Ordinarily, one should never silence or dissuade anyone from talking in a democracy, unless they are propagating violence or promoting hate. But there are instances in which it is wise to ask people to stop talking, especially if talking is a distraction and a waste of time and money, writes Ebrahim Fakir.
A “National Dialogue” and prefacing National Convention, ostensibly to address South Africa’s myriad challenges, was always a proposal draped in the earnest rhetoric of collective problem-solving and democratic participation, but was, and is, essentially a distraction.
Perhaps well-intentioned, it is a misguided attempt to sidestep the institutions and processes that define South Africa’s democracy and democratic governance.
South Africa’s problem is not a lack of democracy and dialogue but rather the failures of democratic government—and nothing can paper over this inconvenient truth. On every measure, this is a government facing a credibility crisis, and a dialogue cannot restore it.
This crisis has been a long time coming. In that sense, even the “legacy foundations” origin of the idea, and their attempt to place civil society at the centre of it, was a façade.
The dialogue is a cynical ploy by political elites (especially the former SA and ANC presidents as patrons of the foundations) who had lost power and influence to claw back some of it through the back door. For the ANC, sitting at 40% electoral support, the dialogue offered an irresistible opportunity to regain some leverage without the scrutiny of elections or the discipline of constitutional oversight (not that the ANC ever felt constrained by it anyway).
A vibrant but problematic democracy
Of course, democracy thrives on the agonistic jousting and contestation of ideas, interests, and identities through everyday interactions - the exercise of rights, the use and abuse of liberties, vigorous debates on the pages of legacy media, and feeds on the socials – from curated Instas to the siliness on TikTok and X’s unfiltered abrasiveness.
From taxi rank debates to party campaigns, and protests on the streets, through to parliamentary heckling and the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s meticulous voter and public education campaigns - South Africa is not short on discourse. What it lacks is a government that governs responsively, accountably, coherently, cleanly, decisively and transparently.
Instead of convening a National Dialogue, perhaps it is time to recommit to the democratic institutions that already exist. In democratic governance terms, dialogue occurs through the deliberations, debates and oversight mechanisms exercised by public representatives in public institutions.
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People’s participation is facilitated through elections, and then via an extensive array of platforms, such as ward committees, integrated development planning processes, the legislature’s public participation, public hearings and submissions processes, petitions, indabas, lekgotlas and other public consultations.
Having conducted research on “public participation” and on “protests”, evidence shows that these participatory forums are dominated by political and business elites, and held captive by special interest groups – frequently for private and predatory ends - including local political strongmen and “business” syndicates involved in government sub-contracting and procurement. Participatory forums are, despite their better intent, beset with regulatory, procedural, process, language and resource hurdles.
These are not perfect spaces—far from it—but they at least pretend to be designed to channel conflict, negotiate compromise, and produce outcomes that, however imperfect, reflect the will of a diverse society.
That these are often reduced to compliance-driven tick-box exercises is the fault of the government, not the public. The same government that, if the “legacy foundations” are to be believed, usurped this new dialogue process. The current dialogue is unlikely to change this trajectory.
Parallel processes and the pretence of people’s power
The National Dialogue, and its agenda-setting National Convention, risks replicating these dysfunctions while supplanting their legitimacy. It is a bit like hosting parallel parliaments in different conference halls, but without the pesky oversight and accountability standards and the binding force of the Constitution and the law.
At inception, this dialogue was always more about political choreography, a triumph of symbolism over substance. A spectacle projecting participation, but deflecting criticism and scrutiny, masking the government’s own incoherence.
Why is there a need for an extra-constitutional and extra-institutional dialogue? Is it because these institutions are failing, or because the government finds their outcomes inconvenient?
If the former, the solution lies in strengthening institutions, not bypassing them. If the latter, South Africa is treading perilously close to the debasement of public life, where real politics is replaced by performance, and duty is displaced through distraction.
What would happen when the government finds the outcomes of this dialogue as inconvenient as the outcomes of all the others? Will it host another?
In any event proposals emerging out of participatory exercises – from electoral reform to land distribution - are routinely disregarded in favour of the view of the elite. Why would the outcome of this dialogue be any different?
Effective democratic government hinges on the interplay between formal institutions and informal networks, with clear rules to manage power, authority and conflict.
South Africa’s democratic government, however, is plagued by incompetence, ineffectiveness, inefficiency and inertia - a bloated bureaucracy, factionalism within the ANC, fragmentation among other political parties and a coalition government that resembles a melange of contingency and convenience more than a consensus of priorities and outcomes.
The 2021 riots, the persistent service delivery failures, seepage of criminal networks into government processes, corruption and an ethical void, contradictorily configured policy in which “empowerment” undermines development, and austerity undermines redistribution - all underscore not a crisis of democracy or a lack of dialogue - but a crisis of government instead.
Codesa is the past. This is now
A National Dialogue might generate feel-good vibes, but it cannot address the structural deficits in state capacity, policy coherence, or political will. To borrow a phrase from the late Amartya Sen, “development [and by extension, governance] is freedom”, but freedom requires functioning institutions, not ad-hoc talk shops.
It may be tempting to think that South Africa’s history of negotiated transitions and settlements —think CODESA in the early 1990s—lends a certain romance to the idea of dialogues. But this fundamentally conflates the context.
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CODESA and the negotiations were a response to a pre-democratic legitimacy crisis, a means to birth a new political order. Today, we have that order, imperfect though it may be. The challenge is to make it work, not to invent parallel processes that risk undermining it, unless, of course, proponents of the dialogue propose that current institutions and processes are illegitimate.
A National Dialogue, while well-meaning, risks supplanting the routine debate, discussion, and deliberation that defines democratic life. Credibility flows from exercising power with responsibility, discretion with rationality, and authority with accountability. Legitimacy comes from institutions, not the spectacle of dialogue.
The bureaucratisation of participation
The obsession with creating new processes to “dialogue” South Africa out of a crisis is a fundamental misdiagnosis of its problems. The proposed National Convention and National Dialogue are, in many ways, an exercise in political theatre, a bureaucratisation of participation and a bureaucratic solution to a problem that is, essentially, a failure of ethics, politics and government.
The call for a National Dialogue is an admission that existing institutions and processes have failed, not because they are structurally flawed, but because they have been politically defaced and debased.
The government’s true failure lies not in a lack of dialogue, but in its inability - or unwillingness - to act on the conversations that have already taken place in committees, commissions of inquiry, forums, courts and countless community protests and other forums.
Having another dialogue will not change this. Quitting debasing and defacing institutions, rules and ethics through oversight, accountability and responsiveness, will.
The dialogue is deeply flawed. It seeks to create a new “social compact” while simultaneously and systematically undermining the existing one. A pact between a people and their government is based on mutual obligation and trust.
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When the government consistently fails to provide basic services, to protect people from crime, reorients its institutions and services to serve private predatory ends, rather than a broad public interest, and fails to hold its officials accountable, it breaks that compact.
The dialogue, rather than repairing broken trust, appears to be a distraction from the urgent task of restoring the integrity of existing democratic institutions. It is a way for the political elite to kick the can down the road, to appear busy with a grand project while avoiding the difficult, messy, and necessary work of government.
And let us be honest about the costs. This is not a cheap undertaking. It will consume resources, and plenty of it - money, time, and human capital – to the estimated tune of R700 million and a lot of volunteers and freebies – but this goodwill could be far better spent on addressing the immediate crises: in education, health, transport, jobs, infrastructure and basic services.
Known problems. Known solutions
The argument that we need a National Dialogue to “imagine” a new future is intellectually dishonest. The problems facing South Africa are not a mystery. They have been meticulously researched and documented. The solutions are known.
There is no deficit of ideas in South Africa. There is a deficit of integrity. The failure is political, not dialogical.
The withdrawal of several foundations from South Africa’s National Dialogue, after initially championing it - citing concerns over government dominance, haste in the process, and exceptions in procurement (basically irregular procurement and corruption) - presents a critical juncture for reflection and re-evaluation.
The current process risks reducing participants to a means to a predetermined end, not autonomous agents in a shared political project. A dialogue motivated by expediency rather than rigour risks generating hollow legitimacy.
The reassignment of control to government - the very institution whose deficiencies necessitate this dialogue – is reversal in agency and paradoxically, deepens the political, governance and accountability crisis.
No amount of talking can fix this. It is the one time a people will be willing to forgive a government for breaking a promise. The promise of a dialogue is a sham. Stop talking. Ditch this dialogue.
- Ebrahim Fakir is an independent political researcher and analyst.
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