How did we escape prison?

Believe it or not, but there are some people who enjoy living in a place that has no hope.

There are a few people in South Africa that actually enjoy living in prison. It is unfortunate that there are some people who are born in prison and thus they have to endure the unpleasant life of hopelessness, until they realise, if they ever, that there is a way out.

I speak from  a point of view that has some sort of insight when it comes to escaping prison. I myself have not really been in prison but my family has. And everyday I am reminded about where we as the Zondi family come from, what we went through and where we see ourselves in the near future.

In South Africa some of us see prison as a nostalgic achievements, that we wear with pride. For example, all of our presidents (post 1994) have escaped prison, either they inherited this freedom or they themselves had to escape. Prison is something that is synonymous with the concept of an eternal emptiness. This concept was created by mankind. and because human beings are a collective creature being ostracised is hell for anybody.

Can you imagine having to wake up in the morning not knowing where your breakfast will come from, or during the winter you ask yourself this question: Will I survive this time? Everyday you have to beg people for money so that you can feed your little sister back home who is forever picked on by the bullies at school because she is too skinny and her clothes are always dirty. Can you image being abandoned by your only parent who left when you were still young because things were too hard for him or her, and you at the age of seven had to take care of everybody and you needed to be taken care of as well.

If you can't imagine this happening to you, then take a closer look at your beautiful country, then you don't have to imagine.

I'm sure a lot of people reading this blog are familiar with the American series "Prison break", where a younger brother puts himself into prison to go and break out his older brother, who was framed and thus ended up in prison. Well for me I wish life was that easy, I wish there had always been someone to rescue the innocent who are trapped in prison and it's not even their fault being there in the first place.

Nobody deserves to be imprisoned by their circumstances, especially when they did not not have a choice in the matter. 

For all of those readers who are a bit confused and may have already started making assumptions about South Africa or the person who is writing this blog, let me put your mind at ease. I  am referring to the unfortunate and man made prison called Poverty, and because it is man made it can be eradicated by man alone.

It is not that hard to help some one escape this eternal emptiness called prison, all you have to do is give someone an opportunity to better themselves and encourage him/her to do the same for the next person. At least that's one way of doing it, what are your suggestions?

LOVE?

The love of my life? This is a question we all need to answer.

I remember when I was young, drunk and infatuation with a girl whom I thought was going to be my wife. She was perfect in every way and she kind of liked me too. I should have waited until the shoe dropped because as we started growing up, she became this rebel child and didn’t want to be told what to do by anybody. As I was growing up I was a good boy my whole life, I did what my mother told me and I always wanted to make her happy. I was a true Mamma’s boy.

As I grew up my eyes were opened and I saw that the love of my life wasn’t really the girl I thought she was, more so I realized the love of my life wasn’t a girl, and no guys it was a boy. The love of my life became something I never dreamt of nor did I even imagine my life drifting towards this way of thinking. For those of you who are still reading and wondering who or what is Alpheus talking about, all I ask is for you to give me a chance to explain.

The love of my life is my pursuit of happiness. This is the one thing all of us are not guaranteed to have, which is happiness, so therefore I have made the love of my life. The pursuit of happiness (not like the movie).

Let me explain further, I’m not looking for happiness from something or someone, I look for the pursuit itself, and therefore for me the pursuit of happiness has become the love of my life.

What is your love? What is your happiness? Truly?  

So who is voting?

Who’s next in this life time to make me want some?

So all the glorious leaders have had their turn, even the “inglorious bastards” have had their time under the sun for a quick tan. So my question is this; are we going to repeat history or call on for some change? If we are going to change our notes from animals to heroes I think we should do the same with our leadership.

Put aside your cultural ambitions and your bigotry believes for quick second, think about the country we live in and think for yourself. What would you prefer; animals running amuck in our country and fulfilling the ignorant Americans fantasies, or would you like to see the progressive intuitive started by the heroes of yesteryear? For me it’s simple, I refuse to let some pompous want to-be tyrant spend my money as a tax payer to improve his living conditions while his closest neighbour lives in a mud hut. Come on! I think you forget that you work for us and not the other way around.

With all that being said, I think it’s time for you to move on. Truth be told you did do some good for us, you did help the disadvantaged and empower those that needed it, in my eyes when you came in you were what we desperately needed but I suppose one thing is certain, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Today and for tomorrow, we need a new “Head of house” because I’m not going to play big brother if you’re still in charge. 

Where do you come from?

Displaced heritage?

Have you ever wondered what it is like to be raised by someone other than your biological parents? I would always complain about my parents being too hard on me, and I would always wish I could run away and some rich family would find me and raise me as one of their own.

There is one thing I am grateful for, it is being raised by my mother, through the hard times she never once said I wish you were never born. She never abandoned me and she sacrificed a lot for me to be where I’m at now.

Let’s get back to being raised by people who are not your biological parents. It’s a very complicated topic because the children are the ones that are affected the most.

I have a friend who was adopted by a white family and he is black. He told me his story and now I’m telling you. His parents abandoned him when he was at a tender age and they left him alone in the house for three days. He went to the neighbours and told them what had happened. The neighbours let him stay at their house for a few days, until eventually they took him to an orphanage. He lived there for months and he did not enjoy living at the orphanage at all. He was bullied and picked on by the other kids and he desperately wanted to leave and find his own parents. Every day he hoped that they would come for him, but every day he was met with disappointment. One day his old neighbours came to visit and as you can imagine he was overwhelmed with joy and on that day, the neighbours took him in as one of their own.

Later in life the effects of not being raised by his own parents put strain on him, he knew nothing about his culture and he could barely speak his mother tongue the way it was meant to be spoken. This of course is not his fault. He had no option but to survive and move on. His adopted parents are white and they did a good job raising him. He is a driven and ambitious young man who is focused on becoming the best that he can be.

It’s not easy growing up not knowing your history, and from what I can gather the grass is never greener on the other side of the fence. 

Im done!

The party is over let’s do something else now.

We finally made it, we got that elusive freedom that many have fought for, or at least our parents fought for, we can celebrate and dance the night away… Phew life’s good.

But forget all of that, it’s been close to 20 years since we got our ‘freedom’ why are we still celebrating? When are we going to start working and moving forward from the struggle? Don’t get me wrong I’m not siding with any white racist people out there that use “it happened a long time ago, move on” excuse, no I’m simply stating that fact that we have an opportunity to empower ourselves and be as rich if not more rich then the racist white who do not want us to get empowered because they feel we are animals.

The only way to fight racism is to get rich, the right way. The only reason why racism exists is because of the economy, black people were sold as a commodity and therefore the white developed an oppressive attitude towards the black man to keep him oppressed for business reasons. I’m saying stick it to the racist man and get rich, the party is over let’s get to work.

If you have seen the census you would see that the blacks are still the majority in this country and they are still worse of then any other race group. Yes we had it worse than any other race group but that should not be your reasoning for failure, that reason alone should inspire you to rise and conquer. 

How is my culture?

How is my culture? Or more importantly how is your African culture?

We as South Africans are so easily manipulated by the western society, we follow their trends and make them our own, we listen to their music and conform to what they deem to be ‘cool’ we watch their movies and fall in love with their culture and we neglect our culture, but whenever we get the chance, we say “I’m proudly South African.” Are we really?

I was watching the news last year and I saw a lot of people encouraging their kids to go trick or treating, and I thought to myself “we do that in South Africa?” my whole entire existence I have never gone trick or treating with both my black and white friends in the suburbs or in the locations. So I’m wondering when this became our tradition.

We as South Africans respect women, mothers especially. We consider them to be a national treasure in many different cultures in South Africa. I know in the Zulu culture more specifically, back in the day when a father was disciplining his child and the hiding got too much for the child, he or she could run to the women’s side of the hut and the man was not allowed to cross over to the women side, thus the walloping would cease. Another example; if two men were fighting and one of them was getting a serious beating, he could run to any women and hide, and the fight would stop instantly. Yes perhaps they didn’t rule, but they had a significant influence in the way things were done. The women who marched on August 19 were never touched by any man, the white ladies who called themselves the Black Sash, they were never touched when the marched on the streets of South African. (If you don’t know them Google it)

My point is why are young kids calling young girls bitches? Just because some famous rapper in America calls his girlfriend a bitch, why do we have to do the same? We respect women we don’t call them bitches.

All I’m asking is how is your culture? 

(PS the picture is not mine it belongs to http://www.gettyimages.com )

The way I think

Right… this little blog of mine is not about politics, race nor is it about sexuality; this blog is about knowledge of self and the consistent search for it.

There is one issue I have encountered with people and that is understanding. It’s amazing how many people in this day and age lack the one thing that could possibly propel them into grandeur, the one thing that could create a better world for all, all lot of people lack understanding.

BEE for example, it’s a ‘plan’ to help empower the disadvantaged people of colour that had suffered under the apartheid laws. This here ‘plan’ was designed to help people and in turn helping the country move a few steps closer to grandeur.

If the government is trying to propel the country forward, why do you say its reverse apartheid? The government is not depriving anyone of an opportunity to go to a specific school to better themselves, nor is the government arresting people for not carrying their I.D. wherever they go. If you think like this you’re an idiot.

Think about it, if the majority of the population is of colour and those people are not as well of as the rich minority it means the country is undeveloped which equals to the economy of that country not as strong as it should be. What I’m trying to say is, if there are few people contributing to production of a specific object, it’s going to take much longer to move onto the next project, and if you’re getting paid for these projects you will not make a lot of money, for the simple fact that you don’t finish as many projects as your competitors.

If people were to possess this one important quality that is needed for progress, we as a people would look down on people who are stuck with the same mentality their great grandfathers had 50 years ago. If progress is what we need as a nation, then our mentality needs to adopt the same direction our vision has.