With all the debate going on about crime...

racism, politics, and so on over the last couple of weeks on various blogs (mostly linked from my own) I thought it necessary to add another "iron to the fire" so to speak. After all, it's my blog and I'm opinionated, so I can...

As some of you may be aware, a good mate of mine, Wreckless, was robbed on a beach recently and between his postings and some heated blogments (derived from "blog comments", I just made it up) from visiting blogmentators (made that up too) accusing each other of being racist, intolerant, et al, living in South Africa gives you a different perspective and adds a different dimension to things black and/or white.

Yes, the anonymous person who hasn't the bollox to post a name (at least so that we can see it's the same person every time) is going to cry foul again, but so be it...that's opinion that he/she's entitled to.

What I'm about to discuss, I call "subjective conditioning". Others might call it something else, probably will, in fact. You don't have to have, but if you've lived in SA for as long as I have (or longer, maybe) you may understand what I mean. A lot of what we see and hear has its origins in the "bad old days" of apartheid SA, but it is by no means restricted to good old Arsezania. "Subjective Conditioning" has been around for centuries, across both the "civilised" and "uncivilised" worlds. You may have heard of a guy called Pavlov, who had a dog, which he conditioned to get fed based on condition of certain actions. Let me explain my reasoning behind "subjective conditioning"...

Scenario 1: A group of (typically) brash, loud, extrovert louts walk down an otherwise quiet, suburban, street. Every single dog (even the stoepkakkers) in the neighbourhood, never mind the quiet street, goes ballistic, straining to get out of the yard or even be allowed to get their heads through the palisade fence, to bite chunks out of the noisy fuckers' legs.

Scenario 2: A group of (typically) brash, loud, extrovert louts walk down an otherwise quiet, suburban, street. Every single dog (even the stoepkakkers) in the quiet street comes to the fence to see what the commotion is, then retires to their favourite spot in the sun without uttering a single "woof".

The difference between the scenarios? The first bunch of louts are black, the second, predictably, are white.

Now, Anonymous might start calling our dogs racist and maybe they are, but they're just dumb fuckin' animals, right? Wrong...they're behaving as a result of "subjective conditioning". Past generations of the dogs' parents had, during the "dark days", been conditioned to bark and bite at everything black, even white visitors who were stupid enough to wear black trousers. Dad (particularly, seeing as he is the protector of the household from all things bad) is the protagonist in this scenario. Usually, the dogs are "dad's" (like unruly kids are "mom's") and dutifully follow dad around the yard, go along for the ride in the back of dad's bakkie, sit at dad's side next to the pool while dad sips a brandy and coke, get fed the bones from dad's braaivleis plate, and goes with dad to see what the commotion in the street is about. Naturally, with dad shouting at the louts to "shut the fuck up", this is going to provoke a reaction from the dog, usually in the form of loud barking and straining to get through the palisade fence to bite the noisy fuckers. And through the generations, the condition becomes second nature and passes from dog and bitch to puppy. They're only doing what their conditioning is telling them to do.

Next, take human South Africans. In many cases they have been forced into similar "subjective conditioning" that their pooches have (except that I doubt they'll have had to wait for dad to give them a bone from his braaivleis plate, but you get my point). It's purely natural that the kids are going to get conditioned, at least at some point in the 18-odd years they live at home with their parents. Mom does a lot of the car-pool-picking-up-the-kids-from-school stuff and, unwittingly perhaps, has a conditioning influence on the kids in her Chrysler bus (swearing at taxi drivers, parking attendants, etc, mostly blacks in SA). And it's not just her own kids she's conditioning, but the friends as well. Hell, kids even condition other kids. What may not be right in a lawful sense, is seen as "being kewl" and has a conditioning effect on the other kids who may want to try whatever it is themselves.

Use another scenario which, applicable anywhere in the world, but because of circumstances is based on SA experiences and statistics. More than ninety percent of the SA population are black and it is therefore safe to assume that most crime is perpetrated by black people. In fact, I have yet to hear of one South African citizen, black OR white, who can say that they have been robbed or mugged by a white person. Yes, there are crimes committed by whites too, but those are mainly more "specialised" in nature than commonly experienced in SA. White people do occasionally murder lovers or their families and then commit suicide, white people do commit "white-" and "blue-collar" crime at work, and commit a fair other number of crimes, but the overwhelming majority of crimes that affect the majority of people in SA are perpetrated by black people. The statistics prove it.

And the result of these crimes and statistics? "Subjective conditioning". We're conditioned to react to the situation based on our experiences (seen, heard, or read). We're all open to "subjective conditioning", all our lives. What we decide to do with those influences is, however, up to ourselves. We can choose to mimic the reactionary influences or we can decide "fuckit, that's not for me" and not bother with it.

The problem is that, like our dogs, it's very difficult for humans to change our conditioning, particularly where personal insult or injury occurs, and it will take a superhuman effort to change based on current experiences. Just Saturday, another friends' house was burgled...by black people, caught on camera.