Nelson Mandela…

The news came through during the night that Nelson Mandela has died.

I had a huge amount of respect for him. He came out of prison, and became our president. He pleaded for forgiveness and reconciliation in our divided country.  He really did a lot for nation building, served just one term as president and gave over the power without stealing the country empty.  he was truly an exceptional, world class leader. The last one in South Africa.

I still don’t get it how his shoes could be filled by our beloved President Jacob Zuma, who was broke when he became President, and now built a huge residential complex over R 200 million ($20 million) out of his own pocket. He also has the gift of healing. His friends get terminally ill in jail, gets a presidential pardon to die with dignity at home, and they all get miraculously healed within a week when at home…

Now in South Africa there is a long told urban legend, and tonight is the night to see if it is true. “The night of the long knives…” According to this legend the black people has been buying up machetes (called pangas in S.A) and the night Mandela dies, they are going to kill all the whiteys.

I do not believe this is true. I still have the belief that most South Africans (excluded politicians and thugs- mostly the same thing…) are good people.  Remember- in a long forgotten referendum in 1992  72% of the white population voted to end Apartheid.

Nelson Mandela’s legacy was a message of peace and reconciliation. He dreamed of a Rainbow Nation where all are equal and everybody matters.  That is a dream worth living for. It is so sad that he was the last ANC president who lived that dream.

I salute the passing of a great man! May his party soon follow…

Photo: Sunday Times

http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/2013/12/06/nelson-mandela-dies-at-95

Related articles

• Nelson Mandela Dies Today 5 Dec 2013 at the age of 95 (homegrownmedia.info)
• The passing of Nelson Mandela (albanylawdiversity.wordpress.com)
• Nelson Mandela Passes At 95 (apropheticwalk.wordpress.com)

Flower Friday- Cosmos

Now here my Flora-orientated friends like Aristonargics can help out- we call these flowers “Cosmos” in South Africa. They come more abundantly in white and soft pink flowers, with these Burgundy coloured ones just once in a while…

They are not indigenous to South Africa. The local rumor has it that when that naughty Queen Victoria and her abominable henchmen invaded our country, they had a huge need for feed for the horses. (Ours did not need exotic feed…  🙂  ) So they imported bales of hay from South America (Argentina?).  In these bales of hay there were also seeds of some very nasty weeds. Till this day it is named “Khakibos” in South Africa- named after the “Khaki’s” or English soldiers.  And Khakibos spread rapidly over the entire country.  I think these cosmos flowers are very closely related to khakibos, as it looks and smells the same.  It also arrived in the British horsefeed. Khakibos= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagetes_minuta and now for the first time in my life I see it is edible…  🙂

The Cosmos grows next to the country roads, and gives a splendid show in March.  We had them as the theme for our wedding feast a long, long time ago.

Travel Theme: Through

Posted on September 20, 2013

xxx Ailsa

“The best way out is always through.” – Robert Frost

“Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.” – George Bernard Shaw

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Lake District, England

Madrid Spain

Camino de Santiago

Menin Gate at Ieper, Belgium, with the names of hundred thousands of MIA of WW1 on it…

May there be peace on earth…

Inscription above the arch: “Ad marjorem Dei Gloriam- Here are recorded names of officers and men who fell in Ypres Salient but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death…”

That was only the one side’s names…

“Through the stupidity of politicians good men die… “- The Rider… today

Just some of the places I have been through on my travels…

Spitfire…

In 2006 my wife and I went over to the UK to visit our sisters, mine is now an English citizen, my sister in law is now Irish… We started with a car at Heathrow, and immediatly turned away from London to see the English countryside. Then we went up, through the Lake District, up into Scotland. After our stay in Scotland, we flew over from Edinburgh to Dublin…

Outside the Airport building in Edinburgh there was this Spitfire. I always admired Spitfires, not just for their role in WW 2, but also because it is one of the most beautiful things that man has ever made (in my eyes anyway). I have one of Barrie A.F. Clark ‘s Spitfire breaking through the clouds prints framed in my study, so much do I love these aircraft.

So I was thrilled to be so close to one. I took a lot of pictures right around it. I was too inexperienced to play with Depth of Field, otherwise it would be much better photos without all the background detail.

It was just so nice to stumble across these photos on an old CD laying around in my study…

Thought I would post this, as I am waiting for a call from my dentist, to say when she can help me with this broken tooth…  It is much nicer thinking of Spitfires than broken teeth…

I wonder if the aircraft is still there? On it’s pole in front of the Airport…

PS.- Yes, this might be the replica, and I am glad,  for it would be so sad to leave the real thing in the extreme weather that Scots must endure…

Related articles:

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3367909

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?75612-Edinburgh-Airport-Spitfire

And for a beautiful Spitfire story, read this article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2270031/Businessman-spent-1m-restoring-Spitfire-scrapyard-10-years-ago-sees-fly-again.html

War and Forgiveness

This morning I saw a blog entry commemorating the 111th anniversary of the Anglo Boer War.   This coming Sunday the brave soldiers that came to fight in South Africa for the British Empire will be remembered.  It is the first time in over a century that this will be celebrated in that particular town.

Yes, I know, history belong to the victors of a war.  Ordinary men become heroes in the forge of battle.  Their legend lives on. Statues are built for them.  Like this one I saw in Edenburgh, of the Black Watch Regiment.  Oh boy- do we remember the Black Watch fondly!  These Scots were brave soldiers. They marched against the entrenched Boer forces with great discipline at Magersfontein. A lot of them also died bravely there- this was the one battle the Boer forces won decisively.

Brave soldiers are remembered.  Remembrance Days are held for them…

But what is often overlooked, is the damage the war caused…  I took this photo on Saturday, 200 meters from my home… 

What is this?  Only the Dutch and Flemish people will be able to read the Afrikaans words on this memorial:

“Here rest, except for a few other people, 544 women and children, who died as victims in the Concentration Camp during the War of 1899-1902 and for whom a memorial was erected on the Market Square on 15 December 1942…”

The Anglo Boer War was not always the Last Gentlemen’s War, as it is so proudly remembered in some circles.  It also marked the invention of the Concentration Camp- not by Hitler, but by the British.  In our town, which had about 1000 inhabitants, and from the surrounding district, 544 women and children has perished in the concentration camp. Some people says it did not happen. Like some would deny the Holocaust of WW II.  But here are the graves… the names of all 544 persons are on a granite  wall at the entry to the  cemetery. And this is in just one small South African town, Nylstroom.  There were many, many such concentration camps,  some a lot worse than this!

How many men died in combat from the Waterberg Commando? (That is the other word we gave the world- Commando- usually damn good soldiers…)  Fifteen…  

Can you think how a society can be normal after the War, when just 15 of it’s men died in combat, but 544 women and children have died?

War creates brave heroes. It also destroy innocent lives.  THe two Boer Republics became a part of the British EMpire- why? We have the world’s gold and diamonds under our feet.

The scars of this war remained a long, long time in South Africa.

BUT: we fought in World Wars I and II alongside the British. We were part of the Allied Forces. That created even more tension in our country- between Pro and Anti War sentiments.

Do I hate the British, Aussies, Kiwi’s and Canadians who fought here? No! What would the point of hate be?  My own sister is now a British citizen. The Empire strikes back- a LOT of my tribe now live in these countries.

And I have been a soldier too.  South African white boys did not have a choice in the matter. We had compulsory military service. You had these choices: two years in the army, or four years in the police or prison system. Or you had to go to jail, have a criminal record, no passport, and a hell of a life trying to get work with THAT on your criminal record. We grew up with the propaganda of “The Communist threat”…  Terrorist attacks like the Church street bomb on 20 May 1983 left a huge impression on my schoolboy mind- THAT is what THEY do- we have to fight to survive in darkest Africa.  They want to kill me…

Young men just don’t have choices in old men’s wars…

So- remember the brave soldiers. But remember the victims too.

It was time in SOuth Africa to forgive the British, and move on. I hope in my lifetime there will also be true reconciliation between the old enemies who grew up together in this beautiful divided land…

Listen, this is why I became a pastor- I believe that love is the greatest gift of all. Broken relationships must be healed.  Even between people and nations.  Love conquers all.  May there be an end to war!

Make love, not war!

I didn’t know we could choose…  (old SA Army joke)

In 2004 I had a work-related visit to Belgium. We had one day off, so I decided to go to the World War 1 battlefields and cemeteries around Ieper, where some of the most horrific battles in the history of humankind took place.  I have always been fascinated by history, and believe what Benjamin Disraeli said about those who do not learn from history, are destined to repeat the lessons…

The trenches of World War 1 sounds like the most stupid thing a human mind has ever conceived. I am just so glad that I didn’t live then, and had to go over the wall one misty morning… This is the result: The Allied military cemetery of Passchendaele (btw- that was an awesome movie… Passchendaele)

These  photos were the last I have taken with the old Canon A1 35mm film camera, before I too went the way of megapixels…

It was just not possible to capture the immense scale of how many war graves there are in just this one cemetery. Not all bodies were recognizable…

And yes- some of my countrymen also fell on Flanders’ fields…   jut recognizable by the Springbok emblem on his uniform as such…

But the saddest part of this battlefield is the Menin Gate in Ieper. It has the names of hundreds of thousands of soldiers engraved on it, so blown to bits by artillery bombardments that their bodies were never found- technically still M.I.A. 

This is what really got me: On 11 November 1918, at 23h11 the guns fell silent on the Western Front.  Millions of young men have killed each other. A generation was lost. And 21 years later, their sons went at it again…

When I was a boy, I wished I could be a soldier in a war,  Later on, we had to be soldiers or go to jail. Now, as a father, I look upon war as the most senseless thing a human being can do. And I pray that my sons will be spared the experience of taking up arms against another.  I am not entirely a pacifist- I believe Thoreau’s quote that all that evil needs to flourish is for good men to do nothing.  I still have huge respect for the men and women who have to take up arms against the dictators of this world, and it may be the last resolve to right some injustices.

I sometimes work with combat veterans. I see the price soldiers pay for politicians wars. Their scars and wounds are not always visible. But it is there, for years and years afterwards. And so I am with the hippies in the Vietnam era on this one: Rather make love than war!

Able Seaman Just Nuisance

When in Simonstown this past week, I took my family to visit the statue of Able Seaman Just Nuisance. We were quite happy to find that it was his birthday. This statue is very close to my heart. It is on the route of the Argus Cycletour, about 40 km into the race. On a good day you reach this part of the route quite easily. But, if the Southeastern wind is blowing, then you are in a world of pain to get here. It was about my second Argus in 1996 that I barely reached this point, and seriously contemplated abandoning the race. But there was a Powerade stand, and I drank about a litre of sports drink. I also ate two Bar Ones, and sat next to Just Nuisance, telling him about my sorrows and pain… He just listened patiently- he said no word of approval of my plans to quit. So, not getting his permission to get on the train back to the Cape Town Central station, I decided to go on for just a little while longer. In about 10 km, the day turned for the better, But that 10 km! The trees are growing at a 45 degree angle, in the Millers Point region… But as you are climbing in Smitswinkelbaai, the Southeaster starts blowing from behind, actually helping you get over the hill…

So Just Nuisance saved my train of 19 consecutive Argus Finishes by his good advice…

He was the mascot of the Allied Naval Forces based at or visiting Simon’s Town, the main South African Naval base, protecting the very important sea route around the Cape of Good Hope in the Second World War…

He was much loved by all except the German and Japanese Navies… and when he passed on in 1944 he was buried with a full military funeral…

You can read more about him at this link on wikipedia…