I have wanted to start a blog for years. But somehow other things, like compulsive Facebooking, as well as
watching videos of pugs talking, pugs sleeping, pugs playing with babies, pugs
dressed as Harry Potter, pugs playing drums, pugs shitting, pugs bathing, x-files pugs (yes, x-files pugs), have always taken precedence.
Ironically, the compulsive Facebooking was the
hand that pushed me to expand my horizons into the blogosphere. Blogging just
seems like the natural next step after statusing (Is that a word? Must be a
word). I feel like I’ve gotten just enough “likes” in my Facebook career to
feel confident enough to join the hoards of self-centered dicks on the internet
who think they have something to say worth listening to, contriving bullshit
for bored people at work to roll their eyes at.
In any case, here I am. And there are, in fact, both good reasons and bad reasons to start a blog right now.
Perhaps the best reason is that I have just been
through a particular great sadness in my life: the end of a four year-long
relationship with my boyfriend (I want to be Carrie Bradshaw about this and
call him “Mr. Big” or something but I’m too awkward and only like 2 people will
read this anyway and they know his name), which, although maybe a necessary ending
and a loving one, nevertheless broke my heart. Which is pretty much the worst.
In other words, this is the ideal time for a
new haircut and a new project. (And a new wardrobe but my budget limited me to
2 plain white t-shirts from Mr. Price. Although one must never underestimate
the value of a plain white t-shirt.) I am down 30cm of hair - not in a Britney
Spears descent into crisis and custody battle kind of way, I don’t think. In a
nice way, I think. So now a project. This blog - since my previous project of
post-break-up self-destructive behavior didn’t work out so well for me, for
obvious reasons.
It's also kind of an odd time to start a blog, however, partly because my younger sister Anna, who is infinitely cooler than me (not to
take away from my other sister Molly, who is also infinitely cooler than me),
has literally just started a fantastic blog about her travels through Vietnam -
and I am starting a likely mediocre blog about my non-travels in suburban
Joburg and failing love life. Like, why, Kate, honestly.
But mainly what has held me back from knuckling down and writing anything recently is, ermahgerd, the revolution waging outside. As far as many (I want to say most - I hope most) South Africans are concerned,
there is really only one thing that has been happening lately in the country:
the nationwide #feesmustfall protests and demonstrations which have shut down
universities across South Africa, and produced the kind of student mass action
that hasn’t been seen in decades. The students of this country have shown the
power of united action to effect great change, and have bravely faced the stun
grenades, arrests, rubber bullets and tear gas that have come with challenging
and shaking the very core of university management and government, as well as
invoking the ire of a police service for whom the use of unnecessary brutal
force seems to be a prerequisite for employment.
 |
| Thousands of students protest at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on 23 October. Photo by Juliette Garms |
The result has been truly historic. Things have quietened down slightly this week (since I originally wrote this a week ago but spent all that time fretting over what to name it because clearly I have my priorities straight).
However, although some battles have been won-which should have been won long ago but are nevertheless remarkable-there remains a greater war, deeply intertwined with historical inequality and institutional racism, and one that goes much further than university students. This requires a much greater discussion that I don't have the intellectual capacity, confidence or energy to go into right here and now (I just spent 4 hours looking at free blogger templates and teaching myself HTML editing and I think I succeeded in finding the most simple boring one and still fucking it up. Again, priorities). Seriously though, this is a conversation which is essential for everyone in South Africa to participate in.
Certainly I never saw or was part of anything
like this in my slightly more apathetic days at UCT. Despite my teenage dreams after graduating from my all-white Jewish high school in Joburg of
growing dreadlocks, walking around barefoot (so gross), having a bajillion
friends from every different race and background, and fighting the good fight
for social justice - because *obviously* none of those things can exist without
the others - it turns out I just wanted to get drunk and get laid. Go figure.
While getting drunk and getting laid remain
features on my list of priorities, I have also learnt about my own whiteness
and privilege and to be conscious of it, I have learnt to have some of the
humility no one has at 18 which means I need to *keep* learning and listening,
and I have learnt the deeply problematic issues around believing that
dreadlocks would make me seem like a better person. These days I will wear an
activist t-shirt as daytime clothing even, not just pajamas. So yes, I’m
getting a bit better.
But I digress. What I've been contemplating in the last few weeks while deciding to finally start a damn blog was: Who the fuck
wants to take a break from the revolution to read an extract from another diary
of a white girl on nothing-worth-talking-about? Who am I to even write this
right now when the winds of great social change are rattling my suburban front
door? MacBook Pro for what?
The question may not be as relevant as it was a week ago, but the answer is in any case, probably, actually, that I can expect about as many
people to read this blog whether there is a revolution waging outside or not.
Almost no one. Yes, at least one family member or friend will feel obliged or I
will guilt into reading it (thanks for teaching me the ways of Jewish guilt,
mom. Love your work), but that’s about it. At least I can’t expect more than that. Yet. I’m
still at chopped liver blogging stage.
So, I guess, why the fuck not just write, right?
