By Oupa Ngwenya
International Women’s Day (March 8) stands out as a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women.
It would be worth our while as a country to examine breakthroughs clinched in social, economic, cultural, and political spheres.
The scramble for Africa is not only back with a bigger subtler bang but also with ferocious vengeance.
In these desperate times, in the desire for the country’s state of demonstrable state of independence and deserved clamour for public policy sovereignty, it is most crucial that the nation is impressed upon to observe what consistently motivates the rich to continue doing what they do.
This is especially so when the rich, across nations, take care of themselves and periodically meet in capitals of the reputedly rich countries to decide on their continued riches and what to do with the poor as a market rather than ending their poverty.
The rich do so at a time when the exercise of public power is shifting from the political sphere to the economic sphere where the majority are absentees by design.
The outcome is designer poverty against which democratically elected governments are systematically disabled to end poverty because, as a rule collectively determined by the financial world, donors, financiers, investors and globalists, elections are not supposed to change economic policy and the elected ought to minister to that directive when in government.
The voice of voters is outweighed by that of money. When money talks, the government listens.
And where money blunders to its loss, the government never fails to bail it out.
This means the policy sphere is a terrain of the financial world responsible for the financialisation of politics where voters are left without leverage to end poverty through the ballot.
Given this background, the rich operate within an environment where poverty is an opportunity.
Servicing poverty, rather than ending it, is the going entrepreneurial concern driving the business orientation of the rich.
The rich may or may not have created poverty but profit from it by selling ‘solutions’ to government that become public policy and whose implementation comes across as thoughtful relief to intended and targeted beneficiaries.
The government, in turn, embraces these solutions seized by a development theory that looks at issues within five-year election driven period of leaders being in office and securing second five-year terms to remain in office and to happily leave thereafter with Presidential packages.
To the issue of girls missing schools attributable to heightened lack of sanitary pads, an opportunity presents. Mind you, sanitary needs did not start in 2015 the year on which issuing them got heightened.
While it is in Johnson & Johnson entrepreneurial interest to supply sanitary pads, whose delivery is couched as philanthropic, Johnson Johnson (or similar company would not encourage a country (SA in this case) to which it supplies sanitary pads to think and act in the direction of manufacturing sanitary pads for its women citizens.
A government so encouraged - as not to manufacture pads to meet need of its own targeted population - by companies like Johnson "Johnson is impressed to believe that continued supply is a a permanent ‘quick-win’ to do.
By not manufacturing pads for own citizens constitute a permanent need for government whose response is then fixated to looking up to Johnson & Johnson for solution provision until next round procurement outcomes determines otherwise. This will be the standing order for pads, Johnson’s baby powder, oil, soap, earbuds, vaccinesin the total spectrum of the offering of its products.
By continuing to supply to the government so as not inclined to establish a manufacturing industry that will produce sanitary pads, companies like Johnson & Johnson have a permanent market to supply to a point of being a tried, tested and believable monopoly to count on.
This preys on development thinking of the recipient government oriented for five years. This happens against entrepreneurial thinking on the part of companies like Johnson & Johnson whose planning is long-term to a point lifetime generation after generation. While governments come and go, supplying companies stay administration after administration to shepherd their everlasting interests.
Independence, ending poverty and encouraging establishment of industries responsive to problems, for demonstrable relief to affected citizens, is not what companies like Johnson & Johnson are moved by.
The absence of relevant industries, continued dependency and everlasting supply entrenching market monopoly to be tilted in their favour to meet the demand of such nations is a public policy option that Johnson & Johnson will sell.
Within this ‘business thinking’ existing prevalent problems and needs of recipient countries are not there to be liquidated or solved but to be serviced to guarantee continued supply of externally based solutions.
Dependency therefore finds its way as a stipulated or implied way to go government after government, administration after administration.
This is just but on one issue of sanitary pads, that this would be terrain for Johnson & Johnson to be anchored to sail centrality of its solution provision. Imagine many more areas where Johnson & Johnson is in a favourable standing position to repeat the formula again, and again and again..
Since it is not Johnson & Johnson modus operandi alone, the same applies to other entities like Johnson and Johnson in other industrial sectors.
The script is more or less the same across industrial sectors of need.
On this year’s International Women’s Day, can South Africa test its mind bandwidth of how the level of policy thinking could be pitched to raise issues favourable levels to bolstering a developmental thinking state to steer towards independent public policy formulation responsive to citizens needs by owning up to problems affecting citizens by not forever delegating solutions to heartless commercial out to making killing money.
The situation can be effectively turned around by establishing industries providing solutions that are affirmative to the country’s state of independence rather than continued dependence to external interests.
This is level of discussions expected to meet cabinet reshuffles than liked and disliked personalities to be rewarded, punished and dumped according to wishes of warring factions that never see beyond the comfort of the offices they occupy.
Is this what the Department for Women, Children, people living with disabilities can be geared to be positioned to champion a liberating new perspective?
The desire for this stated perspective, is expressed very much mindful that South Africa’s state of mind, as a country, derives from the US Coca Cola and hamburger culture as drilled in films by Hollywood to cast cowboys and Indians depict the former as the goodies and the latter as the baddies.
Flowing from that, the hero and heroine making machine in South Africa is not only Hollywood mimicking but has also factionalises all else that there is to its public and private life.
Against all these schemes South Africa can consider a liberating approach it has conducted itself to the issue of sanitary pads to mitigate against loss of learning time pertaining to school- going female students in marking this year’s 2023 International Women’s Day from a South African/Azanian perspective.
Ngwenya is a Corporate Strategist, Writer and Freelance Journalist