Affirmative Action Town Planners: 0, Mbeki 1

Mbeki slammed town planners for “applying apartheid policies” when demarcating land for residential use, placing the poor on the outskirts far away from jobs. Read all about it here (but then you have to promise to remember to click back and read further ).

Some days Mbeki can really make me proud to have him as president. Why can’t he take on his staff (I suppose it’s fair to refer to the local governments as part of his staff) more often?

The problem is a bit more complicated in already settled areas, however.

I work with someone who obtained his degree in town planning from the illustrious University of Pretoria. Illustrious, because that’s where I got my degree in engineering. Of course, he’s now working as a business analyst. Makes sense? No? Well evidently the business of town planning is quite a political one and you can’t have white Afrikaner males involved there. Make a bit more sense?

Anyway, this qualified but inexperienced townplanner told a story of urban density, a theory put into good practice in Sweden. The reason I know is because I’m in Sweden, and we spoke to a Swede about it last night.

Basically what you need is a lot of people living close to their jobs and other necessary facilities (schools, shops, public transport hubs) in urban centres. What Mbeki says is true, and a definite problem, but not one so easily solved by moving poorer folks ino ‘richer’ areas and/or closer to ‘employment.’

Firstly there’s the natural South African tendency towards the suburbs. There are probably many factors that influence this tendency but I know one of the greatest is the amount of crime in the city centres. Businesses and people have been vacating the CBDs of our cities for quite some time.

Next let’s examine the concept of ‘employment.’ While I am no expert on the topic, I understand we have a bit of a joblessness crisis on our hands in the good old R of SA. And once again while I’m no expert on the topic I have a theory as to the nature of the crisis. From what I’ve seen there’s no shortage of work, especially in the professional fields. Especially if you’re black (whoops, was that out loud). Oh well it’s fair enough, I believe. I also believe that if things continue to develop as they are now (and I see no reason why they should not) there will be no need for so-called affirmative action when there are enough black professionals to fill the quota of positions because there’ll be enough work and they’ll be of equal competence and training by then. Right now, however, it (affirmative action in its current shape and form) serves no purpose other than removing employment opportunities from whites, fueling racism, and propagating self-doubt in blacks that are awarded positions when there are whites applying for the same position. Anyway, this is a debate and rant for another time, but relevant background to the job situation in South Africa.

So there’s a joblessness crisis, but more than enough work, and sometimes blacks who are not qualified for a job get the post over obviously qualified whites. (I’m not talking about ‘better qualified’ or ‘more experienced’ because in those cases it is more than fair to give an opportunity to someone who had been denied such opportunities because of his skin colour. I’m talking about cases when a candidate is awarded a job that he has no qualification or experience for.) Now why is that? Education, simply. And there’s another rant for another day — the state of education.

I’d be willing to wager that a lot of work in cities require reasonable command of English (and/or Afrikaans) if not literacy. When most of South Africa is English illiterate and computer illiterate, this poses a problem. There are adult-schooling projects and every now and again you hear uplifing stories of old and very disadvantaged blacks making it through high school. That’s a step in the right direction, but those few who do achieve it are but a drop in the ocean (meh, a terrible cliché but that’s as inspired as this figure of speech is getting).

Moving poorer black people closer to the centres of towns does not necessarily bring them closer to employment because most of them have, quite frankly, been disqualified from performing the functions a modern job requires thanks to the colourful past of the country. This does not mean that those who truly want to can’t uplift themselves… The contrary has been proven countless times by brave souls. But it takes amazing effort on their part and great humility to put themselves through school or great dedication to learn how to work something as foreign as a computer. I have not heard stories of those that don’t have a command of English. If you have an uplifting story, please share it, it would make a wonderful example.

In the end the problem is complex and vast, ranging from our depleted urban centres, to the (now denied and racialised) crime problems, to a legacy of poor education. It’s a difficult juggling act, so many issues that need to be dealt with, yet surely it must be becoming clearer that you can’t eliminate the country’s problems by tackling them from one end. Certain issues must naturally receive priority but for the most part trying to resolve one problem and not the other will result in nothing being achieved at all.

One thing the government’s affirmative action policies have resulted in is more scholarships and other funding for black students (this doesn’t mean that everyone has equal access to education yet but it’s a start). This means that in time the education problem will be dealt with. I can’t see why a higher level in education will not result in reduced crime and why reduced crime will not result in our CBDs flourishing once more.

I just fear that the government gets more impatient in feeling the pressure to show results and succeeds only in perpetuating the problems rather than resolving them. Here’s an interesting but scary video that should illustrate what happens when change is rushed (or the president is a madman, whichever comes first ). South Africans be warned that this is a 9.77MB clip.

I can only hope that more patience is shown than has been in the past because the truth is that the damage done by decades of apartheid can not be undone in 10 years.