No. It isn’t.
I have a bee in my shoe (not in my bonnet). It’s stinging me. It’s always there in a place that you can’t quite find but you can feel it stinging the underside of your foot. And it hurts.
Over the last two days I have read countless emails, SMS’s, tweets and Facebook status updates along the lines: “I’m seriously considering leaving this country”.
Let me just understand this correctly. Once upon a time AWB political stalwart Eugène Terre’Blanche is murdered, Julius Malema kicks a journalist out of a media briefing and says stupid things (Shock, horror, awe) and an AWB Spokesperson, interviewer and anchor make fools of themselves and some South Africans decide it’s time to openly, in a public forum, declare that it’s time to consider leaving this place.
I am offended. I am offended by the lack of back-bone. I am offended by people’s strength of will or apparent lack thereof. If you take offense at these comments, then these comments are aimed directly at you.
Why is it always the first reaction of people to openly state that it’s time to leave SA when something they don’t like happens? Why do people always want to run? If your husband/wife/sibling/mother/father says or does something that irritates you, hurts you or offends you do you immediately decide to leave them? No you don’t. The first reaction that many people have is to fix the problem. Yet when it comes to our country many people think it best to run away.
I believe this to be cowardice. I know I am taking a strong and hard line on this and I know it isn’t always as black and white (pun intended) as it may first appear. I know that there are complications, children involved, people are busy, lives are full and blah blah blah. But there always seems to be time for us to go out, get pissed, smoke, party, have dinners with friends, go on holidays over the long weekend and live the way we want. Yet there isn’t time to own your country when it needs to be owned?
It’s not those who have lived the past that are going to take South Africa in to the future. I think it’s those of us who are living the present who can see the future that we want and who need to stay in South Africa to make that future a reality.
I see three possible outcomes here:
1. You can choose to stay in SA in the good times (15 years post-apartheid) and at the first sign of discomfort threaten to flee but stay because you don’t have the guts to leave.
2. You can Leave (this is a very real, viable and perfectly acceptable option).
3. You can stay and choose to fight for what you want and take ownership of your country.
Make your decision.
You can comment that I live with blinkers on, that I ignore the truth of what is going on and that I’m an ignorant, racist, white-supramacist, black-loving, confused and idiotic hippie (I’ve been called all of these things before). Or you can get to the heart of the matter in this country; We all want what is right, as human beings, for every other human being in this country. Are you willing to fight for that, or walk away?
I await the flames.
UPDATE: The ANC have responded to Malema and openly condemned him and his actions: Read the full release now.
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