Dear South Africa

I write this with a heavy heart. You were my first love. I know I walked out on you fourteen years ago, because I felt you were impossible to bring my children up safely in. I worried about your ability to allow me to focus my energies on a higher purpose, rather than constantly looking over my shoulder to see if my doors were locked, my windows sealed and my handbag tucked somewhere obscure. I agonised on the day I stood in a gun shop, when the store owner was telling me that “this gun is great for ladies and could kill someone at three metres”. I remember so clearly putting that gun down and going home, shocked to the core that I had even for a minute considered buying something that was so against my principles. It was a turning point, where I realised my co-dependant love of you was going to harm me, that my adoration for your vast plains and warm seas could not justify the abuse you put me through. That my love for your rainbow people and the funny daily life that came with diversity could not save me. I packed ten boxes, my five year old and gave away my beloved dogs and left. My new relationship is wonderful, it has no abuse. I live in a place that is truly democratic and safe, bar global warming, potential terrorist attacks and economic shocks. The daily assault on my psyche has been removed and I can focus on other things higher on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Yet, somewhere, deep inside me, I always burned a candle for you. I still miss you. I hold a hope that my true love, my first love, the country that held my first breath would redeem itself and realise its own potential. That the amazing people who live in it and manage to buffer against its abuses might enjoy the peace and freedom other countries take for granted. I growled when others slated you, I defended your burgeoning democracy and hoped and prayed that you would turn around. I wanted you to prove me wrong. There were glimmers of hope that you would. Yet, today you passed your Secrecy Bill, reverting back to type. You are the same, regardless of whether you are Apartheid South Africa or the New South Africa. In your core, you believe that gagging your people and preventing free speech is okay. It has long been entrenched in your history. You are proving that the abused becomes the abuser. My only glimmer of hope now is that the Constitutional Court overturns your lunacy. But I am learning that hope has a long, unrequited love affair with you. Hope may be an old woman before she sees you again….

Nkosi Sikele Afrika, God Bless Africa…and help her rise above herself.

© Tanya @ Ordinary Poetry

Share on Facebook

Uncategorized

Before I open this debate, I need to caution, this is not a juvenile ploy to get anyone to beg me to stay on in the virtual village…

My bud and I have had a long debate about whether we should “Commit Facebook Suicide”. This modern phenomenon is fabulous, it has connected me with people I have lost touch with, it keeps me up to date with the minutae of the lives of those I love and it makes me smile. BUT, it also distracts me, I can get lost aimlessly wading through stuff, I use it to procrastinate and then there is the bit that all my thoughts, photos and things are stored and who owns them? No matter your settings, do you really know where all this is going? Yet there is this compulsion to “share”. It is all good and well with people you trust, but what about the people who have ended up on your FB, who never speak to you? The silent observers of your life? Are we encouraging voyeurs who don’t participate but who are up to date?

So the debate became could, you, would you commit FB suicide and deactivate your profile? I have friends who have. They found the interaction too impersonal, they felt like they stayed in touch with those they loved through other means. I admired their bravery. And then there are my friends who are vowing to never go on it. My friend and I were debating, do they have certain personality traits that we don’t? Is their need for privacy stronger than ours? Are we blurters who have found our forum? I guess, FB does feed my need to be sociable. I love it when I see or hear something funny and I can immediately share it with my peeps. I love that after leaving my birth country, I have this little virtual village that I can wander around in. I pondered this for a few days and decided I could commit the virtual suicide and switch it all off. But I realised with all things as it life, you need to be vigilant of your actions, don’t post anything you would not be proud of, living virtually is no different to living in the real world, not in 2011 at any rate and learning to manage this form of communication is as important as learning other forms effectively.

Finally, I laughed at the irony of the conversation when I got off the phone from having the debate and the first thing I wanted to do was go and update my status to “Should we commit Facebook suicide?”. I rest my case…

Share on Facebook

Uncategorized