Human BEEing

Written October 4, 2007:

I wrote this as part of a set of short essay questions on my application to an int. youth leadership conference next year. I had no idea what it would come out as but feel the need to share this epiphany with as many people as possible. Please feel free to criticise it or in whatever way you can add to the debate, i think it's vitally important that we start taking cognitive note of this issue (and many others that i will write on as time permits) as it will, in my personal opinion, determine the kind of world we're building for our children:


Measures of socio-economic redress as they have been applied in South Africa have proven themselves to be contentious to say the least; I recently witnessed a debate between the Cape Town city mayor (also head of the major opposition party, the Democratic Alliance) and the MEC of the ruling party (African National Congress), and was surprised by the manifold levels of the arguments they presented. Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and Affirmative Action (AA) have become almost cliché in academic circles but it's frightening to think of how many of our youth have little to no conception of the impacts these policies will have on their futures.

The majority of White students of my generation (from my personal interactions) view BEE and AA as parts of a system of reverse Apartheid, while the majority of Black students think that the policies are justified considering the active and purposeful oppression previously imposed on Blacks, both socially and economically. It seems that neither group (apart from the politically conscious within them respectively) has taken the time to think about the meaning nor implications of the policies that are intended to ensure equity (if not equality) in our divided nation. What bothers me are the underlying attitudes that govern most young people’s perception (especially frightening as we are meant to be the next generation of intellectuals); most of the arguments I’ve hard talking to my peers centre around ideas of entitlement, citizenship and ownership. One will talk of the government owing him/her some form of compensation for the suffering our parents endured, while another will counter that they were not part of the oppressive regime and don’t deserve to be punished for it. Again, one will speak of placing South Africa’s wealth in the hands of true Africans (in so implying that any white south African is simply a second or subsequent generation European, and will therefore never really be African), while another will argue that their parents fought for the cause of Black South African’s, and is just as much an African in heart as any person with darker skin. As long as this sort of thinking is allowed to perpetuate itself in the minds of this country’s youth, Nelson Mandela’s dream of a Rainbow Nation will never be realised.

What this country needs are passionate and committed leaders who are able, and perhaps more importantly, willing to cross the boundaries of race, gender, and culture (I would have liked to add to this litany political affiliation, but that would indeed be idealistic). Once leaders are able to penetrate these self- made bubbles of identity and thought, and successfully inspire those within to help create a culture of exchange and co-operation through the sharing of ideas (in so doing shine light into the den of that ancient beast called Ignorance). Our nation will then be able to harness it's intellectual energies into forging and shaping a future that is as rich as the legacy we have inherited, that will honour the sacrifices of those who came before us, and ultimately make this country a place we can all be proud to call home. This, I believe, is the great need of South Africa; perhaps then we can teach the rest of the World how to live together in relative peace and harmony.

Honestly, I’m not sure what I’m going to learn at the conference; it would be ludicrous for me to think I’ll find the answer to my country's problems in five days when it has taken greater minds than mine decades to come this far. I do though, hope to interact with other like minded individuals, sharing ideas that may be limited by experience and/or cultural and (to some extent) ideological principles. The very notion of democracy (in my opinion) rests on the idea of people collectively finding solutions to their problems through consultation, fighting to protecting the human rights of all in a politically pluralistic environment. I hope to come back with tools that will enable South Africa's youth to 'speak the same language', to talk not of 'us' and 'them' but to see the nation's (by extension the world's) future as something we are collectively responsible for.

I want to be able to help open young peoples eyes to the fact that we're not all that different; fear is of ignorance, the more we know about what our respective (in my opinion collective) concerns and needs are, the more we'll come to understand, accept, and respect each other. This respect will hopefully be the foundation for a system of social thought that goes far beyond notions of fairness and due process, a system in which we will see each other without the emblematic ‘lenses’ of the socio-politically separatist definitions we have invented for ourselves; in this system no man will see the needs or concerns of another as being less than his, nor endeavour to oppress or impede him in his personal search for spiritual self-and-whole-actualisation (this is based on my belief that in furthering mankind’s collective understanding of our purpose on Earth, we simultaneously give ourselves the same service)… this is my eutopia.