If I write the word “Covid”, many of you will stop reading, but hang in there. I want to talk about possibilities that Covid may create.
First, let’s go back to the time of the Black Death, the bubonic plague that wiped out half the world population between 1347 and 1352. It also brought about major economic change. As we know, the people who worked the land in medieval Europe were serfs who were forced to work for the lord they were bonded to. They were allowed to cultivate a piece of the lord’s land for their own use, but had to pay him taxes and rent, usually in the form of grain. Although they were not slaves, they did not have much freedom, were badly fed and housed and were not allowed to leave. They could not even marry unless their lord approved the marriage. It was a tough life. Then came the Black Death pandemic that killed millions, and the world changed fundamentally. There were now not enough serfs left to cultivate the land. Serfs were in demand, which meant they could negotiate to get paid for their work. Earning a wage changed their lives – and changed the medieval economy. It was a positive spin-off of a dreadful event. Back to today. The economy of Knysna, Sedgefield and Plett is based on tourism, which has been dealt a body blow by Covid. But can this pandemic do something positive too? Perhaps it can make us step back and take a hard look at the current economy, and put our minds together to imagine other ways we could earn a living – not instead of tourism, but in addition to it, to create resilience in the local economy. I once went to a workshop called “Imagine Cape Town” where we all let our minds run wild imagining the kind of Cape Town we would love to live in, and then tried to figure out ways to make this a reality. What about something similar, an “Imagine Knysna” workshop with people from all walks of life contributing ideas, thinking of possibilities? For instance, what happened to harvesting indigenous timber? Could this happen again, and what sort of spin-off businesses could it support? And the local boat-building industry – room for a training facility? A sailing academy? Renewable energy: battery manufacturing? Artisanal bakeries. Speciality cheese making. Recycling initiatives. Developing the circular economy could be at the centre of new ideas. Perhaps Knysna Business Chamber could spearhead something like this, and team up with provincial government to get financing and support. They say we are now in the Imagination Age, beyond the Information Age, “where creativity and imagination will become the primary creators of economic value”. The Covid pandemic has knocked us hard, but it has also given us space and time to think and to imagine. Einstein said: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world and all there ever will be to know and understand.” Imagine, Knysna!
