With a clear, raspy deep voice, he said: “I come from Bangladesh.” I found this statement quite profound. While collecting data for a research for one of our lecturers, we came across the owner of a small tuckshop in the township of Kestell. This tuckshop is a typical “my friend” tuckshop. Dingy-looking, poor lit and scented with a faint smell of overall stuffiness. However, what this man from Bangladesh had to say- was most enchanting.
Obviously, one did not expect to engage in a conversation with this man. With white people, most were very direct in their approach and they give the normal courtesy of any person who is interested in helping students. Some were rude and ignorant to say the least, but the majority quite receiving to the idea of helping out in the research. Most of the black people were very shameful in their conduct. The illusion of owning a business and the false sense of “accomplishment” that comes with it overshadowing their character. Most of my people were very arrogant and the sad part, their businesses have nothing to boost about. They are typical stores with nothing of real uniqueness to sell. Slowing one gets to realise that for black people, owning a business is really a symbol status and not a way of life. Yes, not every black entrepreneur has this nose-in-the-air attitude, as some other black people are humble enough about their businesses. Sadly, most black entrepreneurs in our small towns are severely plagued with the rotten disease of false pride. Particularly about owning businesses that most often or not, is not even profitable.
As the day went on, we encountered the Asians and foreign internationals. Some, I believe out of fear, refused to fill in the questionnaires we were handing out. Others were clear to emphasise that they are registered and that their businesses were operating legally. However, there was just this one man who for me stood out. The man from Bangladesh. He began by filling in the questionnaire and then began to explain other challenges that he faces as an entrepreneur in our country. He first expressed how frustrating it is to serve to our market in South Africa. In his very basic vocabulary, he explained how South Africans look down on him and his business. The market he serves expects five star customer service yet they do not give him the due respect he believes he desires. He expressed how he fails to understand how we as South Africans can wait minutes upon minutes in queues in big retail companies yet with him, expect service as quick as lightening. The interesting part is that he said that when he begins to slack on his performance, the very same market he serves while begin to destroy his business. He pointed up to his congregated iron sheet roofing and began explaining how he had to reinforce it after they tried breaking into his store- 8 times in the past month.
The man from Bangladesh’s story does not end there. The part I wanted to find out of why he is here in the first place, finally was solved. After explaining how tired he is of the breaking ins, he got to this part of explaining his origins and how he got to South Africa. With a liquid resembling tea, half filled in a glass, taking only sips from it and a cheap cigarette clasped in between two of his right fingers, he began to tell the story. He said that where he is from, there is no crime. The problem he says is that the political sphere of his country is not stable for living. He spoke about how he loves his country. Soon he will be going to back to vote in his country's upcoming elections. Clearly, this is a man who leaving his country did not come at an easy price. This is a man who loves his country dearly. I believe maybe he was told about how he can make a living in South Africa and thus he came to South Africa. What stood out here is that, here is a man who left his country because he could not live in it. The pride he carries for his country is as patriotic as a President’s. Yet because of the environment and other situations he faces, he was forced to leave everything behind and go to what he believed was the land of milk and honey. Sadly, for him, there was no milk and honey to be found; only dried up cows and dying bees.
A customer came in the store (who happens to share my surname coincidentally) came into the story as this man kept unravelling his tale. This elderly woman came to purchase a 10kg bag of maize meal. The man asked the elderly woman where are her children to help her carry the bag. The elderly woman replied that the children are off to work. So naturally, I realise the situation at hand and offer to help her. I carry the bag of maize meal to the elderly woman’s house. A moderately well-kept RDP house guarded by two flea ridden, bone shredded dogs. These dogs clearly had not eaten a good meal in months. The overwhelming presence of poverty that made itself as visible as daylight was one too great to bear. In the same breath, I saw young females dressed in knock-off designer clothing. The kind of females who if you were to see walk pass, you would think they possess a bank account in the Cayman Islands. I overheard young men plotting and planning their weekends as if money is not an issue for them. Yet from the state of their houses and newspaper-plastered rooms, one wonders where they get the income for their wild weekends.
This made me think of the man from Bangladesh. Was this the South Africa he was told about? A land where people live life on their terms and that South Africa is the African ‘Land of the Free’? That South Africa possess a mirror image of the American Dream? Yet when he arrived here, he realised that all that he heard about South Africa was a façade? A lie to hide the sad truth of our country? This made one think of my hometown where you find people living off the trash site to find necessities to sustain their day-to-day living. How even in these trash sites, there are people who control the market and are very quick to discipline anyone who does not play by the rules. This does not happen only in Harrismith, but even in other countries as well. I once watched a documentary about this one man who makes a living off trash sites. How he restores lost items and resells the items to people in his community. The money he generates not enough to get him out of the “trap”, but the money he generates just good enough to keep him barely above the poverty line. The fact that there are people who literally live by the notion that another man’s trash is another man’s treasure is one that should make us re-evaluate our roles in our communities. Should our roles continue plastering the façade of the false American Dream in Africa? Or should our roles convert to being the truth-bearers armed with hammers to bring the facade down?
In this state of our country and one still finds Black owners operating close to minute scale businesses walking with the big heads on their frail human bodies. Sad is the fact that these are Black entrepreneurs. For the white entrepreneur is totally different. Some white entrepreneurs genuinely detest seeing the state no longer as active in helping them grow thus their bitterness is seen in situations like these where university students ask for assistance in research and they turn them down with ferocious audaciousness. The foreign internationals, most fear exposing their businesses even by the slightest indication that they cower in fear and crumble away. Yet the black man of this country, the black man of this country who is demanding land back from oppressors, the black man of this country loud to scream about how this is their country, the black man of this country happily operating a second rate business; suddenly forgets their fellow black man when it matters most. Ubuntu suddenly becomes ‘me’ and not ‘we’. The man from Bangladesh went to explain how his brother helped him start out with his business. I remembered how one family ran a section in Small Street, Bloemfontein. All the tuckshops interlinked through family members (or perhaps friends yet the way they helped each other one would assume they are family). The other Asian man explained how business people should be friends and by that, they can help each other if needs be. Obviously, he began listing a few of his friends. The few friends he named, all millionaires operating in QwaQwa and Bethlehem. None of them Black.
It would seem that the line of solidarity among Black people is only limited in certain spheres and does not cross the line of business and entrepreneurship. There are many excuses and reasons that could validate as to why this is the case. In all honesty, for the black man of this country to rise above the shackles of financial slavery and the bondage of poverty, the false sense of pride and esteem we carry must cease to exist. We cannot continue living as if we drink milk from golden chalices and bathe in the richest of honey when our reality is that we suck the udders of starving cows and shower under the stings of hungry and frustrated bees. We cannot continue lying to ourselves about the state of country. Every social media post showing a life of opulence when the truth is the person in that social media post probably lives in a one room apartment while their parents settle in a house given to them by the government. Even for the black child who hails from the suburbs and towns, the debt trap of the Apple phone seated in their pockets, which has ensnared their parents into the clutches of financial calamities, should not give us the illusion that we have made it in life.
The scales that have masked our eyes, as a people of this country we need to begin to shed them off. They make us look like fools to others outside our country. One cannot deny the fact that South Africa is a blessed African country in the sense that we do not face coups, civil wars or any of the other ails that continue to sicken our continent. Yet the fact remains, every second South African lives below the poverty line. South Africa’s GDP per capita indicates that of a struggling country. This is the truth of our reality and it is time we accept it. By doing so, we will be placing ourselves in a position to effectively challenge the status quo and elevate ourselves to the true land of milk and honey. Only then, can South Africa truly offer the African version of the American Dream. Only then can South Africa be the land of opportunities, the land of the free. Not only for those that come abroad, but for us also who call this beautiful country: home.