Lethargic leadership to blame

Some words outlive their sell-by date without the user even knowing it. One such tag is the word "ungovernable", claimed to be issued recently, like a fatwa, by the head of the National Youth Development Agency.

It is most often used as a threat by those who were either children or still unborn during the 1980s, when the word first surfaced in political rhetoric during the most difficult days of the anti-apartheid struggle. It was used as a weapon of war against an illegitimate government; it was as much a tool to mobilise the masses as it was a signal of disregard for white governance in a largely black country.

It made a lot of sense then, but those with an audience now have moved on to other sneaky terms like "black snakes in grass" (at least the snake is black, some say).

But the word "ungovernable" has retained its emotive and political value. For that reason every now and again some protesting group or mindless demagogue would retrieve the word from recent memory and threaten to make a democratic state "ungovernable."

That is impossible: the people and their representatives (whether we like them or not) govern, and while some mob might shut down some essential service for a while, that hardly counts as making a whole country ungovernable, as was the original meaning.

Still, the images of striking workers overturning rubbish bins, burning trash, robbing street traders and assaulting non-striking staff evoke images of ungovernability from another time.

The fact that this happens almost as if on schedule year after year gives the impression that government has no effective answer to this routine trashing of public spaces.

We briefly observe and express disgust, and then move on to other things as if this public display of indecency is the most normal thing in the world. We certainly do not believe that the government is going to collapse as a result; they will be back next year.

And that is precisely my concern. What happens in a society where public indecency becomes normative? What does it say about us as South Africans when the public slander of commentators and the public trashing of cities becomes such an everyday event that nobody notices? What have we become when the provocation of ungovernability does not evoke the necessary political response from our leaders?

I have considerable respect for the deputy president of our country, Kgalema Motlanthe; he is a decent man. But I was puzzled by his call for ethics to be taught in our schools. That is probably a good idea in a normal society. The problem here is that they are already being taught ethics - by their political elders. When they read in the media one story after another about corruption, they are learning ethics. When they see their parents and siblings trashing the streets of our major cities, they are learning ethics. When they see youth leaders besmirching the reputations of leaders of this and other countries, you better believe the children are learning ethics.

You cannot inject ethics into children by preaching it through the school curriculum, no more than an alcoholic parent can effectively teach an observing child about the dangers of substance abuse. The more powerful curriculum is what children learn about values through everyday observation.

When riotous youth pillaged the shops and destroyed vehicles in major cities in the United Kingdom, starting in north London, the British prime minister returned from his vacation and walked into the middle of a street outside his residence to condemn what went wrong, and to announce what would be done to correct the social delinquency on display in the streets of his country.

When the same kinds of public violence were executed by the Samwu strikers, not a whimper was heard from our leaders.

What will be the consequences? It will happen again and again. No matter what agreements are made this year between the negotiating parties, expect next year and the year after that this annual pillaging of our cities will continue for one simple reason: the lack of, the failure of, leadership.

Schools are not places that lead the change in their surrounding communities. They tend to more often reflect the rot in society. In the words of one brand of educational theorists, schools are more likely to "reproduce" the existing order than they are to transform it. The answer to the rot lies outside of the schools.