Brett Fish, Author at 1Africa

Can we get better at losing?

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May 30, 2016

South Africans are pretty good at winning at sport. We are also pretty bad at losing at sport.

Without fail, after a Springbok rugby loss, Monday morning water cooler conversations (do we even have those in this country?) will largely be taken up by how bad the ref was.

Have you ever watched South Africa lose any international sport and then heard the general man crowd follow it up with a, “but the ref was really great”? I didn’t think so.

MY GAMING ACHILLES’ HEEL

For me it was always board games. I am a huge fan of new classics like Settlers of Catan, Dominion, Carcassonne, and then some other more adventurous games that many of you may not have heard of such as Tzolkin, Terra Mystica, and Alchemists. I tend to be really good at most of them.

But I also am not great at losing, although I am a lot better than I used to be.

I used to be so bad. The moment the game was over I would be in a bad mood (which I would try keep internalised, but I was not that great an actor). I would launch into an explanation of why I lost: the dice had not been friendly to me, everyone had ganged up on me, the moons of Venus weren’t properly aligned, or some nonsense like that.

Which helped me feel a bit better. If there was some other reason besides me that was why I lost then I didn’t have to take it as a personal attack on my identity. Only problem though – or the main one – was that it made being the winner in a game against me a really horrible thing.

LET THE WINNER WIN

I realised fairly early on in marriage (’cause my wife is a hardcore board game player as well and we are fairly matched for skills) that my explanations of why I had lost were in effect saying: You were not skilled in beating me – it was some other magical, mystical, external factor that must have caused it since there’s no way could I lose because you’re better than me. And it sucked for tbV (the beautiful Val) and for anyone else I played against.

Once I realised that, I started working on it and getting better. I still have a bit of a ways to go though.

But coming back to us: I don’t think it’s just us as a nation, but some countries seem to handle it better than others. Why is it that we can’t take losing well?

I think it may be what I alluded to a little earlier – for many of us there seems to be some weird sense of identity locked up in our sport.

GOOD SPORTS

You can see this particularly in football fans. If you say something negative about Chelsea (easier year to do so, this one) then it is as if you have said something about a Chelsea supporter’s mother and you… must… be… killed.

Okay, maybe not quite so dramatic, but it can feel close sometimes.

Both sport and board games are great ways of bringing people together for some entertainment and some friendly rivalry and competition, but we need to be careful that we are not giving those things too much weight in our lives. And I think a good way to begin to be able to do that is to change our attitude when it comes to losing.

It is not, as R.E.M. may have predicted, the end of the world as we know it. It is a game and there will be another one next week, and another one next year. The cycle will continue and we risk losing integrity and friendships if we let it be anything more than what it is.

I know that I still need to work on my losing and a big way for me to do that is to make sure I give sincere congratulations to the winner and try to keep my post-game autopsy to a minimum.

How do you do? Share some thoughts with us in the comments.

The wine that made me sick

Brett Fish

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May 23, 2016

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I am not a wine connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination. The extent of my knowledge is more or less choosing between red and white and then mumbling something about the “fine oaky finish”.

The other night though, a bottle of wine brought me to my knees.

STARING AT EXCESS

It was a bit of a catch-22. My wife had been given a voucher to a hotel restaurant almost a year ago and so, after three failed attempts (broken car, bad weather conditions) we finally made it there.

As we were sitting outside waiting to order, we were both a little uneasy at the wealth this place represented, especially with some of the conversations we have been having around race and restitution and money. But the money had been given as a gift and so it seemed like we could use it or simply throw it away. So we gritted our teeth and started paging through the wine list to see if there was anything reasonable.

THE EXCESS OF EXCESS

As Val read out wines in the nine hundreds, I started to get sad. But then she hit a R4 000 and a little piece of me died inside. The same page contained mention of a R6 800 and R9 000 with the words “drink for a good cause” emblazoned next to them.

A bottle of champagne for R11 000 and I’m almost finished. How is it possible that someone can sit down at a table and spend R11 000 on four glasses of drink? That is not an average person’s salary. That is way above what an average person in this country earns. Gone in sixty seconds.

But if you think that was the end of my horror story, you would be mistaken as we hadn’t yet come to the page where a R40 500 bottle of Pomerol-Bordeaux was the Good News.

Because it was the wine mentioned below the one that turned my stomach. The one described in the menu as “one of the greatest wines in the world and the most expensive of Burgundy… with a forceful bouquet of violet and a lively and profound ruby robe, a suaveness of exceptional finesse.“

Doing some research on this bottle which (in case you’re interested in acquiring one) goes by the name of 2011 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Grand Cru, Côte de Nuits, France, I discovered that famed BFG and James the the giant peach author Roald Dahl had come across it and thought it was pretty decent:

“Sense for me this perfume! Breathe this bouquet! Taste it! Drink it! But never try to describe it! Impossible to give an account of such a delicacy with words! To drink Romanée-Conti is equivalent to experiencing an orgasm at once in the mouth and in the nose.” – Roald Dahl

How much for a bottle of such exquisite perfume? What would you pay for “one of the best” and for that “forceful bouquet of violet”?

According to this menu, you would pay R250 000. Yes, that is not a typo, it is an abomination.

If I was struggling to get my mind around an R11 000 bottle of champagne, then this tipped me over the edge.

Just in and of itself it is absolutely ridiculous. But in the context of a country where we are trying to rebuild after the ravages of apartheid and all the damage that was done from there… this is completely sickening.

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

I don’t doubt there are people, some who I know, some who I would consider reasonable decent people, who would somehow find ways to justify this. That is what is the worst part of this for me: not that it is there, but that many of us would be okay with it.

The existence of this bottle and its price on a menu for me is a loud blaring siren that acts as a lighthouse of extreme excess screaming at us all that we can do better. That we can be better. That in a country already divided by the excess of the some, we need to be drawing some lines in the sand and saying, “Enough already!”

What are your thoughts on this? Would love to see some feedback in the comments.

Book review: We have now begun our descent

Brett Fish

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May 19, 2016

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Book review: We have now begun our descent

The back cover of Justice Malala’s book starts with these words about my home country, South Africa:

“I am angry. I am furious. Because I never thought it would happen to us. Not us, the rainbow nation that defied doomsayers and suckled and nurtured a fragile democracy into life for its children. I never thought it would happen to us, this relentless decline, the flirtation with a leap over the cliff.”

When I walked into a local bookshop the other day, I hadn’t even intended to buy this book. I was heading for Eusebius Mckaiser’s Run, Racist, Run when I realised my friend Megan was already reading it and she recommended this one.

All part of my education as a white man trying to relearn the history of my country, both past and present. And one of the biggest assists in that has been to read authors who do not look and sound like me.

To be honest, I had not even heard of this book and yet in a few short days I find myself within breathing distance of the end of it. And what a read it has been so far.

BOTH THE PRESIDENT AND THE PEOPLE

In We have now begun our decent, renowned political journalist slash commentator, Justice Malala shares some honest and very frank observations about where he sees the country at the moment. But fortunately, as the tagline of the book – How to stop South Africa losing its way” – suggests, he also holds out some ideas and speculations about how we might address the rot.

I say “we” because although Malala takes a very strong stance against president Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma (he often chooses to quote his whole name for added effect) at times, he firmly places the future of South Africa at the feet of its people:

“It is about those of us who have forgotten that freedom is never fully achieved, but is defended and renewed every single day, in every square inch of space we occupy in the world.” (Chapter 2: How did we get here?).

AN INSIDER’S PERSPECTIVE

What I really find refreshing about “We have now begun our decent” is that Justice Malala writes as someone whose background has been in the ruling party, the ANC. He is not writing as a member of another party, throwing stones to try and discredit his opposition, but rather as one who feels personal pain at the way in which his party and the leaders thereof have overseen a slide from their historic mantle as freedom fighters into the mess it is in today in many ways.

The book is divided into two sections, labelled “The Way We Are Now“ and “The Road Ahead“ and so dealing with topics such as the concept of the “Rainbow Nation”, former president Thabo Mbeki’s overthrow, the tragic events at Marikana and the treatment of the media (again, with an insider’s perspective) he glances backwards with an eye on the shaping of the future.

“Has BEE succeeded? The legacy is mixed, if one follows the numbers. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) has only 3.9 per cent of its value owned by black enterprises, more than 15 years after the policy was introduced. Anecdotally, some black South Africans have become extremely wealthy. Patrice Motsepe, a doughty billionaire mining entrepreneur, is often listed among the top three wealthiest South Africans. The Economist magazine reported in 2010: “among the 295 companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), blacks account for just 4 per cent of chief executive officers, 2 per cent of chief financial officers and 15 per cent of other senior posts. In non-executive ones, they do a bit better, accounting for just over a quarter of board chairmen and 36 per cent of directors, but still nowhere near their share of the workforce.” (Chapter 7: Marikana: Our collective nightmare).

A WARNING NOT TO BE TAKEN LIGHTLY

As I mentioned, I still have two chapters to go and so I have not seen the full scope of Malala’s vision going forwards, but I have seen enough to know this: He shares the same kind of urgency I have in terms of the comfortable and the wealthy (read largely white people) of South Africa needing to come to the table very quickly so as to avert the inevitable if things remain as they are:

“What happens when the 8 million unemployed young people in our country reach these levels of desperation and disillusionment? What happens when they stop believing that tomorrow will be better than today? It might make many of us quiver with fear, but here is the cold, hard truth: they will opt out of the current social, economic and political arrangements and they will choose anarchy.” (Chapter 7: Marikana: Our collective nightmare).

One of the biggest things that white people in South Africa can bring to the table at the moment is listening. And reading books like We have now begun our decent and listening to voices like Justice Malala is one way to do that well. But because he writes as an insider from both the ANC and media perspective, his voice and this story has a lot to offer all South Africans.

What are other books you’ve been reading that you would recommend to people trying to navigate the political climate in your country? Please leave them in the comments below.

3 ways to get more engaged

Brett Fish

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May 16, 2016

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How engaged are you with the burning issues that are facing your country?

My home country, South Africa, is well into its young adulthood in terms of the “starting over” that many thought 1994 was all about. But for so many years the illusion of the magical rainbow nation allowed so many people to sit back and relax because “Apartheid is dead and can’t we all just be friends?”

Many others, however, quickly realised that although the law had changed, it was going to take a lot longer to affect the attitudes of the people.

In the past year, starting with “Rhodes Must Fall” and then “Fees Must Fall” some momentum started being noticed. As this year began, a racist outburst by Penny Sparrow, an estate agent, became a much spoken about thing.

DON’T MISS THIS TRAIN

More recently the horrendous utterings of Matthew Theunnissen and the rollercoaster that was the Ntokozo Qwabe/ Ashleigh Schultz incident (the “return our land tip” followed by tears followed by bragging followed by R200 000 and climbing “Pay back the [tip] money”) splashed South African polarisation across the social media platforms and into our living rooms and even our wallets.

Suddenly we were engaging, a little more deeply and personally and in some cases (albeit possibly very misguided ones) in a more invested way.

The fact that we are engaging more is incredible, but it is important that South Africans from all walks of life – and people all around the world – find creative and effective ways of doing this in a way that helps us step towards each other.

Here are three positive ways of engagement that might help us:

1. Do some research: This is specifically aimed at other white people. We often expect people of colour to have to educate us on how not to be racist in our words and actions, when they are so tired of having to face racism and the effects of it every single day. One thing we can do is to read up on the history of our country from a point of view different to that which we were raised on.

Robert Sobukwe’s How can man die better? should be compulsory reading and there are a host of other helpful books. I have just started reading Justice Malala’s We have now begun our descent: How to stop South Africa losing its way and am finding it incredibly insightful.

2. Embrace a #NotOnOurWatch approach to racism at work, at home and wherever you are. When you see or hear someone saying or doing something overtly or subtly racist, step in gently but firmly and say, “That is not okay!” The more of us who start doing this consistently the more we will stamp out behaviour and activities which for many people have become the norm.

These tend to not go well (who likes to be called on their racism?) but I really believe the more often that more of us step in, call it and let people know that it’s not acceptable, the easier it will become for everyone.

3. Create spaces for safe conversation: My wife and I host what we call Deep Dive Conversation Dinners which are opportunities for diverse friends to eat together and focus on a particular topic or issue for a decent amount of hours. But it doesn’t have to be so formal. Invite a group of friends around for a meal and ask them what they think about the latest race incident that is being shared on social media or their ideas on white privilege or reconciliation. Notice we look at creating a safe space and not necessarily one that is comfortable, not awkward, and conflict free.

Which of these things is something that you have already tried or are doing? What positive stories do you have to share with us to encourage us as we give them a try?

When Woody met Billy

Brett Fish

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May 12, 2016

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Woody Allen vs/ Billy Graham.

I imagine there might be various combinations of people we wouldn’t expect to see on the opposite ends of a televised conversation but this one really surprised me.

I stumbled upon it on the Relevant Magazine site in an article titled “Remembering the Time Woody Allen Debated Billy Graham About God and Sex in Primetime: A surreal moment in pop culture history.”

The controversial Hollywood director of classics such as Annie Hall, Hannah and her Sisters, and Mighty Aphrodite and the world’s most famous modern evangelist are seen having an informal conversation and answering audience questions such as “What’s your worst sin?” or “Do you think you’d make a good minister, Woody?” While the questions and answers were interesting enough, there is something deeper that jumped out of this for me.

Take a look:

You have a controversial, provocative, pushing-the-envelope agnostic with an opportunity to “take on” a well-known preacher and yet the spirit of the interview was so completely light and non-confrontational.

At the end of the interview, Woody Allen even says to Billy Graham, “I hope I haven’t provoked you or alienated you in any way” to which Billy Graham replies, “Oh no, no. I’ve enjoyed it very much.”

Imagine if all our social media interactions could be handled with such grace and dignity. Woody and Billy really demonstrate here the possibility of having strongly different beliefs (which they both express at the start of the interview) and yet they never make it personal or attack the character of the other person.

We have a lot to learn from this. Especially those of us who take to social media to influence, challenge and encourage others in matters of race, politics, gender, sexuality, and religion.

My black friends don’t think I’m racist!

Brett Fish

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May 9, 2016

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My black friends don’t think I’m racist!

“But I have black friends!”

How many times have you heard that online when someone is being challenged about a racist comment or attitude they have displayed?

When someone whips out a phrase pointing out that they can’t possibly be racist because of being able to name three people of another race they have some kind of connection with, it is usually a telling sign.

As if, by logical reasoning, a person cannot be a serial killer if they are friends with live people?

IT’S ALL IN THE DEFINITION

While I was thinking about this topic, I did a little bit of research on the internet to find out what others thought and came upon these two very interesting comments:

Someone going under the alias of “Coughing Lamb” had this to say:

It’s possible that this misunderstanding has to do with how people are defining “racist”. If you define racism as a “hatred” for another race, then yes, it is not likely that someone who hates a particular race would also be friends with a member of that race. But I think a more accurate definition of racism is believing that one race is inherently superior or inferior to another. It’s perfectly possible for someone to be friends with another person while viewing them as “inferior”.

On my journey as a recovering racist (in the sense that I grew up in South Africa and so how can I not have had a whole heap of racist mindsets, attitudes, and systems affect me in both subtle and deeper ways) that describes (to my embarrassment and shame) a shift of thinking that is still in the process of taking place. While I never hated a black person or person of another race, there are many times where I certainly felt superior to them, and if I’m honest, those were based on the colour of my skin.

No-one wants to be called a racist, and I know I certainly don’t. But at the same time, if I refuse to admit even the subtlest of occasions where that kind of prejudice pops up in my mind and possibly my actions as well, then I am never going to be able to fully heal.

YOUR RACISM HAS EXCEPTIONS

The second comment I found particularly helpful was by “Edge of Dreams” who had this to say:

There’s also the kind of racism that says, “Most black people suck, but not Bob, he’s cool”, which is often because or implies Bob is cool because he “acts white” in some way. It’s still racist, even if your racism has exceptions.

Wow, there is so much in there, but let’s just focus on that last line and use it as a lens to return to the original statements: Your racism has exceptions.

So when you are engaging with someone online (or in real life) and they make a suggestion that you are racist or are holding on to a racist attitude, and your response is: But I have black/coloured/Indian friends. one likely answer is that your racism has exceptions. And in my experience it is likely to be that the friends you have of other races are very likely quite similar to you in terms of socio-economic status, privilege, and possibly life experience to some extent.

THE GREAT IRONY

While the argument “I have black friends” is unlikely to convince anyone you are not racist, it is pointing us towards the answer.

I firmly believe that one of the huge keys in terms of moving South Africa forwards well is by more people developing deeper friendships with those who are different in terms of race, culture, or socio-economic status. So stop saying “I have black friends” and have some black friends. The moment we start really engaging with people, the issues can no longer be held at arms length and discussed and opinionated on. Now it’s my friend who is being refused restaurant bookings because of his name or finding it harder to rent in Sea Point because of the colour of his skin and so on.

And when someone starts hating on my friend, that’s when I’m going to really spring into action.

How are you doing in this? Are you, like me, struggling as a recovering racist to try to be better at listening and learning and developing deeper friendships with people who are not like you? What is one positive story you have to share on this?

Deep Dive dinners: a challenge for you

Culture

Brett Fish

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May 5, 2016

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“How are you?”

“Fine.”

Two of the biggest and most commonly spread lies our culture has ever engaged in?

Because that is the gut panic question we ask when we bump into someone in a public space that we weren’t expecting to see, right? Oh, whoops, there you are, um, “How are you?”

Followed by the typical response of “fine,” which is almost never true, because when is anyone ever fine? But because we know the question is a knee-jerk response, we automatically follow it up with the culturally acceptable and expected, “I’m fine, thanks.”

You know how I know this to be true? Because I went through a phase of answering that question honestly, every time someone asked me. So I would be standing in a shopping centre, talking to someone I hadn’t seen for two years and when they popped out the “How are you?” I responded with, “You know what? Things are actually quite tough at the moment. I’m struggling to find a place to stay and my…”

(Eyes widening, panic setting in, how do I escape this?)

MOVE FROM SUPERFICIAL

The truth is that most people have been programmed to talk about things that don’t really matter. Get together with friends at a braai and a conversation typically will go to one of three things: Movies (or these days, TV series), sport, or food. Those are topics that don’t require any kind of emotional investment and so they are easy ones to default to.

My first step away from this was to stop asking people what they did (another default question we go to when we meet someone new: What do you do?) and to start asking, “What are you passionate about?” This question often throws people a little at the beginning, but once they think about it and answer, it gives you a much greater idea of who they really are and typically makes conversation head to a much deeper and more satisfying place.

Then my wife tbV (the beautiful Val) and myself took it a step further and started hosting what we called Deep Dive Conversation Dinners. We picked a topic such as race, money, simple living, or food choices, and we invited a bunch of people we knew had an opinion on them (not the same opinion). We collected peoples’ phones at the door in our phone basket and we shared a meal together. Then we embarked on a four-hour-plus-conversation on the topic we had invited people to engage with.

I EXTEND THE INVITATION TO YOU

That’s pretty much it – I could go into more specifics in terms of explaining that we typically started with a question that gave people a space to introduce themselves and tell a bit of their story relating to the theme, but most of the conversations took a life of their own.

For us the key is being intentional. Groups of people coming together will likely revert to the default settings of sport, movies, and food. But if you come expecting to dive into a particular topic for a decent amount of time then that expectation will likely produce a significant result.

Another big focus for us was providing a safe space, but not necessarily one that would be comfortable, pain-free, not awkward, and so on. Especially with the race conversations things got a little heated from time to time. And that is okay. And good. Also our aim was not that everyone would leave thinking the same thing and agreeing with everyone else. The purpose of the evening is to get people to think, to have their ideas and perspectives challenged and to hear stories from a different context.

Imagine what our world might start to look like if more and more diverse groups of people sit together, break bread with one another, and commit to diving deeply into some of the issues and obstacles we face.

When will you host yours? And please return here and tell us about it when you do because we would love to hear how it goes.

Let me give you a tip

Brett Fish

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May 3, 2016

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The tip that keeps on giving.

By now you have likely heard some version of the story: A waitress at Obz Cafe in Cape Town, Ashleigh Schultz, receives a note on a bill (written by Ntokozo Qwabe, a Rhodes Must Fall leader at Oxford University) that read: WE WILL GIVE TIP WHEN YOU RETURN THE LAND. She bursts into tears as she does the transaction and Ntokozo later gloats about the incident on Facebook. Twitter campaign and #GoFundMe campaigns are launched to organise a tip for Ashley and suddenly over R100 000 has come in from around the world.

Social media platforms naturally exploded with people taking different sides and perspectives and angrily voicing why this is or isn’t a good thing. As with most incidents in life, there are so many different ways you can look at this and hopefully there are a few things we can all learn or at least consider.

TWO WRONGS CAN BOTH BE WRONG

Some of the people who came out defending Ntokozo’s actions held up the land issue (which is a relevant and significant issue amongst many people of colour in South Africa and needs to be addressed) compared to the “white tears” of a waitress missing out on a tip.

Of course the one is a much bigger issue than the other. But perhaps we can stop for a moment and realise that we don’t need to compare two things to come to the conclusion that both are wrong.

Yes, there is land reparation that needs to be done. Yes, treating someone in that aggressive and belittling manner is not good.

AN EXPLOSIVE TIP

But then we need to ask if a R100 000 crowd-funded tip is the way to go? Perhaps another recent story in the press can hep us with that one.

A week ago a Mitchell’s Plain child and his grandmother are harassed in a Pick ‘n Pay because he broke a chocolate in the store. The grandmother allegedly fainted and there are pictures of her and the grandson huddled together on the floor.

The video goes viral, people are up in arms and not a single cent (as far as I am aware) was raised for them.

We have had many incidents in Cape Town in recent years from people being urinated on from a night club to a domestic worker being attacked in the streets and more, and yet it just so happens that it is the white waitress that results in a monstrously excessive amount of money being raised.

Martin Luther King Jr once said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” As people who are trying to build South Africa into a healthy nation, we need to start responding to different types of injustice committed against different people with the same vigour and passion, whether they look like us or not.

We need to develop a #NotOnOurWatch mentality that refuses to let moments of racism or prejudice pass unchallenged in front of us, in a way that lets everyone in this country know that we are for them.

But we are also going to need to start asking the tougher questions about present situations where so many peoples’ current living conditions are an act of injustice whereas so many other people live in affluence and excess. We have a long way to go and I’m not convinced a R100 000 tip to one person is the answer.

How about you? What were your thoughts and reflections on this incident and others that seem to happen on a far too regular occurrence?

Sport transformation: Are we being callous?

Brett Fish

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April 28, 2016

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Sport transformation: Are we being callous?

How are we doing with transformation? It’s been an interesting few days for sport in my home country, South Africa.

South Africa’s sports minister, Fikile Mbalula, issued a statement that South Africa will not be allowed to host or bid for any major international tournaments after failing to meet transformation guidelines.

@News24 So sad that i find myself embarrassed to call myself a South African so often these days #no place for politics in sport

— Jacques Kallis (@jacqueskallis75) April 25, 2016

With over 700 retweets and having read some comments on the tweet and across Facebook, it is clear that his statement has a lot of support (I would say predominantly amongst white people, although not exclusively).

What saddens me with this tweet was his line of “no place for politics in sport” (and the fact that he clearly doesn’t understand Twitter hashtags, but we’ll leave that one for the grandma police!) which suggests that the games we play are bigger than the lives we lead.

Was Mbalula’s statement, on the eve of local elections, a political statement made to win votes (the timing is certainly interesting and there are not too many major international tournaments that we haven’t hosted already happening soon)? Or was it another valid attempt to help us as a nation move forwards with a bid to see equity for all?

It’s not as if this is an out-of-the-blue sideswipe either. According to a cricinfo article by Firdose Moonda:

Cricket is one of a “big five” of South African sporting federations that signed a memorandum of understanding with the sports ministry last May underlining a five-year strategic plan and commitment to change.

She also quotes former CSA acting president Willie Basson as saying, “The projections (for demographic representation) stretch into 2030 and 2040. We cannot have that”.

The truth is that a lot of work has been done in the various sporting codes at grassroots level and talented players are appearing. They are representing the country at their various age group levels. But then there is a mysterious void that seems to happen around provincial and then national level and this is what is needing to be addressed now. And the gauntlet has been thrown down, with rugby, athletics, and netball all facing the same.

A lot of the backlash is coming from largely white or unaffected people. To really understand how people feel it might be helpful to chat to people who currently are in a more underprivileged context and see what they think of the news.

What was your reaction? How do you think South Africa is doing when it comes to transformation in sport? Please weigh in in the comments section below.

Terry Pratchett: An atheist’s question

Brett Fish

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April 25, 2016

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Terry Pratchett is my favourite author.

He sadly died in March of this year, bringing to an end one of the most famous and well-loved series of books (The Discworld Series – fantasy satire is maybe the closest definition of the style although he covered many different stories in a variety of clever ways), probably of all-time.

The last book he wrote, The Shepherd’s Crown, sits next to my bed ready to be consumed. I am still waiting for the right moment when I can completely enjoy it with all of my attention.

MY FAVOURITE ATHEIST

Despite being a renowned atheist, I found that time and time again, Terry managed to speak such truth about the world and spiritual things.

Two quotes that spring to mind that show he really got it are:

“Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.” – Terry Pratchett

and:

“Goodness is about what you do. Not who you pray to.” – Terry Pratchett, Snuff

However, it is from his book titled Carpe Jugulum that I found what I still think is one of the best understandings of Christianity or faith (from an outsider’s perspective) ever and I have shared this with people on many occasions.

The title Carpe Jugulum is a play on the Latin of “Carpe Diem” (Seize the day) and as it is a story about vampires, is more aptly, “Seize the throat”. In this passage a young priest from a religion where the god is called Om is walking along with a witch called Granny Weatherwax who is a wily old lady who uses headology (making people believe in the power they think you have but focusing more on herbs and passed down knowledge than actual magic) to maintain the power people see her as having…

“They walked on in silence. A shower of hail bounced off Granny’s pointed hat and Oat’s wide brim.

Then Granny said, “It’s no good you trying to make me believe in Om, though.”

“Om forbid that I should try, Mistress Weatherwax. I haven’t even given you a pamphlet, have I?”

“No, but you’re trying to make me think, “Oo, what a nice young man, his god must be something special if nice young men like him helps old ladies like me,” aren’t you?”

“No.”

“Really? Well it’s not working. People you can believe in,
sometimes, but not gods. And I’ll tell you this Mister Oats…”

He sighed. “Yes?”

She turned to face him, suddenly alive. “it’d be as well for you if I didn’t believe,” she said, prodding him with a sharp finger. “This Om…anyone seen him?”

“It is said three thousand people witnessed his manifestation at the Great Temple when he made the Covenant with the prophet Brutha and saved him from death by torture on the iron turtle-“

“But I bet that now they’re arguing about what they actually saw, eh?”

“Well, indeed, yes, there are many opinions-“

“Right. Right. That’s people for you. Now if I’d seen him, really there, really alive, it’d be in me like a fever. If I thought there was some god who really did care two hoots about people, and who watched ’em like a father and cared for ’em like a mother…well, you wouldn’t catch me saying things like “There are two sides to every question,” and “We must respect other peoples beliefs.” You wouldn’t find me just being gen’rally nice in the hope that it’d all turn out right in the end, not if that flame was burning in me like
an unforgivin’ sword. And I did say burnin’, Mister Oats, cos that’s what it’d be. You say that your people don’t burn folk and sacrifice people any more, but that’s what true faith would mean, y’see? Sacrificin’ your own life, one day at a time, to the flame, declarin’ the truth of it, workin’ for it, breathin’ the soul of it. That’s religion. Anything else is just…is just bein’ nice. And a way of keepin’ in touch with the neighbours.

She relaxed slightly, and went on in a quieter voice. “Anyway, that’s what I’d be, if I really believed. And I don’t think that’s fashionable right now, ‘cos it seems that if you sees evil now you have to wring your hands and say, “Oh deary me, we must debate this.” That’s my two penn’orth, Mister Oats. You be happy to let things lie. Don’t chase faith, ‘cos you’ll never catch it.” She added, almost as an aside, “But, perhaps, you can live faithfully.”

Her teeth chattered as a gust of icy wind flapped her wet dress around her legs.

“You got another book of holy words on you?” she added.

“No,” said Oats, still shocked. He thought: my god, if she ever finds a religion, what would come out of those mountains and sweep across the plains?”

(Terry Pratchett,Carpe Jugulum)

This resonated with a quote from Billy Graham who once preached, “The single biggest cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and then walk out the door and deny Him with their lifestyles. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”

It seems like Terry Pratchett was asking his Christian audience: What if you actually lived out the stuff you say you believe? What would the world look like then? It’s a question I ask of myself and other followers of Jesus every single day.

How about you?

Brett Fish

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