This time last year, I listened to a spokesperson discussing the huge challenges facing the country. He was positive about overcoming them - “like we overcame or solved Apartheid” were more or less his words.
Solved Apartheid? Is it SO simple? Surely we have come nowhere near... It no longer exists on paper; but its spread, its consequences, are everywhere.
The image came to mind of how one unpicks a seam or thread in a garment or other piece of fabric. Sometimes the seam is easy to see, and one can cut the thread and give a quick tug and much of it pulls away in one go.
But other seams are harder to see; too tightly sewn or with thread the same colour as the garment, so the seam is near-invisible. It is hard to cut the thread without damaging the cloth; and the stitches must be pulled one by one, painstakingly.
I am reminded of a fingerless glove I recently knitted. It is just a simple rectangle, really, sewn up to leave just one space for the thumb. However, on sewing it up, I forgot to leave a space for the thumb. I've tried several times to unpick it, but I simply can’t find where the seam ends and the glove begins. To rectify it, I will have to sew each end of where the opening should be, then cut it open and then secure any loose threads. The task is so daunting that I have not tackled it - and the glove remains unworn.
I am not deprived of just one glove, either; its completed partner lies idle, waiting for the other to join it to make a usable pair.
Yet surely we must begin, one careful stitch at a time, to unravel the past without damaging the present, so that we can create a future we all can "use".
And if unravelling seems too hard,
and "solving" seems impossible,
then we must create another way, together.
