Only we, the people, can prevent humanity’s headlong stampede into oblivion
With so much greed and corruption, collective action and a change in behaviour can help avert human annihilation
● The latest media frenzy? Climate change. It’s only taken our media a decade to wake up. But media largely ignore the root of the problem and fail to analyse the only thing that can actually save our world: the need to change The System.
We need to turn most of what we take for granted upside down. Our social compact has been broken by serial trust failures by the governors of our political and economic life. Only the artists, cultural practitioners and musicians have not disappointed us. Their works sustain us through these days of dark horizons and stormy futures.
Despite what Uncle Tito says — or Karl Marx — we cannot continue as we are. We must stop our destructive behaviours, collaborate and reimagine our world.
I can already hear Western economists wailing and howling. They genuflect to the neoliberal agenda of “growth” as our silver bullet. The growth mantra only began after World War 2. Mainstream media was full of it last weekend. Our government is obsessed with it. Growth, the panacea of all our ills. The Holy Grail.
Except that it is untrue.
In reality, we have a broken system that believes in an obsolete “free market” economy. Free, that is, for those with money. Our “trickle-down” system is mired in archaic silo thinking and the conventional wisdom of patriarchal systems. Growth is the myth elites need to steal from the poor and (these days) even the middle classes. Growth is destroying our society. Make more money. Produce more. Consume more. Be more “sustainably” unequal.
To survive, South Africans must face uncomfortable truths. Here are just five:
● We are never going to bring unemployment rates down to acceptable levels. With the world racing towards artificial intelligence, the fourth industrial revolution, the internet of things and increasing automation, coupled with our debt, it will be a miracle if we even stave off a rise from the (official) 29%. As joblessness grows, with no way to provide people with incomes, food or water, we are heading towards revolution.
● Most of us spend beyond our means. We are slaves to rampant and conspicuous consumerism, drowning in debt, victims of pervasive advertising and battered by rapidly rising prices without salary increases.
● Our political, economic and administrative systems are broken and bankrupt, filled with infighting, corruption and incompetence. Political alternatives? The DA is imploding, the ANC and EFF leaders are about to face criminal charges.
The only people capable of speaking the truth and leading us are our youth. But they don’t want to vote for a rotten, self-serving system.
● Our business world is filled largely with selfsatisfied and greedy men. Big companies are mostly equally at fault as the government in failing to protect society from the ills of their profitmaking (just look at KPMG, McKinsey, Bosasa and Trillian in the state capture crimes, Ford in the Kuga saga, serial polluters Sasol, Eskom and ArcelorMittal, and illegal capital outflows, to name a few).
● The violence in our society is not “genderbased”, it is really, nearly all, violence by men against women and children. It is premised on kragdadig (forceful) patriarchy and entitlement and draws its inspiration from our violent past. We cannot end this violence until we change the entire system that underpins it.
Instead of asking, as media “analysts” so plaintively do: “How did we get here?”, a better question might be Lenin’s famous words: “What is to be done?” The answer is not in the rhetoric of our marxist unions, the JSE’s gobbledegook or the lies and promises of our failed liberal economists and government. The answer is ourselves. We must get off our butts and do something. A collective effort.
It is a fact that 3.5% of the population is all we need to effect real change. But we are too busy rushing headlong to destruction to care. We have kids, jobs, shopping, consuming and, of course, devotion to our mobile devices. We are addicted to alcohol, gaming, sport, porn, cigarettes, road rage and violence against women. Work, anxiety and depression are key drivers of our moods. Do we stop to ask ourselves where we are going, what the result of all the untrammelled overproduction and overspending will be? Why life is so fast when we aren’t even in the fast lane?
Without system change our world is hurtling towards the destruction of the human race. Don’t worry, the planet will survive — and breathe a large sigh of relief (together with the animals, birds and insects) when the last human expires.
A sea change is coming, and I don’t mean rising sea levels! People are putting in water tanks, growing vegetables and joining protests against the intransigent (treasonous?) neglect by our government. We need to shut up and listen to the kids.
For the comfortable among you who read this newspaper, think for a moment (take your time) about the millions of our fellow South Africans who live in shocking conditions. How are we going to feed, water and clothe these people when the real climate effects begin? Droughts, food shortages, water failures and civic unrest are coming to us all.
Are these the four horsemen of the Apocalypse? Are these people going to revive the necklace? Are these the sheer force of numbers that will destroy and loot the rich 1%? Or would that be 10%? 20%? 40%? Where do you fall in that equation?
Our system is very, very broken. So broken, in fact, that it cannot be fixed or reformed. We need to build a new system, with new values, with a new social compact, just as The People did in 1955 when they created the Freedom Charter, a blueprint for a struggle that successfully brought political emancipation.
We only need to get together 2-million people to force real systemic change. With the resources many of us have, and social media, it’s not difficult. Leadership is our problem, as we see with Ramaphosa, Maimane and Malema. Every voice counts, and the urgency rises by the day. Speak for the animals that cannot.
As an emotional Greta Thunberg said at the UN summit: “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words … The eyes of all future generations are upon you …We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now, is where we draw the line.”
Capiche?