Why a national conversation is more pertinent than ever

We must acknowledge the extent to which we have failed our peoples' hopes, expectations

- BRETT HERRON

ECONOMIC growth and social stability are dead in the water without economic and social justice.

Some say that we must first achieve growth to achieve justice, and others say focusing on growth is a handbrake on justice. Both arguments are wrong.

South Africa's democracy did not fall from the sky in 1994. It was the product of a process of negotiations that took place on a platform of 350 years of history of land dispossession, racial discrimination, human rights violations and labour exploitation. Whatever decisions we make for our future, we cannot ignore the obligations inherited from the past.

That's why we need a national conversation. If we cannot reach consensus on the necessary ingredients to develop an environment of growth and justice, simultaneously, we are doomed to a protracted period of chaos and disorder.

The two largest parties in South Africa are today co-travellers, with others, in the Government of National Unity (compelled to keep perceived populist wolves from the door). But it somehow still feels like the apartheid conflict hasn't ever been resolved; it has evolved. Take transformation of the education and health sectors, land reform, spatial division... Any step that smells of redress is viewed as an erosion of minority rights and resisted in court.