jeanihess

Thank you for visiting:)

I am South African and resident in South Africa. Politically and for the purposes of economic redress in a post Apartheid South Africa, I am black. Under the old Apartheid identity laws I was designated 'coloured'.

I am a product of my time but my time evolves and I with it; in fact, it was important for me to assist and actively promote the evolution of South Africa and of myself, of the communities that I live in and engage with.

I am a community and social activist; an agent for change and this will always come through in my interests, my views and my writing.

It is important that people, especially our own black youth that find themselves in more advantaged situations today, and do not share the same Apartheid and colonial experiences, learn about our chequered history.

If they do not understand the social engineering that was legislated and that dumped millions of black people into dire poverty in order to advance the white South African population politically, socially, and economically and to provide them and their children with a firm economic foundation for the future, then they will not realize the importance of redress and will simply blame the poor for being poor instead of becoming and remaining involved with social and economic development of the historically underprivileged and deprived.

It might be true that the poor will always be with us, but social engineering that creates enforced poverty and that seeks to destroy the soul of a people and dehumanize them is an evil akin to Nazism.

We tend to give a lot of attention to all that is wrong in our country: the media overflows - perhaps it is hard to come to terms with the abject poverty and oppression that people lived under and how absolutely life-changing the improvements since 1994 have been.

Put differently, the people with voice are not those that were so oppressed, did not share those experiences, and can not truly speak about what the change in South Africa really means to the vast majority of South Africans.

Slowly people are claiming the dignity of personhood. Surely they are seeking to claim economic dignity.

It is this claim to economic dignity that scares the historically privileged the most.

But the momentum is there and can not be stopped. Despite any and all obstructions from any source, the people will overcome and in time we will see the South African dream fulfilled:)

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