by Justin Foxton | Jun 21, 2017 | Citizen Participation, Orphans & Vulnerable Children
If you are not directly involved in the care of orphans and vulnerable children – or if you haven’t tried to adopt a child in the past year – you may be unaware that adoption has all but ceased in Kwa-Zulu Natal.
In May 2016, the Department of Social Development called an immediate halt to adoptions in KwaZulu-Natal over a case of alleged child trafficking. The case was never proved and it never will be. I know the family well and they are giants in the field of adoption and child care. It was simply a witch hunt designed to give a semblance of credence to the fact that the government simply wanted to phase out adoption.
The consequence is that our Baby Home in Durban North – along with other similar places of safety for abandoned or orphaned babies and children – is bursting at the seams. Where we used to pride ourselves on doing an adoption a month for some years, we have not done a single adoption in 18 months. The impact on children is huge. A quote from a recent article by child activist Robyn Wolfson confirms what we have all intuitively known: “According to Marietjie Strydom from the Attachment Foundation, studies confirm that prolonged time in care affects children’s ability to attach emotionally. Neuroscience has also shown a vast alteration in the brains of institutionalized children.” In other words, science tells us that what the Department of Social Development (that department tasked with caring for our children) is doing, is in fact actively subjecting our most vulnerable children to tremendous degrees of emotional pain and trauma.
The impact of this is well documented. Children who are institutionalized may suffer from a wide range of disorders. At one level this includes depression and anxiety and self-soothing behaviors such as chanting, biting themselves, head banging, rocking, scratching, or cutting themselves. At another level, sub-optimal attachment results in cruel or aggressive behavior enacted with a cold detachment and a lack of empathy.
All of us who run Baby Homes, child and youth care centers and foster care facilities try our absolute best to provide a warm, loving family environment for our babies. But at the end of the day, we are not their family. We are an institution. Our goal should always be to see children placed in what we call their forever families. In the right instances, we are delighted when our children are reunified with loving and caring family members. Where this is impossible, we advocate for adoption. This is because whilst stable, loving biological family is always first prize for a child, this is not always possible. In these cases, adoption provides the care and permanency that is essential for a child to be given the best chance of avoiding attachment-related disorders.
So, why continue with a directive to halt all adoptions in Kwa-Zulu Natal, even after the smoke screen of child trafficking has cleared? If you are one of the many prospective adoptive parents who are currently childless whilst our Baby Home is over full, this question will not only be perplexing but tragic.
The answer may be more complex than it would appear. On one level, we can simply pin the blame on the Department of Social Development. What they are doing is slowly throttling the very life out of adoption because this is not their preferred alternative when it comes to child care. But it is still contained in the Children’s Act and for as long as it is there, it must be actively pursued as an option for adoptable children.
However, we must also consider that adoption – largely the domain of white adoption social workers, white parents adopting black children (I should know; I am one of them), white activists (again, I am one of them) – also needs to reform itself. In latter day parlance, we need to work together with government to decolonize adoption. This means we will all need to lay down our weapons and listen to one another. And that charge must be led – not by government – but by the adoption community of adoption social workers, adoptive and prospective adoptive parents, Baby Homes – anyone involved in adoption. Why do I say we should lead this charge?
Because for too long we have held an antagonistic position on adoption that bumps heads with the fact that adoption is more common – more acceptable if you like – in white culture than it is in black or Indian culture. This is a well-documented fact that is borne out by adoption statistics. For too long we have stood in judgement of this fact, as if white cultural perspective on this thing is somehow better or right. We have made our position on this well-known so now we are left with two clear options: we can all hold onto our views and adoption will slowly die. Or we can reach out to one another in humility and peace, park our preconceived ideas and cultural preferences and talk to each other in the interests of our children.
I know which option I’m backing.
Justin Foxton is founder of The Peace Agency.
His writing is dedicated to the memory of Anene Booysens and Emmanuel Josias Sithole
by Justin Foxton | Apr 3, 2017 | Citizen Participation, Democracy, Leadership
As I write this I am sat – for the second time in 10-hours – in seat 22C on Fastjet’s flight from Dar es Salaam to a smallish Tanzanian town called Mbeya. Now you may or may not have heard of Fastjet – depending on whether you travel much in sub-Saharan Africa, but the thing with Fastjet is that it isn’t terribly fast. It also isn’t very communicative.
Having sat on the runway for quite some time watching the sunrise, we were all off-loaded because of a technical problem that apparently had something to do with the communication system between the pilot in the cock-pit and the crew in the cabin. This really was the last time anyone at Fastjet concerned themselves with accuracy of communication – for the next 10-hours.
For the length of the day, we all sat in the small and unedifying Dar airport. We drank cups of tea, ate airport food and talked endlessly about nothing much; as you do when you are killing an indefinite period of time.
The only thing anyone told us over the course of the day was that the problem would take 5 – 10 minutes to fix (this is when we were still on the plane) but this was adjusted to an hour to two hours when we were being off-loaded. Oh, and around 3 hours in, a tinny Tannoy announcement told us that the flight had been cancelled altogether and we should all go back to our homes and hotels. This was followed immediately by an announcement in Kiswahili proudly telling us that the plane was fixed up and we would board shortly. Both announcements were wrong.
We eventually scrummed our way back onto the plane, elbowing one another out of the way in a desperate attempt to beat the irate passengers of a later flight that had also been delayed. We eventually took off in the late afternoon.
“For those claiming legacy of colonialism was ONLY negative, think of our independent judiciary, transport infrastructure, piped water,” recent Tweet from former DA leader, Helen Zille.
The previous day we had landed at Dar airport from OR Tambo. As a foreigner working in Tanzania you need a temporary Visa. This must be re-purchased every time you enter the country (regularly in my case) for 200USD. Acquiring this Visa can only be done on arrival at the Dar airport and it is damn nearly impossible to do so. In summary: it takes around 3 hours for 2 hapless immigration officials to handwrite – no computers, not even an ink stamp – over 100 Visas. 35 degrees Celsius. No chairs. No water. Again, no communication.
During both of these airport experiences it was clear that systems, procedures and an understanding of the critical importance of good communication, were non-existent. I would say it was organised chaos but there wasn’t any organisation at all. It was just chaos.
I travelled to Tanzania with Helen Zille’s now infamous Tweet about colonialism fresh in my mind. In fact, it occupied much of my thinking during all the many hours we spent in the Dar airport (and later, the extreme Dar traffic). I condemn what she said with contempt but more, with great sadness. I assume that Zille has travelled extensively to places like Dar es Salaam and other former- colony’s; that she has experienced life in countries that are years even decades behind non-former colony’s. So, the issue should not be whether she believes that colonialism had some good points. The issue is whether – over years of doing battle as the official opposition to the ANC – she has become so hardened, so cynical, so insensitive that she has lost all perspective and indeed – heart. One can only assume that she is so jaded that she has forgotten what it is that she has been fighting for; a free and equal society under-scored by a total loathing for all that is and was unjust, oppressive, violent and dehumanising. She has effectively made herself one of the utterly heartless and brain-dead: “Things were better under apartheid” brigade.
You do not even need to move out of Dar airport to get the picture; to know just how despicable, how crippling colonialism was. And the denial of this fact is alive and well far beyond Helen Zille; all-too-often I hear people opining about how Africa (they try to hide their bigotry by making it a continental indictment rather than a racist statement) lacks innovation or how uncreative Africa is or how backward.
And I don’t know why Singapore works well as Zille referenced; maybe because it’s so small you can cover its length on your morning jog. All I know after spending some time in Tanzania and indeed around other parts of Africa, is that colonialism’s negative impact on Africa and her people was beyond measure.
So, let us travel our continent, viewing its unequalled beauty and meeting its superb people. But let’s be forgiving of her faults and her failings because the big white boss gang-raped her and left her for dead.
It is a miracle that she has come as far as she has.
Justin Foxton is founder of The Peace Agency.
His writing is dedicated to the memory of Anene Booysens and Emmanuel Josias Sithole
by Justin Foxton | Feb 17, 2017 | Citizen Participation, Democracy
We know now that #blacklivesmatter. We know this because – in the wake of waves of social media exposure of black people being indiscriminately targeted by white policemen in America – the world has proclaimed that #blacklivesmatter.
But do they matter – really; on a grand scale; in every respect? Does a catchy hashtag make black lives matter a hard truth? This question should challenge all of us both white and black. In a post-truth world, we must guard against the stock response of “so true!” when confronted with slogans like #blacklivesmatter. It is just too easy.
We must ask ourselves honestly and openly if all lives do in practise matter equally, or if we just like to say they do so we can feel okay about ourselves. And this question should apply equally across the colour spectrum, because I have seen as much disregard for black lives from black people as I have from white people.
I have struggled with some of the seemingly intrinsic practises and values that demonstrate that black lives don’t in fact matter. Or perhaps I feel more comfortable to say that I have struggled with those practises and values that seem to demonstrate that black lives matter less than white lives, or that the vast majority of black lives matter less than white lives. I guess it is up to each of us to decide which level of “not mattering” we feel most comfortable with.
These things are not always blatant acts of racism but often just an everyday part of life in South Africa. In addition to this they are – as I have mentioned – often perpetrated by black people. This should not exonerate us whites, but we must also not alienate ourselves or one another. It will only be through unity that all lives will one day matter equally. Until that time we must tread very lightly.
Until that time:
Until is a time between two places; a time between here and there. It is a liminal space in which anything can happen – and it will happen for the best – if we decide it to be so. Humanity seems to be in that in-between space right now. The question is, will we move forward to a better place?
Until we decide that quality education is not only for the rich, black lives don’t matter.
Until we are prepared to pay at least the minimum wage no matter the level of work being done, black lives don’t matter.
Until we can actively counter the attacks against movements like #feesmustfall with such words as; “education is not a privilege, it is a right for all no matter their economic level,” then black lives don’t matter.
Until we are unwilling to continue to watch black waiters being managed by white managers in the clear majority of restaurants across our nation, then black lives don’t matter.
Until quality health care is available to all – not just the wealthy – then black lives don’t matter.
Until we are willing to acknowledge that redress in the form of quotas is more important than winning the game, then black lives don’t matter.
Until we are willing to accept that land must be returned to its rightful owners, then black lives don’t matter.
Until we are unprepared to travel behind open bakkies containing anything between 6 and sometimes 20 human beings – always black – crammed onto the back like animals; unprotected; unharnessed; sandwiched together like prisoners of war on the way to concentration camps, then black lives do not matter. (Just yesterday my friend Akhona and I were driving behind such a bakkie and we said and did nothing. In fact, we smiled “kindly” and waved from the comfort of our air-conditioned car, believing that that would somehow bridge the divide and make their sodden and wind-swept journey all okay.)
Until neighbourhood watch groups give as much suspicious attention to two white men standing outside a house in the suburbs as they do to two BM’s (neighbourhood watch’s shorthand for “black males”) then black lives don’t matter.
Until black beggars elicit the same shock and horror as white beggars, then black lives don’t matter.
Until black rape survivors make front page news as white rape survivors do and until they are empowered and supported in equal measure to write books, earn money from talks and open foundations for rape survivors, then black lives don’t matter.
And we can kid ourselves all we like that the democratic project has worked. We can say people are free; they can vote; they can go wherever they choose and be relatively safe. What more do they want? We can perhaps exonerate ourselves of guilt at the poverty we see everywhere; the degradation; the lack of hope.
We can say that “they have done nothing with the opportunities that were given to them”, but then we would have to admit – in the quiet of our hearts, our rooms, our offices that black lives don’t matter.
But they do.
Justin Foxton is founder of The Peace Agency.
All my writing – regardless of topic – is dedicated to the memory of Anene Booysens and Emmanuel Josias Sithole. I do this to help keep their stories alive.
by Justin Foxton | Feb 3, 2017 | Citizen Participation, General
I had my head buried in a magazine so only half heard the conversation. When it finally permeated through the intellectual fug of doctors waiting room literature I must confess I was utterly bemused.
A woman – one of the doctor’s patients – was asking if the receptionist knew where she could buy skin-coloured plasters for her daughter. I had a bit of a chuckle, assuming that the lady must be pulling the receptionists leg; like the time my uncle sent my brother to the hardware to buy a tub of elbow grease and a left-handed hammer.
But the lady was being serious and it soon became clear that her daughter – obviously, a self-conscious teenager – had a post-operative wound on her face and she wanted a plaster that would help to keep her medical procedure discreet by blending in with her skin tone. Now up until over-hearing this conversation I had literally never thought about the colour of plasters. In fact, I had never thought much about plasters period. A plaster is a plaster, right? Surely they are all vaguely “skin coloured”? But this lady was darker-skinned and her daughter needed a darker-toned plaster to feel okay about her wound.
I must admit that I had questions about this incident: Was this a real need – skin-toned plasters? Was she just being precious? The more I thought about it and chatted to Cathy about it, the more I realised the issue was bigger than that. It was about choice and self-determination. Of course, a teenage girl would want to cover up an ugly wound and she might want the covering to be the same or similar colour to her skin. But more than that she would not want to be prescribed to one way or the other about what colour plaster she had to wear. To the millennial generation in particular, this is crucial.
Of course, such notions would be totally foreign to those of us – particularly us white folk – who grew up in the 1900’s. The colour of a plaster would simply never have been an issue as firstly we did what we were told (ho hum – “in my day….”) and secondly good old Band-Aids or Elastoplast were always near-as-damn-it to my skin tone so who cared?
But millennial “self-centredness” notwithstanding, is racism not – at the very guts of the thing – a lack of choice because of your skin colour? Go to this toilet not that one; get that education not this one; don’t use that beach or you will be insulted; apply for this job but not that one; wear that plaster etc. Surely, if racism is – as many people tell me – a thing of the past or at worst, confined to “isolated incidents”, then we should all be able to go into a shop and buy a skin-toned plaster (our skin tone – not a “pink person’s” skin tone.)? Or should we? Is this not taking things too far? Well, maybe it is. But how about this example: I know from having an adopted black child that it is virtually impossible to buy anything other than a white doll. This is odd as the vast majority of South African children are black.
Now how would I react if I had a white child and could only buy her black dolls? How would she feel about this? How would I feel about only having a brown or black plaster to put on my peachy white skin? Maybe you would be fine with that, but maybe I would not and therein lies the rub. People of colour have been extremely limited in terms of choice. Another example is condom usage: the norm in terms of free condoms (and indeed store bought ones) is that condoms are whiteish. I mean who would want to use something that made you like some fluorescent glow stick? It has – and remains – a challenge to get men to wear condoms so heck, let’s make it as easy as possible by making them widely available in every colour under the sun.
Social media and indeed the fashion industry have begun to take note of all this. A recent Sunday Times article entitled “Showing One’s True Colour” highlighted the fact that people of colour were beginning to get very vocal about “the lack of inclusion when it comes to their skin tone in beauty products.” This has led to the very popular social media hashtag #melanin emphasising the fact that dark-skinned people have 43 times more melanin per skin cell than lighter skinned people. This campaign is of course a millennial incarnation of Black Pride. The article points out that even companies like Apple and WhatsApp have taken heed by including racially diverse emoji’s. You will have noticed these if you are a WhatsApp user; various shades of smiley faces, different colour thumbs for the thumbs up emoji.
We are moving into a world of choice and colour. Bring it on.
Justin Foxton is founder of The Peace Agency.
All my writing – regardless of topic – is dedicated to the memory of Anene Booysens and Emmanuel Josias Sithole. I do this to help keep their stories alive.
by Justin Foxton | Dec 9, 2016 | Citizen Participation, Democracy
The now infamous coffin assault case which saw two white men torture a black man by forcing him into a casket, left me feeling ill.
I felt ill for several reasons amongst them the fact that I – like many others – have often had the dreaded nightmare associated with being buried alive. It is a fate too horrendous to contemplate. This man can only have feared the worst as this heinous act was being committed. That was obviously before they began taunting him with the possibility of placing a snake in the coffin with him to finish him off before his burial.
I also felt ill because in a way that I shudder to admit, I participated in this hateful assault fueled by racism. No, I was not there. And no, I have never personally enacted physical violence towards any person let alone a harmless man doing no wrong. Yet, in a deep sense – and certainly in terms of the repercussions of such actions – what is done to one is done to all and what is done by one is done by all. We are inextricably connected.
If you need evidence of this reality you have only to listen to the language people use in expressing their rightful disgust at such incidents. A close black friend of mine can often be heard saying: “what is wrong with your people?”. The “you and I” quickly becomes the “us and them” when people are giving expression to their pain.
On a very practical level, if I am to disassociate myself too far from these attackers, I am simply denying the reality that I advertently or inadvertently participate in the daily incarceration of other harmless black South Africans. Forget racist thoughts and words – I have become good at hiding those – my very existence as a white South African represents a coffin in which I unwittingly, daily place people.
The point that I am making is that this violent, act of racism can and should be viewed as a powerful metaphor for the subtler, often unsighted ways that black people are entombed in our nation. Of course, it is easier to direct my outrage at these men from Middleburg (and of course I do). But if that’s where I stop, then I have failed to learn the lessons of the parable that this man suffered so greatly to provide me; I have failed to interrogate my culpability in keeping scores of ordinary black people entombed by racism. And what are these tombs? Yes, they can be brazen and obvious; the Penny Sparrow tomb of indignity for example. But they are usually far subtler: my denial of my white privilege, my wish that we could “move on” from blaming apartheid; my subtle satisfaction at black people who say life was better before democracy, my intimation that whites ran the country better; my denial of white influence and supremacy especially in business.
In case you feel that I am being unnecessarily hard on myself, think again. As a white person living in South Africa, if I stubbornly insist on not doing the hard, humbling and often harrowing inside work that will radically unseat my “white in shining armour/white-is-right” attitude (I am steering clear of using the r-word here – though I am a racist in recovery – so I can avoid my all-too-easy “I am not a racist!” retort) from the very core of who I am, it will sooner-or-later be done for me. Will this be enacted violently by Julius Malema and his supporters? Could be. But it will more likely be in the form of a slow but deliberate erosion of the everyday supremacy and power of the white person; a certain squeezing into a coffin of our own if you like. If you are white, you are probably feeling this squeeze already. Is this a good reason to adjust my attitude and behaviours? Well, it is one good reason.
I am not trying to incite fear here – in fact, quite the contrary. I am suggesting that if I intentionally, actively address my own inherited racism and white superiority and, dare I say it, my white entitlement to that superiority through, firstly, admitting it, then I will cease to lock people in coffins. I am suggesting that as a white person living in South Africa, I have an opportunity to answer a case against me well. If I do this daily and diligently, loving wholeheartedly until love breaks my arrogant, stiff-necked self, then I can be as great a catalyst for healing and restoration as I have been for suffering and division. Only then will we find the harmony and peace we so need and long for.
Justin Foxton is founder of The Peace Agency.
This column is dedicated to the memory of 17-year-old Anene Booysens: gang raped, mutilated and murdered, and our Mozambican brother Emmanuel Josias Sithole: beaten and stabbed to death.
