Report back: Roundtable on Equity and Redress
The first 2014 Roundtable on Equity and Redress took place on February 6th. The event was chaired by the director of the Helen Suzman Foundation, Francis Antonie, and featured Lindiwe Mazibuko, Songezo Zibi and Eusebius McKaiser. This brief summarises some of the main themes of the evening.
The Roundtable explored whether liberalism can address racial and economic redress and equity and, furthermore, how it can be done. The audience was asked to consider the validity of a widely accepted view that liberalism cannot attempt to solve the problems of poverty and inequality. In this view liberalism and free market economies culminate in social and economic inequality. The Chair argued that this conception is incorrect and that liberalism can provide the means for societies to address socio-economic and racial inequalities. He proposed that if liberalism were to be true to its core values, and by including each member of society as possessing the same rights for opportunities, and advancing these opportunities, then liberalism could address poverty and inequality.
The Speakers
The opening speaker, Lindiwe Mazibuko, emphasized the importance of acknowledging our past and how it influences our present. She stressed the profoundly inequitable ratio of black and white people in the business place, access to education, access to running water and electricity etc. to illustrate that race is deeply and directly linked to poverty and inequality. She urged that racial redress and equity should be at the forefront of our thinking. She went as far as to say that South Africa is more unequal today than it was 1994.
Mazibuko asked for equality to be continuously promoted and advanced and believes that this can be achieved through well-thought out and effectively executed policies and legislation. She promoted the type of policies that advance equality in a positive manner and that do not use punitive measures. She looked forward to a South Africa where the road to equality is paved with incentives, not punishments and spoke of a future South Africa where colour does not matter. She argued the Democratic Alliance's claims that total equality free of any biological or genetic qualifier will afford opportunities to all people. Mazibuko also argued that education is a vital part of eradicating disadvantages and is in need of immediate reformation so as to afford high levels of education to all South Africans. Her hope is that through transforming education, inequality in education that leads to unequal opportunities, often advancing freedom only for the privileged, will cease to be a feature of this country.