Ida Skivenes puts Picasso on a plate.
It’s hard to live off R6 a day. We couldn’t grasp it properly even if we tried for one day – and we will try.
When thinking about living off R6 a day, the first question your mind asks is “What will I eat?”. We forget that the total sum of that day’s spend for people who really only have R6 a day also includes things like transport – probably impossible to do on R6 unless you walk to work.
And while many of us at the Mail & Guardian will certainly participate in our #6Rand challenge to raise awareness and spark conversation about food security, we will probably neglect to factor in that most of us got to work in a car – proving it impossible to live off R6 a day. And that is sort of the point anyway. Because it is.
No South African citizen should be deprived of nourishment that benefits not only their personal wellbeing, but the progress of this country as a whole.
Well-fed kids stay in school longer. Or rather, perform better and have less difficulties paying attention, amongst other benefits.
But with all the reasons out there about why we’re doing this, why food security is an issue that needs tabling, there are still many who don’t understand what the #6Rand challenge is.
So in an effort to help those who seem confused, I thought it best to tell you what it isn’t. Just so that you didn’t have to go through the process of elimination yourself and so that afterwards, we could agree on the importance and validity of the #6Rand challenge.
Here are six things the #6Rand challenge is not:
1. It is not an exercise in ‘pay back the money’
A lot of the general public seems to think that if President Jacob Zuma “paid back the money” for the unnecessary elements of his Nkandla home upgrades, the M&G would not be running the R6 campaign. No. We are not about to find ourselves in a desperate act of philanthropy – each spending only R6 for food on Thursday so that the rest of our usual food spend can be pooled and used to help pay back Zuma’s Nkandla debt.
2. It is not only Zuma supporters that go hungry
Our Facebook page seems to be no different from a parliamentary question and answer session. You know? The National Assembly poses a question, Zuma talks about the West (probably), or anything but the actual answer to the question.
Similarly, our commentators seem to think that they do not need to venture a guess about what “they can do” to help highlight South Africa’s food security issue. No. Instead, they feel strongly about the fact we would not be having or rather trying to have a food security conversation at all if Zuma had fewer wives and if those who went hungry could see that and refused to support him because of it.
What?
3. It is not a slap in the face of farm murders
If I read one more pre-1994/post-1994 comment in response to the #6Rand campaign, I will cut off my arm just to have something to throw.
Here is a classic example of one such comment: “Pre 94 we had enough food to feed OURSELVES and extra to import and now boers don’t have sustainable farms because of murders and being driven off their land”.
I am so sorry that the lack of apartheid has inconvenienced you. You must be starving. Have some humble pie.
4. The #6Rand campaign is not an attempt to get you to make your family starve
Maybe we weren’t clear about this because there seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding. We’re not asking you to deprive your families and have your kids go hungry so that you can give all your alms to the poor.
So the whole *raises hand and puts palm to M&G’s face in refusal to participate in #6Rand challenge* because the charity at home angle, is, well … unnecessary. And also misplaced. And it also made me LOL. Hard.
No one has to understand what it might be like. Living off R6 for just a day hardly highlights what it’s like as a permanent reality anyway.
But have the conversation. Even if it is at dinnertime, while feeding your family.
5. It is not an exercise in a discriminatory feeding scheme
A very concerned Facebook page dweller would like to know “how many white people are going to be fed as a result of the #6Rand campaign, because whites starve too”.
Brain. Can’t. Compute.
I can’t even get into that right now.
6. The #6Rand campaign is necessary because of communism
In a Facebook post as long as a book that’s so big it could be used as a doorstop during a tornado – and still be functional – a Facebook philosopher waxed lyrical about how the food security issue is a result of a communist state.
I honestly could not get through all of it but I’ll try and summarise the point the commentator was trying to make:
The user is delusional and suffers from apartheid nostalgia – a disorder so crippling that it prevents him from talking about food. Basically.