Travel to South Africa 2009
I have returned to Australia from travelling for a month in South Africa and Botswana. I came back and still am finding it difficult to describe the experience because of its complexity.
South Africa is a country which still has to find its way - it seems like a place at war with itself. I had some marvellous experiences and saw some wonderful and extraordinary sights but these were always coloured by the something I had little previous experience of - this remarkable split between rich and poor and largely but not entirely between black and white.
Australia has many faults but it is largely an egalitarian society. Rich and poor mix and there is little in the way - there are few social or physical boundaries. South Africa by comparison seemed like worlds within world. Australia is a very tolerant place.
Coming to South Africa was a shock. Essentially I became a rich white man not just a person. As a result I moved and operated in a rich white world, not entirely by choice. I lived the high life and was waited on by a swarm of serving staff. Yet I could not or was warned not to venture outside, to go for a walk or go alone anywhere. I spent much of my time looking around, over my shoulder and wondering if something unpleasant was about to happen. Was I being paranoid? Perhaps I was not paranoid enough after hearing some stories later on.
South Africa is very rich in many ways - it is physically more beautiful than I ever imagined. But this split between rich and poor essentially based on colour and history constrains everything.
If all the money which has been and is still spent on security could be spent on schools and improved housing everyone would be better off. And its not just a case of transferring wealth. There needs to be a cultural shift to educate and promote small business - to make a bigger pie not just carve up the one that's already made and slowly shrinking.
Australia and South Africa share many features - similar climates and landscapes and a history of wealth built on mining. This needs to continue but expand not by penalising existing enterprises but by building new and better ones and using newly educated people of whatever colour.
I remain confused. I came, I saw, I left. I would love to go back but coming back to Australia shows how huge the task is to change hundreds of years of lost opportunity.
Make the rainbow nation happen and build a land rich in spirit and wealth.
