Hello friends,
How are you today?
Corruption and greed is what this topic is aiming at.
Let me get a drink, please wait for me
…
Thank you, it was truly a busy day, with a lot of maintenance checks happening on this website, but here I am… I sure won’t miss my meetings with you to discuss our world, racism, how we can make the world a better place, get poetical, ironical, metaphorical or philosophical.
I asked my father and mother at the dinner table the other day, “Mum, Dad, tell me something. Where were all the South African Gujaratis when Gandhi was fighting for us, did many Gujarati people support Mandela?” My father and mother looked at me with this thought sitting in their head, “Finally someone asked the question, finally…” I bet I can ask you the same question but with a different angle, “Where were the morale British people when King Henry VIII had wars with the French, Scots, Gaelic lords of Ireland, his traditional allies and even killed his own?” See it happens everywhere.
You know and you probably gather in all this time while reading these articles of mine that if you have white skin and automatically fit in as white it’s a bonus, even if you’re a blond from Valencia. No one will know anything until you open your mouth but until then there’s a lot you can get away with. Walk around with my Indian face, name and long plaited hair … It really doesn’t matter even if I have an educated mouth when I do open my mouth… (I know what you’re saying… Oh no! Please, we really don’t want to be you). I can’t believe that I’ve even managed to be with me for this long…
You want to know something else, if I’m not playing Xena the warrior princess, Hindus, especially from other castes in India, make me Princess Patel when I meet them for the first time. Trust me, the surname Patel, when working with Hindus did not help me out at all, in fact, it worked against me and brought so much spite and drama for me… Just for the record guys and gals… all Patels aren’t rich, and this Patel over here, yaaaa, me… started my life on just one thousand three hundred pounds at the age of twenty-one. Next time you see me, please do not judge me by the surname Patel, I am not Princess or “Sultana” Patel.
When you live your truth, speak your truth and follow your path, transparency is a powerful place which others see as a weakness; a vulnerability that they can profit from. T. Dench Patel, 27 February 2020, 17:04
You see that text above which I’ve highlighted in bold above, it happens in every country to anyone who is living their truth or following their path, but it happens a lot more in third world countries. That is why I say the good and smart ones go, the extortionists remain and make money from the desperation and vulnerability of others creating the same circle again and again – Licensed robbers in broad daylight.
South Africa’s educated are leaving this country, the people who are tired of the injustice, corruption and extortionist are leaving. It’s a losing battle. You know why? Because even overseas lawyers do not charge as much as lawyers, private care, optometrists, etc charge in South Africa. To replace a lawyer in the UK you can use a solicitor. My mouth dropped when I heard the amount of something from someone who is qualified with University training charges, and it didn’t help sitting with a foreign accent that sounds British either when I called up to query the price.
See, those who can afford to study degrees and masters in South Africa and begin their businesses have a choice, in some things you have a choice, like operating your business through serving genuinely the people who want to help, or isn’t that why you studied the degree or masters? I wonder… especially if you’re using the vulnerability and desperation of those who have nowhere else to turn but to you. Unfortunately, this is true of South Africa, there are a lot of professionals that use their education and manipulation knowing full and well that this knowledge is only accessible to those who pay, and there is a huge proportion of people who are uneducated in South Africa. Do the math, if the good and smart ones are leaving, the extortionists see an opportunity by replacing the smart ones, leaving those who are vulnerable, desperate and less able begging at their doors. This is why Home Affairs, Home Office etc. of countries can keep doing what they do…
This is why lawyers can make people run after them in South Africa, this is why optometrists can have hidden ways to make money… because people don’t know, they are made to run around a thousand times before they are forced to come back to your door and just pay what you want praying, they’re actually praying deep inside (if you’ve noticed) that you will really help them.
I want to tell you a story, a very short one… If you’re qualifying in South Africa, please help the people, really, otherwise, why did you qualify in that, especially when you know people need the service and will pay you, so why you’re overcharging?
When Apartheid ended, I knew some people who got admission into University. I remember what it was like to be hungry to live your life to the full now that you can earn money. You must understand the hunger of a student who studied seven years to qualify in a degree or longer for masters; the pressure, the owing money for studies etc. is looming over their head? Trust me, these students, every one of them paid off their studies, I quickly learnt that some of these students began starting their own businesses, charging hidden fees in ways that can go unnoticed through medical aid. There they were, years later, a house, a car, loads of money …. Guess what!? Loads of problems that were unnecessary if they just stuck to the moral of it all. They would still have had all of that that they have now with an awesome reputation for doing business. Some of them built a name for themselves where if you’ve lived in that community all your life, people will talk. Bad service and unhappy customers go around telling more people than a person who got good service.
To conclude there are too many “educated” robbers working in broad daylight, some of them even created their own network in the local area destroying the name of good lawyers, optometrists, private care specialists, good government officials, that people have just lost trust in who is the right person they can go to.
If this circle keeps going around eventually the desperate and vulnerable are going to become the same and the next batch of professionals that qualify will be no different.
Yours sincerely,
T. Dench Patel
Thank you for the comments and support. Thank you for offering to donate if there was a donate button on here. I prefer not to take donations. You can support by either purchasing one of my books (Paperback or Kindle), The South African: True Colours, The South African: Roamer or my children’s book Light. These books can be found on Amazon mainly and other sites in your country.
The audiobook for The South African: True Colours is available on iTunes, Apple and Audible. The South African: Roamer and Light will be released soon.
Note: Do keep referring back to this site as much as possible, as I grow, a more profound perspective may form and so I will always come back to each of these articles to reevaluate them.
