Tired of Waiting

A graphic Oxfam press release this week pointed out that the world’s richest people could fit on a bus.  Those riding on that single bus would have the same wealth as the poorest 50% of the world’s population.  One wonders if that was the bus from the airport to the conference centre in Davos?  When the rich elite gets together in Davos, can you really expect the theme of this year’s forum – Inequality – to change?

A message from Pope Francis I was sent to Davos.  It articulated this plea: I ask you to ensure that humanity is served by wealth and not ruled by it.  This C4L bulletin echoes that plea, not just for Davos but for all readers who come from a privileged background.

Vested interests make it harder to redistribute wealth as it gets more concentrated.  Finance Minister Gordan is quoted as saying, at Davos, “The world won’t suddenly become disconnected from itself”.  He was speaking about whether the challenges in emerging markets would shake investor confidence.  But that is over-exuberance.  Surely the same motivation could be given for more radical change?  The National Development Plan is almost triumphalist when you read the article in today’s Sunday Times by suspended Cosatu leader Zwelinzima Vavi: What has happened to the decade of the working class?

• The first decade of our democracy disproportionately benefited white business relative to the working class
• Inequality has increased, levels of poverty remain high despite the increase in social grants, and more people than before live on less than R524 a month ($50)
• Piecemeal solutions to a systematic crisis rooted in colonial dispossession and capitalist exploitation will not work
• We are told that employment is bigger than ever before.  This is an attempt to pull wool over the eyes of the working class.  Yes, employment numbers are at their highest, but the context is that, in 1994, we had a population of 40 million.  Today, it is 53 million.  Overall, the unemployment rate in 1995 was 31%, but today it is 36%
• Youth unemployment in South Africa is the second highest in the world

Are “radical” and “leftist” synonymous?

Vavi goes on: “The 11^th congress of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) took radical decisions to give practical meaning to the call that we should now embrace radical economic transformation… Cosatu has not been able to implement its resolutions.”

Levels of frustration are so high that some Cosatu members are already distancing themselves from the ruling alliance.  Just today, a conference was convened by the rebel Unions (led by Numsa) to kick-start a united front against Neoliberalism.

This calls for a footnote about terminology, because C4L bulletins are also sent to readers in North America.  For some reason that I have never figured out, what is called Neoliberalism in Africa is called Conservativism in America.  Think Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher.  This digression is important to grasp.  I am indebted to Professor Sampie Terreblanche for explaining it in his 2012 book Lost in Transformation.  Basically, it was Reagan and Thatcher who overpowered “the second world”… Gorbachev conceded, and withdrew not only from Eastern Europe but from the overseas “flashpoints” as well.  South Africa was one of these, so when Gorbachev told the ANC that it could no longer count on Soviet support for its armed resistance, it had no choice but to seek a negotiated settlement.  At the same time, the Americans exerted pressure on the apartheid regime to negotiate.

Of course averting civil war and reaching a non-violent rapprochement was tricky.  But in the New World Order that emerged, with one superpower, the ANC capitulated in terms of its economic path (called GEAR in its fullest manifestation).  Cosatu was in its infancy at the time, but has come to recognize the consequences of this “wrong turn”.

However, Cosatu is a member organization, part of “organized Labour”.  So while it is a force to be reckoned with - even now that it is “of two minds” internally – it is leftist.

Unemployed Youth

Unions represent their members, who pay dues to fund them.  So they do not represent the interests of non-members.  If you are an unemployed youth, Cosatu does not represent you.

Historically, the best interests of youth were articulated by the ANC Youth League.  But when this group raised its voice about the “wrong turn” outlined above, the old guard in the ANC muzzled it.  The end result is that the ANCYL is going under.  It is basically out for the count in terms of the upcoming elections.

The expelled Youth League leader thus formed his own new party called the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).  Its seven pillars tackle Neoliberalism as well.  But not really from a leftist position, as it just represents the half of the population that has not yet felt tangible benefits from Democracy.  Twenty years ago, at the dawn of Democracy, only 20% of the population were well off, mainly whites.  Twenty years later, another 30% have benefited, forming a black middle class.  (A lot of whites have emigrated, so the upper class of 20% is now both black and white.)  But 50% of the population remains without improvement.  This is what Davos means by “inequality”.  So the EFF can be radical without being leftist.

Needless to say, youth are among those whose prospects are grim.  They can’t remember Reagan or Thatcher, as many of them are “born frees”.  Who represents them?  In South Africa, the term “youth” goes up to age 35.  Two-thirds of the population is now in that age bracket, but neither the ANC nor a radicalized Cosatu have youth’s best interest at heart.

I have written another whole bulletin (You are only a boy) about David and Goliath.  The youngest brother goes up to the front lines of battle to deliver some cheese from the farm.  He hears that a giant has caused military gridlock.  Undaunted, he offers to fight the champion of the Philistines.  His brothers laugh at him, but he insists.  King Saul offers him his own armour, but David declines it.  He goes out to meet the giant with his own unconventional weapon, and slays him.  This was completely unexpected and perplexing to the old guard.

Before long, the king gets so jealous that he runs David into hiding as an outlaw.  But the pimpernel becomes a lighting rod for discontent.  He forms a coalition of the wounded.  In due course, he becomes King David father of Solomon and ancestor of Jesus.  The song that made King Saul so insanely jealous can be paraphrased as:

Zuma has won his thousands

But Malema will win his tens of thousands

Pan Africanism

We named different buildings at C4L after people.  For example, our Mentor Centre is named after Charlotte Macheke, the first African women to earn a university degree.  The main building on campus is named after Tiyo Soga, the first ordained priest in South Africa – he became a Presbyterian minister in 1856.  A Xhosa, he studied in Scotland, married a local lass there, and they came back to South Africa as missionaries in 1857.  Needless to say, he was not always accepted by fellow clergy - just as she had challenges adjusting.

Charles Darwin published his On the Origin of Species in 1859.  The influence of “social Darwinism” spread fast, being broadly accepted as fact by the 1870s.  A fellow missionary of Tiyo Soga’s – named John Aitken Chalmers – predicted that Africans were doomed to become extinct.  Social Darwinism gave rise to this kind of thinking, like the concept of a super race that drove the Third Reich only a few decades later.  Chalmers was upset that Africans were not converting to Christianity, thus his backlash.

Writing in the May 11^th edition of the King William’s Town Gazette, Tiyo Soga dismissed the assertion that only a Eurocentric outlook would secure perpetuity for blacks.  He pointed to references even in the Bible of blacks and thus to their resilience: “I find the Negro from the days of the old Assyrians downwards keeping his individuality and distinctiveness amid the wreck of empires, and the revolution of ages.  I find him opposed by nation after nation.  I find him enslaved – exposed to all the vices and the brandy of the white man.  I find him in this condition for many a day – in the West Indian Islands, in Northern and Southern America and in the South American Colonies of Spain and Portugal.  I find him exposed to all these disasters and yet living – multiplying and never extinct.”

This heralded the dawn of an awareness that would later be called Pan Africanism.

The Pan African Movement

The movement was formalized in London in 1900.  An American sociologist attending that indaba was WEB du Bois.  His concern at this inaugural meeting was: “The problem of the 20^th century is the problem of the colour line, the question as to how far differences of race – which show themselves chiefly in the colour of the skin and the texture of the hair – will hereafter be made the basis of denying to over half the world the right of sharing to their utmost ability the opportunities and privileges of modern civilization.”

So the movement began with the intent to secure equal rights for black people where ever they were all over the world. 

But in 1915, a Jamaican called Marcus Garvey challenged du Bois.  Whereas du Bois was an assimilationist, trying to secure equal rights so that blacks could integrate into any setting, Garvey was an exclusivist, who believed that different races could not be reconciled.  While du Bois championed full civil rights in America for blacks, Garvey promoted a return to the motherland – “Africa for Africans”.

One way or the other, the Pan African movement’s focus for its first half century was on the diaspora.  But that changed with the emergence of independent African states in the aftermath of World War II.  Ghana was the first nation to gain its independence and Kwame Nkruma hosted a Pan African congress – in Africa for the first time – in 1958.  Its focus shifted to helping African nations to emerge.  This came to pass, and later congresses were held in Tanzania in 1973 and Uganda in 1994 – and in January 2014 in South Africa.

In the African setting, these two strategies are not unfamiliar.  For example, in the former Portuguese colonies, blacks could become full citizens or “assimilados” if they learned to speak Portuguese, studied the colonial curriculum, dressed in European clothes, etc.  The dark shadow cast by this approach was that local culture was of absolutely no value.

Then there was segregation or as it was called in its most Vorwoerdian form – apartheid.  In this approach, there was space for both – but apart.  The “Africa for Africans” slogan took on a more sinister anti-white sense – exacerbating racial tensions.  Implicit in this approach is that each and every culture has some value, but some are worth more than others.  This has been called “open racism” in comparison to assimilation which is called “closed racism”.

Black Supermacy or Black Consciousness?

Malcolm X is an African American folk hero.  He is to America what Steve Biko is to South Africa – the best known voice among black thinkers.  Like Biko, his personal views evolved.  They had some roots in the teachings of his father – an exclusivist - who believed that black Americans should all migrate back to Africa, being unwelcome in America almost a century after its civil war.  The influence of Elijah Mohamed shaped his views, until his own penetrating insights began to see through the charades of the Nation of Islam, that had brought him from prison to the status of national spokesman for black supremacy.  This group taught that blacks should first and foremost come to terms with their own identity and shake off the “colonization of the mind” that kept them enslaved to white agendas - long after slavery was abolished.  So it refused to cooperate with whites, or even with other civil rights groups that promoted integration with whites.  It was fiercely proud and isolationist.

As Malcolm X began to perceive the Nation of Islam's imperfections, he started to open up to collaboration with other civil rights groups.  This was anathema to his long-time sponsors.  Seeing it as betrayal, they assassinated him. Thus, African Americans sorted out their own differences without the help of the whites in authority.  While this was part of their defiance, the use of such violence emptied black supremacy of authenticity.  This was not a case of white supremacists beating up blacks - like the case of Steve Biko.  It was self-destruction.

One has to bear in mind that blacks in the diaspora are a minority, whereas they are the vast majority in Africa, even in South Africa which still has a significant white population.

 

• Every time a black is called a “coconut” in South Africa, it illuminates a paranoia that infers that the opposite to white supremacy is black supremacy.  It is not.
• Even though there is a huge difference between black supremacy and affirmative action, this can get confused at times; this is often described as Triumphalism
• It is inconsistent to be happy that Barrack Obama is the most powerful man in the world and yet wish that you could exclude whites from your own African work place
• Affirmative action in favour of the majority is, in a word, odd
• 150 years after Tiyo Soga married the intrepid Janet, mixed marriages are still very rare in South Africa.  This primary human relationship should become a future focus of Pan Africanism.  If you cannot figure it out at family level, how on earth can you win at work place level or in political arena?

Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant

In my recollection, only the funeral of John Kennedy in 1963 would match the drama and significance of Nelson Mandela's funeral today.  It was very moving.

The service ended with a sermon by the Methodist bishop.  He read from Matthew 25, those familiar words of affirmation to the top performers in the Parable of the Talents.  Then he surprised me...

He likened Mandela to the third servant, who buried his talent, refusing - in defiance - to play along with a top-down system in which an absent landlord can still dictate the rules of play to obliging servants.

He critiqued the servants with even more talents than Mandela started with for playing along with the status quo, in a performance-based role that never questions the way the Paradigm works.  A system that rewards the rich and oppresses the poor, where to those who have, more is given - taken from those who don't have...

It was quite a new look for me at a familiar passage.  He started to sound a bit like Pope Francis!

His interpretation had some answers for me, as I have recently struggled with this conundrum... that the rising ranks of youth cannot break into a job market that is shrinking, so that those with jobs are hanging on tight to them.  Those with jobs are getting pay increases, while the demography of the unemployed is getting younger and the unemployed are gradually becoming unemployable.

Who is the good and faithful servant in that scenario?!

The Bishop's take on this Parable is that those who resist the system - like the Occupy Movement - are on the right track.  He was one of several speakers who made pointed remarks about how Corruption is one way that those with more talents than others leverage their increase, fatalistically saying that this is how the system works...

A strong message of encouragement came through to me personally. 


I have to admit to laughing out loud when Kenneth Kaunda spoke, and to shedding tears when Ahmed Kathrada spoke.  He is one of the few remaining Treason Trialists, among those who spent decades on Robben Island with Madiba.  Near the end of his tribute, he said "When Walter died, I lost a father.  This week I have lost a brother.  Now, I don't know where to turn to..."  You could hear his voice quivering with sincerity, it was not just rhetoric.  Eish!

There is also some good humour coming out of this week.  Traditionally, the big ANC adversary has been the Boer... but that controversial Struggle song has now been parodied as "Kill the booer"!   One commentator said wryly that this week we are not just saying goodbye to one President, but two...


As an individual, I can say that all the hype has certainly helped ME process a sense of loss and sorrow.  It has been a week of drama and reflection.  Those who have prepared all the media material and event logistics deserve to hear that phrase: "Well done, good and faithful servants".  Except, of course, those like the psycho-signing-interpreter at the stadium memorial, who are reaping where they did not sow...

Thanks to all of you as well for your prayers.

A Nation Taking Care of Its Youth

This photo has been haunting me of late.  I used it last year in a C4L Bulletin called Job and the Jobless.

The speaker in our church last Sunday said that Prayer is mentioned 500 times in the Bible, but that Wealth is mentioned 2,350 times.  That sort of stuck with me like statistics sometimes do.  They niggle at me.  The Bible has a lot to say about Wealth and what it is for.


 

I am contemplating hard times.  The last few years have been hard on me, because they have been hard on the people that I serve.  This week's news is that 25 000 more jobs were lost in the second quarter of this year, in South Africa.  Of those, 13 000 were in the "community and social sector".  This sector is bleeding and C4L is feeling its pain.

Economies shrink.  Droughts come unpredictably.  Businesses close.  People move on.  But imagine a Chamber of Commerce putting up a sign asking the jobless to "keep going".  This really gets to me.  Too close for comfort.

I keep pressing the case for promoting self-employment as opposed to government interventions to revive sectors that are shrinking.  But I am a voice crying in the veld.

Thanks for your prayers.  One encouraging note in my day today was being approached by a deep township high school asking if I would be the Motivational Speaker at its Matric Dance.  What an honour!

But what am I gonna say to young learners facing their final exams next month?  What can inspire them to work hard and do their best?  Certainly not the conditions that they will face in December was they leave that school for the last time, and enter the work force.

Oliver Tambo said that "a nation that does not take care of its youth has no future and does not deserve one".

Pray for me as I try to motivate learners when their future is bleak.

The Eye of the Storm

They say that lightning never strikes in the same place twice.  But chances are good that New Orleans will get hit again with a major storm some day.  Hopefully by then it will be better prepared for disaster?

I have been reflecting on Yogi Berra’s famous phrase “déjà vu all over again”.

2003 Epicentre of the AIDS Pandemic

As the tide of this crisis rose, a Canadian called Stephen Lewis was appointed Special Advisor to the U.N. Secretary General (at the time Kofi Annan).  He published a book called Race Against Time which was actually a series of Massey lectures given at University of Toronto.  At the time, South Africa and Swaziland were at the epicenter of the pandemic.

For reasons that were unacceptable, the South African government of that time was not pouring enough resources into this crisis.  Anti-retrovirals were not being rolled out fast enough.  Instead, government was promoting beet root!  Government was trying to sequester all international AIDS resources for itself, to the exclusion of “non-state actors”.  When people like Stephen Lewis tried to talk sense to the Health Minister, xenophobia kicked in and he was ignored.  Years later, research done by Harvard University concluded that about 350,000 lives were lost that did not need to perish.  Government policy was detrimental. 

2013 Highest Unemployment Rate on Earth

CNN ran a piece recently on unemployment.  It listed the rates in various countries.  Conspicuously at the top of the list was South Africa.  From other sources, I have read that among the 9 provinces in SA, Mpumalanga’s rate is the highest.  So here we go again…

I have said before that the Mpumalanga rates today are worse than what the unemployment rates were in the USA and Canada during the worst year of the Great Depression.  The statistics are scary.  Aristotle said that inequity is the mother of revolution.

Government is not pouring enough resources into this crisis.

One cannot only blame government policy, as there are diverse causes.  But its policies in this respect are detrimental.  In particular it still thinks in terms of trying to increase the number of “formal sector jobs” and does not take self-employment namely the Informal Sector seriously enough.  Worse yet, it is as arrogant about this as it was about its views on ARVs.

Yesterday it was announced that the number of jobs in South Africa decreased in the second quarter - by 25 000.  Over half of these – 13 000 – were in the “community and social sector”.  So the people and organizations (like C4L) who are supposed to serve as the “safety net” are shrinking too!  This is because they are being starved of resources again – as they were during the AIDS crisis.

It was also announced yesterday that the average earnings for people who have jobs has increased during the same period  Imagine the resentment that this can cause among those losing their jobs or worse yet those who have never been able to find one.  Youth, to be exact.  Because 75% of the ranks of the unemployed in SA are under 35 – the local age benchmark for youth.

Unions exist to protect their members.  Let’s be honest, they have been doing a pretty good job protecting the interests of the employed.  COSATU is, after all, part of the “tripartite alliance” that rules SA.  For example, the unions blocked government’s attempt 3 years ago to introduce a youth wage subsidy.  Government wanted to subsidize work places that would employ youth.  The unions said this would create a two-tier effect and blocked it.

So the ANC congress late last year decided to introduce a Youth Grant instead.  They must see the “tsunami of youth” coming.  (Not to mention an election.) But this has bogged down, largely on the question of affordability.  The hard facts are that there are already 15 million citizens on some kind of direct government aid.  While there are only 12 million citizens working - paying income tax.  So adding another burden raises a lot of concerns.

Two other policies are bleeding the economy.  Affirmative action is one.  The other is what C4L has dubbed “The Impunity Gap”.  That is, the long stretch of time that passes between someone being caught in the act of fraud or corruption, and them being convicted.  Through the intervening months - or years – they just stay put.  They keep looting!  Their colleagues say, “Oh, let law enforcement take care of that, our job is service delivery.”  In other words, they leave the rotten apple in the bushel.

A-blowin my mind

In 2003 I wrote a parody of Dylan’s famous song - on the left.  Today I wrote a new version:

A-groanin in the wind

A-blowin my mind

How many times can a leader look up Before she sees the sky? How many deaths will it take 'til she knows That too many people have died? How many eyes must she have 'til she sees The truth that her cabinet hides? How many times can a man turn his head And pretend that he just doesn't see? How many tests will it take 'til he knows That you have to escape to be free? How many years can the nation exist Before it is brought to its knees? How many roads must a child walk down Before they call him a man? How many years can an orphan survive Before someone gives him a hand? How many nights can the siblings endure Before life is forever grand? The answer, my friend,  is groanin' in the wind The answer is a-groanin' in the wind

How many years can our leaders look up Before they see the sky? How many jobs will be lost in this land Where too many people have died? How many eyes must they have 'til they see That youth votes will soon turn the tide? How many years must a boy study hard Before he can get a good job? How many meals must his children miss out Before he will go out to rob? How many years can this crisis go on Before we are ruled by a mob? How many jobs will be lost by the way Before they wake up to our call? How many workers will work a half shift To see there is work for us all? How many un-employed youth must we have Before they make government fall? The answer, my friend,  is a-blowin my mind The answer is a-blowin my mind

A Letter from Youth

I was 8 years old when my father died in 2003.  My Mum dies 2 years later.  I miss them.  I grew up as a Child Head of Household with my young brothers and sisters.  My aunts and uncles helped us out.  The Social Worker, my school and my church have all been good to me.  Our neighbours have been kind.  I finished matric this year.  I am 18.

But there are no jobs.  I have one chance in a hundred of finding a job within a year of graduating.  Career counselors tell me that the longer I am unemployed, the harder it gets to find work.  I don’t want to steal.  My cousin is working hard, driving a taxi.  But he doesn’t have a drivers license.  Here are my options:

• Sit a home like a couch potato and watch endless soapies on TV

• Live on the accumulated child grants.  Mine will soon be running out

• Spend months job hunting when the news says the number of jobs is decreasing and the unions are fighting hard for the rights of their members

• Borrow money from government to further my studies

• Start my own enterprise to support myself

A hand up not a hand out

One recent innovation at C4L is a Solar Biltong Drier.  The prototype is working well, not just for meat but for fruits and veggies too.

Through its Green Coops at community level, these will be introduced.  They need no electricity.  They can add value either to youth who are growing plants or animals to sell.  Or youth can buy meat and process it in this way.

Biltong is popular in all the cultures of South Africa.  Some would call it a national pastime!  Maybe even good citizenship!  It can be made with solar power, as one of the bottlenecks to growing the Economy is the shortage of electricity.

Help C4L to help unemployed youth

Find out how on www.C4L.org

Success or Failure

I read this morning that in the USA $12 will buy 3 lattes.  Whereas in Tanzania the same amount $12 will pay for one child's education for one year.  We live in a world of disparities.  No one at either end is to blame, all are caught in these distortions against their will.  But we can do our part to work to change "the system".

As a teacher, Desmond Tutu despised another system... grand apartheid.  So he decided to become a priest, a role in which he could better influence people to work for change.  He eventually became a Bishop, and later even Archbishop.  His voice is still crying, although the wilderness around him has changed.  This week in the Mail & Guardian newspaper he wrote that South Africa is "the most unequal society in the world".

He highlighted corruption, unaccountability and weaknesses in the constitution as key areas that need to be addressed.


I mentioned this to a friend today at the coffee hour after church.  He has a good Anglican pedigree and says that during his years of compulsory military service, he always went to church on Sundays.  At the time, Desmond Tutu was Bishop.  He used to send out pastoral letters that every priest had to read out loud in every church.  He said that he remembers cringing to hear these letters read out loud.  He felt at the time that what Tutu was saying had little to do with faith or worship.  And serving as a soldier at the time, it made him very uncomfortable.

Perhaps that is our role in the ministry of Advocacy?  It's a bit like the saying about NGOs - that they are there to "comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable".   I am trying to do my part in both respects.


Over breakfast earlier in the week, another friend had an interesting take on what I call "triumphalism".  This basically encompasses the terms "corruption and unaccountability" that Tutu used, as quoted above.  He says that for about 40 years after the Anglo-Boer war, the British practiced it in South Africa.  Not only blacks but other whites namely those of Dutch descent were marginalized.  Then from 1948 the Afrikaners, who had lost the war, won the peace.  Apartheid was installed and for another 40 years, the Boers practiced triumphalism.  He grew up in this period as a boy of English descent.  He said it was very open and frank that ONLY Afrikaners would occupy the upper eschelons of power.  Others could get on with their private affairs, but were sidelined.

His somewhat fatalistic view is that the same thing is now happening again.  This time, it is the black ANC comrades who are in control.  And they are having a heyday.  They are feathering their own nests.  They are (like goats in the African proverb) "eating where they are tethered".  They are shameless about it.  Opportunism reigns.  C4L has encountered this first hand.


I recently consulted with an Advocate in the High Court about corruption.  He warned me that the way it was once seen - even by the courts - has changed.  He said that there are no longer absolutes - you are no longer just guilty or innocent.  He said it is now relativistic - everyone is corrupt, so it is not fair for one judge to penalize offenders more than others have done.  So the system is adjusting itself.  Or as some would argue - going soft or rotten.

This week Tutu wrote that he was a strong supporter of the ANC during "the Struggle" against white minority rule.  But citing inequality, violence and corruption, he stated that he would sadly not be able to vote for the ANC any longer.  These are sharp words, which by the way do not make C4L's life any easier!  For C4L operates in the province that is the bastion of ANC support.

Nevertheless, I feel that his diagnostics are still working.  Corruption is as big an enemy today as Apartheid was in the 1980s.  The great problem with Triumphalism is that it tries to validate corruption with a simpe retort: "It's our turn".


Pray for me as I walk down a fine line.  One foot treads in the direct conflict between C4L and triumphalists who have caused us harm and damages.  The other foot treads in anti-corruption rhetoric and advocacy.  (A sign on my door reads: You are entering a corruption free zone.)  While there may be synergy between these two, each one could also complicate the other.  Pray for wisdom and discernment as well as for clear insight and courage.

By the way, if you are uncomfortable with what I say at times, ask yourself (and me too, please) if I am failing or succeeding?!

A Future Not Our Own

New bank notes have entered the money supply this week - with Nelson Mandela's face on all denominations.  I have said to several people that I can remember a time when it was illegal to even photograph him - so all we had to go by were those black and white photos from the Treason Trials in the 1960s.  Times change!

I can remember when the prevailing view was that majority rule would never happen in South Africa because the Boers were just too strong and stubborn to permit it.

Once in 1988 when I was visiting Canada I was invited to speak at Hillside Baptist Church.  I was working in Mozambique at the time and I lived in Zimbabwe.  So I was pretty outspoken against the racist republic's policy of Destabilization, which was wreaking havoc in the "front line states".  I can remember a South African member of the church getting up and walking out of the sanctuary during my sermon.  Then how the pastor - who was also sitting in a pew - put his forehead into his hands in prayer.  He knew us both.  Looking back, I would say that we were both right.  Canada's prime minister at that time was Brian Mulrooney and he led the Commonwealth drive to pressure SA with sanctions.  But there were (it turns out) forces for change at work inside of South Africa, too.  Including among the Afrikaners.

If you haven't seen the movie END GAME, it is worth seeing.  It was made by the BBC and tracks the top secret negotiations that started around then between "liberal" Afrikaners and the ANC.  These happened in the UK, sponsored by LonRho's Tiny Roland.  The ANC's negotiator was a bright young man named Thabo Mbeki.  But I digress...

What occured to me is that South Africa does have a way of re-inventing itself.  This gives me some hope when I look at the news.  For example, this week the Opposition parties have tried (for the first time ever) to introduce a motion in Parliament of non-confidence in the statepresident .  This would never pass, but it would allow the question of President Zuma's record to be openly debated.  (Not just behind closed doors in the NEC of the ANC, but by all parties - publicly.)  Of course this is anathema to the group that I call "the Triumphalists".  Some of them are even saying now that a law should be passed to prevent people speaking badly of the President!

My thoughts answer this sentiment with a recollection of Nelson Mandela saying that he devoted his life to fighting white supremacy, but that he is equally opposed to black supremacy, and will fight that too if it ever emerges.  That is pretty much where South Africa is getting to, as I see it.  Black leaders "get away with murder".  Quite literally here in Mpumalanga, when you consider the "January murders" between 1998 and 2011.  Fortunately, this culture of death squads seems to have passed but now there is so much Triumphalism that government is finding it hard to contain it in its diverse manifestations.

This is reflected in the exchange rate which sank to 8.94 this week.  Foreign investors are worried.

It is in this light that I reflected this week on a favorite meditation written by Oscar Romero :

It helps, now and then, to step back
and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs,
We are prophets of a future not our own.  Amen.

I am processing this meditation in the light of what C4L has been going through in 2012.  It has certainly been a year of transition, but not to the future that we expected.  We cannot do everything - even everything that we wanted to.  Resources have thinned out and clashes of core convictions and values have put us into open conflict with a partner NGO.  We are just not both traveling to the same destination!

But C4L can do something - we can be prophets of a future not our own.

It is becoming evident that in the next two years we have to think of the next generation, not just of the next election.  There is an Advocacy role in this for C4L.  There is an awareness raising role in it for me.  There is a need for voter education - especially among youth... and above all, those who will be voting for the first time.  The population of Mpumalanga is so young the this target group can be considered a "swing vote".  And I do not mean from one party to another.  I just mean from Triumphalist to Constitutionalist.

Please pray for guidance, just how to approach this opportunity - for C4L and for me.

This is not the kind of ministry that donors - especially government - are likely to finance!  Are you willing to keep walking with me down this road, in prayer and ministry support?