South Africa has Changed

I read today that President Zuma had some pointed words to say last week at Davos.  He spoke of prejudice against Africa being a deterrent to investment.  In one response I feel like cheering him and like scolding him.  For he is one of those former “freedom fighters” who is gaining a reputation for feathering his own nest by plunder of public resources.

Yes I have often said that Africa gets a bad rap and that it has huge potential.  Yesterday I read an article which compares the South Africa of today to Yeltsin’s Russia – a time when power is consolidated centrally and when oligarchs arise who are vastly wealthy.  One only has to think of Cyril Ramaphosa, Zuma’s new deputy.  He was Nelson Mandela’s choice as a successor but the “elders” of the ruling alliance told to wait his turn.  In the meanwhile, he has become one of Africa’s richest men, and that can be attributed at least in part to his contacts and advantages in terms of affirmative action.

I am not scolding him, let me cheer Zuma a bit more.  I also read this week that the assets of the world’s three richest individuals exceeds the combined gross domestic product (GDP) of the world’s 48 poorest countries.  Many of those poor countries are in Africa, but while Ramaphosa may be wealthy on African standards, he is not competing at the highest levels globally of wealthy individuals.

I want to make an apology.

It occurred to me that in writing about social and economic injustice globally and even in South Africa, some readers may feel that my finger is pointed at them.  Sorry if you ever felt that, it was not my intention but sometimes communication that is sent is not exactly what is heard.  I do not believe in a simplistic cause-and-effect view that says “they are poor because you are rich”.  Most of my readers are from a background of privilege like myself.  I am not trying to make you feel bad about it, or even to follow my example of choosing the path of St Francis in my approach to wealth.  Not every Christian is called to do that.

What I am trying to say is not so complicated that I couldn’t articulate it – but maybe I never was explicit enough.  My view is that you are rich and they are poor because of the same unjust system that is perpetuating itself.  David Korten put it this way: “ordinary people find their choices controlled by the hierarchies of big business, big government, big education, big unions, big media, and big religion”.  You yourself can probably do as little about it as any body locked down by poverty in Africa.

My missives are directed against this system, not against you!   I believe that John the Baptist had a similar message, although relatively little was recorded of it – just enough for me to identify with him a lot.  Just like people listened to him - a bit off-beat and outspoken but nevertheless respected by his audience – I get enough responses to my missives to be sure that they are appreciated.

I believe that Jesus also was on this frequency.  Sadly, I think that his messaged has been hijacked to emphasize other things.  Brian McLaren describes this as trying to put together a jig-saw puzzle when someone has switched the lid on the box!  It takes you awhile to figure out that all these pieces from the Gospels don’t fit into that narrow arrangement.  Finally you scrap the lid of the box and work away at getting the pieces to fit one another.  Gradually, you begin to get the big picture.  I found this metaphor very helpful.  Could it be that you are still using a misleading puzzle-box-lid when you read my missives and wonder where I am coming from?  Here I go with my favorite writing strategy – deferring to someone who is better qualified and renowned than myself to say it for me:

“Taking the story of Zaccheus as an example of “salvation” from greed and hypocrisy, we will then seek to heal the system, beginning with our own role in it.  Our actions will, I imagine, have at least three dimensions:

“First, we will seek to help the poor through generosity – feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the imprisoned, showing hospitality to the homeless.  In so doing, we must be careful to avoid a dehumanizing and demoralizing paternalism.

“Second, we will call the rich to generosity, as Jesus frequently did.  We will call the comfortable to turn from their own endless enrichment and to instead invest their energies for the good of their poorer neighbours.  In today’s world, this would often involve using their entrepreneurial skills to create good jobs, since unemployment is at the core of so many of the sufferings of the poor, including substance abuse, violence and disease.

“And third, we will work to improve the system, to detect and remove systemic injustice, so that the equity system of the societal machinery would indeed be equitable.”

C4L bulletins like this one fall into both the second and third dimensions.  They try to cry out from the wilderness against a dominant system that locks some people into poverty and others into complacency.  The bulletins also call you – rich or poor - to generosity.  C4L is but one actor in but one country on but one continent, but its emphasis in 2013 is to create self-employment among youth in the “green occupations”.  In other words, C4L exists to help the poor through YOUR generosity.

How has South Africa changed?

Since I took up residence here 18 years ago, the focus of concern has shifted from the AIDS pandemic to youth unemployment.  Remember that citizens born since 1994, the year that I arrived, are now called the “born free” generation.  They think differently from previous generations.  Their Struggle is not against apartheid but against poverty.

The market drives the economy less and less as the ruling alliance wants it to be a command-economy.  That is a huge difference.  For so many business, the main customer is government.  This is particularly true in the Training sector.  You must understand that this is why C4L talks so much more than ever before about government “Learnerships” to train youth in entrepreneurship and the “green occupations”.

Unfortunately, another change is that government is getting more intolerant of voices crying in the veld about the need for systemic change.  Speaking of John the Baptist, can you imagine him trying to get funding out of the Herodians – who collaborated with Rome - for his wilderness project?   No wonder he only had locusts and honey to eat!  Like him we depend on the generosity of those we call to defect from the dominant system, into God’s reign or kingdom.  The jigsaw puzzle lid that I discarded promised eternal life by and by; but the pieces that I am fitting together now have more to say about justice - for abundant life.