South Africans are bearing the brunt of undocumented migration, overwhelmed services, and a government slow to respond.
Poet Robert Frost in Mending Walls said that good fences make good neighbours.
South Africa keeps finding itself in situations where it has to keep defending its borders.
Today, its citizens are at a point where they must justify the desire for South Africa’s provisions to be adequate without leaving its people scrambling, while also providing for its undocumented neighbours.
We are living with ghosts who work and have access to state provisions, but we don’t even really know who they are.
This is the case raised by movements such as March and March and Operation Dudula.
While many of us may differ with them on how to restore a semblance of order, many may agree that their cause is long overdue.
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When Tom London went on social media to lament the state of Helen Joseph Hospital, many rallied in support of his move to a private hospital. Funds were raised, and he was moved to Morningside Hospital for private care.
London complained that doctors treated patients as cockroaches. We agreed that some reform was needed.
The celebration of staff at state facilities as seen across social media platforms, of the work and initiatives by Operation Dudula and March and March reiterates, staff did in fact feel overwhelmed.
The nurses are accused of taking long breaks but they’ve worked as slaves throughout the day.
This is because they are stretched – they are servicing far greater numbers. While we may be angry, the people on the front lines are stretched. They are the voices that also lend a whisper of their exhaustion to movements that say, abahambe (let them go).
This is no phenomenon, this is the voice of the real people.
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The people of Lesotho are notorious for illegal mining, our neighbours from Mozambique are synonymous with vehicle theft.
The Zimbabweans are considered as petty thieves and Nigerians are known as traffickers of drugs and humans.
This in no way vindicates South Africans as perpetrators of crime, but we have moved from a national to an international crisis because we are unable to attribute these crimes to known people. How, when most are undocumented?
Swaziland has now taken five US convicts in, with 150 more expected. The spill over, South Africa.
Do our neighbours and their leaders really respect South Africa?
The people are clearly tired and have become the voice the government lacks. Now, the question remains: would good fences not have made good neighbours?
