Kenneth Moeng Mokgatlhe
Increasingly growing inequalities in South Africa are easily described as a ticking time bomb, a disaster waiting to happen. We have seen awful pictures of violence between a small group of white people and EFF members outside their premises. The pictures are not only our painful past but they are presently terrifying both black and white communities.
It would not assist our current racial tensions to pick a side based on the pigmentation of my skin or to the effect I believe who is wrong or right. I would like to address both the cause of this tension and attempt to offer solutions.
The wealth gap between white and black people is definitely a factor giving birth to this social, political and economic quagmire. The growing inequalities continue to worsen the poor livelihoods of black people. This is not completely white people’s fault as the ANC failed dismally to develop efficient affirmative action policies which would seek to work not only for those with political might and connections.
It is embarrassing that the ANC-led government has failed to equally redistribute the land and wealth of this country to landless South Africans. Failure to redistribute this wealth of the country evenly will result in a big social catastrophe, which we do not want to witness as has happened in other African countries.
These growing inequalities between the rich and poor, or blacks and whites, allows for political opportunism by people like John Steenhuisen or Julius Malema who do not have a clear programme of action on what our country needs to be guided. Malema and his party would not have grown if the ANC had dealt with the growing inequalities in our country where the poor and marginalised are moving away from the ANC to join EFF, which has positioned itself as the solution to all the neglected people.
On the other hand, we have Steenhuisen, who is eager to go as far as the international community to complain about Malema’s behaviour or misbehaviour, employing racial polarisation to consolidate the white vote. Steenhuisen is aware that his party has been losing votes from black communities after the unceremonial removal of the likes of Mmusi Maimane, Herman Mashaba, Atholl Trollip and a few others. He is trying to galvanise white votes using racial tactics, which is dangerous as can lead to a social fracas.
The chanting of “kill the boer … kill the farmer”, the scuffle and the tensions prove that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was just a smokescreen. It is a common cause that the victims of any unjust system such as apartheid deserve reparations (justice) in order to level the ground and become equal.
The current inequality means that there are two nations in our country – rich and poor. We have public schools offering less quality education while privately run schools catering for those who can afford it are offering quality education. This means that we are not adequately investing in our future, hence we will have a social catastrophe in future. We will have young people with no skills or knowledge of any economic activities, which will result in them being unemployable.
It is critical to attempt to build an equal society where all people will be able to access quality education, primary health care, human settlements, security and safety, and so on. It is costly to watch as people are unable to afford quality education, as this will have dire economic results for this country in the future.
It does not make financial or economic sense to have a large sum of youth depending on the state for survival through social welfare programmes, as it is just too costly and unsustainable for the nation. A sober and smart country would invest in its youth by giving them world-class education and training in important fields such as science and technology, aviation, economics, education, health and so on. At the moment we have youth who are not only unemployed but unemployable because they do not have the required skills needed by our country.
Mokgatlhe is a thought leader based in the North West province*