“Ugegelela imbuya wesaba ulude” is an isiNdebele saying or proverb that refers
to a soul who takes pleasure in bullying or behaving hostilely or unfairly toward
someone or something weaker or smaller in scope or means, while fearful
or evasive of someone stronger, or of the same stature, size, age, class and capital.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It’s relevant today. The ulude flowers we need today
are the tender, nutritious, herbal leaves, not the notorious ones that bully our
taste buds without plausible reason or gain? The leaves that transition with time.
Our elders’ wisdom or knowledge is a heritage we can draw on and outgrow bad
habits, appetites, and egos, and create a better (not bitter and broken) world
for ourselves and future generations.
The message is clear and relevant. Think of cantankerous nations and characters,
and their history and antics. Do cowards or weaklings size up or square up against
their equals or agemates? Do they look for their perfect match or they always
bully or victimize the innocent or the vulnerable minnows? Victimhood
of kids, women, small and poor nations and communities, should or must
give way to a neighborhood of mutual respect, freedom, security and peace.
Think of young ulude shoots, loved for their nutritional contribution to humanity,
union, healing and viable and financial upliftment of communities and countries.
Why? Because betterment is obviously better and nobler than bitterness or bullying.
I saw a man who had a silent hand saw. He had a sore, furious finger
because the unsharpened saw was wayward, wild, slippery and sharp
enough to crack and burrow into his delicate skin in place of wood.
His skin: the easy prey, the easy target, the cooked amaranth.
The same saw that was too blunt to hack off tree branches!
The senseless hurtful hand saw saw it fit to make a lesion
on his arm. What rudeness! Didn’t it know how to cut
through strong steel sheets? Didn’t it have a tensioned nut
or a transposable blade? Metal to metal. Not metal to skin!
The water always streams down, so observed
the wise elders. The saw is like cascading water.
The tree cutter felt angry with the saw. He was sore.
—
In science there is a drop, in ignorance a sea.
