President Mbeki has values bull by the udder

The Sunday Times front page of 14^th January 2007 saw President Thabo Mbeki blame colonialism and apartheid for South African greed. Unless (the usual political refuge) he was quoted ‘out of context’, what he said (inter alia) was: ‘….the pursuit of personal wealth to the exclusion of all else is primarily a consequence of the social and economic relations that developed under colonialism and apartheid.’ I read a few days later that the Prez (on Tim Modise’s radio show) thinks crime isn’t out of control but that we all suffer from misperceptions regarding the extent of it. Until then, I would have been amazed by his colonialism statement - but no longer. His well-established forte is clearly denial.

During the apartheid ‘struggle’, people were united against a common enemy – or so they thought, anyhow. In those days there were still faint vestiges of Ubuntu (African Humanism) left in black South African culture. At its best it echoed sentiments like ‘No African child will be an orphan so long as one African woman lives.’ ‘It takes a village to raise a child’. ‘I am my brother’s keeper’. In between lay, ‘you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours’. At its worst, it’s degenerated into ‘every man for himself and God for us all.’ I’m afraid the latter version currently holds sway in South Africa.

If that ‘caring for your neighbour’, altruistic stuff was real and an integral part of the value system of black South Africans, it would have amplified once the oppressor’s jackboot was lifted. But it didn’t do that. It all but evaporated entirely.

Luminaries in the values evolution field, like the late Professor Clare Graves, Professor Don Beck and others, have proven that values can be and often are distorted when there’s oppression. They typically revert to a lower, more self-centred, self-preservation orientated level of functioning. But in an environment of ‘freedom’ the intrinsic, actual values will have the luxury of coming to the fore. That gives the lie to the President’s assertion.

Can President Mbeki legitimately claim that colonialism and apartheid influences (for which read ‘nasty white people’) are responsible for the rampant materialism, greed, selfishness and lack of concern for the poor and downtrodden in (primarily, given the demographics) black South African culture? I think not. He’s fallen into the same trap as many cultural, ethnic or religious groups.  They will continue to blame for millennia, not their own paucity of good values, work ethic, morals, innovation or energy, but the legacy of their past. Which means I should be able to take refuge behind and excuse any unacceptable behaviour on my part because I had an alcoholic father. That’s plain stupid. Then so is President Mbeki’s thesis.

Convicted fraudster Tony Yengeni emerges from prison and loudly proclaims that the problem in South Africa is poverty and the fact that the bulk of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of a tiny percentage of South Africans. What the heck does that have to do with his designer-suited criminal behaviour? He’s a fine one to be shouting the odds on caring for the poor when he’s the default author of the term ‘a Yengeni’ when people refer to expensive Mercedes MPVs.

To cap these ANC rants, erstwhile Parliamentary Speaker Frene Ginwala was quoted in the Star newspaper of January 17^th 2007. She shot off her mouth saying that business people are corrupting politicians. Indeed? I sat in the Centurion home of an MP – at that stage theoretically earning R 11 000 p.m. I was there with someone else to ask for legit networking assistance with a project. The Chinese silk-upholstered designer stainless steel couch on which we sat, probably cost more than all the furniture in my home put together. The artworks on the walls were original oils and acrylics. This highly placed ANC official gobsmacked the businesswoman with me when he quite blatantly and without batting an eyelid told us he’d want a significant cut of any ensuing revenues and that his wife would need to be ‘put on the board’ of our company. No kidding. So Frene dear, are you and your political cronies squeaky clean? Never asked for a kick-back? Sure? Really, really sure?

People, regardless of ethnicity or their past, need to take a careful look at their chosen level of social responsibility, morals, ethics and spirituality. You can’t continue to blame others or circumstances for how you live your life. Well, you can of course, but all that says about you is that you’re consciously ‘playing victim’ and you’re unwilling to accept responsibility and accountability for your own future. This doesn’t say a lot (of good, anyhow) about you.

If we were all to blame someone or some other ethnic group, or some set of circumstances, for who and what we are, and use it as an excuse not to evolve and grow up, we’d have a global pandemic of social dysfunction. What a pity that someone of Mbeki’s alleged intellectual brightness can perpetuate chronic claptrap such as ‘the colonial past is to blame’.

I perceive a subtle but escalating trend in South Africa. All that is, was and ever will be generated by white people is evil. I don’t think so. Had it not been for colonisation, many African cities would be non-existent. Simple fact. Or rampant tribalism might still hold sway. Well, heck, it still does in much of Africa and it isn't too well concealed in South Africa right now.

Was it all so bad Mr President? No good out of it, whatsoever? No legacy of any merit? In my opinion, you set a bad, misleading and highly divisive example, sir. Just as you did on HIV and AIDS.

http://www.imbizo.com

 

Comments

[Ian]

Your comment is illogical.

Mbeki's statement that 'the pursuit of personal wealth to the exclusion of all else is primarily a consequence of the social and economic relations that developed under colonialism and apartheid', whether you agree with it or not, is not the same as excusing that pursuit.

Mbeki has been at the forefront of criticising that behaviour.

Pschologically, recognising one's influences is important. What you do with that knowledge, hide behind it as a refuge, or move forwards, is another matter entirely.

[Clive Simpkins]

Ian, if you read the whole section in which that excerpt featured, (obviously I couldn't use it all in the article for space reasons)his implication is crystal clear. He BLAMES colonialism and apartheid for the moral deficit in his own people. It's not the first time white people have been used as the scapegoat by him in this regard. Remember the allegations that we (whites) think (his hideous words)...'that black people can't keep their legs together' on the HIV/AIDS issue?

[Wayne Bone]

Double standards of a Pom with a black heart.

I cannot believe the utter rubbish about the slaughter.

You, Mr. ever so objective forget one thing that who died and made you emperor of fairness.

All the contradiction, explanation of the theory that it is ‘’ Particularly when it's the irksome task of straddling two cultures’ straddle your brain with a cattle prod, because then in your theory female circumcision is also a irksome task of two cultures.

Driving a car made by a German culture is fine but when you slaughter animals that are not fair or humane to the German (whatever) then by your definition, they are wrong. Your logic deduction astounds me, but then again I am sure you patronage all species, nationalities, Afrikaners that don’t subscribe to your Oxford 101 philosophy, more to the point your sales and marketing techniques work for sheep that’s why they buy the product, that why fraud also happens because it is based on shit,nada, crap.

I am afraid that your/the answer will impeached with self mooring and statement of the intellectual versus the dick mentality.

Anyways like reading your stuff, it makes me want to write fulltime.

Regards,

Wayne Bone

Afrikaner by choice straddles with irksome cultures.