The 7 Deadly Sins

These are: Gluttony (greed), envy, jealousy, pride, anger, sloth (laziness), and… how is it that the last thing is always so damn hard to remember? 80-20 rule again, I suppose. Anyway, if you’re African like me, you obviously don’t think too much about these rules, or place too much importance in them. More colonialist waffle. In fact, if you think about it, we embrace them as being good. Why else do we choose leaders that have these qualities? We see these qualities in our leaders and we see ourselves in our leaders. They are just like us. We see no harm in these qualities. We think that capitalism and the western world also embrace these qualities. These qualities define selfish, narcissistic and ultimately destructive behaviour, as opposed to humility, tolerance, patience and creative behaviour which are always for the greater good of the community and the earth itself. So what? The issue is that, for decades, civilized man had developed an “internal compass” based on certain rules to inhibit these qualities in us. Take religions, which have always been fairly dominant in civilizations, especially uneducated ones. All the religions promote the same behaviours destined to support social cohesion and community peace. This allows people to work together on a large scale, even a national scale. People subvert their selfish interests for the community interests, which ultimately is in their interests too. Over time they begin realizing this and naturally start working in the interests of the community. “Positive” humanistic behaviour is encouraged and looked up to. However, us Africans never really went through this, so we haven’t developed the internal compass. What this means is no empathy with animals or people, and no internal reasoning to not behave totally selfishly and without regard for others or the community. Of course, education helps. But most of us don’t get it. Throughout history our behaviour has only been controlled through fear, by witch doctors and ruthless chiefs. There has been no real understanding of why we should behave in community ways. We see no reason why we shouldn’t have a ruthless, greedy leader for our country, and if all our parliamentarians are fat, corrupt gluttons that’s good, because we see nothing wrong and would do exactly the same in their shoes. Our solution it seems, is legislation. But it can’t work. Ask any businessman – if you can’t trust your employees, and they don’t have the right attitude and aren’t aligned to organisational goals, you are dead in the water. You can make rules and impose security till you’re blue in the face, but things will not work out. People must guide themselves, but this requires an internal compass which encourages positive community behaviour. South Africa is a lost cause. Dead in the water. Destined to a Zuma future. An uneducated leader who has just helped me remember what the last deadly sin is. Lust. The ultimate embodiment of everything unsocial and uncivilized in a human being. So I guess our destiny is now staring us in the face, more or less assured. Another country of warring baboon troops, each led by a big, strong and ruthless dictator. Was there ever any other answer? Could an African country ever subvert the 7 deadly sins sufficiently to emerge as a united, successful and prosperous community? Let’s hope one of our neighbours can get it together and show us the way. Lets hope one day we’ll have the humility to follow their lead.

SARS Expcts Way Too Much of Us

I saw an advert where SARS doesn’t want Any supporting documentation from the Taxpayer, but expect the taxpayer to keep it for five years. Then when SARS come knocking you have to produce it. This is ridiculous. Imagine a person like me, who as a matter of necessity is mobile. I stay 3 months here, 6 months there, never sure what the future holds. People get cross with me and burn all my stuff. I lose the stuff n a rain fall and floods. The chances of my records lasting 5 years is very small. I suppose its lucky I don’t pay tax, because clearly I couldn’t, and I suppose I really shouldn’t. But sometimes I really feel I should contribute in some way, especially since theoretically it’s illegal not to….

Farming vs Golf Estates

The minister of agriculture recently expressed his/her concern about the number of golfing estates affecting the amount of agricultural land. He has every reason to be concerned. Traveling around the country you might discover places like Pringle Bay, a pristine piece of coastal land which has been scarred by a rash of indivualisticly and tastelessly styled houses. A sort of Rustenburg by die See. And how many people actually there when you visit? If there’s one in the hundreds of houses there, it’s a lot. Maybe there’ll be more in december. So effectively we have a ghost town, owned by very rich city dwellers. Why on earth can’t these city dwellers stay in a guest house? It much nicer, everyone does everything for you, and much, much cheaper. I wouldn’t understand, being African and not a Rustenburger. You might also discover the Thabazimbi area, where all the cattle farmers have discovered they can make their fortunes by selling the land for eco-estates. So it seems rich people are buying up the land for their empty holiday homes, and poor farmers are selling up. The result just has to be, however you look at it, much more expensive food in the future, much more risky food supply dominated by a few large producers, and plenty of starving people who can now still afford food, but are less likely to in the future. So the rich will starve the poor to death. They’ll use all the drinking water to water their golf courses. This in my book spells national disaster, and the sooner the government moves to put a stop to it the better.

Port Nelson Mandela

I was in Port Nelson Mandela recently. I understand it’s still officially called Port Elizabeth, but I’m sure not for long. It turns out that Elizabeth was the wife of some British colonialist. Why on earth he didn’t call it Port Pete or whatever his name was beats me. Maybe that’s a reason why he had such a nice wife. I wouldn’t understand, not being a British colonialist. I’m sure no African in history ever called anything after his wife, that’s for certain. Anyway, Port Nelson Mandela is much better. In fact Port Elizabeth is offensive to me personally. All whites offend me. It so happens that just about everything in Port Elizabeth is called Nelson Mandela. If you ever want to go somewhere interesting , just say Nelson Mandela something, eg “Nelson Mandela museum”, or “Madiba Bay”. I think Nelson Mandela now has at least 2 of everything named after him, and probably about 1000 roads nationally. Anyway, I visited St Georges Park (I assume they haven’t delivered the signs yet). There was this memorial to dead colonialists, complete with statue of terrorist (colonialist soldier) in battle with gun. (how come its so hard to call a colonialist soldier a terrorist? I suppose because they’re always dressed smartly, like soldiers. There’s surely no other difference. Then the official definitions should be: Terrorist – undisciplined, badly dressed fighter. Soldier – disciplined, smartly dressed fighter) For some reason, someone had painted the memorial and it was looking good. Obviously the colonialist remnants were hanging in there at the municipality. I pictured a statue of Nelson Mandela in his suit in its place. Then I pictured a ragged comrade war vet with an AK in its place. Somehow, though, the place won’t be the same. I also discovered, again surprisingly, that the gardens had been beautifully maintained, even the old, tasteful colonialist features had been preserved. How offensive. I sat in the beautiful gardens, listening to happy birds, and was offended. Why? Was it Envy? That it was colonialists who had made this? We have to unmake it, make it African. I pictured mielies instead of flowers, a sand patch surrounding a well, or a wood pole cattle kraal. Would we be losing something by Africanising this place? We’ll surely find out soon enough.

Being a Better European

I sometimes get piece work with a catering company owned by a colonialist invader.
Recently he had got a very big job, and took me down to Port Elizabeth to help out. As it turned out, the client was a government department. So we set up a large hall, which took 2 days, and it was magnificently decorated. Then we arranged the food for the 500+ guests, and again, everything went according to clockwork. The colonialist was very particular about how things should be, as he always is. Us workers can often not see his reasoning , or understand why he’ so particular about certain things, but he’s the boss. The evening of the function, there were other service providers, including a brother MC, a band of brothers and sisters (actually sister, but she was so magnificently large you may as well say sisters),and of course, the guys from the govt department who also had various things to organize,such as speeches and prize giving. Now the reason we don’t understand why the colonialist does what he does, is because he’s a white of European descent, an we’re black of African descent. In fact, everything my boss organized went smoothly and professionally, and almost everything else was a disaster – the MC was confused and messed up the awards, as were the govt officials, and most of their organized awards ceremony was in total disarray. The music was way too loud and inappropriate and everyone ate dinner while getting an ear blasting. The speeches were interminably long and boring. And why was this? Because this was a pseudo-European function. We Africans are unlikely to organize or even understand, a European function as well as the Europeans. And when things go wrong, we get jealous of the Europeans, and even blame them. This explains so much of Africa. It explains why affirmative action and racial quotas are such a remarkably short sighted and arrogant thing for us to do. Now let me paint a picture of how we Africans could actually succeed, and beat the world at their own game. First, we embrace the rejection of the 7 deadly sins, teach them to our children, concentrate on the teachings of great people like Biko and Mandela and Tutu. This is important since civilization is based on these norms. You can’t work together without it. There are, of course, many great whites we could use, and hopefully we can find sufficient humility to admit to ourselves how great these people are and embrace their teachings too, but maybe that’s too much too soon for us. Then we become proud of being Africans. We concentrate on our strengths. Then we acknowledge our fellow beings on earth, acknowledge their right to be their, forgive them all their sins, hold no more grudges about past grievances. Most importantly, we respect them! We respect the whites and acknowledge their strengths, same with the coloureds, Indians and Chinese. No more do we think we are better than them. Nor do we think we are worse. However, we can assume we’re better Africans than them. But this does not make us superior, it makes as merely a fellow being.

If we ever get this far, the rest is easy. We have weaknessesand strengths, which differ from those of other nations – obviously generalizing here, but you get the idea. We team up with them to form diverse, but united teams. Now you may say that Afrikaners, for example, are way too arrogant to team up with Africans. That may be so, because they are an arrogant bunch, but then leave them out of the mix. There are plenty of other, more humble nations willing to team up. As an aside, Afrikaners do tend to band together at the expense of their fellow other nationalities, especially in companies such as Eskom. Ever walked up to a group of Afrikaners, and as soon as you arrive a tense silence overcomes them? Then they talk in a stilted way when you’re around. As soon as they think you’re out of earshot, they revert to being pally with each other. Talk about being unable to mix with other nationalities! Understand that this is their problem, not yours.

Take rugby for instance. We have a world class team, and I don’t care how many blacks you put in the team, they will almost surely not match up to a team of mostly Afrikaners. Similarly, blacks are much better at athletics and soccer. Whites at swimming. And so on. And the same can be said for academic subjects and work careers. Blacks make excellent journalists, historians, politicians, negotiators, entrepreneurs. Whites make good engineers and accountants. I have seen how blacks struggle with engineering, when it comes so easily and naturally to whites. Whites are excellent managers and administrators, with less tendencies to be individualistic.

The whites are now in our power. Why not use them to our and (gasp) their advantage? To all our advantage? Make them and us rich and happy. Have vibrant and safe cosmo cities – everyone loves the feel and vibrancy of a mixed area. They’re here – take advantage! In fact, I’ve just thought of how to solve the crime problem – hire the whites as security guards and police. They appreciate security so would probably make a much bigger effort than us. But of course, this is all pie in the sky. I mustn’t forget how nasty the whites are, and how much they owe us, and me personally, etc, etc…