#90: Are we asleep at the wheel?

Five question and one action to sense check ourselves today

I wish I was funny. It would be easier for you that way. But I’m not. I’m the guy you go to if you want to feel ten feet tall. Follow-through is a strong point too. If we’re on the same team you can be sure well bleed together.

Our community is like an awkward birthday dinner. One where everyone is new to the table and alcohol is off the menu. And that makes sense. It takes time and trust to talk openly so I gauge myself by the three people who comment weekly on what I write. My Dad. My Mom. And an incredibly supportive friend. The story in my head is if I’m too dark or angry it comes through in the subtext of their comments normally in the third or fourth line because they love me but are still scared having walked around inside my head for a few minutes (my wife knows I am powerful and is proud of my honestly almost always). This week my Dad shared how proud he is of me, how great my writing is, and then gently suggested I share how blessed I am.

He’s right of course. No one loves a dripping tap, especially one that leaks dark and stinky water. But here’s the tension of owning a prophetic mantle, you communicate not to be liked, but to love. And that is why I wish I was funny like Anne Lamotte or Trevor Noah, it’s always easier to face reality if we’re all killing ourselves with laughter at the same time

The problem is I have crisscrossed the province of KZN in the last five days. I’ve been north to Mangunzi on the border of Mozambique. South to the crumbling coastal towns where I spent a lifetime of summer holidays. Deep into Durban’s inner city and I am scared. Wounded is probably a better word. Like deep inside. The decay of our province and the load people are carrying is crippling us into slumber. And that is the part that wounds me. I feel like screaming at the top of my lungs, “WAKE UP, WAKE UP”. But I can’t. I am nobody. An onlooker to tiny gatherings of people (mostly with brown skin) feebly trying to resurrect the courage to hope that things can change while all around them millions carry on trying to pretend we’re still living in the sunny 2000s.

But I can’t keep quiet. Inside me burns. Every week I see kids, beautiful kids; kids who wear smiles so wide they are like sunrises that almost make you miss the holes in their school clothes or bruises on their necks. Every week we work through data of the thousands of teens on our program who through herculean courage teach themselves to read and write and start a business from as young as eight. It is wonderful work and completely and utterly wrong. Kids should never be burdened with the load they are carrying in rich and poor schools alike and there are people to blame for that. Me, you, and the politicians we help elect.

So for their sake here are three quick questions and one call to action to sense check ourselves this week if we are asleep at the wheel as we head into the May 29 South African election:

One: When was the last time you looked at our political polling? One of my favorite verses from the Bible is “Do not judge”. Feels like a liberating, immensely practical command for someone like me. But I found that hard last year in an interview with the Vice Chancellor of Zululand University, astrophysicist and spectacular social commentator, Sipho Seepe. He was extolling the virtues of Jacob Zuma and things got hot inside my head. I should have remembered what my brother-in-law said when I got divorced -“There are always three sides to a story”. I like that idea and hold it close still most days. So I try (and fail) to look at Jacob Zuma with immense curiosity and respect for commanding such incredible support. But 28% of people in KwaZulu-Natal voting for him (that was yesterday’s polling) doesn’t seem smart to me? Especially when his mandate is land expropriation without compensation. I hunger for a revolution of equality more than most but based on his history I am not sure that he’s the leader to usher it in. The point is when was the last time you looked at the election polling and what did you do about it?

Two: What do solar panels teach us about South African politics? It’s a leading question so I will tackle it the long way around. My wife and I had a quaint idea when we were rich. We’d live in the ‘inner city’ of Durban to exorcise the racism and prejudice from our hearts. Then we lost most of our wealth in COVID and got stuck. The first warning sign we were in trouble was our bronze post box disappeared leaving a gaping hole in our front door. Next to disappear were our copper pipes which was only brought to an end by me and my wife wrestling the criminal up our stairs and into a police van leaving a trail of blood. All of that was followed by a sprinkling of other break-ins, murders, and last week I got a call at 3 am to help my neighbor remove a dead body from his room.

In the middle there somewhere, after cleaning our road with neighbors more times than I can remember, I called a street meeting with our ward counselor Romona Mckensie. And then together, with her, our road used the political system to bring some much-needed order to our chaos. And it was at that point the penny dropped. Politics is important to peace but it cannot be outsourced in SA like so many of our grudge chores. That’s where solar panels fit in. And JoJo tanks. And fences. And security guards - all of which are CRITICALLY IMPORTANT AND SMART TO SANITY - which create the allusion that we can stand on the sidelines of democracy if we can afford to find another way to survive which is clearly, clearly not true.

Three: Why do you think politics feels dirty and what are you going to do about it? Like most things I have a fairly cynical view of fashion and brands. It comes from deep inside me but thankfully I am now able to explain it using semiotics, culture studies and Noam Chomsky’s propaganda model. The big idea is media drives agendas like the diamond rings which we follow baahaaah-ing obediently like domesticated sheep killing ourselves while trying to achieve someone else’s goal for our lives. Not convinced? Read this article if you are tired of the wool being pooled over your eyes.

So my whole adult life I’ve have avoided brands almost entirely and opted for a monochrome wardrobe. I didn’t do it consciously, promise. It was a naive, subconscious decision and the only solution I could come up with to settle the noise in my head I couldn’t explain. But I put on a branded shirt a week ago. My wife almost dropped her coffee while saying, “I never seen you in anything like that”. The shirt was blue and had a red text in a cheap print that read ‘Rescue KZN’. The DA logo made me feel very, very dirty.

Agggg man. We’re hypocrites. We’re ok with imperfection in our own lives. Our churches. Our families. We’re unfailingly kind to ourselves, but not politicians? And we have reason to be like that, don’t get me wrong, I know that. But that is no excuse for us not picking a side fully mindful that we’re just ‘cutting of our nose to spite our face’ in the process. Anyone reading this is smart enough to do the work. Figure out how to compromise in the least way possible and get on the field. But first, first we’ve got to get past the very real idea that it will make us dirty.

Honestly, the DA is probably one of my least favorite political parties based on the piece of paper in my head. I hate the cerebral way they have historically communicated with. I am perplexed by what seems like their adamant separation from African culture at a national level. I weep at their historic mistakes but I love, love, love their people. Here’s the point: feeling like that took me getting over my own foolish pride and arrogance and getting on the field with them to serve. Yes, they’re passionate, imperfect people. Beautifully flawed, just like me. People who want to love and try and bring hope and change to the vulnerable which is a lot more than most of us can say with integrity. I suppose the real question to all of us over the next seventy days is will we finally lay down our biases, privileges, and arrogance for our children’s sake and join some amazing people like the DA to serve this moment? Or will we continue to stand on the sidelines with our arms folded as angry spectators of our own game …

Ok, the call to action. Seventy days is like two birthday parties and a weekend away. Pooof. And then it’s gone. If things don’t change before you know it we’ll be scratching our heads together and complaining about the state of our nation and the newly elected leaders we wouldn’t choose. So here’s a simple task to catalyze your activism. Share this mail with a friend or family member who you know won’t think you are stupid and suggest something obvious like - ‘Maybe it is time for us to get on the field’ or ‘After reading this I am keen to get involved in elections, lets do it together?’. Hopefully, that is all it takes. A bit of feeling, community and the begruding accountability that comes from putting your hand up impulsively. If you follow through the good news is no matter what happens after that at least looking back on the next seventy days we won’t have the eternal words of Teddy Roosevelt ringing in our ears that we were those “cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat”…

Be brave. Hope you have a truly, truly blessed week.

PS: I am genuinely sorry for being heavy, I think it is just a heavy time to be alive? And Dad I promise I will write about how I am blessed I am soon starting with my extravagently supportive father who always loved me even though he might not have understood me. And how blessed I am to have a mom who champions me, and likes my posts, and pushes me to feel through art. And most importantly how blessed I am to have a wife who shares my rage and action for the world around us; whose words are my own; who I partner with and follow and serve alongside in an incredible journey of aching oneness that leaves us tired and sore most days but together in our hearts and minds.

PSS: This week we are releasing a series of videos of Chris Pappas on the Tomfoolery YouTube page. In the context of this conversation, the video below it is worth a watch.

PSSS: This is not a pro-DA post per se. It is pro-electoral activism as a way of serving ourselves. My decision to serve the DA was purely pragmatic. I asked who had governed a province in SA and so wilted our whopping list down to three - ANC, IFP and DA. After that the choice was fairly easy (given you have to wear knuckle dusters to survive SA politics and anyone not on that list is just a wish and a prayer for true change). ‘Use your head David’ I told myself, ‘not your heart’. I suppose what I am saying above is it is probably in your interest to do the same. Use your head.