Asithandile Gxumisa's Public Diary

  From an old and retired village located in an obscure and tranquil corner of South Africa, I have caught wind of a rumour as disconcerting as it is praevalent, to wit: ‘South Africa has gone to the dogs”. Tidings of a gloomy and melancholic turn, and this rumour happens precisely to be of that kind, are such as customarily feed my deep and imperishable pessimism. Yet a part of me, that of a patriot deeply and infinitely in love with everything South African, refuses on this peculiar occasion to gobble up this dreadful and saddening news. Now I do not for one moment doubt, for we are credibly informed, that the fortune of all sublunary Kingdoms and Republics will come to naught eventually, on that great and dolorific Day when the heavens will pass away with a roar and when all souls will marvel at the sign of the Son of Man; but I should like to believe, from purely patriotic motives, that South Africa’s star is auspicious enough to guide her through the troubles and convulsions o...

A curious rumour is doing the rounds in my village that the democratic Republic of South Africa has overnight become an oasis of joys. The things that seem to enkindle the delight of my countrymen of late – from the paternalistic care that Cyril Ramaphosa has so convincingly affected for their general wellness to suffering their country to be run like the personal laboratory of Abdool-Carrim – are something of a phenomenon. Of these things the most recent is the condign misfortune of a Jacob Zuma who has been convicted by our highest court of an “egregious” and “aggravated” contempt of court and condemned to an imprisonment term of just over a year. An African proverb – which may not be translated into the English tongue without robbing it of the essence of its meaning – wisely cautions against the discourteous indiscretion of laughing at another man’s wound. Indeed, I say it is nothing short of astonishing that Jacob Zuma’s conviction and imprisonment should send the generality of m...

N ot long before the shades of night engulfed the Roman world, men still believed that Rome, the queen of cities, was the Eternal City, almost with the confidence of Etruscan haruspices. Among such men, born about the time when the frontiers of Constantius' dominions were groaning under the feet of hostile barbarians, was Augustine whose illustrious name survived the obscurity of his death and whose fame immortalized the lowly bishopric of Hippo Regius. However, as the great Empire became increasingly a sanguinary scene of misfortunes, of immiseration, and of perpetual intestine convulsions, Augustine was eventually prevailed upon to look elsewhere for permanence. Then there came the fateful event that staggered all Romans out of their romantic dream, that dissolved their pride like butter in a flame, and impelled them headlong into despair: after almost eight centuries of freedom from the ravages of a foreign invasion, in 410 A.D., the Salarian Gates were thrown open and savage G...

One glorious day two Crabs left their home to take a stroll on the warm sand. "Child," remarked the mother carpingly, "you are walking very ungracefully. You should accustom yourself to walking straight forward without twisting from side to side. "Pray mother," retorted the young one, "do but set the example yourself, and I will follow you."  Example is the best precept : in these aphoristic words did Aesop, to whom this old fable is attributed, express the lesson to be learned from it. As it was with the little Crab, so it is with Men: we live by example. Precepts, however excellent, will not avail much so long as they are not embodied in actual Men. Nowadays splendid precepts abound like peacock butterflies in Spring, but Men to exemplify them are scarcer than rainfall on the Chilean desert of Atacama. It is for this reason that I deem myself to have been so fortunate to have stumbled upon men and women of admirable example at the University ...

Ours is a time of troubles. The West is in turmoil as a whole generation of men and women, rootless and thankless, rises up to lay waste to anything that smacks of their past: monuments are desecrated, statues toppled and ancient institutions set alight. In the East dormant disputes and old resentments threaten to sweep away the stability and peace of an entire region as two great powers, China and India, face off in the Galway Valley. Nearer home, in the Republic of South Africa, trouble has emerged in the shape of a Plague and a Scourge: a deadly Flu and a concatenation of cruelties perpetrated against women. In parts of the Middle East religious fanatics have yet to find a language better than bombs and rifles in which to converse. Perhaps worse than all these general calamities are the multiplying troubles of the souls of all of us - souls hopelessly adrift like ghostly cadavers in a raging sea of confusion, error and apoplexy. For are not the afflictions of republics, kin...

If ever there was a face that stood most accurately for the beauty of South Africa at her best then it was the splendid face of Tshegofatso Pule. Alas, those closest to her, her family and friends, shall never again behold that bright face, now hidden forever behind the impenetrable veil of death. For she was murdered viciously, allegedly knifed many times and left hanging upon a tree in the woodlands of the Durban Deep. She was with child, now into her eighth month. With her departure for the realm beyond the grave passed something of the remaining beauty of South Africa - without any hope of recovering it. In many ways the last hour of this 28-year-old lady tells a tale about the Republic she left behind: South Africa becomes grotesque by the day, she becomes less innocent by the hour and her soul loses its lustre of life slowly, as her last hope of redemption dangles perilously by the proverbial gallows. Violence is in the DNA of South Africa, or so we are often told ...

All about us old rhymes are drowned out in the cacophony of modern life, the jarring rumble of which rises by the day. One such old rhyme, not long for our world, is the ancient character of the life of a little known folk in an obscure corner of South Africa. Unlike their Bushmen neighbours, they are not so few as to pique the curiosity of activist conservators of 'cultural rights', the amaBhaca people. Nor are they numerous enough to be mistaken for the tribe of the Republic as their Zulu or Xhosa brethren often are by outlanders. This peculiar fact is, in part, to blame for their long-standing obscurity. Natheless, to the North and East of the erstwhile Transkei, upon the highlands of the Great Escarpment that runs through the country in the likeness of a horseshoe, amaBhaca have dwelt for many ages of Men amidst cold dales. Nothing much is written about the history or the ways of life that have long sustained the communal living of this people. In an Age where oral lore ...