Koert Meyer
CAPE TOWN - The eighth anniversary of the death, on 5 December 2013, of our icon, the greatest South African this soil had ever produced, Nelson Mandela, is a good time to reflect where we as a nation should have been after the noble sacrifices he and so many others of all races had made to lay a solid foundation for our nation building.
The decisions hastily taken at the Codesa negotiations after the assassination of Chris Hani in 1993 may have been mistaken and underestimated when things could go miserably wrong, as they did, unfortunately, and how to correct them.
To have come unscathed out of so many years of struggle, some being sent to the overworked Pretoria gallows, yet others, heroically laying down their lives so that we can enjoy freedom and peace today, surprised the whole world, which had prepared itself for one of the bloodiest civil wars Africa, and indeed, the world had seen.
To come out after 27 years of incarceration on an infamous island and still proclaim forgiveness and reconciliation also took many, even his enemies, by surprise. Indeed, that was the same message Christ had uttered, not only on the cross but also in the prayer He, himself, taught us to pray in times of turmoil, but also in times of joy.
For the world to help us on our beautiful road ahead, paved with roses, by bestowing the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize on two of our elders of the time, Madiba and the recently deceased last apartheid president De Klerk, was an equally beautiful gesture.
It was so exemplary that many conflict-stricken states came here to learn how we possibly succeeded in engineering a peaceful outcome after so much bloodshed after 342 years of both colonial and apartheid rule.
Our own Healing of the Memories organisations, started by Father Michael Lapsley, established to help parents of missing children and those who lost children, rehabilitation centres to help addicts, the many NGOs all working to help the weak and needy, are all giving us hope for a bright future. Many ordinary folks understood clearly what role each one of us had to play to take our brutalised country forward.
They also took hands, as was beautifully demonstrated when we won the very first Rugby World Cup we played in 1995 after years of isolation. This was repeated again in 2007 and recently in 2019. Seven of the sixteen coaches in the recently held T20 Cricket World Cup were South African.
There are countless soup and food kitchens, vegetable gardens to feed the hungry, run by ordinary people with meagre supplies all over our country. There is so much goodwill in all of us, not only in times of calamity, as demonstrated when Covid-19 came about, especially in our dark days.
Many of our successful entrepreneurs, sportsmen and women and professionals, even farmers, have established mentorship programmes and academies to help others also realise their dreams. Several rescue organisations help those in distress. Our professionals, including sports people, are sought-after all over the world, especially educators, engineers, scientists, doctors and nurses.
A positive spin-off of colonialism is the fact that English educators are needed in many countries. Opportunities that were denied to certain races are now available for everybody, and the numbers that are excelling in all fields are innumerable. Actors, actresses, singers, even beauty queens and many others are displaying their unique talents on different world stages, with massive success.
Our beautiful country is a Mecca for tourists from all corners of the world, boosting our struggling economy. We gain more by immigration than we lose by emigration. Our railway authorities have announced that railway branch lines would be revamped and extended for use by private companies, inviting tourists interested in olden rail travel.
The death penalty had rightly been consigned to history's scrapheap in 1995, where it should have been ever since it reared its ugly head here. Although most political parties are shouting not only for its reinstatement, and some also for foreigners to be extradited, many of us not only value their contribution to our country, but also embrace them as our brothers and sisters, as the Bible teaches us.
That new and wonderful South Africa we all yearn for need not be so elusive. We, as ordinary folk, can still bring it about without dishonest politicians, certainly not by trying to build separate ethnic and classist enclaves that can never last, thinking that will guarantee safety.
Our country is the leader in Southern Africa and all of Africa, where we sometimes have to restore order in some of our unstable neighbours. We enjoy the best cordial relations with all 53 of our neighbours on the continent. No war with any of them is on the horizon.
We have the best president we can have at present. No future president of any party will ever be welcome in any African country, so why pursue such a futile experiment?
Our country has a beautiful future for our children and grandchildren if we all bring our building blocks to continue constructing our unique South Africa for all on the foundation laid by our nation's fathers and mothers. It's always better together.
There will always be more builders than breakers.
Meyer is an anti-death penalty and anti-apartheid activist, former history educator and scholar.
Cape Times