At the rundown government school in a dorp in the Free State where I occasionally try to impart the endless trickery of the English language to a grade 7 class, one of my favourite exercises is asking the pupils what they want to be when they leave school. The most chosen occupation is often security guard, presumably because of the uniform and aura of authority that comes with the job. For a poor, black kid this is the summit of achievement.
What about becoming a farmer, I asked the children recently, who after all are living in a farming community. A long silence followed, and then in chorus they replied with one word: “Boring”.
It turns out not one of the kids had actually been to a farm, which is astonishing seeing they live in an important agricultural district.
It got me wondering at the ways in which we squander our human capital in South Africa. Surely it wouldn’t have required much effort for the school authorities to arrange with a local farmer that the children visit a farm, on a Saturday morning perhaps, to learn firsthand that farming is not in fact “boring”? Would that not plant a seed in the minds of at least some of the children, providing the spark that would encourage them to prosper in a career of their choosing? Is the best we can do having that overgrown schoolboy Julius Malema singing “Kill the Boer”?
I look at these children in their ramshackle classroom, where the furniture is falling apart and the only excitement is a stray hornet that prompts them to leap from their desks, and I wonder what will become of them in a society that is forever congratulating itself on its treatment of its children. We have charters of children’s rights, and we are forever being told children are our future. For all I know, we probably even have special golf days to raise funds for children’s causes, such is our commitment to our little ones when it suits us.
Yet aside from a cottage industry that has turned children’s welfare into a multimillion-rand business, where it really matters, our children are largely left to fend for themselves. The missing ingredient, in a society whose members love to grandstand and virtue-signal, is leadership. And a vital aspect of that leadership is setting an example.
How can a group of poor kids in a no-fee school reach for higher things, and for the levels of education that will lift whole families out of poverty, if the most desirable job they can think of is being a security guard?
Business leaders are always complaining about the poor state of our education system. But how many businesses are going into schools to provide inspiration to children? How many of them are prepared to set aside time and money to take the kids to their factories, farms and offices and give them an introduction to the world of work? The answer is, pitifully few.
Trump has been able to fill a leadership gap and capitalise on a people desperate for leadership. Where democrats demur, fascists thrive
We take great pride in our sophisticated first-world market economy, and bemoan the fact that beyond the limited circle of modern capitalism’s beneficiaries, the business sector is regarded with suspicion, something designed to exploit, yet relies often on the custom of those very people whose labour has been exploited to turn a profit. Is it any wonder that capitalism has so few supporters in South Africa?
The rise of Donald Trump to the presidency of the US has caught much of the world napping, especially those accustomed to leadership that doesn’t so much lead as occupy cushy positions in the long-established political hierarchy. What Trump has done is redefine leadership in the world’s most developed country, and he’s done it in such a way that millions of voters look up to him for salvation in an economy that is surely being overshadowed by the titans of the new world.
Trump may have potty, dangerous ideas and he may be promising a return to a past that is impossible, yet he’s been able to fill a leadership gap and capitalise on a people desperate for leadership. Where democrats demur, fascists thrive.
Two dangers await us in South Africa if responsible people do not offer themselves as role models and leaders: first, our children will never reach their full potential, and second, irresponsible fortune-seekers will fill the vacuum left by the absence of reasonable leaders.
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