Economist Dawie Roodt's open letter: I will not emigrate
hree people, armed with a knife and a revolver, tied up the family and demanded money during the ordeal. Roodt was injured when he tried to overpower one of the attackers.
"Two weeks ago I was working in my study at home. My wife was bathing the two-year-old twins and our eldest daughter was on her way home from university. It was about half past seven on a cold winter's evening," Roodt said.
"My daughter appeared in the door of my study with me hardly noticing and instead of the normal 'hallo pappa' she just said 'pappa'. The strange tone of her voice made me look up. Next to her was a young man - young, her age - subtly showing me the revolver in his hand. There were three. They waited in the garage for her."
"My daughter looked at me for some kind of guidance, my beautiful clever little girl… I saw her. And for a moment I also saw the future of this country standing next to her: young, poor, uneducated, unemployable and violent: the flotsam and jetsam of a failed society.
"Our ordeal had begun."
They were tied up, told to be quiet, gagged and blindfolded.
"We were good hostages. The robbers took turns searching the house our home, taking cell phones and laptops.
"The power went off, startling them. The questioning became more urgent, ''where's the money?'. The threats became more explicit, the pushing around more forceful. My moment had come, I had to choose my fear."
Roodt said he convinced the robber with the knife that he had money in his car, and asked him to allow him to show him.
He added that he managed to loosen his hands when they got to the garage. "My moment was now, choose your fear this instant and then live with it! The right moment shows itself. I attack him, I hit him, I hold onto him as he tries to escape… I fight for what is mine."
The man slashed his my arm and head with the knife before fleeing on foot.
Roodt went to neighbours for help. His family was unharmed when he returned, bleeding profusely from his stab wounds.
He said friends asked him whether he would emigrate following the attack.
"At first I didn't know, but now I do. I will not go! I will choose the greater fear. That night I saw evil, but I also saw so much more that is good in this country… my neighbours, my friends, business partners, the hospital, everybody!…everybody were just amazing. How can I leave my people, my people that I owe my life to?" he wrote.
He called on South Africans to work together to create jobs and fight corruption for the betterment of the country.
He proposed that a process starts where all civil servants, including those in parastatals reapply for their jobs. Thereafter employment should be on merit, not by virtue of contacts, favours, social requirements or nepotism, he added.
Roodt said he was advocating for the establishment of a world class skills development system to support a growing and thriving economy and the removal of obstacles to employment.
"Don't tell me it's not possible, it has been done before. However, a first step would be for all of us to hold our political leaders in office accountable for doing what is required…political leaders who will choose their own greater fear. Let us stand up. Let us walk together. Let us mobilise and refuse to do crime, be intimidated, bribe, and support corrupt leaders. Let's oppose those cancerous cells!"
ANA
File photo: Gallo Images