Unequal South Africa

For those who still view South Africa's transition from apartheid as a miracle of good over evil it is unlikely that the massive strikes that have hit the public sector will evoke the rumblings of revolutionary revolt.

In fact more than a few soccer visitors who traveled here recently may even argue that the strikes betray a happy and resolved nation.

"Trickeration" I say to borrow a word from black American struggle folklore.

That show we put on for the world was at the expense of masses of people whose reality is no better now than it was under the boot of the white 'massa'.

South Africa's ruling elite grubbed from the poor and downtrodden to deceive the world and its people.

But alas, the chickens are at the gate before the roost.

The streets are full of angry and determined strikers who demand a living wage.

Public servants from teachers to nurses to the private sector guy who pumps your gas day in and day out without making a living have come to rise.

Again.

The 'new' reality is that South Africa is now the most unequal society on the face of our troubled earth.

Until at least 6 or so months ago Brazil held this dubious honour.

We managed to beat Brazil by increasing the gap between the haves and have nots in a staggering sprint of just 16 years.

And before you assume that this staggering sprint is measured by the distance between white income and black income you may want to check your wristwatch.

It is later than you think.

The dubious distinction of being the most unequal society in the world is now measured by the distance between the fat constructed black elite and the masses of black faces at the bottom of the well.

Shocked?

You should not be.

Take a casual gander at those fat asses assembled around the pots of privilege in South Africa and you will see a new breed of blackness that is at ease with its disproportionate wealth.

The fact of impoverished blackness in the shanty towns and townships are a distant reality that is narrowly invoked when the need arises to claim a greater piece of the capitalist pie.

But the masses are not fooled.

Those fat asses do not speak for the subaltern even where they wrap themselves in delusional skin affinity.

The 'new' fact of inequality was made public yesterday at a forum hosted by the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA).

To my surprise the fact fell silently and unacknowledged.

It was the kind of silence of denial. Only worse. It was the silence of complicity.

In the 16 years after the compromise that created this artificial rainbow we are compelled to acknowledge that Mandela and company did not manage a revolution.

Far from it.

They merely shepherded a petty black bourgeoisie to the trough of unprincipled greed that apartheid built on the back of the masses.

But the plot is failing.

It is failing because Mandela and company underestimated the greedy appetite of the new black elite.

Now there is a revolutionary revolt brewing far away from those soccer stadia and the fast fading halo of Nelson Mandela.

And so it should be ... because we are not free.

Onward!