It is not the same...

A friend of mine, a Hungarian citizen, made a comment the other day that gave me pause to think. She flew home to Hungary for a visit recently and, on her return, said that it was not the way it used to be.

South Africa is not the way it used to be either. In ways that count significantly it is much better since the demise of apartheid. But in other ways it has simply deteriorated at an alarming rate. As I pondered her comment, I thought about other countries and I admitted that the fabric of society across the entire world is disintegrating, not just in South Africa.

What brought on the moral decay that is prevalent throughout the world, even in ‘sanctuaries’ like the church? Criminality is the order of the day, worldwide, to a greater or lesser extent. (Sadly in South Africa it is to a greater extent ) I ask myself whether rape of women, children and, worst of them all, tiny babies, has always happened in such vast numbers, or is it just that we now get to hear about it because it is easier to act against the perpetrators of this violence? There are more broken homes, it seems, than stable and happy ones. Drug abuse in any shape and form is not only rife it is seen in many cases as being a ‘social activity’. Parents are even abusing drugs with their kids in the home, for heaven’s sake! People the world over are selling their souls for money and what it can buy and the power it can bring with it.

Since my friend’s comment, when I think about South Africa, I try to see my homeland in a global context. South Africa is not alone in its deterioration. It has simply become like the rest of the world where a lack of moral fibre, and a reluctance to get involved in anything that doesn’t concern you directly, is the order of the day.

In my opinion, the world, in a nutshell, is hell on earth… And the worse it becomes, the narrower most of our lives become as we start spending more and more time behind bars and high walls that define our own homes, too terrified to even step out onto the streets in our neighbourhood between dusk and dawn. As if the hours of darkness hold terrors that are far worse than anything that can manifest during daylight. Ha!

Whilst much of what we now experience as life is good beyond belief, a very large part of me wishes for the ‘old’ days. Those bygone days, when draconian laws kept criminals in line, and religion hadn’t been turned into an entertainment extravaganza.

No, it is not the same.


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