A new people emerge

Events of 2019, its notable triumphs and the passing way of several iconic figures, have starkly illuminated that us South Africans, though we are often not be conscious of it or are loath to admit it, truly love each other.

Our colourful and tragic history has done a number on us. Without our permission, it has surreptitiously knit us together with mystic chords sturdier than all mighty torrents that have sought to ravage it.

Time has made a nation of us. We are more than our laws and fledgling institutions. Through many battles fought with and against each other, a miracle is occurring - a people are emerging.

On a stroll down the annals of history, one encounters an unexpected sense of kinship with fellow compatriots, nurtured by these very mountains, hills and vast open spaces we call our own, of diverse hues and times. A kinship attested to by an eerie accuracy with which they describe a South Africa we recognise all too well.
The great Jan Smuts is one of them. These words he wrote in 1935, I'm sure would resonate with fellow South Africans from deep into the 18th century until now.

He says:

"It is the history of this country that inclines us to optimism. South Africa has passed through dark and difficult passages in her history: more than once she has stood face to face with stark disaster. For generations she has been tried and tested as perhaps no other young country of our day has been tested, but a kind Providence has never quite forsaken her...Here we have seen how in a nation's story good comes out of evil; how goodwill in the end smooths out the tangles and mistakes; how an era of construction follows destruction and bitter struggles of races and war"

Again, he poignantly captures the irrepressible South African spirit in these sunny musings, one that echoes throughout the cavernous corridors of its contested history:

"Whatever our difficulties and our problems, there is nothing defeatist about the South African outlook. There is hopefulness, buoyancy, resilience everywhere. Not that we are out of the wood; not that we are not oppressed with difficulties and problems enough, but that they do not unduly depress us."

These thoughts flow from a nascent glow of optimism, with whispers that we're truly stepping into a new hopeful epoch. The air is pregnant with an unmistakable assurance that the long and harsh winter is now rapidly receding.

A new day is dawning.

Can you not see it?