We Read For You: 02 August 2013

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Conversations with

My Sons and

Daughters

By Mamphela Ramphele

Presented by Prof Basil C Leonard

• Mabu a u tswitswe! These are words uttered in 2011

by a young professional man who felt no need to

explain the context of these weighty words to

Mamphela Ramphele. He assumed that she would

understand his distress and its source.

• This is a Sepedi idiom which literally means ‘the soil

has been stolen’. It is used as a call to action to

defend the land following the assassination of a king

by a conquering power. All able-bodied men would be

expected to prepare to avenge the outrage and

reclaim the land from the usurpers.

• …Ramphele, it seems, has taken it on herself to heed

that call. Conversations with My Sons and Daughters

is a declaration of war on the failings of South African

governance, and the South African government, since

the Mandela presidency. To hear Ramphele tell it,

those failings are many (Lewis Mash).

Question:

Why would this idiom be used by a young SA in

2011?

• Ramphele states that not even memories of the

inspirational leadership of the iconic Nelson Mandela

can hide the growing sense of disappointment that the

dream of freedom is yet to be reflected in the

everyday lives of the majority of the population.

• After more than a decade and a half of transition to

democracy cracks are showing in the system of

governance that threaten the idealism on which the

society reinvented itself.

Question: What is governance?

• Governance is understood as the exercise of authority

with three basic dimensions: political, economic and

institutional.

• The political dimension is measured through indicators

for democratic accountability, political stability and

absence of major conflict and violence in society.

• The economic dimension reflects government

effectiveness and the quality of the regulatory framework

and its execution.

• The institutional dimension refers to matters

pertaining to the rule of law, the control of corruption and

the strengths of public institutions that underpin good

order.

Ramphele

Over the last decade or so South Africa has been

showing signs of decline in its performance as a well-

governed country. State capture in the political,

economic and institutional dimensions is becoming a

reality of our society.

The government’s own National Planning Commission’s

Diagnostic Report released in June 2011, lists a number

of issues that signal the trend towards the kind of decline

that brought down the Hapsburg Empire in Europe and

the post-colonial state in Latin America and Africa.

Indicators of decline we are to watch for:

• Rising corruption;

• Weakening of state and civil society institutions;

• Poor economic management;

• Skills and capital flight;

• Politics dominated by short-termism, ethnicity or

factionalism

• Lack of maintenance of infrastructure & standards of

service

According to Ramphele, the most disquieting overall

finding by the National Planning Commission is that

poverty and inequality persist.

This means that the majority of South Africans remain

poor and marginalised. Social justice remains elusive

eighteen years after the attainment of freedom.

The question WHY comes to the fore again – 4

reasons…

• The quality of education for poor South Africans leaves

much to be desired. A key reason for this is dysfunction

in 80 per cent of schools with teachers often not in class,

not well prepared to teach, and not competent to use the

relevant teaching aids.

The question WHY comes to the fore again – 4

reasons…

• Too few South Africans have employment, especially

amongst the youth where for 15 to 24 years old the

unemployment rate was 51.3 per cent in 2010 and 29

per cent for the 25 to 34-year-olds. The result is that

more than three million young people between the ages

of 15 and 35 years are not in education, not in

employment and not in training.

The question WHY comes to the fore again – 4

reasons…

• Poorly located and inadequate infrastructure

perpetuates apartheid’s racially engineered geographic

divisions and limits social inclusion and the rate of

economic growth.

The question WHY comes to the fore again – 4

reasons…

• High levels of crime and insecurity, especially amongst

poor people who remain excluded from the benefits of

basic public services.

Are we really facing a major national crisis?

Why did he direct his anguish to me?

In some ways, the idiom of the young man - ‘the soil

has been stolen’ best captures the understanding that

in a constitutional democracy the citizens are the

sovereigns.

It is their sovereignty that is at stake and they need to be

called to action to defend their democracy.

Let us describe this young man in greater detail because

he represents many others who keep the same question

hidden in their anxious minds. Ramphele calls him

Matome.

• Matome has worked hard to qualify as a financial

analyst with one of the major companies in the

country. He is a committed patriot who has been

watching the slide of our society into poor

governance, growing social ills such as crime and

insecurity, and unemployment especially among

young people, including those with higher education

qualifications.

The bright future he saw so clearly ten years ago is

becoming dimmer and dimmer.

Let us describe this young man in greater detail because

he represents many others who keep the same question

hidden in their anxious minds. Ramphele calls him

Matome.

• Matome is finding little comfort from his peers who

advise him to keep his head down, focus on his

career, and not jeopardise his great prospects of

reaching the very top.

• This young man Matome has reason to be depressed

and to speak of the assassination of the citizen as the

sovereign of our constitutional democracy.

This book of conversations is a response to this young

man and many other young women and men who are

struggling to understand how their country has come to

this from those heady post-1994 Madiba Magic days.

They see the dream of a prosperous society united in its

diversity in a dynamic democratic order vanishing with

the revelation of each new scandal that makes previous

ones look minor.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 Shifting the ground of reason

Chapter 2 Negotiating culture, traditions and customs

in a democracy

Chapter 3 What system of values are we to live by?

Chapter 4 How do the agreed values cascade into our

governance practices?

Chapter 5 Failure to transform the socio-economic

landscape

Chapter 6 Betrayal of future generations

Chapter 7 Are we subjects or citizens?

Chapter 8 Experiments in addressing social pain

Chapter 9 Leadership for completing the transition

If there is a common theme that binds these essays, it is

the failure of the ANC government to live up to its pre-

electoral promise. And on this theme, Ramphele is as

convincing and compelling as readers might hope. After

all, she is uniquely

placed to speak truth to South Africa’s powers-that-be

(Lewis Mash).

A way in which she continues the conversations is

by revisiting some key issues:

• The values of our national constitution.

• Why are there such large gaps between values and

practice?

• How does a society rebirth itself?

• What would a transformational journey – generational,

political, socio-economic – look like?

• Conversations touches on every issue under the sun,

from corruption to the electoral system; from the

difficulties of mother tongue education to Malema;

from youth unemployment to the problematic ‘heroic’

nature of South Africa’s politics.

• At times it’s hard to remember what you’re reading

about now or what was covered in the previous

chapter, let alone to connect it to what comes next

(Lewis Mash)

Six Selected Readings…

1. Page 14

2. Page 16

3. Page 31

4. Page 60

5. Page 82

6. Page 120 Questions

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