One of the most profound things I have heard this week was Senator Julian Bond saying that there is no such thing as black or gay civil rights. there are civil rights which everyone must enjoy. I agree whole heatedly with this sentiment and everyday I am here, I am forced to examine my own beliefs, and how they affect others who may not necessarily share these beliefs. In the absence of universal objective morality, subjective morality, which may be a majority view, is not always correct, nor is it always consistent with the other values we claim to hold dear, such as the values of Ubuntu, respect and love of human rights. This has got me thinking too about how much civil rights mean to majority of the people that I share the country in which I live with. In fact, its got me thinking about what civil rights mean to majority of our people across the continent. Surely, there is a consistent standard. As much as there may be different ways of doing things, all people deserve the right to fair trial, the right to due processes, and protection from the law. Surely all people deserve equal opportunity, regardles of their ethnicity, race, family income, family connections and so on. This not only applies to South Africa, where those who live in the periphery dont always enjoy these rights, but it applies equaly to most of subsaharan Africa. The challenge is to set up and respect the institutions that preserve these rights, and then make aware to the majority of our people across the country and continent, that they have such rights, and have every right to demand them from their governments. Protection of the group, and the individual, are not mutually exclusive, and cannot be viewed as such. Protection of the group must entail protection of every individual in the subset, and protection of the individual in a subset must translate to the protection of the group.

Below is a speech that I was given the privilege to address to two of Americas finest civil rights activists:

 

"Thank you very much. Congressman John Lewis and Senator Julian Bond, Guest and Fellow Sawipeans. Thank you very much to you both congressmen and senator for the work that you have done in advancing the rights of the black people of the United States. The descendants of those whose labor built the White house, and Washington monument. The sweat and blood that built the South, and the basis for the economy of the US.

After my visit this weekend to the African American Civil War Memorial, and the civil rights section of the American History Museum, I can only imagine the struggles you have waged to prove to white supremacy of America, that you too are human beings.

In 1967, at the University of Cape Town, President John F Kennedy said:

‘I came here because of my deep interest and affection for a land settled by the Dutch in the mid-seventeenth century, then taken over by the British, and at last independent; a land in which the native inhabitants were at first subdued, a land which once imported slaves, must struggle to wipe out the last traces of that former bondage. I refer, of course, to the United States of America.”

I quote the president here to highlight the protracted struggles that both our countries have faced in the recognition of its entire people as legitimate citizens.

Through minimum violence against shear brutality, both countries have given the legitimate right for all the people to enjoy equal rights of citizenship. This is consistent with the sentiment we share: ‘all men and women are created equal’. We continue, all of us, to confront these challenges. South Africa and the Unites States of America therefore share a common history and future. If you will congressman and senator, I shall give you a quick tour of the people that live within the borders of South Africa.

The most dominant groups, the Xhosa and Zulu, have had their own bloody confrontations dating back to mfecane. They continue to dominate the politics of South Africa. Our past 3 elected presidents have come from this group- in spite of the fact that their home provinces, the Eastern Cape and Kwazulu Natal remain 1 and 4 in our poorest provinces. These patriots beat the odds.

These Bantu immigrants from central Africa, went furthest South during the great migrations. They are characterized by historic heroes and heroines such as Shaka, Hinsta and Cetshwayo.

The tswana, Sotho, Pedi, Swati, Tshonga, Vhenda and Ndebele of Mzilikazi, are also core to South Africa. Geographical and historically they have occupied areas within the borders. Yet, they are all directly linked to Southern African countries such as Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Lesotho, Botswana and Swaziland, perhaps representing the manifestation of the colonialist scramble for Africa that forced distinct and varied tribes into single- and for the most part, non-homogenous nation states. They are all, historically; citizens by annexation and settled negotiations of ‘conquered’ land by the Afrikaner and the English, leading up to the formation of the union. They became 2^nd Class South Africans, to be later placed in homelands, including QwaQwa, Bophutatswana, Kangwane, and Vhenda.

The Indians arrived as slave labour for the British- ‘cutting cane in Natal’. Most are still, sentimentally, tied to the subcontinent as can be seen in kingsmead in Durban during India tours of South Africa for cricket, are citizens of South Africa too.

The Afrikaner is both an African and a South African national.

The Cape coloured, malay descendants, children of the khoi and the san, the only native South Africans-khoi and san population- are a part. The recent immigrants- for political and economic reasons, dual nationals, mixed race, mixed culture, mixed-ethnicity, are too people of South Africa.

The youth that grew up in the suburbs, townships and rural areas, the youth of Thohoyandou, Mdantsane, Diepsloot, Bethal, Ermelo, Mbombela, Oranje, Sunnyside, Soshanguve, Welkom, Centurion, Hatfield, Mlazi, Cape flats, Langa, Constantia, and Houghton are all ‘equal’ citizens of South Africa.

Therefore the question post liberation in South Africa, as it is here in the US, is what does it mean to be a citizen?

In South Africa we have articulated this in the historic constitution. If, as we have in the constitution, recognize all these people as fellow South Africans, then we must examine ourselves as post liberation individuals. We who represent privileged elite must examine if we have done everything we can to ensure that all the people, our brothers and sisters, receive the best our country has to offer.

According to Reuters, 1 in 7 Americans live in poverty. 1 in 4 African Americans are in poverty, a statistics they share with the Hispanics, and the Native Americans and Alaska Natives. These people, our people, hold menial jobs, are on welfare, homeless on the streets and overpopulating the jails instead of institutions of higher learning.

The 50 % of our youth in South Africa, that is unemployed and unemployable, feeding on crime, and trapped in poverty are a constant reminder to us all that some of us, black and white, are more citizens that others. They are a reminder that poverty and privilege are systematic and perpetual. These systems are designed into a society and are not merely accidents of history.

There is a reality that there are some fellow patriots who will die in poverty and in disease and others who will never see any social and economic difficulty purely because of the accident of their birth. The sacrifices made here by WEB Du Bois, Booker T Washington, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther, Malcom X, and many others, as well as Mandela, Biko, Luthuli and Sobukwe back in South Africa, will be in vain if we do not, as the youth of South Africa and leaders in the US, ask ourselves that question- what does it mean to be a citizen?

How can we use these rights, that were for so long elusive, to ensure that all our people, both in the majority and minority, enjoy fully the civil rights-given to them as equal citizens, to improve their lives for the better.

As I expected, the panel gave a historical context to these struggles. In so doing, I hope that it has sparked within us new ideas. These ideas must lead us, the youth, to find out exactly what we must do, to ensure that these rights are accessible to all-even our most marginalized.

These rights of equality should manifest themselves as access to equal education, and health care. They should mean the right to have relations with anyone regardless of religious persuasion, color of skin, sexual orientation- to be free from any discrimination in school, in the workplace and on the field of play. This must include the right to free trial and due process.

Importantly, these rights must honor the rights of the group simultaneously with the rights of the individual- this would be in line with our shared value system of Ubuntu.

Thank you for listening and for the discusions." 

Entrepreneurship and development:

This weeks theme was important. We had the opportunity to look practically at how we can actually bring our people out of poverty and give Africa a competitive advantage in the world economy through entrepreneurship and development. We have already seen this in South Africa too, the expansion of the middle class, not only via employment in the private sector, but also through the entrepreneurship, however limited its innovation, that has emerged in the last 15 years.

We can directly impact unemployment and tackle some of the challenges that face sub-Saharan Africa. We can do this via social entrepreneurship commonly defined as using an enterprise that addresses social issues using the concept of entrepreneurship. This includes profitable mainstream business that subsidies NPOs or businesses whose core business is to be profitable in addressing a social issues. This finds the middle ground between doing good, which we all want, making money and innovation. I feel it worth while to pull out a note I wrote last year on the subject of social entrepreneurship, as it is relevant to most of the themes this week

“

The Entrepreneur of the Developing World in the 21st Century


25.5% of all South Africans between 15 and 65 are unemployed. 9.6% of Argentina is unemployed. 3 billion people in the world live on less than 2.50 a day. The GDP of the 41 poorest countries is lower than the wealth of the 7 richest people in the world.

Clearly the world is in a state. This is the not sustainable. The world is not and cannot continue to sustain itself and remain indifferent to the suffering of the large masses of our people across the world. Business, commerce and industry then has an inherent, albeit unfair, but an expected contribution to the world. Not just to provide products and services that improve our lives, but to concentrate their strength and efforts on the alleviation of global poverty through sustainable entrepreneurship. Business can no longer view the problems of society and be indifferent towards them. The corporate world can no longer go about their daily business without thinking of the massive responsibility we have. The winds of change are moving within the developing world. The developing world is beginning to understand that we will take ourselves out of poverty, and we will only do so through sustainable enterprises, social business, social entrepreneurship and responsible business. Africans have an expression, Ubuntu. It means, I am because you are, much different to the French philosopher who once argued that I think therefore I am, we believe you are who you are because of the people around me, because of society. Your value is in enriching the lives of others.

Whilst the philanthropy is no doubt charming, and idealistic, the reality is that with money comes power, with power comes greed, with greed comes corruption. Hence the need to ask whether or not humans are inherently greedy, like Adam Smith once argued. Does the pursuit of self eventually lead to the betterment of society? The truth is that both systems have failed. Pure business interests have failed with the collapse of Wall Street, and the fall of soviet rule has resulted in the lack of confidence in the communism system. I believe that any business in the 21st century should measure its effectiveness and success through these 2 basic criteria. Social change, and environmental sustainability; these should be the core objectives of any business in our time.

“I am arguing that the new order, born of the victory in 1994, inherited a well-entrenched value system that placed individual acquisition of wealth at the very centre of the value system of our society as a whole.” Former South African State President Thabo Mbeki.

At a Nelson Mandela Memorial lecture, Mbeki argued that society had made a mistake by centring human value and human dignity in the possession of material wealth. Human dignity should stem from your individuality and your contributions to the development of others. That is the true spirit of Africa and our people. Therefore all business and enterprise must have that social aspect encoded into its DNA. The need to have a social impact or social change for business is important. Case in point: In Nigeria, there was a lack of public toilets and this was causing sanitation issues and health concerns. A Nigerian man on route to South Africa discovered portable toilets that South Africans traditionally use for funerals. He bought these toilets and set them up in Nigeria. He approached some street kids and agreed to go 50-50 on the profits if the kids maintained and managed the toilet businesses. Today he is a millionaire, and has empowered many lives of Nigerian children who otherwise would have resorted to crime. The Drive to make a positive contribution to society through enterprise is important and presents many opportunities for development, if people would use them. This leads me to the definition of a social enterprise: An enterprise driven by the need to meet two fundamental objectives: the commercial objective and a social objective. (http://www.schwabfound.org/sf/SocialEntrepreneurs/index.htm, 2008). This means that these businesses will and should make profit, and yet drive social change.


No business can continue to consider CSR to be adequate in responding to the challenges of society, particularly in the developing world. CSR must no longer be used by corporations and multinationals to avoid public scrutiny. It has been proven time and time again that the 1st budget to cut in a time of crisis is CSR. Companies must actively engage in community development. They must commit to creating sustainable empowerment opportunities. The challenge would be much better taken up in the global context, but it is imperative that the developing world internalise it. Multinationals operating in the developed world, using their resources and cheap labour, exploiting their mineral wealth and abundance in natural resources must not be allowed access, particularly privatised access to natural resources. Unless they commit to a sustained social development programme that significantly changes the lives of people in the developing world for the better. The economics of the developing world demand that our economic growth and development be collective, the model of the pursuit of individual interest is neither applicable nor sustainable in this context.

Varkey George is the director of Shawco (student health and welfare organisation) and a lecturer on social entrepreneurship in the University of Cape Town. This organisation provides student volunteer assistance to the many South Africans suffering through illiteracy, hiv/aids, and many others that have plagued the continent. Shawco sends university students to teach basic maths and sciences to high school kids to equip them for University. They offer free medical advice (health sciences students). Varkeys Job is to keep Shawco sustainable. They realise that Donor funding is unreliable. And cutting it off will cause the programmes to stop and the poor will suffer. Through Varkey, Shawco now uses their bus fleet as transport for churches and schools when they are not transporting volunteers, they have a house they rent to international students and have a programme called rags to riches where they request donations from students and empower women in the township to sell these at mark up prices amongst other business interests they have. Through entrepreneurial; and business efforts, Shawco raise R8 million a year. That Synergy is what is critical for the success of the modern socially responsive entrepreneur.

Further, the modern entrepreneur must always be thinking green. The industrial revolution brought with it many joys. Mass production and manufacturing meant we could feed and sustain more life on earth. What was not anticipated was the heavy reliance of that manufacturing of food, the transportation system and other fundamental aspects of modern human life on fossil fuels. The world is now going through global warming and it is unlikely that our children’s children will experience the same quality of life which we have been privileged to experience. The modern business and business man, particularly from the developing world has to be environmentally conscious. As Africans in particular, our relationship with the environment has always been one of respect. Colonialist thought we were uneducated for not developing, building sky scrapers and cutting down our trees, but our elders have always known and understood that there exists a balance between us and the environment that should not be disturbed. Disturbing it would have disastrous consequences such as the extinctions of species, the scarcity of water and so forth. Therefore, every entrepreneur in the developing must go green. Not as a matter of compliance but as a matter of principle. Business must respond to the environmental challenges, Copenhagen 2010 urged business to do so.

Above the principled argument to going green, there is economic interest in green technology and green fuels. Developing countries must take advantage of this. The world bank recently loaned South African Parastatal 3.75 billion US dollars to build power plants that will see some 80% of South Africans gain access to electricity (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8609179.stm, 2010), a good 475million US of that money must be invested in developing renewable energy such as solar and wind energy. Another significant proportion must be invested in funding South Africa’s PBMR nuclear programme. Evidently, if the were any business people in South Africa, whose companies were focused on green technology business would be booming now. The developing world must not allow itself to fall behind in these developments. In the next 75 years, my educated guess and opinion is that coal will no longer fuel our power, and yet we have billion dollar industries built on it. As the developing world, we must be ready to move when the winds of change arrive. We must not let our moment in destiny pass us by.

Business Success in meeting our developmental challenges will require a concerted and coordinated effort. It will be realised to through citizen participation. Citizens must personalise the struggle for economic emancipation and economic freedom. People must be encouraged to start business and move to create new opportunities. The modern business must create opportunities for intrapreneurship within the cooperation so as to expand. In citizen participation, people must be trained to leave. All business must be a hub of exchanging ideas and freedom of movement. The global situation dictates that we must develop collectively, and therefore every citizen should play their part in ensuring that they contribute to the strengthening and building of the economy. The entrepreneur and businessman has a significant role to play in the alleviation of poverty.

Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu- I am because of others. “

Once again, I continue to enjoy my experience in the programme and I am constantly learning from my peers, and the speaker that engage us every day.

I continue to find myself doing a lot of introspection about what my own role will be in the future, and what I can do to balance all the aspirations I have, including the accumulation of the capital I desire to make my childrens lives better, with doing good in the community, the country and the globe.

The South African Consular General in New York and the South African Ambassador to the UN, the South African Deputy Minister of International relations and the Ambassador of South Africa to the USA make me proud. What has lacked in domestic politics and from our media has been the articulation of South Africas foreign policy and the values that inform that policy. My time with these members of the diplomatic corps has given me the hope and belief that as we go about our daily business, in University, at school, at bars, within sports fields and dealing with the issues that define our existence, we must always take the time to remember these great men and women, who have left their homes, family and friends to serve South Africa and Africa abroad. We can also rest assured, knowing that the dreams and aspirations of all Africans in conflict ridden areas of Africa are represented by the governments we have elected, based on the values of ubuntu. The emphasis of the African Agenda is part and parcel of South Africa’s foreign policy; this makes me proud to be a citizen of this great country, and a child of this great continent.

The consulate General was incredible. He is a well-educated, articulate and knowledgeable African who treats every one with kindness and respect and whose heart is firmly rooted in the belief that education and the youth will take Africa forward.  He is fatherly, wise, warm, and stern and commands respect without demanding it. He is open to engagement, passionate about young people, and focused on the resolve that this is going to be Africa’s century.

The ambassador to the UN is as exceptional and his core focus is the strategic imperatives of South Africa in the United Nations. These include the positions for negotiations, drafting of resolutions and lobbying. He is acutely aware of the interest of the Western countries but is convinced that he can out maneuverer this. He cares about the fact that 1973 has gone wrong, and remains principled about dialogue and negotiation being South Africa’s core problem solving method. His history goes back to his days in the AU and he has served in the international relations wing of government for 9 years now, first as the ambassador to the AU and then now to the UN. He has been solid in his views about the UN and its role in the resolution of conflict and securing the security and stability of the world.

The South African mission to the UN too is doing incredible work.  They explained to us the complication of negotiations, the complex nature of lobbying and the incredible amount of hours that goes in to the resolutions of the UN, including the South African strategies and the values that inform this. The delegate to the Security Council gave us the opportunity to look realistic at the power relations and the undemocratic nature of the P5 system of the UN. She reminded us of the complications in the UN and the desperate reform of the UN which will better distribute power and ensure that we end the cycle where the dominating powers continue to exclusively hold executive positions whilst the dominated continue to have no say in global politics.

Finally, the entire tour of New York was incredible. The UN headquarters, Wall Street and others were great to see. We saw the beautiful sights yes, but I got to engage with the people socially, in bars, at the hostel, on the streets, in the subways. I took the opportunity to travel to Harlem to see the place. I travelled to Harlem and to China Town, where I myself saw firsthand the global nature of poverty and desperation. Walking down china town, feels like walking downtown Johanesburg at park station. The desperation in the air, where you can feel the poverty, and discontent in the air, where there is a rat race to see if one will have something to eat tonight. Relative to where they are, these citizens of the world continue to scramble. I saw dirty alleys, homeless people, and drunken youth. I was reminded by this solo escapade that the challenges we face in South Africa of improving the socio-economic conditions of all our peoples is a global challenge. Inequality is global. I was hurt most by the fact that it seems that the non European people of the world-black, asian and hispanic, no matter where they may be on the globe, noting the exceptions, continue to struggle to make ends meet and continue to struggle to advance their dreams and aspirations of a better life. They remain locked in a perpetual cycle of poverty, where the escape from such conditions remains a slow and exclusive process.

Input for Ambassador Talk:

The youth of 76 have given the many young people the space necessary to be able to freely engage the spaces they have been afforded. We certainly are eternally grateful for these efforts and honour the likes of Mashinini and Hector Perterson and many others who sacrificed everything for us to have the opportunity to make the country better. In achieving the objectives of the better South Africa for which the youth aspire, and others have given their lives,  it is important for the youth to note the following:

·         Means of production: As the Youth League back home continues to engage the issue of the ownership of the means of production, it is important for the youth nationaly to broadly engage in this debate. This youth must come from across sectors, race, class and gender. Most especially the youth that has benefited most from the sacrifice of 76, the skilled young professionals, intellectuals and academics who are in a primary position to utilize the tools of analysis they have been provided by their education to seriously think of how best we can utilize the resources at our disposal to benefit all of our people and not just a minority (black or white). This must look into the ownership, management, efficiency and sustainability of the productive forces such as mines and farms. The method you use to this ends, must take into account the constitution, the respect for the rule of law, and must also learn from our neighbors. But more realistically, we must broadly think past the narrow nationalization debate, we must look holistically at private-public partnerships, the manufacturing sector and other value add industries, decentralized self-sustaining income generating entities,  and the transformation of the economy into a more service oriented and knowledge based economy as pronounced by the national planning commission in its recent reports on development indicators in South Africa.

 

·         The role of Education: Former colonial Universities, such as the University of Cape Town and University of Witwatersrand owe a significant amount to the South African public. Not only because they use the hard earned taxes, but because they are the center of knowledge generation; a melting pot of the countries minds and diversity and a place where the dreams aspirations and ambitions of the young people of South Africa are formed. These Universities have certainly made some significant strides to create the global citizen, but the heart of that global citizen is European. They have in struggled to create the local citizen, whose aspirations, outlook and commitment is to the use of his education and knowledge to build South Africa and Africa. They have created highly skilled professionals, who have instead had their sights on Europe and the developed world and thus many of South Africas most skilled professionals have been lost to the developed countries. Part of what the youth must do is to make the African Universities truly African, and to engage in a constant dialogue about the curriculum that creates a sense of patriotism and a thought-led, action-oriented and interdisciplinary drive toward the provision of solutions to some of the youths contemporary challenges, particularly secondary education, unemployment and moral degradation.

 

·         Political and public spaces: In all of history it is true that spaces have always been contested. Even in the ANC itself most recently at polokwane, there has been a shift in the order and kind of the leadership because the space was contested. The youth of 76 are a perfect example of the historical fact that in order to influence, in order to be heard, you will have to wrestle for the spaces. They simply will not be handed to you by those who occupy them. The youth of South Africa and Africa today, must fight, not necessarily in a violent manner-which is arguably harder, to gain the political spaces necessary to advance the views, dreams and aspirations that they have for South Africa and Africa. Many young people today feel that there is a certain kind of person that can lead the political platforms; they feel disempowered because they speak in a particular way or are from a particular background that may not necessarily be compatible with the personalities of the ruling youth leaders. It is worth noting that when history makes the judgment, it will not be necessarily be a judgment on particular individuals and youth formations, it will be a blanket judgment on the entire generation in much the same way as the heros of 76 have been the mouth piece of that entire generation, even though they may not have necessarily been in the majority. Therefore, it is important to contest the space to make our views heard, least we allow others to paint an untrue story about the kind of generation we were. As Marx observes: “ the views of a society are determined by the ruling classes of that society.”

Finally, we certainly have a lot of work to do realize the aspirations o the youth of 76. In order to challenge the explosive and volatile challenges that face 3.1 Million of our brothers and sisters today, we will have to relook our economic terms, the role of our education and most importantly we will have to position ourselves in the organs of the state and political formations, better to serve the interests of the youth that will and must, drive South Africa to a new era of socio-economic relations. We certainly hope that we can have platforms like this back home to freely engage our leadership on what we believe is best to take South Africa forward.

Thank you your Excellency.