By Dimo Wa Moraswi Sekele

Fail, fear and a shade of shame
Drawing from my own experience I think it is only fair that I admit to a great extend that, passing at school was not influenced by a desire to succeed, but a great chunk of fear of failing. I related more to failing than passing and in my mind I perceived a fail as the ultimate worst thing than can ever happen to any human being.

As I sat there in my corner and observed amongst other social media trends the deliberate mass shaming of pupils who failed/could not progress to the other grade and the maintained attempt to instigate fear in them days before they could fetch their end of the year progress reports, I recalled my own experience and remembered how the pressure would mount and anxiety coupled with sleeplessness would torment me.

Was I really scared of failing? I can mention a handful of examples that prove I was not scared of failing, maybe I was scared of something close to failing, something that happens as a consequence of failing because there are countless of times I failed my class test and assignments and it just didn’t drive me over the edge like a progress report would have, even worse the thought of it coming with a fail. I think the key was “progress”, maybe because everyone would know if you progressed or not. It does not make sense though, why would people who know that you are repeating a grade torment you like that?

Let me introduce you to your greatest fear… His name is SHAME. This is not even your fear but your families fear too, the thought of repeating a grade is not as bad as the thought of having people know you are repeating. But that is ‘baby’ fear; now factor in the evil giggles and lunch time gossips and social media shaming and having your family look at you like you worthless. I have met a lot of characters who bounced from school to school in an attempt to hide from this shame. This is the reason grade 12 results have become so correlated with suicide notes that Government removed names from the newspapers and replaced them with examination numbers.

But don’t miss the point, shame has become the barrel that people can fire without feeling bad or connecting their actions to loss of life. The latest happenings on my timeline did not only prove how reckless we can get with other peoples lives and just how we can laugh about it and pretend it was funny with no infringement on other people’s lively hood.

I wish I could offer a real cure/solution to this problem, but sadly the only thing I can offer right now is my opinion. So to every adult in their 20’s who saw it fit to laugh at kids for failing please take this moment to interrogate the kind of adult you are, or better yet the parent you are or would be.

It is wise to practice caution when dealing with real life situations, the world is too serious for us to continue laughing behind our screens while victims of our actions are counted as stats. From where I am standing it is fair to say, adults are an endangered species, as soon as they switch on their screens and start typing any sense of responsibility escape them, Facebook and twitter might have driven the message but you typed it, you hyped the trend and your actions are the reason parents bury their own kids every year.

It is not late to grow up, you can be better…

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By Dimo wa Moraswi Sekele
As a concerned citizen, a brother to a teen sister, an uncle to a lot of young girls and boys I believe our silence or rather pretence that our kids are safe on the net deserve prosecution, in an era where a kid as young as 10 years of age can access the internet and browse whatever they want, it puzzles me why ICASA is not prioritizing their safety.

Perhaps a criminal case of Child pornography should be laid against the service providers because of their lack of measures to filter out X rated material from being accessed by minors. In a study conducted in Gauteng it was found that out of 2 890 secondary school learners, 57.1% of them have been exposed to pornographic material. What saddens me most is that 48.8% of this learners continue to intentionally search for the pornographic materials and 14.6% of this kids do so on a daily basis, this is mainly due to the addictive nature of this material and the sexual curiosity of teenagers.

I am not eroding the responsibility of parents towards monitoring and setting measures to ensure their kids are not exposed to this type of content but want to emphasize the service provider’s role in this matter, beyond the software filtering capabilities, the active parenting and other measures available to the parents perhaps the most effective method will be network blocking of their devices from accessing pornographic content.

The seriousness of this issue suggests urgent action be taken, as described in the South African Child protection register Sexual Abuse is Non-contact-Abuse: Exhibitionism, voyeurism, suggestive behaviour or Exposure to Pornographic materials (for a complete list/description of sexual abuse please refer to Child protection services) in this case the mobile phones are a means of exposure to this type of content, I would like to believe a very sober approach will be to charge the mobile network providers for exposing kids to this materials.

The only way to counter this form of sexual abuse a proactive rather than reactive approach is needed. I believe the department of social development, under the leadership of Mme Bathibile Dhlamini will contemplate and address this issue for the materialisation of a child friendly internet.

From where I am standing the network filtering by the network service providers is the only far reaching solution that can be implemented only if they are willing and realize the seriousness of this matter. The available public wifi’s should as a matter of urgency stiffen their filtering capabilities to ensure our kids grow up as normal and free from pornographic material as possible.

I hope this appeal can reach the hearts of parents raising modern technologically savvy kids, to apply pressure if necessary to the people who are entrusted with protecting our kids and the law makers to make amends where necessary.

ICASA,MTNSA,VODACOM,CELL C,TELKOM MOBILE.

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The frustration that come with waiting for a train that might never come.

By Dimo Wa Moraswi Sekele
If you have ever used a train in your life you know what patience means, you know how it feels to wait for something that might never come with no communication to inform you of the delay and the time scale of the delay. Well sometime you even wish they could just say we apologize for the inconvenience but that is never the case with PRASA.

I don’t really blame them, they have what they recently called out as a “Montana” problem. This is a collective name they use to refer to all their problems, named after their previous CEO Lucky Montana, the rot inside the agency is at an advanced stage, fixing it is going to be more costly than starting afresh. Well firstly they haven’t made profit in years, they haven’t maintained most of their fleet which happen to carry thousands of bread winners every single day. Every time trains collide, we are reminded of the dysfunctional signaling system and the extremely old trains that carry more than hundred thousand people every single month. 100 Thousand hard working South Africans that is.

Who on earth would incur a R13.9 billion irregular expenditure? Well PRASA did and if you think that is bad wait till I tell you no investigation is currently under way even after The public protector ordered that a forensic investigation be launched to investigate all Tenders with value of above R10 million. The order by Transport minister Dipuo Peters to PRASA chairperson Popo Molefe to halt all investigations into the tenders raise eye brows but I am not saying she is hiding something.

Cry my beloved South Africa

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Not a pinch but a spoon of honesty for me please

By Dimo wa Moraswi Sekele
When cooking you probably saw the “pinch of salt for taste” instruction but when it comes to honesty in any form I wish you a spoonful of it. This is what a pinch of honesty will say on a Monday while you smelling like brewery and your eyes looking like you just survived a tear gas attack, ”it seems like you didn’t get enough sleep last night” and a spoonful of it will be “you smell like brewery and look like a hobo”. Read More …

“Things fall apart and the center cannot hold anymore”

By Dimo wa Moraswi Sekele
I have always known one day this day will come, but little did I know it will come so soon, I thought I would be old with grey hair and grandchildren to relay to them the story of what was once the great elephant. The elephant that did the unimaginable things for Azania, her daughters and sons, the elephant that moved in the darkest of amazons Azania has ever seen. Broken down the man-made steel fence that man with guns and grenades have guarded day and night. (Once great liberation movement) Read More …

By Dimo wa Moraswi Sekele
We spent years running away, hiding and playing it SAFE. We do all this not because we want to, but because we are scared. We scared of failing; we are scared of what people will say, we have captured ourselves in a cycle of self-perpetuating and multiplying fear. A never ending vicious process that has enslaved most of us… Read More …