Because

"I am what I am BECAUSE of who we all are". What a beautiful reminder of this simple truth from our African humanist philosophy of 'Ubuntu'.

I attended the musical 'Cabaret' at Montecasino on Saturday night. Set in a seedy night club in pre-Second World War Berlin, the story reveals the rather tragic lives of all the individual players to the overtures of pre-Nazi rule.

The musical is colourful and vibrant with lots of fun and laughter, But running just beneath the almost too perfect exterior, lies the deep tragedy of each of the player's lives. On the surface "Life is a cabaret" or just one big party, but scratch a hair's breadth below the surface, and there is so much tragedy and fear and sadness. It's kind of a comedy of opposites perhaps like real life.

What I so love about art and theatre is that it projects for us what is going on in society. It does so in a humorous and subtle way so that we don't even detect that we're being admonished and caused to take a look at ourselves.

The tone of the time is one of promiscuity. Life and values are cheap. Everyone will do anything for a buck. But sitting just above the surface we watch as the various players judge one another, pointing the finger away from themselves. The owner of a seedy apartment is judging one of her tenants for the constant flow of sailors to and from her room, whist she herself is sneaking her gentleman admirer into her room at night. Then when she announces her engagement to her fiance who turns out to be Jewish, she is in fear of what will become of her when the Nazis come to power. She is so afraid that she terminates her engagement and any chance of happiness.

We witness how one minute a person is respected and a split second later, because of revealed identity and the collective ego they are discarded as easily as a chocolate wrapper. Those with money rank higher on the scales of respect and dignity.

The resounding feeling I have come away with is one of heightened awareness toward the immense control of the collective ego. By this I mean the dominant beliefs and conditioning of the majority.

It is no longer o.k. to hide behind the facade of 'separate little me' who lives in a 'separate little world' BECAUSE our society is a representation of each and everyone of us. If our society is not what we want it to be, then we need to look at ourselves. It is not o.k. to blame our governments for all the most heinous atrocities whilst we sit in our armchairs complacently sipping our self righteous tea. We need to take a look at the big picture and see how we too represent the collective.

If we ooh... and aah.... at all the politicians who are corrupt and stealing and taking bribes, then we need to look at ourselves when we dig into our pockets to buy off the traffic officer who's about to issue us with a speeding fine. We need to admonish ourselves for stealing some of the boss' time or petrol. We need to check ourselves when we get a chance to make a buck on the side.

We are living in  corrupt and promiscuous times, but we are not separate and above it all. We all play our parts and we are all who we are BECAUSE of the collective. We are it. Let's take a look at ourselves in that proverbial mirror and see exactly who we are without watering down any of the truths. Let's catch ourselves when we next cut off another driver in the traffic and caution ourselves when we're on the verge of badmouthing another driver for doing the same to us.

This bumper sticker says it all: "Don't judge my sin BECAUSE I sin differently to you".

It's time we stop putting the blame at someone else's door and stand up and admit that we are  all racists, murderers, thieves and rapists. We need to confess it to ourselves and we need to say we're sorry.

The politicians won't make it right for us. We each need to do it individually and then our governments will start to reflect what we each have in our hearts. Our governments will be a true representation of the collective.

I hope your week renders you much true reflection.
I have spoken

love
Nicolette