On a daily basis I hear people, myself included, ask questions revolving around development. Is our country making headway in terms of development? Is it going to take us long before we can be seen as a developed country? In all fairness, I find those two questions irrelevant. However, if I had to answer the latter and former, I’d unshakably stand to say no, we have not yet made progress in terms of development and it will indeed take long before we are a developed country.
My premise for the above lies in the fact that we have not yet identified where development is critically required. I am of the belief that we are looking for development in infrastructure, economics and power of the nation, whereas what we really need is development of the man. We need development in the minds of the deprived, particularly, the black man.
We need to start feeding black people information in order for them to succeed and develop themselves and others. If our aim is to develop our country, I am a strong believer of Mahatma Gandhi’s words “be the change you want to see.” We are so concerned of developing our country and getting it to compete internationally, but who are we sending there if we are not preparing any of our people to stand with the Obamas and Castros of this world.
What might be the cause of this sad reality is the absence of mentors, role models and life coaches in deprived societies. Be it, black or white, South Africa has no role models that have chosen to be role models; it is only those that we choose to idolise without them knowing or having indirectly applied for it, role models by default. With that mentioned, the most volatile reality is that those who are able to feed the minds of those in plenty, have moved so far up in the ladder of life, they oppress us with their outstanding knowledge, or power acquired through knowledge, broadening the gap between the poor and progressive instead of a counter process.
Normally, the transition is referred to as “from rags to riches” and it is this approach towards life that drives us from destitution and plenty towards attaining richness. This is a fallacy and it leads us to misconstruing the definition of richness with that of wealth, a topic for another day. We should not just move from being the destitute and become the rich. We should, instead, move to being rich and then give those who have not been able to move a toe from destitution an opportunity to progress as we have.
That, the latter, can only be attained and achieved through informing deprived societies. How do we expect a society to identify its needs, if none of its members has the ability to differentiate between hunger and poverty? How do we expect a man in destitution and plenty to strive for emancipation of a larger group when all he knows is survival of his soul for today and not success for everyday and everyone?
I am appalled and hurt, at the same time, when all I hear is our government saying we need to develop our country, but all that we have is nothing but ourselves to loathe inside infrastructure we can’t break and build in no time due to cluelessness. I have seen many people take home University degrees, but none of them giving a child, a black child, an opportunity to become something much greater than the individual concerned. All we do is point at the white man while standing in front of our remote controlled gates that protect their R16 million mansions.
I am not taking away anything from those who have lived to fulfil my dissatisfactions and lead lavish lives simultaneously, I am merely pointing out that with few of such individuals we are going nowhere very fast and we as individuals need more of such natured individuals, but the reality and state of South Africans demands more of such individuals.
In my twenty two years of life, I have lived with the notion of transitioning from rags to a rich mind to rags. We must not just be rich people; we must be rich in mind and go back to the destitution and poverty stricken black societies and overthrow this volatile creation of past regimes by acquiring information and sharing it amongst each other. With all that said who is to carry out this vital mandate?
Our fathers of the struggle have laid a foundation for us to acquire information from Universities, international summits and through self emancipation. Those of us in parliaments, universities and business, must not go back to flash, but to emancipate those they were trapped in the closet of poverty and pain with. Involve them in business management planning, start groups that will spearhead community development through political forces and also create and make room for more of our own people in institutions of higher learning.
For many South Africans, apartheid hurt us and stole our identity, but it does not justify the fact that we, black people, are not making progress today. Similarly, it does not mean that those who were favoured by the system, white people, are exposed to all that we need and find rare. The system is not only killing us at this point, but those who designed it to perfection.
It is for the latter reason that we should not resurrect the system to become its drivers and trample over our own people. Rather, let us create a system that works for all of us through applying a fundamental strategy pointed out by Gibson Sakong, finger pointing individuals who will mediate information and translate it in our terms and conditions relevant to our needs.
By Eric Mbuyazi.
8 Comments until now.
I totally agree with you on the number of issues that you touched and I am certain that once we can invest our energy and skills towards community and nation building our efforts will for sure be the solution to our problems, however I will like to off ramp a bit and challenge our system of education in south Africa by mentioning that our graduates have become more certificated than educated, we no longer have education that has value we no longer produce voices of reason graduates have become irrelevant to their societies as a results they are starting to privatize the stupid education they have. Our education does not speak to the solutions that should be implemented in Oder to resolve the socio economic conditions in our poor families instead it is led by selfishness and ego that once you are educated you must not even stay with the community that grew you instead you must be some demy god. We also have given politics and entertainment activities to take charge of our society; we now believe that liberation is being rich.
The solution to some of the problems is that we need to get back to the basics and in an actual fact shy away for globalization because it kills the morality of our societies because we have also became more of copy cats and adoptive to the foreign culture which bear no fruits for us.
Inclosing I just would like to say “if you do not like what you are getting you need to change what you are giving”
I must say that what you guys pointed out is very true in a manner that we as black people are not doing more to better the communities that shaped us and made us the people that we are today, many black people are now able to futher their studies but that doesnt really help those who are still left behide in our poverty striken communities, yes we are now able to get degrees but how are we ensuring that those degrees do help others and not only ourselves? I strongly believe in giving back to the community,especially when you know the kindness of other people and the help that you recieved from them,giving back doesnt have to involve money,the knowledge that you have can help many people in many ways that you can never imagine.We must never forget were we come from, like we say ‘motho ke motho ka batho’ we need each other for us develop and developing a country should first start with us developing ourselves.
Well,I totally agree with you guys.Development is way broader than just infrastructure and the economy.Truth be told,our people lack riches in mind.I personally coming from a designated area or rather community would witness that development of knowledge and skills is far more important than developing infrastructure and other tangibles.I think we are so cought up in the western world we don’t even realise that we have different priorities and areas of development.The western world have passed the stage of developing their knowledge and skills,hence our first priority should be developing knowledge and skill then the econony and everything else after that.I absolutely agree with Palesa’s statement saying ohk fine we further our studies and obtain our degrees but it only benefit us at the end of the day.What about the rest of the community?However I strongly agree that our people’s knowledge and skills should be developed in order for our country to be successful.
Good One My Baby…You have out done yourself.
people when we emphasize the issue of economic development we are not wrong or being narrow,economic development simply refers to the improvement of the standards of living of citizens through improved Education and better access to it,health care and so on, now through this i personally believe that individuals who really want to develop are developed. i mean a priest doesn’t have to go from house to house to preach the gospel,there’s what we call church for people who really want the gospel.same applies to the development of individuals(black people), Educators,intellects graduates and academics need not to go around feeding people information and knowledge in their communities there are Information and Educational institutions more over there’s access to them, and what do they do? remain deprived not only by the apartheid system but also by themselves.
One thing I’d like to say to Sammy, chief it is for such reasons that we must come and feed the minds of those who have deprived themselves. You see as much as we would like to aquit apartheid of crushing dreams, it has become a part of us that we fear emancipation. It is not all of us who are able to access the institutions at disposal social responsibilities keep us down as well. From a sociological perspective, institutions have no use if no man can ambassador them on individual capacities.
sustainable development does not only mean having resources that will last for long period of time but it means developing individuals and communities to make sure that they spear head, drive and sustain that development. through act such as role modelling and talent management we can achieve that. role models need to realise that they have so much influence and if they can channel it towards giving back the skills and knowledge,they can make a big difference. when a black man makes it big he somehow forgets that it took a village for him to be where he is. bieng rich does not mean having a lot of money but having plenty of resources, some people are rich in speech some in analysing facts, some in strategising, some have rich personalities but it needs normal people to start realising that their richness can open doors for them and contribute to the development of communities in an exceptional way. people must stop looking for tangible things to acquire and claim to be rich but they must start searching inside because the have resources that are implanted inside waiting to be discovered and utilised….i concer with you…you are on point.
I totally agree with what you are saying Eric in the process of community development,the importance of community development is that they focuses on the improvement of social well-being and involves people working together in pursuit of their general interests. This power is manifested in the ability of individuals to come together and work toward common goals. When diverse individuals and their organizations interact with one another, they begin to mutually understand the needs and wants that are common to all residents (Wilkinson, 1991; Luloff and Swanson, 1995). Such action provides local residents with the ability to retain community identities, maintain local control over decision-making, and address their own development needs. It is a central component of community and social well-being.
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