The Stuff That Gets Left Behind

 

This is not a political blog post, its a human one. 

Yesterday I stood surveying the frugal contents of a human being's life. Contents hastily packed and cling wrapped and dropped off for safe keeping while that person runs for their life. 

A person who has worked for over a decade in this country. A person who has contributed to the fabric of our society. 

A person who, during lockdown, took in a mother and her new born baby because the baby's father had abandoned them. A person whose humble two room dwelling thus became the home for five people. A person who stretched her simple salary because she could not watch a mother and her child be homeless. 

I can tell you countless other stories about this human being and her generosity of spirit. How with very little she still always answers the call of God to help those around her. How she is the stalwart of her community because she is a woman who can be trusted, and a woman with a heart for all God's people. 

Today's she flees for her life with her elderly and terminally ill mother and her teenage son. 

In a few days our county will be the sad host of anti immigration marches. And yes, the lines are very blurred and there are many debates around unemployment, crime and poverty in this county. But actually all those questions should be aimed at a government who has failed its people. Who have failed to provide jobs, who have failed to create systems where foreigners can attain work permits seamlessly and legally, who have failed to shut down large drug cartels, who have failed to keep their hands off money intended for the most disadvantaged and instead have stolen from the poor to benefit themselves. 

Like I've said, this isn't political, this is about human beings. But when human beings deflect their own guilt onto those who legally have no way to project themselves and who thus become the unwilling lambs to the slaughter on the alter of incompetence and corruption I cannot be silent. 

A man has already been stoned to death. This reads like an Old Testament horror story. Thousands are desperately waiting for transport to arrive to take them back to their countries of birth, living with no sanitation or shelter in the meantime. I would imagine if we changed the word 'busses' to 'cattle trucks' we would get echoes from a more recent time in human history when xenophobia reared its abominable head. 

The laws of the country dictate the boundaries of who do and don't belong. But God's laws say everyone belongs. In the quagmire of politicking, of vote grabbing, of saying what the masses want to hear we drown out our ability to see through the muck to the motives behind such inhumane treatment of our neighbours. 

Now all that is left of the thousands of people who sought shelter in our country and who have worked hard to make an honest living within our borders are hastily packed bags, many left behind as they run for their lives. 

I never dreamed that South Africa would ever become a place like this. That our leadership would be so poor that instead of rooting out the crime and evil influences from within and without our borders we would instead turn on the most vulnerable of our people and persecute them, leaving the mob to discharge its judgement. 

I dont know where the answers lie because all of this is so complicated. All I know if that if I were to unpack the stuff that has been left behind I would not find drugs, or guns, or propaganda. I would find the humble belongings of a person who just wanted to find a way to make a better life for her and her family. Isn't that what we all want?