Put Your Forgiveness Caps On

Forgiveness is an endemically difficult topic because it invariably involves deep scars and hurt. As a nation, and in fact as the world, there are many things that have hurt and/or angered us or the people we love, so collective forgiveness is something we not only have to be talking about, it’s something we have to begin practising, for our sakes (lest we be trapped in a prison of resentment) and for those we are forgiving. As such I’ve decided to put together a little collage of contemporary instances in which collective forgiveness is needed, but with a touch of humour (I hope). I suspect it’s one of those topics that are so dense and emotive that laughing at and about it will make it easier to deal with.

Here we go.

LANCE ARMSTRONG

Lancey boy has been naughty for the past decade or so, but it is only now that we realise that we must bring out our whips. For goodness sake, the guy was the driving force behind the ‘LIVESTRONG’ campaign. Now what are supposed to put on all those yellow wristbands? How inconsiderate of him!  By now we all know that Lance Armstrong’s moral arm was not strong enough to give us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. While we were cheering for the seven-time champion, little did we know that we were being taken for a ride on an epic Tour de Lies. Now even his courageous battle against Cancer  looks ordinary- did he fight it because of a strong will to live or because of a desperate addiction to being celebrated? Don’t excuse the pun, but it looks like Lance staged everything.

It took a black billionaire in Oprah to get you admit to the doping allegations. Would you have done the same on 3 Talk with Noeleen Maholwana Sangqu? Hai suka Lance! (Loose translation for my friends overseas: ‘Argh, get outa here Lance!’). Tsk tsk tsk Mr Armstrong, you should be ashamed of yourself, giving your family a bad name like that. Now we’ll be secretly wondering if Neil really did make it to the moon.

That being said, we realise you’re only a human being and that we’re less than perfect. We need to forgive you.

MOLEMO “JUB JUB” MAAROHANYE

The Italian Job made Mini Coopers fashionable- a little too fashionable. There goes our rapping marshmallow (‘jub jub’ is a township term for marshmallow) acting a fool with his friends by drag-racing illegally while under the influence. And of course, he was in his Mini.

All this, mind you, was preceded by allegations of abuse by then girlfriend Kelly Khumalo. Beating is what Jub Jub does best: beat the girlfriend, beat the speed-trap, have the car panel-beaten. It’s ironic, then, that when Marshmallow suddenly had a change of heart, saying he wanted to start a foundation and urging the courts to let him walk, the judge told him to beat it. Heck, the man was even known for making beats. His version of ‘Ngikhokhele bawo’ (Guide me Father) seems to have been prophetic considering his current mess.

That being said, we are certain that it was not your mission to go out and prematurely end the lives of four innocent young people. It is something you will live with for the rest of yours, and what a heavy burden it must be. We need to forgive you.

THE MATRIC FIASCO (The humour takes a back seat here; try as I may have, I could not laugh much about this).

Look, the education in this country is essentially rubbish at the foundational level and needs major overhauling. We know, acknowledge, and admit to that. It is so, full stop.

However, what you really need to take note of, oh you doomsayers, is that the system and the young matriculates within the system are not the same thing! When we nonchalantly dismiss the 3% improvement in the national matric pass rate as being “not enough” and as being “a joke”, how do you think it makes the Grade 12 Learner, distinctions and all, feel? Are we implying that his/her hard work came to naught because the education system of which he/she is a part is primitive?

You see, what has happened is that the Matriculants themselves and the department of education have been lumped together so that we refer to both as ‘the education system’. This is detrimental. It means that we are ultimately so preoccupied with the government’s failure to effectively provide quality education at grades 1-3 that we forget to congratulate those who went through the private schooling system, and/or those who weathered the storm, completing their schooling against these odds.

Yes, it’s not ideal that Seven Twenty Four (Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga once delivered a talk to us in High School in which she mistakenly said ‘7/24’ instead of the more conventional ‘24/7’. I’ve referred to her as Seven Twenty Four ever since) defends the 30% pass mark. It’s not ideal that textbooks were not delivered for months under her watch. The Matriculants, though, had nothing to do with this. So asseblief parents, stop calling in on the radio and saying how much more difficult it was for you to pass matric. Firstly, that was very long ago, just after Jan van Riebeeck set foot at the Cape of Good Hope. Secondly, your children are dealing with a different set of challenges altogether. So for sanity’s sake, congratulate them for passing! Follow Seven Twenty Four’s lead! As for those who scraped through with the 30% criteria, alert them to the stark reality of having such marks and take it from there. Rather that than “education system” this and “education system” that. It doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked in the last 18 years, and it won’t work now.

So, Matrics, with that being said, will you forgive them?

THE REPUBLIC OF NKANDLA

I’m pretty sure that when President Jacob Zuma hears the name Debora Patta, he will say very seriously, without singing it, “letha umshini wam’” (bring my machine gun). Debora and friends on 3^rd Degree suggested a whole of ways in which R250 Million can be spent constructively, since the President is said to have spent that amount via Public Wex (as we would pronounce it) on his private homestead. Spend constructively? Come on Debora. JZ is spending all this taxpayers’ money on constructing a bunker, constructing a private clinic for his family, constructing tuck shops for his security guards. How much more constructive can a man get? *sighs*. White people.

I dare not say much more about the country’s highest citizen, and neither should you. You who live in a house, was it said that you could have spent all those hundreds of thousands of Rands feeding the homeless instead of spending so carelessly on a decent ‘faze brick’ house? Exactly! How dare you insinuate the same about the President’s beloved Nkandla homestead! How dare you insinuate that the money could have gone to Seven Twenty Four for investment in education, or that it could have subsidized the perfectly logical e-tolling system, or even used to give South African Airways ANOTHER set of wings! Who are you?

That being said, you loyal voters across the country, do you forgive yourselves?

[Evil laugh].