The plague of social media, it is everywhere and there is no avoiding it.  Learn how to adapt your business to reflect the modern networked economy.

Millions of people access digital technology in their daily lives.  With the rise of social networking sites, the internet has transformed into a powerful communication platform, allowing us to establish valuable connections with other online users.

The general perception is that these sites were developed for recreational and entertainment purposes but what is evident today is that businesses have found the means for marketing and trade via these sites. 

With increasing numbers adopting social media as the preferred method of communication, companies should be aware of the benefits of establishing a social media presence. 

However, merely creating an online profile is not enough.  “There is a lot of preparation that needs to happen before flicking the social media switch on” says Peter du Toit, co-founder of Social Media IQ.

What are social networks?

Social networks act as virtual meeting places for communities to share common interests and discuss different topics.  The most common social networking sites include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and You Tube.

How will social media benefit your company?

Social networking is one of the most cost effective ways to keep in touch with people.  Social networks are not limited by geographical boundaries or cultural differences and thus benefit your business by directly reaching out to your desired market.

Before professionals would make use of print-based interactions; these have now been supplemented by social media which allows for instantaneous information exchange. 

Is social media applicable to your company?

Social media is about building relationships; therefore if your clients are users of social networks you need to establish a community between the two.  This will create a platform for information exchange, ensuring that you keep up to date with trends and discussions around your product, service, website etc.

 Many companies view social networks as a villain, with most even banning these sites due to misuse.  However, when the majority of your consumers are based on these sites, avoiding them can be fatal.  Du Toit explains that if your business does not respond to the current trends, people will move on to a competitor who is prepared to meet them where they are.

 Areas largely impacted by social media, because they require direct contact with an audience, include Research and Development, Marketing, Sales, PR and Customer Care.

 What do social media users expect from company profiles?

Du Toit explains that digital natives expect businesses to be transparent, sincere and to respond in real-time.  What this means is, businesses need to once again develop a relationship and listen and act upon conversations. 

 In order for the consumers to show interest in you, you need to show interest in them.  You can no longer hide behind a marketing campaign, but need to engage with clients as participants.  “Most businesses already have a community around the business, the shift is now to enable that community to become a part of the business” du Toit says.

 Integrate social media into your business

Integrating social media into your business requires understanding of the medium.  Communication is no longer a linear process, but an interactive one.  This means maintaining a culture of listening and providing feedback.  Du Toit notes that this cultural shift must first occur within the company itself.  If your business maintains a hierarchical flow of communication, it is unlikely that you will successfully sustain a social media presence.

 Once you have an understanding of the medium you will then need to develop a strategy.  Ensure that your online presence is aligned with clear company objectives.  Furthermore, you will need to learn the social behaviour of your community in order to suit their needs.  With this will follow a content strategy that will facilitate positive associations.

 Du Toit advises into employing community managers that will nurture the relationship between existing and future clients.  He notes that “the most successful use of social media occurs when open, free flowing communication is part of the company culture.”

 To read more about social media, visit Peter du Toit’s website at http://socialmediaiq.co.za

Democracy is an ecosystem. Its survival is dependent on many things: a sound legislative framework, an independent judiciary, a vibrant parliament and a responsive government. Beyond this, it also needs a vigilant, proactive civil society, engaged voters and a free media: three elements that ensure government is held accountable for its actions, transparent about what it does and goaded into serving the best of interests of the people – not of those in power.

The Protection of Information bill is one of the gravest threats to this ecosystem. It will critically undermine the ability for parliament, the media and civil society to ensure accountability and transparency in government. The ANC claims this law is to protect state security but, as many before me have pointed out, its wide-ranging mandate means it can easily be used to cover up wrongdoing, severely punishing those who dare to expose it.

Earlier this week, Pick n Pay’s chairman, Gareth Ackerman, spoke out against the bill. He provided a calm and clear explanation of its potential to damage the economy and deter foreign investment. Financial information could be concealed, as could corruption – thereby severely stymieing the economic freedom needed to foster entrepreneurship and attract investors – both essential ingredients required to combat poverty and narrow the vast gulf between rich and poor.

While the dangers of the Info Bill seem self evident, it is startling that so far Ackerman is the only significant businessman who has criticised it. The silence from the rest of business is as deafening as it is inexcusable.

When the prosperity of our economy, our democracy and our country’s future is being put at risk, you would have thought there would have been a cacophony of outrage from businesses – it is in their interest that the bill does not become law, after all. But no. Two of our biggest and most important business groupings, Business Leadership South Africa and Business Unity South Africa have not said a word. Neither have our largest companies.

What can explain this gutless behaviour: is business hoping this is a battle that will be fought by others? Or that the ANC will suddenly override its totalitarian instincts and dump the legislation at the last minute?

Perhaps a more plausible explanation is that many businesses are simply too afraid to stand up to government because they are reliant upon political goodwill to operate freely. Many businesses unquestioningly and sycophantically signed up to Black Economic Empowerment. This was despite them knowing that BEE had little to with empowering blacks and everything to do with consolidating the ANC’s economic clout: a system designed to massively enrich a tiny yet powerful elite.

Big business thought it would get an easy ride if it cosied up to the ANC. And indeed, with loyal ANC cadres dotting the boards of some of South Africa’s largest companies, business has largely been left alone to get on with making money.

Now they’re really caught in a fix. Even if they are conscious of the long-term dangers of a law like the Info Bill, they are too entrenched in the ANC’s patronage network to speak out about it lest they incur the wrath of the party’s titans and lose business deals and political support as a result.

Our nation’s corporations should have been more careful when they made this Faustian pact with the ANC in the Nineties. In the afterglow of the first democratic elections it must have seemed pragmatic and sensible to cuddle up to the new snouts at the trough. But with the ANC’s non-racial values long squandered by the craven despots that call the shots in the movement now, the folly of such an approach has been exposed.

If the Info Bill is thwarted, it will certainly not be thanks to big business. It will be in spite of it: in spite of a group of companies that have cosily conspired with the ANC to maintain a status quo of wealth in the hands of a few, at the expense of the countless millions who remain economically oppressed.

Alex Matthews is founder of The Soapbox, and its editor-at-large. He blogs at Afrodissident.

The latest spread of uprisings in the Arab world has ignited Tunisia, Egypt Libya, Bahrain, Algeria, Morocco, and Yemen in its wake. The empowerment and upliftment of the people in these countries is palpable, with many Egyptians claiming, after President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown, “Now I count…now I have dignity.”

“This uprising has completely altered the morale of the Arab world. For years Arabs have been very demoralised with their inability to deal with Israel, their inability to deal with dictators as well as issues of poverty, inequality and corruption but now the energy behind this movement is one of pride and liberation of the human soul,” independent researcher and Middle East expert, Professor Virginia Tilley told a community radio station in South Africa on Monday.

“I think this is the big tectonic shift in the Middle East. There is a new sense of empowerment, rights and dignity of the individual and of the group.”

Tilley stressed the sheer willpower and fearlessness of these previously oppressed nations who were once afraid to speak out. Instead they have now mobilised and taken to the streets to declare their disgust in the totalitarian regime they have lived under for decades.

“They are no longer afraid. It is a new generation that is simply not in awe of these leaders in the way their parents generation was. They [the youth] are less afraid and are ready to fight for their rights,” Tilley continued.

The professor added that ‘democracy’ has always been a loaded word as there have been many doubts surrounding it, especially in the Arab region. This is due to democracy being manipulated in Iraq and in the Palestinian authority. But she said this movement is absolutely a banner of democracy and it has transformed the world’s image of what it means to be an Arab. Tilley retorted that these uprisings and empowerment of the people alone is going to change the dynamics of the Israeli conflict.

“Israel has been rather quiet after Mubarak’s resignation. On the one hand Israel is very happy to have these dictators go if it means that the Islamic parties lose clout. They were previously worried that the dictators were so unpopular that the Islamic alternative would manifest as attractive. So in a way getting rid of Mubarak was good for Israel because the lid is off the pot. It is not going to explode and they (Israel) can help to control the future.”

Tilley explained another view is that Israel has not been quiet, but merely been keeping mum and not publically announcing their views. She believes that behind the scenes, Israel is driving massive lobbying and making contact with the military and Egypt to make sure the transition goes in the direction they want. “I think they are optimistic at this point that whatever comes is something they can control.”

She also stressed that the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions represent an evolutionary change for some Islamic movements too. “They have realised that an Islamic state may not be the Islamic state they prefer. They are also following the Lebanese example of participatory democracy which is the idea of a way to express Islamic values and philosophy without necessarily having to control the state.”

“I do think dictator’s days are numbered. This ‘president for life’ model for governance is something the people are not going to tolerate. The bigger question here is the complexities of such a transition. The great strength these uprisings has been that they did not have leaders, they were coalitions at best which made it impossible to crush. Thus the Powers (government) in the Arab world are going to be very anxious,” she said.

Mishqa Rossier is a qualified copywriter and ace “rock/paper/scissors” player who moonlights as a online writer for a local radio station.

For how long will we continue to blame the poor performance of our students in the country on the Department of Education alone and not the students themselves too? Aren’t they, the students, the ones learning, if not failing to learn?

But of course one would have to also take into account the failure too, on the part of the country’s education system which for more than a decade now has continued to produce the ‘so-called illiterate and incompetent future generation’ as they are now known.

One cannot understand let alone comprehend the audacity the Young Communist League has in trying to dictate to the University of the Free State what admission requirements it should set for the new entrants and what not.

In its ill-informed and dictatory statement to the university – the YCL said the introduction of the innovative ways’ by University of increasing its admission points requied for entrants into the university from the previous 28 to 30 is “inconsistent”. With what, exactly?

The increase, according to the YCL, was just another way in which UFS could “further exclude black students from being admitted in the institution”, a decision which it ‘vehemently opposed’. The league said the point system used by universities was “inconsistent and [had] been a tool to ostracize students from disadvantaged backgrounds.”

The league said:

The point system does not take into consideration that students from privileged schools have more subject options as opposed to schools in disadvantaged communities. The point system and the number of points one needs is applicable regardless of how many subjects a student has. A student can have only six subjects and still be required to meet the same requirements with someone who has 11 subjects.

It further accused the University for not offering Music subject to the “disadvantaged communities whereas in private school there is an entourage of subjects offered where students can easily meet stringent requirements set out for entry”. This in the YCLSA’ view, read the statement, was a “creation of a white elephant in UFS and [affirmation] that the institution will forever be white”. Now who’s a racist?

The 12 month programme, allegedly, created to assist students from disadvantaged communities, said the league, was a “mockery” because it only “prolongs the number of years which students study and moreover it increases the already high costs of tuition and expenses of staying in university.” The programme is one that is used by many Universities, including the North West University at Mafikeng campus.

The the pointing system, – as one understands it and although, admittedly, it somehow disadvantages students who are/were from the poorer schools that were not well-resourced enough and some of whose students voluntarily failed to study hard enough to reach their ‘expected’ potential and meeting the pointing system required of them by higher learning institutions like UFS – is not used for the purpose of ‘excluding the black students from being admitted in the institution’ as alleged the league. Instead, it is used to raise the high level of intellect on students. More than that, it is used as a yardstick on how much efforts the students themselves willing to put into their school work in order to reach and even exceed their ‘expected’ potential and results.

And this is something that the league itself fails to understand and one thinks that even the Minister of Higher Education Blade Nzimande cannot ‘intervene’ on this matter unless of course the system was used on ‘racial lines’ or to/on black students ONLY, something that is presently non-existent in this case.

So, please YCL, no matter how hard it might be for the students to meet the required pointing system – you still cannot dictate to the university on what’s always best for the students, except on other politically-motivated matters as they, the university and its entire teaching stuff members, are experts and professionals in their respective fields of study and one trusts that they actually know what they are doing and why they are doing it.

And whether you collectively “fight tooth and nail” and “mobilize [your] structures” to scrap the system should it be implemented as you see it as “racial tactics policies” – it is still the UFS’s prerogative, one that you presently cannot do anything about.

Akanyang Merementsi blogs at Akanyang Africa.

One cannot help but suspect that the now recent reports of Anglo Platinum being advised in splitting its South African assets into two has something, if not everything, to do with the country’s ruing party’s (Africa National Congress) youth movement ANC Youth League’s talk of nationalising the Platinum Mines.

Business Day newspaper reported this week of a leading international banking group, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, suggesting that Anglo American “should split into two and separate its South African from its non-South African assets, underlying the poor international perception of the state of the mining industry in SA.”

The split is believed, hopefully in the long run, to ‘boost’ Anglo’s international rating by 17%. “The rerating of the international assets could result in a 17% boost to Anglo American’s total valuation by one calculation, and would result in two London-listed vehicles worth $30bn and $34bn respectively.”

Analysts and investors, according to the report, have suggested that the split would result in “lay[ing] itself open to takeover bids from major competitors if it followed the suggestion” and that government was also likely to “oppose any such split vigorously”.

Since last year, the ANCYL president Julius Malema suggested that the country’s minerals be under the control of the state (read nationalisation) for the benefit of the greater population especially the poor communities. At the time, Malema said: “Our call for nationalisation of mines is in such a manner where the State will own mineral wealth and mines as a custodian of the entire South African population, and not a custodian of few big-businesses. All South Africans should equitably benefit from State owned and controlled mines and we are not mistaken when we make the call for the nationalisation of Mines. We are vividly aware of the Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) which retains State control of all mineral rights, but what we are calling for is State ownership and control of both the mineral wealth beneath the soil, and the extraction and production of these mineral resources in Mines thereof.”

Many observers, including the opposition party Democratic Alliance (DA), criticised the move as it was likely to have a “considerable (negative) effect on investor sentiment”.

Industrial unions, National Unions of Mine Workers South Africa, have also joined calls for nationalisation of some of the companies. Recently, NUMSA reportedly called for ArcelorMittal SA to be nationalised so as to “bring an end to its protracted steel price war with Kumba Iron Ore”. This after the two were involved in trade war (see fresh reports here) for longer than three months, at the time of writing.

Malema has long called for a 50% share of the country’s minerals by government on behalf of the poor despite president Jacob Zuma assuring investors a while back that nationalisation was not a government or even ANC policy, that people needed to engage with Malema instead. Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu, like Zuma, also denied nationalisation of the mines being a government policy as was suggested by Malema.

Therefore, one hopes that Anglo Platinum’s suggested split into two is not a result of a call for nationalisation of the country’s minerals, an industry in which Anglo trades. This is because if this to be the case or the reasons, the move will then continue to perpetuate and reinforce Malema’s call for nationalisation or 50% ownership of Anglo, Impala and other platinum and minerals companies as to date they are only interested making profits for themselves and leave the hard-working lower-class workers drowning in the high level of poverty we continue to witness on a daily basis. This is despite the millions and billions of profit they help bring in for these companies such as Anglo et al.

With recent Sunday Times newspaper report suggesting that nationalisation is back on the agenda and is to be tabled at the ANC National General Council this year, one waits with bated breath.

But I hope that I am wrong about the reasons behind Anglo’s split and that that is not to be the case nor should it ever be the case in future.

Akanyang Merementsi blogs at Akanyang Africa.

Former cricketer Imran Khan is pushing his own populist, anti-West agenda just as Pakistan’s president embarks on a tour of Western capitals. His opinion piece in The Times last week firmly lays the blame for Pakistan’s manifold terrorist problems and social ills at the door of the UK, the US and (most incongruously) the IMF.

In a bid to further his political ambitions he downplays the role Pakistan’s state intelligence agency (the ISI) and the erstwhile Musharraf regime played in providing a fertile environment for militant Islamist groups to flourish.

In suggesting that suicide attacks were a phenomenon unknown in Pakistan prior to 2004 when Western military intervention in the tribal regions began, he ignores the fact that Islamabad underwent its first such attack in 1995. In reality, the rate of suicide attacks really gathered pace in 2007 after the siege of the Lal Masjid when Islamabad began to clamp down on Islamist militant groups who had been gifted control of large swathes of the country.

It is important to take notice of Khan’s views as they reflect an important and dangerous trend amongst Pakistani politicians to use the straw man of the West rather than accepting responsibility for what is largely a homegrown problem. The Pakistani people have a right to be angry but their anger should be directed closer to home.

My response, published in The Times on 28 July goes as follows:

Sir,

While I am sure that Imran Khan’s impassioned plea for a full withdrawal of Western soldiers from the Afghanistan Pakistan region is heartfelt, he is playing fast and loose with the facts. Although the rate of suicide bombings in Pakistan has increased significantly before 2004 is palpably untrue. To my knowledge, there were at least two major suicide attacks in Karachi in 2002 and another attack in Islamabad in 1995.

Furthermore, to lay the blame for these attacks on Western forces in the region is to ignore the fact that Pakistan’s security service, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has been linked with running networks of suicide bombers in Afghanistan and providing logistical support and ideological backing for groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed, which frequently carries out suicide attacks within Pakistan’s borders.

To say that the ISI is “not that powerful” is also far from accurate.

The ISI has been described by the Pakistani High Commissioner to Britain as a “state within a state”, dictating foreign policy and leading Pakistan to engage in nuclear brinkmanship with India.

Daniel Morgan is a journalist and blogger based in London. Visit his blog on South Asian defence issues here.

One cannot help but wonder what is actually going on at South African Airways. The former SAA CEO Khaya Ngqula was paid R935m last year to terminate his contract by the very same company that is now suing him. Why?

The payment, according to media reports, include his R3, 831-million salary and ‘termination of contract benefits’ equal to R9, 35-million.

Recently, a forensic investigation into the airline’s financial mismanagement revealed among others, the R27 million that Ngqula paid to [his] executives as ‘retention bonuses’, an amount he was “not authorised to do” as it “was outside the board-approved mandate for payments”.

Now the airline’s new chairperson, Cheryl Carolus, is reported to have said that SAA will sue Ngqula for R30.8 million, and recover the R141m “in mis-spent sponsorship money”. She said the R27 million was in excess of the maximum financial limit and such excesses were not authorised by the board and this has resulted in Ngqula being found to have “acted illegally by approving it.”

On the list are also the two sports sponsorships that Ngqula allegedly approved between 2006 and 2009, Fin Week, South Africa’s weekly financial magazine, has reported. “One was R21m for Angel Cabrera, an international golf player, and the other one R120m for the ATP tennis tour.” She said the This R27 million was in excess of the maximum financial limit and such excesses were also not authorised by the board

Ngqula was apparently only, allowed to approve sponsorships of between R1m and R2m a year at most, Carolus told Fin Week, but instead, he went ahead and approved those of higher value than was expected of him.

The investigation, which began more than a year ago, was instituted after tender irregularities and fraud allegations were leveled against Ngqula. In the month that followed, March 2009, Ngqula left SAA “under a cloud” “after accepting a golden handshake of about R8m”, according to Fin Week.

What has since worsened the legal action against Ngqula is his failure to co-operate with the airline in its findings as he “demanded all sorts of conditions which made it impossible … to proceed with the interview [in which he will have had the chance to state his side of the story], according to a Business Day newspaper report, and therefore the “process was concluded without his input” despite him having “had the time to react to the findings, but had not co-operated.”

Despite there being ‘various weaknesses in SAA’s internal controls and procurement processes’, according to the then CEO André Viljoen – there was no reason for Ngqula to have taken advantage of the system as he seems to now have as indicated in the report. “The KPMG report showed there were huge gaps in terms of corporate governance, procurement and internal policies, which were now being addressed by CEO Siza Mzimela, said Carolus.

Business Day has reported that given the finding of the investigations against Ngqula, the latter was found to have been a “cavalier leader” and treated SAA as his “his own personal empire”. Ngqula is further alleged to have “spent R500000 hosting friends and associates at the expense of the airline. These included trips to the Soccer World Cup in Germany in 2006, the Rugby World Cup in France in 2007 and a tennis tournament in Monte Carlo in 2008” the newspaper reported today.

What is even worrying about the findings of the report is the failure of the previous board and the then CEOs’ failure in trying to solve these “transgressions seriously” just before the Public Enterprises Minister Brigitte Mabandla intervened in February last year, the Business Day has wondered. Of course this is very true.

Both opposition party, Democratic Alliance (DA), and COSATU welcomed the board’s decision to pursue legal actions against Ngqula. COSATU said the decision was “a great victory for the SA Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (SATAWU) whose members first blew the whistle on the [Ngqula]”.

It congratulated its affiliate and stated that this was a “warning to any other executives that the trade unions will now be even more determined to follow SATAWU’s example and to blow the whistle of such examples of crass materialism and theft from a state-owned asset”.

DA shadow minister of Public Enterprises Manie van Dyk reportedly said in a statement (see here) that SAA’s decision to sue Ngqula represented a “departure from the general lack of responsibility that has come to define the other heads of state-owned entities (SOEs) responsible for financial mismanagement”.

Akanyang Merementsi blogs at Akanyang Africa.

BY HYLTON TAYLOR

The environment is a topic which seems to bring out a number of emotions in most people. Because of this it is usually difficult to obtain any “facts” which haven’t been manipulated in favour of one side or the other, and so my facts come with a disclaimer!

As an engineer I find it surprising and scary that there are people who have such strong opinions of a subject (and are occasionally willing to get into violent protests) of which they have very little understanding, and have not bothered to actually read up both sides of the story. Yet, I am in awe of these people – imagine been so passionate about something in your life!

Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

And so, I am not what people of the other side would term a “tree-hugger”. I remain doubtful about the “facts” behind the global warming argument yet I do believe in the principle for its sound logic, but the rate remains dubious in my mind. The same environmentalists were telling us in the 80’s and 90’s that industrial and household appliances using CFC’s were causing the hole in the ozone layer.

The environmentalist were right about those CFC’s, but it turns out that during the famous volcano / mountain eruption of Mount St. Helens in the USA duringthe 1980’s more natural CFC’s were released into the atmosphere than man has ever made or ever will make. It turns out that it was a brilliant marketing campaign to sell new household appliances, which was driven by environmentalists who hadn’t bothered to read up both sides of the story. I’m sure the various manufacturers were pleased.

The Gulf of Mexico

And so I send this story in a completely different direction and towards the Gulf of Mexico, where there is the small issue of an oil platform (Deepwater Horizon) which blew up on 20 April, killing and injuring numerous workers, and the oil well which continues to spew crude oil into the sea. You know, the one where they keep putting funny caps on which don’t always seem to fit because they keep fitting them, to capture oil because the “blow-out preventer” failed (sounds like a contraption made by Dr Evil in an Austin Powers movie..?).

Apparently it is big news in the south of the USA, but I haven’t really heard anyone in SA talking about it. In fact there are approximately 44 500 personnel, more than 6 563 vessels and 113 aircraft engaged in the surface oil clean up operations.

Unlike global warming this is an environmental disaster that one can see, and even if the numbers are been manipulated, the dead animals and oil washing onto shores et cetera, cannot be hidden. Such is the visual aid, even non-“tree-huggers” can see there is a problem here.

Estimates are that the well continues to leak up to approximately 50 000 oil barrels per day. With the new containment cap which is currently been commissioned, most of the 50 000 barrels will be captured. Up until now though there has been one oil collecting and gas flaring (burning) ship with a capacity of approximately 17 000 barrels per day, and a second oil and gas flaring ship with a capacity of 8 000 barrels per day. A third oil and gas collection ship, which will collect the balancing 25 000 barrels, will be used once the new containment cap has been commissioned, assuming it works. This does however still leave the question of where the 25 000 barrels was going, and the rest of the oil before that.

The various oils in crude oil have different densities, some being heavier than water. So whilst you see some oil washing up on the shore and being cleaned by crews or skimmed by the skimming ships on the surface, just remember there is oil which remains below the surface coating the sea floor, killing off coral and sea life which cannot be cleaned, let alone reached by humans. And what is really scary is that they are still finding oil from the Exxon Valdez incident 20 years ago, which is just as toxic to the environment today as it was then.

Which begs the question, “Why haven’t they fixed it yet?” Unfortunately at 2km below the surface, humans would be crushed and only robotic machinery can be used, which makes things tricky. Typically, repair technology only catches up years after the technology to do something becomes available, such as to pump oil from 2km below the sea surface. Did you ever hear about the rescue plan for the Apollo space missions? That’s because there wasn’t one.

As an engineer it brings my engineering philosophy into question though. I’ve always believed that with enough time and money, anything is possible. But here is a problem where all the money in the world has not provided an adequate solution (numbers vary from $2 – $50 billion!). Containment caps, pumping concrete and clay, skimming ships, drilling relief wells, centrifuges, Kevin Costner’s centrifuges (hey, desperate times call for desperate measures…), and even suggestions – apparently from the Russians – to  use a nuclear bomb to shut the hole….

But here is a question. What is the volume of an oil barrel? Surprisingly, most people don’t know! Thankfully however (and thank you Wikipedia), an oil barrel is smaller than the typical barrel you see in SA. The typical barrel seen in SA is a 55 US gallon barrel, which is approximately 210 litres. An oil barrel however, is a 42 US gallon barrel, which is 159 litres.

This equates 50 000 barrels to 8 million litres per day. With that oil, approximately 3.5m litres of petrol could have been made, enough to fuel my car for 50m km. Of course been a Citro?n it would have broken down after 20km, but that is another story. And that 2^nd ship is incinerating 1.25 m litres – enough to fuel my car for 8m km! Imagine that ship’s carbon footprint!

So is this as bad as the Exxon Valdez incident? It turns out that the Exxon Valdez incident was not the worst oil spill in history, although it is considered the biggest environmental disaster owing to its proximity to wildlife and an environmentally sensitive area. Exxon Valdez is only the 14^th worst oil spill at a total of 750 000 barrels. The Lakeview Gusher incident in 1910 remains by far the worst incident at 9m barrels, with the Gulf War intentional oil spill by Iraqi forces lying in 2^nd place at somewhere between 2 – 8m barrels. The Gulf of Mexico (Deepwater Horizon) incident as at 8 July – somewhere between 2.6 – 4.4m barrels, putting it in 3^rd position in the all time worst oil spills, and making it far worse then the Exxon Valdez incident.

So why are they getting oil from 2km below the sea surface? Because we need it, and at $75 per barrel it is financially viable. Don’t be surprised if we hear about another one of these incidents again in the future…

Coffee Time

So what does this have to do with coffee time? Probably not that much because we are too busy talking about our carbon footprint because some environmentalist who didn’t read up on his “facts” told some B-list “celebrity” to tell us about global warming and we listened.

Except for the fact that the artificial sweetener you just put in your coffee – because you are avoiding sugar due the same B-list “celebrity” suddenly declaring sugar was no longer natural (it boggles the mind) – is probably made from a chemical derived from a crude oil product, unless it is made from Xylitol.

So next time you’re out for coffee start talking about the Deepwater Horizon and how you are going to reduce your oil footprint. You don’t need a B-list “celebrity” to explain someone’s special mathematical model. You can see the pictures of the dead animals, the clean up crews on the beaches, and the skimming ships. You can even watch the live video feed showing the oil gushing out of the oil well if you want to.

Take care of that oil footprint and you will find that carbon footprint will take care of itself…

Hylton Taylor is a South African engineer working in Kwa-Zulu Natal, and a first time Soapbox contributor

Professor Jonathan Jansen, Rector of the University of Free State, wrote a brilliant article in the Times newspaper yesterday in which he advised the Grade 10 “students to be sent to university before they finish high school”. And just who will pay?

This is one of the noble ideas thought by someone as senior in a tertiary level as Jansen. Not even the ministry of higher education has thought of it. Anyway, this should be welcome, I think. Jansen saw this as a solution to the “damaging loss of money and talent that comes with tens of thousands of South African students dropping out of university”.

Jansen wrote at the time:

“The consequences of failure and drop-out are devastating: universities lose funding resources, parents lose out on hard-earned savings invested in their children, students lose confidence in their ability to gain a university education, and the country fails to gain another skilled graduate from university.”

He said these consequences were not only ‘devastating’ for students, but that they were as equally devastating to their families, the universities themselves and the country at large. Unfortunately, few universities had come up with ‘imaginative solutions to an old problem’ of ‘high drop-out rates’.

In his great proposal, Jansen said, for example, a university should go to Grade 10 pupils by offering them the option of going to university “every Saturday morning from 9am to 3pm where [they] can do either Psychology I or Chemistry I or Accountancy I over a three-year period – during [their] senior high school years”. This, said Jansen, as an effort to bridge the ‘gap between a poor school education and a demanding university training [that] will be too much’ for them as they were likely ‘destined to drop out’.

This will further provide an opportunity for students to:

1. Gain the one thing that first-generation university students desperately need – university knowledge,
2. Learn how to take summary notes in large classes,
3. Learn to use the computer as a tool for learning,
4. Learn to find their way through a university library using both online resources as well as sources in the stacks,
5. Learn to work on complex problems in psychology or accounting in groups consisting of talented but equally disadvantaged students from other schools,
6. Learn to consult with tutors and professors,
7. Learn to find their way through the campus buildings, and
8. Learn to find their own voices in classrooms, laboratories and seminars.

He said students would learn ‘disciplinary knowledge’ in one of the three subject areas and gain the ‘skills and the confidence to negotiate’ their way through what is often a frightening experience: university life. However, it was acknowledged that this may not be the solution to the ‘high drop-out rates’ but it was worth exploring and was likely to attract negativity from some quarters.

“This kind of innovation demands the best university teachers and an intensive model of academic support. A strong mentorship programme is critical and open, regular feedback is important to guide [students] over the three-year period. But once these foundations have been laid, [students] would have the competence and confidence to deal with the rigours of university life, including lousy university teachers”, said Jansen at the time.

He said one of the important and acknowledged advantages of this proposal is that should students pass these three while at high school, they could gain the credits for the course once they register at the university offering this plan. “[They] would not have to pay a cent for the course and, in addition, [they] will have a lighter first-year load than other students.”

This is one hell of a brilliant plan/strategy/proposal; however, there is something which either Jansen forgot to mention or someone missed. And before I say that, a friend of mine warned me the other day, as a society, of always attaching ‘value’ whenever we talk of progress, change and developments. He was referring to name changes of cities, streets, municipalities and special venues and the nationalisation of the country’s mines and how much these were likely to cost the tax payers.

With this now said, so, Prof: who is going to pay for these ‘Saturday classes’ for these pupils and just how many universities, yours included, are willing to do that if they cannot afford to assist their ‘financially struggling’ students?

Akanyang Merementsi blogs at Akanyang Africa.

E.TV’s 3rd Degree show and post debate on 3rd Degree Plus on 25th May 2010 centred around racism and left one deeply saddened at the entrenched racism in our society. The show covered a number of incidents from the effects of the AWB Leader Eugene Terre’blanche murder, to the both previous and recent incidents at the University of the Free State (UFS). It is the ethnic nationalism which was witnessed on the show that left one with the greatest lesson of them all: We must rid our society of ethnic nationalism and promote unity.

In one clip during the show, host Debora Patta at the University of the Free State proceeds to question the campus Freedom Front Plus (FF+) Youth Leader about the nature of racism on campus, and further goes on to accuse her of being a racist. The young female leader turns to tears as she tries to explain her “nonracist” character. But what was really interesting is her tendency to promote ethnic nationalism through her party, and left me unable to refrain from addressing this issue for once and for all.

What the FF+ Youth Leader fails to understand is that she belongs to an ethnic nationalist party whose policy is based on the development of a separate homeland to preserve that ethnicity. The FF+ is no less an ethnic nationalist party than the AWB because they both stand to preserve their ethnicity using the smokescreen of culture maximisation as has been seen by both AWB Secretary-General Andre Visagie, and FF+ Leader Pieter Mulder in many instances. Ethnic nationalism places the interests of one group of people over that of the rest of the populace. That is why it breeds racism, and causes divisions. It is the root cause of all the suffering in our history, and that in many parts of the world.

South Africa today must find every means to reject ethnic nationalism and promote unity. This immediately starts with rejecting organisations which promote it. The FF+ and AWB are some of the most forthright ethnic nationalist parties today. The IFP, perhaps on paper does not promote ethnic nationalism, but it certainly cannot be said to be a party accommodative of all people, and leaves one to wonder whether they have a single Xhosa within their senior party ranks considering the social divide amongst Xhosas and Zulus.

The South African electorate needs to reject all these parties as an act against ethnic nationalism. The African National Congress (ANC) is also a party which does not promote unity amongst people adequately. The ANC promotes racial representation within its party and government in an attempt to correct the injustice of the past. The idea that only blacks can represent blacks, and only whites can represent whites et cetera. This is the same approach favoured by Verwoerd in his day and the ANC today, and we must reject it. We must always remain vigilant that, in our attempts to address the legacy of the past, we don’t fall into the trap of seeing people simply as representatives of racial groups. This is precisely what we need to leave behind in our country. Racial representation or even ethnic representation serves more as a barrier to unity than a bridge because it instils a sense of racial ethnic responsibility to promote one’s identity to that group and hence becomes another form of ethnic nationalism.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) on the other hand, is the only party which is truly becoming a party for all. Unlike the ANC, the DA does not believe in groups of people, but in individuals, and groups of individuals. We believe that all individuals are equal both in worth and dignity. The DA is a party which is for blacks, whites, Indians and coloureds. It is for Zulus, Xhosas, Sotho’s, Tswana’s, Afrikaners, Swati’s, Ndebele’s, Venda’s et cetera. The DA is a national entity which swings far beyond the narrow objects of ethnic nationalism, to a party which promotes a single nation. That is why the DA promotes the slogan of “One Nation, One Future”. It is the only party which has earned that right to do so.

The DA believes strongly in the value of diversity and sharing if we are to build a united South Africa. During apartheid, the government refused to share South Africa with all whom resided in it and sought to eliminate diversity through separate development. In the DA we reject this, and promote entirely the opposite. Diversity in comparison to racial ethnic representation is about bringing in decision-making people of wide-ranging experiences and perspectives, without assuming that people can only be represented by others of the same colour or gender.

Ethnic nationalism is an implicit threat to driving South Africa into a passage of continued racism, and plants the seeds of division which we once before sought strongly to remove. We must bring back that spirit by rejecting ethnic nationalism in all forms, and promoting diversity and sharing. The AWB, FF+, and ANC do not stand for these ideals. Only the DA does.

Hlanganani Gumbi is provincial youth chairperson of the Eastern Cape DA.