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While the Solidarity Movement, AfriForum and Solidarity believe, in principle, in engagement and dialogue, it is clear that the so-called National Dialogue has been hijacked by the ANC. Therefore, these organisations will not participate in the first conference of the National Dialogue on Friday. The institutions also support organisations such as the Thabo Mbeki Foundation, which has taken the same decision.

According to Flip Buys, chairperson of the Solidarity Movement, national discussions to find solutions to the country’s pressing crises are essential, but all indications are that the National Dialogue at this stage will result in yet more fruitless discussions instead of action.

“The reason is that it appears that the ANC wants to hijack the intended National Dialogue to try to win back lost support, rather than to find answers to the crises,” says Buys.

“That is why the Solidarity Movement supports the various foundations that have decided not to attend the dialogue on Friday, and we will also not be there. There is no sense in placing the party responsible for the country’s decline in charge of a National Dialogue.”

Buys says the ANC is now emphasising the necessity of participating in the National Dialogue, while over the past decades the party has not been willing to engage in good faith with other stakeholders or listen to their proposals.

“The experience is that the ANC would rather conduct an ANC monologue than participate in national dialogues. The ANC has dominated all previous talks, using them merely as forums to try to sell its policies, rather than forums where they could listen to suggestions on how to adapt their unworkable policies. In addition, agreements that were reached have often been broken shortly thereafter by the ANC, only for them to stumble along alone in its socialist dead-end street, dragging the country along with it.”

Buys says the Solidarity Movement will therefore adopt a wait-and-see approach to the National Dialogue.

“We are too busy trying to address the consequences of failed ANC policies, and do not have the time to listen to their outdated blame politics and a repetition of unimaginative ideas for weeks and months on end. Our experience is that ‘community dialogues’ can bear more fruit than a state dialogue, and that discussions between communities yield more practical results. That is why we plan, in co-operation with other cultural communities, to submit a position on the country’s pressing issues to the National Dialogue, but we will not participate on Friday.”

The ANC has in the meantime given no indication that it intends to reconsider failed policy directions. The clearest signs are that since the formation of the Government of National Unity (GNU), it continues to govern as if it is alone in power, and that it would rather make the country a target of US sanctions than implement policy adjustments in the national interest.

“The country needs new and fresh ideas because the old ANC ideas have failed, and it will be of no use to simply recycle them. Millions of people have suffered long enough under the ANC’s leadership,” says Buys.

People want to talk about a different dispensation

Dr Dirk Hermann, chief executive of Solidarity, says the National Dialogue has become a state dialogue, because the government is not genuinely willing to take part in an open dialogue but is pursuing its own agenda.

“People talk at workplaces, around the braai, at sporting events, and in churches about a yearning for a different dispensation. The state hears this and wants to hijack that spontaneous community dialogue.

“It was conceived in the Union Buildings by the President. The moment that happened, the National Dialogue was stillborn.”

According to Hermann, the need for dialogue came from the community itself.

“Some of the foundations were central to it. It is precisely because of a deep rift with the government that people want to talk about a different kind of dispensation. The government feels threatened by this type of dialogue and has decided to hijack it,” says Hermann.

He emphasises that the institutions’ non-participation in the National Dialogue is not against dialogue, but for dialogue.

“The voice of the people cannot be silenced by trying to regulate it. Solidarity and the broader Solidarity Movement welcomes dialogue. We will talk to trade unions, foundations, cultural communities, and other civil society organisations. We will talk about the wider community’s frustration with the ANC-led government, and our discussions will not be hijacked. We will participate in community dialogue, but not state dialogue,” says Hermann.

ANC cannot be trusted with the process

Kallie Kriel, chief executive of AfriForum, says the crisis the country is currently in is due to the ANC’s failed policy directions, mismanagement, and corruption.

“They are the cause of the problems, and therefore they cannot be trusted to lead the process of finding solutions.”

Kriel emphasises that president Cyril Ramaphosa and his ANC-led government’s hijacking of the preparations for the National Dialogue has resulted in the dialogue degenerating into a government-driven national monologue.

Kriel further says the presidency’s ignoring of the justified concerns of the various former leaders’ foundations about the state’s hijacking of the talks is an indication that there is no interest in genuine dialogue, but that the intended talks are merely meant to serve as a platform for the president and the ANC’s political agenda.

“If the presidency is not serious about the necessity of genuine dialogue with communities, that does not mean that AfriForum and the Solidarity Movement are also not serious about it.

“We are, in fact, serious about dialogue, and that is why AfriForum has accelerated its existing programme of concluding agreements with numerous cultural communities. This effort has already led to meaningful dialogue between communities, which has brought about practical agricultural and other projects at grassroots level,” says Kriel.

“It is essential that we talk to find solutions. AfriForum therefore emphasises that the National Dialogue should shift from a state-driven process to a citizen-driven process. In the meantime, we are proceeding at full steam with discussions with other cultural communities for genuine dialogue, as well as for joint projects.”

Buys further says that it is urgently necessary for sincere discussions on national issues to take place and to lead to agreements and the essential reforms needed to prevent a slide towards a Zimbabwe-scenario.

“The ANC is responsible for most of the crises and cannot solve them alone. Therefore, we are prepared, in the national interest, to talk together about solutions, but it must not be an ANC-led process that will simply end up in another cul-de-sac. Our children deserve better,” concludes Buys.

Issued by Solidarity Movement, AfriForum and Solidarity