Am I a beggar in my own home?
To be honest I've been struggling with this
concept for some time now that you made me aware of it. But now other questions
started developing from this broader question. By home what do we mean, what it
is that makes a home a home? And upon finding some sort of answers of which I
myself am skeptical to pass on as fact given the complexity and the resultant
perplexity they leave me in.
Is it the confines of my family house or is it
something bigger and not as obvious. Because it is these so called points of
reference that aid in the making sense of the broader world. Given all of this
it thus becomes inherent that you need a backdrop when you are critically
analyzing a phenomenon. If phrases like everywhere I rest my head is home and
the famous home is where the heart is. Does the home have to be a fixed
location, nation state, region and lastly global. Because if the house my
parents own and their offspring have the potential to inherit no matter the
requirements calls for an absolute representation of a home. It is a building
that through relations known to a family is inheritable to the next generation.
In moving it to the national that is which I think you implied and not
explicitly pointed out that your point of discussion should be this one in
particular. Before we can move on, remember these two phrases home is where the
heart is and everywhere I lay my head is home. I have a green book and
ultimately it will be a smart card that affirms my right to call South Africa
my home. I was born and bred here, but question is what the significance of
such a right is. Does this imply that given my country of birth I should never
go hungry or put more broadly not to beg for what I need but get all it is that
I want?
So we’ve taken a little house and made it a representation of
a home. Your right to citizenship is guaranteed in this instance. But what
happens when ones heart is not in it or you have a home, but that is not where
you lay your head. Then where is home, and What is a home? I may have roots
that say I’m a legitimate claimant of a particular object, but does this claim
make me better than my neighbor? The social conditions in most if not all parts
of our society are dire. The irony then becomes why are things this way if this
is my parents’ house if it is really? Who asserts such prescriptions with what
intentions? So underlying all this is a tendency of entitlement given the right
to claim and birth rite. And what the concept is suggestive of is that at home
we do not beg at home we have the right to be and that is how things should be.
And then now we move to the beggar. Who is a beggar, and why is he a beggar?
What makes him suit the description of what we've come to conceive as a beggar
and how does he see himself/herself, chances are she/he may not think that she
is a beggar. Who then decides that beggars are a particular group of people as
opposed to another?
BEGGAR.
I'll utilize the national student financial aid
scheme as a case in point in answering this broader question and tying to it
the principle of education as being fundamental and a right possessed by every
South African. Over the years students from different walks of life apply to
such a scheme as an attempt to further their studies and dreams that encompass
the notion of bettering the backgrounds that are part of their makeup. What I
find to be problematic with how this scheme facilitates how one is eligible for
aid is the fact that an individual must first prove just how poor they are to
become recipients of such aid. But in an effort to offset free riders a means
test that is financial thus is necessary. But if education is a right, but has
a price attached to it what does this mean for the individual who is capable of
becoming greater than what the system determines does he also qualify as a
beggar? Poor families are as a result of the previous regime. But does survival
and how we get to make to it make us beggars in our own home? The grant system
in the country isn't sufficient for survival, but it does to a certain extent
alleviate the burden of survival where no income is present. Buttressed against
all this is the central question of killing the very reason of being human and
that is do whatever that is possible to be able to survive?
What have we come to understand a beggar as? Is it the notion
of being incapable of doing what needs to be done to ascertain that one is able
to survive and that his or her offspring do so as well. What makes a beggar a
beggar? Does one have to beg for what they want or what they need to be
beggars? In this context of survival we shall use the concept of the beggar as
an individual that is incapable of doing what is necessary for him/her to
survive and in turn seeks the aid of others as to ascertain that he or she
survives. Homes are spaces that all our needs are satisfied and all that we
want then becomes an individual's prerogative of attaining. The right to
citizenship amongst others we enjoy. All that we need given this we have, a
place we call home. But are we beggars in our own homes? An unfortunate past
we've inherited and till this day we confront- where this right of being
citizens in the land of our forefathers was previously not a reality.
Are such systems and services although seen to
be measures that equalize the playing field given our past and how its legacies
seem to continue are the ones that perpetuate the notion of being beggars and
in exchange for our livelihoods we vote for whom ever that keeps such systems
in place. What would happen if we had free education in our lifetime? The dignity
of the individual that is capable of being more than just what the system
determines would be restored and maintained. If the provision of employment or
even the necessary skills that one can possess instead of being a seeker of
employment, but a creator were to be tied to the right of being a citizen in
this country, would we still be talking of being beggars in our own home? My
immediate response is no. Because, I believe and I have once told one of the
cadres during a discussion that 'When people are desperate and if they're
survival depends on what you do for them you can do absolutely anything with
and to them' which seems to be case. Are we not returning a government to power
that makes sure that we remain dependent on it? We are not beggars because we
choose to, but if it means that our survival depends on it we are subtly
coerced to being the beggars we speak of. We are a generation that has lived to
see xenophobic/afrophobic attacks twice in a space of seven years and one of
the reasons cited is that foreign nationals (neighbors as already alluded to)
are taking their jobs. But if one looks at the sectors and jobs that they fill
predominantly, those posts are ironically the jobs South Africans would not
take up and if they wish to it happens that they are unqualified to do so. A
child of the house would prefer to run the family business than take out the
trash even if they were incapable of running such an establishment, because it
would be their birth rite to do so.
So my question to this conception of being a
beggar in my own home is: are we really beggars by choice or we do so
passively? And if this is the case are we not spoiled and entitled brats that
cite birth rite as opposed to fighting for our own equipment of skills and
knowledge of how to be self sufficient individuals that can contribute
positively to the moving forward of our nation instead of being a burden? I
don't know let us discuss this and see where we end up.
Hope this makes sense...
Tebogo
Winston Mogoru
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