Is this Freedom?
Life in South Africa - picture by Dianne Lang |
We thought
that democracy and the freedom to integrate would be the solution to all our
problems in this country.
The only thing
that changed with integration is that the newly mobile middle class has fled
the townships while some previously privileged people have moved into the
townships.
Others, who could afford it
or had the necessary ancestry, went abroad to find a new life, just as the
settlers did when they came to SA, taking with them their skills that we so desperately
need.
The angry,
frustrated cries of the people in the townships know they have been shunned and
abandoned by the larger society who doesn’t seem to care. But what is even more painful, is that they
have been abandoned by their own people too.
How can any
single culture hold their cultural roots together when they are integrated by
virtue of their poverty alone? We are now divided by the amount of money we
have. Who gives a damn about culture
when the children cry, your belly aches with hunger, and you have to borrow
money to bury the dead? Is this freedom?
2 comments:
True words Dianne! People only look at one side of the coin and are quite happy to turn a blind eye to the rest.
Chanzie @ Mean Who You Are.
That is so true Chanzie ... it takes a lot of practice to see both sides of the coin or both sides of the pancake.
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