Talking heads talk (full
version) – 20 April 2013
I was recently invited to speak at the Africa Centre’s
Talking Heads evening, during which I got to share my thoughts for 20 minutes
with three groups of 3 people, and invite discussion around the topic. The opportunity allowed me to hone some of
the thoughts I have harboured and not shared openly for many years. After
the evening, I found myself writing more on the topic. It may be slightly long-winded, but here it
is!
I came to my work of teaching Xhosa and promoting African
cultural awareness through my passion and my calling to be of service to my
community (nowadays, that means global society). As a result, whilst I have accepted a
business model as a way of reflecting an exchange of value and of sustaining
the enterprise, I have struggled with any notion of selling or marketing my
products and services, unless it is part of an authentic creative or emotive
expression. As a result, I am extremely
critical of my arguments, which lean towards promoting what I sell, and yet I
am torn as I genuinely have pursued this path as I believe in its power to
influence our world for good, to bring the transformation of our society that
so many of us crave to see, and too many of us fail to believe in. Because it unfortunately takes effort,
discomfort, humility, sacrifice!
Here follows the essence of my philosophy:
We are going through
a transformation of humanity. Compared to millions of years of life on earth
of our recent and even previous species of ancestors, but even to the last
10000 years, the last 400 must surely be the most spectacular, and of those,
the last 50 particularly, and the last 20 to the extent that the growth and
rate of change seems to be exponential.
We have been through an industrial and technological revolution, we have
seen slavery and colonialisation throw different cultures, languages and
religions across the globe, mixing all manner of diversity all over the
show. We have seen humans master flight,
and ultimately space travel and moon landings.
We have for the first time seen our planet from space, and realized its
fragility. We have seen the birth of the
internet and cellular communication, both of which allow us to access vast
stores of knowledge and communicate across the globe instantaneously (the kind
of telepathy the aboriginal peoples could only have dreamt of, probably did, and
have finally manifested). We have seen
our own consumption patterns affecting the climate, which in turn affects weather
systems across the globe. A bomb in one
country effects foreign policy in another affects the price of petrol in a
small town in an entirely different part of the planet.
We are truly living in an age of ubuntu or intense
inter-connectedness and inter-dependence, its just that we are experiencing it
more in an external sense, than in the romantic, internalized sense that we
commonly associate with the term, that notion of humanity and goodwill towards
others. Quite where this global transformation
is taking us no one really knows. It’s
all very impressive, and surely therefore amazing and an improvement, but we
cannot refute or deny the tremendous amount of negativity and suffering that
modern civilisation has inflicted upon people, cultures and the planet.
We seem too to have lost many of the jewels our ancestors
developed and nurtured, at least as a natural part of our society and
culture. They are still there but they
have to be manufactured and not everyone is privileged to experience them. They are things like rites of passage, and
initiation, most importantly within the framework of a community.
What has this loss in culture cost us?
Whilst some
will claim these symptoms have always existed, we know that socio-economic,
historic and political circumstances in recent times have led directly to many
of today’s most horrific stats. For
instance, there is ubiquitous violence against women and children, sex abuse
scandals becoming the norm, grotesque acts of terrorism on all sides, oppression,
widespread poverty and inequality, rampant drug abuse amongst the wealthy and
poor alike, clogged prison systems, failing old world economies now that their
exploitation is tempered, political corruption as a status quo, manipulative
media and sociopathic corporations, fear, insecurity, climate disruptions and
the resulting dog-eat-dog competitiveness, it doesn’t exactly look pretty.
Cultures
previously renowned for their hospitality, respect and spiritual consciousness
are now in the news continuously for grotesque atrocities. For these elements of modern society, we
cannot blame anyone else except aspects of the human spirit, manifested through
the western, colonizing powers and their systematic destruction of other
cultures!
Meanwhile, we have
South Africa going through its own transformation. The country the whole world has looked to in
these last 20 years, as the place where the impossible happened, where miracles
manifested, where people managed to forgive and accept, to tolerate and
collaborate, where Mandela was freed, apartheid was ended and we had free and
fair elections. There are not many
countries that can claim such magnanimity of the masses, such generosity of
spirit, not from the previous oppressors so much, who merely saw their time had
come, but of the previously oppressed, the people who had suffered land
disenfranchisement, slavery, colonialism, apartheid. These people allowed Nelson Mandela to be
their voice piece, to lead us into an age where all could prosper and live in
freedom and opportunity. But something
has not quite worked. Why?
There are many surface level reasons, symptoms,
explanations, etc, where we can blame government, and indeed our current
leaders defy belief with their shameless disregard for the principles they
supposedly fought so hard for, but that is not my concern in this article. I am seeking to highlight dynamics and social
beliefs which existed before, and persist today which contribute to the
environment which allows a corrupt government to continue to receive support
from those they exploit and let down!
I wish to address the heart of the issue: our very notion of transformation.
When we speak of transformation in South Africa, it is
always a movement from afrocentric, traditional, ‘primitive’ towards
eurocentric, modern, ‘civilisation’. The
default setting is to assume our western and modern ways are naturally better
than any alternative. If we imagined
successful ‘transformation’ we imagine black people getting white jobs,
adopting white culture, speaking better English, working in better jobs,
becoming middle class, becoming ‘land owners’.
Even the notion of transforming people from poverty to
something better, the automatic assumption is that leaving poverty means
leaving townships, which are social constructs and legacies of apartheid (and a
symptom of our system worldwide), colonial exploitation, etc, but not back
towards a traditional or rural cultural stability and prosperity as existed
before! No, forwards towards the middle
class culture so loudly trumpeted and accepted as the obvious answer to
humanity’s lifestyle desires, regardless of its obvious unsustainability. Traditional, rural lifestyle is without much
thought considered to be backward, unappealing, poverty!
I am not for a minute implying people should be expected to
return to rural villages where erosion, droughts, poor infrastructure and
shortage of resources are prevalent.
However, I am drawing attention to the line and direction of our
commonly held assumptions and beliefs, and to the options we therefore tend to
ignore by default!
The underlying assumption we all make is:
“West is best, white is right!”
AND yet, the world looks to “black” South Africa as the
people and the place that forgave its previous oppressors, who chose to forgive
and live together to build a new country, a new nation. It’s the Mandela’s, Tutu’s etc who are
admired, idolized and the source of inspiration globally. And yet no one looks to the culture and the
people, who lie behind the humility of these men.
As a white male South Africa, of wealthy and privileged
birth and upbringing, I should surely be the scorn of all non-white South
Africans. But no, we have a country of
people, who seem to be blessed with a tendency to judge people for how they
treat others, the respect they show, but especially an effort to acknowledge
people! I have found that my efforts to
speak the language of Xhosa specifically, but other languages too, my
willingness to hear and research history from a non-colonial perspective, to
seek and acknowledge the wealth and value of indigenous cultures, but most of
all my willingness to put aside my cultural arrogance and default superiority
setting, has been hugely appreciated by people.
This process of acknowledging and appreciating re-humanises
people, and Im conscious not to sound like it is white people who have the
power to de-humanize or re-humanise people.
Far from it, we white people have paid our own large cost for the
benefits of unjust and inhumane systems and it depends on your values and
priorities that may deem you to judge it a larger or lesser cost. Our very souls have been put in jeopardy by
our collective greed, willful ignorance and continued denial. If you do not believe in souls, then let me
say that if one is not burdened with a sense of guilt and shame at how one’s
ancestors treated the ancestors of others enough to struggle to fully
appreciate the blessings of one’s privilege, then you may be of the other ilk,
those who have turned fully towards the void, and chase drugs, sex, material
wealth, anything to give them a sense of escape or worth in the eyes of others,
let alone of themselves, and yet still they dig themselves deeper into an
ultimate despair!
So what we need is
balanced transformation. The old notions
of black or indigenous people being given access to resources, education and
the resulting choice of lifestyle and career to pursue is a no brainer and this
would mean a natural tendency for black folks to become more Eurocentric. And yes, people need to understand that this
system is built and sustained by people working for what they get and
contributing towards its growth!
Handouts do not work, nor do they empower, nor are they
sustainable!
The move to Eurocentrism is already happening, and almost
all peeps have learnt at least some English, adopted some of our cultural ways
and lifestyle habits! BUT we ALSO need
white folks as a whole to become more authentically afrocentric, more diversity
literate, to get in touch with elements of indigenous culture that can allow us
to experience and understand what ubuntu is.
This would allow us to empathise, to get involved, to reconnect, to
experience community, fulfillment, purpose, and yes, even genuine joy!
And yet many ‘good’ white people and others find many
justifications for leading lives of relatively grotesque overconsumption,
whilst fully aware of the struggles, hardships, etc of others. How can this be? It seems that we have an ingrained
superiority complex, not necessarily by race or culture, but my ‘civilisation’. It’s the same default setting that
non-technological societies aren’t worth much more than the occasional
self-help book, or fantasy blockbuster!
So what would this balanced transformation look like? Well ultimately to become more acquainted
with a culture, you need to learn the language, and of course learning the
language acts as a form of initiation into a culture, depending on degree of
involvement. It requires effort,
discipline, humility, dedication, struggle, and ultimately achievement! Its effect on oneself is profound and
transformational, and its effect on one’s relationship with people of that
culture shifts too, firstly as they appreciate and respect your efforts to
learn the language, and then as you earn their trust and admiration as you make
good progress!
This is especially effective and pertinent when a member of
the previous oppressors learns the language and ways of the previously
oppressed, voluntarily, by choice, an action that indicates a sincere effort to
know, to learn, to understand the ‘other’ and discover ultimately the immense
similarities we share under the surface shell of culture or religion or
language!
I believe passionately about the ability to communicate and
empathise with our fellow South Africans being an important factor in this
country's future. I believe it will be a valuable experience for scholars
who are still in a position to really learn Xhosa well.
There is a lot to be learnt about the human spirit by
experiencing people in their older, earthier ways of life, and thus my focus is
on village experiences and other cultural immersions, a way to economically
uplift rural areas, whilst remaining culturally sensitive and empowering ALL
involved!
You will need to watch our other videos and talks for more
ideas and visions! Its still very much a
work in progress.
Thank you for reading this!
