Elite pact

Transcription

I couldn't be happier going to be here today to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the BCRW. This is a wonderful moment, and as Janet just said, i think it's a great place in time to look back at the incredible things that the Center has done, and that feminism has done over the past forty years. But also, to look forward and say -- okay, what do we do next? Not just as a Center and as a College, but as A women's movement. What do the next forty years look like? What do we want them to look like? What do we see as the struggles that need to be attacked for generations to come? It is a particular pleasure to be here this morning, to introduce our amazing and illustrious keynote speaker -- Dr. Mamphela Ramphele. As you all know-- and I'm not going to spend too long going over her biography because you know it and it's in the materials. But doctor Ramphele is a South African academic, activist, executive, writer, doctor. The nouns just keep on coming. It's quite extraordinary. She's currently the Executive Chair of Letsema Circle, which is a really fascinating South African organization that i think we should look at here in this country and elsewhere -- that tries to work with communities, governments, activist groups, and individuals to think about creating positive change, really at the local level. Something we talk about a lot, but she has very innovative ways of thinking about it. And hopefully she'll say a little bit about that in her remarks. In her spare time, she's also Chair of the South African Technology and Innovation Agency, which works on promoting sustainable economic growth using technology. And she's a former Managing Director of the World Bank where, for several years, she managed the Bank's Human Development activities in education, health and social protection. And I do have to say that during her time at the Bank, I had a terrifying experience of actually having to teacher her in a class, and it's pretty hard. I was teaching Economic Development and she was like, sitting there in the front row-- which was one of the more frightening experiences of my teaching career. So hopefully I didn't tell her anything that was too horrible. She was appointed Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Town in 1996, and remains a major and massively well- respected voice-- not only in South Africa and Africa, but around the world, on socio-economic and developmental issues. Closer to home, I should also mention that Dr. Ramphele has been incredibly good to Barnard College. She received the Barnard Medal in 1991. She participated in the Barnard Summit on Leadership in 2001. And she was our Commencement Speaker in 2002. More recently -- she joined us just last Spring at Barnard's Third Global Symposium in Johannesburg, "Women Changing Africa." And it was one of the highlights, truly, of my career to be in that room and hear her and some of the other women speak, and to watch the affect they had on young women. It was kind of a rockstar event, and I will remember it for an awfully long time. And I don't want to raise the bar too high, but we're expecting the same today. Finally, I will just say that it's really a particular pleasure and thanks to Janet, Elizabeth Castelli and other organizers, to have Dr. Ramphele here for the 40th anniversary of the BCRW because her life and her rmission and her work really meshes quite spectacularly with that of the Center. Under the Center's Transnational Feminisms Program, which is one of the new programs that the Center is going to be extending moving forward-- we're going to be hoping to connect new generations of scholars and students with feminist activists not only in the New York area, but around the world. And one of the places that we'll be starting is in South Africa, and with partners in in that part of the world. This is the kind of work that Mamphela Ramphele has implicitly been engaged in throughout her career, and her work really stands as a model for so much of what BCRW is doing, and intends to keep doing. Meanwhile, the timing is nice. Her distinguished career of service and activism covers almost exactly the same time span as BCRW. She qualified as a medical doctor before she did all these other things in her career, at the University of Natal in 1972, just months after BCRW first opened its doors as the Women's Center in 1971. So there's a wonderful parallel there. And so, it is an honor and a privilege to hear today from a woman who once famously recalled that, as a woman -- an African woman at that-- one had to be outrageous to be heard, let alone taken seriously. We look forward to her words, to our continued collaboration and to decades more of outrageous behavior. Dr. Ramphele. Good morning and thank you very much for that very warm welcome, and it's just great to be in this space of Barnard College. And the reason I keep coming back is because I enjoy it so much. So you must be careful that you don't have me squatting. You know, in South Africa it doesn't take too much of an invitation for us to just be there... Éand it becomes a little bit difficult for you to get rid of me. I'm particularly please to have been welcomed to campus by young women. Because I think one of the most wonderful things this College is doing is to give young women a real head start. And to provide them with a nurturing environment that simply makes them leaders. And so, I would like to see Barnard College grow from strength to strength, in addition to it continuing to nurture the kind of work that the Center is doing. But I think we need to congratulate the Center on the occasion of these 40 amazing years. And as Debora indicated, I opened my eyes to a world, when I got to University, where feminism was a new word which I learned. And at that time, it wasn't a very fashionable word. And in fact, it was discredited in activist circles in South Africa. So as we celebrate these wonderful 40 years, let's not forget our predecessors who had to carve out space for feminist scholarships and activism, under enormous difficulties and hostile circumstances. And this wasn't peculiar to one academic institution-- it was a global problem. People almost woke up, professors, and said-- what's happened to the academy? That this language has kind of crept into our system? Almost like an unwelcome guest. But in some parts of the world, especially my own continent, the space for open feminist scholarship and gender equality remains contested. I'm pleased to see Jane Bennett who comes from my University and she and I worked very hard to establish the Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town. And given that it is occupying very prime space, people couldn't understand-- how can you waste resources on a Gender Institute, when you could really just mainstream it? And you know when they say "mainstream" it-- they mean you don't see it anymore. And so, it is contested turf. And it is to the credit of women leaders such as Debora and all of the colleagues here-- that they have remained focused on carving out the space and expanding it in every walk of life. Feminist scholarship and activism have lost some of their glory of the heady days of the 1960s and '70s when women dared to ask the uncomfortable questions about their role in society as full members of the human race. Today, the challenge has moved to-- what it means to live in societies committed to gender equality in terms of national, international conventions and even neostructures, constitutions and treaties. No more are these questions as urgent as in societies in transition, such as my own country. Mine is one of those societies that are wrestling with the implications of gender equality in a multi-cultural setting; and how to balance the imperatives of traditional customers with those of a constitutional democracy based on a human rights foundation. In this talk I would like to focus on the following three issues. First -- how does a society embed gender equality in its value system? Second -- how does the personal, professional and the political find expression in a multi-cultural setting, without too much dissonance for the individual? And third -- how do women leaders set the tone of a care and growth model of leadership that primes the pipline of future women leaders? So let's start with -- how do we embed gender equality in society? While there is much to celebrate about the 17 years of democracy in my society, which accepted human rights and with it, the fundamental importance of gender equality as a basis for all social relationships. That's done. Fantastic. Our national Parliament, our government and out public service have women representatives second only to the Scandinavian countries and Rwanda. Very interesting. Because the Rwandese, having experienced the trauma of genocide, learned that any form of inequality or othering, on whatever basis, is something that should be forbidden. Yet this wonderful profile of South Africa, up there with the best in the world, one has to remember that profile is the fruit of very hard-won struggles in the 1970s to the 1990s, even as we were negotiating our transition to democracy. Rarely do rights ever get handed to you without a fight. We have much to be proud of, as we enjoy the benefits of the victories of those struggles. What remains a challenge is embedding the values of gender equality in the institutional cultures of the home, the school, the community, the workplace and the wider society. Just as an example-- and it is really a painful example -- in 2003 the South African Medical Research Council did a study on youth behavior in 23 schools, in all nine provinces. They interviewed a total sample of 14,776 young people. They found that 50 percent of these young people had experienced violence of one form or another. 15 percent had been forced to have sex against their will. 32 percent always felt unsafe. Violence, as a culture in schools, reflects violence in the home and the wider society. In 1998- 2000 U.N. study found that South Africa came first for per capita rapes. Shocking figure. One in 4000 women who were questioned in Johannesburg acknowledged that they had been raped. 40 percent of women in my country would be raped in their own lifetime. And even worse, a sad reality is that the average South African woman is more likely to be raped than complete secondary education. Just think about it. Shocking. South Africa has an incongruous situation in that it has a human-rights based constitution that also enshrines the rights of traditional leadership and customary law. Now, it's like oil and water. But they exist. And so when people talk about the fabulous transition to democracy in South Africa I say -- right. It is fabulous in some ways. But embedded within... it's like a beautiful cake. Inside it's got some little (inaudible). This incongruous situation explains why we can have such an admirable national constitution, side by side with the most conservative social dispensation affecting particularly poor, rural women and children. Customary law is a patriarchal construct that undermines every gender equality provision in our national constitution. Men and women living in rural areas have been kept ignorant of their rights and responsibilities as citizens of a constitutional democracy. In a way, South Africans -- black, white, urban, rural -- remain subjects. None of us had actually the experience of living in a democracy. And we didn't do the work that's necessary to take us from being subjects, to becoming citizens. And so, it is easy for people to live with this total unacceptable situation because they feel -- you know what it's not my place to speak. Now, if the shareholder of a company doesn't speak, who is to speak? So the outcome of this incongruous situation of citizens of a democracy -- not knowing, nor being willing to exercise both their rights and responsibilities -- is that we have a society at war with itself. This war, on the surface, is evident in interpersonal relationships which are framed in violence in the home, with soaring domestic violence and not infrequent homicide and suicide episodes. At work, we have conflicts between management and workers that end up in a lose-lose situation because again, if you are a subject, you are not thinking medium and long-term. You are thinking-- now. I want it now and I want it more. And if it means that nobody gets anything in the end, so be it. Those are the reactions of a subject, and not those of a citizen. We have, as you have seen in our media, growing violence and hate speech in our everyday discourse. Again -- a sign of this failed journey from subject to citizen. Because imagine if you are living in your own home, comfortable in your own skin-- do you scream and shout? You don't. You just talk. Even if sometimes as parents, you are confronted with challenging teenagers, you don't scream at them. You say -- darling, let's sit down and let's talk about where you think you will be in five years' time versus what's happening now; and how we can work together to make the journey a little easier. But you can't do that when you're not comfortable in your own skin. And that's the problem of this subject state, or the majority of South Africans. Gender equality is about unleashing a value-based approach to interpersonal, professional and political relationships. Such an approach would involve the kind of interactions and engagements in social relationships that are transformative. Because gender equality is not just about making women feel comfortable. It's about releasing men from this false sense of superiority which they actually can't deliver on. And I speak as the mother of two beautiful sons. But if they could just throw away that mask of dominance, the relationships are so beautiful. They become better men and you become a better woman. So this journey of moving into a value-based, gender-equal society is also a journey about enhancing the quality of social relationships for both men and women. Constitutional provisions that are undermined by conflicting values -- as those found in customary law -- are disabled from providing and protecting women and children from abuse as well as promoting the voices of women in shaping their society. And we might add that they undermine the maturation process in men because they then remain these incomplete beings who need to be completed through a positive relationship with the women in their lives. So why was this incongruency allowed into the South African transitional arrangements? The major reason was that ours was an elite pact geared at enabling black elites to take control over their apartheid state at all costs. It sounds harsh but you all just need to look a little below the rainbow which has evaporated now that the sun has shone. And you will find that in fact that was the fatal flaw. This over-eagerness by the liberation movement led by the ANC to take control of the state, rather than go on a journey of transforming the apartheid state into a state that would reflect these provisions in our constitution. So what about the second set of issues around coherence between the personal, the professional and the political? Betty Friedan, that fantastic woman -- the founder of NOW -- asked what was a very personal question, which had enormous professional and political implications. And that's how she sparked this whole revival of the feminist movement in the 1960s. The question she asked to no one in particular was -- is his all? It sounds simple, yet it was a profound question about the meaning of life and purpose of one's existence as a human being. Such existential questions are the stuff that leaders wrestle with -- be they men or women. For women, the wrestling assumes immense proportions, given the constraints under which women operate. It is often underestimated how much women have to sacrifice things that are dear to them, simply to realize their dreams as individuals. It may not be the case with some of these beautiful, bright young people here because others have done the work. But don't take it for granted. The simple desire to be the best as an individual is often undermined by conflicts of duty within the family, the extended family and the larger society. Excellence as a student, as a scholar and a professional often comes at a cost to personal relationships in a male dominated society. The other day I was walking back from dinner with a wonderful friend of mine who lives here in New York. Wine helps bring out some of these things. So he turned around and said -- Mamphela, calm down don't react. You know, people feel that perhaps you are sacrificing your personal relationships. Because I'm this kind of voluntary celibate. But it's not cast in stone. So challenge me, and it might change. But the fact of the matter is -- it is a strategic decision because the conflicts of duty for a woman leader who is single, are enormous. Because if I am seen having a relationship -- it's not going to be, "Oh, she's got such a nice friend." It's going to be -- "Ah, she's bitching around." And yet, if it's a man it's not set like that. And anyway, he was saying to me that people feel that perhaps if I had this other side of me, I'd be a little softer, gentler and so on. But I'm assumed because... I actually have become very soft. I'm not as tough as when I was sitting in the front row of Debora's class. And this is really they simple process of growing older and I'm not quite like good wine, but I'm going there. But what is striking is that -- that man would not have that conversation with another man. But he felt entitled and able to have it with me. And I didn't mind. So, this cost to personal relationships for women leaders -- it's real. I often watch my sisters in government -- as Ministers, Director Generals and other public senior officials -- having to sublimate their feminist instincts to the need to survive in a male-dominated party political structure. And in our system, the electoral system is really heavily weighted in favor of party bosses. They can decide -- (A) do you get onto the list. Are you number 1 or 160? And so, women have to mind their manners in order to remain within a reasonable chance of being in leadership positions. So they've had to lower their voices against patriarchal practices, to protect their positions within the party. So despite all those horrific figures I have read out to you, there isn't any outreach you'll hear from women in South Africa. Or if you do, it's a particular section of activist women. The majority, those in positions of authority behave like it's not happening. Because at least they'll say -- it's not happening to me. And so, we have this coexistence of a fabulous constitutional dispensation within gender equality, as it is called, alongside rampant gender-based violence-- which is not an accident. It is a logical outcome of all of of the processes I've described to you. So the construct we have in South Africa, is that of citizens who are unable, unwilling to take on their responsibilities as citizens, and therefore get defined by the male-dominated environment, as subjects. And this makes ours a democracy governed by special interest groups. We have parties, we have the trade union movement. We have fundamentalist faith-based organizations. All carving out space at the expense of ordinary Mr. and Mrs. South Africa. So that brings us nicely to the third element of what I wanted to talk about, which is -- the care and growth model of leadership development. There is an interesting man in South Africa called Ethro, which is a very European name, Sketima. He is a management consultant who started life as the son of a mining father who was working on the mines. And he then took an interest in the conflicts between mine management and mine workers, and the fact that there was an inability on the part of mine managers to understand that in fact, the best way of getting value and productivity out of workers is to care for them. Now, everything about the migrant labor system in South Africa, it is in fact part of the reason why we've got so much gender-based violence, because you emasculated men, you treated them like dirt. So the only person that they can bully is their wife, their children and so on. Now, Sketima has come up with the idea of a care and growth approach which focuses on managers being givers, rather than takers of the labor of the people who work for them. But to be a giver you've got to, like charity -- you've got to start at home. bYou've got to give of yourself, to yourself, and look after yourself. So that you've got enough of a sense of self, comfortable in your own skin. And then you can really give. But if you are hungry inside for attention, it's very difficult to be responsive to other people's needs. And so Sketima has developed a very interesting four-quadrant-type of approach with givers at the top people, and takers at the bottom with things. Now, talking of things, we are in a spot of bother as global citizens because the global financial system has, over the last 20-odd years been driven by takers. And the more money they made, the more they wanted to make. There's no end to it. I mean, what days in your life are you going to spend with trying to consume those billions? But in the process of making those billions, you have mande many hard-working people homeless because now their houses have been taken away from them. Because somebody came up with this Ponzi scheme on Wall Street and London and everywhere else, and like sheep, these takers just went on an absolute rampant race of taking. But the problem about a taking approach to life is that it's not sustainable. And unfortunately, with the bailouts, they haven't learned anything. They've just gone back for more. It's like an alcoholic. You can't say -- well, let me give you a little dopy. They want the whole bottle and the case and so on. So this issue about giving-versus-taking is really at the heart of the kind of value system that we should be focusing on in terms of developing a more sustainable global society with sustainable economies, sustainable resources. Because you can't, for example, make the ecological revolution that we need to really work hard to make sure it survives, if the idea is taking. I mean, when you have people in your congress trying to balance the budget by taking from the little efforts you are making-- little, may I say, given the size of your economy-- to move to a green economy. It shows you that there is zero respect for sustainability, and therefore, for future generations. We are taking, even from children yet to be born. Now, South Africa's legacy of them-and-us makes it very difficult for different interest groups to think beyond -- what's in it for me? Because unfortunately the nature of our transition was such that, we focus on gross violations of human rights. We didn't focus on the structural inequalities in our socio-economic setup. And so, social justice is not possible in South Africa, unless we undertake the second transition. And this is the work that I'm doing in the Eastern Cape, to try and find out how one can move those subjects in rural villages, in rural towns, to becoming citizens that begin to ask those uncomfortable questions. Is this all? Is this what freedom was about? Not by screaming as they do, and burning, but by simply speaking the language of a shareholder -- is this all? And that journey from subjects to citizens is going to be a long journey because, sadly, it is not functional to a dominant party to have people asking those questions, particularly one that has a pedigree of having been a liberation movement. So you even hear young people who are not yet out of their napes, saying to people my age -- we gave you the freedom, so you better listen to us. Excuse me... but it happens. And this is the arrogance of power. And that can only be stopped by citizens who have a voice that says -- hang on, I don't think you have read your history. I don't think you understand that the freedom we have in South Africa was not won by people jumping over the Limpopo River with guns. It was won by people in the streets, in the factory shops, in the churches -- everywhere. So it's a joint project which has to continue to be a joint project for us to have the second transition. But it's also important to remember that it took women to go to that Truth and Reconciliation Commission and be prepared to sublimate their pain as victims, in order to make the amnesty process work. But then, the state and the government did not fulfill their side of the bargain by making sure that those women got reparations, and so on. So we need to work so that people don't continue to live in abject poverty in a country of such enormous resources. Women leaders in South Africa need to share these stories with the next generation so that future women leaders do not allow themselves to be sold short. Negotiating skills are essential to enabling women to get their fair share in settlement disputes. Women's anxiety about making peace often makes them poor negotiators. We need to learn that skill more and more, to make sure that we get a good bargain, not only for women, but for society that benefits ultimately from with gender relationships. The care and growth focus in leadershi enables one to take individual care of each person with their unique talents -- their strengths, their weaknesses-- whilst pushing them to reach for the sky. But as I said, that charity-- you, also as a woman leader, have to take care of yourself. Growth is a painful process from which we cannot protect our loved ones. By promoting growth in the capabilities of the next generation of feminist scholars/activists, it's imperative for the global community to retain a modicum of civility. Women leaders are not only having to wrestle with their own development needs, they have an historic mission to care and grow the next generation of men and women so our world can be a better place to live in. It's a tough call, but it's a rewarding one. So, let me conclude -- South Africa's transition to democracy has to learn from the first 17 years. We need to build on the success of those years, but recognize the unfinished business that will take another 10 years or so, to consolidate. Gender equality is good for both men and women. It humanizes both men and women, and enables them to blossom and reach their full potential. Women dare not fail to lead by example by living the values of care and growth, at the personal, the professional and the political levels. Thank you. Thank you, on behalf of all of us here, for a phenomenal, inspiring and hugely thought-provoking set of comments. We have about twenty minutes or so for questions still there are students in the room with microphones because we're recording everything. Please put your hand up if you don't get a microphone but if you could just don't speak until you have the microphone so we can get the conversation recorded. I'm going to seize the prerogative of sitting up here, if I might, and just start off with a question. There are so many to ask, but I'll just take one, I promise. I want to think about the most macro level at which you spoke, because you did a phenomenal job of addressing issues both at the deeply- personal level, as well as that at the global level. So I'm going to start at the global or macro level, if you will. You laid out a view that I think is entirely accurate, of global capitalism that's really been seized and controlled by the takers, as you put it. And I was recalling Lenin's description of finance capitalism. That if you go back and remember that work, it does appear like we've reached that stage of finance capitalism where the world is being driven not just by those who control the means of production, but particularly by those who control the financial means of production. And of course, Lenin's solution to this was not so pretty. It was a revolution. And I listened to your description of South Africa as having abject poverty amidst great resources. And I know that's true in your part of the world. I fear it's becoming true in our part of the world, as well. And all the data suggests that's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. So this is the totally unanswerable huge question. Are there ways in which we can, as individuals and as a society, begin to reverse these global trends? Or are we really looking at no solution other than eventual revolution? One of the things which I've become more and more convinced is the beginning of wisdom -- it's simply having conversations. Because the question you have put to me has to be put to the people here at Barnard College. How are you, as Barnard College going to conduct yourselves in a way that recognizes this danger that the world has fallen into? And how does that permeate your teaching, your research and your conversations? Because at the heart of this "taking culture," is how we have allowed ourselves to take more than we need? I mean, how many pairs of shoes can you wear in a year? But somehow it's almost like we are addicted to a consumer culture. And that's what's driving this. I mean, you hear -- I often listen to analysts on either Bloomberg or... it's shocking, the kind of way they think about -- okay, if we've got unemployment, therefore we're going to have fewer people buying and therefore... obviously, it doesn't work as quickly as all of that, but they make it work like that. So we do need a revolution, but not the Lenin-type of revolution. We need a revolution that's going to be driven by ordinary citizens of each and every country. I mean, when I listen to the political debates in this country, I'm terrified because... I think the world should have a vote when the U.S. selects, elects its President. Because what happens here affects all of us. Now, to have people who can seriously stand up and say the kind of really difficult-to-comprehend policy positions such as one listened to this week with the candidates for the President. It's shocking stuff. Okay? But it happens because we have allowed that kind of conversation to assume a measure of respectability. We should just simply say-- you know, this emperor is stark naked. We don't. And I haven't heard in this election campaign process, sensible Americans standing up and saying -- what's this? In the same same way that I'm trying, in South Africa. And fortunately for me, as you've seen with the media bill that the government wanted to put before Parliament, it really works to stand up to bullies. So, civil society in South Africa just stood up and said, you know what? You're not going to pass this bill. If you do, we're going to take you to the Constitutional court, and you won't win. And so, I just think that the revolution has to the bottom-up, from you and I really forming those qualities. The very same things that made feminism which was very unpromising in its starts, succeed. It's what needs to happen because what we need to do is to move away from this consumer-driven, "taker" kind of value culture, to one which is about people at the center of things. Yes and no. We have, as I described in my talk, women very highly represented in the South African Parliament, in the South African government and in public state-owned enterprises, and in the private sector. Very few of them actually see themselves as being change agents. And the few who do, such as our current Governor of the Reserve Bank -- I mean she's a dynamo. And it makes a difference to the culture of the Reserve Bank, which has always been run by men. And she's changing it. And you see it also in women who are running companies where they deliberately make a decision to be transformative agents. But by and large, in the political space, it is very difficult. Many of those women, they actually will you in the quiet spaces-- "Why don't you speak some more? Okay, why don't you speak? No, I can't; it's very difficult." So I think women are, many women have bought into the culture of, acquiesce to male domination in the kind of, with the excuse that -- at least I can make a difference. They don't. Because if you simply are executing within a value system which undermines the things that we hold dear, you are not helping. And unfortunately, it's not only that. But you are setting a very bad example for young leaders. And there was a terrible case in our Parliament about three years ago. A young woman who was sexually harassed by a male colleague. Do you think the women in Parliament came to her rescue? Only one woman stood up for her. So it isn't automatic that women leaders will be transformative agents. But that's why we're having these conversations. We have this historic mission to be transformative agents. I should be asking you that. Because I don't have any sway in in your country, but it is a very interesting example of... this country has got probably one of the highest representation of women who are educated. Who are highly skilled. Who are not desperate in material terms. But they don't want to risk the comfort by challenging the status quo. And so, you have Sarah Palin coming to undermine, I think, the image of women. And I haven't heard other women like you standing up and saying -- excuse me, this is not us. Right? And why? Because you don't want to rock the boat. For your career, you want to be able to go and be higher in Wall Street or in Congress. You don't want to rock the boat. And believe you me, if you don't rock the boat, the boat is going to sink at some stage. Well, that's very encouraging to hear that you doing something about what is not going right in your country. What we are experimenting with -- and you should go into the website. I think that website is up and running. It's called Letsema Circle. It is L-E-T- S-E-M-A C-I-R-C-L-E. One word. So if you do www.letsemacirle.com-- you should be able to get it. That work is premised on starting conversations with people who normally are disregarded. So we go to the back of, beyond, in rural Eastern Cape, and what we do is to harness the African conversational mode of sitting in a circle. When you sit in a circle, there is no chair, there is no secretary, there is no hierarchy in a circle. But importantly, in a circle you face to face. You can't avoid those eyes, because they are not behind you, they are here. So you get people who literally encounter one another on a level playing field. And you start with small circles, and in most cases people living in the same village had never met and talked about what's the problem. Each one is offering personally. So we have privatized the pain of poverty in South Africa. this The social injustice in South Africa is such that we've got the political supplement; we get all these blah, blah, blah write-ups about how wonderful it is. But the pain of being left behind is a private pain for ordinary South Africans. so sitting in that circle, you actually find that you are encountering wounded people. Remember, they come from an apartheid era where they were told they were inferior, they were stupid and that's why they were poor. Now, they are free-- they are still poor. So definitely there is something wrong with black people. Absolutely. Because even when we have a black government, they still don't progress; so there's something wrong. People actually believe that. So you can't say-- no, no, you are wrong. You have to-- why do you think that? And ultimately get them to recognize that they are buying into a lie. Now, going hand-in-hand with this social injustice in South Africa is another pernicious development of welfare. The welfare system, which has just been used as a substitute for good governance. So we have 16 million of the 50 million South Africans on welfare. Now, you know all about welfare in this country, right? Is simply re-emphasizing that subject status; because you are always waiting. Right? And so the Eastern Cape has got the most fertile land of all of South Africa. And yet, people go and buy cabbage which is so out of it, has no nutritional value. But they won't plant the cabbage around their home. Which they used to do-- 10, 20, 50 years ago. And you ask -- why? Because in these conversations we talk about -- what are the key problems we are facing? Hunger, poverty. Why are people hungry? Well, because there is no food. Why is there no food? Well, because we can't afford to buy food? Okay, how did people live before you could buy food? Well, now that you say it, we've actually stopped plowing. Why? So that's -- why? Why? Why? Why? It's amazing, but a month or so later when we went back to the same village of where people are hungry -- they had collected money to fence off their properties. They had actually plowed and they had thriving vegetable gardens, including at the clinic where we used the health system reform as an entry point. They were making soup for people getting ARVs. But they used to go and beg for cabbages and throw-away vegetables from the spa. Now, that they have kind of re-discovered their ability to do things, they are now selling vegetables to the spa because there is so much surplus. So I'm not saying -- let's declare a victory. I'm saying-- this is a journey that is possible. And in the process, of course, you challenge this issue about women this, and children that, and so on. And men actually don't like this idea of being so inhuman towards women and children. But that's the only way they can boost their sense of self. And if there is an alternative way of defining male rule, which is more affirmative and more creative and more possible -- it happens. So I really believe that we need to invest a lot more time and energy in those conversations. And we are a small band of robbers doing this work in the Eastern Cape, so everywhere we go we establish core teams. So that when they are not there, the clinic sister or nurse who used to be very rude to the patient suddenly has become more empowered and she's now the leader of the village and so on. She's organizing things and getting thing sorted. And she's very friendly to the patients. And they, in turn are friendly to her. And so almost like treelike by treelike, we've got to rebuild the sense of self in Africa and amongst people who are really feeling disempowered. And it happens. Once it becomes a runaway fire but it's hard work. I think the first thing is -- we should have had a TRC that looked at both gross violations of human rights on the socio-economic side. Now, I understand that that was regarded as being politcally risky because the apartheid government would not have signed up for a settlement where they would would have to account for deliberately impoverishing people and denying them opportunities. And so, what we should have done is post-1994, to have an educating for democracy exercise. And we have the Independent Electoral Commission in South Africa. They have not interpreted their mandate as broadly as they should have. They just educate people to put across -- that's not educating. What you need to be doing is to get people to walk the journey of-- not that you have the power to decide who governs, we should talk about how other systems do this, and what are the things to look for in terms of being satisfied that the person who is representing you is doing a good job. But also, making people feel that they are worthy of being treated with respect-- which is that journey. Which really is what basically, I mean, I'm going to try and devote the next 3 to 4 or 5 years of the remaining energy in me to do this work. And fortunately, there are lots of South Africans who want to be part of this journey. And we need to really link hands and do this because our democracy is so precious. But it is at high risk right now. Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that anything you put your time and energies to, is going to succeed and prove a model for all of us? Thank you so much for your time and your thoughts.