WE CAN’T RELY ON OUR OWN SENSE OF DIGNITY AND INDEPENDENCE – WE NEED THE WORLD’S HELP

Dear Heather,

In your DM168 newsletter, you asked with a sense of urgency for views on South Africa, particularly seeking thoughts from the well fed.

You sought the most constructive way of channelling our anger; notably what we can do to feed the starving and get our country fixed. You rightly rule out the knee-jerk “moaning on social media” that engulfs and depresses us all.

This editorial initiative touched a nerve. The overworked, wrung-hands performances we do so frequently require constraint. It was an Irish editor who, at the height of The Troubles in Northern Ireland (1968-74), said the most overworked phrase in politics is “something must be done”. The question is always, what?

So here goes; just a couple of random outof-the-box ideas.

The SA socio-economic and moral problems today, now at crisis level (quite apart from the massive Covid-19 challenges yet to overcome), require far more than anger.

Things, particularly among long-suffering communities, are getting really dangerous – for all of us. Inequities are gaping too wide for something not to give soon.

The DM168 editor’s comments were put in such a way as to draw in many good ideas, even if some may seem odd. Let people pitch in regardless.

A thought or two, even if out-of-the-box, or, as an old journo colleague I consulted on this piece put it: “… blue-sky thinking even if it includes some shooting for [and beyond] the moon”.

I believe our politics will inevitably wrangle on towards sensible realignment, but that won’t help the masses fed up and unfed now. It could make things more difficult in the streets.

The alternative is a Syria, masses on the move. No one needs that.

We’ve had our historic revolution, thanks mostly but not exclusively to the ANC. Now we need the lights back on, food for the ravenous, jobs for the jobless. One remedy is if our workless youth could be absorbed in a disciplined SA peace and development force here and in Africa – a project for our brand new South African National Defence Force chief, Lieutenant-General Rudzani Maphwanya?

We urgently need regained leadership in a troubled continent and world. We can box above our weight, as we’ve seen on occasion back to Nelson Mandela’s time. Cyril Ramaphosa has, without doubt now, revived those hopes, and is being seen abroad as more of a statesman by the day, invited to key elite economic groupings and so on. But we need the substantial means to rebuild.

What we don’t need or want is a plethora of words and meaningless anger. What we require most is the Marshall Plan that Mandela failed to extract from an applauding but tight-fisted world when he took over in 1994. Even Robert Mugabe got some international aid (later squandered) in 1980 for the new Zimbabwe.

Mandela getting global “stank vir dank” [small thanks] was a tragedy, despite good, strong voices advocating a Marshall Plan then. It was a plan that had rebuilt large parts of Europe after the most destructive war in modern history. Fighting racism and fascism in that and other conflicts, and apartheid at home in SA for many decades, were inextricably parts of the same struggle – a point often overlooked these days in public discourse.

We can’t just rely on our own admirable sense of dignity and independence. Those sentiments can’t be eaten. We must secure an appropriate scale of help from presidential pair Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and those better-off nations whom they are able to influence to do the same. We can do a lot ourselves to cut poverty and revive the nation, but not everything.

The way to engineer it is to get powerful voices coalescing behind such a plan, an idea whose time is overdue. Why not give the encroaching, offers-galore Chinese some healthy competition in Africa, for a change?

It is time for novel and practical ideas, which I feel sure will be triggered by the

DM168 call.

Here’s another suggestion, with perhaps the merit of novelty: it concerns Thuli Madonsela, former public protector who did so much to bring Jacob Zuma’s presidency crashing down, and is now ensconced at Stellenbosch University and doing valuable democracy building. Asked in a recent interview for the Daily Maverick whether she would join a political party, she said that four years ago her answer had been “not in this lifetime”. She added that after being at Harvard in 2017 her position had shifted slightly. Then came the significant remark: “If it gets to the point that I’m needed, I can’t say that I will not answer that call”.

The highly respected Madonsela could just be prepared now to throw her hat, if gingerly, into the ring. The time for this has come. It could mean steeling herself to get her academic hands dirty in conventional political affairs. But, please, this should not at this stage be in the ANC shark tank.

As it is, there are enough lurking threats there to devour key political players, regardless. The decent and honest of our land should keep a respectful social distance from that, at least until Justice Raymond Zondo and the National Prosecuting Authority have done their work, and things are properly cleaned up.

The stresses and strains placed on people in our politics generally are already in evidence. Vide recent DA leadership spectacles and its damaging rows over alleged racism, suspended ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule going off his political rocker, and the EFF’s Julius Malema now losing it in full public view when, he avers, he and another delegate to the Pan-African Parliament threatened one another with death not debate, as cellphone cameras lapped it up.

The only likely survivor of note of the coming chaos, as chief engineer of realignment, is competent Ramaphosa, who never seems to miss a trick in politics, but always does his own steady building-block way. We as a nation shall be blessed if he is able to serve out his eight more presidential years in office till 2029, and to preside over what’s ahead.

Indeed, we need not a plethora of words, but rather Ramaphosa’s owl-wise minister in charge of foreign affairs, Naledi Pandor, simply to dispatch Madonsela to Washington DC post-haste and bring ambassador Nomaindia Mfeketo right back here.

If this switch were to happen, Madonsela could get cracking, from our side, with key aspects of organising the Marshall Plan we need, in close touch with presidential heartbeat-away Harris, and academic friends at resourceful institutions with long SA associations like Harvard. It seems a good fit all round.

Our overwhelming problem is lack of money. The financial boffins can work out what resources we need quickly to end our already well-researched socio-economic and other challenges, with lack of electric power capacity and alleviating poverty leading the field. Copper-bottomed guarantees against corruption in the flow of funds would be needed, in view of baleful recent history in SA under Zuma.

There has to be necessary consultation with key players, including the private sector, and the drawing up of a short-term joint action plan – with deadlines – to propel us to our deserved leading position in Africa and beyond. What we need is a remodelling of some of the programmes but not the spirit of Mandela’s time – never jettisoning a legacy of such historic value.

At the same time, the US and SA both need a sussed and respected US ambassador active in Pretoria, someone, one might suggest, of the calibre of leading Washington Post columnist, Harvard Nieman Fellow Eugene Robinson (no prizes for guessing his race group, and, yes, it does matter in Africa). He or similar high talent could lead the charge formidably in the Highveld.

Diplomacy can be leisurely, and take time, which is sometimes its objective. Or it can be very quick in changing things. The Marshall Recovery Plan, at $15-billion then, took three years to enact after World War 2. So let’s beat that timing, and help to show the way forward in rebuilding Africa after so many setbacks. We ourselves must be economically and morally strong to do that.

Who knows? Madonsela could even return from a good job done in DC one day and find herself by acclaim the first woman president of a resurgent SA. Aptly so, in view of her historic role in helping to bring Zuma down – with facts.