Great Depression

South Africa has an unemployment rate of 27%. The US & UK are at about 5%. There is currently discussion of a minimum wage of R3,500 a month. Half the population earn less than that, i.e. less than $250/£200 a month. South Africa has 89 countries after it on the list of GDP/capita. Even that figure is a half truth, Equatorial Guinea is the "richest" African country on that measure, richer than the UK and France, but less than half the population have access to improved drinking water. That boils down to income distribution. South Africa and neighbouring Namibia are both on the podium for Income Inequality.

National Income Inequality

Global Income Inequality

I grew up in a bubble. I didn't feel wealthy at all. In my world, I wasn't. Having that bubble pricked by the end of Apartheid opened my eyes to relative thinking. An unemployment rate of more than 1 in every 4 people is a permanent Great Depression. The emotional scars that contributed to the start of WWII through financial disempowerment. It is so intense that many visitors can not cope. So bubbles of prosperity continue. Otherwise they see living next to poverty as the ultimate hypocrisy. The problem is you can't ignore Cape Town by leaving it.

I agree that we need to focus our efforts where we have the best understanding, and that is locally. I learnt, by visiting the United States and Canada, and by living in the United Kingdom that poverty does exist in rich countries. There are mountains to climb, even once there is enough money in creating the kind of world we want to live in. That work can't stop while focus shifts to distant parts of the world.

That said, a lot of perspective can be gained in detaching from what is enough relatively, and thinking of what is enough absolutely. Nothing kills happiness quite like comparison. Nothing kills people quite like war, disease & starvation.

Liberia

During and after the abolition of slavery, there was the question of whether the free wanted to 'return' from where they had come. Although we are tied emotionally to land, we have always been wanderers. Sometimes moving by force, sometimes by choice. Liberia, Africa's oldest republic, began as a settlement of the American Colonization Society. Repatriating freed slaves. Sending the problem away? Many Europeans came to America as refugees from Europe's conflicts. Ireland's great famine, the Nordic famines and European Wars of Religion a few examples. Today's Syrians of yesterday would have headed elsewhere if it weren't for Global Apartheid. 'Repatriation' is a weird idea if we are all Global Citizens. Like Ethiopia, Liberia maintained it's independence during the European Colonial era in Africa. It didn't manage to avoid the Independence and Civil Wars that plagued the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia. The last war ended in 2003 and 85% of the population live below the international poverty line of $1.25 per day.

Global Poverty

The Establishment

Trump is our fault. It is easy to point fingers, but we have let ourselves down in the way we fight for what we believe in. Without stepping back, it is very easy to lose perspective. To hop from fire to fire. To get irritated, angry, bitter and twisted. To rage against the machine. Some people are pushing back. Obama gave a great speech defending the status quo. Defending 'The Establishment'. Not as a destination, but as a journey. See Jonathan Chait's summary of the argument in the New York magazine. Also look at Will Wilkinson's take on 'The Great Enrichment'. We change from where we are. We progress by listening to people we disagree with. If we shut people down, we get trumped. Trump is so blatantly, obviously, clearly wrong... you don't beat him by pointing that out. You let the hot air out of him by listening better. America is greater than it has ever been. The world is making big strides in sorting out our issues. It is messy, bumpy, difficult and exciting. Let's crack on, together.

Lady Liberty's Clouded Justice (by Phenyo Molefe)

Guest Post

I met Phenyo through a mutual friend at a bar in Putney a few years ago. If we had met at university, we would probably be great buddies. It was one of the uni day type beers where we got straight into talk about solving the world's great injustices. Once we start work, we barely have time to maintain friendships, let alone start new ones. The great thing about social media is you can stay semi in touch. You can still share ideas and hope that at some stage we get to free our heads to dream the great dreams of our early twenties again. For that to happen we need space to breathe. 

Phenyo and our mutual buddy Lance

Lady Liberty’s Clouded Justice

by Phenyo Molefe

As Walter Scott was laid to rest on the 12 April 2015, we were left pondering the realities that have pierced America’s dream and being.  It remains that America’s racial and social transformation process is far from over and still carries upon its shoulders intractable impediments to progress.  

The torrents of news of unarmed black men being savagely beaten and shot have increasingly been relayed to the world over the last few years.  These acts have been punctuated by the ruthless exploits which we have seen replayed across all our screens. The undeniable impact of watching an unarmed man helplessly run for his life, seemingly the subject of a merciless hunting expedition, still remains.  The hail of gun fire which ripped through his body five times as his misplaced strides proved incapable of escaping the bloodied hands of ‘justice’.  

Michael Slager performed his duties in stopping Walter Scott for a broken tail light but the latter course action he served is indefensible. Walter Scott should not have fled the scene and I cannot give an accounting of the fear and thought process he engaged in.  However I am even more perplexed by the beliefs and thought processes that Slager engage in. It seemingly entitled him to end Scott’s life, in a manner which articulated a scene from Brooklyn’s Finest. If Walter Scott and Michael Slager have had no prior engagements, what prejudice aggravated him to completely disregard the law with such lethal force?  Even the bizarre act of handcuffing a dying man gasping for air permeates from the stores of detestation veiled and woven into certain layers of society.

This event extends itself beyond a mere case of excessive force. What sort of protocol affords police the right and privilege to respond in the manner which we have seen across countless cases, especially those pertaining to black people.  It is by no means easy to fulfil the duties tasked to police officers throughout the US.  It is further reason that they should undergo thorough training and qualification to execute the difficult duty prescribed to them.  Michael Slager is not the problem; he is a manifestation of a problem rooted far deeper in the tapestry of America’s history and making. A problem many prefer to overlook in the hopes that the magic of future generations and economic advancement will unearth and solve in its own time.

Convicting Michael Slager of murder and sending him to the gallows of mortality’s waiting room is not going erase the imperfections that rip through the American dream and the illusions of justice for all.  We will continue to be faced with manifestations such as that noted above. All spectrums of American’s making will be affected until we gather the testicular fortitude to admit to the reality of the challenges at hand and are prepared to usher in agents of reconciliation and reform.

How can we look to Lady Liberty to grant us justice when the very fabrics of her white robe are soiled by the fresh blood of innocent lives; while she stands upon the corpses of trampled souls from a past yet to be reconciled.  America’s task is not easy.  She has made countless advances for her people and the rest of mankind but she has yet to find healing from her fractured past, solutions for a better integrated society throughout her lands, a society willing to heal, conscious of its connected roots.

 Three photos from the Martin Luther King Memorial