I have never been able to understand why people longing for a better life destroy the exact things and environment that would provide this better life.
What do you achieve by burning down a clinic, a school, administrative buildings, community halls, etcetera?
What do you achieve by looting and destroying the premises of people and businesses serving your community and providing you with the necessities of life?
How can you call yourself human when you rape babies, young children and others? How can you call yourself human when you beat or stone someone to death or even burn them alive? How can you call yourself human when you stone innocent animals to death and shoot birds with stones as a form of entertainment?
I am tired of hearing that these ills are caused by poverty, as many of the people participating in these acts are not poor. The household receives Sassa grants, and there are also one or two people working and bringing in additional income.
I have been shocked to see that the first purchase that is made with the Sassa money is at the bottle store or the drug dealer. Not at the Spar or the informal food market. I have been astounded and saddened to see grandchildren beating up their grandparents because they won’t hand over their pension. When I have intervened, I have been sworn at and threatened.
In my own small way, I have shared what I have with two other families over the years to make a better life for us all. They have appliances such as washing machines and fridges to make their lives less of a drudgery and enhance their diet by being able to store food which we have learnt to grow together to better feed themselves and also able to store perishables bought at the store.
They have a TV to entertain and expand their knowledge of the world around them. I have instilled in them the importance of education and further studying after matric in order to equip themselves to earn a decent living income. We have together worked out how to work together to achieve this by using all of the incentives that the government provides as well as working at two jobs to pay for the education.
What must we do to wake up people to the fact that civilisation requires looking after what we own personally and as a nation? It requires caring for and helping each other, etcetera.
How do you instil these ideas and change people's hearts and minds? I am 72 years old and have spent my whole life in the service of others, following the example of my parents, and I sometimes wonder if it is a wasted life until I see my children and the children of the two families that we have interacted with over the years, and it gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, people can change.
God help us all.
* Laura Lucas, Gqeberha.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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