admin Khuphuka Nasingeni
SO scientists, some of whom have been to the moon and back several times, want us to believe there is more out there in the universe than we have hitherto been informed.A� And we are not talking of a couple of meteors or some debris falling off some insignificant contraption in orbit. We hear a whole new planet exists out there. A�
The news got me thinking of the Biblical Garden of Eden.A� Undiscovered. Undefiled. Serene.A� Invitingly unexplored.
It would seem that is what this newly- discovered planet offers, if our scientistsa�� conjecture is anything to go by.
We hear things like the distance from the sun to the planet make it not too hot and not too cold either, making it habitable though nobody knows as yet if there is plant life over there. The song a�?This world is not my homea��a�� might soon take on new meaning.A� I am sure real estate investors are already looking into bidding for the planet if it will be possible to inhabit it!
The mere discovery of another planet made me think of the damage that we have already inflicted on mother Earth.
The pollution is quite unimaginable and it has got to a point where as humans we have become a danger to ourselves, with global warming eating away layers of centuries of human endeavour.
I was hoping to myself that we discover more planets so that those we cannot live with on this earth can be banished there. My only worry as we discussed this development with uMzo was the issue of transport since these places are very far away. We even debated the possibility of having beings on that planet, though not necessarily human.
This was a scary thought, especially after uMzo threw into the discussion the question a�?a�?what if there are beings there who have also discovered our existence here and are planning to take over our planet?a�? At this point it was time to use my veto power to end the discussion and anyone going against that would have had to buy drinks for us for the rest of the night!
The summer season, thankfully, gave us lots to talk about right into the night. All sorts of fashion where people are leaving very little to the imagination, are coming to the fore. I shall not mention the obvious save to say there is lots of flesh being flaunted and many flesh fetishes are being satiated!
And to think that we complain here when too much flesh is exposed. We could be on the wrong end of the fashion stick, if there is such.
In France, fashion police are on the loose, literally undressing those whose outfits irk fellow beach goers by covering too much! I shudder to think of how such policing would be viewed in the Western world if done here in the Third World.
Several municipalities in France have banned the burkini and those that dare wear it face arrest!A� More like the Egodini vigilantes or Copacabana/4th Street terminus goons harassing women that wear mini-skirts.
What makes it even more shocking is that such kind of harassment, that is, forcing women to take off their full-cover apparel, is perfectly legal and encouraged by the French! Thank God we may soon have other options, if we can get transport to the virgin planet, that is.
About a decade ago, an Australian woman of Lebanese origin created a swimsuit for Muslim women designed to permit them to keep their bodies covered while working as lifeguards on Australian beaches. Her design was dubbed the burkini or burqini. Burkinis cover the head, torso and limbs much like a wetsuit with a hood.
The word combines the words bikini and burqa, a full-body covering with only a mesh screen for the eyes. Burqas are worn primarily in Afghanistan.A� And interestingly, the bikini celebrated 70 years of existence in July this year, and was a French invention that met some resistance from models of the time and was banned in Italy, Spain and Australia.
The Vatican, according to reports, declared wearing it was a sin! Wind the clock to 2016 and the French now associate the swimwear variation with religious extremism. And the human rights debate can be quite interesting.
The pro-burkini side argues that what women decide to wear is their business while the anti-burkini side feels the burkini is something that religion subjects women to and argues it should be banned as it is a symbol of oppression.
In Zimbabwe we have not interfered with churches whose members require their womenfolk to wear white garments always, and it would be funny if we started to prescribe how long a beard should be to be legally accepted as that would impinge on certain sectsa�� rights.
In South Africaa��s Pretoria High School, the black pupils complain of a hairstyle code that seems to discriminate against black pupils, who have been asked to neaten their natural Afro as it looks like a�?a�?a birda��s nesta��a��.A� Ouch! Is this world going backwards, forward or sideways . . . I wonder. This earth, maybe, is just not my home!
Online Reporter