picture by Marshable
Winning Communities
By Douglas Schorr
RDP housing has been on the cards for as
long as the new government has been in. And nothing near targets have been met.
More than that, the continued unequal Geography of South Africa’s cities is
indicative of the greater crisis facing the country, which needs a far greater
solution. Cape Town International Airport is now surrounded by the ever growing
ocean of Khayelitsha’s shacks, proof of how the country has split between those
who make and bake the economy and those who, forcibly excluded, take. It’s into
that split that the nation as a whole will slide, unless something is done.
Consider This…
What if we start in the Cape’s middle class
suburb of Durbanville. On the 465 metre 6th
hole of the golf course we build a 44-storey, 22 units per floor, apartment
block. Not the standard concrete tower, instead we craft a “Boeri vertical
forest”[i],
an indigenous garden that sucks CO2 and blows out oxygen – a food producing,
bird and useful insect haven.[ii]
The lakeside common on the Welgemoed border
could house Block II, and below Table Mountain more, and more! Cape units would
draw families (mostly) from Khayelitsha. Suddenly those that work together
daily, oftentimes inside each other’s
homes, would live together too.
Poor facts
“The train of life’s there” explained my
gardener of years ago. “You know just enough to know you must catch that train!
You fight so hard, throwing off ankle chains, gathering money, hug and run but
it’s chugging away. Well-wishers exclaim “there’ll be another to Johannesburg.”
Of course you make it, the resolve is there, but the onward links north, south,
east and west at the-great-interchange-station have left … you are always one-more missed train behind.”
Radicals left and right argue there are too
many people, and something needs to be done. True, so let’s provide
opportunities, educate and train because those “too many” are here already.
Instead the government has chosen to grow more
isolated squatter camps, far away cheapo RDP housing schemes and poorly
supported “townships” (an economist’s smokescreen word) where the poorest
compete with the poorest for the only prize on offer – best poorest.
It is time to act on the notion that the IQ
of children born in the normal range in the Bell Curve changes for better or for
worse, influenced by the environmental-living conditions in which they grow.
Kids coming out of successful environments grow
into adults who are (at least) able to cope and contribute to modern living.
Poorly rounded kids don’t and it doesn’t appear to be entirely their fault.
A range of sub-quality living issues (from
diet to parental involvement) and environmental conditions (from provided facilities
to community support/cohesion) contribute to the children of poverty growing
into poverty stricken adults (physically, emotionally and mentally) unable to
engage modern economic system demands. It is this simple … 2000, 1000 even 500
years ago not a problem, but now if a community subsists outside of today’s growth
points it is lost.
As Capitalism’s drive for perpetual profit
runs out of junk to sell and credit worthy debtors (in a word; fails), more
than ever South Africa needs to develop its home market. All – not just 35% - are
needed to be fully productive wage earners and
consuming participants.
Share to live
If you live in ‘a’ Durbanville look around,
be amazed, recognise why it is so incredibly easy to be successful. A
progressive home is a giant step up but all of that learning and growth is
confirmed or rejected in the wider community.
Successful communities are supportive, enabled
by good infrastructure and facilities, filled with books, computers and
competent teachers and, being close to employment points “create” more leisure and
‘free to choose what to do’ time.
It is not a liberal ‘thing’. To move beyond
mere survival behind electrified walls, hoping the latest vaccination drive was
good, planning for a dead Rand, the non-participants have to be incorporated,
and fast. As much as apartheid saw train tickets were not issued so too the
last 23 years of ANC conforming to Western monetary and trade rules has damaged
RSA.
Bringing those from the poorer to the
better suburbs is the nation building starting point. Incoming weaker citizens are
quick to copy and look up to heroes. In a few years they will want to improve
on the copy and aspire to having their own “students”. There will always be
sweepers and managers but the gap of contribution will close, with a leap with
every generation.
If the process were reversed and the Middle
Class of Durbanville found themselves in Khayelitsha (roughly) 70% would, given
the enormity of change, fail. But by keeping the Khayelitshas over-there, comfortably
just-out-of sight, is for the Middle Class to drown slowly, anyway, as the
economic quick-sand spreads. It has to be a “work in progress” assault on
poverty. Start by making prime land pay.
It Starts With Food
With Cape Town’s golf courses given over to homes, why not let that arable land be used for what it’s good for? Instead of golf-course staff trimming, watering grass and ornamental trees, they can be retrained to run nurseries stocking not European flowers, Californian trees and Malaysian ferns but veg seedlings, compost materials and gardening tools.
France, half the size
of South Africa, population near 67 million, has 18.5 million hectares of
arable land. South Africa has 15 million[iii] and of that “High-potential arable land
comprises only 22% …”[iv]
From that tiny paddock
the Global Capitalist system pressures South Africa to export to pay their
bills and accrued interest while “one in four South Africans faces hunger”[v] and about 60% have never had regular
wholesome meals. As for RSA’s citizens of the future … well … “about 53% of
children under six live in poor households’[vi] … “The number of children with severe
stunting due to malnutrition has increased”[vii]. Reversing this is the Middle Classes’ choice.
In 6-8 weeks, on our transformed golf courses, there’ll
be spreads of red beetroot, trellises of green beans, rows of carrots, with
sweet potatoes covering the rough and cabbage in among runs of paw-paw and
guava, border strips of baby corn and fences adorned with passion fruit and
strawberries. Birds and bees and butterflies, rabbit and chicken, farmed fish
too. A great deal of the good farmland given up progressively over the last 100
years will be intensively recouped.
It was the blind
belief that private company profits come first that ushered in the taking the
best farming land and planting for private developers and private banks brick
houses. The land occupied by parliament in Cape Town and the Union Buildings
complex I’m sure were once vibrant, verdant, fruitful – useful - spots, Bloemfontein
once the grazing lands of BaFokeng livestock. This needs to change.
Train, and again train
It won’t be easy: Two generations in the
concrete world of cities means the majority of South Africans will need training,
guidance and schedules to follow on how to once again work the soil.
As the plots will produce the bread and
butter income constant follow-up will be needed. Don’t be alarmed … professional
rugby has coaches, the “Bread Basket of Africa” Rhodesian farmers (1960s) were
heavily subsidised with an entire ministry dedicated to serving them plus any
number of fertilizer, seed, water experts and equipment salesmen. Spend some to
gain a lot. What an opportunity for home economics and agricultural students to
get practical, for supermarkets to advise on reintroducing local fresh markets.
What a contribution to slowing Climate Change!
I’m not saying golf isn’t allowed. Let’s
just move the course to a place more suitable. Perhaps the dunes given up?
After all, do we have the space for the luxury of green fields for nothing but
entertainment?
Given the alternate of a nation in chaos, moving
the course elsewhere wouldn’t be costly or difficult or out of the way. The incoming
folk will give a welcome revival to Durbanville shopping complexes, boost
church attendances, hot-desk the schools, give meaning to Boy Scouts and Lions
alike, fill sports courts, greens, fields and transform the sports stadium into
what it should be – a vibrant exercise cum competition park, and the attached
hall, also virtually unused, is ideal for 24/7 adult learning classes.
We could make it work, all it would take is
common buy-in, a shared constructive attitude. The space they give over will
make a grand sea view horse racing – golfing complex, the 19th Pub
and Grub on the beach!
Nation building
People who share space don’t have to like
each other but they do develop true tolerance as they grow to understand each
other and appreciate socio-economic differences. Helping comes easier then. That’s
one benefit of, not integrated, but interconnected
class living. It is in the longer term that nation-building will (almost
automatically) happen, and the greater the acceptance now the shorter “longer
term” becomes.
Surviving in the poor areas of South Africa
requires a will to live, unity (at the same time as battling one’s neighbour
for existence), creativity and ingenuity. But figuring out how many uses for a
plastic bag or an empty tin doesn’t equip people to integrate into a modern
economy, and that is where the successful
South Africans are. But for how long? While it is no fault of those
left-behind, they, like quelea, individually non-threatening but collectively
formidable, weigh on the branches of the tree called South Africa.
A team runs as fast as its slowest member.
Building an elite team demands drawing necessary weaker partners in and up to
the standard.
The way things are has to change. “American
Imperialism makes emigration dangerous” said acquaintance Mpofu, “and South Africa is small enough, still just
cohesive enough, to begin the climb” said e-mail friend Wessels. Or adopt Burglary without Violence … that’s
my next post.
Edited by Milton Schorr
[i] https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/feb/17/forest-cities-radical-plan-china-air-pollution-stefano-boeri
[ii] Video @
https://mashable.com/2017/02/07/china-vertical-forest-smog/#DSuVFGN5fkqH
[iii] See
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Agriculture/Arable-land/Hectares
[v] At
www.voanews.com/a/malnutrition...in-south-africa/
[vi]
From
http://theconversation.com/why-child-malnutrition-is-still-a-problem-in-south-africa-22-years-into-democracy-60224
[vii]
http://www.nda.agric.za/doaDev/sideMenu/internationalTrade/docs/itrade
