It would be churlish, as some sceptics have already done, pour cold water on the national dialogue process announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa this week. The reality is that over the three decades of democracy our country has stagnated on many fronts — and in others even regressed.
Among other things, we have failed to grow the economy, create jobs for the millions of unemployed and end inequality in our society. Citizens are living in fear because of uncontrolled crime levels, while our cities and infrastructure are consumed by decay.
We hope the process succeeds, for its failure would serve to deepen the nation’s growing despair and scepticism about our future, and that of future generations of South Africans
Clearly, whatever government has been doing will not lead us to the desired solutions. We cannot continue doing the same things with the misguided hope of achieving different results. If the grand dialogue puts us on a path to finding solutions, it will not have come too soon.
However, we have to guard against the process, which seems slated to take some time before it produces results, turning into another of government’s failures — and a distraction from the urgency of dealing with our multi-layered national crisis.
In announcing the dialogue process, Ramaphosa said engaging in talks to find solutions was “part of our DNA as a nation”. Sadly, what has also become part of our DNA is our failure to follow through on decisions we make. We’ve been long on coming up with new plans but woefully short on implementation.
Thus the fear in some quarters that the national dialogue will turn out to be just one of the many “talk shops” we have witnessed over the years. As well, one of the dangers will be to try, as we’ve been doing all along, to address all of the country’s ills without priotising any, resulting in lack of real focus.
We hope the process succeeds, for its failure would serve to deepen the nation’s growing despair and scepticism about our future, and that of future generations of South Africans.
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