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A change of perspective is good for the mind, but it can also throw it into a deep sea of confusion – in which it can either drown in fear or dive deep to discover the treasures it didn’t know it possessed. According to Italian poet Dante Alighieri, we should only be afraid of the things that cause harm to others, and nothing else.
It’s easy to forget such advice in these extraordinarily dangerous times of protests, rebellions and xenophobia. When dangers are aplenty and uncertainty the only guarantee, the mammalian instinct kicks in and people start to court the comfort of the familiar and, in their hope for a miracle, chase rainbows, hoping to catch and bottle them.
There is nothing South Africa hasn’t done to be in the good books of the West, yet unemployment continues to grow. Last week, International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane charted a different path and went to Iran. That country is reeling under US-imposed sanctions, yet the unemployment rate hovers at only about 10%, while ours is flying past 25%.
Construction in Iran is booming, as builders work day and night. “We are impatient for development,” Javad Razzaghi told me as we drove around a fructose plant. It only took six months to build.
I went to Iran as part of a pay-your-own-way delegation to meet other businesspeople. Isolation has made them self-sufficient, and because they have only themselves to rely on, they have invested heavily in education. At the tourist attractions I visited, women have office jobs while men do the menial jobs such as security, catering and cleaning.
The nation is hopeful that US President Barack Obama will succeed in removing the sanctions. They see him as another Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Achaemenid Empire who conquered Baghdad and allowed the Jews to go back to Palestine.
Last year, both General Electric and Boeing got licences to trade in Iran. Many other American companies are already represented in that country.
So in making sure South Africa is not left behind, the South African ambassador to Iran, Archie Whitehead, organised that some of Iran’s biggest businesspeople could connect with their South African counterparts.
Iranians are proud people and the country’s flag is hoisted in prominent places and on ordinary bridges. But the bite of sanctions is undeniable. The Imam Khomeini International Airport looks dated and tired to an eye that is used to shiny, modern airports. These are people who have been trading for millennia – money is not new to them and so wealth is not flaunted.
The Persian Empire focused on trade as an important part of its economic activity and, as a result, created untold wealth as the centre of the Silk Road. Our country can learn from the Iranians, as Minister Nkoana-Mashabane also said.
We must learn to be “impatient” with fighting poverty and unemployment. But impatience does not mean short-cuts, but using creative ways to change the situation. Policymakers must shift black economic empowerment into second gear and use it as a vehicle to create employment.
Black manufacturing companies should be given a tax holiday in their first year. Taxation should be on a sliding scale – the more people a company employs, the lower its tax rate. The employees will pay tax on their income, and so the state will not lose out, but South Africa will gain – because jobs restore people’s dignity.
Kuzwayo is the founder of Ignitive,an advertising agency
