Sticks and Stones

 When someone tells me -they're offended, Im prone to say, Well, I'm still waiting to hear what your point is. Christopher Hitchens.

Some things offend me too, But honestly, my feelings are irrelevant. Dr. Richard Dawkins.

Dec 1989: My matric year, and boy did we know how to party back then! Camping in Hermanus and Saldanha bay, windsurfing by day and a bevy of local girls to flirt with in the evenings. It was paradise... with one small twist.

In the back of my mind... a niggling feeling.

As the three delightful weeks past, day by day the clock hand ticked louder and louder.

It would soon all be over and I was headed for the unknown.

On the 4th of January, my mother and father, loaded their three kids into the family car for a once in a lifetime outing. Five of us left the house, but only four would be returning home that day, forever.

Destination: Wingfield military base, where some smart looking army guys welcomed me with big smiles and an authoritative confidence. "He's in good hands Mam!" the burly soldier assured my mother.

On the bus it was another story.

We were handed a form to sign without getting to read it properly. It basically said we were now property of the SADF.

A huge warrant officer bellowed 'do's and dont's' all the way back to Saldanha bay, but this would be no holiday.

This was the beginning of basic training, aka- mind control camp. For the next three months we were drilled and grilled, humiliated, insulted, along with every disgusting thing that could be said about our mothers, shaven bald, with only an oversized overall to wear for the first month. Rank: Shark shit.

Apparently there was nothing lower. The point- to crack the psychologically weak.

We were warned that those stupid enough to attempt suicide had better do a good job because if you failed you would be court marshaled for damage to state property. Four boys did do a good job in those first two months. The rest of us made it through and received our uniforms as a sort of trophy. Forward two months on and we were shipped out to our service posts. I was in the navy, so next stop- seamanship school in Simon's Town. Two months on and I was assigned to the warship, SAS Drakensberg en route to Taiwan for the diplomatic mission, Operation Nexus. After a month at sea, sailing along the equator in stifling heat, forced to wear our blues and working 4 hour on, 4 hour off shifts the whole way, Taiwan was like another world. Strange wet markets with everything from puppies to snakes for sale... to eat. Prostitutes and drugs offered at every turn. It was protocol to wear our white uniforms for the first day in a new port, where we were treated like American GI's and the girls wouldn't leave us alone.

It was a sensory overload for a 20 year old kid.

My two scariest memories were, in reverse order, a stand off I had with a Taiwanese harbor guard frantically chasing two of our ships crew who had had a dispute with a taxi driver over fees and then made a run for the ship, late one night while I was on security detail on the gang plank. As the two ran up onto 'SA soil' the guard was in hot pursuit, weapon raised. He was not allowed on board. We pointed our weapons at each other for what felt like a sublime moment, both screaming incoherently, before I risked lowering mine and gesturing for him to do the same. He did, but it was touch and go for a second. The trigger on an Uzi is a sensitive animal.

But the scariest, was going on duty one night at 2 am on our way there some weeks before, as we headed straight into the eye of tropical cyclone Ikonjo, with 30 ft. swells and 150km/h winds, in the middle of the Indian ocean. The worst part was, as Able Seaman and Quartermaster on the bridge, I had to steer that ship. The pneumatic tiller packed up, then the hydraulic one too, so I was sent to a steel strong room in the base of the ship, just for'ed of the propeller, to man the big old manual steering wheel with only a compass and the captain bellowing coordinates through a crappy speaker. No windows and 375 lives on my conscience that night. After two hours I was relieved by my shit scared buddy who, unlike me has no sailing experience. At breakfast we were congratulated on a job well done.

We returned to a festive dockside, with navy bands and drum majorities and doting families in both Durban and Simon's Town.

I completed my National Service a few months later and returned home, no longer the boy with the hippy long hair, but a man who has done my service to my country. Luckily I didn't have to kill anyone, unlike many of my army peers who were sent to the border to fight APLA, SWAPO and UNITA. And luckier that those who never made it home.

None of it did me any psychological harm. It was my coming of age. I'm sure that most of my contemporaries agree - as testing as that time was for us.

Today I am aghast by this overwhelming discussion over gender fluid pronouns and how terribly offended these non binary people get when they are referred to in language we have used for at least a thousand years. Don't get me wrong. If you were born a boy and want to be a girl, by all means, that is your right. If you dress like a woman convincingly ( bar the Adams apple) and behave accordingly, I will respect that and call you her and she naturally, or vice versa for women who want to be men, although I am not easily fooled as females have a harder time really pulling off being like men. But be that as it may, I sometimes am confused. As for 100 different genders, I don't buy it. Legislating this, as is proposed in the UK and Canada and forcing the world to conform to these demands is a slippery slope to mass mental illness which will only confuse the majority of young children in their formative years.

Furthermore while men have specific roles to play, as do women. Sacred roles which men can never equally perform, both deserve equal 'human' rights, men and women are far from equal, socially and biologically. For one, for women to demand equality to real men they will have to give up their place on the life raft when the ship is sinking or negotiate who will face the intruder in the night. For men to transgender and demand to be treated as women in sport will destroy woman's sport instantly as the top 1000 male tennis players can beat Serena Williams according to rankings.

Not to mention boxing, wrestling and athletics. Gender fluid sport is not equal opportunity sport.

Fatherless families have a detrimental effect on many societies and gangsterism is more rife in areas where this is prevalent. Likewise mother- child bonding is as essential in early development. In early societies, mothers hand over the son to the father around age 7 to begin warrior training.

So let's put our feelings aside and think about the real consequences before we wake up in La-la land and a totally broken society. Bullying is the real problem on both sides.

Beware of the divide and rule strategy of the powers that be, who seek to divide us on every level.

If something or someone offends you, remember the old saying, sticks and stones... and just get over it.

Disclaimer: These are the opinions of the author and not the whole group. Your constructive criticism and comments are welcome. Slander and hate speech will be deleted.