BEE Versus TESEF
By: THEO-BEN GURIRAB
I WRITE this opinion piece in reaction to Job Shipululo Amupanda as published in The Namibian of August 10 2010. I agree with much of his argument and want to add my own contribution to the BEE and TESEF fracas. I see a challenge and I want to say something.
I will start at the beginning, so to speak, and come forward to where the fracas stands today. Throughout history, the African worldview, in the face of destructive and divisive policies and stratagems of white supremacy, racism, apartheid, slavery, colonialism, land dispossession and destruction of the people’s cultures, has all along been conscious of history, foreign imposition and inhumanity.
Those encounters were based on ensuring separation of communities and institutionalisation of satanic social engineering of the worst kind. There were other criminal butchers before Adolf Hitler. While we in Africa are building democracy, promoting inclusive environment of common humanity and mutual affirmation according to the spirit and letter of our Constitution, others think of those dark days.
But let’s not be unaware of differences between the imperative need to reckoning with the matter of colour versus the ideals of justice. We need clarity of mind, boldness and honesty to speak out and confront retrogression of that kind.
I will go through a few references to underscore my thinking and using them as my corner witnesses. Well, I start with Basil Davidson who has joined Africans in refuting certain imposed culture of negation and denial. This is what he wrote in 1961:
“Previous European scholarship knew that the foundations of European civilization derived from classical Greek civilization. That scholarship further accepted what the Greeks had laid down as patently obvious: that classical Greek civilization derived in its religion, its philosophy, its mathematics and much else, from the ancient civilizations of Africa above all Egypt of the Pharaohs. To those ‘founding fathers’ in classical Greece, any notion that Africans were inferior, morally or intellectually, would have seemed silly.”
We firmly stand on the combined authority of science, technology and grandmother’s wisdom in exposing the premeditated nullifications by the racists. The truth will bury their lies. Of course, that didn’t prevent apartheid, bantustans, introduction of nuclear bombs, cross-border aggression and massacres in Southern Africa. Such doomed souls reject history, science and evidence as we are reminded. Yes, it does appear that a past is as necessary to humans as roots to a tree. This is particularly so for inspiration and reassurance of the youth in knowing the whole truth.
I will take up more references as I proceed. But before that I want to endorse this point Amupanda makes, buttressed by Dr Leake Hangala, in respect of BEE and TESEF as competing policy choices. He states: “Why change the name if it’s black people that you seek to empower? I agree that BEE must be transformational and provide the framework for social empowerment. I agree with TESEF principles – just leave the name (BEE) alone.” I make the same point among others.
Let me now call up Thabo Mbeki. In his keynote address at the launch of dialogue on ‘African Renaissance’, the former President of South Africa said the following:
“Our first task, therefore, is to transform our society consistent with this vision”. That was in 1999 the year I assumed the UN General Assembly Presidency – the MDGs to wit. He continued, “Our second task is to join hands with all other like-minded forces on our continent, convinced that the peoples of Africa share a common destiny, convinced also that people of goodwill throughout the world will join us in the sustained offensive which must result in the new century going down in history as the African century.”
I know as do many, many others at home and abroad, friend and foe alike, how much Mbeki has devoted his time and energy on that bright vision and the road to the great victory for Africa and the Diaspora. But let’s admit education, which should be the gateway to that new dawn, is facing a crisis, women’s rights issues are facing a crisis, youth empowerment is facing a crisis, mounting income disparities are facing a crisis and also leadership quotient in Africa, and here in Namibia, is facing a crisis. Which way African leadership?
It is to those and other crises of peace, resource mobilization and socio-economic development that Amupanda speaks the way he has. BEE and TESEF are not about semantics. We are talking about reconstruction and rethinking. He states: “We must never be apologetic for being black. The greatest danger lies not in those that do not understand us as these will understand with passage of time. The greatest danger lies in not understanding ourselves.” Rivals have a clearly drawn battle line, wanderers are lost in a time warp of indecision and despair! Let’s think as winners and avoid an ostrich’s notion.
My next reference is Randall Robinson, erstwhile Director of TransAfrica, Washington, DC, USA. I walked with him long and hard until Namibia’s Independence in 1990, under Presidency of Sam Nujoma, and the birth of new, democratic, non-racial and future-inclined South Africa, under the Presidency of Nelson Mandela. There’s more, but that’s it for here.
With perspective to the past and ever so conscious of present and future, Randall Robinson said the following in his surging book, ‘The Debt’ (2000). I am sorry to add, it was the year the historic UN Millennium Declaration was adopted by the largest gathering of world leaders in New York.
“This book”, Robinson declared “is about the massive crime of official and unofficial America against Africa, African slaves, and their descendants in America. No race or ethnic or religious group has suffered as much over so long a span as blacks have – and do still –…Solutions to our racial problems are possible but only if our society can be caused to face up to the massive crime of slavery and all that it has wrought.”
I need not comment on Robinson’s exhortation. It speaks for itself. Often national leaders and policymakers think of doing the right thing for the society hoping to be fair and please all regardless of chronic problems and sharp contradictions. That happens in particular when the stakes are high and managing change in such an environment becomes daunting for making choices. This is our problem today dealing with the issue of BEE and TESEF. Existence of a policy is no guarantee it is right.
My witness this time is Pallo Jordan, one of ANC’s foremost polemicists on strategy and policy. Jordan went for the jugular of The Sunday Times, Mondli Mkhanya on BEE issue. He said: “Expanding the floor of opportunity for precisely the blacks is transformative. Calling that ‘racism in reverse’ is conspiring to perpetuate racial inequality.” I agree.
It is mainly only from mid-1970s and onwards that the message of armed struggle and demand for political independence borrowed the language of class struggle and socialist orientation, exceptions notwithstanding. From 1950s until then the clarion call for decolonization and mass mobilization of the masses for self-determination and liberation was clearly articulated in terms of “black majority rule” and “free the land”, Pan-Africanist perspective as seen from the Diaspora. Now, Africa is independent but the land is not free!
Why can’t we “do it now the way we did it” then? Why can’t we speak straight with clarity? Today we mean economic and cultural emancipation based on genuine empowerment of the people. Just leave BEE alone. But let’s control and defeat corruption lock, stock and barrel.
Uncertainty about crucial social policy matters can, sooner or later, lead to a crisis situation. Such quagmire for government may become a deep sea salvaging challenge. And that could steer unrest and put strain on national budgets. Resorting to balancing act to satisfy everybody means copping out and not dealing with problems. Dithering increases contradictions and that opens the door for more confusion. We must stop hubris of indecision from whatever quarter and ensure clarity on the right direction forward. That’s what BEE calls for.
My last reference is President Robert G. Mugabe. Leadership responsibility is about taking control of policy process, mitigating public perceptions, managing change and allocating resources for empowering the people.
In his own unique way President Mugabe spoke to these leadership challenges. He didn’t disappoint friend and foe alike. With his indomitable eloquence and bravery, he used the opportunity, of the closing moment of the SADC 30th Anniversary celebration in Windhoek, to reiterate the cardinal principle of self-determination one of its objectives being the BEE strategy for reconstruction and development.
With sustainable socio-economic and human development, we can ensure peace, security and stability. Otherwise, hunger, poverty and backwardness will wreak havoc and collapse the society’s bottom. We should be fast-tracking not snail-pacing our collective mindset and action.
After 2003 Swakopmund BEE Conference, Cabinet approved policy framework and called for consultative roadshow involving stakeholders. More than seven years later there is still no progress.
* The author of this opinion piece, Theo-Ben Gurirab, is the Speaker of Parliament and President of the Inter Parliamentary Union.