History packs a punch
THUS spreadeth our fame further. Nation That Can’t Keep Its Lights On now also wins Nation That Can’t Get Its President to His Capital.
Admire Cyril’s ability to keep cool throughout, and appreciate that we’d know if it got lost. For all our faults we’re not a nation that suppresses unflattering presidential pictures. Still, a boost is in order.
Lo, here’s a boost, from North West. The Stoep told a previous tale arising from Nick Binedell, of GIBS renown, championing KZN’s battlefields and their capacity to deliver growth to today and tomorrow’s generation. He has been at it again, hauling a recce party off for an eyeful of that capacity in less-known quarters.
Embarrassing to pass as many decades as mine before my posterior plonks upon the Magaliesberg cable car. Bit of a wake-up, too. The whole nation makes a shrine of Cape Town’s cableway, even overlooking the pestilential pimple that it implants upon the mountain, but here in our little gentle neighbour we, Gautengers, scarcely notice our equivalent.
It’s true that our northern cable vista is… uh… subdued in comparison. It includes swathes of human habitation that is not classically scenic, and quite an Ouch! in bird’s-eying the Hartbeespoort hyacinth gobbling the H2O like a movie director’s dream of an outerspace villain.
But hey, this is us, broadly defined. It’s our place, too, our berg, our veld. I felt high walking the unexpectedly splendiferous tourist centre, let alone walking the eyrie’s mega-view amid its ensemble of hi-tech mast-work.
Then, as Nick put it, the three big drawcards. There’s the land, for a start, and then the two wars.
The land? Yep. Look south and you’re on the world’s greatest source of gold, mainly shifted to Fort Knox and other distant repositories. Look north, and you’re on the world’s greatest source of platinum (and beyond it the ditto of vanadium, which might in time be bigger than either, for practical values like strengthening the low-grade steel with which China is recreating the planet).
And right where you are is the middle of humanity’s cradle.
None of that is photo-opportunity stuff, but standing there in consciousness of being an infinitesimal part of three (-plus?) world records, conveys a sense beyond photographs.
Two wars? Yep. The South African War, née Boer War or Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, is the better known. Which, as tour leader Rob Milne points out, doesn’t mean well known. KZN, he says, has three battlefields to brag about. Magaliesberg has 66.
Rob’s lowdown on some of them brings a lot to life that I never heard. At Dwarsvlei, say, here is the dell where 685 Shropshires, survivors of a general’s recent suicide order, hid the battle out. Here Private X ran twice to certain death to rescue comrades, and impossibly returned. Here lieutenant Y died defying the order to blow up his guns and retreat. Here the shell flew through commandant Z’s tent without exploding, to kill him decades later on the umptieth time he tapped his pipe on it as his memento ashtray.
Hear these where the “here” means where your eyes are seeing, where your nose is smelling, where your feet are standing, and they pack a punch.
War Two would be Mzilikazi’s 10-year reign of ultraviolence. At least 66 historic spots to be unveiled there. Meantime, point made, Nick. The ghosts of a rough yesterday hold out livings for today. And boost its spirits.
The past has passed, thanks be.