We have spent almost two decades “fixing” the wrongs of the “past”.
In truth, it seems that we have never had a government for the people, by the people in South Africa. We started off before the VOC rocked up with their little ships, with an inland turmoil that bordered on successful genocide. Africa’s always been a bit of a rough continent, hasn’t it?
I am not going to walk you through the last 300-and-something years.
I am, frankly, pretty tired of having the past shoved down someone’s throat, either the survivors of the Anglo Boer war when I was a child, who still looked at English speaking South Africans with mistrust, or the youth, who scream having been wronged in a time before they were even conceived.
What is done, is done, and unless we figure out how we are going to live tomorrow and the day after, the past won’t make one bit of difference to any of us.
Our government blames white farmer murders on the whites, it shoves Malema down our throats with big show, to distract us from the real crisis going on in this country – it’s being robbed blind, raped and left for dead.
Before we can say a thing, the implementation of Agenda 21 dictates that the e-tolls must go forward – out government signed the paperwork. Before we can protest, our money is spent on the biggest load of self-serving enrichment a government has ever thought up.
No – it’s not just Nkandla, it’s the “freebie” highway that leads to it.
No, it’s not just Jacob’s embarrassing the country with his “it’s my culture” stance, it’s the cost of his lifestyle added to his ignorance, that not only infuriates, but costs lives.
Isn’t this what the entire struggle was about? Trying to fix this garbage?
When I was a kid and the Yes/No Referendum came along, I had no way to have an opinion of my own: my folks’ opinions shaped my own.
As I grew up, I learned that our family straddled the dream of a segregated South Africa, with reactionaries on both ends of the spectrum. It’s never been an easy deduction for me to figure out where they really stand, and what they really want… I just want a place where I can live, where I have the same opportunities as the guy next to me, regardless of our race, colour, crede, religion, gender, orientation - I want the choices I make in life to be my own.
I want the freedom to decide how I want to spend my time, and my energy. I want the same for you. I want you to be able to choose the life you want. I want you to be able to choose the opportunities you wish to grab, and I want you to be able to find a place of peace, safety and love with the people you want close to you. It’s simple.
Nothing anybody believes or wants is important enough to take a life, or to start a war.
No government has the right to tell any citizen that it’s a second class one. Ever.
Regardless of whether it’s based on race or gender or orientation or religion or culture. A government is supposed to – in its purest form, be a communal kitty and administrative organiaation, that adds the bits and pieces of contributions of time and energy and resources, to build infrastructure for the upkeep of the health, safety and economic growth of the people it serves.
Our government is so far removed from that, that the thing we have heading our country is not even in the same species. The problem isn’t just here. The problem is everywhere.
I do not believe that it is the government’s business to keep a record of my gender or my colour. Nor is it any of their business to track where I live, what phone I use, or where I travel on the roads. I am a free person. My likes, dislikes, beliefs and decisions, my very movements are not subject to their approval, unless I am harming the rights of another person.
I do not believe it is the right of a government to demand any percentage of my income or earnings to enrich itself, or even to cross-subsidise someone else who doesn’t work.
Would it not make sense to allow people to keep 95% of their earnings rather than 30-odd% (add your personal tax, and company tax, and VAT, and petrol tax, and “sin” tax, and road tax, and import tax… and tell me how much you should be earning!), so that they can grow their business, and employ more people?
Is that not the simple answer?
I move for a vote of no confidence in our entire government. In the way we educate our children. In the way we structure industry and commerce.
I call on the people to stand up ,even though we are exhausted and afraid for our safety. Even if we’ve just finished having this conversation with the previous nut trying to order us around.
Stand up – not against each other, but in harmony, in choosing to be one nation, regardless of where we were born, or what race we were born into, or how deep our parents’ pockets were filled with emptiness or abundance.
I’m not interested in the past anymore. And I’m not interested in how things are done. I want a new way. A bloodless way. A harmonious way.
And if you are just trying to get through the day, and the week, and make ends meet, and have a life worth looking back on with your loved ones, maybe you are too.
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