Sever dependency by mobilising, enabling

Are South Africans suffering from a dependency syndrome? Our government is doing very good things for its people. It is committed to assisting its people and the activities it performs are well legislated and designed to protect the needs and dignity of the poor. 

A government that is providing the poor with shelter, water, electricity, sanitation for free is a very caring one.

Ours is a government that gives and gives and gives and doesn’t stop. We see nothing wrong in that and no one should.

But as much as we are doing well we should not be blinded and forget to ask ourselves questions like, are we not creating communities that will suffer from “dependency”?

Do not get me wrong. Every poor family in South Africa deserves government grants. We have all been completely dependent on another person during our lifetime, although for many of us this only occurred during our younger years.

Psychotherapist Robert Bornstein makes this important observation: “A few life experiences are so widely shared by people of different backgrounds that they transcend the boundaries of culture, gender, and ethnicity.”

Dependency is one such experience. Even once we have grown-up, we still show some degree of dependency on others and have need for support, guidance and approval from others, especially during stressful times.

But dependency becomes a form of psychopathology when there is an abnormal level of it and this causes personal distress and/ or functional impairment.

Our government policies are mum on how many grants one family is entitled to, or how many times you can give the same family the same grant.

It is understandable that a person who is more than 18 years old, who holds a South African identity document, is of sound mind, whose gross monthly household income is less than R3500, who has never received a subsidy from the government and neither has his or her partner, who has never owned property and neither has his or her partner – that person or his or her partner and their family will live on a property bought with a subsidy.

At this juncture it is important to highlight our context, to remember that this country was under the rule of the National Party that applied the most inhumane system of laws.

The new South African government took the initiative to mitigate the effects of the previous system and provide services to its people to give back the dignity taken away by the apartheid regime.

It is inhumane to expect that people exist without shelter, provision of water or sanitation.

That said, we also do not want to create a dependency syndrome that at the end of the day comes back to haunt us as a nation.

The black people of our country and of the African continent have historically claimed their own dignity through their own sweat. In terms of sanitation a man would dig a hole in the corner of his garden and go to the nearest forest to fetch poles to construct a toilet to serve his household.

Yet in 2000 our South African brothers and sisters died of cholera because they stopped participating in the provision of these basic needs.

In terms of shelter poor black people used to create mud structures for themselves. The whole household and the neighbours would come together to make mud bricks.

Those mud structures were strong and when the weather was cold they were very warm. When the weather was hot they were cool.

Today the names of many of our South African brothers and sisters are listed by the department of human settlements as part of the huge backlog of people without shelter.

In our African tradition a mature man is expected to build his own house regardless of whether he is employed or not.

The difference between a “dependent personality” and a “dependent personality disorder” is somewhat subjective, and in making a diagnosis one must be sensitive to cultural influences such as gender role expectations.

But it is an uncontestable fact that dignity means everything to an African man. A mature African man will never expect anybody to build a house for him (Xa abantu ubanika yonke into bazogqibela sebengenazo nentloni zokuthi “Siyozela rhulumente yizosilalisa”).

In terms of water, people used to fetch water from fountains during winter and during summer we used to practise water harvesting using water tanks/ containers.

Today those water fountains are used by animals and when the taps run dry we are left without any other option but to cry to our caring government.

Why is it that we are not going back to our fountains to clean them up and keep them protected for our own healthy use?

In pointing out what I have, my objective is to show how we have become dependent on government and how we have neglected the basics in participating in upholding our own human dignity.

We have forced government to stretch the nation’s resources to such an extent that they are exhausted because of the dependency syndrome which we have developed.

Meanwhile, we are using our resources without a view to how much is left. Look at those resources. Look at the energy crisis, the water shortages which in part are the result of the provision of free water that is used without a care.

I believe the government needs to develop an exit strategy.

Think of this as a cautionary tale. If you really want to help someone, consider them in a more favourable light than perhaps even they themselves can see. See them at their best, even if they can’t show it to you.

And help them to access their own strength, to reach their full potential. Challenge them to own up to who they really are – to feel the joy of personal empowerment and self-confidence.

Everything we do for another should be with the vision of their potential firmly planted in our mind’s eye.

As government we need to ask ourselves questions what good has come from our help? And what harm has come from our help?

Yes, helping lifts you up, but it doesn’t hold you up; it allows you to hold yourself up as best as you can. Helping at its best is supportive, not overprotective; it is strengthening, not weakening; it is mobilising, not paralysing.

When helping hurts, it is no longer helping. If we leave people weakened rather than self-empowered, or worsening rather than improving, we are no longer helping. In any case where the cycle becomes a vicious one, one that hurts and leaves you feeling too guilty to stop, it is time to consider what is helping and what is not.

Andile Mbarane is a civil servant who lives in Port St Johns