29/06/2025
The Gospel According to Starlink
Clarens June 2025
In the Free State, you can tell a lot about a person by how they drink their moerkoffie — and even more by how they return your messages. Or, rather, how they don’t. I have spent enough time perched on Baksteen’s splintered stoep rocking chair to know that the only thing faster than the local internet these days is the speed at which people vanish when you ask: “Did you get my email?”
It started, as these things do, with Baksteen glaring holes through Pieter while Wagter, dozed with one suspicious eye open.
“Pieter!” she thundered, banging her mug so hard on the old kitched table, it gave a low groan. “Answer me this, man: what good is a high-speed Starlink connection when every South African SOE, Officials, and those from here to the Cape has the moral backbone of a wet mop? They all scream for more data, more fibre, more satellites — but they cannot be bothered to type a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’! Not a single ‘Got it, thanks’! Nothing! Silence! from the PP office to the SOE’s, WhatsApp group to the halls of deflating power, to CEO’s padded corner — all the same, a ghost country of unanswered messages.”
I shifted on my chair and pretended not to hear the thin envelope in my coat pocket crackle — the unpaid note from my publisher, who, like the rest of Corporate South Africa, has never replied to my last three invoices as well.
Baksteen continued, her voice echoing across the veld like an old bakkie rattling over corrugations.
“Connectivity! Accessibility! My aunt’s old gossip line ran on a piece of wire between her and Tant Sarie — they never missed a single reply, not even during the Border War! Now? A whole country on WhatsApp and you’d swear you were writing to the grave.”
By then Pieter had drifted off, staring into the blue afternoon sky. Wagter snorted — a sign that he, at least, was still listening.
It was decided — quite naturally — that the only sensible thing was to move this philosophical matter to the braai area out back. For no great revelation ever occurred in the Free State without a fire, a few sizzling boerewors strips, and the smell of burnt fat drifting through the cosmos.
Pieter, ever the observer, squinted up at the darkening sky and started screaming.
“Look there!” he said, as if discovering a lost herd of Nguni cattle. “Is that Starlink? A satellite whizzing past to bring us more speed?”
Baksteen barked a laugh so sharp it could have sliced the wors in half.
“More speed — so you can ignore me faster! If you people could ghost your own mother at light speed, you’d still say it was the network’s fault.”
Tant Sarie, sniffed feet dramatically – started acting strange.
“It’s the end, Baksteen, the end of my whole skinner system! In my day, I could spread news about the Dominee’s new lady friend faster than a veldfire. Now? Elon Musk’s tin cans are going to beat me to it. A satellite gossip line! Next they’ll beam my secrets straight into people’s stoeps without me lifting a finger.”
Wagter sneezed, moving closer to the fire. Seemed one of the worsies started to annoy him.
The Dominee, who’d arrived mostly for the free boerewors and to ‘bless the wors’ as he liked to claim, cleared his throat in that way that says a sermon is brewing.
“I fear, brethren, that the Word shall now descend from orbit,” he said, eyes wide. “No more pulpit, no more Sunday collections. Just a beam of holy text from Starlink itself — thou shalt tithe via the app! The Lord’s Prayer on download!”
And there I stood — the unpaid story teller, balancing my battered ego and empty to***co pouch, watching this great Free State farce unfold under the cold, star-pricked sky.
For here was the truth, clearer than any satellite signal:
We South Africans could have cables thicker than a Blue Bull front row and signals faster than a leopard on a springbok’s trail — but until we learn to return a simple message, we may as well train pigeons and tie notes to their feet. At least the pigeon comes home.
Pieter kept staring at that slow-moving pile of solar panels floating past. Tant Sarie toasted the end of skinner as she knew it. The Dominee recited a half-forgotten verse about good neighbours and well-timed replies. And Baksteen? She just sipped her moerkoffie, eyes glinting in the firelight, and said:
“Mark my words — no Starlink will fix our manners. If they want more speed, they should start with their thumbs.”
Wagter wagged his tail once in solemn agreement and gently lifted the offending wors off the grid. And that — dear reader — is all the reply you’ll get in this district.
July Speckled Bean is out on Tuesday, Parliament is fighting, weather is forecast to improve. But for now – you take good care.
www.speckledbean.com
GB
