SA is still a beautiful country

THE Indian community of South Africa, love them or hate them, they are here to stay!

South Africa, for all its upheavals, historical trials and tribulations, conflicts, treasures and wealth, interspersed with growing poverty, is still a beautiful country.

With its temperate climate, rolling hills and majestic mountains, diverse fauna and flora and diversity of its people, South Africa is indeed a beautiful country.

The Indian community’s migration to these shores has been well documented – their progress and development have also been the subject of both praise and condemnation, depending on one’s vantage point.

But there can be no argument that the generations born in this country since the arrival of those brave men and women – our forebears – who are merely reference points for our existence now, have become interwoven into the tapestry of a country that has benefited from such a migration.

Once the “pariahs” of their adopted country, they are now fully fledged contributing citizens in a land they can call home.

Shoved and shunted by the powers that be, they never capitulated and their resilience is evident to this day.

Whether it was from the enclaves of Lenasia to Laudium, from Rylands Estate to Cravenby Estate or simply from Chatsworth to Phoenix, the Indian community has chosen both the roads less travelled and the road most travelled to stamp their citizenry into the passport of South Africa.

No amount of oppression was strong enough or powerful enough to subdue the spirit of a people who were willed by an alluring destiny to become part of the future of a country drenched in differences and diversity.

While there are those who still prefer to view the Indian community as some sort of marauding interlopers bent on usurping the indigenousness of a land that belongs to all who live in it, it is impossible to extricate their invaluable contribution to the social fabric, economic development and general well-being of a South Africa reeling in the throes of an untimely degeneration.

Whether it be racial, ethnic, tribal or religious differences, or any other forms of divisions that have been created to define South Africa and its people, the Indian community have trumped such differences into triumph and converted any point of difference into a point of deference.

South Africa is a community of one people and no amount of denigration or disparagement, by whomever, must be allowed to diminish the value of a community who has challenged, championed and cherished their citizenry to become the patriots of a South Africa that belongs to all.

The hallmark of their citizenry is evidenced by their contributions in the medical, financial, academic, educational, judicial and agricultural fields, among many others, despite being manacled by the apartheid laws of the past and the present BroadBased Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) enterprises.

Their resilience thus far has been nothing short of praiseworthy.

Sadly, whether by compulsion, circumstance or convenience, many have departed the shores of their land of birth for proverbial safer and greener pastures, but for those who remain, the ancestral roots of those who came before them will grow, and grow, and grow.

If we are to make South Africa into that land of milk and honey once again, then we must embrace each other as South Africans – our last names should not matter.

Any amount of perceived “foreignness” must be removed from the psyche.

In the words of the song: “This land is your land, this land is my land… ”