by Justin Foxton | May 11, 2018 | General
An article in last weekend’s Sunday Times entitled “White flight ‘over fear and mother tongue’” tells us that white people are pulling their kids out of schools where there are too many black people.
In former Model C schools there are now only a handful of white pupils, some have none. The article says that most white pupils have moved to private schools or Afrikaans-medium schools. This is not new – it has been happening for over two decades now; schools can be a safe place for birds of a feather to flock together.
However, the only white mother left at Saxonwold Primary in Johannesburg says that she doesn’t think the exodus of white families is all about the massive enrolment of black families over the past years. She says that the white families had just “lost faith in government education”.
But at our daughter’s school – a private school – we have noticed the same trend. Unlike most white couples, we have a black daughter and one of the reasons we chose her school was precisely because it is so multi-racial. Since we started there in 2016, most of the white families have left and now there is just the one in Lolly’s class. It is generally accepted that this migration is at very least partially due to the darkening hue of the place, but ironically the reasons given are something along the lines of: “We have lost faith in the school”. So, it seems that the same reason for white flight is being given at government and private schools.
Now just for clarity, our daughter’s school is world-class. Sure, you can move your kid from one privileged school to another in search of ever improving facilities, but is this all school is about; a case of my astro is bigger than yours?
Educating the 21st Century child is so much more than this. Learning and socialising in a multi-cultural environment that prepares them for the world they will one day live in, is as vital to their future success as lessons, sport and extra murals. We stunt our children’s growth and development if we don’t expose them to as many cultures, colours, religions and worldviews as possible.
And not just at school, but at home as well.
by Justin Foxton | Apr 20, 2018 | General
Caution: If you are Australian you may find this post hard to believe (apart from all you lovely Saffers now living in Australia who know how awesome South Africa is – and of course our beloved Aussie family who travel to SA regularly and know the truth). This is because a recent travel advisory from your government recommended the need for high caution when travelling to our land. It warned of – amongst other things – robberies on roads and in shopping centres, ATM and credit card fraud and spiked drinks. It said you should never drive with your window down.
I recently took a once-in-a-lifetime road trip through South Africa with my family. Over two and a half weeks we drove more than 3500km’s, we crossed 5 of our 9 provinces, we visited tiny dorpies (villages) in the middle of nowhere like Alldays, Messina and Komatipoort, larger towns like Makhado and Polokwane and major cities like Johannesburg. We crossed 8 borders into and out of neighbouring countries Botswana and Swaziland. We visited 2 major national parks, the unparalleled Kruger National Park and the mesmerizing Mapungubwe. We went through around 40 toll gates, filled up 6 times with petrol and stayed in accommodation ranging from 5 stars to no stars. We met dozens of people, we travelled with our windows down, we bought food off the side of the road, we got stopped by the police – and let go (without being asked for a bribe). We found world class shops and restaurants in the most unlikely places like Bethlehem and Tzaneen.
We didn’t get assaulted, robbed or scammed once. We enjoyed friendly service wherever we went. People often spotted our NT number plates and we enjoyed a banter about their days in KwaZulu Natal. We felt safe and welcome and we loved every minute of it.
Now you might say that our positive experience is because we are locals and that foreigners might be targeted. This may of course be true, and I suggest that when you do come and visit us you take the normal precautions you would when visiting any foreign country. Begin by asking a local where is safe to go and where isn’t. This will tick all the boxes of those alarmist travel advisories. But please do come.
And to us locals, there really is no greater adventure than discovering your own land. This trip reminded us that we live in a place of such diversity, richness and beauty.
We should travel it more.
by Justin Foxton | Feb 9, 2018 | Citizen Participation, Employment, General
My wife and I recently attended the graduation ceremony of a staff member of ours who had completed a course in Early Childhood Development through Embury College. It was quite an affair.
300 odd graduates most of them with a guest, in a conference room at the old airport decked out like a wedding reception; round tables; crisp table clothes; decorations; white chairs with gold tie-backs; a buffet-style meal; an official photographer. Although the courses were short – 1 year – every graduate wore a graduation gown complete with mortar board. We were like proud parents.
Before I continue I should point out that our staff member runs our NGO’s creche up in Hammarsdale near Pietermaritzburg. She is lucky enough to be employed. Many of her fellow graduates will only get work after they qualify and at that, if they are lucky as most of them are young and inexperienced.
We wrongly assumed that her graduation was included in the course fee. So, you can imagine our shock when she told us that she had to cough up R400 to attend her own graduation – they all had (as opposed to the R150 per head us guests paid). And this excluded photos, which is really what they all wanted. Now to put the economics of all this into some perspective, the whole course only cost R1600.
The photographer hustled them relentlessly for business and his price list ranged from R250 for 3 x A4 pics (no frames) to R450 for 3 x A4 pics (no frames). Frames were an extra R50 each. So, if they wanted pictures in a frame, this event would have cost these young, unemployed ladies from some far-flung areas between R650 and R850. That’s before they bought or hired fancy outfits (and they were fancy!) and got transport. Of course, few of them could afford photos and by the end of the event the sleazy photographer was offering pictures for R20.
Did this event really cost Embury roughly R165,000 to stage (300 x R400 plus 300 x R150)? And why did the guests pay R150 and the graduates R400? R250 for the hire of a graduation gown?
We must celebrate success wherever we find it – particularly in education. But come on Embury! Why not have these graduations in the communities the graduates come from and get local graduates to project manage them for a fee? They can commission community suppliers – cooks, flower arrangers, local DJ’s, photographers et – to do the event at a fraction of the cost and channel the money back into the communities where it is needed most.
Or is there perhaps something I’m missing here?
by Justin Foxton | Feb 3, 2018 | General
Under the watchful and ever-lazy eye of Jacob Zuma, they toil. His mug beams down upon them along with the unknown (to me at least) Fatima Chohan who serves as the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs.
It is not for the faint-hearted being a Home Affairs employee. Their place of work is usually hot, stuffy and packed with bodies all radiating heat and irritation. They would be forgiven for being lethargic, lacking passion and over-shooting their breaks. But none of this is true – not where we visit at any rate.
If there is indeed a hell I imagine it will be just like Home Affairs. The place has all the characteristics of Dante’s Inferno; it is mercilessly hot, one glimpses eternity and it is utterly devoid of all soul. Now, it is bad enough going to such a place once every decade or so to renew a passport or replace a stolen ID, but just imagine the torture of working there every day of your life!
In the case of the Home Affairs office we visit, we learn that you must get there no later than 5:00am if you wish to secure a place in the queue. Now this is early – especially If you are renewing your 6-year-old child’s passport too. Even then, by the time you get into the waiting hall itself – a largish room with metal seats – it is well after 8:00am.
The staff are in place and waiting for the onslaught; several hundred people all in various stages of physical and mental breakdown and emotional despair. By the way, this breakdown includes severe dehydration because there are no toilets for public use at Home Affairs Kwa-Dukuza. Consequently, nobody drinks anything even in the searing heat. By the time we get our work done it is well after 11:00am. So, we have neither drunk nor peed for 6 odd hours since leaving home. For others this must be 10 hours at least. It is inhumane and needs urgent addressing.
I wonder how long a Home Affairs worker lasts in their job? To have to deal with people in these conditions day in and day out must take its toll in a big way. They are getting it from all sides.
By the way, if you are moneyed you can avoid the whole queuing annoyance altogether. What we noticed is that well off folk pay someone else to queue for them. Then they pull up in their SUV’s just before 8:00am and dismiss the hot and hapless person queuing for them and take their place, slipping them a few bucks for their efforts. We saw this happen many times. Suffice to say it doesn’t breed very good camaraderie between classes.
After the information guy and the photo/fingerprints gent, we deal with 3 people who are at the business end of the applications. I am guessing that these are the employees that take the brunt of people’s wrath because they are the ones that must inform you that despite your gruelling 6-hour wait you will have to come back because you have forgotten something vital like a certified copy of your deceased father’s underpants. However, this is when the excellence really kicks in.
We complete our daughter’s application in double quick time and are then passed efficiently to another person because the first person’s computer is suddenly on a go slow. Even this is a surprise. Surely at Home Affairs they just wait out the go slow? No. They make a plan. The second person is all over my application. It is complete in about 5 minutes flat. But then it comes: “Do you have R140 on you?”. I respond suspiciously by saying we have paid online and demand to know why he needs more money? “Because I see you haven’t done your photocard ID yet Sir, and we have all your information here for your passport application. If you can pay the amount, I can get my Supervisor to authorise it here and now.”
The Supervisor – a friendly lady who takes real flack when dealing with the people in the queue – does not hesitate to assist. Within 5 minutes I have been e-mailed proof of application for both my passport and my ID. I thank him most sincerely: “This is Home Affairs and we are doing our best” he replies humbly.
I want to publicly honour the staff of the Kwa-Dukuza Home Affairs office in particular Nkosinathi Ngwane, Nirasha Gopee and Supervisor Suraifa Abdool. Like so many people in our country, they go above and beyond to serve the citizens of our nation. Next time you find yourself in Home Affairs, join the queue with all the rest of us and remember to thank those people whose hot and thankless job it is to man the gates of hell.
Justin Foxton is founder of The Peace Agency.
His writing is dedicated to the memory of Anene Booysens, Emmanuel Josias Sithole and Suna Venter
by Justin Foxton | Jan 23, 2018 | General
Here on the North Coast of the East Coast of South Africa we are driving scared. This is because people stand on bridges over highways and throw rocks onto cars. This terrifying experience has happened to half a dozen motorists over the past month, and lives – some of them children – have been tragically lost. Meaningless, senseless violence. Or is it?
This stretch of the N2 highway (between Tongaat and Salt Rock) forms a psychological boundary if not exact, between some of the greatest “haves” and the most impoverished “have nots” in South Africa. On one side of the highway we have opulent houses, malls and luxury housing estates. On the other side of the highway, the picture is often very different. Here poverty is on display in all its brutality and people often live in corrugated iron shacks. Our domestic worker recounted the story of a recent violent protest in her neighbourhood of Shakaskraal in which people who live in such shacks took to the streets because the houses they had been promised 10 years ago, had not materialised. 10 years is a life time to wait for a house when you are living in such dire circumstances.
When they asked why their houses would not be built, they were told that the land that had been allocated for housing was no longer available as it was now going to be used to build – wait for it – a zoo.
Now, many of these people work in houses and businesses – on the plush side of the N2. I wonder: if I lived in abject poverty on that side and people lived in multi-million Rand houses on the other side – a stone’s throw away from me- and I was told the land I had waited for for 10 years had been given over to build a zoo, if I wouldn’t feel a little, I don’t know, pissed off. Would I feel violence welling up inside me? I would. No question. I might even take my pain and anger out on those with big homes and fancy cars. This might involve throwing rocks off bridges – or worse.
Now of course this is just a theory. But, whilst we build cages over our bridges, we need to make serious efforts to build emotional, social and psychological bridges between people – off which rocks cannot be thrown.
Justin Foxton is founder of The Peace Agency.
His writing is dedicated to the memory of Anene Booysens, Emmanuel Josias Sithole and Suna Venter.
by Justin Foxton | Dec 20, 2017 | Citizen Participation, General
If you happen to visit us anytime from June onwards, you will notice that our house is more of a Christmas workshop than a home.
You see, my wife Cathy is Santa’s undisputed elf of the century! If Christmas was to be cancelled for whatever reason, my wife would immediately cease to exist. This is at once very charming and deeply concerning; concerning because in my wife’s world, literally every person we have ever met gets a Christmas gift.
So, you can just imagine the shock and horror for her when people say things like; “Christmas has become too commercial! We should be giving presence rather than presents,” or “we should be avoiding gifts like toys and games and rather give our children something more useful like annual membership to the local botanical gardens.”
There is a growing movement to put Christ back into Christmas and that is all good and well. But in practise, what does that mean? Whether you believe in Christ as the saviour of mankind or not, what would you imagine He would want his birthday party to look like? Now, before we get all religious about this, let’s remember that His first miracle was to create a vast quantity of very good wine at a wedding. So, Jesus was not the pious nerd that we have made Him out to be.
As far as I can tell, He would want us to give both presence and presents. And the latter is not a money thing; gifts come in all shapes, sizes and prices; Cathy makes a lot of her own presents and decorations. You see, theologically speaking, Christmas and generosity are inseparable. So why use this celebration to teach our kids about being frugal or practical? Surely, this is the time when we teach them about selfless giving and generosity?
If we examine our motivation for giving less at Christmas, might it reveal some meanness in us? I know it does in me. I watch Cathy’s gift giving and my blood pressure skyrockets just about as fast as our credit card bill. But then, I see the look of joy and amazement as her and Lolly hand out the carefully chosen and wrapped gifts to school security guards, cleaners and cooks (those who are most often forgotten) and I think this is probably the kind of birthday Jesus would have loved.
Having given the presents, how do we give ourselves in terms of our presence? I recently came across some suggestions from an American Lawyer by the name of Howard W Hunter. Apologies to Mr Hunter for tweaking this in the interests of space and our local context:
“This Christmas mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust. Replace negativity with hope. Give a soft answer. Encourage a young person. Keep a promise. Let go of a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Apologize. Try to understand. Reach out to someone who doesn’t look or sound like you. Examine your demands on others. Think first of someone else. Be kind. Be gentle. Laugh a little more. Express your gratitude. Give people your time and attention. Welcome a stranger. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth. Speak your love and then speak it again.”
Christmas is an invitation for us to move outside of ourselves and our comfort zones and into a world that is desperate for people to extend a kind word, a gentle touch or a helping or giving hand.
Finally, you will notice that Hunter doesn’t say we should stop anything; on the contrary. He suggests we start doing small things that bring heaven to earth. This is a world in which charity – kindness and generosity – should begin at home, but not end there.
So, from me and my family to you and yours, may you have the most glorious and abundant Christmas ever.
Justin Foxton is founder of The Peace Agency.
His writing is dedicated to the memory of Anene Booysens, Emmanuel Josias Sithole and Suna Venter.
