DUNDEE KZN: Goodbye January, less worries

Halalisani Shoba

 Goodbye January, Less worries? I just wonder if it’s only in our country where people have a ‘beef’ with the first month of the year or everywhere around the world most people feel the same about January. January is the enemy of almost everyone and funny enough people have even dragged the ‘cabbage’ into the equation. Do you get what I’m saying? If you don’t just forget about it. I feel sorry for January, yes I do. People don’t appreciate this month at all, they are ungrateful.

Talking about being ungrateful, I was so sad and disappointed to learn about the unfortunate passing of one of the finest actors we had in our country, Mr Patrick Shai. How do you digest and come to terms with such an incident? Indeed, it comes to prove that as human beings we are all fragile, we are not made of rocks. We all go through difficult moments and we all feel the pain and the pressure from those people who think they are perfect and that they can judge anyhow. No one is perfect but who made you God to judge? I so wish within our societies we can be able to tolerate each other, to take care of each other, and above all to show and practice Ubuntu. Let us love and spread peace in our communities, we owe ourselves that much.

I didn’t want this article to be about the late Mr Patrick Shai but we’ve lost someone who was vocal and played an important role when it comes to campaigning against gender-based violence. GBV is horrible, it is something that we should never stop fighting against because it is happening in our daily lives. If you can take your time and learn about it; if it’s something that you’ve never done before, you will realise that somehow we all have been the perpetrators or victims of GBV in some way. We can be found innocent in some instances or acts of abuse but everyone is guilty when it comes to emotional abuse. I have abused some people emotionally, also you have done the same thing and alone that causes a lot of problems to our mental state. I’m not a psychologist but I’m just stating something that we are all familiar with but we always choose to ignore such things. We are ignorant, guilty but funny enough some tend to think that they are perfect. No one is perfect, hence we need to unite, form more campaigns, join the existing campaigns in fighting against GBV. I know it is not easy to admit that we are perpetrators and some are victims but it is the fact. I normally say, no one wakes up every morning with the intention of abusing another human being, if there is someone who wakes up every day with that motive, then there must be something wrong with the mental state of that person. I am not judging but stating my honest opinion. I know this topic around GBV is always sensitive and trust me I’m not an expert when it comes to it but we can’t just fold arms and turn a blind eye against it. Let us be vocal and fight against it because we all have our demons. I must say we should commend president Ramaphosa as last week he managed to sign into law the legislation that is aimed at strengthening the effort to fight and end gender-based violence. Although signing is not enough, more programs need to be introduced in schools and in our media space in order to eradicate GBV.

May the South Africans have strength to survive against the torture caused by the South African Reserve Bank Monetary Committee, as they decided to raise the REPO RATE from 3.75 percent to 4.00 percent. I am touching on this subject because I feel like it is some sort of abuse against South African citizens. I mean such an increase in REPO RATE simply means fuel price will also increase soon. As we know everything seems to be increasing for the worse in our country except for job opportunities and humanity.

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