UNITY IN DIVERSITY: SOUTH AFRICA: JUNE 16TH 2010

GREETINGS FROM SOUTH AFRICA!

MAXMOM here...

IT'S "YOUTH DAY" here in South Africa!!!

We are amidst the festivities of the

SOCCER WORLD CUP

as well as our own initiative...

"UNITY IN DIVERSITY!!!"

Today is a special day for our nation.  It is a public holiday here today as we celebrate

YOUTH DAY.

Not only this, but our own team BAFANA BAFANA are playing their match against URUGUAY this evening.

Over the past week, I have honoured 28 of the 32 countries involved in the SOCCER WORLD CUP. I have tried to encourage my blogging friends to do the same. Thank you to all those bloggers who have done this. It is becoming an awesome experience.

Today however I would very much like to dedicate this blogpost to my own beautiful country...

SOUTH AFRICA!!!

---xXx---

This is a day that many people will remember and I am one of those people.

I remember this day well! ...

It was a day that was to make me realise that...

 the lives of others have a large influence on my own.

34 years ago, I was sitting in a classroom of 30 white children about to write my final schooling exams. We were diligently paying attention to our schoolwork and enjoying the benefits of a good education when it was announced that there were important things happening in our country.

Whilst I was sitting in that modern classroom, my early childhood friends were stranded on a struggling farm, poverty stricken and illiterate. They had to scrape together morsels of food off the land and had to jump to orders of the farmers. Our differences were vast and ingrained.

That day, June 16, 1976, marked the “Soweto Uprising”. It was a time when thousands of black school children downed their own books and took to the streets to demand an education in their own language. That day turned into bloodshed as the police opened fire on innocent and vulnerable children. Some lost their lives in the process as did many others in similar struggles. The world that I had known was not an inclusive world. My realities were about to flood in.

The issues of that day were more than met the eye because they revealed the dire inequalities of the people of our country. I was a young 17yr old at the time and on the brink of flight into my own adulthood. It was the first time in my life that I truly realised that the lives of others affect me significantly.

Today I am a proud South African. Over the 34 years I have learned the ethos of our nation: To embrace the diversity of the rainbow people of this nation and to open my heart to other ways of thinking.

I can eat at pristine dinner tables but feel equally at home sitting around a rustic fire and sharing the contents of a three-legged pot.

I can dress up in an evening gown and dance to refined music but I can also move to the drum beats of African rhythm.

I can eat the foods of my own taste but allow others to enjoy their choices.

I can enjoy the vast open fields that Africa has to offer but I can also take on the pace of city life.

I have learned to love all people, knowing that by our differences I can attain greater understanding and wisdom.

I’ve learned not to judge too soon, but to search for meaning and intention behind the things that people do.

I’ve learned too that words are important but need to be taken from the perspective of those who utter them.

I’ve learned to appreciate the subtleties of classical music but can appreciate the call for unity in the traditional vuvuzela

It is only through the evolution of these past 34 years in South Africa that I’ve truly understood the concept of freedom.

I am an African!

It is this realisation that allows me to drive the blogging initiative of..

UNITY IN DIVERSITY!

Now...as the world descends upon our country and enjoys what it has to offer, I feel the old uneasiness of the past...the power of the judgement of others. Yes, vuvuzelas are noisy instruments but we need to look beyond them to the motivation behind them.

They originate from a call to unity in those dark years of the past.  In those years, they became symbolic of this need to unify...and that is the celebration of vuvuzelas that you are witnessing on televisions screens across the world.

 I wonder now...how can I convey to others what I have learned over the turbulent times of the past. Is it not possible to embrace our international differences too? The sounds of the vuvuzela might be irritating so some folk (indeed I also struggle with them sometimes) but they are intrinsic to the euphoric vibrancy of this country. It's not only South Africans who are blowing them at the moment either...suppporters from across the world have embraced this unity too. 

---xXx---

“Out of the vast blue skies and the deep seas, over distant mountains where cliffs echo the sounds of the call to come together and stand in unity...

God bless Africa! ”

 (The essence of our national anthem)

I welcome you, my guest, to my unique and beautiful country. Learn from us as we are learning from you.

SOUTH AFRICA!!!

---xXx---

I want to encourage you to go and visit two of my blogging friends...

LIVING AND LOVING

THE BARKALOT BOYZ

They have put up blogposts which epitomise the spirit of my own country.

Thank you so,so much!

To all the participants of our UNITY AND DIVERSITY initiative...

I AM PROUD TO CALL YOU MY FRIENDS!!!
Sending lotsaluv to you all

GO BAFANA BAFANA!