“Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.” - Albert Camus…

Woke up this morning, went to gym, shooowee, it was cold and wet, so after gym I made some breakie, hit the shower jumped back into bed and switched on the telly and put in a DVD Mississippi Burning. Hectic movie which invoked some thoughts.

Anyway so whilst watching the DVD snug in bed and listening to the rain, I started to wonder Kliptown where the freedom charter was adopted in 1955, how many people in this area have a non-leaking roof on such a day? How many people have electricity, running water (not running rain water)? 16 years later and how free are we really? Politically, very much so. The will of the people has shone through in all the elections post 1994. Whether its always an informed and educated will, it doesn’t matter, it is what it is. But economically and socially sheesh, man im not convinced.

I have recently just had to put up burglar bars and security gates, you drive around any neighborhood and the order of the day is high walls, electric fencing. I wouldn’t be surprised if security is one of the best performing industries in south Africa. How free can one really be if someone can equate a persons life to R50, or a Cellphone, or a TV, or a car? The shaite doesn’t make sense to me at all.

I did a quick read of the Freedom Charter and below are the headings

• The People Shall Govern!
• All National Groups Shall have Equal Rights!
• The People Shall Share in the Country's Wealth!
• The Land Shall be Shared Among Those Who Work It!
• All Shall be Equal Before the Law!
• All Shall Enjoy Equal Human Rights!
• There Shall be Work and Security!
• The Doors of Learning and Culture Shall be Opened!
• There Shall be Houses, Security and Comfort!
• There Shall be Peace and Friendship!
For the full charter and a description of these points go to http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/charter.html

So all these major headings seem all good and well but I’ll try to give my personal encounter and commentary on these headings as an ordinary citizen of this land.

People governing, the people have their government in place but I am not too sure about the people governing though. It seems that the ruling party is more concerned about the noise being made by the different factions within it with the much publicized power struggles, the youth league prancing around as if it is running the country, the public spats within the tri-partheid alliance. That noise seems so lound that the voices of the 64 odd percentage of people who voted them into power seems to be reduced to nothing but a whisper. Please winter is coming I need shelter, I need water, schooling for my children, electricity so I don’t have to use open fires that could lead to me wiping out the possessions of a whole community…can u guys hear that, sounds like an annoying little mosquito, ok back to you Julius, Gwede, Bekhi, what do you want? Spend x million on a hotel, new cars worth x hundred thousand, sure, Jake another wife the state must pay for? Sure!

National groups have equal rights, I think that this is the case most this is being achieved, I do believe that more can be done to regarding schooling in the not so well to do areas, but instead of proposing that the standard of education drop id rather more be invested in the teachers both in incentives and training

People sharing in country’s wealth, well lets see. Sharing in the countries wealth, some of us have had an opportunity to, particularly those with political affiliation. BEE was and still is a good idea but its execution may be a little flawed. The BBBEE codes seem to address this to an extent. I used to smile at times looking at some of these deals we were asked to finance. At the end of the day the main winners at the time were the original white owners as they would want to sell their businesses at ridiculous prices. The black buyers would be willing to buy at these high prices because it was going to be bank financed and so their risk is minimal. But now with the way the markets have turned values have halved if not more. And who won? The sellers ofcourse, they got their price. Buyers are saddled with debt and a fraction of the value they bought in at. And that’s only some of the people, the majority of the people in the rural areas, still have to wake up at the crack of dawn to hit the mines, dragging out the coal, gold, platinum, etc. for a couple of thousand a year where a handful of executives take home millions…

Land shared amongst those who work it, is being worked on, and hopefully it will be resolved in a way that is not detrimental to the nation ala Zim. Giving back farmland to a displaced community is one thing but making sure production is not affected, well that there is a whoooole other Tyrannosaurus…a monster mate and it has to be carefully thought out and executed.

Equal before the law they say, but I guess some are more equal than others. Some get harassed on suspicion of being an illegal somebody based on looks etc. show me how that differs from the past laws that discriminate based on that. Fair enough it may not be law, but its still practiced by those in positions of power so it might as well be law no?

Equal human rights, bar the point raised above, I think its largely upheld.

Work and security, this is one thing I believe they have really tried hard on. That’s regarding the work part. There is a minimum wage in place. Things like the Soccer world cup. Many of us protested vehemently against the construction of new stadiums etc, but what it did do was it created copius amounts of jobs. New roads or roads were upgraded, airports were built. There are new electricity power plants in the pipeline. Many such things, even though they result in a short term solution to the employment problem, in my mind its better than no solution. Ideally a longer term plan would be better, but my thinking is if these short term projects are successful and we as a nation show that we can deliver, there will be a many more of these short term solutions which will become a long term solution…call it optimism. We’ll speak about security later.

Open doors of learning and culture, free education…not quite, quality education…not quite, access to tertiary education, yep its there…if you can afford it, and man university education is insanely expensive. Now that’s the basics, lets step u the game a little and look at integration of society and cultures and willingness to learn about each other. Well if I look at people my age, we are trying but its really not so big eh. I guess it’s the old adage of teaching an old dog new tricks. Over the last few months I have attended a few weddings and birthdays, been to a few clubs in CPT, Jozi etc, and its still quite evident how polarized things really are, but then again how can 16 years change something that most of us have breathed for most of our lives and has formed part of our society’s DNA, in the words of Tupac, It aint easy…but we can overcome that, government cant really do much to help here we have to want to and be willing to, what they can do is remove the laws that prohibit intermingling, which they have done, now its up to us..

Houses, security, comfort…FAIL, FAIL, FAIL. Slums are still a dime a dozen. There are RDP houses, but not enough and the quality of some are disgusting, but that’s the doing of some unscrupulous people, but still someone should have been overseeing this. Security, as I sit here, there is a 1 year old fighting for her life after being beaten by robbers in her own damn house. I just heard that there has just been an attempted heist a few km from where I currently sit. Mates are getting followed to their homes, laid on the floor with guns pointed at them, robbed clean. What bull is that? Why must i work, pay tax, only for the state to fail me and I work like this?? I lock all the inter-leading doors in my house when I am not there, or even at night. Have burglar bars. Live in a complex with a security guard and electric fences. I drive a car with tinted windows and a protective covering on the windows. I am a prisoner living in discomfort whilst those that do wrong or plot to do wrong roam freely with the knowledge that if they do do wrong, their chances of being caught or prosecuted is minimal…with those odds, if I was criminally minded id also take my chances.

Peace and friendship, well one thing that has happened is the powers that be have worked hard to ensure that they assist in resolving many of this continent’s conflicts, even to such an extent that the leadership was criticised for spending too much time on the worries of the continent and not spending much time at home. Regarding peace and friendship internally, well that’s up to us, if we want to we can, its that simple.

The tone of this email may seem a little negative, and in my mind that’s fine. I have such high hopes for this nation. If I compare it to the plight of other African nations that gained independence before we did. But it concerns me to see some of the ills that plagued those nations and continues to do so, is starting to rear its ugly head here. Greed, corruption, the widening gaps between the haves and the have nots.

We just don’t seem to be getting right. We get something rights like getting things done once we actually start it, but its getting it started that is the problem. What we have against it is that the majority of its population has substandard education add the violent nature of its people, but what we have going for us, is our resilience as a nation, our willingness to succeed, the fact that we have such a head start on all the other African nations that went South, the fact that the powers that be, and some of us through reading and observation have see what lead to the downfall of our brother and sister nations.

But alas interesting times nowhere else id rather be and I think the same can be said for many of us so what do we do? Sit back and point fingers or try, whatever it is…just try???
The question though is Freedom, are we FREE or are we DOM ☺

Birthdays
25th Shaka, Lizelle
28th Bianca
29th Melody
1st Nicolas Plianthos

That’s me out for another week.

Respect
Y