I love South Africa?

I write this just a short while after finding out about the tragic death of a family member. The elderly member, grandfather of a few, loved by many, was tragically shot and killed in his home in the early hours of the evening on October 31. He was a soft and warm man, always with a smile on his face, always with a good word to share.

Since I got to London, I have been getting upset by the perceptions of everyone who looks at me with pity when I say that I am from South Africa. “It’s a beautiful country,” I say, “we are busy rebuilding after years of being damaged by apartheid!”

So, we have problems. But there are so many positive things too. We need all the help and effort we can get to sort thing out, I say.

And then when I meet fellow South Africans here, I get into the discussion about how we need to remain committed to our roots — the country that made us what we are, that gave us opportunities; the very same opportunities that many others are not able to harness. I explain that even if we are enjoying it here in a foreign country, we need to continue to work to sort out the issues out back home. It is our responsibility to work on the redevelopment and to establish social justice and harmony in the land of our birth.

In some way, I sometimes explain, we are partly to blame for some of the problems facing the country.

Facts like: South Africa is the most unjust country in the world; South Africa has overtaken Brazil and now has the minority controlling the majority of the resources. (And no, Mr President, I am not just trying to falsify reality!)

Could we have dug our own graves here? Our economic practices may explain the high levels of crime, but what will explain the extreme violence we experience?

I have thought of the past — it must be there in our past somewhere; the results we see today borne out of a past of brutality, the Aids epidemic, injustice, oppression, unfulfilled promises, inadequate solutions, economic inequality, and so much more. Maybe all these ingredients have proved to bare a flavour that our pallet cannot bear.

But could this rhetoric help drive change? Could words help stop the brain drain? Could words help promote an understanding of our responsibilities to the poor and oppressed?

A short while ago, a close friend of mine, a person who has one of the best hearts I have come across, decided to leave South Africa and seek a better life somewhere else, a safe place for his family. I tried in vain to guilt him into agreeing with me that we cannot leave — that if we do leave it must only be for a short term, on a specific mission, so that we know we are coming back to try to help rebuild this country. But now even I am reconsidering.

There are problems here in London too — and everywhere else in the world as well. But is it hypocritical to perhaps think that I should be committed to rebuilding South Africa, but at the same time leave the country, because I have the ways and means to do so? Is it wrong to believe that, while I have hope and optimism for a bright future, I can still try to look at having an “exit strategy”? Is the current situation, and its constant deterioration, a justifiable enough excuse for this kind of behaviour?

To summarise, can a person that is committed to giving back to South Africa, that is determined to see positive change and that is concerned and worried about the well-being of all the people there, can this person live out of the country and continue to work towards solving the problems? As opposed to a person who lives in the country and continues to rape and savage the country economically!