To Clicks or Not to Clicks - That is the Question?

This morning I read of someone believing the Clicks saga is not the issue, but rather white racism. And it made me think…

You see racism in the world and obviously in South Africa is abhorrent. So is poverty and the plight of those who have limited life chances. But there is something even more cynical that obscure these realities and that is the responses of people to it. On the one hand, you have what I call the “town criers” who brand themselves as pronouncers of the injustices in our society (they usually argue that it is because of white privilege and the legacy of apartheid). 

They are mostly white males themselves and are trying to find a niche in the extremely competitive world of real debate and exchange of ideas. They are notably defensive when they must entertain balanced and considered alternative arguments, their motives are spurious at best, and at worst it just creates apathy in a country where everybody should contribute to a better future.

Then there are those such as the EFF who are brazen in their constant attempts to leverage incidents such as Clicks as an opportunity to score political points and create chaos. I worked on a project for Sasol in 2019, in that beautiful building in Sandton (the one that looks like the Starship Enterprise). On each floor, they have a wonderful coffee shop for staff, where you can eat your breakfast get real good coffee for free etc. And when you sit there in the early morning you look over to the Inanda Club with the green (even in winter) polo field. Around it is a track where the ponies are exercised in the mornings. They are usually covered with warm blankets and even their ankles are wrapped. They are first walked and later, to warm them up, the riders on horses will slowly canter around the track. On the cold winter mornings, the horses will blow mist through their noses and you would think it is a morning at some royal stables in England. Sometimes you will see a helicopter landing and people getting out seemingly to have breakfast.

This is the Club that the high commander of the EFF frequents. Where he takes his friends, enjoy whatever he drinks. But the irony is somehow lost on him that the horses on those cold winter mornings are being warmed up, not for the millionaires, but rather billionaires (overwhelmingly white men) who will play a game in the afternoons. And the people doing it for them are black men who will never eat breakfast or sip a drink in that same Club.

You see the real question here should be: Where were they when a child with disabilities was shot dead in a township. Where were they when the child in Diepsloot was raped, where a mother had to sell food next to that potholed road, and the children play in the garbage that isn’t being cleaned up by the bankrupt local authority?

You see for them, it is not about the Clicks advert, it is about personal gain, expediency!