Through My Eyes

While chatting to my friend Johnny, who is no stranger to genocide and displacement, he assures me that time for us in South Africa is running up. I want to cover my ears and not listen. I cannot imagine life anywhere but my beautiful coastal village.

I don?t want to be a refugee or an immigrant any more and I have no desire to go back to the country of my birth. So what are my options? As I sit in the dark, trying to do business with companies that, like me, are struggling to keep staff motivated at their desks as the power goes out and the computers and telephones go on the brink again.

We see cruel brutality on social media and on our TV screens. We try to stay calm. It is not us that are getting brutally murdered, its forty kilometres away in some dark alley, Durban central; we don?t go there we know better to venture out into those corners.

But we can't just sit back and let it continue so we join the peace marches and donate whatever we can. We all feel hopeless but not defeated we will overcome, we will resolve this mess, we will come out of it stronger and more united.

Or not.

"So, Kasia are you prepared to run?" Johnny asked me.

"No Johnny, I am not running. I am staying here."

"You crazy Kasia. It was optimists like you that stayed in Europe when the Nazis came. They believed that they would somehow make it. Don't be a fool. Start preparing now.

The thing is, I really don't want to run. I want to stay and I want everything to remain as it is. I am even prepared to give up electricity and running water to be able to remain in this country, but will this be enough?

My thoughts are clouded. They return to my grandmothers closet. Treasure she kept until her dying days, remnants of the family who were lucky and escaped in time before the Nazis invaded Poland. A grim reminder. They were not the optimists. They ran and were spared.

I don't want to run. I want peace to prevail.

The good news is that the xenophobic violence has been stopped - for the time being.

The land invaders have dispersed after their tragic accident.

And the load shedding will continue indefinitely.

As I sit here I am reminded of Ubuntu and what it really means, "I am, because you are". In fact, the word Ubuntu is just part of the Zulu phrase "Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu", which literally means that a person is a person through other people.

Ubuntu has its roots in humanist African philosophy, where the idea of community is one of the building blocks of society. Ubuntu is that nebulous concept of common humanity, oneness: humanity, you and me both.

Come on everyone lets unite in love and respect for all.