SOUTH AFRICA HERE WE COME

 In 1995 I spent a few weeks in South Africa. It was a combined business and holiday trip that fortunately coincided with the World Cup Rugby. It was a good trip in a big and beautiful country that was very different to what I was used to. It seemed to me that South Africa had so much potential after getting rid of the oppressive apartheid supporting regime and there was a sense of hope and vitality in the people.

Unfortunately there was also rampant crime, poverty, homelessness and a lot of political uncertainty. I was shocked when visiting Soweto and seeing shanty towns where hundreds of thousands of people were crammed into living areas with insufficient sanitation and services. When in Durban, one morning I went for an early walk from the hotel, about 6AM, to go along the foreshore promenade and was astounded to see a 'shanty town' that had been set up on a kilometre long footpath where people were sleeping in tents, makeshift shelters and lying in sleeping bags. There were thousands of them. They would be all packed up by 7AM when, I guess, the council services would wash down the pavements in readiness for the tourists and RWC visitors. In Cape Town I could hardly believe the security measures being taken in shopping precincts, malls and hospitality areas where guard towers were dotted about with security staff armed with shotguns overseeing activity. This was not what I was familiar with - then.

In recent times we've seen, in New Zealand, overt homelessness (it's always been there, just not as obvious) with people sleeping on the streets in the major cities. The cost of housing and accommodation has far outstripped earnings or benefits to the point where those at the bottom have no choice but to live in caravans, cars or just in doorways. This is coupled with the poor souls who through alcoholism or mental illness have nowhere to go or no-one to support them - tossed out on to the streets since the 'improvements' in state care has closed down those 'bad mental hospital' facilities. I'm sorry to say that this is getting worse, not better.

The poverty gap has widened phenomenally in the last few years and is directly linked to the crazy increases in property valuations. This is not sustainable. In the 1950s and 1960s, at school, I rubbed shoulders with kids whose parents were wharfies, doctors, accountants, business owners, labourers, tradesmen, unemployed or on benefits. There were of course some obvious differences between them (the children of the doctors, accountants and business people for example didn't have to have after school jobs) but, by and large we all had access to most of the same things. The pivotal time of change, to me was in 1984 with the Lange Labour Government. Sure the country was bankrupt after years of irresponsible fiscal governance under Muldoon but things could have been sorted out by forgetting about the silly 'think big' fantasies. Unfortunately the Labour government had a weasel in its midst - Roger Douglas. Douglas used his position as Finance Minister to push a financial ideology he had formed over the years in opposition (known as Rogernomics) which attempted to catapult New Zealand into the world markets far too soon. For years New Zealand had been comfortably sitting outside of this and, admittedly we were a bit of a shrinking violet but the changes initiated, while on paper looking sound, were disastrous for the average, lower income earner. Douglas, like Trump and Putin, attracted a lot of greedy cronies around him who took unfair advantage of the removal of import duties, selling off of state owned assets and lifting many business restrictions. The millionaire set (now billionaires) raped and pillaged the country for years. some deservedly went to jail but many received knighthoods and adulation that frankly makes me want to spit.

A poverty gap also creates a breeding ground for crime and over the last 30 years we've seen exponential growth in crime - violent crime, fraud and computer crime, theft and destruction of property, and drug crimes. The recent development of ram-raids of shops, petrol stations and shopping centres is leading to small business owners having to give up their business or drastically cut down on their public services and set up their trading stores like fortresses with barred doors and windows. In addition we are likely to see the placement of security everywhere, not armed like in South Africa fortunately but still looking ugly and intimidating and definitely affecting our quality of life. Our policing and legal system is unable to keep up with and fix this. From one point it's a good thing that we live in a benign democracy where everyone is given a fair go under the law and extreme policing tactics are clamped down on with tribunals investigating breaches. That's all good but we've ended up with a situation where a great many people have no respect for the law or legitimate authority and, generationally are not giving proper guidance to their children. Coupled with this the bastard gangs have twigged on to the fact that underage offenders 'get away' with crimes so they are being recruited and used indiscriminately. Maybe the useless drongo parents who should be supervising their kids are being seduced by the provision of free or cheap methamphetamine (P)?

I don't know where the connection is between homelessness, the poverty gap and crime with political uncertainty is but I'm sure it's there. As the lives of many people become more shitty they need to look for someone to blame. They rarely blame themselves of course and flail out at any form of government or control that limits what they want to do. Their 'freedoms' if you will. We've seen this recently in USA with underprivileged, undereducated and reactionary red-neck Americans. - 'patriots' - have been taken in by a usurious and self serving political party headed up by the most obnoxious politician in their history. They rail against any government that wants to control their urges and doesn't pander to their fantasies of a 'Great America'. In Europe, similarly, the growth of the ultra right (Nazis if you will) has resulted from disgruntlement, dissatisfaction, income erosion and fear of immigration. In a small way we are seeing some of this in New Zealand. It's not surprising really since travel, communication  and social media platforms have created a global society.  I believe that underneath the differences of language, culture and religion most people in the world are the same. There's the same percentage split of clever and stupid people in every country. We have the same as USA, Africa, Europe , Asia and other areas but, given a population of five million we have, numerically fewer stupid people. We are lucky though in having a centrist government regardless of whether the 'left' or the 'right' are in power. The crazies who call Jacinda Ardern a communist (and the real nutters and ignorant people call her a Nazi communist) are fortunately in the minority. People like me who detested John Key and what he stands for and who sees Chris Luxon as another opportunist are also, luckily, not radical leftists. The fringe right and fringe left parties will never get a chance to infect parliament with any stupidly radical ideas regardless of the idiots who support them who aren't very numerous. Either Labour or National will steer us in a generally, if sometimes wobbly, correct direction. It's just a shame that in New Zealand, like in USA and Britain, many people don't use their vote of use it inappropriately against the interests of their personal demographics, earnings or social status.

Whew!

So what was that about?

Where I live, which is nice and quiet and usually crime free, the local service station last night was raided. Thieves smashed their way in, causing a lot of damage and stealing many things. This is the sixth time that this has happened in the last couple of years and the owners have said that they now have to think about the viability of running the business. They have security cameras but, as they say, the scrotes who do this use stolen cars. They are also, if caught, because of their youth very likely to get slapped across their wrists with a wet bus ticket.

I hope that these owners don't close the place up or sell to a corporation because if that happens it's another step towards the soullessness that is being forced on us and the feeling of shock and disappointment I felt on my trip to South Africa back in 1995.

Maybe the only winners will be the global corporations who control manufacturing, distribution, retailing, communications and entertainment.