Stuff the poor

I was reading the Sunday Times last week and noticed an article about a gathering in Zambia by some of South Africa’s top CEOs. They met for part of the time they were there, but they also partied quite hard, from all accounts.

What was the point of this article, I thought? And why did the CEOs allow a journalist to attend? Was it because of the growing South African phenomenon where rich people are saying to poor people: stuff you, we will just show off our wealth and we don’t care whether you think it is insensitive or not?

I can only think that the journalist was invited to report on this event, to show how the rich and powerful party.

I don’t begrudge the CEOs their party. All I am saying is that, in the present economic climate, where poor people are becoming poorer and poorer, it is not advisable to flaunt one’s wealth in this way.

Yet one sees it everywhere. Huge, expensive cars driving through the sprawling shacks in the townships, an indication that its driver is saying to the poor people he passes along the way: I am not worried about you. I am only worried about myself. Huge homes with more rooms than are needed and more bells and whistles than anybody would logically require.
There are some people who argue that our people need role models, so if they see rich people driving expensive cars, it should encourage them to also aim to become rich, so that they can also drive these expensive cars.

I understand that argument completely but I think the likelihood of the majority of South Africans becoming rich is like Orania becoming black overnight. Or Soweto becoming white, for that matter.

They also argue that people have problems with black people flaunting their wealth (as Tony Yengeni famously said) but that is not my point. I don’t care what colour you are, don’t flaunt your wealth.

I sincerely believe that, if we want poor people not to make “unreasonable” salary demands, then we need an undertaking from rich people that they are not going to flaunt their wealth.

I am not saying, for instance, that we should now ban all social pages because they feature mostly rich people and celebrities. What I am saying is that public and often vulgar displays of wealth should be toned down.

We already have the dichotomy in this country where the rich are becoming richer and the poor poorer. Let us not stuff that down the throats of poor people. Let’s rather look at ways in which we can genuinely uplift the majority of our people. My problem, and this is not scientific, is that that majority of rich people seem to have adopted a “stuff the poor” attitude. “As long as I am okay, I don’t really care what happens to the next person.”
This is not healthy. The rich and the poor need to co–exist in our society and probably will have to do so for many generations to come. We cannot do this if rich people say: “stuff the poor”. What if the poor decided to say: “stuff the rich”? The consequences of that could be disastrous.