Let them eat sushi

The current brouhaha about Kenny Kunene and his (probable) preference for hot women and sushi is another example of the narrow and sensationalist reporting and debate that plagues so much of our discourse.

I personally do not give a rat’s ass where and how Kunene likes his raw fish and seaweed served. If he is not breaking any laws, he can knock himself out.

I do understand the consternation in so far as it relates to such profligate ways in a country with massive poverty and its attendant ills. However, that is no stick with which to beat Kunene. Personalising a debate in such a manner always suggests to me that there are other motives at play. That his lavish lifestyle is being painted as being inextricably linked with a political party sets off alarm bells in my mind.

The fact is ZAR and the likes of Kunene are nothing new in our country. For the longest time, you could easily find expensive bars/restaurants and clubs in South Africa. They were there and the rich frequented them. Understandably so too, given their obvious desire to not have poverty stare them in the face as they reap the rewards of their efforts/fortune/opportunity/corruption. If you had enough money, you could buy Chivas, a Rolex and a Porsche, even during the height of the sanctions era.

From five-star establishments to the booming markets for expensive liquors, golf estates and expensive cars, South Africa is a nation where the wealthy have always sought to live the finest life they could. And they were never shy about it. It just seems to me it is very convenient to suddenly fake an outrage at excess as if it is a new thing. I doubt it is even new for political figures to hobnob with businesspeople over whiskies old enough to be legally emancipated. I dare say one could argue that there was an agenda, regardless of whether one actually exists or not, the evidence is persuasive enough.

When property mogul Sol Kerzner opened his One and Only establishment in Cape Town, it was rightly seen as a wily entrepreneur capitalising on a legitimate business opportunity. There were no howls of inappropriate ostentatious lavishness in the face of the poor of Khayelitsha and Langa then. Rightly so. So why treat ZAR differently? If Julius Malema chose to spend a weekend at the One and Only or one of the Hilton hotels, would that mark the establishments as symbols of indifference to the poor?

Is Julius really off the mark when he points out that black businessmen owning such establishments in formerly white-only enclaves is a development (however indirect) of the new dispensation. Show me a black-owned club in Sandton in 1985, please.

If we are to have a debate or outrage at excess in a country riddled with poverty, let’s not taint it with a narrow focus on the subjects of our own irrational prejudice and envy. Though of course, being South Africans, we sure do love our mudslinging. I am waiting for someone to discuss how Kunene’s (likely) expensive underwear is responsible for the disenchantment of the poor.

There is, I propose, a more valid argument to be raised over the health hazards of eating raw food off human skin anyway.

If anything, the only reason Kunene’s actions are more likely to increase disenchantment among the disenfranchised, is the level of publicity and manufactured scorn about him. I’ll let you suss out the chickens and eggs there.

This blog first appeared on NewsTime

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