Human beings are wanderers and wonderers. But where did it all begin, and where will it all end?
Charles Darwin's theory that all life on Earth evolved from a single cell, arguably around 3 billion years ago, is widely accepted by scientists and anthropologists. Archeologists also support this through their findings. But 'evolved' is a complex, sometimes loaded, word.
The Darwinian school of thought goes further, indicating that modern humans (Homo sapiens) originated in Africa around 300,000 years ago, having evolved from earlier hominin species, like monkeys.
It took us two billion nine hundred ninety-nine million seven hundred thousand billion years to distinguish ourselves from amoebas and monkeys! But this makes every human a relative of each other and a more distant relative of the monkeys and every other life form.
Humans evolved differently- fighting wars a lot more viciously than animals. The struggle still goes far beyond survival, and greed lurks in homo sapiens hearts. Need competes with greed in all spheres, including the essential question of land. Where does it end?
The Earth Is For All People Who Live On It
Earth's surface area is approximately 510 million square kilometers (about 197 million square miles), of which only around 29% is land. This provides around 148 square kilometers (about 56 million square miles) of ground on which to hunt, wander, procreate, and supposedly evolve.
Eight billion humans are now reported to inhabit the Earth, which, in theory, has, on aggregate, 637,5 square meters available for each human being- the size of a luxury family home or a tiny shack with a small yard for subsistence farming. Fortunately, many high-density buildings in populace places are built vertically, fitting more people into available land and making ground available for things like large-scale farming, intended to feed the whole community.
Some struggle to survive, some are content with their fair portion, others want more than their fair share. The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) debate in South Africa and many other countries often centers around land redistribution. But whose land is it anyway, and who are the people it belongs to?
Who Really Is The Real Alpha Generation, The First People On Earth?
In each new generation, distinctive human behavior has been categorized. For example, the misnomer Generation Alpha labels the current generation. Given that the word means beginning, has life as humans knew it ended—and why didn't we get the memo? Or is this the beginning of the end? Or is it just propaganda?
Debates about who really was the first person are going on worldwide. Archeologists and anthropologists search for human remains and then carbon-date them, neatly pinning down their age. Yet, there is a philosophical difference between civilizations and human settlements. Modern man believes himself to be civilized. The hatred and warfare belie this.
The short version of history: And a slightly longer version of history:
In the Middle East, Mesopotamia (Iraq, with parts extending into Syria, Turkey, and Iran) as a civilization goes back to 10,000 BC. Neolithic culture and technology were established in the Near East by 7000 BC and, from there, spread to Europe and the Far East, which were no doubt carried by humans.
Yet the Khoisan people of Southern Africa have been hunting and gathering for hundreds of thousands of years. According to the biggest and most detailed analysis of African DNA, they are likely to be the oldest population on Earth. Evidence suggests their ancestors diverged from other human populations in Africa around 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.
As the San people hunted and gathered in Africa- and some still do, the discovery of a jawbone with teeth in the Misliya cave in Israel was dated to between 177,000 and 194,000 years old, suggests that at least some homo sapiens had left Africa around 185,000 years ago. This is a significant coincidence. If humans originated in Africa, which science suggests is the case, later discoveries indicate that they quickly started dispersing throughout the globe long before the planet became a global village.
In the 1960s, human fossils, later named Jebel Irhoud, were discovered in a cave in Morocco. Jebel dates back approximately 315,000 years, long before the San reportedly founded their clan in Southern Africa and eons before the birth of Ötzi the Iceman, who lived just 5,300 years ago, during the Copper Age and whose remains were found in the Ötztal Alps, on the border between Italy and Austria in 1991. The jury is still out on whether the finding suggests that the First People had emerged earlier than it was thought or whether the different fossils indicate different branches of hominids-turned-homo-sapiens.
An article in The New Scientist indicates that our hominin ancestors originated in Africa but left the continent about 1.8 million years ago. Stone tools found in Jordan challenge this time frame, as the tools found there were made and used 2.5 million years ago.
But these are all newbies. The oldest human fossils, dating back to around 3,5 million years ago, were found in the Sterkfontein caves in Southern Africa. They have since been identified as belonging to a member of the Australopithecus species, a now-extinct hominid, but nonetheless related to homo sapiens.
Another extinct species, the Neanderthals, also descendants of the hominid species, deserve a mention. Named 'human from the Neander Valley-' in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, east of Düsseldorf, Neanderthals are our closest ancient human relatives.
Modern humans diverged from Neanderthals between 300,000 and 800,000 years ago, having shared shared geographic areas in western Asia for 30,000–50,000 years. DNA suggests Neanderthal and modern human lineages separated at least 500,000 years ago. It would have been a long walk from Africa for humans. Yet, they managed to disperse themselves across the world, from the Aztecs in South America and across Europe, and to establish civilizations in the Far East. They wandered the Earth, perhaps wondering if their new homes would deliver a better life.
Estimates indicate that the Neanderthals lived between about 130,000 and 40,000 years ago and then vanished from the Earth. Scientific evidence reported by the Natural History Museum suggests that our two species share a common ancestor, and some humans have inherited around 2% of Neanderthal DNA, indicating a co-mingling, at least for a relatively short window of time. Known as cavemen, Neanderthals were far smarter than their reputation suggests.
With a brain size of at least 1,200cm3 to 1,750cm3—bigger than our brains today—many Neanderthal fossils and artifacts found in caves indicate that both Neanderthals and many early modern humans lived in caves. Examples include France's Cro-Magnon Man and Cheddar Man from Somerset, whose fossilized remains in Gough's Cave were carbon-dated back around 10,000 years.
Although Neanderthal populations may have been shrinking when the last wave of humans emerged, the extinction of Homo neanderthalensis is a well-established fact. What isn't known is how a species that survived for over 350,000 years died out. One theory is that Neanderthals were unable to cope with competition for resources from incoming groups of Homo sapiens. As humans took land and resources, they could no longer survive, just as many other species have been wiped off the face of the Earth by human beings.
Researchers are still joining the dots, but the atom-splitting event may have happened more than 3 million years ago, and the genetic affinity of every human being on Earth remains undisputed. It's the categorization amongst groups of humans that wars are fought over, sometimes nominally over land, but more likely over resources, including land.
Regarding extinction, childless couples today represent the end of a three-million-year period of evolution but not the end of a species. Homo Sapiens somehow manage to prevail.
But that still leaves the question of who was here first and which group owned the land. The inescapable conclusion for Southern Africa must surely be the Khoisan, but how did everyone else find their way back?
Humans Wandered And Wondered
From their beginnings in Africa, humans traveled, probably in clans, despite no online pre-booking systems, GPS directions, or social media reports of which corner of the world may be better. Yet they left, and early archeological findings invariably included walls- a sure sign of keeping others out, and other fortifications that suggest groups were forming their own kingdoms.
It seems likely that if you didn't like your clan or were getting upset at being invaded by neighbors- or they won the war and took your property, you took your family on a journey to find greener pastures. You built your new kingdom from there and hoped no marauders would succeed in taking what you built. Again. Unless you were a Neanderthal, in which case the humans succeeded in destroying your entire species.
Back then, there were fewer people, and land probably felt infinite once travelers got past the horizon and found they didn't fall off the edge of a flat earth into an abyss. The oceans may have proven challenging, but ever-evolving humans figured out how to extract food from the sea and built ships to seek and conquer the elusive greener pastures—places where they could live according to their chosen values and their particular set of rules.
Historically, the stars were guides, as people- driven by an intrinsic survival mechanism, searched for and found new places to settle and build a (hopefully better) life. Because that's what people do- they hope, and they strive to make a better life for themselves, but in the process, they often cause destruction in their wake- either by uprooting the vegetation, killing the animals, and sometimes doing both to whoever was there before if they couldn't find a way to live together in peace. But they survived and sometimes thrived, appointing leaders to lead them to their utopia.
The Rise Of Clans
Generation Y, aka Millennials, are human babies born between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s who are now between 30 and 45- those people who are leading our way into the future, although there are still X's and Boomers who hold significant influence and are clinging onto their last stab at making the world a better place, or booking their place in history, either good or bad.
Many Millenials grew up on video games like Caesar 3, a city-building video game that parents happily encouraged their children to learn from in the vain hope they would learn better ways to build a better world. Unfortunately, the game's purpose- build, rule, and defend on one screen, embedded clan-thinking- is to look out for yourself and your clan, and the kids soon turned to the Red Alert series- Command & Conquer, as a means to rule their virtual world and conquer other clans.
But it had already begun with board games like Risk from previous generations, where the object was to conquer and rule the world—a game inspired by wars waged over countless centuries. It mirrors history.
Historically, humans have strived and fought to build their own settlements where they can live life on their own terms and appoint their own leaders to lead and inspire them- and occasionally lead a rampage into neighboring settlements to increase the clan's resources. The evolution of video games into brutal fantasies like Game of Thrones, which morphed into The Hunger Games, illustrates the natural progression of unchecked human greed.
This may be a good moment to observe that homo sapiens’ leaders are humans, and fallible, often with latent ego-driven megalomaniacal tendencies. More recently, the technogarchs have put bots in front of the world as leaders, but more on that another time.
Debates around what constitutes good leadership have been going on for centuries- just read the Bible for examples. The Old Testament is a collection of texts written around 35 centuries ago (almost freshly printed, in Earth age terms), reflecting leadership/management techniques and lessons (and many human nature observations) from uncountable centuries before that, perhaps from the moment the first carbon atom got excited 3 million years ago and split into two atoms, and then multiplied to produce new offspring though decidedly differently exciting processes for the next three million years, as ongoing reproduction delivered beings slightly better adapted to survive in each new generation.
It does not appear that humans ever stopped to wonder if they were entitled to take the land and possessions of another clan or species. They simply went ahead and pillaged and worked on the basis that the fittest would survive, with no regard for others. Empathy was not a thing for early human travelers (or many others in today's world) despite the profoundly empathetic lifestyles of the Khoisan, arguably the First People. - the common ancestor we share.
The Ancient Art Of Entitlement
Humans have been around for a very, very long time as a species. They have wandered the Earth searching for a better life, often plundering as they go, never understanding that there is enough for everyone—until someone decides they are more important and deserve more. Three million years of evolution, yet greed remains embedded in the human psyche, with emotional intelligence usurped by physical prowess and intellectual ability.
We are born with nothing but our souls and frail human bodies; only the soul remains when we leave. The Creator of our universe did not give the galaxy or any part of it to any one person. Or at least, no one has yet given credible evidence of this, so the Earth belongs to all the people who live on it, and there is more than enough place in the sun for all its creatures. Even humans.
If one human deserves a good life, every single other one does too, as not a single person is born with more or less than a body and a soul or a title deed that can be traced back to the first atom as proof that goods or land were not plundered or otherwise stolen along the way. Or bought with money- the man-made value measurement with no taint.
Who even decided money is the determinator of value? Currency has contributed to vast progress and development, yet it's a fiction; its value is determined through manipulation. And then, someone thought that a tax collector could solve the problems by distributing resources equitably. Or perhaps a leader saw this as an efficient way to take money from others under the veil of a government, keeping the cream for themselves and their cronies and throwing out a few crumbs to their supporters, just enough to buy their support.
The Tax Collector And Other Bad Jokes
With civilization came the ubiquitous tax collectors. Gathering funds from everyone purportedly to build a better future for the group, tax collectors are the fronts for the organizations behind them, aka governments. This is where things get complicated and individual rights become critical, and abused.
South Africans have a heavy tax burden. There is personal income tax, company tax, VAT, property taxes, countless levies, sometimes labeled levies, and many more, all the way to estate taxes after you die. The tax man sees opportunities everywhere.
The bigger question is how the money is spent. Under apartheid, the Afrikaner community took the lion's share. Hard-won freedoms were achieved in 1994, but instead of reallocations, more money had to be found to satisfy an inclusive population.
Government spending- and lending, has ballooned, and vast sums are spent on:
Government employees: A burgeoning civil service of untrained people who do not enjoy a decent education, a key responsibility of any government, yet are paid amongst the highest salaries in the world drains the fiscus. More is then spent outsourcing the work that the civil servants are paid to do, and corruption is rife. Attendance at work or diligence (i.e., doing the job for which you draw a salary) is becoming exceedingly rare. Consequence management is MIA. Hardly nation-building stuff.
A bloated executive: Ministers, deputies, entourages, and hangers-on are elevated to their highest level of incompetence along the lines of the Peter Principle because of their connections to the ruling party/ies and with no regard to the smell of corruption around them. Aside from staggering salaries, vast perks insulate them from experiencing the realities of ordinary South Africans.
Tenders: A particularly fraught system in which funds flow from the public purse with few benefits in return. It's a rent-seeker's paradise.
Neighboring countries: Around R90 Billion a year is paid in terms of the archaic SA Customs Union (Sacu) agreement. The funds are distributed to even out the playing field even though South Africa now performs significantly worse than many beneficiaries. South African taxpayers fund repressive regimes such as the last absolute monarchy in Eswatini.
Further Afield: More funds then flow to a defense force deployed to help other countries, such as the DRC, where the elite happen to have significant personal interests in mines that need protecting.
Social Grants: Correctly, the government makes a contribution to sustain the lives of people who struggle. The current basic income grant costs around R40 billion per annum- less than half the amount to neighbouring countries, but could rise to R171 billion by 2032/33 if the grant becomes permanent. The R370 per month individual grant, covers next to nothing, but is critical to beneficiaries who would otherwise starve. Many have been unable to find a job to support themselves and their families as the same government is unable to stimulate the economy-.
Leftovers go to the core business of government- maintaining its people, bolstering infrastructure, and building the country for all to enjoy a better life.. The sewerage in the potholed streets, the electricity outages, gangsterism, rampant crime, malnourished children, and missing medical services demonstrate the government's commitment to its core business.
Notably, a well-funded revenue service is one of the few efficient government departments. Collecting funds can be done, so there are skills, but the spending has gone awry.
But too many humans, even leaders, and tax collectors, driven by fear- for reasons that range from personal insecurity to abuse and much in between and beyond, want to cling onto things, determining their self-worth through material gains. Empathy be damned! Has it really always been me, me, me, like a two-year-old throwing a tantrum in the supermarket?
That insatiable greed invariably means looking at what your neighbor has, checking him out to see if he seems better off than you, and resolving to take what he has so you can then feel like a less insecure person—as if things have a magical power to make you feel like you are better than the next person.
And then, worldwide, so-called leaders get appointed, either through their own decisions, propaganda-driven group speak, aka voting, or ancestral delusions of being deserving. Armed with the power of group support- sometimes garnered through violence and fear, leaders invariably prove that power corrupts after extracting as much as possible from the public purse. The leaders lead in whatever direction their hearts desire, with followers meekly following.
And so the leaders, fooling themselves into believing they are entitled to their elevated position as their sycophants fawn over them, preach about the entitlement of their particular group, who lap up every fake theory and false promise, and eagerly work towards keeping in power those people who feed their ego. They also wanna be one of the cool kids. They want more than the fundamental right to live on the Earth and get their fair portion of the fruits they are entitled to. The cool kids need more stuff to feel better about themselves.
It’s a vicious cycle that plays out across the world, viciously maintaining entitlement and greed within the human DNA to pass over to the next generations of every group.
To be clear, the rich can afford to subsidize the poor to compensate for the disgusting wealth disparity and are often blessed with philanthropic personalities behind the tough business exteriors, but they are no replacement for government inefficiencies. If a country fails, the rich will fall or flee.
The South African Historical Land Entitlement Argument
As the world has been evolving in particular ways, people have migrated, sometimes for no other reason than to make a better life. However, even historical accounts can be sparse regarding the reasons or create fiction around them. But many have migrated to Southern Africa—some say, the Cradle of Humankind. It could have been for the magnificent weather, or maybe they were just fed up with their neighbors.
It could have been that people longed to return to their original home. More likely, the lure of South Africa was its massive resources. South Africa is the land of plenty—plenty of natural resources, plenty of sunshine, and plenty of bickering. But if you look closely, there is also plenty of love and hope, despite our history, or perhaps because of it.
Influenced by drought, social disruption, and the internal dynamics of the Mthethwa kingdom, the Nguni people migrated from East Africa to South Africa over thousands of years. One of the main tribes in South Africa today, the Xhosa people, descended from the Nguni people who migrated south from central and northern Africa, are estimated to have started arriving in South Africa in the 7th century.
Similarly, the Northern Sotho people, also known as the Pedi, migrated southward from Central Africa in successive waves and started settling in the country in the 5th century, just before the Prophet Mohammed established the Muslim faith in the Middle East. The last Sotho people, the Hurutse, settled in the Western Transvaal at the beginning of the 16th century. The Ndebele people, whose ancestry traces back to a group that split from the Nguni people migrating down the southeast coast of Africa, arrived in the Transvaal region of South Africa in the 17th century.
As part of the more extensive Nguni migrations, the ancestors of the Natal (a province of South Africa) Zulu people migrated from West Africa. They began settling during the early 1800s, and the Zulu kingdom emerged under Shaka in the early 19th century. At around the same time, English people settled in Natal, and the British established a trading post at Port Natal in 1824. The Afrikaans Voortrekkers followed in 1837, and the first significant wave of Indian indentured laborers arrived in 1860, although some Indians had been brought in earlier.
Sounds like fun times? A multicultural expansionist project by several international groups in the lands of the peace-loving Khoison, establishing an entitlement-based social order and igniting a racial war that has yet to be resolved. Or perhaps race is just the sword, and the fighting is about something deeper.
Unsurprisingly, wars and skirmishes between groups prevailed. More than 3,000 Zulus were killed in the Battle of Blood River between the Voortrekkers and the Zulus in 1838. The bitter Anglo-Boer war fought between 1899 and 1902 led to untold death and suffering. There are countless other examples of the often violent battles in South Africa, as each group would gain some and then lose some in the neverending cycle that continues across the world. Except now, the weapons are more deadly, and the propaganda is more polished.
The African National Congress was founded in 1912 to advocate for the rights of black South Africans. Apartheid, a repressive system of racial segregation and white supremacy, was introduced in 1948 when the National Party of South Africa came to power, mainly comprising white Afrikaans people- over a hundred years after the mass migrations of people of all colors and creeds to South Africa.
While some try to rewrite history, falsely claiming tribal authority based on peoples being here all along, except for the Khoisan, history defeats this argument. The people seeking new solutions were born in South Africa. Their ancestors sought a better life for their particular group within their country, but they made significant mistakes, not least of which continued with the clan thinking and disregarding anyone else. It happened in Nazi Germany and has been happening since hominids became humans.
In 1994, a negotiated war settlement was reached that produced one of the best constitutions in the world. But bitterness and the ever-present human appetite for power and money still prevail. "Bittereindes" (irreconcilables), a faction of Boer guerrilla fighters who refused to surrender and continued resistance against the British Empire even after the war was lost, are still fighting or grappling with the power shift.
Many Black South Africans feel betrayed by the compromises made by their leaders when cool heads and peace resulted in a transition of power. In their heads, many South Africans are still fighting the wars against other groups or suffering from generational PTSD, regularly triggered by the broken promises of a government that has failed to deliver a better life for all.
Nelson Mandela:
"One cannot be prepared for something while secretly believing it will not happen.”
Many envisioned a better life- including land ownership, but 30 years later, not a lot changed other than the faces of the people in power. Many have become disenchanted with the idea of a "Rainbow Nation." People fought for land; lives were lost, and families were destroyed.
It could be argued that if you win a war, the spoils go to the victors while the losers are left to lick their wounds. In South Africa, like with any negotiated settlement, there are no clear winners or losers. But much bloodshed and misery have been saved, and the Constitution delivers a blueprint for building a better future to anyone who is not too blind- or greedy, to see.
Blurring the lines is ever present hate-speech. In South Africa, hate speech is a political tool. White people who call black people baboons and black people who call white people Neanderthals are rightly called out as hate speakers. At first glance, it's easy to wonder how anyone can take such uneducated people seriously. Still, the real problem is the motivation for the attempt at racial profiling.
Ugly, unadulterated hate is often the driver- and it can simmer beneath the surface of ordinary people, stunting any progress towards a better life for all, or themselves.
Hate speech is always hateful because it is intended to denigrate a group and cause them pain, or worse. And when lines have been drawn on a racial basis, it taps into generational trauma that has the potential to bluntly end joy, happiness, and especially hope for a better future. This is visible and palpable in South Africa, as leaders continue to define people- in their own groups and others, by the race they happened to be born with, with little regard to the one single ancestor (even if it was an amoeba) or the vast similarities between groups. Haters will hate, but it suits the leaders' purposes- they think the other clans wouldn't vote to keep them in power anyway.
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
The South African constitution is a powerful instrument with the potential to make life better for everyone, but it takes significant effort from people to work towards implementing its noble ideals. Yet the current big debate about entitlement to land is based on who the "Mafikizolo" or newcomer is. Neither argument recognizes the complexity of land ownership, the mechanics of human rights, or the power of an ego. It's like kids fighting over who first saw the toy in the playground.
With land ownership, the English blessed us with the deeds office to meticulously record land transactions, including mines where murky reasons for ownership of particular properties are particularly prevalent. The Afrikaaners blessed us by giving swathes of farmland to their brethren, financed by the Land Bank (using taxpayers' money), providing us with food and, later, foreign currencies in exchange for our bounty. The tribal authorities blessed us with tribal jurisdiction over land, where the elite could throw out leftovers to those within their group seeking a traditional way of life and maintain the best bits and the fruits for themselves. The government kept a significant portion of the land for themselves under the guise of ultimately using it for the public interest. Each group looked out for themselves in these cases, albeit in vastly different ways.
For the most part, ordinary people of all races who own property today have purchased that property, usually through expensive bonds granted by exploitative profit-seeking banks. Many did not inherit property or money to buy property, yet one particular group, White people, whether they are Afrikaans, English, or have other mother tongues, are sometimes accused of stealing land they legitimately bought and worked hard to pay for. It is a fact that White people enjoyed a better education and, as a result, were in a position to earn more money. Would it be equality to take away that education and reduce everyone to a lower level of learning and life?
But thirty years ago, when the levers of power were transferred, a better education was promised to all. Nelson Mandela was spot on when he said, "Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world."
A lucky few benefitted, corrupt people connected to the government, and people within the government scored big time, but for most South Africans, especially those with no water in their taps and sewerage running through their potholed streets, life is not better, except for the entitled few. Those who own land face increased taxes that fund politicians' excesses as human rights are trampled on. Many are losing their appetite to create a better life, as is born out by the disheartening numbers of unemployed people who no longer have the heart to seek an elusive job.
Human rights do not exist in a vacuum. The rights of another limit the so-called human rights of one person, and the Bill of Rights, in Chapter 2, guarantees fundamental human rights, including the right to life, dignity, equality, and freedom, as well as freedoms of expression, association, assembly, and religion, for everyone in South Africa.
Land is not explicitly defined as a human right, but the South African Constitution, specifically Section 25, sets out the need for equitable access to land while also allowing for land reform to address past injustices (a concept that is interpreted differently by different people) but protects property rights, including land. Equitable access is balanced against property rights.
Where there are two people, one has land and the other does not, that is inequitable at first glance if one ignores the basic commercial principle of a person who legitimately bought land. If that land is taken from the first person and given to the second person, only one person still has land, which is inequitable, too. Suppose the first person puts in their time and effort to make money to buy the property. In that case, that person's life of labor is devalued to nothing, their dignity taken along with the land. If that is DEI, it’s a difficult concept to buy into.
Humans have been fighting wars, possibly for three million years, and no war has yet resulted in one side taking from the other side to create an equitable life for all. It was always a clan thing. Governments perhaps set out to administer resources fairly, but few succeed, with many succumbing to the temptation of the vast public purse.
We have a solid, negotiated constitution in South Africa, but many promises were made and broken. There was no better education- those formerly receiving a good education get a poor education, which is marginally better for those who previously didn't. The feeders, the entitled ones, gobbled up the money at the trough. Vast amounts of money were spent on housing and land, but this didn't result in an equitable life for all.
But there is a privileged group of people who hold onto the resources and the power: Black, White, Indian, and others. Those who have failed to work towards an equitable life for all prefer privileges like taxpayer-funded "free" water and uninterrupted electricity and the security of the bullies of the blue lights brigade. And lucrative government tenders where money flows into their bank accounts, but no value flows back to the public whose money they freely take. It suits them that the minions are fighting a race-based war rather than looking at where the problem really lies. Just like the Nazis blamed the Jewish people as a distraction as they plundered the country and attempted to take control of the world and its resources, inefficient governments worldwide continue to divide their nations to divert attention away from them and funds and power towards them. Corruption and personal greed have almost destroyed the South African dream of a better life for all.
It's individual people who make a difference, not governments or their self-serving policies. Ordinary South Africans are a resilient bunch. We try to get on with living while politicians and others wage little wars. We're just as good at getting up when we're knocked down as we are at laughing at ourselves and making up our own slang words to use as a secret code throughout the world. Then, we include 11 languages in our official status to mix things up a bit. And still manage to belt out a version of Hakuna Matata, "no worries," and continue dreaming of a relaxed attitude towards life.
Hope, the South African way, is surely no better expressed than by these beautiful Generation Alpha souls. Perhaps they truly respresent a new beginning.
Like the proverbial family, we engage in bitter warfare amongst ourselves but dare anyone else to challenge us, and we unite into a force to be reckoned with. The 2024 Rugby World Cup is just a tiny taste of what we can achieve when faced with an outside enemy. Yet all the love and patriotism South Africans from all walks of life lived and breathed evaporated when Siya and his men went on to their own lives.
Ordinary people were left to the reality of our flawed country, a country that once held so much promise. Life goes on with electricity load-shedding, sewerage running through the streets and into rivers and seas, water shortages, and life-threatening service delivery failures as the privileged ensconce themselves in luxury, using other people's money to keep realities away from their lives.
Where is our fierce spirit when it comes to the enemy within? That enemy that collects ever-increasing taxes and offers little in return, rendering life increasingly more difficult and less joyful for ordinary South Africans (who pay taxes, whether it's wealth tax or the VAT that makes it impossible for poverty-stricken families to access decent nutrition or shelter), while the politicians and their cronies live in the lap of luxury.
Where is the Respect that Lucky Dube inspired in us in 2006 when he sang,
“I got no time to worship humankind
I only worship the Almighty (the Almighty)
Through His prophets I have learned
To give respect to everything He created
I give love to those who give me love
Love to those who give me war
I love those who hate me...”
Is one human life more valuable than another? How much is enough to feed a person's ego, to quieten their fears? It seems that greed, one of Dante's seven deadly sins, knows no bounds. Police sell guns and information in exchange for adding to their salaries, which, as civil servants, are amongst the best in the world. Yet they blithely go on with their lives, ignoring the children, the mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers, who are massacred by illegal guns, inside information, and police who don't do the work they are paid to do (protect and serve), as the rent-seekers plot their next cache of cash. And commit rapes and other crimes while they wait.
While this happens, people debate the land issue, a convenient emotional pressure point that distracts from the real problems. Arguments rage on about who land belongs to without stopping to consider the history. Or the reality. South Africans, many traumatized by history and their own experiences, are bickering about their needs and wants. At the same time, the elite few- from all race groups, press the race war buttons to maintain their positions of obscene power and luxury. It’s called smoke and mirrors- the ancient technique of getting your own sweet way. Who cares about the people or the principles of integrity and fairness when propaganda is an easy workaround?
Redress and Land Redistribution in South Africa
People see things through their own lenses, experiences, perceptions, and prejudices, and the question of redress has become a popular topic. Many black people want it, many white people fear it, and it's reflected in the mind-bogglingly narrow viewed words and deeds across the board.
A later act of parliament, the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act, states in its preamble: "Section 9 of the Constitution provides for the enactment of national legislation to prevent or prohibit unfair discrimination and promote the achievement of equality." Equality, for all, “This act endeavours to facilitate the transition to a democratic society, united in its diversity, marked by human relations that are caring and compassionate, and guided by the principles of equality, fairness, equity, social progress, justice, human dignity, and freedom."
An editor of a respected publication, the Daily Maverick, published an article challenging fellow South Africans to be with her or against her. Seemingly, you are either with her and agree with the concepts in the various pieces of legislation, or you are against her and on the side of “people who side with someone like Donald Trump and Elon Musk (who) must know that they are, in fact, spitting in the face of the noble and constructive ideals that make our country and our people who we are.”
Or you may be one of what she refers to as those with "unearned privilege and comfort' from organizations like AfriForum and Solidarieit. Both groups, apparently, are against her, and she wants to fight you. It's your turn to deliver an argument, but based on her narrow terms, having already labeled you as part of a particular race-based grouping that she clearly does not hold in high esteem. Wow, combative words.
Well, I, like most South Africans, I suspect, and despite not belonging to the targeted groups, happen to agree that we must:
Prevent or prohibit unfair discrimination and promote the achievement of equality
Transition to a democratic society, united in its diversity, marked by human relations that are caring and compassionate, and guided by the principles of equality, fairness, equity, social progress, justice, human dignity, and freedom.
Eradicate poverty, reduce inequalities and exclusion, and build resilience so countries can sustain progress.
I also agree that our country is deeply wounded and in critical need of a new and inclusive narrative determined by us. But in a nonjudgmental way, where solutions are elevated above egos, blame, and greed and come with a whole lot of Lucky Dube’s version of Respect.
But I won't be accepting the invitation to fight, thank you. I don't fit into the group invited, nor can I find a meaningful, practical thought in the article to build on to create a narrative to work toward a better life for all. And that is what we need- more solutions, less finger-pointing and hate.
But is the redress, the compensation for setting something right, the important thing here anyway, or is it the better life for all?
Victims- of abuse, crime, and other foul human behavior are better served by getting up, dusting themselves off, and building a meaningful, happy life. I know- I've been there. Retribution or redress- for example, where the perpetrator is sent to prison or made to pay some reparations is far less meaningful or satisfying. Just like the death of a murderer does not bring his victim back to life, neither does putting what people did and are still doing wrong on trial by taking from one (whose direct ancestors may or may not have been responsible for the wrongs) to give to others, creating a whole new inequitable situation.
They don't change a single thing in principle, only for the individuals concerned. And change is what we desperately need, not grudges that need to be settled, but sincere, committed working towards building a better life for all.
DEI and reparations are two very different things. DEI is done a disservice when the two are intertwined. Taking from one group and giving to another perpetuates the seemingly never-ending human cycle of destruction. Diversity, equity, and inclusion, however, are worth fighting over and- even better, working towards. The question is how to do this without tipping the scales in the other direction, perpetuating the wrongs of the past.
So, How do we make a better life for all?
Robin Hood thought taking from the rich and giving to the poor would make the world more equitable. The "Robin Hood paradox" refers to the idea that countries with lower levels of economic development and wealth tend to have less wealth inequality because of a more equitable distribution of resources, which is the opposite of what is often assumed.
What we have in South Africa is a country that once had high levels of economic development- from which a large percentage of the people were excluded. There was significant inequality between black and white people and, within the white population, between the politically connected and the rest.
While esteemed philosophers champion redistributive measures as a pathway to ensuring equity and justice within society, in practice, it doesn't work that way. In South Africa, BEE policies designed as redistributive measures have simply created a new elite who take 30% and give nothing back to the country. There is no motivation to build a better life for all in a better country when you get money for jam. And there is more inequality and less economic development than before. Less to be shared, equitably or otherwise.
One of Robin Hood's problems was the increasing size of his band. His government became bloated and lost the plot along the way. Similarly, communism, which sounds good in theory, is well-recognized as an unworkable, destructive social project. In Russia, it created filthy rich oligarchs, leaving ordinary people suffering without their human rights. In the West, capitalism did the same thing. Ironically, ordinary people voted for these systems.
Egalitarianism is a natural human feature, but it is balanced by individual greed and opportunism. While the wealthy can and should step up to the plate, the solution still lies with individuals, not governments.
But how do we reach a point where emotional intelligence is valued more than money? A point where empathy is balanced with the inherent understanding of the limitations of human rights through the human rights afforded to others- and giving and taking is a balanced, natural human characteristic?
A life built on the misery of another is no life at all, and your light does not get brighter when you snuff out someone else's candle. We know all these proverbial little phrases and think we understand how Karma works- they all apply to other people.
After three million years or so of evolution, are the current destructive forms of government across the world the best we can do? Justice and laws are crucial to our survival- very few people actually want to live in a dystopian society. Yet, justice is elusive, and laws are broken. Rules don't actively make lives better. People do.
As I write, I’m pretty sure there’s AI (or its masters) out there who will offer to rule the world as a possible solution when this article hits the internet, but thanks- I have no interest in replacing the civil service rulers and their corrupt handlers with the technocratic version.
It's people who can solve this crisis, individuals who- like Greta Thurnberg, who stood up and spoke truth to power, can change our destiny.
If only we could agree on just one thing: We are all equal and equally deserving. Yet brutal wars have been fought because too many animals in the George Orwell metaphor think they are more equal than others.
The eternal paradigm: Need vs Greed.
But you can't escape your shadow, your burdens, your fate- they follow wherever you go. Nor can you escape the reality that the options are to work together to create a better world or fight and murder others- literally or figuratively, to take what they have. The Earth has run out of space to maraud and conquer, and occupying Mars is still a pipe dream. So it's band together for a better place for everyone or destroy what you can to grasp and grab as much as you can time. The latter is a pretty selfish, intensely small-minded view shared by dictators, oligarchs, technogarchs, and other ego-driven humans. But it's crunch time for everyone (even the narcissistic, pompous, self-absorbed, self-centered, self-serving types). If we destroy the planet by fighting wars or not addressing climate change, we won't have a planet to save for everyone on it.
The Earth belongs to all the people who live on it, and there is more than enough place in the sun for all its creatures. Are we all going to sit around and take another 2.99 million years not to grow up and address the critical issues like adults, convinced that we are better than the monkeys because we have better stuff, and that's the meaning of life? And then keep wandering across the world, taking stuff from each other to convince ourselves we're better than the next group...
We all want a good life, most of us want an equally good life as all Earth's inhabitants. Not because any one person is entitled to it nor because their ancestors fought wars over it. But because we are a human being- and like the 8 billion others of which there are 64 million South Africans, there is a place for us all under the sun, and the earth is there for each one of us. Equally. It just is.
But I wonder, can we at least agree on that?
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