Biznews blogger Alexx Zarr reflects the dark mood which many fellow South African citizens have right now. And reminds us that culture is created by the way we do things, the standards we ascribe to through our daily actions. He echoes concern surrounding our collective Drift, a worrying slide articulated by former Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, previous JSE President Russell Loubser and the subject of my recent column, Zarr’s assessment is the country needs a wake-up call. – AHÂ
By Alexx Zarr*
A public servant employed to protect his fellow citizens and our President, assaults and swears at a video-photo journalist. Bedfordview is a scene for criminal bomb blasts and the subsequent intimidation of journalists.
There are a myriad of incidents where babies and youngsters are raped and killed by their own communities. Businesses collude to overprice products and services, from bread to buildings. Striking employees assault and kill non-striking employees. Civil servants collude with tenderpreneurs to undermine service provision and a better life for all. Teachers don’t teach, they run their businesses or have sexual relationships with students.
Failing mining companies remunerate their bosses tens of millions of rands. Politicians sow fear and antagonism between the races with slogans and racism. Stand at any intersection, you will find that fewer motorists stop, than those that run the lights or signs, often mobile phone attached to their ear. Best you not raise the criminality of their action or you’ll be zapped or assaulted. These fine responsible citizens’ offspring sit beside them, learning how it is a done.
How long do I need to make this list to paint a picture of how we do things around here?
This is our culture. It is how we live our lives.
So how does one describe our culture that seems no different, whatever one’s pigment, race, gender, age, income level, religion or class distinction (whatever that is)?
Maybe Ubuntu? Ubuntu is dead – long live Ubuntu. We know the Dodo is dead because we can’t find a live specimen. If Ubuntu ever existed, it is not alive to me. I see no evidence of us living through other people. Even in the days before the three ships disgorged their malcontents onto the beaches of False Bay, the indigenous populations were making merry killing each other, thus doing precisely what the families of the settlers were doing back home. I see an Africa where power of any kind is used to suppress others, insidiously or violently, at a micro-level or wholesale.
What about some fine kind of liberalism, an import from northern climes? Is liberalism a culture, though? Seems it could be, if one defines it as a way of living which gives everyone rights, responsibilities and obligations to maximise one’s own worth, as long as it leaves others similarly free. It is a kind of individual anarchy, but with rules – and that may be a contradiction in terms. So, I reckon, what I witness in my society is also not liberalism – rules are flouted, responsibility and obligation have been erased from our behaviour, if not idiom.
I have trouble defining what I see, other than knowing it does not fit handy labels. We live our lives over others, on the bodies of others. Despite rules imposed by government, there is chaos. The more rules that gather dust, the greater the energy of citizens to flout them. We define freedom as our personal space to do as we please with no consequences, no self-management, no responsibility or accountability. It is the worst from of liberalism; freedom with no obligation, freedom with no rules. It is a culture of anarchy.
Moment by moment, day by day, incident by incident we’re building our culture. We’re passing it on to the following generations. It is simply how we do things around here.
I do not like it. I resent this culture. It is not the legacy I care to be part of.
Remember, when we are not all free, none of us is free. At the moment I do not feel free.
* Alexx lives in and works from Centurion.  He has degrees in economics, politics and strategic studies.  In the recent past he has been managing director of a mutual fund company, a pseudo banker managing wealth and transactional products and currently runs a specialist research and consulting entity.  Before that he did a stint at National Treasury and at a Constitutional entity, managing its research division. He has travelled extensively, studied offshore and done a stint of work for the IMF.  More than most things he loves to mountain bike, let his dogs walk him and write – just write.
