READER LETTER | Wishing hard life on others is antiprogress

There is an old saying that goes: “Haters don’t really hate you, they hate themselves because you are a reflection of what they wish to be.”

I have taken a good look at how hatred and jealousy have successfully destroyed and demolished the bonds that used to exist among community members. People are now hellbent on ensuring that they hate others for pursuing a better life.

A neighbour can walk past a neighbour’s bakery and buy bread elsewhere because they hate the idea of empowering a neighbour’s business. Others frown when they see other people graduating or buying houses and cars because they don't wish for that to happen to others but themselves.

I have seen many people on social media merrily joking about assistant teachers’ contracts coming to an end, which left me astonished and disappointed. It gives them great pleasure when other people are without means of earning a living because they believe that's how life should be – all because that's how it is for them.

In a country where poverty is rife and unemployment the order of the day, what is there to celebrate when someone is out of employment?

Celebrating other people’s struggles is tantamount to wishing them death. Poverty is painful and stressful, it is not something that can make us rejoice when it befalls someone else. There can never be meaningful progress for any society if a section of it is trapped in poverty.

Laughing at those who are having it hard simply because we don’t want them to shine is both childish, barbaric and antidevelopment. We all deserve nice, peaceful life; there is no need to clap when other people are struggling. If someone falls, it is our collective duty to lift that person up, lest their fall creates a cavity into which we all fall in the future.

Malphia Honwane, Gottenburg, eManyeleti