Superiority breeds contempt in our land

After being separated along racial lines for decades, it is all our responsibility to at least show tolerance and some sensitivity around one another, otherwise reconciliation will just be pie in the sky.

Bigotry and racism is so deep-seated in many of us that two decades of a free SA has not changed the mindset in some who feel they are first-class citizens and, therefore, their’s is the only way. Whatever happened to meeting each other halfway?

Feeling superior – and therefore, better because of the place where I stay, or the money that I have, or because of my race, religion or gender – is just so primitive and shows a lack of knowledge and narrow-mindedness.

It’s astounding that there are many people who say they are educated, and yet they still believe that there is a superior and an inferior human being and their judgment is based on purely physical appearances.

Holocaust movies, books and documentaries are a frequent reminder that bigotry and racism, if allowed to flourish, can be so deadly that it can turn people into murderous monsters, who massacre and annihilate others.

Rwanda is another more recent example of hate on a massive scale. Have we learned anything from history?

How often do we read stories about teachers in this country forcing children to either cut their dreadlocks because school rules don’t allow for it?

Or the recent example of a child from a family that practises Hindi and was banned from school because he was wearing a religious bracelet? Who makes the school rules and why are other cultures excluded from these rules?

In the Northern Cape, two or maybe three people, who hate gays, decided to cut the throat of an innocent young man, just because he was different from them.

When a person takes it upon himself to eliminate another just because they don’t approve of their sexuality, then that person is a hater and has a warped mind.

A young woman from Pretoria had to go to court to challenge her expulsion from a hotel resort just because her employer did not recognise a sick note from a traditional healer. Even after a Labour Court had ruled that the note was acceptable, there are still some who are arguing that the decision should be reversed. Insensitive people.

In Joburg, black lesbians take to the streets to protest against hate crimes, including murders, by lying on the ground while the Gay Parade was taking place. It turns out that the parade consists of predominantly white gays who didn’t take kindly to being obstructed by so-called gays from the “townships”. Hello?!

Haters are in full swing. To realise this all you had to do was attend the Eugene Terre’Blanche murder trial to see the show they put up.

Being hated or disrespected because of your darker skin tone, your homosexuality, your foreign status or your belief in other gods is a very painful and traumatic experience. There are very few people that I have come across who would walk away from racial abuse.

Even the non-violent sorts, like yours truly, promise that they would lose their heads if and when confronted by racism or bigotry.

We should all hate racism with a passion and refuse to put up with it in all its manifestations because it is evil and vile.

Which is why I am glad I was not at my niece’s funeral at the weekend, when her neighbours decided that they would not have so many people moving in and out of their cluster complex to offer their condolences to the bereaved family.

Once one of the neighbours in this Kempton Park cluster noticed that people were streaming in, she summoned members of the body corporate who became hysterical, demanding a list of the names and numbers of the people expected.

Now, if anyone is familiar with our culture, we don’t invite people to funerals like others are inclined to. Through word of mouth news spreads that someone has passed away and we all go and pay our respects and offer our condolences, so there are no lists. This has been the practice among Africans for centuries and it blows the mind that someone, who was born and raised on this continent, is not familiar with this practice.

Once members of the body corporate had made it clear that they would not allow the burial ceremony to take place in the complex, the family resorted to putting up a marquee on an open space across the road from the complex.

But still the mob was not satisfied.

They claimed permission was required from the municipality to erect a marquee on an open unused field. As a last resort, the family went to the nearest police station to seek protection to ensure that the marquee was not vandalised or removed.

But that was not the end of the story. A one-woman crusader was determined to give everyone hell by snooping around and at some point ordered the slaughtered beast removed from inside my niece’s yard because it was traumatising her. Not only that but when the hearse arrived to take the body from the cluster to the marquee, she demanded that it give way because it was blocking her entrance. The driver obliged, then she drove out. But 30 minutes later, she demanded that it be moved again because she wanted to drive in.

Fine, she can be difficult and insensitive and demand that the hearse not stop in front of her driveway even if there is a plausible reason and explanation for the obstruction.

Though, I am told she was given prior warning about the times the hearse would be there and the time it would leave.

After the ceremony at the marquee had started, she complained yet again that the pastor who was using a mike for preaching and praying was noisy. Now here was an opportunity for a neighbour to show empathy and support at a time when a human being is grieving for her sister but no, this one would have none of it. Her actions were driven by intolerance and hate.

We all understand that we are terrified of criminals and that we buy property in special places and we don’t want to devalue that, but treating your neighbours with such contempt in times of grief does absolutely nothing to foster a culture of tolerance and good race relations in this country, especially because this wasn’t a party but a funeral.