To stay or to leave …

I visited Cape Town for the first time in 2002 and I was in love.  The city vibe, the people and most of all the moutain, who can forget the mountain! I knew that I wanted to move here.  Two years later, I made the move and started my life as a Cape Townian. TD, who I met just before moving down, was already living in Cape Town, so I saw myself settling down here for the rest of my life, bringing up a family & growing old on the foothills of Table Mountain.

Even though TD expressed ideas of emigrating, I never entertained the idea of leaving this country, I was the one always highlighting the positive growth in the country.  But as the years have gone by, it has become increasingly difficult to remain positive.  Last year, I stopped reading the news altogether because I couldn’t stand to read about another young child raped, another family burgled and murdered and another hijacking.  I chose to concentrate on the positive and kept telling myself that this was all just growing pangs.  It would all settle down.  Call it being naive, but I truly believed in this country’s ability to come out winning.

A month ago, I started reading the online news sites again, and after just three days of keeping abreast of the events around the country, I was feeling a realy deep sense of sadness.  Nothing had changed, if anything, the news kept getting worse. More violence..more senseless violence.  Maybe the little bubble I had created for myself had stopped me from becoming too de-sensitised to the stories, because I couldn’t contain the sadness and anger.  I vented, ranted and raved during conversations with my friends. A week later, the xenophobic attacks began.

The most horrific pictures were plastered all over every single national and international news site.  People were being chased, shacks and homes burnt down, families runing for their lives, people murdered.  By the end of the week and half of violence, thousands of people were in refugee camps.  Refugee camps! In South Africa! It seemed so surreal. This isn’t the country that I envisioned when I thought about my future.  This isn’t the country that was on its way to economic and social prosperity! Was it?

The people of this country have been through so many battles.  The journey from colonisation through apartheid to freedom has been long and weary.  Instead of reaching the so-called promised land, these weary travellers have been thrust into yet another volatile situation.  That of shortage.  Shortage of jobs, shortage of service delivery, shortage of housing to name but a few.  There is only so much strain that can be withstood before it snaps.

It seems like the violence has stopped, there is relative calm, but the underlying causes for these violent events are still very much in play.  Unfortunately I have not seen the leadership in this country deal with these causes.  They have not come up with a viable solution to combat these issues so that we never have a repeat performance.  It is very telling that the President of this country has yet to visit these troubled hot spots.  How can you begin to comprehend these causes if you cannot even face them.  How do you begin to come up with solutions if you are not willing to take a hard look at the problems?

The leadership of this country is failing its people but more sadly, the people in this country are failing themselves because as Mahatma Gandhi once said “We must be the change we wish to see.”

I want to follow Mahatma Gandhi’s words, but then again he had an entire nation behind him and that’s what it takes - a leader with a clear vision and a nation willing to bring that vision to reality.

Somehow I doubt that Jacob Zuma is that leader and so I have decided that it is time for me to rethink my future and lay roots where the grass is truly greener and safer.