Adam and Eve

My boyfriend, Adam, and I often have conversations about Christianity and God. He is confident in his belief in God and I think that I believe but I’m still confused. I had been thinking a lot about all of this lately, ever since I interviewed my aunt and uncle for my essay. Their views really had an unexpectedly huge influence on me, and my thoughts have been tending towards religious subject matter more than ever lately.

Last week, Adam and I went to Byron for a day just because we love it there. We were at a market and sat down at a bench to eat, again. I looked over at a family sitting at a nearby bench. They struck me as glorious and beautiful and even divine. I could not stop staring. I was freaking out. ‘Adam, babe, seriously, look there. It’s Adam and Eve. Oh my God, it’s Adam and Eve. This is insane.’ I could not shut up. He had seen it too, he felt it too. Tears were rolling down his cheeks. Seriously, he was crying actual tears – that’s a telling effect of their glory. This family were divine, for sure. This couple had the most amazing aura about them; they were honestly glowing against the trees. They were perfect.

Adam (of Adam and Eve) is a big black guy with long braids that end in dreads. He is physically perfect.  He was wearing a crisp white linen shirt and dark green shorts. He was reading the newspaper; like any old average Joe, Adam was reading the paper. Imagine it. Eve was staring into the distance with the most peaceful, moving look on her face. It was mainly this angelic face that caught my eye at the start. She has beautiful, long, blonde hair that ends in dreads. Her skin is fair and delicate and perfect. She was wearing a purple silk skirt and matching top and was carrying her beautiful baby in a green silk wrap against her creamy, soft body. Angel baby has thick dark hair and bright eyes. Eve was running her fingers through her beautiful son’s ringlets. He is the perfect shade of caramel and the cutest, most perfect looking boy I’ve ever seen. Caramel looks about three. He was wearing a green linen shirt, matching pants and blue gum boots. This feeling that they created in me was one that I had never felt before. I had never before been so moved by a seemingly normal group of people. It was an intense, profound, beautiful experience. I think it may have been my very own religious experience.

We tried our hardest to take a photo without alerting them to our creepiness. Really, we were that random stalker-like couple who stared lovingly at another family for a good half an hour. There was something about this beautiful family that drew the two of us in; but no one else was looking at them. It was crazy that no one else seemed to notice them because they did something incredible to me, and to Adam, too. And I can’t help but think that this was meant for us, that there was some reason we felt so moved by them, and that only we seemed so connected to them. We didn’t want to leave. We only left because they did. And when they did, there was no reason to stay.

I wander if someone, God maybe, is answering my confused questions by giving me something to think about; by giving me Adam and Eve.

Stop the misrepresentation already

The major Western media regard industrialised nations as superior to developing nations. Africa is made up of 53 countries, yet it is constantly lumped together and treated as one country – a savage place at the heart of darkness where jungle life has eluded civilisation (Ebo, 1992). Nothing frustrates me more than hearing someone (usually an American someone) talk about the cute black baby from Africa. Africa is not a country, people. At the heart of the misrepresentation of Africa is ignorance, which is continually perpetuated and reinforced by the media. 

Western journalists continue to broadcast negative news rife with conflict and violence. This because the media selects stories that will sell – dramatic, sensational stories that set-up an image of Africa’s impending doom. (Ebo, 1992) Journalism is headline-drive, crisis-driven, superficial and without context. When I met my boyfriend and he told his friends he was dating a South African, they were surprised to see firstly that I wasn’t black; secondly, that I survived living in Africa, that I hadn’t been shot at; and thirdly that we have air conditioners.

Images of Africa presented by the Western media are thus misrepresentations, and I can certainly vouch for that hundreds of times over.

Africans are not a savage, uneducated group of people; nor do they live in one country.  There is so much more to every African country than the media chooses to present to you and everybody else. There is food and water and smiling faces; there is love and beauty and harmony. We are innovative and intelligent and a force to be reckoned with.

Image source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQcn2n1rhNTHZr8leEh5cgbmRz9uCQKJTsAflfF9HLnBU5_YU7dxYit0Y6WBjP8_JoscazyZcK89iCj5zKRqTbjxvhZQFDQcJC4IRxAT6VcSsomtD9VkYrOw6ElnWIUyr8Ubb6bBQ24TM/s1600/africa+is+beautiful.jpg

References:

Ebo, Bosah. “American Media and African  Culture” in Hawk, Beverly G.  1992.

Africa’s Media Image. London: Praeger. (p15 – 25)

The religion of sport

Sport is an important part of a country’s national identity. Sport functions in a similar way to religion, hence it’s often referred to as a sort of quasi religion. It provides people with a system of symbols that attribute meaning to experience. Wann notes that sport can be discussed in terms of natural and humanistic religion, pointing out that ‘spectators worship other human beings, their achievements, and the groups to which they belong’ (2001:200). Where sports are played and watched, stadia and arenas, also resemble ‘cathedrals where followers gather to worship their heroes and pray for their successes’ [Wann, et al., 2001: 200]. Barcelona football club is a great example of a nation that has invested so much in the religion of soccer, which is probably one of the reasons the club has been so successful. The country has taken on its football team as an important symbol of their national identity and cultural and social heritage. Xifra says that there are: ‘thousands of supporters who are not only passionate about Barca but who also see Barca as a symbol to which they attribute transcendental meanings and truths’ (2008: 193).

I’m from South Africa. And in South Africa, sport has always had the power to unify. In a diverse country like Safa land, unification is something that is often difficult to achieve. The happiest, most patriotic moments in our history (excluding Mandela’s release from prison and his subsequent presidency) have been sports-related. Winning the 1995 and 2007 rugby world cups and hosting the 2010 soccer world cup stand out as events with enormous cultural, social, economic and political significance. I experienced the magic of the 2010 soccer world cup the same year that I was due to move to Australia. The experience, the way our country came together in an unprecedented way, the support and the spirit, made it so much harder to leave my country of birth. I had never been prouder to be a South African.  ‘Seen in this light, ethnic or national symbols and rituals are vital for the members of a given human group to be able to affirm their awareness of belonging and self-identification in a way that is clear to others’ (Wann et al., 2001). I could see how the world cup became a way for South Africa to express itself as a successful African country. Preston Davis reflects on what a game like soccer can and cannot do, concluding that ‘World Cup soccer, like religion, possesses a beauty that humanises’ (2010). He goes on to say that sport ‘mysteriously wields us together and separates us all at once.’ (Davis, 2010)

While sport as a whole provides this unifying experience, it still reinforces inherent racial divides. While the South African Apartheid government indoctrinated the entire country with their flawed and violent ideals, they ensured that emphasis was placed on traditionally white sports, like rugby. Sport may unify, but in countries with problems of inherent racism, it unifies the same people – whites with whites, blacks with blacks. The Afrikaans government decided that rugby would be an Afrikaans sport, while others were reserved for non-whites and English whites. South Africa has been a democracy for 16 years, yet the rugby team is still predominantly white and the soccer team 95% black. While sport is positioned as a national symbol for South Africa, it is a symbol that perpetuates a lot of the racism that will, unfortunately, forever live on. 

Sport cannot take away from the tragedy associated with Apartheid, but it can provide transcendence from it. Alexandra Fuller’s profile on South Africa is insightful. She says that Apartheid is still there, always, wherever you go:  ‘scratch the surface of any community, and one way or another there it is, the A-word.’ I think she’s right. She asks whether the game (soccer) can make South Africa’s messy history just history – something of the past. I don’t believe it can, but I am fully aware of the immense, positive impact sport has on a country like South Africa. My favourite memories of my country involve the patriotism and spirit that sport brings with it. In this light, sport is an important ritual for members of society.

References

Davis, P. Soccer and the sublime in the shadow of Apartheid. 2010. Religion Dispatches Magazine. Retrieved from: http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/2784/soccer_and_the_sublime_in_the_shadow_of_apartheid

Fuller, A. South Africa. 2010. National Geographic. Retrieved from:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/06/south-africa/fuller-text

Wann, D. L., Melznick, M. J., Russell, G. W., & Pease, D. G. 2001. Sport fans: The psychology and social impact of spectators .New York: Routledge

Xifra, J. 2008.Soccer, civil religion, and public relations: Devotional–promotional

communication and Barcelona Football Club. Public Relations Review 34. 192–198