Sandile Memela
Pretoria - A lot of people in the world now think that black people cannot run South Africa’s sophisticated economy.
These people are both inside and outside the country, including America, the UK and parts of Europe.
They hold the view that, through the poor example of ANC leadership, blacks threaten the present and future of one of the most beautiful countries in the world.
This is an indisputable fact. The examples are countless. Rolling blackouts, collapsing state-owned entities, rude apparatchiks, divided political parties and ambitious political crooks in suits and weaves.
Above all, a lost ANC that has forgotten how to serve the people.
This unending list of problems haunts this country. But to find the way out of this mess, South Africans must surely address the root causes of our troubles, not just the symptoms.
To illustrate, as we speak, Eskom has plunged this country into darkness without a focused and dedicated leader. Why has he left? Will his departure deliver a solution? Does the new board have a solution?
The answer is a resounding “No!” Instead, we have been told the problem is here to stay for the next five years or more. And the board and others continue to get paid despite a lack of delivery.
The police are paralysed. Corrupt ANC leaders and self-serving government apparatchiks live, work and steal in an inherently corrupt economic system. Now, if a person lives in an economic system that promotes selfishness and greed, they will make mistakes and commit sins. They will, over time, be selfish and greedy. If you cannot beat them, join them.
Yes, men and women in the ANC and government commit the sin of corruption and embezzle funds meant to improve this country.
The cause of all this is a system that prescribes material worship, and values, where to be seen as successful you must have money and everything that it can buy. Everyone wants their turn to eat. When they eat, they think of no one else but their family and friends.
Black people once made it a way of life to avoid worshipping money. They established an alternative to capitalism. Difficult as life was under apartheid, they did not dread poverty. No one was independent, living only for themselves.
Our communal life was about interdependence. We were our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers who understood and subscribed to Ubuntu.
That all changed when then Anglo-American CEO Gavin Relly and Mike Spicer, among others, went to Lusaka, Zambia, to convince the ANC leadership that socialism died with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Worse, they lured the leaders into getting shares in the company in the name of black economic empowerment.
Thus, self-enrichment is the new way of life. The captains of capitalist industry engaged and convinced the leadership to change their beliefs to embrace capitalism, which produces unequal pay, poverty and an every man for himself mentality.
Today, many young men who carry the future of this country have been conditioned, too, to want money and what it can buy – by any means possible.
They are not encouraged to be selfless servants of the people, willing to sacrifice their interests to build a better future for all.
Young men and women from the white community have turned their back on the country, too. They would rather pack up and leave than help these blacks rebuild or further destroy the country.
In fact, whites live in a parallel world to the country black people know. For example, Cape Town is considered to be a country on its own, the capital of white privilege.
We can rightly state that this capitalist economic system is more treacherous than ANC leaders and apparatchiks.
We, South Africans, will not be able to find a cure for our ills until we address the root cause of the problem.
It is the economic system, stupid.
* Memela is a writer and public servant. He writes in his personal capacity.
* * The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.
Pretoria News