The intelligence of Malegapuru Makgoba’s commentary on the wrath of dethroned white males and Dan Roodt’s observations about Darwinism, altruism and bananas notwithstanding, destructive spoilers are everywhere. They come in black and white and are hindering our country’s progress.
As a leadership coach and strategist in the private, public and non-profit sectors, I meet many spoilers. There is the fiftysomething government official who failed to get the head of office (HOO) position that was given to a better qualified, young, black woman. His traditional conditioning makes it difficult for him to report to someone he dismisses as “a female” and “a child”. This spoiler is black.
In the same unit there is the Afrikaner with a pro-apartheid upbringing who did not finish high school, has been employed in the government for decades and cannot understand how anyone can be appointed HOO “straight from school”. What angers him most is that his new boss is not only black, but also female. This spoiler is white.
Thanks to these spoilers, factions emerged in the unit, internal politics took up the time of the staff and service to the public plummeted. Eighteen months later, charges of mismanagement were laid against the HOO and there was a formal inquiry. It is suspected that the two “dethroned dominant males” instigated the inquiry, and what started out as a routine debriefing deteriorated into a messy investigation with charges of nepotism, racism, incompetence, theft and fraud. The HOO was suspended.
Spoilers become obstacles to progress not only when they have been dethroned, but when they realise they can never be “enthroned”. They are the former activists who feel betrayed by the African National Congress government, which has not allowed them their perceived entitlements.
Spoilers — black and white — are everywhere. And here is a question for Makgoba and Roodt: When you write words about baboons and bananas in a country with our past, how should we perceive you — as builders of national unity or merely spoilers with silver tongues?
Mac Carim is the CEO of New Horizons