The curious case of Khanyi Mbau

By Zuki Mqolomba

Truth be told, Khanyi Mbau’s narrative tells of our very own narrative. Her ideals reveal much of what now constitutes our national character, the new sets of value propositions that are now hegemonic in mainstream society.

Indeed we are the lived expression of her spoken words. “Just because they can’t put bread on the table, doesn’t mean that I’m not going to eat my croissants and blue cheese.” “I just like nice things … I’m not here to save the world,” she said on 3rd Degree.

Are these not the typical sentiments of the bourgeoning middle-class and unpatriotic elite who remain indifferent to the struggles of the ordinary poor? Yet we repulse when she does it, even as she mimics the coveted lives she sees on shows like Top Billing, Desperate Housewives and Footballers’ Wives etc believing it’s her turn to eat no matter how she climbs up the dinner table.

Khanyi is no different from Porsche Spice, Mrs(s) Donald Trump(s), Edith Venter, Wendy Lucas-Bull or any other Hollywood celebrity wannabee. She is the epitome of what the world generally celebrates, hence a celebrity who commands R35 000 a night for public appearances. The world typically celebrates arrogant displays of opulence, melodrama, sex, sex, and more sex and socialites. It’s never a celebration of the stuff of the meek and family orientated. So there’s hypocrisy in our national discourse. Worse off, the hypocrisy lies in problematising or criminalising black opulence as opposed to opulence in general as it plays out as an undignified demonstration of our indifference to the poor. The discourse is masked with racial undertones. Asking subversive questions that probe where journalists never dare question when it comes to the much-celebrated secret extravagance of white society; the high horse more difficult to ride I suppose.

However, there’s an even deeper conversation that is being stifled and that needs to be had in South Africa. It’s the conversation about values: “Which values count?”, “Whose values count?” and “Why?”
• How do we relate the basic values of ubuntu, if at all, to the question(s) of wealth and ownership? Do shared values matter in increasing share value? And if yes, to what extent?
• Do we endorse the new values that condone “eating sushi off the bodies of naked young women”, “get rich quick, it don’t matter how you get there” and values that scream “stuff you I don’t care I’m rich, I’m not here to save the world”? Do we accept these burgeoning cultural value propositions as our own or do we continue to hold in high esteem the values of old into the new? And if yes, to what extent?
• When is “enough” ever enough, for whom, if ever at all?

Personally, I think the tragedy of the black elite lies not in their wealth, both deserved and undeserved, but in his obsession to mimic the “master”. Our notions of wealth have been sold to us by white elites and their marketers themselves. They’ve been defined outside of us for us. Take for instance the concept of “black diamond”? Who defined it? Who owns it unquestionably? It’s trying too hard to prove and affirm ones sense of worth that worries me as it spills out as an unsophisticated demonstration of superficiality. Frantz Fanon correctly points out that: “Man’s tragedy is that he was once a child … however painful it may be for (us) to accept this conclusion, (we are) obliged to state it: For the black man there is only one destiny. And it is white.”

So I submit to you that Khanyi, alongside many other bling stars, is but a national question. The curious case of Khanyi Mbau begs genuine engagement, not opportunism for racialism’s sake. It begs critical analysis, genuine concern and the opportunity for a national dialogue on values.

At the end of the day values do matter. Even a rejection of this statement is a value proposition on its own. So whose values count? And what do we do about it?

Zuki Mqolomba is a Mandela Rhodes Scholar