Earlier this week, a short email arrived in my inbox confirming that I had finally reached the end of the long journey to completing a PhD. When I was preparing for my viva – the oral exam – one of my supervisors asked me what I would have done differently, with hindsight, at the start.
‘I wouldn’t have started,’ I quipped.
The professor, of course, was focusing on the finer details of undertaking a project of this nature. I, meanwhile, was still feeling the heavy weight of having unfinished business over my head year in, year out and spending much of my spare time picking through dry academic tomes – at the cost of relaxing with family and friends. Or reading a good book for fun.
I thought, quite often, of chucking it all in. But I like to finish what I’ve started. So, I kept going with the part-time postgraduate studies.
I have no idea whether a PhD certificate will ever be useful in the development of my career. Quite possibly not. After all, I’m no spring chicken.
However, the process forced me to stretch my brain. And, the teaching and learning course the University of Stirling laid on with the PhD so that I could develop my understanding of the nuances of UK universities and work with its students allowed me to expand my work experience.
Teaching can be very rewarding, and stimulates creativity. It also creates opportunities to meet people you wouldn’t ordinarily encounter. So I have met, and made friends with, lecturers and mature students based in Vietnam, China and elsewhere through distance Masters’ supervisions and deepened friendships with local academics with whom I’ve worked closely on various journalism, creative industries, media studies and study skills modules here in Stirling.
Sharing the letter confirming the PhD award via LinkedIn reminded me, too, of how many wonderful people I have met over the years and have managed to stay in contact with (you can connect with me on LinkedIn here). I have been blown away by all the warm messages of congratulations and support through the networking site.
Although I’m a believer in lifelong learning, I couldn’t think of anything less appealing than embarking on a fresh course of study right now. Maybe ever.
I plan to catch up – in particular – with reading books written by people I know and admire. On my shopping list: former Cape Times newspaper buddy Carol Campbell’s debut novel ‘My children have faces‘, which won a South African literary award in 2015; and, the six thrillers produced by former University of Nottingham comms team senior colleague Tim Utton, who has become a Sunday Times best-selling author under TM Logan.
I might even try my hand at my own novel, now that I can no longer procrastinate with the excuse of a PhD to finish.
This year has had its curses and blessings for everyone.
Among my 2020 highlights: a rare opportunity to spend an hour with two extraordinary people – marketing icon Faith Popcorn, at her office in New York, and Henley Business School Africa Dean Jon Foster-Pedley in Johannesburg on the other side of the globe. Take a listen (scroll to link below): I’m sure you’ll agree – it’s hard to tell that this is a conversation across three continents.
Best wishes to you and your loved ones for 2021. Here’s hoping it’s a year filled with blessings – and more wonderful times with remarkable people.
This first appeared in the BizNews Daily Insider newsletter:
Be kind: your business depends on it – Faith Popcorn, Jon Foster-Pedley
Covid-enforced rules of engagement have given us all rare glimpses into other people’s lives that otherwise would have been unlikely. Earlier this month I was fortunate to spend a pleasurable hour on Zoom in the company of characterful world-leading futurist Faith Popcorn and the highly personable Dean Jon Foster-Pedley, director of the Henley Business School Africa (part of the University of Reading).
The conversation focused on happiness and kindness, which Popcorn – whose strategies have underpinned many game-changing innovations for businesses over four decades – has identified as essential attributes for brands to project. The alternative: customers will turn to those who show they genuinely care about the world and others, said the expert who has been described as the Nostradamus of marketing.
Popcorn, with a trendy scarlet-red short hair cut, was at a desk with a Picasso-style sketch produced by a friend on the wall behind her, in New York. We connected with Foster-Pedley, who was under a thatch roof at his home office, in Johannesburg.
In keeping with the theme, we were very kind to each other. We got to say hello to Foster-Pedley’s domestic worker, who made a cameo appearance. Popcorn revealed that she is working on a rap with SA rocker Karen Zoid – this, because Zoid has ‘kindly’ offered to teach her to write a song.
The Popcorn Report author and trends forecaster said she’d be happy to chat to BizNews again; next time the topic may not be so kind, but it is sure to be engaging. We might pick up more on SA-born tech pioneer Elon Musk, whose vision of the future has the world making plans for humans to go to Mars, among his many other inventions.
For a bit of fun and a reminder of the importance of kindness, listen to the conversation with Popcorn and Foster-Pedley here.
Sound bites
Faith Popcorn: Mood modulation, marijuana, living in a square box
“We’ve been having delicious chats with Professor Foster-Pedley about people’s search for just plain happiness. It’s kind of mood modulation. That’s the reason marijuana is getting big. We’re talking about, not happiness from the soul, but induced happiness. Mushrooms, alcohol have gone through the roof. What are we looking for? We’re looking to change our mood…To become happy. In the end, people start to understand that it’s how you receive what’s been thrown at you, more than trying to change what’s been thrown at you.
“At Harvard, the most attended class was a class in happiness. We’re searching for it desperately. We’re lonely. We’re even lonely without Covid being in our pod. We’re living in a square box, we’re fighting with our spouses – divorce is through the roof.
There seems to be certain human entitlement to happiness. How come only babies can giggle?
Faith Popcorn in conversation with Jon foster-Pedley, Jackie Cameron – BizNews Radio
Jonathan Foster-Pedley on creativity
Jonathan Foster-Pedley on happiness in business:
“Businesses exist to create value for people. Some of that is addictive value, some of it is consumerist. But deep down, what we’re looking for is prosperous societies that give us a decent living. Just having things – as we all know, may be nice to have – but that’s not proper living. The whole idea of what makes a worthwhile life becomes really important in business these days. Especially when you see what businesses and governments do to make life not worthwhile, in terms of the unintended consequences of pollution, species disruption, and pure addiction to work and acquisition.
“So business schools have become very interested in prosperity rather than profit. What makes for a prosperous life, especially when you’ve got South Africa with so many poor people who are smart and can come out of that poor quality of life into something better? So business schools have woken up to the idea that they are connected to humanity at large. We are becoming more and more interested in what makes a quality life.
Faith Popcorn on hiding behind the CSR wall
“I hate corporate social responsibility. I think they built a wall so defended, so fraught with lawyers, so deep and impenetrable – such a big, tall wall that they can hide behind. Does that arose an increased heartbeat or a passion in you when you hear corporate social responsibility?
Repression is never happiness. How can you be happy if you are repressed? The question is, how much of me is welcome at work? Now, if what is welcome at work is some little construct who is ever so polite, how are you ever going to get those people being creative? Because creativity is a voluntary act. Look at Faith. She’s oozing creativity. But it’s not through repression and hiding herself.
‘Don’t capitalise on kindness‘
I think the money-making opportunity is, if you’re sincerely kind in the workplace, your people will perform better. Some of them will take advantage of that, but they should go if they do. But when we start manufacturing and selling kindness – ‘oh, we’re so kind, we’re so good and we gave away a pair of socks for everyone’ – okay, that’s nice. But you should be doing that anyway and you shouldn’t have to mention it. I don’t want to see anyone capitalising on kindness. It sort of takes it away.
Kindness – just do it
You get more out of building things for the community. That’s the real secret of happiness. You get more out of thriving and giving and building. You just do.
South Africa has been relegated to the sidelines by international investors following credit ratings agency downgrades to ‘junk’ status earlier this month. This is a great pity for the country’s marketing efforts as there are many pockets of excellence. For example, South Africans are masters at building yachts for the world’s wealthiest. Here’s a primer on what you need to know about these luxury sailing vessels before you put money into one. By Jackie Cameron
European yacht investor Tamas Hamor only buys South African yachts. He was quickly converted to models produced on the tip of Africa after he spotted his second yacht and realised that learning to sail in the world’s most treacherous seas has given these boat designers and manufacturers a distinct advantage.
‘South Africans are pioneers in catamaran building. They have developed their expertise because at the Cape of Good Hope they are always sailing in windy conditions, and usually at high speed,’ Hamor says of the unpredictable and often stormy seas around Cape Town.
He recently bought his third yacht, a luxury sailing catamaran with four en-suite cabins, from a South African manufacturer. A former property developer in Spain, Hamor decided to turn his love for sailing – and South African yachts – into a business.
He is selling Western Cape-manufactured luxury yachts to international buyers. A sideline is a yacht charter operation, catering for guests who can afford to pay more than US$20 000/week (about R200 000/week) in the Caribbean. This enables him to cover the costs of maintaining and running his own yachts.
‘I have always enjoyed sailing. I went from constructing houses to constructing yachts,’ says Hamor, who speaks to Signature from a boat show in Miami.
The Xquisite Yachts chief executive officer is hoping a demonstration model, and a try-before-you-buy programme, will attract orders for sail and power catamarans. Hamor could be in for entrepreneurial success, as he has opened his doors to coincide with an uptick in demand for luxury yachts. Sales were hit by the financial crisis in 2008, but there are recent indications that they are starting to pick up.
Laurent Perignon, chief operating officer of luxury yacht specialist Camper & Nicholsons says that the top end of the superyacht sector – vessels longer than 60m – was never affected by the global economic shock. The rich have continued to commission ever-larger high-prestige craft.
However, the market for smaller, yet still very expensive, yachts has only recently started to return to normal. This has followed a big increase in pre-owned boats for sale, he notes.
‘It is still a buyers’ market but things are gradually stabilising. We’re no longer seeing the fire sales and big discounts that we were seeing before,’ says Perignon in a Knight Frank report on how the world’s wealthiest are spending their money. Demand is coming largely from the US and Europe.
Cape Town-based yacht broker Rob Sharp agrees that the worst seems to be over for the luxury yacht market. After a tough period in which many boat-builders and others connected to the yacht industry have been forced out of business, local demand has improved. ‘Last year was our best year since 2008. We are selling sailing and power, mono hull and catamaran in equal numbers,’ he says of the boats his clientele – mostly South African – are favouring.
Many buyers already have yachts and have been upgrading to much larger yachts in the luxury segment, says Sharp. Innovation in ownership models is spurring demand too. The broker cites the example of a buyer who came to the David Abromowitz & Associates offices wanting a power boat for deep sea fishing and left with shares in a luxury yacht moored at the V&A Waterfront.
Although Sharp is undoubtedly a good sales consultant, the buyer realised that his needs and lifestyle were best suited to fractional ownership. Instead of owning a boat outright and not getting full use of it, for a similar amount of money the investor acquired a shareholding in a 17m (57-ft) vessel, which comes with a crew to take care of sailing, catering and ongoing maintenance. ‘He gets to use the yacht for a certain number of weeks a year, which is the most he would have time for,’ says Sharp of the Johannesburg buyer.
How do you decide what type of yacht is right for you? Price is the first consideration.
If you don’t have close to R1m (US$75 000), you are unlikely to be able to buy a share of an entry level luxury boat, while you need many millions of rands to invest in one for your exclusive use. Expect to spend about 10% of the value of your boat each year on maintenance, say yacht owners, while additional costs include boat insurance and salaries for crew.
If you’ve been eyeing one of those 60-ft (18m) yachts that bob around in the waves off Clifton on a Sunday, bear in mind that you are unlikely to get any change out of R25m, says Sharp. A second-hand one might be in reach, though, for about R3,5m.
About R850 000 could get you a piece of a luxury sailing catamaran moored in Mauritius where salaries for crew and the costs of maintenance are more attractive than other jurisdictions. Expect to spend at least R50m to buy a new 85-footer (25m) while R300m is what you are looking at to buy a yacht that is the envy of all other boat owners, says Sharp. He points out that foreign currency exchange rates make South African-built yachts attractive.
Yacht industry stakeholder Clinton Johns, of Cape Town, says your choice will also depend on the type of sailing you envisage. The person who wants to feel the sea spray on his or her face and wants to do the work of managing the boat on the waves is likely to opt for a yacht with sails. ‘A real yachtsman or yachtswoman wouldn’t be seen dead in a motorised boat,’ points out Johns, who has been sailing boats since the age of seven.
Others may prefer to sit back and enjoy the exhilaration of a boat ride, without getting too occupied with the work of getting the vessel across the sea. If you are that kind of buyer, opt for yacht with an engine – and preferably a crew.
Increasingly popular, says Johns, is a hybrid boat. You can put some energy into sailing by helping to hoist the sails, but you can also simply turn on the engine and head off into the big blue.
These days, says Johns, there’s very little sailing that is necessary. ‘Even the yachtsman has an iPad, which becomes part of the equipment, for navigation, looking up weather patterns and more. Technology can even allow you to dock the boat using your finger on the screen – at your peril,’ he adds, wryly.
Your biggest risk on the oceans is yourself, so opt for a yacht that is suited to your sailing expertise, advises Hamor. Also think about where you want to go on your yacht. You will pick a completely different boat if you plan to travel around the world compared to if you want to cruise within 1 000km of port.
‘Moving very big boats from one ocean to the next is not so easy. We find that the people with the biggest yachts usually have more than one; they have one in the Mediterranean, another in the Pacific and perhaps a third in the Caribbean,’ says Hamor.
What you shouldn’t be thinking about when buying a yacht is how much profit you might be able to make later. This is a purchase that, with few exceptions, should be strictly for pleasure.
Sharp notes that a yacht is like a car – it depreciates steadily after you take ownership. ‘It is a lifestyle investment,’ he says. Adds Hamor: ‘I have never met anyone who has made money buying a yacht.’
Jackie Cameron is a freelance business and financial journalist. This article first appeared in ‘Signature’ magazine. Contact her at jackiecameron.uk@gmail.com for content ideas for your website or magazine.
Katya has been in contact with me regularly after I posted a piece about her song, called #JUSTICE4REEVASTEENKAMP (note the social media-savvy use of the hashtag), on BizNews.com.
I’ve been doing a lot of work on content curation for BizNews, a news website that has been growing in leaps and bounds since it was launched a year ago.
After the video of Katya’s new song was published on BizNews, the performer was offered a recording deal. Katya has been insisting, on Twitter, that my article is what got her noticed.
I’m flattered, of course. However, I’m quite sure I was just lucky enough to be the first journalist who came across her song. It was only a question of time before word got out about the piece, which is set to a beautiful piano composition.
Katya says all proceeds from #JUSTICE4REEVASTEENKAMP will be donated to the slain model’s parents, Barry and June – who we all know were relying on Reeva for financial support.
I came across Katya’s work through another new Twitter friend, @SanityCheek, who posted the link to the #JUSTICE4REEVASTEENKAMP on Twitter. And, I started following @SanityCheek after I spotted his satirical video about the Oscar Pistorius trial – yes, also through a Twitter link.
I must admit, I have been cynical in the past about the uses of Twitter in the workplace. But, as you can see, my engagement on Twitter has produced some very positive spin-offs recently, not least of all some compliments about the power of the pen.
Appreciation for journalism is rare generally, and in my case I’m more used to getting up people’s noses, so I’ve been enjoying the fan Tweets from Katya (@KATYAMUSIC).
Feel free to join me on Twitter (here’s my Twitter handle: @JackieCameronUK). I do follow back.
And, keep a look-out for a piece I wrote for a business magazine, entitled Learn to Speak Twitter, in the “recently published elsewhere” section on my blog.
It contains a wealth of information about how to communicate effectively in this social media space, gleaned from people who are real experts on Twitter (@Ubiquity_ZA, @gillian_findlay, @wheatlands are the obvious ones who spring to mind).
The magazine has first rights to publish, so as soon as the next issue comes out, I’ll be able to carry the feature on my blog or publish it elsewhere (so do let me know if you are interested in running it).
Finally: if you haven’t tried Tweeting, have a go. There’s a very exciting world out there. You never know who you might meet.
There’s a common belief that people don’t change. But, I have come to the conclusion that we do. Usually incrementally, as we adapt to what life throws at us. Sometimes the adjustment is incredibly fast, like when something sudden or traumatic happens.
This week, I was reminded of how I underwent major mental shifts when it comes to trusting strangers in my two-and-a-half years that I lived in China. With a meagre Chinese vocabulary, and little English spoken in the provincial city where I was resident, I was obliged to place my faith in a range of people with whom I could not communicate. These occasions included very scary situations, like when I needed doctors treating my sick children in state hospitals to work miracles – to more ordinary rituals, such as having a haircut that wouldn’t deliver too many unsightly surprises.
I thought that my days of relying on the universe for protection, and hoping that most humans are basically good at heart and therefore I am in safe hands, were behind me. Yesterday, I realised they are not. I seem to have developed a habit.
There I was, again blindly trusting complete strangers with my destiny in two separate incidents in one day. First I needed help getting across Barcelona, and allowed myself to be led by the nose from train to train to the airport; later my plane back to Scotland was delayed to such an extent it was going to be a major challenge to get home in the early hours of the morning.
My little adventures got my adrenalin pumping. I was keenly aware it could all have gone horribly wrong.
Particularly the later incident, when I found myself agreeing to take a lift from a man who overheard me mentioning that I had missed the last train, just before midnight, from the centre of Edinburgh. He immediately offered and I found it hard to say ‘no’, even though my inner alarm bells were ringing hard.
After all, I have had it drummed into me not to get into cars with strangers. And, I have my own horrible personal experience to remind me it is such a bad idea to accept lifts from men I don’t know.
Flashback to my first year at Rhodes University. Freshers’ Week. Someone phones me to invite me to the beach; however, a person I don’t recognise shows up to fetch me.
It’s not the young man I thought it would be. I am too polite to say that I don’t want to go, even though my 18-year-old gut is telling me something is wrong.
This guy was older than the other students. Maybe 10 years older.
With hindsight I doubt he was a student. In fact, to this day I’m convinced I had a lucky escape from a serious psycho. If I told you exactly what he did on the beach, I’m sure you’ll agree.
I will spare you most of the details. All you perhaps need to know is that he took his clothes off and started readying himself for some nasty business. He told me of his plans to get me into the sea. It didn’t sound like he thought I would be drying off in the sun later.
I was terrified. I couldn’t stop the tears from slipping down my face, which he enjoyed tremendously as he tried tugging me deeper into the water and I kept pulling back. He was getting a kick out of seeing my fear.
Then, there was a bolt of what I can only describe as divine intervention. A lucky opportunity. A mature couple arrived in the distance on this deserted beach for a stroll. This guy wasn’t expecting to see anyone so he hadn’t factored this into his planning.
I made a run for it. And I moved along near the pair of walkers until they reached the hotel where this guy had parked his car.
I can’t explain why I didn’t tell these people I was in trouble. Or why I didn’t rush through the lobby demanding to see the manager with a view to being rescued.
Instead, I made a dash for the toilet, where I sobbed on the shoulders of a domestic worker who was cleaning up in there. I told her to remember me and the car he was driving.
Then, I pulled myself together and emerged from the bathroom to take him on. I put on my tough armour.
I told him there was a witness. If anything happened to me, there was a woman in the bathroom who had all the information on me – and on his car, I told him. He would be found, eventually, I said. Then I ordered him to take me back to university.
The drive home, in his expensive two-door red convertible, must have taken at least two hours, though perhaps it just felt like an incredibly long time. I never saw him or his car again on campus, or in the town, even though it was a small university community.
I also never told anyone in authority about the incident, or my parents for that matter. Perhaps because I couldn’t get my head around how I would explain my stupidity and the graphic nature of aspects of what had happened. And, it would be his word against mine. Who would believe me?
Getting back to the man who gave me a lift home this week. I wasn’t a complete putz. I made a quick risk calculation. He was in a suit with a briefcase and had clearly done a day run to London. He would know, as well as I would, he’d be easy to track down later if necessary in this high-surveillance society.
He wasn’t knocking back any beers on the plane or being over-familiar with anyone. The only thing he had done that was odd was to spontaneously offer to give me a lift while eavesdropping from the seat in front of me. And, as I am no longer a spring chicken and wasn’t looking or smelling my best after heaving a 20kg backpack across Europe for the best part of the day, I couldn’t imagine he had ulterior motives.
Having made a study of serial killers in my years as a crime reporter, I figured he was a little too old to fit the classic profile. It would be just as risky getting in a taxi without a booking, and probably riskier, than taking my chances with this man at midnight, I thought.
As it turns out, he was fine: polite and careful not to appear too friendly in case I misconstrued his good deed. I got the whole history of his entrepreneurial endeavours (he seems to employ hundreds of people) and he pointed out his mansion on the hill before dropping me off a short walk from my front door. I looked on the internet later and his story checked out.
Stranger danger: A real risk? Jackie Cameron reflects on accepting lifts from strange men.
I got home safely. Still, I have made a ‘mental note to self’ to take my car to the airport next time, rather than relying on public transport and the kindness of strangers.
Note:Speaking of evil deeds, I’ve just posted a feature I wrote on cyber-crime on my website. Often the people we think we know – our colleagues, service providers and others – are spying on us. It is scary how much information people can gather about your business without you knowing it. If you’re interested in that piece, published in Equinox magazine, you can find it in the Recently Published Elsewhere section. Or see this PDF download of Going Phishing.
I hope one of my former colleagues decides to put himself forward as a Parliamentary candidate one day. If anyone is an exemplary new South African, it is Pepe Marais.
I was absolutely delighted when he connected with me on Twitter recently. I was also surprised. He is so busy and I took it for granted, quite wrongly, that he must have much more on his mind than taking a few minutes to catch up with people who have passed him briefly on his swift journey up the career and business ladder.
Of all the people I worked with in my first job after graduating from university, Pepe Marais is undoubtedly the one who has given the impression of achieving the greatest success in his career. He has won so many creative awards, I can’t imagine he has been able to keep count.
Pepe Marais and I worked together at an advertising agency in Cape Town. I was a junior copywriter and he was a junior graphic designer. We spent much of our time working on advertising and marketing campaigns for the liquor industry.
In addition to his artistic talents, Pepe is an entrepreneur, creating jobs and contributing to the economy. He founded Joe Public, a thriving advertising agency that came up with the novel idea to serve advertising with a take-away theme to keep costs contained for clients. It has evolved over the years, now focusing on “media agnostic strategies” and growth. Joe Public has been a trend-setter in a very trendy environment.
If you know the advertising industry, you will be aware that the people who work in this sector have a reputation for being materialistic, brand conscious and generally self-serving. There again, Pepe Marais bucks the trend.
His focus on Joe Public has spread beyond his capitalist endeavours. Pepe’s priority these days is a project called One School at a Time.
Pepe told me that he keeps working on his business so that it can feed into this project, which is aimed at improving the quality of education in impoverished communities. He has roped some of his clients into One School at a Time.
Pepe is incredibly ambitious for this programme, which has a funding element but more importantly requires much time and individual input by him and the other people who support the project.
He started One School at a Time after coming to the conclusion that the only way to really improve life in South Africa is through education. Many other people, well-connected influential people, know this too, but few have taken steps like Pepe Marais has to transform convictions into actions.
A few months ago I was asked to write a feature on corporate social investing (CSI) for an upmarket magazine aimed at higher net worth individuals. It was the perfect opportunity to connect with Pepe once again and hear more about One School at a Time.
The project, as you might expect from one of the best creative brains in South Africa, takes an innovative approach to making a difference to people who need it the most. Of course, that’s what everyone who has a CSI project will say, but in this case the commitment of the people driving the programme goes beyond numbers and reporting in a glossy brochure for shareholders. They also take advantage of their lateral thinking abilities.
For example, One School at a Time ran a radio campaign which demonstrated a young South African’s progress after receiving regular English lessons. Another media campaign uses radio frequencies to speak to people in their cars about why people beg in South Africa.
The creative work to raise awareness is only a small aspect of the project. Marais and his team spend much time at schools, for example brainstorming ideas with school managers on how to do things differently in circumstances that require fresh thinking.
As you probably know, I’ve got a thick skin so not much moves me to tears in the work environment. Chatting to a principal at one of the schools receiving Marais’ support did, however.
I interviewed the head of the Johannesburg secondary over the phone, from my work base near Edinburgh.
This is a school where 70% of the pupils are orphans. Only they don’t live in an orphanage.
These teenagers are running households of children whose parents have been wiped out by HIV/Aids. It is a school where pupils are genuinely excited when they win a carrot or some other vegetable as a reward for a successfully completing a maths exercise or for picking up litter in the school grounds.
Can you imagine a whole community of children growing up without parents to love and look after them, serve as role models and motivate them to improve their circumstances? These are young people living off modest social grants and tips they receive for waving motorists into parking spots at shopping centres; children who have to find their own rent, albeit for squalid accommodation, and are supposed to scrape together modest school fees.
Of this I have no doubt: Pepe Marais is playing a role where it is needed the most. He is also doing this from the bottom of his heart for the people who matter to him the most – his fellow citizens.
Nelson Mandela shares a private joke with Nelson Mandela. This picture was taken by award-winning South African photographer Anton Hammerl, who was killed while covering the Arab Spring in Libya.
My husband, Adrian Hadland, is a prolific and incredibly fast writer. He has written so many books that I lost count after 15. I’d like to think I’m a good influence on this score, not least of all because I force him out of bed every day at the crack of dawn (and often before) to get to work while he has a book underway. Call me a slave-driver!
His industry hasn’t made him rich, but it has brought in some nice pocket money from time to time. Adrian used the proceeds of “The Life and Times of Thabo Mbeki”, an unauthorised and controversial biography of South Africa’s second president, to take me on a memorable trip to the exotic Indonesian island of Bali.
A very important aspect Adrian has carefully mulled over each time he has completed a book has been his dedication. “The Life and Times of Thabo Mbeki” was dedicated to me and the co-author’s wife Pearl Rantao.
Adrian’s latest book, a weighty academic work that could possibly be his magnum opus and which is currently being examined by a US publisher, is dedicated to my 7-year-old, Timothy.
Only a handful of very clever people are expected to appreciate Timothy’s work when it gets into print. Timothy’s name is on this one because, as the youngest, he is the only person in the family who has not received a book dedication from Adrian – and that’s what there is available at this time.
Although Adrian produces very serious pieces he also has this rare ability to write for children. One of his books for the Under 12 market – and one dedicated exclusively to me – is called “Nelson Mandela: The prisoner who gave the world hope”. Published by Short Books, it is on school and library lists in various countries, including the UK.
When we first arrived in Scotland, my eldest son told some children at school that his Dad had written books, including on Mandela. One boy and his family were so certain Nicholas was fibbing that the mother took the trouble to tell me that my son had been lying about his father meeting Mandela and that these kinds of tales were not going down well.
Later, Nicholas came rushing home with the news that some classmates had found “Nelson Mandela: The prisoner who gave the world hope” in the school library. On the one hand, Nicholas was relieved because there was independent evidence that he had been telling the truth.
On the other, there was much talking about – gasp of embarrassment – a spelling mistake! It turns out his classmates and their parents thought “Afrikaans” should have been “Africans”. (Just in case you don’t know: Afrikaans is a language which has Dutch roots.)
So, for the record, Adrian Hadland did meet Nelson Mandela many times. Perhaps the most special Christmas celebration of all for Adrian was the one he spent with Nelson Mandela at the first black South African president’s home in Qunu. Adrian reflects back on it in an obituary he wrote for a UK newspaper, which I thought I would republish here on my blog this month as South Africans everywhere mourn Mandela’s loss. – Jackie Cameron
A tribute to Nelson Mandela.
By Adrian Hadland*
One of several books on Mandela, by Adrian Hadland. This one is dedicated to “Jackie, my wife and muse”.
On August 4th, 1981, Glasgow became the first city in the world to bestow the freedom of the city to Nelson Mandela. In its time, this was a bold statement.
In many parts of the globe, including the UK, public sentiment was not very favourable towards the man who hadn’t been seen in public life for almost 20 years. Lucky to escape the hangman’s noose, Mandela was imprisoned for life in a Pretoria courtroom on charges of terrorism in 1964.
After his conviction, he was immediately shipped back to the terrifyingly harsh Robben Island prison where he chopped rocks with a hammer in the harsh sun for most of the next two decades.
Here, in the UK, Margaret Thatcher had only been in power for a year or two by 1981 and quickly lost interest in the plight of Mandela and the liberation movement he led. Supported by US President Ronald Reagan and by the interests of global big business, she quashed efforts to impose economic sanctions on South Africa’s whites-only regime. Instead, she invited South African PresidentPW Botha to visit the UK in 1984, encouraged trade and castigated Mandela’s beloved African National Congress (ANC) as “a typical terrorist organisation”.
So it was no mean feat for Glasgow to step forward in the early 1980s to publicly acknowledge the qualities of a man who, not too many years later, would be hailed as one of the world’s greatest leaders.
Glasgow’s recognition was extraordinarily prescient. Even among the senior leadership of the ANC at that time, it wasn’t widely known that Mandela, deep in the confines of his stone prison, had begun to work his magic.
As South Africa tipped into violent conflict and moved inexorably toward a race-based civil war, he secretly met with Botha’s emissaries, including the Minister of Justice Kobie Coetsee, and began to talk about the country’s future.
What sort of terms would be needed to bring about peace in South Africa? Who would negotiate such terms? What kind of model of democracy would be needed to shift the nation away from the brink of war and toward tolerance and justice?
Offered freedom on condition he eschewed violence, Mandela refused. Before the ANC would drop its weapons, he demanded certain guarantees including universal franchise, democratic government, the unbanning of political parties, the release of political prisoners and the end to racial segregation.
Holding out while these talks continued for many years came at considerable personal cost. He went on a prolonged hunger strike to improve conditions in the prison. His wife, Winnie Mandela, ran off the rails and they were divorced not long after his release. He was unable to attend the funeral of his eldest son, Thembi, killed in a car crash. And the deprivation he suffered on that small island in the Atlantic for more than 25 years can only really be appreciated if you make the two hour boat journey from Cape Town harbour to ‘the island’ and see for yourself.
Remarkably, Mandela managed to convince both the apartheid authorities and his own party leadership that there was a route through the barriers of hate and history toward freedom. By the early 1980s, Mandela had so won over his prison guards he was free to roam the island. By 1988 he had moved into a vacant prison warder’s house on the mainland. And on February 2 1990, after more than 10,000 days in jail, he walked free.
Mandela: A LIfe (also by Adrian Hadland) was translated into several languages and proved popular in France.
When I visited him a few years later, in the remote town of Qunu on the east coast of South Africa, he had painstakingly rebuilt an exact replica of that prison warder’s house and made it his home.
Outside, it was a rather ugly, face-brick bungalow set amid the green, rolling hills of the area known as the Transkei. He loved the house. It represented his first taste of freedom for 25 years. On the inside, the house thronged with the noises of his family, of his grandchildren, as they prepared excitedly for Christmas lunch.
It was Mandela’s first Christmas as the newly-elected president of South Africa and I felt very fortunate to have been invited. At the time I was the senior writer of a new newspaper, the Sunday Independent. As a political correspondent who covered his ascent from prisoner to president, I had enjoyed a front row seat of Mandela’s difficult but fascinating journey to power.
On that Christmas morning of 1994, he and I (and a handful of his security guards) wandered the pathways of his youth. He showed me the rock he had played on as a child, the cluster of huts where he had slept. We met simple country people, many on their way to feast on the slaughtered cow now turning over a fire in his garden. They raised their arms and called ‘Madiba’, his clan name, for Mandela was a Xhosa prince as well as a democrat. When he went to court expecting the death sentence in 1964, he went in his tribal robes and prince’s crown.
There are so many moments to recall in my time with Mandela, good and bad. I was a few feet away when he swore the presidential oath of office at the Union Buildings in Pretoria and the airforce fighter jets roared over our heads to salute their triumphant new commander. I was also in court when he filed for divorce. He was as grim and somber as one could be.
I recall how he joked that when he moved into his vacant office in the Presidency there wasn’t a single chair, pencil or phone left behind by his predecessor and fellow Nobel peace prize laureate, Mr FW De Klerk.
Nelson Mandela and Adrian Hadland share a private joke, on Christmas day at the first black South African president’s home in Qunu, Eastern Cape. This picture was taken by Anton Hammerl, an award-winning South African photographer who was killed while covering the Arab Spring in Libya.
There were challenges to the press corps when covering such a man. He was adored and celebrated. He could do no wrong. This was not a journalism we were used to. Where was the scandal? The mistakes? The complacency of power? He would call on the phone to chat and laugh about the stuffy ambassador he’d just met or give some background on the press conference that would be called in the morning. He was totally disarming, as almost all who came to his world, friend and foe, soon realised.
He would have been the first to admit he wasn’t perfect. I learned this the hard way. One day he took off his reading glasses during a speech and announced that everyone over the age of 13 would get to vote in the next election. Sensation! We rushed to file our stories. The next morning, front page leads were laden with banner headlines and gaudy editorials.
Alas, this was just a spur-of-the-moment idea, a “Mandela-ism” as they became known to us in the corps. It had not even been discussed by the ANC who soon smilingly discarded the crazy notion into the dustbin of history. We learned our lesson. When he took off his glasses and moved off the prepared script, we put down our pens and notebooks.
He was also prone to the odd temper and on one occasion – the aftermath of the infamous Boipatong massacre – literally shouted at and abused his counterpart, De Klerk, in public.
The challenges he faced in rebuilding South Africa after 300 years of colonialism and apartheid were also truly overwhelming. He presided over more than 500 Acts of Parliament in his first and only presidential term, many fundamentally rebuilding the country’s governmental and social structure.
It will take many more years before the normalcy he dreamed off is achieved or the equality and development he yearned for will be realised.
Perhaps what Mandela is best known for, his greatest gift, was his capacity to forgive. He suffered greatly, beyond comprehension at times, but was able to win the admiration, trust and cooperation of his fiercest adversaries. He was a man of great principle, never compromising on his need to sound out opinion and decide things collectively.
Mandela learned true democracy at the fireside in an African village as he listened to the elders, including his father, debate and argue the issues of the day: All were listened to, all respected. If some opposed the way forward, the discussion was put off to another day. Only decisions that gained the support of all were adopted.
His roots and his beliefs are a reminder that democratic values form part and parcel of the ancient fabric of human life, going back to the earliest of times. Over the centuries, many have sacrificed their lives for such values and many more have blossomed in their light.
Scotland is part of this journey. Here too we ponder the true meaning and future of democracy. Here too we see a fork in the road ahead and wonder which way is the right one.
Mandela will soon be gone, but his legacy will endure. He was truly a great man, and it is to Glasgow’s credit, that it was the first city to say so.
* Dr Adrian Hadland is the director of the journalism programme at the University of Stirling. He worked as a political journalist in South Africa for 15 years covering the country’s transition from apartheid to democracy. He has published several books and book chapters about Mandela.
A shorter version of this obituary appeared in The Herald newspaper in Scotland.
Two young British women in the news after being caught with cocaine in their luggage in Peru are lucky that the Peruvian authorities are so lenient about drug trafficking. They face trial and possibly lengthy jail terms. In other countries, particularly in Asia, the ordinary course of action is execution.
Here’s an article I wrote after a South African woman accused of being a drug mule was given a lethal injection in China in a cruel chain of events.
English: The room at , completed in 2010. Español: La cámara de ejecución de la Prisión Estatal de San Quentin, construido en 2010 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The chilling execution of a South African woman accused of smuggling drugs into China is a reminder that either South Africa is really quite insignificant to the world’s newest superpower or President Jacob Zuma is embarrassingly impotent on the global political stage. My money is on the former.
South Africans were variously shocked and delighted at the news that 38-year-old Janice Bronwyn Linden was given a lethal injection the same day she was told the appeal against her sentence had failed. She was sentenced to death for about 3kg of tik (crystal methamphetamine) found in her luggage when she arrived in China in the southern city of Guangzhou three years ago.
In China, the news of Linden’s death-by-lethal-injection barely registered. Executions are commonplace, with thousands receiving the death penalty in China each year for at least 55 offences ranging from selling tainted food and corruption to murder, so one could perhaps argue they no longer represent interesting news items for Chinese folk.
However, black women are a rarity in much of China, attracting stares and touches from locals amazed to see an ethnically different person. There has also been much talk about black people in Guangzhou, where many African immigrants live in an area called Chocolate City, causing trouble in the region.
Some Chinese officials speak of Africans in Guangzhou of being “three illegals foreigners”. The “three illegals” refers to their contraventions of entry, residence and employment laws in China.
The Chinese have never fully recovered from the ordeal of the Britain-instigated opium wars in the 19th century, and China takes a hard line on drug offences, so at the very least you’d expect them to trumpet their proud achievement of culling another drug mule. But, unlike the news and accompanying protests around a Filipino migrant worker’s executionfor drug trafficking a few days earlier, not even a mutter was audible on the news of Linden’s passing.
Some South Africans called on President Zuma to appeal to the Chinese authorities for mercy. Indeed he said he did just that, though it didn’t delay the execution at all and before long the young woman’s ashes were en route to her grieving family back in KwaZulu-Natal.
The South African authorities conceded the matter would not have an adverse effect on relations between China and Africa. Some will be relieved that it is business-as-usual between South Africa and its biggest customer, China.
Exports from South Africa to China reached an estimated US$6bn in the first six months of 2011. If President Zuma did register his dissatisfaction vigorously to Chinese leaders, there would inevitably be an outcry in some quarters that he had jeopardised the country’s most important trade relationship.
But it seems unlikely he did get stroppy with the former president, Hu Jintao, over the untimely departure from this world of Ms Linden. After all, China’s president is the de facto emperor of the developing world and China is Africa’s prime benefactor, with many lucrative opportunities for the continent’s elite – just ask Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, who has had a very cushy ride thanks to his Chinese friends.
Besides, we have already had strong indications that humanitarian values are not a prerequisite of doing business in the new era. Just take the hullaballoo over the Dalai Lama, the man-of-the-cloth China believes is a political devil.
Zuma and friends have been unrepentant about South Africa’s failure to grant the dear old gent a visa to travel in the country, including to his pal Emeritus Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s 80th birthday bash earlier this year. If Zuma was unfazed by the outcry around the Dalai Lama’s visa woes, it is unlikely he would lose any sleep about a poor KZN woman.
So let’s assume for a minute that President Zuma did indeed put a call through to President Hu on their direct line to discuss Linden’s alleged naughtiness and strongly urged him to reconsider the penalty. Clearly the answer wasn’t yes.
China’s president is the most powerful person in a totalitarian, undemocratic state where there is no justice or legal fair play as we know it. It is highly unlikely he wouldn’t have been able to put a stop to his henchmen readying the lethal syringe.
So then, that only leaves the probability that Hu doesn’t give a hoot about what South Africans think about what he does to South Africans. In other words, we are pretty much irrelevant to China.
This irrelevance to the world’s second most powerful nation should hardly surprise us. Although we wax lyrical back home about how wonderful China is, China seldom mentions South Africa when it boasts about its international trade achievements.
South African companies, from a South African perspective, are noticeably absent from China’s corporate landscape and Africans, let alone South Africans, are barely seen among the foreigners in many cities in China. There’s not much going on visibly between Africa and China in general – certainly not much compared to what China is up to with other countries.
China is effusive with its praise for its resource-rich neighbour Russia and others in Central Asia and clearly cherishes its relationships with its friends in South America. It is determined to gain ground in the US in international trade and holds European countries in high regard.
South Africa for China is interesting, but not indispensible. We provide cheap resources, are an easy market for poor quality goods and blithely kiss the emperor’s foot whenever it is required – from agreeing with the One China policy to pledging support at important global meetings.
So, does China really care about what ordinary Africans think and feel? Janice Linden, who protested her innocence until her last hours, saying the drugs were planted in her case, may have been a woman about whom many think good riddance to bad rubbish.
However, her death also serves as a reminder that, in the eyes of the Chinese, ordinary South Africans and our cherished ideals, as espoused in our Constitution, are inconsequential. It also raises the question once again of whether we should be embracing a country like China to the extent we are doing instead of focusing on also growing other trade relationships.
Many of us are making money on the back of China: but at what price?
By Jackie Cameron
This piece was published by Moneyweb (a media company listed on the Johannesburg stock exchange) in December 2011. Write to Jackie Cameron at jackiecameron.uk@gmail.com.
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The US and the UK aren’t the only states with dirty intelligence secrets. China is also building its intelligence networks. I recently wrote a column on the blossoming relationship between Chinese and South African intelligence agencies, for a South African news organisation.
HONG KONG: China and South Africa have agreed to work together on anti-crime fighting measures. There is an element of police training involved but mostly the talk has been about swapping intelligence to uncover criminals and curb cybercrime.
A nation that has failed abysmally in its attempts to fight crime – as South Africa’s shockingly high murder, rape and robbery statistics attest – presumably the country is hoping to receive more than it gives to China on the training front. Unlike the case for commercial sectors such as banking, South Africa cannot claim to be a world leader in effective policing.
But, do we really want China to roll up its sleeves on South Africa’s crime problem? Do we want it slipping its tentacles into African spying operations and getting its hands dirty in covert internet-based information gathering?
China has a lot to offer the world. When it comes to anti-crime advice and intelligence collaboration we should generally keep the Chinese away.
Fine line between crime-fighting and spying
Spy vs. Spy (2005 video game) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
China getting involved in our crime intelligence, law enforcement and punishment issues is scary for many reasons. For starters, there are stiff penalties for activities that are considered crimes in China but are regarded as basic rights elsewhere.
It seems inevitable that China will expect co-operation from South Africa at some point for help in dealing with a matter that is not, in South African eyes, a crime – like freedom of speech. An obvious area of concern is where Chinese people challenge the legitimacy of the Communist Party to rule China.
The Chinese government keeps tabs on people in and outside China and takes out its punishment on those within. Anti-communist party talk is a crime in China that gets you a hefty jail term as happened to Nobel prize winner Liu Xiaobo.
The fact that this basic democratic right is illegal in China, as are other similar rights, is underscored through protests in Taiwan and Hong Kong to remind the world about what is carefully referred to in China as the “Tiananmen event”. That was the fateful day in 1989 when Chinese soldiers killed student protestors in Beijing.
In China, internet access around these times is at best shaky as the government uses its massive arsenal of cyber tools to control mainland citizens’ access to the worldwide web, no doubt to reduce the chances of anyone there getting it into their heads to embark on similar action. Intermittent internet access has been a feature of life in China since unrest started in north Africa and spread across the Middle East.
China: What’s a crime?
There are many other pointers in China that its view of what constitutes a crime is different from how others in the world define what should be illegal and what should not.
The Chinese government has repeatedly made noises about clamping down on intellectual property transgressions in discussions with western leaders. In reality, it has done nothing to stop the spread of what other countries consider a vicious economic crime on its turf.
In South Africa, and elsewhere, we are repeatedly reminded that to buy a pirate DVD is tantamount to stealing from the artists, and carries stiff penalties. Chinese cities are awash with sub-titled pirate copies of Hollywood movies, western television shows and pop music CDs.
These are not copies hidden under a flea market counter and furtively traded. They are on open display in well-fitted retail outlets in shopping malls, usually with signs forbidding shoppers from taking photographs and with shop assistants diligently keeping a look out for shoplifting – which would probably get you behind bars in China.
The Shanghai Fake Market, where you can buy knock-offs of clothing, personal goods and sporting equipment from any western brand imaginable, takes up extensive floor space in a central city building and is a popular shopping venue for locals and tourists. Stall holders brag about being fake goods’ merchants on their business cards and you can even expect to find a policeman patrolling in the vicinity to help them protect their wares. Beijing’s Silk Market is a similar concept.
Another area that is hazy when it comes to whether the Chinese authorities will view something as criminal is the trade in marine resources, like abalone (perlemoen) and sharkfin. Drug and perlemoen organised crime syndicates are interconnected in the Western Cape and Chinese triads have been involved in international perlemoen smuggling for many years.
China highlights perlemoen as a “must try food” in South Africa on its government China-Africa website. You’d be hard-pressed to find perlemoen in a South African restaurant and taking them out of the sea without a permit can land you in deep trouble with the authorities.
It seems implausible that China will help South Africa in any meaningful way to clamp down on Chinese nationals that get these, and other, rare delicacies to Chinese plates. It would be just as difficult to ask South Africans to give up their favourite beef snack forever and turn in biltong sellers to a foreign police agency.
Upmarket restaurants have abalone, mostly very small ones, on their menus and endangered species are a common item on restaurants everywhere. Exotic animals are de rigeur at weddings and are linked to personal pride, libidos and deep-seated cultural issues.
There are many other areas where there are huge cultural differences over what might constitute a crime, like talking to the foreign media (doing just that landed a journalist who merely repeated what was already published in China in jail for 15 years) and diamond-buying (blood diamonds are apparently no big deal for the Chinese).
Can we really work together on crime-fighting when our ideas of what are and aren’t crimes are so different? It seems unfair to the people who will unwittingly become the focus of intelligence operations.
* This is an edited version of an article first published by Moneyweb.co.za. Contact the writer at: jackiecameron.uk@gmail.com
Countries aiming to emulate China’s staggering transformation from one of the world’s poorest nations to one of its largest economies should focus on education, writes Jackie Cameron.
One of the South African government’s biggest embarrassments is its abject failure to provide a high quality education to prepare young citizens for an economically productive adult life. Now it has strengthened ties with China, South Africa would surely do well to follow many of its big brother’s examples on the educational front.
Many people believe China’s policy of opening up its economy to the world is a major factor in lifting most of its population out of poverty in three decades. But, there’s a case to be made for its education system being just as significant a factor in its turbo-charged growth.
China’s policymakers certainly believe education has been a vital backbone in its economic miracle and say as much in the country’s 10-year education plan. “By means of the development of education, China has transformed from merely being a country with a large population to being a country with powerful human resources,” it notes in the preface.
Although China gives itself a pat on the back for its education system, it is giving it a radical overhaul. This is with a view to bringing it in line with developed world standards as it aims towards being the globe’s best and most influential in science, technology and other sectors of the economy, rather than just being known as the biggest and cheapest. Still, what it has been relying on in recent decades certainly hasn’t been bad, if you consider China’s overall successes.
World Bank data show:
· China has a 94% literacy rate among people over the age of 15, while South Africa’s literacy rate is around 89%;· China’s poverty ratio has plummeted to below 3% of the population, while South Africa’s stands at roughly a quarter of all people living below the poverty line;· Life expectancy at birth in China is 73 years, considerably higher than the 52 years you can expect to live in South Africa;
· South Africans earn more than the average Chinese – South Africa’s gross national income per capita stood at about US$6000 in 2010, compared to China’s of just over US$ 4000; and
· About a quarter of South Africans who are able to work are unemployed, while less than 5% of China’s total labour force is unemployed.
So, what are the Chinese getting right that South Africans, and other nations in a similar unemployment and growth rut, should emulate? Here are some obvious areas where we in Africa have room for improvement:
Education is as important as eating
The Chinese value education enormously. After an entire generation was deprived of a decent formal education in the Mao-led Cultural Revolution years of the 1960s and 1970s, there is a huge appreciation for the opportunity to learn and obtain qualifications.
China has instituted compulsory free education for nine years across the country and continually improved access to education in rural areas with the help of organisations like the World Bank and the UK’s Department for International Development. Tibet is the first to offer 15 years of free schooling, including preschool, it was announced this week.
Vocational training and skills upgrading is a feature of China’s system. Everyone – not just those who are academically able – is encouraged to get an education in order to be productive.
South Africans were also deprived of a quality education during those same Cultural Revolution years because of apartheid. Yet we don’t have the same national enthusiasm for making up for it now.
There’s a logjam in the system. We have new generation of young political leaders and government officials coming up through the ranks who don’t have the inclination, or the wherewithal, to deliver a high quality education any more than their predecessors.
China spends at least 3.5% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on education. South Africa spends a higher chunk of its GDP on education, but this 5% is seen as a rotten investment. Many blame the switch to so-called outcomes-based education.
In China, more important than the money is that education as a strategic priority is emphasised from the highest echelons of political power down to party committees and local governments. There’s a feedback loop and consequences for officials who don’t meet specific targets.
Popularising higher education
China encourages its citizens to dig into their own pockets to pay for the best higher education money can buy. The Chinese save, save, save to put their only children through the best universities in China.
Those who can afford it, and who can bear to be away from their offspring for several years, send them to universities around the world. China is a major source of international university student intakes in the US and elsewhere.
Postgraduate qualifications are vitally important. Some argue that there are now too many Chinese students leaving universities with postgraduate degrees. Nevertheless, the appetite for higher education is a sign that university degrees are highly sought-after and valued.
Chinese leaders, like former president Hu Jintao, regularly emphasise their own educational qualifications. Former premier Wen Jiabao was constantly on the road, visiting education institutions and urging citizens to embrace the highest standards.
Perhaps it is time for some of our own political leaders to go to night school to improve their academic credentials and generally market the benefits of high quality education?
Respect
Chinese teachers are tough, strict, and have the power to discipline, with the sweetest young women turning into textbook tyrants. What’s more, their pupils are expected to respect them.
Use a bad word or sound slightly cocky to your Chinese teacher, and you can expect harsh punishment – usually in the form of even more homework or a cancelled school break. No doubt this respect for teachers helps keep pupils chained to their desks day-and-night.
South Africa has enormous problems with its teaching staff. Many aren’t qualified. Some blame this on poor salaries.
Chinese teachers aren’t particularly well paid either. Yet, in the main Chinese teachers take their jobs seriously and are seen as vitally important pillars of society.
Treat ‘em mean
In China, pupils who don’t finish their work in the teaching session can expect to stay behind and continue on the project in your recess. Homework is a serious business; even five-year-olds can expect up to two-hours a day of reading, writing and arithmetic practice at home after a seven- or eight-hour school day.
The work ethic is incredibly strong among the Chinese young and it is paying off. Chinese students caused a stir when they put their counterparts from Europe to shame in a computerised, standardised test of international student skills delivered by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. China is moving up the ranks among countries publishing the most academic articles in science.
I’m not in favour of tortuous rote-learning. At the very least, though, there’s a case to be made for getting into some kind of disciplined work routine in place so that it feels normal to roll up your sleeves and get on with it later on.
Jackie Cameron, writer.
* This article was first published at moneyweb.co.za, a leading South African news website, and later republished on garethsfirstlaw.blogspot.co.uk in 2012. Write to freelance journalist Jackie Cameron, at jackiecameron.uk@gmail.com
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