A call for servant leadership

 In November 2021 South Africa saw the convening of municipal councils and the election of troikas (Mayors, Speakers and Whips). Although this process has become a norm in our democracy what made these elections different was the campaign of #MochaPalong which advocated for young people to occupy seats of great importance in municipalities. This new generation comes to the fore amidst voter despondency, a stubborn Covid19 epidemic and the triple challenges which have relegated many people to live lives that are not fit for human beings. The new administrations in general come at a point when South Africa is at the stage of crossing the Rubicon. Either the country charts a new path or it will end up like a typical African country.

The continents of Africa and Asia come from colonial backgrounds where liberation movements had to fight to attain freedom for the people of their countries. Admittedly the dynamics on the different continents are not the same but the most vivid difference is that Asia has largely managed to rise above its colonial past and chart a new future for its people. Leadership has played a critical role in the paradigm shift that saw the emergence of the Asian tigers and the world’s second-largest economy in the form of China. China under president Xi Jinping has a targeted poverty alleviation initiative which has taken over 700 million people out of poverty in the last 40 years and on average 10 million people being taken out of extreme poverty per year since 2012. Imagine, just imagine if African leaders could target and achieve such.

It is with great disappointment to note that leadership in an African context has, in my humble opinion, not been about improving the lives of the people but ostentatious materialism. To be ‘leadership’ has unfortunately come to mean living an extravagant lifestyle of consumption. ‘Leadership’ wears expensive clothes, drinks expensive or just a lot of alcohol drives luxury cars and has a magnificent house. If you have attained the above-mentioned materials then you have reached the real status of ‘leadership’. You can go to any African country (even the poorest) you will find that it is the people who are poor but not the political leadership of the country. These riches in most instances are acquired through the abuse of power for corrupt ends. Africa has remained in this poor state because the appetite of the corrupt is never filled or as PLO Lumumba puts it: “Corruption is like salt water, the more you drink it the thirstier you become”.

A paradigm shift is required in the continent beginning with those tasked with political power in South Africa’s municipalities. The first step in the shift is to strive to decolonise society in general. Colonialism was more than the subjugation of one nation by another it dehumanised black as a means to justify their oppression. Dr Lwazi Lushaba notes that the ethic of black in this country is one in which black people are not valued. This country needs a political leadership that will value black people so much as to dedicate themselves to uplifting black people out of the poverty and misery they are subjected to. Political leadership that prides itself on taking people out of poverty instead of priding itself in wearing Gucci, Louis Vuitton or Salvatore Ferragamo. A leadership obsessed with production as well as poverty reduction instead of one-way consumption as Moeletsi Mbeki posits in his book Architects of poverty.

The task ahead for those who are young and new to local government will be an uphill battle due to the loss of morals and patronage networks in public administration. Some of the previous incumbents

have dedicated their tenure in office to loot municipalities dry. They did this through a network of corrupt officials and business people who would not want to give up their hold on municipalities without a fight. The decline of morals in public service has also meant that many young people admire the lifestyles of the corrupt as they feel that it will liberate them from poverty. The regeneration of our morals in society lies in decoloniality as a theory which posits that African people must revert to African values. In the African value system, the community comes before individual interests thus a decolonial leadership will put people before their interests. 

Africa and its people deserve a new type of leadership that will have the courage to swim against the tide of backwardness. A leadership that is obsessed with development and improving people's lives. The poorest in society hope that you- the new incumbents are the ones they have been waiting for. For the poor, unfortunately, we can import Cuban doctors or bring western investors to our communities but we cannot import good political leadership.

We are angry and our anger will boil over

 When you go through the country- you see it and you have become so accustomed to it to such an extent that you just bypass it. There is anger on the faces of our people who are by and large black, oppressed and marginalised. When you go into the townships, squatter camps, farm workers’ houses and streets where some of them live no one should be able to deny that the conditions that black people live in are not fit for humans. However, to come to the latter conclusion you will have to first acknowledge that colonialism is alive through coloniality and that apartheid did not die it was privatised as Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh asserts.

We were told that education is the key to success and believed it. We have come to realise that it was not entirely the truth. Increasingly many young people are going to TVET colleges, and universities and doing short courses with different institutions only to ultimately add to the unemployment rate. Now even those who did not make it to higher education ask us: what is the use of getting higher education certificates when all of us are unemployed? Those who continued with postgraduate studies as a form of avoiding unemployment have indirectly lessened their chances of being employable as mere entry-level jobs are hard to come by and those that need postgraduate studies go with experience.

Then there are those among the youth that reached matric or dropped out who are even more despondent in their state of unemployment. Those that dropped out mostly did not drop out because they wanted to but rather it is because the education fed to us in schools only caters for the talents of those who are academics. The education system does not cater for the different talents that different people have in society. Schools should not be institutions whose outcome is to give you the NSC certificate but rather they should nature all the talents of individuals as a means to ensure that young people make a living out of their talents. Someone recently said to me that we must open soccer schools where we just focus on naturing this talent because at the end of the day good soccer players earn more money than medical doctors.

The solution coming from the highest office in the country for this unemployment problem is R350 grants and employment schemes that last for 6 months. Although the effort is appreciated there are no long-term solutions to these initiatives. The state can ease the burden by limiting the scope of tenders and empowering public works to implement public employment schemes; aggressively implement the three-stream model in education; support SMMEs to become producers instead of intermediaries; capacitate the state by having skills audit to root out unqualified and incapacitated state employees to replace them with unemployed graduates. However, there is no political will to take such bold moves so the youth find solace in abusing drugs and alcohol.

The people have made a bold statement through the low voter turnout which is that they refuse to be pawns (voting cattle) in the games of kings, queens and bishops (monopoly capital and political elites). While the lives of the kings, queens and bishops improve, the lives of the pawns continue to drown in increasing poverty, unemployment, and inequality. The youth leaders that used to be seen as a beacon of hope are increasingly becoming a political elite themselves. Being a friend of a leader now means that you are also a leader regardless of whether you have the capacity. Genuine youth leaders are increasingly being co-opted into the political elite or being marginalised.

The July riots of 2021 in Kwa-Zulu Natal and Gauteng showed what can happen when anger boils over. Besides the instigation from pro-Zuma supporters, the environment was fertile for looting as many people went to loot items that they needed and did not have. In the North West province, there was an initiative to protect properties like malls which by and large are owned by the real owners of the economy. The real owners who climbed with their dogs in the front of the bakkie while the working class are being slapped by the wind, sun and sometimes rain are the back of the bakkie. However, it seems like this treatment of the working class is does not stem from racism as there are horrific stories of how Indians treat our people working in their homes. There are also lived experiences of how African tenderpreneurs disappear on the African workers when the money is paid to them for the work they didn’t do themselves. Capital has a tendency of exorcising the ubuntu out of people.

Just because I am okay and comfortable financially does not mean that everything is okay. It is not okay that black people, especially women, remain the face of poverty. It is not okay that some people are so rich while most of our people languish in poverty. Meanwhile, there is no political apatite to implement a wealth tax. The situation in this country is already at a crisis point something needs to be done to save the future of the country. We should not solely look to the government for solutions because it will not only affect the government but all of us. We all can do something for someone. 

Africa is the future of our state owned enterprises.

As president Cyril Ramaphosa ascends to the seat of chairpersonship of the African Union (AU) he needs to ensure that his contribution to the African agenda leaves a long-lasting legacy. In this instance, he should have a developmental agenda for the continent using South Africa’s ailing state owned enterprises. The signing of the African Free Trade Agreement presents opportunities not only to South Africa’s private sector but equally to the public sector through its state owned enterprises.

The president remains conflicted and ill-advised by a minister of public enterprises who has repeatedly failed to rescue any of the ailing state owned enterprises. On the other hand the president’s advisors fail to mold his presidency into one that has a single vision that pursues its objectives without fear. If I had the ear of the president I would tell him not to run away from himself. Cyril Ramaphosa is a successful business man. The best thing that he can do for South Africa’s failing economy is to get state owned enterprises working and succeeding which will create some of the much needed jobs for our economy.

To be able to do these legislative reforms are needed especially on how boards and executive management of state owned enterprises are appointed. China should be a reference point in this regard as Chinese state owned enterprises own several businesses as private businesses instead of public enterprises. In the January 8 statement the president spoke of this reform where a state holding company would own all the state owned companies as the case of Singapore. After establishing this company the president should bring back his principle social partnership by having people with expertise from government, labour, business and civil society on the board of the holding company. This should lead to the important dissolution of the ministry of Public Enterprises The further away from politicians state owned enterprises are the better for our country and economy.

Once the holding company is established it must appointment of the best South Africans in its management. Those appointed to lead state own enterprises should have the necessary qualifications, experience and expertise to do their jobs. Meritocracy must reign supreme and mediocrity must be punished. The process of appointment must be taken away from parliament and ministries but be made public and independent through ad-hoc independent panels that comprise of experts in human resources and experts in the fields where the enterprise does business. Just as in China appointment should be done through the principle of talent and morality with morality coming before talent. This means that those accused of corruption must take the David Mabuza approach and seek to clear their names before even applying for a job in the state owned enterprises. Those that fail in executing their duties must be fired without hesitation as state owned enterprises belong to the people not individuals.

Expansion into Africa is not only essential but it is equally imperative as the high migration into South Africa has taught us that what happens in other parts of Africa will also affect South Africa. However the expansion into Africa should not follow a type of re-colonialisation . South African state owned enterprises must not bring their own labour in African countries where unemployment is rife. Nor should they do business by any means necessary even if it means through corruption and sponsoring warlords. Equally South Africa should not employ the strategy of African nationals doing business in South Africa where Somalians, Ethiopians, Nigerians and many others have the sole objective of ensuring that South African owned businesses in township die due to the cooperation among themselves which takes prices low. This one of the issues that stands at the centre of xenophobic attacks on foreign nations, they seek to monopolize the township economies and rarely cooperate with South African business in their areas.

A prime example of how this could be done is by acting on the proposal of Vuyani Jarana for South African Airways to merge operations with Ethiopian Airlines. The reality is that SAA needs a strategic equity partner and most importantly needs access to East African airways market which is busier than the market in Southern Africa. Transnet has taken significant steps with the establishment of Transnet International Holdings which has manufactured the TransAfrica Locomotive which is the first ever locomotive designed by Africans, made by Africans specifically for Africa. Transport infrastructure will play an important part in the success of the African Free Trade Agreement in terms ensuring that goods, services and people reach different parts of the continent.

According to a World Bank 2017 report only 44.6% of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa have access to electricity. With the current talk about the fourth industrial revolution, Africa cannot fully join the conversion as many of the countries are still struggling with the second industrial revolution. This is where Eskom comes in as Africa’s biggest electricity producer. Eskom must expand into Africa through collaboration with governments and local companies in countries that have produce coal and those that are suitable for renewable energy. Through this as well as proper corporate governance, consequence management, eradication of unprofitable evergreen contracts, capacitation of its workforce, permanent maintenance plan and  introduction of alternative energy sources Eskom can go from begging for bailouts to contributing to the fiscal in a significant manner.

The Department of Communications needs to rethink the current process migration to Digital Terrestrial Television. Since this is a global process which will include all African countries the department should partner with E-media Holdings which is far ahead in terms of progress with its Open View initiative. It does not make sense how the two biggest free to air companies being the SABC and E-media holdings have not made an partnership with the vision of challenging Multi-Choice’s DSTV’s domination in South Africa and Africa. The South African government should fund the SABC in this initiative and make terms for them to expand into Africa through collaboration with other African broadcasters and media companies. This will foster social cohesion in Africa and the telling of African stories from an African perspective.

Other important sectors equally need to be invested in and expanded by the government as well as strategic partners. A state owned pharmaceutical company that assist Africa with access to medicine should be looked into. The financial sector also will need attention as I do not understand who has insured the 17 million South Africans that are on social grants. The Post Office equally needs to be given a banking license so that the Public Investment Cooperation can invest in it so that the working class can have a bank that is owned by them and their government.

Destiny has put a businessman at the helm of South Africa and Africa at the beginning of this new decade for him to get African business working. South Africa has the potential to contribute significantly to the rise of the African continent. We must partner up with countries like Rwanda, Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya etc. to ensure that we work together in getting Africa working. The reality is that no country has developed without decisive state intervention. China has turned the free market on its head with state owned enterprises building the second biggest economy in the world. The time has come for South Africa to take the lead. We must defeat corruption and bring in prosperity not only for South Africa but the entire African continent.

Mogale Matsose II holds a honours in political science and international relations from the North West University (NWU)

A Springboks team for a common heritage of all South Africans

As we celebrate of heritage month I believe it is time to think about our heritage and our history. History is an part of the social fabric of any nation. We do not choose our history but we do choose how we remember it and how we celebrate it. This choice builds the moral issues of the country moving forward. It moulds the the unity of a country.

In South Africa we have a very divisive and brutal past. The nature of this history of our land is an open wound which grapple to heal and comes to terms with. My assertion is that this will continue to be so as long as we embrace diversity in a way that is divisive. Certain groups seem to  want to embrace their heritage even if it is to the emotional detriment of others. The UN declared Apartheid a  crime against humanity, however the remains a segment of South Africa that holds the view that its important for them to embrace symbols of Apartheid like the old flag.

Nelson Mandela vision of a 'rainbow nation' was flawed from the beginning as the environment and epoch he conceptualized this vision in was not appropriate. It is important to unite this nation but the first administration the democratic era did this at the expense of Black people in general Africans in particular. To illustrate this let us take the South African rugby team the Springboks as a case study. Beside being the official name of the rugby team, the name Springboks has a history. According to South African military history the name originates from nickname given to the the South African soldiers during the first and second world wars. Their badge had a Springbok as its symbol with 'union is strength' as its motto.

Nelson Mandela understood that the Springboks as a national rugby team is a cardinal pillar of the Afrikaner heritage and history. Hence during the early years of our democracy Mandela fought for the name Springboks to remain as the name of the rugby team when many blacks saw it as a symbol of an atrocious past. He bend over backwards to preserve Afrikaner history and heritage without giving black people a stake in the rugby team. Some reason it was not important for the first administration to research the real history of the Springboks or even to benchmark with New Zealand on how to make a rugby team belong to the former oppressors and former oppressed.

There is no problem with the name Springboks, however the challenge how we remember it. My history lecturer Emile Coetzee detailed for me a side of the springbok's military history that we should embrace. During world war two it was the Springbok soldiers who assisted Emperor Haile Selassie I to liberate Ethiopia from the attempted colonization by Italy. Imagine that: a predominately white army freeing an African empire from a European would be coloniser. This the history of the Springboks we need to embrace and remember.

During the opening game of the 2019 Rugby World Cup I felt sorry for the Springboks as they held each other watching the All Blacks declaring war with their famous haka. This reignited my curiosity regarding the lack of a war cry by our rugby team when we have such a diverse heritage. I couldn't understand why as a matter of unifying the nation didn't Nelson Mandela commission the establishment of African war cry to make Africans feel that the Springboks equally belongs to them. New Zealand did this hence the indigenous people of New Zealand love the All Blacks as much the white population.

In my quest for knowledge I stumbled on a YouTube video titled Friday Story #2: Our Forgotten Springbok War Cry. This interesting video asserts that the Springboks performed the Zulu indlamu when playing against the All Blacks in 1921, 1928 and the famous 1937 victory. The indlamu was led Phillip Nel who captained the great 1937 Springbok team grew up near Zululand which meant that he was accustomed to Zulu culture and history. According to the researcher who did the video- the last the Springboks performed the Zulu indlamu was the last time they won a series in New Zealand and the last time they won against the Springboks in Auckland. Obviously the Apartheid regime would have nothing of the sort of a Zulu indlamu performed under their racial state.

Although I am not certain of the historical accuracy of the video it is a shame that after 25 years of democracy and many sports ministers no one has ever tried to get to the bottom of this history for the sake of nation building. The critical issue of the need of a war cry was last spoken of in 2007 by former Springbok coach Jake White prior to the 2007 Rugby World Cup.  Again ironically that year we won the Rugby World Cup under Jake White.

Nelson Mandela was correct in saying sports has the power to unite people. However, unity is based on catering for the interests of everyone. As a nation we must ensure that we campaign and convince government to instruct SARU to bring back the Zulu indlamu. SARU itself needs to invest in introducing rugby to more African primary and high schools in order to enhance the available pool of quality players. S.A. Rugby needs to be sport that transcends colour and embraces our rich history that produced great warriors. This a way to build unity in a nation suffering from a divided past.

An education system that fails its learners

When the African National Congress (ANC) took over  government after the historic 1994 elections it was filled with zealousness, motivation, jubilation and excitement, which was understandable. In the mist of all these emotions the government took decisions to improve all aspects of life in respect of black people who were deliberately disadvantaged by the white minority rule under apartheid government. One of the aspects of society which needed urgent attention was the education system. I am of the assertion that in the mist of evaluating the education system the government of the democratic dispensation decided to scrap Bantu education without evaluating it critically. In all systems there are things that you need to scrap but there others that make logical sense and need to be kept. I am not saying that Bantu education was a blessing but it provided certain skills that the current education system does not. However, we all know these skills were given to black people so that they can become skilled workers for white industries.

The current education system is a living crisis. I use the phrase living crisis because it is a crisis that continues to fail the majority of learner’s, year in and year out but it’s alive so not all is dead and lost. Professor Servaas van Berg states that in 2002 about 1.2 million seven year old started Grade 1accross the length and breadth of South Africa and about less than half of that 1.2 million made it to matric 11 years later. Those who don’t make it to matric with their peers either did not make it to matric on time or at all. Whatever the reason, the education system stands at the centre of it all.

Decolonisation of Basic Education 
The topic of decolonisation has been greatly brought to public discourse by what has been termed as the ‘Fallist’ movements (#RhodesMustFall, #FeesMustFall, #TransformWits, #Prising etc.) in relations to the transformation of higher education. The time has come to bring the ‘Fallist’ movement to basic education. White privilege still holds firm in basic education as year in and year out the best performing schools remains private schools and former model C schools. The greatest advantage these former model C schools hold against their black peers in township and rural schools is that they write the National Senior Certificate (NSC) in English or Afrikaans which is their home language. On the other hand the black child in a township or rural school has his indigenous African language as his home language subject and English as his First Additional Language. However unlike the white child or black child assimilated in the former model C school, the black child is expected to write his NSC exam in English which is not his home language. Most will argue that English is a universal language and I will say yes I agree but Afrikaans is not but still those kids have opportunity to write the NSC in Afrikaans. In Germany they use German, France they use French, China they use Mandarin- why must it be that a black child must be forced to use another language for the sake of being universal?

In his book Black Skin White Mask Frantz Fanon states that: “Every colonized people- in other words, every people in whose soul an inferiority complex has been by the death and burial of its local cultural originality- finds itself face to face with the language of the civilizing nation; that is, with the culture of the mother country. The colonized is elevated above his jungle status in proportion to his adoption of the mother’s cultural standards. He becomes whiter as he renounces his blackness, his jungle.” Thus language plays an important aspect of the colonial dispensation that endures till today. The fact that after 23 years of democratic rule only recently the Zulu language has being elevated to academic status shows that African languages have not been taken seriously by the Pan South African Language Board and institutions of higher learning which fight to keep English and/or Afrikaans but say nothing about African languages.

The legacy of apartheid continues to manifest itself as former model C/white schools are still the symbol of excellence while black school predominantly remain symbols of poverty and failure especially in the rural areas. The report on school infrastructure by the Department of Basic Education paints a bleak picture of how township and rural schools look. Education related NGO - Equal Education reported that 2 923 schools do not have electricity supply that is reliable; water supply is not reliable in 5 004 schools and 4 986 still use pit toilets. If township and rural schools are to accurately compete with former model C schools then the basic infrastructure of their schools must be up dated. Inferior infrastructure fuels a feeling of inferiority among black children.

Schools of specialisation
South Africa’s education system does not cater for the different talents that children in South Africa have. Not all children are academically gifted and not all children are good with understanding or memorising content so that they are able to pass. Academic inability does not signify failure of a child but of the education system because it cannot nurture the non-academic talents of the child. As stated before in this living crisis not all is dead and lost as the Gauteng Department of education has understood this fact and is introducing Schools of Specialisation (SOS) to nature the different talents. These schools will specialise in Commerce & Entrepreneurship; Maths Science and ICT focusing on Agriculture and Maritime, Engineering; Sports, Performing and creative arts and multidisciplinary Schools.

SOS marks a new era in South Africa’s education system and a step in the direction of not failing but nurturing the children of South Africa. Other provinces need to follow suit although most provinces already have predominately white Technical and agricultural schools. SOS should not only be geared to nurture talents of learners but like the Gauteng design they must also respond to economic needs of the districts that they find themselves in. Provinces such as the North West are largely rural and need to take advantage of this by introducing agricultural schools in the rural areas as a way of skilling young people in rural areas. This is will  in time provide for rural areas in the country to move towards being societies that can produce their own food for consumption and sell the surplus for profit which is he norm on he continent.

The relationship between education and the economy
What the government does not seem to understand is that for economic prosperity there must be a like between education and the economy.  Right now the country needs entrepreneurs so that they can create new industries and innovations especially in the knowledge economy of which education is of paramount importance. All industries are moving towards ICT because technology is advancing to such an extent that there will soon be no industry that does not use ICT to better itself. South Africa cannot think that those who go to universities will be the ones that will come up with all of this innovations. What needs to be taken into account is that the government is currently allowing the commodification of higher education which is directly affecting the children of the working class and poor. Those who do not have access to higher education might be the same ones that can come up with education. We must bear in mind that the two most innovative and highly successful ICT innovators/business people of our time: Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckenburg, both of them DID NOT graduate from a university or college. But they DID complete high school.

South Africa suffers from severe poverty where 14 million people go to bed hungry every night. This poverty is directly linked to the high unemployment rate especially among the youth. If the economy was able to create jobs, there would be a steady decline in the poverty of our country. Only entrepreneurs can create the jobs that we need. We need entrepreneurs especially those who are black as a means of curbing the anomaly that is South Africa where a white minority hold most of the country’s wealth. Knowing this need you still however have law students not being educated on how to run successful law firms, future black pharmacists are not taught how to run pharmacies, computer scientists not being taught to run their own companies and the list is endless. The time have come for black people to stop hoping to be BEE partners in big white companies, it’s time to start big black companies and compete with white pharmacies, banks, law firms, accounting firms, consultant companies, construction companies etc. The time to beg to be accommodated in white spaces is over and education is the key.

All Sectors must get involved
The education of our society is the responsibility of everyone. Government must take a lead but the rest of society cannot sit back and watch. Parents must be involved in their children’s education and the running of the schools in their communities. Schools must have a dynamic relationship with the community is operates it. Communities must be able to raise funds for the schools and provide skills that can benefit the school. The school in turn must use its available resources to empower the community for example computer classes for community member who are computer illiterate (if the school has a computer lab), vegetable garden inside the school premises and allow Community Based Organisation/NGO to enrich the extra-curricular learning for the learners.  Structures in schools such as Quality Learning & Teaching Committee (QLTC) allows for stakeholder participation to be functional.

The status of teaching as a profession in society must also be elevated. Teaching is the mother of all professions but more importantly teaching is a noble profession. Teachers need to be passionate about the profession and not see the career as a means to a social status or a way to access a salary. A teacher has the ability to nurture a poor child or a misguided the child’s future, so we must jealously guard the profession against vultures. The Department of Basic Education must also ensure that they prioritise solving problems of teachers such as overcrowded classes, lack of infrastructure and teachers being paid their salaries on time. We still have a long way to go before we are out of this crisis so it will better if we hold hands and work.

Let the Youth Define their own Struggle

A generational gap exists between every current generation and the preceding generation. The preceding generation has a tendency of always casting the assertion that the current generation is a ‘lost’ generation. Soweto uprising leader Seth Mazibuko asked a very important question that all old people should ask themselves: “When we were young we were told that we are a lost generation because we left our family responsibilities to join the struggle and go to exile as well as prison. If we say that the youth of today are lost, then what are we doing to find them?”. What the generation that fought against apartheid must understand is that the youth are the products of the society they created.

Frantz Fanon has explained that each generation has its own mission; however he does not say that a previous generation must define the mission of the current generation. The fact that the youth are not fighting an overtly racist and violent regime does not mean current struggle is a bed of roses. The youth should be given the necessary space to define their struggle without being told to be patient and less angry while they live in the most unequal society in the world. #FeesMustFall is the first step in the realisation of a generational mission and fulfilling the promises that the older generation made pre and post democracy. The youth can not afford to live on promises which do not fill the stomach.

Socially the youth is increasingly being ravaged by alcohol abuse, substance abuse and crime among many other social ills. The youth must accept part of the the blame but so should the parenting generation. What happens to a generation where sports, arts and other extramural activities are not highly organised starting at school level? They fall prey to social ills because they have too much time on their hands. Talent is lost between doing nothing and abusing alcohol because not all schools and communities have the diverse sporting/cultural activities that this new generation want to try. Sporting codes such hammer throwing, judo, swimming, golf, formula one racing, I mean half of the games played in the Olympics majority of black youth only see on television and never in their communities/schools. It does not even need a sports scientist to explain why our medal achievements were well below 20 and other the top countries are around 120. Countries with smaller economies than South Africa received more medals than us.

The last issue that must be demystified is the notion that youth has it better off. Credit must be given to the older generation for defeating apartheid but discredit must be given to them for not dismantling the apartheid economic structure that keeps black people at the bottom of the economic hierarchy. As the rainbow begins to fade the youth is left with the struggle of transforming a white dominated economy and its comprador bourgeoisie. The South African economy was not designed to work for all the citizens of this country. Patience is important but blacks can not be imprisoned to another 20 years of patience while the material conditions are not changing much.

If the status quo is not changed 14 million South Africans will continue to go to bed hungry everyday. Corruption will continue to eat away at our society until we are kleptocratic state. African countries have been there before, the cycle must end. Only a youth that does not aim to mimic current corrupt leaders can do so. Only a youth that refuse to be used as political tools can do so. Only a revolutionary youth who want to pave their own way can do so.  ANCYL 1940s youth managed to discover their mission and they managed to defeat the greatest crime against humanity.

The youth must set out to achieve a true non-racial society by destroying whiteness as a social construct and build a society in which Steve Biko said “…there shall be no majority there shall be no minority shall just be people”. The youth must lay the foundation for a better future through struggle and sacrifice.

Mogale Daniel Matsose holds a honours degree in Political Science & International Relations (NWU)

Xenophobia in the context of the triple challanges* of South Africa

The absence of xenophobic attacks does not translate to the absence of xenophobia. Therefore is imperative to confront the root causes of this attitude before it manifests into attacks. South Africa is not only viewed as an Africa’s economic superpower and “the land of opportunities” but unlike other African countries this country has better political stability. Even South Africa’s rival in the battle for hegemony in Africa, Nigeria has been battling to stabilise the country against Islamic insurgent group Boko Haram (till today we plead: Bring Back Our Girls). Population studies and demography outline that migration is guided by push and pull factors which influence a person’s decision to migrate. Offering better pull factors than any African country, it was inevitable that South Africa would be the first choice country to migrate to. According to the 2011Census 3.3% of South Africa’s population which is about 1.7 million people are “non-South African”.

However this immigration happens in a country that has the highest Gini-coefficient in the world standing at 0.69, about 47% of South Africans are poor and the unemployment rate stands at 24%. The spirit of Ubuntu asserts that we should share in each other’s struggles and strive to assist fellow Africans. Unfortunately most of the African migrants I have come across are more Capitalists then they are Pan-Africanists. Most African foreign businessmen that I’ve seen predominantly employ fellow foreigners and largely have no Cooperate Social Initiatives in the poor communities where their businesses operate.

Small Black businesses such as Tuck-shops thrived during and post-apartheid but ever since foreign shops have emerged- South African tuck shops have died. In the CBDs across the country foreign shops dominate the market. If our fellow African brothers are more successful business people, why are most of them not assisting South African small business people? Why are most of them not including surviving South African tuck shop owners in their intelligent bulk buying? Why are most Somali, Ethiopian, Pakistani and other foreign shop owners uniting against South African shop owners?

African and Middle East foreign business people who are in a solid alliance in some parts of the country are even expending from tuck-shops to fish & chips restaurants as well as salons. As a consequence slowly South African owned fish & chips and salons are dieing a slow death. Ultimately the last black owned business sector left will be the taxi industry. However, the taxi associations from what we saw last year in Mamelodi do not take an attack on their lively hood lightly. Xenophobia will show its ugly head again because there is an us- against-you situation between foreigners and South Africans. The government also needs to play its part not only through fiela but legislation needs to regulate not only white dominated Multinational National Cooperations but also African foreign owned business. These businesses must be registered; taxed, labour law must protect foreign labourers exploited in these tuck-shops, BEE as well affirmative action must also apply to them.

Immigrants have played a central role in the history and evolution of South Africa. Black South Africans are conscious of how the European immigrants disposed their ancestors. Today the children of European immigrants still own most of the land and the economy of South African although they are a minority. Indians have also come to become business magnets in South Africa. Chinese clothing stores and import of cheap Chinese clothes or steel have also contributed to the killing of the local textile and steel industry. One expects that Africans business people would sit down with their fellow black South African business people and assist each other.

Myopic politicians and commentators have not been able to grasp why locals say foreigners take their jobs. Global capitalism represented by white-monopoly capital as well as multinational companies are relentless in their quest for cheap labour in order to maximize profit. Whenever South African labour (both skilled & unskilled) is dissatisfied with the low wages, they are fired and replaced with a foreign national who would work for that low wage. The advantage for the foreign national is that when he gets to his country the value of the low wage increases because the Rand is stronger to his native currency. On the other hand Rand remains of the same value for the black South African labourer. As a matter of fact real income has decreased in South Africa as the wages have gone higher.

However, the violent attacks and looting of foreign shops cannot be justified or condoned. The xenophobic attacks are equally a setback for African integration. During these attacks not only foreign nationals were killed by but South Africans too. The real opponent for the working class and the poor remains white monopoly capital and its comprador bourgeoisie. Marx explained that “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation at the opposite pole”. Structural apartheid has been allowed to continue to put black people at that ‘opposite pole’. The inequalities raging in South Africa have polarised society. Such polarisation will soon create animosity between the social classes at different poles. As much as broadcast channels where active in making video and audio clips saying no to xenophobia, they need to also make these clips saying no to poverty and inequality prevalent in our country.

*Triple Challenges refer to the severe poverty, unemployment and inequality ravaging South Africa