WeeklySA_AdminINTERESTS: Afrikaners, Africans speak out from two sides of the mouth to empower or disempower their communities
By Jo-Mangaliso Mdhlela
The other day, some two weeks ago, I was in a taxi ride in a minibus travelling from Vosloorus headed to the city of Joburg.
The morning conversation among commuters in a 35 to 45 minutes trip was about the extent to which the African people have been robbed of a better future by their own government and leaders, despite noble, yet empty promises of a better life for all.
Everyone in the bus seemed to have had their interest piqued by the discussions, for it is such debates that generate heat, and are never pooh-poohed by suffering masses for the message they convey easily hits home.
The 30-year-old promise was made with the assurance the ANC government would tenderly and compassionately look well after “our people” as a reward for helping the movement to win the first democratic elections of April 27, 1994, by a landslide victory.
Did the National Party not promise their own, the Afrikaners, a better tomorrow when they ascended political power in 1948?
Did the National Party not consolidate all the laws that protected white interests at the expense of cancelling out African people from any form of political or economic progress?
Not only did the National Party show kindness to their own, it helped to also, in one fell swoop, to advance Afrikaners’ cause, catapulting them to top positions in civil service, industry and commerce, among others.
Through private and public endeavours, the apartheid regime developed a first-rate modern infrastructure, build roads and railways, employed their own to create a wealthy white population, while deliberately using legislation to stunt black progress.
By denying Africans any meaningful development and promulgating oppressive laws to curb black advancement, creating all the while a narrative that Africans were in fact rightful owners of little patches of barren Bantustans, and that in the so-called “White South Africa”, Africans were “temporary sojourners” with no claim to what ought to accrue to “white South Africa” which must remain their “God-given” inheritance.
This lie, between 1948 and the 1970s, volubly dominated the country’s political landscape with great intensity.
But black resistance by black-oriented organisations, with leaders such as Steve Bantu Biko of the Black Consciousness orientation at the forefront, began to intensify.
Black campuses became struggle sites for political resistance. The Soweto students’ resistance movement of June 1976 which ignited the Soweto uprisings whose velocity spread throughout the country, became a straw that broke the camel’s back.
Back to the main narrative. The talks in the taxi minibus bemoaned how political rhetoric of a better life had turned hollow and meaningless, and that if you worked and lived in Johannesburg, or any city or town or village, the experience was the same – the expectation of a better life amounted to nothing more than a mirage, an optical illusion that bore no resemblance to lived African reality. No sane black people believed the nonsense. Only the gullible did.
“Yes, apartheid system was rubbish; it oppressed black people, treating them as non-persons.
But is there anything to be proud about our new dispensation, when we see life collapsing under the rubble of a failing government, whose officials are self-serving.
The country’s cities and towns and villages are disintegrating; the ever-present stench of rotting and decaying things in the city threaten life as they also pose a health hazard.
All of this is indicative of municipality officials who do not care about the well-being of society, and are unaware of the impact these avoidable deficiencies might have on the psyche of humans.
What do you do when tens of thousands of rodents find home in a filthy city, with infestations increasing by the day?
“The beautiful city that Johannesburg is invaded by illegal foreigners who have become part of the problem contributing to the spiking crime rate, yet officialdom sits on their hands, and fails to appropriately act as if everything were normal.
“As young people of the 1970s and 1980s and early 1990s, Johannesburg and its surrounds such Yeoville, were areas in which we would unwind after a hard day’s work, and this was at the height of the apartheid era. Not now. The city has become infested with criminal elements, with police officers also corrupt, showing no interest to curb crime, but to encourage it by accepting brown envelopes from criminal syndicates.
“The city of Joburg worked efficiently at that time, with traffic lights functioning well, and the city’s buildings and street lights in mint condition.
“Thirty-years on, things have taken a bad turn, and are falling apart. The city is broken. The infrastructure has collapsed; overcrowding is a menace; everything seems to have broken at the seams.
“We don’t say apartheid was good, for it was an aberration, but for God’s sake, why don’t our political leaders do better, thereby demonstrating their noble intentions of bringing about a better life to those who voted for them.”
A middle-aged woman, making his point in SeSotho, screamed at the top of her voice that the notion of a better life “etsamayile le monga yona, ntate Mandela”, which is to say the idea of a better life has been “buried with Mandela”.
Apartheid system was evil. It discriminated against people along racial lines, targeting black people for inhumane treatment.
We remember the words of the late Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) president Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, and his allusion to the notion of “one race”, which is a human race.
Addressing an international community in London during the early years of the 21st century, a few years after he retired as the country’s first democratic president, Mandela argued that overcoming poverty was something that was fundamental to freedom and human rights.
“Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of fundamental human rights, the right to dignity and a decent life.”
Apartheid was an evil requiring to be uprooted, as was colonialism, an accomplice to the oppression suffered by the African people.
The big question, though, remains: Why would a democratic government that subscribes to human dignity and human rights be accused by its citizens of being negligent, with no appetite to take care of its people who it promised a better life?
The country’s metros and towns and villages are crumbling, and this has become a lived reality for millions of South Africans.
To deny this reality, will not save erstwhile struggle icons from scorn and ridicule from the people they claim “to be our people” – even if those who pour scorn are taxi commuters, and not university professors. The effect is the same.
• Mdhlela is an independent journalist, an ex-trade unionist and human and social justice activist
Comment
GOVT. FAILS DESTITUTE KIDS
The Eastern Cape’s ministry of transport officials must hang their heads in shame for failing – for years – to provide transport for nearly 40 000 children, mostly from rural areas who have to travel long distances daily to school.
These children, whose grandparents and parents suffered the same fate under apartheid rule, have not enjoyed the benefits of a new dispensation under a democratic government led by the African National Congress since 1994.
Instead, for them it has been a long journey of untold misery and hardship of having to walk long distances of up to two hours to school in dangerous conditions including overflowing rivers with no bridges to help them cross over. The burden has been so much that many of these pupils had dropped out of school – thanks to a government that does not care for its future leaders.
The situation became so dire that the Legal Resources Centre intervened and after their efforts to resolve the crisis with the authorities failed, they turned to the courts of law for relief.
The Makhanda High Court, in December last year, declared that the Eastern Cape Department of Transport’s failure to provide scholar transport, was unlawful and unconstitutional. This failure affected nearly 40 000 children, mostly from rural areas, who were denied their basic right to education.
Instead of urgently seeking financial assistance and address the issue they are expected to have resolved a long time ago, the department of Transport announced that they were still busy looking for help to provide the scholar transport as ordered by the court.
Meanwhile, these children must continue to suffer while these officials enjoy monthly lucrative government perks including housing and transport allowances. And to crown it all, none of their children are affected in this untold hardship. While these officials are basking in comfort, children from poor families in rural areas, some with worn-out shoes, have to walk through dangerous areas to get to school. This is unacceptable.
The Makhanda High Court has made a ruling that failure to provide transport for children qualifying for scholar transport was unlawful and unconstitutional. This order has to be honoured by the department of Transport without any excuses. Failure to implement the court’s ruling would be tantamount to contempt and must result in the arrest and conviction of the MEC for the Department of Transport and Community Safety and his officials.
These nearly 40 000 children cannot continue to suffer while officials care less about their plight while they are earning fat cheques and enjoying luxurious lifestyles. These officials pledged to change people’s lives after the demise of apartheid rule. They promised to serve the people who voted them into power. They committed themselves to a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
They are being paid to help improve people’s lives, not to subject them to untold hardship. If they fail to help provide better life for these children, then they must do the right thing and resign.
They must not play games with the future of these children. They have suffered enough.
