Black South Africans are nothing but mere numbers!

Black South Africans are nothing but mere numbers!
(written by Modibe Modiba)

It is no lie that black South Africans are the majority population in our beloved country, but that's all, being the majority in this country has absolutely not changed the lives of ordinary citizens on the ground except create elite politically-connected blacks. Black South Africans STILL remain the owners of poverty, unemployment, inequality and are the biggest losers and most affected when it comes to corruption. Being the majority population, black South Africans remain economic slaves to white capital monopoly, they remain custodians of economic peanuts, they are nothing but mere spectators in their OWN country and 21 years later are found searching for real radical transformation.

It's no lie that during negotiations which were meant to pave a smooth transition into democracy, the economic part of the transition was not decisively dealt with by our OWN leaders. Even in a democratic society like ours were "majority rules", blacks are certainly not the rulers of the mainstream economy, which makes me wonder, are we really the majority? Absolutely not! We cannot pride ourselves as being a majority while the ownership of the countries wealth paints a different story.

Now South Africa is a like a school which has 100 matric students, highly qualified staff and proper resources, but when it comes to the pass rate, only 10 students end up succeeding, now that's totally nonsensical. Having numbers by your side is always a good way to succeed politically, but if you are not going to use your numbers decisively, you are no different to a party which has absolutely no numbers by their side. Dr Somadoda Fikeni recently said and I quote "we are a numeric majority but a cultural minority" which is very correct I must add.

A true reflection of our country is that blacks remain a population rich in numbers but poor in terms of economic ownership and development, another issue is South African banks make huge amounts of rands from stokvels which are run by blacks as well as churches run by blacks, but when it comes to giving capital to upcoming black businesses, they are no where to be found, instead they'd rather take that money which they've been given by black South Africans and fund European foreigners living in South Africa to open up businesses at the expense of the black majority.

To show you that blacks are nothing but mere numbers, take a walk around the countries top estates and restaurants, you'd think that in a country were the majority of people are black, that the majority of people living in those estates would be black and that those dining in top restaurants are black, but that's wrong, it's totally the opposite. The very few blacks fortunate enough to be there, are either the very few blacks who've managed to escape the system and have had to work ten times more than their white counterparts or are simply politically connected and form part of the black bourgeoisies.

It is very evident that black South Africans have made every other race wealthy except themselves, and in that process they've created more problems for themselves. What black South Africans need to do is to wake up and start acting like the majority, they need leadership which is radical and decisive and which will not sell them out to white capitalists. A kind of leadership which will have the interests of the black majority at heart and not just a few blacks, a leadership which will not only use its majority in parliament as voting cattle, but use it to pass legislation and implement radical policies without any fear.