Stop being a sourpuss, EFF

As one of the country’s hardest working demotivational speakers and purveyors of gloom, I do love a good whinge. Seriously.

Few things are as satisfying as bursting someone’s bubble of blissful ignorance with a barrage of facts and figures, and watch them question their entire existence.

Recently I sat down with a group of young matric pupils, eager to finish high school and enter the world of work and tertiary education.

I broke down the dire state of our economy and reminded them that the country’s current unemployment rate stands at just under 30%.

But that isn’t all. The youth unemployment rate looks much worse at 54.7%.

So, I explained, what this meant for the eager matriculants, is that most of them were likely to join the ranks of the unemployed, and at the rate our economy is going down the toilet, things could only get worse.

The only way they could avoid this was by preparing themselves for the worst, no matter how good things happened to be at any given time.

Getting a degree isn’t good enough, I told them. Heck! Getting two degrees doesn’t even guarantee success.

Don’t believe all those tales of exceptionalism and how hard work will bring you riches.

Only the really special, or those with access to money and contacts among the elite, rise to the top. The rest are doomed to become a part of this capitalist machine, which will drain the life out of you.

I could tell my message really inspired them to give up all dreams, and re-examine what they want from life.

This is why I became a journalist. This is what I live for, and I have always considered myself rather good at what I do.

These past two weeks, however, I realised I am just not as good as I thought.

I saw a group of people so miserable that they don’t even need to use facts or logic to justify their attacks on happiness.

I saw a group of people who managed to take a sporting event, which had managed to bring some cheer into the miserable lives of South Africans, and turn it into another of our abundant sources of division.

Yep! The guys in the red onesies managed to ruin the Rugby World Cup celebrations.

Somehow the “superior logic” brigade had managed to craft an argument about how this sporting victory wasn’t worth celebrating, because it failed to improve the material conditions of black people. They would rather people not have any good times, because their dialectical insights do not allow any space for joy.

It does not allow for any joy while their quest for redress is unfulfilled.

However, it does allow for indulging in the very capitalist excesses they so often criticise, because what’s the point of earning a massive salary in a colonially inspired parliament, when you can’t splash the cash, while telling everyone else to be miserable about the colonial legacy?

How the Springbok victory was ever meant to change property and race relations, I don’t know. What I do know, is that even I could never be enough of a salty prick to ruin a sporting celebration when there is little else to be happy about.

And anyone who could, shouldn’t be in a leadership position, because they clearly care more about scoring points for their own agendas than about seeing people happy.

Earl Coetzee.

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