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UBUNTU DEFILED
UBUNTU ACCORDING TO UMUNTU
In the beginning there was Muntu, person. Just a person, a thing. Muntu became woman, became man; got a name, identity. Muntu became u-Muntu thereby. Somebody. A unique individual.
©Simon Chilembo, 2014
U-Muntu became hungry, and began to need and crave for things to stay alive, as part of being a living entity. Some things u-Muntu could do alone and privately; others needed cooperation with other u-Muntus (read a-Bantu) in order to improve effectiveness and efficiency.
Such arose roles and functions with rising complexity in how u-Muntu organized and structured co-existence with other a-Bantu, forming communities, society. Furthermore, to ensure sustenance and perpetuation of communities, which, with generations, would grow to nations as we know them today, u-Muntu devised the whats, the hows, the whens, and the whys of things.
Thus arose geographical region specific rules, laws, customs, traditions, and cultures to ensure some degree of order and coherence in society … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA BLOGS – As I See It”. Order Simon Chilembo books on Amazon)
Simon Chilembo
Welkom
South Africa
June 18, 2014
AFRICANS: SKIN COLOUR JOKES. VICTIMS?
Responding to Norwegian Aftenposten newspaper article:
Simon Chilembo, Chief Executive President
My aunt ‘Mabatho/ Mother of The People, if, on a good day, you were to call on her unannounced in the morning, you’d find her shabbily dressed in a tattered nightdress. Her eyes will be red; face as radiant as sunset orange in the Free State veld, though. She will give you this warm hug, kiss you reassuringly on the forehead, saying softly, “Ngwanake/ My child, they were here again. Ohhh, I am so tired …”
From time to time, our family ancestral spirits visit my aunt. She says they are ever so angry and bitter at the world. They want to burn the world down for the evil on it, the evil that destroyed my aunt’s life forever. She will fight with them all night, preventing them from unleashing their wrath out on the world.
In retrospect, my aunt says her own anger and bitterness towards those who grossly abused her is not so much in their abhorrent acts, but in that they did not kill her in the process. When you are dead and gone, you don’t hear, you don’t see, you don’t feel; when you are dead, you live above morons.
In a botched (White) farm robbery in the Free State in the 1970s, my aunt, then working as a domestic maid on the farm, was severely beaten up and successively raped by 6 men, 2 Whites, and 4 Blacks.
When it was understood that the police were on the way, the two Whites turned against their Black colleagues, and shot them dead on the spot. The former denied abusing my aunt, claiming that they had in fact come to defend the farm as they had earlier on received a tip-off about the impending robbery.
“How can decent, God fearing boerefolk have sex with a dirty kaffir woman? We beat her up a bit to teach her a lesson never to collaborate with other kaffir criminals who come to rob our farms. We had to execute these four criminals here because their original intention was to come and kill the people of the farm. Self-defence, you see?” they said to the police.
My aunt was arrested, and served 3 years in jail. It’s said that the two Whites went to war in Rhodesia, and never came back.
My aunt’s ordeal was too much to bear for her husband. One day, the man decided to hug a goods train moving towards him at high speed. Pieces of his body were picked up and placed in a plastic bag as if it was meat to be fed to crocodiles.
Despite the way-out traumas in her life, without any professional help forthcoming, my aunt went on to raise her three children to decent adulthood. She makes a living of some sorts selling umqumbothi, as well as some special traditional tobacco.
This true story will make most sense, and will be familiar, to those who have felt in their flesh and bones, Apartheid in the pre-1994 South Africa, as well as other forms of institutionalized forms of racism against Black people anywhere else in the world.
When Black/ African people yell, weep and cry, laugh, sing and dance demanding recognition and respect for their feelings, as well as their sense of integrity and honour, we are doing this in the face of real injustices that have been perpetrated on and against, and upon, us for generations.
It is basely moronic for some arrogant and apparently incompetently incompetent White intellectuals, academics, philosophers, and artists to want to define for us Black people how to respond to all forms of racism directed towards us, both as a global collective, and/ or as individuals wherever we may be in the world at any one time … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA BLOGS – As I See It”. Order Simon Chilembo books on Amazon)
Simon Chilembo
Welkom
South Africa
June 08, 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
PROBLEMS, PROBLEMS!
SIMON CHILEMBO FOR PRESIDENT! Part 2
“Simon, Simon, I know you all 30 years of Oslo and everything about you is problems, problems, problems, … Simon, please, Bello, can you not just for one day, today, have no problems, please. Problems, give me problems every day. I get a headache. NO PROBLEMS, PLEASE!!! I beg you, Simon, Sensei!” my first Norwegian friend, and Brother, Mimmo (72), Italian, would often cry in frustration. And we’d then go out and eat pasta, pizza, tiramisu; drink red wine and espresso, and live happily ever after, sharing our fantasies about good fortunes, women, as well as our frustrations about Karate politics in Norway and all over the world.
The root cause of all my problems is that I do not have a rich and generous uncle I can cry on to and, voila, I live happily ever after. I have problems. Big problems. Serious problems:
- Across the street in front of the house I live in there is a piece of prime land I want to buy. Here, I can build a modern open-air training and art park for the community. Promoting Health & Wellness principles and attitudes for a healthy, strong, and productive nation. But I’m broke
- I need to pave up the space in front of my house, not only for aesthetic purposes, but that would further stabilise the earth around the house. Broke.
- There is an urgent need to fence off the yard to the street. More for privacy needs than security. Broke.
- Lots of repair and upgrading work to do around the house. No deal. Broke.
- I need some classy interior decoration job for the house. No deal. Broke.
- I need to make the house a green one, with solar energy panels and all, as well as own water borehole. No deal. Broke.
- I must have super high speed ADSL connection here. No deal. Broke.
- A swimming pool is needed too, so is a billiard room, private gym, as well as a private study/ library. No deal. Broke.
- No Maserati. No Mercedes. No Maybach. Not even a Mahindra workhorse van. Broke.
- Future mother of my children taking her time to find me. The house is too big for one man.
- I have produced too much food in my new vegetable garden. Abundance everywhere in suburbia. Problems, problems.
Never ending wars in Africa. African people made destitute in their own lands. African people hungry, dirty, maimed, sick, miserable, broken. African people die without dignity; no honour. 
There is that picture of a vulture waiting for an emaciated body of a child to die. African humanity crushed. African earth carries so much unholy rot. And to think that we eat of the soil of this rotten earth!
“But, no, Simon, the oil give it shine; gold and diamonds give it glitter. African blood, flesh, and bones precious, see? They don’t call it the Blood Diamonds for nothing, yes?” I hear an army General whisper in my ear as someone applies electric shock to my testicles.
And African poets sing, “Oh, how we love you, Mother Africa!” Gawd!
Ever a thin thread of hope left, though. In extreme times, a thread of grass, a drop of water can take one very, very far. Beaten African people cross the Sahara on barefoot. Nature is more sensible than we often realize. When people are as badly crushed as African people on the run from miseries of tyranny and wars, even the sun gets no thrills out of burning them alive in the middle of the deserts. Others will deal with them more efficiently.
If you can’t get your hands on the African oilfields, the blood diamonds and gold (platinum is Marikana, and that’s another story), there is bounty of poor, desperate African people on the run across the Sahara. Here, there is everything for everybody. Unknowingly, these acutely abused and misused African people will even buy passports to die out at sea when then sun spared their lives in the deserts. Makes me wonder what the fish of the waters between African inhumanity and the lands of hope and perceived better life beyond, think of Africa and Africans. What would happen were the Nile to reverse its course?
I have problems. Big problems. Serious problems. Solution? Well:
- Leave my uncle alone.
- Burn the money.
- Screw the house. Screw prime lands.
- Leave future mother of my children alone.
- Drive my dream cars to hell.
- Just give me that job – Pioneer Professional Chief Executive President of Africa. Ma-a-an, will I fire people, to begin with!!!
Simon Chilembo
Welkom
South Africa
Tel: ++4792525032
December 28, 2013
SOUTH AFRICA: BLACK WHITE PROGENY FUTURE?
The humane and spiritual magnanimity of South African people regarding what they have had to give in order to facilitate the creation and sustenance of the relatively peaceful, and prosperous post-1994 democratic South Africa can only be fully understood by those who have felt the venomous bite of the fangs of apartheid in their bodies, minds, and souls. It’s not a thing just read about in books and research reports to comprehend thoroughly.
I guess the apartheid venom was so effective it made us, Black people, into huge, docile sponges you can pee and shit upon ceaselessly, and we’ll keep smiling, ever extending our hands out to evil-minded White supremacists people, begging for love, and peaceful co-existence. But then again, I fear there is a Black Cat in the hearts and souls of many a, if not all, apartheid survivors and their descendants. The Black Cat is on the run, quite, fluid, and purposeful despite all the madness around it. The cat does not want to die: Keep moving; endure the hurt, the pain, until …
As per the social engineering ramifications of obnoxious apartheid, there was no order, no law those days in the townships of South Africa. So, this stray Black Cat, like many other cats and dogs before it, appears like from nowhere. Lost. We could have been fewer, but in my child’s head I see about 15 children getting instantly delirious, as was usual in situations like this. Picking up stones, and other projectiles, we chase the animal. Kill the cat, children! When the stupid cat decides to run into a tennis court nearby, I thought, “Well, this is going to be easy game!”
There were now even more children in the only form of hunting adventure we knew in the townships those days. Stones, bottles, pieces of metal, anything, zooming onto the poor cat now hopelessly trapped in a cul-de-sac. In total exhaustion and pain, the cat finally falls off the fence it had been clawing in vain, probably hoping against hope that it could still escape, collapses on the tennis court floor. Momentary state of shock for all. Yet another projectile is thrown. The cat is hit. It makes a weak attempt to move. No good. Then, I still see the scene like in slow motion, it’s like there was dead silence for a while. The cat became smaller, as if air was being squeezed out of it. We are all mesmerized. Before we knew it, the cat had become, in my eyes, as big as a horse.
Standing on its hind legs, upright into a tennis court corner, fore legs raised kick-boxing guard style, the cat made the last snarl and flew at us. Pandemonium as we all, now 20 plus children, scrambled to come out of the tennis court gate simultaneously. Only now does it makes sense about the claustrophobia I quietly suffered from for many years soon afterwards.
When the time comes, heaven forbid, for the Black Cat in South African Black People’s hearts and souls to snarl, and retaliate, for “enough is enough”, evil-minded White supremacists will have nowhere to run. South Africa is the omega, you see.
Nelson Mandela did not sell South Africa to Whites. Nelson Mandela did not sell South Africa to imperialist capital. In line with the unique humane and spiritual magnanimity of South African people, Nelson Mandela chose to swallow camels so that you and I can be here today, living happily ever after in our beloved Mzansi fo sho, in spite of its imperfections. Remember, effects of apartheid venom include diminished sense of empathy, leading to extreme levels of selfishness, including loss of responsibility for one’s own actions as manifested time and time again in certain, and various leadership cabals in the country.
Thanks to Nelson Mandela, when the rest of the world will be left in shambles and rumbles, South Africa will still be here, standing tall. Unlike today, though, there won’t be much space for all, as South Africa will still be a peaceful sanctuary for the lucky few who manage to escape ravages of wars in their own countries of origin. The omega is like the last full stop of a great book. Very, very tiny point. At this point, it’ll be ON! with the switch of darkness. No more smiles, no more love, no more reconciliation. Bye-bye, beloved Bishop Tutu. Time for the Black Cat to rise and strike back.
I feel for the progeny of the short-sighted, evil-minded White supremacists people, who refuse to recover from their own apartheid venom ingestion symptoms. As I see it, their children’s future may be very black, indeed. But there is still time, there is still room for change. There is still, as it was in the beginning, hope. Democracy fixes most things, if given a chance.
NB
Read also: A comprehensive guide to white privilege in South Africa
Simon Chilembo
Welkom
South Africa
Tel: +4792525032
October 14, 2013
SOUTH AFRICA HERITAGE DAY SONG: KE YA ITHOKA!
SELF-INTRODUCTION PRAISE SONG (Sesotho)
©Simon Chilembo 2012
Ke thelleleng
Ke le ‘tloholo sa Waloba
Morena Bende
Motumbuka seja tau
Ke le letsibolo la Lisebo moradi’a Mabote
Sebentsha letsatsi
Setla ka ngwedi?
Khanya mora’ Chilembo
Di tshereyane noha tsa marabe
O bontshe ditshaba tsela!
SLIDE THEN!
(Why must I slide and fall
When I am
Headman Bende
Tumbuka man
The-Lion-Eater’s grandson
When I am son of Lisebo, Mabote’s daughter
The one who shines the sun
The one who comes with the stars?
Rise and shine
Son of Chilembo
Turn puff adders into harmless fools
And show people the way)
©Simon Chilembo, August 20, 2012
OSLO
NORWAY
TEL.: +4792525032
September 24, 2012
Simon Chilembo 