The curse of the black middle class and model-c brat

I like to think of myself as among the poster children for modern day South Africa. I can already see those who know me rolling their eyes saying; “there she goes again with her over the top self loving” but hear me out. This isn’t just me shouting at the top of my lungs how incredibly great I am (which isn’t a bad thing to do once or twice in a while) but today this is includes you too. See, I can also spend a minute away from the mirror.

But seriously, I could be one of the poster children of modern SA. Not only was I born at the tail end of a tumultuous period in our country but it was also at a time when those who hadn’t believed British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan’s “winds of change” speech, could now (whether they admitted it or not) feel those winds of change gusting through the country.

I therefore was young enough that I cannot claim with the authority of our struggle veterans that I was THERE, yet I was old enough to know what difference meant, what being white was associated with just as I understood what the implications for being black were.

Recent debates on the admissions criteria at tertiary institutions have been great. I have for years been waiting for this particular shoe to drop, because I have also been a ‘guinea pig’ of the quota system, and to this day I can feel the ring in my ear of that slap across my face (which it was and continues to be for anyone who takes pride in their abilities and works hard so as to be recognised on merit).

I am a product of a mix of formally Bantu school districts and model-c school education and have also had the opportunity to see the world as well as study at Africa’s best institution. So for these reasons, I think I qualify to be on the poster I refer to here. Don’t get me wrong, for every moment of my life; from my days in the ‘struggle’ to those of sitting down for chat over dinner about the beautiful future awaiting myself and my fairer skinned mates, I am very grateful. But it hasn’t been and still isn’t easy. This is a point that admissions debates have overlooked for years and even now, isn’t as prominent as it should be when discussed.

Popular rhetoric on the issue has reduced people to numbers and facts. But the goal, for which such criterion is meant to be working towards, cannot be reached if people continue to be reduced to mathematical facts. Life/human life cannot be summed up in an equation, we are social beings.

Our emotions, thoughts and psyche can explain and be of much more use in moulding us into the well rounded citizens in a way that numbers or generic explanations could never do. Because of the omission of this important and complex aspect, the admissions debate cannot generate full support from all, nor benefit the very people it seeks to benefit and in the way it is meant to; to produce the kind of student this country so desperately needs.

For many of us ‘model-c brats’, the transition is an ominous time, filled with so much trepidation, it is a great miracle how any of us make it to the next step without too much self mutilation or other self destructive behaviour.

The model-c brat is caught between a fight of two very different and unaccommodating worlds, with none attempting to genuinely get to know the other – because the truth of the matter is, both are petrified of the other but neither will come out and say it. Forget the elephant in the room; this is more like the elephant in your life and constantly in your face.

The model-c brat is thrown into this new world without as much as a stick to help clear their path in those difficult to reach areas (safe for the extended studies programs). Instead, every morning it seems, you wake up in one world. A world that has been all you have known up until the day you found a Listers bag on your bed with checked tunics, a few pairs of white socks and black shoes to match.

Up until that morning, you were pretty happy in a black dungaree, but this morning you wake up to part with your dungaree and replace it with a tunic; and a few hours later you find yourself immersed in a completely new world forced to adapt quickly or die. To then a few hours later, suddenly resurface in the world you woke up in, and find it not looking the way you left it that morning. Or is it they who aren’t looking at you the same way they did before you disappeared for a few hours to a new world?

A few hours are all it takes. To the friends you left in the old world who are now (upon your return) looking at you funny; this does not make any sense and the only logical explanation is that you have sold out, you are now a coconut; you cannot possibly ever understand their struggles any longer. A few hours and you have changed, you can see it in their eyes looking at you and yours looking at them.

You need not have said nor done anything since your return to warrant this label, a few hours is all it takes after all. From the moment you put on the checked tunic instead of the dungaree that fateful morning, unknown to you, imaginary battle lines were drawn and you are now on a side which you neither chose be on or even know how to be on.

Things are no better in the new world either, because no matter how quickly you adapt; no matter how well you master life on this side of the tracks, you can never be one of them. And so is the case for the cursed middle class black and model-c brat. You soon find out that you are neither black nor white enough.

After a while, having listened, observed and experienced many of these criticisms what you really start to hear, what you begin to see and experience is them saying in truth we really envy and wish we were you, so as opposed to be bigger people about it, congratulate and encourage you to keep going it is easier not to, because we can then hide behind the cover of cultural preservation and injustices that prevented all of us being exposed to such opportunities. In essence it is much easier to hate than congratulate you, so don’t judge us. This is what I heard.

On the one hand, we the model-c brats feed off of our communities’ insecurities and not in a good way. We condemn them as ignorant, uneducated and jealous. Hating us because of their own lack of ambition. By the time one reaches this point, though it doesn’t take long for some of us to do so, we are so high up our intellectual forward looking ‘high-horse’ that the altitude up there distorts our views so much that we are no different from the very ‘advancement haters’ we’ve began to shun.

What is omitted from the debates is the human factor. Contrary to popular belief, the transition to the model-c living isn’t as clear cut as it’s made out to be. Not for the community from which the student comes from, not for the community the student is taken into and especially not for the very previously disadvantaged student whom all this fuss is about.

So the cycle continues, shunned by our communities we snub them even worse, we move away from the nurture of communities built upon the spirit of communal upbringing, communities we were taken out of in hopes of improving our chances so we can some back and create opportunities for others and a better life for all. Instead we replace these with the cold fences and walls of gated communities. Where one can live for years without uttering a word to one’s neighbour let alone know what they look like.

I urge you to spare a thought for the model-c brat; it isn’t completely their fault that they may have gotten lost somewhere between the corner of advancement, embracing the present and the ambitious road to success and all things great. And while you’re still in that thought reserve some for the ‘advancement haters’ who themselves got chucked off the bus halfway to making friends forever and growing up together, without warning, or even being helped get to terms with their best friends’ 6 hour disappearing acts to another world every morning only to come back looking and sounding different.

Finally, also spare a thought for the disillusioned middle, previously comfortable in their surroundings who woke suddenly (or so it seems) to find a lot more colour everywhere they looked and the going a lot more tougher than it used to be. Even for the hard working kind who’ve always thought there should be more colour anyway.

Until we discuss and debate this issue in a way that includes the human factor, or even through examples from the lived experience of people, we risk another affirmative action, BEE or even OBE situation on our hands. Waiting for too long and too late to fix something with the potential to ease some of the burdens our country faces today.

Living like dogs in chaotic times

“May you live in interesting times”, this is a referral to a supposedly Chinese curse said in 1966 by Robert F Kennedy right here in Cape Town. The validity on the origin of the quote has been questioned since then. It has also been argued that this particular saying was taken from an actual Chinese proverb which says that “it is better to be a dog in peaceful times than to be a man in a chaotic period”.

I recently saw a news report showing people in the North West Province fetching water from the same place pigs and other cattle drink from. This is our democracy, one ‘for the people by the people’, or so they keep saying. There are differing positions held on the current state of our country, over issues such as these and others making headlines.

From the xenophobic attacks after ‘Philip’ left, to the proposed media appeals tribunal and the protection of information; the tenderpreneurial son of the president as well as the public sector strike. I may as well add my three cents worth of opinion to the pot, it is after all my democratic right, it says so in the constitution.

The only difference between me and the couch politician, activist or philosopher may perhaps be that I make my point at the beginning (like I will do shortly) and then go on to ramble. This way if I lose you before you reach the end of the page, then at least I’ll be sure you got my point. This is a tactic that works very well I’ve learnt, for politicians especially our government.

During election campaigns they make all sorts of promises to get our attention and essentially our vote. Heck, if they thought promising unicorns and rivers that glisten of 24carat platinum will get those votes, then that’s what they’ll promise. Never mind that unicorns don’t exist or that in the kind of world we live in, one would be lucky to find a river that isn’t a polluted health hazard. Never mind also that when making these promises most planning doesn’t go further than a white paper that has been drafted to fix those issues raised.

No, our leaders know how to grab our attention and what to do once they’ve got it and that is to announce their solutions and statements of intent and then ramble for the rest of their term in office.

So here is my point, the most amazing thing about our country, the thing that makes us stand out amongst other countries is the way in which our history has given us room to adapt as we go. We have room therefore to make the boldest and most radical decisions to improve the livelihoods of all our people, to implement policy never tried before, formulated to the specific needs of our people. But alas no such thing is going on. Instead we adopt foreign based policies, some of which failed in their country of origin, and sometimes even misinterpret these, to try and fix our problems. Problems very different in most cases to those faced by the country from which the policy comes.

Our history also shows that we are a patient people, that we can practice passive resistance and even the non violent form (by some); but, up to a point. And once the patience runs out, there is no telling, the measures people will take to get what they have so patiently been waiting for government to give as promised when elected.

And thus begins my ramble. The democratically elected leaders came in ‘guns-blazing’ promising an equal cut of the sought-after cake for all, particularly for the previously marginalised. They embarked on wholesale changes in all areas of governance hoping that these will easily translate and be transferred to the people on the ground. But as much progress as has been made, the oversight in many issues and the speed (understandably so considering the need to reverse the past) with which some of these changes were brought about is to me the simplest most reasonable explanation of our current state of affairs.

I wonder whether before the start of each year, whether our leaders actually sit down to reflect on the past year and forge a way forward. When xenophobia stirred its ugly head again after the end of the World Cup, one of the first reactions from those in power was to try talk things down by blaming opportunistic hooligans who preyed on people’s fears at the time, to do their dirty work. But, (in the only instant so far in which government seems to have learnt from the past), some leaders quickly spoke out against these attacks making the call to finding a swift solution to the problem.

Security was beefed up and volatile areas received better attention than they had the last time this happened. Civil society and other organisations also loaned their voices to the fight against xenophobia. Within weeks there seemed to be a clear direction as to how the situation and transgressors would be handled. Unified by the call from leaders, religious and civic organisations, the masses stood together and spoke in a voice not heard previously against the issue.

Not long after this, we read reports on the ‘callous’ spending of tax payers’ money by ministers. From stays at pricey hotels to hefty bar tabs. Ministers live the high life while the masses live like dogs and chaos brews.

Then the media appeals tribunal started the rounds, largely called for (I believe) as a result of issues mentioned above. Reasons by government for the need of the tribunal include slander and reputation damage caused by false reports which make the headlines and then to have the retraction (once the story is proven to be fallacious) printed in the smallest print available and placed in the most obscure part of the paper.

My favourite explanation of all is that this is a measure to protect those who cannot afford to defend themselves, or something to that tune uttered by one *Mr M. Let’s see, current president Zuma, Bulelani Ncuka, the convicted former commissioner Jackie Selebi, Glen Agglioti and various other MEC’s and ministers are a few of the people this tribunal is meant to protect. I don’t know about you but I was under the impression that these were amongst some of the wealthier and resourceful members of our nation. I therefore cannot make the connection between how they are vulnerable to misrepresentation in the media or better still, how they cannot afford to protect themselves should they be falsely accused.

As many mistakes and false reports as there are written, many more true stories and corrupt practices have been exposed. And to want to stop or affect the medium within which our democratically elected leaders are kept in check, is to spit in the face of the electorate who put the very leaders in power.

I have not heard or seen the hungry, the poor or the underpaid being interviewed before or during elections, asking government for better check systems on media or for a bill on the protection of information. Instead what we often hear are people asking for houses, employment, better pay and better schooling for their children, for food, medicine and security.
For years this, their pleas for service delivery, has been like a song playing on loop but never heard. Instead our leaders announce one day, that there should be a media appeals tribunal and a protection of information bill passed to protect the people of South Africa. I guess we’ll sing again in the next election, maybe they’ll hear us this time around.

Now the public sector strike is in its second week heading towards a third and like the rest of the country, I too am appalled by reports of patients being turned away and prevented from getting to hospitals by strikers and learners missing out on valuable lessons needed to prepare for exams. However, spare a thought for the teacher, nurse and other civil servants with children of their own to feed, houses to build and homes to make, dreams to fulfil and hopes of a better life; tied down by limited opportunities, overworked, underpaid and demoralised by the lack of recognition for the invaluable work they do.

Before the World Cup there was a taxi and later rail strike, and during the World Cup there were threats of planned strike action. Ministers, leaders from various organisations as well as ‘ordinary’ members of society spoke out against such threats. Highlighting how unpatriotic and selfish it was of those making such threats to do so when the entire world was watching us.
But can we blame them, should we have blamed them? The world cup provided an opportunity to finally be heard. And it was, government moved quickly to avert the strike and maintain peace throughout the tournament, everyone played nice.

I have also never heard of any South African minister complaining over being underpaid yet doing the most amount of work. Instead ministers make millions per annum, enjoying benefits that include cars that also cost millions as well as housing allowances substantially higher than those of the unruly civil servant who doesn’t appreciate the fact that they at least have a job to go to.

These are ministers who splurged on World Cup tickets, ‘networking’ they said. ‘Wining and dining business people’ said one minister ‘is among the ways in which business agreements are started and foreign investors are encouraged to pour money into the economy’. Now, among the reasons for the call to workers to return to work are constant reports of investor confidence being affected by the strike. What? After the millions spent building relations in VIP suits at Soccer City those bastards are ready to flee because of this little thing? So much for networking!

Ministers were also among the first to ‘lash’ out at the workers for their strike action, calling for them to accept the offer by government as it would cripple the country if the state was made to pay more. So what they are saying is, money was and can always be made available for ‘networking’ splurges such as there were during the World Cup but now workers must east dust because well there’s just not enough money to go around, what with all the BMW’s bought and FIFA tickets they absolutely had to have.

But like I said earlier, what makes ours such a great country is that our history that has allowed room for learning and adapting as we go. What should be learnt is that standards used by other nations to ‘network’ as they say should never have been applied to or adopted by us. There is no use splurging on caviar and the freshest Norwegian salmon to entertain guests for dinner whilst you are left to struggle to put the next day’s meal on the table and have your lights cut off because the salmon cost too much.

Unfortunately, the most our leaders do is to criticise the spending (after the fact) while they continue to loot from pockets of citizens on even more splurges. When questioned about this, some (a certain *Mr M to be specific) have lashed out saying that people find it an issue when a black leader enjoys the perks that come with his status and success, flashy life and all.

What is missing from their reasoning is reflection and learning from the past. If they did (reflect and learn) they would know that what made it possible for leaders in the old regime to live as they did was that their responsibility was towards a minority of the population, leaving them with ‘enough’ left over to do with as they please. The situation is reversed, our leaders have many more mouths to feed and this goal can never be fulfilled if they do not alter their perceived entitlements that come with the job.

They are a government ‘for the people, by the people’, so they say and so it should follow that they be part of the people and live as the people do. This is what the old regime did; they lived as their people did. However unbalanced that was in relation to the country’s demographics.

Until our leaders reflect on their promises, on the past and on what needs to be done; we will be reduced to men living like dogs in a chaotic period. It is exactly this kind of environment that breeds tension, malice and makes a country with so much potential for prosperity, yet another volatile African state rapidly heading towards anarchy.

We are a patient people, passive even, but only to a point. Our current leaders need only reflect back to be reminded of the cost of fair distribution and visible efforts to make things better versus self enrichment practices at the expense of an increasingly discontented masses.