Inequalities entrenched

What do Gerrie Nel and Lungi Ngidi have in common? Actually, nothing. But after an eventful week where the “Bulldog” of South Africa’s legal system joined AfriForum, there is a link.

Ngidi and Nel represent the ongoing inequality that bedevils our society, even though both of them are largely blameless.

I don’t question Nel’s motives for ditching the NPA and I also can’t see anything wrong with a private prosecution institution.

Why should individuals with the means to do so be disadvantaged by flawed public systems?

Yet that doesn’t mean Nel and AfriForum will suddenly make South African society more equal.

In fact, it will probably entrench its division.

People with resources can pay for expert private prosecutions and 95% of the rest of South Africa have to make due with whatever the state can offer us. Which brings us to Ngidi. Say what you want about the structural difficulties of domestic cricket, but it’s going well transformation-wise with the Proteas.

Kagiso Rabada is the fifth best Test bowler in the world, Temba Bavuma is (one assumes) keeping AB de Villiers from playing Test cricket, Andile Phehlukwayo won Man-of-the-Series in his first ODI series and Ngidi has taken international cricket by storm.

But before we all jump for joy about Ngidi being the latest beacon of transformation, let’s get some perspective.

Ngidi went to Hilton College in KwaZulu-Natal, who’s annual fees for 2017 are R253 660. How many earn such a salary? Rabada’s father Mpho is a neurosurgeon who worked hard to give his children the best. However, he had the means. Bavuma received a scholarship to St Davids in Illovo and Phehlukwayo’s mother’s employer helped him go to a decent school and he got a scholarship at Glenwood.

This is not an attempt to ridicule their achievements.

They still had to do the hard yards and show the type of mental steel that goes with it.

But we can’t deny that transformation in the national side is entrenching inequality.