Africa-Press – South-Africa. Joe Kitchen reflects on several small businesses closing down in a centre in Somerset West, writing that bit by bit, we are being dragged, against our will, into this semi-dystopian future.
South African writer Breyten Breytenbach once wrote, in one of his poems, that death starts at the feet.
If death starts at the feet of a human being, where does the death of a country begin?
How can one recognise the early demise of a nation? What are the first visible symptoms of a failed state?
One day last week, I noticed I was out of red wine, so I drove to the liquor store. When I got to Main road, the shop was still closed; I had not realised it was Sunday. So, I found myself with half an hour to kill.
I stood around, checking my text messages while wandering up and down the street. At one point, I started taking pictures with my phone.
Photographs of vacant shops.
After what was about my third picture, I stopped. There were simply too many closed storefronts.
yet another vacant shop in the centre. (Photo: Joe Kitchen)Too many businesses had been shut down; the premises stood empty, stripped down to nothing.
I would peer through a window, my eyes glued to the glass, and all I could see was rubble. It was unclear whether someone had simply torn out all the furniture or whether they were planning to build something new.
I couldn’t see through every pane, as some doors and windows were covered with paper.
Of course, this is a scenario that is familiar to us everywhere these days, and some towns and cities are worse off than our town in the Western Cape. At least the town where I live, Somerset West, is, in many ways, still a relatively thriving community. Yet, even here, there are early signs of death. Simply too many once flourishing businesses have been abandoned, their bankrupt owners having been forced into unwanted retirement.
Seeing businesses sink is like watching people die
So they packed up and left, leaving only the empty shells that echoed.
What can be done? The despair of these vacated stores is palpable, it is truly depressing. Seeing small businesses sink around you every day is like watching people die.
This is what I think; I think that losing one’s business must feel like losing an arm or a leg to amputation. Or burning a book.
Every time a thriving business is discarded and boarded up, productivity stops. Human voices and laughter are no longer heard in those rooms. They are inevitably neglected, discontinued, left to decay, and often never to rise again.
Boarded-up building in a centre on Main Road. (Photo: Joe Kitchen)Everyone is always talking about the potholes. Thankfully, here in the Cape that is not a huge problem.
Everyone talks about town and city centres falling apart. I see it everywhere I go when I travel through South Africa. Some villages look as if they have been bombarded with small missiles. Buildings are literally disintegrating. It’s even worse in places like the centre of Johannesburg and Alexandra.
It’s not just the big and obvious things that bother me. I am troubled by the many little details left unattended. Bit by bit, we are being dragged, against our will, into this semi-dystopian future.
It was bad enough with Covid. It is worse now.
At last, having bought that bottle of red wine which I had promised myself, I drove further on through the main road. There were more dead shops. I switched off my camera and put my phone away. I just couldn’t take any more pictures.
There was a prime spot in Main road, right opposite the police station on a corner, which had become so dilapidated that it was now a ruin. Long ago, it had been a sought-after restaurant. Now it is little more than a pile of naked bricks covered with weeds. It is a brilliant location for an upmarket business but has been neglected for years now. No one can afford to build there. It is simply a dump.
Impoverishment
Slowly but surely, the same thing is happening to our country. Everything and everyone is being impoverished, their properties depleted, decimated, ashes to ashes.
The government doesn’t care. The government is on another planet. They are making their own plans.
Let us pause for a moment and consider the plans that the politicians are making, the issues that occupy their minds (apart from the obvious in-fighting and faction-forming, that is). What are their priorities? How do they intend to manage this country?
Well, they change place names. They want to build long poles with flags at the top. They are considering turning hate speech into a criminal offence, something they can decide about instead of a civil dispute. Expropriation without compensation is very high on their agenda, even though they have seldom been able to regulate the process in any meaningful way.
These are the issues they are thinking about. They are indeed on their own planet. They do not care a flying f**k about what’s happening to small businesses in this country.
To be completely blunt, at the back of their minds, they probably see small businesses as something inherently bad. They don’t like small businesses very much. It’s mos the infamous p-word. Privatisation, and all that…
And that, in a nutshell, is probably the real reason why they don’t care.
In short: if we want to save this country, we will have to do the job ourselves. Don’t expect any help from these guys. They have no interest in lending a hand.
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