So last night I ran out of firelighters and was forced to resort to the old fashioned means of fire lighting... newspaper and twigs.
So as I unfold the Sunday Independent (that I picked up at the airport to help me navigate the check-in queues with an American friend who looked more like a merekat in the Kalahari than a seasoned traveller) I find a picture of Madiba on his birthday.
To my surprise, then shock and ultimately my horror I recognize the little man standing to his right… Not even in my wildest nightmare would I expect to find what I did. There in that grainy feel found only in newspaper photos is none other than South Africa's most notorious agent provocateur - Julius Malema.
So I'm faced with a choice.
Either I go down that well practiced neural pathway that leads me to the conclusion that South Africa really has gone to the dogs, and that Madiba, now 92, is too senile to realize that Africa's next Idi amin is standing next to him.
Or to an alternative possibility, some may even fall it a place of hope. Richard Branson said:
“…my recipe for success has always been to understand my limitations and to surround myself with talented and brilliant people that can pick up where I leave off.”
Perhaps the fact that Malema is hanging around the current international symbol of reconciliation means he may yet be able to change his racist and divisive ways and adopt Mandela's deep rooted spirit of reconciliation. Wishful think perhaps, but futures unimagined are futures impossible.
I think I will choose hope. My life has been changed, my future altered, my experience could also become Malema’s experience.
PS. In case you are interested in whether I got my family fire going? Me and mine, by contrast to many of my fellow South African's, slept warm and for that I am grateful and on this am in agreement with Malema. There is still much to be done to make the hope of the rainbow nation a practical reality in the lives of the majority of South Africans.
