I was born in Apartheid South Africa, and I have grown up in post-Apartheid South Africa. When I was nine years old we had our first democratic elections, and when I was eleven the Truth and Reconciliation Commission began its work of trying to get to the heart of the injustice that the majority of people in South Africa had suffered at the hands of a minority and the colonial legacy, legislation, and violence that empowered them. This was a mammoth task, and it will probably never be complete.
At that age I was too young to understand the implications of what was happening. To be honest, I had other things on my mind. My parents had just been divorced. I was living in a new home, in a new town, starting at a new school where there were only a handful of black learners. I don’t think it ever really entered my brain that this was awry – that somehow all the adults had gathered all us white kids into a (mostly) separate school, where we would practice what we would do in the event of a bombing by … well, I don’t think they explained that either. Perhaps they themselves didn’t know exactly what they were afraid of.
As I grew older it became normal for my peers and I to ask our white families and their adult friends what they had done during Apartheid, to ask them why they had not done more to set things right, to feel the righteous anger of the young at their responses when we found them wanting. How could you have let this happen without doing something to stop it, was the essence of our question. Their responses were often, we did not know the extent of things. We did not know that it was this bad. They didn’t show it on the news. Of course, these responses were unsatisfactory and enraged us further. At the heart of this rage was the absolute confidence that we, the young, would have done better. Would have done something. Would not have let it happen or go on for so long.
And yet, here I am, forty years old, and I find myself in a world that is wracked with injustice, war, deliberate and preventable poverty, environmental degradation, and abuse. Each night when I’m falling asleep I think about what my answer will be when my children ask me, how could you let this happen without doing something to stop it. There is no way I can answer, I did not know. None of us will be able to say we did not know.
We cannot say we did not know that we put our children’s mental and physical health at risk for the dopamine hit we received when someone liked our post.
We cannot say that we did not know that the internet is captured by corporates and they are using our data to cause harm in nations all around the world, including affecting elections, even in South Africa.
We cannot say we did not know that Israel was enacting a genocide in Palestine, or that our buying decisions, even here in South Africa, supported this.
We cannot say we did not know there was a genocide in Sudan.
We cannot say that we did not know that AI stole books and writing and creative work from writers, journalists, and authors all around the world to create the flat, soulless writing that we think is cool.
We cannot say we did not know that our addiction to cellphones, and our attempts to use solar energy, was putting thousands of adults and children in danger so that we could have rechargeable batteries.
We cannot say we did not know that our choice to use non-stick frying pans was causing cancer and other untold harms.
We cannot say we did not know that our reliance on single use plastic was harming the planet.
We cannot say we did not know that more than 50 million people were living in conditions of modern day slavery in 2025 and that this was sanctioned by governments all around the world. We cannot say we did not know that our addiction to fast fashion helped to drive this.
We cannot say that we did not know we would starve the planet of water because we wanted to see what AI could do for us.
We cannot say that we did not know that our eating habits had an impact, or that we did not know they would cause the extinction of hundreds of animals because we wanted chocolate and other products that contained palm oil, or that our choice to eat meat resulted in the loss of forests and other environmental pollution, including contributing to global warming.
We cannot say we did not know that the internet was rife with misinformation and that newspapers and media were systematically defunded and thus weakened by our reliance on social media and by overwhelming corporate influence. We cannot say we did not know that facts were under threat.
We cannot say that we did not know. That will be a lie. In fact, it will be very hard to say that we were not complicit. We will only be able to tell our children whether or not we did something to stop it all. I hope my answer is yes.
What you can do
- Keep your kids away from social media (that means don’t post pics of them and don’t let them use it) for as long as possible. Better yet, get off it yourself and keep your whole family away.
- Make better shopping choices: use less single use plastic. Don’t buy from fast fashion companies like Shein or Temu. Eat less meat. Boycott companies that are profiting from abuse and injustice.
- Support organizations who are doing important work to right our wrongs and educate us all about how to do better: Support WWF. Support organizations that work to end modern day slavery.
- Protect facts and good journalism: Support the Daily Maverick, Support Wayback, Fact check the information you receive. Support organizations that promote media freedom
Jen Thorpe 