By Kabelo Mollo
This week in the midst of a conversation with my sister she articulated something I’ve been experiencing without acknowledging for a little bit. She told me, in today’s world, people respect money over everything else. Money and the trappings it brings have become so important to us that it has become the central thing in many of our lives.
Success is measured solely by the wealth you have amassed. Every single day on social media, future billionaires are being asked to “retweet this”. And every single day tweets like that are receiving multiple retweets and impressions. Every single day people are talking about creating multiple streams of income, every single day we are confronted by the obscene wealth of billionaires who insist they earned it fairly when we the old saying reminds us that you “make a million, but take a billion”. Wealth hoarders who pay less tax than they should are hailed as heroes and heroines as they champion private space travel and all kinds of other crazy ideas.
This week the Saudi Arabian pension fund completed the takeover of Newcastle United in the English premier league. The deal was completed to much Geordie fanfare with fans of the club eagerly anticipating major spending in every transfer window for the foreseeable future. I’m happy for Newcastle fans, and I’m pleased the premier league is going to get even more competitive.
However, consider for a moment the record of human rights abuses levelled against the Saudi government. Including but not limited to the alleged murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi who dared shine a light on some of the goings on over there.
Consider that some of the prevailing laws in the country go against what are viewed as basic human rights by the United Nations. The premier league has a “fit and proper persons” test that they run on new club owners before they are ratified. Quite how the Saudis passed this, one will never know, unless once again the thirst for money trumped all other factors.
There is a new black owned nightclub in Soweto that has set tongues wagging all over social media. Between the fact its black owned, and the conspicuous consumption that occurs there it was bound to garner the amount of attention it has. Once again, the love for all things “bling bling” has captured our collective attention. The cars pictured outside the spot are something out of a motor journalist’s dreams.
The price lists regularly sent around social media sites bear testimony to the kinds of loot being expended there “beke le beke”. It is, in the cold light of day absurd, especially if you’re like me and wonder whether those sums couldn’t be put to better use. Someone might say, whose money? And I would respond “ditto”, whose money indeed…
The aspirations of some people really worry me in relation to this conversation. Recently another trending topic was related to a football club owner cum social media sensation. A person accused of malfeasance but in fairness not found guilty of any crimes. Yet once again the digital media space was set ablaze by her questionable actions. Royal AM the club which acquired Bloemfontein Celtics’ premier league status and relocated to KZN is at the centre of this rigmarole.
The club owner was captured trying to pay her employees a win bonus in cash on the field of play. To her I suppose this was a show of love & support to her players. In the professional world this was both taboo and disrespectful. Remuneration is a matter between employer and employee. It is not a matter for cameras and social media. The owner’s penchant for over the top living and conspicuous consumption had gone too far. Much too far!
We read stories daily about corruption and malfeasance in government as well as the private sector. Recently a story in the news suggested M50 million was paid to companies that had not supplied any services to Motlotlehi’s government. It is alleged that the paymasters were people in the treasury, people who undoubtedly aspire to live well, and be rich and ‘successful’ because lately success is measured almost solely by what you have acquired. Whether you’ve acquired it above board or not is the not issue, so long as you’ve acquired it! The state has been robbed of that money, all the while service providers who have actually provided services are owed in the region of a billion Maloti by the government.
This love for money reminds of me two adages, the first being that ‘money is the root of all evil’ which is a touch over the top, but has a point, while the second is more cheeky and reflects that ‘new money SHOUTS, while old money whispers…’
Money ought not define us as people and our success should not be measured simply by how much of it we have. We need to rethink this pattern, and re-establish a more palatable relationship with money that doesn’t see us hold it in such high regard! That said, I wonder what I did with my lotto tickets…
