There is never a dull moment in South Africa, although a lot of it is not positive.
We ended 2015 with the president, for obscure reasons only he and his confidential advisors understood but to do with taking control of the treasury as their private bank, firing respected finance minister Nhlanhla Nene, who did his job, only to replace him with the unqualified and unknown former mayor of a dorpie whose constituents burnt his house down in protest over his alleged incompetence.
The collapse of the currency and markets in the wake of Nene’s firing propelled the usually somnolent and indifferent business leaders and bankers, who really control the economy, to make urgent representations to Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe. The rest we know – South Africa was saved, for the time being, with Pravin Gordhan’s (re)appointment as finance minister, but the damage was done and shareholders – our pensions and savings – lost R171 billion and the rand fell below R15/$, where it shall remain.
But the laughing president does not give a shit because he is secure in comfort on our money and the ANC’s protection. ANC spokesmen stated the markets and business and analysts overreacted, and they were racist. Minister of small enterprises (which has not done anything useful) Lindiwe Zulu said business sabotaged the markets, which she later qualified, but still drew the ire and criticism of former finance minister and new Old Mutual chairman Trevor Manuel. Jesse Duarte praised Zuma for being a good leader. Yeah right.
Max du Preex got into trouble in 2014 for calling Zuma a wrecking ball in his Cape Times column. He resigned when the Times, owned by Zuma ally Iqbal Surve, apologised to Zuma on his behalf. That term, and worse, is commonly used to describe Zuma although it’s not, to the ANC, polite or politically correct.
Over the weekend Penny Sparrow caused outrage for insulting blacks and Standard Bank economist Chris Hart was suspended for Tweeting that the number of victims in South Africa has grown along with entitlement.
Sparrow’s comments were racist. But I don’t think Hart’s were because it expresses, in perhaps impolite or undiplomatic terms, our expectation and entitlement of a better life for all during our nascent democracy, when we were still full of hope, and the country's failure to achieve it. We are the most unequal society in the world with very high levels of poverty and unemployment, which shall not be eradicated soon partly because we persist with crackpot ideologies. It’s a fact the poor especially are the victims. How is this fact racist or inaccurate?
I have written before that the failure to assist the poor and vulnerable to access human, financial and social capital has led to anger, helplessness and despondency - victimhood. And that the expectation of free services – free everything – has created a sense of entitlement – higher education been the most recent.
We are often reminded of the cleaner who in 1994 was “promised” a fridge and house by Mandela (ANC) if she voted for them, and would regularly lament that she had not received them.
This topic was on the mind of the ancient Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero when Roman citizens expected the bread dole, promised by populist politicians, as their due.
It’s ironic Standard Bank suspended Hart for saying something the ANC and EFF accused “white monopoly capital” of, i.e. withholding or not sharing the spoils of apartheid and material benefits of democracy. Did the EFF not march and issue ultimatums to the JSE and Absa and Julius Malema say we are here because of the pain of poverty. Is that not a cry of victimhood?
Bear in mind Standard Bank was among the big business grouping that on the eve of democracy persuaded the ANC to maintain a neo-liberal economic model that allowed them to retain their spoils, which led to Gear. And on its initiative, instituted and financed the black empowerment model that benefited selected politically connected individuals with shareholding and jobs to the exclusion of the broad populace. Are we not the victims of that legacy in terms of rampant elitism, tenderpreneuring and corruption?
We must remember that in the context of a country that is unravelling economically and socially that business leaders elect to remain apart from the fray and bite their tongues when egregious social and economic injustice, and at times, criminal acts, perpetrated by the state occur. Except late last year they were roused from their slumbers after Nhanhla Nene was fired precipitating a catastrophic and irreversible loss in market and currency value.
Hart is apparently not the first banking economist who lost his job because of his frank views.
Standard Bank is hypocritical and lily-livered for suspending him, not because his remarks are racist and inaccurate - the general view is supported by the eminent authority The Economist in its article The Hollow State, 19 December 2015, and other analysts - but for stating something in public they deem to be offensive to only to the ANC and its hangers-on - remember how FNB pulled their good citizen ad campaign for the same reason - the party that has brought us to this pass.
This week, among ourselves, we discussed the concept of free speech and open debate in South Africa. I find South Africans, particularly official channels and media, to be awfully politically correct, so afraid of causing offence or accused of being racist or insensitive that their representatives contort themselves to further the anodyne, least trouble, but dishonest position.
So instead of frank and honest discussions, feelings are often suppressed where it festers into hateful outpourings.
Afterword
We ended 2015 with the president, for obscure reasons only he and his confidential advisors understood but to do with taking control of the treasury as their private bank, firing respected finance minister Nhlanhla Nene, who did his job, only to replace him with the unqualified and unknown former mayor of a dorpie whose constituents burnt his house down in protest over his alleged incompetence.
The collapse of the currency and markets in the wake of Nene’s firing propelled the usually somnolent and indifferent business leaders and bankers, who really control the economy, to make urgent representations to Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe. The rest we know – South Africa was saved, for the time being, with Pravin Gordhan’s (re)appointment as finance minister, but the damage was done and shareholders – our pensions and savings – lost R171 billion and the rand fell below R15/$, where it shall remain.
But the laughing president does not give a shit because he is secure in comfort on our money and the ANC’s protection. ANC spokesmen stated the markets and business and analysts overreacted, and they were racist. Minister of small enterprises (which has not done anything useful) Lindiwe Zulu said business sabotaged the markets, which she later qualified, but still drew the ire and criticism of former finance minister and new Old Mutual chairman Trevor Manuel. Jesse Duarte praised Zuma for being a good leader. Yeah right.
Max du Preex got into trouble in 2014 for calling Zuma a wrecking ball in his Cape Times column. He resigned when the Times, owned by Zuma ally Iqbal Surve, apologised to Zuma on his behalf. That term, and worse, is commonly used to describe Zuma although it’s not, to the ANC, polite or politically correct.
Over the weekend Penny Sparrow caused outrage for insulting blacks and Standard Bank economist Chris Hart was suspended for Tweeting that the number of victims in South Africa has grown along with entitlement.
Sparrow’s comments were racist. But I don’t think Hart’s were because it expresses, in perhaps impolite or undiplomatic terms, our expectation and entitlement of a better life for all during our nascent democracy, when we were still full of hope, and the country's failure to achieve it. We are the most unequal society in the world with very high levels of poverty and unemployment, which shall not be eradicated soon partly because we persist with crackpot ideologies. It’s a fact the poor especially are the victims. How is this fact racist or inaccurate?
I have written before that the failure to assist the poor and vulnerable to access human, financial and social capital has led to anger, helplessness and despondency - victimhood. And that the expectation of free services – free everything – has created a sense of entitlement – higher education been the most recent.
We are often reminded of the cleaner who in 1994 was “promised” a fridge and house by Mandela (ANC) if she voted for them, and would regularly lament that she had not received them.
This topic was on the mind of the ancient Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero when Roman citizens expected the bread dole, promised by populist politicians, as their due.
It’s ironic Standard Bank suspended Hart for saying something the ANC and EFF accused “white monopoly capital” of, i.e. withholding or not sharing the spoils of apartheid and material benefits of democracy. Did the EFF not march and issue ultimatums to the JSE and Absa and Julius Malema say we are here because of the pain of poverty. Is that not a cry of victimhood?
Bear in mind Standard Bank was among the big business grouping that on the eve of democracy persuaded the ANC to maintain a neo-liberal economic model that allowed them to retain their spoils, which led to Gear. And on its initiative, instituted and financed the black empowerment model that benefited selected politically connected individuals with shareholding and jobs to the exclusion of the broad populace. Are we not the victims of that legacy in terms of rampant elitism, tenderpreneuring and corruption?
We must remember that in the context of a country that is unravelling economically and socially that business leaders elect to remain apart from the fray and bite their tongues when egregious social and economic injustice, and at times, criminal acts, perpetrated by the state occur. Except late last year they were roused from their slumbers after Nhanhla Nene was fired precipitating a catastrophic and irreversible loss in market and currency value.
Hart is apparently not the first banking economist who lost his job because of his frank views.
Standard Bank is hypocritical and lily-livered for suspending him, not because his remarks are racist and inaccurate - the general view is supported by the eminent authority The Economist in its article The Hollow State, 19 December 2015, and other analysts - but for stating something in public they deem to be offensive to only to the ANC and its hangers-on - remember how FNB pulled their good citizen ad campaign for the same reason - the party that has brought us to this pass.
This week, among ourselves, we discussed the concept of free speech and open debate in South Africa. I find South Africans, particularly official channels and media, to be awfully politically correct, so afraid of causing offence or accused of being racist or insensitive that their representatives contort themselves to further the anodyne, least trouble, but dishonest position.
So instead of frank and honest discussions, feelings are often suppressed where it festers into hateful outpourings.
Afterword
I sent part of the above article to Standard Bank’s media department yesterday, only because I did not know the executives involved in Hart's suspension - perhaps it emanated from executive management even. There is support for Hart because he is right.
I hoped they would forward it to the relevant person, but in truth I expected them to trash it. I would not have been offended.
Soon after I received a call from their customer care department, as if I had complained about long queues at the local branch or insufficient deposit slips. It was so condescending and arrogant – I could not understand how one of the country's largest bank’s media department was so oblivious. Did they read it, or if they did, could not care less. Probably the latter.
And how could a low-level customer care employee answer and debate questions about the political economy and matters that are tearing the country apart. And even if she could, would she be free to do so given their overreaction to Hart's comments.
To me it proves "white monopoly capital" - individual officers and collectively as a group - have little idea of the tectonic forces that are at play in the country at the moment, and the real conviction that South Africa's corporates and their management are perceived to be unreformed colonial exploiters, aided and abetted by the new overlords, the ANC, protecting profits even if it tramples protected free speech, like under apartheid.
I hoped they would forward it to the relevant person, but in truth I expected them to trash it. I would not have been offended.
Soon after I received a call from their customer care department, as if I had complained about long queues at the local branch or insufficient deposit slips. It was so condescending and arrogant – I could not understand how one of the country's largest bank’s media department was so oblivious. Did they read it, or if they did, could not care less. Probably the latter.
And how could a low-level customer care employee answer and debate questions about the political economy and matters that are tearing the country apart. And even if she could, would she be free to do so given their overreaction to Hart's comments.
To me it proves "white monopoly capital" - individual officers and collectively as a group - have little idea of the tectonic forces that are at play in the country at the moment, and the real conviction that South Africa's corporates and their management are perceived to be unreformed colonial exploiters, aided and abetted by the new overlords, the ANC, protecting profits even if it tramples protected free speech, like under apartheid.
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