Corruption is all over. In subscriptions. In websites. And especially in government. Cambodian government. Chinese government. Korean government. United States government. Egyptian government. Vietnamese government. Australian government. I do not know which. Maybe half of them. Maybe all.
South Africa. I do not know about the rest of the world, but corruption is what keeps our government going. The only way our politicians are working together is by stealing together. As a citizen, I have to pay taxes every month so my roads will be safe enough to drive on, and my sick child can have better medical care, and my house will be able to fit my family. But I along with everyone else am paying taxes, and Africa is not getting richer. Our no-good president and lousy vice president are. Our secretary who doesn’t care at all about the country is. Everyone tries to get our president kicked out, but he says no.
He got himself elected by paying people. Eighty dollars per person could be all it takes.
If you look it up online, you will see we have a 93% literacy rate. But I am literate and South African and I know that almost 2/3 of the population are not fully literate. Over 50% of young people are unemployed. Our president targeted those people to get to vote for him. Most of them voted for him because they needed the money that he gave, and the jobs and houses he promised to provide.
If you look up South Africa on the web, you will find facts. There is free medical care. There is free housing. Everyone who goes to school has successfully passed all of their grades. But if our world was held up by facts, we would have never had the invention of the lightbulb, or a toaster to make our sandwiches. We wouldn’t have even figured out the law of gravity. You have to be in South Africa or go a little bit deeper to see the true story.
Good medical care is difficult to come across. And I am not talking greedily, wanting specialty doctors. I just want a good enough one. There is a saying in South Africa. “Go to the hospital with a headache and they will amputate your leg.” We have to be extra careful to not get sick. The housing situation looks great from the outside. Perfect tiny little apartments. But that is the thing. They’re so tiny. In my house, there is one bathroom, two tiny bedrooms, and nothing else. They are basically a box with heat, beds and running water.
School seems to get worse with time here. My child pays very good attention in school, but he only has a good teacher for the first time in seventh grade. You may think that all of that is normal, but my son is the second best in his class, and he only got 64% on his school exams. He passed onto the next grade. None of his classmates’ stayed behind because the lowest kid missed it by a bit and got 32%. You only have to get 30% to go to the next grade. And if South African children do not learn, how are they supposed to get a job when they grow up? How are they supposed to learn to be doctors, so that South Africa has some good ones? The answer is no answer.
My countries president is not fully literate. He cannot read numbers. How is our country supposed to thrive if our president cannot make deals, write checks, or do the things any other president can do, I do not know. And worse yet, he is not only our head of government but also our chief of state. Too much power for too much bad.
All of our power is in the hands of thieves. All of our money is in the hands of thieves. All of our lives are in the hands of thieves.
What would South Africa have done seven years ago if we knew where our fates lay? What would South Africa have done if we had control over where our money went. I do not know. But I think that if South Africa had the chance to start over now, we would. We would redirect the taxes. We would make our houses larger. We would get ourselves better medical care. We would send our children to better schools, where they don’t pass their tests by guessing. We would not vote for Jacob Zuma. We would do anything and everything that we could to make our lives worth everything we have been through.
If we could have a better government, we would finally be one peaceful country.
Bigger better homes mean our children having more sleep. Having more sleep leads to paying attention in school. Paying attention in school means learning more. Learning more means getting better jobs they are good at when they are older. They can get a job as a doctor and South Africa will have good ones again. They can be a teacher so the next generation will learn. They could have any job they want. Being good at their job means they make more money. Having more money means being able to buy a big house so their children get more sleep and pay attention in school. If everyone made enough money, there wouldn’t be corruption in the government, because people wouldn’t be desperate enough to do it (be a part of it?). It is all one big chain. We just have to make one change in the government and it will change everything.
We can’t just keep on waiting.
