South Africa

I know I have beaten this topic half to death, but whenever I see an article like this, I can't help but rehash. The article is all about the so-called "transformation" going on at the airforce and starts off in the following way :

 

The cockpit of a sophisticated South African Air Force trainer on a solo night, cross-country flight can be a lonely, and sometimes, scary place. Unless he is alert and informed, nature and the complicated avionics and systems can conspire to gang up on the young pupil pilot. His isolation breeds uncertainty as he realises he is alone against the elements, with only his onboard technology to see him through.

 

At the beginning of his training, he had failed to assimilate the volumes of knowledge with which his instructors had bombarded him. With intensive tutoring he managed to crack the required 40% pass mark. But now, alone at night, the pupil pilot begins to sense this was not enough.

 

And it wasn’t. His air speed is inexplicably climbing and the attitude indicator says he is in a gentle spiral. His mind is overwhelmed with information, he needs time to sort it all out. But time is up, as is altitude. He runs out of both ... and dies.

 

Now lets get into it. "Transformation" is a word that politicians love to throw around thesedays, but what exactly does it mean? From where this humble blogger sits it seems that "transformation" has basically become a numbers game, a staticians dream -

 

Government official A : "Now Mr XYZ, you do know that REAL tranformation means that in your organisation you MUST have 80% blacks, 50% woman, 10% whites....blah blah blah".

Government official B : "What was that, you can't fill your quota? Well that's your problem now get on with it and make a plan - we don't like having to deal with your type, you know reactionaries and counter-revolutionaries!"

 

This seems to be the just of "Transformation" to me, a government inspired checklist that is passed around and filled in to make sure you're on the right side of "social change". The reality on the ground is very different. This is especially true when you are dealing with professions and occupations that are by their very nature "elitist" and "exclusive" - but the number crunchers don't seem to see this, all they see with their blinkers on is their little mandated checklists and the forms that need to be filled in in triplicate :

 

Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota, in answer to a question in Parliament in 2003, said that pupil pilots in the SAAF would be allowed to fail all their exams, fail two repeat exams, and still remain on the course, in the interests of transformation. They could also fail two flying tests. Previously, trainee pilots had been allowed to fail only three subjects, and had to pass a repeat exam with a minimum of 60% — or be “washed” from the course.

 

The relaxed standards, say top SAAF instructors and former fighter pilots, are nothing short of a death sentence, especially as the SAAF gears up for the introduction of its new Hawk lead-in fighter trainer next year, and frontline Gripen fighter in 2008.

 

So while Minister Lekota is patting himself on the back, he is putting people's lives on the line in pursuit of his own "transformed" SAAF. And isn't this the dirty little secret of transformation - we ignore everything else in pursuit of that "representativity targets", even when it borders on the ridiculous (or in this case dangerous). Wouldn't it have been a better idea to hape kept standards as they were originally (and for good reason) and then worked on a plan to ENSURE that those with the right stuff would meet those standards. It really seems to be a case of misplaced priorities : 

 

A former fighter pilot with more than 4000 hours’ experience, who now flies airliners, dismissed the new standards as laughable. “A fighter pilot operates alone in a highly competitive environment. In combat, flying at the edge of the envelope, he needs to know 100% about his aircraft and weapons as well as those of his opponent,” said the pilot, who also asked not to be named.

 

“When fighters close at more than twice the speed of sound, you don’t have time to think. You need total awareness, a superior intellect and lightning reactions. All that will save you is knowledge and skill. This is not the place for a forty-percenter, and you can bet your enemy won’t be a forty-percenter. This is when the inferior pilot dies.”

 

This is NOT transformation! This is an artificial situation that is being sustained by those who have become so obsessed with race that they cannot see the woods from the trees. I would love to become a F-1 driver, but my reaction time and hand-eye co-ordination is not good enough. Would the "tranformists" say that because there are too many people from the Northern Hemishere in racing I should damn well get my shot anyway!!! No of course not, because that isn't true transformation.

 

True transformation should not be about numbers and quota's, it should be about allowing everyone the opportunity to reach for their dreams. How we allow people to do that is not by expecting less of them or giving them an easier way to get there, it is by giving them the tools they need to get where they want to be. The Defence Force's Youth Foundation Training programme and Military Skills Development programme are good examples of this.

 

I think the late Gabriel Ndabandaba who was a SAAF pilot and a member of the SAAF’s premier aerobatic team put it perfectly when he told the Sunday Times that there was no need to lower standards for previously disadvantaged candidates : 

 

“Making concessions to promote transformation is not necessary. We can do it ourselves,” 

 

Damn right!