Learned Helplessness

[Erna]

When I read the SOTT focus piece today “Our learned helplessness” it made me think of myself and other South Africans, and the violence, murder and brutality we have to face on a daily basis. Our current predicament is pretty much the most discussed topic wherever you find yourself, with your family, with your friends or at the office. People say things like “we still have a lot to be grateful for, we could have been in Iraq or Zimbabwe you know”, then someone else would say “that’s a stupid way of looking at the situation, you can’t say things could be worse, you should say things could be better”.

English is not my mother tongue. I do love it when people express themselves well, and I can do with my mother tongue what some of the editors on this site do with English, make the language sing. It’s an art you know, to communicate well. I was lucky to have Afrikaans teachers in school who bred a very deep love in me for the Afrikaans language. When the Dutch came to South Africa in 1652, the British called Afrikaans “kitchen language”. Today there’s still some resemblance between Dutch and Afrikaans, if a Dutch person speaks slowly, I can understand them. Those r’s and g’s are unmistaken. It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth when I hear black people refer to Afrikaans as “the language of oppression”. To me it’s “the language of angels”.

But I digress, my post today is about my shrinking circle. Closer and closer my safety circle is shrinking. I feel like the dog in that cage, moving to the left side or the right side of the cage is no good anymore, the entire floor of the cage is wired now.

It started with “do you remember that guy that was in school with us, that blond guy, man, who was so good at hurdles, what was his name again, anyway, he got shot the other night”. I say “his name was P……., is he dead”. “Yeh, in his own house, and you don’t want to know what they did with his sister”. “You’re right, I don’t want to know”. “They…” “I said I don’t want to know”.

That’s the outer part of the circle…that other guy, that math teacher, the one who always wore blue, the people in the yellow house down the road, the architect who designed so and so’s house…on and on..

Closer and closer, the circle is shrinking.

“S…… got shot last night” “What!” “Through both legs, lost his temper when they stood on his head…they almost shot off his balls”. Everyone laughs, then everyone goes quiet. We are all pondering the shrinking circle. “Is he okay though?” “Yeh, he got off lightly”. “What happened”, “no, they were having a couple of drinks at O…..’s house, and 5 armed black guys just stormed into the house..etc.etc.”.

“uncle D….’s neighbours got killed last night”. “What happened?” “They tied the father up and made him watch when they gang raped and tortured his wife and daughter. Then they killed the whole lot of them.” I say “it’s not even in the newspaper”, “the newspaper would be as thick as the Bible if they include all the incidences.”

This morning we heard of people we know where the woman got tortured and shot last night. Everybody has gruesome stories to tell, involving either themselves or someone they know. Mixed behavior in all the situations, heroism, cowardice, capitulation, begging, pleading, outsmarting them, vigilantism. On and on the stories go, and closer and closer my circle is shrinking. It’s not a question of if anymore, but when. I have been exposed to so much violence that I have become desensitized to it. I don’t read the newspaper in the morning anymore, it’s like watching “Texas Chain Saw Massacre” every morning. The brutality and savagery of these crimes leaves me disturbed and fills me with rage. Limps being chopped off, boiling water or oil being thrown over people, people being burned with hot irons, the soles cut off people feet and then forcing them into a hot bath, people being skinned, people being raised to the ceilings of their houses by their flesh via hooks, people being carjacked and then tied to their cars with ropes and being dragged for kilometers.

You start thinking tactical, you know you must keep a cool head. You cut off the bushes at the gate of the property so that they can’t hide behind it, you keep the dogs inside the house at night so that they can’t be poisoned, you keep the firearms loaded and close at all times, not knowing if you’ll have the guts to shoot when the moment arrives.

When South Africa became democratic, and millions emigrated, we laughingly called it the “chicken run”, now we’re thinking of becoming chicken’s ourselves. We have a saying in Afrikaans “liewer bang Jan as dooie Jan”, translated it comes down to “rather scared Jan than dead Jan”. I asked someone who is emigrating the other day if he is not scared of the longing once he's gone, and he said that's his biggest fear, but he can always return once things are looking up, but he can't bring his child back from the dead.

One of the comments on that SOTT focus piece was a fear of physical harm. That is also my biggest fear. Knowing what they’re capable of will enable me to pull that trigger.

This is a long post, but today I’m mad. Today I’m helpless. When my mom speaks of her generation dying off now, she says “hulle kap nou die bome in my bos af”, meaning “they are chopping off the trees in my part of the woods now”. Well they’re chopping off the trees in my part of the woods as well, and my generation still have their whole lives ahead of them.

We recently watched the shockumentary “Africa Addio”, and after watching it my one friend said “some things are better not knowing.” Maybe he’s right. Must we really know what people are capable of, because knowing that paralyzes you.

Today is Zimbabwe’s elections, I wonder how much blood will trickle into the earth in the coming days.

 

[OCKHAM]

Our learned helplessness

The world is a mess no doubt. Sometimes poetry can help the heart I find, although, I am not that great of poet. Here is one entitled, "Cherup, the whole world is infested".

Cherup, the column is uselsss without the capstone.
The pyramid people only feel alone.
They weave in the wind and have chosen the ram.
Their toast is their land.

Cherup, you light the adjacent room for the sun.
The garden needs your water falling that is done.
Be strong in the wind of the sun.

Cherup, the serpent will always want to fool you.
Let the water flow around them, it is true.

Cherup, the whole of the world is now invested.

 

[webglider]

Our learned helplessness

Erna:

You are not a dog in a cage moving from left to right only to find that the whole cage is wired.
You may feel like one, but as a human you can act on the knowledge that you can walk out the door if it is open.

You know the specific circumstances of your life and in your heart you know what you must do.

My intention in writing this post is to make the point that you are not the dog in the cage.
The situation you are in is making you feel helpless.

As long as the door is still open, you have the choice to walk through it.

If you can allow yourself to breathe into your diaphragm, you may be able to ameliorate the fear somewhat. Shallow breathing in the chest reinforces fear. If you can keep fear at bay, you may be able to plan what to do next.

 

[anart]

Our learned helplessness

I could be mistaken, but I think there is more anger in Erna's post than there is fear - so I don't think advising her to breathe into her diaphragm will necessarily do a whole lot, though I'm sure it wouldn't hurt.

I would never presume to know what Erna should do, but one thing about a shrinking circle is that it will eventually collapse. It sounds like it might be time to take that anger at having to be afraid and to utilize it. Staying because one is attached to something that is no longer there is the ultimate 'learned helplessness'.

There is no dishonour in a chicken run if the chicken who runs is the only one left alive at the end of the day - osit.

From a personal standpoint, Erna, what you've written is extremely concerning and over the year and a half, or so, that you've been around this forum, I have come to enjoy your posts and creativity, so my impulse is to say 'get the hell out of there as soon as you can!' - but - that is certainly not for me to decide, or really to even say, since it certainly isn't my life nor my lessons that you are living. ;)

So - you seem intelligent enough to have removed your self from a situation with a psychopath in your work environment, so I'm sure you'll see your correct course of action in this situation, whatever that might turn out to be.

 

[Erna]

Our learned helplessness

Yip, I don't think the diaphragm exersizes will keep the badies at bay tonight. I'm calmer this evening though, this morning I was outraged.

one thing about a shrinking circle is that it will eventually collapse.

We know it's upon us, we know we should go. My brother, his wife and the kids are off to New Zealand in December, it's awful for me, those kids are like my own. I know the country I knew no longer exists, it's taken me awhile to acknowledge that fact. I always say I'd rather be in shit with people I love than in paradise with people I don't care about. That's methodology isn't going to work this time. That's 'learned helplessness' I guess.

over the year and a half, or so, that you've been around this forum, I have come to enjoy your posts and creativity, so my impulse is to say 'get the hell out of there as soon as you can!'

Thanks Anart. Africa is in your blood, it's hard to detatch yourself from this place. One of the great things about this place is that "Big Brother" has a really tough time here, cause as soon as they install a CCTV camera somewhere, it gets stolen the same day...humour always saves the day.

When I read these African memoirs of people like Kuki Gallmann, Peter Godwin etc I realize it's time time buckle up, cause in Africa history always repeats itself. Political stability changes overnight. So much for our much appraised non-violent regime change, this is prolonged genocide.

I guess it's time to wake up and smell the coffee...still glad the psychopath is gone ;)

 

[Z...]

Our learned helplessness

One of the great things about this place is that "Big Brother" has a really tough time here, cause as soon as they install a CCTV camera somewhere, it gets stolen the same day...humour always saves the day.

:) that is a good one.

I didn't know it was that bad. I was always somehow drawn to SA and at one point I was even seriously considering relocating there.
I know few people from Capetown and Johannesburg and they never paint the picture of SA this black, but these people have Africa so much under their skin they wouldn't be able to live anywhere else, so I am sure they are suffering from ostrich syndrome.
To the outside world biggest concern of South Africans these days is the organization of the World Cup. Media are painting this picture of young democracy troubled by minor birthing pangs which is growing into tolerant and diverse society.

After I read Coetze's Disgrace I got totally different impression.

Still I always had this impression SA will be one of the few safe places on the earth in global catastrophes that are in store for us. This was just a feeling and nothing more.

 

[Aeneas]

Our learned helplessness

Thanks for your insightful description of the situation. I know quite a few South Africans, who emigrated to where I live and my impressions from speaking with them is that it IS bad and only getting worse. It sounds pretty shocking to me what you are describing :o

Use the knowledge that you do have, as it gives you understanding to act on. The door of the cage is still open. Like Anart, I would say to "get the hell out of Dodge", but it is your life and the lessons are yours to learn.

I wish you the best in what must be a difficult and trying time.

 

[Yossarian]

Our learned helplessness

Thank you Erna for your descriptive and insightful post. I have compassion for what you are going through.

Please forgive me if you've already covered this ground, but I had the thought that it may be helpful to NAME what is happening where you are in as precise terms as you are able, using Lobaczewski's frame of reference: psychopathy and pathocracy. What precisely are the pathocrats doing and why--where you live-- based upon your knowledge from this forum and your research/reading? What is the most likely direction that events will head? Once you have done this work as dispassionately as possible, it may be that a course of action becomes clear to you. Just a thought.

 

[Ryan]

Our learned helplessness

Thanks Erna - you paint a realistic and disturbing picture of a part of the world that is unfortunately no stranger to blood and strife. To leave the country of one's birth is obviously no easy decision and I don't want to influence that, so I'll simply state my feelings on the matter in few words: get out while the gettin's good!

I wish you luck and courage in dealing with whatever life has in store for you.

 

[Erna]

Our learned helplessness

After I read Coetzee's Disgrace I got totally different impression.

No one can accuse of JM Coetzee of sugar coating a situation. I haven't read Disgrace, but from the review I understand that he successfully depicted the loss of identity that so many South Africans are experiencing. Here's an excerpt from one of the reviews:

"Disgrace is Coetzee's first book to deal explicitly with post-apartheid South Africa, and the picture it paints is a cheerless one that will comfort no one, no matter what race, nationality or viewpoint.

One gets used to things getting harder; one ceases to be surprised that what used to be as hard as hard can be grows harder yet," he reflects. That sentence also describes Coetzee's notion of life in the new South Africa, where, as he portrays it, brutal tyranny has been replaced by brutal anarchy.

Tragedy and misfortune has always produced the best litareture, books like "A Fine Balance" by Rohinton Mistry and "Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseine. I think tragedy makes one go to that place where you never would have gone otherwise, a place of looking at the world through different eyes.

Yossarian, your question is very difficult one to answer, people have asked that question about Africa for centuries. I really don't have the answers. The end of Apartheid produced a handfull of incredibly wealthy black men, by that I mean literally a handfull: 5.

Guys like Tokyo Sexwale and Tito Mboweni. The wealth distribution from minority white to majority black didn't exactly happened as promised. Sure there was a wealth distribution, into the hands of a select few black elite. The current infrastructure is still the infrastucture from the apartheid era, and declining at a rapid pace. Potholes don't get fixed etc. I don't know what they're doing with our taxes, but it's going somewhere other than the infrastructure, or municipal services. The arms deal might reveal a few clues, but that story is growing more sinister by the day. Everybody is questioning why we are spending billions on an arms deal with France if we are not at war. Jakob Zuma's court case might reveal a few clues.

What will happen to us is what happened in every African country that gained independence. They announced recently that the distribution of agricultural land from white hands to black hands is going too slow, so from now on it will be done forcibly. Does any of that sound familiar to you...Zim. So first the agricultural sector will collapse, because these farms go abandoned, just like in Zim. That will result in widespread famine. When a country reaches that stage, anarchy breaks out. We are already harbouring millions of Zimbabweans who fled their own country because there insn't work or food. Zimbabwe, where you can be a billionaire and be broke...

What worries us the most, is the power distribution within the ANC. Mandela and Mbeki are Xhosas, Jacob Zuma is a Zulu, the Xhosas and the Zulus have never sat around the same fire, so first Zuma will replace the current cabinet with Zulus, and then we'll have to wait and see. On a ground level, these two ethnic groups might start a civil war, which would be a disaster, because a civil war will destroy the infrastructure.

That's is my personal opinion of what might happen, I hope I'm wrong. This is of course all on the surface, how deep it goes, meaning who the puppet masters are, is anyone's guess. We are a country very wealthy in mineral resources, which China needs for their growing infrastructure. Their involvement with our government goes deep. Why did China help to bring Mugabe in power?

Thanks eveyone!

 

[allenb]

Our learned helplessness

We recently watched the shockumentary “Africa Addio”, and after watching it my one friend said “some things are better not knowing.” Maybe he’s right. Must we really know what people are capable of, because knowing that paralyzes you.

Hi Erma,

Of course, the answer is that you don't have to know what people are capable of. Going to sleep and ignoring it all is always an option, but at what price? Standing on a railroad track with eyes closed and ears plugged doesn't stop the train from coming.

I'd guess that some people in South Africa, like most of the people here in the U.S., have convinced themselves that the evil they are up against is too strong to fight. Better to just enjoy what hours you might have left in sleepy bliss than to struggle in a fight that can't be won. The question is, is it true that the fight can't be won?

The evil really is too powerful to fight in terms of directly opposing it. Nothing ends a fight faster than a gun . But the fight is about standing up for free will, not about banishing evil. Maybe the best choice is to just leave while you can still exercise that option. OSIT

 

[Z...]

Our learned helplessness

After I read Coetzee's Disgrace I got totally different impression.

No one can accuse of JM Coetzee of sugar coating a situation. I haven't read Disgrace, but from the review I understand that he successfully depicted the loss of identity that so many South Africans are experiencing.

well I expressed myself ambiguously , what I meant is Disgrace gave me different impression then the picture media are trying to paint about SA as a vibrant young democracy, but I thought things got better since he wrote his book.

That's is my personal opinion of what might happen, I hope I'm wrong. This is of course all on the surface, how deep it goes, meaning who the puppet masters are, is anyone's guess. We are a country very wealthy in mineral resources, which China needs for their growing infrastructure. Their involvement with our government goes deep. Why did China help to bring Mugabe in power?

Well at this point it seems like it can go either way, it would be very easy to say get out of there asap but from what I understand South Africans don't have many options these days when it comes to emigration, I know of many South Africans and Zimbabweans who chose to stay in the UK and other EU countries illegally, while NZ and Australia are not as open as they use to be.
I have experienced the same situation you are facing now and I do feel for you Erna.

 

[webglider]

Our learned helplessness

When I first read your post, I wanted to respond to it, but didn't know how. Then I opened it again, and I responded to it, but in a cryptic, roundabout way because I didn't know if I should say what I wanted to say.

I am a person on the other side of the world from you. This communication is occurring in real time. This situation, although like many I have read in prose and fiction, is real.

Did you ever see a movie where the audience knows what is about to happen, but the characters don't? You're sitting in the theatre, and the plot is moving inexorably to its inevitable conclusion, and you want to shout "DON'T GO IN THAT ROOM!" "DON'T OPEN THAT DOOR!!!!!", "DON'T GET IN THE CAR WITH THAT MAN!!!!!"

That's how I feel when I read your posts. They're beautifully written, and reveal a deep understanding of the situation EXCEPT IN HOW IT PERTAINS TO YOU!!!!. You present horrific descriptions of atrocities that have happened to people you know in enough detail that I, when suggesting that you practice diaphramatic breathing, actually had to follow my own suggestion and breathe that way myself.

Understanding the situation in a rational, measured way does not protect you. It actually works against you. Looking back to how life was in the past is, as someone in a former post wrote, going to sleep.

So let me be blunt.

If it happened to your people you know, it can happen to you. Try to envision what the last moments were like for the people you describe whom you knew.

Don't let your mind veer off to the political situation in Zimbawe or the distribution of wealth in S.A. That has nothing to do with you right now.

What pertains to you is what happened to that guy's sister.

I never lived in South Africa so I have no nostalgic feelings for it to buffer me from accepting the bare facts of the situation you describe.

You don't want to know what happened to that man's sister? Well, I can very well imagine what happened to her.

I have a daughter, and that image kept me up last night. I'm actually crying as I write this.

If you can get out, get out.

 

[anart]

Our learned helplessness

When I first read your post, I wanted to respond to it, but didn't know how. Then I opened it again, and I responded to it, but in a cryptic, roundabout way because I didn't know if I should say what I wanted to say.

I am a person on the other side of the world from you. This communication is occurring in real time. This situation, although like many I have read in prose and fiction, is real.

Did you ever see a movie where the audience knows what is about to happen, but the characters don't? You're sitting in the theatre, and the plot is moving inexorably to its inevitable conclusion, and you want to shout "DON'T GO IN THAT ROOM!" "DON'T OPEN THAT DOOR!!!!!", "DON'T GET IN THE CAR WITH THAT MAN!!!!!"

Hi webglider, just wondering if you referring to Laura's article on order out of chaos, in which she uses this exact situation and almost exact words? http://www.sott.net/articles/show/151667-Order-Out-of-Chaos

That's how I feel when I read your posts. They're beautifully written, and reveal a deep understanding of the situation EXCEPT IN HOW IT PERTAINS TO YOU!!!!. You present horrific descriptions of atrocities that have happened to people you know in enough detail that I, when suggesting that you practice diaphramatic breathing, actually had to follow my own suggestion and breathe that way myself.

Apologies, but it sounds a bit like your emotional 'horses' might be running a bit wild if this was your response.

Understanding the situation in a rational, measured way does not protect you. It actually works against you.

I would have to disagree - understanding a situation in a rational, measured way does indeed protect. Knowledge is protection. Running off 'half-cocked' due to emotional reactions that are out of control would be disastrous in any situation, this one not excepted.

Looking back to how life was in the past is, as someone in a former post wrote, going to sleep.

Human nostalgia can be paralyzing - but it also must be understood for what it is and its power must be understood so that one can act - not react - and this takes control of the emotional center.

So let me be blunt.

If it happened to your people you know, it can happen to you. Try to envision what the last moments were like for the people you describe whom you knew.

Don't let your mind veer off to the political situation in Zimbawe or the distribution of wealth in S.A. That has nothing to do with you right now.

What pertains to you is what happened to that guy's sister.

I never lived in South Africa so I have no nostalgic feelings for it to buffer me from accepting the bare facts of the situation you describe.

You don't want to know what happened to that man's sister? Well, I can very well imagine what happened to her.

In as far as paying attention to 'objective reality right and left' - yes, it is important to realize and understand that, barring a change of some sort, it is only a matter of time. The variable here is the change - and the realization that one can only change oneself, not others - and that can be applied in many ways.

I have a daughter, and that image kept me up last night. I'm actually crying as I write this.

If you can get out, get out.

No offense intended, webglider, but why are you crying as you write this? It sounds, again, as if your emotional center is running 'the show' - as if you are thinking with your emotions, not your intellect. This is not unusual, but it is a sure-fire way to prevent one from seeing things as they really are. fwiw.

 

[webglider]

Our learned helplessness

When I first read your post, I wanted to respond to it, but didn't know how. Then I opened it again, and I responded to it, but in a cryptic, roundabout way because I didn't know if I should say what I wanted to say.

I am a person on the other side of the world from you. This communication is occurring in real time. This situation, although like many I have read in prose and fiction, is real.

Did you ever see a movie where the audience knows what is about to happen, but the characters don't? You're sitting in the theatre, and the plot is moving inexorably to its inevitable conclusion, and you want to shout "DON'T GO IN THAT ROOM!" "DON'T OPEN THAT DOOR!!!!!", "DON'T GET IN THE CAR WITH THAT MAN!!!!!"

Hi webglider, just wondering if you referring to Laura's article on order out of chaos, in which she uses this exact situation and almost exact words? http://www.sott.net/articles/show/151667-Order-Out-of-Chaos{/quote]

I had read Laura's article when it came out, but when I wrote this, I was drawing on my own experiences in the classroom and years of assigning students to write letters of advice to characters in books we were studying during critical moments in their lives. As far as using the same words. I don't think so. Laura's is working with many more concepts and making many more connections.

That's how I feel when I read your posts. They're beautifully written, and reveal a deep understanding of the situation EXCEPT IN HOW IT PERTAINS TO YOU!!!!. You present horrific descriptions of atrocities that have happened to people you know in enough detail that I, when suggesting that you practice diaphramatic breathing, actually had to follow my own suggestion and breathe that way myself.

Apologies, but it sounds a bit like your emotional 'horses' might be running a bit wild if this was your response.

Ouspensky in "The Psychology Of Man's Possible Evolution" has this to say about an aspect of the emotional centre.

Of course it can not be denied that besides the many and varied kinds of physical suffering which belong to the instinctive centre, man has many kinds of mental suffering that belong to the emotional centre. He has many sorrows, griefs, fears, apprehensions, and so on which can not be avoided and are as closely connected with man's lilfe as illness, pain and death. But these mental sufferings are very different from negative emotions which are based on imagination and identification. pg. 66

I think that the concept of "empathy" might fit in with Ouspensky's discussion of the "many sorrows, griefs, fears, apprehensions and so on which can not be avoided and are as closely connected with man's life as illness, pain and death" Erna's situation seems to be an example of just what Ouspensky is describing here. To a greater or lesser degree loss of what is loved, the prospect of pain and death is common to us all. It is our Fate. When we watch a movie or read a book that evokes these themes, many of us will cry or have some type of reaction in our moving/instinctive centre. Is it "imagination" to put ourselves in the place of others who are having, have had, or will have such sorrows, griefs, fears, apprehensions? If it is not, how can the moving/instinctive centre not be affected?

In "Macbeth" when MacDuff is informed of the brutal slaughter of his family, Malcolm, the rightful king of Scotland whose throne has been usurped by Macbeth, says to him:

Malcolm: Dispute it like a man.

Macduff: I shall do so.
But I must also feel it as a man;
I cannot but remember such things were
That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on,
And would not take their part? ....

Malcolm: Be thou the whetstone of your sword, let grief
Convert to anger. Blunt not thy heart, enrage it.

Macduff: ...Cut short all intermission. Front to front
Bring thou this fiend of Scotland of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword's length set him.

Malcolm can not think or act before he takes in the horror of the situation. This scene is a very difficult one to stage, but I recently so a production which was so well done that sobs were heard throughout the theatre.

Were their "emotional horses running wild" or were they crying in empathy with Macduff's loss?

The poets often turn to the themes that "belong to the emotional centre."

Gerard Manley Hopkins about loss in the following poem:

to a young child

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guesed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

Understanding the situation in a rational, measured way does not protect you. It actually works against you.

I would have to disagree - understanding a situation in a rational, measured way does indeed protect. Knowledge is protection. Running off 'half-cocked' due to emotional reactions that are out of control would be disastrous in any situation, this one not excepted.

Knowledge does not protect if it is not accepted. One can have knowledge that is so disturbing that the reaction to it may be to go into denial. This is what I think is happening in this case. I think the horror of this situation is too horrible to bear, but like Macduff, I think it has to be fully felt before action can be taken.

Looking back to how life was in the past is, as someone in a former post wrote, going to sleep.

Human nostalgia can be paralyzing - but it also must be understood for what it is and its power must be understood so that one can act - not react - and this takes control of the emotional center. {/quote]

I agree.

So let me be blunt.

If it happened to your people you know, it can happen to you. Try to envision what the last moments were like for the people you describe whom you knew.

Don't let your mind veer off to the political situation in Zimbawe or the distribution of wealth in S.A. That has nothing to do with you right now.

What pertains to you is what happened to that guy's sister.

I never lived in South Africa so I have no nostalgic feelings for it to buffer me from accepting the bare facts of the situation you describe.

You don't want to know what happened to that man's sister? Well, I can very well imagine what happened to her.

In as far as paying attention to 'objective reality right and left' - yes, it is important to realize and understand that, barring a change of some sort, it is only a matter of time. The variable here is the change - and the realization that one can only change oneself, not others - and that can be applied in many ways.

One can not change if one is dead. Sometimes a third force is needed for the possibility for change to occur. If someone is standing in front of an oncoming car, I would shout to get his attention, or, if I were close enough, I would push him out of the way.

I have a daughter, and that image kept me up last night. I'm actually crying as I write this.

If you can get out, get out.

No offense intended, webglider, but why are you crying as you write this? It sounds, again, as if your emotional center is running 'the show' - as if you are thinking with your emotions, not your intellect. This is not unusual, but it is a sure-fire way to prevent one from seeing things as they really are. fwiw.

I think I see the situation clearly. I see someone who is is facing a possible violent death, and is writing about feeling as helpless as a dog in a cage in which the entire floor has been wired to give electric shocks, states that she doesn't want to know what's going on, is not facing the fact that the country she grew up in and loves exists no more,
veers away from the thought of exile even while she is considering it, and takes refuge in the intellectual center, the slowest of all the centers, while she discusses the political situation in Zimbawe. I think she's in shock, and no wonder. It is, I think, almost too much to bear, but her very survival may depend on really feeling the reality of her situation ASAP which may galvanize her to take the necessary steps she needs to free herself of that cage.