South Africa's elusive search for a social compact

In South Africa’s political history, national dialogues have been celebrated as tools of reconciliation and critiqued as expensive talk shops.

- Nkateko Joseph Mabasa

From the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of the 1990s to the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture, public conversations have promised to heal the nation’s wounds — but often left citizens asking whether they changed anything in their daily lives.

President Cyril Ramaphosa is betting that this year’s National Dialogue will succeed where others have stalled. In his State of the Nation address in February, he urged citizens to play their role “in building the nation we want”.

“I call on all South Africans, united in our diversity, to come together in the National Dialogue to define a vision for our country for the next 30 years. The National Dialogue must be a place where everyone has a voice. It must be a place to find solutions that make a real difference in people’s lives.”

Ramaphosa’s ambitious plan is to create a new social compact after 30 years of the transition from apartheid. A preparatory task team, steering committee and inter-ministerial task team have been set up to guide a process that aims to include 13 000 community and sectoral dialogues and 50 000 citizen-led dialogues at a ward level.

But the initiative suffered a blow when — before the first national convention on Friday expected to gather 1000 delegates and set the agenda for the local discussions — several legacy foundations withdrew from the preparatory task team, citing a noninclusive and rushed process.

“What began as a citizen-led initiative has, unfortunately, in practice shifted towards government control. In pushing forward for a convention on 15 August at the will of government officials and against the advice of the subcommittee chairs, we believe that a critical moment in which citizens should be leading will be undermined,” they said in a statement.