I worked in a factory, alongside workers of all races during the height of apartheid (1980s). Maybe some hated their jobs, but many did not. Some gave up the teaching profession to work in the two Pretoria factories of this company. Productivity was as high as in factories in the European country where this multinational had its headquarters. Working conditions were as good as anywhere in Western Europe. Actually, that factory had, at one time, the shortest turn around time in the world for board repairs, shorter than factories in the USA or Taiwan producing the same/similar boards. Alas, the rapid reduction in trade tariffs under the new govt, removal of local content provisions and the lack of new incentives resulted in these factories closing down and the workers becoming unemployed.
Black mineworkers set world records in shaft sinking during the apartheid years. Black workers from a Rembrandt factory in SA apparently went to Germany to show workers there how to optimally operate cigarette making machines.
Around 1997/8 (admittedly, a few years after the new govt came into power) black workers at Samsung’s consumer electronics factory in Mogwase were able to make a TV set using manual labour at lower cost than the Koreans could in highly automated factories in Korea.
Productivity and Quality start at the top, in a factory. If people complain about SA factory workers (many industry “experts” claim SA factory workers are unproductive) , they should direct their criticism at factory management, not the working class.

Currently any wealth we have is the result of past labour, albeit that whites made blacks labour and enjoyed the fruits, the fruits are still the result of labour.

We have a high unemployment rate, which means almost half of the national capacity is not productively engaged. Half of the other half are in a crazed feast of consumption, as witnessed by out of control consumer spending and widening trade deficit….in short most of the nation are sitting around the fire, feasting and drinking and dancing, and enjoying the spoils of war — no one is out planting, collecting water, wood…….so how long can the fire burn?

Mbeki has tirelessly laboured at keeping the milk and honey flowing to the feast, but he has not been able to keep up with the gluttonous demands of an out of control appetite.

We need policies, which get people to work, into manufacturing or producing provisions for ourselves firstly. In time we can expand that productive activity to cater beyond our borders.

Those policies need to create an environment in which people want to be be productive, where wages are realistic for both employer and employee, and relative to the capacity of our land.

Apartheid has created a hatred of work, because work brought no rewards to the workers…….the true revolution is to shake off that constraint, to develop incentives for people to work, and be rewarded, while at the same time bringing expectations of what the reward should be – back down to earth. We are a poor country and we should be prepared at first to work hard for minimal reward, and then from that platform to increase the reward as our collective wealth increases.

We cannot afford luxury, we need work, and millions want to work but cannot. Poor service delivery is just one indicator that there is capacity for more workers to be taken up in the economy, it just means channeling money away from redistribution, and consumptive efforts.

The best spend is to pay salaries, so that all can buy and pay for services, and service provision becomes worthwhile, of value, and improves.

Is there a ramshackle ‘National Identity’ to be cobbled together from this list? Is there a political trajectory to found here? Or will we become another bad version of the US?

To change our identity is surley to beat these problems and see what emerges? Sure we can aim somewhere and perhaps that could be decided around said table. In fact it probably has already in the form of our constitution! In the end we will be identified by what we achieve and not what we say; how we live up to that constitution will define us.

When ever the must be changes or service delivery, people needs to fight first with its government that was placed there by the same people whom fight for the service delivery. It is not fair to give someone the authority to rent your house and then after he/she takes out with the court order and never see your house again.