[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”0px||||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”et_body_layout”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”0px||||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”et_body_layout”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”et_body_layout”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”0px||||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”et_body_layout”]<\/p>\n
I was riding my bike with Nkosi up Krugersdorp Hill this morning when we came across some Africans scouring the bush on the upper side.\u00a0 We stopped to see what they were doing and saw that they, about 6 people, were breaking what appeared to be dead wood off the \u2018forest\u2019 of protea plants.\u00a0 The protea is our National flower.\u00a0 They had a driver and bakkie parked on the side of the road below.\u00a0 When asked what they were doing, the replies that came included:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Who\u2019s land is this anyway?\u00a0 Apartheid is a thing of the past!\u00a0 Land distribution will happen, get used to it!\u00a0 Leave us alone!\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n One of these men was not even 20 years of age.\u00a0 He was the most vociferous.<\/span><\/p>\n Nkosi is being supported to run his own bike shop in Tembisa and wants to make a success of it.\u00a0 He encourages and trains young township children to ride bikes. The support he gets is because he is making an effort.\u00a0 He has been given professional bike maintenance training at Torque Zone, a full set of tools to be able to carry out the repairs, premises and parts funding.\u00a0 He is being trained and introduced to various people that can assist him going forward.\u00a0 He is very appreciative of all this and is at work in his shop every day without question.\u00a0 He pays his own way and does good along his path.<\/span><\/p>\n The tree strippers were taking what belongs to Johannesburg Parks and through this to all those of the area.\u00a0 They were damaging the trees, trespassing, and stealing.<\/span><\/p>\n Both Nkosi, myself, and the Tree Strippers look just like homo-sapiens from the outside.\u00a0 It is what lives in each of us that is different.\u00a0 What lives in us has something to do with what we are \u2018fed\u2019 when we are young which includes our early nutrition, family life, and our role models in all forms of leadership.\u00a0 If our attention is never drawn to beauty, selflessness, patience, care, openness, skill, experience and so on<\/strong>, we may not notice these qualities in the world around us as we become adults.\u00a0 These are intrinsic problems within our societies today no matter where we live.<\/span><\/p>\n In Africa we have these homo-sapiens alive and living physically, but living with all sorts of inner conceptual and hardness of soul issues.\u00a0 Some are drawn into economic <\/strong>activities and with them come these harnesses, this political dogma or racist intolerance.\u00a0 The economic <\/strong>activities in any society need to produce relevant products efficiently<\/strong> for the populous or that society will live with poor quality at high cost, or alternatively, imports.\u00a0 Joblessness will remain high and the currency will weaken in direct relationship to the irrelevance and inefficiency of the economic activity.\u00a0 To be able to be part of the world economy, the people entering the economic sphere<\/strong> need to be able to purify and pour their untainted, open, courageous, clear, objective, caring humanity<\/strong> into the requirements of relevance and efficiency in the economic sphere.<\/strong> The attitude of the Tree Strippers could be typical in a society.\u00a0 A society loaded with this reality in the souls of its people is going to battle to have any sort of sustainable economy.\u00a0 This appears to be a real burden in the Southern parts of Africa.<\/span><\/p>\n In the West, their human capacity<\/strong> problems are different but impact both their Rights sphere<\/strong> and their Economic sphere<\/strong> on the same fundamental conceptual base.\u00a0 The West has the huge problem where many \u2018believe\u2019 that their inner activity and who they are has little or no impact on the way the world functions and works.\u00a0 Machines will do everything \u2013 but who makes the machines?\u00a0 If I have money that I have \u2018lifted\u2019 off the ignorance of others, I can buy comfort in this my one life.\u00a0 Why worry about anything else?\u00a0 If Africa is a good place to leverage my wealth off, let me do it.\u00a0 If they take bribes, let me pay these and make super-profits.\u00a0 Are these thinking patterns not bankrupt and will they not lead to bankruptcy for these people?\u00a0 The West can trash the environment in their pursuit of personal economic glory while many others bear the brunt?<\/span><\/p>\n In Africa, while Economic<\/strong> and Rights <\/strong>spheres will remain severely burdened until dogmas are not pursued for power purposes, the humility that has to be experienced in the associated material suffering by the poor will be part of the constructive future that is built.\u00a0 In the West, the same must happen as future generations are faced with what they will discover to be thoughtless overindulgence that has a lot of fixing to do.\u00a0 This fixing will have to come from the heart, a loving, caring, patient, selfless heart.<\/strong> These heart related qualities will have to permeate all the previously won material successes.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”et_body_layout”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”et_body_layout”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”et_body_layout”][et_pb_comments _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_button=”on” button_text_size=”14px” button_font=”|700|||||||” button_use_icon=”off” button_alignment=”left” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”et_body_layout”][\/et_pb_comments][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was riding my bike with Nkosi up Krugersdorp Hill this morning when we came across some Africans scouring the bush on the upper side.\u00a0 We stopped to see what they were doing and saw that they, about 6 people, were breaking what appeared to be dead wood off the \u2018forest\u2019 of protea plants.\u00a0 The 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