Aliens
The
South African National Biodiversity Institute
offers
detailed and specific guidelines
on
its website, for the identification
and
treatment of aliens present in this country.
Some,
especially those which threaten infestation,
are
subject to compulsory removal.
They
must be eradicated from the environment.
The
law is clear, and brooks no exceptions.
Others
are regulated by area or activity.
Permits
must be issued to enter the country,
to
breed, to move. This much is clear:
they
may not inhabit riparian zones.
Many
pose no threat to the native populations.
These
aliens may come here freely,
and
enjoy leave to remain, to spread,
to
put down roots and become naturalised.
The
rules are clear and implemented with care.
Everyone
knows exactly where they stand.
If
only the Department of Home Affairs
would
take a leaf out of the same book.
Across
Time and Space
Red
and white, autumn’s overblown roses
mark
not as some suppose grape variety
but
the good health of the earth,
the
Western Cape’s fine terroir –
a
wine-maker’s equivalent
of
taking a canary down a coal mine.
My
grandfather, who died at ninety-three
his
pale tissue wrists still pocked with coal dust,
had
been little freer than that yellow bird,
teenage
pit-boy at his uncle’s side, until
the
ground gulped and swallowed the man whole.
After
that Alf picked
potatoes,
toiled
in fields, anything that kept the earth
firmly
planted underfoot. Not so different
from
these farm labourers,
nor
those cramped Treorchy rows of grey stone
in
the greyer Welsh weather
from
the whitewashed cottages of this estate,
small
and bright in the African sun.
And
what have I, with my soft hands,
in
common with these workers on the land:
the
one, two generations and a continent away,
the
others, here, today, a skin-shade universe apart?
Sarah
Rowland Jones was a British diplomat for 15 years
before being ordained as an Anglican priest in her home of Wales. She moved to
South Africa in 2002, on marriage, and is Research Advisor to the Archbishop of
Cape Town, Dr Thabo Makgoba, having also worked for his predecessor, Archbishop
Njongonkulu Ndungane.
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