In August, the government convened various stakeholders at the University of SA’s ZK Matthews Hall to discuss a roadmap towards a national dialogue.
In the weeks leading up to the meeting, there had been tension between President Cyril Ramaphosa, the self-appointed convener of what is supposed to be a citizen-led dialogue, and the so-called legacy foundations.
The foundations included the Thabo Mbeki Foundation, whose outspoken patron had campaigned for the national dialogue to be led by civil society. They and others withdrew in protest due to what they deemed a “rushed” process that breached core principles of being citizen-led.
The ZK Matthews Hall is named after SA’s intellectual giant, Prof Zachariah Keodirelang Matthews, who came up with the idea of a Freedom Charter.
The entry of a ‘people’s government’ lulled many people into believing ‘our leaders’ would do the right thing.
— — Dr Mpumelelo Mkhabela
He effectively triggered the first national dialogue that culminated in the adoption of the charter in 1955. Other national dialogues followed years later — one leading to the adoption of the democratic constitution in 1996 and another to the national development plan.
These documents are all rhetorically acclaimed, but there are big question marks about society’s commitment to living up to the ideals contained in them. The call for a national dialogue was an acknowledgement that the country needs a new start.
As I listened to facilitators of the planning meeting taking inputs from delegates on what should be on the agenda of the national dialogue, I reminded myself that the Sowetan had discussed similar issues at this very venue a decade earlier as part of its “Sowetan Dialogues” series.
Shortly after I was appointed editor in 2011, a “redeployment” from the Daily Dispatch, I was keen to reignite and modernise the nation-building project of late former Sowetan editor Aggrey Klaaste.
He had inspired community-building initiatives ranging from choral music to the development of responsible community leadership.
However, from a promise of galvanising corporates and ordinary citizens to play their part in building a new nation, the brilliant initiative had waned over time. Its remnants were unpaid advertising for the corporate social investment programmes of big corporates.
By its nature, nation-building must be a work in progress. Why Klaaste’s project was allowed to lose significance is a different matter. I suspect it was, ironically, a victim of the democratic transition to which he was fully committed.
The entry of a “people’s government” lulled many people into believing “our leaders” would do the right thing.
In fact, “social cohesion” became one of the government’s key priorities, a good idea on paper that has since become useless as the country’s socioeconomic and leadership crises deepened.
We decided to launch a portfolio of initiatives to contribute to nation building. One of them would be the Sowetan Dialogues to inspire solutions. The format was based on the successful Daily Dispatch Dialogues.
One leg of the Sowetan Dialogues was launched at a packed ZK Matthews Hall. The university was a logistics and intellectual sponsor. In my introductory speech I referred to the importance of going beyond headlines, to using access to various corners of the country to help develop solutions. Klaaste had set the precedent.
So, when I joined the delegates at the launch of the national dialogue last year I couldn’t help but recall what we had tried to do. The key concerns are the same: unemployment, a stagnant economy, corruption, state incapacity, deinstitutionalisation, poor leadership, and so on. This means SA’s challenges haven’t subsided; they’ve compounded.
I recall another session of the Sowetan Dialogues where the focus was on moral regeneration, highlighting the extent to which our society had undergone moral haemorrhage, with violent crime and gender-based violence as symptoms.
Realising that the leadership crisis was deepening and our country was being led astray, we launched a “Leadership Debate” in 2012 and called on contributors to submit articles that dissected the nature of the leadership crisis and offered solutions. Some criticised us for being biased against then-president Jacob Zuma and being influenced by ANC factional politics. The accusations were nonsensical.
Our front-page editorial suggesting a sensible government would resign in the wake of the Marikana massacre was a cry for proper leadership. There are leadership questions that remain unanswered. What kind of person is best qualified to run the country, and what leadership qualities must they possess?
No doubt, we were never perfect in our attempt to find inspired solutions. But we knew that an aggregate impact of seemingly small initiatives can have a positive impact.
The truth is that a national dialogue has been going on for years in various corners of the country. Our initiative was a contribution to it.
We struggled to sustain our initiatives. But we tried to be an ideal institution that reflected the troubles and aspirations of our society.
- Dr Mkhabela was editor of the Sowetan from 2011 to 2016
