Hope for South Africa lies in us, not in government or in the interests of shareholders of our major corporates

For the most part, 2022 has been yet another confidence-sapping year. 

No matter which branch you perch on in our disparate society, there has been a fair amount of gloom to pass around. Whether it’s load-shedding that has been the worst since it all began as far back as December 2007, or an inflationary bug that has seen the price of basic foodstuffs soar for the most vulnerable, and the cost of a mortgage or vehicle financing rise for the more affluent. 

Economically, we are still a small ship cast adrift, admittedly in a global economy that isn’t inspiring confidence. Recession talk is still very prevalent internationally. South African corporates such as Sibanye Stillwater pay their executives hundreds of millions of rands and look to invest their returns in developed countries such as Finland and Canada in the case of Gold Fields. Deny as much as they want, the investment strike continues because their shareholders remain as sceptical as ever about this country. Our risk is best captured in reports from the three international ratings agencies — Moody’s, Standard & Poors and Fitch — and this trinity are the sentiment shapers of bondholders, the true masters of the universe.

There are no good stories to tell in our political arena, with the recent ANC elective conference inspiring no sense that next year will prove any better than years past. 

We’ve carried this sense of foreboding for many a year, to quote from one of the witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth “… something wicked this way comes”. All editorials written over the past decade in most newsrooms to mark an end to a year carry this sentiment. 

What it does, though, is weigh against the prospects for our country because, without confidence, it’s a near impossible task to change the fortunes of more than 60 million South Africans. 

We haven’t felt lucky often, but it’s been our guard against our worst inclinations — as evidenced this past weekend when leaders of the Kwazulu-Natal branch of the ANC, which increasingly sounds like a Zulu nationalist lobby group, failed to get even one of their favoured “Zulu” candidates in the top echelons of power. That’s diversity at work — rejecting ethnic nationalism and perhaps the only real good story to emerge from the ANC’s deliberations this week. But I digress. 

There’s still little confidence to be found against the backdrop of a country grappling with stage six load-shedding that has us a hair’s breadth away from Armageddon — a total blackout — in the minds of many. 

The FNB/BER Consumer Confidence Index has been in negative territory for 14 quarters, from the middle of 2019, which is the longest stretch since records began in 1982 — a depressed consumer by all measures. 

Business confidence, critical to the revitalisation to the broad economy and to our employment prospects, is also in the doldrums on the back of uncertain economic policy — a central characteristic of the state since the advent of an economic planning ministry led by Ebrahim Patel in 2009, and its overdue consolidation back into the trade and industry department — still led by the micro-managing Patel. 

An incoherent and disjointed response to our economic problems is seen most matters of state, the most important of which being education and healthcare. Being hopeful and optimistic about our prospects feels like a fruitless endeavour. 

George Constanza, one of the central characters of the greatest sitcom, Seinfeld, best captures our national mood as we head to our holidays and contemplate what faces us in 2023. 

“I don’t want hope. Hope is killing me. My dream is to become hopeless. When you’re hopeless, you don’t care, and when you don’t care, that indifference makes you attractive.” It’s funny on a dating level. An indifference may well be attractive in the short-term for a prospective and blind partner, but for a country it’s none of the above. 

Rather it’s cancerous. Indifference to matters of your neighbourhood, township or suburb, town or city and your country poisons any chance for its revival. We can’t afford to be indifferent, as difficult as it may be. We should remain hopeful of building a better country and, in turn, Africa. And what hope requires is a measure of discipline. A state of hopelessness fosters the protests of July 2021 and the ascension of bad political actors with their bad and sponsored policy decisions.

Where then, do we find hope, in a country that, it appears, has so little of the stuff left? It’s not in our political arena. The outcomes of ANC’s elective conference — where policy once again took a back foot to personality clashes — is where we can’t continue looking to find strains of hope. It’s a party in decline as it heads into its 30th year of power. We shouldn’t infect ourselves with the poison they consumed over these past five days. 

Mother Theresa said: “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” This country is filled with people creating good ripples. 

These people are our neighbours, our direct community, those in our places of worship, work and schools, and the nonprofit organisations. Towards the Mail & Guardian’s mantra of Building a Better Africa, we will tell more of these tales. They may not grab headlines, but will highlight their role in moving the country forward without seeking fortune and fame.

With a compromised government and its too many highly paid chiefs and not enough workers, we need to reach out to those around us — those who inspire others but get little recognition, who go about quietly doing what needs to be done. These are the people we won’t find in Ted talks or parliament. We will find them in our schools and offices, doing the things that we all should be doing: picking up litter without being asked, cleaning beaches and testing sea water so we can swim safely; feeding, clothing and housing the indigent without expecting rewards, caring for abandoned babies, comforting survivors of rape and other crimes. 

These are the people who step in when the government fails by its own admission, because of limited resources and a shrinking skills base — the heroes we should salute every day. These are the people who deserve our attention, our loyalty and our thanks for 2022, and our constant support in 2023. 

This week’s M&G speaks to the people who carry us forward by keeping hope alive. Being hopeful comes with its fair share of risk for anyone’s consciousness and to their physical wellbeing. Here’s to our bravest who stubbornly tell us that we are not hopeless, even though the rust is building up and is now visible to all. These South Africans are our heroes.

Ron Derby is the editor-in-chief of the Mail & Guardian