Structuring a New Universe

“Nothing that I can do will change the structure of the universe. But maybe, by raising my voice I can help the greatest of all causes - goodwill among men and peace on earth.” Albert Einstein.

My favourite part of newspapers and magazines, have always been the letters from readers, I found these interesting, I also loved columns and my favourite columnist became Fred Khumalo. Khumalo’s writing is frank and straight to the point. His columns made want to say something, he sparked something in me that said – write, write, write. With the column being print, I couldn’t find a level of communicating with Khumalo and telling him that I agree or disagree with whatever he says. I was a teenager with no access to the internet in order to email him like it said at the bottom of his articles, there was also an option to snail mail him. I drafted letters to him which I never got around to sending. Now, Web 2.0 has simplified sharing my thoughts with writers like Khumalo.

Web 2.0 has changed the world of news sharing, there are more voices and each one is unique. The internet links people from different societies and sparks debates amongst readers. For example, a few weeks ago I wrote an article about “white tendencies”, this term is explained in the article. The website, itself is targeted at South Africa’s young, emerging urban market. Now, the comments I got varied, most people were happy that I started talking about these matters, an identity outside my skin colour. Now, if you link to my article and read the comments – very interesting debates took place, people’s eyes were opened and, most importantly, I shared a story close to my heart and realised that I’m not the only one who feels that way. The fact that readers react to my writing in a similar way that I want to respond to Khumalo’s articles thrills me because it means that I’m a voice for South Africa’s urban youth.

In terms of my own development as woman, writing has been an outlet for me which helped me deal with my insecurities and my identity. Publishing my writing online and seeing people’s opinion of it, has helped me veer from making my personal issues everybody’s issue and treating my writing like a personal diary. The empowerment of women all over the world comes from sharing challenges in Mexico for example, and a solution comes about in South Africa. Reading each other’s stories from all over the world on a shared platform, which is Web 2.0, gives women a greater voice and various solutions to a problem and can be explored. Learning from each other’s experiences and not seeing each other as faceless bloggers strengthens our ties as a global community of women, fighting for equal rights and justice.

“Learning from each other’s experiences makes life an easier recipe to follow, cook and delicious to devour.” Miss Live Life.