AfriForum, Solidarity join legacy foundations in boycotting national convention
The group said the National Dialogue had been hijacked by the African National Congress (ANC).
ALSO READ: National convention organisers say event will still be led by citizens
This weekend, a precursor to the National Dialogue will be hosted, where representatives from different sectors of society will meet to set the agenda for the dialogue.
But last week, legacy foundations, including the Thabo Mbeki, the Desmond and Leah Tutu, and the Steve Biko foundations, withdrew from this weekend's convention.
AfriForum and Solidarity have aligned themselves with the views of the legacy foundations that this weekend's national convention will not be citizen-led, as initially intended.
They said they were keen to be part of the dialogue when they were invited by organisations like the Thabo Mbeki Foundation.
ALSO READ:
• Parliament's appropriations committee to query funding of National Dialogue
• Presidency compares upcoming National Dialogue to CODESA
• National Dialogue: Legacy foundations say it wasn't a knee-jerk reaction to withdraw
• COSATU backs national convention despite tensions
• Presidency caught up in battle with civil society groups over direction & cost of National Dialogue
But Solidarity's chairperson, Flip Buys, said it now seemed like the ANC wanted to hijack the National Dialogue to try and win back lost support.
"The ANC has been responsible for most of the crisis in the country and cannot solve it on their own. Therefore, in the country's interest, we are prepared to participate in real talks with others about solutions, but such discussions must not be an ANC-led process that will only end up in a cul-de-sac."
AfriForum said while it would be withdrawing from this weekend's convention like the legacy foundations, it would be consulting with the groups on their stance towards the entire National Dialogue.
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The Star
3 hours ago
- The Star
Joburg mayor blames DA-led coalition as city faces R24. 4bn wasteful spending crisis
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Daily Maverick
4 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
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Then ultimately, having to go underground completely, leading the life of 'an outlaw', not seeing his family or being able to be himself as a conventional lawyer. In becoming the first commander of Umkhonto weSizwe (MK), he had to channel some of the skills and discipline that can be found in the boxing that he loved (a sport that is said to require a 'monastic-type discipline') into military preparation. In prison, he faced a range of other challenges. Before prison, Mandela was sometimes impetuous and was rebuked by the leadership. Prison, he says, 'matured' him. He read a lot and thought a lot and listened a great deal to the ideas and problems of other people. The sometimes impetuous Mandela was content to bide his time, waiting and observing and trying to work out what was the best way forward. 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Or was this a way in which a leader needs to act when seeing an opening that needs to be exploited? Insofar as Mandela acted alone, he was also not alone in the sense that, when they learnt what he had done, none of his closest comrades doubted what motivated him or that he acted from a strategic sense of what needed to be done at that particular moment. They also realised that the conditions under which he acted had required him to act on his own. Otherwise it would not have succeeded. What is clear is that as soon as Mandela had the opportunity to communicate with the leadership, he did so, and they agreed on a course of action, part of which had been facilitated by his own, unmandated course of action. From then on, Mandela took a number of steps, in and out of prison, in order to ensure that the peace did work, that there was a sustainable peace — or as sustainable as could be — while he was leader. 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The very stubborn commitment to achieving freedom — as in steadfastness rather than unwillingness to change — sometimes led Mandela to act without consent of the leadership collective. But considered retrospectively, he had nothing to gain through taking these initiatives — as a person or as a leader. He may have attempted to present the leadership with a self-initiated fait accompli, but that was not done in order to earn fame or fortune. It was very risky and controversial, and in fact earned and continues to evoke controversy and criticism of his role. At the same time, he was trusted by his closest comrades, who knew what motivated him and respected his judgement. 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On negotiations, Sisulu remarked: 'When [the government] saw a reasonable tone, they misjudged the person. It's easy to underestimate Madiba when he's nice — without knowing his stubbornness in approach… They look at the softness of the soft line: he is not aggressive, he is not wild. Then the possibilities are imagined to be there: to get Mandela. The National Party were prepared to discuss because [they thought] the leadership would come from them, not from the ANC.' The same stubbornness that made Mandela stick to a sense of dignity and through his actions empower other prisoners to resist arbitrary commands, was also manifested in the period of negotiations. Despite granting FW de Klerk credit for breaking some of the logjams, when De Klerk betrayed his trust, the same anger of the rebellious Mandela re-emerged, berating De Klerk, saying — at Codesa — that even from a leader of an illegitimate regime one expected some sense of integrity. But this same stubborn determination sometimes required remedial action, even in the 1990s. Anyone who knew the late Walter Sisulu would understand that he was one individual who could be relied on to make Mandela 'see sense' where it was felt that the 'old man' was being 'totally and unreasonably obstinate'. The story is told of how Mandela's security advised him that it was not safe to go into KwaZulu-Natal during the period of IFP/ANC violence prior to the 1994 elections. Mandela insisted that he would go, irrespective of what intelligence they may have gathered. The security officials were making no progress and decided to secretly phone Sisulu. Sisulu had a word with him and firmly indicated that he should not proceed. Mandela cancelled the visit and laughingly scolded them for 'reporting' him. If we unpack stubbornness as steadfastness, unwillingness to yield in the quest for freedom, we can understand better what Mandela did in order to prepare himself to advance the Struggle while confined in prison. There are some who, once imprisoned, throw themselves on the mercy of their jailers or spend their prison time purely consumed by their personal suffering. Now everyone suffered in prison, and there cannot be a minimising of the extent of suffering experienced by someone who was a life prisoner, who served 27 of those years, sometimes under very harsh conditions, experiencing or warding off assaults and arbitrary actions aimed at worsening their situation and breaking their spirit. Preoccupied with achieving freedom Part of the Mandela obstinacy was that he remained clear about his objectives, he remained preoccupied with achieving freedom, even in the darkest times. This is seen in some of his writings in prison, where it is clear that, as most political prisoners prided themselves, there was no way he could be 'rehabilitated' and made to accept one of the various offers to release him in return for conditions that amounted to renunciation of the Struggle. (The writing was not legally permitted and would be confiscated when found, as did happen when material was periodically discovered.) But Mandela's same stubbornness as unconditional dedication led him to change course when it was required, most dramatically when he initiated talks that led — together with the efforts of the exiled leadership — to the opening of negotiations and ultimately made political freedom possible. On being released he was very clear that he had to work in a manner that made the peace and made it last, even if it required compromises and symbolic gestures to supporters of apartheid, as in wearing the Springbok jersey (as a way of nation building) or visiting Betsie Verwoerd. Mandela was prepared to engage in a range of symbolic gestures or make concessions where these contributed towards the achievement of peace and freedom. DM Raymond Suttner served 11 years in prison and under house arrest. He was in the UDF, ANC and SACP leadership until the Jacob Zuma era. Suttner worked closely with Nelson Mandela in the 1990s. He is currently an emeritus professor at Unisa.
Daily Maverick
4 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
National Dialogue will not restore trust in SA's government, nor fix a dysfunctional, corrupt state
I have been thinking a lot lately about the Polish author Wislawa Szymborska's poem 'The End and the Beginning'. Szymborska, who died in 2012, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996 'for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality'. In 'The End and the Beginning' Szymborska rather optimistically suggests that even in a society recovering from a catastrophic event like a war, there might come a time when memories of the war have faded, a time when: 'In the grass that has overgrown causes and effects, someone must be stretched out blade of grass in his mouth gazing at the clouds.' But before that can happen, somebody has to do the work; the work of repairing the bridges and getting the trains running again, as well as (I would add) the even more difficult work of restitution and repair, a task that falls largely on the perpetrators and beneficiaries of the injustice. The first part of the poem reads as follows: 'After every war someone has to clean up. Things won't straighten themselves up, after all. Someone has to push the rubble to the side of the road, so the corpse-filled wagons can pass. Someone has to get mired in scum and ashes, sofa springs, splintered glass, and bloody rags. Someone has to drag in a girder to prop up a wall. Someone has to glaze a window, rehang a door. Photogenic it's not, and takes years. All the cameras have left for another war. We'll need the bridges back, and new railway stations. Sleeves will go ragged from rolling them up.' I have been thinking about this poem while observing the disaster branded as a 'National Dialogue' stuttering into life. The National Dialogue is commencing at a time when South Africa can hardly be said to have a functioning government. At a time, in fact, when it can seem as if hardly any of the work of government is being done well, or done at all. From afar, the multiparty coalition government (branded as the Government of National Unity, or GNU) resembles a hodgepodge of warring parties involved in hand-to-hand political combat, eager to convince their core constituencies that they disdain, even hate, their political opponents serving with them in government just as much as their core constituents disdain and hate these opponents. (The ANC's core constituency seems to be its National Executive Committee, the tenderpreneurs who finance the party, and perhaps the party bosses who control the votes of the 4,500 delegates who will elect a new party leader, while the DA's core constituency seems to be Helen Zille, Donald Trump, Afrikaner political pressure groups and the party's large donors.) It is not that unusual for coalition governments to be fractious, but it is absurd that the coalition parties in the 'GNU' have not agreed on even the semblance of a policy platform. No wonder this year's Budget was only passed on its third attempt. Perhaps more importantly, large parts of the state bureaucracy and pivotal parts of the state, including the SA Police Service, the public health system and large parts of the public schooling system, are riddled with corruption and close to dysfunctional. I can't imagine even the most ardent supporters of the National Dialogue will claim that it will do anything to fix this fundamental problem. National Development Plan Thirteen years ago, the then government adopted the National Development Plan, also agreed upon after extensive dialogue, which identified many of the causes of this government dysfunction. Had the plan been implemented, South Africa would by now have had a professional and well-functioning government bureaucracy. Not only was the plan never implemented, but most government ministries never even bothered to pretend that they were implementing it. Why anyone would believe the National Dialogue will lead to a different outcome is unclear. It is difficult not to conclude that the dialogue is an idiotic and self-indulgent scheme cooked up by decadent elites untethered from reality, or greedy to share in the spoils of the lucrative consultancy work no doubt being generated by the jamboree. We are told that the National Dialogue will provide an opportunity for all South Africans, from all walks of life, to come together to find common ground and forge a new social compact to rebuild trust, to address deep-seated issues like inequality and social divisions, and to promote unity among citizens. The key word here is 'trust'. Trust in government and political parties is at its lowest level since the advent of democracy in SA. Last year, fewer than half of eligible voters bothered to cast their vote in the national election, suggesting that many South Africans have lost hope and do not feel they have a voice in how they are governed. Many are profoundly sceptical that our Parliament and our government will do what is required to improve the quality of their lives. These voters will remain voiceless, no matter how 'inclusive' the National Dialogue process might be. As Professor Steven Friedman recently argued, previous exercises seeking to hear what people at the grassroots have to say have shown that while the voices of some people will be heard, this is not the same as 'the people' being heard. 'At best, they will be those who are good at sounding as if they speak for most people, even when they don't. At worst, they will be local power holders who are able to present themselves as the voice of 'the community' because they have bullied all the other voices into silence.' Even if this were not the case, the problem would remain that trust cannot be restored through talking alone. It can only be restored through action that improves the lives of people, by a state that does not treat citizens like a nuisance or a problem to be managed or ignored. For that to happen, we would need to transform the state into a competent, caring, responsive one, headed by a competent, caring and responsive government. A fine sentiment It is not that I disagree with the general sentiment that it would be a good thing for all South Africans from all walks of life to come together to find common ground, to agree on a set of shared values and beliefs, or at least for us to recognise our interdependence and the need for social solidarity. South Africa, with its colonially drawn borders, its history of conquest and racial oppression, its deeply entrenched divisions along lines of class, race, language and culture, and its obscene inequality, remains at best a nation yet to come into existence, a nation we are sometimes tricked into believing already exists during 'nation-building' events like the 2010 Soccer World Cup, or the relatively diverse Springbok Rugby team winning the World Cup. This makes it more difficult for politicians to earn or keep the trust of large numbers of citizens, and thus the country more difficult to govern. Promoting unity among citizens as well as artificial 'nation-building' processes will not change this. In any event, I find the desire for unity among citizens a bit creepy and more than a little authoritarian. In a healthy democracy, the system of government is designed to ensure that pluralism is managed, not suppressed. But I do yearn to live in a society where it would at least be possible to imagine that every human being has boundless value, as having the same value as the life of every other person, no matter how famous, rich or powerful they are. But perhaps this is not exactly right. In his novel 'Small Rain', Garth Greenwell speculates that 'if every human life makes a claim upon the world, for resources, possibility, regard, love, that is infinite in its legitimacy, if each of the billions of human lives has that much value, then of course we can't bear to live' in it. It would be unbearable, he writes, 'as unbearable as the thought of all we betray in failing it'. So perhaps what I am saying is that I yearn to live in a world where such a betrayal would feel unbearable. In such a world, social solidarity would be possible. But I am sceptical that this kind of elite-driven dialogue can even begin to facilitate the conversation about what common ground we share, and what true social solidarity might look like and might require of us. It requires work — not only words, but also deeds — it requires people from different classes and races and cultures coming together, organising and mobilising and doing all the other types of work required to achieve common political goals in the face of a heartless state and powerful private sector actors for whom social solidarity would remain a swear word — no matter what they might say or pledge at (presumably VIP) National Dialogue events. But why work, when all you needed to do was to dialogue until the cows come home, and hope that somebody else, anybody but yourself, would push the rubble to the side of the road so the corpse-filled wagons could pass? DM
