Growing up in the township almost guarantees you one thing: if you do not move, you do not grow.
Not just physically — but mentally, emotionally, spiritually.
The township is not home. It is not culture. It is not freedom. It is a carefully designed social cage. A slave camp with free Wi-Fi and tar roads.
You cannot become a full adult if you never leave the house.
You cannot become a whole human if you never leave the township.
Newton’s First Law says: an object remains in rest or constant motion until acted upon by an external force.
If you never change your environment, you never change your vibration.
If you never change your vibration, no new forces can act on you.
So what do we get?
A generation of old children. Emotionally stunted.
Highly reactive. Easily offended. Addicted. Angry. And tired.
Living in permanent survival mode — inherited trauma passed on like a family Bible.
Let’s be honest: most of our parents were emotionally immature. Not evil. Just wounded. They couldn’t teach what they didn’t know.
They couldn’t love us fully because they were never fully loved.
Without land, a Black person was reduced to a child. A dependent. A beggar. A statistic.
Today, townships are self-sustaining slave factories.
No need for land reform when the slaves build and maintain their own matrix.
Welcome to the Racist Utopia.
We are aware we are victims — but victimhood has become addictive.
Some of us enjoy the power of being powerless.
Why? Because pain, in the absence of love, becomes identity.
In 2025, we are a nation of alcoholics.
Warren Masemola said it clearly at Presley Chweneyagae’s funeral:
“Byala le strata ga se maemo.”
Alcohol and the street corner? Those are not maemo.
That’s not status. That’s not healing. That’s not love.
But what about cannabis? What about motekwane?
If our people are going to be addicted to something in this mess,
shouldn’t it at least be something that doesn’t kill them?
No one in the history of the world has died from a cannabis overdose.
Alcohol? It kills. Quickly and slowly. And it’s sold to us by the same system that stole our land.
The irony?
Foreigners who colonized us now sell us alcohol to ease the pain of colonization.
Then they tax our pain — sin tax — and call it “growth.”
They live in Cape Town palaces and demand sovereignty,
while township kids die from cheap booze in shacks with no toilets.
Let’s talk about dignity.
When you are high on cannabis, you don’t do low things.
You don’t litter.
You don’t pee in the street.
You don’t fight over nonsense.
You don’t pick up the bottle.
You float. You smile. You feel. You heal.
Because when you are high — really high — you can see yourself.
Wa ipona. Wa ithata. You see yourself. You love yourself.
Boom Shaka said it clearly in Lerato — love starts from within.
That’s what cannabis can give:
a moment of softness. A glimpse of love.
A break from the madness. A breath of peace.
Peace is what we need.
Peace with ourselves. Peace with our inner child.
Peace with our ancestors who died waiting for land and justice.
Peace with our truth.
Bra Peter says:
If you want maemo, stop drinking. Start growing.
Start healing. Start remembering. Start rising.
Because when you are high —
you don’t do low things.