Illustrative image / sources: Former president Thabo Mbeki. (Photo: Gallo Images / Beeld / Alet Pretorius) | President Cyril Ramaphosa. (Photo: Thomas Lohnes / Getty Images) | Inaugural meeting with members of the National Dialogue Eminent Persons Group at the Union Buildings. (Photo: Elmond Jiyane / GCIS) 
In almost all situations, it is good to talk. Communication is vital to the experience of being human. And considering the problems our nation and our people face, it would be entirely rational to say that there should be a national conversation.
Instead, the reaction to the idea of a National Dialogue from many, including this commentator, has been a sort of collective groan.
In many ways, the tone of our national groan has been very similar to much of the public reaction to the government’s announcement, back in 2022, that it would be giving money to help with the intense flooding in KwaZulu-Natal.
That suggestion was met with outrage. It felt at the time that most people just believed the decision to financially help flood victims was made only so that the money could be stolen.
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The reason for this was the timing. We had just emerged from the pandemic, which was marked by its reporting of how government officials, and people linked to the ANC, had stolen public funds.
The government’s action there too was entirely rational. Of course the national government should be helping a provincial government in that situation.
Poorer, more dangerous South Africa
The cynicism might well be grounded in several important dynamics.
The first is that, despite the hope in the 1990s and perhaps some of the 2000s, despair is setting in. This too is entirely rational.
Since about 2015 most people’s lives have become worse. Their lives have become more violent, poorer and less productive.
While the argument about who to blame for that is entirely political, it is important to remember that most of the people involved in driving the National Dialogue now are responsible for getting us here.
President Cyril Ramaphosa is the person who formally decided to hold the dialogue, and former president Thabo Mbeki was the person who most loudly proposed it.
Of course, it could be argued that Mbeki is the most popular politician in the country. But in our current context, that’s a bit like being seen as Joburg’s best mayor since 2020.
Interestingly, while the reaction to the national government’s actions in providing money to KZN was probably a response to the ANC, the response to the dialogue may be very different.
It seems now that almost all politicians are tarnished with the same brush. In other words, while the reaction to the KZN flooding was about the ANC, now other parties, non-ANC actors, are implicated.
This is about many things, but primarily about the failure of the national coalition. This coalition includes 10 parties. And so far they have done nothing to improve the lives of people who are crying out for help.
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When the leaders of the coalition should be leading by example, instead they are fighting, almost to set an example for different groups in our society.
And if the 10 parties in the national coalition who broadly agree on the Constitution can’t agree on anything, how can many more parties agree on anything?
The fact that Ramaphosa is both leader of the coalition and the person who has enabled the dialogue, means there is no real reason to believe anything can come from this.
Corruption Inc
It is also important to reflect on how both corruption and our cynicism have become so much deeper in just the past few years.
While reports about ANC corruption have been common for many years, it seems almost as if things have become worse.
Pieter-Louis Myburgh’s revelation that he was offered R60,000 in cash (in a Dior bag) is an example of how deep this culture of government corruption has become.
At the same time, there are plenty of other examples of people in our politics becoming enmeshed in corruption.
Whether it’s the way Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu benefited from VBS, or the fact that Patriotic Alliance deputy leader Kenny Kunene was at the home of a person being arrested for murder, it can appear as if almost all of our politicians are enmeshed in corruption.
And it is not just politics.
One of the key elements of this dialogue is that it will involve leaders from other parts of our society, including the religious sector. In recent years several high-profile pastors, “prophets” and priests have been implicated in abusing their power.
Shepherd Bushiri was able to skip the country. The nation watched a brave young woman outline what Timothy Omotoso did to her, and others, only to watch an NPA prosecutor appear to almost deliberately bungle the case. There are many other such examples.
In business companies like Steinhoff and Tongaat Hulett have been involved in massive accounting scandals that have had a huge impact on workers.
So far, whether it be in business or religion, there has been no accountability for those involved in these scandals.
The net result of all of this has been a huge increase in the number of people who don’t vote. Those choosing not to vote easily constitute the biggest political group in the country.
This might well provide an important test for the entire process of the National Dialogue and the National Convention.
If it can bring people back into formal structures, first through the convention process, and then into politics (through voting), then it will have succeeded.
But if it fails to do that, it might well then be labelled a failure. DM