[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
I was so excited when I was invited to
give this TEDx talk and then I was told
the topic immigration
I’ve lived in South Africa for my whole
life what could I possibly have to say
about immigration and then I realized
something many if not the majority of
people I interact with on a daily basis
see me as an immigrant as someone who
doesn’t quite belong here the word
belong has at least two meanings on the
one hand it can refer to something being
a property this pin belongs to me I own
it on the other hand it can refer to
being a member of something I’m a member
of the human race I have certain
characteristics that allow me to claim
membership both implies secure
relationship since I bought the pin I’m
pretty confident that no one can take it
away from me without my consent and
since last time I checked I had pretty
much human characteristics no one can
say I’m not a member of the human race
so in what sense then do I belong here
in South Africa
Samantha vice philosopher philosophy
professor at Wits writes that there is a
sense that we white South Africans need
to earn our place in a country and a
continent that is simply not ours what
does she mean by this
in what sense should we understand ours
given the history of whites in the
country one might be forgiven for
thinking that white South Africans think
South Africa belongs to them in the
sense of ownership that we own it or at
least a part of it but that doesn’t feel
right so what if we take it to be the
second sense that those who belong in
South Africa share characteristics well
what are the characteristics that allow
me to say
not my race in 2011 the census figures
indicated that whites comprise 8.4
percent of the total population not my
language English is only the fourth most
common first language in the country
we’re less than 10% of the population
being mother tongue English speakers I
have a very clear memory of the first
time I felt I really didn’t belong it
was in 1992 when I went on a school
outing to see the film Seraphina which
was Satan’s a waiter in 1976 I was
deeply affected by the film and as many
angsty teenagers do I wrote a bunch of
poems one has stuck in my mind such the
25 years later I can still remember it I
tried to wash away my guilt in the
shower I scrubbed and scoured my body
but the more I scraped the whiter I
became
I think it’s interesting that gilts was
my overriding emotion not shocked not
pity but guilt guilt can occur for a
number of reasons a person may feel she
has transgressed her own moral code or
she may feel she has violated a
universal moral code and bears some
responsibility for that violation the
extent to which I could be said to bear
responsibility for the events of 1976
see minimal believe it or not I wasn’t
born in 1976 moreover I’d been to a
multiracial primary school and my school
high school opened in 1991 to all races
so it was really only one year that I
was in an all-white educational
environment and yet I felt so guilty
Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung calling
the term German collective guilt in 1945
in an essay in which he argued that
Germans felt a collective guilt for what
had occurred in the Second World War
Jung said collective guilt was for
psychologists effect and it will be one
of the most important tasks of therapy
to bring the Germans to recognize the
skills Furniture link the author of the
reader best-selling post Nazi era novel
that has been turned into a film
starring Kate Winslet speaks about the
extent of collective guilt which
survives to this day amongst Germans
because of the atrocities of the Third
Reich shrink argues that contemporary
Germany is still characterized in some
sense by a second guilt the guilt felt
by the younger generation for the sins
of the fathers although he believes
Germany is approaching a guilt free
period in his words we are not there yet
Schwing who was born a year before the
end of the Second World War
said it was in the 1960s when the German
public first began to reflect openly and
intensively on Nazi crimes and their own
moral culpability in those crimes do
white South Africans still
today given what seems to be happening
in schools restaurants on social media
doesn’t seem like it how did the Germans
come to recognize they’re guilty one of
the ways was an intensive detoxification
program that was conducted by the
British and American troops after the
war he’s involved posters of
concentration cats with slogans such as
these atrocities your fault
South Africa opted for the TRC
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
the former Minister of Justice della
Omar stated that a commission is a
necessary exercise to enable South
Africans to come to terms with a past on
a morally accepted basis and to advance
the cause of reconciliation many people
have argued that the TRC did not achieve
its aims that the reconciliation that
appeared to have brought about was very
superficial this does seem to be the
case cracks in the rainbow nation are
appearing and widened with every use of
the K word with every comparison to
monkeys with every comment about these
people it’s as if we’ve lost the
self-control we all adopted in the first
few years post apartheid as if we were
all on our best behavior in front of the
adults and then the adults left the room
and all hell broke loose with the death
of Madiba came the death of self
regulation and impulse control why is
this well evidence suggests that a lack
of belongingness inhibits people’s
ability to self-regulate this would
suggest that as white South Africans
feel less and less like they belong here
so their impulse control and
self-regulation decreases but I wonder
if it doesn’t work the other way that
maybe a lack of
ability to self-regulate decreases an
ability to belong if we as whites once
you belong to be considered by black
South Africans as belonging then we need
to learn that it’s not just sticks and
stones that break bones words do very
real harm to in 1999 a report by the
South African Human Rights Commission
found that there was a policy vacuum in
the area of racial awareness and
sensitivity in South African schools and
recommended that anti-racist training
for district officials governing bodies
teachers and learners be prioritized the
authors of the report warned that if
racism could not be satisfactorily
addressed in South African schools our
country will pay the price and paying
the price we are it’s not just racism of
course it’s sexism homophobia xenophobia
these seem to characterize and indeed
monopolize South African discourses and
the fact that it’s happening in schools
among the born freeze is the most
worrying so what is to be done when you
are invited to give a TEDx talk you are
warned against selling from the stage
but I’m about to break that rule I’m
going to send you a solution and that
solution is philosophy
in November 2015 Senator Marco Rubio
stated that America needed more welders
and less philosophers clearly that also
need more English teachers because it
should have been fewer philosophers not
I have nothing against welders but I
think Rubio is very very wrong but more
philosophers we have the better this is
because philosophy attempts at white
level at least to cultivate phronesis
or practical wisdom which helps us to
act virtuously and to encourage
excellence of character in others ted
wheetly writes that people have an
unfortunate tendency to act without
reflection or consistency
letting instant and gut level reactions
guide their behavior philosophy tries as
a rule to elevate reason so that it
rules how we act rather than serves how
we feel
a world without philosophers is a world
of self-righteous people with no impulse
control or people with rigidly dogmatic
and any self reflexive worldviews I’m
often asked what is it exactly that
philosophers do John Campbell Berkeley
philosophy explains it as thinking in
slow motion
it breaks down describes and assesses
moves we ordinarily make at great speed
it then becomes evident that
alternatives are possible the tools of
philosophy critical creative and logical
thinking can help us make sense about
day to day experiences and respond to
these experiences in ways that respect
the humanity of others and of ourselves
philosophy helps us to examine our
tendency as humans to make judgments
based on feelings rather than
rationality it helps us to differentiate
between
basic beliefs or what we call intuitions
and justified true beliefs what
philosophers call knowledge the concept
of a justified true belief states that
in order to know that a given
proposition is true one must not only
believe the relevant true proposition
but also have justification for
believing it to be justification comes
in the form of reasons and not just any
reason will do in response to Rubio’s
comments about philosophers writer
writes a great Gracie Olmstead argues
that the best source of education is one
that does not make you a better worker
but rather the sort that makes you a
better human being I think we need to
introduce philosophy in some form into
the school curriculum according to 2016
figures 46 percent of the population in
South Africa is under 24 years old while
we cannot change the past which
hand-rolled the future but we need to
act fast by getting young people to
think more slowly before they speak
before their tweet before they post
Alfred Adler said a person’s behavior
Springs from his ideas if we understand
that philosophy is really about the
study of ideas and their power in our
lives we will begin to understand that
we really can change people’s behavior
by challenging their ideas so let me
challenge the idea that I am an
immigrant the definition of an immigrant
is a person who comes to live
permanently in a foreign country I
didn’t come to live here I was born here
as were my parents and my grandparents
indeed my family has been in South
Africa since the 1880s when my
great-grandfather left Eastern Europe to
escape the pogroms and anti-semitism
that characterized the Russian Empire
South Africa became famous
a haven for its 120,000 Jews many of
whom including my family would have
perished in the Holocaust had they
stayed in Europe and South Africa isn’t
a foreign country it’s my home my only
home I have never considered packing for
Perth or being part of a white flat
while I deny being an immigrant maybe
the issue is that I am NOT native to
South Africa native is an interesting
word
while it’s rooted in the Latin late
meaning born it can also refer to one’s
origin not necessarily the place where
one is born but the place where one
comes from originally
most people consider the COI and San
people as being the first inhabitants of
what is now South Africa evidence points
to the arrival of the court poisoned
people around two thousand years ago
this was followed in the early 80s in
the early centuries ad of the Bantu
speaking communities who would have
reached southern Africa from the Congo
Basin some of the migrant groups
ancestral to today’s and greeny people’s
prefer to live near the eastern coast of
what is present-day South Africa while
others known as the suit suit were no
people settled in the – with the vendor
limber and Shangaan Tsonga people’s in
the northeastern area so no one is
native to South Africa we are all from
somewhere else originally why does it
matter whether it was 2,000 years ago or
200 I want to go back now devices
claimed that this country and continent
is not ours
perhaps what she means is that we have
to earn our right to regain our
membership because we have abused our
position as
if this is the case in perhaps we need
to consider the idea of belonging as
taking ownership of not the land but the
past I stand here knowing that so much
of my good fortune came because of
others misfortune while I did not
actively support a project I am a
beneficiary of it
it is this recognition that makes me who
I am and makes me believe I belong here
I belong here because I am committed to
the rebuilding of this place this place
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
I was so excited when I was invited to
give this TEDx talk and then I was told
the topic immigration
I’ve lived in South Africa for my whole
life what could I possibly have to say
about immigration and then I realized
something many if not the majority of
people I interact with on a daily basis
see me as an immigrant as someone who
doesn’t quite belong here the word
belong has at least two meanings on the
one hand it can refer to something being
a property this pin belongs to me I own
it on the other hand it can refer to
being a member of something I’m a member
of the human race I have certain
characteristics that allow me to claim
membership both implies secure
relationship since I bought the pin I’m
pretty confident that no one can take it
away from me without my consent and
since last time I checked I had pretty
much human characteristics no one can
say I’m not a member of the human race
so in what sense then do I belong here
in South Africa
Samantha vice philosopher philosophy
professor at Wits writes that there is a
sense that we white South Africans need
to earn our place in a country and a
continent that is simply not ours what
does she mean by this
in what sense should we understand ours
given the history of whites in the
country one might be forgiven for
thinking that white South Africans think
South Africa belongs to them in the
sense of ownership that we own it or at
least a part of it but that doesn’t feel
right so what if we take it to be the
second sense that those who belong in
South Africa share characteristics well
what are the characteristics that allow
me to say
not my race in 2011 the census figures
indicated that whites comprise 8.4
percent of the total population not my
language English is only the fourth most
common first language in the country
we’re less than 10% of the population
being mother tongue English speakers I
have a very clear memory of the first
time I felt I really didn’t belong it
was in 1992 when I went on a school
outing to see the film Seraphina which
was Satan’s a waiter in 1976 I was
deeply affected by the film and as many
angsty teenagers do I wrote a bunch of
poems one has stuck in my mind such the
25 years later I can still remember it I
tried to wash away my guilt in the
shower I scrubbed and scoured my body
but the more I scraped the whiter I
became
I think it’s interesting that gilts was
my overriding emotion not shocked not
pity but guilt guilt can occur for a
number of reasons a person may feel she
has transgressed her own moral code or
she may feel she has violated a
universal moral code and bears some
responsibility for that violation the
extent to which I could be said to bear
responsibility for the events of 1976
see minimal believe it or not I wasn’t
born in 1976 moreover I’d been to a
multiracial primary school and my school
high school opened in 1991 to all races
so it was really only one year that I
was in an all-white educational
environment and yet I felt so guilty
Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung calling
the term German collective guilt in 1945
in an essay in which he argued that
Germans felt a collective guilt for what
had occurred in the Second World War
Jung said collective guilt was for
psychologists effect and it will be one
of the most important tasks of therapy
to bring the Germans to recognize the
skills Furniture link the author of the
reader best-selling post Nazi era novel
that has been turned into a film
starring Kate Winslet speaks about the
extent of collective guilt which
survives to this day amongst Germans
because of the atrocities of the Third
Reich shrink argues that contemporary
Germany is still characterized in some
sense by a second guilt the guilt felt
by the younger generation for the sins
of the fathers although he believes
Germany is approaching a guilt free
period in his words we are not there yet
Schwing who was born a year before the
end of the Second World War
said it was in the 1960s when the German
public first began to reflect openly and
intensively on Nazi crimes and their own
moral culpability in those crimes do
white South Africans still
today given what seems to be happening
in schools restaurants on social media
doesn’t seem like it how did the Germans
come to recognize they’re guilty one of
the ways was an intensive detoxification
program that was conducted by the
British and American troops after the
war he’s involved posters of
concentration cats with slogans such as
these atrocities your fault
South Africa opted for the TRC
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
the former Minister of Justice della
Omar stated that a commission is a
necessary exercise to enable South
Africans to come to terms with a past on
a morally accepted basis and to advance
the cause of reconciliation many people
have argued that the TRC did not achieve
its aims that the reconciliation that
appeared to have brought about was very
superficial this does seem to be the
case cracks in the rainbow nation are
appearing and widened with every use of
the K word with every comparison to
monkeys with every comment about these
people it’s as if we’ve lost the
self-control we all adopted in the first
few years post apartheid as if we were
all on our best behavior in front of the
adults and then the adults left the room
and all hell broke loose with the death
of Madiba came the death of self
regulation and impulse control why is
this well evidence suggests that a lack
of belongingness inhibits people’s
ability to self-regulate this would
suggest that as white South Africans
feel less and less like they belong here
so their impulse control and
self-regulation decreases but I wonder
if it doesn’t work the other way that
maybe a lack of
ability to self-regulate decreases an
ability to belong if we as whites once
you belong to be considered by black
South Africans as belonging then we need
to learn that it’s not just sticks and
stones that break bones words do very
real harm to in 1999 a report by the
South African Human Rights Commission
found that there was a policy vacuum in
the area of racial awareness and
sensitivity in South African schools and
recommended that anti-racist training
for district officials governing bodies
teachers and learners be prioritized the
authors of the report warned that if
racism could not be satisfactorily
addressed in South African schools our
country will pay the price and paying
the price we are it’s not just racism of
course it’s sexism homophobia xenophobia
these seem to characterize and indeed
monopolize South African discourses and
the fact that it’s happening in schools
among the born freeze is the most
worrying so what is to be done when you
are invited to give a TEDx talk you are
warned against selling from the stage
but I’m about to break that rule I’m
going to send you a solution and that
solution is philosophy
in November 2015 Senator Marco Rubio
stated that America needed more welders
and less philosophers clearly that also
need more English teachers because it
should have been fewer philosophers not
I have nothing against welders but I
think Rubio is very very wrong but more
philosophers we have the better this is
because philosophy attempts at white
level at least to cultivate phronesis
or practical wisdom which helps us to
act virtuously and to encourage
excellence of character in others ted
wheetly writes that people have an
unfortunate tendency to act without
reflection or consistency
letting instant and gut level reactions
guide their behavior philosophy tries as
a rule to elevate reason so that it
rules how we act rather than serves how
we feel
a world without philosophers is a world
of self-righteous people with no impulse
control or people with rigidly dogmatic
and any self reflexive worldviews I’m
often asked what is it exactly that
philosophers do John Campbell Berkeley
philosophy explains it as thinking in
slow motion
it breaks down describes and assesses
moves we ordinarily make at great speed
it then becomes evident that
alternatives are possible the tools of
philosophy critical creative and logical
thinking can help us make sense about
day to day experiences and respond to
these experiences in ways that respect
the humanity of others and of ourselves
philosophy helps us to examine our
tendency as humans to make judgments
based on feelings rather than
rationality it helps us to differentiate
between
basic beliefs or what we call intuitions
and justified true beliefs what
philosophers call knowledge the concept
of a justified true belief states that
in order to know that a given
proposition is true one must not only
believe the relevant true proposition
but also have justification for
believing it to be justification comes
in the form of reasons and not just any
reason will do in response to Rubio’s
comments about philosophers writer
writes a great Gracie Olmstead argues
that the best source of education is one
that does not make you a better worker
but rather the sort that makes you a
better human being I think we need to
introduce philosophy in some form into
the school curriculum according to 2016
figures 46 percent of the population in
South Africa is under 24 years old while
we cannot change the past which
hand-rolled the future but we need to
act fast by getting young people to
think more slowly before they speak
before their tweet before they post
Alfred Adler said a person’s behavior
Springs from his ideas if we understand
that philosophy is really about the
study of ideas and their power in our
lives we will begin to understand that
we really can change people’s behavior
by challenging their ideas so let me
challenge the idea that I am an
immigrant the definition of an immigrant
is a person who comes to live
permanently in a foreign country I
didn’t come to live here I was born here
as were my parents and my grandparents
indeed my family has been in South
Africa since the 1880s when my
great-grandfather left Eastern Europe to
escape the pogroms and anti-semitism
that characterized the Russian Empire
South Africa became famous
a haven for its 120,000 Jews many of
whom including my family would have
perished in the Holocaust had they
stayed in Europe and South Africa isn’t
a foreign country it’s my home my only
home I have never considered packing for
Perth or being part of a white flat
while I deny being an immigrant maybe
the issue is that I am NOT native to
South Africa native is an interesting
word
while it’s rooted in the Latin late
meaning born it can also refer to one’s
origin not necessarily the place where
one is born but the place where one
comes from originally
most people consider the COI and San
people as being the first inhabitants of
what is now South Africa evidence points
to the arrival of the court poisoned
people around two thousand years ago
this was followed in the early 80s in
the early centuries ad of the Bantu
speaking communities who would have
reached southern Africa from the Congo
Basin some of the migrant groups
ancestral to today’s and greeny people’s
prefer to live near the eastern coast of
what is present-day South Africa while
others known as the suit suit were no
people settled in the – with the vendor
limber and Shangaan Tsonga people’s in
the northeastern area so no one is
native to South Africa we are all from
somewhere else originally why does it
matter whether it was 2,000 years ago or
200 I want to go back now devices
claimed that this country and continent
is not ours
perhaps what she means is that we have
to earn our right to regain our
membership because we have abused our
position as
if this is the case in perhaps we need
to consider the idea of belonging as
taking ownership of not the land but the
past I stand here knowing that so much
of my good fortune came because of
others misfortune while I did not
actively support a project I am a
beneficiary of it
it is this recognition that makes me who
I am and makes me believe I belong here
I belong here because I am committed to
the rebuilding of this place this place
[Applause]
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