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YOUR STORY
We are entitled to nothing!
19/05/2008 14:52 - (SA)
Wernardt Toerien, News24
At the risk of flogging a dead horse, it must be clearly stated that the violence against foreigners across Johannesburg over the past weeks is not a direct result of any of the things that most people seem to blame in their various articles and columns on the issue.
Indirectly it is possible that this would not have happened if we had tighter border control. Indeed it may also have been avoided by properly addressing the Zimbabwe crisis before it reached these proportions. But if one were to dig deeper towards the root of all this, one finds a more fundamental problem which would have reared its head, given time, in one way or another, regardless of whether we had any or no foreigners at all.
The real issue is that there is a culturally ingrained attitude in South African society that dictates receiving things on an entitlement basis. Whilst everyone is guaranteed the right to life and land by our constitution, to actually keep oneself alive is one's own responsibility.
This fundamental truth of (especially capitalist) society seems to escape some of the people in Alex and other settlements. Perhaps their leaders are to blame for instilling in them a mentality to "take what is yours" by violence.
Transition
The transition from struggle and revolution to democracy has not even started for some people, partially because the government has failed to empower and educate people on a massive scale. Thus, educated and skilled labour is becoming available in the form of foreigners.
Foreigners, who are well aware of what type of entrepreneurship it takes to start small businesses take over struggling spaza shops and turn them into profitable ventures. Skilled artisans from other countries get jobs in a severely skills-hungry construction industry, as another article points out.
The problem here is that the people who do not have the skills or education to get these jobs or to start these successful businesses, do not see themselves as lacking and therefore embark on an exercise in personal development, but rather blame the foreigners for "taking" their jobs.
It is this historical attitude of entitlement which conflicts so strongly with the reality of a free-market capitalist society and this is the essence of what we're seeing today.
Address the attitude
Unfortunately, leaders who banked on the revolutionary mentality to get into power, now have to break it to these people that they are not really entitled to jobs or money simply by existing. That locals start the race off at a disadvantage because of defunct education systems and rampant poverty, is an issue with which government must be taken to task very seriously.
Granted, issues of crime committed by some of these foreigners are also there, but I'll take a bet that it's nowhere near as widespread as crime committed by locals who greedily "take what is theirs" because they believe life and society owes them something.
We will see many more incarnations of this social crisis until government actively addresses the "poor poor us, give us everything on a silver platter" attitude.
But seeing as most in government have this same mentality anyway, the chances of that happening are slim.
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