September 07, 2008 Edition 1

Alyn Adams

Dear Minister Sonjica,

Just a note of support from a poorish white person, to remind you to keep your chins up in this time of tribulation. I say “poorish” because I know that, democratically speaking, I qualify as a prima facie elitest.

I was raised in an enclave of social and educational privilege, so my background could be characterised as previously advantaged, if you disregard disadvantages such as homophobia and religious brainwashing and the universal commercial disregard for the arty academic, not to mention the general plebeian distrust of intellectualism.

But, by the same token, as the sole breadwinner for an elective family of traditionally pigmented Africans of Malawian, Swazi and Diepslootian heritage, my colonialist leg-up hardly catapults me into the oligarchy. Yes, I have a job, but that’s about as far as my present-day advantage extends. I certainly don’t earn ministerial millions, or have the chance to vote myself a fat inflation-busting increase every year.

So, as I said, poorish. The family dogs have had to switch from Pedigree to Alpo, but the kids still get genuine tuna, at least.

Nevertheless, I can appreciate how hard it must be for one who has dedicated herself to saintly works uplifting the poor, to have her plans bedevilled by rich white people.

It’s even more annoying when the rich white people disguise themselves as poor black people about to be deprived of their very subsistence, just to thwart your plan to transform that ugly wasteland known as the Wild Coast into a pristine tourist attraction with beaches that rival Clifton. (At least, that’s how your mining partners are promising to leave it.)

And as for those rich white people hiring a lawyer with pro-poor struggle credentials as long as his arm – well, that just shows the dastardly deviousness to which those reactionaries are prepared to stoop.

And it’s all so harmful to international relationships, isn’t it? I mean, what are we to say to those nice Australian mining fellows, when these ingrates rebuff their philanthropic offer to tear all that nasty black goo out of our sand and rebuild our dunes to world-class, blue flag standards, practically free of charge?

By the way, congratulations on finding an Australian mining conglomerate that isn’t designed to channel most of its profits to rich white people – that must have been a pleasant, albeit unexpected, surprise.

What a burden they must be to you, all those rich white people who infest the Wild Coast – and you mustn’t be taken in by the way they’ve adopted ethnic surnames and live in overcrowded villages without electricity and running water, the cunning counter-revolutionaries – they’re obviously rich white people who pooh-pooh the 80 jobs this massive development promises to create.

I wouldn’t blame you if you got so irritated by this ungrateful bunch that you scrapped the whole deal. Let ‘em keep their dirty beaches and their unemployment levels, I say. What business have rich white people got being employed, anyway – even the really tanned, malnourished ones who speak nothing but Xhosa?

As a fearless legislator who has done so much for the arts, water affairs and the regular supply of Eskom electricity in her various portfolios, I reckon you’re well within your rights to cut them off from this splendid opportunity and shift it elsewhere.

So why not get your earnest Aussie do-gooders to move their dune-mining to Durban, instead? It’s one of our supposed tourism jewels, and for way too long we’ve had to apologise to visitors and explain, “No, it’s not an oil slick, it’s the titanium in the sand”.

I’m sure most Durbanites would rather say, “Take our titanium . . . please!”

And the Aussie mining company won’t even get flak from bunny huggers and troublemaking lawyers. After all, nobody’s going to complain that mining will screw up Durban’s beachfront, because Mike Sutcliffe and his posse have done such a good job of screwing it up already.

There’s pooh in the water, stompies in the sand, piers disrupting the natural flow of the current, and the next big storm could wash all our valuable titanium down to Plett. Compared to problems like that, a massive dredger off the Bay of Plenty sucking up the muck and spewing out the gorgeous golden sands that the Wild Coast is so short-sightedly rejecting may actually be an improvement.

And even if it isn’t, it will generate lots of gravy for you and Mike to split between you. The last thing on your mind, I’m sure, but after all the hassle you’ve been put through by those rich white people, it’s the least you deserve.

Posted on September 11th, 2008
Filed under: Letters