However, when you think about it, life has never been perfectly pleasant. There were World Wars and revolutions; earthquakes and tornadoes; the Great Depression; extreme human rights violations; suppressed minorities; black plagues… the list goes on. In comparison, now is not that bad.

Life occurs in waves… it’s how the world works. Maybe it’s self-regulating in its own way?

We tend to augment the good old days, remembering the good moments that we experienced and ignoring the bigger picture. I recently read an article about passing fads that stated, “We live our lives in a complex web of rapidly changing whims, desires, ethics, and policies; we pick the ones we like, and they form the spirit of our age, the spirit of our society.” At the same time, we as people are never satisfied with what we have or how things are; we always want ‘else’.

In South Africa, I have heard people (from all races) claim that in some ways living during Apartheid was better. It sounds shocking but I have heard it stated more often than one would imagine:

“The beaches were cleaner then”

“The streets were safer”

“The buildings were maintained”

“People worked harder and knew what they were doing”

“The government was competent”

“There were more jobs”

… However, life was definitely not better than!

The past is like that Bette Midler/John Barrowman song, ‘From a Distance’. From far, everything looks great.

However, South Africans are not all racist; in fact there exists a visible tolerance of different racial groups, cultures and customs. For example, one can always measure tolerance with the use of humour. South African stand up comedians are notorious for their political and racial opinions and continue to gather crowds. Various advertisements also use racial stereotypes to create humour. For example, the current Nandos advertisements use zulu customs to create humour, such as polygamy  (this advert is enhanced by South African president, Jacob Zuma’s, multiple wives) and bare-breasted women . Other world cup advertisements (including this hilariously insane Wimpy advert) and songs portray a national unity that surpasses racial distinctions. Moreover, South Africans love them. The current craze is music artists such as Jack Parrow,  Die Antwoord, Leon Schuster and JR who combine South African languages and cultures into a new form of South African.

One may argue that this is all merely a performance of unity and tolerance rather than true acceptance. South Africa may be a crime ridden country however, it is not racist. There may exist individual racists who reside in South Africa, no different from racists who reside anywhere else in the world; however, as a whole, South Africa is not racist.

During my graduation ceremony last month, I witnessed a display tolerance. Six years ago, when I attended my sister’s graduation, the ceremony imposed rules of silence, asking the audience to applaud only at the end. During my graduation, the audience ululated freely in their own sounds of culture. A gogo (zulu for grandmother) stood in the center of the aisle reciting what seemed like a form of praise poetry as her son/relation received his doctrate and the entire ceremony paused to listen to her, with the various ‘chairpeople’ smiling and even applauding her. Even the dress code represented a gathering of different cultures with some Indians dressed in indian attire (sari’s and so forth), some Africans wearing Sunday hats. ‘black diamonds’ in the latest fashion, the ‘philosophers’ in more casual attire…

In tolerance there exists a willingness to learn, respect and acknowledge the customs, cultures and religious beliefs of other; and in South Africa there exists tolerance.

In Freire’s work Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), he claims that the ‘banking system’, in which learners are treated as empty bank accounts that are filled by their all-knowing educators, learning is passive. Such education ill-equips students for the real world, leaving them unable to truly think for themselves. At the same time, this method is outdated in contemporary society, educators are no longer like Carol Beach York’s ‘Miss Know it all’; technological advancements (computers, mobile phones and iPads) allow an affordable and  easy access to information which enables students to fill their own ‘banks’. Moreover, according to recent results, this ‘banking system of education’ is no longer working.

While high failure rates may be linked to apathetic, lazy or wayward learners, there also exists a responsibility on the teachers. A new salary dispensation for educators has been implemented in South Africa; with this system, educators are evaluated in terms of their students’ performance and this should reflect in their salaries. While this approach may be problematic in that teachers may implement ‘cheap tricks’ to strengthen the grades of their students or that students in a particular class may be unusually raucous, it does imply that the students are not solely responsible for their grades and that educators have a huge role to play.

South Africa is a uniquely diverse country and education systems should therefore incorporate such diversity. Freire’s preferred system involves active learning that is reciprocal, in which the teacher is also the learner and the learner is also the teacher. This approach instills active thinking and confidence through participation and involves teaching through dialog rather than dictation. While there are efforts made to encourage such participation, these efforts are never fully incorporated and learning remains an act of repeat and remember.

Another flaw in the educational system is its method of assessment. In my 17 years as a pupil, I have always found assessments to be subjective in one way or another regardless of the subject; in some cases, a simple change of lecturer would guarantee a pass or fail. Some educators may provide method marks in mathematical or scientific courses, some may not; some educators may incorporate negative marking for multiple choice questions, some may not; some educators may prepare their students to the extent that they practically provided their students with the model answers, some may not. Some schools also focus more on their overall pass rates than their students – in my old school, my teacher only taught us half the required syllabus since she knew that we would only have to answer four of the ten questions in the provincial examination. The overall result that marks the student’s ability and, in some cases, their future in the form or either a number or symbol is never universally objective but is universally understood. In other words, a Fail to anyone in the world indicates that the student is either incompetent or let the balls drop; however, the student may have received an A with the same amount of effort in a different institution.

Provincial or national assessments may decrease the level of subjectivity involved in marking but may prove to be disadvantageous to some due to a lack of available resources for the impoverished and the huge digital divide in South Africa.

In order for South Africa to improve as a country, the educational system needs to be revised from its lowest level all the way through to tertiary since one of the major problems that universities are currently facing is that students lack basic education. Implementing a better educational system will not only increase the matriculant pass rate and better equip students for the work world but will also aid in decreasing poverty and crime and improving health issues. It will also provide a greater sense of pride in students who achieve degrees and diplomas in higher education. I currently am sitting rather uselessly on two university degrees and am unable to find employment. I feel like the approximate R100 000 spent on my education could have been used to start my own business and the four years wasted to achieve two certificates could have afforded me with usable practical knowledge and experience.

The woman’s faceless head watched you and I part
back to back like the million times before.
Her lips were moving as I turned towards a bluest sky
to hold back tears… and there you were:
wafting above with your mocking finger pointing down at me
like I was the slaved immigrant of your empire.

A passing car hooted, and there you were:
greeting me with goodbye regrets
that taunted me like a broken heart.

Shoe leading shoe I walked with you
to a little girl swinging merrily.
And as she smiled, I saw you:
you jumped around with clown-like feet,
flapping your arms like you could fly.
You danced me into your oneiric bliss,
magnetising me as your polar opposite.

But the old woman’s wrinkled wisdom had burnt into me
the dark side of your wooing heart.
And back to back we parted once more.
Shoe leading shoe, I walked with you
until every bird, bench and tree reminded me of
only me.

Tharuna Devchand

When the dog barks, when the bee stings, when I’m feeling sad

I simply remember my favourite things and then I don’t feel so bad

My tuneless Julie Andrews rendition would have received a two-second brush off on Pop Idols, but the lack of a four-judge panel allowed me to continue singing regardless. As I continued, a smooth alto joined in from behind me: it was the guy I liked – and with no acknowledgement of each other, we sat there singing the entire song, sharing a moment that I would never forget.

I’ve been sitting in front of a blank screen, pondering over all the things in my life that I love. I love writing, but there are some days on which it leaves me feeling empty and frustrated. I love art, but some days I find it overwhelmed. I love meeting up with my friends, but some days I just prefer to be alone. I love movies, but they always seem to bore me at some point. I love reading but don’t have the patience to complete the Bryce Courtney novel that has been lying on my bedside table for the last year. I love music, but I can never name a band, album or song that lifts up my spirits every time that I feel “bad”. These are just things that keep going day in and day out.

My truly favourite things live with me in a circular box on the top of my neck: memories of good times, stupid times and bad times that were overcome… The first poem I had published that made my school librarian jump up like the whizzpopping BFG. The day I went with my friends to the movies and we scared the lady in front of us. The times I shared with my friend while writing the most nonsensical attempt at a novel. The moment my manager stuck his nose out the window, pretending to be a dog. The Robbie Williams concert I attended when it was pouring with rain and my cousin pulled out these bin-raincoats with the words ‘Sanlam: thinking ahead’ on them. The times my family took me out for my birthday. The blue bruise on my arm after a game of paintball… These are a few of my favourite things.

The concept of food is like religion: everyone has their own biases of what is right or wrong, determined by their own life experiences and teachings. Only they are right. Vegan activists bang down door after door, asserting that non-vegans bare the resemblance of cold-blooded murderers. Meat lovers greet them with a lamb on a spit and 500g spare ribs, mocking their resistance. Size-zero starvists belittle the size-large in contempt as if they were Quasimodo reincarnations; while the heavy weight champions poke at the pecs of their nerdy worshippers.
There is a war out there; a war over food and all damage is psychological.

There are many reasons for craving the use of social networking sites. In the rapid paced world that we live in, the giving of attention to those who want it is scarce. With global financial and employment calamities, most parents are working harder and leaving their children somewhat neglected. With women striving to reach the sky of the corporate world, relationships tend to be strained while partners become more demanding. Even parents tend to be neglected by their working-class offspring.

Social network sites, on the other hand, are attention-giving whores. They suck in people who are lonely or shy or depressed and provide them with instantly gratifying attention. You have the ability to chat with new people when the old ones have grown tired of you and subsequently get rid of them when you have grown wary of their tales by simply pressing “delete.” No long, drawn-out explanations required and, if you were clever enough to not give out your details, no Cable Guy-type stalkers to ruin your life. It’s clean. It’s simple. It’s a social happy pill.

However, at the same time, it breeds a society of demanding and conceited narcissicists. In the realm of the Internet, we become our own celebrities. We fragment ourselves in the same way celebrities do, sometimes creating whole new personalities online. We believe that our stories and daily activities are important and interesting enough for the world to know. We get sad when people fail to acknowledge and be amused by our outpourings. In a way, we have become our own gods, begging to be worshipped. The more friends or followers you have, the greater you are; to the extent where people are actually paying sites to gain more followers.

Avid site users are generally aware of their addictions. Like all addictions — be it smoking, drinking, eating, loving, or shopping — there are long-term effects that ultimately change you.

Hmmm…Maybe I should detox.

In my first year at university, I was among the social butterflies. I was known and liked by many but close to very few. During my first set of examinations, my uncle passed away. I was a mess – I felt broken beyond repair and completely alone. All of my friends were busy studying for their examinations, not entirely interested in my emotional dilemmas. I didn’t know what to do with myself – at the demise of a loved one, questions about life, purpose and meaning plague you until there is nothing that you are certain about.

I used to blog at the time, it was a form of catharsis; there were no limitations to what I wrote since there was only one person who knew about my blog. Despite all his pending work, he spent a couple of hours reading and commenting on every single entry I had written. It was a small gesture, but he made me laugh, reassured me that things would be ok and helped me to regain my confidence in life.

It is during the times when things get hard that you find out who your truest friends are: the people who you can confide in and who will be with you when things are unbearable.

The concept of profit in a capitalist society is essentially devoid of ethical considerations. There is one goal:  increase net profit; even if it involves attaching misnomers to your pitch or creating subterfuges. It is usually only the most vile that resort to such extremities; however, even in the simplest sell-and-buy transactions there occurs a certain amount of manipulation.

Manipulation may simply occur through misrepresentation of person or skill. In a recent encounter with a woman who claimed that her calling in life was to help people heal their broken heart (once they had bought a certain book that she had written), I asked her what her perspective was on free advice to people who could not afford her book. She smirked and replied saying that in assisting people who did not pay, she would be wasting time and neglecting the customers who did. There are also spiritual healers (sangomas), back-door abortionists and such (essentially charlatans) who offer overpriced solutions to the ignorant, desperate and impoverished. In South Africa, there was a case in which a practicing 16-year-old spiritual healer mixed something toxic and killed himself and his family (an approximate total of 16 people died).  Profit sucks out the soul of humanity: any help needed comes with a price tag; all price tags come with an included and invisible mark up (pure-hearted charity excluded).

Even the poor manipulate and make money off the poor. In certain clinics in South Africa, which are meant to aid the impoverished and provide medication to the sick, there are nurses who steal the government-provided medication and sell it instead of distributing it to the sick who approach the clinics for help. In old age homes, there are assistants who steal the belongings of the elderly to sell and make a profit. Orphanages are also robbed of their comforts with charity given toys and food being taken by the assistants for their own usage. Certain companies even use charity as a marketing gimmick – ‘for every (product) purchased, a percentage will be donated to (a random charity organisation)’.

In every finance-involved situation there is a capitalist salivating over the prospect of profit; be it a supposed act of goodwill or straight cut business deals. The most indigent are non-existent. Charity organizations and NGO’s can only do so much to assist them.

However, there also exist the genuinely good-hearted people who help out in times of need… free of charge. I like to think of such people as miniature land-bound gods; free of the capitalism shackles. As for me, I’m refining my entrepreneur skills in an attempt to profit of the rich – despite the soul-less nature of capitalism, everyone needs money. Myself included.