The pirate ship is sinking

There’s no need to beg their pardon anymore

History has been written and re-written by the victors and, as you know, I’m learning things are not as they seem.

My mixed South African roots go back 200 years. Nevertheless, from the time of my birth I felt unwelcome in my home country, and for good reason. We were the unwitting progeny of pirate raiders that had arrived in ships, pillaged and plundered natural resources and inhabitants alike, and left behind a bunch of illegitimate rules, thugs and a fort to be held.

Similarly, pirates went ashore and imposed rule in other places, setting up corporations in Australia, Asia and the Americas, and institutionalising thievery. In South Africa, I found it scary growing up amidst so much suffering and injustice, without a moral high ground to retreat to.

I mentioned last week that I’d taken up painting. This theme of piracy inspired a new work that I finished just this week. I’m sharing my latest masterpiece here, feel free to comment on it, I won’t be offended :)

The seaside town of Durban where I was born was colloquially known as the last British outpost. My linguistic legacy includes what some find amusing and confusing in equal measure. When we say “I’ll see you just now”, what we really mean is “I’ll see you in a while”, which could be anything from five minutes to five hours. Consistent with British tradition, we say “jolly good” to end a conversation, whether or not anything jolly good has actually transpired. We also say “I beg your pardon” a lot. Well, I still do, in any event.

There are two ways of saying “I beg your pardon”, one where the words have equal weight, and another with the emphasis on ‘beg’; each conveys a different meaning.

When the emphasis is on the ‘beg’, it’s a demand for someone to pardon themselves, to excuse themselves for a misdeed or transgression. When the weighting is equal, it’s a request to be excused for such. Try it out and see if you can hear the difference.

The former would most likely be said with a superior or haughty tone with rising intonation. It is the latter that pops out of my mouth regularly without thinking, as a ‘polite’ apology for getting in someone’s way, mishearing something, and so on. In fact, if I were to add how many times in a day I beg someone’s pardon, to the number of times I say “I’m so sorry” or “please excuse me”, I would be horrified to see how much of the words I speak position me as a transgressor, in need of constant forgiveness by others when no harm has been caused at all; when in fact, all I’m doing is being.

Ironically, saying “I beg your pardon” may even be construed as posh, which causes me to wonder whether this is a deliberate inversion of this turn of phrase. I’m learning that words cast spells, and “I beg your pardon” sounds to me now like the language of an indentured slave: what Oliver Twist might have said in the workhouse, or what one might have said back in the day to prevent one’s head being chopped off!

I humbly suggest therefore, that by using this phrase we may be speaking ourselves into subservience, keeping us beholden to the unscrupulous forces exploiting us. Manners maketh man not, rather, manners maketh slaves.

Corporate entities (dead speakers) and their corrupt captains have groomed us with quaint pirate adventures from childhood, with charismatic characters like Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, with lovable rogues, normalising and glorifying theft.

I would hazard a guess that most Western children have fancy-dressed up in a pirate outfit before the age of ten. I note with concern that our children also dress up as murderers and victims at least once a year on Halloween… fancy that.

Pirate raiders are now called ‘elites’ – more inversion – and are still pillaging and plundering. Our taxes have fuelled their propaganda machines and illegitimate wars, and now they are using our hard-earned cash to build the very infrastructure for our own enslavement: digital IDs and the internet of bodies. 

Launching Covid to scare us into compliance, they exploited our love for one another to systematically harm us. They now seek to monitor and control our food, transactions, speech and indeed our every movement and vital sign. Through the insertion of internal microchips, it is now our personal data that they are stealing. They will not stop at owning our data, because it is the human spirit that has always been the pirates’ most prized bounty.

Fancy dress, ceremony and murder; deception, cunning, and word spells. This is the modus operandi of pirates. My WCH colleague and friend Francesca Havens shared a poem that she wrote many years ago, that captures this truth perfectly:

A Hymn

They taught you words

But never gave you the right to speak,

They taught you gestures

But only those of submission,

They taught you the virtues

But never explained hypocrisy,

They taught you your name

But it was only on hire from the book of changes.

So you are free now.

Go.

In summary: let’s stop being polite to pirates. There’s no need. Their ship is sinking and we are set free.

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