Dispatch Dialogues back with top level analysts in lineup

The Daily Dispatch Dialogues are back, this time with new partners.

The NGO Afesis-Corplan is joining the newspaper to host the popular dialogues on Wednesday at Guild Theatre for a conversation on political debate in the times of state capture.

The dialogues, which will fo- cus on what shapes the content of political debates and who determines the agenda, will feature a high panel of commentators including political analyst Aubery Mashiqi, journalist Ferial Haffajee, political analyst Ebrahim Fakir and Daily Dispatch editor-in-chief Sibusiso Ngalwa.

Ngalwa said the newspaper was excited about the return of the dialogues.

“The Dispatch Dialogues have always had a loyal following and we are happy to revive them after a year-long lull.

“What better way to start the new season than with some of South Africa’s foremost thinkers and political analysts as panelists? There is lot that is happening in our country and politics and this is the perfect time to get our community talking again,” said Ngalwa.

He said partnering with Afesis-Corplan would mean more dialogues in 2019.

Afesis-Corplan executive director Nontando Ngamlana said the event was meant to spark a public conversation on the nature and quality of political debate in South Africa.

“It has become difficult to engage with ideas around the country’s economic policies and its transformative agenda without having the debate plunge into the simplistic binaries of Gupta state capture or white monopoly capital.

“But the South African reality reflects elements of both. Poverty still persists along apartheid’s spatial patterns and yet the actions of a predatory black elite are worsening the problem,” Ngamlana said.

She said political debate in South Africa was dominated by political parties, both in the media and in the public.

“The ‘political’ has now demonstrably become intertwined with the ‘personal’ and the manipulation of the media has increasingly been for political or personal gain.

“Social media has intensified this fracas by providing platforms through which populist propaganda, mud-slinging and poor reasoning is punted as fact,” she said.