Heil die vrou
Hierdie week word die bydrae van ons
vroue tot die skep van ons nasie herdenk.
Dit strek oor die beeldspektrum van Rachel
de Beer tot Winnie Mandela, maar dis die
werklikheid.
Suid-Afrika staan heel op die voorpunt van
die Afrikalande waar die vrou, polities
gesproke, geheel en al ge-emansipeer is.
Die werklikheid bied egter ’n veel meer
sombere profiel.
Vroue en kinders is die teiken van gesins-
en gemeenskapsgeweld en gruwelike
verwaarlosing.
Vroue dra die las van VIGS en ander seksuele
siektetoestande weens die hebsug van mans.
Vroue moet tweekeer soveel presteer as mans
om die helfte van die erkenning te kry vir
hulle pogings in die sakewêreld.
Vroue sit opgeskeep met ongewenste
swangerskappe.
Vroue verdien, tenspyte van die beste
wetgewing ter wêreld, veel minder as mans
vir dieselfde werk.
Die raamwerk vir die absolute vrymaking van
die vrou is reeds geskep.
Ons samelewing moet nou daavoor sorg dat
hierdie belofte vervul word.
Cry, the beloved country
People of all cultural groups are
emigrating from South Africa to countries
like Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the
USA.
Europe is also getting its share.
Hidden among the statistics are the reasons
why families are departing our shores.
The main reason is given as uncontrolled
crime and nothing anyone says can dispute
this as a valid reason for uprooting whole
families.
After all, death meted out by callous thugs
for a cell phone or a car, is not a choice
option for a full life lived out among
professional colleagues.
Emigration is not a political issue, as the
communist regimes of Cuba and China has
decreed.
It is an individual family’s choice after
weighing the optimal choices for happiness.
Therefore, South Africa, with its spiral of
criminal violence spinning madly out of all
control will continue to lose its best,
trained people who demand some guarantee of
security for the high taxes they pay the
government.
These people vote a huge no confidence vote
against the government, which appears unable
to take crime in hand.
When emigrants leave, it is estimated, nine
permanent jobs worth well over half a
million rand per annum per emigrating
breadwinner are destroyed.
The skills bank is depleted, necessitating
the state’s dubious importation of Cubans or
Iranians, which further tarnishes our image
in the eyes of the West, whose kith and kin
are seen as giving up on this country.
The answer to this brain drain is relatively
simple.
Stop berating those who seek safer homes and
more secure employment outside, stop
branding them as unpatriotic, stop telling
the nation those who leave are ungrateful
wretches who at last live in a democracy.
Just make that democracy work, by making it
safe for all its inhabitants who shed real
tears when leaving our beautiful shores.
