INLSA
Engagement with Dr Mamphela Ramphele on Thursday last week was an inspirational experience. Not only did we enjoy the stimulation and challenge of a wonderful address at the Durban Chamber’s annual dinner, but I had the privilege of sitting around a table with her in a small group over lunch.
This remarkable woman, with a long history of activism, made the headlines in 1996 when she was appointed as the vice chancellor of the University of Cape Town, the first black person, and woman, to hold the position.
She was a qualified medical doctor and had already earned a PhD in anthropology.
She served a five-year term and then took up a position with the World Bank – managing director (one of five) of Human Development. Now she is a director of companies, including Goldfields, of which she is the chairwoman, a businesswoman in her own right and still an activist for equal rights.
In 2008 she was at the head of a group of 35 South Africans from divergent backgrounds and spheres brought together by Old Mutual and Nedbank, the sponsors, to discuss what our country would be like 20 years hence, and how we would have risen to the challenges which were so evident within the national psyche.
This initiative resulted in the Dinokeng Scenarios (www.dinokengscenarios.co.za) which identified three different paths the country may follow in the years ahead.
It could “walk apart”, “walk behind” or “walk together”.
In 2012, Dr Ramphele is still advocating the path of “walk together”, conscious of the fact that, notwithstanding its clear advantages over the other two options, it is still not happening.
Among the reasons for this, she opined, is that our society is fractured and has not yet found a common purpose, although this is clearly set out in the constitution which we “signed up for”.
Now this constitution is being used as a scapegoat for the lack of the desired transformation, but the real problem is that we have not remained true to the constitutional values which underpinned the founding of the new, democratic nation. At the heart of the problem, she suggested, is that no South African had ever experienced democracy on his or her home soil until 1994 and we were all unprepared for what it means.
We have not been exposed to the difference between constitutional democracy and parliamentary democracy, which is the variety that dominates our political environment. Accordingly, a vote every five years is perceived to be the execution of one’s democratic right, but it is only a delegation to a proxy, amounting to the abrogation of the right, who believes this mandate renders him or her untouchable for the next five years.
In a constitutional democracy, the right to hold public representatives accountable is not seasonal, but is perpetually inalienable.
It is a right that, collectively, we do not exercise, having been intimidated into silence by the fear of falling out of favour, losing government work, or being castigated for daring to criticise.
She spoke of the painful wounds of discrimination and the deprivation of respect and dignity, these wounds being reopened by the relative circumstances of those who have plenty and those who have nothing. While poverty in a poor community is painful, it is far less so than poverty amid plenty.
Ostentatious opulence, and a good deal of pretence in many cases, which have come to characterise society’s wealthy classes, is like scratching the scab off a wound.
To our shame, it seems to me, we are often quite oblivious to this.
Perhaps there are even times when we feel encouraged because we sense that poor people seem to be attracted by exaggerated displays of wealth, as if they are the trappings of leadership.
I’ve often wondered about the paradox of simultaneous admiration and resentment which is a part of human nature.
The challenge put to business was clear: The private sector has vast resources (not just financial ones) which need to be harnessed to facilitate “walking together”.
This harnessing needs to be done by the government by acknowledging, by action and not simply words, that the private sector’s role is significant, and also by the private sector itself, to dispel the prevailing currency: “Me, myself and I.”
