BEGGARS are the bane of most peoples’ lives, it seems (based on our letters-to-the-editor page).
Let’s face it, the South Coast has more than its fair share, but we are not alone. Google ‘beggar’ and you will get the picture.
There are books, blogs, stories and quotes galore… going back through the ages.
Perhaps the one quote that sums it up nicely comes from Friedrich Nietsche: “Beggars should be entirely abolished! Truly, it is annoying to give to them and annoying not to give to them.”
When you pull up at a traffic light, do you pretend not to notice them and just stare ahead sternly? Do you smile sympathetically, shake your head and mouth ‘sorry’? Do you hang back and put your foot down when the light turns green? (Whatever you do, don’t dare to pretend that you are speaking on your cellphone. You might just get cut off rather abruptly.)
Oh the guilt! But it’s just economically impossible for most of us to give to every ‘unfortunate’ who shakes a plastic cup at us at a traffic light.
Or… is it?
One of South Africa’s best know bloggers (and a personal favourite), Sarah Britten, has decided to do her own little experiment and give money to every beggar she comes across at a traffic light. She lives in Johannesburg, so one might assume she will be skint by the end of the month. But, already a good few weeks into the experiment, she is only R800 out-of-pocket.
(Google Sarah Britten – PhD – and you can follow her crusade yourself. Although Barry Ronge once described her as ‘Hitler with tits’, the rather good-looking doctor in Applied English Language Studies (also famed for ‘lipstick art’) is a highly acclaimed writer and communications strategist. Her thesis was: “One Nation, One Beer: Mythology of the new South African advertising”. Through my company, Caxton, I happen to be working closely with her at the moment to promote Rotary Health Days countrywide.)
The truth is that nobody, nobody starts off in life aspiring to become a beggar. But it’s a problem that will grow as our economy declines and joblessness increases at an an alarming rate. Adding to the dilemma, Durban has been known to round up its ‘vagrants’ and merely dump them on us.
At the risk of being a ‘copycat’, I’ve decided to take Sarah’s lead and give R5 to every beggar I come across at a traffic light for a month. The results will be revealed in the September 24 edition of the Herald.
(To my golfing buddies, please forgive my ‘deep pockets’ when it’s my turn to buy a round.)
