Compiling the Mail & Guardian’s annual 300 Young South Africans You have to Take to Lunch list is tough, not so much for who we put in, but whom we leave out.
And that doesn’t mean the people whose PR consultants beat their fists bloody on our doors.
Ferial Haffajee, founding editor
Take, for example, the media section. Where is Rapule Tabane, deputy editor of this newspaper, and one of the more thoughtful political commentators you are likely to read anywhere? Ineligible, I’m afraid, on the grounds that, like Caesar’s wife and public officials, the maker of the list must be above suspicion and must therefore exclude M&G employees.
Adriaan Basson, investigative journalist and scourge of the powerful, is out for the same reason, even though at 29, and garlanded with the most prestigious awards in the industry, he is an obvious candidate. So is Jason Norwood-Young, an online guru who is helping to shape the way you will be consuming news in 10 years time, and Percy Zvomuya whose gently left-field culture writing is an increasingly essential read.
Niren Tolsi is not on the list for his brilliant profiles, nor is Lloyd Gedye for his probing of cartels. Mandy Rossouw, Matuma Letsoalo and Mmanaledi Mataboge go unmentioned despite their sharp political reporting, as does Sello S Alcock for his dispatches from the battle for the soul of the legal system. Yolandi Groenewald gets no recognition here for her robust investigations of environmental scandal, and Lynley Donnely’s delicate touch with business stories is ignored. Phathisani Moyo and Lucky Sindane are not profiled here for rebuilding the sports pages of our avowedly political newspaper.
Our photographic team -- Paul Botes, Lisa Skinner and Oupa Nkosi -- are represented only by their work as seen in Jacqueline Steeneveldt’s layout of these pages.
They deserve recognition, and all of them make age cut, if only barely, but they really don’t need to be included here, because they have a showcase each week in the M&G, a newspaper powered to an extraordinary degree by the energy and commitment of young South Africans; people for whom a prosperous, democratic future is an urgent, living demand, not a fantasy.
Frankly, we have left lots of other such people out. Some we’ve never heard of -- and we know you will remind us to include them next year -- others just weren’t young enough anymore. To keep the list meaningful we’ve been a bit stricter this year about excluding the young at heart and tried as hard as possible to leave out anyone over 35, but we buckled in few cases for some really starry leaders.
Still others seemed like tedious lunch companions to us, so we excercised our discrimination, and spared you the expense account query. On the other hand, we included a few people who weren’t born here, but who have made South Africa their home.
The point of such a list is not to be complete. On the contrary, it is meant as a starting point, perhaps even a provocation, but in any event the opening of a conversation about a generation that is truly beginning to shape our possible futures.
Ours is a young country in just about every sense: demographically, democratically and in its developing identity. This list is a cross-section of the present, but it is also a map to the future and it cheers us up no end.
300 Young South Africans June 2009 Editor: Tanya Pampalone
Managing editor: Edwina van der Berg
Photographers: Paul Botes, Lisa Skinner, Oupa Nkosi, Delwyn Verasamy
Research assistant: Eamon Allan
Graphics: John McCann
Designer: Jacqueline Steeneveldt
Contributing writers: Eamon Allan, Lynley Donnelly, Monako Dibetle, Lloyd Gedye, Matuma Letsoalo, Qudsiya Karrim, Karabo Keepile, Percy Mabandu, Mmanaledi Mataboge, Faranaaz Parker, Hendri Pelser, Ilham Rawoot, Mandy Rossouw, Jane Steinacker, Liesl Venter, Percy Zvomuya
Production: Russel Benjamin
M&GOnline: Valencia Talane and Ryan Hoffmann
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EDITOR'S LETTER
Nic Dawes
Editor-in-chief
Mail & Guardian
The Mail & Guardian is well known for tough journalism and we can, at times, serve up a pretty depressing menu of bad people doing bad things.
It is not, however, gratuitous misery. Robust investigative and political writing aims to hold open space in our society for the building of a richer democracy, in all possible ways.
Our annual survey of Young South Africans is really the flipside of our investigative work. It's an effort to identify and recognize the emerging talents whose work thrills us with its potential.
When we put them all together in one room for lunch, we get an extraordinary sense of a country being born around us.
And far from being just future stars, our 200 picks are making real impacts now within their own fields, but crucially beyond them too.
We have reduced numbers this year, not because there are fewer young stars in the country, but because we want to be rigorous in selection, and stricter about the 35-year cut-off. On the other hand, we have included a few brilliant non-native South Africans who have made South Africa their home and applied
their enormous energies to our complicated, sometimes daunting, national project. We aren't opposed to xenophobia just because it involves abuses of human rights, but because we also know we are vastly better off when we are open to the world.
A smaller sample has also allowed us to pay more attention to each of the people we do profile, and I think that's evident in the improved writing, photography and design that characterise this year's edition.
As ever, we pass over people who I think are some of the most promising young South Africans you are likely to meet anywhere -- those journalists in our own newsroom, many of whom help to make this supplement happen, including Lynley Donnelly, Lionel Faull, Lloyd Gedye, Yolandi Groenewald, Tarryn Harbour, Karabo Keepile, Matuma Letsoalo, Mmanaledi Mataboge, Duduzile Mathebula, Phathisani Moyo, Faranaaz Parker, Verashni Pillay, Mandy Rossouw, Lisa Steyn, Valencia Talane, Niren Tolsi, Vuvu Vena, Lisa van Wyk and Percy Zvomuya, and our photographers Paul Botes, Oupa Nkosi, Lisa Skinner,
David Harrison and Delwyn Verasamy.
Tanya Pampalone has done an extraordinary job of wrangling them-- even very good journalists are not easily organized -- and editing the product that you have in your hands.
So, if you really want to engage with the potential this country holds, and borrow a bit of momentum from those who are really moving it forward, book a table and grab a plate of optimism.
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Foreword
Andile Sangqu, Executive Director
Xstrata South Africa:
The Mail &Guardian publishes this special edition on South Africa's youth leaders during a time in which the eyes of the world are focused on our land.
The Fifa World Cup is going to be the most successful ever, and that is in large part due to the collective contribution of many South Africans, in different ways, but all significant. When it ends on July 11, the world will sit up and take notice of an African continent that is waking up from decades of struggle and under-achievement.
Of critical importance is that all South Africans takes the lead in keeping the momentum generated by this historic event so that our country can move forward, an endeavour in which young people from all walks of life have a central role to play. Their optimism, boundless energy and determination to
make the country great cannot go to waste at a time when the country, and its youth in particular, still face so many challenges.
This special edition attempts to recognise some of the most promising young people the country has produced. Please take note of them, work with and guide them to make them even better South Africans for the sake of our future. As an organisation, Xstrata has made a decision to seek and utilise all opportunities available to contribute to nation building and economic growth. It is everyone's responsibility.
To see who our 200 Young South Africans for 2011 are click here.
Ferial Haffajee, founding editor
