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Let’s put an end to the rampant shaming of children on social media as, in their innocence, children sometimes do things that they will find embarrassing as they get older.
Recently, a video of children stealing crayons at school was trending on social media, and the teachers who are supposed to create a better future for these children were actively shaming them so that they could get more views and shares on their social-media accounts.
Teaching remains the noblest of professions, and nobility is governed by obligations of civility and manners, which should be strictly observed.
What teachers teach becomes custom for the next generation, so their job is to build a better and kinder society, and not push it back into primitiveness.
When we laugh at others, particularly the weak and the powerless among us, we reveal to the world not only our ugly fangs, but also the bottom of our eroded self-esteem and the need to raise it by stepping on the dignity of others.
We live in a time of phoney progress and fake fame. The corporate propaganda machine is telling people that they are upwardly mobile, but, in reality, they are sinking deeper into debt.
Then it sells them funeral cover, which does not settle their debts when they die, but gives the survivors money to throw a huge party to give an impression that the deceased person lived well.
The hunger for fake fame is a symptom of the illness that essayist and novelist John Berger called “modern poverty”.
Everything that we think we have is, in fact, failing. Since Nelson Mandela, our democracy has failed to produce a president who can finish his term.
Our politicians are all tainted. Our pastors are spraying people with pesticide in churches. The cathedrals of capitalism that are touted to be the solution to poverty are found to be hollow and a haven for the corrupt.
The auditors are found to be working together with executive syndicates as they pull off corporate heists.
When the poor do what the executives do, they are accused of stealing, and when children do what teachers do, they are embarrassed on social media.
The true state of our nation is best summed up by the Russian writer Andrei Platonov: “We can’t feel anything – all that is left inside us is dust.”
We cannot feel for lost children, we laugh at them. This insensitivity comes from the pandemic of materialism, which, in turn, has created deep sorrow as family, friends and neighbours compete with each other. People now feel stressed by their loved ones and those who are supposed to protect them.
Is it any wonder that suicide rates are increasing among our teens? Fake fame has set fake standards that cannot be reached, making our children opt out of life rather dream about the future.
“From our ugliness will grow the soul of the world,” Platonov said.
A bad patch does not mean the end of the road; that we are going through difficult times does not mean the end of our society. Instead, we will and must contribute to the world. We must be proud of building a more accountable democracy. Our business regime must be focused on uplifting people out of poverty rather than helping them sink deeper into debt.
As South Africans, humour is in our blood. We can never lose it because it carries us through the challenges that are synonymous with our continent.
Humour is when we laugh at ourselves. But when we laugh at others, it ceases to be funny – it is demeaning. We are better than that.
Kuzwayo is the founder of Ignitive, an advertising agency
