Need to embrace profound healing
In the spirit of December 16, much more needs to be done to mend the past, promote transformation and improve lives
THE 16th of December was celebrated as always as the day of reconciliation in South Africa. In the eloquent words of the preamble to the constitution, the people of South Africa “recognise the injustices of our past” and making use of the constitution undertake solemnly to: “Heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights.”
Most informed and thinking South Africans accept that our heterogeneous society is still, after more than 20 years of the new constitutional dispensation, in need of profound healing, transformation and social justice. Mandela, De Klerk and other important leaders started the process of reconciliation with negotiations that gave rise to the interim and 1996 constitution.
However significant their contribution is considered to be, very much more is required to be done. Once again in the words of the preamble, reconciliation and transformation is essential to “improve the quality of life of all our citizens and free the potential of each person”.
It must be recognised that reconciliation is a long and difficult process that is all encompassing and involves of necessity government, political parties and their leaders, civil society and the people of South Africa.
Centuries of institutionalised racial discrimination based on colonialism, imperialism and apartheid, have bequeathed to us as a nation deep scars that are reflected in economic equality, poverty and homelessness that millions of disadvantaged, mainly African people, are still subject to.
Although in the more than 20 years of the operation of the new constitutional dispensation significant socio-economic improvements have occurred in relation to the provision of, among other things, housing, water supply, electricity, health and educational facilities to disadvantaged communities, much more is required to re- duce poverty, unemployment and the vast economic inequality that still blights our land.
While government and all political leaders have a fundamental role to play in reconciliation and transformation, civil society organisations and individuals have an equally important role in this regard.
What is required of government and its leaders is inspired and competent leadership in all three spheres of government, using bold, inspired and imaginative socio-economic policies that significantly reduce poverty and economic inequality.
As far as government is concerned, the inept handling of the violent service delivery protests and those on the uni- versity campuses relating to the demand for free tertiary education, as well as the political scandals that have enveloped the ANC government relating to the likes of Nkandla and state capture, have prevented it from fulfilling a meaningful role in relation to reconciliation and transformation.
This distressing state of affairs has its roots in the dearth of inspired and competent political leadership of the ANC government in general, and in particular President Zuma, who has become engulfed in one scandal after another. In this regard, government and its leadership is weighed and found to be wanting.
In the more than 20 years of our democracy, a new significant middle class has emerged, which is diverse and has the capacity to contribute in no small way to both reconciliation and transformation in relation to disadvantaged groups. This middle class must use the organs of civil society and faith-based movements to advance the cause of reconciliation and transformation.
The paralysis and lack of inspired leadership in government is the most serious obstacle to meaningful socio-economic change and reconstruction in South Africa.
But political change is in the air. The local government elections this year have heralded a decisive move away from a one party-dominant state to a multiparty democracy.
It is submitted that reconciliation and transformation involves building on what was positive and morally correct in the past, and removing what is morally and socially anathema to our values as set out in the constitution, so that a mature democracy can emerge in South Africa.
The invocation of slogans and protests, such as those demanding immediate and unqualified decolonisation, are not magic formulae that actually resolve problems of inequality. Violent protest and language ultimately do not promote beneficial change.
What is required are wellthought-out strategies that bring about meaningful and sensible change, flowing from mature reflection, robust debate and intelligent discourse.
South Africa is a country of infinite potential. The human and natural resources should be used by competent and inspired government leaders as well as an enthusiastic array of civil society organisations to bring about social justice for all the people of this country.
This, it is submitted, must be the purpose and trajectory of reconciliation and transformation.
George Devenish is an emeritus professor at UKZN and one of the scholars who assisted in drafting the interim constitution in 1993.