I regard our conference here today as one of the most important and hopeful developments in recent years. It is enormously significant that Foundations that were established by former national leaders from across the political spectrum have come together today to discuss the future of our beloved country.
IT IS TIME TO START TALKING TO EACH OTHER (AGAIN)
Last Thursday was Freedom Day, the celebration of the birth of the “New South Africa” in 1994. But we are far away from the positive attitude and euphoria that were part of 27 April 1994. Instead, our country faces numerous serious challenges, amongst them the quality of leadership, corruption, state capture, racial polarisation, unemployment, poverty and inequality. Most importantly, many of these challenges are characterised by the lack of respect for our Constitution, or by lack of implementing the Constitution and its principles.
As the FW de Klerk Foundation, we are in full consensus with our fellow Foundations that our country is in a crisis, a crisis that can only be addressed if we start talking to each other again. We need to start a new National Dialogue. This National Dialogue will endeavour to bring together all South Africans at various levels, to have rational and deliberate discussions about the future we want and how we should get there. This will re-establish the truth that our future is in our own hands. We are in full agreement with the other Foundations that our National Dialogue takes as its point of departure our Constitution, the Rule of Law and our constitutional democracy. The Constitution has been our salvation in trying times – despite attempts to challenge and dismiss it. The Constitution’s fortitude is supreme and speaks to the strength of South Africans to re-emerge per the spirit of the document.
In this article, it is (again) suggested that the country needs a proper and credible land audit before we carry on with a debate that would otherwise remain emotional and divisive. It is, secondly, highlighted that some research has shown that we may have progressed further with land reform than we are sometimes led to believe. And it is thirdly pointed out that the real “land hunger” is not necessarily for agricultural land to farm, but for urban and peri-urban land to build houses and make a home.
Land reform, especially of agricultural land, is nowadays almost a shibboleth for South African politics. The reasoning of the associated rhetoric usually has the following elements:
“Soil is prosperity, and if you first possess land, you can buy all the other good things with that wealth.” And this usually refers to agricultural land.
“Historically, white people stole the land from black people and it has to be returned.”
“23 years post-democracy, black people still only own 9.8% of the arable land in South Africa.”
“There is a hunger for agricultural land among our people, like in Zimbabwe, and if we do not listen, we will follow the path of land occupation and confiscation.”
As the country stares into junk status, the hardest hit are the poor and unemployed. Contrary to the utterances of several (uninformed and or reckless) public officials that junk status allows South Africa to set its own rules of the game, there is no good that comes from higher borrowing cost, higher rates of debt repayment and its concomitant effect on domestic allocations for social services, infrastructure development and cost of food and transport, among a myriad of impacts of a downgrade to sub-investment ratings.
The status quo stands in contrast to a vision that was outlined by the National Planning Commission in its 2011 National Development Plan (NDP). Chapter three on Economy and Employment (Vision 2030) outlined a considered strategy whereby “achieving full employment, decent work and sustainable livelihoods is the only way to improve living standards and ensure a dignified existence for all South Africans. Rising employment, productivity and incomes are the surest long-term solution to reducing inequality”.
How will the NDP’s central goal to “expand employment and entrepreneurial opportunities on the back of a growing, more inclusive economy”, be held ransom by the current incompetent and unaccountable political leadership, on whose watch the economy has slid into a tailspin, with growth levels predicted at under 1% per annum.
As the country stares into junk status, the hardest hit are the poor and unemployed.
As with other historical events, many South Africans still remember 27 April 1994 very well. A day of long voting queues and goodwill, the feeling of a new beginning. It was the birth of the “New South Africa”.
After that, many Freedom Days followed. Numerous South Africans, especially those who experienced 1994, will regard this year’s Freedom Day as the lowest point of all Freedom Days.
Why? Because we see what is happening to us in the political, economic and social arena. There is great tension in the ruling party – about the current President, but also in the leadership struggle for a new President. There is talk of corruption and state capture by government leaders and officials. We see the economy stagnate and that our country’s financial system has basically been downgraded to junk status. We experience racial tension and an apparent total lack of reconciliation and shared values.
The FW de Klerk Foundation (the Foundation) is a non-profit organisation dedicated to upholding the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (the Constitution). To this end, the Foundation seeks to promote the Constitution and the values, rights and principles enshrined in the Constitution; to monitor developments including legislation and policy that may affect the Constitution or those values, rights and principles; to inform people and organisations of their constitutional rights and to assist them in claiming their rights. The Foundation does so in the interest of everyone in South Africa.
As South Africans mourn the death of a great leader in Ahmed Kathrada, the broadest consensus on both social media and the mainstream, was one that expressed bereavement for a towering man who had lived through the worst of times and the best of times but died a sad man. Why was this so, we ask? Ahmed Kathrada’s poignant letter to the President summed up his and the views of millions of South Africans. We expected more, we expected better and are now bereft.
It was a poignant start to the Centre for Unity in Diversity’s Roundtable Series – held on 28 March in Cape Town – to pause and reflect on a great man’s legacy as we gathered to reflect on our first theme for the year, “Social Cohesion in Contemporary South Africa”. The Roundtable Series is crafted to stimulate discussion and debate on core issues that flow from the constitutional premise, “United in our Diversity”, captured in the Preamble.
As South Africans mourn the death of a great leader in Ahmed Kathrada, the broadest consensus on both social media and the mainstream, was one that expressed bereavement for a towering man who had lived through the worst of times and the best of times but died a sad man.
