From Cosatu to South Africa’s education system — the Mail & Guardian readers share their views.
Cosatu (or M&G) gets it wrong
The article “Call to arms for a living wage” (July 8) quotes Cosatu president Sdumo Dlamini saying that “the 2010 United Nations Development Programme [UNDP] report shows that 44% of workers in South Africa live on less than R10 a day”.
I thought this surprising and decided to check it. I presume the report referred to is the UNDP “Millennium Development Goals Country Report 2010 for South Africa”. According to this report, the proportion of the population (not workers) living on below $2 a day was 25% in 2006 (the latest figures available in the report). At today’s exchange rate, $2 is about R13.71. There is no current data for the proportion of employed people living below R10 a day, but in 2000 the proportion of workers living on less than $1 a day (in today’s money, about R10 a day) was 5%.
Thus it cannot possibly be the case that 10 years later, despite Cosatu’s best efforts, 44% of workers in South Africa live on less than R10 a day. Either your reporter has got it wrong or the Cosatu president is spreading misinformation. Either way, a correction is called for. The 25% of the population living on less than R10 a day (in 2006) are not workers but the unemployed, which Cosatu, by definition, cannot and does not represent at all. — Rod Gurzynski, Kommetjie
Workers fully deserve their right to industrial mass action if they reach deadlock over wages. These rights are correctly enshrined in our Constitution and Labour Relations Act. There are provisions for pickets, strikes, marches and so on.
But there are no provisions for violence, looting, trashing the city by emptying rubbish bins, intimidating fellow non-striking workers and vandalising property.
It is common that innocent people who have nothing to do with strikes are beaten up for walking near factories. Innocent motorists are targeted. Amagundwane (workers who choose to work while their colleagues are on strike) don’t deserve to be beaten up — they must be won over politically. Beating up non-strikers is barbaric, criminal and cowardly. Cosatu must speak out on this nonsense.
Strike violence tarnishes the credibility of workers and their leadership and clouds their legitimate grievances. Workers in general are law-abiding citizens, but the lack of discipline by a few must be condemned by union leadership lest all workers be tarred with the same brush. — Nhlatla Molapo, Diepsloot
Apartheid shame game meaningless
While I cannot agree with Eusebius McKaiser’s and Samantha Vice’s appraisal of “white” responsibility for the past, I think that James van den Heever’s riposte (Letters, July 8) is inadequate and resorts to rather shallow reverse-racial innuendos.
For my part, am I supposed to feel shame for the suffering inflicted on people of colour under apartheid? And am I supposed to acknowledge that I “benefited” from apartheid and do something about it? Well, I feel no shame whatever for apartheid — neither did I invent it.
I might just as well be 25% ashamed of Hitler’s barbarities on account of my 25% German ancestry. As for regret, more than that, I am and was disgusted by apartheid. Three years after Hitler’s racist nationalism was put down in a world war, clownish Afrikaners sought to implement something similar in South Africa.
And did I benefit from their apartheid laws? I took a job under the pervading system of job reservation, but the extent to which I benefited, or would not have benefited without the system, is questionable and perhaps not measurable. The question is therefore somewhat meaningless.
If I am to feel shame on account of my “whiteness” for the cruelties perpetrated under slavery, colonialism and apartheid, then surely I ought to be proud of the British segment of my “whiteness” for the abolition of slavery and of my European “whiteness” for the invention of democracy, habeas corpus and freedom of speech, as well as a host of technology and scientific discovery uncontaminated by superstition.
Take McKaiser’s method further: should not “black” people on account of their “blackness” be ashamed of the barbarities of Robert Mugabe? And, to push the point, should they not also be ashamed of Nelson Mandela for having played the same game as the Afrikaner nationalists by rejecting Albert Luthuli’s passive resistance and adopting violence, manipulating the masses and seeking assistance from those who had espoused that throw-out “white” ideology called communism? — Oliver Price, Cape Town
Academic Samantha Vice has caused a storm of controversy with her thoughts on white shame in South Africa. Read the reactions. View our special report.
Don’t insult us and overcharge us
The substantive part of the responses of those quoted in the piece “How to buy a cheaper car. Go overseas” (June 24) reached the heights of effrontery.
The reason given by the director of the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers for the overpricing of vehicles made here was: “It’s a progressive income-tax system.”
I didn’t know cars were included in the income-tax system. Then he quotes the domestic “vehicle tax regime”, which is exactly the same as for importing a vehicle. If the model you want is not in South Africa, don’t bother: there are too many expensive technical hurdles.
The strength or weakness of the rand should not affect domestic builds in the way claimed. Obviously, it is a big factor for companies that export, but the communications manager of BMW was mixing up his company’s profitability with the draconian taxes placed on domestic buyers.
I loved his spin, though: the South African car has “R20 000 — of — standard options”. If they are options they cannot be standard. Duh!
And then the piece de résistance: the price includes a “motor plan” worth R51 000. By his own admission, punters are paying R71 000 more than they need to for a “standard” vehicle.
At least we had a bit of honesty from VW: people were “not prepared to put their children in a car with no safety features”. But maybe the real reason for cancelling the Citi Golf was the number of reasonably priced small cars that killed the sales of an antiquated “shell with an engine”.
Finally, we had smoke and mirrors from the Mercedes-Benz “media product specialist”. The hocus-pocus job title should be a clue to where we were going. The routine of “it depends on this or that” was obvious. I especially liked that he said “specification levels may vary from country to country”. Is this addressing the high price of domestic cars? I don’t think so.
We know the real reason for high costs. The department of trade and industry spokesperson said: “There is a cost to supporting the industry.” So, motor manufacturers get a subsidy that helps those who live overseas, while here we pay twice over — first in taxes and then when you buy a car. — Tom Morgan
Insecurity of black leaders drives the fear
I’d like to remind Rapule Tabane (“A national conversation driven by fear“, July 8) that this is a problem that has been prevalent in the ANC ever since it was unbanned. It is a result of the ANC’s inability to transform itself into a political party and because sections of the organisation still hanker after a “national democratic revolution”. If the ANC had become a political party, the issue of who should lead it and how would be a topic for open discussion, as it is in any other organisation, political or not.
A serious problem, yet to be resolved by any black institution, the ANC included, is the insecurity of its leaders. This leads to no succession planning of any sort. I am reminded of Thabo Mbeki’s fear of being replaced by Chris Hani or Cyril Ramaphosa as a successor to Nelson Mandela, which led to Mbeki’s calling in all the support he could from ANC structures and having Ramaphosa vilified at every turn. The unfortunate result was that Ramaphosa has never had the opportunity to show what he can do in government. What a pity!
In addition, “groupthink” is prevalent in the ANC. If you have a view opposed to that of a so-called leader, no one interrogates your viewpoint — instead it is assumed there is something wrong with you. That may have been valid in exile, but no longer. The exile situation is not the same as running a country. There are many good people at all levels of the ANC, but there are also many who know how to position themselves. This has led to stagnation and to a point where the ANC is slowly becoming irrelevant, despite being the governing party. The question we need to be asking is: Is this the beginning of the end? — Ntsikana Tuntulwana, KwaMashu
Teachers fall short
What a superb piece of writing by Stuart Saunders (“In a worse state than we think“, July 1). As a maths educator at matric level, I, too, am appalled and concerned at the state of maths education in South Africa – and I teach in a former model C school, so I don’t have to face some of the harsh realities.
A result of 30% for maths means you know less than a third of your work. Where are the committed, qualified teachers who go the extra mile? Where are the new maths teachers? Few mathematically capable students choose to become maths teachers, so the outlook is indeed gloomy.
Sanders’s second article (“A sad state of teaching affairs“, July 8) was just as hard-hitting as the first. There is definitely a lack of a work ethic in the teaching profession and it has to be addressed with a firm hand.
The mantra of teachers should be: “Teach us to think little of our rights and much of our responsibilities.” Too many teachers are merely “cheque collectors”. To be a teacher who adds value to young people’s lives, effort and self-sacrifice are needed and this means many extra hours of overtime for which one is not remunerated but there is the satisfaction of a job well done. What ever happened to “working towards a common goal”? — Jean van Heeswijk
Laurence’s legacy
It was with deep sadness that I learned of the passing of journalist Patrick Laurence (“Miner of information in the bedrock of journalism“, July 8). For more than 30 years Laurence was a passionate and committed political writer whose life and work made a clear distinction between radical African journalism and mainstream journalism that upholds an unjust economic status quo.
Yet the advent of such journalists needs to be critically examined. They became the self-appointed spokesmen of the voiceless black masses simply because the authentic African leadership was in prison, exile, banned or just cowering in fear. These journalists could easily be co-opted to serve the interests of white liberal domination, which wanted to project itself as spokesperson of the black majority. Though they fiercely denounced injustice and white racism, they were lacking in the ability to enable blacks to tell their own stories.
Radical white journalists are often comfortable within a system that provides them with opportunities and positions of power and influence at the expense of their black counterparts.
If we are to be true to the spirit of a journalist such as Laurence, we need the media to address the burning issue of transformation and to create genuine opportunities for black journalists. — Sandile Memela