South Africa is a most fascinating country to live in. I was born at the height of its political tension – the country was literally on fire as I grew from an infant into a toddler – and so I have a profound appreciation of where we are today.

I also remember a lot more than others seem to about our contentious recent history, which has led to the dysfunctional and unequal society that South Africa is today.

Many people talk of the country having post-traumatic stress disorder, but just as quickly talk about not losing hope and believing in the many good things about the country, something I always wonder about because there seems to be a forced cheerfulness as people try to convince themselves and each other that all is, or will be, well.

It is true that we live in one of the world’s most naturally beautiful countries, with wildlife to match. Our biggest asset, we tell ourselves, is our people – described as strong, resilient and friendly. This is always proffered as an example of the good we have – and yet what does it mean, really?

Who are these friendly, resilient people and why have they had to be resilient? How often do we really go beyond these platitudes that make us feel better?

The resilience we have gained is because we have lived through traumatic events, not of our making, and made it out alive and without giving up on the promise of what life could be.

The majority of our people continue to live through the aftermath of a brutal hijacking of a country that would have had the majority of the population internalise the belief that they are inferior and as a result doomed to lives of misery.

I fear, however, that we are heading for resilience fatigue as people grow weary because the rampant inequality and denialism in South Africa is coming to a head. Resilience is not a natural state of being and therefore cannot be used to justify the injustice of poverty as a result of inequality.

Last week I wrote about how poverty is racialised and found it quite revealing that the response was to disagree with a point that is blatantly apparent just from walking down the street or stopping at a traffic light and seeing the sea of black faces that come up to your car window asking for food and money.

Poverty means lack of options, choices and autonomy, disease, children dying young, lack of education, illiteracy, hunger, hard labour, oppression – and how many of these things can white people honestly claim to be personally plagued by?

Read in Daily Maverick: “A rude white beggar illustrates the truth about poverty, race and the selective application of compassion”

The black children who dance and perform at the traffic lights hoping to get a rand or two to buy bread for themselves and their families do so not because they choose to, but because opportunities to make a living are few and skewed against them.

The car guards who smile and greet you as you irritatedly walk into and out of shopping centres and restaurants don’t do so because life is great and they revel in their poverty; they do it as a way to survive in the hope that you will tip them that grudging R5 for guarding your car.

Though people may be called resilient, they are not blind to how South African society is structured. What if the poor weren’t friendly and smiling? Perhaps that would spur us out of complacency and towards more urgent action because it seems to me this resilience is being used as an excuse to continue to abuse people in the hope that their good-naturedness will keep them from doing unto the well-heeled minority what they have been doing to them.  

Social and economic geographer Anna Barford warns: “Denying that inequality is problematic, based on happiness being important and the poor being happy, offers a pretext for not thinking more deeply about the impacts of inequality.”

So, let’s not use “resilience and friendliness” as an excuse for our country’s continued poverty. DM168

Zukiswa Pikoli is a journalist at Maverick Citizen.

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R25.