Selfishness
For years now South Africa's borders have been leaking like proverbial sieves.
There are literally millions of folk living in this country, legally or illegally and sharing in its bounty.
That's one way of looking at it.
On the other hand there are those who do not realise that these sojourners, temporary or otherwise, also help to develop this country for future generations.
Initially the immigrants - legal or otherwise - were not discouraged by a new government, many of whose members had been given succour in the apartheid years within the countries from which these folk come.
Now a new picture has emerged, tinged with a hysterical xenophobia where South Africans throw such immigrants from Gauteng trains to a horrible death, where they are beaten to a pulp as in Alexandria, north of Johannesburg this week or where their miserable homes on the Cape Flats are burnt to the ground, simply because they are foreigners in a strange land.
The stock excuse of the perpetrators of such xenophobic crimes is that these immigrants are taking the bread out of the mouths of their children and that they must get back to their own countries.
In Richards Bay certain areas already bear names like Little Burundi or Little Tanzania, bearing witness to the numbers of immigrants they house, often in fearful, unhygienic conditions.
This creates humanitarian crises, which must be addressed, like the AIDS issue, with compassion and realism.
It is not confined to South Africa.
Increasingly Europe and the UK are faced with hundreds of thousands of people who are economic refugees from Asia and Africa, bringing with them entirely new cultures, which impact on traditional ways of life.
The world is becoming uncomfortably crowded and we must learn to devise ways of living in that world in an unselfish way.
Violence is not the answer.
Is ons paraat?
Met die vlaag van natuurrampe wat onlangs die aardbol getref het en honderde duisende lewens in veral Asië geneem het, mag ons seker die vraag vra tot in watter mate Zoeloeland soiets sal kan hanteer.
Oor die afgelope jare is veral ons plattelandse gebiede deur weghol-brande geteister.
Soms het riviere en spruite na swaar reën hulle walle oorstroom en veral in laagliggende gebiede groot verwoesting gesaai.
Alle munisipaliteite moet oor goedgekeurde rampbestuursplanne beskik en hierdie planne moet gereeld in oënskou geneem word en op datum gebring word.
Maar gestel ons kus word deur 'n tsunami getref of dat ons diepe plattelandse gebied deur 'n groot aarbewing omgedolwe word?
Sou ons kos en hulp per helikopters invlieg soos ons lugmag met soveel welslae 'n paar jaar gelede in Mosambiek gedoen het?
Sou ons mense kon afvoer na veiligheid?
Dan is daar altyd nywerheidsrampe of grootskaalse marinebesoedeling, wat gewoonlik nie die omvang en skade van 'n natuurramp het nie, maar waar lewensverlies en beskadiging van die ekosisteem groot faktore is.
Op die een of ander wyse het Zoeloeland oor die jare al hierdie gevare trotseer.
Mag ons dan dankbaar wees dat ons nie deur die Skepper bo-op skuiwende tektoniese plate, vuurspuwende berge of in sikloongebiede geplaas is nie.
Maar laat ons nietemin vir alles paraat wees.
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