I was an African

Here lays the problem as I view South Africa as a nation of tribes as much as the rest of Africa. When I worked in China it made no difference where I went to in China, no matter if it was Beijing or Guizhou. When you asked people what they were, they would give you the definitive answer that they are Chinese. China has more tribes than South Africa, yet as a nation they function as a single unit. There is a certain amount of cohesion between all their tribes. In contrast you go to Natal and you ask the same question and the reply is I am a Zulu. In South Africa we tend to identify our tribal roots first before we do our nationality. We function on the bases that we are separate but equal. In reality we are separate and unequal.

Over the years AA (Affirmative Action) and BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) has created artificial barriers which benefit different tribes or people of different colours. It is this which helps to systematically destroy our cohesiveness as a nation. We do not function as one unit and we view each other with distain because of the inequality. Let’s not be like the rest of Africa. Let us learn from history, for if we learn from history we shall not repeat the mistakes of those before us.

Even though we have come out of an era of apartheid and unequal development or as Ronald Reagan said, “We have so many people who can’t see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion that the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one”. History has however taught us that you can never create equality by creating another inequality as it will poison us as a nation. Least we not forget the speech from Abraham Lincoln.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot redistribute land nilly willy without having grave consequences. You cannot take 1 productive farmer and create 40 unproductive smaller farmers and call it development.

You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot give BEE contracts to people who are small and inexperienced in the face of cheaper more experienced larger corporations.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot give Basic Income Grants funded by the few taxpaying citizens. You don’t give handouts, you should be giving hand ups. As the Chinese proverb goes, ’Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime’. Give people training, give people their pride. Nobody wants handouts, everybody wants a job.

You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot expect high wages and no prices increases. You cannot expect expansion of corporations by leaving them with unrealistic wage bills. We need to be competitive and productive for higher wages. We need to embrace technology and use it to its fullest.

You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. We cannot spend what we don’t have as a nation. We can’t afford to buy arms when our people are hungry. The roaring sounds of tanks rolling will never drum out the cries of a hungry child.

You cannot further brotherhood of man by inciting class hatreds. We can never function as a nation whiles we despise each other. We will never grow as a nation if we cannot embrace each other and find equitable solutions for our future – together.

You cannot establish security on borrowed money. We can least afford to pat people on their back when they are corrupt. They steal from our nation. For tomorrow does not belong to you and I, for tomorrow belongs to our children for they will repay what we loaned today.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man’s initiative and independence. We cannot afford to stem innovation and development because we want to balance our colours when we need to balance our moral values. We need to encourage our children to fulfil their dreams and to take initiative.

You cannot help men by doing for them what they could be doing for themselves. We can never sit back and not see that AA will help destroy the cohesiveness of our nation, our brotherhood, our country. We cannot provide an equitable solution by giving people positions they don’t deserve.