Waiting

The air has bristled with tension for the last few months. What stands out for me specifically was the overenthusiastic Obama furvour ,and people telling me ad nausea how it signals a dawn for African politics and me wincing unsurprisingly at the particularly technicolour repercussions they envisioned for Zimbabwe . The ‘hope’ dialogue that cascaded and continues to gush out of peoples souls is disarming. Some part of this listener responds by trying to see that some level of interest in the world is positive, and smile encouragingly, but my overwhelming response tends towards despair, as the rhetoric is so laden and seeped with nonsense that you can see how easy it is for them to flounder blindly ,with your chest tightening at the prospect of the less enjoyable next level in the ‘hope cycle’ for these misty eyed citizens of the world.

This ridiculous expectation is highlighted by the local interpretations of the Gaza situation which has taken on the intrigue of a soap opera. The Jewish community has been slightly divided but dominantly supportive of Israel while asking for local consumers not to let the situation colour their buying patterns. The Islamic community have responded in outrage as expected and issued a boycott of ‘Jewish business’ including Coke and our biggest supermarket chain Pick n Pay. Some individuals of the group which started the boycott were then photographed drinking Coke by our local tabloid, The Daily Voice, and this event in the saga has so satiated my appetite for satire that I haven’t been able to even ask my neighbours how they feel anymore, or even read the business paper without risking a fit of giggles.

During the writing of the last sentence I have been invited to a ‘Peace event’ this evening which ‘ is an opportunity to come together in collective spiritual resonance’ and once again my response is delighted at my friends for being able to desire contemplating the void in regards to conflict,but obviousloy slightly confused at how they think this will actually help anything. Parecon as a workable solution instead of white cotton draped whimsy holds much more solace then the idea of undefined collective positive consciousness and it would do us well to remember it.

And so I am once again awed, heartbroken, and entertained by my surrounds, and the importance of a realistic idealist tradition, especially one as wonderful as a libertarian socialist model, reasserts itself. 'Our patriotism is that of the man who loves a woman with open eyes. He is enchanted by her beauty, yet he sees her faults.'.and in the case of summer in Cape Town, even the streets are probably chuckling at their wonderfully strange inhabitants.