LITERALLY YOURS alex tabisher Simple gestures mediate complex interactions

WE OFTEN believe that the larger issues in life exact the larger gestures, the smaller ones, the smaller gestures. This is not always the case. A gesture is defined as a motion of the limbs or body made to express or help to express thought or emphasise speech.

In the past 23 years we have tampered with the simple things in life to the extent that meanings and gestures have become reversed, or more complex.

Even things like the simple handshake, surely the most uncomplicated of gestures, have evolved into the most complex cultural gesticulations.

To me they look like heaven-sent opportunities for the deft-fingered pickpocket.

Talk about the medium becoming the message.

If we wish to acknowledge something as worthwhile, we clap our hands.

We applaud.

A slow handclap during a performance of any sort is not salutary at all.

On the other hand, accelerated handclaps have become gestures thoughtless gesture.

He could just have said quietly: “Thar’s gold in them thar hills. Go and rob the black man. He doesn’t even know it’s there.”

I think the most reverberant – historically, anyway – was the Groot Krokodil’s unchallenged finger that summoned the hapless Reverend Allan Hendricks out of the sea when he dared to defy the laws of apartheid by swimming at a white beach in the Eastern Cape.

And to exact an apology on national media to boot.

Right there. If ever there was a chance for a raised middle finger being engraved in the history of the Struggle against racial dehumanisation.

His gesture could have gotten close to those of the emperors’ whose downward thumb meant death and upward one meant survival or approval.

It would have come close to God’s writing the commandments in stone.

And spare a thought for those times when a simple gesture from you, like a touch, a smile or just a phone call could have made a difference to someone’s life.

Go ahead. Make one tomorrow.