EDITOR – With all craziness in the world around us as South Africans we seem to be functioning in a vacuum, immune to this craziness and chaos.
Our beloved country has been fortunate in many respects and on many fronts – we are not exposed to natural disasters, inter alia, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, cyclones and earthquakes and on unnatural disasters we are also free of wars and conflict that we witness daily on television, and the threat of ISIS and terrorism generally.
We went from cry our beloved country to “sigh” and to “buy our beloved country” but South Africans who have remained in this country post-1994 must be hailed as patriots. We continued to believe in the future of South Africa and the ANC under the leadership of President Mandela, proved beyond doubt that the power of dialogue was more powerful than the barrel of a gun. It was hailed by the international community as the most peaceful transition of power – a bloodless revolution – a miracle.
However, many South Africans fled the country in fear, believing what the political propaganda machinery was busy feeding them, only later to realise that the place of your birth, your motherland can never be replaced. A recent encounter with an expatriate proved a point. They feel compelled to justify, at great length, their original reason for leaving South Africa and that they would prefer to hear from those of us who were patriotic, that things are only going downhill and there’s no sight of a light at the end of the tunnel except that of a train coming head on.
This then led me to do the research and you would be amazed by the facts. In an article captioned “The Brain Gain – SA expats are flocking back” dated 1 September 2015, in which the author talks about how difficult it is leaving the country of your birth to settle in another country. Logistically, financially, emotionally and above all culturally, its a change that sparks upheaval as well as opportunity but harder still is making the decision to pack your bags and come back home. She goes on to add that the grass is not always greener on the other side and nor is the global economy open and accommodating as it used to be.
For many South African expatriates, the prospect of homecoming may be tempting even if it must be weighed up against the volatile fluctuations of our currency and other symptoms of our state of the nation. But according information gathered on figures from Statistics SA, more than 400,000 South Africans have chosen to repatriate since 2009, when the global crisis was at its peak. This massive movement of people prompted the creation of a movement called Homecoming Revolution, at first an NGO and now a commercial organisation that encourages and facilitates the return of South Africans to “home sweet home.”
The harsh realities abroad, and the challenges of making a new home and a new life in the “happy-sad land we call South Africa” is unpacked in detail in an interview done by Biznews and published in the article referenced above. A quick google search on “homecoming revolution” will provide the interested reader with volumes of heart breaking stories of expats and their trials and tribulations abroad. It’s not all “sugar and candy.”
This is why as South Africans we have a patriotic duty as its citizens to collectively make our positive contributions in whatever little way we can, leave all the negativity outside the door and take South Africa from good to great. We owe that much to our fellow downtrodden and indigent South Africans who barely make ends meet. We have be the ambassadors of goodwill and try not to be prisoners of our past, something that cannot be changed but it’s the future that is transformable and that which we can shape.
Sicario
Durban
