Open your ears, your mind, your heart, your mouth (in that order)

Written October 24, 2007:

So here's the deal right; you've got all these people arguing on different sides of socio-political issues like Transformation, Affirmative Action and Black Economic Empowerment, many of them not really knowing or thinking about what they're saying. You’ve got your radical militants on one end, your neo-classical liberals on the other, and the unfortunate few in between who are trying, with little success, to make sense of it all. In the absence of any kind of political rhetoric, or the socio-economic theory which informs it, people will always be stuck in a bit of a stale mate as to which side of the socio-political fence to plant them selves on.

The constant pressure being applied from both ends is not making it any easier for the disenfranchised, politically uncommitted men and women in the middle trying to grapple constructively with the issues being debated, from inside each of our homes right up to the Big House itself. Party slogans, revolutionary songs, fists pumped animatedly and fingers waggled mock-admonishingly across the Floor are all part of the charade being played out at national level, except in the Big Leagues, they’re playing for keeps.

All this, in my opinion, has lent itself heavily to the attitude of apathy on campus, why no-one but a seemingly crazy few are willing to take dip into the murky waters of politics and find out where the hell all bubbles are coming from. People need to understand the fact that politics is real, and affect every single one of us on such a continual basis that we’ve almost forgotten how to recognise it.

From that first day of primary school we ask the questions, “Whose game is it?” and/or “Can I play with?” and if you happened to be the new kid, nerd, asthmatic (or any other kind of social outcast really) you’d be left standing there with your mouth agape wondering, “Well why didn’t I get picked?” Later on in life many of us will be making tactful ‘donations’ to certain prestigious prep schools to ‘secure young Thabiso’s/ Thom’s academic future’. Much later we’ll be playing out the same game, this time trying to secure ourselves memberships to exclusive country clubs.

Now think ahead to this weekend and how many people you will see jump to the front of the queue, give the bouncer a companionable handshake and waltz straight up into the VIP section, without paying the R50-odd cover you’re about to fork out. Lucky bastard, you may be thinking, and in some cases you might be right (though I can’t think how). The honest truth is that in the day and age we live in, it’s not about what you know, but who you know. We all learn this lesson very early on in life, and from then on it really does become a case of survival of the fittest (or best connected).

This is just the first day of POL 1ooooh!1, and it’s not going to get any easier. What’s missing from the context of the tender processes and quota systems, is a nation-wide dialogue where people can to talk about how they actually feel about the measures government has put in place to establish equitable wealth distribution in SA. The Conservatives have their set-in-stone views, a disturbing number of which (not all) are set in the context of ideological underpinnings that have long since been rendered irrelevant. The Liberals on the other hand are trying their level best to convince everybody else, and I think them selves, that everything will be okay if everyone just works hard and has some patience. The way I see it, every one is just trying to hold on to or take hold of what they think they deserve, should have ownership of or are entitled to. Is it greed? Maybe. Is it the pursuit of prestige and power? Possibly. What I think is the more likely answer is this; Fear.

A natural human concern for all of us is whether or not we’re going to be able to provide adequately (though there are varying definitions of this term) for ourselves and our families. Now if legislation is dictating whether you will or not get hired for a position or be awarded a contract based on something as fickle as the amount of melanin in your skin, I’d say we’ve all got a right to be just a little bit afraid.

So where does this leave the average guy trying to maintain, regardless of the racial grouping he falls into? The simple fact of the matter is that there is still massive socio-economic inequality in S.A.; we have the second highest income difference in the world between the richest and the poorest, just behind Brazil. Now although our economy is picking up momentum, we’re still far from having full market participation. In my understanding, the point of Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment and its policies is to increase the economic capacity of the country as a whole by giving black-owned companies a competitive advantage in a cut-throat job market. In a previous note I wrote about how this will, in time, benefit the country as a whole. You can’t ignore the structural disadvantage (and abject poverty that comes with it) that the vast majority of black people in our country are under; something has to be done to help alleviate their suffering. Is BBEE the answer? As a sole measure, I don’t think so, no. It would do more harm than good to give a multi-million rand contract to a company that can’t handle the job they’re being expected to do. A governmental focus on massive social spending aimed at increasing the number of skilled individuals at all levels of employment, combined with the AA and BEE initiatives, will go along way to achieving the ideals that underpin the Empowerment movement.

AA and BEE are real and whether we like these policies or not, they’re not going anywhere. The question is this; what are you going to do about it? Take politics out of parliament and into the pubs, from the boardrooms to the bars; open your ears, your mind, your heart, your mouth. In that order.