I am a South African. I know this because it says so on my passport but more so because I feel it. Yet repeatedly there are calls by individuals who purport to understand my identity more than I do; who tell me that I have greater affiliations with Europe than I do with Africa. I often am embarrassed and shy away from the fact that my father is British in the hope that I can prove that I am really African. I will say to people that I was born in South Africa, that my mother was born in South Africa and that my grandmother was born in South Africa.  I will try and argue that I feel no affiliation towards a continent that I have barely touched  (which is the truth) yet many people will simply not accept that my roots are African and that I am an African, purely because of the colour of my skin.

A discussion arose organically among my fellow SAWIPers last week Thursday. I don't think any of us could truly have anticipated its impact. The discussion was around the very realness of a struggle of identity and of acceptance that we have ALL gone through. Through five weeks of building foundations of mutual trust and respect we were finally able to share our thoughts on identity shorn of any embarrassment or fears of rebuke.  I would like to share with you some of the sentiments that arose, hopefully without disrespecting the space in which this conversation took place.

Our South African history has made it difficult to be proud to be Afrikaans. As a result one sees very little of Afrikaans culture being protected. There are also very few (or no) good Afrikaans leaders in the community. A few right-wingers purport to represent the Afrikaans people to the detriment of their perception nationally. This is noted with great sadness among many Afrikaans people and is largely responsible for my own prejudices. There are also Afrikaans people who abhor the singing of ‘de la Rey’ just as much as the ‘shoot the boer’ song. While they acknowledge the significance of such songs in the struggle they feel that both songs are divisive and detrimental to nation building. It was powerful for me to see that there was little hypocrisy in what my dear friend shared. There clearly needs to be a lot more dialogue on the issue, something a court order will never be able to legitimately replace.

Far too many White South Africans are quick to shirk responsibility of the Apartheid legacy onto the shoulders of their parents and their grandparents claiming that they did nothing. Too many White South Africans do not understand that the burden is ours. It is ours in so far as Black South Africans, of our generation, carry the burden. Which they do. White South Africans need not apologise for being White but their needs to be a conscious effort of noting the privileges gained by virtue of the accident of birth. Yes, most White South Africans are privileged by virtue of being born into a White family, you are not where you are today through the fruits of mere hard labour (a VERY common misconception). You are where you are today because of massive exploitation of enforced cheap labour,  you went to a good school, you had teachers who were not taught by Bantu Education and who could teach you on Higher Grade, you had literate parents who could help you with your homework, you had food in your stomach so that you could concentrate in class and you had access to books in case you wanted to look up something. Once that privilege is noted, White South Africans must acknowledge their responsibilities and actively participate in skills training, growing the economy, investing in future generations and doing all they can do to ensure a prosperous nation for all those who reside in South Africa. Acknowledging however, that it is all people who reside in South Africa who should work towards this vision.

Being a successful Black South African comes with its own burdens. If you are successful it is assumed that you are where you are today because of BEE deals and not through hard work. If you spend money on ‘things’ then you are not looking after the working class and you are a traitor, ridiculed even in the media. Julius Malema asked a pertinent question “Who must have these things?” People are surprised when you talk and are quick to so-calledly compliment you as ‘very articulate’, negating the value of what you are actually saying. It is then assumed that you have abandoned your culture, that you are a ‘coconut’, not black enough to be accepted in the black community and not white enough to be accepted into the white community.

Being Jewish, Muslim or Hindu in South Africa often means that you operate within an insular community or you are not accepted at all. If you speak out against Israel then you are anti-Semitic, rejected and told you are not a real Jew. The Coloured community in South Africa is so diverse that very few feel that they have an identity. Their eclectic past gives them such diversity that they are constantly told they must celebrate it but end up celebrating it for sakes sake with very little meaning behind it. They often feel left out of South African discussions, they urge South Africans to not see things in black and white but to remember the grey.

Progressive Whites often have a difficult time too. They are not White enough to be accepted into the White community, nor are they Black enough to be accepted into the Black community. They are embarrassed by those who share their skin colour who presume that they can talk on behalf of ‘all’. They are frequently faced with racist remarks or jokes because the colour of their skin assumes that it will be acceptable. They are aware of the racism that is still ever pervasive because people don't hide it from them. They then have to constantly reaffirm their progressive views in Black communities so as to reassure that they genuinely believe in what they are saying. Always conscious of how, what they have to say will be received.

We all share pains and challenges that we own because of our identity; whether it be the identity that is imposed upon us or identities that we chose to affiliate with. So why do I push so hard to prove that I am an African? What is it about this nationalistic identity that I long for? If I purport to be committed to human rights, that commitment has to transcend national boundaries and accept all people by virtue of them being human. Surely? I have said before that my nation building rhetoric is fuelled by the South African story that I feel epitomises the right to equality. On a localised level I strive for people to transcend their racial or religious affiliations, to find commonality in something and that something, for now, is what I consider being South African. My argument for this overarching unifying identity is to not be at the expense of other people living within this country’s borders. That is, when nation building becomes exclusionary and destructive, that is when I can no longer support it.

For the longest time I have been answering your eager and many questions about my trip with the shortest overused descriptive sentences that really say nothing at all. . My brevity was less as a result of being so busy and more of a consequence of struggling to articulate into words what my experience with SAWIP has been like. It was so much easier to not confront your questions head on, to not really reflect on the things that I have done, seen or experienced, to not reflect on the discussions or the relationships I have forged. That’s not to say that I don't want to, it’s just difficult to. I realise it’s something I owe not only you but myself.

I was uprooted from what would have in all likelihood been a 6 week holiday of repeated experiences and found myself in the land of the free, the pursuit of happiness and where dreams come true, The United States of America. I have never been captured by the grandeur way in which America markets itself. In fact I, like many South Africans, share a strong degree of cynicism for anything American. This view has largely been shaped by the antics of the Bush administration; wars waged, civilians killed and prisoners tortured. With this continuing erosion of respect for human rights by The Country that purports to bring democracy and freedom to people, I arrived in America carrying my own assumptions and presumptions and with that a great deal of cynicism. I walked the mall where, to me, the monuments pay testimony not to an impressive nation but rather to a memory of slavery. Where the flags that surround the monument, clothe houses and streets, does not resonate the lure of a patriotism that I want for South Africa but rather a fear of nationalism and its exclusionary nature. And even to where the fireworks on July 4^th did not strike me as beautiful and striking but rather as painful to animal rights and the environment. I stopped to note that I hadn’t stopped looking for the good in things but that I reserved my idealist thinking only for South Africa.

I have realised that I have fallen victim to my own patriotism. My view of South Africa and my commitment to it and Africa has made me forget about the human being behind a flag or an anthem. I found myself in a bar with an Irish comrade ranking conflict, ranking human suffering, ranking inequality. I was arguing so hard for the uniqueness of the South African experience; of our poverty, our suffering and our inequality. Through dialogue and shared experience with the people in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Israel and Palestine I became cognisant of my own failings. Human suffering is human suffering whether it is an African or a European who is suffering. A poor person is poor regardless of their religion or colour of their skin and that inequality is an unfortunate shared experience through-out the world. There is a generality to all our experiences, a common thread. Yes, there is a unique context but certainly a clear generality. The interaction between the three programmes (New Story Leadership, WIP and SAWIP) has taught me many lessons but this was the strongest one.

I am still in awe over the people that I have met while in DC. My internship was not quite what I expected. This budding lawyer hungry for comparative understanding of the law found herself in a finance monitoring institution that focussed on tax. Nothing that anyone could have told me would have mitigated against this initial disappointment. I could not at that early stage fully comprehend the opportunities that I would be afforded.

Jamie Baker my supervisor understood the DC experience. I was totally foreign to it. DC is filled with young interns from all over America and the world, interning at thousands of different kinds of organisations. The value of interning is not only in the skills you can learn by being in a particular work environment, it's also the events you can attend and the people you can meet. Every single day there are thousands of events at various times scattered across the city that are freely available to the public. One such event was with our Deputy Minister of foreign affairs Fransman talking on South African foreign policy. I had to fly all the way to DC to be able to drill my Minister about South African oscillation on issues such as Libya and the Ivory Coast. Indeed a poor reflection on the accountability of our democratically elected leaders but an accurate reflection of DC as essentially the global capital. I attended an event almost every day from an analysis of BRICS and the Malawian President talking on food security in Africa to debt management and meeting members of Congress and somewhere in the middle I also managed to broaden my horizons (a little) on the state of global financial institutions and developing country tax policy.

The SAWIP organised discussions happened almost every evening. We had themed weeks which brought the top minds to us on issues of democracy, social entrepreneurship and political, socio-economic and civil rights. These discussions entrenched my commitment to community service and human rights, it brought a new found understanding and respect for social entrepreneurship and an acknowledgement that good can be done through the ‘evil corporation’, and it garnered a greater understanding of the civil rights movement in America as well as the Anti-Apartheid movement in the States. More importantly however it brought us the faces of dedicated, committed and passionate human beings that care about making a difference and working for change. It was inspirational to be discussing so many issues amongst people of such calibre.

Then there was my speech. Each one of us was allocated a speech with the idea of practicing speech writing skills, providing each person with a platform to voice their opinions as well as to improve our public speaking abilities. As an aside what you realise through this leadership development course is how much attention is paid to every single detail of the curriculum, everything has been well thought out and has a purpose. I was allocated the speech at the White House with my dear friend Mangaka Meso. There was no pomp and ceremony and it was relatively informal. However I did have the ears of President Obama’s senior advisor, Mr David Lane, and for that I appreciate and acknowledge what an exceptional opportunity I was provided with.

I have had some valuable experiences in my life. I have been lucky enough to travel relatively extensively and to even live in other countries. However there is something uniquely special about these particular five weeks that has shaped the rest of my life. I realise now that I want to be where I am most useful. I have always thought that being on the activist side and accountability side of the fence was where that would be. Having been here though amidst the debt ceiling negotiations/ crisis I have come to realise and appreciate the hardships of implementation. If I am going to be most useful in politics or government then I have been convinced during my stay here that that is the route I must go. I have noted how many young Irish are involved in politics. It is admirable that the youth in Ireland care about going into politics. Too few good people in South Africa go into politics and that is to the detriment of our country. The youth who are young, hopeful, energetic and can very often do things better than the old stalwarts should be in government. They should be flooding into government, wanting to work hard for a more prosperous South Africa.

Finally I am terrified of losing my energy. It is by far my greatest fear that I could lose my drive and become complacent. However I look around my fellow SAWIPers and the passion I see in them, I see in me. I know that I have created such a special support structure and motivational network that the risk of losing my energy has been severely mitigated against. Not only have I created a support structure of the most amazing individuals but I have created the most enriching friendships. A depth of friendship that has been forged through laughter and arguments, through engagement and debate, through story sharing and openness and through building trust and respect. We have a shared vision to work towards, we all want what is most prosperous for the people who reside in South Africa and want to work hard to achieve that.

We are strong, we are capable, we are willing and we are able, we are passionate, committed and dedicated. Using the wise words of a wise man - South Africa – Yes we can!

My name is Tess Nolizwe Peacock. Nolizwe in Xhosa and Zulu, both South African languages, means daughter of the world. But I am first and foremost an African. Don’t be fooled by the colour of my skin or whatever other presumptions or assumptions you carry when you first meet me. Those presumptions or assumptions are your own burden. Not mine. More so I am proud to be an African and I am lucky enough to be young and born free.

I have lived amidst abject poverty and seen what students, teachers, parents and communities were capable of with very little resources. The living conditions taught me that indulging in a lavish lifestyle of materialism was exceptionally superficial and pretentious. It taught me to be grateful for the privileges that I have been blessed with purely because of the family I was lucky enough to be born into. It reiterated my mother’s teachings that education must be treasured and not taken for granted and that with my privilege comes responsibility. It taught me to be empathetic to people’s daily struggles especially with regards to access to basic socio-economic rights.

I came to acknowledge that whilst the struggle against Apartheid is over, every generation has a new struggle. My new struggle is fighting for a non-racial and non-sexist society where socio-economic rights are not just espoused in a Constitution but a reality. I believe that people need to give back to society, be contributing members of their communities and want to improve the lives of fellow human beings.

I have a great passion and patriotism for South Africa mostly because I feel that the South African liberation story epitomizes my commitment to non-racialism, equality and social justice. It is the South African story, our history and our leaders who amidst violent oppression were able to emerge and say that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, that inspires my patriotism.

However the struggles of the youth today exist in our communities, in our cities, in our country, our continent and through-out the world. Through-out the world the innate dignity of human beings is still not protected or respected and is taken to be trite. Gross violations of basic human rights still occur today at frightening levels. We continue to impinge on and injure the rights of others and we continue to wage wars in attempt to solve problems or in pursuit of land, wealth or minerals. Too often we find history repeating itself with a devastating and shocking effect on humanity. We feed the cycle of deprivation; of poverty. We do not acknowledge the privileges or tribulations that one can inherit through the accident of birth. Too many of us operate as islands and forget the core concept of Ubuntu, which while difficult to translate; on a simplistic level, is an African philosophy that recognizes that people are people through other people. We can no longer afford to tolerate an environment of entitlement and apathy. Far too many young people are consumed by this depraving culture. I call upon all my young colleagues here to transform our youthful culture and our communities into active citizens. Far too often good people sit back and do nothing. We yearn for a culture of active citizenship, where communities participate, contribute and shape their environments in sustainable and productive ways. We must focus on empowering the people in our country and globally, with a specific focus on the youth, whilst always remembering that that mobilization and empowerment must have at its epicenter a principled core, centered in human rights.

We the youth must be the drivers of change. We must not tolerate apathy or opportunistic politics, we must speak out against injustices and all work together and contribute to our future if we want to be prosperous. We still have youthful fervor, hopes and dreams. We are still easily inspired and courageous. We need to refuse to accept the status quo of the world and work toward our vision of a better world. We cannot afford to have uprisings occur only in the face of militant dictatorships. The Arab Spring is testimony to the ability of the younger generations to collaborate in times of great need but we need young people to actively participate even in a functioning democracy.

On Monday the 18^th of July Nelson Mandela will turn 93 years old. The day is recognized by the United Nations as Nelson Mandela International Day. The campaign message for the day is simple “Mandela gave 67 years of his life fighting for the rights of humanity. All we are asking is that everyone gives 67 minutes of their time, whether it’s supporting your chosen charity or serving your local community.” My plea to you today is that you give far more of your time than 67 minutes, but if you need to start somewhere. Start there. Do not see service as time consuming but rather as time enriching and search for opportunities where you can help others where ever possible.

It has been an honour and a privilege to address such esteemed leaders today. And I thank you for listening and providing me with this opportunity. And while I appeal to my young colleagues to work towards our vision of a better world, I must also appeal to our present leadership who must not shirk from their responsibilities. You have the ability to nurture young minds with great energy, teach valuable leadership skills as well as impart an immense depth of knowledge and wisdom. You have the ability to influence policy and push for a principled global agenda that is not driven by greed, profit and nationalistic self preservation at any expense. The expenses of such policies are immense and it is the youth, us, who are left to deal with the consequences or to pick up the pieces and correct your mistakes.

I am especially honoured and privileged to be able to address my fellow compatriots from South Africa and Ireland who are already drivers of change and who I know will continue to be. I am confident in the belief that you too will have a young, hopeful and inspired generation to look up to you one day and I hope that you never forget that with your freedom, power and your privilege comes responsibility. I thank you.

Does South Africa want to create a society where 90% of the rich people are black? Or create a society where 90% of the population meaningfully participates in the economy? Last night the discussion invariably veered off into the pastures of the economy where discussed what we need to do to ensure broad based participation into the South African economy. I think that it is often a common assumption perhaps not among intellectuals but certainly of many people that BBE is going to address the inequality gaps in South Africa or aims to do so. It is my argument that BBE simply deracialises the elite but does not and will not change the systemic nature of the economy. The economy which has been geared and structured so as to serve a small proportion of the population. So I will attempt to answer the question on how we can ensure broad based participation in the economy with a brief critique of B-BBEE. This question requires us to grapple with the issues that have defied all the great brains of government over the past 17 years. Exactly what the youth of our country should be engaging in.

The starting point in attempting to address this question is to ask of course what ‘broad based’ really means. Broad based in a utopian sense (or Finnish sense) would include rich as well as poor, men and women, those from rural and urban areas, the youth as well as older, all workers and people with disabilities working at different levels to participate in a broad range of sectors. In South Africa the definition of broad based is intertwined with race. Many will argue that this is essential to addressing the past injustices as well as for legitimacy reasons. Thus the South African approach thus far (Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment Act) is to treat broad based as ‘Black’, which is taken to include African, Coloureds and Indians. Keeping in mind that Black is still arguably the best proxy for poor. As well as taken to include women, workers, youth, people with disabilities and people living in rural areas in our definition.

We need to establish our long term goals. Is it to

1. create a society where 90% of rich people are black?

2. create a society where 90% of population meaningfully participate in the economy

"Democracy is being blocked by the basics. For people to be able to participate, they need to feel secure, to know where their next meal is coming from, and to have dignity and health. You can't participate in the economy or in politics if you are concerned with survival." Dinokeng Scenario Booklet

I understand real participation to mean where the majority of the population meaningful participation in the economy that is option 2 above. What would this require?

1. Long term sustainable work

2. Increased access to economic activities - Job creation

3. An educated population

4. A skilled population

The DTI’s strategy it seems thus far is a Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment Strategy to overcome the legacy of Apartheid. One of the fundamental principles of Black Economic Empowerment is that it is broad-based. This is then further articulated as accelerating the deracialisation of the South African economy and fast tracking the re-entry of historically marginalised communities into the mainstream of the economy.The big questions is then of course whether our economy is big enough to mean that if our economy is deracialised that there will be broad based real participation? Will such an approach address the systematic exclusion of the majority of South Africans from full participation in the economy, the enforced restricted wealth creation, imposed underdevelopment on black communities to ensure that they were, in the main, suppliers of cheap labour, deliberate denial of access to skills and jobs or the undermining of self-employment and entrepreneurship. In combination these policies restricted and suppressed wealth and skill endowments in black communities, thereby structurally inhibiting their participation in a legislatively race-based economy. I would argue that Broad Based BEE does not ensure broad based real participation.

Broad Based BEE is not working in its present form. Very little has been achieved in changing the structures of ownership and control in the economy, there was only 5% Black ownership listed on the JSE in 2006. South African companies approach the question asking ‘what is the least I can do’ to get a good score card? That is there is no significant buy in from the private sector. It is the politically well connected that benefit from empowerment deals. Inequality has gotten worse (between group inequality) . Broad Based BEE is quite simply an elitist view to change: where an elitist approach to change minimizes change itself. The DTI has put out a tender itself to evaluate the effects of B-BBEE, an indication in itself that it is not working in its present form.

But then what are the biggest challenges we face as a society today?

1. Dual economic structure - a well developed market (termed, First Economy), and - a market that consists of majority of population poverty-trapped (termed Second Economy).

2. Economic growth 5% in 2004- 2007, 2.8% in 2010 Problems for growth; South Africa ranks out of 135 countries

- 88th in labour market flexibility,

- 123rd in flexibility of wage determination and

- 119th in poor labour-employer relations.

- With a university enrolment rate of only 15%, we rate 93rd, placing our innovation potential at risk.

3. Inequality In equality has gotten worse since the start of democracy. The economy’s Gini coefficient increased from 0.64 in 1995 to 0.69 in 2005. Furthermore Haroon Bhorat argues that this inequality growth is not as a result of changes within population groups but rather between population groups. That is the rich have gotten richer.

4. South Africa’s missing middle The rich have gotten richer and the bottom percentiles have been propped up by the grant system. This has resulted in very little growth expenditure by the middle. The stagnation in expenditure growth in the middle of the distribution is arguably a key feature of not only this rising Gini coefficient in the democratic era, but also a predictor of how the employed, blue-collar households may have inadvertently been excluded from the growth process.”

5. The PIE is simply too small. Simply deracialising the existing economy is NOT going to lead to broad based real participation. Despite the reduction of unemployment from 31% in 2003 to 24% in 2010, Unemployment is still unacceptably high. This is a systemic issue that stems from lack of skills and education. The unemployment rate among those with university degrees is only 3%, for those with matric it is 28%, but for those without matric it is over 60%.

6. Lack of skills In 2007, there was an estimated shortage of 300,000 skilled workers. The ‘brain drain’ is considered an unintended consequence of Affirmative Action 7. Education South Africa ranks among the lowest in the world on basic literacy and numeracy skills. In terms of the quality of mathematics and science education, South Africa ranks 132nd out of 134 countries surveyed by the World Economic Forum.

- 92% do not have stocked libraries

- 95% do not have stocked laboratories

- 90% do not have stocked computer centres

- 17% do not have sports facilities - 18% do not have electricity

- 20% do have proper access to water

- There are still 395 mud schools in the Eastern Cape

- In 2007 less than 5% of Matrics received a higher grade pass

The World Economic Forum ranks an “inadequately educated workforce” as the most problematic factor for doing business in South Africa.

What is the way forward then?

1.New Growth Plan’: President Jacob Zuma declared 2011 South Africa's "year of job creation". The government's New Growth Path aims to create five million jobs by 2020 and bring unemployment rate down to 15 per cent. At least six key sectors, including infrastructure development, agriculture, mining, the "green" economy, manufacturing and tourism, had been identified as having potential to unlock employment opportunities. Whether this will be successful remains to be seen but what seems apparent is clear political will.

2.Tackling the skills deficit: Supposed to be the Sector Education Training Authorities (SETAs) set up to address the problems of skills shortage by firstly identifying the skills requirements of the sector and then educating and training new entrants into the labour market in response to those identified. They have wholly failed to achieve their goals even though they have generous resources from tax payers in which to do so. Such resources, the resources we have, need to be used effectively. Government also needs to acknowledge the mistakes they made in closing 100 technical colleges including nursing and teaching colleges and reopen these colleges. The same goes for organised business and labour ‘for failing to collectively address the skills shortage.’

3.Education: The crisis in education is the most prominent issue currently being addressed in South Africa. Some ideas that I have and have garnered from various discussions is that 'minimum norms and standards' for basic education are in dire need of being published by the department. The department needs to do this so as to ensure that the (unqualified) Right to Education in schools is immediately realisable. Schools need to have increased managerial capacity and accountability. We need to regain more broadly teacher’s commitment to the profession. A significant proportion of teachers are under-qualified, demoralised and lack professionalism. We have the highest rate of teacher unionism in the world (over 80%). While it is commendable that teachers are well organised, the commitment of the teacher unions to the all important job of ensuring that our children are properly taught is perhaps questionable. The unions often make efforts to improve education impossible. Despite the legal requirement to establish governing bodies, there are few effective mechanisms by which parents can hold teachers accountable, particularly in poor communities with poor literacy rates.

Education has perceived insurmountable challenges given the abhorrent legacy of Bantu Education. We, however, need a sustainable commitment from all stakeholders. There is great urgency in eradicating the Apartheid legacy and the people of this country will not and should not be patient.

Finally I feel that there are a number of additional inputs which are necessary. We need strong leaders who can mobalise society behind clear objectives and goals. We need to improve state capacity. There needs to be political accountability. We have a culture of mediocrity, incompetence, fraud, corruption, nepotism and entitlement and that culture needs to change to one of active and engaged citizenship. Finally and I think most importantly we need a sense of ownership and ‘nationhood’. A major challenge facing South African leaders is the will to build one nation across racial or class divides. "Until South Africans unequivocally forge a single common identity out of our diversity, we will not be able to harness the social capital needed to address our critical challenges."

References:

Dinokeng Scenarios

DTI BBE Strategy

WEF: Global Competitiveness Report, 2008-9; see also World Bank:

Doing Business, Report 2009.

Haroon Bhorat

SAWIP provides us with opportunities that I never dreamt that I would have and am doubtful that I will be able to have again anytime in the near future. One such event was when we found ourselves in New York with the Consular General to the US, our UN Ambassador and our UN South African delegation both on the Security Council and to the General Assembly.

Capitalising on this opportunity I asked our Consular General what he thought the biggest challenges facing South Africa in terms of FDI were. First on his list was afro-pessimism. His first point caught my attention so much so that  I cannot remember what else was on his list. Afro-pessimism is not just some cool word that an academic once donned. Its real and its ever pervasive. Its overt here in the US and when you view South Africa through this new lens you realise how patent it is back home and even within my very own subconscious.

The point is, it’s resonant everywhere and it's a major problem that needs to be combated. There are clear assumptions made about African states. Its full of rentier states, engulfed in corruption, innately corrupt, rife with cronyism etc etc etc. It is assumed that African democratic institutions will fail. They are expected to fail and therefore (self fulfilling prophesy) they do. Taking into account this views and trying to understand their systemic nature I would like to assess afro-pessimism from two perspectives. Firstly the role of the media and secondly in terms of democracy.

Almost every single one of the South African representatives we have been addressed by thus far has mentioned the media as a strong hindrance to their aims and objectives and a strong driver of afro-pessimism. It is clear that they see the media as a strong contributor to afro-pessimism both internationally and within South Africa itself. This common factor mentioned by all the delegates was blatantly obvious. So much so that I can see the exact motivation behind the Information Bill in all its fervent ‘glory’ (as an aside). Very few intellectuals will contradict the statement that we have irresponsible journalism in South Africa. We do. But who is the onus upon to make sure that South Africa and Africa is ‘marketed’ in positive and objective manner? The solution is certainly not to restrict the media with autocratic legislation (comparable to Apartheid legislation). The onus is elsewhere. It was Lulama of the South African Security Council team who highlighted that onus for me. It seems blatantly obvious now but hearing all the other officials unilaterally blame the media obscured the obviousness. She said it’s not irresponsible journalism that is fuelling afro-pessimism, its governments inadequate media and communications strategy. And it’s true, it’s the African governments who need to work harder to explain their strategies to the people back home, it’s their job to explain their strategies internationally and it’s their responsibility to say that the policies of the Youth League are not the policies of the ANC. I should not have to come all the way to America to be exposed to the brilliance that is representing our country. I should know about it on South African soil. I agree that the onus is not one that is transferred in totality to governments but this is certainly where it needs to start. This culture of shifting the onus needs to stop. Our leaders need to take responsibility for where they have failed, learn from those mistakes and take great pains to improve our society based on a culture of justification.

The second thing I would like to address which is also strongly linked to afro-pessimism are the conceptions or rather preconceptions of democracy on the African continent. We had a very productive and thought provoking session with the IDASA democracy panellists last week. In light of my decision to focus this piece on afro-pessimism I’m going to restrict my analysis to multi-partyism in particular. There is a Eurocentric emphasis on equating democracy with multi-partyism. The idea is that if you have a dominant party, the democracy is weak.  So the first question I asked our panalists was what is the definition of democracy they use when the evaluate democracies in Africa. Unsurprisingly I got unclear responses, my favourite being ‘democracy is like love – it’s difficult to define’. I agree, it is exceptionally hard to define but at the same time how do you purport to critique certain democracies without measuring them against some standard. Is it akin to the famous line of ‘one cannot define pornography but you know it when you see it?’

I don't want to get bogged down by the definitions of democracy; they are vast and contested. The point I want to argue against is the constant critique that South African democracy is as weak  as the ANC is dominant. The reason I link this to afro-pessimism is that I cannot help but note that dominant parties elsewhere in the world are not critiqued in the same way. Jon Elliot from Human Rights Watch proffered Sweden as a case in point. In fact some people argue the exact opposite and this is a view I too endorse. The dominance of the ANC has allowed time for our democratic institutions to consolidate and grow. It has created the space for people to develop and call themselves South African over and above various tribal affiliations. It has avoided weak coalition governments that we have seen fail elsewhere in Africa. It has also enabled government policy to make long term strategic plans rather than short term opportunistic ones.

I’m not arguing that we have the perfect democracy, I merely want to highlight the propensity to assume the worst when it comes to Africa and especially when it comes to democracy in Africa. I want to highlight the subconscious or conscious assumptions that one makes when assessing African institutions in comparison to similar situations elsewhere in the world. Our panalists agree that there is no one size fits all democracy type. Democracy is a lived reality. It's a contested concept, and its contested by the people of the country. At its very core democracy is power to the people, which is precisely why ‘Amandla Awethu’ is the core slogan of the ANC movement.

If I was a black South African still living in Khayelitsha with very few services and fearful of being raped on my way to the toilet I’d be pissed off. I’d be pissed off with government and would ask myself why the white people still have all the power, land and the money. I would be despondent with the ideal aspirations of the Mandelas, Thambos and the Sisulus and I would question whether there is any truth behind a non racial South Africa. I would listen to Malema on TV or see him in the newspapers and I would probably nod in agreement and as my despondence with the present regime grows, I will nod in fervent agreement.

If I drive from Cape Town, down the garden route up to Johannesburg via some game farms I will pass property where a South African will own a house in Cape Town, a holiday house on the garden route, a game farm on the way to JHB and then a house in JHB. And white South Africans are shocked that Malema is talking about land??? Really? We are the most unequal nation in the world (in avid competition with Brazil for the embarrassing title) and we need to put these issues on the table to be discussed. 10 % of our population owns 80% of the wealth. Programmes like affirmative action, through deracialising the elite, merely loan legitimacy to a system by legitimizing a small elite. They do nothing to address the fact that we have an economy that is geared to serve 10% of the population. We need to drive massive systemic changes to our economy in order to address the inherited imbalances.

But how do we do that? Will nationalizing the mines help? I am of the view that it won’t. The resources are due to run out in 2050. The Youth League hinging its entire economic strategy on nationalizing is quite simply shortsighted. The world is emerging into a digital world, technology is the future, tertiary service sectors are where we can grow and should grow. We need to aim to exist in the clouds. I am of the view that the emerging markets are lucky. We are lucky because we get to leap frog. We get to skip out the steps of concretizing our environments. We don’t have to build telephone polls because we can jump to mobile phones, we don’t have to expand the city centre because people can now work from home, and we don’t have to build schools with libraries because we can introduce computers and ‘Kindel’ type technology into school. We get to leap frog and that’s what we should be aiming for. Great energy needs to be poured into this area of immense potential. Closing the gap of the digital divide is key.

Spending so much time with many great speakers be it politicians, civil society groups or entrepreneurs it is clear that Africa is the future. We need to be strategic about how we can harness this energy. The youth in South Africa needs to step up and challenge people like Malema in our country. There is a yearning need for principled politics in South Africa; a yearning need for good leaders. We also need South Africans to take responsibility for the future of South Africa. That means white South Africans who own 5 properties – be apart of the process. Be a willing seller, empower the workers on your farm. Go into partnership with them. We all need to contribute to our future if we want it to be prosperous. The culture of expectation and entitlement desperately needs to be replaced with a culture of activism. South Africa has won a free ticket globally for too long. The world is looking at us with a magnifying glass and its time we all gave them something positive to see. Remember evil reigns when good people do nothing. So do something!

I attended a lecture last week where Zackie Achmat opened the session with ‘very few people inspire me anymore,’ Dr Brewer in our session alluded to the same sentiment in describing an event held with many Ambassadors. I thought to myself will I ever stop being inspired? Will it become increasingly harder to find things that inspire me? And then I wondered whether its life experience that chips away at our ability to be inspired or is it an increasing cynicism that permeates through the hopes, dreams and aspirations of the youth to effect change?