I frequently come across conversations where some young person is discussed and it is shared that they do not have a hope for the future. With that there are the assumptions that you should be able to see your own future and that if you only have a positive attitude then South Africa is a good place to be.
But you know what, for a lot of people it is not. They cannot match their understanding of themselves with what they see happening around them. They do not see a future for themself in this country and they are on their way to a different country. Maybe not now but in the next couple of years.
In a way we live in a South Africa that is totally different from the South Africa before 1994. But more things changed than just the colour of the government. Access to wider possibilities, to those that have the access, have taught people that in other places things can and do work differently.
Until quite recently Oslo was a very foreign place. Today I can check out the city, find a place to stay and apply for jobs in Oslo online. I can have a vibrant friend network there and know more about what is happening in downtown Oslo than the Cape waterfront.
And I can see that things are different and could be different.
My sense is that the South African change was more a process of putting another person behind the wheel than in rebuilding the vehicle. I know we have the most progressive constitution in the world. I do not see that making any difference on the ground.
I wish I was more hopeful about where we are. But if I was 22 with a higher degree and no prospects I would also be looking around.
But I am not. I am in a different place and from where I am my question is not about my future in South Africa but my present. I am in South Africa here and now. I cannot do a lot of things I would want to do. I have to do a lot of things I do not want to do.
But I have to make it work for me and my family in the present.
Too much in South Africa is done because it will eventually, maybe be good for you (or your children) ten or twenty years from now.
You know what. That sucks. It sucks for everybody and it asks for sacrifices for the greater good which nobody can promise will ever come. We need to make it work now, today. Otherwise more and more people will feel that there are no future.

