TEXSTYLE

I had an eye-opening (final!) shopping-traipse-along today. After all, someone has to carry the packets…

From Boebae Towers to Pratunam; from rock-bottom bulk prices to more exclusive items; thousands upon thousands of square meters devoted to thousands of small, mostly textile related businesses with the odd accessory bulk supplier and a jeweller or ten in-between. Shoes, bags, belts, hats and cosmetics; couriers, deliveries, agents and buyers; whatever anyone could need including mannequins and shelving with food stalls to feed every worker; and an effective public transport system that includes elevated, underground and ‘normal’ rail as well as buses, taxis and rickshaws: and let me not forget the river taxis!

But the eye-opener was the booming textile industry and beside the big-buyers from across the globe who are standing-by on their tablets and ordering via email, there are the locals who are buying and wearing the locally produced clothes. I couldn’t help but try to imagine a South Africa where every big retailer and informal trader was selling clothing that is being made in South Africa? Of course, we would still have to import the fabric and buy cheap cotton from China and probably source the buttons from someplace else; but then again with the standing international trade agreements that are in place we would probably have to start importing something else of even less intrinsic value to society so that we can continue to buy some other essential item – like rice or a value-system – from one of South Africa’s many bed-partners… I mean trading-partners.

And in the Argus I had to laugh at the narrow-angle-reporting that announced directly from a press statement:

“R60m gives Langa a lift”

A lift where? I wondered… When a few more small businesses will be forced to close; a few more unemployed; more security, more minimum wage labour, more cheap imports of inferior products and bigger performance bonuses for the likes of good old Whitey because fuck knows, it’s an achievement for any developer to secure a Shoprite and a Pep as major tenants. And in addition to the obligatory exclusivity clauses that such retailers insist on, as well as incremental rentals, there will not be many residents or businessmen from Langa who will qualify for the bankrolls that will ultimately only benefit whoever is ‘earning’ the major profit.

En almal klap han’ne en smile…