PALI LEHOHLA | Time has come to strip SA naked. Bare the smallernyana skeletons to all and sundry

The intersection of technology and politics has never been on trial as it is today. Both hold the promise of liberation, freedom and bounty; both hold a leash for enslavement. Information technology is non-rival. This is its intrinsic property of infectious altruist bounty. On the other hand, politics promises virtues of struggle and a better life for all. These two pillars of our times deliver the opposite of their intrinsic architecture to society. Why is that so? Through the lens of the Ten Commandments of Chief Albert Luthuli, it is possible to find out why that is and what we need to do to unleash global peace and global prosperity.

In a world that strives for multilateralism against unipolar hegemony, polarisation has stepped into the vacuum instead. Despite the wonders of technology that have given us connectivity and access to everything everywhere just by navigating it with your fingers, inequality has reached its zenith. Ten men in the world own what half of the poor own and half the world’s population is poor. What are the most relevant commandments of Chief Albert Luthuli that serve as reference points in the marriage of politics and data revolution? Half of the world will be making critical choices of who should lead them this year.

What has been the benefit of technology? In a survey I was assigned to undertake in 1978 back home in Lesotho when I was on a winter vacation from university, I witnessed now in retrospect the tremendous value technology has brought to human lives. Yet at the same time questions remain as to whether this value created on the back of people’s data, redistributes value to the people. The survey was part of the University of Colorado’s global research and investigation on farmers’ risk perceptions and risk-avoidance strategies. The risk that stood out clearly in the context of the evolution of communications technology had to do with household decision-making. The question on this was who decides on what to plant and when to plough in preparation for that, when to plant it and when to it. These are important, time-bound decisions in agrarian societies. They determine their food security now and in the next 24 months.

Today we [South Africans] summit the highest peak ever in the world, yet we fail to go over a molehill.

I was interviewing a middle-aged woman whose husband worked in the mines in South Africa. To the question of who decides on these mission-critical issues, the decision was by the husband. It took a letter to be written, posted a bus trip away, after which it took up to three weeks before a reply could be received. Weather conditions such as rainfall, evaporation and hailstorm operate independently of this very life-saving letter. Today within a minute a call can be made as the clouds form. By the end of the downpour a span of cattle plough and planter ready can be deployed to do the needful. With this significant reduction in the cost of decision-making, with obvious real and potential benefits, the question can be asked: why is it that the technological dividend in terms of material benefits continues to elude the poor and instead has flown in the direction of the rich.

One of Chief Luthuli’s 10 commandments that galvanised the work that South Africa immersed itself in on Palestine is “Indeed the challenge is for us to ensure the world from self-destruction. In our contribution to peace, we are resolved to end such evils as oppression, white supremacy and race discrimination, all of which are incompatible with world peace and security. There is indeed a threat to peace.” This propelled South Africa to summit Mount Sinai and the Golan Heights. While we have mounted these great heights with distinction we get beaten by cholera and electricity here at home. As there is something wrong in the architecture and value chain of groundbreaking discoveries in technology, equally there is something inconsistent in our scaffolding of our grand missions such as world peace and peace within the country. For the benefit of Chief Luthuli’s commandment to last and be coherent within us, we need to inspect our moral, social, political and economic conduct. The discussions in our shack dwellings, among the unemployed, among those not in employment, education or training (NEET), among the 18-million recipients of “motente”, is to confront these questions, particularly informed by another of Chief Luthuli’s commandments: “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” The question is why you and you only deserve to be poor. It may well be you have been made to become the voting cattle the late John Phumzile Gomomo of the United Auto Workers Union referred to.

Once upon a time lived a king with several wives. The king’s delicacy was a tortoise “khulu” in Sesotho and his majesty was eager to know who ate his khulu and punish her accordingly. In Sesotho we have a saying that “sholu ke le ts’oeroeng” — a thief is one who is caught; when not caught, even if one stole, they’re not a thief. We have trained our conscience that way. Therein lies Bathabile Dlamini’s perceptive assertion that “everyone has smallernyana skeletons”. Thabi Leoka's skeleton of qualifications, whatever its size, is a reflection of ourselves. If not, how do we explain our nation’s mood swings and collective amnesia?

That Thabi Leoka got caught out is not enough. How many of us in key leadership positions are keeping in our cupboards biggernyana and smallernyana skeletons Bathabile Dlamini referred to? This inertia of “a thief is one caught” mantra might actually be the main checkmate holding the nation back. Today we summit the highest peak ever in the world, yet we fail to go over a molehill. The smallernyana and biggernyana skeletons hold us back. Again, here, Chief Luthuli’s commandments give us counsel and clarity on Bathabile’s smallernyana skeletons — “it is so easy to admire a person, to admire what he or she stood for or stands for, and yet shrink from cutting off the mission of the present.” BaShangaan have a way of confession that unleashes the truth. When it does not rain, confessions of who has caused it not to rain have to be made. To do this they all go on a pilgrimage to a hot rock. Men one side and women another. Each sex not visible to the other. They bare their nakedness on the rock and as they burn from its scorching inferno, they move from side-to-side chanting, here I am naked, and I confirm I am not responsible for stopping the rain and the subsequent crop failure. In similar ways the king wanted to know who ate his “tortoise”. He placed a string over a crocodile-infested pool, and each wife had to walk the tightrope singing: “Sika la thole khaoha, ntetekoane ke oele, ke oele bodibeng. Ha se na ea jeleng khulu [may the string split and cut so that I fall in the crocodile-infested pool. It is not I who devoured the tortoise].” One queen after the other, so the story goes, until the one who did falls in the pool of crocodiles to be devoured. What is the moral of the story as we go into an election in the midst of drought and the king’s devoured crocodile? We need a national “sika la thole” to walk on, especially the politicians to sing the Shangaan confession song or the Basotho king’s lamentations designed to catch the queen who devoured the tortoise. Someone has brought drought to us, and someone has eaten the king’s tortoise. Chief Luthuli provides us with great counsel.

Dr Pali Lehohla is a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, a research associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished Alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former statistician-general of South Africa.