Why the Poor are Getting Fucked
The
main reason that the poor will get poorer and the rich richer is simple.
The
poor through the ages have been sold a dud and they bought it. Allow us
politicians to look after your interest. Let us go way back to the era of
serfdom. This was an era where you had the monarchy and those who owned land or
rather allocated land by the Monarchy in Europe. Those who owned land colluded
with the monarchy to monopolise wealth and taxed the poor hence Communism.
Today the politicians collude with those who have capital to ride on the backs
of the Poor.
NOW,
poverty of the mind is the worst form and it is perpetuated structurally.
In
Africa, Jomo Kenyatta put it bluntly that when the Missionaries came to Africa,
they had the bible and the Africans the land. They then proposed that we all
close our eyes and Pray. When we all said ‘AMEN’. The Missionaries and the
colonialists had the land and the Africans the bible.
For
the next four centuries the African had to play ‘Catch Up’. As soon as he/she
catches up. The rules of the game are changed. Sometimes not by force by or the
naturel order of change. Dispossessed in the Agrarian age the African and all
the Colonised had their energy sapped to retain the land. Before they even won
that war, the industrial age was upon them and their focus was divided and they
did not know what hit them. With monetisation and Stock markets allowing for
new forms of money. The African had to dig deep, the wars of attrition and the
world wars involved Africans in a mess not of their making but paid for it
anyway.
By
1896 the war between Church and State that the Europeans had fought 10
centuries earlier was now being played on the African Continent with
disposition and Urbanisation thrown into the mix.
The
advent of the African Episcopal Missions led by Reverend Dwane of the Ethiopian
order within the Anglican Church further divided the African mases with issues
of polygamy practise not settled until today.
By
the time the computer age came, the African was still spinning without
direction and no Statehood with a few countries experimenting with Independence
in a system of the Cold War witch was not of their making
This
was not what pulverised the poor but what was to follow.
The
birth of Career Politicians.
By
1994 most Black Business persons had more money than any returning and existing
politician. By 2014 those with political connections were now Millionaires and Billionaires.
Why?
Well,
you see what politicians proposed to Africans was that. Look, let us get rid of
the Monarchy by allocating a budget for the Monarchy and the Chiefs so that
they do not interfere with the looting .Then let us create a parliament where
we will first look after ourselves the judiciary and all organs of state where
we will deploy and employ our friends and cronies. This we are doing in the
name of you the Poor who we will always refer to as ‘the People’.
We
will allocate R3.5bn to the Small Business Ministry where almost R1bn will go
to our cronies in administration. Now please tell me that the heads of that
ministry have ever run a ‘Spaza Shop’. Now if you have ever run a small
business at all .You will know that the responsibility to pay workers at the
end of the month is enormous. Anybody who has ever run a small business which
is the real job provider can attest to the difficulty of running a business.
Productivity
which should be at the heart of any wealth creation process is compromised or
even destroyed.
Please
tell me that all our parliamentarians are the most productive people in South
Africa. And that any of them can walk into any private company and do well?
My view is that we have a bloated national
provincial and inefficient local government-Period!
‘Politicians
and Diapers must be Changed Often, and for the same Reason.’-----Mark Twain.
Trickle-down
economics has never worked anywhere in the world and in South Africa we are at
a disadvantage. A lack of coordination between Institutions of higher learning
and the private sector is almost non- existent .In other words the universities
are not producing what industry needs but what the government thinks industry
needs, no communication.
Now,
going forward and to eradicate unemployment to under 5% will not happen under
these conditions.
A
small glimmer of hope does exist in the exponential nature of technology and if
used wisely we may catch up. Put what is also true is that those who are ahead
of us are growing exponentially too.
Now
South Africa does not have a monopoly of bad governance, it is just that we all
expected better and had high hopes for a Democratic State. If the current state
of affairs is what they went to jail for all those years, then I have problems
with their silence. Or maybe they were just bought off by being made
parliamentarians then retired with living support? I am not questioning their
sacrifice but their silence. Mondli Gungubele the mayor of Ekurhuleni put it to
me and said ‘Mac, Democracy is not a perfect system, but the alternative is too
ghastly to contemplate’. While I agreed with him on the sentiment, I still
believe that we can do better. And reverse most of what I talked about on this
section.
The
poor on the other hand will remain helpless and poorer in this decade .I hope
that the regular public protests will turn the hearing aid of those in power.
But
…I am not holding my breath!
