I'm bitter. And cynical. And the more I know about what's going on in this cool, crazy, beautiful place, the more hot&bothered I get. So I'm trying to enforce a news embargo for three weeks, which, I know, is a crazy idea for a journalist. But I can't handle one more news story on Tony "Cheap 4x4" Yengeni, who mos really shouldn't have been prison. And I simply cannot read another article on some or other government department who can't do the job, but are brilliant at shifting the blame (think the poor farm manager who got beaten to death last week because a land claim has been caught up in red tape for years and years).
So I prepared myself for what I thought would be three weeks of blissful business reading. Just imagine the disgust when I couldn't miss Beeld's lead story this morning. SA's nr 1 man said it: crime is not so bad. The perception must be rectified. I think I'll invite him over for tea to my grandfather's, where I had to please explain my anti-death penalty sentiments over Christmas. Not so easy if you're debating with grandpa (78), who got attacked in his bed a month ago, or my cousin (31), who was raped three years ago (police unfortunately misplaced the docket), or my uncle (49), whose best friends got murdered on their farm a while back.
Seeing that a news embargo won't help if you spend most of your waking hours in a newsroom, I need a new escape route. And I think I've had enough first-hand experience in dealing with pathetic government officials to be pissed off enough to justify fleeing the country. So the question is not if (definitely) or when (asap) to go, but where to go.
My mind's pretty much made up - when the rest of the country will be celebrating the day women marched to the Union Buildings to toyi-toyi against the pass laws, I'll hopefully be marching to some far-off land - my lonesome toyi-toyi against the EC government stealing R100 million out of the mouths of poor, hungry kids.
So now it's just to decide on where to go. Don't know about you guys, but to me New York, New York always had a special ring to it.
NS All you optimists out there who believe SA definitely won't go the same route as Zimbabwe, please read Peter Godwin's excellent new book When a crocodile eats the sun. Be in touch - I have a good contact at Flightcentre.
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3 comments:
I realise why you are bitter, and can't stand all the bullcrap either...I have to wonder how people stay in the newsroom long enough to get a 25jaar dienssertifikaat.
The best of luck with your endeavours, that flightcentre contact doesn't happen to have any cheap flights to Raleigh before the 3rd of March, does he/she?
My day also started out badly with reading the same interview with Pres Mbeki. This (and a recent trip to Indonesia where I saw an incredibly poor nation who does not turn to crime to "solve" its poverty) has also left me hanging: between the love and passion for my country and the forces pulling me to someplace else on this earth where things will make sense. Is this the start of a new wave of people leaving?
I hear you completely, JJ! As a skilled South African living abroad, I hate the fact that I can probably never return to live permanently in SA. Not because I don't WANT to, but because I refuse to become another rape, murder or assault statistic hidden away from the prying eyes of local and international media. I also refuse to live like a perpetual prisoner behind electric beams and panic buttons, while criminals own the streets, and police hire private security companies for protection. South Africa will always be my home, but the sad realty is that it will probably never host a homecoming party for the thousands of S'Affers fleeing the country daily for a safer quality of life abroad....never to return.
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