Johannesburg - I have not lived in the township since May 4, 2001.
I was not born there either. I was about 4 years old when my father, who was separated from my mother, took me from Mmotong Wa Perekisi – loosely translated, the mount where peach trees grow – then a village in Limpopo, now somewhat of a township, and brought me to Greenvillage, in Soweto.
I do not remember much of the first four years of my life. It was the programming through those 11 years from 1990 to 2001 that shaped the foundation of me.
I am who I am because of two things; a Black conscious single father and the township streets.
The townships have deteriorated since then. Much like the rest of the republic.
I was conscientised during the heydays of a free South Africa, of a rainbow nation that turned out to be monochrome.
I suppose we didn't pay attention, we couldn't see that we were drinking from freedom bottles filled with a pale opaque liquid, instead of water.
We had been thirsty for a long time. But that is not how you survive in the woods.
South African has become that neck of the woods with burnt-out neon lights in the concrete part of the jungle.
Eskom isn't helping. They look to us to pat them on the back for keeping lights on. The inner city has turned outwards. The ground is spewing fire. We are burning inside. They made us depend on them, then these corrupt, money-thieving politicians turned us against each other. And so the republic started breeding lawlessness.
Borderlessness changed its meaning.
#OperationDudula was inevitable.
With nothing left to lose, what other option than to demand they #PutSouthAficansFirst?
Growing up in the township, in the event of a family emergency, friends and acquaintances stay outside and only family members engage.
There would be too many opinions from people not directly impacted and that would delay resolutions.
A revolution was always imminent. We do not live in an ideal or just republic.
If the republic was just, it would give rise to just individuals who can offer an account of their actions and debate what constitutes their justness.
The republic’s needs and those of the citizens' do not work symbiotically, the republic benefits from its people while its people do not benefit from it. There is no justice in that. But then again, what is justice?
One of the key ideas in Plato's The Republic is that there is a thread that runs through the dialogues on justice: and that is the difference between essence and appearance. How something appears as opposed to what it actually is.
We look to leaders, politicians. It is something interesting to watch when they seem just, then change their rhetoric. That's when we change our perspective of them. But then again our votes are still our secrets.
It is in our secrets where the greatest kind of injustice LIES.