You will find it rather difficult to be true to yourself and not disappoint people during the course of your life. Periodically you will be faced with the choice where you can either take your position behind yourself or side with the populist point of view all in the interest of not rubbing people the wrong way. There is a risk to taking your position – you may turn out to be wrong and that can be a rather huge blow to your ego, but what good is the freedom of choice that you are entitled to if you waver it in the name of safety.
As a generation, we are no longer the youth or the children of the nation – we are growing and will soon be the nation. Soon the nation will not be steered by the decisions of our parents but by the decisions ourselves. What choices will you make with your life now that it is you and only you who can back them? With no mommy and daddy to defend you and clean up your mess after you, what is it that you choose to do with this new liberty that you have – this new power? Will you hide it and conceal it from the public so not to lose public favour or will you use it wisely and honourably for the community that raised you?
South Africa is our community – whether you like it or not. Many of us were born here, bred here and taught here. Our nation’s resources were used to feed us food for our bodies, our minds and our spirits. Many of us developed the founding years of our character here and this nation is as much in our blood as the genes of our respective families. What then will we do for this country that mothered hearts and fathered our souls?
It is scary to stand against convention and the norm when it has so many who have pledged their allegiance to it. Unfortunately, convention and the norm has claimed the liberty and freedom of many of us. Subjected by the rule of those in power – through money, knowledge and even fear – we sit tamed and helpless, obeying their orders so as not to shake the waters and bite the proverbial hand that feeds us. That fear can go only so far until one is mobilised by enough resolve – through anger, love or a combination of both – to strike back at the system that allows so many to suffer.
Amongst our midst we have traitors – not to the flag but to the clan. I speak of the national clan of South Africa. Amongst us, there are the weak dwellers who find no greater joy than to dismantle the nation brick by bring through their hate speech and their criticisms. They hide behind closed private doors, anonymous forum names and messages and spread foul words about our nation. They consume our resources, rape our land, abuse our people and do nothing in response but sully its name in an effort to try and make themselves feel better about themselves.
They fantasise and speak about going overseas as though it is the Promised Land and wish to leave this hell hole of a country. Every person who reads this knows exactly of whom I speak. It would be easy to picture a white person because the majority of them in our experience have been white but they have members who are Black as well as Asian, Indian and Coloured. I have no ill feelings towards someone who decides to leave to broaden their perspective and learn more about the world, but to do so whilst defecating on our country will not be accepted.
Their favourite thing to say is that South Africa will one day be like Zimbabwe – another nation laughed at and ridiculed. These are our African brothers and the world of the ‘haves’ think it funny and good sport to slander the nations name when its people most need support and encouragement. They treat Africa like God’s punch line whilst at the same time raping it of its resources and giving it peanuts in compensation.
It would be so easy to a**ign the role of the enemy to the ‘white man’ but the white man is not the enemy. The enemy is us and our refusal to grow as a people. We spend more time fighting – each other, defending ourselves from the barrage of judgement from those that will never understand and other – than we do building. We spend so much time trying to appear as a First World country we have completely forsaken ourselves. We treat each other like they treat us and try run our nation like they run it. We are not satisfied with being us that we try so hard to be like or even be them – and that is something that will never happen.
No matter how we dress, how we speak, how we act, what we do and where we go, we will never be them. We will always be replicas – an extension of their culture and their civilisation – but we will never be them.
Until we realise that there is nothing wrong with being us, we will miss the opportunity to grow as a people into a culture and civilisation that is respected and revered. Until we stop looking outside of ourselves for all the things we desire instead of within, we will forever stay the subordinate people that we are. ‘If you do not look within, you will go without.’
Rise up my people! The success of our nation is not dependant on the prosperity of a few selected individuals but rather reliant on the prosperity of all. Like any good chain, it is the responsibility of every link to ensure that they hold their own weight. Our African culture is bore out of a communal society, not one of individuals. The reason we have not been making the advancement as we desire it to have been done is because we have been doing it their way and it has not been working because it isn’t in our blood to leave others behind nor is it in our blood to expect to be carried forever.
Let us educate ourselves and skill ourselves and let us show them that we don’t need them. Let us show them that whilst we appreciate their involvement and participation we do not beg for it. We are a strong people who suffered centuries of oppression and subjugation and still we stand. With the best parts of our lands taken from us and our cultures all but lost – our identities in history distorted or omitted by those who enslaved us – we still stand and we still grow. Let the success of one be a testament of all and let us breed a new generation us. Let us contribute to a population of South Africans who raise this nation above their shoulders and hold it in the heavens.
Let us laugh in the faces of those that say we cannot do it and cheer with those that say we can. We are this lands heart and soul and are the roots of this great continent’s legacy. If we can service this land, we can survive any adversary that stands between us and our destiny.
God Bless Africa
Guide our Rulers
Guard our People
And give us peace
