What we still need to learn

WE HAVE breached the Berlin Wall. We have developed social media and brought back a man from the moon. We have had Ashwin Willemse telling Nick off on his racism, and we have a lady-of-colour bride now a British royal.

We have a new president-in-waiting, a wall-building president in the US and we also sacked Jacob. So what is there left to do? We have to learn that none of the above has any meaning while children go to bed hungry or to school without shoes.

We have to learn to respect women as givers of life, not as fodder for political or social polemic.

We have to learn that every creature has a right to life and a fair chance – even if it is only to fail.

We have to unlearn our internalised prejudices and assumptions that block our empathy for others.

We have to unlearn the drive for material gain at the expense of our humanity. We have to recalibrate scales that inflict and maintain flawed pecking orders. We have to recognise that a force greater than any man-made weapon controls the universe.

We have to reteach our children that they cannot hold their parents to ransom with the flawed precept that they didn’t ask to be born.

We have to learn that language is universal currency and only local in a limited sense, that it is not a weapon but a strategy for communication and understanding. We have to learn that differences do not underline divisiveness but expand life experience.

To place the above polemical rant on the ground, allow me to paraphrase the great South American educationist, Paulo Freire. He says we must constantly maintain a cynicism towards reality that will prepare us for the ugly truth that reality will reveal.

We have learnt that our negotiated settlement was flawed, and many changes were not properly thought through.

We have learnt that we are not a rainbow nation if the subliminal message of separateness through colour is sustained.

We have learnt that the government does not serve the country but the secularised faction that, under the banner of a political cartel called the ANC, arrogates sole responsibility and exclusive benefit for achieving freedom.

We have to teach our young students that they are prodigal with their inheritance. They have youth, strength and an impetuousness.

This does not translate into free lunches – or education. I trained as a teacher for two years on an annual bursary. The minute I was appointed in a post, deductions were automatically triggered to recover that money.

We must teach the agitators that their demand for housing is just, but that it cannot be advanced by blocking roads and slowing down production.

We must work harder to achieve our dreams.