Writer Alan Paton, in Cry, the Beloved Country, once said “the tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that things are not mended again.”
If one had to ask any South African who has lived through the apartheid era and witnessed the struggle for liberation, they’d tell you that South Africa is a strong country - strong beyond measure.
However, the continuous and relentless string of attacks and looting of businesses run by foreign nationals and locals, as well as the increasing violence against women and children has, over the past few weeks, tested that strength.
It has become clear with each day that something in our country and in our society is truly broken.
Perhaps it is our justice system that is broken.
Perhaps it is our family structures that have collapsed, along with the moral decay that fills our society.
Maybe it is the fragmented leadership structures that simply cannot guide us as a country and take us where we need to be.
At this stage is easier to point fingers at the government for its lack of planning and the failure of tenacity by President Cyril Ramaphosa to run a sovereign state such as ours.
It is also easier for those in society who are not immediately affected by some of the social ills and the crippling high figures of unemployment in South Africa, to distance themselves from everything.
It is also much easier for some political party leaders who spent the most part of 2017 and 2018 canvassing in local communities for votes to point fingers at the government.
Just as how we saw a massive turnout by party members in communities and strings of election posters on our streets, it has to happen again.
This time it must happen not for the purpose of power, but to save the vulnerable members of our society from perishing.
Everyone has the responsibility to come out of their comfort zone and help fix South Africa.
The problems we are currently facing as a nation may not be solved overnight, but action is required.
We have the time to amend what is broken now because once again: “the tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that things are not mended again.”
Amend South Africans, amend.