Home is where the hate is

Home is where the heart. It seems as a society many of us have forgotten this cliched, yet pertinent adage. But what happens when the heart stops beating at home? Is the very moral fabric of home life being torn shreds? In the face of 5 children dying in the space of just under a month across the country, most of them at the hands of their parents, it seems the cynical belief and dark, misguided aphorism that child abuse is South Africa's top hobby, rings true to a degree.
In just under two weeks 4 babies were found dumped in Cape Town and Johannesburg. I emphasise - DUMPED - like garbage in drains and manholes.
When they're not being abandoned, their mothers allegedly poison them, as with the case of a 14-month old child and her 8-year-old sister. The sibling's mother, apparently distraught and at her wits end at not being paid maintenance by the children's father poisoned them. I imagine her explanation, clouded with tones of helplessness, to the relevant authorities would be "They're in a better place now". The 8-year-old survived. Her sister didn't. Her better place, which should've been in the safety of her home, became her mortuary.
The award for the father/beast of the month goes to a Western Cape man who's accused of flinging his 2-year-old daughter against a wall during an argument with her mother. It's apparently not the first time he's done this to her. Again, like garbage, the child is nothing but a thing, it's dignity and right to safety abused, not by some evil, violent stranger, but by her father.
I could spend the rest of this article analysing all the circumstances and issues behind this level of child abuse (read:hatred). But the severity of the issue may become lost in academia and statistics. Sure, with babies being abandoned we must take into account the desperate state of mind a mother must be in to resort to such heinous measures. Poverty, unwanted pregnancies, negligent parents, substance abuse, cultural taboos - these are all driving this scourge. But what's driving (or not driving) common sense and morality? In some corner of their minds they must have thought of other alternatives before simply callously dumping an infant in a drain. Unfortunately, the most desperate of measures seems to be the easiest and most convenient for these people, who themselves become victims anyway of their own actions.
We're often told by experts, in many ways the home is far more dangerous for children than the proverbial big, bad world. We've become a society either so desensitised by horrifying levels of child violence or many of us are losing the plot in ensuring homes get heart transplants so as to be restored as safe havens for youngsters. The heart at home has flat lined.

Hell hath no fury a believer's reading material scorned

What happens when business and religion collide? No, you certainly don't get a big bang. Nope, you don't get Ray McCauley in a designer suit. You get an unholy crucifixion of all things secular and independent-minded business.
A bunch of Christians, no doubt fundamentalist, put their scripture exercises aside to draft up a consumer boycott of Woolworths. The retail giant had decided to stop stocking Christian magazines (I was even aware there were any). Unlike most business decisions Woolies felt it should make this policy public. Sound the buzzer. bad move. You're out for being stupid. Instead of quietly enforcing what the retail chain claims was a long standing policy, it went and blurted it out in the media (they'll say it was leaked). The Bible-crunchers, seething and imbued with the courage of some thing called God, didn't hesitate. The threats, almost papal in tone, warned of protests, boycotts, which translate in religious language to a good old smiting and marathon prayer sessions to save the soul of our satanic consumerism. Woolworths hadn't only committed a PR boo boo, it incurred the wrath of omniscient powers,, according to these religious zealots.
Within hours the company capitulated and on the 8th day there were christian magazines once again gracing (disgracing?) it's shelves. Since when does big business kow-tow to fundamentalists? Since when would a retail giant not put up a fight. The fear of treading into the minefield of political incorrectness was taken to an embarrassing level by Woolworths. The company can sell booze all it wants, but God forbid it stop selling religious literature.No negotiations, no reasoning, no grandiose posturing so often employed by arrogant businesses. Nothing. It folded like a wet piece of paper and gave into to what probably amounts to a handful of Christians (given the fragmented nature of the religions denominations). Apparently magazine sales at account for less than a percent of Woolworths overall profits. So why then did it feel the need to buckle? Going up against the big G and his/her misguided masses is just clearly too brave a move, even for Woolworths to take.