“IT’S IN YOUR HANDS,” SAID MADIBA

The late former president Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela

In July 2007 the late statesman Nelson Mandela delivered the famous ” It’s in your hands” speech at Hyde Park in London during a concert to celebrate his 46664 campaign and also to mark his permanent retirement from active politics.

The essence of his speech was simply to exhort mankind to make this world a better place by taking care of the needy, the downtrodden and the poor.

Now since Mandela’s departure from this world in 2013, has the world at large and South Africa in particular become a better place?

No…things have gotten worse.

In 2013 the number of people living in poverty was 766 million and today this figure stands at 830 million: blame it on the unwillingness of rich people worldwide to “take and take all the time without giving back,” and also on the wars declared by Russia on Ukraine on the one hand, as well as the war declared by USA and Israel on Iran on the other hand.

These silly wars have led to an increase in the cost of food and energy supply; hitting the poor the hardest the world over.

Now in South Africa people living in abject poverty are estimated to be around 32 million, which amounts to 37,9% of the population excluding foreigners.

The unemployed poor masses in South Africa are granted R370 per month by SASSA yet this is below the low poverty line of R1 300 a month.

Calculations suggest that buying a R20 loaf of bread every day for 30 days costs R600, so giving anyone R370 means they won’t be able to buy bread for several days in a month and that they must either starve or resort to crime in order to survive.

It must be stated here that some people have blamed Mandela for all the ills that have afflicted South Africa up to now; especially regarding the issue of foreigners who have flooded the country and are taking jobs from local South African citizens.

But truly-speaking, Mandela never called for porous borders but instead encouraged the enactment of government policies that would deal with illegal immigration.

Those immigration policies and laws are in place, but subsequent presidents of the country have not implemented them.

Former President Thabo Mbeki is actually the one who removed soldiers and commandos from the borders of this country and placed this cumbersome job in the hands of the ill-equipped and ill-trained SAPS.

So, Mandela can’t be blamed for porous borders leading to the influx of illegal foreigners into this country.

On the issue of joblessness, Mandela can’t be blamed either because it is Thabo Mbeki who presided over a period of time in South Africa known as ” jobless growth,” which in essence means the rich got richer and the available jobs benefited the middle class while the poor, ordinary unskilled citizens remained jobless.

Blame for joblessness should also be put squarely on the shoulders of big businesses/ corporate sector who have embarked on what is called ” an investment strike.”

This entails a phenomenon whereby big businesses don’t plough back their profits into the economy by creating new jobs, but instead hide such profits in an bank account where it lies idle while South Africans are struggling with the issue of joblessness.

It was in 2020 with Ramaphosa as president that a lousy fence, purported to be a border, was erected at the cost of R37 million by the government, thus leading to foreigners literally trampling upon it while easily strolling into South Africa from Zimbabwe.

And again its Ramaphosa who, when South Africans protested against the influx of illegal foreigners, saw it fit to spend R600 million in one day for “the security of the country” instead of using that money to start erecting real borders which would serve as a deterrent to illegal foreigners.

Now to those who blame Mandela regarding vast tracts of land still being owned by white people, my response is that Thabo Mbeki is the one who should have reclaimed the land peacefully and Constitutionally as he and the ANC enjoyed a two-thirds majority in Parliament during his tenure as the President of the country.

Now given the above-mentioned factors, can anyone still blame Mandela for the societal ills taking place in South Africa?

Please put the blame for the country’s shenanigans where it belongs, and give Mandela due credit for transforming this country from a pariah state into an internationally acclaimed piece of land.