Judge Dennis Davis
Transforming Countries into Democracies: South Africa and More Recent Cases
Roelf Meyer, Gill Marcus, and Judge Dennis Davis - Transforming Countries into Democracies South Africa and More
- Good evening everybody, and welcome back to Lockdown University. This evening I have the great pleasure of introducing and welcoming Roelf Meyer and Gill Marcus, who will be in conversation together, chaired by Dennis Davis. They will be discussing transforming countries into democracies, South Africa and more recent cases. Gill Marcus was born in Johannesburg in 1949 and matriculated from Johannesburg High School for Girls and obtained a BComm from Unisa. She worked with the ANC in exile from 1970 to 1990 and returned to South Africa after the unbanning of the ANC and other political organisations in 1990. She was part of the ANC’s Information Department, Deputy Secretary of Information and Electoral Team, preparing for the 1994 and 1999 election campaigns. She was elected to the ANC’s National Executive Committee and National Working Committee in 1999 until 19, sorry, 1991 until 1999. In 1994, she was elected to Parliament and chaired the Joint Standing Committee on Finance. She was appointed Deputy Minister of Finance from 1996 to 1999 and Deputy Governor of the South African Reserve Bank, 1999 to 2004.
In 2004, she was appointed professor and held the Chair of Policy, Leadership, and Gender at the Gordon Institute of Business Science until 2009. She was then appointed as Executive Chairperson of Western Areas Goldmine and non-Executive Chairman of Absa Group 2007, 2009. She chaired a number of regulatory and advisory bodies, including the Financial Services Board and served as a non-executive director of a number of boards, including Gold Field and Bidvest. She was appointed governor of the South African Reserve Bank 2009 to 2014 and in that capacity represented South Africa at meetings of various international bodies, such as the Bank for International Settlements, the Financial Stability Committee, and the G20. She represented South Africa at the African Association of Central Banks and the CMA Central Bank Committee. She chaired the SADC Central Bank Governors Committee from 2009 to 2014. In 2017, she established a Knysna Initiative for Learning and Teaching, KILT, a nonprofit PBO addressing the challenges faced by the education system with 17 government schools in the Knysna Municipal District, involving around 13,000 learners, teachers and service providers. She served on the panel of experts, established by the constitutional courts to consider and make recommendations in the matter of SusaMCPS and the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of Impropriety at the Public Investment Committee, PIC.
Whoa, Gill. What a career you’ve had. Truly astonishing. Now over to Roelf. Roelf Mayer is a lawyer by profession. He served as Minister of Defence and of Constitutional Affairs in the cabinet of former President F.W. de Klerk and was intimately involved in the negotiations on the settlement of South African conflict as chief negotiator for the National Party Government. It was in this capacity that he negotiated the end of apartheid together with Cyril Ramaphosa, who was chief negotiator for the ANC Congress. These negotiations resulted in the first democratic elections in South Africa at the end of April, 1994. After the election, Meyer continued in the portfolio of constitutional affairs in the cabinet of former president Nelson Mandela. In 2009, he received the Order of the Baobab in Silver for his role in the birth of the Democratic South Africa through negotiations. After his retirement from politics, he started to act as an advisor in peace process.
In this capacity, he has been involved in Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, the Middle East, Rwanda, Burundi, Iraq, Kosovo, the Basque region, Guyana, Bolivia, Kenya, Sudan, South Sudan, Columbia, Myanmar, Madagascar, Zimbabwe and the Central African Republic. He served as chair of the South African Defence Review Committee from 2011 to 2014, which committee produced a review document that was unanimously adopted by government and parliament. He’s presently a director of End Transformation Initiative, a South African-based institution that does facilitation and advisory work in and outside of the country. Amazing. Congratulations. What a career you’ve had. It is a great, great privilege to have you both with us tonight and we have our esteemed judge, Dennis Davis, who’s going to be our moderator and I’m going to hand it over to him and he will be in conversation with the two of you. So, thank you very much to all of you for joining us tonight. We look forward to hearing from you. Thank you.
Thanks very much, Wendy. And before I start with Roelf and Gill, can I just say that on Saturday night and thereafter, I got a whole host of well wishes from all sorts of people, about my birthday. I tried to respond to many, couldn’t do to all, but thank you so much. It was really quite heartwarming to think that we’ve really become a community all of our own. Well tonight’s a great privilege for me to actually talk to two great South Africans who’ve contributed in their own way to a democratic society. Roelf, I’m going to start with you because, sometimes, one doesn’t have these opportunities to ask these questions at other occasions. I mean, what is intriguing to me was that you were the Deputy Minister of Law and Order in 1986. I’m sorry to remind you of your past, but it’s truly why I’m asking, not to be rude, but to be intrigued. I mean, because of that, and that was the sort of really gloomy time. And I think people forget just how terrible that was, during that particular whole period. I mean, did you envisage at that time, ‘86, '87, '88, that actually we were going to come to terms so quickly and that de Klerk would make the speech he did. And I suppose my question is whether you expected that, what you felt about it and why do you think it happened?
No, it’s a good question, Dennis. And the fact that I held that position is not in my favour, if I look back at it. But the reality is, I keep on thinking that it was probably one of the most important turning moments in my own understanding of where we were. 1986 to 1989 I think were the worst years of the whole Apartheid era. And you can vouch for that and I’m sure Gill, as well. And we could have started, the process of change already by 1995. I think that’s one of the most important things that we can all regret, that P.W. Botha was not ready and prepared to start that process in 1995. All the circumstances otherwise prevailed that would enable that to happen, but he was not prepared to release Mandela without the condition of renouncing the whole struggle. And as a result, we entered into a process of the worst, like I said, of Apartheid years from '85 to to the beginning of 1990. When you asked the question whether one could have foreseen that the change was on its way, yes, I think to some extent. People like myself within the National Party Government at the time, we were very much encouraged and aware of the fact that things had to change. We were all promoting the notion of dialogue. The question was how do we start the negotiations?
And it, of course, could only start with the release of Mandela and other prisoners and the return of the exiles. And that was the problem that P.W. Botha was not prepared to address. So, there was a huge frustration within certain sections of the National Party by then already. But it was clear it had to come. It was only a question of when. Of course, the pressure mounted to the extent that, by the time that F.W. took over at the end of 19, or in the course of 1989, there was no alternative. It was the right thing for him to do and, fortunately, he could read the signs and make the right pragmatic decision. He might have been in his earlier times, held a conservative view that was held against him. But the point is when he took over as leader, he made the right decisions.
So Gill, just coming to you for a moment. I’ll come back to that Roelf, but I wanted to ask you, I mean, you’ve spent all this time in exile and I suppose, to you, two questions in this regard. I mean, did this come as a complete shock to you that, all of a sudden in 1990, you were going to go back to the land of your birth? And secondly, what was it like having then to negotiate with people who to not to put too fine a point in it, if you had come back earlier, would’ve knocked you up, might’ve killed you.
Well, I think that’s, there’s an oversimplification as if it was a moment in time and I don’t think that’s correct. Because this was a process that was underway from a number of different angles in the 1980’s already. I mean, you had the Harare Declaration, you had the visits by business, you had the interactions that were creating an environment, a framework, within which discussions could take place, even if it was inch by inch, if you’d like to get progress being made. So, no, it was not a surprise. I mean, the Harare Declaration, if I remember, was 1987 already. So that if you looked at the steps forward, I think that, while there was always the pressure to release the political prisoners, because from the ANC’s point of view, you would not be able to, we would not have continued without that happening. It was a measure of a step that had to be taken. But there was a lot of dialogue before that, both from Mandela as everybody now knows, which they didn’t know at the time, from within prison, an uncompromising commitment to being released on principle, with principle base, on a principle basis, as well as the ongoing dialogues from a whole range of forces including from the ANC.
And you could not negate or should never negate the question of the internal upheaval. I mean, as Roelf knows, in the periods of 1985 and the resistance at that time. At one point in time, there were over 10,000 children in jail, let alone anything else. So, you had a war of immense proportions. And the government could not continue, the Nationalist Party could not continue to rule. It was just impossible. So yes, I think the plus was that for any negotiation, you have to have a counterparty. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a wage negotiation or a country negotiation, you have to have a counterparty. And as Roelf has said, de Klerk was the counterparty. He periodically felt he could backtrack, I mean, the most memorable of that event was that day at the World Trade Centre where Mandela, had to answer him back, which was, I mean, we were all rather pleased with that response from Mandela. But it was a question of two steps forward, one step back all the time with negotiations on-off. And as you said, Roelf, the question of being, a very difficult time for Apartheid was the period of '85 to '90.
I don’t think that was the worst. I think that the whole system was bad and have devastating effects that we saw feeling. But I do think the period immediately after 1990 was in fact some of the most disgraceful deceptions on the population. Because, when we said there was a third force, when we gave evidence of a third force, it was all denied. Meantime, it was true. And it was created an animosity, between so-called black on black violence and therefore the period right up until the actual day of the election. Because the objective was to postpone that election or not have the election at all. And, again, I think that anybody who has criticism of Madiba and his role did not understand the strength, that personal strength that he had that held that period together, despite huge pressure from all forces, both within the organisation, within society, to say, “No, we can’t negotiate with them. "Go back to arm struggle, or we can’t do it this way.” And he held the line and it was a question that it was absolutely clear those elections are going ahead, hell or high water. And quite often, it was hell. I mean, you know, the attack on Shell House, I was there.
Those kind of things, you don’t forget easily, the extent to which violence was an everyday occurrence. When you said, “Well, if I came back before 1990, "they would lock me up.” Well, they did try to kill us a few times in London and after we came back. It wasn’t just a maybe, it was something that was active. There were a lot of people who were assassinated abroad, as policy and, for instance, in 19, I think it was 1982, if I remember correctly, they blew up the ANC offices in London and that had the explosives, as I understood, from Craig Williamson, when he went before the TRC, if I’m correct. I may be wrong, but that’s my recollection of it. The explosives were actually taken in a commercial airline to the South African embassy and used to blow up the office, irrespective that there were kids in the school right outside. It was a Sunday morning. So, it was a very vicious period of time. And we are living with the legacy of that, where life did not matter.
So Roelf, actually on that, I mean, I would like to, we’ll give you a right to reply if you wish, but I mean, let me add to the right to reply by asking you this. It does seem to me that, throughout that particular period, for example, the Harms Commission, which seemed to me to have been a terribly lost opportunity. For people who don’t know about, that was an attempt, there was a commission of inquiry run by a judge as to whether there was a third force, which really was a whitewash and there was continuing killing right on the trains and all of that, right through the Gauteng area what was called black on black violence, which we know was orchestrated by all sorts. Now, I’m not suggesting for one moment that everybody within the National Party knew it, but wasn’t it that kind of, that sort of facilitation, one way or the other of violence, which we still do not know the reasons for which have created the kind of legacy to which Gill has been referring?
Dennis, I don’t think anybody would exactly know what was happening, what was going on in terms of certain elements as far as government forces at the time was concerned. I personally went to the TRC afterwards, around about 1997, I think it was and I did it out of my own instinct and intention to give a report from my perspective of what happened, particularly in that period that I was in government. And I gave or I categorised the kind of atrocities that were committed in three categories. The one I said was people who acted on instruction, quite clearly and those that acted in that way or many of them, at least, from the police side in particular, went to the TRC and applied for conditional amnesty as they did. The second group were probably those that thought they were doing the right thing, but didn’t have the instructions to do so. And there are a number of such cases, which we can highlight to prove the point. And then there were those that acted just simply on their own, without any instruction, without any knowledge.
Oh, I think the-
Wow.
I think you are-
[Gill] You’re frozen.
Your internet is playing up.
While Roelf is reconnecting, perhaps just to say that-
Gill, I want ask you, sorry.
Sorry, but that’s where, and I first met was in, when you were Minister of Defence with General Magnus during the violence.
[Dennis] And what did you ask him?
[Gill] What the hell he was doing?
Some of them went into prison, the most well known one being, but the reality is, yeah, all night that we met, can you hear me again?
Yes, I can. Yes. Okay, yeah.
So, let me just complete that try to,
I’m sorry, please, yeah.
What I’m saying, Denis, is that very few people really knew, I think what was going on and the most devastating of that was probably the Boipatong massacre, upon which Mandela and Cyril and the rest of the negotiating team from the ANC side reacted by calling off the negotiations completely. And that was a devastating moment. It was a devastating moment for me, because I was the chief negotiator and suddenly there was no job. But at the same time, despite that devastation, the next day Cyril and I came together at the mandate of Mandela and de Klerk and we started the process, which then helped us to resolve the real settlement or to come to the point of the real settlement, which culminated you might recall it in the record of understanding, which was signed by Mandela and de Klerk three months later.
And before I-
[Roelf] In as much is that moment of-
Yeah, sorry, what I wanted to ask you-
You can carry on please.
Question I wanted to ask is what was driving that? I mean, what in many countries and we’ll come to some of your experiences shortly in other countries, it all fails. How come here, in the midst of what Gill has said, dreadful time of that early '90s, following literally decades of awful racist rule. What was it that drove the process that you guys were able to get it back on track?
Dennis, I think in my observation and all conflict situations there’s a moment where people, those that are responsible for the negotiations realise they can’t go back. It’s what I would call a moment of irreversibility and our situation, probably that moment of irreversibility arrived when Madiba was released from prison. Nobody could put him back thereafter. So, we had to go forward, despite all the challenges that we had, we all so knew that there was no way that we could return from where we started or before. So, that I think was the driving force. And even that moment when Madiba called after negotiations, after Boipatong, the next moment I had the call from Cyril to say, when can we start talking? Which showed from both sides.
There was no other alternative. And I think that that notion of irreversibility, helped us to go forward, but at the same time when we started to get together form that channel, as it became known between Cyril and myself and the small teams on each side. We developed also the level of trust in each other that resulted in the point where we said to each other, there’s no problem that we can’t resolve. In other words, we started to believe in each other and also knowing that we were on the same platform. And that is why the record of understanding was so important, because for the first time, then in that record of understanding, we described what was the joint future that we were going to look at, what was the vision? And that vision was simply to develop a South Africa in which every individual will have the same rights as it is guaranteed in our constitution today. And I think that was the real moment of the breakthrough. Because once you had agreement-
Please Gill continue. I’ll ask my question after you’ve made your comment.
Well, the question for me is I agree with Roelf. I don’t think he’s wrong with that, but there’s an additional dimension and that was the trust people had in the ANC. Because while you might negotiate and you see your point about irreversibility is corrected one level, but in fact it could deteriorate into a simply not able to implement that from any party. And we saw that with the Bophuthatswana incidents and things of that nature apart from the constant violence that was there, which was intended to derail. But part of the question why you could convince people, why people were willing to give that trust, not just the trust between the two parties, but the trust of the population is because they believed in the ANC’s commitment to the people of this country to do what was right, even if it was difficult.
When we had to go around the country explaining what the negotiations were doing, people said, we don’t necessarily agree with you, but we trust you. We think that that is workable, because we believe that you act in our interests. And that dimension enabled that trust to build between the negotiators, because you had the support of people. And you could see that most clearly when Chris Hani was assassinated, because that was a time when Mandela went and said, we hold the country together. And it was him who held that country together to say the country together at the time to say, go home. This is not about breaking down the negotiations, this is what they want. So, that element of trust, if you looked at it and you go fast forward to where we are today, that’s precisely what the great betrayal is about, where it has become self-service.
Let me put this to you, that if you talk to my students today, and I’m talking not white students, but Black students in particular. I want to emphasise that particularly, many of them think it was a complete sellout. Many of them feel that you in the ANC, sold out to white capital. And the question I wanted to ask you was, was it a mistake to have the TRC in a way it was, so that in effect the levels of accountability were much weaker so that this generation looks at that and says, therefore it was a sellout. And because there was never that level of accountability, things just carried on.
Are you talking to me or Roelf?
I am talking to you.
Okay. Look, I think that, I think there’s a lack of appreciation. And I mean, it is, I think the question of being a sellout is where and the question that arises around that, which I understand, I don’t agree with, but I understand it wasn’t the sellout of the negotiations, it wasn’t the sellout, I think that’s a very, a historical and unrealistic understanding, but it gives a level of what people know about the time and the assumption that yes, the arm struggle could actually have won if we had held out and so on. But secondly, the question of what has happened subsequently, so it was not the negotiated settlement that has resulted in where we are, that wasn’t the sellout. What has happened subsequently is, and that I think is the question of accountability.
Was it a mistake to have a Truth and Reconciliation Commission?
No, I don’t think so. But it was a question to me, the question isn’t the mistake of a TRC? I think it’s a question of, what else should have come as well. It’s not only question of the TRC, otherwise it becomes very, to use in a phrase of Catholic. I’ve lightened my burden and now I’m absolved of any responsibility, because I’ve made my statement and I’m done. That was never enough. It was an element and important element, but he didn’t go far enough and he didn’t have other things that should have happened at the same time.
Such as?
Well, for instance, if one takes the nature of parliament and the nature of engagement and the communication and the question of whether you simply continued with what was or whether you created a situation in which let’s use a defence force as an example, you had choices, I think, right the way through, there were different choices that the country as a whole, parliament, ANC, other parties had to make. Let me use one example that for me is a question, because it has permeated into our discourse and disruption to date. When you took over and you said you’re going to create, after the first election, you said we’re going to create a new defence force. Well, what type of defence force, the South African National Defence Force that simply created a professional soldier or a question which if you took the reality of pre-94 where you had, if you went into any township in this country, you would have kids in uniform. You’ll remember that Roelf. Everybody wanted to be in a uniform. They were drummers, they were marshals, they wanted to belong. You could have harnessed that in a different way and used that as a vehicle for ensuring there was education, for instance, that there was a question of proper ability to assimilate that sense of belonging and being part of something. You had a choice. Instead, we went for high weaponry and a professional army and not an inclusive.
Yeah, well, and look what that got us, it got us to an arms deal.
[Gill] Precisely.
Which was the root of all of the beginnings of corruption.
All of the issues, all of the issues.
[Dennis] Yes.
But what I’m saying is that at a point in time you had a choice and you made a choice to go in-
By the way whose choice was that?
It was the ANC government’s choice. But what I’m raising is that these, at different points in time in our development of a democratic society, you had choice. If you took the examples from where the ANC came, you would’ve thought that people’s army would be the answer.
[Dennis] Yeah.
Because and given the situation on the ground, it would’ve been an interesting question to say, let’s use that as the vehicle to harness a way of getting kids into school, into education with a profession. Because your army doesn’t only train soldiers, it also trains electricians and plumbers and everything else, and technicians and all kinds of things. So, you have choice.
Sorry, Gill.
No, I’m done, yeah, yeah.
Sorry, thanks.
Roelf let me ask you this, you were critical to get with Ramaphosa and others in essentially ensuring we got our constitution. Those of us who were technicians simply took instructions and we drafted accordingly. But at the end of the day with you guys negotiating. Is the big mistake, now, just as I fast forward, was the big mistake that it’s quite easy to draught, that’s not easy, but it’s easier to draught and perhaps even get a constitution than it is to build institutions which are going to underpin that. And there’s the story of South Africa, not this, that we have failed to build viable institutions to keep that constitution on track.
Yeah. If I can latch on this answer to what you’ve asked also Gill and her response to that.
Sure.
I think with what we were meant to do, during the negotiations Dennis was to negotiate a constitutional framework that would ensure a peaceful transition from the white minority rule to a democratic majority, one person, one vote system. And I think that is what we achieved. Our purpose was to transfer power from the white minority to the Black majority or to the majority democratic government. And we achieved that. But three things were also imperative in the Constitution in terms of what we negotiated as far as this subject is concerned. The one was that there shall affirmative action. The second was that there shall be Black Economic Empowerment. And the third was land reform. Now, two of those, I think what I can say have happened. The one of land reform is maybe the questionable one, but also we have to look at why didn’t it happen? The constitution is clear, even today’s still that it has to happen. There is an imperative that land reform must take place.
The fact that it didn’t happen I think is unfortunately government failure. But when we talk about the overall transformation of the country, let’s say the socioeconomic transformation of the country, I think that is where the problem comes in. We made the transition constitutionally speaking, but probably we didn’t apply sufficient attention to how to implement this new democratic constitution. And instead it was left to the newly elected government. And I think we should have done more about it. I keep on thinking-
We being who? Roelf sorry, we being who?
Well let me take it on the chin, maybe we should have on the as negotiators, insisted that we needed to negotiate further, that so-called economic predesa, should have happened then as part of the planning for transforming the country to a real democratic society. But instead it was left to happen by itself almost. And as a result, many of the wrongful institutions, also economic institutions of the Apartheid era, just continued. And as a result, we never succeeded in spreading the wealth of the nation. And we are paying the price for that today. And that is why I think that is why people are blaming the constitutional negotiators for giving over or sell out or not doing their job properly. That’s nonsense. What we should have done actually, and it’s a collective, when I talk about we, it should have included Gill and I and Cyril and everybody to actually have continued our task there and finding the answers about a new constitutional, sorry, a new economic framework for the country, which we still don’t have.
Well, if Roelf was a really critical negotiator and indeed he was, you were a very important institution builder. And I remember this from the very early time that you were chairperson of the Finance Committee in parliament, you used to drag me in just before the budget to explain to all the MPs who wanted to about tax and about tax policy. So, you were very concerned without particular issue and you carried that on in all manner of means, whether in the finance department or at the Reserve Bank. But it does seem to me that it’s and therefore it’s a role that you’re particularly interested in. It does seem to me that we have failed ignominiously as a whole to build the kind of institutions that underpin a democracy.
Well, I don’t think it’s only about the institutions that underpin a democracy. I think it’s about institutions per se.
Yes.
And obviously the ones that underpin democracy is critical. I mean, there’s no question in that regard, but other institutions, if you look at the state owned enterprises, just using one example of institutional capacity and the failures there, it underpins democracy in a different way to say a reserve bank or your judicial system. I think the real question that for me and in a way we’ve been focused on what happened at the time, which is useful but it’s not sufficient. I think the question of institution building is critical to any country. And in a young democracy it is even more important. But the reality is very few people know how to build institutions. Many people can function extremely well in a fully functioning institution. They know what to do, but they can’t create the framework and the structure and the artifice of that institution. And if you take the United States at the moment, if you take that Trump was in office only for four years and they’ve got hundreds of years of institutional capacity and building and depth of experience in a civil service across that country. And look how ravaged it has been in short few short years. And part of the challenge that I think we have if we try to look forward is to understand that we have, as South Africans locked ourselves in a blaming approach to the past.
We blame people, we blame the constitution, we don’t look at what we could be doing. Let’s take the land reform issue. It’s totally able to be do it within the constitution. There’s no question. You just got to do it. Part of the challenge we’ve got is now we want an amendment to the constitution and we think that will make it happen, it won’t, because the reasons for not doing it are specific. I mean, here you may want an easy option or an easier option, but that’s not the issue. The issue is it’s available to you if you want to do it. It’s the question of why you didn’t do it. So, part of what I’m raising here is that the institutional capacity and the blaming of the past gives us if you like, a fig leaf to hide behind. And in reality, we’ve got to look at where we are in this century, in this decade and say what is possible, because we are in very dangerous times. It’s not unique to South Africa. It’s manifesting in so many ways, because you can organise across boundaries, across class, across cross issue. You can put like-minded people together across the world. And in my view, we are in a pre fascist phase.
Can I ask you this? Sorry to interrupt. And I want to get to Roelf. Taking Donald Trump, which is a good example. You did right? I mean look what the damage you did in four years is extraordinary to constitutional and by the way, a legacy and a discourse which continues to threaten democracy there. Let’s not kid.
Absolutely.
Right, now.
And not just there, but not just there.
I accept that.
It’s a question his legacy.
His legacy is shocking. Yeah, you and I are in agreement on that. But I want to just come back to South Africa for a minute. Donald Trump created a sort of populist framework in which there was us and them and we had a fight against them. And I wonder whether in South Africa, whether we’ve got a politics that looks at us as a whole rather than us and them, whether in fact it’s possible, under the part political frameworks at the moment to create that kind of community of a kind, which we all move together to create those institutions that you’re talking about.
Well, I think it’s an imperative, but I don’t think it’s going to be easy, because the question, if you do that, you would need to have common purpose. You need to have a common vision. And part of what has been eroded over this period, this certainly in the 21st century, that’s 20 years already is the question of confidence, trust, hope, the question that we believe in a purposeful common purpose together that we can build. As I said, it’s a blaming society and we have definitely got them in us. But them and us is and part of what, how Trump has introduced globally, including South Africa is everything is transactional, is what do I get out of it?
So, part of the issue here is not what you stand for, but what do I get out of going with this or that? And you can see it across the board. It’s not an ANC problem. We have a societal problem of a transactional approach to how we deal with issues, how we find solutions. So, it’s what’s in it for me. And I think that is symptomatic of where the world is. But as South Africa, quite frankly, I think we have a challenge to say, how do we fix that? How do we go forward with common purpose? And the common purpose isn’t imperative. Instead of saying so much about, we do this in the name of the people, we actually do care about people instead of not caring. The reality of today is that we do have to find a way to find each other. And part of that is recognising how disparate.
From your mouth to God’s ears, I agree with that. But Roelf, can I ask you this? When I look back and even for an audience listening to this evening who may not know as much about South Africa as those of us that were intermittently involved, why should they? The fact is that the partnership that you had with Cyril, and it was a partnership, a remarkable one. And I think the country’s indebted to both of you for that in a sense kind of foreshadowed the possibility of what Gill talking about of a country that somehow could transcend our boundaries and in fact our racial divisions. But when I look at South Africa today, we not there. And not only are we not there, we might have moved backwards rather than forwards. And I’d like to take, to ask you to give you all sort of barometer of where we are at this particular point in time and what hope there is for kind of creating that image that Gill was speaking about now.
Well, Gill I think Joel was absolutely right when she talked about what enabled us to make the transition so smoothly in '94. And I think a huge factor then was the strength of the centre led by Mandela and that centre was combining forces unexpectedly. I mean if you look back at how people from all sections of the community, from across all sectors of society, Black and white just accepted Madiba as the founding father. And that was amazing. And there was this, it was this common ground that South Africans were prepared to take on and move forward on. And it actually succeeded for quite a long time. I would say at least 10 years or even a few more. But then came unfortunately Polokwane and it started slowly in the beginning and it escalated over the next over 10 years, to destroy that centre. And what we were left at the time of the change of the administrations between Zuma and Cyril we had a situation where the centre was just completely fractured. And I think this is where we are busy rebuilding now. In my own sense, if I look at the total picture and you ask me what do I think of why we’re sitting today, I think it’s not as bad as sometimes people believe.
I’m happy you say that.
I have a common friend, recently asked me and said to me, “Where do I think we stand in terms of, "whatever criteria one would do use?” And I said, just a thumb sake, I think it’s we are 60% of where we should be. Now, I made a test of this and I went out and talked to others who challenge me all the time, because many people believe I’m still in politics. So, I use this as a measure to respond. And I say to people, I think we are at the 60% level. And what I’m finding very interesting as in most cases, in fact in all cases, people will then respond and say, “No, no, it’s better than 60%.” And I think that that gives an indication, it’s very easy to find the wrongs. I can point them out. I think the incapacity of the state is the biggest problem by the way, but it’s something that we can do something about and I think civil society, business and all of us have to actually put our heads together and see how we can rebuild, rebuild where we’ve lost opportunities and where we’ve lost the strength of the nation, during that 10 year period we are talking about. But I think it’s possible to rebuild and it might be slower than what most of us, would like it to be, but I think there are positive sites. And I think we must just go forward.
Before we conclude and just go to questions. I just want to spend five minutes on this, Roelf and Gill. What lessons, therefore you’ve done as Wendy read out, an extraordinary amount of work in fractured societies. And I understand that you’re actually to some extent busy in Myanmar. To what extent does the lessons of South Africa have some consequences for these societies and a place like Myanmar at the moment, which looks so absolutely desperate? I mean, is it possible to kind of get a similar impetus going in society, such as that from your experience?
Yeah, it’s very difficult. It’s a completely different culture that one is dealing with there politically and religiously. It’s a very difficult situation, but at the same time, it reminds me of what could have gone wrong in our own situation. We must never forget. It is a very strong authoritarian regime that prevailed there for 60 years and then they started to make moves towards democratisation. That is when I came into the picture and started to help with the process of democratisation there. Now that the army has taken over completely, again, it’s completely brutal military exercise of power that prevails at the moment. And quite frankly, it’s very difficult to see how are they going to get back to the process of democratisation. So, what is the lesson that we can convey there? I think it’s, first of all, you need dialogue between the opposing sides that the civilians are all behind bars, Aung San Suu Kyi and the rest. And on the other side, the military think they are in control, but they are also not really in control. Their civil service is not operating, their health workers are not function at all, out of resistance. Teachers are not in the schools out of resistance. So, it’s not a functioning society, it’s completely going backwards there. And at some point my reading is that the military will start to see that they have to at least come to the table to enter dialogue. And that is where hopefully we can start to play a role again, based on the South African experience.
And one final question for you and then one for Gill. From all of the other countries that you’ve learned, do you have some sort of rule of thumb which ones are possible? Like you worked in Columbia, which has actually done pretty well. Is there a sort of set of conditions which allow transition to move towards democracy?
I would say based on the South African experience, and it’s very simplistic what I’m saying now, but it also tells you what is the answer if it works. And that is what that we succeeded in the end to build a level of trust between the opposing sides, which was at the beginning not possible in anybody’s mind. Secondly, it was a very inclusive process that we followed in South Africa. The troublemakers were also inside the deck from left and right unexpectedly so. So, we had a very inclusive process. And the third one is that we took it on our own, it was a responsibility of that ownership, that actually allowed us to find the answer to ourselves instead of relying on mediators and power breakers from outside. And I think those fact, those three factors are if they are in place, there’s a chance for success. If not, I don’t see it.
Thank you. Gill to use my last question to you, before I get to the questions. Just given the fact that the world, there are so many countries now, which I mean promised democracy, Brazil, Hungary, Poland, India for example, countries which established democracies, such as the United States and even the United Kingdom. Were there considerable threats to democracy? We’re South Africa just lucky that we were in a moment where in a sense there was a real belief in this and should we be concerned that all of these countries are in a sense finding difficulties and that might even be something that we are finding at the same time?
I think we’d need to be concerned. Look, we came in, don’t forget at a time when the world was changing, because 1989 was collapse of the Soviet Union. And that had very significant impact, not just on the ANC but on a range of countries and the choices people felt that they could make. But before I come to the question of the threat, I think that just to come back to where we are, you see I have a question about as older people, we expect our children to have a better life than we had. If you take your domestic worker, she does not want her child to have her life. She wants a different life for that child.
That child should have a different future. And if you cannot see yourself, doesn’t matter who you are, from which walk of life in South Africa, if you do not see yourself in that future life is cheap, you don’t get the common purpose. And right now, I think it’s not about what percentage believe we are doing better. It’s a question of where the South Africans can see themselves in the future. And if they can see themselves in that future, they will work towards building it. They’ll accept things that, they will not accept certain things, they would fight against certain things, because there is that common purpose of the future is better for my child if we go that route. And that comes back to the question of trust. It comes back to the question of hope. It comes back to the question that as an individual I matter. I matter to my community, I matter to the people that I around.
And many people aren’t, for many people there aren’t mattering.
That is not happening, that is not happening. Right now you have a situation of extreme hunger, a question of education that is failing and a whole lot of things. And I’m not going to go into the litany of our problems, but unless we understand those problems and the roots that we have to address to get that common purpose, to get that sense of person, that I see myself in that future, 'cause if my life has no meaning, your life has no meaning to me and I can take it. And we are very violent society. Now, if you come back to where we are in the world, I think these, as I said, I think we are in a very pre-fascist stage and it can move very quickly, because of the 2008 economic crisis, people lost a huge amount of their sense of, I mean, people were selling the family silver in reality to come out of that. And we haven’t recovered from that. And now if you look at the unemployment that is being generated, you come back to a really a feeling of the, obviously I wasn’t there, but what I understand of the 1920s, beginnings of the 1930s.
[Dennis] Sure.
So, don’t forget you only came out of The Great Depression by going into the Second World War with the United States. And that war was something people supported, because of what we are not going into that tonight, but it’s a very important question, because you can mobilise people when they feel they have nothing to lose. And right now people have a sense that they don’t belong. They’ve lost their economic wellbeing. The number of people who have lost everything from being reasonably well off to having very little today. And COVID obviously plays a role, but it’s not just a COVID issue, it was there before COVID, so does this situation that we have now, does it really makes it an imperative for people like Roelf and Cyril, given their different roles today and given all of us because Roelf, you’re absolutely right, we can move forward, but then you’ve got to recognise that you draw in all South Africa and that all South Africans have a bottom line and the value system and an integrity that puts other people first and we don’t have that.
I accept that. Now, let me get to the questions if I may. I did promise that I do that and I am, so I have a question for Elizabeth.
Q&A and Comments:
Q: What was the role of big power arm twisting behind the scenes? Could the South African experience be translated to other countries outer leaders such as Nelson Mandela, who also enjoyed huge political capital and could therefore make decisions counter to the wishes of the rank and file of his party? Roelf.
A: We were extremely fortunate that we had somebody like him, that we had a leader like him. And that is the obvious question, that those of us that are helping in other conflict situations get, and that is that people would say, but we don’t have a Mandela. I think the answer to that is, if we apply the lessons we have learned from Mandela in our own lives and in the society that we find ourselves, if we can use those examples, then we can change the world. There’s sufficient examples in the whole experience of Mandela that we can all benefit from. And I think that is what we have to share and keep on telling others.
Q: Gill, I mean do you think without Mandela, we would’ve done it?
A: That’s a very difficult question because, I think it underplays the role of others in particular people like Oliver Tombo. Mandela and Tombo were two sides of the same coin for me. They complimented each other and they had different strengths. But Mandela became the figure because Tambo refused to become the figure. He made sure that the political prisoners were in the foreground for years, decades. It was a question of that collective of unique individuals. Mandela certainly, there’s no question was the the charismatic core, but he had people around him who were quite extraordinary. And that’s the tragedy of the moment is that we’ve had, we’ve come from a leadership over generations that were quite extraordinary. And yes, I think Mandela made it possible, but it was because of the nature of the people around him. Because nobody was there with a great ego and said, it’s me, it’s me, it’s me. They were all there to say it’s we, they understood the we to the core of them.
- I think that’s right. I think we had giants living in our country 25 years where they are now, that’s another question.
Q: This is a question for you Roelf. As I said, one gets questions from all sides, why did the government not create a white state in the part of South Africa when it was possible? Like the areas in the great fisher and the Chira over in the Drakensberg in the north, with East London as the capital of the Western Cape, and democracy for all its inhabitants?
A: Orania State is there.
- That question doesn’t exist. Dennis, thanks.
Q: Thank you. Don’t have to answer. Gill, Barbara, why do you think a people’s army did not evolve?
A: I think we were looking to be more correct. We were very concerned about being seen as, “Oh this is a newcomer.” They were radical communist guys who going to mess everything up. And we were very concerned about being, and I don’t mean that in a negative way, 'cause it would be wrong to see it that way. It was a question of saying that we are so fragile that if we need to actually ensure that we establish our authenticity, our ability to build this democracy. And we were much more social democratic. Let’s face it, the communist party and its role and its thinking might have had an influence, but it wasn’t in that core sense. So, I don’t think it was even thought about as a real option. I used it as an example of choice. I’m not saying it was right or it would be right or wrong, I’m just using it as an example of choice that you made different decisions at different times. But I do think that we were very much, you are part of a social democratic movement, rather than a radical left.
Q: Okay. A question to both of you from Arnold. How do you see South Africa five years from now Roelf?
A: Well to be very practical about the current situation, what we’re looking at in the next 18 months. I think Cyril will be reelected at the end of 2022 at the ANC National Conference. And that means that the ANC will win the next election in 2024. And therefore I think we can look at this current trajectory most likely to go forward. Not in a fast pace as many would hope, but I think in a fairly stable trajectory. And my expectation would therefore be that not, we are not going to see strong changes as far as the current positive trajectory is concerned. Although growth will not be as amazing as we need. When we talk about the political situation I think, we have to bring into account the fact that there’s practically no opposition at the moment. And I think the opposition must blame themselves for that. The opportunities were there, plenty of them? And still there are such opportunities for opposition to rebuild itself. But it’s not happening. So, I think we have to depend on a large, to a large extent, we have to depend on the leadership that Cyril is going to give for us over the next five years.
Okay, Gill?
Well, I don’t disagree with Roelf, but I do think there’s a different dimension, because that makes us passive. And I don’t think we should be passive. And I think South Africa deserves us to be active. And that doesn’t mean, I think there needs to be a very strong civil society, strengthen our civil society and our voice. Because don’t forget South Africa, and I’m not going to go into the global circumstances at the moment, but that’s going to influence whatever we do. And even if we did everything right, the mess that we are in is going to take 20 years to come out of this economic situation, even if we did everything right. So, how do we build into that, drawing on the strengths that we have? Because South Africa has huge strengths and its biggest strength is its people, but involve them, involve all of us in building that future together and create that common purpose. And that is not happening. So, we all sit in judgement , we sit and we blame and we sit and criticise. And if we look to it and simply say, Cyril will, Cyril can’t, unless there is a voice and a strength behind that in civil society that says there’s a line that we will not cross.
It has been crossed and we are not going to allow this to continue in the future. And that we are all involved and we expect more, we expect more from our government. We expect a competent government. Roelf is absolutely correct, our biggest weakness is a total incapacity of state to do what it should do. And therefore, for me, the state needs to recognise one, what a state should do and has the role and responsibility to do, what a state should not do and has no business doing. And then what it has the capacity to do. And it can influence the capacity and the knowledge. And I think that’s a responsibility of all of us to put our weight behind it. You see, we look at politics in my view as oppositional, whereas in actual fact what I’m arguing for is to say we need to find a way of common purpose and therefore, whichever party political you belong to, there must be a common overarching framework, within which we are trying to achieve a democratic society that will build for the future and that we can all belong into and feel comfortable in, instead of feeling angry about.
Q: Roelf a question for you. What about Zimbabwe? Can that country be changed? Its question from Barry.
A: It’s unlikely there’s, if we talk about going backwards, that is actually what is happening there. I’m talking about the state of democracy there. Every day we hear further bad news, about that situation. What we’ve seen since the departure of Mugabe is actually a further entrenchment of the political elite and as an extreme weakening of opposition, partly because of what they are not succeeding in achieving. And partly because the way in which ZANU PF is just acting against opposition in such a way that they’re killing them. So, the future of Zimbabwe is not positive in my mind. There are new economic activities, but the contribution from that, largely goes into the illicit economy and the illicit economy benefits the elite and the political elite is effectively in control completely. And it consists of a small body of people and the reality therefore is that the masses are suffering.
Q: Terribly. Gill, there’s a question for you. I’m just going to take this and one more and that’s it, from Barbara. She writes, you made a comment, Gill, that we are on a pre-fascist era. I couldn’t agree with you more, but could you elaborate?
A: Well, I think that, I’m sure that right now there are two books that I think every one of us perhaps could reread. One is Hannah Arendt on “The Origins and Rise of a Totalitarianism State.”
[Dennis] I agree.
And the second one is Aldous Huxley’s, “Brave New World.” 'Cause they part of a way of seeing that we should not ignore. And partly when I’m saying this, 'cause if you look at it, people’s voice, if you look at who controls voice, how much there is an ability to manufacture the great lie, if you like, the question of the role and how, in fact individual rights are being undermined all the time. I do think the question of the technology and the ability to organise with that technology is phenomenal. And we don’t have to go further than the storming of the Capitol in the United States to see that where rational people, people you would have thought were rational. And that comes back to the great divide. So, we are able to organise differently and we have created a situation where many people today are far worse off than they were 10 years ago. So, people who thought they had a future dose.
Q: Thanks Gill. And related there to, related there to Ruth last question for you. Paul asked what in reality can be done, about the burgeoning growth of inequality across the world? It reflects what Gill’s been saying now when he writes the seas of the next apocalypse, it seems.
A: Yeah, I don’t think there’s an answer to that question right now. It’s something that we are seeing growing in Europe, the US is suffering as a result of that. And of course there’s the big change in world order as far as that is. And maybe I should just use the example of what is happening in Myanmar to prove the point. In Myanmar, everybody is sitting watching as to the reaction from China. And China is not reacting, it doesn’t show a hand at all. It can resolve that problem within the flick of a hand, by telling the military junta to stop the nonsense. But they don’t. And the junta will have no option but to listen to China if they say that. So, what I’m saying is, there are powers that you and I and nobody else can control. And one of them is China and they are playing obviously the long game and what they’re doing is all in their own interest. And I can understand why the Americans are therefore, so very much almost obsessed about the role of China in the current situation.
Thank you very much. I’m going to hand back to Wendy, but before I do, just to express my own extraordinary appreciation to both of you. In a way I just want to make one comment in my thanking you, which is whilst I’m sure everybody listen to this was enthralled, it’s the kind of conversation I need to play to my students, because I’m afraid when you talk about the history of South Africa, my students don’t know that history anymore. The kind of thing are talking about, they dunno it because they dunno it, they come to the wrong conclusions. I said I really want, I’m going to have this recorded and I’m going to with your permission play to the class of mine and be interested in the reaction of the students to that. But thank you to the two of you. Over to you Wendy.
You must tell us about the reaction.
I’ll do.
Well thank you very much, Gill, Roelf and Dennis, that was the most outstanding presentation, covering several topics. I have to say, Gill, I agree with you about South Africa. South Africa does have the most amazing people and civil society does need to have a strong voice and truly a very strong voice to influence the leadership. There are so many challenges that face South Africa, so hopefully the civil society will empower Cyril and his leadership to have the courage to take up the mantle, to lead the country through these very, very stormy waters. I mean, I am not in South Africa at the moment, but I’m deeply connected to South Africa and to all South Africans and we are all connected, all South Africans. You see, we’re a global family, very, very supportive and so connected to South Africa. So, good luck to everybody and Godspeed. And we are just praying that we can get through that.
Thank you to both of you.
Thank you very much everybody and thank you for inviting us.
Thanks so much, take care everybody.
[Roelf] Thank you.
[Wendy] Thanks, bye-bye.