Black Armani suits and the lack of leadership

I have recently made a very startling discovery: most men who wear black Armani suits are tame.

Of course, their dress sense makes them look like very important people who are making it in the world, whatever that means. But on closer scrutiny, their black Giorgio Armani suits soon reveal people who are not only trying to make a statement about themselves as individuals, but also as people who want to hide deep seated inferiority complex and self doubt.

In the world of high-flyers and other super-achievers, a black Armani suit is a must have. It is supposed to symbolize personal class, success and individual achievement. But anyone who believes that the clothes you wear on your back make you a somebody is a fool. Even if you have made it, the world will not recognise or acknowledge you for the clothes that you wear, because any wolf can wear sheep’s clothing.

It may be unfair to generalise. Yes, there are serious people who are distinctive despite the fact that they have grown a hedonistic taste for Armani suits. But in many instances those who are seen in Armani suits are crude people who think they are God’s gift to the holoi poloi and thus are above everybody simply because they can afford a black suit that costs more than R20 000.

When you get closer to these people at high-profile functions where they pose for Gwen Gill and other social scene paparazzi, you will soon be disappointed to learn that they are just empty tins who try to talk in very soft tones. Apparently talking in soft tones makes you sound very important, and enhances your sophisticated social image.

Much as men in black Armani suits may look like important leaders, they lack humility and are not troubled by the poverty and unemployment that bedevils this country, for instance. What is most striking is that they pepper their conversation with epithets like “our people” or “the masses” when they refer to fellow South Africans whose blood, sweat and tears makes it possible for them to live off the fat of the land.

When they hear of the xenophobic explosions or hear that some refugees have been moved into areas very close to suburbia, they explode with impatience and anger. They don’t want any ‘smelly Africans’ roaming anywhere near their expensive homes or streets.

One gets the impression that people in black Armani suits do not care for anybody but themselves. In fact, they are surprised that anyone can get angry with them for spending tens of thousands on a single suit while the majority of people are jobless, homeless and foodless.

When you think about it, it is men and women in black Armani suits who fuel resentment, anger and frustration which, finally, explodes into an orgy of violence, destruction and death. Men in black Armani suits are people who are hungry for status, recognition and the smell of success. And when you engage them on what this success is, their dysfunctional minds fall into muddled up thinking and they cannot give an well thought out answer.

They are actors who perform to be noticed by drawing attention to their labels than what lies beneath expensive clothes. Ironically, it is only when men in black Armani suits, especially, decide to do something about the scourge of poverty, unemployment and crime that these problems can be solved.

Yes, if they were to stand on rooftops to tell everyone that black Armani suits are not a measure of success and achievement, even the cash-in-transit heist thugs would perhaps stop their violence, which may bemotivated by a desire to get black Armani suits.

The black Armani suits seem to be the curse of our times in the new South Africa. For us to get anywhere, men and women will need to stop squandering money just to be seen in these labels. The pervasive worship of material things in our society can be easily seen in men and women who love black Armani suits and clothes.

But these suits do not make anyone happier.

In fact, they are not a sign of leadership rooted in the needs and aspirations of the people, especially the poor and marginalized.