Us schizophrenic 'S'affers'

I speak from experience when I say that South Africans living abroad are a strange lot. It seems that as soon as we touch down at JFK, Heathrow or Auckland Airport intending to stay for any length of time, we develop a maniacal schizophrenia regarding our motherland.

On the one hand, we yearn for Mrs. Ball’s Chutney, Simba Chips and Castle Lager; even if we weren’t big fans of these products back home. We run around desperately looking for a South African pub to watch the rugby in, and spend hours searching South African ex pat Meccas like Wimbledon for a ‘South African Shop’. Here we gladly spend R25 on a can of Koo Chakalaka sauce, R20 on a Sparletta Crème Soda and R55 on a small tin of condensed milk.

We go to enormous lengths to watch our touring national teams play rugby or cricket against our newly adopted homeland and will pay practically anything to see Johnny Clegg live in concert. Here we drink anything made by South African Breweries, sing along to "Spirit of the Great Heart", fling our legs in the air when "Impi" is played and light our lighters in reverence when Johnny speaks the names of struggle heroes in the haunting "Asimbonanga". Our levels of patriotism towards our beloved South Africa know no bounds.

That’s the one side of the ex pat South Africans split personality. The other side is darker and altogether less patriotic. It recently showed itself in all its vengeful bitterness when South African subscribers to a New Zealand website for ex pats spewed racist venom against Nelson Mandela.

This side of the ‘S’affer’ (international slang for South African’s - as in ‘S’africans’) loves to visit local pubs and taverns and extemporize about how glad we are not to be living there anymore. We hold forth with great authority on everything from crime to unemployment, the state of the nation’s hospitals to potholes and the price of electricity. We love to retouch the picture of the Rainbow Nation with the more ‘realistic view’ that contains dark clouds looming large over her future.

These conversations are usually peppered with profound insights and predictions as to where South Africa is headed. This is usually either "to the dogs" or "the way of Zimbabwe". We also like to say things like: "South Africa is the crime/murder capital of the world". These statements help all our new foreign friends and associates to understand why we left.

However, as quickly as the dark side was engaged, so the passionate patriot swings back into life. This is usually at round about the forth of fifth pint of warm beer. A local friend says something along the lines of; "But hang on mate, I’ve heard that Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Isn’t Robben Island worth a visit? I would love to go on a safari in the Kruger Park".

All of a sudden we are back into Mrs. Balls Chutney mode. We rabbit on about how much they would love South Africa; the wine, the beautiful ‘chicks’, the blue sky, the warm weather, a lekker braai. On and on we go – sounding like SA Tourism’s best ambassadors.

(Incidentally, this same schizophrenia also applies to those of us living here. We swing from passionate love for our land to all out hatred in a matter of seconds. Perhaps we feel that if we continually balance the positive with a healthy dose of negative, we won’t be too disappointed if it does all "the way of Zimbabwe". Most of us are sensible enough to know that this is unlikely, but we need a get out; an escape clause; an "I told you they would mess it up.")

The problem with our dark side’s assessments and predictions is that they are, for the most part, factually incorrect and hence very damaging. By providing all those around us with the ‘stark realities’ of the future of this nation, we are setting up a self fulfilling prophecy.

In on and off line conversations the negative currently seems to be far outweighing the positive. This creates an unrealistically bad impression of South Africa which has serious repercussions in terms of tourism, trade, foreign investment and ultimately job creation. In other words, our negativity helps to ensure that our own prophesies of doom come to pass.

We must not attempt to wallpaper over the cracks. However it is in all of our best interests to focus on the many positive and successful aspects of our nation, and to be more factual and less sensationalistic in our assessments of South Africa’s future.

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