Hold My Beer

 

Most high schools have a prize for the student who never gave up. The kid who overcame unbelievable obstacles to make it to matric and, what is more, make it to matric leaving a legacy and example for the kids who are to follow after them. A few years ago a boy at my school won this award after surviving a savage hyena attack. He was camping in a game reserve and woke up to a hyena mauling his face. His early teen years were punctuated with several reconstructive surgeries to his face. In a time when acne should have been the main focus of every teen’s existence this little guy was saying to his mates - ‘hold my beer.’ I’ll never forget his final matric art exhibition which included the installation of a tent and some of the most moving art I have ever seen. It was remarkable. He is remarkable. 

Yesterday I read an article by one of my favourite journalists, Rebecca Davis who happened to tutor me in Journ1 at Rhodes (for the one year where I reckoned I had the stomach to handle hard core news). In this article she said something incredibly pertinent and it really hit home. She said she was tired of South Africans having to be known as ‘resilient’. She suggested that maybe for a bit we could be known as something else and then gave a list other possibilities -    - the suggestion I liked most was sexy. Sexy South Africans. 

Instead we’re the ones having to literally clean up the utter shambles that megalomaniac politicians/hyenas consistently seem to leave on our door steps. The reconstructive surgery has been immense and I don’t think we can really recognize our face of democracy anymore. We would all agree that if elections were based on the actual difference a leader has made in South Africa there would be very few politicians in the running. 

And yet here we are…

Because I value above most things the human ability to face sisyphean futures with a sometimes frustrating attitude of ‘never give up’ I’m going to own my label of Resilient South African (even if I secretly just want to be Sexy). Literally the first attribute that I pray for for my children is that they be resilient. Because you can literally have everything going for you but if you can’t bounce back from difficulty life it going to be very hard for you. And it is only through difficulty that we learn how strong we are. Ask Moses and his guys, a 40 year walk in the desert doesn’t sound like a bundle of laughs and I’m sure there was a lot of chaffing going on behind the scenes. But they survived it and found the promised land. But that’s a whole other story.

And here’s another thing about being resilient - you make a plan. And yes, I’m going to mention the dreaded ‘E’ word here. Based on the advertising popping up on Facebook I’m assuming that most of the people I know have been Googling in the midnight hours that panic stricken alternative - Emigration. And do you know what guys? That’s ok too because there’s a very clear line between resilient and dead. And if you are privileged and educated enough to be able to start a life for your family elsewhere and you feel safe and you will be able to sleep at night then you certainly go with my blessing. No hard feelings here.

When I was my son’s age my mom sat me in front of our old mammoth of a tv and told me to watch history in the making. Some guy called Mandela came walking down a street, waving his arm in the air and lots of people were very happy about it. In a mere generation Yeat’s gyres have unravelled so thoroughly that the centre hasn’t held, at all, in fact it has all been dumped in a fire pool somewhere in KwaZulu-Natal (in the place that shall not be named). 

But despite all this there is a burning pain in my chest (at this point it might just be the post Covid rib cage infection that I seem to have developed) but I think it’s a different kind of burn. It’s a burn that reminds me of a promise that was made over two thousand years ago that ‘in this world there will be trouble’ and it is the same smouldering echo that states that ‘we rejoice in our suffering because suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character and character produces hope.’

Guys I just can’t shake it. It’s about the spirit. I would rather be suffering with God than coasting without Him. The spirit of love during this time has literally been palpable - even for those who don’t want to acknowledge Him. We are doing what He has called us to do in the times of crisis we were guaranteed to have - we are being resilient and in so doing we are becoming a spirit driven nation that others can only dream of being a part of. So here is a new name for us, one which I want every single one of us to wear with dignity and love, no matter where we find ourselves in the world - we are Godly South Africans and because of this we will never lose our hope. Let the hyenas come… we aren’t afraid of battles, hold my beer.