Publications
Partners
WE SHOULD feel no shame about the booing that happened at Nelson Mandela’s memorial, as a number of commentators have said. That was democracy in action; that was the voice of people who found a moment to make their discontent known in a way that we in the media would cover for weeks.
Madiba would be pleased, I feel sure.
But what difference does it make? It is unlikely to make an impact on the vast contingent of ‘dignitaries’ (seated behind glass and under protection from the rain) from all over the world – presidents, premiers and royalty whom I heard one business show host refer to as “the great and the good”, a comment which provoked a raspberry from me.
Little, it seems, does make an impact on the powers-that-be. For the last several years, there have been waves of massive protests all over the world. Many of their targets were sitting there, preening themselves on attending the funeral of a man who was, until 2008, still listed as a terrorist by the USA. (“Former South African President Nelson Mandela is to be removed from a U.S. terrorism watch list under a bill President Bush signed Tuesday,” CNN.com July 2 2008.)
Chile erupted in protest in 2011, and the protests continue to this day. The trigger was unhappiness about the high cost of education, but the underlying theme is deep discontent with the high levels of inequality in Chile.
The V for Vinegar protests in Brazil this year were sparked by transport costs – but they soon began to address high levels of corruption in government. In Spain, hundreds of thousands of people joined in protests by movements like the Indignant Movement, 15-M and Take The Square.
These protests were linked to the economic crisis, but were also the voice of people who felt that they were unrepresented by the traditional political parties. Remember the Taksim Square protests in Turkey – initially protesting plans to develop the park, but soon morphing into protests about freedom of speech, the press and the right to assemble freely?
There were many more, protests that never rose above the radar screen in South Africa unless you were getting world news through non-standard online sources.
All of them reflected discontent around one or more of the issues raised back in 2011 by Occupy Wall Street: “The main issues raised by Occupy Wall Street were social and economic inequality, greed, corruption and the perceived undue influence of corporations on government—particularly from the financial services sector. The OWS slogan, We are the 99%, refers to income inequality and wealth distribution in the US between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population.” (From Wikipedia.)
In South Africa, the problems of massive inequality are caricatured in Nkandla: there’s that so-called fire pool and all the mod cons in an estate visibly surrounded by poor people. The collusion cases around the World Cup and now the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project are emblematic of greed, which infects both the private and the public sector; and there’s no need to add that corruption is endemic.
In a TED talk, distinguished Dutch primatologist and ethologist Frans de Waal describes an experiment with Capuchin monkeys that shows clearly – and very amusingly – that our primate cousins have a well-developed sense of fairness and justice. (I defy anyone not to laugh out loud at the enraged reaction of the cheated monkey when she realises she’s not going to get a grape but will be fobbed off with a piece of cucumber.)
Human beings also have an innate sense of what is fair. Two Yale professors showed, in a neat piece of research, that three- to eight-year-old children, given five chocolate bars to divide between two kids, would rather throw one away than end up with an unfair result.
Nelson Mandela had a stubborn and powerful sense of justice, which was a huge part of what drove his actions throughout his life. He once said: “Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.”
The booing in that stadium was, in a way, a tribute to Mandela, demonstrating that South Africans know something is rotten in the state of South Africa, that something is deeply unfair.
It is a credit to us that so many people, on such an auspicious occasion (and we are usually a respectful lot) had the courage to express our sense of unfairness. Just as people around the world have been doing for several years now, in their millions.
How do we fix poverty and inequality?
The recipes we’ve tried so far have not worked (like trickle-down economics – think of the trickle-down champs, the USA, where today 50 million people live in poverty, according to recent results). If we, as a country and as a planet, are to avoid a Hunger Games future, where only a few may prosper outrageously and the rest are poor, we have to find new ways of tackling these issues.
That’s the challenge in that booing – and the challenge of Mandela: “Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. YOU can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.”
- Fin24
*Mandi Smallhorne is a versatile journalist and editor. Views expressed are her own.
Madiba would be pleased, I feel sure.
But what difference does it make? It is unlikely to make an impact on the vast contingent of ‘dignitaries’ (seated behind glass and under protection from the rain) from all over the world – presidents, premiers and royalty whom I heard one business show host refer to as “the great and the good”, a comment which provoked a raspberry from me.
Little, it seems, does make an impact on the powers-that-be. For the last several years, there have been waves of massive protests all over the world. Many of their targets were sitting there, preening themselves on attending the funeral of a man who was, until 2008, still listed as a terrorist by the USA. (“Former South African President Nelson Mandela is to be removed from a U.S. terrorism watch list under a bill President Bush signed Tuesday,” CNN.com July 2 2008.)
Chile erupted in protest in 2011, and the protests continue to this day. The trigger was unhappiness about the high cost of education, but the underlying theme is deep discontent with the high levels of inequality in Chile.
The V for Vinegar protests in Brazil this year were sparked by transport costs – but they soon began to address high levels of corruption in government. In Spain, hundreds of thousands of people joined in protests by movements like the Indignant Movement, 15-M and Take The Square.
These protests were linked to the economic crisis, but were also the voice of people who felt that they were unrepresented by the traditional political parties. Remember the Taksim Square protests in Turkey – initially protesting plans to develop the park, but soon morphing into protests about freedom of speech, the press and the right to assemble freely?
There were many more, protests that never rose above the radar screen in South Africa unless you were getting world news through non-standard online sources.
All of them reflected discontent around one or more of the issues raised back in 2011 by Occupy Wall Street: “The main issues raised by Occupy Wall Street were social and economic inequality, greed, corruption and the perceived undue influence of corporations on government—particularly from the financial services sector. The OWS slogan, We are the 99%, refers to income inequality and wealth distribution in the US between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population.” (From Wikipedia.)
In South Africa, the problems of massive inequality are caricatured in Nkandla: there’s that so-called fire pool and all the mod cons in an estate visibly surrounded by poor people. The collusion cases around the World Cup and now the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project are emblematic of greed, which infects both the private and the public sector; and there’s no need to add that corruption is endemic.
In a TED talk, distinguished Dutch primatologist and ethologist Frans de Waal describes an experiment with Capuchin monkeys that shows clearly – and very amusingly – that our primate cousins have a well-developed sense of fairness and justice. (I defy anyone not to laugh out loud at the enraged reaction of the cheated monkey when she realises she’s not going to get a grape but will be fobbed off with a piece of cucumber.)
Human beings also have an innate sense of what is fair. Two Yale professors showed, in a neat piece of research, that three- to eight-year-old children, given five chocolate bars to divide between two kids, would rather throw one away than end up with an unfair result.
Nelson Mandela had a stubborn and powerful sense of justice, which was a huge part of what drove his actions throughout his life. He once said: “Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.”
The booing in that stadium was, in a way, a tribute to Mandela, demonstrating that South Africans know something is rotten in the state of South Africa, that something is deeply unfair.
It is a credit to us that so many people, on such an auspicious occasion (and we are usually a respectful lot) had the courage to express our sense of unfairness. Just as people around the world have been doing for several years now, in their millions.
How do we fix poverty and inequality?
The recipes we’ve tried so far have not worked (like trickle-down economics – think of the trickle-down champs, the USA, where today 50 million people live in poverty, according to recent results). If we, as a country and as a planet, are to avoid a Hunger Games future, where only a few may prosper outrageously and the rest are poor, we have to find new ways of tackling these issues.
That’s the challenge in that booing – and the challenge of Mandela: “Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. YOU can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.”
- Fin24
*Mandi Smallhorne is a versatile journalist and editor. Views expressed are her own.
