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SMARTER ZIMBABWEANS, STUPID SOUTH AFRICANS?
IS IT TRUE OR NOT THAT ZIMBABWEANS ARE MORE SMARTER (sic), EDUCATED THAN SOUTH AFRICANS??
Asked somebody on a Facebook group, The SA Political Forum (no longer exists).
A clumsily formulated, but interesting question which has provoked extremely intense debate on the forum in recent days. The latter manifesting more the worst than the better of our views of one another in this part of the world: nationalism, racism, tribalism, bigotry, parochialism, xenophobia, ignorance, primitivity, nauseous arrogance, pettiness, immaturity, insensitivity, paternalism, mental derangement symptoms, lack of imagination, intellectual poverty, academic disorientation, non-culturedness, superstition, spiritual emptiness, insecurity, dumb-headedness, self-destruction tendencies, predator mentality, terribly developed language/ communication skills, cheap rhetoric, thick-headedness, anarchism, mistrust, misinformation, information distortion, history misinterpretation, manipulation, wilful ignorance of facts, e-kassie mentality, ill-defined defiance, profanity, foolish pride, as well as threats; including leadership/ rule by fear.
I do not quite recall how my first year, 1965, at school in Lesotho unfolded. What I do remember well, though, is that it was a hell lot of fun learning how to read and write for the first time. Returning from what I had then understood to have been Christmas holidays, January 1966 I discovered that I had completely new classmates at my school. The others from the previous year were in another class I heard called Padiso/ Sub B.
That didn’t bother me much, however; all I wanted to do was to continue learning how to read and write. It was ever such great fun, at the request of the class teacher, to stand in front of the class reading or counting for my new classmates. Nevertheless, I recall that at some point this whole thing began to bore me half way to death; I kept reading and counting the same things all the time. I felt it was time I went to join my old classmates who were now in Padiso/ Sub B. So, I stated my wish to the class teacher.
The school principal wouldn’t allow that to happen, I was told. Why??? “Because you are just too intelligent for your age, Simon. Boko ba hao bo tla bola …/ Your brains will rot if you go to higher classes while you are still under age. People who get too much education while young get mad, you see. Don’t worry, you shall go to Padiso/ Sub B when you are 8 years old” the teacher resolutely told me. So, I stayed in Grade 1 for three years, 1965-67, to keep my sanity together. Jeeezuz!
During the years 1967-69, the only meaningful school activity I recall are the almost daily after school fights arranged by older boys and girls. The idea was that boys my age should/ would beat the brains out of me because teachers at the school never stopped talking about how intelligent I was. Sadly for the matchmakers and my opponents, I would win absolutely all my fights. There was no way I was going to allow these dumb heads to kill my brains. I was also a street-smart kid.
The thing is, while these age mates of mine were still working around getting the alphabet, and numbers, together, I was already reading to my class teacher and my grandmother some passages from the Lesotho Times newspaper. I am a South African child begotten of a Zambian father. At this formative school of mine in Lesotho, there were many other mixed ethnicity parentage children (representative of the ethnic and racial diversity of the Southern African sub-continent) from relatively more resourceful families in the major South African metropolis, including Lesotho itself.
In 1970, going onto my tenth year of age, I find myself in a South African school classroom for the first time. The academic excellence self-confidence developed in Lesotho got acutely shaken by my failure to understand what the textbook I was given by the new class teacher was about. Reading comprehension, of course. I struggled through the assigned reading passage, and then answered the subsequent 10 questions best I could. I got zero out of ten.
The teacher expressing dismay at my explicit lack of knowledge of Afrikaans, I couldn’t reveal that I had actually started schooling in Lesotho, where there was/ is no Afrikaans spoken or taught in schools. By the time of the mid-year exams in June that year, though, I was scoring the highest all-round grades in class
Upon return from winter holidays, my class teacher called me out to where she and other teachers were apparently discussing something serious together with the school Principal. I was told that all had agreed that I deserved to be promoted to the next class because I was just too intelligent for Grade 3, which I had in fact been forced to repeat in the first place. I declined. Why? I was afraid my brains would rot, and I would thus go mad from too much education while still young. Bummer! I kept scoring the highest grade point averages at school in South Africa till end of 1974.
First quarter of 1975 I am in Lusaka, Zambia. No school that year. Very depressing. I have never felt smaller, and more insignificant. Shattered medical studies dreams. But then again, just under 15 years of age, I discover, and enter into a space called library for the first time in my life: Lusaka City Library, British Council Library, American Library. Book, books, and books everywhere, including my Uncle Oliver’s private library at home, as well as later, the magnificent UNZA library. And there were so many magazines, journals, and other publications of all sorts to read. I became a bookworm that year. A whole new world of thinking and dreaming was opened for me; and thus began my daily English reading and writing journey to this day.
Back to school in 1976. Forced to backtrack again because, my father was told, the then South African Bantu Education Grade 7 academic standards were lower than those of Zambia. But, as soon as I had gotten into the rhythm of things at school, I was topping class grade average points, as usual. I could never understand the Grade 7 failure panic and hysteria characteristic of the time in Zambia. I, of course, passed the final exams with flying colours later in the year.
South African born, Zambian dad begotten man-child would show constant, and predictable, academic excellence throughout the entire Secondary/ High School career to university; crushing class- and schoolmates from many other countries/ nations of the world, including Zimbabwe. This, despite the fact that I didn’t know what a science laboratory was until I was 17 years old at secondary school. That Zambian school children had already been exposed to sophisticated scientific education for years had also greatly intimidated me at first. There was at that time an awesome Zambian youth scientific magazine called Orbit. The story would repeat itself in Norway, both academically and professionally in my adult years.
20 years ago, after failing a Drivers’ Licence theory examination in Norwegian language, a blue-eyed Norwegian young man, upon hearing that I had scored almost 100% in the same test, exasperates, “Fffæææn/ Ssshit, I never knew that there were in fact wise negrer in the world!” Another dick head bites the dust.
The moral of this story is that when you are hot, you are hot. Your origin, or Nationality, due to various objective and subjective factors, may have some, but certainly not, decisive bearing.
My initial response to the question on the forum went as follows:
NOT true! The 5 million or so … in SA should tell a lot about Zimbabweans’ smartness, with their country messed up by (one of) the most educated presidents in Africa. We have our Msholozi, we have our legacy of inferior, for Blacks, apartheid Bantu education. But, for one of many examples, and despite acute imperfections here and there, through SASSA, South Africa effectively distributes at least R 10 BILLION in various social grants a month.
Ultimately, it’s not so much about how smart or educated Nation(-s/ -nals) are, it’s about how they apply these qualities to meet their people’s needs and aspirations as their nations develop and progress among nations of the world.
Simon Chilembo
Riebeeckstad
Welkom
9459
South Africa
Tel.: +4792525032
October 12, 2014
GUNS
THEY KILL FOR SURE
Comrades took with them apartheid catalysed eKassie violence to exile. In exile, many a Comrade enjoyed some dubious diplomatic immunity privileges. Many a Comrade lived an on-wrong-premises-protected lifestyle, no different from spoilt children at some juvenile delinquents’ institution.
Returning home to Mzansi, many a Comrade brought back with them the impunity and arrogance of exile living fo sho. The country became a rainbow nation. All keep running and running in, naturally, ever so futile attempts to reach for the proverbial pots of gold at the end of the rainbows criss-crossing the land:
1) It’s here in the ground, Comrade.
2) No, it has to be over there where the rainbows end. Obvious, there is no smoke without fire, you know, Comrade. Get out of the way before I blow you off the face of the earth! This is my country. I do what I like. That gold is mine.
1) Run, comrade, run.
Trisha tells of how her husband kept lashing at her with his belt, striking her all over the body. This time, though, it felt as if the belt was leaving on her skin, lines of a special kind of warmth at every strike.
With her hands flying all over the place in a vain attempt to protect herself, it felt as if her skin was peeling off from these warm lines induced by the belt lashings. Strange. Whole body begins to feel hot, and moist. Panic. She had begun to bleed profusely.
Only then did she realize that the man was in fact chopping her with a panga. This time he means to kill me, she thought. Soon she felt no pain, no sensation at all as the man kept chopping on and on. It didn’t matter anymore. I might as well fall and die, she concluded. No talk of dying and resting in peace here. Blood everywhere. Bloody mess. This sure is no way of entering the kingdom of God in heaven. Ain’t going nowhere, my man. He never heard her … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA BLOGS – As I See It”. Order Simon Chilembo books on Amazon)
Simon Chilembo
Welkom
South Africa
September 23, 2014
ETNISK NORMANN SUPER STAR
HOW TO BECOME A NORWEGIAN, FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO BE
If Youssou N’Dour plays Ethnic Music, then I am Ethnic Norwegian.
Everybody loves a Super Star. The statement discounts snobs, fundamentalists, the ignorant arrogant, the uncultured, the uneducated, the primitive, the anti-social, the eccentric, the naïve, the narrow minded, the bigoted, the untalented, the gutless, the envious, and the jealous.
This posting is my message to 1st-Xst generation immigrants to Norway struggling with identity, as well as insecure sense of belonging in and to the country. These will be a mix masala mix of people from all countries of the world whose music Westerners refer to as Ethnic Music, collectively called The Third World. They will have skin colour tones divergent from the conventional European one, called White.
These immigrants will have decided to make Norway their new home. They will have adopted Norwegian citizenship, abiding by the laws of the land, and contributing to the growth and development of the country, each in their own ways in all areas of human endeavour. Singing Ja, Vi Elsker when and where appropriate will have become second nature to these people. Come 17. mai year after year, these people rise and shine in front of the King and the Royal family.
Those immigrants to Norway who are in the country temporarily in any capacity, here for 1- X years, need not bother to read this posting … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA BLOGS – As I See It”. Order Simon Chilembo books on Amazon)
Simon Chilembo
Welkom
South Africa
September 10, 2014
END POVERTY SOLUTION
HIGH VALUE JOBS, HIGH VALUE PEOPLE, PROSPERITY
In the short term, it is politically functional to create low value mass employment job opportunities on community-based menial work projects. This is not a functional poverty elimination approach in the long term, though. It is simply a way of managing poverty, as well as buying time to contain the potential outward expression of anger and frustration by the poor as long as possible.
Service delivery protests currently ravaging certain parts of South Africa may be a sign of things to come, though, when this kind of poverty management is exhausted, and no better alternatives are in the offing.
Society will in the long term gain by far from investing in high value job creation opportunities across the board. The seemingly relatively fewer thriving in high value jobs as entrepreneurs, innovators, and experts in various technological, as well as societal management skills not only drive the economy through higher purchasing power arising from higher available disposable income, they in turn create job opportunities of a higher value than community based low value mass employment ones. And, they pay tax.
For example, I’ll postulate that, all things remaining equal, and assuming rational behaviour, as well as economic expenditure and saving patterns in a dynamic economy, R.30 000,-/ month paid to one junior-middle level professional creates more real social economic value than the same amount paid to sixty low value mass employment workers receiving R.500,-/ month each. The thought that there are working people still taking home a net of R.500,-/ month in South Africa in 2014 boggles my mind … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA BLOGS – As I See It”. Order Simon Chilembo books on Amazon)
Simon Chilembo
Welkom
South Africa
August 18, 2014
38 YEARS AN EXILE: VI
HOME AT LAST! Part 6
20-YEAR-OLD SOUTH AFRICA’ STORY
General Elections 2014
Putting the record straight once again: I am very happy with who and what I am. I would be as nasty to my people about their weirdness and things had I been yellow, pink, white, or magenta. It wouldn’t matter whether I was born in Nogonakarabash (don’t know where or what that is), Uoagadougou, North South Dakota, or Ås. Trash is trash anywhere. My background includes being an ANC child to the core.
Predator Boss
Sub-Saharan Africa is a great place to be. All predators know this. With very little or no effort at all, there will always be something, or someone to eat. Nature has, on the whole, been very kind and generous to this strange part of the world. Abundance everywhere. Occasionally, nature gets weary too … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA AWAKENING – home in grey matter”. Order book on Amazon).
Simon Chilembo
Riebeeckstad
Welkom
South Africa
Telephone: +4792525032
May 05, 2014
eKASSIE THABONG
THABONG, KASSIE YA KA KA 2014
©Simon Chilembo, 2014
On Monday morning, walking the breadth of my old Kassie, Thabong, Welkom, for the first time in 40 years, by way of pungency in the air, nothing has changed. After 2-3 weeks of torrential rains, there is stagnant water in many places.
The superlatively built storm canals are clogged; green sediment/ moss and wild vegetation growth all the way. Burst sewerage pipes here and there; long, open canals of slow-moving, if at all, shit created as a result of slow and/ or erratic maintenance.
As if ordered, there’s a carcass of a cat on the edge of a busy taxi street. Indications are at the cat hasn’t long been run over by a vehicle. No doubt, there is also a dead dog nearby, perhaps somewhere in the messy storm canals. No need to confirm. Dead dog eKassie? I know it when I smell it. Just keep on moving straight ahead. Nose getting blocked. Getting a headache. Feeling queasy.
How did I grow up in these conditions? How do people, how can people still be living in these conditions in Mzansi, the golden land of milk and honey for sho? No wonder old people seem ever so tired, and “ugly” here. Been away too long … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA BLOGS – As I See It”. Order Simon Chilembo books on Amazon)
Simon Chilembo
Welkom
South Africa
February 13, 2014
SOUTH AFRICA: BRIGHT WHITE FUTURE
Speaking about a terminally ill Nelson Mandela and South Africa on Norwegian TV2 end of June 2013, I was asked about the condition of Whites in South Africa: Do they have anything to fear for their future in the country?
I answered that if nothing happened in 1994, nothing is ever going to happen to them. South African Whites must just stay at home because they are needed for their knowledge and skills in the process of growth and development of the country. I went on to say that despite the much talked about problem of corruption and other manifestations of good governance inadequacies in the country, democracy was now firmly ingrained in the more open, and free post-apartheid South African society.
Indeed, the high and mighty in the state apparatus will in the short to medium term stretch the law when exposed of their corrupt practices and other vices. But, in the long run, processes as provided for, and backed by, relevant democratic institutions and organs will insure that all law breakers will be caught, and shall be punished accordingly if found guilty in legally instituted courts of law.
South African Whites have nothing but their own fears of the unknown to fear. I cannot think of anybody in the current political dispensation sitting somewhere plotting, alone or together with others, the annihilation of the White Race in South Africa. Private, for purposes of this discourse, Black South Africans, despite their horrendous pre-1994 history, have other real and current issues to worry about than driving White South Africans out to sea and disappear: Poor Service Delivery, Child Abuse, Violence Against Women. Chances are higher by far that at this very moment a child is being brutally molested, and a dejected lover is killing a woman who doesn’t love him anymore.
Despite the rather characteristically loud, small-scale populist rhetoric which South African democracy necessarily allows adequate room for, there is no single landowner whose land shall be repossessed without compensation, where applies. To the extent that conventional paper work pertaining to land and property ownership is in order, appropriate laws, as well as conventional business negotiations methods shall be followed to subsequent mutual satisfaction of all parties concerned.
At its most elegant, democracy works systematically and orderly. Choosing to ignore democratic principles and processes would only lead to chaos, and, at worst, war and total disintegration of the gracious Rainbow Nation of South Africa. Free South Africans with nothing to fear have no time for wars and destruction. This country is just too beautiful to burn alive in pursuit of selfish ends driven by ignorance of the functionings of modern, progressive societies.
People die. People are killed all the time. Criminals kill people. From the outset, we are all equally vulnerable to hideousness of crime. What differentiates us is how security/ safety conscious or non-conscious we are. Who is better security/ safety conscious than White South Africans? No one does it better … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA BLOGS – As I See It”. Order Simon Chilembo books on Amazon)
Simon Chilembo
Welkom
South Africa
October 11, 2013
UNDERSTANDING (SOUTH) AFRICAN INTER-PERSONAL POWER RELATIONS DYNAMICS, Part 3
DICTATORS’ PARADISE
African dictators and despots are exactly at a place they ought to be on earth. Africa is a natural haven for autocratic rulers.
As reportedly the oldest people on earth, Africans must for generations have persevered and survived such awesome battering from nature that fear of, and reverence for, power, authority, and influence come as second nature to them. So, if you are a person of ethical standards and moral values divergent from definition of the same in the progressive world of freedom, justice, and democracy, you have a free hand to dominate and destroy your land.
You can, furthermore, destroy your people’s natural aspirations for a good life of abundance, comfort, safety, and infinite prospects for growth, development, and prosperity. Just be atrociously brutal and effective in dealing with those of your people reluctant to acknowledge and follow your pathetic rule and leadership style.
Kill them in cold blood, and feed their corpses to the dogs. Much like nature in the beginning, and subsequent conquerors from other parts of the world, colonizers, did before your time. Works all the time. If your land lacks any specially value adding material and other attributes to the rest of the world, nobody will give a hoot.
Africans truly love their culture. Primitive, timeless culture. The oldest instrument of social organization and control on earth. A culture which remained static and closed-minded while the rest of mankind later moved on, … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA BLOGS – As I See It”. Order Simon Chilembo books on Amazon)
Simon Chilembo
Welkom
South Africa
August 25, 2013
LIVING IN NORWAY
MY TURF, MY RULES, MY GAME.
©Simon Chilembo, 2013
”I know you! I know about you more than you know yourself. I’ve read about you people, you know. I know your history” Oh, Jeeezuss, not another condescending fool in the 21st century!
I came to Norway of my own volition. No force, no power, no cause made it imperative for me to want to come to Norway in particular. I could have gone any where. I could have decided to remain where I was.
I left the world I knew out of a strong desire to grow and be a better human being by subjecting myself to challenges of living anew in a new, unknown environment. I chose to leave, and sacrifice, the relative safety and comforts of the world I knew, essentially to satisfy my own personal needs, ambitions, goals, and dreams.
But of course, yes, the land of my birth was a land of extreme unfairness and injustices to humanity. I couldn’t continue to live and realize myself and my full potential under the prevailing circumstances at the time I decided to go away, out in the wide, open world of endless possibilities.
I chose to leave because I felt I could better fight for change and transformation in the land of my birth as a more knowledgeable, and more cultured man of the world. Millions others chose to stay. Thousands upon thousands of these got maimed, imprisoned, and murdered. Freedom is also about the individual choosing how they want to wage their own personal, as well as collective freedom struggles. I choose to kill, rather than die for my freedom. I am no use to anybody dead. The dead are just that; dead. Subjects for myths and mystics cultivations. But they will forever remain as they’ll have become, dead and useless in practice.
As far as I saw, and defined it, then, ignorance was the root cause of all evils of unfairness and injustices against humanity. It is still my daily mission to go out and kill and destroy ignorance, promoting enlightenment in my struggle for freedom, both as an individual, as well as a member of the freedom-addicted global citizenry. Well and good if I become internationally renowned as a freedom-fighting legend. But I’m really not keen on consciously working to be a prominent face, and champion of the masses in the process. I am not cut out for it, it’s not in my chemistry; it does not resonate with my intellectual, philosophical, and spiritual make-up. There can only be so many Nelson Mandelas, as far as I’m concerned.
The hero in me breeds himself in the eyes of the beholder. I am first and foremost my own hero. If I inspire others to awaken and nurture their own heroes in themselves, then I am most happy. The scourge of ignorance on humanity is so large no hero can eradicate it alone. I will continue to fight for freedom on my own terms. Much as I live in Norway on the same terms as a free man, within the confines of the law of the land, as well as normal cultural and societal imperatives of the people of the land.
Living in Norway on my own terms means that I and I alone, am responsible for how my life shall be, and is, organized in relation to my duties, responsibilities, and obligations to both the local and global civil society, as well as to myself. I independently chose my job, my career, my business. I have, acting as a free and independent man in a free world of free individual choices, chosen to remain single until further notice.
I have freely chosen, and I choose, my friends. Those of my friends who chose me first have become my friends because I chose to accept their friendship overtures, obvious or otherwise. I have also before opened my heart to people who in time turned out to be bad influences on me. Had I known better, I would never have chosen to have anything to do with these people, for starters. No regrets though. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do when what’s gotta be done’s gotta be done.
Nevertheless, those who’ve messed my life up big time before must have reason to be afraid whenever they think of, or see me. I may not be vindictive by disposition, but I do not forgive. Forgiveness is for the holy and righteous. I am only human. I do not know how to turn the other cheek; I choose not to. I loathe pain and suffering when inflicted upon me, and others, out of pure and deliberate malice.
As a result of ignorant and unenlightened, as well as philosophically and spiritually vain leadership, administration, and management, even more inhuman suffering, pain, and misery are daily inflicted upon millions of people all over the world. Free people of the free world will react and respond in each their own respective ways to these extreme living and dying conditions of those most unfortunate people exposed to abysses of human cruelty and brutality elsewhere; some being more vocal, and more visible than others.
Taking sides, or being neutral; the latter being more interested in the content, principles, and ramifications of the acts of both the agents of agonies and the victims. Victims do fight back also. That’s how freedom fighters, heroes, legends, and saints are made; depending on the eye of the observer. To choose or not to choose a side, it’s everyone’s prerogative in the worlds of the free.
I, therefore, do not owe it to any one to want to overtly make noise for, or to front a cause locally or globally, just because I am successful and I live in the best and richest country in the world, and I am the strongest man I know. I am the strongest man I know in the world to the extent that I know my potential in so far as my intellectual faculties and material endowments go. All this as shaped and conditioned by the free personal choices I have made, and continually make, with regard to how I shall organize my life in my chosen style of fighting unfairness and injustice in the world.
To those ears which choose not to know how to hear; and to those eyes which choose not to know how to see, I have chosen to be a silent and invisible agent and courier of change, enlightenment, and progress to the worlds of those I am mutually allowed to touch, as a matter of both individual and collective exercise of the right to choose or not to choose, in a free world.
So, did you know this about me? If yes, then you must be God; you must be the force swimming circles in my brains, playing with my thoughts and my feelings. Do you want to take responsibility for my life? Do you want to take responsibility for the many acrimonious outcomes of the ill-guided choices I have made in my life before? Were you a part of that, to begin with? No? I thought so. Man, this is MY life! I choose and play My Games. I choose, design, and construct My Turfs. I make My Rules.
I love my lands of the free and the mighty. Imperfect and decadent as they may be in the eyes of the ignorant, who choose to be oblivious to a thing called human dignity.
Simon Chilembo
Måsøy
Nord-Norge
March 29, 2013
Tel.: +47 97000488/ +27 717 454 115
Simon Chilembo 