Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu questioned black economic empowerment on Tuesday, saying it seemed to benefit a small ”recycled” elite and called for action against poverty.
”It will not do to say people did not complain when whites were enriched. When were the old regime our standards?” asked Tutu in an address at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Houghton, Johannesburg.
Imploring the audience to remember the struggle values of ”the people shall share” and the pledge to evolve a caring, compassionate society, he said too many South Africans were living in ”gruelling demeaning, dehumanising poverty”.
”We are sitting on a powder keg. We really must work like mad to eradicate poverty,” he said.
”We should discuss as a nation whether BIG (the proposed basic income grant) is not really a viable way forward. We should not be browbeaten by pontificating decrees from on high. We cannot glibly on full stomachs speak about handouts to those who often go to bed hungry.
”It is cynical in the extreme to speak about handouts when people can become very rich at the stroke of a pen. If those are not massive handouts, what are?”
He suggested adopting a family with a monthly gift of R100 or R200 or paying the school fees of a poor child.
Tutu called government houses ”the next generation of slums”, telling the audience that they were known as Unos — a small Italian car — and asked why South Africans were not involved with the Habitat for Humanity project, which was building 50 new houses a week.
Tutu touched on the most violent and repressive points of apartheid and compared them with events after 1994.
”We really do have much to celebrate and much for which to be thankful”, he said, marvelling at mixed-race couples who would once have been victimised by the police and the way the new society was reflected in the demographics of the school near his home.
He spoke of sporting triumphs and the Nobel peace and literature prizes won by South Africans, and reminded his audience that in spite of South Africa’s deeply troubled and divided past, the expected racial bloodshed did not happen.
However, he conceded that the country had problems, the most serious of which was HIV/Aids.
”Over four million of our people are infected. It is estimated that nearly 400 000 people will die this year from Aids. That is shattering news.”
He said it was worth celebrating that while it could have been expected that whites would say ”good riddance” to the mostly black people with the virus, the most committed workers in the Anti-HIV/Aids campaign were whites.
Tutu also expressed concern about freedom of expression, and said that party lists (which determine who gets into Parliament), made people reluctant to question any policies.
”We should not too quickly want to pull rank and demand an uncritical, sycophantic, obsequious conformity. We need to find ways in which we engage the hoi polloi, the so-called masses, the people, in public discourse through indabas, town hall forums, so that no one feels marginalised and that their point of view matters, it counts.
”We should debate more openly, not using emotive language, issues such as affirmative action, transformation in sport, racism, xenophobia, security, crime, violence against women and children.
”What do we want our government to do in Zimbabwe? Are we satisfied with quiet diplomacy there? Surely human rights violations must be condemned as such whatever the struggle credentials of the perpetrator. It should be possible to talk as adults about these issues without engaging in slanging matches. My father used to say, ‘Don’t raise your voice; improve your argument’.” – Sapa