Cecil Rhodes

There probably isn't a more controversial name on the Africa contient than that of Cecil John Rhodes. When visiting his imposing granite memorial scraped into the south west waistline of Devi's Peak, I compare his history to that of present-day Africa. It's a history the continent is not very fond of; a sorespot on the landscape across the Southern African nations. Rhodes believed the Anglo Saxon race to be superior - not exactly politically correct in this part of the world these days. The empire he built darkly hangs over the Republic yet ironically has contributed to the growth of the economy here. I think that must be the hardest issue for Africa to reconcile here and in America. To rise about centuries of oppression while not remaining bitter and angry. Like Mandela in jail all those years, every African must come to terms with the past in order to move forward.

Photos; Cecil John Rhodes Memorial, Devil's Peak near Table Mountain in Cape Town.

Surfing as a Metaphor for Human Development

Human development, human capital, human rights. If there is one thing that Africa has always been less exposed to - it's that of the development of it's human capital. That's the core of BBBEE, or what the policy is supposed to achieve; broad-based black economic empowerment. Sounds great. That's exactly what Africa needs in general - of the almost 1 billion residents on the continent, how many could be measured to be 'economically empowered'? And I guess most importantly, what are the policies or activities that truly create lasting economic empowerment?

The policy that immediately comes to my mind is for a state to provide world class education for it's citizens - for free. Nations that provide high quality free education are obviously out to empower their people. What could be more fundamental a foundation to lay in developing human capital than education? A second obvious policy would be free or low-cost health services. This is why America is now getting into trouble - their choice not to offer much health care at all is catching up with them basically rendering the society sick. Some of the American politicians say constantly that my country, Canada, actually has the best health system called 'single-user pay' and they are dumbfounded why the richest nation in the world is not empowering its citizens with this simple tool. So in that sense, America is not developing its human capital to the fullest extent possible, and that in the future they will pay dearly for this.

South Africa is facing a similar dilemna with the respect to its education system. Everyday in the papers I read that university students are entering the system with surprisingly low skills in reading and writing - that the secondary and high schools are not doing their job basically. But this is the launchpad of future economic growth - educated youth who will then be able to thrive, create jobs, grow capital and become leaders. So what is going on in the schools I wonder? Is there a national cirriculum? And when was the last time it was revamped? How old are the textbooks here? These answers are the obvious results of how a government chooses to develop its human capital - or not develop it.

I decide to contact the Western Cape's MEC for Education - Donald Grant to see if he can explain what is going on in the education system here - and most importantly, where the gaps are, why kids are falling through the cracks. The Western Cape province is one of the most dynamic in the country, with Cape Town being it's economic engine basically. There is a huge emphasis on rebuilding the downtown core and city centre so it can become even more powerful than it is now. San Francisco, London, Hong Kong, Sydney - rich nations flourish from the centralized economic growth that becomes possible from their great cities. So to invest in a great city naturally leads to the economic growth for the surrounding political region - be it a province, state or nation. That's why the World Cup could become so significant for Cape Town like what Expo '86 did for Vancouver which began a 20-year economic boom basically thanks to foreigners, mostly Chinese. The BC provincial government could never has rallied the resources that came from foreign investors. By choosing to open it's doors and welcome the world, BC experienced a major transformational boom that no one could have predicted.

But the key thing for South Africa in this scenario of the World Cup - is to also have systems in place that allow the citizens to be uplifted on the wave of economic growth so locals won't be left out. It's like all the surfers I see waiting for the waves in Milnerton, Camps Bay and even in little Foesh Hook - they are all there on their boards waiting for that great wave that's coming. The fear here is that most of the citizens aren't out in the water yet, they don't have surfboards or maybe they can't even swim. If surfing is the metaphor for human development in Africa, how many citizens are ready to ride the wave?

African Leadership Academy

The cosmic forces are about to create something truly amazing...the possibility to finally meet a young Sierra Leonian who I bought a digital camera for three years ago. Syl Rogers is on his way from Freetown to Joburg next week to start enjoying his scholarship to the African Leadership Academy. I have just got an email from him to say his visa has not come back from Cote D'Ivoire as it was supposed to like it did for the other youth - so he's bummed out and stuck in Freetown instead of on his way here. Fingers crossed, must be some logistical error although I feel his pain.

He has come so far to even get to this point. How many youth from West Africa earn the opportunity to receive a scholarship to study in the most powerful economy on the continent? What a great kid - so sweet and completely stylin' as well. He looked like more of a kid when I first was in touch 3 years ago, and now he looks like a handsome young man. I am so proud of him!

Hopefully next week I will finally meet him in Joburg or at least get to the ALA and leave a gift for him. I should be back in 'Josie' as the locals call it in a few weeks if my meetings go well so a regular visit with Syl could be on the cards. This would be a great place to feature in my TV show - we'll see what the administrators think of this. I imagine the technology at the ALA would be top knotch but I'm keen to see what their cirriculum is around business and entrepreneurialsm.

Good luck Syl. May the visa gods be looking down on you now.

Photo; Syl Rogers graduating from high school in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Woodstock

This is one of my favourite kinds of neighbourhoods - working class & cbd-adjacent with a history. As I am early for my meeting at Arctic Circle Brand Institute, I pop in to a take-aways shop for some hot tea and a chat with the locals. A friendly old man named Yusuf Davids tells me he worked in San Francisco as a steward/cook on boats heading to the Panama Canal. He's originally from the Malay Archipelago near Indonesia but now lives in the Woodstock neighbourhood Northeast of the cbd. He believes what I do - that young people have to create work for themselves, that handouts are de-motivating and lead to a culture of laziness. Funny how easy it is to get right to the point here discussing politics with South Africans. This is a highly politicized nation.

Like so many older neighbourhoods in the great cities of the world, the working-class community is rapidly being gentrified. Lower cost, more square footage, a good dose of deserved charm crumbling off the side of the building; who wouldn't be interested to move in? Yusuf tells me there used to be a parts factory nearby that created employment in the 70's but now it's closed. He says this is the best kind of employment and that Zuma should be focussing on this. He's worried what will happen after 2010 when the jobs stop, that the government won't retrench people and they will keep receiving income without working because there won't be any work. Should a government promise employment? Or housing? When people get things without working for them they usually don't take care of them very well. Like Dambiso Boyo writes in 'Dead Aid', after 40 years of aid in Africa, why are things worse?

Arctic Circle is a cutting-edge brand strategy firm where I have come to introduce my Fanya Kazi! TV show. If this works the way I think it should, Fanya Kazi! will need one key corporate partner and 2-3 weekly companies for the 52 weeks we will be in production. That's 150 of South Africa's most youth-friendly businesses committed to empower, educate and inspire a nation waiting to lift itself out of poverty. This is probably one of the coolest companies I have ever been inside and the guy who started it all is a dynamo. He gets the picture of what I am trying to do and commits to some follow up contact next week. He also mentions I should go talk to Helen Zille, the Premier of the Western Cape - probably the most controversial politician on the continent because she leads a provincial government and she is white. This would be ideal because the show will showcase the Western Cape as a foreign investment and tourism destination. Might as well try to get the boss on side.

As my husband has taken the shared car into town for work I head back to the main side of the road to wait for a 'taxi' which is what would be called a 'matatu' in Kenya; a Nissan minibus with a yellow stripe down the side. Within seconds I am in the vehicle. Love that private sector motivation. Five Rand into town, cool tunes on the radio and again, a good chat with the locals. Like in Kenya most Cape Tonians seem rather charmed by the 'American' in their company. Even though I am Canadian I tell everyone I'm American because the reaction is much better. Nobody seems to know anything about Canada here at all. A young Xhosa gal asked me if Canada was inside America which ironically was quite reassuring to know that America has not overtaken the local culture.

Back inside Yusuf's take aways shop, three courier guys have some good insight for me and agree to have their picture taken. They work for an Italian, are well-paid and are non-unionized labour providing a much needed service here in Cape Town. Oscar has excellent ideas about how their photograph should be composed and is a natural subject. He has the open heart, the warm smile, four children and the spirit of Africa that always gives me hope. He thinks leaders should be accountable and that it doesn't matter that Zille is white - it's what kind of a job she is doing. Which really should be the benchmark right? Not the colour of skin, faith or heritage. But South Africa's not there yet. The wounds haven't healed and new ones seem to be appearing on the skin of society.

There is great fear here that South Africa will slip back into an autocratic state like Apartheid except this time, the black government will be doing the oppressing of the blacks. That in the government's effort to 'redistribute' opportunity to the poor, it will damage the fragile yet ambitious social contract before it even gets a chance to truly succeed. Thank god for the World Cup because it has put the economy and the government under a hot microscopic international lens where the world is watching every move made here. If the workers strike enough times to prevent the stadiums from being built in time, this will be a nation psychically damaged for decades to come. This is an opportunity South Africa worked incredibly hard for and greatly deserves - probably one of the most defining moments in its history.

Photos; Yusuf Davids (painter), Artic Circle Brand Strategy, Oscar and the boys - Woodstock Cape Town.

Winelands

I decide that since I have the car for a few days that I will get some of the eco-friendly dish soap I saw last week in a grocery store in the Tygerberg Valley. Rather a long way to drive for dish soap burning how god knows how many carbon molecules - but nonetheless I head off North on the NI Hwy. The biodynamic soap we are using now leaves a rather unpleasant grease on everything unless the water is scorching hot. As much as I am pulling for my biodynamic dish soap to be a wonder product, it's just not cutting it and it's time to move on. I will use it to clean the toilets.

As I pull off the highway and head Northeast into the low rolling Durbanville Hills overlooking the valley, I realize I live ten minutes from some of the most prolific wine growing regions in the world. Cool! What a great industry for Africa - value-added, agriculturally-based, exportable and climatically leveraged above most other nations who will never ever be able to grow wine. This is a major winner positioned for growth for a long long time. One day the mines will be empty or the unions will be unaffordable, but in good times or bad - everybody likes a good drink.

The first vineyard or estate I pull into is the Hillcrest Estate where they have the cutest little olive oil sales shack at the bottom of the long driveway. The company has wisely decided to diversify from wine and move into other higher price-point goods like olives and oils. I taste every olive on sample and buy the kind with the prettiest bottle so I can re-use it at home as a candle holder or flower vase so I can get 2 uses out of one product, save money and save the earth.

The second estate has a gorgeous restaurant with huge windows framing the hills and valley in a table-side portrait of wine beauty. It's too bad there is an arctic gale lashing itself at us today but I suppose the cold and rains are what feed the grapes so they can grow into delicious African nectar. The 'Cassina' restaurant is located on the Nitida Wine Farm on the Tygerbergvalley Road (or the M13 Hwy) in Durbanville. This is classic South Africa to me - modern yet historic - they've been growing wine here since the 17th Century. In 1655, 3 years after his arrival in Table Bay, Jan Van Riebeeck of the Dutch East India Company planted the first vines. That's three hundred and fifty four years ago - about the same age as the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada.

Photos; Cassina Restaurant on Nitida Wine Farm, Hillcrest Estate olive shop, Durbanville Hills

The Soapies

Watching TV is always an excellent way to understand a culture. Even in a country like North Korea whatever is shown on TV there illustrates what is going on in the larger society. Like all those weird parades and costume events, or when you see the North Korean roads on video how there are almost no cars on them. I wonder why they built them in the first place?

In the States on TV there is a lot of decorating, harm to women and crime. Why does America allow Jerry Bruckheimer to continue to produce such mysognistic TV programs? Every week on CSI there it is - a woman gets violently sexually assaulted and then the story begins - beaming this content into the homes of millions and millions of teenage girls. I think there is a connection to Jerry Bruckheimer's TV shows and how much rape and violence women in experience in America. If I was in university I would make that my thesis paper. How can there not be a connection? There must be an effect of hours and hours of his programs on the culture.

Living outside the West I now understand why other cultures are so angry at America or American foreign policy I should say. But their TV programs and films are sortive the same thing - full of violence, domination and war. I'm not angry at America. I feel compassion for Americans that their country is so controlled by the military industrial complex and maybe if the people travelled more or lived abroad they would see their culture from the outside in. We all would. Africans who live outside Africa are much more critical of their countries, much more educated about options that Africans should have the right to experience.

So I have been watching the South African soapies as a research project into the culture. The storylines mimic the newspapers - gender violence, unequal land distribution, unemployment and race inequality. SABC is the state broadcaster with 3 channels that air content pretty much nation-wide. It's kinda like the CBC in Canada, or PBS in America - TV for the people less hindered by corporate advertising influence than private networks. Sadly, I just read that SABC will be buying 75% less local content than last year because they can't afford to pay the local producers to make the shows. So likely South Africans are going to be watching those awful Spanish-language soapies full of plastic surgery, infidelity and greed. They get 'dumped' on African culture through cheap program sales subsidized by the international sales market. It's no different that the dumping that occurs in Africa through wheat, cotton and used goods. How can a South African TV producer compete with a foreign company who charges $100 USD for a program to air here? Painfully, the foreign programs create no jobs, offer little domestic role modeling for the society and are often full of weirdly inappropriate storylines.

Just like in the country - there is a lot of conflict in the South African soapies. The characters play out the real world issues facing people here encapsulating their lives. Most of the shows seem to be made in Joburg but I am meeting with a company here who will hopefully produce my youth entrepreneur TV show. Head offices are in Joburg and corporate marketing money is the fuel that runs the engine of TV.

Photos; South African Broadcasting Corporation programming adverts

Workers, Wages and Strikes

I am now living in an Africa that is noticeably more white. It doesn't seem like much, but in South Africa nearly 9% of the population of 49 million is white - which is just over 4 million people - a hell of a lot compared to Kenya! I am rarely the only white person standing in line, on the highway, walking down the street. Having said that, most people I walk by on the streets are either black or 'coloured' as is commonly called here for people of mixed heritage like Obama. That would be very politically incorrect in the USA - to call Obama 'coloured' - but it's what is said here and the coloureds are proud of their namesake. Usually the whites are in cars but since I walk most places I am the exception to the rule. I love this opportunity to chat with the Africans as I did in Kenya - always a hello, a little joke, the nod of the head. Also, they are mostly the workers here - guards, cleaners, construction, waiters - so contact with them is inevitable.

It might not seem like the greatest job in the world cleaning the floors of a shopping mall but it's a start - and it could lead to the next rung on the ladder - supervising the cleaners with a pay raise. South Africa is much more formal in it's political ideology than Kenya. You hear terms like 'worker', 'comrade' or 'manifesto' like an invisible blanket of communism is hanging above all our heads warming the society up to the idea of labour emancipation. That's a good thing - wages need to increase exponentially to facilitate domestic growth - but they can't increase too quickly and without an accompanying increase in GDP or tax revenue. 40% of South African workers are unionized, mostly because the leading industry is resource extraction in the form of mining. One of the deal points in the end of Apartheid was that the mines would not be nationalized - and that the basic structure of the economy would not be altered. So the big question is, after 15 years of independence, has the country succeeding in transforming itself to a new empowered society for blacks? Have the political and social systems like Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) taken the society to that next level? Nightly on the news, this question is posed against the efforts of President Jacob Zuma and his leadership.

One of my favourite thinkers who transformed the business department at the University of Witswatersrand in Johannesburg, believes that BEE has achieved the first part of what it was designed to do but now something else is needed. But what lies beyond BEE? If it has succeeded in somewhat leveling out the playing field, now what? Should BEE stop? Should it continue for another 5, 10 or 50 years? I think maybe it should start to be tapered out actually because everyone seems to think that over the last few years things are getting worse. Maybe the BEE mountain has been climbed and the country is now looking at the next much larger mountain behind it? The other scary issue for me coming from North America, is the call to dismantle 2 provinces here and putting them under control of the federal system. This to me is a massive noisy red flag all South Africans should be concerned about. That would be like getting rid of California or Alberta in Canada. The worry is that most South Africans don't entirely understand the intricacies of political systems and that they might just support Zuma in this effort because he is the elected leader. Shouldn't there be a referendum or something? What would Tutu say? Or Mandela?

I ask a woman who works at one of the businesses here in the mall how much income she earns. She says between 300-400 Rand per month for 4 days work. That's about $45-55 US dollars or let's say $200 USD per month. It seems extremely low but you'd have to measure this against the overall profit of the business right? And then you'd have to measure somehow, her unique contributions to the bottom line. Maybe she is the top worker or maybe she is the biggest slacker - two very different scenarios. And maybe this wage is not so low considering her skill set, education and other options to earn wages. I believe the union members earn about $500 USD per month. Mid-level executives I was told would be luckly to earn $3,000 USD per month.

That's why I always encourage young Africans to become entrepreneurs - to sidestep the very limits of wage constraints in the first place. Take the minimum wage, pay the rent, fill the fridge and then in your spare time grow the business that will give you true prosperity. Understand how money and capital truly works, and make a plan. Economic and social transformation will only truly occur in Africa when enough Africans create this reality for themselves in the first place. An employer will mostly never care enough to do that for their workers - he has enough problems of his own paying taxes, sweeping the floor and counting stock. And a government can never guarantee this for every single person in any nation - that would require such a massive bureaucracy to oversee all this it could never be sustained, not to mention a waste of taxes. I remember when Canada operated more like this in the 1970's before the wave of para-statal privatization rolled onto our shores. What was a money-losing beurocratic monolith of a failing postal system, has now become a technology-driven tool that facilitates every aspect of the country's growth. Canada even went to Kenya to teach them our system. If you get a computer receipt from postage (very unlikely) you can see it's exactly like the receipts from Canada Post. I wonder what happened?

So how is South Africa going to solve this issue? The unions are striking for up to a 7% pay increase, the government is trying to calm the foreign investors, the currency is fluctuating and the newspapers are selling. Zuma seems to follow the legal book quite accurately saying that if strikers deny the rights of citizens then they will face legal action, but it is these workers who gave him power in the first place and most of them don't even have electricity at home. They have stopped the garbage, the parking fees and now public transport from some of the largest informal settlements in the country. My work permit application was delayed this week because of a strike in public transit which made me feel a little nervous since my attorney had obviously planned that someone was travelling with my passport to Home Affairs on a bus.

The institution of law is one of South Africa's most precious resources right now to guide it and all of it's people to be equal. If that changes who knows what could happen. And who is going to replace Zuma when he's done? Who is going to be able to balance these fractured and highly vulnerable scales holding up the society? A young Kenyan brought me coffee the other morning in the mall. I asked him if living here was better than Kenya. He said it was better last year but now things were getting worse. I have flashbacks about how my business suffered when the Kenyan politicians basically lowered the growth rate by 5 points after a disastrous 2007 election. Am I about to live through this again? Sitting in the largest shopping mall on the continent, it seems unlikely. I mean, there is a Jimmy Choo store here. I wonder if Tamara Mellon knows about the strikes?

Prosperity for all has got to be possible. South Africa has achieved so much in such a short period time compared to most other African nations, it's got to be able to keep evolving, transforming, prospering. The youth league is pushing to nationalize the mines. I wonder what Mandela and Tutu and Machel think about this? It's always the elders who have the best ideas because they have the most to draw upon in hindsight. They know how long social change takes and how delicate the institutions that allow democracy to flourish truly are.

Photo; Young woman in Stellenbosch, Canal Walk Shopping Mall, Century City

Bollywood in Camps Bay

Another absolutely stunning place to hang out in Cape Town - Camps Bay - and mix with the stars of Bollywood! Who knew? Anil Kapoor who played the game show host in Slumdog Millionaire walks past me looking very cool in black leather while I try to figure out who's running the show. South Africa is playing itself in this Bollywood bluckbuster which will be great for tourism and investment. If Africa can get its brain around this idea, the export of itself, its culture, stories - it's intellectual property - it could grow massive new sources of capital to finance development. If Californians can figure it out, why not Africans?

The continent is so full of unexploited intellectual properties it's very exciting as an investor. And this is good business - the Indian movie crew will eat, shop, sleep and consume millions of Rand of goods and services during their stay here making this film 'No Problem'. They will pay taxes, employ South Africans and showcase the country in front of hundreds of millions of viewers around the world. Clint Eastwood was just here as well, again to tell a unique South African story of rugby history to the world.

Photos; Anil Kapoor in the 'No Problem' film set on Beach Rd, Blues Restaurant and Bar, Camps Bay beach below the 12 Apostles along the Cape Peninsula.

The Helderberg Basin

The Helderberg Basin lies at the foot of the Hottentot Holland Mountains East of Cape Town draping itself down to meet the warm waters of False Bay. Ironic that this massive arc stretching between Cape Point and Pringle Bay would be called 'False Bay' - nothing false about 5km of pristine white sand beach to me! This view was shot from the 15th floor of Xavier McAuliffe's stunning 'Hibernian Towers' developed by his Spectra Group of Ireland. In every place I visit or live I am reminded how frequently it is the foreigners who see the future much brighter than the locals. The abundance of opportunity is mind-blowing.

As the economy grows here in South Africa it reminds me of what might have been possible for Kenya had the governments done things differently. And the South Africans I am meeting have no idea how much better off they are than most African countries - that even though there are critical issues here - the social and economic progress is decades ahead of Kenya, Congo, Uganda.

Because there has never been a social revolution in countries like Kenya and Congo, the African citizens are still being held back by their own post-colonial governments. Kenya got close during the 2007 post-election violence but the unrest was silenced very quickly before any real internal change could have become possible. They say that in order for a social revolution to take place, a 'trigger point' must occur to finally tip the scales in favour of the people and without that change will not occur. This trigger provides a focal point or target for the emotional build-up within a citizenry to unleash itself towards; something that finally proves the truth of unrest unequivacably, without question, forever.

The students being shot in Soweto, and the vision of Hector Pietersen's body being carried in a black and white photograph that was sent around the world was the trigger point that began the end of apartheid. And now the nation is rebuilding itself upon a new foundation of accountability that never existed before. The social revolution worked. I don't know if this will be tolerated in countries like Kenya or Congo. The people are so heavily weighed down by the system that keeps them either uneducated or uninspired (I can personally attest to that!) and things maybe just haven't gotten bad enough yet. Kenya needs a trigger point and unfortunately really awful things are going to have to threaten to destroy the country as is before it will get any better.

Photos - Stellenbosch buildings / Cape Point & False Bay as seen from Xavier McCauliffe's 'Hibernian Towers' / town of Strand & Hottentot Holland Mtns