To BEE or not to BEE... - Thought Leader

This blog post is about the difference between two kinds of human achievement. It is about the difference between the pursuit of excellence and the drive to conformity. It is about the difference between Woodstock 1969 and SA Idols 2010.

I am not a fan of singing talent competitions of any kind. With the possible exception of Susan Boyle, no such competition has ever produced a real star with the kind of charisma and staying power that are the hallmarks of the truly great. Did Bob Dylan ever win a talent show? Did Jimmy Hendrix make it all the way to Woodstock by crooning Pat Boone covers in a TV studio? No, sir. The truly great singer-songwriters have always battled their own lonesome way to the top, where many of them are, to this day, burning their comet-like paths across the star-studded skies of rock ’n roll, usually with a trail of trashed hotel rooms in their wake.

Great was my surprise then, when I accidentally switched on my TV this week on the South African Idols programme, and happened to notice at least two young black men with the word “superstar” written all over them. If a crappy show like South African Idols can produce such magnificence — or, to put it another way — if these truly gifted singers can escape being psychologically maimed for life by the inane comments of the competition judges — I’m prepared to apologise for every negative thing I’ve ever written about singing contests.

In fact, these new performers are setting a new standard for all South Africans to follow. I’m not just talking about music! I’m talking about energy, capability, the desire to be simply the best.

To be … the best. To BEE … the Best …

There’s a lesson here somewhere, I’m sure. Is the universe trying to tell us something?

Indeed! The universe is speaking loudly and clearly!

This is the message I got from the universe today. It is in the form of a rhetorical question:
How can any person of merit and self-respect ever accept career benefits on the grounds of a concept such as affirmative action?

Those guys made it so far in the Idols competition because they are good, and not because they are black, that should be pretty obvious even to Gareth Cliff. Surely the very idea of affirmative action is an insult to all black people! If I were black, I would feel extremely patronised if someone offered me a job, or allowed me to win a competition, purely on the basis of my skin colour.

Give me a job because I’m good at it, for heaven’s sake, give me a job because for the first time in South African history I’m able to compete against previously advantaged whites on an equal basis, give me a job because you’ve noticed me doing stuff right. But don’t, don’t ever tell me: we need a black face in this space, so you can be our black face.

We all understand the theory behind BEE and we all know that there are millions of good people who had been unfairly sidelined under the old regime. The reason they were sidelined, however, was precisely because the previous regime followed a philosophy of skin colour over capability. In order to cancel out the mistakes of the past, we should replace that way of thinking with an entirely new way of thinking. We should actively pursue advancement through merit, because that is the exact antithesis of the previous system. To swop previously disadvantaged blacks with present-day disadvantaged whites is no real innovation. It is merely rearranging the chairs in the boardroom. In essence, all the superficial results achieved by any quota system will always tend to be as stifling to real economic growth as match-fixing is to cricket. This kind of thing isn’t really about transforming the economy, it’s just paint-by-numbers.

Whatever happened to the pursuit of excellence? Since when has it become politically correct to strive for mediocrity, conformity, collective stupidity and mass boredom?

South Africans are fiercely passionate, fiercely individualistic people. I can off-hand name many individuals that have successfully pursued excellence. Last week’s Mail & Guardian had a twelve-page supplement naming some our country’s internationally renowned top achievers; I counted at least twenty-four names (and there must be many more, since I wasn’t even in there)! Our entire history is dotted with writers, artists, sportsmen, performers, cultural leaders and innovators of note. We performed the first heart transplant. We gave birth to international symbols of peace such as Gandhi, Smuts and Mandela. We knew Mark Shuttleworth before he went to space. We have written the most progressive constitution known to man. And as if that wasn’t enough, we even invented zef.

Yes! South Africans of all walks of life have done all sorts of wonderful and exciting things, and, without exception, every wonderful or exciting thing ever done was done because, somewhere, someone broke through the mold of conformity and dared to be different.

Why, in this day and age, when original thinking and creative solutions are so badly needed, is the government encouraging its employees to “toe the party line”, to “obey the collective”, to stick to the so-called “ANC values” (whatever those values may be)?

There are only two kinds of situations in life where the collective is more important than the individual. The one is in team sport. The other is in war. Yet, even in team sport, individual streaks of brilliance can sometimes help to achieve victory. And, as for war, well, this isn’t Afghanistan, is it? If we are at war, who is the enemy? Last time I looked, PW Botha was still dead.

No, of course we are not at war. We only look that way because we own all those nifty submarines and shit we don’t know how to operate. As for the bullet-holes you see in the Union buildings, they have been put there, not by hostile nations, but by members of the tripartite alliance. It’s been friendly fire all the way. Who needs enemies if you are perfectly capable of self-destructing without any outside help whatsoever?

I know of men and women who have made tremendous personal sacrifices for the so-called collective during the war against apartheid. Ultimately, however, all war is degrading and dehumanising — even just wars such as the war against apartheid — and to carry on with a war-like stance even after victory has been achieved is madness.

In the mind-set of many ANC ex-warriors, the war is still continuing. The difference is that now they are no longer at war against the nationalist regime, they are at war with themselves. It is a war that is threatening to drag the entire country down to their level of simplistic reasoning. Is this fair? Why should we be forced to become part of their comrade-eat-comrade mentality?

The metaphors and ideals that sustained these men while they were waging their legitimate battle against apartheid no longer work. Apartheid is dead. If houses do not get built, if money is siphoned off into the wrong pockets, apartheid can no longer be blamed. Surely not even the (admittedly) corrupt and (often) sensationalistic media and its (sometimes white) journalists can ultimately be blamed for that kind of crap.

This is no longer the age of revolution; it is the age of hard work, the age of rebuilding, the age of transparency, the age of entrepreneurship and fair play.

This is indeed the time to rediscover the forgotten art of pursuing excellence.