Kill the boer

Watching the Julias Malema hate speech trial I was drawn back to a film I watched a while back called Stop Loss.

Probably filmed by some psuedo lefty tree hugging beatnik as their contribution to protesting the IRAQ war.

A film that ends with the concientious objector finally realising the futility of objecting?

I caught myself muttering "Blow me bitch" and reciting a mantra I wrote some time "seems like an eternity" ago that goes something like this.

In the name of solidarity justice and peace
laws are imposed by Politicians
and jeers hurled from crowds to force the unwilling to become more willing.

On the eve of one victory and anothers defeat
The Politicians shout
NO MORE.
While some people celebrate while others weep

How soon you forget the young old men walking in shock
Down your impersonal streets.

In South Africa wages a war bitter sweet
Fanned by the winds of political deciet.

Away are young men sent to fight their brethren in vain
While Politicians offer up their prayers for their pain.

I pack away my parachute and lay down my gun.
Never again to jump from the sun.
My duty to God AND country is done.

Where is my childhood
Where is my youth
Be still young man
Your eyes hide the truth.

- FINI

Well it went something like that. I never kept the diatribe filed anywhere I just committed it to memory but it seldom changes much in the reciting when I regurgitate it.

I wrote it at a time when I decided there'd been enough bloodshed.

Now I'm neither bitter nor sad.

Matter of fact.

I'm just a tad pissed off.

I'm pissed off that my fourteen year old wants to know if I've killed anyone.

As if this will add some lustre to my life or make me out to be a bigger man.

Maybe he needs to think, continue anyway that I'm larger than life.

Is it possible that I can even after all these years be defined by my actions as a young impressionable man that at the time quite literally didn't know shit from shinola?

The fact is while I never saw a bullet of mine kill a man, I served with the best my country had to offer and saw active duty and combat on more than one occassion.

Nobody crossed my gunsights in the fury of battle I could take down before someone else did.

But I participated and witnessed first hand the violence and the immediate aftermath of a terrible war.

Here's the rub.

I know what dead people look like.

I've seen enough for 100 lifetimes.

I don't have bad dreams or nightmares much anymore although I do ever so often grind my teeth so loud I wake myself up.

I am not a purist or a pacifist.

But my God when I look at my son I know, I just know I am a humanist.

I am not afraid of war.

I am afraid of dying though.

I need to live to guide my loved ones, to be there for them.

That is the part about dying that frightens me the most.

Not being able to whisper tolerance, patience, and the other mantra that means so much more than just a cliche' from a plaque on a wall "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the strenght to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."

Today as I look to our country I am left with a cold feeling in my heart and a sense of deep foreboding.

It is something I simply cannot shake.

Perhaps after all I am a negative human and not a patriot.

Perhaps I am ungrateful or a racist because I see so much more injustice than what I'd hoped for when I lay down my arms?

But the taunts are back and so are the the supplications "in the name of solidarity, justice and peace".

Bring me my machine gun by in all likelihood my new President is what I have to look forward to.

While this may be fobbed off as simply a rallying cry from a bitter past it is the very nature of the words that keep me awake thinking. 

As we slide inexorably toward our next election, people will die.

People are dying.

The machine gun bit is not rhetoric from a distant bitter past.

It is a mantra that is taken quite literally by many and is being carried by many in their hearts.

The exact same applies to the words in a song that suggest "shoot the boer" in a modern South African context.

Do I expect Uhuru in South Africa?

No.

But I see more bloodshed and more disregard for the rule of law.

I see injustice and intollerance creeping like a cancer through an otherwise impotent country.

The words we will kill for this and we will kill for that is a constant reminder that there are men in this world that will not let me live in peace.

I find myself looking at my son wondering how he would shape up in a firefight and feel the horror well in my throat.

I look at myself and know I am still quite capable.

I wonder why I am thinking like that?

I wonder why or even if I should?

I don't like being threatened and I don't like being pushed around.

I wonder if the people stepping up their rhetoric leading up to a supposedly "democratic" election realise what they are saying, what the ramifications, the implications, the realities of what they espouse and seek are?

I wonder if they can vaguely understand hate, deep rooted hate, the kind of hate that stems from vengeance, the kind of vengeance that comes from having your loved ones attacked and killed simply because they or you had an opposing ideology or world view?

It is something that simmers and seethes and consumes and will, oh it certainly will rupture like a festering sore.

So while I have packed away a parachute and laid down a gun and vowed never again to jump from the sun it seems my duty to country, not God is done.

I am not a priest, I am not even particularly pious or religious.

I am not particularly political.

"I am a man. I consider nothing humane indifferent to me" – Socrates

I do believe in my given duty to be a protector.

To those people out there who are shouting their taunts and rattling their sabres I say quite simply.

I ain't a puppy.

Blow me bitch!

I object!!!!

I am a conscientious objector, who might, just might kill you right back and teach my kids how to kill yours too!

Be careful what you wish for.

I too sang songs, songs I remember vividly.

Songs that will offend and disgust, songs that left the listener under no illusion what was meant.

Songs I will never sing again, because they are hurtful and an incitement to hate and distrust.

The emancipation of one does not equate into the prejudice of another.

Freedom for all means peace, tolerance and a respect for the dignity of all.

To justify singing "kill" anyone for whatever reason in South Africa, is simply a means to gloat for some and in so doing a means to inflict wounds on the soul of others.

That is not conducive to creating a prosperous future.

That is the recipe for a future built on spite and resentment.

You can call it anyway you want.

I call it the basis for instilling hate.

Hate speech if you must