When Jacob Zuma visited the Maponya Mall a couple of weeks back, he made an interesting statement. “I came here because I wanted to see the shopping mall because this tells a new story, he said. “Here you can walk into world-class shops and buy what you want. You don’t have to go to town or Northgate, Southgate, Eastgate or Westgate. This is a story of our freedom.”
A story of freedom, as it turns out, is a story of being able to shop at a mall conveniently located near you. Which, when reflecting on Smuts Ngonyama’s statement — “I did not join the struggle to be poor” — makes sense. I had assumed that the consumerist interpretation of the struggle against apartheid was out of favour — we’re faced with a recession after all, and the new president has a reputation for being a friend of the working class — but it seems not.
In truth, the notion that the transition to democracy was as much about getting and spending as it was about human rights has been around for while. It first gained real traction in the early 1990s, when advertisers such as Bonita, Castle Lager, Castrol and Sales House (remember them?) quite explicitly positioned the equalities and freedoms promised by the 1994 elections in the context of consumption. As Swaer told Boet in one of the Castrol Can of the Best ads: “Ja … business is going to boom in the new South Africa.”
And so it did, in many ways.
Mark Gevisser described the trend away from socialism as “the quietest and most profound revolution of our time”. Former communists and trade unionists were embracing free market principles as well as the perks that went with them with almost indecent enthusiasm. Black South Africans had achieved political power; now they wanted economic power and, along with it, the power to dictate the terms of public discourse. As the former head of SABC television news, Joe Thloloe, remarked, “We may have won political power but economic power is still in white hands, so the struggle continues … ”.
It’s the sort of thing that Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri would cite as the “poisoned gift of national liberation”. So many national liberation projects have not led to true revolution: “The calendar has gone crazy,” they complain in their neo-Marxist tome Empire. “October never comes, the revolutionaries get bogged down in ‘realism’, and modernisation ends up lost in the hierarchies of the world market”. Instead, the revolutionary struggle becomes what they describe as a “delegated” struggle, in which a ruling elite is tasked with carrying out the modernisation project. Thus the revolution is “offered up, hands and feet bound, to the new bourgeoisie”.
This is, of course, exactly what happened in post-apartheid South Africa, with previously committed socialists and communists doing an ideological about-turn that astounded even their liberal critics, and former trade unionists and political prisoners becoming millionaires, even billionaires. (And where, one might add, the government apparently finds it easier to find the money to pay for million rand Mercedes-Benzes for MECs than it does to pay doctors or teachers.)
Over the years since the first democratic elections, we’ve seen the steady entrenchment of the notion of consumerism as a public good, with the emergence of such phenomena as “the emerging market” and “black diamonds”. The materialism of our culture at the expense of deeper, more meaningful values, has been blamed for everything from crime to corruption. We are free to shop, but it seems that that freedom has come at a price. As Brandon Hamber wrote in 2006: “South Africa is not the only place in the world where consumerism is all-encompassing, but it specialises in pretension. As a friend mentioned to me, life is measured by the three Cs – car, credit card and cellphone. It is a national obsession.”
What does this mean for South Africa? I know from the research I have seen over the past couple of weeks that many people are battling even more so than usual. But despite the problems presented by consumerism — the shallowness for one thing, not to mention the obsession with instant gratification or the crass emphasis on external signifiers of status — I do believe that Zuma was broadly correct. Maponya Mall does symbolise freedom, at least for those of us who believe that, for all its manifest flaws, the act of consumption, of shopping, does offer many of us the closest we will get to a sense of autonomy and choice — real pleasure, in fact. And autonomy and choice are things that matter, because they have not always been enjoyed by all South Africans.
The significance of the freedom to shop should not be underestimated. It is a bedrock of democracy. Empty supermarket shelves are the surest sign of a society in collapse: ask any Zimbabwean. In fact, more South Africans should be free to shop. The country would be a better place if they were.
As long as Maponya and other malls are closed on significant public holidays. There should be no right to shop on Freedom Day.
I love a good argument. Saw the title of this one and thought, ‘Is Sandile Memela at it again? He already did this one.’ Was coming to argue the other side but never mind, the switch is easy enough. Perhaps he merely underestimated the interest of important persons in shopping, and the influence that shopping when and where it’s convenient has on politicians and us ordinary people.
I think Maponya Mall is a thing of greatness. It’s pathetic that people have to trek miles to buy a pair of shoes for their child or to pick up a book, it just reinforces the divisions that are quite obvious enough. Developers seemed previously content to leave certain areas unserviced, much like advertising did, in some belief that there was no money, no one worthwhile pursuing or offering services to in less affluent areas. At last they begin to realise that chasing after Constantia and Sandton is tired and competitive and they’d be better off taking that risk and being useful instead of fighting away in an already saturated market.
Haven’t you heard? Shopping is so last century. The consumption boom was fed by the debt that got us into this mess. Not to mention the toll on the environment.
You skip blithely over the problems caused by consumerism, but these are real issues.
Social alienation, status envy, the waste mountain – these are all symptoms of consumer sick world. And let’s not even mention sweat shops in the Far East. What price freedom?
You misconstrue Zuma’s statements.
Zuma’s statements at the Maponya Mall and Smuts Ngonyama’s both speaks more to the economic empowerment of blacks than it does of mere consumerism. It is far different from Bush’s idiotic statement asking Americans to go shopping after 9/11.
“more South Africans should be free to shop” is a meaningless statement.
Even under apartheid SAns were ALWAYS free to shop, admittedly sometimes in different areas of the stores, but who reaped the profits is really the crux of the matter. The Maponya Mall is a symbol of black empowerment that we should all be proud of.
You see the difference between the Black Elite and their white friends and us the poor is how we define shopping. To the black elites and their white friends shopping is hitting the mall and buying the most expensive designer labels, dining at the most expensive restaurants etc and to us the poor, hitting a mall is about going to the grocery store and buying the essential stuff that we need in most cases Maize Meal and heading back home buying vegetables along the road from “Mamkhize” by the corner, so that we can use to eat with Pap.
So the Freedom that Zuma is talking about is the idea of having a mall in Townships and us saving on money that we used to spend on transport fare to go to town and buy those essential stuff. It means that they are now accessible in the Townships. So I don’t understand why you Sarah felt a need to fill a whole blog with your Propaganda.
Sarah, you make a serious historical/judgement mistake by equating the ANC and or the SACP with socialism/Marxism or social equality. On June 16 1948, a I.B.Tabata wrote a letter to Nelson Mandela. You will see, read that ANC and SACP corruption and opportunism has a long history.
The 1948 letter to Mandela:
http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/library-resources/articles_papers/karis-cartervol2/document67.htm
Sadly the knee-jerk reactions from some blog readers were to be expected. In South Africa, it seems people make up their minds about issues and merely scan over articles written by “the other guys”.
Surely the point of this article is that everyone should have access to the economy i.e. the ability/freedom to shop. It is rather worrying that a new MEC gets to buy a million Rand SUV with government money (a second hand AMG no less) and when she negligently fails to organise insurance for said vehicle and insists that her excited husband pick up the vehicle ASAP and then the obscenely expensive luxury SUV is stolen on the following day, nothing is said. Is she going to pay for this mistake? Why is nobody else concerned about the fact that government officials have access to such obscene trinkets of conspicuous consumption? Wouldn’t a Subaru turbo SUV do the job as their adverts suggest?
Isn’t it of some concern that doctors, teachers, nurses and policemen are not paid properly and don’t have the freedom to shop? Surely if ordinary folk had more spending power, more money would be spent in the local economy rather than overseas. BEE beneficiaries are very quick to poo-poo whistle blowers for commenting on conspicuous consumption by the “elite”. BEE should read Black Economic Equality. It doesn’t actually help folk living in matchbox houses when one black man fraudulently milks the system for his own gain.
Eh, Tlanch Tau, you might be surprised to hear that many of us less affluent white folks ‘hit the mall’ to buy bread, milk and rice, buy our fruit in bulk at the market and can’t remember the last time we bought an item of clothing.
I can’t understand how the ‘black elite’ are the exact equivalent of the kind of white people that you seem to be talking about with their penchant for pointless extravagance – I mean, where did this elite come from and how did they become like this? Is it only because they humour or mimic their expensive pale counterparts or is it because they are actually, I don’t know, empowered to do what they want? The former is a very bold statement to make about people that might actually be genuinely self-made and not beholden to any ‘oppressor’.
See, I don’t know what it’s like to trek for 30km to buy my daily essentials, I have a fairly dodgy supermarket two blocks from my house. But what I do know is that money, race and attitude are often inextricably linked but not the same thing, not interchangeable.
Also read Mandela’s original letter to Tabata here:
http://www.disa.ukzn.ac.za:8080/DC/cor19480522.026.044.000/cor19480522.026.044.000.pdf
All societies have ‘show-offs’ that love expensive things, period. Now the question of the show off being ‘black or white’ is the South African obsession. Let people worship materials cos some may argue that even those who worship God are wrong.
However I pray for a day where we can just accept that we are different, in both skin colour and thoughts, however no other is superior to the the other. I hope we get over ourselves and start to exist as a nation. I am listening to the soundtrack of the Lion King(Lebo M especially) and realizing that ‘South Africa, YOU’RE BRILLIANT!) And today am gonna just celebrate that about us. Lets go shopping for what we ‘need’ on cash not credit! But I love shopping for what I want cos that’s freedom right there!
Ofcourse one of the reasons why there is a Maponya Mall in the first place is that Joburg’s nothern suburbs are not satosfactorily transformed. More black people need to be economically empowered so that theyb can afford to live anywhere they like and so that SA’s residential places are not characterised race. It is unacceptable that 15years into democracy; places like Sandton are still dominated by whites. We should promote diversity.
Phillipa, when last were you in Sandton? I can tell you that Sandton City is definitely not dominated by whites. In fact, it’s probably the most racially diverse place in the entire country.
Phillipa, I thought you were no longer going to bother with Sarah’s blogs?
Yeah Phillipa, you should visit Sandton city again. It sounds like you haven’t been there in the last 5-10 years! That’s where Alexandra goes to shop as well. In case you’re wondering how they get there, just exit the centre on the South side where the taxis congregate. It is totally cosmopolitan – rich and poor people of every race and description.
Yeah Phillipa, you should visit Sandton city again. It sounds like you haven’t been there in the last 5-10 years! That’s where Alexandra goes to shop as well. In case you’re wondering how they get there, just exit the centre on the South side where the taxis congregate. It is totally cosmopolitan – rich and poor people of every race and description.
phillipa –
the problem with people like you and your alter ego dave harris is that you equate “white” with “better”. maybe, just maybe, people don’t *want* to be around a bunch of white folks in their free time. i know this may sound completely alien to you, but you should keep your mind open to that possibility.
even if sandton were “untransformed” — which is really bloody rich coming from someone who lives in rondebosch — which isn’t the case, you really need stop and think, just a wee bit. i mean, if i wanted to pay european prices for housing, i would live in europe. plain and simple. which part of that is so hard to understand?
clearly you’ve forgotten lihle’s post about that very point. [that would be the one where i said that i burned all of frantz fanon's books when i found out his wife was white.]
her post was, in essence, why should i leave soweto, which has everything, and almost everyone i know, to buy a house in the northern suburbs so my mother could brag? now, if you work in sandton, it may make sense to live in the northern suburbs. but if you work in the east rand or central joburg, it really doesn’t.
people want to shop where they live. now they can. it really is that simple. stop trying to look for stuff that isn’t there.
I’d guess people shouldn’t let their other halves post under the same user accounts. Or alternatively, they should use their socks in different browsers.
Come on, Phil, your turn.