The controversy seems to have died down as quickly as it started. But one is left with the niggling feeling that we are a country with deep self-esteem issues.
A case in point being the recent visit to our country by the leader of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, during which our government displayed a level of efficiency and courtesy we ordinary citizens can only dream of.
For the emir’s sojourn in the Eastern Cape, one of the country’s poorest and worst-run provinces, where service delivery moves at a snail’s pace, if at all, our government pulled out all the stops.
To make his stay comfortable the authorities resuscitated Bulembu airport, mothballed many years ago, so the visitor and his large entourage could land there.
Located in the bundu, it was specially designated an international port of entry. The police provided protection services. Even the normally staid South African Revenue Service climbed aboard and presented its officials.
The sheikh, described later by Presidency minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni as “a prestigious guest”, reportedly shelled out some R20m for the airport’s refurbishment.
At a media conference to quell public unease over the visit, Ntshavheni deplored “a range of insinuations” of something untoward having happened.
She warned South Africans not to “jump to the worst conclusions about our country” or government. But in her heart of hearts, she would surely know where such public scepticism comes from.
Even if we accept official claims that the visit was, in some tenuous way, in the interests of promoting tourism and trade, the question is whether we will in future fall over ourselves to please any wealthy person who just hints at possibly investing here.
And it does, by the way, stick in the throat that we went to all these lengths for the president of a country that gave us the run around, treating us with absolute disdain, when we asked them to return the Guptas to face justice for their state capture activities. Much better if he had brought the fugitives with him.
The silver lining in all of this is that the portfolio committee on home affairs has asked the relevant minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, for more details of how home affairs smoothed the way for the UAE entourage.
The MPs, not wanting to take things at face value, asked Motsoaledi to appear before them — which is as it should be in such matters.
But the more fundamental issue is about our own self-respect as a country, and our stewardship of it. Not just for today, but for future generations as well.
It relates to who gets to own or buy land and property in South Africa and who benefits from the resources with which we are so well endowed.
While we all should be supportive of efforts to attract foreign investment, we should also be concerned about its medium- and long-term impact. Take for instance mining. Will investments in that sector, even if they generate taxes for the government today, leave the country and its people worse off or better off in the long run?
Will they leave us with a much-improved quality of life for all South Africans? Or will the benefit accrue to the elite few, leaving future generations with the mine dumps and acid water of Gauteng, or the Big Hole in Kimberley?
The fundamental issue is about our own self-respect as a country, and our stewardship of it
Recently, the Botswana government, which is in a long-standing diamond mining venture with De Beers, demanded the right to sell a bigger share of stones produced by the partnership, leading to speculation that the deal may be on the rocks.
A friend asked why the South African state does not have similar arrangements with companies extracting our mineral resources, and is seemingly content to play the passive licensor and tax collector.
We could ask similar questions about private land and property ownership, where there is an acquisition free-for-all, with everything going to the highest bidder while most South Africans battle to scrape together enough money to build a simple shack.
Because of our laissez faire approach to such matters, could South Africans seeking to rent accommodation in future have a foreign owner as a landlord? An owner who may have acquired wealth and property through privilege or criminal activity?
Writing after the enactment of the 1913 Land Act, which liquidated black South Africans’ land rights, Sol Plaatje, a political and intellectual leading light of the time, famously decried the turning of black people into, in his words, pariahs in the land of their birth.
Most South Africans, particularly the poor, thought that 1994 would be the great game changer. That it would mark the opening of equal opportunities and a much better life in a land that is, after all, our collective heritage.
That heritage is more than the spectacle we routinely put up every year on September 24, of dancing in animal skins and doing the sakkie-sakkie.
It is a heritage that includes the mineral wealth below the ground, presenting us with the challenge of how it should be exploited for the benefit of all citizens, not an elite minority of whatever colour.
Specifically, it speaks to our responsibility to manage properly the country and its resources, instead of selling them to the highest bidder for short-term gain.
Our stewardship of the country must show care and forethought, so as to leave it a better, not worse, place for future generations. To ensure that the majority are not again turned into pariahs in their own country. If the government has lost its conscience, we must be it.
We are all for development and foreign investment, and all the good prospects that come with that. But flogging the country’s assets and turning it into a playground for moneyed foreigners is too high a price to pay — even if they have oil wells in their backyard.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.