DA presidential candidate Mamphela Ramphele says South Africa deserves better than Black Economic Empowerment, even though it was a noble idea. “In that greatness that is us, there are better ways of creating a more inclusive (economic) system,” she said.
Ramphele was speaking shortly after DA leader Helen Zille had announced that Ramphele would be the party’s presidential candidate for the 2014 general election.
Gwede Mntashe’s reaction to this announcement was a quintessential ANC one-liner about a “rent-a-black” strategy. The ANC always plays the race card. Pan-Africanism has perennially been divided between the inclusivists who are inclined to assimilation or “mainstreaming”, and the exclusivists who believe that Africa is only for Africans. This is the underlying sentiment.
The debate rages whether BEE is really affirmative action, or whether affirmative action in favour of the huge majority is just benefiting an elite. Yes, wealth is being transferred to blacks, but not to all blacks, and not fairly. This is exacerbated by greed that manifests itself in both waste and corruption.
Youth Economic Empowerment
YEE is the order of the day in election year. BEE is waning; youth power is waxing. Age apartheid is a major issue in the 2014 elections, as unemployment has replaced AIDS as the primary social evil in this decade. What good is freedom when you are unemployed for so long that you become unemployable?
Oliver Tambo said: “A nation that does not take care of its youth doesn’t have a future. And doesn’t deserve one.” Yet those with jobs in South Africa continue to get pay increases, while the number of school leavers grows every year – who have little hope of finding work. Mo Ibrahim warned of a coming “tsunami of youth”. Neither is government employing everybody the correct answer!
Where there should be sharing, there is protectionism. Where there should be nurture, there is deprivation. Nkruma said that Africa should not look to the East or to the West, but it should look ahead. To the future. Whereas South Africa still hasn’t gotten over its past. Mamphela Ramphele calls it woundedness. Government especially should stop blaming apartheid for its own lackluster performance.
Only from citizens healed of this malaise can come new attitudes like: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” This is the opposite of the African proverb that says “A goat eats where it is tethered”. It is very spiritual. It is conversion. Matters like this are far too important for politicians or even judges; this is the work of priests and pastors. To paraphrase the Rev. Martin Luther King:
We come to our nation's rulers to cash a check.
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution,
they were signing a promissory note to which every South African was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all women and men
Yes, young as well as old would be guaranteed paying work and sufficiency.
It is obvious today that the nation has defaulted on this promissory note
insofar as so many of her citizens are unemployed.
Instead of honoring this sacred obligation,
South Africa has given its youth a bad check,
a check that has come back marked "insufficient funds."
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.
We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults
of resources and opportunity in this nation.
And so we've come to cash this check,
a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed indaba to remind South Africa of the fierce urgency
This is no time to engage in the luxury of fat-cat salaries
or to take the tranquilizing drug of patronage
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.
Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of corruption
to the sunlit path of honesty and transparency
Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of malpractice
to the solid rock of integrity
Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
Monday 30 March 2015
Sunday 15 March 2015
Tired of Waiting
A graphic Oxfam press release this week pointed out that the world’s richest people could fit on a bus. Those riding on that single bus would have the same wealth as the poorest 50% of the world’s population. One wonders if that was the bus from the airport to the conference centre in Davos? When the rich elite gets together in Davos, can you really expect the theme of this year’s forum – Inequality – to change?
A message from Pope Francis I was sent to Davos. It articulated this plea: I ask you to ensure that humanity is served by wealth and not ruled by it. This C4L bulletin echoes that plea, not just for Davos but for all readers who come from a privileged background.
Vested interests make it harder to redistribute wealth as it gets more concentrated. Finance Minister Gordan is quoted as saying, at Davos, “The world won’t suddenly become disconnected from itself”. He was speaking about whether the challenges in emerging markets would shake investor confidence. But that is over-exuberance. Surely the same motivation could be given for more radical change? The National Development Plan is almost triumphalist when you read the article in today’s Sunday Times by suspended Cosatu leader Zwelinzima Vavi: What has happened to the decade of the working class?
Are “radical” and “leftist” synonymous?
Vavi goes on: “The 11th congress of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) took radical decisions to give practical meaning to the call that we should now embrace radical economic transformation… Cosatu has not been able to implement its resolutions.”
Levels of frustration are so high that some Cosatu members are already distancing themselves from the ruling alliance. Just today, a conference was convened by the rebel Unions (led by Numsa) to kick-start a united front against Neoliberalism.
This calls for a footnote about terminology, because C4L bulletins are also sent to readers in North America. For some reason that I have never figured out, what is called Neoliberalism in Africa is called Conservativism in America. Think Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher. This digression is important to grasp. I am indebted to Professor Sampie Terreblanche for explaining it in his 2012 book Lost in Transformation. Basically, it was Reagan and Thatcher who overpowered “the second world”… Gorbachev conceded, and withdrew not only from Eastern Europe but from the overseas “flashpoints” as well. South Africa was one of these, so when Gorbachev told the ANC that it could no longer count on Soviet support for its armed resistance, it had no choice but to seek a negotiated settlement. At the same time, the Americans exerted pressure on the apartheid regime to negotiate.
Of course averting civil war and reaching a non-violent rapprochement was tricky. But in the New World Order that emerged, with one superpower, the ANC capitulated in terms of its economic path (called GEAR in its fullest manifestation). Cosatu was in its infancy at the time, but has come to recognize the consequences of this “wrong turn”.
However, Cosatu is a member organization, part of “organized Labour”. So while it is a force to be reckoned with - even now that it is “of two minds” internally – it is leftist.
Unemployed Youth
Unions represent their members, who pay dues to fund them. So they do not represent the interests of non-members. If you are an unemployed youth, Cosatu does not represent you.
Historically, the best interests of youth were articulated by the ANC Youth League. But when this group raised its voice about the “wrong turn” outlined above, the old guard in the ANC muzzled it. The end result is that the ANCYL is going under. It is basically out for the count in terms of the upcoming elections.
The expelled Youth League leader thus formed his own new party called the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). Its seven pillars tackle Neoliberalism as well. But not really from a leftist position, as it just represents the half of the population that has not yet felt tangible benefits from Democracy. Twenty years ago, at the dawn of Democracy, only 20% of the population were well off, mainly whites. Twenty years later, another 30% have benefited, forming a black middle class. (A lot of whites have emigrated, so the upper class of 20% is now both black and white.) But 50% of the population remains without improvement. This is what Davos means by “inequality”. So the EFF can be radical without being leftist.
Needless to say, youth are among those whose prospects are grim. They can’t remember Reagan or Thatcher, as many of them are “born frees”. Who represents them? In South Africa, the term “youth” goes up to age 35. Two-thirds of the population is now in that age bracket, but neither the ANC nor a radicalized Cosatu have youth’s best interest at heart.
I have written another whole bulletin (You are only a boy) about David and Goliath. The youngest brother goes up to the front lines of battle to deliver some cheese from the farm. He hears that a giant has caused military gridlock. Undaunted, he offers to fight the champion of the Philistines. His brothers laugh at him, but he insists. King Saul offers him his own armour, but David declines it. He goes out to meet the giant with his own unconventional weapon, and slays him. This was completely unexpected and perplexing to the old guard.
Before long, the king gets so jealous that he runs David into hiding as an outlaw. But the pimpernel becomes a lighting rod for discontent. He forms a coalition of the wounded. In due course, he becomes King David father of Solomon and ancestor of Jesus. The song that made King Saul so insanely jealous can be paraphrased as:
Zuma has won his thousands
But Malema will win his tens of thousands
A message from Pope Francis I was sent to Davos. It articulated this plea: I ask you to ensure that humanity is served by wealth and not ruled by it. This C4L bulletin echoes that plea, not just for Davos but for all readers who come from a privileged background.
Vested interests make it harder to redistribute wealth as it gets more concentrated. Finance Minister Gordan is quoted as saying, at Davos, “The world won’t suddenly become disconnected from itself”. He was speaking about whether the challenges in emerging markets would shake investor confidence. But that is over-exuberance. Surely the same motivation could be given for more radical change? The National Development Plan is almost triumphalist when you read the article in today’s Sunday Times by suspended Cosatu leader Zwelinzima Vavi: What has happened to the decade of the working class?
- The first decade of our democracy disproportionately benefited white business relative to the working class
- Inequality has increased, levels of poverty remain high despite the increase in social grants, and more people than before live on less than R524 a month ($50)
- Piecemeal solutions to a systematic crisis rooted in colonial dispossession and capitalist exploitation will not work
- We are told that employment is bigger than ever before. This is an attempt to pull wool over the eyes of the working class. Yes, employment numbers are at their highest, but the context is that, in 1994, we had a population of 40 million. Today, it is 53 million. Overall, the unemployment rate in 1995 was 31%, but today it is 36%
- Youth unemployment in South Africa is the second highest in the world
Are “radical” and “leftist” synonymous?
Vavi goes on: “The 11th congress of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) took radical decisions to give practical meaning to the call that we should now embrace radical economic transformation… Cosatu has not been able to implement its resolutions.”
Levels of frustration are so high that some Cosatu members are already distancing themselves from the ruling alliance. Just today, a conference was convened by the rebel Unions (led by Numsa) to kick-start a united front against Neoliberalism.
This calls for a footnote about terminology, because C4L bulletins are also sent to readers in North America. For some reason that I have never figured out, what is called Neoliberalism in Africa is called Conservativism in America. Think Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher. This digression is important to grasp. I am indebted to Professor Sampie Terreblanche for explaining it in his 2012 book Lost in Transformation. Basically, it was Reagan and Thatcher who overpowered “the second world”… Gorbachev conceded, and withdrew not only from Eastern Europe but from the overseas “flashpoints” as well. South Africa was one of these, so when Gorbachev told the ANC that it could no longer count on Soviet support for its armed resistance, it had no choice but to seek a negotiated settlement. At the same time, the Americans exerted pressure on the apartheid regime to negotiate.
Of course averting civil war and reaching a non-violent rapprochement was tricky. But in the New World Order that emerged, with one superpower, the ANC capitulated in terms of its economic path (called GEAR in its fullest manifestation). Cosatu was in its infancy at the time, but has come to recognize the consequences of this “wrong turn”.
However, Cosatu is a member organization, part of “organized Labour”. So while it is a force to be reckoned with - even now that it is “of two minds” internally – it is leftist.
Unemployed Youth
Unions represent their members, who pay dues to fund them. So they do not represent the interests of non-members. If you are an unemployed youth, Cosatu does not represent you.
Historically, the best interests of youth were articulated by the ANC Youth League. But when this group raised its voice about the “wrong turn” outlined above, the old guard in the ANC muzzled it. The end result is that the ANCYL is going under. It is basically out for the count in terms of the upcoming elections.
The expelled Youth League leader thus formed his own new party called the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). Its seven pillars tackle Neoliberalism as well. But not really from a leftist position, as it just represents the half of the population that has not yet felt tangible benefits from Democracy. Twenty years ago, at the dawn of Democracy, only 20% of the population were well off, mainly whites. Twenty years later, another 30% have benefited, forming a black middle class. (A lot of whites have emigrated, so the upper class of 20% is now both black and white.) But 50% of the population remains without improvement. This is what Davos means by “inequality”. So the EFF can be radical without being leftist.
Needless to say, youth are among those whose prospects are grim. They can’t remember Reagan or Thatcher, as many of them are “born frees”. Who represents them? In South Africa, the term “youth” goes up to age 35. Two-thirds of the population is now in that age bracket, but neither the ANC nor a radicalized Cosatu have youth’s best interest at heart.
I have written another whole bulletin (You are only a boy) about David and Goliath. The youngest brother goes up to the front lines of battle to deliver some cheese from the farm. He hears that a giant has caused military gridlock. Undaunted, he offers to fight the champion of the Philistines. His brothers laugh at him, but he insists. King Saul offers him his own armour, but David declines it. He goes out to meet the giant with his own unconventional weapon, and slays him. This was completely unexpected and perplexing to the old guard.
Before long, the king gets so jealous that he runs David into hiding as an outlaw. But the pimpernel becomes a lighting rod for discontent. He forms a coalition of the wounded. In due course, he becomes King David father of Solomon and ancestor of Jesus. The song that made King Saul so insanely jealous can be paraphrased as:
Zuma has won his thousands
But Malema will win his tens of thousands
Monday 2 March 2015
Pan Africanism
We named different buildings at C4L after people. For example, our Mentor Centre is named after Charlotte Macheke, the first African women to earn a university degree. The main building on campus is named after Tiyo Soga, the first ordained priest in South Africa – he became a Presbyterian minister in 1856. A Xhosa, he studied in Scotland, married a local lass there, and they came back to South Africa as missionaries in 1857. Needless to say, he was not always accepted by fellow clergy - just as she had challenges adjusting.
Charles Darwin published his On the Origin of Species in 1859. The influence of “social Darwinism” spread fast, being broadly accepted as fact by the 1870s. A fellow missionary of Tiyo Soga’s – named John Aitken Chalmers – predicted that Africans were doomed to become extinct. Social Darwinism gave rise to this kind of thinking, like the concept of a super race that drove the Third Reich only a few decades later. Chalmers was upset that Africans were not converting to Christianity, thus his backlash.
Writing in the May 11th edition of the King William’s Town Gazette, Tiyo Soga dismissed the assertion that only a Eurocentric outlook would secure perpetuity for blacks. He pointed to references even in the Bible of blacks and thus to their resilience: “I find the Negro from the days of the old Assyrians downwards keeping his individuality and distinctiveness amid the wreck of empires, and the revolution of ages. I find him opposed by nation after nation. I find him enslaved – exposed to all the vices and the brandy of the white man. I find him in this condition for many a day – in the West Indian Islands, in Northern and Southern America and in the South American Colonies of Spain and Portugal. I find him exposed to all these disasters and yet living – multiplying and never extinct.”
This heralded the dawn of an awareness that would later be called Pan Africanism.
The Pan African Movement
The movement was formalized in London in 1900. An American sociologist attending that indaba was WEB du Bois. His concern at this inaugural meeting was: “The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the colour line, the question as to how far differences of race – which show themselves chiefly in the colour of the skin and the texture of the hair – will hereafter be made the basis of denying to over half the world the right of sharing to their utmost ability the opportunities and privileges of modern civilization.”
So the movement began with the intent to secure equal rights for black people where ever they were all over the world.
But in 1915, a Jamaican called Marcus Garvey challenged du Bois. Whereas du Bois was an assimilationist, trying to secure equal rights so that blacks could integrate into any setting, Garvey was an exclusivist, who believed that different races could not be reconciled. While du Bois championed full civil rights in America for blacks, Garvey promoted a return to the motherland – “Africa for Africans”.
One way or the other, the Pan African movement’s focus for its first half century was on the diaspora. But that changed with the emergence of independent African states in the aftermath of World War II. Ghana was the first nation to gain its independence and Kwame Nkruma hosted a Pan African congress – in Africa for the first time – in 1958. Its focus shifted to helping African nations to emerge. This came to pass, and later congresses were held in Tanzania in 1973 and Uganda in 1994 – and in January 2014 in South Africa.
In the African setting, these two strategies are not unfamiliar. For example, in the former Portuguese colonies, blacks could become full citizens or “assimilados” if they learned to speak Portuguese, studied the colonial curriculum, dressed in European clothes, etc. The dark shadow cast by this approach was that local culture was of absolutely no value.
Then there was segregation or as it was called in its most Vorwoerdian form – apartheid. In this approach, there was space for both – but apart. The “Africa for Africans” slogan took on a more sinister anti-white sense – exacerbating racial tensions. Implicit in this approach is that each and every culture has some value, but some are worth more than others. This has been called “open racism” in comparison to assimilation which is called “closed racism”.
Black Supremacy or Black Consciousness?
Malcolm X is an African American folk hero. He is to America what Steve Biko is to South Africa – the best known voice among black thinkers. Like Biko, his personal views evolved. They had some roots in the teachings of his father – an exclusivist - who believed that black Americans should all migrate back to Africa, being unwelcome in America almost a century after its civil war. The influence of Elijah Mohamed shaped his views, until his own penetrating insights began to see through the charades of the Nation of Islam, that had brought him from prison to the status of national spokesman for black supremacy. This group taught that blacks should first and foremost come to terms with their own identity and shake off the “colonization of the mind” that kept them enslaved to white agendas - long after slavery was abolished. So it refused to cooperate with whites, or even with other civil rights groups that promoted integration with whites. It was fiercely proud and isolationist.
As Malcolm X began to perceive the Nation of Islam's imperfections, he started to open up to collaboration with other civil rights groups. This was anathema to his long-time sponsors. Seeing it as betrayal, they assassinated him. Thus, African Americans sorted out their own differences without the help of the whites in authority. While this was part of their defiance, the use of such violence emptied black supremacy of authenticity. This was not a case of white supremacists beating up blacks - like the case of Steve Biko. It was self-destruction.
One has to bear in mind that blacks in the diaspora are a minority, whereas they are the vast majority in Africa, even in South Africa which still has a significant white population.
Charles Darwin published his On the Origin of Species in 1859. The influence of “social Darwinism” spread fast, being broadly accepted as fact by the 1870s. A fellow missionary of Tiyo Soga’s – named John Aitken Chalmers – predicted that Africans were doomed to become extinct. Social Darwinism gave rise to this kind of thinking, like the concept of a super race that drove the Third Reich only a few decades later. Chalmers was upset that Africans were not converting to Christianity, thus his backlash.
Writing in the May 11th edition of the King William’s Town Gazette, Tiyo Soga dismissed the assertion that only a Eurocentric outlook would secure perpetuity for blacks. He pointed to references even in the Bible of blacks and thus to their resilience: “I find the Negro from the days of the old Assyrians downwards keeping his individuality and distinctiveness amid the wreck of empires, and the revolution of ages. I find him opposed by nation after nation. I find him enslaved – exposed to all the vices and the brandy of the white man. I find him in this condition for many a day – in the West Indian Islands, in Northern and Southern America and in the South American Colonies of Spain and Portugal. I find him exposed to all these disasters and yet living – multiplying and never extinct.”
This heralded the dawn of an awareness that would later be called Pan Africanism.
The Pan African Movement
The movement was formalized in London in 1900. An American sociologist attending that indaba was WEB du Bois. His concern at this inaugural meeting was: “The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the colour line, the question as to how far differences of race – which show themselves chiefly in the colour of the skin and the texture of the hair – will hereafter be made the basis of denying to over half the world the right of sharing to their utmost ability the opportunities and privileges of modern civilization.”
So the movement began with the intent to secure equal rights for black people where ever they were all over the world.
But in 1915, a Jamaican called Marcus Garvey challenged du Bois. Whereas du Bois was an assimilationist, trying to secure equal rights so that blacks could integrate into any setting, Garvey was an exclusivist, who believed that different races could not be reconciled. While du Bois championed full civil rights in America for blacks, Garvey promoted a return to the motherland – “Africa for Africans”.
One way or the other, the Pan African movement’s focus for its first half century was on the diaspora. But that changed with the emergence of independent African states in the aftermath of World War II. Ghana was the first nation to gain its independence and Kwame Nkruma hosted a Pan African congress – in Africa for the first time – in 1958. Its focus shifted to helping African nations to emerge. This came to pass, and later congresses were held in Tanzania in 1973 and Uganda in 1994 – and in January 2014 in South Africa.
In the African setting, these two strategies are not unfamiliar. For example, in the former Portuguese colonies, blacks could become full citizens or “assimilados” if they learned to speak Portuguese, studied the colonial curriculum, dressed in European clothes, etc. The dark shadow cast by this approach was that local culture was of absolutely no value.
Then there was segregation or as it was called in its most Vorwoerdian form – apartheid. In this approach, there was space for both – but apart. The “Africa for Africans” slogan took on a more sinister anti-white sense – exacerbating racial tensions. Implicit in this approach is that each and every culture has some value, but some are worth more than others. This has been called “open racism” in comparison to assimilation which is called “closed racism”.
Black Supremacy or Black Consciousness?
Malcolm X is an African American folk hero. He is to America what Steve Biko is to South Africa – the best known voice among black thinkers. Like Biko, his personal views evolved. They had some roots in the teachings of his father – an exclusivist - who believed that black Americans should all migrate back to Africa, being unwelcome in America almost a century after its civil war. The influence of Elijah Mohamed shaped his views, until his own penetrating insights began to see through the charades of the Nation of Islam, that had brought him from prison to the status of national spokesman for black supremacy. This group taught that blacks should first and foremost come to terms with their own identity and shake off the “colonization of the mind” that kept them enslaved to white agendas - long after slavery was abolished. So it refused to cooperate with whites, or even with other civil rights groups that promoted integration with whites. It was fiercely proud and isolationist.
As Malcolm X began to perceive the Nation of Islam's imperfections, he started to open up to collaboration with other civil rights groups. This was anathema to his long-time sponsors. Seeing it as betrayal, they assassinated him. Thus, African Americans sorted out their own differences without the help of the whites in authority. While this was part of their defiance, the use of such violence emptied black supremacy of authenticity. This was not a case of white supremacists beating up blacks - like the case of Steve Biko. It was self-destruction.
One has to bear in mind that blacks in the diaspora are a minority, whereas they are the vast majority in Africa, even in South Africa which still has a significant white population.
- Every time a black is called a “coconut” in South Africa, it illuminates a paranoia that infers that the opposite to white supremacy is black supremacy. It is not.
- Even though there is a huge difference between black supremacy and affirmative action, this can get confused at times; this is often described as Triumphalism
- It is inconsistent to be happy that Barrack Obama is the most powerful man in the world and yet wish that you could exclude whites from your own African work place
- Affirmative action in favour of the majority is, in a word, odd
- 150 years after Tiyo Soga married the intrepid Janet, mixed marriages are still very rare in South Africa. This primary human relationship should become a future focus of Pan Africanism. If you cannot figure it out at family level, how on earth can you win at work place level or in political arena?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)