You may well be acquainted with the adage ‘He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches’ from George Bernard Shaw’s 1903 play, Man and Superman, Maxims for Revolutionists: Education. But it no longer holds true for South Africa for several reasons, the most prominent being that I do not know of anyone nor of anyone who knows anyone with the desire – even the faintest of desires – to want to teach. Well, on second thought, a possible exception is my mother, but then I would strongly argue that it is deeply engrained in her DNA; besides, she belongs to a different generation. I also do not know of anyone willing to make the sacrifice that goes with pursuing the noblest of professions.

But some among us might see a positive in this, for it may imply that South Africa is a country of doers. In other words, that we have the ‘yes, we can’ – or, rather, ‘yes, we do’ – attitude reminiscent of a campaign slogan of the immediate past leader of the free world.

But back to South Africa. Is one to then assume that South Africa is a country of doers? If you do, then you have been taken in by the post hoc ergo procter hoc fallacy. The question of whether South Africa is a country of doers is not a rhetorical one. To assist you in your contemplation of the question, consider the following: if your view is that ‘can’ is indicative of ‘action’, then you need to consider what is implied by the word ‘action’. ‘Action’ is defined as ‘the process of doing something, typically to achieve an aim,’ ‘a thing done’ or ‘an act’. Please do not confuse ‘act’ with ‘acting’. Though it is getting old, it still raises a weary smile when one hears a place of employ being referred to as Hollywood. This is normally attributable to a sizeable component of the staff ‘acting’ in their positions. If you were wondering, this type of ‘acting’ is defined as ‘temporarily doing the duties of another person’. This ‘duty’ implies ‘a task or action that one is required to perform as part of one’s job’.

But let us return to ‘action’. Does your definition of ‘action’ include a ‘meeting’, which is defined as ‘an assembly of people for a particular purpose, especially for formal discussion’? There is another definition: ‘a situation when two or more people meet, by chance or arrangement’. Do not get me started on ‘chance’, but you might argue that, in the absence of chance, nothing happens. This reminds me a bit of the adage ‘for, if it was not for the last minute, then nothing would be done’.

If you know anything about South Africa, you will appreciate our preference for meetings? A meeting is more descriptively, but not popularly, known as ‘the practical alternative to work’. You may have seen this stuck on many a cubicle partition: ‘Are you lonely? Tired of working on your own? Do you hate making decisions? Hold a meeting! You can see people, show charts, feel important, point with a stick, eat doughnuts (maybe even chicken – could even be imported) or impress your colleagues. All on company time!’

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan is, no doubt, busy preparing for the National Budget (will it be his last?), which he will present on February 22. He may, if he has not done so already, consider the imposition of a tax – on meetings. In my opinion, meetings, generally, are one of the few human activities that impose an external cost on others and on the environment that still remain untaxed. That is a travesty. Arguably, meetings have played, and continue to play, a part in global warming, as the emission of all the hot air cannot be good for anyone or the environment.

According to a 2014 research report, a proven way to diminish the urge in those who have an affinity for meetings is to remove the chairs from all meeting rooms. Besides the duration of the meetings becoming significantly shorter, there would be health benefits as well, as the meetings would be less confrontational, more creative and more effective.

Against the backdrop of talking and meeting, http://www.capetalk.co.za reported on January 16 that Rainbow Chicken, which has been renamed RCL Foods and is one of South Africa’s biggest chicken producers, planned to retrench 1 350 workers from the end of January. (There are other companies in the industry that intend to follow suit.) The company is said to be selling 15 of its 25 farms in Hammarsdale, in KwaZulu-Natal, to stay afloat after years of fighting overseas chicken imports. RCL MD Scott Pitman was quoted in the report as saying: “We just don’t see light at the end of the tunnel. It’s been five years that we’ve been in negotiations with government.”

The recent threat of job losses in the industry is nothing new; nearly four months ago, on September 30, 2016, Business Report ran a story headlined ‘SA chicken industry set for huge job losses’. Eleven days after the recent report, the Department of Trade and Industry issued a media release titled ‘Government initiates a process to develop and implement a shared response to the crisis in the poultry industry’. Note the use of another favourite, ‘process’, instead of action. The media release also mentions ‘significant progress’. As I was taught, you always measure progress against something; otherwise, you convey perception. The media release reads: “A poultry sector task team established by the South African government to deal with the crisis in the domestic poultry industry has secured significant progress across a number of work streams to develop a common response to the complex challenges facing the domestic industry.

“The task team [comprises] representatives of the departments of Trade and Industry, Economic Development, and Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing, as well as the Industrial Development Corporation. The sector industry association, Poultry South Africa, and representatives of the poultry producers represent business. Labour is represented by the leader- ship of the Food and Allied Workers Union.

“The work streams established by the task team to process a range of possible short- and longer-term interventions include the following: trade measures; health and quality issues; competitiveness; industry growth and transformation; and industrial financing, incentives and demand-side interventions.

“As soon as the necessary technical work has been completed for the short-term interventions, the task team will submit, for final ratification, a set of short-term and shared interventions.

“These proposals will be submitted to the Ministers concerned and the broader leader- ship of business and labour involved in the poultry sector. In the interim and as such time as shared ameliorative and supportive measures can be instituted, government appeals to the industry to do everything possible to prevent any plant closures and retrenchments.

“Further media announcements will be made as soon as concrete proposals have been finalised and as and when appropriate.”

Well, what do you make of that? Let me just say, ‘ameliorate’? I have to confess I was not expecting this word to be used in this media release and had to look it up to establish its correct use. Just to be clear, ‘to ameliorate’ actually means ‘to improve’, not ‘not to make easier to bear’. According to the reference I found, one should talk about alleviating pain or hardship, not ameliorating it. Somehow, I do not believe that what the chicken industry requires now, right now, is improvement.

As I concluded this article, on January 30, Business Day published a story headlined ‘Government should buy chicken farms, Gwede Mantashe says’. The story stated: “The African National Congress’s national executive committee meeting is proposing that government buy poultry farms that are being forced to close down because of chicken imports. He is quoted in the story as saying: “Government must buy the poultry farms that are being closed down, and continue producing. This will not only require the State to buy‚ but it also means that the State will have to find new markets for the poultry that is produced in those farms.” Could another option be to diversify government’s already sizeable State-owned enterprises (SoEs) port- folio? I am writing this in jest.

But let us consider government’s record of running companies, SoEs. On second thought, let us rather not do that. This would merely take up more space and would add no more to what you already know. Secondly, I will run the risk of annoying my editor.

Let me leave you with Dorothy’s engagement with Scarecrow in L Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Scarecrow: “I haven’t got a brain . . . only straw.” Dorothy: “How can you talk if you haven’t got a brain?” Scarecrow: “I don’t know . . . But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking . . . don’t they?” Dorothy: “Yes, I guess you’re right.”