The Cultural Movement that Divided a Nation’s Youth

One breezy morning I went to Kofi Khafetsa in the middle of town to get just that, a coffee, before running my errands. Mokhotlong is colder than my ex’s heart, and I was still shivering  all the way from there, when the bus finally threw me out at the taxi rank in Maseru, about two minutes from where Kofi Khafetsa is. You can imagine my relief at finally arriving in Maseru after a long journey. At finally beating down the Mokhotlong chill inside me with coffee, the true nectar of gods. Now, I’m just an average Mosotho man who loves his country. I love its people. I love everything that comes with being a Mosotho; respect, tradition, honesty. A Mosotho must respect himself always. He must respect tradition. Our elders wouldn’t have raised us so honourably without it. Now imagine my shock, upon stepping into Kofi Khafetsa, at seeing  a boy with pink hair.

I have stomached many things in my life, but you have to admit, a boy with pink hair is just taking things too….far. I ordered my coffee and tried to ignore him. He was talking to a few of his friends with the type of English that comes from expensive school fees no doubt; hong-ing and hong-ing like a broken taxi hooter. In Mokhotlong none of these kids would survive, where your Sesotho has to be as straight as a ruler. But as I waited for my coffee, I took the opportunity to let my eyes wander across the sight of him.

 Not only did he have pink hair, but rings on his fingers. And torn clothes. And a shirt that was so short it revealed his youthful abdomen. The friends were no better; some with over-sized, baggy clothes. If this is what counted as fashion these days, I would rather walk around naked.  I liked my simple UZZI shirts and Kangol shoes. Was there anything wrong with blending into the crowd and being normal? As far as I was concerned, clothes existed insofar as they kept you from the cold. So why must these kids change their clothing….for what purpose? They talk about labels I don’t know like Balenciaga and New Balance. I overheard one of them say they ‘thrifted’ a shirt for 30 Maloti right there in the taxi rank. Buying CLOTHES in a taxi rank? Even Mokhotlong people know that taxi ranks are for buying fruits or steel-wool in, or to dodge people you know from seeing you there in the first place.  

What is wrong with buying a 300 Maloti shirt from TRUWORTHS MAN that hadn’t been worn before,  with fifty other identical shirts like it to choose from? And please, do not tell me about self-expression or art. Do not tell me about being unique. Do not tell me about fast fashion. Do not tell me about the capitalist industrial society we live in, these are just clothes. Imagine how ridiculous it would be seeing important men like Prime Minister Sam Matekane bent over a mountain of clothing in the middle of Maseru to thrift a ‘unique’ outfit.

 I listened to them and heard they were holding an event of some sort in town. I left my coffee right there, (I had already paid for it) and forgot about my errands.  I had to see more of this, so I could renew my shock. When I got to the event, I found that there were hundreds of kids like them. Some of them not only wearing torn clothing, but wearing clothes in such a way that I had never seen anyone wear clothing before. Bandannas, leather pants, chains, clothes worn in such a way that they bent to the wearer’s will, like an artist’s paint on a canvas.

I took time to talk to these  ‘leaders of tomorrow’, and some of the things they said made my heart beat faster. According to them, clothes could express who you are as an individual because everyone was unique. The idea of ‘normal’ was not real; normal for the spider was chaos to the fly, so what was normal anyway? Culture and tradition, like water, were uncontainable, ever-shifting. You could listen to whatever music you liked, regardless of whether you were or boy or a girl, or whatever was popular on radio. You could have romantic relationships with more than one person as your partner,  and live harmoniously  in a consensual, romantic community.

That was it! I’d had enough. I left that event with the speed of Usain Bolt because of all the strange feelings they were stirring up in me. Had I stayed longer I might actually want this…this…this freedom. Yes, that was what it was, freedom. If these kids were spiders bringing chaos to the fly’s normal world, then let chaos be the order of the day!  And what noisy flies these  were, writing posts online about the kids’ clothing as if they themselves could even wear something creative enough to get them written about in the first place. At least me, a simple man from Mokhotlong, was curious enough to explore new ideas.

The fly’s idea of bravery was using AI generated imagery to switch their gender on their Facebook profile pictures, getting their friends to laugh with them at how ridiculous they would look with lipstick or a moustache on. These were their type of hobbies. Left-brainers whose only cultural ‘movement’ they can create, is the movement of shifting from one butt cheek to the other as they sit to write posts like I don’t understand this homeless-looking fashion on social media. What could be wrong in their Sdwa-hloohongs? Watch out for them, these soldiers of conformity. If we are not careful, they will haul us back into Lesotho’s Dark Ages. We might as well play MIP’s (may it rest in peace) Basali All Star Remix on the express train to the past.

At the gate outside of this event, which I was, I promise, exiting with the speed of Usain as I have just said, I was suddenly stopped by one of these unruly kids. I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl. “Hey” they said, (boys and girls call themselves ‘they’ now; to go is to see indeed). “Hey bro, where are you going? Stay with us” Let’s just say, that day, I missed my bus home.