Don't you find it totally unsurprising that so many sanctimonious puff pieces "bigging up" South Africa while simultaneously slagging off the expat detractors who actually might have a legitimate gripe with their erstwhile homeland, are written by uber wealthy douchebags who are as remote from the coal face of South Africa's troubles as the distant émigrés they're criticising?
My wife recently read me another one of these consummately vapid articles and I confess to having vomited in my mouth just a little when this saccharin bilge just struck such a disingenuous chord.
I've always been an advocate of telling the truth - trying to call it as it is - yet it's evident every day that individual "truth" is subjectively formed by our individual life experiences and the reality that creates for us. And in no way is a corporate mogul's reality anything close to the daily grind of the people who still suffer the challenge of simply putting food on their family's table while facing the rigours brought about by uninsulated shack-dwelling, an absence of potable water or piped sewage or electricity. It's great when ESKOM's service delivery doesn't really affect you - well you can't bitch about something you've never had. Or can you? Maybe they're the ones who should be bitching louder and more vigorously than those whose service is continuously interrupted and who're subsidising the freeloaders who enjoy the interrupted service while not paying a cent for it.
"We've been through worse and we'll get through this," this article bleats, as if this person is representative of the suffering masses and has been toyi-toying with a mob of underprivileged shack dwellers in protest against invisible service delivery.
The resilience of South Africans - sure. The smiling faces - sure. The upbeat attitudes despite the most enduring adversity - of course, that's what I love about Saffers. We all do.
So shouldn't these holier-than-thou pricks be cutting the expats some slack for having left, these resilient ne'er say die, upbeat people? I mean just how much pressure must there have been for such people to have resorted to emigration when they are effectively going against the very ethos of their being?
The writers of such articles might not be according sufficient credence to the ordeals of the expats, certainly not while they're still sitting in their electrified security residences enjoying the seamless power from the standby generator and UPS system as they monitor the rise or fall of their diverse stock portfolio. All things that the beleaguered masses obviously face on a daily basis. Fuck, I hope the ANC don't impose sanctions against Israel coz that might mean I can't get that specific brand of tinned goods and that would be a total disaster. Hell, I might have to import the stuff myself in that case.
The intimidated, hapless souls being beaten to a pulp for daring to speak out against the ruling regime or considering a change of allegiance in an upcoming general election, are most decidedly unconcerned about Israeli canned products and ESKOM tariffs as they harvest firewood in their irresponsible contribution toward global carbon dioxide emissions. The bastards!
People leave and have left South Africa for a host of reasons and while perhaps most of them might be construed to have "negative" connotations, that can equally be seen as a positive move (and it is) as it means they're sacrificing for what they believe will be better than the situation in which they currently find themselves.
I grant you this - many of the disadvantage souls still suffering at the hands of the "liberating" regime would give their last handful of pap to have a chance at a life elsewhere. But they'll never realise that eventuality as we all know.
So, Mr Bigwig, please don't presume to speak for South Africans either at home or abroad.
We aren't there because we elect to not be there - period. But that doesn't negate our right to an opinion of the place and if that opinion is couched in negative terms then so be it. As stated before - telling the truth is the only real way to be fair or representative of South African society - anyone can blow smoke and put spin on any situation and when you've got a vested interest in internal and foreign investment, this too is a good driver and motivation for positive spin.
Nobody is saying South Africa is a shit place. It isn't. Nobody is saying South Africans are horrible, violent people - on the whole they're not, they're just the opposite.
But what we are saying is that the maligning of the safety found in the so called nanny states to which many emigrate isn't founded either and if that's to be done then it should be fair to ask if the puff-piece writers consider it to be normal for a society to endure around 47 murders per day and upward of 120 reported rapes on a daily basis.
That isn't simply a challenge to be overcome, that's indicative of a seriously flawed and I'd go as far as to say, a broken society.
But the hypocritical dickwad sitting in his Ivory tower typing away on his MacBook Air isn't affected by those stats in his world in the same way that the people who elected to move to a safer environment are no longer affected by it. And if the decision to move elsewhere is what was needed for those people to attain that status then good luck to them I say.
We moved away for entirely different reasons but it's safe to say we weren't unaffected by violent crime - we had our share of that.
For us, what was most compelling was the simple fact that the governing party for which I'd harboured high hopes when Mandela and Mbeki had been at the helm, had been systemically usurped by a new, insidious agenda from within, spearheaded by Zuma's nepotistic cabal and they had merely succeeded in eroding the ethos of the party in favour of disingenuous and wholly self-serving agendas at the expense of the populace while simultaneously and covertly fomenting unrest and arguably as much racial tension as obtained under apartheid.
They've had my support and my pound of flesh and we've endured the good, the bad and the ugly for a very long time and it was simply right for a change.
Any expat has, by default, lived, loved and endured South Africa generally for a fair portion of their lives and as such have the right to an opinion on the place whether they live there now or not. Most émigrés that I know have made enormous sacrifices when leaving their homeland - it's been the hardest decision they've ever made and for the most part (ourselves included), they're not necessarily walking seamlessly into cushy jobs. They're starting their lives from scratch often jobless and watching any savings they might have had when selling up to leave, disappear as they reestablish their lives in a new culture while trying to meet the rigorous demands of work visa requirements. Notwithstanding the fact that the Rand hasn't exactly helped those transitions in any way at all.
And I'll warrant that many of those expats are better placed to offer a more realistic "coalface" take on the country than some privileged yuppie who's condescendingly placing judgement on them.
Don't diss the place unfairly, sure but don't pretend to be something you're not and that the county isn't going through upheaval and crisis and that it's a normal society in which the majority of its citizens feel safe and are content.
That's pure fiction, I'm afraid.
I will always love South Africa but I certainly won't pretend it's something it isn't. I sincerely hope the people remaining there have the will and the stamina to turn it around, for radical change is certainly what it needs, not some head-in-the-sand sanctimonious fantasising from behind a laptop.
So simply put to all those who continue to slag us expats - fuck right off!
