Each year some people have the privilege of doing a political tour of South Africa. From Nkandla, President Jacob Zuma’s home in KwaZulu-Natal, through Johannesburg’s Constitutional Court, Stock Market, Soweto and other attractions to Parliament in the Cape, Hout Bay’s squatter camp and the lovely wine farms.
The tour’s emphasis is on politics and the political people of the country. They meet the players in politics, business, the media, health and education. Fortunately for us, former president Thabo Mbeki agreed to meet us at his Foundation.
Mbeki was in a wonderful mood, sharing his stories, answering our questions, asking a few of his own. Most fascinating for me was his answer when asked to explain why his liberation party moved away from nationalizing mines and banks.
“Well, we went to Cuba in 1986, and you know before our meeting Fidel Castro asked us to bring a copy of the Freedom Charter with us. But he asked it three times, three times!”
“We asked ourselves, we heard you the first time, why ask again?”
“He then told us when we saw him – with the document – that the government Cuban rum is called Cuban Club, and that it is owned by Cuba, it is the best rum, but does not do as well as Bacardi. The owners of Bacardi left Cuba in a hurry but had to leave the vats.”
“Fidel then said, ‘Now you know good rum is made by mixing old rum with new, but Bacardi left in a hurry, taking everything but leaving the old vats. Yet they set up in America and sold a completely new rum. It was not great, it lacked the Bacardi flavor, it was all new and all they had was the name,’ he told us.”
But it was enough.
“‘So,’ said Fidel, ‘we quickly went to France and Europe and registered the names of Cohibas and other cigars, so if those companies also left we would still have their names. ‘Now tell me, ‘ Fidel said, ‘how many mining engineers do you have in the ANC?’”
“We looked at each other and said we did not know if we have any, probably none at that time (1992).”
“Then he said that if we took over Anglo American and nationalized them, we would have to ask them to do the mining, to manage it and run the mines because we could not, and they would then deliberately mine badly, because they would be angry that they had been nationalized. ‘Rather wait a bit,’ Fidel told us, ‘then in 15 years or so you can start taking over as you develop the capacity.’”
“It made sense, so we went back and convinced our people.”
I asked why Mandela, when he first came out of jail, in his first speech in Cape Town, said mines and banks would be nationalized?
“When Mandela was released it was a bad mistake of ours. We had been in talks with government and they had agreed they would give us nine or 10 days’ notice before releasing him, they would call my home with a code name and message, like ‘it is going to rain on Sunday November 1’ and we would have time to prepare.”
“But I was away, with Oliver Tambo in London, so when Zanele (Mbeki’s wife) was called by this strange person with a fairly innocuous message for me she waited a few days and then told the wife of Oliver Tambo to tell me the message. His wife also waited a few days and then said to him ‘Oh, tell Thabo somebody called Zanele to say it is going to rain on Sunday November 1.’”
“I got the message and thought nothing of it. I had forgotten what that meant. Me, I made that mistake… Later I suddenly remembered and realized, it was our code agreed with the South African government, but by then it was the day before his release.”
“We quickly tried to write a speech but failed and those inside South Africa wrote the speech, but they had not yet been told how we had changed our minds on nationalizing the mines and banks despite what it said in the Freedom Charter. So that’s why Mandela said what he said.”
I was aghast. I had written several times to say it was at Davos that the first democratic president had changed policy on nationalization. Mbeki laughed.
“Davos being the place he changed his mind is really just one of many stories&#8230;”

Nationalization Is A  Rum Deal

South Africa’s Freedom Charter was adopted in 1955. The Americans with Disabilities Act was enacted in 1990. The United Kingdom followed five years later with the Disability Discrimination Act. Yet where are all the great leaders championing access for people with hearing loss?
Nelson Mandela wore hearing aids but he is only known for overcoming apartheid in South Africa. Malala Yousafzai wears a cochlear implant, but she never mentions it when she speaks about educating girls. Academy Award Winner and actress Jodie Foster stood up at the Oscars to declare she was a lesbian but never mentioned she wears a hearing aid despite its prominence in a Daily Mail photograph.
There are 360 million people worldwide with some form of hearing loss. How can an issue be so pervasive but with no recognizable role models or leaders? There are great advocates within the insular hearing loss community but no person who captivates the world.
Why are people willing to discuss their race, religion, gender, age and sexual orientation but unwilling to discuss their hearing loss? Is hearing loss so stigmatized that we have created what Dr Julie Gurner, a leadership consultant, calls a “culture of shame”? She explains: “Prominent figures hide their hearing loss so perhaps other people feel maybe they should hide theirs as well.” The press ridiculed Prince Philip when he was first seen wearing hearing aids.
The media’s handling of hearing loss and other disabilities is part of the problem. Their coverage is typically focused on inspirational stories. The person appears as a “Super Crip”. Just think of all the YouTube videos featuring children hearing their parents’ voice for the first time as their cochlear implant is activated. The message communicated is: look how this amazing “crippled” person overcame this horrible obstacle, and so now you too can conquer whatever is preventing you from achieving success. We might as well have the person wear a cape like a superhero.
The media also likes sensational photographs of people with disabilities. The most notable being when American activists crawled up the steps of the U.S. Capitol to show it was the only way to enter a building that lacked ramps. The public seems to respond only to dramatic activism or a “moment” rather than common sense.
We shouldn’t need a “moment” to engender the change that is so desperately needed globally. Hearing loss shuts people out invisibly. Their needs are just as pressing and should be addressed globally.
Part of the problem is a lack of understanding that one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to communication access. The following three-prong approach should be offered whenever there is live voice or recorded audio: assistive listening systems such as an induction loop, captioning, and qualified interpreters.
For people with hearing loss, communication access is their “ramp”. South Africa’s Apartheid Museum and Robben Island do not have effective access for people with hearing loss despite being monuments to eradicating discrimination. The museums claim tight finances prevent them from providing access. But that is the same unacceptable excuse used during apartheid by white people for why they couldn’t provide books to black children. Such excuses weren’t acceptable then and aren’t now.
People with hearing loss cannot become leaders when they aren’t included in society. According to Dean Williams, a faculty member of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and author of Leadership for a Fractured World, “A person needs to expand their personal boundaries in order to lead.” Museums provide valuable opportunities for enlightenment and critical thinking that foster such expansion.
The Apartheid Museum and Robben Island museums need to provide effective access for people who are deaf or hard of hearing so they too can benefit from the enrichment that is being offered. We need to inspire the next great leaders and role models of our world.
The writer is based in New York and is CEO of Hearing Access &amp; Innovations, which works to improve accessibility for people with hearing loss.

Tag: Freedom Charter

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