Durban - There’s a wealth of characters in the recent history of the Tugela Valley that are on a par with those one reads about in Wilbur Smith and Louis L’Amour novels.
Author and informal sector expert “GG” Alcock grew up with such characters and keeps stories of their daring adventures and clan wars he writes about in a special file.
“I plan to one day write about them. Especially for teens and kids,” he told the “Independent on Saturday” after the recent release of his latest book, “Born White Zulu Bred – A Memoir of a Third World Child”.
This update of his last memoir, “Third World Child”, published nearly a decade ago, also includes bits from his other books “KasiNomics” and “KasiNomic Revolution”. (“Kasie” is derived from “lokasie”, which means “location” or “township”.)
“A lot of people (reading the earlier books) said I hadn’t written about where I came from. People wanted to understand how KasiNomics came about. They were asking – who is writing these business books? ‘Born White Zulu Bred’ puts it all into one book.”
His and his brother Rauri’s childhoods were probably unique among white South Africans during apartheid.
Their parents, development workers and activists Neil Alcock and Creina Bond, made it their life’s mission to improve the lives of the poorest of the rural poor, fight injustices and share much the same standard of living.
They did so at Msinga, where life revolved around subsistence agriculture, dagga growing, migrant labour and clan wars in the era of apartheid and forced removals.
Neil Alcock was shot dead in an ambush in 1983 after being involved in peace negotiations during a clan war. In his latest book, GG blames the local police who loathed the “communist” in their midst.
GG, in his adulthood, has made a name for himself introducing the corporate world to the massive consumer market of the informal sector.
Back in his childhood, Msinga was the poorest place in SA and it still is, he said. Only now “poorest” isn’t the poor as it was then. Grants have injected money into the valley, there are more tar roads and it’s more electrified.
“People have cellphones, there are hair salons. Back then there was so much severe malnourishment and living below the poverty line.”
His mother, now in her eighties, still lives there, having continued his father’s work.
“She still lives in a mud hut with no running water and no electricity. She’s a force of nature.”
Rauri, known locally as Khonya, runs a goat project for small-scale farmers.
“My father’s work involved mainly welfare and human rights work. Now it’s more to do with development.”
GG calls himself an economic activist.
“There is little support for our informal sector,” he said, adding that the government constantly acted against the informal economy in failed projects such as wanting to move hawkers to marketplaces that are away from the foot traffic.
“We should be legislating more consciously for it. People would like security of tenure and not be kicked off the streets by metro police.”
He said they would also like better access to financial services.
GG scoffs at the argument that much of the informal economy is not taxed.
“They pay 15% VAT and, generally, do not claim on it so it’s a 15% benefit to the fiscus.”
GG puts SA’s unemployment figure at 12% compared with the much higher numbers bandied about, saying they did not factor in the informal sector . He said that while 12% was still way too high, “we should celebrate the 78%”.
“We should put these things into perspective.”
Why, then, is there crime?
“Almost all crime has no connection to the poor. It involves taking phones and cars, not blankets and food,” he explained.
“It’s ‘greed, not need’ and the fact that, in South Africa, crime pays.”
GG said unemployed people were more likely to go hustling in an informal business than stealing.
He also wishes the stereotype about crime in townships would be broken down.
“It’s usually in the shack areas and those are the least socially stable, populated by newcomers from both within SA and beyond.”
Many townships, he stressed, had been homes to the same families for up to three generations. They have their way of sorting crime out: vigilantism.
“Recently I was in a township near Pietermaritzburg where I saw R80 000 being counted on a grass mat after coming out of a plastic packet.
“They were loathe to take it to a bank in town and get mugged along the way. They said ‘here, no one will touch us’.”
GG added that while township businesses experience load shedding “ten times worse than the suburbs”, the informal sector had also triumphed over the formal sector in some areas. This included giving people more opportunity to buy things close to their home, usually in businesses operated from homes, reducing people’s need to go to large, formal sector retailers in towns and city centres.
Would the informal sector not be a political force in itself?
GG stressed that most of the middle-class people in it – and in the country – were conservative, deeply spiritual, respectful of elders and women and willing to spend most of their downtime in church and were often not inclined to even want to vote.
“People just believe that voting will not make a difference, that politicians don’t listen to them and that there are no real alternative parties for people in the township space.”
He said the ruling ANC was seen as a party that steals. He added that the majority who respect authority – including “not looking someone in the eye” – feel that actions such as those of the EFF walking out on President Cyril Ramaphosa in Parliament, are in bad taste.
“They feel their values are more important, so they would rather go to church and pray (than vote).”
In the blend of modern and traditional faiths is folklore that GG was exposed to at Msinga. Like the story of a mythical snake with a light on its head that inhabits a stretch of water in the Tugela, avoided by locals.
It’s one of the stories GG has written for his children who he has insisted identify with the Zulu side of their heritage.
“They were brought up with a strong sense of culture and Zuluness, visiting townships with me and their Gogo in Msinga.
“My eldest daughter won top marks for both English and isiZulu at Beaulieu College. When she went up to receive the prize, black parents nudged one another and remarked with astonishment, ‘but she’s white’.”
The story of GG’s life.
- “Born White Zulu Bred – A Memoir of a Third World Child” (Tracey McDonald Publishers 2023) retails for R350.
The Independent on Saturday