EDITOR’S COMMENT
Mirroring the world, mining and local government pipedreams Driving along the N1 in Gauteng the other day, and for once in the passenger seat, I didn’t have to pay attention to the road. Instead, I could look at the office blocks, factories and other buildings, and the pavements, seeing things I hadn’t noticed before.
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t a point, we passed a dump site just metres away from the never-ending lines of traffic, cars and trucks that push the speed limits, emitting noxious fumes and a 24/7 thrum of noise. To the side were some shacks, homes for a few of the millions of people who live below the poverty line, in a country which, according to Aljazeera.com, now has the world’s highest unemployment rate. “South Africa’s unemployment rate surged to the highest on a global list of 82 countries monitored by Bloomberg,” it reported, with the unemployment rate, which includes people who have stopped looking for work, rising to 44.4% in the second quarter of 2021. Beautiful South Africa, with all its possibilities, its rich history, its many fascinating cultures, its abundant mountains and rivers and mineral wealth, is also riddled with ugliness: crime, corruption, joblessness, hunger, hatred
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and fear. It’s a constant challenge to stay upbeat, with the pandemic adding angst. Difficult for those of us with jobs and money to buy food and pay for security, how much worse is it for the woman sorting through the dirty and the discarded for items to sell, the recyclers who push heavy burdens up and down hills with impatient motorists hooting at them to get out of their way, the beggars (yes, some are drug addicts and alcoholics), the homeless, the unemployed, and the persecuted (including our children and whistleblowers). Now, more than ever before, we as individuals need to show kindness, compassion and courage — and I couldn’t put it better than this passage (shortened) by Mohandas Gandhi in 1913, which I found on QuoteInvestigator.com: “We but mirror the world... If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own
SECURITY FOCUS AFRICA SEPTEMBER 2021
nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him… A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.” There are good people among us: those who leave big tips on small restaurant bills, those who volunteer their time in soup kitchens, the ones who pick up stray animals and take them home or to places of safety, the carers at orphanages and retirement centres, and the man behind me in Checkers the other day. While the security guards gathered at the entrance, waiting to catch a shoplifter whose pilfering had been caught on camera, I was paying for my groceries. I wanted to get out of there before the arrest, so I told the cashier not to worry about my Checkers card. The man behind me then handed his card to her, for my benefit. It saved me R30. He got nothing out of it — it was a genuine act of kindness. I promised him I would pay it forward, and I did.
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