Shafiq Morton

 

 

Habib Umar ibn Hafidh, one of the Hadramaut’s most celebrated spiritual leaders, conducted a successful tour of South Africa recently, lecturing in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town.

 

As a 39^th generation descendent of the Prophet Muhammad (s) through the lineage of Sayyidina Hussain (ra), he hails from a family that has been imbued with sacred knowledge for centuries.

 

As the founding spirit of the Dar ul-Mustafa Institute in the ancient city of Tarim, Habib Umar has worked tirelessly towards re-establishing the Muhammadan (s) middle way in an era marked by extremism and violence. People from all over the world now study at Dar ul-Mustafa.

 

In South Africa he impressed all with his humility, piety and eloquence – a smile always creasing his radiant face. Working tirelessly from well before dawn until midnight, Habib Umar exemplified all that was Prophetic in conduct.

 

As a scholar he proved to be beyond measure. One morning in Soweto a local student was reading from Imam al-Ghazali. He was able to correct the student without referring to the text.

 

Habib Umar gave many memorable talks, but perhaps an address that caught the eye was delivered in Cape Town on the theme, Women in Islam.

 

Talking at the St Athan’s Road mosque, he said that Allah had created men and women as mutually complimentary beings. Gender relations could not be conducted on the basis of competition.

 

That was the vital distinction between modern feminism and Islam, he commented. The role of the woman in society could not be based on satisfying whims. If the woman was pious she was the best assistant in the way of Allah, but if she was not, she became a trial to all those around her.

 

“When Allah established Adam’s (as) viceregency on earth, Adam did not go alone. The establishment of this viceregency of Allah involved two individuals, a man and a woman,” he said.

 

“These are the beings magnified in the heavens before the Angels; this viceregency is not through military force, but by serving the peaceful way of Allah (through the heart),” he continued.

 

Hawwa (Eve), the mother of mankind, had twenty pregnancies. All of these resulted in twins except for prophet Shith (Seth) who was born on his own. Therefore, the building block of this world was the family unit, a unit in which the woman was the vital partner.

 

Allah listened equally to the supplications of both men and women, and they both shared the same fears about the world.

 

Referring to the Pharaoh of Musa (Moses), he said that the quality of the human soul has always been the same. “All souls are not purified, and there are always ones (with egos) that will try to dominate (like the Pharaoh) and it will always be the case,” he said.

 

He quoted the example of Asiyah, who as the cruel and evil Pharaoh’s wife became Musa’s foster-mother. He said she exemplified the quality of the mother to deflect harm from her children – whether it was physical harm, or the loss of moral values.

 

“(In spite of the Pharaoh) Musa (as) rose to become a great prophet,” he added, saying that the woman’s role was greater in shaping the child.

 

“We must be cautious about what goes on in the home. Marital relationships have to be based on piety. As parents we’re all shepherds. How can a child be a source of joy on the Day of Rising when his heart is full of vile images?”

 

Habib Umar stressed that the Deen (Islam) followed the path of the intellect, east and west, and that problems of the heart could not be resolved through following the fancies of groups of people.

 

He went on to speak about Hannah, the wife of ‘Imran, the mother of Maryam (Mary).

 

“She dedicated her womb to Allah! She offered her unborn child to Allah! She believed it would be a male. But look what happened. She gave birth to Maryam – the mother who would give miraculous birth to Jesus – to the prophet who would predict the arrival of our beloved Messenger and Liege-Lord, Muhammad (s)!”

 

His allusion to Maryam’s blessed womb, echoed an earlier lecture when he’d posited that if the earth gently encasing the Prophet (s) in his grave was the most sacred spot on earth, what about the sanctity of his mother Aminah’s womb?

 

Nearing the end of his talk, Habib Umar asked the audience what would be better for them: to follow the example of Asiyah and Maryam, the Prophet’s (s) wife Khadijah and his daughter Fatimah, than to hero worship a film star on Sunset Boulevard.

 

“Asiyah, Maryam, Khadijah and Fatimah are the women of Paradise. Our women should feel the shadow of Fatimah over them, facing social responsibilities and protecting family and community from the deceptions of human desires,” he said.

 

Habib Umar ibn Hafidh’s historic visit to Cape Town

Media interviews can be predictable things. People who are famous for being famous can hardly utter a sentence. Those who are well-known might be worth a few sound bytes; and those who are really famous might, if you’re lucky, reveal something profound.

But interviewing people such as Habib Umar ibn Hafidh, a 39^thgeneration descendent of the Prophet Muhammad (s), is another matter entirely. There is no need for what we in the journalistic trade call “hooks”.

 Spiritual master, co-founder of Dar ul-Mustafa University, orator, philanthropist and traveller, the 47 year-old Habib Umar is impossible to distil into the columns, or the time-frames, of your standard media interview.

 Those who so inspire other human beings, especially through the legacy of the Prophet Muhammad (s) like the Habib, can never do justice to the 20-minute face-to-face encounter. You will get an opinion or two, yes, but you will only capture less than fleeting shadows of the real person.

 Perhaps what I’m trying to say is best encapsulated by the Prophetic exemplar himself, Muhammad (s). This was when he commented that he was a “city of knowledge” and that his cousin, our master ‘Ali (ra), was its “gate”.

 Habib Umar – one of the illustrious sons of the ancient city of Tarim in the Hadramaut – is a hereditary gatekeeper to this Prophetic “city of knowledge” through the line of Ali’s son, Hussain (ra).

 And to understand something of the Habib, you have to go on a guided tour of the enchanting Prophetic city he represents; an enchanting city resplendent with its stations of the heart, its foundation stones built from pure faith and its actions based on sincere and consistent worship.

 Indeed, if Rome wasn’t built in a day, how could its streets be navigated by the following sunrise? The journey of the heart towards its Creator takes a lifetime. Its paths cannot be understood via the internet, and nor can its truths be purchased in a chain store.

 When I first encountered Habib Umar at his host’s house in Sea Point, I could immediately see that he was the centre of the room. “A station of light” was the only way I could describe it. Sitting on the floor (there was a comfortable settee behind him) he was consulting an electronic notebook.

 For a man who’d been on the go from tahajjud (well before dawn) until midnight for several days, he was remarkably unruffled. His white thawb (under which he wore a lungi) was uncreased, and his white turban (folded in Hadramaut style) was immaculate.

 If he was tired, he certainly wasn’t showing it. If anything, he seemed to be a part of the cooling Atlantic sea-breeze on that stiflingly hot Cape Town February evening.

 Over the next few days I drifted in and out of his spiritual “city”. I remember him one morning discussing the effects of sound, a discussion derived from his recollection of a pious man even talking to, and honouring, his food plate.

 “A stone laughs when it’s built in a place of divine remembrance. It weeps when it’s put in a place of wrongdoing,” he said, mentioning that David of the Psalms – Nabi Dawud (as) – had such a musical voice birds stopped in the air, and rivers ceased to flow just to listen to him.

 Those were only a few of the inspiring aphorisms that flowed off his refined tongue. But for me, the finest moment of his brief tour was his lecture on mawlud, the celebration of the Prophet’s (s) birth.

 Saying that we had been brought together through faith and love, he added that the person who held the banner of these gatherings was (his grand-father) the Prophet Muhammad (s). Circles of dhikr (remembrance) were like the meadows of heaven. And those endowed with noble qualities on the Final Day would be the people who had grazed in such meadows.

 Habib Umar went on to talk about nur, or divine light. One of the honorific titles of Muhammad (s) was “seraj munira”, a shining lamp. His cousin Ibn ‘Abbas had commented that when the Prophet (s) was born the entire horizon had lit up.

 “It is under this Prophetic light that we tread,” he had commented, much to the delight of the Prophet (s). Habib Umar then said that Muhammad (s) had reported three things about himself:

 “I am the result of Abraham’s prayer (for Mercy); I am the glad tidings of ‘Isa, or Jesus, who predicted my coming; and I am the vision which my mother saw on her birth.”

 This vision, a light that illuminated the distant castles of Syria from Mecca, was a sign of his mother Aminah’s high station, said Habib Umar. He posed the question: if scholars agreed that Muhammad’s (s) burial place in Medina was the most sacred spot on earth, what about the sanctity of his mother’s womb?

 “Fill your hearing, your speech, your sight, your flesh, your hair with this Prophetic light,” he said, “no-one is better for you than the Prophet (s).”

Companions had described the Prophet (s) like the “full-moon”. The Prophetic light of mercy was a force that could not be veiled, or extinguished. So full of light was the Prophet (s) that he did not even have a shadow. And when the planetary lights would glimmer and fade, as foretold in the Qur’an, the lamp of Muhammad (s) would still shine forth.

The source of this light, said Habib Umar, was the faithful heart. Gatherings remembering the Prophet were a consequence of this light. It was passed down from generation to generation, and consequently (as Muslims) we had to pray for all human hearts to be illuminated.

 

Just who exactly is this ‘Majlis’? Whilst the strict lexical term for the word is a ’sitting’, in reality the Majlis is a ghostly ‘presence’. Its ether, in the form of Post-Box 3393, has haunted us for decades.
 
And lest I be accused of playing the man, rather than the ball (or Post Box) - I don’t know whether the ‘Majlis’ is man, woman, committee, or comrade. All I know is that it ’sits’, usually in judgement.
 
The mouthpiece of this mysterious Majlis is a rag-sheet called - surprise, surprise - the ‘Majlis’ which emanates from a sleepy coastal city, Port Elizabeth. It has a masthead that has not changed for 20 years, and in its columns it has consistently preached hellfire and brimstone.
 
In recent years, it has also taken up the cause of slandering halal certification bodies and creating calumny amongst scholars.
 
My first encounter with the Majlis was in 1990. This was when it declared that Coca-Cola was haram. Surprisingly, this censure was not based on Coca-Cola in Israel, the usual reason for bannings or boycotts. Rather, it was because Coke had alcohol in it.
 
When we dared to question this highly dubious judgment my editor was called, amongst other things, a “bearded lady”.
 
My next crossing of paths was in, of all places, New York. I was leaving the ‘West Indian’ mosque on a hot August night in 1997 when three young men came up to me. “Are you from South Africa?” they asked.
 
“We are supporters of the Majlis,” they declared. I did not have time to ask these breathless young men whether they’d been to South Africa. I could only assume that they must have been Tablighis, a missionary group that journeys across the globe in search of the souls of misguided modernists, errant Sufis and sinners.
 
Its name and fame in the US aside, the Majlis caught my eye for the third time last year when it launched a frontal attack on the Muslim Judicial Council’s Halal Trust and the South African National Halal Association (SANHA).
 
Claiming that a halal chicken farm was run along non-halal lines, the Majlis created wholesale confusion in the community. My only surprise was that the Majlis did not end up being sued for millions in the High Court.
 
But last week the Majlis crossed my desk again. SANHA were in the crosshairs. “SANHA Halaalizes Kelloggs Pork and Beef Contaminated Products” thundered a leaflet from Post-Box 3393.
 
Handed the story at work, I decided to check out the Majlis on the internet to see how its universe had expanded - or shrunk. Its presence on the net (given its condemnation of photographs, pictures, TV, music, dancing, singing and the female voice) is somewhat paradoxical.
 
However, I could soon see that the Majlis had been in fine fettle. Its fiery phraseology and flowery syntax remained undiminished in its enthusiasm to declare unbelief and hypocrisy.
 
Clicking randomly on the topics, I discovered that “hooting, photos, videos and mixing of the sexes” at weddings were deemed “evil, satanic exhibitions” of (sic) “adultery”.
 
The colour-coded Qur’an, designed to help the non-Arabic tongue with pronunciation, was a “trap for Satan”. Blood transfusion - deemed permissible by the overwhelming majority of scholars - was forbidden.
 
Being from the media (radio) I decided to check out what the Majlis had pronounced on this front. It wasn’t good. Channel Islam was “Channel Shaitan” and, goodness gracious me, music was played “with impunity” on the devil’s airwaves.
 
It begged the question: how do you exactly “punish” someone for playing music? Bring out the firing squads?
 
Apart from being a “platform for prohibitions”, the radio stations mentioned (Channel “Shaitan” and Durban’s Radio Al-Ansaar) were in serious trouble with the Majlis. Al-Ansaar had “flagrantly violated” the laws of hijab, as well as publicising and prostituting the female voice.

When it came to the religious scholars the Majlis fire was still burning strong. The learned men who appeared on the radios were not only accused of making tabligh (religious message) of sodomy, but they were also the “lewd agents of Iblis”.
 
If that wasn’t enough, some of the scholars were “holy cows roaming about freely”. Well, at least they had pastures in which to graze.
 
“No-one who understands the Prophetic concept of morality will accept these evil stations to be lawful,” opined the Majlis, adding that “any form of haram support for these radio stations is haram (sic).”
 
So you can imagine my sense of anticipation when I read the Kellogs “halaalization” leaflet. It didn’t disappoint. On the comedy Richter scale it rated a solid seven. This was because none of its pieces, hurriedly cut-and-pasted, actually fitted.
 
For under the banner headline was a letter from Grace de La Cruz of Kelloggs Consumer Affairs Department. She said that Kelloggs used gelatine from cows and pigs, mentioning things like Marshmallow Fruit Loops, Kelloggs Smorz Cereal and Frosted Pop Tarts.
 
Technical point, yes, but none of these cereals were manufactured or sold in South Africa. It just took one phone call to learn that this letter was from Kelloggs USA, who had nothing to do with Kelloggs SA.
 
Further discomfiture was to follow. The halal authorising body in South Africa was not SANHA as the Majlis had alleged, but the National Independent Halal Trust (NIHT) who assured me that Kelloggs SA used no animal products in their gelatine whatsoever.
 
In spite of these comedic inconsistencies, the Majlis still declared that it was “waajib” (compulsory) for Muslims to abstain from Kelloggs products.  And as I reached for a packet of Rice Crispies, I hoped that the Majlis was not going to race to the dark side of the moon.
 
Imagine if SANHA got there first and discovered it was cheese.

 
 

Can it be twenty years, already? I must admit that the 20th anniversary of the release of Nelson Mandela has caught me by surprise. It’s still the biggest event I’ve covered.
 
So why would I regard it the biggest?
 
Silly question, maybe. But as a journalist, I’ve been fortunate enough to have had an interesting, and varied, career. I’ve been assigned to events such as war, famine, unrest, elections, the Hajj and even big wave surfing. But the reason I think Mandela’s release is the special one is because it was our story.
 
Not only was it our story in the South African sense; it was our story because we were Cape Town journalists, many of whom had been on the coalface of the Mandela release saga for months.
 
We were the people who’d had to chase down every rumour of Mandela’s release whilst editors in London, Paris and New York had shouted hell and fury down the phones.
 
Jimmy Mathews, Aziz Tassiem, Sahm Venter, Benni Gool, Adil Bradlow, Obed Zilwa, Rashid Lombard, Mike Hutchings, Eric Miller, Tony Weaver, Paul Grendon, John Rubython, Craig Mathews, Chris Everson, Fanie Jason, Yunus Mohamed and Alvin Andrews are just some of the crew that I can remember (and forgive me if I’ve forgotten anyone) covering the beat in those days.

 

 

It was an interesting time being a journalist. The noose of Apartheid was slipping, and even the SABC was sending reporters to UDF rallies.
 
I was a free-lancer then, stringing for the wire-services, working part-time for Muslim Views (when its editions weren’t being banned by Stoffel Botha) and running a surfing magazine.
 
When President FW de Klerk announced in parliament that Mandela would be released, we were following an event at the Grand Parade. I can remember snapping pictures of activist youths reading the Cape Argus headlines: “ANC Unbanned”.
 
As the time of release drew nearer, and all the big names in international journalism flocked to Cape Town, I realized that we locals would probably be sidelined to things like darkroom duty.
 
I decided that I was going to cover the event on my own. I wasn’t going to miss this piece of history. But I had to hope that the release would not be a “pool” event, a scenario where only selected photographers would be allowed to shoot it.
 
The Mandela release story was huge, and it was easy to get over-awed by the occasion. But we had to learn very quickly how to survive when out-of-town journalists started to push and shove us around.  
 
I remember the Associated Press’s Adil Bradlow becoming as belligerent as The Beast in a scrum near the line. Many a foreign journalist found himself giving way to the stocky Adil. I always knew if I burrowed in behind Bradlow (who was much shorter than me) I’d get a clear shot!
 
Adil did pay a price, though. One day I remember the late John Rubython’s clunky Nikon F3 connecting with his skull. It was a change from watching South newspaper’s Yunus Mohamed from bleeding on the job. For some reason, poor Yunus had always copped it.
 
Fortunately, Mandela’s release was open to all the media, and I was assigned to shoot it for Muslim Views and a newspaper called the Lenasia Indicator. Its editor was the late Ameen Akalwaya, a former Rand Daily Mail staffer, and award-winning anti-Apartheid journalist.  
 
I was absolutely determined to get a shot of Mandela’s release. We’d been told that Mandela would be released at about 3 pm.
 
I arrived at the gates of Victor Verster prison at 7 am on the fateful day with reporter Showket Hamdulay. I was eight hours early, yes, but it did give me the best opportunity for getting the picture.
 
I had my surfing lens, a barrel-shaped Century 600mm and a sturdy Slik tripod. I would use this rig for the long shots, and if there had to be running, Showket would grab the rig and I’d run with my other camera.
 
So there I stood in the baking Paarl sun, determined not to lose my spot behind the red-and-white security tape. I was thirsty and longed for a cool-drink, but desisted. Going to the toilet could see me losing my vantage point.
 
As the crowd of cameramen gathered I chatted to Willie de Klerk, a former Cape Argus photographer. Willie had snapped the first township necklacing.
 
A man with battered cameras introduced himself as Alf Khumalo. I was standing next to a legend! A prize-winning lens-man who’d cut his teeth at Drum Magazine, Alf quietly told me about his early years with Mandela. He also wasn’t going to miss the story.
 
As the hours ticked by and the press corps swelled in numbers, Chris Everson and Greg Shaw - a CBS TV crew - arrived with a yellow City Council cherry-picker. That was a stroke of genius. With the best seat in the house, their aerial footage would prove to be priceless.
 
A member of the international corps, a known prima donna, began to get agitated. Unused to “African time” and already fretting about deadlines, he complained we were too far from the gates. We must work together. We must not break ranks when Mandela walked through the gates, he said. That would spoil the shot.
 
I thought this a bit ripe, especially considering the times his ilk had previously tried to shoulder us out of the picture. Our friend then accosted Trevor Manuel. Big mistake. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I was younger, and bright-eyed about the wonders of the world, I would read about UFO’s or Unidentified Flying Objects. I was fascinated by the idea that we were not alone in this huge universe.

I delved into all the conspiracy theories of my youth: extraterrestrials were our friends; extraterrestrials were our enemies; extraterrestrials were worried about the nuclear bomb; extraterrestrials had landed and extraterrestrials, a la the Men in Black, were amongst us.

I devoured books like Eric van Daniken’s “Chariots of the Gods” and Robert Charroux’s “Masters of the World”. I raced through titles such as “Sungods in Exile” and “Extraterrestrials are Among Us”. I waded through less dramatic UFO publications that analysed data, even discrediting cult populists preying upon our gullibility such as George Adamski and Billy Meier.

Adamski, the pioneer of “tabloid Ufology”, produced the first “detailed” photographs of UFO’s in the California skies in the late1950’s. But when he claimed that he had contact with a Venusian astronaut, Orthon, and that there were cities on the dark side of the moon, he was condemned as a crackpot.

Meier, a Swiss farmer who claimed he had contact with a Pleiadean civilisation, was put under scrutiny by Ufologist, Karl Korff, and later denounced as a “scumbag”.

Then there were the infamous crop circles, originally punted as extraterrestrial communication but later revealed as an elaborate hoax by its British creators, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley.

Impostors, New World schizophrenics and pranksters aside, there is an undeniable and overwhelming body of evidence that points to inexplicable occurrences in our skies. These things have been happening in the heavens for thousands of years. Even one of the ancient Pharaohs, Thuthmose III, reportedly observed UFO’s.

Statistically at least, say scientists, given the size and scope of the universe, there has to be some form of life on other planets. Carl Sagan, the US astronomer, spent the latter half of his career searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. But two decades later, Sagan’s hypothesis has yet to be proved.

And if anything, the innate wonder and uniqueness of the earth has only become more pronounced as space missions probe deeper and deeper into the primordial soup of the universe.

Over the years I have learnt that “flying saucers” is a misnomer, as in reality UFO witnesses do not always see saucer-shaped objects. I have also learnt that many sightings are not UFO’s, but human phenomena such as weather balloons, car headlights, satellites, camera flares, police helicopters and military aircraft.

Other sightings have proved to be natural phenomena such as meteor showers, lightning balls, odd shaped cirrus clouds, comets and strange luminosities resulting from tectonic activity, something which scientists call “earth lights”.

In fact, only a small percentage of reported anomalies in our skies have turned out to be occurrences deserving the UFO moniker, but they still number in the thousands worldwide each year. And whilst most observers feel that UFO sightings, close encounters and abductions are not a matter of faith, the 19^th century psychologist, Carl Jung, has always argued the opposite.

As a journalist who frequently works in the religious milieu – specifically the Islamic one – I must admit I’ve had to be cautious in dealing with paranormal matters. When you’ve had to confront people claiming to be risen prophets and end-time imams, a healthy dose of scepticism is the safest distance from the subject.

However, whilst authentic Islam fully recognises science, it also acknowledges a theological construct of the world. According to this paradigm, creation has three existential dimensions: Angels, jinns and humankind.

Angels are made from “divine light”, jinn are made from “smokeless fire” and man is made from “clay”, a pre-scientific term for protoplasm. The jinn – or genies – dwell in what is often described as a “parallel universe”. They can see us, but mostly, we can’t see them – although they can cross over into the human dimension.

Traditions say that Solomon was given dominion over these shadowy beings via a divine, talismanic ring. The genie under his control could move from place to place in the blink of an eye. According to Muslim scholars, jinn have been given good and bad natures. Satan is said to be a fallen genie that had enjoyed the company of the Angels.

But what has this got to do with UFO’s?

Genies are said to be of the land, the sea – and, more significantly, the air. It begs the hypothetical question (to which I don’t have the answer) whether the UFO phenomenon is the manifestation of an inner universe, or another genie-type dimension. Could the utopian societies so often described by alleged UFO abductees be nothing less than wishful, revelatory dreaming?

Carl Jung is long deceased, but I’m sure if he were still alive, his grey head would have nodded in agreement to this notion of a collective, cultural sub-consciousness in which we all aspire to a better world – albeit via an extraterrestrial paradigm.

So I’m sure you can imagine my surprise, that after having examined the UFO phenomenon as rationally as possible, I would be subjected to a UFO sighting myself.

It happened on the evening of the 29 January whilst camping at Bains Kloof in the Western Cape. I was sitting facing the sky through a gap in the trees. The time was about 8, 30 pm and the constellation of Orion’s Belt had just appeared above the mountain slopes opposite me. It was full moon, but it had not yet risen over the valley, although I could see it beginning to brighten the sky from behind the mountain.

Suddenly to my right in the eastern heavens, at the level of Orion’s Belt, I saw a moving light. Expecting it to be a shooting star, I quickly drew attention to it. But there was no flash across the heavens. We could then see that the light – it was the size of a star – was travelling at immense speed.

As it traversed in a westerly direction (from my left to right) another one shot out of the heavens from the west and crossed paths with the first one. These could not be aircraft. Not only did the lights have irregular flight paths, they were either very high up in the earth’s atmosphere, or in deep space. Then there was their speed. These objects were travelling at a velocity I’d never seen before.

After crossing paths, the lights disappeared. At least eight people besides me had just witnessed the event. Someone went to fetch a pair of binoculars. As I scanned the skies, a passenger jet to the far west began its descent to Cape Town international airport. With its flashing lights and fuselage, its speed was less than pedestrian compared to what we had just seen.

SAA, Comair, Onetime or Mango could never be mistaken for a UFO.

But the show was not over yet. For another light sped out of the east, and without deceleration, zigzagged, and finally dimmed past Orion’s Belt. Through the binoculars I could see that the object was in space, and that its sudden direction changes seemed to defy the laws of physics.

As the moon brightened the sky, throwing the surrounding mountain peaks into sharp silhouette, we saw no further activity in the skies. It was time for coffee and biscuits.

So what had we just seen? I have no rational explanation. Were these lights Unidentified Flying Objects? Yes, they certainly were – but I’d like to give them another classification, “UAP’s”: it stands for “Unidentified Aerial Performers”.

As a journalist, a natural disaster – which is defined in the insurance industry as “an act of God” – is always something that catches you by surprise. Due to its unexpected nature, our emotional shield we so often call “objectivity” is momentarily dropped.

Our human condition is such a resilient, and yet fragile thing. Each time they occur, disasters remind me of the blessings we enjoy, and take so much for granted. Our world as we know it can disappear in the blink of an eye.

The events in Haiti have proved to be no exception. It was my first day back from leave, and next to a fatal shark attack, I had to face the news of a devastating 7, 0 Richter-scale earthquake. Relief agencies and rescue teams, their antennae fine-tuned to such things, were already scrambling for international flights.

My radar told me that this was a big story. Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, director of Gift of the Givers relief organisation and a disaster veteran, agreed. He told me that he’d had a “premonition” about a big event, and that – well – Haiti seemed to be it.

But as rescue teams scour the rubble of the capital Port-Au-Prince, I am beginning to realise that Haiti 2010 is much more than a natural disaster, and that the real tragedy of Haiti is a human one.

This is because Haiti (listed by the CIA as “the poorest country in the western hemisphere”) was before its deadly hurricanes and devastating earthquake already a failing, if not failed, state. With its slums described by the UN as the “most dangerous place on earth”, Haiti’s public image is one of brooding anarchy.

Add to this its rating as one of the most corrupt nations in the world, and the picture of despair deepens. This is a country that in 200 years has seen 30 coups and only six presidents completing their term of office.

Before the earthquake the country was reeling under the yoke of 80% poverty and 70% unemployment. A captive of the IMF and the World Bank, but with no significant industry other than agriculture, 30% of Haiti’s national budget has had to come from foreign aid.

Haiti’s fragile environment, steep and mountainous, is eroded and exhausted – a victim of its poverty. The countryside, once richly forested, is now almost bare. The Pan American Health Organisation estimates that each year 20, 000 tons of precious arable land (Haiti means “hilly” in indigenous Arawak) washes into the sea.

On the ground the World Health Organisation and other agencies paint a pessimistic picture: no Haitian city has a public sewage system and 90% of its children have, at one time or another, suffered from waterborne disease. AIDS related illnesses, such as TB, have become grim reapers with malaria and dengue also endemic.

Yet this Francophone-Caribbean country of 10 million vibrant people, a mirror of post-colonial Africa, could have been so different. Situated on the biggest island of the Greater Antilles group, modern Haiti shares an eastern border with the Dominican Republic. Its rugged western shoreline faces Guantanamo, Cuba and Jamaica – all a long way from Africa.

Nevertheless, 90% of Haiti’s population is of African slave origin. Its indigenous people, the Taino and Arawak Indians, were devastated by European viruses and the Spanish sword in the 16^th century. Voodoo, for which Haiti is renowned, is an ancient African faith originating from Dahomey (modern-day Benin). Today Voodoo is frequently admixed with Roman Catholicism.

But how could Haiti, a struggling, under-developed country of African roots a few hours flight from Miami, have been “different” today?

Given its past history, the answer is clear: Haiti once stood on the brink of being a successful post-colonial nation. Space does not permit me to examine the litany of its failings, and the meddling of world powers, but we cannot ignore a critical piece of its chequered history – one that indicates why we as South Africans (the children of slaves and colonialists) have a moral imperative to empathise with Haiti.

Many historians claim that Haiti was “discovered” by Columbus in 1492, but the truth is that the Mandinka from the Mali Empire, the Vikings and the Chinese had all sailed Caribbean waters long before him. However, colonisation of Haiti – taken over from the Spanish by the French in 1697 after the Treaty of Ryswick – was particularly harsh.

Renaming Haiti “Saint Dominigue”, the country became one of France’s richest colonies. Its capital city, Cap Francais, was dubbed the “Paris” of the New World. But, this wealth (from coffee and sugar) did come at a price. It came at the expense of hundreds of thousands of African slaves, who were forced to be the engine room of France’s economy.

These slaves were cruelly kept in line by their masters through being flogged, buried alive, starved, crushed by heavy stones and thrown into vats of boiling sugar.

By 1791 (the year of the French Revolution) the slaves had had enough. Tutty Boukman, described by some sources as a Voodoo practioner and by revisionists as a Muslim, led a successful - if not bloody and vengeful revolt - as over 1, 000 plantations went up in smoke and 12,000 people died. By 1793 the French had abolished slavery in Haiti.

In 1796 a fractured territory was brought together under Toussaint L’Ouverture, a former slave, who realised that for the slave revolt to have any lasting impact, Haiti had to be united. L’Ouverture skilfully played the English and the Spanish against each other by entering into a diplomatic alliance with the French which gave him consulship, and France a nominal presence.

In 1801 Napoleon Bonaparte, smarting at L’Ouverture’s slave government having toppled one of France’s premier colonies, decided to dispatch General Leclerc and 20, 000 troops to unseat him. A year later after bitter attrition on the battlefield, L’Ouverture retired from public life. As soon he left office he was tricked into a meeting with Leclerc, who sent him to France in chains.

But Napoleon only served to inflame the Caribbean further when he restored slavery on the island of Martinique, and Haitians once again rose against the French.

L’Ouverture’s successor, Jean Jacques Dessalines, proved to be less conciliatory than his predecessor. General Leclerc was also a desperate man. If his troops weren’t fighting off incessant guerrilla attacks, they were falling victim to yellow fever. In one of the darkest chapters of French history, Leclerc decided to target unarmed civilians.

When Leclerc (the brother-in-law of Napoleon) left the island, his successor Jean-Baptiste Rochambeau carried on with the indiscriminate killing, which saw thousands of Haitians slaughtered. Dessalines responded by ordering the summary execution of all Europeans and “mulattos” on the island who disagreed with the revolution.

But by 1803 Rochambeau, lacking support from Napoleon (because of his conflict with Britain) was forced to surrender. And so Dessalines declared Haiti to be an independent republic, and symbolically removed the middle white band from the French tricolour.

Dessalines declaration caused panic in slave-owning communities, particularly in the United States, where fearful landowners even built “slave shelters”. Jamaican-born Royson James, a columnist and Caribbean commentator at the Toronto Star, reckons that were it not for Haiti’s “brave stand”, slavery could have blighted Africa for another century.

Indeed, Haiti’s pedigree in the struggle for human rights is a forgotten chapter in the heroics of class struggles, and deserves to be more widely recognised.

Haiti defeated Napoleon; Haiti was the first post-colonial independent American state after the United States; Haiti was the first post-colonial independent African-led nation; and Haiti is still the only nation whose independence was gained by a successful slave revolt.

And like Royson James, I don’t only see Haitians as a poor and desperate people - although that is their social reality. Rather, I would like to go beyond the imperial and egotistical misery visited upon Haiti by its rulers and world powers to see its real, beating heart.

As James writes:

“Through the tears, spirits soar as they stand against the blasts of man and nature. Though the earth quakes, and hurricanes devastate and dictators loot and colonialists plunder, Haiti’s freedom lantern refuses to extinguish….buffeted from without and within Haiti stands diminished but unbowed.”

The other day I was chatting in a shopping mall when my cell-phone rang.

“Aren’t you going to answer it?” asked the person.

“No,” I replied, “the caller can leave a message.”

“But, I don’t mind, you can answer your phone,” he insisted, surprised that I was just letting it buzz in my pocket.

“It’s bad manners to interrupt,” I said.

The strange and searching look I got told me that my behaviour had not been regarded as sane. I had done the unimaginable. I’d broken social convention by refusing to answer my phone in public.

But it did make me think. Had life got to the point where rudeness was now considered conventional: that it was perfectly normal to ignore those in your presence to attend to other matters?

I remembered the body language of great people, those always able to make you feel significant by focusing on you, albeit momentarily. I remembered the Companions of the Prophet (s) recalling that whenever he spoke to them, he caused them to feel as if they were the only people in the room.

But now with the advent of the cell-phone, it seemed as if every crowded room was filled with a lack of eye contact – and the meaningless gabble of anonymous voices talking electronically to other anonymous voices.

I also remembered how a work supervisor (long departed into the ether of “former management”) had annoyed me. He’d always attended to other affairs while I spoke to him. His hollow reassurance that he was still “listening” to me as he tick-tacked SMS’s was infuriating.

Or the pompous low-level politician I was trying to interview, a silly little man who pretentiously told his secretary to “hold all calls”, only to fall victim to his cell-phone when it chirruped on his desk.

“Yes dear, I won’t forget the milk,” he said submissively. I was sorely tempted to leave that bubble-bursting disruption on tape.

Of course, we’re all familiar with people being imprisoned by their cell-phones: in banks, on planes, in restaurants, in saunas, in malls, in meetings, in mosques, in queues, on toilets (I swear I once heard the flush) and even at the Ka’bah in Makkah. The list is endless.

But there is now another dimension to the cell-phone syndrome, the phenomenon of “cell-phone rage”: this “rage” expressed in response to the inconsiderateness of those who answer, or let their phones ring at the most inopportune times.

And it is to the latter I turn. This is because the following incident is just so wacky, so bizarre and, well, so current.

It happened to a friend of mine – a Capetonian we shall call “Yusuf” – who decided to attend the ‘Isha, or late evening prayers, at a Gauteng mosque. The mosque - located in a suburb near to Alexandria with a name similar to that of the nicotine cowboy, the Marlboro Man – was full as he joined the jama’ah.

“It was during the prayer that my problems began,” related Yusuf, who went on to say that a cell-phone started ringing in the pocket of a worshipper next to him.

“It was loud, and was playing a lively rock tune. This person – possibly thinking it was pious to ignore his phone – made no effort to kill the sound, and it just rang and rang,” he said, “this in spite of his school of thought permitting him to put his phone off without breaking his prayer .”

“Suddenly, I heard someone hissing behind me ‘Haram! Haram!”

Yusuf added that he didn’t think much of this, and carried on praying.

“It wasn’t my phone and so I minded my own business,” he said, or at least until the hissing became more insistent, and he realised that the “harams” were being directed at him.

“Still, there wasn’t anything I could do,” he explained. “It wasn’t my phone!”

However, for Yusuf things took a turn when blows began to rain down upon him; first a push in the back, then the tennis rally of a forehand, a backhand and a forehand to the neck.

“I used to play rugby so I can stand my ground physically. I ignored the blows and concentrated on my prayer. It was difficult, but I managed to keep my composure,” said Yusuf.

“At the conclusion of the prayer it was discovered that I, the modern-looking guy, was not the source of the offensive upbeat ringtone, but an innocuous-looking man with a traditional robe and long beard.”

“What disgusted me was my aggressor’s muted response to him, ‘o sorry, be careful in future, brother’, compared to the hostility I’d had to endure. All right, my aggressor did have the decency to feel embarrassed and apologise to me, but the damage had been done,” said Yusuf, “and I went home.”

“For me, there were unanswered questions: I didn’t wear a robe, I didn’t have a fez, and, I can’t grow a beard! I have no problems with religious codes. But were my odd-man-out appearance, and the tune of the ringtone, the reason I was picked on?”

Was my transgression regarded as being more severe because I was a foreigner?”

“Sadly, I can only conclude that it was,” remarked Yusuf, who is still disturbed by how he was abused and assaulted by a senior musallee of the mosque – and all because of his ‘non-conforming’ attire and the concomitant blaring of what was thought to be his intrusive cellphone with its rock tune ring tone.

When the news broke that a Great White shark had fatally attacked a human (for the second time in five years) in False Bay at Fish Hoek, I shuddered. But not from the shock. I was more concerned that the subsequent media frenzy would bloody the water.

Lloyd Skinner, a 37 year old Zimbabwean swimming near the “Catwalk” – a promenade that runs along Fish Hoek’s southern shoreline – had been taken in about 2 metres of water about 100 metres from the beach.

Sadly, he’d been swimming right in the path of the migratory summer “cruise zone” that Cape Town’s
Great Whites have been known to follow annually in False Bay from September to about March. In the colder months from April to August they move out of the shallows and the bay.

What Great Whites are doing in False Bay so close to the shoreline in summer, nobody quite knows. Marine scientists are beginning to speculate that they could be coming inshore to breed. Problem is no-one has yet seen Great Whites mate, or give birth – although scientists are gathering more reliable data each year.

Another factor – and one that makes the two Cape Town attacks so very unusual – is that over 90% of the time, scientists have observed that the Great Whites are happy to cruise beyond the breakers, showing no interest whatsoever in feeding in the shallows.

So what could have happened to the unfortunate Mr Skinner?

Of course, one can only guess, but my feeling is that the shark (finding a strange swimming object in its path) initially bit Mr Skinner to test him for his “prey value”. Having surfed in shark populated waters for forty years from Namibia to northern Zululand, my experience tells me that sharks are curious, if not cautious, predators. They like to test things first.

One of their methods is to “bump” the object of curiosity – and a friend of mine, Ward Walkup, was thrown off his surfboard by a shark at Seal Point near Cape St Francis. I’ve also seen curious sharks circle and “eye” what’s in the water too. This happened to a surfer at Jeffreys Bay (I was there) who was buzzed twice by a shark that eventually swam off.

The only problem is that with such powerful jaws and razor sharp teeth, just a bite – and that’s how a shark feels strange objects – can cause massive injury. When they’ve been spat out, many shark attack victims suffer tremendous blood loss.

I know of surfers in East London who’ve been lucky enough to survive such experiences at Nahoon Reef, yet another shark “hot-spot” along our coast – together with Mossel Bay, Amanzimtoti, Stilbaai, the Transkei Wild Coast and KwaZulu Natal.

Without trying to sound macho, I’ve spotted sharks in the water many times. I’ve seen them silhouetted in the swells; I’ve seen them swim under my board and I’ve been called out of the surf because somebody else has seen them. Every time it has been a sober reminder. In a wetsuit and floating on a piece of fibreglass it’s the shark who is in his element; it’s me playing in his parlour.

And as I said to Craig Lambinon of the National Sea Rescue Institute last week on air: the Great Whites were in False Bay thousands of years before us, they’re just doing what they’ve been created to do – and will probably carry on doing this long after we’ve all departed this earth.

Usually when I go on leave, a huge story breaks. Last year it was Gaza, a few years ago it was the Asian tsunami - so it was quite a relief to see things so relatively calm.
But no sooner was I back behind my desk than there was a fatal shark attack in Cape Town and the devastating Haiti earthquake.
Haiti, a poverty-stricken Caribbean island beset with political, social and economic problems, has alrerady suffered a string of natural disasters - most of them hurrricane related - but nothing could have prepared its citizens for such a massive natural disaster.
It may have been an act of God, but on paper at least, the people of Haiti didn’t deserve what came their way.
As I write this, it’s believed to have been the worst Haiti quake in 200 years, its epicentre only kilometres from Port-Au-Prince, the capital city.
But in Haiti, the former fiefdom of the ghastly tinpot dictator, Papa Doc Duvalier, the tragedy is as much the lack of insfrastructure as it is the tragic deaths and injuries.
For those fatcats in the the cabals of privilege unable to make a responsible decision about the future of the planet, Haiti is the most frightening example of how the poor, the defenceless and the innocent could fare in the future.
As for the shark attack, well I’ve been surfing in those waters for over 30 years. And yes, the sharks were there then, too. But more about “Jaws” on Monday.
Also coming up will be an expose on “Shaikh” Abdullah al-Faisal, the seditious Wahhabi jihadist (imprisoned in the UK for hate speech) who ingratiated himself on to our airwaves - until it was discovered whom he really was. The clumsy Kenyan deportation issue has made him the cause celebre  he has always aspired to….

For a reflective read, click on the “Surfing Behind the Wall” links’ button on the right…enjoy…