(Graphic: John McCann/M&G)
Let us not be like the 1980s song Little Lies by super group Fleetwood Mac. I can just about hear Christine McVie belting out on vocals, “Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies.” South Africans may joke a lot but we prefer the cold, hard truth to sweet, convenient lies.
In the next few months the focus will be on the G20. We must expect sweet lies from Europe, especially the European Commission, promising us all sorts of help as US President Donald Trump ratchets up his disdain for South Africa. Others opposed to the West will also be telling us to join ourselves at the hip with China and Russia.
We need to be smarter than this. None of them — the Europeans, China, Russia or even if we capitulate to Trump, the US, will actually help us. Steve Biko’s statement, “Black man, you are on your own,” is so apt. Their help will come at the cost of us losing more of our very little self-reliance and, in many ways, our dignity.
I fear though, because many of us feel so lost and lack confidence, we may be guilty of grasping at straws and sweet little lies to soothe our broken hearts.
As we know there was no outright winner in the 2024 elections. A faux “government of national unity” was established. I refer to it as a faux, or false, GNU because it is, in reality, a coalition. Labelling the coalition a government of national unity is a trick to pull on our heartstrings and remind us of 1994 and the fanfare of the first democratic elections and the GNU established by Nelson Mandela.
Since the GNU we have no centre and confidence that there is genuine unity of purpose. It’s like an uneasy truce, while political parties catch their breath and reload weapons.
In the first six months of the GNU the political discourse was dominated by those commentators attacking the GNU as a sell-out and others defending as if it is a political miracle.
We also witnessed some of those new in government quick to latch on to inherited programmes and not only claim them as their own, but celebrate the programmes as testimony to how much better they are at governing.
Other newbie ministers have been zealously shutting down programmes, as their commitment to change the status quo.
The chattering classes have had a field day; every debate between those parties in the GNU has signalled an imminent collapse of government.
Those parties outside of the GNU have had the opportunity to present themselves as revolutionaries rather than this lukewarm coalition of convenience — and, of course, are ready to step into the breach if the coalition falls apart.
Indeed, the largest party, the ANC, celebrates the unity government as testimony to its magnanimity and putting South Africa first. Ironically, the largest of the smaller parties in the coalition, the Democratic Alliance (DA), also claims to be compromising on its principles and joining the GNU so that it can save South Africa from an ANC coalition with the Economic Freedom Fighters and the uMkhonto weSizwe party.
We could have a rich discussion on the supremacist attitudes of the DA, in believing that they must stop the domination of a left-wing black coalition. But that would ignore that almost 20 million people who chose not to vote — and those who did, could not choose a single party as the majority one. This is the clearest indication that South Africans may have passed a vote of no confidence in the current political parties and their leadership.
But you would not believe this the way South African leaders strut about in the public arena.
Mind you, the South African population also knows how to play the game. They fete and ululate the leaders as if they are the second coming. It looks as if the real issues are being dealt with, when most seem to be biding their time so that they get their individual opportunity.
The problem is not just South Africa’s alone but a global one.
Western democracy ceased to exist a long time ago. It was replaced by neoliberal democracy, where institutions are established for the appearance of democracy, whereas they serve the elite and wealthy.
Even wealthy countries with middle-class populations have little confidence in democratic institutions. People are either not voting or significant support is moving towards those that are populist and right-wing.
In Europe and the US, these populist parties led by people like Donald Trump or Italy’s Giorgia Meloni present themselves as the protectors of not only Western democratic values, but specifically white Christian values.
Trump has already won his election, so no need to focus on him. In Europe, the response to this Christian fundamentalism is to recreate the Cold War. So they make Russia and Vladimir Putin a new Hitler who wants to invade and take over Europe.
They do not ask why people are not voting, why public institutions are not doing what they were established to do, why people feel so helpless, why enmity and hatred between racial, gender and political groups seems to be growing.
Increasingly we witness people, young and old, grabbing onto anyone who seems angry enough or that opposes those in power and calling them the people’s heroes. On all sides of the political spectrum, we act as if these political battles are generation defining.
These matters of gender pronouns, supporting Ukraine or Russia, who stands up for Palestinians, racism and hatred and so forth may be quite vexing, but they are not the chief concerns.
Do you feel as if you are losing a sense of community?
Late 19th and early 20th century French sociologist Emile Durkheim called this phenomenon “anomie”. It is a feeling of loneliness and detachment from society, especially its norms.
Durkheim may have conceived the concept more than a century ago, but it captures how many people in South Africa and around the world are feeling.
The political party merry-go-round continues, acting as if they will tackle this despair.
We should not only focus on that political jamboree called the G20 Summit. Rather our focus should be the oft-talked-about national social dialogue.
Since Madiba’s time as president, we have been trying to establish a social compact between those who benefited from apartheid and those who were oppressed by it. We have failed at every attempt, and there have been many: the 1998 Presidential Jobs Summit, the 2003 Growth and Development Summit and various other interpretations, including the National Development Plan.
The National Economic, Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) is the common denominator whenever the government talks about a social compact. It should have been realised a while back that Nedlac cannot produce a social compact which all sectors of society will buy into.
It can participate in the discussions, but the institution should not be tasked with getting us there, after failing numerous times.
The presidency should take direct responsibility for this. But it should be more about listening to the people than bringing elites together. The government must convene small public meetings, even if it has to be ward-based, where the people are given the opportunity to say what they are experiencing, both hardship and positive outcomes, and what they think should be done. These must be face-to-face and not virtual meetings, and in those areas, everyone must get the day off from work and school to attend the meeting.
From these meetings, a regional compact must be created, and those regional compacts must be knitted together to provide us with a provincial compact, and finally, there can be a national one. Space can be created for genius ideas that may not have come from the masses of our people and the president can be given a casting vote, so as to create these as special presidential projects.
It is time for the people to really govern, and we have to liberate ourselves from self-serving liberal democracy political processes and our unimaginative political party leaders.
Donovan E Williams is a social commentator. @TheSherpaZA on X.
