The past year has been profoundly life-changing for me, in the political sense. Having left the corporate sector at the end of August last year, I finally had an opportunity to engage with the real South Africa — people from all walks of life. These engagements were about life in our beautiful land, and the impact of politics on people’s lives.
This has changed my understanding of why we have dead-end politics that produces no meaningful results. It made me question the lens through which I saw the country while I was editor of Business Day. It wasn’t inaccurate but generally narrow.
I now have a better appreciation of how the disconnection between the elites who run various sectors of the economy and the rest of the population occurs. It is as if people from the same country live in two separate continents.
Without fear of contradiction, I am certain that one of the lead articles would probably have been about one of the tired ANC leadership hopefuls who have not been visited by a fresh idea for decades. Ordinary people ignore them, but they command attention with the nothingness they offer.
The sheer number of people who are dejected and hopeless has astonished me. They choose to survive and help one another and have lost hope that the political system can bring about change in their lives.
In the first focus group Rivonia Circle conducted I was a silent observer. The first respondent, a 24-year-old woman from Johannesburg said, “I just want to leave the country and go far away” when asked how she felt about South Africa at the time. That was in November 2021. Not one of the 12 participants felt optimistic, and they were all black women with diverse backgrounds within the city.
The idea of a young black woman wanting to leave the country astounded me. Emigration has always been a “white thing”. Not any more. In fact, I now know more black people who have emigrated or are emigrating than white people, yet a lot of Twitteratti get upset about articles on “brain drain” and emigration. It’s as if some of us refuse to see things because that way we don’t have to do much to solve them.
Friends from deep rural Eastern Cape obtained their US citizenship a few weeks ago. They left over a decade ago intending to come back after a few years. Their children, born here, now sound like the America they know and grew up in — and it would be difficult to uproot them now. So they will continue to visit us once or twice a year as they have faithfully done for years, but are not likely to set roots here again.
I have also been enlightened by answers to the first question our facilitators ask at Democracy Builder workshops — “what does politics mean to you?” The responses are often negative, among them lies, corruption and unkept promises. There is sometimes a desire to forget about the state entirely as people talk of “looking after ourselves without them”.
People are desperate for jobs, food, safety and hope. What may appear to be a libertarian streak (ignoring the government) has more to do with having given up, than an ideological position.
Meanwhile, in suburbia the conversation tends to be somewhat different. People complain of poor leadership, lack of vision, corruption and how much they yearn for change. They worry about their children’s future. When it comes to specific political conversation — the changes we need to make as a country if we are to move forward — I sometimes get asked, “how are you making sure your message is reaching the townships and rural areas? Those are the people that need to listen to you.”
Others, of course, are more connected to desperately neglected areas even though they live in the suburbs. They get it immediately and are equally frustrated at the implied belief that to drive political change is the task of the poor.
In places like East London, where people were screaming in desperation at problems like crime, lack of support for young entrepreneurs and an epidemic of pre-teen and early teenage pregnancy in rural areas — the question never comes up. People want to know if they have to pay to be in the conversation. They want to know if anything can be done the next day to deal with the problems they express.
People want to know if they have to pay to be in the conversation. They want to know if anything can be done the next day to deal with the problems they express.
In my King Sabata Dalindyebo municipality, people talk of food insecurity given the changing weather patterns. The state of maize plants is how you start a conversation there at this time of year. Everyone complains about heavy rains and the impact they have on the planting season — and they worry about facing food problems next year when the grain silos run out. I speak to my friends in the agri space about changing generations-old assumptions about crop cultivation, planting seasons and choices of crops to invest their meagre rural resources in.
And so last weekend was incredibly emotional for me. The Rivonia Circle convened more than 500 South Africans from all walks of life to discuss how to mobilise other South Africans to change our country’s trajectory. They were all conscientious people. They were executives of companies, entrepreneurs, rural community volunteers, activists from townships and informal settlements, grassroots artists and many other types of people.
They sat around in non-hierarchical circles and discussed the country’s common problems. They had an intense fire in their eyes and spoke with passion. In the end, they generally agreed to no longer sit idly while South Africa fails. They chose to take ownership of the country as a whole.
There were three major takeaways.
First, they pledged to mobilise a million South Africans to find and implement solutions to problems experienced by fellow South Africans. These are community-level solutions to problems people can fix by collaborating with others using their own initiative. This is a response to the desire to no longer wait for the government or a political party.
Second, to campaign for the founding of a political movement that is founded on a culture of solutions-delivery, not promises. This political movement will contest future elections, beginning in 2024, by choosing a new breed of representatives who accept the leadership and direction of those who elect them.
Finally, to always be loyal to the South African constitution and fulfil its promise instead of blaming it for things we have failed to do, such as taking all steps necessary to build an open, inclusive democracy that centres on the wellbeing of all South Africans above anything else.
I am excited at the prospect of being part of such an initiative — which will take on its own life outside Rivonia Circle. The electrical current running down my spine after Saturday made it impossible for me to dither. This is work that needs to be done.
One of the participants, Ms Ziyanda Xaso, from East London, summed it up best: “For the longest time I’ve been numb to the political state of our country, and I have chosen to focus on community work where I can work with communities at individual and family level. This is so they can make a positive change in their own lives.
“I’ve always believed we have the power to bring about change in our lives and in our country. The South Africa Must Rise conference hosted by the Rivonia Circle is the first time the numbness is leaving me and is being replaced by a fire and determination to not just engage but to rise. We are the solution, no-one is coming to our rescue.”
I do not think more inspirational words have been spoken in some time.
* Songezo Zibi is chair of the Rivonia Circle
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