Thursday, July 10, 2014

PRESIDENTIAL PARDON REQUEST

Eugene de Kock 
Thursday, 10 July 2014
For Attention:  President Jacob Zuma
The Presidency
Pretoria

Your Excellency

PRESIDENTIAL PARDON FOR EUGENE DE KOCK

Today we were advised via a media briefing of the Minister of Justice, that Eugene de Kock’s parole application has been denied, not due to any problem with the prisoner, but apparently due to a lack of competence within the parole system, which did not include the families of victims.  On these grounds, this man will again spend another year in prison before his application for parole can be processed.   The grounds for the denial appear more political rather than one of a legal nature.

Mr President, we are now counting our years of democracy by the number of years that this man spends in prison.  It no longer serves any purpose to keep him imprisoned.  He is no threat to the public, he has admitted guilt, he has asked for forgiveness, he has paid for his crimes by his incarceration, he has assisted the National Prosecuting Authorities in their investigations – what more can the man do to enable him to get parole?
At the conclusion of his appearance before the TRC, Eugene de Kock asked if he could meet with the widows of the victims of the Motherwell bombing.  The widows’ lawyer agreed.   Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela spoke to the widows during a weekend of debriefing.  “I was profoundly touched by him”, Mrs Faku said of her encounter with de Kock.  Both women felt that de Kock had communicated to them something he felt deeply and had acknowledged their pain. “I couldn’t control my tears.  I could hear him, but I was overwhelmed by emotion, and I was just nodding, as a way of saying yes, I forgive you.  I hope that when he sees our tears, he knows that they are not only tears for our husbands, but tears for him as well … I would like to hold him by the hand, and show him that there is a future, and that he can still change”. (A human being died that night, page 14) If the widows of men killed by Eugene de Kock can forgive him, then we, the people of South Africa, should welcome his release, whether through parole or Presidential Pardon.

South Africa has seen the impossible become possible.  It was said that the release of Nelson Mandela from prison was impossible; that the apartheid National Party would never free a prisoner convicted for treason.  The impossible happened and he became President.   Because our South African past has shown us that anything is possible, I urge you to consider making it possible for Eugene de Kock to be released. 

Who amongst us can cast a stone?  How can we have reconciliation while  one man is kept in prison for all the crimes committed?   Was Eugene de Kock’s crimes any worse than the thousands upon thousands of people who fought for and against the National Party?  Was he the unfortunate scape-goat so that others could walk free?  Is this the reason he was tried and incarcerated as an ordinary prisoner?   Was it because charging him as a common criminal would ensure that someone was incarcerated, and could take the blame for all the wrongs of the previous government?  The crimes that Eugene de Kock committed were as a direct result of his employment by the National Party.  There are many, many people from all sides of the “war” that committed similar crimes for which prisoner number 94616105 still languishes in prison for.   What kind of justice do we have in this country when only one person is charged for a crime committed by many? 

A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred.   (Nelson Mandela)  I do not, nor will I ever believe, that the people of South Africa are prisoners of hatred.  As a former freedom fighter, Mr President, you will have a deeper and greater sense of compassion towards a former enemy. 

For the love of justice, compassion, forgiveness and for reconciliation of our land, I beg you to consider a Presidential Pardon for Eugene de Kock.
Yours truly,
Dianne Lang 

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

THIS MOMENT

Copyright photo by Dianne Lang
I may never see tomorrow
There’s no written guarantee
And things that happened
Yesterday belong to history
I cannot predict the future, I cannot
Change the past
I have just the present moment
I must treat it as my last
I must use this moment wisely
For it soon will pass away and
Be lost to me forever as part of yesterday.
      

I must exercise compassion
Help the fallen to their feet
Be a friend unto the friendless
Make an empty life complete
The unkind things I do today may
Never be undone and friendship
That I fail to win may nevermore be won
I may not have another chance on
Bended knees to pray and thank
God with a humble heart for giving me
This day!

These are not my words – I have been going through one of my old journals, and found that I had copied it out without putting the author’s name to it.  It is still a powerful message.

Monday, July 7, 2014

An injured lion still needs to roar!!!

Don't spend time with me through a sense of duty but because you want to be with me. 

I want to enjoy you while I can and I don't want any death-bed vigils. 

 Spend time with me now while I can still enjoy you.  
I want to laugh with you and share my hilarious stories - some that are even a bit sad. 

 And I want to listen to you.  I want to hear your story. 

 I also want private time with you so that I can tell you that I love you. 

 I want to tell you how much you mean to me.  

 I want to thank you for blessing my life with your presence. 

Life is too short for me to put this off for another day!!

Copyright photograph by Dianne Lang 

There are a few (actually not so few) words of wisdom that have carried me in times of emotional, mental and spiritual traumas and I want to share them here.  Here they will be immortalised for my grandchildren to one day find when they google their grandmother’s name.
Life is too short for me to put this off for another day.
I have used these sayings to help me through life, and particularly, during the last few years.   I have used them as affirmations, as prayers and as statements to help me lift my eyes away from worry and towards spiritual and emotional peace.  

v  Time is like a river- you cannot touch the same water twice, because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
v  If someone does something nasty to you, write it in the sand so the winds of forgiveness can blow it away.  When someone does something good for you, chisel it in stone so that the winds of time cannot erase it.
v  Never under-estimate the arrogance of the powerful.
v  Once you are deeply wounded, you are easily hurt again.
v  You can’t hurt anyone without hurting yourself, and you can’t help anyone without helping yourself.
v  Ruin can be the road to transformation.
v  I am the Captain of my soul and the master of my fate.
v  The taller the tree, the harder the wind blows.
v  If you want a place in the sun, leave the shade.
v  There is more to life than increasing the speed.
v  The sun will set without my assistance.
v  The only worthwhile goal in life is transformation towards God.  Nothing but completion of that journey will do.
v  You cannot learn humility by being humiliated.  You learn humility by being with people who are humble.
v  When we experience humiliation, when our ego is crushed and when we can thank that person who humiliated us for the experience, then we can share, especially when sharing is the last thing we want to do.  It is then that we are stepping into immortality.
v  I am making a commitment to my own spiritual and mental growth, and to my own happiness.
v  There is no spiritual growth without compassion.
v  If you do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.
v  What we think about, talk about and obsess about…happens.
v  No good deed goes unpunished.
v  The secret of success is enthusiasm.
v  A baboon cannot see its own backside.
v  You can expect nothing from a pig, but a grunt.
v  If you mix with dogs, you will pick up fleas.
v  If elephants fight, the grass gets hurt.
v  Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal.
v  You can’t teach a crab to walk straight.
v  Father, thank you for your wisdom and love, helping me to see, understand and assess all my alternative options.   Please guide me in the best direction for my health, happiness and life’s purpose.
v  I don’t need to compromise my honesty, authenticity or integrity.  My needs will be met in gentle and loving ways.
v  This situation is already resolved.  I can relax in the certainty that all is well.  I exchange all worries and cares to the Father in exchange for true peace in my life.
v  Beloved subconscious mind, I humbly ask that you take this prayer directly to God with all the vital desire necessary to manifest and demonstrate this prayer.
v  Father, let the rain of blessings fall upon us all. 

Friday, July 4, 2014

Freedom for MY Soul


Available on Kindle 
I am often asked what my religion is by people who cross my path. I immediately respond by asking them what their religion is. If they tell me they are Christians, then I say, “Me, too”. If they tell me they are Buddhist, then I say, “Me, too”. If they tell me they are Hindu, then I say, “Me, too”. This stops all proselytizing. Fortunately, I have spent many years searching for my truth so am able to say “Me, too”, without anyone suspecting that I am just playing them at their game.
I do not play them at their game because I am being disrespectful. I say “Me, too”, so that I do not get into any arguments and I also do not have to listen to anyone preaching or pushing their truth/religion down my throat.
It is wrong for me to judge the religious or spiritual path of another and I believe that it is wrong for anyone to judge mine. Unless I have walked a mile in the shoes of that person, I have no basis on which to judge. However, I can judge for myself whether my path is right for me or not. What another person believes or how he makes sense of his or her world is none of my business. I do not have the right to judge another. Buddha said that the pure man respects every form of faith, and in the Bible I am told to ‘judge not, lest we be judged’.
Spirituality is as different to religion as chalk is to cheese. Religion is the belief in a creator and controller of the universe who has given man a soul that continues to exist after the death of the body and is a system of faith and worship based on such belief. Spirituality is the concern of the spirit or soul and not of material things. As such, spirituality is not concerned with faith and worship of a belief system, but of matters that prioritize the soul. Religion ensures that I tow the line, that I behave within the paradigms of the dogma and that I stay with the literal account of the holy books. Spirituality is an individual pathway to the Creator and does not rely on any faith but the conviction, the absolute knowing of the truth for me.
Religion is a social organization that expects me to become a member, behave appropriately and pay towards the upkeep of the representatives of God. If I do not conform, I am ostracized and cast out. Spirituality requires no such thing. I already am, always was and always will be an integral part of the Universe, affecting the Universe and being affected by it. I do not require paying anyone to be an interpreter or negotiator between my Creator and myself. I am only concerned with taking care of the world I live in and the care of my own soul.
I think that most religious followers are extremists, who judge, condemn, beguile and coerce, who wear blinkers and who have to rely on the “only” scripture to prove their point. It does not make sense for me to try to prove something by using the same thing they are trying to prove, to prove it. This is an apple because it looks like this apple? Is this proof that the apple is an apple or should I rather look at an orange and say this is an apple because it is different from that, which is an orange? How can I prove that the Bible is the Word of God, or that the Koran was divinely inspired if I have to prove it by reading from the same book? Proof of something is always found in something else, not in itself. To prove that I am a male, I look outside of myself and see the difference between the sexes. I cannot just look at another male and say I am the same as he. I have to look at what I am not, to prove what I am. I am female. By proving that something in the Bible, Torah or Koran is true by referring to another part of the same book that mentions the same thing, does not prove the truth of the matter. It merely states that there are two verses in the said book that say the same thing. It does not mean that it is the truth. To say that a dog is a dog means nothing. But to say that a dog is not the same as a cat, even though they are both animals, tells me something about the dog. To prove that a holy book is the truth, I need to look beyond that book.
Spiritual people rely on themselves. They read, research and use their powers of deductive thinking, they question and they search. They feel no need to tell anyone about their spiritual path because it has nothing to do with anyone other than themselves and their Creator, and because they are content with what they understand to be the truth. They do not need to constantly ask people whether they believe because they do not need the confirmation of other beliefs to justify their own.
Both, spiritual and religious people are concerned with climbing the mountain of awareness, or religious or spiritual enlightenment. When I am at the bottom of the mountain, there is a vast difference between the Buddhists, Baptists, Hindus, Jew or Pagans. All these people are taking different paths. But the higher up the mountain I go, irrespective of which path I take, the less difference there is. When I get to the top I will find that there is no difference at all.
What does it matter how I get to the top? What matters is that I make an effort and that I constantly strive to reach the summit. Whether I bowed to the East yesterday, chant a chant today or cast a spell tomorrow, what does it matter? What matters is my spiritual freedom to do whatever it takes, whatever I want, to commune with God within me and to remain in the zone of unlimited potential.
Often, it has been when I found that the material world did not satisfy me any longer, when my longing for that thing which I could not put a name to became unbearable, that I would begin again to search for God, for enlightenment and for that ultimate place to be. For me, to be enlightened means to see in a new way – to move from the old way of perceiving and understanding the world to a new way of seeing and understanding the interconnectedness between my self and the universe. The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. My thirst for knowledge and truth is unquenchable.

What compels someone to risk everything to make a stand for human rights?

Photo taken by Dianne Lang Copyright 

Wishes are often aligned to dreams of something in the future. My past influences my wishes today.

My first wish would be to have some kind of invention that can remove all hurt, anguish and pain from the memory. That hurt, trauma and pain that makes it difficult to move forward in life. The pain that becomes the baggage that we carry around with us and that inevitably affects not only ourselves, that colours our future, but that also affects those who try to love us. Memories of trauma and pain are buried within our minds and in our tissues and remain with us as a constant reminder of what happened. It does not recede to the distant past. It is right there, under the surface. A smell, a sound, a colour, a word, a conversation; all these things can bring that memory flooding back as though it is happening to us in the immediate moment and we feel all the emotions, the anxiety and the body responses to that memory.

A device that can wipe out traumatic memories and put them into the distant past would allow people to move on and lead a more productive lives.

My second wish is jumbled up with the guilt I feel for having taken on the roll of human rights activist. My activities as a human rights activist has affected my relationship with my adult children, mostly because I was a single parent most of their lives.

My son has always been my biggest fan.　He always said that I had the biggest balls of any man he knew.　 This was a backhanded compliment.　 Although he was proud of what I was doing, he did not like it one bit, continually begging me to stop because he was afraid for my life.　 He also felt that I had no time for him as I was hell-bent on saving the world.

My daughter became estranged from me for a while, blaming me for putting the family at risk; for not having any time for her or her brother and the grandchildren; for wanting to save the world and for not caring enough for the family.

As much as I loved and wanted to be there for my children 100% of the time, the human rights abuse I saw round me have driven me and I did not give them the undivided attention they deserved.  I wish I could go back again and be a little less preoccupied with my mission. 

Ken Wiwa, the son of Ken Saro-Wiwa, a human rights activist who was executed in November 1995 in Nigeria, asks in his book "In the Shadow of a Saint", "What is it that compels a man to risk everything - his life, his family, the lives of people around him - to make a stand for human rights?"

I am trying to answer this question.  It is not religion.  It is a deep horror of injustice that drives me to do something about it.　 It is also a feeling of being the only one to really see the pain and abuse, the feeling that not enough people are prepared to do something, or to take action...this is what drives me to take more and more risks.　 It is a feeling of not having enough time and of a job that is too large to complete.　It is a feeling of living in the moment because tomorrow will be too late.　 It is a feeling of every life being precious and if nothing is done about the other out there, then nothing will be done about these around me.　 It is a feeling of "if I look out for those, then these of mine will be OK".　 It is a deep resentment of the abuse of others.　 It is a loathing of unkind and uncompassionate behaviour.　 It is the contempt for those who sit by and do nothing, knowing that while they look on they are as much to blame as the abuser and the oppressor.　 It is a feeling of frustration that pushes me to the limits of my endurance.It is an all-consuming love of the people, of those who need protection the most.

Only when you know what it is like to walk barefoot on the rocks while the hot sun beats mercilessly down on your head, while your belly screams in hunger and you feel the thrash of the whip on your legs, when you have personally had your rights abused, when you have been the victim of unfairness or prosecuted without just cause or if you are the only one to take the blame...only then do you have the will and stamina to fight someone else's fight.
My personality and my experience gave me no choice, for as Carol Lee says, “By turning my back on myself, I would have broken my spine”.

I wish for peace, solitude and a little stone house over-looking the water where the neighbours are too far away to hear my music playing. I wish to write with a glowing fire in front of me and a hot cup of coffee next to my computer. I wish to have someone on the other end of the telephone who knows me and loves me and who does not judge me. I wish to know that all children are free, that there is real justice in the world and that no one feels alone, afraid, hungry and forgotten.

I don’t want to feel driven like this. I wish it were different. I wish we lived in a perfect world, but we don’t …so I fight for those without a voice. I will not forget people like Ken Wiwa, nor will I forget Eugene de Kock until he too can walk free!

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Is this Freedom?

Life in South Africa - picture by Dianne Lang

We thought that democracy and the freedom to integrate would be the solution to all our problems in this country.  

The only thing that changed with integration is that the newly mobile middle class has fled the townships while some previously privileged people have moved into the townships.   



Others, who could afford it or had the necessary ancestry, went abroad to find a new life, just as the settlers did when they came to SA, taking with them their skills that we so desperately need.    

The angry, frustrated cries of the people in the townships know they have been shunned and abandoned by the larger society who doesn’t seem to care.  But what is even more painful, is that they have been abandoned by their own people too. 

How can any single culture hold their cultural roots together when they are integrated by virtue of their poverty alone?   We are now divided by the amount of money we have. Who gives a damn about culture when the children cry, your belly aches with hunger, and you have to borrow money to bury the dead?   Is this freedom?