Like many of you, I reluctantly left the warm embrace of Durban's humidity some years ago. I returned recently to find the city much changed. Looking for West Street, I walked up and down Dr Pixley ka Seme street for hours. Then I remembered that we have discarded such relics of colonialism as the English names for the four compass points. And of course we are currently freeing ourselves from the equally cloying embrace of the neo-colonialist West. Our new comrades may not offer as much trade as the old, but they do offer good vodka, warm comradeship and other important intangibles, vital for life, liberty and the pursuit of elusive happiness.
I wandered into Point Road (now Mahatma Gandhi Road). Once known as a hub for entertainment and cultural exchanges with foreign sailors, Point Road has apparently cleaned up its act. I was, therefore, shocked to see a sign brazenly advertising Butt Traders. ""Yoh!", I said to myself, which is South African for "Golly!". It turned out that Butt is a surname. I was hugely disapp....,I mean, relieved. My virtue, which I prize as highly as some prize tenders for road name changes, was safe.
Right outside Durban's department of public works building, the paving stones had rebelled against whatever held them down. They stuck out at interesting, sharp angles, allowing only one person at a time to use the walkway - at own risk. A decaying building next door seemed held together only by the danger tape around it. I wondered how long it had been so. Probably only a year or two, going on the sterling record of our guardians of the city. Within the public works building, many voices were raised in loud, joyous song. Probably celebrating successes in the battle against raised paving stones and decaying buildings. They sang with the same gusto and bravura that surely must be applied to repairing our ravaged infrastructure. The song seemed to be made up of the same few words sung over and over. All of this was was so quintessentially South Africa today. My heart swelled with patriotic and provincial pride. I couldn't make out the words of the song, but the malady lingers on.
There is an upside to Durban's sad, neglected appearance. Tourists love historical ruins. Durban has got the ruins part right.
Durban people need to stop complaining about elected officials. It's hard to balance looting and other duties. Looting requires far more effort and inventiveness than the dull, soul destroying business of running a metro efficiently. One can understand how the artistic souls of our best are engaged, transfix̌ed, captured. Was ever a muse so fair as money? Water, electricity, services - these things are ephemeral but the monuments to looting, like all great art, live on forever. Well, at least a hell of a long time.
To celebrate the national sport of looting, here's borrowing from well-known literature:
Fragments from the Misiderata (apologies to Max Ehrmann):
Go stealthily amid the noise and the haste, and remember what joy there may be in looting . As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all victims......
Avoid honest and ethical persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare your loot with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser looters than yourself.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the kleptoverse no less than the thieves and the tsotsis; you have a right to be here...
Fragments from If - The Looters' Version (apologies to the Kipling bloke):
If you can keep your loot when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust the Cause when all men doubt it,....
If you can talk with crowds and know your slogans,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the sticky touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
Simply because you know too much....
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of looting done,
Yours is this land and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a party Man, my son!
I encourage you to visit the great coastal city of Durban. Some useful information:
Relief from heat and cloying humidity comes from cool ocean breezes scented with the exotic perfume of Durban's finest zol (marijuana). It was this heady mix that had NDZ exclaim in poetic rapture on the mysteries of zol and saliva.
The people of Durban and KZN are renowned for their political astuteness, farsightedness and loyalty to the chess loving Mr Bojangles of KZN politics (Lord, that man could dance!). They are also very fair-minded and tend to give discredited politicians many opportunities to discredit themselves further. During the last municipal elections, a mayor, who had not covered himself in glory during the looting and other jolly stuff that took place in 2021, was speedily re-elected. Ms Gumede, of solid waste tender fame, who some said had covered herself in….. something else, also took her rightful place. “KZN is f&*^%d”, wrote an angry, disgusted resident. Durban people can be so melodramatic. That’s going too far. Buggered, yes.
Spirituality is also important to the people of KZN. Not all that long ago, our pious ANC comrades proposed a ceremony to cleanse KZN of bad spirits from the Anglo-Boer war, who are supposedly behind the violence and murders in the province. During KZN's many wars, scuffles and tussles, people of all hues stabbed, shot and generally donnered one another. But it just had to be the white spirits still stirring it up, didn't it? Can't take these white folks anywhere. One of my many uncouth friends suggested that a quite different sort of white spirit led to this proposal.
In 2021 Durban literally became The Place of Great Burning, during the troubles. This was when His Former Excellency was offered state accommodation in Estcourt, no passing ‘Begin’, no collecting R200.
Imagine this, thirty years later:
A grandfather regales his grandchildren with tales of that struggle. Driven by hunger and revolutionary fervour, he acquired a large screen TV set (which still takes pride of place in the lounge) and was able to assuage his hunger with large helpings of MasterChef Australia. The grandchildren are enchanted by the tales of derring do.
"Yes, my children." With a grand sweep of his arm, Grandpa takes in the scenery outside. Burnt trucks litter the verges of the roads, blackened skeletons of buildings dot the green countryside.
"And one day, all this will be yours."
Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted
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