The Miracle Betrayed
I read with interest the article “Madiba’s Baton” by Marisa Berndsen published in the South Africa The Good News website. The author rightly pointed out, it wouldn’t be unfounded to say the Madiba dream was “lying in the gutter with no one to pick it up.” The writer’s question “Have we all - black, white, rich, poor - been sucked into a culture of entitlement and forgotten our responsibility in building this democracy?” evokes many profound thoughts.
The ability of the country to honour Mr. Nelson Mandela’s dream of a united and prosperous rainbow nation is a function of how soon we can address in good faith the socio-economic divide or economic apartheid (as I like to call it, see the poem “Economic Apartheid” in my book A Goodbye To My Little Troubles) in order to have a fair and equitable rainbow society.
Mandela’s Dream
The honourable Mr. Nelson Mandela wants us to remember where we came from and cherish the ideals that we have set out to pursue as a people regardless of our racial backgrounds. We should be pursuing this. He announced when he received the award of the City of Tshwane last week that this was the last award he would receive and the baton had been passed on to others. However there is an unbridgeable gap between what we should do as a people vis-à-vis what is happening. It has become an increasingly formidable task to do what we should do in terms of upholding the ideals of ubuntu. Why is this?
The Economic Divide
I believe the problem lies in the economic component of our ideals. We didn’t put together a good economic plan as part of the 1994 miracle revolution (at least it seems that way to those not privy to the negotiations) and today we are paying dearly for it. Our lack of such a plan (whatever it may be) exposed the African families to extreme suffering while the White families continued to prosper and enjoy a relatively better life.
Sometime ago I nearly died when I saw a photograph in the Sowetan newspaper of African mothers scavenging for food on garbage dumps in what is otherwise the land of plenty. There is no way a human being is subjected to such extremes without losing their ubuntu (humanity, spirit of togetherness). That is exactly what we have done in South Africa. In 1994 the powerful White land owners (Whites own more than three quarters of the land) had reached an agreement with the ANC that 30% of the land would be transferred to the African people before the year 2000. In 1999 the ANC announced that it was not possible to transfer that much land. The powerful White land owners had reneged on their promises putting South Africa on an inexorable path to another Zimbabwe phenomenon. Only an infinitesimal percentage of the land has been transferred to date. Using that microscopic rate of land transfer it would take nearly 600 years to transfer half of the land to the African farmers. That sucks! What will happen to ubuntu?
Some of the White farmers or at least some of their descendents, in the meanwhile, brazenly do incredible things in defiance of the new South African dispensation like shooting African boys and girls, feeding Africans to the lions, spray painting Africans, forcing African mothers to drink their urine, hanging African mothers on the roof tops and still getting away with it under the current justice system.
In terms of the struggle to redistribute the land the most current announcement of the ANC today projects that 30% of the land will be transferred by 2014. Based on my above calculations, we may see yet another postponement unless the new administration takes a radically different approach in terms of expediting what has been denied to the African mother i.e. more land so that she can feed her babies and those of the nation. So what we have done here? Shifted the goal posts? Betrayed the Mandela’s dream of togetherness? Economic justice delayed is economic justice denied and we must act quickly to avoid igniting an unexploded bomb.
A Vibrant Economy
In the meanwhile the South African economy is doing very well and so is the perpetual apartheid debt. I never understood the biblical concept of eternity which is synonymous with perpetuity. Before 1994 our GDP was $111 billion US. The apartheid debt (we shouldn’t have assumed) was a small fraction of that. Today that debt is more than twice the 1994 GDP despite the billions of US dollars thrown at it. What’s wrong here? Is this another pipeline, among many voodoo economics pipelines, that diverts the wealth away from the African families to the White families in South Africa and foreign lands? Our GDP is nearing $700 billions US making us richer than many European countries and yet the African families continue to be subjected to extreme suffering.
Conclusion
This is what I believe is the basis that has led to the betrayal of the South African miracle of 1994 and that is the economic apartheid. Unless a design change is made in this regard, we will be prescribing wrong solutions and missing the target and wondering why the country is failing to uplift the African mothers. The African mother is a keystone in the African economy and if she is economically disenfranchised the African family will collapse and thus betray Mandela’s dream. Instead of the African mother enjoying the fruits of her labour, she is eroding under the new economic apartheid.
The ability of the country to honour Mr. Nelson Mandela’s dream of a united and prosperous rainbow nation is a function of how soon we can address in good faith the socio-economic divide or economic apartheid (as I like to call it, see the poem “Economic Apartheid” in my book A Goodbye To My Little Troubles) in order to have a fair and equitable rainbow society.
Mandela’s Dream
The honourable Mr. Nelson Mandela wants us to remember where we came from and cherish the ideals that we have set out to pursue as a people regardless of our racial backgrounds. We should be pursuing this. He announced when he received the award of the City of Tshwane last week that this was the last award he would receive and the baton had been passed on to others. However there is an unbridgeable gap between what we should do as a people vis-à-vis what is happening. It has become an increasingly formidable task to do what we should do in terms of upholding the ideals of ubuntu. Why is this?
The Economic Divide
I believe the problem lies in the economic component of our ideals. We didn’t put together a good economic plan as part of the 1994 miracle revolution (at least it seems that way to those not privy to the negotiations) and today we are paying dearly for it. Our lack of such a plan (whatever it may be) exposed the African families to extreme suffering while the White families continued to prosper and enjoy a relatively better life.
Sometime ago I nearly died when I saw a photograph in the Sowetan newspaper of African mothers scavenging for food on garbage dumps in what is otherwise the land of plenty. There is no way a human being is subjected to such extremes without losing their ubuntu (humanity, spirit of togetherness). That is exactly what we have done in South Africa. In 1994 the powerful White land owners (Whites own more than three quarters of the land) had reached an agreement with the ANC that 30% of the land would be transferred to the African people before the year 2000. In 1999 the ANC announced that it was not possible to transfer that much land. The powerful White land owners had reneged on their promises putting South Africa on an inexorable path to another Zimbabwe phenomenon. Only an infinitesimal percentage of the land has been transferred to date. Using that microscopic rate of land transfer it would take nearly 600 years to transfer half of the land to the African farmers. That sucks! What will happen to ubuntu?
Some of the White farmers or at least some of their descendents, in the meanwhile, brazenly do incredible things in defiance of the new South African dispensation like shooting African boys and girls, feeding Africans to the lions, spray painting Africans, forcing African mothers to drink their urine, hanging African mothers on the roof tops and still getting away with it under the current justice system.
In terms of the struggle to redistribute the land the most current announcement of the ANC today projects that 30% of the land will be transferred by 2014. Based on my above calculations, we may see yet another postponement unless the new administration takes a radically different approach in terms of expediting what has been denied to the African mother i.e. more land so that she can feed her babies and those of the nation. So what we have done here? Shifted the goal posts? Betrayed the Mandela’s dream of togetherness? Economic justice delayed is economic justice denied and we must act quickly to avoid igniting an unexploded bomb.
A Vibrant Economy
In the meanwhile the South African economy is doing very well and so is the perpetual apartheid debt. I never understood the biblical concept of eternity which is synonymous with perpetuity. Before 1994 our GDP was $111 billion US. The apartheid debt (we shouldn’t have assumed) was a small fraction of that. Today that debt is more than twice the 1994 GDP despite the billions of US dollars thrown at it. What’s wrong here? Is this another pipeline, among many voodoo economics pipelines, that diverts the wealth away from the African families to the White families in South Africa and foreign lands? Our GDP is nearing $700 billions US making us richer than many European countries and yet the African families continue to be subjected to extreme suffering.
Conclusion
This is what I believe is the basis that has led to the betrayal of the South African miracle of 1994 and that is the economic apartheid. Unless a design change is made in this regard, we will be prescribing wrong solutions and missing the target and wondering why the country is failing to uplift the African mothers. The African mother is a keystone in the African economy and if she is economically disenfranchised the African family will collapse and thus betray Mandela’s dream. Instead of the African mother enjoying the fruits of her labour, she is eroding under the new economic apartheid.
posted by Vusi Moloi at
9:10 AM
3 Comments:
Zulumathabo! It is good to see your blog. I must comment on this post.
Land transfer alone does not work to improve food production or prosperity. Mere land ownership does not bestow skills in agriculture, cash flow management, people management, customer and supplier management, animal husbandry, marketing, and distribution. Those skills are all needed to farm profitably. Like it or not, the white South African farmers have those skills, and the black African farmers who wish to receive those lands do not.
Black South African farmers are in a good position because the government is run by black South Africans. If the land transfer is to succeed, the recipients of the land transfers should also receive (from the government) training in those skills to ensure that they run profitable farms.
There have been many cases in the past in Africa where the black Africans received lands, properties, or other business rights and failed to run profitable businesses because they didn't have the other skills. South Africa need not repeat this.
Great feedback Jay and that is highly appreciated. Definitely the skills are needed but as you know in the Canadian society the entrepreneur does not have to have the skills that create the product or deliver services. These can be bought. He only brings the strategic leadership and managerial skills. Even if he had the technical skills they will fall into disuse because of strategic management that is more important than the nuances of ploughing so to speak.
In the case of South Africa the challenge is the legacy of apartheid hate that still persists to this day particularly the white farmers towards the African society. This racial divide stymies the business that you are referring to in your post. It's regrettable that we continue to read about the racial violence and the murders that take place with the result that the business agenda is now lost or forgotten. Just last week or so African men were thrown into the den of lions. In one case only the fingers and intenstines of the person survived.
These things have nothing to do with business but the tyranny of racial hate stymies progress and unless there is a fundamental shift in direction we are headed in the same direction as Zimbabwe in that the problem will explode and it will be too late reconcile the interests of the White farmers and the Black farmers.
Even if the skills can be bought, you have to know that the skills are needed, and a lot of people in Canadian society don't know. In that we're not vastly different than our African counterparts.
I was speaking to a prosperous beef farmer near Ottawa who manages to sustain his family of 10 people on his family farm. I asked him what he did differently from the majority of farmers that are usually struggling to stay afloat. His secret is two things. He does not farm commodity products, but products in a very special niche (organic grass-fed beef). The other thing he does is his own marketing and distribution, which he said that a lot of farmers don't enjoy because it means dealing with customers. Because he does that he keeps all of the mark-up from when the meat leaves the butcher until it gets into the hands of his customers. In addition, he spends less time "ploughing" and more time avoiding middle-men, and is not at their mercy or the mercy of the commodity markets. Again, it is education and a broader skills base that make the difference here.
I don't understand how SA is descending into the economic pit that is Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has not had to run an open and transparent government ever since Mugabe (Shona) co-opted and subsumed the political forces of Nkomo (Matabele). I don't get the same sense of monopoly from any of the post-apartheid governments in South Africa in spite of the fact that the ANC is probably more popular than the ZANU-PF ever was in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe's problem is that it is an unmanged kleptocracy, and the only way to advance is to acquire from the government the right to rob fellow citizens. That is not to say that such thievery does not exist in South Africa, but it is at least more managed and predictable.
Zimbabwe is a classic case of transferring land from prosperous and efficient white farmers to black African farmers who were not able to continue the same level of productivity or prosperity. (It could be plausibly argued that the white prosperity was predicated on black poverty, but productivity should not have changed if those were the only factors). Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania went through the same problems in the 1970s and 1980s when they transferred Indian-owned businesses to black Africans. They didn't also give the new owners the skills to run those businesses, and the businesses very often went down. In fact, in the 1990s and early 2000s, I heard that the Ugandan government was trying to make good with some of the Indian families that they kicked out to attract them back to Uganda so that they could run the businesses profitably.
In South Africa, if you want the black African farmers to succeed, they have to out-market and out-distribute the white farmers.
I'm also going to guess that another problem in South Africa is that the comparative lack of access to credit stymies a lot of black African farmers and holds them back. The Grameen bank proved that you can overcome that obstacle as well in a way that benefits poorer business owners. I wouldn't be surprised if racism motivates lenders to deny credit to black African farmers.
The long & the short? It's not just about land transfer. African farmers also need skills in marketing, management, distribution, and access to credit.
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