Moving to Europe Radicalised Me

I grew up poor in South Africa.

We had to ration food at home because there was never enough. Imagine a family of seven crammed into a tiny two-bedroom, cockroach-infested apartment in the sweltering humidity of Durban.

I don’t remember a day when I wasn’t hungry at school. We simply couldn’t afford for me to bring lunch. So I would go without, watching with awe, fascination, and deep longing as other children opened their luxurious lunchboxes, filled with all kinds of delicious-looking sandwiches and snacks.

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I suppose that perfectly describes much of my childhood. Noticing how much more everyone else seemed to have in comparison to myself.

I remember the feeling of helplessness, as though I were stuck in a story I could not escape. Life seemed so easy for many of the people I knew. They would get dropped off at school in nice cars and go on vacations whenever they wanted. To me, their lives were incomprehensibly more colourful, filled with possibilities I could scarcely imagine. I, on the other hand, was stuck in a claustrophobic, colourless shoebox.

It was the little things.

Visiting a friend whose family lived in a spacious home, complete with air-conditioning and a fridge full of food. Watching the carefree way they would open that fridge and pull out whatever they wanted. The stylish, tasteful furniture. The wonderfully well-lit rooms. Swimming pools. New clothes. Extra beds with fresh blankets whenever I slept over.

To me, this was life on easy mode. A beautiful life.

In contrast, my crusty-looking mattress at home felt embarrassing even to look at. For a time, I was too mortified to invite any friends over. Our home was filled with old, second-hand furniture, acquired because it was cheap, not because it looked good. Horrible, industrial-looking light bulbs jutted grotesquely from the ceiling. Our neighbourhood was even more unattractive.

For a time, we lived in an area said to have one of the highest concentrations of funeral parlours in the world. I’ll be honest, it was grim. Crime was rife, and dodgy-looking characters would skulk around in the dark.

I understood we had money problems at an age when children shouldn’t even have to think about money. The threat of not making rent was a constant, grinding fear, visible on my parents’ faces and in their moods. My dear, hardworking mother was emotionally frayed. Depression hung over her shoulders like a thick old blanket, suffocating the atmosphere at home.

My escape was fantasy books. I read a lot. I lived in Hogwarts and Narnia, where the world was filled with magic, adventure, and seemingly endless possibilities.

Going to school hungry certainly affected my performance. I didn’t understand it then, but I was often lethargic and unable to concentrate. I would look forward to lunchtime, hoping I might be able to ask a friend for a sandwich.

Life was not a walk in the park.

But do you know what I never did?

Blame the world around me for our situation.

From a very young age, I understood that the world was deeply unfair. Not just on the individual level, such as who your parents are or the family you’re born into, but on a much larger scale too. The country you’re born in, its natural resources, its institutions, and the culture you’re a part of. These things have enormous consequences for the kind of life you might lead.

Even though things were difficult for me, I was well aware that others had it much worse. I saw the people living on the streets, the children begging at traffic lights, sometimes at their parents’ insistence. This kind of thing is painfully common in South Africa, and it’s heartbreaking.

In comparison to these children, I was blessed. So despite everything, there was room for a healthy amount of gratitude.

I believed that the best way to move through life was to take responsibility for it. To grow in knowledge and ability. To strive, work hard, and make something of myself. There wasn’t much I could do about the past, whether in my own life or in the lives of my ancestors generations ago. But there was still hope for something better.

When I saw those beautiful houses, the cars, and the comfortable lives others were living, they gave me something to work towards. I knew I could at least try to build a better life for myself, and perhaps even gain the ability to help my family along the way.

Today, I live in Finland. I’m a father to a wonderful little girl and a husband to a lovely wife.

I’m in no way rich—yet—but I pride myself on becoming worthy of wealth. Every day, I work hard to achieve something, to give my family the freedom and ease of life that I never had. I’m still on that journey.

What I have achieved has come through my own blood and sweat, and that gives me a deep sense of pride. I’m a man taking care of his family while trying to make the world a better place. I have purpose and vision, and I deeply believe that what I gain through honest work can also be a gain for the world around me.

I don’t believe wealth is something to resent simply because someone else possesses more of it. I believe it’s something to create.

Yet, it seems to me that a powerful movement across the Western world has embraced almost the exact opposite philosophy.

One that sees the world primarily through the lens of inequality, oppression, and the redistribution of what others have created. An ideology of envy that breeds resentment and apathy, convincing people that their circumstances are overwhelmingly the result of forces outside their control.

Some would rather pick up placards to protest inequality than pick up tools to create opportunity. Instead of asking how we can build more wealth, the conversation becomes fixated on how much wealth can be taken from those who already possess it.

As though the solution to the world’s problems will come from the government handing out more money and somehow magically mandating financial equality.

But this is not how societies become prosperous. It’s not even how the world works.

Young people are being taught a message of hopelessness, despite living in some of the most prosperous societies in human history.

Heck, my family would have given almost anything to have grown up in a country like France. Yet what do we see from some young people of immigrant backgrounds? Burning down infrastructure, looting stores, attacking police, and destroying the very communities in which they live, supposedly while demanding better opportunities and public services.

I find this mentality infuriating.

I understand that suffering is relative. But there is also such a thing as perspective. Poverty is not merely about how much money you have. It is also about the opportunities available to you, the infrastructure around you, your physical safety, the institutions you can rely on, and the possibilities that exist for your future.

To destroy those things in the name of demanding a better life is a self-defeating mentality I simply cannot get behind.

And what makes this phenomenon even more disturbing is the number of people willing to excuse, and even defend it.

The Invisible Architecture of Civilisation

Moving to Europe radicalised me.

Not in the way you might imagine.

Arriving in Finland made it painfully obvious to me just how important culture and integration are to the success of a society.

Culture functions almost like a preinstalled operating system. It establishes the expectations, habits, and unwritten rules by which people conduct themselves, often without even thinking about them.

You can see it in the most ordinary things.

Were you to drop your wallet in Finland, there is a good chance that whoever found it would try to return it to you, or at least hand it over to a lost-and-found. Littering is frowned upon. Walking through Helsinki, you encounter clean streets, functioning infrastructure, and a general sense of public order. Women can walk alone at night without the same degree of fear that accompanies everyday life in many other parts of the world.

It just works.

Of course, Finland has its problems. No society is perfect. But what struck me was how much of its prosperity depended on things that money alone could not buy.

Trust. Responsibility. Honesty. Respect for the law.

These are not merely pleasant characteristics of Finnish society. They’re part of the invisible architecture that allows it to function. Culture is an organising force, shaping what people tolerate, what they condemn, and what they expect of themselves and one another.

The consequences extend far beyond clean streets and returned wallets.

Crime, for example, does not merely affect the immediate victim. It makes businesses more expensive to operate, discourages investment, drives away opportunity, and makes neighbourhoods less desirable places to live. When businesses close or relocate, the people living in those communities suffer the consequences.

Likewise, when people neglect public spaces, tolerate disorder, or refuse to take responsibility for the communities they inhabit, everyone pays a price.

A government can build beautiful roads, parks, and public infrastructure. But if the people living there have no regard for maintaining them, those investments will eventually deteriorate.

This is why culture matters. The things we expect of ourselves and one another determine, in no small part, the kind of society we create.

Yet, what struck me was that even in societies as prosperous as Finland, America, and much of the Western world, I could still recognise the same mentality I had encountered growing up in South Africa. Despite enjoying opportunities and standards of living that millions around the world could only dream of, some people still seemed determined to see themselves primarily as victims, rather than recognising the possibilities available to them.

The Prison of Victimhood

What fascinates me about this mentality is that prosperity doesn’t seem to diminish it. You can find it on both the Right and the Left, although I find it far more openly celebrated and institutionalised on the Left.

The message is depressingly familiar: your problems are the result of forces outside yourself. The wealthy, the government, racism, capitalism, the entire system. Somewhere, someone is responsible for your circumstances, and until those forces are defeated, meaningful progress is supposedly beyond your reach.

It’s a disheartening message that dampens the natural human desire to solve problems, to work hard, to create, and to build.

In fact, even the phrase “work hard” seems to have become offensive in certain circles, as though encouraging someone to take responsibility for their life is somehow an act of cruelty.

Victimhood has become a kind of currency. An identity to be cultivated, celebrated, and defended.

But the most disturbing aspect of this ideology is that it has no natural boundary. No obvious endgame. It can always find another grievance.

Imagine, for example, that every black American received reparations for slavery. Let us, for now, set aside the enormous historical and practical complexities involved.

Do you believe that everyone committed to this ideology would suddenly declare that justice had been achieved? That the grievances of the past had finally been settled, and it was now time to move forward?

I certainly don’t.

There would always be another demand, another inequality, another historical injustice to be invoked.

We see something similar in the popular declaration that billionaires shouldn’t exist. From ordinary people to multimillionaire celebrities, we hear the same sentiment repeated.

The wealth possessed by some of these celebrities is already incomprehensible to most ordinary people. For the difference it would make in our lives, they may as well be billionaires themselves.

Yet the resentment is directed at those who happen to possess even more.

Suppose every billionaire became a multimillionaire tomorrow. Would the resentment disappear? Would everyone collectively breathe a sigh of relief and declare that all was now right with the world?

Or would millionaires simply become the new billionaires?

The problem with a worldview organised around grievance is that there is always something left to resent.

And when this mentality becomes embedded in politics and culture, it can have consequences far beyond the individual.

South Africa offers a particularly painful example of why this matters.

Political Liberation Without Mental Liberation

Apartheid ended in 1994, bringing an end to a system of racial oppression that had denied black South Africans fundamental political rights.

For more than three decades, the country has been governed principally by the African National Congress, the party that helped bring apartheid to an end.

Yet political freedom has not delivered the prosperity so many hoped for.

Corruption has devastated public institutions. Crime remains rampant. Infrastructure has deteriorated, and neighbourhoods that once looked beautiful just ten or fifteen years ago have fallen into disrepair.

Why?

Ask certain activists and the explanation seems to return, almost inevitably, to the same place.

Apartheid.

Black South Africans were poor because of apartheid. They remain poor because of apartheid. They cannot prosper because of historical inequalities in land ownership, because of apartheid.

The past becomes the explanation for the present, and the present becomes an excuse for the future.

Of course apartheid left an enormous legacy. Nobody familiar with South African history could seriously deny that. But more than three decades later, surely we must also be willing to confront what has happened since.

What about the corruption? The failing infrastructure? The crime? The political decisions made by those who have governed the country for decades?

At what point do we stop treating history as an all-purpose explanation and begin holding people accountable for the society they are building today?

Instead of concentrating relentlessly on education, entrepreneurship, functioning institutions, and the extraordinary possibilities of the modern world, much of the political conversation remains trapped in the injustices of the past.

We live in an age in which wealth can be created without owning vast amounts of land. The internet has opened opportunities that previous generations could scarcely have imagined. Knowledge that once required enormous resources to access is now available to people with little more than a smartphone and an internet connection.

Yet the old story remains politically convenient.

Unfortunately for South Africa, political liberation did not necessarily mean mental liberation.

Too many people remain imprisoned by a worldview that teaches them to look backwards for explanations rather than forwards for solutions.

And this attitude has consequences.

Walk through certain South African neighbourhoods and you see filthy streets, neglected buildings, rubbish discarded without a second thought, and public spaces treated as though nobody has any responsibility for them.

This is not all of South Africa, of course. There are communities and cities where things are very different. Cape Town, for example, contains some of the most beautiful and well-maintained neighbourhoods I’ve ever seen.

That contrast matters.

Different institutions, different standards of governance, different local expectations, and different habits produce different environments.

The point is not that poverty automatically reveals a failure of character. I grew up poor, and I know how circumstances beyond our control can shape our lives.

The point is that poverty does not relieve us of responsibility for what we do with the things we have.

And no amount of government spending can permanently compensate for the absence of the cultural habits required to sustain a functioning society.

When Compassion Becomes an Excuse

There is something else that makes this ideology particularly difficult to confront.

Many of the people reinforcing it believe they’re being compassionate.

We’ve developed a strange idea of kindness in parts of the Western world, one in which helping people increasingly seems to mean affirming their grievances, lowering expectations, and refusing to challenge attitudes or behaviours that might be holding them back.

This is particularly evident in discussions about immigration and integration.

Some people seem to believe that welcoming immigrants means accepting virtually every aspect of the culture they bring with them, even when certain practices or attitudes are incompatible with the principles that have made their new countries successful.

Any suggestion that newcomers ought to assimilate, respect the prevailing cultural norms, or take responsibility for their integration can be met with accusations of intolerance.

But what exactly are we helping people achieve when we tell them that the society they have entered must change to accommodate them, while asking comparatively little of them in return?

What does it say about our expectations of immigrants when we treat them as incapable of meeting the same standards we expect of everyone else?

There is nothing compassionate about convincing someone that the world is permanently stacked against them and that their future depends almost entirely on the actions of politicians, activists, or the government.

That’s not empowerment. It’s a recipe for dependency.

To respect someone is also to believe in their capacity to achieve, to learn, to improve, and to overcome difficulties.

Sometimes genuine compassion requires telling people things they don’t want to hear.

Learn the language. Respect the laws. Work hard. Take responsibility for your choices. Understand the society you’ve joined and the obligations that come with becoming part of it.

These expectations should not be considered unreasonable. They are precisely the sorts of habits and responsibilities that help make successful societies possible.

Of course, people face genuine barriers, and there is nothing wrong with offering assistance to help them overcome those barriers. But assistance should ultimately expand a person’s ability to act independently, not encourage them to build an identity around their dependence on others.

The bigotry of low expectations is a blight.

And it becomes particularly destructive when the people perpetuating it congratulate themselves on their kindness.

The Responsibility of Freedom

So what am I trying to say?

Life is unfair. It always has been, and it always will be.

Some people are born into wealthy families, others into crushing poverty. Some are born in peaceful, prosperous countries, while others grow up surrounded by corruption, violence, and instability.

These differences matter. I know that better than most.

But we also live in a world filled with opportunities that would have been unimaginable to our ancestors. The societies we inhabit did not simply appear out of nowhere. They were built through generations of human effort, ingenuity, sacrifice, and cooperation.

People created things. They took risks, solved problems, developed institutions, and passed down the knowledge and habits that allowed subsequent generations to build upon what came before them.

That is how prosperity grows.

There is nothing wrong with making life easier for people, especially those who are struggling. But meaningful progress requires more than distributing resources. It requires an environment in which people are encouraged to create, to innovate, to take responsibility, and to believe that their actions can improve their circumstances.

Law and order matter because they create an environment fertile with possibility. Holding criminals accountable matters because crime destroys the trust and security upon which economic life depends. Integration matters because successful societies require more than people simply occupying the same geographical space.

They require shared expectations and a willingness to participate in sustaining the society.

We cannot simply throw money at every problem and expect it to disappear. We cannot legislate personal responsibility into existence, nor can we build a prosperous society on a culture that continually discourages the habits required to sustain prosperity.

And perhaps most importantly, we cannot help people flourish by teaching them that they are powerless.

I think back to that little boy in Durban, sitting hungry at school while watching other children eat their lunches.

He knew the world wasn’t fair. He knew other people had more than he did, and sometimes the difference felt impossibly large.

But he also knew there was a world beyond the circumstances into which he had been born.

I want my daughter to grow up knowing that same thing.

She will have opportunities I never had, in a country whose prosperity and stability I have come to appreciate deeply. I want her to understand that these things are neither accidental nor guaranteed. They are an inheritance worth protecting, and with that inheritance comes responsibility.

I don’t want her to believe that every obstacle is an injustice, that every inequality is evidence of oppression, or that the success of another person somehow diminishes her own possibilities.

I want her to understand that the world owes her neither success nor happiness, but that she has the ability, and the responsibility, to make something meaningful of the life she’s been given.

Because the greatest tragedy of an ideology built around permanent victimhood isn’t merely the resentment it creates.

It’s the possibility that people might spend their entire lives waiting for someone else to give them the future they could have spent their lives building.

This Publication is 100% reader-supported. I release an article weekly and they’re completely free! But if you’re able to support, please consider a paid membership. It helps a tonne, and gives me more time to research and write. Either way, it’s lovely to have you here!