Am I the only one seeing the spate of social
upheavals or demonstrations in our newly found democracy a contradiction of
noble expectations? On the contrary I know many South Africans find these
developments equivalent to a dilemma of unlimited proportions for our young
democracy. I also believe the underlying
causes of the demonstrations of a social uprising that occur at random across
our country are almost obvious to almost every citizen of our Republic. Though
the scale of the events of the uprising is still small, our fear is that if
nothing is done to address the underlying causes, an all out revolution may
explode and turn our democracy on its head. This may be expected to occur when
the patience of the masses get's completely exasperated by inadequate responses
to their plight. What is referred to as masses, are actually people of indigenous
African descent bore the greatest proportion of the brunt of apartheid as a
crime against humanity. I must hasten to add that the democratic government has
since 1994 made many attempts to address the symptoms of the discontent but in
my view, the actual causes are not yet addressed. Great deals of the causes of
the discontent were created over the period of colonization and apartheid from
1652 to 27 April 1994. During that sad epoch for the indigenous African
citizens of our country, settlers among other strategies used invasions, looting
through the barrel of the gun, colonization, and apartheid in a systematic
manner to achieve the current causes of the discontent feeding the uprising.
Some of those tools of utilized by the regimes devastated Africans in all
respects and created the underlying causes for the present social discontent of
various groups of the indigenous African population:
·
Marginalization of the indigenous Africans from
both the national and the global economies orchestrated by the state.
·
Dispossession of land livestock and devastation of
African agriculture.
·
Exclusion of indigenous Africans from professions;
business ownership; ownership of the means of production; ownership of capital;
and exclusion from acquisition of critical skills necessary for the emancipation
of the majority of the population.
·
Limitations on access to descent housing; descent
jobs; education; sports, etc.
·
Creation of geographical poverty stricken reserves
for the indigenous African population.
While this crusade of plunder continued with
cruelty against the African people, the settlers used the sate to enrich
themselves and their surrogates at the expense of the indigenous African
population. The distribution of the scarce economic resources was designed to
favor Europeans and their surrogates while impoverishing the indigenous
population. Furthermore, when the Africans gained UHURU in 1994, three more
underlying causes were added to the mix mentioned above by the African ruling
elite. First, the new democratic state advocated social reconstruction,
economic empowerment, and other legislative interventions and policies that
sought to level the plane field without reparations for the damages already
done to the indigenous population by the colonization regimes from 1652 to
1994. Whereas legislative interventions like employment equity law; 'broad
based economic empowerment law'; and land transfer as limited by post 1912 -
willing buyer willing seller - and only 30% of dispossessed land provisos;
etc. are not bad in themselves, but like all other policies of our democratic
government do not go far enough. One need only look at the table of what I call
the underlying causes above to understand why these interventions remain
shallow and ineffective against the redress of the plight of the indigenous African
population. The second post 1994 underlying cause of discontent is a tendency
of former activists who got into government and set up syndicates for
self-enrichment through the plunder of the resources of the democratic state to
the extent where the masses are denied delivery of basic services. Thirdly, the
creation of a politically connected and economic elite class that limit job and
economic opportunities like the awarding of tenders and contracts to itself and
its surrogates. This is an additional tragedy and fundamental dilemma in our
young democracy that begs ingenuous leadership. I believe our country needs a
blueprint that goes beyond the cosmetic changes that only address the symptoms
instead of making fundamental changes towards the eradication of the underlying
causes that are behind the fractures that we witness. In order to address these
challenges our country required ingenuous leadership. Such leadership must go beyond and do things
beyond anything that is being done at present.
In order to make fundamental changes to the socio-economic
superstructure that inform the formation of a new landscape acceptable to the
indigenous majority, that Leadership need to learn from other countries that
come from a similar past like our own. I believe among such examples,
Venezuela, Nigeria, Cuba, Kenya, Zimbabwe, China and Dubai in the Arab Emirates
can inform different aspects of the new blueprint. For instance, Kenya successfully
transferred land back to its rightful owners through a fair system that the government
of President Jomo Kenyatta financed. Venezuela and Cuba achieved fundamental
economic revolutions through nationalization of the means of production and
capital; and both Nigeria and Zimbabwe used indigenization laws to achieve
fundamental changes to the ownership of the economy, the means of production,
and capital. Last I observed the last time I visited Dubai that the majority
shareholding in most corporations including new investments was in the hands of
the indigenous population. South Africa needs a blueprint to reconfigure daily reality for the African majority. I have dedicated a big bulk of my time and the research for the new books that I write to search for such a blueprint. In the next Blog post I will look at each of the
countries mentioned above to see what made their programs and policies
effective to achieve their stated objectives. I have also written extensively
on what South Africa needs to explore in my book entitled Blueprint Centric Innovation
& Creativity. The latter is available online. Just click and follow this
link:
(This article was written as an opinion
representing me, Eliyah Khumalo as a private citizen of the Republic of South
Africa).
