A BIG "IF" OF POETRY

Poetry has always been a cushioning filler to everything I did and do in my life. As a teenager, poetry helped shape my mental fortitude, and thinking sinews, poetry helped in hardening my heart, to the invincible state it now resides. From  the age of 12, after spending time with my friends, I would sit alone in my room and read the ‘Greats’ of poetry, from Shakespeare,  Alfred Lord Tennyson, to Rudyard Kipling. 

Like the 'Greats' of poetry, my thoughts and writings, do not dwell in another's space_but dwell in its own spiritual realm. It all started with a big "IF"........


If—

By_ Rudyard Kipling

(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

 
         Source: A Choice of Kipling's Verse (1943)

ONLY THE DEAD DON’T SPEAK

Being an intellectual person and being hated for your intellectual capabilities, is not a welcomed impression. Especially, when your accusers claim that your intellectual capabilities are a concoction of a well to do witchcraft.

There is a growing impression amongst the youth of our country, that if you are educated and intellectual advanced_ whether your are young or older_ you are messing up with the dark spiritual side. However, to many peoples’ surprise, this impression is a widespread impression that has infiltrated the workplace, with young adults fighting for ‘positions’, accusing their fellow colleagues of witchcraft, due to the lack of knowledge, and the knowhow on the job.

The problem doesn’t only end there – the family structure is also affected by this wrongful accusing impression_ where one finds family members fighting over rankings within the family due to intellectual capacity. Young ones think the adults do not know anything about life, and they are the spiritual chosen ones, or advance to lead and control their families, spiritually and otherwise.

Hence, the recent brewing and growing cult movement of ‘Satanism’ in South African schools.   

In some cases, this impression has led to fellow colleagues, and family members choosing not to orally communicate with other people because they think they have a spiritual capacity or capability to tell you what they think ‘spiritual’.

These individuals, young and old, think they can evoke ‘dark spirits’ to control another’s mind and physical manifestations, and therefore own them and their mental capabilities.

When you are intellectually capable and educated, you are their biggest adversary, their enemy, and you are therefore not classified as human – you are a beast that talks to the dead. How else can you know everything when they don’t?

Many influential and prudent individuals are targeted: celebrities, professors, teachers, academic pupils, innovative-managerial persons/C.E.Os, to spiritual-healers.    

The claim and connection to ‘the dark side’ is their driving factor to their movement, that labels and accuse other individuals of belonging to ‘the dark side’_ to discredit and dishonour your intellectual capabilities, belittling your hard earn work and the fruits of your labour.

They call themselves: “Children of Satan”

This cult uses religion as a vehicle to advance their course (hide behind the veil of goodness, Christ and God)_ to create havoc in the workplace, schools, and families. Sex, multiple partners and wastage being another focus_ the physical*

The aim being, to pillage an individual emotionally, mentally and physically_ at times driving individuals to suicide, if not broke and broken for life. (infestation being one)

A impressionable psychosomatic approach to life is deemed as evil and  no advancement to life.

WORD TO THE INTELLECTUALLY ADVANCED REVOLUTION

Linda Sakazi Thwala

A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN: TAMBU’S ROOM

The concept: ‘A Room of One’s Own’ is said to refer to the difficulties people face, when wanting to write. These difficulties commence from poverty and lack of education, also contributed to by not having a quiet, private place, to sit, think and write.

In analysing the novel: ‘Nervous Conditions’ a book written by a Zimbabwean novelist, Tsitsi Dangarembga (1988)__such obstacles are encountered by the character Tambu.

Tambu as all the women around her witness this unfortunate form of oppression, where women are traditionally not encouraged to educate themselves.

The collaboration of gender to this form of oppression is a part we cannot repudiate. We learn that Tambu develops a repugnant attitude towards her father and brother – when refused a room to cultivate herself mentally_ intellectual development.

Tambu’s father felt, on the grounds of gender alone, that her daughter’s fate as a woman was to broaden her housekeeping skills: ‘He thought I was emulating my brother, that the things I read would fill my mind with impractical ideals, making me quite useless for the real tasks of feminine living.’ (p34) Thus making her a virtuous candidate for marriage.

Gender issues decline women around Tambu, a room to think and implement their thinking to more practical issues dependent upon their progression.

Women who challenge the position of gender are said to be disobedient and a disturbance to the homogonous relations of the society, compared to those who admit defeat: ‘Besides Nyasha I was a paragon of feminine decorum, principally because I hardly ever talked unless spoken to…….above all, I did not question things.’ _(p155)

Tambu abhorred the ‘room’ which she was forced to assimilate into. A ‘room’ which by her faculties is a form of segregation: ‘So they made a little space into which you were assimilated, an honorary space in which you could join then and they, could make sure that you behave yourself’ _( p179)  

Despite her misfortunes, Tambu’s determination places her in a path of self-development and self-discovery. She characterises herself with the mission, where she learns to identify with her ‘self’. The mission becomes a room where the possibilities of education, intellectual development, and a private place to read, think and write – are an imminent possibility.   

This ‘room’ Tambu characterises herself to defines, according to her, how a modern woman should be and how other people identify with her: ‘The self I expected to find on the mission would take some time to appear………It was to be an extension and improvement of what I really was.’ _(p85)

Tambu’s identity is dependent upon her surroundings and foundation she finds at the mission – away from the poverty and implanted attitude of her father, back home: ‘Freed from the constraints of the necessary and the squalid that defined and delimited our activity at home.’ _(p93)

The physical attributes of the ‘room of one’s own’ are achieved: ‘I was meeting, outside myself, many things that I had thought about ambiguously.’ (p93) together with the mental aspects.

Therefore in the context of self-development and of doing/ dealing with gender discrimination, ‘a room of one’s own’ is a necessary , if not a fundamental branch to attain: a room to think, read, write and discover the truth about yourself by opening a sphere to achieve true democratic and humanistic paradigms. Through which, individuals are reflected upon their characteristic qualities, and not identified by their gender.

WORD TO THE ROOM OF ONE’S OWN REVOLUTION

Linda Sakazi Thwala

(Tambu's Room of One's Own was an Analysis Assignment UNISA2001_lindasakazithwala)