Thursday, May 19, 2011

MALCOLM X VERSUS THE PENIS






SISWATI: Lengibatsandzako namuhla ngibo Malcolm X, Tamara Sibusisiwe Phiri naLondiwe Nyathi

KISWAHILI: Ninaewapenda leo ni Malcolm X, Tamara Sibusisiwe Phiri naLondiwe Nyathi


I am fascinated by the fact that today is Malcolm X's birthday.  Also 
that if he'd still lived he would find my last-born daughter (Tamara Sibusisiwe Phiri) 222 days old.  


At the same time, Malcolm would find my maternal first cousin-once-removed, pugnacious Miss Londiwe Nyathi and daughter of my first cousin born Thembisile Virginia Sithole who is wife to Zimbabwean-born Mr Nyathi, not only forever standing on a jealous share of Blogger's 4th-May birthday, but also chalking her 1111th day in life today!




Had it not been for an assassin's fatal bullet or two, Malcolm X would have shouted today "pronto" for his  86th birthday: just one year younger than Zimbabwean President Robert Gabriel Mugabe who is still making significant, some say "interesting", waves in our small pond called Africa!




I got to hear for the first time about Malcolm X when I was 16.  It was from my Grade 9 teacher: Emjindini/Barberton's Mr Henry Gubhugubhu Tsabedze who later was to be an SABC/Ligwalagwala FM announcer (I'm not show whether to say talk-show host or even DJ).






Always serious-minded, neatly dressed with a tasty choice for dress colours, Tsabedze was indeed a man with his own Malcolm-like stature and handsomeness, at least where it concerned us his youthful students back then in 1977.




Reminiscences of Tsabedze's life only serve to dump on me sadness ("how the mighty have fallen"), when I also recall the manner he reportedly so unceremoniously left his work place and subsequently lost his life under circumstances unknown to Blogger.


I am convinced that if Tsabedze had not joined his mentor (American Mr. X) as of this writing, he would have graced the global entourage of many who today, like me, remembered X's birthday!





An April 3rd 2000’s edition of South Africa’s arguably best national newspaper, “Die Beeld” (which is in Afrikaans and a reason why I encourage any newcomer to South Africa to learn Afrikaans if not Zulu) sadly relates how Henry Gubhugubhu Tsabedze lost his job for telling a listener about the latter’s “stupid and malfunctioning penis”.


On the date of this report, Blogger’s former teacher was knocking at the doors of SABC’S headquarters in Auckland Park Johannesburg for a reprieve: he wasn’t denying (according to the Beeld report) the “penis” utterances on his part, but he was apparently averring that the regional (Mpumalanga Province) office of his employer had not given him a procedurally-fair hearing. In my own vicissitudes with the law, I’ve heard a finding to be fair, must be one that encapsulates nothing less than both factual fairness and procedural fairness!



At any rate, this is not about revisiting old cases posthumously; it is just to wonder if Malcom X had any role in Tsabedze’s on-air fulminations.  For genetic anomalies if any, this Tsabedze clan (from the Swazi/EmaSwati Nation of His Majesty Swaziland's King Mswati lll) is very closely being watched by Blogger seeing that they mother 7-month-old Daughter Tamara Sibusisiwe Phiri.  Indeed, I am imagining my Tamara working for the South African Broadcasting Corporation one day (or even working for the eventual USABC United States of Africa Broadcasting Corporation for that matter) and telling a female listerner: 


“Listen here, Guy Girl Sister! Malcom X spoke his mind and I’m speaking my mind today to say your vagina must be really on a malfunctioning mode with your current call!”


If you ask me if I would turn in my grave for that, the answer is a resounding  "NO!".  For, what if my daughter would have been an unsung expert on unsound vaginas?




As for the recorded life of Malcolm X, for me what stands out as most absorbing is the  incident relating to the  Johnson Hinton incident, particularly where a policeman is quoted as saying: "No one man should have that much power."






Happy Birthday Malcom X.  I’ve seen your copyrighted pictures where you smile; and so I believe you can take a joke even up there in heaven where you are!



SISWATI


Kube Malcolm X usaphila, ngabe namuhla akacedzi-nje emalanga  kuphela langu 31412 (86 years) budzala, kepha ngabe futsi utfola indvodzakati yami yemagcino, Tamara Sibusisiwe Phiri enemalanga langu 222 budzala; indvodzakati (Londiwe Nyathi lotalwa ngu Thembisile Virginia, uLaSithole) yadzadze kuMake lomncane (Eva Margaret Sithole waseWhite City Soweto) enemalanga 1111 budzala. Londiwe utsi “Malume” kulomblogi longimi.

Mine kucala kwami kuva ngaMalcolm X ngeva ngatishela wami 1977, uMnumzane Henry Gubhugubhu Tsabedze lobekangutishela wami ka Form II




Biography of Malcolm X

No comments:

Post a Comment