Build our own

Why is this world that we live in so angry? Why has identity politics become the norm? What is wrong with me that I don’t get it? 

I’ve lived on this planet for close on 43 years now and it is hard to remember a time where we were so intolerant or hateful of the other primarily because they weren’t one of our own. I find myself having to think and write about this more often nowadays. It absolutely boggles my mind.

I was recently sent a clip of one of our young politicians giving a speech at a rally that I found rather disturbing, he called for the murder of humans because they belong to a certain race group and recruiting an ‘army’ to carry this out! What age are we living in?! Sure my parents did not suffer the ills of apartheid when they were growing up, they had to deal with the aftermath of colonialism in Ghana and when I was growing up the ensuing coups with people jostling for position. The family then had a famine to contend with along with the weak economic state of Ghana, the situation was so bad that apartheid South Africa was seemed a better option. But they were fortunate in that the system they had to endure, didn’t break the family unit during their time, the same can’t be said of our forefathers who were taken on slave ships to lands afar… But that isn’t the reason for this message

The other day I was catching up on my news on social media and what kept popping up was a very rare meeting between Dr. Johann Rupert (JR) and Given Mkhari a talk show host on Power FM. From what I know, JR is a very private person and such public appearances are as rare as hen’s teeth so it was refreshing to see an open engagement with the man. I was quite taken by one of his introductory statements which was something like ‘we should stop shouting at one another and start speaking to each other’. Another thing he said that earned him the ire of the masses is that a lot of the interviewer’s ‘generation’ spend their time and money at Sands and Taboo and buy BMWs and that we consume now and pay later. When asked about land expropriation without compensation, he conceded that it was an emotive topic but he was very strong on the point that the country will never be able to move forward unless there is redress in the current situation especially around property.

I sat through over 2 hours of the interview and yes the man has made an obscene amount of money, perhaps initially in an environment that only allowed for certain amount of people to prosper, but from what he said his family came from humble beginnings and thanks to the determination of his parents, duly supported by the environment in which they found themselves, they were able to build something where others of similar determination and ability could not. Is this their fault? This environment prevailed equally for others similar to him, but you don’t have 5 million gazillionaires now do you? Surely this must mean that the man’s family did something extra right, no?

Why are people so annoyed with the man, was it because of the way he presented himself or how he delivered what he said? I hope it is not because he is wealthy because if I am not mistaken Mr. Motsepe is wealthier than he is. It is fair to say that the man owes no one anything, yes he wasn’t being altruistic in his pursuit of wealth, but as a result of his family’s endeavours, today we have some pretty remarkable institutions such as RMB, what was Rembrandt/Rothmans, the beginnings of Discovery, Mediclinic, Business Partners, Leopard Creek, Wine farms, Sports Science Institute, Laureus Sport for Good Foundation amongst others, I mean let’s even go as far as breaking it down to products we consume daily like Rainbow Chicken, KFC, Piemans Pies, Selati Sugar, Rama, Flora, Mabela, Yum Yum, Hunters, Savana, JC Le Roux, Oude Meester, Amarula, Bobtail, Dogmor, FNB, Discovery, Dark Fibre Africa, Yona ke Yona…YFM itself, Dr. Rupert’s group has a hand in it. That is pretty far reaching if you ask me. Now these institutions have so many jobs attached to it that means income for people, taxes for government and sure plenty millions for the Rupert family, but so what right?!

A lot of the time a lot of people say I really simplify things, and I do and it really does make my existence on this sometimes unsavoury planet more palatable. I don’t know the man, I have had a few encounters with him at his lovely event at the L’Ormains Queens Plate, but no more than a hi and thanks for hosting me, so he could be the biggest douche out there or even Mother Theresa incarnate. But is he a racist based on his discourse on that given day? I will say no. Even if he overtly went out and said that you darker people spend far too much on cars and popping bottles instead of saving and building…is it an untruth? Many of my mates say the same thing. Had say a Patrice Motsepe said the same thing would we show him disrespect?

I understand that because of where we have come from, watching a successful individual of a lighter shade stand on a podium and telling us what’s up is quite annoying, but I personally know of some guys that his group funded in the early 2000’s that squandered this investment on R-type Jaguars etc. this was a great opportunity for some young people to create something lasting whilst plugged into a great network of influential people, but they chose otherwise and that company didn’t last too long. Sure it is just one example, and it isn’t indicative of the sum of us.

This note I write may earn me the wrath/pity of my contemporaries but it’s ok. The way I see it is that the landscape was skewed in the favour of very few in this land, and his family made the best of it, I guess in a similar way Dr. Motlana and Mr. Richard Maponya (granted they aren’t on JR’s level of wealth) chose to use their circumstances to build and create. We cannot change the past, but we can definitely remember it and hope to never return it, but right now the scales are in favour of the formerly disenfranchised, those that want to build something. I have a few mates that have got some great ideas and are working hard to build and it fills me with such glee. We have a good few incentives available as well as codes that try and redress the imbalances of the past. I for one fail to see how insulting a man whose family toiled, sure on the backs of others, will help us build our nation going forward so we can address the current landscape of poverty and unemployment. I am sure that Mr. Motsepe, Sexwale, Ramaphosa may have built some of his wealth on the backs of these same people. If I may also add, in this day and age it is common place for you to know people, presidents, chairpersons, ceo’s, heads of procurement, etc. that result in you to meeting companies/individuals that you would otherwise not have had access to and this provides you an opportunity to do a BEE deal here, procure this mega project there and in the end prosper. These opportunities are not available to just everyone, so should I who do not have that opportunity insult you or hold you in contempt because the landscape was tipped in your favour or rather say well done for taking your opportunity?

JR has done his bit, he has created more jobs than I ever have, he has paid more taxes than I ever have, built more businesses than I ever have, many with less have chosen not to be here, but here he is, of course it must be good for him. I’m may not necessarily going to applaud the man, but I will don my hat to what he has achieved, because not many have achieved what he has done. If I had an opportunity to engage the man and his ilk to see how I too can achieve I would gladly take up the opportunity and hopefully learn. No rich person who believes they have worked hard for their keep, will easily give it away and why should they? Perhaps they will help you, who show an equal determination, to get yours and that is how it should be right?

Now let me bring it back to current day South Africa, I struggle to correlate how the existence of one grouping of people is a hinderance on my ability to prosper. To me it’s similar to the anger some people feel when a rather determined person, who has walked all the way from Somalia and decided to set up a thriving business on some street corner in Langa. I mean I’ve lived here for the longest time, that street corner has been here forever, yet when some other person comes and creates something that is prospering we want to destroy both the person and the enterprise? Does that mean we will create something that will serve the people in it’s place? Not always the case right… so why not learn, refine and deploy your own?

The time is not now now, but RIGHT NOW tis our time to create own ______

The sense of us

The sense of us…

What a time to be alive. EFF is on a mission to un-white South Africa, Afriforum wants to gain the support of likeminded people by insisting that Apartheid was not a crime against humanity. Palestinians who want a right to a decent life are getting mowed down because they were protesting in the Gaza strip, 58 human lives, extinguished and the world will argue whether it was right or wrong. Wealthy people don’t want less advantaged people living in their suburbs or near them. Trump wants to build a wall and get rid of people that are not like ‘us’. Kaizer Chiefs fans vandalising and beating security guards because the team they support lost a bloody soccer game. Brexit…. Syrian refugees. #BlackLivesMatter… #AllLivesMatter. #MeToo…everywhere you look, everywhere you listen, the world is constructing a narrative about ‘us’. Who is ‘us’? Is it religion? Is it citizenship, language, race, ethnicity, social standing, sex? Why is this definition of us becoming so loud? Is it the universe that is conditioning our minds this way?

Recently, I was pretty privileged to attend a short course and the last main topic for discussion was titled the “Sense of us”. A large part of the discussion was around constructing who us is. 

It has been a really reflective last 2 weeks for me in many respects. Back home we have the DA on what seems, to a lot of us on the outside, an all-out attack on Mayor Auntie Pat. And if you read some of the commentary, by and large people are taking sides. Us vs Them. I got to spend some time with an ex recently too, apparently she is of a different race/religion to me and I had a quiet chuckle to myself thinking back at some of the (I believe unnecessary ) drama that surrounded that episode of my life. Her parents were having none of it, my parents were, I guess tolerating it, but they definitely weren’t any better. Over the same weekend, I paid a visit the Centre for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, I saw and read, a pretty well documented journey of what people had to endure, not too long ago I might add, just so they can be treated as equal beings. They weren’t asking to be given any preference, just the opportunity to be recognised as human. In one of the first rooms you enter during this journey, you sit at a table, put your hands on the table and some earphones on and there is a simulation of a diner, where some people sat, just wanting to be served a meal they would pay for and the brutality that befell them….WOW! The police gleefully setting dogs on fellow human beings, that did them no wrong, all because they wanted a seat at the table that we call a dignified existence. Oh the striking resemblance to our very own system called apartheid, that dehumanised the majority of our folk in South Africa, the effects of which still ring out so loud to this day. Then a few nights ago, one of our former Springbok rugby players expressed his displeasure at something that he had experience, something that no one outside of those DStv studios has any evidence of, yet people are taking sides already, some, through what their mind’s eye perceives to be a similar incident that befell them, and others are like look at them again?!….Then you have  a popular media outlet weighing in, trying to frame the conversation with what can only be said to be rather empty unsubstantiated drivel.

Many a conversation with my pops results in him telling me that I oversimplify this life thing and it really isn’t. He may be right on both counts, but my question is why can it not be? I was born Ashanti and to some degree my family’s lineage leads to Manhyia, the palace of Otumfua Asentehene. I respect that, but I also respect the fact that I was raised in this little town called Umtata (Mthatha now) that really helped mould who I am now, perhaps more so than my lineage. So who am I? who is my us? What I really want to answer is what does it truly matter. The only conclusion to this life that I know is that it will end, and in the end, what will it matter that I was a Ghanaian born South African, male, etc.? How will it all help me in the afterlife? Then I ask myself another question, in this life where there is an abundance of resources, is it right for us to watch our kin scrape from the bottom of the barrels, whilst others keep choking on… or keep ‘birthing more’ silver spoons for their kin?! Why are there borders in this world I wonder? Why can people not move freely? If we look at the colonised lands of Africa, South East Asia and South America, these demarcations were largely arbitrary but stayed post colonisation. Many of these and other senses of us have lead to so much conflict and bloodshed, yet we still hold them so dear. Who am I to think that because I believe a certain thing, I need to vaporise you because your faith is dissimilar to mine? What is wrong with sharing a wall with a person who may be less or more affluent than, light or darker than I, wears a turban or a yarmulke? When they speak a language unbeknown to mine spews forth. Are these all causes to hate or wish ill? What goes through a person’s mind when they decide that it is right to persecute another because they are different? Is it just the natural order of things? 

Yep my mind does wander and just as frequently it wonders too…Oh I wonder, wonder don’t you…

When we look around and see so much trouble in the world, so much hate and suffering, contempt and dislike, is it not the right time for the voices of the happy middle (and I sure am hoping that the happy middle are the majority) but is it not time for those voices to rise and pave the way for the deconstruction of this sense of us that has been in creation for generations? Is it perhaps not time, if not to deconstruct this sense of us, perhaps we reconstruct it. Construct it in a way that sees as all as one, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. All part of this race we call homo sapiens? Is it not time that the narrative changed? All the trillions spent on the war machines, plough them back into housing for those that don’t have in far off lands, those lands that you see as threats, build schools in those lands and hospitals. Create industry, teach people to fish…Recalibrate the mind to build and not destroy. Ensure that everyone has a seat at the proverbial table. The way I see the world right now, there will come a time when the forgotten ones will rise with torches in their hands baying for Babylon to burn.

Are we us by those defining things mentioned in the paragraph above? What is this us and why is it so important to so many people. I am an Ashanti and so? I am a Christian, and then? How does defining yourself, help you become a citizen of this earth? That to me is the pertinent question, because being any of these so-called sense of us definitions in itself serves no purpose. 

What is my identity…my sense of us? I am Yaw Oppong Peprah, born 26^thFeb 1976, those can never be a matter of choice (I guess one can argue my name was my parents choice) or opinion, the rest though generally are. I have certain things I like and dislike just like the next person has things they like or dislike, but I fully respect and appreciate that another individual will have a different disposition to mine. The saying goes live and let live. The reason there is a word such as choice is because the world offers us many options and as such everyone should be free to choose, provided of course it doesn’t encroach on someone else’s well-being. I am fully aware that I will not get out of this life thing alive, so I try spend most of my living hours living my truth and being what I believe, a better citizen of this world…

Who is your soul?!