Many ordinary Capetonians were spurred to action by the fire, but there are many slower-burning issues which also need attention, says Karen Goldberg.
Cape Town - As the smoke and ash from the last few days settles and we begin to tally the costs of this week’s inferno (be it personal, infrastructural or environmental), and unexpected blessings (like the R3 million-plus raised for the Volunteer Firefighters or the gentle rains that fell on Wednesday), I am finding my mind buzzing with all kinds of questions and dilemmas, and I feel there is a huge opportunity for reflecting on and learning from what happened.
One burning question (excuse the pun) that has stayed with me over these days has been what has spurred so many of us Capetonians (and some from further afield) to action?
What is it that has brought out the best in us? Of course there are many unsung heroes that attend to these issues on a daily basis, whether as a part of their work, or as volunteers.
But I am talking about us ordinary folk.
When I went to drop off juices at the Lakeside fire station earlier in the week, the slip-road was gridlocked, thronging with people dropping off ice, bananas, juice, you name it.
To such an extent that I later received a Facebook message from them asking people to STOP supplying their station with food and drink because they were at capacity!
Every day we hear about disasters or tragedy – whether it be shack fires (apparently there were almost 700 shack fires in Cape Town over the December holidays that killed 20 people and displaced thousands), or the recent flare-ups of xenophobic violence.
Or how an average of 34 000 (mostly) women and children are raped every month in our country.
We all know the list…
Just the other day I was in the surf and I bumped into a psychiatrist friend of mine who works in the clinics in Vrygrond, an informal settlement about five minutes’ drive from my house.
He pulled up his wetsuit sleeve to show me fresh knife wounds suffered that morning as a result of deflecting the blows of a knife-wielding man on tik who was about to stab a social worker in the back.
Here is a community, right on my doorstep, and I do nothing about the situation.
Why is that?
For some insights into this phenomenon, perhaps the best place to start is with me.
While I am deeply committed to contributing to social change, and I work in this space in my professional capacity, I am admittedly complacent about many issues. For the most part, the best that I do is sign Avaaz petitions that arrive in my inbox that particularly speak to me.
And very sporadically I get it together to make a donation to a few charities that somehow touch me – whether they touch me directly, such as Sharkspotters (I am a surfer after all) or Yiza Ekhaya, a soup kitchen in Khayelitsha which I support because I personally know Nomphilo, its founder, and want to support her passion and determination.
What I have learnt from past experience is that any one of the big issues out there requires deep and long-term commitment, and can (and has) completely consumed me, leaving my family and other meaningful relationships in tatters.
And I guess to be completely honest I don’t trust myself to remain involved in these issues for the long haul. In particular, now that I have a six-month-old child, I am even more aware of how I need to prioritise and conserve my energy.
Also, many of these issues feel so big that they have threatened my ability to act at all…
So what is it that spurred me to actually go, not just think about contributing to the firefighters in some way, but actually go out and buy drinks, and deliver them to the fire station (admittedly an incredibly small act)?
I think the biggest contributing factor was that it represented a “quick win” for me: a small, one-off act that cost me very little and gave me a sense that I had played a part, no matter how small, in supporting these brave men and women at the front lines – that somehow I was an active participant in this major event.
It was also an issue that could not easily slip my mind because of the visible and visceral experience of the fires all around me, and the need for immediate action, unlike many other issues that are ongoing (which reminds me that I keep meaning to contact Milk Matters to find out more about how I can donate breast milk to premature babies in desperate need…).
Of course, my personal experience is only a fraction of the story.
But perhaps it does speak to the general inertia I notice both within and around me to the slower-burning (but potentially equally devastating) social issues smouldering all around us, which, unattended will most likely become infernos.
Do we have to resign ourselves to the reality that most of us not directly in the firing line will only act when crisis hits, and only if it somehow touches us personally and viscerally?
Or where our involvement can be immediate and discrete in space and time?
What would it take for us to come together to find ways to address our most pressing issues before they become fires burning out of control?
* Karen Goldberg is a Senior Associate at Reos South Africa, a social enterprise that helps businesses, governments, and civil society organisations address complex social challenges.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
Cape Times