The lead article in today’s Cape Times, Manny vs Floyd in City? (Cape Times, January 13), refers to the event as a “dream fight” for the Cape Town Stadium. The article lauds the two boxers, Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquia Friday as “the world’s top two glamour fighters” and Grant Pascoe, Mayco member for Cape Town tourism, events and marketing, is quoted as remarking: “It would be a major coup for the city should the fight materialize as it would be major exposure for the city.” The article also reports that Floyd Mayweather Jr is to serve a 90-day sentence for domestic violence in June this year.

We ask, why is it that the Cape Times, the City of Cape Town and the general public think it is acceptable to valorize a man convicted of domestic violence? Why should we want an abuser in a boxing ring in South Africa, and why should we treat him as a “glamour fighter,” thereby holding him up as a role model for young people?

In December every year, during the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence campaign, we wring our hands and politicians clamour to be seen to be making grand statements about what needs to be done to prevent violence against women, but then rapidly go back to ignoring and/or trivializing the problem.

The Cape Times’ report normalizes domestic violence, subordinates it in importance to the glamour of a contact sport and belittles domestic violence survivors’ experiences. It seems the very least that we can do, if we are serious about combating violence against women, is to say no thanks to Mr Floyd Mayweather Jr and his ilk, and to call on the Mayco to stop this glorification of an abuser.

Phyllis Orner and Leslie London

Observatory

Ayanda Kota Beaten up by police and arrested Unemployed People’s Movement Press Statement Ayanda Kota Assaulted in the Grahamstown Police Station – Under Arrest

About 40 minutes ago Ayanda Kota was seriously assaulted by a group of police officers in the Grahamstown police station. He was dragged, bleeding from at least two wounds, and with his clothes torn from his body, to the holding cells.

For some months he has been under open police surveillance and at times has been threatened and insulted by the police. The police have been watching his mother’s house and have searched it looking for him. Their behaviour has been very rude, threatening and aggressive.

Today Ayanda was summoned to the police station. He popped out of a meeting organised by Masifunde and the Rural People’s Movement with his six month old son and a comrade. He was called to the police station because a lecturer at Rhodes, who has publicly engaged in strange and aggressive behaviour on a number of occasions, laid a charge of theft against Ayanda after he misplaced a book that she had leant him. Ayanda did not steal the book – he mislaid it. This is something that happens all the time to people that share books. Perhaps another comrade picked it up and forget to return it. Perhaps it was left in a taxi. These things happen. Ayanda has made it quite clear that he is willing to replace the book.
As soon as Ayanda met Constable Zulu, the officer that had summoned him to the station, Constable Zulu said that he was taking him straight to the cells. Ayanda said that he wanted to show the officer text messages on his cellphone to the lecturer at Rhodes offering to replace the book but the officer insisted that Ayanda was going straight to the cells. Ayanda then asked to be able to take his son home first. At that point Constable Zulu lunged at Ayanda very aggressively. Ayanda raised his arm in an instinctive gesture of defence following which Zulu began to assault him with blows to the head. Three or four other police offices then joined the assault. Ayanda was on the floor for most of the duration of the assault which went on for some minutes. This happened in the presence of his six year old son who of course was traumatised.

The assault was brutal, entirely unnecessary and accompanied by, in Constable Zulu’s case, an obvious sadistic delight. A police secretary who witnessed it all burst into tears.One of the police officers made a sarcastic remark about Ayanda being the newsmaker of the year in the local paper. This was plainly no ordinary arrest.

This is a bogus charge that most certainly does not justify arrest. There was nothing to justify the assault. This is a simple attempt on the part of the police to misuse a ridiculous charge laid by someone well known for strange and erratic behaviour in order to intimidate an activist and the movement that he represents.
The police are not here to protect society. They are here to protect the ruling party from popular dissent. This is not an isolated incident. Poor people’s movements have been constantly subject to this sort of behaviour at the hands of the police for many years now.

UPM will try to visit Ayanda in the holding cells and will mobilise to get him medical attention tonight and to support him in court tomorrow. The movement is currently looking for a lawyer. Of course civil and criminal charges will be laid against Constable Zulu and all the other police officers who joined this assault.

For more information please contact Xola Mali on
+27(0)72 299 5253

We invite applications for a 1 year contract post as the Sports & Recreation Co-ordinator at the Youth Centre in Masiphumelele

PURPOSE OF THE POSITION

The Recreation Co-ordinator is responsible for planning, implementation & co-ordination of Sports & Recreational programmes & management of all recreation facilities at the Youth Centre  in order to provide clean and safe opportunities for sport and recreation and promote a healthy lifestyle for all participating young people.

Requirements:

• Minimum Grade 12 education
• Relevant Sport & Recreational Management qualification
• 3 years’ experience in co-ordinating sports, drama & music programmes for young people
• Lateral creative thinking & detail orientated
• Supervisory, decision making and analytical skills
• Willingness to take on new responsibilities & challenges
• Passion to work with youth and provide a youth friendly environment
• Reliability, dependability and a well-developed work ethic
• Valid driver’s license & PDP

Responsibilities:

• Develop, plan and implement age & gender specific sports, drama & music programmes at the Youth Centre
• Co-ordinate Partner facilitators & volunteers to run relevant sports & recreation programmes
• Find and foster relationships with new local partners, facilitators and volunteers
• Manage maintenance of  sports & recreation facilities and equipment
• Co-ordinate sporting competitions and recreational field trips
• Promote sport & recreation programmes in the local communities
• Co-ordinate programmes with Education Co-ordinator & Medical Research Co-ordinator
• Maintain discipline and safe healthy practice by participants
• Perform other duties as assigned

If you meet the criteria as set out above and are interested in the position please send a covering letter and concise CV (no certificates) which includes contact details of 2 referees to Jobs@hiv-research.org.za or fax  021 633 0182 (indicating the name of the position that you apply for). You can also drop them off at the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation youth centre in Guinea Fowl Road opposite Masiphumelele High school by 20 January 2012.

NB: only short-listed candidates will be contacted. We are committed to equity in our employment practices. It is our intention to appoint individuals with the aim of meeting our equity objectives. We reserve the right not to appoint if no suitable candidates are identified. If you have not heard from us within two weeks after the closing date please consider you application as unsuccessful.

Hi Black grade 12s

Look, there is a very big chance you will fail the 2009 Grade 12 examinations. Each year, thousands of black learners who write these exams do not make it and an even bigger number never even get to Grade 11 or 10. A large percentage of those who do pass, do not have good enough results to go to university or simply cannot afford the fees. So there is clearly a problem, yet each year prayer meetings are held and ‘good luck’ messages are sent in the hope that all matric students will pass, but none of these confront the simple reality that black learners in this country are likely to fail. This is a hard truth we can no longer ignore, in the same way that we cannot ignore the fact that the majority of white learners are guaranteed to pass.

But why is this the case? Why is it that white learners can be sure of passing Grade 12 while most blacks who are in township schools are more likely to fail? Is it because white learners are naturally smarter and harder working than black learners? Are the blacks in Model C schools perhaps cleverer than blacks in township schools since they also pass well and have better chances of going to university to further their studies. Or maybe this has nothing to do with individual blacks and individual whites at all, but with how the South African system favours whites to blacks in all situations. But what exactly do we mean by this?

We all know that during apartheid blacks had to study under Bantu Education which was an inferior form of education compared to what whites got. Black people were oppressed in all forms of life and Bantu Education was just one of the many ways of ensuring that they would remain oppressed and work for whites. Under apartheid, black schools had bad text books or none at all, no stationary or libraries. The schools were also overcrowded because the white government simply refused to build more schools for blacks while white classes were small enough for each learner to get the necessary attention they needed. Black schools also didn’t have enough sports facilities or extra mural activities while white schools provided activities such as chess, music lessons, swimming, debating, drama, art classes etc etc. All of these things cost money to provide and the white government put more money into white schools than into black schools as a way of oppressing blacks. And this money they used to build better schools in white areas was mostly from gold, diamond and platinum mines which black people worked on while earning peanuts. In other words, black people worked as slaves on farms and mines so that white kids could get a good education. And the white government was right to look after white learners because it was in power at the time; in fact it would have been foolish not to do so. We must ask ourselves though why these conditions persist even after a black government has been put in power.

In the last fifteen years of democracy, nothing much has changed. Township schools are still getting a type of Bantu Education that results in very low pass rates amongst black learners. (Even if this education is given all sorts of names like OBE, it remains Bantu Education for blacks). Most of the teachers in township schools were also educated under apartheid and do not have the necessary skills that white teachers have. And so the reality is that even though we now live at a time when blacks and whites are supposed to get equal opportunities, blacks who are in township schools have little opportunities or skills. For example, a Grade 7 learner in a white school is more likely to have better mathematics and literacy skills than a black learner in matric. So black learners fail Grade 12 because they have been systematically underprepared from Grade 1. Even those who manage to pass and go to university often fail their first year because they don’t have good reading and writing skills. This means that out of all the Grade 12 learners who wrote the 2009 exams, a very small number of black learners have a chance to get good jobs in three to four years time. Many of them will join the unemployed blacks who are trapped in townships and struggling to make ends meet.

But each year the Department of Education promises that things will get better and that they need more time. While young people wait for things to get better the country builds expensive stadiums that we don’t need and the children of our government ministers go to fancy schools where they are guaranteed to pass.

In countries where the government is serious about making sure that blacks are not oppressed, education is always made a priority. In Haiti, for example, the pro-black government of President Aristide, reduced illiteracy levels by a large percentage in less that four years.

In Burkina Faso too, Thomas Sankara was president for only four years before he was killed but he had managed to put in very good education programmes for the black poor and was very unpopular with the white world for doing this. Both of these countries are much smaller and poorer than South Africa but their leaders were revolutionaries who wanted to see the end of white power.

After this year’s results are announced many individual black learners in rural and township schools who did exceptionally well will be praised for their hard work and dedication. We will be told by the newspapers that all black learners in townships who work hard can also do well. But this is a lie. The majority of white learners pass well whether they work hard or not and black learners also fail either way. If you fail you may blame yourself, see it as a personal failure and be depressed as a result even though you have been set-up to fail by forces beyond your control. Some parents might also think they are personally responsible for their kids’ bad results even though the responsibility lies with our government which continues to make life a breeze for whites and a living hell for blacks.

As the revolutionary leader Che Guevara said, “An uneducated people is easy to deceive”. We must not allow ourselves to be deceived into believing that this is the best that we deserve and demand a better education. The youth who fought the Apartheid government in 1976 didn’t die for things to be like this. Its time to take action. Vuka Darkie!

Hi Black grade 12s

Look, there is a very big chance you will fail the 2009 Grade 12 examinations. Each year, thousands of black learners who write these exams do not make it and an even bigger number never even get to Grade 11 or 10. A large percentage of those who do pass, do not have good enough results to go to university or simply cannot afford the fees. So there is clearly a problem, yet each year prayer meetings are held and ‘good luck’ messages are sent in the hope that all matric students will pass, but none of these confront the simple reality that black learners in this country are likely to fail. This is a hard truth we can no longer ignore, in the same way that we cannot ignore the fact that the majority of white learners are guaranteed to pass.

But why is this the case? Why is it that white learners can be sure of passing Grade 12 while most blacks who are in township schools are more likely to fail? Is it because white learners are naturally smarter and harder working than black learners? Are the blacks in Model C schools perhaps cleverer than blacks in township schools since they also pass well and have better chances of going to university to further their studies. Or maybe this has nothing to do with individual blacks and individual whites at all, but with how the South African system favours whites to blacks in all situations. But what exactly do we mean by this?

We all know that during apartheid blacks had to study under Bantu Education which was an inferior form of education compared to what whites got. Black people were oppressed in all forms of life and Bantu Education was just one of the many ways of ensuring that they would remain oppressed and work for whites. Under apartheid, black schools had bad text books or none at all, no stationary or libraries. The schools were also overcrowded because the white government simply refused to build more schools for blacks while white classes were small enough for each learner to get the necessary attention they needed. Black schools also didn’t have enough sports facilities or extra mural activities while white schools provided activities such as chess, music lessons, swimming, debating, drama, art classes etc etc. All of these things cost money to provide and the white government put more money into white schools than into black schools as a way of oppressing blacks. And this money they used to build better schools in white areas was mostly from gold, diamond and platinum mines which black people worked on while earning peanuts. In other words, black people worked as slaves on farms and mines so that white kids could get a good education. And the white government was right to look after white learners because it was in power at the time; in fact it would have been foolish not to do so. We must ask ourselves though why these conditions persist even after a black government has been put in power.

In the last fifteen years of democracy, nothing much has changed. Township schools are still getting a type of Bantu Education that results in very low pass rates amongst black learners. (Even if this education is given all sorts of names like OBE, it remains Bantu Education for blacks). Most of the teachers in township schools were also educated under apartheid and do not have the necessary skills that white teachers have. And so the reality is that even though we now live at a time when blacks and whites are supposed to get equal opportunities, blacks who are in township schools have little opportunities or skills. For example, a Grade 7 learner in a white school is more likely to have better mathematics and literacy skills than a black learner in matric. So black learners fail Grade 12 because they have been systematically underprepared from Grade 1. Even those who manage to pass and go to university often fail their first year because they don’t have good reading and writing skills. This means that out of all the Grade 12 learners who wrote the 2009 exams, a very small number of black learners have a chance to get good jobs in three to four years time. Many of them will join the unemployed blacks who are trapped in townships and struggling to make ends meet.

But each year the Department of Education promises that things will get better and that they need more time. While young people wait for things to get better the country builds expensive stadiums that we don’t need and the children of our government ministers go to fancy schools where they are guaranteed to pass.

In countries where the government is serious about making sure that blacks are not oppressed, education is always made a priority. In Haiti, for example, the pro-black government of President Aristide, reduced illiteracy levels by a large percentage in less that four years.

In Burkina Faso too, Thomas Sankara was president for only four years before he was killed but he had managed to put in very good education programmes for the black poor and was very unpopular with the white world for doing this. Both of these countries are much smaller and poorer than South Africa but their leaders were revolutionaries who wanted to see the end of white power.

After this year’s results are announced many individual black learners in rural and township schools who did exceptionally well will be praised for their hard work and dedication. We will be told by the newspapers that all black learners in townships who work hard can also do well. But this is a lie. The majority of white learners pass well whether they work hard or not and black learners also fail either way. If you fail you may blame yourself, see it as a personal failure and be depressed as a result even though you have been set-up to fail by forces beyond your control. Some parents might also think they are personally responsible for their kids’ bad results even though the responsibility lies with our government which continues to make life a breeze for whites and a living hell for blacks.

As the revolutionary leader Che Guevara said, “An uneducated people is easy to deceive”. We must not allow ourselves to be deceived into believing that this is the best that we deserve and demand a better education. The youth who fought the Apartheid government in 1976 didn’t die for things to be like this. Its time to take action. Vuka Darkie!

We present this Policy Statement at a time when our own economy is recovering, but there are still winds of uncertainty in places that seem far away, which can rapidly affect us, for better or worse.

We have learnt from the 2008 global crisis that sound fiscal and financial institutions do not provide immunity against job losses in our own economy arising from turbulence originating elsewhere in the world.  Nor are they sufficient to reposition our economy on a new growth trajectory that creates jobs, reduces inequality and improves the quality of life of our people.

Our economic transformation requires much more.

It requires an extraordinary national effort from all role-players, committed not just to identifying the barriers to progress, not just to proposing solutions, but also to working together, over the long haul. 

In February, at the time of this year’s Budget, Mister President, we referred to your clear injunction:

“We want to have a country where millions more South Africans have decent employment opportunities, which has a modern infrastructure and vibrant economy and where the quality of life is high.”

We said in this Budget, Mister President, that it “reflects the collective determination of the Government to address with energy the challenges of creating jobs, reducing poverty, building infrastructure and expanding our economy. The Budget sets out a financial framework for implementing this vision, a framework that is sound and sustainable. It recognises that building South Africa is a multi-decade project that must invigorate our capacity to grow, and must include all South Africans in that growth.”

This remains our point of departure, but once again we have to take stock of this uncertain environment and review how we might better address our challenges and seize new opportunities.

For the past two years we have felt the shock waves of financial crises, first in the United States and the UK, now centred in Europe.

A year ago at the time of the 2010 MTBPS we thought we would see a sustained improvement in the global recovery and in our economy. That was not to be. The eurozone crisis has brought new financial challenges and threats to global growth, and we are also seeing rising inflation and overheating in several economies, including Brazil, India and China. Once again, we face the prospect of declines in global trade, falling industrial demand, delays in investment, liquidation of businesses and stressed financial institutions, this time with the added risk that fiscal austerity in some parts of the world will extend the slowdown and deepen the crisis.

The crisis of leadership currently reflected in the Eurozone and in Europe is having a damaging effect on the global economy including our own.  The world expects Europe to urgently mobilise the resources required to recapitalize banks and support a durable restructuring of insolvent or debt-laden economies.

The MTBPS sets out the fiscal and budgetary dimensions of the government’s response to what some have called “dangerous times”. It challenges us to confront both our immediate priorities and long-term development imperatives. It invites this House and all South Africans to join in our collective effort to do more, with the resources at our disposal, to strengthen our economic performance and improve public service delivery.

In brief, Mister Speaker, the MTBPS advises the following – 

The global environment poses considerable risks to the world economic recovery, and the outlook for our own economy.

Our tax revenue collections have not yet recovered fully from the effects of recession, and so our counter-cyclical fiscal stance allows for a temporary increase in borrowing.

Higher borrowing must be carefully managed: capital markets are volatile, and debt service costs are already the fastest growing category of expenditure.

Over the next three years, we will stabilise the debt level through fiscal consolidation and a moderation in expenditure growth.

The composition of our spending needs to change – while public service expenditure has continued to expand strongly, we are not doing enough to build a growing economy.

Therefore, we must prioritise public infrastructure spending and invest in job-creating assets.

We must also support business investment, through a competitiveness package and protect workers and enterprises affected by current economic conditions.

We will create a “policy reserve” and indicate options for reprioritizing expenditure and mobilizing other resources within the state to fund economic development priorities.

We have to address inefficiency, extravagance and waste in public administration, for trusteeship is at the heart of the contract between government and its citizens.

In confronting these challenges forthrightly, we are mindful that similar issues are faced by many other countries.

Across the world, there is rising indignation about unemployment, about inequality, about environmental degradation, about corruption, about the abuse of power. Correctly so.

Across the world, there is impatience at the slow pace and poor outcomes of international cooperation, and there is anger about the impact of financial and governance failures on ordinary people, on employment and on livelihoods. But anger is not enough – we have to act, we have to be bold and far-sighted in our resolve to move ahead with the reforms that will build a better future not just for ourselves but for generations to come.

Mr President, you have put jobs at the top of the agenda of our new growth path. Cabinet has endorsed a twelve-point programme of action and we have targets and delivery schedules for a wide range of public services, programmes, projects and activities.

Minister Chabane leads a department dedicated to monitoring and evaluating performance.

Our planning commission under Minister Manuel has provided a diagnostic assessment and will shortly release its long-term vision for public consultation and debate. (And the man in the yellow suit is knocking on our doors to ensure that we have the numbers we need to set targets and track our progress with confidence.)

Minister Nkwinti is steering a new course in development of rural livelihoods, in addition to chairing the work of our economic cluster.

Minister Patel has taken the lead in the dialogue with social partners that must underpin programmes of action not just within government but across society as a whole.

Ministers Motshekga and Nzimande are seeking better ways of managing our schools and expanding access to higher education and training opportunities.

Improvements in our justice system are in progress, under Minister Radebe’s guidance.

How do we achieve the right balance between these and other objectives in public policy? How do we manage the tension between promoting a dynamic enterprising economy and provision of collective goods and services?

The Medium Term Budget Policy Statement does not set out the details of policies or spending plans, as these are the responsibility of specific Ministers and their departments, and are still in preparation. But it provides the broad framework and it signals what is likely to be affordable. It also invites Parliament, and all stakeholders, to reflect on the choices before us, and to assist in finding the best combination of revenue measures, borrowing and spending plans, that is consistent with economic growth, sustainability, broad-based development and social progress. 

Economic outlook

In reporting on the outlook for the economy, Mister Speaker, we have to take account of the slowdown in the world economy and continuing uncertainty associated with the unresolved European debt crisis and sluggish growth in the United States. Global trade and growth at present are mainly driven by continuing expansion in China, India and other fast-growing developing countries.

Advanced economies are expected to grow by 1.6 per cent on average this year, rising to 1.9 per cent next year. Taking into account population growth, this is, at best, standing still. On the other hand, developing Asia will continue to grow at over 8 per cent a year, and Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to grow by between 5 and 6 per cent a year.

South Africa’s economic growth typically follows the average global trend quite closely. We saw a gradual recovery last year and an annualised GDP growth rate of 4.5 per cent in the first quarter of this year, but in the second quarter growth slowed to 1.3 per cent. For 2011 as a whole we now expect growth of 3.1 per cent, which is somewhat below the projection at the time of the Budget in February.

For the period ahead, growth is expected to be 3.4 per cent next year rising to just over 4 per cent in 2014 and 2015. The current account deficit of the balance of payments will average about 4 per cent of GDP. Consumer price inflation has increased over the past year, and is expected to stabilise at about 5½ per cent a year.

Within the global economy, the overall trend is a gradual but still inadequate convergence between living standards in rich and poor countries.  The gap is still very wide and individual country performance varies considerably.

But we have not yet seen convincing evidence of convergence within the South African economy: the income gap and the development gap are still very wide and employment growth has been too sluggish.

Also of concern is that the trends in expenditure and production are not taking us in the direction of faster, sustainable growth.

Household consumption spending has recovered strongly since the 2009 recession and household debt remains high, but private sector capital formation in 2011 is still well below its 2008 peak.

Government consumption has also increased steadily, but general government capital spending has declined for three years in a row.

Exports are still more than 15 per cent below their 2008 level in volume terms, whereas imports are near their all-time high.

South Africa has benefited from the boom in commodity prices over the past several years, but this has not led to significant growth in mining production. Energy constraints, inadequate transport capacity and uncertainty in the regulatory environment have held back progress. In contrast, mining production expanded by 30 per cent in Australia, and 44 per cent in Brazil between 2003 and 2010. This has provided a huge boost for investment, tax revenues, jobs and incomes in these countries. Minister Shabangu’s engagement with the Chamber of Mines on increasing investment in our mining resources is therefore to be welcomed.

In the manufacturing sector, rising domestic costs and weak external demand have held back the output recovery. Minister Davies is seeking common ground with leaders in industry on a strategy to revitalise manufacturing and provide appropriate support.

We recognize also that the volatility of the rand remains a difficulty for many businesses in the tradable goods sectors. The currency has traded in a range of R6.58 to R8.25 to the US dollar this year, with volatility clearly linked to global financial turmoil. The rand weakened by as much as 7.5 per cent against the US dollar in one day during September, before strengthening by 5.4 per cent on another. Depreciation in the rand in recent months has brought some relief to manufacturers, though it has also contributed to some upward pressure on prices.

Of particular importance is the trend in food prices. Minister Joemat-Peterson’s efforts to improve our agricultural trade position and support emerging farmers are critical not just for food security, but also because of the employment potential associated with farming activities. The expanding role of the Land Bank in supporting the farming sector will assist in growing our agriculture sector while contributing to job creation.

Mister Speaker, trends in the labour market indicate the magnitude of the economic challenge ahead. Real wage levels have increased in both the public and private sectors, but the pace of job creation has been far too slow. In the fifteen months to March 2010, 426 000 jobs were lost in the formal non-agricultural economy, and the estimated overall loss of jobs was more than double this. In the subsequent fifteen months of recovery to June this year, just 210 000 jobs were created, mainly in the public sector.

The quarterly employment survey records 8.3 million formal non-agricultural jobs. Several million people also earn uncertain incomes in agriculture or household employment, and in informal, seasonal and unrecorded activities. How do we bring these activities into the formal economy? How do we improve livelihoods in vulnerable and insecure activities, in which productivity is low though there may be potential for growth?

The recent recession has exposed similar concerns in many other countries. Everywhere in the world there is a struggle to boost job creation and to recognise and enhance the value of atypical forms of work. So we need to acknowledge Minister Oliphant’s difficult task in finding the right balance between protecting job security and adjustment to changing market opportunities. The agreement recently reached between the South African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union and employers in this sector illustrates that dialogue is the way to make progress.

Countries deal with these issues in differing ways. We have to learn from international experience, and adapt these lessons to our circumstances.

Social security and health insurance reforms are important elements in building a better deal for vulnerable workers, providing protection against unemployment, illness or injury, and securing an adequate income in retirement.

Better city planning, investment in public transport and well-targeted financing of housing and residential development are also important elements in the social wage. These are activities that create work opportunities in themselves, but they also create better living conditions for working people and make it easier for the unemployed to search for jobs.

The central thrust of our economic policy challenge is to support competitiveness and promote the kinds of structural change that will lead to more rapid, inclusive growth. This means that we need a reserve of funds, and a capacity to direct these resources effectively. The MTBPS proposes a competiveness support package of R25 billion over the next six years to boost industrial development, assist enterprises and accelerate job creation. This initiative will build on several broader programmes:

Tax incentives for industrial investment, technology and training amounting to over R8 billion for  recently approved projects

Continuing investment in energy, water, transport and communications and infrastructure

Improved incentives for investment in industrial development zones, particularly where there is potential to participate in global supply chains and to develop competitive logistics hubs

Regulatory and administrative reform to facilitate small business development

Support for black business development, including preferential procurement and finance facilities

Encouragement of export diversification, including new trade partnerships with fast-growing emerging economies

Regional integration within sub-Saharan Africa, including investment in a north-south transport corridor and administrative reform of trade arrangements

Support for job creation, training and community works projects

Alignment of trade, investment and energy policies to support the transition to a green economy, including private sector participation in our renewable energy production programme.

Fiscal framework

The fiscal challenge over the next three years is complex. We must support job creation, maintain the value of the social wage and finance economic transformation outlined in the New Growth Path. Over the longer term we must realise a rising floor of social and economic rights. Achieving these objectives, Mister Speaker, requires us to work within a sustainable fiscal framework.

Since 2009, in response to the global crisis and the recession, we have pursued an accommodative fiscal stance. Revenue has fallen, but we have maintained real growth in expenditure, complementing the Reserve Bank’s support for the economy through lower interest rates and monetary easing.

Beginning in 2002, non-interest expenditure doubled in real terms in seven years and consolidated spending increased to 32 per cent of GDP. This spending growth was largely financed by increased revenue associated with economic expansion and improved tax compliance and administration. But the higher revenue also included a temporary windfall associated with high commodity prices. Revenue has now declined relative to GDP, and the budget deficit has widened.

For the first six months of the fiscal year, tax receipts grew by 7.1 which is significantly lower than was anticipated in the February Budget. The lag in consumption spending and high administered prices have particularly affected small and medium size businesses, contributing to lower VAT receipts.

SARS detected increases in VAT fraud and has introduced more stringent screening of VAT refunds which, to date, has led to the prevention of R4.2 billion of potential VAT fraud.

Although corporate income tax has not yet recovered to pre-recession levels, it has remained resilient despite the uncertain economic climate.

On the trade side, customs duties and import VAT have grown significantly year-on-year and to some extent offset the poor performance of domestic VAT. Enhancements in customs administration have resulted in faster processing of commercial traffic at border posts and have, in the main, attracted favourable responses from traders.

This year, we expect tax revenue to be R729 billion, which is R13 billion below the February budget estimate.

Next year government will spend over one trillion rands.

The result is that the deficit will be 5.5 per cent of GDP this year. For the period ahead, the deficit will decline to 5.2 per cent next year and 3.3 per cent by 2014/15.

The consolidated public sector borrowing requirement will be 8.1 per cent of GDP this year, falling to about 5 per cent of GDP in 2014/15.

Government debt will rise from 23 per cent of GDP in 2009 to about 40 per cent of GDP in 2015, which signals the very substantial contribution of the fiscus over this period to economic recovery and growth.

Budget deficits and continued rising debt erodes the space for fiscal and monetary policy responses to future downturns. For the next three years, the aim is to moderate spending growth, combined with a recovery in tax revenue, so that national debt will be stabilised as a percentage of GDP. This means that by 2014/15, we can begin to rebuild fiscal space, with a positive primary balance, or revenue broadly in line with non-interest spending. We must borrow to invest in infrastructure – not for government consumption.

We will once again create a “policy reserve” to finance the initiatives we propose in support of economic growth. Government as a whole has substantial financial investments, sometimes in surplus cash and sometimes in other assets. Where these resources could more productively be applied to other priorities, we will return surplus funds to the fiscus. Greater efficiency must also be sought in government cash management and in goods and services procurement, where ordinary disciplines of financial management have to be strengthened. Further steps will be taken to reduce administrative costs and unnecessary duplication of capacity. Departments will be obliged to identify and report on savings initiatives.  We will request the Auditor-General to strengthen his focus on value for money.

Long-term sustainability depends also on shifting the composition of government spending from consumption to investment.

Our aim is to strengthen infrastructure investment and maintenance, because this is a key contribution to the underlying growth potential of the economy. This means that we must see a moderation in the growth of the wage bill and spending on goods and services over the MTEF period ahead. We must do more with less.

Over the past three years, the public service wage bill has increased from 35 per cent to nearly 40 per cent of non-interest expenditure. The proposed framework for the 2012 Budget provides for more moderate cost-of-living adjustments for public sector employees than in recent years, to be implemented with effect from April each year.

All of us must share in creating a greater momentum for growth, jobs and investment.  As government we see the need for the same principle of moderation to be applied to ourselves as cabinet ministers and other political office bearers. This must also be extended to senior management in the public service and executives of state entities. It is vital that the private sector provides responsible leadership as well. Indeed, throughout the world we need to see a paradigm shift in this regard.

We want to assure our people that we will address inefficiency, extravagance and waste in public administration.  In the wider economy, the same principle applies – moderation in consumption means higher savings and stronger growth. 

Investment in infrastructure

We will do all of this and more, because we need to invest more in infrastructure that will help to stimulate our economy and increase job creation. 

In recent years, infrastructure spending by many national and provincial departments and municipalities has lagged behind budget allocations. Efforts to strengthen capacity to manage capital budgets and construction contracts are therefore necessary. The Development Bank of Southern Africa is providing support in this area, but we also need to see much greater responsibility and accountability in municipal councils and key infrastructure departments, state-owned companies and public entities.

Public sector infrastructure spending in the current year is estimated at R233 billion, or 7.8 per cent of GDP. Over the MTEF period ahead infrastructure plans amount to R802 billion. This is a very substantial investment programme, within which there is considerable opportunity for local construction and manufacturing development and job creation.

Investment in the energy sector amounts to R292 billion over the next three years

Transport and logistics account for R226 billion

Provision is made for hospital construction and other health facilities, amounting to R39 billion, and education infrastructure of R32 billion

Substantial funding will go to municipalities and provinces for housing, residential infrastructure and local economic development.

Much of this will be financed through debt. State-owned enterprises will borrow about R74 billion this year to finance investment spending, rising to just under R80 billion next year.

We need to appreciate that debt has to be repaid, either through the tariffs and charges that are dedicated to these services, or through higher taxes. It is important to find the right balance between cost recovery from users of services, and general tax-funding. But the cost of not expanding capacity, the cost of not maintaining and rehabilitating ageing infrastructure, is an even greater future burden of congested and dangerous networks, constrained production and economic decline.

Adjustments to the 2011/12 appropriations

Before turning to the medium term expenditure plans for the 2012 Budget, Mister Speaker, I need to explain briefly the adjustments proposed for this year’s allocations. These are set out in the Adjusted Estimates of National Expenditure.

Additional appropriations are proposed amounting to R10.3 billion. Almost half of this amount is required to fund higher-than-planned wage bills – R3.2 billion in the provinces and R1.2 billion in national departments. The costs of the 2011 wage settlement will also require savings and reprioritization in departmental administration and programme expenditures.

Members of the House will note that many departmental votes include shifts in funds between identified activities, known as virements. Reservations have been expressed in this House about these mid-year changes to allocations, and the extent to which departments are able to amend allocations that have been approved in law. Our aim is to bring greater reliability and consistency to the appropriations over time. However, it is not possible to predict expenditures with complete certainty, and so some scope for adjustment has to be accommodated within the budget rules.

On top of the additional allocations for wages, R3.8 billion of unspent money from last year is rolled over to this year.  This includes

more than R1 billion for infrastructure projects

almost R200 million for improving health facilities, and

R105 million for the COP 17 Climate Change Conference in Durban next month.

The adjustments also include provision for unforeseeable and unavoidable expenditure.

Almost R150 million will go to help farmers recover from the damage caused by flooding at the start of the year and the harm caused by livestock diseases.

R81.4 million is required by Minister Sisulu to fight piracy in the Mozambican channel in cooperation with the Mozambican defence force.

An amount of R266 million is proposed for once-off gratuities to be paid to outgoing councillors following this year’s municipal elections.

R208 million is allocated to meet urgent needs associated with acid mine damage in the Witwatersrand basin. I understand that progress has been made towards a partnership between the water authorities, municipalities and mines that will contribute to addressing the region’s water supply needs over the long term.

R752 million goes to provinces for various conditional grants, including allocations for the repair of flood-damaged infrastructure.

The overall impact of the adjustments is a decrease of R0.9 billion in the 2011/12 expenditure estimate. In brief, we are adding to our spending plans for higher wages and salaries, but we will see offsetting under-spending on investment and maintenance of infrastructure this year. This is a pattern that needs to be reversed in the period ahead.

Medium-term expenditure framework and division of revenue

I turn now to the proposed expenditure framework for the 2012 Budget, Mister Speaker. I need to compliment this House, and the chairs of portfolio committees and the appropriations committee, for the constructive advice set out in the first set of budget review and recommendation reports last year. Parliament’s attention to the details of public expenditure plans and their implementation, is critical for the success of our economic transformation and social development agenda.

The expenditure framework for the period ahead provides for real growth in spending of 2.3 per cent a year. Reprioritization and a concerted focus on efficiency and improved financial management mean that new expenditure priorities are mainly financed by savings within this expenditure envelope. A total of R48 billion is added to the spending allocations over the MTEF period, partly to accommodate the carrythrough costs of this year’s salary increases.

Chapter 4 of the MTBPS outlines the planned consolidated expenditure of national and provincial government and public entities, and summarises the division of revenue between national, provincial and local government. 

Let me highlight key features:

As a consequence of the wider budget deficit since 2008, state debt cost is the fastest growing category of spending, increasing to R115 billion in 2014/15, or just under 10 per cent of the total.

Transport infrastructure is the second fastest category, rising from R67 billion this year to over R90 billion in three years’ time. Minister Ndebele’s responsibilities include the first phase of the commuter rail rolling stock replacement programme, and continued investment in the construction and rehabilitation of national and provincial roads.

Public order and safety spending is set to increase by 7.4 per cent a year, with the main share going to the police vote under Minister Mthethwa.

The expanded public works programme continues to make progress towards a target of 3.4 million job opportunities over the next three years. The recently established community works programme will be expanded to about 250 000 participants by 2014/15.

Education remains the largest priority in government spending. It accounts for over 20 per cent of non-interest allocations, and will rise to R232 billion in 2014/15.

Health spending is set to increase by 7.4 per cent a year, from R113 billion this year to R140 billion in three years’ time. This includes the NHI pilot projects in ten districts focused on comprehensive primary health care.

Spending on local government, housing and community amenities will rise from R122 billion to R146 billion over the next three years, including targeted funding for upgrading informal settlements in 45 cities and towns.

Environmental protection and green economy initiatives will continue to be strengthened, including assistance to municipalities for electricity demand management programmes and private sector partnerships aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Allocations for science and technology will increase by 9.5 per cent a year over the period ahead, with a special focus, under Minister Pandor’s guidance, on support for business innovation with potential for growth and employment creation.

Of the R48 billion available for allocation in the 2012 Budget, 42 per cent goes to provinces and 11 per cent to local government.  Personnel expenditure will take up part of the revised provincial shares, and allocations are also made for infrastructure repairs and rehabilitation and early childhood education programmes. Transfers to municipalities take into account service delivery backlogs that have to be addressed, and bulk infrastructure and waste management services.

Decisive steps need to be taken to address slow and inefficient spending on social and economic infrastructure by provinces and municipalities. The rules for infrastructure conditional transfers to provincial departments and municipalities will be adapted to improve planning, procurement and implementation procedures. The intention is to reward provincial departments and municipalities that accelerate implementation and that ensure efficient and cost effective delivery of services. These measures will be introduced from April 2012 and will be announced during the tabling of the budget next year.

To grow the economy and further accelerate access to basic services, greater infrastructure investment is needed by municipalities. The 2011 MTBPS signals a number of interventions in this regard.

First, funding is targeted at smaller predominantly rural municipalities to improve their institutions to deliver faster and quality services to their citizens. This should put them in a position to recruit and retain skilled municipal managers and financial management expertise.

Second, these municipalities will also be provided with greater national support. Depending on their circumstances and need, bulk infrastructure project implementation will be accelerated.

Third, our metropolitan and secondary cities are home to the urban poor who are accommodated in many instances in large informal settlements. Over R60 billion is to be spent in these cities and towns to transform informal settlements into fully integrated and dignified built environments. The spirit of enterprise is there, we need to collectively roll up our sleeves and face these challenges head on.

Fiscal reform and financial stability

Mister Speaker, our fiscal policy is built on the principles outlined in the 2011 Budget Review:

Counter-cyclicality – which means that changes in the budget balance work to offset the fluctuations in demand that create economic slowdowns and booms

Debt sustainability – increases in the stock of debt, incurred by financing deficits during slowdowns, will be offset by debt reduction in boom periods

Inter-generational equity – our children and their children should not be unfairly burdened by the future costs of commitments we make today.

Next year, the National Treasury will publish a long term outlook for the public finances, drawing on these principles, and taking into account South Africa’s demographic trends and economic challenges. It will explore the implications for government finance of major long term priorities, including improved infrastructure investment and maintenance, social security and retirement reform, the establishment of national health insurance, the role of development finance institutions and the strengthening of our municipal finances.

The main source of finance for the real growth of total expenditure will be, as always, tax revenues. I wish to pay tribute to the Commissioner Magashula and the South African Revenue Service team for their continued hard work and success in building payments compliance and securing the revenue stream.

Coordination of fiscal and monetary policy is also critical to macroeconomic management and our financial stability. Working together with Governor Gill Marcus and the South African Reserve Bank, we have begun the reform of financial regulation and risk management set out in the paper A Safer Financial System to Serve South Africa Better, published in February this year. Prudential regulation has been strengthened by establishing the Financial Stability Oversight Committee, chaired jointly by the Governor and myself. It aims to ensure that we maintain financial stability and deal effectively with systemic risks to the financial system. Progress has also been made in setting up the necessary technical support to implement the proposed separation of prudential regulation and consumer protection, which will take two to three years to implement.

We have also agreed on several reforms to improve South Africa’s position as a financial gateway into Africa and facilitate cross-border transactions. All inward-listed shares on the JSE will henceforth be classified as domestic assets and be included on the JSE indices, as agreed with the regulatory authorities. Steps will be taken to simplify procedures and reduce the cost of cross-border money remittances, particularly to neighbouring countries and the rest of Africa.

I am pleased to be able to assure the House that whilst some banks in advanced economies now appear to be undercapitalised, our own banks and financial markets are in robust condition. Our regulatory and oversight systems have stood the test of time, ensuring that our financial sector has remained steady in these troubled times. To take forward this work, I am pleased to welcome the new Banking Registrar, Mr Rene van Wyk, who will build on the firm foundations laid by his predecessor Mr Errol Kruger.

Conclusion

Mister Speaker, on previous occasions I have stated that we must target economic growth of 7 per cent per year sustained for a generation or longer. At this pace the economy would double in size every ten years, delivering jobs and prosperity and lifting millions out of poverty. For us as a nation to achieve this ambition requires deep rooted transformation of our economy that removes the many barriers to growth and development.

Microeconomic reforms are at the heart of undertaking structural change, increasing productivity and improving competiveness. Central to these efforts are interventions that systematically raise the level of competition across industries and sectors, provide efficient and cost-effective energy, transport, ICT, and logistics networks, encourage innovation, foster entrepreneurship and enterprise development, and provide the platform for closer regional economic integration. Within government our reform efforts must provide value for money, improving the efficiency with which we build social and economic infrastructure and the delivery of high-quality public services particularly in health and education.

Minister Motsoaledi’s insistence, for example, on achieving lower costs in our anti-retroviral procurement, and better management of medicines and other supplies in our hospitals and clinics, represents savings of billions of rand over time. Minister Motshekga’s cost-savings through centralized publication and distribution of workbooks to schools is another excellent example. Minister Dlamini-Zuma has led an impressive administrative turnaround in the Department of Home Affairs.

I am also pleased to be able to report that the Jobs Fund, launched on the 7th June 2011, received a total of 2 651 applications following its first call for proposals, illustrating the demand, innovation and desire across both the private and public sectors to create jobs. The applications were spread across each of the four funding windows – enterprise development, support for work seekers, infrastructure investment, and building institutional capacity. The Investment Committee has commenced the approval of projects with a total grant allocation of R352 million and 115 226 projected jobs.

Mister Speaker, we owe it to our young people to take these reforms forward, both within government and in building our wider economy.

This week, the matric examinations begin for another cohort of school-leavers. I know that the House will join me in wishing them everything of the best.

In a few weeks’ time, Minister Nkoana-Mashabane will seek to make progress in a most difficult global coordination challenge: how to invest in a clean-energy future, and how to share the costs of this transition. In wishing her well as chair of the 17th Conference of the Parties we can also take pride in the contribution of the South African scientific community to understanding climate change and its implications. We also wish Minister Molewa well in leading South Africa’s delegation to the conference.

Honourable Speaker, allow me to express my appreciation to President Zuma for his wise leadership, and to Deputy President Motlanthe for valued guidance.  I am grateful for the support of the Ministers Committee on the Budget, members of the Treasury Committee, Cabinet colleagues, Premiers and provincial finance MECs, during a year of a period of financial challenges.

I would also like to commend Mr Thaba Mufamadi, Mr Mshiyeni Sogoni, and Mr Charel de Beer and Mr Teboho Chaane, who chair the standing committees on finance and appropriations, and the select committee on finance. 

We are grateful to the Governor of the South African Reserve Bank, Ms Gill Marcus and her team at SARB for their steadfast management of monetary policy at a challenging time.

I know that the House will join me in expressing our admiration and thanks to the Auditor-General, Terence Nombembe, and his staff, for their rigorous scrutiny of the public finances.

Thanks are due to Mr Oupa Magashula and the staff of South African Revenue Service for taking the “Eish out of taxation” and their valiant efforts to give us the revenue we need.

I would like to thank Deputy Minister Nhlanhla Nene for his tireless support and sharing our burden.  The National Treasury team have again delivered a set of budget statements during a dynamic and uncertain time when innovation, dedication and hard work, more so than usual, is required.  I would like to congratulate the new Director-General, Lungisa Fuzile on his appointment and thank him for his leadership and tireless efforts in steering his first MTBPS. 

Mr Speaker, we live in challenging and uncertain times.  There, are, however, many opportunities for us to advance to our goal for a better life for all in South Africa.  This is a time for united action, for greater urgency, and for an unconditional focus on those programmes which will demonstrate to our people that we care and that we will change their lives for the better.

Honourable Speaker, I hereby submit the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement 2011, and I table the Adjusted Estimates of National Expenditure, the Adjustments Appropriation Bill 2011, the Division of Revenue Amendment Bill 2011, the Taxation Laws Amendment Bill, and the Taxation Laws Second Amendment Bill for consideration by Parliament.  

A meeting of the independent Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) last week recommended that the trial continue, but that women assigned to the tenofovir tablet should discontinue use of the study product. It is important to note that the decision to stop oral tenofovir does not reflect safety concerns associated with that regimen; the DSMB concluded that the study would not be able to show a difference in effectiveness between tenofovir and placebo. The study will continue to evaluate whether Truvada® and the vaginal gel are effective in preventing HIV compared to their respective placebos.

In their review, the VOICE DSMB also considered recent results from two previous clinical studies of tenofovir and Truvada®, which showed striking evidence that oral PrEP can help reduce HIV infection. In the Partners PrEP study, sero-discordant couples (i.e., in which only one partner had known HIV) showed 62 percent fewer infections in those taking tenofovir and a 73 percent HIV risk reduction in participants randomized to Truvada®. In the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention TDF2 study in Botswana of sexually active men and women, researchers found a 62 percent risk reduction of HIV infection in men and women taking Truvada® as compared to those in the placebo arm.

Responding to this change, Yasmin Halima, Director of the Global Campaign for Microbicides, stressed the value of VOICE: “With the good news that PrEP has been shown in studies to reduce HIV risk in men who have sex with men, sero-discordant couples, and sexually active heterosexual men and women, the key question remains—do we have sufficient evidence that PrEP works in women? For this reason, VOICE continues to be an exceptionally important study. Not only does it include both oral PrEP and a vaginal microbicide in the same trial, but VOICE, we hope, will help provide the evidence we need to bring us closer to delivering two more options for women.”

Other trials also underway testing oral and topical PrEP include a study of the tenofovir tablet for HIV prevention in injecting drug users in Thailand, and the FACTS 001 trial, which plans to test tenofovir gel used by women before and after sex. These additional studies will add to our level of knowledge and provide additional safety and insight to use and adherence in different population groups.

“As advocates, we are mindful of these studies and their progress—and their potential for impact on the communities we serve,” said Samukeliso Dube, Head of Africa Programs for the Global Campaign for Microbicides. “While this is an important decision, we are pleased that VOICE will continue, as it will help answer critical questions about PrEP in women. Most of all, we applaud the women who volunteer for such trials—without their courage, we would not be able to develop the tools we so urgently need to help protect women from HIV.”

The Global Campaign for Microbicides remains committed to making available a variety of tools that women in Africa can use to protect themselves from HIV, including microbicides and slow-releasing vaginal rings, in addition to other prevention options.

About the trialVOICEQ&A about the modification of VOICE

Partners PrEPCDC

TDF2 study

About PrEPPre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, is the use of medicine in advance of exposure to something potentially harmful, such as a disease or condition. Within the context of HIV, it is the use of antiretroviral medicine by HIV-negative people before sexual activity or other high-risk behaviors.

About microbicidesMicrobicides are being developed as products that could be topically applied by a receptive sex partner to reduce the risk of becoming HIV infected during sex. Microbicide candidates are being formulated as vaginal gels, suppositories, and slow-releasing vaginal rings.

AVAC.

In 2009, legal proceedings were instituted in the Western Cape High Court asking the Court to direct the President to appoint an independent judicial commission of inquiry into allegations of wrongdoing or to require him to reconsider his refusal to do so.  It later transpired that the Western Cape High Court was the wrong forum to hear the matter. An application was then brought in the Constitutional Court. The matter is set down for hearing on 17 November 2011.

President Zuma assumed office when the matter was already pending in the courts of law. He had previously taken a view that since the matter was the subject of litigation in a court of law, he should allow the legal process to take its course.

However, he has since taken into account the various developments around this matter and also the fact that closure on this subject will be in the public interest.

The President will soon announce the terms of reference and the composition of the commission including the time frames.

The President has requested the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development to take the necessary steps to implement this decision.

Issued by: The Presidency
Pretoria

I would like to thank you for inviting me to return to this important centre of learning to reflect on what is obviously an important and relevant topic.

In its invitation letter to me the SRC said the Council had “identified as some of (its) goals to stimulate dialogue, encourage critical thinking and reach for a more transformed campus.”

I would like to commend the SRC and the student body as a whole for setting these important goals. I hope that indeed that you have given yourselves time critically to assess the historic events in North Africa to come to some conclusions about what they mean for Africa and for the African Students.

What can we say about these events, restricting ourselves, for now, to Egypt and Tunisia?

We will return later to the case of Libya.

With regard to everything we will say, please remember that the youth constitute the overwhelming majority of the population in all the countries we are discussing. In Egypt, for instance, two-thirds of the population is under 30, while youth unemployment stands at least at 25%.

Given the topic you have asked us to address, I hope you will agree that necessarily we will have to spend some time reflecting on the events in North Africa so that together we are better able to assess the potential role of the African students in this regard.

There is no doubt that what we saw in Egypt and Tunisia were genuinely popular and peaceful Uprisings aimed at the democratic transformation of these two African countries, starting with the overthrow of the ruling groups.

Accordingly, the Uprisings aimed to achieve the fundamental transformation of their societies, and not only their political systems.

It is also clear that in both instances the youth and students exercised leadership by being the first to take to the streets and by their persistence until the first objective of the Uprising, the overthrow of the ruling groups, was achieved.

It is also important to understand that this objective was achieved because the people as a whole joined the youth and students, transforming the rebellion of the youth and students into a National Uprising, which more or less guaranteed its success.

Equally we have to understand that what also facilitated this success was that the Armed Forces in both countries refused to suppress the Uprising and therefore to protect the governments of the day. On their own, the Police and other security organs could not defeat the Uprisings, regardless of the amount of force they used.

It is also clear that the Uprisings were an indigenous affair, carried out without any significant interference by foreign powers to help direct what were authentic African endeavours.

It is also significant that the governments of both Tunisia and Egypt collapsed within a very short time after the start of the Uprisings, marked in particular by the resignation of the Heads of State, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak respectively.

This could only mean that such was the degree of social rot over which these Heads of State presided, and such was the isolation of their governments from the masses of the people that it would not take too much pressure to topple them, as actually happened.

The April 6 Movement was one of the most prominent of the youth and student formations which played a critical role in the Egyptian Uprising, which incidentally named itself after a brutally suppressed workers’ strike which had started on April 6, 2008.

In a Statement this Movement issued on February 6, 2011, and reflecting the extent to which the Mubarak regime had lost the confidence of the people, it said:

“We will complete what we started on the 25th of January. We the Egyptian youth will not be deceived by Mubarak’s talk, which aimed to manipulate the emotions of the Egyptian people and under-estimated their intelligence as he has become accustomed to doing for thirty years in speeches, false promises, and mock election programs that were never meant to be implemented. Mubarak resorted to this misleading talk, thinking that Egyptian people could be deceived yet again.”

The youth and students and the people of Tunisia took exactly the same position with regard to their then President, Abidine Ben Ali.

By the time he was forced to leave office, Ben Ali had served as President of Tunisia for just over 23 years. Hosni Mubarak of Egypt had served in the same position for 29 years.

Again as all of you know, both of them held onto these positions through what were described as democratic elections.

The reality, however, is that these elections were not democratic by any stretch of the imagination, and therefore that both Presidents and the groups they led clung to power depending not on the will of the people, but resort to other means which deliberately sought to frustrate the will of the people.

These were fraudulent elections and the maintenance of an extensive machinery of repression. Many in the Arab world claim that Tunisia had the most repressive state machinery of all countries in the region, making it what is correctly described as a police state.

In addition to the monopolisation of political power by a few, this meant that this tiny minority, as in Egypt, had every possibility to abuse its illegitimate power to enrich itself by corrupt means.

In a January 28 article this year, The Washington Post reported that:

“The Ben Ali and Trabelsi families, (Leila Trabelsi being his wife), controlled a vast number of companies and real estate, sometimes taken by force. Even distant relatives seemed above the law. Tunisia was their personal treasure chest.”

It is said that the Ben Ali and Trabelsi families controlled between 30% and 40% of the Tunisian economy.

One commentator, Professor Juan Cole, said “the U.S. leaked cables from WikiLeaks suggest that 50 percent of the economic elite of (Tunisia) was related in one way or another to the president or to the first lady, Leila Ben Ali, and her Trabelsi clan.”

We must expect that in time credible information will also come out which will also demonstrate that the Mubarak family and its associates also accumulated a great deal of wealth by corrupt means.

At the same time as the ruling groups in Egypt and Tunisia were enriching themselves, millions among their people faced challenging socio-economic conditions, characterised by high rates of poverty, unemployment, and an unaffordable cost of living.

This meant that not only were millions languishing in poverty, but also that the situation was made worse by glaring disparities in standards of living between the rich at the top and the poor at the bottom of the proverbial pyramid.

But what about the students and the intelligentsia?

In an article headed, “Students Spark Tunisian Uprising”, and published on January 18, Toufik Bougaada wrote:

“After four weeks of street protests in Tunisia, triggered by angry unemployed university graduates, Tunisians have ousted President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, who ruled for nearly a quarter of a century.

“The protests started on 18 December 2010 when Mohamed Bouazizi, an unemployed university graduate working as a street vendor, committed self-immolation in protest after police confiscated his stock of fruits and vegetables.

“This sent ripples through society, with many academics decrying day-to-day life, which is rife with corruption, unemployment and hikes in food prices…

“Unemployment is even higher amongst university graduates, with almost 25% of graduates failing to find work…Despite having a better education system than its North African neighbours, the high rate of graduate unemployment in Tunisia means many young people shun third-level (tertiary) education.”

As you know, and as we have just mentioned, the Tunisian Uprising was sparked by the disturbing event when an unemployed graduate, who made a living by selling fruit and vegetables as a street hawker, burnt himself to death.

In this context we should also note that even in Egypt, in part the Uprising was sparked by the death of yet another university graduate, Khaled Said, who was killed by the police in Alexandria.

Early last month, in an article entitled “Brains unused”, Rania Khallaf of Al Ahram reported on a sit-in by university graduates at the Academy of Scientific Research in Cairo. These were unemployed graduates who were demanding to be taken on as lecturers in the Egyptian universities, with some of them, including PhD’s, having been unemployed for seven years after they had graduated.

So acute is the problem that Khallaf’s article concluded with the words; “What is needed is an in-depth review of the problems facing higher education in Egyptian universities and an ambitious plan to make use of Egypt’s brainpower. Again, if there are not enough job vacancies in Egyptian universities, it is high time for the government to find ways to benefit from this brilliant, highly promising manpower.”

Responding to this situation, a February 4 Communiqué of the January 25th Youth (Movement), named after the day the Uprising began, said:
“Egypt’s youth went out on the 25th of January with a strength, courage, boldness and heroism that had been unprecedented for the people of Egypt and completely unexpected;
“So that there would be no difference between the graduates of professional schools and those with lesser degrees;
“To confront the unemployment that has destroyed the lives of Egyptian youth;
“So that 472 youth no longer drown weekly in the Mediterranean Sea, their only crime (being) that they seek work and food to lessen the burden their families bear;
“We came out to protest the lines for (even) propane (gas) bottles and bread;
“We came out to demand an education that allows us to compete among the nations of the world, not an education that allows the world to mock us;
“We came out for the sake of the 52% of our people that are illiterate;
“We came out for the sake of national goals that unite all of us and would allow us to dispense with idling our time in cafes…”

I hope that what I have said so far is sufficient to indicate, among others, the principal objectives of the Uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, including issues relating to the students and the intelligentsia.

As I said earlier, it is clear that these Uprisings had as their fundamental objective the victory of the democratic revolution in both countries. However, as the people who constituted the heart of the Uprisings admit every day, the democratic revolutions have not as yet emerged victorious.

It was therefore always a misnomer to describe the Uprisings as Revolutions.

To indicate the challenges facing the democratic forces in Egypt, concerning the fundamental changes for which they fought and are fighting, I will present to you observations made by some Egyptians, which comments speak for themselves.

What I will present to you henceforth will include relatively extensive quotations by various individuals and institutions. I must confess that I chose to rely on these citations to avoid the accusation that I have sought only to convey my partisan views.

In an article published at the beginning of this month, entitled “Time to get serious”,

Salama A. Salama of Egypt says:

“The brief honeymoon that followed the 25 January Revolution, when the army and the people were said to be “one hand,” has ended in mistrust and misunderstanding that the recent reshuffle of the Essam Sharaf government failed to address…

“As it turned out, Sharaf is now catching flak from all sides, with people blaming him for slowing down the revolution, failing to address security, or failing to speed up the trials of former officials…

“Turning to the revolutionaries, we have to admit that they are still a motley crew of well-intentioned but disunited groups and alliances, hard to enumerate or figure out. They have no leadership to negotiate on their behalf or a set of suggested policies to follow. But what this country needs right now is policies that take domestic as well as external considerations into account. We need a government that knows how to tend to economic and social demands while keeping at bay those powers, Arab and non-Arab, that do not wish to see democracy take root in Egypt.”

Towards the end of May this year, Khalil El-Anani published an article entitled “Egyptian Revolution Reconsidered”. He said:

“Although the Egyptian revolution succeeded in ousting the Mubarak regime, it has not yet managed to uproot the ills of its culture, value system and prevailing modes of behaviour. In this sense, therefore, it remains “half a revolution”, or more precisely, a “revolutionary act” that still needs follow-through towards completion…The “heart”, or foundation, of (the Egyptian) state remains unchanged…Change at both levels – the political system and society – is a prerequisite for the completion of any revolution.

“Of course, there is no denying that the Egyptian revolutionary act was sudden and very powerful. However, its major thrust emanated from and remained largely restricted to a particular stratum of society, namely the middle to upper- middle class. It has yet to spread to other strata of society, which remain essentially the same as they were before the revolution. This phenomenon is not peculiar to Egypt. Other countries have experienced similar popular uprisings that succeeded in overturning regimes but did not go as far as to engender radical change in the prevailing values, culture and structures of society…

“The Egyptian revolution can, therefore, be described so far as a minimal revolution – it achieved the minimal level of the dream of the majority of Egyptians, which was the overthrow of the old regime and the prosecution of its leaders and most prominent figures. However, it remains a considerable way off from the upper level, which involves the transformation of social and institutional structures and value and behavioural systems so as to enable society to regain its health and proceed towards the realisation of human development and prosperity…

“Not every outburst of collective anger and frustration is a revolution. Not every defiance and overthrow of an old regime and its legal edifice is proof of a successful revolutionary act. The sole guarantor of the success of a revolution is society itself. Herein lies the crux of the dilemma: the performer of the revolutionary act (the agent) needs a revolution so that the act and the agent can be brought into harmony, and so that the results are consistent with the beginnings.”

Let me conclude these quotations with one from Fatma Khafagy, a women’s rights activist and a board member of the Alliance for Arab Women, extracted from a February article headed “Now for the Gender Revolution”.

She wrote: “I want to see the opposite of what has always happened after revolutions take place, now in Egypt. History tells us that women stand side by side with men, fight with men, get killed defending themselves and others along with men, and then nurse the wounded, lament the dead, chant and dance when the struggle is victorious and help to manage the aftermath when it is not. However, history also indicates that after the success of a political struggle, women are too often forced to go back to their traditional gender roles and do not benefit from the harvest of revolution.

“I am sure the Egyptian revolution will not allow this to happen…

“The Egyptian revolution, as I witnessed every day and night in Tahrir Square, was not only about getting rid of a political system. It was also about creating another more beautiful and just Egypt that would guarantee human rights to all its citizens. I saw young women discussing with young men what kind of life they wanted to achieve for Egypt. I feel sure that the gender equality that was witnessed in Tahrir Square and elsewhere in Egypt will now prevail because we need it to create a better Egypt.”

I am certain that the observations made by the three Egyptian commentators I have just quoted would apply in similar manner to Tunisia.

Libya was and is of course a completely different kettle of fish.

In this case, it is obvious that the major Western powers decide to intervene to advance their selfish interests, using the instrumentality of the UN Security Council.

I am certain that many of us here will at least have heard of the independent non-governmental organisation, headquartered in Brussels, the International Crisis Group, the ICG, which focuses on conflict resolution.

Its current President and CEO is the Canadian Judge Louise Arbour, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and former UN Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

I mention all this to make the point that neither the ICG nor its President and CEO were, or are, or can justly be accused of being in any way sympathetic to the Libyan Gaddafi regime.

But yet, in a Report on Libya issued on June 6 this year, the ICG said:

“Much Western media coverage has from the outset presented a very one-sided view of the logic of events, portraying the protest movement as entirely peaceful and repeatedly suggesting that the (Libyan) regime’s security forces were unaccountably massacring unarmed demonstrators who presented no real security challenge. This version would appear to ignore evidence that the protest movement exhibited a violent aspect from very early on…

“Likewise, there are grounds for questioning the more sensational reports that the regime was using its air force to slaughter demonstrators, let alone engaging in anything remotely warranting use of the term “genocide”. That said, the repression was real enough, – and I would, as an aside, add, as was the case in Tunisia and Egypt – and its brutality shocked even Libyans. It may also have backfired, prompting a growing number of people to take to the streets.”

Similar observations had been made earlier by Alan K. Kuperman on April 14, writing in the US newspaper, The Boston Globe. In an article headed “False pretense for war in Libya”, he wrote:

“Evidence is now in that President Barack Obama grossly exaggerated the humanitarian threat to justify military action in Libya. The president claimed that intervention was necessary to prevent a “bloodbath’’ in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city and last rebel stronghold…

“Obama insisted that prospects were grim without intervention… Thus, the president concluded, “preventing genocide’’ justified US military action.

“But intervention did not prevent genocide, because no such bloodbath was in the offing. To the contrary, by emboldening rebellion, US interference has prolonged Libya’s civil war and the resultant suffering of innocents…”

Later in its Report, the ICG said:

“The prospect for Libya, but also North Africa as a whole, is increasingly ominous, unless some way can be found to induce the two sides in the armed conflict to negotiate a compromise allowing for an orderly transition to a post-Qaddafi, post-Jamahiriya state that has legitimacy in the eyes of the Libyan people. A political breakthrough is by far the best way out of the costly situation created by the military impasse…

“Instead of stubbornly maintaining the present policy and running the risk that its consequence will be dangerous chaos, (the international community) should act now to facilitate a negotiated end to the civil war and a new beginning for Libya’s political life…

“To insist that, ultimately, (Qaddafi) can have no role in the post-Jamahiriya political order is one thing, and almost certainly reflects the opinion of a majority of Libyans as well as of the outside world.

“But to insist that he must go now, as the precondition for any negotiation, including that of a ceasefire, is to render a ceasefire all but impossible and so to maximise the prospect of continued armed conflict.

“To insist that he both leave the country and face trial in the International Criminal Court is virtually to ensure that he will stay in Libya to the bitter end and go down fighting.”

Bitter facts on the ground, showing the loss of African lives and the destruction of property in Libya, demonstrate that the ICG was absolutely correct.

The naked reality is not that the Western powers did not hear what the ICG said. Rather, they heard but did not want to listen to anything informed by the objective to address the real interests of the African people of Libya.

They were and are bent on regime-change in Libya, regardless of the cost to this African country, intent to produce a political outcome which would serve their interests.

Earlier this year, on March 2, a senior journalist on the London Guardian newspaper, Seumas Milne, said:

“The “responsibility to protect” invoked by those demanding intervention in Libya is applied so selectively that the word hypocrisy doesn’t do it justice. And the idea that states which are themselves responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands in illegal wars, occupations and interventions in the last decade, along with mass imprisonment without trial, torture and kidnapping, should be authorised by international institutions to prevent killings in other countries is simply preposterous…

“The reality is that the Western powers which have backed authoritarian kleptocrats across the Middle East for decades now face a loss of power in the most strategically sensitive region of the world as a result of the Arab uprisings and the prospect of representative governments. They are evidently determined to appropriate the revolutionary process wherever possible, limiting it to cosmetic change that allows continued control of the region…

“(Foreign) military intervention wouldn’t just be a threat to Libya and its people, but to the ownership of what has been until now an entirely organic, homegrown democratic movement across the region…

“The Arab revolution will be made by Arabs, or it won’t be a revolution at all.”

Later, on March 23, he wrote: “As in Iraq and Afghanistan, (with regard to Libya, the Western powers) insist humanitarian motives are crucial. And as in both previous interventions, the media are baying for the blood of a pantomime villain leader, while regime change is quickly starting to displace the stated mission. Only a Western solipsism that regards it as normal to be routinely invading other people’s countries in the name of human rights protects NATO governments from serious challenge…

“For the Western powers, knocked off balance by the revolutionary Arab tide, intervention in the Libyan conflict offers both the chance to put themselves on the “right side of history” and to secure their oil interests in a deeply uncertain environment.”

Seumas Milne’s colleague in the same newspaper, Simon Jenkins, wrote only three days ago, on August 23:

“If (British Prime Minister) Cameron wants to take credit for the removal of Gaddafi, then he cannot avoid responsibility for the aftermath. Yet that responsibility strips a new regime of homegrown legitimacy and strength. This is the classic paradox of liberal interventionism…

“Britain remains enmeshed in the Muslim world. It made a mess of Iraq and is trapped in Afghanistan. It hardly needs another costly and embarrassing client state to look after in this surge of neo-imperial do-goodery. We may applaud the chance of freedom about to be granted to a lucky group of oppressed people, but that doesn’t justify the means by which it is achieved, in another fury of great-power aggression. The truth is that Gaddafi’s downfall, like his earlier propping up, will have been Britain’s doing. A new Libyan regime will be less legitimate and less secure as a result.”

In this regard, four days ago, on August 22, the veteran Guardian correspondent, Jonathan Steele, had said: “Thanks to its crucial role in tipping the military scales in Libya, Nato and the rebels are inextricably linked. Gaddafi had few supporters in the Arab world but there is a justified perception on the Arab street that the rebels are over-reliant on Western support and that the overriding Western motive is access to Libya’s oil…

“The best revolutions are homegrown as they were in Tunisia and Egypt. Those who took to the streets in Tunis and Cairo’s Tahrir Square wanted to regain their country’s national dignity after decades of seeing their rulers doing the bidding of France and the United States…

“The new rulers in Libya face a long road ahead in establishing their legitimacy on the Arab and African stage.”

And indeed they do!

At the end of everything I have said, relating to Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, what should the African students do, including you, students at Stellenbosch University!

I am certain that the totality of my comments will have confirmed the reality of which you are aware, that the recent and contemporary processes in North Africa are indeed truly complex.

The first suggestion I would therefore like to convey to you is that in order for you to play a meaningful role in this regard, and indeed in the context of all other significant developments in Africa, you must make the effort to study and understand these developments.

You have the unique advantage that you are students. As a former university student, I know that your principal task is to study. If you do not do this, it would be incorrect to describe, respect and honour you as students!

Further, as my second suggestion, I would like to believe that you will seek to understand African reality not for the pleasure merely of knowing, but because you would want to do what you can to help change our Continent for the better.

In this regard you would, of course, be inspired by what your peers have done in Tunisia and Egypt, who took the lead in the popular Uprisings in their countries, which have served to advance the African democratic revolution.

At the same time you will have been motivated to follow the heroic example set by your South Africans predecessors, such as those who participated in the 1976 Soweto Uprising, and others of our students, before and since.

Quite correctly, you see yourselves as part of the greater family of the millions of students in Africa, determined to act together with your colleagues to reshape our Continent into the kind of homeland you wish to inherit.

In this context, and as my third suggestion, I would like to propose that you make a determined effort to study various documents which constitute all-Africa policy by virtue of having been adopted by the OAU, the Organisation of African Unity, and its successor, the African Union, the AU.

In the context of the topic the SRC asked me to address this afternoon, I would suggest that you give yourselves time to study and debate, among others:

• the Constitutive Act of the African Union;
• the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights;
• the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa;
• the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption;
• the Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union;
• the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance;
• the African Youth Charter;
• the Charter for African Cultural Renaissance;
• the various documents on Human Resources, Science and Technology;
• the NEPAD Founding Document (2001); and,
• the African Peer Review Mechanism.

I mention these particular documents, all of which have been adopted by all the African governments, because they address directly the many political, economic, security and social issues which have arisen in the context of the North African struggles we have convened to discuss, and which, if implemented, would have addressed the concerns of our North African brothers and sisters.

As you study and debate these documents, as my fourth proposal, I would suggest that you ask yourselves and strive to answer two important questions:

• what should be done to position the African Union so that it has the ability to help ensure that all our Member States actually respect the objectives defined in these documents; and,

• what should the African student movement do to help achieve this outcome?

The fifth suggestion I would like to make relates to what has happened in Côte d’Ivoire and what is happening in Libya.

Specifically, in this regard, you should debate what Africa should do, and what Africa’s students should contribute in this regard, to defend and advance our right as Africans truly to determine our destiny, as a sovereign people.

I have been told that some of the intellectuals at our Universities reject the claim we make regularly – to find African solutions to African problems!

The only way I can explain this very strange posture is that these are Africans who have lost respect for and confidence in themselves, as Africans, and who therefore feel obliged to adopt positions which question ours and their right and capacity to solve our problems.

Certainly I have never come across any Europeans or Americans or Asians who would even so much as find it odd that they should assert that they have every right to find solutions to their problems!

I am also convinced, and as I said earlier, that the Stellenbosch University SRC was correct to set as one of its tasks the achievement of what it called “a more transformed campus”.

As a member of the Convocation of this University, I know that certainly under the leadership of our Principal and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Russell Botman, you have been discussing what this means.

Placed within the larger African context, this must surely mean that we strive to ensure that this University does its best not to produce the “Unused brains” to which an Egyptian commentator referred, and that our country, as well, “finds ways to benefit from (the) brilliant (and) highly promising human power” of those who graduate from Stellenbosch University.

Thus should you, the students, together with the rest of the University community, which is my sixth suggestion, continue to engage the critically important issue of how the University should persist in the effort to transform itself so that as an African centre of learning, teaching and research, it also serves as a vital intellectual centre for the progressive fundamental transformation of our Continent, and therefore its renaissance.

I am also very pleased that as students here at Stellenbosch you see yourselves as having shared obligations towards our Continent with the larger collective of other African students.

As my seventh suggestion, I would therefore like to suggest that through formations such as SASCO and other societies, and indeed through the SRC, you should do everything you can to strengthen your links with your African peers, including through a strengthened and more active and correctly focused All-Africa Students Union.

The recent and current events in North Africa have confirmed that Africa’s students remain one of the most vital and courageous forces for the progressive transformation of our Continent, which entirely healthy reality we also know from our own history.

To conclude, and as my eighth proposal, I would like to appeal to you always to remember that you have an obligation to take advantage of the opportunity you have as university students, and therefore Africa’s nascent intelligentsia:

• to empower yourselves to become the quality intelligentsia our Continent needs, by diligently applying yourselves to the exciting task of studying;

• to act to ensure that as you inherit the future as leaders of the peoples of Africa, you will have done your best to help build a better Continent;

• always to honour the truth, to respect ‘the great unwashed’ who are our mothers and fathers, and to have the courage fearlessly to stand up for what is right and just, ready to present reasoned arguments in this regard;

• always to question and challenge even what is conveyed to you by all and sundry as established truths, including what I have said today, acting both as young people and as students who have the opportunity to re-discover anew all truths about the human and material worlds we inhabit;

• never to abuse the fact of your greater access to knowledge to position yourselves as a corrupt and parasitic segment of African society; and,

• never to be tempted to use your learning to sugar-coat a deadly virus of false knowledge you can impart to the Africans, in what our Nigerian fellow Africans would describe as giving poisoned kola nuts you offer to friends, pretending that these were but the traditional African gifts of friendship.

The eminent Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw, once said – Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children!

By their actions, your peers, comrades and friends, the youth and students of North Africa, have challenged this provocative observation.

Through your own bold and principled actions, please continue to challenge it!

Thank you.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html