Inclusion - from BEE to YEE

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.