The sixth week of the Oscar Pistorius murder trial finally saw the introduction of the physical presence of a group previously most visible on the internet - the Paralympian's earnest, God-fearing supporters.
Dressed in badly designed white T-shirts, the motley crew rocked up bearing placards and white balloons scrawled with messages encouraging Pistorius not to give up, telling him that he was not alone, and declaring that God would see him through.
On Monday they arrived outside the court where they prayed for "both families" and for peace, love, understanding and non-judgmental media coverage.
As the object of their adoration stepped out of the vehicle that brought him to court he seemed overwhelmed by the tannies who ran up to him, held his hand, told him they were with him and released their white balloons, on their journey to the heavens where one assumes God was supposed to collect them and rain blessings on all concerned.
A few of them sat in court for the day, quietly biting their lips as the Blade Runner suffered further interrogation by the villainous Gerrie Nel - cast in their eyes not as a prosecutor doing his job but rather an inquisitor sent by the devil to test their young martyr's faith and humanity.
In other rows of the public gallery sat a different kind of supporter - mostly dew-eyed teenage girls who teared up at the sight of their idol's emotional reaction to incessant assertions by Nel that he was covering something up.
By the next day the group outside court had thinned but their Facebook group showed increased activity, with pictures of Pistorius accompanied by inspirational messages written in the font reserved for those all-too-prevalent "footsteps in the sand" posters.
The relief that Pistorius and his family felt after he finished his testimony was magnified on the internet as supporters from Borneo to Ireland congratulated him for withstanding the pressure of interrogation. He, like Jesus, had passed his test by the devil in the desert.
In interviews the supporters claimed that while they had appeared in public to support Pistorius, their thoughts were also with the Steenkamp family - although their Facebook posts show no mention of them or pictures of Reeva - and that their main purpose was to ask for peace and understanding and for everyone to stop being cruel and judgmental.
Good men don't do bad things but sometimes bad things happen to good men, they would have you believe.
In fairness they represented a face of support far less aggressive and confrontational than that of the mostly female "Pistorians", the Twitter supporters whose high-school-mean-girls demeanour and willingness to lay into Steenkamp's character made them unpopular with the media and led to Pistorius's family officially distancing themselves from the group in the months leading up to the trial.
This peace-loving group whose main weapons are Bibles and devotional memorabilia seem to have attached themselves to the athlete not just because they believe that he is a hero and a "good human being", but also because he is a Christian. So this is another fight in the war waged by the faithful against the disdain and incredulity of everyone else.
Their mission, according to their Facebook page, is to collectively pray that Pistorius does not go to jail and they promise that on May 5, when the trial resumes, we can expect to see them outside the court in bigger numbers. If the court doesn't save Oscar, then perhaps the rapture will.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2014/04/21/god-help-you-blade-runner
'Scuse me.. feeling a big wobbly myself , now..
uke:
