Bridges to the Future and to the Past: Reflections on Seeking Transformation in South Africa
By William Rowland (Rowland@sancb.org.za)
Next to me on the desk as I write is a Braille volume of 73 pages. It is the Strategic Plan of the South African National Council for the Blind. According to the optimistic wording on the front cover it is "a bridge to the future" - to which I would add - for an organisation seeking its own transformation.
Looking back to 1996
I can think of only one other document to equal this one in its significance for the sector, but the two documents lie at the extreme opposite poles of policy direction. The new strategic plan document is the product of consultation and self-appraisal, whereas the other document I have in mind was an instrument of coercion.
I imagine it came in the morning mail. The Director would have opened the letter in his office and seen another piece of government correspondence: Consolidated Circular No. 29 of 1966. Perhaps he glanced at the contents, perhaps he put it aside for later. Maybe he referred it to a colleague. We'll never know, but of one thing I am sure, my predecessor's predecessor at that moment could not have foreseen the generation of injustice to come from that document, reinforced from time to time over the next 15 years by further "circulars".
Circular No 29 was issued by the Department of Welfare and Pensions in concurrence with - to use the language of the day - the Departments of Bantu Administration and Development, Coloured Affairs, Indian Affairs, and others. It stated government policy unequivocally: "It is intended that non-White welfare organizations for the various racial groups should develop alongside of white organizations. In the course of time they will advance to a level of complete independence when they will be quite capable of managing their own affairs."
Such directives were not handed down into a vacuum. By 1966 Apartheid was well on the way to being institutionalised and in that year also the most infamous piece of legislation was passed into law by the all-white parliament, the Group Areas Act, finally determining where South Africans could live and the ways in which they could associate with one another.
Offices established for parallel minority efforts
At the SANCB separate Divisions for Coloured and Indian Blind were created, as well as a special Committee for Blind Blacks. Efforts were made to extend services by these parallel channels, but as the quantum of resources was unchanged the effect was negligible. General services, such as employment placement, remained open to all, but the rehabilitation centre, being residential, admitted whites only. A workshop employing blind black workers in a white urban area was transferred to a remote "homeland" location and a SANCB affiliate serving Coloured and Indian blind persons around Johannesburg was forced to split into two organisations, one with money and no infrastructure and the other with an infrastructure but no money. And following his detention under the Suppression of Communism Act, the name of the Reverend Arthur Blaxall, Vice-President of the SANCB, was quietly removed from the letterhead.
But why did people yield to such pressures? Was it out of expediency or conviction? Or were there other reasons?
At this distance in time it is easy to condemn and hard to explain. But the fact is that people seemingly of principle did implement this policy, even while engaging in desultory negotiations to get it changed. The government, though, was more decisive in its actions, as is clear from the examples we have given. When "non-whites" attended meetings, government officials simply withdrew. More insidious was the threat that state subsidies could be withheld, or even registration to operate and raise funds. Personal fear of the consequences of stepping out of line would also have been a potent factor.
To change all of this, and much more, into something else that was inclusive and just, functional and developmental, could never have been a project in isolation. South African society itself had to change and this required new and different forces. And such forces were latent, but it was to take an oppressive act of a particular kind to unleash them. This was the decree by the Minister of Bantu Education, MC Botha, making Afrikaans a compulsory medium of instruction in Black schools. A youth march to protest was brutally attacked by the police and within hours Soweto was burning. The youth uprising had begun, and the final phase of the liberation struggle.
Removing race from the Constitution and service for blind people
At the SANCB the first major step towards normality was taken in 1981 with the removal of all references to race from the constitution. Four years later, when Optima College in Pretoria replaced the old Enid Whitaker Rehabilitation Centre in Johannesburg, it was opened to all races. The establishment of a Development Division gave support to the emergent self-help movement in which blind and other disabled persons everywhere were forming worker co-operatives to create self-employment, and when in 1993 Ruth Machobane was elected as Vice-Chairman, she became the first blind African to hold senior office in the organisation.
The opening up of Optima College, it has to be said, did not happen without trepidation. Would there be ugly racial incidents? Would people refuse to come to Optima, or simply not apply?
A single anonymous letter and some graffiti were the sole signs of resistance. And very soon black and white students were to be seen strolling up and down the passages arm in arm and studying and joking together, quite naturally.
These were indeed positive developments, but in our divided society this very fact gave further cause to some for suspicion and mistrust, as I would discover from personal experience. The attack came in the form of a letter addressed to the Executive Committee of the SANCB claiming that my "leftist" politics were harming the organisation. A motion of no confidence was put to the vote and decisively defeated, but had the true extent of my activism in the disability rights movement been known to my immediate colleagues, or had they been aware of my secret visit to London to clear the way with the ANC for the entry of DPSA into DPI, I might have been in much bigger trouble.
But worse was to follow. As civil resistance grew in the country and rolling mass action took hold, some of the anger of the people was turned against traditional institutions. Blind persons marched through the streets holding up placards accusing the SANCB of racism, thrusting me into the anomalous position of a defender of the organisation in harrowing press interviews, while in other forums I was taking the attack to the government as leader of DPSA.
Resisting demands to call in police
The financial collapse of the Ezenzeleni Workshop, another of our affiliates, triggered the culminating confrontation. An invasion of our premises by close to 100 blind workers and trade unionists plunged us into three days of unrelenting chaos, as on the one hand, our negotiating team sat through round after round of fruitless talks, while, on the other hand, I held out against the demands of my Executive to call in the police. Never shall I forget the scene in our offices of the workers, with bared torsos, pounding the boardroom table and chanting "Kill the Farmer! Kill the Boer!" and my secretary fleeing in terror.
In the end the police did intervene, removing the workers to the train station; but they returned and the process repeated itself, with me refusing to lay formal charges. The reward for my part in these proceedings was a scorching reprimand from my bosses for not having taken firmer action.
Almost certainly this incident would have continued to haunt us down the years had it not been for the foresight of one of our more perceptive Executive Committee members, Philip Bam. It was Philip who proposed that the SANCB, although it had no legal obligation to do so, make financial reparations to the workers. There is, too, an historical footnote to the unfortunate episode: a very successful self-help project Ubuntu (humanity), emerged from that situation with the support of the SANCB and today that group of workers in its own right has become a fully-fledged affiliate of our organisation.
Systematic process introduced
But effective change cannot depend on haphazard events alone. At some point a systematic process has to take over.
The first step was to draft another constitution for the SANCB to take advantage of the devolution of government under the new South African Constitution and to ensure greater representivity especially for blind people. The idea of having nine provincial sub-structures was embraced enthusiastically, but the entrenchment of a blind majority in the decision-making bodies of the organisation seemed offensive to some and unnecessary to others. Today, several years on, it seems hard to believe that blind people themselves felt the provision to call into question their ability to lead, but that is how it was at the end of a stormy debate at that watershed conference as the motion was taken to the narrowest of votes - 76 in favour, 72 against.
However, something that was even more far-reaching was on the way.
At the 33rd Biennial Conference of the SANCB (Durban; October 1997) delegates resolved that the organisation should re-evaluate its services and programmes. We in management saw in this the opportunity to conceptualise a comprehensive transformation programme - the word process would have been more accurate - which was to last longer and cut deeper than anything we could have envisaged. This became known as Project Renewal and it was carried out in three phases:
Phase 1. Provincial consultations involving representatives of the affiliated organisations as well as blind persons in the community;
Phase 2. Evaluation of SANCB services and programmes; and
Phase 3. Analysis of some 60 critical issues by Strategic Focus Groups (SFG's). The SFG reports in turn gave substance to an interim implementation plan, impacting on the internal workings of the organisation, which was superceded at last in June 2001 by a comprehensive Strategic Plan.
But can so much planning actually make a difference in the lives of blind persons?
Results of planning process
Of course it can, with sustained effort, with committed people, and with enough resources. I fully acknowledge the importance of specific commitments and definite timelines, but to me, because there will be limitations, a developmental culture and the general direction are of far greater importance. Long after the plan of the moment has been forgotten, there will remain an organisation belonging to blind people able to make new choices - and even new plans. For now we can do no more than point to first fruits.
And the first fruits are good, as can be seen from the list below:
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A completely new service model for adult basic education and training (ABET), delivering literacy and independence skills to eight communities in three provinces;
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A community-based orientation and mobility programme in a fourth province;
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An early childhood development programme to co-ordinate work at seventeen service points across the country;
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A fledgling South African Blind Youth Organisation (SABYO);
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The conversion of sheltered workshops from a welfare to a small business model;
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A project to train blind persons as interpreters for a Telephone Interpreting Service for South Africa (TISSA);
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A project to train blind operatives for employment in call centres;
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A new department for Advocacy and Government Relations within the SANCB;
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A specialised Education Desk within the SANCB;
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An Eye Care Information Centre within the SANCB;
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A facility to assemble Perkins Braillers, reducing the unit cost by 40%;
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The manufacture of a South African braille writing frame reducing the unit cost to one-eighth of the imported product;
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And, via the Bureau for the Prevention of Blindness - a wing of the SANCB - the Right to Sight Campaign to eliminate the immense cataract surgery backlog in the country.
Other major initiatives will have to await government or other funding:
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An education support service for schools;
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A country-wide employment development service;
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And a "development node" to pilot a CBR programme, linked to the existing ABET programme, in our poorest province.
It has to be emphasised that these are modest initiatives supplementing an existing network of services and programmes provided by the SANCB and its affiliates. They are, however, a purposeful response to expressed needs and specifically intended to reach out beyond urban populations. These initiatives are not the making of the SANCB alone, but depend on a whole series of new partnerships and special relationships with government, other organisations, and, in some cases, even with individuals.
Is there, finally, any test that could be applied at some point in the future to measure the success, or otherwise, of all these efforts?
Empowerment and flagship programmes
Indeed there is, and it is one acknowledged as critical in all reconstruction and development work in South Africa. It is the extent to which previously disadvantaged individuals become empowered to take charge of their own lives and participate in their communities. It seems to me that this must be the thrust of each and every initiative, even at the cost of beloved flagship programmes of the past.
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