Less talking, more bargaining

By: Steven Friedman

SOUTH Africa’s elites don’t need to talk to each other more – they need to negotiate more.

In the midst of campaigning for the governing party, former President Thabo Mbeki has triggered a debate by calling for ‘an inclusive dialogue with civil society organisations, politicians, businesses, labour and other organisations to discuss a way forward’ for the country. He said that no political parties had all the answers to South Africa’s problems and that citizens needed to play a key role in framing solutions.

Mbeki is not the only one calling for a national dialogue –   at around the same time, Mzila Mthenjane, chief executive of the Minerals Council (which represents the mining industry), said the industry wanted to establish a platform which would bring business, labour, government, and civil society groups together to discuss how to boost mining’s performance.

The mines’ concern is more narrowly focused than Mbeki’s but Mthenjane’s comments were interesting because business is not usually in the habit of inviting unions and citizens’ groups to tell it how to run its  operations. If a former President and a key business organisation believe citizens’ organisations should play a role in deciding the future, enthusiasm for a conversation which would place the country on a new path seems to be growing.

Not everyone agrees that this conversation is a good idea. There are always some in the debate who enjoy insisting that the country needs action rather than words – others insist that it is the government’s job to decide what needs to be done and that calls for a dialogue are what people who hold political office say when they don’t want to take responsibility.

These views miss the point. There is no purpose in demanding actions rather than words if there is no agreement on what must be done. The country does need a process which places it on a new path and in which business, labour and citizens’ groups play a key role. But this is unlikely to take it further unless those who drive this process understand why it is necessary and what it needs to achieve. If they do, they will see why we need negotiation, not dialogue.

The country’s  key problem now is not that politicians need citizens to tell them what to do. It is that the political agreement which ended apartheid thirty years ago changed far less than we are led to believe.

Limits to Change

Democracy was created in 1994 by a settlement which solved the core problem the country then faced – that nine in ten people were second class citizens because they were black. No progress was possible until that ended. But that is all that it changed. The economy, the professions, education, and culture are now open to all but, since there was no bargaining on how to change them,  they continue to cater for a minority.

This means that the racial divide which the law imposed before 1994 has been replaced by a gulf  between those who earn a wage, salary, or profits from a formal company and those who don’t. Those who do remain insiders who decide everything– the rest, the majority, must live with the decisions of the insiders even though they now have the vote.

The law may be non-racial but the country is not. Many of the attitudes and habits which made apartheid possible survive. The elites stopped dealing with this reality in 1994 because they assumed that the constitution would end racial division. But changing the political system does not end long-established ways of thinking and doing and progress is stunted by a failure to tackle racial divides head on.

And so, despite the political changes, the country still relies on the energies and talents of only one third of its people. Politics, the economy and the world of knowledge and ideas still serve the few. Until that is addressed, the economy will continue to stutter and the needs of most of the people will be ignored.

This is why a process is needed – to discuss how the economy and the society can offer a role to everyone, not only the one third who are included. For at least four reasons, Mbeki is right to insist that politics and politicians can’t solve this problem on their own.

First, the claim that governments are meant to sort out problems on their own ignores the reality that no government anywhere can afford to ignore those in society who can frustrate what it plans to do. In democracies,  the government is meant to listen to citizens – and not just during elections. Even governments which are not democratic find that they can’t do much unless they take seriously the view of some groups who can make life difficult for them.

Second, the government did not create the majority’s exclusion and it cannot end it on its own. The patterns of the past are also kept alive by businesses, professions, academies and all the other institutions which keep the country running. People outside government have a stake in what exists now and they will not give it up simply because they are told to do this.

Third, none of the groups with influence in society have the power to get the others to do what they want them to do without taking their interests seriously. That means engaging with others and meeting them some of the way, not simply telling them to change.

Fourth, these groups are not represented by political parties. The ANC cannot speak on behalf of  all organised workers  any more than the DA can for business. And so the interests in society who must be part of the change need also to be part of the conversation which decides how it should happen.

Beyond Dialogue

If we recognise these realities, we also see what calls for a dialogue get wrong.

Dialogue assumes that we are all speaking the same language. Not literally, but in the sense that we agree on what the problem is and that we share an interest in solving it. It stresses what we have in common, not what divides us.  And so it is no accident that Mbeki urges a dialogue because his government organised a series of summits which all the key interests in society attended and which were designed to encourage them to stress what they had in common.

But what divides South Africans is more important than what unites us. The effect of  the divisions created by law over three centuries are still with us. They affect every aspect of the society. They will not disappear if people are encouraged to pretend that they do not exist. Which is why the summits Mbeki’s government arranged produced fine-sounding declarations which none of the parties took seriously because they did not believe in them.

Unlike dialogue, negotiation recognises that there are deep differences – if there were not, there would be no need to negotiate. It does not ask anyone to stop differing and so it recognises reality. It works when, despite their differences, those who negotiate recognise that they can’t get any of what they want until they give up some of what others want. And so negotiation produces compromises. The parties remain different but meet in the middle.

While dialogue wishes away differences, negotiation recognises their reality and works out compromises with which all the parties can live. If we recognise that this is what the country needs, we may figure out how it needs to happen.

When people here think about negotiations, they imagine them as Mbeki’s government did – as a formal process which happens at a particular venue at a particular time and then produces a result. But, if we realise that we are dealing with deep divisions which have built up over centuries, we recognise that they will not be sorted out in that way.

A real negotiation would happen in all the important areas of society and it would take as long as it needs for the parties to start agreeing. Negotiations in the economy, in the professions, in places of learning would proceed at their own pace and would not be cut short artificially because it was time for a declaration to be released.

If we take this approach, we also settle a question which is always raised when negotiations over the country’s future are discussed – who represents who. If the future is being decided in one place at one time, fretting over who will speak for the unemployed or landless is crucial. If it is being decided everywhere it needs to be decided, everyone who  can force their way into the process will be heard and there will be no need for a selection exercise.

If there is to be real negotiation, it needs to become not an event the government arranges but a process which happens because elites in all spheres of life realise that change is essential and are willing to compromise to get it.

It is only this which can move the country forward.

Prof Steven Friedman is a research professor at the University of Johannesburg, faculty of humanities, politics department, and writes in his personal capacity.