OPINION Mandela was the quintessential “people’s President”. One of my recollections is when we had invited Mandela to visit the offices of Independent Newspapers, home of the Cape Times. We had tried to keep his visit quiet, but word soon leaked out that he was in the building. When he left the building, a few hundred people had congregated outside. Despite being warned by his security, Mandela made a beeline for the assembled people and greeted several with his customary: “How are you? So good to see you.” Mbeki’s major failure, in my opinion, is that he discouraged debate and created an environment of fear. People around him feared telling him the truth about what was happening in our society. Instead they told him what they thought he wanted to hear. President Motlanthe would do well to revisit the commitment made by Mandela a month or so before he became President of South Africa. It is important, for the growth of our society, to encourage vigorous debate. The more we listen to contrary viewpoints, the more we could potentially learn and the more our country could potentially grow. What happened at Polokwane in December last year was good for our democracy. Branch members of the ANC decided to depose a sitting president who had made himself available for another term. But the nature of the debate at that ANC conference was cause for concern. There was clearly little intention to listen to the other side. What has been worrying about the ANC under Jacob Zuma has been the reinforcement of cultural and sometimes even tribal identities. It is worrying when the most important fact about a person’s identity is that s/he is “100 percent Zulu”. What should matter is that the person is South African and that the person is committed to making our democracy work. Whether one is Zulu, Xhosa or Sotho should not be the most important thing. Elevating cultural and tribal identities to primary identities often betrays a lack of tolerance of other cultures. What role can business play in all of this? During the dark days of apartheid, there were many progressive business people who sought out the views of the ANC and others opposed to the government of the day. These same business people put pressure on the National
Party government to talk to the ANC and to move towards the resolution of the problems in our country. Over the past 10 or more years, we have seen how business has forsaken that role. Business needs to ask critical questions of government and the ruling party. They need to make sure that the growth of our country and our economy remains the priority of government and the ruling party. They need to hold government and the ruling party to the commitment made by Nelson Mandela in March 1994, that the ANC would welcome robust debate. Business needs to use its economic might to point out to the ruling party the folly of creating a culture of fear and of elevating cultural and tribal identities to primary identities. One often hears business people saying that they are not interested in politics. However, politics permeates every part of our society and has the potential to impact on every part of our society. It is so easy for a ruling party, and especially one who is elected by a huge majority, to become arrogant and out of touch with the electorate. It is up to the business community to help keep the ruling party in check, to help the ruling party stay in touch with the electorate. It is not easy going up against a government and a ruling party, especially when one depends on them for contracts, but it needs to happen in the interest of our democracy and in the interest of the country. I am not advocating a situation of criticising government for the sake of criticism. Rather, I am trying to encourage a situation where, before things go wrong, business people need to warn government and the ruling party that things are going to go wrong. It is not good enough just to praise the ruling party for the things they are doing right – and there are many – it is also important to point out their mistakes. This needs to happen in the interest of the country and not in the interest of individuals. It is essential that we return to the situation where business people and others concerned about our democracy are able to make their voices heard without fear of repercussion. This, I believe, will be the greatest gift that we would be able to give to Nelson Mandela and his legacy.
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