By BABALWA SHOTAIs the fear of how others perceive us leading us into financial ruin?
Your finances could be great, however...ABANTU
BAZOTHINI?
“There are three things I value more than anything in the world
- my partner, my son and my Range Rover. If one of those should
go, the toss-up will be between my man and my son. That Range
Rover is going nowhere!” jokes a friend when I tell her about the
article I’m working on.
I say “joke” because she laughed, but I also know that deep
down, she was serious. For my corporate building manager friend,
the idea of downgrading is not something she’ll ever consider
because she believes she’s “earned” her seat at the sushi table —
and there’s no way she’s going back to peanut butter sandwiches
and black tea.
“I get that,” concurs another friend, an entrepreneur steadily
working herself towards an unashamedly nouveau riche lifestyle
of exclusive estate living, insanely expensive private schools, and
million-plus Rands worth of German engineered wheels. “If I
ever had to choose between a Range Rover and a man, you’d best
believe that man’s got to go!”
My friends may come across as shallow and even a little callous,
but one would have to be living under a rock to not know that
the Black Diamond dream is a sham and that the South African
middle class is drowning in debt, living it up on credit cards
and bank loans. The monstrous estate home, the sleek beast on
the driveway, the international holidays that are painstakingly
recorded and curated for your social media viewing pleasure —
most people starring in these self-made fantasies are deep in debt
and constantly fighting panic and anxiety.
So, why are we so scared of what people will think or say about
us if we drive a Corolla instead of a Porsche Cayenne — and live in
Westonaria instead of Waterfall? Why does the ‘Abantu Bazothini’
syndrome wield so much power over us?
“The problem is that some people don’t pluck up enough courage
to downgrade as they see this move as too ‘humiliating ’ for them.
Pride gets in the way. I’m sorry to say, but pride comes before the
fall and it takes you ten steps back,” writes Money Psychologist
and columnist, Winnie Kunene, in one of her blog posts.
South Africa’s favourite #FinancialFitnessBunny, Nicolette
Mashile, weighs in with another angle. “If you come from a
background where you’ve been a ‘have-not’ for a very long time,
downgrading your lifestyle is difficult because you almost feel
like you’ve graduated from ‘the struggle’ and you’re in a different
space. So, the thought of downgrading hits hard; it’s a psychological
and personal journey that one didn’t think they would need to
go through,” says Mashile, a social entrepreneur, TV host and
financial speaker.‘ABANTU BAZOTHINI’ SYNDROME UNPACKED
It’s a psychological restriction, block or bias people saddle
themselves with, according to Mashile. “I’m not a psychology
expert, but this thinking is built over years and experiences of
being a have-not for a very long time. We then attach certain ideas
in the way people perceive us, and the way we perceive ourselves
based on others’ opinion of us. It’s a status issue; feeling like people
are keeping score when they’re around you, based on what they
see on the outside,” she adds.
This fear of what others will think can be so pervasive that some
would rather endure the anxiety and constant harassment from
creditors than go through what they see as the “humiliation” of
downgrading. From personal experience, I know how one gets
to be treated like a demigod by family or the community when
they’re seen to have “made it”; an assumption that leads one to
having to uphold a certain status quo, not to mention, become
an unintended benevolent benefactor of the so-called Black Tax.THE BLACK TAX TRAP
“Black Tax can play a huge role in delaying financial success or it
can be a potential investment, depending on who you’re paying it
forward to. The reality is that the people who pay it are perceived
to be financially well-off just because they have careers and certain
lifestyles that are seen as an upgrade. Expectations are created.
However, if you were to sit your family down and explain your
financial boundaries, they would be able to understand your
obligations and restrictions better and pull back, instead of you
going into debt trying to manage those expectations,” Mashile says.
Kunene has been advocating for years ,through her columns,
for people to live within or below their means. “Don’t keep up with
the Joneses when you can’t even afford to contribute towards a
colleague’s birthday cake at work. However, you need the Joneses.
They have everything – the big car and big house, they brag about
their holidays, and everyone wants to keep up with them,” she
writes. “Little do you know that they’re also drowning in debt.
They’re just covering it up and you ignorantly assume they’re
coining it. You need the Joneses to inspire you not to be like them.”
A private banker for one of the big four banks, who prefers
to remain anonymous, confided that he spent most of his time78 |^ OCTOBER^2019 | WWW.TRUELOVE.CO.ZA