Two Bits – 22 August 2014

Being swooped on by a yellow billed kite on Chaka’s Rock beach last Wednesday morning, August 13, was right on time for this harbinger of spring. They will be swooping around our skies until next March, when the cold weather threatens and they wing their way back to North Africa.
Coupled with a brief but welcome shower of rain on Friday night, we can safely say spring is on the way. And good riddance to this winter. I have never been so cold as long as I’ve lived here. I don’t do cold very well, being by acclimatisation a slow-moving Natal lizard, more attuned to keeping movement to a minimum during the sweltering January-March period.
This morning a hot Berg wind predicts a wet week ahead. Great, maybe it’s the start of the spring rains. To add to our morning walk, we saw a pied Kingfisher hunting happily near Chakas’ tidal pool – not an everyday sight.
The kings of the air provide plenty of entertainment, while their landed counterparts provide wonder of a different sort. King Zwelethini says he intends laying claim to the whole of the province. Never mind that the claims process covers land taken over, principally by the Natives Land Act and later Group Areas Act, since 1913 – Zwelethini wants everything held by the Zulu nation before 1838.
It’s not clear why he’s chosen that date, but 1838 was a fairly busy year in the then Wild East frontier: in February Dingaan ceded land to the Voortrekkers led by Piet Retief, then in April Piet and Dirkie Uys died at the hands of the Zulus, in December the British took control of Durban, followed a week or so later by a momentous battle when the Voortrekkers defeated the Zulus at the battle of Blood River. No doubt those two events would make the year stick in the mind of Zulu historians.
What would happen, I wonder, if right by conquest was overturned in international law? The world would have to go into reverse. The North American Indians could claim back the USA, ditto the Indian tribes of Canada, the Maories would rule in New Zealand and the Aborigines in Australia (mind you, they’re welcome to it). Imagine restoring the Ottoman and Habsburg empires. Oops, sorry guys, we quite unfairly took your land after giving you a whopping, but let bygones be bygones! Then the Palestinians would have to deal with the Egyptians or maybe the Israelites, German would once again be the language of Windhoek, but the Bushmen would have a prior claim, wouldn’t they, and China would have to get out of Tibet.
Thinking of Bushmen – they should put in a prior claim for Natal since this was all a San playground before the Zulu nation was even thought of. The mind boggles – the lawyers would rub their hands with glee and grow rich to the end of time.
* * *
Moshe was sitting at the bar, staring at his drink, when a large, trouble-making biker steps up next to him, grabs his drink, gulps it down in one swig and menacingly says, “Thanks Jew Boy, whatcha going to do about it?”
Moshe burst into tears.
“Come on, man,” the biker says, “I didn’t think you’d CRY. I can’t stand to see a man crying. What’s your problem?”
“This is the worst day of my life,” Moishe says. “I am a complete failure. I was late to a meeting and my boss fired me. Then when I went to the parking lot, I found my car had been stolen and I don’t have any insurance. I left my wallet in the cab I took home. I found my wife in bed with the postman and then my dog bit me. So I came to this bar to work up the courage to put an end to it all.
“I buy a drink; drop a capsule in and sit here watching the poison dissolve; then you show up and drink the whole thing!
“But enough about me, how’s your day going?”