Frans Cronje writes on the importance on uniting the moderate majority of South Africans, in order to build a South Africa that works for all.
Do you believe that relations between South Africans have improved since 1994? Data we will soon publish shows that 57% of all South Africans believe that to be true, while 14% feel relations have stayed the same, 26% feel they have worsened, and the balance of 2% do not know or would not say.
This is an extraordinarily positive result given what you read and hear about our country – but it is a point we have made repeatedly over recent years, that relations between South Africans are very much better than the impression created on social media or in the mainstream media.
In answer to a question about how national sports teams should be selected, 83% of South Africans said that teams must be selected on grounds of merit alone and not on the grounds of racial targets. Extraordinary again, given the extent to which commentators and politicians act as if it goes without saying that a majority of South Africans would prefer to see racial selection criteria applied to sports teams – and by extension more broadly across society and the economy. In fact, what matters to people on the ground, our data suggests, is that the best person gets the job.
What about the thesis, much punted in the media and on social media, that pervasive racism is one of South Africa’s greatest challenges?
We asked whether it matters to you that your child is taught by a teacher of your own race. A full 84% said it did not. What people want for their children says a great deal about their prejudices and perceptions, which in this case do not seem to have a racial basis.
Could it be that South Africa, as oft cited centre point of racial hatred, is not that racist at all?
This is suggested by a further poll finding that 88% of South Africans agree that different race groups must work together in order to build a better society.
However, our poll also found that 54% of South Africans agreed that white people need to take second place to black people in the pursuit of opportunities in the country – a sharp increase from a very much lower figure just a few years ago.
We think that there are two main take-outs here:
A first is that there is a sound ‘middle’ to South Africa’s social fabric – a national majority of South Africans who, across lines of race and class, have far more in common than is commonly understood. The extent of this middle will become even more apparent when we publish a full report on the poll in due course. Suffice to say that there is a marked degree of common ground among South Africans about what is wrong and how it should be fixed.
But the related, and seemingly contradictory, second is that the racial nationalist rhetoric of the ANC, the EFF, and many commentators in the media – exacerbated by poor economic conditions – is poisoning that common ground and stigmatising racial minorities, a warning that the common ground must not be taken for granted. And when you consider our economic prospects and existing socio-economic trends – such as that the black unemployment rate remains five times higher than the white rate – you realise how fragile that common ground is.
In that fragility lies a great risk; that the government will succeed in exploiting tough economic circumstances to divide South Africans and deflect criticism of government failures. In that respect, poor future economic performance might even play into the hands of the government as the frustration it breeds could easily be turned into racial nationalist conflict which would in turn buy the government much-needed political time.
The antidote to further economic deterioration is structural reform based, as the IRR has argued throughout its history, on the explicit rejection of race as the basis for government policy in favour of socio-economic based models of empowerment. But that rejection cannot happen unless the moderate middle is united on its importance, failing which, the requisite reform will not materialise.
Is it possible to get agreement on such a controversial point?
Many South Africans will say it cannot be done – a reflection, perhaps, of their exposure to the toxicity of mainstream and social media, more than their own natures and prejudice. Many politicians will reject the odds out of hand – a reflection of the advantages that accrue to them in a divided society. But the polling data in our possession shows that it might be done. And given what is at stake, and the absence of more compelling alternatives, we really have no option but to try. For if South Africa continues as it is, or in frustration falls further under the influence of racial nationalist incitement, the next decade will be very bleak indeed and our country will establish again that policies of racial nationalism deliver only poverty, failure, and strife.
Frans Cronje is the CEO of the IRR.