Ordinarily, last week’s announcement of the 30-odd eminent persons group to “guide and champion” the work of the planned national dialogue would be welcomed as giving impetus to a stalled idea. However, these are extraordinary times: every agenda is accompanied by a secret one that is unsaid.
It would therefore be naive to take the announcement as progress, certainly not at face value. Notwithstanding the many odds the dialogue faces, it has to be embraced and given a chance, rather than letting corrosive cynicism kill it.
Of the myriad factors stacked against the dialogue succeeding, three stand out. Unmanaged, they could sound its death knell. First, there is lack of shared understanding of its intention and how success will be defined. The idea is believed to have originated with business person Mcebisi Jonas, but only gained traction when it was championed by former president Thabo Mbeki.
Organising the dialogue was one of Mbeki’s conditions for propping up President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ANC campaign in last year’s general election — albeit unsuccessfully. Having failed to secure an outright majority, the ANC-led government grudgingly endorsed the idea, but secretly prayed the whole thing would fizzle out.
Key differences include such phrases as “citizen-led” and “people-led, society-wide process”. The former is the government’s preferred framing, while the latter is civil society’s, including struggle stalwart foundations.
Civil society would like to see accountability and a plan at the end of the process, while the government desires a new “social compact” to prolong its life and legitimacy.
Second, much of the self-styled government of national unity regards it as a nuisance it can’t wait to see evaporate. The government believes it’s elected alongside the legislature, and must be allowed to govern. If it genuinely believed in the concept it would have earmarked funds for it in several iterations of the budget.
Last week’s announcement ought to have been made earlier this year. A total of R700m is a headline-grabbing figure, and one the National Treasury is unlikely to agree to. Donors and the private sector have the Group of 20/B20 hosting and HIV/Aids gaps to worry about this year.
And third, the protagonists show ineptitude in reading the temperature in the room that is today’s SA. The country has become openly polarised. Interest groups freely travel the world to spread false information about their country without fear of reprisals.
Racial rants on social media platforms mirror many private dinner conversations, including what émigrés repeat in their new homes abroad.
There is no platform for honest conversations about nationhood. Proxy conversations — about BEE, unemployment, crime and corruption and inequality — replace the candid Truth & Reconciliation processes.
As well as misreading the level of anger, desperation and frustration on either side of the ideological spectrum, today’s dialogue is missing the “big men”: a morally anguished, isolated but militarily strong and pragmatic FW de Klerk, a moral tower Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, the famous prisoner representing his people’s deferred dreams that could wait no longer.
All three, and most of their generations, are gone. They can’t be brought back, and frankly they shouldn’t be. What happens next is about the future, not the past. It will define SA not for the next 30 years but for the next century.
Most of the stalwarts’ foundations, save for one or two, are no longer led by their founders, who are deceased. Having got the idea to this point, Mbeki — not necessarily his foundation — must be accorded a special role to shepherd it to the end, as the only elder statesmen around.
Because of the political games around the dialogue, ground has been lost. For example, the churches, which have been seized with these issues for far longer than other sectors of society, have to be brought back to the main table.
However, for the dialogue to overcome the odds it faces, the government needs to show genuine desire for this not to be another fudge.
• Dludlu, a former editor of Sowetan, is CEO of the Small Business Institute.
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