▼ 5:32wapongte dongewa ngigac ye ngaweineholec gagachac. ilec ailu ngic monicti yele ngigac bame ye selo aibaba aigac. living wage to R12 000 a month and given the high cost of living, the figure sounded fair and just to me. Hence, the labour federation leaders maintain their stance that it is possible to create decent jobs for peo­ ple – both old and young. I know that the buying power of any country is dependent on the capacity of its citizens to earn a living wage so that they can be in a better position to purchase goods and services and hence boost the economy. I know that Europe achieved this and the majority of people on that continent were once said to be enjoying secured social and economic circum­ stances even if a few were rich. I also know that the architects of apart­ heid were in cahoots with the bosses of industrywhentheycheapened black education so that only white people could get good jobs, and thus ensure that there was abundant cheap labour in the interest of the development of the then ex­ clusively white­owned indus­ tries. So Jim and Vavi are not MKHIZE necessarily out of order here. It is possible that some of us do like the easy way out e.g. luring business to employ people in big numbers by relaxing employment meth­ ods and pay packages in view of poor cooperation from business – hence the introduction of incentives to encourage business to employ people, as well as labour brokers. As an impatient person, I do not know if it is right or wrong to have to wait for Jim and Vavi’s grand plan to nationalise the economy and push the manufac­ turing sector to give people decent jobs. It does not feel cool at all to have to keep over 50 000 unem­ ployed graduates in this country waiting to be employed (in fact, the unconfirmed number of edu­ cated or trained youngsters who do not have real jobs is standing at over 600 000 presently). To use current finance minister Pravin Gordhan’s words, are South Africans okay with making the future generation inherit a more “modest” social and economic circumstance that still requires a lot of im­ provement? Or to use Jim’s pro­Marxist line of thinking: is it all about the class struggle in a world which favours capital and undermines the working class? Personally, I like it when rich and working class neighborsbothhavefoodtoputonthetableandtheir children can go to school and they all get medical care and they all have access to transport and recreation. If it was possible for Europe to achieve this, why should Africa fail to do the same? Can Numsa take us to the promised land of dreams? *Simphiwe MKhize writes in his personal capacity.