitous prevalence of overwhelming tangible personal, societal, and natural challenges constantly working at destroying our basis for being happy. Nevertheless, I maintain that we do have both the potential and capacity to choose to be as happy and as expressive of happiness as we wish to do and to be.
A person’s foundation of self-knowledge is a key prerequisite to mastering the skills of how to be happy as a conscious mental and emotional choice according to events occurring around the individual. The latter may, for example, include the attainment of certain predetermined material or conceptual goals, which, for instance, could be to reach stated production targets at work. Creating a happy and congenial work atmosphere could inspire efficiency and effectiveness in production or service for all parties involved in the work process.
Success at work and in personal relations may result in the recognition of one’s efforts through adulations and rewards in one form or another; this way potentially compounding and prolonging the already pre-existing state of happiness. A person who thrives in happiness is likely to strive to create conditions for happiness to bloom for as long as it is possible.
ATTRACT HAPPINESS
I have learned that happiness never comes to me of its own accord. The happiness living inside of me is a given. But, whether I’m solitary or in public, I attract and receive at least as much happiness as I feel inside, or the happiness that I radiate according to prevailing circumstances and space.
REGULATE YOUR HAPPINESS
My permanent inner happiness notwithstanding, I can at will switch on and off the outward flow of my happiness as necessary. It is not always that the environment shall be positively receptive to my exuberance. And, that’s okay. Misunderstandings, insecurities, and prejudices are also prevalent everywhere people interact. These are common thwarters of happiness.
GUARD YOUR HAPPINESS
Identify your sources and hacks of happiness. Own them for the empowerment they afford you for your overall health and wellbeing, thereby fortifying your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual resilience; opening up your mind to realms of possibilities beyond what the eye can see. This makes for your optimal performance potential in the things you do both for a living and recreation. Make longevity your goal as gratitude for your gift of happiness as your prime mode of existence choice.
EXTRAORDINARY HAPPINESS
Happiness makes for the attainment and creation of extraordinary things. The extraordinary carve permanent spaces in human memory banks. You become immortal out of your deeds claiming lasting recognition in history. Worry not. Be happy. Live forever through your mark in history inspiring others to seek and live for happiness always. Happiness is the way of love and peace, attributes that humanity so sorely needs today.
HAPPINESS FOR YOU
Only you can define your happiness on your terms. Be happy for your own sake, first and foremost. Cause no one harm. Wish none ill. Share your happiness abundantly with those who appreciate you for being who and what you are. Conserve your energy and capacity to live and love by staying away from happiness-dampening, toxic relationships. Never let go of those that make you happy. Happiness is a mutually supportive human quality. Even animals know this. That’s how we can keep pets.
SEE TO BE SEEN
Depending on how you organize your life as you wish to live it, take it for granted that you want to see and be seen. Therefore, allow your happiness to be an integral element of the unique brand that you are. Your brand highlights your worth as an active participant in societal development as per your skills, talents, and proclivities vis-à-vis your occupation. The happier you are, the more productive you can be, and the more valuable you can be. Happiness is the mega power tool for personal and professional success. Try it, you’ll see. It works all the time.
HAPPINESS BRILLIANCE
Not all ever-happy people are buffoons. You are happy because you have a brilliant mind. You know yourself. You know what you want. You know your worth. You are self-assured. You own earth surfaces you step on. You are happy because the extraordinary things you do change lives for the better for others looking at you, inspiring them to want to tap into their happiness reserves for life. Although you speak faster and louder than many, your physical presence and aura take up too much space around you, you don’t have to be apologetic about your happiness and its expressions according to your communicative, or creative talents.
FUTURE OF PEACE IN HAPPINESS
If you have to fight, make your deeds your first line of defence. Fight smart, choose your fights. Never give fools any fighting chance. Bring down your detractors’ walls of Jericho with smiles, laughter, and a glint in your eyes; all packed in love as a weapon of peace. Peace is a durable ride into and for the future. As such, when we are finally dead and gone, friends and foes alike say, “May your soul rest in eternal peace!”
HAPPINESS LEGACY
The happiness-inducing memories of you in the eyes and hearts of your survivors may be a measure of how much peace you’ll possibly enjoy in the afterlife. We are not sure about there being an afterlife. But, for purposes of this talk, way say that it is there. The future is ever bright and hopeful for the happy. Happiness propels us into the future with confidence and fortitude. Faith knocks on the heavens’ doors for the happy. When our work on Earth is done, we’ll live happily ever after in the farthest spaces of the future, assuming that humanity does not erase itself from the future of the universe.
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
22.11.-19.12.2023
𝗘𝗡𝗘𝗠𝗜𝗘𝗦 𝗜 𝗗𝗢𝗡’𝗧 𝗞𝗡𝗢𝗪
𝗜𝗟𝗟𝗨𝗦𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦 𝗜𝗡 𝗠𝗬 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗟𝗗, 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝟮
I dedicate this presentation here to my late beloved mother, who died five years ago on October 7th, 2018. May her soul continue resting in eternal power. On Monday, October 2nd, 2023, my mother would have turned 83 years old. Happy posthumous birthday, Machona Mother – Shebeen Queen dearest!
When as a child growing up in South Africa up to the age of 14½ years I was in various spaces hassled for my Blackness and other envied personal attributes, my mother instilled in me a fierce sense of pride and personal integrity. She constantly told me how beautiful I was, and that, as my academic performance demonstrated time after time at that time, I was the most intelligent kid around. I believed her, and, with humility and gratitude, I’ve aimed to live her words since then: beautiful, intelligent man that thrives amongst other beautiful, intelligent people.
August month, 2023, marked the 35th anniversary of my stay in Norway. The tangible plan I had upon leaving Zambia, my fatherland, in June, 1988, was that I’d complete the 3½ years’ post-graduate business studies programme I had privately secured for myself, with a little help from my friends. Afterwards I’d then move on out to the bigger, wide, wide world.
Twelve years was the timespan that I had given myself that when subsequently big and strong with an Economics PhD degree and international big business and global technocracy experience clutched under my armpits, I’d then return to South Africa, land of my birth, and become the country’s Reserve Bank Governor. I had the earth moving under my feet; what could stop me, then? What could go wrong?
The accompanying supportive Norwegian State Education Loan Fund scholarship offer was the first to come my way. I accepted it without second thoughts because I just had to get out of Zambia at the earliest opportunity. This was a matter of both ambition and the nearly untenable personal living conditions in extremely hard family and national survival environments at that time.
That I’d somehow ultimately stay in Norway for a longer period, not in the least permanently, was never even an iota of an idea in my head. Dream of America calling, Baby. In January, 1991, towards the end of the business studies programme, a bureaucratic glitch led to my ceasing to receive financial support from the scholarship fund. I was left with a huge debt in tuition fees and other costs to the school. Indefinite termination of my studies at the school became unavoidable. This was the beginning of my economic dire straits that would last at least five years in this first cycle. As fate would have it, I’d fall in love with a sweet Norwegian woman during this time.
In the meantime, I had opened and had been running two Karate schools in Oslo since my arrival in 1988. That’s how I got to stay in Norway to this day. Both love and Karate no longer rule my life in Norway. But I’m still here; largely because of the joys, trials, and tribulations that the love and Karate exposed me to in the country. I experienced the joys, I wanted more and more. Norway delivered; I got addicted to the land.
I having been overwhelmed by difficult circumstances beyond my control, once unleashed, the trials and tribulations were ruthless. Under the hardships of life in Norway, I’ve seen many a lesser man from the African Diaspora spiritually buckle, fall, rise, and walk dead. All faith gone, no hope, neither mental nor physical strength left, they die. Literally. I decided that if I fall, I shall fall. But I would never die. I didn’t travel more than half the world to let problems of life kill me so far away from home. One way or another I’d find a way to rise again; just I can breathe. I could never return neither to Zambia nor South Africa poor and without a business PhD degree. Never.
Indeed, I fell once; I fell a second time. On the third fall I lost everything, including face. My people networks collapsed. For once left alone, Rockstar popularity dissipated, I got the opportunity to be better acquainted with myself as a grown-up man. I saw clearly my dreams, my potential in life. I became my bestiest bestie. Now I know myself well. Better than ever. My self-knowledge trip gets better and better and more rewarding each and every new day that comes and goes.
I got to understand that my social survival navigator skills by way of my sellable talents may be many, but the relevant shall come forth and carry me through only specific situational needs in order to respond accordingly to given conditions in different epochs and spaces. The constant steering ethos being my personal motto of change, win, adapt, or die.
I’ve learned to change perspectives, acquire new skills sets, and adopt varying modus operandi to ensure victory in the face of adversity, no matter how long it takes. This knowledge also helps me to take to the next level what I already know and works in my favour presently. Concurrent with applicable talents, the ability to adapt to, and flow with the currents of changing or changed circumstances is a powerful tool for success for me. I have yet to die. I might talk about death on the other side, should I die.
Whilst recovering from the major fall following the devastating personal economy knock that I got from the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2008, I had fully embraced the idea that all I had to do was to chill and wait for my next big break. I had suffered enough. I had learned more about myself and the ways of the world to know that I had to stay alert, fresh, and strong for the impending big break; whatever it would be, wherever it would take me, and whatever it would do with me.
It was a painful wait. Much reading, thinking, and writing rechannelled the emotional and mental torment to the enhancement of my creative potential as a writer. If I can read about it, I can write about it; tell a story about it in my own words.
If I can write about it, I can deconstruct it; I will better comprehend the challenges, I will see solutions. If I can write about it, I can dream. If I can dream, I can hope. My faith is shaped in the messages of my dreams. My writings tell the story that everything’s gonna be alright ahead. Keep moving.
I have been through so many personal falls and rises that I know when an opportunity for my self-reinvention is nigh. The feeling of anticipation I get in times like these is like no other. I become larger than life in my thoughts so that when the opportunity for me to rise again arrives I won’t lose control of my sensibilities.
Whilst I had visions of yet another multi-million-dollar international trade business venture, as the book writing inspiration suddenly revealed itself one fine morning in August, 2015, I knew that my real calling had finally come home. I got into a frenzy. Feeling like one possessed by the spirits of our greatest ever historical and contemporary world authors, I went on to write the first of my dream-of-one-thousand-plus books before I turn 100 years old.
The debut novel, When the Mighty Fall – rise again mindgames, I wrote in fourteen days. It became about the story of my first twenty-five years in Norway presented in a semi-autobiographical, or fantasy memoir format. Intense emotions and scenes arise in the book: boundaries are pushed and crossed; limitations are overcome, people reset themselves and their lives, stereotypes are crushed. All played out by at least equally intense and exceptional characters. The book has changed my life; it has made me a better person. It started the process by which I continue to learn and understand humanity and our universe better the more I write and think, and think and write.
Working with the book from the start, and living with the variable impacts it continues to have on its readers are a constant, in real-time steep learning curve. I guess it’s a mark of a significant book when the author gets a mixed bag of strong reactions from the readers. Acquire and read the book for yourself so that you can make your own conclusions. Love or hate me as you wish; it is your prerogative in a free world. If you wish to destroy me for your hate, I won’t take you lying on my back.
My embracing this book writing calling of mine was with a clear awareness that my works would never be appreciated by all. I’ve in my life read more than enough books to appreciate that fact well. I’ve over the years come across numerous literary critiques on various media also. What has shocked me, though, is the gross misinterpretation of my thoughts and intentions in and with the aforementioned book. This has been especially so given that it is the least expected section of my readership that has been thoroughly brutal in their condemnation of me and the book. Perhaps this makes the point for writers knowing about their actual and potential target readers. However, as for me, to the extent that I so far write personally inspired factual and fictional narratives as opposed to formal academic, or professional literature, I in principle write for myself. I could never write if I went around thinking about who my readers are, or shall be, and how they will judge my works eventually.
Working clandestinely, my aforementioned brutal critics, on utterly wrongful, naïve conjectures, have gone around tarnishing my reputation in Norway. People read my books. In their readings they come face-to-face with demons they conjure for themselves. They panic; lose it. They judge and punish me without a trial. Pathetic.
Because my conscience is clear, and because of my resolute dedication to growing and developing my creative writing talent and occupation to the 1000th book and beyond, the hurt and emotional turmoil I initially felt are gone. I’m healed. I’m strong. I’m on the rise again, destined for higher and higher heights of success than ever. I’ve written eight more books since the When the Mighty Fall publication. I’m on the roll; right on track. No one, nothing can stop me.
Travelling from Lusaka back to Oslo with Qatar Airways two weeks ago, it was on the first leg of the trip, Lusaka-Doha, that I took time to take a deep dive into reflections of my highs and lows in Norway over the years. I couldn’t help but dwell upon encounters with some really bad people that have always been there to hinder my climb to success in the things that I do by way of making a living in the country. The bad people were in total contrast to the loving and caring ones that I met during my short family matters visit in Lusaka, from August 20-29, 2023.
These bad people have striven to ever hamper my genuine efforts to work to be a decent human being with a well-intended commitment to my personal aspiration of adding value to society to the extent that I’m resourceful and productive. Some have been outright about their dislike of, and disdain for me. I can live with that.
Others have turned out to be Judases in the end. A sickening lot that once ranked high as confidants in my world. These provoke my primordial survival instincts when I consider that they are ever gathering somewhere conniving to micro-assassinate me slowly. A mission I could never allow them the pleasure of achieving. Unless I am overtly potentially or actually caused bodily harm, I am not likely to resort to violence as an immediate self-preservation recourse. However, my warrior creative spirit observes, or experiences and analyses everything.
I apply different writing styles as dictated upon by the moments when I celebrate or decry events around me, both near and distant. I do the same with uplifting or destructive actions specifically directed towards me. That way I get to vent out my frustrations and anger without spilling a drop of blood. Then I can sustain my sense of personal safety and integrity in the face of adversity; irrespective of whether the adversity is overt or discreet. My words are my armour.
The poem I’m going to read came forth during the process of thinking about the latest Judases, wolves in sheep’s clothing that have emerged with their true colours in the dark in recent years. It is a self-preservation, protest poetry piece. This poem also sets my eyes on October 24th, 2023, which will mark the fifth year of my return to Norway after a five-year creative exile in South Africa.
Aware that my enemies had already drawn their swords to slay me, I felt like I had brought myself into the mythical lions’ den at my arrival in Oslo. But I knew I was blameless contra the enemies’ smear campaign against me. I’m grandson of a Daniel, father of my mother. The Biblical Daniel was “… saved from lions by the God of Israel “because I was found blameless before him” (Daniel 6:22). So, I’m still intact; standing tall, breathing happy and free, crafting words into literary expressions in my efforts to make sense of my world.
Similar to other writings of mine addressing my personal life conditions and states of being owing to simply being who I am and the personal choices that I make all the time, I’ve written the poem not out of a need to defend, explain, or justify myself. I do not seek any validation nor accolades from some Jacks and Jills anywhere either. I listen only to my teachers, to men and women of authentic benevolence: proven mediums of global human excellence, love and peace.
I primarily write to purify my soul, ease my pains, and fortify my spirit. I write as a good-intentions, free, have-no-fear spirit with nothing to hide in a free world. I feel good about what I do; I know I’m good at it. And that’s all that matters to me. It is what it is. I am that I am. Take me, or leave me as it is your prerogative in your free world.
I publicise my works in response to what I feel to be a higher call to share my thoughts with those that want to hear my words. This call inspires me to aspire to teach and to speak for the young, the weak and vulnerable: the afraid, the oppressed, the voiceless. That from my life experiences as lived-in moments in time. Also as learned from hearing the voices of others that are much wiser than me.
The wiser than me being my teachers across the board, including some of the most impactful historical and contemporary philosophical and spiritual wells of wisdom of the world. All from one-on-one teachings and discussions with the living, or through consumption of the wise’ thoughts through the variety of multimedia platforms available in our times: from the written word in books, to sight, sound, and motion presentations in live theatres; on cinema, television, and computer screens.
Thanks to the power of the internet, we today have the said multimedia platforms compressed and collapsed into the palms of our hands via mobile telephone technology. Knowledge acquisition and dissemination of the same, verification of facts and propagation of truths, debunking of falsities and crushing of conspiracy theories, are all at the tips of our fingers these days. Therefore, those that manage and live their lives on unchecked assumptions; uninformed, factually fallacious decision-making tendencies do so at their own peril.
©Simon Chilembo 11.09.2023
𝗘𝗡𝗘𝗠𝗜𝗘𝗦 𝗜 𝗗𝗢𝗡’𝗧 𝗞𝗡𝗢𝗪 – 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗼𝗲𝗺
Self-made
New enemies of me
People I don’t know
Lurk in dark corners
I don’t know
Wish me dead
They don’t know
I’m a free soul of the light
I don’t know how to hide
I don’t know how to die
Darkness cannot contain me
Invincible to eyes that see
I worry but little
Of fools groping in the dark
Hoping for a lucky strike
To annihilate me
I’m not
In a state of war
I fear no drones
No stealth missiles threats to
My soul of the light
Defence system
My shield is
My words
I push back with
My voice
I sing one moment
I preach the next
I wail this moment
The moment I growl
Earth trembles under my feet
Self-made
New enemies of me
Faceless people I don’t know
Fools with reasons for
Enmity I don’t know
Duped in fake storytelling tales
Of witches in fright
Of demons of them
Confronting them
In the glow of light
Permeating
The darkest recesses of the universe
In fright
Fight
Shadows of themselves in the dark
Tumbling in muddy faeces
Of their own
Gathered in trenches
Of massless conspiracy constructs
Meant to implode
A free soul of the light
They cannot see
I could never collapse
Into myself
Squash me
Sprout me
As particles of
My flesh and bones
In deep waters
Delusionals don’t know
That’s the closest they’ll ever
Come to harming me
Envious fools don’t know me
Inconsequential fools’ll never see me
Repugnant fools embraced by
Darkness I don’t know
Darkness I don’t care about *
I cannot run away from the light
I have nothing to hide
I don’t know how to hide
I have nowhere to hide
Not even a tomb can contain me
I had to break the law
Drank and drove
For prison walls to hold me
If only for a while
You’ll never find
Remains of me
In pyramids of Egypt
In a thousand years
When I say catch me if you can
I play with words
No longer do I play with
Bloodsuckers
Stabbed me in the back
I could have bled to death
Had it not been for
The light stronger than
Enemies’ self-consuming malice
In the dark
Resilience is the name of
Dark-hearts-impervious
Light games I play
Here I am to see
For all eyes with love
I’m a soul of invictus
I breathe love
As a matter of course
I’m here to stay
Longevity is the name of
My dance for life
Immortality is the name
Of my end-game
Beat that
If you can
𝗘𝗡𝗗
©Simon Chilembo 11.08.2023
On the 24th of October, 2019, I wrote the following article on my private blog, chilembowarriormoves.com:
𝐔𝐍𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐃 𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐃𝐈𝐄?
𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐋𝐄 𝐌𝐄𝐍?
Sometime last year, 2022, whilst I was in the middle of working with my latest and nineth book, MACHONA GRIT – Onslaught On Hate, I came across an Instagram reel that caught my interest fleetingly. In this reel, the speaker made fiery, disparaging, and violence instigating remarks against single men. The speaker is a prominent American religious leader whose thoughts influence hundreds of millions of people across the world. However, not all will be direct adherents of his unique religious flock within the broader global faith movement of the umbrella religion, which could be Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or any other. They all serve the same purpose: harnessing of our primitive instincts, limiting the extent to which we can think we are free-thinking, independent individuals. Religion, a tool of oppression as destructive as can be.
I choose not to name the religious leader because I’ve failed to find the said Instagram reel for a concrete reference source. Nevertheless, I have throughout all my adult life so far, come across innumerable sentiments like those uttered by the man of God vis-à-vis men living alone without women as their marital partners.
Basically, the unmarried men haters’ contention is that solitary living unmarried men are not real men; because they are not real men, they are anti-God, and thus they deserve to die. The unmarried men haters say that God must kill single men, and it is the duty of all married men serving God to ensure that God’s will is fulfilled: death to the unmarried. Amen!
It’s strange that Catholic priests don’t get married, though. Celibacy doesn’t mean abstinence. Catholic priests do get caught doing the hanky panky too. When the priests sexually abuse small boys, I wonder about where God is when all this happens. Does he turn blind eyes? In that case, God is an accessory to a heinous crime.
Personally, such emotional abuse and death threats I’ve outlined above are beneath me; they don’t scathe me even a single bit. I’m sixty-three years old. I’m single, and I’ve never been married by choice. Over the years, I’ve on various fora already mentioned that I’m under no obligation to explain, to justify, or to defend my unmarried, solitary living to anybody. All men-of-God wanting to kill me for my choice to stay young, free, and single must just bring it on anytime. God himself is such an illusion so full of contradictions I have not time for.
For God so thrives in tyranny he made man in his, undefinable, multifaceted, illusory image. He accordingly polarized man; made man into a treacherous, murderous creature of fellow man for transgressions of frivolous, ill-defined, prejudicial so-called sins. A God of love who rules by threats and application of murder does not make sense to me.
To solve a dominance problem, brothers believing in the same God go to war against one another; as in, say, the current case of Russia against Ukraine. They simultaneously pray the same God for protection of themselves on the one hand, and power to annihilate the other on the other hand. For the time it shall take as to location of the war and the relative strengths of the warring parties, absolute mayhem, pillage, and murder could go on until the last man. Somebody might set off atomic bombs, and then we’ll all be gone tomorrow. Adios, God!
Killers praising God for strength. The dying praying God for mercy. Priests praying God to receive the spirits of the dead in heaven; whilst the shredded body parts, if not ground flesh of the dead rest in eternal peace on earth fertilizing Ukrainian killing fields, if not the Congolese killing jungles. God nowhere to be seen. Not a sound from God.
No, the whole idea of the existence of an omnipresent God does not make any sense to me at all. God as an idea and a possible entity amongst us defies all logic. But, of course, his believers can have him. We are all already burning here on the hell that is planet earth, anyway. Heaven is in the minds of the free-spirited seekers and propagators of humane truths in pursuance of fairness and justice for mankind on earth.
In my countering the idea of death to men-without-women, I take the liberty to speak for the voiceless, the weak and vulnerable, the oppressed; the afraid. I do so simply because I can. I am no Messiah. I am a free spirit that scientifically knows that apart from the fundamental genetic coding that separates humans from other animals, each human being has an own unique subordinate genetic makeup that characteristically distinguishes them from other human beings. That distinction manifests itself in all aspects of being human, from state of health and its vulnerabilities to behavioural proclivities that may or may not reflect or condition our values in adulthood.
To the extent that human beings share a common physiological essence of being, it means that, although individually unique, our personal human attributes expressive traits are not finitely closed to the individual. Therefore, each our respective individual behavioural patterns, as reflected and influenced by our cognitive powers and processes, will cross, and interact with others. This is how relationships are formed, both voluntarily or through coercion. Human social organizations of all sizes and all sorts of interests, agendas, philosophies, and aspirations stem from here.
However, some people’s human proclivities constructs will be so incongruent from others that they cannot easily fit into any structured social organization cage reflecting certain strictly defined control and manipulative values, such as religion, political movements or orientations, marriage, and many more. These are the eccentrics, the think-outside-the-box types, the innovators, the critics who, for the good or bad, question everything.
Through the epochs, there arise, amongst others, unconventional analysts, critical thinkers, philosophers, artists of all talents, social change makers, rebels, radicals, and freedom fighters whose thoughts and actions have lasting impacts on society. So, much as not everyone can be a rocket scientist; and not everyone can be an Usain Bolt, or be a religious fanatic, not every man can want to marry, or will be married by force or hook or crook. Marriage is not for every Jack and Jill.
Marriage does not define a man. Marriage is a concept a man gets into. With or without marriage, a man is a man. A brilliant man will be brilliant irrespective of whether they are married or not. In my private and professional lives, I have come across many idiotic married men. I can write volumes about idiotic married men. But for now, I’ll reduce all that to the total lack of respect these men subject their wives to.
Married men who beat up their wives disgust me. Married men who spend minimum time with their wives but unashamedly ‘f’ around with other lovers and mistresses do not score high in my books. Many of these abused and neglected wives are some of the most melancholic women I’ve ever seen. In my travels around Europe many years ago, I met a grown-up lady who once said to me something like, “Simon, it’s taken me thirty years to realize that I got married to an a-hole of a man!”
Thirty-three years later, the couple now older and even more weary of each other, their marriage is still going strong. That’s because, “We are Catholics. We don’t divorce!”
Oh, help me God!
Which reminded me of what a dear brother of mine once said to me about women who hang on all their lives to marriages with a-hole men, “According to our African cultures, divorce is unthinkable for many a woman. Divorce is ‘haram’, you see!”
Jeeezzuzzz!!!
I’m not anti-marriage. Reality is that I’m a great fan of marriage. Serious. If ever the poet’s one fine day finds me at the right time and place, I could get married at the snap of a finger. Marriage is good. That to the extent that it mutually fulfils both the conceptual and functional expectations of the marriage partners.
By the conceptual I refer mainly to the subjective sentiment of love, the feelings it induces, and the expectations and obligations it imposes on those in love. Simply because we can never read people’s minds, we can never know the feelings of other people, just as we can never know their expectations and self-defined obligations when in love. But fidelity and devotion are principles I’ve learned that they play an even more critical role in marriage. If these hold, marriage has chances of a long life.
Functional expectations in marriage are about the objective practicalities of day-to-day life that the married will and do encounter in their living together as a couple and, subsequently, as parents if children do come into the picture in time. Here are included aspects of family economic strength; an important consideration in the determination of how and where the family shall live. Other crucial questions to address will include division of duties in the home, management of extended families and other social relations, faith, culture and traditions, political affiliations, career development and ambitions, family wealth creation and sustenance, as well as many other practical considerations.
In my world, a marriage that fails to deliver on the mutual conceptual and functional expectations for the married couple cannot hold. It need not hold at all cost, ‘haram’ or no ‘haram’. Marriage is not supposed to be an institution reminiscent of slavery. Neither is marriage supposed to be an institution of permanent dependency of women to physical-emotional abusive men.
Marriage is not an institution carved in stone. In any case, marriage is not an inherent feature of being human. Marriage is but one of many institutions man-created for purposes of social order maintenance, or social engineering. I fail to see how a non-functional, degrading marriage can contribute to social order. This brings forth the element of divorce, of which I’m as great a fan too. Whereas, indeed, marriage is good, divorce liberates. If ever I do get married at some point in the future, I’ll be the first to file for divorce as soon as I detect irreconcilable dysfunctionalities in my marriage.
People that are deeply in love, and wish to be together for life often look forward with glee to getting married. The same enthusiasm could be shown for impending, or desired divorce from a bad marriage. Women must not be afraid of divorce. There’ll always be a better, stronger, and more caring man for a lover or new husband according to what civil status the divorced woman wishes to have. It’s ok to be single also. Again, in both my private and professional lives, I’m familiar with divorcee women that live happily ever after; divorce having given them a chance to pursue new paths towards fulfilling and sustainable self-reinvention efforts.
Some of the happiest men I know are married. Equally, there’s a hell lot of infectiously happy single, unmarried, never-been-married men I know. Of course, contents of the happiness baskets vary from the one man to the other man, regardless of civil status. Nevertheless, happiness is happiness. Happiness makes for a balanced, productive citizenry.
Conversely, the unhappiest, loser types of men I know, and have known are, or have been married. I have in my time come across extremely lonely married men. Weakened of spirit, and hoping to find happiness and comfort away from their wives, many of these sad married men are prone to extremes of costly promiscuous tendencies. Some end up falling prey to alcohol and substance abuse, with potentially dire consequences. Suicidal tendencies are not uncommon here. So much for marriage as an instrument of social cohesion. There absolutely are other ways to prove that a man is a man and worthy of societal recognition as such than apparently ‘f’-ing around and holding women in the bondage of dehumanizing marriages.
I pity men that get into and remain in unhappy marriages for ‘reasons beyond my control’: family and/ peer pressure, ‘that is what people do’, children, potential impoverishment through loss of accumulated wealth to the ex-wife in the event of a divorce, and other reasons.
It ought to be a given that nation states will strive as much as it is humanely possible to create all necessary conditions for a happy state of existence for the people. The various social interests organizations prevailing in society are there to ensure that the state lives up to its obligations for the people. This is what social justice work is about.
It’s not up to social interests organizations leaders to arbitrarily judge and condemn to death certain categories of their fellow citizens for being non-confirmatory to fluid social conventions such as marriage. Single, unmarried, and/ or never-been-married men deserve to live life to its fullest potential just like everyone else. Jesus was killed for other reasons than for that he was unmarried.
And talking about God, biographyonline.net says, “Swami Vivekananda, [a] spiritual teacher and important figure in Indian renaissance of the late nineteenth century. A great believer in the virtues of celibacy [says] “If one wastes the most potent forces of one’s being, one cannot become spiritual. All history teaches us that the great seers of all ages were either monks and ascetics or those who had given up married life; only the pure in life can see God.”
Furthermore, biographyonline.net says that “Nikola Tesla was a unique inventor who threw himself into discovering new advances in electronics and science. He had no interest in marriage and saw sex as a distraction from his life’s purpose. A famous actress of the time, Sarah Bernhardt, tried to attract him, but, he merely saw her as a distraction. When asked about marriage, he replied: “I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men.”
WHEN THE MIGHTY FALL ON MARRIAGE
From my debut novel, WHEN THE MIGHTY FALL – rise again mindgames I’ll read a passage on marriage. That is from p. 63 to p. 66:
“People get married for a myriad of reasons. There are some who seem to have gotten married not knowing why and how it began at all, though. They just found themselves in it. Trying to make sense of it all with time, they simplistically and conveniently conclude that, well, everyone else does it, why not them?
“Culture and social norms dictate it, they shall reason. Inevitably they make a mess of it, making life extremely miserable for themselves, their marriage partners, as well as everyone else who has anything to do with them in about all aspects of life. Many a person in this category marries themselves into murder and suicide, the ultimate tragedy of marriage.
“Marriage is another unnatural institution the functionality of which is a non-ending attempt at structuring, engineering, and regulating instinctive, natural human behaviour in certain predictable directions. If it is instinctive, it happens freely according to its own predetermined, internal logic, irrespective of whether external factors are conducive, congruent or not.
“From society to society, culture to culture, marriage rules determine how many marriage partners one can have in either direction, how often, when. The rules will also specify rituals to be followed in order to sanctify the coming together of people in marriage.
“Sanctification of marriage is enforced through the morals and ethics around it, particularly with respect to aspects of fidelity, respect, trust, duty, and obligation. Meaning that, in a perfect world, once bound in and by marriage, people ought to be together for life; thereby ensuring order, stability, and harmony in society.
“Marriage defines boundaries and territorial integrities of the married, and their subsequent family units. These have to be acknowledged and respected in order to provide for peaceful co-existence, as well as orderly and systematic growth, progress, and development in society.
“Perhaps an often-overlooked function of marriage contra instinctive, natural human behavioural tendencies is the population growth control aspect of it.
“Without the perceived and learned value of marriage as a behavioural moderation institution in societal functioning, society would be thrown into total chaos as humans respond unrestrained to instinctive, natural urges of sex, and sexual reproduction.
“Jealousy, power, domination, and control inspired violence in the competition for partners towards letting out, and responding to the said instinctive natural urges would be the order rather than the exception for collective human existence.
“Without the rigidities of formalized marriage rules with respect to family expansion by way of conception, birth, and raising of children, human population pressure on planet earth and its limited resources would most probably be of magnitudes much higher relative to what the situation is today. A recipe for the eventual extinction of the human race on earth due to, among other things, territorial wars making what the world currently experiences of regional wars look like a children’s Sunday picnic in the park.
“Marriage is, therefore, some very serious business. It is not for the non-thinking, and faint-hearted.
“For marriage to work for the married, or yet to be married, and therefore be beneficial to society, people have to fully understand its implications and ramifications. Irrespective of the reasons, or circumstances leading to marriage, it is of vital importance to understand and acknowledge that marriage is ultimately a personal journey.
“Its life-changing implications are huge, they can never be overestimated. Life is never, it will never be the same once married. Chances of marriage being a lasting success are higher in cases where the process and the institution are congruent not only with the feelings of the concerned, but also their beliefs, faiths, values, hopes, dreams, and aspirations, among others.
“Pitfalls of marriage are many, deep, and wide in cases where people unwillingly, or uncritically, fall into the trap by marrying to fulfill expected conventional behaviour. The latter may be in relation to culture, religion, life circumstances, and peer pressure.
“Marriage stands chances of going the distance to the extent that it is both a mutually voluntary, as well as a well-thought-out space of the most intimate of human interactions to choose to venture into.
“There are those who shall base their marriages on love. They deeply love one another above anything or anyone else on earth. Marriage will, therefore, be a natural consummation of that love. But love alone is never adequate to sustain a marriage.
“Love facilitates, and spices up marriage; it does not make a marriage. Love is the key to a potential marriage partner’s heart. Love is a ringing bell into another person’s, a potential marriage partner’s, life. To be sustained and sustainable, love itself needs tender loving care. But it cannot on its own guarantee a happily-ever-after life of marriage.
“To the extent that in many a perfunctorily functional marriage, love may not be the driving force, love and marriage can be mutually exclusive in the same space. Trouble in paradise.
“There is, there will always be much love to get outside marriage. As a natural instinct, people will always know when they are in love or not. Love instinctively gravitates towards love. If there is love in marriage, chances are that the marriage can be kept together.
“Love is a natural force of emotion that knows no colour, race, religion, or creed. Because it is a vital part of, but larger than marriage, any marriage the importance of which is attached more to man-made concepts of culture, religion, and other social conventions than love is doomed to failure.
“The natural urge to want to feed love with, and on love, is ever so strong that people in miserable marriages will as a matter of course and natural predictability go out to look for love elsewhere. That done with either open defiance, or total discretion to the extent it will last. In many cases, this will turn out to be a direct order for the ultimate tragedy of marriage.
“Reality is that when a supposedly unfaithful marriage, or romantic, partner is dead, they are dead, and they are so with all the things the murderer demanded; they will never come back. Much as when the supposedly betrayed marriage, or romantic, partner has committed suicide, there is no knowing that they will find what they demanded of their partners on the other side.”
That’ll be it for today. If you want to get married, do so and be happy; only if the matrimony meets your conceptual and functional expectations; not forgetting obligations to yourself as a person and as a matrimonial partner. If the marriage doesn’t work, get out of it. Fast. The paradox is that you’ll never know if your marriage will work or not until you’ve gotten into it first. If it works, it works. Well and good. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. Leave.
Divorce might cost you a lot of things in the beginning. It is what it is. Freedom doesn’t come cheap. Hang in there. Have hope. Keep the faith. The future is bright. Time heals. Make it your goal to live long enough to see the good that the future has in store for you.
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
July 03, 2023
Simon Chilembo 