When people are loaded by those that lead them, the nation can't thrive.

    "The use of metaphors and parables remains one of the greatest assets in the African education system. Supported by a rigorously used system of storytelling and use of symbols, metaphors have for centuries provided indigenous scholarship about and for African civilizations. The intellectual resilience of African wisdom cues and philosophy endowed idiomatic expressions have not only served as repositories of community values but also anchored a normative environment comparable to recorded philosophy of other civilizations".

"The use therefore of metaphors creates for society a rather neutral platform to reflect on itself in relation to presented phenomena. With the advent of technological advancement, machines have come to create new and interesting metaphors". The pickup or 'bakkie' is one such metaphor in the explanation of the evolution, growth, and development of South Africa.

In a discussion with a cousin of mine about current affairs in South Africa, we reflected on 'our people' and their relationship with the depth of what is happening around them. We spoke of our people behaving or living like they are being loaded or are a load in this democracy. In this reflection, we drew an interesting lesson out of a common experience on our roads which has a striking resemblance with how our people relate to the politics, political economy, and economics of our country. 

We likened the general behavior of our people to that of people behind a 'pickup', hereinafter referred to as a bakkie. When people are loaded in a bakkie, especially one that does not have a canopy, they almost at all times sit in a position facing where the bakkie comes from and never where it is going. They can only see what those driving the bakkie have long seen and even managed themselves away from the possible implications.

When you are a load in a bakkie, you only experience the decisions of those in charge of where the bakkie is going. They take all decisions on how the 'journey' or 'trip' will be taken. They see all the traffic signs and make all the calls about which signs to obey and which to ignore. What is ahead of the bakkie is generally their exclusive reserve. Your excitement about what you see and what they have already seen is always belated and thus delaying the time you will be educated about the trip and yet you are on the same bakkie

Relating this to our current affairs discussion, we concluded that our country has many a situation where society is a load. The majority of 'our people' are facing where the country comes from and few, who are generally those in the front part of the same bakkie, are facing where the bakkie is going. Those that see where it is going are those we all agree will be historically advantaged as those that see what they had already seen or lived are historically disadvantaged. There may in the same trip be those that are real-time advantaged and benefiting from the trip as it unfolds.

To drive this further home, the issues of the fourth industrial revolution assume that the first, second, and third happened. Like those loaded in the bakkie many talks of 4IR as though they saw all other IRs. This delayed knowing and learning because of your position relative to what is to be known is determining to the extent to which data in what you see could be converted opportunities. 

So as a society we might want to think of how we sit in the bakkie called South Africa. Where we face determines the gaze into the future we will bequeath to the next generation. For the nation to thrive, we might need to revisit the bakkie mentality. The bakkie mentality is that which keeps those on the bakkie to be perpetually dependent on those that have the map and see or know where the bakkie is going. Those that are loaded get to be treated as a constituency to be empowered purely because they know of the steering wheel but cannot steer the bakkie to preferred destinations or terrains. CUT!!!

🤷🏿‍♂️A ndzo vulavula