THE HALF OF ME

They have taken away
The half of me
God’s paint brush
Has just lost a canvas
The drawing board’s gone
Like with the storm
I remain here feeling hollow
Empty and mysterious
Like the Black Hole after the Big Bang

It is silent
Inside of me
Been told there’ll be
No more crying, no more laughter, no more pain
Inside of me
When the half of me is gone
Never to return
I feel like barren land
Existing only here and now
Anywhere I am only me and me alone
With the half of me gone
Tomorrow will remain
A distant longing
Legacy only my deeds
But then again I’ve heard told of oases in the hearts of forsaken lands
So I’ll write a song
Ode to the departed half of me
Just immortalized me

Love x love
(Sisi)
Simon Chilembo© 31/03- 2010

NB: See The Queen here: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4421293&id=723175447
Video here.

Following preceding posting: Can u define ethics & morals exclusive of each other? Check this:http://www.facebook.com/simon.chilembo?v=wall&story_fbid=120382607979063

Inspired by: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8aLKcnvq_8

Simon Chilembo Indeed, Europe has for hundreds of years screwed the outside world like nobody else as any (South) African will tell you. But then again it is generally certain specific (Western!) European values, such as Democracy (no matter how the concept is and can be skewed both in definition and application from time and space to time and space), which have contributed to the progress of our current global modern society with all its faults and flaws, but functional and constantly forward-looking and moving all the same.

In my mind, heaven and a perfect world are functions of democratic principles applied to create and sustain conditions for the individual to reach the highest level of self-realization and creative potential possible within the confines of prevailing laws, moral and ethical boundaries. Makes me wonder if Silicon Valley and similar places in the world would ever have come to life in the absence of growth and development possibilities Democracy facilitates. To have or not to have iPad? To believe or not to believe in God? In a functional democratic setting I believe these questions can be debated freely without fear or favour till the gates of heaven fall apart. Europe, in the 21st century you are actually not too bad; do thrive!

Do join me here if you can – ENERGY VITAL ART OPEN HOUSE: Rebirth, Spring 2010, http://gloenervital.com/events/

Responding on Thought Leader.

My maternal great grandparents, as well as my maternal grandparents; uncles and aunts, including numerous cousins were born and raised on various Boere farms in the North West/ Northern Cape and Free State provinces. Many have also died here. These people have told me some of the most horrendous stories of living and dying on these farms over the years and generations. As a child growing up in the Free State, I, together with my parents visiting our relatives on these living-hell-farms, have personally experienced some of the dehumanizing ordeals these poor people had to live with on a daily basis for years and years.

 In my opinion many Boere farms epitomized the cruelty and brutality of Apartheid, as well as the extreme abuse and dehumanization of Black people under the obnoxious supremacist racist system. I’ll bet my telling so far is familiar to many, many other Black South African people of all shades and tones of  Blackness. Therefore, “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer!” was, in my view, a chant of extreme anger and frustration at probably one of the most important cornerstones of Apartheid’s sustenance and perpetuation. Apartheid-human-dignity-degradation, like slavery, was up to a point of course, extremely effective at getting the highest productive returns from the exploited and abused while killing them slowly and excruciatingly physically, mentally, and emotionally painfully.

 I’ll argue that at its purest level, the chant was directed at a system, an inhuman and unjust mode of production; it wasn’t necessarily personal or person-specific. Unfortunately systems and modes of production are made up of specific people in specific relations. Therefore, when taken literally, real specific people die. This must not be misconstrued to mean that I justify or condone murder and/ or crime though; and I conclude that the “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer!” chant is outdated and has outlived its meaning in the post-1994 new Rainbow Nation South Africa. The real enemy of South Africa today is multi-dimensional and includes, amongst other things, poor service delivery. We should now perhaps say, “Kill a poor service delivery, fire a councillor!”

Responding to: In defence of Julius’s right to free speech

I have little input to make with regard to the technicalities and interpretations of the law as I’m not a lawyer. However, the latter fact cannot be used, I hope, to invalidate my thoughts on this case, with particular reference to the offended vis-à-vis JM’s reasoning.

The most resourceful people will always get themselves topnotch lawyers to get them off the hook. Topnotch lawyers are cold, ”objective” masters of rhetoric, expert at finding and creating (?) loopholes in the law & interpretations of it in given situations. Therefore JZ goes free and a poor woman is left beat & humiliated, subjected to further emotional & psychological abuse by the likes of JM oozing arrogance of power.

I’ll argue that those who’ve never lived with and in what I call the township-jungle-law phenomenon will ofttimes have little or no appreciation of the socio dynamics of human relations and interactions emanating from there. At its most base level township-jungle-law metality can be extremely macho and chauvinistic, where boys and men take it for granted that screwing any girl or woman they want is their God-given ”cultural” prerogative. I (proudly) grew up in a shebeen, so I know. In this environment it’s often the easiest thing to overpower a woman through sheer material endowment or brute physical force. Many a time a woman  “…will wait until the sun comes out, request breakfast and ask for taxi money…” because running away in the middle of the night would be like jumping off the pot into the fire. A woman treated with respect and dignity doesn’t have to “…request breakfast and ask for taxi money…In the morning…”. But then again the law is not moved by feelings and emotions…

@ Sipho : Any student of politics and power knows that any thing is possible in politics. Therefore it wouldn’t surprise me if the current SA pres. gets a second term. What would surprise me would be the SA voters themselves. By the way, I have no (political) power ambitions (at the moment!); and although I am not a card-carrying member, I actually am pro-ANC to the bone. For the party to regain the respect and goodwill of SA people it is in dire need of renewal of the humane values and style of its front figures. The power relations paradigm changed in 1994; leaders cannot continue with the same style of doing things as they did in exile. Now they cannot escape responsibility and answerability to the people.

The SA president debate continues…

@ Sipho

In all life supporting and growth human relations, respect and GOODWILL are earned. The effort? Simple, among others: wisdom, character, sensitivity, flexibility, adaptability, reciprocity, diplomacy, open-mindedness, dependability, justice & fairness, honesty, transparency, decency, humility, honour & integrity. Sorry, but the general local and global consensus is that the current SA president is lacking in much, if not all, of the attributes above.

Following blog here.

@shaz, JB, et al.: It’s said that leadership is reflection of the collective consciousness. It’s clear that SA now understands that we blew it here. Hope is that the SA collective consciousness has learnt from this stupendous blunder, such that the next leadership to be voted into power will be of a more honourable and graceful kind, reflecting positive and uplifting contemporary values towards future-oriented nation-buliding.

Thread on blog article here.

It’s a globally observable phenomenon that in business and economics this is White Man’s world, from education (MBA’s, etc) to leadership, power and control, through discoveries/ inventions to innovation. The most successful non-White economies in the world are so because they produce and manage largely according to standards established in the Western world; and even if their own markets are huge (the Far East), they produce things whose development and demand originally came from White Man’s world.

My point is, politics aside, you want to rise in White Man’s corporate world, know and understand how these people think. In my opinion, White Man will remain the most powerful business being on earth because He/ She is a master of changing, winning, and adapting, brutal as he/ she can be. Top corporate leadership requires skills that are not learnt in a classroom or shebeens. Dare to enter White People’s informal world in your climb in the corporate ladder! That’s where things happen. I am CEO of my own successful enterprise in the Whitest country in the world, by the way.