In the last Insight I speculated positively on South Africa's chances of pitching for and being awarded the 2020 Olympic Games. I was writing in the afterglow of the successful World Cup and the positive perceptions internationally which any travelling South African will have experienced at the time. But at the end of August I have to say - if existing events and trends are anything to go by - this country has about as much hope of hosting the 2020 Olympic Games or, for that matter, any other global competition as Zimbabwe.

August has been a dreadful month - politically, socially and economically - for the country and its people. These are strong opinions but they are shared by a very wide cross-section of what one might describe as informed opinion-makers.

Nazmeera Moola of Macquarie First South, writing in the Financial Mail of 27 August, sums up the crucial events as follows: "There is a distinct feeling that SA has managed to squander much of the goodwill generated by the World Cup in the past months. A deterioration in sentiment is mostly due to 3 factors: the horrible side-effects of the public sector strikes, which have included patient deaths; widespread mistrust of the process that has allowed President Jacob Zuma's friends and family to gain billions of rands; and government's proposal to supervise the media." She might have added a fourth, namely openly expressed antagonism between the members of the governing alliance - the ANC, Cosatu, and the SACP.

Others see these events as having a certain logical sequence. Chris Whitfield, a senior editor with Independent Newspapers, says the decision to curb the media and in particular print media results directly from uncompromising reporting of the shady deals involving Cabinet ministers and others at all levels of government, the coverage of the obscene enrichment of President Zuma's own family and cronies, and the unearned gratuitous benefits and greed - sadly as a result of BEE - of the politically well-connected. The governments' draft legislation would make investigative journalism almost impossible to undertake without great punitive risk to the journalists themselves, their editors and the newspapers they represent.

Interestingly, Cosatu, which opposes the legislation in its present form, claims the people who want this legislation are out to protect themselves and the government contracts that they benefit from.

Although there have been growing differences within the governing alliance of the ANC, Cosatu, and the SACP since Polokwane, the public service strike, now entering its third week and likely to cause more infant deaths in public hospitals, has brought tensions within the alliance to a boil. In fact, the latest Mail & Guardian's lead story is headed: "strike tearing alliance apart".

The government, with which the ANC is identified on the strike issue, has so far stood its ground. It has resisted union wage demands and other increases which go beyond inflation. But as I write it seems ready to compromise. Cosatu, angered by the government, talks of a possible end to the alliance. The SACP's unhappiness stems more from personality factors. However, although the rhetoric may suggest this, a breakup of the alliance is unlikely because, as someone has correctly said, the glue that holds it together is shared power.

But in the absence of strong leadership from the ANC, the dominant component, for the foreseeable future we will struggle along in a debilitating, depressing, scrappy and dumbed-down atmosphere where the level of debate is determined by the ANC Youth Leader Julius Malema.

Unlikely as this is, would a complete breakup of the alliance be to the country's advantage? The answer is a negative. A complete break up with the different organisations going their separate ways is likely to send this country into a populist free-fall, from which it would be very difficult to recover. But there is another reason - a positive reason - why the alliance should hold, and to understand this we need to go back to the relationship between Mandela and de Klerk in the period between 1990 and 1994 and what they achieved at that time. They ensured the dominance of the centre of South African politics by locking both left and right extreme wings into the process leading to a democratic and constitutional South Africa. The alliance in turn, by creating a new centre, has continued that process. It has created a new dynamic - which, although since the ANC's Polokwane conference, has a t times been prickly and almost adversarial - nonetheless has ensured political stability. It is also doubtful whether the brilliant decade-long macro-finance regime Trevor Manuel introduced and supervised would have been possible without the alliance.

Where do we go from here? And what is needed? The answer is leadership. President Jacob Zuma has failed hopelessly. He is, as the intelligent and courageous editor of the Financial Mail Barney Mothombothi says "an accident constantly about to happen."

However, against this depressing background - depressing as much to ordinary black South African's as it is to whites - are there any positives? Yes, most certainly. And they are positives which need to be acknowledged and cherished.

Firstly, the courage and articulation of the independent newspapers and their journalists has been magnificent and that is not something that is going to disappear. This confrontation with power if anything, has strengthened the independent media and press freedom.

Secondly, and in a way possibly even more important than the media is the strength and maturity of South Africa's civil society. A protest meeting in Cape Town yesterday reflected this - the churches, universities, the professions and in particular law, and the private sector were all represented. And a petition launched against the government's press curbs was signed by no less than 160 South African organisations.

This reminds us that democracy depends on so much more than elections, voting and majorities, etc. It depends on values and attitudes reflecting moderation, tolerance and respectfulness. The South African political system - its parties and leadership - is relatively immature. South African civil society by contrast is mature with an implicit acceptance of rights and obligations and a sense of accountability - whether applying to individuals, communities, or corporations. Part of that strength lies in the fact that we have a strong literary culture - with writers who cut their teeth during the apartheid regime, so creating a tradition which is strongly individualistic and liberationist. And this is not something that applies only in English language South Africa but within Afrikanedom where writers like Van Wyk Louw, Ettienne le Roux, Breyten Breytenbach, Andre Brink and Antjie Krog sanctified the individual ag ainst the group-think culture which dominated so much of Afrikaner society since 1948.

A third strength is the role of the business community and the private sector. Although tentative in its initial response to the newspaper legislation, the South African business community - both individually and collectively - has come out strongly in support of freedom of the press and the unfettered right to information.

Fourthly, the events in August - following on the World Cup and all the exposure that South Africa got - has registered with the world and the world have responded. Curbs on the press may not bother Chinese business but they bother the rest of the world - including businesspeople and potential investors.

As Pallo Jordan, in an excellent article published in The Cape Times earlier this week reminds us we have a strong record of support for the press and its related freedoms which goes back to Fairburn and Pringle in the late 19th century. In fact, when one thinks about it, this country has a freedom heritage that runs from before the 1800's to the present, and is one long freedom struggle - indigenous African people contesting colonialism; Afrikaners fighting for independence from British imperialism at the turn of the 20th century; and Africans striving to free themselves from white minority rule. In a nutshell, the events of this last month and the response to them of the South African people and their civil-based institutions are an expression of that heritage.

Denis Worrall,
Chairman,
Omega Investment Research
Cape Town, South Africa
www.omegainvest.co.za