Kannie meer nie, korporaal.
The expression got here from the loathsome period of conscription, however boy does it say all of it. Way more descriptive than “I simply can’t do that any extra”.
This little patch of parchment is supposed to be a small beam of sunshine in gloomy occasions, nevertheless it appears to have had a giant thundercloud parked over it for the previous couple of weeks.
The sofa is reeling: muddy-pawed, rain-damp and water-dry, darkish and punch-drunk. There’s some injury, energy and water are sketchy.
However we’re the fortunate ones. We haven’t misplaced family members, generally many on the identical time, or our properties and every thing we personal.
The sofa has beforehand explored kindness and laughter as therapeutic, anti-anxiety cure-alls, however together with the facility and water, we’re nearly out of medicinal mirth.
One factor we’ve in abundance is gratitude, one other soul-saving way of thinking. This horrible time must be an excellent reminder that whereas we complain about not having the ability to flush and watch TV, that is what thousands and thousands of South Africans face day-after-day with little prospect of any enchancment.
There’s been plenty of doom scrolling by means of Twitter to maintain up with the varied catastrophes on the earth and in KZN.
Fellow Saffers, within the nation and around the globe, have been liberal with kindness, prayers and help.
Additionally, some cash and right here we cue the twitterati. We may be very humorous and inventive.
And really very indignant.
Put them collectively and also you get a caustic wit that would go away every other nation’s skells and looters with third-degree burns.
Minutes after the president declared the province a state of catastrophe and introduced R1 billion for rebuilding, the memes and mockery started.
Photos of blood-soaked hyenas (and a clan not bloodied, however wanting mighty excited by what they may scavenge) have been among the many first to seem. Which is a little bit of a disgrace, actually, as a result of hyenas in actual life are fairly able to catching their very own meals and don’t solely depend on feasting on the carcasses of others’ onerous work.
Then KZN Cogta appealed for donations, posting the related banking particulars, and Twitter erupted.
Mutiny adopted. If it weren’t tragic it could be hilarious.
Tweeps scorned the government-sponsored appeals as the brand new gravy prepare/pigs’ trough/tender rip-off/Digital Vibes/PPE/Gumede gold rush.
A typical thread-within-the-thread was one title: Present of the Givers.
This NGO was based by Dr Imtiaaz Sooliman in 1992, two years earlier than our nation’s first democratic elections.
In that very same time, whereas the ANC-led authorities has established itself ‒ by means of ostentatious, outrageous and shameless instance ‒ because the looter of the nation, the muse has proved repeatedly to be the folks’s saviour in occasions of hardship.
Donors ‒ from giant corporates to the typical Jo-Sephine ‒ at the moment are channelling assist by way of Present of the Givers and authorities pleas are largely rebuffed. The twitterers plead with folks to assist #GoG (or different respected charities) as a substitute of gov to make sure the individuals who want the help will get it. Many could have lastly discovered throughout Covid that there is no such thing as a depth too low for the looters.
Sooliman and his folks haven’t solely given the nation support: their selflessness, goodness and dedication have turn out to be an emblem for first rate people who we will nonetheless “meer”.
- Lindsay Slogrove is the information editor
The Impartial on Saturday
