Of an embrace, human selfishness

29 Jun, 2014 - 06:06 0 Views

The Sunday Mail

Wilfried Bony of the Ivory Coast controls the ball against Yuto Nagatomo of Japan during the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil Group C match. But where is that ubuntu/hunhu going to get those two teams?

Wilfried Bony of the Ivory Coast controls the ball against Yuto Nagatomo of Japan during the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil Group C match. But where is that ubuntu/hunhu going to get those two teams?

“Kok  Tales”
“Kok Tales” is a series of stories by the fictitious character, Adam Kok (May He Rest In Peace). Adam was a Griqua from South Africa, married to Rudo, a Zimbabwean. He and I were in the struggle together but settled down in Zimbabwe. Adam worked as a human interest journalist and in “Kok Tales” he narrates some of his experiences.I have just witnessed something amazing. It happened during a football match – in fact, a football match between an African side and an Asian side.

The game was goalless and frustrating, the players lacking the skills of the Dutch and the Germans. But it had something. I shall never forget that game.

I have never played a game of football in my life, so forgive me if I get some of the details wrong.
It happened after a corner, I think — or was it a set piece? An Asian got in a sizzling header and he must have been sure the ball was going into the net.

But the amazing African goalie somehow managed to pluck it out of the air — and stood there holding the ball to his chest. Then to my astonishment, the man whose shot on goal had been thwarted, instead of cursing and holding his head in agony, was hugging the goalie.

He was delighted to see what a magnificent save he had made. And the camera caught them — the goalie holding the ball, proud of what he had done, and the striker with his arm around him, congratulating him.

What an embrace!
Then at the end of the game the two coaches did the same. That is what we call ubuntu/hunhu, I said to myself. And it is something we share — Africa and Asia. Or used to anyway.

I just wish Adam was still alive. I would have told him about it. But I know what he would have said.“That’s all very well and good, comrade. But where is that ubuntu of yours going to get those two teams? It is obvious they won’t get past the first round.”

Adam didn’t know the first thing about football. He was a Griqua — and he grew up, like me, thinking that footballers were sissies. When do you ever see rugby players hugging each other?

I think we suspected that most of them were probably kinky.
Adam liked rugby — especially as the only time anyone ever hears about Griquas these days is the Griqualand West rugby team. The fact that he was Griqualand East made no difference to Adam. Griquas are Griquas.

So anything to do with football wasn’t going to impress Adam.
Ubuntu was even worse. It made him puke, he said. You see Adam’s philosophy was totally cynical about human behaviour. He said he had no illusions about human beings.

“People say what they ought to,” he used to say, “but they do what they want.”
Sadly, I had to agree with him — but only up to a point. Because I believe there are moments when human beings demonstrate that they do have the capacity to be better than they usually are — and that embrace between a goalie who has saved a shot, and a striker who thought he had scored a goal, was to me an example of human beings for once living up to the name of ‘‘human’’.

What differentiates human beings from animals? Can you imagine one dog shaking the paw of another dog if the other dog had just very skilfully taken away his bone?

Hamlet once said about us: “What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel.” Adam would have said Hamlet was just a confused intellectual — which of course he was.

“Listen, comrade, how many human beings ever stop thinking of themselves? How many who go to church, sing their heads off, speak in tongues, pay good money to the pastor – how many of them would not be ashamed if at the end of the day they asked themselves: ‘‘What would Jesus Christ say to me about what I have done today?’’

“The same can be said about patriots. How many people will say they love their native country, they are proudly Zimbabwean, proudly South African, etc?

“I remember in the early days of Independence, the President called on Zimbabweans to ask themselves at the end of each day: ‘What have I done for Zimbabwe?’ Can you imagine what the answer to that might be?

“Let me tell you a little tale to prove my point. Josephine was a pretty young lady who lived in Greendale. She was a devout Christian. She was also very cultural. Comrade, I am going to cut a long story short because it is a story everybody knows — in one form or another.

“One day, impressed by the young lady’s dedication to her work, the religious pictures on the wall above her desk, the gospel music she listened to while typing his letters but, above all, the wonderful things he believed she kept under moral lock and key behind the long, respectable skirts and long-sleeved blouses she wore, the boss — who of course was married — told her that she was about to be rewarded for her excellent work rate and devotion to the company.

“Josephine was to receive a dedicated service award, first class, and the presentation was to take place at the most expensive restaurant in town.

“The young lady was excited. But when she got to the restaurant she found no one there except her boss. He told her she was early. They sat down together. He ordered drinks. The place was really nice. The music soothing and the boss charming — carefully restricting his small talk to spiritual matters and skilfully drawing her out about her church, her pastor, the Bible and so on.

“She very soon forgot that no one else had come. In her head that famous little voice was saying to her: ‘I ought to go.’ But did she listen? No — because, as I said, human beings say what they ought but do what they want. She wanted to stay. She was enjoying herself in a way she had never done before.

“Well, to cut a long story short, after many ‘I oughts’ — like ‘it’s late, I ought to be going home’, ‘I ought not to be alone in my boss’s Benz’, ‘I ought not to be visiting a hotel with a married man’, ‘I ought to tell him this is all against my principles’, ‘I ought to tell him to stop’ and then next morning ‘what am I doing here, in bed with my boss, I ought to go home’ — she stretched her arms above her head, sighed deliciously and said to herself: ‘But I want some more.’

“The award the boss was talking about hadn’t turned out to be what she had expected but she appreciated it all the same.”
I wasn’t impressed. I thought the story of ‘‘Josephine’’ was just a concoction — though Adam assured me it was a true story which the girl in question had told him herself when they were in bed together.

Josephine still went to church, by the way, still listened only to gospel music and still wore long skirts and long-sleeved blouses.
Nevertheless, as far as Adam was concerned, his little tale had proved his thesis — human beings can say what they like about what they ought to do but they all do exactly what they want.

To me he would have said: “You can say what you like about your goalkeeper being embraced by the centre forward and how ubuntu-ish you think it was. All I can say to you is: ‘Number one, that embrace is not going to get either of those two teams into the next round. Number two, how do you know that the striker didn’t have other reasons for embracing that big strong African man?”

With Adam Kok you could never win.

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