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It Really Doesn’t Matter
Trust me on this, I have a cynical view borne out by personal history.
I come from one of the world’s most beautiful countries. South Africa. It has everything the natural world could offer. I have yet to see better, and I have seen a lot of the world.
But it has been managed by people who do not give a shit for so long. It’s a financial football in a never-ending game of “it’s my turn to score.”
It has been mismanaged for over two centuries, and always for personal gain. First by the colonialists, who raped it. Then the Apartheid Government made it wonderful for Whites and awful for the Africans and Indians, and then the first African Government, the ANC, made it shit for everyone.
And yet, it still survives.
Its First World areas are some of the best in the world. A paradise to live in, if you can afford the security. The 3rd World areas are abysmal. But it all functions, somehow.
I say to my children — that being brought up in a country that is both 1st and 3rd world (yes, I know we do not like to use that depiction anymore, but I do not like sanitizing the truth), gives perspective on truth. So long as you engage with both. And our family does. Or did.
