ARTICLE: DAY OF RECONCILIATION 2016
2016-12-15
The Day of Reconciliation was somewhat of a latecomer to the slate of negotiated and agreed on public holidays in the new South Africa.
The Day of Reconciliation was somewhat of a latecomer to the slate of negotiated and agreed on public holidays in the new South Africa.
On 16 November each year, since 1995, members of the UN pause (or not) to reflect on the meanings of tolerance and its destructive converse, intolerance.
In the 10th Annual Helen Joseph Lecture last month, Prof Njabulo Ndebele, the Chancellor of the University of Johannesburg, mused about the burning earlier this year by UCT Rhodes-Must-Fall activists of portraits and commemorative objects symbolising the university’s “colonial” past. One of the objects was a plaque honouring Jan Christian Smuts. At first, Ndebele was shocked by this “burning of memory”.
However, after he had ‘mediated’ his thoughts, he saw the incident in a different light. It represented instead a clash between two historic periods – on the one hand “the legacy of the history of conquest” represented by Smuts – and on the other “the nascent moments” of the history that had begun in 1994.
The entire country has been watching the drama of student protests over the past few months. Such widespread scenes of protest have not been seen in South Africa since the 1976 Soweto uprising. Historically white universities and their management are particularly unfamiliar with the phenomenon of ongoing student unrest and violence. The damage to property is already estimated at almost R1000m.
What are the causes of these phenomena? And what drives the new youth movement?
What is wonderful about Heritage Day (as one of the “new” holidays in the not so new South Africa) is that we can look back and celebrate what we have achieved over the past 22 years. For many it will go back further than 22 years – to our cultural and traditional past – that is also part of our heritage, individually and collectively. “Heritage” means different things to different people.
Some will say that in 2016 there is nothing to celebrate – among them are angry students, persistent grumblers and disillusioned poor people. They will point out our problems at the political level, government level and Zuma level; the student riots and arson; the Springboks, Bafana Bafana and the Proteas’ poor or mediocre performances; the weak economy; unemployment, poverty and inequality; and the drought and high food prices.
There should be no doubt about origins, intentions and consequences of the Expropriation Bill that President Zuma is about to sign into law.
The Bill has its origins deep in the ANC’s National Democratic Revolution (NDR) which calls for “the elimination of apartheid property relations”. This, according to the ANC, will require “the redistribution of wealth and income to benefit society as a whole, especially the poor” – and in particular “the deracialisation of ownership and control of wealth, including land…” In 2007 the ANC stated that “the central task in the current period is the eradication of the socio-economic legacy of apartheid; and this will remain so for many years to come.”
World Press Freedom Day (3 May) gives us the opportunity to assess the freedom of our press in South Africa.
As anyone who regularly reads our newspapers will be aware, the press is often extremely critical of government and does not hesitate to pour scorn on national leaders – often in the most derisive terms.
The ANC’s official approach gives full recognition to the need for freedom of expression. It confirms that “the Constitution protects and provides for the freedom of the media, freedom of expression and access to information.” However, there might be some difference of opinion on the role of the media and what freedom of expression actually means.
Workers’ Day provides us with an opportunity to assess the nation’s labour relations and the degree to which our economy is succeeding in its responsibility to provide jobs for all our people – and particularly for our youth. We are confronted with the reality that, according to a recently released Statistics SA report, The Social Profile of the Youth, 2009-2014, approximately three-quarters (3.4 million) of the more than five million unemployed South Africans in 2014 were youth (aged 15–34 years). This alarming statistic requires an honest introspection into South Africa’s current modus operandi in the labour arena and calls on us to confront the failures that are crippling our ability to create an inclusive and prosperous South Africa – particularly for our young people. There are four obstacles to solving the youth unemployment crisis.
There are several aspects to the current “state capture” debate.
To start with, there is nothing new about state capture. It has always been the ANC’s openly proclaimed, and profoundly unconstitutional, policy to capture the state to promote its own political and ideological interests. According to its Strategy & Tactics documents, a key task of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) after 1994 was
“to strengthen the hold of the democratic movement (i.e. the ANC) over state power, and to transform the state machinery to serve the cause of social transformation (i.e. the NDR): The levers of state power include the legislatures, the executives, the public service, the security forces, the judiciary, parastatals, the public broadcaster, and so on.”