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First off, I’d like to make it clear that I didn’t write the words between the two lines below.
I copied them from an article written by a very well-known British author and broadcaster. Read what he has to say – and then I’ll tell you who he is, and add a few comments of my own. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Thirty years ago in South Africa, there was white power. Then there was black power. And now there is no power.
No really. There isn’t. The electricity generating company over there has just announced that the power stations are not capable of meeting demand and there will be outages for two, three or six hours a day for at least the next seven years.
So far as I can see, no-one is asking why this has happened. Everyone suspects that it’s because the power company, since it took over the reins from De Boer Pik Racist, has been operating a policy of only employing black people. So the whites, the ones who know how to run a power station, have left the job of generating electricity to a bunch of guys who don’t know how to.
No-one’s actually saying that of course. It’s a political potato so hot that you’re going to get your fingers burned if you even whisper such a thing. And anyway, working out why the country’s run out of juice is nowhere near as important as working out what the bloody hell you can do about it.”
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OK, you’ve probably guessed it already……the guy who wrote the above excerpt was Jeremy Clarkson. And no, he didn’t write it recently either. I found it in a book entitled The Top Gear Years – and it was written and published way back in April 2008!!!
One of the reasons Clarkson is loved and hated in equal measure is because he’s completely non-PC and he doesn’t pull his punches (including when he’s hitting his Top Gear producer!). And although, as he says, the Eskom power issue is a political hot potato, his comments above are (or at least “were”) probably not far from the truth.
So how did we get to a position exactly seven years down the line from when Clarkson wrote the above, to where we still have load shedding – and there’s still no end in sight?
The ANC has been in power now (with or without Eskom power) for 21 years. Initially, under Nelson Mandela, it did a very good job – and I could then certainly understand the rationale behind Affirmative Action and Black Economic Empowerment.
But now, despite all the problems with the economy and maintaining infrastructure such as Eskom – a new set of BEE rules have just come into force – by all accounts so complex that no-one understands them.
How much longer is this going to continue? It’s the government‘s responsibility to ensure every child in the country has access to decent education and certainly, as far as I’m aware, every tertiary education institution, including UCT, has ensured for some years now that its intake is a direct reflection of its province’s and the country’s, race groups.
A whole new generation of highly competent and intelligent black youngsters has come and is coming through the system.
They’re getting jobs on their own merits – and the many I know would be highly p****d off if they felt they were getting those jobs not because of their abilities but because of their skin colour.
So why is the country’s majority race group still receiving preferential AA and BEE treatment? The bottom line is that it’s now time to start employing people purely on the basis of their abilities and qualifications, not on the basis of their race, sex or political affiliations.
Then we might ALL have power – and God knows, we all need it!
