I am the eternal optimist, the girl who carries my South Africa tattoo with pride, the girl who runs social media pages promoting the positivity of the country that burns its love into my soul but every day, inch by inch, my positive force is wearing thin.
My heart is broken and my eyes fill with tears for my country that seems to have lost its way. Tonight our President (who is far from deserving of the title) will deliver his State of the Nation address and Eskom have just advised us that there is a high probability of Stage 2 Load Shedding. I can’t decide if that is hilarious or just downright depressing.
I have travelled overseas and I lived in the cold United Kingdom. I have worked in the hospitality industry and pushed my feelings onto other people about the strength and brilliance of this land, and never once has my love faltered, yet now I find myself considering my future and seriously considering whether I can raise children here.
I sit and wonder about a life in some other place in our vast world that I know I will never truly call home because Africa is my home. I bleed green and gold and I am fierce in my determination that things cannot get any worse, yet I keep feeling the disappointment when they do, in fact, get worse. The pain is not dissimilar to being betrayed by the person closest to you in your life, and my Country has betrayed me in the worst possible way.
There is talk of a two week blackout, a civil war, genocide?! I beg of you to tell me who wants this! How is it possible that the minority and I have to believe it is the minority have the power to destroy the majority?!
The hardest thing for me is the stark reality that the majority of South Africans have the same fierce passion as me, that we want our country to succeed and become the nation it was post 1994 when the great Nelson Mandela carried his torch of love and forgiveness. I believe our Madiba is turning in his grave watching the family he fought so hard to unite, slowly ebb away and break apart. And there is no RACE issue, black, pink, purple, green and white; I believe that across all cultures it is the majority that feels the love and passion I do, yet has lost the will to fight for it.
We, as South Africans, have lost our patience and our hope. I do not see many people fighting for what we love, but fighting to obtain foreign citizenship. The learned are leaving and the bleeding streets are a stark reminder of the hate and sense of entitlement that only a small portion of people feel, yet that small portion seem to have so much power in destroying the hope of the people who want to make this country work.
I have always believed that I would be able to make a difference by focusing on the good that happens in my home and up until recently I think I have done a fair bit to reinforce that hope but today I sit here, writing this article and facing the reality that I don’t think there are enough of us with hope left to make any difference to the rot and decay that spreads amongst our family.
I do not want to leave my home, I do not want to run from the battle but unless there is a very urgent shift in our mindsets and in particular a call for Jacob Zuma to step down, I foresee a future for me that is bleak, not because I will be here facing the realities of crime, poverty and lack of basic services but because I will have to leave here, and hold my home as only a memory of a land with great potential that never quite made it work….. and it is that fact that breaks my heart into tiny shattered pieces of lost hope.
Any feedback regarding this? Leave a comment and let me know. Let’s get a discussion going
