Can you afford the new South Africa?

I was visiting my dear friend Thendo in Milnerton when it struck me: he is living in the ‘new South Africa’ – in Mandela’s Rainbow Nation. He lives in the kind of community where you see black and white kids of equal social standing play together. In his kind of South Africa the race and nationality of the next door neighbours do not matter. 

What really matter though are the cost of living and the taxes you pay. This is the price you must be willing to pay for your piece of Mandela’s ‘new South Africa.’

In his community the conversations are not limited to cars, hoes and sport, or to furniture, colour schemes and hair styles. Actually we did not speak about any of these. We had conversations about our Rector begging for money in the Mail & Guardian and why the BRT system has to be in Milnerton and not in Khayelitsha. Debates on whether, we are middleclass or working class, and interestingly enough none of us see ourselves as middleclass – we see ourselves as part of the working class. Rather wishful thinking but allow us to have our wishful thinking.

It was during this visit I realised that the ‘new South Africa’ comes at a price and if you want it you must be willing to pay for it. You have to pay for a truly interracial, interethnic and international experience. Pay to be relatively safer than others. Pay to have the BRT at your door step. This is the kind of life we were promised in 1994 but it is now only accessible to those who have university degrees and have far better jobs than the majority of South Africans. Not that there is anything wrong with pursuing a better life and escaping poverty, I am applauding anyone who strive for a better life; I myself is pursuing Utopia.

However, I cannot help but wondering how we got here? How did the middle class become Mandela’s new South Africa?

Mandela’s new South Africa and the poor’s new South Africa are two completely different ones. The poor’s new South Africa is a life with access to water, electricity, health care, housing and employment. Racial integration is the least of the poor’s worries. 

The reason why the middle class appear to be Mandela's new South Africa is because the majority of black people in 1994 were poor and only a handful was in the middleclass. In 1994 the middleclass was predominantly white and now 20 years down the line there are more black people in the middleclass and still almost no white people in the working class. This also shows that the status quo for white people largely stayed the same whilst the standard of living for black people marginally increased. 

The interracial, interethnic and international transformation of the middleclass is thus largely an appearance; the reality is that more black people can afford a middleclass lifestyle. Hence, Mandela’s new South Africa comes at a price: a university degree, a house loan, car finance, a contract phone, medical aid and dog food. 

A price the poor cannot afford.