I was just reminded when I was looking at the name of this association for the Advancement of Black Accountancy of South Africa, ABASA. It reminds me of a chapter in the Quran that starts with the name ABASA and it means be frowned and it is the only place really in the Quran where the prophet is scolded by God for frowning.
Very interestingly, he was scolded because he was trying to persuade the powerful about discourse and someone who was already following his course. A blind person came to him wanting advice, wanting some assistance and he frowned at this person for interrupting him while he was speaking to the powerful. This entire chapter came down, spelt exactly like ABASA and said, why do you try to speak to the powerful and ignore those who genuinely require your help.
If you think about why there is a need for an organization like ABASA, when South Africa is non-racial, then it is because, those who are within this community needing assistance and most so that they could speak equally to the powerful, the already advantaged, then I think that ABASA becomes a very important instrument for the advancement of Black Accountants.
Is ABASA an anachronism? Is it a strange phenomenon in the world of Accounting to have a Black Accounting Organization when South Africa says that it wants to be non-racial?
I think it opens up a very important debate within our society. And the debate is how to build non-racialism but at the same time ensure the advancement of historically disadvantaged people and communities, in your case professionals. Is this a contradiction? Is it a hearing for racialism? Is it a desire to re-racialize South Africa? I do not think so, but I think, that unless we bring this debate to the fore, ABASA may be seen to be an anachronism. ABASA may be seen to be a contradiction in the Professional world of South Africa. The same with a group such as the Black Management Forum. People say why do we need that? You see, the question is not simply where we want to be; we all want to be in a non-racial and equal South Africa.
The question is: how do we understand apartheid? How do we understand the past? Because there are those who believe that mechanisms such as affirmative action are attempts to re-racialize South Africa. They think that employment equity are attempts to re-racialize South Africa. They think, that BEE, Black Economic Empowerment are attempts to re-racialize South Africa.
I think that when we gather together like this, we may need to formulate far more coherent arguments so that we do not force out of those who have been historically advantaged, compliance with BEE, employment, equity and affirmative action. We have actively to win them over and persuade them at the level of ideas about why ABASA is important, why BEE is important and why employment equity is important.
And when we gather together, not exclusively but essentially as Black Professionals, we do not only have the responsibility to advance our skills base. We do not only have the responsibility to advance our discipline, in this case Accounting. We have at the same time, the responsibility to advance what we stand for and why we stand for it. That this is not a racial aberration within a non-racial quest. That this is in fact essential for the achievement of non-racialism.
Because, the point that we must make, is that there is no true non-racialism and reconciliation if it is reconciliation between people who are not equal. Only the equal, can consciously make a relationship, only the equal can consciously force a direction towards non-racialism. Because we are not speaking to power, begging them for entry. We are entering because we have made the strides to become more equal and to overcome the historic disadvantage that we have suffered. And that is a fundamental different conversation as we build the conversation from us as victims.
It is our unique attempt to overcome the victim hood of the past and remove the inferior consciousness off our shoulders to be able to speak to power, to speak to advantage, to speak to those who are on the inside lane in a way that it is not begging or demanding but in a way that we are recognized as equals within our discipline.
Unless organizations such as ABASA articulate themselves explicitly and put out to society for themselves the racial value of why we exist, we will be seen as anachronisms, something on the side, a side show while the main business of Accounting goes on. So the point that I am making, is that we have to answer the question, why ABASA exists. You see, there are essentially four discourses or four paradigms, through which apartheid was viewed and through which post apartheid South Africa is being viewed.
The dominant one and it is dominant because it is dominant in the media discourse of South Africa. it is dominant because it is the reference point for the main opposition party in South Africa. The dominant discourse is essentially a new liberal discourse or paradigm. And it is not what it stands for today, it is how they viewed the past. The liberal paradigm essentially held that apartheid was the separation of White people and Black people. It was the absence of the vote for Black people. It was the lack of integration of Black and White people, in schools, in professions and in communities.
Therefore, in 1994 when Nelson Mandela became president, and we fashioned a constitution that proclaimed equality between Black and White. And suburbs became more integrated and schools were opened to Blacks and University could open to Blacks, at that point, our problem was solved and everyone now, based on constitutional equality has the right to pursue whatever he or she wants to pursue. That any extraordinary or additional attempt to deal with the past was re-racializing South Africa. Unless we understand that liberal or new liberal paradigm in that way, we are not coherently going to be answering the question about why there is a need for a Black Association? For BEE? For employment equity?
On the other hand, from within the liberation movements, there are those who hold almost the opposite view. The one view was that apartheid was only a racial matter, the other view is from the outer left paradigm that apartheid was only a class matter and that only when you equalize the classes the problem will be solved. This means that you ignore the issues of racial consciousness, of identity and ideology, and you ignore all of those things and only solve the problems of apartheid within a class society. But unless you understand it in this way, you will not know what some of the contests are underneath what emerges as a succession debate in South Africa.
On the other hand, we will, discredit ourselves if we succumb to the third paradigm because this is largely going to be the challenge for Black associations such as ABASA, to be the challenge for BEE as a project and it will be a challenge for employment equity as a mechanism. That is to succumb to the third paradigm and that is the one that says, that, what Whites had before, we should have now. It is the replacement of one elite with another. And it is how you conduct yourself as Black Professionals that will be the test of whether it is simply the replacement of White elite to Black elite.
All three of these paradigms, seem to work from an understanding of South Africa's problem of apartheid. If I may use the metaphor of a boiled egg, where you can separate the white from the yellow, where you can separate the problem of race from the problem of class. Where you can separate the identity issue with the issues around the economy. What they do is that they choose which part they want, illiberal and new liberal should choose colour, just like elite perspectives chooses colour and base their responses on the issue of colour.
Where I think, the ruling party comes from, is to understand that what we are dealing with here, is not a boiled egg but a scrambled egg in which race and class was fused and manifest not only in the separation of people, but in the very structures of society. It speaks to the impossibility of separating race and class, what your colour was and what your access was to the economy, the wealth, the skills and all the benefits of the society. I think that becomes one of the key challenges for ABASA. You have do not have to win space for yourself in the economy but in doing so, you have to advance the ideas of why and how we need to confront inequality in society.
So, the idea that comes from that liberal perspective is a perspective that does not address structural inequality. Who had privilege and who did not have privilege? Who was advantaged and who was disadvantaged? It becomes to elaborate mechanisms simply to retain the status quo. Who is in the main stream and who are on the margins? Who are the decorations here to comply with BEE and who are the mainstays of the company?
And I think that what ABASA responds to, is the needs for the Blacks in the first instance to add to the existing skills trajectory, a perspective and a project that fundamentally overcomes the inequality that is ingrained in the structures of society.
I want to say that this poses a completely different ethical challenge to ABASA. Because if you are going to revel the third paradigm of elitism, then you have to ask yourself, how are you different? So in one way, you are different because the theme of the conference today speaks about driving the knowledge-based economy. How you are a resource for that emerging economy? But secondly, how do you manage the ethical challenges and the developmental challenges in South Africa today?
Again, the question would be, are the ethical and developmental challenges mutually exclusive? Do you have to bend the rules in order to get faster development? And the answer is obviously no. Compliance is important and the ethical standards of Accounting are also important. That brings us to the second question. Is this discipline necessarily by its definition a rescuer? Does it allow for us to unleash reactivity in the developmental sphere to meet the developmental challenges of the country? And I think it does, but it will not come from those who do not share necessarily the passion for the developmental challenges.
You come largely from the improvised communities, you come from the places of great inequality, you come from the areas of deprivation where you understand the conditions of our townships and the needs of our people sooner rather than later, to overcome the developmental challenges relating to poverty, unemployment and under development.
How do you find the balance between compliance which is germane to your profession and unlocking the development potential in our country? I think that becomes absolutely critical. You cannot simply be a trade union for professional architects in our economy. In addition to advancing the debate on why you exist because that is important for the overall debate in South Africa, you have to be asking why you have a core of people, professionals in your discipline, who can shorten the process of development without bending the rules of compliance.
That becomes a second major challenge that ABASA needs to respond to and give direction and leadership on because it emerges almost from your unique position in society as the formerly disadvantaged, historically disadvantaged, the deprived, people who have received your professions, based on the wages of mine workers or builders of the working class.
ABASA confronts important issues when it is in the company of the powerful and when the powerless seeks its assistance. You cannot be impatient. You have to take up the cajoles as you go on. The third one, relating to the second one, is how does ABASA fast track the transition in our developmental part from the first decade of freedom in this the second decade of freedom. In the first decade of freedom, we were largely chasing some of our quantitative skills, we needed to build 2 million houses, 5 million water connections, we needed to get people electrified, 3 million people access to electricity, all the children in schools etc.
In the first decade, by and large, we achieved all our quantitative objectives. The challenge of the second decade of freedom is how do we transform quantitative goals into qualitative goals? Because now all the children by and large are in schools, but are they getting the right skills and are they absorbed in the economy? What is the quality of education? Now all our people have access to health care, there is a clinic or hospital, but what is the quality of care that they receive in hospitals? What is the link of the queues? How much time does the Doctor spend with the patient? What is the quality of the assistance that they get?
Now, our people live in houses, but what is the size of the house? How does the house fortify against disease? How many people live in that house? Those are the qualitative issues that begin to come into it. And no professional was born in such a house, who was born without health care? Who was born without a social security system can turn a blind eye in this second decade of freedom. These kinds of challenges that we face.
So, your discipline cannot be a pure discipline, your discipline in a sense, has to be a discipline that responds to the totality of needs, and not be particular comfortable compartments within that. And so, Accounting by it's very nature is not sector specific and you have ability to travel the entire lived experience of our people and use this discipline to improve the quality of life of our people across the developmental spectrum of our society.
