23 August 2007
Is the Association for the Advancement of Black Accountants of Southern
Africa (Abasa) an anachronism? Is it a strange phenomenon in the world of
accounting to have a Black Accounting Organisation when South Africa says that
it wants to be non-racial?
I think it opens up a very important debate within our society. And the
debate is how to build non-racialism but at the same time ensure the
advancement of historically disadvantaged people and communities, in your case
professionals. Is this a contradiction? Is it a hearing for racialism? Is it a
desire to re-racialise South Africa? I do not think so, but I think that unless
we bring this debate to the fore, Abasa may be seen to be an anachronism. Abasa
may be seen to be a contradiction in the professional world of South Africa,
the same with a group such as the Black Management Forum. People say why do we
need that? You see, the question is not simply where we want to be, we all want
to be in a non-racial and equal South Africa.
The question is: how do we understand apartheid? How do we understand the
past? Because there are those who believe that mechanisms such as affirmative
action are attempts to re-racialise South Africa. They think that employment
equity is an attempt to re-racialise South Africa. They think, that Black
Economic Empowerment (BEE) is an attempt to re-racialise South Africa.
I think that when we gather together like this, we may need to formulate far
more coherent arguments so that we do not force out of those who have been
historically advantaged, compliance with BEE, employment, equity and
affirmative action. We have actively to win them over and persuade them at the
level of ideas about why Abasa is important, why BEE is important and why
employment equity is important. And when we gather together, not exclusively
but essentially as black professionals, we do not only have the responsibility
to advance our skills base. We do not only have the responsibility to advance
our discipline, in this case Accounting. We have at the same time, the
responsibility to advance what we stand for and why we stand for it, that this
is not a racial aberration within a non-racial quest. This is in fact essential
for the achievement of non-racialism. Because, the point that we must make, is
that there is no true non-racialism and reconciliation if it is reconciliation
between people who are not equal. Only the equal, can consciously make a
relationship, only the equal can consciously force a direction towards
non-racialism. Because we are not speaking to power, begging them for entry. We
are entering because we have made the strides to become more equal and to
overcome the historic disadvantage that we have suffered. And that is a
fundamental different conversation as we build the conversation from us as
victims.
It is our unique attempt to overcome the victim hood of the past and remove
the inferior consciousness off our shoulders to be able to speak to power, to
speak to advantage, to speak to those who are on the inside lane in a way that
it is not begging or demanding but in a way that we are recognised as equals
within our discipline.
Unless organisations such as Abasa articulate themselves explicitly and put
out to society for themselves the racial value of why we exist, we will be seen
as anachronisms, something on the side, a side show while the main business of
Accounting goes on. So the point that I am making, is that we have to answer
the question, why Abasa exists. You see, there are essentially four discourses
or four paradigms, through which apartheid was viewed and through which post
apartheid South Africa is being viewed.
The dominant one and it is dominant because it is dominant in the media
discourse of South Africa. It is dominant because it is the reference point for
the main opposition party in South Africa. The dominant discourse is
essentially a new liberal discourse or paradigm. And it is not what it stands
for today, it is how they viewed the past. The liberal paradigm essentially
held that apartheid was the separation of White people and Black people. It was
the absence of the vote for Black people. It was the lack of integration of
Black and White people, in schools, in professions and in communities.
Therefore, in 1994 when Nelson Mandela became president and we fashioned a
constitution that proclaimed equality between Black and White. And suburbs
became more integrated and schools were opened to Blacks and university could
open to Blacks, at that point, our problem was solved and everyone now, based
on constitutional equality has the right to pursue whatever he or she wants to
pursue, that any extraordinary or additional attempt to deal with the past was
re-racialising South Africa. Unless we understand that liberal or new liberal
paradigm in that way, we are not coherently going to be answering the question
about why there is a need for a Black Association, BEE and for employment
equity.
On the other hand, from within the liberation movements, there are those who
hold almost the opposite view. The one view was that apartheid was only a
racial matter, the other view is from the outer left paradigm that apartheid
was only a class matter and that only when you equalise the classes the problem
will be solved. This means that you ignore the issues of racial consciousness,
of identity and ideology, and you ignore all of those things and only solve the
problems of apartheid within a class society. But unless you understand it in
this way, you will not know what some of the contests are underneath what
emerges as a succession debate in South Africa.
On the other hand, we will, discredit ourselves if we succumb to the third
paradigm because this is largely going to be the challenge for Black
associations such as Abasa, to be the challenge for BEE as a project and it
will be a challenge for employment equity as a mechanism. That is to succumb to
the third paradigm and that is the one that says, that, what Whites had before,
we should have now. It is the replacement of one elite with another. And it is
how you conduct yourself as black professionals that will be the test of
whether it is simply the replacement of White elite to Black elite.
All three of these paradigms, seem to work from an understanding of South
Africa's problem of apartheid. If I may use the metaphor of a boiled egg, where
you can separate the white from the yellow, where you can separate the problem
of race from the problem of class. Where you can separate the identity issue
with the issues around the economy. What they do is that they choose which part
they want, illiberal and new liberal should choose colour, just like elite
perspectives chooses colour and base their responses on the issue of
colour.
Where I think, the ruling party comes from, is to understand that what we
are dealing with here, is not a boiled egg but a scrambled egg in which race
and class was fused and manifest not only in the separation of people, but in
the very structures of society. It speaks to the impossibility of separating
race and class, what your colour was and what your access was to the economy,
the wealth, the skills and all the benefits of the society. I think that
becomes one of the key challenges for Abasa. You have do not have to win space
for yourself in the economy but in doing so, you have to advance the ideas of
why and how we need to confront inequality in society.
So, the idea that comes from that liberal perspective is a perspective that
does not address structural inequality. Who had privilege and who did not have
privilege? Who was advantaged and who was disadvantaged? It becomes to
elaborate mechanisms simply to retain the status quo. Who is in the main stream
and who are on the margins? Who are the decorations here to comply with BEE and
who are the mainstays of the company?
And I think that what Abasa responds to, is the needs for the Blacks in the
first instance to add to the existing skills trajectory, a perspective and a
project that fundamentally overcomes the inequality that is ingrained in the
structures of society.
I want to say that this poses a completely different ethical challenge to
Abasa. Because if you are going to revel the third paradigm of elitism, then
you have to ask yourself, how are you different? So in one way, you are
different because the theme of the conference today speaks about driving the
knowledge-based economy. How you are a resource for that emerging economy? But
secondly, how do you manage the ethical challenges and the developmental
challenges in South Africa today?
Again, the question would be, are the ethical and developmental challenges
mutually exclusive? Do you have to bend the rules in order to get faster
development? And the answer is obviously no. Compliance is important and the
ethical standards of Accounting are also important. That brings us to the
second question. Is this discipline necessarily by its definition a rescuer?
Does it allow for us to unleash reactivity in the developmental sphere to meet
the developmental challenges of the country? And I think it does, but it will
not come from those who do not share necessarily the passion for the
developmental challenges.
You come largely from the improvised communities, you come from the places
of great inequality, you come from the areas of deprivation where you
understand the conditions of our townships and the needs of our people sooner
rather than later, to overcome the developmental challenges relating to
poverty, unemployment and under development.
How do you find the balance between compliance which is germane to your
profession and unlocking the development potential in our country? I think that
becomes absolutely critical. You cannot simply be a trade union for
professional architects in our economy. In addition to advancing the debate on
why you exist because that is important for the overall debate in South Africa,
you have to be asking why you have a core of people, professionals in your
discipline, who can shorten the process of development without bending the
rules of compliance. That becomes a second major challenge that Abasa needs to
respond to and give direction and leadership on because it emerges almost from
your unique position in society as the formerly disadvantaged, historically
disadvantaged, the deprived, people who have received your professions, based
on the wages of mine workers or builders of the working class.
Abasa confronts important issues when it is in the company of the powerful
and when the powerless seeks its assistance. You cannot be impatient. You have
to take up cajoles as you go on. The third one, relating to the second one, is
how does Abasa fast track the transition in our developmental part from the
first decade of freedom in this the second decade of freedom. In the first
decade of freedom, we were largely chasing some of our quantitative skills, we
needed to build 2 million houses, 5 million water connections, we needed to get
people electrified, 3 million people access to electricity, all the children in
schools etc.
In the first decade, by and large, we achieved all our quantitative
objectives. The challenge of the second decade of freedom is how do we
transform quantitative goals into qualitative goals? Because now all the
children by and large are in schools, but are they getting the right skills and
are they absorbed in the economy? What is the quality of education? Now all our
people have access to health care, there is a clinic or hospital, but what is
the quality of care that they receive in hospitals? What is the link of the
queues? How much time does the doctor spend with the patient? What is the
quality of the assistance that they get? Now, our people live in houses, but
what is the size of the house? How does the house fortify against disease? How
many people live in that house? Those are the qualitative issues that begin to
come into it. And no professional was born in such a house, which was born
without health care? Who was born without a social security system can turn a
blind eye in this second decade of freedom. These kinds of challenges that we
face.
So, your discipline cannot be a pure discipline, your discipline in a sense,
has to be a discipline that responds to the totality of needs, and not be
particular comfortable compartments within that. And so, Accounting by its very
nature is not sector specific and you have ability to travel the entire lived
experience of our people and use this discipline to improve the quality of life
of our people across the developmental spectrum of our society.
Issued by: Office of the Premier, Western Cape Provincial Government
23 August 2007
