I recently attended the first day of the national convention of the national dialogue at Unisa.
I was a participating delegate of the Timbuktu Collective, a small organisation based primarily in Limpopo that comprises individuals concerned about the social and material decay of particularly black people in this country.
Its existence is based on a document titled “The Makhado Declaration”, adopted at a gathering in 2019 and which called for a national discussion on the state of the black psyche.
This followed an analysis of the mindless violence that has come to characterise black responses to problems.
We do not claim to be the originators of the national dialogue — the prize for that paternity test goes to former president Thabo Mbeki, whose call last year gained traction and was amplified by President Cyril Ramaphosa when he decided to call for the national dialogue as head of state.
The political reality though is that the ANC is unlikely to come out of this exercise smelling like roses, it is after all their failure to effectively use 31 years of power to change for the better the lives of most black people that necessitated the dialogue.
Timbuktu Collective attended because this set of issues is in our DNA. We are spurred to act by living in a country where whites generally walk about with the arrogance born of a colonial superiority complex, and many blacks walk with the pain, anger and frustrations of the ravages of colonialism and its ingrained inferiority. This has to stop and the national dialogue, in our view, is a small step starting in the right direction.
For some time after Ramaphosa’s decision, it looked like we were on course; the foundations of our heroes stepped forward to help steer the dialogue and ensure it was citizen-led, with content that would facilitate discussions on various burning issues.
The idea is to produce, at the end, a new social compact that could see all aspects of our lives — land, economy, judicial system and the repair of our damaged psyche — set on a new footing.
The political reality though is that the ANC is unlikely to come out of this exercise smelling like roses. It is after all their failure to effectively use 31 years of power to change for the better the lives of most black people that necessitated the dialogue.
If it had been up to the ANC, the dialogue would not happen, period. But arguing against it would have been unsustainable so the organisation and its president reluctantly went along, hoping the outcome could be controlled to minimise the damage.
Then began the tussle for control between the foundations and other civil society formations on the one hand, and government, on the other. The date for the dialogue, which had to come from Ramaphosa, as well as the budget, were not announced timeously and the wait was far too long.
In the end, the national budget debacle caused delays in the release of money and increased the influence of the Presidency in shaping the implementation.
When the legacy foundations balked at what they saw as state takeover, and pulled out, it became an us-and-them scenario. Government spared no effort to get the optics of the launch right. Ramaphosa needed his day with a full hall and fanfare, even if some delegates were overnight recruits — with ANC premiers calling NGOs and asking them to literally get on the bus.
A letter issued by the Mbeki foundation rejecting the invitation used unfortunate language, implying that the process would be futile without their participation.
The foundations spent this week huddling to “rescue” the(ir) concept — which I think is both wrong and impossible to do as the national dialogue can only be convened by the president, and he is unlikely to rubbish his carefully choreographed launch for a redo to please them.
Now what? If the call for a dialogue was meant to rescue the country, that mission is greater than the childish rivalry between Mbeki and Ramaphosa.
If the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) is indeed the guarantor of the process, it should realise that the baby is being trampled by the elephants, and it should calm the process and ensure no one loses face. That is the wisdom demanded of an EPG worth its name.
What is clear is that the bickering must stop.
The national dialogue, as a concept, is being stifled by negative noises inside and outside its tent.
A successful national dialogue would prove its detractors wrong.
The foundations are on side but have issues that should be addressed. The EPG should help dim the negative noise of the angry fellow travellers.
The country is bleeding and cannot afford any further delays in trying to find a new path out of the morass that colonialism and the neo-colonial arrangement of the last 30 years have plunged us into.
• Tsedu is a former editor of Sunday Times and a former chair of Sanef
For opinion and analysis consideration, e-mail Opinions@timeslive.co.za
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