Let me show you what true courage is
Last month I saw two video clips depicting acts of courage that took my breath away.
The first was during the Nehawu health care workers’ strike. It showed a female doctor being harassed by a crowd of angry strikers. This young - she didn’t look more than in her mid-twenties – woman with patients’ files in her arms was standing alone at a table while the singing and gesticulating strikers surrounded her. The strikers demanded that she left, but she wouldn’t - presumably because she wanted to treat her patients.
Then, some of the strikers tried to grab the files, but she hung onto them for dear life, even bending over the table and lying on top of the files to protect them. Strikers are then seen grabbing her by the feet to try and pull her away, but she bravely resisted.
The behaviour of the Nehawu strikers was of course outrageous and utterly unacceptable, but what really moved me was the courage of this young doctor.
To stand up against such an angry mob takes enormous courage – even more so if you are a woman and you are alone.
This woman and all the other health care workers who put their patients before their own safety and comfort should be saluted and celebrated.
The second clip didn’t get as much media attention and yet moved me as much - if not more. It showed a well-dressed woman sitting on a camping chair in front of a parked car. She was clearly trying hard to contain her emotions, but at times the tears were running freely. She started by saying: “I’m sitting here in Extension 4 in Eldorado Park in front of flat no ***, because I can’t take it anymore. Enough is enough!”
She went on to explain that her son, a former drug user whose rehabilitation seemed to be going well, had suffered a relapse. She said that he had stolen her laptop containing all her personal information and sold it to alleged drug dealers. She was now sitting outside the flat where, she said, these dealers hung out, and was demanding her laptop back.
Let’s just pause for a minute and think about how brave that is.
I mean drug dealers aren’t usually the type of people who respond well to “sorry-can-I-have-my-laptop-back,” requests. To go into the flats where she suspected (she says she knew) the presumably heavily armed buyers of her stolen laptop were, is already an act of unimaginable courage.
Yet, she didn’t stop there. “I will sit here outside this flat on my own the whole day until my laptop comes and SAPS closes down these drug houses,” she said between angry tears. “I will not go through this again. I’m tired. Something has to give.”
At some point in the video clip I could hear another woman – presumably associated with the people in the flat - screaming and swearing at her. “Yes, you can shout and threaten me,” the brave picketer replied, “I don’t care, I won’t leave. People back off because they are scared of you. I will not back off. This community can’t take it anymore.”
I wish I knew what happened after that. How long did she stay? Did she get the laptop back? And most importantly, did SAPS do something? (Minister Cele, if you are reading this, please get your guys to do something!)
I also wonder what happened to the doctor in the video? Did she leave or was she able to go back to her patients?
Sadly, I don’t even know the names of either of these women. To me they will remain anonymous heroes.
During the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in China, there was a young man who tried to stop the column of army tanks on their way to kill the protesters. Alone, he stood in front of these gigantic killing machines preventing them from moving forward. To me these two women showed the same level of moral courage that he did.
To the doctor from Bushbuckridge: I hope that you are not too traumatised by what happened to you. Please know that you are the type of doctor we so desperately need in this country. If ever I, or my family, need medical intervention, I hope that we get a doctor like you! I salute you!
To the mother in Eldorado Park: As a mother and a woman, I cried with you. I want you to know that your message went far and wide and you were heard. On that day, you became the voice of thousands of mothers across the country and world who wants to say: “Enough is enough”. I salute you!
Watching these two women, I was reminded of the words of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird when he said; “I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.”
Imagine how different our world and country could be if, instead of allowing bullying mobs or those who carry guns to intimidate us, we all displayed the moral and physical courage of these two brave women.