With local elections looming we are bound to hear all sorts of nonsense about how the government should be uplifting the “economically disadvantaged” (the current SA euphemism for the poor) and how our finance ministers have failed to deliver to the poor in 17 years of ANC government. Deliver what though? Jobs, free money, hope, food vouchers? Surely that's the old give a hungry man a fish and he'll be hungry again tomorrow argument? What can you possibly give the poor of South Africa that would provide them with more than a faint hope of a better life? The government had the brilliant idea of starting a national lottery which would encourage people to gamble what little money they had on a ticket which could change their lives for ever. Very few lives have been changed.
In between elections the poor get very little mention and there is good reason for that. Firstly, they are not particularly economically active which means that they don't count. Let me give you an African wildlife metaphor. When an impala is born and is found to be weak the rest of the herd don't run around starting action groups with like minded caring impala to protect the weak of the herd. The poor lame hobbling impala is left to fend for itself and it's inability to run faster than other impala of a similar age is just part of the process of natural selection. The lame and the sick end up on the dinner menu of the predators. And it's not all rosy for the predators either. If a lion cannot hunt for himself he is reduced to scrounging the scraps from other lion kills. The chances are that he will be driven away by younger healthier lions and will become thinner and thinner before dropping from sheer starvation and exhaustion and providing food for the vultures. Who said it was a fair world? We are the only species that protect the weak with such enthusiasm and the result has had a substantial effect on the quality of the gene pool.
The second reason the poor don't matter very much in the yawning gaps between elections is that they don't have much money, don't throw great parties and can't chuck the juicy bone of a tender deal to hungry politicians. Julius (Kiddie Amin) Malema may talk about improving the lot of the poor and nationalising the mines so that ordinary South Africans can share in all that wealth underground but we all know this is nothing but political bullshit. Anyway, when has a nationalised industry ever benefited the people (with the exception of oil in Norway)? They usually end up costing the taxpayer a fortune and the reason for that is very simple; politicians don't make good businessmen. No, like most politicians the world over, Julius and his mates want to hang out with the sort of people who can settle the bill for all that Johnnie Blue at the end of the evening. So why waste time on the poor?
If the ANC were really serious about doing something for the poor in South Africa they would start an economic education scheme. This would point out there is no such thing as free money. Money has to be earned and that is the only way most people are able to survive. The gap between rich and poor is no different than the gap between the successful and unsuccessful hunter. The rich are, by definition, smarter, better informed, better connected, more willing to take risks and as a result are more productive members of society. It's no accident that the poor suck life's hind tit....they are always waiting for handouts. If the government, by some miracle, created five million jobs in the next ten years what sort of jobs do you think they would be? Would they provide opportunities for the poor to make serious money and change their family's lives for ever? Or would they be crappy, low paid jobs that would provide just enough to live on? Where's the dignity in that?
If the poor really think that the ANC are there to provide a better life for them then they are probably too dumb to realise that they are nothing but gullible electoral cannon fodder. The chances of things ever changing for these wretched people is zero. If it did the ANC would no longer have a desperate constituency to go to for votes every five years.
David Bullard
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