Persistence

Finally, a return phone call to an email. If you want to be successful in business, you have to persist.

We have been offered a meeting with the owners of Clockwork Zoo TV production next week about the possibility of them making our 'youth employment TV show'. Instead of starting from scratch, the possibility exists to video-document SHINDA's calendar project from Oct 15-Jan 15th to create the pilot show. Rather crafty I thought. Besides the show is designed to be about real youth trying to make real money in real-life circumstances.

It would be however, a monumentally unscripted risk to take. Perhaps too valuable to pass by. Can SHINDA, Rob & I, an empty office on Strand St, Reghard and his Arctic Circle, Christmas shoppers and 7,000 students from Cape Town College together generate R1million in youth income? Is SHINDA ready for this in South Africa? We're just becoming a shelf company! I can still see the look on the young lawyer's face when we paid him cash to get started. You would of thought I showed him my underwear. And this is how it will start - me sitting on the hardwork floor using my cell phone trying to finish the day before it gets dark so I don't get scared walking to my car in the parking lot. Mental note, put cushion and pepper spray in the trunk of my car.

We chose Clockwork Zoo as they form part of a team that produces 60 minutes of the 90 minutes of daily youth programming on SABC 2 called 'Q-Base'. Hectic Nine-9 is produced in their studios on Kloof Road high above the CBD. And they do the cool new football show called PLAYA for the E-Network. I wonder how much SABC would pay for our program? Or would the phone just ring endlessly now because the acquistions department is being investigated in what is becoming a high level SA corruption case? One official-type woman in the paper said the level of the theft from the parastatal 'made her hair stand on end'. And this is a perfect example of why it's so hard to make money as a young person in Africa...

If the state broadcasters across Africa were run properly they would create thousands of jobs for youth, pay them good money - even export South Africa to the world. But instead, this beautiful and powerful national opportunity was hijacked away from a very young Africa by the greed and short-sighted self-interest of a few. It's like blowing your entire paycheck in the bar and then having to eat cup-a-soup for the next month. This is why Africa so many Africans suffer in poverty - the misuse of capital. It's just such a shame. At least here there's a good chance of prosecution.

I read in the papers today that the United States has created a list of 15 Kenyan politicians who they perceive to be blocking the pace of political reform. I can't believe it - 2 1/2 years ago, I watched 1,000 people get killed over an election and nothing's been done about it. And now, a foreign country (ironically with its president a Kenyan descendant), has resorted to threats to correct this? Travel bans if necessary. I remember explaining this to the kids in our Nairobi studio, that unless they contributed to the effort to reform their political system they didn't have a hope in hell of succeeding in life. What a brutal lesson that must have been for them. But Hector Pietersen did it and he was 15 years old. This happened in South Africa which is the only reason why the country is evolving. When I would talk about this, mostly what the Kenyans told me was that 'God would take care of them'. I am not a religious person but I don't think god gets involved with politics - let alone constitutional reform.

The South African civil institutions, albeit far from perfect, are slowly facilitating the emerging delicate democracy here. That magnificent social contract that emerges in societies - unequivocably declaring that everyone is equal, that the constitution is respected, that no one is above the law. It's seriously being tested here that's for sure, and I am very surprised actually how delicate things are in South Africa, but it feels like democracy has a chance to win. For 15 years the country has fought to reinvent itself from a painfully oppressed Apartheid system. But I think we still have 35 more years to get through before this really starts working. That's three generations.

The oldest generation bears the responsibilty to remember a brutal past. The middle generation gets the chance to forget, but only if they are willing and able to forgive. And the youngest generation? Hopefully, they will never remember but always be grateful for their inheritance.

NKOSI - 'thank you' in the Xhosa language.