Are we going up or going down?
The state of our nation. Fuck... I've never been pro-State as it is, but somehow I feel that all of us are sitting with fingers jammed up our collective arses. I wish there was more that I could do. Ranting online from my virtual soapbox for your entertainment is one thing, but getting out there and actively attempting to make a difference is another altogether. I suppose we do what we can in our communities, no matter how seemingly insignificant. What we CAN do, is try and educate the person next to us. Even if that person seems to be the high-brow intellectual liberal we all strive to be - I guarantee you everyone has something they do wrong. No such thing as the Utopian individual.
The problem in this country - and indeed the indigenous culture - is that there is an alarming lack of respect for life. The life of another is considered less significant than the comfort or desperation of the self. Add to that the fact that our patriarchal society still treats women as property and you have a very short fuse in a very large tinder box. And don't even try and argue the contrary. The majority of people in this country still employ some version or other of the lebola system. Even upper-middle class friends of mine indulge in the tradition. That and polygamy. So wives can be bought. Ergo, you own them. Now I am of course not saying that the majority of respectable citizens who chose to follow tradition are all wife-beating homicidal bastards, but you can see how views are formed, or at least allowed to continue in the "wrong" direction, depending on application.
Then you get the added incentive of urban subculture, where we are not only encouraged to walk around with our pants around our ankles and are subjected to second rate auto-tuned shit, but the over-riding message is one of "bitches and money" as the measure of a person's standing in society, often obtained through violence. I'm not one to point to metal turning our youth into church burning Satanists, or movies inspiring the local town arsonist to start perfecting his craft, but there has got to be some validity to the affect mainstream media has on impressionable minds. I give you Chris Brown, for instance. Still at large, he enjoys a lifestyle our MTV-fed idiot-youth can only dream of, despite his well documented woman beating. And the dumb bitch is still with him. Yes, yes, I know I shouldn't call her that - it makes me no less guilty than anyone else, but for fuck's sake, if someone I know got moered like that I'd expect them to blaze a cartoon shaped hole in the wall, not defend the doos in court.
And then, get this, we look to sport teams or individuals to "heal our land". The premise is flawed because we only ever set aside our differences when a team wins (which isn't always the case) and then the delusion is only fleeting. Verwoerd must have been rubbish at ball sports. At least we all have one common enemy on whom to lay all the blame for the ills of our fair land, eh...
Why go off like this so early in the morning, you ask? I read an article that very succinctly points out everything I am currently having a problem with. No, not THAT kind of problem...
Perhaps this afternoon things will look better...
Ha!
And by the way - to each and every person who is sitting there with the sudden compulsion to scribble their own stupid, ill-informed or even vaguely racist comment in the vain hope of coming across as educated or exasperated - PLEASE DON'T.
NGDG: More people know my name than I know theirs. Sadly I'm like the opposite of a spy.
Spread The Love. In REAL Life.
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