CHARMAIN NAIDOO: Inquiries are shining an unstinting light deep into SA’s wounds

Extract I’m a sucker for non-pharmacological alternatives — all of them! Give me an app that reminds you to breathe, that helps you fall asleep and I’m like a puppy. New Age “crazy” stuff? Bring it on. Kinesiology, reiki, aromatherapy, iridology, craniosacral therapy, chakra balancing… You name it, I’ll try it.

I’m a sucker for non-pharmacological alternatives — all of them!

Give me an app that reminds you to breathe, that helps you fall asleep and I’m like a puppy.

New Age “crazy” stuff? Bring it on. Kinesiology, reiki, aromatherapy, iridology, craniosacral therapy, chakra balancing… You name it, I’ll try it.

I say New Age because that’s the term that has been applied to these alternative health practices, even though at this stage in the century, all these alternative treatments have been around for a very long time and are old hat.

In fact, they’re no longer whacky alternative treatments that doctors used to disapprove of; that all, or most, members of the medical profession rolled their eyes at.

These days homeopathic and allopathic medicine has merged.

Six years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to undergo months of brutal chemotherapy.

These sessions poured poison into my body and left me debilitated, exhausted, constantly nauseous. And very angry.

And, just as my body was beginning to absorb/reject the foul smelling chemicals and I was beginning to feel human again, I’d have to go back to be plugged into a machine that delivered the venomous serum directly into collapsed veins on an unwilling arm.

Looking back on this dark time in my life, I remember being more than merely physically sick. I was depressed and weepy and sad, and getting out of bed was a major achievement.

My doctor suggested reiki. She shrugged at my wide eyes and said, hey, my patients say it helps, so do it. And so I did it. And it helped.

There. I’ve admitted it. I’m an alternative-health-option junkie.

And the very best thing about being hooked on this stuff is that there are a host of modern day technologies that deliver them directly to your smartphone.

There are apps that remind you to breathe, that help you to sleep, that instruct you on how to live your best life.

For a price, there are a slew of promises: lower anxiety, reduced stress, happier life.

Calm is a meditation app (now worth a whopping $250m — it costs subscribers $60/year so you can imagine market penetration) was voted the best mindfulness app of 2018.

One of the options is that you can listen to calming bedtime stories that take you into the land of nod, read by people of the calibre of Stephen Fry.

Soporific, dulcet tones gently rock you to sleep. I have to say, it’s the most wonderful way to stop your brain from thinking thoughts carried on from the difficulties of the day.

Then there is Headspace costing $95/year, which is marketed as “providing guided meditation and mindfulness as well as practical meditation for adults and kids”.

Even at this hefty price tag, Headspace has 8.5-million users, including Wall Streeters, Olympic athletes, students and housewives.

The most expensive of these is called The Mindfulness App and costs a pricey $120/year, or (as it markets itself) just $10/month.

We are living in the Age of Aquarius, the age of technology, the age of information.

Curiously, all three have combined to provide us with various ways in which we can decide to improve our lives, by ourselves.

We, those of us who take advantage of this technology and who use it to deliver these solution-orientated techniques, are attempting to heal ourselves, to give ourselves better ways to live, to think, to feel.

And so I am confounded by those people who are down on SA at the moment, who think that we live in the most rotten, corrupt, unacceptably awful, horrible environment that reeks of venality and graft and large-scale theft.

Yes, all those attributes apply to SA.

But look at what else is happening. We, as a nation and as a country, are self-healing, or at the very least, we are attempting to.

My parish priest, in his rousing sermon last Sunday, talked of how the wound was where the light entered; only through the light can the wound begin to heal. It’s a powerful image.

I think that is what is happening right here at home.

Think how much good news there is. There’s a new national director of public prosecutions, Shamila Batohi, who is already coming across as tough as old boots, independent and strong. Already she’s taking on the government over what prosecutors should be paid. Long may she remain strong, fierce and fearless.

It is all our hope that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) will begin to operate as an effective body, bringing to justice those who have flagrantly transgressed the law.

Then there is this miracle that is unfolding before our very eyes: The Zondo commission — a Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, Corruption and Fraud in the Public Sector including Organs of State.

During the Jacob Zuma presidency we knew that dastardly deeds were being done, we knew there was greed and self enrichment, and the abuse of state power. We seethed and swore and sighed, but nothing changed.

It was like being locked in a sauna with the heat turned up and the door locked. We were rage hot and helpless.

Now, the thieves and crooks and the corrupted are turning on each other. Things are coming out into the open.

We are shining a light into the wound. This spotlight is highlighting a series of sickening wrongdoings in the public sector, in government. Everywhere.

Are we healed yet? Absolutely not. Not even close.

But the process of uncovering the rot has begun. The exhausting process of unmasking the crooks is under way.

Whistle-blowers are whistling, legal people are listening.

It might all come to nought, and there is a chance that those people who have been found out will not face the wrath of the law. I hope that that is not the case, but even if it is … the difference is that we will know what has transpired.

Lifting the lid on the scale of state capture is akin to being let out of that overheated sauna; being allowed to breathe and cool off.

When loved ones die or disappear and there is no body to bury or cremate, people say they cannot begin the grieving process because there is no closure.

That is what we are getting now; information that will, in the end, allow us to begin the grieving process for our beloved country.

Let’s be grateful for that.