Catch-22
By Colin
Allowing everyone a chance to learn necessary skills for work, earn an income and provide for their family does not subtract from your ability to do the same. In fact, often times it allows for you to increase your capacity to do so.
Browsing a local bookstore I was on a quest to find a few good books which would hold my attention throughout the multiple flights, layovers and bus journeys that awaited me during the upcoming trip to South Africa. Economics, psychology, history were the sections I once again found myself drawn to but my girlfriend had other ideas. On her own quest to share her love of fiction books with me she maneuvered us to the fiction section and grabbed Catch-22 off the shelf.
Catch-22 was written in the 1960’s about the absurdity of World War II. World War II and psychology were topics I gravitate towards so I figured what the hell, why not. I paired the book with a few others directly related to South African history and socio-economic challenges. I was certain the others would be more relevant and useful on this trip. I was wrong.
A catch-22 is defined as “a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions.” South Africa, and Johannesburg in particular, is a land built on these dilemmas. From the use of resources, to the layout of the city, to the system of governance catch-22’s present themselves.
It is easy to view Apartheid as a system of one group oppressing another. In reality it was more complex than that. The white, European ruling class didn’t have the ability to dominate the rest of the population despite superior technology, weapons and wealth because they were vastly outnumbered. Apartheid was built on this ruling class’ ability to sow dissent and disunion between the other groups. They created groups for Indians, Blacks and Coloreds. These groups represented different tiers of citizenship in South Africa. Coloreds were given preferential treatment compared to the Blacks. Over time it was even possible to pass from Colored to White, but never Black to White. This treatment allowed one group to have a false sense of power and pride over another.
The catch-22 here is that all other groups were stronger together than apart. Progress was nonexistent without cooperation. The system was set up to entice people to strive for promotion from one group to another. In reality it wasn’t the people who needed promotion from one another, but the system that needed promotion to a humane society. Mandela was one of many who was able to see this, and his ability to unite people rather than divide them helped to end this difficult problem through mutual dependence on a South Africa for all.
Still, South Africa is not a perfect society, free from its past. Scars remain to remind us of the journey. Often times we heard with the fall of Apartheid people are free to choose where they would like to live. In Catch-22 you are free to ask for your release from the army, but it is only granted if you are crazy. You are crazy to want to fly more missions, and sane if you want to go home. Therefore you can never ask to be sent home and actually be sent home, but if you never ask you can never go home either. In so many words, this is the housing situation in South Africa.
Yes it is true you can choose to live anywhere you’d like in South Africa. People are no longer constrained by racial zoning. However, at the end of Apartheid it was not a mad scramble where you could claim any home as your own as long as you were the first to race inside. Apartheid ended but the gulf of opportunity and ability remained. White flight hit Johannesburg as whites chose to live in Cape Town. Others didn’t choose but were allowed to move into the struggling city of Johannesburg because prices plummeted with the exodus of capital. South Africans would love to live wherever they want in their own country but to do so requires wealth and to have wealth requires education and skills which historically have only been provided to people in certain neighborhoods. To choose to live where you want in South Africa requires you to be from a certain neighborhood you wouldn’t choose to leave for another.
How is it possible a country of such great wealth can have so many of its citizens living in abstract poverty? How is it possible to have exhausted coal mines for domestic use but still have years’ worth of reserves for exportation? How is it possible for a government so recently built for the people, by the people, to steal from the people?
South Africa has some of the richest gold, diamond and coal mines in the world. South Africa has shown the desire to change the course of its history and change their society. South Africa remains a catch-22. South Africa will remain a divided country despite the work of its community leaders as long as these mutually dependent conditions remain.
Certain groups want to maintain their status, their wealth, their power over others. Unfortunately, they do not realize that a society as a whole benefits when conditions are mutually beneficial. Allowing everyone a chance to learn necessary skills for work, earn an income and provide for their family does not subtract from your ability to do the same. In fact, often times it allows for you to increase your capacity to do so. This is the Catch-22 of South Africa. Unless South Africa is willing to allow all citizens access to the country South Africa will never be able to allow its citizens access to its potential.