Ryland Fisher
If Charles Dickens wrote his epic, A Tale of Two Cities, in 2020, he would probably only have described it as “the worst of times” and he might have left out the bit about “the best of times”. He would probably have said that this was the age when we needed wisdom but got a lot of foolishness instead.
The past year, 2020, has been one that has surpassed our wildest expectations, in mainly negative ways. No one could have anticipated the effect that the coronavirus would have on the world.
As the year came to an end this week, and people were beginning to hope that there will be a magical change in our fortunes as the clock strikes midnight on 31 December, 2020 reminded us, through a slew of CoVID-19-related deaths, that there is every possibility that 2021 might be even more frightening than the year to which we are saying goodbye.
As I am writing this, South Africa is in the midst of a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and in an intensified lockdown, and I am running out of fingers as I count the number of family members, friends and colleagues we have lost in the past few weeks to the coronavirus, as experts warned that things would only get worse before it gets better.
I have a philosophy: “No problems, no challenges, only opportunities” which I try to use as one of my guidelines in life. This means that, whenever there is a problem or challenge, I try to look at what opportunities it might present to improve me or to improve society. This is not the same as the many tenderpreneurs who only see profits in other people’s misery.
If there is anything positive to come out of 2020, it has been the way many of us have shown that we are able to adapt in the face of adversity. We have shown how, when we were unable to go to our places of work, we continued to find ways of being productive at home, our children have, on the whole, embrace a new reality of online learning, despite its many difficulties, and we have learned to appreciate the time spent with family during lockdown.
Many of us have also learned to reinvent ourselves as the industries on which we depended for a living closed down, forcing us to look at our skills sets and finding different ways of applying it in order to put food on our family’s tables.
There are many who might not have had the luck, the skills or the flexibility to reinvent themselves or to work from home and many have not had income for last parts of 2020. Too many people have had to depend on an inefficient government administration for pitiful social grants to feed their families. Too many people have lost their jobs without being able to qualify for government or any other assistance.
One of the things the coronavirus has forced us to do is to accept that we are part of an international community that is trying to grapple with similar challenges, including racism, inequality and poverty, and climate change.
It has also shown us that governments throughout the world are limited in their words and actions, and often only deliver if they are under pressure.
Throughout the world we have seen the growth in social movements aimed at improving the lives of impoverished people, whether through feeding schemes or helping communities to grow their own food.
The #blacklivesmatter movement, which started in the United States of America and quickly spread throughout the world, have once again put the issues of racism and discrimination on top of the world agenda. This will, no doubt, continue to be one of the contentious issues of 2021.
A personal highlight for me has been the publication of the book, The South Africa We Want To Live In, and I hope to continue this valuable project in the new year and beyond. It is important to keep South Africans talking and acting in ways in which we can improve our country.
There will be no major change in our lives or the world on 1 January 2021, but it does represent an opportunity to reflect on the year that has just passed: what is there to learn so that we can all try to turn the world and our country into the better place we all know it can be? Happy new year and I hope that 2021 will deliver all the positives that you missed out on in 2020.
(Specially written for this website on Thursday, 31 December 2020)
