Across the country, people are holding protest marches and destroying property to show how angry they are with the government’s lack of “service delivery”.
Politicians should know this is what happens when you make promises you know you will be unable to keep.
When election time approaches all the politicians get out there and make extravagant promises. “Vote for us and we will give you free houses, land, and schools, and police officers to keep you safe from gangsters, and jobs for all. We will ensure the roads are smooth, the taps provide clean water and Eskom will keep your neighbourhoods brightly lit. There will be no poverty or unemployment.”
So the people voted. And waited. And when none of the promises came true, the voters naturally wanted to know why. Now they are angry. There was a time when people didn’t expect much from the politicians. People know politicians were asses. Nobody took them seriously. If they needed something they found ways of providing it themselves.
Back in the early 1930s, there were no telephone lines to the remote rural farmlands where my grandfather lived, so local farmers decided to set up their own. They bought second-hand boiler tubes from the railway workshops in Noupoort and used them as telephone poles. They erected lines for more than 40km over the rugged mountains and bought old telephones.
Their telephone system was not official, so it was not connected to the national network, but they set up a telephone in Mr Keun’s general dealer shop in Noupoort. Now they could call him and he could send somebody across to the post office to send a telegram.
Suddenly they were connected with the whole world. They could order goods to be delivered by the railway bus the following Friday. They had done it all themselves. Nobody said, “we demand”. It might have been a cumbersome communication system by today’s standard, but it worked and they were proud of it.
A similar thing happened when the farmers wanted electricity on their farms. They didn’t “demand”. They sorted themselves out. My uncle Douglas rigged up a wind-powered generator that charged a few car batteries and provided lights to his farmhouse. My father bought a 2HP Lister engine and a small generator and that gave us our lights.
The difference was that politicians were a bit more cautious (and maybe even a bit more honest) in those days. They didn’t go around making promises they couldn’t keep, so nobody had reason to protest about lack of service delivery.
If you wanted service you just went ahead and delivered it yourself, or you managed without it. Maybe it’s time we took control of our own lives again and stopped expecting others to do everything for us. Our forefathers showed it could be done.
Last Laugh
A woman went into the office of the local newspaper and said: “My husband has died. I want to place an obituary advertisement.”
“Very well, madam. What do you want it to say?” “Joe Smith has died.”
“There’s a minimum of 10 words, madam. You could add another six words at no extra cost.” “Okay. Say, ‘Joe Smith has died. Chev bakkie for sale. Low mileage’.”
* "Tavern of the Seas" is a daily column written in the Cape Argus by David Biggs. Biggs can be contacted at [email protected]
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.