National dialogue or national delusion? SA’s 'eminent persons' under fire - SLR - Biznews

Simon Lincoln Reader
I have rules I apply whenever I see an “eminent persons list”. I take the names and assess whether any of them would either lead or participate in a “stolen land” ceremony, or “acknowledgment of country”.

When that exercise is done, I do a white suburban boomer check. This involves exploring whether any of these people wear either untucked floral shirts underneath jackets or plastic shoes, or have ever tried to trumpet their right-on credentials to a live audience along the lines of “I-am-a-progressive-man-my-son-starred-as-a-gay-priest-in-eight-different-theatrical-productions-about-gay-priests” and so on.

Once that screening is complete, the list is in a position to be examined as to whether anyone on it is likely to complement the objective it was established upon in the first place. 

On Cyril Ramaphosa’s list of “eminent persons” to “champion a national dialogue”, that is a swift no. That is not to say there’s no substance – Robbie Brozin is a nice man who deserves everything he’s achieved, so too Siya Kolisi and Sibusiso Vilane. John Kani is great company, as is Barbara Masekela, Nelson Mandela’s former secretary.

Manne Dipico is another gem; when the ANC went ballistic in 2002 after the Boeremag bombed Soweto and a few other places, Dipico cautioned his party against smearing all Afrikaners and worked admirably to bring groups together. Then there’s Edwin Cameron.

Didn’t conform

He didn’t conform to Adriaan Basson’s demands to close the Stellenbosch University residence Wilgenhof (“bloody stubborn retired Constitutional Court judges – why don’t they just do what the hell I tell them to?”) and in doing so appears to have disappointed the country’s liberal white power axis, who continue to influence beyond what their expertise should ordinarily permit them. 

Elsewhere there’s something distinctly Johnnic about the names Ramaphosa proposes – very early 2000s northern Johannesburg. Bobby Godsell and Gloria Serobe and Roelf Meyer hint at the original black empowerment being something of an exciting, exotic, metropolitan prospect, in an era of reliable energy supply and budget surpluses and the first stages of the Melrose Arch development.

And just that gives the whole thing away: the list is as much of an admission that the party has been devoured by its rapacious excesses as you’ll get from the ANC. Now it’s stuck dreaming of better days. 

In the present South African context, “dialogue” is a useless term – unless accompanied by drastic proposals that meet the needs of the age. These proposals can exist. They must. 

Siya is the country’s rugby darling, one of the precious things the country commands worldly respect for, so he should be left to maintain that reputation. But if you want a Springbok, and your dialogue involves gender-based township violence and more importantly, how to deal with these things, then why not include Makazole Mapimpi?

Mapimpi is the guy you’d want to walk outside next to you in the event you found your house surrounded by ISIS converts from Birmingham – he’ll have ideas, and yes, these may offend those demonised with liberal sensibilities – but we should be way past the point of accommodating meaningless ICC platitudes. 

Miss South Africa

I’m not sure what Miss SA Mia le Roux will offer on the lives of young women navigating the bullets and buttons on the Cape Flats? “World peace”? No, the singer Tyla is the right profile here. Like Mapimpi, she may bring some colourful answers – but you’ll find that many people agree with her. 

Where is William Gumede? Oh, its 2006 again, and just as he was blackballed from the SABC for telling the truth, he’s probably too on the money regarding B-BEEE these days.

He should be careful on this line: there are likely many white professors in the UK observing him closely with rising blood pressure, edging closer to their natural instincts of horses and white cloaks. 

Most effective resistance

Where is Helen Zille? Can she not participate in “national dialogue”? She has proved the country’s most effective and consistent resistance over two decades. Perhaps signs emerging from modern DA processes have invalidated her: the party appears to be operating as a sleazy UK B Corp-accredited tech startup which is actually run by its HR division, and spends most of its time trying to terminate customers on the basis that they do not align themselves with its “values”.

But Zille has corrected cities and located multiple political success where few thought possible. She should be a shoo-in. 

There are glaring omissions from business because again, uncomfortable truths would need to be aired. Any “dialogue” must involve explaining just how mercilessly Gwede Mantashe has cratered the mining industry – for that, you need the likes of Neal Froneman.

Similarly, the informal economy is barely represented – where are GG Alcock or Mzoli Ngcawuzele (whose legendary establishment in Gugulethu was shuttered because a group of “experts” from America and the UK told another group of “experts” from South Africa to do so)?

Speaking of which, and in the spirit of hoping that “dialogue” prompts discussion of a healthier future, where is Tim Noakes? Imtiaz Sooliman is useful when a jerry-built town hall donated by China collapses in the Sudan. For the purposes of cohesion across religious groups – not so much. 

Six degrees

In his 2014 Selfish Whining Monkeys, the UK author and columnist Rod Liddle came up with a game called “Six Degrees of Shami Chakrabarti”. Chakrabarti is a human rights lawyer who can be found on just about every single quango or advisory body in the country. It was an experiment in identifying a chattering class who had never been appointed, just asked, to occupy multiple “eminent persons” lists.

Chakrabarti led to a professor at LSE who then led to a woman who served on the UK Border Agency and she led back to Chakrabarti – by serving on yet another committee with her. Just beneath every single feature of public life sat a body occupied by “eminent people”, who all thought the same things, agreed, then thought the same things again.

During summits the standard form was for some of the eminent people, especially the men, to try to outdo each other – by comparing how many hats they wore, whom they saw at Davos, or how their sons had just won another role in another play as a gay priest. The women’s lips would twitch with loathing. Less than nothing was accomplished. 

The day Javier Milei was sworn in as Argentina’s President, the Daily Maverick’s Richard Poplak had one of his little meltdowns: “Going to end badly”, he squealed. Milei, you see, had insulted Karl Marx – and this was unacceptable. (Curiously, monuments to Marx survived the rampages of 2020 – despite his documented racist expressions in letters to his colleague Engels).

Fast forward to 2025, and the IMF and World Bank have predicted astonishing GDP growth for Argentina (+5%). South Africa has its own Mileis – they just don’t possess table manners acceptable to normies and gatekeepers.  

If this little caper goes ahead, then we can already see the Eminent Persons Commitments or Pledges from the first conference: i) B-BBEE is Very Very important and must stay, and must actually be expanded, so that South Africa becomes just one massive B-BBEE trough with a little country attached by a string to it; ii) Climate change is real and people must be taxed more and more; iii) Crime is a problem, absolutely, but the police must be more empathetic, and at the same time, nobody should have guns; iv) Donald Trump is a bully; v) ENDS.

Simon Lincoln Reader is a partner at a London-based litigation funder, a trustee of an educational charity, and a member of the advisory board of the Free Speech Union of South African

https://www.biznews.com/thought-leaders/national-dialogue-national-delusion-slr

This article was first published on the Daily Friend.