There is a “thing” in the air. It’s not quite fear, not quite anxiety, not quite hopelessness, a tension, a deep crack in our society which is threatening to shift the ground we walk on together, separately. We can no longer afford to carry on living side by side, barely able to look at each other in the eye, shouting at each other at safe distances across racial, political and class lines. We cannot continue to pretend we are okay when we are clearly not.
The rainbow nation’s colours are fading; the reality of our democracy is not quite meeting anyone’s expectations. The pot of gold has barely been distributed, and there’s a growing perception that it still sits mainly with those it sat with all those many years ago. As the clocks tick, it seems the willingness to share is no longer there, “you are free now, create your own wealth”. There is growing resentment amongst those who don’t have, a failing education system, a growing economy that sheds jobs, yet the highways are barely big enough to accommodate the fancy cars some have the luxury to buy.
A frustrated middle class that has run out of ideas has found a new sport. Uproar.
Service delivery protests, xenophobic attacks, Malema, corruption, racism. Uproar. The country has found a new drug for its pain. Noise.
Robust debate has become a natural sport, an avenue to direct the tension, because silence will force us to face the real issue. We have been working on that by eradicating unemployment, poverty and inequality, we will miraculously fix social cohesion. If everyone is fed, we’ll all just get along. Years of a fairly stable economy that has unfortunately not grown fast enough to tackle these issues, we have found ourselves silently screaming for help, while audibly screaming at each other.
We are not okay.
We have a crisis on our hands, and our petulance for creating infinite villains is only a weak distraction from the simple fact that we have run out of ideas. We are now dedicating our attention to audits and blame, the result of which brings us no closer to solutions but pulls us only further apart.
This is not simply a crisis of visionless leadership or kleptomaniac civil servants. This is more than about a dilapidated education system and rigid teachers’ unions. This is more than about insensitive leaders and denialism. This goes much deeper than fears of a possible youth uprising, or the possibility that the next financial crisis may not leave the middle class largely unscathed.
We naively thought we could solve great problems when we can barely have a national conversation without throwing insults and accusations at each other. Looking at us now, the architects of apartheid are probably dancing on their own graves. This is exactly what apartheid hoped to achieve, well done South Africa.
In the words of a crackpot psychologist, how is this working for you? Waking up on Monday morning and spending an entire week shouting at each other, relieving the tension, or blaming someone else for it.
Consider for a minute that the structural issues plaguing the economy might just be a manifestation of the issues that plague our society. Maybe this economy is just a reflection of us. Until we are able to have a decent conversation, we cannot hope to get to make the compromises that are required to move our nation forward. We cannot hope to create a space that allows for innovative leadership and creative solutions. We cannot hope to move forward from this sorry state we are in.
But in this conversation, who is allowed to speak?
@Simon – Well said! Sums it up perfectly.
@Zama, what you are fearing is your fear. Can you wrap your head around that, just for a minute and consider the position you are in and ask yourself if that fear is really justified. I have another twist on it though. I believe that we have been given so much flat earth news, we are beginning to believe it. Also we are not interrogating the information that is being fed to us. I think that we have become willing partners and we have allowed ourselves to be co-opted to their fear. Also, ask yourself where is this fear coming from. Its coming from the information that you have allowed yourself to be influenced by. Be careful of their fear, break out, clear your head, look around you, there is still so much to do and so much to celebrate. Liberate your mind and just let it be. Ke sera, what will be, will be.
Robust debate requires a removal of emotion from the equation.
Unfortunately this equation has been unbalanced in an active sense over years and years, going back to the simultaneous settling of South Africa by both European and Bantu immigrants. Everything that has happened in our history since then has only achieved further unbalance. Even World Cup victories and successful hostings have only served to paper of the cracks, giving a false impression of unity.
Robust debate is what we need though. So thank you, Zama, for describing so eloquently why we cannot have this yet. I agree, we are not okay.
Let’s be completely honest here. Whites aren’t doing any of the real complaining (especially the tyre burning, library razing, school demolishing type), it’s a one sided affair here. But I understand it. I also understand that until black South Africans stop looking for the proverbial Apartheid boogeyman under every self inflicted problem, race relations, economic woes and social issues will NEVER improve.
South Africa is at a cross-roads though. We first world people vote our problems out (as we’re hoping to do this November in The US), how do you get rid of yours? You see you’re part of the problem Zama, you’ll continue to blindly vote your problem makers back in, time and time again! So, you have very little sympathy from me, as you believe the ANC’s struggle credentials carry some weight.
Not I though. I saw all this unfolding 15 years ago and promptly left before I was trapped. The racial lines were drawn by the ANC back then, and they were evidently (to me) indelible. And your penchant for overlooking your government issues in favour of attempting to find ‘solutions’ (and thus absolving the ANC of their electoral responsibilities) to mythical ‘unique’ problems, does nothing to help your nation move forward.
Vote these people out. And then maybe, MAYBE you’ll start to understand how a truly democratic society thrives. Until then though, you’ll all have to wallow in it.
One has to dig deeper to find a solution to the problem of this uneasiness. Why dit it happen, why can we not cope with it? Is it because that there is no foundation, you can not build without a foundation, it will collapse.
In 1994 there was a infrastructure foundation but we decided to build elsewhere, thousands of competant people in the public service and education and other services were given severence packages and asked to leave.
The new building started without a solid foundation and now we asked ourselves, why is it collapsing, why isn’t it working? At the same time we also offered empty promises, promises that we hoped the fairy godmother will provide.
How on earth is SA going to have a cohesive society if the government is intent on dividing people by ethnic origin. Allowing advertisements that state “blacks only” is only going to exacerbate the brain drain, leaving behind a semi-educated population. The ANC has been very slow in reacting to those who express extreme anti-white ideas in multiple times public (Malema), yet stomp their feet about individual white people who get angry and call people kaffir in the heat of the moment.
This country needs every educated person it can muster. The way SA is going, we will see the infrastructure crumble – as it is already – until we are another Nigeria/Ghana. Bribery and corruption will be the norm and everyone will have their own petrol generators to power their homes after the poles have all been stolen.
Stop it with the black conciousness/black power/new apartheid please!
Disappointed that you have reached this conclusion only now!
Robust debate requires honesty and trust. Different races in this country hardly trust each other. Each race has its own agendas that often are incongruent with national interest.
Do I believe in South Africa? I really want to, but I simply cannot. There is just too much wrong, for it to be ultimately right. We have very little to be proud of. The lives of the majority of South Africans has not changed after the struggle. In many cases, our lives have actually gotten worse. The struggle was declared over prematurely. We have made decidedly pathetic choices that make no sense whatsoever: Hosting world cups/ buying arms/ building supertrains and highways……all of which served agendas and benefitted few.
The value of a South African life is minimal. We drive like hell, have reckless sex, drink like there is no tomorrow, and let whoever wants to come into our country. We have no self-worth. We care for none other than ourselves. We have no standards.
There is very little to be positive about.
Robust debate?? ‘There are none so deaf as those who will not hear’. ‘There are none so blind as those who will not see’. ‘Be reasonable – do it may way’. The solution to problems cannot be solved as long as the above applies and as long as false expectations and promises are made! As long as Robust Debate is controlled by politics it cannot and will not succeed. Rather boo or drown out all other thought as the best way forward! Majority thought and methods are not necessarily the best for all.
Are you talking about SA or Spain? Gosh, I could just replace a few ‘localisms,’ have it published in a newspaper here and will expect reactions that should call up our own devils. The architects of the Spanish fascist regime that nominaly ended in 1975 are having an orgy on their graves – record unemployment, hopelessness among the coming generation, rampant corruption (i’d say by default) in our body politic, a shrinking middle class, racial tensions and blaming of the Others for taking our jobs, social benefits, etc. Thank you for your comment. I has made me think that frustration, like capital and profits have become globalised. I’m sharing it with my students, as incidentally next week I’m teaching a module on the rise and fall of Apartheid. Good Luck.
Juan José Cruz
University of La Laguna, Spain
@Zama…thanks for your post!
@Andrew, are emotions not part of what makes us human, acknowledging that this can ‘feed’ the ‘best’ and the ‘worst’ of our potential? Before ‘robust debate’, necessary as that also is, Zama seems to call for having a decent conversation, within and across the bounderies that seem to hold groups hostage to a past that obviously has not passed on. Jonathan Jansen’s 2011 publication “We need to talk” offered a similar ímpetus.
How then can we go about creating spaces for such on-going honest conversation in South Africa, with ourselves, each other and those who keep visiting us?
Significantly, we already share one of the world’s most progressive Constitutions, an ideal to live up to on a daily basis. But to what extent do we share the concern that ‘WE ARE NOT OKAY’? And of course, who constitutes ‘WE’ in this question? In the preamble it seems clear: ‘all people who live in this country’. In everyday life, it more so depicts a continuum between extremes, some people who appear to be “more than OK” and others who are “far from OK”. But can any community or society ever be(come) sustainably OK if the continuum’s elastic band keeps getting stretched further and further and further?
For what it’s worth, I cannot be OK if we (in the preamble sense of the word) are not @ work of becoming OK together. An “honest conversation” and “robust debate” are not THE answer but part of creating one…while history’s patience seems to be running thin…
“This is not simply a crisis of visionless leadership or kleptomaniac civil servants.”
NO, that simply IS the problem.
The purpose of a debate is to convince others that one party’s argument is more correct than another. I think the time for debate is past.
There must exist a place (in the cloud?) where people of goodwill can meet without casting stones and have useful conversations. Their only aim should be to improve on what is, without recrimination: one step at a time, if that is all it finds possible. At least it is accomplishment and at least debate would be elevated to ‘how’ from ongoing fault finding.
I often suspect The gift of the givers consistently hits the right note. It continually goes wherever it is most needed, irrespective of religion, creed and race. Why cannot we do the same? Why can we not rise above our petty blaming and start to mend things that others have broken?
And those that say that apartheid was far from petty…that is no longer the point…it is we who are now being petty. We all waste breath on past issues, instead of building a better future together.
Many agree that the state won’t get it right, due to lousy leadership, but why can’t we show it how things should be done? Put it to shame. I wish each of us common, ordinary folk would show our leaders that we are ‘bigger’ people than they; that we are the rightful celebrities of the system.
Great post, Zama!
This is a great post Zama and a discussion we all need to partake in.
I am concerned that we, and I say we because we are all in this together no matter what our individual thoughts are, continue to dig up issues of the past in dealing with things of the here now. Many ot the past issues are in excess of 15 yeas old and whilst we should not forget them, it is not helping us to make decisions now about the future. Past issues are extremely devisive and therefore counter-productive and unhelpful.
We need to move to a place where we ALL in a unified way acknowledge and accept what is right and what is wrong. It is brainless that our society continues to mitigate and defend what is clearly wrong on the basis of the past or ideaology. We owe it to ourselves and our children to set the country on a path that is unequivocally clear in its understanding of right from wrong.
The ultimate question is how do we achieve this and for me Guinessholic has hit the proverbial nail on the head.
It’s simple – we sort it out by exercising our democratic vote in a manner which throws out the rotten, greedy, corrupt, irresponsible (I think you know what I mean). If we contiuue to vote for a regime that is not truly interested in doing what is right then we will continue to flounder in an atmosphere that is everything we dont want it to be. In the end we hold the power with our vote and if we use that vote negligently we should not squeal in the aftermath.
@Zama. Thank you for your precise articulation of my own deep concern about the present state of our nation. Though not yet like the real, awful fear I felt the day Chris Hani was assassinated, it’s getting there.
As a white latecomer to the South African struggle for freedom from apartheid I would suggest that this was only phase 0ne of the struggle. As conveyed in the response you received from Juan José Cruz in Spain, phase two will be, is, the global struggle for economic freedom.
The frustration and anger about the lack of vision, and economic orthodoxy, of our current national leadership is clear in other responses to your commentary. Dare I suggest that only by focusing this emotive energy on finding local economic solutions to our severe levels of poverty and lack of social cohesion will this negative flow of energy be transformed into a positive flow which produces a meaningful outcome? And, as per Section 152 of our Constitution, that establishing the local social cohesion necessary to inform and fulfill this purpose is in fact the first step in this due process?
For if we continue to just argue about what is wrong nationally we will all, slowly and surely, continue towards the inevitable, local, abyss of yet deeper economic misery and social dysfunction. This is where we actually live after all.
It is a pity that there should be all this blah about changing the Constitution, when what is really necessary it a change of representation in the Voting system. If someone is accountable personally to his/her voters and is known and accessable he(she) is then unable to ‘pass the buck’ and will be forced to cope with the problems. Or be voted ‘out’.
Continually voting for a party because of a view of ‘patriotism’, though understandable in an unsophisticated population unused to voting, will only lead to the situation prevailing now. A greater challenge through the ballot keeps politicians on their toes, forcing them to do more or less as promised or lose their vote.
The economic downturn will not help currently, but playing a continual racist blame game is entirely unhelpful. Politicians love to blame the ‘situation inherited’, but after seventeen or eighteen years? Really? India (ex colonial) is now becoming a ecconomicpower house and owns much of British Industry currently. Unfortunately, thousands of her people still live in excrutiating circumstances – rivalling or exceeding the conditions of many South Africans. Is this to be blamed on the British Colonials, or the Indian Government? Just asking.
Write this down. National happiness will never happen, here or anywhere else. It’s not in our nature, as a collective, to be happy with the status quo. But stability and prosperity CAN happen. The essential ingredient to make that happen is an educated, cynical electorate, that expects their leaders to deliver (actions, not words) and votes them out if they do not.
What is holding Africans back is, in a word, loyalty. It is exemplified by the ANCs statement that they do not expel those who make mistakes (with one notable exception), but rather nurture them so they can learn from their mistakes. They expect their voters to do the same. In a word, to tolerate failure.
This isn’t one small aspect of the ANC ethos. It’s the core of it. The whole structure – of cadre deployment, internal decision making and party discipline – is built on blind obedience to the collective. It’s a perfect recipe for mediocracy, the primacy of the lowest common denominator. It’s the antithesis of promoting excellence.
In this context, the emergence of the DA as a serious contender on our political landscape is hugely significant, because the DA exemplifies excellence (at least in our local context). Voting for the DA means voting for the power of the individual to succeed, and to benefit others in so doing. Which is the secret of national success – even in Africa (think Shaka Zulu – did he represent the collective, or stand out from it?)
@Guinnessholic, in the US from the president all the way down to the state and local level, the officials are elected by the people. The government in the US is decentralized with the state and local governments providing the services in the US. The president power in the US is limited and congress has most of the power in the US government. The US has a vast private sector that used their money to buy influence in the government.
In SA none of the officials in SA are directly elected by the people and accountable to the people in SA. When the people vote in SA they vote for a party and the party name anybody they want to be president or any other officials. The government is highly centralized and SA is run by a group of kingmakers along with a bunch of cronies. The rich in SA used their money to buy influence in the government and the SA government is very corrupted. When people are kicked out of office in SA there is nowhere for most of them to go. In the US the people leave office go work for the private sector and earn more money when they worked for the government.
Therefore, coming November in the US nothing is going to change except a face because the government will be run the same way. As Michael Moor says Wall Street will still be the boss in Washington. The Republican party get money from the same sources the Democrats party get their from.
Its absolutely normal that before any great change one is overcome by a sense of foreboding and sadness.
During our struggle, there was fear on both sides, the oppressed and the oppressor, because both know of the looming changes that were just around the corner.
Our obscene socioeconomic disparity cannot go on. Land reform together with some form of nationalization and the intensification of affirmative action to place more blacks in control of our economy must happen soon. Remember at every step of the way, the beneficiaries of apartheid only changed when they were FORCED to, never merely out of the goodness of their hearts. That is the sad realization we’ve come to in SA.
The distribution. That’s what it all comes down to for some. So lets distribute and then what? You think that will solve the problems of our country? You think when the white guy has his wealth stripped from him and given to the black guy then all will be well? Look north and see what happened there. They did it and every black South African cheered on the inside and and some on the outside and still they are a mess up there, now even bigger than before.
The solution to this problem lies within. It is a pride and a breaking free of the mind that black South Africa must achieve that nobody but they can do for themselves. You can take all the material wealth in the world away from every white soul in the land and you can distribute until you drop but until it sinks in that wealth the ABILITY that lies within to interact in a meaningful way in an economy, it will be for nothing. You strip a wealthy man of his complete wealth and you will set him back but he will never starve. He will rise again because his true wealth is his ability to create, lead and know what to do.
So please beat on about how the whites are clinging to their money; they should hand it over and leave their houses then everything would be fine. All would be well and life would be fair. Whites brought much of their ‘wealth’ in their heads when they arrived. Did they exploit the black man? Yes. Is it the reason for all his woes now? Not even close.
@Jean, Mathole was interviewed the other day and said that the people in SA were too ignorant to have direct elections. He says that too many people were illiterate and not well enough informed to make rational decisions about the government. However, I think the main reason why he says this is because most Africans fear the return of tribalism in the government like other African countries with direct elections. Many African leaders are talking about racism in SA but, the big threat in SA and Africa is tribalism.
Unti there is a total realization and accpetance that the African Nationalists are taking this country down the path of doom, there is no hope. The African Nationalists that you all celebrate but never hold accountable are confident that the “masses” and the “elite” will always vote them in per African style because of their singing and dancing.
Why is there no outrage on the latest fiscal scandals involving anyone from the Cappo ‘s lawyer to sitting ministers.
Why not ask why this is totally criticized? Why is it that the rest of the yet to be liberated from the struggle of ractheir “leaders” out not out demanding accountabilty? It is precislely ? Why is it that the new “black middle class” is so comfortable with lack of accountability? Is it because they are hoping for their chances to join the feeding at the trough? Until this new “middle class” votes for the opposition, I can guarantee that you will outdo and outperform Zimbabwe.
It is not until, you look at your fellow country men beyond the racial barriers that this uneasiness will go away. The uneasiness is the sub concious slowly eating away. In other words, it is the quilt! The guilt that you and the rest of new “middle class” know that you will probably be the first to be fed as fodder when it happens. For the truly connected few political hacks will up and leave.
To be or not to be. To share or not. Who to blame for the current socio-economic impasse? The dilemma everywhere in Africa, is that of an electorate taken for granted by those elected. As long as there is no constitutional mechanism of bringing the elected to book and accountabilty – problems will remain. The idea of blaming all short-comings on past colonial rule or apartheid is typical hypocrisy. As long as we are not bold enough to blame the man in the mirror – no solution is coming. African politicians thrive on race differentials, simple political blackmail and abject lack of honesty and frankness. How long are we going to blame colonialism for our current inefficiency, ineptness, incompetence and outright slothfulnes? We love to reap where we did not sow under the disguise of addressing some historical wrongs. We love easy, over the night wealth. We hate long term. Here in Zimbabwe, we are still blaming whites, even for potholes resulting from this 2011/12 rain-season. We took the land, but how many are seriously farming out there? Its a fact, right now as you read this, we are importing maize and busy barraging and blaming anything, anyone but ourselves. Over the cellphone farmers, people who love to stay in cities and yet still want farms just for the sake of owning a farm. Yes, its a natural right people must be given land, but if one cant farm why should they be given a farm? We cry for land, we get land, then we lease it to the chinese, then we go and stay in the…
… in the cities. We loot and plunder, then take that money and bank it outside with foreign banks of the same whites we say are enemies. When we are pushed out of power, that very money is frozen in foreign accounts. Meanwhile we are crying about lack of investment. I seriously have something about an African politician. We people lack shame. In shona, ‘hatina nyadzi.’
“it still sits with those it sat with all those many years ago” …. Correction… although miniscule there has been a significant economic shift towards the previously disadvantaged. Unfortunately however the largest and juiciest portions have landed in the hands of the “predatory elite” who have absolutely no ability to contribute (add value to the economy). They remain consumers and do not add value. This means that we do not have a base from which to move towards creating a critical mass for the previously disadvantaged.
More tragically however, the past 20 years has not delivered the educated and skilled base from which the majority can begin to take advantage of economic restitution because of the gutter education we have fed and continue to feed.
Incidentally, I hold the view with which you seem to disagree when you state “you are free, create your own.” It is precisely the exploitation of this “fuzzy togetherness through sharing ” that the govt has removed the responsibility/right of the majority to self determine their economic future because big brother will deliver for you, that has landed us in this predatory state. Sharing “potential wealth” in this environment of educational and skills disempowerment will lead to monumental disaster. It is only when the majority are empowered educationally that we will have a fighting chance of succeeding.
As Malema said, not everybody in the ANC and supports it agrees with the end goal of the NDR!
@Lucky, you should read Achille Mbembe’s book “On Postcolony” in his book he calls blaming the past for the country failures as “neurosis of victimization”.
OK, now I have read al comments and the “why’s” of the failure and the “we should’s” or the “they should’s” ….now what??
What are “we” going to do now and when??????
@Sterling. Thanks for your comment Didn’t hear Mathole’s interview, but think this is infinitely patronising. Some people may be illiterate and naive, but they are still able to reason and know what is required in their societies. How to achieve it will of course need education and experience. There were thousands (until fairly recenty) who were illeterate in the UK, but it didn’t stop them from getting together to form Trade Unions and eventually establishing the Labour Party.
One could perhaps equate the British ‘Rotten Boroughs’ with Tribal Chiefs (not exact
but not far off) and that was abolished due to challenges to the then prevailing power of the Upper Classes.
From experience and from reading various comments on these blogs, it is clear that there are many Africans from dark to light who are highly intelligent. It is in their hands to get together constructively for change. Hope it happens, and I’m sure it will, but at the risk of being trite Rome was not built in a day.
What is needed is a change in mindset. At one time in the UK ‘working class’ people wouldn’t consider voting anything but Labour, but with more education and affluence, this has changed and voting is much more ‘cross-class’ now.
What nation? All we have are a crowd of rich people paying journalists to write that it’s all the fault of the poor, a crowd of sleazeballs paying journalists to write that it’s all the fault of the non-sleazeballs, and a crowd of desperate thugs stumbling around smashing things because they can’t get their hands on the people who’ve made them desperate.
We don’t have a nation. There’s no sense of nationalism that I read in any of these comments above. We’re a crowd of deluded, racist, tribalist fools fighting among ourselves for table scraps.
@Dave Harris, I can’t understand why you are in denial that the biggest enemies of Africa development are the African leaders. These people are stealing money and taking it off shores to western banks. In the mean times these leaders will make great speeches in Africa calling the people in Europe and America their enemies. If the Africa leaders and their cronies would bring half of their money back to Africa and invest it in Africa, there would be an economic boom in Africa.
@ Zama, you are right and have hit the nail on the head. It is indeed distressing that 20 years after our liberation , we are witnessing the resurgence of the horrific spectacle of necklacing in the townships -this time the hapless victims being brutally murdered for minor petty crimes and the cops are nowhere to be seen. Is this what so many of us fought for and sacrificed for during the days of the ‘struggle’. This makes my guts turn.
We have brutalised and criminalised our people by implementing the destructive economic policies of the World Bank, IMF, WTO and the global financial elite and their local apparatchiks like Trevor Manuel, Maria ramos, Tito Mboweni, Thabo Mbeki, Pravin Gordhan et al. We were sold lie upon lie.Millions of jobs have been destroyed, our currency is miserably weak, and all the benefits of growth have accrued to the elite both old and new- our 1%. Trickle-down monetarist policies have only widened the inequality. A hand-ful of the chosen few have done fabulously well while the other 99% of us are being impoverished daily.
Yet, there is no willingness to change course and seriously consider other real alternatives like a public banking system, tax reform( land tax and transaction tax), capital controls and a degree of protectionism. There is a stubborn failure to face up to the serious economic headwinds of PEAK OIL and its dire implications for us all. There is an obsequious pandering to the whims of our imperialist masters (Iran sanctions
@Sterling, I think you should stop attributing statements to certain people or sections in our community, simply because they NEVER said or thought what you accuse them of. It is dishonest and borders on sinister and wilfully manipulating a discussion to have a certain outcome. It is totally disingenuous on your part.
@Tofolux, you didn’t state what I said that wasn’t true. If you are talking about the report in Sowetan when Mathole says the people in SA were not ready for direct elections of parliament or even half of parliament being directly elected because, the people were illiterate and not informed? I think you should apology to me for being so brutal with your pen.
What is even more horrifying is that the 20,000 deaths in the township war between the ANC and IFP, many of them by necklacing were NONE of them investigated by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
How can that by any stretch of the imagination be either the Truth or effect Reconciliation?
“Most regrettably, we now seem immersed in a situation of conflict which, among other things, has brought back to the national agenda of that country the enemy to progressive change represented by ethnic divisions and antagonisms…It is however clear that in the same way that we cannot avoid it…without that process of fundamental transformation in the interests of the people, which constitutes the core of the vision of an African Renaissance.
An enormous challenge faces all of us to do everything we can to contribute to the recovery of African pride, the confidence in ourselves that we can succeed as well as any other in building a humane and prosperous society.
None of us can estimate or measure with any certainty the impact that centuries of the denial of our humanity and contempt for the colour black by many around the world have had on ourselves as Africans.
But clearly it cannot be that successive periods of slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism and the continuing marginalisation of our Continent could not have had an effect on our psyche and therefore our ability to take our destiny into our own hands.” ~ statement by then Deputy President Thabo Mbeki at the African Renaissance Conference, 28 September 1998
It’s so beautiful to me how it fits so very well to so very many real day to day circumstances , it rings so true.
Well written and thoughts well set out. For as long as we as South Africans will tolerate the current style of our politicians, nobody will move forward. Somewhere the wisdom must be found that it is nor about grabbing power. It is about finding solutions together.
I share Zama’s fear. I know what she refers to. Only a very unwise person will not fear the moment when the current political tight rope we are on snaps.
Sandra Dickson
I’m reaching out as hard as I can and I will keep doing it relentlessly.
The minority speak louder than the majority. The minority seem to be more knowledgeable than the majority. The minority have more access to resources than the majority. Nevertheless what role do they play to influence the majority positively? Talk is so cheap; they criticize reference and quote the best from the best but is it helping? NO!
The change is not about highlighting the problem and act as if you not part of it but finding solution…
POTHOLES Try phoning and reporting this
TALISMAN Mental health patients eating one meal a day,no money available Why not?
EDUCATION CRISIS Get a good management team and sort it
CORRUPT POLICE Global but DO SOMETHING
HEALTH CRISIS FIRE SOME PEOPLE
WATER CRISIS DO something
E TOLL ARROGANCE consult your nation
WHITE AND BLACK GOODWILL use it don’t belittle it
POLITICIANS AND MEDIA WHO DIVIDE OUR NATION vote them out
Ethics does anyone know the meaning of the word?
it is all about getting involved and making a difference where we are,with what we’ve got. It is about altruism,ubuntu and situational leadership.GOVERNANCE SHOULD WORK AT A GRASSROOTS LEVEL.And when it all seems overwhelming I BELIEVE THERE IS HOPE. Stuff the titles,lets work together and show the world what happens
when the force of good overpowers evil.Focus on the goal,and break it into achievable steps. We are relying on the youth to improve things so teachers please teach the values and skills to do this. Bugger fretting about the past,the west.Stop blaming and just get CRACKING with the JOB at hand, the rest will fall into place……..
I am an American coming to your country in October. This will be our first visit. The article made me think am I reading about the US or SA? We are not as different as most think. You have elephants, we have bison. A nice difference is the willingness of you bloggers sharing your opinions without calling names or attacking each other in harmful ways. Not a frequent occurrence here.
We have high unemployment, racial division, homophobia, corrupt government, insane crime, inadequate schooling. Our political clime is as close to your era of apartheid as we have ever been. I call it the “Slander, Slaughter Period”. We are imploding socially and financially. Sound familiar?
I come from the civil rights era. A black female, married and mother of 2 sons. Our “leaders” must be crying over this place we call home. They lived and died for this? Detroit Michigan is slowly becoming District 6. Many inner cites are boarded up and these vacancies are used for smoking crack, tik, raping and killing children and many youth never attain an adequate education. When they do there are no jobs. We are not so different.
I believe that it is not politics that set our standards, it’s individuals who care. I pray for a safe holiday in your country and an opportunity to meet folks like you. We need to openly discuss all areas of concern and share HONEST opinions. Small groups can create big crowds. I applaud the young lady who wrote this article. Share and keep the faith.