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Back to Square One
Learning anew to be human
As the 15th year of our democracy begins, we look in the mirror: Blood on our hands! We are disgusted. We have to do something - not to try to undo, but to redress the wound and to overcome the ugly deed.
Victims of atrocities from Zimbabwe and elsewhere who had hoped to ultimately find shelter and bread in our midst have experienced even worse terror in our "new South Africa". We have in a tragic way overtrumped even Mugabe and his likes - have converted our neighbours into corpses and ashes and turned their beloved ones into orphans, widows and widowers: A stain that will always remain on our hands.
How can we live with this burden? What should we do now?
We - young and old - have to go back and learn the very basics of ubuntu once more: "Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu - I am, because we are; since we are, so am I". We could probably once again differ in a positive way from greedy and inhuman societies of our days, if we would remember and cherish what the generations before us in every population-group in our country used to do and live up to almost as a matter of fact: Hospitality and generosity towards guests and strangers; sharing with them even the least left to live on.
How could we have unlearned this very basic principle of dignity and peaceful coexistence and have become so inhuman?
Before starting pointing fingers at probable scape-goats, each one of us has to take a new step: The derogatory language and discriminatory practices that had become familiar in daily conversations behind the backs of "amakwerekwere" and other minorities are but the least we have to do away with, if we were to become what we wish to be - a rainbow nation!
The laws of our country and international conventions to ensure the rights and protect the integrity of homeless people should actually be so much part of our conscience that we comply with them almost instinctively and live in peace with neighbours in need.
Ben Khumalo-Seegelken 22.05.2008
"KwaMachanca" = "Wo die Antilope selbst am helllichten Tage angstfrei und sorglos grasen kann" / "KwaMpunz'edl'emini!"