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In Terry Bell's column “Labour Wrap: Proudly SA 'blames the victims", he refers to Proudly SA as an “expensive, clearly unsuccessful campaign” that tends to turn the blame for unemployment and poverty onto the victims. He notes that Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa maintained that buying local products is “the silver bullet to challenge unemployment, inequality and poverty”.
This implies that it is consumers who buy on the basis of price rather than patriotism who are to blame for the listed social ills. This, says Bell, is nonsense. For the majority of the population price must be the determining factor.
Responding to Bell, Juanroux Greyling suggests that the government is like a rogue doctor who keeps his patients sick (workers poor). He writes:
I am quite young when it comes to labour relations and labour problems in South Africa as I am only 28 years of age. But I have gained a vast amount of knowledge throughout the years from my degrees, reading News24 and basically just using my own common sense of how economies work.
It seems to me that the labour problems that SA is facing is a result of our leaders deliberately trying to demoralise South African labourers. I know this may sound idiotic. I mean, why would they deliberately try to keep our labour force poor, faced with problems and creating more problems for local and foreign investors leading to more job losses?
My theory (and probably a few others' as well) is that when all South Africans are prospering, there will be no need to vote for the ANC. Think about it this way; if a doctor treats your illness and you are cured, you will not have to visit him again (in the near future). He has done his job and you can invest your time and money into the rest of your responsibilities; you can go to work and start contributing to society and to the economy once again. You can look forward and think ahead.
But if the doctor is greedy, morally corrupt and selfish, he would try and keep the patient sick. This will result in the patient revisiting the doctor's practice frequently. Now, if the community only has one doctor in a 500km radius, it is logical that the doctor will become rich and the people will become poor and stay sick, having no one else to go to. The doctor starts employing other "doctors" in his practice in order to expand his business to make even more money. The doctor and his minions start spending their wealth, never becoming sick and drive past all their patients everyday without batting an eyelid. When the community starts asking questions, the doctor just blames the gods, sins of the past. It's always a third party's fault (no pun intended).
I see our government as that doctor. They have a practice that's suppose to cure the ills of South Africa; solve poverty, inequality and all the other daily problems the masses face, yet they keep the masses uneducated and poor (sick).
Back to the labour problems. Cyril Ramaphosa and almost all the other ministers are morally corrupt thus there is no sense of accountability; they are never the cause of any problems faced by South Africans. A few examples: There is no electricity because the apartheid government only built enough power stations for a minority (21 years ago); corruption is a western concept; the FBI are in cahoots with the DA; even Julius Malema said that the government has an agenda against him when Sars probed him yet he was found out and admitted to not paying his taxes.
In this case Cyril blames South Africans for the problems South Africans are facing brought onto South Africans by the government's flawed labour laws.
They don't care about the citizens of SA.
Look at Zuma with Nkandla, Cyril with Marikana, Angie Motshekga continuing to destroy our educational system, our police force that is in shambles, our health sector that is non-existent, the vast amounts of corruption cases faced by civil "servants"... I can go on and on and on. They are destroying the very people that voted for them and successfully blaming someone else. They are masters of propaganda and its working like a charm.
Cyril knows he cannot take responsibility for any mistakes as this will weaken the ANC - they will lose votes, lose power and money. South African voters vote with perception, not with facts or logic. Cyril will just create the perception (once again) that its someone else's fault. This creates tension between us the citizens but also results in no accountability within the ANC. The ANC are thus also a victim in all of this. The ANC is after all striving for equality and democracy, aren't they?
I know the government knows that the current labour laws will destroy our economy. There are vast amounts of proof; most of them have businesses on the side and employ labourers as well. All the ministers are capitalists that are pursuing vast amounts of wealth (just look at the luxuty they are accumulating). They know exactly what will work but they also know that as soon as they cure SA of all the ills (labour ills included), the ANC will become irrelevant as they are a liberation party, not a governing party. "Keep the people sick" is the internal slogan for the ruling party.
The Proudly SA campaign is a farce. It's government's strategy that when it works out, everyone should know that the ANC made it happen, yet when it fails (like it did), it's someone else's fault. The ANC will never implement any strategy if its not a win-win situation (for them).
The ANC does not lack any info, knowledge or insight. They lack in having a heart for the people. They divide the citizens of South Africa to stay in power. That is why everything is still black and white when the ANC speaks. Keeping us citizens divided (along racial lines) will result in them staying in power. It's as simple as that.
We don't need better policies. We don't need better strategies. We don't need more money or laws to change the labour relations in SA. We need leaders that have a heart for the people. Someone that can handle the responsibility and accountability of making SA great. We need selfless leaders who will solve our labour problems (and a few other problems too) as logic will be at the forefront of every decision. The people will be thought of first before any decision is made.
Hopefully we can find a leader like that someday, but at the moment the future looks bleak.
*Please note that the above was written out of personal perspective. I did not intend to offend anyone or to incite any discrimination or racism. I do believe we can make SA work, but we need to start working together and not allow propaganda to divide us as a nation. We can do it. Lets start standing up.
Another Fin24 user responded. Anton wrote:
As usual Terry Bell is spot on in his remarks about Proudly South African.
One sometimes get the impression that products with the Proudly SA label carried a ten to fifteen percent price premium above competing products.
Were the manufacturers and especially the big chain stores cashing in on the campaign; and therefore the only real beneficiaries?
Normally one would expect a proper audit to be done after a reasonable time to determine if the aims were met. Clearly that has not happened. Now, 15 years later, there is the realisation that the campaign doesn't seem to work.
This implies that it is consumers who buy on the basis of price rather than patriotism who are to blame for the listed social ills. This, says Bell, is nonsense. For the majority of the population price must be the determining factor.
Responding to Bell, Juanroux Greyling suggests that the government is like a rogue doctor who keeps his patients sick (workers poor). He writes:
I am quite young when it comes to labour relations and labour problems in South Africa as I am only 28 years of age. But I have gained a vast amount of knowledge throughout the years from my degrees, reading News24 and basically just using my own common sense of how economies work.
It seems to me that the labour problems that SA is facing is a result of our leaders deliberately trying to demoralise South African labourers. I know this may sound idiotic. I mean, why would they deliberately try to keep our labour force poor, faced with problems and creating more problems for local and foreign investors leading to more job losses?
My theory (and probably a few others' as well) is that when all South Africans are prospering, there will be no need to vote for the ANC. Think about it this way; if a doctor treats your illness and you are cured, you will not have to visit him again (in the near future). He has done his job and you can invest your time and money into the rest of your responsibilities; you can go to work and start contributing to society and to the economy once again. You can look forward and think ahead.
But if the doctor is greedy, morally corrupt and selfish, he would try and keep the patient sick. This will result in the patient revisiting the doctor's practice frequently. Now, if the community only has one doctor in a 500km radius, it is logical that the doctor will become rich and the people will become poor and stay sick, having no one else to go to. The doctor starts employing other "doctors" in his practice in order to expand his business to make even more money. The doctor and his minions start spending their wealth, never becoming sick and drive past all their patients everyday without batting an eyelid. When the community starts asking questions, the doctor just blames the gods, sins of the past. It's always a third party's fault (no pun intended).
I see our government as that doctor. They have a practice that's suppose to cure the ills of South Africa; solve poverty, inequality and all the other daily problems the masses face, yet they keep the masses uneducated and poor (sick).
Back to the labour problems. Cyril Ramaphosa and almost all the other ministers are morally corrupt thus there is no sense of accountability; they are never the cause of any problems faced by South Africans. A few examples: There is no electricity because the apartheid government only built enough power stations for a minority (21 years ago); corruption is a western concept; the FBI are in cahoots with the DA; even Julius Malema said that the government has an agenda against him when Sars probed him yet he was found out and admitted to not paying his taxes.
In this case Cyril blames South Africans for the problems South Africans are facing brought onto South Africans by the government's flawed labour laws.
They don't care about the citizens of SA.
Look at Zuma with Nkandla, Cyril with Marikana, Angie Motshekga continuing to destroy our educational system, our police force that is in shambles, our health sector that is non-existent, the vast amounts of corruption cases faced by civil "servants"... I can go on and on and on. They are destroying the very people that voted for them and successfully blaming someone else. They are masters of propaganda and its working like a charm.
Cyril knows he cannot take responsibility for any mistakes as this will weaken the ANC - they will lose votes, lose power and money. South African voters vote with perception, not with facts or logic. Cyril will just create the perception (once again) that its someone else's fault. This creates tension between us the citizens but also results in no accountability within the ANC. The ANC are thus also a victim in all of this. The ANC is after all striving for equality and democracy, aren't they?
I know the government knows that the current labour laws will destroy our economy. There are vast amounts of proof; most of them have businesses on the side and employ labourers as well. All the ministers are capitalists that are pursuing vast amounts of wealth (just look at the luxuty they are accumulating). They know exactly what will work but they also know that as soon as they cure SA of all the ills (labour ills included), the ANC will become irrelevant as they are a liberation party, not a governing party. "Keep the people sick" is the internal slogan for the ruling party.
The Proudly SA campaign is a farce. It's government's strategy that when it works out, everyone should know that the ANC made it happen, yet when it fails (like it did), it's someone else's fault. The ANC will never implement any strategy if its not a win-win situation (for them).
The ANC does not lack any info, knowledge or insight. They lack in having a heart for the people. They divide the citizens of South Africa to stay in power. That is why everything is still black and white when the ANC speaks. Keeping us citizens divided (along racial lines) will result in them staying in power. It's as simple as that.
We don't need better policies. We don't need better strategies. We don't need more money or laws to change the labour relations in SA. We need leaders that have a heart for the people. Someone that can handle the responsibility and accountability of making SA great. We need selfless leaders who will solve our labour problems (and a few other problems too) as logic will be at the forefront of every decision. The people will be thought of first before any decision is made.
Hopefully we can find a leader like that someday, but at the moment the future looks bleak.
*Please note that the above was written out of personal perspective. I did not intend to offend anyone or to incite any discrimination or racism. I do believe we can make SA work, but we need to start working together and not allow propaganda to divide us as a nation. We can do it. Lets start standing up.
Another Fin24 user responded. Anton wrote:
As usual Terry Bell is spot on in his remarks about Proudly South African.
One sometimes get the impression that products with the Proudly SA label carried a ten to fifteen percent price premium above competing products.
Were the manufacturers and especially the big chain stores cashing in on the campaign; and therefore the only real beneficiaries?
Normally one would expect a proper audit to be done after a reasonable time to determine if the aims were met. Clearly that has not happened. Now, 15 years later, there is the realisation that the campaign doesn't seem to work.
* Add your voice or just drop Terry a labour question. Follow Terry on twitter @telbelsa.
Disclaimer:
All articles and letters published on Fin24 have been independently written by members of the Fin24 community. The views of users published on Fin24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent those of Fin24.
