Solidarity Hill
So way back in the last century when the whole global COVID-19 panny kicked off in Wuhan and then moved on to Milan before swallowing all of Italy; most countries responded by calling their salespeople back home; closing borders and announcing what we now know as lockdowns. The Americans - being war-prone — decided to call it shelter-in-place. Durbanites were stunned by all of this — for them it was just another day at the seaside — but I digress. The Swedish government and their esteemed Royal Parasites decided that they were not about to follow the global herd into the Corona Serengeti. Instead they decided to keep things open and operate as normal.
Fast forward to January 2021 and basically, it turns out that the crazy Swedes were in fact crazy to listen to their Big Cheese — Anders Tegnell — who it seems is not an epidemiologist but just a regular GP. Now if this was going down in the holy land — he’d be properly roasted on Twitter for being a crony appointment — be called incompetent by NDZ haters, resigned and have been promoted to the Cabinet as Minister of Economics or something like that. But the Swedes are not like that. Swedes are dying everyday and he’s still there in his job, likely waiting for Tannie Helen to come visit him with jars of Marmite and smoorsnoek.
And it’s the silence from that Tannie Helen loving bunch that kept citing the mad Swedes as a marker when arguing against hard lockdowns in the holy land that is most telling. They are so quiet about this about-turn, you’d think they’re about to stage a Rabbit Eared Coup d'etat on Pretoria.
But that’s unlikely to happen because they’re still fighting on the beaches — obviously inspired by that other bunch of colonisers great Grandpa’s wartime speech where he promised his Queen’s in-laws and cuzzies that they would fight them on the beaches — if they had to. So while the Germans were busy readying themselves for a full-out assault on Brighton — the allies landed in Normandy. Grand Coloniser Churchill was a wily one — he was smart enough to keep it under wraps that the said beaches would be in France.
But back to the beaches in the holy land, where the NDZ haters have now decided that the Minister has redefined what constitute beaches — only to find themselves kaalgat and below the high-water mark a few minutes later when an actual lawyer pointed out that this definition of beaches has been on the statute since Pa was in charge of all the pesky Natives and making the rules for them about what constitutes a beach and all that learned palaver that was way beyond the intellectual capabilities of the locals they had colonised.
Ja-nee, it’s not going well for Jan Whinehouse and his merry band of Neo Colonists — they have had to back pedal twice in the space of hours on Twitter.
But as ever, we’re not here in the holy land to complain — there are enough people all over the socials, on the radio, on TV, in the newspapers and even in your face that are primed and ready to let loose with complaints at the slightest provocation. Mostly they need no provocation — they just find it utterly intrinsic to their very nature to complain.
Spend some time sitting quietly at a distant table with your hearing device turned up to max (just leave a baby monitor ON in a pram with a sleeping child if you don’t have a pro listening device) and you’ll have the range of things my fellow citizens of this holy land have to complain about.
First off, they fuss about having to wear masks; next they complain about the commies who have closed down the beaches while proudly proclaiming that “surfing is not a crime”. Next in line come the complaints about the temporary ban on booze sales — this is also communist — and is killing the economy. In the last two days, the new complaint is about the majority of land borders being closed to and there not being enough oxygen at the hospitals. Again, the commies get the blame. By this time, the baby in a pram that did not appear to have a handler fussing over it was drawing a bit too much attention; so I quickly settled up the bill, claimed the baby and pram and got out of there before they realised the baby was not real.
But we’re not here to complain — and according to the women who sweep the streets just below where the complainers enjoy their Confused Colonisers Breakfast Special (bacon and eggs served on a croissant) — it’s rare that they are greeted by one of the other class. Rare that one of the many people walking their dogs, running their overweight boyfriends ragged, being super ableist and jogging with pram on the left and hounds on the right hand or even the Lurid Lycra Cyclists — would bother to greet them as they swept past; the wake of their class privilege trailing La vie est belle (and sometimes the holidaying Vaalies messing it up with their 90s era Aramis wakes).
So the people that rock up daily to sweep up, empty out the bins and make sure the public spaces are cleaned and ready for use by their class betters — don’t get a hello. And when they do; they do a double take — because — and why should it matter that a mere street sweeper is surprised and confused that one of the rich, one of privileged, one of the few who can afford to even be in this space for mere leisure — is bothering to slow down and say a quick hello / Dumela / Sawubona?
And in this small exchange of pleasantries between the privileged and the workers that make our privileged lives possible; lies the key to solidarity or the lack of it between people in this the year of our lord 2021 AD.
In the holy land (and worldwide) solidarity is increasingly being limited to class similarity and to political closeness — so despite the chutzpah that enables me to break into the rarefied air of a seaside village stroll with a canine in the mornings — the locals there battle with my presence and any real friendships because I don’t subscribe to their Surfing Rights Charter. As far as they care to admit, I could be a commie NDZ apologist — which no doubt will come as much of a surprise to NDZ — as it does to me.
Still, (to take a line from Twitter) I’ll die on this hill that honest solidarity between us is the key to unlocking better lives for all of us. Privileged and poor alike.
And to do that means we must first turn to our sisters, brothers, mothers, grandparents, neighbours, priests and work colleagues and have the choicest of conversations with them. Enough dubbel Ka, middel Aa talk circa the 70s; let’s be brave and establish some sense and order in the decor magazine perfect houses so that they shine with more than the impermanence of solar fairy lights.
© Jesh Baker, 2021
