How far in the future are the taverns travelling from, dear Panyaza Lesufi? Unemployed youth and graduates have just recently acquired their temporary jobs from your Nasi Ispani initiative – jobs that are sure to fade into the shadows shortly after the elections. Would they have to drown their future re-unemployment sorrows in the taverns of tomorrow?
As maritime law dictates, money has to move like the current of the sea – currency. Some sort of boomerang effect of reclaiming the slave wages you are going to pay them. I know that reeks of a conspiracy theory, but why the secrecy around Nasi Ispani?
As for the government-owned taverns turning officials into shebeen kings and queens, I suppose they will exist in a vacuum that, somehow, patrons can access in this dimension. That they will be quiet enough so as not to cause the nuisance of loud noise during exams. MEC Rodgers Monama’s department of economic development is inundated with such complaints in Limpopo.
And also right now, the destitute and unemployed are again sidelined for temporary positions during elections at the IEC, over already employed teachers affiliated with the ANC.
What could be so futuristic about a tavern, except perhaps the architecture and furniture? Will they land in a spaceship?
The last thing we need is more beer in the township.
Unless they are built within a mirage, I bet guns of the near past could still shoot up the taverns of the future.
I bet cars would still flip over and kill drunks driving out of the taverns of the future.
Consider a vast ocean of information, where books are islands waiting to be explored. The ability to read is the compass that steers the ship of the town. Only by navigating these waters can you reach the shores of enlightenment, where a bountiful feast of understanding awaits.
We wouldn’t mind libraries from the future in the township, integrated with soup kitchens. Children could be encouraged to read a page from a book designated for their age to qualify to stand in queue for a meal. Imagine township parents telling their children; you need to learn how to read, that's the only way the government gives you something to eat.
This idea might be too simplistic and somewhat restrictive, but too few would argue that it isn’t better than sprouting more taverns in the locations.
The lives we are living are just too fast; we can’t even return people to their families in one piece. We sort out differences with knives in this stab fest. We stab first and ask rhetorical questions later – do we really want peace?
While we are at it, someone should submit a Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) application to probe out these taverns of the future before they materialise. And hopefully the application will not be rejected by the premier’s office like ActionSA’s PAIA on Nasi Ispani.
The more its contents are hidden, the more it gives a PR stunt.
Saturday Star
norman.cloete@inl.co.za