OPINION: In almost 30 years of ‘freedom’, liberation from oppression, we have not managed to get ONE thing right. Everything has crumbled, everything is falling apart, writes Lance Fredericks.
MY OFFICE is a mess. My desk is cluttered, my shelves are in disarray and if you were brave enough and would dare to venture to open up one of my desk’s drawers, you’d better hope that you have a strong heart.
Strangely enough, I know where – more or less – everything is when I need something. My highlighters are in the region of my left forearm, under some papers. Paper clips are in the drawer to my right … but you may have to move some things to get to them.
Fountain pens? That’s easy. They are everywhere. I love using a fountain pen, so there’s bound to be one close by … somewhere. I think.
So why would I believe that my disorganised desk is worth mentioning? I mean, who would have the slightest interest in that? Maybe a camel confined in a city zoo that needs to feel sand under his feet as he treks across the dust that’s collected on my desk? Maybe.
But maybe thinking about my desk just made me realise that I am being somewhat – not much, but a little bit – of a hypocrite. You know the old saying about a speck in someone’s eye and a log in your own?
For years now I have been moaning, griping, complaining and criticising; going on about the state of our city; the litter, the lack of maintenance, the illegal dumping, the fact that it seems to be acceptable for someone to sprinkle ‘bladder juice’ wherever and whenever he pleases.
Our little city, and a few in the country I have visited of late, are in a shocking, disgusting, repulsive state. How long before there’s an outbreak of some pathogen is anyone’s guess. It’s almost a case of not “if” but “when”.
I drove up from Kimberley to Pretoria about a week ago. I stopped in Wolmaransstad at a service station I used to visit quite regularly. However, over time the condition of the restroom had not only deteriorated, it had plummeted. I had to hold my breath as I evacuated the bladder juice from my body – the place, though moderately clean, smelled like old bladder juice.
And when you consider using hand sanitiser instead of soap and water at the basin after using a restroom, there’s a problem.
Now comes a slight twist …
After stopping over in Pretoria for a day and a bit, I hopped on board an airbus and winged my way out of the country. Yes, this column this week has an international flavour. You’ll taste it soon.
After a cramped eight-hour flight in economy class, getting to Hamad International Airport in Doha was refreshing. And HOW refreshing. The airport and duty-free shopping areas are extravagant. But besides the obvious difference money can make, the airport is spotless, and you have to consider that the entire complex spans 22 square kilometres and the terminal itself is 600,000 sqaure metres in size. But get this, that terminal currently serves around 30 million passengers per year.
Do the math; that’s roughly 25 million people every month, which translates into over 833,000 people a day. I could break it down further, but the point I am trying to make is that with THAT kind of traffic, and many of those people using the restrooms, the condition of the toilets is incredible. And when I say “incredible”, I mean incredibly good.
So correct me if I am wrong … does that mean that Kimberley, at 164.3 km², is just under three times the size of the airport terminal in Qatar? Could that be right?
At this point I am also willing to bet that we don’t see 833,000 people bustling through our city on a daily basis. I mean, our total population is just over 500,000.
I am mentioning all this because I am trying to figure out how 833,000 people a day, that’s 25 million a month, from many (that’s MANY) different countries can litter less than a city full of residents.
Surely it can’t just be because of money. There has to be something else.
The way I see it, my office desk looks like Chernobyl because I am failing in my duty of keeping it tidy. Don’t get me wrong, once every few weeks I go in and make that work area spick and span, but I have, over time, trained myself, developed and honed habits of sloth and untidiness and that is why the desk will never be clean for more than a day or two.
And something like that, I imagine, is happening in the former Diamond City … habits of sloth and untidiness have been embraced and entrenched.
I mean, for one thing – just as an example – could we all agree that the almost 30-year experiment claiming that littering is good because it is a form of job creation is a pile of literal rubbish?
Another thing, here we are blaming and pointing fingers at people “in charge” who are not keeping the city clean – and yes, I have said this a few times before – but the residents themselves, WE are not doing our bit to keep the city clean.
We cannot claim that it cannot be done, that it’s impossible to stop people from dropping litter any and everywhere. Do you know why I say this? Go to a mall and see how many papers are lying around.
Not much litter is there? Do you know why? Yes, there are cleaners on duty, but there’s something else … In a mall, have you noticed that it’s frowned upon to just drop litter or sprinkle bladder juice anywhere you like?
No, in malls there are rules, and if rules are broken there are consequences.
Now imagine a city, and dare I say it, a country, with rules about what’s right … and consequences for doing wrong. I am finding it very, very hard to imagine that anymore, I have to be honest.
It’s really frustrating; here I once again took up space in a newspaper – quite a bit of space – complaining about ONE thing, litter. But besides litter there is load shedding, potholes, water cuts, sewage leaks, sewage lakes, drug problems … the list just goes on and on and on.
In almost 30 years of ‘freedom’, liberation from oppression, we have not managed to get ONE thing right. Everything has crumbled, everything is falling apart.
What’s to be done? Can this still be turned around or is it simply too late?
Eish … I hope not.
I guess to stop the rot, what I need to do when I get home again is roll up my sleeves, clear off my desk and make a commitment to keep it clean.
I suppose what I am saying is that we have to start somewhere, no matter how seemingly insignificant the start. Because if we don’t start somewhere, with something small …
You know.
