Thursday 1 January 2015
Meleney's Stained Glass Window on the World: The difference between rich people and poor people...
Meleney's Stained Glass Window on the World: The difference between rich people and poor people...: I have noticed an interesting phenomenon in my work and life. I work in an informal settlement, a so-called squatter camp. We've been ...
The difference between rich people and poor people
I have noticed an interesting phenomenon in my work and life. I work in an informal settlement, a so-called squatter camp. We've been told it is politically incorrect to call it a squatter camp. So tell that to the people who live there. They don't call it an 'informal settlement'. They call it a squatter camp.
I have noticed something in the children that come to our School Readiness Day Camp - these are kids from the community that are not in our ECD center "Viva Kids". I noticed they don't know how old they are. When asked, they cannot show their age, with their fingers. I started connecting some dots and here is my theory: It is because they are not celebrated as individuals. Nothing happens when they go from 2, to 3, for them to have marked the occasion. There is no money for a party, when the whole family doesn't have enough food. Furthermore, individuals and individuality are not celebrated.
Among poor people, the community identity comes before the individual identity. They think as a community, they act as a community and they even vote as a community. One individual will not stand on his own rights, until the frustration in the whole community boils over, at which point the whole community will use their only recourse and express their frustration in a tangible way. They don't sue the pants of the municipality, they burn the assets of the municipality. They don't write letters to their Councillor, (who lives in a golf estate and only shows up before elections), they turn his bakkie up-side down. The collective identity comes before the individual identity. The individual lacks volition and waits for a solution from without, not from within his/her own heart and mind.
For this reason, I also believe that individuals from within pressurized communities, rally behind those from their ranks who do know how to stand on their individual rights. The Mandela's and alas, the Malemas.
Not so among rich people. Rich people have learnt from the cradle, to stand on their rights and fight for what is theirs, strive for what they want. They have a strongly developed individual identity. If they are unhappy, they fight for their own rights. They sue, they write letters, they shout and they threaten and take to social media and tell the world how every injustice, real or perceived, have personally inconvenienced them. They judge themselves by their intentions and others by their actions. For instance, if a rich man needs to take a gap in the traffic, he knows he is not doing it because he is evil, but because he is in a hurry. His intentions are good. However, if someone else cuts in front of him, he judges the action as evil. He takes it personally. He does not consider that the gap-taker is a person like him, who sometimes does something stupid, or selfish, in traffic.
Rich children know how old they are. They know what they got for their last birthday and they can remember what happened when they went from age 5 to age 6. They also know exactly what they want for their next birthday. They are taught from birth to develop as individuals.
The problem is that rich people have no community identity. They don't know who lives in their street, they don't hang around with their neighbours. They live behind high walls and they watch other people through TV monitors, as opposed to standing on the street on a warm evening, laughing and chatting to friends who also wait for a taxi. They will never go to a squatter camp, because they believe if you walk into a squatter camp, you die! I don't know what they think you die from, but you are dead!! You wont last 10 minutes in a squatter camp. They think this, because they believe everybody's housekeeper, driver, delivery 'boy', builder, news-paper salesman, hair-salon shampoo lady, office block cleaner, somehow transforms when they are home and if they see a rich person on their turf, they zombie-kill them on the spot. And then tomorrow morning they take the taxi to work in the city and become normal again. This is why they don't go to squatter camps. It's the only plausible explanation I can come up, for the phenomenon of people not going into squatter camps.
So while it is not good that poor people do not fully develop their own individual potential, it is equally bad that rich people do not develop a community identity.
What is the solution? Rich people need to warm up to their neighbours and develop a respect and love for community. And poor people need to develop their individuality and volition - their self-drive.
What we need is strong communities, comprising of strong individuals. We don't need followers, we need leaders, because ultimately, it is not a rich/poor thing. For poverty, as riches, is very relative. People whom we might perceive as 'rich', because they live in a big house and drive several expensive cars, can be poorer than poor. They may be in debt, under severe strain and without meaningful relationships. I've seen a quote: "Some people are so poor, all they have is money". I think what makes people poor is that they don't know who they are and they don't belong to a community. And that, makes all of us paupers.
I have noticed something in the children that come to our School Readiness Day Camp - these are kids from the community that are not in our ECD center "Viva Kids". I noticed they don't know how old they are. When asked, they cannot show their age, with their fingers. I started connecting some dots and here is my theory: It is because they are not celebrated as individuals. Nothing happens when they go from 2, to 3, for them to have marked the occasion. There is no money for a party, when the whole family doesn't have enough food. Furthermore, individuals and individuality are not celebrated.
Among poor people, the community identity comes before the individual identity. They think as a community, they act as a community and they even vote as a community. One individual will not stand on his own rights, until the frustration in the whole community boils over, at which point the whole community will use their only recourse and express their frustration in a tangible way. They don't sue the pants of the municipality, they burn the assets of the municipality. They don't write letters to their Councillor, (who lives in a golf estate and only shows up before elections), they turn his bakkie up-side down. The collective identity comes before the individual identity. The individual lacks volition and waits for a solution from without, not from within his/her own heart and mind.
For this reason, I also believe that individuals from within pressurized communities, rally behind those from their ranks who do know how to stand on their individual rights. The Mandela's and alas, the Malemas.
Not so among rich people. Rich people have learnt from the cradle, to stand on their rights and fight for what is theirs, strive for what they want. They have a strongly developed individual identity. If they are unhappy, they fight for their own rights. They sue, they write letters, they shout and they threaten and take to social media and tell the world how every injustice, real or perceived, have personally inconvenienced them. They judge themselves by their intentions and others by their actions. For instance, if a rich man needs to take a gap in the traffic, he knows he is not doing it because he is evil, but because he is in a hurry. His intentions are good. However, if someone else cuts in front of him, he judges the action as evil. He takes it personally. He does not consider that the gap-taker is a person like him, who sometimes does something stupid, or selfish, in traffic.
Rich children know how old they are. They know what they got for their last birthday and they can remember what happened when they went from age 5 to age 6. They also know exactly what they want for their next birthday. They are taught from birth to develop as individuals.
The problem is that rich people have no community identity. They don't know who lives in their street, they don't hang around with their neighbours. They live behind high walls and they watch other people through TV monitors, as opposed to standing on the street on a warm evening, laughing and chatting to friends who also wait for a taxi. They will never go to a squatter camp, because they believe if you walk into a squatter camp, you die! I don't know what they think you die from, but you are dead!! You wont last 10 minutes in a squatter camp. They think this, because they believe everybody's housekeeper, driver, delivery 'boy', builder, news-paper salesman, hair-salon shampoo lady, office block cleaner, somehow transforms when they are home and if they see a rich person on their turf, they zombie-kill them on the spot. And then tomorrow morning they take the taxi to work in the city and become normal again. This is why they don't go to squatter camps. It's the only plausible explanation I can come up, for the phenomenon of people not going into squatter camps.
So while it is not good that poor people do not fully develop their own individual potential, it is equally bad that rich people do not develop a community identity.
What is the solution? Rich people need to warm up to their neighbours and develop a respect and love for community. And poor people need to develop their individuality and volition - their self-drive.
What we need is strong communities, comprising of strong individuals. We don't need followers, we need leaders, because ultimately, it is not a rich/poor thing. For poverty, as riches, is very relative. People whom we might perceive as 'rich', because they live in a big house and drive several expensive cars, can be poorer than poor. They may be in debt, under severe strain and without meaningful relationships. I've seen a quote: "Some people are so poor, all they have is money". I think what makes people poor is that they don't know who they are and they don't belong to a community. And that, makes all of us paupers.
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