Perspective

It’s official; I am famous! 

Not quite post-a-sex-video-online famous but I’m getting there. This morning, for the first time ever, one of my articles was published and printed in a real newspaper with my name on it. I’ve always gotten so excited when it comes to posting an article on my blog and it says ‘Publish’ but it is one thing to publish unedited words on an online blog just as fifty billion other people do and quite another to have an editor approve your piece, insert it into her newspaper and print it.

This is why I am so excited about this piece. Yes it is only two hundred words and yes it has been stuck in a corner on a pretty obscure page and yes it is only in a campus newspaper but that doesn’t matter, what matters is that for the first time my writing is being approved of by someone I haven’t even met face to face.

This brings me to the article itself and the shocking facts I uncovered while doing the research for it. The article is about MFM 92.6’s 4C community project. MFM is our campus radio station although don’t let anyone hear you calling it that (it is a “community” radio station) and they are currently running a drive to collect cans, clothing and crayons for a community in Khayelitsha. 

And while they are only focusing on a small community the overall community consists of over 400000 people of which 47% are unemployed. That is an enormous amount of people who cannot rely on a monthly income to buy food and clothes and other basic necessities to get them through day to day living. 

And then I started to feel ashamed of myself. Guilty for being well off and believing that being broke is that awkward moment at the end of the month when you’re waiting for payday because you’ve spent all your money on vodka and eating out. Guilty for living in my own self-absorbed bubble where community service is an unspoken word and getting involved means getting drunk on copious amounts of booze and spending the night laughing at jokes that weren’t even funny the first time I heard them. 

Perspective. 

So next time I am doing my little self-important ‘I am famous’ dance I hope that I have the ability to realize that there are children out there who may have raw talent but because their parents aren’t wealthy and because people like me prefer to be sitting in my room when it is raining outside instead of joining the MFM crew in a vegetable garden in Khayelitsha, those kids will never become famous because they have no one to help them shape that talent and mould it into the artistry that it could be.

Threatening Our Country

Ours is a young democracy. It has much to learn and far to go but it is growing and will eventually reach its age. It experiences growth pains and teenage heartaches that seemingly end the world. It experiences the horrid pain of a jealous lover and the ecstasy of a newly found love. It is young and needs to be nurtured and loved, but equally disciplined. 

Our South Africa; the one we now have and love and fight for is young and we therefore expect it to experience various difficulties. We accept that not everyone will be happy immediately; we accept that things take time and we understand that various stereotypes take time to abolish from our minds but we should not accept the use of violence. I do not accept the use of violence. 

Violence and intimidation are the two most prominent words that come to mind when I think of an Apartheid South Africa. I see images of a youth running through the streets of Soweto trying hopelessly to avoid the impact of fists and bullets. I envision woman being raped by “superiors” and men being beaten to death in the street. These are images that I associate with Apartheid.

These are NOT images that we should associate in this day and age with a simple by-election in a municipality that holds much promise. And yet it seems that a by-election in which each member of that municipality has the right to a free vote is reason enough for intimidation tactics and threats. It seems to have become common place for a drunken ANC councillor to purposefully run over a DA member. And somewhere along our growth it became okay for a female DA councillor to be threatened by male councillors of another party.

I wish for this article to ignore the fact that I am a DA member. I wish to put the politics and personal aspirations aside and focus on one singular topic; when did it become okay to use physical means to win the vote of a ‘free’ man?

South Africa can be viewed in two completely different ways; you could see it merely for the ground on which you live and the food which it provides or you can see it as I do, a nation of people separated by culture, language, skin colour and faith but who share a common goal and purpose and that is to love freely and without boundaries.

The Rainbow Nation is an idea, a concept and it is fragile and can be easily thrown into the dirt, but with each believer it becomes strong. Strong enough to overthrow an oppressive government. Strong enough to bring freedom to those who never believed they would ever taste its sweetness. Strong enough to push a single green sprout through the fire-blackened earth to bring hope for the next season.

It is this very idea that has lead South Africa to where we are now and it is in forgetting this idea that we turn to violence and intimidation. To intimidate a voter into voting for you makes you no better than your opposition. Only a lesser man would need such methods to convince a populous of his superiority. True leaders are the ones who are followed because they are valued and trusted. True leaders would think only of the growth of South Africa instead of his/her own personal gain. A true leader would never threaten the opposition into submission.

And so it is with this in mind that I sit here wondering how it is possible for one man to see another and have the overwhelming desire to run him down.