We have shed too many tears in 2019

As we look back on a year filled with bloodshed, let us consider how we, as individuals, have aided and abetted the misery that so many South Africans have suffered, writes Madimetja Mogotlane

When Enoch Sontonga, the composer of our national anthem, authored this rousing song, he must have had a premonition.

In one of the song’s poignant lines, Sontonga pleads with the Master in heaven that “Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso, O fedise dintwa le matshwenyego”.

The reason behind his having composed the anthem was not the same as the reason an ordinary artist would compose.

While the latter might want his or her song to be voted Song of the Year, for Sontonga, the composition served rather as a symbol, a national treasure.

Why did Sontonga compose such an emotive song?

Because the choirmaster from Uitenhage, in the Eastern Cape might have foreseen the calamity that would ravage our country in the years to come.

Today, if we were to awake him from his immortal sleep, like a clairvoyant would do, and ask him about the anthem’s significance, in his cockiness, Sontonga might reply: “Ndinixelele (I warned you).”

His response would be in reference to the violence that has engulfed our country over the ensuing years, with 2019 being just as much of a bloodbath.

Besides the Springboks’ triumph in winning the Rugby World Cup, and Miss SA Zozibini Tunzi’s achievement in having been crowned Miss Universe at last week’s pageant, what else can we celebrate this year?

What have we brought to the world stage this year besides brutality, political mudslinging and betrayal?

We can only say this to the world: “We are the hunters who did not bring the rabbit home to be feasted upon, but instead, shame.”

We have witnessed the inhumanity of a sane person carrying a corpse in a plastic bag, dragging it to an insurance company’s office in a desperate bid to halt administrative delays in releasing funds for the deceased’s funeral.

Human life in our country is cheap; it can be auctioned to the highest bidder.

It is rainy season now, but is this normal rain? No.

These are our ancestors’ tears, crying for the loss of Uyinene Mrwetyana, Precious Ramabulana, Gomolemo Legae and the many other victims of gender-based violence.

May their souls rest in peace.

As a country, how did we create this living hell?

In his column written earlier this month for The Sowetan, titled Today’s killers and rapists are “monsters” of our own making, Mbuyiselo Botha laments the buffoonery of the “monsters” that we, as a society, have created.

“The million-dollar question then becomes: How do these individuals, whom we later disassociate ourselves from by calling them ‘sick’, ‘monsters’ or ‘animals’, come about?

I think it is critical that we grapple with this issue because ... we are very quick to forget that these very monsters are, and were once, part of a much larger ecosystem and part of our broader society.

What, then, in our society led them or contributed to them ending up as rapists and murderers? ...

“We shy away from these questions because it is not easy to admit that the very monsters have a history and may have been failed by various societal systems and structures, and that may have contributed to them being the monsters they are today.”

I applaud Botha for presenting this sensitive issue on a broader platform and challenging us to introspect and review our relationship with these so-called monsters.

How many people can come out and say: “My son is a rapist, please arrest him”?

As society, we have welcomed such people into our homes.

We know about their sadistic behaviour, yet we continue to hero-worship them and render them untouchable.

We have had a national day of prayer, when different denominations converged to pray for peace and unity. As a society, how else can we intervene?

The solution is simple: We will be with our families during this festive period, and can use this time to engage with the “monsters” we have created.

We need to remind them of societal norms and family values to help them to change their ways.

As we bid farewell to 2019, let us remember our cries; we cannot afford another bloodbath in 2020.

Nkosi sikele iAfrika. Continue to cry, beloved country.

Madimetja Mogotlane is a civil servant

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