Different starting points

ACOUPLE of articles published in last weekend’s papers caught my attention. One was written by Paul Kariuki, of the Democracy Development Programme, and the other by Mcebisi Jonas, a former deputy minister of finance.

In varying degrees, both referred to some form of collective responsibility for creating a prosperous, stable and more cohesive society.

While I generally agree with these objectives, the way it has proceeded, in actual terms, over the past two decades, has come to resemble an amusement park hall of mirrors where it is exceedingly difficult to make out the difference between truth, make-believe, distortion and illusion.

In his article, Jonas was more focused.

He provided five specific and immediate actions which would help the country live up to its promise.

The five points were: make it easier to do business, promote investment, build skills, leverage Africa and fight corruption.

The nub of Kariuki’s article was in his statement that a just future depended on shared beliefs in co-existence and co-creation of a more equitable society.

He reproduced the declaration that the values entrenched in the preamble of the constitution and in the Bill of Rights ought to be the basis for “co-creating” a society in which every citizen mattered.

That is all good and well.

However, the mistyeyed meme of “co-creation” is massively problematic in a society marked by disparities in privilege and power, where various forms of capital prevail over deeply embedded poverty and inequality.

It assumes that all those people in Summerstrand are equal, at the starting blocks, to those in Motherwell, Bethelsdorp or Kwazakhele.

This may be likened to John Rawls’s “original position”, an imagined state where everyone starts from behind a “veil of ignorance”, where you know nothing of yourself or your position in society.

It suggests that the decisions you make about the future are uncoupled from the present, or the past.

It is hard to believe that groups of people who have enjoyed privileged status in society, the starting point of which were notions of racial supremacy or superiority, will, somehow, by way of political or cultural osmosis, accept that they are (now) equal to those on whose backs their privilege was built over centuries.

Sometimes truth is best spoken in an active voice.

There are white people in South Africa who have benefitted from centuries of preferential treatment.

Some people got their jobs on the basis of these historical iniquities.

They then took the proceeds of these gains and shared them horizontally among their own communities who, in turn, handed them down in forms of social, cultural, political, symbolic and economic capital.

To help understand these forms of capital, consider the social, cultural and symbolic value that Naas Botha or Nick Mallett, and the leaping Springbok on the green rugby jersey, represent for the white, especially the Afrikaner community.

It seems as if Afrikaners (not all of them) think they own rugby the way they “owned” Kings Beach or Summerstrand, and now black people wanted to take it all away.

It is hard to imagine Mallett or Botha getting their positions of privilege if it were not for the fact that they played rugby during apartheid, with its segregation policies.

Surely there are black people who have played rugby, or who are knowledgeable, who can replace them?

I am not holding my breath, though.

The Ashwin Willemse walk-off will end like most other “transformation” issues in the country.

This brings me to the issue of co-creation as the means for transforming South Africa into a more equitable and just society.

Let me make this (active) statement: co-creation will not produce a progressive, just order that will eliminate racial injustices, biases and privilege.

It relies too heavily on change by osmosis, where you tell someone, over and again you love him or her and imagine that he or she would, some day, love you back because you repeated anodyne passages from romantic poetry to him or her – over and again.

In practical terms, there are no prizes for correctly guessing who would (continue to) benefit, if you brought career criminals and their victims into a room, and gave them each a voice in co-creating a crimefree environment.

Under these conditions there is a need for leadership that is bold and decisive, that takes responsibility and that is held accountable for lack of material progress.

In his Sunday article, Kariuki was right.

We should aspire to a society where every citizen mattered, but we cannot assume that we all start from the same position behind a “veil of ignorance”.

There are people who have power and dominance, and who abuse that dominance in the most subtle and insidious ways.

The idea of co-creation has some merit, but we would be naïve to believe that there are not people who will sabotage the process.

There are people who have power and dominance, and who abuse that dominance in the most subtle and insidious ways