Liquor giant’s billions show we’re drinking too much

Sandile Dikeni

My head feels a bit dizzy. I do not even know where to begin this narration. I have got a dizzy head that is why. The SABC also narrated the story in a way that told my intelligence that they were probably more dizzy than I. But possessing an intellect that is slightly better than the SABC I checked other news outlets and the news was being echoed. I became thirsty. It was not a normal thirst. It was a deep thirst. I am still a bit thirsty.

Look at it this way; financial reportage on the South African Breweries revealed that they were bigger than a shebeen. For the first time we realised that the bottle of beer in the fridge was only one of others that contribute to the billion-rand capacity of the SAB. I remember them giving the financial details of how big they are, but it is a detail I am not able to deal with. It is too big and if I might say, too embarrassing.

Let’s get it right; I am not one of those big religious chaps. Okay, but I am also not a dronklap(drunkard). In other words, the announcement this week of the SAB finances did shock me. It is not that I don’t want such amounts to be earned, but I do feel uncomfortable that the money is earned by a booze entity. Why? Why can’t it be earned by some thing as nice as cool drink.

When I raised this question to a group of people that I trusted, excuse the pun, to be sober and mature in their thinking, I was surprised by their disagreement with what they called narrow thinking.

In other words, they congratulated the booze company for what they said was a sober and intelligent way of running a business. They also said they are glad SAB was not run by guys like me.

Now that we are known by the international world, they said, it is obvious that the people of the world will see our might. They continued to explain that umqombothi (African herbal beer) was not really as cool as some of the narrow-minded Africans want it to be known. This whole narrow movement to Africanism, they said, is lacking in depth. That is why people like me, they said, won’t be able to appreciate the real capacities of a sober mind.

I tried to interject and explain that I was not blind to the real essences of a sober South Africa, but I was not really eager to jive my way up and down drunken realities without finding it right to say when I feel the absence of intellect.

I should not have said that, because everyone in the shebeen reminded each other that people like me were to be found all over the Bible with knobs on the face and broken ankles.

At this moment I reminded myself not to be too loud on the issue. But they continued the discourse of loud praise on their amazing beer-guzzling capacities.

They said they were not really proud of people who could not see the amazing capabilities of people who are not limited to one state of mind. In other words, they said, people who are limited to the sober state of mind are slightly boring.

The way they expressed it forced me to say I am not an entirely sober person; I do now and then hit a shot. They said they hear me but my commentary on SAB was not convincing. They also reminded me that Jesus once gave a drink to his disciples in Jerusalem or somewhere. That is when he apparently warned that Judas was going to betray him. The narrator at this moment was giving me a look that made somebody ask me if I was maybe related to Judas. I asked why I was being asked that question. Somebody else replied and said that “one must not ask a question when he is being asked a question”.

I decided not to ask a question again. I rather said that they were talking as if there was an announcement on the price of booze going down. Why, I asked, is booze so expensive when the booze selling entity was making a profit.

I was reminded that we are not a socialist state and should therefore not hurry to nationalise the liquor industry just because there is a profit in the industry. Somebody else said, pointing at me, “he is still a communist. I now know that the first industry that is going to be nationalised is the liquor industry”.

And then there was an uncomfortable silence with all eyes fixed at me over their glasses. It was that kind of silence that makes you swallow a lot without drinking.

Then they asked me why am I swallowing so much when I was not drinking. I made the mistake of saying I was not swallowing a lot, because then they said to me there was a doctor among them who could see I was swallowing a lot.

They pointed at him, who nodded his head indicating his assent while taking another sip. In deep silence, I unaware, took another sip. They also took many sips! Me, hearing their sips, was suddenly aware that their sips were not innocent. They were deep long sips that told me that I was not any more a popular person in their company.

I felt slightly guilty. But, between me and you, I did not take a decision not to drink any more. I just thought I drink less than what the alcohol-selling fraternity wants me to. I also decided I am not going to tell them that. It is none of their business.

But then, oh gosh, here am I writing it in a popular newspaper that they read! Something in me, however, is saying that “don’t be afraid. They’ll forget soon when they get sober”. Let me add by demanding that we refuse to limit thinking to the superficial gains.

There is not only an economic commentary made by the recent stats on booze. There is also, I suggest, a sociological saying that we need to hear. We are drinking too much. The liquor industry is not likely to make a comment condemning our drinking patterns, especially when they pass positive comments on their finances. They are not drunk, or let me say it in Afrikaans, “hulle is nie dronk nie!”. The Afrikaans saying is not a comment on the language.

I love Afrikaans too much to reduce it to an entity to be seen as drunk. I am just pleading for a sober mind that should warn the nation of the subtleties of stats like these. It is not a sober stat. This is not said from the perspective of the Christians or some either entity like that. This is a human being from Khayelitsha asking and pleading with us to get sober. Please.

The truth is that I think this request is going to meet with approval. People, when they are made aware of situations like these, are beautiful in their responses.