-When home no longer feels like home.

 

                         

    

Picture by Andre Swart

The urgent need to pack and leave. Home has never been this hostile. Home to one of the world’s best constitutions. One of the most progressive democracies of our times, a rainbow nation. One of the few nations in the continent to have ever seen coups. Home has become cold lately. No longer what it is supposed to be. Infestation is from all areas of life. Fat bellies shove millions into their own accounts and use delay tactics to avoid the rule of law. It takes courage to live here. In fact, here, you are constantly on survival mode. One of the most beautiful countries in the world. Few natural disasters, blessed with amazing all year-round weather, fauna and flora as described in paradise. Hell, when God made Eden, he drew inspiration from South Africa. Incredible and resilient people. Warm, loving and driven.

Home has never been this hostile. My peers line street corners and whistle at any courageous body that is willing to pass by. Not by choice but because the fruits for the most liberal democracy on the continent is unemployment. Call them lazy, or whatever, but they too, like me have dreams and aspirations. The only place in the world were spared change from the supermarket is for the guy looking after your car in the parking lot. If we could trade our violence for money then, fam! we would rule the universe. Violence. So invasive, so pervasive, it shakes and burns the very foundations of our parliament, townships, and security cluster. 

Home has never been this hostile. With every picture or newsfeed of a missing little girl, sister or mother, we can only hold our breaths and pray she is not another statistic. Anger and euphoria best describe what citizenship in this country is and feels like. Of course, it is from a place of privilege to consider bouncing, never mind the time to sit, think and write this piece when all your peers are drunk in dark thoughts of suicide, alcohol and every other method of escapism from what has become a cold and hostile home. Home has never been this heavy and scary. 28 million on social grants, a decreasing tax base, increasing unemployment and poverty, more people hungry than history has ever recorded. Rampant crime and killings. Everywhere, there is disdain, despair, and precariousness.

Home has never been this hostile. My hopes and dreams are that this nightmare of a life passes. Of course, hopes and dreams aren’t going to feed the masses and solve crime, but we ought to start somewhere. South Africa is bigger than what she is going through. Young people deserve much better than this, we deserve much better than this. Through all this, may we learn to value life, one another and recognise the implications of selfishness, greed and ill intended desires for wealth and power. May we learn from the current generation of self-centred leaders. Home will one day be warm, welcoming, and affirming of our selves, dreams and aspirations. It just isn’t there yet.