Scaffolding in Politics

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Scaffolding means work is in progress, to make the building stronger, change roof tiles or
 expand the dining room. Members of this private club voted for it. Will you vote in November?

I’m scared of scaffolding. Are those steel poles sturdy enough to hold two bodies? Sorry. Are they iron or steel? We will never know because I wouldn’t be caught dead up there, tampering with it. 

Summer time is when City Hall does infrastructure scrubbing: roads, water pipes, city buildings, that sort of thing. A private club near the train station around here, is also wrapped in scaffolding as we speak. They are not re-painting the exterior because it is red brick. I wonder what they are up to. I wish I was a member for a day so that I could get some answers, which brings us to fences. Are fences designed to keep strangers out or to keep family members in?

Both. Strangers are potential burglars trying to steal valuable items like a Ming vase or daughters, while daughters are kept inside to blunt their curiosity about the outside world. Human scaffolding is obvious in the way we dress, talk and worship. Scaffolding also manifests itself in hair, whether we shave it or grow it long, then cover it with religious cloth. That is for outside consumption. Human scaffolding has one destination: the mind. How disciples dress is useless, if their mind is somewhere else, outside the dress code.

Visible signs of scaffolding like MAGA hats or waving country flags in one protest or the other, does not necessarily mean that the mind is in sync with what a person is wearing or chanting. This is one reasoning that eludes campaign managers. That is why they are preoccupied with numbers, crowd size, in the case of Donald Trump. We take off MAGA hats and T-shirts when we get home, but the mind remains where it is. It is the only human scaffolding that is constant.

Nonqaba waka Msimang

Blogger Without Borders

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