POLOKWANE – I recently noticed that there are people in Polokwane who take offence with 5FM’s Small Town Live Loud, saying the concept belittles Polokwane.
These people remind me of when some elements in Limpopo got up in arms over comments attributed to controversial presenter, businessman and Idols SA judge, Gareth Cliff to the effect that there was “no singing talent in Limpopo”.
He was accused of many things from being a racist to being reckless and ignorant. He had to defend himself, he was being accused of insulting “the people of Limpopo”.
The debate soon changed from being about singing ability, but about race relations, oppression, about the underdevelopment of Limpopo and so on (things irrelevant in a musical discussion). Calls were made for his head to roll. In some cases, the critics did not even know who Gareth Cliff was, and had never even watched Idols SA, but reacted that way because someone had told them that he (Gareth) had insulted the people of Limpopo.
It became a political matter, with the ANC Youth League penning one of its usual harsh toned bad grammar wrong gender statements, and the “young lions” came short of calling Cliff ‘leshoboro’
At the time, I thought I missed the point. I tried to figure out how such a statement by a judge on a music show could provoke what was at the time projected to be a province wide outrage. That matter eventually became old news, and to this day, I still think the reaction was outrageous and unwarranted.
Now, as I am still trying to figure out what could be wrong with the 5FM promotion, something else happens; an ANC MP puts their foot in their mouth about the Springok emblem, and the party swiftly rebukes him. That gave me the answers to all the questions I had about the level of sensitivity of the people of Limpopo and South Africans in general.
I was starting to believe that we are naturally sensitive (in an extreme nature), but I was wrong, and the answer I had been looking for was right in front of me. I remember one seasoned activist saying: “when things fall apart and you seek accountability, things of no material importance would be made your preoccupation, you would have lost the power to set the agenda, your experiences of life shall be scripted by the emperor”.
That is what is happening fellow South Africans. Someone out there doesn’t want us to have free thought. They want to control our thoughts and have us preoccupied with sentiment and history.
For more from Kgaogelo Magolego, follow him on Twitter: @ThisKg
