I’ve turned into an old fart. I caught myself sounding like my parents the other day while speaking to my kids. I said something like: ‘Growing up, I got R50 pocket money on a Saturday morning. I got the taxi to town, bought lunch, played video games, went to the movies with my buddies and still had change. Today you’ll need R500!’
Abarder, who recently launched his book, Hack with a Grenade, is among the country’s most influential media voices. Catch his weekly column here, exclusive to Cape {town} Etc.
Around the time of my lament, I saw social media folks complaining about how South Africans were too accepting. The consensus was we joke about everything and we could never rise up the way Sri-Lankans did last week.
We saw the video and images. Some citizens cavorting in the presidential swimming pool and others gooing a moerse jol in the opulent presidential palace. One dude in his onnies took a shower in the presidential bathroom. They were rising up against a food, fuel and medicine crisis that saw the country go bankrupt. The president fled the palace.
Here at home, we’ve seen skyrocketing food prices, fuel costs edging R30 a litre and no electricity. We’re expected to do a lot more with a lot less. And we’re meant to just take it with that old South African resilience.
When last did we see our President Cyril Ramaphosa for those unfortunately dubbed ‘family meetings’? He doesn’t seem to want to talk to us or take walks on the Sea Point Promenade anymore. Yet, in the perfect economic storm, we’re here, celebrating Eid in the dark and patiently queuing for our daily KFC gatsby fix.
I compared my June end-of-month shop with May and it was alarming. A tray of chicken breasts was about R60 more than the previous month. The same brand of two-litre liquid laundry detergent was double the price. A whopping R20 for a loaf of bread and R50 for two litres of milk. When did we get here?
Consumers are being shortchanged at every corner, I thought to myself as I bit into my favourite Tex chocolate bar. There used to be a TV ad with a cowboy shooting bullet holes in the chocolate centre of a Tex. That chocolate centre is now so thin that the cowboy has nothing to aim at.
Eskom took the principle of supply and demand in pricing literally too! From 1 July, there was a tariff hike in electricity. I now get 60 less units of the rare commodity for my first purchase of the month.
At least Niknaks has stayed true to its ethos as the cheesiest and cheapest snack in town. In 2022, it has been kind despite rising inflation and costs a reasonable one Randela. Not bad going when in 1984 it cost 18 cents. That is a rise of just 82 cents in 38 years. I can live with that. I can’t live with an 82 cents week-on-week a litre hike on fuel!
So, why isn’t President Ramaphosa listening or talking to us? It’s because the people of South Africa have long since been divided and conquered. The Sri-Lankans showed a united front. The Saffers, not so much.
Just take Bheki Cele’s rant at a chap who engaged him at a community meeting in Gugulethu last week, as an example of the disdain. Cele gas-lighted us all simply because he felt this Ian Cameron chap who challenged him represented his political opposite.
Whatever Cameron’s politics, we can certainly all agree that Cele’s response was a spectacular up yours to us all. Cele, Ramaphosa, and the rest of the cabinet have failed us in these desperate times. Unlike the Sri Lankans, we’ve been skreeing lankal, Mr President. But you’re not listening.
We’re not listening to each other either. We should be putting our differences aside and claiming our people’s power. Instead, we’ve outsourced our people power to individuals like Cele who think it’s okay to shout shurrrrrrrrap at us.
But let me rather get back to complaining about how nothing is free and R50 gets you very little. It’s not like anyone is listening, right?
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