LANCE CLAASEN | SA’s sense of perseverance will see us step out of the fire

SA is going through the fire.

When you go through the furnace of trying circumstances it is painful, but it can also be healing and cathartic. In that it purges us of bad habits and forces us to deal with important issues often neglected.

SA is going through the fire, because it needs the fire to eradicate its indulgences, its bad habits and its lethargy. There is no shortcut in getting rid of its corruption and vice. Once done it can come out purified of the things that hold us back, strengthened and hopefully a shinier version of itself.

What happens when you have not let go of your old habits and the refining process is not successful.

Then you are bound to repeat the process of fire and pain. While repeating the pain is necessary, it does carry risks. Ask any blacksmith who has tried to beat a warp out of a blade and was forced to put it in the furnace again. While you might be ridding the metal of impurities, the re-refining process places stress on the metal at a molecular level, making it brittle when placed under pressure.

The more times metal has been placed in the furnace, the more brittle it becomes. How many times can SA be purged of its bad habits, before it breaks the people who hold it together?

South Africans are tired. In fact we are more than tired, we are weather beaten. Yet, time and again we have to dig into our biggest unrecognised recourse. Grit. That sense of perseverance that allows us to keep focused and fighting, when many a soul would have given up. The sense of belief that we can get through this, that we can keep going and somehow, somewhere we will find a way to make it right.

We overcame apartheid, avoided the chasm that currently exists between Palestine and Israel, hosted a football World Cup, won four rugby World Cups. We produce wonderful talents like Trevor, Tyla, Charlize and Siya.

All of this papers over the fact that we have the biggest gap between rich and poor in the world. Along with never-ending load shedding, crumbling infrastructure and the unashamed arrogance of corruption, SA has still to be rid of these habits.

As long as we keep these habits we will continue to go through the fire, getting more fragile and breakable with every passing through the furnace.

We all know South Africans can take a knock, we know we can take bashing, but what about a long unrelenting grinding. The kind of grinding that can even weather down the strongest spirit. This weathering will stay with us even when we come out the tunnel of self-inflicted pain.

Dr Arline T Geronimus an American public health researcher and a professor of Health Behaviour & Health Education at the University of Michigan did research on the constant effects of oppression on black Americans, culminating in her book WEATHERING: The Extraordinary Stress of Ordinary Life in an Unjust Society. She argues the constant pressure of struggle leaves a long lasting effect even after oppression has been overcome.

Her research shows that the ordeal of a life of struggle leaves many with a catalogue of chronic health conditions, along with the impact of mental health issues that are harder to document.

It would not be hard to expect the same conditions of strife to manifest itself in SA. The never ending oven that is SA is damaging our health, our spirit and the vision of who we can and should be.

We are a damaged people, the first step is to acknowledge that we are damaged and then stop damaging ourselves. Let us start by making good, fair and just decisions.

• Claasen is RISE fm station manager