by Gaynor Paynter

G21 Africa Columnist

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Gaynor Paynter & her sons

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - Hello from a somewhat despondent South African - it is the day after we have lost the opening match of the Cricket World Cup, to the West Indies, well known for their calypso style cricket. It was one of those nail biting, close matches which are not very good for the heart. The result came down to the last ball, and we lost by four runs, which is just one boundary (roughly equivalent to a baseball home run). It was a match well fought and a great evening's entertainment to say the least! We look forward to many more matches of the same calibre.

An incident that occurred a long time ago, in my childhood, popped into my head as I was driving home today. (I find that most of my remembering is done whilst as I am driving as I just don't have time to do it at any other time!) The memory took place at around the time that I was about nine or ten years old.

I was visiting a friend. There were four of us there that day, my friend, a sports loving boy, and two other boys, one of whom was also athletic, and the other of whom was slightly less so due to some or other problem he had had at birth. I myself had the athletic prowess of a snail, and still do.

On that day all those years ago we were playing a ball sport, which involved splitting up into pairs, throwing the ball to your partner and running to another part of the garden, catching the ball and throwing it again. (I can't quite remember how, if at all, anyone would have won the game - it was one we had made up ourselves).

Rules sorted out, we split up into what we considered fair teams, being the two stronger boys against myself and the weaker boy, disability and athletic prowess being of no consequence to us as nine-year olds. All we knew was that we were having fun. And we continued to do so - until my friend's father returned home. He took one look at how we had split ourselves up.

"No", he said, "you can't play like this - you two good, strong boys" (motioning to the other two) "against - ".

He didn't continue, as he motioned towards us, a girl and a weaker boy. He didn't have to continue. We knew then that we weren't as good as the other two. He'd told us that in no uncertain terms - we might as well not even bother because we had no hope anyway. This is a demotivating incident which every so often returns to haunt me even today, in my adult life.

If one incident like this can have such a profound impact on one person's life, how much more so must a political incident have on a developing country? Political incidents affect everyone living in the country and, like it or not, are directly influential to all individuals living in the country's future, and the future of the country itself.

As a White South African, I grew up in a sheltered environment, not really knowing or understanding the first thing about apartheid, what Black people were going through (even though we lived not five kilometres away from them, something I am not proud to admit ).

We were led by our political "leaders" to believe that we, as Whites, were somehow better and different, a notion that now, thankfully, most Whites have seen as what it really was - stupid, unfair, ridiculous, and mostly, just plain untrue.

However, that said, living through apartheid and its aftermath has had a profound effect on my life. I have developed from a most narrowminded way of thinking - in school, we made inane comments such as "don't the Americans realise that apartheid is affecting the people they are trying to help the most - putting the Blacks out of work". This was true, of course, but it was not only the Blacks but everyone in the country who were hurt by apartheid along with most of my White counterparts today.

Back then, we Whites were trying to turn a blind eye to this - a most closed way of looking at things. We also told the most unkind jokes (a common trait amongst South Africans is to make light of things, in particular of issues that we do not fully understand), and thought they were funny, as this was acceptable behaviour in our society. As children you accept what is told to you without questioning - hence, I accepted that I was not as good as the other children at the sports game (whereas now I would argue my defence profusely) and it is only with the wisdom of adulthood and the benefit of life experience that you learn that not everything you are spoon fed by those in authority is true. You learn that their viewpoints need not necessarily be your own - in short, you learn to think for yourself and I am proud to state that I had reached this stage by the time I turned eighteen and was privileged to vote for my first time in the very first democratic election held in South Africa. That was in 1994. I grew up in the Old South Africa, a South Africa despised by the rest of the world. This is not a good feeling, but in my defence, as a teenager I was frustrated that I had never been able to vote but was condemned by the rest of the world along with my older counterparts.

And this is what the crunch is - my generation and my mother's generation of Whites will always have the stigma of the old South Africa attached to us. But the hope is with the younger generation - a generation who have had nothing but positive messages about South Africa fed to them and therefore have no reason to believe anything but the best about our country.

Okay, they may not know everything about their past, but sometimes ignorance is bliss. Our national anthem is "Nkosi Sikelela iAfrika (God Bless Africa) and I believe that He has. The blessing is the future, and the instrument with which God has supplied us to carry out the blessing is the youth. But they are not going to be able to do it without help.

There are two major problems facing our country which need to be addressed - unemployment and crime, and I personally believe that if the unemployment problem is sorted out then crime will decrease greatly. With the percentage of unemployment in South Africa being in excess of forty percent (and increasing daily), I don't believe that enough is being done to sort the problem out. Yes, there are government initiatives, but not enough money is being allocated to job creation and training. The money that is being allocated is helping so few people that it can only be considered a drop in the ocean.

I believe that the answer lies with those South Africans who are fortunate enough to be able to consider themselves more privileged than some of the others. These are the people who can actively get involved. For example, one of our local celebrities, David Vlok, has taken it upon himself to educate three orphans. If every privileged South African could do that then the children would be educated, kept off the streets, themselves start companies and create employment and then there would be no need to commit crime.

I am not saying that the only reason for the commission of crime is poverty. It is not - there is simply no excuse for some of the atrocities which take place in our country on a daily basis, such as the rape and abuse of babies, murder of the aged, etc. I believe that the reintroduction of the death penalty is in order, one of the best options available to us with which to stop the scourge of crime which is so damaging our beautiful country's image.

At the moment we do not have the death penalty nor a very strict penal system and with the problems of overcrowding in the prisons, as well as regular jail breaks, surely bringing back this form of punishment would alleviate the situation if by nothing else than deterring would-be criminals.

In summing up, I can only say that South Africa's problems need to be taken care of at the grass roots level. Our children need to be given the basic right of a good, impartial education (by committed teachers with the best interests of the children at heart) because knowledge is empowering and will directly lead our country to increased employment, the reduction of crime, and the complete, democratic integration of our diverse population.

Our church utters a prayer weekly: "God bless Africa, guide her leaders, and give her peace, in Jesus' name. Amen."

Something I pray for daily.