Comments on: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

By: colleen

colleen — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:57:18 +0000

Good article. Powerful and bitter

By: nadya

nadya — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:02:48 +0000

Well -written! What we regarded as normal growing up in south africa is regarded as “crazy” elsewhere!

By: Cloudgazer

Cloudgazer — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 06:47:36 +0000

Fantastic.
Fear may keep you alive, just don’t give in to it. A life lived in fear is hardly any life at all.
And as a very very wise little green man once said’ ‘don’t give in to fear… fear leads to anger… anger leads to suffering.’

By: Good Charlie

Good Charlie — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:00:15 +0000

Wow. I actually have goosebumps. Absolutely brilliant!
Good Charlie´s last blog ..The Art of Political War

By: theFlipSide

theFlipSide — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:56:44 +0000

In my experience, violence and the fear associated with crime have gotten worse after South Africa became a democracy.

People used to leave South Africa because they don’t like Apartheid pre 1990s, now people leave because of their fear for violence and crime.
theFlipSide´s last blog ..THE PERFECT ENGLISH BRAAI

By: NoshBar

NoshBar — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:43:52 +0000

P.S. My poorly made non-existent point was that while I was told the exact same things as you, I never ended up feeling fear, with my result of that input being to question and investigate things for myself, and evaluate everyone against the one and same prat-o-meter.

By: NoshBar

NoshBar — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:32:31 +0000

The only time I ever felt fear, was when we got home from the library, and found our house had been broken in to, and the police van arrived in our driveway with a squeal and smelling like burnt handbrake complete with psyched up white cops who said you could still smell “them” in the house… they were super scary.

Weigh that up against actual near-death experiences of the twice I almost got abducted by white weirdo’s offering sweets and money (to be fair, I’m pretty damn cute), the three times I almost drowned myself by being overly enthusiastic in my watery expeditions (to be helped out by my sister and a nice Indian girl), the time I felt nervous upon hearing my sisters school had a white boy who’d had enough and was holding people at gun and hand grenade point, and it’s not a bad ratio of “what you should be scared of SA edition” vs. “what you should be scared of World edition”.

Actually, that’s not true… when they changed Woofles voice on Pumpkin Patch, I was creeped the hell out.

Funny that despite being brought up in the same circumstances, I never felt the fear you did.

Maybe ignorance is indeed bliss.

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:09:03 +0000

unfortunately, a lot of people did grow up with this kind of fear, it is still very evident today

By: Sarah

Sarah — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:51:05 +0000

This story sounds like one that should have been written by somebody who grew up in the Gaza Strip, or during a civil war in Africa or in Afghanistan. This is luckily not the feelings I associate with my country.

Fear was never encouraged by the people around me while I was growing up, rather caution – Something that comes in handy no matter where you live in the world.

By: Diva

Diva — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 06:00:18 +0000

That was beautiful!
*insert applause here*