What a day for a day dream!

Well it has been quite a day. 5th November is my mother's birthday (happy birthday Mum!) and we also celebrated Guy Fawkes Day when I was growing up in England - an odd celebration in which the English celebrate the man who tried to blow up the House of Parliament.

And this morning we wake up to the news that Obama has won the US Presidential Election! Apart from the significance of electing a black President, it appears that a new spirit and consciousness has awoken in the American people. It was amazing to watch on our TV screens the images of Americans in tears hanging on every word in his victory speech. And how different his words from the cynical, mocking, arrogant and sarcastic language of George Bush as he led the US into the war on terror during the past 7 years.

So for now let us celebrate for America and her people!

I hope Obama's words of humility will soon be translated into policies and strategies that take the US away from an aggressive and militaristic foreign policy. For now, US warships and gunboats patrol the seas, and her young men carry guns in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. US embassies are targets, and much of the world lives in fear. A lot needs to happen.

And maybe we can find some learning in all this about leaders and politics. How fickle it all is. Bush was very popular - just a short time ago. Some people who voted for Bush now voted for Obama. Many people who voted for Obama would really have preferred Hilary Clinton. Some Hilary supporters voted for Palin. Obama got the breaks this time around. He had four times as much money to spend as McCain. Let us hope we are lucky and that something substantial and real can be created this time. If not, then I fear the world will descend to new lows of cynicism.

I attended another lecture this evening. My Professor (I like to think of her as "my" Professor!) - Adele Thomas - delivered her inaugural address at the University of Johannesburg. Her lecture was entitled "What questions would Socrates ask? Universities and their internal governance". Adele gives a devastating critique of the internal governance of Universities in South Africa and elsewhere from an ethical perspective, and highlights the need for imaginative leadership in stimulating the development of what she calls 'institutional moral responsibility'.

This moral responsibility, she argues, is "founded in institutional integrity" - meaning an understanding of the institution's morals, values and commitments that is based on a rigorous and continuing process of internal dialogue and introspection about what the role of the university should be.

The address was by its nature admittedly discomforting to an academic audience. The question arises whether university institutions can rise to the challenge of critical self-reflection, which might mean descending from ivory towers!

Morality and ethics in public life

It was a real privilege tonight to attend the Helen Joseph Memorial Lecture delivered by Professor Kader Asmal on the theme of ‘Law, morality and ethics in public life in South Africa’. I am fortunate to count myself as a former student of Professor Asmal at Dublin University, and so this was not the first lecture of his that I have attended!

Asmal spoke eloquently of the need to create an ethical society, based on tolerance and mutual respect founded on a sense of a common shared destiny. He made a passionate plea for people in public life to take a stand on issues of morality, and not to fudge the distinction between right and wrong. Calling for respect for the institutions of democracy, he made a strong case for cementing our young democracy by assuming civic responsibility. Working simply according to rules is not enough, he argued, citing the bizarre ‘conflict of interest’ when MPs under investigation in the Travelgate scandal are able to brazenly vote for the abolition of the Scorpions – while what they did was not illegal or in breach of conflict of interest rules, he argued that they should have recused themselves from the vote. He also cited as unethical the 27% pay increase awarded to the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Tito Mboweni - a pay increase that is four times the upper limit of the inflation target band set by the Reserve Bank!

Asmal made a strong case for businesses, universities and other institutions to make clear breaks with the practices of the past where they do not serve the new democracy, in the same way that the Constitution of South Africa and the Bill of Rights make a decisive break from our apartheid history.

Asmal of course has been a long-standing member of the ANC, and until last year was on the ANC National Executive Committee, so his voice on these matters is important and carries weight. In the context of our current political context, his call for people to make decisions on the basis of what is right and what is wrong, rather than on the basis of personalities, or who is left and who is right, is refreshing.