I was born at Mamelodi Day Hospital in 1985. At a time when the apartheid government was getting anxious about the longevity of their antics, when the people were realising that perhaps they could really beat this thing, when everyone, white and black alike, could feel that the air was different. There were many of us entering the country that year, but many more leaving as hand grenades were thrown this way and that, bullets were shot into crowds, and deaths in custody occurred.
In 1991, the year black children were first allowed to attend schools formerly exclusive to whites, I learnt to write my name. And as I discovered words, colours, chewing gum, Mayo, di –ice and nigger balls that changed colour in your mouth as you sucked them, bo Tata Mandela, Buthelezi and De Klerk were beginning their peace talks. That February when I had learnt to write not only my name but my street address and phone number too, De Klerk promised to end all apartheid legislation. By the time I started high school in 1998 we were well settled into our new democracy, but the cracks in the rainbow were beginning to let the glare through as we watched the beginnings of xenophobic violence enter our society when policemen set dogs to suspected illegal immigrants and allowed them to be savaged apart.
As I prepared to go to medical school in 2003, the urgency for the fight against HIV scowled at us from the grave sites of the many young people who had died and the focus of the struggle shifted as we came together and pharmaceutical companies were fingered for price fixing ARVS. In 2009 I sat in Jameson Hall waiting for my name to be called. No longer just Kopano, but Doctor Kopano. 2010 was a year of dreams for my country, a year of dreams fulfilled for me too. That SMS that spoke of a first paycheck in the bank, I could not delete for months.
But the days grew shorter and the nights longer as my stethoscope became sticky in my hands, my white coat yellow, my eyes cloudy from frightening things seen and hurriedly forgotten. I suppose one gets used to these things. But one shouldn’t. So here I am, forcing us to remember, to pause, and stop and think about those ugly things like pain and suffering and disease and ill-health that plague so many of our people, those ugly things that don’t make the headlines, those ugly things we do not like to think about, but should.
You are many things, but to me you are the black female who excelled by nurturing your talents. I assume you do not win a Rhodes scholarship by being and affirmative action candidate. You are therefore the type of role model this country needs. Please bite the bullet. The ugly things you see in our hospitals will not disappear in our life time, but hopefully we can make them less. Bring back your experience and qualifications and come and be the future.
The ugly things you see are not unique to South Africa unfortunately.
Since you’re so young, did you know that the apartheid government also trained black doctors, more than the rest of Africa combined? Another interesting fact that you may not be aware of is that apartheid health care for blacks improved their life expectancy from in the 40′s to somewhere in the 60′s. Today black life expectancy is back to where it was before apartheid.
“There were many of us entering the country that year, but many more leaving as hand grenades were thrown this way and that, bullets were shot into crowds, and deaths in custody occurred.”
This is an exaggeration and disingenuous to mention deaths in custody in one breath with hand grenades and bullets, as if the government forces were using live ammunition on civilians. Besides, we now have far more deaths in custody than under apartheid and the total number of deaths attributable to government action over the entire course of apartheid, less than 3000, pales in comparison to our annual murder rate.
Well written – and well done on your achievements.
My daughter is also a doctor, qualified in this country, and I hear your pain and fear as it echoes hers. I have heard it and she has lived it a few years longer than you, but the feeling is the same.
Thank you for doing what you do, and for reminding those who would choose to forget that the pain continues. Your country needs people like you
What is most worrying is that those bad hospitals did not improve . . . Did you also noticed that the water pressure in all municpalities are starting to drop nowadays?
I wok closely with industrial psychologists – we do psychometric testing in the personnel industry. Unsuccessful people have one thing in common – they always blame external factors for their failures – not themselves.
You’re you and this blog post.
Hi there Kopano. I am so happy that you’ve achieved success in your life, and I share your sadness about so many things in South Africa that are still wrong.
@Robard: “This is an exaggeration and disingenuous…”
Agreed. I suspect Kopano is possibly somewhat subjective. It is natural human behaviour to focus on the bad things in “others,” while glossing over the faults in yourself and in those you closely identify with.
I am also not finger-pointing at Kopano… although objectivity is something I have actively worked on to improve in myself, I am still far from perfect (although I hope that I am at least passably objective).
Also agreed that the way Kopano describes the “bullets” seems to be a near deliberate attempt to reinforce the “others” as ONLY evil – it was primarily rubber bullets (BIG difference). Now compare rubber bullets with Magoo’s Bar, for instance.
Note: That also does not deny that even “rubber bullets” was a bad situation, but thanks for bringing some objectivity. I am dismayed to hear that, after black life expectancy had improved so much under apartheid, it became worse again under an ANC government.
That is not right. Kopano, I am sure you can play a big role in fixing that.
Comparing evils is in my opinion a pointless exercise unless it is with the intention of being able to more closely identify those factors that are generating the evils in order to be able to rectify them. There are two realities here, one, every child that is born rightly expects that it should, in its life, get a fair crack of the whip, and two, more children are born than society seems willing to give a fair crack of the whip to. This could be because there is actually no political will to do so or because society just does not have the necessary skilled human resources to give every person born a fair crack of the whip no matter how much political will there is. There is no simple answer to this problem here in SA because on one hand government says many of the right things but on the other hand it appears to condone amongst its officials many behaviours, like corruption, which are not at all conducive to giving everybody a fair crack of the whip.
There is a simple short term answer. Vote for change. No change, move on. Otherwise you’ll be used up by those corrupt or incompetent cadres who cannot, or will not, allow SA to improve. When the money runs out, and it could be soon, it’s game over.
@Rory Short: “Comparing evils is in my opinion a pointless exercise unless it is with the intention of being able to more closely identify those factors that are generating the evils in order to be able to rectify them…”
I agree with most of what you say, except for one minor detail: If only one biased, subjective or reduced view of “evil” is allowed to be aired, then that view is liable to become orthodoxy on false premises. Hence, where necessary, I promote clear, factual objectivity and unbiased truths (including “comparing evils”).
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” – Joseph Goebbels (Hitler’s chief propagandist).
For the rest, as said earlier, you make a number of fine points.
Nice piece pity about the patronizing blinkered comments.
There’s some irony here Kopano. Judging from your political position as laid bare here in this blog, you no doubt have decided to vote for the very political party that is responsible for the state of SA’s hospitals today, as well as the horrific crime rate, of which you no doubt witness the results of daily. And you’ll continue voting for them.
I’m afraid you’ll receive no sympathy from me. You see, you’re part of the problem.
oh my dear Kopano, things we see, things we dare not mention nor saying anything about: the exclusive squalor your people call home, the evils material nothingness. hear him say it was rubber bullets, what were they for enyways? compare it to the magoo’s bar bombing and the many years of slavery under his people, under him.
me and you are subjeccted to a system of healthcare that does nothing but kill and he, and his people, all his people have the perfect private medical fraternity to look to for anything, coz they can.
they are eager to have capital punishment for criminals, my brothers, your sisters. yeat they are the initial and most brutal criminals. they cry foul at one of them having become a victim of crime once in a blue moon, yet my people – you and me – get killed everyday in the hellholes they have confined us into – those townships. it doesn’t matter if we kill each other to them, we all look the same, anyways, replaceable.
things we see, things we dare not talk about – things we do not want to hear anything about. our squalor. our racially unequal society. they us into identifying with them as a nation – one nation. are we? is there are South African nation?
Kopano and Tafura your articles have exposed one thing: the deeply ingrained denialism in the minds of the majority of white people about the suffering of the black people under their barbaric and cruel successive governments, their desire to rubbish everything that the peoples government touches. We will never go back to the ”land of the Pharohs” must be our battle cry as we march forward to a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic, prosperious and united South Africa.
@TAFURA: Regrettably, I do not find your comments constructive to an inclusive, successful South Africa. I was so looking forward to objective, factual suggestions.
“it was rubber bullets, what were they for enyways?”
Did I condone rubber bullets? In fact, the opposite: “That also does not deny that even “rubber bullets” was a bad situation.”
“compare it to the magoo’s bar bombing.”
Yes, I will compare it. Magoo’s Bar killed innocent people. The killers had no idea whether the people inside were for or against apartheid, but decided to kill indiscriminately anyway.
“…and the many years of slavery under his people, under him.”
The only slaves in South Africa were imported (largely from the East).
“me and you are subjeccted to a system of healthcare that does nothing but kill…”
I pay a LOT of money towards that. It doesn’t work because ANC deployed cadres are messing it up. Do us both a favour, and demand good service from them, because I am just as unhappy as you with the healthcare.
However, saying it “does nothing but kill” is a blatant, obvious falsehood.
“they are the initial and most brutal criminals.”
From your earlier comments, I assume you are referring to me as a “brutal criminal” as well. You don’t know me… that some called me an ‘ANC supporter’ during apartheid… or how many previously disadvantaged people I have since helped become successful. Please build. Together. But on TRUTH.
@Garrashof: “the deeply ingrained denialism in the minds of the majority of white people.”
I did not see anybody here denying. What I did see was people objectively searching for the TRUTH, for FACTS.
So, in the spirit of searching for FACTS and TRUTH, please share with us all the independently verifiable EVIDENCE on which you make your quoted statement above.
“their desire to rubbish everything that the peoples government touches.”
That is a lie. Nobody I know rubbishes EVERYTHING the government does.
However, many do call out the government if the government does things that disadvantage the people of South Africa, especially the poor and disadvantaged that need help the most.
But it seems that when I try to involve myself as a citizen – by informing the government that (say) one of their plans is not going to help YOU best – then you blame ME for wanting to help you?
While it is clear that you are carrying a lot of hurt and anger, I cannot understand why you are venting that anger at many people that actually want to help you.
Well from these experiences you underwent through which one of them was more facinating for you. I should understand hardworking in your room on the famous Clarendon gave you good feeling we you finally heared the SMS spoke to your bank account. right now is it about the conditions under apartheid or is it the Xenophobic Violance or is it the Scorge or HIV /Aids that gets you thinking?. just asking
you have the potential to be a unique doctor in medical practice, more in the mould of Franz Fanon and Gomolemo Mokae who mixed the pen and penicillin.
of course, not only are you a great role model for the youth but your being illustrates the fact that given a chance, ANY human being, irrespective of race or colour can attain the greatest heights.
you are destined to be more than just a doctor or rhodes scholar if you keep on writing and writing and writing.
remain sensitive to the plight of the historically under-privileged. be true to yourself. above all, speak your OWN Truth as you see it.
all the best
Thank you for your kind words sandile