Dear John, charity begins at home

A FEW years ago I apologised in advance to my Catholic friends while opposing the rebuilding of the Notre Dame Cathedral.

I didn’t oppose the reconstruction of the ashed temple but simply that the world had other priorities outside the reconstruction of a church that had become a tourist moment.

Certainly in South Africa we could do more with donations than send it overseas.

What education makes you appreciate are the challenges of a country with alarming standards of unemployment, poverty and inequality – something DA leader John Steenhuisen doesn’t understand.

Steenhuisen’s recent “truth finding” mission to the war torn Ukraine is a slap in the face of South Africans enduring painful everyday lives.

Some Africans have been enduring suffering before the war on Ukraine, the African continent is still ravaged by war, but Steenhuisen hasn’t set foot in Libya, the DRC, Palestine or Iraq.

While some have argued that there was a need to rebuild the Notre Dame Cathedral, in South Africa we needn’t argue that we need to build schools, universities and clinics. France doesn’t need another cathedral!

But in Somalia we need bread, in Rwanda we need basic medication. In Angola we need a safe haven for girls dispossessed by war.

In Zimbabwe and Mozambique we need bare necessities for people to begin life after the flood.

In the Eastern Cape, we need flushing toilets in primary schools and free institutions of higher learning and in KZN we need clothes, blankets and basic housing essentials. But that doesn’t matter to Steenhuisen. As long as the Ukraine people are safe.

Education is important.