Last week, in the middle of one of those frustrating blackout traffic jams, we heard sirens screaming along Jan Smuts Avenue. No, it wasn’t an ambulance trying to get to hospital, but another black convoy with blue lights forcing its way through gridlocked traffic.
It probably carried a minister or an unknown provincial minister. The convoy was symbolic of all that’s wrong with VIP culture. Here the ordinary people were, sweating through a crisis generated by a government without foresight. And the VIP felt none of this as the convoy bullied its way through.
VIP culture and all its governance bling (convoys, sirens, queue-jumping, holding up aeroplanes) is the antithesis of the peoples’ government we are supposed to have. It is vulgar, creates massive social distance and it’s all too common. It’s time to expose it. Please write to [email protected] with examples of governing bling, such as the one below.
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The minister and the plane queue
Craig Irving recently returned to Cape Town after five years in Sydney and describes himself as ”intensely uncomfortable with the comfort of First World affluence”. The full version of his article below was published on the Mail & Guardian Online’s Thought Leader
Early one recent morning I was milling around the back of a plane queue in Cape Town, stretching from the boarding steps and along the tarmac.
First I had been irritated by the arrival of a big, fat, silver-blue BMW with a department of home affairs sticker on the door. A large ”minister” emerged, parted the queue and boarded the plane as though no another person existed.
What is it about leaders who need to display their leadership materially? It should be written in our Constitution that leaders and MPs drive honest and more fuel-efficient cars; the money saved should be spent on housing, sensible future energy strategies or perhaps education planning.
Then I noticed a short, elderly gentleman at the back of the queue. He was stone-cold last, modestly reading his Cape Times. I felt I knew him … And then I realised I was looking at Kader Asmal. The Kader Asmal, standing as an ordinary person right at the back of this long, static SAA line.
Here was a 74-year-old man who had fought for our peace, crafted our democracy, a central figure in the miracle that is South Africa — a person who had earned, if anyone had, the right to go to the front of the queue. But he was quietly standing at the back.
I was moved to walk up to him, acknowledge him and thank him for all he had done for our country, for his time in prison, for his patience, for his dedication and for his leadership. And for the humility to stand at the back of the queue.
Just then the BMW revved its engine and drove straight at us, indicating that we should make way. Both of us did.
I hope that our beautiful country once again breeds leaders who are willing to stand at the back of the queue.
I did ask Asmal what car he drives — it’s a Toyota Corolla. Maybe this is the class of vehicle that should become mandatory in South African ministerial leadership training?
Readers respond
Whatever happened to the meaning of ”servant” in ”civil servant”? — Ali
It is all about class. The apparatchik in the BMW clearly has none, while Kader Asmal has plenty and is a man to be admired by all South Africans. — Anton Kleinschmidt
Nice to notice the difference between positional power and personal power so well demonstrated. — George
Isn’t Asmal an ANC politician? Does he care? Do any of them really care? — Lyndall Beddy
I lived in Tanzania, where you can be deported for obstructing a government cavalcade … I wonder what would have happened if you had not moved out of the lout’s way on the runway? — Lynnedt
I think that if it is a high-ranking member who needs to execute some important duties, it is his or her privilege to do so, but some other lowly individuals need to explain why they need a high-speed convoy. — Mandrake