Malaika Wa Azania wrote: Something bothers me and Im going to say it, no matter how tribalistic it may be perceived to be. Im bothered by the way people of the Eastern Cape do things. Theres this concept of shumela Venda which Ive always supported. What it means is that a lot of Venda people would go and work in Gauteng province and live in ordinary conditions there. Their salaries get sent back home to develop their villages and towns. You find a person living in a backroom in Soweto, driving a Citi Golf. But when you go to their homestead in Ha-Masia or Chakhuma or Thohoyandou, you find that they have a triple storey mansion. You find that theyve opened a Trust (like the one in Ha-Masia) in their village that supports tunnel farming, building of recreational facilities, fixing of schools etc. Their kids are at Wits University studying BSc Engineering or BCom Accounting, without a NSFAS loan. The truth is, this shumela Venda principle has resulted in rapid auto-centric development in Venda. In the Eastern Cape, however, things arent the same. You find a lot of powerful business people in Gauteng province who are originally from here. Some of the richest people, some of the most celebrated minds, are from here. They live a life of opulence in Gauteng province and hardly pause to consider that the resources they have access to could benefit their own home province. There is no reason why the Eastern Cape should be in this dismal state that it is in. Literally everything in this province has fallen apart. Every year the Eastern Cape is the lowest performing province. Ten of the worst performing districts are in this province. The healthcare system has all but collapsed. You find places like Joza where youth unemployment is standing at a heartbreaking 95%. Theres barely industry here. If youre not working for the government, youre slaving away at one of the car manufacturing plants. The state of this province is a nervous condition. It would be false to claim that these problems can be solved merely by the application of the shumela Venda principle, because that would be to trivialize capitalism as a system that births these deep challenges. But there are certain things that can be done by ordinary people, things that we dont even have to look to the government for. Simple things like donating a mobile library, building a creche in the villages, taking a poor child to school or even being a mentor to a high school in some secluded village. Why arent these Eastern Cape born business people living in the leafiest suburbs of Gauteng province investing in the development of this province? Why are we having Eastern Cape born millionaires in Sandton and Dainfern when children from the villages they hail from walk 10km to school on barefoot? This is not a tribal issue. This is an issue to say rural development is not the responsibility of government alone. We cannot have this large concentration of skills and resources (including human resources) in cities when rural areas need the expertise more. How do we even begin to speak about economic freedom when we fail to realise that the neglect of rural areas in particular is catastrophic in that it encourages urbanization, which does not necessarily equate to development? I dont know, my people. It just really irks me that a province with such infinite potential is falling apart partly because its own (former) inhabitants dont deem it worthy of fixing, in whatever small way they can. The brain-drain that disadvantages children of the Eastern Cape and benefits big cities is tragic. What I see here in this province everyday bothers me endlessly, because when I go back home to Joburg during vacation, I see the vulgar opulence displayed by people from here. It pains me. I hope those of us who are studying here will not, upon completion of our degrees, flock to Gauteng. I hope well dedicate our time and resources to improving conditions of this province. Somethings got to give...
Posted on: Wed, 04 Jun 2014 05:08:01 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015