Liberation is in the mind
The main difficulty in South Africa is in trying to address any issue in isolation. Everything is interrelated, so Zanele Nkosi (”Own the affirmation”, August 12) has to look at the variety of reasons why intended beneficiaries denigrate affirmative action.
Colonialism is an insidious process that causes its victims to recognise themselves in the coloniser’s description. Unless there is a coherent project to restore national consciousness, people continue to mimic their previous masters and to use their master’s benchmarks, even if this is to their detriment.
Nkosi seems to overlook the attempts to subjugate us through an inferior education system and the incessant propaganda, drilled into us, that success comes from copying the white man’s manner of behaviour.
In that process, we stopped having our own objectives, and could not own any progress we made in any field. We lost sight of who we were.
We, therefore, easily reject any government policy that creates a platform for us to compete on nearly equal terms, because the masters reject it. As their mimics, we cannot accept being products of a process they denounce.
Liberation a very complicated process that starts in the mind, in how we see ourselves and not in how our former masters see us.
The methods that made us conform to colonial rule need to be dismantled at a variety of levels. The beginning of that process will set us on our way to accepting policies like affirmative action, and seeing them as a means to an end, and not an end in themselves. — Ntsikana Tuntulwana, Amanzimtoti
Nkosi and Ferial Haffajee (”Eschew the label”, August 12) are not really debating whether one should ”own” or ”eschew” the affirmative action appointee label. Nkosi is arguing for affirmative action as an ideal, while Haffajee is arguing against the way it is practised.
Ideally, affirmative action is not about appointing the less capable or qualified, but about finding real ability and potential in people who at face value may not seem the best. It is about identifying the best as opposed to the most privileged people.
As the standard indicators tend to discriminate against designated people, other ways of identifying potential need to be found.
In practice, the implementation of ”affirmative action” is a different matter altogether. Quotas and targets are identified based on the somewhat problematic assumption that if blacks make up 80%, and women 51% of the population, then 80% of doctors, scientists, business leaders and so on should be black, and 51% should be female.
While playing the numbers game in an attempt to meet affirmative action targets, there is usually a failure to identify and groom people with real ability or potential. Affirmative action appointees to high positions are mostly politically connected and sometimes incompetent. Most people who work in government departments would privately attest to this, although it may not be politically correct to say so in public.
The baggage that goes with the term ”affirmative action appointee” is that the person is politically connected and somewhat challenged in real ability or visible skills. That is why I would not want to be seen as an affirmative action appointee. — Thanda Sibisi, Clernaville
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I was mildly irriated when I read Haffajee’s article. While making the valid observation that Vuyani Ngalwana’s appointment as the pension funds adjudicator was not a tokenistic affirmative action but based on merit, she invokes his recent run-in with the life and pensions industry and says: ”It’s about time, and though other (white male) adjudicators have sat in the chair, none has dared stare the giant in the eye or seen the obvious problems with pension fund payouts and punitive fees.”
There was only one previous pensions funds adjudicator — me; I was appointed by Trevor Manuel to establish the office in 1998. And alas, I am indeed a white male. It rankles to see my record in establishing the office and my several acrimonious battles with the industry and the actuarial profession over pension values consigned to the dustbin by some hack who wasn’t there to witness them.
As Haffajee would have it, freedom of expression includes the right to say whatever you like about whoever you don’t like, and to get outraged when they sue you for getting it wrong. — John Murphy, Kenilworth, Cape Town
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I am a pale white male favoured by apartheid, so I support measures to move beyond a wrong system to a society where people are judged not by skin colour, but by who they are.
I fully support affirmative action, but let’s be realistic and recognise that it is not that dream. We need to work hard and sacrifice to achieve it.
Hard measures are necessary, and if we cannot find a better way, sure, use affirmative action, as one of many means to get there. But we must recognise that, like apartheid, affirmative action discriminates against people based on skin colour and gender, and that goes slap against our dream. We should not pretend that affirmative action is basically a good system.
Just as I am ashamed of what my people under apartheid, so would I be ashamed to be appointed knowing there are more capable persons with the wrong colour or gender who could have filled the position.
Surely we must embrace working towards a better society, and not pretend that favouring a less capable person is that dream. We have enough examples of successful blacks and women competing on an equal basis — and we must start thinking beyond affirmative action, towards a society where skin colour and gender do not favour people in the workplace.
We must never let the dream die. — Pieter Steenekamp, Randburg
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Wits flouting own policy
In response to the student representative council’s rejection of Wits University’s appointment of Timothy Reagan as dean of humanities, the university argues that the appointment of a white male is not counter-transformation, and that there is a serious shortage of qualified black academics in South Africa.
This goes against the affirmative action clause of the Employment Equity Act and Wits’s own transformation policy. Both state that preference must be given to members of previously disadvantaged groups, especially where the other candidate is a white male.
The proposed appointment denies black people voice and agency by assuming that a ”sympathetic” white man can adequately represent their interests. Reagan’s argument that his entire scholarly and administrative career ”has been concerned with addressing issues of equity and social justice” is paternalistic.
Transformation aims to raise the number of black academics in South Africa, a mission undermined by privileging white academics. The university implicitly affirms the popular mythology that associates black academics with lower standards.
The vice-chancellor recently lamented black academics’ lack of interest in working at Wits. Could it be that Wits’s institutional culture is not conducive? — Tebogo Gololo
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What about local monkeys?
With reference to Fiona Macleod’s article about Jane Goodall’s planned chimp haven (July 29), I must ask: What is the project doing about conserving our locally endangered species, notably samango monkeys?
What is the split of profits between the Cussins family and the Jane Goodall Institute? The money should be ploughed back into conservation of chimps in the wild, as well as sanctuaries in states which lack resources.
Is it not a conflict of interest for National Parks CEO David Mabunda to serve on the project’s board?
Why was the NSPCA not consulted? What part will they play in managing the sanctuary?
Why has the chimp sanctuary in KwaZulu-Natal, on the property of animal welfare person Helena Fitchat, been jettisoned in favour of this commercial project?
What provision has been made for the education of local communities in the conservation of endangered species, and what access will they have to the project? — Dave Robbins, Cape Town
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Bury this foul anathema
Kudos to Fiona Macleod (”We almost buy a canned cheetah”, August 12) for her continuing investigations into the canned hunting industry — may she continue until the whole foul anathema is dead and buried.
These little men and their ”sport” are rapidly, like the accompanying picture of the quintessential ”great white hunter”, rapidly becoming caricatures of themselves. Shooting cheetahs? That’s like picking on a tall, slender domestic tabby with about 4% more aggression. And in a canning context? Even sadder.
As morally repugnant as this Alexander Steyn and his ilk seem to be, he is right about one thing. South Africa, and much of the world, is essentially one big canned hunting domain. Let’s not be overly blue-eyed here. Today, all hunting environments are contrived, controlled and highly managed. They are designed to deliver one thing: maximum profits for their owners by utilising the aspirations of some misguided sod, searching in vain for misplaced masculinity in the African bush.
There is no doubt that the industry is a money-spinner; the desire to affix heads to your living room wall, and the bad taste that fuels it, don’t come cheap. But Macleod asks whether this hunting fits in with the concept of sustainable development that South Africa is desperately trying to embrace with respect to its natural resources.
The answer is, in all likelihood, ”no”. Sustainability presupposes solid underpinning by a firm ethical base and good governance. This industry has neither.
While philosophical, moral and ethical arguments around hunting are voluminous, the governance discourse is simpler. To illustrate just one aspect: many of the provincial conservation departments are staffed by individuals who embrace the hunting culture and often have (sideline) commercial and other interests in hunting activities.
This just doesn’t fit, and while many conservation officials do very good work, I would suggest that Macleod looks in this direction.
As long as those tasked with the stewardship and sustainable management of our natural resources are non-neutral with respect to the hunting industry, ”sustainable” and ”management” will remain mutually exclusive. — Brent Johnson, Stellenbosch
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Moyo’s views lack all credibility
Jonathan Moyo’s article (”What is Mbeki trying to achieve?”, August 12) lacks credibility because, during his tenure as information minister, he helped Robert Mugabe craft draconian laws, which are the octopus of thought surveillance in today’s Zimbabwe.
Moyo asserts that Mbeki’s ”quiet diplomacy” has become a loud affair, and that his efforts to broker a solution to the quagmire risk crumbling.
”Quiet diplomacy” is failing because it involves less emphasis on attention-grabbing universalism and more on the prosaic constraints imposed by local conditions — in this case, traditional African respect for colonial boundaries and state sovereignty.
South Africa is hesitant to articulate a clear policy position because of its sensitivity to charges of hegemonic ambition. It prefers to avoid individual responsibility for regional development, resorting to the less risky options of bi- and multilateralism.
Any veiled criticism of Mugabe appears to have been calculated to assuage international anxieties, rather than to induce him to listen to reason. A case in point is the hurriedly convened meeting between Mbeki and the MDC on the eve of the G8 summit. — Tamsanqa Mlilo, Randburg
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I’m shocked the M&G published Moyo’s article. The writing of this ”duplicitous Machiavellian” is putrid and devoid of substance. — Philip Haycock, Senderwood
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Atrocities
I suggest Renato Correa (Letters, August 12) takes remedial history lessons — the Japanese initiated the war against the United States and were responsible for numerous crimes against humanity, including the rape of Nanking, Pearl Harbour, the Bataan Death March, ”comfort women” and the wholesale death in captivity of allied prisoners of war.
The atom bombs stopped the war and saved countless lives that would have been lost in an invasion of the Japanese mainland. Yet, while the US is constantly excoriated for dropping the bombs, Japan has arrogantly failed to demonstrate genuine remorse for its atrocities. — Paul Pregnolato, Kenilworth, Cape Town
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