When will black people attain economic power? At the moment, there is no clear-cut plan to get blacks economically empowered. Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) has failed dismally to achieve its goal. Instead, it has benefited a select few.
What is preventing blacks from being economically liberated? Reasons vary. But one of the fundamental reasons is that we don’t support each other as a black nation – meaning that we work in silos. Yet we need each other.
Additionally, we’d rather support the businesses of other nationalities than our own. As a result, other nationalities are exploiting that to their economic advantage. For instance, Pakistanis have revitalised spaza shops in the townships and are running them successfully – because we support them. On the other hand, black spaza’s have fallen flat on the ground.
The above suggests that we have confidence in other nationalities. Hence we support their businesses.
That means we have an inferiority complex. In other words, we don’t have confidence in ourselves and in each other. Steve Biko, the father of Black Consciousness, must be turning in his grave.
If we were economically empowered, we wouldn’t be having campaigns such as #FeesMustFall. And we wouldn’t be demanding free education. But because we value education but don’t have money to pay for it, we are forced to embark on such a campaign.
Many campaigns have been undertaken previously to change the mindset of blacks.
Few, if not none, have succeeded in changing our mindset. It’s interesting to note that, against this backdrop, Katlego Moeketsi from Kagiso is urging blacks to “Buy Black”. Will Moeketsi’s campaign make a difference? I hope so, but I doubt it.
It is clear that we still have a long way to go as a black nation. And that it will take us some time to become economically liberated. That means we will continue to be poor and reliant on government. But for how long? For as long as we are comfortable with the status quo.
