Opinion by Dr Luzuko Jacobs, Senior Director: Communication and Marketing, Nelson Mandela University.
Our country faces unprecedented and dangerous levels of civic disengagement and despondency. People are rapidly losing hope in the very idea of democracy. It has an ominously corrosive effect on the very essence of Ubuntu, our African holy grail.
At the heart of this is a failure of leadership and of socio-economic regression, something we must face head on and endeavour to change, as a people.
The National Dialogue Launch for the Eastern Cape Higher Education Sector, Reimagining and co-creating the Eastern Cape Province we want, hosted by Nelson Mandela University, is happening this Saturday 1 November.
Education is the foundation for producing innovative, qualified, good, ethical, honest people; for nurturing the younger generation with hope and drive, who can contribute to the economy, to leadership and to the betterment of our society. Yet look at the atrocious general standard of basic education in our country. There are exceptions but excellence should be the norm for all young people to have the opportunity to be educated and advance in life.
Nelson Mandela University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sibongile Muthwa expressed the University’s desire to launch this sectoral chapter of the dialogue in the Eastern Cape, adding that we are compelled to do so given the name we carry. Prof Muthwa and a range of influential thought leaders, including student leaders from across the Eastern Cape’s higher education spectrum, as well as development and labour sectors will share their reflections and proposed actions during the proceedings.
At its core, the dialogue draws on physicist and philosopher Blaise Pascal’s insight about bringing justice and power together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just. South Africa has lost this lodestar.
One of the speakers on Saturday is former president Thabo Mbeki who on 30 April last year made a passionate call for the nation to engage in a dialogue to change South Africa’s future now and over the next 30 years.
People are done with political rhetoric when it is plain for everyone to see that authentic societal interests have been replaced with pernicious individualism and greed. It’s time for the people of this country to speak out and choose ethical, qualified leadership, otherwise we have the leadership we deserve.
The positive side is that we have wonderful people with wonderful energy in our province and country. We have all the resources we need and we have higher education institutions that should be treasured and properly funded and supported as frontrunners in developing human advancement for the betterment of society.
Government and business are not prioritising education, subsidies are declining, and critical funding such as the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) triggers nationwide student unrest at the beginning of each year, instead of being professionally managed to contribute resources our students and universities so badly need.
Change without education and human development is not sustainable and higher education is essential to contribute to the sustainability element in two ways. This entails equipping young people with the skills required for employment, innovation and entrepreneurship and developing them into decent, socially conscious adults; something that should be nurtured from early childhood.
Our educational institutions need to be leaders in the re-imagining of society; leaders who advance the Humanities in parallel with Science, Engineering, Business and Technology. Leaders in transdisciplinary solutions, to address the issues society is facing, encapsulated in the Sustainable Development Goals and the Africa Agenda 2063. Issues of poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, climate change, violence and the destruction of the natural environment – on land and in the ocean – on which life on Earth depends.
To achieve this, we need to squarely face where we are. The country’s leadership has failed us. How many more commissions of enquiry do we need to confirm this? Just drive into any township and look at the violence of poverty and crime; look at the misuse of public funds in most of our municipalities; look at the embarrassing allegations of systemic corruption in the police and judiciary; look at the damage that so-called captains of industry like Markus Jooste cause society. And what kind of values are we advocating where people are robbing hospitals of R2 billion to buy obscenely costly homes and a R52 million vehicle? Why do we have people taking over R200 million per annum in wages, while the majority have nothing to eat?
What has happened to our vaunted moral regeneration?
We continue to repeat the horrific anti-human milestones of history that started with colonialism. The display of excessive materialism is a symptom of a broken moral code, broken socialisation and it is widely evident in politics, business, and in some of our faith organisations and homes. Alcohol, drugs, clothing, cars, everything is based on money, our values have been destroyed.
My doctoral research carries insights into ideologies, where capitalism and radicalism are both ideological extremes, but the answer for society lies in the middle. It does not lie in an ecosystem where the only time most people experience a limousine is when the funeral parlour transports them to their grave, further impoverishing their families with the cost of the burial.
I’m shocked by what we have normalised and I hope you are too – it is a system that is feeding itself, it is not creating jobs and young people capable of an independent existence. If anything, it is producing a few billionaires and a sea of impoverished communities. If we let this persist, we will see more crime and more violence.
All of us, across all races and all cultures, need to take back our country, and we hope our sectoral dialogue on Saturday can be the start of this. It is not another talk shop. Emanating from this, we will be identifying three to five critical strategic concerns that we will be addressing and developing as part of our contribution. This is about action; this is not about adding to the many reports that are sitting in a file somewhere.
We will be making sure that our concerns and recommendations are placed directly into the hands of men and women who will make good use of them, account to society and the development of our people and province.
All four universities in the Eastern Cape and all eight TVETs have been invited.
We are encouraging all staff and students in education, government, the unions, business, the media and citizens to participate in this pivotal moment for the future of our province and country. It is an opportunity for people to speak out and reimagine a new future for the province and South Africa.
Please join us online from 09:00 – 14:00 at https://www.youtube.com/live/TwXz__qgORs and make your voice heard.