Entitlement and the Zulu King

IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi in his speech defending the Zulu King spent a fair amount of it castigating South Africans for having a culture of entitlement.

Now normally when people talk about this – they mean things like social benefits for teen mothers and suchlike.

But think about this for a second – who are the ultimate welfare queens of South Africa? Our monarchs, our traditional leaders.

The king is not the king because he did anything to earn it. He had the right parents.

He does not work, he spends massive amounts of money to the point that a R54 million budget was not enough to maintain him in 2014 – when he came to South Africa’s taxpayer with begging bowl in hand.

In March the king got an extra R2 million, with plans for his budget to grow to  R63-million in 2017.

We do not give single mothers R54 million budgets. We do not give teenaged rape victims R54 million budgets.

We complain about the work our country does for the very poor – yet we maintain these scroungers living large on the taxpayer’s dime.

And sure some of the traditional leaders were big noises in the struggle – there are plenty of struggle veterans who are still struggling, who would very much like R54 million a year.

A lot of religious figures have called on the “God of peace” today – and I don’t have much truck with that.

If we want peace we are the ones who have to bring it about, our behaviour isn’t some God’s responsibility it is ours. Power and responsibility is basically the same thing, and it is in our power to bring about peace if we want it.

But there is something in the Bible that I agree with, something very important to this discussion.

“You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye,” Matthew 7:5.

If you are going to complain about people expecting a living without working, you’d better be damn sure that description doesn’t cover the one you’re defending.

Similarly if you are going to complain about "foreigners bringing crime" - then you should not in fact be robbing their stores.

We maintain the authority of well educated rich do-nothings, while complaining about the benefits paid to those who cannot afford to do anything.

It is a matter of polishing the planks and complaining about the splinters. We need to deal with our hypocrisy problem.

If we are to complain about entitlements, then let’s start with the most entitled members of our public.

And they aren’t the ones in tin shacks; they’re the ones living in palaces.

It is true that the UK has a queen – and that is their business. That queen has not set the nation up in flames of xenophobia by calling for foreigners to leave.

When the UK’s prince Charles started trying to throw his weight around in government, it was a huge scandal.

The UK’s monarchy is maintained not as an authority – but as an expensive ornament. The Zulu King, whether he meant to or not has illustrated that our royals are not ornamental.

And thus they cannot be maintained in our Republic. The fact is that he shouldn’t have the power to have his inappropriate utterances ending other people’s lives.