Eight metres is all that is all that stands between Izak and Parliament. The physical distance may be short yet Izak might as well be living on another planet. On my short 500 metre walk to the office, I walk past makeshift beds (made of cardboard, blankets and sheets of plastic) belonging to people who often go unseen and are never heard.

Izak often props himself up against his wheelchair, wraps himself in all the clothes he owns, then another layer of blanket and then a sheet of plastic. Izak is regarded by many as the kind of person that we are allowed to blame for their ‘station’ in life and simply generalise and stereotype their story. Sadly, too often we rely on enforcement and policing solutions because they are perceived to be the problem.

The challenges of spatial inequality, poverty and inequality in a more general sense are bottleneck issues, which are rooted in how South Africa is structured. It is important to remember that this spatial divide is not simply in the layout of our towns and cities but is rooted in our society.

I could dismiss Izak, and those like him, as lazy or paint him as being a drug addict or an alcoholic and generally view him as someone who is solely to blame for his lot in life. Surely, that approach would be a contradiction to the value system of Ubuntu? At its essence, Desmond Tutu described Ubuntu as simply being “my humanity is inextricably bound up in yours”.

Somehow, we make the choice to abdicate our own role in that structural system. We forget our own privilege, we choose to forget and we are always looking to someone else to take up the fight. We look to someone else to solve the problem, pretending that we are powerless and just passive observers. It is easier for us to pretend that poverty, inequality and the daily situation of people like Izak is not our fault or problem.

It is easier for us to just blame someone else. Or to blame corruption or Apartheid or to pin it all on a failure of leadership. Of course, that in part may be true but we have somehow forgotten our own agency and what should be our own impetus to act with conviction.

Our problem today is that the problem (and the solution) is always someone else’s responsibility. We won’t acknowledge our abdication of responsibility to Izak. We won’t confront our own contribution each day to what is wrong in our society. Yet, we are always ready to wash our hands and pretend that someone else should be doing the nation building as long as we are not directly affected.

Ubuntu and accepting our role in that system are huge asks especially when each week, we are reminded by the chattering classes (or talking heads) that we are a collective of tired, angry, disgruntled and frustrated individuals. The idealism, hope and promise of a better tomorrow have long since bolted from the stable and we are left with the ruins of that hope.

The inequality goes far beyond eight metres. We see it in the distance of 6km between two primary schools, one on Klipfontein Road in Athlone and the other on Campground Road in Rondebosch. We see it between Rondebosch Police Station and Khayelitsha Police Station (that distance is about 25km). The disparity can be replicated across the breadth and length of South Africa. Every day we are confronted with our own role in that structure of abnormality and degradation and yet we choose to ignore the lived experiences of so many and obfuscate our own role in that system.

Taking on responsibility is not an easy, thing especially when we may not personally be responsible for what is happening to the Izaks of our country. However, we are inextricably connected and we must accept that we have been called upon to do hard work instead of pretending we can do nothing about what is wrong in our country.

Diagnosing the problems is never enough especially when real solutions aren’t being thought about. We have many people happy to quote Frantz Fanon or willing to unpack their specific blend of ideology but there are few people who are willing to do the hard work of building a society based on Ubuntu. We may be inextricably connected yet we are doing everything in our power to pretend that we are free of responsibility for the problems South Africa faces. DM