Home » Posts tagged 'zambia'
Tag Archives: zambia
𝗨𝗦𝗦𝗥 𝗢𝗥 𝗪𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘? – 𝗨𝗞𝗥𝗔𝗜𝗡𝗘 𝗪𝗔𝗥 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟮
𝗘𝘅𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗘𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗢𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗵 𝗤𝘂𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝘆
During my stay in Lusaka, Zambia, 1975-88, some of my most memorable social interactions involved meeting older and veteran, mostly male South African freedom fighters. These were ANC members. Then in their mid-thirties and above, some of them had travelled the world. They would have been in pursuit of various goals, which included:
- Mobilization of international support for the South African liberation struggle efforts
- Military training
- Education
About all the veterans exhibited the abhorrent traits of arrogance, tribalism, bullying, cantankerousness, outright stupidity, and violence endemic of South African kassie/ township life. Hard partying involving huge consumptions of alcohol and drugs and all that it entails were an integral part of the deal. Needless to say. Shebeen culture carried with into exile. Not that Zambians were any less of party animals.
These veterans were people of all sorts, with all sorts of familial backgrounds. They, or we, as individuals or as special-interests sub-groups were motivated and threaded together by the collective higher dream of the attainment of the liberation of South Africa from Apartheid oppression.
Much as they loved to party by default, the majority of these people took their liberation struggle work very, very seriously. They were highly knowledgeable in the various fields of Social and Natural Sciences, including Mathematics. Some had had guerrilla operations experiences within South Africa in the 1960s; also, Mozambique and Zimbabwe in conjunction with fellow freedom fighters in those countries. Others had participated in major international wars, such as the Vietnam war, and in Latin America. These were hard people.
There were three distinct individuals with whom I shared intense mutual dislike for one another. Each in their own ways reminded me of some older guys and grown-up men that were generally not nice people back in my kassie, Thabong, Welkom. These horrible guys hated especially the ever vocal and visible little boys like myself then. It didn’t help my situation being son of an envied foreign man from Zambia. I had already been in Zambia for several years when I heard that, on separate occasions, five of the horrible guys got stabbed to death by younger boys on the streets. Good riddance. For the obnoxious people these men were, their souls deserve neither rest nor peace wherever they may be in after-deathland.
Regarding the three older exiles that didn’t like me very much in Lusaka, I imagine that a mortal confrontation would have ensued at some point had we been in South Africa then. The likely murdered wouldn’t have been me.
Zambia’s relatively laid-back culture had a way of dampening our wild South African township streaks. Otherwise, I got along fine with everyone; particularly those that found me “interesting to talk big struggle issues to”; their words, not mine.
My favourite was Comrade Mjaykes. He was Commander for a unit of younger, recently arrived immediate post-1976 Soweto student uprising exiles. Overriding objective here was to debrief the traumatized youth with various available and relevant medical and therapeutic methods. Intense and continuous conscientization political education was an unavoidable part of the package. And this was the fun part for me. Much of my fundamental geopolitics principles understanding was founded here.
Contrary to many a senior veteran, on the outset, Comrade Mjaykes was an unassuming personality. But he was one the most highly trained and educated around, both militarily and academically. He trained a lot, often alone late at night. He was very fit. And he read a lot too. Of his few personal possessions other than his books, he treasured a satellite radio that he had bought on one of his travels abroad. Commanding English, French, German, Russian, Spanish, and Swahili languages, the super veteran used the radio to listen to current affairs programs from all corners of the world. He was a well-informed man.
Being an exemplary leader with superior oratory skills, Comrade Mjaykes was a complete warrior in my eyes. An enduring source of inspiration that I last saw in 1981. Sadly, he was one of the earliest victims of the scourge of HIV/AIDS pandemic that began to ravage southern Africa and the rest of the world from the 1980s onwards. Comrade Mjaykes died in the newly liberated Rainbow Nation, South Africa, in December, 1994. No doubt, his soul is resting in eternal power. I can’t help but often wonder as to what he would have thought of the South Africa of today.
Acknowledging my Karate prowess already in 1977/ 78, Comrade Mjaykes said to me one day, “Much as I know you’d make a much better soldier than all these young comrades here, I’d rather you went to school first. You have the kind of brains there is a shortage of in our political leadership structures, see? We should be able to organize for you a scholarship for studies abroad. I’ll talk to your parents about this.”
“That would be nice, thank you! You know, my father’s biggest wish for my two siblings and I is that we could go and study overseas. But that’ll remain a pipedream because he could never afford the costs of an overseas education for us. Life is really hard for our family in Lusaka, as you know well.”
“Yes, I know! Your father is a good man. He deserves all the help we can afford him in that regard.”
“Thank you, Comrade! My parents would be extremely happy and grateful if mzabalazo/ the liberation movement can help.”
“It should work out for sure. But, unfortunately, currently available scholarships for full education up to university level are from Yuseserese/ the USSR (The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). However, no, I don’t want you to go there even if you could leave tomorrow. My analysis of you and how you think tell me that you obviously are not Yuseserese material.”
“Why? How’s that? All I want is to be a doctor. A doctor is a doctor, no? There are Russian doctors at the UTH/ University Teaching Hospital, right?”
“Correct, a doctor is a doctor to the extent that he or she thinks only within the context of being a doctor and nothing else beyond.”
“I don’t understand!”
“Let me explain, Sae: you see, being a doctor, or any other modern, academically attained profession for that matter, is but just one of the multitudes of tools available for us to apply in the overall growth and development of society. You’ll, of course, recall that growth refers to the actual physical expansionary attributes of society; infrastructure, for example. Whereas development refers to the total conceptual and practical work that goes towards visualizing and realizing measurable qualitative and quantitative transformation of society.”
“Yes, growth or lack thereof is a function of ideas and tools constituting a society’s developmental visions as espoused by the incumbent national leadership.”
“Absolutely, Sae. Do remember that the developmental visions are promulgated in national development plans over specific time periods. Your brilliant explanation is further proof that sending you to Yuseserese will be a waste of what I see as one of the most promising of future leadership brains in our soon to be liberated South Africa. You must go to the West. Most of our smart ANC leaders in exile send their children to the West, anyway. There’s a good reason for that.”
In arguing his case, Comrade Mjaykes repeated a summary of standard rhetorical statements I had heard numerous times before:
- The Soviet Union is a Socialist state.
- Socialism is a transition state. Socialism puts together all the building blocks leading to Communism attainment.
- Socialism shall build a strong state designed to enhance optimal economic growth and protection of society and all that guarantees perpetuity of the imminent march to Communism.
- Communism is the highest state of existential wellbeing attainable for society. Under Communism, classes are non-existent; all are equal with equal access to all resources necessary and available for a life of non-ending abundance for all.
- The state machinery, i.e. bureaucracy, has the function of managing efficacy of Communism towards the full satisfaction of societal needs. Under Communism, given certain specific skills according to different levels of societal engineering and resources production and distribution administration, all are at the service of society first and foremost and last.
- Communism has no room for individualism, the basis for societal stratification, or classes creation. When Christianity and other religions talk about heaven, that’s another language for the perfect Communist state, actually. Only that Communism has no overbearing figures of God as portrayed in religious belief systems.
“That is the rosy picture of Communism, Sae. The reality is different. Just like the concept of heaven for the religious, Communism is utopian. The march to Communism starts and ends in the already dysfunctional Socialism, really.”
“But I thought that attainment of the Communist state was more realistic because it was based on the dialectical material world for material human beings without mythical angels and gods in even more farfetched heavens above somewhere in the distant sky.”
“Communism attainment would be more realistic had it not been for Socialism’s killing of the human spirit, Sae.”
“You are losing me now, Comrade Mjaykes!”
“I know that no one here has ever mentioned that last statement to you. I deliberately chose to prematurely take your political education to the next level now. That’s only because I really want the best for you and the future liberated, non-Communist South Africa.”
“If I may say so, you are beginning to sound like a sellout, Comrade Mjaykes. Aren’t you risking condemnation by others should they hear you talking like this to me now”
“No, my views in this regard are already known to even the highest levels of our command structures. My devotion to the struggle is known; I having been tested on many, many occasions over the years. But because we, the ANC, aren’t hard-core Socialists yet, there’ still much room allowed to hold principled divergent opinions in the on-going discourse of how to establish a unique, workable developmental model for the future South Africa.”
“I see!”
“And that is the point, Sae; behind the apparent success of Socialism in the USSR, North Korea, Cuba, and China, to name the most prominent, there are millions of robotized people whose senses of individuality have been broken to the core. Indeed, people may be provided with the best education in the natural and social sciences, producing top doctors, engineers, economists, and many more vocations. But that’s often as far as it goes.
That’s because, through various political indoctrination methods, backed by extremely brutal national security forces trained to think and act as robotically themselves, the ruling elite ensure that the people cease to think independently and critically over existential questions.”
“But I’ve thus far been made to believe that people in Russia and all these socialist places live happily ever after. Moreover, Russia’s support of ours and others’ anti-imperialist struggles were for that the world must unite against capitalism’s exploitative socio-economic relations subjecting us to lasting poverty and subjugation.”
“That’s a myth, Sae. The truth is that us South Africans we are just too free-spirited, too wild to tame for Socialism. It goes without saying that Communism isn’t even worth talking about. Our allied South African Communist Party is a good platform for training in polemics and rhetoric more than anything else. We’ll discuss higher level Capitalism issues another time.”
“I must say that this new side of Socialism has shocked me, Comrade Mjaykes.”
“You see, Socialism works for, and constructs linear thinkers; people who cannot think outside the box. People who think only in straight lines and right-angles in fixed operational spaces. Perhaps that may be one of the reasons Russians are superior chess players! I don’t know.”
It’s at about this time that my interest in chess waned. I dreaded the idea of my brains turning square! Indeed, many a South African liberation struggle veteran is a formidable chess player. If they ruled today’ South Africa as exceptionally as they mastered chess, the country would probably be in a better place. But political leadership is an infinitely open field presupposing capacity for paradigm specific, or beyond as necessary, multifaceted thinking in problem solving and application of solutions derived thereby.
“You have on many occasions demonstrated that you are a more independent and well-rounded thinker than your contemporaries here, Sae. I know that that’s why some of the older comrades here don’t favour you much. They simply hate your guts. Highly educated as they are also, these guys don’t take it kindly when they are pushed out of their intellectual comfort zones, especially by a young comrade like you. They are Soviet educated.
“I’d hate to see you stagnate or degenerate intellectually as you get older. That’s why you can’t go to Yuseserese for studies, Sae, you see? One or two young comrades of your calibre have died out there before. Some have had mental breakdowns. It would break my heart to see that happen to you. Although the truth is suppressed in our organization, racism is also rife in the USSR. Encountering racism out there is tantamount to jumping out of the South African Apartheid pan into the Soviet racism fire, if you ask me.”
At own private initiative elsewhere, the first scholarship chance I got for an overseas higher education was to Social Democratic capitalist Norway in 1988. I got stuck here. Primarily out of idealism and for love. No regrets. Norway is the richest country in the world. All things considered, life is as good as can be in Norway. Of course, never perfect, never fully satisfactory for everyone, but Norway does deliver for its people.
And the country is a leading Foreign Aid nation. Norwegian Finance Ministers have for years been megastars amongst their global colleagues. No Communism here. The few ardent Norwegian communists around are but fringe individuals or insignificant groupings with inconsequential social change impact, if any at all.
I write books now. I am what they call norsk forfatter. ‘Forfatter Simon Chilembo’ sounds ever so cool! I write without fear or favour, freely following my creative fantasies to wherever they take me. I live happily ever after in an effectively non-Communist state. If Comrade Mjaykes could see me now! All gratitude due.
USSR-Socialist trained South African national leaders across the board fail to get the Rainbow Nation out of the mess they’ve plunged it in after the fall of Apartheid in 1994. In big geopolitics questions, the USSR yoke is sitting comfortably on South Africa’s neck. Mzansi drowning with a sinking ship that is post-USSR Russia fo sho.
The USSR fall with the Berlin Wall in 1989 give rise to Russia. In essence, Russia is the ghost of the former USSR. Ghosts are no touch of reality. It’s therefore not surprising that, identical to South Africa contra Apartheid’s subsequent collapse five years later, Russia never could rise from the post Berlin Wall shambles. Oligarchs ruthlessly plundered the Russian state coffers, taking corruption to the next level.
Post-1994 South Africa created its own egregious oligarchic class through the State Capture phenomenon. This has shown many a Comrade from humble beginnings becoming millionaires to billionaires overnight. They have acutely incapacitated the South African state’s ability to optimally deliver the promise of a better life for all in a united, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic republic. The post-1994 South African oligarchic class has given the formally Apartheid state’s corruption colour. The former is living in the past. They have lost sight of the reality that Russia is not the USSR. Dismembering of the USSR is permanent.
In 2022, Russia invades Ukraine with chess moves mentality. Some things never change. It has turned out that Ukraine is not a chess board for Russia to play on as it wishes. Things have changed here. Parochial USSR legacy oblivious to this fact. Just for starters, young men of my age in the late 1970s are dying, falling like sacrificial chess pawns. The rest is a tragic war on a straight line trajectory ending potentially with a nuclear war catastrophe.
World in panic makes noise. USSR legacy ears are plugged. USSR marble eyes see imperial rebirth victory where the odds for survival are impossible to turn around. Meanwhile, Norway gives shelter and protection to Ukraine children and women running away from the ravages of Russia’s war on their country. No better place to be. Communism allergic. Progressive society as close to heavenly terrestrial opulence as can be.
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
TEL.: +4792525032
April 23, 2022
PS
The pandemic is still in our midst. Fears and factual untruths haven’t abated. In my 7th book, Covid-19 and I: Killing Conspiracy Theories, I highlight fallacies red lights and how to identify them. Order the book, read, and be inspired by my philosophical exposition on the matter. It might save yours and your loved ones’ lives.
DISCLAIMER: I neither offer nor suggest any cures or remedies. I promote fearless, independent thought and inclination towards pursuing science-based knowledge in times of, indeed, frightening, life-threatening phenomena in the world.
RECOMMENDATION: Do you want to start writing own blog or website? Try WordPress!
MANDELA, KAUNDA LEGACIES
Unilateral Tug of War
Just in terms of numbers, South Africa and Zambia cannot be equated. Of course. The former outstrips the latter by far: from territorial boundaries dimensions, population sizes and overall demographics, natural resources endowment, optimal economic potential and actual performance, to military power. Numbers don’t lie.
It goes without saying, therefore, that at any one time, any one variable or all highlighted above considered, South Africa will, in real terms, be a much more complex society relative to Zambia. Meaning that politics in South Africa will, correspondingly, be a more challenging enterprise for those involved in the national political leadership arena, whether in ruling power or in the opposition.
Needless to say that there are, indeed, countries smaller than even Zambia, but happen to have much more intricate political intrigues than South Africa. Another time and another place for the last observation raised.
A simple Google search will either confirm or debunk my assertions above, much as it will do with many of my postulations throughout this presentation.
Politics is the science of government. Government is the collective of institutions, including their constituent leaderships and functional personnel. They are created to enforce societal progress rules and policies that are arrived upon by the representatives of the body politic.
The government, or the state, will often reflect the interests of the dominant political parties. However, through corruption and greed, the dominant, ruling political parties may themselves be subtly steered by peripheral influential, manipulative economic forces. These may either be local or international actors, if not a combination of both. In South Africa, the concept called “State Capture” describes the collusion between the powerful economic elite and the government.
Notwithstanding the “State Capture” phenomenon, the interests of the respective political parties are often shaped and differentiated by their cardinal ideologies. An ideology is the summation of ideas based on theories and policies of political and economic engineering of society.
Ideologies are applied in varying ways to indoctrinate particular societies to address and find solutions to existential questions and challenges in certain pre-determined, and non-variable methods. Therefore, ideologies are not only critical for shaping individual countries’ internal living conditions, they also influence individual countries’ international relations premises; i.e. which countries will have mutually cordial diplomatic relations with one another, which supranational institutions the countries will be members of, which international solidarity causes countries will engage in and at what cost, etc.
In contemporary times, historical factors leading to the creation of specific nations often contribute to the kind of ideology adopted, developed, or redefined to suit local conditions. A nation’s wealth, often with particular reference to its relative strategic significance to the major economic and political nations and power blocs in the world, will also have a bearing on the nature of the dominant ideology. A subservient country’s geographical location on the globe can further add to, or reduce its strategic value.
At any one time, a quick reality check will show that relatively newer and smaller nations with both perceived and real strategic importance to the major political and economic giant nations, e.g. the industrialized Western world, have a hard time determining their own, sovereign national ideologies.
Old ties bind some of these emergent states with their former colonial masters from the Western world. Others will be held in infinite indebtedness to comrade states from the Eastern socialist, or communistic countries that helped in their liberation struggles for independence.
It is in the light of all the above that I choose to look at the comparative legacies of Nelson Mandela of South Africa, and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia. Comparative because of the many critics of Nelson Mandela, who, in my view is unfairly battered in relation to the critics’ view of to whom real Southern African statesmanship ought to be accorded contra Kenneth Kaunda’s legacy too. I specifically address myself to Zambian critics.
Nelson Mandela attends the lieing in state of ANC president OR Tambo at FNB stadium, Soweto, South Africa. (Greg Marinovich)
Before I proceed, I wish to make a few salient personal points:
- I must declare that this is a non-solicited presentation. It is only an outcome of the involuntary workings of my critical thinking mind and its creative processes. It is my subjective, free world intellectual response to the foul anti-Mandela vis-à-vis Kaunda sentiments I have seen expressed in the various social media platforms, particularly Facebook, for many years. It is not my goal to want to be malicious against anybody. Neither is it my intention to seek or expect approval, favours, or rewards from anybody.
This is an honest, independent expression of my thoughts and feelings with nothing but the very best of intentions. All this is done with the utmost respect both for Mandela and Kaunda, their respective families, and their followers through their respective foundations and other fora … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA BLOGS – As I See It”. Order Simon Chilembo books on Amazon)
Simon Chilembo
Welkom
South Africa
Tel.: +4792525032
February 13, 2018
INTRINSIC MOTIVATION IN A NATIONAL CONTEXT
Guiding questions:
1. What spurs a nation or a people to attain heights of development?
2. Is it a collective that is the main driver or a leader with “Intrinsic Motivation”
©Simon Chilembo 2018
NOTE
The article below is motivated by Mr Fisho Mwale. It arose from a Facebook interaction yesterday, Thursday, January 08, 2018. I was one of the respondents to his posting, “BUSINESS IDEAS”. In it, he referred to his personal family experiences to highlight some cultural impediments towards following up emergent business opportunities in our society.
Mr Fisho Mwale, summarizing his bone of contention, wrote, “Sometimes out of the box great business ideas do not work due to many factors such as timing, cultural values and lack of guts. You have to believe in your ideas and it’s important to get ‘buy in’.”
In agreement with him, I responded:
“… Great real-life entrepreneurial development case study material, …. Thanks for the insights, Sir! I wish to also add lack of what I call “Intrinsic Motivation” to the list of factors inhibiting follow-throughs to great business ideas and, indeed, opportunities arising from given circumstances.
“Intrinsic Motivation is an active killer-instinct driven desire and determination to achieve set goals, and beyond. That arising, perhaps, from chance opportunities, or those created in response to certain apparent societal, if not bigger natural conditions and/ needs. E.g. the cholera epidemic mentioned above. It works independent of external deliberate or unintended hindrances, and is often a profoundly personal journey. Seen from the outside, people in “Intrinsic Motivation” mode can appear to be selfish, reckless, one-track-minded, and defiant, amongst other negative personal attributes.
“This kind of motivation is ignited by desperate survival need circumstances too, if not a pure natural curiosity state of being. When pushed against the wall, without any possible manoeuvre or exit, fearless, “thrill-seeker”-type-people with strong wills to live will find the most ingenious ways to survive: creativity kindled to find the most unconventional solutions that could be developed into business models, subsequently.
I believe that we have to teach ourselves to be hungry enough, curious enough, and afraid enough to ignite our “Intrinsic Motivations” in order that they, pushing the continuum farther, ignite the killer-instinct guts necessary to get us to see things through, no matter the odds. It is a mind, attitude thing, really. Doable.”
The reply from Mr Fisho Mwale was gracious. He concluded by throwing me a challenge, “Thank you and I would love for you to expand more and discuss it from a National context …”
The latter got “… my Intrinsic Motivation to find, and engage with like-minded people about national development issues, plus possible solutions …” to shoot to the roof.
DEVELOPMENT: Attainment, Nurture, Sustenance.
In Social Science, the concept of Development is defined in terms of upward qualitative and quantitative transformation of society over time. Operationally, it means that from society’s observable benefits of this positive change, people will reflect higher and enduring frequencies of subjective states of contentment, hope, and belief in an ever bright future for all.
This state of affairs will be a manifestation of societies ability to provide for all the people’s basic short-term and long-term needs and wants for successful living from day-to-day, all their days: food, shelter, health, education, security, and more. Abundance is when society has a constant surplus of all the resources that are necessary to ensure that the people’s contentment levels do not dramatically spiral downwards in cases of natural calamities, wars, and, especially, population growth in time.
The objective side of Development is, therefore, operationally seen in the growth, in sheer numbers and magnitudes, of material and service values of all the tangible and intangible aspects of societal management towards lasting prosperity attainment. Herein come elements of:
- Infrastructure – water reservoirs, food production facilities (agricultural land, food processing plants, etc), housing, roads, hospitals, schools, power stations and grids, telecommunications, and others.
- Services – the entire spectrum of social amenities and necessary operational personnel across the board (health workers, engineers and other scientists, entrepreneurs, R&D, and many more), national security (police, military), including culture, i.e. the whole possibilities field of the creative arts.
- Longevity – In sustained development states, short of mortal accidents of all kinds, under variable circumstances, people tend to live into ripe old ages. Absence of private and societal want, as well as a general sense and state of well-being in society tend to have a life prolonging effect on the people: resilience against various life-threatening illnesses, and ever improving medical treatments of the same.
Because Development is about growth, and is forward-looking, it can be encapsulated in the concept of progress. This means that stages of development can be measured, and isolated in terms of space and time. Viewed in this regard, it ought to be understandable that Development entails a rise in complications of societal management and administration.
In the context of this presentation, management is about the allocation of resources in appropriate quantities to relevant material and service needs in developmental work. Administration, then, sees to it that resources are applied for their originally intended purposes, and according to stipulated rules with regard to predetermined decisive conditions.
Therefore, from the point of definitions above, for Development to succeed, it is imperative that it is spearheaded by people of at least as intellectually and culturally progressive as Development itself is inherently, and necessarily entails on its reality.
“INTRINSIC MOTIVATION” FOR DEVELOPMENT: The Collective? A Leader?
On the one hand, human beings are inherently self-centered as individuals. On the other, because human beings are, actually, also very smart, they realized a long time ago that to survive in an inherently hostile nature, they had to learn to live in collectives. We, as humans against other earthly creatures, owe our position at the top of the food chain to our ability to work together in our necessary efforts to tame aspects of nature for our, yes, Development (-al) needs … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA BLOGS – As I See It”. Order Simon Chilembo books on Amazon)
Simon Chilembo
Welkom
South Africa
Tel: +27 813185271
February 09, 2018
A FATHER IS GONE
REMEMBERING A SENIOR WARRIOR:
SVEIN SØRLIE
It is almost two weeks since Svein Sørlie died on Tuesday, August 15, 2017 in Norway. He shall be buried on Tuesday, August 29, 2017. I believe that wherever his soul is in the grander universe, it is thriving in the best conditions of the afterlife; resting in peace, hopefully. There is no rest for the hearts of gold. Gold is forever; larger than life. Such was Svein Sørlie as I knew him, feeling as if it had been all my life.
©Toril Sørlie 2017
Svein Sørlie: my student, my friend, my mentor, my protector. In time, he grew to represent a formidable father figure for me as I strove to curve a space of my own in a land that is not of my forefathers, Norway. With his death, it feels like a large chunk of Norway has just been ripped off my heart. The hurt I feel is profound.
I have known Svein, since March, 1989. During much of this time, I’ve watched with awe how he would ever so elegantly balance, sometimes in one and the same space, the role of a father, grandfather, brother, uncle, lover, in-law, friend, teacher, student, colleague, citizen, and community member. I could never get enough of the warmth and love that, on the one hand, Svein exuded, and received, on the other.
©Toril Sørlie 2017
It did not matter whether we were in Norway, or travelling in Greece or the UK; he was ever so easy to get along with. I guess it had to do with the aura of humility and compassion he radiated, long before he would open his mouth to greet people, and introduce himself to strangers.
Winter, spring, summer, or fall; dojo, camping, competitions, seminars, party, home, city centre, beach, everywhere: Svein Sørlie was the ever green, the ever wonderful. An IT expert, a former naval officer, and Judo adept, he was a knowledgeable and wise man; a man of the world. His terrific sense of humour made it a joy to talk with him about many subjects of common interest, any time.
On Wednesday, March 29, 1989, Anne-Britt Nilsen helped me arrange and host a public meeting to introduce Karate in the local community of Blåbærstien, Nesoddtangen. I was accompanied by my first ever Norwegian Karate student, Knut Arild Midtbø, who I had already started to train in Oslo since October, 1988. He would translate my message, since I hardly spoke a word of Norwegian, then.
In a packed, rather small community hall, the reception we received was mixture of curiosity, enthusiasm, scepticism, and outright hostility. During an altercation between my assistant, Knut, and a man who was totally against our mission in his neighbourhood, my eyes fell on a bespectacled older man. A little girl was sitting and playing at his feet. As our eyes met, the man gave me a gentle, reassuring smile; I thought the look on his face told me something like, “Never mind him!”
The friendly man was Svein Sørlie, and the little girl was his youngest child and daughter, Toril. For the next ten years or so, the Svein-Toril family duo would be the heart-beat of Blåbærstien Karate Klubb, now Nesodden Karateklubb. It was such that at a time when I had to make one of the most decisive choices in my life, I weighed my options against, amongst others, the joint pillar of strength Svein and Toril jointly represented for me in the club, if not the country Norway … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA BLOGS – As I See It”. Order Simon Chilembo books on Amazon)
Simon Chilembo
Welkom
South Africa
Telephone: +4792525032
August 28, 2017
38 YEARS AN EXILE: XII
HOME AT LAST! Part 12 CITIZEN OF THE WORLD? MY FOOT!
SPECIAL NOTE: Link takes us to an article written by a frustrated young lady in Oslo, Norway, who feels she has no place to call home anywhere. Although my writing below may sound harsh, it is not personal. I am writing on the subject in general terms at her inspiration, from my, of course, highly subjective point of view. Believe me, I feel her pain, anger, and sorrow. 
I am a citizen of the world is another one of those idealistic statements of which poetry and literature are inspired. I am a citizen of the world as an emotional statement reeks of arrogance, ignorance, naiveté, self-centredness, patronization, and imperialistic tendencies. You don’t go calling yourself citizen of the world simply because you don’t feel at home in your country of birth, and/ or your host country if you are an exile in the Diaspora. It’s not up to you to declare yourself a world citizen, as if the world owes you any favours, to begin with …(Continued in the book: “MACHONA AWAKENING – home in grey matter”. Order book on Amazon’s CreateSpace here).
Simon Chilembo
Riebeeckstad
Welkom
South Africa
December 15, 2014
38 YEARS AN EXILE: VII
HOME AT LAST! Part 7
1-Year Anniversary: The Truth
Simon Chilembo, Pres/ CEO, Empire Chilembo ©Simon Chilembo, 2014
In search of myself, I came forward to the roots in the land of my birth exactly a year ago today. I’m here; I live, I love. I’m poor. My sanity is intact. Symbols of my profane world wealth are standing firm on solid ground. I have no choice but to rise and stand tall. My life is good. One discovered shocking truth about my life could have wrecked it all had it not been for the presence of the other truth … (Continued in the book: “MACHONA AWAKENING – home in grey matter”. Order book on Amazon’s CreateSpace here).
Simon Chilembo
Riebeeckstad
Welkom
South Africa
July 02, 2014
Simon Chilembo 