12
Friday
April 12, 2013
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
A people that values its
privileges above its principles
soon loses both
Former US president Dwight Eisenhower
EDITORIAL COMMENT
Opportunity lost
to support change
B
Y saying at a commemoration for Chris Hani
that we cannot stop
blaming apartheid for what is
happening in our country today, President Jacob Zuma
has effectively negated the
tough call to action to civil
servants that Trevor Manuel
made at a government management forum last week.
The president clearly has
not taken cognisance of the
fact that Manuel struck a
chord with the majority of
South Africans when he insisted civil servants should
be held accountable for service delivery and if they continued on the same trajectory of incompetence, the negative effects of apartheid
would never be reversed.
Manuel said: “We cannot
continue to blame apartheid
for our failings as a state. We
cannot plead ignorance or inexperience. For almost two
decades, the public has been
patient in the face of mediocre
services. The time for change,
for a ruthless focus on implementation has come.”
These words gave us hope
that our senior political leaders were serious about getting the job done and the tide
of arrogance and excuses for
failure to serve the people
would turn.
But in a single speech, the
president dampened that
glimmer of hope by setting
himself in opposition to
Manuel. The president’s spin
doctors were quick to deny
any difference of opinion
between Manuel and Zuma.
“Stating that the apartheid
legacy and impact still exist
and will linger on for a long
time does not mean that the
president is saying that public servants should use it to
excuse laziness and incompetence,” the government PR
experts said.
This translation and explanation of Zuma’s comments,
which he should have stated
himself, came too late, long
after the horse had bolted.
The damage had been done.
The president has destroyed whatever goodwill
came out of Manuel’s call.
More is the pity as we can
all agree that the vast disparity between black poverty
and white wealth was created
by apartheid. The president
stated the obvious and made
no effort to support Manuel
by reinforcing what government is, and should be, doing
now to end that legacy.
That requires strong leadership and a will to deal with
incompetent civil servants
and politicians.
Mr President, by harking
on the past, without acknowledging the shortcomings of
the present and providing us
with the required vision and
strong leadership to take us
into a better future, you have,
sadly, missed a nation-building opportunity.
Opinion
& analysis
FROM THE SCRIPTURES
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a
living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from
the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish,
spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you
1 Peter 1:3, 4 – New International Version
SA not yet non-racial society
I
RECENTLY returned from my second
trip to South Africa in two years. Although I was once again struck by the
enormous array of challenges confronting the nation, I was also taken by
the possibilities for change.
I had been active in the anti-apartheid movement in the US for many years and, for that reason, I have felt a particular affinity to South Africa for some time. Yet, despite reading extensively on the history and political economy of
the country, my understanding of the complex
issues facing South Africa was limited.
Though I am reluctant to admit it, I had been
under the impression that the release of Nelson
Mandela followed by the election of 1994, which
brought the ANC to power, had set in motion a
major transformation in the country.
I realise now I was naive about the pace at
which change would come.
To my surprise and disappointment, I have
come to understand that despite the change in
political leadership, relatively little has
changed for the majority of people, especially
those who are poor, black and/or coloured. In
my visits to the townships in Cape Town and
Port Elizabeth, I have learnt that many people
still live under desperate conditions.
I have also learnt that large numbers of white
people continue to enjoy lives of luxury in
all-white enclaves. On both visits I met many
white people who complained bitterly about
the threat of crime, about corruption and ineptitude in government (they were not the only
ones to express these complaints) and who
were worried about the future of their country.
I also met many white people who said they
would never consider living anywhere else.
The contrast was striking and disturbing. On
several occasions I thought to myself that those
who defended apartheid most ardently must now
be thinking that if they had known their lives
would be this good after the system ended, they
would have ended apartheid long ago, and bypassed the ostracism and isolation they endured.
Just writing these words forces me to acknowledge that it seems like a cynical perspective and I am generally not a cynical person.
However, I am also a pragmatist
and I am unwilling to deny what I
have seen.
However, these disturbing realities have also been offset by other
more hopeful observations. During
my second visit to NMMU I had the
opportunity to share my reflections on the situation in South Africa with students and staff through
a series of lectures and presentations on the role of education in
South Africa today.
These interactions gave me an
opportunity to see what South AfriPedro
ca was becoming and left me enNoguera
couraged. I was struck by the diversity of the student population,
the friendships that seemed to exist among students and staff of different backgrounds, and the openness with which they
spoke about the challenges facing the country.
In each interaction, I shared my observations
about how surprised I was to see how little had
changed since the end of apartheid. No one I
met challenged my observations about the
gross inequities and the potential dangers that
were simmering, though some did assert that
certain aspects of the country had become considerably worse, particularly with respect to
the prevalence of violent crime.
I also had a chance to visit schools in the
townships of Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage. In
Langa I came away inspired by the efforts of
teachers and community volunteers who were
working with limited resources.
I was struck by their dedication and their willingness to challenge the public officials who
appeared indifferent to the needs of their
schools and allowed their teachers to go unpaid
for months. When I asked one principal if he
was not afraid of losing his job for speaking out,
he explained that he would be in even more
jeopardy with the community he served if he
did not stand with them.
I was disappointed by how little had changed
since 1994, yet inspired by the efforts of so
many I met who were taking action to create a
new South Africa now and who refused to wait for the government
to lead.
There was a steadfast refusal
among many progressive academics to acknowledge what I regarded as the obvious racial dimension of many of the problems
facing the country. Repeatedly, I
was told South Africa had indeed
become a “non-racial democracy”,
and that the racialised policies
and discourse of the apartheid era
had to be thoroughly repudiated.
I was also told that though new
ways of describing the challenges
confronting the country had not
yet come into being, the old way,
which happened to be reflected in
my way of thinking and speaking, was certainly a
relic of the racist past.
As I reflect on these lively discussions and
debates about race that I participated in after
returning to the US, I find myself more understanding of why such a determined stance in
defence of non-racialism has been taken.
Like the colleagues I met, I reject the notion of
race as a biological concept, rooted in the belief
that differences in phenotype are signifiers of
inherent differences in intelligence and ability. I
also reject the idea of using race as a means to
mobilise people politically in a contest that pits
one group against others.
I have seen the consequences of both forms
of racial reasoning and I recognise their inherent dangers. I also understand that the apartheid government used race as a means to divide
and rule under the hegemony of white supremacy, and that there is a legitimate peril to be
feared in allowing the construct of race to be
utilised as an instrument of public policy again.
Nonetheless, given the apparent lack of progress in addressing widening disparities that
appear at least to some degree racial (of course
class is central as well), I am troubled by where
the rhetoric of non-racialism will lead when the
reality of racial exclusion remains.
In the US, we also have experience with at-
tempting to move “beyond race” that I think is
important for South Africans to learn from.
There has been an unrelenting effort to bar public institutions from using race as a category.
This challenge is being mounted largely by
conservatives, many of whom never supported
civil rights in the first place, who now argue that
policy should be “colour blind”. As a result of
their efforts there has been a steady decline in
the enrolment of students from under-represented backgrounds (such as what we call racial
minorities) at many major universities.
Ignoring race has become a guise for ignoring
racial inequality and racial disparities too. The US
experience has also shown that when racial patterns are not monitored and recorded, abuses
and infringements on rights cannot be addressed.
I readily acknowledge that using racial categories presents those of us who want to
achieve social progress with a classic catch 22:
you’re damned if you use them and damned if
you don’t. As a social scientist who has committed most of my professional career to studying societal patterns, I would suggest there are
at least three questions that we must answer
about race before we can safely reject its use:
ý Does race continue to predict life outcomes?
ý Does it still affect how we are treated in
everyday life?
ý Do stereotypes related to race continue to
influence how we are seen by others or how we
see ourselves?
If the answer to these questions continues to be
yes, then I suggest that rather than declaring
South Africa a non-racial democracy this goal
should be regarded as an aspiration the nation is
working toward. To treat it as a goal that has been
accomplished already simply because it appears
in the constitution could result in a failure to recognise how much work remains to be done.
Like other important values such as justice
and peace, non-racialism is a goal that must be
actively pursued in policy and practice, but it
would be a mistake to believe that simply by
changing our discourse we can declare victory.
Pedro Noguera is Peter L Agnew professor of education at Steinhardt School of
Culture, Education and Development and executive director of the Metropolitan Centre
for Urban Education, New York University.
TODAY IN HISTORY
MAGDALENE
BANGARWEE
1980: Barney Pityana (pictured)
forms the Black Consciousness
Movement of Azania (BCMA) in
London. It uses the Azanian People
Organisation (Azapo) as its voice.
1988: Alan Paton, author of Cry,
the Beloved Country, dies at 85.
1988: Twenty-five people,
including 14 jockeys, are killed in a
plane crash outside Welkom.
1989: Anglican Church leaders call
for the banning of South Africa from
international air routes.
Hero
of the day
You could have done what so
many of us do every day – see
someone in need, and carry on in
the hope that someone else will
help. But you didn’t.
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If only all ministers were like Aaron Motsoaledi
I REMEMBER vividly my first meeting
with Dr Aaron Motsoaledi a few years
back. It was at an exclusive matric results function organised by the
Limpopo provincial government.
It was one of those events where
you were told what to wear, so that
you didn’t end up making the exclusive function look like an end of year
celebration for taxi drivers. I was
fresh from journalism school and the
closest I had ever come to Motsoaledi was listening to him interviewed
on Thobela FM.
So, it was a big deal when I was
finally given the opportunity to meet
and interview this giant figure in the
province.
My editor had explained to me, “Mr
Musekwa, we are not lifting any quote
from the speech that every journalist
would have scrambled for. We mean
business and we are not following everyone else.” My then-editor was a
very grumpy cadre who expected only the best from us.
According to him, tongue firmly in
the cheek, I had to grab Motsoaledi
by his neck, pin him down and tell
him that I had explosives on me, and, that he
had to do as I say. I had
to interview him on my
terms so I could file a
story that didn’t look
like anyone else’s.
To the naive me all this
looked like a first-year
journalism task. I was going to be the star journalist and my career from
that day onwards was
only going up.
I was going to wear my
graduation suit so that I
could look presentable
to Motsoaledi and not to
have him run away thinking I was a
petty tsotsi sent there to harm him.
I am writing about this living political legend because it’s really rare
to find a minister, or any politician for
that matter, worth celebrating. At
least not in this country.
Minister Motsoaledi has been the
hardest-working servant of the people of this country since he took his
oath of office as minister of health.
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This week’s announcement – that those on the
anti-retroviral treatment
regime will now take just
one tablet daily – proved
that with hard work, focus and necessary consultation anything is possible, and that we can finally win in the fight
against Aids. From the
dark old days of denialism,
when
Thabo
Mvuyelwa Mbeki was
still running this country
like a company, we have
really come a long way.
But this shouldn’t just
be about the ministry of health, but
rather something that must inspire
all ministries in government. If one
thing can be learnt from this, it is that
cadre deployment doesn’t work, especially if the cadres are not academically qualified for their portfolios.
Motsoaledi is a qualified medical
man who isn’t shy to get into the
theatre and to do his job.
Here is a man who is not just about
talk and nothing else. He gets busy
and leads by example.
I am tired of seeing Jacob Zuma’s
government rewarding incompetency, when people can be pushed to
work as hard and efficiently as Motsoaledi and his ministry do.
No healthy democracy should be
having ministers like Dina Pule running failing ministries because of
their obvious incompetence. Look at
what the SABC has become today,
and, with all the evidence on the
table, why is the minister of communications still in that position when it
is obvious that she is incompetent?
Does somebody in Luthuli House
owe her a favour? Why then?
With our national police commissioner spending most of her time
struggling to answer simple questions at the Marikana commission, I
ask myself why isn’t she at least suspended until the matter is finalised?
I am quite certain that Riah Phiyega, with her academic qualifications
and passions, must have something
that she can contribute to this country that she is comfortable with. But
no, not at the ANC under Zuma where
cadres are deployed to toe the line.
But at whose expense? The people’s?
Can’t this government see that
there is something to learn from the
efforts of Motsoaledi?
And what’s stopping them? Greed?
Well, back to my story of meeting
Motsoaledi for the first time.
Yes, as a guest speaker on the day,
he was a marked man as far as we
journalists were concerned, with long
lenses focused on him, and sharp
pens waiting to quote him.
As my then editor had advised, I
must corner him first before anyone
else did. I followed him as he went to
the rest-room and told him I needed
to do an interview with him.
He humbly agreed to meet me outside. Journalists from a certain struggling national broadcaster wanted to
steal my thunder because they were
on “deadline”.
He told them I had been the first in
line and that he’d gladly afford them
their time afterwards. I was the Rick
Ross (top rapper) of journalism that
day and indeed felt like a boss.
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