By Mike Smith
16th of June 2017
In his work “Politics”, Aristotle said that man is by nature a political animal. However the word “politics” come from the Greek word “Polis” meaning “City”. The words “Civilization” and “Urban” have Latin origins (Civis – someone living in a town and Urbanus - "of or pertaining to a city or city life).
So it can be seen that according to Aristotle, Man is an animal who dwells in cities. He is a social creature with the power of speech and moral reasoning.
One of the things that distinguishes us from animals and make us “civilized” is the phenomenon of constant, gradual improvement. The Japanese have a word for it called, “Kaizen”.
We constantly strive to and gradually do improve our civilization and develop a higher form of it. Our cultures, arts, our technology and our languages constantly evolve into higher, more sophisticated forms of yesteryear.
Another aspect that makes us “civilized”, as Aristotle pointed out, is the phenomenon of building and living in cities…
Townships, unfortunately, do not count. A township is an example of the feralisation of the political animal.
The word “feral” is used in the case of a domesticated animal that has gone back to the wild like a horse, pig, dog, cat, etc.
Such an animal, when not in contact with humans anymore, still has the traits and behaviour of the domesticated animal, but more wild, apprehensive and mistrusting especially of humans. The animal becomes more and more aggressive, more focused on day to day survival and self interest. There is a regression in everything and a noticeable absence of the higher forms of culture such as advanced architectural features, sculptures, the planting of trees and gardens, etc...
Although there are many documented cases as well as legends of human children raised by animals, they are, in the strictest sense of the word, not really “feral” humans, because they did not show the regressive behaviour of a wilder humankind, but rather showed the traits of the animals they grew up with. In other words, a pig that has gone feral is still a pig, just a wilder form of it; it doesn’t become a wild horse.
Here, for example, street children and their behaviour would be a better example of “feral” humans.
Street children, feral humans, are found all over the world. In 1848, Lord Ashley referred to more than 30,000 "naked, filthy, roaming lawless, and deserted children" in and around London, UK, which basically sums up their asocial behaviour.
After World War One, by 1922, there were at least seven million homeless children in Russia, but “homeless” is not the correct term, because these children have made the streets their home.
Not only that, street children across the world, have a parallel society and have, developed their own street laws, morality and even their own “argots” or Secret Languages to prevent outsiders from understanding them.
This phenomenon of developing an Argot is not only limited to street children, but can be seen amongst all kinds of “outcasts” from society. Gay whites and Coloureds in South Africa speak a language called “Gayle” and Gay black people in South Africa for instance use a language called “IsiNgqumo”, or “IsiGqumo”.
Victor Hugo, in his 1862 novel Les Misérables wrote, "What is argot; properly speaking? Argot is the language of misery."
So when we look at blacks, not only in the townships of Africa, but also in the slums and shitholes on the outskirts of cities in places like Haiti, Rio de Janeiro and Jamaica, and compare them to the blacks in their original habitat, then it becomes fairly clear that the modern township black is indeed a feral form of the original rural black.
Zulus in the Natal Midlands and Xhosas from rural Transkei/Ciskei are very proud of speaking the pure, deep version of their languages, but when one enters a township, one hears the “Tsotsi-taal” (the word “Taal”, they borrowed from Afrikaans, the language they concider the language of “the oppressor”.
Nevertheless a rural black elder is often offended when a youngster addresses him in this feral language and manner and will quickly reprimand him and tell him to speak properly.
That is also why Ndumiso Ngcobo, (a high school science and math teacher who wrote the book, “Some of my best friends are white”) who sometimes writes under the pseudonym Silwane kaNjila, could write a warning and threat to white people in the Sunday Times of the 7th of May 2017, We (blacks) could plot a revolution & most white people wouldn't even know .
In it he called white people, “palefaces” that should be “ashamed” for not understanding his township monkey chatter, and not knowing the jargon and argot they use, but assures us “whiteys” that he is not trying to scare us.
Nevertheless he ends off his hate speech article by telling us that blacks also have a word for homeless street kids…their own black street children they refer to as "pharas" as he says “an abbreviation of "parasites"…
Most of these children are orphans where either both parents have died from AIDS or the children are abandoned and destitute and roaming the streets of Durban and Cape Town. They cannot really help for it, because they are the result of the ANC’s disastrous health care policies such as supplying blacks with Squeaking condoms and curing aids with beetroot, lemon and garlic
Or like the idiotic President (yours not mine) Jacob Zuma stated taking a shower after sex will prevent you from getting HIV
Nevertheless, street children have become more of a menace than a true threat. The feral gangs and underworld in the black townships and coloured areas are a bigger threat and at the rate at which these areas are growing year on year, what we perceive as “crime”, but are in fact predictable feral behavior, will soar.
When we witness the advanced stages of the littoralisation and feralisation of cities such Mogadishu, Freetown, Lagos and Port-au-Prince, then we can see what is the future of our own once beautiful, civil, coastal cities of Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Durban.
This phenomenon could be a threat, depending on how you look at it, because for ordinary people witnessing it, it can be pretty scary, but for trained and well armed soldiers, it is something to be encouraged, because it is simply creating a target-rich-environment.
What scares me the most, is that you are starting to see this same phenomenon of feralisation and wildness amongst White South Africans. Apprehensive, mistrusting, aggressive...more focused on day to day survival and self interest.
