Yes it is true, I live on a continent called Africa, and I am in a country that is based on the southern tip of Africa, I was born in this country and I was raised in this country, I have the language of this county and I have the cultures of this country, I also have the personality of this country because this is where I was born.
All my life I have been proud to be a South African, I have held this nation within me as MY COUNTRY, I felt honored to be here, I used to watch sports where we compete against other countries and I would scream and be all hyped up for OUR COUNTY, my country to win, because if my country win I can say even with more PRIDE that I am from this country.
Over time I took on a personality, a character that is SOUTH AFRICAN – this is quite interesting, because there are many types of characters/personalities within South Africa, due to us having such a wide range of races living here, each race having their own back ground and each race within our/their races having different cultures and religions, yet there is an overall personality of an South African that we all have in common, it is a beingness, it is the substance of the people living in SA that is of the same.
I am a Caucasian, a white young man living in South Africa, I grew up after Apartheid, so I do not know the struggles, and I do not need to know it, yes I must be educated about the past to not to repeat it, but I do not have to know it, that’s why Mandela did what he did, so that I do not have to know it, live it, experience it and be a fresh new beginning for all humans.
And this is where I am about to make my point, I may be of South Africa, this may be my birth location, this may be the land that I grew up on, but I am not actually a South African, because I could have easily been born in China instead of here, or in America, or in Russia, or in any other country, and then what?? Then I would be a Russian, or a America, or a Chinese, or a European and then I would have had a personality/character of that country, the same as I have one now of South Africa.
So what makes my South African personality so unique or so special, or my culture or religion, if it could easily have been anything else just because of where I was born or could have been born, a complete different family or race or culture and that would have been me then.
So I have come to realize and see for myself everything within me that I value as a South African has to change, the starting point within me for why do I want to be a South African, why do I want to label myself as that, as that personification that I add to my nature/character (the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman) that comes with it.
What if my country got destroyed today and I had to move somewhere else, who would I be then? I can’t claim I am a South African then, South Africa is non-existent then.
There are so many point that I as a South African can look at myself and who I am and how much of who I am comes from the idea/belief/opinion of my country and how I have shaped myself according to those ideas/beliefs/opinions, and to within this I can see more weaknesses within me or strong points, and I can see how many of them are simply a result of the idea/belief/opinion I have of my country, and because I have valued myself, and defined myself and affiliated myself as my country thus I am now subject to all these things that isn’t ME, or who I am, yet at this moment it is who I am, because I have accepted and allowed it to be so, to be so natural.
It is quite a limitation within itself – I have over the years met dozens of people that come from other countries and cultures and races and I have spent months with these people and even married a specific one ; ), and it turns out we are all exactly the same, till it comes to talking about countries, it becomes a comparison, it becomes a competition, it becomes very interesting, how each one is naturally defending their country and making their country their own, divide and conquer is truly a weapon of mass destruction, it is imbedded within each of us, our country, our nationality – we can leave our country for many years, we can be away for as long as we like, but deep inside there is a program laying in waiting to fight for your country.
But I have found within myself quite a change regarding this point, because I have stopped participating within all the “normal” cultural events and TV, for the past seven years, it has opened me up to truly develop myself as a human being instead of a South African, and I have come to realize that there are so many negative things attached to each and every country that people take on as their own, as if being born into a certain country means you must be this or that, or the people in your country are placed into a stereo type definition, and now me as my country have to fit into that stereo type of person.
MY country is so though, my country is dumb, my country is intelligent, my country is uneducated, my country is poor, my country is rich, my county is sophisticated, my county has the best people, my country is uncool, my country is better than your country – here I am mentioning things we all have in mind at some point, and we take those generalizations about our countries or others and we make it part of ourselves, of our actions, of how we interact with others, and this is a limitation, it is within boundaries of who we can be, image the world as one.
So I suggest for us as a human race to overcome all the problems we face culturally or in religions, or within races or within any other things that separates you from the world, to let go of it, you were simply born into the country, into the body into the cultures, into the religions that you are now and could have easily been anything else if you were born somewhere else, and by this self-honest common sense reasoning let go off the separation of countries, of people of races or cultures and religions and realize, it isn’t you, you after death is what remains. And I can guarantee it’s none of what we are fighting for so strongly now as our limitations.
I am from South Africa, its a saying of reference, not a statement of who I am. I love South Africa's weather and the nature and the environments of nature and the sun are all references and likes, not who I am. I want to live here because it is fun here, it is joyous here sometimes, those are statements of preferences, not of who I am, who I am must be able to live anywhere and be the same, as death will be our final destination. did we live as one and as equals will be our test, did we manifest a life that is best for all life, those will be the things we take with after death as who we are.
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