I BELIEVE the children are our future…
George Benson recorded that in 1977; for 39 years I’ve heard it played on Youth Day and at christening parties and 21sts and any other occasion when people want to get maudlin about children and hope and so on.
But what kind of future have we been building?
There was this fantastic moment embedded in that period in which everything felt possible. The children of 1994 were going to have a very different life; the adults would work together to make that happen.
And then…. Fffffttt.
Why have we not made greater strides in securing that bright future for our children?
Interesting comparison:
South Africa’s literacy rate (people over 15) is 92.9% (according to the General Household Survey of 2012 – real literacy is probably significantly lower).
The literacy rate in Cuba is 99.7%.
About one in four South African children experiences stunting as a result of poor nutrition (down from one in three in 1993, sure, but still one of the higher levels in the world). And look at the within-country inequalities here: “Today, 26% of under-five children in the poorest quintile are stunted compared with 14% of children in the richest quintile.”
But in Cuba? The incidence of stunting is between 5% and 7%.
In South Africa, deaths for children under five are at around 41 per 1000 live births.
In Cuba, it’s 4.7 (lower than the USA, at 6.2).
And… South Africa’s gross domestic product per capita in 2014 was $7 575.
Cuba’s was $5 351.
But Cuba – ! I hear you say. Of course. Human rights violations; limited freedom of expression; political prisoners.
So isn’t it a bit odd that a child born in relatively poor, "communist" Cuba should have health and opportunity – indeed, even be able to go to university for free (like the University of Havana, founded in 1728 and one of the oldest unis in the Americas, with 16 faculties and many distance learning centres)?
In Cuba, with all its faults, there was an enormous drive to improve education and health standards for all – whatever other issues there are with the Cuban regime, they have been shown to have the political will, long-term, to achieve what the World Bank calls “outstanding” results.
And South Africa? Last week I watched the children of Syferbult trek home from school across the R509. I was in Syferbult (Ward 36, Rustenburg), about ten minutes’ drive from Magaliesburg, with NGO Community Led Animal Welfare, to give water purification sachets to the people.
No water for Syferbult, no problem for Saps
Syferbult has suffered for years from erratic water supply but in recent weeks, whether by tanker or tap, effectively none has arrived, and people have been forced to sop up water from a filthy dam. Why is this, when the infrastructure is there? There’s definitely a lack of political will somewhere at the back of this – and it could have a long-term impact on the children – poor access to clean water is a major factor in malnutrition, not least because of the resultant severe diarrhoea.
Eventually there was an eruption of rage and frustration on Tuesday October 18. The people tried to block the road (a route for trucks headed for the Botswana border) and were treated to the predictable dose of rubber bullets and teargas. Three people were injured; one was hospitalised.
Really, Saps? Have you run out of imagination, compassion and basic intelligence completely? How would you react if you were denied a constitutional right that also happens to be one of the most basic human needs?
But of course… along with failures of political leadership and will, a failure of compassion, of ‘feeling-with’ ordinary people is crucial to South Africa’s failures. Many of the stories I hear demonstrate that at least certain elements in the police service and in local government treat the people they are employed to serve as, at best, irritants, at worst, adversaries.
The people of Syferbult have been trying peacefully to get the attention of local government for a very long time. When they finally exploded, they were not treated with respect or concern – they were treated as the enemy. They were ‘othered’.
Don’t just blame government and police, though. We’re all responsible, the people who live in suburbs and townhouse developments and golf estates. The gulf of inequality is so vast that it seems impossible not to ‘other’ those living in zinc shacks.
This is compounded hugely by the stubborn persistence of apartheid geography and infrastructure. It’s easy to ignore the brutality of poverty, hunger, thirst, and the absence of resources and opportunities when it’s tucked away out of sight, far from the shopping malls and tower blocks.
And to forget that this inequality matters to all of us.
Because – just to be pragmatic – these massive inequities are a threat to our middle class comfort: “…compelling evidence proves that addressing high and growing inequality is critical to promote strong and sustained growth,” said OECD secretary general Angel Gurría.
“Redistribution policies via taxes and transfers are a key tool [and] results suggest they need not be expected to undermine growth. But it is also important to promote equality of opportunity in access to and quality of education. This implies a focus on families with children and youths…”
Take a lesson from Cuba; treat inequality as something that matters to the bottom line as well as the moral climate. Because if we don’t, the children of inequality may indeed be the future… and that’s not a happy thought.
*Mandi Smallhorne is a versatile journalist and editor. Views expressed are her own. Follow her on Twitter.
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