HEARTLINES, A NATIONAL CONVERSATION AIMED AT EXAMINING SOUTH AFRICANS’ VALUES, KICKED OFF LAST WEEK, FOCUSING ON THE VALUE OF ACCEPTANCE.
HEARTLINES patron Rev Dr Mvume Dandala takes a hard look at just how accepting our society is.

Once the polecat of the world, South Africa is now lauded as an example of a tolerant society. But twelve years into democracy – realistically - just how deep does our acceptance of one another go?

In SA we all still need to learn what unconditional acceptance is.  Racism begins by rejecting the other person’s “humanness”.  I accept you based on the fact that you are a human being. I do not reject you because your nose is a different shape to mine, or your colour, or your way of speaking or eating.  This is what constitutes a healthy basis for societal relationships.

The moment this realisation becomes firmly entrenched in our psyches, acceptance will be easier in coming. A pre-requisite will be our willingness and desire to want to change.  Then, when we have an issue to address, the way it is communicated will not be perceived as being based on colour, a response that says ‘you are taking this attitude because I am black’ or vice versa, but because we are committed to a future that we both want

This paradigm shift is particularly important for us as South Africans, because ours has been a history of alienation from each other.  Specifically as black people we have to be re-educated to accept ourselves as being black and take pride in our “African-ness”.  Remember Stephen Bantu Biko? We will get there.  White South African have to accept themselves as being white and take pride in their “Africaness” – together we belong here. When opposition politicians start to affirm each other as has recently happened at the opening session of Parliament, this is a powerful signal to the nation!

Our education system has a key role to play. It starts with taking on the responsibility to help us accept each other’s different histories. This, for black South Africans means acceptance, not only of apartheid history, but going back more than three hundred years and finding a footing on which we can, with confidence, find restoration of our uniqueness and worth.

When people are taught a system of physics and maths – often in an unfamiliar language - and illustrations are used that are foreign to them and with which they are unable to identify, intellectual inferiority is instilled. The failure is in not associating the shapes in the new theory being taught i.e. cubes, circles, triangles etc. with objects they use in their everyday lives. This unwittingly conveys to all and sundry, but more damaging to themselves, that they do not have the mental capacity to understand the concepts being taught.

Why did we never learn about the pyramids of Egypt, which would have elicited a basic understanding of algebraic concepts?  When it comes to trade we were taught about the Dutch East India Company but what about Mapungubwe and its trade with India dating back centuries?   Such understanding is part of self-affirmation and acceptance that one is not intellectually inferior.

Hundreds of years ago the University of Timbuktu in Mali drew scholars from all over the world and yet the perception has been entrenched that Africans are intellectual parasites – internalising everything from others but having nothing to give. 

Ancient history says otherwise. This needs to be accepted without the customary knee-jerk reaction to prove it otherwise.  For many, the name Timbuktu is found in fables and to others is merely an imaginary term used to indicate a far-flung place.

Accepting and affirming another person has everything to do with one’s own sense of confidence and self-esteem.  If I am confident in myself I have no need to be a bad neighbour, because I wish the best for you.  Jesus says love your neighbour as yourself. T That’s hard to do, if you don’t accept yourself.

Perhaps we also all have to become less sensitive.  The recent reaction to Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s reference to the “ingratitude” (his term) of white South Africans is one such incident.  Not long before that he had lambasted black business people for the excessive salaries they earned.  Coming from a man of his calibre and integrity, would it not have been wiser for us as South Africans, to swallow hard and see if there were any lessons to be learned instead of being angry and defensive?

One of the gratifying things about this country have been the many white South Africans who rejected apartheid because they saw exactly and were appalled at how it affected others. There were also those who were playing politics of pride because they didn’t want to be seen to be part of such an abhorrent system.

Black people on the other hand, cannot keep rejecting those who want to be part of South African society simply because of the colour of their skin.  In some circles people have not accepted that whites are part of this society. We have to work through this, find one another and accept the fact that there are many who irrespective of their race are committed to the future.  By the same token -   some whites who refuse to - have to accept that they are now on an equal footing with their black compatriots.  Let us find one another and work together for a common future for our children.

Let’s undo the tendency we have of seeing each other in terms of “them” and “us”. This does not mean losing our identities as Xhosas, Tswanas or those of English or Dutch or other European descent, but see the collective as being South Africans even if they choose to spend time in their “clubs”.  However, we have to undo the habit of talking about an accident in which ten people were killed – “four black, three coloured and three white”. 

An Ethiopian proverb says: “As long as I hold you to be inferior, I render myself to be inferior.” The measure is very clear, it is that to which we must aspire.

Rev Mvume H Dandala is General Secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches, former Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa. He is the recipient of the Presidential Order of the Baobab (Silver) for his peace-making role in South Africa.

SOUTH AFRICA IS CONSIDERED A MODEL OF PEACEFUL CHANGE AND OF SOCIAL INTEGRATION. But, as South Africans take part in a national public conversation on values, with the focus this week on acceptance, Sharon Davis looks at whether we are indeed accepting of the drastic social change sweeping our country.

Fifty-seven percent of South Africans feel that race relations in South Africa have improved since 1994. Fourteen percent feel race relations have deteriorated and 29 percent feel things remain the same, according to a Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) study. 

Those who feel there has been an improvement attribute it to the church, sporting events, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), the constitution, better employment opportunities for the previously disadvantaged and employment equity legislation.

Daphne Banks has run a home for abandoned, abused and orphaned children in KwaZulu-Natal for the past five years – first in Umhlanga, near Durban, and now in Richmond. “For five years we have had cross cultural children on our cars and in our home and we have not had one negative remark. Some people stare because they have never seen anything like it before – it’s a constant process of education,” says Banks.

Karthy Govender, professor of constitutional and administrative law at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, agrees. In a recent interview, he said he believed social integration would be a long process. “We are divided on so many issues. The workplace is probably one arena where it takes place – and perhaps certain religious organisations,” he was quoted as saying.

“I don’t think the TRC resulted in integration but it has put issues behind us and started a process of moving forward,” added Govender, who has been seconded to the South African Human Rights Commission where he oversees legal issues, mediation and the writing of judgments.

“I do think many white people were surprised to learn what had been done in their names – and this has lead to a greater awareness of South Africanism,” says Govender. “Some people showed remarkable acts of forgiveness. There was a great measure of magnanimity on the side of the victims – the African people.”

But a study released by the government last month indicates that race and nationality are receding as primary forms of self-definition, even if class identity is rising in the face of rapid economic change. 

“There is a general sense that race relations have improved and experiences and networks such as sporting events, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the church and legislative interventions are seen as having made a critical contribution to this,” says the report, A Nation in the Making – A Discussion of Socio-Macro Trends in South Africa.

“With regard to a number of attributes, the younger generation seems to evince practices, attitudes and an identity that is strongly integrative,” it says.

“Teenagers don’t see themselves in terms of race anymore. They see themselves as citizens of the world,” says Father Rodney Boyd, who is based at a Catholic Church in Woodlands, Durban.

“For young black people, apartheid is history. They just want to get on with life. The older generation is still holding on to the past to some extent, in some instances they contaminate the thinking of their children, which makes it harder to move forward.”

“Suburbs are becoming more integrated. But there’s still a lot of work to be done,” says Boyd. 

And, says the macro-social report: “It can be argued that there is in our country a dominant social aspiration to fashion a society that cares, with aspirations informed by the ideals of equity, compassion for the most vulnerable, gender-sensitivity and honesty in individual and collective behaviour. These are the ideals that inform the core values of the constitution. The truth, however, is that aspiration and reality do not necessarily, and not always, coincide. Real life, even if it may jar with ideals, influences social behaviour in the here and now.

“The values of our society reflect a continuing struggle between survival/prospering in the market jungle and the humaneness of the human spirit.” – Heartlines Features

IS CORPORATE SOUTH AFRICA EMBRACING CHANGE, BEE?Heartlines, a mass-media initiative aimed at sparking a national conversation on values, kicked off this week. The first value up for discussion is acceptance. In SA’s rapidly changing corporate landscape, Stuart Graham looks at how business is faring.

Earlier this year Archbishop Desmond Tutu sparked a major controversy when he said that white South Africans did not fully appreciate the sacrifices made by black victims in forgiving past wrongs.

Radio stations were inundated with calls and for weeks afterwards newspapers’ letters pages were filled with angry letters, mostly from whites, berating Tutu for his comments.

"By and large, the white community does not seem to have shown an appreciation for the incredible magnanimity of those who were the major victims of a system from which the (the whites) benefited so much," Tutu said in an interview with the BBC.

Even former state president FW de Klerk got involved in the argument, saying that blacks should recognise the sacrifices made by whites to establish an all-race democracy and the courage they showed in ceding power.

Recently Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, who led the liberal Progressive Federal Party in the 1980s and was one of the first Afrikaners to talk with the then-banned African National Congress told a trade union forum in Pretoria that black economic empowerment (BEE) and affirmative action reflected a racial mindset similar to that of apartheid.

Slabbert, who is now a political analyst and author, said black empowerment, as it is structured, favoured rich blacks and predicted the effort would be brought down by corruption and legal challenges.

"If you make yourself hostage to a racist past you can plan on a racist future," he said. Slabbert said the government should use socio-economic status rather than race as its yardstick when addressing inequalities.

But are these arguments signs that the white population is still struggling to accept empowerment and affirmative action?

Colin Reddy, an empowerment specialist at the BusinessMap organisation, says that attitudes at the corporate level are becoming more accepting of empowerment.

"People are becoming more accepting now that companies are growing and the economy thriving," he says. "Most companies have realised that you can only depend on a small group of skilled white people for so long. At some point you need to draw on people from the broader population."

Reddy says the problem lies with small businesses and individuals, many of who dislike BEE.

"This could be because BEE is often misinterpreted as simply selling off shares to a group of individuals," Reddy says.

"But BEE is more than that. It involves corporate social investment, enterprise investments, procurement and skills development. There are many other elements aside from ownership."

Reddy says a lot of business people who are viewed as empowerment candidates are in their positions because of merit.

"Lots of guys are there because they have studies and got the post through the employment equity type of policy," he says.

"Those guys would have worked for five to ten years already and as a result are now in a position to buy assets. Many people don't see this and therefore don't accept BEE."

Foreigners too seem to have had “issues” with BEE. A survey by US based Heritage Foundation found recently that empowerment remained a problem for foreign investors. Many multinational and local firms are still hesitant about being forced to sell shares in their South African subsidiaries.

The nervousness of investors became apparent after the leak in 2002 of the "draft" mining charter that called for more black ownership in the industry. In the six months after the charter's leak there was a net foreign capital outflow of R11 billion, compared to an average foreign capital inflows of R19 billion in the previous seven years.

"Investors were reacting to what they perceived to be an environment that was becoming hostile to them," De Beers chairman Nicky Oppenheimer said at the time. "They realised there was uncertainty about what businesses would be asked to achieve and were concerned about the future value of their investments."

Even local companies have shown concern about empowerment. In 2003, for instance, Sasol categorised BEE as a risk factor in a disclosure to the New York Stock Exchange.

Reddy says the government has realised that it has to balance the empowerment needs with the need to attract investment and changes to the current empowerment policy are in the pipeline. One proposal is to let foreign companies off form having to sell ownership.

"Policy makers are very aware of need to balance investment against need for socio economic change in South Africa," Reddy says.

SACOB empowerment specialist Bill Lacey says BEE is a unique philosophy that many still have to get used to.

"BEE is a fairly unusual," he says. "It is not a run of the mill policy. It is unique to South Africa."

On the face of it, progress is being made with BEE.

In a survey of 298 companies on the transformation of business auditing firm KPMG found that 80 percent of South Africa’s companies have a BEE strategy in place.

"Over 80% of companies indicated that a member of the Board of Directors is responsible for driving BEE transformation within the company and BEE transformation is often linked to performance and bonus measures for executives and managers," KPMG chairman Moses Kgosana said.

But despite the changing attitudes and economic progress, big business is still seen as white.

SA Communist Party chairman Blade Nzimande says that the marginalisation and exploitation of the black majority continues to be reproduced daily, despite major legislative transformation of the labour market since 1994.

"The type of BEE practiced during much of the first decade of our freedom has essentially been elitist, benefiting a tiny minority of the black population without any substantive impact on the overwhelming majority of our people," Nzimande says.

He says the white capitalist class – with its huge economic muscle – is interested only in promoting an elite.

"The white captains of industry and finance much prefer the short-termism of lending an aspirant, upwardly mobile elite the membership fees to the country club and the keys to the Porsche, than taking on the more challenging tasks of labour-intensive investment, skills development, or ensuring that poor communities enjoy universal access to essential goods and services," Nzimande says.

"Empowerment is reduced to quotas, to scorecards, to ticking boxes."

Stellenbosch economics professor Sampie Terreblanche said in Cape Town recently that the policy of empowerment had elevated about eight million blacks to middle-class status. He added however, that the poorer 20 million blacks remained impoverished.

"The government's BEE policy can, therefore, be regarded as a new version of apartheid between the black 'insiders' and the black 'outsiders'," he said.

Projects such as the one by wine farmer Beyers Truter have tried to get poorer workers involved in the empowerment of their businesses.

Truter and Jan Hendriks, the founder of the Stellenbosch Farm Workers Association, structured a R10 million deal in which 60 individuals from 39 families have become part owners in the Bouwland Estate near Stellenbosch.

The 60 individuals of the empowered 39 families formed the Bouwland Deelnemingstrust and own 74% of the shares in Bouwland Estate. "Many of the trustees are people who literally grew up on prime wine farms and are specialists in vineyard cultivation," Truter says.

The evidence shows that most South African firms have accepted BEE as a necessity for the social and economic survival of the country. Progress however, is slow.

Tutu warns that something urgently needs has to be done to uplift the poor majority. "I have warned, and I am not the only one who has, that we are sitting on a powder keg. It is the obligation of all of us to be trying to do something about it."

The problem is finding the right way to do it. – Heartlines Features

BEING A WOMAN IN MAN’S WORLD CAN BE HARROWING as weightlifter Babalwa Ndleleni has learned in her quest to change perceptions. She spoke to Karien Jonckheere.

If Babalwa Ndleleni had a medal for every time she had been asked to show her muscles, she would be a multiple world and Olympic champion.

But she just has to smile and patiently explain for the umpteenth time that she is not a bodybuilder but a weightlifter.

And as it turns out, she does have one very treasured medal to show for her efforts. In March Ndleleni became the first black South African woman to win a Commonwealth Games medal in weightlifting when she bagged the bronze in the 75kg division.

That’s helped tremendously in getting her community of Gugulethu to accept the fact that yes, she is a woman and yes, she can lift heavy things and is very good at it for that matter. It’s all a case of understanding what it’s all about says Ndleleni.

“Winning a medal in Melbourne at the Commonwealth Games has made a major difference because people now understand what weightlifting is. Before some people would say ‘show me your muscles’. Some men actually took my arm and felt it, expecting me to have big muscles but now they don’t have those expectations anymore,” she explained.

“They accept me and accept what weightlifting is now that I have explained that it’s not about muscles – it’s about strength and speed and technique.”

Ndleleni was introduced to the sport when the SA Weighlifting Federation conducted a development clinic at her school in Crossroads.

“They did demonstrations and said that you could do it to lose weight or for different reasons but that it was also an Olympic sport and so that’s how I got interested,” explained the 27-year-old Capetonian.

“I didn’t know that women could do it too because I wasn’t going to a gym or anything then so I didn’t see it.

“I knew that women did bodybuilding but I also didn’t really know the difference.

“Some people ask why I do it. They ask if it’s for self defense but I tell them I do it for sport and it’s like any other sport – you don’t ask people why they run.”

Ndleleni is now relishing her new role as an example to other women in her community who would never even have considered taking part in sport.

“In my community there are not a lot of girls doing sport. Most of the time girls think they are too weak and they can’t do the things men do. They say they are too thin or just a girl or too fat,” she said.

“People need to understand that a lot of things have changed and that women are doing sport now and that they will be doing it more and more. I am one of the first from my community to be in a national team and compete internationally so I’m there showing the girls that they can do it. They are saying to themselves ‘If she can do it so can I’.”

And not only that, but the men in the area have also become more accepting of this exceptional woman who has lifted 85kg in snatch and 105kg in clean and jerk.

“Now that they understand, people like it. And especially after the Games, they now realise how different it is from bodybuilding

“Now they actually come down to the gym and watch me train and everything. And my friends and family are all very supportive,” said Ndleleni.

“My next goal is to get the gold medal at the next Commonwealth Games and I’ve got all the competitions in between now and then like the African Championships and the All Africa Games next year. I would like to qualify for the next Olympics, that would be a big achievement.” – Heartlines Features

SPORTS STARS FEAR HIV STIGMA

By Karien Jonckheere.

Legendary basketballer Magic Johnson has done it, so has five time Olympic medallist Greg Louganis. But somehow South African sportspeople just aren’t following suit in disclosing their HIV status.

In a country where one in every 10 people is infected with the virus, the statistics dictate that there are huge numbers of  HIV positive athletes in South Africa.

But, apparently this country is not as accepting of HIV positive role models.

Or as Nathan Geffen, policy co-ordinator of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), believes, government is making it difficult for people to come forward and disclose their status.

“I’m sure the reason for their reluctance to disclose their status is the same as many famous people in that they are afraid of the public stigma,” explained Geffen.

“One or two athletes disclosing their status could change the environment completely though and they can be assured of TAC’s full support.”

Geffen said he wasn’t aware of any athletes who had come out and said they had contracted the virus.

“I don’t know of any South African athletes who have done that – only international stars like Magic Johnson and Greg Louganis.

“But if high profile athletes came out and disclosed their HIV status it would help things tremendously.

I think with all the pseudo science from government people, like our minister of health, it creates a difficult environment to deal maturely with HIV. People are afraid because they don’t want to be involved in the controversy,” he said.

“At the moment the brunt of the public awareness of HIV is born by poor people who come out and disclose their status. There are very few well-known people in South Africa who have done the same.”

Kirk Friedrich, Managing Director of Grassroots Soccer (an international organisation that uses local heros and professional soccer players to educate at-risk youth on the dangers of HIV) is also unaware of any South African sportspeople who have disclosed their status.

“Nobody that I know of unfortunately,” he said. “I know of many that are infected, including some that are working in our programme, but nobody who will disclose their status. It’s a serious challenge I’m afraid. It’s really too bad,” he said.

While sports celebrities have spoken out in promoting the prevention of HIV, so far in South Africa, only soccer player Sizwe Motaung, the former Bafana Bafana vice-captain, has been linked to actually contracting the virus, after his death in 2001. His former wife Zodwa Khoza (daughter of Orlando Pirates chairman Irvin Khoza and brand manager for the club) died of AIDS-related complications earlier this year.
Johnson and Louganis, meanwhile, have been instrumental in AIDS education programmes in the United States. Johnson established the Magic Johnson Foundation, aimed at helping inner-city children in dealing with HIV/AIDS and raising money for research and prevention efforts, and in 1996 wrote a book titled What You Can Do to Avoid AIDS. – Heartlines Features