Shabbat Talk: Healing through Truth!
Very often things are not what we think they are, perceptions are misguided and shaped by the way we have been reared or by the way we have been conditioned to think. Many of us have deep rooted prejudices that we need to confront regularly. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was little more than a covering fig leaf, I propose that it is time that we exchange the fig leaf for an olive branch. Today we have so many books about the Apartheid activists especially those involved in the Soweto uprising memorialised on the 16th June each year, these events spilled over into the Western Cape. Ruth’s story is dedicated to those almost forgotten Western Cape activist friends and colleagues.
Ruth Harriet Jordan is a retired Secondary School Home Economics and Biochemistry Teacher and Textbook author who held the position as Assistant Director: Department of Education and Culture (House of Representatives: Sub-directorate Culture). She has held many positions of leadership in a religious capacity and on school governing bodies. Her most treasured and valued contribution to people upliftment, however, are her years of service to the farming communities of the Ceres, Warm and Koue Bokkeveld, Tulbach and Elgin Grabouw regions. Her role as a lobbyist and a trusted voice of reason to the Western Cape farmers against the use of the Tot System or “Dop Stelsel” as a form of remuner-ation for services rendered, is her opus of bringing Tikkun Olam haba. Annually around Woman’s Day, she would be invited to address mass crowds as an empowering motivational speaker at the behest of Cape Women’s Forum (deciduous fruit industry).