Below my notes for the YFM interview today with Leila Chirayath Janah of Samasource.
Well firstly, let me say something which I hope our Harvard graduate will agree with and which has particular relevance in South Africa:
“A quality education is the best affirmative action there is.”
Actually, I believe one of the stated the premises upon which Samasource was started is that many poor people have skills but few opportunities to use them to earn a living.
The way out of our present situation – one which finds us the most economically polarised society on the planet – is to grow our economy and use that growth as a platform to allow more and more people to improve their lives conditions. Economic growth means that our economy produces more each year than the previous, that as a country we export more and thus earn more, and ultimately, it means that there is more money to go around. Another very important factor is for us to correctly implement the BEE legislation which will accelerate the transformation of our economy. As so often is the case, the legislation is good but the implementation is problematic – it must be implemented, as has recently been the case in the City of Cape Town, to the benefit of all emerging businesses, and not just those with connections to the ruling party.
The only alternate approach to using economic growth as a driver, and one which was recently used in Zimbabwe, is to take the economy as it exists today and then divide it up and give it to everyone. Zimbabwe did this with its farms and the unfortunate result was that when you take a farmer’s land and equipment away, he’s no longer interested in or able to farm and thus the value to the economy that the farm previously represented disappears. The new occupier of the farm, without the skills and experience required to make the farm work is then also unable to contribute to sustaining the value in the economy, let alone growing it.
Getting there
We must educate well, we must support small business, we must encourage innovation, we must liberalise our communications environment, we must stop stalling on the wage subsidy for new entrants to the labour market. Since the world cup, we’ve been making more noises about nationalisation and clamping down on press freedom; which combined with our terrifying strike season is not helping us attract foreign investment. We have to behave well, instil international confidence in our Democracy and our economy and thus encourage as much foreign direct investment as is possible. We must deal with crime and the negative perceptions which result from it.
Lethargy
I have travelled through much of southern and east Africa and I firmly believe that in general South Africans have serious chips on our shoulders. We don’t know how good we have it in this country compared to others. Let’s consider why African immigrants are so hated in South Africa? I believe it is because they’ve been through the worst in their countries, they’ve lost any culture of entitlement and are willing to work hard to improve their lot. South Africans by comparison are lazy, demanding and violent – it’s no wonder so many immigrants get jobs instead of us.
Can I relate a short tale of an experience I had in northern Mozambique in 2008?
I was fortunate to be a participant on the two month long Mozambique section of the Kingsley Holgate Outside Edge Humanitarian Expedition. During May 2008 we spent a few days travelling through the far northern coastal area of Mozambique, a couple of hundred kilometres south of Tanzania. The area is extremely poor with practically no infrastructure, no shops, virtually no employed people, and extremely basic schools if the village was lucky. Kids would roam the dusty tracks through the villages chewing on a cassava root. We handed out hundreds of mosquito nets and spectacles to people in this area to aid in the fight against Malaria and give sight to people who had never been able to see properly before.
Shortly after this experience, I was sitting on a beach in Pemba, Northern Mozambique, and started getting the first bits of news of what sounded like Xenophobic attacks happening in South Africa. As the picture became clear, I was overcome by a deep and tragic sense of disappointment in the people of our country. South Africans had so much more than the people I had just visited and yet they were massacring their African brothers and sisters. I wished at the moment that every South African was able to have seen what I’d seen in the days before; and wanted from that moment forth to help normal South Africans appreciate just how much we have as a nation.
So I firmly believe there are broadly 2 kinds of youngsters in South Africa: the “can do’s” and the “give me’s”. Government is supporting the proliferation of the “give me’s” through the travesty that is our abysmal education system, our ever expanding social grants scheme and the very real view that unless you’re connected with someone in the ruling party, you won’t get an in.
We all need to focus on supporting the “can do’s” out there, those youngsters willing and keen to learn and work hard to improve their lot in life. As Leila put in a print interview last year of Samasource – “We may be socially responsible but we aren’t keeping people who aren’t prepared to work hard.”
Those “can doers” who succeed must then become role models who inspire and encourage the “give me’s” to build a successful life instead of eeking out an existence based on handouts.
Way forward
First: We must, as our main priority, stop and begin a total overhaul our education system. We must invite good teachers who we previously chased away to come back. We must focus on the proper management of schools and staff. We must make teaching an essential service and ensure strikes do not compromise the education of our youth.
Innovation is also key. Leila was a keynote speaker at the Tech4Africa conference and during the Q&A session after her address, she exclaimed: “I’m sorta surprised that more people aren’t saying ‘Are you crazy!? How are you doing this?’”
Well that’s South Africa – we’ve got the most unequal society in the world. That means we’ve got people with good education, skills and means, sharing the same space as extremely poor and neglected people. If anything, that sense of perspective gives those people with the means, the motivation to take the opportunities before them and, frequently, use them to the benefit of others. Our unique and often trying circumstances mean that the solutions we find are often extremely innovative and practical. That’s possibly why Leila wasn’t getting anyone asking her if she was crazy.
Corruption busting
Second: Corruption, like AIDS, is a disease which comprises our economic growth and stresses our society. The rhetoric is there but the action is not. Fighting corruption must become, second to fixing our education system, the next most important priority of our government.
Responsible capitalism
Lastly: In South Africa, with our ever-present trade union movement and the very alive communist party, we often hear verbal attacks on so called capitalist pigs. I’m a liberal democrat but I couldn’t agree more with them. Not on the capitalist score, but on the pig score. We need corporates who are socially responsible, environmentally responsible and who do not focus of profit to the exclusion of everything else. That’s what the 20th century was for.
The M&G recently referred to Leila’s chosen career path as “far less chic” than it could be, but in my mind there nothing cooler in the 21st century than someone clearly realising that money is actually of little significance when compared with the challenge of finding the many issues confronting the world today.
We need more “can doers” to become Leila’s and the world will become a happier place.
