I have been a regular reader of your newspaper since it began and many are the pages from it which have been stapled to the walls of my multicultural classrooms. You consistently present alternative positions to generate debate and discussion.
Over time, though, questions arise for which we don’t appear to be able to find a coherent argument presented as an answer. Today’s students are encouraged to be more critical than in the past and some of their questions floor me and others whom I ask.
So below are 30 of the most tricky questions arising from current events which I have failed to field. I don’t like to lie to my students – it is embarrassing when they catch me out, and with outcomes-based education they are supposed to catch me out. So we sharpened them up to exactly what it was we wanted to know and sent them to you, as this country’s foremost journal.
We originally thought they could go into Notes & Queries (which goes up on the wall each week). But maybe you could publish the whole lot at once, since we are in the “silly season”, and they are the questions of youths who are, frankly, becoming cynical about their leaders. “To lie like a politician” has become a regular response to questions calling for examples of similes.
1 We regularly read that our country has a “free market economy”. If South Africa has a free economy, how come my dad can’t discount his mortgage with a cheap loan from, say, a German bank, and buy me a computer with the money he saves every month?
2 If “free” means the absence of restraint and my dad is not allowed to follow the suggestion in the first question, then we are obviously not free, so then what kind of an economy are we?
3 We have read all the arguments in the daily press and we still don’t understand how it benefits our country to have our biggest companies go and get bigger in another country. Why is it that only South Africa’s mega- businesses see fit to relocate to London and New York? If the “spin” put out by everyone in the media is correct, how come the mega-businesses of Taiwan, South Korea or Brazil are not doing the same thing? Or are they and no one has told us?
4 Is it true that no one can force me to stay at school after grade nine, once I have my new school-leaving certificate, not even my parents?
5 Earlier this year we were being strangled by usurious interest rates; then we were garroted to the point where we were happy to go back to straight extortion. Now we read that things will be better next year. What is going to change to make this possible?
6 What would happen if the government or Reserve Bank were to drop interest rates to 10% (assuming they could do this)?
7 Are there any legal restraints another country could impose on us to prevent the above?
8 If the African National Congress is a socialist party, how come it allowed the existence of (and sometimes panders to) a “House of Lords” (the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa) who is paid huge amounts of the taxpayer’s money due to a “right of birth”?
9 Does the existence of this council of chiefs mean that the Constitution is lying when it says that all citizens are equal?
10 British Prime Minister Tony Blair is also a socialist and he is about to throw out the House of Lords on the reasonable grounds that in a democracy no one’s right may be greater than another’s. Does this mean that the ANC is not a socialist government? If not, what kind of government is it?
11 We can’t comprehend how we are going to spend R39-billion in such a way that not only are we going to get some fancy toys, but the sellers are going to pay us three times more than we spend, just for being kind enough to be their customers. Is this correct? How does it work?
12 Will we all be able to do this at Checkers?
13 We are regularly told now that the ANC wants a two-thirds majority to make changes to the Constitution. Specifically, what changes does the ANC envisage it would make?
14 Would one of those changes involve eliminating the anti-egalitarian rights of hereditary chiefs? If not, why not?
15 How come if I channel surf between the news channels do I hear so many identical news broadcasts?
16 Why does the fact that murder has always been a way of life in the townships imply that now that we are liberated it should somehow be okay?
17 We keep reading articles announcing huge profits and vast sums being spent on all sorts of projects. How come, in spite of this, the economy is shrinking and jobs are vanishing?
18 How come, when I am sitting outside Picasso’s in Rosebank, I see so many old cars?
19 If the number of new cars being sold each year is roughly equal to the number being stolen, could it be said that the motor industry has developed a vested interest in motor vehicle crime?
20 How will we know that the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC)has registered the number of voters which it says it has?
21 If all the provincial education ministries are claiming that salaries eat up 90%of their budgets, and the IEC used free labour to man the tables during registration, then on what did they spend R350-million (or whatever it finally was)?
22 How many houses have actually been built since 1994? What percentage is that of the one million intended?
23 How come the accusation of subliminal racist attitudes in the press is considered reasonable justification for a witch-hunt, while the same subliminal accusation is deemed not to apply to the murder of farmers?
24 What do all the various opposition parties stand for as opposed to against?
25 How would these “for” agendas (if they exist) differ from that of the ruling party?
26 On an old-fashioned scale of neo- Nazi to neo-communist, or even anarcho- syndicalist, where do the political inclinations of the role-players in the recent Lesotho business fit in?
27 When the ruling party spreads rights across the spectrum of interest groups, from landed elites and business blue bloods to the proletariat, labour unions and the unemployed, what reason would there be to vote for anyone else?
28 Who else is there?
29 a)In such a political environment, can those political parties which base their existence on opposing be described as anything more than useful bookends propping up the uncontainable?
b) If such bookends were removed somehow, what would the probable lifespan be of the centre party?
30 The object of the Employment Equity Act, we understand, is (among other things) to facilitate fair hiring practices. Given that there are an alleged three jobs per 100 matriculants and only 8%of them are white, and that four white males are (de jure) eliminated from that 100, then 96 people are all now (de facto) chasing three jobs. In order not to fall foul of the Act:
a) How can we distinguish between those who were comprehensively disadvantaged under apartheid and, for instance, those homeland apparatchiks who benefited through their collaboration with the former regime (and may be described as “less formerly disadvantaged”)?
b) Could a “formerly comprehensively disadvantaged” wannabe competitor in a professional soccer team sue for discrimination if he felt that the team was being loaded with players from “formerly less disadvantaged” wannabe competitors and he could somehow prove this?
c) For the Act to actually work, would it not be necessary for every vacancy, occurring any time and anywhere in the greater South African economy, to be transparently advertised?
d) How could this be achieved, and does it mean that employing through old-boy networks or in-house promotion or agents or head-hunters is (or would be) technically illegal?
A merry Christmas to all who sail with your majestic ship. -Nicholas Williamson