There was once an advertisement by South Africa’s intelligence services. It was the first and the last one I’ve seen from them. It punted some of their achievements, including silencing the violence linked to Pagad. Their punch-line was that people notice when things go wrong. I found that true as we as people tend to notice and criticize when things are going wrong. It is easy to take what is good for granted and not worth commenting on. I guess, that’s why the loudest voices are those who are not happy. Allow me to do something different and comment on what is good.
One of my favorite songs is that of Baby Face “Simple Days”. I find myself responding when he mentions that they were a struggling family of nine that shared a four roomed house. I would silently respond that we were about seventeen people sharing a three roomed house at 147, Matakata Street in Mbekweni. One would wonder how can that happen. I can tell you that every room became a bedroom at night. There were many people sleeping on the floors in my grandparents’ bedroom, sitting room and the kitchen. I guess even with that situation that house would not have been able to cope if there were not one or two family-back yard shacks to accommodate the overflow.
This situation pertained until my mother moved to get a two roomed shack in another family’s back yard. This was shared by four people. You should see by now that I had to wait until I was at university to have a room of my own. My situation was in no way unique in Mbekweni. Many families experienced dire lack of housing and as a result privacy. Far from complaining about how bad the past was, this column is about appreciating the present and the improvement it has brought.
Former President Nelson Mandela once defined service delivery by making an example of houses, he said we should be able to point and say there is a house in an area that did not previously have one. We argue a lot about a better life without dis-aggregating. I have many family members who are unemployed or are suffering one misfortune or another. I understand that there are things that the government could have done better. I am angry about a number of things. I however believe it is not true to argue that nothing has changed in this country. It is seriously stretching the truth to say the past was better than the present, at least not for black people.
I am using the question of housing as an example and I choose an example of ordinary folk in the township of Mbekweni, a place with which I have been associated with for just over forty years. When you get into Mbekweni you see a lot of house that were not previously there. I have had heard people from many townships commenting about the number and quality of houses that were built in Mbekweni. I personally did not receive a government subsidized house and yet I look around me and I see the difference.
My mother have her own house, her three sisters also have their own houses and one still have to occupy her “RDP” house. There are still shacks at number 147 but they are not borne out of a desperate situation as before. Some are accommodating people who are not family and, in a case of one, used as a store room. Beyond my family, I see people that I grew up with having their own houses in the township.
The previous Councils of Drakenstein enthusiastically participated in changing the face of my home township. I can now state this fact without being accused of trying to get the former Mayor elected, as the local government elections are long gone and the next ones still far-off.
It is only when we dis-aggregate that we will start appreciating how far we have come from. It is when looking at concrete examples of people’s lives that we can be able to draw conclusions on whether we are moving forward or backward. The lives of those from number 147 have been bettered in as far as housing is concerned.
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