Hmm. 

25 years ago I had a poster of the revered Statesman Nelson Mandela, and, today it’s Donald Trump. 

Why?

Did I just spend the last 25 years morphing from a liberal centrist into a so called right wing bigot, or, did the entire political spectrum swing around. 

Both are a possibility, even simultaneously, but it’s way more than that. 

We’ll start in the sixties when the .............  

..................  (I’ll use liberal as a term denoting the left, the more university educated , the upper middle class. In South Africa this would be a fair demographic and I’d say internationally also. I’ll use the term conservative for the right, working class, trades, and middle class.) ......................... liberals were shouting freedom, be it for love, speech, women’s liberation, expression, anti-censorship, and racial harmony. And my word were they effective. They achieved most goals if not all. Also they had some not to bad tunes. The right while not necessarily against all that, are by their design more cautious in implementing change. But change happened, some worked out well some not so much. My opinion on which ones which is of no concern in this op-Ed. 

And then. 

The eighties, that should almost sum it up but nah, I’ll keep talking. In the eighties the children of the sixties generation had grown up observing the behaviour of our parents brought upon them by the 60’s movement. We simply ramped it up a notch, political correctness was spawned, sexual normalcy, as well as even better music than those old codgers could have dreamed. I have no knowledge of the right at that time but know enough to say they did what they do, resist sudden change. 

After that. 

The 2000’s wow , just , nothing. Not even music. Yes they got a bit right, they gave us Seattle. Nuff said. 

And    now. 

We eighties types threw the baby out with the bath water. We took everything to the extreme, including child rearing, no punishment, everyone gets participation prizes , no military service and we’d also been the generation that freed Mandela, perhaps feeling a little smug regarding that matter. We’re also the generation that paid the price for it. And only us. The gen before began retiring and the gen after knew no other way. We on the other-hand had to struggle with taking the heat for all past indiscretions, we were the adults available to apologise for all sorts of things perpetrated by other generations. It may seem a small sacrifice considering the disgusting nature of the thing we were apologising for, so it’s not pity I/we seek, its acknowledgement, many of my peers failed to launch , for various reasons. Chief amongst them being political correctness, something we ourselves began, it morphed into affirmative action, later to jump the shark and became BBBEE. This does little good for chubby 40 to 50 year olds, especially the uhm white ones. 

To top it all we find ourselves the conservatives and all those not having to endure the hardships of their elder folk going more and more left to the point that we the old left are hated as the oppressor. It’s a disgrace, I’m in no mood for a parade but damn it , get off my lawn. Allow nature to take its course and level out, the radical left has switched points of view, no free speech, no freedom of expression , all censorship and just about zero racial harmony. 

Funny that, turns out the right are not the racists they’re made out to be, they were then and are now, tolerant, and conservative, because it makes sense, great haste has all but crippled our country. And as always the baby has left the room, with the bathwater       again. 

Only this time we tossed the greatest privilege any man can ever want.........freedom, freedom to be proud of our country, freedom to speak truth to power, meaning the freedom to criticise people for their incompetence or incendiary speech or lack of ability to do a specific job without the instant attack from the left calling all and sundry racist. 

I’m a nationalist, this, simply put means I’m for my country. A country is not land, although it’s helpful to have some, it’s all about people. That’s it. 

I and I’ll assume most of us would have a similar opinion, we certainly love the people of our country regardless of ethnicity. 

I doubt there’s anyone in the world who knows and loves Africa and its people more than we old time liberals seen as conservatives. We have no animosity but holy all that is sacred, tis we that are branded racist. Go figure. 

And tomorrow 

If some young intelligent and charismatic leader, perhaps with a slight centrist point of view, does not rise to the occasion, I and my peers will go down in history as the generation that destroyed South Africa. That  would not be good. Hyperbolic? Perhaps. 

In summation it’s not bitterness that plagues me, it’s sadness and grief for the loss of what could have been. 

FirstBorn…

Never forget #notall