President Thabo Mbeki rounds off his weekly missive on the African National Congress website with the apt call: “What our country needs is substance and not shadows, facts instead of allegations…” Precisely!
The letter, now Mbeki’s favoured mode of communication with the South African population and our best way of getting to grips with his musings, is a tirade against those he calls “the fishers of corrupt men”. He said there was an attempt to paint the government as corrupt.
It was sparked by a series of articles, carried mainly by Business Day, which have cast doubt over the validity of the final report into the multibillion-rand arms deal.
In the article Mbeki launches into a stoic defence of the necessity of the arms procurement deal and the cleanliness of the process followed by the government. He defends Auditor General Shauket Fakie’s bona fides and then proceeds to cast aspersions on the deal’s critics.
Ominously, the president warns that “in time the truth will come out” about how the controversy around the arms deal originated and is being perpetuated by “domestic and international apartheid networks” bent on derailing the democratic order. The sooner the better, we say.
Very few South Africans would differ with Mbeki’s assertion that one of our prime foes is the National Party’s legacy of racism and the stereotypes it breeds. And they would further argue that, in pursuing the agenda of building a “truly people-centred society”, we need to spare no effort in fighting that other NP disease — corruption.
And few South Africans would differ with the president’s plea that we need more than shadows and allegations in our national discourse, and should deal with facts and substance.
This is why it is unhelpful to state that media reporting in our country is driven by “an intensely negative, highly offensive, and deeply entrenched stereotype of Africans”.
South Africa is a society under construction, one where we cannot afford to shrink the political space and limit it.
We need to have a constructive debate about all the issues and challenges that face us as a nation — including corruption.
The notion that there is a media vendetta to prove that black people are inherently corrupt is fallacious. The simple fact is that this country is run by a black government and the upper rungs of public service are mainly peopled by blacks. And another truth beyond doubt is that the same government runs one of the more competent and forward-looking administrations on the planet.
It is, therefore, demographically logical that its successes are directly attributable to black people at the helm. And it is also demographically logical that when wrongdoing takes place in the ranks of government, the probabilities are that it will be the black people running the show who will be fingered. That is simple logic.
It is the creation of shadows and the creative use of near-truths that perturb. If we are indeed to fight the stereotypes as vigorously as we fight the other evils of poverty, disease, crime and corruption, we need to do so with facts.
We need to move away from the presidential language of “some in our country”, “some in our ranks” and “those among us” when levelling accusations. This serves only to create suspicion and paranoia.
We cannot as a nation selectively single out the “half-truths” that suit us in order to construct a larger truth that fits our agendas.
Just as the Democratic Alliance should not (while claiming to act in the public interest) latch on to every event that supports its doomsday thesis of South Africa’s future, the ANC and the president (while also claiming to act in the national interest) should not be constructing conspiracy theories to prove that sinister enemies of the new order are lurking out there.
Our country needs facts, not groundless allegations.
Maybe too little, definitely too late
No question — this weekend’s Growth and Development Summit will be a flawed affair. At the government’s behest, its agenda has been truncated to exclude macroeconomic policy, including privatisation. A sizeable part of the labour movement’s wish list will not find its way into the final declaration. Agreement between the government, labour and business is likely only on a modest spectrum of issues, including a job-creating public works programme, numerical targets for skills training and the joint pursuit of growth and development strategies at sector level. Horse-trading between the partners started too late, and a one-day summit is probably too little.
But what is the alternative? And what purpose will be served by refusing to sign the final declaration, as the unions have threatened? It is fantasy to think the three parties would compromise their vital interests.
The summit will not, and never could be, a magic bullet for South Africa’s jobs crisis. It should be seen as a way of putting jobs firmly on the national agenda, as an issue demanding special focus and continuing engagement.
In such matters, the Mail & Guardian is an unabashed sentimentalist. We believe in the value of engagement and rational discourse, and look forward to a fully-fledged economic partnership between these three contending interests.
Related article: Fishers of corrupt men