Ramaphosa’s Echo Chamber

Is this supposed to be a serious discussion to establish a way forward for our crumbling society, or a festival of shiny faces and shallow vibes?

Source: Wikimedia Commons

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s National Dialogue is not going to be some miraculous meeting of the minds, where all of South Africa’s many issues are solved. On the contrary, Ramaphosa has set up the entire indaba to distract South Africans from the fact that he is completely underequipped to be our president, while setting up an echo-chamber for himself that will do very little to challenge the inadequacy of the African National Congress (ANC) or his lacklustre leadership.

The initial cost of R700 million is just a testament to the fact that this entire event is a vanity project. Ramaphosa is even taking advantage of condemnations of the quoted bill to try to act like he cares about cost cutting. If he truly cared about saving money, he’d privatise Transnet and Eskom and stop bailing out the Post Office and SAA. The fact that even a cent of taxpayer money is being spent on Ramaphosa’s little pow-wow is unacceptable. This entire affair could have been an email.

It is also unclear what this National Dialogue aims to accomplish. Even if Ramaphosa hears contrary views, they will go ignored. The ANC has a history of not working with its partners. Why should we expect Ramaphosa to respect challenges to ANC policy in a National Dialogue when his party runs roughshod over his coalition partners in the Government of National Unity (GNU)?

The ANC does not know how to share power. At every turn, it has ignored the fact that it is a partner in government, and not a dictator. Ramaphosa firing the Democratic Alliance (DA) Minister Andrew Whitfield is just the most recent example. And no, his excuse is not sufficient. He is not a dictator who can unilaterally kick out ministers. He is a partner in a coalition government who should be in constant dialogue with the other parties. He should try that dialogue before making it national.

Pushing through BELA and expropriation without compensation, while refusing to countenance any dissent are just the cherries on top of the farce that is pluralism in the GNU.

The “Eminent Persons Group”, meant to represent South Africa as leaders that reflect “the great diversity of our nation”, is also nowhere close to reflecting the true, political diversity of this country. Amongst the list are a few business leaders, trade unionists, religious leaders, researchers and politicians. But mostly just celebrities. Actors, writers, sportsmen, models.

Is this supposed to be a serious discussion to establish a way forward for our crumbling society, or a festival of shiny faces and shallow vibes?

No drastic alternative views to Ramaphosa’s dogma are present in the list. Only Lindiwe Mazibuko was a member of the opposition, and her departure from the DA was not cordial.

Ramaphosa has crafted a list of yes-men, with some token business leaders who are likely to be too afraid to rock the boat to be too outspoken. This is not the guest list of a dialogue. It’s that of an echo chamber.

A true national dialogue, with the aim of patching South Africa’s rifts and working towards solving our problems needs to include parties from all sides of the spectrum. Most importantly, Ramaphosa’s enemies; he should have invited Ernst Roets. He should have invited Kallie Kriel. Helen Zille has been an integral part of South Africa’s post-1994 political space. Invite her. Invite at least a single representative from an opposition party. Take advantage of South Africa’s host of world-class think tanks: the Institute of Race Relations, the Free Market Foundation, the Brenthurst Foundation, the Institute for Security Studies.

The fundamental issue of the ANC’s governance has been that it doesn’t want to include everyone. It wants to push Afrikaners, white people and other minorities further and further into the periphery. And when said minorities still thrive, they grow bitter.

This National Dialogue is just another example of Ramaphosa’s possibly intentional tone deafness. His naivete and ignorance about governing a nation. And what makes its potential costs, and continued marginalising of interest groups even worse is that it is totally unnecessary.

We don’t need some petty and costly national dialogue. The government has been told clearly and with overwhelming evidence again and again what it needs to do to fix this country. Abolish race-based laws. Eliminate BEE and race quotas. Deregulate the economy and end this fixation with Marxism. Decentralise the police and devolve the powers to the provinces. Privatise Eskom and other parastatals.

It’s that simple! But Ramaphosa and the ANC don’t care about solutions. They care about ideology. And as it stands, the only way we will progress as a country is if we kick them to the curb.

Nicholas Woode-Smith is a political analyst and author. He is the managing editor of the Rational Standard and a senior associate of the Free Market Foundation.