New Rules for SA
In Joseph Conrad's "The Heart of Darkness", which book was the basis of the movie "Apocalypse Now" starring Marlon Brando, Robert Duval and Martin Sheen, the basic question put forward is the following:
How thick is the veneer of civilization? If we were to remove someone from civilization and place them in a "non-civilized community", remember this is all relative, where the norms and rules, which was the cornerstone of aforementioned civilization is no longer recognized or required, how long will the character / person cling to and uphold former said norms and rules? How long before that thin veneer falls away and the true character of the person steps forward and takes a bow?
In the book, an educated man "Mr Kurtz", originally sent to manage a Belgium Company's Ivory and Timber operations in the Congo, spends a lot time alone in the jungle, with no contact with his pears, ultimately becomes a chief of a local tribe and then leads his tribe in doing some atrocious things, not civilized things at all, to neighboring tribes, claiming to expand the minds of his tribe.
In SA we have what is called a "Rainbow Nation", a term used to romanticise a society with various groups with various, sometimes clashing, rules and norms. Nowhere is this more visible than on our roads. For some people a red light means that you have to STOP, for others it is merely a suggestion to be ignored at will. For some people a circle means yield to the right, for others it represents a rolling four-way stop. It is my opinion or observation that some people who previously did stop at a red light and did yield to traffic approaching from the right in a circle no longer does so. I will put forward a theory that they feel that because some drivers don't e.g. operators of that weapon of mass detraction the TAXI, they don't have to, see above. Stop at a red light and wait for it to turn green, what's that about? - No we creep to halfway in the intersection and then we have a running start, that's the way to do it!
Rules are difficult. Does the Taxi driver see the traffic rules as rules from the former oppressor and that rebellion is indeed required to demonstrate one's disdain for former colonial powers, or does he not understand the possible consequences of his action to ignore a red light? Why do we treat traffic circles as rolling four-way stops in Pretoria, really confusing and sometimes causing accidents with visitors from out of town.
Every holiday season Arrive Alive spends huge amounts on awareness campaigns focussed mainly on speed, although this accounts for 10% of all accidents, big money spinner though. Did anyone at Arrive Alive notice the amount of head-on-head collisions this past December, did they wonder about this statistic. Did you as a motorist notice how many people got impatient stuck behind a truck and then overtook on blind corners or rises?
I once asked asked someone how long it took him to learn how to drive, the person stated 5 days. I pointed out that whilst he might have learned to operate the clutch, brake, petrol and steering in that time, he was exposed to his father's "Look at what that idiot in the front just did" for 18 years, 18 years to learn how to and not how to do things. If your only exposure has been traveling in a Taxi to date, and you've now just received your driving permit what can we expect from you? In this sense the Taxi industry is the largest driving school operator in SA. How is that for a scary thought!
We share the road, as we share SA, with people from different cultures, rule sets, skill sets, exposure, opinions, experience. We need to create a new set of rules, a new civilization, a new SA that we all agree on. It will not be 100% European, nor 100% African, it will not be America or Algeria or Australia, it can not be the SA of old, for those people clinging to that possibility let it go already! But we need to start on agreeing on a new set of rules regarding our behavior on the road, for business, for governance, etc. It is very difficult to drive or to do business in SA if you do not understand the rules of the game. We lost a quarterfinal in the RWC because someone did not understand the rules, but more importantly, for most, I once heard that Germany has 10 times the amount of cars on their road infrastructure and yet we have approximately the same accidents rate. The nationalization debate, the land distribution, etc, etc. is about the rules, what is fair, what is equitable.
To achieve the above we need leadership in the form of a clear vision, an "I have a dream" speech to truly unite SA, to forge us into a cohesive society where I can approach a traffic circle and know what rules to apply!
Didn't quite get that from that speech last night!
VVZT
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