Durban. Naah, couldn’t be. But there it was again.
Two brief mentions that sent the couch down an epic rabbit hole of Deep Thought and attitude change.
Holding strong opinions is too easy in today’s flood of unchecked, unmoderated and outraged noise in public spaces. And confirmation bias because we no longer discuss: we dismiss and deride others we perceive to be on the “wrong” side.
We’re less willing to consider that, while we fundamentally disagree with portions of someone’s standpoint, we can agree with, understand or even admire, other aspects of that person.
The lightbulb moment came from YouTube. Having seen the movie and read the book, I was fascinated by the men who told the story of 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.
As a world news addict, I had read contemporaneous reports about the 2012 death of the ambassador at the US diplomatic outpost in the city and the 11-hour grilling by congress of then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Neither the book nor the film make any comment on the politics of that night or the fallout.
I wanted to learn more, and found that some of the soldiers in 13 Hours had been interviewed about the accuracy of the film and why they wrote the book. On YouTube, I came across a podcast with Kris “Tanto” Paronto, the wise-ass former Ranger of the Benghazi group, which had been contracted by the CIA to provide security to the agency’s officers.
Fearing that he may turn out to be a gun-lovin’ Trumpist, I prepared to have that confirmed and move along to something else. But he’s an engaging, funny, irreverent and plain-speaking dude.
He bemoaned the polarisation of people, left and right, and said that worldwide, driven by people with vested interests and unending need for power, we had lost track of the human gene that makes us care about the lives of those we don’t know.
How we fail to have difficult conversations, ask questions or listen to views that challenge our thinking and broaden our understanding of fellow humans.
I’m guilty, having scorned the “redneck” Trumpist until reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead, a raw story of how Appalachian communities are perceived by outsiders.
That does not mean there are no inherently evil people: there are and always will be.
Tanto’s personal story is of success, setback and failure, but also of determination to learn from bad choices and never give up, physically or in sticking to his moral values.
The story he told involving Durban was of a stint of providing security for ships in the Indian Ocean during the reign of Somali pirates.
He and the podcast host, a pilot, were discussing the magnificent, unmatched sunrises and sunsets in Africa. Then he briefly mentioned dangerous places – like Durban. I thought I had misheard him, but no, he added a bit more detail.
I was shocked when he said Durban and Cape Town, where the ships docked, were the places he had felt least safe.
Both commented on the power blackouts, unsafe potable water, how they avoided “fresh” food because they didn’t know what it had been watered or washed with, and how hard and dangerous other people’s lives could be.
I wanted to yell at him. However, down in that rabbit hole, I couldn’t disagree; time may have passed, but we do live in a city – and country – that resembles a war zone in which we don’t listen or care enough.
Independent on Saturday