Too Patriotic For Your Own Good

There's a new statistic claiming that deep down all South Africans were really happy to be stuck at the south end of Africa. This stat proved to be so popular that even the media picked up on it.

It even had politicians dancing in the aisles. They patted each other on the back for the great job they have been doing, and promptly forgot that the travel gate scandal ever happened.

Now everyone else might be happy about this, but I see no reason to cheer our new found patriotic pride.

By now those of you that stop by often, know I hate these public opinion pulls, there are just too many variables to take into account when working with data like this. This is another one of those surveys that were presented to the media and the public without anyone looking into the merits of it. Instead of claiming that we all felt warm and fuzzy, it should have stated that only people questioned felt that way.

My question is: Are we not becoming just a tad bit too patriotic for our own good?

Lately every product we buy that is manufactured in South Africa has a Proudly South African sticker on it somewhere.

Although the PSA campaign claims to only award this stamp of approval to the best of South Arican products, one can not but wonder, how many of these products are really as good or South African as the sticker claims.

But we don’t care, some of us watch, buy or listen to these products, just because we believe we are supporting our country. Even though there may be better imported product on the shelf, we pick SA, because it might be crap some times, but at least it is our crap.

This new patriotic attitude does not encourage an economic environment of independence and progress, since it becomes easier for companies to rather just brand their products as South African to get the consumer to buy, then to actually create better products.

To my knowledge the best example of this industry stand still, is the South African version of the popular game show Weakest Link. Some of you might have noticed that, this British created show also bears the PSA symbol at the end of each episode.

The only truly South African thing that this show can boast of must be Fiona’s bad acting abilities. Everything else was thought up by some big wig at the BBC, not at the SABC.

What are the producers of this show so proud about? The fact that they manage to produce a perfect imitation of the original? “Hey people, we didn’t create it, but you have to award us for trying.”

That is what I find worrying about the PSA campaign and our need to proof that we are South African enough. We are starting to award any and all ideas. It no longer matters whether they are good enough or not. As long as we get warm fuzzy patriotic feelings when we hear them.