Yes yes I know. This place might as well close shop. I did find some cobwebs and something else growing on this page when I opened it this morning….felt bad that I’ve neglected it a bit. But now I’m here 🙂
So the talk of the town is the Joost skandaal. Well it was really big news back in July when our favourite newspaper (read trash) had a LARGER than life article on the front page with pictures of holy underwear and Pringle socks (which weren’t his as he’s never heard of Pringle…) spread across it. As they do, he vehemently denied all rumours the following day, declaring that his heart belongs to God and that he loves his troph….I mean wife, tsk, and that he would never ever never ever cheat on her – a bit like Lola from Charlie and Lola who will never ever ever never eat a tomato…or oyster or something 🙂
I knew then that it was him. It was confirmed by various sources in the know. The drugs situation surprised me a bit but the “sexual relations”, him.
We’ve all heard the different opinions about the events of this past weekend. The sudden acknowledgement, the crying a lot and some more, the Please forgive my I am not worthy, the I used to think I was invincible. Blah blah blah. And the wonderfully chance occurence of releasing a tell-all (whateva that may mean, as if we care) biography over the SAME weekend and asking for forgiveness and again not answering interviewer’s questions after accepting interviews from various radio stations (at a fee I pressume) and generally talking around the topic. Again. Running circles around enquiries about previous affairs: “I can like to only have been cheating one time”. You know what, if you have laid your cards on the table and have come clean with your wife and yourself about any other previous incidents, then be a freaking man and say so publicly.  My question is simple: Why would a respectable public figure like Charmaine Weavers admit to having an affair with you when it is not true? Why would she put her entire future on the line, when she had nothing to gain by coming clean in public? It’s not like it would be an achievement to have an affair with him? She didn’t manage to seduce someone like Matt Damon or any other good looking stable husband and boast about her achievements in public? She actually did it to make peace with herself? I think. Not sure why she did it really….embarassing.
His loyal followers have forgiven him. They’ve obviously forgiven him because they never believed that it could be him in that video. Isn’t that when you forgive? So you don’t have to forgive if you haven’t really believed in someone or loved someone or felt that someone has betrayed you or taken away something from you or disappointed you? My point is, I don’t have anything to forgive him for. I don’t feel the need to forgive him for what he did. I feel nothing for his actions. I have sympathy for his wife and his family who DID believe in him. Whom he DID disappoint and embarass. She is just a wife who loved her husband. Sure she has made mistakes of her own. Sure she has rumours floating around about her 🙂 Rumours I say, tsk. But when is enough enough? How do you pick up from this and carry on? How do you even start about thinking of a normal happy future with all this baggage hanging on your shoulders? I commend her for still standing upright. She is just a woman fighting for her marriage and for the father of her children…
I don’t forgive him. I have nothing to forgive. He must plot on. He has been an adult for the last 20 years of his life. I have no empathy because I have never lead a life of wealth and fame and talent and booze and drugs and sex and available women/men at the age of 20. And I can’t say that I would have made exactly the same choices as I have to date with all of the above. But what I will say is that I have a moral responsibility to 1. Myself 2. God 3. My husband and children and 4. My family. I have been tried and tested many times in my life. I have failed a few times – more silly decisions than ethically wrong really – but I have always kept my selfrespect. Yes we’re all different. Yes I am critical and have high standards and forget that not everyone think the same way. Yes I accept that not all the deicions I make are the right ones. But are morals and ethics not a universal trait? Is the difference between wrong and right not generally black or white? Very few grey areas there….unless you choose to see grey obviously. That changes everything.
Joost, I can honestly say I don’t like your actions. I don’t like your decisions, I don’t like what you’ve done to those people around you. I have never supported you (purely because we are the biggest anti-bulls-supporters :)) and I would never want to win An unforgettable evening out with Joost van der Westhuizen, for instance. But most of all, I don’t like you for the sleasiest most shocking and easiest cop-out that you made: “I have never cheated on my wife because my heart belongs to God”. When I play that statement in my head I feel as if you blamed this all on God. And you put a nation of followers on a guilt trip. You lead them to believe that …..”all our fellow Afrikaans Christians, you should know and believe me because I mentioned God in my denial”. And that makes it so much easier for me to just forget you. Nothing to forgive. Just forget.
Get on with your life. You only have one. Be a man. Grow some balls. Tell the truth. Make it right.
But remember to ask Him to forgive you for passing the buck. If you can forgive yourself, great. Then make the best of what you have left of your life.
pitkos 