During the week, I bumped into a friend that I hadn’t seen since high school. We exchanged niceties and the conversation drifted towards the good old days. We got to discussing how being slotted into the Science stream was limiting in some ways.
At my high school, we had several sections per grade level. One section was all about the Science-y things, another had business studies and accounting as the anchor subjects; and yet another was humanities, arts, literature and related fields. To the people that went to my high school that are appalled by my recollection😂… my bad. I only started paying attention in 2015 and by then, high school was already a vague and distant memory. I don’t think I’m too far off though.
My friend’s chat is that in the stream that him and I had to swim, we were taught heavy Science like Stoichiometry, Newton’s Laws and Evolution whilst we were going to grow up and work in finance. He feels that we should’ve had some sort of path to add non-science subjects to our Science-biased curriculum. I think there’s an interesting conversation there but I have little confidence that my teenage brain would’ve recognised this as an “opportunity.” Which brings us neatly to my side of the story.
My gripe is different. I wish I had been forced, I repeat, FORCED, to learn History. I only discovered the value in studying the past much later in my life. I have massive gaps in my knowledge. Everything I know about Apartheid is probably 4 years old. I never interacted with the detail and nuance of the notoriously oppressive regime of last century. I was busy playing Smackdown Vs. Raw. Anything I knew about the historic racial inequality in South Africa was something I gleamed off TV by chance, and the rest, from Sarafina. And thus, my ignorance is established.
I started reading up on history late into my adulthood. I was guided by an ex-girlfriend who was passionate about racial issues and still is. I am still learning to discern between historical fact and fiction. I’m easily impressed when someone recalls historical events because I can’t judge for myself the credibility of what is being said… yet!
But I know this ☝🏾, Desmond Tutu is an icon who spent the entirety of his life fighting for justice. The humiliation of the black man under the Apartheid regime was an injustice that he fought tooth and nail to redress. Tutu could not be deterred from this mission. He was not intimidated by any teargas or firearm. He was firmly poised on the pavements of resistance.
"How long should you fight?" "UNTIL!"
That fateful day, 27 April 1994, South Africans casted a vote like no other. A vote that closed the door on Apartheid. A vote that ushered in a democratic dispensation. South Africa was on its way finally in the right direction. The birth of the Rainbow Nation was only the beginning. Sisonke Msimang writes that the Archbishop’s passing “is a reminder that the task of bringing justice to the racially traumatised nation[…] remains unfinished business.”
Eswatini Fuel Shortage
There was a bit of fuel crisis that was brewing in Eswatini. Local petroleum businesses were struggling to secure supply from South Africa because of lapsed contracts. Some believe that there was more to it than just “contracts”. Mine angati. When these same businesses tried to navigate this rather unpleasant situation by securing supply from elsewhere, they encountered challenges in securing the requisite permits from Government.
On 30th December, the honourable Minister of Natural Resources and Energy, Peter Bhembe, came out to say that Government was open to issuing permits for fuel importation from Mozambique and would be guided by how the situation develops. He also used the opportunity to extend his apologies to all that were affected.
What I’m Reading
This segment has turned into spoiler central in recent weeks. I keep letting out everything about a book that you should probably read for yourself. I’m still reading The Count of Monte Cristo. This is a book I started reading 3 weeks ago and I will probably be reading it for the rest of my life because it is so, so, so long. Last week, the protagonist Edmond Dantes was digging holes into the wall with his spoons to escape from his captivity. This week he made a friend who was also contributing to the network of illegal tunnels in the prison.
The friend is named Faria. He is some sort of a religious leader who was also imprisoned on dubious charges. The two joined forces to mount an escape but Edmond’s friend’s health deteriorated until he died. Before he died, he had taught the ignorant 19 year old Dantes a few things in a broad range of topics and further bequeathed treasure to Dantes that he would have to go on a scavenger hunt to retrieve.
As it turned out, Faria’s death became Dantes’ opportunity for escape. He abandoned his plans to dig through concrete with a spoon and pretended to be the corpse instead. When the undertakers eventually came for the corpse, it was Edmond under the sheet. They proceeded to dump the “corpse” in the prison cemetery - the ocean. Last sentence I read, Edmond was fighting for his life swimming from island to island. It looks like he pulled it off actually. Nice!
If anything else happened this week, I missed it. Till next Sunday 👋🏾.
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