early
John Matshikiza:WITH THE LID OFF
I know it is almost February, and the year is ticking by, but I have just woken up to the fact that it really is 1999. That the Y2K madness has officially been allowed to take over as a substitute for logic in our times, that Nelson Mandela is stepping down as president and that my mid-life crisis is here to stay.
What happened to justice? What happened to Peace in Our Time? Is this really what the struggle was about?
I only dare ask this because I suspect I am not alone in this appalling situation. But it is only a suspicion, a last-ditch scream into what may actually be a barren wilderness.
There is no evidence to suggest that anyone out there really does feel like I do, in any way whatsoever. I don’t see my panic articulated in the newspapers. It’s certainly not on television (my old buddy from choirboy days, the Artist-Formerly- Known-as-Dali-Tambo, is relentlessly assuring the world that everything is going smoothly). It isn’t the main topic of conversation at my old haunts on Rockey Street in Yeoville, Gauteng, either.
My once-and-future homies at Time Square seem to be stuck in the groove I left them in more than a year ago: “Where’s the next party? Do you think anybody’s going to get killed when Lefty goes beserk? What do you think I should wear?” And so on.
Let me try to break this all down.
Let’s start with 1999. Didn’t the Artist- Formerly-Known-as-Prince (and Previously- Formerly-Known-as-Prince-Rogers-Nelson)
define 1999 on a vinyl disc he released about 20 years ago? Just as the Writer- Artist-Formerly-Known-as-George-Orwell
(Previously-Formerly-Known-as-Harry-
Thrudge, or something like that) put down the State of the World in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Nothing resembling those doom-filled formulae happened as planned (although the Cataclysm-Formerly-Known-as-Maggie- Thatcher gave it a good stab). All that misery had already happened, so come the real 1984, there was nothing more to say.
So why does 1999 still ring like a terminal gong in my brain? Why am I panicking?
1999 is presumably a prelude to the year 2000. In the year 2000, several things may or may not happen. The Artist-and- Magician-Formerly-Known-as-J…. C….. may or may not reappear. And if he/she does, it may or may not be at the place at which he/she was last seen alive/not alive – Jerusalem, Israel or thereabouts.
Alternatively, she/he may or may not reappear at another, previously unsuspected location, such as Johannesburg, as predicted by the Artists-and-Prophets-Formerly-Known-as-
Mbongeni-Ngema-Percy-Mtwa-and-the-late-
Barney-Simon. The “Albert-Thing”, as it were, may “Woza” after all.
There are too many variables at play for the healthy mind to cope with.
But if she/he (the former JC character) does reappear (and there’s been much new air-charter traffic into the Tel Aviv area in the last few years, demonstrating that a lot of people, especially heavily armed Americans of all races, are preparing to put their money where their mouths are), there may be an almighty cataclysm that will put humanity back on the starting blocks (race and gender immaterial) and give those of us who still haven’t come to grips with our outstanding traffic fines and fallout from Oval Office Orals something of a new start.
Or else there will simply be a cataclysm that wipes humanity out altogether, speeding tickets, infidelities and all, and puts the rats and the roaches, those ugly creatures of very little brain, back in the driving seat of a planet they used to have the run of in the first place. A planet unburdened by philosophy, religion and the rest of the junk that people have been leaving lying around.
Or, alternatively, none of these things may happen. Which would put a lot of theologians, journalists, scare-mongers, Armageddonists and other simple folk into a state of some confusion. And put the Artist-Magician-Prophet-Formerly-Known-
as-“Hey, JC!” under a lot of pressure in her/his lonely task, working, as he/she will be, on behalf of the Artist- Formerly-Known-as-God, to try and make sense of it all for another thousand years.
Here in our own humble corner of the planet, youngsters like the Artist- Formerly-Known-as-Thabo will be labouring under a similar kind of pressure. The dark clouds around Mount Olympus (or was that just a mine dump?) will resonate with the disembodied voices of the late OR and the gracefully retired Madiba, asking awkward questions like: “What are you doing? What do you mean by Renaissance? Where is the revolution?”
Ja-nee, this millennium thing is not going to be easy for any of us.
Which brings me to the question of Y2K. “To be or not to be” is a Sunday school picnic compared to “2K or not 2K”.
“Y2K”, not to mention “How2K”, is even worse. I know, because I am one of Y2K’s premature victims. My computer suffered a fatal haemorrhage on January 7, almost a year ahead of the rest of the world. As a result, I start the year with no racial memory to draw from and sit here having to reinvent myself from scratch.
We are not amused.