The Issue at Hand.

The Issue at Hand … Is less about race than it is about the economic and political system that rules currently.  I’m speaking here about capitalism.  Kindly note that I’m purposefully writing from the top of my head, I want to speak as a layperson, with no references to reports, academic writings or history books.  It is true that I have been blessed with a better education than “the average South African” – whatever that means - so my reference to “lay” might be somewhat misleading.  You will agree however, that a formal education is but a speck in the endless tapestry that is education.  So perhaps my claim of an unqualified opinion is not so far fetched.

To begin with, my understanding of capitalism is a free market in the true sense of the term.  Anyone with a particular skill, product or idea may sell that to the highest bidder in an attempt to make the most profit from said asset.  Sounds fair to me, a great idea…in a perfect world.  Unfortunately this is far from the world we live in today.  What we see is a market controlled by names, networks, race and gender.  This is the point of this here joint, that capitalism has been so perverted by a few avaricious suits that it seems it can never be rehabilitated.

Take my beloved Mzansi for instance, if you’re a Motaung, Mandela, Oppenheimer, Zuma, Ackerman, Gupta, Maponya, Rupert, to name but eight, you’re application for mining rights or funding will most likely be handled with speed and little or no hindrance.  Yes, it is true that many of these families or names got to where they are through genuine hard work, like the Motaungs of Kaizer Chiefs fame.  That being said, I’m not convinced that just because a father works hard, his offspring should automatically get a free or easy ride…like the opportunity to even try commit tender fraud for the building of a stadium, or the chance to pay yourself millions while the miners working deep in the belly of your mine receive nothing at all, except bad backs, arthritis and tuberculosis.  

Then of course it always helps if you know these families personally, if they form a part of your private network.  Just ask a couple of politicians…okay, maybe not, they’ll probably just lie or blame it on some toothless department.  Just read a newspaper or two, then again they too have they’re own agendas, dictated to by many of those financially brawny families I alluded to earlier.  No, no, ask that lady that got thirty something million rand from the government to set up an upmarket boutique in the richest area on the African continent … you know who I’m talking about.  Bare ke mang? Khanyi Dhlomo, that’s it.  Talking about rural women from KZN are her partners.  Really?  That’s nice!

Next is the race case.  Unfortunately, South African history has made it so that race is the bane our existence.  It is almost impossible to discuss any societal issue without racial relations forming a thick knot on the backside of our otherwise comfortable knickers.  Bloody Verwoerd and his National Party cronies! As I said however, this is not the issue at hand. 

The way I see it slavery, colonialism, apartheid, racial segregation and oppression are all a direct result of an insatiable appetite for material profit.  Do whatever it takes - whatever it takes - to make improve the position of yourself and your immediate family.  Whether that means genocide, dispossession of traditional lands, or destruction of language and culture.  This was done through the imposition of foreign laws, languages and religions.  These laws and ideas of course include this capitalism thing, which makes and keeps two people filthy rich and thousands (generally black) desperately poor. 

Lastly, if you take a look at those well off and well-known families, it’s always a patriarch at the helm.  Not just that, walk into any modern day boardroom and a group undoubtedly faces you of old, white men staring blankly back at you…cause I have locks, I’m wearing jeans, takkies and a t-shirt, all while having the audacity to ask them for two million rand to build a publishing company and factory (books, magazines, compact discs, vinyl’s, text books, dvd’s, newspapers, etcetera, just in case one of those old white men are reading this and are interested in going into business with a young, black, gifted and dreadlocked man).

So what’s the conclusion or rather the solution?  Clearly I don’t think capitalism can be saved.  Apparently socialism is working in some Scandinavian icebox, so maybe we should try that. No one has, as yet, made communism work as well as it was expected.  So my take is all those people with masters and doctorates in politics and economics should be working on something new, something innovative.  I’m merely an opinionated artist; all I know is music and poetry.  But I figure if people could come up with these two ideologies or systems, I’m sure someone can come up with something new.  It doesn’t have to be better, just different.  Change will make all the difference.  

Until then, we need to address the issue of greed.  We need to inculcate a sense of community, the old industrial workers’ adage of “An injury to one is an injury to all” needs to be drilled into the minds of young ones from the moment they can tell green from gold.  People must be taught to hate greed as much as they must hate poverty.  All should abhor gluttony and hoarding of any form, and this can definitely be learned.  Idealistic?  Maybe, but it’s worth a try.

@thabisonkoana

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