October 2019 | www.sayer.com
82
S
AD LY, a large
number of people
just never manage
to comfortably y an
aircraft. Most of us
know at least
one
person who has
never succeeded
in reaching that
dream of î‚¿nally
being able to call
him or herself
a pilot, despite
having great
intelligence, effort
and abilities ... and
money for all that
training.
Fortunately, these days
there are few barriers in aviation
that are based on gender, race, religion
or ethnicity, unlike other vocations and
avocations, many of which are segregated
on the basis of gender because of physical
differences between men and women.
Yet, despite efforts to create the same
opportunities to become a pilot for all
humans, the large majority of pilots are
white and male. Is this really a problem?
Well, some people think so.
Human rights, such as
those enshrined in our
national constitution,
are really
opportunities.
For example,
the right to
free speech
does not
mean that
you have to
shoot your
mouth off over
everything. You
are quite entitled
to keep quiet if you so
wish. Perhaps women are
just choosing not to become pilots as there
do not appear to be any physical, mental
or other reasons why women or non-white
persons are less able to become pilots. Yet
this disparity exists.
ENTER KARL MARX
Although Karl Marx’s philosophies are
widely discredited – and he was a bit of an
obnoxious fellow, having been imprisoned
for drunkenness and street disorder during
his university days – Marxism has had a
huge impact on modern history, surpassed
only by the spread of Christianity and
Islam. Indeed, our current government is
squarely based in Marxism and there is a
major growth in a form of cultural Marxism
in bureaucracies around the western world.
A fundamental Marxist tenet is the
concept of equality. Inequality is the bane
of all social and political systems. Marxism
basically searches for inequality, and when it
î‚¿nds it, it deals with it by saying that anyone
who has more than you have, got it by
stealing it from you.
We hear this almost every day in SA
politics, particularly over the land issue.
It is a concept that sells very well to the
impoverished masses, despite it being
directly in conict with fundamental human
rights. Attacking the haves in order to mollify
the have-nots is ultimately destructive,
simply because it levels the playing î‚¿eld
by ensuring that in the end, nobody has
anything. It does however encourage
corruption and enriches only a small political
elite. This Orwellian scenario is only too
evident in contemporary SA politics, and
highly visible within our Civil Aviation
Authority where senior executives are paid
large amounts of money, despite having few
AOPA BRIEFING
CHRIS MARTINUS - AIRCRAFT OWNERS AND PILOTS ASSOCIATION – SOUTH AFRICA
Pilots are a pretty special bunch – and they
think so too. Not only does it take a great
deal of skill and learning to y an aircraft
safely, but the individual must have discipline,
mechanical sympathy, a range of aptitudes
and understanding of a broad range of
subjects from how an engine works to why it
rains sometimes.
Why Karl Marx
wasn’t a pilot
ABOVE: Is the root of the problem the
perception that pilots are white and unfairly
advantaged?