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Day of reconciliation

How I wish I could say "Happy Reconciliation Day" fellow South Africans and know that I mean it. I went back to some history lessons to recheck my understanding of why we have today before I turn it into a braai day. The two events that led to us observing this day do disturb me: 1. In 1838 - there is the Battle of the Blood River which emanated from the fact that Piet Retief wanted to occupy the land of the Zulus. He feigned surprise when UDingane would have none of this and defended his territory. Because he had the guns (you know that old story of one hand carrying the bible and the other carrying a loaded gun), Piet defeated the 10 000 strong Zulu impis (damn where was affirmative action there because the playing fields - or should we say the battle fields rather - were very unequal). The second is the formation of the MK - uMkhonto weSizwe aka the ANC military wing. You know that one formed by amongst others our very own icon - Madiba. *pausing to reflect on the Madiba legacy and trying not to cherry pick that about him that will advance my selfish ideals*. I digress.....The MK was formed in 1961 after the ANC had tried peaceful protests and realized that this was not working *pausing to think about the notion that history tends to repeat itself * AND the Sharpeville massacre of 1960 was the last straw - just wondering how many straws are currently there?* This is causing great dissonance in my system because as much as I desire this "rainbow nation" of ours, I have never experienced the rainbow without either the rain or any prospects of the rain. I keep searching, yearning for this rain. I yearn for this rain because in my culture the rain cleanses away - iyakhukhula; I have on more than one occasion lamented the emptiness of the English language but then again I digress. Imvula iba sisikhukhula - takes away all the dirt, the rot. Aha, in one word it deconstructs! Nothing has been deconstructed here. What is happening is that black people are being told every nano second to forget the past and move hastily along. In the same breath no one tells white people - yes even those considered born frees that there are certain privileges that come with the color of their skin. I accept, they might not be asking for them, but the reality is that they are there. They get institutionalised all the time. Once a Tantaswa starts talking about the racism that is still there, once I point out the unfairness and dehumanization implications of all this, I get a chorus shouting "don't play the race card." I am not sure what saddens me most here, whether it is the fact that some people feel they can and should be dictating to me how to feel and what to feel while negating the heritage that is mine or that they, in the language used, choose to equate this to a game of cards? This is my life and not a game.... At some point I thought "let me actually check what reconciliation means. You see in its emptiness, this language can be confusing sometimes, especially for one like me who grew up in the deep bundus of the SA bantustans and had to learn English in Xhosa. Reconciliation apparently means: 1. The restoration of friendly relations 2. The action of making one view compatible with another 3. To settle, restore. It finds itself in the Latin language. In Latin it is known as "reconciliare" which means to make good again, to repair. I am not sure if I am alone in this thinking but I think as South Africans we are not at the reconciliation door yet. Are we friendly - remembering that reconciliation amongst others refers to the restoration of friendly relations? We are known to be one of the friendliest people by the world. Checking what a friend - for friendly is a derivative of the word friend - is quickly indicated that this word means literally "loving another." Are we then as South Africans loving one another. Going back to one of the speeches I have made in my term as ABASA president, I sincerely believe this: you cannot love someone you do not know. Because we have not invested in truly knowing each other, how can we love one another? How then do we become friends? This is manifested every day in the work place where a whole lot of black people tell us in numerous research results of one form or another that they do not feel like they belong. In other words, we are not truly known and thus the totality of the person and their experiences is lost to the corporate world. Maybe then to start this reconciliation that I so desire, we must invest in truly knowing each other. With time - hopefully not too long a time, we will graduate to loving one another. For reconciliation to happen, we need to make opposing views compatible - if Google is to be trusted. This to me means one thing and one thing only, let us have genuine and open discussions as South Africans. Discussions that respect the indivual while not shying away from the core cancerous issues facing us and threatening the future sustainability of our country. Let us pause and hear each other out. Let us try and refrain from judging. Let us listen to understand and sympathise. I am not even going to ask us to empathize as this may be a bridge too far. I however, being the eternal optimist, remain ever hopeful. Reconciliation it seems requires some repair work, to make good again. I hope we are all willing to repair the damage of the apartheid system and it's evil twin - colonialism. I believe this is for all our benefit. More importantly if we get this right, my opinion is that my children, your children have a shot at looking each other in the eye and utter the words "happy reconciliation day" fellow South African and mean it. I sincerely pray for a South Africa where your sons will both befriend and date my daughters and have no need to proclaim all the time "my best friend is black." I dare to believe that a reconciled South Africa is not only possible but also probable. I dare to dream that this is possible in my life time. I dare to hope and pray that South Africa and all it possesses can and will truly belong to all who live in it, both black and white. I will give my arm and my leg to realize this. And this, is my solemn promise.

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Change Makers - engaging with ABASA UJ student chapter

ABASA Past Presidents present today, the learned Profession of UJ Accounting dept, ABASA UJ student chapter leadership, ladies and gentlemen - it is truly an honour and a privilege to be here this afternoon to engage with you. Thank you Prince for the invitation. It is not a very easy topic that I have been asked to deal with more so because there are specific questions that Prince asked me to deal with and they are: 1. How do young women position themselves as change Makers 2. How ABASA during my term intends to be a leading innovative organisation with reference to transformation? 3. Young people as a radical element of change 4. How am I a change agent? It does feel like an exam has been set for me and it's been a while since I wrote exams, so I proceed with trepidation and caution. Generally, I do believe that to be a change maker, you must know your history. Know that which makes you YOU. When you know your history, the history of your country, you are more likely to have a handle on what needs to be changed and why. As black people in particular we also need to have a.good sense of identity. This includes loving ourselves because we cannot love others when we do not love ourselves. We cannot be of service to others if we do not love them. Therefore the issue of self love and acceptance becomes critical. Self hate will arrest our advance and development. It is truly imperative that we are not seduced away from loving that which we are otherwise we run the risk of viewing ourselves from another's perspective. The problem with viewing ourselves with someone else's tinted glasses is that forgetting our history may become convenient. We can decide to "unknow" our heritage and thus the rights and responsibilities it places on us. We also run the risk of being spokespersons for others - and sometimes very handy tools, albeit dangerous to our own. As change agents who are deeply in love with ourselves, we do need to guard against the titles given to us by others? Do we interact with these and seek to redefine them in a manner that makes sense for us and where we come from? Or do we merely accept the terms and all of its limitations? One of the terms that fascinate me for example is that of "black middle class." What does this mean about and to me and you? Does it not begin to shape us to think, act, talk, walk in a particular manner? That this may be foreign to our kin, should it not bother us? Should we not seek to redefine this term such that it is then informed by our experiences, our heritage? In my humble view, the term pushes us to predetermined outcomes and forms of being, where neither evolution nor revolution is envisaged or welcomed. This then stifles the change maker in us as we comfortably settle into the age old definition. Let us not gullible accept that which seems to be nice and dispense short term good feelings. As I read Bell Hooks' book "Rock My Soul - Black People and Self-Esteem" I came across where he also discusses the term "middle class". His definition, I found quite interesting as "a closed society in which life has no taste, the air is tainted, ideas and men are corrupt." He goes on further to say "I think that a man who takes a stand against this death - for having no air has to signify death (my own interpretation) - is in a sense a revolutionary." I am at this point reminded of an ABASA convention some 8 or so years ago when Mthunzi Mncane of the BMF urged us to become revolutionary professionals. I guess I am saying for us to be change makers, we have to be revolutionary. What does it take to be a revolutionary? What are we doing at ABASA? For the current Presidency term, we have three priorities: 1. Transformation because the inputs by all the players in our profession do not equate to the outputs - out of the 36 odd thousand CA' s (SA), 21% are black of which black African forms a tiny percentage of 9%. Surely something is wrong here and needs to be unblocked. We are working at creative ways of unblocking this. 2. Women empowerment and emancipation - this I am personally passionate about. The reason being as women leaders we mostly shy away from this issue with the hope that some men will take it up. To me this is counterintuitive as I know my struggles, I own my history and experiences. Why then should I expect someone who really at best will be dealing with hearsay to actively fight for me. I must stand up and be counted. 3. Youth - education and entrepreneurship. Why youth - we realised that we come from communities who still have a sense of awe about this profession of ours. We have managed to put up artificial barriers as we drink merrily from the elitism benefits to the exclusion of our own. We must and have to break down these barriers. Education is really self serving for our profession - cause better education will ensure that we have a whole lot of our younger sisters and brothers joining this profession and others. Entrepreneurship - we decided on this because every time we have end of the year results, the chorus sung is "who is going to employ them?" As ABASA we believe the questions we are asking as a country are not complete in their short termism. Surely one of the questions must be "what are they going to manufacture, to make with their hands, with their brain? Who are they going to employ? Is it only in SA that they should look or are we really part of a greater Africa and as such they must cast their net wider? What about the rest of the globe - recognising how technology has made the big wide world so small? For Young Women To be change agents there are phenomena that we should engage on and with. Like umakoti coming to her in laws for the first time - engena ebuhlanti egxumeka umkhonto proclaiming "ngumzi wam lo" - siwugxumeka phi thina owethu umkhonto as we are bombarded about our exceptionalism. Problem with this is when I believe that I am exceptional and not like the others, I become the greatest, most fierce and effective gate keeper. I believe I am the only one talented enough and pay no homage that sometimes it is really about being at the right place at the right time. It does not mean that none is as talented if not more so than I? As young women change makers let us guard against having to deny our womanhood rather let this very same fact guide us in the type of leaders we become. Let our decisions as leaders reflect our experiences. As young women let us have the vigilance to guard against being a crumb society - where benefactors decide what to give us, when, how much etc. Let us actively participate in changing our country, our world for best. Young People in general - including but not limited to women, ABASA, us here in this room. Know the following: 1. Be unreasonable - it does take an unreasonable person to change the world while the reasonable one is trying to fit himself into the status quo. As young people you seriously do not have the luxury of fitting yourselves into any status quo. Be very concerned when people pat you on the back saying "oh shame, she is so reasonable." I do hope that when faced with a choice between being reasonable or unreasonable, we will always choose the latter. 2. Do not wrap yourself around self - this minimises you and makes for a very small ineffective package. Be bigger than that, share yourself with your communities. Dare to make self vulnerable. For we are after all people made and shaped by our communities. Let's ensure that we therefore positively impact our communities so that we can pass the test of history - remembering that the history of tomorrow is happening right now. 3. If you choose to be a change maker - prepare for nothing less than a tough life. Know this as you endure, all truth goes through three stages 1. Ridicule 2. Violent opposition 3. Acceptance as self evident. So when you are busy on with your business of being a change maker and you get ridiculed, put your foot down on the accelerator - this is the only way to speed up and get to the third and last stage of acceptance. 4. Have a conscious conscience. Let us truly be alive to the life around us. There are small things that we don't even think of thinking about. A petty example - when buying a loaf of bread, do we ever stop to think about the workers that made the bread? Do we ponder on whether they, the bread makers, can afford a loaf of bread (at least), for everyday of the month? If we reflected and engaged on this gigantic petty issue, would our decisions and actions not be different? Would we not seek solutions that would lead to positive permanent change in the lives of those who ensure that we have fresh bread on a daily basis? I earnestly hope that we are always and shall forever more be haunted by our conscious conscience so as to deliver a better tomorrow. 5. Be courageous and live out your purpose. We should accept that when we know not fear, we cannot phantom courage. We must be courageous to take a stand in the face of fear, defeat sometimes, ridicule at other times. As Martin Luther King said "Change never comes on the wheels of inevitability. It requires courageous men and women - and I add "young ones at that." Let us know and accept that the true joy of life is to live a life of purpose. We must be thoroughly won out before we are thrown on any scrap yard. Ours is simply never about waiting for the world to devote itself to making us happy. 6. Be persistent. Know this, after the final NO- and you might have gone through a couple of them - a YES has to come. It is in this YES that our future rests. Let us be relentless therefore in securing the YES. I conclude by reminding all of us that life is more than a mere candle. It is the torch that brightly illuminates. When we let our lives be mere candles, ifuture iyamfimfithekisa searching for the evolution of our history. The tragedy is the future cannot see us then and knows not how to anticipate. Let us therefore brightly shine our torches. May we all stand up and proclaim that we are members of our communities as we write history of our future. It is our right, our responsibility to do for our communities whatever we can in changing our world for the better, before we die. For all of us present here today, I truly wish a death that is deserving of us having lived. Thank you

Understanding your reality

As people, we must understand all the dimensions affecting our reality. This sometimes is difficult when the consciousness of a person has succumbed to domination. The person begins to think, act, walk, speak like the domineering person. When one has a dominated consciousness, they do not perceive their limit situations and thus cannot even begin to deal with these. At best they perceive their limit situations only as epiphenomena. When a person lacks a critical understanding of his reality, understanding only parts of it (segments), they can’t see the true picture of how these segments interact with each other to form the whole - the reality. They only deal at best with the complications or symptoms arising from their true reality. Let’s get deep and not only understand who we are, what impacts us but also who we are becoming, out of choice and despite our limit situations.

Black Excellence - the highest call of our freedom

As I stand in 2014, 20 years into our political freedom, what does Black Excellence mean to me? What responsibilities does it bestow? 'Tis a time for reflection. Black excellence, to me, means that as black people in general, black professionals in particular - must must live excellently. This means our lives must as beautiful as defined by us - the inhabitants of our blackness. How then do we live a beautiful life with our democracy as the backdrop? By observing certain responsibilities bestowed on us by our history. Because we are our black mothers' children, an offspring of our communities, we must never find ourselves seduced by the trappings of wealth and success. (I am by no means arguing that we should not be successful and wealthy - not in this writing anyway). Our freedom dictates that we shall not have an excuse for the kind of future we end up with. Hence there is no place and space for seduction and intoxication with success and wealth. We have to, with skill and haste, be active co-creators of our future. As we build our future we must be cognizant of and take to heart the understanding that this is no space for mediocrity. When we decide to live excellently and beautifully, we understand that we cannot afford to sit and wait for handouts. There are rights that have been bestowed on us by our freedom. One of those is that we hold the compass of our lives in our own palms. If we do not navigate ourselves, we will roadside victims. In other words our benefactors will decide what they give us, how much of it they give to us, when, why and how? Should we allow this to happen means that even with our freedom, we subject ourselves to some colonialism of a special type - not the one the South African Communist Party (SACP) referred to in the 1950's. We will be pertertuating the colonization of our minds and will be lived by our lives with us being beholden to our benefactors. Let me take a moment to cut the flow and pay homage to those who gifted us the present in a matter that spoke truth of their own black excellence under circumstances that were designed to only enslave them. When we live excellently, I truly believe we will be in a position to build from past victories while defining for ourselves what great tomorrow victories we aspire to and what do they look like. we must hasten to appreciate that we can never hope to live excellently without undoing the privilege of yesterday. This includes the deconstruction of the dominant culture of a minority that managed to make itself a majority. We must delegitimatise the abnormality of our society. We achieve this by dreaming new liberated dreams, about our today's and tomorrow's. We Los must recognize the importance of the coalition of conscience. I say this with the hope that our forebearers have done well in teaching us that united we stand! Martin Luther King Jnr tells the story of Birmingham campaign. They got to Birmingham, mobilized the people to join the movement of the African American People. And "even the children understood the stakes they were fighting for. He says that children too young to march requested and earned a place in their ranks. Amongst these young children there was one boy whose father forbade him from participating. The boy arguing with and convincing his father said "Daddy I do not want to disobey you but I have made my pledge "if you try and keep me at home, I will sneak off. If you think I deserve punishment for that, I'll just have to take it. For you see, I'm not doing this only because I want freedom. But I'm doing it for you and mama and I want it to come before you die." Reflecting on this young boy's message I ask: have we pledged our allegiance to black excellence. If not why not? Who and what is keeping you from pledging?; do we realize, accept and look forward to the sacrifices and pained will endure as we live excellently. We will endure knowing that this is for a greater call. Knowing that a brighter future awaits, not because of the periodic passing of 24 hour periods. But because we will have decolonised our minds and stood up for what is right and just. ; are there people that will say "I have been freed because s/he lived?; isn't it that to take that pledge? In paraphrasing Martin Luther King Junior I say: I believe black excellence as a service to our freedom will yield a positive and utopian extreme of our future. I have the audacity to believe that as we live excellently, the scars of our yesterday's will turn into tomorrow's stars. I believe and have this hope because as we make black excellence a reality, our beautiful excellent dreams of tomorrow will be birthed. Let us all dream new dreams, new possibilities. Let us be part of birthing our new realities that black excellence will usher in. Let us hold each other responsible as we midwife our excellence. Let us, with all our voices, answer this the highest call of our freedom.

Success and greatness

There is a real need to pause and congratulate those of our people that have achieved something or other - and I do want to locate that as academic achievements in this paper. As we congratulate we always (as sisters, mothers, brothers, the communities) have a moral obligation of reminding those who have achieved success that theirs is about individual greatness that must build an excellent society. These moments - of achievement- are much bigger than any one individual can be. They talk to a hope whispered by a once desolate community as it wakes up to the possibility and the probability of a future it never imagined for itself before. A future of greatness. Why would we wish to even congratulate? We do so because we understand the personal sacrifices of these individuals, the hard work, dedication and discipline. Some also shed a bit of tears along the way AND they got to the finish line. Sometimes bruised but hopefully never broken. We however cannot allow them to savour the "achievement" moment for a nano second more than is necessary, they quickly must awaken to the realities of our world. There are some fundamentals that they need to soon internalize like: because of their success, they instantly become the beacon of hope, of inspiration for their families and communities. They dare not fail these who look up to them. They must realize that as long as we have poverty, as long as vast sections of our communities remain uneducated - not out of choice, as long as we still have our young dying of malnutrition and diseases that should be and are easily treatable, they have not summitted. If this beautiful country of ours that always totters on the edge of greatness as if a young child toying with the idea of touching fire but afraid of doing so, does not get pushed over, it will always just be on the edge. We need to tip over to greatness at some point and hopefully all of us are perfectly impatient about us as a country summitting. The promised land must be for our time. Our "educated" folk need to comprehend though that we cannot summit until we each lift another. Tajore said "I slept and dreamt that life was joy; I awoke and saw that life was service; I acted and behold: service was joy." Can we each find our own "Mr Tajore" within our own souls and get to a point where we truly can say "I acted and behold: service was joy". Can we serve others such that our dreams and their dreams can be on the same dancing stage and celebrate a life that can be, a great life that is becoming? A life that we are jointly working towards. A life that begins to rewrite the future history of our country, our continent. We have a choice as the "educated." We can choose to pursue success and all it's trappings or we can choose to pursue greatness (where success might be but one of the stepping stones) I would rather we choose to pursue greatness and begin to ask ourselves some beautiful questions: what legacy and imprint will I leave behind? Will my talents contribute to something bigger than my creations of millions meant and used just for me and my kin? Will the world miss me when I am no more. Will the ground, the trees and the grass whisper: there lies a great soul, as my still body is being carried to my last resting place. Will I even be able to rest in my stillness because I know I did more than I could in my life. May we always remember that we do not have the luxury of forever. Let us all be cognizant of the rent that we must pay to humanity - service to the world. As we do that we then ask ourselves another question: will my service, my work, my actions speak in my absence? When I lie cold in my grave, will the kindness of my soul, the beauty of my spirit, the industry of self still be carrying my community through? I CAN transcend time and space in history. To do this though I have to move beyond success into greatness - where my success and that of my community gets intertwined and forms a beautiful life tapestry. May we all excellently and successfully transcend into greatness.

When love comes knocking

When love comes knocking The heart flatters He tummy butterflies abound The knowing smile on the lips The swaying seductive hips The twinkle in the eye The belly laughter When love comes knocking The tenderness of the touch The longing in the look The melodious voice of sweet little nothings When love comes knocking A blessed state of happiness When love comes knocking Get drunk with emotion And know yours is to reciprocate When love comes knocking Feel the warmth of the glow Hear the unspoken words of intimacy Thank the universe for delivery A love so great When love comes knocking A beautiful state of bliss Close your eyes, give thanks and love back..... Because love has chanced upon you By Tantaswa Fubu

Privilege

Unearned and undue privilege in South Africa did not miraculously disappear in 1994. It still is part of our heritage, that is why it is not possible to delink apartheid and colonialism from the current day problems. I don't want to be told to forget apartheid and move on by people who are still enjoying the privilege afforded them by the past racist apartheid South Africa. As soon as we dismantle and deconstruct privilege, then we can talk about me moving on and forgetting. The current SA has been built on the foundation of the past apartheid SA. That is the legacy of a negotiated settlement. Whether we like this fact or not is really immaterial. It does not change its "factness" (made up word, phola)

Dalubuhle - My Dear Brother A beautiful life cut so short A perfectly toothed smile that is no more One more minute - couldn't you give me? Couldn't you whisper one last word to me? Was the pain truly that unbearable? Or was it your pride hurting? Your ego that couldn't bear to see you like that? I still want to hear you sing How, I miss that sweet melodious voice Who do you think makes music with me now ? I miss the big bear hugs filled with love The sweet raucous laughter from the belly is no more The deep penetrating eyes have been closed shut! The sculpted skull shuttered! My spirit broken! I touched your face - you smiled at me in your coldness Or was I imagining the smile as the heart had beat its last I smiled through my tears I touched your still, cold frame - did you feel that? I asked that you join my singing, just for old times sake Did I really hear you sing with me, or was I hearing what my heart was longing for? Will I ever think of you and in the same breath say "it is well with my soul?" Will the tears forever flow at the slight remembrance? I committed to pray for the souls of your murderers, Hoping that somehow they will find the peace that eludes me You fought bitterly in your unconsciousness, I pray you have stopped fighting For the peace of your soul, I will forever pray Yep, I pray for peace, A beautiful soul you were A loving brother indeed You were courage You were love You were loved You are loved I pray for peace By Tantaswa Fubu

April is National Poetry Month and so I dream.... Dreams I DREAM I dream LOVE; I dream EQUALITY I dream PEACE I dream ABUNDANCE I dream HEALTH I dream DIVINITY I dream WEALTH I dream FREEDOM I dream JUSTICE I dream JOY I dream SERENITY I dream LOVE I dream LIFE DREAMS I dream.......

Because history still impacts us, decisions about our todays and tomorrows therefore have to take into account our yesterday's.

Perhaps the single greatest need to have a broadly shared understanding of history is to comprehend the undeniable impact that it still has on our daily lives

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