I thought I had since made peace with the imperfections of modern living. As most big-city dwellers (especially the educated and the privileged, who are often tucked away in leafy suburbs) know too well, modern living is about communities that just do not commune and neighbourhoods devoid of neighbourliness. This is not to say that those in the lower echelons of modern society do not know these things. In fact they too would confirm that despite the crowds, there is loneliness everywhere. We all have fallen for modernity’s cardinal promise: the “good life.” It all seems so cool – well until the cold hands of modernity grab us, and awaken us to the reality that, despite the allure, the glitter – there is something about modern living that we cannot entirely reconcile ourselves with.

Let me share with you my experience of one moment when modern living has been cool – in a cold sort of way.

Just a few weeks ago, before my family was forced to relocate from our suburban house to take up a three-week occupancy in a bed-and-breakfast accommodation (and I write this from the guest house), my family had grown used to a particular rhythm. Good music at home, good Nigerian cuisine, boisterous bike-riding by the children, and for me, sitting on any one of East London’s fabulous beaches in the evenings and watching the sun go down, occasional canoeing and fly-fishing.

One Wednesday, a few weeks ago, would have ended on that note, with a bit of that rhythm, except that someone in my house had not quite taken it to heart that the two-hour electricity “load-shedding” (power failure) in my suburb was scheduled to start at midday. As the regular reader would recall (“South Africa’s newsmaker of the moment,” IT & Telecom Digest, March 2008), load-shedding has, since the beginning of this year, become one of South Africa’s “quick-fix” approaches to forcing down electricity demand and stabilising an increasingly desperate power supply situation, while massive power plants are being built to significantly raise power supply from the current 40,000 megawatts.

As it did not seem expedient to wait for power to be restored, it made sense to drive out with the family to town for takeaways. The only problem? The stove (cooker) had not been turned off.
To make a short story even shorter, electricity was restored before we returned with our takeaway packs! In my kitchen, it met a frying pan full of oil on an electric cooker that had not been turned off. In minutes, the pan of oil, a red-hot electric cooker and a smoke extractor just above them, became just the right combination for an inferno. The rest, as they say, is a nasty piece of history.

We were back just before the mad flames, which had already devoured the ceilings, the shelving and everything else within reasonable proximity to the epicentre, were now overpowering the rafters. The roof chamber had been pumped full with smoke and heat, and could have exploded if the fire had had 10 more minutes to play with. With one open window in the lounge area “serving” as a chimney for the ravenous inferno, a thick pall of smoke issuing forth from house No. 8 hung over the entire neighbourhood. The gated estate has 15 houses; less than five metres of lawn separating one house from the next.

The next one hour or so was one of utter commotion, at least from my family’s point of view. For me, however, it was also an opportunity to test one “law” of modernity - the law of efficiency. I would state it crudely as follows: in truly “modern” societies, efficiency is everything…”

I put a call to the fire service. The telephone rang only once and was answered. Once I had supplied the address of the neighbourhood, the response from the other end was: “We are on our way.” They meant it. A police van, two huge fire trucks and a medical emergency van arrived at my premises in no time. Their response time and efficiency in handling their task left my traumatised wife speechless. They saved the day.

While my wife was still sobbing, I placed a call to the insurance company. An adjuster was sent the following morning to assess the damage. Professional and compassionate would be the best way to describe his approach. He noted down every detail of the destruction.

Then he said: “Never mind, man, the entire place will be renovated. This place is going to be completely restored.” He added: “you and your family must book into a B&B (bed and breakfast accommodation) for 21 days. Insurance will pay for that. I’m going to request the builders to move very fast.”

The next day, a cleaning company arrived. Next were builders and electricians.

“Law” number two: Modernity is cold; write or speak the word “neighbour” always in inverted commas. This too was proved completely true. Not a single “neighbour” of mine showed up at No. 8 on the day, or since. No sympathies, no asking, no telling. No one seems to be interested in knowing what a detachment of municipal emergency services (with blaring sirens, flashing emergency lights and uniformed personnel) was doing at house No. 8.

“Law” number three: in the cold grip of modernity, look for warmth in the “traditional” spaces and places that modernity despises. Look for warmth in places where affectivities are valued; places such as the church.

This proved true. My pastor, who only three weeks earlier had undergone a successful heart operation, called. “Doc, I’ve heard of what happened,” he said. “Please let the Church know what can be done to help.” It was the most touching call I had received in recent memory. I had not seen the pastor since after the surgery, but hearing his voice and broad laugh over the phone made such a difference in the way I have come to view the unpredictable contents and changing calculus of modern relationships. In modern times, true neighbourliness is to be found in one’s affective-spiritual-moral neighbourhoods – not in houses that stand shoulder-to-shoulder in a suburban estate. My experience with my Pastor, and Church as a whole, just confirmed that.

The reader might be forgiven for thinking that I now know what it means to be “displaced” – in the sense in which aid agencies and the UNHCR use this term. Actually I do not. My family and I might have been physically forced to temporarily relocate to a guest house, and so could pretend to have experienced “displacement.” But this is different. While they have more than an abundant supply of sympathies from churches and people of goodwill, “truly displaced” persons do not have insurance picking the bills of their adversity – nor contractors scrambling to restore things to their original (if not better) shape. This is a different kind of “displacement.” One must differentiate between the “adversity” of the privileged and that of the downtrodden.

Perhaps it makes sense to make peace with modernity’s imperfections. Perhaps that is the only way to begin to appreciate the most important truth of all: despite its “coldness,” modernity is cool after all.

Akpan, PhD., Ford Foundation-IFP Scholar, Department of Sociology, University of Fort Hare, East London Campus, South Africa, is our South Africa Contributing Editor