Is R700 million for a national dialogue worth it? - Donald Mackay

BEFORE the government spends R700 million on a(nother) national dialogue, it is reasonable to ask what the dialogue promises to deliver, is this worth more than R700 million and what are the chances the stated objectives will be achieved.

- DONALD MACKAY

Dr Oyama Mabandla, a member of the national dialogue preparatory task team, asks us to give the national dialogue a chance, reminding us that “[t]he national dialogue is an attempt to reinvigorate and fix a dangerously adrift democracy. It will involve the entire populace, instead of the self-selecting and incestuous elites, who have been producing one after another failed plan, while the rest of us have been spectators.”

But of course it won't involve the entire populace and the outcome will be a big report that no one reads. How can it be anything other than this? Even if you could speak to everyone. What then?

Which ideas do you implement and which do you ignore? No member of the task team can do anything other than talk and although conversations matter, you need executive power to change things and you get executive power through lots of votes.

The reason we have elections is that you can't involve the whole populace of 63 million people in any dialogue, no matter how important. So we compromise and although they are very far from perfect, elections are the only way we have to get a sense of what citizens want.

South Africans didn't decide to give the ANC 40% of the vote in the last election to teach anyone a lesson, as experts love to tell us. A gogo voted for the DA because she believed they would give her grandchildren the best future and a young, first-time voter put their X next to Juju's face because they believe the EFF will give them the best opportunities, but most didn't even do that.