Share goodwill over season
My daughter, returning from Australia some time ago, commented that the news in Australia was so boring!
And I must confess if the adage, “to live in interesting times”, holds true, SA is certainly the place to be.
It is a place for journalists and the legal fraternity; never a dull headline or a shortage of litigation!
The news assailing us on all fronts speaks of corruption, mayhem, murder, state capture, rape and so on.
And the thought occurred: are we so immune to the litany of malfeasance that we do not care anymore?
With our heads in the sand we feel the heat while the pot boils, too scared to do anything or to jump out.
The corrupt and inept politicians manipulate us at will and mindlessly we follow.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” – do we just succumb meekly, if you can’t beat them, join them!
Penning this in magical Schoenies it is difficult to comprehend within a radius of a few kilometres people are being shot and violated daily.
Parents anxiously walking their children home from school are scared they may be caught in gangster crossfire.
People dying of hunger, jobless, ambitionless stand with empty eyes on street corners.
School children are being raped and neglected.
Yet every day we go about our lives not really caring.
Too afraid to even have a chat across the racial divide in case you give offence … and so on.
Is this what we South Africans have become?
Self-centred robots denuded of feelings, glued to a computer or cellphone looking for vicarious pleasure?
Just see in restaurants or gathering places how many of us are on our cellphones.
The art of conversation, sharing ideas between people is seemingly something belonging to the past!
If not for my age group, certainly for the younger generation.
The frenetic pace of events taking place in our country somehow has speeded up the year! Where has it gone?
Someone said that the perception of time passing seems to evolve exponentially with age.
How true as it all seems to have passed in a blur!
Christmas, the period of goodwill to all men and women, is upon us.
Would it not be great if we could call a moratorium on hatred, corruption, gender violence, boards of inquiry ...
A day when the media in general have no scandalous reports!
May we forget about petty hatreds, and share our goodwill with all folk no matter what political, racial, religious or gender persuasions, and just live in the moment as equal South Africans, as fellow human beings acknowledging our interdependency on each other: “ubuntu” – I am because you are!
A wonderful piece out of the Sanskrit hanging on my wall sums it all up: “Look to this day,
For it is life,
The very life of life.
In its brief course lie all, The verities of existence, The bliss of growth,
The splendour of action, The glory of power,
For yesterday is but a dream,
And tomorrow is only a vision,
But today, well lived, Makes every yesterday a dream of happiness,
And every tomorrow a vision of hope,
Look well, therefore, to this day.”
A blessed Christmas to you all and your loved ones, and may next year bring the changes we so ardently want for our dear country.
Talbot Cox Schoenmakerskop, Port Elizabeth