REACHING FOR MUTUAL TRUST

THERE is a word that has been around so long, it could be described as archaic. It is so trusted that it is a brand name for a very reliable product, but I can’t do product placement.

The word is mutual.

It means having the same relationship to each other, as in mutual friends. It also means directed and received in equal amounts.

A third meaning speaks of possessing in common, like mutual interests. It spills over into business, where we have mutual funds as safe investment; physics, where we speak of mutual induction; or biology, where we have mutualism as a symbiotic existence that advantages varying species.

Where are we going with this? We are exploring a hoped-for state that will follow a singular election.

There were no fewer than 28 parties vying for a seat in Parliament.

Our experience thus far tells us that the only certainty contained in this statistic is that the members of these satellite aspirants are guaranteed a hefty pay-out after five years of doing nothing.

I hear my readers ask: Why tout the word mutual if you are leaning towards a negative stance?

I do it because my trusted dictionary also warns me that we tend to use the word in the general sense of “common”.

Purists call this a fatal repetition. Two people can have a mutual distrust of each other. It’s just between the two of them. The meaning of mutual cannot encompass more than two protagonists.

So I will make my point. When someone tells me I am a nice guy, I smugly reply: “The feeling is mutual.” But let us use the root of the word, which touches on change, as in mutate, and make it an agenda for the nation.

Let us adopt a collective and mutual trust of each other, so that we do not speak of each other in categories, like party political affiliation, gender, race or religion.

Let us say that, mutually, we are South African.

I read about a black African woman who recently scaled Mount Everest. Three clobber categories. Black. African. Woman. Isn’t it enough to say “African” and relish the knowledge that she is one with each of us because we all live in Africa?

Can’t we share the glory, as in the achievements of Caster?

Sir Edmund Hillary was a New Zealander who first scaled Everest in the early 1950s. Nationhood. Mutual identity.

Brothers of the same soil. Workers in the same field, vineyard, mine, factory, home, hospital or school.

Having different religions and culture, yet recognising the benefits of cohesive ritual and a God greater than mankind. The present fast is an exemplar.

We can change our country overnight if we change our attitude.

Think mutual. Think trust.

“Isn’t it enough to say ‘African’ and relish that she is one with each of us?