Moffie

I went to watch Moffie a few nights ago.  It’s a dance play based on the book by André Carl van der Merwe about the experiences of a young gay man conscripted into the South African army during the apartheid era.  It was beautiful and powerfully moving.  The dancing was spectacular (as far as I could tell with my limited knowledge of dancing, gleaned mostly from watching eight seasons of So You Think You Can Dance).  I came home and immediately downloaded the book from Amazon.  I’m about 20% into it, and it’s pretty heavy going, but the beatifully crafted writing does compensate somewhat for the emotionally draining subject matter.

It’s important for stories like these to be told, and I salute those who are brave enough to do it, because it reminds us that the suffering caused by the oppression of LGBT people is often invisible.  As long as it is socially unacceptable to be different, those who can will hide their true nature, suffering this type of psychological torture in silence.  Victims keep quiet, pretending to be other than what they are, while those around them tell them over and over and over again how sick and disgusting and wrong they are.  And as long as no one is willing to step forward and admit that they are one of those “moffies” or “dykes” or “fruitcakes” etc., the perpetrators can pretend that there are no victims.  And why would you step forward, when to do so would only serve to give them a specific target for their hate, and not help at all to put a stop to the abuse?

We must remember stories like these when the leaders of African and Middle Eastern countries proudly announce that there are no gay people in their countries.  We should remember what is behind those types of words: millions of people being forced to deny their own oppression.

This scares me

I really don’t have anything to say about this letter, except that it scares me.

Rape culture captured in iconic photograph

You know that iconic photo taken at the end of World War II, the one of the sailor and the nurse kissing in the street?  I’ve always loved that photo, and have regarded it as one of the great moments in photographic history.  This has pretty much completely changed my mind about it though.  When you realise what was captured in that moment was basically a woman being assaulted on the street, the image kind of loses its magic.

Rodriguez

I went to watch an excellent documentary on Rodriguez last weekend.  If you’ve never heard of him:

Sixto Diaz Rodriguez (also known as Rodriguez or as Jesus Rodriguez; born July 10, 1942) is an American folk musician, born in Detroit, Michigan.  In most of his songs he takes a political stance on the cruelties facing the inner city poor.  After failing to make an impact in North America [in the 1970’s], he gave up his career as a musician. However, although he was relatively unknown in his home country, by the mid-’70s his albums were starting to gain airplay in South Africa, Zimbabwe, New Zealand and Australia.  In 1991, both his albums were released on CD in South Africa for the first time.  His fame in South Africa was completely unknown to him, until 1998 when his eldest daughter came across a website dedicated to him.   In 1998, he played his first South African tour, playing six concerts in front of thousands of fans.  Later he played in Sweden before returning to South Africa in 2001 and 2005.

When I was a teenager, EVERYBODY had a Rodriguez CD.  We all knew ALL the lyrics to his songs.  And we had no idea who he was.  There were rumours that he had committed suicide on stage, some saying he immolated himself, others that he shot himself in the head, that simply added fuel to the fascination.  If ever there was a voice of a generation in South Africa, it was Rodriguez.

So if you haven’t heard of him, I’m gonna guess you’re younger than 30.  I’ve noticed over the last week that when I ask people whether they know who Rodriguez is, those born before 1982 invariably say yes, while the younger ones tend to look at me like I’m crazy (this may have something to do with the fact that I’ve become somewhat obsessed with this and have been popping the question randomly into conversations).  This is a fascinating phenomenon that I wish I could study properly.  I can only speculate that as soon as he came to tour South Africa in 1998, when those born after 1982 would have been 16 and under, he lost the mystery and cult appeal that made him an absolute household name to my generation, instead becoming just another musician of a somewhat out-of-fashion genre, and young people just stopped listening to him overnight.  And that, I suppose, is as it should be.

How to tell if you might be an atheist

I came across this piece of satire the other day, which explains five signs of someone having “atheist tendencies”.  My favourite part:

Alledgedly, Jim Kong-Il, the evil anti-American, was good with computers. This reflects a terrifying new trend among the atheist crowd. Yes, most atheists are nerds, as they say. They speak “binary” instead of English, reflecting on their bi-curious tendencies. They’d rather romance a computer than enamor themselves with Jesus.