The ANC appears to have arrived at a similar conclusion so this flag is down at present. But the best way to keep it there is for the mining companies and banks to initiate major employee share ownership programmes. The capital of this country would not be shared with government but with the workers. It would no longer be perceived as monopoly capital.
The second red flag is a clumsy implementation of national health insurance which leads to a decline in the quality of private medical care. This could cause another mass exodus of skills, since young talented people in particular put a high premium on access to decent health care for themselves and their families. The way to keep this flag down is for the major private sector health care players to offer to go into partnership with the government with regard to the management of the big state hospitals. Thus, a stampede towards the private hospitals can be avoided when the public have freedom of choice on where to go for medical care.
The third red flag is a media tribunal with punitive powers. This flag has partially risen with the passing of the secrecy bill. Muzzling the media is as bad as undermining the independence of the judiciary. It can precipitate a quantum leap in corruption as there is no longer the fear of exposure. The way to keep this flag down is to campaign for a very narrow definition of a secret, preferably only military ones.
The fourth red flag is potentially the most toxic and lethal–land grabs. The latter could even be the trigger for a civil war in South Africa. Already the fear of this flag rising has caused the number of commercial farmers to diminish and constrained new investment. This flag will only be kept down by bringing all the major players in agriculture together in an Agridesa (i.e. an agricultural equivalent of a Codesa) to negotiate a land reform programme with a reasonable chance of success.
The tendency arises from the three characteristics shared by all the Arab countries that have gone through the Arab Spring: abnormally high youth unemployment; a growing alienation from society by those unemployed young people; and active social networks. South Africa has all three factors which means our own version of the Arab Spring could be only one random event away. Measures to stop this tendency turning into reality may include tax incentives for companies to take on young recruits out of school and train them; an easing of labour laws for small business to give them the flexibility to employ extra staff; teaching pupils entrepreneurial skills as part of the curriculum; and some form of national community service.
By articulating the “Failed State” scenario as a low probability, high impact event – what Nassim Taleb refers to as a Black Swan – Chantell and I hope that we have provided an adequate motivation for everybody to take action to keep the red flags down.
Einstein was right about Israel
I wish Israel’s politicians had the wisdom of Einstein and could instigate a low-key initiative along the lines that Einstein suggested. No big names, just ordinary people reaching out to one another.
We normally associate Albert Einstein’s name with the advancement of physics, in particular the special theory and general theory of relativity. We do not think of him as being astute in political matters; but I came across an article by Donald McIntyre that was recently published in the Cape Times and The Independent which suggests otherwise.
In a letter written to the Arab editor of the newspaper Falastin in December 1929, Einstein stated: ‘I think the two great Semitic peoples that have made each in its own way lasting contributions to the civilisation of the modern Western world can have a great future in common and that instead of facing each other with unfruitful hostility and mutual distrust they should seek for the possibility for sympathetic co-operation.’
The following year, he outlined the process to achieve this objective, a central part of which would be the establishment of two teams of four members, one side Jewish, the other Arab, that would act as a bargaining council. Neither side would have any politicians in their ranks. Rather, he suggested a physician, jurist, worker representative and cleric. Their meetings would be confidential, but when three on each side agreed to a resolution, it could be made public. In this way, the council would ‘lead to a state in which differences will gradually be eliminated and common representation of the interests of the country will be upheld.’
Brilliant. Only a couple of months ago, I was talking to a prominent member of the Jewish community in South Africa and, without knowing anything about Einstein’s recommendations, we both agreed this was the only way forward. What was needed was a negotiating forum to kick-start the same kind of process that occurred in the early 1990s in South Africa when everybody said that the two sides would never meet. They did and, even though on several occasions the parties walked away as a result of a breakdown in talks, the deal came together.
I know that roadmaps on peace in the Middle East have already been constructed, handshakes between leaders have taken place and agreements have been signed. Tragically, progress has stalled and somehow we are almost back to square one. Hence, the need for a new initiative; and, rather than involving the politicians with entrenched interests, bring in a representative panel of experts from both sides – university professors and the like – to restart the dialogue. Again the entire conversation should be held in private as Einstein suggested so that grandstanding is avoided.
McIntyre quotes Professor Hanoch Gutfreund at the end of his article. He is an eminent theoretical physicist himself and academic head of the Einstein archive. While calling Einstein’s proposal naïve , he added: ‘It’s great, it’s romantic, it’s beautiful and maybe one day if nothing else works this is the only way to go about it.’ Well, that day has arrived.
Active learning
In life, only a handful of people influence your powers of reasoning significantly. In my case, two people stand out. The philosopher, Anthony Quinton and the legendary scenario planner, Pierre Wack. They both taught me that the only way to advance your knowledge is to develop a way of looking at the external world which is ready for the unexpected. We all have filters in our perception caused by our background, emotional make-up, likes and dislikes and the trick is to compensate for them in order to arrive at a picture as close to the truth as possible.
According to one definition, a lecture is an efficient way of transferring notes from the lecturer’s to the student’s notebook without passing through the head of either body. Obviously, this definition was in the mind of the inventors of ‘active learning’ where much more attention is given to the learner being actively involved in the process of his own learning.
I was introduced to the concept at a fascinating pair of workshops held in Johannesburg and Cape Town to which I was asked to make a contribution. They were organised by the LR Management Group (LRMG), but had heavy input from the Harvard Business School (HBS) with which LRMG has close links. JF Goldstyn, Director of Harvard Business Publishing, made the observation that active learning could overthrow the style of teaching that has ruled universities for over 600 years.
Indeed, there are now senior executive development programmes at HBS which are only 10% formal learning and 90% informal learning. The majority of the course is staged around learning events involving a degree of online learning, peer learning, social media and improving the ability of spontaneous learning on the job. In other words, you do it yourself and through interaction in teams. You are your own leader.
I can relate to this because at university I remember bunking many of the formal lectures and preferring to go to the library to read the books and articles I selected to read. In addition, I had a one-on-one tutorial once a week with one of England’s greatest philosophers at the time, a man called Anthony Quinton. He preferred to have a conversation about topics which at times were far removed from the formal syllabus.