On Now
Weekdays 09:00 - 12:00
Mid-Morning Magic Yolanda
NEXT: 12:00 - 15:00 At Lunch with Pulane
Listen Live Streams

News Talk

COLUMN: We have lost the way

───   11:43 Tue, 04 Apr 2017

COLUMN: We have lost the way | News Article
OFM News/Fannie Zim

"I stopped a taxi and there were two men and the driver. Along the way‚ the driver took the route to Southgate and I told him I was going to Booysens. The taxi stopped for a while and then they pulled out guns‚" she told the newspaper.


They then drove for about one-and-a-half hours.

"They asked for my pin code and bank card‚ which I handed to them. The taxi stopped but I did not know where we were. When the door opened again‚ I was beaten and kicked. I thought it was because I had no money. We then drove off. We arrived in a bush in Dube [Soweto] where I was gang raped in front of my 10 year-old son and then dumped‚" she explained.

My heart broke and sank into a deep black hole full of sorrow, anger and pain...as I read the above headline and realized what life has come down to. Ladies and gentlemen WE HAVE LOST THE WAY! 

God purposefully created a man in a way better suited for the purpose He created Him for. He made the man physically strong and well built so that he could care for and protect women and children. Yet the man uses those very same Godly qualities to provide pain and hurt to a woman in the form of rape instead of proving comfort and protection. 



We use the gun to prevent the woman from running and seeking help from the real men who knows their Godly and manly duty. Instead of using the very same gun to avert and protect women and children from those who want to hurt them. 


Let me tell you what kind of people we have become:

We have lost the way so much that instead of using things and loving people; we love things and use people to satisfy our own selfish greed and needs. We go to lengths just to get between women's legs yet we fail to go to lengths to help the needy and make our dreams a reality. 

We create and give opportunities to women for them to sleep their way up the corporate ladder; instead of creating opportunities for them to work their way up. 

We can stay up all night long watching porn or partying but won't stay up all nightlong chasing dead lines and making money so that we can make our lives and those of our loved ones BETTER. 


We have lost the way...

There's an African saying that says, "it takes a whole village to a child." Growing up we were taught to respect and love everyone. We were taught to respect the young and the old. But we grew up and taught ourselves to respect and love only those who we deem fit to have "earned" our respect. 

We were raised by our communities, everyone in the community had the right to reprimand and discipline you for the wrong you did. But we grew up and told our communities to go to hell and leave us to raise our own kids. Where did this lead us to? 

A heartbreaking sight of elderly people having to fold their arms and watch young people drink their future away at the age of 14, watch them throw our their future into a hopeless habit of drug addiction and drug abuse. 

Politics used to be so thought provoking and educative. Nowadays they have been reduced to simply stomach politics.

Politics based on the thinking through the stomach and not the mind, to help and improve people's lives but rather to feed your stomach and those of your comrades, friends and family members. 

Politics used to be such an intellectual platform but it has now been reduced to being a platform of greed and corruption. A dirty game where people now go as far as killing each other just to get a position. A brutal battle field of bloodshed. Shame on you rotten politicians. 

A church  used to be a Holy place where the spiritual needs of the people were satisfied.  A place where we gathered to worship the Lord, but now it has become a shameful place of exploiting the poor; a place where we scripturally extort the last cent out of the man of the straw to buy ourselves the latest German car. An unholy place where we comfortably use God's word to enrich ourselves instead of preaching and spreading the word. 


We have lost the way...

I grew up with my mom and grandmother being part of a stokvel. Through this platform they came together as women to collectively improve and make their lives better. They could share ideas on how to support each other and contribute to building the community. I couldn't help it but admire their unity.

20 years later, we have a generation of women who are so cruel that they are willing to do anything and everything just to hurt each other. A generation of women so bitter at each other that they hate one another for no apparent reason. A generation that rejoices, dances and twerks over each other's sufferings and pain. An arrogant generation of women that has the gall to tell their partners in front of their children that he's not a man enough simply because she earns more than he does. 

The unwise generation of women that wants to be treated like real women because of their qualifications and not because of respect they command as real women and through actions that real women do...


We have lost the way...

Back in the days, love was so simple, natural and beautiful. But we have lost the way and reduced it to materialistic things. We have come to understand love to mean your partner putting you on his whatsapp profile picture and posting about you every day on Facebook and Instagram. Money has become the epicenter of the modern relationships and marriages and we have fancily termed and shaped this barbaric notion of us about love into a beautiful idiom that reads "love alone is not enough."

We fool ourselves that we could rather cry in a Ferrari of a promiscuous rich cheating partner than fall asleep beautifully and peacefully at night, in the arms of a man that loves, respects and adores you dearly. 



All because he rides a bicycle. Women have come to define the beauty of a man by the size of his bank balance in comparison to other men and not his ability to provide,love, care, cherish and embrace you the way they deserve to be treated. 

We have come to define and understand the true beauty of the woman through the size and shape of her bum and breasts, and not through the beauty of her brains, heart and her ability to take good care of you and the household. The generation that knows how to define their "perfect partners" yet fail to prepare and invest in themselves to also become those "perfect partners" too. Those who also fantasizes about the fairy tale world of "perfect partners".

To our parents and grandparents who raised us to be righteous men and women of great stature and positive impact,  roll out the red carpet and put your hands together for our generation. The generation that goes out to have lunch or dinner at a restaurant with their loved ones just to spend 99% of their time glued to their phones instead of giving full attention to each other and allow for a good communication and a bonding session. The generation that has 100 million more marriage counselors than your generation, and yet has the highest divorce rate in the history of mankind. The generation that's quick to replace what's broken instead of fixing it.

The good way of life that you,our elders, did all that you could to instill in us.

But you see, we can't carry on like this! We are better human beings than this. Let's go back to the drawing board and mend our ways.Let's make right the wrongs we have done and become a more responsible, loving and caring generation. It's never too late to turn and change your life around. 

We have lost the way of life so lets find our way back into the LIGHT. 

Today being a CHOOSEDAY, I challenge you to make the CHOICE to find the lost way of life. 


Happy CHOOSEDAY!


#NoAlarmClockNeededMyChoiceWakesMeUp

Fannie Zim is a practicing and Admitted Attorney of the High Court of South Africa. 

@ 2024 OFM - All rights reserved Disclaimer | Privacy Policy | We Use Cookies - OFM is a division of Central Media Group (PTY) LTD.