On this day, the 175th Day of the Vow, I pause with some thought as I perceived the hostile and neagtive comment that was received at my local newspaper about the commemoration of the 175 yers that had passed after the Great Trek and the Battle of Blood River, and I can but wonder at the abysmal lack of knowledge many of our people cheerfully display about this history. The battle was the culmination of efforts by a group of people to protect themselves, and it was by no means a white on black affair only. We can put down and insult each other’s culture at will, like we are doing now, and risk the rising of temperatures that may well put this country to the flame. If there is but one other levelheaded individual out there that may think like I do now, I will have hope for the future. I know I can bog this argument down on a tit-for-tat level with comparing balance sheets. Having said that, I want to ask, is that going to ensure that every hotheaded, agitated street warrior out there currently, is going to calm down, put his sword down and try to listen to his neighbour..? Maybe not. As a friend have said so many times, why can’t we just act normal..? There are many icons of struggle, liberation and the like out there, and they share one thing in common. They are all dead, and will not see the effect of their words and teaching, any.

All those powerful orators out there make one mistake in this country: they do not tell their followers what to do when their bellies are empty. These empty bellies come back to the local suburbia, where housewives and pensioners dish out scraps of food and piece jobs, even if they get rewarded for it with insults and jeers at political rallies and street soapbox operas where struggle-CV builders strive to build a path towards a seat in our parliament. A populist approach only causes rise in temperatures, and at the end of the day it serves no one’s cause. Andries Pretorius was no great politician, but he was no genocidal fool either. Our politicians will do well to listen to all the people on street level, address everybody’s fears, and to stop dividing the people of this great country.

Let us rather step back from the brink again, as have been done before, and celebrate the great people this country has produced over the years, and pay homage to the man in street, on whose shoulders they rode to fame. Let us not set fire to our fatherland, as we have no other. Let us all go back to what serve as our homes, and be decent people. That is all its going to take