REAL NUMBERS: When superstition and science collide
|Published
Superstition and science suggests that when a significant figure on earth departs, big things also happen.
In a paper presented at the International Union of the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) in 1997, an interesting paper studying the patterns of mortality amongst the elderly pointed to a pattern where after a significant year, such as the Year of the Tiger, an outlier death pattern amongst the elderly occurs.
The phenomena of mortality of long life was also observed amongst cars, whereby some automobiles would run for years and years while others and most experienced premature demise relative to the antics, even if these were driven more or less under similar conditions.
The study of death looms large, and what that beholds is very relevant as we go through one of the worst global upheavals with no end in sight.
The UK has entered this historic period with a fair share of challenges. Less than 50 days ago, the Queen appointed Prime Minister Liz Truss after Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned. Three days after this important duty, Queen Elizabeth II departed.
Many, correctly in retrospect, said the death of the Queen shortly after anointing Truss was an omen.
Seven days into office, the Chancellor of Truss, Kwasi Kwarteng, flanked Truss with the worst Neo-liberal policies that ever could be seen since Thatcher’s time. Tax deductions for the rich and soulless markets frowned at this and showed their soul. Even the Conservatives poured cold water on Truss-Kwarteng’s tango.
The Pound tumbled, and prices shot through the roof. Truss had no option, but to sack Kwarteng and Truss herself, had but limited life as she had to leave office on day 45. This sordid chain of events seem to suggest that a big person attracts extraordinary consequences.
But home, in South Africa, we can look at the passing of Professor Ben Turok in 2019.
To put it in context, the great pilgrimage to the Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation Drakensberg Inclusive Growth in the Drakensberg has resumed. This is following the decimation of this annual programme by Covid-19. For two years, the in-person sessions could not happen.
But the enthusiasm and actions continued to take place on virtual platforms.
As the trek to the Drakensberg happened, the challenges facing the country had deepened and broadened. This is the virtue and far-sightedness of design in the establishment of the Drakensberg Inclusive Growth. It is a dialogue of equals that revives the ideals of democracy. In this regard, the session takes place a few days before the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS).
Following the last in-person session in 2019, Turok was explicit about not approving the MTBPS, and he died with his boots on a few days after the MTBPS. Turok was a staunch proponent of the Reconstruction and Development Plan (RDP).
The Institute for Economic Justice at the University of the Witwatersrand, including many civil society organisation groups, have expressed the existential challenges facing the poor and the need for the implementation of the Basic Income Grant as a floor requirement.
Short of its implementation, they argue South Africa would be plunged in poverty never seen before in the post-apartheid era.
With the experience of western markets that attempted to follow a Neo-liberal agenda that we in South Africa for a while have been, is it not time to pause and allow other views to be heard at the time when we went for the Mont Fleur Scenarios in South Africa?
Russia had just collapsed, China was not visible for solace, and the least we could observe on our shores for socialist-leaning were Angola and Mozambique. The west was extolling the death of socialism.
South Africa’s adoption of the Flight of the Flamingos perhaps attracts pardon because there was no successful example of socialism at that historical moment, yet, the passing of the Flight of the Flamingos would not pass.
Faced with similar circumstances rearing their head on the collapse of capitalism in both Europe and the US, taking an anti-trade stance is it not time to step back and revisit our stance on the RDP, where we pledged the five critical objectives of Meeting Basic Needs, Developing Our Human Resources, Building the Economy, Democratising the State and Society, and Implementing the RDP. Three decades of suffering in a life of a country is certainly short, provided there is an honest promise to reverting to the promise of the RDP.
Superstition or science, trust the UK. Truss has opened the Overton Window for us to have trust in the RDP. Let us use the trek to the Drakensberg. It provides us with such an opportunity. Otherwise, postponing death becomes an impossibility, given the kiss of death.
Dr Pali Lehohla is the director of the Economic Modelling Academy, a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, a Research Associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished Alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former Statistician-General of South Africa
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