My fellow South Africans…

 

I have purposely not posted the entire picture. Most of us are familiar with it - it’s a little toddler in mid flight after being thrown from a burning Durban building by their mother. The first time I saw it I wanted to be sick. 

Today I want us to look at the rainbow of hands about to catch the child. Strangers standing as the soft landing. Strangers filling the gap between life and death. But they’re not strangers really, they’re South Africans. 

I don’t have the energy to go into the complexity of what it means to be South African. It is as mysterious and diverse as the eleven official languages and multitudes of cultures that make up the rainbow. There has also been a lot of discourse - both good and bad - about who we are as people when little bits of hell open up as they have done this week. And I think we can agree that for the majority of South Africans trying to survive their lives is a daily hell - it’s not just a once off crisis. It is their reality. Quite a kak reality for us to have to face with them. No one wants a hungry child.

But who a person is in crisis is often who they are at their best. And this is who a South African is…

He is a taxi driver who will stand guard over his local shopping centre, using his vehicle, his only source of income, as a shield.

She is the dietician offering free advice to panicked parents trying to find formula for their babies.

She is the recently retrenched young woman offering up her services to clean up the looted streets.

He is the man offering his bakkie to remove debris and rubble from the roads.

They are the countless community watch groups who have mobilised, patrolled and barricaded our communities so that we can sleep at night.

They are the thousands of health care workers who risk their personal safety to get to the hospitals to continue fighting the tireless third wave of Covid amidst all the other chaos.

They are the police men and woman who have worked countless shifts on the front lines.

They are the firefighters and the paramedics.

They are the psychologists offering up their counselling services for free.

They are the fearless journalists, photographers and truth seekers.

They are the private security companies who have patrolled fearlessly when no other back up was at hand.

They are the SANDF who have chosen to protect us from both outside threats and from ourselves.

They are those with nothing who will give everything in the great fight against poverty.

They are the children who will value whatever ounce of education is offered to them and who have had to sit at home for months waiting for their schools to be safe.

They are the people who could have chosen to loot, who have nothing, but chose not to.

They are the farmers offering their produce to those in need for free.

They are the parents who have controlled their own terror and anxiety in order for it not to rub off onto their children.

They are the millions who have prayed in a whisper, in a song, in a community, in a declaration over the spirit that has tried to make us afraid. 

And the millions have won because God always wins.

They are our neighbours, our colleagues, our families and our strangers.

Tonight the stories of South Africans being South Africans far outweigh the destruction caused by a relentless, desperate and hysterical mob. The stories are of self-sacrifice, community, resilience and love. And this is the South Africa that I choose to believe in. 

Because when South Africa has to jump, no matter the height, there will always be someone to catch us.