Mabila Mathebula

Let me hazard a guess: when one opposes the views of an intellectual or what Mark Twain called a man of finished education, your opposing views will be put under a microscope and you might be perceived by the intelligentsia as being presumptuous or you erroneously engaged the intellectual beneath his estate.

Recently, former president Thabo Mbeki lamented the state of our university graduates and I thought it politic to quote him verbatim et literatim: “The matter of the graduates! I was raising this matter at Nelson Mandela University (NMU) yesterday. What are we studying at these universities? The fact that I have got a Bachelor’s degree in sociology, who wants to employ me for what? You have got a lovely certificate, it is correct, you have a BA degree in sociology, and what does it do?”

The audience laughed uproariously as Mbeki impressed upon them that there was a qualitative difference between a qualification from a university and a qualification of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) from the Further Education and Training College (FET).

He argued that sociology led to a dead-end career while the FET qualification led one to greener career pastures where the graduate grazed eternally in the world of work without swimming in the infernal pool of unemployment. I studied sociology out of curiosity since black people were not allowed to study sociology in South Africa during the dark days.

After Mbeki’s views, I felt that I had to enter the “sociology war” like a warrior because I felt that the war was just. According to @NativePride, “One difference between a soldier and a warrior is that a soldier fights for those who order him, while a warrior fights for those who depend on him.” Where are the sociology professors who are willing to “educate” Mbeki about the importance of sociology in our society?

In sociology I studied concepts such as social change, power and authority, inequality, poverty, drugs, socialisation, teenage pregnancy, race relations, corruption such as the Watergate Scandal, city decay, crime, social interaction, gender, group dynamics, unemployment, immigration and affirmative action before South Africa was democratised.

Sociology professors, the public and the private sector must both share the blame for their underutilisation of sociology graduates. Any country that relegates sociology to the background will for ever be over managed and under led by ill-informed leaders.

In “Sociology: A Global perspective”, Joan Ferrante states: “The American Sociological Association (2001) names the following employment sectors as areas with job opportunities for graduates with B.A. or B.S. in sociology: social services, community work, corrections, business, health services, publications/journalism/public relations, government, and teaching. Because sociology is not connected with a specific job track (unlike accounting, management, psychology, or public relations), sociology students must be able to explain to employers that they have acquired, through their study of sociology (and other college courses), a basic set of analytical skills that can be applied to many of the tasks associated with the designed position.”

When employers, parents, friends, and other outsiders to the discipline of sociology ask, “Why did you major in sociology?” or “Why take sociology classes?” the reply must be convincing. Responses such as “I like people” or “Sociology is about people and I want to work with people” are too vague and will lead to puzzled looks and responses as “So what can you do with that kind of degree?”

The name HF Verwoerd is synonymous with apartheid. He was notoriously known as an architect of apartheid or to be more accurate, the social architect of apartheid. What so many people do not know is that he was a professor of sociology, applied psychology and social work at Stellenbosch University.

He was also the chief editor of “Die Transvaler” thanks to his social sciences background. The apartheid government understood the power of sociology as a social science. It is regrettable that after South Africa was democratised sociology was relegated to the background. When the apartheid government introduced Bantu education and Afrikaans as medium of instruction they consulted sociologists – they knew that black people would swim in the perpetual servitude and ignorance.

By proclaiming that sociology is no longer useful, is tantamount to saying that reading is of no value. Today our country faces inequality, poverty and unemployment because sociology was used by the apartheid regime to disempower the majority of the people in general and women in particular.

If sociology is perceived as valueless, why did Dr Martin Luther King jr earn his Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology from Morehouse College?

Firstly, it is right and proper that we should know our history as South Africans whether the past was good or bad. For just as the future moves from our historical past, so the present has emerged from the past. To ignore our history is to destroy the future, and to dwell on the past is to rob the future.

When black people were not allowed to study sociology in South Africa during the apartheid era, the only door that was opened to them was anthropology. Simply put, the government used sociology in every nook and cranny of the state, and sociologists were used as government key advisers.

If the Presidency had an adviser who studied sociology they could have handled controversial issues such as of the burning of the flag differently. I wondered why active sociology academics were mum after Mbeki launched damaging criticisms on sociology graduates and sociology as a discipline. The late Professor Herbert Vilakazi could have picked up the gauntlet like an angry sea.

The configuration of the Government of National Unity (GNU) is part of social change. Sociologists agree that change is something inevitable and equally ubiquitous. According to sociologists people are used to change, and it is said that we are more used to faster rates of change. I am not sure whether this is true or false.

What is true, though, is that human beings can only put up with so much fundamental change in their lives, and beyond a certain level we cannot tolerate change. Change can make some of us totally uncomfortable, while others can handle change to a more or lesser degree. The Tripartite Alliance is now on shaky grounds because of the GNU.

Let me illustrate this over a familiar ground, the altercation between the ANC secretary-general and the premier of Gauteng is a graphic description of how tumultuous organisational change is. The ANC leadership and its alliance partners are going through a difficult period, at times the leadership is losing the zest when the situation seems zestless.

The GNU road on which South Africa has embarked upon since the May 29 general elections is a new road, parts of whose topography are only hazily sensed, other parts are still unknowns. A certain amount of trial and error in following the GNU road will be inevitable. The GNU members are bound to make mistakes, and some mistakes have undoubtedly been made. They must collectively own up and learn from them.

It is extremely easy to redesign the Cabinet and to see a sense in terms of unity. The trouble is that such Cabinet proposals, when it comes to putting them into practice, invariably result in people problems since some people would feel alienated from the new arrangement.

Technically, the design of the new Cabinet is a piece of cake, socially piece of something else. For example, there were some ministers who had been demoted from the status of minister to the status of deputy ministers such as Dr Joe Phaahla, Sihle Zikalala and Mondli Gungubele. A sociologist would have advised the president about the impact of social stratification and downward mobility on individuals and society.

Substance abuse is another thorny issue that warrants a sociological perspective. In October 1994, when South Africa was still obsessed with the new democratic order, Peter Powis of the Cape Town Drug Counselling Centre wrote: “Throughout history, when there is political transformation and instability, there is an increase in substance abuse.” Today we wonder why our children on drugs; however, we forget about the political transformation and instability that we went through as society before the dawn of democracy.

Welfare is another controversial sociological issue. Most of our people are a public charge to the government due to some historical factors among other things. The Child Support Grant (CSG) is one of those subjects about which public opinion and published opinions diverge sharply.

A great many South Africans feel in their bones that it is mistaken and short-sighted for the government to take their money and give it away to other people – especially to people who have broken one of the most fundamental rules of the social order by having children they cannot support. To add salt to injury, some citizens from our neighbouring states fraudulently draw their pension and the CSG from South Africa.

The GNU will be compelled to deal with the controversy of affirmative action (AA) and black economic empowerment (BEE). For example, the DA may argue that the original impetus for AA was understandable; however, it led to corruption and the creation of few millionaires at the expense of society.

They may further use Jared Taylor’s argument that, “Affirmative action has a tangled history that illustrates the legal and moral dilemmas of race … It is the practice of discrimination in the name of equality, of injustice in the name of justice. Perhaps nowhere else in our society have good intentions gone so sadly wrong, and good sense driven so completely from the field.”

The Patriotic Alliance (PA) may argue that coloured people have not the benefited from AA. The ANC may also argue that AA is morally right to correct centuries of racial discrimination. One needs to put on sociological lenses in order to deal with these social problems.

As never before, South Africa needs the services of sociology graduates and advisers in all three spheres of government. For example, a city like Johannesburg has decayed and the city needs a person who has studied sociology to catalogue all the challenges that are related to a city. I hope that the Office of the President, premiers, mayors, political party leaders and Mbeki are listening and Mbeki can say: “I now see the value of sociology because I had no one to open my eyes to the true meaning of sociology.”

Richard Nixon’s Watergate Scandal and President Joe Biden’s throwing in the towel before the US general elections in November are sociological issues.

Author and life coach Mathebula has a PhD in Construction Management

#sociology

Sociology graduates are underutilised in SA