SA Rocks

This post stems from an article in this months Oprah magazine*. The article was written by Portia Guiviede about the ten reasons that she thinks – pretty much – SA Rocks.

1. Black Economic Empowerment
2. Smoothies
3. African Fashion
4. Taxis
5. Children
6. Her story/His story TV dramas
7. Feminism
8. The marriage of Western and Cultural traditions
9. Single Black fathers
10. Flea markets

My favourites in this list are African fashion, Flea Markets, Taxis and BEE. Let me tell you why:

African fashion is phenomenal. People are always saying that Africans are copycats of Western people and their ideas. This is definitely not the case when it comes to fashion. African women have style, they have grace and they are stunning. Every shape and size can and does look amazing and the most amazing thing is that many, many African women embrace their bodies instead of aspire to be stick-thin. This makes me happy, it makes me proud to walk down the street and know that nowhere else in the world will you see a women that looks like the women we have here in SA.

Flea markets in SA are one-of-a-kind. There are markets everywhere in the world but for some reason the cultural meshing of people and their products just make our flea markets incredible. It’s like walking down a street from a different nation all in one market. You can go from Indian flavours, to Italian food, French art, African sculptures, street art, gimmicks, records, CDs, DVDs, Flags and absolutely ANYTHING else you can imagine. Just glorious.

Taxis might piss me off to no end, but wow do I feel for these men and women. The drivers of the taxis in SA have a thankless and tiring job that doesn’t really even pay that much. I love watching how people stick up their fingers in all directions and everyone “in the know” clearly understands where that person is going and where they came from. Taxis and the people using them have their own language that you will not find anywhere else in the world. Fantastic.

BEE is a more contentious issue that I am sure will receive more or most of the comments on this post. But I support BEE. I 100% support the correct and effective emplimentation of BEE. We deserve to give people the right to equal opportunity and the fact that we can acknowledge our shortcomings as a country and society in this sort of business orientated manner is great.

*note: I don’t read Oprah (I swear), my dearest mother pointed this out to me.

Similar Posts:

• Embrace SA’s cultural complexity
• Africa Hall Of Fame: Promoting Africa and Great Africans
• Catch a taxi
• South Africa vs New Zealand – who will expats support?
• Tertia Talks to SA Rocks

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