writing – Page 6 – Lele Muthali

Yena Aya Kwini: Abstract

What are good reasons to get into a relationship?

Photo by Ian Vedette Kafuna on Pexels.com

A few weeks ago I had a conversation which has borne this piece. The part of that conversation which made an impression on me was a simple question. What reasons do I have to be in a relationship?

In the first instance, the question presumes the existence (and necessity) of ‘reasons’ to be in a relationship. As such, the question is loaded. Secondly, the word ‘reasons’ requires qualifying. A useful definition would be any causes or motivations. Put differently, what motivates my desire to be in a romantic relationship?

To answer this question, there is as much value in looking outward as there is in looking inward. I prefer to learn from the stories of the people around me. Thus, I contemplate this and other related questions with a dynamic sample of young people throughout the next few weeks.

– Lele M

Chapter III | The Stranger

He returned a week later, though she had replayed their first meeting in her mind every day since. His name, he said, was Asher.

He spoke like a man accustomed to holding secrets gently. His accent was unplaceable—somewhere between Cape Town and Cairo, with a hint of the desert in his vowels. He told her he worked in “strategic intelligence for development” —a phrase that meant nothing and everything.

Their conversations were elliptical. He asked about her book. She lied and said it was fiction. He smiled like he knew the truth.

“Stories are the only real history we have,” he said. “Everything else is propaganda.”

He listened more than he spoke, and when he did, his words felt like scripture smuggled through conversation. He asked about her dreams. She told him of the fire, of the symbols, of Judáh. He nodded gravely, as if recognising a prophecy he had long expected to meet.

Later that week, she dreamed of him. In the dream, they stood in a vast desert where time had no direction.

He handed her a chalice carved from bone, filled with light. “Drink,” he said, “and remember who you are.” When she woke, her lips tasted of salt and honey.

The next day, the café burned down.

Liberty to Lie?

Critical discussions of liberty are typically concerned with the extent to which individual liberty ought to be preserved and protected.

Such a consideration often hangs on the foundation of the principle of individual liberty. John Stuart Mill presents a persuasive account for individual liberty subject to the harm principle. In his argument Mill explores the liberty of expression to indicate when state interference to restrict individual liberty may be justifiable.

This piece will discuss Mill’s proposition that the exercise of state authority over individuals against their will may be warranted in the case of freedom of expression in accordance with the harm principle – using a recent South African case study. It will examine Mill’s position that state protection of individual liberty is contingent upon consequentialist utilitarian principles.

In doing so, Mill demonstrates that there are indeed instances where state interference with individual liberty can be justifiable; including in the case of legislation which outlaws fake news.

In the first instance, Mill does not base the principle of individual liberty on fundamental rights but rather on its instrumental value. Its value in achieving a desired end. Mill appeals to the utility of individual liberty as the basis for its extensive protection, unlike the Rawlsian appeal to natural rights. Individual liberty of expression, Mill posits, is worth extensive protection because it facilitates and maintains a public good.

The liberty to express diverse views allows for a competition between views for a clearer perception of the truth. It allows for the exchange of error for truth as well as a more cogent understanding of the truth. When a truth is held without engagement with counterviews it goes unchallenged and therefore never requires defense. It is held as true, not by the merit of its argument, but by virtue of being uncontested. It is ‘true’ by default.

Whereas, the expression of diverse views initiates discourse. Through this, opposing views are able to engage in a challenge for the truth or share the truth between themselves. Alternative views may share the truth between them, Mill postulates, as a dissenting view is often necessary to provide the remaining facets of the truth. This exercise of engagement between competing views is valuable for numerous reasons.

Firstly, it illuminates the truth by ensuring that any prevailing truth is be able to withstand challenge as to its veracity. It is no longer enough for a view to merely be expressed as truth. It ought also to defend itself according to the merits of its case in the face of counterarguments. Moreover, the freedom to express alternative views makes sets a standard for truth. An objective truth threshold.

A poignant analogy is that of the marketplace of ideas. Here, shoppers in the marketplace behave like those in a grocery marketplace where shoppers scrutinize goods often picking them up to assess the weight, colour, and overall quality of the goods prior to making a purchase. They evaluate and scrutinize each idea that attracts their interests at the marketplace of ideas before consciously deciding to adopt it as truth.

Ideas adopted in this way are less likely to be dislodged because they undergo a process of critical inspection and challenge against alternative views and prevail based on their merits. Also, the shopper is making a conscious decision to adopt the view which is most persuasive because the process requires active critical engagement.

In this way, the the standard is twofold. The prevailing view must be persuasive on its own merit, and defensible against counterviews.

The liberty to express diverse opinions is a public good which is facilitated by free expression. Therefore, it satisfies both consequentialist and utilitarian principles because it is an instrument used to maintain a public good. The value of this public good, Mill posits, is such that it necessitates the invention of dissenting views when none exist.

There are, however, instances when the state may be justified to legally restrict free expression. These instances are those in which the harm principle applies. The harm principle provides simply that the only time the state may be justified to interfere with the individual liberty of expression is to ensure the safety of others who may otherwise come to harm.

This aligns with the pluralist view to which Mill subscribes. The harm principle is concerned with restricting individual liberty only in the case of protecting others from harm. Also understood as other-regarding actions. Self-regarding actions are in the private sphere of activity where state inference is not usually permissible.

Two issues immediately arise. First, the distinction between self- and other-regarding actions is not always clear. Secondly, although the harm principle is a necessary condition for legal restrictions on individual liberty, it is not adequate in itself as a condition to justify state interference. Harm does not provide a fool-proof criterion for when individual expression may be curtailed.

However, offense is not a harm that justifies prevention. Offense is not a harm protected by the harm principle. Instead, expression is evaluated based on its use or harm which derive from its truth and falsehood respectively.

Mill exposes that a claim of harmful expression is itself a subjective evaluation and a matter of opinion. Moreover, sometimes opposing views share the truth between them. We ought to always be reluctant to interfere with free individual expression. Dissenting views are often valuable as they provide the remaining facets of the truth. This is when contesting views share the truth between them.

This is distinguishable from a pluralist position which rejects the existence of a single dominant metanarrative. This discussion informs the exploration which follows. It considers the decision of the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) to legislate against fake news.

In response to the COVID-19 global pandemic, South Africa’s NCCC (empowered by the Disaster Management Act 57 of 2002) gazetted regulations which effectively outlawed participating in the creation and transfer of fake news relating to the Coronavirus pandemic.

Namely, the COVID-19 virus; the COVID-19 infection status of any person; and any measure taken by the government in addressing the COVID-19. This enquiry will consider Mill’s view on this legislation in accordance with the harm principle in a contemporary context.

At first glance, Mill would say that even fake news about COVID-19 is valuable to the extent that it gives significance and clarity to the truth about COVID-19 and the Coronavirus pandemic. In a way, it illuminates why the truth is true.

Secondly, the three categories of expression specified by the legislation are other-regarding actions. The regulations are concerned with the act of publishing a statement in any of the above three categories on social media and any medium with the intention to deceive another person. The provision required the intention by one person to deceive another about the COVID-19 virus. This is a prohibition of a specific other-regarding action. It is thus within the realm of justifiable interference. Depending, of course, on utilitarian consequentialist principles – to which I now turn.

As a utilitarian consequentialist, Mill would consider keenly the justifications offered by the NCCC for the legislation against fake news. The Council argues that viral misinformation and fake news pose ‘the biggest’ risk for the spread of the Coronavirus in South Africa.

The Council holds that a solid strategy is necessary with regard to the socio-political and economic discourse around the Coronavirus and the global pandemic. The publishing of fake news and deliberate misinformation about COVID-19, the NCCC says, will lead to the deaths of many.

The NCCC is submitting utilitarian grounds for the restriction of free individual expression. South Africa is considered a developing country. It also exists in the context of a global pandemic.

Moreover, the history of spatial planning in South Africa means that areas which are densely populated are usually also peri-urban areas which lack access to information. These high risk areas are townships which are populated by middle to low income earners who are lack resources to verify information, or lack exposure to credible news sources altogether.

It is vital that discourse around the COVID-19 pandemic be controlled and limited to information verified as factual. This socio-econo-political context means the harm that may come from the intentional deception and viral misinformation about COVID-19 in South Africa could be fatal on a significant scale.

False expression, in this instance, is harmful to a greater extent than it is valuable to the discourse around the COVID-19 virus. The overall adverse consequences of intentionally deceiving others about the highly infectious Coronavirus during a global pandemic far outweigh the overall benefit of the publication of such expression . Having considered the above, Mill would consider South Africa’s fake news legislation a legitimate temporary interference with individual free speech. It is justifiable in accordance with the harm principle.

The harm principle requires that state interference with individual liberty be in the interests of the safety of others, as well as adhere to utilitarian consequentialist principles. The South African case study above depicts a circumstance when it is indeed justifiable for government to pass laws against fake news. This restriction to the liberty of individual expression is warranted and is aligned with the harm principle.

Thus, Mill is likely to concur with the decision to legislate against false expression about the COVID-19 virus.

– Lele M

Chapter II | Ashes and Water

The fire had begun three months before the story began—at least, that was what the police reports said. But Noluntu remembered no smoke, no screams, only light. Blinding light. When she woke, her hair smelled of frankincense and burnt cedar. Her hands bore no burns. She was told she was lucky. She didn’t feel lucky; she felt chosen.

Fragments of her past came back in flashes: her mother’s laughter during marches; the red berets of the Azanian Socialist People’s Movement; the chants of “Amandla!” echoing against government buildings. Her parents had been revolutionaries once—before the revolution was commodified, before slogans became hashtags. Her father had written pamphlets; her mother had written prayers. Together, they had believed in a South Africa that could be holy again.

And yet, their movement had disappeared like smoke after the flame. Corruption swallowed it whole. Some comrades became ministers, others moguls. Her uncle—beloved, feared, and enigmatic—had become a legend in exile. When he died, men in black coats and gold rings carried his coffin through the township, their tattoos glowing faintly in the sun. It was only then she learned he had been part of The Ring, one of the continent’s most notorious underworld networks.

It was said The Ring had financed revolutions and bought politicians. It was said they trafficked both weapons and dreams. It was said they’d been blessed by witches of the old lineages—those who walked the thin veil between matter and spirit. And Noluntu, with her amnesia and strange visions, began to wonder if the blood of that covenant ran through her veins.

By day, she worked in a café on Commissioner Street, serving imported lattes to disillusioned poets. By night, she wrote. Or perhaps was written. Her journal filled with strange diagrams: interlocking circles that resembled constellations, symbols of ancient priesthoods she did not recall studying. And always, in the margins, one word repeated in another hand: Judáh.

One evening, as rain bruised the horizon, a man entered the café. He carried the kind of stillness that made the air hold its breath. His eyes—grey, but warm—met hers briefly, and the world rearranged itself. There was something unbearably familiar in him, something from before the fire.

He ordered tea, left a generous tip, and a note on the saucer: “You’re not losing your mind. You’re remembering.”

On the Wings of Grace

I find butterflies fascinating.

I’ve never heard the insights of a butterfly. But if I were so fortunate as to have a conversation with a butterfly. In a world where I could, of course, meet with a butterfly for a chat. I imagine it would arrive punctually. Casually settling onto my forefinger as if coming home after an extended voyage. Not so much flying or fluttering as floating.

I’d immediately set out to study the details of the small creature with curious eyes. Would it consider that impolite?

I’d wonder the same things I always do. Do butterflies know how beautiful they are?

They don’t get to see their wings or get to consider their aesthetic value, let alone to perceive them as beautiful. Is that what humility is about?

I’d ask about the cocoon. “What’s it like?” I’d furrow a pair of quizzical eyebrows as I ask.

“I read somewhere that butterflies split open and lose their exoskeleton when they pupate,” I’d venture. “Does that hurt?”

I’ve always wondered what that time in isolation as a pupa must be like. Extraordinary, I imagine. Divine, definitely.

“Did you emerge as a clean slate?” I’d enquire with childlike wonder.

“As in, are you conscious of your previous caterpillar experience? Do you get to keep those memories?”

Butterflies are phenomenal. They get to have four lives – their four distinct stages of metamorphosis.

I’d probably also ask if it has ever been ashamed of its cocoon, or its previous caterpillar form. Are its wings a reminder of a darker, colder time of its existence? A time of unrealized potential that it would rather forget.

I imagine it would briefly flutter its wings, almost reflexively as it pondered the question for a moment. The whole world would seem to hold its breath in anticipation.

“I am a butterfly,” it would supply finally, matter-of-factly.

“When I emerge from the chrysalis, a matured version of my previous larval form, with a set of wings and no flight experience, I am surprising no one.”

Its antennae would be motionless, in the butterfly equivalent of a deadpan expression.

“I haven’t done anything extraordinary. In fact, I haven’t done anything at all. Let alone that which warrants shame.”

“My metamorphosis is not my work. It is simply the way of things. It is desperately unremarkable by the standards of my species. It is the rule.”

“Not only that,” it would add thoughtfully.

“Shame makes no sense because this is necessary. My wings are a mechanism for my protection, designed to intimidate and deter predators with their patterns and bright colours. They’re also my means of mobility, I cannot be ashamed of them. They are what allows me to continue my existence.”

I’d listen attentively, almost greedily. Focusing on the vivid horizon ahead of us and hanging on every word meditatively.

“Kind of like grace,” I’d offer after a while, deeply pensive and saturated in the moment.

It wouldn’t be until I turn for another glance at the splendor of those delicate wings that I would realize my index finger was no longer occupied.

“Of course,” I’d say, with an affectionate smile. “It was a weightless creature, I didn’t feel it lift off my finger. How long has it been gone?” I’d begin to wonder.

Then the air would fall still around me, as if all of creation were calling me to attention.

“Wings” I’d hear. “Kind of like grace.”

– Lele M

Perfect Vision

Was blind, but now I see.

A while ago, I wrote a piece about how the Bible dragged me, kicking and screaming, to the political and economic center. I titled it ‘Has Christianity Made Me More Conservative?’ because I set out to explore the transition of my econo-sociopolitical views. Particularly, the influence, if any, of my Christian faith in that respect. This piece will further that discussion.

In his book ‘A Conflict of Visions’ Thomas Sowell submits that an interest is distinguishable from a vision. A vision has to do with our perspective about the world and our place in it. It is concerned with what we believe about how the world works – the role of the individual and society. More importantly, visions are what we believe about how the world can, and indeed should, work.

To this end, Sowell observes and discusses two distinct visions under which many conflicts of conviction fall – the constrained vision, and the unconstrained vision.

Join me in exploring and understanding these competing visions over the next few weeks according to Sowell’s compelling account.

– Lele M

Chapter I | The City and the Book

The city stretched like a wound under the morning haze—its skyline a crown of smoke and glass, its arteries clogged with restless metal. The air was thick with the perfume of grease, exhaust, and despair.

Billboards blinked the faces of false prophets and fast food messiahs, while children in tattered uniforms waited for taxis that never came. It was a city that had once promised liberation and rebirth, but now, its promise had fossilised into slogans. Johannesburg was no longer gold—it was rust.

At the heart of it, Noluntu moved through the crowds like a ghost unsure of its own existence. Her steps were steady, though her mind was fogged with fragments of another life—dreams, half-memories, visions she could not name. The book was the only thing she trusted. She had found it one morning beside the ruins of her apartment block after the fire. Everything else—furniture, clothes, photographs—had been consumed. Only the book remained, its leather cover unscathed, its pages faintly perfumed with myrrh.

The first line she read was not written in ink, but etched like a whisper in her mind:
“Remember, child of the Covenant, for forgetting is the first death.”

Since then, the city had changed shape around her. She saw symbols where others saw smog: the flicker of a neon sign became a shofar’s call; the drones above her resembled locusts. She thought she might be going mad. But madness had its rhythm, and hers danced to the pulse of prophecy.

The book spoke of Africa as a sleeping lion—its mane matted with the sins of its children, its roar silenced by foreign tongues. It spoke of kingdoms buried under bureaucracies, of altars desecrated by ambition. It spoke of her—though she did not yet understand how. Each night, she wrote in the margins as if in conversation with the unknown author. Each morning, new words appeared that she did not remember writing.

Outside her window, the people of the city hurried to survive. Fast food stalls glowed under the weight of neon scripture: “Taste & See: 99c Miracles!” Dating apps glimmered with filtered faces, avatars that blinked prayers for validation. Children filmed their poverty for views. Pastors advertised deliverance by subscription.
It was Revelation rewritten as reality TV.

And yet, somewhere between the advertisements and the hunger, she sensed holiness. Not in the churches, but in the quiet defiance of mothers braiding their daughters’ hair before dawn. Not in the noise of politicians, but in the stillness of taxi drivers who hummed hymns at red lights.

Her world was fractured, but something ancient called to her from the fragments. The name Noluntu meant “of the people.” She had forgotten who those people were—but perhaps the book would remind her.

A Lover’s Recompense

To be, or not to be.

23h53, the clock read.

It was almost midnight, she had writing to publish, judgments to read, and she was getting irritable. She’d been sitting at her desk for hours but suddenly the hum of the small fan heater at her feet seemed to be getting louder.

Why couldn’t she just figure it out?

After the break up, the one that broke her, she’d vowed to protect her herself ferociously from the affections of her heart.

In general, she’d found, hearts offer direction that is scrupulous at best. And hers in particular had a record of impossible obstinance and idealism to her detriment – her very undoing.

She stopped typing, a pair of hesitant hands hovering over the surface of the keyboard. She shook her head at the memory of pain and the fire that had refined her, as if the action alone would wipe the memories clear.

Since then, since that devastation, she’d sworn an oath on the scars that lined her forearm. Never again, went the pained promise, would she allow herself to be so consumed with the idea of the love of another that she lost her way, or her reflection became unrecognizable. She knew now just how treacherous the heart could be.

She’d even compared her previous (not-so-romantic) relationships to the story of Hansel and Gretel. After all, it was the children’s own affections and greed which had deceived them, she thought. Their desire for more crumbs meant they only looked up long enough to see the next crumb a short distance away, and then the next one after that, and so on. But never looking further to discern how far astray they were being led.

In fact, she opined, something could be said about that – the potency of instant gratification in affirming a myopic perspective.

Could that be what was happening now, between her and the man with the bottomless eyes?

She knew she loved him, perhaps even that she wanted to be with him in a doing-life-together kind of way. And to his credit, he’d been frank about his feelings and intentions for her since they met years ago. Unfortunately, years had passed before they were be able to contemplate earnestly the prospect of being together.

In a cruel irony, the years had taught her, among other things, no longer to trust (her) feelings. Sometimes, when he speaks about wanting her to love with vulnerability, she feels those years as a physical distance between them, and her heart groans with grief.

Now, she lifts the frame of her spectacles with the back of her hand to perch her glasses atop her head, and rubs her eyes generously.

02h31, the clock declared.

After a deep sigh, she rubs her temples and recalls an afternoon when it was his temples her fingers caressed, his head laying in her lap, eyes shut gently against the sun. Both of them submersed in a comfortable stillness. Neither one of them daring to speak over the sound of peace.

Sometimes, when I think about the books of the Bible, I marvel at the vast variety of wisdom contained in the Old Testament alone. I am stupefied. From the Levitical law, chronicles of the kings of Israel, to profound Psalms, and lamentations of the great prophets. It is these times when I consider Song of Songs.

From my reading of it, Song of Songs is a book about love, passion, and purity between lovers – whom many believe are King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Recently, I have been thinking about the haunting refrain in the story of these lovers; “Do not awaken love before its time.”

To be or not to be? The question (which, thankfully, was never mine over which to agonize) has already been answered. Mine is to submit.

– Lele M

Called to Courage

I don’t even know if this counts as writer’s block.

It feels like it. I’m bloated with ideas and an enthusiasm to share them. However, try as I might, there is an obstinate cork comfortably secured at the neck of my vessel. I can’t get it out. I simply don’t know where to start, or how to organise what I offer. It’s as though I’m over-inspired. I’m a deer caught between the blinding headlights of the blank screen with the incessantly blinking cursor. I feel like there’s something about the way the cursor flashes only when it is stationary that mocks the rate at which I’m typing.

What I know for sure is that my imagination is aroused and similarly, my desire to write has been piqued. I wonder what the great writers whose work I’ve encountered would advise me in this instance. What would Wilbur Smith say to offer comfort? Perhaps something unassuringly simple like “just start” or “trust your instinct.”

Instead, the advise I’d love to receive would be from the prophet Isiah. I want to write like the prophet Isiah. Notably, the life led by Isiah was one of absolute submission to the will of God. Isiah’s encounter with the splendor and holiness of God changed the course of his service and life’s work. But he could not be commissioned before the lesser version of himself died when the searing coal touched his unclean lips. And if Isiah’s hefty contribution to old testament scripture is anything to go by, he’s the right person to help me to overcome the fear of the blank page.

I wake up daily feeling as though an outdated version of myself is wrestling for relevance with the woman I am becoming. There is no question as to which version of me will emerge the victor. I have a favourite, and I’ve placed my bets on her.

– Lele M