Rubble Country!
The Gardener|June 2017

The world thinks we are a rubble nation. So why don’t we realise this ourselves?

Anna Celliers
Rubble Country!

It’s happened folks! The guys who‘ve been observing our country from their lofty seats on far off continents have unanimously decided that we are dirty buggers and mere rubble, bordering on the vermin of the first world! In Monopoly they say, “Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200”, and that’s what it feels like to me. It basically means we’re not going to get anybody’s money anymore. The financiers distrust our laughing president with his multiple wives, our members of parliament who shout and fight with each other like naughty toddlers in the ball pen at Spur, and our corrupt ministers who are intent on selling off our birthrights to a foreign family or the Russians!

I also think that these rating agencies made their decision much faster due to the really, really sad state of our rugby. Schucks, let’s face it – even our erstwhile heroes of the oval leather ball who gave us so much to be proud of have dropped us in the lurch!

This rubble status thing has become a really heavy load for me to carry, because I simply don’t believe that we are a rubbish nation living in a dump. But am I wrong? With this in mind I decided to have a closer, more objective look at the state of our nation. (My grandfather always warned me to ‘mind the log in my own eye, before looking for the splinter in somebody else’s.’)

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