Report from South Africa I: Hegel

I am on holiday in Cape Town. I should like to say one or two things about what we might call the 'situation' here. That is not to say, the political situation. Rather, the situation in general.

I am already fed up with the tiresome fawning of people working in the service industry. Buying a coffee, for example, feels more like an encounter with some deluded supplicant: the customer is a deity, whose every wish is granted. The waiter/shop assistant clings to the customer like a cheap suit.

This creates a rather problematic relationship, which Hegel understood particularly well. People here - South Africa - expect to be treated like royalty when in a shop or restaurant. Staff duly oblige ('you are dispensable - there are ten people who would happily take your place here'). But we cannot help but ask: what kind of esteem is this?
'I am a king - see how they treat me!'
The 'they' is elusive, like Hegel's subhuman slave.
Who could truly value the worship of these coerced, subservient wretches? Only a bunch of deluded fools. The kind of deluded fools who could convince themselves that apartheid is right and good, perhaps? Well, we needn't go that far. Yet.

The spirit of apartheid is still very much alive. I must emphasize, however, that I am not only talking about black service staff. The same lamentable self-abasement is demonstrated by white student jobbers, and shopkeepers.
The petty desire for wielding power over others, which was a condition of possibility for apartheid, is now satisfied by our 'legitimate' capitalist regime.
'I don't care whether he is black or white - I want him to lick my boots because I have paid for the privilege!'